Analysis of the poem “On the beauty of human faces” by Zabolotsky

Brief Analysis

History of creation - the poem was written in 1955 and belongs to the late period of Zabolotsky’s work, when he followed the realistic literary tradition.
The theme is the diversity of human faces, in each of which you can find something interesting.

The composition is one-part, the idea develops sequentially from the first to the last stanza.

Genre – thought.

The poetic meter is amphibrach tetrameter with paired rhyme.

Epithets – “lush portals”, “pathetic shacks”, “dead faces”, “jubilant songs”.

Metaphors - “the breath of a spring day flows,” “dead faces are covered with bars,” “I once knew a small hut.”

Comparisons - “like a dungeon”, “like the sun of shining notes”, “others are like towers”.

Anaphora – “there are faces.”

Essay “Analysis of the poem by N. A. Zabolotsky “On the beauty of human faces””

Russia has long been famous for its poets, true masters of words.
The names of Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Fet, Yesenin and other equally talented people are known throughout the world. One of the masters of words who lived in the twentieth century was the poet N. A. Zabolotsky. His work is as multifaceted as life. Unusual images, the magical melody of the verse are what attracts us to his poetry. Zabolotsky passed away very young, in the prime of his creative powers, but left a magnificent legacy for his descendants. The themes of his work are very diverse. The reader will encounter landscape sketches, love lyrics, philosophical reflections of the poet, and much more. Let us turn to the analysis of one of the reflective poems. The poet was always concerned with the question of what is more important in a person: his appearance, cover, or his soul, inner world. Zabolotsky chooses the second. Let's remember the poem Ugly Girl. The poet is not concerned about how she looks (frog, ugly), but what the inner world of this child is like, her openness, purity, spontaneity, ability to empathize. The poem “On the Beauty of Human Faces,” written in 1955, is devoted to the same topic. The word beauty is already in the title. What kind of beauty does the poet value in people?

Let's turn to the poem. We can distinguish two parts in it. The first part is the reflection of the lyrical hero on the beauty of human faces:

There are faces like lush portals, Where everywhere the great appears in the small.

In these lines, the poet uses unusual metaphors and comparisons. A portal is the main entrance of a large building, its facade. Let us pay attention to the epithet lush - elegant, beautiful. I understand the meaning of this comparison this way: you can’t always judge a person by their appearance. After all, spiritual poverty can be hidden behind a beautiful face and fashionable clothes. It is no coincidence that the poet uses antonyms: the great appears in the small. The following is a comparison contrasted with the first:

There are faces like miserable shacks, where the liver is boiled and the rennet gets wet.

Abomasum is one of the sections of the stomach of ruminants. The epithet creates an unpleasant picture, emphasizing poverty and squalor: a pitiful shack. But here we see not only external poverty, but also internal, spiritual emptiness. The identical construction of sentences in this quatrain (syntactic parallelism) and anaphora are used to strengthen and highlight the antithesis. The next quatrain continues the author's philosophical reflections. The pronouns other - other are symbolic, emphasizing monotony. Let us pay attention to the epithets cold, dead faces and metaphor-comparison are closed with bars, like dungeons. Such people, according to the author, are closed in on themselves and never share their problems with others.

Others are like towers in which for a long time no one lives or looks out the window.

The abandoned castle is empty. Such a comparison emphasizes a person’s loss of dreams and hope. He does not try to change anything in his life, does not strive for the better. The second part is opposed to the first in emotional terms. The conjunction but emphasizes the antithesis. Bright epithets of a spring day, jubilant songs, shining notes change the mood of the poem, it becomes sunny and joyful. Despite the fact that the small hut is unprepossessing and not rich, it radiates light. The exclamatory sentence emphasizes this sentiment:

Truly the world is both great and wonderful! For the poet, the main thing is the spiritual beauty of a person, his inner world, what he lives by: There are faces like jubilant songs From these, like the sun, shining notes, a song of heavenly heights is composed.

These lines express the idea of ​​the poem. It is precisely such people, simple, open, cheerful, that attract the poet; it is easy and pleasant to communicate with them. This is how I understand the meaning of Zabolotsky’s poem. The three-syllable meter, amphibrach, gives a special melody and melodiousness to the verses. What is unusual is that there is no division into stanzas: the poem is one stanza of four quatrains. Zabolotsky does not divide the poem into stanzas and parts, since it is united by a common thought, an idea. I like this poem because it is melodic, melodious, and filled with beautiful images. To understand it, you must read these lines carefully. And I think that the work of such a wonderful poet will not be forgotten by posterity.

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Subject

The poem is not just about describing human faces: the poet says that character, life path, and inclinations are literally “written” on them. And if you know how to analyze what is “written,” you can learn much more about a person than he tells about himself. Zabolotsky uses metaphor not just for the beauty of the style, because life is the same house and each person builds it in his own way.

At the same time, he also notes that facial beauty should not become a priority when assessing a person, because the main thing is the soul, which can be seen in this face.

Composition

The work has a one-part composition. From the first stanza, the poet describes different building faces, first drawing an analogy, and then drawing a conclusion. This principle of construction makes it easier for the reader to understand the embedded idea. Basically, the author devotes two lines to each person-building - and all the more important in the compositional sense are the last two stanzas, dedicated to the unsightly outside and beautiful inside “hut” and to the faces that remind the author of “jubilant songs.”

At the same time, the poet uses the principle of increasing emotionality, when at the end he expresses the idea that the world is beautiful. And there are also a lot of wonderful people in it, if you are not lazy and find them. It is written in amphibrachium tetrameter, which conveys the unhurried thoughts of the author of the work, giving it the character of measured reasoning.

Means of expression

The poem “On the Beauty of Human Faces” is rich in a variety of expressive means, each of which plays its own role. Zabolotsky uses:

  • Epithets – “lush portals”, “pathetic shacks”, “dead faces”, “jubilant songs”.
  • Metaphors - “the breath of a spring day flows,” “dead faces are covered with bars,” “I once knew a small hut.”
  • Comparisons - “like a dungeon”, “like the sun of shining notes”, “others are like towers”.
  • Anaphora – “there are faces.”

In fact, the entire work is a composition of expanded metaphors that help to understand the author’s thoughts. He uses imagery to convey his message to the reader, and the refrain “there are faces” not only separates one metaphor from another, but also emphasizes the theme of the poem. Anaphora also allows you to make the scheme for revealing images unified.

Comparisons allow Zabolotsky to show how human faces differ, how different they can be. And how important it is to look not at the external, but into the soul - through the eyes-windows.

Analysis of the poem by N. A. Zabolotsky “On the beauty of human faces” - Analysis of the poem

Russia has long been famous for its poets, true masters of words. The names of Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Fet, Yesenin and other equally talented people are known throughout the world. One of the masters of words who lived in the twentieth century was the poet N. A. Zabolotsky. His work is as multifaceted as life.

Unusual images, the magical melody of the verse are what attracts us to his poetry. Zabolotsky passed away very young, in the prime of his creative powers, but left a magnificent legacy for his descendants. The themes of his work are very diverse.

The reader will encounter landscape sketches, love lyrics, philosophical reflections of the poet, and much more. Let us turn to the analysis of one of the reflective poems. The poet was always concerned with the question of what is more important in a person: his appearance, cover, or his soul, inner world. Zabolotsky chooses the second.

Let's remember the poem Ugly Girl. The poet is not concerned about how she looks (frog, ugly), but what the inner world of this child is like, her openness, purity, spontaneity, ability to empathize. The poem “On the Beauty of Human Faces,” written in 1955, is devoted to the same topic. The word beauty is already in the title.

What kind of beauty does the poet value in people? Let's turn to the poem. We can distinguish two parts in it.

The first part is the reflection of the lyrical hero on the beauty of human faces: There are faces like lush portals, Where everywhere the great appears in the small. In these lines, the poet uses unusual metaphors and comparisons. A portal is the main entrance of a large building, its facade. Let us pay attention to the epithet lush - elegant, beautiful.

I understand the meaning of this comparison this way: you can’t always judge a person by their appearance. After all, spiritual poverty can be hidden behind a beautiful face and fashionable clothes. It is no coincidence that the poet uses antonyms: the great appears in the small.

Next comes a comparison contrasted with the first: There are faces like miserable shacks, Where the liver is boiled and the rennet gets wet. Abomasum is one of the sections of the stomach of ruminants. The epithet creates an unpleasant picture, emphasizing poverty and squalor: a pitiful shack.

But here we see not only external poverty, but also internal, spiritual emptiness. The identical construction of sentences in this quatrain (syntactic parallelism) and anaphora are used to strengthen and highlight the antithesis. The next quatrain continues the author's philosophical reflections. The pronouns other - other are symbolic, emphasizing monotony. Let us pay attention to the epithets cold, dead faces and metaphor-comparison are closed with bars, like dungeons.

Such people, according to the author, are closed in on themselves and never share their problems with others. Others are like towers in which for a long time no one lives or looks out the window. The abandoned castle is empty.

Such a comparison emphasizes a person’s loss of dreams and hope. He does not try to change anything in his life, does not strive for the better. The second part is opposed to the first in emotional terms. The conjunction but emphasizes the antithesis.

U. Bright epithets of a spring day, jubilant songs, shining notes change the mood of the poem, it becomes sunny, joyful. Despite the fact that the small hut is unprepossessing and not rich, it radiates light. The exclamatory sentence emphasizes this mood: Truly the world is both great and wonderful! For the poet, the main thing is the spiritual beauty of a person, his inner world, what he lives by: There are faces like jubilant songs From these, like the sun, shining notes, a song of heavenly heights is composed.

These lines express the idea of ​​the poem. It is precisely such people, simple, open, cheerful, that attract the poet; it is easy and pleasant to communicate with them. This is how I understand the meaning of Zabolotsky’s poem. The three-syllable meter, amphibrach, gives a special melody and melodiousness to the verses. What is unusual is that there is no division into stanzas: the poem is one stanza of four quatrains.

Zabolotsky does not divide the poem into stanzas and parts, since it is united by a common thought, an idea. I like this poem because it is melodic, melodious, and filled with beautiful images. To understand it, you must read these lines carefully.

And I think that the work of such a wonderful poet will not be forgotten by posterity.

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Analysis of Zabolotsky’s poem “On the beauty of human faces”

Themes of poems by N.A. Zabolotsky is diverse. He can be called a philosophical poet and singer of nature. He has many faces, like life. But the main thing is the poems of N.A. Zabolotsky is forced to think about good and evil, hatred and love, beauty...

...what beauty is

And why do people deify her?

She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,

Or a fire flickering in a vessel?

The eternal question posed in “The Ugly Girl” is illuminated somewhat differently in the poem “On the Beauty of Human Faces,” which was written in the same year, nineteen fifty-five.

“Truly the world is both great and wonderful!” – with these words the poet completes the image of the gallery of human portraits. ON THE. Zabolotsky does not talk about people, he draws faces, behind which there is character and behavior. The descriptions given by the author are surprisingly accurate. Everyone can see in them their own reflection or characteristics of friends and loved ones. Before us are faces “like lush portals,” “like miserable hovels,” “dead faces,” faces “like towers,” “like jubilant songs.” This picture once again affirms the theme of the diversity of the world. But questions immediately arise: “Are they all beautiful? And what is true beauty?

ON THE. Zabolotsky gives the answers. For him there is almost no difference between faces like a miserable hovel or a magnificent portal. These

...cold, dead faces

Closed with bars, like a dungeon.

...towers in which for a long time

Nobody lives and looks out the window.

There is no life in these faces; it is not for nothing that an important characteristic here are epithets with a negative connotation (“pathetic,” “cold, dead”).

The tone of the poem changes when the author paints the opposite picture:

But I once knew a small hut,

She was unprepossessing, not rich,

But from the window she looks at me

The breath of a spring day flowed.

Movement, warmth, and joy come into the work with these lines.

Thus, the poem is built on opposition (lush portals - miserable shacks, towers - a small hut, a dungeon - the sun). The antithesis separates greatness and baseness, light and darkness, talent and mediocrity.

The author claims: inner beauty, “like the sun,” can make even the “smallest hut” attractive. Thanks to her, a “song of heavenly heights” is compiled, capable of making the world wonderful and great. The word “similarity” and its cognates “similar”, “likeness” run through the entire poem as a refrain. With their help, the theme of true and false beauty is revealed most fully. This cannot be real, it is only an imitation, a fake that cannot replace the original.

An important function in the first four lines is performed by anaphora (“There is..”, “Where...”), which helps to reveal images according to a single scheme: complex sentences with subordinate clauses:

There are faces like lush portals,

Where everywhere the great is seen in the small.

There are faces - like miserable shacks,

Where the liver is cooked and the rennet is soaked.

In the next four lines, a special role is given to comparisons (“like a prison,” “like towers”), creating a gloomy picture of external greatness that cannot replace internal harmony.

The emotional mood changes completely in the next eight lines. This is largely due to the variety of expressive means: personification (“breath of a spring day”), epithets (“jubilant”, “shining”), comparison (“like the sun”), metaphor (“song of heavenly heights”). Here a lyrical hero appears, who immediately from the kaleidoscope of faces singles out the main thing, truly beautiful, capable of bringing the purity and freshness of a “spring day” into the lives of those around him, illuminating “like the sun,” and composing a song of “heavenly heights.”

So, what is beauty? I look at the portrait of a serious, no longer young man. Tired look, high forehead, compressed lips, wrinkles in the corners of the mouth. “Ugly...” - I would probably say that if I didn’t know that N.A. was in front of me. Zabolotsky. But I know and am sure: a person who wrote such amazing poetry cannot be ugly. It's not about appearance, it's just a "vessel". What is important is the “fire flickering in the vessel.”

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