Alexander Pushkin - I remember a wonderful moment. Analysis of the poem "I remember a wonderful moment" by Pushkin I remember a wonderful moment end of analysis
"I remember a wonderful moment..."- one of the most remarkable poems of Pushkin. It was written between July 16 and 19, 1825, and is dedicated to the beauty of St. Petersburg, Anna Kern. For the first time, the poet saw his future beloved in 1819 at a gala reception. Pushkin immediately inflamed with passion for a beautiful woman. But Anna was married. The poet, according to the laws of secular society, was not allowed to express his tender feelings for a married lady. Therefore, Anna Kern remained in the memory of Alexander Pushkin "genius of pure beauty", "a fleeting vision".
In 1825 they met again at the Trigorskoye estate. At that time, the poet was serving a link in the neighboring village of Mikhailovskoye. Anna had already divorced, and nothing prevented Pushkin from confessing his love. But Alexander Sergeevich was interested in Anna Kern only as a young poet, covered with glory. There were rumors in the district about Anna's constant novels, which Pushkin also became aware of. An unpleasant explanation took place between the young people, which put an end to their relationship. But Pushkin nevertheless dedicated several poems to Anna Kern, among which “I remember a wonderful moment ...” occupies a special place. In 1827, it was published by Delvig in the almanac "Northern Flowers".
In a short poem, Pushkin managed to reveal the whole story of his acquaintance with Anna Kern and the feelings that he had for a woman who captivated his imagination for many years.
Composition the works can be conditionally divided into three fragments, which differ in meaning and in the mood of the lyrical hero. In the first part, we are talking about how memories of a meeting with a beautiful creature live in the heart of the poet. Then Pushkin describes the dark days in captivity that pass without inspiration, without a deity. And in the third part of the poem, the soul of the lyrical hero regains happiness, is ready to love and create. The semantic repetition and line call at the beginning and end of the work give grounds to consider the composition circular.
Genre poems "I remember a wonderful moment ..." - a love message. But it also contains serious philosophical reflections. In addition, a part of the poet's biography can be traced in the work. One can clearly trace its stages: the first and second stanzas are Petersburg; the third is the southern link; the fourth and fifth are exile to Mikhailovskoye.
Pushkin admits that after the first meeting, in his imagination, the gentle voice of his beloved sounded for a long time and dreamed "cute features". But youthful dreams are in the past. During the separation, the poet became famous, although he did not lose his former sharpness of feelings. The link to Mikhailovskoye was the last straw that overflowed the cup of despondency. The poet lost the company of friends and relatives, the opportunity to shine with his talent in the world. The second meeting with an almost forgotten lover revived feelings, after a long spiritual crisis, inspiration again appeared.
By the power of Pushkin's great talent, this love story ceases to be a plot on a local scale. The reader gets the impression that the poem "I remember a wonderful moment ..." is an appeal to all lovers. The heroine in the image of Anna Kern rises to a poetic ideal.
For a detailed description of the state of mind of the hero, the author successfully uses epithets: "celestial lines", "hopeless sadness", "wonderful moment". But in general, the work strikes literary critics with a small set of expressive means. It has only one metaphor – "The rebellious storm dispelled former dreams", and two more comparisons – "like a fleeting vision, like a genius of pure beauty".
A poem is written iambic pentameter with cross rhyming - ABAB. Each stanza contains a complete thought. The rhythm of the verse is very clear and musical. This is facilitated by through rhymes (vision - imprisonment - inspiration - awakening) and alliteration to the consonants "m", "l", "n". The undulating alternation of iambic feet enhances the melodic sounding of the lines.
It is not surprising that such a musical poem has been set to music more than twenty times. The most famous was the romance, created in 1840 by the famous composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. So the brilliant work got a no less magnificent frame. Interestingly, Glinka wrote his romance under the impression of meeting Anna Kern's daughter, Catherine.
- "The Captain's Daughter", a summary of the chapters of Pushkin's story
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- "Eugene Onegin", a summary of the chapters of Pushkin's novel
The theme of love in the lyrics of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is of particular importance. If Nekrasov, for example, had a Muse, which he identified with a peasant woman, then the “sun of Russian poetry” did not have a Muse as such - but there was love that the poet needs like air, because without love he was not able to create. So the Muses of Pushkin were quite earthly women who once conquered the poet.
It is worth noting that Pushkin was in love many times - often married women became his chosen ones, for example, Elizaveta Vorontsova or Amalia Riznich. Despite the fact that all these high-society ladies were included in the so-called Don Juan list of Pushkin, compiled by him personally, he did not at all assume the poet's closeness with his beloved, with the exception of spiritual, tender friendship. However, the most famous Muse of Pushkin is Anna Petrovna Kern, to whom the immortal "I remember a wonderful moment ..." is dedicated.
This woman conquered the poet in St. Petersburg, in 1819, at one of the social events. At that time, Kern had already parted with her unloved husband, so an affair began between her and the talented descendant of “Arap Peter the Great”, which high society was unable to condemn.
But the epochal poem was created much later, in 1825, when Pushkin meets his former lover again, and his feelings flare up with renewed vigor. Like Katerina, who became a ray of light in a dark kingdom, Anna Petrovna revived the poet, gave him the pleasure of a feeling of love, inspiration, gave poetic strength. Thanks to her, one of the most beautiful works of Russian love lyrics was born.
So, the history of its creation is quite well known, which, however, does not prevent literary historians from putting forward other assumptions about the possible addressee of the tender message, including even a certain serf girl Nastenka, about whom, however, nothing is known to Pushkin's diaries, his personal letters, etc. .
It is important to note that the poem is autobiographical in nature, which is why the episodes of the life of the great poet are so easily traced in it, however, the complete identification of the lyrical hero with the author, as well as the lyrical heroine with A.P. Kern, will be incorrect, since the image of the latter, of course, is idealized.
Undoubtedly, the theme of the message "I remember a wonderful moment ..." is an intimate revelation, a love confession. As already mentioned, Pushkin needed love, not necessarily shared. Through his senses, he was able to create. At the same time, the philosophical theme of the meaning of love in human life can also be found in the poem.
“I remember a wonderful moment ...” - a plot poem. In it, the lyrical hero meets a beautiful lover who revives the best feelings in his soul, but eventually loses her. Together with the girl, the hero’s romantic dreams, inspiration, wings fold behind his back. Over the years, the devastation only intensifies, but now the enchantress reappears in the life of her beloved, again bringing with her the beautiful, spiritualized.
So, if we transfer this plot to the biography of its author, we will notice that the first stanza describes the first meeting with Kern in St. Petersburg. The second and third quatrains tell about the southern exile and the period of "imprisonment" in Mikhailovsky. However, there is a new meeting with the Muse, which resurrects the best in the soul of the poet.
The autobiographical nature of the message determines its composition. The means of artistic expression are quite modest, but at the same time picturesque. The poet resorts to epithets (" clean" the beauty, " marvelous» instant, « rebellious"gust of storms, etc.), metaphors (" pure beauty genius», « soul awakening”), personification ( animated gust of storms). Special expressiveness and melody is achieved through the use of stylistic figures, for example, antitheses.
So, the hero lives "without a deity, without inspiration", which are resurrected as soon as his beloved returns to his life. In the last quatrain, you can see an anaphora, and in the second - an assonance (“a gentle voice sounded to me for a long time”). The entire poem is written using the inversion technique.
The lyrical heroine of Pushkin is the image of some unearthly creature, angelic, pure and gentle. No wonder the poet compares her with a deity.
"I remember a wonderful moment..." written by Pushkin's favorite 4-foot iambic with a cross alternation of feminine and masculine rhymes.
The amazing tenderness, touchingness of the message to Kern make the romantic work one of the best examples of love lyrics - on a global scale.
The poem “I remember a wonderful moment ...”, addressed to a hidden addressee (“K ***”), has a real life basis, since it was presented by the poet to the subject of his feelings - Anna Petrovna Kern. Acquaintance with her happened in the house of Kern's relative (President of the Academy of Arts A.N. Olenin, whose wife A.P. Kern was a niece), during Pushkin's stay in St. Petersburg, even before exile, in 1819. The second time they saw each other through six years. At this time, the poet was in Mikhailovsky in the position of an exile. The owner of the Trigorsky estate, neighboring with Mikhailovsky, turned out to be a relative of Kern, P.A. Osipov, in whose family he was warmly received. Anna Petrovna visited Osipova for several weeks on her way to Riga. Leaving Trigorsky, she received as a gift from the author a copy of the second chapter of the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin", where the message "K ***" was enclosed.
The first stanza (there are six quatrains in total in the poem, iambic tetrameter with cross rhyme) refers to the past, when a meeting took place, which the lyrical hero recalls as a vision of the ideal. Understanding the reminiscent background helps to reveal the meaning of the impression. The image of the "genius of pure beauty", with which the beloved is compared, belongs to V.A. Zhukovsky (the poem "Lalla Rook", 1821, which is an interpretation of the poem of the same name by T. Moore). For him, this is an angel, the embodiment of the heavenly ideal of beauty. In addition to recalling a specific work, reminiscence is also important in connection with the fact that it evokes a number of characteristics of the ideal in the work of romantics. For Zhukovsky, beauty is a “guest ... from above”, visiting the poet in a dream, in memories, dreams, illuminating earthly life “for a minute”, which is remembered for a long time, “inseparable from the heart”.
The lyrical hero of Pushkin recalls that the meeting with the sweetheart (“cute features”) caused an awakening of emotions and reminded of the earthly manifestations of the divine principle, that is, both feeling and thought came to life in him in an instant, which made him magical, “wonderful”:
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
The light of the heavenly ideal falls on the beloved, and her features acquire sublimity and tender, beautiful mystery. These impressions are preserved even in separation, contrasting with the "noisy bustle" of everyday life. But they sound more and more muffled (in showing a silent spiritual storm, the motive of a voice that arises in memory, but then forgotten - stanzas 2-3) is of decisive importance against its background, the reality of the past is only a dream:
The storms of the outside world are stronger than time, which did not affect the hopeless love of the lyrical hero, but even they have no power to “disperse” (as their impulse “Dispelled former dreams”) his commitment to the ideal. The fourth stanza, central in the compositional division of six quatrains into two parts (three stanzas each), where attention is focused on two stages of love. If in the first three stanzas of the poem "I remember a wonderful moment ...", the analysis of which we are interested in, an image is created of a feeling that arose several years ago, which tormented with its hopelessness for whole years, then in the final - the experience changes character, becomes an internal sensation. And then everything external is relegated to the background. In the poem there is no motive for a romantic choice between two worlds, dreams and storms of life, “languor of hopeless sadness” and “anxiety of noisy vanity” fill the life of the lyrical hero, making him rich and diverse (a gentle voice and the noise of storm and vanity sound). The significance of focusing on internal aspects is emphasized in connection with the discovery of their life-giving (Zhukovsky) meaning: the divine principle is manifested in them. The darkness of imprisonment becomes a metaphor for the earthly dungeon, where the empty days of the lyrical hero stretch endlessly (the emptiness is emphasized due to the fivefold repetition of the preposition “without”):
In the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement
My days passed quietly
Without a god, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.
Love is singled out among all experiences, the conclusion that it is the main thing that the lyrical hero is deprived of is facilitated by the rising intonation, the idea of which arises due to enumeration. The top where it leads is the word "love". In addition to intonation, phonic artistic means, the unusualness of rhyme, help to elevate the concept. In four of the six stanzas, the same consonances in the male rhyme are used (in the first and fifth they repeat each other: you are beauty; in the fourth, a new rhyme appears, the task of which is to highlight the key word (my - love). This effect is emphasized by the fact that there is no novelty in the female rhyme of the stanza, it is consonant with the endings of odd terms in the first quatrain (imprisonment - inspiration - moment - vision).
At the semantic level, the meaning of love is affirmed due to the fact that the resurrection of the lyrical hero, the awakening of his soul, is associated with it. The impression is repeated, he again experiences (stanza 5) a “wonderful moment” (a verbatim repetition of the images of the first stanza is highlighted):
The soul has awakened
And here again you came
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
Love fills the heart, like an ideal, spiritualizing earthly darkness with Divine light. In the context of the analyzed poem "I remember a wonderful moment ..." Pushkin's feeling is no less important than the desire for the infinite, and, in connection with the reproduction of subjective psychological experiences, it appears as a tangible and convincing manifestation of spirituality. In the last stanza, we are talking about a miracle he performed - after anxieties, disappointments, dangers, worries, gloomy forebodings, loneliness, the heart beats again in rapture, hopes and creative dreams have risen.
The ascending intonation leads further, and the main landmark is again highlighted at the top (the intonational elevation, enlivening the oral reading, existing in the mind of the reader, thanks to the inner ear, is facilitated by enumeration - for which the sevenfold repetition of the union “and” is used). The word "love" stands out thanks to a new consonance. If the female rhyme of the sixth quatrain repeats the one that was used in the first, fourth and fifth stanzas (rapture - inspiration, rhyming with the odd lines of these quatrains ending with the words: "instant - vision" - 1, "imprisonment - inspiration" - 4, " awakening - vision - 5), then the male one is built on the assonance "o" (again - love). It prompts us to recall consonant words in the previous text, among which were confessions of a long memory of a fleeting impression (I remember, in front of me, fleeting, anxieties, years, tears - in these words “o” in a shock position) and an image expressing the tangibility of memories : “A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time ...” Together with repetitions of the sounds “e” (in addition to rhymes, the words “genius, languor, scattered, former, heavenly, soul, heart, resurrected”), “and” (“appeared, pure , dreamed, dear ones, of your lives") and "y" ("wonderful, sadness, noisy, storms") assonance "o" gives a unique musicality to the poem. In the last quatrain, it sounds like the final tonic (main, reference tone):
And the heart beats in rapture
And for him they rose again
And the Divine, and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
The last chord completes the development of the lyrical plot, where there were wonderful moments, and years of hopeless experiences, and days of imprisonment, with an optimistic emotional note. The inner life of the lyrical hero appears as a whole world where beauty and harmony reign. Its sound, phonic characteristics are not accidental, since the impression of consistency, harmony, proportionality is easier and more convincing to convey by musical artistic means (harmony, from Latin “proportional, harmonious”, is the area of expressive means in music based on the combination of tones into consonances and their connection between themselves). Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, one of the founders of Russian symbolism, called Pushkin's skill in creating verbal symphonies (from the Greek "consonance") "sound writing" (one of Bryusov's many works on Pushkin's poetry is called Pushkin's Sound Writing, 1923). If you, following Bryusov and many other writers and philologists, are interested in revealing the secrets of the great poet's talent, you will have to consider his poem not intuitively, but quite consciously and thoughtfully.
Try to read Pushkin’s poem “K ***” aloud, reproducing the rising intonation in quatrains 4 and 6 (the last lines of stanzas where repeated prepositions or conjunctions sound), as if rising to the top, where the final stanza word (“love”, “ love"). In addition, try to hear the melody created by assonances in strong places in the text, their combination with semivowels and sonorants. It will sound in a major key (from Latin “greater”, musical mode, the steady sounds of which create a cheerful, joyful mood), despite the hopelessness and depression expressed in the content. In the second - fourth stanzas, where we are talking about the loneliness of the lyrical hero (hopeless sadness, cute features are only dreamed of, and then completely forgotten, days in the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment), about his difficult experiences, sound repetitions are built on the same consonants, as in the first, fifth and sixth quatrains conveying completely different feelings. " H», « m", and " l» with vowels form melodic combinations: then mlen yah, sound l me d ol th r olo with not well ny, with Nile is mil s, d neither my etc. The combination of multidirectional emotional tendencies within the framework of one poem "I remember a wonderful moment ...", which we analyzed, allows us to express a harmonious worldview.
It becomes a characteristic feature of the lyrical hero in Pushkin's poems, showing his desire to accept life in all its diversity of features, to combine attention to detail with generalization, immediacy with philosophical depth. For him, there is nothing monotonous and complete in the world. For his soul, “Either too few of all, or one is enough” (“Having voluntarily renounced verbosity ...”, 1825), it all depends on the mirror where the real situation is reflected. But whether it brings the details closer or allows you to look at life as a whole, the “immortal sun” is always visible above the canvas (“Bacchic Song”, 1825), the present is perceived as a stage (“Everything is instant, everything will pass; / What will pass will be nice” - “If life deceives you ...”, 1825), a moment stopped by the will of the artist, beautiful, “wonderful” or dreary, gloomy, but always sweet in its originality.
On this day - July 19, 1825 - the day Anna Petrovna Kern left Trigorskoye, Pushkin handed her the poem "K *", which is an example of high poetry, masterpiece of Pushkin's lyrics. Everyone who cherishes Russian poetry knows him. But there are few works in the history of literature that would raise so many questions from researchers, poets, and readers. What was the real woman who inspired the poet? What connected them? Why did she become the addressee of this poetic message?
The history of the relationship between Pushkin and Anna Kern is very confused and contradictory. Despite the fact that their connection gave birth to one of the poet's most famous poems, this novel can hardly be called fateful for both.
The 20-year-old poet first met 19-year-old Anna Kern, the wife of 52-year-old General E. Kern, in 1819 in St. Petersburg, at the home of Alexei Olenin, president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Sitting at dinner not far from her, he tried to attract her attention to himself. When Kern got into the carriage, Pushkin went out onto the porch and watched her for a long time.
Their second meeting took place only after a long six years. In June 1825, while in exile in Mikhailov, Pushkin often visited relatives in the village of Trigorskoye, where he met Anna Kern again. In her memoirs, she wrote: “We were sitting at dinner and laughing ... suddenly Pushkin came in with a big thick stick in his hands. My aunt, near whom I was sitting, introduced him to me. He bowed very low, but did not say a word: timidity was visible in his movements. I, too, could not find something to say to him, and we did not soon get acquainted and started talking.
For about a month Kern stayed at Trigorskoye, meeting with Pushkin almost daily. An unexpected meeting with Kern after a 6-year break made an indelible impression on him. In the soul of the poet, “an awakening has come” - an awakening from all the difficult experiences suffered “in the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment” - in many years of exile. But the poet in love clearly did not find the right tone, and, despite the reciprocal interest of Anna Kern, a decisive explanation did not occur between them.
On the morning before Anna's departure, Pushkin presented her with a present - the first chapter of Eugene Onegin, which had just been published at that time. Between the uncut pages lay a piece of paper with a poem written at night...
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
In the languor of hopeless sadness
In the anxieties of noisy bustle,
And dreamed of cute features.
Years passed. Storms gust rebellious
Scattered old dreams
Your heavenly features.
In the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement
My days passed quietly
Without a god, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.
The soul has awakened:
And here you are again
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
And the heart beats in rapture
And for him they rose again
And deity, and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
From the memoirs of Anna Kern it is known how she begged the poet for a sheet with these poems. When the woman was about to hide it in her box, the poet suddenly convulsively snatched it from her hands and did not want to give it away for a long time. Kern forcefully begged. “What flashed through his head then, I don’t know,” she wrote in her memoirs. From everything it turns out that we should be grateful to Anna Petrovna for preserving this masterpiece for Russian literature.
Fifteen years later, composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka wrote a romance to these words and dedicated it to the woman he was in love with, Anna Kern's daughter Ekaterina.
For Pushkin, Anna Kern was indeed "a fleeting vision." In the wilderness, in the Pskov estate of her aunt, the beautiful Kern captivated not only Pushkin, but also her neighbors, the landowners. In one of his many letters, the poet wrote to her: "The windiness is always cruel ... Farewell, divine, I am furious and fall at your feet." Two years later, Anna Kern no longer aroused any feelings in Pushkin. The “genius of pure beauty” disappeared, and the “Babylonian harlot” appeared, as Pushkin called her in a letter to a friend.
We will not analyze why Pushkin's love for Kern turned out to be just a “wonderful moment”, which he prophetically announced in verse. Whether Anna Petrovna herself was guilty of this, whether the poet was to blame or some external circumstances - the question in special studies remains open.
The writing
Who is not familiar with the poem by A. S. Pushkin “I remember a wonderful moment ...”, striking in its simplicity, lightness, melody? Is it possible to find lines dedicated to the beloved, surpassing these in tenderness and trepidation:
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
I don’t know about you, but I can say with confidence that I haven’t met you yet. Reading and rereading them, every time I imagine a young woman of divine beauty and think: “How happy you are, Anna: the poet of the century, the Russian genius dedicated lines to you that have become immortal.”
Having met Anna Ietrovna Kern, the nineteen-year-old wife of General Kern, once, back in 1819, with his acquaintances in St. Petersburg, the then still young poet was struck by her beauty and charm. They did not have any love story, they just exchanged a few ordinary phrases - but the poet's heart was broken: he had never met girls of such radiant beauty before.
In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the anxieties of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And dreamed of cute features.
So the poet wrote, desperate to ever forget the image of the one that conquered him with her “cute features” and “tender voice”.
But time did its job: there was no more opportunity to see Anna (the years of exile came for Pushkin), the poet's passion began to slowly dissipate and he "... forgot your gentle voice, your heavenly features."
It is unlikely that the poet could count on a new meeting, and it took a lot of time: first the southern exile, then the exile to Mikhailovskoye, the poet's family estate. “Heavenly” features were erased from his memories. But what fate doesn’t arrange for a person - here, in Mikhailovskoye, with old friends of the Osinovs, neighbors on the estate, he suddenly saw her, as charming and beautiful as before. Anna Petrovna came to visit to his relatives. "Lovely features" again haunted, made me think about myself. Pushkin began to visit the Osinovs often, listened, spellbound, to fashionable romances that Anna Petrovna performed while sitting at the piano.
Here is how the author captured this meeting, the hours spent with his beloved and his state of mind:
The soul has awakened
. And here you are again
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
And the heart beats in rapture
And for him they rose again
And deity, and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
Anna's stay with the Aspen soon came to an end.
Pushkin came to see her off and gave her a chapter of Onegin, recently published in St. Petersburg. Between the pages was enclosed a small sheet of poetry. It was “I remember a wonderful moment...”.
The poem is divided into three equal parts. Each of them has its own thought, its own tone. The first is calm, filled with the author's memories of "cute features". The second is about the long years of imprisonment, which erased the image of the beloved. The mood of this part of the poem is also sad, sad. But how different is the third part! She is filled with life from an unexpected meeting, filled with joy, happiness, which filled the entire poet.
The main thing that the author wanted to convey with this poem was the bright memory of love, the joy of an unexpected, and from this twice as sweet, meeting with what seemed lost forever.