Lermontov “The Death of a Poet” - analysis and history of creation. Analysis of the lyric poem “Death of a Poet” Brief analysis of the death of a poet

The story of a tragic duel and death Alexandra Pushkina changed the life of another luminary of Russian poetry - Mikhail Lermontov.

Lermontov, who was 15 years younger than Alexander Sergeevich, grew up reading his poems and admired his talent.

Despite numerous legends, Pushkin and Lermontov did not know each other. “The Sun of Russian Poetry” did not even suspect the existence of a “colleague” - it just so happened that fame came to Lermontov along with the death of Pushkin.

The two poets, by the way, were distant relatives of each other, which they had no idea about - genealogists established this fact only many decades later.

IN Last year During Pushkin's life, his name was surrounded by a lot of gossip, which irritated not only the poet himself, but also his fans, including Lermontov.

Mikhail Yuryevich believed that a considerable part of the blame for what was happening lay with Pushkin’s wife Natalia Goncharova.

On the evening of January 27 (February 8, new style), 1837, a rumor spread throughout St. Petersburg - Pushkin shot himself with Dantes in a duel and received a dangerous wound.

Since duels were prohibited in Russia, there was no mention of the fight in official sources, although everyone knew perfectly well what had happened.

Lermontov himself had a cold at that moment and was at home. The news about Pushkin’s serious condition led to his taking ill.

First 56 lines

Contradictory sentiments reigned in society. There were almost more people who sympathized with Dantes. Even Lermontov’s own grandmother believed that “Pushkin himself is to blame” and that “African jealousy” pushed him into the fight.

Lermontov was depressed by such sentiments. He decided to answer them in poetic form, calling the work “The Death of a Poet.” According to one version, the lines were written before Pushkin died - rumors preceded his real death.

The poet is dead! - slave of honor -
Fell, slandered by rumor,
With lead in my chest and a thirst for revenge,
Hanging his proud head!..
The poet's soul could not bear it
The shame of petty grievances,
He rebelled against the opinions of the world
Alone as before... and killed!
Killed!.. why sobs now,
An unnecessary chorus of empty praises,
And the pathetic babble of excuses?
Fate has reached its conclusion!..

The first version of the poem contained 56 lines and ended with the words “And on his lips is a seal.”

Friend of Lermontov, Svyatoslav Raevsky, found the poems extremely successful and immediately began writing copies. Just a few hours later, “The Death of a Poet” was distributed throughout St. Petersburg.

The poems also reached Pushkin’s friends. Historian Alexander Turgenev wrote in his diary: “Lermontov’s poems are wonderful.”

“A Certain Mr. Lermontov, Hussar Officer” gained poetic fame in just a few days. The first version of the poem reached the imperial court. There they reacted coolly to the poems, but did not see anything dangerous in them.

Two visits

Meanwhile, it became known that Dantes, most likely, would not suffer severe punishment. This caused Lermontov a new attack of anger.

The caring grandmother, fearing for her grandson, invited the emperor’s physician to see him. Nikolai Fedorovich Arendt. A couple of days earlier, Arendt treated the wounded Pushkin, easing his suffering in the last hours of his life.

Dr. Arendt, without any bad thoughts, told the patient the details of the duel and the death of Pushkin. At the same time, the doctor admitted that before Pushkin “I had never seen anything like this, such patience under such suffering.”

Perhaps Lermontov, after Arendt’s story, would not have finished writing the poem, but then a relative decided to visit him, Nikolay Stolypin. He was one of those who considered Dantes a pleasant person and in this conflict was on the side of Pushkin’s killer.

Stolypin began to rant about the fact that Lermontov’s poems were good, but “it was not worth attacking Dantes, since it was a matter of honor.” In addition, Stolypin noted that Pushkin’s widow would not be a widow for long, since “mourning does not suit her.”

Lermontov said to this that a Russian person, of course a pure Russian, and not a Frenchized and spoiled one, no matter what insult Pushkin did to him, he would have endured it, in the name of his love for the glory of Russia, and would never have raised against this great representative of all intellectuality Russia's own hand.

“But there is also God’s judgment, the confidants of depravity!”

Stolypin, feeling that he had gone too far, tried to shift the conversation to another topic, but Lermontov no longer listened to him, starting to write something on paper.

Stolypin tried to joke, but Lermontov answered sharply: “I will not be responsible for anything if you do not leave here this very second.” The relative retreated, saying goodbye: “But he’s just mad.”

Meanwhile, Lermontov finished the second part of “The Death of a Poet” - the last 16 lines.

And you, arrogant descendants
The famous meanness of the illustrious fathers,
The fifth slave trampled the wreckage
The game of happiness of offended births!
You, standing in a greedy crowd at the throne,
Executioners of Freedom, Genius and Glory!
You are hiding under the shadow of the law,
Judgment and truth are before you - keep quiet!..
But there is also God’s judgment, the confidants of depravity!
There is a terrible judgment: it awaits;
It is not accessible to the ringing of gold,
He knows thoughts and deeds in advance.
Then in vain you will resort to slander:
It won't help you again
And you won't wash away with all your black blood
Poet's righteous blood!

This was already a direct challenge to the authorities and high society. In addition, the poem has an epigraph taken from Rotru’s tragedy “Wenceslaus”:

Vengeance, sir, vengeance!
I will fall at your feet:
Be fair and punish the murderer
So that his execution in later centuries
Your rightful judgment was announced to posterity,
So that the villains can see her as an example.

Raevsky multiplied and distributed this version. Sedition went for a walk, first in St. Petersburg, and then throughout Russia.

“Nice poems, nothing to say”

Alexander Khristoforovich Benkedorf, the chief of gendarmes, the head of the political investigation of the empire, apparently, was not too eager to open a case against Lermontov.

But here's a social gossip Anna Khitrovo at one of the receptions, making a naive expression on her face, she asked Benckedorff: why doesn’t he take action against the author of poems that insult the entire high society and unfairly blame the nobility for the death of Pushkin?

Benckendorff had nowhere to go. This is how the “Case of inappropriate poems written by the cornet of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment Lermontov and their distribution by the provincial secretary Raevsky” appeared.

In a note Nicholas I Benckendorff wrote: “I have already had the honor to inform your Imperial Majesty that I sent a poem by the hussar officer Lermontov to General Weimarn so that he interrogates this young man and kept him at the General Staff without the right to communicate with anyone from the outside until the authorities decided on his future fate and the taking of his papers both here and at his apartment in Tsarskoe Selo. The introduction to this work is impudent, and the end is shameless freethinking, more than criminal. According to Lermontov, these poems are being distributed in the city by one of his comrades, whom he did not want to name.”

The Emperor imposed a resolution: “Pleasant poems, nothing to say; I sent Weymarn to Tsarskoe Selo to inspect Lermontov’s papers and, if other suspicious ones were discovered, to arrest them. For now, I ordered the senior physician of the Guards Corps to visit this gentleman and make sure that he was not insane; and then we will deal with him according to the law.”

It must be said that the poems were sent to Nicholas I not under the title “Death of a Poet”, but with the title “Appeal to the Revolution” given by someone. The Emperor, who remembered 1825 well, was understandably not delighted about this.

Lermontov was indeed examined for mental illness, but no abnormalities were found in him. At first, he flatly refused to name the person who distributed the poems. Then they talked to Lermontov, convincing him that his friend would not suffer, and that the poet himself, in case of denial, would be given up as a soldier. Mikhail Yuryevich gave up, deciding that his grandmother, who doted on her grandson, simply would not survive this.

Explanatory notes

Raevsky gave the following explanations: Lermontov, they say, wrote the work solely out of a desire to become famous, and Raevsky himself wanted to help his friend with this. “Owned by friendship and favors to Lermontov and seeing that his joy was very great from the consideration that at the age of 22 he had become known to everyone, I listened with pleasure to all the greetings that were showered on him for the copies. Political thoughts, and especially those contrary to the order established by centuries-old laws, we did not have and could not have. Lermontov, due to his condition, education and general love, has nothing left to desire except fame,” Raevsky wrote in an explanatory note.

Lermontov in his explanation said that he wrote poetry while sick, outraged by rumors about Pushkin, which he considered untrue, and seeing before himself the need to defend the honor of a man who could no longer stand up for it himself.

“When I wrote my poems on the death of Pushkin (which, unfortunately, I did too soon), one of my good friends, Raevsky, who, like me, had heard many incorrect accusations and, due to thoughtlessness, did not see in my poems anything contrary to the laws , asked me to write them off; He probably showed them as news to someone else, and thus they parted ways. I had not yet left, and therefore could not soon recognize the impressions made by them, I could not return them back and burn them in time. I myself did not give them to anyone else, but I could not renounce them, although I realized my rashness: the truth has always been my shrine and now, bringing my guilty head to court, I firmly resort to it, as the only defender of a noble man before the face of the Tsar and the face of God,” wrote Lermontov.

Sentence: one to the Caucasus, the second to Petrozavodsk

Svyatoslav Raevsky did not consider Lermontov’s actions to be a betrayal: “I have always been convinced that Michel is in vain to attribute exclusively to himself my little catastrophe in St. Petersburg in 1837. Explanations that Mikhail Yuryevich was forced to give to his judges, who interrogated about the imaginary accomplices in the appearance of poems on the death of Pushkin , they were not composed at all in a tone that would place any responsibility on me...”

Lermontov and Raevsky were kept under arrest until a final decision was made on their case.

Svyatoslav Raevsky. Photo: Public Domain

The highest command read: “L-Guards. hussar regiment cornet Lermontov, for writing famous ... poems, transfer with the same rank to the Nizhny Novgorod dragoon regiment; and the provincial secretary Raevsky, for distributing these poems and especially for the intention to secretly deliver information to Cornet Lermontov about the testimony he made, to be kept under arrest for one month, and then sent to the Olonets province for use in the service, at the discretion of the local civil governor.”

Raevsky was sent to Petrozavodsk, where he became an official of special assignments under the governor, participated in the creation and editing of the first provincial newspaper “Olonets Provincial Gazette”. Lermontov wrote to a friend: “Don’t forget me and still believe that my greatest sadness was that you suffered through me. M. Lermontov, forever devoted to you.”

At the end of 1838, Svyatoslav Raevsky petitioned for permission to continue public service on a general basis and was released from exile. True, he continued his career far from St. Petersburg, serving as an official on special assignments under the Stavropol governor. In 1840, he retired, settled on his estate in the Penza province, started a family and outlived his friend by 35 years.

Lermontov went to the Caucasus, where the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment fought. True, he stayed there only for a few months. A caring grandmother first achieved his transfer to a regiment stationed in the Novgorod province, and then his return to the capital.

Lermontov returned as a well-known poet, who was considered “the heir of Pushkin.” And Mikhail Yuryevich really justified such generous advances. Although there were only three years left before his own fatal duel.

M.Yu. Lermontov’s poem “The Death of a Poet” was written in 1837. It is connected with the death of Pushkin. The main theme of the poem is the conflict between the poet and the crowd.
In the poem, Lermontov blames Pushkin’s death not only on his killer, Dantes, but also on the entire surrounding crowd. According to the author, the reason for Pushkin’s death is that secular society does not understand “his free, bold gift,” as a result of which the poet is doomed to loneliness, which he cannot bear. He rushes into a world alien to him and dies.
The poem is written in iambic 4-foot, but in the second part it is replaced by free (4-5-6-foot) iambic, which Lermontov often resorted to in his lyrics.
The structure of the poem is distinguished by both complexity and simplicity of composition: several completed fragments, each with its own style, are subordinated general development ideas. Three relatively independent parts are easily distinguished in the poem.
The first is not just the death of the poet, but his murder - an inevitable consequence of his long-standing lonely opposition to the “light”:
... And he was killed - and taken by the grave,
Like that singer, unknown but sweet,
The prey of deaf jealousy...
The second part is noticeably different from the first. The main thing in it is the funeral elegy, grief over the poet’s untimely death:
Killed!.. why sobs now,
Empty praise unnecessary chorus
And the pathetic babble of excuses?
Fate has reached its conclusion!
In this part, Lermontov gives free rein to a deeply personal feeling of love and pain. And it is in this part that the poetic appearance of Pushkin is clearly depicted.
The third part, Lermontov’s last sixteen lines to the poem, is an accusation that develops into a curse. Lermontov is trying to avenge the death of Pushkin, to show his killer:
“You, standing in a thirsty crowd at the throne...
The executioners of Freedom, Genius and Glory.”
I really liked the poem “The Death of a Poet” and liked it primarily because in it Lermontov was not afraid to talk about Pushkin’s true killer, although he knew that he could be punished for this.

Caused great indignation in St. Petersburg at Dantes and his adoptive father Heeckeren and an unprecedented expression of love for the poet. Tens of thousands of people were near the house on the Moika where Pushkin was dying, an endless line walked through the apartment past the coffin of the murdered man. These days, metropolitan society was sharply divided into two camps: the highest aristocracy blamed Pushkin for everything and justified Dantes, people of lesser rank perceived the death of the poet as a national disaster.

Expressions of dissatisfaction forced the government of Nicholas I to take emergency measures: the poet’s house was cordoned off by gendarmes at the hour of the removal of the body, the funeral service in St. Isaac’s Church was canceled and served in the court church, where people were allowed in with special tickets. The coffin with Pushkin’s body was sent to the Pskov village at night, secretly and under escort. Pushkin's friends were accused of intending to organize a political demonstration from the poet's burial.

Under such conditions, Lermontov’s poem (see its full text on our website) was perceived in Russian society as a bold expression of protest.

Sergei Bezrukov reads M. Yu. Lermontov’s poem “The Death of a Poet”

Subsequently outlining the circumstances under which the poem was written, the arrested Lermontov testified that due to illness he did not leave the house during those days. However, there is reason to believe that the statement was made in order to deflect unwanted questions about where he had been and with whom he was meeting at that time. P. P. Semenov-Tien-Shansky, a later famous geographer and traveler, and at that time a ten-year-old boy, came to Pushkin’s house with his uncle, censor V. N. Semenov, to inquire about the poet’s health, and there, on Moika, near the house where Pushkin was dying, they saw Lermontov.

There is information that the poem was distributed in lists as early as January 30 - the day after the poet’s death. A copy is attached to the “Case of Inappropriate Poems...”, under which the date is displayed: “January 28, 1837” - although Pushkin died only on the 29th. However, it should be borne in mind that the rumor about Pushkin’s death was spread several times over the course of two and a half days, in particular on the evening of the 28th. Apparently, that evening Lermontov wrote the first part of the “elegy” after a heated argument with friends who visited him in the apartment where he lived with his friend Svyatoslav Raevsky. Raevsky later wrote that the “elegy” (that is, the original text of the poem, ending with the words: “And there is a seal on his lips”) was a reflection of the opinions of not only Lermontov, “but very many.” According to another eyewitness, a relative of the poet A. Shan-Girey, it was written over the course of “several minutes.” With the help of Raevsky's friends and colleagues - officials of the Department of State Property and the Department of Military Settlements, this text was duplicated and distributed throughout the city in many lists.

A few days later (February 7), his relative, cadet chamberlain Nikolai Stolypin, one of the closest employees of Foreign Minister Nesselrode, came to Lermontov. A dispute arose about Pushkin and Dantes, in which Stolypin took the side of the poet’s killer. Expressing the hostile attitude towards Pushkin in high society circles and the judgments emanating from the salon of Pushkin’s worst enemy, Countess Nesselrode, he began to assert that Dantes could not have acted differently than he did, that foreigners are not subject to Russian courts and Russian laws. As if in response to these words, Lermontov immediately added sixteen new – final – lines to the poem, beginning with the words: “And you, arrogant descendants // Of the famous meanness of the illustrious fathers.”

A list of the poem has reached us, in which an unknown contemporary of Lermontov, in order to clarify who the author had in mind when speaking about “the descendants of famous fathers known for their meanness,” put the names of Counts Orlov, Bobrinsky, Vorontsov, Zavadovsky, princes Baryatinsky and Vasilchikov, barons Engelhardt and Fredericks, whose fathers and grandfathers achieved a position at court through search, love affairs, behind-the-scenes intrigues, while “trampling” “the wreckage of ... offended clans” - that is, those whose ancestors from ancient times distinguished themselves on the battlefield or in the public sphere, and then - in 1762 - with the accession of Catherine II, like the Pushkins, they fell out of favor.

Copies with the text of the final lines of “The Death of the Poet” began to be distributed that same evening, and the poem passed from hand to hand with and without “addition.” The text with the addition, in turn, was distributed in two versions - one without an epigraph, the other with an epigraph, borrowed from the tragedy of the 17th century French playwright Jean Rotrou “Wenceslaus” (translated by A. Gendre):

Many "complete" copies lack the epigraph. It follows from this that it was not intended for everyone, but for a certain circle of readers associated with the “court”. The copy made by the poet’s relatives for A. M. Vereshchagina and, therefore, quite authoritative, does not have an epigraph. But the copy with the epigraph appears in the investigative file. There are reasons to think that we can achieve III Division Lermontov himself sought the full text with an epigraph. The epigraph was supposed to soften the meaning of the last stanza: after all, if the poet turns to the emperor with a request to punish the murderer, therefore, Nicholas has no need to perceive the poems as an accusation against himself. At the same time, the poem circulated among the general public without an epigraph.

The epigraph was understood as a way to mislead the government, and this aggravated Lermontov's guilt.

After Nicholas I received a list of the poem by city mail with the inscription “Appeal to the Revolution” and the final lines were qualified as “freethinking, more than criminal,” Lermontov, and then Raevsky, were arrested. A seven-day investigation into the case of “inadmissible poems” ended with the exile of Lermontov to the Caucasus, to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, and of Raevsky, who was guilty of distributing poems, to the Olonets province.

For the first time (without an epigraph) the poem was published abroad in 1856: Herzen placed it in his “Polar Star”.

Based on materials from articles by Irakli Andronnikov.

On January 29, 1837, Pushkin died. The news of his death shocked Lermontov, and the very next day he wrote the poem “On the Death of a Poet,” and a week later - the final 16 lines of this poem, which immediately made him famous, were copied and learned by heart. Genre - a lyrical poem combining the features of elegy (first part) and satire (last 16 lines).

The poem “The Death of a Poet” was written under the direct impression of Pushkin’s death. But although we are talking about the tragic fate of a specific person, Lermontov interprets what happened as a manifestation of the eternal struggle of good, light with evil and cruelty. Thus, the fate of Pushkin is interpreted as the fate of the poet in general. Basic Topics poems are a conflict between the poet and the crowd, a divine gift and doom. It is worth paying attention to the ambiguity of the phrase “slave of honor”. Usually in connection with him they talk about the biographical details of Pushkin’s death, but in Lermontov’s understanding, apparently, we are talking not so much about secular honor as about the honor of a poet who is unable to betray his truth, his gift given from above.

Composition. The first stanza depicts the romantic image of the Poet. The key word in the second stanza is “killer.” His image is completely devoid of romantic elation. He is not an adversary, not an enemy, not a duelist, he is precisely a killer. In this regard, the death of the Poet is thought of as providence, as the “finger of Fate”: the killer has an “empty heart”, he was thrown to us “by the will of fate”, he is not so much a specific person as the executor of the “sentence of fate”.

The next part of the poem (23 lines) is an elegy filled with references to Pushkin’s works. “Struck down, like him, by a merciless hand” is an analogy with Lensky; “Why from peaceful negs...” - echoes Pushkin’s “Andrei Chenier.” The second part is filled with antitheses, illustrating the impossibility of understanding between the poet and the “light”, the crowd. In the first part, the author appealed to the crowd, now he addresses the poet. The end of the fifth stanza echoes the first: “thirst for revenge” - “thirst for vengeance”, “slandered by rumor” - “the insidious whisper of mocking ignoramuses”, “the torch has gone out” - “the shelter of the gloomy singer...”.

In the final part of the poem (last 16 lines), Lermontov openly names the true culprits of Pushkin’s death. He was destroyed by “the arrogant descendants of famous fathers known for their meanness.”

M.Yu. Lermontov wrote the poem “The Death of a Poet” at the age of 23, in that terrible year when Russia lost its greatest genius, A.S. Pushkin (1837). On February 9, the news of the poet's duel reached Lermontov, and on the same day the poem spread in lists throughout St. Petersburg. Pushkin was mourned not only by relatives and people in his circle, but also by ordinary people - everyone who had ever read his works.

And therefore Lermontov’s poems found a response in the souls of millions of people. According to literary critic I.I. Panaev, “Lermontov’s poems on the poet’s death were copied in tens of thousands of copies, reread and learned by heart by everyone.” Of course, they also reached the authorities, who were deeply offended by Lermontov’s accusations and did not hesitate to send the unlucky poet into exile in the Caucasus.

In his poem, Lermontov sincerely expressed all his feelings and thoughts about the death of Alexander Sergeevich. Frankly speaking, Lermontov considered Pushkin’s death a “murder.” He blamed not only Dantes for the tragic death of the poet, but also society, and to an even greater extent. He reproached the world for slander, hypocrisy, insidious plans and stupid gossip, which destroyed the poet. “And having taken off the former wreath, they put a crown of thorns // Entwined with laurels on it // But the secret needles severely // Stung the glorious brow;

Undoubtedly, in everything said by Lermontov in the poem “The Death of a Poet” there is some truth.

But, nevertheless, it represents precisely Lermontov’s vision. The image of Pushkin that he created did not entirely correspond to reality. Lermontov believed that Pushkin fell victim in the fight against misunderstanding of society. “He rebelled against the opinions of the world // Alone as before... and killed!”, “His last moments were poisoned // By the insidious whispers of mocking ignoramuses, // And he died - with a vain thirst for vengeance, // With the vexation of the secret of disappointed hopes. » And these are already references to romanticism, from which Pushkin himself was far from. This poem, like all others, reveals Lermontov’s hatred of society and his romantic perception of the world. The unfortunate poet suffered all his life from dissatisfaction with life, from the inconsistency of his ideals with reality, and attributed the same qualities to Pushkin. In fact, A.S. was above society, he, unlike Lermontov, knew how not to notice “insignificant slanderers”, to ignore malicious ridicule (just as a proud lion does not pay attention to small birds impudently jumping on his back ). His creative gaze was directed to the future, past the chaos and bustle that reigned in society.

The poem “The Death of a Poet” is written in the form of a lyrical monologue, but it also contains elements of ode and elegy. Lermontov alternately angrily and cruelly hurls accusations at the “world”, and then indulges in sad reflections about the fate of A.S. Pushkin. The intonation in the poem is constantly changing - we see either bright, sublime, passionate, declamatory vocabulary characteristic of the ode genre; then smooth, thoughtful speech with memories, reflections and regrets, characteristic of elegy.

The size of the verse and the rhyme also change depending on the theme and meaning of the stanza - the size ranges from 4 to 6 iambic feet, and all three types of rhyme are used - cross, paired, and encircling.

The vocabulary in the poem is very rich in epithets and metaphors: “petty insults”, “empty praise”, “pathetic babble”, “empty heart”, “envious and stuffy light” - the author rewards such cruel epithets to those whom he considers guilty of Pushkin’s death . Epithets related to the poet: “proud head”, “free, bold gift”, “wonderful genius”. It is clear that Lermontov even then treated Pushkin as a national treasure. He says with indignation that Dantes did not know “what he was raising his hand to.” Metaphors: “slave of honor”, “shame of petty insults”, “chorus of praise”, “fate’s verdict”, “bloody moment”, “taken by the grave”, etc.