The poets of the Silver Age lifted poetry to unprecedented heights. And the symbolist poets filled her with amazing, mysterious images and sounds. To achieve the most powerful sound, they resorted to a play of words and sounds, alliterations and metaphors. A striking example of such poetry is the poem "The Reeds" by Konstantin Balmont. In the article, we offer the attention of readers an analysis of the poem, a description of its features and the rich topics inherent in symbolism in general. and Balmont’s lyrics in particular.
What do we know about the poet?
Konstantin Balmont - Russian poet of the Silver Age. Belonged to the Symbolists, almost all of his works are created in this vein.
Born in a small village in the Vladimir province. His parents were quite educated people, in the mother’s family they had long loved literature and instilled this daughter’s love. Vera Nikolaevna brought this love to her family, where she arranged literary evenings, various readings and performances. They had a strong influence on the local press, which contributed to the publication of many young authors.
Konstantin Balmont took over her love of literature. Later, the poet will say that his strong and passionate character is also from his mother.
In his youth, the future symbolist, thanks to his knowledge of many languages, had the opportunity to study the masterpieces of world literature and draw inspiration from them for his work.
Another source of inspiration for the poet was the Russian nature that surrounded his house. Partly devoted to nature and his poem "Reeds".
"Reeds": what is the poem about?
If the reader first opens the book on the page with this work, he will say that it is about reeds. But this is not entirely true, the key phrase can be called: "What are they whispering about? What are they talking about?" That is, the poem is not about reeds, it is about the eternal mystery of nature. The author compares the quiet rustling of plants with a night conversation and asks the question: "What is this conversation about?" When analyzing a poem (Balmont, “The Reeds”), one should not forget that the poet belonged to the Symbolists and was their bright representative.
The characters in his poem are very vibrant. He calls the "Dying Face" the Moon, "the sigh of a lost soul" - the rustling of reeds by the water.
Genre Features
According to critics, under the influence of youthful maximalism and mysticism, the young Balmont wrote "The Reeds." The genre of the poem, most likely, can be attributed to philosophical lyrics. The poet endows plants with human feelings and speechlessness: "Who, for what? - The reeds say."
Puzzling about the mysterious whisper of plants, water and the smell of mud, the author does not mean what he sees and we see.
The theme of the poem "Reeds" by Balmont
The topic of verses is immediately difficult to determine immediately. If we proceed from the name, we have before us a sample of landscape poetry. But delving into the work, we immediately see that we are not talking about the landscape, and we won’t find here the glorification of the beauty of plants. The theme is completely different: "What are the reeds whispering on a moonlit night"?
But this does not limit the issues raised in poetry. The theme of the mystery of nature, knowledge inaccessible to people thanks to metaphors, smoothly passes on to the soul of the lyrical hero and humanity as a whole. What is this "silent whisper of reeds"? Conversation? Feelings? The answer will be correct if we choose any of these options. But the most accurate definition is, most likely, thoughts. The whisper of reeds is a thought process. Thoughts are silent, but do not subside for a minute. It is in thoughts that questions and images are born: auditory, visual and even tactile.
The work is written in a mystical manner. The mysterious “conversation” of reeds is an image, rather auditory than visual. Next, we will make a detailed analysis of the poem.
Balmont, The Reeds
We already know that the poem is written in the key of symbolism, in the genre of philosophical lyrics. Its theme is the mysterious world of nature and life.
The poem is built on auditory images. “Rustle”, “whisper”, “say”, “snakes whistle”, “sigh”. There are also visual ones, the most striking of which are “lights”, which “burn, flicker, blink - and again they are gone”; and the moon, whose "dying face trembles."
To better understand this poetry, it is necessary to conduct a phonetic analysis of the poem. Balmont ("The Reeds" - a vivid example of this) turned in his lines to the play of sounds, their particular alternation. As we recall, the sound was one of the brightest features of the lyrics of the Symbolists. Read the poem aloud. The sounds "w", "w", "h", "p" create an amazing sound effect. Particularly rich in such effects is the second line, “A little audible, noiseless, rustling reeds.” The sound "w" in each word creates a feeling of rustling and whispering at the same time. This technique is called alliteration - the repetition of identical or homogeneous consonants in poetry (the use in prose is not excluded) in order to create a special sound, mood, sensation.
The twelfth line sounds interesting: "A quagmire will lure, squeeze, suck." The alternation of sounds “c”, “z” and “g” gives a feeling of mysticism, the ominous whisper of a quagmire from which one cannot escape. Many critics see in this poem a search for the meaning of life, comparing its inevitable end with a quagmire. But there is no reasoning of the author about the work. Perhaps it was created under the influence of the Symbolists and attempts for the first time to apply the method of alliteration.
Vowel sounds are also interesting, which create a feeling of monotony, melody.
Balmont created the general impression that the “Reeds” verse makes, thanks not only to alliteration, but also through metaphors. "Dying face" of the moon; month "sad wilted"; “sigh of a lost soul” - these metaphorical images evoke a mystical mood, a sense of inevitability.
Finally
Konstantin Balmont was one of the most prominent representatives of symbolism. His poetry is easy to read at first glance, and the meaning seems to lie on the surface. But this is a completely misleading impression. The analysis of the poem (Balmont, "The Reeds") is a confirmation of this. Poetry with a landscape name draws absolutely no landscape. It contains deep thoughts about the meaning of life, about its mysteries and secrets of nature, which are inaccessible to man. The poem is very strong; many themes and images are interwoven in it. From the image of the night and the rustling of reeds - to the mysterious images of the dead, lost and captured prisoners of travelers. Getting to the analysis and reading, it is worth paying attention to the sound range. It will complement and better convey the atmosphere of the work.