"Singer and herald of wooden Russia" - so Yesenin himself defined himself as a poet. His works are truly sincere and frank. Without undue embarrassment, he exposes his Russian soul, which suffers, yearns, rings and rejoices.
Esenin's lyric themes
Yesenin wrote about what worried him and his contemporaries. He was a child of his era, which knew a lot of cataclysms. That is why the main themes of Yesenin's poetry are the fate of the Russian countryside, the present and future of Russia, tenderness by nature, love for women and religion.
A red thread through the entire creative heritage of the poet passes a burning love for the motherland. This feeling is the starting point of all his further literary studies. Moreover, Esenin does not invest in the concept of the homeland in the first place by any means political, although he did not bypass the sorrow and joy of peasant Russia. The homeland for the poet is the fields surrounding him, forests, plains, which begin from the parental home of the lyrical hero and extend into immense distances. The poet drew incredible beauty from the memories of childhood and the nature of his patrimony - the village of Konstantinovo, from where his "raspberry Rus" began for Yesenin. Such feelings of trembling love for the native land were expressed in the most delicate poetic watercolors.
All the themes of Yesenin's work, in particular the theme of love for the motherland and love for nature, are so closely intertwined that they cannot be distinguished from one another. He admired the world around him as a child “born with songs in a grass blanket”, considering himself to be an integral part of it.
Love lyrics are a separate layer of creativity of the poet-nugget. The image of a woman from his poems was written off from Russian beauties “with scarlet juice of berry on the skin”, “with a sheaf of oat hair”. But love relationships always occur in the background, as it were, in the center of action is always the same nature. The poet often compares the girl with a thin birch, and her chosen one with a maple. Early creativity is characterized by youthful ardor, focus on the physical aspect of the relationship ("kiss kissed, worn out like a color"). Over the years, having learned bitter disappointments on the personal front, the poet expresses his feelings of contempt for venal women, cynically considering love itself as nothing more than an illusion ("our life is a sheet and a bed"). Esenin himself considered the Persian motifs the pinnacle of his love lyrics, where the poet’s trip to Batumi left its mark.
It should be noted many philosophical motives in Yesenin's verses. Early work is sparked by a feeling of fullness of life, an accurate awareness of one's place in it and the meaning of being. The lyrical hero finds him in unity with nature, calling himself a shepherd, whose "chambers are the boundaries of the unsteady fields." He realizes the quick withering of life ("everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees"), and from this his lyrics are dried up with light sadness.
Of particular interest is the theme "God, nature, man in Yesenin's poetry."
God
The origins of Christian motifs in Yesenin must be sought in his childhood. His grandmother and grandfather were deeply religious people and instilled in their grandson the same reverent attitude towards the Creator.
The poet seeks and finds analogies of the ransom sacrifice in the phenomena of nature ("shemnik-wind ... kisses red ulcers on the mountain ash bush to the invisible Christ", "the day of the sunset sacrifice atoned for all sin").
Yesenin’s God lives in that same, old, outgoing Russia, there, "where the cabbage beds watered with sunrise with red water." The poet sees the creator primarily in creation - the world around him. God, nature, man in Yesenin's poetry always interact.
But the poet was not always a humble worshiper. In one period he has a whole series of rebellious, anti-God poems. This is due to his faith in the October Revolution and the adoption of a new communist ideology. The lyrical hero even challenges the Creator, promising to create a new society without the need for God, "the city of Inonia, where the deity of the living lives." But such a period was short-lived, soon the lyrical hero again calls himself a "humble monk", praying for mocks and herds.
Human
Quite often, the poet portrays his hero as a wanderer walking along the road, or as a guest in this life ("everyone in the world is a wanderer - he will pass, come in and leave the house again"). In many works, Yesenin touches on the antithesis of "youth - maturity" ("The Golden Grove Dissuaded ..."). He often reflects on death and sees it as the natural ending of everyone (“I came to this earth so that I could leave it soon”). Everyone can know the meaning of their existence by finding their place in the triad "God - nature - man." In Yesenin's poetry, the main link in this tandem is nature, and the key to happiness is harmony with it.
Nature
It is a temple for the poet, and the person in it should be a pilgrim ("I pray for ala dawns, partake of the creek"). In general, the theme of the Almighty and the theme of nature in Yesenin's poetry are so interconnected that there is no clear line of transition.
Nature is the main character of all works. She lives a vibrant, vibrant life. Very often, the author uses the method of personification (a little fawn sucks a green udder, a red mare-autumn scratches its golden mane, a snowstorm cries like a gypsy violin, a bird cherry sleeps in a white cloak, a pine is tied with a white scarf).
The most favorite images are birch, maple, month, dawns. Yesenin is the author of the so-called wooden novel between a birch girl and a maple guy.
Yesenin's poem "Birch"
As an example of a refined and at the same time simple awareness of being, we can consider the verse “Birch”. Since ancient times, this tree has been considered both a symbol of the Russian girl and Russia itself, therefore Yesenin put a deep meaning into this work. The tenderness of a small piece of nature develops into admiration for the beauty of the immense Russian land. In ordinary everyday things (snow, birch, branches), the author teaches to see more. Such an effect is achieved through comparisons (snow - silver), metaphors (snowflakes burn, dawn sprinkles branches). Simple and understandable imagery makes Esenin's poem "Birch" very similar to a folk poem, and this is the highest praise for any poet.
The general mood of the lyrics
It should be noted that in Yesenin’s poetry there is so distinctly felt a slight sadness “over the buckwheat open spaces”, and sometimes a nagging anguish even in admiring one’s native land. Most likely, the poet foresaw the tragic fate of his homeland, Russia, which in the future "will still live, dance and cry at the fence." The reader is involuntarily conveyed pity for all living things, because, despite its beauty, absolutely everything around is fleeting, and the author grieves in advance about this: "A sad song, you are a Russian pain."
Esenin's poetry features
You can also note some of the distinguishing features of the poet's style.
Yesenin is the king of metaphors. He so skillfully packed capacious artistic images into a few words that each poem is replete with bright poetic figures ("I drenched my black eyebrows in the evening," "the sunset swims quietly with a red swan in the pond", "a tick flock on the roof serves the evening star").
The proximity of Yesenin's poetry to folklore gives the feeling that some of his poems are folk. They fit incredibly easily to music.
Thanks to such features of the art world of the poet of "wooden Russia", his poems cannot be confused with others. His love for the Motherland, which originates from the Ryazan fields and ends in space, cannot but conquer his. The essence of the subject “God - nature - man” in Yesenin’s poetry can be summed up with the words: “I think: how beautiful the earth is and the people on it ...”