The poetry of the post-war and war periods sounds completely different than the works of peace. Her voice is piercing, it penetrates the heart. This is how Twardowski wrote “House by the Road”. A summary of this work is presented below. The poet created his poem in order not only to express the pain of contemporaries destroyed by the war, but also to warn successors from a terrible tragedy - war.
About the poet
Vasily Trifonovich Twardowski was born in 1910 in the Smolensk province of the Russian Empire. His parents were educated people, his father from early childhood read to the children of the classics of Russian and world literature.
When Vasily turned twenty, the period of repression was in full swing. His father and mother fell into the millstones of the revolution and were exiled to the north of the country. These events did not break the poet, but put him on the road and made him think about whether the raging revolution was necessary and just. Sixteen years later, his "Country of Ants" is released, a kind of utopia, after which the poet's works began to be published. Alexander Trifonovich survived the war, about this - his "Vasily Terkin." About the war and “The House by the Road”, a brief summary Twardowski liked to retell before the poem was published.
The story of the creation of the poem
The idea and main touches of the poem came into being in 1942. It is not known exactly why Tvardovsky did not finish his “House by the Road” at once. The story of the creation of the poem is most likely similar to the stories of other post-war and military works. There is no time for poetry on the battlefield, but if its idea and its creator survive, then the lines carried through a hail of bullets and explosions will certainly be born into light on peaceful days. The poet will return to the work in four years and complete it in 1946. Later, in his conversations with his wife, he will often recall how he thought about the dilapidated house by the road that he once saw; how he imagined who lived in it, and where the war of its owners scattered. These thoughts seemed to take shape in the lines of the poem, but there was no time to write it, but nothing to write about. It was necessary in my thoughts, as in a draft, to store the most successful quatrains of the future poem, and cross out not very successful words. So created his "House by the Road" Twardowski. See the analysis of the poem below. But it should immediately be said that she leaves no one indifferent.
"House by the road": a summary. Twardowski about the war. The first or third chapters of the poem
The poem begins with the poet's appeal to the soldier. It was about him, about a simple soldier, written by Alexander Twardowski, "The House by the Road." He compares the protracted return of the warrior to his wife with his completion of the poem, which was waiting for him "in that notebook." The poet talks about what he saw the deserted dilapidated house of a soldier. His wife with the children was forced to leave, and after the end of the fighting she returned home with the children. Their poor procession calls the author "the soldier’s house."
The next chapter tells about the last peaceful day of a soldier, when he mowed grass in the garden, enjoying the warmth and summer, anticipating a delicious lunch in a close circle at the family table, and so with a scythe they found him telling about the war. The words "the landlord did not finish him off" sound like a bitter reproach to the war, which cut short the household affairs. Orphaned meadow coughing up his wife, crying stealthily about her beloved husband.
The third chapter of the poem “The House by the Road” is ambiguous, and it is difficult to convey the summary of Twardowski himself. She describes the hardships of war - soldiers in battle and women in non-female labor, hungry children and abandoned foci. Long ways that a soldier mother with three children is forced to go. He describes the faithfulness and love of his wife, which in peacetime was manifested by cleanliness, order in the house, and in war - by faith and hope that the beloved would return.
The contents of the fourth to fifth chapters
The fourth chapter begins with a story about how four soldiers came to the house near the road and said that they would put a cannon in the garden. And a woman with children needs to leave here, as being reckless and dangerous. Before leaving, the soldier asks the children if they had heard of Andrei Sivtsov, her husband, and feeds them a hearty, hot dinner.
Chapter Five describes a terrible picture of marching captured soldiers. Women look into their faces, afraid to see their relatives.
Sixth and ninth chapters of the poem
At the end of the war, The House by the Road was published. Summary Twardowski repeatedly retold his relatives, describing the experiences of the war.
Chapter Six shows Anyuta and Andrey. The roads of war brought him home for just one night. The wife sends him on the road again, and she leaves her home with the children and walks along the dust of roads to save the kids.
Chapter Seven talks about the birth of a fourth child - a son, whom his mother calls Andrey in honor of his father. Mother and children in captivity on a farm besieged by the Germans.
A soldier returns from the war and sees only the ruins of his native house by the road. Having warmed up, he does not give up, but begins to build a new house and wait for his wife. When the work is completed, sorrow overcomes him. And he goes to mow the grass, the one that he did not have time to finish before he left.
Analysis of the work
Twardowski's poem “The House by the Road” tells about broken families scattered on the ground. The pain of war sounds in every line. Wives without husbands, children without fathers, courtyards and houses without a master - these images run like a red thread through the lines of the poem. Indeed, in the very heat of war, Twardowski created his “House by the Road”. The analysis of the work was done by many critics, but all of them are sure that the work is about the fate of people tragically broken by the war.
But not only the theme of separation in its not quite familiar recreation (the wife is not waiting for the soldier at home, but he, grieving and rebuilding the house, as if restoring his former, peaceful life) sounds in the poem. A serious role is played by the mother’s appeal to the newborn child - son Andrei. Mother in tears asks why he was born in such a turbulent, difficult time, how he will survive in cold and hunger. And she herself, looking at the baby's carefree dream, gives the answer: the child was born to live, he does not know what war is, that his destroyed house is far from here. This is the optimism of the poem, a bright look into the future. Children must be born, burnt houses must be restored, broken families must be reunited.
Everyone should return to their house by the road - as Twardowski wrote. Analysis, summary of the poem will not convey all its fullness and feelings. To understand a work, you must read it yourself. Feelings after this will be remembered for a long time and will make us appreciate peacetime and those close to us.