In this article, we analyze the elegy that Zhukovsky wrote in 1802, "The Rural Cemetery." This work belongs to romanticism and has characteristic features and features.
For early Zhukovsky, the favorite time of day is the transition from dusk to evening, from day to night, from darkness to dawn. In these hours and minutes, a person feels that he is changing, that everything is not finished, that life is full of mystery and unpredictability, and death, perhaps only a transition of the soul into an unknown, different state.
The image of the cemetery
So, here is the work that was created by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky - "Rural Cemetery". We begin the analysis of the poem with the main subject image indicated in the title. A favorite place in which a romantic indulges in difficult thoughts about the perishability of being is a cemetery. Everything here reminds of separation, of the past that reigns over people. But he does this without breaking his heart, gently, which notes Zhukovsky ("Rural Cemetery"). An analysis of the poem allows us to note that the green grave monuments on the graves, covered with a cool breeze, speak not only of all kinds of losses, but also that human suffering will surely pass, as well as joy. In the end, only sad peace spilled in nature will remain.
Elegy Heroes
The beloved hero of the romantic poet is himself, that is, Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. "Rural cemetery" depicts the thoughts and feelings of the author, his philosophical thoughts. Who, if not endowed with a special hearing, the “singer” is able to understand the joy and pain of life, to hear the voices of nature, to rise above the worldly vanity in order to embrace the whole world in a single impulse of his soul, to unite with the Universe? The author, like the English pre-romantic poet Thomas Gray, devotes his "cemetery" meditation to the memory of the "poor singer". At the same time, he consciously makes his descriptions less visible, reinforcing their emotional mood, Zhukovsky (elegy "Village Cemetery").
Epithets in the work
In this work, almost every noun has an adjective as an epithet. It was no accident that Zhukovsky introduced this technique into his work. The Rural Cemetery shifts the focus from objects to the characteristics of the inner world. So, the foot is slow, the peasant is tired, the hut is calm. The reader's attention is thus transferred to an unobtrusive sign. This is all present in Gray. But the Russian poet is not only that: he adds two more words to his work, which indicate the state: "turns pale" and "thoughtful." The word "turns pale", it would seem, refers to the visual row. But if you imagine this, it turns out that in an objective, literal sense, this means that the day is becoming brighter. And the work describes the exact opposite: the onset of evening twilight. Consequently, the word “turns pale” means in the elegy something completely different: it disappears, goes out, fades. Perhaps, like our life itself.
Sound recording
This effect is enhanced in the second stanza. Here visual images (albeit translated into a different, emotional plane) are relegated to second place, giving way to sound ones. The darkness in the world that the poet describes becomes impenetrable, the more the lyrical hero is guided by the sound. In the second stanza, the main artistic burden falls on the sound recording, and not on the epithets. It is no accident that Zhukovsky applies this technique in his work. The verse "Rural cemetery" thanks to him becomes more expressive.
The doubling, lingering sonorous "n", "m", as well as hissing "u", "w" and whistling "z", "c" create the image of nature's dead dream. The third line with the abundance of these sounds seems to us simply onomatopoeic. However, she “works” to create a certain mood, not at all peaceful and calm, which is characteristic of the first stanza, but alarming.
From line to line, the work written by Zhukovsky ("The Rural Cemetery") is becoming darker and darker. Like a signal bell, at the end of the second stanza a word sounds that plays the role of a peculiar stylistic password in the elegy genre: “dull”. This adjective means "immersed completely in sadness, merged with this feeling, not knowing any other mood, completely losing hope." Almost a synonym for a mournful sound - dull, that is, dreary, plain, wounding right in the heart.
The conventional landscape, beloved by the pre-romantics, in the third stanza deepens this mood. A wild owl, an ancient arch, the moon pouring its light onto nature, deathly pale ... If the peasant's hut in the first stanza was called the word “calm” and nothing disturbed this equanimity, then in the third the “peace” of the quiet dominion of the tower was disturbed.
Death motive
We continue to describe this work, to conduct its analysis. Zhukovsky created the “Rural Cemetery” as a reflection on the meaning of life, the perishability of being. Finally, we are approaching the center of the elegy, tragically tense. All the more insistently, a death motive begins to sound in her. The author of the work, trying to strengthen the already gloomy, difficult mood, is adding drama to it by additional means. It is called the "restless" dream of the deceased. Therefore, even the hope of the impending resurrection of the dead, their "awakening" is not allowed. The fifth stanza is completely built on a number of denials such as "neither ... nor ... nothing", and ends with a tough formula that says that nothing will force one to leave the graves of those who are resting there.
The inevitability of demise for all
Developing the theme, Vasily Andreevich spreads his bitter conclusion to all people that sooner or later death will affect everyone: ordinary people and kings, because even the “path of greatness” leads to the grave.
Cruel and merciless death, as its analysis shows. "Rural cemetery" (Zhukovsky) describes her deeds. Death indifferently takes the tender hearts that knew how to love, designed to "be in the crown", but bound in this "squalor by chains" (peasant ignorance and poverty), and the ashes of one who was born in order to "win the fortune," fight the storm of troubles.
Here the poet’s voice, which until recently sounded bitter, accusatory, almost angry, suddenly softens. As if reaching a certain limit, approaching despair, the author’s thought smoothly returns to a point of rest, and it is from her that the work that Zhukovsky created (“The Rural Cemetery”) begins. This poem, therefore, takes us to a certain initial state, just as life brings everything back to square one. It is not without reason that the word that flickered in the first stanza (“calm hut”), later, in the second, rejected, again takes its rightful place in the poetic language of Vasily Andreevich.
What confronts death?
The work created by Zhukovsky (Rural Cemetery) is very controversial. This poem is characterized by the fact that in it the author objects to himself. Only recently did he call the sound sleep of the dead. That is, the poet spoke of the omnipotence of death. And suddenly, it is difficult and slowly starting to come to terms with the fact that it is inevitable. At the same time, the author builds the statement in such a way that it becomes twofold - it is at the same time a discussion of a poet friend who has died forever, and about himself, his inevitable death.
The feeling of hopelessness now sounds sad, but not at all hopeless. Death is omnipotent, Zhukovsky admits it, but not omnipotent, since there is a life-giving friendship on earth, thanks to which the eternal flame of a "tender soul" is kept, for which dust breathes in an urn, it is akin to faith.