Before offering the reader an analysis of Tyutchev’s poem “Leaves”, let us say a few words about the aesthetic views of the poet. Fedor Ivanovich was a follower of the German idealist philosopher Schelling, who understood nature as a logical unity of opposites. This concept has found many admirers among young romantic poets, not only in Europe, but also in our country. To what extent the poet’s worldview is reflected in his immortal creations will help evaluate the analysis of Lyutov’s lyric poem “Leaves”.
Paramount poet
Tyutchev left for Germany as a diplomat in 1821, where he met his idols Schelling and Heine, married Eleanor Peterson, and continued to write poetry, which he was passionate about from his youth. From abroad, the poet sent lyric works to Russia at the insistence of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin and gained some fame here. Among the creations of this period was Tyutchev's poem "Leaves". After the death of Pushkin, the lyrics of Fedor Ivanovich were no longer published in Russia. N. Nekrasov in his article “Russian Minor Poets” resolutely stated that he attributed the gift of the writer to paramount poetic talents, by chance turned out to be among the little-known Russian readers, and put Tyutchev on a par with the famous Russian poets Pushkin and Lermontov.
Getting to the study of the lyrical work
The analysis plan of Tyutchev’s poem “Leaves” is seen to us as follows: we determine the theme and idea of the work. Evaluate the composition. We consider artistic techniques and means of figurative expressiveness, to summarize.
Analysis of Tyutchev’s poem “Leaves”: theme and composition
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev called Fyodor Tyutchev a poet of thought, fused with feeling. He emphasized another feature of the poet’s poetry: the psychological accuracy of his lyrics and passion as its main motive. In the poem "Leaves" Tyutchev analysis of mental movements combines with a picture of a withering nature. The composition is based on parallelism: the external world (landscape) and the internal sphere of human aspirations are compared. Obviously, the theme of the poem is the opposition of violent and vibrant feelings to cold calm. How is this done?
In the first stanza of the poem, before us is a picture of motionless coniferous evergreen trees, as if frozen in eternal rest. In the second stanza, in contrast to winter stillness, a sketch of a bright short summer appears. The poet uses the personification technique: it is from the face of leaves on deciduous trees. The third stanza represents the autumn season of slow cooling and extinction of nature. The fourth stanza is imbued with a passionate plea: the leaves ask the wind to tear off and carry them away to avoid withering and death.
The idea of a lyrical work
The autumn landscape, when it is possible to observe foliage swirling in the wind, turns the poet into an emotional monologue riddled with the philosophical idea that slow invisible decay, destruction, death without a courageous and daring take-off is unacceptable, terrible, deeply tragic. Let us see by what artistic means the poet does this.
Art techniques
Tyutchev expressively uses the antithesis. Pine and spruce trees appear in a state of winter hibernation even in summer, since they are not subject to any changes. Their “skinny greens” (let’s pay attention to the epithet!) Is contrasted with the juicy, shining in the sunlight and dew-foliage of summer. The feeling of soulless static coniferous trees is enhanced by an emotional comparison of their needles with hedgehogs. The greenery, which “does not turn yellow forever, but is not fresh forever,” is somewhat akin to a lifeless mummy. In the author’s view, coniferous specimens of flora do not even grow, but “stick out”, as if they were not fed through the roots by the saps of the earth, and someone mechanically stuck them like needles into the ground. So the poet deprives them of even a hint of life and movement.
Deciduous trees, on the contrary, are represented in continuous dynamics, overflows of light and shadow. The poet uses personification and metaphors: leaves are a “tribe” that “stays” on branches “in beauty”, “plays with rays”, “bathes in dew”. When describing conifers, the word "forever" is used; it is opposed by the phrase "short time" relating to deciduous. In contrast to the reduced vocabulary, which is represented by sticking out spruce and pine trees, the author appeals to the high style: “marshmallows”, “red summer”, “easy tribe”, speaking of trembling foliage.
Morphological and phonetic analysis of Tyutchev’s poem “Leaves”
The first stanza, showing an unsightly picture of pines and firs frozen in the cold, contains only three verbs used in the present tense. This emphasizes static. The soundtrack of the first stanza is distinguished by the obsessive presence of whistling and hissing consonants. In the second stanza, which draws leaves in the summer, there are twice as many verbs - there are six of them, and they are used in the present and past tense, which enhances the feeling of continuous movement, of a short but full life. In contrast to the alliteration of hissing and whistling in the previous stanza, sonor sounds prevail here: l-mr. This conveys the state of harmony inherent in an inspired and full-blooded life.
The third stanza offers verbs in the past tense and in an indefinite form. We are talking about the approaching death, wilting. The mood of anxiety and hopelessness creates an abundance of deaf consonant phonemes. The last stanza is filled with desperate prayer, it sounds like a spell, like a groan of leaves crying out to the wind. There are many exclamations and verbs of the future tense. In the sound recording, the protracted vowels are clearly audible - ooh, which, in conjunction with the consonants "c" and "t", betray an impetuous whistle of the wind.
Aesthetic Creed of the Poet
An analysis of Tyutchev’s poem “Leaves” helped to understand that this is not only an elegant example of landscape lyrics and a brilliant attempt to transform the picture of nature into emotional experiences. Before us is a capacious philosophical formula, according to which being and eternity only make sense when every moment is filled with fleeting, burning and trembling beauty.