1.2 The concept of "man to nature" in the poetry of the American
writer
Throughout his creative life, Frost wrote both rhymed and blank verse. The
rhymed ones were, as a rule, small in size and traditional in form, the white ones
sometimes numbered many hundreds of lines. Looking ahead, we note that the
glory of his Frost I am indebted to five or six rhymed poems that appear in every
anthology of English-language poetry, and to all whites without exception.
Frost's blank verse is written in the form of a dramatic monologue (or
sometimes dialogue) that goes back to the 19th-century English poet Robert
Browning, who in turn studied with Shakespeare. Sometimes we have a
monologue of the author (lyrical hero), sometimes - a character, sometimes - a
dialogue or consecutive monologues of several characters. The same Brodsky
mastered Frost's technique in a number of poems, the first of which should be
called "Dedicated to Yalta." The image of the narrator, the circumstances of the
place, time and mode of action, finally, the story told or discussed in the poem
does not appear immediately; often the reader does not understand at first what is
at stake, and sometimes - as in the famous "Fear" or in the "Black Cottage" that
was not included in our collection - he remains, if not in ignorance, then in half-
knowledge, remains in doubt . The reader hesitates, like Prince Hamlet, and
harboring suspicions, and not daring to be imbued with them to the end. But the
same doubts, the same half-knowledge or, if you like, half-knowledge - the basic
premise of the philosophy of existentialism, to which Frost came spontaneously,
and in any case without reading
French existentialists, nor German. However, Frost does not reach the doubt
about the resources of language as a means of cognition (doubts anticipated by
Fyodor Tyutchev and actualized primarily by the "Frankfurt school") : the uttered
thought does not become a lie for him, but falls into the ambiguous position of
incomplete truth. And in order to get to the truth... no, you won't get there, but no
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one bothers you to look for a clue, develop a hypothesis, intuitively feel for
something important...
Today we can call Frost's poetry interactive - moreover, we can recognize
interactivity as one of its main virtues.
And, of course, the magic of poetry. Does it get lost in translation? Frost was
printed a lot in our country, but little was translated, not everyone who should have
translated him was translated, and those who should not have translated Frost were
also translated. In this edition, many of Frost's key verses are presented in two
translations - and the reader himself is able to trace the angle of divergence, and is
able to build a virtual third at the junction of two translations.
In Frost's poetry, nature is parity to man, that is, on the one hand, he exposes
them equal and interchangeable, and on the other hand, shows how insignificant a
person is before the power and infinity of nature. Man in Frost's poetry is a finite
creation, and nature and time, although fleeting in their essence, still have power
over people.
In this term paper, we would like to consider a number of poems by the poet,
in which the main condition is a walk in nature, where the unity of man and nature
is as close as possible (“ Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening /"Winter
evening by the forest"/, " Acquainted with the night "/" Familiar with the night "/).
STOPPING BY WOODS ON ASNOWYEVENING
Whose woods these are I think I know. He gives his harness bells a shake
His house is in the village though; To ask if there is some mistake.
He will not see me stopping here The only other sound's the sweep
To watch his woods fill up with snow. Of easy wind and downy flake.
My little horse must think it queer The woods are lovely, dark and deep
To stop without a farmhouse near But I have promises to keep,
Between the woods and frozen lake And miles to go before I sleep,
The darkest evening of the year. And miles to go before I sleep.
IN THE WINTER EVENING BY THE FOREST The poem " Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening "(" On a winter evening by the forest "in the lane of
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O. Chukhontsev ) by the American poet Robert Frost ( Robert Frost , 1874-1963)
was first published in the New Hampshire book of poems (Frost Robert. New
Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes / With Woodcuts by JJ Lankes.
NY : Henry Holt & Company , 1923. X, 113 p.; section "Melisms", Grace Notes ),
which became Frost's fourth collection. The exact date of this poem is not known.
The English text is printed according to ed. : American Literature : The Makers
and the Making . Shorter Edition / Ed. by Cleanth Brooks, RWB Lewis, Robert
Penn Warren. NY : St. _ Martin's Press , 1974. P. 1191.
Whose forest is this and these distances? Ringing a bridle barely,
The owner of these places is hardly Mol, what is, in fact,
She will understand why we are here, at the edge, she is still waiting for the
rider
Snow-covered field, got up. Listens to the blizzard.
And it is not clear to the horse, The forest is beautiful, dense, deep
Why are we here in the night drift But I must be back on time.
We stand where the cloudy firs And the way home is still far away,
They look into the white darkness. And the road to home is still far away.
“One of the greatest poems ever written in English ... A poem about winter
forests, about gloomy twilight, about how the horse tinkles softly with a bell, as if
gently reproaching the owner of something, about the gathering darkness and a
gloomy sky ... And then , this wonderful finale with its final lines - exactly the
same, not differing in a single syllable, but the first tells about the secret of
personality and earthly existence , and the second - about the secret of eternity and
the Universe. Nabokov V. Pale fire . L., 1991. P. 162.
It is impossible not to mention the very title of the poem. « Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening "Literally can be translated as" Stopping at the forests
in the evening, during a snowfall. By indicating in the title the time and place in
which the imaginary monologue of the lyrical hero unfolds, the author sets a
certain inertia in the development of images and orients the reader's perception.
The time of action is winter, evening, the time of snowfall, the scene of action is
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the edge of the forest. It is no coincidence that Frost uses the gerund “ stopping ” in
the title , emphasizing not so much the fact of the action as its duration, the stay of
the lyrical hero in a certain state. At the same time, choosing the title, Frost seems
to turn a small fragment of the created poetic world into the whole Universe and
elevates a fleeting impression to an act of cognition
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.
In particular, the mention of the “owner of the forests”, whose discontent the
lyrical hero fears, seems strange and even fantastic. Of course, it can be assumed
that this is just a gloomy and uncommunicative neighbor-farmer who does not
tolerate even the most innocent "intrusions" into his possessions. At the same time,
Frost , although reporting on the “house in the village”, clearly deliberately avoids
further characterizations of the “owner of the forests” and makes the reader
involuntarily imagine some kind of folklore character - the Forest King, the Lord
of the mysterious winter kingdom, imperious to punish an intruder for a daring
crossing its boundaries. At the same time, on this mysterious ghostly note, the
reader rediscovers the sound of the first stanza. It is built, firstly, on the use of the
consonantal repetition of the consonant “h” (“ whose ” - “ his ” - “ house ” - “ he ”
- “ here ” - “ his ”), creating the effect of audible breathing : maybe the lyrical hero
breathes on cold hands?
Secondly, the "breath" of the lyrical hero drowns out the call of the wind,
transmitted alliterative repetitions of the semivowel sound “w”: “ woods ” -
“ will ” - “ watch ” - “ woods ”. Here, by means of sound writing, the poet
anticipates the appearance of the wind among the names of natural phenomena in
the third stanza (by the way, the English noun “wind” itself begins with the
semivowel sound “w” - “ wind ”).
I would like to pay special attention to almost the only pronounced metaphor
in the poem - “ fill up with snow "- as if it is talking about filling some kind of
vessel. The lyrical hero peers and listens to the process of transformation - the
landscape takes on a new, unusual, magical appearance at the behest of the
1
Watson, Marsten. Royal Families - Americans of Royal and Noble Ancestry. Volume Three: Samuel Appleton and
His Wife Judith Everard and Five Generations of Their Descendants. 2010.
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elements - wind and snow. However, at the moment when the above-mentioned
metaphor “ fill up with snow ", when the lyrical hero almost dissolves in the
selfless contemplation of this new winter world, and the reader tunes in to the new
poetics of the mysterious , - Frost changes the tone again, returning us in the
second stanza to the visible, familiar "world little things."
Now let's turn to the poem "Familiar with the Night." « Aquainted with the
night "-" Familiar with the night "- translation by Anna Kalachik, 2014.
© Copyright : Anna Kalachik, 2014Certificate of Publication No.
114032610375
ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in the rain and back in the rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat.
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Familiar with the night.
I am the one who knows the night.
With the rain I left, with the rain I returned.
In my walks I saw cities far away.
Below - the alleys, which is not sadder.
At the watchman's sad knock, I did not raise my eyes.
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I passed by. I was not inclined to explain.
Has stopped. Verse the sound of my steps.
From the next street, over the houses
There was a cry. Interrupted.
And he didn’t call me, and he didn’t say goodbye to me.
And above me time is a passionless move
Proclaim from unearthly heights
Star clock. Their run no one can overcome
And I - who knows the night.
This poem is framed, as we are faced with a repetition of the first and last
lines (I have been one acquainted with the night / I am the one to whom the night is
familiar /). Why did Frost use this technique? Perhaps in order to enhance the
impression of the state of mind of the lyrical hero, perhaps to show the cycle of
events in nature and the life of one person.
As we said at the beginning of the article, Frost's lyrical hero is always
opposed to nature or exists in parallel with it, but never - inside it, is not its
constituent. So in this poem, and - a person does not exist in the night, but, as it
were, soars above it (I have walked out the furthest city light . I have looked down
the saddest city lane / In my walks I saw the city a distant light. Below - alleys,
which is sadder no /).
The walk of the lyrical hero is the main element of these two poems. The
only difference is that in the first (“Winter evening by the forest”) a person comes
face to face with “naked” nature, and in the second (“Familiar with the night”) -
with the nature of the city. They are united by the time of day, the loneliness of the
lyrical hero , the mystery of the forest and the nightlife of the sleeping city.
All this supernatural naturalness of Frost's poem is preserved in a number of
his other small masterpieces. Each of them, like the poem “Come in!”, can be read
at different levels, but the understanding of the main thing will not change
depending on the degree of penetration into the riddle of its sound and meaning.
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Frost's creativity makes one feel that in an age when the complexity of
poetry, the freedom of verse, the dream of a fundamentally new language, various
experiments, shocking were declared self-sufficient, the poverty of poetry has
become the most difficult poetic task, "ideal and infinite simplicity" (B. Pasternak)
- - and barely distinguishable gold, from contact with which any ore shines, and
that standard, which, contrary to fashion, conjuncture, establishes a reliable
boundary between poems "well written" and "badly written."
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