INTRODUCTION

Sergey Yesenin - the most popular, most widely read poet in Russia.

The work of S. Yesenin belongs to the best pages of not only Russian, but also. world poetry, into which he entered as a subtle, soulful lyricist.

Yesenin's poetry is distinguished by the extraordinary strength of sincerity and spontaneity in the expression of feelings, the intensity of moral searches. His poems are always a frank conversation with the reader, listener. "It seems to me that I write my poems only for my good friends," the poet himself said.

At the same time, Yesenin is a deep and original thinker. Complex and contradictory is the world of feelings, thoughts and passions of the lyrical hero of his works - a contemporary of an unprecedented era of tragic breakdown in human relations. The poet himself also saw the contradictions of his work and explained them in this way: "I sang when my land was sick."

A faithful and ardent patriot of his homeland, S. Yesenin was a poet, vitally connected with his native land, with the people, with his poetic creativity.

THE THEME OF NATURE IN ESENIN'S WORKS

Nature is all-embracing, the main element of the poet's work, and the lyric hero is connected with it innately and for life:

I was born with songs in a grass blanket.

Spring dawns twisted me into a rainbow "

("Mother went to a swimsuit in the forest ...", 1912);

"May you be blessed forever,

that came to flourish and die "

("I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry ...", 1921).

The poetry of S. Yesenin (after N. Nekrasov and A. Blok) is the most significant stage in the formation of the national landscape, which, along with the traditional motives of sadness, desolation, poverty, includes surprisingly bright, contrasting colors, as if taken from popular popular prints:

"Blue sky, colored arc,

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My land! Beloved Russia and Mordovia! ";

"Swamp and swamps,

Blue circuit boards of heaven.

Coniferous gilding

Takes up the forest ";

"About Russia - crimson field

And the blue that fell into the river ... "

"blue sucks the eyes"; "smells like apple and honey"; "Oh, you, my Rus, my dear homeland, Sweet rest in the silk of the bulls"; "Links, links golden Russia ...".

This image of a bright and ringing Russia, with sweet smells, silky herbs, blue coolness, it was Yesenin who introduced into the consciousness of the people.

More often than any other poet, Yesenin uses the very concepts of "land", "Russia", "homeland" ("Russia", 1914; "Goy you, Russia, my dear ...", 1914; "Beloved land! dreaming ... ", 1914;" The hewn tracks sang ... ",<1916>; "Oh, I believe, I believe, there is happiness ...", 1917; "O land of rains and bad weather ...",<1917>).

Yesenin depicts celestial and atmospheric phenomena in a new way - more picturesquely, figuratively, using zoomorphic and anthropomorphic comparisons. So, his wind is not a cosmic one, emerging from the astral heights, as in Blok, but a living creature: "a red, affectionate colt", "youth", "schemnik", "thin-lipped", "dancing trepaka". Month - "foal", "raven", "calf", etc. Of the luminaries in the first place is the image of the moon-month, which is found in about every third work of Yesenin (in 41 of 127 - a very high coefficient; compare with the "star" Fet of 206 works, 29 include images of stars). At the same time, in the early verses until about 1920, the "month" prevails (18 out of 20), and in the later - the moon (16 out of 21). The month emphasizes, first of all, the external form, figure, silhouette, convenient for all kinds of object associations - "horse face", "lamb", "horn", "kolob", "boat"; the moon is, first of all, light and the mood it evokes - "thin lemon moonlight", "lunar glow, blue", "the moon laughed like a clown", "uncomfortable liquid moonlit". The moon is closer to folklore, it is a fairy-tale character, while the moon brings elegiac, romance motives.

Yesenin is the creator of a one-of-a-kind "woody novel", the lyrical hero of which is maple, and the heroines are birch and willow. Humanized images of trees are overgrown with "portrait" details: at the birch - "camp", "hips", "breasts", "leg", "hairdo", "hem", at the maple - "leg", "head" ("Maple you my fallen, icy maple ... ";" I am delirious in the first snow ... ";" My way ";" Green hairstyle ... ", etc.). Thanks to Yesenin, birch has become a national poetic symbol of Russia. Other favorite plants are linden, mountain ash, bird cherry.

More sympathetic and soulful than in previous poetry, the images of animals are revealed, which become independent subjects of tragically colored experiences and with which the lyric hero has a blood-related affinity, as with "smaller brothers" ("Song of the Dog", "Kachalov's Dog", "Fox", "Cow", "Son of a bitch", "I will not deceive myself ...", etc.).

Yesenin's landscape motifs are closely connected not only with the circulation of time in nature, but also with the age-related course of human life - the feeling of aging and withering, sadness about the past youth ("This sadness now cannot be scattered ...", 1924; "The golden grove dissuaded. .. ", 1924;" What a night! I can't ... ", 1925). Yesenin's favorite motive, renewed almost for the first time after E. Baratynsky, is separation from his stepfather's house and return to his "small homeland": images of nature are colored with a feeling of nostalgia, refracted in the prism of memories ("I left my home ...", 1918 ; "Confessions of a Hooligan", 1920; "This street is familiar to me ...",<1923>; "Low house with blue shutters ...",<1924>; "I am walking in the valley. On the back of the cap ...", 1925; "Anna Snegina", 1925).

For the first time with such acuteness - and again after Baratynsky - Yesenin posed the problem of painful interrelations between nature and a victorious civilization: "a steel chariot won over living horses"; "... squeezed the village by the neck // Stone hands of the highway"; "as in a straitjacket, we take nature into concrete" (Sorokoust, 1920; "I am the last poet of the village ...", 1920; "The mysterious world, my ancient world ...", 1921). However, in later verses, the poet, as it were, forces himself to love "stone and steel", to stop loving "the poverty of the fields" ("Uncomfortable liquid moon",<1925>).

A significant place in Yesenin's work is occupied by fantastic and space landscapes, sustained in the style of biblical prophecies, but acquiring a human-divine and theomachic meaning:

"Now on star peaks

I lift you up the earth! ";

"Then I will roar the wheels

Suns and moons like thunder ... ".

Yesenin's poetry of nature, expressing "love for all living things in the world and mercy" (M. Gorky), is also remarkable for the fact that for the first time consistently pursues the principle of assimilating nature to nature, revealing from the inside the wealth of its figurative possibilities: "The moon is like a gold frog // Spread on calm water ... "; "rye does not ring like a swan's neck"; "Curly lamb - month // Walks in the blue grass", etc.

FOLKLORE MOTIVES IN THE WORKS OF S. ESENIN

Love for the native peasant land, for the Russian village, for nature with its forests and fields permeates all of Yesenin's work. The image of Russia for the poet is inseparable from the element of the people; big cities with their factories, scientific and technological progress, social and cultural life do not evoke a response in Yesenin's soul. This, of course, does not mean that the poet was not at all worried about the problems of our time or that he looks at life through “rose-colored glasses”. He sees all the troubles of civilization in isolation from the earth, from the origins of the people's life. “Risen Rus” is a village Rus; attributes of life for Yesenin are "bread crumb", "shepherd's horn". It is no coincidence that the author so often turns to the form of folk songs, epics, ditties, riddles, spells.

It is significant that in Yesenin's poetry a person is an organic part of nature, he is dissolved in it, he is joyfully and recklessly ready to surrender to the power of the elements: “I would like to get lost in the greens of your hundred-ringers”, “the dawns of the spring twisted me into a rainbow.

Many images borrowed from Russian folklore begin to live their own lives in his poems. Natural phenomena appear in the images of animals, they bear the features of everyday village life. Such animation of nature makes his poetry related to the pagan attitude of the ancient Slavs. The poet compares autumn with a “red mare” who “scratches her mane”; his month is a sickle; describing such an ordinary phenomenon as the light of the sun, the poet writes - "sun oil is pouring on the green hills." The tree, one of the central symbols of pagan mythology, becomes the favorite image of his poetry.

Yesenin's poetry, even clothed in the traditional images of the Christian religion, does not cease to be pagan in its essence.

I'll go in a skufeika, light monk,

Steppe path to monasteries.

So the poem begins, and ends with the words:

With a smile of joyful happiness

I'm going to other shores

Having tasted the ethereal sacrament

Praying for heaps and haystacks.

Here it is, Yesenin's religion. Peasant labor, nature replace Christ for the poet:

I pray for the ala dawns,

I take communion by the stream.

If the Lord appears in his poem, it is most often as a metaphor for some natural phenomenon ("Shemnik-wind with a cautious step / Crumples the foliage along the road ledges, / And kisses on a mountain ash bush / Red ulcers to the invisible Christ") or in the image of a simple man:

The Lord was going to torture people in love.

He went out to be a beggar on a kulizh,

Old grandfather on a dry stump, in Dubrov,

He rubbed the stale donut with his gums.

The Lord came up, hiding sorrow and anguish:

Apparently, they say, you can't wake their hearts ...

And the old man said, stretching out his hand:

"Oh, chew ... you will be a little stronger."

If his heroes pray to God, then their requests are quite specific and have an emphatically earthly character:

We still pray, brothers, for faith,

For God to irrigate our fields.

And here are purely pagan images:

Calving sky

Licks a red heifer.

This is a metaphor for the harvest, bread, which are deified by the poet. Yesenin's world is a village, a human vocation is peasant labor. The peasant's pantheon - mother earth, cow, harvest. Even Yesenin's contemporary, poet and writer V. Khodasevich, said that Yesenin's Christianity is "not content, but form, and the use of Christian terminology approaches a literary device."

Turning to folklore, Yesenin understands that moving away from nature, from his roots, is tragic. He, as a truly Russian poet, believes in his prophetic mission, in the fact that his poems "fed with mignonette and mint" will help modern man return to the Kingdom of the ideal, which for Yesenin is "peasant paradise".

Images of animals and "woody motifs" in Yesenin's lyrics

"Woody motives" lyrics by S. Yesenin

Many poems of the early S. Yesenin are imbued with a sense of inextricable connection with the life of nature (" Mother in the Swimsuit …", "I do not regret, do not call, do not cry ... "). The poet constantly turns to nature when he expresses the most intimate thoughts about himself, about her past, present and future. In his poems she lives a rich poetic life. Like a person, she is born, grows and dies, sings and whispers, is sad and rejoices.

The image of nature is built on associations from rural peasant life, and the human world is usually revealed through associations with the life of nature.

Spiritualization, humanization of nature is characteristic of folk poetry. “Ancient man almost did not know inanimate objects,” notes A. Afanasiev, “everywhere he found reason, feeling and will. In the noise of the forests, in the rustle of leaves, he could hear those mysterious conversations between the trees ”.

From childhood, the poet absorbed this folk worldview, we can say that it formed his poetic individuality.

“Everything from the tree is the religion of thought of our people ... The tree is life. Wiping their face on a canvas depicting a tree, our people silently say that they have not forgotten the secret of the ancient fathers to dry themselves with foliage, that they remember themselves with the seed of a transcendental tree and, running under the cover of its branches, dipping their face in a towel, they seem to want print on his cheeks at least a small branch of it, so that, like a tree, he could shower off the cones of words and thoughts and pour shadow-virtue from the branches of his hands, ”wrote S. Yesenin in his poetical and philosophical treatise“ The Keys of Mary ”.

For Yesenin, the likeness of man to a tree is more than a "religion of thought": he did not just believe in the existence of a nodal link between man and the natural world, he himself felt part of this nature.

Yesenin's motive of the “woody romance”, highlighted by M. Epstein, goes back to the traditional motive of assimilating man to nature. Based on the traditional trail "man-plant", Yesenin creates a "woody novel", the heroes of which are maple, birch and willow.

Humanized images of trees are overgrown with "portrait" details: at the birch - "camp, hips, breasts, leg, hairdo, hem, braids", at the maple - "leg, head".

I just want to close my hands

Above the woody thighs of the willows.

("I am raving on the first snow ...", 1917),

Green hairstyle,

Girlish breasts

Oh thin birch,

What looked into the pond?

("Green Hairstyle.", 1918)

I will not be back soon, not soon!

For a long time to sing and ring the blizzard.

Guarding blue Russia

An old maple tree on one leg.

("I left my home ...", 1918)

According to M. Epshtein, “thanks to Yesenin, birch has become a national poetic symbol of Russia. Other favorite plants are linden, mountain ash, bird cherry ”.

The most extended plot, the most significant in Yesenin's poetry are still birch and maple.

Birch in Russian folk and classical poetry is the national symbol of Russia. This is one of the most revered trees among the Slavs. In ancient pagan rituals, birch often served as a "maypole", a symbol of spring.

Yesenin, when describing the folk spring holidays, mentions birch in the meaning of this symbol in the poems "Trinity morning ..." (1914) and "Reeds rustled over the backwater ..." (1914)

Trinity morning, morning canon,

In the grove, along the birch trees, a white chime.

The poem "The reeds rustled over the backwater" is about an important and fascinating action of the Semytsia - Trinity week - fortune telling on wreaths.

The red maiden guessed at seven.

The wave untied a wreath of dodders.

The girls made wreaths and threw them into the river. By a wreath that sailed far away, washed ashore, stopped or drowned, they judged the fate that awaited them (distant or near marriage, girlhood, death of the betrothed).

Ah, don't marry a girl in the spring,

He frightened her with signs of the forest.

The joyful meeting of spring is overshadowed by a presentiment of the approaching death "the bark has been eaten on the birch tree." A tree without bark dies, but here the association "birch-girl". The motive of unhappiness is enhanced by the use of such images as "mice", "spruce", "shroud".

In the poem "Green Hair". (1918) humanization of the appearance of birch in Yesenin's work reaches full development. The birch becomes like a woman.

Green hairstyle,

Girlish breasts

Oh thin birch,

What looked into the pond?

The reader will never know who this poem is about - about a birch tree or about a girl. Because a man here is likened to a tree, and a tree to a man.

In such poems as "I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry ..." (1921) and "The golden grove dissuaded ..." (1924), the lyric hero reflects on his life, on youth:

I do not regret, do not call, do not cry,

Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.

Fading gold covered,

I won't be young anymore.

... And the land of birch chintz

Will not lure you to wander around barefoot.

"Apple-tree smoke" - the blossoming of trees in spring, when everything around is reborn to a new life. "Apple tree", "apples" - in folk poetry it is a symbol of youth - "rejuvenating apples", and "smoke" - a symbol of fragility, transience, illusion. In combination, they mean the fleetingness of happiness, youth. Birch also adjoins the same meaning - a symbol of spring. "The country of birch chintz" is the "country" of childhood, the time of the most beautiful. No wonder Yesenin writes "hanging around barefoot", one can draw a parallel with the expression "barefoot childhood."

All of us, all of us in this world are perishable,

Copper is quietly pouring from the maple leaves ...

May you be blessed forever

That came to flourish and die.

Before us is a symbol of the transience of human life. The symbol is based on the trope: "life is the time of flowering", withering is the approach of death. In nature, everything inevitably returns, repeats itself and blooms again. Man, unlike nature, is one-time, and his cycle, coinciding with the natural one, is already unique.

The theme of the Motherland is closely intertwined with the image of a birch. Each Yesenin line is warmed by a feeling of boundless love for Russia. The strength of the poet's lyrics lies in the fact that in it the feeling of love for the Motherland is expressed not in an abstract way, but specifically, in visible images, through pictures of the native landscape.

This can be seen in poems such as "White Birch". (1913), "Homecoming" (1924), "Uncomfortable liquid moon" (1925).

Maple, unlike other trees, it does not have such a definite, formed figurative core in Russian poetry. In folk traditions associated with ancient pagan rituals, he did not play a significant role. Poetic views on him in Russian classical literature are mainly formed in the 20th century and therefore have not yet acquired a clear outline.

The image of the maple is most formed in the poetry of S. Yesenin, where he appears as a kind of lyrical hero of the "wood novel". Maple is a bold, slightly fluffy guy, with an exuberant shock of unkempt hair, as he has a round crown, similar to a head of hair or a hat. Hence the motive of assimilation, the primary similarity from which the image of the lyrical hero developed.

Because that old maple

The head looks like me.

("I left my home ...", 1918)

In the poem "Son of a bitch" (1824), the lyric hero is sad about the bygone youth, which "has gone out of noise"

Like a rotten maple tree under the windows.

In folk poetry, a rotten or withered tree is a symbol of grief, the loss of something dear that cannot be returned.

The hero recalls his youthful love. The symbol of love here is the viburnum, with its "bitter" semantics, it is also combined with the "yellow pond". Yellow in the superstitions of the people is a symbol of separation, grief. Therefore, we can say that parting with his beloved girl was already predetermined by fate itself.

Maple or sycamore in the ethnological legends of the Slavs is a tree into which a person is turned ("sworn"). S. Yesenin also anthropomorphizes the maple, he appears as a person with all the mental states and periods of life inherent in him. In the poem "My fallen maple ..." (1925), the lyrical hero is like a maple in his foolishness, he draws a parallel between himself and the maple:

And, like a drunken watchman, going out on the road,

He drowned in a snowdrift, froze his leg.

Oh, and I myself have become unstable today,

I won't make it home from a friendly drinking binge.

It is not even always clear who the poem is about - a man or a tree.

There I met a willow, there I noticed a pine tree,

I sang them songs under the snowstorm about summer.

I seemed to myself the same maple ...

Reminding a maple with its "carefree - curly head" poplar at the same time aristocratic "slender and straight". This harmony, striving upward is hallmark poplars, right down to the poetry of our days.

In the poem "Village" (1914), S. Yesenin compares poplar leaves with silk:

In the silk leaves of the poplar.

This comparison was made possible by the fact that poplar leaves have a double structure: outside the leaves are brilliant green, as if polished, on the inside they are matt silver. Silk fabric also has a double color: the right side is shiny, smooth, and the left is matte and expressionless. When silk shimmers, the shades of color can change, and poplar leaves shimmer with a greenish-silver color in the wind.

Poplars grow along the roads and therefore are sometimes associated with barefoot wanderers. This theme of wandering is reflected in the poem "Without a hat, with a bast knapsack ..." (1916).

The lyrical hero - the wanderer "wanders" "under the quiet rustle of poplars." Here the wanderer-man and the wanderer-tree have something in common, complement each other to achieve greater subtlety in revealing the topic.

In Yesenin's works, poplar is also a sign of the Motherland, like a birch.

Saying goodbye to home, leaving for foreign lands, the hero is sad that

They won't be winged foliage

Poplars are ringing above me.

("Yes! Now it's decided ...", 1922)

Willow called "weeping". The willow image is more unambiguous and has the semantics of melancholy.

In Russian folk poetry, the willow is a symbol not only of love, but also of all separation, grief of mothers parting with their sons.

In the poetry of S. Yesenin, the image of a willow is traditionally associated with sadness, loneliness, and separation. This sadness for the past youth, for the loss of a loved one, from parting with the homeland.

For example, in the poem "The weight and the field, and the cry of the roosters ..." (1917)

Everything is the same here as it was then,

The same rivers and the same herds.

Only willows above the red hillock

Shaking the ramshackle hem.

"Dilapidated hem of willows" - the past, the old time, something that is very expensive, but that will never return. Destroyed, warped life of the people, the country.

Aspen is also mentioned in the same poem. She emphasizes bitterness, loneliness, since in folk poetry it is always a symbol of sadness.

In other poems, the willow, like the birch, is a heroine, a girl.

And they call the rosary

Willows are meek nuns.

("Beloved Land ...", 1914)

I just want to close my hands

Above the woody thighs of the willows.

("I'm on the first snow delirious ...", 1917)

The lyrical hero, remembering his youth, sad about her, also turns to the image of a willow.

And knocked on my window

September with a crimson branch of a willow

So that I was ready and met

His arrival is unpretentious.

("Let you be drunk by others ..." 1923)

September is autumn, and the fall of life is the imminent arrival of winter - old age. The hero meets this "age of autumn" calmly, albeit with a little sadness about "mischievous and rebellious courage", because by this time he had acquired life experience and he looks at the world around him from the height of his past years.

Everything that distinguishes the tree from other forms of vegetation (the strength of the trunk, the mighty crown), distinguishes oak among other trees, making it like the king of the tree kingdom. He personifies the highest degree firmness, courage, strength, greatness.

Tall, mighty, blooming are characteristic epithets of an oak, which poets have as an image of vital power.

In the poetry of S. Yesenin, the oak is not such a constant hero as birch and maple. Oak is mentioned in only three poems ("Heroic whistle", 1914; "Oktoikh" 1917; "Inexpressible, blue, gentle ..." 1925)

In the poem "Octoechos" the Mauritian oak is mentioned. Yesenin later explained the meaning of this image in his treatise "The Keys of Mary" (1918)

"... that symbolic tree, which means" family ", it does not matter at all that in Judea this tree bore the name of the Mauritian oak ..."

Under the Mauritian oak

My red-haired grandfather is sitting ...

The introduction of the image of the Mauritian oak into this poem is not accidental, since it speaks of the homeland:

Oh homeland, happy

And not the starting hour!

about relatives -

"my ginger grandfather".

This oak, as it were, summarizes everything that the poet wanted to write about in this work, that the family is the most important thing that a person can have.

The image of the "family" is given here in a broader sense: it is the "fatherland", and "native graves", and the "father's house", that is, everything that connects a person to this land.

In the poem "Heroic Whistle" Yesenin introduces the image of an oak tree to show the power and strength of Russia and its people. This work can be put on a par with Russian epics about heroes. Ilya Muromets and other heroes, jokingly, playfully felling oaks. In this poem the man also "whistles", and from his whistle

the century-old oaks trembled,

Leaves fall on the oaks from the whistle.

Coniferous trees convey a different mood and carry a different meaning than deciduous ones: not joy and sadness, not various emotional impulses, but rather a mysterious silence, numbness, immersion in oneself.

Pines and spruces are part of a gloomy, austere landscape, with wilderness, dusk, and silence reigning around them. Irreplaceable greenery evokes associations of conifers with eternal peace, deep sleep, over which time has no power, and the cycle of nature.

These trees are mentioned in such poems of 1914 as "The winds do not shower the forest ...", "The melted clay dries up", "I feel God's rainbow ...", "Us", "The cloud has knitted lace in the grove." (1915).

In Yesenin's poem "Porosha" (1914), the main character, a pine, acts as an "old woman":

Like a white kerchief

Pine tied up.

Bent down like an old woman

Leaned on a stick ...

The forest where the heroine lives, fabulous, magical, is also alive, like her.

Bewitched by invisibility

The forest slumbers under the fairy tale of sleep ...

We meet another fabulous, magical forest in the poem "The Witch" (1915). But this forest is no longer light, joyful, but, on the contrary, formidable ("The grove threatens with spruce peaks"), gloomy, stern.

Spruces and pines here personify an evil, malevolent space, an unclean force living in this wilderness. The landscape is painted in dark colors:

The dark night is silently frightened

The moon is closing with shawls of clouds.

The wind is a songwriter with a howl of a whoop ...

Having examined the poems where the images of trees are encountered, we see that the poems of S. Yesenin are imbued with a feeling of an inextricable connection with the life of nature. It is inseparable from a person, from his thoughts and feelings. The image of a tree in Yesenin's poetry appears in the same meaning as in folk poetry. The author's motive of the "tree romance" goes back to the traditional motive of assimilating man to nature, and is based on the traditional trope "man - plant".

Drawing nature, the poet introduces into the story a description of human life, holidays that are somehow associated with animals and flora... Yesenin, as it were, intertwines these two worlds, creates one harmonious and interpenetrating world. He often resorts to impersonation. Nature is not a frozen landscape background: it reacts hotly to the fate of people, the events of history. She is the poet's favorite hero.

Images of animals in the lyrics of S. Yesenin.

The images of animals in literature are a kind of mirror of humanistic self-awareness. Just as self-determination of a person is impossible outside of its relationship to another person, so self-determination of the entire human race cannot be accomplished outside of its relationship to the animal kingdom. "

The cult of animals has existed for a very long time. In a distant era, when the main occupation of the Slavs was hunting, not agriculture, they believed that wild animals and humans had common ancestors. Each tribe had its own totem, that is, a sacred animal that the tribe worshiped, believing that it was precisely this animal that was their blood relative.

In the literature of different times, images of animals have always been present. They served as material for the emergence of the Aesopian language in animal tales, and later in fables. In the literature of "new time", in the epic and in the lyrics, animals acquire equality with humans, becoming the object or subject of the story. Often a person is "tested for humanity" by his attitude to an animal.

In the poetry of the 19th century, the images of domestic and household animals, tamed by man, predominate, separating his life and work. After Pushkin, the genre of genre became predominant in animalistic poetry. All living things are placed in the framework of a household inventory or a household yard (Pushkin, Nekrasov, Fet). Images of wild animals (Bunin, Gumilev, Mayakovsky) became widespread in the poetry of the 20th century. The admiration for the beast disappeared. But the "new peasant poets" reintroduce the motive of "the brotherhood of man and animal." Domestic animals predominate in their poetry - a cow, a horse, a dog, a cat. Relationships reveal the features of the family structure.

In the poetry of Sergei Yesenin there is also a motive of "consanguinity" with the animal world, he calls them "smaller brothers".

Happy that I kissed women

Crumpled flowers, rolled on the grass

And the beast, like our smaller brothers

Never hit on the head.

("We are now leaving a little"., 1924)

Along with pets, we find images of representatives of the wild. Of the 339 considered poems, 123 mention animals, birds, insects, fish.

Horse (13), cow (8), raven, dog, nightingale (6), calves, cat, pigeon, crane (5), sheep, mare, dog (4), foal, swan, rooster, owl (3), sparrow, wolf, wood grouse, cuckoo, horse, frog, fox, mouse, tit (2), stork, ram, butterfly, camel, rook, goose, gorilla, toad, snake, oriole, sandpiper, chickens, corncrake, donkey, parrot , magpies, catfish, pig, cockroaches, lapwing, bumblebee, pike, lamb (1).

S. Yesenin most often refers to the image of a horse, a cow. He introduces these animals into the story of the peasant life as an integral part of the life of the Russian peasant. Since ancient times, a horse, a cow, a dog and a cat accompanied a person in his difficult work, shared with him both joys and troubles.

The horse was an assistant when working in the field, in transporting goods, in military combat. The dog brought prey, guarded the house. The cow was the drinker and the breadwinner in a peasant family, and the cat caught mice and simply personified home comfort.

The image of a horse, as an integral part of everyday life, is found in the poems "The Herd" (1915), "Farewell, dear Pushcha ..." (1916), "This sadness can not be scattered now ..." (1924). Pictures of village life change in connection with the events taking place in the country. And if in the first poem we see "in the hills green herds of horses ", then in the following already:

The mowed hut

Crying sheep, and away in the wind

A horse waving its skinny tail

Looking into an unkind pond.

("This sadness can not be scattered now ...", 1924)

The village fell into decay and the proud and majestic horse "turned" into a "horse", which personifies the plight of the peasantry in those years.

The innovation and originality of S. Yesenin - the poet manifested itself in the fact that when drawing or mentioning animals in everyday space (field, river, village, yard, house, etc.), he is not an animalist, that is, he does not set the goal of recreating the image of one or another animal. Animals, being a part of the everyday space and environment, appear in his poetry as a source and means of artistic and philosophical understanding of the surrounding world, allow to reveal the content of a person's spiritual life.

In the poem "The Cow" (1915) S. Yesenin uses the principle of anthropomorphism, endowing the animal with human thoughts and feelings. The author describes a specific household and life situation - old age of the animal

decrepit, teeth fell out,

scroll of years on the horns ...

and his further fate, "soon ... they will tie a noose around her neck // and lead to slaughter " , he identifies the old animal and the old man.

Thinks a sad thought ...

If we turn to those works in which the image of a dog is encountered, for example, in the poem "Song of the Dog" (1915). "Song" (emphasized "high" genre) is a kind of hymnography made possible due to the fact that the subject of "chanting" is the sacred feeling of motherhood, which is inherent in a dog to the same extent as a woman - a mother. The animal worries about the death of its cubs, which the "gloomy master" drowned in the hole.

Introducing the image of a dog into poems, the poet writes about the long-standing friendship of this beast with a person. The lyrical hero of S. Yesenin is also a peasant by origin, and in childhood and adolescence - a villager. Loving fellow villagers, at the same time, in his inner essence, he is completely different from them. This is most clearly manifested in relation to animals. His affection and love for "sisters - bitches" and "brothers - dogs" are feelings for equals. This is why the dog "was my youth friend".

The poem "Son of a bitch" reflects the tragedy of the consciousness of the lyrical hero, which arises from the fact that in the world of wildlife and animals everything looks unchanged:

That dog died long ago

But in the same color as with an ebb in blue,

With a barking livisto - crazy

Her young son met me.

It seems that the "son" genetically took from his mother the love for the lyric hero. However, the lyrical hero next to this dog feels especially keenly how he has changed externally and internally. For him, returning to himself young is possible only at the level of feeling and for a moment.

With this pain I feel like I'm younger

And at least write notes again .

At the same time, the irreversibility of what has passed is realized.

Another animal that "accompanies" a person through life for a very long time is a cat. She embodies the comfort of home, a warm hearth.

The old cat sneaks up to the mahot

For fresh milk.

("In the hut.", 1914)

In this poem, we also meet with other representatives of the animal world, who are also an invariable "attribute" of the peasant hut. These are cockroaches, chickens, roosters.

Having considered the everyday meanings of animal images, we turn to their symbolic meanings. The symbols that animals are endowed with are very widespread in folklore and classical poetry. Each poet has its own symbolism, but basically they all rely on the folk basis of one image or another. Yesenin also uses folk beliefs about animals, but at the same time, many images of animals are reinterpreted by him and gain new significance. Let's go back to the image of the horse.

A horse in Slavic mythology is one of the sacred animals, an attribute of the gods, but at the same time it is also a chthonic creature associated with fertility and death, the afterlife, a guide to the "next world." The horse was endowed with the ability to portend fate, above all death. A. N. Afanasyev explains the meaning of the horse in the mythology of the ancient Slavs: "As the personification of gusty winds, storms and flying clouds, fabulous horses are endowed with wings, which makes them related to mythological birds ... fiery, fire-breathing ... the horse serves as a poetic image of a radiant sun, then clouds shining with lightning ... ".

In the poem "Dove" (1916), the horse appears in the form of a "quiet fate". Nothing foreshadows change and the lyrical hero lives a quiet, measured life, his everyday worries from day to day, just like his ancestors lived.

The day will go out, flashing a shock of gold,

And the work will settle down in a box of years.

But in the history of the country, the revolutionary events of 1917 take place, and the hero's soul becomes anxious about the fate of Russia, his land. He understands that now a lot will change in his life. The lyrical hero recalls with sadness his strong, well-established life, which is now broken.

... He took my horse away ...

My horse is my strength and strength.

He knows that now his future depends on the future of his homeland, he is trying to escape from the events that are taking place.

... he fights, rushes,

Pulling a tight lasso ...

("Open for me the transcendental guardian"., 1918),

but he does not succeed, it remains only to submit to fate. In this work, we observe poetic parallelism between the "behavior" of the horse and its fate and the state of mind of the lyric hero in the "life torn apart by the storm".

In the 1920 poem "Sorokoust" Yesenin introduces the image of a horse as a symbol of the old patriarchal village, which has not yet realized the transition to a new life. The image of this "past", which is trying with all its might to fight against changes, is the foal, which appears as a component of the overall symbolic situation of "competition" between the "cast-iron horse-train" and the "red-maned foal".

Darling, darling, funny fool

Where is he, where is he chasing?

Doesn't he know that there are live horses

Steel cavalry won?

The village's struggle for survival is lost, and more and more preference is given to the city.

In other works, the horse becomes a symbol of past youth, a symbol of the fact that a person cannot be returned, this remains only in memories.

Now I have become stingier in desires,

My life? Or did you dream about me?

As if I am echoing in spring

Ride on a pink horse.

("I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry ...", 1921)

"I rode on a pink horse" is a symbol of the quickly gone, irrevocable youth. Thanks to additional symbolism, colors appear as " pink horse"- a symbol of sunrise, spring, joy of life. But a real peasant horse at dawn turns pink in the rays of the rising sun. The essence of this poem is a song of thanks, blessings of all living things. The horse in the poem" Oh you, sleigh ... "( 1924 g.)

It's all gone. Thinning my hair.

The horse is dead.

Remembering his youth, the lyrical hero also turns to the image of a dog.

I remembered a dog today,

What was my youth friend

("Son of a bitch". 1924)

In this poem, the poet recalls his youth, his first love, which is gone, but lives in memories. However, the old love is replaced by a new one, the older generation is replaced by the young, that is, nothing in this life comes back, but the life cycle is at the same time continuous.

That dog died long ago

But in the same suit that with an ebb in blue ...

I was met by her young son .

If we turn to other representatives of the animal world, for example, crows, we will see that they have the same symbolism in Yesenin as in folk poetry.

The black crows cawed:

There is a wide open space for terrible troubles.

("Rus"., 1914)

In this poem, the raven is the herald of an impending disaster, namely the war of 1914. The poet introduces the image of this bird not only as a national symbol of misfortune, but also in order to show his negative attitude to the events taking place, worries about the fate of the Motherland.

Many poets use various types of hyphenation to create images, including metaphor. In poetry, metaphor is used primarily in a secondary function for it, introducing attributive and evaluative values \u200b\u200binto nominal positions. Poetic speech is characterized by a binary metaphor (metaphor - comparison). Through the image, the metaphor connects language and myth with the corresponding way of thinking - mythological. Poets create their own epithets, metaphors, similes and images. The metaphorization of images is a feature of the poet's artistic style. S. Yesenin also turns to the help of metaphors in his poems. He creates them according to the folklore principle: he takes material for the image from the rural world and from the natural world and seeks to characterize one noun by another.

For example, here is the image of the moon:

"The moon is like a yellow bear, tossing and turning in the wet grass."

In a peculiar way, Yesenin's motive of nature is supplemented with images of animals. Most often, the names of animals are given in comparisons, in which objects and phenomena are compared with animals, often not related to them in reality, but united according to some associative feature that serves as the basis for its isolation. ( "Like skeletons of skinny cranes, // Plucked willows stand ..."; "Blue twilight, like a flock of sheep ...").

By color similarity:

Across the pond as a red swan

A quiet sunset is floating.

("This is stupid happiness ...", 1918) ;

by proximity and similarity of functions:

Miles whistle like birds

From under the horse's hooves ...

("About arable land, arable land, arable land ...", 1917-1918) ;

by some associative, sometimes subjectively distinguished feature:

I was like a horse driven in soap

Spurred by a bold rider.

("Letter to a Woman"., 1924)

Sometimes the poet also uses the form of parallelism, characteristic of Russian folk poetry - songs, including the negative one:

Not the cuckoos are sad - Tanya's relatives are crying.

("Tanyusha was good ...", 1911)

In the works of S. Yesenin, an animalistic (depiction of animals) comparison or a zoomorphic metaphor often develops into an expanded image:

Autumn - red mare - scratches her mane.

("Autumn"., 1914 - 1916)

The reddish color of autumn leaves is associated with "red mare". But autumn is not only a "red mare" (similarity in color), she "scratches her mane": the image is revealed through comparison with an animal visibly, in colors, sounds, movements. The step of autumn is compared to that of a horse.

Comparisons of natural phenomena with animals appear: month - " curly lamb "," foal ", " golden frog ", Spring - " squirrel", clouds - " wolves. " Objects are equated to animals and birds, for example, a mill - "log bird" , oven - "brick camel ". On the basis of complex associative comparisons, natural phenomena have organs characteristic of animals and birds (paws, muzzles, snouts, claws, beaks):

Cleans a month in a thatched roof

Horns encased in blue.

("The red wings of sunset are fading.", 1916)

Waves of white claws

The golden sand is scraped.

("Heavenly Drummer.", 1918)

Maple and linden trees in the windows of rooms

Throwing branches with paws,

They are looking for those they remember.

("Darling, let's sit next to you.", 1923)

The colors of animals also acquire a purely symbolic meaning: "red horse" is a symbol of revolution, "pink horse" is an image of youth, "black horse" is a harbinger of death.

Figurative embodiment, a clear metaphor, a sensitive perception of folklore lie at the heart of Sergei Yesenin's artistic research. The metaphorical use of animalistic vocabulary in original comparisons creates the originality of the poet's style.

Having examined the images of animals in the poetry of S. Yesenin, we can conclude that the poet solves the problem of using animalism in his works in different ways.

In one case, he turns to them in order to show with their help some historical events, personal emotional experiences. In others - in order to more accurately, deeper convey the beauty of nature, native land.

List of references:

1. Koshechkin S. P. "A spring echoing wound ..." - M., 1984.

2. Marchenko A. M. Yesenin's poetic world. - M., 1972.

3. Prokushen Yu. L. Sergei Yesenin "Image, poetry, era. - M., 1979.

S. Yesenin is one of the most best poetswho get their inspiration from nature. He not only writes poetry, he creates them under the impression of the unprecedented beauty of the Russian landscape. For Yesenin, the whole world around him is something more than nature. He treats everything as if he were a living being, raising her to the very heavens. He has a special gift, he knows how to see what is not available to the eyes of others.

In the flowers of love spring-princess
I unraveled my braids along the grove
And with the choir of the bird prayer
Sing to her the anthem of the bell.

Drunk under the spell of fun
She, like smoke, glides in the woods,
And a gold necklace
Glitters in shaggy hair.

And after her a drunken mermaid
Dew splashes on the moon.
And I, like a passionate violet,
I want to love, love the spring.

Love for nature is most likely connected with the fact that Yesenin constantly recalled his native village. With trepidation in his soul he recalled his carefree times, about his native land. In the poem "Chara" he shows his unusual ability - the inspiration of objects. The first thought that comes to mind is comparing spring with a beautiful and sweet girl. But there is something more at the core, spring is a lovely creature that ordinary people are not destined to reach. “I want to love, love spring,” he exclaims. Love a poet, love spring, love strongly and godlessly, so that she constantly feels strong and reliable love.

His poems are collected from small particles that merge into one picture - unusual and exotic. The spring princess with long and shiny hair, the little mermaid is a sorceress, this is how the poet represents our impeccable world.

Whatever topic Yesenin wrote poems, almost all of them are associated with nature. Each verse contains at least one line dedicated to the beauty of nature. He is simply in love with nature itself. S. Yesenin is a great poet, a subtle and sensual person. His poems make you think about miracles, about something beautiful, inspiring. Even the shortest verses take you into the world of mystery, helping to see the world with new eyes.

The theme of native nature in the lyrics of S. Yesenin

He said that his lyrics live one big and pure love, love for the homeland. He did not share the concept of his native land and Russia - for him they were one. He called Russia "the country of birch chintz". He was Sergei Yesenin.

One of the favorite and main themes of S. Yesenin's lyrics is the theme of nature. The images of the Russian land are present in almost all of his works. So, the poem "Goy, you, Russia, my dear ..." tells about the poet's ineffable love for Russia. Already at the beginning of the work, in the first line, the poet calls it "native", and then creates an image of fabulous and righteous Russia, in which "huts are in the vestments of the image", and in churches - "the meek Savior," that is, the celebration of the Orthodox Savior.

The concept of homeland for Yesenin is assembled from many words, among which the most significant are "people", "faith" and "nature". How not to admire the tenderness and care with which the images of landscapes close to the poet's heart are created in this poem. This is a crumpled stitch, that is, a path, a path with crumpled grass, along which the lyrical hero will run, and an expanse of "green lechs" - that is, to where there are "laps", the edges of a plowed field, field stripes. Finally, this is the endless Russian expanse, "end and edge" which "can not be seen."

Special attention should be paid to the artistic and graphic means, with the help of which the author managed to create such a piercing image of his native land. These are epithets ("green lehi", "meek Savior"), and comparisons ("like earrings, maiden laughter will ring out", "like a visiting pilgrim"), and metaphors ("huts - in the robes of the image"). The author also refers to color painting. A single picture of the native land turns out to be woven from the blue of the heavens, correlated by the great lyricist with the entire Russian land, and the greenery of the field, and the gold that shines through both the foliage of poplars anticipating autumn, which "wither away ringingly", and in the guessed gold of fresh honey, which will be carried to church on honey spas.

This poem once again proves to us that Yesenin's homeland and nature are inseparable, and he will never renounce his dear land.

The image of native nature can also be found in the famous poem of the poet "Shagane, you are mine, Shagane ...". This work is imbued with admiration, with which the poet speaks of the motherland. Wanting to show the eastern girl Shagane how beautiful his homeland is, the poet finds the most accurate definitions to describe his native land:

Shagane, you are mine, Shagane!

Because I'm from the north or something

I'm ready to tell you, field,

About wavy rye in the moonlight.

The poet contrasts oriental landscapes with Russians:

No matter how beautiful Shiraz is,

It is no better than Ryazan's expanse ...

"Ryazan expanses" is that part of the immense blue Russia, which gave rise to Yesenin's feeling of homeland. After all, it was Konstantinovo, where Sergei Yesenin grew up, that played a huge role in the formation of the poet's work. Ryazan nature is especially dear to the poet's heart. It is the description of the landscapes of the Ryazan province that gives originality to such a masterpiece of Yesenin's lyrics as the poem "I left my dear home ...". The work is filled with precise epithets ("blue Russia", "golden frog"), metaphors ("the moon with a golden frog // Spread out"), comparisons ("Like an apple blossom, gray hair // ... spilled"), with the help of which the author creates an image of relatives places.

For Yesenin, the "shrine" is not only nature, but also the peasant world, inseparable from the image of his native land. Therefore, the images of his parents appear as if part of a landscape dear to his heart: "Three-star birch forest over the pond // Warms the old mother's sadness ...", "like apple blossom, gray hair // Spilled in his father's beard."

The hero is saddened that he will not return home soon, but, comparing himself to an old maple, hopes that the village will retain its former features and will not lose its patriarchal foundations.

Having analyzed only some of the poems of Sergei Yesenin, we can conclude that the poet infinitely loved his homeland and his native nature with the purest and most tender love.

Grade 9 student

MAOU SOSH №7

them. G.K. Zhukov, Armavir

Timoshinova Ekaterina

Probably, every person who was born in Russia, the feeling and perception of nature has always been as quivering as, perhaps, no one else in the world. Spring, summer, autumn and especially the Russian "winter winter", as our simple, but great Russian people used to say lovingly about it, took and take for a living soul, forcing them to experience deep feelings, similar to exciting love experiences.

And how not to love all the beauty and charm that surrounds us: white snow, fresh greenery of vast forests and meadows, the dark depth of lakes and rivers, the red gold of falling leaves, which from childhood delight the eye with their multicolor, overflowing with seething emotions the excited heart of any person, especially poet. Such as the wonderful poet Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin, who in his soulful lyrics left a special place for the sometimes harsh, but always beautiful Russian mother nature.

Born in the village of Konstantinovo, in the center of Russia, Yesenin saw and contemplated around him such indescribable beauty and charm that can only be found in his homeland, whose immensely wide expanses, whose solemn grandeur was inspired already in childhood by those thoughts and reflections that he conveyed to us later in his inspirational and moving lyrics.

The village of Konstantinovo, native Ryazan region - these places awakened in Sergei Yesenin awe and poetic passion for creativity. It was the native north that was the most inspiring for the poet. I think that only there, only in the north of Russia, with his special, strong, but gentle spirit, could one feel the same feelings that Yesenin experienced, giving birth to these magical lines on one of the long winter evenings:

I'm going. Quiet. Ringing is heard
Under a hoof in the snow
Hooded crows only
They made some noise in the meadow.

This is not an ordinary Coach Romance. It lacks both the driver and the rider; they are replaced by the poet himself. The trip does not evoke any associations in him, he does without the usual road sadness. Everything is extremely simple, as if written off from nature:

Bewitched by invisibility
The forest slumbers under the fairy tale of a dream
Like a white kerchief
Pine tied up.

In the simplicity of these lines, in the naturalness of the syllable, lie the true genius and skill, expressed by the poet with the help of the mighty Russian language. This skill makes you imagine so vividly a blizzard, a winter forest, and the ringing of hooves on a snowy crust that you no longer need to see the real picture: the imagination, set free, will immediately finish the picture of a winter forest. Well, how can we not remember Surikov, Shishkin, Savrasov!

Both the artist's brush, and the Yesenin pen, vividly and vividly brought out on white sheets of paper those wonderful pictures that did not have to go far from home to Spain, France, Germany or anywhere else: they were right here - in the forests of the Ryazan region, in the white nights of Petersburg, in the autumn gilded Konstantinov. Wherever the poet glanced, everywhere waves of creative inspiration rolled over him, sometimes permeated with sadness and quiet longing, like nature itself:

You are my abandoned land
You are my land, wasteland,
Haymaking unmown
Forest and monastery.

When you read Yesenin's poems about nature, all the fullness of the power of the great and mighty Russian word falls on your consciousness, forcing it to appeal to genuine life images, perhaps never really seen yet, but so surprisingly real.

Goy you, my dear Russia,
Huts - in the vestments of the image ...
See no end and no end
Only the blue sucks the eyes.

Only the words of such a magnificent master like Sergei Yesenin can create images that cannot be seen otherwise than with your own eyes. And strength and inspiration, which can rarely be found even in the smell, sounds, color of the life around us, but captured on paper, and whip from every Yesenin line - like in the passage below:

How birds whistle miles
From under the horse's hooves.
And the sun sprinkles a handful
Its rain on me.

These short lines fit, without losing their fullness, an amazing image of a wide steppe road, free wind and a bright sunny day. Others will not have enough words to accurately, vividly and aptly display the attractive view of a Russian country road that unwittingly appears before us.

You read - and you enjoy the simplicity of the poetic skill of Sergei Yesenin, who is not without reason put in one of the first places among the great Russian poets.

Yesenin claimed to be "the last poet of the village" in Russia. In his poems, the small details of village life are lovingly written:

Smells like loose fighters;
There is kvass at the doorstep,
Above the chiseled stoves
Cockroaches climb into the groove.

Every phrase is an artistic detail. And we feel: every detail evokes the poet's tenderness, all this is dear to him. He often resorts to impersonation. His bird cherry “sleeps in a white cape”, willows “cry”, poplars “whisper”, “a cloud has knitted lace in the grove”.

Sergei Yesenin's nature is multicolored and colorful. The poet's favorite colors are blue and blue. These color tones enhance the feeling of the immensity of the blue expanses of Russia (“blue that has fallen into the river,” “only blue sucks the eyes,” “on a heavenly blue dish”).

Sergei Yesenin's description of nature correlates with the expression of the poet's moods. No matter how closely connected his name with the idea of \u200b\u200bpoetic paintings of Russian nature, his lyrics are not landscape in the appropriate sense of the word. Maple, bird cherry, autumn in the poet's verses are not just signs of native Russian nature, they are a chain of metaphors with which the poet talks about himself, his moods, and his fate. The poetry of Sergei Yesenin teaches us to see, feel, love, that is, live.

At the beginning of the 20th century, an amazing poet came to Russian literature, for whom the theme of nature became the main theme of creativity - Yesenin. It is often said that Yesenin, when depicting nature, resorted to the method of personification - this is fundamentally wrong. The peculiarity of Yesenin's approach to nature consisted in the fact that animating nature in his poems, assimilating it to a man was not an artistic device, but was an expression of Yesenin's peculiar worldview. He had no need to humanize nature - even so he saw it humanized, possessing the same soul as man. Such, for example, images are not accidental in Yesenin's poems: "After all, straw is also flesh" or "The field grows cold in anguish, / Choking with telegraph poles." For the poet, all living things were essentially the same - a person, a dog, a cow, grass, trees, the sun, a month ... That is why Yesenin's metaphors and comparisons are so natural, not deliberate, with which he depicts nature: “Like a tree quietly drops leaves, / So I drop sad words "," And outside the window, a lingering wind is crying, / As if sensing the closeness of a funeral "," Willows cry, poplars whisper ", etc. Yesenin's "Song of the Dog" became a classic, in which the poet was almost for the first time able to convey so simply and deeply a dog's melancholy - and all because for Yesenin, this melancholy is essentially no different from that of a human, and he does not even need special efforts, to penetrate the psychology of the beast. "Sergei Yesenin is not so much a person as an organ created by nature exclusively for poetry, to express the inexhaustible sorrow of the fields, love for all living things in the world," wrote M. Gorky about the poet. “And the beast, like our smaller brothers, / Never hit on the head,” - Yesenin himself will say about himself.

And, of course, Yesenin's nature is deeply national, it is the nature of his homeland, Russia, but these concepts - nature and homeland - are practically not shared by Yesenin. Even in the cycle "Persian Motives" the poet constantly recalls his native Russian nature: "No matter how beautiful Shiraz is, / He is no better than Ryazan's expanse." How many poets, starting with Pushkin and Lermontov, wrote about the Russian birch, and the birches in the minds of the Russian reader are still "Yesenin" ... Because no one, neither before nor after, was able to say about the Russian nature of such simple, understandable and sincere words. Because Yesenin did not “observe” nature, did not “contemplate” it, one cannot even truly say that he loved it - he lived by it, he himself was a part of nature. This determines the harmonious and serene order that distinguishes Yesenin's lyrics dedicated to nature.

However, in the post-revolutionary years in landscape lyrics Esenin, disharmonious motives associated with the city's attack on the countryside and, in particular, on nature, burst more and more persistently. Yesenin perceived this conflict as a conflict between the living and the dead, wood and steel, and the fact that in this struggle the living must yield, gave rise to the tragic pathos of such poems as "Sorokoust", "I am the last poet of the village ...", "Song of Bread" and etc. In the poem "Sorokoust" is given and the most powerful and vivid image of the confrontation between nature and civilization - the opposition of the doomed "red-mane colt" to the triumphant iron, cast-iron train. Thus, complex problems and tragic motives invade the artistic world of such a harmonious poet as Yesenin.

Searched here:

• how nature is depicted in Yesenin's work
• an essay on literature images of Russian nature based on Yesenin's poems