“Reflections at the Main Entrance” Nekrasov
"Reflections at the Front Entrance" analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, characters, issues and other issues are discussed in this article.
History of creation
The poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance” was written by Nekrasov in 1858. From Panaeva’s memoirs it is known that on one rainy autumn day, Nekrasov saw from the window how, from the entrance in which the Minister of State Property lived, a janitor and a policeman were driving away peasants, pushing them in the back. A couple of hours later the poem was ready. The genre scene, which became the basis of the poem, was supplemented with satire and generalizations.
The poem was published by Herzen in the magazine "Bell" without the author's signature.
Literary direction, genre
The poem realistically describes the illness of the entire Russian society. The nobility is lazy and indifferent, the rest are subservient to her, and the peasants are powerless and submissive. The genre scene at the front entrance is a reason to think about the fate of the Russian people and Russian society. This is an example of civil poetry.
Theme, main idea and composition, plot
Nekrasov's poem is plot-based. It can be roughly divided into 3 parts.
The first part is a description of an ordinary day in the life of the entrance. On special days, people come to visit an important person or simply leave their name in a book. On weekdays, the poor, the “old man and the widow,” come. Not all applicants receive what they ask for.
The second part is dedicated to the “owner of luxury chambers.” It begins with the appeal of the observer - the lyrical hero. The negative characterization of the nobleman ends with a call to wake up and turn back the petitioners. The following describes the supposed life and death of the nobleman.
The third part is a generalization and elevation of this particular case into a typical one. There is no place on our native land where the Russian peasant, the sower and guardian of this land, does not suffer. All classes are in a state of spiritual sleep: both the people and the owners of luxurious palaces. There is a way out for the people - to wake up.
The topic of reflection is the fate of the Russian people, the breadwinner - the Russian peasantry. The main idea is that the people will never make their way to the main entrances of the masters; these are residents of different non-overlapping worlds. The only way out for the people is to find the strength to awaken.
Meter and rhyme
The poem is written in multi-foot anapest with a disordered alternation of trimeter and tetrameter. Female and male rhymes alternate, the types of rhyme also change: ring, cross and adjacent. The ending of the poem became a student song.
Paths and images
The poem begins with metonymy combined with metaphor. The city is obsessed with the servile disease, that is, the inhabitants of the city servile, like slaves, before the nobleman. At the beginning of the poem, the petitioners are dryly listed. The narrator pays special attention to the description of men and uses epithets: ugly, tanned faces and hands, thin Armenian, bent backs, meager contribution. The expression " Let's go, they're burning with the sun"has become an aphorism. A piercing detail evokes compassion: the peasants who were driven away walk with their heads uncovered, showing respect.
The nobleman is described using stilted metaphors. He holds earthly thunders in his hands, but heavenly ones do not fear him. His life is an eternal holiday. Sweet epithets of romantic poets describe the heavenly life of a nobleman: serene Arcadian idyll, captivating Sicily sky, fragrant tree shade, purple sun, azure sea. The end of the nobleman's life is described with irony and even sarcasm. The hero will be silently cursed by his homeland, his dear and beloved family eagerly awaits his death.
The third part uses metonymy again. The lyrical hero addresses his native land, that is, all its inhabitants. He opens the life of a groaning people to all classes. Verb moans repeats like a refrain. The song of the people is like a groan (comparison).
After addressing the Russian soil, Nekrasov turns to the Volga. He compares the people's grief with the overflowing waters of the Russian river. In this part, Nekrasov again uses epithets Spring is full of water, people are cordial, the groan is endless. The last appeal is a question to the people: will they wake up, or will their spiritual sleep last forever, according to the natural course of things? For the realist Nekrasov, this question is not rhetorical. There is always a choice, reality is unpredictable.
Analysis of the poem
1. The history of the creation of the work.
2. Characteristics of a work of the lyrical genre (type of lyrics, artistic method, genre).
3. Analysis of the content of the work (analysis of the plot, characteristics of the lyrical hero, motives and tonality).
4. Features of the composition of the work.
5. Analysis of means of artistic expression and versification (presence of tropes and stylistic figures, rhythm, meter, rhyme, stanza).
6. The meaning of the poem for the poet’s entire work.
The poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance” was written by N.A. Nekrasov in 1858. It was first published in the Kolokol newspaper in 1860 under the title “At the Main Entrance.” The author's name was not indicated. A.I. Herzen published it with the following note: “We very rarely publish poems, but there is no way not to publish this kind of poem.” It appeared in the official press only five years after it was written. The testimony of Nekrasov’s wife, A.Ya., has been preserved. Panaeva, about how this work was created. The windows of the poet’s apartment on Liteiny Prospekt in St. Petersburg looked at the entrance of the Minister of State Property M.N. Muravyov, and Nekrasov, probably, it was there that he could observe these scenes. This is how Panaeva recalls one incident: “It was deep autumn, the morning was cold and rainy. In all likelihood, the peasants wanted to submit some kind of petition and came to the house early in the morning. The doorman, sweeping the stairs, drove them away; They took cover behind the ledge of the entrance and shifted from foot to foot, hiding against the wall and getting wet in the rain. I went to Nekrasov and told him about the scene I had seen. He approached the window at the moment when the house janitors and the policeman were driving the peasants away, pushing them in the back. Nekrasov pursed his lips and nervously pinched his mustache; then he quickly moved away from the window and lay down again on the sofa. An hour later he read me the poem “At the Main Entrance.”
We can classify the poem as civil poetry. Its main theme is the tragic fate of the Russian people. The poem includes numerous appeals from the lyrical hero - to one of the characters (“the owner of luxurious chambers”), to his native land, to the Volga, to the Russian people. All of them remain unanswered, representing only a one-sided dialogue, the thoughts of the hero. However, the work also synthesizes the genre features of satire, ode, pamphlet, elegy and song.
The composition of the work is based on the principle of antithesis. The first part shows a picture of the front entrance of a noble nobleman “on special days.” This piece is a satirical description.
Here is the front entrance. On special days,
Possessed by a servile illness,
The whole city is in some kind of fright
Drives up to the treasured doors;
Having written down your name and rank,
The guests are leaving for home,
So deeply pleased with ourselves
What do you think - that’s their calling!
The second part depicts the front entrance “on ordinary days.” Here the tone of the lyrical hero becomes neutral, irony gives way to calm intonations. The petitioners here are “projectors”, “place seekers”, “an elderly man”, “a widow”, “couriers with papers” come and go. Next, the hero talks about how he once saw other petitioners there - Russian men who came from some distant provinces. Having prayed for the church, they turn to the doorman with a request to let them in and offer him a “meager contribution.” The expression of "hope and anguish" is etched on their faces. They probably traveled a hard, long way, hoping to find the truth in St. Petersburg. However, the doorman remains indifferent; the walkers seem to him pathetic ragamuffins:
He looked at the guests: they were ugly to look at!
Tanned faces and hands,
The Armenian boy is thin on his shoulders,
On a knapsack on their bent backs,
Cross on my neck and blood on my feet,
Shod in homemade bast shoes...
The image of peasants is the central image of this poem. This image is collective, generalized. Behind the group of men appears, as it were, all of rural Rus'. High, epic intonations appear in the poem. Irony, objective descriptiveness - all this gives way to warm sympathy, sincere sympathy. The hero sees the peasants as biblical pilgrims seeking truth. This theme is reinforced by the motif of the scorching sun. And here the motive of sin and retribution already comes to the fore, thus preparing the content of the third part of the poem:
And the door slammed. After standing,
The pilgrims untied their wallets,
But the doorman did not let me in, without taking a meager contribution,
And they went, scorched by the sun,
Repeating: “God judge him!”
Throwing up hopeless hands,
And while I could see them,
They walked with their heads uncovered...
The image of the “owner of luxurious chambers” in the third part is contrasted with the image of suffering peasants. This character is depicted in a satirical-odic manner. His life is an “eternal holiday”, a serene dream, an “Arcadian idyll”. His values are red tape, gluttony, and gambling. The fate of the people does not bother him:
What is this crying sorrow to you?
What do you need these poor people?
By the strength of its satirical denunciation, by its angry, indignant intonations, this part of the poem reminds us of a pamphlet:
And why? Clickers' fun
You are calling for the people's good;
Without him you will live with glory
And you will die with glory!
In the final part, Nekrasov moves from images of road-weary Russian peasant supplicants to a broad, generalized image - the image of groaning Rus', overwhelmed by the great sorrow of the people:
Native land!
Name me such an abode,
I've never seen such an angle
Where would your sower and guardian be?
Where would a Russian man not moan?
Using the technique of hyperbole, Nekrasov’s lyrical hero metaphorically compares the grief of the people with the spring flood of the Volga:
Volga! Volga!.. In spring, full of water
You're not flooding the fields like that,
Like the great sorrow of the people
Our land is overflowing...
The entire sound of this part is determined by the song intonation. There are repetitions (“he groans... he groans”), internal rhymes, and numerous calls from the lyrical hero. Musicality is determined by the very choice of themes - “native land”, “Volga”.
Go out to the Volga: whose groan is heard
Over the great Russian river?
We call this groan a song -
The barge haulers are walking with a towline!..
The poem ends with a painful thought about the fate of the Russian people, about their capabilities:
Where there are people, there is a groan... Oh, my heart!
What does your endless groan mean?
Will you wake up full of strength,
Or, fate obeying the law,
You've already done everything you could -
Created a song like a groan
And spiritually rested forever?
Compositionally, the work is divided into three parts. The first part is a description of the front entrance on special days. The second part is a description of the front entrance on ordinary days, an image of wanderers, Russian peasant petitioners. The third part includes a depiction of the image of a noble nobleman, as well as the hero’s appeal to the “owner of luxurious chambers,” to his native land, to the Volga and to the Russian people.
The poem combines three-foot and four-foot anapest, rhyme patterns - cross, ring and paired. The poet uses various means of artistic expression: epithet (“poor faces”, “under the captivating sky”, “purple sun”), metaphor and antithesis (“Heavenly thunders do not frighten you, But you hold earthly ones in your hands”), anaphora (“Where if only your sower and keeper, Where would the Russian peasant not moan?”), rhetorical questions and appeals (“Hey, heartfelt! What does your endless groan mean?”), syntactic parallelism (“He groans through the fields, along the roads, He groans in prisons, in prisons..."), non-unionism and ranks of homogeneous members ("The intoxication of shameless flattery, red tape, gluttony, gambling..."), phraseological units ("Arcadian idyll", "I am not happy with the light of God's sun"), an aphoristic phrase ("Shchelkoperov You call the people's good fun." In the poem we find words and expressions of high style (“pilgrims”, “meager mite”, “funeral feast”, “fatherland”, “reposed”). Analyzing the phonetic structure of the work, we note the presence of alliteration (“Writing down his name and rank”, “Volga! Volga! In the spring of abundant water...”) and assonance (“He groans through the fields, along the roads...”).
“Reflections at the Front Entrance” is the poet’s programmatic work. The Russian people are the central image of all his work. Critics noted that Nekrasov’s attitude to people’s life was more realistic than all other poets. And this is not the reality of Pushkin, not the reality of Koltsov, not the reality of Mey. This is “something of our own, completely special, purely individual... - penetration into the very essence of people’s life from the side of its urgent needs and hidden, invisible suffering.”
N. A. Nekrasov is the only Russian poet who completely devoted his work to the theme of the people. He painted the bitter lot of peasants, the harsh life of serfs.
The poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance” dates back to the late period of the poet’s work, when it became characteristic of him not only to depict the tragic fate of the Russian people, but also to reflect on ways to alleviate their fate. Many of Nekrasov’s works are full of social subtext, calling on the people to fight for their liberation. This poem is also such an example.
- History of creation
The plot basis of the poem is a real fact. From the window of his St. Petersburg apartment on Liteiny Prospekt, the poet once saw how, from the house opposite where the powerful minister M. N. Muravyov lived, janitors and a policeman were driving away peasants. The front entrance became for Nekrasov a symbol of the Russian state, and the peasant walkers became representatives of the entire disenfranchised peasant Russia. The very title of the work gravitates towards the high genre of Lomonosov’s ode and is an artistic generalization.
- Genre and compositional features of the poem.
The poem combines the genre features of elegy (a poem of meditative content, philosophical reflection, imbued with moods of sadness, light sadness; most often written in the first person) and satire (a work in which the phenomena of reality are sarcastically exposed).
Compositionally, the work is divided into three parts. The first describes the front entrance on special days. In the second part there is a description of the front entrance on ordinary days and an image of Russian peasant petitioners. The third part gives the image of a noble nobleman and the lyrical hero’s address to the “owner of luxurious chambers,” to his native land, to the Volga and to the entire Russian people. All these appeals remain unanswered, representing only the reflections of the lyrical hero. However, the work also includes the genre features of satire, ode, pamphlet, elegy and folk song.
The picture of the front entrance of a noble nobleman “on special days” is a satirical description:
... Possessed by a servile illness,
The whole city is in some kind of fright
Drives up to the treasured doors;
Having written down your name and rank,
The guests are leaving for home,
So deeply pleased with ourselves
What do you think - that’s their calling!
- Images of men at the front entrance
The front entrance “on ordinary days” is depicted in neutral intonations. The petitioners here are “projectors”, “place seekers”, “an elderly man”, “a widow”, “couriers with papers” come and go. But one day the lyrical hero saw other petitioners - Russian men who came from some distant provinces. They probably traveled a hard and long way to find the truth in St. Petersburg. Behind a particular case, the poet sees the depth of the people's tragedy. The image of peasants is the central image of the poem. He
is collective, generalized. It is no coincidence that the author calls the peasants “pilgrims,” that is, biblical pilgrims who seek the truth. This image is enhanced by the motif of the scorching sun. Nekrasov gives a detailed portrait of the peasants:
... ugly to look at!
Tanned faces and hands,
The Armenian guy is thin on his shoulders.
On a knapsack on their bent backs,
Cross on my neck and blood on my feet,
Shod in homemade bast shoes...
Poverty and overwork are the main conditions of their lives. And on the faces of the men there was an “expression of hope and torment.” They do not condemn the doorman who did not let them into the doorway (God judge him!), but just hopelessly throw up their hands and leave. The principle of antithesis underlying the composition makes it possible to contrast the fate of the serfs and the life of the owner of luxurious palaces, who “does not like ragged mobs.” While the wretched petitioners stand at the door, he is still sleeping. This character is depicted satirically. His life is an “eternal holiday.”
His values are red tape, gluttony, and gambling. The fate of the people does not bother him at all. In its angry intonations, this part of the poem resembles a pamphlet:
... Clickers' fun
You are calling for the people's good;
Without him you will live with glory
And you will die with glory!
More serene than an Arcadian idyll
The old days are coming...
- Vocabulary of the poem
The vocabulary the author uses here is interesting. In the philistine circle, writers who stood up for the people's interests were contemptuously called clickers. The expression “Arcadian idyll” is also used here. Arcadia is an area in Ancient Greece, which, according to legend, was inhabited by carefree shepherds and shepherdesses.
Nekrasov needs this image to emphasize the contrast between the master’s idyll and the plight of the people. The prototype of the image of the “owner of luxury chambers” was the Minister of State Property M. N. Muravyov, who was later convicted of atrocities
During the suppression of the uprising in Poland in 1863, they were nicknamed Muravyov the Hangman, and Prince A.I. Chernyshov, who imposed cane discipline in the army under Nicholas I. It was Chernyshov who lived out his life “under the captivating sky of Sicily.”
From images of road-weary peasant supplicants, Nekrasov moves on to a generalized image of groaning Rus', overwhelmed by the great sorrow of the people. The artistic space of the poem expands. A particular case of bureaucratic arbitrariness grows into a large-scale picture of people’s suffering: “Name me such a monastery, / I have never seen such a corner, / Where would your sower and guardian be, /
Where wouldn’t a Russian man moan?”/
Using the technique of hyperbole, Nekrasov compares the grief of the people with the spring flood of the Volga:
Volga! Volga! .. Spring is full of water
You're not flooding the fields like that,
Like the great sorrow of the people
Our land is overflowing...
The sound of the poem takes on a songlike intonation. There are repetitions characteristic of a folk song (he moans...he moans), internal rhymes, and numerous calls of the lyrical hero. But the songs of the Russian people also represent one continuous groan: “We call this groan a song.”
The poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance” is Nekrasov’s programmatic work. After all, it reflects the difficult fate that befalls ordinary people, for whom the doors of bureaucratic houses are always closed. Nekrasov was always closer to the common people than other poets. And this realism is expressed most fully in this poem.
Form and genre of the work
A student can begin an analysis of “Reflections at the Front Door” by identifying the genre of the poem. The title of the work directly indicates it: in its method of presentation, it represents a reasoning. However, it is not a logical reasoning, but an artistic one. The main idea of the work is not expressed directly; reading the poem can prompt the reader to certain thoughts. But the “grounds” for these conclusions themselves are not given in the form of specific conclusions. The reader sees them in the form of artistic paintings described by the poet.
In the analysis of “Reflections at the Front Entrance,” a student can emphasize: the very title of the work can evoke a certain picture in the reader’s imagination. The reader can “see” the lyrical hero of the work, who expresses out loud the thoughts that fill his mind. The entire poem is constructed in the form of a hidden dialogue. In other words, this is a conversation with a “silent” interlocutor. This also determines other features of the work, for example its syntax, the presence of rhetorical questions and exclamations. This fact can also be indicated in the analysis of the verse “Reflections at the Front Entrance.” The immediate “reflections” of the narrator of the poem are preceded by a description of the front entrance on special days. However, already from the second line tension appears, which turns into outright irony of the lyrical hero.
Analysis of “Reflections at the Front Entrance”: epithets and irony of the poet
This mood is expressed by the epithet “servile”, which is combined with the metaphor “illness”. In terms of style, these techniques contrast with the solemn vocabulary of the first stanza. An analysis of “Reflections at the Front Entrance” shows that the author’s irony is further enhanced by the use of the word “guests.” After all, the doorman does not allow those who come to this front door to go further than the entrance. And the poetic description of the guests ends with the murderous exclamation of the lyrical hero: “That is their calling!” It consists of suffering from the “servile disease.”
In an analysis of the poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance,” a student may mention that even the description of those “wretched persons” who visit the front entrance on non-holiday days is given by the author in a slightly softened tone. There is no longer any irony in him, although there is no sympathy yet. In terms of expression, the characterization of “wretched faces” that Nekrasov gives is a transition to the next scene. Here we are talking about men, whom the author portrays with obvious compassion.
The whole scene that takes place at this entrance prompts bitter reflections about what fate befell the people, and in whose hands it is in general. An analysis of the poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance” shows: these reflections are framed by the poet in the form of an address by the lyrical hero to a nobleman, his native land. On the one hand, the narrator expresses irony; but on the other hand, his work is filled with sympathy. Subsequently, sympathy for the peasants turns into compassion for the Russian people.
Artistic media
The work is written in two meters - three-foot and four-foot anapest. There are three types of rhyme in the poem: cross, circular, and paired. An analysis of Nekrasov’s poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance” should also contain a listing of the means of artistic expression that the poet used. These are various techniques: epithets (“purple sun”, “poor faces”), phraseological units (“Arcadian idyll”), rhetorical questions, appeals. You can also find vocabulary belonging to a high artistic style (“pilgrims”, “rested”, “fatherland”).
History of creation
When preparing an analysis of Nekrasov’s “Reflections at the Front Entrance,” the student can indicate that the basis for writing this poem was a real story that happened before Nekrasov’s eyes. The windows of the St. Petersburg apartment in which he lived directly overlooked the front entrance of one of the then officials, Minister N. Muravyov. For the bloody massacre of Polish rebels in 1863, he received the nickname “the hangman.” And during major holidays, the poet could watch how rich carriages drove up to this front door. They congratulated Muravyov, also signing in a book specially designed for this purpose, kept by the doorman.
On weekdays, Nekrasov saw how poor petitioners - ordinary people - came to this front door with tears in their eyes. These were widows and orphans. One day the poet witnessed a terrible scene: a janitor and a policeman were driving visitors away from this house, who had probably traveled a very long way. A detailed analysis of Nekrasov’s “Reflections at the Front Entrance”, carried out by a schoolchild, may contain this information. Petitioner walkers from distant places were a rarity at that time. And only a very great need and completely hopeless poverty could force people to walk enormous distances.
The scene observed by the poet from the window
In the analysis of Nekrasov’s poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance” one can point out: the memories of the poet’s wife, A. Ya. Panaeva, testify to the scene the poet saw. She writes that on one rainy autumn day, peasants came to the house. The doorman who was sweeping the stairs chased them away. Then the peasants tried to hide from the rain behind the ledge of the entrance. There they stood, shifting from one foot to the other and shivering from the cold. The wife told the poet about what she saw. Nekrasov approached the window just at the moment when the doorman was driving people away. Then the poet quickly moved away from the window and lay down on the sofa. An hour later he already read his poem to his wife.
The misfortune of people, which could not leave Nekrasov indifferent
An analysis of Nekrasov’s poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance” demonstrates once again that the oppression that the poet saw shook him to the core. This is how the idea for the poem was born. For a long time, due to censorship, it could not be printed, and therefore it was distributed only in handwritten form. And in this work, the poet’s muse, which Nekrasov himself called “The Muse of Anger and Sadness,” began to speak in a full voice without embarrassment. This sketch became the poet’s real verdict on the then current government. After all, the nobleman, whose duty is to serve the people and take care of the interests of the people, is sleeping. He is not at all interested in what misfortunes and sorrows ordinary people have to endure.
Indifference of officials
Meanwhile, this nobleman is perhaps the last hope for these petitioners. He has absolutely no fear of heaven’s punishment, because he has “earthly punishment” at his disposal. He is in no way touched by the hopelessness in which his petitioners find themselves. The main technique used in this work by Nekrasov is antithesis. In the analysis of “Reflections at the Front Entrance”, briefly conducted by the student, it can be emphasized: the poet skillfully uses this technique in his work. All the poems are a contrast between the idyllic existence of a nobleman and the poverty of hungry peasants, whose modest gift even the doorman refuses.
Is there a “free” place in Rus' for the common people?
The lyrical hero reflects on whether it is possible to find at least a small piece of land where his life could be “free.” But there is no such corner in the vastness of our homeland. The “people's grief” is personified by the backbreaking work of barge haulers, who have to pull heavy ships through shallow waters. And this nationwide cry cannot leave the poet indifferent. Will the Russian people find the strength to throw off this yoke and start a new life? Nekrasov does not answer this difficult question in his poem.
“Reflections at the front door”: analysis according to plan
If a student received a similar assignment in literature, then the analysis of Nekrasov’s work can be carried out in accordance with the following points:
- Author of the poem, title.
- How the work was created (describe an incident seen by Nekrasov).
- Theme (the difficult fate that befell ordinary people in Rus'), the main idea (ordinary people will never be able to enter this rich entrance).
- Composition of the work (this poem consists of three parts).
- A lyrical hero (the poet has such qualities as honesty, closeness to the people).
- Artistic means (these are antithesis, hyperbole, epithets and other techniques).
- What does the student think about this work?
