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Poem "madness" Tyutchev Fedor Ivanovich. “Madness”, analysis of Tyutchev’s poem The main idea of the poem “Madness”

What is madness? Illness or happiness? Why do people become crazy? Why do they lose their minds? These questions may arise in anyone who reads the title of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev’s poem “Madness.” In general, this topic was not just popular in the 19th century: almost every aspiring poet necessarily touched on it in his work. How not to remember the famous poem “God forbid I go crazy...” written by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Some were frightened by madness, others believed that only by losing their minds could one become truly happy.

In any case, when a young man who has not yet crossed the threshold of thirty (and Tyutchev had just turned 27 years old at the time of writing this poem in 1830), writes about madness, a logical question arises: what prompted him to turn to this topic? It should be noted that the theme of madness as a kind of high poetic state of mind was widespread in the first third of the 19th century. At the same time, madness manifested itself as a form of poetic and sometimes even mystical intuition. It’s only strange why Tyutchev gives the epithet to madness "pathetic".

In general, one gets the feeling that this is a person who survived the Apocalypse; at least the beginning of the poem evokes just such an association:

Where the Earth is scorched
The vault of heaven merged like smoke...

One can imagine what a person could experience if he saw with his own eyes how the earth’s crust was collapsing, and now he had no choice but to remain in "cheerful carefreeness". Yes, it would seem that the madman is happy and carefree. But no! Tyutchev's madman, as if enduring some kind of punishment ( "under the hot rays, buried in the fiery sands"), “looking for something in the clouds”, and "glass eyes". Why does such a metaphor arise? The expression “glazed over” is widely used, i.e. frozen, focused on something. Usually such a reaction occurs as a result of a huge shock or because the person has detached himself from reality for some time. It can be assumed that here too the hero is so self-absorbed that

What does the current of underground water hear,
And a noisy exodus from the earth!

True, with the word “thinks” the author rather expresses an ironic attitude towards a madman who imagines himself capable of supposedly foreseeing something. This is what he talks about "secret contentment on the forehead", speaking both about dedication to certain secrets of existence and about the insanity of a madman.

Tyutchev's poem was and remains one of the most mysterious works of the 19th century. Many critics have been struggling with its solution for the second century. Of course, we will not be able to say definitely what idea the author wanted to express. After all, according to Tyutchev himself, “a thought expressed is a lie”. Still, you can try to find clues.

In 1836 (6 years after “The Madman”) Tyutchev wrote the poem “Cicero,” the lines from which became quite famous and popular:

Blessed is he who has visited this world
His moments are fatal!

In Rus', holy fools, essentially the same madmen, were often called blessed. After all, they are the ones who can be truly happy, since they do not realize the frailty of earthly existence. But in the poem “Cicero” the “blessed” was “called by the all-good,” that is, by the arbiters of destinies. Having witnessed “sublime spectacles” and drunk “from their cup of immortality,” the hero gets the opportunity to become, if not a prophet, then a participant and chronicler of great historical events. This is also a heavy burden - to create history in an era of change, and this can hardly be compared with the “cheerful carefreeness” in which the hero of “The Madman” lives and pays with this very madness, and “pathetic”. It can be assumed that Tyutchev did not see the point in high poetic madness. After all, there have been many madmen in our history, and madmen, as they say, of the highest rank - those who led crowds of followers, who ruled the people and decided destinies. Such madness is no longer pathetic, it is terrible.

In addition to the analysis of “Madness,” there are other essays:

Analysis of the poem by F.I. Tyutchev “Silentium!”
“Autumn Evening”, analysis of Tyutchev’s poem

Fyodor Tyutchev’s poetic work “Madness” is considered one of the most unusual and most mysterious. There are few rhymed quatrains in the poet’s work that have not been deciphered by literary critics to this day.

"Madness" caused quite a stir. Someone regarded the poem as self-critical and believed that Tyutchev decided to refute his prophetic gift. Another part of literature connoisseurs imagined that the poet simply decided to oppose the flow of natural philosophy. In any case, each of the emerging versions has its own truth.

Already in the title of the poem you can catch its main theme - madness. And again, this concept was interpreted completely differently. In one version, wise people who could see the truth in the most ordinary things were considered crazy. In another interpretation, madness was considered a serious illness that overshadowed the purity of thoughts. Fyodor Tyutchev connects the concept of madness with the gift of foresight.

The events in the poem take place in the desert. And there is an explanation for this. Firstly, the poet associated the desert with that cozy and secluded place where one can indulge in reflection and be alone with oneself. On the other hand, Tyutchev calls the desert a place for the final judgment that occurs in the life of every person.

In his subsequent works, the poet more than once turned to the theme of prophecy. And a clear confirmation of this is the poem dedicated to A. Fet “Others got it from nature...”.

Where the earth is burnt
The vault of heaven merged like smoke, -
There in cheerful carefree
Pathetic madness lives on.

Under the hot rays
Buried in the fiery sands,
It has glass eyes
Looking for something in the clouds.

Then suddenly he will stand up and, with a sensitive ear,
Crouching to the cracked ground,
He listens to something with greedy ears
With contentment secret on the brow.

And he thinks he hears boiling jets,
What does the current of underground water hear,
And their lullaby singing,
And a noisy exodus from the earth!

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You are now reading the poem Madness, poet Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev created a large number of poems during his life. One of the most interesting and very mysterious is the work called “Madness”. To this day there are disputes about the interpretation of this poem. Literary scholars cannot come to a common opinion even when discussing the plot.

Some critics believe that Madness is about certain water seekers. Other literary scholars believe that this work is a kind of self-critical statement created against the natural philosophy of Schelling and his patrons. There is also a version that the lines of the poem indicate doubts present in the poet’s soul; he is unsure of his personal prophetic gift.

As with many pieces of common knowledge, the real idea lies somewhere in the middle. The grains of the main idea are drawn from all directions, they are scattered across various topics and variants of interpretation. That is why it would be wrong to deny one or another option proposed by critics.

The main idea of the poem "Madness"

The main theme of the work is hidden in the title itself - it is madness that will answer this question. The first third of the nineteenth century is distinguished by the presence of this trend among many poets of that time. This topic was revealed in completely different ways and had two main cardinal points of view.

Such a topic was perceived by some readers as a true manifestation of wisdom, which allows one to study the hidden secrets of real existence. Usually behind them were hidden various ailments, terrible tragedies that befell a constantly thinking person. Baratynsky also used this direction in his works, who wrote poems entitled “The Last Death”, “In Madness there is Thought”. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin did not exclude such themes from his works. His world-famous masterpiece, called “God forbid I go crazy...”, reflects precisely the psychological instability at the time of writing, as well as hopelessness.

F.I. Tyutchev reveals the above-described topics in his own way, from a completely new side. In the work, the concept of madness is associated with a certain carelessness, overflowing with constant fun. Joyful moments are combined with a certain gift of foresight. Particularly interesting is the epithet indicating pity, as well as various contradictory characteristics that form a kind of unity of thought.

Where the earth is burnt
The vault of heaven merged like smoke -
There in cheerful carefree
Pathetic madness lives on.
Under the hot rays
Buried in the fiery sands,
It has glass eyes
Looking for something in the clouds.

Crouching to the cracked ground,
He listens to something with greedy ears
With contentment secret on the brow.

What does the current of underground water hear,
And their lullaby singing,
And a noisy exodus from the earth!..

Analysis of the work “Madness”

Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev created the plot of the poem in a very unique way. It gives the reader answers to many questions. For example: “What really is this madness?”, “What is better – illness or happiness?”, “What leads people to madness?” and much more. Such questions will certainly be discernible to the reader after reading the first lines of the masterpiece.

The popular themes of the 19th century did not allow any poet of that time to pass by. Fyodor Tyutchev created truly unique lines that were significantly different from the thoughts of his contemporaries. The author notes that some people are frightened by the presence of insanity, and for other people, it is deprivation of reason due to certain reasons. This is the beginning of something new that will definitely lead to complete happiness and satisfaction.

If you look at the poem in more depth, the reader immediately gets an inexplicable feeling of understatement. It is completely incomprehensible to the reader why a person who has just crossed the thirty-year mark or is just approaching it writes works on such destructive topics. It should be noted that at the time of writing, namely in 1830, Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev was only 27 years old. The theme of madness belonged to a certain direction, indicating the poet’s state of mind, and therefore was widespread.

Direction in the form of madness was presented to the reader in the form of a kind of poetic thought, based on certain mystical qualities and intuition, not similar to natural. The fact that Tyutchev for some reason attributed the epithet “pathetic” to this is considered very strange. After reading the lines, the reader gets the feeling that the described lyrical hero recently experienced a kind of Apocalypse. This is especially indicated by the very beginning of the work, where the charred earth and the sky in smoke are described.

It is this approach used by Fyodor Ivanovich that gives the reader a clear idea of what is happening to the person who sees it with his own eyes. How the earth crumbles under his feet. A person simply has no choice but to perceive the universe exactly as it really is. At first glance, it seems to the reader that the lyrical hero is happy and does not experience any worries, but in reality everything is completely different. The madman, presented by Tyutchev, seems to be suffering a certain punishment that he received consciously. This fact is confirmed by the lines indicating that the hero is located under the hot rays, closing himself in the fiery sands.

The phrase used by the author of the work, “with glass eyes,” is very interesting. Here the question immediately arises: “What does the use of this metaphor lead to?” An expression indicating a glassy look shows that the lyrical hero is focused, frozen on a certain object or situation. This reaction occurs in a person after realizing some kind of shock and detachment from existing reality. The lyrical hero is immersed in himself and is thinking about an existing life problem.

The word “mint” also attracts attention. Thus, the author tries to express his attitude towards the madman, imbued with irony. According to the poet, the lyrical hero has an imaginary feeling that he is supposedly able to foresee something in the future. Many lines speak of this direction, for example, “secret contentment on the brow,” indicating initiation into certain secrets of existence, as well as the insanity of the human personality.

Features of F. I. Tyutchev’s creativity

A poem called “Madness” is considered, both in the 19th century and currently, to be the most mysterious work of the nineteenth century. Many critics are still trying to figure it out. It is still not really known what exactly the real thought used by the author is. Further complicating the solution are the words of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, who describe that the uttered thought is in fact a lie. There are many clues and everyone wants to find them.

It should be noted that six years after writing the poem “Madman,” Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev wrote a work called “Cicero.” The lines of this masterpiece evoke memories associated with the sensational work about a crazy lyrical hero.

You need to understand the history and meaning of the word holy fool. It was in Rus' that those people who had tendencies towards madness were called holy fools. Only such a person is able to truly feel happiness from everyday things, without realizing the frailty of simple earthly existence.

In the work “Crazy,” a person who is the arbiter of destinies is described as a blissful and crazy person. A person who has been a witness to certain high spectacles and, having experienced immortality, will have a certain opportunity to possess a specific prophetic gift, as well as a chronicler of great world events.

It must be noted that this specific burden is also a heavy burden. Not everyone is given the opportunity to create true history in a certain era of constant change, which can hardly be compared with serene fun and carefreeness. It is in this state that the main lyrical character of the poem finds himself, who pays for his actions with madness, described in the masterpiece as a certain pity.

Based on the above, we can conclude that Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev did not see much meaning in the described poetic madness. The author points out the fact that nowadays there are a huge number of madmen - they can be among both ordinary people and individuals who create and regulate the destinies of those around them. And such madness is not only pitiful or dangerous, it is scary.

“Madness” Fyodor Tyutchev

Where the earth is burnt
The vault of heaven merged like smoke, -
There in cheerful carefree
Pathetic madness lives on.

Under the hot rays
Buried in the fiery sands,
It has glass eyes
Looking for something in the clouds.

Then suddenly he will stand up and, with a sensitive ear,
Crouching to the cracked ground,
He listens to something with greedy ears
With contentment secret on the brow.

And he thinks he hears boiling jets,
What does the current of underground water hear,
And their lullaby singing,
And a noisy exodus from the earth!

The key theme of the poem is stated in its title - madness. In the first third of the nineteenth century, poets often turned to it. It was revealed from two radically different points of view. Madness was perceived either as a real manifestation of wisdom, allowing one to comprehend the innermost secrets of existence, or as a serious illness, a terrible tragedy for a thinking person. The first interpretation is found in Baratynsky’s poem “The Last Death”: “... Reason borders on madness.” Pushkin adhered to the second point of view, which was reflected in the famous work “God forbid I go crazy...”. Tyutchev presents the topic in a new way. He associates madness with cheerful carelessness and the gift of foresight. In addition, the poet gives him the epithet “pathetic.” On the one hand, contradictory characteristics are listed, on the other, they still form a unity.

Tyutchev returned to one of the key motives of the poem - the motive of the prophetic gift inherent in the poet - in his late lyrical statement - “Others got it from nature...” (1862). A small work, consisting of only eight lines, is dedicated to Fet.

What is madness? Illness or happiness? Why do people become crazy? Why do they lose their minds? These questions may arise in anyone who reads the title of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev’s poem “Madness.” In general, this topic was not just popular in the 19th century: almost every aspiring poet necessarily touched on it in his work. How can one not remember the famous poem “God forbid I go crazy...” written by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Some were frightened by madness, others believed that only by losing their minds could one become truly happy.

Where the Earth is scorched
..

And a noisy exodus from the earth!

Blessed is he who has visited this world
His moments are fatal!

Poem "Madness"

Where the earth is burnt
The vault of heaven merged like smoke -
There in cheerful carefree
Pathetic madness lives on.

Under the hot rays
Buried in the fiery sands,
It has glass eyes
Looking for something in the clouds.

Then suddenly he will stand up and, with a sensitive ear,
Crouching to the cracked ground,
He listens to something with greedy ears
With contentment secret on the brow.

And he thinks he hears boiling jets,
What does the current of underground water hear,
And their lullaby singing,
And a noisy exodus from the earth!

Tolstoguzov P.N.
Tyutchev’s poem “Madness”: an experience of extended analysis

Tolstoguzov P.N. Tyutchev’s poem “Madness”: an experience of extended analysis // Russian speech. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 3-15.

F.I. Tyutchev’s poem “Madness,” supposedly dating back to 1830 (published in 1834), is, according to V.V. Kozhinov, “mysterious” and has not yet found a “convincing interpretation” (see F.I. Tyutchev Poems, M. 1976, p. 302). K.V. Pigarev assumed that this poem is about water seekers, N.Ya. Berkovsky wrote that Tyutchev made an attack on Schelling’s natural philosophy. “Water prospectors and ore miners are people of special importance in the eyes of Schelling and his followers. Water seekers are initiates, trustees of nature itself. Tyutchev could have heard in Munich about the famous water prospector Campetti, who was called to this city in 1807. Campetti was a favorite of the Munich Schellingists - Ritter, Baader and, finally, Schelling himself. Schelling wrote about water seekers in his “Research on Human Freedom” (1809), well known to Tyutche-

woo. Thus, the last stanza of “Madness” - in its plot “Campetti’s stanza” - accurately indicates with what worldview Tyutchev conducts his argument” (Berkovsky N.Ya. On Russian Literature. L. 1985. P. 175). K.V. Pigarev pointed out the connection between “Madness” and the later letter to A.A. Fet (“Others got it from nature.”, 1862). This observation allowed V.V. Kozhinov to conclude that the first stanza of the message, directly related to “Madness,” contains Tyutchev’s self-characterization and that “Madness” is “a sharp self-critical poem in which the poet expressed painful doubts about his prophetic gift.” (Kozhinov V.V. ibid.). B.Ya. Bukhshtab attributed “Madness” to those Tyutchev texts that contain “images with a touch of romantic mysticism” and at the same time “colored with skepticism” (Bukhshtab B.Ya. Russian poets. L. 1970. P. 35).

Without disputing any of the above considerations for this truly mysterious poem, we will try to clarify the boundaries of its interpretation, bearing in mind that for Russian poetry of the first third of the 19th century, “recognition of thematic complexes is a secondary point in relation to recognition of the vocabulary” (Ginsburg L .Ya. About the old and the new. L. 1982. P. 203). The poets of Tyutchev’s era used stable formulas, “signal words” (the expression of V.A. Hoffman) within the artistic sphere they had mastered. Observations on the use of such formulas, epigonic or experimental, allow us to significantly expand the scope of commentary. When working with Tyutchev’s texts, this is all the more important, because even Yu.N. Tynyanov drew attention to such a feature of Tyutchev’s poetry as literariness. “Tyutchev’s poems are associated with a number of literary associations, and to a large extent his poetry is poetry about poetry” (Tynyanov Yu.N. Pushkin and his contemporaries. M. 1969. P. 190).

Where the earth is burnt

(Poem “Madness” quoted from: Tyutchev F.I. Complete collection of poems. L. 1987.)

The distinction between “earth” and “sky”, so characteristic of the romantic worldview and romantic poetry, is here replaced by the apocalyptic image of “merged” principles. Something similar can be found in Shevyrev’s translation of Schiller’s poem “Die Grösse der Welt” (“The Infinity”, 1825), where the “silence of the elemental warfare” of the beginnings is a sign of the “limits of the universe,” or in F.N. Glinka’s “Search for God” (ca. . 1826 - 1830): “I vi-

case: the heavens grew dark. And the skies smoked menacingly. Everything became ardor, everything became fire.” Tyutchev’s smoky and hazy landscape and space in the text by F.N. Glinka and in the translation by S.P. Shevyrev are characterized by figurative cosmism, apocalypticism: “And the sky behind me / Has become covered in darkness. " Here “God has set a limit to creation” (Shevyrev, “Infinity”). However, Tyutchev is extremely laconic: he omits cosmological and theological details and explanations, as well as the visionary (“I saw”) introduction.

There in cheerful carefree
Pathetic madness lives on.

The theme of madness is one of the fundamental ones for the literature of the first third of the 19th century. It contains a semantic counterpoint: madness as a high poetic state of mind, a form of manifestation of poetic, mystical intuition (here “intelligence borders on madness” - E.A. Baratynsky, “The Last Death”, 1827) and madness - severe damage to the spirit, its numbness, when a person turns into a “cold idol” in which “the heavenly fire of the mind noticeably burns out” (V.N. Shchastny. “Mad”, 1827). Wed. a question expressing the internal inconsistency of this topic in N.A. Polevoy’s story “The Bliss of Madness” (1833): “Really. Only madness is the true manifestation of wisdom and the revelation of the secrets of existence?

“Carelessness” and “fun” in the poetic tradition of the early 19th century are synonyms of anacreontic “carelessness”, which is a distinctive feature of the poet and poetic-philosophical pastime (“carefree Poet” in the message “To Friends” by K.N. Batyushkov, 1815; in Pushkin : “Blessed is he who has fun / In peace, without worries.” - “Town”, 1815).

Tyutchev’s “cheerful carelessness” is almost oxymoronically associated with “pathetic Madness,” and such a turn of the topic is reminiscent of a common lyrical plot: the poet refuses “carelessness” in order to speak “in the language of free Truth,” but is disappointed because “for the crowd insignificant and deaf / The noble voice of the heart is ridiculous" (Pushkin, "V.F. Raevsky", 1822; the same theme in "Conversation of a bookseller with a poet", 1824: the previously "careless" and sociable poet retires into the "wilderness", and his confession must seem to the uninitiated to be “wild babbling of a madman”). Tyutchev’s attention to the theme of high poetic madness is evidenced by an excerpt from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that he translated at the end of the 1820s: “Lovers, madmen and poets/From one imagination merged.”

In “Madness” the theme takes on a new meaning: carefree fun, a prophetic gift and the pitiful position of a madman depicted

they are internally contradictory and at the same time single characteristics.

Under the hot rays
Buried in the fiery sands.

The image of a desert landscape in the poetry of Tyutchev’s era is just as polysemantic. The desert is a place of poetic and philosophical solitude, a refuge of hermits and prophets. In Faust we encounter a number of meanings associated with the desert landscape: hermitage, emptiness, philosophical “nothingness” (Öde und Einsamkeit, Wildernis, Leere, Nichts; see the first act of the second part, the “Dark Gallery” scene). Such a metaphysical setting is characterized by the absence of space and time in their earthly sense (“kein Ort, noch weniger eine Zeit,” in the words of Mephistopheles). Finally, the desert is the place of the final judgment, the place where the cosmic destinies of man take place (the setting of “Anchar” and “The Prophet” in Pushkin, and in his “Arabian hurricane” in “The Feast during the Plague” as an image of one of the disastrous, but together with the elements responding to the deep demand of human nature; cf. also in F.N. Glinka’s poem “Suddenly something black flashed.”, between 1826 - 1834, where the “desert ends” become the arena of apocalyptic action). In addition, the desert is a metaphor for life as a vale, a painfully colorless existence in frozen life forms (cf., for example, in Brentano’s “Ich bin durch die Wüste gezogen”, 1816, or in E.A. Baratynsky - “the desert of being” in “ Yearning for happiness since infancy.", 1823).

A certain shade of orientalism, which often accompanies this motif in the poetry of the 20s and 30s, is unlikely to be preserved here in Tyutchev, and cannot have independent meaning in “Madness.” Like the “soil, heated by the heat” in Pushkin’s “Anchar”, like the metaphysical desert in “Faust”, and the “fiery sands” in “Madness” have an extremely generalized flavor of the place where the fifth act of human history, the “day of wrath,” is played out. (In Tyutchev’s “Urania” - no later than 1820 - the desert appears as a symbol of the frailty of the historical “Babylons”: “Where are the Babylons here, where is Thebes? - Where is my city. They are not there! - Its rays are lost in the steppes, / Where the catcher or Oratai, / Digging fruitlessly in the fiery sands.")

If we return to thinking about the semantic two-dimensionality of Tyutchev’s text, then here too it reveals the necessary arguments: the “burnt earth” with its “fiery sands” turns out to be both a place of judgment and a shelter, a refuge for “pathetic Madness” (it is difficult to imagine that “ on soil heated by the heat,” in Pushkin’s “Anchar,” someone could live: the point is precisely that

only a poisonous tree can exist in these places. Like Pushkin’s slave, Faust overcomes the desert spaces hostile to man with the greatest difficulty). Meanings that were previously not combined in the tradition are brought together (not combined in Tyutchev himself. Thus, in the “Epistle of Horace.”, 1819, the idyll of the “sacred grove” as a place of solitude, the emblematic image of the “thorny desert” of life and the cosmic image of the formidable element - “Already the heavenly lion became a heavy foot within the heat - and flows along a fiery path. " - completely independent and do not overlap each other).

A separate note is about the epithets “red-hot” and “fiery”. They - first of all, “fiery” (and its deputies - “ardent”, “fiery”) - are very characteristic of the early Tyutchev (according to our observations, the epithet “fiery” in a variety of meanings is found in approximately every fourth poem of the poet of the 20s - early 30s) and for the poetic tradition: “fiery love”, “fiery heart”, “fiery chest”, “flame of passions”, “holy flame of inspiration”, etc. Moreover, the metaphorical meaning of this word was more common, although Tyutchev himself has examples of the use of a meaning close to the objective (“fiery path” of the sun in the “Epistle of Horace.”, “fiery sands” in “Urania”, 1820, “fiery sky” in poem “From the Other Side” - a free translation from Heine, “the sun’s hot ball” in “Summer Evening”, etc.) Of course, “fiery sands” is an almost obvious objectivity (the sands are hot, like a flame), but it’s unlikely Only she. The allusiveness of Tyutchev’s texts does not allow us to relax for a minute - the epithet here continues to hold a certain semantic “suspension”, extraneous to the objective meaning.

The fact is that “flame” in the poetry of the early 19th century is not used as an image without having - directly or in subtext - a semantic opposition, a certain, relatively speaking, “coldness”. In the “flame of passions” they not only burn, but also burn out (E.A. Baratynsky: “How terribly you burned out!” - “How many you are in a few days.”, 1825), life “cools” a person (aka, “ Look at this cold face.”, 1825), people are compared as exponents of “fire” and “ice” (Onegin and Lensky in “Eugene Onegin”). This opposition can form a plot, as in the poem “From the Other Side” (free translation by Tyutchev from Heine), and can express natural philosophical and theological content: in F.N. Glinka’s “Search for God,” for example, “ardor” and “fire,” in which the lyrical hero “does not see” God, are contrastingly replaced by “silence” with revelations about the otherworldly, “unearthly”. In Tyutchev’s “Summer Evening” this is a metaphor for the “hot feet” of nature that touched the underground springs (a theme that would later be developed in the famous poems “Day and Night” and “The Holy Night Has Ascended the Sky.”).

In “Madness” such a contrast is obvious - “fiery sands” form an opposition to “underground waters” (in the last stanza), but if “flame” and “cold” in tradition metaphorically formulated the idea of the struggle of human or universal principles, then here they are rather complement each other: “burning sands” is a natural (and the only possible, as evidenced by the initial “where”) sphere of existence for “Pitiful Madness” and an equally natural sphere of his search. The semantic opposition is losing stability: there is nothing to “burn out” and nothing to “cool down”. The “current of underground waters” cannot change the face of the burnt earth, because its medium is Madness. Fire here loses its purifying and judicial meaning, and water ceases to be the giver of life.

It has glass eyes
Looking for something in the clouds.

The “glass eyes” of Madness are reminiscent of a “motionless” gaze, which often appeared as an obligatory detail of a romantic portrait (where “stillness” could mean the highest degree of contemplative concentration; see S.P. Shevyrev: “he contemplated with a motionless eye” - “Wisdom”, 1828 ; in general, such “immobility” could be a mystical, fatal sign: the eyes of the moneylender are “motionless” in Gogol’s “Portrait”, edition of “Arabesques”, 1835), which Tyutchev himself often resorted to during this period (for example, in the poem “Swan” “ the motionless eyes" of the eagle, with which he, by the way, "drinks in the light of the sun", that is, the direction of his gaze remains the same as in "Madness"). But before us is not just a figurative correspondence, but decline motive: “glass eyes” express the meaning of idiotic prostration, contemplation takes on the character of simple reflection. The oxymoronicity here is born from a combination of search (“looking for something”) and its deliberate futility (the gaze of a blind person). Another plan of reminiscences, which the poet may have been counting on, is again connected with the biblical topic. In the Apocalypse there is a well-known, very expressive image in which glass And fire are the main characteristics: “And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mixed with fire; and they that conquered the beast, and his image, and his mark, and the number of his name, stand on this sea of glass, holding the harp of God” (Rev. 15:2). Another famous example from Scripture is even more eloquent, for it connects sight and glass: “Now we see as if through dim glass, fortune-telling" (1 Cor. 13:12). Both examples are directly related to eschatological issues. In essence, both in the apostolic epistle and in the already mentioned poems of the wise men we are talking about blindness a person (“the sun has blinded his eyes”, “he contemplates his gaze unclearly” in S.P. Shevyrev), blindness before the manifestation of superintelligent principles.

The author treats it negatively, calling it “pathetic madness,” which already strikingly distinguishes him from those poets who worshiped madness. The reader should note that madness in this case does not personify mental illness, but a state of the poetic spirit.

All of Tyutchev’s poems are a real mystery, and for several centuries writers all over the world have been struggling to solve it. Likewise with the poem “Madness,” we cannot say exactly how the poet feels about his literary hero. He conveys to us his detachment from this world.

From his “glassy” eyes you can understand that he saw something terrible, exciting, and it greatly affected him. At the very beginning of the poem, Tyutchev writes: “Where with the scorched earth.” Perhaps it was this Armageddon that the literary hero of the poem experienced. This forced him to renounce the world and bury himself deep within himself.

The madman seems to foresee the sad future of the earth; the author endows him with this quality guided by irony. What makes him laugh is that a person could imagine himself to be a seer, but in reality he is an ordinary madman.

“Madness” F. Tyutchev

“Madness” Fyodor Tyutchev

Where the earth is burnt
The vault of heaven merged like smoke, -
There in cheerful carefree
Pathetic madness lives on.

Under the hot rays
Buried in the fiery sands,
It has glass eyes
Looking for something in the clouds.

Then suddenly he will stand up and, with a sensitive ear,
Crouching to the cracked ground,
He listens to something with greedy ears
With contentment secret on the brow.

And he thinks he hears boiling jets,
What does the current of underground water hear,
And their lullaby singing,
And a noisy exodus from the earth!

Analysis of Tyutchev’s poem “Madness”

“Madness” is considered one of Tyutchev’s most mysterious poems. To this day, there is no generally accepted interpretation among literary scholars. According to some researchers of the poet’s work, the work is about water seekers. Others argue that Fyodor Ivanovich in the text opposed the natural philosophy of Schelling and its adherents. There is also a version that the poem is a self-critical statement, through which Tyutchev expressed doubts about his own prophetic gift. Probably, as is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle and its grains are scattered across all the most well-known interpretations, so you should not completely deny any of them.

The action of the poem "Madness" takes place in the desert. This image in the lyrics of Tyutchev’s era had several main interpretations. The desert was seen as a place of philosophical solitude, a refuge for hermits and prophets. It also acted as the space where the final judgment was carried out. It was often perceived as a metaphor for life as a vale. In the analyzed text, the desert is both the place of the final judgment (it is not without reason that the first lines contain hints of the apocalypse that has occurred) and a refuge found by madness.

Where the Earth is scorched
The vault of heaven merged like smoke.

One can imagine what a person could experience if he saw with his own eyes how the earth’s crust was collapsing, and now he had no choice but to remain in "cheerful carefreeness". Yes, it would seem that the madman is happy and carefree. But no! Tyutchev's madman, as if enduring some kind of punishment ( "under the hot rays, buried in the fiery sands"), “looking for something in the clouds”. and "glass eyes". Why does such a metaphor arise? The expression “glazed over” is widely used, i.e. frozen, focused on something. Usually such a reaction occurs as a result of a huge shock or because the person has detached himself from reality for some time. It can be assumed that here too the hero is so self-absorbed that

What does the current of underground water hear,
And a noisy exodus from the earth!

True, with the word “thinks” the author expresses, rather, an ironic attitude towards a madman who imagines himself capable of supposedly foreseeing something. This is what he talks about "secret contentment on the forehead". speaking both about dedication to certain secrets of existence and about the insanity of a madman.

In 1836 (6 years after “The Madman”) Tyutchev wrote the poem “Cicero.” lines from which have become quite famous and popular:

Blessed is he who has visited this world
His moments are fatal!

In addition to the analysis of “Madness,” there are other essays:

“Madness”, analysis of Tyutchev’s poem

What is madness? Illness or happiness? Why do people become crazy? Why do they lose their minds? These questions may arise in anyone who reads the title of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev’s poem “Madness.” In general, this topic was not just popular in the 19th century: almost every aspiring poet necessarily touched on it in his work. How not to remember the famous poem “God forbid I go crazy. ", written by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Some were frightened by madness, others believed that only by losing their minds could one become truly happy.

In general, one gets the feeling that this is a person who survived the Apocalypse; at least the beginning of the poem evokes just such an association:

Where the Earth is scorched
The vault of heaven merged like smoke.

One can imagine what a person could experience if he saw with his own eyes how the earth’s firmament was collapsing, and now he had no choice but to remain in “cheerful carefreeness.” Yes, it would seem that the madman is happy and carefree. But no! Tyutchev's madman, as if enduring some kind of punishment (“under the hot rays, buried in the fiery sands”), “is looking for something in the clouds,” and with “glassy eyes.” Why does such a metaphor arise? The expression “glazed over” is widely used, i.e. frozen, focused on something. Usually such a reaction occurs as a result of a huge shock or because the person has detached himself from reality for some time. It can be assumed that here too the hero is so self-absorbed that

What does the current of underground water hear,
And a noisy exodus from the earth!

True, with the word “thinks” the author rather expresses an ironic attitude towards a madman who imagines himself capable of supposedly foreseeing something. This is also evidenced by the “secret contentment on the brow,” which speaks both of dedication to certain mysteries of existence and of the madman’s insanity.

Tyutchev's poem was and remains one of the most mysterious works of the 19th century. Many critics have been struggling with its solution for the second century. Of course, we will not be able to say definitely what idea the author wanted to express. After all, in the words of Tyutchev himself, “a thought expressed is a lie.” Still, you can try to find clues.

In 1836 (6 years after “The Madman”) Tyutchev wrote the poem “Cicero”, the lines from which became quite famous and popular:

Blessed is he who has visited this world
His moments are fatal!

Great ones about poetry:

Poetry is like painting: some works will captivate you more if you look at them closely, and others if you move further away.

Small cutesy poems irritate the nerves more than the creaking of unoiled wheels.

The most valuable thing in life and in poetry is what has gone wrong.

Marina Tsvetaeva

Of all the arts, poetry is the most susceptible to the temptation to replace its own peculiar beauty with stolen splendors.

Humboldt V.

Poems are successful if they are created with spiritual clarity.

The writing of poetry is closer to worship than is usually believed.

If only you knew from what rubbish poems grow without knowing shame... Like a dandelion on a fence, like burdocks and quinoa.

A. A. Akhmatova

Poetry is not only in verses: it is poured out everywhere, it is all around us. Look at these trees, at this sky - beauty and life emanate from everywhere, and where there is beauty and life, there is poetry.

I. S. Turgenev

For many people, writing poetry is a growing pain of the mind.

G. Lichtenberg

A beautiful verse is like a bow drawn through the sonorous fibers of our being. The poet makes our thoughts sing within us, not our own. By telling us about the woman he loves, he delightfully awakens in our souls our love and our sorrow. He's a magician. By understanding him, we become poets like him.

Where graceful poetry flows, there is no room for vanity.

Murasaki Shikibu

I turn to Russian versification. I think that over time we will turn to blank verse. There are too few rhymes in the Russian language. One calls the other. The flame inevitably drags the stone behind it. It is through feeling that art certainly emerges. Who is not tired of love and blood, difficult and wonderful, faithful and hypocritical, and so on.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin

-...Are your poems good, tell me yourself?
- Monstrous! – Ivan suddenly said boldly and frankly.
- Do not write anymore! – the newcomer asked pleadingly.
- I promise and swear! - Ivan said solemnly...

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita"

We all write poetry; poets differ from others only in that they write in their words.

John Fowles. "The French Lieutenant's Mistress"

Every poem is a veil stretched over the edges of a few words. These words shine like stars, and because of them the poem exists.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok

Ancient poets, unlike modern ones, rarely wrote more than a dozen poems during their long lives. This is understandable: they were all excellent magicians and did not like to waste themselves on trifles. Therefore, behind every poetic work of those times there is certainly hidden an entire Universe, filled with miracles - often dangerous for those who carelessly awaken the dozing lines.

Max Fry. "Chatty Dead"

I gave one of my clumsy hippopotamuses this heavenly tail:...

Mayakovsky! Your poems do not warm, do not excite, do not infect!
- My poems are not a stove, not a sea, and not a plague!

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky

Poems are our inner music, clothed in words, permeated with thin strings of meanings and dreams, and therefore, drive away the critics. They are just pathetic sippers of poetry. What can a critic say about the depths of your soul? Don't let his vulgar groping hands in there. Let poetry seem to him like an absurd moo, a chaotic pile-up of words. For us, this is a song of freedom from a boring mind, a glorious song sounding on the snow-white slopes of our amazing soul.

Boris Krieger. "A Thousand Lives"

Poems are the thrill of the heart, the excitement of the soul and tears. And tears are nothing more than pure poetry that has rejected the word.