Analysis of the poem “Being Famous is Ugly” Pasternak B.L. Poetic analysis of "being famous is ugly"
Pasternak - author interesting works, who wrote many wonderful essays and reflections on the topic of being, truth, time, he wrote about life and death, and philosophized on other topics. So, the theme of Pasternak’s poem “It’s Ugly to Be Famous” that we are studying is also philosophical.
Pasternak's poem Being famous is ugly
Pasternak’s poem “It’s Ugly to Be Famous” was written in 1956. this work belongs to the cycle of works “When it clears up” and can safely be called instructive. When you read a poem, in every line you hear the advice of the author, who wants writers to create their works not to become famous, not for the sake of hype and not for fame. He encourages you to write your works, giving meaning to what you write and what you write about, and if recognition and love from readers comes, then this should happen naturally, thanks to “dedication”, your work, but not “imposture”.
This work does not use such techniques as epithets, comparisons, there are no metaphors, but there are verbs, phrases, complex sentences, can be called a sermon. A sermon for those who decided to take up the pen. The poem makes you think. When you read Pasternak’s work, you understand what the essence of the work of writers should be and this is “not hype, not success.” Pasternak instructs all his contemporaries and future writers; he encourages them to live and write in such a way as to “attract to themselves the love of space.”
Working on the analysis of Pasternak’s poem “It’s not beautiful to be famous,” we can conclude that real writer, a true poet will never distinguish between “defeat and victory” in his works; for him, all works are part of his soul, and if today the work is not recognized by someone, then in centuries it can become a masterpiece. The main thing is to “be alive” always, write about the present and “not give up a single bit of your face.” Therefore, if you despise, write about it, if you love, write about it, know how to hate, know how to rejoice, but there is no need to depict something that does not really exist, something that someone wants, just to become famous.
Being famous is ugly to listen to
For an artist, the surrounding life is not only a source of inspiration and a subject of aesthetic interest. It is illuminated by his moral feeling, and she herself, in turn, conquering the artist, generates and strengthens this feeling in him. For Pasternak, the artist was always a “hostage”, but also a “debtor”, devoted to art to the end. The awareness of the specialness and chosenness of the poet’s fate also distinguishes the late Pasternak. It is multiplied by life experience, in-depth analysis and therefore truly impressive. It emphasizes and puts forward the moral aspect - the idea of the artist’s responsibility to the whole world, to art itself and directly to people.
The deep organic nature of the theme of duty and service is confirmed in Pasternak by the variety of options for its expression. It appears in the logic of cultural-historical and evangelical comparisons - in the poem. Or it suddenly appears, on the crest of a free and broad lyrical wave, in “Earth.” Or - quite unusually - it takes on the character of almost a maxim in the poem “Being famous is ugly.”
The poem “Being Famous is Ugly” was written by a recognized master during the period of his “last songs.” It conveys the poet’s internal perception of his role, the very essence of his existence on earth.
Late academic. He spends sparingly artistic media, which are in his arsenal, but this does not make his poems drier, but only emphasizes the skill of the poet, faithful to his image of the world, different from what Soviet literature offered:
Being famous is not nice.
This is not what lifts you up.
No need to create an archive,
Shake over manuscripts.
In this poem, Pasternak contrasts his creative path the path of Vladimir, immoderately glorified after his announcement by Stalin " the best poet modernity." Well, the leader needed a “court” poet who would carry the ideological guidelines of modernity to the masses, and by the will of fate, his choice fell on the famous futurist. But Pasternak was disgusted by the fate of the “famous” that befell Mayakovsky; he could not imagine life outside of secrecy and invisibility, and he always separated true poetry from near-literary vanity.
Let us note for now: it is contraindicated for a poet, as Pasternak believed, to be famous, to “keep archives”; success and hype are detrimental to his talent. In addition, the public's love is fleeting, sometimes unfair, and often subject to fashion. The poet, of course, creates for people; this is precisely the essential meaning of any creative act. But precisely, for and in the name of the people, and not for the sake of their enthusiastic assessments, and especially not for the purpose of pleasing the tastes of those in power. Pasternak treats fame as a worldly vanity; his art is akin to the mercy of the celestials who give people benefits without demanding anything in return. The poet experiences joy from creativity itself. It is his element and way of existence. He cannot help but compose; for him it means to live, pouring out his soul in sounds, filling the world with beauty.
The poet formulates the maxim: “The goal of creativity is dedication.” In the first place for Pasternak is the highest sensitivity, responsiveness to moral impressions, and not the transformation of life into the life of a poet. Actually, in Pasternak’s later poems, with their lofty, preaching assertion of duty, a decisive activation of the “I” is visible, no longer so much an eyewitness to the world process, but rather its direct accomplice. And in the poem “Being Famous is Ugly,” this activation is taken to the limit. In the subtext of the poem there is the same desire for unity characteristic of Pasternak, but, being complicated by a feeling of incomprehension, the subjective moment in the poem is obvious, it expresses itself not directly, but indirectly, through conflict. All this introduces new accents into the artist’s philosophical and aesthetic concept, but does not destroy its foundation - the affirmation of unity with the world as a life-giving and morally formative principle.
In general, the poem requires thoughtful reading in the context of all of Pasternak’s lyrics, its thematic features, philosophical orientation, and specific features. About how dangerous it is to draw conclusions regarding works great poet how difficult it is to penetrate art world it is evidenced by Mandelstam’s arrogantly expressed opinion that “It’s not beautiful to be famous” “sounds like an official report.” I was wrong: what the poem doesn’t have is “officiality”; rather, it creates the impression of a teaching message, but confidential, sincere, honest, like an intimate conversation between good friends.
Pasternak's signs attract attention colloquial speech: “to shake over manuscripts”, “to be a byword on everyone’s lips”, “in the end”, “not in sight”, “an inch away”. The poet uses phraseological units and colloquial expressions, which impart special expressiveness to speech with a small volume of words and convey conversational intonation.
There is another important aspect of interpreting the poem. Despite the fact that the final eight verses cannot be correlated with any specific passage of Holy Scripture, it should be noted that they, like the entire text, consist of biblical words. “It’s Ugly to Be Famous” is focused in content and poetics on the gospel apostolic epistles. Pasternak, a deeply religious man who fell into the trap of atheistic Russian literature of the Soviet period, nevertheless remains true to his moral principles and religious beliefs and formulates those moral laws and ethical dogmas without which a true artist cannot imagine the life of a true artist.
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak is a poet-philosopher, a thoughtful artist who peers with interest at the life around him. The inquisitive mind of the poet wants to penetrate into the very essence of things, understand them and tell the world about his discoveries. In essence, the poet sums up his work with the poem “Being Famous is Ugly.” But summing up does not mean putting an end to it. The last book lyricism is not the end of Pasternak’s poetry, always looking to the future, tuned to the perception of its call:
Others on the trail
They will pass your path by an inch,
But defeat comes from victory
You don't have to differentiate yourself.
A true artist is always a pioneer. Others will follow him, perhaps without even remembering whose footsteps they are following. But can this have any significance for a poet who devotes himself entirely to creativity, without reserve, and in his self-giving is likened to Jesus Christ, performing the feat of the cross? Living like this is hard, sometimes unbearable, but such is the fate of a poet. Only then is a masterpiece of art born when the human soul is alive, when it is open to the world and people:
And should not a single slice
Don't give up on your face
But to be alive, alive and only,
Alive and only until the end.
This is how Pasternak’s poem ends, and his final book of lyrics is imbued with the same sentiments. This is his last - no, constant, everlasting and forever living - poetic word.
Composition
“In the field of words, I love prose most of all,
but he wrote mostly poetry. Poem
Regarding prose, this is the same as a sketch
regarding the picture. Poetry seems to me
a large literary sketchbook."
B.L. Parsnip
The work of Boris Leonidovich Pasternak stands apart in the history of Russian literature. He lived and worked in a very difficult time for Russia. The old canons collapsed, the old life, people and destinies were broken... And in the midst of all this - a wonderful poet with a subtle soul and a unique vision of the world. Born at a turning point in fate, Boris Pasternak managed to become one of the symbols of his century.
Poems occupy a special place in his work. Many wonderful lines came from his pen. The last collection of poems, never published during Pasternak’s lifetime, entitled “When it clears up,” includes selected works author. The theme of renewal and hope is clearly heard in the book, which is a reflection of the changes taking place in the country. It was in this collection that the poem “Being Famous is Ugly...” was published, which can be called a kind of set of rules for a real poet. It is in this work that Pasternak reveals his attitude towards creativity.
The poem has a programmatic meaning, as if continuing Pushkin’s appeal to the “Poet”. The lyrical hero, continuing the great poet’s thought about the artist’s independence from “people’s love,” introduces a moral assessment into his judgment:
Being famous is not nice. This is not what lifts you up. There is no need to start an archive, to tremble over manuscripts.
The goal of creativity is dedication,
Not hype, not success.
Shameful, meaningless
Be the talk of everyone.
We see that Pasternak does not accept empty, undeserved fame; it is easier for him to sink into obscurity than to be on everyone’s lips without doing anything for it. This position deserves only respect. The artist makes his lonely path “in the fog,” where “you can’t see a thing,” hearing only “the call of the future” ahead. He must leave a “living trace” in modernity, which will be continued by “others”.
The unique fate of the poet is understood by Pasternak as connecting link between the past and the future in a single chain of art, loyalty to the calling:
And should not a single slice
Don't give up on your face
But to be alive, alive and only,
Alive and only until the end.
Once having chosen this path, the poet should never deviate from it.
Also important work To reveal the image of the poet in Pasternak’s mind, the poem “In everything I want to get to the very essence...”, written in the same year as the first and included in the same collection, can serve.
I want to reach everything
To the very essence.
At work, looking for a way,
In heartbreak.
From this quatrain follows the aspiration of the lyrical hero, who can conditionally be equated to Pasternak himself. The desire for life, for knowledge of its secrets and mysteries, the thirst for activity and feeling. In this poem lyrical hero sets himself the almost impossible task of penetrating secret essence of life, to deduce its laws, to unravel its secrets... He is trying to grasp the “thread of destinies and events.” But the task is complicated by the fact that he strives not only to understand, but also to express in words common law being:
Oh if only I could
Although partly
I would write eight lines
About the properties of passion.
Discarding empty words, he looks for the main, fundamental ones. Isn’t this the task and goal of poetry in general and each poet in particular?.. Pasternak always believed that what is meaningful does not have to be complex. The truth of things and phenomena lies precisely in their simplicity. Hence the poet’s desire to express in eight lines the properties of passion, which for Pasternak is life, because only when a person feels does he really live. This is the recipe for penetrating the mystery of life.
The role of nature in Pasternak’s work in general and in this poem in particular is interesting. She miraculously comes to life, but not as an accumulation of living and inanimate objects of the world around us, but as embodied poetry:
I would plant poems like a garden.
With all the trembling of the veins the linden trees in them would bloom in a row,
Single file, to the back of the head.
The world of poetry and the world of nature are intertwined, and it is not entirely clear where one ends and the other begins, and the poet’s linden trees line up in orderly rows, like the words in the line...
Being famous is ugly, analysis of a poem according to plan
1. History of creation. The work "It's Ugly to Be Famous" (1956) refers to late period creativity of B. Pasternak. By this time, he had already experienced a lot in life, and had the opportunity to compare his fate with the rest of his fellow writers. The work can be considered the author’s programmatic statement about creativity in general.
2. Genre- lyric poem.
3. main topic works - creative activity. Already in the first line, the phrase that defines the entire poem appears - “being famous is ugly.” Most likely, the author means infinite number"creative figures" Soviet Union, which are really nothing special. They achieved all-Union success not through creativity, but through submission and countless praises to the country's political leadership. The ideological background of the work is not so important.
Pasternak reminds that main goal any author is "dedication". Unfortunately, things often happen differently. Having achieved a certain success, a poet or writer enjoys fame and honor. In the future, his creativity will be subordinated to maintaining this position (“to be a byword on everyone’s lips”), and not to higher creative goals.
Pasternak was sure that real recognition should come to the creator much later, from grateful descendants. In a burst of inspiration, a poet is able to break the boundaries of time and space. Only in this case will his work have real value. Calling on his colleagues to “plunge into the unknown,” the author denounces mediocre paper scribblers who are prone to publishing voluminous memoirs and autobiographies.
Task creative person is to create new worlds, and not to exalt one’s own wretchedness and not to anyone interesting fate. Pasternak considers the ability not to distinguish between “defeat and victory” to be especially important. Each author must completely renounce worldly goods through complete dedication, while remaining himself. Only by eliminating his dependence on surrounding temptations or dangers can the creator consider himself “alive.”
4. Composition poems are sequential.
5. Size of the product- iambic tetrameter with cross rhyme.
6. Expressive means . The entire poem is built on antithesis. The author contrasts “dedication” with “hype” and “success”, “imposture” with “love of space”. The imagery of the work is given by phraseological units (“a parable on the lips”, “an inch behind an inch”) and metaphors (“the call of the future”, “gaps in fate”). The finale is reinforced by the threefold repetition of the epithet “alive.”
7. the main idea works - true creativity cannot be dependent on transitory values.
Damn you, my dears! Why this particular poem, why this particular damn lesson, on this disgusting Monday? Oh, burn in hell - I am with you.
Being famous is not nice.
This is not what lifts you up.
No need to create an archive,
Shake over manuscripts.
The goal of creativity is dedication,
Not hype, not success.
Shamefully meaning nothing
Be the talk of everyone.
Hear the call of the future.
And you have to leave spaces
In fate, and not among papers,
Places and chapters of a whole life
Crossing out in the margins.
And plunge into the unknown
And hide your steps in it,
Others on the trail
But defeat comes from victory
You don't have to differentiate yourself.
And should not a single slice
Don't give up on your face
Alive and only until the end.
The poem “It’s Ugly to Be Famous” was written in 1956 and is included in Boris Pasternak’s lyrical cycle “When It Goes Wild” (1956-1959). In addition, it includes another 44 poems. The basis of this cycle of reflections on time, existence, truth, life and death, art and others philosophical topics. The release of the cycle of poems “When it clears up” is connected with the refusal in the USSR to publish the novel “Doctor Zhivago”.
The theme of the poem is philosophical.
We can say that this poem “Being Famous is Ugly” is instructive in nature, and Boris Pasternak himself plays the role of mentor. He notes that “being famous is not beautiful,” explains “the goal of creativity is dedication,” and then begins to teach in verses 3, 4, 5 about how to live, what to do
But we must live without imposture,
Live like this so that in the end
Attract the love of space to you,
Hear the call of the future.
And you have to leave spaces
In fate, and not among papers,
Places and chapters of a whole life
Crossing out in the margins.
And plunge into the unknown
And hide your steps in it,
How the area hides in the fog,
When you can't see a thing in it.
And in the last 2 stanzas, explaining, gives instructions
Others on the trail
They will pass your path by an inch,
But defeat comes from victory
You don't have to differentiate yourself.
And should not a single slice
Don't give up on your face
But to be alive, alive and only,
Alive and only until the end.
The mood of the poem is sublime, solemn, aimed at success, desiring it. Creative life the poet was difficult, so he tried to understand why everything was happening this way, what he was doing wrong, and most importantly, how long would it still continue?
Perhaps, at the same time, he noticed that there are many in Russia who write precisely for fame, height, “noise” and “success”, at the same time not at all giving importance to what to write and what to write about.
You reread the poem and learn. You learn to understand the whole essence of writing, you learn to understand your role, not to become “noise,” but to “attract the love of space to yourself.” This poem encourages, inspires, encourages
But to be alive, alive and only,
Alive and only until the end.
The rhyme of the poem is cross. There are practically no epithets, personifications, metaphors or comparisons in the text. It's filled with verbs participial phrases, complex and compound sentences - the author tried to give movement to his instructions, to encourage movement, to life, because “there is no standing position: either you move forward or backward.” Frequent alliterations on hard sounds“n”, “r”, “d”, “t”, “zh” Pasternak gives his instructions firmness, steadfastness, and confidence, thereby expressing his position in life.
