Афанасий Афанасьевич Фет как поэт-мыслитель

Abstract

The article proposes to consider the creative individuality of A.A. Fet as a poet-thinker. It places a special emphasis on his ideological views, expressed in his enthusiasm for the teachings of A. Schopenhauer’s and in disputes with L.N. Tolstoy; extensive epistolary material is involved (this correspondence with Ya.P. Polonsky, L.N. and S.A. Tolstoy, N.N. Strakhov, K.R. and others); a brief overview of the critical reviews of contemporaries on the poet’s poetry collections is given. Here, Fet’s philosophical lyrics are analyzed in particular detail (first of all – the late, period of “Evening Lights”, in which there is an understanding of the universal categories of being – life and death, good and evil, the world and man, time and eternity), some parallels are drawn with F.I. Tyutchev. The article traces the development of spiritual and religious issues in the work of Fet’s (gospel stories and motives, the image of the Lord, the genre of prayer, etc.). The article raises the question of expanding the concept of “poet-thinker” taking into account the category “mind of the heart” designated by Fet himself. From these positions, his poem “I am waiting, embraced by anxiety...” from the “Evening Lights” collection is analyzed. Considering Fet’s work as “the poetry of thought” does not cancel, but enriches his airy image in our minds, allows us to present Fet’s personality in more volume, to clarify and expand the idea of the real complexity and versatility of his artistic nature, to come closer to understanding “lyrical insolence” as “the property of great poets” (words of L.N. Tolstoy about A.A. Fet).