Attributive Features of F. I. Tyutchev’s Poetics

Abstract

The article substantiates the idea of Tyutchev as a recipient of the Orthodox ideals of East Slavic literature. Four of the eight attribute properties inherent in it, which are of particular importance for Tyutchev’s poetry, are considered in detail: knowledge of God, grace, religion, conciliarity. As in ancient Russian literature, Tyutchev’s author appears as an instrument of the Creator, which is manifested in the practical absence of a lyrical hero in Tyutchev’s works and the activity of an epic narrator. For Tyutchev, the poet is a student of the Russian poetry school. The highest authorities for Tyutchev are Pushkin, Karamzin, Zhukovsky and Lomonosov, who, like himself, are only an instrument in God’s hands. The property of the knowledge of God for Tyutchev is associated with the image of a secret-seer, a contemplator of elevated spectacles: natural, historical, spiritual. In this regard, Tyutchev’s poetry abounds with natural, airy, heavenly images. Tyutchev’s image of the temple is also connected with the property of God-knowledge, which comprises the whole complex of dogmatic, historical and liturgical meanings. The property of grace in Tyutchev is especially manifested in love lyrics, acting as poetry of spiritual and moral self-exposure. Wounds inflicted in a personal relationship can only be healed by the gift of divine grace. Suffering and sacrifice for Tyutchev are the means of acquiring godlike properties: patience, meekness, humility, love. In Tyutchev’s mature lyrics, the property of religion manifests itself to a special extent, visibly appearing in the cycle of poems about Slavs and in polemical poems directed against Catholicism and Protestantism. They also actualize the category of sobornost’, which reveals itself in Tyutchev’s address to a fellow poet, a Slav poet. Tyutchev’s poetry thus appears as the place of struggle for the Truth, for Orthodox ideals, for his native word, native faith, and for his soul. It is a decisive refutation of Western individualism and secessionism and the affirmation of the ideals of Orthodox sobornost’.