Above there is a cold noise below. “The gray sky is above me...” I. Bunin. Analysis of Bunin's poem “The Gray Sky Above Me...”
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“The gray sky is above me...” Ivan Bunin
Gray sky above me
And the forest is open, naked.
Below, along the forest clearing,
The dirt in the lemon leaves turns black.There's a cold noise coming from above,
Below is the silence of withering...
All my youth is wandering
Yes, the joy of lonely thoughts!
Analysis of Bunin's poem “The Gray Sky Above Me...”
“Gray Sky...” is distinguished by a clear compositional division: the first part of the work is devoted to a landscape sketch, the second to the reflections of the hero, in which the next stage of life is assessed.
Late autumn, appearing before the lyrical subject, is joyless, dark and silent. There are no gaps in the sky, densely covered with gray clouds. This picture is strikingly different from the elegant, harmonious autumn depicted by the poet in “Falling Leaves,” where there are bright colors, light and shine, and the sky is like “blue azure.” Here the monochrome sky corresponds to the black shading of an empty forest. There is only one spot of color in the landscape - “lemon foliage”, but it does not flutter in the wind, like a living thing, but lies on the ground, mixed with dirt. A realistic and expressive sketch speaks of frozen, dead nature.
The second stanza begins with the antithesis “above - below”: absolute silence is contrasted with the indistinct noise of a cold wind, probably shaking the tops of the trees. The “natural” part of the poem ends with a thoughtful pause, syntactically indicated by an ellipsis.
The final two lines, abruptly changing the theme of the lyrical narrative, contain an aphoristic conclusion that sums up what has been lived. The assessment is disappointing: his youth did not give the young hero a reliable home or enrich him with friendly connections.
The themes of homelessness and loneliness that arise in Bunin's early works have autobiographical origins. Having entered the Yelets gymnasium, the future poet left his native estate at the age of 11 and spent five long years away from home.
Despite the sad outcome, the lyrical hero has a source of joy - “lonely thoughts.” A similar motif is characteristic of Lermontov’s romantic lyrics, to which young Bunin turned more than once. However, in this case, the work sounds independently, and Lermontov’s principle is present in the text as a reminiscence, and not an imitation. If Lermontov’s hero, a supporter of active action, overcomes loneliness by merging with nature, then in Bunin one can feel the contemplative position of the lyrical “I” observing the static landscape. The bleak picture finds a response in the soul, but the topic freezes without receiving further development.
Gray sky above me
And the forest is open, naked.
Below, along the forest clearing,
The dirt in the lemon leaves turns black.
There's a cold noise coming from above,
Below is the silence of withering...
All my youth was wandering
Yes, the joy of lonely thoughts!
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Gray sky above me
And the forest is open, naked.
Below, along the forest clearing,
The dirt in the lemon leaves turns black.
There's a cold noise coming from above,
Below is the silence of withering...
All my youth is wandering
Yes, the joy of lonely thoughts!
Analysis of I. A. Bunin’s poem “The Gray Sky Above Me”
When a person still has many years of life ahead, he does not consider it as the highest value for himself. Being young, he, of course, thinks about old age, about the decline of his days, but so far everything seems so untouchable and extraneous, although inevitable. So in the poem by I.A. Bunin's "The gray sky above me..." the lyrical hero wastes his youth on wanderings and the joy of lonely thoughts, nevertheless realizing the inevitability of old age on his path, wherever he goes. The lyrical work was written in 1889, when the poet was 19 years old. It would seem that the age for love and tasting the pleasures and delights of this life to the fullest, but the lyrical hero, like the poet at that time, is worried that sooner or later life will begin to sum up its results, and another youth, filled with wanderings and thoughts of his quite satisfies: “Yes, the joy of lonely thoughts!” A little later, in 1891, Bunin’s first book of poems will be published, so the motive of the conscious loneliness of the poet’s soul slips into this lyrical work, in its last lines. This “sweetness of loneliness” in youth echoes the doom of this existence for the rest of one’s life. The theme of loneliness makes Bunin similar to M.Yu. Lermontov, who was one of his reference points in poetry. The philosophical nature of Bunin’s lyrics, which is also characteristic of F.I., is also obvious in this poem. Tyutchev.
Descriptions of nature are parallel to the feelings, sensations, and circumstances of the lyrics. the hero and play an important role in the chronotope: “the gray sky and the open, naked forest” - above the lyrical subject there are clearly elements of a picture of late autumn, which symbolizes the meaningful final period in a person’s life, which is inevitable, despite the fact that the lyrical hero is still young. “Below, the forest clearing, the dirt in the lemon foliage turns black” - color painting, fresh associativity, characteristic of Bunin’s poetics: the epithet “lemon foliage” is combined with the blackness of the dirt. It’s as if in a bright and fresh life the years are slowly erasing, bringing them closer to the end, just as the dirt turns black in the fresh lemon-colored foliage. There, below, “the silence of withering” is contrasted with the previous line: “Above there is a cold noise” - in the gray sky. (antithesis) The lyrical hero finds himself in the middle of two sides, not yet experiencing their collision, but observing them. The expected loneliness does not frighten him, because now he is also lonely. The psychologism of the landscape, characteristic of Bunin's lyrics, lies in the harmony of this very loneliness and coldness both in the soul of the lyrical hero and in nature, which is for the poet a source of wisdom, true knowledge of the world.
The use of lofty, traditionally poetic vocabulary: “withering”, “doom”, “wandering” is also characteristic of Bunin’s work, but in this poem it elevates the terrible landscape and gloomy feelings. The poem is written in the traditional syllabic-tonic versification system, iambic tetrameter, which sets a calm pace and at the same time a clear rhythm, however, pyrrhic, with the help of punctuation, creates some pauses, indicating the emphasis on the necessary words.. Using cross rhyme, alternating male and female rhymes, starting with the masculine one gives laconicism, completeness, completeness to each quatrain. The alliteration of the sound “s” throughout the poem as a technique of sound writing gives a quiet, smooth sound, as if flowing. The assonance of the sounds “e”, “i” in the first stanza gives a gloomy, sad emotional coloring, and the assonance of the sounds “o”, “u” in the second stanza elevates this sadness of loneliness, gives openness, a kind of melodiousness to the poem.
The motives of poetic loneliness are also highlighted with the help of the ironic mode of artistry, indicating the non-involvement of the lyrical “I” in the outside world, in the world of people with other values. The poem combines the genres of elegy and thought, since nature is inextricably linked with the experience of the lyrical subject, and philosophy is also present in the lyrical work. The meditative nature of the lyrics, despite the small volume of the poem, can be traced based on the characteristics of the genres combined with each other.
The originality of Bunin's poetics is due to the fact that the era of his work fell at the turn of the century, and therefore in his works one can find features of romanticism, realism, and symbolism. In this lyrical work we observe the features of symbolism: the metaphysical nature of the lyrics, the lyrical hero’s lack of desire to be generally understood, symbolism as the main method of perception (late autumn is a symbol of loneliness, sadness, meaningfulness). The impressionistic motifs characteristic of Bunin are also reflected in the poem - the lyrical hero is young, but his youth, although special, filled with loneliness, is also fleeting, like a moment, and the poet manages to capture this moment in a lyrical work.
The poet managed to reflect the comprehension of the world with the help of colors and sounds in this poem. The imaginativeness, accuracy, and picturesqueness of his poetry (these features also distinguish Bunin’s prose) did not go unnoticed in Russian literature.