“The Autumn Book” of the Poet (Alexander Tvardovskiy. “Selected Lyrical Poetry of These Years”)

Abstract

The definition of A. Tvardovskiy’s final lyrical anthology “Selected lyrical poetry of these years” as a philosophical and testamentary book allowed to metaphorically call it “The Autumn Book”. Starting with the first parting theme — parting with youth — all the last book published in the poet’s lifetime is transpierced with the feeling of last parting — parting with life, and, simultaneously, there are comprehension and crude summary. Autumn is the book’s time of nature, with all its impalpable marks and signs. Autumn is the poet’s personal time — for his own bitter and ironic acknowledgement, “age of retirement”. The most prominent tension and anxiety haunt the poet not when he thinks about forthcoming death, but when he contemplates his fate, his way of living this life — the life of public servant. The counterinitiative unity of the beauty acceptance, harmony of the nature, the original value of human’s life and simultaneous self-judging impacted the poetical fabric of A. Tvardovskiy’s latest book. In “Selected lyrical poetry of these years” controversially coexist elegiacal and invective intonations; common and obscene lexis with vernaculars and even vulgarisms; proper and allegorical meaning. Harmony and tension are connected in the poet’s consciousness. National ethic, proven by centuries, living naturally and authoritatively in A. Tvardovskiy’s spiritual world, removes him from the field of Soviet ethical novates to the space of eternal and essential notions, which strengthen the poetical world of his latest lyrical anthology. These notions are labelled naturally and nationally: home — family, fate — destiny, conscience — pain — duty, world — human — nature.