She picked them up and threw them away. Analysis of the poem "She was sitting on the floor" by Tyutchev

“She was sitting on the floor…” Fedor Tyutchev

She was sitting on the floor
And sorted through a pile of letters,
And, like cooled ashes,
Picked them up and threw them away.

I took familiar sheets
And it was wonderful to look at them,
How souls look from above
On their abandoned body...

Oh, how much life was here
Irrevocably experienced!
Oh, how many sad minutes
Love and joy killed!..

I stood silently aside
And the mouth was ready to kneel, -
And I became terribly sad
As from an inherent sweet shadow.

Analysis of Tyutchev's poem "She was sitting on the floor ..."

The love lyrics of Fyodor Tyutchev is one of the brightest and most exciting pages in the poet's work. Poems dedicated to the chosen ones are filled with sensuality, emotionality and often tragedy. The thing is that at the age of 47, Tyutchev, being a respected and high-ranking government official, a happy family man and a well-known poet, fell in love with Elena Denisyeva, a 24-year-old pupil of the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens. Their secret romance proceeded stormily and serenely until it became clear that the hereditary noblewoman, given to the care of her St. Petersburg aunt, was expecting a child from the poet. The grandiose scandal that broke out in society could not remain secret for the poet's wife, Eleanor Tyutcheva, who was very painfully worried about her husband's betrayal. In a fit of despair, she even destroyed a significant part of the correspondence with the poet, which contained many poems dedicated to her, which turned out to be irretrievably lost. It was to this sad event that Tyutchev dedicated his poem “She was sitting on the floor ...”, created in 1858.

If you don’t know the background of its writing, then you get the impression of a very idyllic and a little sad picture when a mysterious stranger, sitting on the floor, sorts through old letters and “like cooled ashes”, picks them up, and then throws them again. The author refers to the heroine of his work in the third person and in the past tense, noting that she looks at the pages of letters that have turned yellow with time, which contain joys and sorrows, somehow detached, “like souls looking from a height at their abandoned body” . And at the same time, as if he does not notice the culprit of his suffering, who stands aside and feels clearly superfluous in this strange company of a woman and letters, once so expensive, but now they have lost all their value. The author notes that at that moment he “was ready to fall on his knees”, but he understood that it was impossible to fix anything, and the fragile sheets, which are material evidence of the once ardent love, as well as the feeling itself, were doomed to death. And the author is no longer a tangible person of flesh and blood for the heroine of his work, gradually turning into a “pretty shadow”, a mirage, a phantom. The realization of this causes Tyutchev deep sadness, as if another page of his difficult life is turned upside down and crumbles to ashes, like old letters.

Despite all the piquancy and ambiguity of the situation, the poet did not find the strength to part with his wife, but at the same time he could not refuse his feelings for Elena Denisyeva. The poet lived in such a love triangle for 14 years, until the death of Denisyeva, whom he affectionately called Lelechka. She died of consumption, giving Tyutchev three children, two of whom were also destined to die. All these years, the poet took care of his second family and continued to love both women. Denisiev for her extraordinary mind, courage, beauty and the sacrifice she made in the name of their strange union, which cost her reputation and inheritance. Spouse - for understanding and the ability to forgive. It is noteworthy that it was with the consent of Eleonora Tyutcheva that the poet's children, born out of wedlock, received his last name. And after the death of Denisyeva, it was the wife who became the main comforter for the poet, sharing his mental pain with him.

It is also worth noting that the poet outlived both of his lovers. But even after their death, he continued to dedicate his poems to women, touching, tender, filled with sincere admiration and love, as well as gratitude for the fact that they brightened up the life of the author, bringing a little joy, light and warmth to it.

The poem “She was sitting on the floor” written by Tyutchev in the late fifties of the 19th century is rightfully considered one of the most exciting and memorable works in the poet’s love lyrics. According to literary connoisseurs, it was dedicated to his second wife Ernestine, who supported the poet in the most difficult moments of his life, and forgave him all insults and betrayals. The outstanding poet, already at a fairly mature age (47 years old), fell in love with a girl of noble origin Elena Denisyeva, who was the age of his daughter (she was 24 years old), this is a vivid feeling and the impossibility of being with a loved one (he never decided part with his wife) he carried through his whole life. For 14 years, Tyutchev was torn between feelings for his wife and unexpected late love for Denisyeva, survived them both and carried through the years a feeling of gratitude to them, reverent worship, tenderness and sincere admiration.

The main theme of the poem

The poem "She was sitting on the floor", consisting of four stanzas, is filled with tragedy and is not devoid of deep philosophical meaning. The first stanza shows us a woman sitting on the floor sorting through a pile of letters that were once very important and valuable for her. Now, judging by the gestures that the author describes to us (“she took them in her hands and threw them”), they became for her just a useless pile of paper like “cooled ashes”, once burning and flaming, now charred and cold.

In the second stanza of the poem, a picture of a real human tragedy unfolds before the eyes of readers. The pose of a woman sitting on the floor, her eyes full of longing for the past, all this emphasizes the depth of the despair of the lyrical heroine, her complete defenselessness and longing. The burden of memories that cause her only pain and suffering are conveyed by the author with verbs in the past tense (sitting, looking, throwing, taking apart). The ellipsis at the end of the stanza shows that the thought is not finished and the female soul is tormented and suffering from memories of a past life, once happy and carefree, which will not return.

The third stanza is permeated with memories of a past life, feelings and emotions about those happy days, a woman sorts through the moments of happiness experienced in her memory and realizes that nothing has been preserved in the present, feelings are killed and broken, there is no return to the past.

The fourth stanza shows us a man who witnesses this tragic picture and, apparently, he is the main culprit in the suffering of this woman. Now he realizes how much pain and grief he caused this dear person for himself, sincerely repents and is ready to pray for forgiveness on his knees. And at the same moment he realizes that these gestures are completely useless, their feelings are full of doom and the past will never return. He himself has already become for the heroine not a specific man, but a kind of incorporeal phantom, a “cute shadow”, and this causes the poet to feel a slight sadness and sadness, as if one of the main pages of his life book has been turned upside down and there will never be a return to it.

Structural analysis of the poem

To enhance the overall expression and convey the minor mood of the poem, the author uses a variety of lexical and syntactic repetitions. The emotional discord of the main character is conveyed by a detailed metaphorical comparison “I watched the souls look from a height at their abandoned body”, it perfectly emphasizes the irreversibility of the gap and the impossibility of returning to the past.

It is precisely because of the poet’s very difficult relationship with women that Tyutchev’s love poetry is saturated with a sense of tragedy and sadness, it describes important moments in the lives of people who are forced to make fateful decisions that have an impact on their entire future life. Love for him is a deep and strong feeling that can both give a person wings and lift him above the ground, and plunge him into the abyss of grief and despair. The poet believed that love is almost always a tragedy, its outcome is already predetermined, and yet this does not prevent the feeling of love from being the strongest and most desirable for every person living on this earth.

It can be said with firm certainty that any person who has read this poem will understand it in his own way. For some, this is a masterpiece, for others, just poetry, but it is clear that this work will not leave anyone indifferent, it will forever remain in his soul and heart.

vocals: V.Penkova
guitar: O.Foul


She was sitting on the floor
And sorted through a pile of letters,
And, like cooled ashes,
Picked them up and threw them away.

I took familiar sheets
And it was wonderful to look at them,
How souls look from above
On their abandoned body...

Oh, how much life was here
Irrevocably experienced!
Oh, how many sad minutes
Love and joy killed!..

I stood silently aside
And the mouth was ready to kneel, -
And I felt terribly sad
As from an inherent sweet shadow.

Analysis of Tyutchev's poem "She was sitting on the floor ..."
http://pishi-stihi.ru/ona-sidela-na-polu-tyutchev....

The love lyrics of Fyodor Tyutchev is one of the brightest and most exciting pages in the poet's work. Poems dedicated to the chosen ones are filled with sensuality, emotionality and often tragedy. The thing is that at the age of 47, Tyutchev, being a respected and high-ranking government official, a happy family man and a well-known poet, fell in love with Elena Denisyeva, a 24-year-old pupil of the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens. Their secret romance proceeded stormily and serenely until it became clear that the hereditary noblewoman, given to the care of her St. Petersburg aunt, was expecting a child from the poet. The grandiose scandal that broke out in society could not remain secret for the poet's wife, Eleanor Tyutcheva, who was very painfully worried about her husband's betrayal. In a fit of despair, she even destroyed a significant part of the correspondence with the poet, which contained many poems dedicated to her, which turned out to be irretrievably lost. It was to this sad event that Tyutchev dedicated his poem “She was sitting on the floor ...”, created in 1858.
If you don’t know the background of its writing, then you get the impression of a very idyllic and a little sad picture when a mysterious stranger, sitting on the floor, sorts through old letters and “like cooled ashes”, picks them up, and then throws them again. The author refers to the heroine of his work in the third person and in the past tense, noting that she looks at the pages of letters that have turned yellow with time, which contain joys and sorrows, somehow detached, “like souls looking from a height at their abandoned body” . And at the same time, as if he does not notice the culprit of his suffering, who stands aside and feels clearly superfluous in this strange company of a woman and letters, once so expensive, but now they have lost all their value. The author notes that at that moment he “was ready to fall on his knees”, but he understood that it was impossible to fix anything, and the fragile sheets, which are material evidence of the once ardent love, as well as the feeling itself, were doomed to death. And the author is no longer a tangible person of flesh and blood for the heroine of his work, gradually turning into a “pretty shadow”, a mirage, a phantom. The realization of this causes Tyutchev deep sadness, as if another page of his difficult life is turned upside down and crumbles to ashes, like old letters.
Despite all the piquancy and ambiguity of the situation, the poet did not find the strength to part with his wife, but at the same time he could not refuse his feelings for Elena Denisyeva. The poet lived in such a love triangle for 14 years, until the death of Denisyeva, whom he affectionately called Lelechka. She died of consumption, giving Tyutchev three children, two of whom were also destined to die. All these years, the poet took care of his second family and continued to love both women. Denisiev for her extraordinary mind, courage, beauty and the sacrifice she made in the name of their strange union, which cost her reputation and inheritance. Spouse - for understanding and the ability to forgive. It is noteworthy that it was with the consent of Eleonora Tyutcheva that the poet's children, born out of wedlock, received his last name. And after the death of Denisyeva, it was the wife who became the main comforter for the poet, sharing his mental pain with him.
It is also worth noting that the poet outlived both of his lovers. But even after their death, he continued to dedicate his poems to women, touching, tender, filled with sincere admiration and love, as well as gratitude for the fact that they brightened up the life of the author, bringing a little joy, light and warmth to it.

Tyutchev wrote the poem “She was sitting on the floor” in 1858. It was published in the same year in the Russian conversation magazine in the second volume.

It is assumed that the poem is dedicated to Tyutchev's second wife Ernestina. Tyutchev's relationship with women was confusing. His first wife, Eleonora, died under tragic circumstances, but Tyutchev soon married Ernestine. He knew Ernestina long before the death of his first wife. But in the second ten years of a happy marriage with Ernestina, the situation repeated itself. In 1849, Tyutchev fell in love with Elena Denisieva, who was almost half his age. Since then, for a long 14 years, until the death of Denisyeva, Tyutchev was torn between two women. Ernestine was wise and saved the marriage. But she must have been desperate. This is precisely the state of the heroine of the poem "She was sitting on the floor."

Literary direction and genre

The poem belongs to the genre of intimate lyrics. It is written in the best traditions of romanticism. The lyrical hero and heroine of the poem are described at the moment of the highest tension of feelings, they are lonely and ready for action, but they refuse it as useless. The intensity of passions is still intensifying, finding no release.

Theme, main idea and composition

The poem consists of four quatrains. The first, second and fourth are a genre scene, a description of a woman sorting through a pile of letters (the first two stanzas) and a lyrical hero watching this (the last stanza). In the third stanza, the lyrical hero refers to the content of the letters being parsed, which he knows because he himself wrote them.

The theme of the poem is a conflict between once close people, extinct feelings. The main idea: love, even extinguished, never leaves a person, living in his heart as sadness, regret, pain, which will remain with him forever.

Paths and images

The image of the heroine is devoid of any details whatsoever. She has no appearance, no name, replaced by a pronoun she is. And yet the image of a woman is very specific. Through appearance (posture and actions), Tyutchev conveys her inner world.

The beginning of the poem was supposed to shock the reader of the 19th century. This is our contemporary who can sit in jeans on the floor and rummage through papers. If a noblewoman in the 19th century. sitting on the floor, this means that something egregious happened in her life, that her legs just buckled or she was not herself.

The attitude of the heroine to the letters as to cooled ashes (comparison) means that they were useless and meaningless for her. But the heroine still takes them in her hands. Obviously, she throws out only letters belonging to the lyrical hero.

Having described the confusion in the soul of the heroine, Tyutchev refers to her only characteristic in the poem - a look that is called wonderful, that is, strange (although in the original word looked wonderful emphasis on at, obviously for rhythm).

In comparison of the second stanza, the whole essence of the state of the heroine, the whole gamut of her feelings. Her gaze is compared with the gaze of souls on the abandoned body. This is regret, and relief, and liberation, and a step towards the new, and the undoubted end of earthly life. Letters are dead for the heroine, just as the relationship with the person who wrote them is dead. No wonder Tyutchev uses the epithet familiar sheets, as if talking about people. On the other hand, the sheets are familiar not only to the heroine. The lyrical hero recognizes his letters in them.

In the third stanza, the motive of murdered love and joy just appears. This stanza differs from the other three in emotional intensity. Outwardly, everything still remains calm, but exclamations break out from the heart of the lyrical hero, underlined by interjection about. The life of the past, remaining in the letters, Tyutchev characterizes as irretrievably experienced, and calls the minutes woeful(epithets).

The motive of death remains in the fourth stanza. The lyrical hero is "terribly sad." Word scary- stronger adverb than very. The sadness was so strong, as if he felt the presence cute shadows (epithet), that is, he remembered the deceased. This dead woman is love. Participle inherent- old Slavicism, meaning located here. Today we would say present.

The lyrical hero, unlike the heroine, does not lose his head. He silently stands aside and repents of something, ready to fall on his knees, but does not fall. Either he feels the futility of such an act, or he does not fully admit his guilt. But the male figure, towering over the exhausted female sitting on the floor, is a symbol of the insolubility of the conflict between lovers.

The poem "She was sitting on the floor" does not need the context of Tyutchev's biography at all, it is understandable to anyone, regardless of whether he is familiar with the life of the poet. However, the poem is autobiographical. Ernestina knew about Denisyeva and was able to live with this knowledge. In addition, Tyutchev did write to her " heap letters ”(epithet), many of which she destroyed, so that some poems dedicated to her were irretrievably lost.

Size and rhyme

The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. Cross rhyming, male and female rhymes alternate.

  • Analysis of the poem by F.I. Tyutchev "Silentium!"

This poem is thoroughly saturated with sadness and longing for departed feelings. And, even without knowing the history of its creation, the reader is touched by the depth of love lyrics and understands its meaning.

Meanwhile, it was dedicated to Tyutchev's wife. The poet, already in adulthood and being married, fell in love with another girl. And their relationship lasted quite a long time. His wife found out about her. And although she was able to forgive her husband's betrayal and continue to live with him, she experienced it very painfully.

One day, Tyutchev caught her doing the activity that he describes later in his poem. She went through their old correspondence. There were also poems dedicated only to her alone.

The feeling of longing and regret, as well as helplessness in the current situation, then overwhelmed the poet and was reflected in these lines. With what sadness he, invisible in the work, looks from the side at how once his only beloved woman sorted out this pile of paper.

And the comparison of letters with cooled ashes echoes the author's cooled feelings. Although he continued to love both women throughout the rest of his life, his feelings for his wife were still not the same. Looking sadly at this scene, the poet wants to throw himself on his knees and return everything. But the realization that this can no longer be corrected turns all these impulses into a shadow. As well as himself, he represents in this work a shadow watching what is happening. Everything is gone, only memories remain, imprinted on these old yellowed sheets.

Analysis of the poem She sat on the floor of Tyutchev

F. Tyutchev's poem "She was sitting on the floor", written in 1858, is permeated word by word and line by line with an incredibly strong and fiery burning feeling. After the first acquaintance with this masterpiece, one feels not only the emotional depth, but also all the bitterness, the destructive power of the aftertaste of love. The problem of this poem is the irretrievable departure of once burning feelings.

In the first stanza, a woman, tormented by grief, appears before us: "She was sitting on the floor." She sits not because she is unable to get up, but because the strength of her inner feelings of despondency is so great that it absorbs all her physical strength. The letters reflect her life that has cooled down and cooled down as a result of extinguished love. Throwing letters is the cry of the soul from the surging memories.

In the second stanza, the author again uses an amazing, and at the same time such an accurate comparison, in order to give expressiveness and strength of sensation to the witnesses of this drama. The woman looks at the letters, "as souls look from a height at their abandoned body." Her memory is not only in her thoughts, but also in her hands, in her hands, which once felt the love of a dear person.

The apotheosis of all tragedy is displayed in the third stanza. Here the author conveys the realization and understanding that the finale has already taken place, and it will not be possible to revive the feeling that was burning with fire until recently.

The repentant participant in the tragedy, watching the suffering victim of love, appears in the fourth stanza. On the one hand, he is ready to ask for forgiveness and act, but on the other hand, he understands that this one is only inside him, in reality - love has disappeared and it is impossible to return it.

The work uses different epithets to enhance the feelings experienced: “familiar”, “sorrowful”, “sweet”. The multiplicity of complex sentences evokes an unprecedented and confusing power of feelings to readers. The relevance of the work will never be eclipsed, since love is eternal.

Analysis of the poem She sat on the floor according to plan

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