I want roses in that one. Analysis of the poem Summer Garden (Anna Akhmatova)
The poem "Summer Garden" by Anna Akhmatova was written in 1959. It belongs to such a literary movement as acmeism. Its representatives through certain objects, phenomena, sounds convey mood and feelings lyrical hero("match of ship creaks", "hundreds of thousands of steps")
The theme of the poem is longing for youth and for the beautiful city of St. Petersburg:
I want roses, in that only garden,
Where the best in the world stands from the fences...
Anna Akhmatova wants to convey to the reader the idea of the transience of time and the immortality of the great. The youth of the lyrical heroine passed precisely in St. Petersburg, and her whole life was connected with this city. The northern capital was before the heroine, and will be after her ("And the swan, as before, swims through the ages")
It cannot be said that the mood of the octagon is sad or cheerful, it is rather calm and nostalgic.
Memories are not very vivid, they are filled with vague images and quiet sounds: inaudible steps, whispers, creaks. And the city itself literally breathes with grandeur ("royal lindens"), beauty and purity (the swan is a symbol of purity)
AT lyric poem the author uses many tropes and stylistic figures. Epithets: "high love", "royal lindens". Personifications: "statues remember", "hundreds of thousands of steps sleep". Comparison: "it burns with mother-of-pearl and jasper." Alliteration, for example, in the line "In the fragrant silence" the sound "sh" is heard, as if the wind is swaying the trees. Inversion: "my nights", "masts ship's creak", "source of light".
Updated: 2017-05-16
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"Summer Garden" Anna Akhmatova
I want roses, in that only garden,
Where the best in the world stands from the fences,Where the statues remember me young
And I remember them under the Neva water.In the fragrant silence between the regal lindens
I imagine the creaking of ship masts.And the swan, as before, swims through the ages,
Admiring the beauty of his double.And hundreds of thousands of steps are dead asleep
Enemies and friends, friends and enemies.And the procession of shadows has no end in sight
From a granite vase to a palace door.My white nights whisper there
About someone's high and secret love.And everything burns with mother-of-pearl and jasper,
But the source of light is mysteriously hidden.
Analysis of Akhmatova's poem "Summer Garden"
The image of a garden is often found in Akhmatova's lyrics. And we are talking about poems different periods. This feature allowed Likhachev to call Anna Andreevna the last of the poets who devoted parks and gardens to essential role in creativity. In his opinion, in the artistic world, Akhmatova's Garden was associated with Eden, acted as a symbol of "real and happy being." The poem "Summer Garden", dated 1959, refers to the late poetry of Anna Andreevna. It is clearly dominated by the personal intonations of the author. The readers are presented with the memories of the lyrical heroine. Through the choice of verbs and participles - imagining, whispering, remembering, admiring - Akhmatova demonstrates that the past in her soul is more alive than the present. It has not been forgotten, it is still relevant.
The summer garden in the work is connected with the Eden mentioned above. First, through the title image - roses. Here it is worth recalling the concept of paradise presented in " Divine Comedy» Dante. In the finale, the “heavenly Rose” is revealed to the poet, representing the abode of the blessed. Secondly, through the mention of the fence. Of course, the lattice of the Summer Garden is distinguished by artistic perfection, but it got into Akhmatova's poem not only because of its beauty. Fence - feature paradise gardens. She personifies isolation from sin, salvation. With the help of it, it is possible to create a world peaceful, calm, friendly to man.
In Anna Andreevna's poem there are intersections not only with religious motives but also Russian poetry. "Summer Garden" argues with Blok's poem "The Nightingale Garden". In both cases, a garden with a fence and roses is in the center of the text, while both details are endowed with a symbolic super-meaning. However, conceptually the works are different. In Blok, the space of the garden is opposed to reality, it is completely incompatible with everyday life. Akhmatova offers readers another option. In her poem, the spiritual reality is combined with the empirical. Anna Andreevna addresses not only Blok. The image of the submerged statue refers to Annensky's poem "I am at the bottom, I am a sad fragment ...". A swan swimming through the centuries gives rise to associations with "Tsarskoye Selo" poetry (Gumilyov, Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, and so on).
I want roses, in that only garden,
Where the best in the world stands from the fences,
Where the statues remember me young
And I remember them under the Neva water.
In the fragrant silence between the regal lindens
I imagine the creaking of ship masts.
And the swan, as before, swims through the ages,
Admiring the beauty of his double.
And hundreds of thousands of steps are dead asleep
Enemies and friends, friends and enemies.
And the procession of shadows has no end in sight
From a granite vase to a palace door.
My white nights whisper there
About someone's high and secret love.
And everything burns with mother-of-pearl and jasper,
But the source of light is mysteriously hidden.
Analysis of the poem "Summer Garden" by Akhmatova
The work "Summer Garden" was created by A. Akhmatova in the late period of creativity (1959). It is imbued with the sad thoughts of the poetess about the long-gone youth, which will never return.
The lyrical heroine dreams of returning to the past, when her feelings and sensations were still filled with youth and freshness. She recalls the "only garden" in which she spent her most better days. The statues located in that garden carefully keep the memories of the young poetess. She would like to hear again the imaginary "masts of the ship ... the creak", to see the swimming swan.
The youth of the lyrical heroine was the happiest time in her life. A return to the past would allow you to throw off the incredibly heavy burden of the past years, to forget about all the joys and sorrows adult life. The poetess uses a very vivid image to describe this long time: the dead sleep of "hundreds of thousands of steps of enemies and friends."
The work clearly shows the duality of images: "the statues remember" - "I ... remember them"; "royal lindens" - "ship masts"; "swan" - reflected in the water "double"; "Enemies and Friends" This opposition emphasizes the difference between the past and the present, old St. Petersburg and modern Leningrad.
Akhmatova associates the summer garden with paradise Eden. This is the mysterious place where creative person can feel true freedom. The garden no longer belongs to this world, so it can only be found in the past. The lyrical heroine makes a mental walk through her garden. An endless procession of shadows passes by her. Temporal boundaries are erased, but spatial ones remain: "from a granite vase to the palace door." A magical atmosphere reigns in the mysterious garden: “White nights whisper”, “everything burns with mother-of-pearl and jasper”.
In general, the work "Summer Garden" contains two semantic levels. At the first, Akhmatova indulges in memories of her spiritual homeland. Throughout her life, the poetess did not hide her admiration for the austere beauty of ancient St. Petersburg. At the second level, memories move into another dimension. The real Summer Garden turns into a mysterious Eden. Even in her youth, Akhmatova wrote that there were several Petersburgs in her mind. One of them reliably kept the memory of the poetess. AT last years her life she dreamed of returning to this city dearest to her heart.