There are faces like magnificent portals
Where everywhere the great is seen in the small.
There are faces - the likeness of miserable shacks,
Where the liver is cooked and the abomasum gets wet.
Other cold, dead faces
Closed with bars, like a dungeon.
Others are like towers in which
Nobody lives and looks out the window.
But I once knew a small hut,
She was unsightly, not rich,
But from her window on me
The breath of a spring day flowed.
Truly the world is both great and wonderful!
There are faces - the likeness of jubilant songs.
From these, like the sun, shining notes
Compiled a song of heavenly heights.
Analysis of the poem "On the Beauty of Human Faces" by Zabolotsky
Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky subtly felt people and with incredible accuracy could compose psychological picture, relying on internal sensations and details of a person's appearance.
To this end, he turns to details: the corners of the lips, the dimples on the cheeks or the wrinkles on the forehead, which display inner world person. The way Zabolotsky seeks to look into the souls of people, and we see this in his poem “On Beauty human faces».
History of creation
The poem was written at the sunset of Zabolotsky's writing activity - in 1955. During this period, the poet experiences a creative upsurge, during which he pours out all his worldly wisdom through writing. In his works there is a subtle understanding of life and people.
The main idea of the work
The poem is based on the idea that a person's life is imprinted in his appearance. All habits, lifestyle, character traits are literally written on his face. Zabolotsky tells us that a face cannot deceive, therefore, with the help of an external description, the poet draws up an internal portrait of passers-by.
means of expression
The poem is built on a comparison, with which the author correlates the portraits of people with speaking images: “like magnificent portals”, “like a dungeon”, “like the sun of shining notes”.
With the help of antonyms, the poet reveals the riddle of a person: “the great is seen in the small”, and impersonal verbs testify to the pomposity and scarcity of the soul: “the great is seen”.
The role of metaphors is one of the most significant, as vivid and symbolic images are built on them. From the words “the liver is boiled and the abomasum gets wet”, the author emphasizes his negative position. After all, people with such an inner world harbor dirty thoughts and thoughts. The phrase “abandoned towers” is a metaphor for devastated souls, in which only cold and darkness remained, and the words about the “window” with the “breath of a spring day” clearly indicate the spirituality of a person whose image inspires warmth and comfort. The text also contains such epithets as: “miserable shacks”, “magnificent portals”, “jubilant songs”.
Composition, genre, rhyme and meter
The poem reflects the growing emotionality, ending with the triumph of the lyrical subject: "Truly, the world is both great and wonderful!" Compositionally, the text consists of two parts: the first consists of descriptions of unpleasant faces, the second - spiritualized and bright portraits.
“On the beauty of human faces” is a thoughtful work that belongs to the genre philosophical lyrics.
It is written in four-foot amphibrach and contains 4 quatrains. Rhyming adjacent: feminine rhymes alternate with men.
The subject matter of N.A. Zabolotsky is diverse. He can be called a philosophical poet and singer of nature. It has many faces, like life. But the main thing is the verses of N.A. Zabolotsky is forced to think about good and evil, hatred and love, beauty...
What is beauty
And why do people deify her?
She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,
Or fire flickering in a vessel?
The eternal question that sounds in "The Ugly Girl" is covered in a slightly different way in the poem "On the Beauty of Human Faces", which was written in the same year one thousand nine hundred and fifty-five.
“Truly the world is both great and wonderful!” - with these words, the poet completes the image of the gallery of human portraits. ON THE. Zabolotsky does not talk about people, he draws faces, behind which are character, behavior. The descriptions given by the author are remarkably accurate. Everyone can see in them their own reflection or characteristics of friends and relatives. Before us are faces “like magnificent portals”, “likeness of miserable shacks”, “dead faces”, faces “like towers”, “likeness of jubilant songs”. This picture once again confirms the theme of the diversity of the world. But questions immediately arise: “Are they all beautiful? And what is true beauty?
ON THE. Zabolotsky gives answers. For him, there is almost no difference between faces, like a miserable shack or a magnificent portal. These "...cold, dead faces Are covered with bars, like a dungeon." alien to him and
Towers in which for a long time
Nobody lives and looks out the window.
There is no life in these faces, not without reason important characteristic here are epithets with a negative connotation (“pathetic”, “cold, dead”).
The tone of the poem changes when the author paints the opposite picture:
But I once knew a small hut,
She was unsightly, not rich,
But from her window on me
The breath of a spring day flowed.
Movement, warmth, and joy come to the work with these lines.
Thus, the poem is built on opposition (magnificent portals - miserable shacks, towers - a small hut, a dungeon - the sun). The antithesis separates greatness and baseness, light and darkness, talent and mediocrity.
The author claims that inner beauty, “like the sun”, can make even the “small hut” attractive. Thanks to her, a “song of heavenly heights” is compiled, capable of making the world wonderful and great. Through the entire poem, the word “likeness” and its cognates “similar”, “likeness” run like a refrain. With the help of them, the theme of true and false beauty is revealed most fully. This cannot be real, it is only an imitation, a fake that cannot replace the original.
An important function in the first four lines is performed by the anaphora (“There is ...”, “Where ...”), which helps to reveal the images according to a single scheme: complex sentences with subordinate clauses:
There are faces like magnificent portals
Where everywhere the great is seen in the small.
There are faces - the likeness of miserable shacks,
Where the liver is cooked and the abomasum gets wet.
In the next four lines, a special role is given to comparisons (“like a dungeon”, “like towers”), creating a gloomy picture of external greatness that cannot replace internal harmony.
The emotional mood completely changes in the next eight lines. This is largely due to the diversity means of expression: personification (“breath of a spring day”), epithets (“rejoicing”, “shining”), comparison (“like the sun”), metaphor (“song of heavenly heights”). Here a lyrical hero appears, who immediately from the kaleidoscope of faces highlights the main thing, truly beautiful, capable of bringing the purity and freshness of the “spring day” into the lives of others, illuminating “like the sun”, and compose a song of “heavenly heights”.
So what is beauty? I look at the portrait of a serious, no longer young man. Tired look, high forehead, pursed lips, wrinkles at the corners of the mouth. “Ugly...” - I would probably say so if I didn’t know that N.A. was in front of me. Zabolotsky. But I know and am sure: a person who wrote such amazing poems cannot be ugly. It's not about appearance, it's just a "vessel". Important is the "fire flickering in the vessel."
Analysis of the poem by N. A. Zabolotsky "On the beauty of human faces."
The poet was always worried about the question of what is more important in a person: his appearance, cover, or his soul, inner world. The poem “On the beauty of human faces”, written in 1955, is devoted to this topic. The word beauty is already in the title. What beauty does the poet appreciate in people?
The poem can be divided into two parts. The first part is the reflection of the lyrical hero on the beauty of human faces: "There are faces like magnificent portals, Where everywhere the great seems to be in the small."
In these lines the poet uses unusual metaphors and comparisons. The portal is the main entrance of a large building, its facade. Let's pay attention to the epithet "magnificent" - elegant, beautiful. Not always by appearance can judge a person. Indeed, behind a beautiful face, fashionable clothes, spiritual squalor can be hidden. It is no coincidence that the poet uses antonyms: "the great is seen in the small."
Further, a comparison sounds, opposed to the first: "There are faces similar to miserable shacks, Where the liver is boiled and the abomasum gets wet." The epithet creates an unsightly picture, emphasizes poverty, squalor: "a miserable shack." But here we see not only external poverty, but also internal, spiritual emptiness. The same construction of sentences in this quatrain (syntactic parallelism) and anaphora are used in order to strengthen, highlight the antithesis.
In the next quatrain, the author's philosophical reflections continue. The pronouns "other - different" are symbolic, emphasizing the uniformity. Let's pay attention to the epithets "cold, dead faces" and the metaphor-comparison "closed with bars, like dungeons." Such people, according to the author, are closed in themselves, never share their problems with those around them: "Others are like towers in which no one lives for a long time and does not look out the window."
The abandoned castle is empty. Such a comparison emphasizes the loss of a person's dreams, hopes. He does not try to change something in his life, does not strive for the better. The second part is opposed to the first in emotional terms. The union "but" emphasizes the antithesis. Bright epithets "spring day", "jubilant songs", "shining notes" change the mood of the poem, it becomes sunny, joyful. Despite the fact that the small hut is “unsightly, not rich,” it radiates light. The exclamatory sentence emphasizes such a mood: “Truly the world is both great and wonderful!” For the poet, the main thing is the spiritual beauty of a person, his inner world, what he lives by: “There are faces - the likeness of jubilant songs, Of these shining notes, like the sun, A song of heavenly heights is composed.”
These lines express the idea of the poem. It is such people, simple, open, cheerful, that attract the poet. It is these faces that the poet considers truly beautiful.
The poem "On the beauty of human faces" was written by Zabolotsky in 1955 and published for the first time in the magazine " New world» for 1956, in No. 6.
In the last years of his life, Zabolotsky was extremely suspicious. He was afraid that he would be arrested again, he was afraid of the betrayal of his friends. It is not surprising that the poet peered into the faces of people, reading their souls from them and trying to find sincere ones.
Genre of the poem
The poem belongs to the genre of philosophical lyrics. The problem of true, spiritual beauty worried Zabolotsky during this period of time. She, for example, is dedicated to one of the most famous poems poet - the textbook "Ugly Girl".
In 1954, the writer experienced his first heart attack and faced the insincerity and hypocrisy of his loved ones. Last years In life, he greatly appreciated everything real, true, including beauty.
Theme, main idea and composition
The philosophical theme is stated in the title of the poem.
The main idea: the beauty of human faces lies not in external features, but in the soul, reflected in the look, in the expression.
The poem consists of four stanzas. The first two describe four types of unpleasant faces. In the third stanza, a face appears that gives joy. The last stanza is a generalization: the lyrical hero is delighted with the grandeur and harmony of the universe, in which there are faces of the divine, heavenly beauty reflecting the divine nature of man.
Paths and images
The main trope of the poem is a comparison formed using the words “likeness” (2 times), “like” and “like” (1 time each).
The first type of faces are "like magnificent portals." With the help of antonyms in the second line, the lyrical hero reveals the "mystery" of these faces: "The great is seen in the small." Impersonal verb"strange" immediately betrays the "secret" of such a Significant Person (Gogol's parallel suggests itself), which consists in the fact that in fact there is no secret, there is only pompous impudence. The “beauty” of such faces is external, hypocritical.
Another type of person is ugly even outwardly. They are like miserable shacks, but inside they are disgusting, filled with stench and dirt, offal (metaphor "the liver is boiled and the abomasum gets wet").
The second quatrain is entirely dedicated to dead faces and dead souls. Here is the third type of person: their lyrical hero characterizes them with the epithets "cold, dead". They are compared to the closed bars of a dungeon. These are the faces of indifferent people. But there are souls that are “even deader” (and here Gogol’s artistic logic is again traced), and this is the fourth type: abandoned towers (a fresh metaphor) of a once mighty fortress built for centuries, now, alas, meaningless and uninhabited. No one has been looking into the windows of these towers (a metaphorical image of human eyes) for a long time, because “no one lives” in the towers - and who could live there? Of course, the soul. Means, mental life of a person, physically still alive, ceased long ago, and his face involuntarily betrays this death of the soul.
The development of the metaphor of windows (in the meaning of eyes), but already in a positive sense, we see in the third stanza, which describes the face of a person who remains alive not only in body, but also in soul. Such a person does not build fortresses with impregnable towers with his face, there is no ostentatious greatness in his face, his “hut” is “unsightly” and “not rich”, but the context of the entire poem gives these seemingly purely negative epithets the opposite - positive - meaning, and the metaphor “breath of a spring day”, which “flows” from the window of the hut, completes the image of a delightful, spiritualized face.
Finally, the fourth stanza begins with a line of faith and hope of the lyrical hero: “Truly, the world is both great and wonderful!” Both epithets in this context shimmer with all shades of their meanings. These are not only evaluative epithets: "great" in the sense of greatness and "wonderful" in the sense of "beautiful". But this is the belief that the world is so huge (“large” in the sense of size) and durable that the dull reality surrounding the lyrical hero is, as it were, very special case caused by the current unfortunate circumstances. Truly human faces are a miracle (and in this sense "wonderful"), they similar songs, made of notes, each of which shines, like a sun(two comparisons strung on top of each other).
Size and rhyme
The poem is written in four-foot amphibrach, the rhyme is adjacent, female rhymes alternate with male ones.
"On the beauty of human faces" Nikolai Zabolotsky
There are faces like magnificent portals
Where everywhere the great is seen in the small.
There are faces - the likeness of miserable shacks,
Where the liver is cooked and the abomasum gets wet.
Other cold, dead faces
Closed with bars, like a dungeon.
Others are like towers in which
Nobody lives and looks out the window.
But I once knew a small hut,
She was unsightly, not rich,
But from her window on me
The breath of a spring day flowed.
Truly the world is both great and wonderful!
There are faces - the likeness of jubilant songs.
From these, like the sun, shining notes
Compiled a song of heavenly heights.
Analysis of Zabolotsky's poem "On the beauty of human faces"
The poet Nikolai Zabolotsky felt people very subtly and knew how to characterize them according to several features or accidentally dropped phrases. However, the author believed that most of all about a person can tell his face, which is very difficult to control. Indeed, the corners of the lips, wrinkles on the forehead or dimples on the cheeks indicate what emotions people are experiencing even before they directly say it. Over the years, these emotions leave their indelible imprint on faces, “reading” which is no less fun and interesting than a fascinating book.
It is about such a “reading” that the author talks in his poem “On the Beauty of Human Faces”. This work was written in 1955 - at the dawn of the poet's life. Experience and natural intuition allowed him by this moment to accurately determine the internal "content" of any interlocutor just by the movement of his eyebrows. In this poem, the poet gives a classification to various people, and it turns out to be surprisingly apt. Indeed, even today one can easily meet faces “like lush portals” that belong to people who are nothing special, but at the same time trying to look more weighty and significant. Another variety of such individuals, according to the author, instead of faces has "the semblance of miserable shacks." Unlike pompous persons, such people are aware of their worthlessness and do not try to disguise it under intelligent glances and skeptically twisted lips. Face-towers and face-dungeons belong to those who are almost completely closed to communication. for various reasons. Alienation, arrogance, personal tragedy, self-sufficiency - all these qualities are also reflected in facial expressions and eye movements, not going unnoticed by the poet. The author himself is impressed by the faces that resemble small huts, where “the breath of a spring day flowed” from the windows. Such faces, according to Zabolotsky, are like a “jubilant song”, because they are filled with joy, open to everyone and so friendly that you want to look at them again and again. “From these, like the sun, shining notes, a song of heavenly heights is composed,” the author notes, emphasizing that the inner, spiritual beauty of each person is always reflected on the face and is a certain barometer of the well-being of the whole society. True, not everyone knows how to "read" facial expressions and enjoy knowing people through their faces.