One of the most famous poems of Bunin's early work - "Childhood" - was written in a young age, when childhood, it seems, was not far away, but, obviously, irrevocably. This article presents an analysis of the poem, as well as the history of its creation and the means of expression used.
"The hotter the day, the sweeter in the forest..."
Before analyzing this poem, it is necessary to refresh its lines in memory. The poem is familiar to many from a young age:
The hotter the day, the sweeter in the forest
Breathe the dry resinous scent
And I had fun in the morning
Roam these sunny chambers!
Shine everywhere, bright light everywhere
Sand is like silk ... I cling to the gnarled pine
And I feel: I'm only ten years old,
And the trunk is a giant, heavy, majestic.
The bark is rough, wrinkled, red,
But it's so warm, so warmed up by the sun!
And it seems that it is not pine that smells,
And the heat and dryness of the sunlight.
History of creation
Bunin wrote the poem "Childhood" in 1895 at the age of 25. This time in the biography of the poet is characterized by the beginning of serious creativity, the first publications and participation of Bunin in the literary circle "Wednesday", whose regulars were also Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreev. The first poetic confessions, serious colleagues - and suddenly Bunin writes this poem, filled with the triumph of the freshness of childhood impressions and longing for the time when "the trees were big."
Ivan Bunin's childhood was happy. When the boy was four years old, the Bunin family moved to their family estate, located in the Yelets district. From an early age, Ivan was surrounded by love, good education and rich nature. As if from Shishkin's paintings, dense coniferous forests appeared in front of the boy, shining in glimpses of sunlight. From childhood, endowed with subtle perception and rich imagination, Ivan often spent time in the forest - alone, with a constant book under his arm, or accompanied by a tutor - Nikolai Romashkov, who had a significant impact on the early education of the future poet. Little Bunin is pictured below.
Most likely, standing on the threshold between twenty years of youth and thirty years of maturity, between the obscurity of an aspiring poet and the fame of a famous one, Ivan Bunin indulged in memories of his childhood with particular nostalgia. Then everything was still ahead, and the pine forest could become a reliable shelter from any troubles that could happen in his childhood life.
The first publication of this poem took place only in 1906, eleven years after it was written.
Analysis of the work
The theme of Bunin's poem "Childhood" is nostalgia for the past, for a time when you could spend whole days carefree in the forest, and not even think about adult life, which seems very distant. The poem is written in the genre of a lyrical work using cross-rhyme and in the size of iambic tetrameter - thanks to him, the poem sounds cheerful and easy, allowing you to imagine a carefree boy joyfully walking through the morning forest. The lyrical hero of the work is the author himself, his most important task is to tell about his love for nature, for the summer sun, but exactly the way he felt it in childhood.
Expressive means
The main means of artistic expression in Bunin's poem "Childhood" is alliteration: each line uses several hissing and deaf sounds, allowing you to hear the rustle of sand, the creak of heavy trunks, and the crunch of bark. Hard and soft sounds "l" are also abundantly used - thanks to this, one feels how bright light is pouring through the trees, how hot resin flows down the pine trunks.
In addition, metaphor (“sunny chambers”), comparison (“sand is like silk”), personification (“majestic trunk”), lexical repetition (“glory everywhere, bright light everywhere”, “like heat, like everything is warmed by the sun") and a huge number of enthusiastic epithets ("resinous aroma", "solar chambers", "brilliance and bright light", "trunk - heavy, majestic", "sunny summer"). It is exaggerated enthusiasm that allows you to feel genuine, sincere delight, which the human soul is capable of only in childhood.
Bunin Ivan Alekseevich
Ivan Bunin recalls the initial period of his life in his own work "Childhood". Actually, few people know how exactly the writer's creative path began. Until the moment when Bunin became a translator and writer, he was engaged in writing poetry, it was from poetry that his long journey began. Subsequently, of course, he did not forget about this hobby and continued to write poetry, although prose took up most of his time. Most of his works are purely lyrical, often recollections of the past. Until the age of eleven, the writer was brought up at home in the Oryol province on the estate of Ozerki. The world around the child was indeed of amazing beauty, which in the future the author will talk about in his own works - Russian nature, so alluring and amazing, capable of giving a delightful and indescribable feeling of calm. Bunin as a child liked to spend time in the forest or in the field, enjoying the surrounding nature. This gave him some special sensations and developed a sense of beauty. As soon as he had the opportunity to sneak out of the house, he certainly used it. The boy became so “friends” with nature that in the future, in adulthood, working on his works, in almost every work of the author, one can find a qualitative description of natural phenomena that help to better perceive the semantic load.
For example, very often one can notice references to people's feelings for each other or about a person's love for nature itself. Nevertheless, he says that love for nature is much stronger than people experience it, since for a person the feeling of love is only a flash, a bright light that can illuminate human life for a short time, no more. As bright as it flares up, it fades just as quickly, although this is a truly sacred and unique feeling in its own way. But love for nature - it can be endless, eternal, regardless of the circumstances, which, in fact, can be found in Bunin's work "Childhood".
The work "Childhood"
All the beauty of the world around the writer really sunk deep into his soul. He loves to remember this period of his life, and regularly mentally returns to the events that happened to him in childhood. In 1895, Bunin's poem "Childhood" was published, in which the writer tries to convey all the feelings that he had experienced before. He shares his feelings and seems to be transported back fifteen years, taking the reader with him. This work has a very intimate, one might say, intimate meaning.
The poet notes that in childhood we were all carefree, we could get pleasure and genuine pleasure from various little things: the warmth of the summer sun, the smell of resin on the pines, from the surrounding nature. It becomes clear to the reader that Bunin shares his own love not only for his past happy childhood, but also for a stable present, when you can safely immerse yourself in your own memories.
In the life of the writer, circumstances developed in such a way that he simply could not stay in his homeland, and emigrated to France, to Paris. Parting with the Motherland was hard for the writer. For this reason, in each of his works, he recalls Russia, its rich, amazing and interesting nature, its people, culture, and customs. Until his very last breath, the writer remembers Russia. Its majestic, mighty forests, endless fields, trees - all that one way or another he associates with the happiest period in his life, childhood. The writer constantly hints to the reader, leads him to the idea that his native land should be loved and treated with trembling.
“The hotter the day, the sweeter it is in the forest,” is, perhaps, the brightest memory of Ivan Alekseevich, which he shares with readers in his work. Trying to hide in the forest from the sun's rays in the shade of giant pines, watching the awakening of a dense thicket of the forest is the poet's favorite pastime in childhood. He recalls how joyful it was for him to “wander through these sunny chambers”, which suggests that little things can please a person to the depths of his soul.
The poet tells readers that childhood is a truly golden time of life, when an adult can literally touch his past, touching the thin strings of his memory and remember how happy he was then.
This poem about nature has a deeper meaning than it might initially seem. The ability to return to childhood in your own memories - this is the philosophy of the limitless possibilities of human thoughts. There, in their own childhood, there remained numerous joys of life, the opportunity to play carelessly and openly look every day in the face, not to be afraid of anything, not to dissemble. Nature itself stretches out its hands, creating a whole world of sound and visual experiences that give happiness even after many years of life. Everything that happens in childhood is certainly associated with a joyful, cheerful mood, even the heat of the sun or a dry resinous aroma.
Characteristics of the work
An important feature of the work itself is the unique combination of sonorous sounds [l] and [l ']. It is this combination that allows you to feel the work itself much deeper, to learn about the sensations that Bunin tells us about, to understand them. Thus, literally on a piece of notebook he conveys to us the sounds of “pouring sun”, “silk sand underfoot” and many other things. In addition to a favorable and interesting combination of sounds, one cannot but pay attention to the color scheme that the poet offers. This variety of colors directly says that the time of childhood is golden in itself, it should be valued in the same way as you would value an ingot of gold found by chance. It is also impossible not to note the presence of red "shades". Of course, this color is associated with blood and fire, therefore, the presence of kinship between many, many generations. Thus, the writer literally personifies the blood and spiritual kinship, which manifests itself in unity with nature itself.
As mentioned above, Bunin's works most often contain lyrical heroes. This poem is no exception. Indeed, despite the fact that he talks about the hero as an adult, but in front of the power of nature itself, its greatness, comparing an insignificant person with mighty hundred-year-old huge pine trees, literally returns him to childhood, creating a child from an adult. The writer quite skillfully conveys the feelings of the lyrical hero through the use of a variety of epithets, for example:
Resinous aroma;
Silk sand;
pouring sun.
There is a huge number of color epithets here, which further indicate to us the importance of the childhood period of life in the fate of every person.
As in many of his works, in the poem "Childhood" Bunin again tells readers about love, but not that mundane, like a bright flash between two people, but about the love of man and nature. He tells us about childhood, which, indeed, passes very quickly and everything that a person was lucky enough to remember should be kept in his memory as a priceless gift. This is happiness in unity with nature and with oneself.
The hotter the day, the sweeter in the forest
Breathe the dry resinous scent
And I had fun in the morning
Roam these sunny chambers!
Shine everywhere, bright light everywhere
Sand is like silk ... I cling to the gnarled pine
And I feel: I'm only ten years old,
And the trunk is a giant, heavy, majestic.
The bark is rough, wrinkled, red,
But how warm, how warm the whole sun!
And it seems that it is not pine that smells,
And the heat and dryness of a sunny summer.
Reviews
There is an inaccuracy in the last line of this excellent poem. Printed: "And the heat and dryness of the sunny summer" Should be: "And the heat and dryness of the sunlight."
Since genuine poetry values every word, and even more so the poetry of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, this line should be corrected. This inaccuracy can be verified by the most complete 9-volume edition of Bunin's poems (1965). Volume 1, page 243.
Thanks to those who, remembering the wonderful poet, posted his poems on Stichira.
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The hotter the day, the sweeter in the forest
Breathe the dry resinous scent
And I had fun in the morning
The bark is rough, wrinkled, red,
But how warm, how warm the whole sun!
And it seems that it is not pine that smells,
And the heat and dryness of a sunny summer.
School analysis of Bunin's poem by I. A. "Childhood"
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin's poem "Childhood" was written in adulthood and contains memories from the poet's childhood. The author is the hero of the work. Plunging into memories, he shares with readers feelings that are very dear to him.
The poem is filled with vivid impressions of communication with nature.
A feature of this work is a fascinating story. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin walks in the forest. The feeling of nostalgia takes him back to his childhood, when he often walked among the tall pines as a boy.
Telling the story of a hike in the forest, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin uses the means of artistic representation. His speech remains simple, accessible, and at the same time the poet decorates his story with unusual words.
The metaphor that appears in the first quatrain conveys the mood of the poet. He speaks of the richness and beauty of nature, comparing the forest to a palace:
And I had fun in the morning
Roam these sunny chambers!
Now, when a young man, who has revealed the talent of a poet in himself, comes back to the forest, he can convey the sweet moments of communion with nature. These feelings make him go back in time:
Shine everywhere, bright light everywhere
Sand is like silk ... I cling to the gnarled pine
And I feel: I'm only ten years old,
And the trunk is a giant, heavy, majestic.
The antithesis technique used in the third quatrain speaks of the strength of the poet's connection with his native land. He is not saddened by the roughness of the pine bark. He is full of bright experiences, noticing how beautiful everything around is.
The idea of this work is to show the untouched beauty of nature. Let a lot of events happen in a person’s life, he grows up, learns a lot about the world around him, acquires new acquaintances, becomes part of society. But with him remain sweet dreams of a cozy corner of nature, where there is summer, heat, tall pine trees and a pleasant warm aroma.
Reading the verse "Childhood" by Bunin Ivan Alekseevich is like plunging into that wonderful time when everything seemed big and beautiful; again feel the happiness from the smell of fresh leaves and the breath of the wind. The poet spent his young years in the family estate. Boyish memories of the beauty of Russian nature forever remained in Bunin's heart. And already becoming an adult, he often returned to them, cherishing the memory of the beautiful days, full of the smell of pines and sunshine. He wrote this work in 1895. In it, he tried to convey the emotion that he kept in his soul.
The text of Bunin's poem "Childhood" is the personification of the poet's love for nature. This quivering feeling he carried through his whole life. The author recalls how sweet it was to hide in the forest from the heat. And really, what could be better than feeling a saving shadow on a hot summer day? And how wonderful it was to “wander through the sunny chambers”, imagining that this forest belongs only to you. These memories absorb the author, singing familiar tunes from childhood.
The poem is filled with a feeling of unbearable happiness and tranquility. Only in youth can one feel such carelessness and lightness. Only a child is able to completely surrender to the joy inside, leaning against the warm pine bark, feeling on himself how the bright sunbeams caressed her. The poem is definitely worth teaching in high school literature classes. You can read it in full online or download it on our website.
The hotter the day, the sweeter in the forest
Breathe the dry resinous scent
And I had fun in the morning
Roam these sunny chambers!
Shine everywhere, bright light everywhere
Sand is like silk ... I cling to the gnarled pine
And I feel: I'm only ten years old,
And the trunk is a giant, heavy, majestic.
The bark is rough, wrinkled, red,
But how warm, how warm the whole sun!
And it seems that it is not pine that smells,
And the heat and dryness of a sunny summer.
