Analysis of the poem by N. A. Zabolotsky “On Beauty” human faces».

The poet was always concerned with the question of what is more important in a person: his appearance, his cover, or his soul, inner world. The poem “On the Beauty of Human Faces,” written in 1955, is dedicated to this topic. The word beauty is already in the title. What beauty does the poet value in people?

The poem can be divided into two parts. The first part is reflection lyrical hero about the beauty of human faces: “There are faces like lush portals, Where everywhere the great appears in the small.”

In these lines, the poet uses unusual metaphors and comparisons. A portal is the main entrance of a large building, its facade. Let us pay attention to the epithet “lush” - elegant, beautiful. Not always appearance you can judge a person. After all, spiritual poverty can be hidden behind a beautiful face and fashionable clothes. It is no coincidence that the poet uses antonyms: “the great is seen in the small.”

Next comes a comparison contrasted with the first: “There are faces like miserable shacks, Where the liver is boiled and the rennet gets wet.” The epithet creates an unsightly picture, emphasizing poverty and squalor: “a pitiful shack.” But here we see not only external poverty, but also internal, spiritual emptiness. The identical construction of sentences in this quatrain (syntactic parallelism) and anaphora are used to strengthen and highlight the antithesis.

The next quatrain continues the author's philosophical reflections. The pronouns “other - other” are symbolic and emphasize monotony. Let us 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 on themselves, never share their problems with others: “Others are like towers in which no one lives for a long time and no one looks out the window.”

The abandoned castle is empty. Such a comparison emphasizes a person’s loss of dreams and hope. He does not try to change anything in his life, does not strive for the better. The second part is opposed to the first in emotional terms. The conjunction “but” emphasizes the antithesis. Bright epithets “spring day”, “jubilant songs”, “shining notes” change the mood of the poem, it becomes sunny and joyful. Despite the fact that the small hut is “unprepossessing and not rich,” it radiates light. The exclamatory sentence emphasizes this 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, From these, like the sun, shining notes, a song of heavenly heights is composed.”

These lines express the idea of ​​the poem. It is precisely such people, simple, open, cheerful, that attract the poet. It is these faces that the poet considers truly beautiful.

“On the beauty of human faces” Nikolai Zabolotsky

There are faces like lush portals,
Where everywhere the great is seen in the small.
There are faces - like miserable shacks,
Where the liver is cooked and the rennet is soaked.
Others are cold, dead faces
Closed with bars, like a dungeon.
Others are like towers in which for a long time
Nobody lives and looks out the window.
But I once knew a small hut,
She was unprepossessing, not rich,
But from the window she looks at me
The breath of a spring day flowed.
Truly the world is both great and wonderful!
There are faces - similarities to jubilant songs.
From these notes, like the sun, shining
A song of heavenly heights has been composed.

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 by several features or accidentally dropped phrases. However, the author believed that his face can tell the most about a person, 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 experience even before they directly say so. Over the years, these emotions leave their indelible imprint on faces, which is no less fun and interesting to “read” than a fascinating book.

It is this kind of “reading” that the author talks about 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 to 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 different people, and she turns out to be surprisingly accurate. Indeed, even today you can easily find faces “like magnificent portals”, which belong to people who are nothing special, but at the same time trying to look weightier and more significant. Another type of such individuals, according to the author, instead of faces have “the resemblance of pitiful shacks.” Unlike pompous individuals, such people are aware of their worthlessness and do not try to disguise it under smart looks and skeptically curled lips. Tower faces and dungeon faces 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, without going unnoticed by the poet. The author himself is impressed by 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 notes, shining like the sun, a song of heavenly heights is composed,” notes the author, 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 entire society. True, not everyone knows how to “read” facial expressions and enjoy getting to know people through their faces.

"On the beauty of human faces"

Among the many different faces-houses N.A. Zabolotsky finds one unsightly, poor hut. But from her window flows the “breath of a spring day.”

The poem ends with an optimistic ending: “There are faces - the likeness of jubilant songs. From these notes, shining like the sun, a song of heavenly heights is composed.”

The metaphor “song of heavenly heights” symbolizes a high spiritual level of development. ON THE. Zabolotsky uses enumerative intonation in the poem, the technique of contrast (“the great seems to be in the small”), an abundance of colorful epithets (“lush portals”, “pathetic hovels”, “cold, dead faces”, etc.), comparisons (“notes, shining like the sun”, “faces like towers in which no one lives”, “faces covered with bars, like a dungeon”).

The poetic image of the “breath of a spring day” is easy to remember and creates a bright, joyful mood. This breath flows, reminiscent of an inexhaustible flow of positive energy that the author gives to people.

Themes of poems by N.A. Zabolotsky is diverse. He can be called a philosophical poet and singer of nature. He has many faces, like life. But the main thing is the poems of N.A. Zabolotsky is forced to think about good and evil, hatred and love, beauty...

...what beauty is

And why do people deify her?

She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,

Or a fire flickering in a vessel?

The eternal question that sounds in “ To an ugly girl”, is illuminated somewhat differently in the poem “On the Beauty of Human Faces,” which was written in the same year, nineteen 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 there is character and behavior. The descriptions given by the author are surprisingly accurate. Everyone can see in them their own reflection or characteristics of friends and loved ones. Before us are faces “like lush portals,” “like miserable hovels,” “dead faces,” faces “like towers,” “like jubilant songs.” This picture once again affirms 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 the answers. For him there is almost no difference between faces like a miserable hovel or a magnificent portal. These

...cold, dead faces

Closed 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, no wonder 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 unprepossessing, not rich,

But from the window she looks at me

The breath of a spring day flowed.

Movement, warmth, and joy come into the work with these lines.

Thus, the poem is built on opposition (lush 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 states: inner beauty, “like the sun,” can make even the “smallest hut” attractive. Thanks to her, a “song of heavenly heights” is compiled, capable of making the world wonderful and great. The word “similarity” and its cognates “similar”, “likeness” run through the entire poem as a refrain. With their help the topic is 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 anaphora (“There is..”, “Where...”), which helps to reveal images according to a single scheme: complex sentences with subordinate clauses:

There are faces like lush portals,

Where everywhere the great is seen in the small.

There are faces - like miserable shacks,

Where the liver is cooked and the rennet is soaked.

In the next four lines, a special role is given to comparisons (“like a prison,” “like towers”), creating a gloomy picture of external greatness that cannot replace internal harmony.

The emotional mood changes completely in the next eight lines. This is largely due to the diversity expressive means: personification (“breath of a spring day”), epithets (“jubilant”, “shining”), comparison (“like the sun”), metaphor (“song of heavenly heights”). Here a lyrical hero appears, who immediately from the kaleidoscope of faces singles out the main thing, truly beautiful, capable of bringing the purity and freshness of a “spring day” into the lives of those around him, illuminating “like the sun,” and composing 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, compressed lips, wrinkles in the corners of the mouth. “Ugly...” - I would probably say that 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 poetry cannot be ugly. It's not about appearance, it's just a "vessel". What is important is the “fire flickering in the vessel.”

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 his friends betraying him. It is not surprising that the poet peered into people’s faces, reading their souls 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. For example, one of the poet’s most famous poems, the textbook “Ugly Girl,” is dedicated to her.

In 1954, the writer suffered his first heart attack and was faced with the insincerity and hypocrisy of his loved ones. Last years In life, he greatly appreciated everything that was 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 gaze, 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 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 “similarity” (2 times), “like” and “as” (1 time each).

The first type of person is “like lush portals.” With the help of antonyms in the second line, the lyrical hero reveals the “mystery” of these persons: “The great is seen in the small.” The impersonal verb “wonder” immediately reveals the “secret” of such a Significant Person (the Gogolian parallel suggests itself), which is that in fact there is no secret, there is only pompous arrogance. The “beauty” of such persons is external, hypocritical.

The other type of person is ugly even in appearance. They are like miserable shacks, but the inside is disgusting, filled with stench and dirt, offal (metaphor “the liver is boiled and the rennet gets wet”).

The second quatrain is entirely dedicated to dead faces and dead souls. Here is the third type of person: the lyrical hero characterizes them with the epithets “cold, dead.” They are compared to the closed bars of a prison. These are the faces of indifferent people. But there are souls that are “even deader” (and here again Gogol’s artistic logic can be 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 who is physically still alive has long ceased, and his face involuntarily betrays this death of the soul.

We see the development of the metaphor of windows (in the meaning of eyes), but in a positive sense, 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 with his face fortresses with impregnable towers, there is no ostentatious grandeur in his face, his “hut” is “unpretentious” and “poor”, but the context of the entire poem gives these seemingly purely negative epithets the opposite - positive - meaning, and the metaphor The “breath of a spring day” that “flows” from the window of the hut completes the image of a delightful, spiritual 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 (“great” 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 sad circumstances. Truly human faces are a miracle (and in this sense “wonderful”), they similar songs, created from notes, each of which shines, like a sun(two comparisons strung together).

Meter and rhyme

The poem is written in amphibrachic tetrameter, the rhyme is adjacent, female rhymes alternate with male rhymes.