Thursday, 4 June 2015

NO TEARS -poem - ALEXANDER PUSHKIN

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837) was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. He was born into an aristocratic family of Moscow. At a very early age, he became acquainted with the classics and exhibited talent in creative writing. Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo. In 1820 he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila amidst much controversy about its subject and style. 

The revolutionary spirit and political sentiment of the poems caused his exile to the South of Russia in the same year. He was able to return to the capital only after the ascension of the new Czar to the throne. In 831 he married Natalya Goncharova but their life was not a happy one. In 1837, he lost his life from the injuries from a duel, prompted by a quarrel about his wife. As the government feared a political uprising, his body was buried secretly at midnight in his mother’s estate. A romantic writer, Pushkin is famous for the brilliance of his language, compactness terseness and objectivity. His works include Boris Godunov, The Queen of Spades, The Bronze Horseman, The Stone Guest, and Eugene Onegin.

Alexander Pushkin’s No Tears is a lyrical poem where a lover speaks at the death of his beloved. Not written in the expected elegiac mood, the poem surprises us with the honest statement, “I find no lament, no tears”. The poet does not feel sad at his beloved’s death. He listened to the news of her death without any feeling. He tried to awaken his feelings for her, but it was in vain. 

The poet reminisces about the days of courtship, when his heart used to burn in the scorching heat of the intensity of their love. Immersed fully in the pangs that love kindled, he was often driven out of his mind because of the desire for his beloved. But after her death he has lost all such sensations. The poet wonders where all those intense and passionate feelings have gone. Now his heart is barren, devoid of all love. He openly confesses that he has not tears left for her. In this poem, Pushkin expresses the lover’s feeling with emotional sincerity and honesty

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