The Poetic World of Ivan Bunin - Research Paper Example

? The Poetic World of Ivan Bunin Research Paper, World Literature of the Biography Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was an all-encompassing literary giant. His mainstay was poetry, and he was well-known for the delicate “brocaded” prose that was the hallmark of his novels and short stories. “Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 on his ancestral estate near Voronezh, Russia. His father, Aleksei Bunin, and his mother, were descendants of several lines of old nobility that included Russian landed gentry and Luthuanian knights.”( www.imdb.com.) This landlord family owned serfs. His father lost the landed property of the family in a contest of card game that led to the financial ruin of the family. After schooling for 5 years in Yelets, he returned to take tuitions at home and the family encouraged him to take up literature. As a young man, he was the compulsive reader of Russian classics and his favorite authors were “Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov, and Leo Tolstoy.” (Ivan.) Ivan Bunin lived in the era of Russian Revolution and was the witness to the sufferings of the people before and after the revolution. The travails of the Russian rural peasantry and the bourgeois stupidity which was the root cause of the miseries that afflicted the nation were reflected in his poems, and the characters in his writings. “He was the first literary figure to be honored with the Nobel Prize in 1933.”(Ivan.) He was praised in the West, but condemned in his country, Russia. By the time he attained the age of thirty, he had written many poems, novels and short stories. The family graphics and the process of decay of Russian nobility were reflected in his short stories. His marriage to the “daughter of a Greek revolutionary” (Ivan.) ended in divorce. “His second marriage in 1907” (Ivan.) lasted life-long. His novels and stories contained the rich backgrounder information gained through his extensive travels in Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria and Palestine and most of the countries in Europe and Asia. The post-revolution atrocities committed by the Bolshevik Communists, left deep impact on his mind and it reflected strongly in his writings. He was an anti-communist. With the threat of communists looming large on him, he reached Odessa. But the revolutionary fervor and chaos spread. In 1920, he left Odessa for good in view of the threat from the advancing communist armies and reached France. His work related to events of Russian Revolution was published there. He was a strong anti-Nazi. The advent of communism and the fate of his country at the hands of the communists had immensely shocked him. “He died of a heart attack in the morning of November 8, 1953, in his apartment in Paris, and was laid to rest in the Russian Cemetery at Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois in Paris.”(Evan.) Until the final collapse of Soviet Union, his books continued to remain banned there. Ivan Buhin’s Poems: Without Me The theme of this poem is death. This is one of his rare oeuvre infinitive writings. “But in this poem, three infinitive fragments, connected by an anaphora, comprise two of the three quatrains. In fact, the anaphoric leitmotif starts forming already in the 1st quatrain; it comes to dominate the 2nd and the 3rd quatrains and is then tactfully elided in the ending.” (Zholkovskii) The second quatrain describes struggling movements of a butterfly in dire straight. The poet must be referring to the life of the common citizen struggling in life and death situations prior to the impending arrival of the revolution. The movements of the butterfly continue “even after the death.”(Zholkovskii) “Butterflies symbolize the human soul” (Zholkovskii.) and the transient nature of life. “Here the butterfly, alive and clinging to the blue ceiling - in a foreshadowing of the azure of the sky and the sea in the next quatrain - is a link, a mediation between the soul of the freshly departed "I," still within the confines of his room, and the completely uninhabited outer expanse into which everything in the poem eventually dissolves.”(Zholkovskii,)The poem’s infinitive structure highlights its main theme—the death. “From quatrain to quatrain there proceeds a gradual dissipation of the comfortable physical "thingness" of the grammatical subjects (room, table, bench - icon - butterfly - sky's bottom, sea - even azure, desert-like expanse).” (Zholkovskii,)Later, the idea of the persona’s disappearance is also echoed in the final part of the poem. The poet writes, “The day will come - I will disappear,” (Zholkovskii,) and describing the fate of the butterfly he writes, “And in the same way will [there] fly in The colorful butterfly in silk, Flutter, rustle and tremble Against the blue ceiling.”( Zholkovskii.) Mother Russia The importance of statue of liberty in a free, democratic society is understandable. But this poem, “Mother Russia” by Bunin is noteworthy because the word liberty is lavishly mentioned in a communist country. It describes poet’s love for his motherland. Mother Russia is a national symbol of hope and aspirations. Mother is benevolent. The poet uses the choice words like “compassion” and “sincere” (webpage.pace.edu) to describe the inner world of the mother. A mother’s simplicity is her greatness. This observation by the poet comes at the beginning of the poem, that sometimes, the mother is faced with criticism for her “sincere simple-ness,” (Bunin) and the “wretched” fate of her motherland. This is an insinuation by the poet against the citizens. For the wretched condition of the motherland the citizens are to be blamed. They can build their motherland or they can break it. So the question of criticizing the mother for her simple-ness and poverty does not arise, as she can only take care of the children, from the resources given to her. The second stanza discusses a situation where the children are ashamed of their own mothers. Mothers take care of the children in trying circumstances and even with limited resources; she minds interest of the children first. But the ungrateful children sometimes are ashamed of their own mother. “Like a son, calm and insolent, Is ashamed of his own mother- Who is so tired, shy, alarmed And sad, among his city friends.” (Bunin.) This verse depicts the disintegrating family system in Russia, and how combustible younger generation is not taking the family traditions and respect for the elders seriously and goes to the extent of criticizing one’s own mother. Though the poem highlights the glory of motherland, the poet describes the grassroots realities taking shape in the Russian family system. Loneliness Darker side of the life seems to appeal more to Ivan Bunin than the brighter part. “Loneliness” is about the melancholy part of the life of a forlorn individual. Separation from the spouse torments the heart of the poet. It is worth remembering that Bunin is once divorced and he can provide the creditable assessment of the miserable existence of such an individual. The poet laments, “Here, life's interrupted till spring; till the spring, gardens barren and tall. I’m alone in my house.” (allpoetry.com) But he is hopeful and the separation will be a temporary phase and springs will again come in his life. The poet finds life pretty difficult to live and again says, “I will somehow strive to survive till the spring with no wife.” (Bunin)Though poet’s present mental condition is bad, he has hopes for the future, perhaps definite plans, to get married again, as he emphasizes about the arrival of spring. His living as a ‘bachelor’ is a temporary phase of life, and yet he recalls his association with his wife, by stating, “You were there for me as my spouse.”(Bunin)The theme of the poem is search for happiness in married life. Another theme is the torments of a divorced individual. The divorced woman has no role here, she is just the memory and does not interject anywhere in the poem. She has no direct say. We know her through the poet only, and even after she has left him, he seems to have great love for her. Therefore the poet pleads, “I gasped to call after you fast: Please come back, you’re a part of me, dear.”(Bunin) But the poet seems to entertain the medieval approach as for the rights and responsibilities of women, and he advises his spouse who has deserted him, “To a woman, there is no past, Once love ends, you're a stranger to her.”(Bunin) By stating thus, he treats woman as less equal as per the sociological and cultural norms prevailing then. Feminism and the concept of equal rights for women seem to be not in vogue. In the end the poet is frustrated, somehow wants to forget his intense worries due to separation, and he says, “I’ll get drunk, I will watch burning logs.”(Bunin) And when he says, “splendid to get me a dog,” (Bunin.) he seems to rely on the faithfulness of dog, than repost trust on a woman. No birds in sight, The forest withers slowly. Forests and birds are like the alternative beats of the same heart. If forests are there, birds will be present, as the trees are the natural habitats of the birds. The birds seem to have the intuition that the withering forest will not support them and it is better to exit from there. The poet is the speaker of the poem. The tone of the poem is melancholy, which is the hallmark of most of Bunin’s poems. The poet is actively involved in the poem from the beginning to the end. He is the omniscient narrator of the poem. The tone changes in the last two stanzas of the poem and is gradually develops to create imagery. There is some tension within the heart of the poet; he begins the poem with the observation, “No birds in sight. The forest withers slowly, Resigned to utter emptiness and chill.”(allpoetry.com) He seems to wander listlessly without a mission. The language and rhythm contribute to the meaning and emotional force of the poem. The word choice is formal and the poet (who is the narrator also) does not use a specific dialect for the speaker. The poem has an identifiable rhythm arranged in the meter and there is musicality with words like “chill”, “smell”, “greying”, “decaying”, “home”, “roam” (Bunin) etc. As we read the poem, sensory experiences are evoked. The poet uses metaphors to make comparisons and express images in lines, “Of wind as it invades with singsong whistle and drawn-out moan the barrels of my gun.”(Bunin.)The poem is in the form of a sonnet. The stanzas and lines are consistently in the same length and end rhymes are used. Conclusion: The deep impact of the Russian Revolution is seen in all the writings of Ivan Bunin, be it the poem, short story or the novel. He, like many other top authors of Soviet Russia, lives in the toughest period of the history of the country, that is daubed in bloodshed and the people are undergoing immense suffering. Bunin’s response in writing is to the prevailing societal conditions then. His setback in the first marriage that ends in divorce also affects his writings to some extent. He is a common man’s writer, deeply sensitive to the sufferings of the people. References Ivan Bunin – Biography, Accessed on April, 2013 www.imdb.com/name/nm0120459/bio... Bunin, Ivan Alekseevich. Mother Russia. Litpaper, Accessed on April, 5.2013. webpage.pace.edu/nreagin/tempmotherhood/.../litpaper.html, Loneliness by Ivan Bunin Classic Famous Poet - All Poetry, Accessed on April, 5, 2013 allpoetry.com/poem/8558519-Loneliness-by-Ivan_Bunin, "No birds in sight, The forest withers slowly" by Ivan Bunin Classic, Accessed on April 5, 2013 allpoetry.com/.../8558507-No_birds_in_sight__The_forest_withers_s.. Zholkovskii, Alexander. A Poetic Offering (Ivan Bunin's "Without Me"; 1916) - University of Toronto, Accessed on April, 5, 2013 www.utoronto.ca/tsq/16/gasparov16.shtml. Read More