Poetry
Вечерние огни
Not translated into English
Afanasy Fet · 1891
Opening lines
Окна в решётках, и сумрачны лица,
Злоба глядит ненавистно на брата;
Я признаю твои стены, темница,
Юности пир ликовал здесь когда-то.
Barred windows, and gloomy faces,
Malice glares with hatred at a brother;
I recognise your walls, O prison,
Youth's feast once rejoiced here.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ru.wikisource.org
Synopsis
The first collection is arranged in sections: elegies and meditations, the sea, the snows, spring, melodies, miscellaneous pieces, epistles, translations. Short poems fix a landscape, a season, a fleeting impression, all hitherto unpublished, as the subtitle says. The later collections, without divisions, continue this vein until the author's last years, when he was preparing a fifth.
Context
In his last years, the author divided his time between Moscow in winter and his estate of Vorobyovka in summer, and returned to poetry. The first collection appeared in Moscow in 1883; three others followed until 1891. The critic Nikolay Strakhov and the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov took part in preparing the first, and the author inscribed his copy to Solovyov as to the architect of the book. The collections sold poorly; only a circle of friends, among them Tolstoy, Polonsky and Tchaikovsky, welcomed them with enthusiasm.
Who it is for
Poems of a few stanzas, without anecdote; no French translation of the collection, a few pieces in a selection of poems.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's principal book; Andrei Bely saw in it a bridge between the poetry of the golden age and Symbolism.