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A.A. Fet's Lyrics in the Interpretation of V. Solovyov: on the question of methodology

Anokhina Yuliya Yur'evna

ORCID: 0000-0001-8917-5445

PhD in Philology

Senior researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences

121069, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Povarskaya str., 25, office a

jul.anokhin@gmail.com

DOI:

10.25136/2409-8698.2023.11.68832

EDN:

EHKXHL

Received:

29-10-2023


Published:

14-11-2023


Abstract: The present study is aimed at identifying specific features of the methodology of interpretation of Russian lyrics by V.S. Solovyov. The article raises the question of the methodological tools of Solovyov's interpretive strategy on the example of his approach to the lyrics of A.A. Fet. In particular, an immanent analysis of the article "On lyrical poetry. About the last poems of Fet and Polonsky" ("Russian Review", 1890). The compositional features of the work are studied, the complex of problems that Solovyov puts forward in connection with his proposed interpretation of Fet's lyrics is considered. At the same time, special attention is paid to the problem of creating an artistic image of the poet in Solovyov's poem "A.A. Fet, October 19, 1884" – a poem inspired by the presentation of the first Pushkin Prize to Fet for the complete translation of Horace. The methodology presented in this article for the study of Solovyov's approach to Fet's lyrics, as well as his general theoretical calculations about the essence of lyrics as such, are based on the possibilities of logical and semantic contextual analysis of the utterance. The novelty of the research consists in the fact that for the first time the problem of actualization by Solovyov of the dialectic of such properties as "subjectivity" / "objectivity", "singularity" / "multiplicity", "completeness" / "openness", "form" / "content" when reading Fet's poetry is considered. It is shown that in Solovyov's article "On lyrical poetry" this method is used in the disclosure of various aspects. It is argued that the interaction of the properties of "completeness" and "openness" in Solovyov's presentation of general theoretical issues related to the problem of defining poetry allows the philosopher to deduce the definition of "pure lyrics". It is concluded that Solovyov's analysis of the thematic range of Fet's lyrics and his study of the formal features of poetry are based on dialectical principles, which makes it possible to correlate the philosopher's approach with the hermeneutic tradition.


Keywords:

Solovyov, Fet, pure lyrics, dialectics, interpretation strategies, philosophical criticism, philosophy, poetry, Evening lights, poetry cycle

This article is automatically translated.

Among the works created by Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, his theoretical articles on art, as well as a series of works on writers and poets, had a special influence on the process of formation of Russian religious and philosophical aesthetics [8]. Most of these works were published during the philosopher's lifetime, mainly in the journal "Bulletin of Europe". Some of these articles (for example, an article about M.Y. Lermontov) were not published during Solovyov's lifetime, but they are united by the relationship with the aesthetic program of the philosopher, the method of interpretation implemented in them and the fact that they were written in the last period of the philosopher's work. The main body of articles that allow us to judge the philosopher's approach to Russian poets includes the following works: "The Fate of Pushkin", "Lermontov", "Poetry of F.I. Tyutchev", "Poetry of gr. A.K. Tolstoy", "On lyrical poetry", "Buddhist mood in poetry".

Solovyov's works on literature form part of his philosophical and aesthetic concept, deployed against positivism, "which excluded religion from the sphere of human life" <translated from English here and further in the text by my – Yu.A.> [27, p. 75], and addressed to the assertion of unity. "The philosopher set his life task to clothe the eternal content of Christianity in a modern theological form and, through the justification of faith by reason, to help the thinking Russian society to acquire a Christian worldview again," M. Aksenov–Meerson writes about Vladimir Solovyov's philosophy in the article "Vladimir Solovyov in our days" (1977), which serves as a kind of preface to the Brussels reprint of the book S.M. Solovyova "The life and creative evolution of Vladimir Solovyov" [22, p. XI]. This brief formula is indicative of the fact that it brings to the fore the dialectical principle of Solovyov's philosophical creativity, the emphasis is placed on the philosopher's desire to synthesize "eternal" content" and "modern form".

The orientation towards discovering the process of revealing the "eternal", the absolute in the completed form of a work of art is also manifested in Solovyov's works about poets, because, from his point of view, true poetry is the one that embodies eternal truths. No wonder R.A. Galtseva and I.B. Rodnyanskaya in the introductory article to the collection of literary criticism of the philosopher note: "Solovyov's leading thought is about the light of transfiguration, which will permeate and transform the entire created world" [21, p. 9]. The correlation of the dialectical foundations of Hegel's aesthetics and Solovyov's aesthetics formulated by Galtseva and Rodnyanskaya is also indicative: if for Hegel, according to the researchers, the completed "world of embodied forms" is secondary in relation to the Absolute, then Solovyov's aesthetics is based on the idea of the real good of "embodied beauty" [21, p. 10]. Hence the idea of Solovyov's literary-critical cycle as an aesthetic project with a theurgic significance. In this vein, this cycle is considered by a modern researcher of his creative heritage of the philosopher N.P. Krokhin: "In his articles about the great Russian poets, Solovyov reflects on the essence of poetry and artistic creativity. It is in poetry that Solovyov sees the embodiment of the unity and the whole he seeks <...>" [11, p. 154].

Meanwhile, various characteristics of the corpus of his articles on literature appear in scientific works about Solovyov: they are defined as "criticism of the philosopher" [2, p. 32], as part of "aesthetics" [5; 13; 23] and as "hermeneutics". Considering Solovyov's articles about writers and poets as literary criticism, D.M. Magomedova notes that they represented a utopian project, since the philosopher in them mechanically transferred abstract theory to the material of individual and personal creative destinies of writers and poets: "When applied to real human destinies, to the psychology of human actions, the 'theurgic' theory of the religious union of art and life turned into the same moralizing didacticism that Solovyov tried to avoid in aesthetic treatises" [12, p. 761]. The approach to these works as developing hermeneutical methodology has emerged quite recently. Thus, N.K. Bonetskaya, who develops the project "Russian hermeneutics", suggested that Solovyov's articles about poets and writers reflect an unsuccessful attempt at hermeneutical reading of literary works [4]. On the contrary, N.P. Krokhina believes that it is Solovyov who should be considered the founder of Russian hermeneutics [11]. The coexistence of different approaches to the philosopher's articles about poets encourages the study of Solovyov's methodology, to identify its analytical tools. In this regard, this article is subordinated to the task of analyzing the features of Solovyov's methodology as an interpreter of Fet's poetry and, in particular, to consider how dialectical principles are used by him.

The problem of "Fet and Solovyov" is not one of the little-studied issues: the issue of personal relationships between the philosopher and the thinker was highlighted [20], certain aspects of Fet's influence on Solovyov the poet were considered [23], as well as the peculiarities of the perception of Fet's lyrics in the literary criticism of the philosopher [19]. At the same time, the angle we are interested in has not yet received coverage in the scientific literature. The special place of Solovyov's literary-critical statements about Feta is determined, of course, not by the total volume of what the philosopher said about the poet, but primarily by the biographical background on which the literary-critical and poetic speeches of the thinker arose. On the one hand, this background was made up of personal relations of a friendly nature (Fet, according to A.P. Kozyrev, was Solovyov's "long-term intimate friend" [10, p. 393],). On the other hand, friendship was also filled with joint work on creative projects, whether it was the translation of Virgil's Aeneid [9] or the preparation for the publication of the poetry collection "Evening Lights" [15]. The specifics of the relationship between Fet and Solovyov are successfully determined by G.V. Petrova, who published part of Solovyov's letters to Fet in 2013: "Over the decade, they not only did not break up, but every year they deepened and became more stable. Apparently, Fet was perceived by Solovyov as one of the important figures directly anticipating a new cultural and spiritual era, the onset of which he himself had anticipated and anticipated. Fet's artistic consciousness "opened up" to V. Solovyov as a ground for the growth of new philosophical, aesthetic and religious shoots of thought" [14, p. 363]. The characteristic formulated by Petrova makes it possible to understand the background on which Solovyov's understanding of the peculiarities of Fet's poetry was born.

The most clearly dialectical principles in the approach to Fet's lyrics can be traced in Solovyov's article "On Lyrical Poetry. Concerning the last poems of Fet and Polonsky" – of all the philosopher's articles about poets, this one contains the most detailed of his statements about Fet's poetry. This article, as is known, was published in the magazine "Russian Review" in the 12th issue for 1890, its appearance was inspired by the appearance of the cycle "Evening Lights" by Fet and the collection of Polonsky's poems "Evening Bell". At the same time, we must think that the pragmatics of this work was complex. On the one hand, the article, as Galtseva and Rodnyanskaya note in the comments to it, "reflected the aesthetic platform of the new edition", which proclaimed "non-partisanship in art" and "promoted pure lyrics" [21, pp. 673-674]. On the other hand, as K.V. Sarycheva shows, in this article Fet's work received an innovative interpretation, and at the same time his poetry became the starting point for the formation of Solovyov's view of the essence of lyrics as such: "For the first time, the idea of Fet as a poet who sees the metaphysical truth is expressed in it. Based on his ideas about Fet's work, Solovyov formulates the concept of lyrical poetry" [19, p. 57]. At the same time, it seems that Solovyov's theoretical ideas about lyrical poetry are not only determined by the perception of Fet's works, but are also based on classical aesthetics, and also take into account the aesthetic calculations of older contemporaries – literary critics. In the theoretical part of the article, as N.G. Yurina suggests, the ideas of P.V. Annenkov and A.V. Druzhinin – supporters of "aesthetic criticism" [24, p. 11] and at the same time – the approach of the "real critic" N.G. Chernyshevsky are strongly influenced [24, p. 11].

In the article "On Lyrical Poetry", the analysis of Fet's poetry collection is preceded by an extensive theoretical introduction designed to identify those philosophical and aesthetic grounds on the basis of which the philosopher analyzes the poet's poems. The composition of the first part of the article – the one in which the "doctrine of lyrics" is set forth – is determined, apparently, by the tradition of "cognition of causal foundations" coming from Aristotle [1, p. 27]. No wonder Solovyov consistently answers the questions here: what is "lyrical poetry"? what is its subject? how does it differ from other types of art? what is its pragmatics? At the same time, the logic that can be traced in the answers to these general theoretical questions is based on dialectical principles.

Defining the nature of lyrical poetry, Solovyov deduces the following formula: "Lyrical poetry, after music, represents the most direct revelation of the human soul" [21, p. 399]. This formula is based on the dialectic of "openness/completeness". The key to understanding how these properties interact in this definition is mainly the contextual semantics of the word "revelation". In this case, this word is not associated with the idea of mystical insight, not with the meaning of "inner comprehension of something" [18, p. 211], but rather expresses the process by the meaning of the verb "open" in the stable phrase "open the soul", that is, according to the definition from the "Semantic Dictionary" of N.Yu. Shvedova, "to express frankly the most cherished" [18, p. 207]. The soul – following the logic of Solovyov's definition – is closed as such, since the process of revealing its content presupposes something "other" in relation to the soul than it is not – "lyrical poetry" or "music". One of the properties of lyrical poetry, according to Solovyov, is completeness, as evidenced by the course of his reasoning in determining the subject of poetry: "<...> subjective states, as such <italics Vl. Sol.>, do not allow poetic expression at all; so that they can be clothed in a certain form <my italics – Yu.A.>, it is necessary that they become the subject of <italics Vl. Sol.>" thoughts. In the context of a sentence, the phrase "definite form" functions as a periphrasis of the phrase "poetic expression". Lyrical poetry turns out to be not only an "instrument" of the revelation of the soul, but also something in which the process of revelation finds its "completion".

In Solovyov's reflection on the "subject" of lyrical poetry presented in this article, dialectics of a different plan can be traced. Defining the "material" of lyrical poetry, the philosopher remains an adherent of kalokagathy (he postulates the inviolability of the triad Truth, Goodness, Beauty). The basis of a poetic work cannot be the "dark" sides of the psyche and everyday details: "As we said, the lyrics are a genuine revelation of the human soul; but the accidental surface content of one or another human soul is already obvious in all its unattractiveness and needs not so much revelation and perpetuation, as in the treasure <my italics – Yu.A.> and oblivion" [21, p. 401]. The philosopher's idea of the content of the psyche is antinomic: mental states are divided into "unattractive" and "beautiful". And since, according to Solovyov, the former are a priori open, there is no need for their creative reincarnation, for their dialectical development. The noun "concealment", more accurately expressing the meaning of "actions and state by value. verb. conceal and conceal" [3, p. 648], the philosopher preferred another form of it – "treasure", consonant with the word "revelation", but rarer, dating back to Church Slavonic. (In Church Slavonic, the meaning of the word "treasure" is not abstract, but substantive, it means "stock, provisions" [17, p. 633]). Despite this, it seems that the actualization of the antonyms "revelation" / "treasure" turns out to be not just a stylistic device, but sets a dialectical perspective in determining the nature of lyrical poetry, alienates "unattractive", "superficial" states of the psyche from the lyrics, and also implicitly asserts the idea of the possibility of embodying spiritual beauty in a poetic word. Solovyov's definition of the concept of "spiritual beauty" is based on the unity of the antinomies of closed, internal and universal, external, open: "It is not painful growths and not the dust and dirt of everyday life that need poetic revelation, but only the inner beauty of the human soul <my italics – Yu.A.>, consisting in its consonance with the objective meaning of the universe <my italics are Yu.A.>, in her ability to individually perceive and embody this universal essential meaning of the world and life" [21, p. 401]. Solovyov reflected on the beauty of the soul as a creative ability to master the positive meaning of the external world, to recreate it in new forms. It is the dialectic of the inner, private and external, general that distinguishes, according to Solovyov, lyrics from other arts: "The lyrics stop at simpler, isolated and at the same time deeper moments of harmony of the artistic soul with the true meaning of world and life phenomena" [21, p. 401]. The modern researcher of Russian philosophy O. Smith, author of a monograph on the philosophy of V. Solovyov, characterizes Solovyov's concept of "poetic vision" in this way: "The difference between poetic vision and everyday perception is not in essence, but in quality: the artist's eye sees and feels the same as the prose writer, but the "spiritual perception" of the former is exceptional, because it penetrates into the purely phenomenal in order to give the object an accessible ideal form to it through contemplation and inspiration" [29, p. 220].

Solovyov calls the states of unity of the soul with the world logos, as well as the ability of the soul to such states, "lyrical mood" or "lyrical feeling". Solovyov argued about feeling as a source of creativity back in The Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge (1877), as T. Nemeth points out when analyzing this work of the philosopher: "Just as thinking serves as the subjective basis of cognition, and active will is the subjective basis of practical activity, so feeling serves as the basis of creativity" [26, p. 129]. The concept of "lyrical mood", along with such concepts as "revelation of the soul", "beauty of the soul", "consonance of the soul with the true meaning of phenomena", is one of the key ones in his "teaching about lyrics". It allows Solovyov to explain the source of lyrical poetry, or, according to Aristotle, its "beginning of movement". Explaining what exactly he calls "lyrical mood", the philosopher cites the German concept of "Innerlichkeit" as an analogy: "This is the first sign of lyrical poetry, its sincerity or in German Innerlichkeit. But this is only a feature of the lyrical mood, accessible to ordinary mortals, especially the so-called "poets in the soul"." In the "Complete German-Russian Dictionary" of 1887, there is no definition of the noun "Innerlichkeit", but the meaning of the adjective "Innerlich" is given – "internal, mental, secret, intimate" [16, p. 385]. Solovyov, apparently, referred not so much to the direct meaning of the word, as to the philosophical concept denoted by this word: "inner, innermost essence; inner life; sincerity, sincerity" [7, p. 96].

Another epistemological "tool" to which Solovyov refers in his "doctrine of lyrics" is the dialectic of form and content. If Solovyov polemizes with Hegel about the idea of subjectivity of lyrics, then, putting forward the thesis about the unity of form and content as a condition of true poetry, the Russian philosopher appears to be a follower of the German. The difference, however, is that for Hegel the identity of form and content is a sign of any true art ("Only those works of art in which the content and form are identical are true works of art" [6, p. 299]), and for Solovyov – this identity is an essential characteristic of lyrical poetry, unlike both "applied" poetry and other arts: "In a truly lyrical poem there is no content at all separate from the form, which cannot be said about other kinds of poetry. A poem whose content can be intelligently and coherently told in its own words in prose, either does not belong to pure lyrics, or is no good" [21, p. 402]. A lyrical work is considered as a synthesis of form and design: "As for the peculiarity of the lyrical work, it consists in the perfect fusion of content and verbal expression" [21, p. 402]. In Solovyov's general theoretical constructions, a truly lyrical work is considered as unfolded to the absolute, fundamentally open - due to its appeal to the "true meaning of world and life phenomena" [21, p. 401] and at the same time completed – due to the finiteness of the form.

An important aspect of the theory presented in the article "On Lyrical Poetry" is also the problem of the pragmatics of a lyrical work, or, in other words, the question of what is the "good" of lyrical poetry. Answering this question, the philosopher sharply disagreed with aesthetic criticism with its slogan "art for art." Pure lyrics, according to Solovyov, are not only valuable in themselves, but also solve ontological "problems". The philosopher's idea of the pragmatics of poetry is associated with the idea of the interaction of the antinomies of "renewal" and "dilapidation". According to the philosopher, "pure lyrics", unlike "applied", are not addressed at all to the "historical" and "temporal", but to the search for a correspondence between the individually personal and the absolute, but it also has its own "task". Solovyov defines this task, focusing on Aristotle's teaching about tragedy, about catharsis: "If he <poet – approx. Yu.A.> goes into the world of inspired contemplation from life anxiety, then he does not return empty-handed: what he brings from there allows ordinary mortals to "breathe for a moment clean and the free air of poetry.” And there can hardly be any doubt that such refreshment is useful for the very struggle of life. Tragedy is not the only thing that purifies the soul: perhaps pure lyrics have an even more direct and powerful effect in this direction on everyone who is receptive to it" [21, p. 404]. Here the soul is understood as something that in the course of life can deteriorate under the influence of everyday circumstances and be renewed in the process of communion with eternity. One of the ways leading the soul to "communion" with the absolute is true poetry: the soul perceiving a work of art is freed from "all kinds of everyday sorrows" [21, p. 403]. The "benefit" of lyrical poetry, its "benefit", therefore, consists in the fact that the mastering of a lyrical work allows the soul perceiving it to be freed from the temporal, to join eternity and through this communion to be renewed. Poetic creativity and the perception of poetry appear as ways of "free human participation in the work of God" [28, p. 148]. It is interesting to note that if in the above statement of Solovyov there is a metaphor of poetic creativity as "going into the world of inspired contemplation", then in the poem "A.A. Fetu, October 19, 1884" the structure-forming element is the expanded metaphor of the poet-translator's journey through time and space: Having flown on the wings of swans / The double face of space and centuries, / You listened on the royal peaks / To the living song of the silent singers. The poem was written on the occasion of the presentation of the first Pushkin Prize to Fet for the complete translation of Horace. In it, the image of the poet-translator is framed by the motifs of "journey" (to the "royal peaks", the image of which is associated with the "golden age", the mythical Arcadia) and "return" ("to our shores"). The idea of translating and enriching culture with a new arrangement of Horace is connected with the image of the "magnificent laurel", with the motif of its flowering: And the magnificent laurel in the midst of the unsociable steppe / Bloomed and rustled to your song. The image of the laurel blossoming among the "steppe" is an allegory based on the synthesis of antinomies – antiquity (perceived as the heyday of culture, the cradle of poetry) and modernity (poetry has already cooled). The poet-translator is regarded as a guide, as a medium who managed to "resurrect" forgotten "chants" for modern culture. The image of a Feta translator created in this poem correlates with Solovyov's theoretical idea of a poet who "brings from another brega" a living word that allows those who perceive it to join the universe.

Thus, the structure of Solovyov's theoretical introduction is based on epistemological principles coming from Aristotle's teaching "on causes", and the logic of his reasoning is based on the dialectical interaction of such properties and categories as "openness" / "completeness"; "form" / "content"; "renewal" / "dilapidation". This perception of the lyrics determines the philosopher's approach to the specific lyrical works of Fet. Solovyov analyzes the poems through the prism of the idea of a lyrical work as synthesizing openness to universal spiritual laws and completeness of form.

Talking about Fet's lyrics, Solovyov selects 33 poems from the cycle "Evening Lights". First, we consider those poems that, according to the philosopher, reflect the poet's worldview: "To whom is the crown: to the goddess of beauty...", "I saw your milky, infant hair...", "Good and evil" ("Two worlds rule from time immemorial ..."), "Not to those, the Lord is mighty, incomprehensible...", "Poet" ("The heart flutters joyfully and painfully ..."), "With one push to drive the rook alive...", "Everything, everything is mine that is and was before...", "I am shocked when around...", "How poor is our language! — I want and I can't ...", "Only in the world is there that shady...". Then the philosopher quotes works expressing the character of the poet's "lyrical mood": "Like midges I will dawn ...", "Dreams and shadows ...", "Dream, Awakening ...", Frederic Chopin ("You flashed, you appeared..."), Romance ("Evil song! How painfully outraged ..."), "That you, my dear, are sitting thoughtfully..." And finally, the philosopher notes the poems that are most indicative from the point of view of the problem-thematic range of the collection: "You have suffered, I am still suffering...", "Wearily-invitingly and in vain...", "Alter ego" ("How lilya looks into the upland stream..."), "The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight. Lay...", "In the suffering of bliss I stand before you...", "With the blood of my heart I write these lines to you...", "The dear fingers have opened the pages again...", "I do not see any beauty of your incorruptible soul...", "No, I have not changed. To a deep old age...", "In a dream" ("Like a spring day, your face dreamed again..."), "I am waiting with anxiety...", "In the steppe wilderness, above the silent moisture...", "May night", "The mirror moon floats on the azure desert ...", "The Sea and the stars", "Sonnet" ("When crimes are drunk..."), "To the death of Mitya Botkin" ("We loved you for your young frolic..."). Within the framework of each of these perspectives ("attitude", "lyrical mood" and "problem-thematic range"), the philosopher's logic also reveals dialectic. For example, among the "postulates" on which Fet's worldview is based, Solovyov refers to the primacy of the spiritual inner world over the external material: "The inner spiritual world is even more real and infinitely more significant for the poet than the world of material existence" [21, p. 405]. An example illustrating this thesis is Fet's poem "The Lord is mighty, incomprehensible...": in this work, the external limitations of man, his "instantaneity", the boundlessness of the spiritual world, temporal and spatial freedom, regardless are contrasted. The implicit dialectic of Solovyov's interpretation is determined by the fact that the "spiritual" and "material" in this poem appear to be antinomic properties that lose autonomy in the unity of the lyrical "I".

Having analyzed the specifics of the embodiment of the "lyrical mood" in Fet's poems, Solovyov came to the conclusion that the poet's initial impulse to creativity is connected with his desire to give form to mystical states of the soul when it is turned to the superbeing. In the poems "Dreams and Shadows..." and "Dreaming, Awakening...", the philosopher saw an attempt to reflect the source of true poetry – experiences that have not yet found resolution in the word: "Here," the philosopher wrote about the poem "Dreams and Shadows ...", the poet, as it were, reveals to us the very roots of lyrical creativity, which, compared with as a flowering plant, of course, they are dark, pale and shapeless" [21, p. 409]. Attention is drawn to the fact that Solovyov, in accordance with the formula of lyrical poetry put forward by him at the beginning of the article, considers the poem as a "revelation": in the work, that mysterious and difficult to fix experience is "revealed", followed by a creative act. The formlessness of the experience lived by the soul is contrasted with the formality of the artistic work, in which the experience finds embodiment and permission. It is interesting in this regard that the very form of the poem "Dreams and Shadows ..." is aimed at introducing the reader to the poet's experience. This is indicated by a modern researcher of Feta's creativity: "<...> the strophic organization of the poem helps to turn his reading into a kind of experience" [25, p. 281].

Exploring the problematic-thematic range of "Evening Lights", Solovyov proceeds from the fact that the poetic soul perceives the true meaning of the world through aesthetic impressions received during contemplation of the beauty of nature and, on the other hand, through love experiences emanating from the inner forces of the soul: "These two themes: the eternal beauty of nature and the infinite power of love – and they make up the main content of pure lyrics" [21, p. 412]. Lyrical poetry here is understood by the philosopher as the result of the process of embodying phenomena free from the conventions of time (the beauty of nature) and space (love), works of pure poetic art in their completed forms record the experiences of the soul's contact with eternity. At the same time, these axiological dominants themselves – the beauty of nature and love – can, from the philosopher's point of view, find different ways of reflection in Fet's poems. The peculiarities of the embodiment of these themes are considered in the perspective of the dialectic of the particular and the general: "The true meaning of the universe is an individual embodiment of world life, a living balance between the individual and the general, or the presence of everything in one, – this meaning, which finds the most concentrated expression for inner feelings in sexual love, it is also for contemplation as the beauty of nature" [21, p. 418]. The explanation of Solovyov's cosmology is given by the modern American researcher of Russian philosophy R. Poole, from whose point of view the metaphysics of unity is connected with the understanding of "the cosmos as a manifestation of the divine absolute in the process of its own formation or self-realization" [28, p. 132]. In this sense, Solovyov, in a Hegelian way, connects the formation of the absolute with its participation in the life of every element of the cosmos, including in the process of artistic creation. And although there is no word "unity" in the article "On Lyrical Poetry", the above statement of the philosopher indicates that Solovyov, as an interpreter of Fet's lyrics, paid attention to those poems of "Evening Lights" in which the intuition about the unity of the individual and the general, uniqueness and multiplicity, instantaneity and infinity is especially clearly expressed. Speaking about Fet's love lyrics, he noted that it embodied "an individual spiritual attitude, concentrated in its only subject, internally infinite and indestructible" [21, p. 413]. At the same time, Feta believes that what is common to love poems is that they all become an expression, a formalization of love as an eternal value: "<...> true love, over which time and death are powerless, does not remain only in the poet's heart thought, it is embodied in tangible images and sounds and captures his whole being with its posthumous force" [21, p. 415]. A similar approach is found in the interpretation of Fet's natural philosophical lyrics. Continuing to deny Hegel's idea of the "subjectivity" of lyrics, Solovyov emphasizes that in some of Fet's works the beauty of nature is conveyed so accurately that the poet's personality recedes into the background: "There are lyrical poems in which the beauty and life of nature are directly reflected in the poetic soul, as in a mirror, leaving no room for its subjectivity: you see the image that has taken possession of the poet, and the poet himself is not visible at all" [21, p. 420]. Poems about nature are considered as synthesizing the objective (nature) and subjective (personal perception of the poet).

The immanent analysis of Solovyov's article "On Lyrical Poetry" shows that the dialectic of such properties as "openness" / "completeness", "singularity" / "multiplicity", "subjectivity" / "objectivity" turns out to be one of the tools of Solovyov's interpretation of Fet's lyrics. Solovyov considers it as a metaphysical revelation, Fet's poems appear unfolded to the timeless. The appeal to dialectics allows the philosopher to show exactly how, from his point of view, in Fet's poems the eternally true spiritual is affirmed over the temporal material. At the same time, it is the "material", completed in Solovyov's constructions, that appears both as the key to the "spiritual" and as an intermediary between revelation and the reader. Actualization of dialectics as one of the optics of lyric analysis brings Solovyov's method of interpretation closer to his philosophical program of "positive aesthetics" in general and, on the other hand, allows us to take a fresh look at the problem of the relationship of the philosopher's interpretive strategy with the hermeneutic tradition. Solovyov's theoretical arguments about what lyrical poetry as such is, compositionally and rhetorically, go back to Aristotle's teaching about "causes", and the system of ideas itself is built in a neoplatonic paradigm and is based on the traditions of classical aesthetics and Russian literary criticism. The analysis also sets new research perspectives, in particular, reveals the need to study dialectical principles in Solovyov's approach to the lyrics of other Russian poets.

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First Peer Review

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The article submitted for consideration "A.A. Fet's lyrics in the interpretation of V. Solovyov: on the question of methodology", proposed for publication in the journal "Litera", is undoubtedly relevant, due to the author's appeal to the study of philosophical criticism on the lyrics of A. A. Fet. The purpose of this work is stated to identify and analyze the views of V. Solovyov as a representative of philosophical criticism on the essence of poetic creativity based on the material of works on the lyrics of A.A. Fet. We believe that this goal is realized in the text of the article. It should be noted that there is a relatively small number of studies on this topic in Russian philology. The article is innovative, one of the first in Russian philology devoted to the study of such issues. The article presents a research methodology, the choice of which is quite adequate to the goals and objectives of the work. The author turns, among other things, to various methods to confirm the hypothesis put forward. Unfortunately, the author does not specify the volume of the research body, as well as the methodology of its formation. Theoretical fabrications are insufficiently illustrated by language examples, and convincing data obtained during the study are not presented. In addition, there is no information about the language corpus of the study on which it is based. This work was done professionally, in compliance with the basic canons of scientific research. The research was carried out in line with modern scientific approaches, the work consists of an introduction containing the formulation of the problem, the main part, traditionally beginning with a review of theoretical sources and scientific directions, a research and a final one, which presents the conclusions obtained by the author. It should be noted that the conclusion requires strengthening, it does not fully reflect the tasks set by the author and does not contain prospects for further research in line with the stated issues. The bibliography of the article contains 16 sources, among which works are presented exclusively in Russian. We believe that an appeal to the original works of foreign authors on related topics would undoubtedly enrich the work. Unfortunately, the article does not contain references to the fundamental works of Russian researchers, such as monographs, PhD and doctoral dissertations. Technically, when making a bibliographic list, the generally accepted requirements of GOST are violated, namely, non-compliance with the alphabetical principle of registration of sources. The work contains a number of punctuation, spelling errors and stylistic inaccuracies, for example, "Fet's lyrical works as Solovyov analyzes through the prism of such an idea of a lyrical work, ...", "What are those absolute truths to which Fet is addressed as a pure lyricist, according to Solovyov ...", "To the number of "revelations", Solovyov refers to the following expressed in the lyrics of Feta...." and further along the text. In general, it should be noted that the article is written in a simple, understandable language for the reader. The work is innovative, representing the author's vision of solving the issue under consideration and may have a logical continuation in further research. The practical significance of the research lies in the possibility of using its results in the teaching of university courses in literary theory, as well as courses in interdisciplinary research on the relationship between language and society. The article will undoubtedly be useful to a wide range of people, philologists, undergraduates and graduate students of specialized universities. The article "A.A. Fet's lyrics in the interpretation of V. Solovyov: on the question of methodology" can be recommended for publication in a scientific journal after proofreading the text, eliminating mistakes, structuring the bibliographic list taking into account the current library GOST.

Second Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The topic of the reviewed article is focused on the methodology of evaluating the lyrics of A.A. Feta by V. Solovyov. Note that the subject of consideration is not absolutely, however, deserves due attention. The author is consistent in his work, from general nominations a transition has been made to a detailed analysis. As noted at the beginning of the work, "among the works created by Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov, his theoretical articles on art, as well as a series of works on writers and poets, had a special influence on the process of formation of Russian religious and philosophical aesthetics. Most of these works were published during the philosopher's lifetime, mainly in the journal "Bulletin of Europe". Some of these articles (for example, an article about M.Y. Lermontov) were not published during Solovyov's lifetime, but they are united by their relationship with the aesthetic program of the philosopher, the method of interpretation implemented in them and the fact that they were written in the last period of the philosopher's work. The main body of articles that allow us to judge the philosopher's approach to Russian poets includes the following works: "The Fate of Pushkin", "Lermontov", "Poetry of F.I. Tyutchev", "Poetry of G. A.K. Tolstoy", "On lyrical poetry", "Buddhist mood in poetry". In general, the work has a completed appearance, the main points related to the interpretation of A.A. Fet's lyrics by V. Solovyov have been determined. The critical palette is outlined in texture, the citations are given in a valid format. For example, "the orientation towards discovering the process of revealing the "eternal", the absolute in the completed form of a work of art is also manifested in Solovyov's works about poets, because, from his point of view, true poetry is that which embodies eternal truths. No wonder R.A. Galtseva and I.B. Rodnyanskaya in the introductory article to the collection of literary criticism of the philosopher note: "Solovyov's leading thought is about the light of transfiguration, which will permeate and transform the entire created world" [21, p. 9]. The correlation of the dialectical foundations of Hegel's aesthetics and Solovyov's aesthetics formulated by Galtseva and Rodnyanskaya is also indicative: if for Hegel, according to the researchers, the completed "world of embodied forms" is secondary to the Absolute, then Solovyov's aesthetics is based on the idea of the real good of "embodied beauty", etc. The material will be useful in studying Russian literature of the XIX century, in particular, the work of Athanasius Fet. I would like to note that the idea of the study has been thought out, no serious factual violations have been revealed. The style is oriented towards the scientific type: for example, "an important aspect of the theory outlined in the article "On Lyrical Poetry" is also the problem of the pragmatics of a lyrical work, or, in other words, the question of what is the "benefit" of lyrical poetry. Answering this question, the philosopher sharply disagreed with aesthetic criticism with its slogan "art for art." According to Solovyov, pure lyrics are not only valuable in themselves, but also solve ontological "problems". The philosopher's idea of the pragmatics of poetry is associated with the idea of the interaction of the antinomies of "renewal" and "decrepitude". According to the philosopher, "pure lyrics", unlike "applied", are not addressed at all to the "historical" and "temporal", but to the search for a correspondence between the individually personal and the absolute, but it also has its own "task". The available text volume is sufficient to reveal the essence of the issue. In the final block, the author concludes that "the immanent analysis of Solovyov's article "On Lyrical Poetry" shows that the dialectic of such properties as "openness" / "completeness", "uniqueness" / "multiplicity", "subjectivity" / "objectivity" turns out to be one of the tools of Solovyov's interpretation of Fet's lyrics. Solovyov considers it as a metaphysical revelation, Fet's poems appear deployed to the timeless. The appeal to dialectics allows the philosopher to show exactly how, from his point of view, in Fet's poems the eternally true spiritual is asserted over the temporal material. At the same time, it is precisely the "material", completed in Solovyov's constructions, that appears both as the key to the "spiritual" and as an intermediary between revelation and the reader..." etc. The article is distinguished by the constructive position of the researcher, which is logically presented in the main part. The text does not need serious editing and revision. I recommend the article "A.A. Fet's lyrics in the interpretation of V. Solovyov: on the question of methodology" for open publication in the journal "Litera".