Afanasy Fet
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet, Fet also
spelled Foeth, legitimatized name
Afanasy Afanasyevich Shenshin (b. Dec. 5
[Nov. 23, Old Style], 1820, Novosyolki,
near Mtsensk, Orlov district, Russia—d.
Dec. 3 [Nov. 21], 1892, Moscow), Russian
poet and translator, whose sincere and
passionate lyric poetry strongly
influenced later Russian poets,
particularly the Symbolist Aleksandr
Blok.
The illegitimate son of a German woman
named Fet (or Foeth) and of a Russian
landowner named Shenshin, whose name he
assumed by decree in 1876, Fet was still
a student at the University of Moscow
when, in 1842, he published several
admirable lyrics in the literary
magazine Moskvityanin. In 1850 a volume
of his poems appeared, followed by
another in 1856. He served several years
in the army, retiring in 1856 with the
grade of captain. In 1860 he settled on
an estate at Stepanovka, in his home
district, where he was often visited by
his friends Ivan Turgenev and Leo
Tolstoy.
His intense and brief lyrics, which
aimed to convey vivid momentary
sensations, were to have great influence
on the later Symbolists, but during his
lifetime he was decried because of his
reactionary political views and somewhat
unattractive personality. After 1863 he
published very little, but he continued
to write nature poetry and love lyrics
(published posthumously in a four-volume
collected edition, 1894). His works also
include translations of Ovid, Virgil,
J.W. von Goethe’s Faust, and Arthur
Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and
Idea.
