A. A. Fet as a theoretical and practical adherent of pure art¬ and the prob-lem of the nature of poetry
AbstractThis article is devoted to A. A. Fet’s philosophy of art. He is a representative of ‘pure art’ in Russian poetry, whose works were opposed to tendentious art serving the socio-political agenda ofthe time. However, the objective logic of nature of art made A. A. Fet’s poetry complimentary to revolutionary-democratic poetry. A. Fet was guided by Kant’s principle of aesthetics stating that the function of art is constituting the world of values. It does not and cannot replace either science, which is meant to cognise the world, or morality, which is meant to organise the world of the social. The principle of purity characteristic of Kant’s philosophy was applied by A. Fet to art. It means that art for art’s sake is not limited to aesthetic values but includes their whole range. A. Fet gives the role of the ultimate end and value to poetry and thus philosophical poetry. The poet-thinker is his ideal of a poet.