Poetry of the 19th century. Poetry of the second half of the 19th century Genre features of poetry of the 19th century

Alexander
ARKHANGELSKY

Introducing chapters from the new school textbook

Russian lyrics of the second half of the 19th century

Russian poets and the era of “social” prose. Russian poets of the early 19th century - from Zhukovsky and Batyushkov to Pushkin and Lermontov - created a new poetic language in which it was possible to express the most complex experiences, the deepest thoughts about the universe. They introduced into Russian poetry the image of a lyrical hero, who is both similar and not similar to the poet himself. (Just as Karamzin introduced into Russian prose the image of a narrator whose voice does not merge with the voices of the heroes and the author himself.)

Poets of the first half of the 19th century revised the usual system of genres. They preferred love elegy and romantic ballad to “high”, solemn odes; re-instilled in our native literature a taste for folk culture, Russian songs, fairy tales; embodied in their work the contradictory consciousness and tragic experience of contemporary people, Russian Europeans. They mastered the experience of world romanticism - and gradually outgrew it in many ways.

But this often happens in literature: having barely reached the artistic peak, Russian poetry sharply declined. This happened shortly after the death of Pushkin, and then Baratynsky and Lermontov. That is, in the early 1840s. The poets of the older generation somehow simultaneously got tired of the turbulent literary life and switched off from the active process. Zhukovsky began to translate voluminous epic works - you know about his translation of Homer's Odyssey. Pyotr Vyazemsky hid for a long time in a deep literary shadow, withdrew from poetic affairs, and only in old age did his talent blossom again and he returned to the confines of his native literature. Vladimir Benediktov experienced instant popularity in the mid-1830s - and just as quickly fell out of fashion.

And many of the young lyricists of the 1840s, who remained in the public eye, seemed to have forgotten how to write. The highest skill, mastery of verse technique, which in Pushkin’s times was considered the norm, something taken for granted, was suddenly lost by most poets.

And there is nothing surprising here.

In the very early XIX centuries, Russian literature has learned to depict human character in its individuality and uniqueness. In the 1820s and 1830s, domestic writers began to connect the fates of their heroes with a specific historical era, with those everyday, financial circumstances on which human behavior often depends. And now, in the 1840s, they were faced with new substantive tasks. They began to look at the human personality through the prism of social relations, explain the actions of heroes by the influence of the “environment”, and derived them from economic and political reasons.

Readers of the 1840s–1860s were waiting for just such social works. And for solving such problems, epic, narrative prose, a physiological essay, and a journalistic article were much more suitable. Therefore, the main literary forces of that time focused on the prosaic “springboard”. The lyrics seemed to have temporarily lost their serious content. And this internal aimlessness, vacuity, bled the poetic form. This is how a plant dries out, its access to life-giving underground juices being blocked.

• Why did prose push poetry to the margins of the literary process in the 1840s? What substantive tasks does Russian literature solve in this decade?

Pierre Jean Beranger

How to use lyricism to talk about painful things, about everyday “insignificant” life, how to express new social ideas? European poetry also answered these questions in the 1840s. After all, the transition from the era of romanticism to the era of naturalism took place everywhere! But there, especially in France, a tradition of social, revolutionary lyrics had already been developed, and a special poetic language had emerged. This language was “adapted” for an emotional - and at the same time sincere - conversation about the troubles and sorrows of modern society, about the tragic fate of a “little” person. That is, the transition of poetry into a new, social quality was prepared in advance and correlated with cultural tradition.

The most significant of the European “revolutionary” poets, social lyricists, is rightfully considered the Frenchman Pierre Jean Beranger (1780-1857).

Raised by his grandfather as a tailor, he witnessed the upheaval of the French Revolution as a child. Young Beranger believed in her ideals and - which is no less important for literature - forever remembered the sound of folk revolutionary songs sung by the insurgent crowd. The most popular of these songs is well known to you - this is “La Marseillaise”; its somewhat bloodthirsty content - a call to violence - was clothed in a solemn and light musical form. The songs of the revolutionary era used not only rich folk expressions and jokes, unacceptable in “high” lyrics, but also used the possibilities of epic poetry - a short dynamic plot, a constant refrain (that is, repetition of the “chorus” or some key lines).

Since then, the genre of poem-song, stylized as folk, has prevailed in Beranger's work. Either frivolous, satirical (often directed against the morals of the Catholic priesthood), or political, pathetic, these songs were liked by a wide readership. From the very beginning, the image of a lyrical hero arose and established itself in them - a folk poet, a man from the crowd, a hater of wealth. (Of course, in real life Bérenger himself was not as alien to money as it might seem when reading his poems.)

Russian lyricists began translating Bérenger back in the mid-1830s. But from his vast and varied creativity, at first only lyrical “songs” were chosen, which were so similar to the familiar experiences of stylized “folk songs” created by poets of the beginning of the century and Pushkin’s generation:

The time will come - your May will turn green;
The time will come - I will leave this world;
Your nut lock will turn white;
The shine of agate eyes will fade.
(“My old lady.” Translated by Viktor Teplyakov, 1836)

It `s naturally; We are always interested in other people's experiences exactly as much as they help us cope with our own tasks. And the tasks facing Russian literature in the mid-1830s differed from those that it solved in the troubled decade of the 1840s. It is not for nothing that Russian writers of Lermontov’s generation translated Heinrich Heine, a poet of heightened social feeling, selectively, paying attention primarily to his philosophical lyrics, to his romantic irony. And the poets of the 1840s were already paying attention to the other side of Heine’s talent - to his political, civic, and satirical poems.

And now, when Russian prose spoke so sharply and so bitterly about the shadow side of life, Russian poetry also had to master a new artistic experience. There was no established tradition, so the lyricists of the 1840s voluntarily went to study with Bérenger.

But just as a schoolchild must “ripen” to the serious topics that are studied in high school, so poets spend more than one year trying to “ripen” to a successful translation. After all, a poem translated from a foreign language must retain the flavor of “foreignness” - and at the same time become “our own”, Russian. Therefore, only by the mid-1850s Beranger “speaked” Russian naturally and naturally. And the main merit in this belongs to Vasily Stepanovich Kurochkin (1831-1875), who in 1858 published the collection “Beranger’s Songs”:

"You'll live, look!" - old uncle
I’m ready to repeat it for a whole century.
How I laugh, looking at my uncle!
I'm a positive person.
I spend everything
I won't be able to -
Since I'm nothing
I do not have.
................................
After all, in the plate of one deli
The capital of his ancestors sits;
I know the servants in the tavern:
Full and drunk constantly on credit.
I spend everything
I won't be able to -
Since I'm nothing
I do not have.
("Positive Man", 1858)

You, of course, noticed that these poems were not simply translated into Russian. Here one of the rules of a “good” translation is deliberately violated: the French spirit has completely disappeared from Bérenger, the translator has torn the poem out of someone else’s cultural soil and completely transplanted it into his own. These poems sound as if they were not translated from French, but were written immediately in Russian - and by a Russian poet. They are Russified, that is, they use expressions that are once and for all assigned to Russian everyday life and are completely inappropriate in the French context. For example: “Repeat... for a century,” “fed and drunk.” Another translation by Kurochkin is even more Russified - the poem “Mr. Iscariot” (1861):

Mister Iscariot -
The kindest eccentric:
Patriot of patriots,
Good guy, funny guy,
Spreads out like a cat
Bends like a snake...
Why such people
Are we alienating ourselves a little?..
.............................................
A zealous reader of all magazines,
He is capable and ready
The most zealous liberals
Frighten with a stream of words.
He will cry out loudly: “Glasnost! Glasnost!”
Conductor of holy ideas!"
But who knows people
Whispers, feeling danger:
Hush, hush, gentlemen!
Mister Iscariot,
Patriot of patriots,
Coming here!..

It is not without reason that the French poem about the informer “Monsieur Iscariot” (Iscariot was the name of Judas, who denounced Christ) was turned into a Russian satire on the informer “Mr. Iscariot”. Vasily Kurochkin deliberately tore Beranger's poetry away from its French roots and turned it into a fact of Russian culture. With the help of Beranger, he created the language of Russian social poetry and mastered new artistic possibilities. And he succeeded quite well.

But the fact of the matter is that luck on the chosen path had to wait too long; Russian poets of the second half of the 1850s could have done without Beranger and relied on the artistic experience of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. (A separate chapter is devoted to Nekrasov’s biography and the artistic world in the textbook.) It was Nekrasov, for the first time within the Russian cultural tradition, who managed to combine the incompatible - rough “sociality” and deep lyricism; it was he who created a new poetic language, proposed new rhythms for native poetry that would suit new topics and new ideas. Real fame came to him immediately after the poem “Am I Driving Down a Dark Street at Night...” was published in the Sovremennik magazine in 1847:

Do you remember the mournful sounds of trumpets,
Splashes of rain, half light, half darkness?
Your son cried and his hands were cold
You warmed him with your breath...

Everyone read these piercing lines - and understood: here it is, a new word in poetry, the only correct form has finally been found for telling about emotional experiences associated with poverty, disorder, everyday life...

But no one helped the poets of the 1840s solve the artistic, substantive problems they faced.

• Why were translations of the French poet Beranger's poems Russified by Kurochkin? Read the quote from the poem “Mr. Iscariot” again. Find in it examples of expressions that are so connected with Russian speech that they tear Bérenger’s text away from the French tradition.

Lyrics by Alexey Pleshcheev

Nevertheless, even in the 1840s, some Russian poets tried to talk about the same serious social problems that were touched upon by social prose, in the familiar Pushkin-Lermontov language. More often than not, this did not work out very well. Even the most gifted of them.

Thus, Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev (1825-1893) often wrote civic and political poetry in this decade; Here is one of the most famous and most popular:

Forward! without fear and doubt
A valiant feat, friends!
Dawn of Holy Redemption
I saw it in the sky!

...We will not make ourselves an idol
Neither on earth nor in heaven;
For all the gifts and blessings of the world
We will not fall to dust before him!..

...Listen, brothers, to the word of your brother,
While we are full of youthful strength:
Forward, forward, and without return,
No matter what fate promises us in the distance!
(“Forward! without fear and doubt...”, 1846)

Pleshcheev did not read his rebellious ideas from books at all. He seriously participated in the revolutionary circle of the “Petrashevites” (more about them will be said in the chapter of the textbook dedicated to Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky). In 1849, the poet was arrested and, together with other active “Petrashevites,” was sentenced to death by shooting. After a terrible wait, right on the square where the execution was to take place, he was told that the sentence had been commuted and the execution had been replaced by military service. Pleshcheev, who suffered a terrible shock, was exiled to the Urals, and only in 1859 was he allowed to return to central Russia. (First to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg.)

So Pleshcheev suffered, endured and paid for the thoughts expressed in the poem with his own life. But a real biography is one thing, and creativity is something else. In his civic poems of the 1840s, Pleshcheev still used the usual iambic tetrameter, erased from frequent use, and erased general poetic images.

Return to the quote from the poem “Forward! without fear and doubt...", re-read it.

The poet combines ideas that came from the Bible (“Let us not make ourselves an idol... To proclaim the teachings of love...”) with fashionable ideas about the progress and triumph of science (“...And let, under the banner of science // Our Union grow stronger and grow ..."). But he cannot find any other role models except Pushkin’s ode “Liberty,” written almost thirty years earlier. Perhaps the political lyrics of the Decembrists - but this is a completely different time, life itself speaks a different language!

Pleshcheev literally forces himself to rhyme revolutionary slogans, the artistic material resists this - and in the final stanza, Pleshcheev “drives” the thought into an unruly form, crippling the sound of the verse. Notice what a crowd of sounds there is in the last two lines! “Forward, forward, and without return, // No matter what fate in the distance promises us!” "VPRD... VPRD...BZVZVRT...CHTBRKVD..." A continuous series of sound collisions, completely unjustified by the design.

And the point here is not in the individual talent of Alexei Pleshcheev. He was just a very talented poet, and many of his poems were included in the golden fund of Russian classics. But such - contradictory, uneven - was the literary situation of the 1840s as a whole. The state of affairs, as we have already said, will change only in the 1850s and 1860s, after Nekrasov stood at the very center of the literary process. And then Pleshcheev will gradually move away from deliberate “progressiveness” (although he will occasionally recall his favorite political motives) and return to traditional poetic themes: rural life, nature.

It is these unpretentious and very simple lines from Pleshcheev that will be included in school textbooks and anthologies and will be familiar to every Russian. It is enough to say the first line - and the rest will automatically emerge in your memory: “The grass is turning green, // The sun is shining, // The swallow is flying with spring // In the canopy is flying towards us” (“Rural Song”, 1858, translation from Polish). Or: “A boring picture! // Clouds without end, // The rain keeps pouring down, // Puddles by the porch...” (1860).

Such was the literary fate of those Russian poets who then tried to clothe the social experience accumulated in prose in the subtle matter of verse. And the poems of other lyricists, who remained faithful to Pushkin’s harmony, the grace of “finishing,” sometimes acquired a kind of museum, memorial character.

• Why did the talented poet Aleksey Pleshcheev, creating “civil” poems in the 1840s, rarely achieve success?

In 1842, the first collection of poems by the young poet, the son of academician of painting Apollo Nikolaevich Maykov (1821-1897), was published. From the very beginning he declared himself as a “traditional”, classical poet; as about lyricism, far from everyday life, from the momentary details of fast-flowing life. Maykov's favorite genre is anthological lyrics. (Let us remember once again: an anthology in Ancient Greece was a name for collections of the best, exemplary poems; the most famous of the ancient anthologies was compiled by the poet Meleager in the 1st century BC.) That is, Maykov created poems that stylized the plastic world of ancient proportionality, plasticity, harmony:

Verse harmonies divine secrets
Don't think about figuring it out from the books of the sages:
At the shore of sleepy waters, wandering alone, by chance,
Listen with your soul to the whispering of the reeds,
I speak oak forests; their sound is extraordinary
Feel and understand... In the consonance of poetry
Involuntarily from your lips dimensional octaves
The oak groves flow, sonorous as music.
("Octaves", 1841)

This poem was written by a young author, but you can immediately feel: he is already a real master. The extended rhythm is clearly maintained, the sound of the verse is subordinated to the musical structure. If in one verse we can easily discern the onomatopoeia of the rustling of reeds (“Listen with your soul to the Whispering of the Reeds”), then in the next we will hear the forest murmur (“The oak tree speaks”). And in the finale, soft and hard sounds will make peace with each other, unite into a smooth harmony: “SIZED OCTAVES // Flow, sonorous, like the Music of the Oak Trees”...

And yet, if you remember the anthological poems of Pushkin - and compare the lines you just read with them, you will immediately discover a certain amorphousness, lethargy of Maykov’s lyrics. This is how Pushkin described the Tsarskoye Selo statue in 1830:

Having dropped the urn with water, the maiden broke it on the cliff.
The virgin sits sadly, idle holding a shard.
Miracle! the water will not dry up, pouring out from the broken urn;
The Virgin, above the eternal stream, sits forever sad.

Here an image has been created of something unstoppable - and at the same time stopped! - movements. The sound scale is ideally chosen here: the sound "u" hums mournfully ("An Urn with water... about a Cliff... A MIRACLE... from an Urn... in a stream..."), the explosive sound "Ch" is combined with an extended " N" and itself begins to sound more viscous: "sad... eternal... eternal." And in the first line, the harsh clash of consonants conveys the feeling of a blow: “The Virgin broke her.”

But this is not enough for Pushkin. He communicates to the reader a deep sense of hidden sadness; eternity and sadness, sculptural perfection of forms and the gloomy essence of life are inextricably linked in him. For the sake of this, he seems to make the verse sway and repeat: “... the maiden broke... the maiden sits... the maiden... sits sadly.” Repetitions create the effect of circular, hopeless movement.

And for Pushkin, one unexpected word among sculpturally smooth expressions is enough to touch the reader, scratch him, slightly prick him. This word is "idle". We come across the expression “idle shard” - and immediately imagine the confusion, sadness of the “maiden”: one moment the urn was whole, you could pour wine and water into it - and then in one second it became “idle”, unnecessary, and that’s already forever...

But with Maykov, for all the perfection of his early poem, everything is so smooth that there is nothing for the eye to catch on. The secrets of the verse are “divine” (what else could they be?), the waters are “sleepy”, the sound of the oak forests is “extraordinary”... And only years later new images will appear in Maykov’s lyrics, catching the reader’s attention with freshness and surprise:

Spring! the first frame is exposed -
And noise burst into the room,
And the good news of the nearby temple,
And the talk of the people, and the noise of the wheel...
(“Spring! The first frame is being exhibited...”, 1854).

The landscape poems of the late Maykov, devoid of social overtones, pose a unique challenge to the general tone of the era and the dominant poetic tastes:

My garden is withering every day;
It is dented, broken and empty,
Although it is still blooming magnificently
The nasturtium in it is a fire bush...

I'm upset! Annoys me
And the autumn sunshine,
And the leaf that falls from the birch tree,
And the crackling of late grasshoppers...
("Swallows", 1856)

The overall tone of the poem is muted, the colors are devoid of “screaming”, harsh tones; but in the very depths of the poem very bold images ripen. The metaphor of the magnificent withering of autumn nature goes back to Pushkin’s “Autumn”, but how unexpected is the image of a burning scarlet nasturtium bush, how contradictory are the feelings of the lyrical hero, who is not at all delighted with this splendor, but is irritated by the “trifles” of autumn everyday life...

• A task of increased difficulty. Read the poems of Yakov Polonsky, another Russian lyricist who began his journey in literature in the 1840s, but revealed his talent only in the next decade. Prepare a report about his artistic world, using the teacher's advice and additional literature.

Kozma Prutkov

When “original” poetry is in a state of crisis, painfully searching for new ideas and new forms of self-expression, the genre of parody usually flourishes. That is, a comic reproduction of the peculiarities of the manner of a particular writer or poet.

In the late 1840s, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875) and his cousins ​​Alexei Mikhailovich (1821-1908) and Vladimir Mikhailovich (1830-1884) Zhemchuzhnikovs came up with... a poet. (Sometimes a third brother, Alexander Mikhailovich, joined the joint parody work.) They began to write poems on behalf of the never-existent graphomaniac Kozma Prutkov, and in these poems they parodied officialdom in all its manifestations. Be it overly refined, pinky-out-of-the-way, anthological poetry or overly pretentious civic lyrics.

Therefore, they came up with a “official” biography for Prutkov, turning him into an official, director of the Assay Tent. The fourth of the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers, Lev Mikhailovich, painted a portrait of Prutkov, combining in it the martinet features of a bureaucrat and the mask of a romantic poet. This is the literary appearance of Kozma Prutkov, falsely romantic and bureaucratic at the same time:

When you meet a person in the crowd,
Which is naked;
[Option: Which tailcoat is he wearing? - Note. K. Prutkova]
Whose forehead is darker than the foggy Kazbek,
The step is uneven;
Whose hair is raised in disorder;
Who, crying out,
Always trembling in a nervous fit, -
Know: it's me!
("My portrait")

In the appearance of Kozma Prutkov, the incompatible was combined - the late romantic image of a “strange”, wild poet, “who is naked,” and an official, “who wears a tailcoat.” In the same way, he doesn’t care what and in what manner he writes poetry - either to repeat the bravura intonations of Vladimir Benediktov, or to compose in the ancient spirit, like Maikov or other “anthological” poets of the 1840s:

I love you, maiden, when it's golden
And drenched in the sun you hold a lemon,
And I see the young man’s fluffy chin
Between acanthus leaves and white columns...
(“Ancient plastic Greek”)

Prutkov also grasps on the fly the style of numerous imitators of Heine, the creators of “social” poetry:

On the seaside, right next to the outpost,
I saw a large vegetable garden.
Tall asparagus grows there;
Cabbage grows modestly there.

There's always a gardener there in the morning
Lazily walks between the ridges;
He is wearing an unkempt apron;
His gloomy look is gloomy.
............................................
The other day he drives up to him
The official in the troika is dashing.
He is wearing warm, high galoshes,
There is a gold lorgnette on the neck.

"Where is your daughter?" - asks
The official, squinting through his lorgnette,
But, looking wildly, the gardener
He only waved his hand in response.

And the troika galloped back,
Sweeping dew from cabbage...
The gardener stands sullenly
And he digs his finger into his nose.
("At the Seaside")

But if the “creativity” of Kozma Prutkov was only a parody and nothing more, it would have died along with its era. But it has remained in reader use; Prutkov’s works have been republished for a century and a half. This means that they have outgrown the boundaries of genres! It is not for nothing that the creators of this collective image put into the mouth of their character a rebuke to the feuilletonist of the newspaper “St. Petersburg News”: “Feuilletonist, I skimmed through your article... You mention me in it; that’s nothing. But in it you groundlessly blaspheme me! For this I won't praise...

Are you saying that I write parodies? Not at all!.. I don’t write parodies at all! I've never written a parody! Where did you get the idea that I write parodies?! I simply analyzed in my mind most of the poets who were successful; this analysis led me to a synthesis; for the talents, scattered separately among other poets, turned out to be all combined in me as one!..”

In Prutkov’s “creativity,” the fashionable motifs of Russian poetry of the 1840s and 1850s are truly summed up and melted down, creating a funny and in its own way integral image of an official romantic, an inspired graphomaniac, a pompous preacher of banality, the author of the project “On the introduction of unanimity in Russia.” But at the same time, Prutkov sometimes seems to accidentally blurt out the truth; Some of his aphorisms have entered our everyday life, having lost their mocking meaning: “If you want to be happy, be happy,” “A specialist is like gumboil: his completeness is one-sided.” There is something very living in Prutkov’s literary personality. And therefore, it was not Prutkov’s parodies of individual (mostly justly forgotten) poets, but precisely his image itself that forever entered the history of Russian literature.

• What is a parody? Can we consider that the poems written on behalf of Kozma Prutkov are just parodies? Why does parodic creativity flourish in those moments when literature is experiencing a crisis?

Of course, in the 1850-1860s, which were more favorable for poetry, literary destinies developed differently; many Russian poets, whose fame we are proud of today, have never found reader recognition. Thus, two poems by the outstanding literary and theater critic Apollo Aleksandrovich Grigoriev (1822-1864) - “Oh, at least talk to me...” and “The Gypsy Hungarian” - attracted general attention only because they acquired a second - musical - life have become popular romances. Both of them are dedicated to the guitar, gypsy passion, fatal breakdown, love obsession:

Oh, at least talk to me,
Seven-string friend!
The soul is full of such longing,
And the night is so moonlit!..
(“Oh, speak...”, 1857)

Two guitars, ringing,
They whined pitifully...
A memorable chant from childhood,
My old friend - is that you?
.........................................
It's you, the dashing spree,
You, evil fusion of sadness
With the voluptuousness of a bayadere -
You, Hungarian motive!

Chibiryak, chibiryak, chibiryashka,
You have blue eyes, my darling!
.........
Let it hurt more and more
The sounds howl
To speed up your heart
Burst with flour!
(“Gypsy Hungarian”, 1857)

Apollo Grigoriev knew firsthand what a “dashing spree” was; he grew up in the patriarchal Zamoskvorechye, in a family of nobles who came from the serf class (Grigoriev’s grandfather was a peasant), and had a Russian, unrestrained attitude towards everything - both work and fun. He gave up a career that was starting to be profitable, was in need all the time, drank a lot, was in debt twice - and actually died while imprisoned in debt...

Being a European-educated person, Grigoriev defended the ideas of national identity in critical articles. He called the principles of his criticism organic, that is, co-natural with art, in contrast to the “historical” criticism of Belinsky or the “real” criticism of Dobrolyubov. Contemporaries read and actively discussed Grigoriev's articles; however, during the poet’s lifetime his wonderful poems were published as a separate edition only once - and in a tiny edition, only fifty copies...

• Read "The Gypsy Hungarian" by Apollon Grigoriev. Identify the features of a romance in the construction of the poem, show how its very structure contains a “musical” beginning.

Alexey Tolstoy

But the literary biography of Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875), one of the main “creators” of Kozma Prutkov, was much more successful. (You have already read in elementary school his wonderful poem “My little bells, steppe flowers...”, which, like many of Tolstoy’s poems, became a popular romance.)

Coming from an old family, who spent his childhood on his mother’s Little Russian estate in the Chernigov region, Alexey Konstantinovich, ten years old, was introduced to the great Goethe. And this was not the first “literary acquaintance” of young Alexei. His uncle, Alexey Perovsky (pseudonym - Antony Pogorelsky), was a wonderful romantic writer, the author of the fairy tale “The Black Hen,” which many of you have read. He collected in his St. Petersburg house the whole flower of Russian literature - Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Krylov, Gogol; the nephew was admitted to this meeting of “immortals” - and for the rest of his life he remembered their conversations, remarks, remarks.

It is not surprising that at the age of six he already began composing; his first poems were approved by Zhukovsky himself. And later Tolstoy wrote prose; in his historical novel “Prince Silver” (finished in 1861) noble people will act and genuine passions will reign; Moreover, Alexey Konstantinovich was not at all embarrassed by the fact that the romantic principles of Walter Scott, which he invariably followed, were considered by many to be outdated. Truth cannot become outdated, and taking into account literary fashion was beneath his dignity.

In 1834, Alexey Konstantinovich entered the sovereign service in the Moscow archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, studied ancient Russian manuscripts; then he served in the Russian mission in Frankfurt am Main; finally, he was enrolled in His Majesty’s own office - and became a real courtier. It was at court that he met his future wife, Sofya Andreevna Miller (nee Bakhmetyeva) - they met at a ball in the winter of 1850/51.

Tolstoy's official career was successful; he knew how to maintain internal independence and follow his own principles. It was Tolstoy who helped free Taras Shevchenko, the great Ukrainian poet, author of the brilliant poem “The Wide Dnieper Roars and Moans” from exile to Central Asia and from military service; did everything to ensure that Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was released from exile in Spasskoye-Lutovinovo for his obituary in memory of Gogol; when Alexander II once asked Alexei Konstantinovich: “What is happening in Russian literature?”, he replied: “Russian literature has put on mourning over the unjust condemnation of Chernyshevsky.”

Nevertheless, in the mid-1850s, having managed to take part in the Crimean War, which was extremely unsuccessful for Russia, Tolstoy decided to retire, to be freed from the service that had long burdened him. But only in 1861 did Alexander II grant his resignation - and Alexei Konstantinovich was able to fully concentrate on literary work.

By this time, his artistic world had already fully developed. Just as Tolstoy himself was distinguished by internal integrity and rare mental health, so his lyrical hero is alien to insoluble doubts and melancholy; the Russian ideal of openness, unalloyed feeling is extremely close to him:

If you love, so without reason,
If you threaten, it’s not a joke,
If you scold, so rashly,
If you chop, it’s too bad!

If you argue, it’s too bold,
If you punish, that's the point,
If you forgive, then with all your heart,
If there is a feast, then there is a feast!

In this eight-line poem, written in 1850 or 1851, there is not a single epithet: the lyrical hero does not need shades, he strives for definiteness, brightness of the main tones. For the same reason, Tolstoy avoids variety in the very construction of the poem; the principle of unity of command (anaphora) is used consistently, moving from line to line: “If ... so.” It’s as if the poet is vigorously tapping his hand on the table, beating out a clear rhythm...

Tolstoy never joined any of the warring camps - Westerners and Slavophiles; he was a man of world culture - and at the same time a bearer of deeply Russian tradition. The Novgorod Republic, with its democratic structure, served him as a political ideal; he believed that the domestic government once followed moral principles, but in the modern world has lost them, exchanged them for political interests, and reduced them to petty struggles between different groups. This means that the poet cannot adhere to any ideological “platform”. So is his lyrical hero - “Two stans is not a fighter, but only a random guest”; he is free from any “party” obligations.

It is not without reason that many of Tolstoy’s poems - like those poems by Grigoriev that we talked about - were set to music, became “real” romances and are still sung:

In the middle of a noisy ball, by chance,
In the anxiety of worldly vanity,
I saw you, but it's a mystery
Your features are covered;

Only the eyes looked sadly,
And the voice sounded so wonderful,
Like the sound of a distant pipe,
Like a playing shaft of the sea.
...............................................
And sadly I fall asleep like that,
And I sleep in unknown dreams...
Do I love you - I don't know
But it seems to me that I love it!
(“Among a noisy ball, by chance...”, 1851)

While preserving traditional romantic motifs, Tolstoy imperceptibly “straightened” them and deliberately simplified them. But not because he was afraid to approach the abyss, to face insoluble problems, but because his healthy nature was abhorrent to any ambiguity or uncertainty. For the same reason, his lyrics lack romantic irony, with its internal tragedy and anguish; Its place is taken by humor - the free laughter of a cheerful person at the imperfections of life, at the impossibility of dreams.

Tolstoy's most famous humorous poem, “The History of the Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev,” has a genre designation: “satire.” But let's read these verses, which mockingly set out the main events of Russian history:

Listen guys
What will grandfather tell you?
Our land is rich
There is just no order in it.
.......................................
And everyone became under the banner
And they say: “What should we do?
Let's send to the Varangians:
Let them come to reign."

What's the main thing in these funny lines? A satirical, angry, caustic denunciation of traditional Russian shortcomings or the grin of a deeply Russian person at himself, at his beloved history, at the immutability of Russian vices? Of course, the second; No wonder the author puts on the mask of an old joker and likens his readers to little kids! In fact, Alexei Tolstoy does not create a murderous satire, but a sad and cheerful parody. He parodies the form of the chronicle, the image of the chronicler (“Compiled from blades of grass // This unwise story // This thin, humble monk // God’s Servant Alexey”). But the main subject of his parody is different, and we’ll say which one later.

The poem has 83 stanzas, and in such a short volume Tolstoy manages to fit a parody story about all the main, symbolic events of Russian history, from the calling of the Varangians and the baptism of Rus' until 1868, when the poems were written:

When did Vladimir join
To your father's throne,
......................................
He sent for priests
To Athens and Constantinople,
The priests came in droves
They cross themselves and burn incense,

Sing to yourself touchingly
And they fill their pouch;
The earth, as it is, is abundant,
There is just no order.

Of course, after this comes a series of princely discords - “The Tatars found out. // Well, they think, don’t be a coward! // They put on trousers, // We arrived in Rus'... // They shout: “Let’s pay tribute!” // (At least Bring the saints out.) // There is a lot of all sorts of rubbish here // It has arrived in Rus'." But still there is no order. Neither Western strangers, nor Byzantine "priests", nor the Tatar-Mongols - no one brought it with them, no one coped with the constant Russian disorder. And here, from the depths of Russian history, comes our own “organizer”:

Ivan Vasilich the Terrible
He had a name
For being serious
Solid man.

The receptions are not sweet,
But the mind is not lame;
This one put things in order,
Why roll the ball!

Thus, through the parody, Tolstoy’s own - and very serious - view of the essence of Russian history emerges. Her shortcomings are a continuation of her advantages; this “disorder” destroys it - and, alas, it allows Rus' to preserve its originality. There is nothing good in that, but what to do... Only two rulers managed to impose “order” on it: Ivan the Terrible and Peter I. But at what cost!

Tsar Peter loved order
Almost like Tsar Ivan,
And it was also not sweet,
Sometimes he was drunk.

He said: “I feel sorry for you,
You will perish completely;
But I have a stick
And I am the father of you all!"

Tolstoy does not condemn Peter (“...I don’t blame Peter: // Give to a sick stomach // Good for rhubarb”), but does not accept his excessive harshness. The light shell of the parody is immersed in ever deeper content, and sadness emerges through the humor. Yes, Russia is sick, but the treatment may turn out to be even worse, and the result of the “healing” is still short-lived: “... Although it is very strong // There was, perhaps, a reception, // But still quite strong // Order has become // But sleep overtook the grave // ​​Peter in the prime of his life, // Look, the land is abundant, // There is no order again.”

The genre of satire gave way to the genre of parody, and the parody imperceptibly turned into a philosophical poem, albeit written in a humorous form. But if a parody can do without positive content, without an ideal, then a philosophical poem can never do so. This means that Tolstoy’s own answer to the question must be hidden somewhere: what can still heal Russian history from a centuries-old illness? Not the Varangians, not Byzantium, not the “stick” - but what then? Perhaps the hidden answer to the obvious question is contained in these stanzas:

What's the reason for this?
And where is the root of evil,
Catherine herself
I couldn’t comprehend it.

"Madame, it's amazing in your presence
Order will blossom, -
They wrote to her politely
Voltaire and Dideroth, -

Just what the people need
Whose mother you are
Rather give freedom
Give us freedom soon."

But Catherine is afraid of freedom, which could allow the people to heal themselves: “...And immediately attached // the Ukrainians to the earth.”

The poem ends with stanzas about Tolstoy’s contemporary, Minister of Internal Affairs Timashev, a strict supporter of “order.” Order in Rus' is still established - with a stick; It’s not hard to guess what awaits her ahead.

• What is the difference between satire and humor? Why was the genre of parody so close to Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy? Why do you think he chooses a parody form for a philosophical poem about the fate of Russian history?

Poets of the 1870-1880s

You already know that the entire second half of the 19th century, from the mid-1850s until the early 1880s, passed under the sign of Nekrasov, that the era spoke in Nekrasov’s voice. In the next chapter of the textbook, you will get acquainted in detail with the artistic world of Nekrasov, learn to analyze his poems and poems. A little further away, in his public shadow, were two other great lyricists, Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet. Separate chapters are also devoted to them in the textbook. In the meantime, let's move from the 1850s directly to the 1870-1880s, let's see what happened to Russian poetry after Nekrasov.

And almost the same thing happened to her as after Pushkin, after Lermontov, after the departure of any truly large-scale writer. Russian poetry was again at a loss; it did not know which path to follow. Some lyricists developed social, civic motives. For example, Semyon Yakovlevich Nadson (1862-1887). Just as Vladimir Benediktov took the artistic principles of romantic lyricism to the extreme, so Nadson condensed to the extreme the pathos and style of civil lyricism of the Nekrasov model:

My friend, my brother, tired, suffering brother,
Whoever you are, don't lose heart.
Let untruth and evil reign supreme
Over the earth washed with tears,
Let the holy ideal be broken and desecrated
And innocent blood flows, -
Believe: the time will come - and Baal will perish,
And love will return to earth!..

Nadson's poems enjoyed incredible popularity in the 1880s - almost like Benediktov's poems in the 1830s. Pleshcheev took care of him; Nadson's collection of poems, first published in 1885, went through five lifetime editions; the Academy of Sciences awarded him its Pushkin Prize. He was called the poet of suffering and civic melancholy. And when, having lived only twenty-five years, Nadson died due to consumption, a crowd of students accompanied his coffin all the way to the cemetery...

But several years passed - and Nadson’s glory began to fade. Suddenly it suddenly became clear that he was too moralizing, too straightforward, his images lacked volume and depth, and many of his poems were simply imitative.

Why was this not noticed during the poet’s lifetime?

This sometimes happens in literature: the writer seems to hit the painful point of his era, talking about exactly what his contemporaries are thinking about right now. And they respond with all their hearts to his poetic, literary word. A resonance effect occurs, the sound of the work is intensified many times over. And the question of how artistic this word is, how original it is, fades into the background. And when some time passes and other problems arise before society, then all the hidden artistic shortcomings, creative “shortcomings” are revealed.

This partly applies to another popular poet of the 1870-1880s - Alexei Nikolaevich Apukhtin (1840-1893). Unlike Nadson, he did not come from a bureaucratic, but from a well-born noble family. His childhood passed serenely on his parents' estate; he studied at the elite School of Law in St. Petersburg. And he continued not the social, civic tradition of Nekrasov, but the line of development of Russian poetry that Maikov outlined in his time.

Apukhtin treated poetry as pure art, devoid of tendentiousness, free from public service, as if distilled. He behaved accordingly - he pointedly avoided participating in the “professional” literary process, he could disappear from the field of view of magazines for a decade, then begin to publish again. Readers, and especially female readers, still appreciated Apukhtin; his gentle, broken intonation, the internal kinship of his poetics with the genre laws of romance - all this found a response in the reader’s hearts:

Crazy nights, sleepless nights,
Speeches are incoherent, eyes are tired...
Nights illuminated by the last fire,
Dead autumn flowers are belated!
Even if time is a merciless hand
It showed me what was false in you,
Still, I fly to you with a greedy memory,
In the past I am looking for the impossible answer...

And then, after some time, Apukhtin’s lyrics began to sound duller and duller; Her excessive sentimentality and lack of real depth began to reveal itself. The place of Nadson and Apukhtin was taken by new “fashionable” poets who belonged to the next literary generation - Konstantin Fofanov, Mirra Lokhvitskaya. They took it - then, in turn, to give it up to other “performers” of the ready-made literary role.

Lyrics by Konstantin Sluchevsky

But even in the 1880-1890s, there were truly great talents in Russian poetry who not only resonated with the era, but overtook it and worked for the future. One of them is the sophisticated lyricist Konstantin Konstantinovich Sluchevsky (1837-1904).

He was born in the year of Pushkin's death in the family of a major official (his father, a senator, died during the cholera epidemic of 1848, and his mother became the head of the Warsaw Alexander-Mariinsky Girls' Institute). Sluchevsky studied at the First Cadet Corps and was even listed in the Golden Book of Alumni; then he served brilliantly...

Those around him always considered Sluchevsky to be a solid person; his aristocratic restraint and strict upbringing misled those around him. Because his poems revealed a completely different, fractured and dramatic inner world, associated with a romantic sense of life as a kingdom of duality:

I never go anywhere alone
Two of us live between people:
The first is me, what I look like,
And the other one is me of my dreams...

But for the time being, almost no one from Sluchevsky’s entourage read these poems; they were published in third-rate publications. But in 1860, Sovremennik opened the year with a selection of Sluchevsky’s lyric poems, and then his poetic cycle appeared in Otechestvennye zapiski. The enthusiastic critic and poet Apollo Grigoriev declared the new poet a genius, Ivan Turgenev (who would later quarrel with Sluchevsky and parody him in the novel “Smoke” under the name of Voroshilov) agreed: “Yes, father, this is a future great writer.”

The recognition was inspiring, but Sluchevsky found himself hostage to the brutal literary struggle of those years. Accepted in one “camp,” he was immediately rejected in another. The radical raznochinny wing of the Sovremennik editorial board decided to excommunicate the poet from the magazine, despite the sympathy that Nekrasov himself felt for the young lyricist. From the pages of other revolutionary-democratic publications, a hail of ridicule fell on Sluchevsky; he was portrayed as a retrograde, a man without ideas.

The result exceeded expectations: thinking in “unmodern” categories of noble honor and dignity, Sluchevsky considered that it was not appropriate for an officer and an aristocrat to be the hero of feuilletons. And - he resigned to leave Russia. He spent several years at the University of Paris - at the Sorbonne, at the University of Berlin, at the University of Leipzig, studying natural sciences and mathematics. And in Heidelberg he became a doctor of philosophy.

Ultimately, in 1866, he returned to Russia and began to make a career anew - already on a civilian path. He became one of the close associates of the royal family and became a chamberlain. But he never recovered from the shock inflicted on him at the very beginning of his literary career. And therefore he built his poetic biography as emphatically non-literary, amateur, and not involved in the professional environment. (In this he was close to Apukhtin.)

Among the poems written by Sluchevsky in the 1860-1870s and not published, we will find almost no “programmatic” preaching poems. Their artistic structure is distinctly uneven, and their style is obviously heterogeneous. Sluchevsky was one of the first in Russian poetry to use not just everyday, everyday speech, but even clerical phrases: “According to the totality of luminous phenomena...”, “The dawn has warmed up perfectly...”. He developed a special poetics of imprecise consonances and unpaired rhymes:

I saw my burial.
The tall candles were burning
The sleepy deacon censed,
And the hoarse singers sang.
................................................
Sad sisters and brothers
(How nature is incomprehensible to us!)
Wept at the joyful meeting
With a quarter of the income.
................................................
The lackeys were praying outside the door,
Saying goodbye to a lost place
And in the kitchen there is an overeating cook
I was fiddling with the risen dough...

These early poems clearly bear the influence of Heinrich Heine's bitter social lyrics; like most Russian lyricists of the second half of the 19th century, Sluchevsky fell into the powerful energy field of this “last romantic.” But something else is already noticeable here: Sluchevsky has his own through-and-through idea, the embodiment of which requires not a harmonious, perfect poetic form, but rough, “unfinished” verse, unpaired, some kind of “stumbling” rhyme.

This is the thought of disunity, of tragic disunity human life, in the space of which souls, thoughts, hearts echo as weakly and dully as unpaired rhymes in verse.

Perhaps the most characteristic - and at the same time the most expressive - poem by Sluchevsky “Lightning fell into a stream...”. It speaks precisely about the impossibility of meeting, about the inevitability of suffering, about the impossibility of love: “Lightning fell into the stream. // The water did not become hot. // And that the stream was pierced to the bottom, // Through the rustle of the streams, it does not hear...<...>There was no other way: // And I will forgive, and you forgive." It is not for nothing that a cemetery motif constantly appears in Sluchevsky’s poems, melancholy as the night wind; it is not without reason that a second, hidden plan emerges through his social sketches. The plan is mystical.

Sluchevsky constantly writes about Mephistopheles, who penetrated into the world, about the demon of evil, whose double, vague image flashes here constantly. Such a worldview was not characteristic of Sluchevsky alone at that time; It is not for nothing that his lyrical hero resembles Dostoevsky’s “underground” heroes. It’s just that Sluchevsky was one of the first to grasp and capture in his poems that attitude that would determine a lot in Russian lyrics - and in Russian culture in general - at the end of the 19th century. This attitude would later be called decadence, from the French word meaning decline, a painful crisis of consciousness. The poet wants to be healed from this disappointment - and cannot find healing in anything: neither in social life, nor in thinking about eternal life.

• A task of increased difficulty. Read Sluchevsky’s poem: “I’m tired in the fields, I’ll fall asleep soundly, // Once in the village for grub. // I can see through the open window // And our garden, and a piece of brocade // Have a wonderful night... The air is bright... // How quiet is the silence! I’ll fall asleep, loving // God’s whole world... But the nooses screamed! // Or have I denied myself?” Explain why the poet, in a row, separated by commas, uses common folk expressions (“I’ll sleep soundly,” “to the village for some grub”) and general poetic, sublime vocabulary (“...a piece of brocade // Have a wonderful night...”)? Do you know where this image came from in Sluchevsky’s poem: “the looper shouted! // Or did I deny myself?”? If not, try to read the last chapters of all four Gospels, which tell about the Apostle Peter’s denial of Christ. Now formulate how you understand the poet’s thought expressed in the final lines.

Russian poetry of the end of the century and French lyrics of the 1860-1880s

Charles Baudelaire. Paul Verlaine. Arthur Rimbaud

As we have already said, Russian literature of the first third of the 19th century was a diligent student of Western literature. She quickly caught up with her “mentor”, studied with German and English romantics, then with French naturalists. And in the end, she “caught up” with the general course of world culture and became an equal participant in the cultural process.

This does not mean that Russian writers have completely stopped adopting the experience of others (only a fool refuses useful lessons); but this means that they gained internal independence, learned to move in parallel, in unison with their European brothers. Therefore, much that happened in Russian poetry of the second half of the 19th century century, as if rhyming with what was happening at the same time in European poetry, especially French. Here we are talking not so much about influence as about non-coincidental similarity. Or, as historians and literary scholars say, about typology.

You know that the best Russian lyricists after Nekrasov returned to the romantic motifs of duality, languor of spirit, that notes of despair sounded in their work, a mood of decline appeared. The same motifs can easily be found in French poetry of the 1860-1880s.

The outstanding lyricist Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), a leftist, a rebel who directly participated in the revolutionary events of 1848, published a collection of poems, “Flowers of Evil,” in 1857. (The collection, being updated, was republished several times.) The poems collected in this book did not just challenge petty-bourgeois (aka universal) morality; Baudelaire's lyrical hero experienced extreme, almost mystical disappointment in the foundations of Christian civilization and clothed his extremely disharmonious feelings in a perfect, classical form.

Tell me where do you come from, Beauty?
Is your gaze the azure of heaven or the product of hell?
You, like wine, intoxicate clinging lips,
You are equally happy to sow joy and intrigue.
Dawn and fading sunset in your eyes,
You emanate fragrance as if it were a stormy evening;
The youth became a hero, the great one fell to dust,
Drunk on your lips with the enchanting urn.

Like his Romantic predecessors, Baudelaire breaks aesthetics and morality, and demonstratively, defiantly; he exclaims, turning to Beauty: “You walk over the corpses with a proud smile, // Diamonds of horror stream their cruel brilliance...” This does not frighten him; It is not self-sufficient Beauty that is scary, but the world into which it comes. And therefore he accepts her catastrophism as a terrible way out of earthly hopelessness:

Are you God or Satan? Are you an Angel or Siren?
Does it really matter: only you, Queen Beauty,
You free the world from painful captivity,
Sending incense and sounds and colors!
(“Hymn to Beauty.” Trans. Ellis)

Immoralism became an artistic principle for Baudelaire. But if you carefully read his poems - bright, dangerous, really similar to swamp flowers, then it will become clear: they contain not only poison, but also an antidote; that horror, of which Baudelaire became the singer, is overcome by the poet’s suffering, redeemed by the pain of the world, which he takes into himself. Nevertheless, "Flowers of Evil" became the subject of trial in a Paris court; the poet was accused of insulting public morality and sentenced to “withdraw” some poems from the book “Flowers of Evil.” The judges were not obliged to listen to the hidden sound of the lines; they made their decision based on the immediate, everyday, and not the poetic meaning of the words.

Baudelaire began to be translated in Russia in the 1870s. Moreover, the pioneers were populist poets like Vasily Kurochkin and Dmitry Minaev. Their own style, a little rustic, was extremely far from Baudelaire’s poetics, its complex metaphorical play and pathos, blazing with protuberances. Like the Parisian judges, they paid attention to the external, to Baudelaire's rebellious themes - only with a positive sign. And only the Russian lyricists of the next generations were able to unravel Baudelaire’s mystery, felt in his poems the harbinger of large-scale and tragic images of the 20th century: “Like the black banner of Tosca the Queen // Will flutter victoriously over her dejected brow” (“Spleen.” Trans. Vyach.I. Ivanov).

“On Time” began to translate another French lyricist, who belonged to the generation following Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). In his sad poems we felt something familiar, the idea of ​​the inevitable duality of the human soul, the melancholy of disappointment that permeates the world, the decline of the heart’s strength - we have encountered all this in Nadson, Apukhtin, and Sluchevsky:

Autumn moan -
lingering ringing
Death knell -
Sick at heart
Sounds like a string
Restless...
(“Autumn Song”. Translation by N. Minsky)

But all these motifs in Verlaine's poetry have a shimmering, symbolic subtext. He doesn’t just share his “spleen” and blues with the reader; he feels that the entire universe is “moping”, that the creative forces of the Universe are drying up, that the time of painful, nervous uncertainty is coming, that humanity is on the threshold of a new era, beyond which there is complete uncertainty. And this subtext will also be unraveled only by translators of the early 20th century.

But the least “lucky” of all at the end of the 19th century with Russian translations was Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), the author of the brilliant tragic, catastrophic and majestic poem “The Drunken Ship” (1871). It was in this poem that for the first time all the main “lines of force” of poetry of the 20th century were identified, the traditional motives and conflicts of romantic lyrics were translated into a fundamentally different register, connected with global historical forebodings, with future universal upheavals:

Those who controlled me were in trouble:
Their Indian marksmanship chose them as targets,
Sometimes, like me, without the need for sails,
He left, obeying the river flow.

Following what the silence made me understand,
That the crew no longer existed,
I, a Dutchman, under a load of silks and grain
Was thrown into the ocean by gusts of a squall.

With the speed of a planet that barely arose,
Now diving to the bottom, now rising above the abyss,
I was flying, overtaking the peninsulas
Along the spirals of changing hurricanes.
............................................................
If I still enter the waters of Europe,
After all, they will seem to me like a simple puddle, -
I'm a paper boat, you don't get along with me
A boy full of sadness, standing on his haunches.

Intercede, O waves! To me, in so many seas
To the one who visited - to me, flying in the clouds -
Is it appropriate to sail through the flags of amateur yachts?
Or under the terrible gaze of floating prisons?
(Translated by D. Brodsky)

However, Arthur Rimbaud began to be translated in Russia much later; Having become a poet of the late 19th century in France, he turned out to be a poet of the 20th century in Russia. But this does not mean that Russian lyricists of the 1880-1890s did not think about the same problems and did not move in the direction given by history.

• Remember the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov “The Lonely Sail Whitens.” Compare the images of this poem with the images of “The Drunken Ship” by A. Rimbaud. What are the similarities, what are the fundamental differences?

The poetry of Vladimir Solovyov and the beginning of a new era in Russian poetry

And precisely such a poet, who largely predicted the artistic discoveries and philosophical ideas of the 20th century, was Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900). Having become a graduate of the Faculty of History and Philosophy of Moscow University and a volunteer student of the Moscow Theological Academy, Solovyov delved into the study of ancient mystical treatises about Sophia. That is, about the Soul of the World, about the Wisdom of God, about the personification of Eternal Femininity. Like many romantics, Solovyov believed that this mystical force directly affected his life, and therefore sought a mysterious meeting with Sophia.

In 1875, Vladimir Sergeevich went to London; the formal reason was work in the library of the British Museum, the real reason was the search for a meeting with Sophia. Solovyov fills notebooks with strange writings, where among the undecipherable signs a familiar name is often found: Sophie, Sophia. And - suddenly leaves London via Paris to Egypt. He had a certain “voice” that called him to Cairo. As he later writes in the poem “Three Dates”: “Be in Egypt!” - a voice rang out inside, // To Paris - and the steam carries me to the south." This purely Solovyov-like construction of the poetic phrase is characteristic: not a word is said about the intermediate state, about doubts. The decision is made instantly. Such was Solovyov’s nature.

For the same reason, he was so inclined to use symbols (by the way, remember the definition of this literary concept, look in the dictionary). After all, the symbol does not depend on changing reality, on changing the angle of view. It is always mysterious in meaning, but always defined in form. Thus, in Solovyov’s 1875 poem “My Queen...”, which was precisely connected with a trip to Egypt, the colors of eternity, eternal colors predominate: “My Queen has a high palace, // About seven pillars of gold, // My queen has a seven-sided crown, // It contains countless precious stones. // And in my queen’s green garden // The beauty of roses and lilies bloomed, // And in a transparent wave a silvery stream // Catches the reflection of curls and brow. ..".

The “queen’s” garden is always green, at any time of the year, it does not fade; roses are invariably scarlet, lilies are white, the stream is silver. And the more constant, the more “reliable” these symbolic colors are, the more dramatic it sounds. main topic poems. And this theme is the changeability of the poet’s heart, the changeability of the face of his Heavenly Beloved.

In Egypt, Solovyov was in for a shock. He spent an icy night in the desert, waiting for Sophia to appear, as he was told by an inner voice, but no mysterious meeting took place; the young mystic was almost beaten by local nomads. Another poet would have perceived what happened tragically, but for Solovyov, on the contrary, all this caused a fit of laughter. (It is not for nothing that in one of his lectures he defined man as a “laughing animal.”) In general, he, like his favorite lyricist Alexei Tolstoy, often wrote humorous poems.

Laughter was for Solovyov a kind of antidote to excessive mysticism; he deliberately played up the image of his lyrical hero, the image of the Pilgrim, the mystic, and placed him in comic situations. Right down to the autoepitaph: “Vladimir Solovyov // Lies in this place. // First there was a philosopher, // And now he has become a skeleton...” (1892).

But with the same inexplicable ease, Solovyov returned from ridicule, from disappointment - to solemn intonation, to enchantment with a mystical image. In perhaps the best of Solovyov’s poems, “Ex oriente lux” (1890), Russia is harshly asked to make a choice between the belligerence of the ancient Persian king Xerxes and the sacrifice of Christ:

O Rus'! in high anticipation
You are busy with a proud thought;
What kind of East do you want to be?
The East of Xerxes or Christ?

In the 1890s, the azure eyes of the invisible Sophia again clearly shone to Solovyov. This time the light came not from the East, not from the West, but from the North. In the winter of 1894, having gone to work in Finland, Solovyov unexpectedly felt the secret presence of Sophia in everything - in the Finnish rocks, in the pine trees, in the lake... But it was then that he made a conclusion for himself about the terrible proximity of a global catastrophe, about the possible appearance of the Antichrist. The poem “Pan-Mongolism” became a cluster of his sad historical observations:

Pan-Mongolism! Even though the word is wild,
But it pleases my ears,
As if a harbinger of great
God's destiny is full.

...Weapons of God's punishment
The stock has not yet been depleted.
Preparing new strikes
A swarm of awakened tribes.

Pan-Mongolism - in Solovyov’s understanding - is the unification of Asian peoples for the sake of enmity with the European “race”; Vladimir Sergeevich was convinced that in the 20th century the main historical force would be the united warlike representatives of the “yellow race”: “From the Malayan waters to Altai // Leaders from the eastern islands // At the walls of fallen China // Gathered tens of their regiments.”

These motifs will be developed in their work by Solovyov’s closest literary heirs, the poets of the next generation who will call themselves Russian symbolists - you will also get to know their work in the next, 11th grade.

• What mindsets are characteristic of Russian poets of the late 19th century? What are their similarities with the romantics of the turn of the century?

1. Blok A.A. The fate of Apollon Grigoriev // Aka. Collection cit.: In 8 vols. M.-L., 1962.
2. Gippius V.V. From Pushkin to Blok. M., 1966.
3. Grigoriev A.A. Memories. M., 1980.
4. Egorov B.F. Apollo Grigoriev. M., 2000 (Series “Life of Remarkable People”).
5. Korovin V.I. Noble heart and pure voice of the poet // Pleshcheev A.N. Poems. Prose. M., 1988.
6. Nolman M.L. Charles Baudelaire. Fate. Aesthetics. Style. M., 1979.
7. Novikov Vl. The artistic world of Prutkov // Works of Kozma Prutkov. M., 1986.
8. Fedorov A.V. Poetic creativity of K.K. Sluchevsky // Sluchevsky K.K. Poems and poems. M.-L., 1962.
9. Yampolsky I.G. Mid-century: Essays on Russian poetry 1840-1870. L., 1974.

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Text content of presentation slides: Russians poets of the 19th century century N.A. Nekrasov, F.I. Tyutchev, A.A. Fet. Emotional wealth of Russian poetry. Author Nadezhda Nikolaevna Serova, teacher of Russian language and literature The purpose of the lesson is to show the skill of Russian poets of the 19th century in creating the image of the Motherland and native nature, to continue working on developing the skill of analyzing a poem. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov Born in 1821. His childhood years were spent on the Volga in the village of Greshnevo, Yaroslavl province. In 1824, Nekrasov and his family settled on the family estate. Against the will of his father, he went to study at St. Petersburg University. After which there was a break in their relationship. During his studies, Nekrasov tried to write critical articles and feuilletons. In 1843, a decisive meeting took place for him with V.G. Belinsky. Nekrasov tries to write poetry and prose. In 1847 he became the editor of Pushkin's magazine Sovremennik, thanks to him the magazine began to flourish. Early 1870s. - the idea of ​​the poems “Grandfather”, “Princess Trubetskaya”, “Princess Volkonskaya” and the epic “Who Lives Well in Rus'” arises. At the beginning of 1875, Nekrasov became seriously and fatally ill (oncological disease). In 1877, N.A. Nekrasov died. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov The nationality of creativity, the spirit of truth-seeking. Strong civil motives in creativity. Civil motives appeared in elegies. Inclusion of plot-narrative principles in the lyrics. Introduction to the poetry of Russian folklore. Song rhythms of poems. N.A. Nekrasov, 1850s Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev Born on December 5, 1803 in the village of Ovstug, Bryansk district, Oryol province, into a high-born noble family. Received his initial education at home. In 1821, he graduated from the verbal department of the Moscow university. In 1822-39. was in the diplomatic service in Munich and Turin. After returning to Russia, he served in the Department of Foreign Affairs. In 1854, in the fifty-first year of his life, the first collection of his poems was published. He died in 1873 in Tsarskoye Selo, was buried in St. Petersburg on Novodevichy cemetery. Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev Only about 400 poems were written. The main theme is Russian nature, living, spiritual, multifaceted. Images of nature resonate with the experiences of man, who is often alone and powerless in comparison with the power of nature. When depicting nature, attention is paid to details. From earthly reality, the poet ascends to sublime dreams, to infinity. He does not just admire beauty, but tries to comprehend it (poet-philosopher). He perceives existence as a catastrophe. The poems are distinguished by their richness of metaphors and philosophical orientation. Favorite genre is philosophical miniature. Tyutchev is a poet-psychologist, the last Russian romantic. Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet Years of life: 1820-1892. Father - Oryol landowner A.N. Shenshin, mother - Charlotte Becker, who left her husband, a petty German official I. Fet, for him. In 1834, their son was declared illegitimate and placed in a private German boarding school. Now he had to bear the surname Fet. From childhood he loved poetry, and at the boarding school he began to write poetry. In 1838 he entered the verbal department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow University, wrote poetry almost every day. In 1840, the first collection of his poems “Lyrical” was published pantheon" under the initials "A.F." Many critics noted the uniqueness of A. Fet's poems about his native nature. V.P. Botkin about the poem “I came to you with greetings...”: “We do not know such a lyrical spring feeling of nature in all Russian poetry!” Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet Fet is the largest poet of “pure art”, a poet-landscape painter. Nature in his poems is a beautiful living being. And man is a particle of nature, a creature equal to it. The poems depict “transitional” states of nature. They express delight in the miracle of existence. The artistic world of poetry is created by a variety of visual images, rhythms, sounds, and special syntax. Fet is a master of poem composition, uses all types of compositional repetitions (anaphora, refrain, epiphora, etc.). The poems are very musical. Fet’s favorite genre is lyrical miniature. A.A. Fet, 1860 Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet Reflection Questions for comparison N.A. Nekrasov F.I. Tyutchev A.A. Fet 1. What is the main theme of the poems? 2. How does the poet perceive life? 3. How does he perceive nature? 4. How does it depict man in his relationship with nature? 5. What figurative and expressive means are used in poetry? 6. Favorite lyrical genre of the poet? Reflection Questions for comparison N.A. Nekrasov F.I. Tyutchev A.A. Fet 1. What is the main theme of the poems? Civil Philosophical Landscape 2. How does the poet perceive life? Realist Existence is a catastrophe Delight in life 3. How does he perceive nature? As a realist A living, multifaceted world A beautiful living creature 4. How does it depict man in his relationship with nature? Nature and man have equal rights. Alone and powerless in front of nature. Part of nature, they have equal rights. 5. What figurative and expressive means are used in poetry? Variety of tropes Metaphors Syntax, compositional repetitions 6. The poet's favorite lyrical genre? Civil lyrics Philosophical miniature Lyrical miniature Homework Written analysis of any poem you like about nature: N.A. Nekrasova F.I. Tyutcheva A.A. Feta Thank you for your work!

Russian poetry of the 19th century experienced at least three genuine upsurges in its development. The first, relatively speaking, dates back to the beginning of the century and is marked by the name of Pushkin. Another long-recognized poetic rise occurs at the turn of two centuries - the nineteenth and twentieth - and is associated primarily with the work of Alexander Blok. Finally, the third, in the words of a modern researcher, “poetic era” is the middle of the past so far, the 60s, although it is in poetry that the so-called “sixties” chronologically shift more noticeably to the early 50s.

In the 40s, significant and fundamentally important phenomena took place in Russian poetry. Thus, in the mid-40s, Nekrasov’s original creativity took shape, and in the 40s, Fet began to create. And yet, in this decade, in general, poetry fades into the background, which is confirmed by the external picture of literary life: a limited number of published poetry collections, the modest place occupied by poetry in magazines. And the reasons must be sought not only in the arbitrariness of publishers or the lack of aesthetic sense among critics - one CAN point out, for example, a very restrained attitude towards poetry in the second half of the 40s, even among Belinsky. In the literature, analytical tendencies characteristic primarily of prose prevailed. Meanwhile, the attempt made at the very end of the 40s by such a sensitive editor and publisher as Nekrasov to revive interest in poetry seems symptomatic. A whole series of articles devoted to the poetic phenomena of the era is being planned in Sovremennik. Nekrasov’s famous article “Russian minor poets” was written within this framework.

All this was a foretaste of a new rise in poetry, signs of which were already visible from the beginning of the 50s and which by the mid-50s acquired unusual swiftness. Poetry again receives its citizenship on the pages of magazines, becomes a full-blooded and independent participant in the literary process, the subject of critical analysis and theoretical debate. The best critics again write a lot and with interest about it: Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, Druzhinin and Botkin. Come out and often become truly outstanding events in literary and public life poetry collections. First of all, this applies to Nekrasov’s collection of 1856. Books by Fet, Nikitin, Ogarev, Polonsky, Ap. Maykova and others. The era called specifically to poetry, and not to poetry, of which there was never a shortage. The very character of poetry also changes qualitatively. Quite a few new poets are appearing: Sluchevskin, for example, or Nikitin. What is happening, however, is not just an ordinary generational change. The process of becoming poetry looks much more complicated. Characteristic is the revival to a new life of poets who had long been established, but were almost silent in the “non-poetic” 40s. Perhaps the most characteristic in this sense is the fate of a poet like Tyutchev, his kind of double revival: firstly, attention to his very work, which already existed, its revival in the reader’s perception and, secondly, his very extraordinary creative activity . We can talk about a kind of revival even of Nekrasov, who in the 1940s was experiencing a clear creative crisis, wrote little or no poetry (throughout 1849) and directly stated that he was no longer writing poetry. On the other hand, a writer like Turgenev, who created many poetic works in the “prosaic” 40s, completely parted with poetry in the “poetic” 50s.

Russian poetry after Pushkin, it carried opposing principles, expressed the increased complexity and inconsistency of life. Clearly defined and polarized, two directions are developing: democratic and “pure art.” When we talk about two poetic camps, we need to keep in mind the great diversity and complexity of relations both within each of the camps and in the relations between them, especially if we take into account the evolution of social and literary life, “Pure” poets wrote civil poetry: from liberal- accusatory (Ya. Polonsky) to protective (Ap. Maikov). Democratic poets experienced a certain (and also positive) influence from the poets of “pure art”: Nikitin, for example, in his poetry of nature. The flourishing of Khatir poetry is mainly associated with the democratic movement. Nevertheless, “pure art” put forward a number of major satirical talents: N. Shcherbina and especially A.K. Tolstoy, who wrote many satirical works - both independent and within the framework of collective authorship, creating the famous Kozma Prutkov. And yet, in general, there is a fairly clear divide between poetic movements. In the confrontation and confrontation of these two trends, intensified social struggle often manifested itself. The poles could perhaps be designated by two names: Nekrasov and Fet. “Both poets began to write almost simultaneously,” the critics stated, “both experienced the same phases of social life, both made a name for themselves in Russian literature... both, finally, are distinguished by far from ordinary talent, and for all that in poetic there is almost not a single common point in the activities of each of them.”

More often, the Nekrasov school - and here we are talking about just such a school - means poets of the 50s - 70s, ideologically and artistically closest to him, who experienced the direct influence of the great poet, even organizationally united in essence due to that circumstance that most of them were grouped around a few democratic publications: Nekrasov’s Sovremennik, Russian Word, Iskra.

Class: 10 Topic: “Russian poetry of the second half of the 19th century” List of works:

F. Tyutchev “Silentium”, “Not what you think...”, “The earth still looks sad...”, “K.B.” , “Whatever life teaches us..”; A. Fet “To the Poets”, “Still fragrant bliss of spring...”, “The night shone...”, “Whisper, timid breathing...”, “On railway»; N. Nekrasov poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

1. F. Tyutchev. Essay on life and creativity. Poet-philosopher and singer of native nature. Thoughts about life, man and the universe. Homeland theme. ("Silentium", "Not what you think...", "The earth still looks sad.."). Love is like a “fatal duel.”(“K.B.”, “Whatever life teaches us..”).

WITH leave a thesis plan for the article.

In the mid-50s of the 19th century, over a hundred poems were published in Nekrasov’s Sovremennik Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev. His first works, published in almanacs and magazines of the 20-30s of the 19th century, including in Sovremennik, published Pushkin, remained unappreciated by the general public.

Literary fame came to Tyutchev in his sixth decade of life. In one of his articles Nekrasov named Tyutchev "paramount poetic talent" A Dobrolyubov described him as a poet who “is accessible... to sultry passion, to severe energy, and to deep thought, aroused not only by spontaneous phenomena, but also by moral issues and the interests of public life.”

Tyutchev's literary heritage is small in volume, but Fet in the inscription on Tyutchev’s collection of poems he rightly said:

Muse, observing the truth,

She looks and on the scales

This is a small book

There are many heavier volumes.

F.I. Tyutchev is one of the largest Russian lyric poets, a poet-thinker. His best poems still excite the reader with the poet’s artistic vigilance, depth and power of thought.

Tyutchev’s entire work bears the stamp of complexity, painful thoughts and contradictory social life, of which the poet was a participant and thoughtful observer. Calling yourself "a fragment of old generations" Tyutchev wrote:

How sad a half-asleep shadow is,

With exhaustion in the bones,

Towards the sun and movement

To wander after a new tribe.

Tyutchev calls man “helpless,” “insignificant dust,” “a thinking reed.” Fate and the elements rule, in his opinion, over the life of man, “the grain of the earth,” “a homeless orphan,” the fate of a person is like an ice floe melting in the sun and floating “into the all-encompassing sea” - into the “fatal abyss.”

And at the same time, Tyutchev glorifies the struggle, courage, fearlessness of man, the immortality of human feat:

Take courage, fight, O brave friends,

No matter how cruel the battle, no how stubborn the struggle!

Silent circles of stars above you,

Below you are mute, deaf coffins.

Let the Olympians have an envious eye

They watch the struggle of unyielding hearts.

Who, while fighting, fell, defeated only by fate,

He snatched the victorious crown from their hands.

The stamp of duality also lies on Tyutchev’s love lyrics. On the one hand, love and its “charm” are “wonderful captivity”, “pure fire”, “the union of the soul with the dear soul”; on the other hand, love seems to him like “violent blindness,” “an unequal struggle of two hearts,” “a fatal duel,” in which

We are most likely to destroy,

What is dear to our hearts.

One of the most remarkable phenomena of Russian poetry is Tyutchev’s poems about the captivating Russian nature. Nature in his poems is always spiritual, thinks, feels, says:

Not what you think, nature -

Not a cast, not a thoughtless face.

She has a soul, she has freedom,

It has love, it has language.

The poet strives to understand and capture the “soul,” the life of nature, in all its manifestations. With amazing artistic observation and love, humanizing the life of nature, Tyutchev created unforgettable poetic pictures of the “original autumn”, spring thunderstorm, summer evening, night sea, morning in the mountains. An excellent example of such a deep, heartfelt image of the natural world can be the description of a summer storm.

Everything in nature seems alive to the poet, full of deep meaning, everything speaks to him “in a language understandable to the heart.”

With images of nature, he expresses his innermost thoughts and feelings, doubts and painful questions:

Equanimity in everything,

There is complete harmony in nature, -

Only in our illusory freedom

We are aware of the discord.

Where and how did the discord arise?

And why in the general choir

The soul doesn’t sing like the sea,

And the thinking reed murmurs?

“The faithful son” of nature, as Tyutchev called himself, he exclaims:

No, my passion for you

I can’t hide it, Mother Earth!

In the “blooming world of nature” the poet saw not only “an excess of life”, but also “damage”, “exhaustion”, “a smile of withering”, “spontaneous discord”. Thus, Tyutchev’s landscape lyrics express the most contradictory feelings and thoughts of the poet.

2. The artistic originality and rhythmic richness of the poet's verse.

t/l artistic originality and rhythmic richness of the poet’s verse.

The poetry of F. Tyutchev is poetry of thought, philosophical poetry, poetry of cosmic consciousness. The most important topic for Tyutchev, the chaos contained in the universe is an incomprehensible secret that nature hides from man. Tyutchev perceived the world as ancient chaos, as a primordial element. And everything visible and existing is only a temporary product of this chaos. The poet’s appeal to the darkness of the night is connected with this. It is at night, when a person is left alone in front of the eternal world, that he acutely feels on the edge of the abyss and especially intensely experiences the tragedy of his existence. The poet uses the technique of alliteration:

Quiet dusk, sleepy dusk,

Lean into the depths of my soul...

What are you howling about, night wind?

Why are you complaining so thoughtlessly?

"Silentium" is a philosophical poem. The lyrical hero appears in it as a thinker. The main idea is the endless loneliness of man. Man turns out to be powerless before the omnipotence of nature. Based on this, Tyutchev comes to the idea of ​​​​the insufficiency of all human knowledge. This leads to the tragic collision of a person’s inability to express his soul, to convey his thoughts to another. The poem is structured as a kind of advice, an appeal to the reader, to you. The first stanza begins with the advice “be silent” and ends with the same. By you we mean me:

How can the heart express itself?

How can someone else understand you?

The poet concludes that the human word is powerless: “A thought expressed is a lie.” The poem ends with a call to live in the world of your own soul:

Just know how to live within yourself

There is a whole world in your soul...

Nature is the main theme of Tyutchev’s work. The idea of ​​the animation of nature, the belief in its mysterious life are embodied by the poet in his desire to depict nature as a kind of animated whole. She appears in his lyrics in the struggle of opposing forces, in the continuous change of day and night. It's not so much a landscape, it's space. The main device used by the poet is personification. The poem “Spring Waters” is a poetic description of the awakening of nature. Nature (streams) becomes animated, finding a voice:

They shout all over the place

Spring is coming, spring is coming!

The poem conveys a young, cheerful feeling of spring and renewal. Tyutchev was especially attracted to transitional, intermediate moments in the life of nature. In the poem “Autumn Evening” there is a picture of evening twilight, in the poem “I love a thunderstorm in early May...” - the first thunder of spring.

Tyutchev's love lyrics are also original. “Oh, how murderously we love...” Poem from the Denisievo cycle. Tyutchev blames himself for the suffering caused to Elena Denisyeva by her ambiguous position in society. Love sometimes sounds like the union of a soul with a dear soul, sometimes like anxiety, sometimes like a sorrowful confession. Love cannot be absolutely happy. One heart triumphs, the other, weaker, perishes.

Fate's terrible sentence

Your love was for her.

But without love, without internal struggle, there is no human life.

Read the poem F. Tyutchev “Here, where the vault of heaven is so sluggish...”

Here, where the vault of heaven is so sluggish

He looks at the skinny earth, -

Here, plunged into an iron sleep,

Tired nature sleeps...

Only here and there pale birches,

Small bush, gray moss,

Like fever dreams

They disturb the deathly peace.

3. RR Reading by heart and independent analysis of poems by F. Tyutchev.

4. A. Fet. Accuracy in conveying human perception of pictures of native nature, shades of feelings and emotional movements of a person. Fet and the theory of “pure art”. The magic of rhythms, sounds and melodies.

t/l theory of "pure art"

Make a thesis plan for the article “The Life Path of Fet.”

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet-Shenshin lived a long life. As we see, all development takes place within the chronological framework of his life. classical literature 19th century.

The life of Fet the student, officer, landowner, chamberlain of the court of His Imperial Majesty took place in full view of everyone. However, some of the main points were shrouded in a thick, almost impenetrable mystery, which has not yet been fully revealed and has painted it in deeply tragic tones.

Fet was born on November 10, 1820 in the family of a wealthy and enlightened (adherent of Rousseau's ideas) Oryol landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin and his wife, née Charlotte Becker, whom he met in Germany and brought with him to his homeland. And suddenly an unexpected thunder thundered over the head of the fourteen-year-old boy: his baptism by the son of Shenshin was declared illegal. To a German boarding house, located in one of the Baltic cities and considered exemplary educational institution, where he, with some participation of Zhukovsky, had been placed shortly before that time, a letter from his father arrived addressed to him with a strange inscription - not to Shenshin, as always, but to Fet. The letter stated, without specifying the reasons, that from now on he should be called that way from now on. The first thing that followed was the evil guesses and mockery of his comrades. And soon Fet felt the dire consequences associated with his new surname. This was the loss of everything that he inherently possessed - the title of nobility established in society, property rights, even nationality, Russian citizenship. An old hereditary nobleman, a wealthy heir, suddenly turned into a “man without a name” - an unknown foreigner of very dark and dubious origin. And Fet perceived this as a most painful shame, casting a shadow not only on him, but also on his dearly beloved mother, as the greatest catastrophe that “disfigured” his life. To return what was so irreparably lost to him, to return by any means, if necessary, sacrificing everything, became a kind of obsession that determined his entire life. life path. This had an influence, sometimes fatal, on literary destiny.

The ancients said that poets are born. And Fet, indeed, was born a poet. Artistic talent was the essence of his soul. Already from childhood he was “greedy for poetry”; experienced incomparable pleasure, “repeating the sweet poems” of the author “ Caucasian prisoner" and "Bakhchisarai Fountain". In a German boarding school he began writing poetry.

He continued to compose his poems with increasing zeal and in the boarding house of a historian, writer, journalist close to Pushkin and Gogol, Professor Pogodin, where he entered to prepare for Moscow University.

This was facilitated by friendship with Apollon Grigoriev- his peer, a future poet, a unique and outstanding critic. Both friends "reveled in poetry." In the Grigorievs’ house, which Fet called the “true cradle” of his “mental self,” a circle of students gathered, which included: the future poet Ya. Polonsky, future historian S. Solovyov.

Fet received his first blessing for serious literary activity from Gogol, to whom, through Pogodin, he transferred samples of his creativity. The famous writer advised to continue: “This is an undoubted talent.”

The young poet decided to publish his poems as a separate collection, borrowing 300 rubles in banknotes from his sisters’ governess: the young people were in love with each other, dreamed of getting married and naively hoped that the publication would not only quickly sell out, but would also bring literary fame to the author, which would ensure their “independent future”. In 1840, the collection was published under the title "Lyrical Pantheon". The poems from this collection were influenced Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Benediktov. Belinsky noticed the poems Feta:“...of all the poets living in Moscow, Mr. Fet is the most talented,” among his poems “there are truly poetic ones.” The critic's reviews were a ticket to literature. Heavily printed.

Undoubtedly, the joy of creativity and literary success in many ways healed his “sick spirit,” but they could not tame the “rebellious” idea-passion that possessed him. A. Grigoriev, in one of his autobiographical stories, vividly talks about the severe mental torments that tormented Fet at this time and from which he, fearing that Fet would commit suicide, saved him with great difficulty, often spending whole nights at his bedside.

And so, in the name of his goal, the poet abruptly breaks his life path - in 1845 he leaves Moscow and the highly intellectual atmosphere that developed in Grigoriev’s circle. Soon after graduating from the university, he entered the lower rank of one of the provincial regiments stationed on the distant southern outskirts (Kherson province). Fet himself subsequently gave a precise explanation for this. In military service, rather than in any other, he can begin to realize his goal - to rise to the rank of hereditary nobleman and thereby, at least partially, regain his lost citizenship. However, this was bought at a high price. In his memoirs, he will tell in what difficult conditions - complete isolation from his usual environment, literary life, new books and magazines, and, moreover, in what material “constraint”, sometimes bordering on poverty, he now found himself.

He continued to write poetry, but his literary activity weakened. But in the name of his goal, Fet endures these conditions for 8 years.

In this bleak life, a bright ray flashed: one of the most joyful and most tragic events. In the Kherson wilderness, Fet met a wealthy local landowner A.F. Brzhevsky, an educated man who even published poetry. Through him, Afanasy Afanasyevich met the daughter of a poor local nobleman, twenty years old. Maria Lazic(in letters Elena Larina). He didn’t come up with this surname for her by chance. Like Pushkin's Tatyana, Maria was an exception in the environment to which she belonged - an extraordinary, talented musician who earned the praise of the Liszt, passionate lover of poetry. The rapprochement with Fet itself occurred on the basis of a passion for creativity George Sand.

The young people were deeply happy that they met each other. Fet openly confesses to her everything that tormented and tormented him. “I was waiting for a woman who would understand me, and I waited for her,” he wrote to his friend Borisov. According to the testimony of contemporaries who knew the poet closely, he enjoyed great success with women and was always in love with someone, but love for Lazic really turned out to be his strongest and deepest feeling. The rapprochement with Maoria was prompted by one of the most fragrant creations of world lyricism - the poem “Whisper, timid breath...”.

But Lazic is poor. Maria knew that Fet would not marry her, but she begged him not to break off the relationship. Still, Fet goes to break. And soon Lazic died a terrible death, the mystery of which, like the circumstances of Fet’s birth, has not been fully revealed. The official version: the dress caught fire from an accidentally dropped match, but there is reason to think that this was done intentionally. Engulfed in flames, she exclaimed: “For God’s sake, save the letters.” It was not possible to save her; she died in terrible agony 4 days later. Her last words: “It’s not his fault, it’s mine.”

Fet did not rise to the nobility, did not find a rich bride, but circumstances began to turn out well for him. In 1853, he managed to escape from the “madhouse” - to achieve a transfer to a guards regiment, which was stationed not far from St. Petersburg, where he was able to leave.

In the same year, the poet’s second collection was published. Admiring responses; his poems are praised in magazines of all genres.

This enthusiastic meeting could not but inspire Fet. After the death of Maria Lazic, he almost completely stopped writing poetry, continuing only “out of boredom” to translate Horace. Now followed a new, even stronger than in the first half of the forties, influx of his creative forces. Fet develops active literary activity and systematically publishes in almost all major magazines. Clearly trying to expand the scope of the literary genre of short lyric poems that made him famous, he writes poems and stories in verse, tries his hand at artistic prose, translates a lot, publishes a number of travel essays and critical articles. Accepted as one of his own among talented writers and literary modernity, Fet feels morally resurrected. Thanks to literary earnings, there is an undoubted improvement in his financial situation. However, he suffers another blow to his service.

Simultaneously with the publication of the collection, a decree was issued: the title of hereditary nobleman was given only by the rank of colonel. This delayed the implementation of his goal for such an indefinite period that the continuation of military service became completely useless.

What did Lieutenant Fet do?

His long-standing wish (a bride with a dowry) came true. Immediately after the new decree appeared, he took a year's leave and made a trip around the world with his accumulated literary fees. Europe (Germany, France, Italy). There, in Paris, in 1857 he married the daughter of a wealthy Moscow tea merchant Botkin - Maria Petrovna Botkina. This was not a marriage of cordial attraction.

Soon Fet retired and settled in Moscow. At first, in the name of his same goal-passion, he strives to replenish the received “chest of ducats” with even more literary activity, showing his inherent enormous capacity for work, but often clearly compromising the quality of his talent.

But nevertheless, it soon became clear that achieving a “living arrangement” the way he imagined it, through literary and journal earnings, was just as hopeless as it was in military service. And Fet again abruptly breaks his life path. Having overcome his wife’s resistance, he acquires a small estate in her name and funds - a farm Stepnovka, just in those places where the Shenshin family estates were located. He becomes, if not a Mtsensk nobleman, then, at first, a Mtsensk landowner.

In addition to his remarkable artistic talent, Fet was generally an extraordinary, richly gifted person. He was a great storyteller; Prominent minds of that time valued communication with him. In a lively and lengthy correspondence with him there was I.S. Turgenev.

When Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet achieved his goal, he was 53 years old. The passion idea came true. But the poet experienced an ever-growing sense of a terrible threat, not because with such efforts, renunciations and losses he acquired, mortal danger loomed over the entire noble-landed world - it was destroyed by the “nihilists.” This was manifested in the reactionary views of the poet Fet. But even in this Famusov the spirit of the poet continued to live. Since the late 70s, he began to write poetry in large quantities, no less than in his youth. He gave the new collection the title “Evening Lights.” Under this capacious, precise and poetic title he published three more collections of new poems in 1885, 1888, 1891. The title spoke of the evening of life, its decline.

The sign of a true lyricist, according to Fet, is the readiness to “throw from the seventh floor headfirst with an unshakable belief that he will not soar through the air.” And the poet’s faith was justified, Fet remembers with what joy his heart trembled when, after reading Tyutchev one of his poems, he heard: “How airy it is.”

Fet believes that the eternal object of art is beauty. But this beauty is not from some otherworldly world, but it is not an embellishment of reality - it is inherent in itself. “The world is equally beautiful in all its parts,” says the poet. “Beauty is spread throughout the entire universe.”

Fet had a sixth sense, a sophisticated, artistic eye, and the visual images of his poems are distinguished not so much by the variety and brightness of colors, but by their subtlest combinations, reproduced in motion - in a living play of shades, halftones, transitions.

"Pure art"

5. “Vigilance in relation to the beauty” of the surrounding world (A. Fet), “the ability to catch the elusive” (A. Druzhinin). The magic of rhythms, sounds and melodies.

(“To the poets”, “Still fragrant bliss of spring...”, “The night shone...”, “Whisper, timid breathing...”, “On the railway.”

A.V.Druzhinin notes that “obviously, it was not the abundance of external interest, not the drama of the events described” that caught the reader’s attention Fet. “Equally, in Fet we do not find any deep world thoughts, no witty aphorisms, no satirical direction, no special passion in presentation. His poetry consists of a number of paintings, of anthological essays, of a compressed image of a few elusive sensations of our soul. Therefore, the reader’s heart is worried... from the poet’s ability to catch the elusive, to give an image and name to what before him was nothing more than a vague, fleeting sensation of the human soul, a sensation without image or name... Fet's strength lies in the fact that our poet, guided by his inspiration, knows how to climb into the innermost recesses of the human soul. His area is not large, but in it he is a complete ruler.”

Fet's poems are difficult to analyze, because they address not the mind, but the feeling with its irrationality, with its tendency to unexpected and sometimes capricious connections and associations.

Read the poem A. Fet “After the Storm” and determine what artistic techniques he used in it

A gray thunderstorm passed by,

Scattering across the azure.

Only the swell of the sea breathes,

Not having recovered from the storm.

Sleeping, tossing, the wretched boat,

Like someone sick from a terrible thought,

Only forgotten by anxiety

The folds of the sail drooped.

Refreshed coastal forest

Covered in dew, it doesn’t move. –

The hour of salvation, bright, gentle,

It's like she's crying and laughing.

What do the following words mean: swell, azure, canoe?

6. RR Reading by heart and independent analysis of A. Fet’s poems.

Analysis plan for a lyrical work:

1. Creative history 2. Theme and genre 3. Central image or system of images 4. Features of poetic speech 5. Figurative means 6. Composition 7. Ideological content 8. Aesthetic content caused by the poem.
7. Seminar "Two poets of the realistic era."

8. A.K. Tolstoy. A brief overview of life and work. The originality of the artistic world. Leading themes of the lyrics. A look at Russian history in his works. The influence of romantic folklore tradition based on the poetry of A.K. Tolstoy.

t/l influence of folklore on 19th century lyrics

A BRIEF CHRONICLE OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF A. K. TOLSTOY

1817, August 24 (September 5) born in St. Petersburg Count Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy. Father - Count Konstantin Petrovich Tolstoy (1780-1870), adviser to the State Assignation Bank. Mother - Anna Alekseevna (1796 or 1799-1857). Maternal uncle, who raised A.K. Tolstoy from infancy - Alexey Alekseevich Perovsky (1787-1836), writer (pseudonym - Anthony Pogorelsky), author of the famous book “The Black Hen, or Underground Inhabitants (A Magic Tale for Children),” the first reader of which, according to reasonable assumptions, was his nephew. Gap between parents. Six-week-old Alexei Tolstoy is transported by his mother to Chernigov province to your estate Blistava, and then in Krasny Rog Mglinsky district- the estate of his brother, A. A. Perovsky.

1823-1824 The first poetic experiments of A.K. Tolstoy.

1826 , winter A. A. Perovskaya with her son and brother return to St. Petersburg.

Acquaintance of A.K. Tolstoy with the heir to the throne, the future emperor Alexander P. End of August In Moscow, he becomes the heir's “playmate.”

1827, summer Trip with mother and A. A. Perovsky to Germany. Dating in Weimar Goethe. There is evidence that the author of Faust warmly greeted the future poet and gave the boy a fragment of a mammoth tusk with his own drawing of a frigate on it.

1831. Trip with mother and uncle to Italy. Tolstoy keeps a diary. Dating in Rome with K. P. Bryullov, who makes a drawing in Tolstoy's album.

1834, March 9 Enrolled in the civil service - as a “student” in Moscow Main Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which in different time Many famous figures of Russian culture served - the Venevitinov and Kireevsky brothers, S.P. Shevyrev, A.I. Koshelev...

1835, March V. A. Zhukovsky speaks favorably of the poems of A.K. Tolstoy. There is evidence that the creative experiments of the young poet were also supported by A.S. Pushkin. After suffering from a fever, he receives leave to improve his health and goes abroad (Germany). Return to Moscow. Submits a petition to Moscow University for admission to take the university exam - “from the subjects that make up the course of the Faculty of Literature, to obtain an academic certificate for the law of officials, first category.”

1836, January 4 The Moscow University Council issues Tolstoy a certificate for entry into the first class of officials civil service. Love to Princess Elena Meshcherskaya and refusal, under the influence of the mother, from his feelings. Receives foreign leave to accompany him in Nice patient with “chest disease” (obviously tuberculosis) A. A. Perovsky. July 9 Death of A. A. Perovsky in Warsaw in the arms of my nephew. Tolstoy inherits his uncle’s entire fortune, including the Pogoreltsy estate in the Novo-Zybkovsky district of the Chernigov province. After the troubles of Tolstoy and his mother, he was transferred to St. Petersburg in Department of Economic and Accounting Affairs. Nominated to the rank of collegiate registrar.

1838-1839. Lives in Germany, Italy, France. Writes first stories (on French) - “The Ghoul Family”, “Meeting after Three Hundred Years”.

1840 Committed to collegiate secretaries. By the highest order, he was moved by a “junior official” to II Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery.

1841 Censorship permission was given to publish the book "Ghoul. Krasnorogsky's essay" (St. Petersburg) - the literary debut of Tolstoy the prose writer (pseudonym - from the estate “Red Horn”). Published an essay in the Journal of Horse Breeding and Hunting (No. 5) "Two days in the Kyrgyz steppe."

1843 Awarded the title of chamber cadet. Autumn. A. K. Tolstoy’s poetic debut in “Sheet for Secular People (No. 40): the poem was published without a signature “Serebryanka” (“A pine forest stands in a lonely country...”).

1845 Committed to collegiate assessor. In the literary collection of Count V. A. Sollogub “Yesterday and Today” he publishes a story "Artemy Semenovich Bervenkovsky."

1846 Promoted to court councillors. In the second book of the collection “Yesterday and Today” appears "Amena" - fragment from Tolstoy's novel "Stebelovsky" about which nothing more is known.

1847-1849 He is working on ballads from Russian history, and is conceiving the novel “Prince Silver.” In the 1840s. Tolstoy leads the life usual for a socialite of that time: frequent leaves from work, travel, balls, hunting, fleeting novels... A contemporary describes him as “a handsome young man, with blond hair and a blush all over his cheek”; Tolstoy is famous for his strength: “he rolled tablespoons and forks into tubes, drove nails into the wall with his finger and straightened horseshoes.”

1850 Sent to the Kaluga province to participate in the commission for its revamping. In one of the letters he calls this business trip “exile.” In Kaluga, in the governor's house, in the salon of his wife A. O. Smirnova-Rosset, he meets and becomes closely acquainted with Gogol. Here he reads his poems and excerpts from "Prince Silver". Spring. Acquires an estate Pustynka near St. Petersburg. Returns from Kaluga to St. Petersburg.

1851, January 8. Scandal after the premiere of the play "Fantasy" at the Alexandria Theater - Nicholas I did not like the production and was removed from the repertoire. At the same time, he met the wife of a Horse Guards colonel at a masquerade at the Bolshoi Theater. Sofia Andreevna Miller(1827?-1892). This woman with a beautiful voice, a beautiful figure and lush hair, smart, strong-willed, well educated (she knew 14 languages), becomes Tolstoy’s strongest passion.

1851-1852 , winter. A trip to V. A. Perovsky in the Orenburg province and a visit on the way there and back to the Smalkovo estate in the Penza province, where S. A. Miller, who separated from her husband, lives in the family of her brother, P. A. Bakhmetev.

1852, spring. Return to St. Petersburg. Efforts to mitigate the fate I. S. Turgeneva, arrested in April for an article in memory of Gogol. New meetings with S. A. Miller, which continue next year.

1854 Publication in "Contemporary" poems by Tolstoy and "Leisure" Kozma Prutkov. Stay in the regiment (the village of Medved near Novgorod). Acts as battalion commander. Sick with typhus. Alexander II is informed daily by telegram about Tolstoy's health. S. A. Miller, who came to Odessa, is caring for him. Autumn Getting closer to A. S. Khomyakov and K. S. Aksakov. Appointed as a clerk in the Committee on Cases of Dissenters. Death of L. A. Perovsky, with whom Tolstoy had a warm family relationship. Getting to know L.N. Tolstoy.

1857, June 2. Death of Tolstoy's mother. Son and father, K. P. Tolstoy, spend the night at the countess’s coffin. From now on, A.K. Tolstoy sends his father a monthly pension (about 4,000 rubles per year). Tolstoy telegraphs S. A. Miller to Paris about the death of his mother (Anna Alekseevna was against this union, as, indeed, she was very jealous of any filial chosen one). Tolstoy and S.A. Miller, together with her brother’s family and servants, settle in Pustynka.

1858, January 1. Tolstoy's return to St. Petersburg and reunion with S.A. Miller, who at this time is pursuing a divorce case from her husband. The poem is published in the magazine “Russian Conversation” (No. 1) "John of Damascus."

1859, March 11. Lives and works in Pogoreltsy. He was dismissed on indefinite leave from his duties as aide-de-camp. Accepted into the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. Working on a poem "Don Juan". Opens a school for boys in his village Pyany Rog. S. A. Miller sets up a school for girls in Pogoreltsy. He goes to England, where in August on the island. White is dating Turgenev, Herzen, Ogarev and others. They founded the “Society for the Spread of Literacy and Primary Education” (Turgenev writes the program). Meets a poetess in Dresden Karolina Pavlova, who became the translator of his “Don Juan” into German. He comes to Krasny Rog and personally reads the liberation manifesto to his peasants. Then he distributes money to the crowd for refreshments. Writes a letter to Alexander II asking for his resignation. “Dismissed from service, due to domestic circumstances, by his former rank of state councilor, which he served before entering military service, with appointment to the post of huntsman.” Dismissed from the rifle battalion.

December - until half of January 1862. Reads the novel with great success at evening meetings with the Empress "Prince Silver". At the end of the readings, he receives from the empress a massive golden keychain in the shape of a book. On one side her name is written in Slavic font - “Maria”, on the other - “In memory of Prince Silver”. Inside, on folding golden pages, there are miniature photographs of female listeners.

1863, April 3. IN Orthodox Church Dresden marries S.A. Miller. The wife returns to her homeland. The first signs of asthma and other diseases in Tolstoy. He is being treated at resorts in Germany.

1865 . During a royal hunt in the Novgorod province, he tries to intercede with Alexander II on behalf of someone exiled to Siberia Chernyshevsky. Failure and quarrel with the emperor. The magazine “Otechestvennye zapiski” (No. 1) publishes “a tragedy in five acts” "The Death of Ivan the Terrible." 1867, January 12. Premiere of “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich” at the Alexandria Theater. The only lifetime edition of the works of A.K. Tolstoy is published in St. Petersburg - "Poems"; included in it 131 poem.

1869 . Lives in Krasny Rog. Exacerbation of the disease.

1871 . While hunting woodcock he catches a cold. New exacerbation of the disease. Writes the poem “On the Traction.” During the year he travels to Germany for treatment.

1872-1873. Italy. Exacerbation of headaches. 1873, December 23, on the same day as L.N. Tolstoy, was elected corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the department of Russian language and literature. He is being treated in Krasny Rog for neuralgic pain. 1875. Deterioration of health. Starts taking morphine.

September 28 (October 10). He died in Krasny Rog (now Pochepsky district, Bryansk region) after an excessive injection of morphine. He bequeathed to bury himself in a hollowed-out oak coffin, but the custom-made coffin delivered from Bryansk turned out to be too short. He was burned, and the poet was buried in a pine coffin in the family crypt near the Assumption Church in Krasny Rog.

The world is thus for him a pale reflection of the ideal living in the sky. The more greedily the poet catches a glimpse of eternal beauty in the world: he looks for it both in nature and in the human soul. For him, love, even the strongest and most immediate, is not in itself, but as a link in a general harmonious combination: it enlightens his “dark gaze” and makes his “prophetic heart” understand,

That everything born of the Word

Rays of love are all around,

Wants to return to him again

And everywhere there is sound, and everywhere there is light,

And all the worlds have one beginning,

And there is nothing in nature

Whatever breathes love...

Earthly love seems to Tolstoy, like earthly beauty, and like earthly harmony, a pale, imperfect reflection of an ideal living in the blue ether. Earthly love is fragmented, petty love. He says, responding to jealous reproaches:

And we love with a fragmented love

And the quiet whisper of the willow over the stream,

And the sweet maiden’s gaze is inclined towards us,

And the starry shine, and all the beauties of the universe,

And we won’t merge anything together.

Life is only a short captivity. Beyond its borders, people will all merge into one love, wide as the sea, for which the boundaries of the earth would seem too pathetic.

The happiness that is given to a person by poetic feeling and creativity is precisely this temporary detachment from life for the contemplation, even if momentary and incomplete, of the world of heavenly ideals. Feelings of compassion, caring, joyful enthusiasm, disappointment or jealousy are weakened in the poet by this uncontrollable desire for heaven. The love for harmony and beauty, a special form of this harmony, was reflected not only in the content and spirit, but also in the form of Tolstoy’s poetic works. His smallest plays are distinguished by their harmony and some special grace. His sense of proportion is remarkably well developed: he will not let us worry too much, will not make us laugh or be horrified for too long: he will never close the play with dissonance, although on the other hand we never risk that in his poetry the hard-won verse, piercingly sad, will strike hearts with unknown strength.

Of all the major personalities of the Russian past, Tolstoy was especially fascinated Ivan groznyj. His poetry does not know Ivan IV as anything other than old and formidable, in the difficult era of executions and oprichnina. Three epic poems depict this dark figure for us: Staritsa voivode, Prince Mikhail Repnin and Vasily Shibanov. Tsar Ivan, of course, was both cruel and often theatrical in his executions, but it would be a big mistake to limit ourselves to this idea of ​​a major historical figure. It is necessary to compare poetic images with history and folk memory. For the people's fantasy, the Terrible Tsar is not a mad, unbridled tyrant, but a severe punisher of treason, no matter where she makes her nest, at least in her own family. He is fair in his soul, because when he sees a mistake, he always repents. Very often, popular imagination does not even allow him to commit cruelty: he wants to execute the gunners near Kazan because the gunpowder does not ignite for a long time, but the threat is not carried out: the cellars fly up into the air earlier; he wants to kill his son, suspecting him to be a traitor, but Malyuta’s machinations are thwarted in time by Nikita Romanovich - the prince is saved.

In the well-known ballad "Vasily Shibanov" the center is not in Tsar Ivan, but in the tortured hero - the stirrup of the traitor prince. It would be an extreme injustice to see in Shibanov the personification of a servile, almost dog-like affection. With his silence under torture, with his dying prayer for the king and his homeland, is he serving his master? No, Prince Kurbskaya is safe, and his selfless servant serves Russia, in which he does not want to multiply the victims of the royal wrath. Shibanov embodies that popular force of heroism and patience that helped Rus' endure all its disasters.

Conclusion:

His poetry was for its time a phenomenon so original, so unusual that the readers of those years, meeting it for the first time, did not want to recognize it as an original product of Russian life and thought that it was a song from someone else’s foreign voice. Meanwhile, in Tolstoy’s poems only a universal voice sounded/ “I do not belong to any country,” the poet said in one intimate letter, “and at the same time I belong to all countries at once. My flesh is Russian, Slavic, but my soul is only human.” And it was this universal humanity that his contemporaries did not appreciate enough in him and seemed unwilling to understand that the general things that Tolstoy spoke about also included the particular things that they valued so much. They expected to find in Tolstoy a “modern” poet (which he was in his own sense) and began to look for confirmation of their likes and dislikes in his work, but the poet’s views and tastes did not coincide with their demands. In Tolstoy's poetry there was not enough of that analytically sober attitude towards the surrounding reality that the realists of that time were striving for. It did not have that subjective alienation from the moment being experienced, which the creators of various gentle songs then flaunted. In our artist, both of these tendencies were combined in the romantic symbolism that unites them.

9. N.A. Nekrasov. Essay on life and creativity. Poet of "revenge and sorrow." Civility of the lyrics, heightened truthfulness and drama in the depiction of the people.

date

The originality of Nekrasov's lyrics: sermon, confession, repentance, sincerity of feelings, lyricism. Citizenship and high humanity, folk basis and motives folk song. Proseization of lyrics, strengthening the role of the plot element. Social tragedy of the people in the city and in the countryside. The present and future of the people as the subject of the lyrical experiences of a suffering poet. The intonation of crying, sobbing, moaning as a way of confessional expression of lyrical experiences. Nekrasov's satire. Heroic and sacrificial in the image of a commoner-loving people. Psychologism and everyday concretization of love lyrics.

10. City and village in Nekrasov’s lyrics. Image of the Muse. Civil poetry and lyrics of feelings. Nekrasov’s artistic discoveries, the simplicity and accessibility of the verse, its closeness to the structure of folk speech. The solution to “eternal themes” in Nekrasov’s poetry.

t/l folk creativity

Nationality- conditionality literary works life, ideas, feelings and aspirations of the masses, expression in literature of their interests and psychology. The idea of ​​the nationality of literature is largely determined by what content is included in the concept of “people”.

Image of the city in Nekrasov’s lyrics.

Image of the city in Nekrasov's lyrics The main character of Nekrasov's poetry is a man of the people: a peasant, a recruit, a city dweller. Many of the poet’s poems are dedicated to the city, in which he shows poverty, hopeless life and suffering. The capitalist city and the fate of the people living in it are reflected in Nekrasov’s poem “Am I Driving at Night...”. In it, the poet depicts the life of a big city, in which living is even more difficult than in a village. In the poem, the author shows a family deprived of their livelihood, desperately struggling to survive. Nekrasov also vividly reflects the high sacrifice of the Russian intelligentsia. So, a woman sells herself to buy a coffin for her child and dinner for her husband. In another poem called “On the Street”, the author reveals to the reader sketches and miniatures telling about the life of unhappy townspeople. In the sketch “The Thief,” the author shows the image of a man who steals a kalach. He has no money and it is for this reason that he is forced to commit a crime. The second sketch, entitled “Seeing Off,” shows the horror of the recruiting system: a soldier is escorted into the army, deprived of his only breadwinner. In the third miniature, the soldier carries the coffin of his son and curses himself for his rude attitude towards his son, caused by the eternal lack of money. The tragedy is that people blame life in the city. The plight of urban children is also shown in the poem “The Cry of Children,” in which the author talks about children deprived of childhood and forced to earn their living. The work is difficult and unbearable for young and weak children. But joy does not await them at home either, since life there is no different from the cruel world around them. The theme of the city is an integral part of Nekrasov’s lyrics, showing the hard life of not only peasants, but also townspeople forced to do the most desperate things in order to survive.

Image of the Muse.

Nekrasov’s muse surprisingly listens to the people’s worldview, to the different, sometimes very distant from the poet, characters of people. This quality of Nekrasov’s talent manifested itself not only in lyrics, but also in poems from folk life, and in science it was called poetic “polyphony.”

Nekrasov’s muse is “the muse of revenge and sadness,” “sister of the people.” Her calling is to “burn the hearts of people with a verb.” She was “the sad companion of the sad poor, born to labor, suffering and chains.”

Yesterday, at about six o'clock,

I went to Sennaya;

There they beat a woman with a whip,

A young peasant woman.

Not a sound from her chest,

Only the whip whistled as it played...

And I said to the Muse: “Look!

Your dear sister!

Nekrasov’s artistic discoveries, the simplicity and accessibility of the verse, its closeness to the structure of folk speech.

The poet's poems truthfully reproduced life in all its complexity and completeness, explained life, taught how to pronounce an honest verdict on it, and became a textbook for becoming a citizen.

11. Poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The history of the creation of the poem, the plot, the genre originality of the poem, its folklore basis, the meaning of the name. The plot of the poem and the author's digressions. Travel as a method of organizing a narrative.

The plot and composition of the poem.

WITH

south-travel: the starting point is the decision of the men to go on a journey in search of those “who live well in Rus'.”

The plot space of the poem combines the “talking” convention of toponyms (Gorelovo, Neelovo, Neurozhaika, Bosovo, etc.) and realistic life-likeness, generalization and specificity. The spatial uncertainty of the beginning (“In which land - guess”) is refuted by the recognition in every detail of the peasant world of Rus'.

Compositionally independent fragments of the poem are songs in which the lyrical beginning of Nekrasov’s epic is concentrated.

Until now, researchers are arguing in what order the parts of the poem should be arranged. The dispute is about the location of all parts except the first, because Nekrasov did not have time to finish the poem and did not build it. But the fact that the parts can be arranged this way or that means that the panoramic image turned out to be more important than the plot sequence. In this sense, the poem is like an art gallery, the value of which is in the paintings themselves, and not in how they are hung on the walls.

Epic depicts long period of historical time or significant historical event in its scale and inconsistency. The epic depicts events in which the fate of the nation, the people, the entire country is decided, reflects the life and way of life of all layers of society, their thoughts and aspirations.

Folklore elements in the poem.

Elements of folklore

13. Diversity folk types in the gallery of heroes of the poem. Satirical images of landowners.

Peasant types.

Crowd scenes are an indicator of the writer's skill. Nekrasov introduces us to the very thick of peasant life, and the reader does not even have time to see how he does it. Meanwhile, Nekrasov uses a number of artistic techniques. The panorama of Rus' is created through the image of villages and landscapes, the human crowd - with the help of entire chains of verbs, adjectives, adverbs:

Intoxicatingly, vociferously, festively,

Colorful, red all around!

…………………………………………

He makes noise, sings, swears,

Swaying, lying around,

Fights and kisses

People are celebrating!

Generalized portraits are created:

The guys' pants are corduroy,

Striped vests,

Shirts of all colors;

On broads red dresses,

The girls have braids with ribbons,

They float with winches.

Nameless dialogues are heard, individual figures are picked out. But in this mass there are persons who, according to Nekrasov, should be specially highlighted, and then detailed stories about individual characters appear.

!!! Prepare oral reports about Yakima Nagy and Ermil Girin.

How do they stand out from the peasant masses, how are they inextricably linked with them? How are their images related to the search for truth and happiness? Do you agree with K.I. Chukovsky’s statement that Yakim’s appearance is “not individual, but, so to speak, common to the peasants”?

14. “People of servile rank” and “people's intercessors.” Grisha Dobrosklonov.

"People of servile rank"

!!! Create a characterization of the image of Grisha Dobrosklonov based on this article.

G Risha Dobrosklonov is fundamentally different from the other characters in the poem. If the life of the peasant woman Matryona Timofeevna, Yakim Nagogo, Savely, Ermil Girin and many others is shown in submission to fate and prevailing circumstances, then Grisha has a completely different attitude to life. The poem shows Grisha's childhood and tells about his father and mother. His life was more than hard, his father was lazy and poor:

Poorer than seedy

The last peasant

Tryphon lived.

Two closets:

One with a smoking stove,

Another fathom- summer,

AND everything here is short-lived;

No cow, no horse,

There was a dog Itchy,

There was a cat- and they left.

This was Grisha’s father; he cared least of all about what his wife and children ate.

The sexton boasted about his children,

And what do they eat -

And I forgot to think.

He himself was always hungry,

Everything was spent on searching,

Where to drink, where to eat.

Grisha's mother died early, she was destroyed by constant sorrows and worries about her daily bread. The poem contains a song that tells about the fate of this poor woman. The song cannot leave any reader indifferent, because it is evidence of enormous, inescapable human grief. The lyrics of the song are very simple, they tell how a child suffering from hunger asks his mother for a piece of bread and salt. But salt is too expensive for poor people to buy it. And the mother, in order to feed her son, waters a piece of bread with her tears. Grisha remembered this song from childhood. She made him remember his unfortunate mother, grieve over her fate.

And soon in the boy's heart

WITH love for the poor mother

Love for all the wahlacina

Merged- and about fifteen years old

Gregory already knew for sure

What will live for happiness

A wretched and dark Good Corner.

Gregory does not agree to submit to fate and lead the same sad and wretched life that is typical of most people around him. Grisha chooses a different path for himself and becomes a people's intercessor. He is not afraid that his life will not be easy.

Fate had in store for him

The path is glorious, the name is loud

People's Defender,

Consumption and Siberia.

Since childhood, Grisha lived among wretched, unhappy, despised and helpless people. He absorbed all the people's troubles with his mother's milk, so he does not want and cannot live for the sake of his selfish interests. He is very smart and has a strong character. And it leads him onto a new path, does not allow him to remain indifferent to the people’s disasters. Gregory's reflections on the fate of the people testify to the liveliest compassion that makes Grisha choose such a difficult path for himself. In the soul of Grisha Dobro-slonov, the confidence is gradually maturing that his homeland will not perish, despite all the suffering and sorrows that befell it:

In moments of despondency, O Motherland!

My thoughts fly forward.

You are still destined to suffer a lot,

But you won't die, I know.

Gregory’s reflections, which “poured out in song,” reveal him to be a very literate and educated person. He is well aware of the political problems of Russia, and the fate of the common people is inseparable from these problems and difficulties. Historically, Russia “was a deeply unhappy country, depressed, slavishly lawless.” The shameful seal of serfdom turned the common people into powerless creatures, and all the problems caused by this cannot be discounted. The consequences of the Tatar-Mongol yoke also had a significant impact on the formation of national character. The Russian man combines slavish submission to fate, and this is the main cause of all his troubles.

The image of Grigory Dobrosklonov is closely connected with revolutionary democratic ideas that began to appear in society in the middle of the 19th century. Nekrasov created his hero, focusing on the fate of N.A. Dobrolyubov. Grigory Dobrosklonov is a type of commoner revolutionary. He was born into the family of a poor sexton, and from childhood he felt all the disasters characteristic of the life of the common people. Grigory received an education, and besides, being an intelligent and enthusiastic person, he cannot remain indifferent to the current situation in the country. Grigory understands perfectly well that for Russia there is now only one way out - radical changes in the social system. The common people can no longer be the same dumb community of slaves that meekly tolerates all the antics of their masters:

Enough! Finished with past settlement,

The settlement with the master has been completed!

The Russian people are gathering strength

And learns to be a citizen.

The image of Grigory Dobrosklonov in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” inspires hope in the moral and political revival of Russia, in changes in the consciousness of the ordinary Russian people.

The ending of the poem shows that people's happiness is possible. And even if it is still far from the moment when an ordinary person can call himself happy. But time will pass and everything will change. And not the least role in this will be played by Grigory Dobrosklonov and his ideas.

15. Image of Savely, “the hero of the Holy Russian.” The fate of Matryona Timofeevna, the meaning of her “woman's parable”.

Read the text about Savely, highlight his character traits.

The reader recognizes one of the main characters of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Savely, when he is already an old man who has lived a long and difficult life. The poet paints a colorful portrait of this amazing old man with a huge gray mane,

Tea, twenty years uncut,

With a huge beard

Grandfather looked like a bear

Especially, like from the forest,

He bent over and went out.

Savely's life turned out to be very difficult; fate did not spoil him. In his old age, Savely lived with the family of his son, Matryona Timofeevna’s father-in-law. It is noteworthy that grandfather Savely does not like his family. Obviously, all members of the household do not have the best qualities, but the honest and sincere old man feels this very well. In his own family, Savely is called a branded convict. And he himself, not at all offended by this, says: “Branded, but not a slave.” It’s interesting to watch how Savely is not averse to making fun of his family members, and when they really annoy him, they make fun of him:

- Look at this

Matchmakers are coming to us! Unmarried

Cinderella to the window

but instead of matchmakers there are beggars!

From a tin button

Grandfather sculpted a two-kopeck coin,

Tossed up on the floor

Father-in-law got caught!

Not drunk from the pub

The beaten man trudged in!

What does this relationship between the old man and his family indicate? First of all, it is striking that Savely differs both from his son and from all his relatives. His son does not possess any exceptional qualities, does not disdain drunkenness, and is almost completely devoid of kindness and nobility. And Savely, on the contrary, is kind, smart, and outstanding. He shuns his household; apparently, he is disgusted by the pettiness, envy, and malice characteristic of his relatives. Old man Savely is the only one in his husband’s family who was kind to Matryona. The old man does not hide all the hardships that befell him:

Eh, the share of Holy Russian

Homemade hero!

He's been bullied all his life.

Time will change its mind

About death the torments of hell

They are waiting for that bright life.

Old man Savely is very freedom-loving. It combines qualities such as physical and mental strength. Savely is a real Russian hero who does not recognize any pressure on himself. In his youth, Savely had remarkable strength; no one could compete with him. In addition, life was different before, the peasants were not burdened with the difficult responsibility of paying dues and working off corvée. As Savely himself says:

We did not rule the corvee,

We didn't pay rent

And so, when it comes to reason,

We'll send you once every three years.

In such circumstances, the character of young Savely was strengthened. No one put pressure on her, no one made her feel like a slave. Moreover, nature itself was on the side of the peasants

There are dense forests all around,

There are swampy swamps all around,

No horse can come to us,

Can't go on foot!

Nature itself protected the peasants from the invasion of the master, the police and other troublemakers. Therefore, the peasants could live and work peacefully, without feeling someone else’s power over them. When reading these lines, fairy-tale motifs come to mind, because in fairy tales and legends people were absolutely free, they were in charge of their own lives. An old man talks about how peasants dealt with bears

We were only worried

Bears... yes with bears

We managed it easily.

With a knife and a spear

I myself am scarier than the elk,

Along protected paths

“I’m coming, my forest!” I shout.

Savely, like a real fairy-tale hero, lays claim to the forest surrounding him. It is the forest with its untrodden paths and mighty trees that is the real element of the hero Savely. In the forest, the hero is not afraid of anything; he is the real master of the silent kingdom around him. That is why in old age he leaves his family and goes into the forest. The unity of the hero Savely and the nature surrounding him seems undeniable. Nature helps Savely become stronger. Even in old age, when years and adversity have bent the old man’s back, remarkable strength is still felt in him. Savely tells how in his youth his fellow villagers managed to deceive the master and hide their existing wealth from him. And even though they had to endure a lot for this, no one could blame people for cowardice and lack of will. The peasants were able to convince the landowners of their absolute poverty, so they managed to avoid complete ruin and enslavement.

Savely is a very proud person. This is felt in everything in his attitude to life, in his steadfastness and courage with which he defends his own. When he talks about his youth, he remembers how only people weak in spirit surrendered to the master. Of course, he himself was not one of those people:

Shalashnikov tore excellently,

And I received not so much great income

Weak people gave up

And the strong for the patrimony

They stood well.

I also endured

I kept quiet and thought

Whatever you do, son of a dog,

But you can’t knock out your whole soul,

Leave something behind!

Old man Savely bitterly says that now there is practically no self-respect left in people. Now cowardice, animal fear for oneself and one’s well-being and lack of desire to fight prevail.

These were proud people!

Now give me a slap

Police officer, landowner

They're taking their last penny!

Savely's young years were spent in an atmosphere of freedom. But peasant freedom did not last long. The master died, and his heir sent a German, who at first behaved quietly and unnoticed. The German gradually became friends with the entire local population and gradually observed peasant life. Gradually he gained the trust of the peasants and ordered them to drain the swamp, then cut down the forest. In a word, the peasants came to their senses only when a magnificent road appeared along which their godforsaken place could be easily reached. Free life is over, now the peasants have fully felt all the hardships of a forced existence. Old man Savely speaks about people's long-suffering, explaining it by the courage and spiritual strength of people. Only truly strong and courageous people can be so patient as to endure such bullying, and so generous as not to forgive such an attitude towards themselves.

That's why we endured

That we are heroes.

This is Russian heroism.

Do you think, Matryonushka,

Isn't the guy a hero?

Nekrasov finds amazing comparisons when talking about people's patience and courage. He uses folk epic when talking about heroes:

Hands are twisted in chains,

Feet forged with iron,

Back...dense forests

We walked along it and broke down.

And the chest of Elijah the prophet

It rattles and rolls around

On a chariot of fire...

The hero endures everything!

Old man Savely tells how the peasants endured the arbitrariness of the German manager for eighteen years. Their whole life was now at the mercy of this cruel man. People had to work tirelessly. And the manager was always dissatisfied with the results of the work and demanded more. Constant bullying from the Germans causes strong indignation in the souls of the peasants. And one day another round of bullying forced people to commit a crime. They kill the German manager. When reading these lines, the thought of supreme justice comes to mind. The peasants had already felt completely powerless and weak-willed. Everything they held dear was taken from them. But you can’t mock a person with complete impunity. Sooner or later you will have to pay for your actions.

But, of course, the murder of the manager did not go unpunished

Bui-city, There I learned to read and write,

So far they have decided on us.

The decision came out hard labor

And whip first...

The life of Savely, the Holy Russian hero, after hard labor was very difficult. He spent twenty years in captivity, only to be released closer to old age. Savely's whole life is very tragic, and in his old age he turns out to be the unwitting culprit in the death of his little grandson. This incident once again proves that, despite all his strength, Savely cannot withstand hostile circumstances. He is just a toy in the hands of fate.

Matryona Timofeevna

Match the quotes to the points in the table according to the example.

Answer the test questions.

1. Which of the peasants, the heroes of the poem, can be called truth-seekers, and which – serfs?

Savely the hero, Yakov, Matryona Timofeevna, Egorka Shutov, Ermila Girin, Ipat, headman Gleb.

2. Which of the heroes of the poem could say about themselves “branded, but not a slave”?

A. Yakim Nagoy B. Yakov Verny V. Ermil Girin G. Savely

16. The problem of happiness and the meaning of life in the poem.

Seven men from six villages (some mistakenly believe that Neelovo and Neurozhaika are different villages, although these are the names of the same village) “agreed and argued: Who lives a fun, free life in Rus'?” Already in the first lines the main problem of the poem is stated - the problem of happiness. A problem that inevitably entails another: what is happiness?

For men who argue, happiness is living “fun and at ease.” At ease means freely, independently. “Fun” in popular speech is a synonym for the word “carefree.” Happiness in the understanding of men is close to the folklore happiness of Ivan the Fool, to the happiness of Emelya, who lives “at the behest of the pike.” So V. Dahl’s dictionary of folk speech confirms: Happiness- prosperity, well-being, earthly bliss, desired daily life, without grief, unrest, anxiety; peace and contentment." Moreover, in the folk tradition, happiness is opposed to the mind: “There is happiness everywhere for a fool”; “God gives happiness to the stupid, but God gives happiness to the smart.” Based on this understanding of happiness, the men themselves determine the “program” of their search: landowner, official, priest, merchant, nobleman, minister, tsar. Nekrasov managed to show the meeting of the men with the priest and the landowner.

The first meeting with the supposed bearer of happiness occurs in Chapter 1 of the first part of “Pop”. The village priest confirms the peasant understanding of happiness, but introduces one important nuance:

“What do you think is happiness?

Peace, wealth, honor,

Isn’t that right, dear friends?”

They said: so...

“Honor” in popular speech is respect from others. It is no coincidence that Nekrasov portrays a rural priest who knows the life of peasants firsthand, enduring hardships and misfortunes with them, sincerely sympathizing with them:

Our villages are poor,

And the peasants in them are sick

Yes, women are sad,

Nurses, drinkers,

Slaves, pilgrims

And eternal workers

Lord, give them strength!

With so much work for pennies

Life is hard!

Woman's happiness.

Regardless of what the intention of the poem was, its center is part "Peasant woman" In a folk epic, an entire part is devoted to one character! Desperate to find a happy man among men, our wanderers go to Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina:

The rumor goes all over the world,

What are you at ease, happily

Are you living... Say it in a divine way,

What is your happiness?

And the entire chapter is a response-confession of a peasant woman, in whom the men saw a happy person: in the eyes of others, she lives in relative prosperity (“wealth”), her way of life is settled (“peace”), she is respected - it’s not for nothing that she was nicknamed “ governor's wife" ("honor").

,

17. K. Khetagurov. Poems from the collection “Ossetian Lyre”. Khetagurov's poetry and folklore. The closeness of his work to the lyrics of Nekrasov. An image of the difficult life of ordinary people, women's fate. The specificity of artistic imagery in the Russian-language works of the poet.

“I have never traded my word, never for one of my

line I didn’t receive money from anyone. And I am not writing to write and

publish, because many people do it.

No! I don’t need the laurels of such writing, nor do I benefit from it.

I write what I can no longer contain in my illness

heart...".

K. KHETAGUROV

Khetagurov Kosta (Konstantin) Levanovich(printed under and Menem Costa), Ossetian poet, public figure, revolutionary democrat.

The founder of Ossetian literature. He grew up in a mountain peasant family. In 1881-85 he was a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, which he did not graduate due to his difficult financial situation. In 1885-91 he lived in Vladikavkaz, where he conducted mainly educational activities; for journalistic speeches he was expelled from the Terek region for 5 years. From February 1893, as an employee of the newspaper “North Caucasus” (Stavropol), he led an ideological and political struggle against the tsarist administration in the Caucasus. In 1902 - in Vladikavkaz. In 1903 he became seriously ill and could not return to social and creative activities.

Kh. wrote poems, stories, plays, and articles in Ossetian and Russian. In the Caucasus and Russia he was known primarily as a publicist, in Ossetia - as a poet. Due to the lack of periodicals in the Ossetian language, Kh. spoke exclusively in the Russian press. His journalism brought him fame as an incorruptible defender of the mountain peoples of the Caucasus, a fighter against poverty, political lawlessness of the mountain people, administrative violence, cultivation of darkness, ignorance and national hatred. His most significant articles “Vladikavkaz Letters” (1896), "On the Eve" (1897), "Vital Issues" (1901) and others. Continuing the traditions of Russian revolutionary democrats, Kh., in essence, was a champion of the international unity of the equal peoples of Russia. H.'s poetic heritage is extensive: lyrical poems, romantic and satirical poems, fables, poems for children, folk legends and parables to original artistic interpretation. Poems and poems written in Russian ("Poems") published as a separate publication in 1895 in Stavropol. But all the power and charm of Kh.’s poetic talent can be felt in the works

written on native language included in the collection "Ossetian lyre" (1839). The center of Kh.'s poetic world is the question of the historical fate of his native people. Poems are dedicated to this topic "Fatima" (1889), "Before Judgment" (1893), "Weeping Rock" (1894) and an extensive ethnographic sketch "The Person" (1894). The Future and Freedom are X's favorite poetic categories. He was a singer of the poor. In his poetry, the idea of ​​popular poverty, the lack of rights of the people is constantly present. satirical poem “Who Lives Fun” (1893) dedicated to the journalistic denunciation of the “robbers of public poverty.” H.'s creative heritage in the years Soviet power received all-Union recognition, his works were translated into almost all languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR and into many European languages. Kh. was also the first Ossetian painter.

A follower of Russian artists of the democratic trend, Kh. with great sympathy showed in his genre paintings the life of the common people, painted portraits and landscapes of the Caucasus.

In 1939, a house-museum of Kh. was organized in Ordzhonikidze; in 1955 it was installed there for the writer (sculptor S. D. Tavasiev, architect I. G. Gainutdinov).

“ ago,” in those years when the voices of Dobrolyubov, Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky, Lermontov boldly sounded, since in real life he feels not only his own powerlessness, but that of his entire generation.

But what Kosta and Nadson have in common is that they had a negative attitude towards the world of the well-fed, expressed their protest against the oppression of the people, their lack of rights and poverty; They are also unanimous in their opinion that it is impossible to express in words the fullness of the feelings experienced by a person.

Continuing the Nekrasov traditions of love for the working people, democratic poets, like Khetagurov, opposed the powerless position of women, their plight; their ideas about the role of the poet, whose duty to faithfully serve the homeland and the cause of the liberation of the people, are also in tune.

Let him not know

Peace creator!

Dear family,

Mourn my end.

I'm weak, unknown

In my native land...

Father, oh if only

I want your valor!

Rejected now

With everyone in the village,

In sadness, in despondency

At meetings I am silent:

I stand, withered

From thoughts and worries.

Junior to battle

Doesn't follow me.

Beyond my borders with blood

I don’t cry for mine -

Slave shackles,

I drag myself ingloriously.

18. RR Essay on the topic “Poetry of the second half of the 19th century.”
Essay topics:

Poem by N.A. Nekrasov “Elegy” (“Let changing fashion tell us…”). (Perception, interpretation, evaluation). Poem by F.I. Tyutchev “K.B.” (“I met you – and everything that happened…”). (Perception, interpretation, evaluation). “Inspiration and faith in the power of inspiration, a deep understanding of the beauty of nature, the awareness that the prose of life seems to be prose only for eyes not enlightened by poetry - these are the characteristics of Mr. Fet...” (A.V. Druzhinin). The originality of Nekrasov's civil lyrics. Images people's intercessors in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The theme of love in Nekrasov's lyrics. The theme of people's suffering in Nekrasov's poetry. Pictures of folk life in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Poem by F.I. Tyutchev “These poor villages...”. (Perception, interpretation, evaluation). The theme of love in Tyutchev's lyrics. How do the heroes of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” imagine happiness? “Tyutchev wrote little; but everything he wrote bears the stamp of true and wonderful talent, often original, always graceful, full of thought and genuine feeling” (N.A. Nekrasov). The theme of love in Fet's lyrics. Poem by F.I. Tyutchev “Silentium”. (Perception, interpretation, evaluation). A satirical depiction of landowners in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” Images of people's intercessors in Nekrasov's poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The theme of the female share in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

Literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century played an important role in the social life of the country. Most modern critics and readers are sure of this. At that time, reading was not entertainment, but a way of understanding the surrounding reality. For the writer, creativity itself became an important act of civil service to society, since he had a sincere belief in the power of the creative word, in the likelihood that a book could influence the mind and soul of a person so that he would change for the better.

Confrontation in literature

As modern researchers note, it was precisely because of this belief that in the literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century a civic pathos was born in the struggle for some idea that could play an important role in transforming the country, sending the entire country along one path or another. The 19th century was the century of maximum development of Russian critical thought. Therefore, the speeches in the press of critics of that time were included in the annals of Russian culture.

A well-known confrontation that emerged in the history of literature in the half of the 19th century emerged between Westerners and Slavophiles. These social movements arose in Russia back in the 40s of the 19th century. Westerners advocated that the true development of Russia began with the reforms of Peter I, and in the future it is necessary to follow this historical path. At the same time, they treated all of pre-Petrine Rus' with disdain, noting the lack of culture and history worthy of respect. Slavophiles advocated the independent development of Russia independent of the West.

Just at that time, a very radical movement became popular among Westerners, which was based on the teachings of utopians with a socialist bent, in particular, Fourier and Saint-Simon. The most radical wing of this movement saw revolution as the only way to change something in the state.

Slavophiles, in turn, insisted that Russian history is no less rich than Western history. In their opinion, Western civilization suffered from individualism and lack of faith, having become disillusioned with spiritual values.

The confrontation between Westerners and Slavophiles was also observed in Russian literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century, and especially in criticism of Gogol. Westerners considered this writer the founder of the social-critical trend in Russian literature, and Slavophiles insisted on the epic completeness of the poem “Dead Souls” and its prophetic pathos. Remember that critical articles played a big role in Russian literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century.

"Naturalists"

In the 1840s, a whole galaxy of writers appeared who rallied around the literary critic Belinsky. This group of writers came to be called representatives of the “natural school.”

They were very popular in the literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century. Their main character- a representative of the unprivileged class. These are artisans, janitors, beggars, peasants. Writers sought to give them the opportunity to speak out, to show their morals and way of life, reflecting through them the whole of Russia from a special angle.

The genre is gaining great popularity among them. It describes different layers of society with scientific rigor. Prominent representatives of the “natural school” are Nekrasov, Grigorovich, Turgenev, Reshetnikov, Uspensky.

Democratic revolutionaries

By 1860, the confrontation between Westerners and Slavophiles was fading away. But disputes between representatives of the intelligentsia continue. Cities and industry are rapidly developing around us, and history is changing. At this moment, people from a variety of social strata came to the literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century. If earlier writing was the domain of the nobility, now merchants, priests, townspeople, officials and even peasants take up the pen.

In literature and criticism, ideas laid down by Belinsky are developed; authors pose pressing social questions to readers.

Chernyshevsky lays the philosophical foundations in his master's thesis.

"Aesthetic Criticism"

In the 2nd half of the 19th century, the direction of “aesthetic criticism” received special development in literature. Botkin, Druzhinin, Annenkov do not accept didacticism, proclaiming the intrinsic value of creativity, as well as its detachment from social problems.

“Pure art” should solve exclusively aesthetic problems, representatives of “organic criticism” came to such conclusions. In its principles, developed by Strakhov and Grigoriev, true art became the fruit of not only the mind, but also the soul of the artist.

Soilmen

Soil scientists gained great popularity during this period. Dostoevsky, Grigoriev, Danilevsky, and Strakhov considered themselves to be among them. They developed Slavophile ideas, while warning against getting too carried away with social ideas and breaking away from tradition, reality, history and the people.

They tried to penetrate the lives of ordinary people by bringing out general principles for maximum organic development of the state. In the magazines "Epoch" and "Time" they criticized the rationalism of their opponents, who, in their opinion, were too revolutionary.

Nihilism

One of the features of literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century was nihilism. The soil scientists saw it as one of the main threats to present reality. Nihilism was very popular among different strata of Russian society. It was expressed in the denial of accepted norms of behavior, cultural values ​​and recognized leaders. Moral principles were replaced by the concepts of one’s own pleasure and benefit.

The most striking work of this direction is Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons,” written in 1861. Its main character, Bazarov, denies love, art and compassion. Pisarev, who was one of the main ideologists of nihilism, admired him.

Novel genre

The novel plays an important role in Russian literature of this period. It was in the second half of the 19th century that Leo Tolstoy’s epic “War and Peace”, Chernyshevsky’s political novel “What is to be done?”, Dostoevsky’s psychological novel “Crime and Punishment”, and Saltykov-Shchedrin’s social novel “The Golovlevs” were published.

The most significant was the work of Dostoevsky, which reflected the era.

Poetry

In the 1850s, poetry experienced a period of prosperity after a short period of oblivion that followed the golden age of Pushkin and Lermontov. Polonsky, Fet, Maikov come to the fore.

In their poems, poets pay increased attention to folk art, history, and everyday life. Understanding becomes important Russian history in the works of Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Maykov, Mey. It is epics, folk legends and ancient songs that determine the style of the authors.

In the 50-60s, the work of civilian poets became popular. Poems by Minaev, Mikhailov, and Kurochkin are associated with revolutionary democratic ideas. The main authority for poets of this movement is Nikolai Nekrasov.

By the end of the 19th century, peasant poets became popular. Among them we can highlight Trefolev, Surikov, Drozhzhin. In her work she continues the traditions of Nekrasov and Koltsov.

Dramaturgy

The second half of the 19th century was the time of development of national and original drama. The authors of the plays actively use folklore, paying attention to the life of peasants and merchants, national history, and the language spoken by the people. You can often find works devoted to social and moral issues; they combine romanticism with realism. Such playwrights include Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Ostrovsky, Sukhovo-Kobylin.

The variety of styles and artistic forms in drama led to the emergence at the very end of the century of vivid dramatic works by Chekhov and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Influence of foreign literature

Foreign literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century has a significant influence on domestic writers and poets.

At this time in foreign literature Realistic novels reign. First of all, these are the works of Balzac ("Shagreen Skin", "The Abode of Parma", "Eugenia Grande"), Charlotte Brontë ("Jane Eyre"), Thackeray ("The Newcombs", "Vanity Fair", "The Story of Henry Esmond"), Flaubert ("Madame Bovary", "Education of the Senses", "Salammbô", "A Simple Soul").

In England at that time, Charles Dickens was considered the main writer; his works “Oliver Twist”, “The Pickwick Papers”, The Life and Adventures of Nicklas Nickleby”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Dombey and Son” were also read in Russia.

In European poetry, the collection of poems by Charles Baudelaire “Flowers of Evil” becomes a real revelation. These are the works of the famous European symbolist, which caused a storm of discontent and indignation in Europe due to the large number of obscene lines; the poet was even fined for violating moral standards, making the collection of poems one of the most popular in the decade.