Enlightenment realism in Russian literature. Enlightenment realism (prof.

Charitable Spiritual-Educational cycle RETURNING TO THE HOMELAND 2006 - 2007 VII PART OF THE CYCLE is dedicated to the great son of the Russian people Vyacheslav MIKHAILOVICH Klykov September 28 Thursday - Grand opening of the VII part of the cycle. The evening is dedicated to the 570th anniversary

“Enlightenment realism also cultivated a corresponding system of genres, synthesizing artistic and scientific thinking; were in high demand philosophical story(“Candide” and “The Innocent” by Voltaire), philosophical and aesthetic dialogue (“Ramo’s Nephew” and “Paradox of the Actor” by Diderot), social, everyday and pedagogical novel (“The History of Tom Jones, Foundling” by Fielding, “The Adventures of Roderick Random” and “The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle” by Smollett, “Emile, or Education” by Rousseau), journalistic and moralizing drama (“Goetz von Berlichingen” by Goethe, “The Robbers”, “Cunning and Love” by Schiller, “School Speak” by Sheridan and “The Minor” by Fonvizin) . In all cases, moreover, the artistic super-task of each genre form constituted a frankly instructive, educational element.

Unlike the classicists, who preferred traditional, for the most part mythological ancient subjects, enlightenment realists sought to solve their aesthetic and ideological problems on nationally original life material. But they willingly turned to conventionally fantastic forms (“Gulliver’s Travels” by Swift, “Faust” by Goethe), as well as to geographical and historical masquerade (“Mohammed” by Voltaire, “Nathan the Wise” by Lessing, “Don Carlos” by Schiller).

Ahead of the romantics, and sometimes side by side with them, the enlighteners significantly expanded the subject of art compared to the classicists, who revered ancient examples. "Art in modern times“, states Lessing, “extremely expanded its boundaries. It now imitates, as is usually said, all of visible nature, of which the beautiful is only a small part. Truth and expressiveness are his main laws, and just as nature itself often sacrifices beauty to higher goals, so the artist must subordinate it to his main aspiration and not try to embody it to a greater extent than truth and expressiveness allow. In a word, thanks to truth and expressiveness, the most disgusting in nature becomes beautiful in art" (Lessing G.E. Laocoon, or On the Boundaries of Painting and Poetry.)."

Conclusion

Literature of the 18th century. distinguished by high democracy and a critical focus on understanding the problems of society. The enlighteners condemned the feudal-monarchical regime, the despotism of the authorities, and the fanaticism of the churchmen, but at the same time they paid attention to the spirituality, moral values, and humanity of the “new people.” With the help of ideological pressure, they wanted to influence the minds of people, but not through revolutionary methods. The combination of critical and affirmative principles is one of the fundamental features of educational realism.

The 18th century in Europe is an era of political transformations, the dynamism of which entailed the need for the birth of a new ideological direction. Despite its diversity and differences in judgments, a holistic literary movement- educational realism. Its main representatives in the West were Voltaire, Diderot, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Rousseau.

Enlightenment realism has its own special genres: philosophical story, philosophical and aesthetic dialogue, social, everyday and pedagogical novel, journalistic and moralizing drama. All of them were aimed at teaching and personal development.

Russian educational realism is similar to Western European, mainly in the following:

1. coincidence of main ideas

2. the similarity of its manifestations in philosophy, art, literature and other forms of spiritual life

3. emphasized rationality

4. direct teaching (didactism)

5. a critical attitude towards unfavorable conditions that had a sharp impact negative impact on character public relations

Russian enlighteners: D.I. Fonvizin, Novikov, Rachmaninov, Radishchev, D.S. Anichkov, I.A. Krylov.

For all its historical limitations, Enlightenment realism was marked by a number of outstanding works, true masterpieces of literary art and literary theory, thereby preparing a new rise of realism, which occurred in the first half of XIX century.

Literature:

Turaev S.V. Controversial issues of Enlightenment literature // Problems of Enlightenment in world literature. M, 1970. P. 15.

2. History of foreign literature of the 18th century E. M. Apenko, A. V. Belobratov, T. N. Vasilyeva, I. P. Volodina, N. Ya. Dyakonova, A. I. Zherebin, N. A. Zhirmunskaya, Z . I. Plavskin, M. V. Razumovskaya, L. V. Sidorchenko, A. A. Chameev, I. I. Chekalov, G. V. Yakovleva.// Introduction XVIII CENTURY - THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, 1991

3. Yu.I. Minerals. History of Russian literature of the 18th CENTURY // Enlighteners P. 124, 2007

4. http://www.bukinistu.ru

5. Gulyaev N.A. Enlightenment realism // Enlightenment ideology, its features

6. Berkovsky N. Ya., Realism of bourgeois society and questions of the history of literature: Western collection, vol. 1, M. - L., 1937

7. http://letyra.ru

Enlightenment realism in the Age of Enlightenment

In the battle with the imitative and idealizing tendencies of classicism in the educational literature of the 18th century, a new artistic method emerged - educational realism. His greatest theorists were Diderot and Lessing. They tend to strive to bring art as close as possible to the origins of contemporary life, to free it from the influence of ancient mythology. Their defense of modern themes was of enormous progressive importance; it helped the development of creativity that was close and understandable to the broad masses of people. The orientation towards a democratic reader and viewer was an important feature aesthetic principles Enlightenment realists.

Classicism, even in its educational version, was intended primarily for the educated strata of feudal society, for those who were to some extent familiar with ancient culture. The heroes of antiquity were not so close and understandable to the representatives of the “third estate”. The bourgeoisie demanded a new art that would meet its historical needs and aesthetic tastes. The ideologists of the Enlightenment faced the task of democratizing literature, and it was solved in the works of Diderot, Lessing, Rousseau and other thinkers of the 18th century.

My aesthetic program The theorists of realism did not create speculatively. They proceeded from the demands of the time and relied to some extent on the living practice of contemporary art. In the first third of the 18th century in Europe, “philistine tragedy” appeared as an expression of the demands of the bourgeois public and as a reaction to classicism. Its first example was “The London Merchant” by J. Lillo (1731). The tragic conflict of the play was rooted in everyday life, the characters came from a bourgeois environment, and the morality was fully consistent with the moral concepts of the audience.

In the first half of the century, “ tearful comedy", which depicted all sorts of virtues of a third-class man. The founders of the genre were Detouche and Lachausse; in Germany it found an adherent in the person of Gellert.

The great artistic achievement of educational literature was the realistic novel, the epic " privacy" Its formation is associated with the formation of other bourgeois relations.

In 1719, “Robinson Crusoe” by D. Defoe was published, a work glorifying the initiative and enterprise of a person generated by the bourgeois system. Yes, “Robinson Crusoe” is followed by the novels of Lesage, Richardson, and Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” which gave a strong impetus to the development of the aesthetics of realism.

In Enlightenment novels, the hero of the story is a simple person who acts in real circumstances. There was no truth in life in the gallant historical novels of Scuderi, Calprened, and Caesen, which were popular in aristocratic salons in the 17th century. Events, fantastic in nature, unfolded in the distant, often legendary past and were grouped around the actions of kings and generals, not private personalities like Robinson or Gulliver, but “historical”.

The novel fully met the aesthetic needs of the bourgeois reader. Enlightenment novelists in the artistic conquest of private, everyday life were successors of the traditions of the Renaissance and, above all, Cervantes as the author of Don Quixote. Some of them, such as Defoe in Moll Flanders and Lesage in Gilles Vlas, used a form of Spanish picaresque novel, in which a wide panorama of reality unfolded. In general, the enlighteners, in their struggle for man and for harmonious social relations, were the heirs of the humanists of the 14th-16th centuries. They also continued their aesthetic quest to bring art closer to life. It is not for nothing that Diderot and Lessing, in justifying realism, strive to rely on the artistic experience of Shakespeare. But this does not mean that the literature of the Enlightenment follows the beaten path, only repeating the artistic discoveries of the Renaissance. She solves her problems in her own way, prompted by time, using the achievements of Renaissance culture.

The interest of enlighteners in man, in his experiences, in his inner spiritual values ​​led to the flourishing of lyricism in the 18th century. Lyric poetry was not characteristic of classicism, which was concerned not with personal, intimate, but with civil passions of people. The poetic work of the classicists was rationalist, it was dominated by ode, not soulful lyrical song. During the Age of Enlightenment, Anacreontic poetry, glorifying wine, love, friendship and other joys of everyday human life, became widespread. She put forward especially many Anacreontic poets French literature(Chaulier, Grécourt, Guys, Dora, Lafar, etc.). There were quite a few of them in Germany (Hagedorn, Gleim, Utz, E-von Kleist, etc.). Their poems were devoid of much social content, but, nevertheless, they did not go beyond the general mainstream of educational ideology. They affirmed the human right to happiness and thereby indirectly condemned the oppression of the individual in a feudal society, and condemned sanctimonious Christian morality with its various prohibitions. An amazing phenomenon in European poetry of the 18th century was the work of the great national port of Scotland, Robert Burns, who, in his cheerful poems full of sly humor, Epigrams, and sincere lyrical songs, revealed the soul of his people, conveyed the Scots’ love for their homeland, their critical attitude towards secular and ecclesiastical to the lords.

Particularly significant are the achievements in the lyricism of the young Goethe, who in wonderful verses sang youth, freshness, sincerity of youthful feelings, expressed his “pagan” admiration for the beauty of nature, boldly challenging the moral dogmas of philistinism and christian church. It was not for nothing that Goethe was so hated by the reactionaries, especially the clergy.

Theorists of realism understand art as “imitation of nature,” i.e., speaking modern language as a reproduction of reality. Formally, this position was also recognized by the classicists, but they introduced a very significant limitation into it. It turned out that one can only imitate in such a way that the image corresponds to the “reason” and “tastes” of the enlightened circles of society. As a result, “nature” entered art purified, idealized, and not in its real content. Writers of the classicist movement violated the principle of objective depiction of life in their work. They turned the word into a means of promoting certain moral and political truths. Thus, the specificity of literature as a special form of reflection of reality was undermined.

Understanding art as an imitation of nature entailed the advancement of qualitatively different criteria for assessing its merits. writing work than under classicism. It is not following the classicist “rules” that is now credited to the writer, but a truthful portrayal of life. Truth and expressiveness are declared to be the basic laws of artistic creativity.

In the aesthetics of realism, essentially, concepts such as artistic image, typical, naturalness, truthfulness, etc. Their introduction was possible precisely because art began to be viewed as a phenomenon secondary to reality. The dignity of a work is now determined not by how much it satisfies the requirements of the aesthetic code of Boileau, Batte or La Harpe, but by how deeply, truthfully, and artistically expressive it reflects life.

However, 18th-century theorists did not consistently pursue a materialist view of art. An enlightening view of history, its driving forces did not allow them to fully exploit the possibilities inherent in realism. Believing that the world is ruled by opinions, connecting the achievements of a rational system of life with the internal renewal of society, with a moral impact on people, they demanded that the writer teach, glorify “good” and debunk “evil.”

The desire for edification largely undermined the struggle of the enlighteners for realism and came into conflict with the principles of a realistic depiction of life. It led to the appearance in their works (for example, in Diderot’s dramas “Bad Son” and “Father of the Family”) of ideal heroes (disinterested bourgeois, lawyers, etc.), embodying not the specific historical traits of people of a certain social circle, but educational ones dreams of a possible person.

The enlighteners themselves felt weak sides his aesthetic concept. Their thought worked to combine the real with the ideal, the existing with the should. In an effort to overcome schematism in depicting a person, Diderot advises playwrights to depict not abstract virtues and “passions”, but the “social status” of people. However, the disclosure of one social essence heroes could lead to schematism of a different kind. Therefore, Diderot tries to connect the “social” with the “human”. The search for Lessing is going in the same direction.

Diderot and Lessing fight for introduction to modern literature a hero who would be closely united with the bourgeois environment that gave birth to him by his occupations, the cut of his dress, his habits, the principles of language, but at the same time, in the structure of his thoughts and feelings, would rise above his class, would serve as an example for him to effectively follow. In short, they wanted to make the real bourgeois a spokesman for educational ideas.

The aesthetics of educational realism developed in the struggle against classicism. Moreover, Diderot and Lessing not only do not accept the work of monarchist-minded classicists, they also criticize Voltaire from an aesthetic point of view. His tragedies seem “cold” to them. They explain THIS coldness by the fact that Voltaire reveals his heroes only in their social capacity, without paying attention to their natural, human feelings. In his plays the actors are citizens, personifications of political passions, and not real people.

Voltaire's Brutus, who without hesitation sends his son to execution, seems too sublime and unusual to Diderot and Lessing. A democratic viewer, in their opinion, may experience a feeling of cold admiration for him, rather than living, active compassion, which requires that the hero himself suffer as a human being, and not stoically suppress simple, human movements of the heart.

From here comes the important requirement in the theory of educational realism to humanize the hero, to combine both civil and human traits in one person. At the same time, the opportunity arose to overcome the one-linearity of classicist images, and the way opened to the creation of psychologically complex, internally contradictory dramatic characters.

Lessing, turning to the experience of ancient writers, finds an example of a human hero in Sophocles, in his tragedy Philoctetes. There is nothing stoic about Philoctetes. Experiencing excruciating pain from an unhealed wound, he fills the island with screams, but at the same time he knows how to suppress his suffering when circumstances tell him to be a citizen.

However, while criticizing Voltaire as an artist, Diderot and Lessing highly valued his struggle against religious fanaticism and paid tribute to the republican and tyrant-fighting pathos of his tragedies. They generally accepted the ideological orientation of Enlightenment classicism, but did not approve of the ways in which it was implemented. Diderot and Lessing, like Voltaire, fought for there to be more selfless freedom fighters in life, but they opposed the idea that a man with a “heart of steel” should occupy a central place in drama, since this led to schematism and reduced the educational impact of drama. Theorists of realism are looking for ways to democratize art, to bring it closer to modernity, to the needs of the people. They want to see the hero as humane, close and understandable to a democratic viewer, seeing in this the opportunity to transform the theater into a genuine school for educating the masses.

Criticizing the inhumanity, immorality, and cruelty of big and small rulers, the realists of the 18th century sought to contrast them with the humanity and high moral virtues of new people expressing the progressive thoughts and feelings of the era. The denial of unreasonable forms of behavior in educational realism is, as a rule, combined with the affirmation of the ideal. The Enlightenmentists could not imagine creativity that was not illuminated by the light of great life-affirming ideas. Therefore, the problem of the positive hero occupies, but essentially a central place in their aesthetics. Exposing everything that is obsolete and unreasonable, they passionately fight for the triumph of the new, firmly believing in the power of the word and moral example. In an effort to bring art closer to the origins of modern life, the theorists of Enlightenment realism naturally oppose imitation of ancient models, which is what the classicists “sinned” about. They make the flourishing of contemporary literature dependent on its ability to truthfully reflect reality, and not copy the works of ancient writers. This does not mean at all that Diderot and Lessing did not appreciate the classics of antiquity. On the contrary, they valued their creativity very highly. They saw his strength in truthfulness. Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, in their opinion, achieved outstanding success, primarily because they worked truthfully.

The theorists of realism set before their contemporary artists the task of not imitating ancient masters, but of mastering the principles of their creative activity. To be faithful to the traditions of Homer means to faithfully reproduce modern life, and not mechanically copy his works. IN in this case enlighteners come close to understanding the essence artistic method and overcome the ahistorical view of the development of art characteristic of classicists.

Realists of the Enlightenment depict man specifically historically. It is distinguished by its particular wealth of everyday sketches. English novel(Dafoe, Fielding, Smollett). Social concreteness is also present in realistic drama.

Realist writers sought to explain people's behavior by the circumstances of their lives. This desire directed their attention to reality, which resulted in the strengthening of critical tendencies in their work. Particularly closely related to life negative heroes educational literature. They feel, think, and act completely “historically,” according to the laws of the social environment that raised them. While exposing their various vices, educational realism at the same time pronounced its condemnation of the feudal system.

Theorists of realistic art (especially Lessing) substantiated the right of contemporary writers to criticize feudal society. Life, in their opinion, has changed since the times of Homeric Greece, when it was harmonious, and has become replete with contradictions, so a critical attitude towards it is quite legitimate. A modern artist can no longer, like ancient Greek authors, depict only the beautiful. He is obliged to show the ugly and proceed in his work not from the principle of beauty, but to be guided by the new poetic law put forward modern world- truth and expressiveness. However, truthfulness in educational realism had its limits. Social relations, characteristic of the feudal system, were not included in all facets in the works of realists of the 18th century. They focused on the problems of family, love, on the legal and political lack of rights of the people, but almost completely did not touch upon class contradictions. The economic causes of social oppression fell out of their sight.

Conflicts in educational literature are, as a rule, ideological (moral, religious, political, etc.) in nature; they do not affect the economic basis of society or its class structure. In this regard, the struggle of the antagonistic heroes unfolds not on real historical grounds, but in the world of ideas.

It is clear that the scale of ideological clashes is very different. Everything depends on historical circumstances, on the writer’s worldview. In a “philistine tragedy” or a “tearful comedy” they are insignificant and revolve around issues of private, family life. In the works of Lessing and Schiller, they acquire acute social and even political overtones, and in Goethe’s Faust they capture problems of world significance concerning the destinies of all mankind.

Interest in ideology grows out of the teaching of the Enlightenment that the world is ruled by opinions. Revealing the contradictions of reality mainly in the ideological sphere, they were convinced that overcoming them was also possible ideologically, through the means of moral influence and education. The idea of ​​a revolutionary transformation of social relations was relegated to the background.

The exaggeration of the role of the ideological factor in history most directly affected the work of realists of the 18th century. It led to the appearance in their works of “heroes-mouthpieces”, reasoners, etc., who with their speeches and moral behavior should influence positive influence on their opponents, and at the same time on readers or spectators. If negative characters in the realism of the Enlightenment they depend on the social environment and live according to its moral laws, then the positive ones are often connected with it only externally, only “by passport”, but in fact they are, as it were, outside of history, guided in their lives by the Enlightenment norms of “morality” and “reason” " Their characters are “set” in advance and therefore do not show a tendency towards self-development.

In 18th-century realistic art, two layers are usually found. One real, everyday one, as if copied from life, “inhabited” completely real people; the other is created by the writer’s imagination, “ideal heroes” live in it. Naturally, only the first layer can be recognized as completely realistic; the second already goes beyond the boundaries of realism; it carries within itself the features of convention and schematism.

The contrast between the ideal and the real is carried out in different ways in realistic literature of the 18th century. Sometimes it occurs in the form of a sharp division of characters into negative and positive. In Lessing's Emilia Galotti, Prince Gonzago and his entourage are confronted by Colonel Odoardo, his daughter and wife. In Schiller's tragedy "Cunning and Love" two camps collide - the Duke's court, led by President Walter, and the family of the musician Miller.

Often the same hero undergoes a transformation. He starts his life path as a real representative of the real social environment, “sins”, even commits meanness, but ends it completely a virtuous person. This option, in various modifications, is characteristic of some novels by Fielding, Smollett, Wieland, Goethe and other educators, which in the history of literature are called educational. Their main characters really go through the school of life education. At first they indulge in major and minor vices, but then under the influence life experience are morally reborn and become useful members of society.

Realistic art of the 18th century simultaneously performs critical and educational functions. It not only reveals the contradictions of feudal reality, but also indicates the path to changing life, leads the fight for a new person. True, when establishing the ideal, enlighteners often departed from realism, but their creativity was never wingless, it always called forward, instilling faith in the future.

Thus, the works of realistic literature of the Enlightenment era are “two-layered”; they represent a fusion of the real and the ideal. “Two-layeredness” finds its expression in two types of heroes, in double storyline, in the obligatory triumph of the enlightenment principle. Enlightenment realism is characterized by sharp turns in destinies characters, the unexpected intrusion of chance into the natural course of events. To ensure victory for your positive characters, realists of the 18th century go to all sorts of tricks. And this is largely natural.

The “moral hero,” due to his selflessness and impracticality in a feudal society, would inevitably be defeated in the fight against his selfish, cunning opponents. And then the author rushes to his aid. He either makes him a rich heir (it is thanks to an unexpected inheritance that Tom Jones receives Sophia's hand), or forces his formidable enemies to regenerate morally (such a degeneration occurs, for example, in Mercier's play "The Judge" with the Count of Montreval, the persecutor of the honest judge de Lery). A significant role, especially in the salvation of heroines, is played by unexpectedly revealed family ties, etc. All this indicates that educators were often convinced of the weakness moral principle and were forced to provide him with “material support.”

The noted duality of 18th-century realism is not an absolute law. One can cite many cases where the positive heroes in the works of realist educators, just like the negative ones, are quite real and historically specific. An example is the magnificent comedies of Beaumarchais “ Barber of Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro". There is nothing far-fetched in the image of Figaro; he represents a generalization of living phenomena of reality. It is as if the vitality, wit, and dexterity characteristic of the people are concentrated in him, and he easily defeats the hapless Almaviva.

The heroes of the young Goethe (Goetz von Berlichingen, Werther) are distinguished by their realistic full-bloodedness. Their artistic expression again, this is explained by the fact that when creating them, the author proceeded not from an ideal, but from life, capturing its specific historical features in the images he created.

The realistic art of the Enlightenment is heterogeneous, it has many shades, and cannot be categorized under one category. It changed along with the development of society and the achievements of aesthetic thought. A step forward in the development of the theory of realism in comparison with Diderot and Lessing was made by I. G. Herder, the main theorist of “Sturm und Drang”. He had a good sense of the weaknesses of the realist educators: schematism in depicting positive heroes, a tendency to moralize.

Herder fought for the image of man in his uniqueness. He is especially attracted not by typical, but personality traits human character. He saw an ideal writer in Shakespeare, emphasizing his ability to create historical, specific, colorful pictures of life, to portray people in all the richness of their unique features, and to penetrate deeply into the secrets of the human soul.

Herder's aesthetic theory had a fruitful influence on the young Goethe. She awakened his interest in the historical past, in nature, in folk poetry, helped him better understand man, the world around him and capture it in all the unique originality of its colors and sounds. Goethe's work is a new phenomenon not only in the history of German realism, but also of all European literature.

Enlightenment realism in the Age of Enlightenment

In the battle with the imitative and idealizing tendencies of classicism in the educational literature of the 18th century, a new artistic method emerged - educational realism. His greatest theorists were Diderot and Lessing. They tend to strive to bring art as close as possible to the origins of contemporary life, to free it from the influence of ancient mythology. Their defense of modern themes was of enormous progressive importance; it helped the development of creativity that was close and understandable to the broad masses of people. The orientation towards a democratic reader and viewer was an important feature of the aesthetic principles of the Enlightenment realists.

Classicism, even in its educational version, was intended primarily for the educated strata of feudal society, for those who were to some extent familiar with ancient culture. The heroes of antiquity were not so close and understandable to the representatives of the “third estate”. The bourgeoisie demanded a new art that would meet its historical needs and aesthetic tastes. The ideologists of the Enlightenment faced the task of democratizing literature, and it was solved in the works of Diderot, Lessing, Rousseau and other thinkers of the 18th century.

The theorists of realism did not create their aesthetic program speculatively. They proceeded from the demands of the time and relied to some extent on the living practice of contemporary art. In the first third of the 18th century in Europe, “philistine tragedy” appeared as an expression of the demands of the bourgeois public and as a reaction to classicism. Its first example was “The London Merchant” by J. Lillo (1731). The tragic conflict of the play was rooted in everyday life, the characters came from a bourgeois environment, and the morality was fully consistent with the moral concepts of the audience.

In the first half of the century, the “tearful comedy” became widespread in France, in which all sorts of virtues of a third-class man were depicted. The founders of the genre were Detouche and Lachausse; in Germany it found an adherent in the person of Gellert.

The great artistic achievement of educational literature was the realistic novel, the epic of “private life.” Its formation is associated with the formation of other bourgeois relations.

In 1719, “Robinson Crusoe” by D. Defoe was published, a work glorifying the initiative and enterprise of a person generated by the bourgeois system. Yes, “Robinson Crusoe” is followed by the novels of Lesage, Richardson, and Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” which gave a strong impetus to the development of the aesthetics of realism.

In Enlightenment novels, the hero of the story is a simple person who acts in real circumstances. There was no truth in life in the gallant historical novels of Scuderi, Calprened, and Caesen, which were popular in aristocratic salons in the 17th century. Events, fantastic in nature, unfolded in the distant, often legendary past and were grouped around the actions of kings and generals, not private personalities like Robinson or Gulliver, but “historical”.

The novel fully met the aesthetic needs of the bourgeois reader. Enlightenment novelists in the artistic conquest of private, everyday life were successors of the traditions of the Renaissance and, above all, Cervantes as the author of Don Quixote. Some of them, such as Defoe in Moll Flanders and Lesage in Gilles Vlas, used the form of the Spanish picaresque novel, in which a wide panorama of reality unfolded. In general, the enlighteners, in their struggle for man and for harmonious social relations, were the heirs of the humanists of the 14th-16th centuries. They also continued their aesthetic quest to bring art closer to life. It is not for nothing that Diderot and Lessing, in justifying realism, strive to rely on the artistic experience of Shakespeare. But this does not mean that the literature of the Enlightenment follows the beaten path, only repeating the artistic discoveries of the Renaissance. She solves her problems in her own way, prompted by time, using the achievements of Renaissance culture.

The interest of enlighteners in man, in his experiences, in his inner spiritual values ​​led to the flourishing of lyricism in the 18th century. Lyric poetry was not characteristic of classicism, which was concerned not with personal, intimate, but with civil passions of people. The poetic work of the classicists was rationalist, it was dominated by odes rather than soulful lyrical songs. During the Age of Enlightenment, Anacreontic poetry, glorifying wine, love, friendship and other joys of everyday human life, became widespread. French literature produced especially many Anacreontic poets (Chaulier, Grécourt, Guys, Dora, Lafar, etc.). There were quite a few of them in Germany (Hagedorn, Gleim, Utz, E-von Kleist, etc.). Their poems were devoid of much social content, but, nevertheless, they did not go beyond the general mainstream of educational ideology. They affirmed the human right to happiness and thereby indirectly condemned the oppression of the individual in a feudal society, and condemned sanctimonious Christian morality with its various prohibitions. An amazing phenomenon in European poetry of the 18th century was the work of the great national port of Scotland, Robert Burns, who, in his cheerful poems full of sly humor, Epigrams, and sincere lyrical songs, revealed the soul of his people, conveyed the Scots’ love for their homeland, their critical attitude towards secular and ecclesiastical to the lords.

Particularly significant are the achievements in the lyrics of the young Goethe, who in wonderful verses sang the youth, freshness, and sincerity of youthful feelings, expressed his “pagan” admiration for the beauty of nature, boldly challenging the moral dogmas of philistinism and the Christian church. It was not for nothing that Goethe was so hated by the reactionaries, especially the clergy.

Theorists of realism understand art as “imitation of nature,” that is, in modern language, as a reproduction of reality. Formally, this position was also recognized by the classicists, but they introduced a very significant limitation into it. It turned out that one can only imitate in such a way that the image corresponds to the “reason” and “tastes” of the enlightened circles of society. As a result, “nature” entered art purified, idealized, and not in its real content. Writers of the classicist movement violated the principle of objective depiction of life in their work. They turned the word into a means of promoting certain moral and political truths. Thus, the specificity of literature as a special form of reflection of reality was undermined.

Understanding art as an imitation of nature entailed the advancement of qualitatively different criteria for assessing the merits of a writer's work than under classicism. It is not following the classicist “rules” that is now credited to the writer, but a truthful portrayal of life. Truth and expressiveness are declared to be the basic laws of artistic creativity.

In the aesthetics of realism, essentially, concepts such as artistic image, typical, naturalness, truthfulness, etc. began to appear for the first time. Their introduction was possible precisely because art began to be viewed as a phenomenon secondary to reality. The dignity of a work is now determined not by how much it satisfies the requirements of the aesthetic code of Boileau, Batte or La Harpe, but by how deeply, truthfully, and artistically expressive it reflects life.

However, 18th-century theorists did not consistently pursue a materialist view of art. The Enlightenment view of history and its driving forces did not allow them to fully use the possibilities inherent in realism. Believing that the world is ruled by opinions, connecting the achievements of a rational system of life with the internal renewal of society, with a moral impact on people, they demanded that the writer teach, glorify “good” and debunk “evil.”

The desire for edification largely undermined the struggle of the enlighteners for realism and came into conflict with the principles of a realistic depiction of life. It led to the appearance in their works (for example, in Diderot’s dramas “Bad Son” and “Father of the Family”) of ideal heroes (disinterested bourgeois, lawyers, etc.), embodying not the specific historical traits of people of a certain social circle, but educational ones dreams of a possible person.

The Enlightenmentists themselves felt the weaknesses of their aesthetic concept. Their thought worked to combine the real with the ideal, the existing with the should. In an effort to overcome schematism in depicting a person, Diderot advises playwrights to depict not abstract virtues and “passions”, but the “social status” of people. However, revealing one social essence of the heroes could lead to schematism of a different kind. Therefore, Diderot tries to connect the “social” with the “human”. The search for Lessing is going in the same direction.

Diderot and Lessing are fighting for the introduction into modern literature of a hero who would be closely united with the bourgeois environment that gave birth to him through his occupations, the cut of his dress, his habits, the principles of language, but at the same time, in the structure of his thoughts and feelings, would rise above his class, serve would be an example for him to effectively follow. In short, they wanted to make the real bourgeois a spokesman for educational ideas.

The aesthetics of educational realism developed in the struggle against classicism. Moreover, Diderot and Lessing not only do not accept the work of monarchist-minded classicists, they also criticize Voltaire from an aesthetic point of view. His tragedies seem “cold” to them. They explain THIS coldness by the fact that Voltaire reveals his heroes only in their social capacity, without paying attention to their natural, human feelings. In his plays the actors are citizens, personifications of political passions, and not real people.

Voltaire's Brutus, who without hesitation sends his son to execution, seems too sublime and unusual to Diderot and Lessing. A democratic viewer, in their opinion, may experience a feeling of cold admiration for him, rather than living, active compassion, which requires that the hero himself suffer as a human being, and not stoically suppress simple, human movements of the heart.

From here comes the important requirement in the theory of educational realism to humanize the hero, to combine both civil and human traits in one person. At the same time, the opportunity arose to overcome the one-linearity of classicist images, and the way opened to the creation of psychologically complex, internally contradictory dramatic characters.

Lessing, turning to the experience of ancient writers, finds an example of a human hero in Sophocles, in his tragedy Philoctetes. There is nothing stoic about Philoctetes. Experiencing excruciating pain from an unhealed wound, he fills the island with screams, but at the same time he knows how to suppress his suffering when circumstances tell him to be a citizen.

However, while criticizing Voltaire as an artist, Diderot and Lessing highly valued his struggle against religious fanaticism and paid tribute to the republican and tyrant-fighting pathos of his tragedies. They generally accepted the ideological orientation of Enlightenment classicism, but did not approve of the ways in which it was implemented. Diderot and Lessing, like Voltaire, fought for there to be more selfless freedom fighters in life, but they opposed the idea that a man with a “heart of steel” should occupy a central place in drama, since this led to schematism and reduced the educational impact of drama. Theorists of realism are looking for ways to democratize art, to bring it closer to modernity, to the needs of the people. They want to see the hero as humane, close and understandable to a democratic viewer, seeing in this the opportunity to transform the theater into a genuine school for educating the masses.

Criticizing the inhumanity, immorality, and cruelty of big and small rulers, the realists of the 18th century sought to contrast them with the humanity and high moral virtues of new people expressing the progressive thoughts and feelings of the era. The denial of unreasonable forms of behavior in educational realism is, as a rule, combined with the affirmation of the ideal. The Enlightenmentists could not imagine creativity that was not illuminated by the light of great life-affirming ideas. Therefore, the problem of the positive hero occupies, but essentially a central place in their aesthetics. Exposing everything that is obsolete and unreasonable, they passionately fight for the triumph of the new, firmly believing in the power of the word and moral example. In an effort to bring art closer to the origins of modern life, the theorists of Enlightenment realism naturally oppose imitation of ancient models, which is what the classicists “sinned” about. They make the flourishing of contemporary literature dependent on its ability to truthfully reflect reality, and not copy the works of ancient writers. This does not mean at all that Diderot and Lessing did not appreciate the classics of antiquity. On the contrary, they valued their creativity very highly. They saw his strength in truthfulness. Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, in their opinion, achieved outstanding success, primarily because they worked truthfully.

The theorists of realism set before their contemporary artists the task of not imitating ancient masters, but of mastering the principles of their creative activity. To be faithful to the traditions of Homer means to faithfully reproduce modern life, and not to mechanically copy his works. In this case, the enlighteners come close to understanding the essence of the artistic method and overcome the ahistorical view of the development of art characteristic of the classicists.

Realists of the Enlightenment depict man specifically historically. The English novel is particularly rich in everyday sketches (Dafoe, Fielding, Smollett). Social concreteness is also present in realistic drama.

Realist writers sought to explain people's behavior by the circumstances of their lives. This desire directed their attention to reality, which resulted in the strengthening of critical tendencies in their work. The negative heroes of educational literature are especially closely connected with life. They feel, think, and act completely “historically,” according to the laws of the social environment that raised them. While exposing their various vices, educational realism at the same time pronounced its condemnation of the feudal system.

Theorists of realistic art (especially Lessing) substantiated the right of contemporary writers to criticize feudal society. Life, in their opinion, has changed since the times of Homeric Greece, when it was harmonious, and has become replete with contradictions, so a critical attitude towards it is quite legitimate. A modern artist can no longer, like ancient Greek authors, depict only the beautiful. He is obliged to show the ugly and proceed in his work not from the principle of beauty, but to be guided by the new poetic law put forward by the modern world - truth and expressiveness. However, truthfulness in educational realism had its limits. Social relations characteristic of the feudal system were not included in all facets in the works of realists of the 18th century. They focused on the problems of family, love, on the legal and political lack of rights of the people, but almost completely did not touch upon class contradictions. The economic causes of social oppression fell out of their sight.

Conflicts in educational literature are, as a rule, ideological (moral, religious, political, etc.) in nature; they do not affect the economic basis of society or its class structure. In this regard, the struggle of the antagonistic heroes unfolds not on real historical grounds, but in the world of ideas.

It is clear that the scale of ideological clashes is very different. Everything depends on historical circumstances, on the writer’s worldview. In a “philistine tragedy” or a “tearful comedy” they are insignificant and revolve around issues of private and family life. In the works of Lessing and Schiller, they acquire acute social and even political overtones, and in Goethe’s Faust they capture problems of world significance concerning the destinies of all mankind.

Interest in ideology grows out of the teaching of the Enlightenment that the world is ruled by opinions. Revealing the contradictions of reality mainly in the ideological sphere, they were convinced that overcoming them was also possible ideologically, through the means of moral influence and education. The idea of ​​a revolutionary transformation of social relations was relegated to the background.

The exaggeration of the role of the ideological factor in history most directly affected the work of realists of the 18th century. It led to the appearance in their works of “heroes-mouthpieces”, reasoners, etc., who, with their speeches and moral behavior, should have a positive influence on their opponents, and at the same time on readers or viewers. If the negative characters in the realism of the Enlightenment depend on the social environment and live according to its moral laws, then the positive ones are often connected with it only externally, only “by passport”, but in fact they are, as it were, outside of history, guided in their lives by the Enlightenment norms of “morality” and "mind". Their characters are “set” in advance and therefore do not show a tendency towards self-development.

In 18th-century realistic art, two layers are usually found. One is real, everyday, as if copied from life, “populated” by very real people; the other is created by the writer’s imagination, “ideal heroes” live in it. Naturally, only the first layer can be recognized as completely realistic; the second already goes beyond the boundaries of realism; it carries within itself the features of convention and schematism.

The contrast between the ideal and the real is carried out in different ways in realistic literature of the 18th century. Sometimes it occurs in the form of a sharp division of characters into negative and positive. In Lessing's Emilia Galotti, Prince Gonzago and his entourage are confronted by Colonel Odoardo, his daughter and wife. In Schiller's tragedy "Cunning and Love" two camps collide - the Duke's court, led by President Walter, and the family of the musician Miller.

Often the same hero undergoes a transformation. He begins his life's journey as a real representative of a real social environment, “sins”, even commits meanness, and ends it as a completely virtuous person. This option, in various modifications, is characteristic of some novels by Fielding, Smollett, Wieland, Goethe and other educators, which in the history of literature are called educational. Their main characters really go through the school of life education. At first they indulge in major and minor vices, but then, under the influence of life experience, they are morally reborn and become useful members of society.

Realistic art of the 18th century simultaneously performs critical and educational functions. It not only reveals the contradictions of feudal reality, but also indicates the path to changing life, leads the fight for a new person. True, when establishing the ideal, enlighteners often departed from realism, but their creativity was never wingless, it always called forward, instilling faith in the future.

Thus, the works of realistic literature of the Enlightenment era are “two-layered”; they represent a fusion of the real and the ideal. “Double-layeredness” is expressed in two types of heroes, in a double storyline, in the obligatory triumph of the enlightenment principle. Enlightenment realism is characterized by sharp turns in the destinies of the characters, the unexpected intrusion of chance into the natural development of events. To ensure victory for their positive characters, 18th-century realists resorted to all sorts of tricks. And this is largely natural.

The “moral hero,” due to his selflessness and impracticality in a feudal society, would inevitably be defeated in the fight against his selfish, cunning opponents. And then the author rushes to his aid. He either makes him a rich heir (it is thanks to an unexpected inheritance that Tom Jones receives Sophia's hand), or forces his formidable enemies to regenerate morally (such a degeneration occurs, for example, in Mercier's play "The Judge" with the Count of Montreval, the persecutor of the honest judge de Lery). A significant role, especially in the salvation of heroines, is played by unexpectedly revealed family ties, etc. All this indicates that educators were often convinced of the weakness of the moral principle and were forced to provide it with “material support.”

The noted duality of 18th-century realism is not an absolute law. One can cite many cases where the positive heroes in the works of realist educators, just like the negative ones, are quite real and historically specific. An example is the magnificent comedies of Beaumarchais “The Barber of Seville” and “The Marriage of Figaro”. There is nothing far-fetched in the image of Figaro; he represents a generalization of living phenomena of reality. It is as if the vitality, wit, and dexterity characteristic of the people are concentrated in him, and he easily defeats the hapless Almaviva.

The heroes of the young Goethe (Goetz von Berlichingen, Werther) are distinguished by their realistic full-bloodedness. Their artistic expressiveness is again explained by the fact that when creating them, the author proceeded not from an ideal, but from life, capturing its specific historical features in the images he created.

The realistic art of the Enlightenment is heterogeneous, it has many shades, and cannot be categorized under one category. It changed along with the development of society and the achievements of aesthetic thought. A step forward in the development of the theory of realism in comparison with Diderot and Lessing was made by I. G. Herder, the main theorist of “Sturm und Drang”. He had a good sense of the weaknesses of the realist educators: schematism in depicting positive heroes, a tendency to moralize.

Herder fought for the image of man in his uniqueness. He is especially attracted not by typical, but by individual traits of human character. He saw an ideal writer in Shakespeare, emphasizing his ability to create historical, specific, colorful pictures of life, to portray people in all the richness of their unique features, and to penetrate deeply into the secrets of the human soul.

Herder's aesthetic theory had a fruitful influence on the young Goethe. She awakened his interest in the historical past, in nature, in folk poetry, helped him better understand man, the world around him and capture it in all the unique originality of its colors and sounds. Goethe's work is a new phenomenon not only in the history of German realism, but also of all European literature.

Before literature last third century, the historical task of such artistic research reality, which would make it possible to understand and express the ideal of man, born during the unfolding anti-feudal struggle, to reveal man in his national and social conditioning. Classicism was not able to solve this problem.

Remarkable artistic discoveries, as a rule, were made along the path of deviations from normative poetics. In the new conditions, this was no longer enough; art was needed that would trust reality and the real person, not idealize, but explain life, the content of which, under the influence of worsening class contradictions, was constantly becoming more complex.

Such art turned out to be educational realism, born as a response to the imperious demands of the time. In the course of the struggle against the feudal world, all its institutions and its ideology, A New Look on society, was formed new philosophy like a person free person, whose dignity is determined not by her class affiliation, not by the nobility of her family, but by her intelligence and personal talents, a doctrine was created about the dependence of a person on society.

Realism, having become a European and then a world trend, opened up opportunities for the art of each nation to be original, to exist in a nationally individual form, as individual and unique historical life every nation, every person.

On early stage Russian realism - from Fonvizin to Pushkin - some important principles of the method were determined and outlined. This is an understanding of the extra-class value of a person, faith in his great role on earth, patriotic, civil and social activity How Main way self-affirmation of an individual living in an autocratic-serf society, an explanation of a person’s social environment and, finally, the first steps in the artistic revelation of the “secret of nationality”, in the ability to show the Russian view of things, the Russian mind.

The most important feature of the method of realistically showing reality is the disclosure of its social contradictions, a satirical and sharply accusatory attitude towards it, which made it possible to expose the stunning truth of the serfdom system, the destruction of slavery for the entire nation (Novikov, Fonvizin, Radishchev), to see in the people a force capable of destroying a regime of violence, slavery without rights, to establish freedom and justice in society (“Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”, ode “Liberty”).

First successes new method won in drama: Fonvizin’s comedies “The Brigadier” and especially “The Minor” laid the foundation for Russian realism. Further development he will receive in prose (Novikov, Fonvizin, Radishchev, Krylov).

The appearance of noble enlighteners in the historical arena testified to the conflict between the old and new Russia. Enlightenment realism was able to discover and artistically capture this social conflict. That is why Fonvizin, and later Radishchev, were not portrayed family drama, but a drama of ideas.

They took their hero out of the sphere of private life and placed him in front of the most pressing problems Russian reality, determined the choice of such activity that would open the way to extra-egoistic self-realization of his personality. All this gave educational realism a special quality, which is most often characterized by the word “journalism.”

This journalisticism is a special form of artistry in educational realism. In it, the ideological life of man, his connections with the universal world, his rejection of private, egoistic existence and “lonely happiness” were most fully presented to the reader.

Publicism was also generated by the writer’s desire to care about the welfare of everyone, and not the individual. The Enlightenment's faith in reason gave rise to the conviction that the word has a powerful, effective, almost imperative force. Expressed in a word the truth, it seemed, should immediately produce the desired effect - to dispel error.

Therefore, the most important task of literature was the formulation of a moral code, the enlightenment of depraved consciousness, the direct expression of the ideal, the bearer of which was positive hero. Psychologism as a revelation of the inconsistency of human consciousness was contraindicated to educational realism. Rationalism affected the construction of images in Novikov, Fonvizin and Radishchev.

The “revolution in art” also captured poetry, which was constrained by the rules of the normative poetics of classicism. But this process was more difficult, because traditions had the strongest impact in poetry. At the same time, realism in poetry manifested itself differently than in drama and prose - here the features of a new style and a new structure took shape.

A decisive contribution to the development of the principles of realistic lyricism was made a brilliant poet XVIII century Derzhavin, which Gukovsky already noted at one time: “In the very essence of his poetic method, Derzhavin gravitates towards realism.” “Derzhavin put forward a new principle of art, a new criterion for the selection of its means, the principle of individual expressiveness.” “The poetic system of classicism turned out to be radically destroyed by Derzhavin.”

History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983.