The theme of love in Russian literature is one of the main ones. A poet or prose writer reveals to his reader the yearnings of the soul, experiences, suffering. And she was always in demand. Indeed, one may not understand the theme of the author’s attitude to his own work, aspects of philosophical prose, but the words of love in literature are spoken so clearly that they can be applied in various life situations. In what works is the theme of love most clearly reflected? What are the characteristics of the authors’ perception of this feeling? Our article will talk about this.

The place of love in Russian literature

Love in fiction has always existed. If we talk about domestic works, then Peter and Fevronia of Murom immediately come to mind from the story of the same name by Ermolai-Erasmus, relating to ancient Russian literature. Let us remember that other topics then, besides Christian ones, were taboo. This art form was strictly religious.

The theme of love in Russian literature arose in the 18th century. The impetus for its development was Trediakovsky’s translations of works foreign authors, because in Europe they were already writing with all their might about the wonderful feeling of love and the relationship between a man and a woman. Next were Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Karamzin.

The theme of love in works of Russian literature reached its special peak in the 19th century. This era gave the world Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Turgenev and many other luminaries. Each writer had his own, purely personal attitude to the topic of love, which can be read through the lines of his work.

Pushkin's love lyrics: innovation of a genius

The theme of love in Russian literature of the 19th century reached special heights in the works of A. Pushkin. His lyrics glorifying this bright feeling are rich, multifaceted and contain a whole series of features. Let's sort them out.

Love as a reflection of personal qualities in "Eugene Onegin"

“Eugene Onegin” is a work where the theme of love in Russian literature sounds especially expressive. It shows not just a feeling, but its evolution throughout life. In addition, the main images of the novel are revealed through love.

At the center of the story is the hero whose name is in the title. The reader is forced throughout the novel to be tormented by the question: is Eugene capable of love? Brought up in the spirit of the morals of high society metropolitan society, he is devoid of sincerity in his feelings. Being in a “spiritual dead end,” he meets Tatyana Larina, who, unlike him, knows how to love sincerely and selflessly.

Tatiana writes to Onegin love letter, he is touched by this girl’s act, but no more. Disappointed, Larina agrees to marry someone she doesn’t love and leaves for St. Petersburg.

The last meeting of Onegin and Tatyana happens after several years. Eugene confesses his love to the young woman, but she rejects him. The woman admits that she still loves, but is bound by the obligations of marriage.

Thus, main character Pushkin's novel fails the exam with love, he was frightened by the all-consuming feeling and rejected it. The epiphany came too late.

Lyubov Lermontova - an unattainable ideal

Love for a woman was different for M. Lermontov. For him, this is a feeling that completely absorbs a person, it is a force that nothing can defeat. According to Lermontov, love is something that will definitely make a person suffer: “Everyone cried who loved.”

These lyrics are inextricably linked with the women in the life of the poet himself. Katerina Sushkova is a girl with whom Lermontov fell in love at the age of 16. The poems dedicated to her are emotional, talking about unrequited feelings, the desire to find not only a woman, but also a friend.

Natalya Ivanova, the next woman in Lermontov’s life, reciprocated his feelings. On the one hand, there is more happiness in the poems of this period, but even here there are notes of deception. Natalya in many ways does not understand the poet’s deep spiritual organization. There have also been changes in the themes of such works: now they are focused on feelings and passions.

The relationship with Love is reflected in a completely different way; the poet’s entire being is permeated here; nature, even the Motherland, speaks about it.

Love becomes a prayer in poems dedicated to Maria Shcherbatova. Only 3 works were written, but each of them is a masterpiece, a hymn of love. According to Lermontov, he has found the very woman who understands him completely. Love in these poems is contradictory: it can heal, but also wound, execute and bring back to life.

The hard path to happiness of the heroes of Tolstoy's War and Peace

Considering how love is presented in fiction, one should pay attention to the work of L. Tolstoy. His epic “War and Peace” is a work where love touched each of the heroes in one way or another. After all, the “family thought,” which occupies a central place in the novel, is inextricably linked with love.

Each of the characters goes through a difficult path, but in the end finds family happiness. There are exceptions: Tolstoy puts a kind of equal sign between a person’s ability to love unselfishly and his moral purity. But this quality must also be achieved through a series of sufferings and mistakes, which will ultimately purify the soul and make it crystalline, capable of love.

Let us remember the difficult path to happiness of Andrei Bolkonsky. Captivated by Lisa's beauty, he marries her, but quickly loses interest and becomes disillusioned with the marriage. He understands that he chose an empty and spoiled wife. Next comes war, and the oak tree is a symbol of spiritual blossoming and life. Love for Natasha Rostova is what gave Prince Bolkonsky a breath of fresh air.

Test of love in the works of I. S. Turgenev

Images of love in the literature of the 19th century are also the heroes of Turgenev. The author of each of them goes through the test of this feeling.

The only one who passes it is Arkady Bazarov from Fathers and Sons. Maybe that's why he is Turgenev's ideal hero.

A nihilist who denies everything around him, Bazarov calls love “nonsense”; for him it is only an illness from which one can be cured. However, having met Anna Odintsova and fallen in love with her, he changes not only his attitude towards this feeling, but his worldview as a whole.

Bazarov confesses his love to Anna Sergeevna, but she rejects him. The girl is not ready for a serious relationship, she cannot deny herself for the sake of another, even a loved one. Here she fails in Turgenev's test. And Bazarov is the winner, he became the hero that the writer was looking for for himself in “ Noble nest", "Rudine", "Ace" and other works.

"The Master and Margarita" - a mystical love story

The theme of love in Russian literature of the 20th century is growing and developing, becoming stronger. Not a single writer or poet of this era avoided this topic. Yes, it could transform, for example, into love for people (remember Gorky’s Danko) or the Motherland (this is, perhaps, most of creativity of Mayakovsky or works of the war years). But there is exceptional literature about love: these are the heartfelt poems of S. Yesenin, poets Silver Age. If we talk about prose, this is primarily “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov.

The love that arises between the heroes is sudden, it “jumps out” out of nowhere. The master draws attention to Margarita’s eyes, so sad and lonely.

Lovers do not experience all-consuming passion; rather, on the contrary, it is quiet, calm, homely happiness.

However, at the most critical moment, only love helps Margarita save the Master and their feelings, even if not in the human world.

Yesenin's love lyrics

The theme of love in Russian literature of the 20th century is also poetry. Let us consider the work of S. Yesenin in this vein. The poet inextricably linked this bright feeling with nature; his love is extremely chaste and strongly tied to the biography of the poet himself. A striking example is the poem “Green Hairstyle”. Here, all the features of L. Kashina that are dear to Yesenin (the work is dedicated to her) are presented through the beauty of the Russian birch tree: a thin figure, braided branches.

“Moscow tavern” reveals to us a completely different love, now it is “infection” and “plague”. Similar images are associated, first of all, with the emotional experiences of the poet, who feels useless.

Healing comes in the series “Love of a Bully.” The culprit is A. Miklashevskaya, who cured Yesenin from torment. He again believed that there is true love, inspiring and reviving.

In his last poems, Yesenin condemns the deceit and insincerity of women; he believes that this feeling should be deeply sincere and life-affirming, giving a person ground under his feet. Such, for example, is the poem “Leaves are falling, leaves are falling...”.

about love

The theme of love in Russian literature of the Silver Age is the work of not only S. Yesenin, but also A. Akhmatova, M. Tsvetaeva, A. Blok, O. Mandelstam and many others. All of them have one thing in common, and suffering and happiness are the main companions of the muses of poets and poetesses.

Examples of love in Russian literature of the 20th century are the great A. Akhmatova and M. Tsvetaeva. The latter is a “quivering doe,” sensual, vulnerable. Love for her is the meaning of life, what makes her not only create, but also exist in this world. “I like that you are not sick with me” is her masterpiece, full of bright sadness and contradictions. And that’s what Tsvetaeva is all about. The poem “Yesterday I looked into your eyes” is imbued with the same soulful lyricism. This is, perhaps, a kind of anthem for all women who fall out of love: “My dear, what have I done to you?”

A completely different theme of love in Russian literature is depicted by A. Akhmatova. This is the intensity of all human feelings and thoughts. Akhmatova herself gave this feeling a definition - “the fifth season.” But if it had not been there, the other four would not have been visible. The poetess's love is loud, all-affirming, returning to natural principles.

The theme of love has always played a primary role in the work of writers and poets. Admiring the beauty and grace of their muses, poems, ballads and poems, short stories and tales, entire novels came out from under the pens of talented creators.

Russian literature is imbued with this sublime feeling - love, sometimes tragic and sad, but full of selfless devotion and tenderness.

Great poets and prose writers - Pushkin and Lermontov, for the most part spoke the language of love. A.S. Pushkin’s poem “Eugene Onegin” is full of unrequited and extinguished love - the main characters Eugene and Tatyana, whose hearts never united, are faced with realities cruel world, misunderstood by each other, in the end, turned away from the past and tried to forget.

Poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Demon" talks about unearthly love, the ardent passion of a demon for an earthly girl, sweet and gentle, innocent Tamara. But this love, impossible and unnatural, was destroyed by the demon himself, cruel and outcast, who was never able to cast aside the call of his nature and the evil intentions that tormented his soul.

These literary creations seem to me very dramatic and depressing, and yet the bright feeling of love in which the creators believe is truly multifaceted.

Let the moments of love be fleeting, but they are happy. The idyll does not last long, as it is threatened by envious people and fatal circumstances. Love, according to writers, is hard work and talent, which is not given to everyone. It’s easy to let the bird of Love slip from your hands, but it’s not easy to get it back.

Works by Kuprin (“Olesya”, “ Garnet bracelet") by Bunin (“Dark Alleys”) are also tragic and end with the victory of cruel reality and the collapse of dreams and hopes.

V. Mayakovsky’s poem “Lilychka!” is unusual and piercingly truthful. - the lyrical hero is full of crazy, obsessed and frenzied love for a woman. Words seem to be carved from stone, piercing, piercing armor, “cutting” to the heart.

I also like A. Akhmatova’s poem “The Gray-Eyed King,” which tells about the pain and sadness of the loss of a secret lover, the love of the lyrical heroine’s life.

N. Gumilev in his poem “She” paints a beloved woman, simple and at the same time mysterious, incomprehensible and bright.

Poetry and prose are created in the name of love, precisely this highly moral and deep feeling, and I am sure that as long as humanity is alive, love lyrics will be written and composed.

Love is a high, pure, beautiful feeling that people have sung since ancient times. Love, as they say, never gets old.

If we erect a certain literary pedestal of love, then, undoubtedly, the love of Romeo and Juliet will be in first place. This is perhaps the most beautiful, the most romantic, the most tragic story, which Shakespeare told the reader. Two lovers defy fate, despite the enmity between their families, despite everything. Romeo is ready to give up even his name for the sake of love, and Juliet agrees to die in order to remain faithful to Romeo and their high feeling. They die in the name of love, they die together because they cannot live without each other:

There is no sadder story in the world,

What is the story of Romeo and Juliet...

However, love can be different - passionate, tender, calculating, cruel, unrequited...

Let us remember the heroes of Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” - Bazarov and Odintsova. Two collided equally strong personalities. But, oddly enough, Bazarov turned out to be capable of truly loving. Love for him became a strong shock, which he did not expect, and in general, before meeting Odintsova, love did not play any role in the life of this hero. All human suffering and emotional experiences were unacceptable to his world. It is difficult for Bazarov to admit his feelings primarily to himself.

And what about Odintsova?.. As long as her interests were not affected, as long as there was a desire to learn something new, she was interested in Bazarov. But as soon as the topics for general conversation were exhausted, interest disappeared. Odintsova lives in her own world, in which everything goes according to plan, and nothing can disturb the peace in this world, not even love. For her, Bazarov is something like a draft that flew into the window and immediately flew back out. This kind of love is doomed.

Another example is the heroes of Bulgakov’s work “The Master and Margarita”. Their love is as sacrificial, it would seem, as the love of Romeo and Juliet. True, here Margarita sacrifices herself for the sake of love. The master was frightened by this strong feeling and ended up in a madhouse. There he hopes that Margarita will forget him. Of course, the hero was also influenced by the failure that befell his novel. The master runs from the world and, above all, from himself.

But Margarita saves their love, saves them from the Master’s madness. Her feeling for the hero overcomes all obstacles that stand in the way of happiness.

Many poets have written about love. I really like, for example, the so-called Panaevsky cycle of poems by Nekrasov, which he dedicated to Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva, the woman he passionately loved. It is enough to recall such poems from this cycle as “She suffered a heavy cross...”, “I don’t like your irony...” to say how strong the poet’s feeling was for this beautiful woman.

And here are the lines from a wonderful poem about love by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev:

Oh, how murderously we love,

As in the violent blindness of passions

We are most likely to destroy,

What is dear to our hearts!

You said: she is mine.

Oh, how murderously we love,

As in the violent blindness of passions

We are most likely to destroy,

What is dear to our hearts!

How long ago, proud of my victory,

You said: she is mine...

A year has not passed - ask and find out,

What was left of her?

And, of course, one cannot fail to mention here love lyrics Pushkin.

I remember a wonderful moment:

You appeared before me,

Like a fleeting vision

Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness,

In the worries of noisy bustle,

And I dreamed of cute features...

Pushkin presented these poems to Anna Petrovna Kern on July 19, 1825, on the day of her departure from Trigorskoye, where she was visiting her aunt P. A. Osipova and constantly met with the poet.

I want to finish my essay again with lines from another poem by the great Pushkin:

I loved you: love is still, perhaps,

My soul has not completely died out;

But don't let it bother you anymore;

I don't want to make you sad in any way.

I loved you silently, hopelessly,

Now we are tormented by timidity, now by jealousy;

I loved you so sincerely, so tenderly,

How God grant that your beloved be different.

“Many people in the world do not believe in love” (M. Yu. Lermontov).

... I love you - I will love you forever.

Curse my passion

Merciless souls

Cruel hearts!..

N. M. Karamzin.

What does he value in modern world Human? Money, power... These base goals are pursued by society. When pronouncing the word “love”, they mean only animal instincts, physical need. People have become robots, and the slightest manifestation of feelings and emotions seems ridiculous and naive. The spiritual values ​​of society are dying... But there are still people who have not lost the ability to have high feelings. And glory to those who love or have ever loved, because love is a feeling that lifts you to the heights of life, lifts you to the skies...

Which of the heroes of A. I. Kuprin’s story “The Garnet Bracelet” believes in true love? Anna Nikolaevna? No, it's unlikely. She married a very rich man, gave birth to two children... But she can’t stand her husband, ridicules him contemptuously and is sincerely glad when someone distracts Gusilav Ivanovich from her. Anna does not love her husband, she is simply satisfied with her own position: beautiful, rich... And she can flirt without any special consequences.

Or, for example, Anna Nikolaevna’s brother, Nikolai. He almost married a rich and beautiful lady. But “the lady’s husband did not want to give her a divorce.” Most likely, Nikolai Nikolaevich did not believe in a real feeling, because otherwise he would not have broken up his family. Nikolai Nikolaevich is cold and his attitude towards Zheltkov, the way he treats him, proves that Bulash-Tugomovsky is not able to understand high feelings.

Unlike Nikolai, Prince Vasily Lvovich Shein, Vera Nikolaevna’s husband, understands and even accepts the telegraph operator’s love for his wife. If at first Vasily Lvovich tracks down the manifestation of any feelings, then after meeting with G.S.Zh., after Shein realized that Zheltkov really truly, unselfishly, selflessly loved Vera Nikolaevna, he begins to believe that sincere feeling exists: “...is he to blame for love, and is it really possible to control such a feeling as love...”

General Yakov Mikhailovich Anosov was once married. But he himself admits that this marriage was not built on true love. “...People in our time have forgotten how to love,” he says to Vera Nikolaevna. “I don’t see true love. And I didn’t see it in my time!” Another story from the life of the general that he tells is about a Bulgarian girl. As soon as they met, passion instantly flared up, and, as the general himself says, he “fell in love immediately - passionately and irrevocably.” And when he had to leave those places, they swore to each other “eternal mutual love.” Was there love? No, and Anosov does not deny this. He says: “Love must be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world. No life conveniences, calculations or compromises should concern her.” And, perhaps, if Anosov truly loved the Bulgarian girl, he would do everything just to stay next to her.

Anosov told a couple of stories about a feeling more like devotion than true love. And these are just two cases of “true love” that Anosov recognized throughout his long life.

He believes that every woman dreams of “single, all-forgiving, ready for anything, modest and selfless” love. And women are not at all to blame for the fact that “people’s love has taken such vulgar forms and has simply descended to some kind of everyday convenience, to a little entertainment.”

General Anosov believes that women (probably as stronger and more romantic creatures) are capable, unlike men, of “strong desires, heroic deeds, tenderness and adoration before love.”

Apparently, Princess Vera Nikolaevna was mistaken about what real feeling is. She is sure that she loves Vasily as before, but her “former passionate love for her husband has long turned into a feeling of lasting, faithful, true friendship.” This is undoubtedly a good feeling, but it is not real love.

The only hero of the story who experiences a sincere feeling is Zheltkov. His beloved is tall, with a gentle, but cold and proud face, the beautiful Vera Nikolaevna. He loves the princess with a disinterested, pure, perhaps slavish love. This love is real. She is eternal: “I know,” says Zheltkov, “that I can never stop loving her...” His love is hopeless. “I am not interested in anything in life: neither politics, nor science, nor philosophy, nor concern for the future happiness of people - for me, my whole life ends only in you,” writes Zheltkov to Vera Nikolaevna. For Zheltkov, there is no one more beautiful than Sheina.

Perhaps Vera’s life path was crossed by the love that women dream about. Having lost Zheltkov, the princess realized that “the love that every woman dreams of has passed her by.”

Quite often, others do not accept and even condemn those who believe in love. “Fools,” they say, “why love, suffer, worry, if you can live calmly and carefree.” They believe that the one who truly loves sacrifices himself. Perhaps these people are right. But they will never experience those happy moments of love, as they are cold and insensitive...

Municipal educational institution secondary school No. 33

ABSTRACT

"The philosophy of love in the works

literature XIX–XX centuries"

11 "F" class

student: Balakireva M.A.

teacher: Zakharyeva N.I.

KALININGRAD – 2002

I. Introduction - p.2

II. Main part: - p.4

1. Love lyrics by M.Yu. Lermontov. - p.4

2. “Test of love” using the example of the work of I.A. - p.7

Goncharov "Oblomov".

3. The story of first love in the story by I.S. Turgenev “Asya” - p.9

4. “All love is great happiness...” (Concept - p. 10

love in the cycle of stories by I.A. Bunin " Dark alleys»)

5. Love lyrics by S.A. Yesenina. - p.13

6. Philosophy of love in the novel by M. Bulgakov - p.15

" Master and Margarita"

III. Conclusion. - p.18

List of used literature

I. INTRODUCTION.

The theme of love in literature has always been relevant. After all, love is the purest and most beautiful feeling that has been sung since ancient times. Love has always equally excited the imagination of mankind, be it youthful or more mature love. Love never gets old. People do not always realize the true power of love, for if they were aware of it, they would erect the greatest temples and altars to it and offer greatest sacrifices, and yet nothing like this is being done, although Love deserves it. And therefore, poets and writers have always tried to show its true place in human life, relationships between people, finding their own, inherent techniques, and, as a rule, expressing in their works personal views on this phenomenon of human existence. After all, Eros is the most humane god, he helps people and heals ailments, both physical and moral, healing from which would be the greatest happiness for the human race.

There is an idea that early Russian literature does not know such beautiful images of love as the literature of Western Europe. We have nothing like the love of the troubadours, the love of Tristan and Isolde, Dante and Beatrice, Romeo and Juliet... In my opinion, this is wrong, remember at least “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” - the first monument of Russian literature, where, along with the theme of patriotism and the defense of the Motherland, the theme of Yaroslavna’s love is clearly visible. Reasons for the later "explosion" love theme in Russian literature we must look not in the shortcomings of Russian literature, but in our history, mentality, in the special path of development of Russia that befell it as a state half European, half Asian, located on the border of two worlds - Asia and Europe.

Perhaps in Russia there really were no such rich traditions in the development of the love story as there were in Western Europe. Meanwhile, Russian literature of the 19th century provided deep insight into the phenomenon of love. In the works of such writers as Lermontov and Goncharov, Turgenev and Bunin, Yesenin and Bulgakov and many others, the features of Russian Eros, the Russian attitude to the eternal and sublime theme - love. Love is the complete elimination of egoism, “rearranging the center of our life,” “transferring our interest from ourselves to another.” This is the enormous moral power of love, abolishing selfishness, and

reviving personality in a new, moral quality. In love, the image of God is reborn, that ideal beginning, which is associated with the image of eternal Femininity. The embodiment of this principle in individual life creates those glimpses of immeasurable bliss, that “breath of unearthly joy” that is familiar to every person who has ever experienced love. In love, a person finds himself, his personality. A single, true individuality is reborn in her.

With volcanic energy, the theme of love bursts into Russian literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Poets and writers, philosophers, journalists, and critics write about love.

More has been written about love in Russia in a few decades than in several centuries. Moreover, this literature is distinguished by intensive research and originality of thinking.

It is impossible within the framework of an abstract to cover the entire treasury of Russian love literature, just as it is impossible to give preference to Pushkin or Lermontov, Tolstoy or Turgenev, therefore the choice of writers and poets in my essay, using the example of whose work I want to try to reveal the chosen topic, is rather personal in nature. Each of the word artists I chose saw the problem of love in their own way, and the diversity of their views allows us to reveal the chosen topic as objectively as possible.

II. MAIN PART

1. Love lyrics by M.Yu. Lermontov.

I can't define love

But this is the strongest passion! - be in love

Necessity for me; and I loved

With all the tension of mental strength.

These lines from the poem “1831-June 11th Day” are like an epigraph to the lyrics of “strong passions” and deep suffering. And, although Lermontov entered Russian poetry as the direct heir of Pushkin, this eternal theme, the theme of love, sounded completely different for him. “Pushkin is the daylight, Lermontov the night luminary of our poetry,” wrote Merezhkovsky. If for Pushkin love is a source of happiness, then for Lermontov it is inseparable from sadness. In Mikhail Yuryevich, the motives of loneliness, the opposition of the rebel hero to the “insensitive crowd” also permeate his poems about love, in his art world high feelings are always tragic.

Only occasionally in verse young poet the dream of love merged with the dream of happiness:

You would reconcile me

With people and violent passions, -

he wrote, addressing N.F.I. – Natalya Fedorovna Ivanova, with whom he was passionately and hopelessly in love. But this is only one, not repeated moment. The entire cycle of poems dedicated to Ivanova is a story of unrequited and offended feelings:

I'm not worthy maybe

Your love; I'm not to judge,

But you rewarded me with deceit

My hopes and dreams

And I'll say that you

She acted unfairly.

Before us are like the pages of a diary, which captures all the shades of the experience: from flashing crazy hope to bitter disappointment:

And a crazy verse, a farewell verse

I threw it in your album for you,

Like a single, sad trace,

Which I will leave here.

The lyrical hero is destined to remain lonely and misunderstood, but this only strengthens in him the consciousness of his chosenness, destined for another, supreme freedom and other happiness - to create happiness. The poem that completes the cycle is one of Lermontov’s most beautiful – it is not only parting with a woman, it is also liberation from humiliating and enslaving passion:

You forgot: I am freedom

I won’t give it up for delusion...

And the whole world hated

To love you more...

This typically romantic technique determines the style of not only one poem, built on contrasts and oppositions, but also the poet’s entire lyricism as a whole. And next to the image of the “changed angel”, another female image, sublime and ideal, appears under his pen:

I saw your smile

She delighted my heart...

These poems are dedicated to Varvara Lopukhina, the poet’s love for whom did not fade until the end of his days. The captivating appearance of this gentle, spiritualized woman appears before us in the paintings and poetry of Mikhail Yuryevich:

All her movements

Smiles, speeches and features

So full of life and inspiration.

So full of wonderful simplicity.

And in the poems dedicated to Varvara Alexandrovna, the same motive of separation, the fatal impossibility of happiness sounds:

We are accidentally brought together by fate,

We found ourselves in each other,

And soul became friends with soul,

At least they won’t finish the journey together!

Why is the fate of those who love so tragic? It is known that Lopukhina responded to Lermontov’s feelings; there were no insurmountable barriers between them. The answer probably lies in the fact that Lermontov’s “novel in verse” was not a mirror image of his life. The poet wrote about the tragic impossibility of happiness in this cruel world, “among the icy, merciless light.” Before us again there arises a romantic contrast between a high ideal and a low reality in which it cannot be realized. That is why Lermontov is so attracted to situations that contain something fatal. This may be a feeling that rebels against the power of “secular chains”:

I'm sad because I love you

And I know: your blooming youth

The insidious persecution will not spare rumors.

This may be a disastrous passion, depicted in such poems as “Gifts of the Terek”, “The Sea Princess”.

Pondering these verses, it is impossible not to remember the famous “Sail”:

Alas! he is not looking for happiness...

This line is echoed by others:

What is the life of a poet without suffering?

And what is the ocean without a storm?

Lermontov's hero seems to be running away from serenity, from peace, behind which for him is the sleep of the soul, the extinction of the poetic gift itself.

No in poetic world Lermontov cannot be found happy love in its usual sense. Mental kinship arises here outside of “anything earthly,” even outside the usual laws of time and space.

Let us remember the striking poem “Dream”. It cannot even be classified as love poetry, but it is precisely it that helps to understand what love is for Lermontov’s hero. For him, this is a touch to eternity, and not a path to earthly happiness. Such is love in that world that is called the poetry of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov.

Analyzing the work of M.Yu. Lermontov, we can conclude that his love is eternal dissatisfaction, a desire for something sublime, unearthly. Having encountered love in life, and mutual love, the poet is not satisfied with it, trying to elevate the flared up feeling into the world of higher spiritual suffering and experiences. He wants to receive from love what is obviously unattainable, and as a result this brings him eternal suffering, sweet flour. These sublime feelings give the poet strength and inspire him to new creative heights.

2. "Test of Love" as an example

works by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov"

The theme of love occupies an important place in the novel “Oblomov”. Love, according to Goncharov, is one of the “main forces” of progress; the world is driven by love.

Main story line in the novel - the relationship between Oblomov and Olga Ilyinskaya. Here Goncharov follows a path that had by that time become traditional in Russian literature: testing a person’s value through his intimate feelings, his passions. The writer does not deviate from the then most popular solution to such a situation. Goncharov shows how through the moral weakness of a person who is unable to respond to a strong feeling of love, his social failure is revealed.

The spiritual world of Olga Ilyinskaya is characterized by harmony of mind, heart, and will. The inability for Oblomov to understand and accept

This high moral standard of life turns into an inexorable verdict on him as an individual. There is a coincidence in the text of the novel that turns out to be downright symbolic. On the same page where the name of Olga Ilyinskaya is pronounced for the first time, the word “Oblomovism” appears for the first time. However, it is not immediately possible to see a special meaning in this coincidence. The novel so poetizes Ilya Ilyich’s suddenly flared up feeling of love, fortunately, mutual, that hope may arise: Oblomov will successfully, in the words of Chernyshevsky, “Hamlet’s upbringing” and be reborn as a person to the fullest. Inner life the hero began to move. Love discovered the properties of spontaneity in Oblomov’s nature, which in turn resulted in a strong emotional impulse, passion, which threw him towards a beautiful girl, and the two people “did not lie to themselves or to each other: they gave out what their hearts said, and his voice passed through the imagination.”

Along with the feeling of love for Olga, Oblomov awakens an active interest in spiritual life, in art, in the mental demands of the time. The hero is transformed so much that Olga, becoming more and more captivated by Ilya Ilyich, begins to believe in his final spiritual rebirth, and then in the possibility of their coming together. happy life.

Goncharov writes that his beloved heroine “followed the simple natural path of life... did not shy away from the natural manifestation of thought, feeling, will... No affectation, no coquetry, no tinsel, no intent!” This young and pure girl is full of noble thoughts in relation to Oblomov: “She will show him a goal, make him love again everything that he stopped loving... He will live, act, bless life and her. Bringing a person back to life - how much glory to the doctor when he saves a hopeless patient. How about saving a morally perishing mind and soul?” And how much of her spiritual strength and feelings Olga gave to achieve this high moral goal. But even love turned out to be powerless here.

Ilya Ilyich is far from matching Olga’s naturalness, free from many everyday considerations, extraneous and essentially hostile to the feeling of love. It soon turned out that Oblomov’s feeling of love for Olga was a short-term flash. Oblomov’s illusions on this score quickly dissipate. The need to make decisions, marriage - all this frightens our hero so much that he rushes to convince Olga: “... you are mistaken,

in front of you is not the one you were waiting for, about whom you dreamed.” The gap between Olga and Oblomov is natural: their natures are too dissimilar. Olga's last conversation with Oblomov reveals the huge difference between them. “I found out,” says Olga, “only recently that I loved in you what I wanted to have in you, what Stolz showed me, what we invented with him. I loved the future Oblomov. You are meek and honest, Ilya; you’re gentle... you’re ready to coo under the roof all your life... but I’m not like that: that’s not enough for me.”

The happiness turned out to be short-lived. More valuable than romantic dates was the thirst for a serene, sleepy state for Oblomov. “A man sleeps serenely” - this is how Ilya Ilyich sees the ideal of existence.”

The quiet fading of emotions, interests, aspirations and life itself is all that remains for Oblomov after a bright outburst of feelings. Even love could not bring him out of his state of hibernation, change his life. But still, this feeling was able, albeit for a short time, to awaken Oblomov’s consciousness, made him “come to life” and feel an interest in life, but, alas, only for a short time! According to Goncharov, love is a beautiful, bright feeling, but love alone was not enough to change the life of a person like Oblomov.

3. The story of first love in the story

I.S. Turgenev "Asya"

The story of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev “Asya” is a work about love, which, according to the writer, “ stronger than death and the fear of death" and by which "life is held and moved." Asya's upbringing is rooted in Russian traditions. She dreams of going “somewhere, to prayer, to a difficult feat.” The image of Asya is very poetic. It is the romantic dissatisfaction of Asya’s image, the stamp of mystery that lies on her character and behavior, that gives her attractiveness and charm.

After reading this story, Nekrasov wrote to Turgenev: “... she is so lovely. She exudes spiritual youth, all of her is pure gold life. Without a stretch, this beautiful setting matched the poetic plot, and what came out was something unprecedented in its beauty and purity.”

“Asya” could be called a story about first love. This love ended sadly for Asya.

Turgenev was fascinated by the topic of how important it is not to pass by your happiness. The author shows how it was born beautiful love from a seventeen-year-old girl, proud, sincere and passionate. Shows how everything ended in an instant.

Asya doubts that she can be loved, whether she is worthy of such a beautiful young man. She strives to suppress the feeling that has arisen in herself. She worries that she loves her dear brother less than a person, whom I saw only a few times. But Mr. N.N. introduced himself to the girl as an extraordinary person in the romantic setting in which they met. This is not a man of active action, but a contemplator. Of course, he is not a hero, but he managed to touch Asya’s heart. With pleasure, this cheerful, carefree man begins to guess that Asya loves him. "I'm about tomorrow Did not think; I felt good." “Her love both pleased and embarrassed me... The inevitability of a quick, almost instantaneous decision tormented me...” And he comes to the conclusion: “To marry a seventeen-year-old girl, with her disposition, how is that possible!” Believing that the future is endless, he is not going to decide his fate now. He pushes away Asya, who, in his opinion, has overtaken the natural course of events, which most likely would not have led to a happy ending. Only many years later did the hero understand the significance of his meeting with Asya in his life.

Turgenev explains the reason for the failed happiness by the lack of will of the nobleman, who at the decisive moment gives in to love. Postponing a decision to an indefinite future is a sign mental weakness. A person should feel a sense of responsibility for himself and those around him every minute of his life.

4. “All love is great happiness...”

(The concept of love in a cycle of stories

I.A. Bunin "Dark Alleys")

I.A. Bunin has a very unique view of love relationships that distinguishes him from many other writers of that time.

In Russian classical literature of that time, the theme of love always occupied important place, and preference was given to spiritual, “platonic” love

before sensuality, carnal, physical passion, which was often debunked. The purity of Turgenev's women became a household name. Russian literature is predominantly the literature of “first love”.

The image of love in Bunin’s work is a special synthesis of spirit and flesh. According to Bunin, the spirit cannot be comprehended without knowing the flesh. I. Bunin defended in his works a pure attitude towards the carnal and physical. He did not have the concept of female sin, as in “Anna Karenina”, “War and Peace”, “The Kreutzer Sonata” by L.N. Tolstoy, there was no wary, hostile attitude towards the feminine, characteristic of N.V. Gogol, but there was no vulgarization of love. His love is an earthly joy, a mysterious attraction of one sex to another.

“Dark Alleys,” a book of stories about love, can be called an encyclopedia of love dramas. “She talks about the tragic and about many tender and beautiful things - I think that this is the best and most original thing I have written in my life...” - Bunin admitted to Teleshov in 1947.

When describing risque details related to the body, when the author must be impartial so as not to go overboard

the fragile line separating art from pornography, Bunin, on the contrary, worries too much - to the point of a spasm in his throat, to the point of passionate trembling: “... my eyes just darkened at the sight of her pinkish body with a tan on her shiny shoulders... her eyes turned black and they widened even more, their lips parted feverishly” (“Galya Ganskaya.” For Bunin, everything connected with gender is pure and significant, everything is shrouded in mystery and even holiness.

As a rule, the happiness of love in “Dark Alleys” is followed by separation or death. The heroes revel in intimacy, but

it leads to separation, death, murder. Happiness cannot last forever. Natalie "died on Lake Geneva in premature birth." Galya Ganskaya was poisoned. In the story “Dark Alleys,” the master Nikolai Alekseevich abandons the peasant girl Nadezhda - for him this story is vulgar and ordinary, but she loved him “all century.” In the story "Rusya", the lovers are separated by the hysterical mother of Rusya.

Bunin allows his heroes only to taste the forbidden fruit, to enjoy it - and then deprives them of happiness, hopes, joys, even life. The hero of the story “Natalie” loved two people at once, but did not find family happiness with either one. In the story “Henry” there is abundance female images for every taste. But the hero remains lonely and free from the “women of men.”

Bunin's love does not go into the family channel and is not resolved by a happy marriage. Bunin deprives his heroes of eternal happiness, deprives them because they get used to it, and habit leads to loss of love. Love out of habit cannot be better than lightning-fast but sincere love. The hero of the story “Dark Alleys” cannot bind himself family ties with the peasant woman Nadezhda, but having married another woman from his circle, he does not find family happiness. The wife cheated, the son was a spendthrift and a scoundrel, the family itself turned out to be “the most ordinary vulgar story.” However, despite its short duration, love still remains eternal: it is eternal in the hero’s memory precisely because it is fleeting in life.

A distinctive feature of love in Bunin’s depiction is the combination of seemingly incompatible things. It is no coincidence that Bunin once wrote in his diary: “And again, again such an unspeakable - sweet sadness from that eternal deception of another spring, hopes and love for the whole world that you want with tears

gratitude to kiss the ground. Lord, Lord, why are you torturing us like this?”

The strange connection between love and death is constantly emphasized by Bunin, and therefore it is no coincidence that the title of the collection “Dark Alleys” here does not mean “shady” at all - these are dark, tragic, tangled labyrinths of love.

All true love is great happiness, even if it ends in separation, death, or tragedy. This conclusion, albeit late, is reached by many of Bunin’s heroes who have lost, overlooked, or destroyed their love themselves. In this late repentance, late spiritual resurrection, enlightenment of heroes and

hides that all-purifying melody that speaks about the imperfection of people who have not yet learned to live, recognize and value real feelings, and about the imperfection of life itself, social conditions, environment, circumstances that often interfere with truly human relationships, and most importantly - about those high emotions that leave an unfading trace of spiritual beauty, generosity, devotion and purity.

5. Love lyrics by S. Yesenin

The love lyrics of S. Yesenin are painted in pure and gentle tones. The feeling of love is perceived by the poet as a rebirth, as the awakening of all that is most beautiful in a person. Yesenin shows himself to be a brilliant master of disclosure, using Pushkin’s term “ physical movement passions." Through the smallest details he draws a complex range of feelings. Only two lines:

All the same - your eyes are like the sea,

Blue swaying fire

Just touch your hand subtly

And your hair is the color of autumn

And in each of them there is a unique feeling. The completeness and true poetry of experiences, the great beauty of love.

The cycle “Love of a Hooligan” is compositionally structured as a novel about a hero in love - from the origin of a feeling to its end, from “the first time I sang about love” to “didn’t I stop loving you yesterday?”

If in the book “Poems of a Brawler” love is “infection”, “plague”, with a cynical word, with a defiant “Our life is a sheet and a bed, our life is a kiss and a pool”, then in “The Love of a Hooligan” the image of love is bright, and That’s why the lyrical hero declares: “For the first time I refuse to make a scandal”; “I stopped liking drinking and dancing and losing my life without looking back”; “That I say goodbye to hooliganism.” This love is so pure that the beloved is associated with the icon face: “Your iconic and austere face hangs in chapels in Ryazan.”

“The Love of a Hooligan” is the most subtle psychological lyrics, in it autumn moods the poet are in tune with peace of mind, which is becoming more and more persistent main theme his

late poetry. Love is a rare topic in early work Yesenina. Now, in his later lyrics, the concept of gracious love, unburdensome, giving joy and quiet sadness, is emerging. Yesenin’s love gives pleasure, and this is also reflected in Pushkin’s tradition. Both in “The Love of a Hooligan” and in subsequent poems on this topic there is practically no love pessimism, love drama, love reflection, characteristic of the image of love in the lyrics

M. Lermontov, A. Akhmatova, A. Blok, V. Mayakovsky

The next cycle of poems about love is “Persian

motives”, in which S. Yesenin reveals the art of love. Here Yesenin mentions Saadi, who created the image of a Turkish woman who eclipsed everyone and everything with her beauty, and the image of his breathtaking, hypertrophied love: he is smitten by her eyes, he is “bleeding from his heart,” he is “exhausted from jealousy,” and the sherbet without his beloved has become more bitter poison, he retreats into the thicket of the gardens, possessed by the “madness of love,” and his feathers are “the breath of early spring,” this is “musk and amber,” her gaze is more intoxicating than crimson wine, and “the light with which the whole world is illuminated dims before her.” .

Yesenin is not focused on love suffering, on

loving self-destruction, he writes poems about the ability to love, about guessing desires, about the paraphernalia of love: from gifts to his beloved (“I will give a shawl from Khorossan / And I will give a Shiraz carpet”), from affectionate speeches (“How to tell me for the beautiful Lala / To- the Persian tender “I love”?”; how can I say for the beautiful Lala/ The tender word “kiss”?”; “How can I tell her that she is “mine”?” However, the Persian harmony of love in the poet’s artistic imagination is only temporary.

In 1925, Yesenin’s love lyrics revealed a Don Juan theme. “Don’t look at me reproachfully...”, “What a night! I can’t”, “You don’t love me, you don’t feel sorry for me...”, “Maybe it’s too late, maybe it’s too early...”, “Who am I? What am I? Just a dreamer...” - all these poems are dedicated to “inexpensive love”, “hot-tempered connection”, “sensual trembling” mistaken for love, frivolous women who are loved “by the way”. This love is without suffering, it is pleasure, it does not require sacrifices from the poet. This is a pacifying love, it corresponds to the poet’s mood for peace of mind. Yesenin’s lyrical hero, keeping the memory of true love “in the distant, dear,” now notices in himself this love lightness and the desire for eternal love happiness: “I began to resemble Don Juan, like a real flighty poet”; "And from that

I have many knees, so that happiness smiles forever, without putting up with the bitterness of betrayal.”

The “take it all” philosophy helps to the lyrical hero resolve the classic love triangle. In the verses “Don’t twist your smile, tug at your hands...”, “What a night!” I can’t...”, “Don’t look at me reproachfully...” reveals the theme of a woman’s unrequited love for him. She cannot give him either love or the “caressing lie” that the other one with the “dove eyes” gave. But,

choosing the path of consent, striving for wholeness and peace, he yields to someone else’s feeling: “But still caress and hug, in the crafty passion of a kiss, let your heart forever dream of May, and the one that I love forever.”

Yesenin's lyrical hero is not inclined towards reflection, duality, or self-flagellation. He is focused on harmony, on integrity. The hero himself suppresses every reason for suffering - in in this case because of the “bitterness of betrayal.”

Yesenin’s attitude towards love was not constant; it changed with the poet’s age. At first it is joy, delight, he sees only pleasure in love. Then love becomes more passionate, bringing both burning joy and burning suffering. Later in Yesenin’s work there is a philosophical understanding of life through love.

6. Philosophy of love in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov

" Master and Margarita"

A special place in Russian literature is occupied by M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” which can be called the book of his life; the fantastic-philosophical, historical-allegorical novel “The Master and Margarita” provides great opportunities for understanding the views and searches of the author.

One of the main lines of the novel is connected with the “eternal

with the love" of the Master and Margarita, "thousands of people walked along Tverskaya, but I guarantee you that she saw me alone and looked not only anxiously, but even as if painfully. And I was struck not so much by the beauty as by the extraordinary, unprecedented loneliness in the eyes!” This is how the Master remembered his beloved.

Some incomprehensible light must have been burning in their eyes, otherwise there is no way to explain the love that “jumped out” in front of them, “like a killer jumps out of the ground in an alley,” and struck them both at once.

One might have expected that, since such love had flared up, it would have been passionate, stormy, burning both hearts to the ground, but she turned out to have a peaceful, domestic character. Margarita came to the Master’s basement apartment, “put on an apron... lit the kerosene stove and cooked breakfast... when the May thunderstorms came and water rolled noisily past the dim windows in the gateway... the lovers lit the stove and baked potatoes in it... In the basement Laughter was heard, the trees in the garden shed broken branches and white brushes after the rain. When the thunderstorms ended and the sultry summer came, the long-awaited and beloved roses appeared in the vase...”

This is how the story of this love is told carefully, chastely, peacefully. Neither the joyless dark days, when the Master's novel was crushed by critics and the lovers' lives stopped, nor the Master's serious illness, nor his sudden disappearance for many months, extinguished it. Margarita could not part with him for a minute, even when he was not there and had to think that he would not be there at all. She could only mentally belittle him so that he would let her go free, “let her breathe the air, and leave her memory.”

The love of the Master and Margarita will be eternal only because one of them will fight for the feelings of both. Margarita will sacrifice herself for love. The master will get tired and afraid of this

a powerful feeling that will ultimately lead him to a madhouse. There he hopes that Margarita will forget him. Of course, the failure of the novel he wrote also influenced him, but to give up love?! Is there anything that can make you give up love? Alas, yes, and this is cowardice. The master runs from the whole world and from himself.

But Margarita saves their love. Nothing stops her. For the sake of love, she is ready to go through many trials. Need to become a witch? Why not, if it helps you find your lover.

You read the pages dedicated to Margarita, and you are tempted to call them Bulgakov’s poem in honor of his own beloved, Elena Sergeevna, with whom he was ready to make, as he wrote about on the copy of the collection “Diaboliad” given to her, and actually made “his last flight.” This is probably partly what it is – a poem. In all Margarita’s adventures - both during the flight and visiting Woland - she is accompanied by the author’s loving gaze, in which there is tender affection and pride in her - for her truly royal dignity,

generosity, tact, and gratitude for the Master, whom she, by the power of her love, saved from madness and returned from oblivion.

Of course, her role is not limited to this. Both love and the whole story of the Master and Margarita are the main line of the novel. All events and phenomena that fill actions converge to it - everyday life, politics, culture, and philosophy. Everything is reflected in the bright waters of this stream of love.

Bulgakov did not invent a happy ending to the novel. And only for the Master and Margarita the author saved his own happy ending: eternal peace awaits them.

Bulgakov sees in love the power for which a person can overcome any obstacles and difficulties, as well as achieve eternal peace and happiness.

CONCLUSION

To summarize, I would like to say that Russian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries constantly turned to the theme of love, trying to understand its philosophical and moral meaning. In this tradition, eros was understood broadly and multi-valuedly, primarily as a path to creativity, to the search for spirituality, to moral improvement and moral responsiveness. The concept of eros presupposes the unity of philosophy and the concept of love, and therefore it is so closely connected with the world of literary images.

Using the example of works literature of the 19th century– XX centuries discussed in the essay, I tried to reveal the topic of the philosophy of love, using the views of different poets and writers on it.

So, in the lyrics of M.Yu. Lermontov's heroes experience a sublime feeling of love, which transports them to the world of unearthly passions. Such love brings out the best in people, makes them nobler and purer, elevates and inspires them to create beauty.

And the result of such a test is a state of sadness and tragedy. The author shows that even such a beautiful, sublime feeling of love could not fully awaken the consciousness of a “morally” perishing person.

In the story “Asya” I.S. Turgenev develops the theme of the tragic meaning of love. The author shows how important it is not to ignore your happiness. Turgenev explains the reason for the failed happiness of the heroes by the lack of will of the nobleman, who at the decisive moment gives in in love, and this speaks of the spiritual weakness of the hero.

Love in the works of I.A. Bunin manifests itself in the heroes as a deep, morally pure and beautiful feeling. The author shows that true love is great happiness, even if it ends in separation, death or tragedy.

In the novel “The Master and Margarita” M. Bulgakov shows that a loving person is capable of sacrifice, of death for the sake of the peace and happiness of a loved one. And yet he remains happy.

Different times have come, but the problems remain the same: “what is the meaning of life,” “what is good and what is evil,” “what is love and what is its meaning.” I think that the theme of love will always be heard. I agree with the opinion of the writers and poets I have chosen that love can be different, happy and unhappy. But this feeling is deep, infinitely tender. Love makes a person nobler, purer, better, softer and more merciful. She brings out the best in everyone and makes life more beautiful.

Where there is no love, there is no soul.

I would like to finish my work with the words

Z.N. Gippius: “Love is one, true love carries immortality, an eternal beginning; love is life itself; You can get carried away, change, fall in love again, but true love is always one!”

LIST OF REFERENCES USED

1. A.A. Ivin “Philosophy of Love”, “Politizdat”, M. 1990

2. N.M. Velkova “Russian Eros, or the Philosophy of Love in Russia”, “Enlightenment”, M. 1991.

This topic is reflected in the literature of Russian writers and poets of all times. For more than 100 years, people have been turning to the poetry of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, finding in it a reflection of their feelings, emotions and experiences. The name of this great poet is associated with tirades of poems about love and friendship, with the concept of honor and Motherland, images of Onegin and Tatyana, Masha and Grinev appear. Even the most strict reader will be able to discover something close to him in his works, because they are very multifaceted. Pushkin was a man who passionately responded to all living things, a great poet, creator of the Russian word, a man of high and noble qualities. In the variety of lyrical themes that permeate Pushkin’s poems, the theme of love is given so much significant place that the poet could be called a glorifier of this great noble feeling. In all world literature you cannot find more a shining example special predilection for this side human relations. Obviously, the origins of this feeling lie in the very nature of the poet, responsive, able to reveal in each person the best properties of his soul. In 1818, at one of the dinner parties, the poet met 19-year-old Anna Petrovna Kern. Pushkin admired her radiant beauty and youth. Years later, Pushkin again met with Kern, as charming as before. Pushkin gave her a newly printed chapter of Eugene Onegin, and between the pages he inserted poems written especially for her, in honor of her beauty and youth. Poems dedicated to Anna Petrovna “I remember a wonderful moment” is a famous hymn to a high and bright feeling. This is one of the peaks of Pushkin's lyrics. The poems captivate not only with the purity and passion of the feelings embodied in them, but also with their harmony. Love for a poet is a source of life and joy, the poem “I loved you” is a masterpiece of Russian poetry. More than twenty romances have been written based on his poems. And let time pass, the name of Pushkin will always live in our memory and awaken the best feelings in us.

Opens with Lermontov's name new era Russian literature. Lermontov's ideals are limitless; he desires not a simple improvement in life, but the acquisition of complete bliss, a change in the imperfections of human nature, an absolute resolution of all the contradictions of life. Immortal life- the poet does not agree to anything less. However, love in Lermontov's works bears a tragic imprint. This was influenced by his only unrequited love to a friend of his youth - Varenka Lopukhina. He considers love impossible and surrounds himself with a martyr's aura, placing himself outside the world and life. Lermontov is sad about the lost happiness “My soul must live in earthly captivity, Not for long. Maybe I will never see Your gaze, your sweet gaze, so tender for others.”

Lermontov emphasizes his distance from everything worldly: “No matter what is earthly, but I will not become a slave.” Lermontov understands love as something eternal, the poet does not find solace in routine, fleeting passions, and if he sometimes gets carried away and steps aside, then his lines are not the fruit of a sick fantasy, but just a momentary weakness. “At the feet of others I did not forget the gaze of your eyes. Loving others, I only suffered from the Love of former days.”

Human, earthly love seems to be an obstacle for the poet on his path to higher ideals. In the poem “I will not humiliate myself before you,” he writes that inspiration for him is more valuable than unnecessary quick passions that can throw human soul into the abyss. Love in Lermontov's lyrics is fatal. He writes, “Inspiration saved me from petty vanities, but there is no salvation from my soul in happiness itself.” In Lermontov's poems, love is a high, poetic, bright feeling, but always unrequited or lost. In the poem "Valerik" the love part, which later became a romance, conveys the bitter feeling of losing contact with the beloved. “Is it crazy to wait for love in absentia? In our age, all feelings are only temporary, but I remember you,” the poet writes. The theme of betrayal of a beloved who is unworthy of a great feeling or who has not stood the test of time becomes traditional in Lermontov’s literary works related to his personal experience.

The discord between dream and reality penetrates this wonderful feeling; love does not bring joy to Lermontov, he receives only suffering and sadness: “I’m sad because I love you.” The poet is troubled by thoughts about the meaning of life. He is sad about the transience of life and wants to do as much as possible in the short time allotted to him on earth. In his poetic reflections, life is hateful to him, but death is also terrible.

Considering the theme of love in the works of Russian writers, one cannot help but appreciate Bunin’s contribution to the poetry of this topic. The theme of love occupies perhaps the main place in Bunin’s work. In this topic, the writer has the opportunity to correlate what is happening in a person’s soul with the phenomena external life, with the demands of a society that is based on the relationship of buying and selling and in which wild and dark instincts sometimes reign. Bunin was one of the first in Russian literature to devote his works not only to the spiritual, but also to the physical side of love, touching with extraordinary tact the most intimate, hidden aspects of human relationships. Bunin was the first to dare to say that it is not necessary bodily passion follows a spiritual impulse, which happens in life and vice versa (as happened with the heroes of the story " Sunstroke"). And what would plot moves no matter what the writer chooses, love is always in his works great joy and great disappointment, a deep and insoluble mystery, it is both spring and autumn in a person’s life.

IN different periods of his work, Bunin talks about love with to varying degrees frankness. In his early works the characters are open, young and natural. In such works as “In August”, “In Autumn”, “Dawn All Night”, all events are extremely simple, brief and significant. The characters' feelings are ambivalent, colored in halftones. And although Bunin talks about people who are alien to us in appearance, way of life, relationships, we immediately recognize and realize in a new way our own feelings of happiness, expectations of deep spiritual changes. The rapprochement of Bunin's heroes rarely achieves harmony; as soon as it appears, it most often disappears. But the thirst for love burns in their souls. The sad parting with my beloved is completed by dreamy dreams (“In August”): “Through tears I looked into the distance, and somewhere I dreamed of sultry southern cities, a blue steppe evening and the image of some woman who merged with the girl I loved... ". The date is memorable because it testifies to a touch of genuine feeling: “Whether she was better than others whom I loved, I don’t know, but that night she was incomparable” (“In Autumn”). And in the story “Dawn All Night,” Bunin talks about the premonition of love, about the tenderness that a young girl is ready to give to her future lover. At the same time, it is common for youth not only to get carried away, but also to quickly become disappointed. Bunin's works show us this, for many, painful gap between dreams and reality. “After a night in the garden, full of nightingale whistles and spring trepidation, young Tata suddenly, through her sleep, hears her fiancé shooting jackdaws, and realizes that she does not at all love this rude and ordinary-down-to-earth man.”

Majority early stories Bunin tells about the desire for beauty and purity - this remains the main spiritual impulse of his characters. In the 20s, Bunin wrote about love, as if through the prism of past memories, peering into a bygone Russia and those people who no longer exist. This is exactly how we perceive the story “Mitya’s Love” (1924). In this story, the writer consistently shows spiritual formation hero, leads him from love to ruin. In the story, feelings and life are closely intertwined. Mitya’s love for Katya, his hopes, jealousy, vague forebodings seem to be shrouded in special sadness. Katya, dreaming of an artistic career, got caught up in the false life of the capital and cheated on Mitya. His torment, from which his connection with another woman, the beautiful but down-to-earth Alenka, could not save him, led Mitya to suicide. Mitya’s insecurity, openness, unpreparedness to confront harsh reality, and inability to suffer make us feel more acutely the inevitability and unacceptability of what happened.

In a number Bunin's stories a love triangle is described about love: husband - wife - lover ("Ida", "Caucasus", "The Fairest of the Sun"). An atmosphere of the inviolability of the established order reigns in these stories. Marriage turns out to be an insurmountable obstacle to achieving happiness. And often what is given to one is mercilessly taken away from another. In the story “Caucasus,” a woman leaves with her lover, knowing for sure that from the moment the train departs, hours of despair begin for her husband, that he will not be able to stand it and will rush after her. He is really looking for her, and not finding her, he guesses about the betrayal and shoots himself. Already here the motif of love as a “sunstroke” appears, which has become a special, ringing note of the “Dark Alleys” cycle.

Memories of youth and the Motherland bring the cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” closer to the prose of the 20-30s. These stories are narrated in the past tense. The author seems to be trying to penetrate into the depths of the subconscious world of his characters. In most of the stories, the author describes bodily pleasures, beautiful and poetic, born of genuine passion. Even if the first sensual impulse seems frivolous, as in the story “Sunstroke,” it still leads to tenderness and self-forgetfulness, and then to true love. This is exactly what happens to the heroes of stories." Business Cards", "Dark Alleys", "Late Hour", "Tanya", "Russia", "In a Familiar Street". The writer writes about ordinary lonely people and their lives. That is why the past, filled with early, strong feelings, seems like truly golden times, merging with the sounds, smells, colors of nature. As if nature itself leads to mental-physical rapprochement loving friend people's friend. And nature itself leads them to inevitable separation, and sometimes to death.

The skill of describing everyday details, as well as a sensual description of love is inherent in all the stories in the cycle, but the story written in 1944 " Clean Monday"appears not just as a story about the great mystery of love and the mysterious female soul, but as a kind of cryptogram. Too much in the psychological line of the story and in its landscape and everyday details seems to be an encrypted revelation. The accuracy and abundance of details are not just signs of the times, not just nostalgia for forever lost Moscow, but the opposition of East and West in the soul and appearance of the heroine, leaving love and life for a monastery.