Enlightenment realism in literature. Presentation on the topic "realism as a direction in literature and art"

Presentation on the topic "Realism as a movement in literature and art" on literature in powerpoint format. A voluminous presentation for schoolchildren contains information about the principles, features, forms, and stages of development of realism as a literary movement.

Fragments from the presentation

Literary methods, directions, trends

• Artistic method- this is the principle of selection of phenomena of reality, the features of their assessment and the originality of their artistic embodiment.
• Literary direction- this is a method that becomes dominant and acquires more specific features associated with the characteristics of the era and trends in culture.
• Literary movement- manifestation of ideological and thematic unity, homogeneity of plots, characters, language in the works of several writers of the same era.
• Literary methods, directions and movements: classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, realism, modernism (symbolism, acmeism, futurism)

• Realism- a direction of literature and art that arose in the 18th century, reached its full development and flowering in the critical realism of the 19th century and continues to develop in struggle and interaction with other directions in the 20th century (up to the present).
• Realism- a truthful, objective reflection of reality using specific means inherent in a particular type of artistic creativity.

Principles of realism

1. Typification of the facts of reality, i.e., according to Engels, “in addition to the truthfulness of details, the truthful reproduction of typical characters in typical circumstances.”
2. Showing life in development and contradictions, which are primarily of a social nature.
3. The desire to reveal the essence of life phenomena without limiting topics and plots.
4. Aspiration towards moral quest and educational influence.

The most prominent representatives of realism in Russian literature:

A.N. Ostrovsky, I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov, M. Gorky, I. Bunin, V. Mayakovsky, M. Bulgakov, M. Sholokhov, S. Yesenin, A. I. Solzhenitsyn and others.

• Main property– through typification, reflect life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.
• Leading criterion of artistry– fidelity to reality; the desire for immediate authenticity of the image, the “recreation” of life “in the forms of life itself.” The artist’s right to illuminate all aspects of life without any restrictions is recognized. Wide variety of art forms.
• The task of the realist writer– try not only to grasp life in all its manifestations, but also to understand it, to understand the laws by which it moves and which do not always come out; through the play of chance one must achieve types - and with all this, always remain faithful to the truth, not be content with superficial study, and shun effects and falsehood.

Features of realism

• The desire for a broad coverage of reality in its contradictions, deep patterns and development;
• Gravity towards the image of a person in his interaction with the environment:
• the inner world of the characters, their behavior bear the signs of the times;
• much attention is paid to the social and everyday background of the time;
• Versatility in depicting a person;
• Social and psychological determinism;
• Historical point of view on life.

Forms of realism

• educational realism
• critical realism
• socialist realism

Stages of development

• Enlightenment realism(D.I. Fonvizin, N.I. Novikov, A.N. Radishchev, young I.A. Krylov); “syncretistic” realism: a combination of realistic and romantic motifs, with the dominance of the realistic (A.S. Griboyedov, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov);
• Critical realism– accusatory orientation of the works; a decisive break with the romantic tradition (I.A. Goncharov, I.S. Turgenev, N.A. Nekrasov, A.N. Ostrovsky);
• Socialist realism- imbued with revolutionary reality and a feeling of socialist transformation of the world (M. Gorky).

Realism in Russia

Appeared in the 19th century. Rapid development and special dynamism.

Features of Russian realism:

• Active development of socio-psychological, philosophical and moral issues;
• Pronounced life-affirming character;
• Special dynamism;
• Syntheticity (closer connection with previous literary eras and movements: enlightenment, sentimentalism, romanticism).

18th century realism

• imbued with spirit educational ideology;
• affirmed primarily in prose;
• the novel becomes the defining genre of literature;
• behind the novel a bourgeois or bourgeois drama arises;
• recreated the everyday life of modern society;
• reflected his social and moral conflicts;
• the depiction of characters in it was straightforward and subject to moral criteria that sharply distinguished between virtue and vice (only in certain works did the depiction of personality differ in complexity and dialectical inconsistency (Fielding, Stern, Diderot).

Critical realism

Critical realism- a movement that arose in Germany at the end of the 19th century (E. Becher, G. Driesch, A. Wenzl, etc.) and specialized in the theological interpretation of modern natural science (attempts to reconcile knowledge with faith and prove the “failure” and “limitations” of science) .

Principles of Critical Realism

• critical realism portrays the human-environment relationship in a new way
• human character is revealed in organic connection with social circumstances
• subject of deep social analysis the inner world of man has become (critical realism therefore simultaneously becomes psychological)

Socialist realism

Socialist realism- one of the most important artistic movements in the art of the 20th century; a special artistic method (type of thinking) based on knowledge and understanding of the vital reality of the era, which was understood as dynamically changing in its “revolutionary development”.

Principles of socialist realism

• Nationality. The heroes of the works must come from the people. As a rule, the heroes of socialist realist works were workers and peasants.
• Party affiliation. Reject the truth empirically found by the author and replace it with party truth; show heroic deeds, search for a new life, revolutionary struggle for a bright future.
• Specificity. In depicting reality, show the process of historical development, which in turn must correspond to the doctrine of historical materialism (matter is primary, consciousness is secondary).

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In Russian literature of the 18th century, one more, third direction can be distinguished. It denounced serfdom through everyday, realistic satire and fought against classicism and sentimentalism. This direction traditionally includes Novikov, Krylov, Fonvizin, and most Lately, with reservations, Radishcheva.
Qualifying this group of writers as a movement encounters certain difficulties. This direction is not the same type compared to the previous two. It was not so compact, it did not have a clearly developed code. And yet, in a sense, this direction existed. It was dominated by elements of satire and everyday realism based on direct observation. There was always something anti-serfdom, anti-government, anti-salon in the artistic depictions and critical judgments of this group of writers.
It is no coincidence that the first fiery “Tale of Lomonosov” - a patriot, a genius of Russian literature, a native of the people - was spoken by Novikov in his “An Attempt at a Historical Dictionary of Russian Writers” (1772). Novikov said that “the vigor and strength of his spirit” was reflected in all his enterprises. The second “Tale about Lomonosov” was delivered by Radishchev in “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (1790). The types of future Fonvizin landowners are already captured in Novikov’s magazine sketches - these are the images of Falaley, his parents and uncle. Then these types were picked up by Krylov in “A Eulogy in Memory of My Grandfather” (1792), and even later they were again resurrected in a parody manner by Radishchev in “Monument to the Dactylochoreic Knight” (1801). The ideological and stylistic similarity between these writers was sometimes so great that scientists are still arguing over who owns, for example, the “Excerpt of a Journey to I*** T***” that appeared in The Painter of 1772. Some attribute the passage to Novikov, as the publisher of "Drone", others - to Radishchev, due to the similarity of the ideological motives of the passage with "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow."
Writers of this direction fought against the ceremonial solemnity of classicism, its odes, tragedies and developed the genre of comedy, the techniques of burlesque and travesty. Some of them struggled with the extremes of sentimentalism, false, feigned sensitivity (Krylov, Radishchev). The main method that all satirists resorted to was a more daring invasion of life than classicism and sentimentalism allowed. They rejected the prevailing court and salon ideas about reality by the irresistible logic of everyday facts deliberately introduced into literature, by pointing to the most important and ugliest thing in social reality - serfdom. Satirists expanded the scope of art by including “low” matters. In essence, a new aesthetic system was created in many ways, unlike classicism and sentimentalism.
The name “enlightenment realism” (N. L. Stepanov) or “the artistic method of the Russian Enlightenment” (G. P. Makogonenko) in relation to the listed group of writers in Russian literature of the 18th century began to be used by analogy with the established terminology developed by researchers of Western European literatures of that time period (N. Ya. Berkovsky, V. R. Grib, etc.). The basis for the analogy is given, firstly, by the tendencies of realism in the work of these writers and, secondly, by the presence in Russia of that time of a certain educational movement (in the broad sense of the word “enlightenment”).
Enlightenment realism is one of the private creations of the educational movement, which influenced other literary movements - classicism and sentimentalism. The main ideas of the Enlightenment, associated with the struggle for the emancipation of man, the preaching of his non-class value, faith in the rational principles of human activity, the dependence of their characters on upbringing, the social environment - all this was most fully artistically translated by Enlightenment realism. But one should take into account the greater conventions of the concept of “enlightenment realism” or “ Russian Enlightenment» XVIII century. It is clear that we give the concept of Enlightenment a somewhat vague character and it must be correlated with a clear, scientific definition enlightenment, which was given by V.I. Lenin in relation to Russia in the 60s of the 19th century in the work “What inheritance are we refusing?” Enlighteners in the Leninist sense are characterized by: hostility to serfdom and all its products, defense of enlightenment, freedom, European forms of life, upholding the interests of the masses, sincere belief that the abolition of serfdom will bring with it general well-being, and sincere assistance in this.
We cannot automatically extend the measure of the Enlightenment of the 60s of the 19th century, as V.I. Lenin interprets it, to the Russian enlighteners of the 18th century. None of the Russian enlighteners of the 18th century, except Radishchev, was a supporter of the abolition of serfdom. Novikov, Krylov and, in particular, Fonvizin did not go further than criticizing him individual parties, perversions, extremes. They also did not have a single view of the Western European enlighteners of the 18th century. For example, Fonvizin differed sharply from Radishchev in his attitude towards the French enlighteners. The religious Fonvizin considered the French materialists to be atheists who violated morality... And in Novikov and Krylov we will find almost nothing about the French enlighteners, except for superficial attacks against Frenchmania.
It makes sense to single out Krylov, Novikov, Fonvizin in a special group as satirists-realists and educators only in a broad sense, as people who stood for criticism of social reality and education in general. Only Radishchev fits the more precise definition of an educator.
All this makes us treat the concept of “enlightenment realism” with reservations.
Novikov should be considered as one of the first representatives of the direction of educational realism. In 1769-1770, he published the magazine “Drone” and boldly entered into polemics with Catherine II, who secretly supervised the publication of the magazine “Everything and Everything.” The subject of controversy was the question of the tasks and meaning of satire. The fresh forces of Russian literature united on Novikov’s side. He was supported in the controversy by the magazines “Mixture” by L. Sechkarev and “Hellish Mail” by F. Emin. Then Novikov continued to develop his program in the magazines “Pustomela” (1770), “Painter” (1772-1773), “Wallet” (1774).
Defeated in a magazine controversy, Catherine II launched an investigation of Novikov in connection with his publishing and Masonic activities and in 1792 imprisoned him in the Shlisselburg fortress.
Novikov the satirist is a transitional figure. On the one hand, he is connected in his tastes, in his passion for parables and allegories, with Sumarokov’s generation. It is not for nothing that “Drone” was decorated with an epigraph from Sumarokov’s fable: “They (peasants - V.K.) work, and you (nobles - V.K.) eat away their labor.” On the other hand, Novikov is a more determined satirist and is associated with Radishchev.
Novikov's literary and critical heritage is relatively small. It is more related to history, philosophy, journalism and, mainly, journalism. Let us highlight the programmatic features in relation to the direction.
Catherine II wanted to limit the tasks of satire to abstract moralizing: not to touch upon personalities and facts, “not to target persons.” Novikov argued for the need for specific satire “on individuals,” “on vices,” in order to give it an effective character. Novikov ridiculed the “rules” of lying satire. “Many people of weak conscience,” he wrote, “never mention the name of vice without adding to it love of mankind... but for such people it is more proper to call love of mankind love of vice. In my opinion, the one who corrects vices is more philanthropic than the one who indulges in them or (to say in Russian) indulges...”
When Catherine II spoke out against Novikov’s “melancholy,” i.e., skeptical, letters and threatened to “destroy” the “Drone,” he made his attacks against the “elderly lady” even more transparent: “Mistress All Things is angry with us... Apparently that Mrs. All Things is so spoiled by praise that now she considers it a crime if someone does not praise her. I don’t know why she calls my letter a curse? Swearing is abuse expressed in vile words...”, but in “Drone” there is nothing of the kind. As for threats of destruction, this is a word “characteristic of autocracy.” The most poisonous thing in this Novikov’s answer was, perhaps, the repeated mention of “the public”: “I am very pleased that Mrs. All sorts of things gave me up to the public to judge. The public will see from our future letters which of us is right.” Novikov pointed out his goals directly, and he achieved them. In such a heated public dispute, it was possible to beat the enemy only with the truth of the facts.
Novikov the critic was well aware of the nature of his work and was sensitive to the experiences of others of the same kind. In the history of Russian literature, he tried to highlight the line that represented satirical creativity.
In the preface to the magazine “Pustomelya” (1770), Novikov further developed the provisions of Kantemir and Trediakovsky about criticism, placing it on the same level as art: “... it is just as difficult to criticize with taste as it is to compose well.” It is probably no coincidence that Novikov called his next sharp critical and journalistic magazine “The Painter.”
The most striking document of Novikov’s own critical activity and the stage of isolation of criticism in independent region is his “Attempt at a Historical Dictionary of Russian Writers” (1772). Belinsky regarded the dictionary as “a rich fact of literary criticism proper of that time.” His “Dictionary,” wrote Belinsky, “can no longer be ignored in the historical review of Russian criticism.” In addition, Novikov the critic owns a number of valuable notes on current modern literary phenomena, about Fonvizin and other writers.
The reason for compiling the dictionary was a biased note “News about some Russian writers” in the Leipzig magazine “New Library of Fine Sciences and Liberal Arts” (1768), written by some “Transiting Russian”. His name has still not been figured out. Izvestia spoke mainly about aristocratic writers of the post-Petrine era.
Novikov in the Dictionary significantly expanded the circle of writers: instead of 42, as was the case in Izvestia, he names 317, including 57 writers of pre-Petrine Rus'. In terms of social composition, Novikov has only about 50 writers from the noble nobility; the majority are commoners and persons of clergy rank.
But the real reason for the appearance of the “Dictionary” was Novikov’s desire, in his own way, to “assemble” Russian literature into a holistic picture, to show that writers, thinkers, preachers, and educators are the true spiritual leaders of the Russian people, their greatest value. The “Dictionary” continued Novikov’s struggle with Catherine II, who claimed to be the educator of the people; it turned out to be a spiritual support in the modern struggle. Novikov pointedly did not name Catherine II among the Russian writers, but, perhaps, without any secret thought, he named eight names of enlightened girls and women who practiced literature, which was a new and unusual thing, especially in the pre-Karamzin era.
With undisguised irony, Novikov spoke about the “pocket” ode to the Tsarina V. Petrov, the author of the ode “On the Carousel”, on the victories of the Russian army, navy, on the arrival of “His Excellency Count Alexei Grigorievich Orlov” and so on. and especially “random poems”, which, as we know, were written in order to get into favor. Petrov “is straining to follow in the footsteps of the Russian lyricist,” but it is still difficult to conclude “whether he will be the second Lomonosov or will remain only Petrov...”.
Sumarokov was described in just a few lines. According to the template, he is called the “northern Racine”, in eclogues he is equated with Virgil, in satirical parables and fables he is placed above Phaedrus and La Fontaine. But Novikov did not indicate anything Russian related to life in Sumarokov.
But Novikov singled out those writers who, in one way or another, had a desire for originality. He spoke with praise about folk themes in the works of Ablesimov, Popov, about V. Maikov, who was original and “did not borrow anything.” The compiler of the “Dictionary” painted living portraits of writers: Lomonosov, Kozlovsky, Popovsky, Anichkov, Trediakovsky - patriots who fought for Russian culture.
Novikov largely distanced himself from group interests and did not touch upon old disputes between writers. Of all his contemporaries, he most fully and objectively noted the many-sided talents and merits of Lomonosov, the purity of his style, knowledge and development of the rules of the Russian language, the lyrical and oratorical talent of his ode, and the poem about Peter the Great. Novikov considered it appropriate to highlight Lomonosov’s purely personal traits as a Russian person: “He had a cheerful disposition, spoke briefly and wittily, and loved to use sharp jokes in conversations; he was faithful to his fatherland and friends, patronized those practicing verbal sciences and encouraged them; in his manner he was for the most part affectionate, generous to those who sought his mercy, but at the same time he was hot-tempered and quick-tempered.”
Novikov had a clear passion for writers who rose from the bottom, symbolizing the power of the people's spirit: Feofan, Emin, Kulibin (merchant, self-taught inventor, who wrote poetry); Volkov, son of a merchant, founder of the Russian theater, a man of versatile talents; Krasheninnikov, explorer who described Kamchatka, author of the word “On the benefits of sciences and arts.” Novikov said about Krasheninnikov: “He was one of those who, not by the nobility of their breed, not by the blessings of happiness, are elevated, but by themselves, by their qualities, by their labors and merits, glorify their breed and make themselves worthy of eternal memories.” Krasheninnikov, as you know, was a friend of Lomonosov.
Novikov emphasized a satirical line wherever possible. He dedicated a lengthy column to Kantemir, noting his honesty, straightforwardness, sharp, enlightened mind, which “loved satire.” But Novikov’s main sympathies, without a doubt, belonged to Fonvizin.
Even during the first readings of “The Brigadier” in salons and palaces in 1769, Novikov, who was connected with Fonvizin by ties of friendship at Moscow University, published a favorable note about him in “The Painter” in the form of news from Parnassus: the muses Thalia and Melpomene are embarrassed by the appearance of a new talent, they complain to his “father” Sumarokov. The allegorical note ended with the recognition that Sumarokov had been replaced by a new public idol.
In “Idle Man” in 1770, Novikov again returned to Fonvizin and his comedy “The Brigadier”: “His comedy was so rightly praised by intelligent and knowledgeable people that Moliere did not see better acceptance for his comedies in France and did not want ....”
A more accurate assessment of Fonvizin was given in the Dictionary. Let us remember that Fonvizin had not yet written “The Minor,” and Novikov had already noted, referring to “The Brigadier,” “sharp words and intricate jokes” that were “scattered on every page”; “It was written exactly in accordance with our customs, the characters are very well maintained, and the plot is the simplest and most natural.” Fonvizin headed a group of writers that Novikov especially liked - Emin, Maikov, Popov.
All aspects of Novikov’s activity - journalist, satirist, critic - contributed to the development of Russian literature in a democratic direction, towards realism. But his own creativity is still such that realism here does not represent a system of creativity. These are just elements and trends. Novikov, still in the spirit of classicism, resorts to meaningful names of heroes (Pravdolyubov, Milovana, Bezrashud). His portraits are built on the principle of a syllogism, a ready-made formula, a term, and are not developed as faces or images. His rationality is still strong. The closest thing to a realistic letter are its copies from the lordly and peasant “reprints”, the first outlines of living people: Falalei, Filatka, Andryushka, etc. This is a step forward from the “inclination” of someone else’s satire on Russian morals, as was the case with Lukin, a step towards Fonvizin’s grotesque masks, his purely Russian subjects. Novikov’s merit as a critic is that he highlighted the satirical line in the history of Russian literature and connected his deepest hopes in the future with writers of the satirical direction, or, as he sometimes very aptly put it, “real painting.”
In Krylov’s literary position, researchers (D. D. Blagoy, N. L. Stepanov, etc.) unanimously note its versatile satirical and educational character. In "Kaiba" (1792) classicist pompous odes and sentimental idylls are ridiculed. “Nights” (1792) parodies the “Night Thoughts” of the pre-romanticist Jung, translated by Karamzin, as well as adventurous picaresque short stories in the spirit. Lesage and M. Chulkov, and even earlier, in “Mail of the Spirits” (1789), Scarron’s burlesque pictures of morals. Travesting is one of the characteristic techniques of the satirist Krylov, who was not satisfied with any of the existing literary trends, but who had not yet finally found his own.
He is a master at adopting and compromising various literary masks. His “Speeches” (be it “A Speech Spoken by a Rake in an Assembly of Fools” or “A Speech in Praise for the Science of Killing Time”, “A Speech in Praise for Ermalafides”) ridicule sentimentalism in a parodic form. Krylov came up with popular nicknames for his literary opponents: Karamzin is believed to be derived from Ermalafida (“ermalafia” in Greek means verbose chatter, nonsense, rubbish); under Antirichardson - sentimental writer, author of “Russian Pamela” P. Yu. Lvov; under the “imaginary Detush” - V.I. Lukin. “A laudatory speech in memory of my grandfather” (1792) continues the tradition of Novikov’s satire, “A letter from a district nobleman to his son Falaley” - Fonvizin images.
There are elements of eclecticism in Krylov's activity, and yet it must be defined more precisely than is usually done. Krylov’s struggle concealed an attempt to pave the way for some third direction. And indeed, he fights to bring art closer to the truth of life, to Russian reality, to introduce serious content into it. In the 19th and 44th letters of “Mail of the Spirits” he ridiculed both coarse, perverted tastes and the court entertainment opera. Krylov, long before Gogol, proclaimed that “the theater is a school of morals, a mirror of passions, a court of errors and a game of the mind.” And at the same time, he introduced (after Novikov) in his review of Klushin’s comedy “Laughter and Grief” an important clarification of the concept of “public”: there is a public that is generous with applause, “snap judgments”, on which one should not rely in any way.
Krylov was approaching social understanding beautiful. He knew well that one must argue about “tastes” and this is one of the duties of criticism. Long before Chernyshevsky, Krylov compared various ideas, for example, about female beauty, that existed in the peasant and gentry environment: “To be portly, to have a natural blush on the cheeks is decent for one peasant woman; but a noble woman should try to avoid such a defect: leanness, pallor, languor - these are her virtues. In the current enlightened age, taste in everything reaches perfection, and a woman of high society is compared to Dutch cheese, which is only good when it is spoiled...” Some shades in this quote can be correctly understood if we remember that Krylov’s evidence comes, so to speak, from the opposite: after all, a certain “philosopher in fashion” is discussing this topic, trying to seem reasonable, without having a drop of reason.. But the comparison of tastes naturally suggested itself, and Krylov’s sympathies, of course, are on the side of the “natural blush.”
Silf Svetovid writes about the strange customs of some people who are not ashamed to be considered parasites and often repeat with arrogance the words: “my villages, my peasants, my dogs and the like.” Krylov paints a bleak picture of social order. The quantitative accumulation of observations is accompanied by elements of realistic typification. Sylph the Farseer informed the wizard Malikulmulk that the generous name of a person, in truth, is applicable only to “farmers”, “ordinary people”, “not attached to either the court, civil or military services.” In “Kaiba,” having ridiculed his literary opponents, Krylov unequivocally contrasted the life of the common people and their morality with the life of the court, complete immorality.
In a review of the comedy of his friend and associate in the publication of “The Spectator” and “St. Petersburg Mercury” A. Klushin “Laughter and Grief” (1793), Krylov outlined in some detail his concept of drama and theatrical performance.
He makes the following demand to any critic: to be impartial, not to upset you with abuse or rudeness, but to act as you yourself would like to be treated.
It is important to compare Krylov’s judgments about comedy with the theory of Lukin, whose prefaces Krylov reproaches for length, and comedy for the lack of wit. He credited another comedian, Klushin, for using contrasts to ridicule vice with laughter and crying; The law of drama is the rapid development of action. In Klushin’s comedy, the critic naturally condemned the shortcomings in the beginning and ending, for “the author should not seem like a miracle worker, but an imitator of nature”; to construct a plot, you never need to resort to greater tricks than those found in life. “In the theater, moral teaching must be extracted from the action.”
Krylov's dramatic theory was clearly higher than the rules on which Klushin's comedy was built, and was ahead of the development of contemporary dramaturgy. This theory was suitable for the comedies “A Lesson for Daughters” and “Fashion Shop”, later written by Krylov himself, which were extremely close to the manner of Fonvizin and partly the early Griboyedov.
But one should not overestimate the degree of realism of Krylov’s criticism. One cannot mentally transfer to his activities in the 18th century ideas about Krylov the fabulist of the 19th century, when he became a great realist. The “novel of education” compressed to the point of laconicism in “ Word of praise in memory of my grandfather" or the "travel novel" in "Kaiba" do not yet have a developed system of "enlightenment" novel. The first resembles a naturalistic “answer” in the Novikov spirit, and the second resembles Voltaire’s “philosophical” novels, the “realism” of which is extremely conventional.
Let's take a closer look at why Krylov condemned Ermalafides, i.e. Karamzin. In many cases, Krylov “nitpicked” as a classicist, and not as a realist. He reproached the sentimentalists for going too far in their freedom and violating the old canons: in the sentimentalists' comedies, “a whole people in bast shoes, in zipuns and in hats with a crease appears on the stage.” Ermalafide can “adjust high moral teaching to the balalaika, and only reasonable reasoning can make men dance to it...”. For all the playfulness of Krylov’s tone, his sympathies are not on the side of Ermalafida and the “bearded ones”.
Krylov the critic was a satirical realist who allowed greater and greater intrusion of the social element into art. But he still had a strong eye for classicism.
It was Fonvizin who came closest to what we call pre-realism. Without “The Minor” there would be no “Woe from Wit” and “The Inspector General”.
Modern researchers P. N. Berkov and K. V. Pigarev have identified in detail all the features of realism in “The Minor.” And yet, for Fonvizin, some rules of classicism were still mandatory. It is no coincidence that Belinsky vigilantly noticed them in Nedorosl. It would be more correct, as K.V. Pigarev does, to talk only about the tendencies of realism in “The Minor”, ​​and not about the complete realistic method.
It is known that Fonvizin, like Novikov and Krylov, has a number of satirical works in the form of dictionaries, questions and answers, reasoning, messages, in which he acts as an exposer of serfdom, an everyday satirist, and a realist. Just like Novikov and Krylov, he expanded the limits of satire in classicism and undermined the latter. Fonvizin gradually replaced the “inclination” of foreign images into Russian morals with a direct depiction of Russian morals. In “The Experience of a Russian Estatesman” he was interested in the discrepancy between a person’s external rank and his internal content. All this created the preconditions for realism. Fonvizin fought against excessive admiration for everything foreign; he demanded from Russian people true literacy, good knowledge of natural language, and awareness of their patriotic duty (“Petition to the Russian Minerva from Russian writers”).
But Fonvizin's criticism was limited. In comedies, he wanted to “condemn” not all the nobility, but only those who abused their rights. The enormous power of the critical portrayal of serfdom was weakened by very moderate conclusions. He emphasized that he was far from “free speech” and “hated” it with all his soul.
Fonvizin was sharp and even bilious in his assessment of the French enlighteners: Voltaire, Rousseau and especially Helvetius. The only thing I praised. Fonvizin, being in France, there is an abundance of opportunities for education and theater. The productions of tragedies did not attract him: they, in his opinion, were not original, especially after the death of the actor Lequesne - something similar could be seen in Russia. But comedies delighted him: “I never imagined,” he wrote to his family and P.I. Panin in 1778, “to see the imitation of nature so perfect.”
With an experienced eye, he noticed the highly developed beginning of the “ensemble” in the French game, especially when the best artists participated in the comedy: “It is impossible, while watching it, not to forget yourself so much as not to consider it the true story that is happening at that moment.” There is something new in Fonvizin’s comments about French comedy compared to the views of Lukin, Plavilytsikov, and Krylov. Real story he places it above fictional comedy; he demands complete realistic verisimilitude, authenticity in the reproduction of life. No one in Russia has ever emphasized this fidelity of art to the truth of life with such tenacity.
The theater was of great importance for Fonvizin the playwright. In Russia, Fonvizin was on friendly terms with Dmitrevsky, Volkov, Shuisky, used their advice, adapted the roles to the capabilities of live performers.
Fonvizin’s way of thinking and the nature of his creativity are very reminiscent of Gogol. Fonvizin is the first Russian writer who identified a contradiction between the objective meaning of creativity and subjective intentions and judgments. But theoretically, neither these contradictions nor the nature of the realism that was emerging in his work were comprehended either by himself or by contemporary criticism. For a long time they fell out of sight of subsequent judges of Russian literature. Vyazemsky, in his famous monograph about Fonvizin (1848), bypasses this creative problem, interpreting the writer’s contradictions in a purely biographical, psychological plane. It can be said that only in our time have methodological prerequisites been developed that make it possible to correctly reveal the contradictory inner personality of Fonvizin as a writer.
Radishchev's literary and critical heritage is small. Only his article “Monument to the Dactylochoreic Knight, or Dramatic-Narrative Conversations of a Young Man with His Parent” belongs to the field of criticism in the proper sense of the word.
This article is devoted to the apology of Trediakovsky’s hexameter and the satirical ridicule of the Rousseauian theory of education. But it is advisable to bring for consideration several chapters from “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (1790), related to criticism: the chapter “Tver”, in which Radishchev discusses Russian versification; the chapter “Torzhok” with a brief narrative about the history of censorship and the section “The Tale of Lomonosov”, which is not by chance placed at the end of the “Journey” and, as it were, sums up everything that is said in the book about the talent, sweeping soul “to the glory of the born” Russian people. Finally, great importance for clarification aesthetic positions Radishchev has his philosophical treatise “On Man, His Mortality and Immortality” (written in Ilimsk and published in 1809).
In Radishchev, a writer, a thinker and a revolutionary merged into one. Only his work fully reflected the social experience of the 18th century.
Radishchev deviated far from literary criticism itself, but deviated towards those important general, political and philosophical problems, without which criticism cannot exist. Its significance lies not in the development of any individual sections of criticism, but in the development of its general theoretical premises. Radishchev deeply understood the nature of the spiritual. He explained the origin of logical categories by the results of people's practical activities, their conditions public life. He wrote that “on opening the skull you won’t find any signs of thought anywhere, but it’s in the brain and that’s enough for us.” “Reasoning is nothing more than an addition to experience...” Our feelings are excited by nature, then these sensations rise to reason, reason and become thought. “Who would have thought that such a small instrument, the tongue, is the creator of everything that is graceful in man”; “...speech, expanding the mental forces in a person, feels their effect on itself and becomes almost an expression of omnipotence.”
Radishchev consistently revealed what connects man with the animal kingdom and what qualitatively distinguishes man from him. This issue was subsequently discussed by Feuerbach, Darwin, Spencer, Bucher, Taylor, Plekhanov, and Engels.
Like all educators of the 18th century, Radishchev attached importance to human education important role environment. He knew how to draw truly revolutionary conclusions from this situation. Unfair laws distort a person’s nature and affect his character and mental strength. There is nothing more harmful, Radishchev said in the chapter “Torzhok,” than “guardianship” of thoughts, “payoffs in thoughts.” Some “uniform censor” filled with the spirit of servility before the authorities, “one senseless officer of the deanery can do the greatest harm in enlightenment and stop the progress of reason for many years.”
However, Radishchev's literary tastes were not in every way as advanced as his philosophical and political views. In the chapter “Tver”, Radishchev, in the form of a conversation between two passers-by, very inconsistently discusses the obstacles that prevent successful development Russian poetry. These obstacles, as it turns out, are created not only by the political environment, censorship, but also by “authorities” such as Lomonosov and, partly, Trediakovsky and Sumarokov. They overly canonized iambic and rhyme and, with their authority, allegedly threw the “bridle of a great example” over poetry, which prevents us from seeing the possibilities of hexameter, rhymeless verse. But what kind of prospects would these be? It is unlikely that the experiments proposed by Radishchev could replace the already achieved victories of iambic, the achieved relative ease of language.
It was necessary to update the content and improve the form. Contrary to his own statements, Radishchev immediately proposed a sample of “newfangled” poetry - the ode “Liberty.” But it was written in traditional sonorous iambics, with rhyme, and its innovation lay in the unusualness of the theme. Because of the title alone, as its author sadly declared, he was refused publication of this work... As for Radishchev’s proposal, even with the texture of a difficult verse, to depict “the difficulties of the action itself,” that is, the struggle for political freedom, it led only to disharmonious verses, like this: “Transform darkness into the light of slavery.” It was in vain that the author did not agree with those who told him frankly that such a verse was “very tight and difficult.” Radishchev wanted to preserve the high odic style in poetry, giving it a civil sound. Pushkin's "Liberty" (1817) is also written in iambics and with rhyme, but without any deliberate difficulty in the verse.
But if it was unlikely that all Russian poetry should have been translated into hexameters (“dactylochoreic hexameter”), this did not mean that there was no need to develop the Russian hexameter at all. It was needed at least for translations of Homer and other classical authors. And in this regard, the experience of Trediakovsky, the author of Tilemakhida, “was good for something,” as stated in the subtitle of the introductory section of Radishchev’s article, “Monument to the Dactylochoreic Knight.” Radishchev opposes the ingrained prejudice against Trediakovsky. Trediakovsky “is not funny with dactyls,” but “his misfortune was that, being a learned man, he had no taste.” But he understood well what Russian versification was. Radishchev gives many examples of successful, sonorous, full-voice hexameters from Trediakovsky.
Radishchev considered Trediakovsky’s idea to develop a Russian hexameter, a “high” size, to be fruitful and promising. This is the essence of his “monument” to the not entirely successful “knight” Trediakovsky, who began to pave the way for dactylochoreic meter in Russian poetry and needed an apology.
Pushkin, as is known, also highly valued Trediakovsky’s philological and poetic studies. Radishchev also turns to that side of “Tilemakhida”, which, in his opinion, “is good for nothing.” There is a lot of mannered moralizing in the work, and this brings it closer to the sentimentalist “novel of education”, such as, for example, “Emile” by Rousseau. And Radishchev does not spare “Tilemakhida” and “Emil”.
Radishchev parodies “Tilemakhida” and the “novel of education” in the spirit of Novikov-Krylov and Fonvizin’s travesty, reducing the high-flown educational maxims of his mentors with the low truths of living reality, which are much dearer to him. Here he acts, like them, as a satirist.
Radishchev tells what happened to the Prostyakovs (he slightly changed the Prostakovs' surname) after the punishment that befell them. They left their estate, safely evaded guardianship, bought the Narengof manor (“manor of fools”) near St. Petersburg and lived and lived happily. The neighboring landowners were even worse than them. The trends of the times were reflected in the fact that the Prostyakovs began to raise their youngest son no longer like Mitrofanushka, but according to the system of Rousseau and Basedov. The younger one's name is Faleley - he is, of course, akin to Novikov's Faleley from The Painter. Uncle Cymbalda, assigned to Phalelei, tirelessly repeats memorized maxims to the home-grown Emil, abundantly quoting “Tilemachis.” And Falelei mocks them with the manners of the same incorrigible village urchin. The bickering between the servant and the master is reminiscent of the lively techniques of comedies of that time. Much is built on an unexpected rethinking of incomprehensible words and consonances. Cymbalda talks about the goddess Artemis, and Falele thinks that we are talking about some guy Artemis; Cymbalda quotes the verse: “Many different flowers spread the green beds...”, and Falele mutters flatly: “I know, uncle, I know; Mother has a dowry green damask bed.” The carnal passions that were bursting with Cymbalda’s pupil soon burst out. He fell in love with the girl Lukerya, and his mind became clouded. All educational recipes collapsed like a house of cards...
“The Tale of Lomonosov” is not only the final chord of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” but also an outstanding work by Radishchev the critic. In “The Lay...” the problem of the role of genius in the progressive development of literature is deeply analyzed.
Radishchev “weaves” a civil “crown” for the “planter of the Russian word,” and not the one that was usually awarded to “those who subservient” to the authorities: “...as long as the Russian word hits the ears, you will live and not die.” Lomonosov's services to Russian literature are “many.” In the great “blessed” odes of Lomonosov, everyone can envy the lovely paintings national peace and silence, “this strong fence of cities and villages.” After Lomonosov, many people will become famous, “but you were the first.” Lomonosov's glory "is the glory of a leader." And there has not yet been a worthy follower of Lomonosov in “civil activism.”
But the judgment should be even more strict on some of the weaker aspects of Lomonosov’s work. Radishchev sharply reproaches Lomonosov: “...you flattered Elizabeth with praise in poetry.” How Radishchev would like to forgive Lomonosov for this for the sake of the great inclination of his soul to do good deeds, but why “hurt the truth and posterity”: they will not forgive if you bend your heart. The merit of genius is great, but there is a higher court, the court of the people and time: “Truth is the highest deity for us...” One can also find other shortcomings in Lomonosov: he ignored dramaturgy, “languished in the epic,” was alien to “sensibility” in poetry “, was not always insightful in his judgments and “in his very odes he sometimes contained more words than thoughts.” But “the one who paved the way to the temple of glory is the first culprit in acquiring glory, even if he could not enter the temple.” “In the path of Russian literature, Lomonosov is the first.”
Behind these assessments of Radishchev, a new, his own, more consistent program was already visible. On the revolutionary path of serving Russian literature, Radishchev himself was the first.
So, classicist criticism was the program of an entire literary movement for three quarters of a century. It carried through the decades loyalty to the original principles of Lomonosov and developed, arguing or agreeing with him, in the circle of several basic problems.
She consistently delved into the development of problems of Russian versification, the composition of the Russian literary language, three styles and three main genres: ode (Lomonosov, Derzhavin), epic (Trediakovsky, Kheraskov) and drama (Sumarokov, Lukin, Plavilshchikov). At first, the criticism affirmed the normativity generally accepted in European classicism, and then everything more criticism began to become imbued with national specifics, generalizing the emerging poetics of Russian classicism and the personal experience of writers. The main provisions of the concept of the history of Russian literature from ancient times began to emerge.
On the methodological side, criticism struggled between two extremes: on the one hand, the “eternal” rules of art, sanctified by tradition, on the other, the complete arbitrariness of personal taste. Therefore, in criticism there were either too frequent references to authorities, or a passion for trifles and stylistic quibbles. Gradually, rules derived from creativity itself began to play an important role (Derzhavin, Kheraskov, Lukin, Fonvizin). In the field of its genres, criticism moved from treatises and rhetoric to prefaces and commentaries and, finally, to articles. The critical vocation became increasingly separated from the literary one. In criticism, Sumarokov’s “average” style, accessibility, and simplicity began to win more and more.
For a long time, classicism was the only direction in Russian literature and did not experience attacks from outside, because its rules essentially had enduring significance and, in a modified form, continued to live in other directions.
Sentimentalism in literature and criticism initially emerged, like classicism, as an innovation of one outstanding person. The Lomonosov period was followed by the Karamzin period. As in classicism, here criticism is closely associated with literature. Sometimes criticism was even ahead of literature (if we take, for example, Karamzin’s problem of Shakespeare).
Important innovations of sentimentalist criticism are striking. Karamzin managed to merge criticism with journalism and give it a vital public character. The very pulse of everything has changed literary life. The critic-journalist, reader and writer have united into a human chain of interaction. Criticism taught to read and taught to write. The public has learned to expect critical reviews of literary novelties. In this sense, Karamzin “encouraged” the public to read. Criticism began to primarily generalize the actual practice of its literary movement, and not just develop “rules,” although Russian works were still relatively rarely analyzed. Criticism, combining with the latest aesthetics (Baumgarten), became a science. Taking all these points together, Belinsky called Karamzin the “founder” of Russian criticism.
The central place in sentimentalist criticism was occupied by the study of problems of the individual, historical and national character of phenomena. Hence the attention to human personality, to “sensitivity”, psychologism, hence the well-known democratization of heroes, the mixing of various elements of life, linguistic styles and partly genres (along with tragedy and comedy, drama was legalized), bringing to the fore prose that is capacious in its capabilities. Criticism began to rely on new models and authorities in world literature - Rousseau, Lessing, Lenz, Richardson, Thomson, Shakespeare instead of Racine, Boileau, Moliere, Voltaire. Realizing himself as an innovator in the field of “sensitive style” in its broadest sense, Karamzin considered the history of Russian literature from the point of view of the formation of national identity in it (from Boyan the Prophet), simultaneously reproaching his classicist predecessors for their inability to artistically portray Russian characters. In criticism, terms and concepts began to be used more strictly, the genres of articles and reviews became more diverse, and the assessments themselves became more objective. The gap between rules and taste, models and practice narrowed, as criticism itself became the “science of taste,” one of the aspects of emerging public opinion.
“Enlightenment realism,” unlike previous trends, did not have one of its own luminaries, the main leader and organizer. It was the collective work of a number of writers. (We emphasize once again the entire convention of highlighting and naming this direction.)
Each of the previous directions always revealed over time such trends in the knowledge of reality that began to shake its original poetic positions. In classicism this was expressed in the “inclination” of models to Russian morals, in sentimentalism - in the doctrine of “characters”. Writers came closest to living reality in the field of satire and social denunciations. This “real painting” eventually formed a certain independent direction in Russian literature, which grew above other directions and even began to oppose them as the most truthful and fruitful. It turned out to be the forerunner of critical realism, although in a broader sense “pure” classicism and “pure” sentimentalism were also such.
Most of the figures of “enlightenment realism” were united by a bright accusatory tendency, which received its most complete expression in the work of the revolutionary-minded Radishchev.
Eighteenth-century criticism was a preliminary stage in the formation of the “subject” of criticism.
Classicism connected the nascent Russian literature with pan-European rationalistic norms of creativity and developed the initial rules for the artistic depiction of reality. Sentimentalism brought literature closer to Russian society, raised the problem of characters in their psychological, historical, national and social characteristics, and connected criticism with journalism. Satirical or “enlightenment realism” connected literature with social denunciation, with the fight against serfdom, and developed the concept of realistic truthfulness as the starting point in the process of forming the realistic method.
But all these discoveries have not yet been brought to synthesis, generalized in a single direction. Professional critics did not yet exist, genre specificity critical speeches were not yet sustainable. Among classicists it appeared in edifying prefaces and rhetoric, among sentimentalists in the framework of fleeting articles and reviews, and among representatives of “enlightenment realism” the question of declarations and program articles had not yet even arisen. Nevertheless, this “fading” of rhetoric was a progressive phenomenon, since it brought criticism out of the captivity of academic norms into the space of living quests. The criticism of “enlightenment realism” was already acquiring a solid materialist basis, accumulating experience in generalizing real satire and social denunciation.

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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 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.

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 XVIII century was the work of the great national port of Scotland, Robert Burns, who, in his cheerful poems full of sly humor, Epigrams, and soulful lyrical songs, revealed the soul of his people, conveyed the love of the Scots for their homeland, their critical attitude towards secular and church rulers.

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. This undermined the specificity of literature as a special form of reflection of reality.

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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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 aspects 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 teachings 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 ​​revolutionary transformation public 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 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 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 realistic literature The Enlightenment era is “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 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 “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 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 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.

35. Basic methods of fiction. Realism. The variety of approaches to the problem of realism in literary criticism. Enlightenment realism.

(1) Realism is artistic direction, “aimed at conveying reality as closely as possible, striving for maximum verisimilitude. We declare realistic those works that seem to us to closely convey reality” [Jakobson 1976: 66]. This definition was given by R. O. Jacobson in the article “On Artistic Realism” as the most common, vulgar sociological understanding. (2) Realism is an artistic movement that depicts a person whose actions are determined by the environment around him. social environment. This is the definition of Professor G. A. Gukovsky [Gukovsky 1967]. (3) Realism is a direction in art that, unlike the classicism and romanticism that preceded it, where the author’s point of view was respectively inside and outside the text, implements in its texts a systemic plurality of the author’s points of view on the text. This is the definition of Yu. M. Lotman [Lotman 1966].
R. Jacobson himself sought to define artistic realism functionalistically, at the intersection of his two pragmatic understandings:
1. [...] A realistic work is understood as a work intended by a given author to be plausible (meaning A).
2. A realistic work is a work that I, who have a judgment about it, perceive as plausible” [Jakobson 1976: 67].
Further, Yakobson says that both the tendency to deform artistic canons and the conservative tendency to preserve canons can be considered realistic [Yakobson 1976: 70].
Realism as a literary movement emerged in the 19th century. Elements of realism were present in some authors earlier, starting from ancient times. The immediate predecessor of realism in European literature was romanticism. Having made the unusual the subject of the image, creating an imaginary world of special circumstances and exceptional passions, he (romanticism) at the same time showed a personality that was richer in mental and emotional terms, more complex and contradictory than was available to classicism, sentimentalism and other movements of previous eras. Therefore, realism developed not as an antagonist of romanticism, but as its ally in the struggle against the idealization of social relations, for the national-historical originality of artistic images (the flavor of place and time). It is not always easy to draw clear boundaries between romanticism and realism of the first half of the 19th century; in the works of many writers, romantic and realistic features merged together - the works of Balzac, Stendhal, Hugo, and partly Dickens. In Russian literature, this was especially clearly reflected in the works of Pushkin and Lermontov (the southern poems of Pushkin and “Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov). In Russia, where the foundations of realism were already in the 1820s and 30s. laid down by the work of Pushkin (“Eugene Onegin”, “Boris Godunov” Captain's daughter”, late lyrics), as well as some other writers (“Woe from Wit” by Griboyedov, fables by I. A. Krylov), this stage is associated with the names of I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky and others. Realism of the 19th century is usually called “critical”, since the defining principle in it was precisely the social-critical one. Heightened social-critical pathos one of the main distinctive features Russian realism “The Inspector General”, “Dead Souls” by Gogol, the activities of writers of the “natural school”. Realism of the 2nd half of the 19th century reached its peak precisely in Russian literature, especially in the works of L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, who became the central figures of the world literary process at the end of the 19th century. They enriched world literature with new principles for constructing a socio-psychological novel, philosophical and moral issues, and new ways of revealing the human psyche in its deepest layers.

Signs of realism:

1. The artist depicts life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.

2. Literature in realism is a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him.

3. Cognition of reality occurs with the help of images created through typification of facts of reality (typical characters in a typical setting). Typification of characters in realism is carried out through the “truthfulness of details” in the “specifics” of the characters’ conditions of existence.

4. Realistic art life-affirming art, even with a tragic resolution to the conflict. The philosophical basis for this is gnosticism, the belief in knowability and an adequate reflection of the surrounding world, in contrast, for example, to romanticism.

5. Realistic art is characterized by the desire to consider reality in development, the ability to detect and capture the emergence and development of new forms of life and social relations, new psychological and social types.

5. Enlightenment realism.

Reading the textbook article “Enlightenment Realism” and answering questions.

Creative workshop “Analysis of a work in the aspect of artistic method.”

Outline for studying a lyrical work.

Russian literature of the 19th century.

"Golden Age" of Russian Literature.

A. S. Pushkin. “I erected a monument to myself, not made by hands...” (9th grade)

1. Teacher’s word: “The Golden Age” of Russian literature.” “First row” of Russian writers: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. Literature and painting, literature and music. Traditions of Russian folklore, ancient Russian, spiritual and foreign literature in XIX literature century.

2. Pushkin - “the beginning of all beginnings.” The poet’s poetic testament is “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...”.

3. “Slow reading” of the poem.

Comment on (explain) the epithets: “miraculous” (monument), “rebellious” (head), “treasured” (lyre), “sublunary” (world), “kind” (feelings), “cruel” (age)...

Highlight the main word (phrase) that carries the idea in each quatrain (“not made by hands”, “I will not die”, “Great Russia”, “good”, “God’s command”).

What meaning does Pushkin put into the words “fallen” and “indifferent”?

4. Comparison of Pushkin’s poem with Horace’s ode, Lomonosov’s work “I erected a sign of immortality for myself...”, Derzhavin’s “Monument”.

Homework: reading Pushkin’s novel “The Captain’s Daughter” (chapters 1-5).

Methodists' notes.

Literature at school, No. 3, 1995.

N. N. KOROL, M. A. KHRISTENKO Prophetic word of Andrei Platonov.

Comprehension of style. XI class

Teaching students to read the works of A. Platonov is an extremely difficult task. Every phrase of the writer, every word-“thought image” reflects from within that violent revolutionary process of transforming life, which is most adequately and fully expressed in his style - this amazing fusion of “beautiful tongue-tiedness”, “improper flexibility”, “everyday speech, newspaper, slogan, poster, bureaucratic bureaucracy, propaganda stamp, that unorganized verbal element that burst into the language along with the breakdown of previous social relations.”

In the 11th grade, in order to pick up the keys to comprehending “The Pit” or “Chevengur,” we suggest taking for work the story “Doubting Makar,” a text that is less voluminous, but containing all the features of Plato’s unique style.

The pivotal moment during the initial home reading of the story by students was the task - to trace the movement of the plot, based on revealing the meaning of the metaphorical antithesis “clever head - empty hands” (Lev Chumovoy, “milk boss”, “learned scribe”, “trade union boss”, “scientific person” ”, pockmarked Peter and Makar) and “empty heads - smart hands” (Makar, and in the finale - “other working masses”). A simple, but extremely effective search moment in working with text seems to be the task of paying attention to the number of repeating words. various shades the words “head - hands” and accompanying epithets. This allowed students to see from their own experience that the text was rich in these dominant words. They also noted their ever-increasing satirical expressiveness from light humor, caustic irony to the sarcasm of the climactic episode of Makar’s fantastic dream and the truly terrible prophetic finale, in which Makar’s “clever hands” and the “empty head” of Lev Chumovoy and the pockmarked Peter “thinking for all working proletarians” united in the struggle “for the Leninist and common poor cause” and settled in an institution nearby to “think for the state,” which is why the working people stopped going to the institution and “began to think for themselves in their apartments.”

Thus, already at the level of the plot, schoolchildren comprehended the depth of the anxiety of the writer, who warned his contemporaries about the danger of dividing people into those who think for everyone and those who work, about the threat of establishing a state system where the individual will not mean anything, where in the name of “integral scales” they will be sacrificed “ millions of living lives."

The next stage is working on the style. To our question: “What folklore genre resembles a short story in its manner of narration?” - the students answered without difficulty: a fairy tale. There are enough arguments: this is a hero, truth seeker and reminiscent fairytale Ivan the Fool, and constant numerous repetitions, playing out the same situation, and vocabulary (tram owner, street garbage can, city ravine, house gorges, etc.), and the intonation structure of the phrase (“Makar sat on the bricks until the evening and followed one by one how the sun went out, as the fires came on, as the sparrows disappeared from the dung to rest").

Then we move on to a comparative analysis of the story “Doubting Makar” and the story “The Pit”. Let's start with the task: compare the main characters - Makar Ganushkin and Voshchev. As a result of working with the text, students come to the conclusion that both heroes stand out “among the other working masses” in that they are thinking, doubting people, painfully searching for answers to questions that in the 30s were not supposed to be discussed and questioned. We quote the text (these examples can be continued, the text is oversaturated with similar reasoning of the author and characters): Lev Chumovoy says to Makar: “You are not a person, you are an individual farmer! I’ll fine you all around now so that you know how to think!” (“Doubting Makar”) “The administration says that you stood and thought in the middle of production,” they said at the factory committee.” “In the dismissal document they wrote to him that he was being removed from production due to the growth of weakness and thoughtfulness in him amid the general increase in the pace of work” (“Pit”).

“Makar lay down on the state bed and fell silent from doubt that all his life he had been engaged in non-proletarian work”... Makar turns his suffering and doubt to a scientific person. “What should I do in life so that I and others need me?” (“Doubting Makar”)

“What were you thinking, Comrade Voshchev?

About the plan of life.

The plant operates according to ready plan trust. And you could work out a plan for your personal life in a club or a red corner” (“Pit”).

If in the story the reader stops before a fantastic picture of new plans ripening in the head of a leader who thinks for all working people, in whose dead eyes “millions of living lives were reflected,” then “The Pit” tells about the heroes’ week-long stay in the village where they implement these plans.

We read excerpts from “The Pit”, which tell about the events taking place on the collective farm named after the General Line, where the proletarians (Voshchev, Chiklin, Kozlov and others) and the activist of “public works to implement government regulations and any campaigns”, accumulating “enthusiasm for indestructible action”, mobilize the collective farm “for a funeral procession, so that everyone would feel the solemnity of death during the developing bright moment of socialization of property”, to knock together logs into one block with the aim of “accurate execution of the event for complete collectivization and liquidation through rafting of the kulak as a class.”

The result of this activity is a dead village, in whose empty houses the wind blows, and in the forge a bear works and growls a song, “the girls and teenagers lived like strangers in the village, as if they were languishing in love for something distant.”

A symbol of the senseless movement towards a bright future, to which people are sent in whole echelons, a symbol of cruelty, the collapse of the age-old foundations of life, is at the end of the story the grotesque image of a “correct proletarian old man”, a bear-hammer, who “crushed iron as the enemy of life, as if if there are no fists, so there is only one bear in the world,” about which the collective farm members said: “What a sin: everything will burst now! All the iron will be in the wells! But you can’t touch him - they will say, poor man, proletariat, industrialization!”

Thoughts and ideas expressed by the author and his characters are in complex relationships with each other, in constant interaction, movement, attraction and repulsion; they often come into conflict with deeds, actions, and are broken into dust upon contact with reality. Of course, there is no way to consider at least part of these microtexts. But it is necessary to try to analyze some of them. So, for example, one can trace how the word and deed of one of the most controversial heroes of the story interact - the navvy Chiklin, who on various occasions, as if in passing, remarks “The dead are people too”^ “Every person is dead if he is tortured”; “There are as many dead as there are living, they are not bored with each other”; "All dead people special." And many of the actions of this “unscientific person” coincide with the Tch’s view of the world. This is his love for the girl Nastya, caring for her, attention to others, "; grief for the dead.] But at the same time, it is from Chiklin that the man with yellow eyes receives a blow to the head, and then to the stomach. It is Chiklin who diligently knits a raft, "so that the kulak sector would travel along the river to the sea and beyond." Together with the bear-blacksmith, he walks through the "strong" huts to dispossess the peasants. When the girl Nastya died, Chiklin "wanted to dig the earth." "In these actions he wanted forget your mind now." “Now we need to dig the pit even wider and deeper,” he tells Voshchev. “The collective farm followed him and did not stop digging the ground; all the poor and middle-aged men worked with such zeal for life, as if they wanted to be saved forever in the abyss of the pit." The story ends with such a hopelessly terrible symbol. In the last paragraph of "The Pit" we read: "Having rested, Chiklin took Nastya in his arms and carefully carried her to put her in a stone and bury her." Here it is appropriate to quote the words of A. Platonov himself about "The Pit" : “The author could have made a mistake in depicting the death of the socialist generation in the form of the death of a girl, but this mistake occurred from excessive anxiety for something loved, the loss of which is tantamount to the destruction of not only the entire past, but also the future”!

Before moving on to working on the style of the story “The Pit,” we offer students different points of view of researchers of the writer’s language. Example from the teacher:

A lot has been written about the language of Andrei Platonov: sometimes as a unique aesthetic language, sometimes as a language-mask, a language-foolishness, a language-antics. But most often they admired him for his beauty, flexibility, expressiveness. Most writers noted the complexity and mystery of the writer’s phrases. “...Platonov’s word will never be fully understood.” Researchers of A. Platonov’s creativity emphasize the uniqueness, the “special language”, its dissimilarity to any other. “Platonov has his own words, only he has his own inherent manner of combining them, his own unique intonation.” They write about the “barbaric harmony of a phrase”, about a syntax similar to the movement of boulders along a slope, about “understatement and redundancy of speech”, about “improper flexibility”, “beautiful tongue-tiedness”, “roughness”, etc.

So, strange, mysterious, elevating, aesthetic, foolish, tongue-tied, redundant, a word-child and a word-old man at the same time, some kind of extraordinary alloy, etc. ...What is it - the word of Andrei Platonov? Listening and delving into the meaning of Plato’s metaphors, images, symbols, peering into the world of Plato’s utopias, satirical paintings, reading and re-reading its pages amazing books, deeper and more fully through dialogue with his time we begin to understand our own time. As M. Bakhtin said, “not in every era a direct author’s word is possible,” for such a word presupposes the presence of “authoritative and well-established ideological assessments.” And therefore, the literature of these eras expresses the author’s thoughts and assessments, refracting them in “someone else’s word.”

Of course, the era of Andrei Platonov is an era that was not at all conducive to the expression of thoughts in the direct author’s word, since this word did not coincide with the official ideology. In Platonov, as L. Shubin rightly noted, the thoughts of the hero and the thoughts of the author coincide...

Let's turn to the beginning of "The Pit" (together with the students we are convinced of the originality of Plato's speech - we read and comment on the beginning of the story, one paragraph, two sentences).

“On the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life, Voshchev was given a settlement from a small mechanical plant, where he obtained funds for his existence. In the dismissal document they wrote to him that he was being removed from production due to the growth of weakness and thoughtfulness in him amid the general pace of work.”

Let's turn to the first phrase: how did it strike you? (The students noted that the phrase immediately struck a chord with some of its clumsiness and clumsiness, which intensified in the next sentence.)

Are there any unnecessary words in this phrase in terms of semantic accuracy? (Yes, there is the phrase “personal life” and the subordinate clause “where he obtained the means for his existence.”)

Let's try to remove these parts of the phrase, what will it look like? (“On the day of his thirtieth birthday, Voshchev was given a settlement from a small mechanical plant.”)

Try to make a small editorial edit so that the phrase sounds familiar to our ears. (“On the day of Voshchev’s thirtieth birthday, he was fired from a small mechanical plant.”)

As a result of the experiment we carried out, the powerful force and originality of Plato’s speech disappeared. The phrase faded away. After all, its magical power lies precisely in the fact that after the words “on the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life,” Voshchev was given not a bonus for conscientious work, but the calculation that Voshchev did not work, but “earned money” not for a living, but “for his existence.” This phrase already contains something that in the next one literally makes one numb and horrified, since the accumulating energy of ironic meaning breaks through in the words: “... he is eliminated from production due to the growth of weakness and thoughtfulness in him” - its bitterly ironic effect immerses us, the readers, at a time that gave birth to a monstrous bureaucratic system that suppresses personality, turning people into a faceless mass.

This process finds expression in the emasculation of the people’s language. Platonov reflected that transitional stage when the living language of the people was broken by clericalism, ideological cliches, and bureaucratic sterilization.

Hence the roughness, clumsiness, and the combination into one whole of incompatible words and expressions of different styles.

The word of A. Platonov is a word of warning, a word of prophecy.

Through the prism of the phrase under consideration, one can see that impersonal, corroded language that we speak today, without noticing the ugliness of such expressions as instead of children - child population, instead of person - resident, instead of apartment - living space, etc. And from the so-called “ business style"with his countless orders on enrollment, dismissal, removal severe reprimands Once entered into a personal file, it seeps into spoken language or the stamp is replicated with millions of identical holiday texts-congratulations, in which workers wish each other success in work and happiness in their personal lives.

Let's return to the text of "The Pit" once again! These somewhat childishly naive and innocent words “removed from production due to the growth of weakness in it and thoughtfulness amid the general pace of work” prophetically smacks of those in the near future - not “removed”, but “under investigation”, “arrested” , not “due to growing weakness... and thoughtfulness,” but for “sabotage, sabotage,” “enemy propaganda,” etc.)

So, from the very first sentence of A. Platonov’s story, we are presented with the image of a man who has not lost his personality, has not dissolved in the mass, a strange, “single” man, painfully thinking and agreeing in the end to know nothing again, not to know the truth, if only the girl was alive! This is the culmination of a protest against violence, expressed with a genius similar to Dostoevsky: if people are “sent in whole echelons to socialism,” and the result of their hard labor is a huge pit and a bunch of coffins stored in one of the niches of the pit, if people are dumped on rafts into the ocean, and the wind is blowing in their houses, they are empty, and the girl Nastya - a symbol of faith, a symbol of the future - is dying from fatigue, homelessness, loneliness, then “no!” such a path and such a future.

Literature at school No. 6, 1995.

I. I. MOSKOVKINA A lesson in understanding the essay genre

The modern approach to the study of literature involves not only obtaining a certain amount of knowledge on the subject, but also developing one’s own position, one’s own attitude to what one read: co-reflection, empathy, pairing one’s own and the author’s “I”. Themes are also oriented towards this final essays recent years: “My Bulgakov”, “Favorite pages of prose”, “My favorite magazine”, etc.

This clearly emerging trend requires mastering new genres of writing, among which the essay is increasingly mentioned. The proposed lesson is an attempt to give students an idea of ​​the features of an unfamiliar genre.

2. Classroom design and equipment: book exhibition “Thoughts about the Eternal and Beautiful” (samples of philosophical, philosophical-religious, art history and journalistic essays); video recorder; on the board (on moving parts) - material for vocabulary work:

Similar words:

essay, essayistics, essayist, essayization

3. Handout: What is an essay? (Definition of genre in various reference books); text (excerpt from V.V. Rozanov’s article “Return to Pushkin”); text (excerpt from the chapter “Pushkin” from the book “Silhouettes of Russian Writers” by Yu. Aikhenvald); memo for laboratory work with elements of stylistic analysis of the text.

Epigraph for the lesson:

“An essay is a way to talk about the world through yourself and about yourself with the help of the world”

(A. Elyashevich).

During the classes

I. After listening to the proposed passages, try to determine the genre of each.

Reading an excerpt (Osorgin M. Earth // From that shore. - M., 1992. - T. 2);

Sermon (any edition);

Reading an excerpt (Ilyin I. Shmelev // Lonely Artist. - M., 1992).

During the discussion, we come to the conclusion that the first passage is more of a story, the second is a sermon, and the third is a literary critical article. What brings them together? An attempt to comprehend the most important problems of life and creativity, a clearly expressed personal element brings these seemingly different genre phenomena together.

II. Designation of the lesson topic. Teacher's word:

Among the genres of prose, there is a genre that includes memories, diaries, letters, confession, sermon, even a kind of essay, story (as we just saw in the example of M. Osorgin’s work “Earth”). This genre does not have a clear definition. Some people tend to see it as a memoir special kind, others apply the name “notes” to it, others carefully use the foreign word “essay”. And Natalya Ivanova in her book “Point of View” dubbed it “the author’s prose,” prose of “direct, immediate action,” in which the author is both the narrator and the hero. “The desire to expose oneself, to understand oneself and one’s time, an intense dialogue with oneself...” - this is the basis of the “author’s” prose, says one critic. Cognition of reality through self-knowledge is the formula for such works, says another.

Let us turn to the definitions of this genre given in various literary reference books.

III. Working with handouts.

Assignment: read the definitions, highlight the key words in them.

What features of the genre are indicated in these definitions?

Features of the essay genre (write in notebook after discussion):

Addressing significant philosophical, historical, art, and literary problems (attention to the book exhibition, it contains a wide range of problems raised in essays).

No set composition, free form of presentation.

Relatively small volume.

IV. Teacher's lecture. (Assignment: write down this material in the form of abstracts.) History of the genre.

The founder of the essay genre was the French humanist writer M. Leontel, who wrote “Ezyaga” in 1580, where he outlined his thoughts on the fate of society and man. The title of M. Leontel's work was translated into Russian as "Experiences". In 1697, F. Bacon created his "Ezzaises", and then D. Locke, D. Addison, G. Fielding, O. Goldsmith turned to the essays. the genre was transformed - it began to be understood as the author’s experience in developing a specific problem.

In our century, essays have been addressed by the following: major artists, like B. Shaw, J. Galsuori, A. France, R. Rolland and others.

The term “essay” is widespread in the West, especially in England, France, and Poland. In Germany they use the term “skitze” - a sketch, a sketch of impressions, a fragmentary story that arose as a result of the transfer of impressionism to the soil of literature. (Students became familiar with this term when studying the works of A, Fet, I. Bunin and other writers.) Russian essays.

As the critic A. Elyashevich noted, “ever since the times of Radishchev’s “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” and Pushkin’s “Journey to Arzrum”, our own version of essayistic thinking has been taking shape.” Radishchev was closer to a journalistic statement, Pushkin - to a travel sketch. A unique phenomenon A. I. Herzen’s novel “The Past and Thoughts,” which was called by the critic A. Elyashevich “an essayistic novel, an epic, an encyclopedia of essayism,” in which memories coexist with journalism, a historical chronicle with an essay, a confession with the thoughts of a sociologist, became this genre. This genre includes “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” by N.V. Gogol and “Confession” by L.N. Tolstoy.

In the history of essays of recent decades, it is necessary to indicate the names of M. Koltsov, M. Prishvin, V. Nekrasov, Yu. Nagibin, V. Soloukhin, A. Adamovich and such works as “The Hamburg Account” by V. Shklovsky, “Not a day without a line” Y. Olesha, “The Golden Rose” by K. Paustovsky, “Rereading Chekhov”, “Lessons of Stendhal” by I. Ehrenburg, “The Grass of Oblivion” and “The Holy Well” by V. Kataev, travel essays by D. Granin, V. Nekrasov, “People or nonhumans” by V. Tendryakov.

There has not been and will not be a single model, a single essay sample; the genre is being updated and developed according to the dictates of the time. Essay genre in last years. There are times when an open, “frank” conversation between the artist and the reader becomes urgently necessary. Perhaps that is why recent years have been marked by a bright flash of spiritual energy contained in the essay. Interest in this genre has grown significantly. In an era of sharp universal changes, the “author’s” prose, like no other, accumulates the most acute social content.

Nowadays, reader interest in the personality of the writer has increased. Extremely popular, memoirs, memories of writers, correspondence, | diaries. Huge audience gathers | meetings with writers in television studio 1 “Ostankino”. This is evidence of increased | demand for the personality personified in the eyes of the public by the writer, who has always been more than just a poet in Russia.

Hence the new phenomenon in literary process Recently - essayization of the genres of stories and novels. “Sad Detective” by V. Astafiev, “Everything Flows”, “Life and Fate” by V. Grossman, “Pushkin House” by A. Bitov, “Everything Ahead” by V. Belov, “Faculty of Unnecessary Things” by Yu. Dombrovsky, “White Clothes” "V. Dudintseva, "Men and Women" by B. Mozhaev, "Berry Places" by E. Yevtushenko... In them, the fabric of the artistic narrative is permeated with the currents of journalism, and in the chorus of voices of the characters, the author's voice clearly sounds - sometimes even solos.

The law of the genre is the utmost openness of the author, his position, his thoughts. This is very similar to a one-man theater, where there is no opportunity to go into the shadows, into the background, where the spotlight is directed only at you, mercilessly highlighting the very essence.

V. Working with texts by V. Rozanov and Y. Aikhenvald (handouts).

Questions for the class: Is there anything common in the grades? What is dear to authors in Pushkin? Support your answers with text. Prove that the works of V. Rozanov and Y. Aikhenvald belong to the essay genre, highlighting the features noted today in class.

VI. Laboratory work with elements linguistic analysis text.

Assignment: using the memo, find in these passages the style features characteristic of the essay genre.

VII. Preparing for creative work - essay.

How do you understand Pushkin’s words about “secret freedom”? What are the consequences of “secret” and overt lack of freedom?

Homework: essay “Talent and Freedom.”

MATERIALS FOR THE LESSON.

What is an essay?

Essay is a genre of criticism and literary criticism, characterized by a free interpretation of any problem. The author of the essay analyzes the chosen problem (literary, aesthetic, philosophical), without worrying about the systematic presentation, well-reasoned conclusions, or the generally accepted nature of the issue (Dictionary of Literary Terms. - M., 1984).

An essay is a type of essay in which the main role is played not by the reproduction of a fact, but by the depiction of impressions, thoughts, and associations (Brief Dictionary of Literary Terms. - M., 1987).