What are the traditions of romanticism in Russian literature. The emergence of romanticism in art and literature

Romanticism is a concept that is difficult to define precisely. In different European literatures it is interpreted in its own way and in the works of different “romantic” writers it is expressed differently. Both in time and in essence, this literary movement is very close to; For many writers of the era, both of these directions even merge completely. Like sentimentalism, the romantic movement was, throughout European literature, a protest against pseudo-classicism.

Romanticism as a literary movement

Instead of the ideal of classical poetry - humanism, the personification of everything human, at the end of the 18th century - early XIX century, Christian idealism appeared - the desire for everything heavenly and divine, for everything supernatural and miraculous. At the same time, the main goal of human life was no longer to enjoy the happiness and joys of earthly life, but purity of soul and peace of conscience, patiently enduring all the disasters and suffering of earthly life, hope for the future life and preparation for this life.

Pseudoclassicism demanded from literature rationality, subordination of feeling to reason; he chained creativity in those literary shapes, which were borrowed from the ancients; he obliged writers not to go beyond ancient history And ancient poetics. Pseudoclassicists introduced strict aristocracy content and form, brought in exclusively “court” moods.

Sentimentalism opposed all these features of pseudo-classicism with the poetry of free feeling, admiration for one’s free, sensitive heart, for one’s own “ beautiful soul", and nature, unartificial and simple. But if the sentimentalists undermined the significance of false classicism, then it was not they who began a conscious struggle against this trend. This honor belonged to the “romantics”; they put forth greater energy, a broader literary program and, most importantly, an attempt to create new theory poetic creativity. One of the first points of this theory was the denial of the 18th century, its rational “enlightenment” philosophy, and its forms of life. (See Aesthetics of Romanticism, Stages of development of Romanticism.)

Such a protest against the rules of outdated morality and social forms of life was reflected in the passion for works in which the main characters were protesting heroes - Prometheus, Faust, then “robbers”, as enemies of outdated forms social life... With the light hand of Schiller, even a whole “robber” literature arose. Writers were interested in the images of “ideological” criminals, fallen people, but retaining high human feelings (such was, for example, the romanticism of Victor Hugo). Of course, this literature no longer recognized didacticism and aristocracy - it was democratic was far from edifying and, in the manner of writing, approached naturalism, accurate reproduction of reality, without choice and idealization.

This is one movement of romanticism created by the group protesting romantics. But there was another group - peaceful individualists, whose freedom of feeling did not lead to social struggle. These are peaceful enthusiasts of sensitivity, limited by the walls of their hearts, lulling themselves to quiet delight and tears by analyzing their sensations. They, pietists and mystics, can adapt to any church-religious reaction, and get along with the political one, because they have moved away from the public into the world of their tiny “I”, into solitude, into nature, which speaks of the goodness of the Creator. They recognize only “inner freedom” and “nurture virtue.” They have a “beautiful soul” - the schöne Seele of the German poets, the belle âme of Rousseau, the “soul” of Karamzin...

Romantics of this second type are almost no different from “sentimentalists.” They love their “sensitive” heart, they know only tender, sad “love”, pure, sublime “friendship” - they willingly shed tears; “sweet melancholy” – their favorite mood. They love sad nature, foggy or evening landscapes, and the gentle glow of the moon. They willingly dream in cemeteries and around graves; they like sad music. They are interested in everything “fantastic”, even “visions”. Paying close attention to the whimsical shades of the various moods of their hearts, they take on the task of depicting complex and unclear, “vague” feelings - they try to express the “inexpressible” in the language of poetry, to find a new style for new moods, unknown to the pseudo-classics.

It is precisely this content of their poetry that was expressed in that unclear and one-sided definition of “romanticism” that Belinsky made: “this is a desire, aspiration, impulse, feeling, sigh, groan, a complaint about unfulfilled hopes that had no name, sadness for what was lost.” happiness, which God knows what it consisted of. This is a world alien to all reality, inhabited by shadows and ghosts. This is a dull, slowly flowing... present that mourns the past and does not see the future; finally, this is love that feeds on sadness and which, without sadness, would not have anything to support its existence.”

Romanticism is nothing more than the inner world of a person’s soul, the innermost life of his heart.

V. Belinsky

I. The concept of “romanticism”. Historical background. The main task of romanticism.

The last decade of the 18th century - the beginning of the 19th century was a time of great social and historical upheavals, and at the same time - changes in all spheres of life. The three main events of this period are the Great French Revolution of 1789, the Napoleonic Wars, and the rise of the national liberation movement in Europe.

The Great French Bourgeois Revolution ended the Age of Enlightenment. Writers, artists, musicians witnessed grandiose historical events, revolutionary upheavals that transformed life beyond recognition. Many of them enthusiastically welcomed the changes and admired the proclamation of the ideas of “Freedom, equality, fraternity.”

But time passed, and it became more and more noticeable that the new social order was far from the ideal of a just world that the philosophers of the 18th century predicted. The time has come for disappointment in civilization, in social, industrial, political and scientific progress, which resulted in new contrasts, contradictions, and spiritual devastation of the individual.

In the philosophy and art of the early 19th century, tragic notes of doubt about the possibility of transforming the world sounded. Attempts to escape from reality and at the same time comprehend it caused the emergence of a new ideological system - ROMANTICism.

The term was first used by German writers and poets in 1798.

Formed within the framework of a literary movement at the turn of the 18th – 19th centuries. in Germany, romanticism spread throughout all countries of Europe and America. The highest peak of development occurred in the first quarter of the 19th century.

The word “romanticism” itself (French romantisme) comes from the Spanish romance. This is what a chivalric romance was called in the Middle Ages. In the 18th century it meant “strange”, “fantastic”, “picturesque”. This meaning perfectly outlined the essence of the era. The difference between ideals and reality was obvious to everyone. In their imagination, romantics transformed the unsightly reality or closed in on themselves and retreated into the world of their experiences. The gap between dream and reality, the opposition of beautiful fiction to objective reality lay at the heart of the entire romantic movement. The main task of romanticism was the image inner world man, his mental life.

Disillusioned with the present, real life, the romantics sought spiritual support in the past, thereby discovering the principle of historicism in art. As a result, interest in national culture appears, folk life, passion for folk tales and songs.

II. Romantic hero

The peculiarities of the worldview of the romantics found expression in the images romantic heroes.

A romantic hero is a complex, passionate personality, whose inner world is unusually deep and endless; it is a whole universe full of contradictions.

Romantics strive to contrast bright free personality gloomy reality, and in this contrast the image of the “superfluous person”, the theme of loneliness, appears.

Progressive romantics create images of strong people with unbridled energy, with violent passions, rebelling against the dilapidated laws of an unjust society. “World evil” causes protest, demands revenge and struggle. But the fate of such lone rebels is also deeply tragic: this world is dominated by incomprehensible and mysterious forces that must be obeyed and not try to change fate.

A romantic hero is not necessarily positive, the main thing is that he reflects a longing for an ideal.

III. Themes of Romanticism

Romantics were interested in all passions - both high and low, which were opposed to each other. High passion is love in all its manifestations, low passion is greed, ambition, envy. The theme of love occupies a dominant place and runs like a through thread through the work of all romantics.

Interest in strong and vivid feelings, all-consuming passions, and secret movements of the soul are characteristic features of romanticism.

Like the images of love, the state of mind is personified by nature. This image may be akin to the passionate nature of the romantic hero, but it can also resist him, turn out to be a hostile force with which he is forced to fight. Therefore, in the works of romantics, nature is often an element (sea, mountains, sky), with which the hero has complex relationships.

The theme of fantasy often competes with images of nature, which is probably generated by the desire to escape from the captivity of real life. Typical of the romantics was the search for a wonderful world sparkling with a wealth of colors, opposed to gray everyday life.

IV. Genres

New themes and images required new genres. At this time, fantastic stories, lyric-epic poems, and ballads appeared in literature. The greatest artistic discovery of the era was the historical novel. Its founder was W. Scott (1771-1832). Romantic poems on medieval subjects and historical novels by W. Scott are distinguished by an interest in native antiquity, in oral folk poetry.

The leading genres of the era are the short story and literary romantic fairy tale(L. Tieck, A. Arnim, C. Brentano and, above all, E. T. A. Hoffman). Why does interest in fairy tales increase at this time? In the first two decades of the 19th century, almost all countries made a new discovery of their national history, folk customs, songs, fairy tales, rituals. It was during the era of romanticism that the first collections of folk songs and fairy tales were published. The role of the German linguists and storytellers of the brothers Grimm - Jacob, 1785-1863 and Wilhelm, 1786-1859 ("Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Musicians of Bremen", "The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats", "A Pot of Porridge", " The Straw, the Coal and the Bean, The Brave Little Tailor. The fairy tale began to be perceived as a manifestation of the people's genius, and the Romantic, who composed fairy tales, tried to rise to this genius. The emergence and development in France of the literary fairy tale as a genre is associated with the name of Charles Perrault (1628-1703; “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Tom Thumb,” “Sleeping Beauty”). Almost a hundred years later, the very concept of this genre was significantly expanded by the German romantic Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853). His works show the connections between man and nature, the real and fantastic worlds, inner life romantic personality.

L. Tick. Fairy tale-novel “Blond Ecbert”

V. Romanticism in music

developed in the 20s years XIX century under the influence of literature and developed in close connection with it.

Rejecting the rules of classicism, the romantics demanded a mixture of genres, justifying it by the fact that this corresponds to the true life of nature, where beauty and ugliness, the tragic and the comic are mixed. They championed free emotional art. Hence the flourishing of the opera genre as a synthetic genre.

The genre of song (romance) is becoming no less popular. Entire song cycles appear, united by one theme. The greatest masterpieces in the song and vocal genre were created by the Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828). German poetry, which was flourishing at that time, became an invaluable source of inspiration for him. Schubert's songs are characterized by a direct impact on the listener: thanks to the genius of the composer, the listener immediately becomes not an observer, but an accomplice.

Programming is becoming extremely important. A passionate promoter of the idea of ​​programming in music was the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886). He embodied in music the images of the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Goethe. He conveyed in music the content of Raphael’s painting (“Betrothal”) and Michelangelo’s sculpture (“The Thinker”). Liszt is an innovative composer. In connection with programmaticity, he rethought classical genres and forms and created his own new genre - the symphonic poem.

One of the most famous works of F. Liszt is “Petrarch’s Sonnet No. 104” from the “Years of Wandering” cycle. The great Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) had his own “Beautiful Lady”, to whom he dedicated a muse. He met the beautiful Laura at the age of 23, but the twenty-year-old woman was already married. All his life the poet sang of her unearthly charm and virtues, and after the death of his beloved, he mourned her death. One of his sonnets later inspired the composer F. Liszt to create the famous piano piece:

There is no peace for me, and I will not raise a fight.
Delight and fear in the chest, fire and ice.
I strive for sky-high flight in my dreams -
And I fall, cast down, to the ground.
Squeezing the world in my arms, I will embrace sleep.
The god of love forges an insidious captivity for me:
I am neither a prisoner nor a free man. I'm waiting - he will kill;
But he hesitates, and again I heed hope.
I am sighted - without eyes; without a tongue - I scream.
I call the end - and again I pray “mercy!”
I curse myself - and yet I drag out my days.
My cry is my laughter. I don't need life
No death. I want my torments...
And this is my reward for the ardor of my heart!

Translation by Vyach. Ivanova

Illustration – F. Liszt “Petrarch’s Sonnet No. 104”

If the music of the classicists told listeners about the harmony of the soul and the world, then the music of the romantics tells, first of all, about disharmony. This music is rebellious, it leads to fight. A striking example Romanticism in music began with the work of the legendary Italian violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840). Both he himself and his violin concerts remained in the history of art as a living expression of social and aesthetic protest. It is no coincidence that the church even cursed Paganini and forbade him, like Voltaire, to be buried in consecrated ground. Paganini's talent seemed to people something akin to a curse.

Illustration – N. Paganini “Caprice No. 24”

The appeal to the inner world of man, characteristic of romanticism, was expressed in a craving for emotionally intense things, which determined the primacy of music and lyrics. The Romantics surpassed all their predecessors in the importance of the lyrical principle in music, in the strength and perfection in conveying the depths of a person’s inner world, emotions, and the subtlest shades of mood. And here the expressive capabilities of the piano came in very handy.

When the piano first announced itself, the Rococo era reigned in Europe - a period of transition from Baroque to Classicism.

During the Romantic era, the piano was a popular home music instrument. This is the heyday of the piano miniature genre. Among them are new genres - nocturne, impromptu, “musical moment”, “song without words”. Works for piano for four hands, when up to twenty sounds were simultaneously extracted from the piano, giving rise to new colors, also became very popular during this period.

The growing popularity of the piano led to the emergence of virtuoso pianists.

One of the greatest romantic composers and at the same time a virtuoso pianist was Frederic Chopin (1810-1849). He reinterpreted many genres: he revived the prelude on a romantic basis, created a piano ballad, poeticized and dramatized dances - mazurka, polonaise, waltz; turned the scherzo into an independent work. Enriched the harmony and piano texture; combined classical form with melodic richness and imagination. “Chopin is a bard, a rhapsode, the spirit, the soul of the piano” (A. Rubinstein).

In area piano music Robert Schumann (1810-1856) is also of great importance. In “Carnival” - a cycle of program piano pieces - he proved himself to be a great master of sharp and precise musical and psychological characterization (the plays are “portraits” of Chopin, Paganini, pianist Clara Wieck, Schumann himself in the images of Florestan and Eusebius). Many of Schumann's piano pieces are inspired by the literary works of Hoffmann and Jean-Paul Richter (“Kreisleriana”, “Butterflies”).

Schumann created many songs based on words by Heine, Chamisso, Eichendorff, and Burns. His best vocal work is the cycle based on Heine’s words “The Poet’s Love,” which conveys the finest shades of feeling from light lyrics to tragic pathos.

Illustration – R. Schumann “Paganini” (from the “Carnival” cycle)

Among other equally famous romantic composers is Carl Maria Weber (1786-1826), the founder of German romantic opera, who actively fought for national German art. One of his most striking operas is “Free Shooter” (1820). The plot of the opera was an old legend, widespread in Germany and the Czech Republic, about a young man who made a pact with the devil. Enchanted bullets received from the “black hunter” bring the young man victory in a shooting competition, but the last bullet mortally wounds his bride. The libretto of the opera, written by F. Kind, differs from its original source in its happy ending: in the clash of good and evil, the forces of light win. The hunter Kaspar, who sold his soul to the devil, is associated with the world of dark, sinister fantasy. Max, Agatha's fiancé, is marked by typically romantic features of psychological duality: the influence of Caspar, behind whom are the forces of hell, is opposed by the charm of the spiritual purity of the loving Agatha. The action takes place against the backdrop of everyday scenes, with which fantastic episodes contrast. The premiere, which took place in Berlin on June 18, 1821, was an exceptional success - the opera was hailed not only as an outstanding artistic phenomenon, but also as a work of great patriotic significance.

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) was not only a talented composer, but also one of the progressive musical and public figures: he founded the first German conservatory and directed the concert organization in Leipzig. Mendelssohn distinguished himself in the field of music for theater (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) and program symphony (“Scottish” and “Italian” symphonies, “Fingal’s Cave” overture). Images of nature and the fantasy of folk tales were especially loved by Mendelssohn. Embodying them, he enriched his orchestral style with light and transparent musical colors. His lyrical “Songs without Words” for piano gained wide popularity.

Illustration – F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy “Song without words”

VI. Conclusion.

Romanticism is an ideological and artistic movement that arose in European countries at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and was reflected in various fields of science and art. Particular attention to the spiritual world and human psychology entailed the development of literature (fantastic story, lyric-epic poem, ballad, historical novel, romantic fairy tale) and music (romance song, piano miniature, strengthening of the psychological principle in symphony and chamber music). Interest in folk life, national culture, historical past, hobby folk tales and songs, love for nature caused the flourishing of folk, fantastic, romantic-heroic opera, the development of program music, the genres of ballads, songs, and dances.

Romanticism left an entire era in world artistic culture. Its representatives in literature are Walter Scott, George Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Victor Hugo, Adam Mickiewicz; in music - Franz Schubert, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Niccolo Paganini, Franz Liszt, Fryderyk Chopin, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Edvard Grieg, Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giacomo Meyerbeer; in fine arts - Eugene Delacroix, Theodore Gericault, Philip Otto Runge, John Constable, William Turner, Orest Kiprensky and others.

In the era of romanticism, many sciences flourished: sociology, history, political science, chemistry, biology, evolutionary doctrine, philosophy.

In the 1840s, romanticism gradually faded into the background and gave way to realism. But the traditions of romanticism are reminiscent of themselves throughout the 19th century.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the so-called neo-romanticism emerged. This direction is closely connected with the romantic tradition, first of all, with the general principles of poetics - the denial of the ordinary and prosaic, an appeal to the irrational, “supersensible”, a penchant for the grotesque and fantasy.

References

1. Architecture: Romanticism / Encyclopedia of Art // http://www.artprojekt.ru/Architecture/style/romantism.htm
2. Boyprav A. Abstract: Romanticism as a movement in art. / Вestreferat.Ru // http://www.bestreferat.ru/referat-43989.html
3. Buryakov D. Franz Liszt // http://cl.mmv.ru/composers/List.htm
4. European art era of romanticism. / All-Belarusian collection of coursework. / Electronic library of research papers. // http://kursach.com/refer/evropiskus.htm
5. Genre features of the European literary fairy tale of the era of romanticism / Independent projects on “Rutenia” // http://annalyst.nm.ru/Skazka.htm
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7. Yarovikova N. Romanticism / Encyclopedia “Around the World” //

Usually romantic we call a person who is unable or unwilling to obey the laws of everyday life. A dreamer and maximalist, he is trusting and naive, which is why he sometimes gets into funny situations. He thinks that the world is full of magical secrets, he believes in eternal love and holy friendship, does not doubt his high destiny. This is one of Pushkin’s most sympathetic heroes, Vladimir Lensky, who “... believed that his dear soul // Should unite with him, // That, languishing joylessly, // She waits for him every day; // He believed that friends are ready / / It is his honor to accept the shackles..."

Most often, such a state of mind is a sign of youth, with the passing of which former ideals become illusions; we get used to really look at things, i.e. Don't strive for the impossible. This, for example, happens in the finale of I. A. Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story,” where instead of an enthusiastic idealist there is a calculating pragmatist. And yet, even after growing up, a person often feels the need for romance- something bright, unusual, fabulous. And the ability to find romance in everyday life helps not only to come to terms with this life, but also to discover high spiritual meaning in it.

In literature, the word "romanticism" has several meanings.

If translated literally, it would be a general name for works written in Romance languages. This language group(Romano-Germanic), originating from Latin, began to develop in the Middle Ages. It was the European Middle Ages, with its belief in the irrational essence of the universe, in the incomprehensible connection of man with higher powers, that had a decisive influence on the themes and issues novels New time. Long time words romantic And romantic were synonyms and meant something exceptional - “what they write about in books.” Researchers associate the earliest found use of the word “romantic” with the 17th century, or more precisely, with 1650, when it was used in the meaning of “fantastic, imaginary.”

At the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries. Romanticism is understood in different ways: both as a movement of literature towards national identity, which involves writers turning to folk poetic traditions, and as a discovery aesthetic value ideal, imaginary world. Dahl's dictionary defines romanticism as “free, free, not constrained by rules” art, contrasting it with classicism as normative art.

Such historical mobility and contradictory understanding of romanticism can explain the terminological problems relevant to modern literary criticism. The statement of Pushkin’s contemporary, poet and critic P. A. Vyazemsky seems quite topical: “Romanticism is like a brownie - many believe it, there is a conviction that it exists, but where are its signs, how to designate it, how to put a finger on it?”

In the modern science of literature, romanticism is viewed mainly from two points of view: as a certain artistic method , based on the creative transformation of reality in art, and how literary direction, historically natural and limited in time. More general is the concept of the romantic method; Let’s dwell on it in more detail.

The artistic method presupposes a certain way comprehension of the world in art, i.e. basic principles of selection, depiction and evaluation of reality phenomena. The uniqueness of the romantic method as a whole can be defined as artistic maximalism, which, being the basis of the romantic worldview, is found at all levels of the work - from the problematic and system of images to style.

Romantic picture of the world differs in hierarchical nature; the material in it is subordinated to the spiritual. The struggle (and tragic unity) of these opposites can take on different faces: divine - devilish, sublime - base, heavenly - earthly, true - false, free - dependent, internal - external, eternal - transitory, natural - accidental, desired - real, exceptional - ordinary. Romantic ideal, in contrast to the ideal of the classicists, concrete and accessible for embodiment, it is absolute and therefore is in eternal contradiction with transitory reality. The romantic’s artistic worldview is thus built on the contrast, collision and fusion of mutually exclusive concepts - it, according to researcher A.V. Mikhailov, is “a bearer of crises, something transitional, internally in many respects terribly unstable, unbalanced.” The world is perfect as a plan - the world is imperfect as an embodiment. Is it possible to reconcile the irreconcilable?

This is how it arises two worlds, a conventional model of the romantic Universe, in which reality is far from ideal, and the dream seems impossible. Often the connecting link between these worlds becomes the inner world of a romantic, in which lives the desire from the dull “HERE” to the beautiful “THERE”. When their conflict is insoluble, the tune sounds escape: escape from imperfect reality into another being is thought of as salvation. This is exactly what happens, for example, in the finale of K. S. Aksakov’s story “Walter Eisenberg”: the hero, by the miraculous power of his art, finds himself in a dream world created by his brush; thus, the artist’s death is perceived not as a departure, but as a transition to another reality. When it is possible to connect reality with the ideal, an idea appears transformations: spiritualization of the material world through imagination, creativity or struggle. German writer XIX V. Novalis suggests calling this romanticization: “I give the ordinary a high meaning, the everyday and prosaic I clothe in a mysterious shell, the known and understandable I give the allure of obscurity, the finite - the meaning of the infinite. This is romanticization.” The belief in the possibility of a miracle still lives on in the 20th century: in the story by A. S. Green " Scarlet Sails", in the philosophical tale of A. de Saint-Exupéry" A little prince"and in many other works.

It is characteristic that both of the most important romantic ideas quite clearly correlate with religious system values ​​based on faith. Exactly faith(in its epistemological and aesthetic aspects) determines the originality of the romantic picture of the world - it is not surprising that romanticism often sought to violate the boundaries of the artistic phenomenon itself, becoming a certain form of worldview and worldview, and sometimes a “new religion.” According to the famous literary critic, specialist in German romanticism, V. M. Zhirmunsky, the ultimate goal of the romantic movement is “enlightenment in God all my life and all flesh, and every individuality." Confirmation of this can be found in the aesthetic treatises of the 19th century; in particular, F. Schlegel writes in "Critical Fragments": "Eternal life and the invisible world must be sought only in God. All spirituality is embodied in Him... Without religion, instead of complete endless poetry, we will have only a novel or a game, which is now called beautiful art.”

Romantic duality as a principle operates not only at the level of the macrocosm, but also at the level of the microcosm - the human personality as an integral part of the Universe and as the point of intersection of the ideal and the everyday. Motives of duality, tragic fragmentation of consciousness, images doubles, objectifying the various essences of the hero are very common in romantic literature– from “The Amazing Story of Peter Schlemihl” by A. Chamisso and “Elixirs of Satan” by E. T. A. Hoffmann to “William Wilson” by E. A. Poe and “The Double” by F. M. Dostoevsky.

In connection with dual worlds, fantasy acquires a special status in works as an ideological and aesthetic category, and its understanding by the romantics themselves does not always correspond to the modern meaning of “incredible”, “impossible”. Actually romantic fiction (miraculous) often means not violation laws of the universe, and them detection and ultimately - execution. It’s just that these laws are of a higher, spiritual nature, and reality in the romantic universe is not limited by materiality. It is fantasy in many works that becomes a universal way of comprehending reality in art through the transformation of its external forms with the help of images and situations that have no analogues in the material world and are endowed with symbolic meaning, which reveals spiritual patterns and relationships in reality.

The classic typology of fantasy is represented by the work of the German writer Jean Paul “Preparatory School of Aesthetics” (1804), where three types of use of the fantastic in literature are distinguished: “a heap of wonders” (“night fantasy”); “exposing imaginary miracles” (“daytime fiction”); equality of the real and the miraculous (“twilight fiction”).

However, regardless of whether a miracle is “exposed” in a work or not, it is never accidental, fulfilling a variety of functions. In addition to knowledge of the spiritual foundations of existence (so-called philosophical fiction), this can be the revelation of the inner world of the hero (psychological fiction), and the recreation of the people's worldview (folklore fiction), and forecasting the future (utopia and dystopia), and a game with the reader (entertainment fiction ). Separately, it should be said about the satirical exposure of the evil sides of reality - an exposure in which fiction also often plays an important role, presenting real social and human shortcomings in an allegorical form. This happens, for example, in many of the works of V. F. Odoevsky: “The Ball,” “The Mockery of a Dead Man,” “The Tale of How Dangerous it is for Girls to Walk in a Crowd along Nevsky Prospect.”

Romantic satire is born from the rejection of lack of spirituality and pragmatism. Reality is assessed by a romantic person from the standpoint of the ideal, and the stronger the contrast between what is and what should be, the more active is the confrontation between man and the world, which has lost its connection with a higher principle. The objects of romantic satire are varied: from social injustice and the bourgeois value system to specific human vices. The man of the "Iron Age" profanes his high destiny; love and friendship turn out to be corrupt, faith is lost, compassion is superfluous.

In particular, secular society is a parody of normal human relations; Hypocrisy, envy, and malice reign in it. In the romantic consciousness, the concept of “light” (aristocratic society) often turns into its opposite (darkness, mob), and the church antonymous pair “secular - spiritual” is returned to its literal meaning: secular means unspiritual. It is generally uncharacteristic of a romantic to use Aesopian language; he does not seek to hide or muffle his caustic laughter. This uncompromisingness in likes and dislikes leads to the fact that satire in romantic works often appears as angry invective, directly expressing the author’s position: “This is a nest of heartfelt depravity, ignorance, feeble-mindedness, baseness! Arrogance kneels there before an impudent occasion, kissing the dusty hem of his clothes, and crushes modest dignity with his heel... Petty ambition is the subject of morning concern and night vigil, "Shameless flattery rules words, vile self-interest rules actions, and the tradition of virtue is preserved only by pretense. Not a single lofty thought will sparkle in this suffocating darkness, not a single warm feeling will warm up this icy mountain" (M. N. Pogodin. "Adele").

Romantic irony, just like satire, it is directly related to dual worlds. Romantic consciousness strives for the world above, and existence is determined by the laws of the world below. Thus, the romantic finds himself at a crossroads of mutually exclusive spaces. Life without faith in a dream is meaningless, but a dream is unrealizable in the conditions of earthly reality, and therefore faith in a dream is also meaningless. Necessity and impossibility turn out to be one. Awareness of this tragic contradiction results in the romanticist’s bitter smile not only at the imperfections of the world, but also at himself. This grin can be heard in many of the works of the German romantic E. T. A. Hoffmann, where the sublime hero often finds himself in comic situations, and a happy ending - victory over evil and the acquisition of an ideal - can turn into completely earthly bourgeois well-being. For example, in the fairy tale “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober,” romantic lovers, after a happy reunion, receive as a gift a wonderful estate where “excellent cabbage” grows, where food in pots never burns and porcelain dishes do not break. And another fairy tale by Hoffmann, “The Golden Pot,” by its very name ironically “grounds” the famous romantic symbol of an unattainable dream - the “blue flower” from Novalis’s novel “Heinrich von Ofterdingen.”

Events that make up romantic plot , as a rule, bright and unusual; they are a kind of “peaks” on which the narrative is built (entertaining in the era of romanticism it becomes one of the important artistic criteria). At the event level of the work, the desire of the romantics to “throw off the chains” of classicist verisimilitude is clearly visible, contrasting it with the absolute freedom of the author, including in the construction of the plot, and this construction can leave the reader with a feeling of incompleteness, fragmentation, as if calling for independent filling of “blank spots” ". The external motivation for the extraordinary nature of what is happening in romantic works can be a special place and time of action (for example, exotic countries, distant past or future), and folk superstitions and legends. The depiction of “exceptional circumstances” is aimed primarily at revealing the “exceptional personality” acting in these circumstances. Character as the engine of the plot and the plot as a way of “realizing” character are closely connected, therefore each eventful moment is a kind of external expression of the struggle between good and evil taking place in the soul romantic hero.

One of the artistic achievements of romanticism was the discovery of the value and inexhaustible complexity of the human personality. Man is perceived by the romantics in a tragic contradiction - as the crown of creation, the “proud ruler of fate” and as a weak-willed toy in the hands of forces unknown to him, and sometimes own passions. Liberty personality implies its responsibility: having made the wrong choice, you need to be prepared for the inevitable consequences. Thus, the ideal of liberty (both political and philosophical aspect), which is an important component in the romantic hierarchy of values, should not be understood as preaching and poeticization of self-will, the danger of which was repeatedly revealed in romantic works.

The image of the hero is often inseparable from the lyrical element of the author's "I", turning out to be either consonant with him or alien. Anyway author-narrator takes an active position in a romantic work; the narrative tends towards subjectivity, which can also manifest itself in compositional level– in the use of the “story within a story” technique. However, subjectivity as a general quality of a romantic narrative does not imply authorial arbitrariness and does not abolish the “system of moral coordinates.” According to researcher N.A. Gulyaev, “in... romanticism, the subjective is essentially synonymous with the human, it is humanistically meaningful.” It is from a moral standpoint that the exclusivity of the romantic hero is assessed, which can be both evidence of his greatness and a signal of his inferiority.

The “strangeness” (mystery, difference from others) of the character is emphasized by the author, first of all, with the help portrait: spiritual beauty, sickly pallor, expressive gaze - these signs have long become stable, almost cliches, which is why comparisons and reminiscences in descriptions are so frequent, as if “quoting” previous examples. Here typical example such an associative portrait (N.A. Polevoy “The Bliss of Madness”): “I don’t know how to describe Adelheid to you: she was likened to Beethoven’s wild symphony and the Valkyrie maidens about whom the Scandinavian skalds sang... her face... was thoughtfully charming , resembled the face of Albrecht Durer’s Madonnas... Adelheid seemed to be the spirit of that poetry that inspired Schiller when he described his Thecla, and Goethe when he depicted his Mignon.”

The behavior of a romantic hero is also evidence of his exclusivity (and sometimes “exclusion” from society); often it “does not fit” into generally accepted norms and violates the conventional “rules of the game” by which all other characters live.

Society in romantic works it represents a certain stereotype of collective existence, a set of rituals that does not depend on the personal will of everyone, so the hero here is “like a lawless comet in a circle of calculated luminaries.” He is formed as if “in spite of the environment,” although his protest, sarcasm or skepticism are born precisely from a conflict with others, i.e. to some extent determined by society. The hypocrisy and deadness of the “secular mob” in romantic depictions are often correlated with the devilish, base principle trying to gain power over the hero’s soul. Humanity in a crowd becomes indistinguishable: instead of faces there are masks (masquerade motif– E. A. Poe "The Mask of the Red Death", V. N. Olin. "Strange Ball", M. Yu. Lermontov. "Masquerade", A.K. Tolstoy. "Meeting after three hundred years"); instead of people there are automata dolls or dead people (E. T. A. Hoffman." Sandman", "Automata"; V.F. Odoevsky. "The Mockery of a Dead Man", "Ball"). This is how writers sharpen the problem of personality and impersonality to the maximum: when you become one of many, you cease to be a person.

Antithesis as a favorite structural device of romanticism is especially obvious in the confrontation between the hero and the crowd (and more broadly, the hero and the world). This external conflict can take various shapes, depending on the type of romantic personality created by the author. Let's look at the most typical of these types.

The hero is a naive eccentric A person who believes in the possibility of realizing ideals is often comical and absurd in the eyes of “sane people.” However, he compares favorably with them in his moral integrity, childish desire for truth, ability to love and inability to adapt, i.e. lie. Such, for example, is the student Anselm from E. T. A. Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Golden Pot” - it was he, who was childishly funny and awkward, who was given the gift of not only discovering the existence of an ideal world, but also living in it and being happy. The heroine of A. S. Green’s story “Scarlet Sails” Assol, who knew how to believe in a miracle and wait for it to appear, despite the bullying and ridicule of “adults,” was also awarded the happiness of a dream come true.

Children's for romantics, it is generally a synonym for the authentic - not burdened by conventions and not killed by hypocrisy. The discovery of this topic is recognized by many scientists as one of the main merits of romanticism. “The 18th century saw in a child only a small adult. Children begin with romantics; they are valued in themselves, and not as candidates for future adults,” wrote N. Ya. Berkovsky. The Romantics were inclined to broadly interpret the concept of childhood: for them it is not only a time in the life of each person, but also of humanity as a whole... The romantic dream of a “golden age” is nothing more than the desire to return each person to his childhood, i.e. to discover in him, as Dostoevsky put it, “the image of Christ.” The spiritual vision and moral purity inherent in the child make him, perhaps, the brightest of romantic heroes; Perhaps this is why the nostalgic motif of the inevitable loss of childhood is heard so often in works. This happens, for example, in A. Pogorelsky’s fairy tale “The Black Hen, or Underground inhabitants", in the stories of K. S. Aksakov ("Cloud") and V. F. Odoevsky ("Igosha"),

Hero – tragic loner and dreamer, rejected by society and aware of his alienness to the world, he is capable of open conflict with others. They seem to him limited and vulgar, living exclusively by material interests and therefore personifying some kind of world evil, powerful and destructive to the spiritual aspirations of the romantic. Often this type of hero is combined with the theme of “high madness” - a kind of stamp of chosenness (or rejection). Such are Antiochus from “The Bliss of Madness” by N. A. Polevoy, Rybarenko from “The Ghoul” by A. K. Tolstoy, and the Dreamer from “White Nights” by F. M. Dostoevsky.

The opposition “individual – society” acquires its most acute character in the “marginal” version of the hero - a romantic tramp or robber, taking revenge on the world for his desecrated ideals. As examples, we can name the characters of the following works: “Les Miserables” by V. Hugo, “Jean Sbogar” by C. Nodier, “The Corsair” by D. Byron.

Hero – disappointed, "superfluous"" Human, who did not have the opportunity and no longer wanted to realize his talents for the benefit of society, he lost his previous dreams and faith in people. He turned into an observer and analyst, passing judgment on an imperfect reality, but without trying to change it or change himself (for example, Octave in “Confession of a Son of the Century” by A. Musset, Lermontov’s Pechorin). The thin line between pride and egoism, consciousness of one’s own exclusivity and disdain for people can explain why so often in romanticism the cult of the lonely hero is combined with his debunking: Aleko in A. S. Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” and Larra in M. Gorky’s story “The Old Woman” Izergil" are punished with loneliness precisely for their inhuman pride.

The hero is a demonic personality, challenging not only society, but also the Creator, is doomed to a tragic discord with reality and oneself. His protest and despair are organically connected, since the Truth, Goodness, and Beauty that he rejects have power over his soul. According to V. I. Korovin, a researcher of Lermontov’s works, “... a hero who is inclined to choose demonism as a moral position thereby abandons the idea of ​​good, since evil does not give birth to good, but only evil. But this is “high evil”, so how it is dictated by a thirst for good." The rebellion and cruelty of the nature of such a hero often become a source of suffering for those around him and do not bring joy to him. Acting as the “vicar” of the devil, tempter and punisher, he himself is sometimes humanly vulnerable, because he is passionate. It is no coincidence that the motif of the “devil in love,” named after the story of the same name by J. Cazotte, has become widespread in romantic literature. “Echoes” of this motif are heard in Lermontov’s “Demon”, and in V. P. Titov’s “Secluded House on Vasilyevsky”, and in N. A. Melyunov’s story “Who is He?”

Hero - patriot and citizen, ready to give his life for the good of the Fatherland, most often does not meet with the understanding and approval of his contemporaries. In this image, traditional pride for a romantic is paradoxically combined with the ideal of selflessness - the voluntary atonement of collective sin by a lone hero (in the literal, not literary sense of the word). The theme of sacrifice as a feat is especially characteristic of the “civil romanticism” of the Decembrists; for example, the character in K. F. Ryleev’s poem “Nalivaiko” consciously chooses his path of suffering:

I know that death awaits

The one who rises first

On the oppressors of the people.

Fate has already doomed me,

But where, tell me, when was it

Freedom redeemed without sacrifice?

Ivan Susanin from Ryleev’s thought of the same name, and Gorky’s Danko from the story “The Old Woman Izergil” can say something similar about themselves. In the works of M. Y. Lermontov, this type is also widespread, which, according to the remark of V.I. Korovin, “...became the starting point for Lermontov in his dispute with the century. But it is no longer only the concept of the public good, which was quite rationalistic among the Decembrists, and not civil feelings inspire a person to heroic behavior, and his entire inner world."

Another common type of hero can be called autobiographical, since it represents an understanding of the tragic fate man of art, who is forced to live, as it were, on the border of two worlds: the sublime world of creativity and the everyday world of creation. This self-awareness was interestingly expressed by the writer and journalist N.A. Polevoy in one of his letters to V.F. Odoevsky (dated February 16, 1829): “...I am a writer and a merchant (the connection of the infinite with the finite...).” The German romantic Hoffmann built his most famous novel precisely on the principle of combining opposites, the full title of which is “The Everyday Views of the Cat Murr, Together with Fragments of the Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, Which Accidentally Survived in Waste Paper Sheets” (1822). The depiction of the philistine, philistine consciousness in this novel is intended to highlight the greatness of the inner world of the romantic artist-composer Johann Kreisler. In the short story by E. Poe " Oval portrait"The painter, with the miraculous power of his art, takes away the life of the woman whose portrait he is painting - takes it away in order to give eternal life in return (another name for the short story “In Death there is Life”). “Artist” in a broad romantic context can mean as a “professional” who has mastered in the language of art, and in general, an exalted personality who subtly feels the beautiful, but sometimes does not have the opportunity (or gift) to express this feeling. According to the literary critic Yu. V. Mann, "... any romantic character - a scientist, architect, poet, socialite person, official, etc. - always an “artist” in his involvement in the high poetic element, even if the latter resulted in various creative acts or remained confined within the human soul." A theme beloved by the romantics is connected with this inexpressible: the possibilities of language are too limited to contain, capture, name the Absolute - one can only hint at it: “Everything immensity is crowded into a single sigh, // And only silence speaks clearly” (V. A. Zhukovsky).

Romantic cult of art is based on an understanding of inspiration as Revelation, and creativity as the fulfillment of Divine destiny (and sometimes a daring attempt to become equal to the Creator). In other words, art for romantics is not imitation or reflection, but approximation to the true reality that lies beyond the visible. In this sense, it opposes the rational way of understanding the world: according to Novalis, “... a poet comprehends nature better than the mind of a scientist.” The unearthly nature of art determines the artist’s alienation from those around him: he hears “the judgment of a fool and the laughter of a cold crowd,” he is lonely and free. However, this freedom is incomplete, because he is an earthly person and cannot live in a world of fiction, and outside of this world life is meaningless. The artist (both the hero and the romantic author) understands the doom of his desire for a dream, but does not abandon the “exalting deception” for the sake of the “darkness of low truths.” This thought ends I. V. Kireevsky’s story “Opal”: “Deception is all beautiful, and the more beautiful, the more deceptive, for the best thing in the world is a dream.”

In the romantic frame of reference, life, devoid of the thirst for the impossible, becomes an animal existence. It is precisely this kind of existence, aimed at achieving the achievable, that is the basis of a pragmatic bourgeois civilization, which the romantics actively do not accept.

Only the naturalness of nature can save civilization from the artificiality - and in this, romanticism is in tune with sentimentalism, which discovered its ethical and aesthetic significance (“landscape of mood”). For a romantic, inanimate nature does not exist - it is all spiritualized, sometimes even humanized:

She has a soul, she has freedom,

It has love, it has language.

(F.I. Tyutchev)

On the other hand, a person’s closeness to nature means his “self-identity,” i.e. reunification with his own “nature,” which is the key to his moral purity (here the influence of the concept of “natural man” belonging to J. J. Rousseau is noticeable).

However, traditional romantic landscape is very different from the sentimentalist one: instead of idyllic rural spaces - groves, oak forests, fields (horizontal) - mountains and the sea appear - height and depth, eternally warring “wave and stone”. According to the literary critic, “...nature is recreated in romantic art as a free element, a free and beautiful world, not subject to human arbitrariness” (N. P. Kubareva). Storms and thunderstorms set the romantic landscape in motion, emphasizing the internal conflict of the universe. This corresponds to the passionate nature of the romantic hero:

Oh I'm like a brother

I would be glad to embrace the storm!

I watched with the eyes of a cloud,

I caught lightning with my hand...

(M. Yu. Lermontov)

Romanticism, like sentimentalism, opposes the classicist cult of reason, believing that “there is much in the world, friend Horatio, that our sages never dreamed of.” But if the sentimentalist considers feeling to be the main antidote to rational limitation, then the romantic maximalist goes further. Feelings are replaced by passion - not so much human as superhuman, uncontrollable and spontaneous. It elevates the hero above the ordinary and connects him with the universe; it reveals to the reader the motives of his actions, and often becomes a justification for his crimes:

No one is made entirely of evil,

And a good passion lived in Conrad...

However, if Byron’s Corsair is capable of deep feeling despite the criminality of his nature, then Claude Frollo from “Notre Dame Cathedral” by V. Hugo becomes a criminal because of an insane passion that destroys the hero. Such an “ambivalent” understanding of passion - in a secular (strong feeling) and spiritual (suffering, torment) context is characteristic of romanticism, and if the first meaning presupposes the cult of love as the discovery of the Divine in man, then the second is directly related to the devilish temptation and spiritual fall. For example, the main character of A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky’s story “Terrible Fortune-Telling,” with the help of a wonderful dream-warning, is given the opportunity to realize the crime and fatality of his passion for a married woman: “This fortune-telling opened my eyes, blinded by passion; a deceived husband, a seduced wife , a torn, disgraced marriage and, who knows, maybe bloody revenge on me or from me - these are the consequences of my crazy love!

Romantic psychologism based on the desire to show the internal pattern of the hero’s words and deeds, which at first glance are inexplicable and strange. Their conditioning is revealed not so much through the social conditions of character formation (as it will be in realism), but through the clash of supermundane forces of good and evil, the battlefield of which is the human heart (this idea is heard in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s novel “Elixirs of Satan” ). According to researcher V. A. Lukov, “the typification through the exceptional and absolute, characteristic of the romantic artistic method, reflected a new understanding of man as a small Universe... the special attention of the romantics to individuality, to the human soul as a bunch of contradictory thoughts, passions, desires - hence the development principle of romantic psychologism. Romantics see in the human soul a combination of two poles - “angel” and “beast” (V. Hugo), rejecting the uniqueness of classic typification through “characters.”

Thus, in the romantic concept of the world, man is included in the “vertical context” of existence as his most important and an integral part of. The universal depends on personal choice status quo. Hence the greatest responsibility of the individual not only for actions, but also for words, and even for thoughts. The theme of crime and punishment in the romantic version has acquired particular urgency: “Nothing in the world... nothing is forgotten or disappears” (V.F. Odoevsky. “Improviser”), Descendants will pay for the sins of their ancestors, and unredeemed guilt will become for them a generational curse that determines tragic fate heroes of "The Castle of Otranto" by G. Walpole, "Terrible Vengeance" by N.V. Gogol, "The Ghoul" by A.K. Tolstoy...

Romantic historicism is built on an understanding of the history of the Fatherland as the history of a family; the genetic memory of a nation lives in each of its representatives and explains a lot about their character. Thus, history and modernity are closely connected - turning to the past for most romantics becomes one of the ways of national self-determination and self-knowledge. But unlike the classicists, for whom time is nothing more than a convention, the romantics are trying to correlate the psychology historical characters with the customs of the past, to recreate the “local flavor” and “spirit of the times” not as a masquerade, but as a motivation for events and people’s actions. In other words, there must be an “immersion in the era,” which is impossible without a careful study of documents and sources. “Facts, colored by imagination” is the basic principle of romantic historicism.

Time moves, making adjustments to the nature of the eternal struggle between good and evil in human souls. What drives history? Romanticism does not offer an unambiguous answer to this question - perhaps the will of a strong personality, or perhaps Divine providence, manifesting itself either in the combination of “accidents” or in the spontaneous activity of the masses. For example, F. R. Chateaubriand argued: “History is a novel whose author is the people.”

As for historical figures, in romantic works they rarely correspond to their real (documentary) appearance, being idealized depending on the author’s position and their artistic function - to set an example or warn. It is characteristic that in his warning novel “Prince Silver” A.K. Tolstoy shows Ivan the Terrible only as a tyrant, without taking into account the inconsistency and complexity of the king’s personality, and Richard the Lionheart in reality did not at all resemble the exalted image of the king-knight , as shown by W. Scott in the novel "Ivanhoe".

In this sense, the past is more convenient than the present for creating an ideal (and at the same time, seemingly real in the past) model of national existence, opposed to wingless modernity and degraded compatriots. The emotion expressed by Lermontov in the poem "Borodino":

Yes, there were people in our time.

Mighty, dashing tribe:

The heroes are not you, -

very typical for many romantic works. Belinsky, speaking about Lermontov’s “Song about... the merchant Kalashnikov,” emphasized that it “... testifies to the state of mind of the poet, dissatisfied with modern reality and transported from it to the distant past, in order to look for life there, which he does not see in present."

It was in the era of romanticism that the historical novel firmly became one of the popular genres thanks to W. Scott, V. Hugo, M. N. Zagoskin, I. I. Lazhechnikov and many other writers who turned to historical topics. In general the concept genre in its classicist (normative) interpretation, romanticism was subjected to a significant rethinking, which followed the path of blurring the strict genre hierarchy and generic boundaries. This is understandable if we recall the romantic cult of the free, independent creativity, which should not be constrained by any conventions. The ideal of romantic aesthetics was a certain poetic universe, containing not only the features of different genres, but the features of various arts, among which a special place was given to music as the most “subtle”, intangible way of penetrating into the spiritual essence of the universe. For example, the German writer W. G. Wackenroder considers music “... the most wonderful of all... inventions, because it describes human feelings in a superhuman language... for it speaks a language that we do not know in our everyday life, which was learned who knows where and how, and which seems to be the language of only angels." However, in reality, of course, romanticism did not abolish the system literary genres, making adjustments to it (especially for lyrical genres) and revealing the new potential of traditional forms. Let's look at the most typical of them.

First of all, this ballad , which in the era of romanticism acquired new features associated with the development of action: tension and dynamism of the narrative, mysterious, sometimes inexplicable events, fatal predetermination of the fate of the main character... Classic examples of this genre in Russian romanticism are represented by the works of V. A. Zhukovsky - a profound experience national understanding European tradition(R. Southey, S. Coleridge, W. Scott).

Romantic poem is characterized by the so-called peak composition, when the action is built around one event, in which the character of the main character is most clearly manifested and his further – most often tragic – fate is determined. This happens in some “eastern” poems. English romance D. G. Byron ("The Giaour", "Corsair"), and in the "southern" poems of A. S. Pushkin ("Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Gypsies"), and in Lermontov's "Mtsyri", "Song about ... merchant Kalashnikov", "Demone".

Romantic drama strives to overcome classicist conventions (in particular, the unity of place and time); she does not know the speech individualization of characters: her heroes speak “the same language.” It is extremely conflictual, and most often this conflict is associated with an irreconcilable confrontation between the hero (internally close to the author) and society. Due to the inequality of forces, the collision rarely ends in a happy ending; the tragic ending may also be associated with contradictions in the soul of the main actor, his internal struggle. Typical examples of romantic drama include Lermontov’s “Masquerade,” Byron’s “Sardanapalus,” and Hugo’s “Cromwell.”

One of the most popular genres in the era of romanticism was story(most often the romantics themselves used this word to call a story or novella), which existed in several thematic varieties. Plot secular The story is based on the discrepancy between sincerity and hypocrisy, deep feelings and social conventions (E. P. Rostopchina. “The Duel”). Household the story is subordinated to morally descriptive tasks, depicting the life of people who are somehow different from others (M. II. Pogodin. “Black Sickness”). IN philosophical The story's problematics are based on the "damned questions of existence", options for answers to which are offered by the heroes and the author (M. Yu. Lermontov. "Fatalist"). Satirical the story is aimed at debunking the triumphant vulgarity, which in various guises represents the main threat to the spiritual essence of man (V.F. Odoevsky. “The Tale of a Dead Body, Nobody Knows Who Belongs to”). Finally, fantastic the story is built on the penetration into the plot of supernatural characters and events, inexplicable from the point of view of everyday logic, but natural from the point of view of the highest laws of existence, which have a moral nature. Most often, the character’s very real actions: careless words, sinful actions become the cause of miraculous retribution, reminiscent of a person’s responsibility for everything he does (A. S. Pushkin. “The Queen of Spades”, N. V. Gogol. “Portrait”),

Romantics breathed new life into the folklore genre fairy tales, not only by promoting the publication and study of monuments of oral folk art, but also by creating their own original works; one can recall the brothers Grimm, V. Gauff, A. S. Pushkin, P. P. Ershova and others. Moreover, the fairy tale was understood and used quite widely - from the way of recreating the folk (children's) view of the world in stories with so-called folk fiction (for example, "Kikimora" by O. M. Somov) or in works addressed to children (for example, “Town in a Snuffbox” by V.F. Odoevsky), to the general property of truly romantic creativity, the universal “canon of poetry”: “Everything poetic should be fabulous,” Novalis argued.

The originality of the romantic artistic world is also manifested at the linguistic level. Romantic style , of course, heterogeneous, appearing in many individual varieties, has some general features. It is rhetorical and monological: the heroes of the works are the “linguistic doubles” of the author. The word is valuable to him for its emotional and expressive capabilities - in romantic art it always means immeasurably more than in everyday communication. Associativity, saturation with epithets, comparisons and metaphors becomes especially obvious in portrait and landscape descriptions, where main role They play likenings, as if replacing (darkening) the specific appearance of a person or a picture of nature. Here is a typical example of the romantic style of A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky: “Gloomy clumps of fir trees stood around, like dead men, wrapped in snow shrouds, as if stretching out icy hands to us; bushes, covered with tufts of frost, intertwined their shadows on the pale surface of the field; the charred stumps, wafting with gray hairs, took on dreamy images, but all this bore no trace of a human foot or hand... Silence and desert all around!”

According to the scientist L.I. Timofeev, "... the expression of a romantic seems to subjugate the image. This affects the particularly sharp emotionality of the poetic language, the attraction of the romantic to paths and figures, to everything that accepts its subjective beginning in the language" . The author often addresses the reader not just as a friend-interlocutor, but as a person of his own “cultural blood”, an initiate, capable of grasping the unsaid, i.e. inexpressible.

Romantic symbolism based on the endless “expansion” of the literal meaning of some words: the sea and the wind become symbols of freedom; morning dawn - hopes and aspirations; blue flower (Novalis) - an unattainable ideal; night - the mysterious essence of the universe and the human soul, etc.

We have identified some essential typological features romanticism as an artistic method; However, until now the term itself, like many others, is still not an accurate instrument of knowledge, but the fruit of a “social contract”, necessary for the study of literary life, but powerless to reflect its inexhaustible diversity.

The concrete historical existence of the artistic method in time and space is literary direction.

Prerequisites the emergence of romanticism can be attributed to the second half of the 18th century, when in many European literatures, still within the framework of classicism, a turn was made from “imitation of strangers” to “imitation of one’s own”: writers find models among their predecessors-compatriots, turn to domestic folklore not only with ethnographic , but also with artistic purposes. Thus, new tasks gradually take shape in art; after “studying” and achieving a global level of artistry, the creation of original national literature becomes an urgent need (see the works of A. S. Kurilov). In aesthetics, the idea of nationalities as the author’s ability to recreate the appearance and express the spirit of the nation. At the same time, the dignity of the work becomes its connection with space and time, which denies the very basis of the classicist cult of the absolute model: according to Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, “... all exemplary talents bear the imprint of not only the people, but also the century, the place where they lived they, therefore, to imitate them slavishly in other circumstances is impossible and inappropriate.”

Of course, the emergence and development of romanticism was also influenced by many “extraneous” factors, in particular socio-political and philosophical ones. The political system of many European countries is fluctuating; The French bourgeois revolution suggests that the time of absolute monarchy is over. The world is not ruled by a dynasty, but strong personality- such as Napoleon. A political crisis entails changes in public consciousness; the kingdom of reason ended, chaos burst into the world and destroyed what seemed simple and understandable - ideas about civic duty, about an ideal sovereign, about the beautiful and the ugly... The feeling of inevitable change, the expectation that the world will become better, disappointment in one’s hopes - from these moments a special mentality of the era of catastrophes is formed and developed. Philosophy again turns to faith and recognizes that the world is unknowable rationally, that matter is secondary in relation to spiritual reality, that human consciousness is infinite universe. The great idealist philosophers - I. Kant, F. Schelling, G. Fichte, F. Hegel - turn out to be closely connected with romanticism.

It is hardly possible to determine with accuracy in which European country romanticism appeared first, and this is hardly important, since the literary movement has no homeland, arising where the need for it arose, and then when it appeared: “...Not there were and could not be secondary romanticisms - borrowed... Each national literature discovered romanticism when the socio-historical development of peoples led them to this..." (S. E. Shatalov.)

Originality English romanticism determined by the colossal personality of D. G. Byron, who, according to Pushkin,

Cloaked in sad romanticism

And hopeless selfishness...

The English poet’s own “I” became the main character of all his works: irreconcilable conflict with others, disappointment and skepticism, God-seeking and God-fighting, the wealth of inclinations and the insignificance of their embodiment - these are just some of the features of the famous “Byronic” type, which found its counterparts and followers in many literatures. In addition to Byron, English romantic poetry is represented by the “Lake School” (W. Wordsworth, S. Coleridge, R. Southey, P. Shelley, T. Moore and D. Keats). The Scottish writer W. Scott is rightfully considered the “father” of popular historical novels, who resurrected the past in his numerous novels, where fictional characters act alongside historical figures.

German romanticism characterized by philosophical depth and close attention to the supernatural. The most prominent representative of this trend in Germany was E. T. A. Hoffmann, who amazingly combined faith and irony in his work; in his fantastic short stories, the real turns out to be inseparable from the miraculous, and completely earthly heroes are able to transform into their otherworldly counterparts. In poetry

G. Heine's tragic discord between the ideal and reality becomes the reason for the poet's bitter, caustic laughter at the world, at himself and at romanticism. Reflection, including aesthetic reflection, is generally characteristic of German writers: the theoretical treatises of the Schlegel brothers, Novalis, L. Tieck, and the Grimm brothers, along with their works, had a significant influence on the development and “self-awareness” of the entire European romantic movement. In particular, thanks to J. de Stael's book "On Germany" (1810), French and later Russian writers had the opportunity to join the "gloomy German genius."

Appearance French romanticism generally indicated by the work of V. Hugo, in whose novels the theme of the “outcast” is combined with moral issues: public morality and love for man, external beauty and internal beauty, crime and punishment, etc. The “marginal” hero of French romanticism is not always a tramp or a robber, he can simply be a person who, for some reason, finds himself outside of society and therefore is able to give it an objective (i.e., negative) assessment. It is characteristic that the hero himself often receives the same assessment from the author for the “disease of the century” - wingless skepticism and all-destroying doubt. It is about the characters of B. Constant, F. R. Chateaubriand and A. de Vigny that Pushkin speaks in Chapter VII of “Eugene Onegin,” giving a generalized portrait of “modern man”:

With his immoral soul,

Selfish and dry,

Immensely devoted to a dream,

With his embittered mind

Seething in empty action...

American romanticism more heterogeneous: it combined the Gothic poetics of horror and the dark psychologism of E. A. Poe, the simple-minded fantasy and humor of W. Irving, Indian exoticism and the poetry of adventure of D. F. Cooper. Perhaps, precisely from the era of romanticism American literature is included in the global context and becomes an original phenomenon, not reducible only to European “roots”.

Story Russian romanticism began in the second half of the 18th century. Classicism, excluding the national as a source of inspiration and subject of depiction, contrasted high examples of artistry with “rough” common people, which could not but lead to “monotony, limitation, conventionality” (A. S. Pushkin) of literature. Therefore, gradually the imitation of ancient and European writers gave way to the desire to focus on the best examples of national creativity, including folk art.

The formation and development of Russian romanticism is closely connected with the most important historical event XIX century - victory in the Patriotic War of 1812. The rise of national self-awareness, faith in the great destiny of Russia and its people stimulate interest in what previously remained outside the boundaries of fine literature. Folklore and Russian legends are beginning to be perceived as a source of originality, independence of literature, which has not yet completely freed itself from the student imitation of classicism, but has already taken the first step in this direction: if you learn, then from your ancestors. Here is how O. M. Somov formulates this task: “...The Russian people, glorious in military and civil virtues, formidable in strength and magnanimous in victories, inhabiting a kingdom that is the most extensive in the world, rich in nature and memories, must have my folk poetry, inimitable and independent of alien traditions".

From this point of view, the main merit V. A. Zhukovsky consists not in the “discovery of America of romanticism” and not in introducing Russian readers to the best Western European examples, but in a deeply national understanding of world experience, in combining it with the Orthodox worldview, which asserts:

Our best friend in this life is

Faith in Providence, Good

The creator's law...

("Svetlana")

Romanticism of the Decembrists K. F. Ryleeva, A. A. Bestuzhev, V. K. Kuchelbecker in the science of literature they are often called “civil”, since in their aesthetics and creativity the pathos of serving the Fatherland is fundamental. Appeals to the historical past are intended, according to the authors, to “arouse the valor of fellow citizens with the exploits of their ancestors” (words by A. Bestuzhev about K. Ryleev), i.e. contribute to a real change in reality, which is far from ideal. It was in the poetics of the Decembrists that such general features of Russian romanticism as anti-individualism, rationalism and citizenship clearly manifested themselves - features that indicate that in Russia romanticism is more likely a heir to the ideas of the Enlightenment than their destroyer.

After the tragedy of December 14, 1825, the romantic movement entered a new era - civil optimistic pathos was replaced by a philosophical orientation, self-deepening, and attempts to understand the general laws governing the world and man. Russians romantic lovers(D.V. Venevitinov, I.V. Kireevsky, A.S. Khomyakov, S.V. Shevyrev, V.F. Odoevsky) turn to German idealistic philosophy and strive to “graft” it onto their native soil. Second half of the 20s - 30s. - a time of fascination with the miraculous and supernatural. The genre of fantasy story was addressed A. A. Pogorelsky, O. M. Somov, V. F. Odoevsky, O. I. Senkovsky, A. F. Veltman.

IN general direction from romanticism to realism The work of the great classics of the 19th century is developing. – A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, Moreover, we should not talk about overcoming the romantic principle in their works, but about transforming and enriching it with a realistic method of understanding life in art. It is from the examples of Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol that one can see that romanticism and realism as the most important and deeply national phenomena in Russian culture of the 19th century. do not oppose each other, they are not mutually exclusive, but complementary, and only in their combination is the unique appearance of our classical literature born. We can find a spiritualized romantic view of the world, the correlation of reality with the highest ideal, the cult of love as an element and the cult of poetry as insight in the works of remarkable Russian poets F. I. Tyutchev, A. A. Fet, A. K. Tolstoy. Intense attention to the mysterious sphere of existence, the irrational and the fantastic is characteristic of Turgenev’s late creativity, developing the traditions of romanticism.

In Russian literature at the turn of the century and at the beginning of the 20th century. Romantic tendencies are associated with the tragic worldview of a person in the “transitional era” and with his dream of transforming the world. The concept of the symbol, developed by the romantics, was developed and artistically embodied in the works of Russian symbolists (D. Merezhkovsky, A. Blok, A. Bely); love for the exoticism of distant travels was reflected in the so-called neo-romanticism (N. Gumilyov); maximalism of artistic aspirations, contrasting worldview, the desire to overcome the imperfection of the world and man are integral components of the early romantic work of M. Gorky.

In science, the question of chronological boundaries, putting an end to the existence of romanticism as an artistic movement. Traditionally called the 40s. XIX century, however, more and more often in modern studies it is proposed to push these boundaries - sometimes significantly, up to late XIX or even before the beginning of the 20th century. One thing is indisputable: if romanticism as a movement left the stage, giving way to realism, then romanticism as an artistic method, i.e. as a way of understanding the world through art, remains viable to this day.

Thus, romanticism in the broad sense of the word is not a historically limited phenomenon left in the past: it is eternal and still represents something more than a literary phenomenon. “Where there is a person, there is romanticism... Its sphere... is the entire inner, soulful life of a person, that mysterious soil of the soul and heart, from where all vague aspirations for the best and sublime rise, striving to find satisfaction in the ideals created by fantasy.” . "Genuine romanticism is not only literary movement. He sought to become and became a new form of feeling, a new way of experiencing life... Romanticism is nothing more than a way to arrange, organize a person, a bearer of culture, into a new connection with the elements... Romanticism is a spirit that strives under every frozen form and , in the end, explodes it..." These statements by V. G. Belinsky and A. A. Blok, pushing the boundaries of the usual concept, show its inexhaustibility and explain its immortality: as long as a person remains a person, romanticism will exist as in art , and in everyday life.

Representatives of romanticism

Germany. Novalis (lyrical cycle “Hymns for the Night”, “Spiritual Songs”, novel “Heinrich von Ofterdingen”),

Shamisso (lyrical cycle "Love and life of a woman", story-fairy tale " Amazing story Peter Schlemihl"),

E. T. A. Hoffman (novels "Elixirs of Satan", "Worldly Views of the Cat Murr...", fairy tales "Little Tsakhes...", "Lord of the Fleas", "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", short story "Don Juan" ),

I. F. Schiller (tragedies “Don Carlos”, “Mary Stuart”, “Maid of Orleans”, drama “William Tell”, ballads “Ivikov Cranes”, “Diver” (translated by Zhukovsky “The Cup”), “Knight of Togenburg” ", "The Glove", "Polycrates' Ring"; "Song of the Bell", dramatic trilogy "Wallenstein"),

G. von Kleist (story "Michasl-Kohlhaas", comedy "Broken Jug", drama "Prince Friedrich of Hamburg", tragedies "The Schroffenstein Family", "Pentesileia"),

brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm ("Children's and family tales", "German legends"),

L. Arnim (collection of folk songs "The Boy's Magic Horn"),

L. Tick (fairy-tale comedies "Puss in Boots", " Blue Beard", collection "Folk Tales", short stories "Elves", "Life pours over the edge"),

G. Heine ("Book of Songs", collection of poems "Romansero", poems "Atta Troll", "Germany. A Winter's Tale", poem "Silesian Weavers"),

K. A. Vulpius (novel "Rinaldo Rinaldini").

England. D. G. Byron (poems “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, “The Giaour”, “Lara”, “Corsair”, “Manfred”, “Cain”, “The Bronze Age”, “The Prisoner of Chillon”, cycle of poems “Jewish Melodies” , novel in verse "Don Juan"),

P. B. Shelley (poems “Queen Mab”, “The Rise of Islam”, “Prometheus Unbound”, historical tragedy “Cenci”, poetry),

W. Scott (poems "The Song of the Last Minstrel", "Maid of the Lake", "Marmion", "Rokeby", historical novels "Waverley", "Puritans", "Rob Roy", "Ivanhoe", "Quentin Durward", ballad " Midsummer Evening" (in Zhukovsky Lane

"Castle Smalgolm")), Ch. Matyorin (novel "Melmoth the Wanderer"),

W. Wordsworth ("Lyrical Ballads" - together with Coleridge, poem "Prelude"),

S. Coleridge ("Lyrical Ballads" - together with Wordsworth, poems "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Christabel"),

France. F. R. Chateaubriand (stories "Atala", "Rene"),

A. Lamartine (collections of lyrical poems “Poetic Meditations”, “New Poetic Meditations”, poem “Jocelin”),

George Sand (novels “Indiana”, “Horace”, “Consuelo”, etc.),

B. Hugo (dramas "Cromwell", "Ernani", "Marion Delorme", "Ruy Blas"; novels "Notre Dame", "Les Miserables", "Toilers of the Sea", "93rd Year", "The Man Who laughs"; collections of poems "Oriental motives", "Legend of centuries"),

J. de Stael (novels "Dolphine", "Corinna, or Italy"), B. Constant (novel "Adolphe"),

A. de Musset (cycle of poems "Nights", novel "Confession of a Son of the Century"), A. de Vigny (poems "Eloa", "Moses", "Flood", "Death of the Wolf", drama "Chatterton"),

C. Nodier (novel "Jean Sbogar", short stories).

Italy. D. Leopardi (collection "Songs", poem "Paralipomena Wars of Mice and Frogs"),

Poland. A. Mickiewicz (poems "Grazyna", "Dziady" ("Wake"), "Konrad Walleprod", "Pai Tadeusz"),

Y. Slovatsky (drama "Kordian", poems "Angelli", "Benyovsky"),

Russian romanticism. In Russia, the heyday of romanticism occurred in the first third of the 19th century, which was characterized by increased intensity of life, stormy events, primarily the Patriotic War of 1812 and the revolutionary movement of the Decembrists, which awakened the Russian national identity, patriotic inspiration.

Representatives of romanticism in Russia. Currents:

• 1. Subjective-lyrical romanticism, or ethical-psychological (includes problems of good and evil, crime and punishment, the meaning of life, friendship and love, moral duty, conscience, retribution, happiness): V. A. Zhukovsky (ballads "Lyudmila", "Svetlana", " Twelve Sleeping Maidens", "The Forest King", "Aeolian Harp"; elegies, songs, romances, messages; poems "Abbadona", "Ondine", "Pal and Damayanti"); K. II. Batyushkov (epistles, elegies, poems).
• 2. Social and civil romanticism:

K. F. Ryleev (lyrical poems, “Dumas”: “Dmitry Donskoy”, “Bogdan Khmelnitsky”, “The Death of Ermak”, “Ivan Susanin”; poems “Voinarovsky”, “Nalivaiko”); A. A. Bestuzhev (pseudonym – Marlinsky) (poems, stories “Frigate “Nadezhda””, “Sailor Nikitin”, “Ammalat-Bek”, “Terrible Fortune-Telling”, “Andrei Pereyaslavsky”).

V. F. Raevsky ( civil lyrics).

A. I. Odoevsky (elegy, historical poem "Vasilko", response to Pushkin's "Message to Siberia").

D. V. Davydov (civil lyrics).

V. K. Kuchelbecker (civil lyrics, drama "Izhora"),

3. "Byronic" romanticism:

A. S. Pushkin (poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila", civil lyrics, cycle of southern poems: "Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Robber Brothers", "Bakhchisarai Fountain", "Gypsies").

M. Yu. Lermontov (civil lyrics, poems “Izmail-Bey”, “Hadji Abrek”, “Fugitive”, “Demon”, “Mtsyri”, drama “Spaniards”, historical novel “Vadim”),

I. I. Kozlov (poem "Chernets").

4. Philosophical romanticism:

D. V. Venevitinov (civil and philosophical lyrics).

V. F. Odoevsky (collection of short stories and philosophical conversations "Russian Nights", romantic stories "Beethoven's Last Quartet", "Sebastian Bach"; fantastic stories "Igosha", "La Sylphide", "Salamander").

F. N. Glinka (songs, poems).

V. G. Benediktov (philosophical lyrics).

F. I. Tyutchev (philosophical lyrics).

E. A. Baratynsky (civil and philosophical lyrics).

5. Folk historical romanticism:

M. N. Zagoskin (historical novels “Yuri Miloslavsky, or the Russians in 1612”, “Roslavlev, or the Russians in 1812”, “Askold’s Grave”).

I. I. Lazhechnikov (historical novels “The Ice House”, “The Last Novik”, “Basurman”).

Features of Russian romanticism. The subjective romantic image contained objective content, expressed in a reflection of the social sentiments of Russian people in the first third of the 19th century. - disappointment, anticipation of change, rejection of both Western European bourgeoisism and Russian despotic autocratic, serf-based foundations.

The desire for nationality. It seemed to Russian romantics that by comprehending the spirit of the people, they became familiar with the ideal beginnings of life. At the same time, the understanding of the “people's soul” and the content of the very principle of nationality among representatives of various movements in Russian romanticism was different. Thus, for Zhukovsky, nationality meant a humane attitude towards the peasantry and poor people in general; he found it in the poetry of folk rituals, lyrical songs, folk signs, superstitions, and legends. In the works of the romantic Decembrists, the folk character is not just positive, but heroic, nationally distinctive, which is rooted in the historical traditions of the people. They revealed such a character in historical, bandit songs, epics, and heroic tales.

Romanticism in Russian literature of the 19th century is a wide-ranging and diverse phenomenon. Previously, there were two types of it: conservative and revolutionary. However, this division is too subjective. It would be more correct to divide it according to those figures who influenced this movement in Europe in general and Russian romanticism in literature in particular: Hoffmann’s and Byron’s.

However, if you look at this movement from the point of view of origin, one cannot help but mention the existence of the Derzhavin school at the stage of its formation. Although she was a contemporary of the Karamzinists, she was ahead of them in terms of innovations. It was Derzhavin who updated the set. He opened up many potential opportunities for romanticism in Russian literature to receive further development.

Previous movements (classicism, naturalism, realism and others) sought to accurately reproduce reality. Romanticism, in contrast to them, purposefully remakes it. To implement this principle, writers were forced to invent unusual characters, place them in unusual situations, develop the plot in exotic or imaginary lands, and use elements of fantasy.

Romanticism in Russian literature professed its internal independence, freedom of expression, and encouraged the slightest expression of individuality. Derzhavin’s poetry perfectly corresponded to these principles: the speech patterns he used, lyricism combined with emotional excitement. Therefore, it is not surprising that they tried to position this writer as a pre-romanticist. However, if judged strictly, Derzhavin’s style did not fully correspond to the norms of any of the then existing trends. The fact is that he so whimsically and skillfully connected various styles and genres, that in his works, next to the features of romanticism, one can easily detect features of the baroque. Using Derzhavin, he was a century ahead of the aspirations of representatives of the Silver Age. Moreover, he strove for unity of styles not only in literature. He believed that poetry, in its ability to imitate, should be like painting expressed in words.

Gradually, romanticism in Russian literature was lost and increasingly turned to exotic images and mysticism, thereby imitating Byron, who had just become very popular in the West.

At the same time, there was a group of writers “Arzamas”, into which the Karamzinists united. And the romantics, moving away from sentimentalism, still remained Karamzin’s successors; a tendency characteristic only of them was observed: they passionately fought for the purification of the literary language. Later, information was imprinted in people’s minds that the main role in the creation modern language played by A. S. Pushkin, and not his predecessor. Even those innovations that were known to be Kramzin’s were attributed to Pushkin. This happened for the reason that the language of the latter was embodied in stronger

In their concepts of the purity of the literary language, the Karamzinists relied on the old French grammar of Port-Royal, which was imported into and for some time became extremely fashionable. Several textbooks were even published on its basis. Subsequently, philologists of different times turned to it more than once. This is due to the universal nature of Port-Royal grammar.

In contrast to the Karamzinists, there was a “squad of Slavs”, which had completely different ideas about the language and was distinguished by a more difficult, rough syllable. If we do not take into account the details that are understandable and known to narrow specialists, then the struggle between these societies can be called a struggle between two types of romantics.

After the death of Derzhavin and his followers, romanticism in Russian literature finally acquired the characteristics preached by the “Arzamas” line.

The problem of romanticism is one of the most complex in the science of literature. The difficulties in solving this problem are predetermined to some extent by the lack of clarity of terminology. Romanticism refers to an artistic method, a literary movement, and a special type of consciousness and behavior. However, despite the debatability of a number of theoretical, historical and literary positions, most scientists agree that romanticism was a necessary link in the artistic development of mankind, and that without it the achievements of realism would have been impossible.

Russian romanticism at its inception it was, of course, associated with the pan-European literary movement. At the same time, it was internally determined by the objective process of development of Russian culture; in it, those trends that were laid down in Russian literature of the previous period found development. Russian romanticism was generated by the impending socio-historical turning point in the development of Russia; it reflected the transition and instability of the existing socio-political structure. The gap between ideal and reality caused a negative attitude of progressive people in Russia (and above all the Decembrists) towards the cruel, unjust and immoral life of the ruling classes. Until recently, the most daring hopes for the possibility of creating public relations based on the principles of reason and justice.

It soon became clear that these hopes were not justified. Deep disappointment in Enlightenment ideals, a decisive rejection of bourgeois reality, and at the same time a lack of understanding of the essence of the antagonistic contradictions that exist in life, led to feelings of hopelessness, pessimism, and disbelief in reason.

Romantics claimed that the highest value is the human personality, in whose soul there is a beautiful and mysterious world; only here can one find inexhaustible sources of true beauty and high feelings. Behind all this one can see (even if not always clearly) a new concept of personality, which cannot and should no longer subordinate itself to the power of class-feudal morality. In your artistic work Romantics in most cases did not strive for reflection reality(which seemed to them low, anti-aesthetic), not to understand the objective logic of the development of life (they were not at all sure that such logic existed). At the heart of them artistic system It turned out to be not an object, but a subject: the personal, subjective principle acquires decisive importance among the romantics.

Romanticism is built on the affirmation of an inevitable conflict, the complete incompatibility of everything truly spiritual and human with the existing way of life (be it a feudal or bourgeois way). If life is based only on material calculation, then, naturally, everything lofty, moral, and humane is alien to it. Consequently, the ideal is somewhere beyond this life, beyond feudal or bourgeois relations. Reality seemed to fall apart into two worlds: the vulgar, ordinary here and the wonderful, romantic there. Hence the appeal to unusual, exceptional, conventional, sometimes even fantastic images and pictures, the desire for everything exotic - everything that opposes everyday, everyday reality, everyday prose.

The romantic concept of human character is built on the same principle. The hero is opposed to the environment, rises above it. Russian romanticism was not homogeneous. It is usually noted that there are two main currents in it. The terms psychological and civil romanticism, adopted in modern science, highlight the ideological and artistic specificity of each movement. 15 one case of romance, feeling growing instability public life, which did not satisfy their ideal ideas, they went into the world of dreams, into the world of feelings, experiences, psychology. Recognition of the intrinsic value of the human personality, close interest in the inner life of a person, the desire to reveal the wealth of his spiritual experiences - these were strengths psychological romanticism, the most prominent representative of which was V.

A. Zhukovsky. He and his supporters put forward the idea of ​​internal freedom of the individual, its independence from the social environment, from the world in general, where a person cannot be happy. Having failed to achieve freedom in the socio-political sense, the romantics insisted all the more stubbornly on establishing the spiritual freedom of man.

With this current The appearance in the 30s of the 19th century is genetically related. a special stage in the history of Russian romanticism, which is most often called philosophical.

Instead of the high genres cultivated in classicism (ode), other genre forms arise. In area lyric poetry Among the romantics, the leading genre is the elegy, conveying the mood of sadness, grief, disappointment, and melancholy. Pushkin, having made Lensky (“Eugene Onegin”) a romantic poet, in a subtle parody listed the main motives of elegiac lyrics:

• He sang separation and sadness,
• And something, and a foggy distance,
• And romantic roses;
• He sang those distant countries

Representatives of another movement in Russian romanticism called for a direct fight against modern society, glorifying the civil valor of the fighters.

Creating poems with a high social and patriotic sound, they (and these were primarily Decembrist poets) also used certain traditions of classicism, especially those genre and stylistic forms that gave their poems the character of elevated oratorical speech. They saw literature primarily as a means of propaganda and struggle. Whatever the forms in which the polemics between the two main movements of Russian romanticism took place, there were still common features romantic art, which united them: the opposition of a lofty ideal hero to the world of evil and lack of spirituality, a protest against the foundations of autocratic-serfdom that fetter people.

It is especially necessary to note the persistent desire of the romantics to create an original national culture. Directly related to this is their interest in national history, oral folk poetry, the use of many folk genres, etc.

d. Russian romantics They were also united by the idea of ​​the need for a direct connection between the author’s life and his poetry. In life itself, the poet must behave poetically, in accordance with those high ideals which are proclaimed in his poems. K. N. Batyushkov expressed this requirement this way: “Live as you write, and write as you live” (“Something about the poet and poetry”, 1815). This confirmed a direct connection literary creativity with the life of the poet, his very personality, which gave the poems a special power of emotional and aesthetic impact.

Subsequently, Pushkin managed to achieve more high level to combine the best traditions and artistic achievements of both psychological and civil romanticism. That is why Pushkin’s work is the pinnacle of Russian romanticism of the 20s of the 19th century. Pushkin, and then Lermontov and Gogol could not ignore the achievements of romanticism, its experience and discoveries.