Authors of the Romantic era. A message about romanticism

ROMANCE IN LITERATURE

Romanticism first arose in Germany, among the writers and philosophers of the Jena school (W. G. Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck, Novalis, brothers F. and A. Schlegel). The philosophy of romanticism was systematized in the works of F. Schlegel and F. Schelling. In further development German romanticism distinguished by an interest in fairy-tale and mythological motifs, which was especially clearly expressed in the works of the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, and Hoffmann. Heine, starting his work within the framework of romanticism, later subjected it to critical revision.

In England it is largely due to German influence. In England, its first representatives are the poets of the Lake School, Wordsworth and Coleridge. They established the theoretical foundations of their direction, becoming familiar with the philosophy of Schelling and the views of the first German romantics during a trip to Germany. English romanticism is characterized by an interest in social problems: they contrast modern bourgeois society with old, pre-bourgeois relationships, glorification of nature, simple, natural feelings.

A prominent representative of English romanticism is Byron, who, according to Pushkin, “clothed himself in dull romanticism and hopeless egoism.” His work is imbued with the pathos of struggle and protest against the modern world, glorifying freedom and individualism.

The works of Shelley, John Keats, and William Blake also belong to English romanticism.

Romanticism became widespread in other European countries, for example, in France (Chateaubriand, J. Stael, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Prosper Merimee, George Sand), Italy (N. U. Foscolo, A. Manzoni, Leopardi) , Poland (Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiński, Cyprian Norwid) and in the USA (Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper, W. C. Bryant, Edgar Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Longfellow, Herman Melville).

ROMANTICISM IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE

It is usually believed that in Russia romanticism appears in the poetry of V. A. Zhukovsky (although some Russian poetic works of the 1790-1800s are often attributed to the pre-romantic movement that developed from sentimentalism). In Russian romanticism, freedom from classical conventions appears, a ballad and romantic drama are created. A new idea is being established about the essence and meaning of poetry, which is recognized as an independent sphere of life, an expression of the highest, ideal aspirations of man; the old view, according to which poetry seemed to be empty fun, something completely serviceable, turns out to be no longer possible.

The early poetry of A. S. Pushkin also developed within the framework of romanticism. The poetry of M. Yu. Lermontov, the “Russian Byron,” can be considered the pinnacle of Russian romanticism. The philosophical lyrics of F. I. Tyutchev are both the completion and overcoming of romanticism in Russia.

Romanticism (French romantisme) is a phenomenon of European culture in the 18th-19th centuries, which is a reaction to the Enlightenment and the scientific and technological progress stimulated by it; ideological and artistic direction in European and American culture late XVIII century - first half of the 19th century century. It is characterized by an affirmation of the intrinsic value of the spiritual and creative life of the individual, the depiction of strong (often rebellious) passions and characters, spiritualized and healing nature. Spread to various areas human activity. In the 18th century, everything strange, fantastic, picturesque and existing in books and not in reality was called romantic. At the beginning of the 19th century, romanticism became the designation of a new direction, opposite to classicism and the Enlightenment.

Romanticism in literature

Romanticism first arose in Germany, among writers and philosophers of the Jena school (W. G. Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck, Novalis, brothers F. and A. Schlegel). The philosophy of romanticism was systematized in the works of F. Schlegel and F. Schelling. In its further development, German romanticism was distinguished by an interest in fairy-tale and mythological motifs, which was especially clearly expressed in the works of the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, and Hoffmann. Heine, starting his work within the framework of romanticism, later subjected it to critical revision.

Theodore Gericault Raft "Medusa" (1817), Louvre

In England it is largely due to German influence. In England, its first representatives are the poets of the “Lake School”, Wordsworth and Coleridge. They established the theoretical foundations of their direction, becoming familiar with the philosophy of Schelling and the views of the first German romantics during a trip to Germany. English romanticism is characterized by an interest in social problems: they contrast modern bourgeois society with old, pre-bourgeois relationships, glorification of nature, simple, natural feelings.

The works of Shelley, John Keats, and William Blake also belong to English romanticism.

Stendhal also considered himself a French romantic, but he meant something different by romanticism than most of his contemporaries. In the epigraph of the novel “Red and Black” he took the words “The truth, the bitter truth,” emphasizing his vocation for a realistic study of human characters and actions. The writer was partial to romantic, extraordinary natures, for whom he recognized the right to “go on the hunt for happiness.” He sincerely believed that it depends only on the structure of society whether a person will be able to realize his eternal, given by nature itself, craving for well-being.

Romanticism in Russian literature

The emergence of romanticism in Russia

In the 19th century, Russia was somewhat culturally isolated. Romanticism arose seven years later than in Europe. We can talk about his some imitation. In Russian culture there was no opposition between man and the world and God. Zhukovsky appears, who remakes German ballads in the Russian way: “Svetlana” and “Lyudmila”. Byron's version of romanticism was lived and felt in his work first by Pushkin, then by Lermontov.

Russian romanticism, starting with Zhukovsky, blossomed in the works of many other writers: K. Batyushkov, A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, E. Baratynsky, F. Tyutchev, V. Odoevsky, V. Garshin, A. Kuprin, A. Blok, A. Green, K. Paustovsky and many others.

ADDITIONALLY.

Romanticism (from the French Romantisme) is an ideological and artistic movement that emerged at the end of the 18th century in European and American culture and continued until the 40s of the 19th century. Reflecting disappointment in the results of the Great french revolution, in the ideology of the Enlightenment and bourgeois progress, romanticism contrasted utilitarianism and the leveling of the individual with the aspiration for boundless freedom and the “infinite,” the thirst for perfection and renewal, the pathos of the individual and civil independence.

The painful disintegration of the ideal and social reality is the basis of the romantic worldview and art. The affirmation of the intrinsic value of the spiritual and creative life of the individual, the depiction of strong passions, spiritualized and healing nature, is adjacent to the motifs of “world sorrow”, “world evil”, and the “night” side of the soul. Interest in the national past (often its idealization), the traditions of folklore and culture of one’s own and other peoples, the desire to publish a universal picture of the world (primarily history and literature) found expression in the ideology and practice of Romanticism.

Romanticism is observed in literature, fine arts, architecture, behavior, clothing and human psychology.

REASONS FOR THE ARISE OF ROMANTICISM.

The immediate cause of the emergence of romanticism was the Great French bourgeois revolution. How did this become possible?

Before the revolution, the world was orderly, there was a clear hierarchy in it, each person took his place. The revolution overturned the “pyramid” of society; a new one had not yet been created, so the individual had a feeling of loneliness. Life is a flow, life is a game in which some are lucky and others are not. In literature, images of players appear - people who play with fate. One can recall such works of European writers as “The Gambler” by Hoffmann, “Red and Black” by Stendhal (and red and black are the colors of roulette!), and in Russian literature it is “ Queen of Spades"Pushkin, "Players" by Gogol, "Masquerade" by Lermontov.

THE BASIC CONFLICT OF ROMANTICISM

The main one is the conflict between man and the world. A psychology of rebellious personality emerges, which was most deeply reflected by Lord Byron in his work “Childe Harold’s Travels.” The popularity of this work was so great that a whole phenomenon arose - “Byronism”, and entire generations of young people tried to imitate it (for example, Pechorin in Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”).

Romantic heroes are united by a sense of their own exclusivity. “I” is recognized as the highest value, hence the egocentrism of the romantic hero. But by focusing on oneself, a person comes into conflict with reality.

REALITY is a strange, fantastic, extraordinary world, as in Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Nutcracker,” or ugly, as in his fairy tale “Little Tsakhes.” In these tales, strange events occur, objects come to life and enter into lengthy conversations, the main theme of which is the deep gap between ideals and reality. And this gap becomes the main THEME of the lyrics of romanticism.

THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM

For the writers of the early 19th century, whose work took shape after the Great French Revolution, life presented different tasks than for their predecessors. They were to discover and artistically shape a new continent for the first time.

The thinking and feeling man of the new century had behind him the long and instructive experience of previous generations, he was endowed with a deep and complex inner world, images of the heroes of the French Revolution hovered before his eyes, Napoleonic wars, national liberation movements, images of the poetry of Goethe and Byron. In Russia, the Patriotic War of 1812 played the role of a most important historical milestone in the spiritual and moral development of society, profoundly changing the cultural and historical appearance of Russian society. According to its significance for national culture it can be compared with the period of the 18th century revolution in the West.

And in this era of revolutionary storms, military upheavals and national liberation movements, the question arises whether, on the basis of a new historical reality will a new literature emerge, not inferior in its artistic perfection to the greatest phenomena of the literature of the ancient world and the Renaissance? And can it be based on further development to be a “modern man”, a man of the people? But a man from the people who participated in the French Revolution or on whose shoulders fell the burden of the struggle against Napoleon could not be depicted in literature using the means of novelists and poets of the previous century - he required other methods for his poetic embodiment.

PUSHKIN - PROLAGER OF ROMANTICISM

Only Pushkin was the first in Russian literature of the 19th century to be able to find adequate means in both poetry and prose to embody the versatile spiritual world, the historical appearance and behavior of that new, deeply thinking and feeling hero of Russian life, who took a central place in it after 1812 and especially after the Decembrist uprising.

In his Lyceum poems, Pushkin could not yet, and did not dare, make him the hero of his lyrics. real person new generation with all its inherent internal psychological complexity. Pushkin’s poem seemed to represent the resultant of two forces: the poet’s personal experience and the conventional, “ready-made,” traditional poetic formula-scheme, according to the internal laws of which this experience was formed and developed.

However, gradually the poet frees himself from the power of the canons and in his poems we no longer see a young “philosopher”-epicurean, an inhabitant of a conventional “town,” but a man of the new century, with his rich and intense intellectual and emotional inner life.

A similar process occurs in Pushkin’s works in any genre, where conventional images of characters, already sanctified by tradition, give way to figures of living people with their complex, varied actions and psychological motives. At first it is the somewhat distracted Prisoner or Aleko. But soon they are replaced by the very real Onegin, Lensky, young Dubrovsky, German, Charsky. And, finally, the most complete expression of the new type of personality will be the lyrical “I” of Pushkin, the poet himself, whose spiritual world represents the deepest, richest and most complex expression of burning moral and intellectual questions time.

One of the conditions for the historical revolution that Pushkin made in the development of Russian poetry, drama and narrative prose was his fundamental break with the educational-rationalistic, ahistorical idea of the “nature” of man, the laws of human thinking and feeling.

A complex and contradictory soul " young man” of the beginning of the 19th century in “Caucasian Prisoner”, “Gypsies”, “Eugene Onegin” became for Pushkin an object of artistic and psychological observation and study in its special, specific and unique historical quality. Each time placing his hero in certain conditions, depicting him in different circumstances, in new relationships with people, exploring his psychology from different sides and using for this each time a new system of artistic “mirrors”, Pushkin in his lyrics, southern poems and Onegin “seeks from various angles to approach an understanding of his soul, and through it, further to an understanding of the patterns of contemporary socio-historical life reflected in this soul.

The historical understanding of man and human psychology began to emerge with Pushkin in the late 1810s and early 1820s. We find its first clear expression in the historical elegies of this time (“The daylight has gone out...” (1820), “To Ovid” (1821), etc.) and in the poem “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” the main character of which was conceived by Pushkin, by the poet’s own admission, as a bearer of feelings and moods characteristic of the youth of the 19th century with its “indifference to life” and “premature old age of the soul” (from a letter to V.P. Gorchakov, October-November 1822)

32. The main themes and motives of A.S. Pushkin’s philosophical lyrics of the 1830s (“Elegy”, “Demons”, “Autumn”, “When outside the city...”, Kamennoostrovsky cycle, etc.). Genre-style searches.

Reflections on life, its meaning, its purpose, death and immortality become the leading philosophical motives of Pushkin’s lyrics at the stage of completion of the “celebration of life”. Among the poems of this period, “Do I wander along the noisy streets…” is especially notable. The motif of death and its inevitability persistently sounds in it. The problem of death is solved by the poet not only as an inevitability, but also as a natural completion of earthly existence:

I say: the years will fly by,

And how many times we are not visible here,

We will all descend under the eternal vaults -

And someone else's hour is near.

The poems amaze us with the amazing generosity of Pushkin’s heart, capable of welcoming life even when there is no longer room for him in it.

And let at the tomb entrance

The young one will play with life,

And indifferent nature

Shine with eternal beauty, -

The poet writes, completing the poem.

In “Road Complaints” A.S. Pushkin writes about the instability personal life, about what he had been missing since childhood. Moreover, the poet perceives his own fate in the all-Russian context: Russian impassability has both a direct and figurative meaning in the poem, the meaning of this word includes the historical wandering of the country in search of the right way development.

Off-road problem. But it’s different. Spiritual properties appear in A.S. Pushkin’s poem “Demons”. It tells about the loss of man in the whirlwinds of historical events. The motif of spiritual impassability was suffered by the poet, who thinks a lot about the events of 1825, about his own miraculous deliverance from the fate that befell the participants in the popular uprising of 1825, about the actual miraculous deliverance from the fate that befell the participants in the uprising on Senate Square. In Pushkin's poems, the problem of chosenness arises, the understanding of the high mission entrusted by God to him as a poet. It is this problem that becomes the leading one in the poem “Arion”.

The so-called Kamennoostrovsky cycle continues the philosophical lyricism of the thirties, the core of which consists of the poems “Desert Fathers and Immaculate Wives...”, “Imitation of Italian”, “Worldly Power”, “From Pindemonti”. This cycle brings together thoughts on the problem of poetic knowledge of the world and man. From the pen of A.S. Pushkin comes a poem adapted from the Lenten prayer of Efim the Sirin. Reflections on religion and its great strengthening moral power become the leading motive of this poem.

Pushkin the philosopher experienced his real heyday in the Boldin autumn of 1833. Among the major works about the role of fate in human life, the role of personality in history, the poetic masterpiece “Autumn” attracts attention. The motive of man’s connection with the cycle of natural life and the motive of creativity are leading in this poem. Russian nature, life merged with it, obeying its laws, seems to the author of the poem to be the greatest value; without it there is no inspiration, and therefore no creativity. “And every autumn I bloom again...” the poet writes about himself.

Peering into the artistic fabric of the poem “... Again I visited...”, the reader easily discovers a whole complex of themes and motifs of Pushkin’s lyrics, expressing ideas about man and nature, about time, about memory and fate. It is against their background that the main philosophical problem This poem is the problem of generational change. Nature awakens in man the memory of the past, although it itself has no memory. It is updated, repeating itself in each update. Therefore, the sound of the new pines of the “young tribe”, which the descendants will someday hear, will be the same as now, and it will touch those strings in their souls that will make them remember the deceased ancestor, who also lived in this repeating world. This is what allows the author of the poem “...Once again I visited...” to exclaim: “Hello, Young, unfamiliar tribe!”

The great poet’s path through the “cruel century” was long and thorny. He led to immortality. The motive of poetic immortality is the leading one in the poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...”, which became a kind of testament of A.S. Pushkin.

Thus, philosophical motives were inherent in Pushkin’s lyrics throughout his entire work. They arose in connection with the poet’s appeal to the problems of death and immortality, faith and unbelief, change of generations, creativity, and the meaning of existence. All of A.S. Pushkin’s philosophical lyrics can be periodized, which will correspond to the life stages of the great poet, at each of which she thought about some very specific problems. However, at any stage of his work, A.S. Pushkin spoke in his poems only about things that are generally significant for humanity. This is probably why “the folk trail” to this Russian poet will not become overgrown.

ADDITIONALLY.

Analysis of the poem “When outside the city, I wander thoughtfully”

“... When outside the city, I wander thoughtfully...” So Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin

begins the poem of the same name.

Reading this poem, his attitude towards all feasts becomes clear.

and the luxury of city and metropolitan life.

Conventionally, this poem can be divided into two parts: the first is about the capital’s cemetery,

the other is about rural things. In the transition from one to another, the

the poet's mood, but highlighting the role of the first line in the poem, I think it would be

It is a mistake to take the first line of the first part as defining the entire mood of the verse, because

lines: “But how I love it, sometimes in the autumn, in the evening silence, to visit the village

family cemetery…” They radically change the direction of the poet’s thoughts.

In this poem, the conflict is expressed in the form of a contrast between the urban

cemeteries, where: “Grids, columns, elegant tombs. Under which all the dead rot

capitals In a swamp, somehow cramped in a row..." and rural, closer to the poet’s heart,

cemeteries: “Where the dead slumber in solemn peace there are undecorated graves

space..." But, again, when comparing these two parts of the poem one cannot forget about

the last lines, which, it seems to me, reflect the author’s entire attitude towards these two

completely different places:

1. “That evil despondency comes over me, At least I could spit and run...”

2. “The oak tree stands wide over the important coffins, swaying and making noise...” Two parts

One poem is compared as day and night, moon and sun. Author via

comparing the true purpose of those who come to these cemeteries and those lying underground

shows us how different the same concepts can be.

I'm talking about the fact that a widow or widower will come to city cemeteries just for the sake of

in order to create the impression of grief and sorrow, although it is not always correct. Those who

lies under “inscriptions and prose and verse” during their lifetime they cared only about “virtues,

about service and ranks.”

On the contrary, if we talk about rural cemetery. People go there to

pour out your soul and talk to someone who is no longer there.

It seems to me that it is no coincidence that Alexander Sergeevich wrote such a poem for

a year before his death. He was afraid, I think, that he would be buried in the same city

the capital's cemetery and he will have the same grave as those whose tombstones he contemplated.

“Burns unscrewed from poles by thieves

The slimy graves, which are also here,

Yawning, they are waiting for the tenants to come home in the morning.”

Analysis of A.S. Pushkin’s poem “Elegy”

Crazy years of faded fun

It's hard for me, like a vague hangover.

But like wine - the sadness of days gone by

In my soul, the older, the stronger.

My path is sad. Promises me work and grief

The troubled sea of the future.

But I don’t want, O friends, to die;

And I know I will have pleasures

In the midst of sorrows, worries and anxiety:

Sometimes I’ll get drunk again with harmony,

I will shed tears over the fiction,

A. S. Pushkin wrote this elegy in 1830. It refers to philosophical lyrics. Pushkin turned to this genre as an already middle-aged poet, wise in life and experience. This poem is deeply personal. Two stanzas form a semantic contrast: the first discusses the drama of life’s path, the second sounds like the apotheosis of creative self-realization, the high purpose of the poet. We can easily identify the lyrical hero with the author himself. In the first lines (“the faded joy of crazy years / is heavy on me, like a vague hangover.”), the poet says that he is no longer young. Looking back, he sees the path traveled behind him, which is far from flawless: past fun, from which his soul is heavy. However, at the same time, the soul is filled with longing for the days gone by; it is intensified by a feeling of anxiety and uncertainty about the future, in which one sees “labor and grief.” But it also means movement and full-fledged creative life. "Labor and Sorrow" an ordinary person is perceived as hard rock, but for a poet it means ups and downs. Work is creativity, grief is impressions, significant events that bring inspiration. And the poet, despite the years that have passed, believes and awaits “the coming troubled sea.”

After lines that are rather gloomy in meaning, which seem to beat out the rhythm of a funeral march, suddenly a light takeoff of a wounded bird:

But I don’t want, O friends, to die;

I want to live so that I can think and suffer;

The poet will die when he stops thinking, even if blood runs through his body and his heart beats. The movement of thought is true life, development, and therefore the desire for perfection. Thought is responsible for the mind, and suffering is responsible for feelings. “Suffering” is also the ability to be compassionate.

A tired person is burdened by the past and sees the future in the fog. But the poet, the creator confidently predicts that “there will be pleasures among sorrows, worries and anxiety.” What will these earthly joys of the poet lead to? They bestow new creative fruits:

Sometimes I’ll get drunk again with harmony,

I will shed tears over the fiction...

Harmony is probably the integrity of Pushkin’s works, their impeccable form. Or this is the very moment of creation of works, a moment of all-consuming inspiration... The fiction and tears of the poet are the result of inspiration, this is the work itself.

And maybe my sunset will be sad

Love will flash with a farewell smile.

When the muse of inspiration comes to him, maybe (the poet doubts, but hopes) he will love and be loved again. One of the poet’s main aspirations, the crown of his work, is love, which, like the muse, is a life companion. And this love is the last. “Elegy” is in the form of a monologue. It is addressed to “friends” - to those who understand and share the thoughts of the lyrical hero.

The poem is a lyrical meditation. It is written in classical genre elegy, and this corresponds to the tone and intonation: elegy translated from Greek is “lamentable song.” This genre has been widespread in Russian poetry since the 18th century: Sumarokov, Zhukovsky, and later Lermontov and Nekrasov turned to it. But Nekrasov’s elegy is civil, Pushkin’s is philosophical. In classicism, this genre, one of the “high” ones, obliged the use of pompous words and Old Church Slavonicisms.

Pushkin, in turn, did not neglect this tradition, and used Old Slavonic words, forms and phrases in the work, and the abundance of such vocabulary in no way deprives the poem of lightness, grace and clarity.

ROMANTICISM - artistic method and the international literary movement that emerged in Western Europe at the end of XVIII century, and in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century and remained productive and leading until the 40s, and for some authors (like V. Hugo) even later.

The word “romantic” is earlier. It, “appeared in the second half of the 17th century. in England, then, several decades later, in France and Germany, it meant a reference to the novel (“as in a novel”), and the concept of the latter went back to the knightly genre, which presupposed an extraordinary picture of the world, different from that perceived in everyday life.” That is, initially “everything fantastic was called romantic”<еское>, unusual, strange, found only in books and not in reality.” Rationalistic classicism claimed plausibility (this motivated the rule of “three unities” in drama - the unity of place, time and action), especially Western European educational literature of the 18th century. Meanwhile, the historical events of the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. caused disappointment in the illusions of the enlighteners regarding the rational structure of social life, the vicissitudes of history and the destinies of its most prominent figures contributed to the spread of irrationalism and increased emotionality in the perception of the environment. The highest value began to be seen as an extraordinary personality with powerful passions, completely independent, equal to the whole world, opposed to everything that is outside of it. Romanticism became the expression of this worldview in art.

“The Romantics reproduced the characters of their time - the characters of people who had moved away from their old connections and were just entering a new system of relations. But they mastered these characters, artistically typified them in such a way that the break with the old conditions of life was absolutized by them in the form of the individual’s complete independence from anyone or anything: neither from God, nor from generic human nature, nor from the circumstances surrounding him, in the form of absolute self-worth of an individual human personality.”

The confrontation between an exceptional individual and a low-lying (by its scale) world leads to “world sorrow” (“the disease of the century”) of the characters and lyrical heroes romantic literature, which was especially acute in the works of J.G.N. Byron, who significantly influenced Russian literature (Pushkin during the period of southern exile and especially Lermontov). The reaction to the imperfection of the world was dreaminess in the “passive” and “active” (rebellious) versions and its consequence - the romantic “two worlds”. The first Russian romantic V.A. Zhukovsky wrote about the impossibility of conveying in earthly language the divine essence of life, “this presence of the Creator in creation” (“Inexpressible”, 1819). Young Lermontov, who seemed to be keeping a kind of poetic diary, admitted: “My soul, I remember, from childhood / was looking for the miraculous” (“June 1831, 11 days”) - and even earlier: “In my mind I created another world / And other images exist; / I tied them together with a chain, / I gave them a form, but did not give them a name...” (“Russian Melody”, 1829). The “active”, rebellious romantic Lermontov was no less a dreamer than the “passive”, meek Zhukovsky, who created deliberately conventional, fantasy world“scary” ballads. In 1840, Lermontov recalled his early years: “So the omnipotent lord of the wondrous kingdom - / I sat alone for long hours, / And their memory is alive to this day / Under a storm of painful doubts and passions...” (“How often, surrounded by a motley crowd...”). In his dreams, his hero Pechorin, whose still largely romantic character shown in many ways realistically. Grushnitsky is the epigone of truly romantic consciousness and behavior, vulgarizing what began as a protest against the vulgarity, mediocrity of people and the surrounding reality.

Among the romantic “other worlds” there were other historical eras. It was in romanticism that historicism appeared, which then became one of the foundations of realism, and Walter Scott created the genre of the historical novel, in which the adventures of fictional heroes, often between two warring camps, come to a successful conclusion with the participation of historical characters, not the main ones, but playing the most important role in the plot role (the scheme of Walterscott’s novel is preserved in “ The captain's daughter”Pushkin, the work is already largely realistic). Awareness of the differences in historical eras occurred against the backdrop of awareness of sustainable national characteristics existence and consciousness of each people, so the romantics were also the first artists who consciously reproduced the national specifics (in Russia initially under the name “nationality”), both of their own people and of others: exoticism, especially Caucasian, became one of the signs of Russian romanticism and in verse (poems by Pushkin, Lermontov), and in prose (stories by A.A. Bestuzhev, who wrote under the pseudonym Marlinsky). Romantic historical novels were created by M.N. Zagoskin, I.I. Lazhechnikov. The romantic type of historicism, which sharply contrasted different eras, and did not connect them with a chain of natural development (“Yes, there were people in our time...”), was also preserved in poetic works that acquired noticeable realistic features (“Borodino”, “Song about the Tsar” Ivan Vasilyevich...”, “Duma” by Lermontov).

In general, the peculiarity of Russian romanticism is that it was not “pure” at both its dawn and its decline. In the lyrics of Zhukovsky, mainly early ones, the influence of sentimentalism (heightened sensitivity in the poeticization of simple, ordinary human relationships) remains; in the poems of K.N. Batyushkova - epicureanism (chanting the joys of life) of the 18th century, in the poetry of the Decembrists K.F. Ryleeva, V.K. Kuchelbecker, as well as Pushkin of the St. Petersburg (post-lyceum) period - the high style of classicism. At the same time, Russian literature moved from romanticism to realism in the person of its highest geniuses not later, but even somewhat earlier than Western European ones. On the other hand, in general, the poetic work of its most prominent representatives E.A. remained within the framework of romanticism. Baratynsky and F.I. Tyutchev (the latter lived until 1873), the lyrics of A.A. are predominantly romantic. Fet, in general, romanticism dominates in the multi-genre work of A.K. Tolstoy.

Nevertheless, in the 1890s. gave the impression of absolute novelty early works M. Gorky, clothed in the form of exotic stories, legends and “songs”. They are also called romantic for lack of a more suitable definition, but this is a different, obviously conventional, as if stylized “romanticism” created by a realist artist: Gorky not only wrote in the same 90s. completely realistic works, but also in the “romantic” ones indirectly reproduced modern socio-historical issues (in “The Old Woman Izergil” Larra and Danko indirectly express the ideas of bourgeois individualism and civil service, including revolutionary sacrifice, and at the same time the story quite convincingly recreates the features of archaic consciousness and behavior). To the literature of the 20th century, for example, the work of A. Green, the concept of “romanticism” is also applied by inertia, due to the lack of terms to denote similar, but still different phenomena. At the same time, the term “neo-romanticism” is quite acceptable, especially in relation to symbolism (see: Modernism).

Romanticism must be distinguished from romanticism - a type of elevated attitude to life, deeply personal, especially emotional, inspired by the desire for certain ideals, often vague, resulting from dissatisfaction with everyday life. The corresponding type of content in art may be characteristic not only of romanticism. From the number realists XIX V. I.S. was especially inclined towards romance and “poetry” in general. Turgenev. IN Soviet time Romance as a type of enthusiasm was imposed, at first successfully, on both literature and the consciousness of people, especially young people.

Romanticism(from French. romanticism, dating back to Spanish romance; in the 18th century “romantic” was the name for everything unusual, fictional, fantastic, found in books and not in life)

1) An artistic and literary movement that developed intensively during the period of the late 18th - mid-19th centuries. and brought to the fore the conflict of an individual, obsessed with longing for an ideal, with a world in which this ideal is unrealizable. This conflict was developed in two main versions:

situations of the hero’s escape from inert reality into the realm of dreams, fantasy and beauty (nature, poetry, spiritualized love, etc.);
situations of the hero’s irreconcilable struggle with reality, which often ended in defeat and death for him.

In both versions, against the background of naked contradictions between the romantic ideal and “prosaic” reality, the value of the romantic personality was affirmed. As a rule, the examples of such a personality were extraordinary natures, aimed at remarkable energy and the ability to experience “violent” passions, possessed by a painful longing for the ideal and the desire for inner freedom who feel a craving for everything unusual - heroic, mysterious, fantastic, exotic. A special type of romantic hero was creative person, which found various incarnations in the images of artists, poets, musicians, and actors. The themes, plots, and characters of romantic works required a special arsenal of artistic means, in which the leading role belonged to antithesis, symbol, irony, grotesque, and hyperbole. The term "romanticism" is also the name of an era in culture, the chronological boundaries of which approximately date back to the end of the 18th - mid-19th V.

2) Along with realism, one of the artistic trends in art. The romantic seeks to escape from the real, unsatisfactory reality in another time (past, future, fantasy), creating his own special poetic world, in which his dreams, his ideals are embodied. This is how the romantic “double world” arises. The romantic hero is endowed with strong passions, he does not accept the laws of the surrounding society, and often violates them. In turn, the environment does not accept the romantic hero, rejects him and his way of life. As a result, the hero most often suffers defeat. The great merit of romanticism was the revelation of the complexity and inconsistency of the spiritual world of man; hence the intense interest in revealing the secret movements of the soul, attempts to understand the human psyche. A typical romantic conflict is an insoluble contradiction between ideal and reality. There is a widespread division of romanticism into revolutionary (active) and reactionary, conservative (passive). It is more fair, however, to talk about civil and psychological romanticism, although such a division is very arbitrary, because in a number of cases civil and psychological motives are combined. Romantic tendencies also appear in the works of those writers whom we traditionally call realists, such as I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, N. A. Nekrasov and others.

3) Romanticism as a literary movement appeared in Western Europe at the end of the 18th century, and in Russia it most fully manifested itself shortly after the War of 1812.

The pathos of romanticism lies in the affirmation of the absolute freedom of the human personality, which stands at the center of a hostile world.

Romanticism as a movement in literature is associated with such foreign writers and poets as Byron, Heine, Schiller, Goethe, Hugo. In Russia, these are primarily V. A. Zhukovsky and K. N. Batyushkov, as well as the Decembrists K. F. Ryleev, A. I. Odoevsky and V. K. Kuchelbecker. The young A.S. Pushkin and M.Yu. Lermontov also paid tribute to romanticism.

Romantic works are such works as “The Death of Ermak” by K. F. Ryleev, “Mtsyri” by M. Yu. Lermontov, “Svetlana” by V. A. Zhukovsky, “The Bakhchisarai Fountain” by A. S. Pushkin.

4) Romanticism is a controversial phenomenon. Develops in the literature of Europe and Russia from the end of the 18th - in the first third of the 19th century. In each country, romanticism had its own characteristics. The high reference points of romanticism were in England - J.G. Byron, in France - V. Hugo, in Germany - E.T.A. Hoffmann and G. Heine, in Poland and Belarus - A. Mickiewicz.

In romanticism, the dominant importance is the writer’s subjective position in relation to reality, which is expressed not so much in its reconstruction as in its re-creation. Romantic writers shared some common features: Material from the site

Dissatisfaction with reality, discord with it, disappointment led to the creation of a picture of the world that corresponded to the writer’s ideals. All romantic writers depart from reality. Some - into the world of foggy dreams, a mystical past, the other world (the so-called passive romanticism, or, more precisely, religious-mystical). Others dreamed about the future, called for the struggle for the reconstruction of society, for personal freedom (active or civic romanticism).
Heroes romantic poetry- unusual, exceptional personalities. These are either lonely rebels disappointed in life, leaving society, or strong and courageous natures performing heroic deeds, ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the happiness of others.
Exceptional characters act in exceptional circumstances, in which they demonstrate all their extraordinary qualities, and the heroes act outside of social and everyday conditions. The action can take place in exotic countries, in the other world.
In romantic works it prevails lyrical beginning. Their tone is emotional, upbeat, pathetic.

In Russia, religious and moralistic romanticism is represented by the work of V. A. Zhukovsky, civil romanticism by K. F. Ryleev, V. K. Kuchelbecker. A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, and the early M. Gorky paid tribute to romanticism.

Romanticism

In literature, the word “romanticism” has several meanings.

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 of comprehending the world in art, that is, the basic principles of selection, depiction and evaluation of the phenomena of reality. The originality 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 problematics and system of images to style.

The romantic picture of the world is hierarchical; the material in it is subordinated to the spiritual. The struggle (and tragic unity) of these opposites can take on different guises: divine - devilish, sublime - base, heavenly - earthly, true - false, free - dependent, internal - external, eternal - transitory, natural - accidental, desired - real, exceptional - ordinary. The romantic ideal, in contrast to the ideal of the classicists, concrete and accessible to embodiment, is absolute and for this reason 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 dual worlds arise, a conventional model of a romantic universe in which reality is far from ideal and the dream seems unrealizable. 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 motive of escape sounds: escape from imperfect reality into another existence is thought of as salvation. The belief in the possibility of a miracle still lives on in the 20th century: in A. S. Green’s story “Scarlet Sails”, in the philosophical fairy tale by A. de Saint-Exupéry “ A little prince"and in many other works.

The events that make up a romantic plot are usually bright and unusual; they are a kind of “peaks” on which the narrative is built (entertainment in the era of romanticism 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 happens in romantic works can be a special place and time of action (for example, exotic countries, the distant past or future), as well as 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 of the 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 of his own passions. Individual freedom presupposes responsibility: having made the wrong choice, you need to be prepared for the inevitable consequences. Thus, the ideal of freedom (both in political and philosophical aspects), 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. In any case, the author-narrator in a romantic work takes an active position; narration tends toward subjectivity, which can also manifest itself at the 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.” 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 of a 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 samples. Here is a typical example of 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 and charmingly, resembled the face of Albrecht Durer’s Madonnas... Adelheide 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 the 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 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 of the conflict with others, that is, to some extent conditioned 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. The human in the 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”,

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 accept 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, that is, to lie. 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.

For romantics, childish is generally synonymous with authenticity - 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 the child only a small adult.

The hero is a tragic loner and a dreamer, rejected by society and aware of his alienness to the world, 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. H

The opposition “individual - society” acquires its most acute character in the “marginal” version hero - 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.

The hero is a disappointed, “superfluous” person, who did not have the opportunity and no longer wanted to realize his talents for the benefit of society, 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.

Hero - 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,” since 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, the tempter and the punisher, he himself is sometimes humanly vulnerable, because he is passionate. It is no coincidence that romantic literature The motif of the “demon in love”, named after the story of the same name by J. Cazotte, became widespread. “Echoes” of this motif are heard in Lermontov’s “Demon”, and in V. P. Titov’s “Secluded House on Vasilyevsky”, and in N. A. Melgunov’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.

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. This type is also common in the works of M. Yu. Lermontov, which, according to V. I. Korovin, “... became the starting point for Lermontov in his dispute with the century. But there is no longer a concept only about public good, quite rationalistic among the Decembrists, and it is not civic feelings that inspire a person to heroic behavior, but his entire inner world.”

Another common type of hero can be called autobiographical, since it represents an understanding of the tragic fate of a 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. 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:

It has a soul, it 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,” that is, 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).

Still 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, the 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. “Mtsyri”)

Romanticism, like sentimentalism, is opposed to the classicist cult of reason, believing that “there are many things 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.

Romantic psychologism is 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 conditionality is revealed not so much through social conditions character formation (as it will be in realism), but rather through the collision of supermundane forces of good and evil, the battlefield of which is the human heart (this idea is heard in E. T. A. Hoffman’s novel “Elixirs of Satan”). .

Romantic historicism is based 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 try to correlate the psychology of historical characters with the customs of the past, to recreate the “local color” and “spirit of the times” not as a masquerade, but as the 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” - this is the basic principle of romantic historicism.

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 V. Scott showed it 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 that Lermontov expressed in the poem “Borodino” -

Yes, there were people in our time

Mighty, dashing tribe:

The heroes are not you, -

very typical of 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."

Romantic genres

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 of the “eastern” poems of the English romantic 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... the merchant Kalashnikov", "Demon".

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. As typical examples Romantic dramaturgy can be called “Masquerade” by Lermontov, “Sardanapalus” by Byron, “Cromwell” by Hugo.

One of the most popular genres in the era of romanticism was the story (most often the romantics themselves used this word to call a story or short story), which existed in several thematic varieties. The plot of a secular story is based on the discrepancy between sincerity and hypocrisy, deep feelings and social conventions (E. P. Rostopchina. “The Duel”). An everyday story is subordinated to moral descriptive tasks, depicting the life of people who are in some way different from others (M. P. Pogodin. “Black Sickness”). In the philosophical story, the basis of the problematic is the “damned questions of existence”, options for answers to which are offered by the heroes and the author (M. Yu. Lermontov. “Fatalist”), Satirical story is aimed at debunking 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 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, having 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 of fairy tales, not only contributing to the publication and study of oral monuments folk art, but also creating their own original works; one can recall the brothers Grimm, V. Gauff, A. S. Pushkin, P. P. Ershov 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 Snuff Box” by V. F. Odoevsky), to the general property of truly romantic creativity, the universal “canon of poetry”: “Everything poetic should be fabulous,” said Novalis.

The originality of the romantic artistic world is also manifested at the linguistic level. The romantic style, of course heterogeneous, appearing in many individual varieties, has some common 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 the main role is played by likenings, as if replacing (darkening) the specific appearance of a person or a picture of nature. Romantic symbolism is based on the endless “expansion” of the literal meaning of certain 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 human soul etc.

The history of 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 Patriotic War 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 bounds 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 its own folk poetry, inimitable and independent of alien traditions.”

From this point of view, the main merit of V. A. Zhukovsky lies 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, the Good of the Creator of the Law...

("Svetlana")

The romanticism of the Decembrists K. F. Ryleev, A. A. Bestuzhev, V. K. Kuchelbecker is often called “civil” in the science of literature, 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 “excite the valor of fellow citizens with the exploits of their ancestors” (the words of A. Bestuzhev about K. Ryleev), that is, to 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. Russian 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. The second half of the 20s - 30s was a time of fascination with the miraculous and supernatural. A. A. Pogorelsky, O. M. Somov, V. F. Odoevsky, O. I. Senkovsky, A. F. Veltman turned to the genre of fantastic stories.

The work of the great classics of the 19th century - A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol - is developing in the general direction from romanticism to realism, and we should not talk about overcoming the romantic principle in their works, but about transforming and enriching it realistic method of understanding life in art. It is from the example 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 culture born. classical literature. 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 the wonderful 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 artistic embodiment 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 it still remains open question about the chronological boundaries that put a limit to the existence of romanticism as an artistic movement. Traditionally called the 40s years 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 until 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, that is, as a way of understanding the world in art, retains its viability 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 strived 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 any solidified form and ultimately 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

Representatives of romanticism in Russia.

Movements 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”, “The Twelve Sleeping Maidens”, “The Forest King”, “Eolian Harp”; elegies, songs, romances, messages; poems “Abbadona”, “Ondine”, “Nal and Damayanti”), K. N. Batyushkov (epistles, elegies, poetry).

2. Social and civil romanticism: K. F. Ryleev (lyric 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 the 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, legends. In the works of the romantic Decembrists folk character 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.