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, believes in eternal love and holy friendship, and does not doubt his high destiny. This is one of the cutest Pushkin's heroes Vladimir Lensky, who “...believed that his dear soul // Should unite with him, // That, joylessly languishing, // She waits for him every day; // He believed that his friends were ready // For 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- in 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 the 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.”

IN late XVIII- early 19th century Romanticism is understood in different ways: both as the movement of literature towards national identity, which involves writers turning to folk poetic traditions, and as the discovery of the aesthetic value of an 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 that are relevant for 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 artistic worldview of the romantic 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 inner world romance, 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 death of the artist 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 of the 19th century. Novalis suggests calling this romanticization: “I attach a high meaning to the ordinary, I clothe the everyday and prosaic in a mysterious shell, I give the known and understandable 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 A. S. Green’s story “Scarlet Sails”, in A. de Saint-Exupéry’s philosophical fairy tale “The Little Prince” and in many other works.

It is characteristic that both of the most important romantic ideas are quite clearly correlated with a religious system of 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 Schlemiel” by A. Chamisso and “Elixirs of Satan” by E. T. A. Hoffman 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 (entertaining 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 Prospekt.”

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 relationships; 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 controls 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 heavenly world, 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 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 romantic hero.

One of artistic achievements Romanticism - the discovery of the value and inexhaustible complexity of the human personality. The romantics perceive man 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. Liberty personality implies its 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. Anyway author-narrator in a romantic work it occupies active position; narration tends towards 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.” 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 of 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 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 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. “The Sandman”, “Automata”; V. F. Odoevsky. “The Mockery of a Dead Man”, “The Ball”). This is how writers sharpen the problem of personality and impersonality as much as possible: becoming 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 different forms, 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, 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 synonymous with 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 achievements 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. Examples include characters 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, the tempter and the punisher, he himself is sometimes humanly vulnerable, because he is passionate. It is no coincidence that the motif of the “demon 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 “The Oval Portrait” by E. Poe, 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 both a “professional” who has mastered the language of art, and a generally exalted person who has a keen sense of beauty, 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, official, etc. - is always an “artist” in his involvement in the high poetic element, even if the latter results in various creative acts or remained confined within the human soul." This is a theme beloved by romantics. 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, free and beautiful world, not subject to human arbitrariness" (N. P. Kubareva). Storm and thunderstorm 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 is in 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 romantics’ special attention to individuality, to the human soul as a bunch of contradictory thoughts, passions, desires - hence the development the 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 its most important and integral part. 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 generational curse, which determines the tragic fate of the 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 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” 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 author's position and its 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 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."

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 free, independent creativity, which should not be fettered 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... because 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 deeply national understanding of the 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 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; tragic ending may also be associated with contradictions in the soul of the main character, 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.” Queen of Spades", N.V. Gogol. "Portrait"),

Romantics breathed new life into folk 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 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 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 cognition, but the fruit of a “social contract” necessary for the study 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 for 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; French bourgeois revolution suggests that the time of absolute monarchy is over. The world is not ruled by a dynasty, but by a strong personality like 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 to spiritual reality, that human consciousness is an 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 “outcasts” is combined with moral issues: public morals and love for a person, 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 capable of giving 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, it was from the era of romanticism that American literature was included in the world context and became an original phenomenon, not reducible only to its 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 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 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 the 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, but increasingly in modern research These boundaries are proposed to be pushed back - sometimes significantly, until the end of the 19th or even 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 at all just a literary movement. It strove to become and became new form feeling in 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 both in art and in everyday life.

Representatives of romanticism

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

Chamisso (lyrical cycle “Love and Life of a Woman”, story-fairy tale “The Amazing Story of Peter Schlemil”),

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 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”, “Bluebeard”, collection “Folk Tales”, short stories “Elves”, “Life pours over the edge”),

G. Heine ("Book of Songs", collection of poems "Romansero", poems "Atta Troll", "Germany. 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, turbulent events, primarily the Patriotic War of 1812 and the revolutionary movement of the Decembrists, which awakened Russian national self-awareness and 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, understanding people's soul"And the content of the very principle of nationality among representatives of different 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 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.

Romanticism is one of the most significant literary movements of the 19th century.

Romanticism is not just a literary movement, but also a certain worldview, a system of views on the world. It was formed in opposition to the ideology of the Enlightenment, which reigned throughout the 18th century, in repulsion from it.

All researchers agree that the most important event that played a role in the emergence of Romanticism was the Great French Revolution, which began on July 14, 1789, when angry people stormed the main royal prison, the Bastille, as a result of which France became first a constitutional monarchy and then a republic. . The revolution became the most important stage in the formation of modern republican, democratic Europe. Subsequently, it became a symbol of the struggle for freedom, equality, justice, and improvement of the people’s lives.

However, the attitude towards the Revolution was far from clear. Many thoughtful and creative people soon became disillusioned with it, since its results were revolutionary terror, civil war, and wars between revolutionary France and almost all of Europe. And the society that arose in France after the Revolution was very far from ideal: the people still lived in poverty. And since the Revolution was a direct result of the philosophical and socio-political ideas of the Enlightenment, disappointment also affected the Enlightenment itself. It was from this complex combination of fascination and disillusionment with the Revolution and Enlightenment that Romanticism was born. The Romantics retained faith in the main ideals of the Enlightenment and the Revolution - freedom, equality, social justice, etc.

But they were disappointed in the possibility of their real implementation. There was an acute feeling of a gap between the ideal and life. Therefore, romantics are characterized by two opposing tendencies: 1. reckless, naive enthusiasm, optimistic faith in the victory of lofty ideals; 2. absolute, gloomy disappointment in everything, in life in general. These are two sides of the same coin: absolute disappointment in life is the result of absolute faith in ideals.

Another important point regarding the attitude of the romantics to the Enlightenment: the ideology of the Enlightenment itself at the beginning of the 19th century began to be perceived as outdated, boring, and not living up to expectations. After all, development proceeds on the principle of repulsion from the previous one. Before Romanticism there was the Enlightenment, and Romanticism started from it.

So, what exactly was the impact of the repulsion of Romanticism from the Enlightenment?

In the 18th century, during the Enlightenment, the cult of Reason reigned - rationalism - the idea that reason is the main quality of a person, with the help of reason, logic, science, a person is able to correctly understand, know the world and himself, and change both for the better.

1. The most important feature of romanticism was irrationalism(anti-rationalism) - the idea that life is much more complex than it seems to the human mind; life cannot be explained rationally or logically. It is unpredictable, incomprehensible, contradictory, in short, irrational. And the most irrational, mysterious part of life is the human soul. A person is very often controlled not by a bright mind, but by dark, uncontrolled, sometimes destructive passions. The most opposite aspirations, feelings, and thoughts can illogically coexist in the soul. The romantics paid serious attention and began to describe strange, irrational states of human consciousness: madness, sleep, obsession with some passion, states of passion, illness, etc. Romanticism is characterized by mockery of science, scientists, and logic.

2. Romantics, following the sentimentalists, highlighted feelings, emotions, defy logic. Emotionality- the most important quality of a person from the point of view of Romanticism. A romantic is someone who acts contrary to reason and petty calculations; romance is driven by emotions.

3. Most enlighteners were materialists, many romantics (but not all) were idealists and mystics. Idealists are those who believe that in addition to the material world there is a certain ideal, spiritual world, which consists of ideas, thoughts and which is much more important, paramount than the material world. Mystics are not just those who believe in the existence of another world - mystical, otherworldly, supernatural, etc., they are those who believe that representatives of another world are able to penetrate into the real world, that in general a connection is possible between worlds, communication. Romantics willingly introduced mysticism into their works, describing witches, sorcerers and other representatives of evil spirits. Romantic works often contain hints of a mystical explanation for the strange events that occur.

(Sometimes the concepts “mystical” and “irrational” are identified and used as synonyms, which is not entirely correct. Often they actually coincide, especially among the romantics, but still, in general, these concepts mean different things. Everything mystical is usually irrational, but not everything the irrational is mystical).

4. Many romantics have mystical fatalism- belief in Fate, Predestination. Human life is controlled by certain mystical (mostly dark) forces. Therefore, in some romantic works there are many mysterious predictions, strange hints that always come true. Heroes sometimes perform actions as if not themselves, but someone pushes them, as if some outside force is infused into them, which leads them to the fulfillment of their Destiny. Many works of the romantics are imbued with a sense of the inevitability of Fate.

5. Dual world- the most important feature of romanticism, generated by a bitter feeling of the gap between ideal and reality.

Romantics divided the world into two parts: the real world and the ideal world.

The real world is an ordinary, everyday, uninteresting, extremely imperfect world, a world in which ordinary people, philistines, feel comfortable. Philistines are people who do not have deep spiritual interests; their ideal is material well-being, their own personal comfort and peace.

The most characteristic feature of a typical romantic is dislike for the bourgeoisie, for ordinary people, for the majority, for the crowd, contempt for real life, isolation from it, not fitting into it.

And the second world is the world of the romantic ideal, the romantic dream, where everything is beautiful, bright, where everything is as the romantic dreams, this world does not exist in reality, but it should be. Romantic Getaway- this is an escape from reality into the world of the ideal, into nature, art, into your inner world. Madness and suicide are also options for romantic escape. Most suicides have a significant element of romanticism in their character.

7. Romantics do not like everything ordinary and strive for everything unusual, atypical, original, exceptional, exotic. Romantic hero always unlike the majority, he is different. This is the main quality of a romantic hero. He is not included in the surrounding reality, is unadapted to it, he is always a loner.

The main romantic conflict is the confrontation between a lonely romantic hero and ordinary people.

The love for the unusual also applies to the choice of plot events for the work - they are always exceptional, unusual. Romantics also love exotic settings: distant hot countries, sea, mountains, and sometimes fabulous imaginary countries. For the same reason, romantics are interested in the distant historical past, especially the Middle Ages, which the enlighteners really disliked as the most unenlightened, unreasonable time. But the romantics believed that the Middle Ages were the time of the birth of romanticism, romantic love and romantic poetry, the first romantic heroes were knights serving their beautiful ladies and writing poetry.

In romanticism (especially poetry) the motif of flight, separation from ordinary life and the desire for something unusual and beautiful.

8. Basic romantic values.

The main value for romantics is Love. Love is highest manifestation human personality, the highest happiness, the most complete disclosure of all the faculties of the soul. This is the main goal and meaning of life. Love connects a person with other worlds; in love all the deepest, most important secrets of existence are revealed. Romantics are characterized by the idea of ​​lovers as two halves, of the non-accidentality of the meeting, of the mystical destiny of this particular man for this particular woman. Also the idea that real love It can only be once in a lifetime that it appears instantly at first sight. The idea of ​​the need to remain faithful even after the death of a beloved. At the same time, Shakespeare gave the ideal embodiment of romantic love in the tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”.

The second romantic value is Art. It contains the highest Truth and the highest Beauty, which descend to the artist (in the broad sense of the word) at the moment of inspiration from other worlds. The artist is an ideal romantic person, endowed with the highest gift, with the help of his art, to spiritualize people, to make them better, purer. The highest form of art is Music, it is the least material, the most uncertain, free and irrational, music is addressed directly to the heart, to the feelings. The image of the Musician is very common in romanticism.

The third most important value of romanticism is Nature and her beauty. The Romantics sought to spiritualize nature, to endow it with a living soul, a special mysterious mystical life.

The secret of nature will be revealed not through the cold mind of a scientist, but only through the feeling of its beauty and soul.

The fourth romantic value is Liberty, internal spiritual, creative freedom, first of all, free flight of the soul. But so does socio-political freedom. Freedom is a romantic value because it is possible only in the ideal, but not in reality.

Artistic features of romanticism.

1. The main artistic principle of romanticism is the principle of re-creation and transformation of reality. Romantics show life not as it can be seen, they reveal its hidden mystical, spiritual essence, as they understand it. The truth of the real life around us for any romantic is boring and uninteresting.

Therefore, romantics are very willing to use a variety of ways to transform reality:

1. straight fantastic, fabulousness,
2. hyperbola - different types exaggeration, exaggeration of the qualities of characters;
3. plot implausibility– an unprecedented abundance of adventures in the plot - unusual, unexpected events, all kinds of coincidences, accidents, disasters, rescues, etc.

2. Mystery- widespread use of mystery as an artistic device: special intensification of mystery. Romantics achieve the effect of mystery by hiding some part of the facts and events, describing events dottedly, partially so that a hint of interference in real life by mystical forces becomes obvious.

3. Romanticism is characterized by a special romantic style. His features:

1. emotionality(many words expressing emotions and emotionally charged);
2. stylistic decoration- a lot of stylistic decorations, figurative and expressive means: epithets, metaphors, comparisons, etc.
3. verbosity, vagueness - many words with abstract meaning.

Chronological framework of the development of romanticism.

Romanticism arose in the second half of the 1890s in Germany and England, then in France. Romanticism became the dominant literary movement in Europe around 1814, when works by Hoffmann, Byron, and Walter Scott began to appear one after another, and remained so until approximately the second half of the 1830s, when it gave way to realism. Romanticism faded into the background, but did not disappear - especially in France, it existed throughout almost the entire 19th century, for example, almost most of the novels of Victor Hugo, the best prose writer among the Romantics, were written in the 1860s, and his last novel was published in 1874. In poetry, romanticism prevailed throughout the nineteenth century, in all countries.

Romanticism is characterized by heightened attention to the mental organization of man. Writers who consider themselves romantics are interested in special individuals in special circumstances. The romantic hero is characterized by storms of feelings, “worldly sorrow,” the desire for an ideal, and a dream of perfection. The hero opposes himself to the environment around him; he conflicts not with individual people, not with socio-historical circumstances, but with the world as a whole, with the entire universe. If a single personality corresponds to the whole world, then it must be as large-scale and complex as the whole world. Romantic consciousness, in rebellion against everyday sameness, rushes to extremes: some heroes of romantic works - to spiritual heights, become like the creator himself in their search for an ideal, others - in despair, indulge in evil, not knowing the extent of the depth of moral decline. Some romantics look for an ideal in the past, especially in the Middle Ages, when direct religious feeling was still alive, others - in the utopias of the future.

The type of hero formed in romantic literature turned out to be viable. The romantic hero, “a stranger among his own,” with his internal duality, with the incommensurable level of his claims and self-irony, turned out to be the first to combine a truly modern worldview. The creation of such a hero required new methods of literary depiction and deepening of psychologism.

The first third of the 19th century was marked by the development of romantic consciousness, which consisted of a gradual transition from utopian hopes for the immediate embodiment of the highest ideals in reality to a gradual sobering up, an understanding of the insurmountability of the pressure of historical and social circumstances. The embodied spirit of action and struggle, audacity and contempt for any lethargy, lack of action, the need for battle that awakens people from cowardice, the thirst for action that ignites hearts and motivates them to accomplish feats are the most remarkable features of romantic works.

A work is considered romantic if: there is no clear distance between the author and the hero; the author does not criticize the hero, even if he portrays him spiritual decline, from the plot it becomes obvious that the hero is innocent in this - the circumstances that have developed in this way are to blame. Usually such a work has a mysterious, mysterious plot.

The romantic hero is an individualist who has gone through two stages in his development: striving for a feat, he is faced with a gloomy reality, after which a desire is formed to rebuild the world; after a collision with real life the hero still considers this world gloomy, worthless and vile, and becomes a cynic and pessimist. Having realized that the world cannot be changed, the hero no longer strives for heroism, but still stumbles upon danger every time.

Those who consider themselves romantics feel nature in a very special way; they like its manifestations such as storms, thunderstorms, and cataclysms.

Romantic art is, in principle, distinguished by the presence in it of a subjective lyrical element. For romanticism, conveying the hero’s suffering and his attitude to life is more important than depicting life itself. Of all types of art, romantics always choose music, since through it it is possible to express a person’s inner world more multifacetedly and more fully.

The aesthetics of romanticism placed emphasis (including theoretical ones) on the possible hidden creative possibilities of nature, the artist’s soul; on the potential of chaos as an endless accumulation of creative possibilities of being and the artist; on going back to F. Schiller Jesuitova R.V. Russian romanticism. - L., 1978. P. 65. the game principle of life in all its manifestations; on the spirit of the sublime that permeates nature and true art. Poetry, painting, and music of the romantics are usually directed towards the realms of the sublime. In contrast to orthodox Christian doctrine, they understood evil as an objective reality characteristic of the cosmos (“world evil”) and human nature. The consequence of this is the presence of the tragedy of existence among writers who joined romanticism later.

Conclusions on § 1. So, the aesthetics of romanticism is characterized by the cult of the artistic genius as a spiritual prophet, aspiration towards the infinite, the hidden; sensual lyricism, the desire to mix folklore with reality; ironic distancing. Of all the arts in the aesthetics of romanticism, music and musicality are the main paradigm. The idea of ​​a synthesis of arts based on music, popular among romantics, goes back to it - Gesamtkunstwerk.

3. Romanticism as a literary movement. The originality of Russian romanticism.

The debate about romanticism has been going on for about 200 years. The very definition of “romanticism” causes different interpretations, although this word has deeply entered the culture. In the era of the birth of romanticism, there were heated debates about it. Vyazemsky wrote to Pushkin: “Romanticism is like a brownie - you don’t know how to put your finger on it.” The difficulty of defining romanticism is also related to the dark etymology of the word. According to the first version, the word comes from the concept of “novel” and is associated with a legend; according to the second version, the word comes from the concept of “romance” and is associated with the knightly culture of the Middle Ages; according to the third version, the word "romanticism" is associated with Romance languages ​​and culture. There was no unity in the definition of romanticism until the beginning of the 19th century. Romanticism has always been associated with poetic groundlessness and mysticism. It was clear that he did not have certain standards.

A certain shift towards the understanding of romanticism occurred in German philosophy. Friedrich Schelling and the Schlegel brothers attempted to define Romanticism. Romanticism is the opposition between dream and reality, what is and what should be, what is and what should be. Romanticism is the brainchild of social upheavals, national social movements, and philosophical revolutions. Chronological boundaries of the era of romanticism: 1789 – 1848. This era is the time of the formation of romanticism as a worldview and artistic movement.

In England and France, romanticism is an earlier phenomenon than in Russia. In Russia, the formation of romanticism occurred between 1810 and 1820. Romanticism came to the USA in the 1830s. Romanticism also develops in science: mathematics, medicine, biology. General fermentation organically entered into romanticism. The concepts of classicism are being revised. Romanticism recognized the priority of the internal state of man, his conflict with state power. Romanticism sought to comprehend the whole world, everything in man. The Romantics were excited by the idea of ​​a comprehensive, synthesis. Romanticism was deprived of one-sided views.

Romanticism arose in the wake of revolutions as a manifestation of the love of freedom (the liberation of Greece, the Eterist movement in Moldova, the Carbonari in Italy, the liberation movement associated with the Napoleonic wars). Freedom becomes the slogan of the romantics. In Russia, the growth of freedom-loving sentiments was facilitated by

Patriotic War of 1812 National self-awareness developed, the main principle of which was interest in national history and nationality.

The philosophical foundations of romanticism were formed in line with ideal philosophy. In this philosophy, the cults of the soul and feelings become predominant. Idealism becomes the basis of romanticism. Interest in the subconscious awakens, the desire to identify instincts. Mysticism and religion acquire special value in the era of romanticism. In parallel with idealistic philosophy, romantic aesthetics was formed.

The aesthetics of classicism was quite dogmatic; its poetics was based on certain rules. Romanticism was free in its poetic principles. The normal form of aesthetic expression for him is a fragment, an excerpt. The passage is the most important principle of the romantic worldview. It shows the fragmentation of the vast canvas of life.

Basic principles of romanticism:

1. Romantic negation associated with the concept of time, the existing world. In it the romantics saw the cult of the utilitarian, the bourgeois. The bourgeois system is especially alien to the romantics. The romantics created a special world - the world of dreams. The basis of romantic art is antinomy - a constant contradiction between the material and historical world.

2. The emergence of the cult of the medieval Renaissance, the concept of romantic history, the opposition between “today” and “yesterday”, the birth of the historical novel. Passion for Walter Scott, Victor Hugo. Historical thinking is being introduced into literature, and the boundaries of the artistic are being expanded.

3. Dual worlds, the anthropological embodiment of which is duality, contributes to the psychologization of literature. The idea of ​​the world and man becomes more complex. Interest in the fairy tale appears. A fairy tale is considered as the basis of human feeling (the Brothers Grimm, E.T.A. Hoffmann, V. Gauff, G.H. Andersen).

4. Departure to fantasy in all its forms, the birth of a new idea of ​​the universe itself.

5. Cult of the romantic hero. The very concept of a hero is etymologically connected with the concept of heroism. The romantic hero is not like everyone else, he is strange. He changes his appearance, in connection with which the cult of the portrait is born. Romantics have everything wide open, their appearance is in disarray, and they have a fiery gaze. The hearth becomes a cult. But a romantic hero is also a wandering hero. The concept of “wanderer” here is associated with the concept of “strange”. A characteristic feature of the romantic consciousness is the image of the road, movement.

Byron's work "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" becomes a manifesto of romanticism. Important psychological image hero. The hero lost faith in this world and did not find himself in that one. The concept of “world sorrow” arises. The romantic hero is a mourner, a wanderer hero, an enthusiast, doubting, tormented, unable to find himself, closed in space and on himself. As a result, the hero’s egoism arises as a complex romantic consciousness. The romantic hero is lonely. At this time, an anthropological revolution took place: the romantics found a new man. This is a hero of immoderate passions.

Types of Romantic Heroes:

1. Hero-titanium, originating from mythological and biblical images. It becomes an expression of titanic passions, maximalism, demonic consciousness; Lermontov's Demon

2. Hero-wanderer, pilgrim, discovering new spaces, in constant motion. It brings together the concepts of the road - real space - and the path - the life worldview. This hero is strange both in appearance and in actions;

3. Hero-artist. Romanticism shows personality in the sphere of tragedy of creativity associated with the inability to express everything. A characteristic feature of the romantic hero-creator is improvisation. Among such heroes there are many musicians. Music and lyrics are deeply interconnected.

Deep connections appear between the author and the hero. The hero becomes the bearer and exponent of the author's consciousness, his alter ego. The inseparability of the author's consciousness and the consciousness of the hero did not allow the development of art. To overcome the subjective position, it was necessary to create a distance between the author's consciousness and the consciousness of the hero. The romantic hero exploded the very idea of ​​the world. Romantic literature– literature of dialogue about peace. In the romantic world, even animals become creators.

Romantic aesthetics gravitate toward miracles, secrets, and everything unusual. Victor Hugo said: “Ordinary life is the death of art.” The first form of expression of fantasy is the new chronotope. The spaces of day and night become important. In the night, the sense of time disappears. Romantic heroes act in the evening and at night. The moment of a kind of wakefulness of the spirit is important. A new lyricism is born: nocturnes, for which the mystery of sunset becomes important. The English poet Jung created the first work of this kind - “Night Reflections”. The topos of romantic art is a psychological reflection of the soul. Mountain and sea landscapes are cultivated. The sea is a passion, a stormy landscape, a folklore image that acquires a real concept. Mountains are the moment of ascent from earth to sky, reflecting the motif of dual worlds. The aspiration of the soul to the mountain heights is illustrated by the romantic landscape. The embodiment of the rapprochement between the mountainous and the heavenly is the cross on the mountain.

The topos of the cemetery is also important. This is a philosophical topos that resolves issues of being, existence, life and death. The evening and night cemetery is the embodiment of the mysteries of existence. Real space, according to the romantics, was inhabited by spirits. The Romantics discovered the teachings of the medieval mystic Paracelsus, who spoke about the special role of the elements - fire, water, air and earth. The romantic chronotope is cosmogonic. In this regard, Alexander Humboldt’s novel “Cosmos” can be called programmatic, in which he tried to determine the place of man in the Cosmos.

A world inhabited by different creatures gave the romantic the opportunity to show this world in dynamics. The most important principle of romantic art is the change of paintings. The romantic space is sinuous and radiating.

Music determined the style of romanticism and its special lyrical fullness. Painting was no less important. Romantics gravitated towards a landscape way of thinking. A living picture appears in the word. The cult of architecture was important for romantic art. The word becomes acoustic and visual. For European literature in this regard, the work of E.T.A. was important. Hoffman.

The Romantics liberated the possibilities of artists. For the romantics, the moment of creativity itself was important. The figure of the artist-sufferer becomes decisive for romantic art. The phenomenon of madness arises, generated by the conflict between dreams and actions.

Features of Russian romanticism:

1. Russian romanticism is a chronologically later phenomenon than European. He experiences his formation in 1810 - 1820. This is the era of national liberation movements, the Patriotic War of 1812, the era of hope, faith in the future revival of Russia. Russian romanticism was more associated with the ideas of the Enlightenment. At this time, European romanticism was experiencing a crisis;

2. For Russian romanticism, the power of reason remains unchanged;

3. In European romanticism, the moral problem is opposed to the aesthetic one. The development of bourgeois relations and the cult of calculation does not allow us to connect art with morality. The interaction of aesthetics and ethics is the main feature of Russian romanticism. We can talk about a peculiar phenomenon of kalokagathia. In European romanticism, aesthetics becomes an end in itself;

4. In Russian romanticism, the individual moment is reduced. The European individualist hero flees society. Due to the results of the War of 1812, the Russian hero gravitates towards the people. The ideas of nationality and national art are fundamental to the romantics. For romantics, the problem of the “hero of our time” is especially acute;

5. Ethical pathos is contrasted with carnal themes. For Russian romantics, love is a special sacrament filled with chastity;

6. In Russian romanticism, the idea of ​​love of freedom was associated with the ideas of the abolition of serfdom and reforms in society. In addition to the Decembrists, other romantics also shared the pathos of love of freedom. A.M. Gorky distinguished progressive or civil romanticism and reactionary or psychological romanticism. This concept has harmed the study of the Romantics. But still, romanticism is a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon.

The general specific features of the figurative content of fiction remain unchanged over thousands of years of its history. historical development. At the same time, the literature is constantly changing, revealing specific features at each stage.

Therefore, when considering certain works of art, it is necessary to take into account that this requires a kind of methodological basis, which is created taking into account theoretical principles formulated by literary scholars.

There is no doubt that the work of every significant writer is original and unique. But at the same time, they are often brought closer to each other not only by the ideological orientation of the works, but also general principles images of life. This allowed scientists to use the term “literary movement” to characterize the work of groups of writers who lived in a certain era. A literary movement is understood as a union of groups of writers “similar in the type of artistic thinking, but not always coinciding in their ideological views” [Gulyaev 1977: 190]. "We can talk about direction where writers realize theoretical basis their activities, proclaim it in their manifestos, program speeches, defend it in the fight against adherents of other aesthetic convictions" [Gulyaev 1977: 190 - 191].

Literary works that arose on the basis of one type of artistic thinking unite writers who are characterized by similar ideas about the creative process.

When approaching romantic art from such a position, it should be borne in mind that it must be studied and evaluated, taking into account its aesthetic nature and the goals that specific writers set for themselves.

Romanticism as a literary movement emerges and develops in a number of literatures at the end of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century and is the product of those “revolutionary” shifts that were taking place at that time in public life.

The dominance of romanticism is clear evidence of the staged community of literatures, each of which simultaneously reveals its own nationally distinctive features. The romantic literature of each state (European countries, the USA, Russia, etc.) was distinguished by its unique features generated by the difference in social positions and views of writers. Their interest in creating policy documents fixing the main ideological and aesthetic principles new literary direction.

Germany is rightfully considered the birthplace of romanticism. In this country, elegiac romanticism first arose, represented by the work of Novalis (F. Hardenberg). This writer appeared back in the 1890s with the lyrical “Hymns of the Night” and the novel “Heinrich von Ofterdingen.”

In creating their own literary program, the German romantics turned out to be more active than the English and French. Already at the end of the 18th century, writers of the “Jena school”, headed by F. Schlegel, first proposed their understanding of romanticism.

The artistic works of the “Jenians” - Novalis, L. Tieck, A. Schlegel - idealizing the knightly and ecclesiastical Middle Ages and interpreting art as “infinite”, did not have a serious influence on the subsequent development of literature. But theoretically, in creating a program of romantic creativity, the members of this circle turned out to be quite strong. This especially applies to the Schlegel brothers - August and Friedrich.

The theory of romanticism created by the Schlegels did not pretend to be academically harmonious, but contained a number of provisions that were important for the emerging literary movement.

According to the Schlegel theory, romanticism, in contrast to classicism as a rational attempt to revive the creative principles of antiquity, is a natural desire to return to the traditions of European medieval art and is sublimely spiritualized poetry addressed to the human soul. A writer is a “genius” who creates not according to “frozen rules”, but organically, like “nature”. The essence of “romantic poetry” is that it is “capable of soaring on the wings of poetic reflection between the depicted and the depicter, free from any real and ideal interest” [Schlegel 1976: 19]. According to F. Schlegel, such poetry “is infinite and free and its basic law recognizes the arbitrariness of the poet, who should not obey any law” [Schlegel 1976: 20].

The essence of the romantic is that it presents “sentimental content in a fantastic form” [Schlegel 1976: 19]. From this position, the Schlegels deny the generic and genre distinctions of works, which the classicists so valued.

The main provisions of the theorists of the “Jena school” include the affirmation of the principle of creative subjectivity of fiction, the protection of the writer’s right to completely subordinate the depiction of life to his artistic concepts.

An important aspect of the Schlegel theory was the desire to identify the fundamental principles on which “romantic poetry” should be based. A strong, although little developed side of the romantic program of the theorists of the “Jena School” was the idea of ​​​​the national uniqueness of fiction. “It is necessary,” wrote F. Schlegel, “to return to the origins of the native language and native poetry, liberating the former truth and the former sublime spirit... which sleeps in the monuments of national antiquity... Then this poetry, which was so original, like no other modern nation ... will again become among the same Germans ... the true art of inventive poets, will become and remain so" [Schlegel 1976: 20]. In his own words, “the core, the center of poetry should be sought in mythology and in the ancient mysteries.” [Schlegel 1976: 20].

A. Schlegel also took a similar position, who noted that it was “in the early eras of culture in language and from language, as necessarily and arbitrarily as it, a poetic worldview is born, that is, one in which fantasy dominates. This is mythology” [Schlegel 1976: 27]. Therefore, he called for the revival of poetry, “for which myth again becomes material” [Schlegel 1976: 27].

At the beginning of the 19th century, members of another circle of German romantics, called the “Heidelberg School,” responded to these calls in their own way. These were C. Brentano, L. Arnim, brothers J. and V. Grimm, who were engaged in collecting and publishing folk songs and fairy tales.

Representatives of “Heidelberg romanticism” (especially the brothers Grimm) actively introduced their contemporaries to folk culture. Through their works, a mythological school was created, which recognized myth as the fundamental basis of poetry, and then folklore that developed from it, which was considered as the unconscious and impersonal creativity of the collective folk soul.

A special place in the development of German romanticism was occupied by the work of E.T.A. Hoffman. In the 1810s - 1820s, he wrote a number of works ("The Elixir of Satan", "The Golden Pot", "The Sandman", etc.), where he gave a grotesque image of stupid and self-righteous philistines, to whom he contrasted sensitive "enthusiasts" - poets, artists, musicians, striving in their creativity towards the “infinite”. Things created by his imagination often appeared in Hoffmann’s fairy tales and short stories. fantastic images, becoming the material embodiment of those dark and light principles that he saw in reality.

Hoffmann's work gained worldwide fame and influenced romanticists in other countries, including Russia. But in general we can say that German romanticism appeared on the world literary stage, mainly in the form of the romantic theories of the “Jena school”. These theories gradually became widespread and influenced the creative thinking of representatives of various romantic movements in other countries.

In England, romanticism was represented primarily by the works of poets of the "Lake School". The early English romantics, W. Wordsworth, S. Coleridge and R. Southey, who spoke back in the 1790s, looked for their ideals in the historical past and idealized the old patriarchal way of life of the English village. In terms of social issues, representatives of the “lake school” were successors of the sentimentalists, and the romantic pathos of their works stemmed from religious and moralistic aspirations, sometimes reaching the point of mysticism.

From a different perspective, V. Scott was interested in the past. He acted as one of the active collectors of folklore texts, who compiled three volumes of collections of ballads, Songs of the Scottish Border. In addition, Scott entered world literature as the creator of the genre of historical novel, in which he captured the most important moments in the history of England and other European countries.

The work of D.G. had a completely different ideological orientation. Byron and P.B. Shelley, who began creating their works in the 1800s - early 1810s. They expressed in their work the motives of romantic rebellion and the desire for civil freedom, which they saw in the future. The civil romanticism of Byron and Shelley was the most progressive movement in the literature of England at the beginning of the 19th century. But in general, it should be noted that representatives of various movements of English romanticism, despite their creative activity, did not create a corresponding literary program.

In France, the history of romanticism begins in the 1880s. R. A. Chateaubriand, with his stories “Atala” and “Rene,” and in the 1820s, A. Lamartine, with his lyrics, created the religious and moralistic movement of French romanticism. The main motives of their creativity were a feeling of doom, despair, denial of the meaning of earthly existence, and the desire to go to the other world. Along with this trend, associated with retrospective ideals, active romanticism developed in France, the prominent representatives of which were A. de Musset, George Sand and others.

The largest representative of civil romanticism was V. Hugo. The writer based the plots of his dramas ("Hernani", "Marion Delorme", "The King Amuses himself") and novels ("Notre Dame Cathedral", "The Man Who Laughs") on the sharp contrasts between the cruel and arrogant representatives of the royal power and nobility and immigrants from the democratic lower classes - bearers of high moral principles.

Hugo was not only the largest representative of French romanticism, but also its prominent theoretician. At the end of the 1820s, in the preface to his historical drama"Cromwell" he formulated a number of the most important provisions of the creative program of the new literary movement. Hugo opposed classicism with its rational “rules” and proclaimed the principle of freedom of creativity. “The poet,” noted Hugo, “should consult only nature, truth, his inspiration...” [Hugo 1979: 275]. The writer demanded that literature reproduce characters in their national-historical originality and depict “local color.” He insisted on the need to “combine the grotesque with the sublime, merge tragedy with comedy” [Hugo 1979: 275]. From here flowed the idea of ​​the need to mix “high” and “low” genres and the idea of ​​the artist’s complete freedom of speech.

In the USA, romanticism will begin to develop somewhat later than in European countries. In the 1820s it was represented by such writers as W. Irving and D. F. Cooper. Later the works of E. Poe, G. Melville, and N. Hawthorne would become famous.

By the beginning of the 19th century, Russian literature had caught up in its ideological and artistic development with the literature of the advanced countries of Western Europe. In the emergence of classicism and sentimentalism, it lagged significantly behind France and England. During the era of romanticism, Russian writers appeared almost simultaneously with English and German ones - at the beginning of the 19th century.

Russian romanticism was formed over quite a long time . Its origins should be sought in the literature of the 18th century, primarily in sentimentalism with its cult of emotional reflection and interest in folk life.

Naturally, when creating their works, Russian romantics were guided by the experience of European writers. But, as rightly noted by one of the most famous representatives Russian romanticism V.F. Odoevsky, “our imaginary imitation was only a school, leaving which we overtook the teachers” [Odoevsky 1982: 63].

V.A. Zhukovsky is rightfully considered the first Russian romantic. The history of Russian romanticism, in fact, begins with his "Lyudmila", which was published in 1808. Despite the fact that “Lyudmila” is an imitation of “Lenora” by the 18th century German poet G.A. Burger, the work was published in the "Bulletin of Europe" with the subtitle "Russian ballad". Its appearance indicated a growing interest in folk poetry. The work clearly reveals all those features that will later prove to be characteristic of the romantic consciousness and will concentrate its most essential features. The author makes medieval Rus' the setting and introduces images of the living dead into the work. According to V.G. Belinsky, “the romanticism of this ballad” lies not only in its content, but also “in the fantastic color scheme with which this childishly simple-minded legend is enlivened in places” [Belinsky 1982: 29].

Subsequently, Zhukovsky would write another ballad on the same plot - “Svetlana” (1913), which was still in to a greater extent, than "Lyudmila", will acquire a national coloring, thereby meeting one of the most important requirements of romanticism. Along with this, Zhukovsky created poems and ballads based on plots borrowed from the works of romantics in other countries. Based on examples of English and German religious-moralistic romanticism, the poet idealized patriarchal antiquity, spoke about the desire for something wonderful and mysterious that lures the human soul into an unknown distance (“Theon and Aeschines”, “The Inexpressible”, “Aeolian Harp”, "Castle Smalholm, or Midsummer's Eve" etc.)

During the first two decades of the 19th century, Russian romantics created predominantly poetic works. Among the most famous of them are numerous “Dumas” and the poem “Voinarovsky” by K.F. Ryleev, poems “Prisoner of the Caucasus” and “Bakhchisarai Fountain” by A.S. Pushkin, poems by K.N. Batyushkova and E.A. Baratynsky.

But the dominance of poetic works turns out to be short-lived. Already in the 1820s, prose, primarily represented by stories, gradually came to the fore.

During the first third of the 19th century, the story occupied a special position in Russian literature, where the genre of the novel had not yet actually emerged. It is developing rapidly, filling with new content. “The story is now considered to be a joint endeavor with all areas of activity, with all degrees of intelligence, with all types of genius,” wrote critic N.I. Nadezhdin [Literary criticism. Aesthetics. 1972: 320].

For some time, the romantic story seems to replace the novel and turns into the dominant epic genre. Moreover, in the 1830s it also replaced poetry, which was so influential in the first two decades of the 19th century, becoming the main phenomenon of Russian literature. “The story is a sign of modern literature,” critic S.P. rightly noted in 1835. Shevyrev [cit. according to Sakharov 1992: 5]. It was during this period that A. Pogorelsky, A.A. created their romantic stories. Bestuzhev (Marlinsky), V.F. Odoevsky, M.F. Pogodin and others.

Russian romantics were quite active in creating their literary program. In the first half of the 1820s, it was developed in articles by O.M. Somova, P.A. Vyazemsky, V.K. Kuchelbecker.

When developing their program, the theorists of Russian romanticism took into account those ideas that had already penetrated the consciousness of many writers by that time and were partly entrenched in literary texts. The search for new aesthetic ideals was carried out by representatives of the Friendly Literary Society, organized in 1801 by former students of the Moscow University Noble Boarding School. One of the recognized leaders of this society was V.A. Zhukovsky’s friend A.I. Turgenev, who in his speeches repeatedly spoke about the need to create nationally original art. Particularly noteworthy in this regard is the speech “On Russian Literature,” delivered on March 22, 1801. In his speech, Turgenev says that the works of the most famous Russian writers - M.V. Lomonosov, A.P. Sumarokova, N.M. Karamzin - tell the reader practically nothing about the Russians as a distinctive nation. “Now only in fairy tales and songs do we find the remains of Russian literature... and we still feel the character of our people,” he asserts [Turgenev 2000: 16]. And then, putting forward a position that would later be reflected in romantic aesthetics, he demands that writers turn “to Russian originality” “in customs, in lifestyle, and in character” [Turgenev 2000: 16].

Later P.A. Vyazemsky, O.M. Somov and V.K. Kuchelbecker, who acted as the most prominent theoreticians of romanticism, will pick up and develop this idea. Their works were published in those years when the national upsurge caused by the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812 contributed to the rapid maturation of new artistic views, which were reflected in print. The feeling of love for the motherland and national pride, strengthened by the difficult trials of the war, strengthened the desire to free domestic literature from imitation of everything foreign, and forced writers to advocate for the creation of nationally original art.

As a supporter of such views on art, P.A. declared himself already in the articles of 1816 - 1817. Vyazemsky. He expressed the idea of ​​a poet-genius, the creator of new literary genres unknown to classicists, and highly praised Russian folk poetry, which, in his opinion, is in no way inferior to the folklore of other peoples. In a letter to A.I. Turgenev dated November 22, 1818, Vyazemsky, noting the “Russian color” that he tried to give to his short descriptive poem “The First Snow,” suggested using the word “nationality” to denote this feature of artistic creativity [cit. according to Sokolov 1970: 180]. Thus, one of the most important ideas of romantic aesthetics received its terminological designation.

In 1821, general attention was attracted by an article by O.M. Somov, dedicated to the analysis of the ballad by V.A. Zhukovsky “Fisherman”, which is a free adaptation of the poem by I.V. Goethe. During the controversy surrounding the publication of the article, the critic emphasized that he was trying to encourage the “excellent poet” and his students to abandon “Western foreign mists and glooms,” for “true talent must belong to one’s own fatherland” [cit. according to Petunina 1984: 6]. This programmatic attitude of Somov was further developed in his articles “On Romantic Poetry” (1823). The critic wrote that he was not satisfied with German poetry, which was dominated by “an inclination towards abstract concepts, sad daydreaming and the desire for a better, more blissful world” [Somov 2000: 30]. He sees the main goal of romantic poetry in providing the poet with “complete freedom of choice and presentation,” and the “main charm” is in the “nationality and locality” [Somov 2000: 31]. Somov emphasizes that “the Russian people... need to have their own folk poetry, inimitable and independent of the traditions of others”; He considers the surest path to creating original Russian literature to be turning to living sources of folk poetry, “mores, concepts and ways of thinking” [Somov 2000: 32]. Thus, Somov proclaims the principle of nationality, which he views as loyalty to national identity - morals, customs and language.

V.K. took a similar position. Kuchelbecker, who most clearly expressed his views in the article “On the direction of our poetry, especially lyrical, in the last decade” (1824). Kuchelbecker speaks with disapproval of the Russian “Childe Harolds”, for whom “the feeling of despondency has swallowed up all others” [Kuchelbecker 1981: 16]. Attacking elegiac romanticism, the critic opposes the mood of disappointment and pessimism, “world sorrow”, which, under the influence of Byron and the early German romantics, became widespread among some Russian poets. Kuchelbecker perceives turning to such topics as an attempt to impose “the shackles of German or English rule” on Russian poetry [Kuchelbecker 1981: 17]. In contrast to this, the critic suggests that writers turn to other models: “The faith of our forefathers, domestic morals, chronicles and folk tales are the best, purest, most reliable sources for our literature” [Kuchelbecker 1981: 17].

A.S. also expressed his attitude to the problem. Pushkin in an article entitled “On the Nationality of Literature.” Pushkin noted that nationality does not only consist in “the selection of objects from Russian history” or the use of Russian expressions in speech. It is much more important to take into account something else: “Climate, mode of government, faith give each people a special physiognomy, which is more or less reflected in the mirror of poetry. There is a way of thinking and feeling, there is a darkness of customs, beliefs and habits belonging to any people” [ Pushkin: 1998: 35].

Thus, the idea of ​​the nationality of literature occupied an important place in Russian romantic aesthetics. In print, this term was established in the 20s of the 19th century. The problem of nationality as an ideological and aesthetic category was realized gradually. In the 1820s - 1830s, the content of the concept of “nationality” included the idea of ​​national independence and the originality of literature, and its democratic foundations. The fundamental connection between these two concepts is obvious: romantics come to the conclusion that only literature that reflects the consciousness of the broad masses can be nationally unique. Appeal to folk morals and customs, use folklore elements are beginning to be considered as the most important conditions for the creation of works that correspond to the spirit of the times.

Considering the history of the formation and development of foreign and Russian romanticism as a whole, it should be said that this direction covers very heterogeneous phenomena. At the same time, romantic works that arose on the basis of one type of artistic thinking have a number of common features. Such commonality testifies to the closeness of the writers (often distant in their ideological views) in the artistic principles of depicting life and the techniques of creating images.

The similarity of romantic works is determined, first of all, by the fact that their authors consider the creative act as a process of self-expression. Therefore, romantics do not strive to reproduce objective reality in exact accordance with the qualities of the phenomena depicted. For them, something else is much more important: to reflect the world of their subjective feelings and experiences. Romantic images always bear a vivid imprint of the author’s perception of life.

The Romantics opposed any “rules” that limited the freedom of creativity, invention, and inspiration. They viewed the creation of works of art as a process of self-expression by their creator-writer.

Basing their work on the fundamental rejection of the reality they denied, the writers sought to contrast it with the world created by their imagination, which took different shapes in the works of different authors. Some of the writers turned their gaze to the other world, others looked for their ideals in the national past, idealized the Middle Ages, or created their own “reality”, close to reality, but full of mystery and mystery.

The artistic thinking of the romantics is characterized by a tendency towards contrasts, towards the depiction of exceptional heroes acting in extraordinary life circumstances and displaying unusually strong passions. The appearance and characters of the heroes in the works of the romantics were predominantly antithetical: the good and beautiful were contrasted with the evil and “ugly,” the ideal “creatures of heaven” were contrasted with the heartless and cold “fiends of hell.”

The works are replete with symbols, fantasy, hyperbole and other conventional forms of artistic representation.

One of the leading principles in romantic aesthetics was the principle of nationality, according to which writers had to widely turn to nationally distinctive folk themes, to folk images and motifs. In this regard, they quite often painted in their works images of creatures of folk demonology, generated by the imagination of the masses and reflected in such genres of folk art as fairy tales, epic tales, and legends.

Thus, according to the law of stage community, romantic works appear in leading national European literatures almost at the same time. The authors of these works created appropriate programs and thereby shaped the literary direction. The German romantics showed the greatest activity and originality in this regard, followed by French and Russian writers and literary critics.

Romanticism was extremely contradictory in its ideological nature: it united writers who had different social views, but were related in their aesthetic aspirations. Romantics (both progressive and conservative) considered the process of creation literary works as an act of self-expression of creative subjects. Therefore, when creating artistic images, writers took into account not so much the objective phenomena of reality, but their perception of these phenomena and their emotional attitude towards them. To one degree or another, not accepting modernity, being at odds with the surrounding reality, representatives of the romantic movement contrasted it with a fictional world, different from everyday life in its brightness and multicoloredness. Writers populated this world with exceptional characters, whose lives were full of turbulent events and seething passions.

The Romantics actively defended the principle of nationality, according to which they advocated the creation of nationally distinctive art that reflected the morals of the broad masses, their beliefs and customs. Implementing this principle, writers often turned to folklore texts, which, in their opinion, captured the spirit of the people. As a result, in the works of representatives of the romantic movement, readers were often presented with a peculiar artistic reality. It was filled with fantastic creatures, the images of which went back to popular ideas or were created by the writers themselves, relying on the experience of their predecessors or contemporaries.