Literary directions and movements. Literary schools

1. The central place is given to the symbol*
2. The desire for a higher ideal prevails
3. A poetic image is intended to express the essence of a phenomenon
4. Characteristic reflection of the world in two planes: real and mystical
5. Sophistication and musicality of verse

The main stylistic trends in the literature of modern and contemporary times

This section of the manual does not pretend to be comprehensive or thorough. Many directions from a historical and literary point of view are not yet known to students, others are little known. Any detailed conversation about literary trends in this situation is generally impossible. Therefore, it seems rational to give only the most general information, primarily characterizing the stylistic dominants of a particular direction.

Baroque

The Baroque style became widespread in European (to a lesser extent Russian) culture in the 16th–17th centuries. It is based on two main processes: On the one side, crisis of revivalist ideals, crisis of idea titanism(when a person was thought of as a huge figure, a demigod), on the other - a sharp contrasting man as a creator with the impersonal natural world. Baroque is a very complex and contradictory movement. Even the term itself does not have an unambiguous interpretation. The Italian root contains the meaning of excess, depravity, error. It is not very clear whether this was a negative characteristic of Baroque “from outside” this style (primarily referring to assessments Baroque writers classicism era) or is it a self-irony reflection of the Baroque authors themselves.

The Baroque style is characterized by a combination of the incongruous: on the one hand, an interest in exquisite forms, paradoxes, sophisticated metaphors and allegories, oxymorons, and verbal play, and on the other, deep tragedy and a sense of doom.

For example, in Gryphius’s baroque tragedy, Eternity itself could appear on stage and comment with bitter irony on the suffering of the heroes.

On the other hand, the flourishing of the still life genre is associated with the Baroque era, where luxury, beauty of forms, and richness of colors are aestheticized. However, the Baroque still life is also contradictory: bouquets, brilliant in color and technique, vases with fruit, and next to it is the classic Baroque still life “Vanity of Vanities” with the obligatory hourglass (an allegory of the passing time of life) and a skull – an allegory of inevitable death.

Baroque poetry is characterized by sophistication of forms, a fusion of visual and graphic series, when verse was not only written, but also “drawn.” Suffice it to recall the poem “Hourglass” by I. Gelwig, which we talked about in the chapter “Poetry”. And there were much more complex forms.

In the Baroque era, exquisite genres became widespread: rondos, madrigals, sonnets, odes of strict form, etc.

The works of the most prominent representatives of the Baroque (Spanish playwright P. Calderon, German poet and playwright A. Gryphius, German mystic poet A. Silesius, etc.) were included in the golden fund of world literature. The paradoxical lines of Silesius are often perceived as famous aphorisms: “I am great as God. God is as insignificant as I am.”

Many of the discoveries of Baroque poets, thoroughly forgotten in the 18th–19th centuries, were adopted in the verbal experiments of 20th century writers.

Classicism

Classicism is a movement in literature and art that historically replaced Baroque. The era of classicism lasted more than one hundred and fifty years - from the mid-17th to the beginning of the 19th century.

Classicism is based on the idea of ​​rationality, orderliness of the world . Man is understood as, first of all, a rational being, and human society is understood as a rationally organized mechanism.

Exactly the same piece of art must be built on the basis of strict canons, structurally repeating the rationality and orderliness of the universe.

Classicism recognized Antiquity as the highest manifestation of spirituality and culture, therefore ancient art was considered a role model and an indisputable authority.

Characteristic of classicism pyramidal consciousness, that is, in every phenomenon, the artists of classicism sought to see a rational center, which was recognized as the top of the pyramid and personified the entire building. For example, in understanding the state, the classicists proceeded from the idea of ​​a reasonable monarchy - useful and necessary for all citizens.

Man in the era of classicism is interpreted primarily as a function, as a link in the rational pyramid of the universe. The inner world of a person in classicism is less actualized; external actions are more important. For example, an ideal monarch is one who strengthens the state, takes care of its welfare and enlightenment. Everything else fades into the background. That is why Russian classicists idealized the figure of Peter I, not attaching importance to the fact that he was a very complex and not at all attractive person.

In the literature of classicism, a person was thought of as the bearer of some important idea that determined his essence. That is why in the comedies of classicism “speaking surnames” were often used, immediately determining the logic of the character. Let us remember, for example, Mrs. Prostakova, Skotinin or Pravdin in Fonvizin’s comedy. These traditions are clearly visible in Griboedov’s “Woe from Wit” (Molchalin, Skalozub, Tugoukhovsky, etc.).

From the Baroque era, classicism inherited an interest in emblematicity, when a thing became a sign of an idea, and the idea was embodied in a thing. For example, a portrait of a writer involved depicting “things” that confirm his literary merits: the books he wrote, and sometimes the characters he created. Thus, the monument to I. A. Krylov, created by P. Klodt, depicts the famous fabulist surrounded by the heroes of his fables. The entire pedestal is decorated with scenes from Krylov’s works, thereby clearly confirming that how the author's fame is founded. Although the monument was created after the era of classicism, it is the classical traditions that are clearly visible here.

The rationality, clarity and emblematic nature of the culture of classicism also gave rise to a unique solution to conflicts.

In the eternal conflict of reason and feeling, feeling and duty, so beloved by the authors of classicism, feeling was ultimately defeated. Classicism sets (primarily thanks to the authority of its main theorist N. Boileau) strict hierarchy of genres, which are divided into high (, Oh yeah, tragedy epic ) and low (, comedy, satirefable

). Each genre has certain characteristics and is written only in its own style. Mixing styles and genres is strictly prohibited. Everyone knows the famous thing from school rule of three , formulated for classical drama : unity places (all the action in one place), time (action from sunrise to nightfall), actions

(the play has one central conflict into which all the characters are drawn).

Classicism gave the world a whole galaxy of talented poets and playwrights. Corneille, Racine, Moliere, La Fontaine, Voltaire, Swift - these are just some of the names from this brilliant galaxy.

In Russia, classicism developed somewhat later, already in the 18th century. Russian literature also owes a lot to classicism. It is enough to recall the names of D. I. Fonvizin, A. P. Sumarokov, M. V. Lomonosov, G. R. Derzhavin.

Sentimentalism

Sentimentalism arose in European culture in the middle of the 18th century, its first signs began to appear among English and a little later among French writers at the end of the 1720s; by the 1740s, the direction had already taken shape. Although the term “sentimentalism” itself appeared much later and was associated with the popularity of Lorenz Stern’s novel “A Sentimental Journey” (1768), the hero of which travels through France and Italy, finds himself in many sometimes funny, sometimes touching situations and understands that there are “noble joys” and noble anxieties beyond one’s personality.”

Sentimentalism existed for quite a long time in parallel with classicism, although in essence it was built on completely different foundations. For sentimental writers main value the world of feelings and experiences is recognized. At first, this world is perceived quite narrowly, writers sympathize with the love suffering of heroines (such, for example, are the novels of S. Richardson, if we remember, Pushkin’s favorite author Tatyana Larina).

An important merit of sentimentalism was its interest in the inner life of an ordinary person. The “average” person was of little interest in classicism, but sentimentalism, on the contrary, emphasized the depth of feelings of a very ordinary, from a social point of view, heroine.

Thus, S. Richardson’s maid Pamela demonstrates not only purity of feeling, but also moral virtues: honor and pride, which ultimately leads to a happy ending; and the famous Clarissa, the heroine of the novel with a long and rather funny title from a modern point of view, although she belongs to a wealthy family, is still not a noblewoman. At the same time, her evil genius and insidious seducer Robert Loveless is a socialite, an aristocrat. In Russia in late XVIII - at the beginning of the 19th century, the surname Loveless (hinting at “love less” - deprived of love) was pronounced in the French manner of “Lovelace”, since then the word “Lovelace” has become a common noun, denoting red tape and a ladies' man.

If Richardson's novels were devoid of philosophical depth, didactic and slightly naive, then a little later in sentimentalism the opposition “natural man - civilization” began to take shape, where, unlike the Baroque, civilization was understood as evil. This revolution was finally formalized in the work of the famous French writer and philosopher J. J. Rousseau.

His novel “Julia, or the New Heloise,” which captivated Europe XVIII century, much more complex and less straightforward. The struggle of feelings, social conventions, sin and virtues are intertwined here into one ball. The title itself (“New Heloise”) contains a reference to the semi-legendary mad passion of the medieval thinker Pierre Abelard and his student Heloise (11th–12th centuries), although the plot of Rousseau’s novel is original and does not reproduce the legend of Abelard.

More higher value had the philosophy of “natural man”, formulated by Rousseau and still retaining a living meaning. Rousseau considered civilization the enemy of man, killing all the best in him. From here interest in nature, natural feelings and natural behavior. These ideas of Rousseau received special development in the culture of romanticism and - later - in numerous works of art of the 20th century (for example, in “Oles” by A. I. Kuprin).

In Russia, sentimentalism appeared later and did not bring serious world discoveries. Mostly Western European subjects were “Russified”. At the same time, he had a great influence on the further development of Russian literature itself.

The most famous work of Russian sentimentalism was “Poor Liza” by N. M. Karamzin (1792), which had a huge success and caused countless imitations.

“Poor Liza”, in fact, reproduces on Russian soil the plot and aesthetic findings of English sentimentalism of the time of S. Richardson, however, for Russian literature the idea that “even peasant women can feel” became a discovery that largely determined its further development.

Romanticism

Romanticism as a dominant literary movement in European and Russian literature did not exist for very long - about thirty years, but its influence on world culture colossal.

Historically, romanticism is associated with the unfulfilled hopes of the Great French Revolution (1789–1793), but this connection is not linear; romanticism was prepared by the entire course of aesthetic development in Europe, which was gradually shaped by a new concept of man.

The first associations of romantics appeared in Germany at the end of the 18th century; a few years later, romanticism developed in England and France, then in the USA and Russia.

Being a “world style,” romanticism is a very complex and contradictory phenomenon, uniting many schools and multidirectional artistic quests. Therefore, it is very difficult to reduce the aesthetics of romanticism to any single and clear foundations.

At the same time, the aesthetics of romanticism undoubtedly represents a unity when compared with classicism or the critical realism that emerged later. This unity is due to several main factors.

Firstly, romanticism recognized the value human personality as such, its self-sufficiency. The world of feelings and thoughts of an individual person was recognized as the highest value. This immediately changed the coordinate system; in the “individual – society” opposition, the emphasis shifted towards the individual. Hence the cult of freedom, characteristic of the romantics.

Secondly, Romanticism further emphasized the confrontation between civilization and nature, giving preference to the natural elements. It is no coincidence that it was in the eratourism was born in romanticism, a cult of outdoor picnics developed, etc. At the level literary subjects there is an interest in exotic landscapes, scenes from rural life, to “savage” cultures. Civilization often seems like a “prison” for a free individual. This plot can be traced, for example, in “Mtsyri” by M. Yu. Lermontov.

Thirdly, the most important feature of the aesthetics of romanticism was two worlds: recognition that the social world we are accustomed to is not the only and genuine one; the true human world must be sought somewhere other than here. This is where the idea comes from beautiful "there" – fundamental to the aesthetics of romanticism. This “there” can manifest itself in very different ways: in Divine grace, as in W. Blake; in the idealization of the past (hence the interest in legends, the appearance of numerous literary fairy tales, the cult of folklore); in interest in unusual personalities, high passions (hence the cult noble robber

, interest in stories about “fatal love”, etc.). Duality should not be interpreted naively . The Romantics were not at all people “not of this world,” as, unfortunately, it is sometimes imagined by young philologists. They took an active part participation in social life, and greatest poet J. Goethe, closely associated with romanticism, was not only a major natural scientist, but also a prime minister. It's about

not about a style of behavior, but about a philosophical attitude, about an attempt to look beyond the limits of reality. Fourthly, a significant role in the aesthetics of romanticism played demonism , based on doubt about the sinlessness of God, on aestheticization riot mandatory basis romantic attitude, however, constituted the characteristic background of romanticism. The philosophical and aesthetic justification for demonism was the mystical tragedy (the author called it “mystery”) of J. Byron “Cain” (1821), where biblical story Cain is being rethought and Divine truths are being challenged. Interest in the “demonic principle” in humans is characteristic of a variety of artists of the Romantic era: J. Byron, P. B. Shelley, E. Poe, M. Yu. Lermontov and others.

Romanticism brought with it a new genre palette. Classical tragedies and odes were replaced by elegies, romantic dramas, and poems. A real breakthrough occurred in prose genres: many short stories appear, the novel looks completely new. The plot scheme becomes more complicated: paradoxical plot moves, fatal secrets, and unexpected endings are popular. Victor Hugo became an outstanding master of the romantic novel. His novel "Cathedral" Notre Dame of Paris"(1831) – worldwide famous masterpiece romantic prose. Hugo's later novels (The Man Who Laughs, Les Misérables, etc.) are characterized by a synthesis of romantic and realistic tendencies, although the writer remained faithful to romantic foundations all his life.

Having opened the world of a specific individual, romanticism, however, did not seek to detail individual psychology. Interest in “superpassions” led to the typification of experiences. If it’s love, then it’s for centuries, if it’s hate, then it’s to the end. Most often, the romantic hero was the bearer of one passion, one idea. It brought us closer romantic hero with the hero of classicism, although all the accents were placed differently. Genuine psychologism, “dialectics of the soul” became the discoveries of another aesthetic system - realism.

Realism

Realism is a very complex and voluminous concept. As the dominant historical and literary direction, it was formed in the 30s of the 19th century, but as a way of mastering reality, realism was originally inherent artistic creativity. Many features of realism appeared already in folklore; they were characteristic of ancient art, the art of the Renaissance, classicism, sentimentalism, etc. This “end-to-end” character of realism has been repeatedly noted by specialists, and the temptation has repeatedly arisen to see the history of the development of art as an oscillation between the mystical (romantic) and realistic ways of understanding reality. In its most complete form, this was reflected in the theory of the famous philologist D.I. Chizhevsky (Ukrainian by origin, he lived most of his life in Germany and the USA), who represented the development of world literature as a “pendulummovement" between the realistic and mystical poles. In aesthetic theory this is called "Chizhevsky pendulum". Each way of reflecting reality is characterized by Chizhevsky for several reasons:

Chizhevsky’s scheme, created many decades ago, is still quite popular today, at the same time it significantly straightens the literary process. Thus, classicism and realism turn out to be typologically similar, and romanticism actually reproduces Baroque culture. In fact, these are completely different models, and the realism of the 19th century bears little resemblance to the realism of the Renaissance, much less to classicism. At the same time, Chizhevsky’s scheme is useful to remember, since some accents are placed precisely.

If we talk about classical realism of the 19th century, then several main points should be highlighted.

In realism, there was a rapprochement between the depicter and the depicted. The subject of the image, as a rule, was the reality “here and now.” It is no coincidence that the history of Russian realism is connected with the formation of the so-called “natural school,” which saw its task as giving as objective a picture of modern reality as possible. True, this extreme specificity soon ceased to satisfy writers, and the most significant authors (I. S. Turgenev, N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky, etc.) went far beyond the aesthetics of the “natural school.”

At the same time, one should not think that realism has renounced the formulation and solution " eternal questions being." On the contrary, major realist writers posed precisely these questions above all. However, the most important problems human existence projected onto concrete reality, onto life ordinary people. Thus, F. M. Dostoevsky solves the eternal problem of the relationship between man and God not in symbolic images Cain and Lucifer, such as Byron, and the example of the fate of the beggar student Raskolnikov, who killed the old pawnbroker and thereby “crossed the line.”

Realism does not abandon symbolic and allegorical images, but their meaning changes; they highlight not eternal problems, but socially specific ones. For example, the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are allegorical through and through, but they recognize the social reality of the 19th century.

Realism, like no previously existing direction, interested inner world individual, strives to see its paradoxes, movement and development. In this regard, in the prose of realism, the role of internal monologues increases; the hero constantly argues with himself, doubts himself, and evaluates himself. Psychologism in the works of realist masters(F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, etc.) reaches the highest expressiveness.

Realism changes over time, reflecting new realities and historical trends. So, in Soviet era appears socialist realism , declared the “official” method of Soviet literature. This is a highly ideological form of realism, which aimed to show the inevitable collapse of the bourgeois system. In reality, however, almost everything was called “socialist realism” soviet art , and the criteria turned out to be completely blurry. Today this term has only a historical meaning, in relation to modern literature

If in the middle of the 19th century realism reigned almost unchallenged, then by the end of the 19th century the situation changed. Over the last century, realism has experienced fierce competition from other aesthetic systems, which, naturally, in one way or another changes the nature of realism itself. Let’s say, M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is a realistic work, but at the same time there is a noticeable symbolic meaning in it, which noticeably changes the tenets of “classical realism”.

Modernist movements of the late 19th – 20th centuries

The twentieth century, like no other, was marked by the competition of many trends in art. These directions are completely different, they compete with each other, replace each other, and take into account each other’s achievements. The only thing that unites them is opposition to classical realistic art, attempts to find their own ways of reflecting reality. These directions are united by the conventional term “modernism”. The term “modernism” itself (from “modern” - modern) arose in the romantic aesthetics of A. Schlegel, but then it did not take root. But it came into use a hundred years later, in late XIX century, and at first began to designate strange, unusual aesthetic systems. Today “modernism” is a term with an extremely broad meaning, which actually stands in two oppositions: on the one hand, it is “everything that is not realism”, on the other (in last years) is what “postmodernism” is not. Thus, the concept of modernism reveals itself negatively - by the method of “by contradiction”. Naturally, with this approach we are not talking about any structural clarity.

There are a huge number of modernist trends; we will focus only on the most significant:

Impressionism (from the French “impression” - impression) is a movement in the art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, which originated in France and then spread throughout the world. Representatives of impressionism sought to capturethe real world in its mobility and variability, to convey your fleeting impressions. The Impressionists themselves called themselves “new realists”; the term appeared later, after 1874, when the now famous work by C. Monet “Sunrise” was demonstrated at the exhibition. Impression". At first, the term “impressionism” had a negative connotation, expressing bewilderment and even disdain of critics, but the artists themselves, “to spite the critics,” accepted it, and over time the negative connotations disappeared.

In painting, impressionism had a huge influence on all subsequent development of art.

In literature, the role of impressionism was more modest; it did not develop as an independent movement. However, the aesthetics of impressionism influenced the work of many authors, including in Russia. Trust in “fleeting things” is marked by many poems by K. Balmont, I. Annensky and others. In addition, impressionism was reflected in the color scheme of many writers, for example, its features are noticeable in the palette of B. Zaitsev.

However, as an integral movement, impressionism did not appear in literature, becoming a characteristic background of symbolism and neorealism.

Symbolism – one of the most powerful directions of modernism, quite diffuse in its attitudes and quests. Symbolism began to take shape in France in the 70s of the 19th century and quickly spread throughout Europe.

By the 90s, symbolism had become a pan-European trend, with the exception of Italy, where, for reasons that are not entirely clear, it did not take root.

In Russia, symbolism began to manifest itself in the late 80s, and emerged as a conscious movement by the mid-90s.

According to the time of formation and the characteristics of the worldview, it is customary to distinguish two main stages in Russian symbolism.

Poets who made their debut in the 1890s are called “senior symbolists” (V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub, etc.).

In the 1900s, a number of new names appeared that significantly changed the face of symbolism: A. Blok, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanov and others. The accepted designation of the “second wave” of symbolism is “young symbolism.” It is important to take into account that the “senior” and “younger” symbolists were separated not so much by age (for example, Vyacheslav Ivanov gravitates towards the “elders” in age), but by the difference in worldviews and the direction of creativity.

The work of the older symbolists fits more closely into the canon of neo-romanticism. Characteristic motives are loneliness, the chosenness of the poet, the imperfection of the world. In the poems of K. Balmont, the influence of impressionist technique is noticeable; the early Bryusov had a lot of technical experiments and verbal exoticism. demiurges, that is, the creators of the world. The unfulfilled utopia led in the early 1910s to a total crisis of symbolism, to the collapse of it as an integral system, although the “echoes” of symbolist aesthetics were heard for a long time.

Regardless of the implementation of social utopia, symbolism has extremely enriched Russian and world poetry.

The names of A. Blok, I. Annensky, Vyach. Ivanov, A. Bely and other prominent symbolist poets are the pride of Russian literature. Acmeism (from the Greek “acme” - “highest degree, peak, flowering, blooming time”) – literary movement

, which arose in the early tenths of the 20th century in Russia.

Historically, Acmeism was a reaction to the crisis of symbolism. In contrast to the “secret” word of the Symbolists, the Acmeists proclaimed the value of the material, the plastic objectivity of images, the accuracy and sophistication of the word. The formation of Acmeism is closely connected with the activities of the organization “Workshop of Poets”, the central figures of which were N. Gumilyov and S. Gorodetsky. O. Mandelstam, the early A. Akhmatova, V. Narbut and others also adhered to Acmeism. Later, however, Akhmatova questioned the aesthetic unity of Acmeism and even the legitimacy of the term itself. But one can hardly agree with her on this: the aesthetic unity of the Acmeist poets, at least in the early years, is beyond doubt. And the point is not only in the programmatic articles of N. Gumilyov and O. Mandelstam, where the aesthetic credo of the new movement is formulated, but above all in the practice itself. Acmeism strangely combined a romantic craving for the exotic, for wanderings with sophistication of words, which made it similar to the Baroque culture. Favorite images of Acmeism - exotic beauty(so, in any period of Gumilyov’s creativity, poems appear about exotic animals: giraffe, jaguar, rhinoceros, kangaroo, etc.), images of culture(in Gumilyov, Akhmatova, Mandelstam), the love theme is dealt with very plastically.

Often an object detail becomes a psychological sign (for example, a glove from Gumilyov or Akhmatova). At first

The world appears to the Acmeists as exquisite, but “toy-like,” emphatically unreal.

For example, O. Mandelstam’s famous early poem goes like this:

They burn with gold leaf

There are Christmas trees in the forests;

Toy wolves in the bushes

They look with scary eyes.

Oh, my prophetic sadness,

Oh my quiet freedom

Later, the paths of the Acmeists diverged; little remained of the former unity, although the majority of poets retained loyalty to the ideals of high culture and the cult of poetic mastery to the end. Many major literary artists came out of Acmeism. Russian literature has the right to be proud of the names of Gumilev, Mandelstam and Akhmatova.

Futurism(from Latin “futurus” " - future). If symbolism, as mentioned above, did not take root in Italy, then futurism, on the contrary, is of Italian origin. The “father” of futurism is considered to be the Italian poet and art theorist F. Marinetti, who proposed a shocking and tough theory of new art. In fact, Marinetti was talking about the mechanization of art, about depriving it of spirituality. Art should become akin to a “play on a mechanical piano”, all verbal delights are unnecessary, spirituality is an outdated myth.

Marinetti's ideas exposed a crisis classical art and were taken up by “rebellious” aesthetic groups in different countries.

In Russia, the first futurists were the artists the Burliuk brothers. David Burliuk founded the futurist colony “Gilea” on his estate. He managed to rally around himself various poets and artists who were unlike anyone else: Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh, Elena Guro and others.

The first manifestos of Russian futurists were frankly shocking in nature (even the name of the manifesto, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” speaks for itself), but even with this, the Russian futurists did not initially accept Marinetti’s mechanism, setting themselves other tasks. Marinetti's arrival in Russia caused disappointment among Russian poets and further emphasized the differences.

The Futurists aimed to create a new poetics, a new system of aesthetic values. The masterly play with words, the aestheticization of everyday objects, the speech of the street - all this excited, shocked, and caused resonance. The catchy, visible nature of the image irritated some, delighted others:

Every word,

even a joke

which he spews out with his burning mouth,

thrown out like a naked prostitute

from a burning brothel.

(V. Mayakovsky, “Cloud in Pants”)

Today we can admit that much of the Futurists’ creativity has not stood the test of time and is only of historical interest, but in general, the influence of the Futurists’ experiments on the subsequent development of art (and not only verbal, but also pictorial and musical) turned out to be colossal.

Futurism had within itself several currents, sometimes converging, sometimes conflicting: cubo-futurism, ego-futurism (Igor Severyanin), the “Centrifuge” group (N. Aseev, B. Pasternak).

Although very different from each other, these groups converged on a new understanding of the essence of poetry and a desire for verbal experiments. Russian futurism gave the world several poets of enormous scale: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Velimir Khlebnikov.

Existentialism (from Latin “exsistentia” - existence). Existentialism cannot be called a literary movement in the full sense of the word; it is rather philosophical movement, a concept of man that appears in many works of literature. The origins of this movement can be found in the 19th century in the mystical philosophy of S. Kierkegaard, but existentialism received its real development in the 20th century. Among the most significant existentialist philosophers we can name G. Marcel, K. Jaspers, M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre and others. Existentialism is a very diffuse system, having many variations and varieties. However, the general features that allow us to talk about some unity are the following:

1. Recognition of the personal meaning of existence . In other words, the world and man in their primary essence are personal principles. The mistake of the traditional view, according to existentialists, is that human life is viewed as if “from the outside,” objectively, and the uniqueness of human life lies precisely in the fact that it There is and that she my. That is why G. Marcel proposed to consider the relationship between man and the world not according to the “He is the World” scheme, but according to the “I – ​​You” scheme. My attitude towards another person is only a special case of this comprehensive scheme.

M. Heidegger said the same thing somewhat differently. In his opinion, the basic question about man must be changed. We are trying to answer, " What there is a person”, but you need to ask “ Who

there is a man." This radically changes the entire coordinate system, since in the usual world we will not see the foundations of each person’s unique “self.” 2. Recognition of the so-called “borderline situation” this “I” is not directly accessible, but in the face of death, against the background of non-existence, it manifests itself. The concept of a border situation had a huge influence on the literature of the 20th century - both among writers directly associated with the theory of existentialism (A. Camus, J.-P. Sartre), and authors generally far from this theory, for example, on the idea of ​​a border situation almost all the plots of Vasil Bykov's war stories are constructed.

3. Recognition of a person as a project . In other words, the original “I” given to us forces us to make the only possible choice every time. And if a person’s choice turns out to be unworthy, the person begins to collapse, no matter what external reasons he may justify.

Existentialism, we repeat, did not develop as a literary movement, but it had a huge influence on modern world culture. In this sense, it can be considered an aesthetic and philosophical direction of the 20th century.

Surrealism(French “surrealisme”, lit. - “super-realism”) - a powerful trend in painting and literature of the 20th century, however, it left the greatest mark in painting, primarily thanks to the authority of the famous artist Salvador Dali. Dali’s infamous phrase regarding his disagreements with other leaders of the movement “a surrealist is me”, for all its shockingness, clearly places emphasis. Without the figure of Salvador Dali, surrealism probably would not have had such an impact on the culture of the 20th century.

At the same time, the founder of this movement is not Dali or even the artist, but precisely the writer Andre Breton. Surrealism took shape in the 1920s as a left-radical movement, but noticeably different from futurism. Surrealism reflected the social, philosophical, psychological and aesthetic paradoxes of European consciousness. Europe is tired of social tensions, of traditional art forms, of hypocrisy in ethics. This “protest” wave gave birth to surrealism.

The authors of the first declarations and works of surrealism (Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon, Andre Breton, etc.) set the goal of “liberating” creativity from all conventions. Great importance was attached to unconscious impulses and random images, which, however, were then subjected to careful artistic processing.

Freudianism, which actualized human erotic instincts, had a serious influence on the aesthetics of surrealism.

In the late 20s - 30s, surrealism played a very noticeable role in European culture, but the literary component of this movement gradually weakened. Major writers and poets, in particular Eluard and Aragon, moved away from surrealism. Andre Breton's attempts after the war to revive the movement were unsuccessful, while in painting surrealism provided a much more powerful tradition.

Postmodernism - a powerful literary movement of our time, very diverse, contradictory and fundamentally open to any innovations. The philosophy of postmodernism was formed mainly in the school of French aesthetic thought (J. Derrida, R. Barthes, J. Kristeva, etc.), but today it has spread far beyond the borders of France.

At the same time, many philosophical origins and the first works refer to the American tradition, and the term “postmodernism” itself in relation to literature was first used by an American literary scholar Arab origin Ihab Hasan (1971).

The most important feature of postmodernism is the fundamental rejection of any centricity and any value hierarchy. All texts are fundamentally equal and capable of coming into contact with each other. There is no high and low art, modern and outdated. From a cultural standpoint, they all exist in some “now,” and since the value chain is fundamentally destroyed, no text has any advantages over another.

In the works of postmodernists, almost any text from any era comes into play. The boundary between one’s own and someone else’s word is also being destroyed, so texts by famous authors can be interspersed into a new work. This principle is called " principle of centenity» (centon is a game genre when a poem is composed of different lines from other authors).

Postmodernism is radically different from all other aesthetic systems. IN different schemes(for example, in the well-known schemes of Ihab Hassan, V. Brainin-Passek, etc.) dozens of distinctive features of postmodernism are noted. This is an attitude towards play, conformism, recognition of the equality of cultures, an attitude towards secondaryness (i.e. postmodernism does not aim to say something new about the world), orientation towards commercial success, recognition of the infinity of the aesthetic (i.e. everything can be art) etc.

Both writers and literary critics have an ambiguous attitude towards postmodernism: from complete acceptance to categorical denial.

IN last decade people are increasingly talking about the crisis of postmodernism and reminding us of the responsibility and spirituality of culture.

For example, P. Bourdieu considers postmodernism a variant of “radical chic”, spectacular and comfortable at the same time, and calls not to destroy science (and in the context, art as well) “in the fireworks of nihilism.”

Many American theorists have also made sharp attacks against postmodern nihilism. In particular, the book “Against Deconstruction” by J. M. Ellis, which contains a critical analysis of postmodernist attitudes, caused a stir. Now, however, this scheme is noticeably more complicated. It is customary to talk about pre-symbolism, early symbolism, mystical symbolism, post-symbolism, etc. However, this does not cancel the naturally formed division into older and younger.

literary trendsAndcurrents

XVII-X1X CENTURY

Classicism - direction in literature of the 17th - early 19th centuries, focusing on the aesthetic standards of ancient art. The main idea is the affirmation of the priority of reason. Aesthetics is based on the principle of rationalism: a work of art must be intelligently constructed, logically verified, and must capture the enduring, essential properties of things. Works of classicism are characterized by high civic themes, strict adherence to certain creative norms and rules, reflection of life in ideal images that gravitate towards a universal model (G. Derzhavin, I. Krylov, M. Lomonosov, V. Trediakovsky,D. Fonvizin).

Sentimentalism - a literary movement of the second half of the 18th century, which established feeling, not reason, as the dominant of the human personality. The hero of sentimentalism is a “feeling man”, his emotional world is diverse and mobile, and the wealth of the inner world is recognized for every person, regardless of his class affiliation (I. M. Karamzin.“Letters of a Russian Traveler”, “Poor Lisa” ) .

Romanticism - literary movement that formed at the beginning of the 19th century. Fundamental to romanticism was the principle of romantic dual worlds, which presupposes a sharp contrast between the hero and his ideal and the surrounding world. The incompatibility of ideal and reality was expressed in the departure of romantics from modern themes into the world of history, traditions and legends, dreams, dreams, fantasies, and exotic countries. Romanticism has a special interest in the individual. The romantic hero is characterized by proud loneliness, disappointment, a tragic attitude and, at the same time, rebellion and rebellion of spirit (A.S. Pushkin."KavKaz captive" « Gypsies»; M. Yu. Lermontov.« Mtsyri»; M. Gorky.« Song about the Falcon", "Old Woman Izergil").

Realism - a literary movement that established itself in Russian literature at the beginning of the 19th century and passed through the entire 20th century. Realism asserts the priority of the cognitive capabilities of literature, its ability to explore reality. The most important subject of artistic research is the relationship between character and circumstances, the formation of characters under the influence of the environment. Human behavior, according to realist writers, depends on external circumstances, which, however, does not negate his ability to oppose his will to them. This determined the central conflict - the conflict between personality and circumstances. Realist writers depict reality in development, in dynamics, presenting stable, typical phenomena in their unique individual embodiment (A.S. Pushkin."Eugene Onegin"; novels I. S. Turgeneva, L. N. TolStygo, F. M. Dostoevsky, A. M. Gorky,stories I. A. Bunina,A. I. Kuprina; N. A. Nekrasoviand etc.).

Critical Realism - The literary movement, which is a subsidiary of the previous one, existed from the beginning of the 19th century until its end. It bears the main signs of realism, but is distinguished by a deeper, critical, sometimes sarcastic author's view ( N.V. Gogol"Dead Souls"; Saltykov-Shchedrin)

XXVEC

Modernism - a literary movement of the first half of the 20th century, which opposed itself to realism and united many movements and schools with a very diverse aesthetic orientation. Instead of a rigid connection between characters and circumstances, modernism affirms the self-worth and self-sufficiency of the human personality, its irreducibility to a tedious series of causes and consequences.

Avant-garde - a direction in literature and art of the 20th century, uniting various movements, united in their aesthetic radicalism (surrealism, drama of the absurd, “new novel”, in Russian literature -futurism). It is genetically related to modernism, but absolutizes and takes to the extreme its desire for artistic renewal.

Decadence (decadence) - a certain state of mind, a crisis type of consciousness, expressed in a feeling of despair, powerlessness, mental fatigue with the obligatory elements of narcissism and aestheticization of the self-destruction of the individual. Decadent in mood, the works aestheticize extinction, the break with traditional morality, and the will to death. The decadent worldview was reflected in the works of writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. F. Sologuba, 3. Gippius, L. Andreeva, and etc.

Symbolism - pan-European, and in Russian literature - the first and most significant modernist movement. Symbolism is rooted in romanticism, with the idea of ​​two worlds. The symbolists contrasted the traditional idea of ​​understanding the world in art with the idea of ​​constructing the world in the process of creativity. The meaning of creativity is the subconscious-intuitive contemplation of secret meanings, accessible only to the artist-creator. The main means of transmitting secret meanings that are not rationally cognizable becomes the symbol (of signs) (“senior symbolists”: V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky, 3. Gippius, F. Sologub;"Young Symbolists": A. Blok,A. Bely, V. Ivanov, dramas by L. Andreev).

Acmeism - a movement of Russian modernism that arose as a reaction to the extremes of symbolism with its persistent tendency to perceive reality as a distorted likeness of higher entities. The main significance in the work of Acmeists is the artistic exploration of the diverse and vibrant earthly world, the transfer of the inner world of man, the affirmation of culture as the highest value. Acmeistic poetry is characterized by stylistic balance, pictorial clarity of images, precisely calibrated composition, and precision of detail. (N. Gumilev, S. Gorodetscue, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, M. Zenkevich, V. Narbut).

Futurism - an avant-garde movement that emerged almost simultaneously in Italy and Russia. The main feature is the preaching of the overthrow of past traditions, the destruction of old aesthetics, the desire to create new art, the art of the future, capable of transforming the world. The main technical principle is the principle of “shift”, which manifested itself in the lexical updating of the poetic language due to the introduction of vulgarisms, technical terms, neologisms, in violation of the laws of lexical compatibility of words, in bold experiments in the field of syntax and word formation (V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, I. Severyanin and etc.).

Expressionism - modernist movement that formed in the 1910s - 1920s in Germany. The expressionists sought not so much to depict the world as to express their thoughts about the troubles of the world and the suppression of the human personality. The style of expressionism is determined by the rationalism of constructions, the attraction to abstraction, the acute emotionality of the statements of the author and characters, and the abundant use of fantasy and the grotesque. In Russian literature, the influence of expressionism manifested itself in the works of L. Andreeva, E. Zamyatina, A. Platonova and etc.

Postmodernism - a complex set of ideological attitudes and cultural reactions in the era of ideological and aesthetic pluralism (late 20th century). Postmodern thinking is fundamentally anti-hierarchical, opposes the idea of ​​ideological integrity, and rejects the possibility of mastering reality using a single method or language of description. Postmodern writers consider literature, first of all, a fact of language, and therefore do not hide, but emphasize the “literariness” of their works, combine the stylistics of different genres and different literary eras in one text (A. Bitov, Sasha Sokolov, D. A. Prigov, V. PeLevin, Ven. Erofeev and etc.).

The term literary movement usually denotes a group of writers connected by a common ideological position and artistic principles, within the same direction or artistic movement. Thus, modernism is a general name for various groups in the art and literature of the 20th century, which distinguishes a departure from classical traditions, search for new aesthetic principles, a new approach to the depiction of existence, includes such movements as impressionism, expressionism, surrealism, existentialism, acmeism, futurism, imagism, etc.

The belonging of artists to one direction or movement does not exclude deep differences in their creative personalities. In turn, in the individual creativity of writers, the features of various literary movements and movements may appear. For example, O. Balzac, being a realist, creates a romantic novel “Shagreen Skin”, and M. Yu. Lermontov, along with romantic works, writes a realistic novel “A Hero of Our Time”.

A movement is a smaller unit of the literary process, often within a movement, characterized by its existence in a certain historical period and, as a rule, localization in a certain literature. The movement is also based on a commonality of substantive principles, but the similarity of ideological and artistic concepts is more clearly manifested.

Often the commonality of artistic principles in a flow forms “ artistic system" Thus, within the framework of French classicism, two movements are distinguished. One is based on the tradition of the rationalistic philosophy of R. Descartes (“Cartesian rationalism”), which includes the work of P. Corneille, J. Racine, N. Boileau. Another movement, based primarily on the sensualist philosophy of P. Gassendi, expressed itself in the ideological principles of such writers as J. Lafontaine and J. B. Moliere.

In addition, both movements differ in the system of artistic means used. In romanticism, two main movements are often distinguished - “progressive” and “conservative”, but there are other classifications.

The writer’s belonging to one direction or another (as well as the desire to remain outside the existing trends of literature) presupposes a free, personal expression of the author’s worldview, his aesthetic and ideological positions.

This fact is associated with the rather late emergence of directions and currents in European literature- the period of New Time, when the personal, authorial principle becomes leading in literary creativity. This is the fundamental difference between the modern literary process and the development of literature of the Middle Ages, in which the content and formal features of texts were “predetermined” by tradition and “canon”.

The peculiarity of directions and trends is that these communities are based on the deep unity of philosophical, aesthetic and other substantive principles of largely different, individually authored artistic systems.

Directions and currents should be distinguished from literary schools (and literary groups).

Introduction to literary criticism (N.L. Vershinina, E.V. Volkova, A.A. Ilyushin, etc.) / Ed. L.M. Krupchanov. — M, 2005

1. Literary movement - often identified with artistic method. Designates a set of fundamental spiritual and aesthetic principles of many writers, as well as a number of groups and schools, their programmatic and aesthetic attitudes, and the means used. The laws of the literary process are most clearly expressed in the struggle and change of directions. It is customary to distinguish the following literary trends:

   a) Classicism,
   b) Sentimentalism,
   c) Naturalism,
   d) Romanticism,
   d) Symbolism,
   f) Realism.

2. Literary movement - often identified with literary group and school. Designates a set of creative personalities who are characterized by ideological and artistic affinity and programmatic and aesthetic unity. Otherwise, a literary movement is a variety (as if a subclass) of a literary movement. For example, in relation to Russian romanticism they talk about “philosophical”, “psychological” and “civil” movements. In Russian realism, some distinguish “psychological” and “sociological” trends.

Classicism

Artistic style and direction in European literature and art of the 17th-beginning. XIX centuries. The name is derived from the Latin “classicus” - exemplary.

Features of classicism:

1. Appeal to the images and forms of ancient literature and art as an ideal aesthetic standard, putting forward on this basis the principle of “imitation of nature,” which implies strict adherence to immutable rules drawn from ancient aesthetics (for example, in the person of Aristotle, Horace).
2. Aesthetics is based on the principles of rationalism (from the Latin “ratio” - reason), which affirms the view of a work of art as an artificial creation - consciously created, intelligently organized, logically constructed.
3. The images in classicism are devoid of individual features, since they are designed primarily to capture stable, generic, enduring characteristics over time, acting as the embodiment of any social or spiritual forces.
4. The social and educational function of art. Education of a harmonious personality.
5. A strict hierarchy of genres has been established, which are divided into “high” (tragedy, epic, ode; their sphere is public life, historical events, mythology, their heroes are monarchs, generals, mythological characters, religious devotees) and “low” (comedy, satire , a fable that depicted private daily life people of the middle classes). Each genre has strict boundaries and clear formal characteristics; no mixing of the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic, the heroic and the ordinary was allowed. The leading genre is tragedy.
6. Classical dramaturgy approved the so-called principle of “unity of place, time and action,” which meant: the action of the play should take place in one place, the duration of the action should be limited to the duration of the performance (possibly more, but the maximum time about which the play should have been narrated is one day), the unity of action implied that the play should reflect one central intrigue, not interrupted by side actions.

Classicism originated and developed in France with the establishment of absolutism (classicism with its concepts of “exemplaryness”, a strict hierarchy of genres, etc. is generally often associated with absolutism and the flourishing of statehood - P. Corneille, J. Racine, J. Lafontaine, J. B. Moliere, etc. Having entered a period of decline at the end of the 17th century, classicism was revived during the Enlightenment - Voltaire, M. Chenier, etc. After the Great French Revolution, with the collapse of rationalistic ideas, classicism came into decline, the dominant style European art becomes romanticism.

Classicism in Russia:

Russian classicism arose in the second quarter of the 18th century in the works of the founders of new Russian literature - A. D. Kantemir, V. K. Trediakovsky and M. V. Lomonosov. In the era of classicism, Russian literature mastered the genre and style forms that had developed in the West, joined the pan-European literary development, while maintaining its national identity. Characteristics Russian classicism:

A) Satirical orientation - important place occupy such genres as satire, fable, comedy, directly addressed to specific phenomena of Russian life;
b) The predominance of national historical themes over ancient ones (the tragedies of A. P. Sumarokov, Ya. B. Knyazhnin, etc.);
V) High level development of the ode genre (by M. V. Lomonosov and G. R. Derzhavin);
G) The general patriotic pathos of Russian classicism.

At the end of the XVIII - beginning. 19th century Russian classicism is influenced by sentimentalist and pre-romantic ideas, which is reflected in the poetry of G. R. Derzhavin, the tragedies of V. A. Ozerov and civil lyrics Decembrist poets.

Sentimentalism

Sentimentalism (from English sentimental - “sensitive”) is a movement in European literature and art XVIII century. It was prepared by the crisis of Enlightenment rationalism and was the final stage of the Enlightenment. Chronologically, it mainly preceded romanticism, passing on a number of its features to it.

The main signs of sentimentalism:

1. Sentimentalism remained true to the ideal of the normative personality.
2. In contrast to classicism with its educational pathos, it declared feeling, not reason, to be the dominant of “human nature.”
3. The condition for the formation of an ideal personality was considered not by the “reasonable reorganization of the world,” but by the release and improvement of “natural feelings.”
4. The hero of sentimental literature is more individualized: by origin (or convictions) he is a democrat, rich spiritual world the commoner is one of the conquests of sentimentalism.
5. However, unlike romanticism (pre-romanticism), the “irrational” is alien to sentimentalism: he perceived the inconsistency of moods and the impulsiveness of mental impulses as accessible to rationalistic interpretation.

Sentimentalism took its most complete expression in England, where the ideology of the third estate was formed first - the works of J. Thomson, O. Goldsmith, J. Crabb, S. Richardson, JI. Stern.

Sentimentalism in Russia:

In Russia, representatives of sentimentalism were: M. N. Muravyov, N. M. Karamzin (most famous work - “Poor Liza”), I. I. Dmitriev, V. V. Kapnist, N. A. Lvov, young V. A. Zhukovsky.

Characteristic features of Russian sentimentalism:

a) Rationalistic tendencies are quite clearly expressed;
b) The didactic (moralizing) attitude is strong;
c) Educational trends;
d) Improving the literary language, Russian sentimentalists turned to colloquial norms and introduced vernaculars.

The favorite genres of sentimentalists are elegy, epistle, epistolary novel (novel in letters), travel notes, diaries and other types of prose in which confessional motifs predominate.

Romanticism

One of the largest trends in European and American literature of the late 18th century half of the 19th century century, gaining worldwide significance and distribution. In the 18th century, everything fantastic, unusual, strange, found only in books and not in reality, was called romantic. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. “Romanticism” begins to be called a new literary movement.

Main features of romanticism:

1. Anti-Enlightenment orientation (i.e., against the ideology of the Enlightenment), which manifested itself in sentimentalism and pre-romanticism, and reached its highest point in romanticism. Social and ideological prerequisites - disappointment in the results of the Great French Revolution and the fruits of civilization in general, protest against the vulgarity, routine and prosaicness of bourgeois life. The reality of history turned out to be beyond the control of “reason”, irrational, full of secrets and contingencies, and the modern world order is hostile to human nature and his personal freedom.
2. The general pessimistic orientation is the ideas of “cosmic pessimism”, “world sorrow” (heroes in the works of F. Chateaubriand, A. Musset, J. Byron, A. Vigny, etc.). The theme of the “terrible world lying in evil” was particularly clearly reflected in the “drama of rock” or “tragedy of fate” (G. Kleist, J. Byron, E. T. A. Hoffmann, E. Poe).
3. Belief in the omnipotence of the human spirit, in its ability to renew itself. The Romantics discovered the extraordinary complexity, the inner depth of human individuality. For them, a person is a microcosm, a small universe. Hence the absolutization of the personal principle, the philosophy of individualism. At the center of a romantic work there is always a strong, exceptional personality opposed to society, its laws or moral standards.
4. “Dual world”, that is, the division of the world into real and ideal, which are opposed to each other. Spiritual insight, inspiration, which is subject to the romantic hero, is nothing more than penetration into this ideal world (for example, the works of Hoffmann, especially vividly in: “The Golden Pot”, “The Nutcracker”, “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”) . The romantics contrasted the classicist “imitation of nature” with the creative activity of the artist with his right to transformation real world: the artist creates his own, special world, more beautiful and true.
5. "Local color" A person who opposes society feels a spiritual closeness with nature, its elements. This is why romantics so often use exotic countries and their nature (the East) as the setting for action. The exotic wild nature was quite consistent in spirit with the romantic personality striving beyond the ordinary. Romantics were the first to pay close attention to the creative heritage of the people, their national, cultural and historical characteristics. National and cultural diversity, according to the philosophy of the romantics, was part of one large unified whole - the “universum”. This was clearly realized in the development of the historical novel genre (authors such as W. Scott, F. Cooper, V. Hugo).

The Romantics, absolutizing the creative freedom of the artist, denied rationalistic regulation in art, which, however, did not prevent them from proclaiming their own, romantic canons.

Genres developed: fantastic story, historical novel, a lyric-epic poem, the lyricist reaches extraordinary flowering.

The classical countries of romanticism are Germany, England, France.

Beginning in the 1840s, Romanticism lost its leading position in major European countries. critical realism and fades into the background.

Romanticism in Russia:

The origin of romanticism in Russia is associated with the socio-ideological atmosphere of Russian life - the nationwide upsurge after the War of 1812. All this determined not only the formation, but also the special character of the romanticism of the Decembrist poets (for example, K. F. Ryleev, V. K. Kuchelbecker, A. I. Odoevsky), whose work was inspired by the idea of ​​civil service, imbued with the pathos of love of freedom and struggle.

Characteristic features of romanticism in Russia:

A) The acceleration of the development of literature in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century led to the “rush” and combination of various stages, which in other countries were experienced in stages. In Russian romanticism, pre-romantic tendencies were intertwined with the tendencies of classicism and the Enlightenment: doubts about the omnipotent role of reason, the cult of sensitivity, nature, elegiac melancholy were combined with the classic orderliness of styles and genres, moderate didacticism (edification) and the fight against excessive metaphor for the sake of “harmonic accuracy” (expression A. S. Pushkin).

b) A more pronounced social orientation of Russian romanticism. For example, the poetry of the Decembrists, the works of M. Yu. Lermontov.

In Russian romanticism, such genres as elegy and idyll receive special development. The development of the ballad (for example, in the work of V. A. Zhukovsky) was very important for the self-determination of Russian romanticism. The contours of Russian romanticism were most clearly defined with the emergence of the genre of lyric-epic poem (southern poems by A. S. Pushkin, works by I. I. Kozlov, K. F. Ryleev, M. Yu. Lermontov, etc.). The historical novel is developing as a large epic form (M. N. Zagoskin, I. I. Lazhechnikov). A special way of creating a large epic form is cyclization, that is, the combination of seemingly independent (and partially published separately) works (“Double or My Evenings in Little Russia” by A. Pogorelsky, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” by N. V. Gogol, “Our Hero” time" by M. Yu. Lermontov, "Russian Nights" by V. F. Odoevsky).

Naturalism

Naturalism (from the Latin natura - “nature”) is a literary movement that developed in the last third of the 19th century in Europe and the USA.

Characteristics of naturalism:

1. The desire for an objective, accurate and dispassionate depiction of reality and human character, determined by physiological nature and environment, understood primarily as the immediate everyday and material environment, but not excluding socio-historical factors. The main task of naturalists was to study society with the same completeness with which a natural scientist studies nature, artistic knowledge was likened to science.
2. A work of art was considered as a “human document”, and the main aesthetic criterion was the completeness of the cognitive act carried out in it.
3. Naturalists rejected moralization, believing that reality depicted with scientific impartiality was in itself quite expressive. They believed that literature, like science, has no right in choosing material, that there are no unsuitable plots or unworthy topics for a writer. Hence, plotlessness and social indifference often arose in the works of naturalists.

Naturalism received particular development in France - for example, naturalism includes the work of such writers as G. Flaubert, the brothers E. and J. Goncourt, E. Zola (who developed the theory of naturalism).

In Russia, naturalism was not widespread; it played only a certain role in initial stage development of Russian realism. Naturalistic tendencies can be traced among the writers of the so-called “natural school” (see below) - V. I. Dal, I. I. Panaev and others.

Realism

Realism (from Late Latin realis - material, real) - literary and artistic direction XIX-XX centuries It originates in the Renaissance (the so-called “Renaissance realism”) or in the Enlightenment (“ educational realism"). Features of realism are noted in ancient and medieval folklore and ancient literature.

Main features of realism:

1. The artist depicts life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.
2. Literature in realism is a means of a person’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.
3. Knowledge of reality occurs with the help of images created through typification of facts of reality (“typical characters in a typical setting”). Typification of characters in realism is carried out through the “truthfulness of details” in the “specifics” of the characters’ conditions of existence.
4. Realistic art is life-affirming art, even with a tragic resolution to the conflict. The philosophical basis for this is Gnosticism, the belief in knowability and an adequate reflection of the surrounding world, in contrast, for example, to romanticism.
5. Realistic art is characterized by the desire to consider reality in development, the ability to detect and capture the emergence and development of new forms of life and social relations, new psychological and social types.

Realism as a literary movement was formed in the 30s of the 19th century. The immediate predecessor of realism in European literature was romanticism. Having made the unusual the subject of the image, creating an imaginary world of special circumstances and exceptional passions, he (romanticism) at the same time showed a personality that was richer in mental and emotional terms, more complex and contradictory than was available to classicism, sentimentalism and other movements of previous eras. Therefore, realism developed not as an antagonist of romanticism, but as its ally in the fight against idealization public relations, for the national-historical originality of artistic images (color of place and time). It is not always easy to draw clear boundaries between romanticism and realism of the first half of the 19th century; in the works of many writers, romantic and realistic features merged - for example, the works of O. Balzac, Stendhal, V. Hugo, and partly Charles Dickens. In Russian literature, this was especially clearly reflected in the works of A. S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov (the southern poems of Pushkin and “Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov).

In Russia, where the foundations of realism were already in the 1820-30s. laid down by the work of A. S. Pushkin (“Eugene Onegin”, “Boris Godunov”, “ Captain's daughter”, late lyrics), as well as some other writers (“Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov, fables by I. A. Krylov), this stage is associated with the names of I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky and others. Realism of the 19th century is usually called “critical”, since the defining principle in it was precisely the social-critical one. Heightened social-critical pathos is one of the main distinguishing features of Russian realism - for example, “The Inspector General”, “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol, the activities of writers of the “natural school”. Realism of the 2nd half of the 19th century reached its peak precisely in Russian literature, especially in the works of L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, who became central figures in the world literary process at the end of the 19th century. They enriched world literature new principles for constructing a socio-psychological novel, philosophical and moral issues, new ways of revealing human psyche in its deep layers.