The tension of the action and the inner world of the characters. Psychologism as a way of depicting the inner world of heroes
The picture of the depicted world, the image of the hero of a work of literature in a unique individuality, consists of individual artistic details. An artistic detail is an expressive detail, characteristic any object, part of everyday life, landscape or interior, carrying an increased emotional and meaningful load, not only characterizing the entire object of which it is a part, but also determining the reader’s attitude to what is happening. The details can be: shape, color, light, sound, smell, etc. Being an element of the artistic whole, the detail itself is in the smallest way, micro image. At the same time, the detail is almost always part of a larger image.
Mastery of A.P. Chekhov and I.A. Bunin lies in the fact that they knew how to select material, saturate a small work with great content, and highlight an essential detail important for characterizing a character or object. Precise and capacious artistic detail created creative imagination the author, guides the reader's imagination. Chekhov gave details great importance, believed that it “excites the independent critical thought of the reader,” who must guess a lot for himself. Paying special attention to accuracy in the selection of descriptions and artistic details, A.P. Chekhov managed to create such capacious and memorable images that many of them became household names and have not lost their significance even today.
Traditionally writers for disclosure ideological plan works use such artistic media images such as portrait, landscape, interior, speech of the hero, author's description. In the works of A.P. Chekhov and I.A. Bunin, they carry an additional semantic load.
A portrait in a literary work is a type of artistic description that depicts the external appearance of a character from those sides that most clearly represent the hero in the author’s vision. The portrait is one of essential means characteristics of a literary character. In literature, a psychological portrait is more common, in which the author, through the appearance of the hero, seeks to reveal him inner world, his character. In such a portrait, the writer, through individual traits inherent in a particular person, can also identify general traits characteristic of a certain social environment, profession, category of the population, etc. (typical portraits by N.V. Gogol, M.E. S-Shchedrin).
Interior (French Interieur, internal) - in literature: an artistic description of the interior appearance of the premises. The interior is playing important role in the characterization of the hero, in creating the atmosphere necessary for the embodiment of the author's plan. By describing the setting, the author creates the general atmosphere of the work; it serves not only as a background, but also helps us understand the author’s intent and the characters’ characters. The description of the interior in works where the action takes place in the city is very important and represents one of the main means of characterizing the characters. It is precisely this approach to the interior, turning into a bright artistic, ideologically rich detail, that is characteristic of A.P. Chekhov and I.A. Bunin.
Landscape (French Paysage from pays, terrain, country) - 1) Type of terrain; 2) in art - artistic image nature. More precisely, this is one of the types of artistic description or genre of fine art, the main subject of the image in which is nature, a city or an architectural complex.
Portrait, landscape and interior are types of artistic descriptions, therefore the leading type of speech in them is precisely description, that is, reliance on speech means, expressing the author's assessment. Such means include, first of all, adjectives, participles, nouns and adverbs.
Portrait and interior are closely related to such an aspect of the poetics of a literary work as artistic detail, that is, a small detail that becomes the most important feature of the image. It is through detail that the main characteristics of a character are often conveyed.
Just as the whole can be represented through its part, the plural can be seen in the individual, so the depth of the image as an artistic unity can be conveyed through detail. Special attention artistic detail was given to N.V. Gogol, L.N. Tolstoy, M.A. Bulgakov.
I.A. Bunin reveals the inner world of his heroes mainly through the landscape, unfolding all the actions against the backdrop of nature and thereby emphasizing the truth and genuineness of human feelings.
Portraits also play an important role in Bunin’s works, and the artist describes everyone in detail. characters: both main and secondary, revealing their inner world through a portrait throughout the entire narrative. The objects surrounding the characters are also symbolic, as well as their behavior and communication style.
A.P. Chekhov was the first to abandon the traditional “modeling” of characters. “Fiction is called fiction because it depicts life as it really is.” The truth of life is what attracted him first of all. And Chekhov did not betray this truth anywhere or in anything. Now they are talking about this especially persistently. But back in January 1900, M. Gorky, meaning a departure from some principles of depicting a person, wrote to Anton Pavlovich: “Do you know what you are doing? You're killing realism. And you will kill him soon - to death, for a long time.”
In works of narrative prose, the people depicted and what happens to them can be of particular interest, since everything that happens to them is characteristic of a given moment in time.
This is exactly how the characters in A.P.’s works were regarded by contemporaries. Chekhov and I.A. Bunina. They were seen as typical “heroes of timelessness”, “superfluous people”, and from this point of view they were close to the intelligentsia of that time.
Today, for the reader, Chekhov’s hero has already lost his “historical” features and is perceived independently of them, without them. At the same time, he is only weakly perceived as a “pure” person, because he is shown as if in passing. Chekhov's heroes do not stick into the memory like the heroes of L. Tolstoy and F. Dostoevsky or G. Flaubert and Charles Dickens. They only flash before us like pale transparent shadows, and in our memory they easily move from one of his stories to another or are simply forgotten - like people whom we only met by chance and for a short time in real life, and this, I repeat, is why It is more surprising that the setting in which they are shown to readers of new generations seems alien, unfamiliar and does not at first glance evoke any associations that facilitate the perception of the people placed in it, but it is precisely in the present time that A.P. Chekhov and I.A. Bunin have finally received full recognition and they are no longer afraid to be called great writers.
The greatness of A.P. Chekhov is that he was the first to move away from the usual traditions of depicting a person. What are Chekhov's stories? This is an expression of people's inner mood. Here, however, there is more than I.A. Bunin, the socio-psychological conditionality of what is happening is revealed. And yet, the main thing is not the traits of the characters’ relationships and behavior, but their certain well-being. Often - unsteady, going against one’s own moral aspirations, or, on the contrary, acquiring more and more warmth and poetry.
I.A. Bunin, as is known, sharply opposed the rapprochement of his prose with Chekhov’s. He did not accept attempts to impose on him and his older contemporary the “autumn motifs” and pessimistic moods that were supposedly characteristic of them. And for sure: we cannot agree with any identification of such individual talents. But this does not exclude creative contacts. Both had an inherent desire to highlight a brief moment of mental state - as a sign of the general atmosphere of their time. To embody great meaning in everyday, “modest” manifestations of a person, writers have found special means that combine the visual and expressive functions of storytelling.
Before dwelling on this very important moment for Russian literature at the turn of the century, it is necessary to say something about the personal relationships of A.P. Chekhov and I.A. Bunina.
It seems that their inner closeness did not arise without the influence of similar creative inclinations. Bunin's memories of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov make it possible to assert this.
With A.P. Chekhov I.A. Bunin met in 1895, saw him briefly then and remembered only a few judgments about literary work. And in the spring of 1899 in Yalta, their friendly rapprochement began, despite the large difference in age and literary fame. At the end next year I.A. Bunin lives at the Chekhovs' dacha and learns a lot about Anton Pavlovich from his sister Marya Pavlovna and mother Evgenia Yakovlevna.
A.P.’s meetings lasted for four years. Chekhov and I.A. Bunina. It was during this period, as noted by I.A. Bunin, they “became close, although they did not cross any line - both were reserved, but already deeply loved each other.” Aversion to spiritual “nakedness” and a sense of proportion really distinguished them. This, perhaps, resulted from the strict simplicity of the prose, which conceals its power, like an iceberg, in the “undercurrent.” Although we must not forget about the difference. I.A. Bunin said that A.P. Chekhov “rarely used comparisons and epithets, and if he did use them, they were most often ordinary.” This cannot be attributed to Bunin's artistic speech. Nevertheless, there was always an internal concentration and locality of definitions, a truly Chekhovian aversion to flaunting a “successfully spoken word.”
Something similar happened in their personal communication. They trusted each other with the main thing, and expressed it in the “subtext” of the conversation. Being in the same room, they could remain silent for hours. Mutual understanding was apparently rare. There is another connotation here - the habit of introspective reflection. I.A. Bunin immediately guessed in A.P.’s eyes. Chekhov’s tragic melancholy of a man separated from others by impending death and knowing it. I.A. himself Bunin was young and strong. But due to life circumstances and psychological make-up, he teenage years painfully experienced loneliness. Both did not hide their bitter forebodings from each other. And both could not help but be indignant<…>over-salted caricatures of stupidity and the greatest pretentiousness, and the greatest shamelessness, and constant deceit” in literature, as well as in life.
Spiritual consonance of A.P. Chekhov and I.A. Bunin was clearly manifested in the opposite sphere. Ivan Alekseevich recalled A.P. Chekhov: “He loved laughter<…>“He himself said funny things without the slightest smile.” I.A. Bunin also had a subtle ability to reproduce comic situations in all seriousness. The general craving for jokes and hoaxes led to a special manner of relationships. The younger one read aloud early stories senior, “playing out” the characters’ funny lines, masterfully portraying the expressions of a drunken person. Their innate sense of humor brightened up their sad existence. For I.A. himself Bunin the mighty spirit of A.P. Chekhov, forced to accept physical decline, was perhaps the most astonishing phenomenon.
To penetrate into the depths, the true sources of the drama or comedy of everyday existence - this is a common need for contemporary writers. Hence the similar structure of their prose. The event outline of the works is extremely simplified: after all, nothing significant happens in the boring flashing of days. The characters' relationships lose their development and perspective, because we're talking about about the mass of ordinary, spiritually impoverished, disunited people. These are the reasons for the brevity of the stories, but the author’s keen gaze is directed to the unspoken, unmanifested, even sometimes incomprehensible, desires of the characters.
A.P. Chekhov and I.A. Bunin discover the hidden meaning of monotonous existence. Therefore, they find in the depiction of an outwardly meager life an opportunity to express its true, inner content, and in the text - subtextual “containers”.
I believe that the relationship between A.P. Chekhov and I.A. Bunina dictated by requests Russian art time. It is interesting to compare its different types. Then the internal roll call of artists will become clearer. They wrote not only about their personal feelings, but also about the time in which they lived. That is why I am considering A.P.’s short stories. Chekhov and I.A. Bunina. I am interested in penetration into the creative workshop of writers who, through a system of artistic details, reveal the inner world of the hero, but since the time captured in short stories is very rich, there is a need to understand the changes that occurred in the work of writers in different periods of their work.
There are three types of literature: epic, lyric and drama.
IN epic the subject of the image is events unfolding in space and time. The narrator reports the events as if something happened, accompanying his story with descriptions, remarks and dialogues of the characters, their internal monologue. The author is free to choose the length of the narrative and the number of characters. The main epic genres are tale, short story, short story, novel, fairy tale.
Drama- This is a type of literature focused on stage production. The playwright cannot directly express his thoughts, assessments, or reflect the inner world of the characters (the audience does not hear the stage directions). The characters' personalities are revealed through lines, dialogues and monologues. Of particular importance in this type of literature is conflict– a clash between characters, between the hero and the environment, fate: the conflict should affect all the heroes and force them to express themselves. But the conflict in a drama can also be “internal”, and the dialogues, in fact, are a fiction of dialogues, as in plays A.P. Chekhov.
IN lyrics the subject of the image is thoughts, feelings, experiences, i.e. the inner world lyrical hero. R. Jacobson divided lyric poetry and epic according to how the author positions himself in these types of literature: “The first person of the present tense is both the starting point and the leading theme of lyric poetry: in epic, the same role belongs to the third person of the past tense... The past tense itself in the lyrics it suggests a plot of memory." We are clearly aware of the distance between the author and the characters in epic work: we can only guess about the author’s worldview, about his feelings, about his attitude towards the characters and the events depicted. In lyric poetry, the distance between the poet and the lyrical hero of the poem is minimal. In the article “Block” Yu.N. Tynyanov introduced the concept of “lyrical hero”: “Blok is Blok’s biggest lyrical theme... They are talking about this lyrical hero now.”
It is very important to understand the difference not only between the author and the hero, but also between by the author i.e. the creator work of art, and a writer, poet, i.e. real person, and be able to distinguish between a narrator, narrator and autobiographical hero.
Narrator- the one who reports everything that happens. In the “voice” of the narrator we clearly hear the intonation of the author.
Narrator- a character who talks about the events that happened to him. There is usually a large distance between the narrator and the author. The narrator has a clearly felt intonation and manner of speech (for example, Maxim Maksimych in “A Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov).
A writer can become a prototype autobiographical hero, a fictional character whose life circumstances and views are close to his own.
Author's position– the author’s attitude towards the characters, towards the questions posed in the work. The author’s position is expressed not only in his direct assessments, in reasoning on his behalf, but also indirectly (through the plot, composition, through characters close to the author who are noticeably attractive to him, etc.).
The division into epic and lyric poetry does not coincide with the division into poetry and prose. Poetry is speech that has a clear rhythm, that is, divided into equal segments. The pause between these segments does not always coincide with syntactic pauses (in place of a comma, period). The word in poetic and prose text behaves differently: in poetry it is more dynamic and weighty than in prose (this is facilitated by rhythm, rhyme, and a short poetic line). It is believed that poetry and prose are so different forms literature, that one person cannot be equally talented both as a poet and as a writer.
Initially, the art of words was understood as possession poetic language, the term “literature” was established only in the 18th century. We can say that before the invention of printing, that is, until the moment when the book became accessible to many people, the art of words existed not for readers, but for listeners. Form poetic speech(rhythm, rhyme) was felt more acutely by ear than when reading “to oneself.” In addition, the poetic form gave significance to the word, elevated it, and removed it from the sphere of everyday use. Typography changed the perception of words: the author began to focus less on sound, and the art of decorating a work with metaphors, comparisons, and vivid images became more important. Over time, the prose form ceased to be perceived as inferior in comparison with the poetic; moreover, the naturalness and “simplicity” of the language began to be considered as clear advantages of the writer’s style.
For epic genres The prose form is typical, while the lyric is poetic. Of course, the poetic form in to a greater extent than prose, it is suitable for lyricism, since rhythm and rhyme create a certain intonation, and therefore give emotionality to speech. Word in prose is focused on description, on depicting the surrounding world (landscape, interior, portrait), on reproducing various manners of speech, which is why epic gravitates toward prose.
To what extent do a poet and a prose writer differ in the degree to which they are attuned to the external and internal world? Of course, lyrics presuppose a focus on one’s own feelings, and prose presupposes an attentive, tenacious look at the world around us, however, in both the writer and the poet, we are fascinated by the ability to reflect the connection between the external and the internal. Landscape, descriptions of interiors- this is not the surroundings that give vitality to the events taking place, but what the hero interacts with. The objects with which a person surrounds himself can tell us about his tastes, interests, and lifestyle. At the same time, the surrounding world influences a person: the harmony of nature, comfort, beautiful objects can have a beneficial effect on character, but a “suffocating” environment suppresses (remember appalling conditions lives of heroes F.M. Dostoevsky).
One of the signs of a painter’s gift in literature is the mastery of accurate, visual details. So in “Eugene Onegin”, just one detail allows us to find the answer to an important question: how passionate is the main character about Tatiana? The reader can watch Eugene when he is immersed in love dreams. A comical detail - magazines and slippers periodically falling into the fireplace - suggests to what extent the feeling has captured the hero:
How he looked like a poet,
When I was sitting alone in the corner,
And the fireplace was burning in front of him,
And he purred: Benedetta
Il Idol mio and dropped
A.S. Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin” he does not skimp on “random” ones that do not carry, as it might seem, deep meaning details in the interior description:
Amber on the pipes of Constantinople,
Porcelain and bronze on the table,
And, a joy to pampered feelings,
Perfume in cut crystal;
Combs, steel files,
Straight scissors, curved
And brushes of thirty kinds
V.G. Belinsky believed that such a number of details of the heroes’ life allows Pushkin to create a complete, broad picture of the era. However, as I noted in my essay "Walking with Pushkin"(1966–1968) famous Russian literary critic, writer Abram Tertz(A.D. Sinyavsky), in “Eugene Onegin” there are no descriptions of many of the most important aspects of Russian life, such as, for example, obvious signs of serfdom. According to Tertz, Pushkin did not want to be a Teacher, a herald social problems, he did not set himself the goal of creating an “encyclopedia of Russian life”, but simply enjoyed the colors, aromas, sounds, every little thing.
A detail can be valuable in itself, that is, not only as a way to reveal the hero’s inner world, to create a picture of the era against which his character was formed, but also as an expression of the author’s sensitivity and spiritual disposition to the beauty of the world, to the harmony that is present even in everyday life, in the little things of everyday life. In “Eugene Onegin” Pushkin wrote with irony about romantic aspiration into the distance, into the world of fantasy. It reconfigures the focus of perception to everyday world, dim, but lively and charming. In Pushkin’s “Count Nulin” (1825), a humorous, frivolous work, the reader is fascinated not only by the funny plot, but also by the simple, prosaic descriptions:
All around the boys were laughing.
Meanwhile, sadly, under the window,
The turkeys came out screaming
Following a wet cock;
Three ducks were rinsing themselves in a puddle;
A woman walked through a dirty yard
In “Eugene Onegin” Pushkin also does not skimp on such charming pictures. When describing a scene from village life, the poet ironically combines high style (bosom of waters, shore) and “prosaic”:
Boys are a joyful people
Skates cut the ice noisily;
The goose is heavy on red legs,
Having decided to sail across the bosom of the waters,
Steps carefully onto the ice,
Romanticism was replaced by “down-to-earth” realism. For L .N. Tolstoy, one of the most prominent representatives of this movement, the purity of style is inextricably linked with the clarity of the writer’s thoughts, with his ability to directly, in a childlike, bright way perceive the world and enjoy the most simple things. Tolstoy believed that his contemporaries, and especially representatives of high society, had lost their “sense of life.” In his story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” the hero dies before his physical decline begins: he, trying to live like everyone else, lost himself, the spontaneity of sensations, the originality of thoughts. Returning to oneself, that is, to life, begins with reviving in the hero’s memory his childhood feelings. Tolstoy selects very simple, tangible details: “Was it possible for Kai that smell of the striped leather ball that Vanya loved so much! Did Kai kiss his mother’s hand like that, and did the silk of the folds of his mother’s dress rustle like that for Kai?” // Did Ivan Ilyich remember the boiled prunes that he was offered to eat today? He remembered the raw, wrinkled French prunes in his childhood, their special taste and the abundance of saliva when it came to the stone, and next to this memory of taste arose whole line memories of that time: nanny, brother, toys. “Don’t talk about it... it’s too painful,” Ivan Ilyich said to himself and was again transported to the present. A button on the back of a sofa and wrinkles in morocco. “Maffyan is expensive and fragile; the quarrel was about him. But the morocco was different, and there was another quarrel when we tore my father’s briefcase and we were punished, and my mother brought pies.”
At the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. a new direction in art has appeared, symbolism, close in spirit to romanticism. The symbolists sought in the act of creativity to overcome appearances and touch the highest essence, superreality. In the pictures of the surrounding world they saw hints, clues that revealed to them the highest secrets. The thing lost its intrinsic value, turning into a symbol, a code. O.E. Mandelstam I saw the “weakness” of this trend in the fact that the symbolists had forgotten how to truly see the world. Mandelstam believed that a thing has true value when it is filled with the warmth of a person’s soul, when it is involved in his life. In his opinion, Russian culture in its deepest essence is connected with Hellenistic culture, as he understood it: “Hellenism is the conscious surrounding of a person with utensils instead of indifferent objects, the transformation of these objects into utensils, the humanization of the surrounding world, warming it with the subtlest teleological warmth. Hellenism is any stove near which a person sits and appreciates its warmth as akin to his inner warmth. Finally, Hellenism is the burial boat of the Egyptian dead, in which everything necessary for the continuation of a person’s earthly journey is placed, right down to an aromatic jug, a mirror and a comb... Let’s take, for example, a rose and the sun, a dove and a girl. Is it really that none of these images are interesting in themselves, and the rose is a semblance of the sun, the sun is a semblance of a rose, etc.? The images are gutted, like stuffed animals, and stuffed with alien content. Instead of the symbolic “forest of correspondences” there is a stuffed animal workshop... An eternal wink. Not a single clear word, only hints, omissions. Rose nods at the girl, the girl at the rose. Nobody wants to be themselves."
Another famous contemporary of the Symbolists AND.A. Bunin“contrasted” their aspiration beyond the limits of the visible world with the artist’s ability to endow the simplest, everyday things with poetry: “... some kind of deaf stop, silence - only the steam locomotive wheezes hotly in front - and in everything an incomprehensible charm: and in this temporary numbness and silence , and in the locomotive's wheezing expectancy, and in the fact that the station is not visible behind the red wall of freight cars standing on the first track, on melted rails, among which a chicken walks and pecks calmly, at home, condemned to peacefully spend its entire chicken life, why - precisely at this stop and not at all interested in where and why you are going with all your dreams and feelings, the eternal and high joy of which is associated with things that are outwardly so insignificant and ordinary...” This understanding of beauty is close and V.V. Nabokov, a writer for whom Bunin, of course, was one of his teachers. The hero of Nabokov’s novel “The Gift,” the poet Godunov-Cherdyntsev, feels “piercing pity for the tin in a vacant lot, for the cigarette picture trampled into the dirt from the series “ National costumes“, to a random, poor word that is repeated by a kind, weak, loving person who has received a scolding in vain - to all the rubbish of life, which through instant alchemical distillation, royal experience, becomes something precious and eternal.”
Bunin destroyed many taboos of Russian classical literature. He began to depict too “insignificant”, even low details of life, and wrote openly about physical love. He even turned the smell of manure into a detail worthy of poetry:
And the nightingales sing all night from their warm nests
In the blue dope of smoking manure,
In the silver dust of hazy-bright stars.
In his story “The Resentment,” dedicated to Bunin, Nabokov introduces a similar bold detail: “Occasionally, the tense root of a horse’s tail would rise, a dark bulb would inflate underneath it, squeezing out a round golden lump, a second, a third, and then the folds of dark skin would tighten again, and the crow would fall off. tail" .
Describing exotic countries, Bunin and Nabokov avoided spices. In Nabokov’s novel “Camera Obscura,” the talented cartoonist Gorn says that by filling the picture with simple but non-trivial details, the writer breathes life into it: “The fiction writer talks, for example, about India, where I have never been, and only from him and you hear that about bayaderes, tiger hunts, fakirs, betel, snakes - all this is very intense, very spicy, a complete, in a word, secret of the east - but what happens? It turns out that I don’t see any India in front of me... Another fiction writer says only two words about India: I put out my wet boots at night, and in the morning a blue forest has already grown on them... - and immediately India is like living for me, - the rest I’m already myself, I’m already imagining it myself.”
Among modern Russian prose writers, the writer stands out for her special artistic attitude to the world of things
T.N. Fat. She not only does not skimp on describing the little things: she establishes her scale, boldly equating objects and people in one sentence: “The meat grinder of time willingly crushes large, bulky, dense objects - cabinets, pianos, people - and every fragile little thing that God’s light appeared, accompanied by ridicule and squinting eyes, all these porcelain dogs, cups, vases, rings, drawings..., baby dolls and mummies - pass through it untouched.” Objects and people in Tolstoy’s works are in such close interaction that it seems that spiritual warmth easily flows from a person to objects and vice versa: “Complaining and surprised, admiring and perplexed, her soul flowed in an even stream from the telephone holes, spread across the tablecloth, evaporated smoke, danced with dust in the last sunbeam". The metamorphoses that occur inside a person are reflected in the change in the hero’s perception of the things around him. For example, in childhood, tacky decorations evoke admiration and bloom with metaphor: “Oh room!.. A caravan of camels marched through your house with ghostly steps and lost its Baghdad luggage in the twilight! A waterfall of velvet, ostrich feathers of lace, a shower of porcelain... precious tables on curved legs, locked glass columns of slides, where delicate yellow glasses were entwined with black grapes..." The matured heroes look at the room with different eyes: "Well, this was what captivated? All this rags and junk, shabby painted chests of drawers, clumsy oilcloth pictures, rickety jardinieres, worn plush, darned tulle, clumsy market crafts, cheap glass?
A writer can fill a thing with life, animate it, and deprive a person of his face, emphasizing the inner emptiness of the hero.
The world of things inspired N.V. Gogol: for example, from the mundane image of stale clothes hung on ropes for airing, his imagination is carried away to bright images of the fair: “Everything, mixed together, made up a very entertaining sight for Ivan Ivanovich, while the rays of the sun, covering in places a blue or green sleeve, red a cuff or a piece of gold brocade, or playing on a sword spitz, made it something extraordinary, similar to the nativity scene that nomadic scoundrels carry around farmsteads. Especially when a crowd of people, closely packed, looks at King Herod in a golden crown or at Anton leading a goat; behind the nativity scene a violin squeals; The gypsy strums his hands over his lips instead of a drum, and the sun sets, and the fresh cold of the southern night imperceptibly presses harder on the fresh shoulders and chests of the full peasant women.” In this passage there is a movement from the inanimate, musty to the living, fresh, but there is a reverse movement in Gogol’s works - his heroes are often people who have forgotten about the soul, and this is reflected in their faces, reminiscent of masks.
It happens that the absence of a portrait can say more about a hero than a detailed depiction of his appearance, as in “Eugene Onegin” A.S. Pushkin. The absence of a portrait of the main character, Tatyana Larina, speaks volumes: her charm is not in her flashy beauty, but in her inner harmony. In addition, without a portrait, the mysterious, unattainable image of Tatiana remains in the realm of dreams, exciting our imagination. Pushkin describes Olga Larina and Lensky in more detail, but in the portraits of these heroes he uses details that have become clichés, i.e. commonplace, in descriptions of the appearance of heroes of romantic, sentimental novels: Blue eyes, light curls (Olga), shoulder-length black curls (Lensky). Thus, Pushkin emphasizes the facelessness of the heroes.
Through absence individual traits N.V. Gogol reveals the absence of a soul in a person. For example, in “The Overcoat” he creates a detailed portrait of Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, full of the smallest details: “So, one official served in one department, the official cannot be said to be very remarkable, short in stature, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat reddish, somewhat even blind in appearance, with a small bald spot on the forehead, with wrinkles on both sides of the cheeks and a complexion that is called hemorrhoidal...” According to a researcher of Gogol’s work B. Eikhenbaum(see Chapter 4), such details are unlikely to help the reader clearly imagine the hero, but the sound line in this description is much more significant: “The last word is delivered in such a way that its sound form acquires a special emotional and expressive power and is perceived as a comic sound gesture regardless of the meaning. It is prepared, on the one hand, by the method of rhythmic growth, on the other hand, by the consonant endings of several words, tuning the ear to the perception of sound impressions (pockmarked - reddish - blind) and therefore sounds grandiose, fantastic, without any relation to the meaning... Inner vision remains unaffected ( there is nothing more difficult, I think, how to draw Gogol’s heroes) - from the whole phrase, the impression most likely remains in the memory of some kind of sound scale, ending with a rolling and almost logically meaningless word, but unusually strong in its articulatory expressiveness - “hemorrhoidal”. The contrast of dull and voiced sounds turns out to be more expressive than the portrait of the hero, and it seems that the repetition of the colorless, dull sound “t” emphasizes the character’s facelessness.
The absence of individual features in Bashmachkin’s appearance indicates not only the inconspicuousness of the hero in the crowd, but also the emptiness inside him, the absence of an intense spiritual life. Gogol created a whole gallery of landowners, peasants, officials of various stripes, but on the pages of his works it is difficult to meet Man: the actions of his heroes are often dictated by their social status (pride and servility), dreams of obtaining a higher status in society, of prosperity, and not by movements their hearts.
Gogol's heroes live forgetting about the soul, and the world inhabited by such people takes on grotesque features and seems unreal. Grotesque- violation of the boundaries of plausibility, fantastic exaggeration, combination of the incongruous. Gogol depicts a bizarre, fantastic, even ugly world, where people lose their souls. In the story "The Nose" everyday life the hero, Major Kovalev, is so alien to spiritual interests, and his bodily essence is so far from the spiritual, that there is a gap between the external and the internal: a part of the body, the nose, acquires the ability of autonomous existence without its owner.
In Gogol’s grotesque world, high and low, significant and small change places, so a “minor” detail can become the main one in a portrait. Gogol rarely describes the eyes of the heroes, although traditionally it is the eyes that are the semantic center of the portrait: the hero’s soul seems to speak through them. For example, in "Hero of Our Time" M.Yu. Lermontov specially dwells on the description of the expression in Pechorin’s eyes: “First of all, they didn’t laugh when he laughed! – Have you ever noticed such strangeness in some people?.. Because of their half-lowered eyelashes, they shone with some kind of phosphorescent shine, so to speak. It was not a reflection of the heat of the soul or the playing imagination: it was a shine, similar to the shine of smooth steel, dazzling, but cold...” When Gogol describes the tailor, Petrovich, he focuses on a completely non-picturesque detail - the nail of the big toe: “And first of all he rushed into eyes thumb, very famous to Akakiy Akakievich, with some kind of mutilated nail, thick and strong, like a turtle’s skull.” Although the focus of perception of the world is tuned to the smallest details, the portrait of the hero eludes us, but an exotic image of a turtle appears in our imagination (repetition of the sounds “ch” and “p” helps to focus on this image). Another example of a false portrait in “The Overcoat” is the image of a general on the lid of a snuff box, pierced with a finger and sealed with a piece of paper. This portrait appears several times, and thus some unknown, faceless general gains weight on the pages of the work: in Gogol’s grotesque Petersburg the rank more important than the soul, faces.
Portraits of Gogol’s heroes often resemble images of dolls, and in “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich,” the faces of the heroes are generally compared to a radish and the nose, reminiscent of a plum, stands out as the most noticeable part of the face. The difference between the characters turns out to be an illusion: “Ivan Ivanovich’s head looks like a radish with its tail down; Ivan Nikiforovich's head on a radish, tail up." IN " Dead souls“The dead body becomes the “mirror of the soul”: only by looking at the soulless body of the prosecutor did the heroes realize that he had a soul.
Portraits in Gogol's works resemble masks: they create a conventional image. Often, their things and everyday details speak more eloquently about his heroes. In “Dead Souls,” piles of ash knocked out of a pipe, neatly placed on the windowsills, speak of the uselessness and emptiness of Manilov’s life. The Box Clock, which makes a hissing sound and then a sound like someone hitting a broken pot, emphasizes her stupidity. Nozdryov's barrel organ with mixed melodies, with a pipe that continues to make sounds after the end of the music, is similar to his absurd, unpredictable character (“much ado about nothing”),
In Gogol's works one cannot find a detailed depiction of a person's feelings and thoughts. The diversity of the objective world created by the writer, tactile, taste, and olfactory sensations sets off the impersonality and emptiness inside his characters. But not only the world created by Gogol is in disharmony. Tragic conflict unfolded in the soul of the writer himself: a believer, horrified when looking at a world inhabited dead souls, and a lover of life, a gourmet who enjoyed simple, earthly joys, colors, aromas and sounds.
An equally acute conflict between the artist and the philosopher took place in the soul L.N. Tolstoy. V.V. wrote about the attitude of most admirers of Tolstoy’s work to this conflict. Nabokov in his “Lectures on Russian Literature”: “Sometimes I just want to knock out the imaginary stand from under my bast-shod feet and lock me in a stone house on a desert island with a bottle of ink and a stack of paper, away from any ethical and pedagogical “issues”, which he was distracted by instead of admiring the curls dark hair on Anna Karenina's neck. But this is impossible; Tolstoy is one, and the struggle between the artist, who reveled in the beauty of the black earth, white body, blue snow, green fields, purple clouds, and a moralist who argued that fiction sinful... walked in the same person.” The details of the portrait on which the writer focuses, as a rule, reveal the character of the hero, his tastes, social affiliation, but the curls on Anna Karenina’s neck do not so much reveal something in her character as they convey Tolstoy’s worldview, his admiration for the beauty of the world and women. According to Nabokov, the conflict between the artist and the philosopher, by and large, was productive: spiritual vigilance (the desire for truth, a deep analysis of one’s inner world) and a very sensual, sharp view of the world ultimately organically combined in Tolstoy’s works. Tolstoy is so clear about not only what his characters think, but also what they look like, that throughout the development of his huge novels, the appearance of any character is accompanied by an image of his individual behavior and certain features of appearance. At the same time, Tolstoy shows how, under the influence internal state the appearance of a person changes. Pierre, in captivity, realizes that it is not need, but excess that makes a person unhappy, and his readiness to get rid of everything unnecessary in his life, to make it spiritually more natural, healthy is emphasized by changes in his appearance: he loses excess weight, becomes physically stronger. Tolstoy compares Marya Bolkonskaya’s appearance to a painted, carved lantern, whose beauty is visible when it is illuminated from within: the light of her soul penetrates primarily through her eyes, which is why ugly Marya’s eyes are beautiful. Tolstoy notes good expression her eyes when she's not thinking about herself. Her radiant eyes go out when she feels insulted, as, for example, during Anatole's matchmaking. Love for Nikolai Rostov fills her eyes with light, she becomes attractive, and he falls in love with her radiant eyes. His look speaks of the change in the worldview of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. So after Austerlitz and the death of his wife, his look is “extinguished, dead.” Love for Natasha transforms Prince Andrei: “with a radiant, enthusiastic and renewed face for life,” he communicates his feelings to Pierre. After Natasha’s betrayal, Bolkonsky becomes embittered and outwardly becomes similar to his father, who cannot forgive. Before his death, when his “awakening from life” begins, Bolkonsky’s appearance is childish (by likening a dying person to a child, Tolstoy illustrates his idea that death is not the end, but perhaps the beginning of a new life).
Interior details in Tolstoy's works create a very natural, realistic background, and often such details carry deep meaning. Thus, the ladder from which the main character of the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” fell is an important symbol. The goal of Ivan Ilyich’s life is to move up the career ladder, but along another, spiritual ladder, he moves down (remember the image of a ladder described in the Bible, in Jacob’s visions, along which angels ascend, the “Ladder” of John Climacus - this symbol is often found in Russian iconography).
Plunging into the inner world of a person, Tolstoy also details it as much as possible, conveying in his internal monologue the slightest turns of thoughts, sensations, feelings, tracing the complex path of spiritual changes in the inner world of his heroes. His manner of depicting the inner world of I.G.’s heroes. Chernyshevsky called "dialectics of the soul":“Psychological analysis can take different directions: one poet is primarily interested in the outlines of characters; another - the influence of social relations and everyday clashes on characters; third - the connection between feelings and actions; fourth - analysis of passions; Count Tolstoy most of all - himself mental process, its forms, its laws, the dialectic of the soul, to express it in a defining term."
Chernyshevsky identifies three types of psychologism:
1. One motionless feeling is analyzed and decomposed into its component parts. Such a static image of the inner world resembles an “anatomical table”.
This is Pechorin’s self-analysis from “A Hero of Our Time” M.YU. Lermontov corresponds to the first method of psychological analysis: there is no chaos in it, they are literary processed. Internal monologues in Tolstoy's works are more natural. Describing the state of Anna Karenina after a trip to Moscow to visit her brother on the train, Tolstoy shows the confusion that gripped her in several ways: through an internal monologue, through her sensory sensations, through the external expression of feelings, through the image of a stretched string: “Why am I ashamed?” – she asked herself with offended surprise. She left the book and leaned back in her chair, holding the cutting knife tightly in both hands. There was nothing shameful... I remembered the ball, I remembered Vronsky and his loving, submissive face, I remembered all my relationships with him: there was nothing shameful. And at the same time, at this very place of memories, the feeling of shame intensified, as if some inner voice, right here, when she remembered Vronsky, was telling her: “Warm, very warm, hot.” “Well then? – she said to herself decisively, shifting in her chair. - What does this mean? Am I afraid to look straight at it? So what? Is there really any other relationship between me and this boy officer than that which exists with every acquaintance?” She grinned contemptuously and took up the book again, but she absolutely could not understand what she was reading. She ran a cutting knife along the glass, then put its smooth and cold surface to her cheek and almost laughed out loud from the joy that suddenly took possession of her for no reason. She felt that her nerves, like strings, were being pulled tighter and tighter on some screwed pegs. She felt that her eyes were opening more and more, that her fingers and toes were moving nervously, that something was pressing inside her, and that all the images and sounds in this wavering twilight were striking her with extraordinary brightness.”
A recognized master in depicting the inner world of man is F.M. Dostoevsky. He boldly and impartially looked into the underground of the human soul, into the subconscious. As a rule, Dostoevsky’s heroes appear before us at crisis moments in their lives, when petty, everyday issues fade into the background for them and the main, “damned” questions are in the spotlight: about the meaning and purpose of life, about the choice between good and evil . The inner life of the heroes becomes unusually intense, the mask falls off and the underground of their soul opens before us: those feelings, cherished thoughts that a person hides not only from others, but also from himself. Almost every hero of Dostoevsky has a cherished idea, and at such moments, testing or implementing this idea becomes the meaning of their life. The “cherished idea” finds itself under the criticism of other characters or receives its development, discovering new shades of meaning in the presentation of other characters, in similar theories. The internal monologue of Dostoevsky's heroes turns, in fact, into a dialogue: the hero, reflecting, argues with himself and with imaginary opponents.
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky answered the question of what hides deep in the soul of every person in completely different ways. Dostoevsky considered man to be an essentially irrational being. In the underground soul of his heroes, we often discover a desire for self-destruction, which can be expressed “on the surface” in both ugly actions and sacrifice. Tolstoy believed that any person, looking deep into himself, will find God there - this is what he called the source of morality and wisdom present in every person. His heroes are distinguished, by and large, by how unclouded this source is in them, by how much they were able to maintain purity and naturalness, by how uncorrupted they are by society and civilization. Despite this discrepancy in their understanding of the essence human nature, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are united by the desire to penetrate the most cherished corners of the human soul. They captured the very process of the birth of thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Unlike them, I.S. Turgenev refused to expose the life of the soul of his heroes. He believed that feeling is too irrational, mysterious, and direct analysis simplifies it, and therefore “the psychologist must disappear from the artist, just as a skeleton disappears from the eye under a living and warm body, for which it serves as a strong but invisible support.” He reveals the inner world of his heroes through external manifestations (gestures, behavior, appearance), through their perception of nature, music, which is why we call Turgenev a master "hidden psychologism".
In the story “First Love,” Turgenev confronts the self-awareness of a teenager (he considers himself an adult) and the external manifestations of his age (he behaves like a child). Childish spontaneity is expressed in how the hero reacts to a new feeling of love for him: “I sat down on a chair and sat for a long time as if enchanted. What I felt was so new and so sweet... I sat, looking around slightly and not moving, breathing slowly and only from time to time I silently laughed, remembering, then I grew cold inside at the thought that I was in love, that here she was, this is love. Zinaida's face quietly floated in front of me in the darkness - floated and did not float; her lips were still smiling mysteriously, her eyes looked at me a little sideways, questioningly, thoughtfully and tenderly... just like at the moment when I parted with her. Finally, I got up, tiptoed to my bed and carefully, without undressing, put my head on the pillow, as if afraid to disturb with a sudden movement what I was filled with.” Behavior more accurately expresses psychological condition hero than his self-esteem.
Hidden psychologism is also characteristic of A’s creative manner .P. Chekhov. Contemporaries often reproached the writer for the fact that in his works it was impossible to find any clear thought, idea, i.e., an explicit author's morality understandable to the reader. Indeed, it may seem that Chekhov is skimming the surface. One of the manifestations of such “superficiality” is the absence of detailed descriptions and long internal monologues in his works. However, Chekhov seems to have nothing meaningful phrase, a random detail can say more than verbose passages. For example, in the story “Big Volodya and Little Volodya,” the set of sounds that the hero sings in response to the remarks of other characters, “Tara...ra...bumbia,” means nothing and a lot: this song expresses his reluctance to listen, answer, or conduct a dialogue with another person. The “meaningless detail” in “Darling” - her father’s dusty chair, missing one leg, lying in the attic - reveals the emptiness of the main character, Olenka, her feeling that no one needs her. The portrait of the heroine cannot be called detailed: a gentle look, rosy cheeks, a white neck with a mole and an indication that Olenka is a “very healthy” young lady. Her healthy appearance emphasizes that she is not torn apart by contradictions or tormented by doubts. Depending on her internal state, Olenka gets fatter or loses weight: the emptiness inside the heroine is easily filled with the interests of her loved ones, and when she loses close people, the meaning leaves her life with them, she loses weight, becomes dull. In the reader’s mind an image of a certain empty cavity appears, the dimensions of which depend on the filling from the outside (with views on life, the interests of others). Chekhov has often been compared to the impressionists, but he can also be compared with Amedeo Modigliani: a few precise lines, strokes - and surprisingly lively, piercing images appear before us.
In the 20th century Such methods of psychological analysis as detailed internal monologues and a detailed psychological portrait can be found primarily in the works of Russian writers, continuing traditions classical realism(M.A. Sholokhov, A.I. Solzhenitsyn, V.G. Rasputin). Artists of the 20th century often create internal monologues, which are an unkempt stream of thoughts, feelings, subconscious impulses of the hero, "mindflow". In Russian literature, to such a frank exposure of the inner world of the 19th century. came close L.N. Tolstoy in “Anna Karenina”, when he depicted the heroine’s confusion before death: “If he, not loving me, is kind and gentle to me out of duty, and he doesn’t get what I want, then that’s even a thousand times worse than anger.” ! This is hell! And this is exactly what it is. He hasn't loved me for a long time. And where love ends, hatred begins. I don't know these streets at all. There are some mountains, and all the houses, houses... And in the houses all the people, people... There are so many of them, there is no end, and everyone hates each other. Well, let me come up with what I want to be happy. Well? I get a divorce, Alexey Alexandrovich gives me Seryozha, and I marry Vronsky.” Recognized masters of the “stream of consciousness” are M. Proust, A. Bely, J. Joyce.
In the 20th century New forms of hidden psychologism are also developing and appearing. For example, the hero’s state is revealed through a change in his perception of time: the writer can “compress” time or slow down the narrative. For example, he masterfully conveyed the inner feeling of speed and pace of life I.A. Bunin. In his novel “The Life of Arsenyev,” a life rich in emotions and events is expressed in an increase in speed and overall tempo. Arsenyev notes: “The speed and weak-willedness with which I surrendered to everything that so accidentally fell upon me was amazing.” Falling in love is a different passage of time compared to the usual: “...I left the editorial office only at three o’clock, completely amazed at how quickly it all happened: I didn’t know then that this speed, the disappearance of time, is the first sign of the beginning of the so-called love." One day can be equal to ten years, as in the story “Sunstroke”: “Both yesterday and this morning were remembered as if they were ten years ago.” An alternative to such an increase in the speed of life can be calm, measured everyday life, time counted by an alarm clock: “Silence, in silence, measured running in the bedroom of the owner of the alarm clock.” At such moments, time turns into “eternity”: “These days passed endlessly amid the boredom of the classroom at the gymnasium... and in the silence of two warm bourgeois rooms, the calm of which was aggravated not only by the drowsy sound of the alarm clock... but even by the small crackling of bobbins... - they walked slowly, monotonously ".
Literature demonstrates wide possibilities for mastering both the external and internal world of man. Different eras in the history of culture differ in their interpretation of the essence of the relations of these worlds. Thus, romantics look for pictures in the reality around them that are in tune with their inner world, complex and vibrant, which is why they are often attracted to the exotic and the elements. For symbolists, the outside world is full of hints, keys that reveal the Highest secrets. Realist writers show how lifestyle influences a person, so in their work the world of everyday life and simple things comes to life.
Analyzing the work of writers and poets, they can be conditionally divided into those whose perception is more responsive to the world of mental phenomena, and those who are more sensitive to images of the external world, who convey a rich palette of sensory sensations: visual, gustatory, olfactory, tactile. But it is important to understand that real writer, no matter how the focus of his perception of the world is set, shows the external and internal worlds in their subtle mutual influence. Therefore, it is impossible to analyze the work, to analyze the essence of the characters’ characters, considering the world of visual images and the inner world of the characters in isolation. It is necessary to understand that the worldview of the heroes and the author is expressed not only in internal monologues, direct assessments, in stage directions, in lyrical digressions, but also in the details of the interior, landscape, in the description of the appearance of the heroes, their costume, and manner of behavior.
Questions
1. Which type of literature is more suitable for depicting the author’s inner world, and which for conveying the thoughts and feelings of the hero?
2. Why is poetry characterized by a poetic form?
3. What objective reasons limit the playwright’s capabilities?
4. What types of psychologism does N.G. identify? Chernyshevsky?
5. What is the role of detail in the novel by A.S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin"?
6. Why are the portraits of N.V. Can Gogol be called false portraits?
7. Give your own examples of how the appearance of L.N.’s characters changes. Tolstoy under the influence of their internal state.
8. What techniques of hidden psychologism are used by I.S. Turgenev and A.P. Chekhov?
Bunin I.A. Sunstroke // I.A. Bunin. Mitya's love: stories and stories" M" 2000. P. 222.
Bunin I.A. Life of Arsenyev // I.A. Bunin. Collected works: in 5 books. Kk 5. St. Petersburg, 1994. P. 196.
Literature test Poor Lisa for 9th grade students. The test consists of two options, each option contains 5 short-answer tasks and 3 general tasks with a detailed answer.
Even before the sun rose, Lisa got up, went down to the bank of the Moscow River, sat down on the grass and, saddened, looked at the white mists that were agitated in the air and, rising upward, left shiny drops on the green cover of nature. Silence reigned everywhere. But soon the rising luminary of the day awakened all creation; The groves and bushes came to life, the birds fluttered and sang, the flowers raised their heads to drink in the life-giving rays of light. But Lisa still sat there, saddened. Oh, Lisa, Lisa! What happened to you? Until now, waking up with the birds, you had fun with them in the morning, and a pure, joyful soul shone in your eyes, like the sun shines in drops of heavenly dew; but now you are thoughtful, and the general joy of nature is alien to your heart. Meanwhile, a young shepherd was driving his flock along the river bank, playing the pipe. Lisa fixed her gaze on him and thought: “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant, a shepherd, and if he were now driving his flock past me; Oh! I would bow to him with a smile and say affably: “Hello, dear shepherd! Where are you driving your flock? And here green grass grows for your sheep, and here flowers grow red, from which you can weave a wreath for your hat.” He would look at me with an affectionate look - maybe he would take my hand... A dream! A shepherd, playing the flute, passed by and disappeared with his motley flock behind a nearby hill.
1 option
Short answer questions
1. To which literary movement does the work belong?
2. Name the city in which the events take place.
3. Indicate the name of the visual and expressive means:
...the flowers raised their heads to drink life-giving
rays of light.
4. What is the name of the means of recreating the hero’s inner world:
Lisa fixed her gaze on him and thought: “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant...”
5. Indicate the name of the appointment:
Until now, waking up with the birds, you had fun with them in the morning... but now you are thoughtful, and the general joy of nature is alien to your heart.
Long answer questions
Option 2
Short answer questions
1. Name the genre of the work.
2. Name the person who occupied my thoughts Lisa.
3. Indicate the name of the means of allegorical expression:
Silence reigned everywhere...
4. Indicate the name of the visual and expressive medium:
... the soul shone in your eyes, like the sun shining in the dewdrops
heavenly.
5. What is the name of the image of nature in a literary work, for example:
“... white mists that waved in the air and, rising upward, left shiny drops on the green cover of nature.”
Long answer questions
6. How do the pictures of nature in this fragment reflect the state of the heroine?
7. For what purpose does Karamzin create the image of a shepherdess?
8. Compare fragments of the works of N.M. Karamzin “Poor Liza” and A.S. Pushkin's "The Young Lady-Peasant Woman". How is it different? state of mind heroines?
Fragments of works for task 8
The next day, before dawn, Lisa had already woken up. The whole house was still asleep. Nastya was waiting for the shepherd outside the gate. The horn began to play, and the village herd pulled past the manor's yard. Trofim, passing in front of Nastya, gave her small colorful bast shoes and received half a ruble from her as a reward. Liza quietly dressed up as a peasant woman, gave Nastya her instructions in a whisper regarding Miss Jackson, went out onto the back porch and ran through the garden into the field.
The dawn shone in the east, and the golden rows of clouds seemed to be waiting for the sun, like courtiers waiting for a sovereign; clear sky, the morning freshness, dew, breeze and birdsong filled Lisa’s heart with infantile gaiety; afraid of some familiar meeting, she seemed not to walk, but to fly. Approaching the grove standing on the border of her father's property, Lisa walked more quietly. Here she was supposed to wait for Alexei. Her heart was beating strongly, without knowing why; but the fear that accompanies our young pranks is also their main charm. Lisa entered the darkness of the grove. A dull, rolling noise greeted the girl. Her gaiety died down. Little by little she indulged in sweet reverie. She thought... but is it possible to accurately determine what a seventeen-year-old young lady is thinking about, alone, in a grove, at six o’clock on a spring morning?
Answers to the literature test Poor Lisa
1 option
1. sentimentalism
2. Moscow
3. epithet
4. internal monologue
5. antithesis // contrast // opposition
Option 2
1. Tale
2. Erast
3. metaphor // personification
4. comparison
5. landscape
On this lesson we will get acquainted with the story by N.M. Karamzin "Poor Liza". We will find out why this work has a special place among other works of Russian literature, and we will also analyze the role of landscape in this story.
Topic: LiteratureXVIIIcentury
Lesson: “Poor Lisa.” The inner world of heroes. The role of landscape
In the last lesson, we talked about the unity of everything that Karamzin wrote, about one thought that permeates everything that Karamzin wrote, from beginning to end. This idea is to write the history of the soul of the people along with the history of the state.
Everything written by Karamzin was intended for a narrow circle of readers. First of all, for those with whom he was personally acquainted and with whom he communicated. This is that part of the high society, the St. Petersburg and Moscow nobility, which was involved in literature. And also for a certain part of the people, the number of which was measured by the number of seats in the imperial theater. As a matter of fact, those one and a half to two thousand people who gathered at the performances of the imperial theaters made up the entire audience to which Karamzin addressed. These were people who could see each other, see each other, first of all, in the theater, at balls, meetings of high society, which were sometimes official, sometimes not. But these meetings always represented the circle of communication and interests that shaped the future of Russian literature.
Everything that Karamzin wrote is addressed to a circle of people whom he calls friends. If we open “Letters of a Russian Traveler,” we read the very first phrase - an appeal to friends: “I broke up with you, dears, I broke up! My heart is tied to you all with the most tender feelings, and I am constantly moving away from you and will continue to move away!” 18 months later, returning from a trip, Karamzin ends “Letters of a Russian Traveler” again with an appeal to his friends: “Coast! Fatherland! I bless you! I am in Russia and in a few days I will be with you, my friends!..” And further: “And you, dear ones, quickly prepare for me a neat hut in which I could freely have fun with the Chinese shadows of my imagination, be sad with my heart and take comfort with friends." An appeal to friends, as a cross-cutting motif, is constantly present in the text, and in the text of any work by Karamzin.
Rice. 2. Title page"Letters from a Russian Traveler" ()
About the landscape
The story “Poor Liza” consists of fragments connected by a story about the author’s experiences, and these are fragments of two kinds. The first of them (and this is where the story begins) is a description of nature. A description of nature that serves Karamzin solely as a reflection of the internal state of the author-narrator. There is some idea about the person who writes the text. It turns out that it is impossible to read without this idea. In order to read the text, you need to step into the shoes of the one who wrote it, you need to merge with the author and see through his eyes what he saw, and feel for him what he felt. This is a special kind of landscape, which Karamzin apparently appears for the first time in Russian literature. Here is the beginning: “... no one is in the field more often than me, no one more than me wanders on foot, without a plan, without a goal - wherever the eyes look - through meadows and groves, over hills and plains. Every summer I find new pleasant places or new beauty in old ones.”
Karamzin does not dwell on details, he does not describe color, he does not convey sound, he does not talk about any small details, objects... He talks about impressions, about the trace visible objects (their colors and sounds) leave in his soul. And this in some way tunes the reader and makes him think and feel in unison with how the author thinks and feels. And Karamzin wanted it or not, whether he did it intentionally or by accident, it appeared. But this is precisely what became such a material feature of Russian prose for several centuries to come.
Rice. 3. Illustration for the story “Poor Liza.” G.D. Epifanov (1947) ()
And “Poor Liza” finds itself in a special place among these works. The fact is that friendly meetings of Karamzin’s time represented a very clear line between the male and female parts of society. Men, as a rule, communicated separately. If it is not a ball or a children's party, then most often the meeting where future or current Russian writers met was attended exclusively by men. The appearance of a woman was still impossible. Nevertheless, women were the subject of men's conversations, men's interests, and women were most often addressed by what men wrote. Karamzin already noted that the Russian reader at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries was predominantly women. And his story, dedicated to a woman, the main character which the woman became, was addressed primarily to the reader, and not to the reader. Karamzin later addressed the male reader in his multi-volume “History of the Russian State.” He addressed the female reader at the very moment when, apparently, the idea of the unity of the history of the country and the history of the soul was born. It was the female soul that was of particular interest.
We must understand that in the system of education, in the system of communication that existed in that era (both the separate education of boys and girls, and the separate communication of men and women) was a very important part. And in this sense, in the male community of writers, women were something of an ideal, which they served, which they worshiped, and to which the texts they wrote addressed.
Rice. 4. “Poor Lisa.” O.A. Kiprensky (1827) ()
"Poor Lisa" is the embodiment of that feminine ideal, which Karamzin and his circle of friends see. At the same time, one must understand that the fictionality, some kind of artificiality, and the sketchiness of the entire plot of “Poor Lisa” is a completely natural thing for that time.
There is a gulf between the nobleman and the peasant, there is a gulf between the master and his slave. Love story between a rich and noble man named Erast and a poor peasant girl named Lisa - this is a very real story. And in the circle of acquaintances to whom Karamzin addresses his story, most should have recognized real prototypes - those people whose story Karamzin tells in his story. Everyone else who did not personally know about these circumstances could guess that there were real people behind the characters. And Karamzin doesn’t finish the story, doesn’t give any factual instructions, any hints about those who really stand behind these characters. But everyone realizes that the story is not fictional, the story is in fact the most ordinary and traditional: the master seduces a peasant woman and then abandons her, the peasant woman commits suicide.
Rice. 5. Illustration for the story “Poor Liza.” M.V. Dobuzhinsky (1922) ()
This standard situation is now for us, for those who look at this history from the height of two centuries that have passed since then. There is nothing unusual or mysterious about it. In essence, this is the story of a television series. This is a story that is repeatedly rewritten in notebooks, and now these notebooks have migrated to the Internet and are called blogs, and there, in essence, they tell exactly the same heart-warming stories that girls have been accustomed to since the time of Karamzin. And these stories are still incredibly popular. What's special? What holds our attention in this story now, two centuries later? From this point of view, it is very interesting to look at the reviews and comments left on the Internet by modern readers who have just read the story “Poor Liza.” They, it turns out, try this story on themselves. They put themselves in Lisa's shoes and talk about what they would do in similar circumstances.
The men in this story imagine themselves completely differently. None of the readers identify themselves with Erast and try to take on this role. A completely different male gaze, a completely different idea of the text, completely different thoughts, completely different feelings for men.
Apparently, then in 1792 Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin discovered Russian literature as women's literature. And this discovery still continues to be important and relevant. The successors of this women's story, and then women's novel, which Karamzin created, can be found quite often these days, and book counters are blaring wide choose women's stories and novels. And they are not always composed by women; more often they are composed by men. But, nevertheless, these novels are still very popular.
Women's literature. Modern women's stories. The pattern of development of Russian literature: a woman as a judge to a man
Following the landscapes, the second element, the second part of the texts that are included in the story are conversations. These are conversations that, as a rule, give only a hint, an outline. They are completely different from the real conversations that people have with each other. Both now and in the 18th century, when Karamzin’s story was written, people spoke differently. Those dialogues that Karamzin reproduces, they rather outline, give some hints, short indications of the feelings that people experience when they pronounce these words. The words themselves are not important, what matters are the feelings behind them. Here Liza’s mother speaks about the impression that Erast makes on her:
“What should we call you, kind, gentle gentleman?” - asked the old woman. “My name is Erast,” he answered. “Erastom,” said Lisa quietly, “Erastom!” She repeated this name five times, as if trying to solidify it. Erast said goodbye to them and left. Lisa followed him with her eyes, and the mother sat thoughtfully and, taking her daughter by the hand, said to her: “Oh, Lisa! How good and kind he is! If only your groom were like that!” Liza’s whole heart began to tremble. "Mother! Mother! How can this happen? He’s a gentleman, and among the peasants...” - Lisa didn’t finish her speech.”
Perhaps this is the first case in the entire history of Russian literature when a character’s broken speech gives more than its continuation. What Lisa is silent about is more important than what she says. The technique of silence, when the unspoken word has a much stronger effect, is perceived much brighter than sound word, was famous in poetry. As a matter of fact, Karamzin also has a poem “Melancholy”, where he uses this. This is an imitation of Delisle, which ends with the words: “There is a feast there... but you don’t see, you don’t listen, and you lower your head into your hand; Your joy is to be silent, thoughtful, and turn a gentle gaze to the past.” In a poem, trying to convey feelings through silence is something like what a pause does in music. When the voice stops or musical instrument, the listener has a pause, a time appears when he can experience, feel what he has just heard. Karamzin gives the same thing: he interrupts Lisa’s monologue, and she does not talk about what worries her most. She is worried about the gap between her and her lover. She is worried that their marriage is impossible.
Lisa sacrifices herself, she refuses the rich peasant groom who proposed to her. And here she is silent about what is most important for the reader. Karamzin largely discovered this ability to let the reader hear, feel, understand what cannot be conveyed in words as a possibility in literature.
When we say that “Poor Liza” marks the beginning of women’s literature in Russia, we must understand that women’s literature is not at all prohibited for men. And when we say that the heroes do not identify themselves with the negative character of this story, we do not mean at all that this story causes disgust in the male reader. We're talking about the male reader identifying with another character. This hero is an author-narrator.
A man who, while walking around the outskirts of Moscow, came across a hut where Liza lived with her mother and tells this whole story not at all in order to edify his descendants and contemporaries to read another moral. No. He talks about his experiences, about what touched him. Please note: the words “touch” and “feel” are among those that Karamzin used in the Russian language for the first time.
Another thing is that he borrowed these words from the French language and sometimes simply used French words, replacing French roots with Russian ones, sometimes without changing. Nevertheless, readers (both men and women) remain readers of Karamzin, because it is important for them to follow the movement of the soul, which makes up the meaning, which makes up the core, the essence of the narrative.
This discovery of Karamzin is much more important than his discoveries in literature and history. And the discovery of the soul, the discovery of the opportunity to look deep into a person, as an opportunity to look into the soul of another person and look into one’s own soul and read something there that was previously unknown - this is Karamzin’s main discovery. A discovery that largely determined the entire future course of Russian literature.
1. Korovina V.Ya., Zhuravlev V.P., Korovin V.I. Literature. 9th grade. M.: Education, 2008.
2. Ladygin M.B., Esin A.B., Nefedova N.A. Literature. 9th grade. M.: Bustard, 2011.
3. Chertov V.F., Trubina L.A., Antipova A.M. Literature. 9th grade. M.: Education, 2012.
1. What was the audience to which N.M. addressed? Karamzin? Describe the circle of its readers.
2. Which work by N.M. Karamzin is predominantly addressed to the male reader, and which one is addressed to the female reader?
3. Which character from N.M.’s story? Karamzin's "Poor Liza" is often identified by male readers?
4. To what extent does it promote understanding? emotional state heroes the method of default used by N.M. Karamzin?
5. * Read the text “Poor Lisa” by N.M. Karamzin. Tell us about your impressions.
What is the name of the image of the internal experiences of the hero, manifested in his behavior? (“confused, blushed all over, made a negative gesture with his head”)?
Read the fragment of the work below and complete tasks 1–9.
But Chichikov simply said that such an enterprise, or negotiation, would in no way be inconsistent with civil regulations and further developments in Russia, and a minute later he added that the treasury would even receive benefits, since it would receive legal duties.
- So you think?
- I suppose it will be good.
“And if it’s good, that’s a different matter: I have nothing against it,” said
Manilov completely calmed down.
- Now all that remains is to agree on the price.
- What's the price? - Manilov said again and stopped. “Do you really think that I would take money for souls that have, in some way, ended their existence?” If you have come up with such a, so to speak, fantastic desire, then for my part I hand them over to you without interest and take over the deed of sale.
It would be a great reproach to the historian of the proposed events if he failed to say that pleasure overcame the guest after such words uttered by Manilov. No matter how sedate and reasonable he was, he almost even made a leap like a goat, which, as we know, is done only in the strongest impulses of joy. He turned so hard in his chair that the woolen material that covered the pillow burst; Manilov himself looked at him in some bewilderment. Prompted by gratitude, he immediately said so many thanks that he became confused, blushed all over, made a negative gesture with his head, and finally expressed that this was nothing, that he really wanted to prove with something the attraction of the heart, the magnetism of the soul, and the dead souls are in some ways complete rubbish.
“It’s not rubbish at all,” said Chichikov, shaking his hand. A very deep sigh was taken here. He seemed to be in a mood for heartfelt outpourings; Not without feeling and expression, he finally uttered the following words: “If you only knew what service this apparently rubbish rendered to a man without a tribe and clan!” And really, what did I not suffer? like some kind of barge among the fierce waves... What persecutions, what persecutions have you not experienced, what grief have you not tasted, and for what? for the fact that he observed the truth, that he was clear in his conscience, that he gave his hand to both the helpless widow and the unfortunate orphan!.. - Here he even wiped away a tear that rolled out with a handkerchief.
Manilov was completely moved. Both friends shook each other's hands for a long time and looked silently into each other's eyes for a long time, in which welling up tears were visible. Manilov did not want to let go of our hero’s hand and continued to squeeze it so hotly that he no longer knew how to help her out. Finally, having pulled it out slowly, he said that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to complete the deed of sale as quickly as possible, and it would be nice if he himself visited the city. Then he took his hat and began to take his leave.
