German intellectual novel. Intellectual novel What is an intellectual novel

📖 The cult novel by the English writer George Orwell, which became the canon of the dystopian genre. It contains fear, despair and the fight against the system that inspire resistance. The author depicted the possible future of humanity as a totalitarian hierarchical system based on sophisticated physical and spiritual enslavement, permeated with universal fear and hatred.
📖 “The Idiot” is one of the most famous and most humanistic works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.“The main idea...” wrote F. M. Dostoevsky about his novel “The Idiot,” “to portray a positively beautiful person. There is nothing more difficult than this in the world...”"Idiot". A novel in which Dostoevsky’s creative principles are fully embodied, and his amazing mastery of plot reaches true flourishing. The bright and almost painfully talented story of the unfortunate Prince Myshkin, the frantic Parfen Rogozhin and the desperate Nastasya Filippovna, filmed and staged many times, still fascinates the reader.
📖 “The Brothers Karamazov” is one of the few successful attempts in world literature to combine the fascination of storytelling with the depths of philosophical thought. The philosophy and psychology of “crime and punishment”, the dilemma of “socialization of Christianity”, the eternal struggle between “God” and “devilish” in the souls of people - these are the main ideas of this brilliant work. The novel touches on deep questions about God, freedom, and morality. This is Dostoevsky's last novel, it concentrates all the artistic power of the writer and the depth of the insights of the religious thinker.

📖 “What kind of a bitch life is this...”This is a book about how we live the lives of our parents, trying to correct their mistakes or fulfill hidden purposes. It is a cry of pain that lives in the soul of everyone who does not have the courage to live their own life. And when, at the end of your life, you realize that you are about to lose your mind, you want to once again rewatch all the events of your life, no matter what they were. To experience and realize with bitterness that everything could have turned out differently. After all, as you know, this is the biggest regret in one’s declining years.Fear of being brave, fear of following your true desires. It is he who is the cause of all our troubles. You can read this book to confirm this once again.
📖 The novel by the outstanding Catalan writer Jaume Cabret “The Shadow of the Eunuch” is a funny and sad story of a sentimental and amorous art lover, a scion of the ancient Gensan family, who, in search of the Path, Truth and Life, devoted his student years to the armed struggle for justice. "Shadow of the Eunuch" is a novel riddled with literary and musical allusions. Like Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, the structure of which he mirrors, the book is a kind of “double requiem.” It is dedicated to the "memory of the angel", Teresa, and sounds like a requiem for the main character, Miquel Genzana, for himself. The story sounds like a dying confession. The hero found himself in the house where he spent his childhood (by a cruel twist of fate, the family nest turned into a fashionable restaurant). Like Berg's concerto, the novel follows the fates of all the loved and lost beings associated with the house of Gensan.

American colleagues explained to me that the low level of general culture and school education in their country is a deliberate achievement for economic purposes. The fact is that, after reading books, an educated person becomes a worse buyer: he buys less washing machines and cars, and begins to prefer Mozart or Van Gogh, Shakespeare or theorems to them. The economy of a consumer society suffers from this and, above all, the income of the owners of life - so they strive to prevent culture and education (which, in addition, prevent them from manipulating the population as a herd devoid of intelligence). IN AND. Arnold, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. One of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. (From the article “New Obscurantism and Russian Enlightenment”)

Topic 3. Literature of Germany at the turn of the century in the first half of the 20th century.

1. The sociocultural situation and historical landmarks that determined the nature of the development of German culture. The formation of the world system of monopoly capitalism in Germany was belated, by the beginning of the 20th century. the transition is complete. Germany has surpassed England in economics. With the reign of Wilhelm II from 1888, an aggressive policy was established under the slogan “to achieve a place in the sun for Germany.” It was also a slogan that united the empire. Ideological foundations - the teachings of German philosophers (Nietzsche, Spengler, Schopenhauer)

In the popular social democratic movement there is a tendency towards gradual peaceful resolution of conflicts, opposed to the revolutionary theory of Marxism. For a short period of time, apparent calm was established, but in literature there was a premonition of the apocalypse. Impact of the 1905 revolution led to the strengthening of social democratic ideology and the growth of the labor movement in 1911. - a clash of interests between France and Germany in North America, which almost led to war.

The Balkan crisis and the First World War of 1914, the revolution of 1917 in Russia led to mass strikes and the November people's revolution in Germany (1918). The revolutionary situation was finally suppressed in 1923. The post-war revolutionary upsurge gave way... to the stabilization of capitalism.

1925 - Weimar bourgeois republic, Germany is actively involved in the process of Americanization of Europe. After the need and disasters of the war, the need for entertainment was natural (which caused the development of the corresponding industry, the cultural market, and the emergence of mass culture). The general characteristic of the period is the “golden twenties”.

The 1930s that followed were called the “black” years. 1929 - crisis of overproduction in America, paralyzing the world economy. In Germany there is an economic and political crisis - a change of governments that have no control over the situation. Unemployment is massive. The National Socialist Party is gaining strength. The confrontation between the forces of the developed KPD (Communist Party of Germany) and the NSP (National Socialist Party) ended in victory for the latter. 1933 - Hitler came to power. The militarization of the economy has become the main means of social stability. At the same time, cultural life became politicized. The era of literary isms is over. The era of reaction and the fight against the undesirable began. From this period, German literature developed in anti-fascist emigration. The Second World War.

2. Literature at the turn of the century and the 1st half of the 20th was marked by a crisis of bourgeois culture, the spokesman of which was F. Nietzsche.

In the 1890s, there was a move away from naturalism. 1894 - Hauptmann’s naturalistic drama “The Weavers”. A feature of German naturalism is “Consistent naturalism,” which required a more accurate reflection of objects that changed along with lighting and position. The “second style” developed by Schlaf involves dividing reality into many momentary perceptions. “a photographic image of the era” could not reveal the invisible signs of the approaching new AGE. In addition, a sign of the new times was a protest against the concept of a person’s complete dependence on the environment. Naturalism fell into decline, but its techniques were preserved in critical realism

Impressionism was not widespread in Germany. German writers were almost not attracted to the analysis of infinitely variable states. Neo-romantic research into specific psychological states has not often been undertaken. German neo-romanticism included features of symbolism, but there was almost no mystical symbolism. Usually the romantic two-dimensionality of the conflict between the eternal and the everyday, the explicable and the mysterious was emphasized.

The predominant direction in the first half of the 20th century. was expressionism. The leading genre is “scream drama”

Along with the “-isms” at the turn of the century to the end of the 20s. A layer of proletarian literature was actively taking shape. Later (in the 30s) socialist prose developed in emigration (A. Segers and Becher's poetry).

A popular genre at this time was the novel. In addition to the intellectual novel, there were historical and social novels in German literature, which developed a technique close to the intellectual novel, and also continued the traditions of German satire.

Heinrich Mann(1871 - 1950) worked in the genre of socially revealing novel (influence of French literature). The main period of creativity is 1900-1910. The novel “The Loyal Subject” (1914) brought fame to the writer. In the author’s own words, “The novel depicts the previous stage of that leader who then achieved power.” The hero is the embodiment of loyalty, the essence of the phenomenon, embodied in a living character.

The novel is a biography of a hero who has worshiped power since childhood: father, teacher, policeman. The author uses biographical details to enhance the properties of the hero’s nature; He is a slave and a despot at the same time. The basis of his psychology is sycophancy and a thirst for power to humiliate the weak. The story about the hero records his constantly changing social position (second style!). The mechanical nature of the hero’s actions, gestures, and words conveys the automatism and mechanical nature of society.

The author creates an image according to the laws of caricature, deliberately shifting the proportions, sharpening and exaggerating the characteristics of the characters. The heroes of G. Mann are characterized by the mobility of masks = caricature. All of the above together is G. Mann’s “geometric style” as one of the variants of convention: the author balances on the brink of authenticity and implausibility.

Lion Feuchtwanger(1884 - 1954) - philosopher interested in the East. He became famous for his historical and social novels. In his work, the historical novel, more than the social novel, depended on the technique of the intellectual novel. Common features

* Transferring modern problems that concern the writer to the setting of the distant past, modeling them in a historical plot - modernization of history (the plot, facts, description of life, national color are historically accurate, modern problems are introduced into the relationship of the heroes).

* Historically costumed modernity, a novel of indirections and allegories, where modern events and persons are depicted in a conventional historical shell “False Nero” - L. Feuchtwanger, “The Cases of Mr. Julius Caesar” by B. Brecht).

The term was proposed in 1924 by T. Mann. “Intellectual novel” became a realistic genre, embodying one of the features of realism of the 20th century. - an acute need for interpretation of life, its comprehension and interpretation. Exceeding the need for “telling” -. In world literature they worked in the genre of intellectual novel; EL Bulgakov (Russia), K. Chapek (Czech Republic), W. Faulkner and T. Wolf (America), but T. Mann stood at the origins.

A characteristic phenomenon of the time has become the modification of the historical novel: the past becomes a springboard for clarifying the social and political mechanisms of modernity.

A common principle of construction is multi-layering, the presence in a single artistic whole of layers of reality far removed from each other.

In the first half of the 20th century, a new understanding of myth emerged. It acquired historical features, i.e. was perceived as a product of a distant past, illuminating repeating patterns in the life of mankind. The appeal to myth expanded the time boundaries of the work. In addition, it provided the opportunity for artistic play, countless analogies and parallels, unexpected correspondences that explain modernity.

The German “intellectual novel” was philosophical, firstly, because there was a tradition of philosophizing in artistic creativity, and secondly, because it strived for systematicity. The cosmic concepts of German novelists did not pretend to be a scientific interpretation of the world order. According to the wishes of its creators, “the intellectual novel was to be perceived not as philosophy, but as art.

Laws of construction of the “Intellectual Novel”.

* The presence of several non-merging layers of reality (in German I.R) is philosophical in construction - mandatory presence of different levels of life, correlated with each other, assessed and measured by each other. Artistic tension lies in combining these layers into a single whole.

* A special interpretation of time in the 20th century (free breaks in action, movements into the past and future, arbitrary acceleration and slowdown of time) also influenced the intellectual novel. Here time is not only discrete, but also torn into qualitatively different pieces. Only in German literature is such a tense relationship observed between the time of history and the time of personality. Different hypostases of time are often spread across different spaces. Internal tension in a German philosophical novel is largely generated by the effort that is needed to keep time intact and to unite the actually disintegrated time.

* Special psychologism: An “intellectual novel” is characterized by an enlarged image of a person. The author's interest is focused not on clarifying the hidden inner life of the hero (following L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky), but on showing him as a representative of the human race. The image becomes less developed psychologically, but more voluminous. The mental life of the characters received a powerful external regulator; it is not so much the environment as the events of world history, the general state of the world (T Mann (“Doctor Faustus”): "...not character, but peace").

The German “intellectual novel” continues the traditions of the educational novel of the 18th century, only education is no longer understood only as moral improvement, since the character of the heroes is stable, the appearance does not change significantly. Education is about liberation from the random and superfluous, so the main thing is not the internal conflict (reconciliation of the aspirations of self-improvement and personal well-being), but the conflict of knowledge of the laws of the universe, with which one can be in harmony or in opposition. Without these laws, the guideline is lost, so the main task of the genre becomes not knowledge of the laws of the universe, but overcoming them. Blind adherence to laws begins to be perceived as convenience and as a betrayal in relation to the spirit and to man.

Thomas Mann(1873 -1955) The Mann brothers were born into the family of a wealthy grain merchant. Even after the death of their father, the family was quite wealthy. Therefore, the transformation from burgher to bourgeois took place before the eyes of the writer.

Wilhelm II spoke about the great changes to which he was leading Germany, but T. Mann saw its decline.

The Decline of One Family is the subtitle of the first novel. "Budennybroki"(1901). The peculiarity of the genre is a family chronicle (traditions of the river novel!) with elements of epic (historical-analytical approach). The novel absorbed the experience of 19th century realism. and partly the technique of impressionistic writing. Myself T. Mann considered himself a continuator of the naturalistic movement. At the center of the novel is the fate of three generations of Buddenbrooks. The older generation is still at peace with itself and the outside world. Inherited moral and commercial principles lead the second generation into conflict with life. Tony Buddenbrook does not marry Morten for commercial reasons but remains unhappy; her brother Christian prefers independence and turns into a decadent. Thomas energetically maintains the appearance of bourgeois well-being, but fails because the external form that one cares about no longer corresponds to either the state or the content.

T. Mann is already opening up new possibilities for prose, intellectualizing it. Social typification appears (details acquire symbolic meaning, their diversity opens up the possibility of broad generalizations), features of an educational “intellectual novel” (the characters hardly change), but there is still an internal conflict of reconciliation and time is not discrete.

The writer was acutely aware of the problematic nature of his place in society as an artist, hence one of the main themes of his work: the position of the artist in bourgeois society, his alienation from “normal” (like everyone else) social life. ("Tonio Kröger", "Death in Venice").

After the First World War, T. Mann took the position of an outside observer for some time. In 1918 (the year of the revolution!) he composed idylls in prose and poetry. But, having rethought the historical significance of the revolution, he finished the educational novel in 1924 "Magic Mountain"(4 books). In the 1920s T. Mann becomes one of those writers who, under the influence of the war, the post-war era, and under the influence of the emerging German fascism, felt it was their duty to “not to bury your head in the sand in the face of reality, but to fight on the side of those who want to give human meaning to the earth”. In 1939.v. - Nobel Prize, 1936... - emigrated to Switzerland, then to the USA, where he was actively involved in anti-fascist propaganda. The period was marked by work on the tetralogy "Joseph and his brothers"(1933-1942) - a myth-novel, where the hero is engaged in conscious government activities.

Intellectual novel "Doctor Faustus"(1947) - the pinnacle of the intellectual novel genre. The author himself said the following about this book: “Secretly, I treated Faustus as my spiritual testament, the publication of which no longer plays a role and with which the publisher and executor can do as they please».

“Doctor Faustus” is a novel about the tragic fate of a composer who agreed to a conspiracy with the devil not for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of unlimited possibilities in musical creativity. Reckoning is death and the inability to love (the influence of Freudianism!).. To facilitate understanding of the novel by T. Mann E 19.49T. creates “The Story of Doctor Faustus”, excerpts from which may help to better understand the concept of the novel.

“If my previous works acquired a monumental character, then it turned out beyond expectation, without intention”

“My book is basically a book about the German soul.”

“The main gain is when introducing the figure of a narrator, the ability to sustain the narrative in a double time plan, polyphonically interweaving events that shock the writer at the very moment of work, into the events about which he writes.

Here it is difficult to discern the transition of the tangible-real into the illusory perspective of the drawing. This editing technique is part of the very design of the book.”

“If you are writing a novel about an artist, there is nothing more vulgar than to praise the art, the genius, the work. What was needed here was reality, concreteness. I had to study music."

“The most difficult of the tasks is a convincingly reliable, illusory-realistic description of the satanic-religious, demonically pious, but at the same time something very strict and downright criminal mockery of art: refusal of beats, even of an organized sequence of sounds... »

“I carried with me a volume of Schwanks from the 16th century - after all, my story always went back to this era, so in other places an appropriate flavor in the language was required.”

“The main motive of my novel is the proximity of infertility, the organic doom of the era, predisposing to a deal with the devil.”

“I was bewitched by the idea of ​​a work that, being from beginning to end a confession and self-sacrifice, knows no mercy for pity and, pretending to be art, at the same time goes beyond the scope of art and is true reality.”

“Was there a prototype of Hadrian? That was the difficulty, to invent the figure of a musician who could take a plausible place among real figures. He. - a collective image of a person who carries within himself all the pain of the era.

I was captivated by his coldness, his distance from life, his lack of soul... It is curious that at the same time he was almost deprived of my local appearance, visibility, physicality... Here it was necessary to observe the greatest restraint in local concretization, which threatened to immediately belittle and vulgarize the spiritual plane with its symbolism and ambiguity.”

“The epilogue took 8 days. The Doctor's last lines are Zeitblom's heartfelt prayer. for friend and Fatherland, which I have heard for a long time. I mentally transported myself through the 3 years and 8 months I lived under the stress of this book. On that May morning, when the war was in full swing, I took up my pen.”

If previous novels were educational, then in Doctor Faustus there is no one to educate. This is truly a novel of the end, in which various themes are taken to the extreme: the hero dies, Germany dies. Shows the dangerous limit to which art has come, and the last line to which humanity has approached.

Topic 4. English literature of the turn of the century and the first half of the 20th century.

1. Social situation and philosophical foundations of literature at the turn of the century. The social situation of the period - under the influence of the Victorian crisis (during the reign of Queen Victorine 1837-1901) it was criticized as a system of spiritual and aesthetic values. The great compromise between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie did not bring harmony. In the period 1870-1890, Great Britain entered the fold of imperialism, which led to an intensification of political and social activity, as well as the polarization of social forces, and the rise of the labor movement. The activation of reformist ideas led to the emergence of a socialist attitude (Fabian society). England is involved in colonial wars, which were a consequence of the loss of world prestige.

Participation in the First World War. 1916 - uprising in Ireland, which turned into civil war. As a consequence of the event, the appearance of literature of the “lost generation” (Oldinghock “Death of a Hero”) and modernist literature, the priority direction of which is experimentation with form.

Literatures at the turn of the century were as follows:

The popularity of G. Spencer's ideas (social Darwinism), which differed from Victorian norms and provided man with society (Biological understanding of social laws, naturalistic source of art - in the needs of the psyche, understanding of art as part of a game that puts man on par with animals).

* Theory of D. Fraser (Head of the Department of Social Anthropology). His work “The Golden Bough” substantiates the evolution of human consciousness from the tragic to the religious and scientific. The theory paid attention to the features of primitive consciousness. She had a greater influence on the development of modernist literature.

* John Ruskin's concept of art and beauty, which served as the basis for aestheticism. In his “Lectures on Art” (1870) he said that beauty is an objective property

* The teachings of S. Freud and other philosophers of modern times

Intellectual novel in German literature

Topic 3. Literature of Germany at the turn of the century in the first half of the 20th century.

1. The sociocultural situation and historical landmarks that determined the nature of the development of German culture. The formation of the world system of monopoly capitalism in Germany was belated, by the beginning of the 20th century. the transition is complete. Germany has surpassed England in economics. With the reign of Wilhelm II since 1888. An aggressive policy was established under the slogan “to achieve a place in the sun for Germany.” It was also a slogan that united the empire. Ideological foundations - the teachings of German philosophers (Nietzsche, Spengler, Schopenhauer)

In the popular social democratic movement there is a tendency towards gradual peaceful resolution of conflicts, opposed to the revolutionary theory of Marxism. For a short period of time, apparent calm was established, but in literature there was a premonition of the apocalypse. The influence of the revolution of 1905.ᴦ. led to the strengthening of social democratic ideology and the growth of the labor movement of 1911ᴦ. - a clash of interests between France and Germany in North America, which almost led to war.

The Balkan crisis and the First World War of 1914. ᴦ., the revolution of 1917 in Russia led to mass strikes and the November people's revolution in Germany (1918). The revolutionary situation was finally suppressed in 1923ᴦ. The post-war revolutionary upsurge gave way... to the stabilization of capitalism.

1925.ᴦ. - Weimar bourgeois republic, Germany is actively involved in the process of Americanization of Europe. After the need and disasters of the war, the need for entertainment was natural (which caused the development of the corresponding industry, the cultural market, and the emergence of mass culture). The general characteristic of the period is the “golden twenties”.

The 1930s that followed were called the “black” years. 1929 - crisis of overproduction in America, paralyzing the world economy. In Germany there is an economic and political crisis - a change of governments that have no control over the situation. Unemployment is massive. The National Socialist Party is gaining strength. The confrontation between the forces of the developed KPD (Communist Party of Germany) and the NSP (National Socialist Party) ended in victory for the latter. 1933 - Hitler came to power.
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The militarization of the economy has become the main means of social stability. At the same time, cultural life became politicized. The era of literary “isms” is over. The era of reaction and the fight against the undesirable began. From this period, German literature developed in anti-fascist emigration. The Second World War.

2. Literature at the turn of the century and the 1st half of the 20th century was marked by a crisis of bourgeois culture, the spokesman of which was F. Nietzsche.

In the 1890s, there was a move away from naturalism. 1894 - Hauptmann’s naturalistic drama “The Weavers”. The peculiarity of German naturalism is “Consistent naturalism,” which required a more accurate reflection of objects that changed along with lighting and position. The “second style,” developed by Schlaf, involves dividing reality into many instantaneous perceptions. The “photographic image of the era” could not reveal the invisible signs of the approaching new AGE. In addition, a sign of the new times was a protest against the concept of a person’s complete dependence on the environment. Naturalism fell into decline, but its techniques were preserved in critical realism

Impressionism was not widespread in Germany. German writers were almost not attracted to the analysis of infinitely variable states. Neo-romantic research into specific psychological states has not often been undertaken. German neo-romanticism included features of symbolism, but there was almost no mystical symbolism. Usually the romantic two-dimensionality of the conflict between the eternal and the everyday, the explicable and the mysterious was emphasized.

The predominant direction in the first half of the 20th century. was expressionism. Leading genre: scream drama

Along with the ʼʼ-ismsʼʼ at the turn of the century to the end of the 20s. A layer of proletarian literature was actively taking shape. Later (in the 30s) socialist prose developed in emigration (A. Segers and Becher's poetry).

A popular genre at this time was the novel. In addition to the intellectual novel, there were historical and social novels in German literature, which developed a technique close to the intellectual novel, and also continued the traditions of German satire.

Heinrich Mann(1871 - 1950) worked in the genre of socially revealing novel (influence of French literature). The main period of creativity is 1900-1910. The novel “The Loyal Subject” (1914) brought fame to the writer. According to the author himself, “The novel depicts the previous stage of the leader who then achieved power.” The hero is the embodiment of loyalty, the essence of the phenomenon, embodied in a living character.

The novel is a biography of a hero who has worshiped power since childhood: father, teacher, policeman. The author uses biographical details to enhance the properties of the hero’s nature; He is a slave and a despot at the same time. At the root of his psychology lies sycophancy and a thirst for power to humiliate the weak. The story about the hero records his constantly changing social position (second style!). The mechanical nature of the hero’s actions, gestures, and words conveys the automatism and mechanical nature of society.

The author creates an image according to the laws of caricature, deliberately shifting the proportions, sharpening and exaggerating the characteristics of the characters. The heroes of G. Mann are characterized by the mobility of masks = caricature. All of the above together is G. Mann’s “geometric style” as one of the variants of convention: the author balances on the brink of authenticity and implausibility.

Lion Feuchtwanger(1884 - 1954) - philosopher interested in the East. He became famous for his historical and social novels. In his work, the historical novel, more than the social novel, depended on the technique of the intellectual novel. Common features

* Transferring modern problems that concern the writer to the setting of the distant past, modeling them in a historical plot - modernization of history (the plot, facts, description of everyday life are historically accurate, the national color is introduced into the relationships of the characters).

* Historically costumed modernity, a novel of indirections and allegories, where modern events and persons are depicted in a conventional historical shell “False Nero” - L. Feuchtwanger, “The Cases of Mr. Julius Caesar” B Brecht).

The term was proposed in 1924 by T. Mann. “Intellectual novel” became a realistic genre, embodying one of the features of realism of the 20th century. - an acute need for interpretation of life, its comprehension and interpretation. Exceeding the need for “storytelling”. In world literature they worked in the genre of intellectual novel; EL Bulgakov (Russia), K. Chapek (Czech Republic), W. Faulkner and T. Wolf (America), but T. Mann stood at the origins.

A characteristic phenomenon of the time has become the modification of the historical novel: the past becomes a springboard for clarifying the social and political mechanisms of modernity.

A common principle of construction is multi-layering, the presence in a single artistic whole of layers of reality far removed from each other.

In the first half of the 20th century, a new understanding of myth emerged. It acquired historical features, ᴛ.ᴇ. was perceived as a product of a distant past, illuminating repeating patterns in the life of mankind. The appeal to myth expanded the time boundaries of the work. At the same time, it provided the opportunity for artistic play, countless analogies and parallels, unexpected correspondences that explain modernity.

The German “intellectual novel” was philosophical, firstly, because there was a tradition of philosophizing in artistic creativity, and secondly, because it strived for consistency. The cosmic concepts of German novelists did not pretend to be a scientific interpretation of the world order. According to the wishes of its creators, the “intellectual novel” was to be perceived not as philosophy, but as art.

Laws of construction of an “Intellectual Novel”.

* The presence of several non-merging layers of reality (in German I.R) is philosophical in construction - mandatory presence of different levels of life, correlated with each other, assessed and measured by each other. Artistic tension lies in combining these layers into a single whole.

* A special interpretation of time in the 20th century (free breaks in action, movements into the past and future, arbitrary acceleration and slowdown of time) also influenced the intellectual novel. Here time is not only discrete, but also torn into qualitatively different pieces. Only in German literature is such a tense relationship observed between the time of history and the time of personality. Different hypostases of time are often spread across different spaces. Internal tension in the German philosophical novel is born largely from the effort that is needed to keep in integrity, to unite the actually disintegrated time.

* Special psychologism: “an intellectual novel” is characterized by an enlarged image of a person. The author's interest is focused not on clarifying the hidden inner life of the hero (following L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky), but on showing him as a representative of the human race. The image becomes less developed psychologically, but more voluminous. The mental life of the characters received a powerful external regulator; it is not so much the environment as the events of world history, the general state of the world (T Mann (ʼʼDoctor Faustusʼʼ): ʼʼ...not character, but the worldʼʼ).

The German “intellectual novel” continues the traditions of the educational novel of the 18th century, only education is no longer understood only as moral improvement, since the character of the heroes is stable, the appearance does not change significantly. Education is about liberation from the random and superfluous; in this regard, the main thing is not the internal conflict (reconciliation of the aspirations of self-improvement and personal well-being), but the conflict of knowledge of the laws of the universe, with which one can be in harmony or in opposition. Without these laws, the guideline is lost, and therefore the main task of the genre becomes not the knowledge of the laws of the universe, but their overcoming. Blind adherence to laws begins to be perceived as convenience and as a betrayal in relation to the spirit and to man.

Thomas Mann(1873 -1955) The Mann brothers were born into the family of a wealthy grain merchant. Even after the death of their father, the family was quite wealthy. For this reason, the transformation from burgher to bourgeois took place before the eyes of the writer.

Wilhelm II spoke about the great changes to which he was leading Germany, but T. Mann saw its decline.

The Decline of One Family is the subtitle of the first novel. ʼʼBudennybrokiʼʼ(1901). The peculiarity of the genre is a family chronicle (traditions of the river novel!) with elements of epic (historical-analytical approach). The novel absorbed the experience of 19th century realism. and partly the technique of impressionistic writing. Myself T. Mann considered himself a continuator of the naturalistic movement. At the center of the novel is the fate of three generations of Buddenbrooks. The older generation is still at peace with itself and the outside world. Inherited moral and commercial principles lead the second generation into conflict with life. Tony Buddenbrook does not marry Morten for commercial reasons but remains unhappy; her brother Christian prefers independence and turns into a decadent. Thomas energetically maintains the appearance of bourgeois well-being, but fails because the external form that one cares about no longer corresponds to either the state or the content.

T. Mann is already opening up new possibilities for prose, intellectualizing it. Social typification appears (details acquire symbolic meaning, their diversity opens up the possibility of broad generalizations), features of an educational “intellectual novel” (the characters hardly change), but there is still an internal conflict of reconciliation and time is not discrete.

The writer was acutely aware of the problematic nature of his place in society as an artist, hence one of the main themes of his work: the position of the artist in bourgeois society, his alienation from “normal” (like everyone else) social life. (ʼʼTonio Krögerʼʼ, ʼʼDeath in Veniceʼʼ).

After the First World War, T. Mann took the position of an outside observer for some time. In 1918 (the year of the revolution!) he composed idylls in prose and poetry. But, having rethought the historical significance of the revolution, he ends in 1924. educational novel ʼʼMagic Mountainʼʼ(4 books). In the 1920s. T. Mann becomes one of those writers who, under the influence of the war they experienced, the post-war era, and under the influence of the emerging German fascism, felt it was their duty to “not to bury your head in the sand in the face of reality, but to fight on the side of those who want to give human meaning to the earth”. In 1939.v. - Nobel Prize, 1936.. - emigrated to Switzerland, then to the USA, where he was actively involved in anti-fascist propaganda. The period was marked by work on the tetralogy ʼʼJoseph and his brothersʼʼ(1933-1942) - a myth-novel, where the hero is engaged in conscious government activities.

Intellectual novel ʼʼDoctor Faustusʼʼ(1947) - the pinnacle of the intellectual novel genre. The author himself said the following about this book: “Secretly, I treated Faustus as my spiritual testament, the publication of which no longer plays a role and with which the publisher and executor can do as they pleaseʼʼ.

ʼʼDoctor Faustusʼʼ is a novel about the tragic fate of a composer who agreed to a conspiracy with the devil not for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of unlimited possibilities in musical creativity. Reckoning is death and the inability to love (the influence of Freudianism!).. To facilitate understanding of the novel by T. Mann E 19.49T. creates “The History of Doctor Faustus”, excerpts from which may help to better understand the concept of the novel.

“If my previous works acquired a monumental character, then it turned out beyond expectation, without intention.”

“My book is, in general, a book about the German soul.”

“The main gain is that when introducing the figure of a narrator, it is possible to sustain the narrative in a double time plan, polyphonically interweaving events that shock the writer at the very moment of work into the events about which he writes.

Here it is difficult to discern the transition of the tangible-real into the illusory perspective of the drawing. This editing technique is part of the very concept of the book.

ʼʼIf you are writing a novel about an artist, there is nothing more vulgar than just praising art, genius, work. What was needed here was reality, concreteness. I had to study music.

ʼʼThe most difficult of the tasks is a convincingly reliable, illusory-realistic description of a satanic-religious, demonically pious, but at the same time something very strict and downright criminal mockery of art: refusal of beats, even of an organized sequence of sounds...ʼʼ

“I carried with me a volume of Schwanks from the 16th century - after all, my story always went back to this era, so in other places an appropriate flavor in the language was required.”

“The main motive of my novel is the proximity of infertility, the organic doom of the era, predisposing to a deal with the devil.”

“I was bewitched by the idea of ​​the work, which, being from beginning to end a confession and self-sacrifice, knows no mercy for pity and, pretending to be art, at the same time goes beyond the scope of art and is true reality.”

ʼʼWas there a prototype of Adrian? That was the difficulty, to invent the figure of a musician capable of taking a plausible place among real figures. He. - a collective image of a person who carries within himself all the pain of the era.

I was captivated by his coldness, his distance from life, his lack of soul... It is curious that at the same time he was almost deprived of my local appearance, visibility, physicality... Here it was necessary to observe the greatest restraint in local concretization, which threatened to immediately belittle and vulgarize the spiritual plane with its symbolism and polysemy.

ʼʼThe epilogue took 8 days. The Doctor's last lines are Zeitblom's heartfelt prayer. for friend and Fatherland, which I have heard for a long time. I mentally transported myself through the 3 years and 8 months I lived under the stress of this book. On that May morning, when the war was in full swing, I took up my pen.

If the previous novels were educational, then in “Doctor Faustus” there is no one to educate. This is truly a novel of the end, in which various themes are taken to the extreme: the hero dies, Germany dies. It shows the dangerous limit to which art has come, and the last line to which humanity has approached.

Topic 4. English literature of the turn of the century and the first half of the 20th century.

1. Social situation and philosophical foundations of literature at the turn of the century. The social situation of the period - under the influence of the Victorian crisis (during the reign of Queen Victorine 1837-1901) it was criticized as a system of spiritual and aesthetic values. The great compromise between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie did not bring harmony. In the period 1870-1890, Great Britain entered the fold of imperialism, which led to an intensification of political and social activity, as well as the polarization of social forces, and the rise of the labor movement. The activation of reformist ideas led to the emergence of a socialist attitude (Fabian society). England is involved in colonial wars, which were a consequence of the loss of world prestige.

Participation in the First World War. 1916 - uprising in Ireland, which turned into civil war. As a consequence of the event, the emergence of literature of the “lost generation”, Oldinghock “Death of a Hero” and modernist literature, the priority direction of which is experimentation with form.

Literatures at the turn of the century were as follows:

The popularity of G. Spencer's ideas (social Darwinism), which differed from Victorian norms and provided man with society (Biological understanding of social laws, naturalistic source of art - in the needs of the psyche, understanding of art as part of a game that puts man on par with animals).

* Theory of D. Fraser (Head of the Department of Social Anthropology). His work “The Golden Bough” substantiates the evolution of human consciousness from the tragic to the religious and scientific. The theory paid attention to the features of primitive consciousness. She had a greater influence on the development of modernist literature.

* John Ruskin's concept of art and beauty, which served as the basis for aestheticism. In his work “Lectures on Art” (1870) he said that beauty is an objective property

* The teachings of S. Freud and other philosophers of modern times

Intellectual novel in German literature - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Intellectual Novel in German Literature" 2017, 2018.

The “intellectual novel” united various writers and different trends in world literature of the 20th century: T. Mann and G. Hesse, R. Musil and G. Broch, M. Bulgakov and K. Chapek, W. Faulkner and T. Wolfe, etc. d. But the main feature of the “intellectual novel” is the acute need of 20th century literature to interpret life, to blur the lines between philosophy and art.

T. Mann is rightfully considered the creator of the “intellectual novel”. In 1924, after the publication of “The Magic Mountain,” he wrote in the article “On the Teachings of Spengler”: “Historical and world turning point 1914 - 1923. with extraordinary force intensified in the minds of his contemporaries the need to comprehend the era, which was refracted in artistic creativity. This process erases the boundaries between science and art, infuses living, pulsating blood into abstract thought, spiritualizes the plastic image and creates the type of book that can be called an “intellectual novel.” T. Mann classified the works of F. Nietzsche as “intellectual novels.”

One of the generic characteristics of an “intellectual novel” is myth-making. Myth, acquiring the character of a symbol, is interpreted as a coincidence of a general idea and a sensory image. This use of myth served as a means of expressing the universals of existence, i.e. repeating patterns in the general life of a person. The appeal to myth in the novels of T. Mann and G. Hesse made it possible to replace one historical background with another, expanding the time frame of the work, giving rise to countless analogies and parallels that cast light on modernity and explain it.

But despite the general trend of an increased need to interpret life, to blur the lines between philosophy and art, the “intellectual novel” is a heterogeneous phenomenon. The variety of forms of the “intellectual novel” is revealed by comparing the works of T. Mann, G. Hesse and R. Musil.

The German “intellectual novel” is characterized by a well-thought-out concept of a cosmic device. T. Mann wrote: “The pleasure that can be found in a metaphysical system, the pleasure that is delivered by the spiritual organization of the world in a logically closed, harmonious, self-sufficient logical structure, is always predominantly of an aesthetic nature.” This worldview is due to the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy, in particular the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who argued that reality, i.e. the world of historical time is only a reflection of the essence of ideas. Schopenhauer called reality "maya", using a term from Buddhist philosophy, i.e. ghost, mirage. The essence of the world is distilled spirituality. Hence Schopenhauer's dual world: the world of the valley (the world of shadows) and the world of the mountain (the world of truth).

The basic laws of constructing the German “intellectual novel” are based on the use of Schopenhauer’s dual worlds: in “The Magic Mountain”, in “Steppenwolf”, in “The Glass Bead Game” reality is multi-layered: this is the world of the valley - the world of historical time and the world of the mountain - the world of true essence. Such a construction implied the delimitation of the narrative from everyday, socio-historical realities, which determined another feature of the German “intellectual novel” - its hermeticity.

The tightness of the “intellectual novel” of T. Mann and G. Hesse gives rise to a special relationship between historical time and personal time, distilled from socio-historical storms. This genuine time exists in the rarefied mountain air of the Berghof sanatorium (The Magic Mountain), in the Magic Theater (Steppenwolf), in the harsh isolation of Castalia (The Glass Bead Game).

About historical time, G. Hesse wrote: “Reality is something with which under no circumstances should one be satisfied and which should not be deified, for it is an accident, i.e. the garbage of life."

R. Musil's "intellectual novel" "Man without Properties" differs from the hermetic form of the novels of T. Mann and G. Hesse. The work of the Austrian writer contains the accuracy of historical characteristics and specific signs of real time. Viewing the modern novel as a “subjective formula for life,” Musil uses the historical panorama of events as the backdrop against which the battles of consciousness are played out. “A Man Without Qualities” is a fusion of objective and subjective narrative elements. In contrast to the complete closed concept of the universe in the novels of T. Mann and G. Hesse, R. Musil's novel is conditioned by the concept of infinite modification and relativity of concepts.

The “intellectual novel” united various writers and different trends in world literature of the twentieth century: T. Mann and G. Hesse, R. Musil and G. Broch, M. Bulgakov and K. Chapek, W. Faulkner and T. Zulf and many others . But the main unifying feature of the “intellectual novel” is the acute need of twentieth-century literature to interpret life, to blur the lines between philosophy and art.

T. Mann is rightfully considered the creator of the “intellectual novel.” In 1924, the year of publication of “The Magic Mountain,” he wrote in the article “On the Teachings of Spengler”: “The historical and world crisis of 1914-1923 with extraordinary force aggravated in the minds of contemporaries the need to comprehend the era, which was refracted in artistic creativity. This process erases the boundaries between science and art, infuses living, pulsating blood into abstract thought, spiritualizes the plastic image and creates the type of book that can be called an “intellectual novel.” T. Mann classified the works of F. Nietzsche as “intellectual novels.”

The “intellectual novel” is characterized by a special understanding and functional use of myth. The myth acquired historical features and was perceived as a product of prehistoric times, illuminating recurring patterns in the general life of mankind. The appeal to myth in the novels of T. Mann and G. Hesse widely expanded the time frame of the work and provided the opportunity for countless analogies and parallels that cast light on modernity and explain it.

But despite the general trend - the increased need to interpret life, the blurring of the lines between philosophy and art, the “intellectual novel” is a heterogeneous phenomenon. The variety of forms of the “intellectual novel” is revealed through the example of the works of T. Mann, G. Hesse and R. Musil.

The German “intellectual novel” is characterized by a well-thought-out concept of a cosmic device. T. Mann wrote: “The pleasure that can be found in a metaphysical system, the pleasure that is delivered by the spiritual organization of the world in a logically closed, harmonious, self-sufficient logical structure, is always predominantly of an aesthetic nature.” This worldview is due to the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy, in particular the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who argued that reality, i.e. the world of historical time is only a reflection of the essence of ideas. Schopenhauer called reality "maya", using a term from Buddhist philosophy, i.e. ghost, mirage. The essence of the world is distilled spirituality. Hence the Schopenhauerian dual world: the world of the valley (the world of shadows) and the world of the mountain (the world of truth).

The basic laws of constructing the German “intellectual novel” are based on the use of Schopenhauer’s dual worlds. In "The Magic Mountain", in "Steppenwolf", in "The Glass Bead Game". Reality is multi-layered: this is the world of the valley - the world of historical time and the world of the mountain - the world of true essence. Such a construction implied the limitation of the narrative from everyday, socio-historical realities, which determined another feature of the German “intellectual novel” - its hermeticity.

The tightness of the “intellectual novel” of T. Mann and G. Hesse gives rise to a special relationship between historical time and personal time, distilled from socio-historical storms. This genuine time exists in the rarefied mountain air of the Berghof sanatorium (The Magic Mountain), in the Magic Theater (Steppenwolf), in the harsh isolation of Castalia (The Glass Bead Game).

About historical time, G. Hesse wrote: “Reality is something with which under no circumstances should one be satisfied and which should not be deified, for it is an accident, i.e. the garbage of life."

R. Musil's "intellectual novel" "Man without Properties" differs from the hermetic form of the novels of T. Mann and G. Hesse. The work of the Austrian writer contains the accuracy of historical characteristics and specific signs of real time. Viewing the modern novel as a “subjective formula for life,” Musil uses the historical panorama of events as the backdrop against which the battles of consciousness are played out. “A Man Without Qualities” is a fusion of objective and subjective narrative elements. In contrast to the complete, closed concept of the universe in the novels of T. Mann and G. Hesse, R. Musil's novel is conditioned by the concept of endless modification and relativity of concepts.