Distinctive features of realism in literature. Neorealism and realism in Russian literature are: features and main genres

The second half of the 19th century is characterized by the emergence of such a movement as realism. It immediately followed the Romanticism that emerged in the first half of this century, but at the same time was radically different from it. Realism in literature demonstrated a typical person in a typical situation and tried to reflect reality as plausibly as possible.

Main features of realism

History of origin

These include:
cult of esotericism;
depiction of bright atypical personalities;
use of fantasy elements;
segregation of heroes into positive and negative.
That is why the realism of writers of the first half of the century was often criticized by writers of the late 19th century. However, it is at an early stage that the main features of this direction are formed. First of all, this is a conflict characteristic of realism. In the literature of former romantics, the opposition between man and society is clearly visible.
In the second half of the 19th century, realism acquired new forms. And it’s not for nothing that this period is called the “triumph of realism.” The social and political situation contributed to the fact that the authors began to study human nature, as well as his behavior in certain situations. Social connections between individuals began to play a big role.
The science of that time had a huge influence on the development of realism. Darwin's Origin of Species is published in 1859. Kant's positivist philosophy also makes its contribution to artistic practice. Realism in the literature of the 19th century takes on an analytical, studying character. At the same time, writers refuse to analyze the future; it was of little interest to them. The emphasis was on modernity, which became the key theme of the reflection of critical realism.

Main representatives

It should be noted that the 20–30s of the 19th century were not only the era of the rapid flowering of romanticism. At the same time, a new, most powerful and fruitful direction is developing in Russian literature - realism. “The desire to become natural, natural,” noted Belinsky, “constitutes the meaning and soul of the history of our literature.”

This desire was clearly evident back in the 18th century, especially in the works of D. I. Fonvizin and A. N. Radishchev.

In the first decades of the 19th century. realism triumphed in Krylov’s fables and Griboyedov’s immortal comedy “Woe from Wit,” imbued, as Belinsky put it, with “the deep truth of Russian life.”

The true founder of realism in Russian literature was A. S. Pushkin. The author of "Eugene Onegin" and "Boris Godunov", "The Bronze Horseman" and "The Captain's Daughter", he managed to comprehend the very essence of the most important phenomena of Russian reality, which appeared under his pen in all its diversity, complexity, and inconsistency.

Following Pushkin, all the major writers of the first half of the 19th century came to realism. And each of them develops the achievements of Pushkin the realist, achieves new victories and successes. In the novel “A Hero of Our Time,” Lermontov went further than his teacher Pushkin in depicting the complex inner life of a person, in an in-depth analysis of his emotional experiences. Gogol developed the critical, accusatory side of Pushkin's realism. In his works - primarily in "The Inspector General" and "Dead Souls" - the life, morals, and spiritual life of representatives of the ruling classes are shown in all their ugliness.

Deeply and truthfully reflecting the most important features of reality, Russian literature thereby increasingly met the interests and aspirations of the masses. The folk character of Russian literature was also reflected in the fact that interest in the life and fate of the people became more and more profound and acute in it. This was clearly manifested in the late works of Pushkin and Lermontov, in the works of Gogol, and with even greater force in the poetry of Koltsov and the creative activity of writers of the so-called “natural school”.

This school, formed in the 40s, represented the first association of realist writers in Russian literature. These were still young writers. Having rallied around Belinsky, they made it their task to depict life truthfully, with all its dark and gloomy sides. Diligently and conscientiously studying everyday life, they discovered in their stories, essays, novels such aspects of reality that previous literature almost did not know: details of everyday life, peculiarities of speech, emotional experiences of peasants, petty officials, inhabitants of St. Petersburg “corners”. The best works of writers associated with the “natural school”: “Notes of a Hunter” by Turgenev, “Poor People” by Dostoevsky, “The Thieving Magpie” and “Who is to Blame?” Herzen, “An Ordinary History” by Goncharov, “The Village” and “Anton Goremyk” by Grigorovich (1822–1899) - prepared the flowering of realism in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century.

The history of the emergence of Realism:

In its historically specific meaning, the term Realism denotes a direction of literature and art that arose in the 18th century, reaching its full development and flowering in the critical Realism of the 19th century. and continuing to develop in struggle and interaction with other directions in the 20th century. (up to modern times).

The prologue to realism as an independent movement was the art of the Renaissance (“Renaissance realism”), from which, through European painting of the 17th century, “Enlightenment realism” of the 18th century. The threads stretch back to the realism of the 19th century, when the concept of realism arose and was formulated in literature and fine arts.

Realism 19th century was a form of response to romantic and classical idealization, as well as to the denial of generally accepted academic norms. Marked by a sharp social orientation, it was called critical realism, becoming a reflection in art of acute social problems and the desire to evaluate the phenomena of social life. The leading principles of realism of the 19th century. became an objective reflection of the essential aspects of life, combined with the height and truth of the author’s ideal; reproduction of typical characters and situations with the completeness of their artistic individualization; preference in ways of depicting “forms of life itself” with a predominant interest in the problem of “individuality and society”.

Realism in 20th century culture. characterized by the search for new connections with reality, original creative solutions and means of artistic expression. It does not always appear in its pure form, often intertwined in a complex knot with opposing currents - symbolism, religious mysticism, modernism.

Realism Features:

The leading principles of realism of the 19th-20th centuries: objective reflection of the essential aspects of life in combination with the height and truth of the author's ideal; reproduction of typical characters, conflicts, situations with the completeness of their artistic individualization (i.e., concretization of both national, historical, social signs, and physical, intellectual and spiritual characteristics); preference in methods of depicting “forms of life itself,” but along with the use, especially in the 20th century, of conventional forms (myth, symbol, parable, grotesque); predominant interest in the problem of “personality and society” (especially in the inescapable confrontation between social patterns and the moral ideal, personal and mass, mythologized consciousness).

Representatives of Realism in various types of art of the 19th-20th centuries:

Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Jean-François Millet, Ilya Repin, Vasily Perov, Ivan Kramskoy, Vasily Surikov, Rockwell Kent, Diego Rivera, Andre Fougeron, Boris Taslitsky, Stendhal, Makovsky V. E., O. Balzac, C. Dickens , G. Flaubert, L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoevsky, M. Twain, A. P. Chekhov, T. Mann, W. Faulkner, A. I. Solzhenitsyn, G. Courbet, M. P. Mussorgsky , M. S. Shchepkin, K. S. Stanislavsky.

Examples of Realism:

Realism is usually called a movement in art and literature, whose representatives strived for a realistic and truthful reproduction of reality. In other words, the world was portrayed as typical and simple, with all its advantages and disadvantages.

General features of realism

Realism in literature is distinguished by a number of common features. Firstly, life was depicted in images that corresponded to reality. Secondly, reality for representatives of this movement has become a means of understanding themselves and the world around them. Thirdly, the images on the pages of literary works were distinguished by the truthfulness of details, specificity and typification. It is interesting that the art of the realists, with their life-affirming principles, sought to consider reality in development. Realists discovered new social and psychological relationships.

The emergence of realism

Realism in literature as a form of artistic creation arose in the Renaissance, developed during the Enlightenment and manifested itself as an independent direction only in the 30s of the 19th century. The first realists in Russia include the great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin (he is sometimes even called the founder of this movement) and the no less outstanding writer N.V. Gogol with his novel “Dead Souls”. As for literary criticism, the term “realism” appeared within it thanks to D. Pisarev. It was he who introduced the term into journalism and criticism. Realism in the literature of the 19th century became a distinctive feature of that time, having its own characteristics and characteristic features.

Features of literary realism

Representatives of realism in literature are numerous. The most famous and outstanding writers include such writers as Stendhal, Charles Dickens, O. Balzac, L.N. Tolstoy, G. Flaubert, M. Twain, F.M. Dostoevsky, T. Mann, M. Twain, W. Faulkner and many others. All of them worked on the development of the creative method of realism and embodied in their works its most striking features in inextricable connection with their unique authorial characteristics.

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

It is customary to distinguish the following literary trends:

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

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

Classicism

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

Features of classicism:

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

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

Classicism in Russia:

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

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

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

Sentimentalism

Sentimentalism (from English sentimental - “sensitive”) is a movement in European literature and art of the 18th century. It was prepared by the crisis of Enlightenment rationalism and was the final stage of the Enlightenment. Chronologically, it mainly preceded romanticism, passing on a number of its features to it.

The main signs of sentimentalism:

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

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

Sentimentalism in Russia:

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

Characteristic features of Russian sentimentalism:

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

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

Romanticism

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

Main features of romanticism:

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

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

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

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

Beginning in the 1840s, romanticism in major European countries gave way to critical realism and faded into the background.

Romanticism in Russia:

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

Characteristic features of romanticism in Russia:

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

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

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

Naturalism

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

Characteristics of naturalism:

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

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

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

Realism

Realism (from the late Latin realis - material, real) is a literary and artistic movement of the 19th-20th centuries. It originates in the Renaissance (the so-called “Renaissance realism”) or in the Enlightenment (“Enlightenment realism”). Features of realism are noted in ancient and medieval folklore and ancient literature.

Main features of realism:

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

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

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