Thomas Mann Buddenbrooks analysis. Coursework: Thomas Mann "Buddenbrooks"

Option 1.

The play “The Blue Bird” was written during the period when G. Maeterlinck, from a symbolist to a “theater of death”, came to a different vision of the world - a romantic one. And the point of the play is to show humanity the philosophical meaning of existence, the beauty of today's life and its greatness. Maeterlinck's heroes, the small children of the forester Tiltil and Mytil, go on a journey in search of the Blue Bird, which should give them health and happiness. What makes them go on a search, although they do not know exactly where to go? The fairy will be able to awaken in them both kindness and the desire to know the world. After all, they definitely need to learn to see what is “not in plain sight.”

And then it turns out that the whole world around, all objects have their own soul, their own relationship to people. Then the children go on a search not on their own, but in a circle of friends and foes. Just as every person always moves through life. Their journey lies in the Land of Memories and the Palace of Night, the Gardens of Beatitudes and the Kingdom of the Future. Children learn that they must pray for the dead, since “to pray means to remember.” The mystery of death is as great as the mystery of birth. And above all this is old Time, which is impossible to let anyone into Earth sooner or later. And everyone brings with them some kind of action - good or bad. This is the meaning of his birth - bringing something to the world. Wherever the children were, everywhere they saw birds that seemed blue, but not one was that Blue Bird. And only when the children returned home again, the turtle dove that belonged to Tiltil turned out to be the most similar. And it is no coincidence that the journey itself ends in the very forester’s hut from where they set off. Only now she seems different, better, since they returned as different children.

This means that the main thing is the willingness to go on a journey for the truth, the desire for change, the desire for the ideal. This, according to Maeterlinck, is the meaning of life, to understand why you came into the world, the meaning of which is that you live because life is eternal.

Maurice Maeterlinck was the man who created the symbolist "theater".

Now we can talk about the search for happiness by the heroes of The Blue Bird. It is clear that this extravaganza was preceded by a complex creative and spiritual path, if replaced by it, where everything is led by the Unknown, i.e. invisible and unknown fatal forces whose intentions are secret, unknown. In the end, it was Death that all the faces who were only waiting listened to.

And so the reader and the theater are offered a work in which there is no sense of predictability, the characters of which do not wait, but act and change, first of all, their spiritual world. Through that most characters are symbols of human spiritual activity, as such a creative principle.

So, the Soul of Light goes in search of the Blue Bird for the happiness of a family that no one would call wealthy, accompanied by the Souls of Fire, Water, Sugar and two creatures that have long accompanied man on his path. The souls of children are not primitive and have learned a lot. The magic diamond helps children on their journey. And that path is the most dangerous one a person takes. This is the path of self-education. One after another the pictures change. From the poor woodcutter's hut we find ourselves in the luxurious chambers of the fairy, just to meet the property of the original people - fire, water, bread, sugar, the first animals of our own. First, as expected, on the path of self-knowledge we turn to our memories... The terrible demonstration of the maternal fate of the poor completely removes for me the idyllic mood of the picture: seven dead children, one after another, come to the end.

Delving into the future leads little people to the horrors and dark impulses of the human psyche. Bluebirds caught here cannot stand the light. The “forest” of personality is not far from the “forest” of nature, which tried to condemn a person whom, nevertheless, he was unable to defeat. The discovery of the Cemetery Diamond assures the boy and girl that there is no death.

Nevertheless, the light can be eclipsed - there are different bliss behind the essence, and if you tear off the masks, they look like monsters. And only the joys of understanding, seeing, not being afraid, just like Mother’s Love, are true. The most tragic symbols are probably in the blue palace, where they are waiting for life, everything is in advance, unborn children...

And so we return to the woodcutter’s hut, never having found the Blue Bird. And something similar happened only at the beginning of his wanderings. He will give it to the girl next door, but he will not keep the Birds of Happiness.

Maybe because happiness cannot be chosen or received as a gift. You have to follow him. In vain Tiltil addresses the audience: We ask you very much: if one of you finds it, let him bring it to us, we need it in order to become happy in the future...

Option 2.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Maeterlinck went beyond symbolism and became one of the creators of Belgian progressive romantic and realistic drama.1 In 1908, the writer created one of his central works - “ blue bird" This extravaganza, which tells about the journey of the woodcutter's children, accompanied by the souls of objects and phenomena, in search of a bird that can bring happiness to people, is filled with symbols and allegories.

Before proceeding directly to the analysis of the symbols in Maeterlinck’s play, you should pay attention to the Russian translation of its title. In our country, the extravaganza is known as the “Blue Bird”, however, precisely from the point of view of the symbolism of the color, this name is incorrect. Here is what Alexander Blok writes about this: “It is not at all pedantic on my part to find fault with the word blue and use the word blue to convey the French word Bleu; in French bleu means both blue and light blue, just as Blau in German; but the fact is that behind Maeterlinck’s fairy tale play lies a long literary tradition. Maeterlinck studied the German Novalis a lot; he translated it and, as it were, rediscovered it for the French, his name is closely associated with symbolism; Maeterlinck is one of those to whom we owe the establishment of close literary connection between the early romantics of the beginning of the century and the symbolists of the end of the century. Novalis is an early romantic, one of those few in whom the beginning of romanticism can be observed in its pure form, not complicated by later layers; he has not yet left his original path - and his main work is an unfinished novel about Blue Flower. We have firmly established the custom of calling this magical fairy-tale flower blue, and not blue, which means there is no reason to call Maeterlinck’s bird blue, and not blue. By calling it blue, we break with tradition; but every word is traditional, it is polysemantic, symbolic, it has deep roots; the last secrets of our consciousness lie precisely in the roots of language; That’s why we, artists, need to be careful with our words; It is easy to tear apart the ears of a sensitive reader or theater viewer by immediately imposing on him a number of false associations. Let us be true to the word blue throughout the text of the play; because the flower is blue, the sky is blue, Moonlight- blue, a magical kingdom - (blue or azure - in Turgenev) and the haze in which the entire Maeterlinck fairy tale and every fairy tale that talks about the unattainable is shrouded - blue, not blue.

To begin with, it should be said that the play contains not only symbolic images, but also allegorical ones, which should not be confused. In the abstract I will talk about both the first and the second.

We see the first symbolic detail in the fairy tale at the very beginning, even before the children woke up. The intensity of the light in the room mysteriously changes: “The stage is immersed in darkness for some time, then a gradually increasing light begins to break through the cracks of the shutters. The lamp on the table lights up by itself.” This action symbolizes the concept of “seeing in its true light.” In the light in which Tyltil and Mytil will see the world after the diamond on their cap turns. In the light in which any person can see the world, looking at it with a pure heart. In this scene, the familiar contradiction between blindness and vision comes to the surface, passes from deep philosophical subtext into a dramatic plot. It is this motif that runs like a line through the entire work and is central. In this regard, the opinion of I. D. Shkunaeva is interesting. She writes that in Maeterlinck's play there are two various types transformations. One of them, close to the fairy tale, consists in the return of phenomena to themselves. Tyltil's magic diamond does not change the world around us, but brings the sign and essence into correspondence. To do this, you just need to “open your eyes,” because the sign undoubtedly expresses the essence, it is easily read by sighted eyes. The transformation of people, phenomena and objects is a consequence of Tyltil’s open view of the world. Widespread folk expressions that have retained all their metaphorical imagery - “to see in the true light” and “to look at the world with open eyes” - became the basis for the dramatic action of this play. However, what is required for the eyes to truly open and the world to appear as it is, and not as it appears to poor eyesight? Let us pay attention to the mechanism of action of the magic diamond. And here we find the symbol: the traditional touch magic wand Maeterlinck’s connection to the subject was the touch of a diamond to the “special bump” on Tyltil’s head. The hero’s consciousness changes - and then the world around him is transformed according to the laws of the fairy tale.3 “A big diamond, it restores sight.”

Also central symbols The plays can be called images of the children themselves and their poor relatives. They were typical representatives of Belgian, and indeed European society in general. At the beginning of the play, in the fairy palace, Tyltil and Mytil dress up as characters from fairy tales popular among the people. It is precisely because of their everydayness as a guarantee of universality that they turned out to be a symbol of humanity. It should also be said here why Maeterlinck chose children as the main characters. Researcher L.G. Andreev believes that it could not have been an accident that the children had to go in search of the blue bird, to look for happiness in the meaning of life. How can one not recall the simplicity glorified by Maeterlinck, the advantages of a naive, direct worldview, which he wrote about many times? For Maeterlinck, Tyltyl and Mytyl are not only children who have experienced extraordinary adventures, but also the key with which one can open the gates truth and the gates of heaven.4

Other characters in the extravaganza are also symbolic. Among all, it is worth highlighting the cat. Tiletta symbolizes evil, betrayal, hypocrisy. An insidious and dangerous enemy for children - this is her unexpected essence, her mysterious idea. The Cat is friends with the Night: both of them guard the secrets of life. She is also at peace with death; her old friends are Misfortunes. It is she, in secret from the soul of Light, who brings children into the forest to be torn to pieces by trees and animals. And here’s what’s important: children don’t see the Cat in the “true light”; they don’t see her the way they see their other companions. Mytil loves Tiletta and protects her from Tilo's attacks. The cat is the only one of the travelers whose soul, free under the rays of the diamond, did not combine with its visible appearance. Bread, Fire, Milk, Sugar, Water and Dog did not conceal anything alien in themselves; they were direct proof of the identity of appearance and essence. The idea did not contradict the phenomenon; it only revealed and developed its invisible (“silent”) possibilities. So Bread symbolizes cowardice and compromise. He has negative bourgeois qualities. Sugar is sweet, the compliments given to him do not come from pure heart, his manner of communication is theatrical. Perhaps it symbolizes people from high society, close to power, trying in every possible way to please the rulers, just to “sit” in a good position. However, both Bread and Sugar have positive features. They selflessly accompany children. Moreover, Bread also carries a cage, and Sugar breaks off his candy fingers and gives them to Mytyl, who so rarely eats sweets in ordinary life. The dog embodies exclusively positive aspects of character. He is devoted, ready to die to save children. However, the owners do not fully understand this. They constantly reprimand the dog and drive him away even when he tries to tell them the truth about the cat’s betrayal. And in the forest, Tiltil even agreed to the trees’ proposal to tie Tilo.

Worth paying Special attention on the central character of the play - the Soul of Light. Let us note that in “The Blue Bird” there is only one Soul of Light among the travelers – an allegorical image. But the Soul of Light is an exception. This is not just a companion for children, it is their “leader”; in her figure she personifies the symbol of light - the guide of the blind. The remaining allegorical characters of the play are encountered by the children on their way to the Blue Bird: each of them, in a naively naked form, carries his own morality - or rather, his part of the general morality - each of them presents his own special concrete lesson. Meetings with these characters form the stages of spiritual and mental education of children: Night and Time, Beatitudes, the most fat of which symbolize wealth, property, greed, and Joys, symbolizing the everyday life of the simple honest people, Ghosts and Diseases teach Tyltyl and Mytyl either in the form of direct verbal edification, or by their own silent example, or by creating instructive situations for children, from which they can learn everyday lessons.5 The Soul of Light moves the internal action of the play, since, obeying the fairy, it leads children from stage to stage of their journey. Its task is to unwind the tangle of events that move from one time to another, changing space. But the role of a guide is also to instill hope and not let faith fade.

Special mention should be made of the role of time in the extravaganza and its symbolism. We meet him face to face in one of the last pictures of the extravaganza, but even earlier it reminded us of itself every now and then. However, not only in the distant Kingdom of the Future, but also in the first scene of the play - in the woodcutter's hut - personified time already appears before us: “beautiful ladies” dancing to the sounds of lovely music are the “free” and “visible” hours of Tyltil’s Life .

Sleep and dreams are the external, objective, and internal, subjective time of “travel” for children. In a dream, with the help of memory and imagination, the quality of time as a special category of reality - the unity and continuity of its flow - is symbolically recreated. Maeterlinck writes a lot about the fact that the present contains both the past and the future, and that its “composition” is the composition” of the personality itself in his philosophical studies at the beginning of the century. The dialectical relationship between the three sides of time is realized in the physical, mental and spiritual existence of a person: Meterliik strives to prove this idea both on the pages of his philosophical prose and with the help of poetic images and symbols of the “Blue Bird”.6

Finally, it should be said about the main symbol of the extravaganza - the Blue Bird itself. The play says that the heroes need the blue bird “in order to become happy in the future”... Here the symbol of the bird intersects with the image of time, with the Kingdom of the future. Alexander Blok expresses interesting version, why the bird became a symbol of happiness. “The bird always flies away, you can’t catch it. What else flies away like a bird? Happiness flies away. The bird is a symbol of happiness; and, as you know, it has long been no longer customary to talk about happiness; adults talk about business, about organizing life on a positive basis; but they never talk about happiness, miracles and similar things; it's even quite indecent; after all, happiness flies away like a bird; and it’s unpleasant for adults to chase the constantly flying Bird and try to pour salt on its tail. Another thing is for a child; children can have fun with this; Seriousness and decency are not asked of them.”7 One can immediately conclude that children also symbolize hope for future happiness. Although they never found the bird during the journey, and the turtledove flew away at the end, they do not despair and are going to continue the search for the blue bird, that is, happiness.

The heroes of the philosophical play-fairy tale “The Blue Bird” are symbolic images that embody the forces dominating the earth. These are people, plants, animals, the elements of Light, Fire and Water, Soul, Bread, Milk, Clocks - everything that makes up the human world. It turns out that a person lives on earth, not noticing anyone or anything around him except people like himself. It seems to her that only he is endowed with a soul, and he has unraveled all the secrets of the world. But that's not true. With the help of a magic stone that opens true vision, Tyltil and Mytil, the heroes of the play, see the world as it really is - spiritual, beautiful (and sometimes scary), full of secrets still unknown to humanity. In this world, the past, present and future are nearby and penetrate each other: Tyltil and Mytil meet both their long-dead relatives and their unborn brother. It turns out that a person is responsible not only for himself, but also for all his ancestors and descendants, because his entire family is the only whole, one endless line.

The playwright makes children his heroes, because their consciousness is still flexible, they are most receptive to the secrets of the world, and are close to nature. They know how to sincerely love and rejoice, they have not yet been affected by misfortune and vices that appear in the play in the images of the Fat Beatitudes (for example, the Bliss of Being Rich, the Bliss of Doing Nothing, etc.)

The cosmogonic created by Maeterlinck unites all the forces and laws of the earth: from night terrors and wars to the brightest essence of the earth - Mother's love, Justice, Joy of Understanding; children find themselves with their ancestors and descendants, in the underground kingdom of Night and on the tops of the world, they meet the Souls of plants and animals. They learn that there are a large number of forces in the world that help them, or vice versa - they are offended by people and seek revenge on them (such as the souls of those trees and animals that people destroy).

In the play, Maeterlinck gives an optimistic picture of the future: those children who await their birth in the Kingdom of the Future will soon bring beautiful machines, flowers and fruits to earth, and will defeat disease, injustice and even death itself. However, a very important task appeared for those who live on earth: Tyltil and Mytil must find the Blue Bird - the bird of happiness - and bring it to earth. To do this, they explore the world. But this world and the souls that inhabit it are inside the people themselves. The action of the play begins and ends in the children's home. The journey into themselves took place in a dream, but, having woken up, Tyltil and Mytil do not forget everything that happened to them, and now they look at the world around them in a new way: as the Soul of Light foresaw, their view of things has changed, and now it seems to them that only they woke up, and the rest of the people were sleeping, not seeing all the beauty and grace of the world.

The play “spiritualizes” the world, the world around man, Maeterlinck shows that people need to “wake up”, look around and see all the beauty of the earth, the value human love and kindness, the need to live in peace with our neighbors on earth and to experience the world without destroying it.

Biography

Maurice Maeterlinck was born on August 29, 1862 in Ghent, in the family of a wealthy lawyer. Since childhood, he was interested in literature and poetry, but his parents insisted on a legal education. Having received a law degree in 1885, Maurice went to Paris to improve his jurisprudence. He devoted the six months spent in Paris entirely to literature.
Returning to Ghent, Maeterlinck works as a lawyer and continues his literary studies. He begins to be published in Parisian publications, receiving laudatory reviews from critics. The fairy tale play “Princess Malene” was classified as a masterpiece by the influential French critic Mirbeau, and he compared its author to Shakespeare. Inspired by the praise, Maeterlinck left legal practice and devoted himself entirely to literature.
Prone to metaphor and symbolism, Maeterlinck writes mainly fairy tales and plays where the characters say little, in short, meaningful phrases, where much remains in the subtext. He is especially successful in plays for puppets - unlike live actors, puppets can play a symbol and convey the archetype of his heroes.
In 1895, Maurice met Georgette Leblanc, an actress and singer, who becomes his companion, secretary and impresario, protects his peace of mind and protects him from strangers. In 1896 they left for Paris. During these years, Maeterlinck wrote metaphysical essays and treatises, which were included in the collections “Treasure of the Humble,” “Wisdom and Fate,” and “The Life of Bees,” which draw an analogy between the activity of a bee and human behavior.
The playwright's most popular play, The Blue Bird, was first staged by Stanislavsky in Moscow in 1908; Subsequently, it was successfully presented on the stages of London, New York, and Paris, gaining popularity not only for its fairy-tale fantasy, but also for its allegory.
In 1911, Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his many-sided literary activity, especially for dramatic works marked by richness of imagination and poetic fantasy."
During the First World War, Maeterlinck tried to enlist in the Belgian Civil Guard, but was not accepted due to his age. During this time, his relationship with Leblanc deteriorated, and after the war they separated. In 1919 he married Renee Daon, an actress who played in The Blue Bird.
In the last years of his life Maeterlinck wrote more articles than plays; From 1927 to 1942, 12 volumes of his works were published, the most interesting of which is “The Life of Termites,” an allegorical condemnation of communism and totalitarianism.
Maeterlinck died on May 6 (according to some sources - May 5), 1949 from a heart attack.

Symbolism

Symbolism (French Symbolisme) is one of the largest movements in art (in literature, music and painting), which arose in France in the 1870-80s. and reached its greatest development in turn of the 19th century and 20th centuries, primarily in France itself, Belgium and Russia. The Symbolists radically changed not only different kinds art, but also the very attitude towards it. Their experimental nature, desire for innovation, cosmopolitanism and wide range of influences have become a model for most modern art movements. Symbolists used symbolism, understatement, hints, mystery, enigma.
The term “symbolism” in art was first coined by the French poet Jean Moreas in the manifesto of the same name - “Le Symbolisme”, published on September 18, 1886 in the newspaper “Le Figaro”. By that time, there was another, already stable term, “decadence,” which was disparagingly used to describe new forms in the poetry of their critics. “Symbolism” became the first theoretical attempt of the decadents themselves, therefore no sharp distinctions, much less aesthetic confrontation, were established between decadence and symbolism. It should be noted, however, that in Russia in the 1890s, after the first Russian decadent works, these terms began to be contrasted: in symbolism they saw ideals and spirituality and, accordingly, manifested it that way, and in decadence - lack of will, immorality and passion for only the external form. In their works, the symbolists tried to depict the life of every soul - full of experiences, unclear, vague moods, subtle feelings, fleeting impressions. Symbolist poets were innovators of poetic verse, filling it with new, bright and expressive images, and sometimes, trying to achieve an original form, they went into what their critics considered a meaningless play on words and sounds. Roughly speaking, we can say that symbolism distinguishes two worlds: the world of things and the world of ideas. The symbol becomes something conventional sign, connecting these worlds in the meaning generated by them. There are two sides to any symbol - the signified and the signifier. This second side is turned towards the unreal world. Art is the key to the mystery.
The concept and image of Mystery, the mysterious, the mystical is manifested both in romanticism and in symbolism. However, romanticism, as a rule, proceeds from the fact that “knowledge of the world is knowledge of oneself, for man is the greatest mystery, the source of analogies for the Universe” (Novalis). The symbolists have a different understanding of the world: in their opinion, true Being, “truly existing” or Mystery, is an absolute, objective principle to which both Beauty and the world Spirit belong. Unlike other movements in art that use elements of their own characteristic symbolism, symbolism considers the expression of “unattainable”, sometimes mystical, Ideas, images of Eternity and Beauty to be the goal and content of its art, and the symbol, fixed in the element of artistic speech and based on its image on a polysemantic poetic word - the main, and sometimes the only possible artistic means.
The most striking change introduced by symbolism concerns the form of artistic embodiment of its poetics. In the context of symbolism, a work of any kind of art begins to play with poetic meanings; poetry becomes a form of thinking. Prose and drama begin to sound like poetry, the visual arts paint its images, and the connection between poetry and music becomes simply comprehensive. Poetic images-symbols, as if rising above reality, giving a poetic associative series, are embodied by symbolist poets in a sound-written, musical form, and the sound of the poem itself is no less, if not more important for expressing the meaning of a particular symbol. To summarize, we can say that the method of symbolism involves the embodiment of the main ideas of the work in the polysemantic and multifaceted associative aesthetics of symbols, i.e. such images, the meaning of which is understandable through their direct expression by a unit of artistic (poetic, musical, pictorial, dramatic) speech, as well as through its certain properties (sound writing poetic word, color spectrum picturesque image, intervallic and rhythmic features of the musical motif, timbre colors, etc.). The main content of a symbolistic work is the eternal Ideas expressed in the imagery of symbols, i.e. generalized ideas about a person and his life, the highest Meaning, comprehended only in a symbol, as well as the Beauty embodied in it.

Analysis of the play "Blue Bird".