German literature of the 19th century. German literature of the second half of the 19th century

After the revolution of 1848, the unification of Germany, which had long been demanded common sense history - both of all Europe and Germany itself - again not. took place. The adoption of a democratic constitution remained the elusive demand of the day. At the very first surges of social activity of the proletarians, the national bourgeoisie preferred conservative loyalty to their local monarchies and easily abandoned the revolutionary ideals that they had nurtured even on the eve of 1830. The split in the camp of the liberal bourgeoisie into the national-conservative and republican wing, weakness, lack of will to real action and, not least, the manifested discontent of the lower classes contributed to the fact that the revolution did not achieve the goals set by the liberal bourgeoisie - through freedom to the unity of Germany. History took a different path. And society after the revolution embraces a mood of defeat and increasing hopelessness, which will determine the “spirit of the times” for many years.

At the same time, Germany received a noticeable impetus towards faster industrial-capitalist development. There was a clear replacement of the political interests of the bourgeoisie with economic ones. The place of idealistically colored, democratic projects of social development, associated with the ideas of the Enlightenment, is now occupied in her mind by the realistic and practical goal of her own economic enrichment. Nationalist interests and the idea of ​​national superiority are gaining strength quite quickly. Germany, like other European countries, is becoming a colonial and imperialist state.

In the second half of the 19th century, Prussia noticeably emerged among other German states due to the vigorous development of industry and economy. The era of the so-called “real” policy of the “Iron Chancellor” O. von Bismarck (1815 – 1898) begins, who managed to unite Germany in 1871 with “iron and blood”, that is, with the most brutal methods. The unification was preceded by wars with Denmark (1864), Austria (1866), and France (1871).

All these events lead to a crisis of bourgeois consciousness, to a kind of loss of spiritual support. The consequence of this is confusion and a rapid change of hobbies and mindsets.

The expanding influence of materialist thought is closely connected with the economic rise of the bourgeoisie, and the general spread of positivism in science heralds and promises a new orientation of human consciousness, seeking justification in facts, compared with the period before 1848. However, neither accelerated economic development, nor the materialization of consciousness, nor positivist pragmatism not only stimulated spiritual life, but, on the contrary, impoverished it and testified to the spiritual exhaustion of social existence, only deepening its crisis. It is no coincidence that materialist and positivist ideas coexist in this era with in different forms irrationalism, with the cult of “vitality” and simply with superstition and mysticism.

The socio-political depression in the society of the 50s was reflected ideologically in the general enthusiasm for the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860), after the revolution of 1848, which did not bring the expected fruits, legitimized pessimism and depression in the best possible way, explaining them as inherent properties of life itself and proving the doom of man in a collision with life. Main work Schopenhauer's “The World as Will and Idea,” written in 1819, received its true recognition in the second half of the 19th century and had a great influence on the spiritual life of not only Germany, but throughout Europe, giving impetus to the reassessment of the values ​​of the entire century and marking the line of its breakdown humanistic ideas.

According to Schopenhauer, the world does not develop, but moves in a circle, bringing an endless repetition of the same thing. The principle that governs existence is a blind, aimless, irrational will that plunges humanity into the eternal struggle of individuals - the struggle of all against all. Pessimism, refusal to confront the world, refusal of life itself is the spiritual result of Schopenhauer’s quest. Schopenhauer considered the only answer to the questions of existence to be the position of an artist-contemplator or an ascetic who had left the world, and in the long term - death.

Since the 60s, pessimism has influenced everything greater impact on the cultural and political consciousness of society. Schopenhauer's influence was felt by F. Nietzsche, R. Wagner, and W. Raabe, although Raabe himself insisted on the independence of his critical position, independent of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's ideas were especially widespread in Austria-Hungary; they also had a response in France and Russia.

Significant changes that have occurred in public consciousness have left their mark on German literature. The most remarkable phenomenon in the literature of the second half of the century is the so-called “poetic realism”.

The era of poetic realism lasts approximately from the middle to the end of the 19th century.

The term "poetic realism" belongs to German writer and art theorist Otto Ludwig (1813 – 1865). Poetic realism in his view is a synthesis of real and ideal principles, natural and random, individual and typical, objective content of life and the author’s subjective experience.

Literary critic Yu. Schmidt assigns the leading role in new literature to the democratic hero - a representative of the middle class of society; Believing that realistic literature should be relevant, but free from political bias, he attaches particular importance to the harmony of composition, clarity and simplicity of style. As a literary model, he reveres the English realist Charles Dickens.

G. Freytag's social novel “Incoming and Outgoings” (1855), the first edition of “Green Heinrich” (1854) by G. Keller and the first volume of his short stories “People from Seldvila” (1858), “Chronicle of Sparrow Street” (1857) by V. Raabe become the first works of poetic realism. Somewhat later, in the 1870s and 1880s, K. F. Meyer and T. Fontane, a novelist whose work became the pinnacle of German-language realism, entered the literary scene.

Poetic realism turned out to be a much broader and deeper phenomenon in practice than the literary critical theories of Ludwig and Schmidt assumed. The key principle of poetic realism coincides with the main tasks of the realistic movement in French, Russian, and English literature. The main object of the image is modern reality in its cause-and-effect relationships. Of particular importance is the social, national, historical determination of characters and destinies, and attention to detail.

Modern German science, in contrast to the established tradition, considers poetic realism as a natural phenomenon of the era, the dominant of which was the defeat of the revolution of 1848, the resulting disappointment and deep distrust of new forms of life, determined by the growth of technology and industry, capital, economic development, pragmatic, aggressive, the chauvinistic spirit of official politics, which energetically and successfully supplanted old ideas, ideals and their bearers. New forms of life did not bring freedom with them; rather, they enslaved man in a new way, dehumanizing society and life itself.

Unlike English or French realism, German poetic realism is characterized by a personal perspective and an inside view, which means the subjectivization of the narrative. Therefore, poetic realism manifests itself most clearly not in a novel about society and an era, but rather in a novel of education or, and this is even more often, in a short story, short story, story.

However, poetic realism does not absolutize the subjective, and very often removes the pathos of the subjective with humor. Humor turns out to be the most important element of the worldview of poetic realists. Humor is the knowledge that the crack that split the consciousness and world of the classical idealistic-romantic era also destroyed the world of old values. Humor is, as it were, a feeling of this split, and sadness, melancholy, “world sorrow” are its emotional experience. Sentimentality, an elegiac tone in the prose of poetic realism, is, like humor, one of the forms of a negative attitude towards reality, expressed in internal reconciliation, refusal to resist and confront life. All this various shapes“enlightenment of reality” in realistic literature.

The interest of this era in German classics and romanticism and its partial revival not only in neo-romanticism, but also in poetic realism is natural.

In the German reality of the second half of the 19th century, the literary traditions of the Restoration era continue to be found, especially the Biedermeier tradition with its ideal of private family life and quiet joys in harmony with nature. They are still looking for and finding a way out of social and civil life, which is beyond the influence of the human personality.

The “enlightenment of reality” is also facilitated by the use of memories. “Invented” and “remembered” reality have much in common and are similar in structure. Therefore, the memory story is a favorite technique among German realists.

It is important to note that some principles of German realism, in particular the principle of memory, which is close to fantasy, and therefore to creativity in general, anticipate the search for literature of the “end of the century”, literature of decadence and even modernism of the early 20th century (“In Search of Lost Time” M Proust).

German realism absorbed the pessimistic spirit of its time, the feeling of the irretrievable loss of the past, which from the distance of the past is acquiring more and more enlightened features, absorbed the romantic rejection of new “rough”, cynical forms of life and its new masters. The tragic hopelessness in Storm's short stories and Raabe's novels brings their works closer to the literature of symbolism, to the art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, building a bridge from the romanticism of the early 19th century to its end, and encourages us to see their work in the broad context of the artistic searches of the era.

The most important place in German realistic literature belongs to the prose writer and poet Theodor Storm (1817 - 1888), who said that his short stories grew out of his poetry and are closely connected with it. The difficult life of Storm, a lawyer, an exile, then a landvogt and a judge in his native Husum, is inseparable from Schleswig-Holstein and its tangled fate under the rule of Denmark and then Prussia. Storm's gentle, subtle, elegant prose, not shaken by political and religious conflicts, absorbs troubles and grief modern man, his feelings and experiences. Storm's immersion in the world of human feelings, a kind of sentimental enlightenment of the surrounding wretched philistine existence, fully reflected the mood and spiritual state of society in the era after the defeat of the revolution of 1848, in the era of unfulfilled hopes and disappointment, when the horizon of general interests narrows to the interests of the individual, and the general upsurge is replaced by decline and loss of pathos.

Storm in his work anticipates the interest in the inner life of man, in its hidden depths, which is characteristic of the culture and literature of the “end of the century,” that is, the next era. Thus, one of Storm’s most famous early short stories, “Immensee” (1850) is a masterpiece not only of German, but also of world short stories of the 19th century. It is no coincidence that the work went through 30 editions during the author’s lifetime.

"Immensee" is an example of the so-called lyrical novella or mood novella, which was brilliantly developed by the romantics. Poetic texts that play the role of leitmotifs are organically woven into the work. The novella is generally built on a leitmotif technique based on the principle of remembering and shifting time layers. She is distinguished by a subtle knowledge of the human psyche and the world of feelings. The narrative in “Immensee” is constructed as a memory, which determines the elegiac tone of the story and the sad mood that dominates it. The overall melancholic tone of the narrative is in harmony with the play with the nuances of light, color, and melody.

A sentimental and melancholy mood permeates the entire work. It is initially set in the introduction: “In late autumn in a quiet evening hour On the road to the city, an elderly, well-dressed gentleman slowly descended... Under his arm he held a long cane with a gold knob, his dark eyes. Strangely combined with hair as white as snow, and seemingly harboring the bitterness of an unhappy youth, they calmly looked around or down at the city, spread out in a haze of golden rays.” The short story ends with a fragment called the same as the opening “Old Man”; together they create a frame structure within which the plot action develops based on recall. It is dramatic both in its problem and in its form of deployment.

In "Immensee" social issues are raised. Bourgeois calculation destroys love, and the new ambitious bourgeoisie triumphs over the romantic moods of representatives of the old-style bourgeoisie. Although the social background of events is invariably present in Storm's short stories, it is always included in the system of human relations as one of the parts of a whole complex complex, a network of causes and effects that cause certain actions of the heroes and determine their behavior. Among these reasons, the social principle is by no means assigned a primary role, along with psychology, feelings, passions, the subconscious, traditional ideas, habits, and individual logic of the individual, which is the main object of interest of the writer.

The plot of the work moves in the context of the mood accompanying it. This is a story of lost love: both Reinhard and Elisabeth were unable to defend their feelings. Elisabeth gives in to her mother’s “concerns” and marries a wealthy but unloved man; Reinhard does not show the necessary determination. The plot is not new, the story is almost everyday in the life of the burgher environment. The main event of the story is connected with the meeting of the heroes who have retained their feelings and feelings in their souls. as it turned out, they were grieving the loss.

The author draws heroes of a completed destiny, individual fragments of which have become nodes of recollection: “Children”, “In the Forest”, “Letter”, “Elizabeth”, etc. These are essentially independent scenes of a lyrical plot that are “strengthened” by the experiences of the heroes. What is important is not so much the plot as the artistic means with which the author realizes his plan. The main attention is paid not so much to the movement of the action, but to the creation of a lyrical mood. Taken together, the scenes reproduce a sad love story.

The dramatic development of the characters' feelings is anticipated from the very first pages. Reinhard seems overly romantic. Elizabeth doesn't really believe in his dreams of distant India, and his stories about elves slightly irritate her. Perhaps that is why her mother’s arguments in favor of marriage with Erich seemed convincing to her. The confrontation between Erich and Reinhard is barely outlined in the novella. Well-groomed vineyards, a vast vegetable garden, a new distillery, a cozy house - everything testifies to Erich’s efficiency and practicality, which Reinhard does not possess.

Creating a realistic mood story, Storm develops several leitmotifs in it that give the conflict an additional, enhancing its sound. This is the song: “My mother ordered me / To take someone else as my husband.” This is the description of the white lily that the hero is trying to get. At the end of the work, Reinhardt, a lonely old man, sits in a chair, and the thickening darkness seems to him like a “wide and gloomy lake”, where a white water lily floats alone “among the wide leaves.”

The drama in Storm's novella is the drama of a particular case, a private life; it manifests itself in an ordinary form, without an explosion of frantic passions, experiences, or emotional explanations. At the same time, a particular case acquires in the work that “bright light” that Ludwig Tieck wrote about the need for this genre.

In the late 1850s - early 1860s, one can note an aggravation of internal conflict in Storm’s short stories (“In the Castle” (1862), “University Years” (1863)). It should be noted that one of Storm’s best and last short stories, “The Rider on a White Horse,” was written outside the period under study, in 1888.

Storm's novella was surprisingly in tune with the times - both in the quiet but clearly audible sound of social problems, understood as universal problems, and in its form - the play of leitmotifs, the displacement of time layers of the narrative, and symbolism.

One of the main themes of the work of Wilhelm Raabe (1831 - 1910) is the theme of self-determination of the individual, his right to own life in opposition to modern reality and its inhumane spirit.

The experience of 1848 led Raabe to a complete rejection of both bourgeois philistinism and the psychology of success of the practical and aggressive burgher. In his work, a type of eccentric, an original, constantly emerges, that is, a strange personality who can only exist by isolating himself from society. Liberation from oppression, from environmental pressure and a way out for the individual is salvation in the inner world or overcoming life with the help of humor. Subjective spiritual world In Raabe, the individual is always opposed to the social world.

Raabe's literary activity began in the 50s. The writer’s fame was brought to him by “Chronicle of Sparrow Street” (1857), which opened the first period of his work, which lasted until 1870, until the Franco-Prussian War.

The Chronicle is based on a story of love seduction, which, however, finds a happy resolution in the third generation. The humorous sentimental enlightenment of reality at the end of the Chronicle smooths out those realistic pictures that at the beginning give an idea of ​​the social and political situation in Germany in mid-19th century century. The model for the writer in this novel was Laurence Sterne, who is hiddenly quoted in it, as well as the young Schiller and Jean-Paul Richter. For Raabe, the subjective inner reality of consciousness, the experiencing and telling “I”, is more significant and richer than objective reality. “Chronicle of Sparrow Street” is a kind of chronicle of a Berlin street and its definition as a chronicle quite accurately characterizes the genre of the work. The chronicle is written on behalf of the narrator; this is old Walhoder, who keeps a diary that conveys many stories and episodes, some melodramatic, some tragic, although everyday.

In the narrator's memories, different time levels are mixed, due to which an imaginary parallelism arises between the past and the present, between the time described and the time of the story. In this masterly narrative style, the story of three generations unfolds, consisting of many episodes, connected by a fictitious chronicler and the unity of the place - Sparrow Street.

Already in this work the main types are revealed literary heroes The Raabe are simple workers whose spiritual qualities contrast them with people from high society. In this democracy, Raabe is comparable to Dickens. At the same time, avoiding sharp Dickensian contrasts, hyperbolism and eccentricity, Raabe approaches the manner of the romantic Dickens with his affirmation of the moral example of little people, their work and life, and human unity.

In the novels of the 1860s - 1870s, Raabe, focusing on the examples of Goethe (novels about Wilhelm Meister) and Dickens (David Copperfield), tried to depict both the path of personal development and modern social life, combining two types of novels - the “novel of education” (or “novel of formation”) and the novel about modern life. These are the novels “The Hungry Pastor” (1864), “Abu Telfan” (1867), “The Funeral Darts” (1870), which are close to each other and make up the so-called Stuttgart trilogy, although the trilogy is in literally words they are not. They are distinguished by a tragic worldview and the idea of ​​isolation of the individual, who finds personal refuge and salvation for himself from a world whose political situation seems hopeless to the writer. But Raabe’s pessimism does not prevent him from seeing the comic sides of life and people; humor “removes” the intractability of conflicts.

It should be noted that, as the author of critical novels about modern life, Raabe remains completely alone in German literature of the 1860s. But gradually he also abandons the novel with branched action and the reproduction of the social life of our time; the reflection of the world in the individual consciousness subsequently becomes the main structural element of its image.

German literature 30-70s XI10th century.

Lecture outline

2. Tall Biedermeier

3. “Pre-March” literature

4. German literature of the second half of the 19th century. Poetic realism.

1. The socio-political situation of Germany in the 30s – 70s of the 19th century and the development of German literature.

The variety of literary movements in Germany in the 30s of the 19th century undoubtedly reflected significant changes in the economic and socio-political development of the country.

In 1815, after the final defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna took place, the purpose of which was to determine state borders and principles of existence of post-Napoleonic Europe. The Congress of Vienna and its decisions marked the beginning of a new era in the development of the social and cultural life of the German lands - the era of the Restoration. The end of the era is considered to be the March Revolution of 1848, which became a response to the revolutionary events in France.

In accordance with the resolution of the Congress of Vienna, a new public education, the so-called German Union. It consists of 38 practically independent territories, which perpetuates a centuries-old tradition of fragmentation in Germany. Relying on the monarchical government system, the official policy of 1815 - 1848 consolidates the class superiority of the nobility and clergy - the two pillars of the monarchy. At the same time, the rights of the remaining segments of the population are limited: the emerging bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, bureaucrats, artisans, peasants, and the growing layer of the industrial proletariat. The forces opposed to the Restoration regime continue to fight for the ideals of “unity” and “freedom.”

Despite the dominance of monarchical regimes in the German lands, in the 1930s Germany took tangible, real steps along the path of bourgeois development. Already at this time, those economic and political prerequisites began to be determined that in 1871 would lead to the proclamation of a unified German Empire. At the same time, during this period, the struggle for a united republican Germany began.

The 1930s in Germany were marked, although slower in comparison with such advanced European powers as England and France, but still quite definite in the growth of productive forces. Despite a number of unfavorable conditions, industry is steadily developing in the country. The continental blockade, established during the years of the Napoleonic dictatorship in Europe, was a fairly effective, albeit peculiar, stimulus in the development of the German national economy. Bourgeois relations are clearing the way for themselves in German agriculture, developing particularly rapidly after the agrarian reform of 1807–1811.

News of the revolutionary explosion in July 1830 in Paris, like a refreshing, life-giving whirlwind, swept through Germany, provincial and fragmented, deceived in its rosy hopes generated by patriotic enthusiasm liberation war against Napoleon. These events were received with particular delight by German youth, whose sentiments were very clearly expressed by Heine. Having learned about the revolution in France, he wrote in his diary: “Lafayette, the tricolor banner, the Marseillaise... I seem to be intoxicated. Bold hopes rise passionately, like trees with golden fruits, with wildly growing branches stretching their foliage to the very clouds... I am all joy and song, I am all sword and flame!”

The July Revolution in France was the impetus that caused revolutionary outbreaks in Germany, prepared by the internal development of class contradictions in the country. The revolutionary movement of the early 30s was politically immature here and was much weaker than in France. However, it showed that even in such a backward, fragmented country as Germany, political reaction could not delay the general course of economic development. Uprisings broke out in Hesse-Darmstadt, where peasants, armed with scythes and clubs, smashed the hated landlords, estates and tax institutions. In Bavaria, students protested against the government. Unrest resulted in revolutions in some other small German states. This was the case, for example, in Saxony and Hanover, where constitutions were introduced as a result of these unrest.

The liberal press became more active, and articles demanding a constitution and the unification of Germany began to appear frequently on its pages. Numerous appeals and petitions were sent to the government, reflecting the demands of the liberal bourgeoisie. In May 1832, Bavarian liberals, on the anniversary of the local constitution, organized a demonstration in Hambach, which was attended by about 30 thousand people (the so-called “Hambach Festival”). Speeches were made here demanding the unity of Germany and a republican system in the country; speakers spoke of support for the liberation movement in Poland and revolutionary France. Significant student unrest occurred in April 1833 in Frankfurt, where an attempt was made to take control of the city and occupy the building of the Federal Diet.

These events reflected the growth of class consciousness of the German bourgeoisie, its desire to eliminate the political fragmentation of the country, which was hindering the development of trade and economy.

Popular unrest in Germany occurred against the backdrop of a revolutionary upsurge throughout Europe (the national liberation movement in Poland, the revolutionary movement in Belgium, uprisings in a number of Italian states, the completion of the struggle for parliamentary reform in England). The opposition movement caused a number of repressions from ruling circles German states. Encouraged by the Austrian Chancellor Metternich, the German Federal Diet passed reactionary decrees in 1832 prohibiting political meetings and demonstrations, the making of political speeches and the filing of petitions. Numerous arrests are taking place in the country, especially among participants in the Hambach Festival. The reaction is noticeably intensifying after the Frankfurt events. The courts pronounce sentences on the participants in the uprising; all meetings are dispersed by troops. In the summer of 1834, a conference of ministers of German states in Vienna developed and issued the so-called Vienna Act, directed against the progressive press and universities and limiting constitutional principles.

These changes in the economic and socio-political life of the country were not slow to have an impact on various forms of social consciousness, in particular on the closely related philosophy and literature. The philosophical movements of the 30s in Germany had a significant influence on the formation of German realism.

In the 30s, sharp contradictions emerged in the camp of Hegel's followers - a group of old or right Hegelians (Gabler, Hinrichs, Erdmann) and a left Hegelian wing, or young Hegelians (Bruno and Edgar Bauer, David Strauss, Max Stirner) stand out. From the position of bourgeois radicalism, the left Hegelians had a negative attitude towards Prussianism and sharply criticized the dogmas of the Christian religion.

The character of German literature of this decade changes decisively compared to the literature of the 10s and 20s. The contradictions between the conservative orientation of official ideology and politics and the increasingly clear need for new forms of social existence determine the spiritual culture of the Restoration era and the first decade after its end. One of the reasons for the convergence of literature with the “spirit of the times” is the democratization of the literary market, the expansion of the readership and the change in the very status of writers: an increasing number of authors are moving into the category of professional writers.

Continuing and transforming the tradition of Weimar classicism and romanticism and anticipating many of the principles of realism, the verbal artistic culture of the Restoration also possesses a number of specific features that are not reducible to the aesthetics of previous or subsequent literary movements.

In his famous work“Romantic school” Heine emphasized that “with the death of Goethe a new beginning begins in Germany literary era; old Germany went to the grave with him, the age of aristocratic literature came to an end, the democratic age begins.”

If Heine's prediction about the advent of a democratic age in German literature was too optimistic, nevertheless, the main phenomena in the German literary process of the 30-70s indicate its certain democratization in comparison with the previous stage. Moreover, these new trends affected primarily the ideological and aesthetic evolution of Heine himself, who already in the 20s, as the author of the “Book of Songs” and “Travel Pictures,” rightfully took his place in the forefront of German literature. But it was precisely in the 30s that the much more clearly defined advanced socio-political orientation of Heine’s work led to his turning to the genre of journalism, revolutionary-democratic in content. Speaking against the epigones of German romantic poetry, Heine polemically sharpens his understanding of the democratization of literature - he even quite long time stops writing poetry, sincerely believing that poetry has outlived its usefulness, and focuses his attention on prose.

For Heine, as for most German writers of that time, understanding the experience of the July Revolution in France became of utmost importance. The perception of the ideas of Saint-Simonism, the prospects of bourgeois-democratic movements and increasing attention to the actions of the working class - this is the range of issues that underlies Heine’s creative work in the 30s.

In his first newspaper correspondence from Paris, where he moved in 1831 (“French Affairs” (1832)), Heine tells German readers about the lively, active socio-political life of the capital of France, still full of living echoes and reminders of the hot days of late July 1830 of the year. Issues of philosophy, literature and art, which occupy such a large place in Heine’s journalism of this decade, are considered by him in close connection with the socio-political struggle of his time. A brilliant example of this are his most important works: “On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany” (1834) and “The Romantic School” (1836). In these works, having sharply criticized idealistic trends in German philosophy, the poet dealt a devastating blow to reactionary romanticism in German literature.

During this period, Heine's work, like almost all German literature, was associated with the process of formation of the method of critical realism. For literary life These years were characterized by sharp polemics with the ideological and aesthetic principles of romanticism, a struggle with the late romantics, who still played a prominent role in German literature.

An important feature of German literature from 1815 to 1848 is its appeal to cultural values XVIII century. Many important qualities of the artistic literature of the Enlightenment, intensively refuted by the romantics at the turn of the 18th - 19th centuries, are now becoming relevant again. They are “restored” either in the form of outright journalisticism and didacticism, which was sometimes not shunned by the most outstanding representatives of post-Romantic literature (Heine, Stifter), then in the form of sentimental-idyllic utopias (Gothelf, Mörike) or in the form of Sternian irony, which was perceived and assimilated through the work of Jean-Paul (Immermann, Heine, early Stifter). Respect for documentary and “near-fiction” forms of travel writing, correspondence, and literary critical essays is returning, largely thanks to the activities of Heine and Young Germany.

The well-known “duality”, “bidirectionality” of the political and cultural atmosphere during the Restoration era inevitably gave rise to polarization literary context depending on a positive (or just loyal) or critical-oppositional attitude towards officially proclaimed social values. “It is impossible to discuss our latest German literature without descending into the depths of politics,” Heine wrote in 1832, referring to the first post-Romantic generation of writers.

A group of conservatively (politically and aesthetically) oriented German-speaking authors of the Restoration era gravitate toward the designation “Biedermeier.” Opposing it in socio-political orientation and political program, the liberal-democratic movement of 1815 - 1848 in German histories of literature is called the literature of the pre-March period (that is, preceding the March revolution of 1848) or “pre-March literature”. Often one of these two terms is used as a general designation for all literature of the Restoration period. It still seems logical to draw a dividing line between two important concepts of literary history, each of which had its own worldview, its own aesthetics and a separate direction in literature.

In addition to the two identified groups of “conservatively” and “liberal-democratically” oriented authors - Biedermeier and the pre-March movement in literature - in the context of poetry, drama and prose of the Restoration era, there are also lonely literary figures who do not fit completely into any of the designated movements. Thus, writer K.L. Immerman (1796 – 1840), creator of two voluminous epic novels “Epigones. Family memories in 9 books" (1825–1836) and "Munchausen. History in Arabesques" (1838 - 1839) is called in German sources a theorist and practitioner of literary "epigonism", including in the said movement the poet A. von Platen (1796 - 1835), author of the famous collections "Gazelles" (1823), "Sonnets" from Venice" (1825) and "Polish Songs" (1831 - 1832, published 1839). The same Platen, together with N. Lenau, due to the dominant theme of their lyrics, are sometimes combined into the group of “poets of world sorrow.” (Sometimes this group is wrongfully expanded, supplementing it with Buchner, Heine and Grabbe.) The playwright, prose writer and poet F. Goebbel represents the “young Hegelian” line in the literature of the era.

It is obvious that German literature of this period did not give the world such significant writers as Stendel and Balzac, Dickens and Thackeray. At the same time, the same processes took place in it as in the literatures of European countries; the formation of a new literary direction was actively underway.

The process of the formation of realism in German literature of the 30s was most clearly manifested in the work of Georg Büchner (1813 – 1837). Büchner lived for less than 24 years and left behind only four small literary texts: one short story and three dramas, which are currently included in the treasury of German literature.

Buchner was born shortly before the beginning of the Restoration era on the territory of the Rhineland principality of Hesse in an enlightened burgher family. His father, an ardent admirer of Napoleon, was a hereditary doctor. Following his father's wishes, the future writer enters the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Strasbourg. In Strasbourg, Buchner established contacts with utopian socialists of Saint-Simonian orientation. In the mind of a young student there is a firm idea of ​​the revolution as the only way, capable of leading Germany out of socio-political stagnation. Therefore, having transferred to the University of Giessen, Buchner became one of the leaders of a secret political organization - the “Society of Human Rights” - which aimed to restore the basic human rights of the poorest segments of the population and had a revolutionary orientation.

The clandestinely published “Hessian Bulletin” became the press organ of the Society. However, the propaganda efforts of Buchner and his comrades were not successful among the general population. Thus, in most cases, peasants took the “Hessian Herald” to the nearest police station, without even looking at the leaflet. In 1835, many of the society's leaders were arrested. Buchner avoids arrest only by fleeing to Strasbourg, where after some time he completes his education with a thesis “On the cranial nerves.”

The revolutionary's career is cut short. Büchner embarks on a scientific path, accepting an offer to take the position of Privatdozent of Natural History at the newly founded University of Zurich. However, Buchner’s teaching career was not destined to continue. In February 1837, he died suddenly of typhoid fever, without completing his first teaching semester.

Buchner the writer occupies a special place in the literature of the Restoration era. The author's democratic beliefs, the spontaneous materialism of his aesthetic ideas, and his polemical attitude towards established literary canons (for example, towards Schiller's dramaturgy) bring Buchner closer to Young Germany.

The four-act drama "The Death of Danton" was written by Buchner in five weeks in 1835, shortly before leaving for Strasbourg. Turning to the events of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789 was to a certain extent logical for the ex-revolutionary Buchner, who was also under the fresh impression of the failure of the Society of Human Rights and under the fear of possible arrest. The author of the drama asks questions about the role of the individual in history, about the need and possibility of changing social conditions, about the nature of social progress. The writing of “The Death of Danton” was preceded by a thorough study of historical sources, in particular “The History of the French Revolution” (1823 – 1827) by Thiers. Approximately one sixth of the drama text is borrowed from historical documents verbatim excerpts from the speeches of participants in the events.

Raising the problem of revolutionary violence, the leader and the people in the revolution on the basis of the French Revolution of the late 18th century, Buchner naturally took into account the experience of the events of July 1830 in Paris, clearly showing the limitations of the bourgeois revolution.

Focusing on the historical dramas of Shakespeare and Grabbe, Buchner consciously contrasts his concept of history with that followed by Schiller. The main conflict of Schiller's dramas - the conflict between necessity and freedom - is essentially abolished in Buchner. The individual in Danton's Death no longer has the freedom to make decisions. The emphasis is shifted to the flow of historical existence, absolutely independent of the efforts of the subject. Schiller's belief in the moral invincibility of the individual - the bearer of positive moral principle contrasted is Buchner’s conviction in the “diabolical fatalism of history” (from a letter to his bride dated March 10, 1834). Personality, according to Buchner, is nothing more than “foam” on the crest of a wave of history, a puppet in the hands of fate. The logic of history is incomprehensible to an individual, life is “chaos”, controlled by a god named “Nothing”.

The conflict in "The Death of Danton" is no longer a classic confrontation between two antagonistic heroes - it looks much more complex. Danton and Robespierre, political opponents, are in a certain sense “on the same side of the barricade,” if we mean the isolation of the leaders of the revolution from the vital interests of the French people. At the same time, in accordance with Buchner’s fatalistic concept, both heroes, along with the masses of the people, act in the historical process as only “puppets” given over to “unknown forces.”

In the composition of the drama and the construction of individual scenes, a decisive departure from the principles is important classical theater. The individual episodes of Danton's Death do not follow from one another according to the principle of formal logical sequence. Crowd scenes or the introduction of “random” representatives of the people, who appear only once in action, outwardly look like retardation techniques; however, they play their own artistically significant role: they help to concretize historical conflict. In The Death of Danton, Buchner provides a brilliant example of an “open”, “epic” drama, acting in many respects as a direct predecessor of the “epic theater” of the 20th century playwright B. Brecht.

The tragedy "Woyzeck", created during 1836 and left unfinished due to the death of the author, is the highest achievement of Buchner the playwright.

As in “The Death of Danton,” Buchner bases his “Woyzeck” on real events supported by documentary evidence, only now this is not material from world history, but a criminal incident from the life of the lower strata of society, described in detail in newspapers. In 1821, in Leipzig, the soldier-barber Woyzeck of 1941, out of jealousy, stabs his mistress, the 46-year-old widow of the regimental surgeon Voost, with a piece of a dagger, and is sentenced to death. death penalty. The execution is carried out despite ample evidence that Woyzeck, a mentally ill man, was obviously in a state of mental insanity at the time of the crime.

Doing this real event plot basis of his drama (6 years earlier, Stendhal similarly used the story of Antoine Berthe in “Red and Black”), Buchner makes a revolution in his contemporary ideas about tragedy. The hero of a full-fledged tragic action is made lumpen, “the most insignificant person,” wretched, deprived spiritually and physically. Psychology of suffering " little man"is as interesting to Buchner the artist as the psychopathological foundations of murder are attractive to Buchner the natural scientist. The truth of life, the author’s first aesthetic commandment, is combined with the no less important principle of penetration into the inner world of an “insignificant” human being.

The theme of alienation and isolation of man, both socially and natural world becomes the leading motive of the drama. Soldier Woyzeck is poor and sick: he is haunted by voices and ghosts. He has a beloved woman, whom he, as a military man, has no right to marry, and an illegitimate son, for whose support there is not enough money. In order to provide food for the child, Woyzeck agrees to act as a guinea pig in the experiments of a materialist doctor, forcing him to eat only peas for six months. Woyzeck's only "natural" connection with the universe is destroyed when Maria, his sensual lover, cheats on him with a drum major full of vital force. An attempt to stand up for one’s honor ends in failure: the enemy is physically stronger than the sick man, who is also weakened by Woyzeck’s “pea diet.” The way out of the “vicious circle,” as in a classic tragedy, is murder: Woyzeck stabs the unfaithful Maria to death. The preparation for the murder (buying a knife, saying goodbye to a barracks comrade) and the very mechanism of committing the crime are presented in detail, detachedly and cruelly in the work. However, the author’s indifference to what is happening is only apparent. The “grandmother’s tale” interspersed into the drama sounds like a symbolic reflection of the restlessness, hopelessness and hopelessness of the protagonist’s fate, but it also carries a huge charge of compassion for the fate of the “little man”. The “poor child,” abandoned by everyone in this world, turns his complaint to the heavenly bodies. But the sun appears to him as a “withered sunflower”, the moon as a “rotten thing”, the stars as “bread crumbs”, the earth as an “overturned pot”. At the end of the fairy tale, the child “sat down and cried”, “and so it still sits alone.” The plot of the tale, along with the entire course of action, is an additional confirmation of the final conclusion of the drama: Woyzeck is not a monster or a stupid animal, but an unfortunate man, hunted by life. (“Suffering is my prayer,” he says one day.) The measure of suffering turns out to be overflowing, and this pushes him to commit a crime.

Elements of the Hessian dialect in the speech of the characters, proverbs and fragments interspersed in the characters’ remarks folk songs create a specific stylistic flavor in the drama. The spontaneous flow of warm folk “spirituality” that arises in this way contrasts with the inevitably cruel course of events.

Mental suffering and mental illness, loneliness, isolation, alienation, abandonment by God and people are themes common to “Woyzeck” and the short story “Lenz” (1836), discovered in Buchner’s drafts after his death.

The plot was based on an episode from the life of one of the most prominent representatives the “Storm and Drang” movement, playwright J. M. R. Lenz (1751 – 1792). In 1778, the writer, tormented by severe attacks of schizophrenia, spends two weeks in the Alsatian village of Walderbach (in the short story - Waldbach) in the family of pastor I. F. Oberlin (1740 - 1826), a famous teacher of the Enlightenment. Out of habit of working with documentary sources, Buchner, who had long been interested in the life and work of Lenz, turned to Oberlin’s diary notes, which contained a detailed description of the condition of the sick Lenz during his stay in Alsace.

Adhering rather strictly to the sequence of Oberlin's notes (many fragments of the novella are verbatim quotations from the pastor's manuscript), Buechner places emphasis differently in his text. The author replaces the point of view of an objective observer, which was dominant in Oberlin, with an internal perspective, a “look from the inside,” masterfully imitating the form of perception (“stream of consciousness”) of a mentally ill person. In addition, absolutely original episodes of the hero’s external and internal life related to the experience of nature and God, as well as Lenz’s dispute with the writer Kaufman about art, are added to the substantial corpus of Oberlin’s notes.

The source of the hero’s mental suffering, the reason for the “nameless fear” that continually engulfs Lenz, is the transformation of a previously harmonious world into a chaotic heap of disordered debris. The natural and human world have lost their former integrity in the eyes of the hero; the universe for Lenz is no longer space, there is a “huge hole” in it. The ability to perceive the needs of the entire universe as one’s personal pain is Lenz’s quality, which is equally associated with both his mental illness and the widespread tendency at the time of Sturm und Drang to glorify the individual (“geniomania”). “The universe seemed to him wounded; it caused him deep, unspeakable pain.”

Lenz is trying to take upon himself, along with the “universal pain,” also responsibility for all the incongruities of the world. The inability to somehow influence the imperfection of existence plunges the hero into an even greater abyss of despair, as after a failed attempt to resurrect a dead girl. (Lenz behaves in this situation like Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus.) Calmness and bliss visit Lenz’s soul only for short term: During Bible readings, horseback rides with Oberlin, and on Sundays when the pastor allows him to preach in his place.

Lenz's schizophrenia, the hero's gradual loss of an integral picture of the world, is presented by Buchner as a reaction to disintegrated social relationships, to the alienation of the individual from the world. The composition of the novella (individual fragments are built one after another without a specific connection or transition), as well as a specific lapidary style, act as artistic forms of reflection of the “disintegrated” world. The ending of the work can also be interpreted in this sense. By interrupting the short story in mid-phrase (“This is how he lived further...”), Buchner creates an artistically necessary correspondence to the chaotic, unbalanced lifestyle and inner world of the hero.

Qualitatively new trends in the German literary process had an active influence in the 30s and on creative evolution Karl Immermann (1796 - 1840), a writer who made a significant contribution to the development of German progressive literature, in particular to the development of the social novel genre. Immermann's creative quests led him to close personal friendship, and sometimes active creative collaboration, with Heine, despite the differences in their political views.

The early period of Immermann's work, dating back to the early 20s, was marked by the significant influence of romanticism. During this period, the writer did not create any significant works. He publishes individual poems and romantic tragedies “The Valley of Ronseval,” “King Periander,” “Cardenio and Celinda.” By the end of the 20s, the ideological orientation of Immerman’s work was more clearly defined. Not only among his works of these years, but also in the writer’s legacy as a whole, the historical drama “Tragedy in Tyrol” (1827), subsequently called “Andreas Hofer” in an abbreviated and revised form, occupies a significant place. Abandoning his unsuccessful quests along the paths of romanticism, Immermann is looking here for ways to realistically reflect reality. Having chosen a national historical plot for his drama, he turns to the recent past - to the Tyrolean uprising in 1809 against Napoleon, led by Andreas Hofer. But due to the limitations of his social positions, the writer did not understand the deep contradictions of this uprising, which consisted in the fact that it was the only major uprising of the masses against the Napoleonic occupation in Germany at that time. However, it was inspired by the Austrian government and was inspired by reactionary Catholic ideas, setting as its task the restoration of the Austrian monarchy. In accordance with this, Immermann erroneously chose Andreas Hofer as a tragic hero, since in reality he did not fight for the interests of the people, but was the executor of the will of the Austro-Catholic reaction, which, frightened by the scale of the guerrilla war, betrayed this popular movement. However, strong the positive side drama is Immerman's desire to promote the idea of ​​​​the decisive role of the masses in national liberation movements. He critically portrays the Austrian chancellor, whom contemporaries easily recognized as Metternich.

Some aesthetic aspects of the drama reveal its significant weaknesses - the visions and dreams of the heroes of the play, which play a significant role in the development of the plot, the angel who directs the course of events, the length and somewhat stilted pathos of the monologues, undoubtedly weaken the realistic sound of the drama.

Immermann's keen interest in the socio-political conflicts of reality was reflected in a collection of his poems in 1830. The cycle of sonnets about the homeland stands out here. The civil poems characteristic of the collection are imbued with rejection of the surrounding reality. The author seeks to show the poet’s conflict with reality, to paint pictures of the pitiful, deplorable state of contemporary Germany. Sonnet IX, dedicated to the theme of the unity of the homeland, sounds especially powerful. True, the poet’s social protest in these, in many ways still weak, poems is not clearly expressed, and there is no definite positive program in them.

Despite the writer’s unabating attraction to drama and theater (in 1834 Immermann became the head of the city theater in Düsseldorf), his most significant works, which influenced the subsequent development of German literature, were the novels “Epigones” (1836) and “Munhausen” (1835). – 1839). These novels reflected some of the most important moments in the socio-political development of modern Germany - the gradual displacement of the feudal nobility from the historical arena by a new emerging class, the bourgeoisie.

At the center of the novel “Epigones” is the image of Herman, a burgher by origin, who after his wanderings ends up in the Duke’s castle. The writer shows the development of the hero's character. And it is in this regard that Immermann’s novel has often been compared to Goethe’s educational novel, The Teaching Years of Wilhelm Meister. Immerman paints a picture of the impoverishment of the ancient noble family. The Duke's estates gradually pass into the hands of the millionaire manufacturer, Uncle Herman. Duke William's close associate calls the nobility a passing class, and its current representatives - epigones. The dying aristocracy is described in the novel with some sympathy, with sadness, with sympathy. The author did not take the ideological positions of the nobility. Sad intonations are heard in the work because the writer saw the predatory, self-interested traits of the bourgeoisie, which was replacing the aristocracy, which retained in the author’s eyes a certain romanticized aura of refined nobility.

Immermann was one of the first in German literature to reflect in “Epigones” the process of the withering away of the old feudal order. At the same time, the writer even clearly underestimates the strength of the German nobility, which, due to the economic backwardness of Germany, held in its hands for a long time the key political positions. However, the general trend of the novel is correct. The work contains individual sketches that reflect the characteristic features of the then social and political life of Germany. For example, in the chapter “Demagogues” the student anti-Prussian opposition is quite successfully shown. Much is said on other pages of the novel about political persecution, censorship persecution, and the fragmentation of the country. Describing the industrial enterprises of the manufacturer, Immerman draws attention to the plight of the workers.

While criticizing bourgeois progress, Immermann was still far from understanding the correct paths leading to the reconstruction of society. His ideal had a very definite conservative connotation in the spirit of the populism of the German romantics. The hero of the novel, Herman, having destroyed his deceased uncle's factory, becomes a landowner and farmer, and gives most of his land to the peasants. The novel has significant artistic weaknesses. The absence of a single storyline is replaced by long dialogues and reasoning. The characters of the characters are palely outlined.

The further ideological and aesthetic evolution of the writer was convincingly reflected in the novel Munchausen. As in. “Epigonakh”, the same theme of the development of new bourgeois relations and the death of the old feudal world is raised here, but it is revealed with greater depth and specificity. The traditional image of the liar Baron Munchausen is reinterpreted in the novel in the spirit of modernity - he appears as the personification of idle talk and projectism, as a symbol of lies and hypocrisy. The writer expressed his hostility towards the Prussian officers in the image of the thieving deceiver and adventurer Rucciopuccio. It is obvious that Immermann is to a certain extent freed from his illusions in relation to the nobility. In the satirical and caricatured images of the decrepit, impoverished landowner Baron Shnik-Shnak-Shnur and his daughter Emerentia, one no longer feels any sympathy from the author. The criticism of bourgeois entrepreneurship takes on greater satirical sharpness in Munchausen.

In Munchausen, Immermann’s positive conservative-populist ideal, revealed by the author in the large insert story “Starostin’s Dvor,” also receives a more detailed and convincing artistic motivation. A rich farmer who preserves the patriarchal way of life in his everyday life and in his vast farm is the healthy social foundation on which, according to Immerman, society should rest. However, with all his desire to idealize the village kulak, the writer noticed in him traits of cold prudence and acquisitiveness. The realistic tendencies of the novel were also reflected in some attempts to depict class differentiation in the village, although the tendency towards depicting idyllic patriarchal relations somewhat blurs the picture of the contradictions between the farm laborer and the rich farmer.

Close to Immermann aesthetic positions stood the playwright Christian Dietrich Grabbe (1801 - 1836), whose work o played a significant role in German literature of the 30s.

Like Heine, Grabbe was one of the “troublemakers” in the literary life of Restoration Germany. Unlike the author of the “Book of Songs” and “Travel Pictures,” Grabbe realized his creative potential exclusively in the field of drama, considering renewal German theater main task modern literature.

Heine, who judged modern literature on principle, spoke with great respect of Grabbe's talent. In his Memoirs (volume 9), Heine wrote: “...Grabbe was one of the greatest German poets and among all our dramatic poets he is one of the most akin to Shakespeare.”

Grabbe's worldview and aesthetics did not represent a harmonious, harmonious system of ideas. Positive attitude towards the ideals of the French bourgeois revolution, admiration for the personality of Napoleon, enthusiastic acceptance revolutionary events 1830 in France, criticism of the current state of German life and literature brings him closer to the “pre-March” writers, in particular with Heine (Grabbe became friends with him for a short time while studying in Berlin). At the same time, Grabbe is alien to the cosmopolitanism of the Young Germans and Heine. “Motherland”, “people”, “national history” are no less important values ​​for him than “freedom, equality, brotherhood”.

Bourgeois literary criticism tried to explain the contradictions of Grabbe's creativity and the weaknesses of his artistic skill by the properties of his unbalanced character, passing by the truly plight of the writer.

Grabbe's talent manifested itself most clearly in the genre of historical drama, where, in particular, the writer's interest in national-historical subject. The writer strives to concentrate the action of his dramas around central character- any historical figure. Although Grabbe, being an idealist, did not correctly understand the course of historical development in everything, he constantly correlated the actions of his heroes with historical events. Thus, moving away from the “cult of heroes,” he moved toward realistic historical drama.

Grabbe's most significant works are two tragedies from the "Hohenstaufen" cycle - "Emperor Frederick Barbarossa" (1829) and "Emperor Henry VI" (1830), the drama "Napoleon, or the Hundred Days" (1830), and the play on the ancient plot "Hannibal" (1838 – 1835) and “Battle of Hermann” (1835).

The central conflict of Grabbe's dramaturgy is the conflict between the personal and the superpersonal. The heroes of Grabbe's plays, as a rule, are strong, outstanding personalities. Often these are historical figures (Sulla, Hannibal, Napoleon, Frederick Barbarossa) or “eternal” images of world literature (the drama “Don Juan and Faust” (1828)). The peculiar “geniocentrism” of Grabbe’s aesthetic ideas and the author’s undisguised admiration for the “strong personality” connect his work with the tradition of romanticism.

At the same time, in Grabbe’s work, the anti-romantic, “superpersonal” principle, manifested as the “idea of ​​history,” makes itself felt. The heroes of his historical and mythological tragedies, bearers of a pronounced individual principle, invariably suffer defeat at the end of the play. Circumstances (the will of the masses, the logic of the movement of history, fate, fate, chance) turn out to be stronger. Strong personalities Faust and Don Juan become prey to Satan; the great Napoleon, after returning to his former glory within 100 days, was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo (“Napoleon, or the Hundred Days”); pursued by the Romans, betrayed by his compatriots, Hannibal (“Hannibal”) dies in the consciousness of the uselessness of his own great deeds; the prince of one of the German tribes, Hermann (“Battle of Hermann”), although he helps his people free themselves from Roman dependence, is not able to inspire his fellow tribesmen to conquer Rome.

The author's sympathies, as a rule, are on the side of the individualist hero, even if defeated in the struggle of life. The leitmotif of Grabbe's dramas is grief over the “unheroicness” of the modern era. The author has in mind precisely his own time, the post-Napoleonic era, when he puts prophetic words into the mouth of his Don Juan: “The time is approaching when war and peace, love and happiness, God and faith will be just empty words.” With all the awareness of the “unheroic” nature of the modern era, Grabbe still sees deep meaning in the existence of single heroes: their bright, comet-like destinies remind from time to time of the high purpose of the individual, thereby preventing humanity from wallowing in the abyss of everyday life.

Reality, “circumstances,” the objective “course of things” are another important component of Grabbe’s experimental dramas. The destinies of the heroes unfold against a real, historically and geographically defined background. In the play “Don Juan and Faust” these are specific streets and squares of Rome, Mount Mont Blanc; in historical dramas these are “pivotal” places for German and European history where great battles took place and “fateful” decisions were made. Grabbe strives to bring dramatic action closer to the living movement of history. In the dramatic dilogy about the Hohenstaufens, in Napoleon, Hannibal and the Battle of Hermann, large-scale crowd and battle scenes play an important role. Contrary to the canons of classical theater, Grabbe introduces into the stage action fragments of battles involving cavalry and artillery, elements of violence, suffering and the groans of the dying. Stage directions and comments on individual scenes often exceed in volume the monologues and dialogues of the characters.

The specific features of Grabbe's dramaturgy were especially clearly reflected in the dramas about the Hohenstaufens. The author's main attention is paid to the main characters of the plays, but folk scenes also play a significant role in them, revealing the social or political origins of the conflicts that underlie the action. This is exactly how the play about Frederick Barbarossa begins, in the first scene of which the Milanese rebel against the emperor.

The dramatic duology also testifies to Grabe's obvious attraction to certain principles of Shakespearean dramaturgy, which is reflected in the appeal to acute conflicts of history, to the well-known diversity of numerous scenes, in the frequent change of scene and a large number of characters. While maintaining the flavor of the time, Grabe sometimes achieves deep philosophical generalizations in revealing the eternal themes of life and death.

Grabbe's dramas gravitate towards the type of tragicomedy: “heroic” and comic scenes and situations change each other. Grabbe's language reveals two stylistic levels. This, on the one hand, is pathetic, full of rhetorical figures, and sometimes pompous style of the main characters. The monologues of the main characters are written, as a rule, in blank verse of classical tragedy; they show traces of the influence of the “brilliant” style of “sturm und drang”. On the other hand, prose is actively introduced into dramas as the language of the crowd, ordinary soldiers, and “mobs.”

Grabbe's central work, which most fully embodied his socio-historical principles, is the drama “Napoleon, or the Hundred Days.” The events of the play, especially the battle scenes, reminded the Germans of the recent struggle for national liberation and aroused opposition sentiments.

The play begins with vivid scenes of Parisian street life, in which a large number of characters representing various social strata of Paris appear. These are soldiers of the former Napoleonic army, merchants, Jacobins, emigrant nobles, and the future French king Louis Philippe. Already in the first remarks of the characters representing the lower social classes, the idea of ​​a decisive rejection of the Bourbon regime by the broad masses of France is affirmed. Louis XVIII, who tried to implement a policy of liberal reforms, is shown as a helpless puppet who cannot resist his ultra-reactionary environment.

The versatile realistic characterization of the image of Napoleon testifies to Grabbe's great historical flair. In addition, it should be noted that the main character plays a much smaller role in this drama than in the dramas about the Hohenstaufens. The main role in the work belongs to the people. In the climactic scenes depicting the famous Battle of Waterloo, where, in addition to Napoleon and his marshals, outstanding German commanders Blucher, Bülow, Gneisenau, Zieten also appear, the image of the mass of soldiers takes up a larger place. Napoleon in the play is a great commander and statesman, in comparison with which the Bourbons are just pitiful nonentities. And at the same time, it is the strangler of the revolution, arrogant and contemptuous of the people. He says about himself that he managed to curb the revolution and thereby protect the European thrones. But the greatness of Napoleon, with all its contradictions, contrasts sharply with the general European situation of political reaction, with the role of a secondary power that was assigned to France in the international life of Europe after 1815. And in this sense, Napoleon’s words sound prophetic that he, one great tyrant, will be replaced by many little ones. It is noteworthy that both the Bourbons and Napoleon are contrasted in the play by the Parisian Jacobin worker Jouve.

Friedrich Hebbel (1813 – 1863) stood apart from all the notable literary movements and schools of the Restoration era. There is no doubt about its connection with the classical (French classicist tragedy, I.V. Goethe, F. Schiller), and in prose - with the romantic (E.T.A. Hoffmann, L. Tieck) tradition. At the same time, Goebbel was not on the same path either with the representatives of the high Biedermeier movement or with the Young Germans, like him, who set themselves the task of updating literature.

Hebbel was distinguished from the first by a passion for conflicts sharpened to the limit, for bright and strong human characters, with a certain contempt for details, for the “average measure” of existence. A passionate follower of Hegelian philosophy, Goebbel insists on the priority of the “universal” over the “particular”; he is convinced of the need for art to reflect “universal” laws, leaving aside “particular” manifestations of the “world will.”

In the aesthetic ideas of the Young Germans and the “pre-March” poets, Hebbel did not accept the worship of the “spirit of the times”, the commandment of the “relevance” of literature. Hebbel contrasted the Young Germans’ conviction of the absolute superiority of “prose” as the “language of modernity” with his own confidence that the highest form of art at all times and for all peoples is drama. Therefore, he saw the task of modern literature in updating classical tragedy and raising this genre to its proper height.

The “idea” as the basis of a dramatic conflict makes Hebbel’s work similar to Schiller’s dramaturgy. In Goebbel, like in Schiller, the “ideological” conflict between the individual and the world is outlined with extreme severity and brought to a tragic conclusion. However, there are also serious differences. In Schiller, the death of a hero, the bearer of a moral ideal, appears as a triumph of a high moral principle (Don Carlos, The Virgin of Orleans). In Hebbel, heroes represent not for an “idea”, but for themselves: their personal dignity, male (female) nature, individual “will to live”. Not the loftiness of moral ideas, but strength of character is the main advantage of Hebbel's characters. The craving for the realization of a certain enormous charge of personal energy inevitably prompts Hebbel’s heroes to active action, to a collision with objective circumstances, and therefore to death, since Hebbel, unlike Schiller, insists on the triumph of the “general world will” over the particular manifestation of the individual hero energy.

In the form of his dramas, Goebbel consciously follows the traditions of French classicist tragedy and Goethe's dramaturgy of the period of "Weimar classicism". Plays usually consist of five, less often three acts, the number of characters is strictly limited, and the principle of unity of action is ideally maintained. Dramas on historical and mythological subjects are written in blank verse (“The Nibelungen” (1855 – 1860), “Herod and Mariamne” (1849), “Gyges and his Ring” (1856)); plays on a “burgher” plot use prose (“ Mary Magdalene", "Agnes Bernauer" (1852)).

The central place in Goebbel’s work is occupied by “ bourgeois tragedy» “Mary Magdalene” (1843). The drama takes place in a small German provincial town. At the center of the action is a typical “burgher” family, the head of which, carpenter Anton, is presented as the bearer of traditional moral values. Anton's children, Clara and Karl, each in their own way, protest against rigid moral precepts that have taken the form of dogma.

Karl, although he studies, according to tradition, his father’s craft, does not want to subordinate his private life to his father’s ascetic commandments: his free time he spends time in cheerful companies and card game. Karl's frivolous lifestyle brings on him suspicion of theft, which, although later exposed as a delusion, costs the life of his terminally ill mother. At the end of the play, Karl decides, having left the city (his home is “basement”, “crypt”, “grave”), to become a sailor on a long-distance ship.

Anton's daughter Clara is torn apart by a complex internal conflict. She is pregnant by her unloved fiancé Leonhard and, knowing that the revelation of a premarital affair will have a devastating effect on her father, she hurries Leonhard into the wedding. At the same time, she tries to drown out the awakened tender feeling for a friend of her early youth, who unexpectedly returned to his hometown after graduation (in the play he is designated as “Secretary”, according to the type of service he performs). However, Leonhard, carried away by the prospect of a more profitable match, refuses to marry, citing the “shame” brought on Anton’s family by Karl being arrested. The Secretary's admission that he still loves Clara does not change anything about her desperate situation. Deciding to sacrifice herself, she throws herself into the well. The play ends with the words of the old master Anton: “I no longer understand this world.”

The central conflict of “Mary Magdalene” resembles in general terms the typical conflict of a classical tragedy: the clash of duty and feelings. The traditional commandment of the primacy of the first over the second also retains its effectiveness. An individual who sees no alternative in the extreme narrowness of the living space provided to him voluntarily decides to follow the principle of “honor.” However, an abstract moral covenant is no longer capable of restoring the individual’s harmony with the environment and with himself: in a situation of “misunderstanding” of the world, at the end of the play, in addition to Anton, Karl and the Secretary remain.

In “Mary Magdalene,” Goebbel managed to highlight the “internal conflict” of the third estate and draw a line under the long-term development of bourgeois drama in Germany. Somewhat later, in the era of Greenlandism, the naturalist G. Hauptmann, based on the experience of Hebbel, placed in the center art world dramaturgy the fourth estate - workers, thereby laying the foundation for the tradition of German social drama.

German-language literature: tutorial Glazkova Tatyana Yurievna

Literature of Germany at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century