Review of foreign literature. Presentation - review of foreign literature of the first half of the twentieth century Typical characters

Foreign literature

Was the legendary blind singer from Asia Minor the author of these epic tales or just a celebrated performer? There are different points of view on this matter. The poems were probably composed by many folk singers over several generations. Homer may have combined the disparate songs into a single cycle, doing the work of an editor. It is possible that individual fragments are the fruit of his individual creativity. The “Homeric question” has been debated for over two hundred years, but none of the scientists denies that Homer owes exceptional credit for the dissemination of the ancient epic.

The poem was named “Iliad” because the second name of Troy was Ilion, located on the coast of Asia Minor. For a long time it was believed that the city was just a poetic fiction. However, Heinrich Schliemann's excavations showed that the siege of the city of Troy by the Greeks could well be a historical fact. Today, some of the finds of the German archaeologist can be seen in the exhibition of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin. The twenty-four songs of the Iliad recount the events that occurred during the forty-nine days of the last, tenth, year of the war.

In the poem "Iliad" there are two grandiose stages: the besieged Troy and the camp of the besieging Greeks. The epic tale embodies the struggle of equals, while the heroes are positioned symmetrically. The eldest son of the Trojan king Priam, Hector, is not inferior in courage to Achilles, from whom he is destined to die. He is equally skilled in all military techniques. Note that the battle narrative includes a whole series of fights. In single combat with Achilles' friend Patroclus, Hector dealt him a fatal blow and took away from him the armor that belonged to Achilles. Achilles must avenge the death of his friend. Hephaestus forges him a shield, which depicts land and seas, cities and villages, vineyards and pastures, everyday life and festivals. The image on the shield is symbolic, because it includes everything that the valiant Greek knight protects.

The events of the Odyssey are dated to the tenth year after the end of the Trojan War. All the victors returned to their cities, others, like Agamemnon, had already died. Only Odysseus cannot return to his island of Ithaca. This is prevented by Poseidon, who was angry with Odysseus for blinding his son the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Odysseus must return to Ithaca at all costs, where his parents, wife Penelope and son Telemachus are waiting for him. The Greeks were patriots; isolation from their homeland for Odysseus was tantamount to death.

On the way to the hero's home, trials await (episodes in the cave of Polyphemus, sailing past the island of Sirens and the monsters Scylla and Charybdis) and temptations - the love of the nymph Calypso and princess Nausicaa. Odysseus, thanks to his cunning and courage, emerges victorious in all dramatic conflicts.

The second plot motif of the Odyssey is associated with the image of the faithful Penelope, who waits for her husband for twenty years, by subterfuge rejecting the advances of those who want to share her bed and the royal throne.

The third storyline is dedicated to their son Telemacus, who goes in search of his father.

At the end of the poem, all the characters are united. The unrecognized Odysseus, together with Telemachus, expels uninvited guests - the suitors of his wife, who joyfully greets him.

The classical period of Greek art and literature falls in the 5th century. and coincides with the highest flowering of slave-owning democracy. Having won the Greco-Persian Wars (500-449), the city-states, united in an alliance led by Athens, defended their independence from Persian rule. This contributed to the development of trade and crafts, as well as the rise of morale and patriotism.

The largest theater was located in Megapol, it accommodated 44 thousand people.

The participation of the choir in the tragedy allows us to identify the genesis of the tragedy. The word "tragedy" itself means goat's song and also points to the origin of the dramatic genre. The tragedy arose from the choral performance of dithyrambs in honor of the god Dionysus, who was also called Bacchus. In the fall, the Greeks, having harvested grapes, made new wine and tasted it (diluted with water!), organized games in honor of the patron saint of winemaking. The satyrs and bacchantes who accompanied Dionysus dressed themselves in goat skins and stained their faces with grape marc. The one who was entrusted with the role of Dionysus took the lead, entering into dialogue with the choir. The procession was accompanied by riotous dancing and singing. Dialogue could obviously take place between individual actors, in any case, a dramatic performance - a tragedy - was born from the dialogue.

In tragedy, the hero entered into a duel with superpersonal forces. He invariably found himself defeated, but in the duel with fate his dignity and strength of resistance to the will of the gods were revealed.

Aeschylus (525-456) - the father of ancient Greek tragedy. An aristocrat and warrior, he took part in the battles with the Persians at Marathon and Salamis. He was the author of about 90 works, of which 7 have come down to us. In the tragedy “Oresteia”, which consisted of three parts “Agamemnon”, “Choephora”, “Eumenides”, he spoke about the sinister crimes of the Atrides family, about the murder of the leader of the Achaean army of his wife Clytemnestra, the cruel reprisal of children against their mother and the revenge of the gods on Orestes for his crime. The main conflict of the tragedy is not family, but historical.

In the tragedy “Prometheus Bound,” Aeschylus, for the first time in world culture, recreated the image of a tyrant fighter, bringing people the light of truth. Aeschylus interprets everything that human civilization had achieved by that time as the gift of Prometheus. In the central monologue, the tragic hero speaks about himself and about people:

Sophocles (496-406) wrote 120 works, 7 tragedies have come down to us. The son of a wealthy gunsmith from the Athens suburb of Colon, He received an excellent education, took an active part in the political life of Athens, and was a friend of Pericles. He won 24 victories in playwriting competitions. The most famous dramatic works of Sophocles are associated with the Theban cycle of myths. In the tragedy “Oedipus the King,” the hero, unknowingly, became the murderer of his father and the husband of his mother. The gods send a terrible pestilence to the city of Thebes, because a regicide lives here. Oedipus, who became the ruler of Thebes, promises to punish the criminal, but soon becomes convinced of his own guilt. The action of the tragedy develops retrospectively: from the present to the past. People close to Oedipus, when suspicion of his own guilt crept in, convince him that he could not have committed the crime. But the more evidence they provide that it is impossible for him to commit crimes, the stronger his confidence: he himself is guilty. The tragedy of Oedipus consists of an unconsciously committed crime and a consciously accepted punishment. Oedipus was sighted, but did not know what he was doing. Punishing himself, he gouges out his eyes and leaves Thebes, then settles in Colon. The land that gives shelter to a repentant sinner is under the protection of the gods. This is the main idea of ​​the tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus”.

In the tragedy Antigone, a conflict arises between the heirs of Oedipus. Two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, died in the fratricidal war. The new ruler of Thebes, Creon, prohibits, on pain of death, the burial of Polyneices, who went to war against his hometown. Creon issues this law with the best intentions, wanting to stop chaos and anarchy. Oedipus' daughter Antigone, risking her life, disobeyed the ruler and buried her brother's body. Sophocles in the tragedy “Antigone” not only glorifies the heroine’s courage and loyalty to duty, but also confronts the eternal moral laws that humanity has developed throughout history with the willfulness of rulers who violate the world order.

The greatness of Sophocles' heroes lies in the fact that, broken by omnipotent fate, they remain faithful to their human duty.

Euripides (480-406) is the youngest of the tragic poets, the author of 92 works, of which 17 tragedies have come down to us. The best translations belong to In. Annensky.

Euripides was a follower of the philosophy of the Sophists, who argued that objective truth does not exist, since only man is the measure of all things. The playwright demonstrates human rights to actions that horrify others, but they follow from his internal logic. To his contemporaries, his heroes seemed too pampered, and his heroines too cruel. Indeed, Medea in the tragedy of the same name mercilessly takes revenge on the one whom Jason called his bride. Medea kills her own children because she wants her suffering to become the tragedy of the father of her children. She defends her dignity, just as in the tragedy “Hippolytus” Phaedra takes revenge on her stepson only because he does not consider love a sacred feeling that unites people. The heroines of Euripides are literally femme fatales; fate dominates them and leads them to death. In this sense, he agrees with Sophocles, but compared to the author of Oedipus the King, Euripides pays much more attention to psychological nuances, masterfully conveying the dialectic of feelings. For example, in the tragedy “Iphigenia in Aulis,” the goddess Artemis demands that Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter, otherwise the Greek ships that have accumulated near the port city of Aulis will never reach the walls of Troy. Iphigenia, along with her mother Clytemnestra, is summoned to Aulis, allegedly to marry Achilles. She is happy. But having learned that it is not a wedding that awaits her, but the gloomy Hades, she desperately begs her father to take pity on her. Time passes, and Iphigenia perceives the lot that has fallen to her differently.

Iphigenia perceives fate as a duty; she is ready to die with dignity for the honor of her homeland. However, in the finale salvation comes: Artemis had mercy and replaced the girl’s body with a doe. Euripides uses a new technique discovered by him in the denouement: Deus ex machina - God from the machine. When the heroes are threatened with death, the gods save them at the last moment. There were special theatrical devices that lifted characters to heaven. Even in the most tragic situations, everything ends happily in a number of works by Euripides.

Aristophanes (c. 445-c. 386) is the father of ancient Greek comedy. The origin of comedy is associated with Bacchic songs. The term itself originally meant “the song of a riotous crowd.” A dialogue emerged from the humorous squabbles. Parody played a significant role in comedy. Aristophanes, in the monologues of his characters, parodied the speeches of politicians, military leaders and sophists. He was the author of about 40 comedies, of which 11 came to us.

The peculiarity of Roman literature during the reign of Octavian Augustus was that brilliant poets deliberately went to serve the ruler. This is equally characteristic of Virgil (70-19) and Horace (65-8).

The life of the greatest poet of ancient Rome is known from the biographical notes of Suetonius, the author of the famous books “The Lives of the Twelve Caesars” and “On Famous People”. Although Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was a contemporary of Virgil.

Virgil became famous for his “Bucolics” - pastoral idylls in which villagers indulge in love lamentations and joys, and also talk on philosophical topics. In one of the poems in this cycle the following line was heard:

In 30, Virgil turned to the creation of the poem "Aeneid", which immortalized his name. He presented the events first in prose and then in hexameter, following the traditions of Homer and continuing his plots.

The poem talks about the fate of the Trojan Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Aphrodite. His mother commands him to leave burning Troy and go with his closest relatives to the Italian shores, for he is destined to become the founder of a new powerful state.

Horace is a poet of the golden mean, writing for a select few. In his poems he called for moderation, taught to be content with little, and in his satires he exposed the luxury and vices of the noble rich. In his odes, he glorified the wisdom of statesmen and their deeds done for the benefit of the people. Horace was the first in world literature to create a monument to poetry, proclaiming the immortality and power of the poetic word. His ode “Monument” served as a model for poets of subsequent generations. Let us recall that A.S. Pushkin took an epigraph from Horace for his poem “I erected a monument not made by hands...”: Exegi monument.

The merit of Virgil and Horace was that, largely thanks to their poetry, Latin was preserved, since in the Middle Ages their works were read and studied by students.

Middle Ages: Romanesque and Gothic, heroic epic and chivalric romance, Dante and Giotto

The Middle Ages is a long period of world history, stretching from the end of the 5th century. to the 15th century, connecting antiquity with the Renaissance. The beginning of medieval history is conventionally considered to be 476, when the final fall of the Roman Empire took place as a result of numerous uprisings of slaves and uprisings of the plebs, as well as under the onslaught of barbarian tribes that invaded the Apennine Peninsula from the north. The end of the Middle Ages was the Renaissance of ancient culture, which began in Italy from the middle of the 14th century, and in France - from the beginning of the 16th century, in Spain and England - from the end of the same century. The Middle Ages were characterized by the dominance of the Christian religion, asceticism, the destruction of ancient monuments, and the oblivion of humanistic ideas in the name of religious dogma. From the end of the 4th century. Christianity became the state religion, first in Rome, and then in the emerging barbarian states, for the leaders of the Germans, Franks, and Celts soon realized that the ideas of monotheism contributed to the elevation of their authority among their fellow tribesmen. Having mastered and processed Latin, they accepted baptism and the dogmas of the church.

Finally, it was in the Middle Ages that literary genres arose that still exist today: the novel, sonnet, ballad, madrigal, canzone and others.

At the end of the Middle Ages, great geographical discoveries occurred and printing was invented, cities were revived and universities were opened.

Until recently, the Middle Ages in the historical process were interpreted as a decline in art and literature; now this view seems outdated. In the Middle Ages, verbal and plastic arts had their own specific feature - anonymity. In most cases, it is impossible to name the author of the works. They were created by a collective folk genius, as a rule, over a long period of time, often over several centuries, through the talent and dedication of many generations. Another characteristic feature of medieval literary monuments was the presence of so-called “wandering stories”, due to the fact that epic songs were spread orally, they gained recognition among different peoples inhabiting Europe, but each nation introduced original details into the stories about the exploits of heroes, in its own way interpreted the heroic and moral ideal.

The leading genre of medieval literature were epic poems, which arose at the final stage of the formation of nations and their unification into states under the auspices of the king.

In the epic tales of the Middle Ages, the loyal vassal of his overlord always plays a very important role. This is the hero of the French “Song of Roland”, who did not spare his life to serve King Charlemagne. He, at the head of a small detachment of Franks in the Roncesvalles Gorge, repels the attack of thousands of Saracen troops. Dying on the battlefield, the hero covers his body with his military armor, lies down facing the enemies, “so that Karl would tell his glorious squad that Count Roland died, but won.”

The Song of Roland took shape over almost four centuries. The real details were partly forgotten, but its patriotic pathos intensified, the king was idealized as a symbol of the nation and state, and the feat in the name of faith and people was glorified.

Ruy Diaz de Bivar, nicknamed Cid, is also faithfully serving his king Alfonso VI, the hero of the Spanish folk epic “The Song of Cid,” who liberated Valencia and other Spanish lands from the Arab tribes that had captured them.

The image of Sid captivates with its realistic versatility. He is not only a brave commander, but also a subtle diplomat. When he needed money, he did not disdain deception; he cleverly deceived gullible moneylenders, leaving them chests with sand and stones as collateral. Sid is having a hard time with the forced separation from his wife and daughters, and when the king betrothed them to noble swindlers, he suffers from the insult and calls out for justice to the king and the Cortes. Having restored the honor of the family and gained royal favor, Sid is satisfied and marries his daughters a second time, now to worthy grooms.

The epic hero of the Spanish epic is close to reality, this is explained by the fact that “The Song of Cid” arose just a hundred years after Rodrigo accomplished his exploits. In subsequent centuries, the Romansero cycle arose, telling about the youth of the epic hero.

The German heroic epic “The Song of the Nibelungs” was written down around 1200, but its plot dates back to the era of the “Great Migration” and reflects a real historical event: the death of the Burgundian kingdom, destroyed by the Huns in 437.

“The Song of the Nibelungs” is one of the most tragic creations of world literature. Cunning and intrigue lead the Nibelungs to death. The tragedy of all the Nibelungs begins with the death of an epic hero, which is Siegfried - the ideal hero of the “Song of the Nibelungs”. The prince from the Lower Rhine, the son of the Dutch king Siegmund and Queen Sieglinde, the conqueror of the Nibelungs, who took possession of their treasure - the gold of the Rhine, is endowed with all the virtues of knighthood. He is noble, brave, courteous. Duty and honor are above all for him.

The image of Siegfried combines the archaic features of the hero of myths and fairy tales with the behavior of a feudal knight, ambitious and cocky. He soon resigns himself, remembering the purpose of his visit. It is characteristic that the prince unquestioningly serves King Gunther, not ashamed to become his vassal. This reflects not only the desire to get Kriemhild as a wife, but also the pathos of faithful service to the overlord, invariably inherent in the medieval heroic epic.

Siegfried plays a major role in Gunther's matchmaking with Brunhild. He not only helps him defeat a mighty hero in a duel, but also gathers a squad of thousands of Nibelungs, who must accompany the bride and groom returning to Worms. The powerful Burgundian ruler sends Siegfried to the capital city with the good news that he has mastered the warrior maiden, so that his relatives prepare a solemn meeting for them. This causes the heartfelt joy of Krimhilda, who hopes that the messenger can now count on marrying her. A magnificent double wedding took place.

After ten years of separation, Siegfried and Kriemhild receive an invitation from Gunther and Brunhild to visit Worms. The Nibelungs go to visit, not knowing what trouble awaits them there.

The quarrel between the two queens turned into disaster for Siegfried. Having learned from Kriemhild that Siegfried, having bathed in the blood of a dragon, had become invulnerable to arrows, their faithful vassal Hagen realized that the hero had his own “Achilles heel”: a fallen linden leaf covered the body between the shoulder blades, this is what poses a danger to the brave knight . The traitor kills Siegfried while hunting, throwing a spear at the unarmed hero leaning over a stream, aiming between the shoulder blades. The blow turned out to be fatal.

With the death of Siegfried, the narrators' attention is focused on the fate of his widow, who takes bloody revenge on her relatives for the death of her husband.

Kriemhild uses Etzel's matchmaking and then marriage with the king of the Huns exclusively to carry out her bloody plans. The compositional structure of “The Nibelungenlied” is symmetrical, and the characters repeat each other’s actions. So, Kriemhild persuades Etzel, as Brunhild had previously begged Gunther, to invite his brothers to visit him in order to inflict reprisals on them.

“The Song of the Nibelungs” is a story about the vicissitudes of human destinies, about the fratricidal wars that tore apart the feudal world. Etzel, the most powerful ruler of the early Middle Ages, acquired the features of an ideal ruler who paid for his nobility and gullibility, becoming a victim of those whom he revered as his closest people.

The heroic epic of the early Middle Ages was replaced in the twelfth century by a new genre - the novel, which was destined to have a long life in art - right up to the present day. In the medieval novel, the main character remained the knight, but his appearance and inner world underwent significant changes. Being an epic hero, the knight captivated with his dashing prowess, which he tirelessly demonstrated while fighting against foreign infidels. Such was Roland - the nephew and faithful vassal of his king, Charlemagne. The dying speeches of the brave warrior Roland are addressed to God and the King. But here’s what’s surprising: the dying knight never remembered his bride Alda, the sister of his comrade-in-arms and friend Olivier. Having learned about the death of her lover, Alda died of grief, which, however, is reported without much detail by the storyteller who called himself Turold, although little is known about him either. It is unlikely that he was the author of the “Song of Roland”; rather, he became famous as a talented juggler who could afford to leave his name in the text. But in general, the heroic epic - let us emphasize once again - is the result of the creation of a collective folk genius.

"Tristan and Isolde"

The relationship between the knight and the king also changed somewhat. A noble paladin of his king, while remaining a vassal, often acquires a slightly different status: a friend and confidant of the monarch. Sometimes a knight, on the orders of the king, performs a feat, but the heroic deed is connected not with politics, but with his personal life. For example, Tristan goes to conquer Isolde. The overseas beauty is to become the wife of King Mark, who is his uncle. The distance between the vassal and the king is reduced, and the knight becomes one of those close to him. The conflict in the novel about Tristan and Isolde is based on the fact that the vassal becomes a rival of the king himself, which would be absolutely impossible in the heroic epic. The love experiences of the characters are revealed with great psychological persuasiveness, their feelings are devoid of static, the pursuit of lovers only stimulates their passion.

The chivalric romance spread throughout the territories of future Germany and France, easily overcoming the language barrier. Many novels arose about the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table at the court of King Arthur. The source was Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1137), which became widely popular in France.

Wolfram is the largest poet of the German Middle Ages, the author of many lyrical works, the unfinished novel Willehalm (c. 1198-1210), and is valued primarily as the creator of the monumental novel Parzival (c. 1200-1210), numbering 28,840 verses. But it's not a matter of scale. Wolfram von Eschenbach revolutionized the genre of the novel itself, shifting the focus from external events (adventures, unexpected meetings, fights) to the inner world of the hero, who gradually, in the process of painful searches, disappointments and delusions, finds harmony with the world and peace of mind.

“Parzival” is a kind of family chronicle, since Wolfram von Eschenbach tells in great detail three stories - three biographies: Parzival's father Hamuret, Parzival himself and his son Lohengrin.

Gamuret is the ideal hero of a German chivalric romance. He longs to serve God alone and dreams of the only reward - the love of a beautiful lady, whose name is Herzloyda, which means yearning at heart. Herzloyd had to choose her spouse at a knight's tournament. The brave Gamuret defeats all his rivals, but he cannot live without the lists. Taking advantage of the freedom that the generous Herzloyda provided him, he went to fight and died in battle.

Parzival's story ends with the triumph of justice and universal joy. His beloved wife Condviramur, whom the wandering knight had been yearning for for so long, also arrives at the castle. Happy Parzival immediately saw his wonderful sons Cardeis and Lohengrin.

The ending of the story is idyllic: the Holy Grail feeds everyone with food and quenches thirst with wine. Parzival rules his country wisely and fairly.

Lohengrin is the son of Parzival and Condwiramur. Born, like his father, after the knight left for war. Their first meeting and mutual recognition occurs when Parzival has already mastered the Holy Grail. The further history of Lohengrin is outlined by Wolfram in a dotted manner. They talk about Lohengrin's courage, about his victories in many battles. Lohengrin fell in love with the beautiful princess of Brabant, Elsa, who rejected all those who sought her hand. He arrives in Antwerp on a boat drawn by a swan. The slender, blond, handsome man Lohengrin instantly won the princess's heart. He married her on one condition: Elsa should not ask where he came from. Obviously, Lohengrin had no right to reveal to anyone the secret of the Munsalves castle, in which the Holy Grail was kept. Lohengrin's wife complied with the condition for a long time, but as soon as she tried to find out her husband's secret, Lohengrin disappeared without a trace, drawn by a beautiful swan.

The grandiose performance that took place in the city square was a mystery (Latin mysterium - sacrament). It could be an action about the fall of Adam and Eve or a depiction of the way of the cross of Jesus Christ. Comic episodes began to penetrate serious dramatic performances. A farce appeared (French farce - filling), which depicted unfaithful wives, imaginary blind men begging for alms, scoundrel lawyers, stingy old men and helipads in love. The writers of farces laughed at them kindly, amusing the spectators who had gathered to watch the mysteries.

A drama with a happy ending was a miracle (French miracle - miracle). In the miracles, heavenly powers intervened in the fate of the sinner and saved him. This is the already mentioned miracle “The Miracle of Theophilus” by Rutbeuf (mid-13th century). Nicholas of Myra often acted in the miracles, saving drowning sailors, helping homeless women find worthy suitors, curing the sick, and even exposing thieves.

Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) was born in Florence, took an active part in public life, and was elected one of the priors - the governors of the city. However, when Dante's political opponents came to power, he was forced to go into exile. Although the famous poet was received with honors in many cities of Italy, he had a hard time being separated from Florence. The most important event in the poet’s spiritual life was the meeting with Beatrice, who became for him the earthly embodiment of heavenly love. The name Beatrice means bestower of bliss. Dante's poetic work became a glorification of the ideal; he created an image that embodies faith, wisdom, beauty, justice, compassion - in a word, all human virtues.

He first spoke about his love for Beatrice in the book “New Life” (1292), which became the world’s first autobiography of a poet. He talks about meetings with Beatrice, of which there were only three. He experienced bliss when he beheld her lovely appearance. He experienced terrible grief when he learned that Beatrice had died. In "New Life" poetry is combined with prose. In sonnets and canzones he captured her image, and in prose explanations he talked about what was the reason for creating the poem and what thought he wanted to express in it.

Dante worked on The Divine Comedy in exile for about 20 years. The poet called his work “Comedy”. This did not mean belonging to the dramatic genre; in the time of Dante, a comedy was a work that begins tragically but ends happily. Descendants called Dante's creation "Divina commedia", thereby expressing their admiration. The poem consists of three parts: “Hell”, “Purgatory”, “Paradise”, corresponding to the three states of the human soul in the afterlife. Each part consists of 33 songs.

The most terrible crime in the poet's mind is betrayal. The most painful tortures are in store for Judas, Brutus and Cassius. Dante, who has experienced treason and betrayal, is merciless towards them.

At the end of the poem, Dante meets with Beatrice, who introduces him to Divine Providence and eternity.

The Renaissance: the genesis of humanism, the titans of the Renaissance, Shakespeare and Cervantes

Starting from the fourteenth century, Italian artists and poets turned their attention to the ancient heritage and tried to revive in their art the image of a beautiful, harmoniously developed person. Among the first to take the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans as a model were Giotto and Dante, and then the poet Francesco Petrarca and the short story writer Giovanni Boccaccio, the sculptor Niccolo Pisano and the painter Simone Martini. Initially, the term Renaissance or Renaissance (French Renaissance) denoted the cultural and historical stage from which the study of ancient art and literature began, perceived as the ideal embodiment of the external appearance and inner spiritual life of a person.

The fundamental difference between Renaissance art and medieval art was the embodiment not of the divine, but of the human essence of existence. This gives rise to the main philosophical principle of the Renaissance - anthropocentrism, according to which man is the center and highest goal of the universe.

The modern system of genres of literature and art took shape to a large extent during the Renaissance. Lyric poetry can be considered a kind of analogue of self-portrait in literature. The lyrics of Francesco Petrarch, Pierre Ronsard, and William Shakespeare interpreted their inner life experiences, but connoisseurs of their lyrics recognized in the poets’ poems not only and not so much the authors, but themselves, discovering coincidences and similarities in sorrows and joys. Lyrics are subjective, but at the same time, lyric poetry can become a unifier of people in an emotional outburst. During the Renaissance, the main genre of lyric poetry was the sonnet. All the poets listed above wrote sonnets; in fourteen lines of a sonnet they managed to convey creative aspiration, the dream of poetic immortality, the finding of love and the loss of a beloved.

Renaissance in Italy. Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) - the first European humanist. His father, shortly before the poet's birth, was expelled from Florence by political opponents. Being a notary, his father wanted Francesco to also become a lawyer. Petrarch studied law at the universities of Montpellier and Bologna. After his father's death, by his own admission, he sent all his legal writings into long-term imprisonment. Having taken holy orders, in 1330 he entered the service of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna. As his secretary, Francesco Petrarca accompanied the cardinal on trips to France, Flanders, and Germany.

In the memory of descendants, Francesco Petrarca remained the author of the “Book of Songs,” on which he worked from the first meeting with Laura until his death. Like Dante’s Beatrice, Laura in Petrarch’s poems is the personification of spiritual perfection, wisdom, and love. But the poets’ images of lovers have one significant difference. Beatrice is beautiful, Laura is beautiful. In Dante we will not find a description of her appearance, while Petrarch notices the whiteness of her hands, the gold of her hair, and her light gait. Laura's portrait is more real and concrete, but the main attention is still paid not to passion, but to virtue.

“The Book of Songs” consists of two parts: “On the life of Madonna Laura” and “On the death of Madonna Laura.”

The Book of Songs includes 317 sonnets, 29 canzonas, 9 sextinas, 7 ballads and 4 madrigals. Most of these are poems about love, but Petrarch was not alien to patriotic issues. In the famous canzone “My Italy” he grieves over the ruin of the country caused by civil strife.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) during his lifetime did not gain from his contemporaries the recognition that he later received. The author of “The Decameron” entered the history of world literature as the creator of the short story genre.

“Decameron” (1348-1353) - in Greek - ten-day journal. Seven beautiful Florentine girls and three well-bred young men take refuge in a country villa from a plague epidemic. They spend ten days in solitude. Everyone tells one funny, touching or instructive story every day. In total, The Decameron contained one hundred short stories. Framing carries an important meaning. The optimistic content of most short stories contrasts with the atmosphere of the plague city. The author inspires the idea: remembering death, enjoy life.

There are many anticlerical jokes in The Decameron. Monks and clergymen achieve love pleasures using various tricks. The author condemns them not for their craving for pleasure, but for their hypocrisy and hypocrisy. In satirical short stories, the comic effect is created due to the fact that the sermons of churchmen diverge from their postulates. The positive hero of many short stories is an active, enterprising person who, subjected to various kinds of tests, emerges victorious due to his intelligence and will to live. These are the misadventures of the stories of the fifth day, in which the heroes manage to outwit fortune.

Francois Rabelais.

The future writer was born into the family of a lawyer in the south of France in the province of Touraine. He made the sunny, fertile land of vineyards the setting for the first two parts of his book “Gargantua and Pantagruel.” Francois Rabelais was a monk, but a special kind of monk - a scientist, philosopher and doctor. He studied medicine at the university in Montpellier, and was one of the first to risk dissecting corpses, which was prohibited by the church. The young doctor was invited as a personal physician by the Bishop of Paris, Jean du Bellay. Together with him he visited Italy, whose Renaissance culture had a beneficial influence on the writer.

In 1532, at a fair in Lyon, Rabelais bought a popular popular book, “The Great and Invaluable Chronicles of the Great and Huge Giant Gargantua.” Unnamed authors made fun of the knights, who from brave warriors turned into gluttons and drunkards. The satire on knights testified to a historical turning point, when warriors in armor and chain mail could no longer perform their former feats, since firearms were invented.

Rabelais retained the outline of the plot, but behind the ridicule of the garrulous joker and merry fellow, as the narrator seems to be, there is hidden a thoughtful look at modernity.

The trio of giants - grandfather Grangousier, son Gargantua and grandson Pantagruel - are fairy-tale kings, busy with libations and abundant meals. They care little about the welfare of their subjects, but according to Rabelais this is the best form of government, for a free king does not at all encroach on the freedom of his people. Wine drinking should be seen as a game: like real village drunkards, kings and their entourage compete to see who can outdrink whom. Rabelais has a great variety of harmless deception, all sorts of jokes, false oaths, deification - in a word, all kinds of deception. But at the same time he is always accurate, confidentially reporting, down to the last mug, how many large and small kegs were drunk. The more lies, the more accurate numbers - the deceiver Rabelais perfectly mastered this rule and constantly used it.

The atmosphere of the game is enhanced by the special linguistic element of the narrative. For Rabelais the rule is not acceptable: brevity is the sister of talent. On the contrary, he is talkative, talkative, talkative, and brawling. He possesses countless linguistic riches and generously shares his reserves with the reader. French speech in all its glory crowds out laconic Latin. The Frenchman Rabelais was one of the creators of the language of French prose.

Gargantua and Pantagruel is not yet a novel, but Rabelais's text contains the origins of several varieties of the romance genre. Talking about how Gargantua was raised by a wise humanist teacher, Rabelais outlines the contours of a biographical educational novel. The episode of the battle in the vineyard with the neighboring king - a bilious villain, isn't it a sketch of a battle novel? And when brother Jean, who distinguished himself in a brawl, sets up the Thelema monastery, where everyone has the right to do whatever he wants, this is already an application for a utopian novel.

Panurge embodies freedom, of everything in the world, ignoring outdated moral rules. He is free as a country boy who ran away from his masters to the city. But he lacks an understanding of why he needs freedom, how he can manage it.

With the appearance of Panurge, the narrative rushes into a new genre direction - the travel epic. The fact is that Panurge is planning to get married, but he is afraid that he will be cuckolded. Since none of the two dozen advisers recommended anything worthwhile, it was decided to go to China to find the truth to the oracle of the divine bottle. All the characters moved there by ship, sailing past the islands on which Rabelais gathered all the enemies of the human race: bribe-taking judges, fat Catholic monks, Protestant ascetics, scholastics, theologians and other evil spirits.

The poetry of Pierre de Ronsard (1524 – 1584) ends the Renaissance period in France. Ronsard was a patriot of France; he glorified the fatherland and heroes of his country in solemn odes and anthems. He mourned that religious strife was ruining his homeland and its people; the poet advocated for the unity of his compatriots.

Continuing the traditions of Petrarch, he glorified the feeling of love in sonnets. Moreover, the poet’s passions for Cassandra, Maria and Elena, to whom he dedicated poetic cycles, were not speculative, but quite real, which is why love confessions sound sincere and frank.

Germany

German folk books - a special type of grassroots literature addressed to a democratic reader - have become a remarkable monument of humanistic culture. The first folk books appeared in the middle of the 15th century. in Germany in connection with the invention of printing and became widespread at the end of the 16th century.

The heroes of popular popular prints were both historical heroes, be it Alexander the Great, Charlemagne or Henry the Lion, and fictional ones: the swindler Till Eulenspiegel and the sage Doctor Faust. In the first case, the character inspired respect for his heroic courage, in the second he attracted attention with his resourcefulness and intelligence, which were of great value in the burgher environment. This is Till Eulenspiegel, the hero of the German folk book of the same name. The characters' nickname consists of two words: "Ule" (owl) and "Spiegel" (mirror). "The Owl Mirror" is perceived as a wise mockery of human stupidity. The biography of Till Eulenspiegel consists of ninety-five satirical stories that tell how Till, wandering around the world, fools representatives of various classes and professions.

Till Eulenspiegel is a collective image that reflected the critical aggravation of popular consciousness in the period immediately preceding the Peasants' War and the Reformation in Germany in the first quarter of the 16th century. The people's favorite constantly breaks the stable established class order, ridiculing the nobility, the rich and the holy.

Renaissance in Spain. Humanistic ideas penetrated the Iberian Peninsula at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. Spain during this period was an absolutist monarchy; rulers and subjects remained zealous Catholics. The Spanish economy was one of the most backward in Europe. The influx of income from the colonies led to a sharp increase in the price of goods and products. The aristocrats had nothing to eat on the golden dishes, and what can we say about the petty nobles - hidalgos, among whom the biggest celebrity remains to this day Don Quixote of La Mancha, created by the imagination of Cervantes.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547 - 1616) was the son of a poor doctor who belonged to the hidalgo class. His father had to wander around the Spanish provinces in search of work, so as a child the future writer visited Seville and Toledo, Madrid and Cordoba. Cervantes's literary gift manifested itself early; already in his youth he was composing sonnets.

The novel was conceived by Cervantes as a parody of a chivalric romance and chivalry in general, which had already ceased to play its role in society. As for the chivalric novels that the crazy hidalgo and some of his neighbors and friends read, only very naive people who were not versed in real life could take sorcerers and villains seriously. The satirical effect of Cervantes's narrative is based on the complete discrepancy between the images and situations of chivalric novels and everything that the crazy hidalgo encounters on the paths and crossroads of his wanderings. However, Don Quixote sees what he wants to see: in the cowgirl Dulcinea - a beautiful lady, in windmills - giants, in a mountain cave - a crystal castle.

“Don Quixote” is the first novel in European literature, because the nature of the novel genre is based on the fact that a person, by his own example, tests universal human ideals, studies the ways and possibilities of their implementation.

The alliance of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is ridiculous due to its external and internal contrast: a thin hidalgo and a fat peasant, a dreamer-visionary and a smart pragmatist. However, during their long wanderings they will learn a lot from each other. But something else is important. Cervantes, in two inseparably connected characters, for the first time showed the integrity of human consciousness, in which two contrasting views of the world coexist. In the end, both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza live inside everyone.

Revival in England. In English Renaissance art at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. The leading role belonged to the theater. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was the most repertoire playwright. In London, or rather outside the city limits, there were several theater buildings: “Swan”, “Curtain”, “Globe”. The latter was the property of Richard Burbage and his family. Shakespeare was friendly with him and wrote plays with the expectation that Burbage would play the main roles in them. By the way, the actors were only men. Everyone in the troupe were shareholders; William Shakespeare was a mediocre performer, but became famous as a playwright. However, at that time dramaturgy was not valued as high literature, since the plays were rewritten many times, the text was adapted to the capabilities of the troupe. The playwright gave his brainchild to the theater, received a reward and lost ownership of the tragedy or comedy.

A significant part of Shakespeare’s comedies belong to the first period: “The Comedy of Errors”, “The Taming of the Shrew”, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, “As You Like It”. There are always several love lines in comedies. Between the characters in love there is a competition in wit, eloquence, and resourcefulness. The heroes are endowed with an active Renaissance character, they stubbornly go towards the goal, and every obstacle on the way only provokes them, as it gives an opportunity to demonstrate the extraordinary nature. The heroines are by no means timid; they know how to stand up for themselves, but are ready to submit to the groom, who is equal in intelligence and willpower. Numerous pranks, tricks of envious people, and carnival travesties emphasize the conflict-free nature of comedies. A Shakespearean viewer is always sure: “The end is the crown of the matter,” as the title of one of the comedies sounds.

The tragedy “Romeo and Juliet” belongs to the first period, which does not yet have that gloomy flavor as in subsequent tragedies. The love story of two young Veronese, who fell in love despite family feuds, plays out in the city square, at a ball and during a nightly date. It can be assumed that Romeo and Juliet could also find happiness like Hero and Claudio in the comedy Much Ado About Nothing. At first glance, the reason for the death of the heroes is a fatal coincidence of circumstances. However, the conflict of the tragedy is different: in a world that preserves medieval remnants, the heroes dared to live in the Renaissance way. They were ahead of their time and paid for it.

Shakespeare reveals the laws of time, their power over rulers and ordinary people in historical chronicles: “Richard II”, “Henry IV”, “Henry V”, “Richard III”. The events of the chronicles are mainly limited chronologically by the War of the Scarlet and White Roses (1455-1485). Shakespeare shows how, at the end of bloody civil strife in England, legitimate power is established. The chronicles persistently convey the idea that a just ruler can only be an internally free person who, nevertheless, follows the law in everything. This is Henry V. As a prince, in the chronicle “Henry IV” he was friends with Falstaff, participated in revelries and clownish tricks. But having inherited the crown and throne, he did not recognize his “old friend”; it was no longer fitting for him to be friends with a freedom-loving, merry fellow.

The second period of William Shakespeare's work, limited to 1600-1608, includes, first of all, his great tragedies: Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605), Macbeth (1606) ) and tragedies written on a plot from the history of Ancient Rome.

The legend of Prince Hamlet was first recorded by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus at the beginning of the 13th century. It told that a certain Fengon, tormented by envy of his reigning brother, killed him and married his wife Geruta. Hamlet, pretending to be weak-minded, and thereby lulling his uncle's vigilance, took cruel revenge on Fengon and his associates.

Shakespeare turns to the archetypal plot of fratricide. The shadow of Hamlet's father calls on the prince to take revenge for the death of his parent. Hamlet does not immediately decide to kill Claudius; he strives to find more indisputable confirmation of what happened, arranging, with the help of actors, a test for his uncle, who falls into the trap of seeing on stage a crime he committed in reality. However, after reasonable reflection, Hamlet comes to the idea of ​​​​the meaninglessness of revenge. He realizes that revenge and justice are not the same thing, since by shedding blood he will not correct the world. Hamlet tragically senses the imperfection of his surroundings. He sees Denmark as a prison, Elsinore Palace is filled with traitors and spies, and the people closest to him act as spies. This paralyzes Hamlet’s will to live; in the famous monologue “To be or not to be?”, he questions the expediency of human existence itself in an unjust world order. This monologue echoes sonnet 66.

The conflict of the tragedy is aggravated by the fact that Hamlet is at odds with himself. He realizes that the mission that has fallen to his lot is impossible, because he is not given the opportunity to realize humanistic principles. But Hamlet acts actively in the finale. He does not fight with Laertes, who lost his father, killed by Hamlet, he fights with the world of evil without hope of success, and in the end fulfills his father's will. By killing Claudius, he ensures that there is one less villain in the world.

In Othello, Shakespeare focuses on the relationship between the Venetian Moor and the beautiful Desdemona. Here again is the motive of female betrayal, moreover imaginary, but leading to an irreparable tragedy. It would be naive not to notice Othello’s jealousy, as well as to explain everything that happened with his frantic jealousy. A.S. Pushkin once remarked: “Othello is not jealous by nature - on the contrary: he is trusting.” In our country, it is customary to interpret Othello as a tragedy of betrayed trust. A fatal role in the conflict is played by Iago, who hates Othello, not because he is outranked by him, but for another reason. It infuriates him that the warrior and the happy newlywed find the world beautiful and people honest and kind. Iago sees the world as a collection of abomination and vice. He seeks to desecrate the ideals of Othello, he manages to convert him to his unbelief, “proving” that the one who seems to be the Moor’s ideal is dissolute and sinful. Othello's greatness is manifested in the fact that, having believed the villain and committed a crime, he severely punishes himself.

The tragedy “King Lear” contains the features of a parable and a fairy tale; it is not for nothing that the events are attributed to the 9th century. BC, when Britain as such did not exist. Shakespeare's Lear renounces power and possessions in favor of his daughters in order to enjoy their gratitude. Lear believes the impudent flattery of Goneril and Regan because he considers himself the center of the universe and the benefactor of humanity. He created an idol out of himself. Cordelia annoys him and he disinherits her.

Macbeth is a brave warrior, infected with ambition, which was awakened in him by the witches-soothsayers. For Shakespeare, the tragic in Macbeth lies in the moral and psychological destruction of the heroic personality.

The third period of Shakespeare's work is 1608-1612. The playwright creates such dramatic works as “The Tempest”, “Cymbeline”, “The Winter's Tale”. There is a lot of fabulous and fantastic stuff in them. The tragic conflict of The Winter's Tale is similar to the conflict of the tragedy Othello, but finds a happy resolution in the finale, the heroes forgive each other. In these plays one feels reconciliation with life, acceptance of existence, no matter how dramatic it may be.

Classicism and Baroque of the 17th century are the main trends in the art and literature of the seventeenth century, which was marked by the establishment of absolutism in France and Spain, the Counter-Reformation and the Thirty Years' War in Germany, and the first bourgeois revolutions in the Netherlands and England. These events were reflected in drama and poetry, in prose and in the visual arts. However, writers and poets of the seventeenth century relatively rarely illustrated the political life of their era, preferring to talk about modernity, resorting to historical associations and mythological allusions.

Imitating ancient artists and poets, the champions of classicism, unlike the Renaissance humanists, borrowed from the heritage of antiquity not so much content as artistic principles, which were understood quite formally. Thus, based on the fact that in ancient tragedies the events took place in front of the palace from sunrise to sunset, and all plot lines were interconnected, the famous requirement of three unities is put forward: the unity of place, time and action, which the playwright was obliged to obey.

Classicism found its most complete embodiment in French art, which turned out to be very consonant with the idea of ​​serving the sovereign and the state. In France, under Louis XIII (1610-1643), the de facto ruler of the country was Cardinal Richelieu, who managed to defeat the Fronde - the protests of the nobility against centralized power.

The aesthetics of classicism was finally formed in the treatise “Poetic Art” by Nicolas Boileau (1636-1711). The son of a judicial official at the beginning of his creative career acted as a satirist. Introduced to the king, he soon becomes the court historiographer. In “Poetic Art” (1674), written in verse, he formulates the official doctrine of classicist art.

Boileau's “poetic art” is a holistic aesthetic system that outlines the goals of art - the glorification of the monarchy - and the poetic means of achieving the desired effect. The first literary theorist of modern times places rationality, expediency and plausibility, alien to imitation, at the forefront. However, to create a true work of art, this is not enough; taste and talent are also needed.

Pierre Corneille (1606-1684). True, “The Cid” was not Corneille’s debut; he was already the author of the tragedy “Melita” and “Comic Illusion”. However, “Sid” brought success and at the same time caused a scandal. The plot of the tragedy is taken not from ancient history, but from the events of the medieval Spanish Reconquista. This was already a challenge, since the French rulers had tense relations with Spain. The hero of the tragedy is Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, to whom the medieval Spanish heroic epic “The Song of Cid” is dedicated. At the same time, P. Corneille turned to the youth of Sid, when he was young and passionately in love with Dona Jimena. Nothing prevents the future happiness of lovers, but the quarrel of their fathers destroys the harmony. Loving Jimena, Sid challenges her father to a duel, who insulted the venerable old man - Sid's father. Rodrigo killed his beloved's father in a duel. For Sid, it is not passion that is of paramount importance, but honor and duty. Having taken revenge, he fulfilled his filial duty. But now Doña Jimena, still in love with Sid, seeks revenge and his death - such is her filial duty.

P. Corneille's play is structured very clearly. The Cid at the beginning fulfilled his personal moral duties, but it is much more significant that, obeying the will of the king, he goes to fight the Moors and defeats the infidels. According to P. Corneille, the king acts as the arbiter of the highest justice. Commanding them to forget about the quarrel that had occurred, he unites the lovers.

Pierre Corneille violated many of the requirements of classicism, which he, a provincial, had never even heard of. This may be true, but the example of Corneille convinces us that genius is always above the rules. The author of “Sid” was reproached for violating the three unities, condemned for giving his tragedy a happy ending, and accused of plagiarism.

The playwright confirmed his fame with the subsequent tragedies “Horace” (1639), “Cyina, or the Mercy of Augustus” (1640), “Nycomedes” (1651), in which he glorified patriotic service to the fatherland, no matter what sacrifices it required. However, the decline in talent became more and more noticeable over the years. At the end of the sixties, two tragedies with a similar name and plot appeared.

Jean Racine (1639-1699) is the second great playwright of the French classic stage, “the singer of women and kings in love.” In Racine's work, a new quality enters French dramaturgy - psychologism. Corneille cared little about the psychological motives of the characters' behavior. Racine focuses on depicting the inner life of heroes who are immersed in themselves, and are not at all focused on the machinations of their opponents. Racine became an unsurpassed master of depicting human passions. In J. Racine's first masterpiece, Andromache, Hector's widow and the mother of his son are surrounded by enemies who fear that the grown Astyanax will avenge his father's death.

Andromache is focused on how best to fulfill her maternal duty. Passions are boiling around her. The Epirus king Pyrrhus, who captivated her, became her captive, Pyrrhus's fiancée Hermione was rejected by him, Orestes is hopelessly in love with Hermione... Fatal passions are destructive, all the heroes die, Andromache wins, not allowing herself to be stupefied by passions and acting rationally in the most hopeless situation.

The fate of Phaedra in the tragedy of the same name (1677) is different. The wife of the Athenian king Theseus experiences a destructive passion for her stepson Hippolytus. The conflict is initially unresolvable. Phaedra's illness causes suffering. The queen's confession, torn out by the maid, aggravates the tragic conflict. Having learned from the servant about the shameful attraction of his stepmother to him, Hippolyte perceives passion as an insult. Then Phaedra has the idea of ​​vengeance on her stepson, who does not believe in the sincerity of her stepmother’s feelings, suspecting that intrigues and deceit lurk behind her false passion. Slandered, he dies. Phaedra also dies, but her death is majestic; Racine’s heroine is elevated by the passion and fear she experienced, and the repentance that came to her at the end of the tragedy.

Jean Baptiste Moliere (1622-1673), who began his career as an actor, staged tragedies by P. Corneille and J. Racine. However, over time, he abandoned the tragic repertoire and devoted himself to the comedy genre.

During his short life, Moliere wrote about thirty comedies. Despite the fact that their content is closer to reality in comparison with tragedies, the author, basically, remains faithful to the norms of classicism. He gives preference to poetic comedy, almost always observes three unities, and the characters - misers and spendthrifts, braggarts, liars and swindlers, misanthropes and hypocrites - are devoted to one passion, which causes ridicule from others and laughter from the audience.

In the comedy “Funny Primroses” (1659), Moliere ridiculed two young girls who strive to imitate aristocratic fashion. Rejecting worthy suitors, they almost jumped out to marry their servants only because they dressed up as dandies and spoke pompously and manneredly, as in Madame Rambouillet's salon. Needless to say, the “precious” ones recognized themselves in the cartoon, harbored a grudge and played dirty tricks on the comedian who had offended them.

In Moliere's work, satire is combined with didactics. In the subsequent comedies “The School for Husbands” (1661), “The School for Wives” (1662), and “Learned Women” (1662), the playwright strives to give useful instructions regarding family relationships.

Not a single comedy by Moliere brought him so much suffering, but also such enduring success as Tartuffe (1664-1669). For five years the playwright fought for its production, correcting the text, softening the critical focus of the comedy. Moliere directed his attack on the secret religious organization “Society of the Holy Gifts,” which was engaged in surveillance of ill-intentioned fellow citizens and apostates. By removing specific references to the activities of the Society of the Blessed Sacrament, he achieved more by showing how religious fanaticism cripples the souls of believers. “Tartuffe” eventually became a parable about how ardent piety deprives a person of sound mind. Before meeting Tartuffe, Orgon was a caring father of the family, but the bigot and hypocrite hypnotized him with ostentatious asceticism so that the noble nobleman was ready to give the swindler everything he owned. Orgon, who finds himself in an unpleasant situation, is saved by the king, who sees everything, knows and cares about the welfare of his subjects. Tartuffe failed to get his hands on Orgon's property, but the viewer was worried because Orgon, who had succumbed to the charms of the imaginary saint, almost went to prison, and rejoiced when the police officer in the finale reported that the king had ordered the arrest of the swindler.

But for the comedy to reach the viewer, Moliere had to fight the powerful church authorities for five years. The ban on Tartuffe dealt a blow to Moliere's repertoire. The playwright hastily composes the comedy Don Juan (1665) in prose, ignores classicist rules and creates a masterpiece.

The Seville nobleman Don Juan da Tenorio, who lived in the 14th century, became the hero of a popular legend, which was translated and processed by the Spanish playwright Tirso de Molina in the play “The Mischief of Seville, or the Stone Guest” (1630). Don Juan (or Don Juan - in Moliere, in Pushkin - Don Guan) is obsessed with the pursuit of sensual pleasures. A deceiver of women, mocking the husband of one of his victims, he invites a tombstone to dinner - a statue of the commander. The invitation turned into the death of the hero; the libertine was stolen by the forces of heaven.

One of the most favorite genres among the aristocratic public was comedy-ballet. Simple action was interspersed with pantomime and dancing. While creating an entertaining performance, Moliere knew how to fill it with a serious idea. In the comedy "The Bourgeois in the Nobility", the music for which was written by the famous composer Lully, Moliere portrayed the rich bourgeois Jourdain, who dreamed of an aristocratic title. A completely everyday story acquires psychological complexity. An attempt to break out of the boundaries of class existence was fraught with many losses. Both the teacher, who teaches him good manners and science, and the noble rogues, who extract money from him for very vague promises, profit from the desire to become an aristocrat. Losing his class way of life, Jourdain also loses his common sense. Moliere himself acts as a mentor to the third estate, in a comic form instilling the idea that one should be proud of one’s class and human dignity; the aristocratic arrogance of his hero does not lead to good.

Moliere's last performance was The Imaginary Invalid. He, being terminally ill himself, amused the audience by playing a man suffering from ailments he himself invented. What was it? An attempt to deceive the disease? Force himself to believe that he will overcome his illness? Moliere died after performing the play “The Imaginary Invalid.” The illness took its toll, then it was the turn of the church. The great writer was denied a proper Christian burial. Only the king's intercession helped his favorite find peace according to the Christian rite.

17th century: Age of Enlightenment,

The eighteenth century entered the history of world culture as the Age of Enlightenment. Outstanding thinkers and artists believed that humanistic ideas are capable of changing the world, and in the future humanity can expect the triumph of Reason. The enlighteners were inclined to explain social injustices, moral vices and superstitions by the lack of understanding of man and humanity. The main political postulate of the Enlightenment was sounded in the treatise of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) “On the Social Contract”: “Man is born free, and yet everywhere he is in chains.” This idea turned out to be close to all educators and their followers. The hero of Beaumarchais’s comedy (1732-1799) “The Barber of Seville” Figaro throws words to his master Count Almaviva, filled with self-esteem, which he is ready to defend: “Noble origin, fortune, position in the world, prominent positions - it’s no wonder that all this makes you proud! How much effort have you made to achieve such well-being? You gave yourself the trouble to be born, that’s all.”

The third estate entered the public arena - the bourgeoisie, which at that time represented a revolutionary force. The philosophers who played the role of ideologists of the third estate sought to instill in everyone the ability to use their minds, questioning current ideas. In this regard, one cannot help but notice that the prose that dominated literature was demonstratively rationalistic in nature. English and French educators in their creative plans proceeded from ideas that were illustrated by narration.

The plots of many prose works of the Enlightenment era are epics of the highways. The hero, going on a journey, due to unforeseen circumstances, goes astray from the intended path, experiences many adventures, which allows the character, and at the same time the author, to compare speculative ideas with harsh reality.

The first educational novels were created in England by Daniel Defoe (1660-1744) and Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Read, as a rule, in childhood, their books seem similar, for both sailors, Robinson and Gulliver, experience exciting adventures. However, the plots of the novels and the life philosophy of the authors are fundamentally different.

Defoe was endowed with enviable determination and unbending will. He endowed his hero, Robinson Crusoe, with these qualities. The full title of the novel is: “The life and amazing adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a sailor from York, who lived for 28 years all alone on an uninhabited island off the coast of America, near the mouth of the Orinoco River, where he was thrown out by a shipwreck, during which the entire crew of the ship, except him, died, with an account of his unexpected liberation by pirates, written by himself" (1719). The lengthy title is a kind of digest that contains all the main events of the novel.

Robinson Crusoe had a real prototype - sailor Alexander Silkirk, who, having quarreled with the crew, demanded to be dropped off on a desert island, where he lived for about four years. During this time, he became quite wild and almost forgot his native language.

Robinson Crusoe lived alone much longer, but at the same time he retained human dignity, remaining an exemplary English bourgeois - believer, hardworking, thrifty, inventive, caring for the native Friday. Defoe's hero on the island alone goes through all the stages of human civilization. He hunts, farms, domesticates wild animals, invents tools and weapons. Man cannot repeat the path of humanity, but Defoe believes in the unlimited abilities of his hero and quite convincingly shows his extraordinary abilities.

The title of Swift's book seems to be similar to the title of Defoe: "Travels into various distant countries of the world of Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then captain of several ships" (1725). However, you should pay attention to one detail. Defoe accurately indicates the location of the character, while Gulliver's routes are said rather vaguely, which is not surprising. Robinson's adventures are exceptional but probable, while Gulliver's wanderings are fantastic.

Depicting the countries of Lilliputians and giants, Swift has England in mind, allegorically depicting the struggle of parties and religious denominations, wars with neighboring states. The satirist ironically refers to science as the engine of progress. In the fantasy land of Laputa, Gulliver watches as the wisest scientists find a way to extract sunlight from cucumbers.

Gulliver seems to the reader to be a giant in the land of Lilliput. On the contrary, it looks tiny in the palm of a giant. In Defoe, a person is great in any, even the most dramatic situation. For Swift, the magnitude of personality is relative, everything depends on the circumstances. Swift introduces a dose of skepticism into the rosy hopes of the enlighteners, in whose ideals he cannot bring himself to believe.

French educators are often called encyclopedists.

Under the editorship of D. Diderot and J. d'Alembert, a unique attempt was made to create an "Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts", called for brevity "Encyclopedia" (1751-1780). It was a systematic body of knowledge in a variety of fields. For educators The Encyclopedia was a practical embodiment of theoretical ideas, because the publication made available all the achievements of human thought. Of course, accessibility was very relative. Each of the thirty volumes published was very expensive. The best minds of France united around the publications. Articles for the Encyclopedia were written by Voltaire, Charles Montesquieu, Helvetius, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others.In total, about two hundred authors participated in the publication.

Denis Diderot himself (1718-1784) was a versatile educated writer. He started out as a playwright, but his play The Side Son (1757) was not a stage success. Diderot subsequently widely used the dialogical form in prose, thereby emphasizing that truth does not belong to those disputing, but is born in discussion.

Thus, in the story “Jacques the Fatalist and His Master” (1773, published 1796), creating his own version of the quixotic wanderings of a master and a servant who are obsessed with a thirst for adventure, he confronts the philosophies of fatalism and optimism. The servant and the Master argue, illusions are destroyed, but the reader makes the conclusion which of the disputants is right.

In the story “Ramo's Nephew” (1782), the author gets into an argument with a character. This is a very real person - the nephew of the famous French composer Jacques-Francois Rameau. A gifted young man, endowed with a sober mind, he judges secular society very critically: “In nature, all species devour each other, in society classes devour each other.” But the hero is cynical and lazy, his abilities do not rise above the level of an amateur. He chooses for himself the role of a hanger-on, a jester: “I’ll be funny if that’s what they want.” Diderot revealed in Rameau's Nephew the tragedy of personal self-destruction.

Voltaire (1694 – 1778) is the wittiest man of the eighteenth century. The son of a wealthy notary, he received an excellent education. In his youth, he composed a satire on the royal court, for which he was thrown into the Bastille. But the regent under the young king, Philip of Orleans, ordered the poet to be released from prison and blessed him with generosity in the hope of turning the prisoner into a court poet. Voltaire thanked him and asked not to put him in a government apartment again.

Later he visited England, where he became acquainted with the teachings of Newton. Then he found refuge in the Sirey castle with the most educated Marquise du Chatelet. After the death of the mistress of the castle in 1749, he accepted the invitation of the Prussian king Frederick II to stay with him in Berlin, but soon the monarch and the philosopher quarreled. In 1768, Voltaire bought the Ferney estate, which was located on the border of Switzerland and France, where he lived until the end of his life. He was impressed by the fact that he was not anyone’s subject, but felt like a real citizen of the world

Voltaire's most significant works were written in the genre of philosophical stories he developed. These are “Zadig” (1747), “Candide, or Optimism” (1758), “The Simple-minded” (1767). In his stories, he repeatedly tries to separate the accidental from the natural in the fate of an individual, raising the question of how free a person is in his actions and decisions.

The philosophy of the Enlightenment was optimistic; they believed in the forward movement of humanity, which is ensured by science and enlightenment. World harmony was pre-established by the very development of nature. But in 1755, an earthquake occurred in Lisbon, which killed thousands of residents. World evil has made itself known, turning optimists into skeptics. Voltaire said: “What is optimism? It is a passion to claim that everything is good when in reality everything is bad.”

Candide is, in accordance with the meaningful name, a simple-minded, naive young man who strives to live according to the laws of nature. In love with the noble young lady Cunegonde, he was raised by Doctor Pangloss, who tirelessly repeated: “Everything is for the best in this best of worlds.” Thrown out of their cozy estate by the war, the heroes endure many disasters, find themselves more than once on the brink of death, turn into convicts, and lovers lose each other. As for Pangloss, he remains an optimist even on the gallows. Fortunately, he was not strung up: the author took pity on the philosophy teacher. Only once could all the characters find happiness if they wanted to stay in the blessed country of Eldorado. But, oddly enough, they leave it: general well-being is as unacceptable as total humiliation, violence, and poverty. In the finale, the heroes returned home aged, having gained life experience. They argue about what this world is like, and what the purpose of man is. At the end of the story, Candide makes a summary: “We must cultivate our garden.”

Politically, Germany was inferior to its neighbors. The country remained fragmented, which hampered its economic development. The third estate did not play a significant role in society; it did not encroach on the foundations of feudalism. However, in philosophy and artistic creativity, Germany was ahead of other countries thanks to its geniuses Goethe and Schiller, Kant, Winckelmann and Lessing, who attempted to rise spiritually and aesthetically above modernity.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 – 1781) was one of the founders of the Enlightenment movement in Germany. In the treatise “Laocoon, or on the boundaries of painting and poetry,” Lessing showed the fundamental difference between fine art and verbal art. From the point of view of the German enlightener, plastic art embodies ideal external forms, while poetry embodies inner life. Lessing was the first in Germany to declare that antiquity is the unique past of mankind, and it is pointless to imitate the Greeks and Romans. He loved the theater, wrote articles and reviews about performances on the stages of Hamburg and Berlin. Lessing himself acted as a playwright; in the tragedy “Emilia Galotti” (1772) he fought against the tyranny of crowned dwarf rulers. In the poetic drama “Nathan the Wise” (1779), which takes place in Jerusalem during the Crusades, he called for an end to hostility on religious grounds, convincingly arguing that a person’s nobility does not depend on which god he prays to.

Lessing was among the first in Germany to turn to the folk legend about the warlock Doctor Faustus, but the plan; was realized only in a few brief fragments of the drama.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749 – 1832) was a brilliant German poet, prose writer, playwright, philosopher, naturalist and statesman. Goethe received an excellent home education. He had to choose the hereditary legal field. Goethe began listening to lectures at the University of Leipzig (1765 - 1768), but a sudden illness forced him to interrupt his studies. He continued his studies in Strasbourg (1770 – 1771).

The beginning of Goethe’s creative career is associated with the literary movement, whose representatives spoke under the motto “Storm and Drang!” This was the name of F. Klinger's drama - one of the most rebellious works of the era. These poets and playwrights called themselves “Sturmers” - from the German name “Sturm und Drang”. They showed genius not in some exceptional discoveries and achievements, but in the fury of their emotional life. “Stormy geniuses” tried from the heights of spiritual aspirations to ignore the despotism of the German medieval order. The hero of their works entered into the fight against princely autocracy. From disasters and turmoil, he sought peace in the natural world. The poet-sturmer longed to become the mouthpiece of nature. The anti-clerical and anti-tyrant meaning of the poem was clear to contemporaries. Liberation from everything old, inert, outdated, which oppresses a free-thinking person - this is the main meaning of the poem.

The novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (1774), written in Wetzlar, where Goethe interned at the imperial court, made the author famous not only in Germany, but throughout reading Europe.

Goethe chose the epistolary form for “Werther.” The letters represent the confession of the hero. The events of the novel take place from May 1771 to December 1772. Thus, the time of action and the time of creation of the novel are extremely close. The epistolary novel is a favorite genre of sentimentalism. Goethe, in the spirit of sentimentalist ideas, glorifies the deep, sincere feelings of which a person is capable, regardless of his class.

In his first letters, Werther shares his impressions of a small, cozy provincial town, unnamed in the novel. He arrived here recently and seeks solace in nature, taking walks alone in the picturesque surroundings. Werther's detachment does not last long; he meets the young official Albert, who introduced him to his bride. Charlotte inspires Werther, as it did with Goethe, with an all-consuming feeling. Charlotte's image is full of naturalness and charm. The appearance of Werther instills confusion in Charlotte's soul. She is attracted to Werther by his talent and ardor of feelings. But Charlotte remembers that she gave her dying mother her word to marry Albert.

In order to recover from a hopeless passion, Werther leaves his friends and goes on official business to a neighboring principality. In his official career, Werther is also destined to experience drama. The Count, who favors his able assistant, asks him to leave the house when aristocratic society gathers there. Werther is no match for the nobility. Aristocratic arrogance insults the self-esteem of the vulnerable hero.

Goethe was one of the first to announce to the world with this novel that the dignity of a person is not in his ancestors, not in his class, but in himself - in his personality, in his talent, intellect and actions.

Upon his return, Werther meets Charlotte as a married woman, but his feelings for her only intensified after the separation. The hero sees the only way out of the tragic impasse. Werther asks Charlotte to send pistols that he may need on the road. He shoots himself in the heart with the pistol that his lover was just holding in his hands.

Goethe’s work after returning from Italy reflected new aesthetic views, which researchers define as “Weimar classicism.” The poet now gives preference to the classical forms of ancient art, he is restrained in expressing his ideas. His position is more balanced. During a period of acute social struggles, he very carefully shows his likes and dislikes. This was especially evident in the epic poem “Herman and Dorothea” (1798), written in hexameter. All events here are limited to one August day in 1795. The heroes of the poem are modest burghers living in a town on the Rhine. Goethe managed to create ideal images of his contemporaries. The title characters of the poem captivate the reader with their self-esteem, goodwill, beauty and hard work. The life of Herman and Dorothea is surprisingly harmonious, because in any difficult situation they follow the dictates of their kind hearts.

In the first Weimar decade, Goethe wrote his second novel, The Theatrical Vocation of Wilhelm Meister.

From the very beginning, Goethe the prose writer included several wonderful poems in the story of how an educated German burgher breaks with his environment, becomes close to actors, and then becomes an outstanding playwright. They represent poetic monologues of the characters; these are their cherished dreams, aspirations, and experiences.

Mignona - a girl, almost a child, wild and playful, endlessly devoted to Wilhelm Meister, sings a song about the picturesque sunny beauty of Italy, which becomes a symbol of everything beautiful and unusual.

The main leitmotif of Minion's two other songs is a secret suffering that she will never reveal, which can only be guessed by someone who is familiar with the same pain of the soul.

The image of the Harper in the novel about Wilhelm Meister is mysterious. A poor unknown alien who is accepted into a troupe of comedians performs songs in which the tragedy of existence reaches its climax.

The humanism of this poem, as well as the entire cycle as a whole, is expressed in a persistently repeated thought: suffering unites people, the collectively experienced tragic experience makes humanity stronger and more courageous. “Through suffering to joy” - this thought of Schiller was undoubtedly close to Goethe.

Goethe worked on the tragedy “Faust” throughout his entire career. In 1773-1775, he created the first draft of Faust, which contained the main plot points. In 1790 Faust was published. Fragment". “Dedication”, both “Prologues”, scenes “The Cabinet of Faust” and “Walpurgis Night” were written. The first part was completed in 1806 and published in 1808.

The idea for the second part matured in 1797 - 1801, and Goethe turned to writing it only a quarter of a century later. Goethe completed work on Faust in 1831. The tragedy was published in full in 1832 in the first volume of his “Posthumous Edition of Works.”

In his tragedy, Goethe used the plot of the German folk book about Doctor Faustus, but supplemented it with new characters and events. Creating the image of Faust, Goethe, using his example in the first part, showed the fulfillment of all possible human desires, and in the second part - the limitless possibilities of all humanity. However, from Goethe's point of view, the maximalist exercise of free will entails tragedy. In the first part, the hero's pursuit of pleasure turns into the death of the heroine. In the second part, the hero’s desire to improve nature and make his own pragmatic amendments to the universe turns into tragedy.

In Faust, Goethe from the very beginning emphasizes the most important properties of human nature: dissatisfaction with what has been achieved and striving for the ideal. In order to live his life again, he pledges his soul to the devil. In exchange, Mephistopheles gives Faust youth, and their joint descent into everyday life begins. “Faust” is not only a philosophical tragedy operating with abstract concepts, but it is also an image of the concrete real life of Germany. An important place in the context is occupied by folk scenes, marked by lyrics and humor: “At the City Gates”, “Auerbach’s Cellar”, scenes with Martha.

From the depths of people's life the image of Margarita also grows. Faust first meets Gretchen leaving the church. She is pious and modest, she has a sense of honor, and for a long time she does not succumb to the devilish tricks of Mephistopheles. The forces are not equal, Faust gives her a precious piece of clothing, and neighbor Martha, at the instigation of Mephistopheles, acts like an experienced pimp.

Margarita's tragedy consists of an unconsciously committed crime and a confidently accepted retribution for her guilt. Despite Faust's pleas, she refuses to leave the dungeon. The greatness of Margarita lies in the dignity with which she accepts severe punishment.

Faust's love for Helen the Beautiful is also symbolic. Will beauty save humanity? In Faust's fascination with Helena, Goethe recreated man's eternal desire for the ideal. But Faust’s happiness is short-lived; it collapses, just as a myth disappears when historical truth invades it. The episode with Elena also reflected a certain stage in Goethe’s spiritual development, associated with his fascination with antiquity at the time of “Weimar classicism.” In the image of Euphorion - the son of Faust and Helen - Goethe captured Byron and his death in Greece, but in modern times.

Returning to the Middle Ages, he sees that Europe is engulfed in new battles. But Faust is not a warrior, he is a creator. He comes up with a plan to recapture part of the land from the sea. The global goal in his eyes justifies the death of those who interfere with him. The price of utopia is the life of two old men Philemon and Baucis, whose hut interferes with construction work. Their death is on Faust's conscience. But Faust himself also faces a sad ending. He is blind, he does not see that he is captive of Care - another symbolic image of tragedy. But he does not humble himself, does not stop even in the last hour. Faust's soul is saved because his life was spent striving for the infinite

Friedrich Schiller (1759 – 1805) - German poet, playwright, philosopher and historian. Being a subject of the Duke of Württemberg, Karl Eugene, the father was forced to send his son to the Charles Academy, where he, without much zeal, first studied law and then medicine. Schiller spent eight languid years (1773-1780) in this slave nursery, where espionage and surveillance of students reigned, communication with the outside world was strictly prohibited, and all students were subject to the strictest cane discipline.

Schiller began working on his first drama, The Robbers, while still at the academy. In 1781, the drama was completed, and on January 13, 1782, “The Robbers” was first shown on the stage of the Mannheim Theater. The performance was a huge success with the public. This was followed by triumphant performances in many other German cities.

The main character of the drama, Karl Moor, is a student, passionate, like the author, about the lives of the great men of Greece compiled by the historian Plutarch. He dreams of turning Germany into a republic. Karl Moor is Schiller's first hero, an idealist and enthusiast who dreams of the liberation of all humanity. His brother Franz is the complete opposite of him. A cynic who despises people, he slandered Karl. Franz imprisons his father and encroaches on the honor of his brother's fiancée Amalia.

Betrayed by his brother and cursed by his father at his instigation, Karl Moor becomes the leader of a detachment of robbers in order to administer justice by force of arms. Noble robbers, led by Charles, punish the criminal rich and protect the poor. However, violence soon intoxicates the robbers, and cruelty becomes a habit. Karl Moor realizes that it is impossible to correct the feast with atrocities, so he decides to surrender to the hands of justice. But since a generous reward has been promised for his capture, Karl wants some poor guy who needs money to hand him over. The finale reveals the characteristic evolution of Schiller's hero: if it is impossible to save all of humanity, we must try to help at least one unfortunate person.

The play “Cunning and Love” (1783) entered the history of world drama as the first “philistine tragedy.” In the drama “Cunning and Love” Schiller proved that tragic collisions are possible, and at times inevitable, in the life of a simple, modest person - a “philistine”, according to the concepts of that time.

Louise Miller, the daughter of a court musician, and Ferdinand von Walter, the son of the first minister, love each other. Ferdinand in his worldview is close to the temperamental heroes of Sturm and Drang. Inspired by love, he dreams of equality and justice. Their feeling causes the indignation of Ferdinand's father, who planned to marry his son to Lady Milford, the Duke's former mistress.

The love of Louise and Ferdinand is tragically doomed because it undermines the foundations of the established order, young heroes become victims of court intrigue.

From long oblivion, the ballad genre was revived by Goethe and Schiller, who entered into a friendly competition in creating ballads. Schiller's ballads are perceived as echoes of those ancient times, when various kinds of beliefs and traditions, adjacent to reality, merged into whimsical folklore images. Ballads most often speak not about any specific historical time, but about antiquity as such. Ballads attract and frighten with their outlandish, cruel plots, and shock with the inexplicable mysteries of nature.

Thus, in the ballad “Ivikov Cranes,” the poet conveys the idea of ​​the inevitability of retribution for the crime committed. If there are no witnesses to the crime among the people, then nature itself becomes the accuser, and the criminal will certainly give himself away.

In a number of ballads, the core of the plot is the test of the hero - a test of his courage, determination, courage. But if, as in “The Glove,” a person’s life is played with in jest, and they are ready to turn a faithful knight into the prey of wild beasts, then he has the right to commit an uncivil act - to reject a hard-hearted lady.

Throughout his career, drama remained Schiller's favorite genre. However, starting with Don Carlos (1787), the nature of his dramaturgy changes. Schiller subsequently writes in iambic pentameter, this is explained by the fact that all his subsequent dramatic works are based on historical material, which required strengthening of convention. Although each drama contains precise dating of events, Schiller recreates the story quite generally, and historical characters are interpreted quite freely.

The last decade of Schiller's career was especially fruitful in terms of dramaturgy. He creates such dramatic works as the Wallenstein trilogy (1799), the dramas Mary Stuart (1800), The Maid of Orleans (1801), and William Tell (1804).

19th century: romanticism, critical realism, decadence, impressionism

On July 14, 1789, a crowd of Parisians, inspired by the slogan “Freedom! Equality! Brotherhood!”, took the Bastille and freed the prisoners, of whom, however, there were very few in prison. This event became the practical embodiment of the ideology of the Enlightenment and the beginning of a new stage in world history. The storming of the Bastille was followed by a wave of protest against feudal despotism, which swept not only through the French provinces, but throughout Europe. From the ruins of absolutism in Paris, representatives of the big bourgeoisie (Girondists) came to power; they were replaced by revolutionary-minded Jacobins, who established bloody terror everywhere. In the name of equality and justice, the guillotine worked non-stop; instead of bread, the people were offered bloody spectacles. Then comes the “Napoleonic era” (1799 – 1814), the stage of wars begins, which the little corporal, who proclaimed himself emperor, waged with varying success. Napoleon changed the famous slogan, replacing the word "brotherhood" with "property." Romantics, for the most part, despised the bourgeois system, turning from modernity to the past.

Walter Scott (1771 - 1832) in the novels “The Puritans” (1816), “Rob Roy” (1818), “Ivanhoe” (1820), “Quentin Dorward” (1823) and others, was the first to show that the biography of the hero depends on the movement stories. The central character of his novels initially occupies an intermediate position in a political conflict, be it the struggle of the Normans with the Anglo-Saxons in Ivanhoe or the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in The Puritans. But neutrality is impossible, the hero is obliged to make his choice, and his subsequent biography depends on it.

Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885) in the novel “Notre Dame de Paris” (1831), the events of which take place at the end of the Middle Ages, showed the historical variability of consciousness. Readers of the novel, following how love is born from the hatred of the bell-ringer Quasimodo for the dancer Esmeralda, and the passion of Archdeacon Claude Frollo degenerates into the desire to take his beloved’s life, were surprised to learn that such a seemingly eternal feeling as love is historically changeable, that in the distant past In the past, people loved differently than in the time of romanticism.

The Romantics awakened widespread interest in history and folklore. In their works they often relied on the traditions of oral folk art. The fairy tale has become a canon for novelists. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776 - 1822), Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849), Hans Christian Andersen (1805 - 1875) composed fairy tales or stories in which magicians and wizards, fairies and evil witches acted. The real world clearly acquired two poles - good and evil collided in moral combat. However - and this was another significant discovery of the romantics - doubles were also found in the main character of the fairy-tale short story; he alternated between a selfless good man and an insidious villain. The romantics noticed the inconsistency of personality and tried to explain the character’s actions by the duality of his consciousness.

Romantics were not satisfied with the Enlightenment understanding of the purpose of art as a means of achieving a reasonable, just world order. Faith in the power of transformative reason was undermined by the events of 1789–1794. As a result of the revolution, instead of the kingdom of reason promised by the Enlightenment philosophers, the era of the ideology of money began.

In the ideas of the romantics, reason was identified with pragmatism, therefore the cult of feelings was opposed to the enlightenment apotheosis of rationalism. The Romantics focused on human experiences that expressed unique individuality. Ideas are universal; feelings are unique. By recreating the world of passions, the romantics defended the unique value of the individual from the onslaught of bourgeois business relations.

The Romantics endowed their hero with a creative gift: a poet, musician, artist, with the power of his imagination and fantasy, recreated a world that only vaguely resembled reality. Myth, fairy tale, legends and traditions, fantastic dreams and dreams of future world harmony formed the basis of romantic art. Among thinkers and poets, a desire arose to make a revolution in the sphere of spiritual life. The romantics tried to act and create as if in defiance of reality. Ignoring reality with all its insoluble contradictions, they made an illusory attempt to exist in the sphere of artistic contemplation and creation. This is where the main postulates of romanticism stem: the world surrounding the poet is not worthy of his embodiment in artistic creativity. The poet rises above reality. Making pilgrimages in space, he discovers strange, exotic countries or, rushing his imagination to long-past historical eras, recreates their image for his contemporaries. But the artist’s main creative impulse is directed towards himself; he discovers emotional and aesthetic wealth within himself, which gives his creations the equivalent value of the universe. The artist is the bearer of the microcosm; the entire universe is contained within him.

English poet and playwright George Gordon Noel Byron (1788 - 1829), who became the idol of all romantically minded readers, whose work and biography became the personification of romanticism.

Byron's poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (1812-1818) brought recognition. It marked the discovery of the genre and the hero. Reflecting in the poem his own impressions of traveling to Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece and Turkey, Byron found for it the form of a lyric-epic narrative, at the center of which is a hero who is in insurmountable discord with the entire social order. Childe Harold appeared as the first image of romantic restless wanderers and superfluous people.

Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856) called himself the last poet of romanticism and its first critic.

The Book of Songs consists of four sections. "Youthful Sorrows" opens it. This is the most romantic section. The experiences are caused by the pangs of unrequited love. They plunge the lyrical hero into despair, sleep and reality, life and death struggle in his mind. The poet's double perceives his tragedy as the only one in the world.

The feeling that the hero is experiencing “an old but eternally new story” also permeates the second section of the “Book of Songs” - “Lyrical Intermezzo”. This reconciles the sufferer with life. Dejection gives way to light sadness. This cycle includes a poem about Pine and Palm. In Lermontov's translation, the aspiration for love disappeared.

In the third section, entitled “Returning to the Homeland,” the love experiences of youth are presented from a temporary distance; the past excites, but forces us to comprehend it rather than relive it again. Heine uses the traditional travel motif: the disappointed lyrical hero left his native place and now, having returned, looks at the familiar with an enlightened gaze. His youthful sufferings are as dear to him as memories.

The cycle “Return to the Homeland” includes Heine’s most famous lyric poem, dedicated to the fabulous Rhineland beauty Lorelei. A poetic folk legend about a sorceress who bewitches everyone who sails along the Rhine near a high cliff has long existed in German folklore. Heine gave him such wide fame that his poem became a folk song. Heine interprets the image of Lorelei not as a mysterious reality, but as a charming fiction. In the first two cycles of the Book of Songs, the beloved was portrayed as insidious and hard-hearted.

In the third cycle, starting with this poem, the perception of passion changes. Lorelei embodies the destructive power of love, which she is endowed with against her will. It is not the beloved who is to blame for heartache, but love itself - a complex, incomprehensible, mysterious feeling. In this, the poet approaches the prose of critical realists, who recreated the dialectic of feelings in the novel.

Gradually, from cycle to cycle, the analytical principle of Heine’s poetry intensifies, becoming dominant in the last section of the “Book of Songs” - “The North Sea”. The lyrical hero, having experienced disappointment and loss, now strives to live one life with nature, to feel like a small but necessary part of the universe. Empty reasoning seems pointless to him; he has gotten rid of romantic dreams and visions.

The title of the central poem is symbolic - “Shipwreck”.

Heinrich Heine began recording his impressions of his trip to the Harz at the end of October of that year in Göttingen, and then he wrote essays about his travels to Italy and England. This is how the “Book of Pictures” (1830) gradually emerged.

In “Travel Pictures” the author gets acquainted with the way of life of countries that were at different stages of social development at that time. By comparing the bourgeois laws of the British capital with the patriarchal customs of German villages lost in the mountains or the ancient way of life of Italian cities, Heine makes visible historical progress, noting not only technical improvement, but moral losses.

While traveling, Heine indulges in childhood and adolescent memories, reflects on the fate of Napoleon and its reflection in literature, he is concerned with the works of Shakespeare, Goethe and Byron, and he creates picturesque landscape sketches. Having visited the mines in Harz, Heine writes with regret about the frozen way of life of the miners and their families, about the hard work of the miners and about their social humiliation.

In “Travel Pictures,” the author’s humorous talent was revealed in all its brilliance. Heine paints magnificent satirical portraits of self-righteous philistines, laughs at fussy scientists and idle student revelers, conveying their essence through external descriptions. The appearance of the satirical characters is clearly absurd, just as the life ideas of these people are absurd. For example, a certain philosopher and bookseller is presented dressed “in a tight, transcendentally gray frock coat,” and then the satirist states that “the hard and chilling features of his face could serve as a drawing for a geometry textbook”!

The political orientation of Heine’s work was especially clearly manifested in his poem “Germany. Winter's Tale."

Heinrich Heine was destined to spend the last thirteen years of his life in excruciating suffering caused by tabes spinal cord. On sleepless nights, he composed poems without losing his good spirits and sense of humor. Turning to the Lord God, he passionately asked why the Almighty was torturing the merry poet, because it was, at least, illogical to torment the smartest of humorists in this way. God, as always, remained silent.

At the end of the first third of the nineteenth century, the position of romanticism weakened. The revolutionary spirit of the romantics in a society striving for bourgeois stability seems too aggressive, the eloquence of the romantics does not inspire the public too much and seems pompous, the pomp and luxury of forms makes skeptics smile. Gradually, realism in the perception of reality is being established in art.

For realist writers, the emerging new class of owners, businessmen, financiers and simply swindlers makes them want to comprehend it as a new socio-psychological phenomenon. However, the realists themselves are not aware of their fundamental differences with the romantics.

The first French realist Frederic Stendhal (1783 - 1842) considered himself a romantic and gave the following definition of the romantic method: “Romanticism is the art of giving people such works that, given the current state of their customs and beliefs, can give them the greatest pleasure.”

The realist Stendhal focuses on modernity in the novels “The Red and the Black” (1830) and “The Monastery of Parma” (1839), recreating in them the type of young man whose consciousness was formed during the Napoleonic period.

In realism, the dominant genre is the novel of education, which is the story of a young man who has noble inclinations, strives for success in life, makes a career, gradually parting with romantic illusions. These are the novels of F. Stendhal and Honore de Balzac, the novel by Gustave Flaubert “Education of Sentiments” (1869), this is indicated by the very names of the novels of Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870): “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” (1838), “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" (1839), "The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" (1844). It is no coincidence that the names of the heroes are included in the titles of Dickens's novels; the author thoroughly examines the impact of real circumstances (“adventures”) on the development of the personality of his ward hero.

The most outstanding achievements of the early stage of critical realism are associated with the work of Honore de Balzac (1799 - 1850).

In 1829, the historical novel “Chouans” was published, the plot of which was based on a real conflict between the Republican Convention and the rebel aristocrats, as well as the backward patriarchal peasantry of the Vendée department in the north of the country that supported them. The novel brought success to the writer, and this time he did not hide his authorship. Then, one after another, works by Balzac appeared, depicting the mores of private life during the Restoration. These are “The House of the Cat Playing Ball” (1830), “Gobsek” (1830), “Shagreen Skin” (1830), “Eugenia Grande” (1833) and, finally, “Père Goriot” (1834). The last novel began to be called the central platform of the “Human Comedy”, since all the main characters of Balzac gathered here. While working on this novel, the author comes up with the idea of ​​combining everything previously written and already conceived. Only in 1839 did he decide to call the grandiose epic “The Human Comedy”, which was supposed to consist of three sections: “Philosophical Sketches”, “Analytical Sketches” and “Studies of Morals”. Balzac intended to write more than one hundred and forty works, but he wrote about a hundred.

In Philosophical Studies, Balzac sought to create generalized formulas for the existence of a contemporary in the conditions of the formation of bourgeois relations. All novels and stories in this section are characterized by the use of fantastic situations that help Balzac achieve a realistic generalization.

The fiction of philosophical studies expands the boundaries of human existence and gives the hero additional opportunities for self-realization. In fact, the plot of the novel “Shagreen Skin” is somewhat akin to a fairy tale: a mysterious talisman satisfies every desire of the hero. But in a fairy tale there would be all kinds of wallets with an endless supply of gold coins, invisible hats and other attributes of the well-being of the good fairies’ favorite. Not so with Balzac. A talisman is a talisman, but the hero’s enrichment occurs according to the laws of bourgeois society: an impoverished aristocrat unexpectedly receives an inheritance. And then Balzac transfers the conflict into the inner world of the hero, and not even just Raphael, but equally many of his other peers, because Rastignac, Lucien Chardon, and Charles Grandet could say to themselves: “Desire burns us, but to be able - destroys.” “Shagreen Skin”, “Elixir of Longevity”, “Unknown Masterpiece” - these are parables about the great price that one has to pay for satisfied ambition.

One of the most typical heroes of The Human Comedy is, of course, Eugene de Rastignac. In "Père Goriot" he is the second main character. Arriving from the provinces in Paris, he sets himself the goal of conquering the capital, for this he tries to succeed both in the sciences, by entering the Sorbonne, and in the world, where he penetrates thanks to aristocratic family connections. For Balzac, the poverty of an aristocrat is a natural drama of the era, experienced by his character with genuine sincerity. But, overcoming my own sensitivity. Rastignac turns into a calculating cynic, becoming synonymous with success during the Restoration era.

In the story “The Banking House of Nucingen,” wealth comes to Rastignac. Finding out the stock price from his mistress Delphine Nusingen, he successfully plays on the stock exchange. By the way, the Alsatian Baron Nucingen, who became a Parisian banker, acts in a number of Balzac’s novels, however, not too often becoming the hero of the first or even the second plan. He is an important person, but an episodic one. But let's return to Rastignac. In the novels “Lost Illusions”, “The Splendor and Poverty of Courtesans” Rastignac appears more than once, highlighting with his victories the failures of Lucien Chardon, who is in many ways similar to him, even much more talented, but was defeated in the battle for success by his yesterday’s friends and patrons. Why did Eugene de Rastignac become the winner, and Lucien Chardon the loser? Balzac gives a clear answer to this question: the first quickly said goodbye to illusions, the second tried to combine the world of poetic dreams and commerce.

Balzac's heroes are perceived as living people, because the writer skillfully combines the ordinary, typical and exceptional in them. This is the strength of Balzac's realism.

In place of realism of the Balzac type, a more objective style of writing is being established, characteristic of the prose of Gustave Flaubert (1821 - 1880), and then Guy de Maupassant (1850 - 1893). The author of the novel Madame Bovary (1856) shuns moralizing, advocates for the objectivity of the narrative, and strives not to express his attitude towards characters and events. Maupassant also adopted this manner of a cold observer. At the same time, Flaubert pays considerable attention to the physical side of existence. In his work, Emma Bovary, entangled in adultery and falling into the clutches of a creditor, commits suicide by taking arsenic. Flaubert recreates in detail the agony of the heroine. He did not neglect physiological details in the novels “Life” (1883), “Dear Friend” (1885) and numerous short stories by Maupassant. However, the closest convergence with the achievements of the natural sciences is found in the work of Emile Zola (1840 - 1902).

As has been noted more than once, the renewal of art occurs with the emergence of a new term. “Naturalism” became such a key concept for Emile Zola.

As an analytical writer, Emile Zola was perhaps the first to notice and in his novels to reveal the connection between the main interacting forces that form the fundamental basis of bourgeois society: politics, the press, finance. He made the large Rougon-Macquart family dependent on them, some of whose representatives succeeded in these fields, others were pushed out of the rut of life by the same forces.

Work on Rougon-Macquart lasted a quarter of a century (1868 – 1893). All twenty novels take place either in Paris or Plassans. Events take place over a period of twenty years (1851 – 1871).

In the twenty novels of the series, there are 32 representatives of the bifurcated Rougon-Macquart family, with a total of about two thousand characters. The family tree of heroes began to grow in the first of the novels conceived by Emile Zola - “The Rougons' Career” (1871). This is the exposition and setup of the entire series.

Adelaide Fuc, the owner of a rich estate in Plassans, was engaged in vegetable gardening and gardening. At the age of eighteen she married her gardener Rougon. A year later she gave birth to a son, Pierre, and a year later she was widowed. In 1789, in full view of Plassans, she cohabited with the drunkard Macquart, a hot-tempered, unbalanced tramp. From him she gave birth to a son, Antoine, and a daughter, Ursula. In her youth she was strange, but in her old age she went crazy.

Plassans is located far from Paris, news comes here late, and sometimes in distorted light. The Rougon family is closely following the events in the capital, so as not to be late to enroll themselves in the ranks of the allies of Bonaparte and his party.

The most successful in the Rougon family was the eldest son Eugene, whose career is dedicated to the novel “His Excellency Eugene Rougon” (1875). Cleverly compromising and eliminating opponents, he penetrates government circles, is elected as a deputy, appointed Minister of the Interior, fights the press, and becomes the support of the emperor himself.

Zola assigns the role of researcher and chronicler of the entire family to Pierre's middle son Pascal Rougon. It is Pascal, having scrupulously studied the Rougon-Macquart clan, who draws the conclusion about the omnipotent power of heredity, about the biological doom of all descendants of the Plassans gardener. A doctor and scientist, for whom Zola has noticeable sympathy, he is the main character of the novel Doctor Pascal (1893).

David Rougon, in order to disguise his closeness to his minister brother, took the surname Saccard. Already in its very sound one can hear the crunch of banknotes. “Yes, with such a name you will either end up in hard labor, or you will make millions,” it is said about this in “Extraction.” David managed to avoid retribution for speculation. The main character of the novels “Prey” (1871) and “Money” (1891), David Saccard, experiences a greedy lust for money. By creating a fake company, issuing fake shares, and building something like a pyramid, he managed to pocket a huge fortune. The prototype of David Saccard was the banker Rothschild.

The history of the Rougon family is a slippery slope into high society, while the history of the Macquarts reflects mainly the life of the lower and middle strata of French society after Napoleon III came to power.

Emile Zola constantly alternated social canvases with paintings recreating the chamber world of intimate experiences. Among his best lyrical novels are “The Page of Love” (1877), “The Joy of Life” (1883).

The novel “Germinal” (1885) is one of the most striking works in the Rougon-Macquart family chronicle. In this novel, the natural history of the family fades into the background, since the writer, despite his commitment to naturalism, focuses all his attention on the social conflict, foreseeing that the political struggle for many subsequent decades will predetermine the social life of not only France, but also the entire civilization. Although the workers are defeated, Germinal is the month of growth according to the revolutionary calendar! - foreshadows the coming triumph of social justice.

Symbolism

Symbolist poets rejected moralizing in art and shocked people with obvious indecency. A. Rimbaud writes the sonnet “Lice Seekers”, earlier Charles Baudelaire published the poem “Carrion”.

In real life, the decadents led a bohemian lifestyle, demonstrated immorality, flaunted promiscuity, believing that by creating a masterpiece in art, they would justify all their vices.

The works of Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) were considered decadent in English criticism.

Wilde is a master of paradoxes. Paradox is an opinion that contradicts the generally accepted. The paradox does not affirm new truths, but makes one doubt trivial assessments.

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin. They say that the wittiest English writers are Irish. Swift, Shaw and Wilde are proof of this. After graduating from Oxford University, he became a professional writer. In addition to poetry, fairy tales and plays, Wilde gave lectures on home decoration and fashion, and edited the magazine Women's World. He married in 1884 and had a devoted wife and two sons. Wilde professed the principles of dandyism: to surprise without being surprised, to despise the crowd, to shock the audience with an extravagant costume, to worship beauty, and not to say anything banal. Oscar Wilde is a brilliant master of paradoxes. His opinions are always witty. Here are some of his paradoxes:

Only superficial people are destined to understand themselves;

The purpose of life is self-expression;

To love yourself is to have a lifelong romance;

The only thing I don't regret is my mistakes;

Democracy means the suppression of the people by the people in the name of the people;

In exams, fools ask questions that wise men cannot answer...

The plot of the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1891) is paradoxical. The handsome young man complains that he will grow old and ugly, but in the portrait he will remain young. The portrait and the model swapped places. Dorian gains eternal youth, and all his terrible life experiences are imprinted on the portrait. Dorian becomes invulnerable and therefore unpunished. He kills the artist who painted the portrait so that he does not find out the fatal secret; through his fault, the actress with whom he was infatuated dies. He brings grief to those around him, and his life becomes meaningless. When many years later he saw his portrait, a disgusting, angry old man looked at him. Rushing at the portrait with a knife, Dorian killed himself.

Oscar Wilde tried to create an aesthetic utopia, a kingdom of beauty. But in the end, the novel, contrary to theory, showed that art without morality is impossible. Wilde himself was put in prison by strict guardians of morality, where he wrote his confession “De profundis” (“From the depths I cry to Thee, O Lord” - the beginning of Psalm 129). He repented of many things, regretted his mistakes, and argued that the cult of beauty is impossible in a merchant society.

20th century: realism, modernism, postmodernism

Although the late nineteenth century saw a major attack on realism, it remains the dominant movement in art and literature. This is explained by the very nature of fine art, poetry, prose and drama. Whatever views the author holds, he is more or less oriented towards reality. Even in the case where a purely personal perception is advocated in a work, and the author’s creation is frankly subjective in nature, one should not forget that the writer or painter is himself a particle of the real world.

Heinrich Mann (1871 - 1950) was born in the ancient Hanseatic city of Lübeck. My father, like my grandfather, was elected to the position of senator. The Mann family was engaged in wholesale grain trading.

His literary debut was the novel The Promised Land (1900). drew caricatures of the Berlin nouveau riche who amassed enormous capital through financial scams.

The next satirical novel is called "Teacher Unrath" (1905) by Heinrich Mann. The surname of the high school literature teacher is Rat, but the high school students, who fiercely hate their mentor, nicknamed him Unrat, adding a negative particle, so the nickname began to mean “dung,” “sewage,” and other abominations. In a provincial town, a teacher is a prominent figure. He taught literature for many years, instilling a persistent hatred of all German classics and fear of the teacher.

Heinrich Mann was fascinated by the paradoxical situation of how a nonentity, by the will of circumstances, becomes a tyrant. But the guardian of morality in his old age fell in love with a cafe-chic, vulgar singer who agreed to become Frau Unrath. The school authorities could no longer turn a blind eye to the pranks of the apologist of Schiller and Goethe and expelled him from the educational institution. But yesterday's guardian of morality becomes a molester of his former pupils in his own house, turned into a brothel. Died in America on March 12.

Thomas Mann (1875 – 1955). The author of "Buddenbrooks" (1901) was recognized as a classic of German literature immediately after the publication of the novel, which was based on family legends. T. Mann recreated the biography of four generations of the burgher clan.

Johann Buddenbrook Sr. made his fortune, like Balzac's Father Goriot, during the Napoleonic wars, supplying the Prussian army with fodder and bread. A man of skeptical mind, endowed with business acumen, he is successful in commerce and happy in family. However, it is no coincidence that the novel has the subtitle “The Story of the Death of a Family,” because alien shoots are discovered in the Buddenbrook family on their family tree.

Johann's son Gotthold disdained the family business, broke away from the clan, made a misalliance, and also squandered his part of the inheritance. This is the first blow to the Buddenbrooks, from which they will be able to recover, for affairs are carefully managed by Johann Buddenbrook Jr., whose children - Antonia and Thomas - were to become central characters in the family chronicle.

From childhood, Toni realized her responsibility to her family. She did not dare to marry for love, without the consent of her parents. Toni finds joy in obeying her parents' will, but she is destined to experience disappointment in her marriage twice. Charming Toni lived a life full of disappointments, obedience turned into moral defeat.

Thomas Buddenbrook is a man of duty. He becomes the head of the company, since his brother Christian, a clown and actor, is not capable of conducting business. For his father and grandfather, wholesale grain trading was a natural occupation, for Thomas it is a duty, he must force himself to engage in commerce. As soon as he became imbued with the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer, all his efforts to maintain the authority of the company were in vain.

Thomas Buddenbrook, like the author's father, was married to a beautiful Latin American musician. The only son of Thomas and Gerda was named after his great-grandfather Johann. His home name is Ganno. He is the last in his family and intuitively feels it. Deprived of the will to live, he lives in the world of his dreams and music. An ordinary childhood illness turned out to be fatal for him, because in his nature there is no reserve of vitality.

Thomas Mann noted that Buddenbrooks was created in the tradition of naturalism. He believed that the family, like a living organism, arises, develops and fades away. The historical reason for the Buddenbrooks' departure into oblivion is that the burgher class is being supplanted by the bourgeois class, whose aggressiveness the patriarchal Buddenbrooks cannot resist.

An equally important reason for the death of the family, according to Thomas Mann, was that in the depths of the Buddenbrooks were born artists, musicians, actors, philosophers, alien to pragmatism, incapable of commerce and financial transactions. It is characteristic that the risky project that Thomas Buddenbrook tried to implement leads to the collapse of the company just on the eve of its anniversary.

Thomas Mann, in his short stories “Pagliacci” (1897), “Tristan” (1901), and “Death in Venice” (1913), was worried about the internal confrontation between a restless artist and a respectable burgher. He contrasted the social and family virtues of the law-abiding burgher with the bohemian genius, who is alien to pragmatism, serving art. Was it not revenge that overtook him in Venice for his deliberate seclusion from the diversity of life?

Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1955) is an outstanding German playwright, drama theorist, director, novelist and poet. He studied at the University of Munich, studying literature and philosophy, and then medicine. In 1918, he was mobilized into the army and served as an orderly in one of the hospitals in Augsburg. The politically active young man was elected a member of the soldiers' council. From 1919 to 1923 he resumed his studies at the University of Munich.

The Threepenny Opera (1928) was a triumphant success. He used the plot of “The Beggar's Opera” by the English playwright John Gay, written two hundred years ago. Brecht brought to the stage the inhabitants of London's bottom and robbers, beggars and representatives of the most ancient profession, not so that the viewer would lament their plight, which forced them to take a disastrous path. Brecht's scum are just as much businessmen as the representatives of the City of London. They have their own companies and their businesses are thriving. Begging is the same profession as trading on the stock exchange. The author equated the world of crime and respectability.

The most important principle of Brechtian art is “alienation.” Familiar life and literary collisions always appear in Brecht's epic plays from an unexpected perspective. This was meant to stimulate the viewer or reader's thoughts.

The pinnacle of Brecht's dramaturgy was the drama “The Life of Galileo” (first edition 1939, second edition 1946). The hero of the play, the great scientist Galileo Galilei, frightened by the Inquisition, renounces his discovery. The essence of the drama lies in the dialogue between Galileo and his student Andrea Sarti. The student accuses the teacher: “Unhappy is the country that has no heroes.” The teacher retorts: “No! Unhappy is the country that needs heroes.” Galileo's discovery, which turned the entire solar system upside down, liberated the Renaissance personality, freeing man from divine tutelage. But freedom is dangerous, and Galileo himself was the first to realize this. The great thinker, as Brecht portrays him, is self-interested, cunning, and cowardly.

The play “The Life of Galileo” unfolds not only the tragedy of the great astronomer and mathematician, but also the tragedy of all humanity as a whole. Galileo, as an inventor and scientist, turned out to be inferior to his discovery in purely human moral qualities.

Erich Maria Remarque (1898 - 1970) as a seventeen-year-old boy, immediately after graduating from high school, went to the front, where he was wounded five times. After the war, he taught for a short time in the provinces, then moved to Berlin. At a time of severe inflation, one had to take on any job. Then he passed on these professions - teacher, race car driver, organist in a mental hospital church, cemetery granite workshop worker, journalist - to his heroes. Remarque, who returned from the war, wrote the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, stunning in its truthfulness. The author appeared in it not just as an eyewitness to what happened, but as a participant and victim.

Young people who found themselves at the front lived, resisting the authorities, defending their right to exist on this land. They were turned into the likeness of cattle. Deprived of normal living conditions, they are only concerned with eating more and sleeping longer before they are sent to the front line. If the stomachs are full of food, then everything is fine. But these seemingly dehumanized soldiers, accustomed to everything, remain human. When Paul Bäumer tells his story, he almost always says “we.” He does not separate himself from his former classmates.

Remarque showed the war from the trenches. He contrasted traditional battle romance with the truth of an ordinary honest person who is forced to kill in order not to be killed. Remarque said this most clearly in the episode where the main character Paul Bäumer, without hesitation, kills a French soldier with a knife, and then spends painful hours next to the corpse, when Bäumer, against his will, already perceives the unknown enemy soldier as a close person, his peer. Paul Bäumer himself would be killed on one of the last days of the war. And in the front-line reports the faceless phrase will appear: “No change on the Western Front.”

Books about those who did not return from the front or returned physically and spiritually crippled began to be called the literature of the “lost generation.” Remarque's books are on a par with E. Hemingway's novels A Farewell to Arms and Death of a Hero. These writers showed the spiritual and physical drama of the young men sent to the front by their rulers.

In 1933, the Nazis threw their books into the fire. Remarque moved to America in 1939. “Three Comrades” (1939) was written during the period of wanderings. Although the words “fascism” or “Nazism” are not found in the text, the novel predicted a sad future for the “lost generation.”

In the twenties and thirties, the word “comrade” in different languages ​​meant a comrade in the party and class struggle. Remarque returned the word “comrade” to its original meaning. Robert Lokamp, ​​on whose behalf the story is told, has two friends: Otto Kästner and Gottfried Lenz. They are the three comrades. They have a common car workshop, where they restore cars that miraculously did not end up in a landfill.

They will not give offense to the person who is next to them, much less a comrade. Remarque's tough guys are alien to global humanism, they are simply decent and strong people, and their help is always concrete. The heroes of the “lost generation” are restrained and ironic with women; their sensuality precedes their feelings. In “Three Comrades,” and in Remarque’s other books, passion grows gradually, and at some point the hero realizes that love is the greatest value, that only for this is it worth living. However, for Remarque, happiness is doomed to be short-lived.

Remarque's novels Love Thy Neighbor (1940) and Arc de Triomphe (1946) are the misadventures of fugitives who miraculously escaped the clutches of the Gestapo.

The main character of the novel “A Time to Live and a Time to Die” (1954), vacationer Graeber, comes to his hometown on leave in the spring of 1945, but cannot find either his home or the street he has known since childhood - everything is in ruins. The parents probably died during the bombing. There is a short flash of passion. He convinces Elizabeth to marry him, because he knows for sure that he will die, so at least let her receive a widow’s pension. The hero has lost faith in Nazi ideology, he is preparing to go over to the side of the Russians. But at this decisive moment he dies from a partisan bullet. Remarque sought to say that anyone who finds himself between opposing forces at the time of historical cataclysms is doomed. Political antagonism kills the thinking person.

When people talk about modernism, the names of outstanding writers of the twentieth century are invariably mentioned. Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922), Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924) each in their own way changed the idea of ​​the world, man and literature. Unlike realist writers, who knew their characters thoroughly, the heroes of their novels represent a mysterious riddle for the authors themselves, which they try to decipher together with the reader. As a result, the text of the novel is like an unfinished sketch, fundamentally associative, chaotic, as if born in the presence of the reader.

The main motive of M. Proust’s multi-volume epic “In Search of Lost Time” (1913 – 1927) is human memory. Marcel - the hero's name is the same as the author - is doomed to reclusion due to illness. He tries to live his life again in the process of writing. These are memoirs about yourself and those around you, since they are imprinted in your memory with some little things and details.

Franz Kafka composed the myths himself. He acted as a myth-maker; the texts of his works represent an original code, which is not so easy to unravel.

Franz Kafka's misfortune in life was that he found himself between nations, classes, cultures, and religions. Being a Jew by nationality, he had little in common with the Jewish religious community. The commercial interests of his father were alien to him: the son of a merchant, he became a bourgeois official, and this, of course, was not his calling. Due to his official duties, he encountered workers every day, but his sympathy for them could not overcome the dividing distance. The writer's native language was German, which inevitably separated him from the Czech population of Prague. Among the Germans and Austrians close to the imperial government, he could not and did not want to become one of them. The disease - a severe form of tuberculosis - increased the alienation. For these reasons, Kafka lived as if in a solitary ghetto. This is largely where the author’s passion for introspection stems. He hated his loneliness, was tormented and suffered from the fact that he was unsociable and unloved, but he could not part with his usual painful loneliness. For him it was the only way of existence and the main theme of creativity.

“The Trial” is the central book of F. Kafka, which he began to write in 1914. In “The Trial” the world is a closed space, the building has been erected, and all its corridors and dead ends have been traversed by the hero. The test of mind, feelings and conscience ended in defeat. The artistic vision and the author's logic acquire comprehensive completeness here, although, of course, this universality is imaginary.

“Someone apparently slandered Josef K., because without doing anything wrong, he was arrested,” - this was the beginning of the process. “The process has begun,” the famous politician will later say, not suspecting that he is quoting Kafka. Josef K., a prominent bank official, was arrested on his thirtieth birthday, and guards appeared at his bedside as soon as he woke up. Everything is unusual about this arrest and the trial that followed. The arrested person is not charged with anything, and they do not even try to create the appearance of guilt. But at the same time, innocence is rejected in principle. After the act of arrest, the accused is left free; more precisely, the beginning of the process should not interfere with leading a normal life and performing everyday duties. This is permissible, because the law is omnipotent, and “guilt itself attracts justice to itself.”

Joseph K. draws himself into the sphere of action of a mysterious and incomprehensible law. It’s a paradox, but an attempt at justification becomes an admission of guilt. During the year there is a violent destruction of personality. In Josef K.'s struggle with the instigators and organizers of the trial, a fatal outcome is inevitable. During the trial, as the lawyer explains, “the bet is on the accused himself,” but the very beginning of the process affects a person from the inside, paralyzes his strength, makes him subject to the court.

The core of Franz Kafka's novella is the separation of man from people. “Metamorphosis” (1914) is the most famous story by F. Kafka. Painful thoughts about one’s own fate and the fate of compatriots and contemporaries spilled out here into a pessimistic, frightening narrative. The first meeting with the executive, disciplined traveling salesman Gregor Samsa occurs when two extraordinary incidents occur. Gregor, due to oversleeping, missed the train on his next work trip, so now an inevitable menacing reprimand is expected. But the second one is much worse. A modest young man, a loving son and brother, a diligent company employee turned into an arthropod monster. The author does not explain how and why he turned into an insect; the ominous metamorphosis is not motivated by Kafka: it happened. All that remains is to accept this and monitor the consequences of what happened. As for neglect of official duties, retribution will come immediately here too. A trivial tardiness is enough for the manager to appear himself to find out the reasons and reprimand him. Kafka's hero is among the “little people”; he is akin to Bashmachkin or Makar Devushkin. Worries, downtroddenness, confusion, scanty joys show that the hero is somewhere at the foot of the hierarchical ladder. Transformation into an insect is a metaphor for his socio-psychological state.

In 1924, Andre Breton (1896 - 1966) published the “Manifesto of Surrealism”, the main provisions of which were as follows: the embodiment of the subconscious, dreams as the subject of images, miracles and accidents as plot-formers. The aphorism of A. Breton, who stated that art begins when a sewing machine meets an umbrella on the operating table, has become widely used.

Theorists of surrealism preferred visual arts over verbal ones. The poet was required to compose without thinking, when a wave of dreams and hallucinations rushes over him, which he is called upon to register, without bringing anything from himself. Painting and literature expressed the “collective unconscious.” The theoretical postulate found its expression in the joint composition of poetry and prose, for example, the cycle of poems “Slow down the work” (1930), written jointly by P. Eluard, A. Breton and R. Char.

During the period of the occupation of Paris by the German Nazis, French culture experienced an extraordinary flowering. Novels by J.-P. are published. Sartre and A. Camus. Their plays are staged on the most prestigious French stages. During the war years, pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry composed the fairy tale “The Little Prince”. Georges Simenon continues to write crime stories about the investigations of Commissioner Maigret. What is the reason for such an intense flowering of French art? The explanation for the phenomenon is obvious: all figures of French culture were associated with the Resistance movement. Fighting the fascist regime imposed on the French, writers and journalists, painters and theater workers defended national values ​​and fought to preserve the humanistic traditions of French democracy.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) gained fame in the circles of the French intelligentsia as a philosopher and prose writer in the pre-war years; during the period of the fight against fascism, he became one of the pillars of the Resistance, an ideologist of the left intelligentsia, who adopted the concept of existentialism, developed and promoted by him in journalism, drama and prose.

The main pathos of existentialism as a philosophy of existence is intended to help the individual overcome the despair of solitary existence and make the right choice for himself. Having abolished the idea of ​​God the creator, Sartre and his like-minded people gave man the freedom to be himself. But freedom - existentialists emphasize - is, first of all, responsibility. What is a person? This is a lump of plasma in the universe. However, you must always act as if the eyes of the world are fixed on you. “For existentialists,” Sartre instructed, “man cannot be defined because he initially represents nothing. He becomes a man only later, and the kind of man he makes himself.” One of the key concepts of existentialism is choice. Throughout his existence, a person chooses himself, his loved ones and his antagonists. Everyone has freedom of choice, because a person is condemned to be free, he is responsible for all his achievements. One of the tasks of literature in this regard is to warn against making the wrong choice.

Sartre's hero is anti-bourgeois. He does not accept bourgeois values ​​and the very way of life of the middle class. This was stated in the novel Nausea (1938). His hero Antoine Roquentin is the complete opposite of the characters of Balzac or Stendhal. He doesn't want to make a career. As a small rentier, he is wealthy; as an intellectual, he satisfies his ambitions by doing biographical research about the Marquis Rollebon, who became one of the victims of the Jacobins. Studying sources in the library, from time to time he makes forays into a provincial town, where respectable inhabitants make him feel sick with their arrogance and mediocrity. His communication with people always occurs tangentially: having come into contact with a casual acquaintance, colleague, mistress or lover, he immediately hurries to retreat away. For Sartre's hero, freedom is synonymous with loneliness.

In the story “Herostratus” from the same collection, Sartre focuses on the character to whom the definition of “none” is most suitable. He, like the hero of Camus’s novel “The Stranger,” written a little later, is a stranger among people. He has no contact with neighbors, co-workers or women. Alienation turns into hatred. Armed with a revolver, he shoots random passers-by on the street, asserting himself through violence. The modern Herostratus believes that the crime he committed will glorify him at least for some time.

In the allegorical play "Flies", written on the plot of Aeschylus's "Oresteia", the inhabitants of Argos must be freed from a horde of biting flies by the son of Agamemnon. Punishment was sent down to the inhabitants of Argos for the murder of the king. They accepted both the crime and the punishment. The inhabitants of Argos are passive, they do not care whether freedom or oppression, they have become accustomed to the flies, who play the grotesque role of the Erinyes in the play. Orestes is an avenger, Orestes is a liberator, but Orestes' heroism is another bloody violence.

In the post-war years, Sartre’s philosophical dramas “Only the Truth”, “The Respectful Slut”, “The Recluses of Altona” were staged in Paris, Rome, London and Moscow. Sartre created problematic and urgent dramas. “The Hermits of Altona,” which was filmed by Italian director Vittorio de Sica, was especially popular in the 60s.

The action takes place in the Hamburg suburb of Altona in the Gerlach family, which owns a powerful shipbuilding company that employs one hundred thousand workers. Old Gerlach has his own philosophy of life - to build at all costs and thereby serve his government, and who is in it (even the upstart Hitler), what his policy is is not important. This is a unique understanding of life's duty. Gerlach is self-critical, the vulnerability of his life principles is obvious to him, but the criminal lie must be hidden deeper, which is why he so skillfully plays out the tragic farce of the imaginary death of his eldest son. The atmosphere in the Gerlach house is tense, the viewer awaits the inevitable appearance of a voluntary prisoner - Franz von Gerlach.

The fifteen-year seclusion of a former officer of Hitler's Wehrmacht is the ideological core of the play. The situation is generally artificial. The main reason for self-isolation is the reluctance to participate in modern life, an attempt to preserve the memory of the destroyed post-war Germany. Franz is a madman, but he only plays at madness, trying to get rid of his too sober consciousness, from memory, from war. Franz knows that he has a terrible criminal guilt, but he does not recognize the right to judge him with the official authorities, who are no less guilty than him. Hence the multiplicity of this most complex image arises: Franz is his own accused, judge and defender, himself a prisoner and himself a jailer. You can’t help but compare the Gerlach family to a ball of snakes: everyone hates each other, but presses closer to each other to sting. A common guilt binds them. Franz loves and hates his father, feeling like his double - after all, everything that Franz did was provoked by his father.

Albert Camus (1913 – 1960) - like-minded person and opponent of Sartre. Sharing the general provisions of the existentialist doctrine, Camus, unlike Sartre, had a negative attitude towards all kinds of revolutionary actions and sharply condemned his attempt to find a common language with communists and various kinds of leftists. Sartre came to our country twice, where he was received with honor; Camus refused a visit to the Soviet Union, which seemed to him a stronghold of totalitarianism. He was no less critical of Western countries, where, in his opinion, individual freedom was suppressed by capitalism.

In his treatise “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), he argued the absurdity of human existence. “The proletarian of the gods Sisyphus” is condemned to drag a stone up a mountain, which immediately rolls down. Sisyphus is doomed to do this endlessly. Camus saw in this a model of human behavior: it is impossible to achieve a goal, but one must fulfill one’s destiny without hope of success.

Albert Camus, in his journalism and creativity, opposed the rebellious person, who was synonymous with a terrorist for the writer. The world cannot be changed by violence, but the state does not have the right to punish those who violate its laws. In the essay “Reflections on the Guillotine,” he argued: “To sentence a man to capital punishment is to decide that he has not the slightest chance of redeeming himself.”

He used this idea as the basis for his first novel, “The Outsider” (1942). Again we have before us a “no man” leading an existence on a physiological level; Among his own kind, he is an absolute stranger due to the atrophy of feelings. Meursault commits an unmotivated crime - he shoots an Arab with whom there was a trifling skirmish. The criminal, according to the author’s logic, is a victim of a society that is more inhuman than the one it judges. Meanwhile, in Meursault, the inevitability of the guillotine awakens human feelings; he tries to resist the pressure of the prosecutor and judges, although he is powerless to refute them. The humanized Meursault goes to death with dull indifference.

“The Plague” (1947) is one of the most famous novels of the twentieth century, the text opens with a significant phrase: “The curious events that served as the plot of this chronicle occurred in Oran in 194....” So, right away the plot: Oran is engulfed in a plague epidemic. The first sign of a fatal disease was dead rats, then - dying people, tens, hundreds, thousands. At first, the authorities did not want to notice the disaster, but the city had to be isolated from the outside world and a hopeless fight against the plague began. The novelist focuses on exploring different behavioral patterns. Criminal elements rejoice in misfortune because the threat of death has made them equal to law-abiding citizens. A visiting journalist is trying to break out of quarantine; he is, they say, not local. However, he is also destined to become a prisoner of the plague city, in which there are no strangers, everyone is in the same position.

The priest scourges the citizens of Oran for their sins, which caused the Lord's punishment. But when a person finds himself in earthly hell, heavenly hell is no longer so terrible. The position of the author himself coincides with the actions of the main character, Dr. Bernard Rieux, who was the first to diagnose and lead the team to fight the plague. He understands better than others that the plague cannot be defeated, but the suffering of the dying and their loved ones can be alleviated. He acts without hope of success, but his duty as a doctor and a man orders him to fight the plague.

Jorge Amado (1912 - 2001) had a great sense of humor, but his creative path developed in such a way that he had no time for laughter. The communist writer lived in exile for twenty years. Amadou returned to his homeland of Mexico in 1958. Starting from his early works, he was attracted by folk life. Success came to him after the publication of the novel “Generals of the Sand Quarries” (1939), in which he showed homeless teenagers, poor and proud, capable of theft and self-sacrifice.

The comic element forms the atmosphere of the novels “Dona Flor and her two husbands” (1969), “Teresa Batista, tired of fighting” (1972), “Tiete of Agreste” (1976), “The Abduction of a Saint” (1989). The writer appears in them as a crafty, witty interlocutor who knows how to tell a funny anecdote, he has a lot of funny jokes in stock, and in the end everyone has fun despite sorrows and losses.

Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928) occupies a central place in the literary process of Latin American countries. The Nobel Prize winner (1982), the Colombian writer published his first stories when he was twenty years old. However, a notable debut was the appearance of the story “Nobody Writes to the Colonel” (1956). Marquez still considers it his best work today.

The colonel and his wife are destined to survive the loss of their son, who was shot because the young man wrote an anti-government leaflet. The old sick man is unbending. He lives in the memory of his son and faith in justice. In the story “Nobody Writes to the Colonel” the action takes place in a provincial Colombian village, somewhere nearby is the town of Macondo mentioned in the story, in which all the events of the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1962) will be concentrated. But if in the story “Nobody Writes to the Colonel” the influence of E. Hemingway, who portrayed similar characters, is noticeable, then in the novel the tradition of W. Faulkner is noticeable, who thoroughly recreated a tiny world in which the laws of the universe are reflected.

The town of Macondo, founded by the ancestor of the Buendia family clan, the inquisitive and naive José Arcadio, has remained the central stage of action for a hundred years. Separated from world centers, lost in the tropical wilderness, Macondo is an iconic image in which the local flavor of a semi-rural village and the features of a world city characteristic of modern civilization are merged. The author interprets what happened in Macondo as events that happen here and everywhere, because their uniqueness is combined with typicality.

Peace (nature, life), national traditions of cultural development. National specifics indirectly influence the perception of Russian literature by non-Russian students, therefore, in the process of studying it in a school with a native (non-Russian) language of instruction, it is necessary to take into account the national characteristics of the students’ native literature. The academic subject “Literature” is part of the educational field “Philology”. It's tight...

Concepts in the law of the countries we have indicated related to the provision of public services are concessions, privatization and corporatization. Chapter 2. Analysis of foreign experience in the provision of public utility (municipal) services 2.1 Practice of providing services in France and Finland The sphere of urban services in France and Finland is mainly under the jurisdiction of the commune - the smallest and...

P., 1956). In general, hypnotherapy is considered an adequate and effective method in the psychotherapy of neuroses in children and adolescents starting from the age of 6 (Rozhnov V. E., 1971).

used in psychotherapy of children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (Kovalev V.V., Shevchenko Yu.S., 1980). Family psychotherapy is considered indicated not only for neuroses, but also for psychopathy in adolescents (Eidemiller E. G., 1973). In a broader context, family psychotherapy is included in the so-called “environmental psychotherapy,” which often acquires decisive importance in the system of treating a child with neurosis (Rozhnov V. E., Drapkin B. Z., 1974; Kovalev V. V., 1979).

The question of the advisability of treating children with neuroses in inpatient or outpatient settings is decided in favor of the latter. V. A. Kurshev (1973) notes unsuccessful attempts to treat children 2-5 years old in a hospital. B. 3. Drapkin (1973) considers the disadvantage of inpatient treatment to be the separation of the patient from the conditions of normal life, family and group of healthy peers, which can increase the number of relapses of the disease after discharge. B. 3. Drapkin was able to eliminate many of these shortcomings in the psychotherapeutic adolescent department he leads, where a flexible treatment regimen is used, providing adolescents with independence in organizing leisure time, and activating the process of group psychotherapy.

The basic principles of the prevention of neuroses in children are the early detection of neuropsychic abnormalities (Davidenkov S.N., 1954), close contact between the pediatrician and the neurologist and psychiatrist (Pivovarova G.N., 1962), and proper upbringing of children (Yakovleva E.K., 1958 ; Ushakov G.K., 1966), a wide range of psychohygienic and psychoprophylactic measures (Ozeretsky N.I., 1934; Osipova E.A., Izhboldina O.F., 1934), thoughtful psychological preparation for kindergarten (Golubeva L. G. et al., 1974, 1980; Vlasov V.N., 1978).

Review of foreign literature.

Due to the large number of studies, we will focus only on the main areas

3 Gilyarovsky V. A. Psychiatry. M., 1938, p. 719.

(Finn-Scott M., 1930). Subsequently, rational psychotherapy underwent a number of changes, mainly due to the inclusion of elements of discussion, i.e., the development of two-way contact between the doctor and the patient.

The founder of the school of individual psychology, A. Adler (1928, 1930), made a significant contribution to the development of rational psychotherapy for neuroses and characterological disorders in children. In his opinion, behavioral motivation based on feelings of inferiority is the center of a neurotic personality. The neurotic character aims at limitless compensation for a reduced sense of personality, primarily in terms of gender identity, which is expressed, especially in boys, by protest reactions, negative behavior and stubbornness. At the same time, the child, with his weakness and dependence, tries to direct the care of others to himself.

Both lines of behavior guarantee compensation for a reduced sense of personality and allow one to get rid of the demands of life. This is the fictitious, predetermining goal of the neurotic, his life position. Neurosis is thus regarded not only as a disease, but also as a kind of “trick”, a “dominant fiction”. Despite all the value of these conclusions, one cannot help but see in them a one-sided refraction of the problem of neuroses.

for painful personality development. Rebuilding the relationship (position) of children with neuroses in a relatively short period of time compared to psychoanalysis, A. Adler appeals to consciousness, self-esteem, clearly explains the causal relationship between characterological and neurotic manifestations, uses goal and perspective as the basis for changing the individualistic position, Children are widely attracted to “masculine” professions as a means of developing appropriate character traits. deserve

attention to targeted discussions with parents with the aim of changing their relationships and organizing joint discussions between parents and teachers.

predetermining role as a cause of nervous and mental illnesses. In his opinion, the pathogenesis of neuroses lies in the repression from consciousness into the sphere of the unconscious of affectively colored sexual experiences of the first years of childhood, represented by the “Oedipus complex” and the internal conflict between instinctive and social demands.

Subsequently, S. Freud more than once clarifies that “a person becomes ill due to a conflict between

the demands of instinctive life and the resistance that arises within a person against this”4.

4 Freud S. The Complete Psychological Works. Stanford ed. 1944, v. 22. p. 57-77.

At the same time, the analyst tries to penetrate the patient's defense mechanisms in order to make him aware of his own anxiety and hidden conflicts, because only then can they be dealt with rationally. This is a slow process, as becoming aware too quickly may be unnecessarily traumatic for the patient and may increase rather than alleviate his anxiety.

In psychoanalysis there is no guidance for the patient, his education, or active change in relationships. It is believed that psychosynthesis in a patient, if the necessary conditions are created for this in the form of “decomposition” of symptoms and the elimination of resistance, occurs without the intervention of the analyst, automatically and inevitably. If awareness of the repressed is the goal of psychoanalysis, then

The main concepts in psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method are free associations, transference and resistance. A distinction must be made between the theoretical concepts of psychoanalysis, that is, the interpretation of the data obtained, and the practical techniques of examination and treatment. If the interpretation of data and the premises of psychoanalysis by many

Since researchers are considered biased and often do not meet the criteria of clinical reality, then diagnostic methods, as well as a thoughtful, unhurried, serious approach to the experiences of a neurotic and taking into account his relationship with the doctor, have left a deep mark on the further development of foreign psychotherapy.

Psychoanalysis is most vulnerable when it goes beyond the boundaries of psychiatry, and this often gives rise to fair criticism. If we turn only to the clinic of neuroses, it turns out that indeed unconscious pathological motivation can largely predetermine the behavior of patients with neurosis, at least in terms of the creation of involuntary defensive attitudes. It will also be true that a patient with neurosis, unlike a healthy person, often lives in his own subjective, irrational-affective world, which for him is often more significant than the real world. However, these variations in psychoanalysis turn into dogma, which prevents the doctor from changing his view of the patient in the process of treating him.

In our observations, phenomena resembling transference do not occur so often, apparently due to a different strategy of psychotherapy than in psychoanalysis. For the most part, they occur in single-parent or conflict families, when the doctor involuntarily fills the unsatisfied need for communication with one or another family member. More frequent transference in adolescence and adolescence, primarily in hysterical neurosis, is explained by the need to achieve recognition from family and peers in relations with a doctor.

expressions of mild disturbances in the development of the body diagram in children with neuroses, when they feel their body worse than their healthy peers and coordinate their actions. There are reasons for this, and among them are excessive intellectual stimulation, restrictions on physical activity, general, nervous and somatic weakness.

As is known, the structure of the “Oedipus complex” includes the libidinal attachment of children aged 5 years to a parent of the opposite sex, the resulting competition or hostility towards the parent of the same sex and, as a consequence, the repression of incestuous experiences into dreams, feelings of guilt and anxiety.

In 1978, we conducted an extensive study (961 patients 3-16 years old without neuropsychiatric

gender-appropriate behavior in communication with peers, the standard of which is a parent of the same gender. Identification with him is associated with emotionally warm relationships, especially among girls. The foregoing allows us to conclude that children at the studied age, imagining themselves in the place of a parent of the same sex and identifying themselves with him, also experience the need to imitate his attitude towards a parent of the other sex, i.e. boys, just like the father , want to be “married” to their mother, and girls want to be “married” to their father.

Therefore, the parent of the same sex is not an object of hostility, but an object of imitation and authority. We see that S. Freud expanded the sphere of the sexual, essentially replacing it with the emotional and cognitive sphere of personality development, while all of them

act in unity and mark a certain maturity of genetic and socially determined personal development by the age of 5-6 years.

S. Freud did not specifically engage in psychoanalysis of children. Classical psychoanalysis in children

The 20-30s are represented by research.Huq-Helmuth, M. Klein and A. Freud. If M. Klein

conducts the analysis without intervention and guidance, then N. Huq-Helmuth and A. Freud carry out, if necessary, active management of the patient, changing his relationships and re-education.

N. Huq-Helmuth sees the task of education “in the ability to find the proper measure in encouraging the development of some drives and in inhibiting others”5. Emphasizing respect for the natural course of child development and the pathogenic significance of an insoluble internal conflict, she is the first to practice medical and pedagogical consultations on educational issues, the purpose of which is to alleviate the tense relationship between parent and child. The technique of psychoanalysis itself remains unchanged, even down to the use of a couch during the session.

A. Freud derives all childhood conflicts from the process of “maturation”. Manifestations of neurotic

The latter is feasible when the child has a clear awareness of his “defect” and a desire to get rid of it. Children's drawings are also used for analysis (Freud A., 1971).

M. Klein in the 30s associated the origin of neuroses with depressive reactions when interacting with the mother in the first year of life, masturbatory fantasies and fear. The latter is derived from masturbatory fantasies, fear of castration and the Oedipus complex. The development in the process of analyzing children of a transference neurosis similar to adults is implied, but the method of free associations is replaced by the spontaneous activity of children in play with toys that reproduce the real world. The game itself is interpreted psychoanalytically; the sexual symbolism of one or another game action is literally explained to the child. The method of symbolic interpretation of play activities. MKlein is further referred to as play therapy.

A. Freud and M. Klein in the 20-30s, G. Pearson (1949) and I. Kessler (1966) for a better understanding of the child’s conflicts, observe the game in order to give an interpretation after it. Unlike

name of the directive.

The subsequent development of psychoanalysis follows the path of reducing its duration (already with M. Klein the duration of the analysis was not several years, but 8-10 months with 4-5 visits to

5 Huq-Helmuth N. New ways to understand childhood. Per. from German, L., 1926, p. 63.

week) and providing directed psychoanalytic guidance to the educational process.

In 1939, at the IX Congress of Psychoanalysts of French Language Countries, the concept of family neurosis was formulated. The child's neurosis is considered as a product and revealing factor of family anomalies. The need to analyze children together with their parents, especially the mother, is noted. Thus, psychoanalysis began to go beyond just individual work with the child, when parents were considered only as reflections on the screen of his associations (Duche I., 1967). Currently, psychoanalysis is no longer considered the ultimate truth, but by limiting its expansiveness and preserving its own field, it is considered useful in a number of cases. One of the most prominent representatives of modern psychoanalysis, E. Erikson (1968), agreeing with the classical provisions of psychoanalysis about achieving greater mobility of the “it”, tolerance of the “super-ego” and the ability of the “ego” to synthesize, adds that the analysis of the “I” should take place in connection with historical changes that dominated the period of childhood and adolescence, social adaptation in adulthood.

Psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic methods of treating neuroses, using a number of general principles, are combined under the name psychodynamic therapy. It is aimed at eliminating the causes of neurosis rather than its symptoms. In the psychodynamic approach the main

The determinants of neurotic behavior are intrapsychic processes and subconscious motives, and the main concepts are anxiety and defense. The problem, as we have already seen, is not that they exist, but how the mechanisms of their origin are interpreted.

Such well-known foreign psychiatrists of the non-psychoanalytic direction as K. Norney (1950) and N. Sullivan (1953) see in anxiety the general dynamic basis of neuroses and derive it from the experience of early interpersonal relationships. It is believed that psychoneurotic personality disorders

the individual cannot. Symptoms of these disorders consist either of direct sensations and expressions of anxiety, or of automatic attempts to control it through defense mechanisms such as conversion, dissociation, repression, the formation of phobias or obsessive thoughts and actions. Neurosis, according to K. Norneu, occurs when the potential for development collapses or is blocked by “internal pressure.”

Awareness of the significance of emotions, drives and other irrational components of the psyche in the origin of neurosis is the goal of psychodynamic therapy in all its variants. Therefore, it is defined primarily as an insight (intuitive) type of therapy. But if psychoanalysis is aimed mainly at reconstructing the patients’ past, then in the non-psychoanalytic psychodynamic approach more attention is paid to current dynamic processes. According to K. Norney, the goal of treatment is to help a patient with neurosis realize his real “I” and develop the possibilities of his mental growth.

In psychobiology (Mauer A., ​​1934), personality is considered as a holistic entity in the context of its historical formation; mental disorders are studied as dynamic maladaptive reactions of an individual to tension, stress and conflict. In a casual conversation, the main attention is paid not to finding subconscious motives and mechanisms of neurotic behavior, but to actual situations and circumstances. Transference is not given any significance, and the psychiatrist strives not for the patient to relive his early experiences, but for him to understand their today's meaning. Discussion with a psychotherapist is intended to help the patient trace the origin of his disorders. Such biographical analysis also includes an examination of somatic factors and a panorama of the patient's psychosexual development. Only those facts that are clear to the patient are discussed

or figured prominently in his life experiences. After the various experiences, situations and symptoms have been analyzed and discussed, the patient is asked to reformulate them into a dynamic autobiography with motivations so that he can, if possible, understand their meaning and evolution.

The views of A. Mauer were not so widespread in the era of the dominance of psychoanalysis, but as an expression of the branch of psychodynamic therapy that is most distant from psychoanalysis, they played their role, and, in our opinion, affected the development of a systematic approach in foreign psychotherapy. (Masserman I., 1969).

The psychotherapeutic approach, based on the patient's experience and placing him at the center of interaction with the doctor, is developed in the form of relationship psychotherapy or “client-centered” psychotherapy by S. Rogers (1965). It views the unconscious and the conscious as a unity in terms of experience and perception. Neurotic disorders are explained as a consequence of unfulfilled vital needs, psychogenic blockage (“blockage”) of experience and loss of its congruence with the “I”. S. Rogers is wrong

is concerned with the patient's past, like a psychoanalyst, and does not involve transference and interpretation as operative factors in psychotherapy. The focus is not so much on the connection between anxiety and defense, but on the neurotic's reduced self-image and sense of self-esteem. The relationship between the doctor and the patient (client, according to S. Rogers) is built

according to the principle of egalitarianism, i.e. at the level of “person-person”, and not “doctor-patient”, as in the psychoanalytic approach. What matters more is not what the doctor says, but what he is: the personality of the therapist is his main tool (Rogers S., 1965). The psychotherapist does not lead, but accompanies, participating in the patient’s direct experience, creating conditions for him to feel a sense of security; he does not think for the patient, but thinks and evaluates together with him; does not give

the opposite concept of “catalysis” to analysis - facilitating, accelerating the process of self-actualization. All this does not exclude the general direction of the positive evolution of the patient, for whom conditions are created for a calm, purposeful monologue - the patient speaks and reasons as if with himself, the doctor only inserts words that indicate his interest and keeps the conversation in line with essential issues. Thus, the patient is encouraged to correctly formulate his problems and often finds a way out of the situation himself, constructing the right motive. Your own, sufficiently convincing and specific motive becomes the best incentive for activities leading to mental balance. In the process of psychotherapy, the following personality changes are observed: the patient “1) the patient evolves to a state of more complete internal agreement (harmony), he is more open to his experience and less protected; 2) its perception is more realistic, more differentiated and more objective; 3) he becomes more and more capable of solving his problems; 4) his mental functioning improves and develops in an optimal sense; 5) vulnerability decreases due to increased agreement between the “I” and experience; 6) positive consideration of oneself increases, and the subject increasingly perceives himself as the center of evaluation”6. As a result mainly of a decrease in anxiety and an increase in internal agreement, the patient can identify, experience and accept by his own means the psychogenic aspects of his disease state. As he develops the ability to respect himself, he becomes increasingly able to respect and appreciate other people.

The psychotherapeutic approach. Rogers has found some widespread use in the practice of foreign pedagogical work, when students and teachers change roles in a game and the group acts in these conditions for some time. It should be noted that the theoretical premises of psychotherapy by S. Rogers are more developed than the practical part. A number of provisions of this psychotherapeutic approach can be found in the Socratic oral dialogic teaching method, designed for the “inner voice” of the student. The art of conversation, according to Socrates, requires starting from what the interlocutor already knows, and not suppressing him with erudition and incomprehensible truths. Socrates believed that listeners could, with his help, discover a lot of beautiful and reasonable things in themselves, however, if this was already inherent in them (Nersenyants V.S., 1977).

Relationship psychotherapy by S. Rogers has developed in the direction of non-directive

play therapy, when the psychotherapist does not interfere with children’s spontaneous play and does not interpret it, as in the directive direction discussed above, but creates an atmosphere of warmth, safety and unconditional acceptance of the patient’s feelings and thoughts through the game itself (Alien E.,

1942; Axline V., 1947; Moustakas S., 1970). In this form, play therapy is considered primarily for children with long-term neurotic disorders, emotionally tense, suppressing their feelings (Alien F., 1942). Play therapy should help the child see and understand himself, his strengths and weaknesses, difficulties and successes. This is facilitated by the principles formulated by V. Axline (1947) on which the behavior of the psychotherapist is based: 1) acceptance of the child, achieved by a friendly, warm, non-suppressive manner of communication; the doctor does not show impatience, dissatisfaction or disagreement, refrains from praise and approval, which limit the freedom of the child ; 2) establishing permissibility in play, security in relationships, which allows the child to express his feelings and experiences; 3) giving him the opportunity to independently choose his line of behavior; the doctor is most often outside the game and can only sometimes lead it at the request of the child; 4) refusal to force therapy, which leads to loss of contact; 5) reflection of feelings - the doctor refuses to interpret the child’s statements and actions, using his own symbols in the game. A psychotherapist is a mirror in which a child sees himself.

6 Rogers S., Kinget G. Psychotherapy et relations humames. Theorie et pratique de la therapy non-directive. Lohvain-Pans, 1965, p. 209.

With this construction of therapeutic situations, children have the opportunity to act out and thereby react to their tensions, frustrations, aggressiveness and fears. By playing out these feelings, they transfer them outward, open them. By facing them face to face, children learn to control their feelings and behavior in general. According to V. Axline, as a result of the game

only three types of restrictions: the constant duration of the session, the ban on damaging the game material and on using the doctor as an object of aggression. S. Moustakas (1970), who worked actively with children in the 50s, considers the most important aspect of the therapeutic relationship to be the establishment of such restrictions that connect psychotherapy with reality and remind the child of his responsibility to himself and the psychotherapist. The development of positive relationships in play becomes possible only when an adult responds to

the child's feelings and sincerely believes in. The child then moves towards expressing clear positive or negative attitudes that enable him to feel worthy and develop his real abilities. Because a child's emotional problems and symptoms are reflections of his relationships, they will disappear as they change.

A notable contribution to the therapeutic use of play was made by E. Erikson (1964), who considers spontaneous play a way to resolve life’s difficulties by creating model situations and mastering reality through experimentation and planning. Therefore, play looks like the most natural self-healing measure that childhood is capable of.

allows you to express internal conflicts and aggressive tendencies in the group. Group catharsis

situational and varies depending on group dynamics. Exceptional attention is paid to the selection of psychotherapy participants. Groups, depending on the purpose, are divided into closed (simultaneous start and end of treatment) and open (gradual replacement of participants). Eventually

N. Ginott (1961) applies group psychotherapy to characterologically inhibited children. Pointing out that it is almost impossible to avoid fear in a group, N. Ginott, like S. Slavson, reproduces situations that cause fear in the process of spontaneous and guided games and helps its playful and verbal expression. Currently, group psychotherapy has become widespread in regular schools as part of a program to help children with emotional disorders (Anderson N., Marrone R., 1977). Positive results of group psychotherapy, according to various authors, are observed in only 1/3 of cases (Abramowitz S., 1976), which is due, in our opinion, to the insufficiently critical use of indications for group psychotherapy, the use of unproductive group psychoanalytic techniques without the development of the group process speakers.

The psychotherapeutic concept of psychodrama by J. Moreno, created in the 40s, is based on the socio-psychological patterns of communication, which best meets the requirements of real life. The therapeutic effect of psychodrama is based on cathartic mental “cleansing” and relief, which Aristotle wrote about when explaining the mechanism of action of ancient tragedy on the viewer. The source of catharsis, according to J. Moreno, is spontaneity, by which he understands the ability to adequately respond to suddenly arising circumstances.

This ability is weakened in a neurotic person. He also has an imbalance between the world of reality and the world of imagination. Psychodrama, combining reality and imagination, bridges this gap. The goal of psychodrama is to create conditions under which the performance of a role will be perceived by group members as a natural expression of the self, which will relieve many of their overstrains. The main character of the psychodrama is the protagonist

Depicts himself in various problematic situations. The supporting characters he appoints from among those present reflect and change the nature of his interactions.

If necessary, the game director plays a similar role. According to J. Moreno, the use of an auxiliary “I” in role-playing action distinguishes psychodrama from group psychotherapy.

A psychodramatic session includes three stages: psychological warm-up, action and subsequent discussion. Warm-up is an interview and analysis of upcoming game situations, which should be relevant and interesting for the participants, if the game is overly traumatic. The tensions that arise in psychodrama are reduced with the help of fictitious situations, changing roles and repeating the play theme. The ability to “enter” the desired role is considered in psychodrama as a means of relieving excess mental stress. At the same time, the influence of the audience - the group and those present at the session - is essential in the system of teaching adapted behavior. As a result of psychodrama, emotional response, awareness and resolution of problems occur among its participants with a simultaneous improvement in their mental state (Moreno J., 1946).

In its expanded form, classical psychodrama is used mainly among adolescents (Lebovici S., 1961). There are numerous attempts to simplify psychodrama. G. Lehmann (1968) proposes an improvisational group game to reduce neurotic pubertal inhibition

into a fairy tale. I. Corman (1973) and R. Gardner (1975) use dramatization in individual work

With children. The psychodrama method has become widespread in socialist countries. IN

GDR, in addition to G. Lehmann, it is practiced by S. Krauss, V. Scholz, M. Knopfel (1977), S. Palmer and R. Rank (1978); in Czechoslovakia M. Bouchal, D. Dufkova, M. Robes, Z. Sekaninova (1973), etc. These authors refract rhythm, pantomime, and outdoor games in a psychodramatic way.

Of the various variants of psychodrama that combine it with group psychotherapy, the so-called kinetic psychotherapy should be noted. Schachter for children with

some moments and verbalization of the actions of its participants. The psychoanalytic interpretation of the game consists of responding to failed stages of sexual development, transferring images of mother and father to psychotherapists, opening the “Oedipal family structure” and analyzing individual and group resistance in the treatment process (Monod M., Bosse J., 1965; Cosnier I. et al ., 1971; Testemale G., 1971).

The principle of desensitization, which forms the basis of behavior therapy, can be found in the great French educator Rousseau: “... all children are afraid of masks. I will start by showing Emil a mask with pleasant facial features, then someone will put it on his face in front of his eyes: I will start laughing, everyone will laugh, and the child along with others. Little by little I will accustom him to masks with less pleasant features and, finally, to disgusting figures. If I have maintained the gradation well, then not only will he not be afraid of the last mask, but he will laugh at it as at the first. After that, I’m not afraid that they’ll scare him with masks.”7

pedagogical. The patient learns new emotional and cognitive behavioral alternatives that must be rehearsed and experienced inside and outside the therapeutic situation. Learning eliminates the need for insight and catharsis. The couch method (in classical psychoanalysis) is replaced by the pulpit and classroom methods, and the relationship between therapist and patient resembles that between teacher and student. The behavior therapist views himself as an instrument of direct influence, intervention and control, as well as a social enhancer for the patient (Hollander M., 1975). In behavioral

7 Rousseau J. Emile, or On Education. M., 1896, p. 228.

In therapy, encouragement techniques are widely used, punishment is used less frequently, and the results of therapy are carefully monitored (Wolpe J., 1958; Eysenck H., 1959).

There are three main modifications of behavior therapy. In systematic desensitization - reciprocal inhibitory therapy (Wolpe J., 1958) - a list of objects of fear is compiled in advance, starting with the weakest. The patient is asked to imagine a situation that initially causes mild fear for a few minutes, and then is instructed in relaxation techniques. This process is repeated until there is complete absence of anxiety in the imaginary situation of expressed fear. In another variant, relaxation precedes the presentation of a fear stimulus, which, moreover, may be most intense at the beginning, but since the presentation of fear occurs against the background of general relaxation, its weakening (desensitization) occurs. In children, relaxation is not always possible, but the very principle of gradual and indirect presentation of fear stimuli has found a wide response, including in the treatment of school phobias, often associated with the fear of separation from the mother (Duvano

I., 1962; Garvey W., Hegrenes I., 1966). A radical behavioral technique called “immersion” is described, where children are placed in an environment that causes anxiety and where they remain for a long enough time to cope with it (Lamontague V., 1975).

Another modification of behavioral therapy aims to directly reinforce desired behavior through the use of dosed procedures of reinforcement, and less commonly, punishment.

especially in preschool children. According to this method, treatment, for example, of dog phobias consists of 8 short-term periods in which fearful children watch with the help of a movie how other children approach dogs without fear and pet them (Bandura A., 1969).

To date, behavioral therapy has undergone a number of changes. There is less maximalism in it, more attention is paid to interpersonal diagnostics, psychological training of self-confidence, as well as group and family forms of therapy. Many of the techniques of behavioral therapy have become firmly established in the arsenal of modern psychotherapy; the doctor’s ability to “cope” with fixed symptoms is no less important than their pathogenetic analysis.

The development of social psychology and social psychiatry in the 50s and 60s also influenced the development of family psychotherapy, in which emotional problems in children are studied from the point of view of the functioning of the family as a whole. Fundamentals of a holistic approach to the family as a unit

will not create family psychotherapy. The latter is understood as a method of introducing the psychotherapist into the family system in order to promote the maturation of the family process. For the success of family psychotherapy, the correct choice of the primary patient is important, that is, the person who has the greatest pathogenic influence in the family. Through joint and separate interviews, the nature of family disorders is established, which is reflected in a dynamic “family diagnosis”. The point of view of N. Ackerman and I. Howells about the simultaneous treatment of parents and children by one doctor is supported by many modern researchers (Bell J., 1957; Carroll E., 1960; Buckle D., Lebovici S., 1966; Graham Ph., 1976; Minuchin S., 1974).

There are various approaches to family psychotherapy, including psychoanalysis (Grotjahn M., 1960: Ville-Bourgoin E., 1962; Berge A., 1965), behavioral therapy (Liberman R., 1970),

a combination of psychoanalysis and behavioral therapy (Skynner A., ​​1976), group psychotherapy

two doctors working with spouses (Martin P., Bird H., 1953), and even three specialists, if one of them is engaged in psychotherapy of children (Sandler I., 1966). Widely used methods

diagnostics of family relationships (Van Krevelen D. A., 1975). Mental health centers have become widespread to provide preventive psychological and psychiatric assistance to families who are in a crisis period of their development (Caplan G., 1964).

Modern foreign psychotherapy is characterized by the mutual penetration and complementation of various psychotherapeutic approaches, which is reflected in the difficulties of differentiated assessment of their effectiveness. This gives grounds for such a well-known

Comparing the achievements of foreign and domestic psychotherapy for neuroses in children, it should be noted the priority of domestic research in a number of areas of psychotherapy, primarily in hypnotherapy and group (collective) psychotherapy. The principles of medical and pedagogical work with families were also formulated earlier. In general, the medical and pedagogical aspect predominates in domestic research, while in foreign research more attention is paid to psychotherapeutic methods themselves. Much of what was achieved in Russian psychotherapy was lost in the mid-30s, when a one-sidedly understood physiological approach to the problem of neuroses and their treatment delayed the development of the psychological aspect of the problem. The situation begins to improve in the 70s. The introduction of the nomenclature position of a child psychotherapist and training in this specialty will accelerate the development of child psychotherapy and the implementation of effective measures for the psychoprophylaxis of neuroses in children and adults.

Our experience of psychotherapy has been formed since the early 60s. Some of the psychotherapy methods we have independently developed have analogues in foreign experience. This applies to family psychotherapy, the use of games and groups as a therapeutic tool, and behavioral therapy techniques. The essence of our approach is not in the application of certain

Psychotherapy as the main method of treating neuroses can be defined as the process of directed psychological (mental) influence of a doctor on a patient in order to restore impaired mental functions, strengthen them and develop them. In this sense, it consistently acts as a unified process of therapeutic and pedagogical measures, which does not allow the replacement of the therapeutic aspect by the pedagogical one, which is fraught with the danger of using educational measures where the elimination of painful manifestations is required.

personality-oriented psychotherapy. This process includes socio-psychological mechanisms of communication, and primarily the mechanisms of interpersonal contact.

If we combine the noted aspects of psychotherapy, it will look like a personality-oriented process of interaction between a doctor and a patient, aimed at restoring and strengthening the mental unity of the patient’s personality and achieving an acceptable level of socio-psychological adaptation. Here it is important to maintain a balance between individual and social requirements, that is, between the requirements of the patient and the requirements of reality. At the beginning of psychotherapy, the doctor mostly proceeds from the requirements and hopes of the patient as a person, helping him to find himself, explore his capabilities and establish himself in

Psychotherapy is conventionally divided into family, individual and group, which constitutes a single pathogenetic complex, the sequence of which is determined by the clinical and personal characteristics of patients. For neurotic reactions, a short course of treatment consisting of elements of suggestive, explanatory and play psychotherapy, as well as some recommendations for parents, may be quite sufficient. Psychotherapy of patients with chronic neurosis and unfavorable personality changes, as a rule,

parents of the reasons for the child’s painful condition, improvement of their mental state and

Removing painful manifestations, strengthening the psyche and nervous system as a whole, restructuring the patient’s relationship with himself and others and changing his unfavorably formed character traits occur in the process of individual and group psychotherapy.

IN As a result of the restructuring of the relationship between parents and children, the normalization of their interpersonal relationships and the cessation of the conflict are observed. Improving the family environment creates the prerequisites for restoring the patient’s broken relationships in social and psychological spheres of communication.

IN In general, the effect of psychotherapy, including its individual techniques, is derived from both

from the personality of the psychotherapist, his human qualities, life and professional experience, and from the personality of the patient, primarily his desire for a cure, faith in the doctor and the treatment method, the clinical severity of the condition, characterological changes and personal capabilities.

situations. Feeling this situation and managing it in the interests of the patient’s recovery is an integral part of professional psychotherapeutic experience.

The personality of the psychotherapist, his knowledge and experience are one of the most significant factors in the success of psychotherapy. Each psychotherapist has his own range of therapeutic capabilities, which largely depends on his personal and typological characteristics. Psychotherapists with an introverted personality structure often prefer analytical, explanatory methods of psychotherapy and may be prejudiced towards it, games and behavioral modifications, while other psychotherapists pay more attention to them.

The age of the psychotherapist is also an important parameter. Beginning doctors strive first of all to master hypnosuggestion, which rather confirms their professional ability to treat. As they age, many creative psychotherapists expand their therapeutic

the child's parents or exceeds it. This manifested itself to a noticeable extent in our practice of family psychotherapy, when not only increased experience, but also the suggestive effect of age allowed us to achieve better results in correcting family relationships.

Of exceptional importance in psychotherapy are the art of persuasion, speaking in a clear and understandable language for the patient, self-confidence in critically reflecting on experience, as well as flexible tactics of psychotherapeutic interaction, combined with the psychotherapist’s ability to defuse and stabilize the patient’s emotional reactions. The tone of the doctor, his cheerful, optimistic attitude, opposing the pessimism and skepticism of the patient, sincerity and spontaneity in treatment, encouraging the patient’s activity in treatment are also essential in psychotherapy.

Within certain limits, the doctor does not interfere with the expression of the patient’s aggressive fantasies and thoughts; he accepts him as he is, providing an opportunity for emotional

responding to internal stresses in order to direct them in a more acceptable direction and develop self-control abilities.

In most cases, the doctor acts as an object of imitation and authority for the patient. You need to skillfully use this, without making the patient dependent on yourself and without undermining the authority of the parents. The psychotherapist must be warm, kind and sympathetic in order to understand the patient's weaknesses, but strong enough to be able to tolerate and eliminate them.

Being with the patient in a situation of interpersonal contact, completely trusting him and believing in his human qualities, the doctor helps to strengthen the patient’s confidence in his own capabilities and abilities. Thus, the doctor increases his sense of personal value, balancing it with the requirements of the surrounding reality.

The psychotherapist proceeds from the concept of the fundamental reversibility of neurotic disorders and strives, other things being equal, to apply those methods of psychotherapy that resonate more with the patient. The optimal option is to achieve psychotherapeutic resonance when the techniques used correspond to the patient’s preliminary expectations regarding the method of his treatment. Then the psychotherapeutic effect finds the most active positive emotional response in him. In turn, the timely and even somewhat anticipatory emotional response of the doctor to the needs and requests of the patient, to his way of responding in the process of psychotherapy is a model of human

responsiveness and contributes to the formation of similar emotional responses in patients. Imbued with the patient’s feelings and thoughts, the psychotherapist often experiences the treatment situation to a greater extent than the patient himself, while simultaneously managing the treatment process and relationships in it.

The need to remember the individual uniqueness of each patient, his dynamics in the process of psychotherapy creates mental stress in the doctor, not to mention a significant waste of his nervous energy. Therefore, he can retain in his professional memory the experience of working with only a limited number of patients. It is difficult to give specific figures here due to their variability depending on the individual characteristics of psychotherapists. In our opinion, it is possible to effectively manage no more than 10-12 patients simultaneously in the process of individual psychotherapy, the same number in group and hypnosuggestive psychotherapy, i.e.

In the end, no more than 30-40 patients. A significantly larger number of them may occur with follow-up observation and supportive treatment.

Psychotherapy is complicated by such manifestations of the doctor’s personality as insincerity, playfulness, aplomb, distrust, bias, anxiety and conflict, which can seriously undermine psychotherapeutic communication with the patient. Insincerity is perceived by the patient as a “mask”, reminds of the traumatic experience of relationships and causes distrust in the words and actions of the doctor. In preschoolers, this is accompanied by anxiety if the doctor deliberately

anxiety in the doctor's office. In adolescents, psychotherapeutic contact is complicated by the doctor’s excessive familiarity, imposition of opinions, and lack of discussion of issues of concern. A well-produced doctor’s voice without deliberate amplification or muffledness, and especially without shades of irritation and threat, moderately expressive facial expressions, plastic movements and the entire manner of behavior have an impact on the patient through the inductive mechanism of imitation, reviving his facial expressions, increasing tone and developing the ability to express himself.

As a result, a number of principles of psychotherapy can be formulated as follows:

1) conduct an appointment without a medical gown and be just a person for the child;

2) leave the table, approach the child and directly contact him;

3) play together and be a partner for him;

4) proceed from the feelings and desires of the child to a greater extent than from one’s own ideas and professional aplomb, burdened by medical experience, elevated to the degree of authoritarian assertion of power over the patient;

5) do not rush into re-educating a child without knowing what he is like and what he is capable of;

6) do not forget that, in addition to the doctor, there are also parents who are ready to both give the child completely to the care of the doctor and jealously perceive his successes in the contact and development of the child;

7) believe in yourself and your ability to heal before convincing your child to believe in himself and

V possibility of cure.

STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION OF THE NOVOSIBIRSK REGION

"KUPINSKY MEDICAL TECHNIQUE"

METHODOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE LESSON

in the discipline LITERATURE

Chapter: Literature of the second half XX century

Subject: Review of foreign literature XXcentury

Specialty: 060501 Nursing Course: 1

Kupino

Explanatory note

Educational and methodological characteristics of the lesson

Chronological map of the lesson

Progress of the lesson

Handout

Additional material

Materials for current control

EXPLANATORY NOTE

This methodological development is intended for organizing classroom work for students when studying foreign literature of the 20th century.

The methodological manual presents various forms of tasks. The manual includes material that complements the textbook material, handouts, and materials for ongoing monitoring.

As a result of studying the topic Review of foreign literature XXcentury

The student must:

know/understand:

Basic facts about the life and work of classical writers of the 20th century

Basic patterns of the historical and literary process and features of literary movements;

be able to:

Reproduce the content of a literary work;

Compare literary works;

Analyze and interpret a work of art using information on the history and theory of literature (topics, problems, moral pathos, system of images, compositional features, figurative and expressive means of language, artistic detail); analyze an episode (scene) of the studied work, explain its connection with the problems of the work;

Relate fiction to social life and culture; reveal the specific historical and universal content of the studied literary works; identify “cross-cutting” themes and key problems of Russian literature; correlate the work with the literary direction of the era;

use acquired knowledge and skills in practical activities and everyday life for:

Creating a coherent text (oral and written) on the required topic, taking into account the norms of the Russian literary language;

Participating in dialogue or discussion;

Independent acquaintance with the phenomena of artistic culture and assessment of their aesthetic significance.

EDUCATIONAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CLASSES

Lesson topic: Review of foreign literature XX century

Type of training session: combined

Location audience

Duration of the lesson: 90 minutes

Topic motivation: activating cognitive activity and interest of students in studying this topic, setting the goals and objectives of the lesson

Lesson objectives:

1. Educational: know/understand basic facts of the life and work of classical writers XX century; the content of the studied literary works; the main patterns of the historical and literary process and features of literary movements;

2. Developmental: to develop the ability to analyze and interpret a work of art, using information on the history and theory of literature.

3. Educational: reveal the specific historical and universal content of the studied literary works; use acquired knowledge and skills in practical activities and everyday life for independent acquaintance with the phenomena of artistic culture and assessment of their aesthetic significance.

Interdisciplinary integration: story

Forms and methods of implementation and organization of educational and cognitive activities: dialogue, independent work in small groups, lecture

explanatory-illustrative, partially search;

visual – multimedia presentation with demonstration of visual material; printed and verbal - textbook, didactic materials, methodological development of lessons for the teacher, texts of works.

Equipment: projector, computer, presentation, book exhibition

List of literature:

Main:

- Literature. 10th grade: textbook for general education. institutions / T.F. Kurdyumova, S.A. Leonov and others; under. ed. T.F. Kurdyumova. – M.: Bustard, 2008

Literature. 11th grade At 2 o'clock: a textbook for general education. institutions/T.F. Kurdyumova and others; under. ed. T.F. Kurdyumova. – M.: Bustard, 2011

Additional:

Lebedev Yu.V. Literature. 10th grade: textbook for general education institutions. Basic and profile levels. At 2 o'clock - M.: Education, 2006

Petrovich V.G., Petrovich N.M. Literature in basic and specialized schools. Grade 11. Book for teachers. M., 2006

Krutetskaya V.A. Literature in tables and diagrams. Grade 10. - St. Petersburg, 2008

Dictionary of literary characters in 8 volumes - Compiled and editor Meshcheryakov V.P. - M.: Moscow Lyceum, 1997

Chernyak M.A. Modern Russian literature (grades 10-11): educational and methodological materials. - M.: Eksmo, 2007

Internet resources:

-

Creative Teachers Network

CHRONOLOGICAL MAP OF THE CLASS

Progress of the lesson

Organizing time: greeting the group, identifying those who are absent, assessing the hygienic conditions of preparing the audience for the lesson.

Motivation for learning activities

Designation of the topic of the lesson, formation of the purpose of the lesson, designation of the plan for the upcoming work in the lesson.

3. Updating of reference knowledge

- reading a creative work on the work of A.V. Vampilova

4. Assimilation of new knowledge

Lecture-conversation (presentation) –

The era of the 20th century in literature is complex and contradictory; it reflected all the tragedy of this time. Both realism and romanticism from the 19th century stepped into the 20th, and they continue to go in parallel, changing in time and space, acquiring new features. Romanticism and realism are productive creative methods; they create entire artistic systems.

The most important thing for the literature of the 20th century is the proclamation of the principle of humanism - the attitude towards man as the greatest value. This is understandable: throughout the 20th century, the planet was rocked by bloody wars.

Of the brilliant galaxy of European and American writers of the 20th century, the works of W. Golding and E. Hemingway stand out as bright stars.

William Golding also a Nobel Prize laureate, received in 1983 for “novels that, with the clarity of realistic narrative, help to comprehend the human condition in the modern world.”

Golding is an English writer who tried many professions, was an actor and director, a school teacher, a sailor and a naval officer during the Second World War, but literature took over. One day he came up with the idea of ​​writing a book about children on a desert island. This is how the novel “Lord of the Flies” appeared. The novel immediately became a bestseller, and Golding became famous.

Golding's work includes 12 novels, several plays, a book of essays about Egypt, and many essays and journal articles. In 1955 he was elected to the Royal Society of Literature and knighted in 1966.

In his works, Golding comprehensively examines man and shows that destructive forces are inherent in man himself from birth, that there is nothing to blame for any circumstances - humanity is stricken with a terrible disease - the love of power and violence.

Nobel Prize Laureate Ernest Miller Hemingway He lived a not very long life, unusually rich in amazing events and deep human experiences. He was a participant in the First World War of 1914-1918, the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. He fished in the Atlantic Ocean and experienced the happiness of the “big hunt” in Africa, was the greatest expert in Spanish bullfighting, was fond of boxing, mountaineering, and swimming. He was an excellent yachtsman, skier and sniper. He subtly understood nature and people, was surprisingly observant and receptive, honest, uncompromising and courageous, hardworking and efficient.

It was uniqueand a talented person who has stepped over space and time.

E. Hemingway was born in the suburbs of Chicago on July 21, 1889 in the family of a doctor. My father traveled a lot on calls from patients and saw the poverty and grief of his patients. These were simple working people. From childhood, his father instilled in his son a love of work, endurance, perseverance, and the ability to stand up for himself. He also raised his son to be observant and respectful of nature.

Hemingway began writing early. From the age of 18, he diligently mastered the basics of journalistic skills. Striving for Europe. blazing with the fires of the First World War. On May 23, 1918, a happy young journalist, full of health and youth, confident in himself, sailed as part of a medical brigade from New York to France, and then to Italy. In the first days of military service, the young man saw horrors and tragedy. On July 9, at night, he was wounded. Over several operations, 227 fragments will be removed from him and the broken cup will be replaced with a metal one. The young man came to understand war as a deception of soldiers and a mockery of everything human in a person. Hemingway hated the war. But it was the war that shaped Hemingway the writer, defining one of the main themes of his work - anti-war.

The writer's style was determined by the complexity of the time in which he lived. His best works reflect with extraordinary depth the leading trends of the era, show certain conditions of existence, and create types of worldwide literary significance..

- Remember what events marked the history of the 20th century?

The history of the 20th century is marked by the deepest upheavals: 2 world wars, which brought enormous casualties and destruction, revolution, the formation and collapse of totalitarian regimes, the crimes of Hitlerism and Stalinism, the genocide of entire peoples, the creation of atomic and hydrogen weapons, the Cold War period, the collapse of the colonial system, the defeat of the socialist system, a decisive turn towards peaceful coexistence that has emerged since 1980, and the beginning of a general movement of many states in the direction of democracy and reform.

Social conflicts unfolded against the backdrop of the greatest discoveries in the field of science, medicine, cybernetics, etc. All this significantly influenced the mentality, way of life, the very conditions of human existence and received a complex, ambiguous reflection in culture and art, which are characterized by an exceptional diversity of individuals, a wealth of artistic styles, innovative searches in the field of form, means of expression, content.

In the spring of 1936, Hemingway published an essay in Esquire magazine in which he talked about an episode of fishing in the Gulf Stream. This true incident became the basis for the story “The Old Man and the Sea.” But only 14 years later, E. Hemingwaytakes up the pen. INSeptember 1952 the story was published.

5. Physical education minute

6. Comprehension and systematization of acquired knowledge and skills. Consolidating new material

Let us turn to the story that brought the writer the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The old man was fishing all alone on his boat in the Gulf Stream. He had been at sea for 84 days now and had not caught a single fish. For the first 40 days he had a boy with him. But day after day he did not bring a catch, and the parents told the boy that the old man was now very unlucky, and ordered him to go to sea on another boat, which actually brought three good fish in the first week. It was hard for the boy to watch the old man return every day with nothing, and he went ashore to help him carry the tackle, the harpoon and the sail wrapped around the mast. The sail was covered in patches of burlap and, folded, resembled the banner of a defeated regiment.

This is the background to the events that unfold in a small fishing village in Cuba.

Compositionally, the story can be divided into 3 parts. The first includes the dialogues between the old man Santiago and the boy Manolin. The second describes the everyday life of a fisherman, his hard and dangerous work, and social vulnerability. The third part can be considered the return of the old man to the shore and his conversations with the boy.

The main character is old man Santiago. Santiago in Spain and all Spanish-speaking countries is a very popular name. There are cities of Santiago in Spain, Chile, Panama, and some islands are named by the same name. provinces. It seems that all this the writer gives significance to his hero.

"I am an extraordinary old man" - he says about himself. And we must prove it.

The description of his appearance at first glance evokes pity for his old age and infirmity: “thin, emaciated, the back of his head was cut by deep wrinkles, and his cheeks were covered with brown spots of a harmless skin cancer, which is caused by the sun's rays reflected by the surface of the tropical sea. The spots went down his cheeks to the line, when he pulled out a large fish. However, there were no fresh scars. They were old, like cracks in a long-dead waterless desert." But this description ends optimistically: "Everything about him was old, except for his eyes, and his eyes were the color of the sea, the cheerful eyes of a man who does not give up. It was he who taught the boy to fish, and the boy loved the old man very much. He is ready to catch him sardines as bait for his going out to sea tomorrow. Together they climb to Santiago’s poor hut, built of strong shamrocks of the royal palm.

The old man is lonely and poor - “in the hut there was a bed, a table and a chair and a hole in the earthen floor for cooking food on charcoal. His wife died long ago. His usual meal is a bowl of yellow rice with fish.

The old man talks with the boy about fishing, how he must be lucky, and also about the latest sports news. When a tired old man goes to bed, he dreams of the Africa of his youth, its long golden shores and white sandbanks, high cliffs and huge white mountains. He doesn't dream of fights anymore. neither women nor great events. But often in his dreams distant countries and lions appear on the shore."

This is how part 1 of the work ends (p. 220).

The next day, early in the morning, the old man goes on another fishing trip. The boy again helps him take down the sail, tackle, and prepare the boat.

One after another, fishing boats leave the shore and go out to sea.

Rowing with oars, the old man feels the approach of morning. He loves the sea, thinks of it with tenderness, as a woman who “gives great mercies.” He loves both birds and fish that live in the bottomless green mass.

Having put bait on the hooks, he slowly swims with the flow. The old man mentally communicates with birds and fish. Accustomed to loneliness, he talks out loud to himself. Nature and the ocean are perceived by him as a living being. He knows different fish and ocean inhabitants, their habits, and he has his own tender attitude towards them.

- Continue my story, confirm with text .

( The answer may be the words - “...The rainbow-shimmering bubbles are extraordinarily beautiful...when a really big fish comes in” (p. 226).

Well, serious fishing begins, and all his attention is focused on the fishing line and its condition. He sensitively captures what is happening in the depths, how the fish reacts to the bait pinned on the hook. Finally, one of the green rods trembled: this means that in the depths of the sea the marlin began to devour sardines.

A dramatic, hours-long duel unfolds between Santiago and a huge fish.) .

Analyzing the story after the author, we learn more and more about the main character. And his portrait is complemented by many details.

We know that this man is a good navigator, an experienced fisherman who once knew the luck and happiness of a big catch. He recalls the African coast, “big fish,” lions, as well as exotic episodes from the period of his youth (pp. 238/241). The work of a fisherman for an old man is “a matter of honor, glory, valor and heroism.” Work is everything to him. This is a feat, and communication with nature, without which he cannot live, and a source of reflection on the meaning of life, and passion for sports and games, and professional skill.

Santiago is a strong and strong-willed person. He recalls with pride how in his youth he defeated a Negro giant in a sports competition and earned the nickname “champion.” The old man has the ability of self-hypnosis, self-soothing and determination. So, for example, carried away by philosophical reasoning and dreams, he decisively cuts himself off: “Don’t get distracted. Think about what you are doing. Think so as not to do something stupid.”

- Complete and confirm with text these qualities of the hero.

The old man is constantly attracted by the feeling of the need to see a boy next to him, to feel his support: “It’s a pity that the boy is not with me, he would help me...” Here the reader may have the thought of the hero’s loneliness. But the author created the image in such a way that it needs to be considered in relationship: the old man and the boy, the old man and the fishermen, the old man and the sea. Thus, the work reveals eternal themes: man and nature, man and man.

Even the title is ambiguous. “The Old Man and the Sea” is man and nature, the greatness of man in the face of the mighty elements.

"...The old man looked into the distance and realized how lonely he was now. But he saw multi-colored sun rays refracting in the dark depths, a stretched string going down and a strange swaying of the sea surface. The clouds piled up, foreshadowing the trade wind, and, looking ahead, he noticed a flock of wild ducks over the water, sharply outlined in the sky: then the flock scattered, then again became even clearer, and the old man realized that a man is never alone at sea" (p. 237)

Spending many days in the ocean, he does not feel lonely, either next to a small bird or under the stars of the universe. Santiago feels like a part of nature.

With age, the old man, like many older people, develops a desire to communicate, sometimes he conducts a conversation with inanimate objects. The old man finds a companion even in such a creature of nature as a fish.

Santiago has the ability to poetically, sadly and tenderly reproduce his memories. So, speaking about the killed once beautiful fish, he generalizes: “I have never seen anything sadder in the sea... The boy also felt sad, we asked the female for forgiveness and quickly cut up her carcass.”

There are many statements in the story that are paradoxical in content and aphoristic in form. For example, Santiago always refers to the fish he caught. One of these sayings: “Fish,” he called quietly, “I will not part with you until I die.”

God knows, it’s not easier for me myself.”

We can imagine the poetry of the old man’s nature from the following quote: “Fish is also my friend,” he said. “I have never seen such a fish or heard that such fish exist. But I have to kill it. It’s good that we don’t have to kill stars".

Hemingway distracts the reader from his everyday thoughts. The confirmation is in the passage (pages 243/244).

“It was dark: in September darkness always comes suddenly... until the words: “It’s enough that we extort food from the sea and kill our brothers...”

We can notice the basis of pagan beliefs in Santiago's mind. He is a man who does not believe in the Christian God, but is ready to even pray out of gratitude if only he can bring a big fish to the shore: “It’s better, old man, forget about fear and have more faith in your strength,” he said.

Three days of intense struggle force a person to become resourceful and resourceful.

Exhausted by the rebellious and strong fish, the fisherman tries to persuade her to capitulate: “Listen, fish!” the old man told her. “After all, you still have to die. Why do you need me to die too?” And then we read: “You are ruining me.” , fish, - thought the old man. - This, of course, is your right. Never in my life have I seen a creature more enormous, beautiful, calm and noble than you. Well, kill me. I don’t care anymore who kills whom ".

And the fish, as if hearing the fisherman, humbled itself and surrendered. Pleased with the victory, Santiago tied her to the side of the boat and relaxed for a moment: a little more, and he would direct the boat to the shore. But the joy did not last long. The fishing boat was surrounded by sharks. They smelled prey and began to tear apart the fish that Santiago had obtained with such hard work. And the combat began again.

Excerpt read out

"At midnight he fought with the sharks again...to the point of words - Now she walked easily, and the old man thought of nothing and felt nothing." But this did not break the old man. Santiago is steadfast in his misfortunes.

"But man was not created to suffer defeat,- he said. - Man can be destroyed, but he cannot be defeated." These are the main words of the entire story, which can be considered textbook.

That is, life is a constant struggle. Only in a struggle that requires incredible tension, enormous physical and moral strength, does a thinking being feel like a human being.

“Who defeated you, old man?” he asked himself. “Nobody,” he answered. - “I just went too far out to sea.”

He is invincible. He defeated the fish, conquered himself, his old age, the weakness of his hands, his pain. The old man emerged victorious.

When he entered the bay, everyone was already asleep. Tired, Santiago heads home. He stopped for a moment and, looking back, saw in the light of a street lamp how high the huge tail of a fish rose behind the stern of the boat. He saw the white bare line of her spine and the dark shadow of her head with a sword protruding forward.

The third part of the work is a conversation between the boy and Santiago (p. 267). “Now we will fish together again...”

The story ends on a peaceful note.

“Upstairs, in his hut, the old man was sleeping again. He was sleeping face down again, and a boy was guarding him. The old man dreamed of lions” - an emblem of power, strength, invincibility. It was the best thing he saw in his life.

This image of happiness and invincibility runs through the entire story, and this is how it ends. The writer does not leave his hero alone in the last lines. Moreover, Manolin’s presence symbolizes a change of generations. continuation of life. It seems that Santiago is the embodiment of Hemingway’s own life positions. The way this person lives, how he thinks, feels, acts, makes you think about the principles of human existence.

7. Homework, instructions on how to complete it:

- select publications in the modern press about works that have received positive responses in the press, prepare a message

8. Summing up the lesson. Reflection.

1. Closing remarks from the teacher.

World literature is the greatest asset of humanity. And in order to become a real person, it is necessary to absorb this wealth, generously bequeathed to us by many eras and writers - engineers of human souls.

2. Commentary on the grades given during the lesson

"5": the answer reveals solid knowledge and deep understanding of the text of the work being studied; the ability to explain the relationship of events, the character and actions of the characters, the role of artistic means in revealing the ideological and aesthetic content of the work; use text to support your conclusions; reveal the connection between the work and the era; be fluent in monologue speech.

"4": awarded for an answer that demonstrates solid knowledge and a sufficiently deep understanding of the text of the work being studied; for the ability to explain the interconnection of events, the characters and actions of the characters and the role of the main artistic means in revealing the ideological and aesthetic content of the work; the ability to use the text of a work to substantiate one’s conclusions; have good command of monologue literary speech; however, they allow 2-3 inaccuracies in the answer.

"3": The answer is assessed, indicating mainly knowledge and understanding of the text of the work being studied, the ability to explain the relationship of basic means in revealing the ideological and artistic content of the work, but insufficient ability to use this knowledge when analyzing the work. There may be several errors in the content of the answer, insufficient fluency in monologue speech, and a number of shortcomings in the composition and language of the answer.

"2": the answer reveals ignorance of essential issues of the content of the work; inability to explain the behavior and characters of the main characters and the role of the most important artistic means in revealing the ideological and aesthetic content of the work, poor command of monologue speech and reading techniques, poverty of expressive means of language.

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

« The Old Man and the Sea": the philosophical meaning of the story, the strength of the old man's character

Images from the story “The Old Man and the Sea”

The strength of an old man's character

The meaning of human life in the story

Was the legendary blind singer from Asia Minor the author of these epic tales or just a celebrated performer? There are different points of view on this matter. The poems were probably composed by many folk singers over several generations. Homer may have combined the disparate songs into a single cycle, doing the work of an editor. It is possible that individual fragments are the fruit of his individual creativity. The “Homeric question” has been debated for over two hundred years, but none of the scientists denies that Homer owes exceptional credit for the dissemination of the ancient epic.

« Iliad"The poem is named because the second name of Troy was Ilion, located on the coast of Asia Minor. For a long time it was believed that the city was just a poetic fiction. However, Heinrich Schliemann's excavations showed that the siege of the city of Troy by the Greeks could well be a historical fact. Today, some of the finds of the German archaeologist can be seen in the exhibition of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin. The twenty-four songs of the Iliad recount the events that occurred during the forty-nine days of the last, tenth, year of the war.

In the poem "Iliad" there are two grandiose stages: the besieged Troy and the camp of the besieging Greeks. The epic tale embodies the struggle of equals, while the heroes are positioned symmetrically. The eldest son of the Trojan king Priam, Hector, is not inferior in courage to Achilles, from whom he is destined to die. He is equally skilled in all military techniques. Note that the battle narrative includes a whole series of fights. In single combat with Achilles' friend Patroclus, Hector dealt him a fatal blow and took away from him the armor that belonged to Achilles. Achilles must avenge the death of his friend. Hephaestus forges him a shield, which depicts land and seas, cities and villages, vineyards and pastures, everyday life and festivals. The image on the shield is symbolic, because it includes everything that the valiant Greek knight protects.

Events " Odyssey"are dated to the tenth year after the end of the Trojan War. All the victors returned to their cities, others, like Agamemnon, had already died. Only Odysseus cannot return to his island of Ithaca. This is prevented by Poseidon, who was angry with Odysseus for blinding his son the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Odysseus must return to Ithaca at all costs, where his parents, wife Penelope and son Telemachus are waiting for him. The Greeks were patriots; isolation from their homeland for Odysseus was tantamount to death.

On the way to the hero's home, trials await (episodes in the cave of Polyphemus, sailing past the island of Sirens and the monsters Scylla and Charybdis) and temptations - the love of the nymph Calypso and princess Nausicaa. Odysseus, thanks to his cunning and courage, emerges victorious in all dramatic conflicts.

The second plot motif of the Odyssey is associated with the image of the faithful Penelope, who waits for her husband for twenty years, by subterfuge rejecting the advances of those who want to share her bed and the royal throne.

The third storyline is dedicated to their son Telemacus, who goes in search of his father.

At the end of the poem, all the characters are united. The unrecognized Odysseus, together with Telemachus, expels uninvited guests - the suitors of his wife, who joyfully greets him.

Classical period Greek art and literature dates back to the 5th century. and coincides with the highest flowering of slave-owning democracy. Having won the Greco-Persian Wars (500-449), the city-states, united in an alliance led by Athens, defended their independence from Persian rule. This contributed to the development of trade and crafts, as well as the rise of morale and patriotism.

The largest theater was located in Megapol, it accommodated 44 thousand people.

The participation of the choir in the tragedy allows us to identify the genesis of the tragedy. The word "tragedy" itself means goat's song and also points to the origin of the dramatic genre. The tragedy arose from the choral performance of dithyrambs in honor of the god Dionysus, who was also called Bacchus. In the fall, the Greeks, having harvested grapes, made new wine and tasted it (diluted with water!), organized games in honor of the patron saint of winemaking. The satyrs and bacchantes who accompanied Dionysus dressed themselves in goat skins and stained their faces with grape marc. The one who was entrusted with the role of Dionysus took the lead, entering into dialogue with the choir. The procession was accompanied by riotous dancing and singing. Dialogue could obviously take place between individual actors, in any case, a dramatic performance - a tragedy - was born from the dialogue.

In tragedy, the hero entered into a duel with superpersonal forces. He invariably found himself defeated, but in the duel with fate his dignity and strength of resistance to the will of the gods were revealed.

Aeschylus (525-456)- the father of ancient Greek tragedy. An aristocrat and warrior, he took part in the battles with the Persians at Marathon and Salamis. He was the author of about 90 works, of which 7 have come down to us. In the tragedy “Oresteia”, which consisted of three parts “Agamemnon”, “Choephora”, “Eumenides”, he spoke about the sinister crimes of the Atrides family, about the murder of the leader of the Achaean army of his wife Clytemnestra, the cruel reprisal of children against their mother and the revenge of the gods on Orestes for his crime. The main conflict of the tragedy is not family, but historical.

In tragedy "Prometheus Bound" For the first time in world culture, Aeschylus recreated the image of a tyrant fighter, bringing people the light of truth. Aeschylus interprets everything that human civilization had achieved by that time as the gift of Prometheus. In the central monologue, the tragic hero speaks about himself and about people:

Sophocles (496-406) wrote 120 works, 7 tragedies have reached us. The son of a wealthy gunsmith from the Athens suburb of Colon, He received an excellent education, took an active part in the political life of Athens, and was a friend of Pericles. He won 24 victories in playwriting competitions. The most famous dramatic works of Sophocles are associated with the Theban cycle of myths. In tragedy "Oedipus the King" the hero, unknowingly, became the killer of his father and the husband of his mother. The gods send a terrible pestilence to the city of Thebes, because a regicide lives here. Oedipus, who became the ruler of Thebes, promises to punish the criminal, but soon becomes convinced of his own guilt. The action of the tragedy develops retrospectively: from the present to the past. People close to Oedipus, when suspicion of his own guilt crept in, convince him that he could not have committed the crime. But the more evidence they provide that it is impossible for him to commit crimes, the stronger his confidence: he himself is guilty. The tragedy of Oedipus consists of an unconsciously committed crime and a consciously accepted punishment. Oedipus was sighted, but did not know what he was doing. Punishing himself, he gouges out his eyes and leaves Thebes, then settles in Colon. The land that gives shelter to a repentant sinner is under the protection of the gods. This is the main idea of ​​the tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus”.

In tragedy "Antigone" a conflict arises between the heirs of Oedipus. Two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, died in the fratricidal war. The new ruler of Thebes, Creon, prohibits, on pain of death, the burial of Polyneices, who went to war against his hometown. Creon issues this law with the best intentions, wanting to stop chaos and anarchy. Oedipus' daughter Antigone, risking her life, disobeyed the ruler and buried her brother's body. Sophocles in the tragedy “Antigone” not only glorifies the heroine’s courage and loyalty to duty, but also confronts the eternal moral laws that humanity has developed throughout history with the willfulness of rulers who violate the world order.

The greatness of Sophocles' heroes lies in the fact that, broken by omnipotent fate, they remain faithful to their human duty.

Euripides (480-406)- the youngest of the tragic poets, the author of 92 works, of which 17 tragedies have come down to us. The best translations belong to In. Annensky.

Euripides was a follower of the philosophy of the Sophists, who argued that objective truth does not exist, since only man is the measure of all things. The playwright demonstrates human rights to actions that horrify others, but they follow from his internal logic. To his contemporaries, his heroes seemed too pampered, and his heroines too cruel. Really , Medea in the tragedy of the same name, she mercilessly takes revenge on the one whom Jason called his bride. Medea kills her own children because she wants her suffering to become the tragedy of the father of her children. She defends her dignity, just as in the tragedy “Hippolytus” Phaedra takes revenge on her stepson only because he does not consider love a sacred feeling that unites people. The heroines of Euripides are literally femme fatales; fate dominates them and leads them to death. In this sense, he agrees with Sophocles, but compared to the author of Oedipus the King, Euripides pays much more attention to psychological nuances, masterfully conveying the dialectic of feelings. So, for example, in the tragedy "Iphigenia in Aulis" The goddess Artemis demands that Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter, otherwise the Greek ships that have accumulated near the port city of Aulis will never reach the walls of Troy. Iphigenia, along with her mother Clytemnestra, is summoned to Aulis, allegedly to marry Achilles. She is happy. But having learned that it is not a wedding that awaits her, but the gloomy Hades, she desperately begs her father to take pity on her. Time passes, and Iphigenia perceives the lot that has fallen to her differently.

Iphigenia perceives fate as a duty; she is ready to die with dignity for the honor of her homeland. However, in the finale salvation comes: Artemis had mercy and replaced the girl’s body with a doe. Euripides uses a new technique discovered by him in the denouement: Deus ex machina - God from the machine. When the heroes are threatened with death, the gods save them at the last moment. There were special theatrical devices that lifted characters to heaven. Even in the most tragic situations, everything ends happily in a number of works by Euripides.

Aristophanes (c. 445 - c. 386)- father of ancient Greek comedy. The origin of comedy is associated with Bacchic songs. The term itself originally meant “the song of a riotous crowd.” A dialogue emerged from the humorous squabbles. Parody played a significant role in comedy. Aristophanes, in the monologues of his characters, parodied the speeches of politicians, military leaders and sophists. He was the author of about 40 comedies, of which 11 came to us.

Was the legendary blind singer from Asia Minor the author of these epic tales or just a celebrated performer? There are different points of view on this matter. The poems were probably composed by many folk singers over several generations. Homer may have combined the disparate songs into a single cycle, doing the work of an editor. It is possible that individual fragments are the fruit of his

individual creativity. The “Homeric question” has been debated for over two hundred years, but none of the scientists denies that Homer owes exceptional credit for the dissemination of the ancient epic.

« Iliad"The poem is named because the second name of Troy was Ilion, located on the coast of Asia Minor. For a long time it was believed that the city was just a poetic fiction. However, Heinrich Schliemann's excavations showed that the siege of the city of Troy by the Greeks could well be a historical fact. Today, some of the finds of the German archaeologist can be seen in the exhibition of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin. The twenty-four songs of the Iliad recount the events that occurred during the forty-nine days of the last, tenth, year of the war.

In the poem "Iliad" there are two grandiose stages: the besieged Troy and the camp of the besieging Greeks. The epic tale embodies the struggle of equals, while the heroes are positioned symmetrically. The eldest son of the Trojan king Priam, Hector, is not inferior in courage to Achilles, from whom he is destined to die. He is equally skilled in all military techniques. Note that the battle narrative includes a whole series of fights. In single combat with Achilles' friend Patroclus, Hector dealt him a fatal blow and took away from him the armor that belonged to Achilles. Achilles must avenge the death of his friend. Hephaestus forges him a shield, which depicts land and seas, cities and villages, vineyards and pastures, everyday life and festivals. The image on the shield is symbolic, because it includes everything that the valiant Greek knight protects.

Events " Odyssey"are dated to the tenth year after the end of the Trojan War. All the victors returned to their cities, others, like Agamemnon, had already died. Only Odysseus cannot return to his island of Ithaca. This is prevented by Poseidon, who was angry with Odysseus for blinding his son the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Odysseus must return to Ithaca at all costs, where his parents, wife Penelope and son Telemachus are waiting for him. The Greeks were patriots; isolation from their homeland for Odysseus was tantamount to death.

On the way to the hero's home, trials await (episodes in the cave of Polyphemus, sailing past the island of Sirens and the monsters Scylla and Charybdis) and temptations - the love of the nymph Calypso and princess Nausicaa. Odysseus, thanks to his cunning and courage, emerges victorious in all dramatic conflicts.

The second plot motif of the Odyssey is associated with the image of the faithful Penelope, who waits for her husband for twenty years, by subterfuge rejecting the advances of those who want to share her bed and the royal throne.

The third storyline is dedicated to their son Telemacus, who goes in search of his father.

At the end of the poem, all the characters are united. The unrecognized Odysseus, together with Telemachus, expels uninvited guests - the suitors of his wife, who joyfully greets him.

Classical period Greek art and literature dates back to the 5th century. and coincides with the highest flowering of slave-owning democracy. Having won the Greco-Persian Wars (500-449), the city-states, united in an alliance led by Athens, defended their independence from Persian rule. This contributed to the development of trade and crafts, as well as the rise of morale and patriotism.

The largest theater was located in Megapol, it accommodated 44 thousand people.

The participation of the choir in the tragedy allows us to identify the genesis of the tragedy. The word "tragedy" itself means goat's song and also points to the origin of the dramatic genre. The tragedy arose from the choral performance of dithyrambs in honor of the god Dionysus, who was also called Bacchus. In the fall, the Greeks, having harvested grapes, made new wine and tasted it (diluted with water!), organized games in honor of the patron saint of winemaking. The satyrs and bacchantes who accompanied Dionysus dressed themselves in goat skins and stained their faces with grape marc. The one who was entrusted with the role of Dionysus took the lead, entering into dialogue with the choir. The procession was accompanied by riotous dancing and singing. Dialogue could obviously take place between individual actors, in any case, a dramatic performance - a tragedy - was born from the dialogue.

In tragedy, the hero entered into a duel with superpersonal forces. He invariably found himself defeated, but in the duel with fate his dignity and strength of resistance to the will of the gods were revealed.

Aeschylus (525-456)- the father of ancient Greek tragedy. An aristocrat and warrior, he took part in the battles with the Persians at Marathon and Salamis. He was the author of about 90 works, of which 7 have come down to us. In the tragedy “Oresteia”, which consisted of three parts “Agamemnon”, “Choephora”, “Eumenides”, he spoke about the sinister crimes of the Atrides family, about the murder of the leader of the Achaean army of his wife Clytemnestra, the cruel reprisal of children against their mother and the revenge of the gods on Orestes for his crime. The main conflict of the tragedy is not family, but historical.

In tragedy "Prometheus Bound" For the first time in world culture, Aeschylus recreated the image of a tyrant fighter, bringing people the light of truth. Aeschylus interprets everything that human civilization had achieved by that time as the gift of Prometheus. In the central monologue, the tragic hero speaks about himself and about people:

Sophocles (496-406) wrote 120 works, 7 tragedies have reached us. The son of a wealthy gunsmith from the Athens suburb of Colon, He received an excellent education, took an active part in the political life of Athens, and was a friend of Pericles. He won 24 victories in playwriting competitions. The most famous dramatic works of Sophocles are associated with the Theban cycle of myths. In tragedy "Oedipus the King" the hero, unknowingly, became the killer of his father and the husband of his mother. The gods send a terrible pestilence to the city of Thebes, because a regicide lives here. Oedipus, who became the ruler of Thebes, promises to punish the criminal, but soon becomes convinced of his own guilt. The action of the tragedy develops retrospectively: from the present to the past. People close to Oedipus, when suspicion of his own guilt crept in, convince him that he could not have committed the crime. But the more evidence they provide that it is impossible for him to commit crimes, the stronger his confidence: he himself is guilty. The tragedy of Oedipus consists of an unconsciously committed crime and a consciously accepted punishment. Oedipus was sighted, but did not know what he was doing. Punishing himself, he gouges out his eyes and leaves Thebes, then settles in Colon. The land that gives shelter to a repentant sinner is under the protection of the gods. This is the main idea of ​​the tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus”.

In tragedy "Antigone" a conflict arises between the heirs of Oedipus. Two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, died in the fratricidal war. The new ruler of Thebes, Creon, prohibits, on pain of death, the burial of Polyneices, who went to war against his hometown. Creon issues this law with the best intentions, wanting to stop chaos and anarchy. Oedipus' daughter Antigone, risking her life, disobeyed the ruler and buried her brother's body. Sophocles in the tragedy “Antigone” not only glorifies the heroine’s courage and loyalty to duty, but also confronts the eternal moral laws that humanity has developed throughout history with the willfulness of rulers who violate the world order.