In what years was the novel by Jean Christophe published? Gilenson B.A.: History of foreign literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries

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Introduction

The stable tradition of the “river novel” - according to the name common in France - i.e. the tradition of the multi-volume novel is one of the obvious confirmations of the connection between 20th century literature and realism and romanticism of the 19th century century.

Romain Rolland (1866-1944) is a writer who responded with his creativity to the most fundamental problems of the 20th century. He was a passionate fighter against fascism and war.

Quite complex ideological evolution R. Rolland, creative activity which spans almost fifty years.

Romain Rolland was born in the city of Clamcy (Burgundy). His father was a notary. Since 1881, the family began to live in Paris, where, after graduating from the Lyceum, Rolland entered the Normal School, higher educational institution, preparing teachers.

The outstanding abilities of the young Rolland were especially revealed in his interest in music and literature. Rolland's love for art was also reflected in the anxiety with which he regarded its decline in the West, in his desire to find means of improving art.

In 1889, Rolland brilliantly completed his course at the Normal School and went to Rome, where he continued to study art. In 1891 he returned to Paris, and four years later he defended his dissertation on the history of European opera. In subsequent years, along with teaching at the Ecole Normale and the Sorbonne, Rolland devoted more and more time to creativity. He wrote many articles about music and worked on his first dramas.

1. The genre of “heroic biography”

Rolland could not be content with realism “in the spirit of Flaubert,” denial, and dispassionate description. A society that is dying from selfishness and lack of spirituality can only be changed by “great souls”, Heroes, and their moral example. In search of such examples, Rolland went beyond the national artistic tradition. As a student, Rolland wrote a letter to Tolstoy as a “guiding star,” asking him to answer painful questions about how to live, what art should be. Worldwide famous writer answered in October 1887 to a French student on 38 pages. Especially strong impression Rolland was influenced by Tolstoy's condemnation of bourgeois art for its separation from the people, from life.

Much later, Rolland wrote: “I will never forget the fatherly help provided to the restless young man that I was then.” L. Tolstoy became his teacher for a long time. At the beginning of the century, he would write “The Life of Tolstoy,” along with other “heroic biographies” (“The Life of Beethoven,” “The Life of Michelangelo”).

In French history Rolland was attracted by the pre-bourgeois period, attracted by the “heroic epic of France,” from Charlemagne to the revolution of 1789. Rolland began as a playwright, and in the 90s he wrote play after play. The theater answered Rolland's need for a platform, for effective art, capable of having a direct and immediate impact on consciousness. The aesthetics of the early Rolland was formed in dramatic practice, and his call for the creation of “new art for a new society” arose (in the preface to the book “People's Theater”, 1903).

The writer continues to search for positive, spiritual strong heroes, whose example could inspire contemporaries, among great people different eras. This is how the idea of epic biographies of great people - “Heroic Lives” - was born. Rolland creates “The Life of Beethoven” (1903), “The Life of Michelangelo” (1906), “The Life of Tolstoy” (1911).

Rolland gave the first place in the cycle to his favorite composer - “the powerful and pure-hearted Beethoven.” A brilliant connoisseur of music and a professional historian, Rolland created a number of outstanding works on musicians of the past and present (“Musicians of the Past,” 1908, “Musicians of Our Day,” 1908, “Handel,” 1910, etc.). But only Beethoven became the writer’s life partner. To study creative biography Rolland turned to Beethoven constantly. As a result, he created a six-volume work on Beethoven - “Great Creative Epochs”, the first volume of which was published in 1927, and the last was completed during the Second World War.

Rolland's book "The Life of Beethoven", published in 1903, had big success. The fair idea of this book, that Beethoven’s brilliant music was born of revolution, was developed by the author in subsequent works on the composer with greater persistence, although they are not without contradictions.

The biography of Michelangelo pays a certain tribute to the pessimistic sentiments of the 900s, although Rolland sought to polemicize with them. Creative path Michelangelo is shown as an endless chain of suffering. But at the same time, Michelangelo is depicted as a man of unbending will and indestructible energy.

In “The Life of Tolstoy,” Rolland noted the enormous importance of the work of the great Russian writer for the whole world and for himself personally. He was attracted to Tolstoy by his critical attitude towards reality, bourgeois art, effective humanism, love for ordinary people and to life. The book was created shortly after the death of L. Tolstoy. Rolland said about this work: “I instinctively discarded everything in it that separated us, and laid only respect and love on his grave.” But, undoubtedly, the lack of a critical attitude towards Tolstoy’s philosophy in the book is explained by the fact that in those years much of it was close to Rolland. This was reflected in the last books of one of best works Rolland - the novel "Jean-Christophe".

2. The story that takes place before our eyes in the novel “Jean-Christophe”

The appearance of the “river novel” in Rolland’s work was predetermined, since the “heroic epic” meant for him not just a genre, but a way of thinking and a way of life. Following the “epic cycle” of dramas about the revolution - the ten-volume “Jean-Christophe” (“Dawn” (1904), “Morning” (1904), “Adolescence” (1905), “Revolt” (1906), “Fair in the Square” (1908), “Antoinette” (1908), “In the House” (1909), “Girlfriend” (1910), “The Burning Bush” (1911), “The Coming Day” (1912)).

When starting to create his “river,” Rolland defined its fundamental features as follows: “The hero is Beethoven in today's world.<…>The world that you see from the hero’s heart, as from a central point.” The appearance of such a “central point” meant turning to a new source of the epic - to the Personality. The hero of the novel finally broke with the status of a “shopkeeper” and acquired the status of Beethoven, a Genius endowed with maximum creative potential.

Even the name of the hero of the novel - Jean-Christophe Craft - is symbolic; it indicates these possibilities, this function of the guarantor of Rolland's optimism, his bets on the future (“what is important is not what was, but what will be”). “Kraft” - “strength”, “force of nature” (German), Jean - John the Baptist, who baptized Christ. Christophe - St. Christopher carrying Christ across the river. Special meaning and the hero's destiny are outlined by Kraft's origins, his birth in the border region of Germany, and then his move to Paris. Jean-Christophe is the realization of Rolland's favorite idea about universal brotherhood, the unity of humanity.

Another feature of Rolland’s “river” is formulated in “Dialogue of the Author with His Shadow” (preface to the first edition of “Fair on the Square”, 1908). The shadow is, naturally, a hero close to the author, but the author is ready to follow his own shadow along the path to the truth, to the future. The author discovers and establishes the most essential and intimate things in himself with the help of this unusual double, with the help of an unusual monologue in which the voice of the author and the voice of the hero merge. The image of the “hero-author” gives organic unity to the narrative, which sometimes seems multi-styled.

According to Rolland's definition, the composition of "Jean-Christophe" is a musical, "four-part symphony." Parts of this symphony are the stages of the hero’s formation, the music of his soul, the endless and endlessly changing range of feelings and sensations that arise when in contact with the outside world. Starting with the vague images that arose in a newborn, and ending with the impressions of a lifetime, flashing through the fading consciousness of a dying person.

The fundamental principle of Rolland's epic is lyrical and poetic. He called his novel a “poem in prose” and declared that he “decidedly breaks with all the conventions established in French literature.” Rolland said that he was not writing a novel, but a “symbol of faith.” His task - to create a new humanity - implied cleansing, renewal, a return to the soul, and implied the release of spiritual energy in the free flow of the “romance-river”, disregarding any conventions.

The “flow” in “Jean-Christophe” does not develop, however, into the stream of consciousness of the hero of the novel. Monologue is determined more by the function of the author than of the hero. In the novel, it is often said “we” (the author and his “shadow”), there is an address to the hero (“you”), the presence of the author is obvious all the time, and the “shadow” - as it should be - obediently follows its creator. Christophe too often speaks in the voice of Rolland himself, and in some places the text of the novel is no different from Rolland’s journalism. For example, in the book “Fair in the Square” Christophe is no longer a shadow, but a pseudonym of the author, who provides an overview of the culture of France at the beginning of the 20th century in a slightly fictionalized form. And not through the “eyes of Olivier,” but with his own eyes, Rolland sees “true France,” substituting in its place this symbol of the French spirit, opposed to the “fair in the square.”

Rolland could not avoid the danger of turning the “shadow” into an illustration. The author’s thought gravitates over the hero, precedes him, awaits him at every stage, summing up and outlining further path. And every step is taken with visible pressure, the movement is often at the limit, for Jean-Christophe is not just Craft, but also John the Baptist. His psychology is individual - and at the same time typical, since he, Man as such, expresses the “hidden forces of the elements.”

This does not mean, however, that Jean-Christophe is just a “shadow”. “The Shadow” is full-blooded enough to live “its own” life, to go “its own” way, taking the author with it. For Rolland "a model modern epic"War and Peace remained." “Jean-Christophe” is an epic of “the world in which we live,” its hero represents “a generation moving from one war to another, from 1870 to 1914.” Rolland brought Christophe to the fields of social battles of a turning point, made him a harbinger of the “coming day,” the best option for a man who, in the heart of Europe, among raging passions, rises like a beacon gathering all people of good will.

The system of characters in “Jean-Christophe” is a circle of people close to the hero, his friends, a certain big family, playing the role of the foundation of society, renewed by the spiritual energy and moral impulse of the members of such a community. The relationship between them is regulated by feelings of love, friendship, those true values that Christophe especially needs.

Only friendship establishes contact between different civilizations, French and German, since Christophe and Olivier are their personifications. Rolland challenged chauvinism by the fact that he made a German the hero of the novel, entrusting him with both his ethics and his aesthetics - completing his upbringing, his formation in Paris, in contact with Olivier, i.e. with "true France".

Christophe’s characteristic reaction to the outside world is not “German” or “French” - it is the reaction of an artist, a musician who every time “tunes” his soul, capturing in everything internal rhythms, melodies inaudible to others. Saturated with them, Christophe rises above ordinary existence, joins the “elements”, the “hidden forces”. But at the same time he does not leave the earth, since music for him is “everything that exists.”

By introducing himself to music, Christophe is introduced to joy, to love, and acquires such strength that allows him to overcome all obstacles. Music defines the highest - Beethoven's - parameters of Personality, and Rolland's “river novel” is the history of the formation of a hero corresponding to these parameters. "Jean-Christophe" - another biography heroic personality, along with Beethoven, Tolstoy, Michelangelo.

The gift of an artist that Christophe is endowed with is a certain absolute pitch, the ability to make an unmistakable moral assessment of all things. Christophe begins his critical revision with art, with music, then passes judgment on society, first German, provincial, then French, metropolitan, and finally, the pan-European “fair in the square.”

Jean-Christophe fights not only with this “fair”, not only with decadence and total bourgeoisification. His rebellion takes on an existential meaning. He saw the death of loved ones early, and his life became “a struggle against a cruel lot.” He very early separated the internal from the external, separated the “essence”, which was identified with the need for freedom, with the search for the meaning of being. The search was all the more dramatic because Christophe was “obsessed with disbelief” - “God no longer existed.”

Christophe forged his ethics in a society that resembled a “heap of ruins.” At first, he too had a desire to “destroy and burn” as a sign of protest, since “There is no God, everything is permitted.” However, the artist is guided by a healthy, natural instinct that transforms the energy of denial into the energy of affirmation. Absolute freedom, the art of which also visited Rolland, the freedom of the Nietzschean superman is the opposite of Rolland’s passionate humanism.

This particular era, the eve of the World War, is pushed back to the end of the epic as the background against which the eternal drama of Life and Death took place, outside real space, beyond even the personality, transforming into the beginning of Creativity, into the personification of the Future. Traditional religiosity, questioned, is replaced by a new faith, the hero acquires, in the words of Rolland, “religious value” - in the finale he gives way to Saint Christopher.

Conclusion

Romain Rolland delivered a merciless verdict on the passing century in his work. Having discovered symptoms of a serious social illness, signs of decline and degradation, Rolland called for the rebirth of man, for the creation of a new man as a condition for the transformation of society. Rolland saw the source of renewal in art and likened aesthetics to ethics.

Rolland was a professional musician, the author of many works on the history of music, and to a large extent it was music that shaped Rolland’s unique epic, focusing on the “eternal foundations and secrets.” “To penetrate into the very essence of the element, to comprehend its hidden powers” - Rolland transferred this task of music to verbal art.

Such a task in itself returned to romantic tradition, despite Rolland’s negative attitude towards the “poison of idealism”, towards the “illusions” that the romantics were guilty of, towards “rhetoric”. Rolland resolutely opposed the “predominance of words over things” with truth, “reality as it is.” Rolland's taste for “real things,” for Life, for Nature balanced his fascination with “hidden forces,” “moral truths,” which turned into rhetoric.

Christophe's life story is one of constant loss. Rolland generously gives a person the full measure of suffering in order to overcome evil and rise to joy, enriching his soul, this “huge spiritual kingdom.”

The uniqueness of Rolland's social novel is that the knowledge of life, social injustice, and inequality forms, first of all, the emotional sphere of the intensely experiencing hero. Educational novel V in this case- a novel of “sentimental education”, the stages of which are indicated by the next emotional crisis.

Literature

rolland jean christophe heroic biography

1. Balakhonov V.E. Romain Rolland and his time ("Jean-Christophe"). - L., 1968. - 285 p.

2. Foreign literature of the 20th century (1871-1917): Textbook / Ed. V.N. Bogoslovsky, Z.T. Civil. - M.: Education, 1979. - 351 p.

3. Foreign literature of the 20th century: Textbook / Ed. L.G. Andreeva. - 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Higher. school, 2004. - 559 p.

4. History French literature. T. III. - M.: Nauka, 1963. - 375 p.

5. Kirnoze Z.I. French novel of the 20th century. - Gorky, 1977. - 295 p.

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23.Kipling's work

KIPLING Joseph Rediard - English novelist and poet. R. in Bombay. From the age of 17 - employee of the Indian Military and Civil Newspaper; The essays, stories and poems published in it made up K.'s first books. Subsequently, he became a war correspondent (one of his last books was dedicated to the activities of the Irish Guard during the imperialist war). Autobiographical features are found in the novel “The Light Has Gone Out.” Received the Nobel Prize in 1907.

The special position of K. in English literature is noted not only high distinctions- he is a doctor honoris causa of nine universities, - not only with fees that are 25 times higher than usual (at a shilling per word in 1900, i.e. about 3 thousand rubles per printed sheet), but also with the presence of four lifetime collected works, an extraordinary fact for England, which has almost no knowledge of lifetime collected works.

The ideology expressed by K.’s creativity is the ideology of the associates of British imperialism, who in fact created “Greater Britain” (an empire around the world). Expansion populates the most remote geographical locations with young men going to the colonies to make a career for themselves. They dream of the fate of the clerk Clive, who conquered India, settle down, get married, have children. Throughout the “Seven Seas” (K.’s book of poems), the problem of the “native born” is growing. These people form a sort of “irregular legion”; brotherhood and friendly support from the conquistadors bind them together. They bear the “white man’s burden” (a slogan coined by Kipling).

The colony (especially India, the birthplace of K. himself) for the “native-born” is not the exoticism of a traditional imperialist novel, but the business reality of everyday work. A representative of colonial naturalism, K. is the first in English literature to perceive India as a fact of everyday life.

The psychology of the mediocre conqueror is characterized by efficiency, self-confidence, sentimental nostalgia (homesickness), foreignness (jingoism). K. is the spokesman for the thoughts and feelings of a successful young official (the favorite hero of any average English novel), an agent of colonialism who carries it out “conscientiously.” In this environment, K.'s characters are household names, and many lines of his poems have become proverbs.

K.'s ideological baggage is imperialist, die-hard conservatism, racial pride, Anglo-Saxon chosenness. K.'s political position is that the fate of the Empire is above all; anyone who encroaches on its safety is criminal. Hence the hatred of possible encroachers on India - to Tsarist Russia(the novel “Kim”, “World with the Bear”, the story “The Man Who Was” and many others); hence the rabid German-eating during and after the World War. Existing system competition, the survival of the strong, is correct (“Imperial Order”), and although some defects are evident in it, for example. bureaucracy (a number of early Indian stories), is not subject to sudden changes either to the right ("Old Exodus") or to the left. Reforms are acceptable, but the basis is the “freedom” achieved by our ancestors for everyone, which naturally applies only to whites. Or rather, there are different laws for whites and for coloreds. “The West is the West, the East is the East, and they cannot come together” (“The Ballad of the West and the East”) - a verse that has become a proverb. That's the burden white man to subjugate the East by persuasion or force to the great English civilization. The greatness of the task lies in the fact that its performers are nameless, and their path is difficult. But only these people, operating in places where “neither divine nor human law has power north of 53° latitude” (“The Tale of the Three Catcatchers,” a proverbial verse), are the only ones that are valuable, because they builders and workers of life (“Mary Gloucester”, “Tomlinson”, etc.) These are the prerequisites for K.’s literary activity. It is an expression of the colonial-aggressive predatory work of English imperialism, sometimes turns into a direct set of business instructions, instructions - how to do something or other (for example, the instruction in the “soldier’s song” “Robbery”). Three rows of facts are characteristic here: 1. Absolute protocol accuracy of the time and place of action: data that precisely establishes the route of the horse thief in “The Ballad of the West and the East”, the springboard for military operations in “The Ballad of Bo-Da-Ton”; This is even sharper, naturally, in prose. The author is present in the story as an observer of events or a person listening to a report about them. The story therefore resembles a diary entry. 2. Novels end with a moral; the short story is a conclusion that reveals the (colloquial) association by virtue of which it is told (this is how the whole book “At the stern of the steamship pipe” is structured). So. arr. the short story erases its edges and approaches an essay. It is characteristic that such a wonderful story as “The City of a Terrible Night” was first published in a book of travel essays. No less significant is the presence of a series of books of stories from English history, creatively completed by “The School History of England” (with Fletcher, 1911), a children's history textbook. 3. In order to finally confirm the authenticity of the presented material, K. cycles the short stories not only around some heroes, but also in Balzac style, with a random roll call: the episodic person of one short story is the hero of another. This technique becomes especially poignant when the character acts in both prose and verse (the narrator of “The Ballad of the Royal Joke,” the merchant Mahbub-Ali, is one of Kim’s teachers, and a number of other examples).

English criticism sees the literary tradition of K. in Bret Harte (cm.) But Hart records and explains the world, explores ch. arr. the spiritual content of the hero is, moreover, purely naturalistic and thereby objectivistic, while K.’s creativity is directly political-utilitarian; caring about protocol timing, Kipling neglects objective naturalism, but strives for applied and propaganda naturalism. Purely psychological works (the novel “The Light Has Gone Out”, a number of short stories) are the least successful for K. In this parallel, the only significant thing is that both authors went through the school of newspaper essays (cm.). Hence K.’s vigilance for purely professional details and the extraordinary versatility of his subjects, surprising many researchers.

The applied naturalism of K.'s prose found a very unique expression in his world-famous “animal” cycles, especially in the two “Jungle Books,” which were enthusiastically received by all critics. The cycle about Mowgli can be considered the founder of a new genre of stories about animals: C. J. D. Roberts and E. T. Seton, both senior contemporaries of K., came out with their fiction books about animals only after K. The second “animal” cycle, “ This is how fairy tales are”, is already a fairy tale development of established genres, a complex crossing of the traditions of a children's fairy tale with its natural magic, cognitive

The works of Romain Rolland

“Jean-Christophe”: the structure of the novel, the image of the main character, features of poetics, genre specificity, the essence of innovation

“Jean-Christophe” is unusual in its very design. This is a story about the life of a brilliant musician, from birth to death. The novel is also unusual in its structure: no romantic intrigue, few external events, but a lot of reflections, sometimes pages lyrical prose, and sometimes - transitions of the narrative into direct journalism. The manner of presentation is uneven, in places unusually elevated and not free from length; The dialogues are expressive, rich in thought and feeling, but bear little resemblance to everyday, everyday speech. Least of all, “Jean-Christophe” resembled fiction for easy reading: the author clearly did not care about being entertaining, and did not really care about the complete accessibility of his novel. Every now and then the names of composers and writers from different eras appear on its pages, and various associations with works of art arise in the course of the action; often we're talking about and about such events of social and artistic life, which are not so well known to the reading public.

And despite all this, the novel won unexpectedly wide recognition. “Jean-Christophe” began to appear book after book. They started transferring it to foreign languages. Immediately upon completion of his work in 1913, Romain Rolland received Big bonus French Academy, and even earlier - the Order of the Legion of Honor. “Jean-Christophe” was perceived and understood as a social event and entered the circle of literary works that determined the face of artistic culture of the 20th century. It is worth thinking about the reasons for this success.

In "Jean-Christophe" the generation of 1904 found a reason to hope, to fight - socially and historical conditions, changed in comparison with those that drove people of previous generations to despair. The objective meaning of this historical change, reflected in its own way on the pages of the novel, is the advancement into the arena of history of the working class, which, despite fluctuations and mistakes, was gaining strength, gaining independence, and attracting non-proletarian layers of workers to its side. “Jean-Christophe” reflected in its own way both the growing danger of war and the latent protest against it.

This characterization of the ideological essence of “Jean-Christophe” may seem at first glance too straightforward. After all, before us is the story of a musician, because we are talking about formation, search, creative ascent composer, a man rebellious in spirit, but by the very essence of his profession far from political life. But indignation at the power of property owners, hostile to genuine culture and art, disgust at merchantism, philistinism, at the phenomena of bourgeois decay, protest against the oppression of man by man and, at the same time, the expectation of great historical changes in people's lives - all this lives in the novel, animates it . It is from here that the fundamental traits of Jean-Christophe’s character and attitude come from - intransigence, independence and at the same time deep sympathy for the working people. And one can understand why French readers, tired of the twilight, decadent literature of the end of the century, imbued with the spirit of despondency and moral nihilism, perceived “Jean-Christophe” as a stream of fresh air.

The depth and complexity of the concept of the novel were not immediately revealed - not only to the general public, but also to critics and literary scholars. However, thinking, spiritually alive readers from the very beginning were attracted by the image of the main character - a rebel, creator, humanist, a man of courage and generous soul. I was also attracted by the unusual artistic structure of the novel, which uniquely embodied the writer’s faith in life, in the forward movement of humanity.

“Jean-Christophe” is rich in harsh critical content, both where the bourgeois world of Germany is depicted, moving from loyal provincial vegetation to militaristic rage, and where the bourgeois (and literary, artistic) elite of France, mired in corruption and cynicism. The fifth book of the novel, where the Parisian “fair on the square” opens to the amazed, indignant gaze of Jean-Christophe, is distinguished by a particularly sharp tone. Rolland was well acquainted with the customs of the “fair” and said out loud about it what was on his mind, without fear of making influential enemies. He had to listen to reproaches about this book even from some friends, and he justified himself with great sincerity. “By attacking the corrupt French,” says Romain Rolland through the mouth of his hero, “I am defending France... You need to tell her the truth, especially when you love her.” This principled position of the French master was understood - both in his country and abroad - by the most insightful readers of his novel. Romain Rolland tried to “restore the measure” in the subsequent development of the novel’s action. Friendship with the French writer Olivier, closer personal contacts with his Parisian neighbors, far from the dirty bustle of the “fair” - all this helps Jean-Christophe see more clearly the “true France...”. And as the novel progresses, the abyss separating the oppressed from the oppressors opens deeper and deeper.

If little Jean-Christophe first learned of injustice when he, the son of a visiting cook, was insulted and beaten by insolent barchuks, then the adult Jean-Christophe Craft is horrified, looking closely at the living conditions of the Parisian poor. And together with Christophe, his friend Olivier painfully reflects on the grief of the disadvantaged. The problem of the revolutionary transformation of the world arises with increasing urgency in Jean-Christophe, especially in his penultimate book, The Burning Bush. It rises - and turns out to be a stumbling block both for Rolland himself and for the heroes close to him in spirit.

Romain Rolland saw soberly weak sides of the French labor movement before the First World War - disunity into separate trends and groups, the sectarian narrowness of some, the opportunism of others, the anarchist phrase-mongering of others. All this to some extent obscured in his eyes the real historical prospects of the proletariat. The doubts, partly the prejudices of the writer (as well as insufficient knowledge of the material) were reflected in those chapters of the novel where we are talking about the attempts of Jean-Christophe and Olivier to take part in the struggle of the working class. The barrier between Rolland's heroes and the leaders of proletarian organizations are those features that were characteristic of the writer himself no less than his heroes: distrust of politics, heightened moral rigorism. There is a pattern in the fact that Jean-Christophe, after tragic death Olivier, in a battle with the police, completely withdraws from public life.

It would be unfair to suspect Jean-Christophe (and even more so Rolland himself) of intellectual arrogance, a kind of spiritual aristocracy. No, the musician was an innovator throughout his entire career. life path reaches out to ordinary workers, knows how to find a common language with them. Among the characters in the novel there are many simple and honest people with soul, open to art. Christophe finds support in his friendship with them.

Jean-Christophe's sunset is presented in soft colors. After a long life, which was spent in hardships, unrest, and hard work, he has the right to consider himself a winner. He did not bow to the merchant morals of the “fair on the square”, did not adapt to its vulgar tastes. His music, bold, full of energy, and unusual in many ways, received recognition - it will continue to bring joy to people even after his death.

But Christophe himself, the former indomitable rebel, changed in his old age and lost his fighting ardor. His way of life and way of thinking are affected by a certain mental fatigue, prompting him to condescendingly listen to speeches and opinions with which he cannot agree. The younger generation of Frenchmen, succumbing to militant nationalist sentiments, does not arouse his anger.

And yet there is no reason to consider “Jean-Christophe” as a novel of “farewell to the past,” as a renunciation of the writer or his hero from past ideals. To the extent that Christophe's rebellion was individualistic and abstract in nature, this rebellion reveals, in terms of social ideas, its internal fragility: this is shown, in essence, quite soberly. The last book of the novel - even though the action in it is transferred to an uncertain future - reflects some real features of the spiritual atmosphere of France on the eve of the First World War.

The image of Jean-Christophe - not the peaceful old man from the last book, but the young, brave rebel, as he appeared in the books “Revolt”, “Fair on the Square” - kept appearing before Rolland. He created this image, and now the hero had a reverse influence on the author, strengthened his resilience, and encouraged him to actively resist the forces of imperialism.

The idea of peace and mutual understanding of peoples is deeply embedded in the very essence of the story of Jean-Christophe. Having conceived a novel about the great musician, focusing on the majestic image of Beethoven, Romain Rolland had to make his hero a German, immerse him in the atmosphere of the old German province. But from Beethoven’s life he borrowed only isolated facts relating to childhood and early youth composer. Jean-Christophe - the "Beethoven-type hero" becomes an adult on turn of the 19th century and XX centuries; circumstances force him to emigrate to France. This turn of events was especially opportune for R. Rolland because it gave him the opportunity to show the literary and artistic world of Paris and France as a whole through the acutely fresh, sharply critical perception of a foreigner. This is how an originally constructed narrative emerged, in which different nations and different national cultures interact and are compared.

The ideological essence of the big work of art As a rule, it is not expressed in author’s declarations, and especially not in hasty solutions to problems that have not been solved by life itself. Many important socio-political issues of the era could not be clear to the creator of “Jean-Christophe”. But it was clear to him that the renewal of the entire system of life of people in France and throughout the world on the basis of morality and social justice was on the order of the day. And Rolland sought to bring this future, unclear for him, closer, to participate with the power of his art in the movement of humanity forward. Artistic structure the novel is subordinated to this task.

The elevation of the narrative above reality is also reflected in Rolland's free use of romantic time: the action of the last book, which deals with the old age and death of the hero, takes place many years after the author completed his novel. And this did not bother Romain Rolland, just as he was not embarrassed by the chronological inaccuracies and inconsistencies that meticulous critics pointed out to him. He wanted to recreate modernity in large lines, in the main trends, but he did not try to tie each event to a specific year. The most important thing for him was to convey the general spirit of the era, its drama and the unclear, but, be that as it may, encouraging opportunities it opened up.

In "Jean-Christophe" - as it happens and should be in a good realistic novel- each of the main characters depicted in its social existence, in its social connections and represents a type. But Romain Rolland wanted more. He said about Jean-Christophe that this is not only a type, but also a symbol (in other words, an artistic generalization of a large philosophical scale). And in fact, Christophe is presented in interaction not only with society, but also with various peoples of Europe, and even more broadly - with the entire world.

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“Jean-Christophe was conceived from the very beginning as a novel about the “new Beethoven”; in his hero, Rolland embodied some of the traits of his beloved composer, whose music was dear to him for its heroic, life-affirming spirit. Shortly before the release of the first part of “Jean-Christophe,” Rolland’s short book “The Life of Beethoven” appeared and excited many readers. This was not just a biography. Here Rolland, in a concise and original form, expresses his own views on art and the duty of the artist. He quotes the words of the great composer that he would like to work “for the sake of suffering humanity,” for the sake of “the humanity of the future.” He shares Beethoven's opinion: "Music should strike fire from the human soul."

Reading Rolland’s “Life of Beethoven,” especially its first pages, we clearly see the motives that later unfolded in “Jean-Christophe.”

Rolland talks about harsh childhood Beethoven. His father was a singer, and his mother was a servant before her marriage; the family lived poorly.

"Father decided to take advantage of musical abilities son and showed it to the public small miracle. From the age of four, he kept the boy at the harpsichord for hours or locked him with the violin, forcing him to play until exhaustion... It got to the point that Beethoven had to be almost forced to learn music. His adolescence was overshadowed by worries about bread, the need to earn food early... At the age of seventeen he had already become the head of the family, and he was charged with raising two brothers; he had to take on the humiliating hassle of assigning a pension to his father, a drunkard who was unable to support his family: the pension was given to his son, otherwise the father would have drunk it all away. These sorrows left a deep mark on the young man’s soul.”

The story of Jean-Christophe's childhood and youth, as told by Romain Rolland, is not just the author's fiction: it is the real facts of the biography of the greatest of German composers. And it is not for nothing that the majestic Rhine and its picturesque green banks become the poetic backdrop of the action - after all, here, on the banks of the Rhine, Beethoven spent the first twenty years of his life.

In the first books of Jean-Christophe the contact with the Life of Beethoven is especially obvious; V future fate Rolland's hero is isolated from the real source and develops in his own way. But in the character, in the spiritual appearance of Jean-Christophe, not only youth, but also mature years Much brings him closer to Beethoven. Not only a passionate passion for art, but also an indomitable, independent character, a stubborn reluctance to bow to those in power. And at the same time - the ability to steadfastly endure need and grief, the ability to preserve the will to creativity and love for people in the most difficult conditions. Jean-Christophe's music, like Beethoven's, is imbued with vital energy and the joy of being."

In what years was the novel by Jean Christophe published? Gilenson B.A.: History of foreign literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries

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Introduction

The stable tradition of the “river novel” - according to the name common in France - i.e. the tradition of the multi-volume novel is one of the obvious confirmations of the connection between 20th century literature and realism and romanticism of the 19th century century.

Romain Rolland (1866-1944) is a writer who responded with his creativity to the most fundamental problems of the 20th century. He was a passionate fighter against fascism and war.

Quite complex ideological evolution R. Rolland, creative activity which spans almost fifty years.

Romain Rolland was born in the city of Clamcy (Burgundy). His father was a notary. Since 1881, the family began to live in Paris, where, after graduating from the Lyceum, Rolland entered the Normal School, higher educational institution, preparing teachers.

The outstanding abilities of the young Rolland were especially revealed in his interest in music and literature. Rolland's love for art was also reflected in the anxiety with which he regarded its decline in the West, in his desire to find means of improving art.

1. The genre of “heroic biography”

2. The story that takes place before our eyes in the novel “Jean-Christophe”

Conclusion

Christophe's life story is one of constant loss. Rolland generously gives a person the full measure of suffering in order to overcome evil and rise to joy, enriching his soul, this “huge spiritual kingdom.”

Literature

rolland jean christophe heroic biography

1. Balakhonov V.E. Romain Rolland and his time ("Jean-Christophe"). - L., 1968. - 285 p.

2. Foreign literature of the 20th century (1871-1917): Textbook / Ed. V.N. Bogoslovsky, Z.T. Civil. - M.: Education, 1979. - 351 p.

3. Foreign literature of the 20th century: Textbook / Ed. L.G. Andreeva. - 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Higher. school, 2004. - 559 p.

4. History French literature. T. III. - M.: Nauka, 1963. - 375 p.

5. Kirnoze Z.I. French novel of the 20th century. - Gorky, 1977. - 295 p.

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