Tragedy. Little tragedies in the lives of adults Tragedies in the lives of many people

Tragedy (Greek tragodia, literally - goat's song, from tragos - goat and ode - song) is a dramatic genre, the opposite of comedy; tragedy is based on an acute and insoluble conflict that ends in the death of the hero. In tragedy, tragic emotion was considered especially important, a combination of deep sadness and high delight, an element of spectator empathy, and the process of mental purification through suffering (catharsis). The genre arose in Ancient Greece from cult rituals dedicated to the god Dionysus.

Greek tragedy gave the world ideal examples of this genre (Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides). Ancient tragedy was based on mythological material, it was characterized by heroism and philosophy, it touched upon the highest problems of existence (life and death, eternity, etc.), it affirmed the freedom of character acting in line with necessity. The hero, as a rule, found himself at the mercy of fate, evil fate, and had to fulfill his destiny. At the same time, his free will was also important - it was she who forced him to fulfill his mission in accordance with the will of the gods, even at the cost of his own life.

In the Middle Ages, martyrdom appears as tragic. The main heroes of tragedies are martyrs, saints, etc. According to Yu. Borev, “this is not a tragedy of purification, but a tragedy of consolation; the concept of catharsis is alien to it.” An important element of medieval tragedy is the will of Providence and the presence of supernatural forces. In the Middle Ages, tragedy gave way: liturgical drama, miracles, mystery plays and morality plays became widespread. Tragedy is classified as epic literature.

Tragedy received its powerful development in the Late Renaissance and Baroque eras (Calderon de la Barca, William Shakespeare). The Renaissance revealed the social nature of the tragic conflict, affirming the freedom of the character's personality and his heroism. Turning to modern material and striving for the most truthful reproduction of life, W. Shakespeare in his plays “developed all the best aspects of ancient tragedy,” revealing the depth and complexity of characters in the characters.

Then the era of classicism puts forward new requirements for the genre: Alexandrian verse, adherence to the principle of three unities - action, time, place, the presence of five acts. During this period, P. Corneille and J. Racine created their works.

The Age of Enlightenment is marked by the tragedies of F. Schiller, in which he largely relies on ancient examples (“Mary Stuart”, “Don Carlos”).

Then the tragedy is deprived of many genre properties (the authors move away from the principle of three unities, only the unity of external action is preserved); in the center of the romantics’ image is no longer the external world (as in ancient tragedy), but the inner world of man, his soul (V. Hugo, J. Byron, M.Yu. Lermontov). Romantics are clearly aware of the inevitability of evil in the world and the eternal need to fight it. Moreover, evil is omnipotent, and the hero, even dying, cannot defeat it. However, this death is not meaningless: “the tragic hero does not allow the undivided dominance of evil to be established on earth.” Then tragedy begins to be replaced by drama and melodrama, a mixture of genres arises (F. Schiller’s bourgeois tragedy “Cunning and Love”), tragic drama (V. Hugo), historical drama (A.S. Pushkin).

Every time big troubles happen in the lives of our relatives, friends, acquaintances - someone gets seriously ill, loses loved ones, etc. - we sadly shake our heads and say sympathetically: “What a tragedy!” But there is another situation. For example, a teenage girl fell unrequitedly in love. She is sad, her eyes are wet. What do you say in order to console, calm, and reason with Nesmeyan? That’s right: “Just think, it’s a tragedy! Yes, you will have dozens of Vit, Pet, and Mish! You are so beautiful and smart!”

Definition

To understand such a wide range of uses of the word, let’s understand its meaning. According to explanatory dictionaries, tragedy is, firstly, along with drama and comedy. Its most famous examples are Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and other works of William Shakespeare. From Russian literature, of course, one should remember Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov,” “The Miserly Knight,” and “The Stone Guest.” Secondly, tragedy is misfortune, misfortune, grief. It can be either individual, personal, i.e., occurring in the fate of one specific person or family, or large-scale, universal. World wars and natural disasters are classified as such events. Synonyms for the word: dashing, destruction, blow of fate, etc. And the third meaning of the word is figurative and ironic, when tragedy is just a minor nuisance, inflated to the size of an elephant.

Literature and life

Literature is a reflection of life, the brightest and most intense moments of reality. Tyutchev wrote: “Blessed is he who visited this world / In its fatal moments...” Poets and writers who were lucky enough to live at the fundamental, turning points of history, captured in diaries, memoirs, novels, dramas the titanic and, alas, fruitless attempts of humanity to create a harmonious , happy world order. Life in such works is in full swing, rises to the brink of the possible, and their hero, through titanic efforts of will, overcomes a fatal coincidence of circumstances. It is not without reason that literary scholars believe that tragedy is the most complete expression of our existence. This type of dramatic action is more suitable than others for a full reflection of life in all its diversity.

Genre specifics

Drama, tragedy, comedy are literary terms that came to us from the ancient Greek language. It was the aesthetes of Hellas who introduced them into the use of critics. Drama is both a genre term and a generic one. How it is divided into tragedy - a high, heroic genre, comedy - a low genre, and drama itself, which combines some of the characteristics of the first two. The plot of tragedies, as a rule, is filled with conflicts and clashes, which cannot be resolved peacefully.

Tragic hero

The catastrophe of external and internal contradictions, the maximum tension of the moment, the presence of the main characters on the edge, “in the balance,” are necessary components of the action. A literary work of the tragic genre reflects conflicts in society, in reality, that are truly extremely serious. Hence the special heroic or other pathos that is characteristic of them. Let's remember Hamlet's tossing, his endless internal moral duels with himself! And external clashes with a hostile, deeply vicious modern world. More precisely, not only the world, but also the century, the era! The hero of tragedy is majestic because he challenges forces much more powerful than himself. And he dies in this confrontation, because he can neither retreat nor win. It should be noted that not only dramatic, but also epic works belong to this genre. “Crime and Punishment”, Dostoevsky, “Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov or “The Scaffold” by our contemporary Aitmatov - each of them is a true tragedy novel.

History of the term

But let's go back thousands of years ago, to Ancient Greece. The Hellenes were pagans, they worshiped a whole host of large and small gods. In the Pantheon, Dionysus occupied a fairly prominent place - the patron of agriculture, winemaking, vegetation, inspiration, the joys of life and fun, which, as we know, the Greeks associated with wine. In Hellas there were many religious cults dedicated to Dionysus. Various rites and rituals of his veneration and glorification were reflected in the festivals and games held in honor of the Olympian. The sacrificial animal that was necessarily presented to Dionysus was a goat. Therefore, the literal meaning of the word tragedy is “goat song.” During the grape harvest, the Greeks staged entire performances, during which they sang praises to God. People dressed up in animal skins, depicting satyrs - fantastic creatures similar to goats - they also glorified their patron Dionysus. Based on this action, an ancient tragedy was born - a mixture of myth and reality, solemn dithyrambs and choral songs of satyrs. Over time, the plot of the festival became more complex, a conflict and a dramatic element appeared in it. And the action itself moved from fields and forests to

Tragedy

Tragedy

TRAGEDY is a large form of drama, a dramatic genre opposed to comedy (see), specifically resolving the dramatic struggle with the inevitable and necessary death of the hero and distinguished by the special nature of the dramatic conflict. T. is based not on any individual struggle with obstacles, but only on a deep ideological conflict, a clash of worldviews.

I. Term T. appears for the first time in ancient Greece to designate a religious ritual - traditional mimic games and choral songs (dithyrambs) associated with agricultural festivals in honor of the god Dionysus. The ritual basis of these celebrations was the sacrifice of a goat (in Greek tragos, hence the name “tragedy”, “goat song”, “song in honor of the goat”), accompanied by the performance of the legend of Dionysus. This legend was once, in ancient times, narrated to the people by a priest, but later it was transferred to a dithyrambic chorus, along with the Crimea, dancing “choirs of satyrs” took part in the ritual, mimicking the events of the same legend about Dionysus. From the combination of a dithyramb with a chorus of satyrs came, according to Aristotle, T., which in the early stages of its development retained a close connection with the myth of Dionysus. Gradually expanding the area of ​​T. by introducing other myths, complicating the dramatization of the plot, the cult action turned into a theatrical spectacle. The stages of this transition have not been precisely established, but T. finally emerged as a dramatic form in the period of the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. Ancient legend names the Corinthian poet Arion as the founder of T. The first exact date in the history of T. is 534, when the “father of Attic T.” performed with his choir in Athens. Thespis, who made a major step in the development of the genre with the introduction of an actor (protagonist). Following this performance, the round dance theater finally took shape in the system of Athenian citywide festivals, which reached its full flowering during the era of the pan-Greek hegemony of Athens (479-431). During this period, the boundaries of the genre became clear, the principles of compositional structure and plot development were revealed, thematic themes were formed, and the term “T.” acquired a very definite and stable meaning.
To solve the problem of T., it is necessary to raise the question of the social conditions in which this genre arose, what historical phenomena it reflected, what ideological and artistic needs it satisfied, when and how it experienced its collapse, and in what dependence it reappeared on the stage.
The history of theater and drama shows that in some eras the genre of theater is predominant, in others it either disappears completely, sometimes exists as a frozen template form, or is deformed to such an extent that only the name of theater retains. This genre was created for the first time in history of theater and drama in the era of great social revolution. Ancient democracy arose in Greece during the era of the death and disintegration of the clan system, the liberation of small free producers - peasants and artisans - from the power of the clan community and the formation of ancient city-states in the form of democratic republics. During this era, the patriarchal foundations of tribal life collapsed, the integrity of the tribal worldview disintegrated; Religious doubts, individualism, and the adventurism of a merchant city dweller burst into the world of caste traditions, strict morals, and naive faith. A new, individualistic culture, a new philosophy, a new art developed rapidly; Along with the breakdown of the old social structure, Greece was engulfed by a new, democratic religion - the cult of Dionysus, the suffering god-liberator. At the same time, “the moral influence, inherited worldview and thinking of the old tribal era were passed on for a long time to subsequent generations, dying out only little by little” (Engels, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”). Perceived through the prism of an inherited worldview, the shift in all forms of life and consciousness was felt by the ancients as a shaking of earth and sky, a change of gods; an incomprehensible pattern of the historical process arose as an incomprehensible destiny. In this struggle of two worldviews, in the alternation of two worlds, a folk and a heroic one was created, which had enormous social, national significance, expressing the true “voice of the people’s consciousness” (Hegel), ancient T., the highest embodiment of which was given by the greatest tragedians of the ancient world - Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Genetically connected with the mythology and cult actions of the new religion, Greek T. at the same time had its roots in the folk epic, the folk cult of heroes. As Hegel pointed out, “ancient theory is based on the epic and heroic state of the world.” It is symptomatic of the genesis of T. that the first tragedians created a number of historical and heroic dramas on the theme of the liberation struggle of the Greeks (“The Capture of Miletus,” “The Phoenician Women” by Phrynichus, “The Persians” by Aeschylus).

Antique T. in the early days of its existence as an established genre, it was still the bearer of “the moral influences of the inherited worldview of the tribal era.” Aeschylus (526-456) imbued his work with religious ideas and put forward the omnipotence of fate as the main idea. The death of Aeschylus's heroes is predetermined from above; their struggle is tragic because they oppose their limited human powers to the higher power that reigns over the world.
The individual’s aspirations to change the course of things are doomed (“Oedipus”); good and evil, world and social order are established from above; a single pattern rules the world - fate; submission to fate is the only law for man. This ancient understanding of reality becomes tragic in Aeschylus’s work, because it is not calm, not motionless. Aeschylus defends the inviolability of ancient truth, but the artist’s brilliant instinct reveals to him the movement of life, deep and significant changes to which this movement leads, the replacement of old laws with new ones, Erinnius - Eumenides (“Oresteia”). This contradiction was especially acute in Aeschylus’s trilogy about Prometheus, imbued with liberation ideas, humanism, and anti-godism. In the person of Prometheus, Aeschylus created the image of a great rebel against the oppressive power of the gods, a martyr fighter for freedom and independence, for human self-determination, for the rights of the human mind, creativity and culture.
That movement of life, which Aeschylus understood as a rebellion of man against the law of the gods, appears in Sophocles (496-406) as a struggle between two laws, two truths - the unwritten law - the eternal tribal law, and the new law - the ancient democratic state (“Antigone” ). If Aeschylus justified the death of the hero as a consequence of the destiny of fate, then Sophocles, without abandoning the idea of ​​fate, puts next to it the personal guilt of the hero, which inevitably leads to death. Departing from the straightforward development of T. Aeschylus, where necessity appears in all its nakedness, thanks to which the death of the hero is already predetermined in the outset, Sophocles introduces a moment of chance into T., creating a peripeteia - a slowdown in action, its deviation from the rapid approach to disaster.
The work of Euripides (480-406) - the last stage of the ancient round dance of T. - is marked by the features of the deepest crisis of the patriarchal worldview. Euripides finally breaks the ideological connection between T. and the religious cult, introducing into it the spirit of sophistry and humanistic philosophy. Revolving around traditional mythological themes, Euripides gives them an acutely modern resolution. His T. decisively fights against the tribal worldview, polemically overestimates cult legends (“Hippolytus”), and portrays tribal morality as meaningless and barbaric (“Orestes”). The law of divine necessity and fate bring baseness and crime into people's lives. The death of the hero is necessary, but this necessity is disgusting. The gods participate in Euripides' tragedy only as a deus ex machina, but in essence it is non-religious. T.'s interest is focused on depicting the hero's emotional experiences; individualization and psychologization of images reach a high level; a large place is given to life's chance; in T. intrigue is introduced - the complication of the action by the intricate lines of the conscious actions of the heroes. The dynamics of the action increases, the role of the chorus decreases decisively. Adventure and erotic motifs are woven into T., the struggle of passions occupies a primary place. Finally, T. appears with a happy ending, that is, the boundaries of the genre are broken.
In the first half of the 4th century. BC e. With the fall of Athenian democracy, the round dance theater also dies. The victorious commercial and industrial aristocracy creates a new, so-called. Hellenistic culture, refined and refined, a new, individualistic philosophy arises, a powerful case is deified, the deep problems of T. Aeschylus and Sophocles are replaced in art by narrowly personal family and everyday interests - and T. dies off, giving way to other dramatic genres.
Ancient Rome did not create its own T. Only in the 3rd century. BC e., during the era of Rome's dominion over the entire Mediterranean, the conquered Greeks brought their culture, their art to the conquerors, and Roman nobles became acquainted with copies of the Attic T. The slave of the Roman senator, the Greek poet Livius Andronicus, composed the first Latin T. (240). Following him, Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius, Lucius Actius, and others tried to cultivate the genre of Attic literature, changing, in accordance with the ideological and artistic views of the Roman nobility, the content of literature and its philosophical pathos. Rimskaya T. is a plot-entertaining, melodramatically sharpened spectacle, aimed at the moral and political education of the plebs in the spirit of the ideas of the slave-owning nobility. Roman T. retains the mythological theme, but as a purely formal element; Along with the imitative mythological T., a historical T. was created - the pretextata, which glorified the patrician Senate and the legendary exploits of consuls and generals and became the official drama of the Senate Republic.
During the era of the Roman Empire, the poet and philosopher Seneca, a representative of aristocratic-decadent pessimistic stoicism, tried to revive it. His T. strive to show the harmful influence of passions and the need for liberation and purification of the soul. These dramas are static, overloaded with the inner experiences of the characters, intensely pathetic, carefully finished in terms of form and especially in the sense of observing the “rules” of the formal construction of the Greek drama. Coming together as a purely aristocratic drama, without connection with folk art, exclusively according to the literary tradition , focusing not so much on the stage as on reading and recitation, being a formalistic attempt to artificially create a genre - imitative, epigonic Roman T. represents all the signs of the collapse of the genre and is really dying out in the entertainment theater of the Roman Empire.
In the long centuries of the Middle Ages, in the era of the greatest constraint of human consciousness by the shackles of the Christian religion, the genre of T. was not revived. The Italian Renaissance, with its rapid flowering of creative thought, science and art, passed by the theater, which continued to live by medieval traditions. The assimilation by humanists of the heritage of ancient drama - Seneca's tragedy par excellence - did not have an impact on the fate of theater and drama, remaining only academic experiments (Sofonisba by Trissino). In the 16th century, during the period of feudal-Catholic reaction and the impoverishment of Italian humanism, attempts arose to recreate theater as a stage genre. Giraldi Cintio, Speroni, Groto and others write, modeled on the tragedies of Seneca, a number of plays replete with bloody horrors, moral tirades and melodramatic scenes. These T. are bloody melodramas, spectacular spectacles that do not reflect living reality, but only imitate the external mechanism of ancient T. The dead-formalistic understanding of the essence of T. resulted in the canonical “rules” of T., theoretically substantiated in the treatises of Vettori (1560) and Castelvetro (1570). Similar attempts to inculcate humanistic “correct” literature also took place among humanists in other countries: in France, one of the poets of the Pleiades, de la Taille, wrote the treatise “The Art of Tragedy” (1572); Jodel and Grévin advocated literature on the model of the ancient ones. ; in England, Norton and Seckville staged their T. “Gorboduc” (1561) with the help of students of the London Academy of Law.
The T. genre is experiencing its new birth not in these epigonic imitations. It arises not at all at the whim of learned lovers of antiquity, but from the depths of folk art, in conditions similar to the conditions of the birth of ancient history in the sense of the enormous tension of the struggle between two social structures in the era of the English Renaissance, when the collapse of the still quite strong social ties of the feudal world took its toll feel everywhere when the liberation of individuality and its active desire for self-determination was one of the main phenomena of the era. The unshakable laws of feudal society fell, the “thousand-year framework of obligatory medieval thinking” (Engels) was destroyed, the class-corporate spirit of the Middle Ages was opposed by unbridled individuality, and the “feudal patriarchal idyllic relations” were replaced by the kingdom of “heartless purity” (Marx). The world appeared to people of that era as chaos, where individual wills are opposed to each other, where daring claims collide with eternal laws, where a self-determining individual stands between victory and death. On the basis of these social sentiments, T. arises, depicting the daring and death of a person. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) idealizes the power of human will and reason, depicts the strong passions of the Renaissance man: the passion for knowledge and power (“The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus”, “Tamerlane the Great”), for enrichment (“The Jew of Malta”). Marlowe's titanic heroes perish because their passion is excessive, their will violates the laws established by heaven - and although Marlowe's sympathy is on the side of his truly Renaissance heroes, the inherited worldview of the Middle Ages presents him with the laws of heaven as a necessity.

Renaissance T. , the beginning of which is laid by Marlowe, grows out of the medieval mystery theater, deepening and developing on a new ideological basis the realistic tendencies inherent in the latter, its folk character, the persistent desire to “secularize” the theater, to free it from church ideology. From the mystery theater comes the unique composition of the Renaissance theater, which retains a number of its original features: the rough naturalism of bloody scenes, the introduction of clownish buffoonery into pathetic scenes, allegorical characters, etc., but interweaving with these traditional features the influence of the humanistic “correct” theater .: desire for ordering of parts, economy of artistic techniques, harmonic structure. The new whole that emerged as a result of this interweaving, as a special genre of literature and theater of the Renaissance, receives full expression in the works of Shakespeare. Shakespeare forms a new T. as an expression of a typically Renaissance worldview, freeing itself from the shackles of medieval scholasticism and seeking motivation for historical events and the destinies of the individual not in the predestination of God, but in objective historical development. With the keen eye of an artist who grasps the main trends of the historical process, Shakespeare sees the death of feudal ideals and the disintegration of feudal ties. Shakespeare's tragedy unfolds against a broad historical background; the images of his heroes are projected onto this background, rising to the level of high tragedy. Confronting the hero with the inexorable pattern that reigns in the world, Shakespeare shows it as an objective historical course of events. A deeply religious and materialistic artist, Shakespeare analyzes the psyche of his heroes, showing them as contradictory, multifaceted, developing organisms, as “typical characters in typical circumstances” (Engels). Shakespeare's tragedy reflects reality with deep truthfulness, with “Shakespearean liveliness and richness of action” (Engels). The themes of Shakespeare's tragedies - historical and legendary - reveal the acute problems of contemporary life: the problem of the death of medieval illusions in the world of “heartless purity” (“King Lear”), the problem of feudal honor in the light of a new, bourgeois worldview (Falstaff); the problem of the individual and his rights in the clash with feudal principles (“Romeo and Juliet”); Shakespeare overestimates the morality of the Middle Ages, its illusions, its history. The understanding of life as movement, so uniquely revealed in Shakespeare's tragedy, could have been born to an artist of the past only in an era of shifts and disruptions, and this was the English Renaissance. Shakespeare's tragedies are based on a complex set of ideas that reflect the complexity of the social contradictions of his era. Rejecting the outgoing world of feudalism, seeing at the same time the evil of capitalism that is replacing it, Shakespeare comprehends the regularity of the ongoing process, understands its necessity; and this feeling of objective necessity and subjective protest of the individual against this necessity determines the essence of his T. as a genre.
Attempts to create a genre of theater can also be found in Spanish dramaturgy of the 16th century. - the century of the Spanish Renaissance, the rapid growth of capitalist relations in connection with the discovery of America, the breakdown of the feudal system and the emergence of absolutism, the strengthening of military power and national upsurge. During this period, the Spanish theater flourished, growing, like English, from the medieval theater and putting forward such a major playwright as Lope de Vega (1562-1635), whose work was marked by the desire to create a Spanish theater (“Star of Seville”, “ Punishment is not revenge." However, the special conditions of the historical development of Spain - the power of the Catholic Church with its gloomy Inquisition that weighed heavily on it in the most brilliant time of its heyday, the originality of Spanish absolutism, similar to “Asian forms of government” (Marx) and which hampered the capitalist development of the country - give a special character to Spanish drama. , in line with the trends of the Renaissance, images of typical Renaissance people are intertwined with the artistic embodiment of the principles of unshakable feudal loyalty to God, the king and noble honor. The spirit of churchliness and narrow worldview do not give Spanish drama of the 16th century. rise to a high level of T.; even Lope de Vega creates only bloody tragedies, where the dramatic conflict is built on the clash of the claims of the individual with the will of the king or god and on the triumph of the latter.
Half a century later, during the era of Spain's decline, Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681) sought to cultivate the genre of tragedy. His T. are imbued with a keen sense of death and insignificance of earthly life (“Life is a dream”) and fiery religious fanaticism; they are imbued with aristocracy; they affirm the triumph of feudal-Catholic principles over reason, over necessity, over the real world (“The Steadfast Prince”). These T. convey the mood of an era of shifts and disruptions, but an era perceived by the artist of a passing world, an artist who does not know how to rise to the presentiment of the new and seeks resolution of conflicts not on earth, but in the other world. Spanish T., generated, like English, by an era of social disruption, does not reach the true flowering of the genre or its inherent ideological depth. Its stagnant worldview and the sharp narrowing of its social base towards aristocracy often blur the lines between T. and medieval intensely religious (in Calderon) and bloody (in Lope de Vega) autos. Under the conditions of the Spanish Catholic reaction, the baroque genre of tragicomedy was established (see).

In the 17th century, in the era of a new offensive of bourgeois culture on medieval culture, in the era of the birth of materialist philosophy and the struggle of experimental science with scholasticism, the tragic genre is born again in France. Bypassing the experience of Spanish and English literature, French literature turns to ancient antiquity, perceiving it through the academic experiences of humanists, learning from the playwrights of the Pleiades and the Italian Baroque. But the lifeless formalistic T., which learned lovers of antiquity tried to create, is filled with new content and rises to the level of high art with significant ideological baggage.
Growing up on the basis of philosophical rationalism, French classical T. of the 17th century. puts forward advanced progressive ideas of national unity and civic duty. The problem of personal and public is solved in favor of the public, which takes a unique form of devotion to the absolute monarch. In classicism, the death of the hero is a necessary consequence of the collision of personal feelings and civic duty, which determined the hero’s behavior.
The great playwright of the era of the formation of absolutism, Corneille (1606-1684), creates the most complete examples of classical theater. His theater is imbued with heroic pathos; its themes are wars, revolutions, important state interests requiring self-sacrifice; his heroes are fanatics of civic duty, asserting in a strictly Cartesian spirit the primacy of a rational moral principle over feeling and imagination. Strapped into the strict framework of classical poetics, French poetry, with its rationalistic structure, the law of three unities, ancient plots, and Alexandrian verse, is deeply opposite in form to Shakespearean poetry, is essentially the same genre, for its essence is also in the understanding of life as a movement, in recognizing the connection between a person’s private fate and a general pattern, in revealing the death of a hero as a manifestation of this pattern, in the pathos of the social sound of T.
When the rapid development of absolutism gives way to its peaceful prosperity, when the class state freezes into immobility, classical theater becomes the canonical “high” genre of court theater, loses its advanced social significance, and moves in the work of Racine (1639-1699) to personal problems of love and passion and , compressing its framework, sophisticated the formal side, is degrading as a genre.

In the 18th century the leading role moves to other dramatic genres. In the era of the first French Revolution, classical literature once again came to life, filled with new, revolutionary content, in M.-J. Chenier (1764-1811) (the famous T. “Charles IX or the Night of St. Bartholomew”), Soren, Laharpe, etc. But “barely a new social formation had time to take shape, the antediluvian giants and everything Roman, resurrected from the dead, disappeared - Brutus, Gracchi , tribunes, senators and Caesar himself" (Marx, "18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte", Collected Works, vol. VIII, p. 424), disappeared in France and T.
During the period of Sturm und Drang - this aesthetic and moral rebellion against the oppression of feudalism - the tragedy of Schiller (1759-1805) and Goethe (1749-1832) arose in Germany. Schiller's rebellious tragedies ("Cunning and Love", "The Fiesco Conspiracy", "The Robbers") pose the problems of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the reconstruction of society, and paint heroic images of freedom fighters. Like the socially acute T. of early Goethe (Getz von Berlichingen), depicting the world-historical conflict of outgoing feudalism with the emerging era of burgherism, they reflect the turbulent era of their emergence not only with the pathos of the content, but also with an artistic form that destroys the canons of classicism.
When the aesthetic rebellion against reality in the works of Goethe and Schiller is replaced by reconciliation with reality, Goethe’s tragedy becomes a purely aesthetic form, a frozen cast of classical ancient models, embodying ideas of renunciation and reconciliation that are alien to T. as a genre (“Iphigenia”); Schiller turns to the so-called. "tragedy of fate"

In the first decades of the 19th century. the painful desire of broken and leaving class groups to delay the advance of capitalism, the painful consciousness of the impossibility of resisting it, giving rise to a deep ideological crisis, results in a fetishization of the inexorable laws of the social process, aesthetically embodied in the form of T. rock, which occupy a prominent place in Schiller’s work (“Messinian The Bride,” “Mary Stuart”), Kleist (“Pentesileia”), Z. Werner, Grillparzer, Uhland, etc. In T. rock, the fate of the heroes is decided from the very beginning; a person is removed from the environment and confronts a meaningless fate; in the abstract, non-social sphere, inexplicable forces act blindly, “fate plays blind man’s buff with man” (Hebbel). If for the ancient Greek the idea of ​​fate was a form of knowledge of the world, if behind it was hidden the recognition of the natural conditionality of all personal actions, the connection between the accidental and the necessary, - in the new “tragedy of fate” the understanding of the world as nonsense is revealed; the idea of ​​fate is a form of withdrawal from knowledge of the world; reality is the realm of incoherent chance. “The tragedy of rock,” devoid of the idea of ​​objective regularity, shows signs of the collapse of the genre.
In the works of the French romantics (V. Hugo), theater as a genre experienced further decomposition. Cultivating drama, which, like T., resolves a dramatic conflict by the death of the hero (Hernani, Marion Delorme, etc.), the romantics, in accordance with their artistic concept, put forward the accidental to the detriment of the necessary, the particular to the detriment of the general, and break the connection between the individual and the environment , looking for the singular, the unique, the grotesque. The death of the hero of a romantic drama does not affirm the triumph of natural necessity, the moral law over the limited human personality, but has a private, individualistic character.

By the middle of the 19th century. In established bourgeois literature, drama as a genre disappears and is replaced by everyday naturalistic drama. Only towards the end of the century did Ibsen and the Symbolists (Maeterlinck, L. Andreev) develop a craving for the creation of T. But the kind of drama that arises as a result of this craving is drama that penetrates into purely psychological depths, “going more and more into the depths of the soul, into the silence and external stillness of intellectual experiences” (L. Andreev). Such a drama testifies precisely to the fact that the consciousness of the era of bourgeois decay is alien to the tragic as an objective category; it is replaced by a deeply subjective interpretation of any life phenomenon as containing tragedy. This loss of objective tragedy is expressed even more clearly, along with the intensification of the subjective experience of the tragic in life, in the works of Kaiser, Hasenclever, Unruh and other expressionists, imbued with a feeling of hopeless death (see). Their dramaturgy, transferring the center of the world to the human soul, separates man from the world, leading him away from that recognition of the natural connection between man and the world, on which the genre of T. is built.

T. in Russia appears for the first time in the 18th century. in the works of Sumarokov (1718-1777). These are imitative, purely epigone attempts to impose classical T. with its abstract images, strictness in observing three unities and pompous style. The same are the rhetorical T. of the “Russian Racine” - Knyazhnin. At the beginning of the 19th century. patriotic excitement, the rise of public life, and the deep feelings of the people associated with 1812 revived Russian tragedy, putting forward the historical tragedy of Ozerov (“Dmitry Donskoy”), Zotov, Glinka, Plavilshchikov, and others. During this period, Katenin acted as a theorist of the tragic genre, substantiating the principles of classical T. The subsiding wave of social upsurge takes with it the rise of T.; The era of the Nicholas reaction cultivates in the theater, along with sensitive melodrama, the false official historical and patriotic tragedy of Kukolnik, Polevoy, Gedeonov.
In the second quarter of the 19th century. is Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov” - the first great Russian T., the first tragic character in Russian literature, original in national content and methods of creativity. In critical statements, Pushkin formulates the theme of T. as such - the fate of man and the fate of the people - while at the same time emphasizing his adherence to Shakespeare's method in depicting characters. In “The Stone Guest,” “A Feast in the Time of Plague,” and “The Miserly Knight,” Pushkin again raises drama to the level of high T., creating the original genre of “little T.” But this exceptional moment of high manifestation of tragic creativity in Russia, associated with the feeling that possessed the best minds that “truly a certain world is perishing” and “the premonition of a new one that is about to arise in the place of the old” (Chaadaev, letter to Pushkin, 1831), giving way to years Nikolaev reaction does not lead to the creation of a Russian national T.
Already this review of the history of the genre, which does not exhaust all the specific diversity, shows that not all eras were capable of cultivating T. Tragic creativity flares up with utmost force in eras of major socio-historical shifts, changes in social structures, when the main vital nodes are exposed with their own eyes, in an era of great revaluations of philosophical, ethical and aesthetic norms. The heyday of T. coincides with those periods of human history when “the old order, as the existing world order, fought with a world that was still being born; he had a world-historical error on his side, but not a personal one” (Marx, Works, vol. I, p. 402). Greek poetry emerged from the depths of a syncretic cult rite and became an artistic genre, for a new worldview, a sharp transition from patriarchal immobility to the rapid breakdown of the old social structure, gave birth to this new poetic construction, an artistic form that is an adequate expression of the feeling of life as a rapidly flowing process. The idea of ​​rock, embedded in ancient theater, does not constitute its essence; this idea was introduced into theater by the inherited religious worldview of the ancient Greek, but is not essential for theater as a genre. The essence of ancient T. is in the feeling of a person’s collision with necessity and the possibility of his struggle with it; in recognizing the organic connection between the fate of an individual person and the general pattern of life. The same essence of the genre is revealed in the tragedy of Shakespeare, who knew how to recognize the contradictions in the lives of the heroes as contradictions of living social forces. The same acute sense of the struggle between two principles of attitude towards the world is inherent in the work of Corneille. And no matter how different the characteristics of historical consciousness, social needs, specific artistic ideas, which are reflected in various T., may be, T. as a genre expresses a certain type of self-awareness, certain moods, a certain attitude to reality, which can be formulated as a denial of the smooth and gradual course of life, as an acute perception of life in motion, as a desire to penetrate reality through “the bifurcation of the whole and the knowledge of its contradictory parts” (Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, 1936, p. 325).

Contents of T. There are always great historical contradictions, clashes of contradictory social forces that await the artist, depending on his worldview, sometimes in an abstract mystified form - as fate, as providence, as an immutable moral code, sometimes - in a break with the old metaphysics - as the laws of the historical process . “For tragedy to occur, in the course and outcome of a private action, the dominance of some higher power must be visible, which would control the events of this world” (Hegel). Being an adequate artistic form of expressing the tragic as an objective category of reality, tragedy is created on the basis of recognition of the triumph of the necessary over the accidental, the general over the particular - the triumph of self-affirming life over an individual defeat. In T., the artist rises above the world of the individual and random, does not deal with self-contained individuality, but gives a broad, generalizing dramatic image of a significant stage in the development of mankind, and comes up with a dramatic solution to philosophical problems. The world appears in T. as a naturally moving whole, and the necessity that reveals itself in the denouement “is no longer a blind and unreasonable fate, which many call ancient fate. This fate is the sublime reason of events” (Hegel).
Individual passion withdrawn into itself, the sad fate of a person formed due to everyday conditions, an accident that befalls a person from the outside - cannot be the theme of T. A tragic event, a tragic fate is only that which necessarily befalls the heroes; T.'s hero dies due to the peculiar greatness of his nature. “Great religious reformers, martyrs for their beliefs, fighters for political freedom... men of thought who fall victim to their discoveries - these are the heroes of tragedy” (Gottschall). The fate of the tragic hero is extraordinary; his soul reveals itself in an extraordinary way; his passions reach titanic intensity, but they never become painful or pathological. The tragic fate of the hero does not cause either melancholy or horror of life; the death of the hero captures the “triumph of truth over the limited human personality” (Belinsky). The genre of T. is organically alien to a tearful-sentimental or romantic-decadent attitude towards reality; T.'s denouement should evoke not pessimistic despair, not sad reconciliation with fate, but the will to live and fight; the death of T.’s hero does not evoke fear of fate, necessity, or death, but teaches that “there is something stronger than fate: it is a spirit that courageously endures it.”

II. Theory T. as an artistic genre dates back centuries. The first hints of T.'s theory are preserved in fragments of statements by the great Greek tragedians. There is a well-known legend about the dispute between Sophocles and Euripides, in which Sophocles argued that “people in tragedy should be portrayed as they should be,” while Euripides argued that “as they really are.”
Aristotle first outlined a coherent theory of tragedy in his treatise “Poetics” (written between 336-332). Outlining the history of the emergence of T. from the dithyramb, Aristotle defines T. in its complete form as “imitation of an action that is important and complete, having a certain magnitude, with the help of speech, differently decorated in each of its parts, through action, and not story, performed through fear and compassion is the purification (catharsis) of such passions.” This definition, which solves the question of the essence of T. by revealing its ultimate goals, its artistic effect, served as the subject of extensive comments discussing what significance - ethical, aesthetic or pathological - catharsis has, and became one of the controversial points of the theory of T. in bourgeois aesthetics. Fear and compassion, being the essence of T., should not, according to Aristotle, be aroused by external effects, but flow from the connection of the action of T. These sensations are caused by the spectacle of passion - “painful and destructive actions.” Passion is characteristic of tragic fiction; it is inseparable from tragic action. Fear and compassion determine the appearance of the hero of T. The hero of T. cannot be a virtuous person, for the transition of virtue from happiness to unhappiness outrages the viewer; They cannot be vicious either, for “one can sympathize only with someone who bears undeserved punishment, and one can only fear for someone who is equal to us.” The tragic hero must be neither virtuous nor vicious; he must fall into misfortune due to some sin and, moreover, previously enjoy great honor and happiness. T.'s denouement should not reward virtue and punish vice - it should represent the undeserved, but objectively justified death of the hero, arising from the development of the action. T. must develop one complete action, forming a logical whole.
All of these provisions of Aristotle arose as an observation and generalization of the living creative experience of Greek T., but during the Renaissance they were perceived as laws of normative aesthetics and were subject to many interpretations and misinterpretations. At the early stages, the development of the theory of theory in bourgeois society proceeded exclusively in terms of interpretations of Aristotle’s Poetics. The aesthetic thought of the young bourgeoisie tenaciously grasped at ancient models as a weapon in the fight against medieval culture. The true tragedy of the Renaissance, which organically grew out of the medieval theater - the tragedy of Marlowe and Shakespeare - was ignored by theorists and rejected as an extra-aesthetic, barbaric form. Shakespeare's tragedy arose without theoretical prerequisites, itself providing abundant material for new theoretical generalizations and conclusions. The same classicism, created on the basis of a number of academic experiments of humanists, received from the theory a ready-made form and established rules, into which it squeezed its content. Corneille's tragedy was preceded by a number of treatises that developed the canons of “correct” poetry, finally formulated by Boileau in his “L’Art poetique” (1674). While carefully developing the rules for the formal construction of theory, the theory of classicism did not enrich classical theory in the sense of its philosophical content; on the contrary, she disoriented tragic creativity, emphasizing narrow formal issues, such as the three unities, and emphasizing as essential in tragedy not its broad generalizations, civic pathos and social significance, but metaphysical “suffering” and “passions”.
In the 18th century, when theater gave way to new dramatic genres, a new theory of drama arose, hostile to classicism in its theory and creative practice. Diderot and Mercier came out with a sharp denial of T., which classicism left them as a legacy, its canons, its events and its heroes and put forward an everyday bourgeois drama with a plot “simple, family, close to real life.”
Almost simultaneously with the development of the new theory of drama in France, Lessing (1729-1781) came out in opposition to classicism in Germany, devoting a large place in his “Hamburg Drama” to the interpretation of Aristotle, for the incorrect understanding of which Lessing reproached the representatives of classicism. Commenting on Aristotle, Lessing revealed the essence of T. and its impact on the audience as a moralizing family “bourgeois tragedy” - a genre similar to the bourgeois dramas of Diderot.
Together with German classical philosophy, a general aesthetic theory of T. appeared, which posed the problem of the essence of T. as a phenomenon of art and the tragic as a phenomenon of reality. Starting from Kant’s judgment about the tragic as “a form of the sublime, complicated by the moment of struggle and death of a strong personality in a collision with the irresistible force of circumstances,” Schiller created the theory of tragedy, in which “suffering” is the central point of tragedy, because “the highest moral pleasure is always accompanied by pain.” The laws of tragic art consist in the depiction of suffering nature and moral resistance to suffering. “Tragedy could be called a poetic imitation of a coherent type of events, showing us humans in a state of suffering and with the goal of arousing our compassion” (Article “On Tragic Art”). In the light of the dualism of Kantian ethics, Schiller defines tragic suffering as the eternal struggle of blind instinct and rational will, as a conflict between sensual desire and moral duty; if this suffering is revealed according to the law of necessity, when a person is forced to atone for his guilt, then this suffering is aesthetically great and should serve as the basis of T. Moreover, “that tragedy will be the most perfect, in which the suffering caused will be a consequence not so much of the content, but of the best use forms. It can be considered the ideal of tragedy." Thus, the meaning of tragedy as an artistic form adequate to the understanding of the tragic as an objective category of reality is removed.
In the conditions of the ideological crisis of the early 19th century, in an atmosphere of painful decay and flight from reality, so clearly expressed in German romanticism, Schopenhauer’s theory of tragedy arose as a kind of parallel to the “tragedies of fate,” which saw in T. an image of the inevitable evil of the universe and the denial of the will to life.
The theory of T. was also developed by the German romantics in the person of A. Schlegel, who put forward as the most essential for T. the idea of ​​necessity, which, according to Schlegel, lies at the basis of T. as a genre. For Schlegel, the tragic is the struggle of freedom with necessity, and the beginning of T. is a feeling of freedom; its solution is the consciousness of necessity.
Finally, Hegel poses the question of the theory of T. in a systematic and historical context. Emphasizing the objective nature of T., Hegel considers the content of T. to be a conflict of characters, their goals and actions, hostilely rebelling against each other. In T. great substantial goals dominate, such as the forces of the world, family, and state; They are the content of tragic characters. In the form of mutually exclusive individualities, moral forces oppose each other, falling into discord, entailing guilt. Tragic guilt is formulated by Hegel as the basis of a tragic collision. “With the same right as a tragic goal and character, with the same necessity as a tragic conflict, there is a tragic solution to this contradiction.” This solution consists, according to Hegel, in the death of the tragic hero, and “it is not suffering and misfortune, but the satisfaction of the spirit that serves as the completion of the tragedy, since only with such an end the necessity of what happens to the individual can appear as absolute rationality, and the soul indeed calms down, shocked by the fate of the heroes, but reconciled by the state of affairs.” The tragic is a necessary consequence of finitude, and at the same time, everything limited and sad that is contained in the tragic is resolved in T. into higher unity and clarity.
Considering the history of T., Hegel considers substantial pathos to be the principle of ancient T.; the compassion aroused by the misfortune of the hero of the ancient tragedy is substantial, not subjective compassion, not emotion; The principle of Shakespeare's tragedy is the subjective greatness of character.
Hegel's aesthetics returns like this. arr. T. its essence, which consists not in the peculiarities of formal construction, as the representatives of the theory of French classicism believed, and not in the depiction of aesthetically great suffering, as Schiller taught, but in a wide disclosure through private collisions of heroes of the general laws of movement of the world. Expressing this essence of T. as a certain type of self-consciousness, Hegel, although in a distorted, idealistic form, solves the problem of the genre of T. and clarifies those formal and creative principles on the basis of which T. can reveal the movement of the surrounding world. So-called the three unities, Hegel points out, originate not from Aristotle, but from the French; “The only truly inviolable laws include unity of action, which can be more or less strict. The basis of action is a conflict of characters, therefore the unity of action consists in a predisposition to a conflict, in its detection, in the struggle of opposing goals and in its resolution. The true dramatic course of events is the movement towards the final catastrophe without delaying epic episodes.”
Hegel’s judgment about T. is developed on the material of ancient and Shakespearean T. Contemporary drama, like the drama of subsequent decades, did not rise to the level of T. Bourgeois drama of the 19th century, penetrating into the psychological depths of the narrowly personal, sometimes pathological experiences of its heroes, removes the problem of the tragic as an objective category of reality. For the positivist aesthetics of the 19th century. the tragic is the terrible in human life.
Accurately observing and depicting bourgeois reality in its psychological manifestations, the drama of the 19th century. does not go further than an analysis of the frozen opposition of the revealed contradictions. The tragic henceforth exists only in subjective feeling. Thus, with the degradation of man in a capitalist society, a high genre of great philosophical capacity, capable of embodying great social content, degrades.
The problem of creating a socialist theater stands as one of the problems of implementing the method of socialist realism in literature and theater. If already in T. of previous centuries the struggle of the people, the struggle of man against tribal, feudal or capitalist degradation raised T. to the level of high pathos, enormous tension of creative thought, then the pathos of the formation of a socialist society in the fight against all the obstacles standing in its way, in the struggle with capitalism must fill T. with an immeasurably higher content, for it is associated with an immeasurably higher transformation of society. In the light of the understanding of reality as a moving, contradictory, ever-changing whole, in the light of the greatest disruption in history of social relations and human consciousness associated with the process of formation of a new person, with the development of new heroism, T. as a genre capable of embodying everything with special strength and depth collisions of the struggle for the future of human society, to reveal the prospects of great victories through individual defeats, individual losses - in the literature of socialist realism can be elevated to unprecedented heights. Bibliography:
General problems of tragedy and the tragic: Marx K., Engels F., On Art, Collection Edited by M. Lifshitz, ed. “Art”, M. - L., 1937; Aristotle, Poetics, trans., intro. and approx. N. I. Novosadsky, ed. "Academia", L., 1927; Boileau, Poetic Art, trans. S. S. Nesterova, ed. and entry Art. P. S. Kogan, ed. “Lights”, St. Petersburg, 1914 (same, Goslitizdat, M., 1937); Lessing, G.-E., Hamburg Drama, ed. "Academia", M. - L., 1936; Diderot D., Collection. cit., vol. V, Theater and dramaturgy, ed. "Academia", M. - L., 1936; Schiller F., Articles on Aesthetics, ed. "Academia", M. - L., 1935; Hegel F., Kure of Aesthetics or the Science of the Fine, third book, M., 1869 (outdated translation); His, The Principle of Tragedy, Comedy and Drama, “Literary Critic”, 1936, Nos. 3, 5 and 7 (translation of an excerpt from “Aesthetics”); Belinsky V.G., Complete collection. cit., edited by S. A. Vengerov, vol. VI, St. Petersburg, 1903 (article “The division of poetry into genera and types”); Schopenhauer A., ​​Complete. collection cit., vol. I. The world as will and representation, M., 1901; Eikhenbaum B., Through Literature, ed. "Academia", L., 1924; Wolkenstein V., Dramaturgy, ed. “Art”, M. - L., 1937; Lukach G., Literary theories of the 19th century and Marxism, GIHL, M., 1937; Corneille P., Oeuvres, vol. I, P., 1862 (Discours... du poeme dramatique de la tragedy - des trois units); Saint-Evremond, Oeuvres, vol. IV, P., 1753 (“Reflexions sur les tragedies”); Lessings Briefwechsel mit Mendelsohn und Nicolai uber das Trauerspiel, Lpz., 1910; Schlegel A. W. von, Vorlesungen uber dramatische Kunst und Literatur, 2 Bde, Bonn, 1923; Hegel G. W. F., Samtliche Werke (Jubilaumausgabe), Bd XII-XIV - Vorlesungen uber die Aesthetik, Stuttgart, 1927-1928; Schelling F. W. J., Schriften zur Philosophie der Kunst, Lpz., 1911; Vischer F., Aesthetik, oder Wissenschaft des Schonen, 3 Tle, Reutlingen - Stuttgart, Lpz., 1846-1858; Hebbel F., Samtliche Werke, Bd II, B., 1901 (“Ein Wort uber das Drama”, “Vorwort zu Maria Magdalene”); Nietzsche F., Die Geburt der Tragodie aus dem Geiste der Musik, Lpz., 1873; Bahnsen J., Das Tragische als Welgesetz.., Lpz. - Lauenburg, 1877; the same, Lpz., 1931; Dejob Gh., Etudes sur la tragedy, P., (1897); Lipps T., Der Streit uber die Tragodie, Hamburg, 1891; Volkelt J., Aesthetik des Tragischen, Munchen, 1897; the same, 3. Aufl., 1917; Courtney W. L., The Idea of ​​tragedy in Ancient and Modern Drama, Westminster, 1900; Georgy E. A., Das Tragische als Gesetz des Weltorganismus, B., 1905; Gorland A., Die Idee des Schicksals in der Geschichte der Tragodie, Tubingen, 1913; Hirt E. , Das Formgesetz des epischen, dramatischen und lyrischen Dichtung, Lpz., 1923; Lucas F. L., Tragedy in relation to Aristotle’s Poetics, N. Y., 1928.
History of the tragedy: Gukovsky G., About the Sumarokov tragedy, in the collection: “Poetics”, I, ed., “Academia”, L., 1926; Klein J. L., Geschichte des Drama's, Bde I-XIII, Lpz., 1865-1876; Creizenach W., Geschichte des neueren Dramas, Bde I-IV, Halle, 1893-1909; Bernays J., Grundzuge der verlorenen Abhandlung des Aristoteles uber Wirkung der Tragodie, Breslau, 1857; Gunther G., Grundzuge der tragischen Kunst aus dem Drama der Griechen entwickelt, Lpz. - B., 1885 (Russian translation of chapters 7 and 8 of Gunther’s book in the book: “Pedagogical Collection”, 1895, Nos. 1 and 2); Laehr H., Die Wirkung der Tragodie nach Aristoteles, B., 1896; Knoke F., Begriff der Tragodie nach Aristoteles, B., 1906; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff U., Einleitung in die griechische Tragodie, 3. Abdruck, B., 1921; Matthaei L., Studies in Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, 1918; Goodell T. D., Athenian Tragedy, New Haven, 1920; Schadewaldt W., Monolog und Selbstgesprach (Untersuchungen zur Formgeschichte der griechischen Tragodie), B., 1926; Fansler H. E., The evolution of Technics in Elizabethan Tragedy, Chicago, 1914; Lucas F. L., Seneca and Elizabethan Tragedy, Cambridge, 1922; Green C. C., The neoclassic theory of tragedy in England during the eighteenth century, Cambridge (Massachusets), 1903; Faguet E., La Tragedie francaise au XVI-e siècle, P., 1883; the same, P., 1912; Lanson G., Esquisse d'une histoire de la tragedie francaise, 2 ed., P., 1927; Brunetiere F., Etudes critiques sur l’histoire de la litterature francaise, VII-e serie, P., 1903 (“L’evolution de la tragedy”); Weddingen O., Lessing's Theorie der Tragodie, B., 1876; Poensgen M., Geschichte der Theorie der Tragodie von Gottsched bis Lessing (Diss.), Lpz., 1899; Clivio J., Lessing und das Problem der Tragodie, Zurich - Lpz., 1928; Steinweg C., Goethes Seelendramen und ihre franzosischen Vorlagen, Halle, 1912; Zinkernagel F., Die Grundlagen der Hebbelschen Tragodie, B., 1904; Benjamin W., Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, B., 1928.

Literary encyclopedia. - At 11 t.; M.: Publishing House of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Fritsche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .

Tragedy

(Greek tragodia, lit. - goat song), view dramas; play based on plot which creates an insoluble conflict that causes the death of the main character in final stage action. The genre originated in Ancient Greece, developing from praises, with which the priests of Dionysus addressed their god. During the Dionysian festivities, they dramatized the myth of the death of the god of fertility, the depiction of whose suffering evoked strong emotions in the audience. Tragedy as a genre of ancient drama took shape in the 5th century. BC e. in creativity Aeschylus, Sophocles And Euripides. Aristotle in the treatise “Poetics” he first described in detail the properties of tragedy: tragedy is “an imitation of an important and complete action”, its plot represents one storyline with continuous laconic action, with twists and turns (from bad to good and from good to bad). The change in circumstances in the life of the hero of the tragedy was supposed to make the audience sympathize (with the innocent unfortunate) and fear (for such a misfortune). The result of these feelings is the purification of the viewer (catharsis), so playwrights should select circumstances for the plot outline that can awaken these purifying feelings. Aristotle saw the peculiarity of tragedies in the fact that their authors replaced the narration on their own behalf with a live dialogue of the characters. Tragedy was recognized as the genre superior to all others in imitating life, and therefore the most important.
The tragedy retained this significance until the end of antiquity. In the Middle Ages it was not in demand; the place of high dramatic forms was taken by the miracle and mystery. But during the Renaissance, the tragedy developed further. In ancient times, it was a musical genre: in ancient tragedies, performances of a choir under the direction of a luminary (leader) and a few dramatic actors alternated. During the Renaissance, the chorus was no longer used in tragedy, and the cast of characters was expanded. The tragedy genre flourished at the turn of the 16th–17th centuries. in the works of U. Shakespeare(“Romeo and Juliet”, 1595; “Hamlet”, 1601; “Othello”, 1604; “King Lear”, 1605). In the 17th century tragedy is a high genre in French poetry classicism, primarily in the works of P. Corneille(“Sid”, 1637) and J. Racine(“Andromache”, 1667; “Phaedra”, 1677). In the 18th–19th centuries. European tragedy is in decline, and significant works rarely appear, although the genre continues to exist in the era of Enlightenment (Voltaire’s tragedy) and in the era romanticism(“Cain” by J.G. Byron, 1821; "Faust" by I.V. Goethe, 1808-31). In the 18th century tragedy arises on Russian soil (“Dimitri the Pretender” by A.P. Sumarokova, 1771). Rare examples of Russian tragedy of the “Shakespearean” type date back to the 19th century: “Boris Godunov” (1824-25) and “little tragedies” (1830) by A.S. Pushkin, a dramatic trilogy by A.K. Tolstoy(“The Death of Ivan the Terrible”, 1866; “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich”, 1868; “Tsar Boris”, 1870).

Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Edited by prof. Gorkina A.P. 2006 .

Tragedy

TRAGEDY. A tragedy is a dramatic work in which the main character (and sometimes other characters in side conflicts), distinguished by the maximum strength of will, mind and feeling for a person, violates a certain universally binding (from the author’s point of view) and irresistible law; at the same time, the hero of the tragedy may either not be aware of his guilt at all - or not be aware of it for a long time - acting either according to plans from above (for example, ancient tragedy), or being in the grip of a blinding passion (for example, Shakespeare). The fight against an irresistible law is associated with great suffering and inevitably ends in the death of the tragic hero; the struggle with the irresistible law - its revaluation with the inevitable triumph - causes spiritual enlightenment in us.

The hero of every dramatic work steadily strives towards his goal: this aspiration, a single action, encounters a counter-action of the environment. The hero of every play violates the interests, customs and laws of the environment, norms protecting everyday order, starting with the rules of deanery (in vaudeville) and ending with state norms. From a sociological point of view, drama is always a revolution, at least in the narrowest circle (for example, in the family circle). Since certain ideological values ​​are expressed and protected in the norms violated by the hero of a dramatic work, drama, from a philosophical point of view, is a process of revaluation of values. In contrast to social and state norms that prevail in a certain environment and are violated by the hero of an everyday or psychological drama, the hero of a tragedy violates a generally binding, absolute law (from the author’s point of view), a law that manifests itself in a specific historical situation, however, mandatory in any society and in every era. We must not forget that tragedy developed from a religious cult; the original content of tragedy is resistance to fate, its convincing and inevitable destiny, which neither mortals nor gods can avoid. This is, for example, the construction of Sophocles’ Oedipus. In Christian theater, the tragic action is a struggle with God; such, for example, is Calderon’s “Adoration of the Cross.” In some Shakespearean tragedies, for example, in “Julius Caesar,” ancient fate, fate, is revived in the form of cosmic forces taking a formidable part in the dramatic struggle. German tragedies usually depict a violation of the divine law; German tragedies are religious - and religious in a Christian way. This is the case in most of his tragedies by Schiller (in “The Robbers” - God very often takes on Jewish features, here the influence of the Bible is felt), Kleist, Hebbel, etc. The Christian worldview is also felt in Pushkin’s tragic sketches, as, for example, in “The Feast of plague." “Dramatic guilt” is a violation of the norms of a certain way of life; “tragic guilt” is a violation of the absolute law. Historically, tragedy has often been a depiction of theology. However, it is not necessary that the absolute (from the author’s point of view - because the construction of the absolute law naturally changes in different eras in different social conditions) law is a divine law, a religious law. Only if we understand the word “religion” in the broadest sense - as the connection between the beginning of the personal and the beginning of the whole (der Gesammtheit, according to Hebbel), we must recognize the absolute law violated by the hero of the tragedy - the religious law. Since not only mortals, but also gods are subject to ancient fate, this is a super-religious law. On the other hand, a tragedy is possible, developing in the social and state plane, devoid of religious pathos in the narrow sense of the word; the hero of a tragedy can fight not with God, but with “historical necessity,” etc. Only one thing is essential: that society should appear in such a tragedy not as a certain environment with its characteristic way of life, but as society in general - as Society, State - with its unshakable, inherent (from the author’s point of view) to all times and peoples - absolute requirements.

The hero of a social tragedy encroaches on the basic foundations of social life. The protest of the hero of a domestic drama is caused by living conditions; in another environment he may calm down. In a society where a woman has equal rights with a man, Ibsen's Nora must show great calm; on the contrary, the hero of a social tragedy - like any tragedy - is a rebel under any circumstances. He does not find a place for himself within the framework of sociality. Such, for example, is Shakespeare's Coriolanus; in any environment his indomitable arrogance must be revealed. He rebels against the immutable demands of citizenship. The absolute law, in the fight against which the tragic action develops, often manifests itself in ancient and Christian tragedies - in the form of the direct intervention of a deity or deities (for example, in Euripides’ “Hippolytus” Artemis and Aphrodite act). Further: in tragedies there are shadows, fantastic creatures, visions, supernatural natural phenomena (for example, in “Julius Caesar”, “Macbeth”); the dictates of the supreme power are manifested in the broadcasts of the oracle (“Oedipus the King”), in the predictions of sorcerers, etc. (See below about fantasy in tragedy). Finally, the absolute law manifests itself in the consciousness, in the conclusions of the characters, for example, in “Coriolian” Aufidius refers to the “General Court” - to the court of society. The maximum talent of the tragedy hero is another mandatory feature. The fight against the supreme law is exciting and convincing only when it is an experimentum ad maximum. The hero of ancient tragedy (Prometheus, Oedipus) was such a prototype of a person without more detailed characteristics. (Hence the mask on the face of the ancient actor). There is no tragedy if the hero is not strong enough. (That’s why Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm” is not a tragedy. Katerina is too weak; barely feeling her sin, her tragic religious guilt, she commits suicide; she is unable to fight God).

The counter-action of other characters in the tragedy should also be maximum; all the main characters of the tragedy must be gifted with extraordinary energy and intellectual acuity. A tragic hero acts without evil intent - this is the third essential sign of tragedy. For Oedipus, his murder and incest are destined from above; Macbeth fulfills the witches' predictions; Karl Moore, seized by anarchic-religious enthusiasm, seems to be called upon to establish the very law that he is violating. Karl Moor says that he “wants to correct the law with lawlessness,” she calls the robbers “angels of the Last Judgment.” Coriolanus speaks of his inherent pride as a fatal force that attracts him. The hero of the tragedy is guilty without guilt, doomed. At the same time, he is humane, he is capable of deep suffering, he acts in defiance of his suffering. A villain cannot be a hero of tragedy, he does not have spiritual fullness, and a saint cannot be a hero of tragedy - he cannot rebel against God. The heroes of the tragedy are richly gifted natures, at the mercy of their passions. Since the tragedy depicts a struggle with a universally binding law, not only is the depiction of everyday details not essential, but it even harms the task: a detailed depiction of everyday life makes us doubt the absolute meaning of the law being violated, we see in it only a relative everyday norm. On the other hand, violation of historical truth in a tragedy is quite acceptable. In “Julius Caesar,” “King Lear,” “Macbeth,” “Don Carlos” by Schiller, etc., etc., we encounter deviations from historical truth that worry us very little (see the article on this topic Pushkin “On Drama”). The degree of deviation from historical truth is a matter of the author's tact. The historical Don Carlos was weak-minded - and Schiller’s idealization does not shock us; Not unacceptable, of course, good Ivan the Terrible. The themes of the tragedy are mythological. In myth there appears an effective fundamental principle of human relations, not obscured by everyday layers. The tragedy uses historical images as images of folk legends, and not as scientific material. She is interested in history - legend, not history - science. The truth of tragedy is the truth of passions, and not of an accurate realistic depiction. The heroes of the tragedy are distinguished by a strong mind and imagination: their remarks, aimed at realizing their aspirations, are distinguished by stormy eloquence and vivid rhetoric. The language of tragedy is the brightest language that the author imagines; there is no detailed characterization of speech here. The wishes of the heroes of the tragedy are supported by convincing arguments and thoughtful maxims. Therefore, tragedy is like a double spectacle - the struggle of passions in it is accompanied by a struggle of ideas. As the invincible law tames and destroys the rebellious hero, a dialectical decomposition of the idea that animates him occurs. Therefore, we can talk about dialectics in tragedy not only as a logically harmonious use of abstract arguments; here a dialectical process takes place - dialectical in the Hegelian sense of the word: tragedy is a dialectical bifurcation of the human spirit.

Returning to tragic fiction, it should be noted that since tragedy does not pretend to be realistically depictive, the participation of mythological creatures in it can have a conditionally aesthetic significance. If a ghost appears in an everyday, realistic drama, it indicates the superstition of the author - or depicts a hallucination of the character - the characters. A ghost in a tragedy can be a manifestation of the author’s beliefs, it can be a hallucination, but it can also be the artistic whim of the author, seeking figurative expression for those super-personal influences with which his hero is struggling. Such, for example, are the witches of Shakespeare - an author who is difficult to suspect of dark superstition. Tragedy enlightens our spiritual consciousness; in addition to artistic imagery, it is characterized by the pathos of philosophical penetration. The tragedy inevitably ends with the death of the hero. His passion is directed against fate itself and, moreover, is indomitable; the death of the hero is the only possible outcome of the tragedy. However, the daring power of the hero arouses in us moments of sympathy and insane hope for his victory. Here, however, it is necessary to note the sharp line between ancient tragedy and the new one - of the Shakespearean type. In ancient tragedy, passion is a moral disease: the madness of Hercules, the blindness of Oedipus. In Shakespeare's tragedies, passion is not some kind of obsession that requires healing; this is an integral manifestation, in a certain sense, the implementation of a strong personality. Hence the incomparably more objective artistic impression of the tragic denouement. And in Shakespeare, a formidable necessity triumphs; but this triumph and death of the hero do not give us “catharsis” in the ancient sense. The very structure of Shakespearean tragedy is different from that of ancient tragedy. In ancient tragedy, after a catastrophe, for example, Oedipus’s recognition of his guilt, there comes a denouement - a series of scenes of despair and repentance in the face of the people and gods. In Shakespeare, the catastrophe coincides with the denouement - this is the end of the struggle. Here we can talk about καθαρσις "e (purification - Aristotle's term) 1) in a formal artistic sense, as the inevitable completion of the process. Further: 2) at the end of Shakespeare's tragedy we embrace the entire set of conditions that doom the hero to death, we spiritually join world order, the fate of the individual dissolves in it. Contemplating the spontaneous will of the tragic hero, trying to cross the boundaries of the possible, we re-evaluate the most basic values, we re-evaluate and re-affirm the law against which the tragic hero rebels. In the tragic struggle, the moral exposure of the representatives of this law occurs, leading counter-action; we condemn Lear's royal tyranny, but the atrocities of his daughters disgust us. We condemn Karl Moor, but his robber uprising exposes to us the German feudal lords who oppress the population. The lawlessness of the tragic hero, full of suffering and his death, brings us spiritual enlightenment. Enriched by the dark experience of tragedy, we all the more joyfully welcome Fortinbras, the bearer of new and vigorous life. According to the interpretation of the tragedy given here, it is undesirable for the hero of the tragedy to recognize his tragic guilt and repent. Triumphant necessity does not need to be finally recognized by those who fought against it. This consciousness is the work of the viewer, not the hero. Repentance, the admission of one's wrongness at the end of the tragedy gives the impression of weakness; In such an ending, the author’s moralistic intention usually shines through. What is essential in tragedy is an indomitable effectiveness. At the end of the tragedy, Macbeth sees with his own eyes how fate is approaching him and yet continues to fight. Nikita in “The Power of Darkness” (an everyday drama developing under the sign of tragic - religious guilt), on the contrary, repents and is on his knees; the tragic power of the work is weakened by this - Nikita’s voluptuousness gives the impression of pathetic fornication. In Pushkin's tragic sketches, the heroes die, persisting in their passions. Such is Don Juan and the Baron (“The Miserly Knight”), such are their dying exclamations (“Oh, Donna Anna” and “Keys, my keys”).

The theme of the tragedy is the fullness of life, overflowing (since volitional striving is the most vivid manifestation of life and since the hero of the tragedy is the maximum of human will, human strength). Tragedy is, therefore, the most complete expression of life - the basic and main type of dramatic work, perhaps of a work of art in general.

History of the tragedy . Tragedy developed from the syncretism of poetic forms (see), after it distinguished the lyric-epic song and the lyrical song in the form of a lament or praise of the hero. These independent forms of collective group creativity could be included in the ritual and complicate it. We will lead the development of the tragedy from Greece, leaving aside folklore, as it is expressed among primitive peoples. In Greece, tragedy developed from religious rites in honor of the god of fertility and vegetation Dionysus or Bacchus, symbolically depicted as a goat (bull), which is why it got its name (τράγος - goat, ωδή - song). Dionysus, during his earthly wanderings, was torn to pieces by the titans, but Zeus swallowed his heart, and Dionysus came to life. The sufferings of Dionysus were praised during the autumn grape harvest in special chants called dithyrambs, and were demonstrated by corresponding facial movements of the persons performing these religious rites. The element of drama was thus expressed only in facial expressions; the story was epic. The lyrics were expressed in one or another exclamation of the choir, and followed the story. The story and lyrics were performed by a group of participating individuals - a choir. The dithyramb consisted of three parts: stanza, antistrophe and epode. The stanza was performed while the choir moved in one direction, and the antistrophe in the other. The stanza revealed the theme of the story and a brief summary; in the antistrophe the plot was revealed (see this word). The epod expressed an assessment of events and feelings about what was told in the stanza and antistrophe. Over time, an active performer emerged from the choir, a luminary who was previously a silent leader and director of the choir, and then became a storyteller. With the formation and development of the institute of professional singers, rhapsodes, the same plot about Dionysus could be divorced from the cult and performed outside the liturgical setting and not be associated with the time of year. From the idyll (see this word) of Theocritus (3rd century BC) “The Syracusan Women” we know that about the life of Adonis, the lover of Venus, a concert was given in Syracuse by a visiting Argive maiden. From this we see that the subjects of these praises, divorced from the cult, increased. Tragedy existed in Greece before Aeschylus. The first dramatic writer was Thespis, from whose works only the titles have survived. In the tragedies of Thespis, the luminary does not just narrate, but conducts a dialogue with one of the chorus members, who became the second actor under Aeschylus. Thus, the epic element in the drama gradually weakens, but even under Aeschylus it is still strong. In his tragedy "The Persians" about the military events that took place during the Greco-Persian Wars, Xerxes' wife Atossa is told by a messenger who escaped the war. In another tragedy by Aeschylus, Prometheus, the events also do not unfold on stage. We learn about this from the stories of Prometheus, but the dramatic element is already stronger here, because we see Prometheus’s suffering on stage. In Sophocles' tragedies a third actor appears: the action becomes wider and more varied. But still, the epic element in Greek tragedy remains strong due to the fact that the tragedy was connected by the unity of time and place (see syncretism). These three unities - action, time and place - were emphasized by the absence of a curtain and decorations and the fact that the dithyrambs of Dionysia (which were discussed earlier), dedicated to a specific holiday, were performed for only one day. These unities continued to be a characteristic feature not only of Greek tragedies and comedies, but also of all dramatic works of the false classical direction (see classicism). Due to the limitation of the action by time and place, viewers and readers learn from the stories of specially featured persons - messengers (“Oedipus the King”), who in the false classical tragedy are partially replaced by confidants, friends of the characters (“Khorev” by Sumarokov) .

In the early stages of its development, the plots for ancient Greek tragedies were borrowed from tales about the gods and heroes of mythical antiquity. These are the tragedies of Aeschylus in most cases, and before Euripides, phenomena from modern life were rarely interpreted. Aeschylus has only one tragedy mentioned above - “The Persians” - depicting a narrative close to his time about the Greco-Persian wars. Sophocles introduces tales of kings as a plot for his tragedies, along with depictions of the lives of heroes. These plots, depicting the life of an aristocratic society, continue to dominate in false classical tragedy. Before Euripides, plots depicting the personal lives of heroes were associated with phenomena of social and political life. Among the false classicists, the personal life of heroes is either completely eliminated or sacrificed to social or political life (Cornel, Racine). Euripides introduces plots of a romantic nature into his tragedies (Hippolytus and Phaedra, Medea, etc.), which are revealed against the background of everyday life, contemporary to the author. Love plots are also quite common in the works of pseudo-classics (“Khorev” by Sumarokov, “Dmitry Donskoy” by Ozerov). In ancient Greek tragedy, heroes are depicted in their actions as depending on the will of fate or fate; thus free will is eliminated. For false classicists, free will is limited to the fact that all actions are performed according to the requirements of reason and morality: affects have no place here. Therefore, in a false classical tragedy, either exclusively virtuous individuals are shown, or exclusively vicious ones (“Phaedra” by Racine).

With the adoption of Christianity, dramatic poetry, which grew out of the pagan worldview, ceased to exist for a long time. In the Middle Ages in Western Europe, on the basis of liturgical rituals, special types of dramatic creativity developed: mysteries, miracles, moral plays (see these words).

In the 16th century, a new direction in literature arose in Spain, which was not dependent on the direction that dominated in other European countries and known as the Renaissance, which sought to revive ancient classical culture and education. Representatives of this direction are Lope de Vega and Calderon. In their works they depict phenomena of everyday life. The romantic plot is primary among them, just as in Euripides. The intricacy and complexity of the intrigue, i.e. the inclusion in the plot of various obstacles that prevent the hero from achieving his goal, mainly the union of two loving hearts, is a distinctive feature of the Spanish tragedy. These clashes, which complicate the plot, are explained by the fact that the heroes of the tragedy should have dominant feelings of devotion to God, the king and the fatherland. The struggle between the feeling of love for a woman and the indicated feelings of devotion is the main motive of the tragedy of Lope de Vega and Calderon. The intrigue was often so complex and confusing that the playwright was not able to resolve it through artistic creativity. The denouement was therefore carried out by the intervention of an outside force, mechanically, and did not follow from the course of action. Such a denouement - deus ex machina (god from the machine) is also characteristic of the French pseudo-classical tragedy ("Cid" by Corneille), in which this technique was adopted due to the influence of Spanish tragedy. In Spanish tragedy, the combination of the dramatic element with the tragic is also considered characteristic.

In addition to the properties we have indicated, borrowed by French theorists and playwrights from the Greeks and Spaniards, false-classical tragedy developed a special technique of piling up terrible events - the violent death of heroes in the form of murders and suicides. This technique was designed to interest the viewer and reader with nervous excitement (“Khorev” by Sumarokov). This unnatural tragedy is explained by the fact that the false classicists had to borrow their plots from the conditions of court life and etiquette. It is obvious that in court life, under the rule of etiquette, everything that contradicts it must be banished, namely, sincerity and the free expression of feelings. If we add to this the lack of depiction of family and personal life, then there will be a complete absence of any content in life. That is why the false classicists resorted in their tragedies to depicting someone else’s ancient classical or distant mythical life and to everything terrible and terrifying. In view of the fact that devotion to the king was considered the main motive of all types of human activity, the content of the tragedies had to develop this motive and subordinate all others to it. Hence, rationality and tendentiousness replace free artistic creativity; As a result, the dramatic work resembled a statement of a geometric theorem.

The further development of dramatic creativity was influenced by Shakespeare's tragedies. Although Shakespeare lived much earlier than the French representatives of pseudo-classicism, his methods of constructing tragedies did not have any influence on the nature of classical and pseudo-classical tragedies, because Shakespeare’s works were not understood for a long time. Therefore, we attribute Shakespeare's tragedies to modern times. In the tragedies of the Greeks, man was portrayed in his actions as subordinate to fate or fate, and the more he tried to show his independence, the more he tried to fight fate, the more dependent he was on it. Among the French false classicists, all activity was subordinated to reason. Only reasonable actions could be depicted in their tragedies. Shakespeare, contrary to classical tragedy, portrays man as a being independent in his actions from fate. Othello kills Desdemona as a result of complex mental processes after a long struggle with himself. Only the autocracy of King Lear explains his rash act towards his daughters and in particular towards Cordelia. Thanks to the free will that Shakespeare endows his heroes with, the action in Shakespeare’s dramas develops naturally and freely, and thanks to this, Shakespeare had the opportunity to construct his tragedies using a synthetic method, allowing him to reveal the origin and development of passion leading to one or another catastrophe.

The false classicists portrayed mental life as simplified. The hero was endowed with two or three affects - love for a woman and honor or love for a woman and a sense of patriotism. These two feelings entered into a struggle, and victory remained with the higher feeling. Therefore, there can be no question of depicting a person as a person, with his individuality, manifested in the variability of his feelings and moods. In Shakespeare, the characters are endowed with the complexity of mental movements, and therefore there can be no question of dividing them into positive and negative. Macbeth and Richard III, despite their criminality, are also endowed with some sympathetic qualities.

In view of the fact that life is created by people themselves, and not by fate, and life is therefore the result of the activities of many, Shakespeare introduces into his tragedies many characters who in one way or another influence the unfolding of the events depicted in his tragedies. Along with representatives of the aristocratic world - kings and courtiers - there are also representatives of the bourgeoisie, insofar as the interests of the aristocracy are connected with the interests of the bourgeoisie ("The Merchant of Venice"), jesters, grave diggers, villagers, shepherds, etc. Particular attention should be paid to jesters. Jesters were characters in medieval mysteries and morality plays. But here they were precisely jesters-clowns, amusing the audience with their buffoonery, cheap wit and vulgar abuse. These were Herod, Judas, devils, the personification of various vices, etc. Not so with Shakespeare. His jesters very often express important philosophical thoughts in a satirical and allegorical form, and their speeches are therefore more difficult to understand than the speeches of other heroes. It is not for nothing that Shakespeare depicts Kent in King Lear and Hamlet during his feigned madness as jesters.

Due to the fact that Shakespeare draws out representatives of different social positions, and since his heroes express various emotional experiences in their speeches, their dialogues and monologues do not resemble the crackling rhetoric that we notice in the false classics. They are a natural reflection of the individuality of a person.

The multitude of characters, their belonging to different class strata, and the development of several plots prompted Shakespeare to abandon the observance of the unities of place and time, and sometimes even action. The division into five acts for the same reasons in Shakespeare, although it is preserved, but often during one act the picture of the action is transferred from one place to another.

In the era of storm and stress in the first half of the 19th century, new features in the construction of tragedies were developed in Germany. In contrast to the false classicists and encyclopedists, the life of feeling is given the utmost importance, and feeling becomes the main leader of all actions and deeds (“The Robbers” by Schiller). Moral issues are subject to revision and reassessment (“William Tell” by Schiller, “Cain” by Byron) and as a result, each character is endowed with deeply individual traits. Under the influence of revolutionary ferment, at the same time, it is not the struggle of an individual with another that is depicted, but the class struggle, and thus the plots of the tragedies are democratized.

Issue topic: Oscar Wilde - quotes and phrases from books and personal statements:

• I am dying as I lived - beyond my means.
• ...Life is too important to talk about it seriously.
• I always surprise myself. This is the only thing worth living for.
• Atheism needs religion no less than faith.
• Other people's dramas are always unbearably banal.
• Most of us are not us. Our thoughts are someone else's judgments; our life is mimicry.

• A person must absorb the colors of life, but never remember the details. The details are always banal.
• Be yourself, the rest of the roles are taken.
• The foundation of literary friendship is the exchange of poisoned glasses.
• In America, in the Rocky Mountains, I saw the only reasonable method of artistic criticism. In the bar there was a sign above the piano: “Don’t shoot the pianist - he’s doing the best he can.”
• Murder is always a miss. You should never do anything that you can't chat with people about after dinner.
• There are only two tragedies possible in life: the first is not getting what you dream of, the second is getting it. book "Lady Windermere's Fan"
• 
  I have unpretentious taste: the best is enough for me
• In the real world of facts, sinners are not punished and the righteous are not rewarded. Success accompanies the strong, failure befalls the weak. That's all. book "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
• It's hard to escape the future.
• A thing is what can be seen in it...
• No one can teach you what you really need to know.
• Time is a waste of money.
• Only empty people know themselves. book “Testaments to the Young Generation”
• We're all in the gutter, but some are looking at the stars. book "Lady Windermere's Fan"
• Now good upbringing is just a hindrance. It blocks out too much.
• Whenever a person commits stupidity, he does it from the most noble motives.
• There is only one sin - stupidity. book "The Critic as an Artist"
• Children begin with love for their parents. As they grow up, they begin to judge them. Sometimes they forgive them.
• Arguing is so vulgar. After all, in decent society people always share the same opinion about the book “The Remarkable Rocket”
• The only thing you will never regret is our mistakes and delusions.
• 
  Laughter is a good start to friendship, and laughter is a good way to end it.
• Naturalness is just a pose, and also the most annoying one I know.
• Punctuality is the thief of time.
• Life is never fair. For most of us, it's probably better this way.
• A poet can tolerate anything except a typo.
• Knowing your friends is an extremely dangerous thing.
• The concept of good and evil is accessible only to those who are deprived of all other concepts.
• Art is the most expressive of all known forms of individualism. book "The Soul of Man under Socialism"
• Patriotism is a great madness.
• What is true in a person’s life is not his deeds, but the legends that surround him. Legends should never be destroyed. Through them we can vaguely see the person's true face.
• Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
• What a beautiful moon today! - Yes, but if you had seen her before the war...
• Society often forgives the criminal. But not a dreamer.
• When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers. book "The Ideal Husband"
• Public opinion triumphs where thought slumbers.
• The beauty of the soul grows to gain the gift of seeing God book “The Holy Harlot, or the Woman Covered with Jewels”
• Only intellect ennobles a person.
• Self-love is the beginning of a romance that lasts a lifetime. book “Testaments to the Young Generation”
• 
  A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, but absolute sincerity is simply fatal. book "The Critic as an Artist"
• People always laugh at their tragedies - this is the only way to bear them.
• A thought that is not dangerous does not deserve to be called a thought.
• The difference between a whim and eternal love is that the whim lasts a little longer.
• A prayer must remain unanswered, otherwise it ceases to be a prayer and becomes a correspondence.
• The world is divided into two classes - some believe in the incredible, others do the impossible.
• We consider what we wear to be fashionable and what others wear to be unfashionable.

• Motherhood is a fact. Fatherhood is an opinion.
• On the ancient Greek portal of the ancient world it was written: know yourself. On the portal of the modern world it will be written: be yourself.
• People always destroy what they love most.
• Doing nothing is one of the hardest things to do, the most challenging and the most intellectual. book "The Critic as an Artist"
• Heal your soul with sensations, and let your soul heal sensations.
• Education is a wonderful thing, but you should remember at least from time to time that nothing that really needs to be known can be taught. book "The Critic as an Artist"
• When people immediately agree with me, I feel like I’m wrong.
• Society has a truly insatiable curiosity about everything that does not deserve curiosity.
• 
  The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its shame.
• Society often forgives criminals, but never forgives dreamers. book "The Critic as an Artist"
• As soon as the cannibals begin to threaten death from exhaustion, God, in his infinite mercy, sends them a fat missionary.
• People call their mistakes experience.
• A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes it. book “Testaments to the Young Generation”
• Positive people get on your nerves, bad people get on your imagination.
• Sometimes what we consider dead does not want to die for a long time. book "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
• Consistency is the last refuge of unimaginative people.
• Behind the beautiful there is always some tragedy hidden. For the most humble flower to bloom, the worlds must undergo birth pangs.
• The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
• There are three types of despots. The first terrorizes the body. The second terrorizes the soul. The third is equal parts body and soul. The first is called Prince, the second is called Pope, the third is People. book "The Soul of Man under Socialism"
• The biggest mysteries lie in what we see, not in what is hidden from our eyes.
• The only way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it. book "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
• Conscience is the official name for cowardice.
• The soul is born old, but becomes younger and younger. This is a comedy of life. The body is born young and ages. And this is a tragedy.
• Fate does not send us messengers - for this it is wise enough or cruel enough. book "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
• Every desire that we try to suppress ferments in our soul and poisons us. And having sinned, a person gets rid of the attraction to sin, for fulfillment is the path to purification. Afterwards, only memories of pleasure and the voluptuousness of repentance remain. The only way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it.
• Those who see the difference between soul and body have neither body nor soul.
• It's always nice not to arrive where you are expected.
• Only superficial people do not judge by appearance.
• Everything can be survived except death; everything can be transferred except a good reputation.
• Only words give reality to phenomena.
• In everything that people take seriously, you need to see the comic side of things.
• The tragedy of old age is not that you are old, but that you still consider yourself young.
• Loyalty in love, like consistency and immutability of thoughts, is simply proof of powerlessness.
• Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future. book "Lady Windermere's Fan"
• There are only two tragedies possible in our life. One is when you don't get what you want, the other is when you do get it. The second is worse, it is truly a tragedy!
• Nature, of course, has good intentions, but, as Aristotle once said, she is not able to bring them to life.
• There are only two real tragedies in life: one is when you don’t get what you want, and the second is when you get it.
• Moderation is a fatal quality. Only extremes lead to success.
• Being in society is simply boring. And to be outside society is already a tragedy.
• 
  A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything, but does not know the value.
• The burdens of our day are too heavy for man to bear alone, and the pain of the world is too deep for man to bear alone. book "The Young King"
• To regain my youth, I am ready to do anything - just not get up early, not do gymnastics and not be a useful member of society.
• It makes no sense to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or stupid.
• Selfishness does not mean living the way you want, it is a requirement for others to live the way you want.
• Ambition is the last refuge of losers. book “Testaments to the Young Generation”
• I can resist everything except temptation.
• ... I can't stand vulgar realism in literature. A person who calls a shovel a shovel should be forced to work with it - that's all he's good for. book "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Issue topic: Oscar Wilde - quotes and phrases, as well as sayings, sayings, aphorisms and statuses.