Introduction …………………………………………………… .3

Chapter I Prose of the Petrine era ………………………… ..4-6

Chapter II Poetry of the early 18th century …………………… 7-9

Chapter III Drama and theater of the Petrine era ... ... ... ... 10-12

Conclusion…………………………………………………. 13

References ………………………………… ……… .14

Introduction:

One of the most important conquests of the transitional period, and of Peter's time in particular, was the development of a new concept of man, a new solution to the problem of personality. Man ceases to be only a source of sinfulness. He is perceived as an active personality, valuable both in and of itself and even more for "services to the fatherland", when not wealth and nobility of the family, but public benefit, intelligence and courage can raise a person to one of the highest steps of the social ladder.

Peter I in practice carried out one of the main postulates of enlightenment - the requirement of the extra-class value of a person. Later, in 1722, he recorded this provision by legislative means in the "Table of ranks of all ranks of the military, civilian and courtiers," which opened up the opportunity for non-nobles to receive a noble title for services to the state. It is possible that, first of all, it was this legislative act that Belinsky had in mind when he assessed the reforms of Peter I: “The reform of Peter the Great did not destroy, did not destroy the walls that separated one class from another in the old society, but it undermined the foundation of these walls, and if she didn’t knock them down, then she tilted them to one side - and now from day to day they are leaning more and more. ”

A person in Peter's time already deserves to be explained state policy to him, so that he does not act blindly by order, but is imbued with the consciousness of the necessity and benefits of certain government measures.

Against the backdrop of great achievements in many areas of the economic, political and public life successes in the literature of the transitional period were much more modest, although the literary process itself was distinguished by great complexity.

The inner world of a person becomes bifurcated. Instead of the "coincidence of opposites" appears "antagonistic struggle of two hostile principles in all living things. These two principles - body and soul, passion and mind, natural attraction and moral dictates, people's life and laws - coexist, but do not pass into each other. Each of them seeks to subdue and suppress the other. " Hence such typical themes for Baroque works as "life is a dream" (remember death), as well as an irrational (intuitive) knowledge of reality, a tendency to mysticism.

Chapter I. Prose of the Petrine era

As Lebedeva notes, despite the rapid development of book printing in the era of Peter I, the main reading circle of the mass Russian reader consisted of traditional handwritten collections of stories, or “histories,” as they began to be called at that time. The process of making these collections was very intensified during the transitional era. Based on the composition of handwritten collections of stories, the genre composition of mass Russian fiction of the first quarter of the 18th century can be reconstructed, in the depths of which a type of unauthorized history of the Peter the Great era was formed - and with its obvious dependence on the Old Russian narrative tradition (anonymity and handwriting are characteristic features of the stories of the Peter the Great era, it with Old Russian literature), as well as from the Western European model of the genre (typological adventurous plot), unauthorized histories, focused on their historical modernity and created by people of their era, reflected both the novelty of Russian social life at the beginning of the 18th century, and a new type of consciousness of their nameless authors.

One of the most typical examples of the genre is "History of the Russian sailor Vasily Koriotsky and the beautiful princess Heraclius of the Florensky land". Compositionally, the work falls into two unequal parts: the first, more laconic, tells about the life of a young nobleman Vasily Koriotsky, who went to the sovereign's service, and the second, more lengthy one, about his incredible adventures in Europe. The first part has a pronounced everyday descriptive character; the second, more conventional, is built partly on the model of Russian folk epics and robbery tales, partly on the model of a Western European love-adventure story. However, against the background of this well-felt narrative tradition, the novelty of the real features of the life of the Peter the Great era, recorded in the story, as well as the novelty of the hero and the principles of the narrative, becomes even more obvious.

"Histories" about the sailor Vasily differ significantly from the narrative works of the second half of the 17th century. "Histories" are entirely secular works, their plot is fictional and develops along the line of revealing the character of the protagonist, whose fate is the result of his actions.

The innovations begin literally from the beginning of the story: "In Russian Europes, there is some living nobleman ...". It is quite obvious that Russia could be called "Russian Europes" not earlier than by the end of the reign of Peter I, and only in them could that typical biography of a young nobleman of the Peter I epoch be realized, the initial stage of which is quite traditional - the hero leaves home from "great poverty ”, But further events are directly conditioned by the novelty of the Russian way of life, because Vasily Koryotsky does not enter the service anywhere, but in the navy. The fleet is a symbol of everything new in Russian life at the beginning of the 18th century, Peter's favorite brainchild, the most convenient springboard for a career, since it was sailors and naval officers who most often went abroad to receive education.

Most importantly than the historical era of the first thirty years of the 18th century. defined the poetics of the authorless history that arose at that time and the brightest

the belonging of this genre to new literature is characterized, the dominant position of the category of the hero in the system of aesthetic categories of narration is. The plot, composition, and stylistics of the story are determined by the central position of the character, the task of its fullest disclosure. All plot episodes of the story are built on the principle of contrast, the difference in life situations from happiness to unhappiness, from poverty to well-being, in which personal dignity and character traits can best be manifested.

New in Russian stories at the beginning of the 18th century. is the development of a love theme. This theme not only forms the plot beginning, but also serves to reveal the character of the hero. The European culture of a love feeling, which manifests itself in kneeling, playing the harp, singing poetry of a beautiful lady and refined courtesy of relationships, found its embodiment in the story of the mutual love of a Russian sailor and a beautiful princess.

Tale of the first decades of the 18th century. also reflected the educational ideas of Peter the Great's time. This is most clearly reflected in such qualities of the hero as "sharpness of reason", his successes in science. It is these personal virtues that are revealed both in direct authorial statements and in the opinion of other heroes of the story.

The compositional feature of Russian tales of Peter's time is the inclusion of songs - "arias", which are performed by the heroes in the course of the action.

In terms of their composition, these "arias" are typical examples of love lyrics of the early 18th century, which combine features of the Renaissance and Baroque styles: allegorism, hypertrophied emotionality, references to ancient gods and goddesses (Cupid, Fortune, Mars).

These songs-arias are not the fruit of the personal creativity of the authors of the histories. Common in everyday life and in handwritten collections, they are included in the fabric of the narrative almost mechanically, not expressing the individual feelings of the hero, but conveying their typology.

"The history of the Russian sailor Vasily Koriotsky ...", standing on the eve of the new Russian literature, indicated the timid and at first difficult to distinguish sources of one of the most important ideological and aesthetic directions in the development of Russian literature, not only in the 18th, but also in the 19th century: searches for an epochal type personality, the desire to comprehend a person through his historical era, and the history and essence of the historical era - through the type of personality it forms. Thus, the unauthorized histories of the Petrine era underlie one of the most powerful genre traditions of Russian literature - the tradition of the historical novel and the novel about modernity.

Chapter II. Poetry of the early 18th century

Peter's reforms concerned primarily the practical sphere. A thin layer of the Russian intelligentsia, willingly or unwillingly, was absorbed in this work and did not have the strength to study art. Book monasticism was rapidly losing its dominant position in verbal culture, and a change was gradually being prepared for it. The nobles served until death, old age, or serious injury. However, it was during the Peter the Great's era that fundamental changes took place in Russian literary life, which predetermined the powerful development of poetry and prose.

Literature was allowed to perform more than just the practical functions that Peter considered essential. She was also supposed to entertain; for entertainment, everyone could write unrestrictedly - as a private person, outside and outside of official duties. The writer became a private person, the private person became a writer. This, it seems to me, is the meaning of the revolution in literary life that happened under Peter. It was also a kind of reform, and a reform with far-reaching consequences. If the transformation of a writer into a worker on request, into a servant person, into a literary day laborer meant a manifold increase in the flow of scientific, legal, medical, etc. translations aimed at the public benefit, his transformation into a private person, independent of "Christian freedom", immediately responded in the thematic and genre domains. Two consequences immediately appeared: the prohibitions on laughter and on love were lifted.

In the splendid old Moscow way of life, every day and every hour was painted to the smallest detail - and there was no room for laughter. Even for the same-believing Greek pastors, Russian good behavior seemed hard. The ban on laughter is explained by non-literary reasons. Under Peter, laughter became an indispensable ingredient in court everyday life. As a sovereign, as a secular head of the church, and finally, as a parishioner, Peter was pious; he knew the church service to the finest detail and loved to sing on a winged wing. Feofan Prokopovich, being the pastor of the church, reprimanded the exemplary preacher of the Polish Baroque Tomasz Mlodzyanowski for the comic effect that his concepts and applications produced. But in his private life, Theophanes wrote humorous epitaphs, for example, to Hierodeacon Adam, or the comic cycle "Thanksgiving from the servants of the brownies for the new-minded malt to the housekeeper Gerasim." He did not hesitate to parody Scripture.

Numerous examples of love poems of the early 18th century found in manuscript collections give an idea of ​​their character. They are distinguished by an extremely variegated vocabulary. Along with Church Slavism, the presence of Ukrainian and Polish phraseology, there are intersperses of the business language of Peter the Great, spiced with mannerism and gallant sophistication, which testifies to the active linguistic influences of translated literature, which played a significant role in the formation of the Russian language in the first decades of the 18th century. Metaphors, images and symbols associated with the traditions of the Western European Renaissance appear in book poetry. Love poems are full of the names of ancient gods and goddesses: the hero mourns his heart, shot through by the "sharp arrow of Cupid" (Cupid).

Love lyrics of the first decades of the 18th century. painted in sensitive - sentimental tones, equipped with emotionally uplifted phraseology: the hearts of lovers are "wounded by sorrow", they shed a "tear rain", their love is a "flame", it "gives birth to sparks in the heart", ignites "fire". Spectacular baroque comparisons of the beauty of the beloved with flowers, precious stones and metals ("the most fragrant color, the most beautiful sapphire", "invaluable krala, braliant", "the eye has a magnet in itself") create a peculiar character of these songs - early examples of Russian poetry.

In the formation of "love phraseology" of literature, a certain role belongs to the folk lyric song. Literature in translation, which came to Russia in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, had a significant impact on love poetry of this time. through Poland.

The most important place in poetry was occupied by panegyric verses, solemn "cants" and victorious "vivats" on the occasion of Russia's military successes or other important state events. This phenomenon is extremely important for the history of Russian literature of the period under consideration as a vivid indicator of the continuity of literary traditions. The “cants” and “vivats” have a predecessor - a collection of baroque poems “in case” by Simeon Polotsky “Rhymologion”. They also have a clearly distinguished "descendant" - a classicistic ode. As an example, we can cite the well-known cant of Dimitry Rostovsky on the capture of Narva, which spoke about the struggle of the eagle, the symbol of Russia, with the lion, the symbol of Sweden. Everything is built on a skillful interweaving of mythological images: the lion, the emblem of Sweden, acquires the name "Nemean" and is thus associated with one of the exploits of Hercules; Peter is a stone, and this translation is often featured in modern church sermons, vivat is a welcome Latin cry, which it was Peter who officially introduced into the everyday life of Russian life.
Also noted in the poetry of Peter's time are Horatian-Epicurean themes and motifs that are not characteristic of the previous literary tradition. Such is, for example, "Drinking Song", which was a half-retelling, half-translation of the famous student anthem “Gaudeamus igitur”. Its second part contains a number of specific details of the feast of the epicurean nobles of Peter's time, immediately named by their names (princes Masalsky, Ivan and Boris Golitsyn, etc.).

The transformation of a writer into a private person not bound by "Christian freedom" seems to me the most characteristic and promising sign of the literary life of Peter's time. The results of this metamorphosis were not slow to affect the lifting of the ban on laughter and love. In the first quarter of the 18th century. these results were still in potency. The poetic quality was not high, because amateurs were engaged in poetry. The quality also changed somewhat later.

Work description

One of the most important conquests of the transitional period, and of Peter's time in particular, was the development of a new concept of man, a new solution to the problem of personality. Man ceases to be only a source of sinfulness. He is perceived as an active personality, valuable both in and of itself and even more for "services to the fatherland", when not wealth and nobility of the family, but public benefit, intelligence and courage can raise a person to one of the highest steps of the social ladder.

Practical Lesson Plans

Practical lesson 1. Man in the literature of Peter the Great

General characteristics of Peter's time in literature.

The concept of "story" in relation to the literature of the Middle Ages. Genres and genre varieties of Old Russian stories of the 17th century.

Tale of Peter's time ("histories"). Analysis of the "History of the Russian sailor Vasily Koryotsky":

B) features of the compositional structure; traditions of folklore, Old Russian literature, Western European stories and novels, business writing and their use in various parts of history;

C) the image of the protagonist and its difference from the heroes of medieval stories;

D) the system of images of the work;

E) "History of a Russian sailor ..." and an anonymous story about the Spanish gentry Dolthorn as a possible prototype domestic work; similarities and differences;

F) the variegation and disorder of the style and language of the story;

G) features of the depiction of themes traditional for Russian literature (the theme of upbringing, the theme of "fathers and children", the theme of love).

4. "The story of Alexander, a Russian nobleman." Ideological and artistic originality.

Exercise:

Repeat the theme "Tale of the 17th century"; write out examples from the text of the "History of the Russian sailor ..." examples confirming the lexical and stylistic disorder of the language of literature at the beginning of the century, its orientation towards different traditions.

Literature:

"Histories about the Russian sailor Vasily Koryotsky ..."

"The story of Alexander, a Russian nobleman"

Panegyric, everyday and love poems of the Petrine era

"The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn"

"The Tale of Woe-Evil"

Baklanova N. A. Evolution of the Russian original story of everyday life at the turn of the 17th – 18th centuries // Russian literature at the turn of two eras: the 17th – beginning of the 18th century. M., 1971.

Berkov PN About the literature of the so-called transitional period // Russian literature at the turn of two eras: XVII - early XVIII century. M., 1971.

Demin A.S. Russian literature of the second half of the 17th - early 18th centuries: New artistic ideas about the world, nature, man. M., 1977.

Likhachev D.S. Relationship between literary genres // D.S.Likhachev. Poetics of Old Russian Literature. L., 1971.

Panchenko A. M. Russian culture on the eve of Peter's reforms. L., 1984.

Practical lesson 2. Satires of A.D. Kantemir and their place in literature XVIII v.

Two meanings of the term "satire": the principle of artistic reflection of reality and a special genre of poetry.

The connection between the works of Cantemir and his modernity. Satire as the main genre of the writer's work. General characteristics of all satyrs.

A) socio-political problems and peculiarities of typing. Criticism of the vices of society and personality;

B) the Russian nobility in the image of Cantemir (2 satire);

C) the theme of education (7 satire);

D) the idea of ​​serving the fatherland and its expression in various satire;

F) the technique of self-disclosure of characters, "gallery of negative types", the principle of dialogue in the construction of satire, especially the names;

G) the originality of the language: simplicity, accuracy, aphoricity.

4. Satires of Kantemir in the assessment of Russian criticism of the XIX century. (V.G.Belinsky about Kantemir).

Tasks:

I. Make a synopsis of VG Belinsky's article about Kantemir;

II. Write out the lines characterizing the genre of satire from the Epistle on Poetry by A. P. Sumarokov.

Literature:

Kantemir A. Satires 1, 2, 7.

Sumarokov A.P. Epistola about poetry. (Texts in the anthologies of V. A. Zapadov or A. V. Kokorev, G. P. Khrapchenko).

Batyushkov K. N. Evening at Cantemir // K. N. Batyushkov. Something about poet and poetry. M., 1985.

Belinsky V.G. PSS in 13 volumes.Moscow, 1955.T.8.

Gershkovich ZI On the aesthetic position and literary tactics of Cantemir // XVIII century: Sat. 5.M. - L., 1962.

Gershkovich ZI On the history of the creation of the first satyrs of Cantemir // XVIII century: Sat. 5.M. - L., 1962.

Zhukovsky V.A.On satire and satyrs of Kantemir // V.A. Zhukovsky. Aesthetics and criticism. M., 1985.

Zapadov A.V. Poets of the 18th century: A. Kantemir, A. Sumarokov, V. Maikov, M. Kheraskov. M., 1984.

Stennik Yu. V. Russian satire of the 18th century. L., 1985.

Practical lesson 3. Reform of Russian versification

Russian syllabic verse, its origin, main characteristics. Linguistic reasons for the inorganic nature of the Russian syllabics. National-historical reasons for reforming the syllabic verse.

“A new and short way to compose Russian verses” by V. K. Trediakovsky:

A) new concepts: sound, syllable, foot, verse, rhythm; their relationship in the treatise;

B) tonic model (graphic scheme) of a new syllabo-tonic verse;

C) the inconsistency of Trediakovsky and the reasons for the failure to complete the reform.

3. MV Lomonosov - a systematizer of Russian versification. "Letter on the rules of Russian poetry":

A) moments of coincidence in the theories of Lomonosov and Trediakovsky;

B) new concepts of poetry in Lomonosov's "Letter";

C) elements of unproductiveness in Lomonosov's theory.

Tasks:

I. Compile the abstracts of the articles by V. K. Trediakovsky and M. V. Lomonosov;

II. Pick up poetic examples for each question.

Literature:

Trediakovsky V.K.A new and short way to compose Russian verses.

Lomonosov M.V. Letter about the rules of Russian poetry // Lomonosov M.V. Selected works... L., 1986.

Alexandrova I.B. Poetic speech of the 18th century: Textbook. M., 2005. Sec. I, ch. 3, 4.

Gasparov M.L. Essay on the history of Russian verse. M., 1984. Ch. 1.

Zhirmunsky V.M.The theory of verse. L., 1975. S. 68–70.

Kvyatkovsky A. Poetic Dictionary. M. 1966.

Thought armed with rhymes. Poetic anthology on the history of Russian verse / Comp. V.E. Kolshevnikov. L., 1984.

Kolshevnikov V.E. Fundamentals of poetry. Russian versification. L., 1972.

Practical lesson 4. Genre varieties of ode in the works of M. V. Lomonosov

Definition of the ode and its varieties.

Poetics of a solemn (meritorious) ode: the concept of the odic canon, rhythm, stanza, themes, composition, features of word usage, typology of artistic imagery, the ratio of rhetorical and lyrical principles.

Poetics of the anacreontic and spiritual ode as lyric genres: ideological and plastic world images, forms of manifestation of the author's subjectivism.

Analysis of the "Ode on the Day of Her Majesty Empress Elizabeth Petrovna's Accession to the All-Russian Throne" in 1747:

A) the problematic of the ode;

B) composition;

C) language and style (types of tropes, their role in creating a solemn style).

Tasks:

I. Draw up graphic diagrams of the verse and stanza of the solemn ode;

II. Prepare a table of basic artistic techniques creation of odic imagery with examples from the odes of MV Lomonosov.

Literature:

Lomonosov M.V. Odes 1739, 1747, 1748 "Conversation with Anacreon", "Poems composed on the way to Peterhof ...", "Darkness at night ...", "Morning meditation on the Majesty of God", "Evening meditation on the Majesty of God" // Lomonosov MV Selected works. L., 1986.

Alexandrova I.B. Poetic speech of the 18th century: Textbook. M., 2005. Sec. II, ch. 2.

Gukovsky G.A. On the anacreontic ode // G.A. Gukovsky. Early work on the history of Russian poetry of the 18th century. M., 2001.

Gukovsky G.A.From the history of the Russian ode of the 18th century (Experience in the interpretation of parody) // G.A. Gukovsky. Early works on the history of Russian poetry in the 18th century. M., 2001.

Stennik Yu. V. "Evening Meditation on the Majesty of God" // Poetic structure of Russian lyric poetry. L., 1973.

Practical lesson 5. Russian tragedy of the 18th century.

Tragedy as a high genre of classicism.

Conditions and prerequisites for the emergence of drama in Russian literature of the last quarter of the 17th - first half of XVIII centuries

Problems of the tragicomedy by F. Prokopovich "Vladimir", its genre originality. Satirical beginning in the play and its manifestation at the level of subject matter, plot, system of images, style of the work. The value of the play in the formation of the genre of tragedy.

Patriotic pathos of MV Lomonosov's tragedy "Tamira and Selim". The problem of historical fidelity.

The main conflict in the play by A. P. Sumarokov "Dmitry the Pretender" and the peculiarities of its solution. How is the philosophical, ethical, aesthetic, social and political basis of classicism manifested in tragedy? The artistic role of the "three unities" in the play.

Polemic orientation of the image of Vadim and the theme of free Novgorod in the republican tyrannical tragedy of Ya. B. Knyazhnin "Vadim Novgorodsky". The historical concept of the play. "Vadim Novgorodsky" is the pinnacle of Russian classicism.

The significance of the genre of tragedy in Russian literature and Russian social thought of the 18th century.

Tasks:

I. According to the texts "On Poetic Art" by F. Prokopovich and "Epistola on Russian Poetry" by AP Sumarokov, to determine the tasks, the specifics of the genre of tragedy in Russian pre-classicism and classicism;

II. Formulate the main conflicts of these tragedies, show how the classic "rules of three unities" are implemented in them, identify the progressive development of classic tragedy, its ideological and artistic originality, make the necessary extracts and abstracts from scientific literature on the topic;

III. Ridicule of the clichés of the tragedy of classicism in the tragedy of I. A. Krylov "Trumph".

Literature:

Krylov I.A.Trumf.

Prokopovich F. On Poetic Art.

Russian literature - XVIII century. Tragedy / Comp., Prepared. texts and comments. P. Bukharkina and others; Entry. Art. Yuri Stennik. M., 1991.

Sumarokov A.P. Epistola about Russian poetry. (Text in the anthology by G.P. Khrapchenko).

Aseev B.N.Russian Drama Theater from its origins to the end of the 18th century. M., 1977.

Bochkarev V. A. Russian historical drama of the 17th – 18th centuries. M., 1988.

Vsevolodsky-Gerngross V.N. The history of Russian drama theater from its origins to the end of the 18th century. M., 1977.

Gukovsky G. A. About the Sumarokov tragedy // G. A. Gukovsky. Early works on the history of Russian poetry in the 18th century. M., 2001.

Gukovsky G.A. On the issue of Russian classicism (Competitions and translations) // G.A. Gukovsky. Early works on the history of Russian poetry in the 18th century. M., 2001.

Gukovsky G. A. About Russian classicism // G. A. Gukovsky. Early works on the history of Russian poetry in the 18th century. M., 2001.

Gukovsky G.A.Russian Literature of the 18th century. M., 2003.

History of Russian drama of the 17th - first half of the 18th centuries. L., 1982.

Moskvicheva G.V. Russian classicism. M., 1978.

Stennik Yu.V. Literary trends in Russian literature of the 18th century. M., 1979.

Practical lesson 6. Genres of Russian comedy of the 18th century.

The evolution of the comedy genre in the work of A.P. Sumarokov: pamphlet comedies of the 1750s, a comedy of intrigue in the 1760s, a comedy of mores in the 1770s.

Poetics of the comedy genre of A.P. Sumarokov: the functions of a pun, the conflict-forming functions of concepts, the peculiarities of word use in the speech characteristics of vicious and virtuous characters, the typology of artistic imagery, the originality of the conflict, the typology of the denouement.

The comedy of morals in the work of V. I. Lukin: the ideology and aesthetics of the "adjective" direction, the genre originality of the "tearful" comedy ("bourgeois tragedy"), rhetoric and everyday life in the comedies "Mot Corrected by Love" and "Pinch".

The high comedy "Yabed" by V. V. Kapnist: poetics of the genre of poetic high comedy, characterological, effective, world-modeling functions of the word, features of the conflict, the typology of the denouement, the typology of the high hero.

Tasks:

Prepare an essay on the topic: "Genres of Russian Comedy 1750–1790."

Literature:

Sumarokov A.P. Tresotinius. Guardian. A cuckold from imagination // A.P. Sumarokov. Dramatic compositions. L., 1990.

Lukin V.I. Pincher. (Texts in the anthologies of V. A. Zapadov or A. V. Kokorev).

Kapnist V.V. Yabeda // V.V. Kapnist. Selected works. L., 1973.

Berkov P.N.History of Russian comedy of the 18th century. L., 1977. Ch. 2, 4, 5, 11.

Gukovsky G.A.Russian Literature of the 18th century. M., 2003.

Comedy // Russian Humanitarian Encyclopedic Dictionary: In 3 volumes. M .; SPb., 2002.Vol. 2.

Moiseeva G. N. Ways of development of Russian drama of the 18th century. // Russian drama of the 18th century. M., 1986.

Stennik Yu.V. Sumarokov the playwright // A.P. Sumarokov. Dramatic compositions. L., 1990.

Practical lesson 7. Comedy by D. I. Fonvizin "Minor"

The history of creation, the problems of comedy (the problem of education, the problem of serfdom, the problem of state supervision over the activities of landowners, the problem of a positive hero).

The plot and system of images in the comedy:

A) grouping characters by moral principle, "Speaking" names, the role of minor characters in the comedy;

B) the multi-theme nature of the play, the main conflict in it, the peculiarities of the plot organization;

C) the "rule of three unities" and ways to create a broad picture of reality.

3. Genre traditions of satire and odes in comedy.

4. The pun and its functions in comedy.

5. Disputes about the nature of realism in "Nedoroslya". The importance of comedy for the development of realism in Russian literature.

Tasks:

I. To repeat the material about the controversy between "Drone" and "Anything and everything" about satire; what satirical tradition does Fonvizin follow?

II. Compare the principles of creating a satirical image and the ways of depicting characters in the satires by A. D. Kantemir and the comedy by D. I. Fonvizin "The Minor";

III. How is the semantics of the Skotinin family name implemented in the speech characteristics of everyday heroes?

Literature:

Fonvizin D.I. (Any edition).

Berkov P.N.History of Russian comedy of the 18th century. L., 1977. Ch. 8, sec. 3.

Vsevolod-Gerngross V. N. Fonvizin-playwright. M., 1960.

Gukovsky G.A.Russian Literature of the 18th century. M., 2003.

The history of Russian drama of the 17th - first half of the 19th century. L., 1982. S. 140-146.

Lebedeva O.B. Russian high comedy xviii century: Genesis and poetics of the genre. Tomsk, 1996. Ch. 1, 2, 5.

Makogonenko G.P. From Fonvizin to Pushkin: From the History of Russian Realism. M., 1969.

Rassadin S. B. Satires are a brave lord. M., 1986.

Practical lesson 8. Poetic world of G.R.Derzhavin

Ode as the leading genre of G.R.Derzhavin's poetry.

Genre originality of "Felitsa". Features of pictorial and expressive means in a poem: language and style.

Poetics of philosophical odes ("On the death of Prince Meshchersky", "God", "Waterfall", etc.):

A) subject matter;

B) composition;

B) figurative system;

D) the depicted world;

E) style-forming means.

4. Genre and stylistic innovation of the poem "To Sovereigns and Judges".

5. Innovation, specificity and psychologism of the anacreonticism of GR Derzhavin, its role in the development of anthological poetry of the 19th century.

6. Criticism and literary criticism about the originality and significance of the work of GR Derzhavin and his artistic method.

Exercise:

Prepare a scientific report on one of the topics: a) the problems of ethical reflections in the lyrics of G.R.Derzhavin; b) irony and joke in G.R.Derzhavin's anacreonics; c) drama by G.R.Derzhavin.

Literature:

Derzhavin G.R. Poems. L., 1957 (series "Library of the poet").

Bitsilli P. M. Derzhavin // V. Khodasevich. Derzhavin. M., 1988.

Griftsov B.A. Derzhavin // V. Khodasevich. Derzhavin. M., 1988.

Gukovsky G.A. The first years of Derzhavin's poetry // G.A. Gukovsky. Early works on the history of Russian poetry in the 18th century. M., 2001.

Zapadov A.V. Poets of the 18th century: M.V. Lomonosov, G.R.Derzhavin. M., 1979.

Ivanov Viach. Sun. The modernity of Derzhavin's poetics // Viach. Sun. Ivanov. Selected works on semiotics and cultural history. Articles about Russian literature. - T. II. - M., 2000.

Sadovskaya B.A.G.R. Derzhavin // V. Khodasevich. Derzhavin. M., 1988.

Serman I.Z.Literary position of Derzhavin // XVIII century: Sat. 8. Derzhavin and Karamzin in the literary movement of the 18th - early 19th centuries. L., 1969.

Tynyanov Yu. N. Oda as an oratorical genre // Yu. N. Tynyanov. Poetics. Literary history. Cinema. M., 1977.

Uspensky B.A. The language of Derzhavin // From the history of Russian culture, volume IV (XVIII - early XIX century). M., 1996.

Khodasevich V.F. Derzhavin (On the centenary of his death) // Vladislav Khodasevich. Swaying tripod. M., 1991.

Eikhenbaum B. Derzhavin // V. Khodasevich. Derzhavin. M., 1988.

Practical lesson 9. Genre of the story in creativity

N. M. Karamzina

Varieties of the genre of the story in the work of N.M. Karamzin.

The reasons for the appearance and rapid development of the sentimental story in Russian literature (F. Emin "Letters of Ernest and Doravra", AN Radishchev "Diary of one week", NM Karamzin "Poor Liza").

Poetics of the stories of N.M. Karamzin:

A) external and internal conflicts in the story. N. M. Karamzin's attitude to heroes. The meaning of the title of the story "Poor Liza";

B) how does N.M. Karamzin reveal the origin and development of feelings in his heroes? The dynamics and variability of feelings as a means of creating the psychological complexity of the character of the main characters of the story;

C) the psychological function of the landscape in the work; nature as an actor;

D) the role of speech characteristics, intonation, facial expressions, gestures, artistic details in creating an image; portrait and its meaning.

4. The stories of N. M. Karamzin in the history of Russian literature.

Tasks:

I. What new things did Karamzin introduce into the development of the Russian story (compare: Old Russian stories, “histories” of Peter's time, etc.) and how did he prepare for the appearance of “Belkin’s Tales” by A. S. Pushkin?

II. Give a comparative description of "poor" Liza from the story of Karamzin and "poor" Anyuta A. N. Radishchev ("Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow", chapter "Yedrovo"). Can we talk about two currents of Russian sentimentalism?

Literature:

Karamzin N.M. (Any edition).

Radishchev A. N. Diary of one week. Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow. (Any edition).

Vinogradov V.V. Karamzin's problem in the history of styles of Russian literature // V.V. Vinogradov. Selected Works. The language and style of Russian writers. From Karamzin to Gogol. M., 1990.

Gogol N.V. Karamzin // N.V. Gogol. Selected articles. M., 1980.

Orlov P.A. Russian sentimentalism. M., 1977.

Orlov P.A. Russian sentimental story. M., 1977.

Pavlovich S.E. Ways of development of Russian sentimental prose of the 18th century. Saratov, 1974.

Piksanov N. K. "Poor Anyuta" and "Poor Liza" // XVIII century: Sat. 3.M.-L., 1958.

Puryskina N. G. Word and gesture in the sentimental story "Poor Liza" by N. M. Karamzin // Problems of studying Russian literature of the 18th century: Method and genre. L., 1985.

Toporov V. N. "Poor Liza" Karamzina: Experience of reading. M., 1995.

Independent work students

CDS Topics

V. K. Trediakovsky as the founder of Russian philology. The reform of versification by Trediakovsky: the transition to syllabo-tonic versification (treatises of 1735 and 1752). Trediakovsky's creation of the Russian hexameter and the foundations of the epic style.

Magazine satire 1769-1774 "Infernal Mail" F. A. Emin. Satirical magazines of N. I. Novikov: "Drone", "Painter", "Purse".

Satirical works I.A.Krylova. The style and language of the writer.

Poetics and genre originality of V. I. Lukin's comedies.

The satirical and anti-serfdom orientation of the comedies of M.I. Verevkin and comic operas M.I. Popov, A.O. Ablesimova, M.A.Matinsky.

Lyrics of V.V. Kapnist: genre composition and specificity of the poet's literary position. The comedy "Yabeda" and its place in the writer's work and the development of Russian comedy in the 18th century.

The dramaturgy of P. A. Plavil'shchikov. His articles "Something about the innate quality of Russian souls" and "Theater".

"Irocomic" poems by V. I. Maikov. Genre originality of "Elisha".

Literary activity of IF Bogdanovich. The poet's love, anacreontic lyrics.

Lyrics and drama by M. M. Kheraskov. Kheraskov's classicism and the influence of Masonic ideas on his work.

F. A. Emin's novels and their genre variety.

Ideological and artistic originality of M. D. Chulkov's prose.

Poetry MN Muravyov - "chronicle of the soul of a man of the XVIII century." The artistic innovation of the lyric system of Muravyov, the first pre-romantic poet in Russian literature.

The structure of the narrative "Travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow" by A. N. Radishchev: essay, journalistic and artistic principles as a model of the process of cognition.

The question of the versatility, breadth of socio-philosophical and artistic searches for sentimentalism in the works of A.N. Veselovsky, G.A.Gukovsky, P.N. Berkov, N.K. P.N. Orlova and others.

The variety of genres of drama by Ya. B. Knyazhnin. National-historical problems, connection with educational ideology, genre originality, features of tragic and comedic characters and conflicts.

Literary texts

Feofan Prokopovich. Epinikion. Vladimir.

A.D. Kantemir. Satyrs (1, 2, 7).

V. K. Trediakovsky. A new and concise way to compose Russian poetry. Commendable poetry of Russia. Commendable poetry to Paris. Epistola on Russian poetry to Apollinou. Tilemachida. Riding to the island of love.

M.V. Lomonosov. Letter about the rules of Russian poetry. Preface about the benefits of church books. Ode to the victory over the Turks and Tatars and the capture of Khotin, 1739. Ode to the day of her Majesty Empress Elizabeth Petrovna's accession to the All-Russian throne, 1747. Conversation with Anacreon. I have erected a sign of immortality for myself. Evening meditation on the majesty of God in the event of the great northern lights. Morning meditation on the majesty of God. A letter on the benefits of glass. Grasshopper.

V.V. Kapnist. Yabed.

M.I.Popov. Anyuta.

A. A. Ablesimov. Miller-sorcerer, deceiver and matchmaker.

V.I. Lukin. Pincher. Mot Corrected by Love.

M. M. Kheraskov. Rossiada. Chesme battle. Poems.

I.F.Bogdanovich. Darling.

V. I. Maikov. Elisha, or the irritated Bacchus.

A.P. Sumarokov. An epistle about poetry. Demetrius the Pretender. Tresotinius. Guardian. Imaginary cuckold. Poetry (satire and parables).

D.I.Fonvizin. The fox is the treasurer. A message to my servants. General court grammar. Brigadier. Undergrowth.

M.D. Chulkov. Bitter fate. Precious pike. Mockingbird, or Slavonic fairy tales... The comely cook.

G.R.Derzhavin. Felitsa. The vision of the murza. To rulers and judges. On the death of Prince Meshchersky. The God. Waterfall. Nobleman. On the capture of Ishmael. Martin. Dinner invitation. Russian girls. “Eugene. Life in Zvan. " Snigir. Confession. To the lyre. Monument. Swan. River of times. Discourse on lyric poetry, or ode.

M.N. Muravyov. Lyrics.

A.N. Radishchev. About autocracy. Conversation about the fact that there is a son of the fatherland. Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Eighteenth century. Diary of one week.

I. A. Krylov. Spirit mail. Kaib. Trumph (Podshipa). Lesson for daughters.

N. M. Karamzin. Poor Lisa. Natalia, boyar's daughter. Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod. Bornholm Island. Letters from a Russian traveler. History of Russian Goverment. Poetry. Autumn.

I. I. Dmitriev. The gray dove groans. Fashionable wife. Inscriptions, epigrams, fables.

Types of control measures and forms of discipline certification

Questions for the exam

The main features of Russian literature of the 18th century. as a new type of literature. XVIII century - the era of the Enlightenment.

Culture of the first quarter of the 18th century (peculiarities public policy and public conscience; periodicals and book publishing, theater). General characteristics of the literature of Peter the Great (poetry, drama).

Tales (histories) of Peter's time. "History of the Russian sailor Vasily Koryotsky ...". Ideological and artistic originality.

Feofan Prokopovich is a public figure, writer and literary theorist.

The concept of classicism (socio-historical background and philosophical basis; the concept of personality). The originality of Russian classicism. Development stages. Representatives. Genre system.

Works of V.K.Trediakovsky. Genre and stylistic originality of the lyrics. Translations of Western European novels. Theoretical and literary works.

Satyrs A.D. Cantemir. Tradition and innovation. The author's position and ways of expressing it. System of images.

Reform of Russian versification (V. K. Trediakovsky, M. V. Lomonosov).

Philological works of M.V. Lomonosov. The theory of "three calm" and its role in the development of Russian literary language.

Solemn odes to MV Lomonosov ("Ode to the capture of Khotin", "Ode to the day of the ascension ... 1747"). The concept of the Odic canon. Problems, composition, pictorial and expressive means. Author's position.

Scientific and philosophical poetry of M. V. Lomonosov. A genre of spiritual ode. Translations and arrangements.

The versatility of M.V. Lomonosov and its historical and cultural significance.

A. P. Sumarokov - theorist of Russian classicism ("Epistola on poetry").

Dramatic art by A.P. Sumarokov. Features of tragedies (subject matter, system of images, features of the conflict, language). Development of the comedy genre ("Guardian", "Cuckold from the Imagination").

The tragedy of A. P. Sumarokov "Dmitry the Pretender".

Poetry of A.P. Sumarokov. Satires and parables. Love lyrics and its traditions in poetry of the second half of the 18th century.

The main trends in the development of Russian literature in the second half of the 18th century. ("The century of Catherine").

Satirical journalism of the 60s – 70s. Journal controversy. N.I. Novikov. Magazines "Truten", "Painter" and others. Literary and social position. Genre forms satire.

Poetry of the 60s – 90s General characteristics. The main directions of development.

G.R.Derzhavin. Characteristics of creativity. Poet's innovation. The question of Derzhavin's creative method.

The genre of ode in the works of G.R.Derzhavin. Ideological and artistic originality of the ode "Felitsa".

Philosophical lyrics by G.R.Derzhavin.

Anacreontic verses by G.R.Derzhavin.

Prose 60-80s (F. A. Emin, M. D. Chulkov, M. M. Kheraskov).

Poems of the second half of the 18th century Genre varieties. Heroic epic M. M. Kheraskov "Russia".

Poem by V. I. Maikov "Elisha, or the Irritated Bacchus". Ideological and artistic originality.

Poem by IF Bogdanovich "Darling". Ideological and artistic originality.

Creativity M. M. Kheraskov.

Dramatic art of the second half of the 18th century The main directions of development. Genres.

Comedy of the second half of the 18th century. Overview. (V. I. Lukin "Scraping", "Mot, Corrected by Love", V. V. Kapnist "Yabeda", Ya. B. Knyazhnin "Bouncer" and others).

Comic opera in literature in the second half of the 18th century. (works by A. A. Alesimov, M. I. Popov, N. P. Nikolaev, Ya. B. Knyazhnin and other authors).

Historical and political tragedy. General characteristics of the works of A.P. Sumarokov, N.P. Nikolaev, Ya. B. Knyazhnin.

The creative path of D.I.Fonvizin. Satirical works ("The Fox-Treasurer", "A Message to My Servants ...", "General Court Grammar").

The originality of the action and the system of images of the comedy "Brigadier" by DI Fonvizin.

Comedy by D. I. Fonvizin "Minor". Genre originality, system of images, features of the conflict.

The originality of Russian sentimentalism. Representatives.

Creativity N.M. Karamzin. Literary and aesthetic views. History in the work of the writer.

"Poor Liza" by N. M. Karamzin as a sentimental story.

The story of N. M. Karamzin "Natalia, the boyar's daughter". Features of the interpretation of the love theme. Author's position.

Prose by N.M. Karamzin. "Letters of a Russian Traveler". Genre varieties of stories. Pre-romantic tendencies ("Bornholm Island").

I.I.Dmitriev's creativity.

General characteristics of the work of I.A.Krylov in the 18th century. Shoot tragedy "Trumph" ("Podshipa").

I. A. Krylov's journals. Satirical prose ("Kaib").

The creative path of A. N. Radishchev.

"Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow" A. N. Radishchev. History of creation and publication. Content and problems.

"Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow" A. N. Radishchev. Genre compositional originality. The image of the traveler. A question about the creative method of the writer.

The main patterns and results of the development of Russian literature in the 18th century. and its place in the history of Russian literature.

^ Sample tickets for the exam

2007/2008 account year

^ TICKET # 1

1. The main features of Russian literature of the 18th century. as a new type of literature. XVIII century - the era of the Enlightenment.

2. Creativity of M. M. Kheraskov.

Art. teacher ________________________________ Ch. A. Gorbachevsky

Head of the Department ____________________________ E.V. Ponomareva

South Ural State University

Department of Russian Language and Literary History

Discipline "History of Russian Literature"

2007/2008 account year

TICKET number 2

The periodization of Russian literature in the 18th century.

2. Comedy of the second half of the 18th century. Overview. (V. I. Lukin "Scraping", "Mot, Corrected by Love", V. V. Kapnist "Yabeda", Ya. B. Knyazhnin "Bouncer" and others).

Art. teacher _________________________________ Ch. A. Gorbachevsky

Head of the Department _____________________________ E. V. Ponomareva

DEVELOPMENT OF LITERATURE IN 1700 - 1730

(LITERATURE OF THE PETROVSKAYA EPOCH)

Russian literature of the 18th century grows on the soil prepared by the ancient Russian writing and oral folk art. Russian literature of the 18th century, both chronologically and essentially, begins with the era of Peter I. The enormous economic and social shifts that took place in the Russian state at the beginning of the century could not but affect the spiritual needs of society. Art and literature of the medieval type that prevailed in Russia could no longer satisfy these demands. The first decades of the century are the time of the formation of new art, the time of the creation of literature, qualitatively different from the works of Old Russian writing.

The most important sign of the new in literary creation was the writers' view of reality from the point of view of the state. The horizon of the author's vision is expanding. Literary heroes now live not only in Russia - they often go to "foreign countries", and the very image of other countries is gradually freed from the taint of fantasy. The number of translations from contemporary Western European literature is growing. More and more often one hears in Russian literature the words that each person is a member of society, that this imposes certain duties on him: a person must bring real benefits to society, the state (one of the ideas of the Kantemirov satire). State institutions become the subject of poetry (Trediakovsky's "Tilemakhida", Lomonosov's solemn odes).

At the beginning of the century, other, deep tendencies appeared in the art of words: an attempt was made to reflect human psychology. Such attempts have also been made in prose (Riding to the Island of Love by Trediakovsky based on the novel by Talman). But a particularly significant result was the development of love lyrics. A whole sphere of human life, previously almost unknown to literature, has now become available to artistic depiction.

These new literary tendencies in many ways contradicted each other, entered into a struggle with each other and did not always acquire their complete stylistic face. Along with the attempts of the most truthful and accurate depiction of reality, there was also a desire to go into the world of fantasy (usually drawn from folklore), into the realm of exoticism, bizarre and unexpected (in the plays of Kunst's theater, partly in stories - "histories").

If Russian literature of the 18th century as a whole can be conditionally called a creative laboratory that prepared the artistic achievements of the 19th century, then the experimental principle manifested itself especially strongly in the literature of the first decades of the century. This feature of the literary process of 1700-1730 is most complete. expressed in his work V.K. Trediakovsky.

Thus, the work of the writers of the beginning of the century is not united by any one or even several literary trends in the modern sense of the word (as will be typical for the literature of the second half of the 18th century and subsequent times). As in the 17th century, literary life still developing spontaneously. Writing has not yet become a large and internally organized part. ideological struggle, has not yet become a profession. There are also no clearly understood literary-theoretical programs, no literary manifestos (which in general are destined to play a lesser role in the history of Russian literature than in the history of Western literatures). There are, however, various ideological and stylistic trends, in their totality, pave the way for Russian literary classicism.

On what historical and cultural background did Russian literature of the beginning of the century develop? What was the general state of the country's culture at that time?

This time went down in history as the "era of Peter's transformations." Peter I, as you know, did a lot to bring Russian culture closer to European culture. A.S. Pushkin said well about this: "Russia entered Europe like a launched ship, with the clatter of an ax and the thunder of cannons." And this huge ship was built thanks to the efforts of Peter I. Although in Russia, as noted by DS Likhachev, there was no revival, renaissance, in the European sense of the word, nevertheless the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries. can rightfully be considered for Russia equivalent to the European Renaissance. From a monarchy of the old type, from a state bound by outdated class prejudices, from a state in which the boyars were the ruling class, Russian society came to a powerful state of a different, European type, to an "enlightened" monarchy, where the master was the nobility, who united the ancient clan nobility - boyars with new nobility, which arose relatively recently or even just emerged, with the nobility in the proper sense of the word.

The new state is the landowners who own the land, and the peasants, finally enslaved, who live on this land. These are, finally, merchants, now, during the rapid growth of the economy, agriculture and industry, who have become an important force social development, and the clergy.

The West, to which the Russian state at the beginning of the century was oriented in many ways, was also, of course, heterogeneous. In Western Europe there was also a counter-reformation, but there was also enlightenment, there was also a revival humanism. If Simeon of Polotsk in the 17th century had not yet clearly defined his position: whether he was closer to enlightenment, or to revival humanism (this, probably, was not clear to him himself), then Peter I in his transformations, in his reforms gravitated towards the enlightened, humanistic West, clearly and definitely. This was historically inevitable.

In accordance with these new tendencies, a completely new worldview was also taking shape in Russia. An interest in the sciences, which had previously been considered as something bordering on magic, witchcraft, mysticism, manifested itself with tremendous force; especially increased interest in the exact sciences. In this connection, belief in the power of the human mind is gradually being established. Reason becomes the measure of everything (this is how the ground is prepared for the formation of classicism). And this yardstick gradually, imperceptibly pushes many traditional religious ideas into the background. The authority of the church is replaced by the authority of the state, the state that has subjugated church authority. Service to the state becomes a criterion for the value of a person, his moral qualities. The public good is gradually becoming the highest ethical yardstick. And these new ideas, which originated in the West, together with new concepts, are included in Russian everyday life: public benefit, public cause, citizen, patriot. The conviction arises that civil laws are not written by inspiration from above, but are created according to the laws of reason, are determined by "natural law" and not "divine providence."

Links with Europe are being established very quickly. The dam was interrupted, which for many centuries separated Russia from western culture... Russian people, mainly young people, are urgently "sent" by the government to "foreign lands" a large number of educational books, both translated and their own Russian. L. Magnitsky writes a remarkable for his time "Arithmetic" with poetic inserts. The value of this book (1703) went beyond the study of mathematics. The first Russian printed newspaper, Vedomosti, is published, with a circulation sometimes reaching several thousand copies. A new calendar is introduced (1700). A new civilian script was approved, greatly facilitating the printing business and increasing the possibility of spreading literacy among the general population.

Attaching great importance to the publication of educational books, the development of the exact sciences, Peter I and his associates encouraged the development of applied arts. The first gymnasiums appeared, which were still few in number. So, in 1703, Ernst Gluck's gymnasium was founded in Moscow. Peter I widely, sometimes going to extremes, attracted foreigners for such purposes. Quite numerous "digital schools" - schools in which the teaching of exact sciences occupies the main place - are being created. Zaikonospasskoe Moscow School is being transformed into a higher educational institution- Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. New, more qualified teachers are attracted here and training rises to a higher level.

Interest in ancient culture... In this regard, in 1705, an interesting book with the Latin name "Symbols and Emblems" was published. This book contained over eight hundred allegorical emblems and symbols, most commonly used in Western European literature and mostly associated with Greek and Roman mythology. Such a book is a kind of alphabet of mythology, an introduction to the world of conventional images, so characteristic of the culture of European baroque and classicism, turned out to be very useful for the Russian reader. The book "The Library, or About the Gods" by Apollodorus is also being published. Its translation into Russian pursued the same goals and also contributed to acquainting the Russian public with ancient culture.

It became necessary to publish a collection of good manners and other books that could acquaint the Russian man in the street with Western European culture. Such books sometimes bore a satirical imprint on themselves. An example is the collection "The Youth is an Honest Mirror", which provided numerous advice on behavior in public places, the life of a Russian person from the rooms and towers was taken out to meetings, to the public. "Don't spit on the floor in society," young man dressed in a European caftan - do not blow your nose loudly, hold back the hiccups in front of the ladies, "and so on.

All this was absolutely necessary to instill in young people who had never previously attended large gatherings in the presence of women and were not familiar with European rules of courtesy. Such advice was not harmful to the female part of society.

Russian people also had to learn a lot about the rules of postal correspondence, especially love correspondence. "The attachments, how the compliments are written are different" - this was the title of the collection sample texts mail correspondence, where it was explained in detail what formulas should start a letter, how to speak in a message about your feelings for a lady, how to end a letter.

Samples of business letters, letters from husband to wife, wife to husband, etc. were also given. It should be emphasized the desire to assert human dignity, characteristic of "Priklad". Here we find a decisive opposition to the derogatory signatures that were so widespread in pre-Petrine Russia, such as "your fiance", "your Ivashko."

In 1724 the Academy of Sciences and Curiosities was founded, and thus the development of science in Russia was finally centralized and taken under the tutelage of the state. Literature is acquiring a purely secular character. Of the 600 books printed during the reign of Peter I, only 48 were ecclesiastical.

Great value had the economic reforms of Peter, his administrative transformations, the introduction of ministries, the construction of the fleet, the development of industry - all life, all the ideas of the Russian people turned upside down, radically changed. New customs, a new way of life demanded other words for their reflection in literature, a new literary language, new genres, new forms. Under Peter the Great, a new intelligentsia, although small in number, quickly emerged. Among them were commoners, i.e. immigrants from the third estate, as well as from the petty clergy. A very striking figure among these people was Ivan Tikhonovich Pososhkov, who died in 1726, a self-taught peasant, an extremely gifted scientist-economist, who perfectly studied the structure of the economy of Russia of his time, its way of life and, already in old age, wrote the famous "Book of Poverty and Wealth", in which completely new, sometimes very bold ideas of economic and political transformation with patriarchal vestiges and traditions. For this book, the "seditious" (the author) was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he died. Pososhkov's book was published only in the 19th century.

Another prominent cultural figure of the beginning of the century was Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev, famous historian, famous for his "History of Russia from the most ancient times" in five books. A man of a completely new mindset, he was, in principle, an opponent of serfdom, although he did not yet know specific ways to eliminate serfdom.

To people who energetically supported reform activities Peter, a number of major churchmen must also be included. This is Ryazan Bishop Gabriel Buzhinsky, a person of very knowledgeable and very progressive views, this is the archbishop of Novgorod Theophan Prokopovich, an encyclopedic educated, who also fully supported the reforms of Peter I, especially the reform of church administration carried out by the latter (the destruction of the Patriarchate and the establishment of the Synod), and became a member of the Synod “the preeminent ". Feofan Prokopovich developed a "spiritual regulation" that determined the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church under Peter I.

Another major figure who supported Peter I was Theophilus Rabbit. The result of the efforts of these major representatives of Russian culture was the emergence of an advanced group of diverse intelligentsia, whose traditions were continued in the 60s by the publishers of satirical magazines and authors of stories designed for a third-class reader (M. Chulkov, V. Levshin). In the 1920s and 1930s, such an intelligentsia rallied around Feofan Prokopovich into the well-known "Scientific squad". The remarkable Russian poet-satirist Antioch Dmitrievich Kantemir also joined the Academic Druzhina.

The creation of the Russian printed newspaper Vedomosti, published from the end of 1702 to 1727, was of great importance. The newspaper was filled with newsreels and also published official documents. Fiction, articles, essays were not published in the newspaper. The volume of the newspaper was unstable and ranged from two to twenty-two. The circulation also fluctuated sharply from thirty to four thousand. This newspaper published various reports about wars, popular uprisings, unrest, the activities of schismatics, what they say and write about Russia abroad. The editor was Polikarpov, the translators Volkov and Sinyavich. “Vedomosti” existed for a quarter of a century, having “outlived” Peter I for two years. After 1727, “Vedomosti” was replaced by another newspaper - “Peterburgskie vedomosti”.

In the 17th century, an attempt was made to give the Russian reader some idea of ​​what they think abroad about the Russian state. It was a handwritten newspaper "Courant", which was written in one copy, by hand, and was distributed only among the tsar's entourage, so that the scope of action was incomparably narrower than the scope of "Vedomosti".

At the end of 1702, a certain Johann Kunst, a German from Danzig, a man well versed in theater business and possessed of well-known organizational skills, at the initiative of Peter, recruited a troupe of "comedians" and prepared several plays. These plays were staged in accordance with the traditions of itinerant acting troupes. Plays were originally staged on German, then in Russian. But the Kunst theater did not last long: the very next year, Kunst died and the performances stopped. These performances were full of bizarre spectacular episodes, they featured colorful characters of an unusual fate, designed to capture the imagination of the viewer. Melodramatic plots were full of horror, murder and duels, unexpected turns of action. The rules for conducting the performance were very peculiar. The female roles were played by male actors. The actors themselves introduced each other to the audience. In view of the extreme simplicity of the scenery, and sometimes their absence, the actors announced the name of the place of action, cities. A curtain for the most part not applied. These theaters did not last long. By the end of the first decade of the XVIII century. their popularity has dropped.

The Russian professional theater was to emerge and finally strengthen itself only at the beginning of the second half of the century through the efforts of Feodor Volkov. Only this birth of a professional theater in Russia will lead in the 50-60s to the complete establishment of a new type of art in the cultural life of Russia.

The lyric poetry of this time, artistically weak, is extremely important in the historical and literary sense, for it opened up to the reader, opened up to the Russian art of words a completely new, previously unknown area of ​​human life - the sphere of personal experiences. In Old Russian, in medieval Russian literature, as well as in folklore(with the exception of love "lingering" songs) the theme of lyrical, in the true sense of the word, experiences was absent. Descriptions of the heroes' love experiences did not occupy any important place. If it was about love, then it was not the feeling of love itself that was described, but the emphasis was placed on the economic significance of the marriage union. Love was usually replaced by predestination, fate, which tied the fate of people. In pre-Petrine literature, it was about carnal attraction, cynical attraction, devoid of any spirituality. The feeling of love was not depicted in all its meaning, i.e. as a feeling that transforms the entire spiritual world of a person, as a feeling that plays a huge role in a person's life. This is how, in a new way, only the poets of the 18th century began to talk about love. In their "songs" and "arias" love not only becomes the driving force of the work, the basis of its conflict, but love here is exalted in the artistic sense of the word, poeticized, almost deified. But the book lyrics were still artistically helpless and attracted readers only with their innovative content.

The literary language has come to a chaotic state due to the fact that everyday life has changed radically, a lot of new concepts have appeared, for the expression of which the old language of the estate, caste medieval Russia was completely unsuitable. Neither the Old Slavonic language style, nor the style of business documents, nor the folklore style were suitable here. It was necessary to look for a completely new fusion of verbal elements. Of course, this extremely difficult task could not be solved immediately. At the beginning of the century, such a task was only posed.

Of great importance for the development of poetry in Russia was the general enthusiasm for writing syllabic and pre-syllabic verses - verses, characteristic of the seminary life of that time. The writing of poetry was part of the curriculum of the seminaries, and in late XVII At the beginning of the 18th century, the main attention was paid to the purely external, graphic appearance of the poetic work. It was assumed that it is the visual symmetry of the text set out on paper that is a manifestation of the highest artistic, poetic skill. Hence the poems in the form of a cross, heart or some other form. Such poems were called curly poems. Acro- and mesostichs are also written, where either the initial letters of the lines read from top to bottom, or the middle letters of the verses highlighted in capital letters were added to some meaningful word, the name of the person to whom this poem was dedicated. Great attention was given to the writing of the so-called "crustacean verses", or verses - werewolves, which could be read in the usual order, from left to right, and vice versa, and the meaning of the verse did not change from this.

Literary creativity had great internal resistance and was difficult to renew. Style traditions, very strong in Old Russian literature, lived for a long time in the literature of the 18th century. In the first decades, genres characteristic of the 16th-17th centuries also retained their significance. In the 17th century, the genre of the story was the most widespread in Russian literature. It remains popular in the first decades of the new century. In the old, familiar genre, the old, both in content and in style, begins to come into conflict with the new, while continuing to coexist with the new as a whole. This phenomenon can be traced on the example of the most common story of Peter's time - "History of the Russian sailor Vasily Koriotsky, about the beautiful princess Heraclius of the Florensky land." The fashionable word "history" or "history" is very often introduced into the title of such works. This, of course, is the trend of the times, and not only lexical: with this word the anonymous authors of the stories wanted to emphasize the reliability, truthfulness, and typicality of the events depicted in the works. In this work, a conflict develops, already familiar to the stories of the 17th century. Here we also have a clash of old and new ideas about the purpose of life, about moral values, about the moral foundations of society, about the clash of ideology of fathers and children. But if in the stories of the 17th century such a clash usually acquired a very sharp character and was portrayed as an antagonistic conflict, then there is no direct clash, a plot conflict between the father and the son, the hero of the work. On the contrary, the hero of the story - Vasily remembers his father all the time, sends him money from abroad, there is no enmity between father and son. Moreover, the father does not prevent his son from living his own mind and even sympathizes with such filial behavior. But ideological content the story as a whole reflects the impossibility of living in the old way, represents the denial of the entire old life, its entire way of life, its morality. And the hero, living in a new way, actively building his destiny, wins, reaches the highest rung of the social ladder. This was not in the stories of the 17th century. This is a fundamentally new solution to the conflict - quite in the spirit of the stormy times of Peter the Great. Vasily enjoys great sympathy from the author. In his image, first of all, he emphasizes purposefulness, initiative, active attitude to life, the ability to “live with your own mind” (a skill that had previously ruined the hero of the story “About Woe - Evil Part”). Vasily treats "noble persons" with respect. But at the same time it has an independent character and maintains human dignity all the time. The hero at the end of the story reaches the highest position in society not thanks to the merits of his father, not to the nobility of his family, but solely due to his own outstanding qualities. The end of the story also differs from the endings of the 17th century stories - hopeless - not going to a monastery, not the death of a hero, but his triumph as a victor in life's struggle, and a winner in moral terms. An important role is played by a love conflict, it is she who, throughout the predominant part of the plot, drives the action. At the same time, love is idealized as opposed to its condemnation as a demonic or antisocial principle in the stories of the 17th century.

Compositionally, The History of Vasily Koriotsky is perhaps the most perfect of all the stories of Peter's time. Other works of this genre are distinguished by the intricacy of the conflict and the uncoordinated composition. To a lesser extent, this applies to the parody "Story of Russian merchant John ", the hero of which is not a nobleman, but a merchant. He goes to Paris to "taste the pleasure high life". Much attention in the story is paid to the description of amorous flirting, the vicissitudes of John's courtship of Eleanor. Love notes are introduced into the text for the first time. But everything is painted in ironic tones. The appearance of a work, clearly tinged with a parody, is evidence that the genre of "history" has begun to outlive itself to some extent.

The most significant in volume, and at the same time the least harmonious compositionally, of all the stories of Peter's time, undoubtedly, is "The Tale of Alexander - a Russian nobleman." Here one can feel the strong influence of popular novels, as well as Russian folklore works, in particular, adventurous Russian fairy tales.

Alexander, the hero of this work, like Basil and John, goes to Europe, which appears before the reader as the land of pleasure and gallantry, and in the second part of the work - as the world of adventures and knightly tournaments. In the city of Lille, Alxander falls in love with the beautiful Eleanor, their romance lasts a long time, but the heroes lose each other more than once, while the dressing up of the heroes, to which the author resorts, does not allow the heroes to recognize each other. Alexander is a rather frivolous gentleman and Eleanor, upon learning of his betrayal, dies of grief. Alexander falls in love with Hedwig-Dorothea, then with Tyrra, who at the end of the story is stabbed with grief over the body of the deceased Alexander.

A comic parallel to the main characters of the story, Alexander and Eleanor, is Vladimir with his many lovers.

The "Story of a French Son" enjoyed some popularity. All these stories portrayed the Russian person as a European, endowing him with qualities alien to the old Russian story: independence, resourcefulness, gallantry - what the new way of life, the new reality imperatively demanded.

A little apart from the "stories" is "An excerpt from a novel in verse", which is an autobiographical story of a young woman about the collapse of her hopes for marriage with her beloved. For the first time in Russian literature, on behalf of a woman, it is openly, fearlessly speaking about free love and openly condemning the parental house-building power, opposing this feeling and ultimately destroying it.

All these works were closer to folklore than to book literary tradition... They were not published, but, having liked the readers, were distributed in lists and varied, which brought them closer to folklore and contributed to the acquisition of traditionalism by their images and the saturation of works with common places.

Lecture 2

FEOFAN PROKOPOVICH

(1681 – 1736)

One of the most educated people of his time, Feofan Prokopovich was the first to feel and comprehend the need for the Russian state to radically transform politics, ideology and art, to fight for the implementation of Peter's reforms. Feofan Prokopovich, according to N.K. Gudzia, this "enlightener in a cassock" gave all his energetic energy and all his talent to the enlightenment of Russia.

The son of a small Kiev merchant, Feofan Prokopovich experienced a need in childhood, but managed to become a student of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. However, the knowledge gained was not enough for him, and he, without long hesitation, accepts Unianism (the Uniate Church, a Christian association created by the Brest Union in 1596, obeyed the Pope, recognized the basic dogmas of the Catholic Church while preserving Orthodox rituals) in order to be able to continue his education in the West. For some time he studied in Poland, and then in Rome, at the Collegium of St. Athanasius (opened specifically to train propagandists of Catholicism among the Slavs and Greeks). His path to knowledge speaks of the thoroughness of his knowledge and the independence of his judgments and religious tolerance. This was typical of the era of Peter the Great's transformations - the time of revision of all traditional ideas.

In 1704 he returned to Kiev and taught for some time at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy of poetry and rhetoric. Having become a personal friend of the tsar, Prokopovich was confirmed in the post of "prefect" - the rector of the Kiev Academy. He was distinguished by an extraordinary breadth of interests, was fond of history, philology, theology, philosophy and even mathematics. Together with Kantemir, Tatishchev and Golitsyn, he entered the "scholarly squad" formed at the end of the 1920s and became the leader of this circle of Russian educators - champions of the affairs of Peter I.

Prokopovich entered Russian literature as the author of lyric poems and the creator of the tragedo-comedy "Vladimir", where an attempt was made to show the struggle of the enlightened monarch with the ignorant clergy using material borrowed from the chronicle, as well as the author of the treatise "De arte poetica" - a textbook of poetry ...

He was an outstanding orator and left many sermons in which he glorified the foreign and domestic policies of the government of Peter I. As a prominent church figure (he had the rank of Archbishop of Novgorod), Theophanes actively supported Peter I in reorganizing the Russian Church. It is to this support that Peter I owes his success to the elimination of the Patriarchate, which has always competed with the tsarist power, and the creation of a kind of collegium for the management of church affairs - the Holy Synod. Prokopovich became the leading member of the Synod. He wrote the so-called "Spiritual Regulations", which determined the activities of the Russian Church for decades. In his work and in his sermons, Prokopovich expressed the ideology of the advanced part of the nobility and the various intelligentsia of Peter the Great's time. In his "Word on the conclusion of peace with Sweden," Prokopovich pointedly wishes "to diminish the burden of the people." An excellent speaker, Theophanes knew how to make the language of his sermons colorful and varied.

In the field of poetic form, Prokopovich introduced the octave into Russian poetry, which he used quite often. Often in his poems, he used an approximate rhyme and consonance: it can be seen - richly, the viewer - virtue. Prokopovich wrote his lyric poems in syllabic verse, which was then widespread in Ukraine and Belarus. But the influence of the folk song element is also felt. This is due to his organically inherent lyricism. As if realizing the insufficient rhythmic organization of a long syllabic verse, Prokopovich often alternated verses of different lengths in his works and made extensive use of short, uncomplicated verses that sounded almost like syllabo-tonic ones.

For example: "Behind the grave of Rowboi":

Behind the grave of Ryaboi

Over the Prut river

There was an army in a terrible battle.

On a weekly day from noon

It has become a difficult hour for us -

The crowded Turchin came.

Or "Zaporozhets penitent":

I don’t know what to do.

And I am dying unknown:

Wandered into impassable forests,

The countries are smooth and dry;

Atamans and hetmans,

Got into your deceptions.

You disappear through the rapids,

Just not to go astray.

I would not fall into strong hands,

Wouldn't take the terrible torment.

This is a short syllabic verse (octosyllabic), in which the stress is often arranged in a syllabic-tonic order (trochee - as in folk dance songs). Sometimes there are Ukrainianisms. Some of his poems are autobiographical. For example, "A shepherdess is crying in a long bad weather." This poem was written on the fifth anniversary of the death of Peter I (“the fifth day has passed”) and testifies to what a close connection existed in the poet's mind between personal experiences and the political life of the country, how close he took to heart the political reaction and the collapse of his educational hopes.

Prokopovich also addressed the odic genre. This is his poem "Epinikion, or a victory song about a glorious victory". Here, making extensive use of Old Church Slavonicism, Prokopovich glorifies the victory over the "Svei troops" won near Poltava. In this work, Prokopovich acts as a master of high style. We find a strict distinction between the high and the usual, not raised style already in the work of Feofan Prokopovich.

Prokopovich's tragedy comedy "Vladimir" is one of the most significant dramatic works of the beginning of the century. Here the writer turned to the time of the baptism of Rus under Vladimir Svyatoslavich, using the chronicle information about this event as a historical source. On this plot basis, he superimposed contemporary socio-political material, revealing two main themes that always worried him: the struggle to spread education in Russia and the struggle within the church between progressive and reactionary church leaders. During the time of Prokopovich, these two aspects of ideological life were closely related.

The grotesque images of dull, stupid and greedy priests with characteristic names: Gerivol, Kuroyad, Piyar - are undoubtedly drawn by the hand of a gifted master. This group of ignorant priests (symbolizing everything inert in Russian life) in every possible way opposes Vladimir's intention to accept Christianity, which carries with it a higher morality, a higher culture. The shadow of Yaropolk, who died at the hands of Vladimir, also comes to the aid of the priests in their struggle for antiquity. But Vladimir, in spite of everything, supported by his sons and like-minded people, adopts Christianity and crushes pagan idols. Here Prokopovich also seeks to show the inconsistency human character... So, his Vladimir hesitates: to accept Christianity or not, because it is difficult for him to give up the usual polygamy. But Vladimir overcomes these hesitations, this human weakness... Here we can already talk about a certain realistic tendency in the writer's work.

The tragedo-comedy in the same 1705 was presented by the students of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. This was the only performance of the play.

Prokopovich acts as a satirist, the direct predecessor of Antiochus Cantemir. The satirical pathos of Prokopovich manifested itself in places in the Spiritual Regulations. Here there are vivid sketches of the mores of people who are opposed to the restructuring of Russian life in new way and the renewal of the Russian Church. About the court flatterers, he writes: "When the rumor passes that the Sovereign is showing his special love, everything to that court, all congratulations, give, bows to lament and die for him as if they are ready."

Of interest is Prokopovich's Poetics. Such handwritten piitiks were often created in the theological academies of that time. Prokopovich's treatise was published only at the end of the 18th century, but it influenced the work of Cantemir. A number of his provisions anticipated the views of theorists of romanticism and realism, although in general the poetics of Theophanes is closely connected with pre-classicist tendencies in the European art of the word.

Prokopovich's treatise "On Poetic Art" consists of three small books.

In the first book it comes about the origin and specifics of poetry, about the meaning of poetic skill. Most interesting sections devoted to poetic fiction, where Prokopovich highlights the main specific feature artistic creation- the use of poetic conventions, thinking in images. Other issues are treated in the first book in an idealistic spirit. For example, the divine origin of poetry is asserted, but poetry is considered as a kind of ordinary labor, which does not have a qualitative difference from other types of labor, for example, from physical labor. If to create works heroic the presence of "powerful inspiration" is also recognized as necessary, then the creation of works of less "significant" content is available to any diligent author. Thus, great inspiration equates to great physical labor required to write significant volumes. heroic works... The development of such thoughts, characteristic of theorists of pre-classicism and antiquity, we will find later in Lomonosov's Rhetoric. The classic exaggeration of the role of imitation leads Prokopovich to underestimate creativity, to underestimate the originality of the writer. But at the same time, he opposes "petty" imitation and plagiarism and requires a conscious assimilation of the manner of the writer.

The second book examines epic and dramatic poetry. As a doer christian church he opposes the excessive use of mythological images, leaving the right for the poet to use these images in a purely metonymic sense. Touching upon the difference between the historian and the poet, Prokopovich again emphasizes fiction as the main determinant of poetry. Prokopovich writes: “The historian tells about the actual event, how it happened: for the poet, either the entire narration is fictitious, or, if he even describes a true event, he tells about it not as it actually happened, but as it could or should have happened. "

“Our literature suddenly appeared in the 18th century,” wrote Pushkin, knowing perfectly well that its origins go back to deep antiquity. With the word "suddenly" Pushkin emphasized the special, unparalleled character of the dynamic development of Russia at that time. XVIII century - this is the era of the rapid formation of new Russian literature. Over the course of several decades, Russian literature has made up for its lag behind Western literature. The literary phenomena of this period are so compressed in time that elements of sentimentalism appear already in the era of classicism; new syllabic-tonic versification(see below) coexists with archaic verses. Speaking about the literature of the 18th century, we often come across such phenomena that, while not of interest from the aesthetic, artistic point view, are of great importance from the point of view of the historical and literary process. Lyrics by V.K. Trediakovsky is almost impossible to read, but he is the creator of modern versification. And none other than Pushkin stood up for Trediakovsky when I.I. Lazhechnikov in his historical novel "Ice House" brought the poet of the 18th century. in the form of an insignificant jester: “His philological and grammatical research is very remarkable. He had extensive concepts about Russian versification ... In general, the study of Trediakovsky is more useful than the study of our other writers. "

The periodization of Russian literature in the 18th century. traditionally relies on the leading stylistic trends in the artistic culture of that time. In general, it can be represented in the form of the following table:

1. Literature of Peter's time

First quarter of the 18th century was marked by major transformations in the economic, political and cultural life of Russia. Peter's reforms laid the foundation for the process of Europeanization of Russia, and this process also captured the field of literary creativity. The literature of modern times resolutely emerged from under church influence, assimilated the European concept of enlightened absolutism, having before his eyes the living example of Peter I. Peter I, in turn, strove to use literature for state needs, to promote new ideas. The especially instructive, openly didactic character of Russian literature of the Petrine era will remain throughout the entire 18th century. and acquires a new quality in the Russian classics of the XIX century.

However, Russian literature of the first quarter of the 18th century. in terms of its artistic capabilities, it clearly lagged behind the needs of the time, from the scope of Peter's transformations. It is not for nothing that Peter's era is often called the most "non-literary era" in Russian history. Literature 1700-1720s represents strange picture mixing the old and the new, it is generally still of a transitional nature. In Peter's time, the old handwritten tradition of Old Russian literature continues to exist and develop - it remains on the periphery of the general literary process in Russia until the end of the 18th century, and some of its phenomena will survive to this day (Old Believer estachological works and journalism).

The secularization of culture brought about the liberation of artistic creation; it is another matter that the writer often did not know how to use this freedom. Literature under Peter not only serves practical purposes, it also entertains, masters new, once forbidden topics. Old Russian literature almost did not know the theme of love (with rare exceptions, love is interpreted as the delusion of the devil; only conjugal love was recognized). In the Petrine era, love lyrics(the so-called "edges"), in which folklore images from folk poetry peacefully coexisted with ancient mythological motives. The secular story with an exciting adventure storyline. These stories were circulated in manuscripts, were anonymous and were built on the type of those popular in the late 17th - early 18th centuries. translated short stories and adventure novels. However, the hero of these stories was a young man typical of the Petrine era. Usually ignorant, but educated, energetic and enterprising, he achieved fame, wealth, recognition solely through his personal merits. Such is the "Story about the Russian sailor Vasily Koryotsky and the princess Heraclius of the Florentine land." The style of this story is remarkable for its striking eclecticism - along with the traditional gallant vocabulary of translated knightly novels - barbarism and clericalism, dating back to the business writing of Peter's time, the language of the Vedomosti and Chimes newspapers, and even the language of translated textbooks on natural science and the exact sciences. These stories most vividly revealed the Achilles heel of Peter's culture as a whole: the absence of a literary language that could adequately convey those new concepts in the field of culture, philosophy, and politics that the era of Peter's transformations brought with it. The writers of the Petrine era bequeathed the task of creating a new literary Russian language to a new generation of writers.

The traditions of school drama continued to develop in Peter's literature. The emergence of the school theater within the walls of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy played an important role here. Religious plots in this dramatic genre were supplanted by secular ones, telling about political topical events, containing panegyrics to Peter I and his associates. In the future, the journalistic and panegyric character of the drama is further enhanced. The school drama genre took a central place in the work of Feofan Prokopovich (1681-1736) - a brilliant orator, publicist, playwright and poet. The tragicomedy "Vladimir" (1705) occupies a central place in his work. Depicting in this play the events associated with the adoption of Christianity in Russia under Vladimir, Theophanes allegorically glorified the transformations of Peter and satirically ridiculed his opponents. The tragicomedy "Vladimir" bore the features of the future classicist drama: the conflict between passion and reason, the unity of action and time, clarity and clarity of composition.

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LITERATUREXviiiCENTURY

DEVELOPMENT OF LITERATURE IN 1700 - 1730

(LITERATURE OF THE PETROVSKAYA EPOCH)

The first decades of the 18th century are the time of the formation of new art, the time of the creation of literature, qualitatively different from the literature of the previous period. The most important sign of the new in literary creativity was the writers' view of reality from the point of view of the state. The horizon of the author's vision is expanding. Literary heroes are taken out of the Russian state. The image of other countries is exempt from the taint of fiction. More and more often the idea is heard that a person is a member of society, that this imposes certain duties on him: a person must bring real benefits to society, the state (this idea sounds in the second satire of A. Kantemir). An attempt has been made in the literature to reflect human psychology. If Russian literature of the 18th century as a whole can be called a creative laboratory that prepared the artistic achievements of the 19th century, then the experimental beginning manifested itself especially strongly in the literature of the first decades of the 18th century, when there was still no literary trend, literary life developed spontaneously, and the writing business had not yet become big and an internally organized part of the ideological struggle, has not yet become a profession. This period went down in history as the "era of Peter's transformations." Peter I did a lot to bring Russian and European culture closer together. As noted by A.S. Pushkin "Russia entered Europe, like a launched ship with the clatter of an ax and the thunder of cannons." Peter I in his transformations, in his reforms gravitated towards the educational humanistic West. This was historically inevitable. Russia from the monarchy of the old type, from a state bound by outdated class prejudices, came to a powerful state of a different, European type, to an "enlightened" monarchy. In accordance with this, a completely new worldview was taking shape in Russia. An interest in sciences is shown, and in this regard, belief in the power of the human mind is gradually being established. Reason becomes the measure of everything (this is how the ground is prepared for the formation of classicism). And this yardstick gradually, imperceptibly pushes many traditional religious ideas into the background. The authority of the church is replaced by the authority of the state, which has subordinated the church authority to itself. Service to the state becomes a criterion for the value of a person, his moral qualities. The public good is gradually becoming the highest ethical yardstick. These new ideas that have arisen in the West, together with new concepts, are included in Russian everyday life: public benefit, public cause, citizen, patriot. The conviction arises that civil laws are not written by inspiration from above, but are created according to the laws of reason, determined by "natural law" and not by "divine providence." The first textbooks were published ("Arithmetic" by Magnitsky, "Grammar" by Smotritsky), the first Russian printed newspaper "Vedomosti" began to appear. Educational institutions were opened (Ernst Gluck's gymnasium, a higher educational institution - the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy). At the end of 1702, a certain Johann Kunst, a German from Danzig, at the initiative of Peter the Great himself, opened the first theater in Russia (the theater lasted only one year - Kunst died and the performances stopped), where all the roles were played by men. New norms of communication are being established. There are guidelines on how to behave to adolescents and young men ("Youth is an honest mirror"), how to write gallant and business letters ("Applications, how different compliments are written"). These books should emphasize the pursuit of human dignity. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences and Curiosities was founded. With the opening of the Academy, the development of science in Russia was finally centralized and taken over by the state. Literature is acquiring a purely secular character. New customs, a new way of life demanded other words for their reflection in literature, a new literary language, new genres, new forms. New births arise literary works , previously unknown in Russia, in particular, there is love lyrics. Initially, these poems were created according to folklore traditions. Book lyrics are gradually emerging. The lyric poetry of this time, artistically weak, is extremely important in the historical and literary sense, for it opened up to the reader, opened up to Russian art a completely new, previously unknown area of ​​human life - the sphere of personal experiences. Literary creativity, however, had great "inner resistance" and was difficult to renew. This is due to the peculiarities of medieval poetics. Style traditions, very strong in Old Russian literature, lived for a long time in the literature of the 18th century 5. In the first decades, genres characteristic of the 16th-17th centuries also retained their significance. In the 17th century, the genre of the story was the most widespread in Russian literature. It remains popular in the first decades of the new century. And here, in the usual genre, the old, both in content and in style, begins to come into conflict with the new, while continuing to coexist with the new as a whole. This phenomenon can be traced on the example of the most common stories of Peter's time. This is, first of all, "History of the Russian sailor Vasily Koriotsky and the beautiful princess Heraclius of the Florensky land." The fashionable word "history" or "history" is very often introduced into the title of such works. The anonymous authors of the stories wanted to emphasize the authenticity, the typicality of the events depicted in these works, and also how to distinguish them from the stories of the 17th century. In this work, a conflict develops, already familiar from the stories of the 17th century. Before us is a clash of old and new ideas about the goals of life, about moral values, about the moral foundations of society, the clash of the ideology of fathers and children. But if in the stories of the 17th century such a clash usually acquired a very sharp character and was portrayed as an antagonistic conflict (The Tale of Sava Grudtsyn, About the Woe-Evil Part), then there is no direct clash between Vasily and his father. Moreover, the father does not interfere with the son's desire to "live with his own mind." There is no enmity between father and son, and the hero, living in his own way, wins, reaches the highest rung of the social ladder. This is a fundamentally new solution to the conflict - quite in the spirit of the stormy times of Peter the Great. The theme of love is posed and solved in a new way. If in the stories of the 17th century love is a devilish feeling, the hero falls in love with the "husband's wife", sells his soul to the devil, then in the stories of the Peter the Great era this noble feeling, mutual love of the heroes, contributing to the achievement of the goal, it is the love conflict that drives the action of the story. In the stories of the Peter the Great era, the Russian person is depicted as a European. He was given qualities alien to the old Russian story: independence, resourcefulness, gallantry - what the new way of life, the new reality imperiously demanded. All these works were closer to folklore than to the literary tradition of books. They were not printed, but distributed in lists, varied, which brought them closer to folklore and contributed to the tradition and saturation of works with common places. One of the important features and characteristic features of the literature of the 18th century was that already in the first decades, literature ceased to be anonymous. From the history of unnamed works, in the creation of which many unknown co-authors participated, it turns into the history of the work of individual writers, each of whom has its own clearly defined manner, worldview, and poetics. The first places in this row are occupied by Antioch Cantemir and Feofan Prokopovich.

Lecture 2

LITERARY DIRECTIONSXviiiCENTURY

PRE-CLASSICISM OF THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY

Literature of the 18th century, in contrast to the literature of Ancient Russia, developed in literary directions. Typical features of the existing literary trend, as a rule, are: the clarity of the concept that determines the activities of writers, the presence of a well-known group of authors, linked by common creative and ideological principles. Usually, both of these features are developed in a manifesto-declaration, which declares the literary and social positions of representatives of this trend, their requirements for literary creativity. So, the famous "Poetic Art" by Boileau was the manifesto of French classicism, the famous "Poetic Art" by Boileau, Russian classicism - "The Insistence of Writers Who Want to Be" by Sumarokov and partly "Conversation with Anacreon" by Lomonosov, Russian sentimentalism - Karamzin's article "What does the author need?" and his letters. The literary trend is always based on a certain artistic method, on well-known creative principles. Not a single artistic method can manifest itself in the history of literature otherwise than through one or another literary trend. At the same time, the artistic method receives specific historical and social features inherent in this direction, and, strictly speaking, each direction is the bearer of a completely definite method. In other words, there are as many literary directions as there are methods. The literary direction offers a rather complex organization of literary affairs, the presence of a fairly developed structure of social thought and a relatively high public appraisal of literary affairs, requires a clear definition of the writer's personality, the writer's individuality in general. creative process... The literary trend is also characterized by well-known stylistic features of a general nature, its inherent poetics, within which, of course, there are individual styles of a greater or lesser number of individual authors. Thus, a balance is established between the creative person and the literary community, moreover, between the society where the creative person acts, and this creative person as the bearer of the innovative principle. A clear idea of ​​the generality of tasks that pistols representing a given literary direction should have is drawn up only when this literature is printed literature. Only printed text can reliably preserve the individual, original, unique features of the author's personality. So, one of the important conditions for the emergence of literary trends is the development of printing and its secularization. Therefore, any medieval literature, being, as a rule, handwritten literature, is not able to develop any developed literary direction. At best, we can talk about the rudiments of certain directions, about certain schools. The literature of the beginning of the century is traditional, spontaneous, unconscious in the nature of the manifestation of certain creative patterns in it, like the literature of the 17th century. It is also closely related to oral folk art. But at the beginning of the 18th century, literary creativity faced a radically changed reality. The tremendous changes that had taken place in social life required fundamentally new ways of reflecting them in literature. Such methods could not be provided by literature operating in traditional categories, constrained by the stability of images, the stability of poetics. And the literary phenomena characteristic of the beginning of the century can be united by a common conventional name Russian pre-classicism. The literature of pre-classicism at the beginning of the century possesses a number of new features that did not appear in the literature of the preceding period, features that did not lead to the formation of a true literary trend, but taken together prepared the development of the first literary trend - classicism. What are these features? First of all, for this period, typical interest in some new genres, only partially used in the literature of the XVII century. This is the genre of lyric poems. Such is also dramatic creativity, attempts to organize a theater not only from the spiritual, but also from secular theme... Such, finally, are the handwritten stories of the beginning of the century, which, in many respects, echoing the stories of the 17th century, bear at the same time, as a rule, the characteristic name of "histories" and are distinguished by the desire for a fundamentally new solution to the conflict between fathers and children, to transfer the action to the soil and all sorts of emphasis on modernity, the relevance of the conflicts depicted. For the stories of the beginning of the century, everyday life is typical, a tendency to display all the details of people's everyday life. On the one hand, this was an unconscious protest against the church coloring of many works of medieval literature, on the other hand, it testified to how far the shift in the worldview of people of that time had gone. Striving to reveal the inner world literary heroes- the second essential feature of Russian pre-classicism. Interest in inner peace people is closely associated with increased attention to the role of the human personality, with a reassessment of the importance of individual human activity in public life. If in medieval literature predestination played a huge role in the development of the plot, fate and conflict of works usually grew not due to the activity of the hero, but due to predetermined external, usually otherworldly forces, now more and more often the attention of authors is attracted by the activity of the human person. In its embryonic form, the literary literature of pre-classicism also poses the problem of the relationship between the personal and the social, the problem of the role of the individual in the social process, in the social struggle. But this is only a groping of the problem, the first timid attempts to pose the question. For example, in "Excerpts from the Novel in Verse" the question of the emancipation of women is raised for the first time. Interest in the individual leads to the formulation of the problem of civic duty, the civic obligations of a member of society. In the literature of this period, this issue is only outlined, finding some development in the work of Feofan Prokopovich. Close attention to the reality surrounding the author, to everyday life, to all manifestations of the new in Russian life also led to a decrease in the influence of translated literature. Written literature, as it were, turned its face to "domestic" subjects, to the renewed Russian reality, leaving its former repertoire at the disposal of oral literature. Stylistically, the literature of Russian pre-classicism is characterized by a gravitation towards colorful, exotic situations. This is noticeable both in dramatic works, often saturated with melodramatic episodes, and in novellas, as well as in an uplifted sometimes somewhat saturated vocabulary of lyric poems. Here you can talk about baroque tendencies. Russian pre-classicism paved the way for Russian classicism.

ANTIOCH DMITRIEVICH KANTEMIR

Antioch Dmitrievich Kantemir - the first Russian classicist writer, author of poetic satire. Kantemir was brought up in a spirit of sympathy for Peter's reforms and during the years of reaction that followed the death of Peter the Great, he boldly denounced the militant ignorance of the noblemen and churchmen. He wrote nine satyrs. The writer's satirical activity clearly confirms the organic connection of Russian classicism with the needs of Russian society. Unlike all previous literature, Cantemir's works are of a purely secular nature. The early satires of Cantemir were created in the era that followed the death of Peter, in an atmosphere of struggle between the defenders and opponents of his reforms. One of the points of disagreement was the attitude towards science and secular education. Kantemir in his work is aware of himself as a poet-citizen, as a writer-educator, he cannot stand aside, seeing the shortcomings and vices of society. The first satire “On blasphemous teachings. To my mind ”, written in 1729, was a product of great political resonance. It was directed against the ignorance of a certain social and political force, and not an abstract vice, ignorance exposed by the authority of the state and church authorities. This satire was of a pronounced anticlerical character and was directed against the party of churchmen Stefan Yavorsky and Grigory Dashkov, who sought to re-establish the patriarchate and pre-Petrine order. Kantemir advocates for the sciences, education, and although his reasoning was somewhat abstract in nature, nevertheless, they were caused by Russian reality and addressed to it. He believed that state progress and the correction of morals depended on the development of enlightenment. With sharp satirical lines, he paints portraits of opponents of the enlightenment: Crito, Silvanus, Medora. These names are conventional, but the abstract images created by Kantemir bear the features of the satirist's true contemporaries. All of them blaspheme science, believing that it is indecent for a nobleman to engage in science, there is no benefit in it, why "work in that, from which suddenly the pocket does not get fat." In their opinion, science is a hindrance: Crashing over a book and damaging the eyes? Wouldn't it be better to skip days and nights with a cup? The image of the bishop is critically displayed, the prototype of which, as Cantemir himself pointed out in the notes to this satire, was the head of the church reaction Georgy Dashkov. Kantemir portrays the greed and ignorance of the churchmen, considers them dangerous enemies of enlightenment. He reveals with great expressiveness the features of the outward appearance of a bishop, which correspond to his inner essence: if you want to be a bishop, get yourself into a cassock, Above that body, with pride, a striped robe Let it cover; hang a chain around your neck from gold, Cover your head with a cowl, cover your belly with a beard, They led the Klyuk magnificently to carry before you; Swollen in the carriage, when the heart crackles with anger, bless everyone right and left. Should all thee in these know the Signs be the archpastor, call him a good father. The second satire "Filaret and Eugene" (To the envy and pride of the malevolent nobles) (1730) is also directed against the enemies of Peter's reforms, against representatives of the clan aristocracy, dissatisfied with the rise of people of noble but capable in modern times. The satire is built in the form of a dialogue between supporters Peter's "Table of Ranks" by Filaret (translated from Greek - virtuous) and the defender of boyar privileges Eugene (noble). Evgeny is deeply offended by the fact that he was bypassed both by promotion and awards. He is especially outraged by his promotion to command posts of people of common origin. Among them, A.D. Menshikov is also mentioned (who rubbed his shoulders with a hearth pot ...), who sold pies as a child. Evgeny tries to assert his right to ranks and awards on the merits of his ancestors and on the antiquity of his family, but the author shows that times have changed and Evgeny's claims look ridiculous and archaic. Filaret pays tribute to the glorious ancestors of Eugene, but believes that the merits of fathers and grandfathers should not pave the way to high ranks and awards for their lazy and mediocre descendant. Filaret lists a number of positions that Eugene - commander, judge, treasurer - could have taken, but which he neglected due to his laziness and ignorance. The question of nobility is also posed in a new way. “It differs,” says Filaret, “to be a descendant of the ancestors of the noble, or to be noble.” In this satire, the idea of ​​the natural equality of people, a thought characteristic of the Enlightenment, was first expressed. Kantemir notes that "the same blood flows in the veins of both the slave and the master." The satyrs of Cantemir have not lost their interest to this day. They show the personality of Kantemir, a humane, intelligent, observant person who, in his satire, reflected the mores of the people of his time. By the force of a negative example, he fought for enlightenment, for the future of Russia. Belinsky was right, who in 1845 wrote that "... to unfold the satirist Kantemir from time to time and read one of his satire is true bliss." 8 Kantemir was the first to introduce such terms as “idea”, “observation”, “matter” into scientific use. And as Belinsky wrote: "He was the first in Russia to bring poetry to life, while Lomonosov himself only spread them for a long time." nine

VASILY KIRILLOVICH TREDIAKOVSKY

Tredaikovsky's literary activity is represented by artistic and scientific works. As a theoretician and experimental writer, discovering new paths in Russian literature, Trediakovsky deserves the most serious attention. “His philological and grammatical research,” wrote A.S. Pushkin are very wonderful. He had a broader understanding of Russian versification than Lomonosov and Sumarokov ... In general, the study of Trediakovsky is more useful than the study of our other old writers. " 1 0 In 1730, immediately upon his return from abroad, Trediakovsky published a novel French writer Paul Talman in his translation entitled "Riding to the Island of Love". This is typical love story about the experiences of the characters - Thyrsis and Aminta. These experiences are clothed in an allegorical form. Each feeling of the heroes corresponds to the conventional toponymy of the "Island of Love": "the Cave of Cruelty", "Castle Direct Luxury", "Gate of Love", etc. Along with real characters, there are conventional characters such as "Pity", "Sincerity", "Eye-loving" (this word Trediakovsky translated into Russian as coquetry). Trediakovsky's book is interesting in that on its last pages he placed his own poems written in French entitled "Poems for different occasions." This is Trediakovsky's pre-classical lyric poetry, which presents a purely personal, autobiographical theme. All the lyrics presented in the book are written in syllabic verses, but four years later Trediakovsky will decisively abandon the syllabic and propose a new versification system instead. Trediakovsky's great service to Russian poetry, not only contemporary to him, but also subsequent, was the reform of versification carried out by him, the principles of which are set forth in the treatise "A New and Brief Method of Composing Russian Poems" (1735). In this treatise, Trediakovsky pointed out the main drawback of syllabics - the indistinctness of the manifestation of rhythm, as a result of which, as Trediakovsky wrote, “it is more appropriate ... to call prose, a definite number, walking” 1 1 syllabic poetry. He replaced the syllabic system of versification by the syllabic-tonic, or, in his terminology, "tonic", from the word "tone", i.e. stress, stressed syllable. When creating a new type of versification, Trediakovsky strove to proceed from the peculiarities of the Russian language. The new system differed from the old rhythmic organization of verse. The rhythm is created by the correct alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, occasionally complicated by pyrrhic (a foot consisting of two unstressed syllables) and spondeia (a foot consisting of two stressed syllables). The unit of rhythm is the foot, i.e. connection of one stressed with one unstressed syllable. In Russian there are stressed and unstressed syllables, but there are no long and short ones. Therefore, the fundamental difference between Russian versification and ancient poetry, according to Trediakovsky, is that the longitude and brevity in Russian versification is tonic, i.e. "Consisting in a single stress of the voice." Trediakovsky suggested writing only "long" - eleven and thirteen syllable verses. He called the first "Russian pentameter", the second - "Russian hexameter". In his treatise On the Ancient, Middle and New Russian Poem (1755), Trediakovsky makes an attempt to expound the history of Russian poetry since ancient times. Trediakovsky divides the history of Russian poetry into three periods. The first he attributes to the times of paganism and in the absence of "proper and worthy models" characterizes it purely hypothetically. The poets of that time, in his opinion, were worshipers, that is, pagan priests. The establishment of Christianity destroyed "idolatrous worship" and "deprived us for almost six hundred years of the divine poem." 1 2 The second period falls on the 17th and early 18th centuries. It is represented by the poetic works of Simeon Polotsky, Sylvester Medvedev, Karion Istomin, Ivan Ilyinsky, Antioch Kntemir. The poetry of this time is syllabic. She is devoid of feet, rhythm, but has acquired a rhyme. The third period was marked by the appearance of tonic versification, the discoverer of which was Trediakovsky himself. In 1766, Trediakovsky published a book entitled "Tilemachida or Wanderings of Tilemachus, son of Odysseev, described as part of a heroic poem" - a free translation of the novel "The Adventures of Telemachus" by the early French educator Fenelon. Fenelon wrote his work in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV, when France suffered from devastating wars, the result of which was the decline of agriculture and crafts. The historical and literary significance of Tilemakhida lies not only in its critical content, but also in the complex tasks that Trediakovsky set himself as a translator. In essence, this is not a translation, but a radical reworking of the book's genre itself. On the basis of the French novel, Trediakovsky created a heroic poem based on the model of Homer's epic and, according to his task, called the book not "The Adventures of Telemachus", but "Tilemachida". As noted in the preface, the plot of a heroic poem should not be associated with the ancient world, its heroes cannot be historically reliable persons of either ancient or modern times. A heroic poem should be written, according to Trediakovsky, only with a hexameter. The choice of characters and the plot of "Tilemakhida" fully meets the theoretical requirements of the author. Trediakovsky carefully preserved the educational pathos of Fenelon's novel. The subject of condemnation is the supreme power, it is said about the despotism of the rulers, about their predilection for luxury and bliss, about the inability of the kings to distinguish virtuous people from self-seeking and money-grubbing, about flatterers who surround the throne and prevent monarchs from seeing the truth. Condemning both despotism and anarchy, the author arrives at a purely enlightening thought about the need to issue laws in the state that are binding both for the monarch and for the subjects: I asked him what the royal sovereignty consists of? He replied: the tsar is in power over the people in everything, But the laws over him in everything are in power, of course. 1 3 "Tilemachida" caused a different attitude towards itself both among contemporaries and among descendants. Novikov and Pushkin praised her. Radishchev made one of her poems an epigraph to his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. "His love for the Fenelonian epic," wrote Pushkin, "does him credit, and the thought of translating it in verse and the very choice of verse proves an extraordinary sense of the graceful." 1 4 Catherine II took an irreconcilably hostile position. Her grudge was caused by criticism of the autocrats. She introduced a joke rule in the palace: for light guilt one was supposed to drink a glass of cold water and read a page from Tilemachida, for a more serious one - learn six lines from it. In "Tilemachida" Trediakovsky clearly demonstrated the diversity of the possibilities of the hexameter as an epic verse. The experiment of Trediakovsky was subsequently used by N.I. Gnedich in the translation of the Iliad and V.A. Zhukovsky in the work on the "Odyssey".