Realism in literature. Enlightenment Realism in the Age of Enlightenment

The literature of the last third of the century was faced with the historical task of such an artistic study of reality, which would make it possible to understand and express the ideal of a person born in the course of the unfolding anti-feudal struggle, to reveal a person in his national and social conditioning. Classicism was not able to solve this problem.

Wonderful artistic discoveries, as a rule, were made in the way of deviations from normative poetics. Under the new conditions, this was no longer enough, an art was needed that would trust reality and the real person, not idealize, but explain life, the content of which, under the influence of aggravated class contradictions, was continuously becoming more complex.

Enlightenment realism turned out to be such an art, which was born as a response to the imperious demand of the times. In the course of the struggle against the feudal world, all its institutions and its ideology, a new view of society was developed, a new philosophy of man as a free person was formed, the dignity of which is determined not by his class belonging, not by the nobility of the family, but by his mind, personal talents, the doctrine of man's dependence was created from society.

Realism, becoming a European and then a world trend, opened up opportunities for the art of each nation to be original, to exist in a nationally individual guise, as the historical life of each nation, each person is individual and unique.

At the early stage of Russian realism - from Fonvizin to Pushkin - some important principles of the method were defined and outlined. This is an understanding of the extra-class value of a person, faith in his great role on earth, patriotic, civil and social activity as the main way of self-affirmation of a person living in an autocratic serf society, explaining a person by his social environment and, finally, the first steps in the artistic identification of the "mystery of nationality", in the ability to show the Russian view of things, the Russian mind.

The most important feature of the method of realistic display of reality is the disclosure of its social contradictions, a satirical and sharply denunciatory attitude towards it, which made it possible to reveal the amazing truth of the serf system, the fatality of slavery for the entire nation (Novikov, Fonvizin, Radishchev), to see the people as a force capable of destroying the regime of violence, slavery of lawlessness, to establish freedom and justice in society ("Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow", ode "Liberty").

The new method achieved its first successes in drama: Fonvizin's comedies "The Brigadier" and especially "The Minor" laid the foundation for Russian realism. He will receive further development in prose (Novikov, Fonvizin, Radishchev, Krylov).

The appearance of noble enlighteners in the historical arena testified to the conflict between old and new Russia. Enlightening realism managed to discover and artistically capture this social conflict. That is why Fonvizin, and later Radishchev, were not portrayed family drama rather a drama of ideas.

They took their hero out of the sphere privacy, put before him the most acute problems of Russian reality, determined the choice of such an activity that would open the way to the extra-egoistic self-realization of his personality. All this gave enlightenment realism a special quality, which is most often characterized by the word "journalism".

This journalism is special form artistry in educational realism. In it, the ideological life of a person, his connection with the universal world, his rejection of private, egoistic existence and "lonely happiness" were presented to the reader with the greatest completeness.

Publicism was also engendered by the writer's desire to take care of the welfare of all, and not of an individual. The enlightening belief in reason gave rise to the belief that the word has a powerful, effective, almost imperative power. The truth expressed in the word, it seemed, should immediately produce the desired effect - to dispel delusion.

Therefore, the most important task of literature was the formulation of a moral code, the enlightenment of a depraved consciousness, a direct expression of the ideal, the bearer of which was the positive hero. Psychologism as a disclosure of the contradictory nature of human consciousness was contraindicated in enlightenment realism. Rationalism affected the construction of images by Novikov, Fonvizin and Radishchev.

The "revolution in art" also captured poetry, which was fettered by the rules of the normative poetics of classicism. But this process was more difficult, because the traditions were most pronounced in poetry. At the same time, realism in poetry manifested itself differently than in drama and prose - here its own features of a new style, a new structure took shape.

A decisive contribution to the development of the principles of realistic lyricism was made by the genius poet of the 18th century. Derzhavin, which Gukovsky had already noted in his time: "In the very essence of his poetic method, Derzhavin gravitates towards realism." "Derzhavin put forward a new principle of art, a new criterion for the selection of its means - the principle of individual expressiveness." "The poetic system of classicism was radically destroyed by Derzhavin."

History of Russian Literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983

Enlightenment Realism in the Age of Enlightenment

In the battle with the imitative and idealizing tendencies of classicism in the educational literature of the 18th century, a new artistic method is emerging - educational realism. His greatest theorists were Diderot and Lessing. They tend to strive to bring art as close as possible to the origins of contemporary life, to free it from the influence of ancient mythology. Their protection of modern topics was of great progressive importance, it helped the development of creativity, close and understandable to the broad masses of people. The orientation towards the democratic reader and viewer was an important feature of the aesthetic principles of the realist enlighteners.

Classicism, even in its enlightenment version, was designed primarily for the educated strata of feudal society, for those who were in some way familiar with ancient culture. The heroes of antiquity were not so close and understandable to the representatives of the "third estate". The bourgeoisie demanded a new art that would meet its historical needs and aesthetic tastes. The ideologists of the Enlightenment faced the task of democratizing literature, and it was solved in the works of Diderot, Lessing, Rousseau and other thinkers of the 18th century.

The theorists of realism did not create their aesthetic program speculatively. They proceeded from the demands of the time and relied to some extent on the living practice of contemporary art. In the first third of the 18th century in Europe, as an expression of the demands of the bourgeois public and as a reaction to classicism, a "philistine tragedy" appears. Its first example was the "London merchant" by G. Lillo (1731). The tragic collision of the play was rooted in everyday life, the heroes came from a bourgeois environment, morality fully corresponded to the moral concepts of the audience.

In the first half of the century in France, a "tearful comedy" became widespread, in which all kinds of virtues of a third-class person were depicted. The ancestors of the genre were Detusch and Lachosse, in Germany he found an adherent in the person of Gellert.

The great artistic achievement of educational literature was the realistic novel, the epic of "private life." Its formation is associated with the formation of other bourgeois relations.

In 1719, D. Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" was published, a work that glorifies the initiative and enterprise of a person born of the bourgeois system. Yes, "Robinson Crusoe" follows the novels of Lesage, Richardson, Swift's "Gulliver's Travel", which gave a strong impetus to the development of the aesthetics of realism.

In the novels of the Enlightenment, the hero of the story is a simple person who acts in real circumstances. There was no life truth... Events, fantastic in nature, unfolded in the distant, often legendary past and were grouped around the deeds of kings and generals, personalities not private, like Robinson or Gulliver, but "historical".

The novel fully met the aesthetic demands of the bourgeois reader. Enlighteners-novelists in the artistic conquest of private, everyday life were the successors of the traditions of the Renaissance and, above all, of Cervantes as the author of Don Quixote. Some of them, such as Dafoe in Moll Flanders and Lesage in Gilles Vlas, used the form of a Spanish rogue novel, which unfolded a wide panorama of reality. In general, the enlighteners in their struggle for man, for harmonious social relations were the heirs of the humanists of the XIV-XVI centuries. They also continued their aesthetic searches to bring art closer to life. It is not for nothing that Diderot and Lessing seek to rely on Shakespeare's artistic experience in substantiating realism. But this does not mean that the literature of the Enlightenment follows the beaten path, only repeating the artistic discoveries of the Renaissance. She in her own way solves her problems prompted by the time, using the achievements of the Renaissance culture.

The interest of enlighteners to man, to his experiences, to his inner spiritual values ​​determined the flourishing of lyrics in the 18th century. Lyric poetry was not characteristic of classicism, which worried not personal, intimate, but civil passions of people. Poetic creativity classicists was rationalist, it was dominated by an ode, and not a sincere lyric song... During the Age of Enlightenment, anacreontic poetry became widespread, glorifying wine, love, friendship and other joys of everyday human life. Especially many anacreontic poets were put forward by French literature (Choulier, Grecourt, Parny, Dora, Lafar, etc.). There were many of them in Germany (Gagedorn, Gleim, Uts, E-von Kleist, etc.). Their poems were devoid of great social content, but, nevertheless, they did not leave the general channel of educational ideology. They affirmed the human right to happiness and thus indirectly condemned the oppression of the individual under the conditions of a feudal society, condemned sanctimonious Christian morality with its all kinds of prohibitions. An amazing phenomenon in the European poetry of the 18th century was the work of the great national port of Scotland, Robert Burns, who in his cheerful poems full of sly humor, Epigrams, heartfelt lyric songs opened the soul of his people, conveyed the love of the Scots for their homeland, their critical attitude to secular and ecclesiastical lords.

Especially significant are the achievements in the lyrics of the young Goethe, who, in wonderful verses, glorified youth, freshness, and sincerity of youthful feelings, expressed his “pagan” admiration for the beauty of nature, boldly challenging the moral dogmas of philistinism and the Christian church. It was not for nothing that the reactionaries, especially the clergy, hated Goethe so much.

Realist theorists understand art as "imitation of nature," that is, in modern terms, as a reproduction of reality. Formally, this position was also recognized by the classicists, but they introduced a very significant restriction to it. It turned out that it was possible to imitate only so that the image corresponded to the "reason" and "tastes" of the enlightened circles of society. As a result, “nature” entered art purified, idealized, and not in its real content. The classicist writers violated the principle of an objective depiction of life in their work. They turned the word into a means of propagating certain moral and political truths. Thus, the specificity of literature as a special form of reflection of reality was undermined.

Understanding art as an imitation of nature entailed the advancement of qualitatively different criteria for assessing the merits of writing than under classicism. Not following the classicist "rules" is now credited to the writer, but a truthful portrayal of life. Truth and expressiveness are declared the basic laws of artistic creation.

In the aesthetics of realism, in essence, such concepts as the artistic image, the typical, naturalness, truthfulness, etc., began to appear for the first time. Their introduction became possible precisely because art began to be considered as a phenomenon secondary to reality. The dignity of a work is now determined not by how much it meets the requirements of the aesthetic code of Boileau, Butte or Laharpe, but by how deeply, truthfully, artistically expressive it reflects life.

However, theorists of the 18th century did not consistently hold a materialist point of view on art. An enlightening look at history, at its driving forces did not allow them to fully use the possibilities inherent in realism. Believing that the world is ruled by opinions, linking the achievements of a reasonable order of life with the internal renewal of society, with moral influence on people, they demanded from the writer the teachings, the glorification of "good" and the debunking of "evil."

The striving for edification largely undermined the struggle of the enlighteners for realism, came into conflict with the principles of a realistic depiction of life. It led to the appearance in their work (for example, in Diderot's dramas "The Bastard Son" and "Father of the Family") ideal heroes (disinterested bourgeois, lawyers, etc.), embodying not specific historical features of people of a certain social circle, but educational dreams of a possible person.

The enlighteners themselves felt their weaknesses. aesthetic concept... Their thought worked to combine the real with the ideal, the existing with the proper. In an effort to overcome the schematic in depicting a person, Diderot advises playwrights to portray not abstract virtues and "passions", but the "social position" of people. However, the disclosure of one social essence of the heroes could lead to schematism of a different kind. Therefore, Diderot tries to combine the "public" with the "human". Lessing's search is going in the same direction.

Diderot and Lessing fight for an introduction to contemporary literature a hero who would be closely united with the bourgeois environment that gave birth to him by his occupations, cut dresses, habits, principles of language, but at the same time, in the structure of his thoughts and feelings, would rise above his class, would serve as an example for him to effectively imitate. In short, they wanted to make the real bourgeois the spokesman for enlightenment ideas.

The aesthetics of enlightenment realism took shape in the struggle against classicism. Moreover, Diderot and Lessing do not accept not only the works of monarchist-minded classicists, they also criticize Voltaire from an aesthetic point of view. His tragedies seem "cold" to them. They explain this coldness by the fact that Voltaire reveals his heroes only in their public capacity, not paying attention to their natural, human feelings. In his plays, citizens act, personifications of political passions, and not living people.

Voltaire's Brutus, without hesitation sending his son to execution, seems to Diderot and Lessing too sublime, unusual. The democratic spectator, in their opinion, can feel a feeling of cold admiration for him, and not living active compassion, which requires that the hero himself suffer humanly, and not stoically suppress in himself simple, human heart movements.

This is the source of the demand, important in the theory of enlightenment realism, to humanize the hero, to unite in one person both civil and human traits... At the same time, the possibility arose of overcoming the one-linearity of classicist images, the way was opened to the creation of psychologically complex, internally contradictory dramatic characters.

Lessing, referring to the experience of ancient writers, finds an example of a human hero in Sophocles, in his tragedy Philoctetus. There is nothing stoic about Philoctete. Experiencing excruciating pain from an unhealed wound, he announces the island with screams, but at the same time he knows how to suppress his suffering when circumstances tell him to be a citizen.

However, criticizing Voltaire as an artist, Diderot and Lessing highly appreciated his fight against religious fanaticism and paid tribute to the republican and tyrannical pathos of his tragedies. They generally accepted the ideological orientation of enlightenment classicism, but did not approve of the ways in which it was carried out. Diderot and Lessing, like Voltaire, fought for more selfless freedom fighters in life, but they opposed a man with a "steel heart" taking a central place in drama, since this led to schematism, reduced educational impact of drama. Realist theorists are looking for ways to democratize art, bring it closer to modernity, to the needs of the people. They want to see the hero as human, close and understandable to a democratic audience, seeing in this the possibility of transforming the theater into a true school for educating the masses.

Criticizing the inhumanity, immorality, cruelty of big and small rulers, the realists of the 18th century strive to oppose them with humanity, high moral dignity of new people, expressing the progressive thoughts and feelings of the era. The denial of unreasonable forms of behavior in educational realism, as a rule, is combined with the affirmation of the ideal. The enlighteners did not imagine creativity that was not illuminated by the light of great life-affirming ideas. Therefore, the problem of the positive hero occupies, but essentially, a central place in their aesthetics. Unmasking everything obsolete, unreasonable, they passionately fight for the triumph of the new, firmly believing in the power of words and moral example. In an effort to bring art closer to the origins of modern life, theorists of enlightenment realism, naturally, oppose the imitation of ancient models, which is how the classicists "sinned". They make the flourishing of contemporary literature dependent on its ability to truthfully reflect reality, and not copy the works of ancient writers. This does not mean at all that Diderot and Lessing did not appreciate the classics of antiquity. On the contrary, they put their creativity very highly. They saw his strength in truthfulness. Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, in their opinion, achieved outstanding success, primarily because they worked truthfully.

Theorists of realism put forward the task of contemporary artists not to imitate ancient masters, but to master the principles of their creative activity... To be true to the traditions of Homer means to faithfully reproduce modern life, and not to copy his works mechanically. In this case, the enlighteners come close to understanding the essence of the artistic method and overcome the unhistorical view of the development of art characteristic of the classicists.

The realists of the Enlightenment depict man specifically historically. The special richness of everyday sketches is distinguished english novel(Dafoe, Fielding, Smollett). Social concreteness is also present in realistic drama.

The writers of the realistic direction sought to explain the behavior of people by the circumstances of their lives. This desire directed their attention to reality, which resulted in the strengthening of critical tendencies in their work. The negative heroes of educational literature are especially closely connected with life. They feel, think, act quite "historically", according to the laws of the social environment that brought them up. Exposing their various vices, educational realism at the same time pronounced its own verdict on the feudal system.

Theorists of realistic art (especially Lessing) substantiated the right of a contemporary writer to criticize feudal society. Life, in their opinion, since the time of Homeric Greece, when it was harmonious, has changed, has become replete with contradictions, therefore it is quite legitimate to have a critical attitude towards it. The modern artist can no longer, like the ancient Greek authors, depict only the beautiful. He is obliged to show both the ugly and to proceed in his work not from the principle of beauty, but to be guided by a new poetic law put forward by the modern world - truth and expressiveness. However, veracity in enlightenment realism had its limits. The social relations characteristic of the feudal system were by no means all facets included in the works of the realists of the 18th century. They focused on the problems of family, love, on the legal and political powerlessness of the people, but they almost did not touch upon class contradictions at all. The economic causes of social oppression fell out of their sight.

Conflicts in educational literature are, as a rule, ideological (moral, religious, political, etc.) in nature; they do not affect the economic basis of society, its class structure. In this regard, the struggle of the antagonistic heroes unfolds not on real-historical ground, but in the world of ideas.

It is clear that the scale of ideological clashes is very different. It all depends on historical circumstances, on the writer's worldview. In the "philistine tragedy" or "tearful comedy" they are insignificant and revolve around questions of private, family life. In the works of Lessing, Schiller, they acquire an acute social and even political coloring, and in "Faust" by Goethe they capture problems of world importance concerning the fate of all mankind.

Interest in ideology grows out of the educators' teaching that the world is ruled by opinions. Revealing the contradiction of reality, mainly in the ideological sphere, they were convinced that their overcoming is also possible by ideological means, by means of moral influence and enlightenment. The idea of ​​a revolutionary transformation of social relations was relegated to the background.

The exaggeration of the role of the ideological factor in history had a direct impact on the work of the realists of the 18th century. It led to the appearance in their works of "heroes-mouthpieces", resonators, etc., who, through their speeches and moral behavior, should have a positive impact on their opponents, and at the same time on readers or viewers. If negative characters in the realism of the Enlightenment depend on the social environment and live according to its moral laws, then the positive are often connected with it only externally, only "according to the passport", but in fact they are, as it were, outside of history, guided in their lives by the educational norms of "morality" and "reason ". Their characters are "set" in advance and therefore do not show a tendency towards self-development.

In the realist art of the 18th century, two layers are usually found. One real, everyday, as if written off from nature, "inhabited" by quite real people; the other is created by the imagination of the writer; it is inhabited by "ideal heroes". Naturally, only the first layer can be recognized as completely realistic, the second already goes beyond the limits of realism, it carries the features of convention and schematism.

The opposition of the ideal to the real is carried out in different ways in the realistic literature of the 18th century. Sometimes it takes the form of a sharp division of characters into negative and positive. In Lessing's Emilia Galotti, Prince Gonzago and his entourage are confronted by Colonel Odoardo, his daughter and wife. In Schiller's tragedy "Treachery and Love", two camps collide - the Duke's court, led by President Walter, and the musician Miller's family.

It is not uncommon for the same hero to undergo a transformation. He begins his life as a real representative of the real social environment, "sins", even commits meanness, and ends it with a completely virtuous person. This variant in various modifications is characteristic of some novels by Fielding, Smollett, Wieland, Goethe and other enlighteners, which in the history of literature were called educational. Their main characters really go through the school of life education. At first, they indulge in great and small vices, but then, under the influence of life experience, they are morally reborn, become useful members of society.

Realistic art XVIII century simultaneously performs critical and educational functions. It not only reveals the contradictions of feudal reality, but also points out the ways to change life, and fights for a new person. True, when affirming the ideal, the enlighteners often departed from realism, but their creativity was never wingless, it always called ahead, instilled confidence in the future.

Thus, the works of realistic literature of the Enlightenment are "two-layered", they represent a fusion of the real and the ideal. "Two-layer" gets its expression in two types of heroes, in a double storyline, in the obligatory triumph of the educational principle. Enlightenment realism is characterized by sharp turns in the fates of the characters, an unexpected intrusion of chance into the natural course of events. To ensure victory for their positive characters, the realists of the eighteenth century go to all sorts of tricks. And this is largely natural.

The "moral hero", due to his disinterestedness and impracticality in the conditions of a feudal society, would inevitably suffer defeat in the struggle with his selfish, cunning opponents. And here the author hurries to his aid. He either makes him a wealthy heir (it is thanks to the unexpected inheritance that Tom Jones gets Sophia's hand), or makes his formidable enemies morally reborn (such a rebirth occurs, for example, in Mercier's play The Judge with Count Montreval, the persecutor of an honest judge de Leri). A significant role, especially in saving the heroines, is played by unexpectedly revealed family ties etc. All this testifies to the fact that enlighteners were often convinced of the weakness moral principle and were forced to provide him with "material support."

The noted duality of 18th century realism is not an absolute law. There are many cases when the positive characters in the work of the realists-enlighteners, as well as the negative ones, are quite real, historically specific. An example is Beaumarchais's excellent comedies " Barber of seville"And" The Marriage of Figaro ". There is nothing far-fetched in the image of Figaro, he is a generalization of the living phenomena of reality. Vitality, wit, dexterity characteristic of the people are, as it were, concentrated in him, and he easily defeats the unlucky Almaviva.

The heroes of the young Goethe (Getz von Berlichingen, Werther) are distinguished by their realistic full-bloodedness. Their artistic expressiveness is again explained by the fact that when creating them, the author proceeded not from the ideal, but from life, capturing its specific historical features in the images he created.

Realistic art of the Age of Enlightenment is not homogeneous, there are many shades in it, and it cannot be summed up under one rank. It changed along with the development of society and the achievements of aesthetic thought. A step forward in the development of the theory of realism in comparison with Diderot and Lessing was made by IG Herder, the chief theoretician of "storm and onslaught." He well sensed the weaknesses of the realist enlighteners: schematism in portraying positive characters, a tendency to moralize.

Herder fought for the image of man in his uniqueness. He is especially attracted not by typical, but by individual traits of a human character. He saw an ideal writer in Shakespeare, emphasizing his ability to create historical concrete picturesque pictures of life, to depict people in all the richness of their unique features, to penetrate deeply into the secrets of the human soul.

Herder's aesthetic theory had a fruitful influence on the young Goethe. She awakened his interest in the historical past, in nature, in folk poetry, helped him to better understand a person, the world and capture it in all the unique originality of its colors and sounds. Goethe's work is a new phenomenon not only in the history of German realism, but also in the whole of European literature.

5. Educational realism.

Reading an article in the textbook "Enlightenment Realism" and answering questions.

Creative workshop "Analysis of the work in the aspect of the artistic method."

Outline of the study of a lyric work.

Russian literature of the XIX century.

The "Golden Age" of Russian Literature.

A.S. Pushkin. "I erected a monument to myself not made by hands ..." (Grade 9)

1. Word of the teacher: "Golden Age" of Russian literature. " The first row of Russian writers: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. Literature and painting, literature and music. Traditions of Russian folklore, Old Russian, spiritual and foreign literature in the literature of the XIX century.

2. Pushkin - "the beginning of all beginnings." Poetic testament of the poet - "I have erected a monument to myself not made by hands ...".

3. "Slow reading" of the poem.

Comment on (explain) the epithets: “not made by hands” (monument), “rebellious” (chapter), “cherished” (lyre), “sublunary” (peace), “kind” (feelings), “cruel” (century) ...

Highlight the main word (phrase) that carries the idea in each quatrain ("not made by hands", "I will not die", "Great Russia", "good", "command of God").

What sense does Pushkin put into the words "fallen" and "indifferent"?

4. Comparison of Pushkin's poem with Horace's ode, Lomonosov's work "I erected a sign of immortality for myself ...", "Monument" to Derzhavin.

Homework: reading Pushkin's novel "The Captain's Daughter" (chapters 1-5).

Methodist notes.

Literature at school, no. 3, 1995.

NN KOROL, MA KHRISTENKO The prophetic word of Andrey Platonov.

Comprehension of style. XI class

Teaching students to read the works of A. Platonov is an extremely difficult task. Every phrase of the writer, every word-"mental image" reflects from within that violent revolutionary process of life transformation, which was most adequately and fully expressed in his style - this amazing alloy of "wonderful tongue-tiedness", "wrong flexibility", "everyday speech, newspaper, slogan, poster, bureaucratic clerical, agitation stamp, that disorganized verbal element that burst into the language along with the breakdown of previous social relations. "

In the 11th grade, in order to find the keys to comprehending the "Pit" or "Chevengur", we propose to take for work the story "Doubted Makar", a text that is less voluminous, but containing all the features of the unique Platonic style.

The pivotal moment during the initial home reading of the story by the students was the task - to trace the movement of the plot, based on the disclosure of the meaning of the metaphorical antithesis "smart head - empty hands" (Lev Chumovoy, "milk chief", "learned scribe", "trade union chief", "scientific man ", Pockmarked Peter and Makar) and" an empty head - clever hands "(Makar, and in the final -" other working masses "). An uncomplicated, but extremely effective searching moment in working with text seems to be the task - to pay attention to the number of repeated words "head - hands" and their accompanying epithets with different shades. This allowed the students to be convinced by their own experience of the richness of the text with these dominant words. They also noted their ever-growing satirical expressiveness from light humor, piercing irony to sarcasm of the culminating episode of Makar's fantastic dream and a truly terrible prophetic ending, in which Makar's “smart hands” and Lev Chumovoy's “empty head” and pockmarked Peter “thinking for all working proletarians” united in the struggle "for the Leninist and general poor cause" and sat down in an institution nearby to "think for the state", which is why the workers stopped going to the institution and "began to think for themselves in their apartments."

So, already at the level of the plot, the schoolchildren comprehended the depth of the writer's anxiety, warning his contemporaries about the danger of dividing people into those who think for everyone and working, about the threat of the establishment of a state system where personality will not mean anything, where in the name of “holistic scales” will be sacrificed “ millions of living lives. "

The next step is to work on the style. To our question: “What folklore genre in the manner of the narration resembles a story? " - the students easily answered: a fairy tale. There are enough arguments: this is both a hero looking for the truth and reminiscent of the fabulous Ivan the Fool, and constant numerous repetitions, playing the same situation, and vocabulary (tram mistress, street garbage can, city ravine, house gorges, etc.), and intonation build a phrase (“Makar sat on the bricks until the evening and followed in turn how the sun went out, how the lights came on, how the sparrows disappeared from the manure to rest”).

Then we turn to a comparative analysis of the story "Doubted Makar" and the story "The Foundation Pit". Let's start with the task: compare the main characters - Makar Ganushkin and Voshchev. As a result of working with the text, students come to the conclusion that both heroes stand out “among the other working masses” in that they are thinking people, doubting, painfully seeking answers to questions that in the 30s were not supposed to be discussed and questioned. We quote the text (these examples can be continued, the text is oversaturated with similar reasoning of the author and the heroes): Lev Chumovoy says to Makar: “You are not a human being, you are an individual peasant! I'm going to fine you now so that you know how to think! " ("Doubtful Makar"). "The administration says that you were standing and thinking in the middle of production," the factory committee said. “In the release document they wrote to him that he was being removed from production due to the growth of weakness in him and thoughtfulness amid the general growth of the rate of labor” (“The Foundation Pit”).

“Makar lay down on a state bed and quieted down from the doubt that all his life he was engaged in non-proletarian business” ... Makar turns his suffering and doubt to a scientific person. “What should I do in my life so that I myself and others need me?” ("Doubtful Makar").

“- What were you thinking, Comrade Voshchev?

About the plan of life.

The plant works according to ready plan trust. And you could work out a plan for your personal life in a club or a red corner "(" Pit ").

If in the story the reader stops before a fantastic picture of new plans ripening in the head of the leader who thinks for all working people, in whose dead eyes "millions of living lives were reflected," then the Pit tells about the heroes' week-long stay in the village where they carry out these plans.

We read excerpts from the "Pit", which tells about the events taking place on the collective farm named after General Line, where proletarians (Voshchev, Chiklin, Kozlov and others) and an activist of "public works for the implementation of state decrees and any campaigns", accumulating "enthusiasm for indestructible action", mobilize kolkhoz "to a funeral procession so that everyone can feel the solemnity of death during the developing bright moment of socialization of property", to hammering together logs into one block with the aim of "exact execution of measures for complete collectivization and liquidation by rafting a kulak as a class."

As a result of this activity, there is a dead village, in whose empty houses the wind is blowing, and a bear is working in the smithy and roaring a song, "girls and adolescents lived like strangers in the village, as if they were languishing in love for something distant."

A symbol of a senseless movement towards a brighter future, into which people are sent in whole echelons, a symbol of cruelty, the collapse of the age-old foundations of life is in the finale of the story the grotesque image of the “right proletarian old man” of the hammer-bear who “crushed iron as an enemy of life, as if if there were no fists, then there is only one bear in the world ", about whom the collective farm members said:" What a sin: everything will burst now! All the iron in the wells will be! And you cannot touch him - they will say, poor man, proletariat, industrialization! "

Thoughts and ideas expressed by the author and his characters are in complex relationships with each other, in constant interaction, movement, attraction and repulsion, they often come into conflict with deeds, actions, crumble to dust when in contact with reality. Of course, there is no way to consider at least some of these microtexts. But trying to analyze some of them is necessary. So, for example, one can trace how the word and deed of one of the most controversial heroes of the story interact - the excavator Chiklin, who, on various occasions, as if in passing remarks “The dead are people too” ^ “Every person is dead if he is tortured”; "There are also many dead, as well as living, they are not bored with each other"; "All dead people are special." And many of the actions of this "uneducated person" coincide with the mtsky view of the world. This is his love for the girl Nastya, care for her, attention to others, "; grief for the dead.] But at the same time, it is from Chiklin that a man with yellow eyes gets hit in the head, and then in the stomach. raft, “so that the kulak sector would ride along the river into the sea and beyond.” Together with a blacksmith bear, he walks through “strong” huts to dispossess the peasants. When the girl Nastya died, Chiklin “wanted to dig the earth.” forget now your mind. "" Now we need to dig even wider and deeper, "he says to Voshchev." The collective farm followed him and did not stop digging the ground; all the poor and average peasants worked with such zeal in the abyss of the pit. ”With such a hopelessly terrible symbol, the narrative ends. In the last paragraph of the“ Pit, ”we read:“ Having rested, Chiklin took Nastya in his arms and carefully carried her to lay her in the stone and bury her. " : “The author could be mistaken, fig. In the form of the death of a girl, the death of the socialist generation, but this mistake came from excessive concern for something beloved, the loss of which is tantamount to the destruction of not only the entire past, but also the future!

Before moving on to work on the style of the story "The Pit", we offer students different points of view of researchers of the language of the writer. The approximate word of the teacher:

Much has been written about the language of Andrei Platonov: either as a kind of aesthetic language, or as a mask language, a language of foolishness, a language of antics. But most often they admired him, his beauty, flexibility, expressiveness. Most of the writers noted the complexity, the inscrutability of the writer's phrases. "... The word of Platonov will never be fully unraveled." Researchers of A. Platonov's work emphasize the uniqueness, "special language", its dissimilarity to any other. "Platonov has his own words, only his inherent manner to combine them, his own unique intonation." They write about the "barbaric harmony of phrases", about the syntax similar to the movement of boulders along the slope, about the "lack of understanding and redundancy of speech", about "improper flexibility", "beautiful tongue-tied", "roughness", etc.

So, strange, mysterious, uplifting, aesthetic, foolish, tongue-tied, redundant, word-child and word-old man at the same time, some kind of extraordinary alloy, etc. ... What is it - the word of Andrei Platonov? Listening and delving into the meaning of Plato's metaphors, images, symbols, peering into the world of Plato's utopias, satirical paintings, reading and re-reading its pages amazing books, deeper and more fully through the dialogue with his time, we begin to understand our own time. As M. Bakhtin said, "not in every epoch a direct author's word is possible", for such a word presupposes the presence of "authoritative and well-established ideological assessments." And therefore, the literature of these eras expresses the author's thoughts and assessments, refracting them in the "someone else's word".

Of course, the era of Andrei Platonov is an era that did not at all contribute to the expression of thoughts in the direct author's word, since this word did not coincide with the official ideology. In Platonov, as L. Shubin rightly noted, the thoughts of the hero and the thoughts of the author coincide ...

Let us turn to the beginning of the "Pit" (together with the students we are convinced of the originality of Plato's speech - we read and comment on the beginning of the story, one paragraph, two sentences).

“On the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life, Voshchev was given a calculation from a small mechanical plant, where he raised funds for his existence. In the dismissal document they wrote to him that he was being removed from production due to the growth of weakness in him and thoughtfulness among the general pace of work. "

Let's turn to the first phrase: how did it strike you? (The students noted that the phrase immediately caught on with some of its clumsy, awkwardness, which are reinforced in the next sentence.)

Are there any extra words in this phrase in terms of semantic accuracy? (Yes, there is the phrase "personal life" and the subordinate clause "where he got the means for his existence.")

Let's try to remove these parts of the phrase, how will it look? ("On the day of his thirtieth birthday, Voshchev was given a calculation from a small mechanical plant.")

Try to make a small editorial correction so that the phrase sounds familiar to our ears. (“On the day of his thirtieth birthday, Voshchev was fired from a small mechanical plant.”)

As a result of our experiment, the powerful force, the originality of Plato's speech, disappeared. The phrase faded. After all, her Magic force precisely in the fact that after the words "on the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life" Voshchev was given not a prize for conscientious work, but the calculation that Voshchev did not work, but "earned funds" not for life, but "for his existence." This phrase already contains something that in the next one literally makes you feel numb and horrified, since the accumulating energy of the ironic meaning breaks through in the words: "... he is eliminated from production due to the growth of weakness in him and thoughtfulness" - its bitterly ironic effect immerses us, the readers, at a time that gave birth to a monstrous bureaucratic system, suppressing personality, turning people into a faceless mass.

This process finds its expression in the emasculation of the language of the people. Platonov reflected that transitional stage when the living language of the people broke down with the bureaucratic clerical, ideological cliché, bureaucratic sterilization.

Hence the roughness, clumsy, the combination into one whole of incompatible words and expressions of different styles.

A. Platonov's word is a warning word, a prophecy word.

Through the prism of the phrase under consideration, that impersonal, corroded language that we speak today, without noticing the ugliness of such expressions as children instead of children, a resident instead of a person, living space instead of an apartment, peeps through that impersonal, corroded language, which we speak today, and so on. And from the so-called "business style" with his countless orders for enrollment, dismissal, and severe reprimands with entry into a personal file seeps into oral speech or the stamp is replicated in millions of identical holiday congratulatory texts, in which workers wish each other success in work and happiness in their personal lives.

Let's return to the text of the "Pit" one more time.! From these childishly naive and innocent words, "it is removed from production due to the growth of weakness in it and thoughtfulness in the midst of the general pace of labor" prophetically gives off to the near future - it is not "removed", but "taken under investigation", "arrested" , not "due to the growth of weakness ... and thoughtfulness", but for "sabotage, sabotage", "enemy propaganda", etc.)

So, from the very first phrase of A. Platonov's story, we see the image of a person who has not lost his personality, has not dissolved in the mass, a strange, "single" person, painfully thinking and agreeing in the finale again to know nothing, not to know the truth, if only the girl was alive.! This is the culmination of a protest against violence, expressed with a genius similar to Dostoevsky: if people are "sent in whole trains to socialism", and the result of their hard labor is a huge pit and a bunch of coffins stored in one of the niches of the pit, if people are sent on rafts into the ocean, and the wind is blowing in their houses, they are empty, and the girl Nastya is a symbol of faith, a symbol of the future - she dies from fatigue, homelessness, loneliness, then "no!" such a path and such a future.

Literature at school number 6, 1995.

I. I. MOSKOVKINA Lesson in comprehending the genre of essays

The modern approach to the study of literature presupposes not only obtaining a certain amount of knowledge on the subject, but also developing one's own position, one's own attitude to what has been read: contemplation, empathy, conjugation of one's own and the author's “I”. Topics are also oriented towards this. graduation essays recent years: "My Bulgakov", "Favorite Pages of Prose", "My Favorite Journal", etc.

This clearly emerging trend requires mastering new genres of essays, among which essays are increasingly mentioned. This lesson is an attempt to give students an understanding of the peculiarities of a genre they are not familiar with.

2. Classroom design and equipment: book exhibition "Thoughts on the eternal and beautiful" (examples of philosophical, philosophical-religious, art history and journalistic essayism); video recorder; on the board (on moving parts) - material for vocabulary work:

Single-root words:

essay, essay, essayist, essaying

3. Handout: What is an Essay? (Definition of genre in various reference books); text (excerpt from V. V. Rozanov's article "Return to Pushkin"); text (excerpt from the chapter "Pushkin" from the book "Silhouettes of Russian Writers" by Y. Eichenwald); a memo for laboratory work with elements of stylistic analysis of the text.

Epigraph to the lesson:

"Essays are a way to tell about the world through yourself and about yourself with the help of the world"

(A. Elyashevich).

During the classes

I. After listening to the suggested passages, try to define the genre of each.

Reading an excerpt (Osorgin M. Land // From the other bank. - M., 1992. - T. 2);

Sermon (any edition);

Reading an excerpt (Ilyin I. Shmelev // Lonely artist. - M., 1992).

During the discussion, we come to the conclusion that the first passage is more of a story, the second is a sermon, and the third is a literary criticism article. What brings them together? An attempt to comprehend the most important problems of life and creativity, a pronounced personal principle makes these seemingly multi-genre phenomena related.

II. The designation of the topic of the lesson. Teacher's word:

Among the genres of prose there is a genre that incorporates memories, diaries, letters, confessions, sermons, even a kind of essay, a story (as we just saw with the example of M. Osorgin's "Earth"). This genre has no clear definition. Some are inclined to see it as a special kind of memoir, others apply the name "notes" to it, and still others carefully use foreign word"essay". And Natalya Ivanova in her book "Point of View" dubbed it "author's prose", prose of "direct immediate action", in which the author acts as both a storyteller and a hero. "The desire to bare oneself, to understand oneself and one's time, an intense dialogue with oneself ..." - this is the basis of "author's" prose, says one critic. Cognition of reality through self-knowledge - the formula for such works - is asserted by another.

Let us turn to the definitions of this genre given in various literary reference books.

III. Working with handouts.

Assignment: Read the definitions, highlight the keywords in them.

What features of the genre are indicated in these definitions?

Features of the essay genre (entry in a notebook after discussion):

Addressing significant philosophical, historical, art history, literary problems (attention to the book exhibition, in it - a wide range of issues raised in essays).

Lack of a given composition, free form of presentation.

Relatively small volume.

IV.Lecture of the teacher. (Assignment: write this material in the form of abstracts.) History of the genre.

The founder of the essay genre was the French humanist writer M. Leontel, who wrote Eziaaga in 1580, where he outlined his thoughts about the fate of society and man. In Russian, the name "of the work of M. Leontel is translated as" Experiments. " the genre was transformed - it began to be understood as the author's experience in the development of a specific problem.

In our century such great artists as B. Shaw, J. Galsworthy, A. France, R. Rolland and others turned to essays.

The term "essay" is widespread in the West, especially in England, France, Poland. In Germany, the term "skitze" is used - a sketch, a sketch of impressions, a fragmentary story that arose as a result of the transfer of impressionism to the soil of literature. (Students got acquainted with this term while studying the works of A, Fet, I. Bunin and other writers.) Russian essay.

As the critic A. Elyashevich noted, "since the days of" Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow "by Radishchev and" Travel to Arzrum "by Pushkin, their own version of essayistic thinking has been developing." Radishchev was closer to a publicistic statement, Pushkin - to a travel sketch. A unique phenomenon in this genre was the novel by A. I. Herzen "Past and Thoughts", which was called by the critic A. Elyashevich "an essay novel, an epic, an encyclopedia of essayism," in which memories coexist with journalism, a historical chronicle with an essay, a confession with a sociologist's thoughts. This genre includes "Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends" by N. V. Gogol, and "Confession" by L. N. Tolstoy.

In the history of essay writing of recent decades, it is necessary to indicate the names of M. Koltsov, M. Prishvin, V. Nekrasov, Y. Nagibin, V. Soloukhin, A. Adamovich and such works as "Hamburg account" by V. Shklovsky, "Not a day without a line" Yu. Olesha, "Golden Rose" by K. Paustovsky, "Rereading Chekhov", "Stendhal's Lessons" by I. Ehrenburg, "The Grass of Oblivion" and "Holy Well" by V. Kataev, travel essays by D. Granin, V. Nekrasov, "People or inhumans "V. Tendryakov.

There was no single model, a single sample of essays and there will not be a genre that is updated and develops according to the dictates of the times. Essay genre in last years... There are times when an open, "frank" conversation between the artist and the reader becomes essential. Perhaps that is why recent years have been marked by a bright flash of spiritual energy inherent in the essay. Interest in this genre has grown significantly. In an era of abrupt universal human changes, "author's" prose, like no other, accumulates the most acute social content.

In our day, readers' interest in the personality of the writer has increased. Extraordinarily popular, memoirs, memories of writers, correspondence, | diaries. Huge audience is being gathered | meetings with writers in the television studio 1 "Ostankino". This is evidence of increased | demand for a personality that is personified in the eyes of the public by a writer who has always been in Russia more than just a poet.

Hence the new phenomenon in literary process the last time - the essayization of the genres of the story and the novel. "Sad Detective" by V. Astafiev, "Everything flows", "Life and Fate" by V. Grossman, "Pushkin House" by A. Bitov, "Everything Ahead" by V. Belov, "Faculty of Unnecessary Things" by Y. Dombrovsky, "White Clothes "V. Dudintsev," Men and Women "by B. Mozhaev," Berry Places "by E. Yevtushenko ... In them, the fabric of artistic narration is permeated with currents of journalism, and in the chorus of characters' voices, the author's voice is distinctly heard - sometimes even soloed -.

The law of the genre is the extreme openness of the author, his position, his thoughts. It is very similar to the theater of one actor, where there is no way to go into the shadows, into the background, where the beam of the searchlight is directed only at you, mercilessly highlighting the very essence.

V. Working with the texts of V. Rozanov and Y. Eichenwald (handout).

Questions to the class: Is there something in common in the grades? What is dear to authors in Pushkin? Confirm your answers with text. Prove the belonging of the works of V. Rozanov and Y. Eichenwald to the essay genre, highlighting the features noted today in the lesson.

Vi. Laboratory work with elements of linguistic text analysis.

Assignment: Using the checklist, find the style features of the essay genre in these passages.

Vii. Preparing for creative work- essay.

How do you understand Pushkin's words about "secret freedom"? What are the consequences of not being free "secret" and overt?

Homework: essay-essay "Talent and Freedom".

LESSON MATERIALS.

What is an essay?

Essays are a genre of criticism, literary criticism, characterized by a free interpretation of any problem. The author of the essay analyzes the selected problem (literary, aesthetic, philosophical), not caring about the systematic presentation, the argumentation of the conclusions, the generally accepted question (Dictionary of literary terms. - M., 1984).

An essay is a kind of essay in which the main role is played not by the reproduction of a fact, but by the image of impressions, thoughts, associations ( Concise vocabulary literary terms. - M., 1987).

Presentation on the topic "Realism as a trend in literature and art" on literature in powerpoint format. A voluminous presentation for schoolchildren contains information on the principles, features, forms, stages of development of realism as a literary trend.

Fragments from the presentation

Literary methods, directions, trends

• Artistic method- this is the principle of selection of the phenomena of reality, the features of their assessment and the originality of their artistic embodiment.
• Literary direction- This is a method that becomes dominant and acquires more definite features associated with the characteristics of the era and trends in culture.
• Literary movement- the manifestation of ideological and thematic unity, the homogeneity of plots, characters, language in the work of several writers of the same era.
• Literary methods, directions and trends: classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, realism, modernism (symbolism, acmeism, futurism)

• Realism- the direction of literature and art that arose in the 18th century, reached a comprehensive disclosure and flourishing in critical realism of the 19th century and continues to develop in the struggle and interaction with other directions in the 20th century (up to the present).
• Realism- truthful, objective reflection of reality by specific means inherent in one or another type of artistic creation.

Principles of Realism

1. Typification of the facts of reality, that is, according to Engels, “in addition to the truthfulness of the details, the truthful reproduction of typical characters in typical circumstances. "
2. Showing life in development and contradictions, which are primarily of a social nature.
3. The desire to reveal the essence of life phenomena without limiting topics and plots.
4. Striving for moral quest and educational impact.

The brightest representatives of realism in Russian literature:

A. N. Ostrovsky, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoyevsky, A. P. Chekhov, M. Gorky, I. Bunin, V. Mayakovsky, M. Bulgakov, M. Sholokhov, S. Yesenin, A. I. Solzhenitsyn and others.

• Main property- by typing, reflect life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.
• Leading criterion for artistry- fidelity to reality; striving for the immediate reliability of the image, the "recreation" of life "in the forms of life itself." The artist's right to illuminate all aspects of life without any restrictions is recognized. A wide variety of art forms.
• The challenge of the realist writer- try not only to grasp life in all its manifestations, but also to understand it, to understand the laws by which it moves and which do not always come out; you need to achieve types through the game of chances - and with all this, always remain true to the truth, not be content with superficial study, avoid effects and falsehood.

Traits of realism

• Striving for wide coverage of reality in its contradictions, deep patterns and development;
• Gravitation towards the image of a person in his interaction with the environment:
• the inner world of the characters, their behavior bear the signs of the times;
• great attention is paid to the social background of the time;
• Versatility in the image of a person;
• Social and psychological determinism;
• Historical point of view on life.

Forms of realism

• educational realism
• critical realism
• socialist realism

Stages of development

• Enlightening realism(D.I.Fonvizin, N.I. Novikov, A.N. Radishchev, young I.A.Krylov); "Syncretic" realism: a combination of realistic and romantic motives, with a dominant realistic (AS Griboyedov, AS Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov);
• Critical realism- the accusatory orientation of the works; a decisive break with the romantic tradition (IA Goncharov, IS Turgenev, NA Nekrasov, AN Ostrovsky);
• Socialist realism- imbued with revolutionary reality and a sense of the socialist transformation of the world (M. Gorky).

Realism in Russia

It appeared in the 19th century. Rapid development and special dynamism.

Features of Russian realism:

• Active development of socio-psychological, philosophical and moral issues;
• Expressed life-affirming character;
• Special dynamism;
• Synthetic (closer connection with previous literary eras and directions: enlightenment, sentimentalism, romanticism).

18th century realism

• imbued with the spirit of educational ideology;
• is affirmed primarily in prose;
• the novel becomes the defining genre of literature;
• behind the novel a bourgeois or philistine drama arises;
• recreated the everyday life of modern society;
• reflected his social and moral conflicts;
• the portrayal of characters in it was straightforward and obeyed moral criteria that sharply distinguished between virtue and vice (only in some works the portrayal of personality was distinguished by complexity and dialectical contradictions (Fielding, Stern, Diderot).

Critical realism

Critical realism- a trend that arose in Germany at the end of the 19th century (E. Becher, G. Driesch, A. Wenzl and others) and specializes in theological interpretation of modern natural science (attempts to reconcile knowledge with faith and prove the "inconsistency" and "limitations" of science) ...

Principles of Critical Realism

• critical realism depicts the relationship between man and the environment in a new way
• human character is revealed in organic connection with social circumstances
• the subject of deep social analysis was the inner world of a person (critical realism therefore simultaneously becomes psychological)

Socialist realism

Socialist realism is one of the most important artistic directions in the art of the 20th century; a special artistic method (type of thinking) based on cognition and comprehension of the life reality of the era, which was understood as dynamically changing in its "revolutionary development".

The principles of socialist realism

• Nationality. The heroes of the works must come from the people. As a rule, workers and peasants became the heroes of socialist realist works.
• Party membership. Reject the truth empirically found by the author and replace it with party truth; show heroic deeds, the search for a new life, a revolutionary struggle for a brighter future.
• Concreteness. In depicting reality, show the process of historical development, which in turn must correspond to the doctrine of historical materialism (matter is primary, consciousness is secondary).