Eternal images in literature. Eternal images in world literature Eternal images in Russian literature
The history of literature knows a lot of cases when the works of the writer were very popular for his life, but time passed, and they forgot them almost forever. There are other examples: the writer did not recognize the contemporaries, and the true value of his works opened the following generations.
But in the literature there are very few works, the value of which is impossible to overestimate, as they create images that convert every generation of people, images that inspire the creative searches for artists of different times. Such images are called "eternal," because they are carriers of the traits that are always inherent in a person.
In poverty and loneliness lived by Miguel Cervantes de Saoveoven, although during his lifetime he was known as the author of a talented, bright novel "Don Quixote". Neither the writer himself nor his contemporaries knew that he would pass several centuries, and his heroes would not only be forgotten, but would become "the most popular Spaniards", and compatriots would put them a monument. What they come out of the novel and will be lit by their independent life in the works of prosaikov and playwrights, poets, artists, composers. Today it is even difficult to list how many works of art are created under the influence of the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Pansees: Goya and Picasso, Massne and Minkus appealed to them.
The immortal book was born out of the plan to write a parody and ridiculously knightly novels, so popular in Europe of the XVI century, when he lived and worked Servantes. But the plan of the writer increased, and the Spain of the book came to life on the pages of the book, he himself was changing himself: from the parody knight he grows funny and tragic figure. The conflict of the novel at the same time historically concrete (it reflects the modern writer in Spain) and universal (for exists in any country at all times). The essence of the conflict: the collision of ideal norms and ideas about reality with the most reality is not the perfect, "earthly".
The image of Don Quixote became eternal, too, thanks to his versatility: always and everywhere there are noble idealists, defenders of good and justice, who defend their ideals, but not able to realize reality. Even the notion of "Donctivity" occurred. It combines a humanistic desire for ideal, enthusiasm, perturbation, on the one hand, and naivety, extremity, the commitment of dreams and illusions - on the other. The inner nobility of Don Quixote is combined with the community of its external manifestations (it is able to love a simple peasant girl, but sees only a noble beautiful lady in it.
The second important eternal image of the novel is witty and terrestrial Sancho Pansa. He is the complete opposite of Don Quixote, but the heroes are inextricably linked, they are similar to each other in their hopes and disappointments. Cervantes shows its heroes that reality is impossible without ideals, but they should be based on reality.
A completely different eternal image appears in front of us in the Maeyagedia Shakespeare "Hamlet". This is a deeply tragic image. Hamlet well realizes reality, soberly assesses everything that happens around him, firmly stands on the side of good against evil. But his tragedy lies in the fact that he cannot move to decisive actions and punish evil. His indecision is not a manifestation of cowardice, it is a bold, frank man. His oscillations - the result of deep reflection about the nature of evil. Circumstances require him to kill his father's killer. He fluctuates, because he perceives this revenge as a manifestation of evil: the murder will always be murder, even when they kill the scoundrel. The image of Hamlet is an image of a person who understands its responsibility in resolving the conflict of good and evil, which stands on the side of good, but its internal moral laws do not allow to switch to decisive actions. It is no coincidence that this image has acquired a special sound in the 20th century - the era of social upheavals, when each person decided for himself an eternal "Hamletovsky question".
You can bring some more examples of "Eternal" images: Faust, Mephistofel, Othello, Romeo and Juliet - they all reveal eternal human feelings and aspirations. And each reader studies in these images to understand not only the past, but also the present.
The history of literature knows a lot of cases when the works of the writer were very popular with his life, but time passed, and they forgot them almost forever. There are other examples: the writer did not recognize contemporaries, and the real value of his works opened the following generations.
But in the literature there are very few works, the value of which cannot be exaggerated, because they have created images that are worried every generation of people, images that inspire on creative search for artists of different times. Such images are called the "eternal", because they are carriers of the features that always inherent in man.
In poverty and loneliness lived his age Miguel Cervantes de Saoveoverov, although during his lifetime he was known as the author of a talented, bright novel "Don Quixote". Neither the writer himself nor his contemporaries knew that he would pass several centuries, and his heroes would not only be forgotten, but would become the most "popular Spaniards", and compatriots would put a monument. What they come out of the novel and will be lit by their independent life in the works of prosaikov and playwrights, poets, artists, composers. Today it is difficult to list how many works of art are created under the influence of the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Pansea: Goya and Picasso, Massne and Minkus appealed to them.
The immortal book was born out of the plan to write a parody and ridiculously knightly novels, such popular in Europe of the XVI century, when he lived and worked Cervantes. But the idea of \u200b\u200bthe writer was a wisest, and in the pages of the book, the modern Spain was revived, he also changed the hero himself: from the parody knight he grows funny and tragic figure. The conflict of the novel is historically concrete (displays the modern writer in Spain) and universal (because there are in any country at all times). The essence of the conflict: clashes ideal norms and ideas about reality with the most reality - not perfect, "earthly".
The image of Don Quixote became eternal, too, thanks to his versatility: always and everywhere there are noble idealists, defenders of good and justice, who defend their ideals, but not able to realize reality. Even the notion of "Donctivity" occurred. It combines the humanistic desire for the ideal, enthusiasm on the one hand, and naivety, killing on the other. The inner pupil of Don Quixote is combined with the community of its external manifestations (he is able to love a simple peasant girl, but sees only a noble beautiful lady in it).
The second important eternal image of the novel is witty and terrestrial Sancho Pansa. He is the complete opposite of Don Quixote, but the heroes are inextricably linked, they are similar to each other in their hopes and disappointments. Cervantes shows its heroes that reality is impossible without ideals, but they should be based on reality.
A completely different eternal image appears in front of us in the tragedy of Shakespeare "Hamlet". This is a deeply tragic image. Hamlet well understands reality, soberly appreciates everything that happens around him, firmly stands on the side of good against evil. But his tragedy lies in the fact that he cannot move to decisive actions and punish evil. His indecision is not a manifestation of cowardice, it is a bold, frank man. His hesitation is a consequence of deep reflection about the nature of evil. Circumstances require him to kill his father's killer. He fluctuates, because he perceives this revenge as a manifestation of evil: the murder will always be murder, even when they kill the scoundrel. The image of Hamlet is an image of a person who understands its responsibility in resolving the conflict of good and evil, which stands on the side of good, but its internal moral laws do not allow to switch to decisive actions. The non-random image acquired a special sound in the 20th century - the time of social upheavals, when each person decided for himself the eternal "Hamletovsky question".
You can bring some more examples of "Eternal" images: Faust, Mephistofel, Othello, Romeo and Juliet - they all reveal eternal human feelings and aspirations. And each reader studies at these insults to understand not only the past, but also modern.
"Prince Dansk": Hamlet as an eternal image
Eternal images are the term literary studies, art and cultural history, covering artistic images turning from the work into a work - an invariant arsenal of the literary discourse. You can highlight a number of properties of eternal images (usually found together):
- meaningful container, inexhaustibility of meanings;
high artistic, spiritual value;
the ability to overcome the boundaries of eras and national cultures, negligibility, increditative relevance;
polyvalence - increased ability to connect with other systems of images, participate in various plots, fit into a changing environment without losing their identity;
translating into languages \u200b\u200bof other arts, as well as languages \u200b\u200bof philosophy, science, etc.;
wide prevalence.
The sources of eternal images were historical persons (Alexander Macedonsky, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Karl Great, Jeanne d'Ark, Shakespeare, Napoleon, etc.), Bible characters (Adam, Eve, Snake, Noah, Moses, Jesus Christ, Apostles, Ponti Pilate et al.), Antique myths (Zeus - Jupiter, Apollo, Music, Prometheus, Elena Beautiful, Odyssey, Medea, Fedra, Odip, Narcissus, etc.), Talks of other peoples (Osiris, Buddha, Sinbad-Sea-Major, Khoja Nasreddin , Siegfried, Roland, Baba Yaga, Ilya-Muromets, etc.), literary fairy tales (Perra: Cinderella; Andersen: Snow Queen; Kipling: Mowgli), Romanov (Cervantes: Don Quixote, Sancho Pansy, Dulcinea Tobosskaya; Defo: Robinson Cruzo ; Swift: Gulliver; Hugo: Quasimodo; Wilde: Dorian Gray), Novel (Merima: Carmen), poems and poems (Dante: Beatrice; Petrarca: Laura; Goethe: Faust, Mephistophele, Margarita; Bayron: Cholerd Harold), dramatic works (Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Falstafe; Tirsco de Molina: Don Juan; Moliere: Tartuf; Boualersche: Figaro).
Examples of the use of eternal images with different authors permeate all world literature and other arts: Prometheus (Eschil, Bokcchchko, Calderon, Voltaire, Goethe, Byron, Shelly, Jew, Kafka, Vyach. Ivanov, etc., in painting Titian, Rubens, etc.) , Don Juan (Tirsco de Molina, Moliere, Goldoni, Hoffman, Byron, Balzac, Duma, Merim, Pushkin, A. K. Tolstoy, Baudelaire, Rostan, A. Block, Lesya Ukrainka, Frish, Aleshin and MN. Dr., Opera Mozart), Don Quixote (Cervantes, Alelyanted, Fielding, Essays Turgenev, Ballet of Minkus, Movie Korintsyv, etc.).
Often, eternal images act as a pair (Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Orest and Pill, Beatrice and Dante, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Dzamemon or Othello and Yago, Leila and Medezhnun, Don Quixote and Sancho Pansa, Faust and Mephistofel and T . d.) Or entail fragments of the plot (Crucifixion of Jesus, the struggle Don Quixote with windmills, Cinderella Transformation).
Eternal images become particularly relevant in the conditions of the rapid development of postmodern intertertainment, expanding the use of texts and characters of writers of past epochs in modern literature. There are a number of significant works devoted to the eternal images of world culture, but their theory has not been developed. New achievements in humanitarian knowledge (a thesaurus approach, sociology of literature) create prospects for solving the problems of the theory of perpetual images, with which such little developed areas of eternal themes, ideas, scenes, genres in the literature are closed. These problems are interesting not only for narrow specialists in the field of philology, but also for a wide reader, which forms a base for the creation of popular science work.
The sources of the plot for Gamlet Shakespeare served "tragic stories" of the French Belfort and, apparently, who missed the play (perhaps, Kida), in turn, ascending to the text of the Danish chronicler Saxon Grammar (approx. 1200). The main feature of the artisticity "Hamlet" is synthetic (synthetic alloy of a number of plot lines - fate heroes, synthesis of tragic and comic, elevated and lowland, common and private, philosophical and specific, mystical and domestic, scenic action and words, synthetic communication with early and late works of Shakespeare).
Hamlet is one of the most mysterious figures of world literature. For several centuries, writers, critics, scientists are trying to solve the riddle of this image, answer the question why Hamlet, having learned at the beginning of the tragedy, the truth about the murder of his father, puts the revenge and at the end of the play kills King Claudia almost by chance. I.V. Götte saw the reason for this paradox in the power of the intellect and weakness of the will of Hamlet. On the contrary, the film director G. Kozintsev stressed the active principle in the Gamlet, saw a continuously acting hero in it. One of the most original points of view expressed an outstanding psychologist L. S. Vygotsky in "Psychology of Art" (1925). In a new way, I understood the criticism of Shakespeare in the article L. N. Tolstoy "About Shakespeare and about Drama", Vygotsky suggested that the Hamlet is not endowed with character, but is the function of action of the tragedy. Thus, the psychologist stressed that Shakespeare is a representative of the old literature who has not yet known the character as a way of outright of a person in verbal art. L. E. Pinska knitted the image of Hamlet not with the development of the plot in the usual sense of the word, and with the main plot of the "great tragedies" - the discovery of the Hero of the true face of the world, in which the evil more powerful than it was humanists.
It is this ability to know the true face of the world makes the tragic heroes of Hamlet, Othello, King Lira, Macbeth. They are Titans, superior to the usual viewer by intelligence, will, courage. But the Hamlet differs from the three other protagonists of Shakespeare tragedies. When Othello stifles Dzentemon, King LIR decides to divide the state between the three daughters, and then the share of the faithful Cordelius gives false player and the regain, Macbeth kills Duncan, guided by the predictions of witches, they are mistaken, but the audience is not mistaken, because the action is built so that they Could know the true state of things. This puts the usual viewer above the titanic characters: the audiences know what they do not know. On the contrary, Hamlet only in the first scenes of the tragedy knows less spectators. From the moment of his conversation with the ghost, who hears, besides the participants, only the audience, there is nothing significant, which would not know the Hamlet, but there is something that the audience do not know. Hamlet finishes his famous monologue "to be or not to be?" Nothing a significant phrase "but rather," leaving the audience without an answer to the most important question. In the final, asking Horatio "tell all" the remaining alive, Hamlet pronounces a mysterious phrase: "Further - silence." He takes with him a certain secret, which the viewer is not given to know. Hamlet's mystery, therefore, can not be solved. Shakespeare found a special way to build the role of the main character: With such a construction, the viewer can never feel higher than the hero.
The plot connects "Hamlet" with the tradition of the English "tragedy of revenge." The genius of the playwright is manifested in the innovative interpretation of the problem of revenge - one of the important motifs of the tragedy.
Hamlet makes a tragic discovery: learning about the death of the father, hasty marriage of the mother, hearing the story of the ghost, he opens up the imperfection of the world (this is the taught of the tragedy, after which the action is rapidly developing, the Hamlet in front of the eyes, turning in a few months of Student's young men in 30 --year-old man). The next discovery: "Time dislocated", evil, crime, deceit, betrayal - the normal state of the world ("Denmark - Prison"), therefore, for example, the King Claudia does not need to be a powerful person who argues with time (as Richard III in the chronicle of the same name ), on the contrary, time on his side. And one more consequence of the record: to fix the world, to defeat evil, Hamlet himself is forced to stand on the path of evil. From the further development of the plot, it follows that he is directly or indirectly guilty of polonium, Ophelia, Rosencrana, Guildenster, Laerta, King, although only this last is dictated by revenge.
Revenge, as a form of recovery of justice, was only in the good old days, and now that evil spread, it does not decide anything. To confirm this thought, Shakespeare puts before the problem of revenge for the death of the father of three characters: Hamlet, Laert and Fortinbrus. LAERR acts without reasoning, the estimate of the "right and wrong", Fortinbras, on the contrary, is completely refused to revenge, the Hamlet puts the solution to this problem, depending on the general understanding of the world and its laws. The approach discovered in the development of Shakespeare of the Motive Motive (personification, i.e., bringing the motive to the characters, and the variability) is also implemented in other motifs.
So, the motive of evil is personified in the Kola Qolaudino's king and is presented in the variations of an invalid evil (Hamlet, Gertrud, Ophelia), evil from vengeful feelings (LAERR), evil from helpfulness (Polonia, Rosencranz, Guildenster, Ozers), etc. The motive of love is personified In female images: Ophelia and Gertruda. Motive friendship is represented by Horatio (true friendship) and Guildrester and Rosencran (treason of friends). The motif of art, the world-theater is associated with both touring actors and a gamlet who are insane, Claudius, who play the role of good uncle Gamlet, and so on. The motive of death is embodied in the graveters, in the image of Jorik. These and other motifs grow into a whole system, representing an important factor in the development of the scene of the tragedy.
L. S. Vygotsky saw in the double killing of the king (sword and poison) Completion of two different plot lines developing through the image of Hamlet (this plot function). But you can find another explanation. Hamlet acts as a fate that everyone has prepared, preparing his death. The characters of the tragedy die, ironically: Laert - from the sword, which he smeared poison, so that under the guise of a honest and safe fight to kill Hamlet; The king is from the same sword (on his suggestion, it should be real, unlike the sword of Hamlet) and from the poison who prepared the king in case Laerth will not be able to apply a mortal blow to the Hamlet. The Queen of Gertrude mistakenly drinks poison, as she mistakenly trusted the king, who walked the evil secretly, while Hamlet makes all the secret explicit. Fortinbrus, refused to revenge for the death of his father, Hamlet will make a crown.
Hamlet is a philosophical mindset: from a particular case, he always moves to the general laws of the universe. The family drama of the murder of the Father he considers how the portrait of the world in which the evil flourishes. The frivolity of the mother, so quickly forgotten about the father and married Claudia, leads him to a generalization: "About Women, you have a name - treachery." The appearance of Yorik's skull leads him to the thoughts about the strugnure of the earthly. The whole role of the Hamlet is built to be secretly made explicit. But the special compositional means Shakespeare achieved that Hamlet himself remains an eternal mystery for viewers and researchers.
Well, I'm jealous
On the need of revenge, if
Is there will, power, right and pretext?
In general, why Lanert was able to raise people against the king, returning from France after the news of the death of his father, while the Hamlet, whom the people of Elsinora loved, did not go to it, although would you do the same in the least effort? It is only possible to assume that such overthrow was or simply not at the individual, or he was afraid that he would not have the evidence of his uncle's guilt.
Also, according to Bradley, Hamlet did not plan to "kill Gonzago" with a great hope that Claudius his reaction and behavior would give his guilt before court. With this scene, he wanted to make himself be convinced mainly that the ghost tells the truth, what he reports Horatio:
Even With The Very Comment Of Thy Soul
OBSERVE MY UNCLE. IF HIS OC-Culted Guilt
Don't itself unkennel in one speech
IT IS A DAMNED GHOST THAT WE HAVE SEEN
And My Imaginations Are AS Foul
AS VULKAN'S Stithy. (III, II, 81-86)
Be kind, look at Uncle without blinking.
He either give out something herself
At the sight of the scene, or this ghost
There was a demon evil, and in my thoughts
The same chad, as in the forge of the volcano.
But the king ran out of the room - and the prince could not even dream about such an eloquent reaction. He triumphs, but, according to the Metakov, the remark of Bradley, it is quite clear that most of the courtiers perceived (or pretended to be perceived) "Killing Gonzago" as the audacity of a young heir in relation to the king, and not as the accusation of the latter in murder. Moreover, Bradley tends to believe that the Prince worries how to take revenge on his father, without sacrificing his life and freedom: he does not want his name to be disgraced and is made to oblivion. And his death words can serve that evidence.
Prince Danish could not be satisfied with only the fact that it is necessary to take revenge on the Father. Of course, he understands that it is obliged to do it, although he is in doubt. Bradley called this assumption of the "theory of conscience", counting: Hamlet is confident that it is necessary to talk to the ghost, but subconsciously his morality opposes this act. Although he himself may not be aware. Returning to the episode when Hamlet does not kill Claudius during prayer, Bradley notes: Hamlet understands that he will kill the villain at that moment, his soul of his enemy will go to heaven when he dreams of sending him to the blazing peckel of hell:
NOW MIGHT I DO IT PAT, NOW 'A IS APRAYING,
And now i'll do 't. And so a 'goes to heaven,
And SO Am I Revenged. That Would be scanned. (III, III, 73-75)
He prays. What a convenient moment!
Blow with a sword, and he will take to the sky,
And here is letters. Is not it? We will analyze.
It can also be explained by the fact that Hamlet is a high morality man and considers it below his dignity to execute his enemy when he cannot defend himself. Bradley believes that the moment when the hero spared the king, is swivel during the action of the whole drama. However, it is difficult to agree with his opinion that the Hamlet "sacrifices" by many lives afterwards. It is not entirely clear that I meant the critic under these words: It is clear what happened exactly that, but, in our opinion, it was strange to criticize the prince for the act of such moral height. After all, essentially, it is obvious that neither the Hamlet, nor anyone else simply could not foresee such a bloody junction.
So, Hamlet decides to wait with the act of revenge, the good-to-native Razdy King. But then how to explain the fact that Hamlet without praying is picked up by Polonia, hiding behind the tapestries in the queen-mother room? Everything is much more difficult. His soul is in constant motion. Although the king would also be defenseless behind the curtains, as at the time of prayer, the Hamlet is so excited, the chance comes to him so unexpectedly that he has no time to think about him as it should.
etc.................
According to the modern illustrated encyclopedia "Literature and language":
"Eternal images" are mythological, biblical, folklore and literary characters, vividly expressed moral and ideological content for all mankind and received multiple incarnation in the literature of different countries and epochs (Prometheus, Odyssey, Cain, Faust, Mephistofel, Hamlet, Don Juan , Don Quixote, etc.). Each era and each writer is investing in the interpretation of one or another eternal image of its meaning, which is due to their multi-stage and multigid, the richness of the opportunities laid in them (for example, Cain was interpreted and as a swarming-fratricike, and as a bold Bog Car; Faust - like a magician and Winner, as a lover of pleasures, as a scientist, obsessed with passion for knowledge, and as a seeker of the meaning of human life; Don Quixote - as a figure comic and tragic, etc.). Often, the literature creates characters-variations of eternal images that are attached by other nat. Features, or they are placed in a different time (as a rule, a closer author of a new work) and / or in an unusual situation ("Hamlet Schigrovsky County" I.S. Turgenev, "Antigona" J. Anuu), sometimes it is ironically reduced or parody (Satyric Tale N. Elin and V. Kashayeva "Mephistopel Error", 1981). Close to eternal images and characters whose names have become nominated in the world and nat. Literature: Tartuf and Zhurden ("Tartuf" and "Messenger in the nobility" Zh.B. Moliere), Carmen (Novylla P. Merim's eponymous), Molkhalin ("Mount from Wit" A.S. Griboyedova), Khlestakov, Plushkin (" Auditor "and" Dead Souls "N.V. Gogol) and others.
Unlike the archetype, reflecting primarily "genetic", the initial features of the human psyche, the eternal images are always a product of conscious activities, have their own "nationality", the time of emergence and, therefore, reflect not only the specifics of the universal perception of the world, but also a certain historical and Cultural experience fixed in an artistic image.
Directory of Literary Terms gives the following definition:
"Eternal images" are artistic images of works of world literature, in which the writer on the basis of the life material of his time managed to create a durable generalization applied in the life of subsequent generations. These images acquire a none meaning and retain the artistic value until our time.
So, in Prometheus, the features of a person are generalized, ready to give life to the benefit of the people; In Antee embodies the inexhaustible force, which a person gives an inseparable connection with his native land, with his people; In Fausta - the indomitable desire of a person to know the world. This determines the value of the images of Prometheus, Antea and Faust and appeal to them advanced representatives of public thought. The image of Prometheus, for example, valued K. Marx extremely highly.
The image of the Don Quixote, created by the famous Spanish writer by Mighel Survantes (XVI - XVII centuries), personifies the noble, but devoid of life soil; Hamlet, the hero of the tragedy of Shakespeare (XVI - the beginning of the XVII century), is a none image of a split, spoken by the contradictions of a person. Tartuf, Khlestakov, Plushkin, Don Juan and the similar images live for many years in the minds of a number of human generations, as they are generalized typical shortcomings of a person of the past, sustainable traits of human character, brought up by feudal and capitalist society.
"Eternal images" are created in a certain historical setting and only in connection with it can be completely understood. They are "eternal", that is, applicable to other epochs, to the extent that the features of human character are resistant in these images. In the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, there are often appeals to such images to use them in a new historical setting (for example, Prometheus images, Don Quixote, etc.).
In the context of this course, the definition of "eternal images" from the reference book of literary terms is much closer in meaning than a similar definition of a modern illustrated encyclopedia, I will take it as a basis.
So, "Eternal images" are artistic images of works of world literature, in which the writer on the basis of life material of his time managed to create a durable generalization applicable in the life of subsequent generations.
If people could meet different centuries and talk about literature or just about life, then the names of Hamlet, Faust, Don Juan would unite interlocutors. These heroes seem to come out of the works and live their independent life, their portraits are trying to create artists and sculptors, composers, playwrights, poets devote them their works. There are many and monuments in the world with the heroes that have come down from the pages of books.
Tragic Hamlet, Slutric Don Juan, Mysterious Faust, Dreamed Don Quixote - It is these images that I explored in my work.
"Eternal images" - Artistic images of works of world literature, in which the writer on the basis of the vital material of his time managed to create a durable generalization applicable in the life of subsequent generations. These images acquire a none meaning and retain the artistic value until our time.
So, in Prometheus, the features of a person are generalized, ready to give life to the benefit of the people; In Antee embodies the inexhaustible force, which a person gives an inseparable connection with his native land, with his people; In Fausta - the indomitable desire of a person to know the world. This determines the value of the images of Prometheus, Antea and Faust and appeal to them advanced representatives of public thought. The image of Prometheus, for example, valued K. Marx extremely highly.
The image of the Don Quixote, created by the famous Spanish writer by Mighel Survantes (XVI - XVII centuries), personifies the noble, but devoid of life soil; Hamlet, the hero of the tragedy of Shakespeare (XVI - the beginning of the XVII century), is a none image of a split, spoken by the contradictions of a person. Tartuf, Khlestakov, Plushkin, Don Juan and the similar images live for many years in the minds of a number of human generations, as they are generalized typical shortcomings of a person of the past, sustainable traits of human character, brought up by feudal and capitalist society.
"Eternal images" are created in a certain historical setting and only in connection with it can be completely understood. They are "eternal", that is, applicable to other epochs, to the extent that the features of human character are resistant in these images. In the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, there are often appeals to such images to use them in a new historical setting (for example, Prometheus images, Don Quixote, etc.).