Everything about realism in literature. Realism as a literary trend: general characteristics

It is customary to call realism a trend in art and literature, whose representatives strove for a realistic and truthful reproduction of reality. In other words, the world was portrayed as typical and simple with all its advantages and disadvantages.

Common features of realism

Realism in literature is distinguished by a number of common features. First, life was portrayed in images that corresponded to reality. Second, reality for representatives this trend became a means of knowing oneself and the world around. Third, the images on the pages literary works differed in the veracity of details, specifics and typing. Interestingly, the art of the realists, with their life-affirming positions, sought to consider reality in development. Realists discovered new social and psychological relationships.

The rise of realism

Realism in literature as a form artistic creation originated in the Renaissance, developed during the Enlightenment and showed itself as an independent trend only in the 30s of the 19th century. The first realists in Russia include the great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin (he is sometimes even called the ancestor of this trend) and no less outstanding writer N.V. Gogol with his novel " Dead Souls". Concerning literary criticism, then within its limits the term "realism" appeared thanks to D. Pisarev. It was he who introduced the term into journalism and criticism. Realism in 19th century literature became hallmark of that time, with its own characteristics and characteristics.

Features of literary realism

Representatives of realism in literature are numerous. The most famous and outstanding writers include Stendhal, C. Dickens, O. Balzac, L.N. Tolstoy, G. Flaubert, M. Twain, F.M. Dostoevsky, T. Mann, M. Twain, W. Faulkner and many others. They all worked on development creative method realism and embodied in their works the most striking features of it, inextricably linked with their unique author's features.

The depiction of life in images that correspond to the essence of life phenomena by typing the facts of reality... The spirit of artistic objectivity is characteristic of the art of realism. The depiction of the world in a realistic work, as a rule, is not abstract and conventional. A realist writer reproduces reality in life-like forms, creates an illusion of reality, makes people believe in their characters, seeks to make them alive, to convey artistic persuasiveness to them. Realistic art depicts depths human soul, special meaning gives the motivation of the hero's actions, the study of the circumstances of his life, the reasons prompting the character to act this way and not otherwise.
True reflection of the world, wide coverage of reality. Any genuine art reflects reality to a certain extent, that is, it corresponds to life truth... However, realism as a method with the greatest consistency embodied the principles of life-true reflection of reality. IS Turgenev, speaking about the connection between art and reality, asserted: "I always need a meeting with a living person, direct acquaintance with some life fact, before starting to create a type or to compose a plot." Pointing to real basis plot of the novel "Crime and Punishment" and FM Dostoevsky.

Historicism. Realism subdued everything artistic means the task of an increasingly multifaceted and deep study of man in his relationship with society, with the historical process. Historicism in literature is usually understood as the concept of reality, embodied in images, which develops naturally and progressively, of the connection of times in their qualitative differences.

Attitude to literature as a means of a person's knowledge of himself and the world around him. Realist writers turn to the cognitive possibilities of art, trying to deeply, fully and comprehensively explore life, depicting reality with its inherent contradictions. Realism recognizes the artist's right to illuminate all aspects of life without restriction. The basis of any realistic work put life facts that have creative refraction. In realistic works, each significant manifestation of individuality is depicted as conditioned by certain circumstances, the artist seeks to reveal the characteristic, repeated in the individual, natural in what seems to be accidental.

Realist writers, following the sentimentalists and romantics, showed interest in the life of the human soul, deepened the understanding of human psychology, reflected in works of art the work of human consciousness and subconsciousness through the identification of the hero's intentions, the motives of his actions, experiences and a change in mental states.

Reflection of the connection between man and the environment... Realism gravitates towards a multifaceted and potentially exhaustive exploration and depiction of the world in all the richness of its connections, organically recreated by the artist. Realist writers create different situations disclosure of character: I. A. Goncharov in the novel "Oblomov" shows the destructiveness for the hero of an ordinary situation, a familiar environment; Dostoevsky's heroes, on the contrary, find themselves in distressing situations generated by the imperfection of the social order; L.N. Tolstoy includes his heroes in the cycle of significant historical events that reveal the essence of a particular character. The art of realism shows the interaction of man with the environment, the impact of the era, social conditions on human destinies, the influence of social circumstances on morals and spiritual world of people. At the same time, a realistic work substantiates what is happening not only by socio-historical circumstances, but also by the psychology of the hero, his moral choice, that is, the mental structure of the individual (in contrast to the works of the naturalistic school, in which a person was portrayed as a derivative of heredity and environment). Thus, a realistic work explores the ability of a person to rise above circumstances, to resist them, showing free will.

Typification of characters and circumstances. In literary criticism, F. Engels's formula has been fixed, according to which “realism presupposes, in addition to the truthfulness of details, a truthful reproduction of typical characters in typical circumstances. " For a realistic work, it is important to establish connections between these two objects of the image. Literary hero realistic works are created as a generalized image (type) of human individuality, most characteristic of a certain social environment, it embodies characteristic signs persons of a certain category. Myself creative process the creation of typical images is usually called typing. Literary forms: Epic: novel, story, poem, story. Lyrics: song, elegy. Drama: tragedy, historical chronicles. Of course, first of all, these are F.M.Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy. The works of the late Pushkin (who are rightfully considered the ancestor of realism in Russian literature) also became outstanding examples of literature in this direction - historical drama"Boris Godunov", the story " Captain's daughter"," Dubrovsky "," Belkin's Tales ", Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov's novel" A Hero of Our Time ", as well as Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol's poem" Dead Souls ". In Russia, Dmitry Pisarev was the first to widely introduce the term "realism" into publicism and criticism, until that time the term "realism" was used by Herzen in a philosophical sense, as a synonym for the concept of "materialism".

The second half of the 19th century is characterized by the emergence of such a trend as realism. He immediately followed the romanticism that appeared in the first half of this century, but at the same time radically different from it. Realism in literature showed a typical person in a typical situation and tried to reflect reality as plausibly as possible.

The main features of realism

Realism has a certain set of features that show the differences from the romanticism that preceded it and from the naturalism that followed it.
1. Typification in a way. The object of the work in realism is always ordinary person with all its advantages and disadvantages. Accuracy in depicting human-specific details is a key rule of realism. However, the authors do not forget about such nuances as individual characteristics, and they are harmoniously woven into a whole image. This distinguishes realism from romanticism, where the character is individual.
2. Typification of the situation. The situation in which the hero of the work finds himself must be characteristic of the time being described. The unique situation is more characteristic of naturalism.
3. Precision in the image. Realists have always described the world as it was, reducing the author's perception of the world to a minimum. Romantics acted completely differently. The world in their works was demonstrated through the prism of their own perception of the world.
4. Determinism. The situation in which the heroes of the works of realists find themselves is only the result of actions committed in the past. The heroes are shown in development, which is shaped by the world around them. The key role in this is played by interpersonal relationships... The personality of the character and his actions are influenced by many factors: social, religious, moral and others. Often in a work there is a development and change of personality under the influence of social factors.
5. Conflict: the hero is society. This conflict is not unique. It is also characteristic of the trends preceding realism: classicism and romanticism. However, only realism considers the most typical situations. He is interested in the relationship between the crowd and the individual, the consciousness of the mass and the individual.
6. Historicism. Literature in the 19th century demonstrates a person inseparably from the environment and period of history. The authors studied the lifestyle, norms of behavior in society at a certain stage, before writing your works.

History of origin

It is believed that realism begins to emerge already in the Renaissance. Characteristic for realism heroes include such large-scale images as Don Quixote, Hamlet and others. During this period, a person represents as the crown of creation, which is not typical for more later periods its development. During the Age of Enlightenment appears educational realism... The main character is the hero from the bottom.
In the 1830s, people from the circle of romantics formed realism as a new literary direction... They strive not to portray the world in all its versatility and abandon the two worlds familiar to romantics.
By the 40s, critical realism was becoming the leading trend. However on initial stage the formation of this literary movement, the newly minted realists still use the residual characteristics of romanticism.

These include:
the cult of esotericism;
the image of bright atypical personalities;
the use of elements of fiction;
segregation of heroes into positive and negative.
That is why the realism of the writers of the first half of the century was often criticized by the writers of the late 19th century. However, it is at an early stage that the main features of this direction are formed. First of all, this is a conflict characteristic of realism. In the literature of the former romantics, the opposition of man and society is clearly traced.
In the second half of the XIX century, realism takes on new forms. And it is not for nothing that this period is called "the triumph of realism." The social and political situation contributed to the fact that the authors began to study the nature of man, as well as his behavior in certain situations. Started to play big role social connections between individuals.
A huge impact the development of realism had the science of that time. In 1859 Darwin published his work "The Origin of Species". Kant's positivist philosophy also contributes to artistic practice. Realism in the literature of the 19th century acquires an analytical, studying character. At the same time, the writers refuse to analyze the future; they were of little interest to them. The emphasis was on modernity, which became the key theme of the reflection critical realism.

Main representatives

Realism in the literature of the 19th century left many brilliant works. By the first half of the century, Stendhal, O. Balzac, Mérimée worked. They were the ones who were criticized by their followers. Their works have a subtle connection with romanticism. For example, the realism of Mérimée and Balzac is permeated with mysticism and esotericism, the heroes of Dickens are vivid carriers of one pronounced trait or quality, and Stendhal portrayed outstanding personalities.
Later, G. Flaubert, M. Twain, T. Mann, M. Twain, W. Faulkner were involved in the development of the creative method. Each author introduced individual characteristics into his works. V Russian literature realism is represented by the works of F.M.Dostoevsky, L.N.Tolstoy and A.S. Pushkin.

As a term, realism was first used in France only in 1850, and the first use of the term had nothing to do with literature. In England, they began to talk about realistic art since 1880. In Russia, this term was used in 1857 in Annenkov's article "Notes on Russian Literature." Until 57, they used: "real school", "natural school". In the 20th century, it was generally accepted that the Russian realistic tradition began with critical realism (Gorky's term).

Modern literary theory accepts:

Realism(lat.realiz - material, real) is an artistic method or a way of depicting the world and a person, following which the artist shows life in typical images in accordance with the principle of life-likeness... Realists believe that art is a means of cognizing a person in his interaction with the world around him, and the realist is sure that the environment, life circumstances have a decisive influencing influence on human destinies. One of the main tasks of a realist artist is considered to be the exclusion of random facts and phenomena from the field of vision. Of all the previous art systems, realism is closest to romanticism, because realism inherits, discovered by romanticism, the inherent value of the individual.

The first realistic work is considered "A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow".

But "Eugene Onegin" is the first realistic novel, "an encyclopedia of Russian life."

The depiction of reality in its entirety of intellectual reflection. Pushkin raised universal philosophical questions.

"From Pinda - Monte" 1838

Pushkin made several formal changes to convey his reasoning:

clarification of the concept of the language of fiction; "The diversity of the world is reflected in the use of all linguistic means." The material basis for the formation of the Pushkin language was the discussions of that time about the language, which were led by innovators.

The main concepts of the Pushkin language:

Clarity and brevity of expression may well be a property of literature. “Speak simply, you are smart enough for this” Koshansky.

Pushkin is convinced that new language fiction- this is a language arising from the convergence of common and book dialects.

Literature allows for stylistic confusion.

The language of literature is a language that uses an inexhaustible folklore wealth: idioms and Russianisms.

Pushkin considered positive influence oral speech on poetic syntax.

"Only the blind hen, all the grains of wheat"

Creating new literature, Pushkin was critical of the principles of depicting the world and man, invented by his literary predecessors.

First, a dispute with the classicists. The classicists believed that there are objects that can never become the beauty of poetry. Secondly, Pushkin addressed serious reproaches to Karamzin, overphrasing, verbal redundancy, which gives rise to sluggish metaphors that serve nothing. Pushkin opposed the substitution of common language by simple thinking: simple words can convey a deep meaning,

main principles: accuracy and brevity.

The dispute between Pushkin and the romantics concerned romantic landscapes and romantic elements in the character of the hero.

Pushkin substantiates the exceptional place in realistic creativity for the principles of nationality and historicism. These principles were embodied in their entirety in the tragedy "Boris Godunov".

"Boris Godunov"

The playwright, in contrast to the poet, prose writer, has the ability to depict only part of the means of expression.

This tragedy is based on historical material. The plot of this work opens with the events of February 1808, Boris Godunov is called to the kingdoms, a man who in reality already possessed power. The formal delay was associated with the blood of an innocent baby, but the patriarch and the boyars persuade him and he ascends the throne.

Historicism and nationality are the basic principles of depicting the world and man in a realistic manner.

Historicism is the ability to understand and depict the leading trends in social development that are manifested in historical events and individual destinies.

In order to comply with this principle, the artist must have the deepest knowledge of history. The principle also presupposes a special relationship between historical material and modern material, to match events.

Pushkin is not limited only to the official "History of the Russian State" by Karamzin, but also to the annals and folklore.

The principle of nationality... In the pre-Pushkin era, the main manifestation of this principle was considered the image of folk life and heroes from the people. Pushkin insisted that nationality is manifested in the look at the depicted objects. The uniqueness of Boris Godunov lies in the fact that this view is expressed by a unique, collective character. The people in the image of Cannon ceases to be an extra, turns into an impartial judge who embodies the judgment of history.

The principle of nationality affects the language of the work.

Realism at the turn of the century remained a large-scale and influential literary movement. Suffice it to say that L. Tolstoy and A. Chekhov still lived and worked in the 1900s.

The brightest talents among the new realists were writers who united in the Moscow circle "Wednesday" in the 1890s, and in the early 1900s formed the circle of permanent authors of the publishing house "Knowledge" (one of its owners and the actual leader was M. Gorky). In addition to the leader of the association in him in different years included L. Andreev, I. Bunin, V. Veresaev, N. Garin-Mikhailovsky, A. Kuprin, I. Shmelev and other writers. With the exception of I. Bunin, there were no major poets among the realists; they showed themselves primarily in prose and, less noticeably, in drama.

The influence of this group of writers was largely due to the fact that it was she who inherited the traditions of the great Russian literature XIX century. However, the immediate predecessors of the new generation of realists, already in the 1880s, seriously renewed the appearance of the trend. Creative searches late L. Tolstoy, V. Korolenko, A. Chekhov introduced into artistic practice much that was unusual by the standards of classical realism. The experience of A. Chekhov was especially important for the next generation of realists.

Chekhov's world includes many different human characters, but with all the originality of his characters are similar in that they all lack something of the most important. They try to join real life, but, as a rule, they never find the desired spiritual harmony. Neither love, nor passionate service to science or social ideals, nor faith in God - none of the previously reliable means of gaining wholeness can help the hero. The world in his perception has lost a single center, this world is far from hierarchical completeness and cannot be embraced by any of the worldview systems.

That is why life according to any ideological template, a worldview based on fixed system social and ethical values, Chekhov interpreted as vulgarity. Life turns out to be vulgar, repeating the patterns set by tradition, devoid of spiritual independence. None of the Chekhov's heroes have unconditional righteousness, so the Chekhovian type of conflict looks unusual. Comparing heroes on one or another basis, Chekhov most often does not give preference to any of them. It is not "moral investigation" that is important to him, but the clarification of the reasons for mutual misunderstanding between people. This is why the writer refuses to be the prosecutor or the advocate of his heroes.

Outwardly mild plot situations in his mature prose and drama are designed to reveal the misconceptions of the characters, to determine the degree of development of their self-awareness and the degree of personal responsibility associated with it. In general, the various moral, ideological and stylistic contrasts in Chekhov's world are losing their absolute character, becoming relative.

In a word, Chekhov's world is a world of fluid relations, where various subjective truths interact. In such works, the role of subjective reflection (introspection, reflections of the heroes, their understanding of their actions) increases. The author controls the tone of his assessments well: it cannot be unconditionally heroic or recklessly satirical. Subtle lyrical irony is perceived by the reader as a typical Chekhovian tonality.

Thus, the generation of realist writers at the beginning of the 20th century inherited new principles of writing from Chekhov - with much greater freedom of authorship than before; with a much wider arsenal artistic expression; with an obligatory sense of proportion for the artist, which was ensured by the increased inner self-criticism and self-reflection.

Making generous use of some of Chekhov's findings, the realists of the turn of the century did not always possess the latter of the above-mentioned qualities of an artist. Where Chekhov saw the diversity and relative equivalence of options for life behavior, his young followers were fond of one of them. If Chekhov, for example, shows how strong the life inertia is, which often negates the hero's initial desire to change, then the realist of the Gorky generation sometimes absolutes the very strong-willed impulse of a person, without testing it for strength and therefore replacing the real complexity of a person with a dream of “ strong people". Where Chekhov predicted a long-term perspective, urging one drop to "squeeze the slave out of oneself," the "knowledgeist" writer gave a much more optimistic forecast of the "birth of a man."

Nevertheless, it is extremely important that the generation of realists at the beginning of the 20th century inherited from Chekhov constant attention to the person's personality, his individuality. What are the main features of realism late XIX- the beginning of the XX century?

Themes and heroes of realistic literature. The thematic range of works of realists at the turn of the century is wider than that of their predecessors; for most writers at this time thematic constancy is uncharacteristic. Rapid changes in Russia forced them to vary the subject matter, to invade the previously reserved thematic layers. At that time, the spirit of artels was strong in Gorky's writers' environment: through joint efforts, the Znanievites created a wide panorama of the country undergoing renewal. The large-scale thematic capture was palpable in the titles of the works that made up the collections "Knowledge" (it was this type of publications - collections and almanacs - that spread in the literature of the beginning of the century). So, for example, the table of contents of the 12th collection "Knowledge" resembled sections of a certain sociological research: the names of the same type “In the city”, “In the family”, “In prison”, “In the village” denoted the spheres of life being examined.

Elements of sociological descriptiveness in realism are not yet overcome legacy of socio-essay prose of the 60s and 80s, in which the orientation towards empirical research of reality was strong. However, the prose of the "Znanievites" was distinguished by a more poignant artistic issues... The crisis of all forms of life - this is the conclusion that the readers of most of their works summed up. The important thing was the changed attitude of realists to the possibility of transforming life. In the literature of the 60s and 80s, the living environment was portrayed as sedentary, possessing a terrible force of inertia. Now the circumstances of a person's existence are interpreted as being devoid of stability and subject to his will. In relations between man and the environment, the realists of the turn of the century emphasized the ability of man not only to withstand the adverse effects of the environment, but also to actively rebuild life.

The typology of characters was also noticeably updated in realism. Outwardly, the writers followed tradition: recognizable types could be found in their works " little man"Or an intellectual who has survived the spiritual drama. The peasant remained one of the central figures in their prose. But even the traditional "peasant" characterology has changed: more and more often in stories and stories appeared new type A "pensive" man. The characters got rid of sociological averaging, became more diverse in psychological characteristics and attitude. “The diversity of the soul” of the Russian person is a constant motif in I. Bunin's prose. He was one of the first in realism to widely use foreign material in his works ("Brothers", "Chang's Dreams", "The Lord from San Francisco"). The use of such material has become characteristic of other writers as well (M. Gorky, E. Zamyatin).

Genres and style features realistic prose. The genre system and stylistics of realistic prose were significantly updated at the beginning of the 20th century.

The central place in the genre hierarchy was occupied at this time by the most mobile story and essay. The novel practically disappeared from the genre repertoire of realism: the largest epic genre became a story. Not a single novel in exact meaning this term was not written by the most significant realists of the early 20th century - I. Bunin and M. Gorky.

Beginning with the work of A. Chekhov, the importance of the formal organization of the text has noticeably grown in realistic prose. Certain methods and elements of form received greater independence in the artistic structure of the work than before. So, for example, more varied was used artistic detail, at the same time, the plot increasingly lost the meaning of the main composite means and began to play a subordinate role. The expressiveness in the transmission of the details of the visible and audible world has deepened. In this respect, I. Bunin, B. Zaitsev, I. Shmelev stood out. Specific feature Bunin style, for example, there was an amazing fusion of visual and auditory, olfactory and tactile characteristics in the transmission of the surrounding world. Realist writers attached greater importance to the use of rhythmic and phonetic effects of artistic speech, the transmission individual characteristics oral speech of characters (mastery of this element of form was characteristic of I. Shmelev).

Having lost, in comparison with the classics of the 19th century, the epic scale and integrity of the vision of the world, the realists of the beginning of the century compensated for these losses with a heightened perception of life and greater expression in expression author's position... The general logic of the development of realism at the beginning of the century was to strengthen the role of heightened expressive forms. The writer was now important not so much the proportions of the reproduced fragment of life, but the "power of the cry", the intensity of the expression of the author's emotions. This was achieved by sharpening plot situations when close-up described extremely dramatic, "borderline" states in the life of the characters. The figurative series of works was built on contrasts, sometimes extremely sharp, “screaming”; the leitmotif principles of narration were actively used: the frequency of figurative and lexical repetitions increased.

Expression in style was especially characteristic of L. Andreev, A. Serafimovich. It is also noticeable in some of the works of M. Gorky. There are many journalistic elements in the work of these writers - “montage” joining of statements, aphorism, rhetorical repetitions; the author often comments on what is happening, intrudes into the plot with lengthy journalistic digressions (examples of such digressions can be found in M. Gorky's novels "Childhood" and "In People"). In the stories and dramas of L. Andreev, the plot and the arrangement of the characters were often deliberately schematic: the writer was attracted by universal, “eternal” types and life situations.

However, within the limits of the work of one writer, a single style was rarely maintained: more often the artists of the word combined several style options. For example, in the works of A. Kuprin, M. Gorky, L. Andreev, precise depiction coexisted with generalized romantic imagery, elements of life-likeness - with artistic conventions.

Stylish two-part, an element of artistic eclecticism - a characteristic sign of the realism of the beginning

XX century. Of the major writers of that time, only I. Bunin avoided diversity in his work: both his poetic and prose works preserved the harmony of precise descriptiveness and the author's lyricism. The instability of style in realism was a consequence of the transition and the well-known artistic compromise of the direction. On the one hand, realism remained faithful to the traditions bequeathed by the previous century, on the other, it began to interact with new trends in art.

Realist writers gradually adapted to new forms of artistic search, although this process was not always peaceful. Further along the path of rapprochement with modernist aesthetics went L. Andreev, B. Zaitsev, S. Sergeev-Tsensky, somewhat later - E. Zamyatin. Most of them were often reproached by critics - adherents of the old traditions - of artistic apostasy, or even ideological desertion. However, the process of renewal of realism as a whole was artistically fruitful, and its total achievements at the turn of the century turned out to be significant.