Russian poetry of the 19th century experienced at least three genuine upsurges in its development. The first, relatively speaking, dates back to the beginning of the century and is marked by the name of Pushkin. Another long-recognized poetic rise occurs at the turn of two centuries - the nineteenth and twentieth - and is associated primarily with the work of Alexander Blok. Finally, the third, in the words of a modern researcher, “poetic era” is the middle of the past so far, the 60s, although it is in poetry that the so-called “sixties” chronologically shift more noticeably to the early 50s.
In the 40s, significant and fundamentally important phenomena took place in Russian poetry. Thus, in the mid-40s, Nekrasov’s original creativity took shape, and in the 40s, Fet began to create. And yet, in this decade, in general, poetry fades into the background, which is confirmed by the external picture of literary life: a limited number of published poetry collections, the modest place occupied by poetry in magazines. And the reasons must be sought not only in the arbitrariness of publishers or the lack of aesthetic sense among critics - one CAN point out, for example, a very restrained attitude towards poetry in the second half of the 40s, even among Belinsky. In the literature, analytical tendencies characteristic primarily of prose prevailed. Meanwhile, the attempt made at the very end of the 40s by such a sensitive editor and publisher as Nekrasov to revive interest in poetry seems symptomatic. A whole series of articles devoted to the poetic phenomena of the era is being planned in Sovremennik. Nekrasov’s famous article “Russian minor poets” was written within this framework.
All this was a foretaste of a new rise in poetry, signs of which were already visible from the beginning of the 50s and which by the mid-50s acquired unusual swiftness. Poetry again receives its citizenship on the pages of magazines, becomes a full-blooded and independent participant in the literary process, the subject of critical analysis and theoretical debate. The best critics again write a lot and with interest about it: Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, Druzhinin and Botkin. Poetry collections come out and often become truly outstanding events in literary and social life. First of all, this applies to Nekrasov’s collection of 1856. Books by Fet, Nikitin, Ogarev, Polonsky, Ap. Maykova and others. The era called specifically to poetry, and not to poetry, of which there was never a shortage. The very character of poetry also changes qualitatively. Quite a few new poets are appearing: Sluchevskin, for example, or Nikitin. What is happening, however, is not just an ordinary generational change. The process of becoming poetry looks much more complicated. Characteristic is the revival to a new life of poets who had long been established, but were almost silent in the “non-poetic” 40s. Perhaps what is most characteristic in this sense of a poet such as , is his double revival: firstly, attention to his very work, which already existed, its revival in the reader’s perception and, secondly, his extraordinary creative activity itself. We can talk about a kind of revival even of Nekrasov, who in the 1940s was experiencing a clear creative crisis, wrote little or no poetry (throughout 1849) and directly stated that he was no longer writing poetry. On the other hand, a writer like Turgenev, who created many poetic works in the “prosaic” 40s, completely parted with poetry in the “poetic” 50s.
Russian poetry after Pushkin, it carried opposing principles, expressed the increased complexity and inconsistency of life. Clearly defined and polarized, two directions are developing: democratic and “pure art.” When we talk about two poetic camps, we need to keep in mind the great diversity and complexity of relations both within each of the camps and in the relations between them, especially if we take into account the evolution of social and literary life, “Pure” poets wrote civil poetry: from liberal- accusatory (Ya. Polonsky) to protective (Ap. Maikov). Democratic poets experienced a certain (and also positive) influence from the poets of “pure art”: Nikitin, for example, in his poetry of nature. The flourishing of Khatir poetry is mainly associated with the democratic movement. Nevertheless, “pure art” put forward a number of major satirical talents: N. Shcherbina and especially A.K. Tolstoy, who wrote many satirical works - both independent and within the framework of collective authorship, creating the famous Kozma Prutkov. And yet, in general, there is a fairly clear divide between poetic movements. In the confrontation and confrontation of these two trends, intensified social struggle often manifested itself. The poles could perhaps be designated by two names: Nekrasov and Fet. “Both poets began to write almost simultaneously,” the critics stated, “both experienced the same phases of social life, both made a name for themselves in Russian literature... both, finally, are distinguished by far from ordinary talent, and for all that in poetic there is almost not a single common point in the activities of each of them.”
More often, the Nekrasov school - and here we are talking about just such a school - means poets of the 50s - 70s, ideologically and artistically closest to him, who experienced the direct influence of the great poet, even organizationally united in essence due to that circumstance that most of them were grouped around a few democratic publications: Nekrasov’s Sovremennik, Russian Word, Iskra.
If your homework is on the topic: » Russian poetry of the 19th century If you find it useful, we will be grateful if you post a link to this message on your page on your social network.
Latest news
Categories
News
Essays on the topic
- At the same time when poems about exploits were being created in Northern France, in the South, independent of the North, in Provence, aesthetically sensitive critics grasped the need to overcome the negative extremes of each of the established poetic movements. Such critics, in particular, turned out to be M. L. Exam: Russian Literature Poetry of the 1950s and 1960s. The phenomenon of poets of the sixties. At this time, poetry is experiencing a huge creative upsurge. Direct impact on it At the turn of a new period in the life of the country and in his own work, Mayakovsky has a need to reconsider and before K. F. Ryleev (1795-1826) In the literary movement of the 10-20s of the 19th century, full of acute struggle between in various directions, occupies a very prominent place
Niobium in its compact state is a lustrous silvery-white (or gray when powdered) paramagnetic metal with a body-centered cubic crystal lattice.
Noun. Saturating the text with nouns can become a means of linguistic figurativeness. The text of A. A. Fet’s poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”, in his
In the second half of the 19th century there was a surge in Russian lyric poetry. Just listing the most famous names of poets says a lot - Apollo Nikolaevich Maykov (1821-1897), Apollo Alexandrovich Grigoriev (1882-1864), Yakov Petrovich Polonsky (1819-1898), Ivan Savich Nikitin (1824-1861), Alexey Nikolaevich Apukhtin ( 1840-1893), Konstantin Konstantinovich Sluchevsky (1837-1904), Semyon Yakovlevich Nadson (1862-1887), Konstantin Mikhailovich Fofanov (1862-1911), Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803-1873), Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875), Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820-1892), Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov (1821-1877/78).
Unfortunately, the triumph of poetry was short-lived. In Russian literature, prose is developing, especially large epic forms. The triumph of prose turned out to be more durable and is associated with the name of I. Turgenev, F. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy. And yet the poetry of the second half XIX century played a huge role in the development of Russian literature and culture in general. Poetry was a multifaceted system in which various forms of manifestation of the lyrical “I” were present. To understand this “I”, the reader must have an open heart and soul. N.V. Gogol noted: “Reading a lyrical work properly is not a trifle at all.”
It is important to remember that poetry developed in two directions - Pushkin's and Gogol's. The romantics of the 19th century (especially A.S. Pushkin) proclaimed its independence from the authorities and the people, and considered the poet a creator inspired by God. The programmatic poem for them was A.S. Pushkin "The Poet and the Crowd". The slogan is the final words “Not for everyday worries, / Not for self-interest, not for battles, / We were born for inspiration, / For sweet sounds and prayers.” The ideas of the romantics of the beginning of the century were picked up by the romantics of the second half of the 19th century and substantiated the theory of “pure art”. The main provisions of “pure art” can be formulated as follows: art should not depict reality and should not play a social role. The purpose of art is to create beauty, i.e. poetic, world. Art should exist for the elite.
The opposite point of view on civil art was substantiated by N.V. Gogol in the poem “Dead Souls” (beginning of the seventh chapter). He compared the creator of “art for art’s sake” and the writer-accuser. The principles of the “civil” direction in poetry of the second half of the 19th century are most consistently and vividly implemented in the poetry of N.A. Nekrasova.
Gogol proclaimed and embodied the idea that poetry should serve the people. Nekrasov made the peasant the main character of poetry, and the struggle for his happiness - the pathos of his work. The ideas of “pure art” are the basis of A.A.’s worldview and artistic system. Feta. From the point of view of the history of poetry, Pushkin and Gogol’s movements enriched the literature, culture, and poetry of the 19th century and prepared many phenomena in the cultural life of Russia.
The poets of the second half of the 19th century turned out to be receptive to life, to the spiritual atmosphere of Russian society. They continued and developed the traditions of the Russian poetic school of the 18th - early 19th centuries. At the same time, poets were looking for a new poetic language, original forms of expression. They were concerned about issues of national identity; the relationship between good and evil; death and immortality; spiritual generosity of people. A feature of Russian poetry of the 19th century is the magic of sound and words. I. Nikitin conveys the finest shades of color, shape and sound. Landscape lyrics are developing intensively (A. Maikov, “Landscape”; I. Koltsov, “South and North”; K. Sluchevsky, “Oh, don’t scold me for the fact that I lived aimlessly...”, etc.).
The song character, folklore, Russian antiquity, the beauty of Russian nature, the originality of the Russian national character became the source of Russian poetry. Alexander Blok called A. Grigoriev’s poem “The Gypsy Hungarian” “one of a kind pearls of Russian lyricism.” The “guitar” nature of the poem, set to music, made it a popular romance. Many poems by Y. Polonsky, “Song of the Gypsy” (set to music by P.I. Tchaikovsky) became romances and folk songs. Famous romances included poems by A. Apukhtin, set to music, “A Pair of Bays,” “Crazy Nights, Sleepless Nights...”; S.Ya. Nadson “In the shadow of a pensive garden...”.
In the second half of the 19th century, Russian poetry gradually moved towards modernism. This was also the movement in world literature, especially in French poetry. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine - French symbolists were contemporaries of N. Nekrasov, the late A.A. Feta, V. Solovyova. The forerunners of modernism in Russia were primarily F.I. Tyutchev, A.A Fet.
As researcher V.S. notes. Babaevsky: “Russian poetry of the 19th century, as a whole with all its structural and chronological diversity, a manifestation of the spirit of the people, does not fit strictly within the boundaries of the century. The last decade, the 1890s, belongs in its essence to modernism. We can say that for Russian poetry the 20th century began in 1892. Poetry K.M. Fofanova and S.Ya. Nadsona connected the two centuries of Russian poetry, “golden” and “silver.”
Literature in the 19th century was, perhaps, the only form of expression of the opinions and aspirations of the common people. That is why it has incorporated politics, philosophy, ethics and aesthetics. Writers and poets became spiritual mentors, leaders, and protectors of ordinary people. It is no coincidence that E. Yevtushenko asserted that"поэт в России больше, чем поэт".!}
The golden age of poetry began its countdown with the poems of V. Zhukovsky and K. Batyushkov, uniting the names of E. Baratynsky and N. Nekrasov. It is traditionally believed that this century ended with the work of F. Tyutchev. But the central figure always remains A.S. Pushkin.
For the first time, the lyrical hero was subjected to deep psychological analysis; poets sought not just to describe the feelings of their hero, but literally to bare their soul.
On the other hand, poetry, even more than prose, becomes a conductor of socio-political ideas. Already in the 40s of the century, critical realism was acquiring more and more distinct forms. Populist poets appear, expressing the protest of the humiliated and insulted, advocating radical changes in society.
Poets of the "Golden Age" of Russian literature
E. A. Baratynsky, V. A. Zhukovsky
ABOUT founders of the romantic movement in Russian poetry, who made a huge contribution to the development of such poetic genres as ballads, elegies, and epistles. Their work served as a good school for educating a whole galaxy of Russian poets, including such geniuses as Pushkin, Lermontov and Nekrasov.
E. A. Baratynsky
Selected Poem:
V. Zhukovsky
Selected Poem:
A.S. Pushkin- an incredible value, rightfully occupying a leading place among the galaxy of brilliant poets. It is Pushkin who is considered the founder of the Russian literary language; it was his bold experiments with words and forms of lyrical work that gave real masterpieces to world culture. Mixing language styles and masterfully combining different genres, Pushkin became the forerunner of the development of realistic art.
They say that Pushkin opened a window to the world for poetry. No, it was discovered before him. But it was Pushkin who erased all the barriers that separated poetry from ordinary life. From now on, everything that surrounds an ordinary person becomes a theme for poems: desires and love, nature and seasons, fairy tales and proverbs, historical events and, most importantly, the person himself, with his understanding of beauty, boundless love for his native land and the deepest patriotism.
Selected poems:
M. Yu. Lermontov...Perhaps one of the most mysterious and mystical personalities in the history of Russian literature. In Lermontov's lyrics, the features of romanticism are clearly visible; his lyrical hero is full of experiences, thoughts and aspirations, is always in a spiritual search, full of despair and suffers from loneliness. It can be said that Lermontov’s work prepared a smooth transition from the traditions of romanticism to a realistic depiction of the lyrical hero. At the same time, Lermontov’s poetry is permeated through and through with symbols, half-hints, and prophecies. It is no coincidence that it was Lermontov’s work that served as the starting point for such a literary movement as symbolism.
Selected poems:
A. N. Pleshcheev- Russian poet, whose work occurred in the 40s of the 19th century. He is considered one of the founders of revolutionary poetry, since his poems were literally permeated with revolutionary democratic ideas. On the other hand, A. Pleshcheev’s contribution to the development of Russian poetry as a translator is invaluable. Thanks to his translations, the Russian public became acquainted with Stendhal and Zola, Heine and Beranger. Together with Pushkin and Nekrasov, A. Pleshcheev is also considered the founder of literature for children.
Selected poems:
I. Z. Surikov- the brightest representative of the so-called “peasant” literature. One of the first people from the people who managed to publish his poetry collection during his lifetime. He helped other poets and writers a lot.
Selected poems:
I.S. Nikitin- Russian poet, in whose work social themes and lyrical themes were harmoniously intertwined. He wrote about everything: about the difficult existence of peasants, about the beauty of Russian nature, about love. Many of his poems are set to music.
Selected poems:
A.A. Fet- one of the founders of the direction of “pure art” in Russian literature. A. Fet's lyrics are far from social ideas and reality. The poet knew how to completely immerse himself in the world of emotions and experiences, and brilliantly described Russian nature. In the poet's later work, an important place in his lyrics was given to philosophical issues.
Selected poems:
A.N. Maikov and A.K. Tolstoy
Poets who worked at approximately the same time as I. Nikitin and A. Fet. The work of both clearly depicts historical themes. Only A. Maikov was more drawn to the history of Byzantium and Greece, and A. K. Tolstoy was in love with Russian history. By the way, it was A.K. Tolstoy who was one of the creators of the satirical image of Kozma Prutkov.
Selected poems:
ON THE. Nekrasov- a great Russian poet who was the first to completely devote all his work to the people - “I dedicated the lyre to my people.” It was in his poems that for the first time the voice of the people sounded so loudly; in his lyrics, the entire horror of the existence of the “little man” was shown mercilessly and without embellishment.
Nekrasov’s work marked the beginning of a new stage in Russian literature - folk, about the people and for the people.
Selected poems:
F.I. Tyutchev- Russian poet, whose work is often contrasted with the work of A. Pushkin. Tyutchev's poems are the same odes and poems of Pushkin, but in an incredibly compressed version, which is why they seem so dynamic and rich to us. The nature of the image of the lyrical hero has also changed. If Pushkin's hero is hot, fiery and ebullient, then Tyutchev's hero is, on the contrary, outside of reality and above the ordinary. Tyutchev's work marked the transition from the traditions of realistic art to new, decadent moods and the emergence of the Silver Age of Russian poetry.
Selected poems:
Thus, in Russian poetry of the 19th century, two main directions coexisted: realistic - with a strong civic position and a clear attachment to the realities of the day. The main representatives of this direction were N. Nekrasov, I. Nikitin, A. Pleshcheev. The second direction adhered to the concept of “pure art” - this is the work of poets immersed in philosophy and psychology: A. Fet, A. Maykov, A. Tolstoy and F. Tyutchev.
Both directions continued to develop in the 20th century, giving rise to many literary movements and forming the basis for the emergence of the “Silver Age” of Russian poetry.
The strengthening of the romantic principle, which we have already noted in prose, also manifested itself in poetry. It is no coincidence that the leading direction in the poetic heritage of this period remained the civil direction, based on the traditions of freedom-loving lyrics. The greatest artistic achievements in line with this direction are associated with the names of A. N. Pleshcheev, A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov, L. N. Trefolev, S. D. Drozhzhin.
The poems of S. Ya. Nadson (1862-1887), whose childhood was spent in Kyiv, were widely known among democratically minded youth. Many of them are covered with romantic hope for the future triumph of the ideals of goodness and justice:
Let the holy ideal be broken and desecrated, And innocent blood flow, - Believe: the time will come - and Baal will perish, And love will return to earth!
As for dramaturgy, in its development it always correlates with the state of prose (to a lesser extent, poetry), sometimes overtaking it, sometimes lagging behind. This process is characteristic of the entire 19th century. and it is explained, in particular, by the fact that our greatest prose writers were often at the same time drama writers (it is enough to name the names of Turgenev, Leskov, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov). Only Ostrovsky devoted himself, as you know, exclusively to drama, but it was he who had the greatest impact on Russian theatrical art.
After Ostrovsky's death (1886), the situation in the Russian theater worsened. True, the playwright had numerous imitators who sought to continue to develop the images and motifs bequeathed by their great predecessor. Some plays could even enjoy temporary success, but this so-called mass drama-turgy could not create anything that would open a new page in the history of Russian theater.
A new word was said by Chekhov. Taking into account, of course, the existing traditions associated primarily with the names of Turgenev and Ostrovsky, Chekhov creates his own theater, guided by the new principles of dramatic art. We will also specifically talk about Chekhov’s work in the section dedicated to him, but here we will only note that the further development of not only Russian, but also world dramaturgy will go under the sign of Chekhov’s artistic discoveries. Material from the site
Russian literature of the last third of the 19th century. strived to artistically capture and recreate all the diversity of life phenomena in their individual originality, socio-historical and psychological complexity. The novels of Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, the satires of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the essays of Uspensky, the dramas of Ostrovsky, the novels and stories of Leskov, Garshin, Chekhov, Korolenko reflected with exceptional depth and artistic perfection the main issues of the era, new conflicts , types and characters, the most important ideological, moral, aesthetic problems posed by time. This explains the growth of world recognition of Russian literature, which was especially clearly manifested in the last third of the 19th century.
After the poetic reform of M. Lomonosov (mid-18th century), Russian lyrics developed within the framework of the syllabic-tonic system. Not only the poetic structure, but also the style is gradually reforming and approaching the modern one. Over time, poetry gets rid of ponderous archaism, from the abundance of words of Church Slavonic origin, from excessive pathos (these signs were characteristic of the founders of Russian syllabic-tonicism: M. Lomonosov, A. Trediakovsky, V. Sumarokov, V. Kapnist, etc.), from imitation Western models. Along with civil themes, the lyrics to a greater extent reflect what they should: the inner world of a person, his feelings, experiences, responses to the world of relationships around him. This is a huge merit of the Russians romantic poets, the first of which is called V.A. Zhukovsky, who introduced the Russian reading public to examples of Western European lyricism in his own translations and poetic adaptations ("The Forest King" by J.-W. Goethe; "The Cup", "The Glove", "Hector's Farewell to Andromache", "The Knight of Togenburg", etc. F. Schiller, "Rural Cemetery" by T. Gray, "Ellysium" by F. von Mattison, "Smalholm Castle" by W. Scott and many, many others). Zhukovsky also became the first original romantic poet, who was concerned with the secrets of the world and nature (“Sea”, “Flower”), the heroic exploits of the Russian army in the War of 1812, in which he saw sublime manifestations of the best qualities of Russians - true patriots of the Fatherland (“Singer” in the camp of Russian warriors"), the deep and incomprehensible world of human feelings ("Evening", "Swimmer", "Aeolian Harp", "Spring Feeling" and many others), the beauty and charm of distant antiquity ("Svetlana").
The heyday of Russian lyricism was the first three decades of the 19th century, not without reason called "golden age" of Russian poetry: the works of A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, F. Glinka, E. Baratynsky, D. Venevitinov, I. Kozlov, F. Tyutchev, poets of the “Pushkin galaxy” (A. Delvig, V. Kuchelbecker, etc.) made up the glory of Russian poetry , opened a wide path for her into world literature.
Having a perfect command of poetic skill, making extensive use of the entire rich palette of linguistic possibilities, A. Pushkin brought Russian poetry to a new creative level, covering all poetic genres and forms that existed at that time, virtually all themes and motifs, giving a new vision of man and nature, elements and passions, knowledge and poetic creativity, freedom and peace.
M. Lermontov revealed to the reading world a new hero, a romantic fighter: not only with the outside world and society, but with himself, with fate, with the omnipotent incomprehensible forces that control human life. That is why the God-fighting and tyrant-fighting motives sound so powerful in his lyrics, the voice of a lonely but great man in his aspirations, whose ideal for Lermontov for many years remained Napoleon ("The Last Housewarming", "The Flying Ship", "No, I am not Byron...", "Gratitude", etc.).
The most important milestone in the development of Russian poetry in the mid-19th century was philosophical lyrics by F. Tyutchev. It was called philosophical because, depicting the world of human feelings and relationships, the human condition and the consonant state of the surrounding world, Tyutchev turned primarily to the highest problems of human existence, asked eternal, non-everyday, non-everyday questions.
Look how unusual Tyutchev’s theme of a person’s inner immersion in the world sounds in the poem “Silentium” (Silence):
Think about the meaning of the phrase “A spoken thought is a lie.” How deep and contradictory its content is!.. This is philosophical poetry - forcing a person to think about the contradictory mysteries of existence.
For Tyutchev, the surrounding natural world was not simply the silent world of “natural biological life” or the “environment” surrounding humans. This is an animated world, with its own life, deeply hidden from man, subject to the great laws of the cosmos, the knowledge of which is the creative task of the artist:
The poet knew how to listen to the natural world and talk to it:
The poet depicted the spiritual world of man as correlated with elemental images, seeing in it eternity and variability, plurality and singularity, continuity and limitation, greatness and smallness, but most importantly, inscription in the cycle of existence of the universe, necessity and semantic conditionality:
The turn of the 19th-20th centuries became a serious stage in the development of Russian lyric poetry: the previous poetic laws and rules could no longer satisfy artists, the framework of the genre system became cramped, the syllabic-tonic system itself did not allow the poet to fully express his inner world (so he " expanded" and emotionally deepened due to the historical characteristics of the era), therefore new forms of creativity were required. New, previously unknown, paths of creative search in the field of poetic form, poetic language, new sounds of poetry, new themes and images emerged before the poets.
Poetry at the turn of the two centuries, in contrast to the lyric poetry of the 19th century, was not a single monolithic system (a sort of general poetic “channel”), but many directions, currents, groups (compare this with a river “delta”); sometimes the work of one poet represented an entire movement (for example, the poetry of M. Tsvetaeva). At this time, we can talk about a productive creative struggle - for the reader, for non-traditional forms, for the right to be considered the “first” in artistic discoveries, etc.
Young poets, for example, V. Mayakovsky, were not even satisfied with what their older symbolist contemporaries, who relied largely on the previous system of verse forms, were doing. In his autobiography “I Myself,” he wrote: “... it was alien. The themes, images were not my life. I tried to write just as well myself, but about something else. It turned out same about other things- it is forbidden".
The poet A. Kruchenykh spoke even more harshly in his article “The Word as Such,” 1913 (let’s keep the author’s punctuation):
At the same time, even the usual graphics, that is, writing down poems, no longer suited poets - and new, unconventional forms of writing appeared: V. Mayakovsky’s “ladder”, A. Blok’s and M. Tsvetaeva’s “talking” punctuation marks:
Mayakovsky “breaks” the verse, moving each of its segments to a new line, making it rhythmically and meaningfully highlighted, minted, like a poetic “step”, and in Tsvetaeva the dash becomes significant, semantic, contrasting, as if separating two worlds - the heavenly one, with its dogmas and laws, and earthly life, with its suffering and the beautiful tragedy of women’s fate.
Russian poets are increasingly turning to stylizations of ancient poetry; Ancient, almost forgotten meters, for example, hexameter (see poems by M. Kuzmin and O. Mandelstam) acquire a new sound; completely unusual traditions of the East are mastered ("tanka" and imitations of Chinese poetry by N. Gumilyov); real hoaxes appear: E. Vasilyeva “created” the mysterious Cherubina de Gabriac and wrote poetry on her behalf for a whole year...
Let's consider the variety of poetic trends in the lyrics of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries.
SYMBOLISM: one of the first and largest new, or as they can be called scientifically, modernist, trends in Russian poetry of this period. Symbolism came to Russia from Western Europe, where in poetry it was marked by the works of A. Rimbaud, S. Mallarmé, P. Verlaine, C. Baudelaire and others. Unlike most poets of the mid-19th century, who were concerned with social and civil themes (N. Nekrasov , I. Nikitin, etc.), symbolists were interested in the philosophical system of the universe, the ways of intuitive comprehension of the world in complex and uninterpretable artistic images (symbols); interested in man as a unique, exceptional unit of the cosmos, creating his own artistic world, therefore, in the creative system of symbolism, a special place is occupied by the idea of the artist’s individualism, his chosenness and immorality: the artist for them is outside the values of the modern “gloomy”, “boring” (“scary”, said A. Blok) of the world. The intuitive feeling of the unusualness of the modern era, its troubles and problems as one’s own, the emotional tension of symbolist lyrics, the predominance of moods of despair, mental fatigue, pessimistic figurative conclusions determined the attitude towards the poetry of symbolism as decadent(decadence (French) - decline).
But to define symbolism as decadence means to narrow its scope of content.
Read K. Balmont's poem "Let's be like the sun":
A poem with such powerful dynamics of inner feeling, calling on man as “the beloved child of the universe,” infecting with faith in the indomitability of the human spirit, cannot be called decadent.
Since the movement was called symbolism, the symbol became the main thing for such poets. Scientists call the symbol the main “aesthetic category” of this movement.
What is a symbol? - There is no scientific, unambiguously recognized definition of the term.
BY SYMBOL It is generally accepted to consider an extremely generalized polysemantic image that does not have a final interpretation and expresses the deep philosophical ideas of the artist. In this case, the symbol is the image subject plan having material invoice.
In the above poem by K. Balmont, such a symbol becomes the image of the Sun - a symbol of the greatness of spiritual achievements, the indomitability of the human spirit, eternal knowledge, the burning of life, etc. But at the same time, the sun is a completely material object. The image to which the author attaches special philosophical significance in the work, which determines the development of the feelings and thoughts of the lyrical hero, and becomes a symbol in symbolism.
There are two currents of Russian symbolism: the so-called “senior symbolists” (K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, D. Merezhkovsky, F. Sologub, etc.) and “young symbolists” (A. Blok, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanov, etc. .). The “older” symbolists called their work “poetry of the inner”; their poems are more contemplative, colored by the internal dynamics of feeling; to some extent, they gravitated towards the poetry of the past - towards Tyutchev, towards the philosophical lyrics of Pushkin. The work of the “younger symbolists” has a very active element, it is the poetry of “action”, raising questions of history, the fate of Russia, romantic tendencies and a mood of expectation of future cataclysms are clearly expressed.
At the same time, a group of artists appeared who contrasted their work with symbolism, but in many ways developed precisely the same creative principles. We are talking about the poetry of Acmeism.
ACMEISM(Greek “joy, blooming time, the highest degree of something”) - a poetic direction created by the poet N. Gumilyov. The name was also invented by Gumilev. The motto of the Acmeists was the word “Joy!” Gumilev wrote: “You need to remember about the “unknowable,” but not to offend your thoughts about it with more or less probable guesses - this is the principle of Acmeism.” Reality is “wise and clear,” and there is no need to speculate on it, the Acmeists believed.
The circle of Acmeist poets included G. Ivanov, O. Mandelstam, I. Odoevtseva, M. Kuzmin. For some time, A. Akhmatova also saw her place among the Acmeists.
Let's read N. Gumilyov's poem "My Readers", which fully and figuratively expressed the creative principles of this direction:
| Old tramp in Addis Ababa, Conquered many tribes, Sent me a black spearman With greetings made up of my poems. Lieutenant who drove gunboats Under fire from enemy batteries, All night over the South Sea He read my poems to me as a souvenir. Man among a crowd of people Shot the imperial ambassador, Came to shake my hand Thank you for my poems. |
There are many of them, strong, angry and cheerful, Killed elephants and people Dying of thirst in the desert, Frozen on the edge of eternal ice, Faithful to our planet, Strong, cheerful and angry, They carry my poems in a saddle bag, They read them in the palm grove, Forgotten on a sinking ship. |
I don't insult them with neurasthenia, I don’t humiliate you with my warmth, I don’t bother you with meaningful things hints For the maintenance of an eaten egg. But when bullets whiz around, When the waves break the sides, I teach them how not to be afraid Don't be afraid and do what you need to do. And when a woman with a beautiful face The only dear one in the universe, He will say: I don’t love you, - I teach them how to smile And leave and never come back. And when their last hour comes, A smooth, red fog will cover glances, I'll teach them to remember right away All my cruel, sweet life, All my native, strange land And, appearing before the face of God With simple and wise words, Wait calmly for his trial. |
Futurism became a new step in Russian poetry.
FUTURISM(lat. "future") - "art of the future." Futurism as a philosophical and aesthetic movement originated in Italy. Its founder and author of the term “futurism,” Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, said: “A roaring car is more beautiful than the Nike of Samothrace.” These were the aesthetic values of the new industrial age. In Russia, futurism became a breakthrough in the field of experiments with various forms in art: color, line, composition, line, rhyme, phrase, etc.
Russian futurists saw their poetic mission as the birth of super-art capable of transforming the world, while in their aesthetic experiments and projects they relied on the latest scientific and technical achievements, which distinguished them from poets of other movements. At the same time, the futurists were also characterized by a special shocking behavior, a craving for theatricality - not only at poetry evenings, but also in everyday life - this is how they expressed new, advanced views on the world and the average person, which require immediate transformation.
In the famous manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” (1912), which can safely be called a work of new verbal art, its creators D. Burlyuk, A Kruchenykh, V. Mayakovsky and V. Khlebnikov wrote:
| "Only we are the face of our Time. The horn of time blows for us in the art of words. The past is tight. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs. Abandon Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc. and so on. from the Steamship of Modernity. (...) All these Kuprins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remizovs, Averchenks, Chernys, Kuzmins, Bunins and so on. and so on. All you need is a dacha on the river. This is the reward that fate gives to tailors. From the heights of skyscrapers we look at their insignificance!.. We order honor rights poets: 1. To increase the vocabulary in its volume arbitrary and derivative words (word innovation). 2. An insurmountable hatred of the language that existed before them. 3. With horror, remove from your proud brow the wreath of penny glory you made from the bath brooms. 4. Stand on the rock of the word “we” amidst whistling and indignation. (…)" |
Let's read the poems by V. Mayakovsky “And you could” and “They understand nothing”:
Hostility towards philistine life, the desire to “break”, change the way people live and think, and the irresistible desire to be heard are heard in these verses.
A new figurative concept of the world and man entered Russian poetry through the work of S. Yesenin, who began his journey within the framework of imagism - a poetic movement focused on the image-impression. Over time, Yesenin did not consider himself to belong to any direction, just like A. Blok - the former Young Symbolist and former futurist V. Mayakovsky. A true genius is always outside of frameworks and systems. Images of heaven and earth, the eternal heavenly hut, embodied in a village hut, the world tree, transformed in Yesenin’s lyrics, close to Russian folklore and song creativity, into images of maple, birch, rowan, images of the moon (month) and the sun, the main nurse and giver of life - cows, the image of the path and the poet as an eternal wanderer - these are the components of Yesenin’s artistic world.
One of the main themes of poetry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was theme of destruction, collapse of the old world And the theme of the birth of a new thing in the throes and conflagrations, a world not yet explored by history and humanity. It sounds in the works of A. Blok (the cycle “A Terrible World”, the poem “The Twelve”), V. Mayakovsky (“To You”, “Here!”, “Left March”, etc.), S. Yesenin (“Low House with blue shutters...", "Soviet Rus'", "Sorokoust", etc.) and many others. The leading question within the framework of this topic was asked by all poets: what will this world be like and what will it bring to man? Differences in answers to this question determined the ideological and aesthetic ideals of the artists, their system of views on man, his capabilities and his future.
Before starting to get acquainted with the topic and completing assignments, be sure to familiarize yourself with the theory for topics No. 7 (Lyrical genre of literature: Genres of lyric poetry) and No. 8 (Lyrical genre of literature: Beginnings of poetry), since all the complex poetic terminology is explained there. We will not repeat ourselves.
When doing your work, carefully read the poem analysis plan.
- V.A. Zhukovsky. Poems: "Svetlana"; "Sea"; "Evening"; "Unspeakable"
- A.S. Pushkin. Poems: "Village", "Demons", "Winter Evening", "Pushchina" ("My first friend, my priceless friend...", "Winter Road", "To Chaadaev", "In the depths of the Siberian ores...", "Anchar ", "The flying ridge of clouds is thinning...", "The Prisoner", "Conversation between a bookseller and a poet", "The Poet and the Crowd", "Autumn", "...I visited again...", "Am I wandering along the noisy streets...", " A vain gift, an accidental gift...", "October 19" (1825), "On the hills of Georgia", "I loved you...", "To ***" ("I remember a wonderful moment..."), "Madona" , “Echo”, “Prophet”, “To the Poet”, “To the Sea”, “From Pindemonti” (“I value loud rights inexpensively...”), “I have erected a monument to myself...”
- M.Yu. Lermontov. Poems: “The Death of a Poet”, “Poet”, “How often, surrounded by a motley crowd...”, “Thought”, “Both boring and sad...”, “Prayer” (“I, Mother of God, now with prayer...”) , “We parted, but your portrait...”, “I will not humiliate myself before you...”, “Motherland”, “Farewell, unwashed Russia...”, “When the yellowing field is agitated...”, “No, I’m not Byron, I’m different ...", "Leaf", "Three Palms", "From Under a Mysterious, Cold Half Mask...", "Captive Knight", "Neighbor", "Testament", "Clouds", "Cliff", "Borodino", "Clouds heavenly, eternal pages...", "Prisoner", "Prophet", "I go out alone on the road..."
- N.A. Nekrasov. Poems: “I don’t like your irony...”, “Knight for an hour”, “I will soon die...”, “Prophet”, “Poet and Citizen”, “Troika”, “Elegy”, “Zine” (“You are still on you have the right to life..."); other poems of your choice
- F.I. Tyutchev. Poems: “Autumn Evening”, “Silentium”, “Not what you think, nature...”, “The earth still looks sad...”, “How good you are, O night sea...”, “I met you...”, “ Whatever life teaches us...", "Fountain", "These poor villages...", "Human tears, oh human tears...", "You can't understand Russia with your mind...", "I remember the golden time...", "What are you talking about howling, the night wind?”, “The gray shadows have shifted...”, “How sweetly the dark green garden slumbers...”; other poems of your choice
- A.A.Fet. Poems: “I came to you with greetings...”, “It’s still a May night...”, “Whisper, timid breathing...”, “This morning, this joy...”, “Sevastopol rural cemetery”, “A wavy cloud...”, “Learn they have - at the oak, at the birch...", "To the poets", "Autumn", "What a night, how clean the air...", "Village", "Swallows", "On the railway", "Fantasy", "The night was shining The garden was full of the moon..."; other poems of your choice
- I.A.Bunin. Poems: "The Last Bumblebee", "Evening", "Childhood", "It's Still Cold and Cheese...", "And Flowers, and Bumblebees, and Grass...", "The Word", "The Knight at the Crossroads", "The Bird Has a Nest" …", "Twilight"
- A.A.Blok. Poems: “I enter dark temples...”, “Stranger”, “Solveig”, “You are like the echo of a forgotten hymn...”, “The earthly heart grows cold again...”, “Oh, spring without end and without end...”, “ About valor, about exploits, about glory...", "On the Railway", the cycles "On the Kulikovo Field" and "Carmen", "Rus", "Motherland", "Russia", "Morning in the Kremlin", "Oh, I I want to live crazy..."; other poems of your choice; poem "Twelve"
- A.A.Akhmatova. Poems: “Song of the last meeting”, “You know, I’m languishing in captivity...”, “Before spring there are days like this...”, “Tear-stained autumn, like a widow...”, “I learned to live simply, wisely...”, “Native land "; “I have no use for Odic armies...”, “I am not with those who abandoned the earth...”, “Courage”; other poems of your choice
- S.A. Yesenin. Poems: “Go you, my dear Rus'...”, “Don’t wander, don’t crush in the crimson bushes...”, “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry...”, “Now we are leaving little by little...”, “Letter to mother,” “ The golden grove dissuaded me...", "I left my home...", "To Kachalov's dog", "Soviet Rus'", "The hewn horns began to sing...", "Uncomfortable liquid moonlight...", "The feather grass is sleeping. The dear plain...", "Goodbye , my friend, goodbye..."; other poems of your choice
- V.V. Mayakovsky. Poems: “Could you?”, “Listen!”, “Here!”, “To you!”, “Violin and a little nervously”, “Mom and the evening killed by the Germans”, “Cheap sale”, “Good attitude towards horses ", "Left March", "About rubbish", "To Sergei Yesenin", "Anniversary", "Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva"; other poems of your choice
- 10-15 poems each (of your choice): M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak, N. Gumilyov.
- A. Tvardovsky. Poems: “I was killed near Rzhev...”, “I know, it’s not my fault...”, “The whole point is in one single covenant...”, “In memory of the mother,” “To the bitter grievances of one’s own person...”; other poems of your choice
- I. Brodsky. Poems: “I entered instead of a wild beast ...”, “Letters to a Roman friend”, “To Urania”, “Stanzas”, “You will ride in the darkness ...”, “To the death of Zhukov”, “From nowhere with love ...”, “Notes of a fern "
- Gasparov M. Modern Russian verse. Metrics and rhythm. - M.: Nauka, 1974.
- Lotman Yu.M. Analysis of poetic text. - L.: Education, 1972.
- Poetic structure of Russian lyrics. Sat. - L.: Science, 1973.
- Three centuries of Russian poetry. - M.: Education, 1986.