Poetry of our common people brought me to this.
I owe the French version a ruble, and
ancient Russian poetry with all thousand rubles.
The method of composing verses varies greatly depending on the difference in languages.
VC. Trediakovsky
Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky- intellectual scientist, poet-philologist, a great stubborn man and eccentric, a man fanatically devoted to the cause of spreading education and science in Russia. He could well be the ideal positive hero of Cantemir’s satire “To Your Mind”, if this work assumed the presence of such a character. He was obsessed with reform. "The Slovenian language in this century It’s very obscure here, and many of our people don’t understand it when they read it,” Trediakovsky complained. He reformed the poetic language, poetic genres, but above all, the rules of versification. He was the first to begin creating the syllabic tonic, poetic system, so familiar to our ears now, a system in which light hand More than nine-tenths of Russian poets write poems by Trediakovsky.
To whom is the memory of posterity more favorable: the one who first put forward the idea, or the one who first put it into practice? A brilliant contemporary of Trediakovsky M.V. Lomonosov eclipsed poetic experiments with his talent and scientific discoveries poet-philologist. Historical memory may be unfair: what Trediakovsky was the first to do began to be attributed to Lomonosov’s primacy. There are so many coincidences in their biographies! At the age of nineteen, Trediakovsky, the son of a poor priest, went on foot from Astrakhan to Moscow and in two years mastered a course of science at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. In his native Astrakhan, the young man had already managed to re-read all the books, magazines and manuscripts that were kept in the city libraries and in the missionary missionary of Catholic monks. According to legend, young man, as an unprecedented phenomenon in terms of scholarship, was brought to show Peter I and Dmitry Kantemir (the poet’s father), who arrived in Astrakhan. Peter, who examined him, was very pleased. The same legend tells that the emperor, placing his finger on the young man’s forehead, said with approval: “The youth is very smart and knowledgeable in science.” Throughout his subsequent life, Trediakovsky will remain faithful to Peter’s behest to serve the education of Russians. Shortly before his death he would write: “I sincerely confess that after the truth, I value nothing more in my life than service, based on honesty and benefit, to my venerable compatriots.”
The next trip for science was Holland, where an inquisitive young man found himself in 1725. He lived in The Hague for two very fruitful years, becoming familiar with the latest discoveries in the humanities and literature. Holland was distinguished at that time by freedom of the press. Nowhere else could a Russian literary scientist be so thoroughly acquainted with the latest innovations of progressive thought, including those prohibited by censorship in other countries. In addition, Holland lay on the way to the French Sorbonne, the best European University. In 1727, Trediakovsky finally got to Paris and studied at the famous Sorbonne for three years. He will return to Russia wonderfully educated person who have mastered the very pathos of research, the creative spirit of true science.
While still studying at the Sorbonne, the young poet began to translate from French into Russian Paul Talman's allegorical love novel, "Riding to the Island of Love," which was fashionable in Europe. The very choice of topic against the backdrop of Russian life and morality of that time could turn out to be quite bold. The word “love” in its secular, gallant interpretation was still, if not prohibited, then questionable in the moral teachings of the church. Tsar Peter was the first to make a major breach, paving the way to modern interpretation this word. Having married for love a simple woman of not the most refined behavior, he set an example to perceive love as the norm not only of ideal and spiritual relationships, but of earthly, carnal ones. On St. Catherine’s Day, Peter’s associate Feofan Prokopovich delivered a sermon he composed, “Strong as the death of love” (that is, “strong as death is love”), glorifying Ekaterina Alekseevna, Peter’s wife and the future Empress Catherine I, the same a simple woman from the lower class, beloved by the emperor.
Thus, the very choice of work for translation corresponded to new trends and tastes of the reading public in the first decades of the 18th century. But for the young poet, perhaps more important was the opportunity for poetic experimentation in translation. His university teacher Rollin developed in lectures to students the theory of the primacy in poetry of the national vernacular language over the church scholastic one. The student took this idea and translated it into poetic practice. Trediakovsky published his “Ride to the Island of Love” after returning to Russia in 1730. The book was a great and resounding success. The attention of readers was riveted to the previously unprecedented content. But for the poet himself, the fundamental novelty of the form was just as significant. Experimenting, he translated Talman's text into both prose and verse, adapting the poetic syllable to Russian colloquial speech. In the preface, he stated that he had the goal of translating the French writer’s novel “in almost the simplest Russian word, that is, the one we speak among ourselves.” He disparagingly called the “church” style, which he resolutely rejected, “profound Slavicism.”
It is impossible not to notice how close the positions of Trediakovsky and Kantemir are here, how they agree in their views, affirming the norms of the spoken Russian language in poetry. However, while renewing the poetic language, Cantemir stopped before a verse barrier. The poetic form of his satires remained Virschian, syllabic. Trediakovsky has moved forward on this path as well. Translating fragments of the original into verse, the poet felt the inconsistency of the syllabic (that is, syllabic principle verse; syllabe Means syllable) French text with Russian sound standards. The “French verses” themselves are good, but they just don’t fit into the Russian “size”! He admits in the preface to his book: “Translating French verses into ours, I had great difficulty: for it was necessary not to lose much of the French mind, sweetness and strength, but always have Russian rhyme.” The search for “Russian rhyme”, “Russian meter” will henceforth become the main concern of the poet-scientist.
Trediakovsky was by nature a very quarrelsome person, extremely demanding, picky about both other people and himself. Success accompanied his literary debuts - he was dissatisfied and irritated. I felt that the task was not being fully accomplished: the “Russian meter” had not been found, the metrical canon of syllabic (syllabic) verse did not correspond to the new content of the works. Many years later, recalling the dissatisfaction from his early poetic experiments, he admitted: “When I compose something, no matter what play I look at, I see that it does not consist of poetry, but rather strange prose lines.” It was necessary to overcome this “prosaism” of syllabics in Russian verse: to adapt the metrical norm of the verse to the rhythmic features of Russian speech, to the smooth movement of Russian words with their loose stress on one specific syllable. This is what Trediakovsky was concerned about.
Here we will have to make a small theoretical digression to explain the difference between the metrical scheme of a verse and its rhythm. What is a meter? These are strictly fixed rules of verse, absolutely accurately reproduced poetic meters: iambic, trochee, dactyl, etc. When these rules are automatically followed, the result is copybook poetry that is exemplary and therefore not living (computer poems, for example). What is rhythm? A living picture of a verse that emerged before our eyes, individual intonations, melodic sounds with their unique rises, falls, accelerations and decelerations. Rhythm arises due to violations of the meter, deviations from it.
Poetry is an ancient art, and the meter that lies at its foundation is, figuratively speaking, a rhythm that has managed to freeze and petrify. Due to its frozen form, the meter is filled with already realized traditional content, therefore it lends itself to both precise calculation and precise study. Meter is static as the formal instrument of poetry. Rhythm is dynamic, it is personal, spontaneous, and hardly predictable. In one of the works of poetry we find the following definition: “Meter makes the structure of the verse predictable, rhythm limits this predictability: rhythmic repetition is always more or less unexpected.” One without the other, meter and rhythm in verse are inconceivable. Meter without rhythm turns out to be only a theory, but rhythm without meter cannot take on a complete form. The rhythmic movement of the verse is oriented towards the metrical scheme and at the same time overcomes it. Any poetic work begins with confrontation, and often - acute conflict meter and rhythm. This is the meaning of the birth of a poetic artistic image.
But let's return to Trediakovsky. A man of rare learning, he was able to compare various systems versification and came to the conclusion that the most successful of them are those that more fully correspond to the natural national language and speeches. That's when he turned to Russian folk song. Its verse form, as is known, is based on the principle of stress, or tonic ( tonos translated from Greek is emphasis). The lines acquire the sound of poetry due to the symmetrical arrangement of melodic stresses in them:
Ah, if only there were no frosts on the flowers, And in winter the flowers would bloom. Oh, if I weren’t sad, I wouldn’t be sitting propped up, I wouldn’t be looking into an open field. And I told my father, And I reported to my world: Don’t let me, father, get married, Don’t let me, sir, for being uneven...
Let's conduct the lines of this folk song - we will clearly catch three accent tones in each line.
They say that everything ingenious is simple. Reforming Russian verse, Trediakovsky, it would seem, only guessed to combine the principle of syllabics, which dominates in book verse poetry, with the principle of tonic, which lies at the basis of Russian folk poetry. He transferred the names of the dimensions of the verse, which he now transformed from syllabic to syllabic-tonic, from ancient versification. The syllabic-tonic form turned out to be more acceptable for the Russian ear. She brought freedom of stress in Russian speech into a flexible and harmonious system. In addition, the diverse relationships of its two fundamental principles (the number of syllables and the number of stresses in a line) opened up rich possibilities for the rhythmic organization of poetic works.
May 14, 1735 was a historical day for the fate of Russian poetry. At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, Trediakovsky made a report on the reform of contemporary Russian poetry. An extensive program of literary reforms was proposed concerning the language, style and genres of poetry - all of which had to do with the new mode of versification. In the treatise "New and short way to the composition of Russian poems" Not only were new rules of versification developed, but poetic examples of each genre were proposed, made according to these rules. Sonnets, rondos, sapphic stanzas, psalms, odes, etc. were presented here. Particularly interesting were the love songs from the cycle "Poems for different cases". These are small sad poems, anticipating the elegy genre that became so popular a little later. “Poems about the power of love”, “A request for love”, “A lover’s lament” and others are somewhat clumsy in expressing feelings. But it was precisely in this elegiac zone of the poet’s experiments that the direct connections between literary verse and Russian folk song were reflected.
Trediakovsky probably presented himself more as a scientist than as a poet when he offered “educational samples” of different genres simultaneously in Russian and French. And so it turned out that elegiac Russian poems found themselves in a fundamentally different genre and style range than the elegiac poems of the same name in French. By experimenting in this way, the poet-philologist comprehended the truth that the national element of language and speech should determine the method of versification. Intuitively, Trediakovsky followed the right path. Composing love songs-elegies in Russian, he introduced them into the rhythmic context of national poetry: adapting to the norms of Russian grammar, he looked for intonation-rhythmic correspondences to express thoughts. And now they were correlated not with the traditional Virsch cant, but with romance and song, and this was perhaps the most important thing. Comparing French and Russian samples, Trediakovsky made the final conclusion: “The matter of all languages in the world is common, but the way of composing verses is very different according to the differences in languages.”
The 1730s turned out to be the happiest years in creative biography Trediakovsky. In subsequent decades, right up to his death, he continued to work tirelessly and painstakingly, devoting all his time to literary and scientific works. But it no longer has the same success. He translates novels by Western writers (his "Argenida", "Tilemachida"), without abandoning attempts to experiment here. He takes on a huge historical work: the translation of “Ancient History” and “Roman History” by his teacher at the Sorbonne University, Charles Rollin. In the thirty volumes he translated, he offers the reader essentially an encyclopedia of knowledge on the history of the ancient world. The heroes of stories and tales by Russian writers read Rollin’s “History” in Trediakovsky’s translation and study from it. Faced with this fact in the works of A.S. Pushkin, let us remember what kind of “History” this is and what a great worker translated it for the Russians. In the Roman republicans, Trediakovsky found traits consonant with his own character: straightforward, independent, unyielding. A few years before his death, seriously ill, ridiculed by everyone for his stubbornness and eccentricities, the half-impoverished poet would say with pride and dignity: “Glory to the Almighty! Greek history Rollin I see that not only the first volume of his Roman History has been translated and published, but also the second. However, there are still fourteen volumes left. Although I still have the strength to translate them, I no longer have the means to print them, no matter how strongly I wish not to pass into inevitable eternity without this second service to my dear fatherland.”
Trediakovsky Vasily man with tragic fate. As fate would have it, two nuggets lived in Russia at the same time - and Trediakovsky, but one will be treated kindly and remain in the memory of posterity, and the second will die in poverty, forgotten by everyone.
From student to philologist
In 1703, on March 5, Vasily Trediakovsky was born. He grew up in Astrakhan in a poor family of a clergyman. A 19-year-old young man went to Moscow on foot to continue his studies at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy.
But he stayed there for a short time (2 years) and, without regret, left to replenish his knowledge in Holland, and then to France - to the Sorbonne, where, enduring poverty and hunger, he studied for 3 years.
Here he participated in public debates, mastered mathematical and philosophical sciences, was a student of theology, studied French and Italian languages. He returned to his homeland as a philologist and an atheist.
The rise of a career and the indignation of the clergy
Since 1730, he was a court poet, his duties included “cleansing” the Russian language, as well as composing ceremonial speeches; later he would become a translator at the Academy of Sciences. Trediakovsky was the first to introduce secular novels into literature.
The clergy will almost accuse him of atheism when he translates Talman’s novel “Riding to the Island of Love” into “colloquial” Russian, since all official literature was written in Old Church Slavonic.
Innovative ideas
On May 14, 1735, Russian poetry received new breath and development. The scientist made a proposal to reform literature and proposed a new versification. In addition, he believed that it was necessary to compile a grammar of the Russian language, dictionaries and rhetoric.
His innovative theoretical ideas were brought to life by Lomonosov; it was he who published “Grammar” and “Rhetoric”. The poet first used the word “ode” in Russian.
He was a pioneer in the composition of praiseworthy odes. From his pen they came out 5 years before the appearance of Lomonosov’s famous creations. In the preface to them he will write the theory “Discourse on Odes in General,” where he will define this genre.
Trediakovsky - poet
Trediakovsky's poems are diverse both in style and genre. One of his best works “Poems commendable Russia", imbued with patriotism and love for their country.
It is worth noting his significant work “Epistola from Russian Poetry to Apolline,” where he examined all world literature, starting with Homer and Ovid, ending with Spanish and German authors.
Trediakovsky scientist-philologist
Despite his poetic diversity, Trediakovsky the theorist did much more and more significantly. His translations had great educational significance.
A huge work of multi-volume translation of the history of Rome and Greece became the first “textbook” for the Russian reader. Trediakovsky was ridiculed by his contemporaries and was considered mediocrity.
In recent years he lived in poverty and died completely alone in August 1769, in St. Petersburg. And only thanks to , who appreciated his work, critics and scientists reconsidered their views and appreciated Trediakovsky’s merits.
(1703-1769)
Trediakovsky was born on the distant outskirts of what was then Russian state, in provincial Astrakhan, in the family of a priest. He completed a course of study at a school of Catholic monks opened in Astrakhan, and at the age of nineteen he fled to Moscow, overwhelmed by a thirst for knowledge. In Moscow, he studied at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy and soon went abroad. He wanders around Holland, then goes to France, using funds lent to him by the Russian envoy in Holland. In Paris, he gets acquainted with French art - the advanced culture of that time, listens to lectures at the Sorbonne, and is especially interested in humanities. In 1730 he returned to Russia. All his close relatives and parents died of the plague. In Russia, he connects his activities with the recently created Academy of Sciences. But he failed to achieve an independent position and assert his dignity. The machinations of academicians and continuous quarrels with other major cultural figures, including Lomonosov and Sumarokov, led to Trediakovsky’s position in the Academy becoming almost unbearable. His works and translations were no longer published in the then only magazine, Monthly Works. Trediakovsky printed them furtively, hiding under different pseudonyms. Lomonosov calls Trediakovsky, whose initially progressive views gradually faded, “an atheist and a hypocrite.” In 1759 he was dismissed from the Academy and ended his life in poverty and oblivion.
Tredaikovsky's literary activity is represented by artistic and scientific works. As a theorist and experimental writer who opens new paths in Russian literature, Trediakovsky deserves the most serious attention. “His philological and grammatical research,” wrote A.S. Pushkin are very remarkable. He had a more extensive understanding of Russian versification than Lomonosov and Sumarokov... In general, the study of Trediakovsky is more useful than the study of our other old writers.”
Trediakovsky was a reformer of Russian versification, the creator of the syllabic-tonic system of verse on Russian soil. The principles of the new versification were set out by Trediakovsky in the treatise “A New and Brief Method for Composing Russian Poems with the Definition of Previously Appropriate Titles,” published in 1735. In the “New Method” Trediakovsky fought “on two fronts”: against quantitative prosody (the system of pronunciation of stressed and unstressed, long and short syllables in speech) and against syllabic versification. In his treatise, Trediakovsky declares syllabic verses to be “indirect” verses and advocates the use of syllabic verses in Russian poetry. His demands boiled down to the requirement to replace syllabic verses with the so-called Russian “exameter” and “pentameter”. Exameter is a thirteen-syllable trochaic verse, and pentameter is an eleven-syllable trochaic verse. In his reform there were reservations that weakened its role: for example, the need for a caesura (pause) in the middle of the eleven and thirteen syllable trochaic verses he recommended, and this caesura should be surrounded stressed syllables, and this violated the syllabic structure of the verse; insisted on the use of female rhyme, considering male rhyme rude and alien to Russian poetry; The main meter should be trochee, and iambic only in comic poems. In 1752, in the second edition of The New Method, Trediakovsky abandoned these restrictions. Despite the half-heartedness and timidity of the restructuring of Russian versification carried out by Trediakovsky, this reform had great importance in the history of Russian poetry.
In addition to “A New and Brief Method for Composing Russian Poems,” Trediakovsky also wrote other works on the theory and history of verse. For example, “Opinion on the beginning of poetry and poetry in general” and “On ancient, middle and new Russian poems (i.e. versification - I.A.)”, as well as “Discourse on ode in general.”
In the first article he states that “creation, invention and imitation are the soul and life of poetry.” That is, he, developing the thought of Feofan Prokopovich and going much further, affirms the leading role of fiction in poetry and emphasizes the importance of the active individual principle in poetic creativity.
The article “On Ancient, Middle and New Russian Poems” outlines the stages of development of Russian national poetry. At the same time, he reveals an understanding historical nature literary process. This is the first serious attempt historical study development of Russian versification. Trediakovsky divides the entire history of Russian poetry into three periods: the first is ancient, starting in time immemorial and continuing until 1663; the second - middle - from 1663 to 1735 (the date of the appearance of the “New and Brief Method”), i.e. before the beginning of syllabic-tonic Russian versification; third - new period, when syllabic-tonic versification completely dominates in Russian poetry. The first Russian poems, according to the author of the treatise, performed a religious, cult function. It is very important to emphasize Trediakovsky’s focus on the rhythm of folk verse. This orientation in the “New and Brief Method” is towards the affirmation of the trochaic meter as organically inherent in Russian verse, as opposed to other syllabic-tonic meters. We are talking about what phenomena caused qualitative changes in the development of Russian poetry; mention is made of the appearance in late XVI century, in 1581, the first Russian literary poems in the Ostrog Bible. Further, speaking about regular syllabic verse, widespread in Poland in the 17th century, Trediakovsky points out that it was this verse, having penetrated into Ukraine and Belarus, that served as a model for the creation of Russian regular syllabic verse, i.e. verse, which, as a rule, has an odd number of syllables, from 5 to 13, and, in the case of polysyllabicity (11-13 syllables), is also divided by a caesura, “intersection,” as Trediakovsky says, into two unequal parts: seven and six syllables or five and six syllables. Trediakovsky considers the feminine rhyme at the end of a verse to be the most acceptable for Russian poetry, since the combination of two syllables, of which the first is under stress, in itself constitutes a trochaic foot, i.e. foot, which, according to Trediakovsky, is most characteristic of Russian verse.
Talking about syllabic versification, Trediakovsky shows that it is still so imperfect that poems written according to its rules are almost no different from prose. Trediakovsky also noted that the dimensions of the verse are not directly related to the content of the work. On this issue, on which he argued with Lomonosov, Trediakovsky was right. His mistake was in preferring the trochee and neglecting other sizes.
In conclusion, Trediakovsky emphasizes that his reform of versification, in essence, is only a renewal of the ancient folk system. Thus, he once again draws attention to the deeply patriotic, truly popular character of his reform, to its national foundations.
In the article “Discourse on Odes in General,” Trediakovsky appears as a theorist of classicism. He emphasizes the need for “red disorder” in the ceremonial ode, i.e. the deliberate imbalance of emotions expressed in the introductory part of the ode, due to which the reader should have the impression that the poet was extremely excited by the events described and was unable to restrain his feelings. Trediakovsky divides the odes into two groups: “praiseworthy” odes and “tender” odes, in other words anacreontic. Trediakovsky insists on the need for a writer to follow established rules and emphasizes the mandatory normativity of artistic creativity. According to Trediakovsky, every writer not only can, but also must imitate certain literary models, taken mainly from ancient literature. Trediakovsky himself willingly imitated the French classicists.
In 1730, immediately upon returning from abroad, Trediakovsky published a novel by the French writer Paul Talman in his translation entitled “A Trip to the Island of Love.” This is typical love story about the experiences of the characters - Thyrsis and Aminta on the fantastic “island of Love”, where Thyrsis arrived on a ship from Europe, about his “cupid” with the beautiful Aminta, who, however, soon disappointed Thyrsis, having become carried away by another young man. But his grief was short-lived: soon he was surprised to feel himself in love with two beauties at once. The hero was brought out of some confusion about this by the love of the eye he met, who advised Tyrsis not to constrain himself with conventions: you need to love as much as you want - this is the basis of long-term happiness. These experiences are presented in allegorical form. Each feeling of the characters corresponds to the conventional toponymy of the “island of Love”: “cave of Cruelty”, “castle of Straight Luxuries”, “gate of Love”, “desert of Obligation”, “gate of Refusal”, “lake of Frozenness”, etc. Along with real ones, conventional characters such as “Pity”, “Sincerity”, “Eye-lovingness” are presented (this is how Trediakovsky translated the word “coquetry”, still unknown in Russian). It was this frank allegorical nature of the names, the frank conventionality of the area in which the action takes place, that gave capacity and typicality to the description of the characters’ experiences themselves.
The poeticization of the feeling of love, its real cult, the glorification of freedom of feelings, the emancipation of man from the conventions of the old way of life - this is ideological content works. Nevertheless, the end of the novel contradicts this idea, and this contradiction itself is significant: Thyrsis decides not to pursue the joys of love anymore and to devote his life to the glory of the Fatherland. Such an end was quite consistent with the mood of Peter the Great's time. The image of the inner experiences of the characters has not yet been given either to the author of the French original or to its translator. That is why allegorical names of caves, cities and bays and personification of the very feelings overwhelming the heroes were needed. The novel operates on Mystery, Coldness, Reverence, and Shame.
Trediakovsky’s book is interesting because on its last pages he placed his own poems, written in French under the title “Poems for Various Occasions.” This is Trediakovsky’s pre-classical lyrics, which present purely personal, autobiographical themes. All the lyrics presented in the book are written in syllabic verse, but four years later Trediakovsky will decisively abandon syllabic verse and propose a new system of versification instead.
In 1766, Trediakovsky published a book entitled “Tilemachis or the Wanderings of Telemacus, son of Odysseus, described as part of an ironic poem” - a free translation of the novel by the early French enlightener Fenelon “The Adventures of Telemachus”. Fenelon wrote his work in the last years of his reign Louis XIV, when France suffered from devastating wars, which resulted in the decline of agriculture and crafts.
The historical and literary significance of “Tilemakhida” lies not only in its critical content, but also in the difficult tasks that Trediakovsky set himself as a translator. In essence, this is not a translation, but a radical reworking of the book genre itself. Trediakovsky created on the basis French novel a heroic poem modeled on the Homeric epic and, in accordance with his task, he called the book not “The Adventures of Telemachus”, but “Tilemachis”.
As noted in the preface, the plot of a heroic poem should not be associated with ancient world, its heroes cannot be historically reliable persons of either ancient or modern times. A heroic poem should be written, according to Trediakovsky, only in hexameter. The choice of characters and the plot of “Tilemakhida” fully meets the theoretical requirements of the author.
Trediakovsky carefully preserved the educational pathos of Fenelon's novel. The subject of condemnation becomes supreme power, speaks about the despotism of rulers, about their addiction to luxury and bliss, about the inability of kings to distinguish virtuous people from self-interested people and money-grubbers, about flatterers who surround the throne and prevent monarchs from seeing the truth.
Fenelon’s novel, written largely in the footsteps of Barclay’s “Argenide,” was intended by the author for his pupil, the grandson of Louis XIV, Duke of Burgundy, and, like “Argenide,” was filled with vivid and very topical political content. Like Barclay, Fenelon is a staunch supporter of the monarchical principle, but at the same time his novel, written towards the end of the reign of one of the most typical representatives of absolutism (the “Sun King” - Louis XIV), is a cruel verdict on the entire state system of the latter, as is known, which had the most detrimental effect on the life of the country, leading France to the brink of complete economic and economic exhaustion. In contrast to this, the Mentor teaches his pupil Telemacus in the novel, i.e. in essence, Fenelon - to the Duke of Burgundy, the science of true government, which, as Trediakovsky explains, represents “the middle between the excesses of despotic power (self-predominant) and the countless anarchic ones (having no commander).” This makes the author of Telemaque a bearer of the ideas of political liberalism, one of Montesquieu’s immediate predecessors. In accordance with his accusatory and satirical attitude, Fenelon sharply attacks the “evil kings.” A number of poems in “Tilemakhida” contain very strong and energetic tirades on the topic of unjust kings who “do not like everyone who boldly speaks the Truth.” Removed from the court, almost excommunicated from literature, Trediakovsky undoubtedly invested a strong personal feeling in these poems.
The content of "Tilemachida", as well as Fenelon's novel, is a description of the travels of Odysseus' son Telemacus. Young Telemachus goes in search of his father, who disappeared without a trace after the end of the Trojan War. The young man is accompanied by a wise mentor - Mentor. During his wanderings Telemachus sees different countries having different rulers. This gives the author a reason to talk about the merits of certain forms state power. Thus, Mentor teaches Telemachus the ability to rule the people. Trediakovsky here expresses his cherished thoughts about the ideal state direction: Of course, readers had to apply these considerations to Russian conditions. In his work, Trediakovsky emphasized the importance of the monarch’s observance of laws, both legal and “higher” laws of humanity. If the king has power over the people, then the laws have power over the sovereign, and he has no right to break them. Subsequently A.S. Pushkin will say:
You stand above the people,
But the eternal law is above you!
Trediakovsky happily translates cautionary tale Cretan king Idomeneo. This king, distinguished by arbitrariness and lust for power, was expelled by the people from his country. Having realized through bitter experience that he was wrong, Idomeneo becomes the humane and law-respecting ruler of the city of Salanta. It is the idea of the need for limitation autocratic power, about the subordination of the ruler (like any citizen) was not accepted by Catherine II.
I asked him, what does royal sovereignty consist of?
He answered: the king has power over the people in everything,
But the laws have power over him in everything, of course.
"Tilemakhida" called different attitude to themselves both among their contemporaries and among their descendants. Novikov and Pushkin spoke of her with praise. Radishchev made one of her poems the epigraph to his “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” “His love for Fenelon’s epic,” wrote Pushkin, “does him honor, and the idea of translating it into verse and the very choice of verse proves his extraordinary sense of grace.” Catherine II took an irreconcilably hostile position. Her ill will was caused by critical remarks addressed to the autocrats. She introduced a comic rule in the palace: for light wine you had to drink a glass of cold water and read a page from Tilemakhida, for more serious wine you had to learn six lines from it. In “Tilemachid” Trediakovsky clearly demonstrated the variety of possibilities of the hexameter as epic verse. Trediakovsky’s experience was later used by N.I. Gnedich when translating the Iliad and V.A. Zhukovsky at work on the Odyssey.
The historical and literary significance of Trediakovsky is undeniable. Being of little talent as a poet, Trediakovsky was the greatest philologist of his time, the author of many translations that had great cultural and educational significance, contributed to the development of new forms of literature in Russia, and his works promoted socio-political ideas that were progressive for that time.
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The credo of V.K. Trediakovsky’s life is clearly illustrated by his following statement: “I sincerely confess that after the truth, I value nothing more in my life than service, based on honesty and benefit, to my venerable compatriots.” It really explains a lot both in his work and personal destiny.
Trediakovsky's work is of a transitional nature. He came out of the school-rhetorical culture of the 17th century, found mine the path to a new philological culture, in the words of V.G. Belinsky, “ took on what should have been taken on in the first place", became an educator in the new European sense of the word, but right up to his last works, he in a certain sense remained a man of culture of the 17th century(adherent of the old, pre-Petrine culture, philologist-erudite Latin)" (G.A. Gukovsky).
Biography notes:
1703 - born in Astrakhan into the family of a parish priest, graduated from the school of Catholic monks of the Capuchin Order (the only one at that time educational institution in Astrakhan, from where he received excellent knowledge Latin language). There is evidence of the arrival of Dmitry Kantemir and Peter I to Astrakhan, who called Trediakovsky an “eternal worker” (which ultimately became the main quality of Trediakovsky’s personality).
Around 1723 - runs away from his parents' home and enters the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy (rhetoric class).
Around 1725 - the desire for “greater improvement” leads to the fact that he gets to St. Petersburg on foot (with a penny in his pocket), a “desired opportunity” was discovered here - and he sails on a Dutch ship to Amsterdam (where envoy Golovkin arranges for him “ with a fair treatise"), then goes to Paris, and again “in the manner of walking”; Prince Kurakin helps him decide at the Sorbonne, where he takes courses in philosophy, theology, and mathematics.
1730 - return to Russia.
1732 - translator at the Academy of Sciences, court poet of Anna Ioannovna.
1745 - prof. Latin and Russian “eloquence” (rhetoric).
1759 - resignation.
1769 - death in poverty.
The first years at home - years of glory and honor, he is a professor of the Academy of Sciences - “this scientific dignity ... the first Russian was lucky enough to receive».
But already in the 50s. Trediakovsky wrote about his condition like this: “Hated in person, despised in word, destroyed in deeds, condemned in art, pierced by satirical horns, depicted as a monster, even in morals (what’s more unscrupulous than this) publicized... I have already become infinitely exhausted in my strength to stay awake. : for which reason the need has come for me to retire..."
Let us cite some facts, for example, “Tilemakhida” was ridiculed immediately after its appearance in 1766 (in the Hermitage, Catherine II arranged a special punishment for her friends: for any mistake they had to learn one page from this work by heart).
In 1835, I. Lazhechnikov in the novel “ Ice house" wrote: "...pedant! by this parcel fluttering on the forehead of every mediocre worker of learning, by the wart on his cheek, you would now be able to guess the professor of eloquence. Cyrus. Trediakovsky."
But there was also an opposite opinion. Thus, N.I. Novikov noted: “This man was of great intelligence, much learning, extensive knowledge and unparalleled diligence; very knowledgeable in Latin, Greek, French, Italian and in his natural language; also in philosophy, theology, eloquence and other sciences, with his useful works he acquired immortal fame ... "
A.N. Radishchev: “Trediakovsky will be dug out of the grave overgrown with moss of oblivion; good poems will be found in Tilemakhida and will be set as an example.”
A.S. Pushkin: “Trediakovsky was, of course, a decent and respectable person. His philological and grammatical research is very remarkable. He had a very broad concept in Russian versification. His love for Fenelon's epic does him honor, and the idea of translating it into verse and the very choice of verse proves his extraordinary sense of grace. “Tilemakhida” contains many good poems and happy phrases...”
The reasons for the ambivalent attitude of contemporaries and descendants towards Trediakovsky:
1. During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, for those around him, he remained the court poet of Anna Ioannovna, dedicated his poems to Biron, and the death of A.P. Vorotynsky was associated with him.
2. His works contained rather sharp conclusions against autocracy, often acquiring a concrete character (in “Tilemakhida,” for example, Catherine II is easily recognizable):
That Astarveya wife was like a goddess, presumptuous,
In a beautiful body she had a beautiful mind...
A fierce heart boiled inside her and was filled with anger,
The mind, however, cunningly hid the thin sensuality.
Finally, she died, leaving her in fear
Everyone who was there with her dying...
That's why Catherine excluded him from public opinion, using a very evil weapon - laughter.
At the same time, the character of the poet and cultural figure intricately combined the insignificant and the significant, the tragic and the comic; there were also some not entirely pleasant features: for example, claims, not always justified, for 1st place in Russian literature (and in literary Parnassus as a whole), not always worthy methods of literary struggle with Lomonosov and Sumarokov:
Sumarokov -
When in your opinion I am an owl and a cattle,
Then you yourself are a bat and truly a pig.
But you have to see the main thing in him - he had own way in literature, and he knew how to defend it!
His creative legacy is diverse and amazing in scale:
I.The actual artistic direction :
Presented with love, landscape, patriotic lyrics (united under the heading “Poems for different occasions”); see: Timofeev p. 14 (introductory article to the collection “Selected Works” (M.., Leningrad, 1963)):
"This is the first in history printed collection poems, belonging to a certain poet, who addressed readers with a preface on his own behalf and with a certain poetic platform.
16 poems out of 32 were written in French, one in Latin, which characterized the author “as a representative of a new type of Russian culture, freely and with full knowledge correlated with foreign culture.
The most significant thing is that in the collection, again for the first time in Russian literature, poetry appeared new type lyrical hero. His appearance was determined by the free and bold disclosure of his inner world, the desire for a multidimensional image human personality. This was manifested primarily in the area love lyrics(“Love song”, “Poems about the power of love”, “The cry of one lover who was separated from his sweetheart, whom he saw in a dream”, “The melancholy of a lover when separated from his mistress”, “A petition for love”, etc.) Against the background of the previous tradition, these poems sounded both bold and new” (Ibid., p. 23):
Petition for love
Leave, Cupido, arrows:
We are all no longer whole,
But sweetly wounded
Love's arrow
Your gold;
All loves are conquered:
Why hurt us more?
You're just torturing yourself longer.
Who doesn't breathe love?
Love doesn't bore us all,
Although it melts and torments us.
Ah, this fire burns very sweetly!
It was these poems by Trediakovsky that answered the spiritual needs of a person of that time:
I. Bolotov: “The most tender love, only supported by tender and loving songs composed in decent verses, then first gained its dominance only over young people... but they were still a great curiosity, and if any appeared, it would be with young noblewomen and girls was impossible to leave the tongue."
T. Livanova: “... they made fun of Trediakovsky’s songs a lot, but no one, it seems, emphasized with all their might that next to the verses “in the most beautiful love there are always two people,” the lines “the rope breaks, the anchor breaks” were a genuine find of new poetry "
However, Trediakovsky was by no means limited only to love experiences. These were precisely “poems for different occasions.”
“Description of a thunderstorm that happened in The Hague” - example of landscape lyrics:
Thunder from one country
On the other hand, thunder
Vaguely in the air
Terrible in the ear!
The clouds ran away
Carry the water
The sky was closed
They were filled with fear.
Lightning flashes
They strike with fear,
Cracking in the forest from Perun,
And the moon darkens
The whirlwinds run with the dust,
The strip breaks in one fell swoop,
The waters roar terribly
From that bad weather.
« Poems of praise to Russia" start tradition of Russian patriotic lyrics:
Russia mother! My light is immeasurable!
Allow me, I beg your faithful child,
Oh, how you sit on the red throne!
The Russian sky, you sun, is clear!
Vivat Russia, vivat dear!
Vivat hope, vivat good.
I'll die on the flute, the poems are sad
In vain to Russia through distant countries:
I would need a hundred languages
Celebrate everything that is lovely about you!
And finally, the collection contains poems in which “he spoke... in admiration for someone” (“Song composed in Hamburg for the solemn celebration of the coronation of Her Majesty Empress Anna Ioannovna, Autocrat of All Russia,” “Elegy on the Death of Peter the Great”). They represent yourself transition from eulogies and welcoming poems for an event to an ode , i.e. holistic image of the lyrical hero, through whose experiences are reflected major events eras:
All Russian peoples rejoice:
We are in our golden years.
In 1734 ode genre is defined in Trediakovsky’s work and formally: in 1735, the “Solemn Ode on the Surrender of the City of Gdansk” was published (the example is Boileau’s ode on the capture of Nemur). Attached to the ode theoretical basis"Discourse on ode in general." Subsequently, we will talk about the opposition - loud Lomonosov / gentle Sumarokov lyrics, but in their primary form both of these traditions were outlined by Trediakovsky. He tried to show the lyrical hero from different angles - both solemn and intimate.
In addition, Trediakovsky created epistles, epigrams, gave examples of rondos, sonnets, madrigals, and he also worked on the arrangement of psalms.
All poems were published in 2 years. in 1752
In the field of poetry he is characterized style of difficult poetic speech(Gukovsky); sample - Latin syntax (free arrangement of words, especially captivated Trediakovsky free place interjections, the use of the conjunction “a” to mean “and”). The “Latin style,” thus, finds its Europeanized revival in Trediakovsky’s poetry.
1. Virgil Scaro ridiculed the playful
(i.e. Scaron was witty enough to ridicule Virgil).
2. Tormented by unceasing love, oh! Trouble...
So O! God is very inclined to these captives...
3. Once upon a time the spider fell behind from his work and business,
A I got ready, walked along, wherever my thoughts led me.
What also attracts attention is the unprecedented freedom in combining Church Slavonicisms and colloquial vernacular in Russian poetry:
Nightingale - “slavy”
Korostol - "crostel"
Brushwood - “brush”
and next to them:
Large luggage, etc.
We started talking about Trediakovsky's deafness to words.
In 1750 Trediakovsky made an attempt in the genre of tragedy on a mythological theme. It became “Deidamia”. In it he expressed his own attitude:
1) to history - “it would be extreme dishonor to the French people and an unbearable insult if such a sovereign were to be some kind of Bova’s prince in an epic feast”;
2) to war - the cessation of wars is associated with the rule of a wise and fair enlightened monarch;
3) to the features of the tragic genre:
a) so, the plot is based on Achilles’ stay on the island of Skyros, where he was brought up, dressed in a woman’s dress, together with the daughters of Lycodemus, but since this legendary plot, in the author’s opinion, “is more appropriate for a “heroic comedy” than a “tragic joke,” he decided to “invent a lot of new things on his own” so that “the poem could be a tragedy,” in particular, the motive associated with the promise of King Lycodemus to dedicate Deidamia to the goddess Diana, which doomed his daughter to celibacy; The image of Navilia, in love with Achilles, is also fictional;
b) tragedy should depict the triumph of virtue, death goodies unacceptable, Deidamia is saved from the fate that awaited her, Navilia bears the deserved punishment for her intrigues;
c) an image-bearer of one trait (Achilles, Ulysses); Tender feelings are already combined in the heroes with an understanding of social duty; passion is interpreted as a destructive force;
d) the rule of 3 unities is observed: unity of action as the unity of the hero; unity of time (action begins in the morning and ends in the evening); unity of place - the large chambers of Lycodemos;
e) in the field of style - a fairly strong epic element.
II.Translations:
A) artistic:P. Talman (Tallement) “Riding to the Island of Love”, J. Barclay “Argenida”, Fenelon “Adventures of the Telemaque”
P. Talman (Talleman) “Riding to the Island of Love.” Translated from French. in Russian. Through the student Vasily Trediakovsky and attributed to His Excellency Prince Alexander Bor. Kurakina."
The book had great success(See about this in detail: Timofeev, p. 15).
“Driving to o. Love,” in the words of P.N. Berkova, were a kind algebra of love, presented in a schematic and abstract form all possible cases love relationship. “The gallant politeness of France appeared here in all its secular sophistication and “politicism” (Ibid.).
Plot: In letters to a friend, Thyrsis describes his experiences in conventionally symbolic images: hope, jealousy, happiness of shared love, despair from the betrayal of his beloved (Amantha). However, he quickly recovers from despair, falling in love with two beauties at once and thereby discovering the secret of how to be happy: “whoever loves more is happy longer.”
Already alone book selection, where the entire content consists in describing the various degrees of love for a woman, whom they address respectfully, look for an opportunity to attract her attention and, finally, earn her favor with various donations - all this could not help but seem like news to the Russian reader of those times, when the most beloved and widespread collections could not do without an article in which love for a woman would not be called a demonic obsession and the woman herself would not be considered an instrument of Satan, created to seduce a person” (Pekarsky). If Sumarokov wrote “Instructions for those who want to be writers,” then “Going to the Island of Love” is an instruction for those who want to be in love. But this is only part of the task that Trediakovsky set for himself: to teach what love is according to precise canons meant not just translating a certain text, but transplanting (in the terminology of D.S. Likhachev) the cultural situation that gave rise to it. This is what Trediakovsky strived for. In the original situation of French precision, the cultural environment gave rise to novels of a certain type, and in the translated situation, the text of the novel was intended to give rise to a corresponding cultural environment. Lotman writes about this in detail in his article “Riding to the Island of Love” by Trediakovsky and the function of translated literature in Russian culture of the first half18th century:
“Having plunged in France into a new atmosphere for him of a completely secularized secular culture, Trediakovsky, first of all, drew attention to the fact that literary life has an organization that it was molded into certain cultural and everyday forms, that literature and life are organically connected: “people of art and culture lead special life", which has its own organizational forms and gives rise to certain types of creativity. It was this situation, and not these or those works, that Trediakovsky, with the scope of an innovator, decided to transfer to Russia. French culture XVII century, it developed two forms of organizing cultural life: the Academy and the Salon. It is these that Trediakovsky would like to recreate in Russia. It is significant that in France the Academy organized by Richelieu and the opposition “blue drawing room” of Madame Rambouillet were in a complex and often antagonistic relationship, but this was not significant for Trediakovsky, who, of course, was aware of the episodes of struggle, intrigue, rapprochement and conflict that occupied Paris between the salons and the Academy. He did not take one side or the other, because he wanted to transfer to Russia culturalthe situation as a whole.
The prestigious salon of the 17th century that emerged in the conditions of literary upsurge. was not a caricatured collection of primps and dandies, but a phenomenon filled with serious cultural meaning. The salon - first of all, the salon of Madame Rambouillet, which became a kind of standard for all other salons of the era - was a phenomenon in opposition to the state centralization imposed by Richelieu. This opposition was not political: the state seriousness was opposed to the game, the official genres of poetry - intimate, the dictatorship of men - the domination of women, cultural unification on a national scale - the creation of a closed and sharply limited from the rest of the world “Island of Love”, “Land of Tenderness”, “Kingdom” precision”, in the creation of maps of which Mademoiselle de Scudéry, Maulevrier, Guere, Talleman and others practiced. The sharp limitation from the rest of the world was a feature of the salon. Crossing its threshold, the chosen one (and only the chosen ones could cross the threshold), like any initiate, a member of the esoteric collective changed his name. He became Valere (Voiture) or Menander (Menage), Galatea (Countess of Saint-Gerand) or Menalida (daughter of Madame Rambouillet Julie, married Duchess of Montosier). Somez, quite seriously (albeit with a touch of irony), compiled a dictionary in which he provided the esoteric names of the women of honor with “translations.” But the space was also renamed - from the real it became conventional and literary. Paris was called Athens, Lyon - Miletus, the suburb of Saint-Germain - Lesser Athens, the island of Notre Dame - Delos. The interior language tended to turn V closed, incomprehensible jargon to “strangers”.
However, the isolation of the salon was not a goal, but a means. She aroused suspicion among the authorities. It is known that Richelieu (“Seneca”, in the language of the preciosists) demanded that the Marquise of Rambouillet tell him the nature of the conversations that took place in her salon. Having provoked the cardinal's anger, the marquise refused, and only the intercession of the cardinal's niece, Mademoiselle Combalet, saved the salon from persecution. Although the Marquise of Rambouillet did not hide her hostility towards “Great Alexander”, as the king was called in the language of prestigious salons, that her daughter Julie, according to the testimony of J. Tallemant de Reo, used to say: “I’m afraid that my mother’s hatred of the King would bring God's curse is on her." political meaning her opposition was negligible. However, Richelieu's instincts did not deceive him. The salons (not in their vulgarized imitations, but in the classical examples of the 17th century) indeed posed a serious danger to absolutist centralism. Being closely connected with the humanistic tradition of the Renaissance, they contrasted both despotic reality and the heroic myth about it created by classicism with the world of artistic utopia. Politics and the Reason that illuminated it were contrasted with Game and Caprice. But Reason was not expelled either: the world of precision is not a world of baroque tragic madness. He only obeyed the laws of masquerade travesty that prevailed in the prestigious salon. Throughout the history of utopian travesty - from masquerade rituals to images of an inverted world, in the literature of the 16th-17th centuries. — essential feature Utopianism is the desire to change the natural order, to make “man and woman one, so that a man would not be a man and a woman would not be a woman.”
Concerning "Argenides" J. Barclay, it provides the first artistic substantiation of the theory of absolute monarchy. Its influence is enormous on the entire generation that created French classicism. This is why she was interesting to V.K. Trediakovsky.
The plot outline boils down to the following: the Sicilian king Meleander, after a difficult struggle, defeated the powerful rebellious nobleman Lycogenes, whose party was joined by the Hyperephanians (understand - Calvinists); the court scientist Nikopompus (as if the author himself in the role of the hero of his novel) constantly gives advice to Meleander and preaches to him the correctness of the monarchical principle, while Lycogenes was still in power, he managed to remove Polyarchus, loyal to the king, from the court; after the defeat of Lycogenes, Polyarchus, who has long been in love with Argenida, the daughter of Meleander, receives her hand, and the novel ends with the triumph of love, which merges with the triumph of the king over the rebellious feudal lords. In the first half. XVIII century they found a “lesson for kings” in it.
"The Adventures of Telemachus" by Fenelon and "Telemachis Trediakovsky"
I. Fenelon conceived his novel as a new “Argenida” in the conditions of “damage”, the decomposition of the absolute monarchy. His “Telemacus” became a transitional phenomenon from absolutist teaching to enlightenment. Fenelon has not yet broken with the principle of absolutism, but sharp criticism of the ruinous wars of Louis XIV, which led to the exhaustion of France, indirect condemnation of his entire domestic policy, lessons of new liberal, state wisdom, bold attacks on flatterers, the ulcer of the state made this novel an expression of the anti-monarchical mood of minds.
II. There was another side to Fenelon's novel. He wanted to combine a political treatise with an entertaining narrative. He chooses a plot that gives him the opportunity to infuse into his novel both his knowledge of ancient culture and the traditions of “beauty” of Homer and Virgil.
Trediakovsky transforms Fenelon's prose into poetry. His goal is to translate the style of the epigone into the language of the original source. And the result is truly amazing lines:
The bright day has faded, darkness spreads across the ocean...
Hence the name, not novelistic, but Homeric, epic. Trediakovsky, therefore, is credited with creating Russian hexameter , and Telemachida in this regard must be correlated with Gnedich’s Iliad and Zhukovsky’s Odyssey.
It is known that Gnedich re-read Telemachis three times.
B) historical translations
Rollen " Ancient history» - 10 t.;
“Roman History” - 16 volumes;
Crevier “History of the Roman Emperors” - 4 vols.
All these translations were burned in a fire, Trediakovsky translated them again.
III. Scientific works : “A new and short way to compose Russian poems with definitions of previously relevant knowledge” (1735); “On Ancient, Middle and New Russian Poems” (1752).
“A new and short way to compose Russian poems with definitions of previously relevant knowledge” (1735) laid the foundation for the reform of Russian versification. Trediakovsky proceeded from two points:
a) the method of composing verses depends on the natural properties of the language;
b) Russian versification should be based on the correct alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables; reliance on folk poetry - where “the sweetest, most pleasant and most correct stop falling” is observed.
In turn, a foot is “a measure or part of a verse, consisting of two syllables.”
However, the author combined the spread of the new system with restrictive restrictions:
1) it was proposed to use it only in 11.13 syllables;
3) the most common word for it is trochee;
4) feminine rhyme is preferred, alternating rhymes is not allowed.
M.V. Lomonosov (“Letter on the Rules of Russian Poetry”) (1731) lifted these restrictions, and Trediakovsky took this fact into account in a new treatise, “A Method for Composing Russian Poems Against that Issued in 1735, Corrected and Amplified” (1752).
Trediakovsky also owns treatises on individual genres of literature:
“Discourse on ode in general”;
“Preface to ironic poetry”;
"Discourse on comedy in general."
Language reform:
1. The use of a “simple Russian word” (a worldly book, Old Church Slavonic “my ears hear cruelty” - regarding Talman’s translation);
2. The desire to bring closer Russian spelling to its phonetic basis (“as the ringing demands”);
3. The struggle to preserve the purity of the Russian language (“I hardly used a single one foreign word" - about "Argenida");
4. Noted the phenomenon of folk etymology;
5. Introduced “unit sticks” - a designation for continuous pronunciation;
6. Actively introduced neologisms (especially within the framework of love vocabulary, unfortunately, not always successfully: gatherings in the meaning of a date, etc.).
In the 18th century the name of V.K. Trediakovsky has become a household name to denote a pretentious, mediocre pedant. His poems were mercilessly ridiculed - indeed, they were often convenient objects for parodies. His works were not published at all, and Trediakovsky had to resort to various tricks in order to publish his next creation. Sumarokov brought him to the stage in Tresotinius and touched upon him in all his satires and epistles on literary topics. Trediakovsky died in poverty, ridiculed and offended by his contemporaries. Radishchev and Pushkin tried to remove the stigma of a mediocre poet from Trediakovsky, realizing how great the significance of his literary activity was. Trediakovsky's real merit lies in his attempt to reform Russian versification; in posing the problem of creating a Russian literary language and actively participating in its reform; in the creation of the literary doctrine of classicism; in developing new genre forms in Russian literature.
The beginning of literary activity. New concept of love in Russian literature
Success to young V.K. Trediakovsky's success in the literary field was brought to him by the first book he published in 1730, "A Trip to the Island of Love," a translation of a love-allegorical novel by the French writer Paul Talman and poems collected in a special appendix, "Poems for Various Occasions." Trediakovsky's attention was attracted by the general ethics - aesthetic concept of the work. In the preface “To the Reader,” Trediakovsky warned that “this book is sweet love,” “a worldly book,” thereby emphasizing its secular nature and the novelty of its content. Galman's book was chosen by Trediakovsky not only to convey to the Russian reader the forms and formulas of love speech and tender conversations, but also to instill in him a certain concept of love. The young author perceived love as a source of joy and happiness, “as an eternal holiday, as a world of youth and fun”” (I.Z. Serman), and his position significantly diverged from Talman’s position: “There is no such philosophy of love in Paul Talman’s novel, as the direction of French romance with which “A Trip to the Island of Love” is associated (Serman I.Z. Russian classicism: Poetry. Drama. Satire / I.Z. Serman. - L., 1973. - P. 113) did not have it. . Success also accompanied Trediakovsky's love lyrics. He created a Russian literary song. It was he who legitimized mythological imagery in this genre.
Activities to create a Russian literary language
Trediakovsky was the first professional writer in Russia. By nature, he considered himself a pioneer of Russian versification (see the section “Reform of Russian versification”). At meetings of the translation meeting of the academy (which he himself called the “Russian Assembly”), Trediakovsky came up with a broad program for streamlining the Russian language, creating a literary norm with it. In the preface to the book “A Trip to the Island of Love,” which he called “To the Reader,” he emphasizes that he made his translation not in book “Slovenian,” but in ordinary colloquial language, which represents an attempt to form a literary language on a living conversational basis.
As the basis for linguistic transformations, Trediakovsky decided to take the speech of the court circle, or “a fair amount of company,” calling on one to beware, on the one hand, of “deeply worded Slavism,” and on the other hand, of “mean use,” i.e., the speech of the lower classes. But Old Church Slavonic the language at that time had not yet exhausted its possibilities, and “low” expressions were used not only among the “full people”, but also in the “fair company". Real reforms on such a shaky basis were impossible. Trediakovsky drew attention to the problem itself, and M.V. Lomonosov had to solve it.
In the middle of his poetic activity, Trediakovsky nevertheless turns to both the “deep-speaking Slavism” that he rejected and to the democratic vernacular vocabulary. However, he failed to achieve a synthesis of bookish hailstones and a living foundation of colloquial speech - Trediakovsky’s poetic speech was a disordered mechanical mixture, which made it difficult to understand the poems. Trediakovsky’s poems require careful work to develop the skills to read them due to numerous and unjustified inversions, artificial combinations of words, confusing constructions, the presence of unnecessary, clogging words (he himself called them “plugs” and warned poets against using “empty additives”) and unmotivated combinations of archaisms with vernacular.
Thanks to the above features, Trediakovsky’s poems have become a convenient object for parody.