Russian art work of the 18th century. Age of Enlightenment

Fiction (prose) is one of the types of art that differs from the rest only in the material from which works are created - it is only words and artistic language. The result of creativity fiction- works that reflect eras, have high artistic value and bring aesthetic pleasure.

Old Russian literature has 2 sources - church books (the Bible, the lives of the saints) and folklore. It existed from the moment of the introduction of writing in Cyrillic (XI century) until the appearance of individual author's works (XVII century). Original works: "The Tale of Bygone Years" (sample of chronicles), "The Tale of Law and Grace", "Instructions for Children" (codes of laws), "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" (the genre resembles a story, with a logical development of events and reliability, with art style).
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Peter's transformations were reflected not only in the scientific and technical achievements of Russia in the 18th century, but also made a huge contribution to the development of national culture and art. Rather, they gave the latter a significant acceleration and radically changed the vector of development of domestic art. Until the 18th century, the development of Russian culture took place in isolation, even in isolation, which led to the development of authentic trends and genres closely related to the national and church trends. In the countries of Europe at the same time, literature finally separated from the church and became secular. It was precisely this secularism - the creative freedom and breadth of genres inherent in the European Age of Enlightenment - that was lacking in Rus'.

Russian literature throughout the 18th century developed under the influence of European literature, lagging behind it by about 100 years and passing through the following stages:

early XVIII century- panegyric, hagiographic literature,
ser. XVIII century- classicism, sentimentalism (Lomonosov, Karamzin, Radishchev),
to. XVIII century- the dominance of sentimentalism, preparation for romanticism.

« Golden age» domestic literature. The history of Russian literature of the 19th century is inscribed with many names that have received worldwide recognition: A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov. During this period, the formation of the Russian literary language takes place, such literary trends as sentimentalism, romanticism, critical realism develop, writers and poets master new literary forms and techniques. Dramaturgy and the art of satire reach unprecedented heights.

The development of romanticism (until the 1840s) and realism (from the 1850s to the end of the century), from the 1890s the directions of the Silver Age develop. The most important functions of literature are considered critical, moral-formative, socio-political, the most important genre is the novel. Romantics: Lermontov, Pushkin, realists: Gogol, Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov.

Russian literature of the 20th century is represented by three brightest periods: the era of the "Silver Age" with its contradictions and innovations, the military era, with its deep patriotism, and the huge period of the second half of the century, when socialist realism flourished.

In the beginning. XX century romanticism is being revived - for the poeticization of revolutionary events.
30-40s of the XX century- the active intervention of the party in culture leads to the stratification of writers. Some in exile develop a realistic genre, others create in socialist realism (a direction that draws working man on the road to communism).
40-50s of the middle of the XX century- "trench", lieutenant or military prose. A realistic depiction of the war of 1941-45, where the author is an eyewitness to the events.
60-80s of XX century- the period of the "thaw", the development of "village" prose.
90s years of the end of the 20th century- avant-garde, post-Soviet realism, gravitation towards "darkness" - intentionally exaggerated cruelty, obsceneness.

Foreign literature

Foreign literature originates in Greece during the period of antiquity and becomes the basis for all existing types of literature. Formed the principles of artistic creativity Aristotle.

With the advent of Christianity, church texts spread, all medieval literature Europe (IV-XIII centuries) - the processing of church texts, and the Renaissance (from the XIV century, Dante, Shakespeare, Rabelais) - their rethinking and repulsion from the church, the creation of secular literature.

The literature of the Enlightenment is the chanting of the human mind. Sentimentalism, romanticism (Rousseau, Diderot, Defoe, Swift).

XX century - modernism and postmodernism. The chanting of the mental, sexual in man (Proust, Hemingway, Marquez).

Literary criticism

Criticism is an organic and inseparable part of all literary art in general, and a critic must definitely have a bright talent as a writer and publicist. Truly well-written critical articles can force the reader to look at a previously read work from a completely new angle, draw completely new conclusions and discoveries, and can even radically change their assessments and judgments on a particular topic.

Literary criticism has close links with modern life society, with its experiences, philosophical and aesthetic ideals of a certain era, contributes to the development of the literary creative process, and has a powerful influence on the formation of public consciousness.

Literary directions

The unity of the creative features of writers who create within a certain historical period is usually called a literary trend, a variety of which can be separate currents and movements. The use of identical artistic techniques, the similarity of worldview and life priorities, close aesthetic views make it possible to attribute a number of masters to specific branches of the literary art of the 19th-20th centuries.

There is a clear boundary between the creations of the first and second halves of the 18th century, and works created at the beginning of the century are very different from subsequent ones.

Large literary forms were already developing in the West and preparations were underway for the creation of the genre of the novel, while Russian authors were still copying the lives of saints and praising rulers in clumsy, unwieldy poems. Genre diversity in Russian literature is poorly represented; it lags behind European literature by about a century.

Among the genres of Russian literature of the early 18th century, it is worth mentioning:

hagiographic literature(sources - church literature),
panegyric literature(texts of praise),
Russian poems(the origins are Russian epics, composed in tonic versification).

Vasily Trediakovsky, the first professional Russian philologist who was educated at home and consolidated his language and style skills at the Sorbonne, is considered a reformer of Russian literature.

Firstly, Trediakovsky forced his contemporaries to read, and his followers to write prose - he created a mass of translations of ancient Greek myths and European literature created on this classical basis, throwing a theme for future works to contemporary writers.

Secondly, Trediakovsky revolutionary separated poetry from prose, developed the basic rules of syllabo-tonic Russian versification, based on the experience of French literature.

Genres of Literature II half of XVIII century:

Drama (comedy, tragedy),
Prose (sentimental journey, sentimental story, sentimental letters),
Poetic forms (heroic and epic poems, odes, a huge variety of small lyrical forms)

Russian poets and writers of the 18th century

Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin occupies a significant place in Russian literature along with D.I. Fonvizin and M.V. Lomonosov. Together with these titans of Russian literature, he is included in the brilliant galaxy of the founders of Russian classical literature of the Enlightenment era, dating back to the second half of the 18th century. At this time, largely due to the personal participation of Catherine II, science and art were rapidly developing in Russia. This is the time of the appearance of the first Russian universities, libraries, theaters, public museums and a relatively independent press, though very relative and for a short period, which ended with the advent of A.P. Radishchev. By this time, as Famusov Griboedova called it, "the age of the golden Catherine", the most fruitful period of the poet's activity belongs.

Selected Poems:

Fonvizin's play is a classic example of a comedy in compliance with the traditional rules for creating plays:

The trinity of time, place and action,
Primitive typification of heroes (classicism assumed the lack of psychologism and depth of character of the hero, so they were all divided into either good and bad, or smart and stupid)

The comedy was written and staged in 1782. The progressiveness of Denis Fonvizin as a playwright lies in the fact that in a classical play he combined several problems (the problem of family and upbringing, the problem of education, the problem of social inequality) and created more than one conflict (love conflict and socio-political). Fonvizin's humor is not light, serving solely for entertainment, but sharp, aimed at ridiculing vices. Thus, the author brought realistic features to the classical work.

Biography:

Selected work:

Time of creation - 1790, genre - travel diary, typical for French sentimental travelers. But the journey turned out to be filled not with bright impressions of the voyage, but with gloomy, tragic colors, despair and horror.

Alexander Radishchev published Journey in his home printing house, and the censor, apparently having read the title of the book, mistook it for another sentimental diary and released it without reading it. The book had the effect of an exploding bomb: in the form of scattered memories, the author described the nightmarish reality and the life of the people he met at each station along the way from one capital to another. Poverty, filth, extreme poverty, mockery of the strong over the weak and hopelessness - these were the realities of the modern state for Radishchev. The author received a long-term exile, and the story was banned.

Radishchev's story is not typical for a purely sentimental work - instead of tears of tenderness and charming travel memories, so generously scattered by French and English sentimentalisms, an absolutely real and merciless life picture is drawn here.

Selected work:

The story "Poor Lisa" is an adapted European plot on Russian soil. Created in 1792, the story has become a model of sentimental literature. The author sang the cult of sensitivity and sensual human nature, put into the mouths of the characters " internal monologues revealing their thoughts. Psychologism, subtle portrayal of characters, great attention to the inner world of heroes - a typical manifestation of sentimental traits.

The innovation of Nikolai Karamzin was manifested in the original resolution of the heroine's love conflict - the Russian reading public, accustomed mainly to the happy ending of the stories, for the first time received a blow in the form of the main character's suicide. And in this meeting with the bitter truth of life turned out to be one of the main advantages of the story.

Selected work:

On the Threshold of the Golden Age of Russian Literature

Europe went from classicism to realism in 200 years, Russia had to hurry up with the development of this material in 50-70 years, constantly catching up and learning from someone else's example. While Europe was already reading realistic stories, Russia had to master classicism and sentimentalism in order to move on to creating romantic works.

The golden age of Russian literature is the time of the development of romanticism and realism. Preparing for the appearance of these stages in Russian writers passed at an accelerated pace, but the most important thing that was learned by the writers of the 18th century was the ability to assign to literature not only an entertaining function, but also an educational, critical, moral-forming one.

And all the achievements of the Renaissance. Societies were greatly influenced by the literature of the 18th century, which made its invaluable contribution to world culture. The Enlightenment gave impetus to the French Revolution, which completely changed Europe.

The literature of the 18th century performed mainly educational functions; great philosophers and writers became its heralds. They themselves had an incredible store of knowledge, sometimes encyclopedic, and not without reason believed that only an enlightened person could change this world. They carried their humanistic ideas through literature, which consisted mainly of philosophical treatises. These works were written for a fairly wide circle of readers capable of thinking and reasoning. The authors hoped in this way to be heard by a large number of people.

The period from 1720 to 1730 is called enlightenment classicism. Its main content was that the writers ridiculed based on examples of ancient literature and art. In these works, one can feel pathos and heroism, which are aimed at the idea of creating a state-paradise.

Foreign literature of the 18th century did a lot. She was able to show the heroes who are real patriots. For this category of people, Equality, Fraternity and Freedom are the top priority. True, it should be noted that these heroes are completely devoid of individuality, characterization, they are possessed only by lofty passions.

Enlightenment classicism is being replaced by enlightenment realism, which brings literature closer to concepts that are closer to people. Foreign literature of the 18th century receives a new direction, more realistic and democratic. Writers turn to face the person, describe his life, talk about his suffering and torment. In the language of novels and poems, writers urge their readers to mercy and compassion. The 18th century is beginning to read the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, Lessing, Fielding and Defoe. The main characters are ordinary people who cannot resist public morality, are very vulnerable and often weak-willed. The authors of these works are still very far from the realistic literary images of the heroes of the 19th and 20th centuries, but a significant shift towards the description of more vital characters is already noticeable.

Russian literature of the 18th century originates from the transformations of Peter I, gradually changing the position of enlightened classicism to realism. Prominent representatives of this period were such authors as Trediakovsky and Sumarokov. They created fertile ground on Russian soil for the development of literary talents. Fonvizin, Derzhavin, Radishchev and Karamzin are indisputable. We still admire their talents and civic position.

English literature of the 18th century was distinguished by the formation of several different directions at once. The English pioneered such genres as social and family novels, which showed the talents of Richardson, Smollett, Stevenson, and, no doubt, Swift, Defoe and Fielding. The writers of England were among the first to criticize not the bourgeois system, but the bourgeois themselves, their moral and truth. Jonathan Swift, in his irony, swung at the bourgeois system itself, showing in his works its most negative sides. English literature of the 18th century is also represented by a phenomenon called sentimentalism. It is filled with pessimism, disbelief in ideals and is aimed only at feelings, usually of a love content.

The book is a manual on the history of Russian literature of the XX century (20-90s). It is the first volume, followed by a sequel - "The Literary Process" (in two parts). The manual is intended to reflect a modern scientific view of the main artistic values and trends in the development of Russian literature of the 20th century. The publication is intended for students of the philological faculties of Russian universities, as well as for graduate students and teachers - all those involved in Russian literature.

Ways and faces. On Russian Literature of the 20th Century Aleksey Chagin

The book combines a number of the author's works written in the last two decades and dedicated to Russian literature of the 20th century. It opens with "The Split Lyre" (1998) - the first monographic study addressed to the problems of studying Russian literature in relation to the two streams of its development after 1917 - in Russia and abroad. The following sections include articles on the problems and trends in the development of Russian literature abroad and, more broadly, Russian literature of the 20th century. On the pages of the book appear the figures of V. Khodasevich, G. Ivanov, S. Yesenin, O. Mandelstam, ...

Team of Authors

The subject of the first volume is Old Russian literature and literature of the 18th century. It highlights the originality of the historical path of Russian literature of the 10th - the first quarter of the 18th century, the formation of Russian literature of the new time, the formation of its national identity. The final part of the volume shows the significance of the traditions of the 18th century. in the history of Russian literature of the XIX century.

Old Russian literature. Literature XVIII… N. Prutskov

History of Russian literature of the 19th century. Part… Sergey Skibin

Part 1 of the textbook reveals the patterns of literary development at the beginning of the century, the artistic wealth of the "golden age" of Russian poetry, which flourished in the work of A. S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov. The textbook is intended for students of philological faculties, teachers of universities and schools.

History of Foreign Literature of the 18th Century Team of Authors

The textbook examines the most important regularities in the development of the literature of the Enlightenment - one of the brightest periods in the history of world literature. The work of the most outstanding writers of England, France, Italy, USA and Germany - Defoe, Swift, Fielding, Stern, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Lessing, Schiller, Goethe is analyzed. Recommended by the Ministry of Education Russian Federation as a textbook for students of higher educational institutions. Second edition, corrected and enlarged. Edited by L. V. Sidorchenko.

History of foreign literature of the 17th century Nina Zhirmunskaya

The textbook examines the development of the literary styles of baroque and classicism on the examples of the literature of Spain, France, Germany, England. The work of the largest writers of these countries - Calderon, Corneille, Racine, Molière, Grimmelshausen, Milton and others is analyzed.

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Volume 8. Literature Factory Andrey Platonov

Before you is the first collected works of Andrei Platonov, which includes all the works of the classic of Russian literature of the 20th century known to date. This volume includes literary criticism and journalism of the 1920s-1940s. Unfortunately, some of the works are missing from the file. http://ruslit.traumlibrary.net

Juliette. Volume 2 Marquis de Sade

This volume includes the fourth, fifth and sixth books of one of the most significant works of the infamous Marquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740-1814), Juliette. In it, as in his other works, the Marquis de Sade describes the very cruel ways of sexual "entertainment" of the upper class of France in the middle of the 18th century, so this publication will be of interest to all lovers of hard erotic literature.

Juliette. Volume I Marquis de Sade

This volume includes the first, second and third books of one of the most significant works of the infamous Marquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740-1814), the novel Juliette. In it, as in his other works, the Marquis de Sade describes the very cruel ways of sexual "entertainment" of the upper class of France in the middle of the 18th century, so this publication will be of interest to all lovers of hard erotic literature.

Juliette. Volume II Marquis de Sade

This volume includes the fourth, fifth and sixth books of one of the most significant works of the infamous Marquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740-1814), the novel Juliette. In it, as in his other works, the Marquis de Sade describes the very cruel ways of sexual "entertainment" of the upper class of France in the middle of the 18th century, so this publication will be of interest to all lovers of hard erotic literature.

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“The Bridge on the Drina” is a song about the motherland, a song about the land where you were born and where you will die, a song about your life and your compatriots, far and near. This is one of the deepest and most original works of world literature of the 20th century, where the legends and traditions of the people are intricately intertwined with real, real events, and the heroes of folk tales are on a par with living, concretely existing people seen by their contemporary. In October 1961, The Bridge on the Drina was awarded the Nobel Prize by the Swedish Academy...

In the Petrine era of the XVIII century. in response to the demands of the time, literature was rapidly transformed, its ideological, genre and thematic appearance was updated. The reforming activity of Peter, the initiative to transform Russia, led to the organic assimilation of enlightenment ideas by literature and new writers, and above all the political teachings of the enlighteners - the concept of enlightened absolutism. Enlightenment ideology gave modern forms traditional features Russian literature. As D.S. Likhachev pointed out, in the era of the accelerated construction of the Russian centralized state, state and social themes begin to predominate in literature, and journalism is rapidly developing.

Publicism will penetrate into other genres of literature, thus determining its special, openly instructive character. Teaching as the most important tradition of young Russian literature was inherited by the new time and acquired a new quality: the Russian writer acted as a citizen who dared to teach the next monarch to reign. Lomonosov taught Elizabeth to reign, Novikov and Fonvizin - first Catherine II, and then Paul I, Derzhavin - Catherine II, Karamzin - Alexander I, Pushkin in the difficult time of defeating the Decembrist uprising - Nicholas I.

Publicism became a feature of Russian literature of the 18th century, determining the originality of its artistic appearance.

Undoubtedly, the most important and fundamental feature of the new literature was that it was literature created by the efforts of individual authors. Appeared in society new type writer, whose literary activity determined by his personality.

During this period, Russian classicism enters the historical arena, becoming a necessary stage in the development of Russian literature as a pan-European literature. Russian classicism created a multi-genre art, which at first asserted its existence only with a poetic word; prose will develop later - from the 1760s. Through the efforts of several generations of poets, many genres of lyrical and satirical poetry were developed. Classical poets (Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Kheraskov, Knyaznin) approved the genre of tragedy. Thus, conditions were prepared for the organization and successful operation of the Russian theater. Created in 1756, the Russian theater began its work under the direction of Sumarokov. Classicism, having begun the creation of national literature, contributed to the development of the ideals of citizenship, formed the idea of a heroic character, included the artistic experience of ancient and European art in national literature, showed the ability of poetry to analytically reveal the spiritual world of a person.

Lomonosov, relying on the artistic experience of mankind, wrote deeply national, original odes, expressing the spirit of a rising nation. The pathos of his poetry was the idea of asserting the greatness and power of Russia, youth, energy and creative activity of a nation that believes in its own strength and its historical vocation. Idea statements was born in the process of creative explanation and generalization of experience, real practice of "Russian sons". The poetry created by Lomonosov existed next to the satirical direction, the initiator of which was Kantemir.

During the reign of Catherine II, the Russian Enlightenment finally took shape, the journalist and writer Nikolai Novikov, the playwright and prose writer Denis Fonvizin, and the philosopher Yakov Kozelsky entered the public arena. Along with them, scientists S. Desnitsky, D. Anichkov, a propagandist and popularizer of the educational ideology, Professor N. Kurganov, the compiler of one of the most popular books of the century, The Letter Book, actively worked. In the 1780s Novikov created in Moscow on the basis of the printing house of Moscow University rented by him the largest educational center. AT

late 1780s a young writer, a student of Russian enlighteners, a talented prose writer Ivan Krylov, entered literature.

At the same time, the works of Alexander Radishchev also came out of print. The works of these authors are considered to be created in the tradition of enlightenment realism. Their main problematics are the ideas of the extra-class value of a person, faith in his great role on earth, patriotic, civil and social activity as the main way of self-assertion of the personality. The most important feature of showing reality is the disclosure of its social contradictions, a satirical and accusatory attitude towards it (Radischev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow", an ode to "Liberty", Fonvizin's comedies "The Brigadier" and "Undergrowth").

At the same time, in Russia, almost simultaneously with other European countries, another literary trend was being formed, called sentimentalism. Penetration into Russian literature of sentimentalism begins already in the 1770s. It is especially noticeable in the work of M. Kheraskov and the poets of his circle, united in the Moscow university journal Useful Entertainment. Russian writers knew the works of English, French and German sentimentalists very well, and translated them intensively. Hence the understandable, peculiar commonality of themes, genres, motives and even characters among the writers of this trend.

The creator of Russian sentimentalism as a new and original artistic system was Karamzin, a poet, prose writer, publicist, literary and theater critic, publisher and author of the multi-volume History of the Russian State. A real literary school for Karamzin was the editing of the magazine Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind (1785–1789), published by Novikov, for which Karamzin translated many works of European literature of the 18th century. Journey through the countries of Europe in 1789-1790. turned out to be a decisive moment in the literary fate of Karamzin. Undertaking the publication of the Moscow Journal, Karamzin acted both as a writer and as a theoretician of a new direction, deeply and independently perceiving the experience of contemporary European literature, the main aesthetic principles of which were sincerity of feeling and “pure natural taste”.

Already in the first literary works writer, two types of heroes appear: a “natural person” and a civilized, enlightened person. The writer is looking for heroes of the first type in a peasant environment, an environment not spoiled by civilization that has preserved patriarchal foundations. Karamzin's famous story "Poor Lisa" (1791) attracted contemporaries with its humanistic idea: "peasant women know how to love." The main character of the story, the peasant woman Lisa, embodies the writer's idea of a "natural person": she is "beautiful in soul and body", kind, sincere, able to love faithfully and tenderly.

Perhaps the most significant work of Karamzin "Letters of a Russian Traveler", representing European life late 18th century - customs and way of life, social structure, politics and culture of contemporary Europe to Karamzin. Main character- "sensitive", "sentimental" person, this determines his attention to nature, interest in works of art, in every person he meets, and, finally, his reflections on the welfare of all people, on the "moral rapprochement of peoples." In an 1802 article “On love for the fatherland and national pride”, Karamzin wrote: “Our misfortune is that we all want to speak French and do not think of working on processing our own language.” The bilingualism of the Russian educated society seemed to Karamzin one of the main obstacles to the national self-determination of Europeanized Russian literature and culture, but the final solution to the problem of reforming the language of Russian prose and poetry belongs not to Karamzin, but to Pushkin.

Sentimentalism directly prepared the flourishing of Russian romanticism in early XIX in.

Control questions and tasks

Poetry: Simeon Polotsky, Sylvester Medvedev, Karion Istomin.

N. Karamzin "Poor Lisa".

Poetry V. Trediakovsky, M. Lomonosov, A. Sumarokov, G. Derzhavin.