Jean Christophe — central hero Rolland's epico-lyrical narration - combines the irresistible fortitude (German Krafft - "strength") with contempt for violence, the humiliation of the human person. A musician, a German by nationality, was chosen as the hero, which in the midst of anti-German sentiment in France was a definite challenge. J.-K. realizes itself in music, which becomes a philosophy of life. The musician is capable, and therefore obliged, "to spread the sun and joy around him ... to saturate you with the sun." Having transferred to his hero the biographical features of Beethoven and the German composer of the late 19th century. Hugo Wolff, Rolland nevertheless proposed a very topical twist on the topic "artist and society". Refusing to present another case of an insurmountable conflict between the artist and society, R. preferred to show that the disgusting "fair on the square" that humiliates the artist can be overcome, and not in the distant future, but now, while the artist is creating. J.-K. manages to captivate with his art those who at first are completely indifferent. The source of the artist's strength lies in the interest in all manifestations of life and the ability to find mutual language with the most ordinary people. J.-K., like Rolland, is frightened by an uncontrollable crowd, he does not see a positive beginning in the labor movement, but he has an active faith in the positive beginning of human nature and an inexhaustible thirst for communication. The novel is densely populated, the musician does not run away from the world, does not shy away from people, on the contrary, strives for them, knows how to be indulgent towards artists who have chosen a path that seems to him a dead end, to keep affection for people of the older generation who helped him (Professor Schulz, who was the first to appreciate his talent, the Reingart family), to delve into the arguments of young friends, even if they conflict with his own views. His love hobbies are always based on respect, recognition for the beloved of the right to make an independent choice, whether it be the shy girl Minna, seized by the "folk" wildness of Hell, the actress Francoise Houdon, blazing with creative energy, Anna captivated by religious dogmas, or Antoinette close to him in spirit. J.-K. a maximalist in love, friendship, and creative intentions. "Between good and evil, I have no middle ground, not even a hair's breadth." This character trait is enhanced by the aesthetic originality of the image: signs of hyperbole are clear in his drawing. The work is built as a novel of education and at the same time as a four-part symphony (the initial three books are the childhood and youth of J.-K .; “Riot” and “Fair on the Square” are the culmination of the conflict; the next three books are the opposition to the fanaticism of social oppositions of the natural joys of love and friendship ; finally, "The Burning Bush" and "The Coming Day" - the resolution of tension in the wise acceptance of life in all its contradictions.

The work of Romain Rolland

"Jean-Christophe": the structure of the novel, the image of the protagonist, features of poetics, genre specificity, the essence of innovation

"Jean-Christophe" is unusual by the very idea. This is the story of life brilliant musician, from birth to death. The novel is also unusual in its structure: no romantic intrigue, few external events, but a lot of reflection, sometimes - pages of lyrical prose, and sometimes - transitions of the narrative into direct journalism. The manner of presentation is uneven, in places unusually elevated and not free from length; dialogues are expressive, saturated with thought and feeling, but bear little resemblance to everyday, everyday speech. Least of all, "Jean-Christophe" resembled fiction for easy reading: the author obviously did not care about entertaining, did not really care about the complete general availability of his novel. Every now and then, the names of composers and writers of different eras appear on its pages, various associations with works of art arise in the course of action; often we are talking about such events of social and artistic life that are not so well known to the reading public.

And, despite all this, the novel won unexpectedly wide recognition. "Jean-Christophe" began to come out book after book. It began to be translated into foreign languages. Immediately upon completion of his work in 1913, Romain Rolland received the Grand Prize of the French Academy, and even earlier - the Order of the Legion of Honor. "Jean-Christophe" was perceived and realized as a social event, entered the circle literary works that defined the face artistic culture XX century. It is worth considering the reasons for this success.

In Jean-Christophe, the generation of 1904 found a basis for hope, for struggle, in social and historical conditions that had changed from those that had driven the people of previous generations to despair. The objective meaning of this historical change, reflected in its own way on the pages of the novel, is the advancement into the arena of history of the working class, which, despite wavering and mistakes, was gaining strength, gaining independence, and attracting non-proletarian sections of the working people to its side. Jean-Christophe reflected in its own way both the growing danger of war and the latent protest against it.

Such a characterization of the ideological essence of "Jean-Christophe" may seem at first glance too straightforward. After all, we still have before us the story of a musician, because we are talking about the formation, search, creative ascent composer, a man rebellious in spirit, but in the very essence of his profession far from political life. But indignation at the power of the owners, hostile to genuine culture and art, aversion to huckstering, philistinism, to the phenomena of bourgeois decay, protest against the oppression of man by man and, at the same time, the expectation of great historical shifts in people's lives - all this lives in the novel, animates it. . It is from here that the fundamental traits of Jean-Christophe's character and attitude are intransigence, independence and, at the same time, deep sympathy for the working people. And one can understand why French readers, tired of the twilight, decadent literature of the end of the century, imbued with the spirit of despondency and moral nihilism, perceived Jean-Christophe as a breath of fresh air.

The depth and complexity of the concept of the novel was not immediately revealed - not only to the general public, but also to critics and literary critics. However, readers of thinking, spiritually alive from the very beginning were attracted by the image of the main character - a rebel, creator, humanist, a man of a brave and generous soul. I was also attracted by the unusual artistic structure of the novel, in which the writer's faith in life, in the progressive movement of mankind, was embodied in a peculiar way.

"Jean-Christophe" is rich in harsh critical content - both where the philistine world of Germany is depicted, moving from loyal provincial vegetation to militaristic fury, and where the bourgeois (and literary, artistic) elite of France is shown without embellishment, mired in corruption and cynicism. The fifth book of the novel, where the Parisian “fair on the square” opens to the astonished, indignant gaze of Jean-Christophe, is distinguished by a special sharpness of tone. Rolland was well acquainted with the mores of the "fair" and said aloud about it what was on his mind, not being afraid to make powerful enemies for himself. He had to listen to reproaches about this book even from some friends, and he defended himself with great sincerity. “Attacking the corrupt French,” says Romain Rolland through the mouth of his hero, “I defend France ... You need to tell her the truth, especially when you love her.” This principled position of the French master was able to understand - both in his country and abroad - the most insightful readers of his novel. Romain Rolland tried in the subsequent development of the action of the novel to "restore the measure." Friendship with the French writer Olivier, closer personal contacts with Parisian neighbors, far from the dirty bustle of the "fair" - all this helps Jean-Christophe to see "true France ..." more clearly. And as the novel progresses, the abyss that separates the oppressed from the oppressors opens up ever deeper.

If little Jean-Christophe first learned injustice when he, the son of a visiting cook, was insulted and beaten by arrogant barchuks, then adult Jean-Christophe Kraft is horrified when he looks at the living conditions of the Parisian poor. And together with Christophe, his friend Olivier painfully reflects on the grief of the destitute. With increasing acuteness, the problem of the revolutionary transformation of the world rises in Jean-Christophe, especially in his penultimate book, The Burning Bush. It rises - and turns out to be a stumbling block both for Rolland himself and for the heroes who are close to him in spirit.

Romain Rolland soberly saw the weaknesses of the French working-class movement before the First World War - disunity into separate trends and groups, the sectarian narrowness of some, the opportunism of others, the anarchist phrase-mongering of others. All this to some extent obscured the real historical prospects of the proletariat in his eyes. in part, the writer's prejudices (as well as insufficient knowledge of the material) were reflected in those chapters of the novel, which deal with the attempts of Jean-Christophe and Olivier to take part in the struggle of the working class. the writer is no less than his heroes: distrust of politics, heightened moral rigor... There is a pattern in the fact that Jean-Christophe, after the tragic death of Olivier in a fight with the police, completely departs from public life.

It would be unfair to suspect Jean-Christophe (and even more so Rolland himself) of intellectual arrogance, a kind of spiritual aristocracy. No, the innovative musician throughout his life is drawn to ordinary workers, he knows how to find a common language with them. Among the characters of the novel there are many simple and honest people with soul, open to art. Christoph finds support in friendship with them.

Jean-Christophe's sunset is given in soft colors. After a long life that has passed in deprivation, unrest, hard work, he has the right to consider himself a winner. He did not bow to the commercial mores of the "fair in the square", did not adapt to its vulgar tastes. His music, bold, full of energy, unusual in many respects, received recognition - even after his death it will bring joy to people.

But Christoph himself, a former indomitable rebel, changed in his old age, lost his fighting ardor. In his way of life and way of thinking, a certain spiritual fatigue is reflected, prompting him to listen indulgently to such speeches, such opinions with which he cannot agree. The younger generation of the French, succumbing to militant nationalist sentiments, does not arouse anger in him.

And yet there is no reason to consider "Jean-Christophe" as a novel "farewell to the past", as a renunciation of the writer or his hero from past ideals. To the extent that Christophe's rebellion had an individualistic and abstract character, this rebellion reveals, in terms of social ideas, its inherent fragility: this is shown, in essence, quite soberly. In the last book of the novel - even though the action in it is transferred to an indefinite future - some real features of the spiritual atmosphere of France on the eve of the First World War are reflected.

The image of Jean-Christophe - not a pacified old man from the last book, but a young brave rebel, as he appeared in the books "Riot", "Fair on the Square" - now and then appeared before Rolland. He created this image, and now the hero had the opposite effect on the author, strengthened his stamina, encouraged him to actively resist the forces of imperialism.

The idea of ​​peace and mutual understanding of peoples is deeply embedded in the very essence of the story of Jean-Christophe. Having conceived a novel about the great musician, focusing on the majestic image of Beethoven, Romain Rolland had to make his hero a German, dip him into the atmosphere of the old German province. But from the life of Beethoven, he borrowed only a few facts relating to the childhood and early youth of the composer. Jean-Christophe - "a hero of the Beethoven type" becomes an adult at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; circumstances force him to emigrate to France. This turn of events came in handy for R. Rolland because it made it possible to show the literary and artistic world of Paris and France as a whole through a sharply fresh, sharply critical perception of a foreigner. This is how an originally constructed narrative developed, in which different nations and different national cultures interact and compare.

The ideological essence of a great work of art is expressed, as a rule, not in the author's declarations, and even more so not in hasty solutions to problems that have not been solved by life itself. Many important socio-political issues of the era could not be clear to the creator of Jean-Christophe. But it was clear to him that the renewal of the whole order of life of people in France and throughout the world on the basis of morality and social justice was on the order of the day. And Rolland strove to bring this future, which was unclear to him, to participate by the power of his art in the movement of mankind forward. The artistic structure of the novel is subordinated to this task.

The elevation of the narrative above reality is also reflected in Rolland's free use of romantic time: the action of the last book, which deals with the old age and death of the hero, takes place many years after the author finished his novel. And this did not embarrass Romain Rolland, just as he was not embarrassed by the chronological inaccuracies and inconsistencies that meticulous critics pointed out to him. He wanted to recreate modernity in large lines, in the main trends, but he did not try to tie each event to a specific year. The most important thing for him was to convey the general spirit of the era, its drama and the obscure, but, be that as it may, encouraging possibilities that it opens up.

In "Jean-Christophe" - as it happens and should be in a good realistic novel - each of the main characters is depicted in their social existence, in their social connections and is a type. But Romain Rolland wanted more. He said about Jean-Christophe that this is not only a type, but also a symbol (in other words, an artistic generalization of a large philosophical scale). And in fact, Christophe is presented in interaction not only with society, but also with various peoples of Europe, and even more widely - with the whole world.

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Romain Rolland(1866-1944) - classic French literature. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1915. A writer close to Hugo, an emotional optimist, a romantic. Rolland sings of heroes strong in spirit, creatively, giving their bright talent to people. He believes that the ideal is achievable, at least one should strive for it, someday most people on earth will become happy and spiritually developed (such is the highest goal).

“The world is dying of suffocation in its prudent and vile egoism. The world is suffocating. Let's open the windows. Let's get free air. Let's breathe the breath of heroes." Rolland writes brightly, romantically, with inspiration, because his goal is to inspire the reader to sacrificial service to humanity. Above is a quote from Rolland's first significant book, The Life of Beethoven, he also wrote biographies of many prominent creators: The Life of Michelangelo, The Life of Tolstoy. All these are vivid examples of heroes, fighters fighting against human misunderstanding, with their own shortcomings and ailments. Beethoven - the greatest composer - most life was deaf and courageously overcame his illness.

The main work of Rolland of the period under study, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize, is a huge 10-volume flow novel (such a genre) " Jean-Christoff» (1912). it detailed history the life of one person, mainly the history of his spiritual life - from the moment of birth to death itself. Jean-Christoff is a brilliant composer, fictionalized by Rolland, but Rolland took many moments of his biography, many of his character traits from Beethoven. Jean-Christoff, in addition to talent, is endowed with a sublime pure soul, hot open feelings, intolerance for evil and injustice - it is impossible not to fall in love with him. His relationship with women (he was very amorous), with the world, nature, God, the search for the meaning of life are described very interestingly. The main question of the novel is: what is the meaning and purpose of art. The answer is traditional within the framework of the classical worldview: to serve the people and enrich them spiritually.

23. Creativity Kipling

KIPLING Joseph Redyard was an English novelist and poet. R. in Bombay. From the age of 17 - an employee of the Indian "Military and Civil Newspaper"; the essays, stories, and poems published in it made up K.'s first books. Autobiographical features - in the novel "The Light went out". He received the Nobel Prize in 1907.

The special position of K. in English literature is marked not only by high distinctions - he is a doctor honoris causa of nine universities, - not only by fees, 25 times higher than usual (on a shilling per word in 1900, that is, about 3 thousand rubles. per printed sheet), but also by the presence of four lifetime collected works, an unusual fact for England, which almost does not know lifetime collected works.

The ideology expressed by K.'s work is the ideology of the associates of British imperialism, who actually created "Greater Britain" (a world empire). The expansion populates the most distant geographical points with young men who go to the colonies to make a career for themselves. They dream about the fate of the clerk Clive, who conquered India, settle down, get married, and have children. Throughout the "Seven Seas" (a book of poems by K.) the problem of the "native born" (native born) is growing. These people form, as it were, an "irregular legion", a brotherhood, the friendly support of the conquistadors binds them. They bear the "burden of the white man" (a slogan thrown by Kipling).

The colony (especially India, the birthplace of K. himself) for the “native-born” is not the exotic of the traditional imperialist novel, but the business reality of everyday work. A representative of colonial naturalism, K. was the first in English literature to perceive India as a fact of life.

The psychology of the ordinary conqueror is characterized by efficiency, self-confidence, sentimental nostalgia (sickness for the homeland), alienism (jingoism). K. is the spokesman for the thoughts and feelings of a prosperous young official (the favorite hero of any average English novel), an agent of colonialism, "conscientiously" carrying it out. In this environment, the characters of K. are common nouns, and many lines of his poems have become proverbs.

The ideological baggage of K. is imperialist, die-hard conservatism, racial pride, Anglo-Saxon chosenness. The political position of K. is above all the fate of the Empire, anyone who encroaches on its safety is criminal. Hence - hatred for possible encroachers on India - for tsarist Russia (the novel "Kim", "The World with the Bear", the story "The Man Who Was" and many others); hence the frenzied Germanism during and after the World War. Existing system competition, the survival of the strong, is correct ("Imperial order"), and although there are some defects in it, for example. bureaucracy (a number of early Indian stories), is not subject to drastic changes either to the right (“Old Exodus”) or to the left. Reforms are acceptable, but the basis is the “freedom” obtained by the ancestors for everyone, which, of course, applies only to whites. Rather, there are different laws for whites and for coloreds. “The West is the West, the East is the East, and they cannot come together” (“The Ballad of the West and the East”) - a verse that has become a proverb. This is the burden of the white man, to subdue the East to the great English civilization by persuasion or force. The greatness of the task lies in the fact that its executors are nameless, and their path is difficult. But only these people, acting in places where "neither God's nor human law has power north of 53 ° latitude" ("The Tale of the Three Catheads", a verse that has become a proverb), - only these people are valuable, because they builders and workers of life (“Mary Gloucester”, “Tomlinson”, etc.) Such are the prerequisites for K.’s literary activity. or otherwise (for example, instruction in the "soldier's song" "Robbery"). Three series of facts are characteristic here: 1. Absolute protocol accuracy of time and place of action: data that accurately establishes the route of the horse thief in the "Ballad of the West and East", the springboard of hostilities in the "Ballad of Bo-Da-Ton"; it is even sharper, of course, in prose. The author is present in the short story as an observer of events or a person listening to a report about them. The story therefore resembles a diary entry. 2. Novels end with a moral; the short story is a conclusion that reveals that (colloquial) association, by virtue of which it is told (this is how the whole book “At the stern of the steamer pipe” is built). So. arr. the short story erases its edges and approaches the essay. It is characteristic that such a wonderful story as "The City of Terrible Night" was first published in a book of travel essays. Equally indicative is the presence of a cycle of story books from English history, creatively culminating in The School History of England (with Fletcher, 1911), a children's history textbook. 3. In order to finally confirm the authenticity of the material presented, K. cycles the short stories not only around some heroes, but also in a Balzac fashion, with a random roll call: the episodic face of one short story is the hero of another. This technique is especially acute when the character acts both in prose and in verse (the narrator of the Ballad of the Royal Joke, the hawker Mahbub-Ali, is one of Kim's teachers, and a number of others examples).

English criticism sees the literary tradition of K. in Bret Garth (cm.) But Garth captures and explains the world, explores Ch. arr. the spiritual content of the hero, moreover, purely naturalistic and thus objectivistic, while K.'s work is directly political-utilitarian; caring about protocol timing, Kipling neglects objective naturalism, but strives for applied and agitational naturalism. Purely psychological works (the novel The Light went out, a number of stories) are the least successful for K. In the named parallel, the only significant thing is that both authors went through the school of newspaper essay (cm.). Hence the vigilance of K. to purely professional details and the extraordinary versatility of his subjects, which surprises many researchers.

The applied naturalism of K.'s prose found a very peculiar expression in his world-famous "animal" cycles, especially in the two Jungle Books, enthusiastically received by all critics. The Mowgli cycle can be considered the founder of a new genre of stories about animals: C. J. D. Roberts and E. T. Seton, both older contemporaries of K., appear with their fiction books about animals only after K. The second “animal” cycle, “ That's how fairy tales ”, is already a fantastic development of established genres, a complex crossing of the traditions of a children's fairy tale with its natural magic, cognitive

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE (fr. Jean-Christophe) is the hero of the ten-volume epic novel by R. Rolland "Jean-Christophe" (1904-1912). The great composer L. van Beethoven (1770-1827) served as a kind of prototype for the hero. This is clearly manifested at the beginning of the novel: J.-K. - half-German-half-Flemish, he has a broad face with rough large features and a mane of thick unruly hair, he was born in a small German town. In the future, the factual similarity ends; J.-K. lives almost a century later, and his fate is different. But the fictional and real composers are still related by creative power and rebellious spirit, - J.K. worthy of his surname Kraft, which means "strength" in German. The first four books ("Dawn", "Morning", "Youth", "Riot") consistently describe the childhood and youth of J.-K. in one of the seedy principalities of Iberian Germany. The son of a court musician, J.-K. in early age discovers an extraordinary musical talent. A drunkard father, wanting to capitalize on his son's talent, seeks to make him a child prodigy. He, brutally beating, trains the baby, seeking from him a virtuoso playing the violin. Grandfather J.-K., also a musician, records the boy's improvisations, promising him a great future. At the age of six, J.-K. becomes the duke's court musician. His musical opuses addressed to the duke are accompanied by servile dedications written by his father. Maternal uncle, peddler Goth-fried, opens J.-K. charm folk song and a simple truth: music must have meaning, must be "modest and truthful, express genuine, not fake feelings." At the age of eleven, J.-K. is the first violin of the court orchestra, and at fourteen, he alone provides for the whole family: his father, expelled for drunkenness, drowned. J.-K. earns money by teaching in rich houses, enduring ridicule and humiliation. Lessons, rehearsals, concerts in the ducal castle, composition of cantatas and marches for official festivities, failed love to the petty-bourgeois Minna, - J.-K. lonely, he suffocates in an atmosphere of vulgarity, obsequiousness, servility, and only when he is alone with nature, unprecedented melodies are born in his soul. J.-K. dreams of France, she sees him as the center of culture. The novel "Fair on the Square" is dedicated to the life of J.-K. in Paris. This is the most passionate and angry novel of the entire series, a pamphlet against the decaying art of the 19th century. Everything is sold at the Paris Fair: beliefs, conscience, talent. As in the circles of Dante's hell, Rolland leads his hero through the layers of the Parisian cultural society: literature, theater, poetry, music, press, and J.-C. more and more clearly feels "at first the insinuating, and then the stubborn suffocating smell of death." J.-K. declares an irreconcilable struggle to the fair, he writes the opera "David". But the newly-minted David did not defeat Goliath, the opera did not see the stage: the influential writer, the “salon anarchist” Levy-Coeur, with whom J.-K. reluctantly entered the battle. J.-K. suffers hunger, poverty, falls ill, and then working-class Paris opens up to him, he is nursed by a girl from the people, the servant Sidoni. And soon the rebellious J.-K. finds a friend - the poet Olivier Janin. Rolland emphasizes the contrast between the looks and characters of his friends: a huge, strong, self-confident J.-K. and small, round-shouldered, frail, timid, afraid of conflicts and harshness Olivier. But both of them are pure in heart and generous in soul, both are disinterestedly devoted to art. Friends set themselves the goal of finding and uniting good and honest people. In the novels "In the House" and "Girlfriends" Rolland shows these searches. (The influence of Leo Tolstoy and his idea of ​​reconciling love is noticeable here.) Without adhering to any party, friends draw closer to the workers, to the social democratic movement. The heroism of the struggle intoxicates J.-K., and he composes a revolutionary song, which the working-class Paris sings the very next day. The stormy romance of J.-C. with Anna Brown ("The Burning Bush") is also akin to a struggle, J.-C. still far from pacifying love. Immersed in the boiling of passions, J.-C. drags Olivier with him to a May Day demonstration, which turns into an armed clash with the police. J.-K. at the barricade, he sings revolutionary songs, he shoots and kills a policeman. Friends hide J.-K. from arrest and sent abroad. There he learns that Olivier has died of his wounds. J.-K. lives in the mountains of Switzerland, he is again lonely, crushed, broken. Little by little, mental health and the ability to create are returning to him. And after some time, he also finds a new friendship-love, having met his former student, Italian Grace. In the final part of the novel, Rolland leads his rebel hero to faith, to the possibility of resolving social conflicts peacefully, to the idea of ​​an extra-social worldwide brotherhood of the intelligentsia - the international of the Spirit.

Proust TV

Proust made his creative debut at the age of 25. In 1896, Pleasures and Regrets, a collection of short stories and poems, was published. Then, for several years, Marcel translated the works of John Ruskin into French. In 1907, Proust published an article in the Le Figaro newspaper, in which he tried to analyze the concepts that later became key in his work - memory and guilt.

In 1909, Proust wrote an essay "Against Sainte-Beuve", which later grew into a multi-volume novel, which was in the process of being written until the end of Proust's life. In this book, the writer, in polemic with Sainte-Beuve's biographical method, develops the main provisions of his aesthetics and discovers formula for a future novel. Proust's most important thought is the position that "a book is a derivative of a different "I" than the one that we find in our habits, in society, in our vices." The writer is convinced that Sainte-Beuve "underestimated all the great writers of his time", carried away by his biographical method, which assumed the inseparability of man and creator in the writer.

Thus Proust gradually comes to the discovery of such a method of narration and such an image of the narrator, which would not be the likeness of the author and a reflection of his biography, but the creation of his imagination. In Against Sainte-Beuve, Proust, as before, tries to combine literary criticism and novelistic narrative: he oscillates between essay and short story ("un récit"). The conceived article about Sainte-Beuve is framed by the narration of the morning awakening of the hero-narrator, who then expounds to his mother the main ideas of the article. Thus, Proust found the image of the narrator - a person awakening from sleep as a carrier of "involuntary memory", staying on the verge of sleep and wakefulness, in the midst of several times.

In the history of French literature, Proust is known as the founder of psychological novel. In 1896, a collection of short stories, Delights and Days, was published, in which Marcel's observations of high-society snobs were reflected. In 1895-1904, Proust worked on the novel Jean Santeuil, which was published only in 1952.

In Joys and Days, Proust not only finds his own material, which has become secular life, but also develops his own view of what is depicted. He is convinced that secular life is an inauthentic existence, just as any human existence in social space is conditional and false. A person's acquisition of his real "I" is possible only through immersion in the inner world. Subjective reality turns out to be more valuable for Proust than actual life.

In his first book, the writer showed himself as a master of subtle psychological analysis and fleeting impressionistic sketches (“Regrets and Dreams of the Color of Time”).

Thus, the collection "Joys and Days" and the sketches of "Jean Santeuil" already contained the concept of the novel "In Search of Lost Time" in a folded form, demonstrated the main features of the Proustian style, declared the main themes of his work. But Proust has not yet found a form of narration that could give integrity and completeness to scattered sketches and sketches. "Jean Santeuil" and "Joys and Days" can be considered as a creative laboratory, where materials for the novel "In Search of Lost Time" were prepared. Around 1907, he began work on his main work, In Search of Lost Time. By the end of 1911, the first version of The Search was completed. It had three parts ("Lost Time", "Under the Shadow of Girls in Bloom" and "Time Regained"), and the book had to fit into two voluminous volumes. In 1912 it was called "Interruptions of Feeling". Proust can't find a publisher. At the end of the year, Faskel and Nouvel Revue Française (Gallimard) publishing houses send refusals, at the beginning of the next year Ollendorf is rejected. The publisher was Bernard Grasset. He released the book (at the expense of the author), but demanded that the manuscript be cut.

All seven books are united by the image of the storyteller Marseille, waking up in the middle of the night and reminiscing about his life: about his childhood spent in the provincial town of Combray, about his parents and acquaintances, about his beloved and secular friends, about travels and secular life. However, the Proustian novel is not a memoir and autobiographical novel. Proust saw it as his task not to sum up what had been lived. It was important for him to convey to the reader a certain emotional mood, to inspire a certain spiritual attitude, to discover the truth that is important for the author himself and acquired by him, formulated in the process of writing the novel.

60. Antoine de Saint-Exupery(1900 -1944) - writer, poet and professional pilot.

Born in Lyon, raised by his mother. In 1912, he first took to the air in an airplane. In 1914 - with his brother in Switzerland. 1921 - drafted into the army, takes aerobatics lessons. 1923 - lieutenant, military and civil pilot. 1926 - essay "Pilot", the beginning of literary activity. In 1931, Night Flight was published, and the writer was awarded the Femina literary prize. 1935 attempts to set a record on the flight Paris - Saigon, but crashes in the Libyan desert. Saved by the Bedouins. 1938 - Exupery begins work on the book The Planet of the People. 1939 - military unit air reconnaissance. In 1941, he moved to his sister in the unoccupied part of the country, and later left for the United States. He lived in New York, where, among other things, he wrote his most famous book, The Little Prince (published in 1943). Died under unexplained circumstances. Many patented inventions.

Creativity: “Southern Postal”, “Night Flight”, “Planet of People”, “Letters to a Hostage”, “Military Pilot”. Human Planet is a wonderful collection of essays. A story about the first flight over the Pyrenees, about how old, experienced pilots introduce beginners to the craft. About how during the flight there is a struggle with “three primordial deities - with mountains, sea and storm”. Portraits of the author's comrades - Mermoz, who disappeared into the ocean, Guillaume, who escaped in the Andes, thanks to his courage and perseverance. An essay on “airplane and planet”, skyscapes, oases, landings in the desert, in the very camp of the Moors (a primitive tribe that lived in the desert), and a story about how, lost in the Libyan sands, the author himself almost died of debilitating thirst. But the plots in themselves mean little, the main thing is that a person who surveys the planet of people from such a height knows: “Spirit alone, touching the clay, creates a Man out of it.” Over the past twenty years, too many writers have been buzzing our ears about the shortcomings and weaknesses of man. Finally, there was at least one author who tells us about his greatness: “By God, I managed it,” exclaims Guillaume, “that not a single beast can do!”

In her works, the author touches on topics that will be brightly decorated in The Little Prince. The relationship between the Prince and the Rose and the theme of the relationship between an adult pilot and a child first appear in the "Southern Postal", in the episode "Planet of People", in stories from "Notebooks". In Letters to a Hostage, the theme of adults who have forgotten their homeland arises. "Where am I from?" says Antoine Exupery, "I come from my childhood, as if from some country." The theme of death and life is understood in the book "Military Pilot". In "The Citadel" there is a vivid episode with three white pebbles, which make up the entire wealth of the child. The image of a gardener who, dying, thinks about his favorite business from the "Planet of Humans", and the image of the Little Prince caring for his Rose. The author himself says that he was created in order to be a gardener, and at the same time notes "but for people there are no gardeners." A writer, he not only understands questions about humanity, but also leads the way to solve the awakening of humanity. Although we might doubt that this humanity is capable of changing in any way. If we talk about the fairy tale as the culmination of the writer's work, then the time of writing and the subsequent death of Antoine de Saint-Exupery can be presented as fate or fate. The writer in the fairy tale sums up all his aspirations and his philosophy, the main thing in his life is done, although he does not immediately receive huge recognition, so his departure is quite planned. Recognition comes later, when his fairy tale becomes a world bestseller, along with the Bible. This draws attention to his fate, life, creativity, attracts producers to stage performances, films, cartoons, musicals. The name of Antoine de Saint-Exupery is associated primarily with the "Little Prince", and the most common phrase "We are responsible for those we have tamed" is becoming more of a household name. Although, quoting it, does not always know where it is taken from. Independent life quotes from the fairy tale are worthy praise for the author and confirmation that Antoine de Saint-Exupery will still “be” humanity.

Land of the people" Exupery

Tale (1939)

The book is written in the first person. Exupery dedicated it to one of his fellow pilots, Henri Guillaume.

Man reveals himself in the struggle with obstacles. The pilot is like a farmer who tills the land, and in so doing wrests some of nature's secrets from nature. The work of the pilot is just as fruitful. The first flight over Argentina was unforgettable: the lights flickered below, and each of them spoke about the miracle of human consciousness - about dreams, hopes, love.

Exupery began working on the Toulouse-Dakar line in 1926. Experienced pilots were somewhat aloof, but in their jerky stories arose fairy world mountain ranges with traps, dips and whirlwinds. The "oldies" skillfully maintained admiration, which only increased when one of them did not return from the flight. And then came the turn of Exupery: at night he went to the airfield in an old bus and, like many of his comrades, felt how a ruler was born in him - a man responsible for Spanish and African mail. The officials sitting nearby talked about illnesses, money, petty household chores - these people voluntarily imprisoned themselves in the prison of petty-bourgeois well-being, and a musician, poet or astronomer will never wake up in their hardened souls. Another thing is the pilot, who will have to enter into an argument with a thunderstorm, mountains and the ocean - no one regretted his choice, although for many this bus became the last earthly shelter.

Of his comrades, Exupery singles out, first of all, Mermoz - one of the founders of the French airline Casablanca - Dakar and the discoverer of the South American line. Mermoz "led reconnaissance" for others and, having mastered the Andes, handed over this site to Guillaume, and he himself took up the domestication of the night. He conquered the sands, mountains and sea, which, in turn, swallowed him more than once - but he always got out of captivity. And now, after twelve years of work, during the next voyage across the South Atlantic, he briefly announced that he was turning off the right rear engine. All radio stations from Paris to Buenos Aires were on a dreary watch, but there was no more news from Mermoz. After resting at the bottom of the ocean, he completed his life's work.

Nobody will replace the dead. And pilots experience the greatest happiness when the one who has already been mentally buried is suddenly resurrected. This happened to Guillaume, who disappeared during a voyage over the Andes. For five days, his comrades unsuccessfully searched for him, and there was no longer any doubt that he had died - either in a fall or from the cold. But Guillaume performed the miracle of his own salvation by passing through the snow and ice. He said later that he endured what no animal could endure - there is nothing nobler than these words, showing the measure of the greatness of man, determining his true place in nature.

The pilot thinks in terms of the universe and rereads history in a new way. Civilization is just fragile gilding. People forget that under their feet there is no deep layer of earth. An insignificant pond, surrounded by houses and trees, is subject to the action of the ebb and flow. Under a thin layer of grass and flowers, amazing transformations take place - only thanks to the plane they can sometimes be seen. Another magical property of an airplane is that it takes the pilot to the heart of the miraculous. With Exupery it happened in Argentina. He landed in some field, not suspecting that he would end up in a fairy house and meet two young fairies who were friends with wild herbs and snakes. These savage princesses lived in harmony with the universe. What happened to them? Transition from girlhood to fortune married woman fraught with fatal mistakes - perhaps some fool has already taken the princess into slavery.

In the desert, such meetings are impossible - here the pilots become prisoners of the sands. The presence of the rebels made the Sahara even more hostile. Exupery knew the burden of the desert from the very first flight; when his plane crashed near a small fort in West Africa, the old sergeant received the pilots as messengers from heaven - he cried when he heard their voices.

But in the same way, the recalcitrant Arabs of the desert were shocked when they visited France unfamiliar to them. If rain suddenly falls in the Sahara, a great migration begins - whole tribes go three hundred leagues in search of grass. And in Savoy, precious moisture gushed, as if from a leaky cistern. And the old leaders said later that the French god is much more generous to the French than the god of the Arabs to the Arabs. Many barbarians have wavered in their faith and almost succumbed to outsiders, but there are still those among them who suddenly rebel to return

Existentialism

The idea of ​​absolute freedom of the chela. In the late 40s and early 50s. French prose is going through a period of "dominance" of the literature of existentialism, which has had an influence on art that is comparable only to the influence of Freud's ideas. It took shape at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century in the works of Heidegger and Jaspers, Shestov and Berdyaev. How a literary trend was formed in France during the Second World War in works of art and works of a theoretical nature Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and had a significant impact on the entire post-war culture, primarily on cinema (Antonioni, Fellini) and literature (W. Golding, A. Murdoch, Kobo Abe, M. Frisch). Existentialism was not widespread in the literature of the beginning of the century. so widely, however, he colored the worldview of such writers as Franz Kafka and William Faulkner, under his "auspices" absurdity was fixed in art as a device and as a view of human activity in the context of all history.

Existentialism is one of the darkest philosophical and aesthetic trends of our time. The man in the image of the existentialists is immensely burdened by his existence, he is the bearer of inner loneliness and fear of reality. Life is meaningless social activity fruitless, morality is untenable. There is no god in the world, there are no ideals, there is only existence, fate-calling, to which a person stoically and unquestioningly submits; existence is a concern that a person must accept, because the mind is not able to cope with the hostility of being: a person is doomed to absolute loneliness, no one will share his existence.

Practical Conclusions existentialism are monstrous: it makes no difference - to live or not to live, it makes no difference - who to become: an executioner or his victim, a hero or a coward, a conqueror or a slave.

Having proclaimed the absurdity of human existence, existentialism for the first time openly included "death" as a motive for proving mortality and an argument for the doom of a person and his "chosenness". Ethical problems are worked out in detail in existentialism: freedom and responsibility, conscience and sacrifice, the goals of existence and purpose, which are widely included in the lexicon of the art of the century. Existentialism attracts with the desire to understand a person, the tragedy of his destiny and existence; he was approached by many artists of different trends and methods.

Existentialism, also the philosophy of existence, is a direction in the philosophy of the 20th century, focusing its attention on the uniqueness of the irrational being of a person. Existentialism developed in parallel with related areas of personalism and philosophical anthropology, from which it differs primarily in the idea of ​​overcoming (rather than revealing) a person’s own essence and a greater emphasis on the depth of emotional nature. In its pure form, existentialism as a philosophical direction has never existed. The inconsistency of this term comes from the very content of "existence", since by definition it is individual and unique, it means the experiences of a single individual who is not like anyone else.

This inconsistency is the reason why practically none of the thinkers who are classified as existentialists was in reality an existentialist philosopher. The only one who clearly expressed his belonging to this direction was Jean-Paul Sartre. His position was outlined in the report "Existentialism is humanism", where he made an attempt to generalize the existentialist aspirations of individual thinkers of the early 20th century.

Existential philosophy is the philosophy of human being

The philosophy of existence reflects the crisis of optimistic liberalism, which is based on technological progress, but is powerless to explain the instability, disorder of human life, the inherent feeling of fear, despair, hopelessness.

The philosophy of existentialism is an irrational reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment and German classical philosophy. According to the existentialist philosophers, the main flaw of rational thinking is that it proceeds from the principle of opposition between subject and object, that is, it divides the world into two spheres - objective and subjective. All reality, including man, is considered by rational thinking only as

63. Sartre. First philosophical works Sartre - “The Transcendence of the Ego”, “Imagination”, “Sketch of the Theory of Emotions”, “Imaginary. Sartre least of all seeks to generalize the data of the natural and social sciences, but tries to give a description of specific, individual states of consciousness of the individual. This explains the writer's special interest in the problem of emotions and imagination, their nature and role in the life of the individual. He puts forward the thesis about the inefficiency of emotive behavior, because, from his point of view, emotion is the flight of the individual from the world. Faced with real problems, a person gives in to emotions, which, as it were, "disconnect" him from a dangerous or difficult situation. Thus, emotion is an illusory way of solving a problem. Sartre's treatment of the problem of the imagination close to the concept of "intentional acts" by E. Husserl. Sartre speaks of the creative essence of imagination, although he limits the action of imagination to the sphere of consciousness. He contrasts the imaginative consciousness with practical consciousness. For him, imagination is unreal and presupposes the "non-antization" of reality in its most essential structures.

In the novel Nausea (La Nausée, 1938) there are already some existentialist motifs and ideas. This series of "insights" develops into the plot of the novel, main theme which becomes the discovery of the personality of the absurd. Roquentin's discovery of the absurdity of being occurs as a result of his collision with surrounding objects. The world of things and, more broadly, natural existence turn out to be hostile to human subjectivity. The immersion of the subject in this natural "mush", in formless and dead objectivity, causes him a feeling of nausea.

In the writer's choice of the diary form of narration, in the confession of the novel intonation, Sartre's understanding of nature was affected. philosophical idea. For him, it is not the result of speculative, abstract-logical thinking, but an intimate, personal experience.

Sartre's literary activity began with the novel "Nausea" (fr. La Nausée; 1938). This novel is considered the best work Sartre, in it he rises to the deep ideas of the Gospel, but from an atheistic position. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his work, rich in ideas, imbued with the spirit of freedom and the search for truth, which had a huge impact for our time." He refused to accept this award, declaring his unwillingness to be indebted to any social institution and question his independence. In addition, Sartre was embarrassed by the “bourgeois” and pronounced anti-Soviet orientation of the Nobel Committee, which, according to him (“Why I refused the prize”), chose the wrong moment for awarding the prize - the prize was awarded when Sartre openly criticized the USSR. In the same In the year Sartre announced his rejection of literary activity, describing literature as a surrogate for the effective transformation of the world. Sartre's worldview was influenced, first of all, by Bergson, Husserl, Dostoevsky and Heidegger. Interested in psychoanalysis. He wrote a preface to the book by Franz Fanon "Cursed", thereby contributing to the popularization of his ideas in Europe. In the collection of short stories and short stories "The Wall" ("Le Mur", 1939), Sartre develops the main theme of "Nausea". In the short story of the same name, the writer shows the transformation of a person into a thing, into trembling and agonizing flesh in the face of inevitable death. Awareness of the nearness of the end robs a person of freedom. The fear of death turns a person into an animal. Three Republicans fighting against the Spanish fascists are captured and in the basement where they were put, they are waiting for their fate to be decided. They are doomed to the torture of waiting. They are trembling, they are covered with cold sweat. These physiological manifestations of fear are observed by a military doctor. The heroes of the novel are overcome by apathy, they lose their will and courage.

The “gospel” of French atheistic existentialism was Sartre’s philosophical work “Being and Nothingness” (“L’Etre et le Néant”, 1943), in which the writer undertakes a systematic exposition of his philosophy. He analyzes the dialectic of the relationship between man (“being-for-itself”) and objective reality (“being-in-itself”). “Being-in-itself” is devoid of self-development, which only “being-for-itself” is endowed with. Man denies objective reality in order to achieve freedom.

In the work, Sartre substantiates the concept of the absurd, asserting the randomness and meaninglessness of being, which "has neither reason, nor reason, nor necessity." Human existence in the world is fragile, death is inevitable (“being-for-death”). his dramatic work

64. The play "The Flies" was created by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1943. According to its genre, it belongs to the philosophical drama. Underlying "Flies" ancient greek myth about the murder by Orestes of his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus for many centuries was a favorite plot of many literary tragedies. In Sartre's play, history as old as the world is filled with new philosophical meaning. The French existentialist uses the ancient heroic image Orestes for the analysis of modern problems of existence.

"Flies" is a drama in three acts. The composition of the play is simple and logical. In the first act, the main characters (Orestes, Jupiter, Electra and Clytemnestra) appear on the stage, the background is told - it is also an explanation of what is happening in Argos (fifteen years of universal repentance entrusted to citizens for the crimes of the current king and queen), a problem is outlined (possible revenge Orestes for the murder of his father - Agamemnon). The second act is full of action: Aegisthus, in accordance with the once chosen political course, intimidates the people with the dead coming out of hell; Elektra tries to tell the people of Argos that it is possible to live in happiness and joy; Jupiter helps Aegisthus to plunge the crowd into fear; Elektra is banished from the city and sentenced to death; Orestes reveals himself to his sister and decides to kill. The events of the second part of the work grow like a snowball and break off at the death of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. After the fulfillment of a just revenge, the surviving heroes can only think - about their past and future, about the desired and actual, about the world around them and their own lives.

The first act of The Flies can be compared to a slow, realistic narrative of the past and present. The second act is more like a thriller than ancient Greek tragedy or contemporary drama. The third act tells nothing and does not move anywhere. It is a chain of philosophical reasoning devoted to the problem of human freedom. Free in "Flies" is main character- Orestes. He comes to Argos as a man without a past, with a soul like a "magnificent void". At this stage of his life, he is free from memories, people, feelings. The prince knows only what the Teacher taught him: he knows the world, cities, countries, culture, art. But in itself, as a person, he is nothing. He has no attachments, no desires. Only with the advent of a conscious thirst for revenge does a new awareness of freedom come to Orestes. It lies in the freedom to choose one's future path, in refusing to obey the will of the gods, who once created people free, but over time decided to take this knowledge away from them. Committing a crime, Orestes does not feel remorse, because, in his opinion, he is doing a just thing. Once deciding to kill his mother, he decides to always bear this burden. In a sense, he is even glad for him, because, finally, the hero has something of his own - his own story, his own crime, his own burden. Unlike Orestes, Electra, like all the inhabitants of Argos, is deprived true understanding freedom. She can only dream about her, but she cannot live with her. Elektra dreams of killing her family the way little girls dream of dolls. She is happy in her fantasies, but when they come true, she hates them.

TV Camus

Thanks to J. Grenier, Camus gets acquainted with the ideas of religious existentialism, his interest in philosophy is determined. The first notes and essays of Camus, for all their immaturity, contain some important motives: an anarchist rebellion against social conventions, withdrawal into the world of dreams, belittling the rational principle in art. In general, the first works of Camus reflect the crisis state of mind, characteristic of a significant part of the European intelligentsia after the First World War.

In 1937, Camus left communist party. In the same year, he published a collection of essays, “Inside and Face” (“L’Envers et l’Endroit”), the main problem of which is the question of gaining dignity in an absurd world for a person. Camus says “yes” to life, despite the absurdity of being, for one must “be oneself the eternal joy of becoming”. Creating in the collection of lyrical essays "Mediterranean myth", Camus seeks to escape from the chaos of history into the wisdom of nature.

In 1938, Camus took up journalism in the Alger Repubbliken newspaper and at the same time continued his literary work, wrote the philosophical drama Caligula (Caligula, 1944), the story The Outsider (L'étranger, 1942), the essay " Dostoevsky and Suicide”, later included in The Myth of Sisyphus under the title “Kirillov”, finished work on the novel “Happy Death” (“La mort heureuse”, 1971). During the occupation of France by the Nazis, Camus conducted underground work in the Combat organization.

The story "The Outsider" was a huge success, for a long time becoming one of the most widely read works of French literature of the 20th century. The story received critical acclaim.

Almost unconsciously, he kills a man. In the second part of the story, the story of the protagonist appears as if in a distorted mirror during the trial. Meursault is being judged, in essence, not for a murder, but for an attempt to neglect the conventional forms of relations between people accepted in society, for violating the rules of the game, for being an “outsider”. The writer puts his hero in a “boundary situation” typical of existentialists, that is, in a situation of choice in the face of death and absurdity, when, according to existentialist philosophy, insight comes.

Camus replied to the teacher that he "learned from Kafka the spirit, but not the style." Meanwhile, with the obvious difference in the style of Kafka and Camus, both of them gravitated towards parable forms of genre thinking, both are characterized by brevity of the linguistic form with a philosophical depth of content. Noting the outwardly impassive tone of the narration in The Outsider, R. Barth spoke of the “zero degree of writing” in the story. Indeed, Camus is convinced that life is simple, that people complicate everything, and therefore it is necessary to talk about it simply, without metaphors, allusions, complex cultural reminiscences, behind which is the desire to escape from awareness of the tragedy of the human lot.

A landmark work for Camus was the book "The Myth of Sisyphe" ("Le mythe de Sisyphe", 1942), which completes the first period in the writer's work. The Myth of Sisyphus is subtitled An Essay on the Absurd. The problems of the absurd and the "supreme suicide" as an expression of human rebellion against it become central in this cycle. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus defines the absurd. However, it is significant that for Camus the recognition of the absurd is not the final conclusion, but only the starting point in the search for true values.

Philosophical views Camus himself did not consider himself a philosopher, much less an existentialist. Nevertheless, the work of representatives of this philosophical trend had a great influence on Camus's work. The highest embodiment of the absurd, according to Camus, are various attempts to forcibly improve society - fascism, Stalinism, etc. Being a humanist and anti-authoritarian socialist, he believed that the fight against violence and injustice "with their own methods" could only give rise to even greater violence and injustice

66. The story "Outsider"”was a huge success, for a long time becoming one of the most widely read works of French literature of the 20th century. The story received critical acclaim.

The hero of the story - Meursault - is a generalized image representing the existentialist version of the "natural person". Having severed ties with society, the petty employee Meursault lives with the consciousness of the absurdity of being. This acute sense of the absurd makes him "outside", alien to the values ​​and norms of society. Meursault lives, obeying instincts, acutely sensing beauty natural world; Meursault has an extraordinary lyrical gift.

Year of writing:

1912

Reading time:

Description of the work:

Written by Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe is an epic novel that the author completed in 1912. This novel consists of ten volumes, and for it the author was awarded the Nobel Prize.

The novel was published gradually from 1904 to 1912 as the text was being written. Read posted summary novel "Jean-Christophe".

Summary of the novel
Jean Christophe

In a small German town on the banks of the Rhine, a child is born in the Kraft family of musicians. The first, still unclear perception of the surrounding world, the warmth of mother's hands, the gentle sound of a voice, the feeling of light, darkness, thousands of different sounds ... The ringing of spring drops, the hum of bells, the singing of birds - everything delights little Christoph. He hears music everywhere, because for a true musician "everything is music - you just need to hear it." Unbeknownst to himself, the boy, playing, comes up with his own melodies. Christoph's grandfather writes down and edits his compositions. And now it's ready music book"Joys of Childhood" with a dedication to His Highness the Duke. So at the age of seven, Christophe becomes a court musician and begins to earn his first money for performances.

Not everything is going smoothly in Christoph's life. The father drinks away most of the family money. The mother is forced to earn extra money as a cook in rich houses. There are three children in the family, Christoph is the eldest. He already managed to face injustice when he realized that they are poor, and the rich despise and laugh at their ignorance and bad manners. At the age of eleven, in order to help his relatives, the boy begins to play second violin in the orchestra where his father and grandfather play, gives lessons to spoiled rich girls, continues to perform at ducal concerts, He has no friends, he sees very little warmth and sympathy at home, and therefore gradually turns into a closed proud teenager who does not want to become "a little burgher, an honest German." The boy's only consolation is conversations with his grandfather and uncle Gottfried, a traveling merchant who sometimes visits his sister, Christoph's mother. It was the grandfather who first noticed Christophe's musical gift and supported him, and the uncle revealed to the boy the truth that "music should be modest and Truthful" and express "real, not fake feelings." But the grandfather is dying, and the uncle rarely visits them, and Christophe is terribly lonely.

The family is on the brink of poverty. The father drinks away the last of his savings. In desperation, Christophe and his mother are forced to ask the duke that the money earned by his father be given to his son. However, these funds soon run out: the eternally drunk father behaves disgustingly even during concerts, and the duke refuses him a place. Christoph writes custom-made music for official palace festivities. "The very source of his life and joy is poisoned." But deep down he hopes for victory, dreams of a great future, of happiness, friendship and love.

So far, his dreams have not come true. Having met Otto Diener, it seems to Christoph that he has finally found a friend. But the good manners and caution of Otto are alien to the freedom-loving, unbridled Christoph, and they part. The first youthful feeling also brings Christophe disappointment: he falls in love with a girl from a noble family, but he is immediately pointed out the difference in their position. New kick Christophe's father dies. The family is forced to move to a more modest dwelling. In a new place, Christophe meets Sabina, a young owner of a haberdashery shop, and love develops between them. unexpected death Sabina leaves a deep wound in the soul of the young man. He meets her seamstress Ada, but she cheats on him with his younger brother. Christoph is alone again.

He stands at a crossroads. The words of old uncle Gottfried - "The main thing is not to get tired of wishing and living" - help Christoph to spread his wings and seem to throw off "yesterday's already dead shell in which he was suffocating - his former soul." From now on, he belongs only to himself, "finally he is not the prey of life, but its master!" New, unknown forces wake up in the young man. All his previous writings are "warm water, caricature-ridiculous nonsense." He is not only dissatisfied with himself, he hears false notes in the works of the pillars of music. His favorite German songs and ditties become for him "a flood of vulgar tenderness, vulgar excitement, vulgar sadness, vulgar poetry ...". Christoph does not hide the feelings that overwhelm him and publicly declares them. He's writing new music, strives to "express living passions, create living images", putting "wild and tart sensuality" into his works. "With the magnificent audacity of youth," he believes that "everything must be done anew and redone." But - a complete failure. People are not ready to accept his new, innovative music. Christoph writes articles for a local magazine, where he criticizes everyone and everything, both composers and musicians. In this way he makes many enemies for himself: the duke expels him from the service; the families where he gives lessons refuse him; the whole city turns away from him.

Christoph is suffocating in the stuffy atmosphere of a provincial burgher town. He meets young French actress, and her Gallic liveliness, musicality and sense of humor make him think of going to France, to Paris. Christoph cannot decide to leave his mother, but the case decides for him. At a village festival, he quarrels with soldiers, the quarrel ends in a general fight, three soldiers are wounded. Christophe is forced to flee to France: in Germany, a criminal case is initiated against him.

Paris meets Christophe unfriendly. Dirty, bustling city, so unlike the polished, orderly German cities. Friends from Germany turned away from the musician. With difficulty, he manages to find work - private lessons, processing of works by famous composers for a music publishing house. Gradually, Christophe notices that French society is no better than German. Everything is rotten through and through. Politics is the subject of speculation by cunning and arrogant adventurers. The leaders of various parties, including the socialist one, skilfully cover up their low, selfish interests with loud phrases. The press is deceitful and corrupt. Not works of art are created, but goods are fabricated to please the perverted tastes of the jaded bourgeois. Sick, cut off from the people, from real life, art is slowly dying.

As in his homeland, in Paris, Jean-Christophe does more than just watch. His lively, active nature makes him interfere in everything, openly express his indignation. He sees through the falsity and mediocrity surrounding him. Christoph is in poverty, starving, seriously ill, but does not give up. Without worrying about whether his music will be heard or not, he works enthusiastically, creates symphonic picture"David" on biblical story but the audience boos her.

After his illness, Christoph suddenly feels renewed. He begins to understand the unique charm of Paris, feels an irresistible need to find a Frenchman "whom he could love for the sake of his love for France."

Christophe's friend becomes Olivier Janin, a young poet who has long admired Christophe's music and himself from afar. Friends rent an apartment together. The quivering and painful Olivier "was directly created for Christophe." “They enriched each other. Everyone contributed - these were the moral treasures of their peoples. Under the influence of Olivier, Christophe suddenly opens up "the indestructible granite block of France." The house in which friends live, as if in miniature, represents the various social strata of society. Despite the roof that unites everyone, the residents shun each other due to moral and religious prejudices. Christoph, with his music, unshakable optimism and sincere participation, breaks through the wall of alienation, and people so unlike each other draw closer and begin to help each other.

Thanks to the efforts of Olivier, glory suddenly comes to Christophe. The press praises him, he becomes a fashionable composer, secular society opens its doors to him. Christophe willingly goes to dinner parties "to replenish the supplies that life supplies him - a collection of human glances and gestures, shades of voice, in a word, material - forms, sounds, colors - necessary for the artist for his palette." At one of these dinners, his friend Olivier falls in love with the young Jacqueline Aange. Christophe is so preoccupied with the device of his friend's happiness that he personally intercedes for the lovers before Jacqueline's father, although he understands that, having married, Olivier will no longer belong entirely to him.

Indeed, Olivier is moving away from Christophe. The newlyweds leave for the province, where Olivier teaches at the college. He is absorbed in family happiness, he is not up to Christophe. Jacqueline receives a large inheritance, and the couple return to Paris. They have a son, but the former mutual understanding is gone. Jacqueline gradually turns into an empty society lady throwing money left and right. She has a lover, for whom she eventually leaves her husband and child. Olivier withdraws into his grief. He is still friendly with Christophe, but is unable to live with him under the same roof as before. Having transferred the boy to be raised by their mutual friend, Olivier rents an apartment not far from his son and Christophe.

Christoph meets revolutionary workers. He does not think whether he is with them or against them. He likes to meet and argue with these people. "And in the heat of a dispute, it happened that Christophe, seized with passion, turned out to be a much more revolutionary than the rest." He is outraged by any injustice, "passions turn his head." On the first of May, he goes with his new friends to a demonstration and drags Olivier, who has not yet recovered from his illness, with him. The crowd separates friends. Christoph rushes into a fight with the police and, defending himself, pierces one of them with his own saber. Intoxicated by the battle, he "sings a revolutionary song at the top of his lungs." Olivier, trampled by the crowd, dies.

Christoph is forced to flee to Switzerland. He expects Olivier to come to him, but instead receives a letter with the news of the tragic death of a friend. Shocked, almost insane, "like a wounded beast," he gets to the town where one of the admirers of his talent, Dr. Brown, lives. Christophe locks himself in the room provided to him, wanting only one thing - "to be buried with a friend." Music becomes unbearable for him.

Gradually, Christoph comes back to life: he plays the piano, and then begins to write music. Through the efforts of Brown, he finds students and gives lessons. Love blossoms between him and the doctor's wife Anna. Both Christophe and Anna, a deeply religious woman, are having a hard time with their passion and betrayal of their friend and husband. Unable to cut this knot, the lovers try to commit suicide. After failed attempt suicide Anna falls seriously ill, and Christophe flees the city. He takes refuge in the mountains on a secluded farm, where he experiences a severe mental crisis. He longs to create, but cannot, which makes him feel on the verge of insanity. Coming out of this ordeal ten years older, Christophe feels at peace. He "departed from himself and drew near to God."

Christoph wins. His work is being recognized. He creates new works, "weaves of unknown harmonies, strings of dizzying chords." Only a few have access to the latest daring creations of Christophe, he owes his fame to earlier works. The feeling that no one understands him adds to Christoph's loneliness.

Christophe meets with Grazia. Once, being a very young girl, Grazia took music lessons from Christophe and fell in love with him. The calm, bright love of Grazia awakens a reciprocal feeling in Christophe's soul. They become friends and dream of getting married. The son of Grazia is jealous of his mother for the musician and tries with all his might to interfere with their happiness. The spoiled, sickly boy feigns nervous fits and coughing spells, and in the end does become seriously ill and dies. Following him, Grazia dies, considering herself the culprit of the death of her son.

Having lost his beloved, Christophe feels the thread that connects him to this life break. And yet it was at this time that he created his most profound works, including tragic ballads based on Spanish folk songs, among them "a gloomy love dirge like sinister flashes of flame". Christophe also wants to have time to connect the daughter of his departed lover with his son Olivier, in which for Christophe he seemed to have risen dead friend. Young people fell in love, and Christoph is trying to arrange their wedding. He has been unwell for a long time, but hides it, not wanting to overshadow a joyful day for the newlyweds.

Christophe's strength is waning. Lonely, dying Christoph lies in his room and hears an invisible orchestra playing the anthem of life. He remembers his departed friends, lovers, mother, and prepares to reunite with them. “The gates are opening... Here is the chord I was looking for!.. But is this the end? What expanses lie ahead… We will continue tomorrow…”

Please note that the summary of the novel "Jean-Christophe" does not reflect complete picture events and characters. We recommend that you read the full version of the work.