"Poor Liza": analysis of Karamzin's work. Analysis of the story "Poor Liza" by Karamzin Brief analysis of the story Poor Liza

The best story of Karamzin is rightly recognized as "Poor Lisa" (1792), which is based on the enlightenment idea of ​​the extra-class value of the human person. The problematic of the story is of a social and moral nature: the peasant woman Lisa is opposed by the nobleman Erast. The characters are revealed in relation to the heroes to love. Lisa's feelings are distinguished by depth, constancy, disinterestedness: she perfectly understands that she is not destined to be Erast's wife. Twice throughout the story she talks about it. Lisa loves Erast selflessly, without thinking about the consequences of her passion. No selfish calculations can interfere with this feeling. During one of their dates, Lisa informs Erast that the son of a wealthy peasant from a neighboring village is wooing her and that her mother really wants this marriage.

Erast is depicted in the story as not a treacherous deceiver-seducer. Such a solution to the social problem would be too crude and straightforward. He was, according to Karamzin, “a rather rich nobleman” with a “naturally kind” heart, “but weak and windy ... He led a scattered life, thinking only about his own pleasure ...”. Thus, the whole, selfless character of the peasant woman is opposed to the character of a kind, but spoiled by an idle life gentleman, unable to think about the consequences of his actions. The intention to seduce a gullible girl was not part of his plans. At first, he thought about "pure joys", intended to "live with Lisa as brother and sister." But Erast did not know his character well and overestimated his moral strength too much. Soon, according to Karamzin, he “could no longer be satisfied with ... one pure embrace. He wanted more, more, and finally, he could not want anything. There comes satiety and a desire to get rid of the bored connection.

It should be noted that the image of Erast is accompanied by a very prosaic leitmotif - money, which in sentimental literature has always aroused a condemning attitude towards itself. Real sincere help is expressed by sentimentalist writers in selfless deeds. Let us recall how Radishchev's Anyuta resolutely rejects the hundred rubles offered to her. The blind singer in the chapter "The Wedge" behaves in exactly the same way, refusing the "ruble note" and accepting only a neckerchief from the traveler.

Erast, at the first meeting with Liza, seeks to amaze her imagination with his generosity, offering a whole ruble instead of five kopecks for lilies of the valley. Liza resolutely refuses this money, which causes the full approval of her mother. Erast, wanting to win over the girl's mother, asks only him to sell her products and always strives to pay ten times more, but "the old woman never took too much." Lisa, loving Erast, refuses the prosperous peasant who asked her to marry her. Erast, for the sake of money, marries a wealthy elderly widow. At the last meeting with Lisa, Erast tries to pay off her with "ten imperials." This scene is perceived as blasphemy, as a desecration of Lisa's love: on one side of the scale - all life, thoughts, hopes, on the other - "ten imperials". A hundred years later, Leo Tolstoy would repeat it in the novel Resurrection.

For Lisa, the loss of Erast is tantamount to the loss of life. Further existence becomes meaningless, and she lays hands on herself. The tragic ending of the story testified to the creative courage of Karamzin, who did not want to reduce the significance of the social and ethical problem put forward by him with a successful denouement. Where a great, strong feeling came into conflict with the foundations of the feudal world, there could be no idyll.

For the sake of maximum plausibility, Karamzin connected the plot of his story with specific places in the then suburbs of Moscow. Lisa's house is located on the banks of the Moskva River, not far from the Simonov Monastery. Liza and Erast's dates take place near Simonov's Pond, which after the release of the story was called "Lizina's Pond". All these realities made a stunning impression on the readers. The surroundings of the Simonov Monastery became a place of pilgrimage for numerous admirers of the writer.

In the story "Poor Lisa" Karamzin showed himself to be a great psychologist. He managed to masterfully reveal the inner world of his characters, primarily their love experiences. Before Karamzin, the experiences of the heroes were declared in the monologues of the heroes. The latter applies primarily to epistolary works. Karamzin found more subtle, more complex artistic means that help the reader, as it were, guess what feelings his characters experience through their external manifestations. The lyrical content of the story is also reflected in its style. In a number of cases, Karamzin's prose becomes rhythmic, approaching poetic speech. This is how Lisa's love confessions sound to Erast: “Without your dark eyes, a bright month, / without your voice, the singing nightingale is boring; // without your breath, the breeze is not pleasant to me.

Words and tastes contrary

And contrary to wishes

On us from a faded line

Suddenly, there is charm.

What a strange thing for our days

It's not a secret for us.

But there is merit in it:

She's sentimental!

Lines from the first performance "Poor Liza",

libretto by Yuri Ryashentsev

In the era of Byron, Schiller and Goethe, on the eve of the French Revolution, in the intensity of feelings characteristic of those years for Europe, but with the ceremonial and pomp of the Baroque still preserved, the leading trends in literature were sensual and sensitive romanticism and sentimentalism. If the emergence of romanticism in Russia was due to translations of the works of these poets, and later it was developed by its own Russian writings, then sentimentalism became popular thanks to the works of Russian writers, one of which is “Poor Lisa” by Karamzin.

In the words of Karamzin himself, the story "Poor Lisa" is "a very uncomplicated fairy tale." The story of the fate of the heroine begins with a description of Moscow and the author's admission that he often comes to the "deserted monastery" where Lisa is buried, and "listens to the muffled groan of times swallowed up by the abyss of the past." With this technique, the author indicates his presence in the story, showing that any value judgment in the text is his personal opinion. The coexistence of the author and his hero in the same narrative space before Karamzin was not familiar to Russian literature. The title of the story is built on the combination of the heroine's own name with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her, who at the same time constantly repeats that he has no power to change the course of events ("Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad story?").

Liza, forced to work hard to feed her old mother, one day comes to Moscow with lilies of the valley and meets a young man on the street who expresses his desire to always buy lilies of the valley from Lisa and finds out where she lives. The next day, Lisa is waiting for the appearance of a new acquaintance - Erast, without selling her lilies of the valley to anyone, but he only comes the next day to Lisa's house. The next day, Erast tells Lisa that he loves her, but asks to keep their feelings secret from her mother. For a long time, “their embraces were pure and immaculate,” and to Erast, “all the brilliant amusements of the great world” seem “insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul fed his heart.” However, soon the son of a wealthy peasant from a neighboring village woo Lisa. Erast objects to their wedding, and says that, despite the difference between them, for him in Lisa "the most important thing is the soul, a sensitive and innocent soul." Their dates continue, but now Erast "could not be satisfied with being just innocent caresses." “He wanted more, more, and finally, he could not wish for anything ... Platonic love gave way to such feelings that he could not be proud of and which were no longer new to him.” After some time, Erast informs Lisa that his regiment is going on a military campaign. He says goodbye, gives Lisa's mother money. Two months later, Liza, having arrived in Moscow, sees Erast, follows his carriage to a huge mansion, where Erast, freeing himself from Lisa's embrace, says that he still loves her, but circumstances have changed: on the campaign he lost almost all of his estate, and is now forced to marry a rich widow. Erast gives Liza a hundred rubles and asks the servant to escort the girl out of the yard. Lisa, having reached the pond, under the canopy of those oaks, which just "a few weeks before had witnessed her delights", meets the neighbor's daughter, gives her the money and asks her to tell her mother with the words that she loved the man, and he cheated on her. After that, he jumps into the water. The neighbor's daughter calls for help, Lisa is pulled out, but too late. Lisa was buried near the pond, Lisa's mother died of grief. Erast until the end of his life "could not be consoled and considered himself a murderer." The author met him a year before his death, and learned the whole story from him.

The story made a complete revolution in the public consciousness of the XVIII century. Karamzin, for the first time in the history of Russian prose, turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically mundane features. His words "and peasant women know how to love" became winged. Not surprisingly, the story was very popular. In the noble lists, many Erasts appear at once - the name was previously infrequent. The pond, located under the walls of the Simonov Monastery (a 14th-century monastery, preserved on the territory of the Dynamo plant on Leninskaya Sloboda Street, 26), was called Lisiny Pond, but thanks to Karamzin's story, it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees around the pond was cut with inscriptions, both serious (“Poor Liza died in these streams for days; / If you are sensitive, passerby, take a breath”), and satirical, hostile to the heroine and author (“Erastov died in these streams bride. / Drown yourself, girls, there is enough room in the pond”).

"Poor Lisa" has become one of the pinnacles of Russian sentimentalism. It is in it that the refined psychologism of Russian artistic prose, recognized throughout the world, is born. Of great importance was the artistic discovery of Karamzin - the creation of a special emotional atmosphere corresponding to the theme of the work. The picture of a pure first love is drawn very touchingly: “Now I think,” Liza says to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your dark eyes, a bright month; without your voice, the nightingale singing is boring ... "Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the characters into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The main characters are also characteristically drawn: chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Liza appears as a beautiful shepherdess, least of all like a peasant woman, rather like a sweet secular young lady, brought up on sentimental novels; Erast, despite the dishonest act, reproaches himself for him until the end of his life.

In addition to sentimentalism, Karamzin gave Russia a new name. The name Elizabeth is translated as "honoring God." In biblical texts, this is the name of the wife of the high priest Aaron and the mother of John the Baptist. Later, the literary heroine Eloise, a friend of Abelard, appears. After her, the name is associated with a love theme: the story of the "noble maiden" Julie d "Entage, who fell in love with her modest teacher Saint-Pre, Jean-Jacques Rousseau calls "Julia, or New Eloise" (1761). Until the early 80s of the XVIII century, the name "Lisa" was almost never found in Russian literature. By choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin broke the strict canon of European literature of the 17th-18th centuries, in which the image of Lisa, Lisette was associated primarily with comedy and with the image of a maid-servant, which is usually quite frivolous and understands everything connected with a love affair at a glance.The gap between the name and its usual meaning meant going beyond classicism, weakening the ties between the name and its bearer in a literary work. a new one appears: character - behavior, which was a significant conquest of Karamzin on the way to the "psychologism" of Russian prose.

Many readers were struck by the audacity of the author in the style of presentation. One of the critics from the Novikov circle, which once included Karamzin himself, wrote: “I don’t know if Mr. Karamzin made an era in the history of the Russian language: but if he did, it’s very bad.” Further, the author of these lines writes that in "Poor Liza" "bad morals are called good manners"

The plot of "Poor Lisa" is maximally generalized and compressed. Possible lines of development are only outlined, often the text is replaced by dots and dashes, which become its “significant minus”. The image of Lisa is also only outlined, each feature of her character is a topic for a story, but not yet the story itself.

Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the opposition of the city and the countryside into Russian literature. In world folklore and myth, heroes are often able to act actively only in the space allotted to them and are completely powerless outside of it. In accordance with this tradition, in Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - turns out to be defenseless, falling into urban space, where laws operate that are different from the laws of nature. No wonder Lisa's mother tells her: "My heart is always in the wrong place when you go to the city."

The central feature of Lisa's character is sensitivity - this is how the main dignity of Karamzin's stories was defined, meaning by this the ability to sympathize, to discover "tender feelings" in the "bends of the heart", as well as the ability to enjoy the contemplation of one's own emotions. Liza trusts the movements of her heart, lives "gentle passions." Ultimately, it is ardor and fervor that lead her to death, but morally she is justified. The idea consistently pursued by Karamzin that it is natural for a spiritually rich, sensitive person to do good deeds removes the need for normative morality.

Many perceive the novel as a confrontation between honesty and windiness, kindness and negativity, poverty and wealth. In fact, everything is more complicated: this is a clash of characters: strong - and accustomed to go with the flow. The novel emphasizes that Erast is a young man "with a fair mind and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and windy." It was Erast, who, from the point of view of the Lisa social stratum, is the “darling of fate”, was constantly bored and “complained about his fate.” Erast is represented by an egoist who thinks that he is ready to change for the sake of a new life, but as soon as he gets bored, he, without looking back, changes his life again, without thinking about the fate of those whom he abandoned. In other words, he thinks only about his own pleasure, and his desire to live, not burdened by the rules of civilization, in the bosom of nature, is caused only by reading idyllic novels and oversaturation with social life.

In this light, falling in love with Lisa is only a necessary addition to the idyllic picture being created - it’s not without reason that Erast calls her his shepherdess. Having read novels in which “all people carelessly walked along the rays, bathed in clean springs, kissed like turtledoves, rested under roses and myrtle”, he decided that he “found in Liza what his heart had been looking for for a long time.” Therefore, he dreams that he will “live with Lisa, like brother and sister, I will not use her love for evil and I will always be happy!”, And when Lisa gives herself to him, the satiated young man begins to grow cold in his feelings.

At the same time, Erast, being, as the author emphasizes, "kind by nature", cannot just leave: he is trying to find a compromise with his conscience, and his decision comes down to paying off. The first time he gives money to Liza's mother, when he no longer wants to meet with Lisa and goes on a campaign with the regiment; the second time - when Lisa finds him in the city and he tells her about his upcoming marriage.

The story "Rich Lisa" in Russian literature opens the theme of the "little man", although the social aspect in relation to Lisa and Erast is somewhat muffled.

The story caused a lot of frank imitations: 1801. A.E. Izmailov "Poor Masha", I. Svechinsky "Seduced Henrietta", 1803 "Unfortunate Margaret". Along with this, the theme of "Poor Liza" can be traced in many works of high artistic value, and plays a variety of roles in them. So, Pushkin, turning to realism in prose works and wanting to emphasize both his rejection of sentimentalism and its irrelevance for contemporary Russia, took the plot of "Poor Liza" and turned the "sad reality" into a story with a happy ending "The young lady - a peasant woman" . Nevertheless, the same Pushkin in The Queen of Spades shows the line of the future life of the Karamzin Lisa: the fate that would have awaited her if she had not committed suicide. An echo of the theme of a sentimental work also sounds in the novel “Sunday” written in the spirit of realism by L.T. Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under a train.

Thus, the plot, which existed in literature before and became popular after, was transferred to Russian soil, while acquiring a special national flavor and becoming the basis for the development of Russian sentimentalism. Russian psychological, portrait prose and contributed to the gradual departure of Russian literature from the norms of classicism to more modern literary trends.

Karamzin's story "Poor Lisa" became a key work of its time. The introduction of sentimentalism into the work and the presence of many themes and problems allowed the 25-year-old author to become extremely popular and famous. Readers were absorbed in the images of the main characters of the story - the story of the events of their lives became an occasion to rethink the features of humanistic theory.

History of writing

In most cases, unusual works of literature have unusual stories of creation, however, if Poor Lisa had such a story, then it was not provided to the public and was lost somewhere in the wilds of history. It is known that the story was written as an experiment at the dacha of Peter Beketov, which was located near the Simonov Monastery.

Information about the publication of the story is also rather scarce. For the first time, "Poor Liza" saw the light in the "Moscow Journal" in 1792. At that time, N. Karamzin himself was its editor, and 4 years later the story was published as a separate book.

Heroes of the story

Lisa is the main character of the story. The girl belongs to the peasant class. After her father's death, she lives with her mother and earns money by selling knitwear and flowers in the city.

Erasmus is the main character of the story. The young man has a gentle character, he is not able to defend his position in life, which makes both himself and Lisa in love with him unhappy.

Lisa's mother is a peasant woman by birth. She loves her daughter and wants the girl to live her future life without difficulties and sorrows.

We propose to trace which was written by N. Karamzin.

The plot of the story

The action of the story takes place in the vicinity of Moscow. The young girl Lisa lost her father. Because of this, her family, consisting of her and her mother, began to gradually become poorer - her mother was constantly sick and therefore could not work fully. Liza represented the main labor force in the family - the girl actively wove carpets, knitted stockings for sale, and also collected and sold flowers. Once a young aristocrat, Erasmus, approached the girl, he fell in love with the girl and therefore decided to buy flowers from Lisa every day.

However, Erasmus did not come the next day. Disappointed, Lisa returns home, but fate presents the girl with a new gift - Erasmus comes to Lisa's home and says that he can come for flowers himself.

From this moment, a new stage in the girl's life begins - she is completely captivated by love. However, despite everything, this love adheres to the framework of platonic love. Erasmus is captivated by the spiritual purity of the girl. Unfortunately, this utopia did not last long. The mother decides to marry Lisa - a rich peasant decided to woo Lisa. Erasmus, despite his love and admiration for the girl, cannot claim her hand - social norms strictly regulate their relationship. Erasmus belongs to the nobility, and Lisa belongs to ordinary peasants, so their marriage is a priori impossible. In the evening, Liza comes on a date to Erast as usual and tells the young man about the upcoming event in the hope of support.

The romantic and devoted Erast decides to take Lisa to his house, but the girl cools his ardor, noting that in this case he will not be her husband. This evening the girl loses her purity.

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After this, the relationship between Lisa and Erasmus was no longer the same - the image of the immaculate and holy girl faded away in the eyes of Erasmus. The young man begins military service, and the lovers part. Lisa sincerely believes that their relationship will retain its former ardor, but the girl will be greatly disappointed: Erasmus is addicted to playing cards and does not become a successful player - marriage to a rich old woman helps him avoid poverty, but does not bring happiness. Lisa, having learned about the wedding, committed suicide (drowned in the river), and Erasmus forever acquired a sense of guilt for her death.

The reality of the events described

The features of the artistic construction of the plot and the description of the background of the work suggest the reality of the events taking place and the literary reminiscence of Karamzin. After the publication of the story, the surroundings of the Simonov Monastery became especially popular among young people, near which, based on Karamzin's story, Lisa lived. Readers also took a fancy to the pond, in which the girl allegedly drowned, and even cutely renamed it "Lizin". However, there is no data on the real basis of the story; it is believed that its characters, as well as the plot, were the fruit of the author's imagination.

Subject

The story as a genre does not imply the presence of a huge number of themes. Karamzin fully complies with this requirement and is actually limited to only two topics.

The theme of peasant life

Using the example of Lisa's family, the reader can get acquainted with the peculiarities of the life of peasants. Readers are presented with a non-generalized image. From the story you can learn about the details of the life of the peasants, their everyday and not only everyday difficulties.

Peasants are people too

In literature, one can often find the image of peasants as a generalized one, devoid of individual qualities.

Karamzin, on the other hand, shows that the peasants, despite their lack of education and lack of involvement in art, are not devoid of intelligence, wisdom, or moral character.

Lisa is a girl who can keep up the conversation, of course, these are not topics about innovations in the field of science or art, but her speech is logical, and her content makes her associate the girl as an intelligent and talented interlocutor.

Issues

The Problem of Finding Happiness

Every person wants to be happy. Lisa and Erasmus are also no exception. The platonic love that arose between young people allowed them to realize how it is to be happy and at the same time how it is to be deeply unhappy. The author in the story raises an important question: is it always possible to become happy and what is needed for this.

The problem of social inequality

One way or another, but our real life is subject to some unspoken rules and social stereotypes. Most of them arose on the principle of social distribution into layers or castes. It is this moment that Karamzin acutely personifies in the work - Erasmus is an aristocrat, a nobleman by origin, and Lisa is a poor girl, a peasant woman. A marriage between an aristocrat and a peasant woman was unthinkable.

Loyalty in relationships

When reading the story, you understand that such exalted relations between young people, if they were transferred to the plane of real time, would not exist forever - sooner or later the love ardor between Erasmus and Lisa would fade away - the public position prevented further development, and the resulting stable uncertainty provoked the degradation of romance.

Guided by the possibility of material improvement of his position, Erasmus decides to marry a rich widow, although he himself gave Lisa a promise to always love her. While the girl faithfully awaits the return of her lover, Erasmus cruelly betrays her feelings and hopes.

The problem of urban orientation

Another global problem that found its reflection in Karamzin's story is the comparison of the city and the countryside. In the understanding of urban residents, the city is the engine of progress, newfangled trends and education. The village is always presented as something backward in its development. The inhabitants of the village, respectively, are also backward in every sense of the word.

The villagers also note the differences between the inhabitants of cities and villages. In their concept, the city is the engine of evil and danger, while the village is a safe place that preserves the moral character of the nation.

Idea

The main idea of ​​the story is to denounce sensuality, morality and the influence of the emotions that have arisen on the fate of a person. Karamzin brings readers to the concept: empathy is an important part of life. Don't deliberately renounce compassion and humanity.

Karamzin argues that human morality is a factor that does not depend on class and position in society. Very often people with aristocratic ranks are lower in their moral development than simple peasants.

Direction in culture and literature

The story "Poor Lisa" is marked by the peculiarities of the direction in literature - sentimentalism successfully embodied in the work, which was successfully embodied in the image of Lisa's father, who, according to Karamzin's description, was an ideal person within his social cell.

Lisa's mother also has multiple features of sentimentalism - she experiences significant mental anguish after the departure of her husband, sincerely worries about the fate of her daughter.

The main array of sentimentalism falls on the image of Lisa. She is depicted as a sensual person who is so absorbed in her emotions that she is unable to be guided by critical thinking - after meeting Erasmus. Liza is so absorbed in new romantic experiences that, apart from these feelings, she does not take any other feelings seriously - the girl is not able to sensibly assess her life situation, she is little worried about her mother's feelings and her love.

Instead of love for her mother (which used to be inherent in Lisa), now the girl's thoughts are occupied by love for Erasmus, which reaches a critical egoistic climax - Lisa perceives the tragic events in a relationship with a young man as an irrevocable tragedy of her whole life. The girl does not try to find a "golden mean" between the sensual and the logical - she completely surrenders to emotions.

Thus, Karamzin's story "Poor Lisa" became a breakthrough of its time. For the first time, readers were given an image of the characters as close to life as possible. The characters do not have a clear division into positive and negative. Every character has good and bad qualities. The work reflects the main social themes and problems, which in their essence are philosophical problems outside of time - their relevance is not regulated by the framework of chronology.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin beautifully described a story in which the main characters were a poor girl and a young nobleman. Karamzin's contemporaries greeted this love story with enthusiastic responses. Thanks to this work, the 25-year-old writer gained wide popularity. This story is still read by millions of people, it is studied in various educational institutions. Let's do a brief analysis of the story "Poor Lisa" by Karamzin.

General characteristics of the work

Immediately after reading the story, a sentimental aesthetic bias becomes apparent, which is clearly expressed in the interest shown in a person, regardless of what his position in society is.

When Nikolai Karamzin wrote the story "Poor Lisa", which we are now analyzing, he was in a country house, relaxing with friends, and next to this dacha was the Simonov Monastery, about which the researchers say that it was he who became the basis for the author's idea. It is important to understand that readers perceived the story of a love relationship as actually happening in large part due to this fact.

We have already mentioned at the beginning that the story "Poor Liza" is known as a sentimentalist story, although in its genre it is a short story, and such stylistic features at that time were used in literature only by Karamzin. What is the sentimentalism of "Poor Liza"? First of all, the sentimentalism of the work is focused on the feelings of a person, and the mind and society take a secondary place, giving priority to the emotions and relationships of people. This idea is extremely important in the analysis of the story "Poor Lisa".

Main theme and ideological background

Let's denote the main theme of the work - a peasant girl and a young nobleman. It is clear what social problem Karamzin touched upon in the story. There was a huge gulf between the nobles and peasants, and in order to show what contradictions stood in the way of the relationship between urban and rural residents, Karamzin contrasts the image of Erast with the image of Liza.

In order to more accurately analyze the story "Poor Liza", let's pay attention to the descriptions of the beginning of the work, when the reader imagines harmony with nature, a quiet and cozy atmosphere. We also read about a city in which the "mass of houses" and "gold on the domes" are simply frightening, causing some rejection. It is clear that Liza reflects nature, naturalness, naivety, honesty and openness are visible in her. Karamzin acts as a humanist when he shows love in all its strength and beauty, recognizing that with reason and pragmatism one can easily crush these beautiful beginnings of the human soul.

The main characters of the story

It is quite obvious that the analysis of the story "Poor Liza" would be insufficient without considering the main characters of the work. It can be seen that the image of some ideals and principles is embodied in Lisa, and completely different in Erast. Indeed, Lisa was an ordinary peasant girl, and the main feature of her character is the ability to feel deeply. Acting as her heart dictates, she did not lose her morality, although she died. Interestingly, by the way she spoke and thought, it is difficult to attribute her to the peasant class. She had a literary language.

And what can be said about the image of Erast? As an officer, he thought only of entertainment, and social life tired him and made him bored. Erast is smart enough, ready to act kindly, although his character is very changeable and not constant. When Erast develops feelings for Lisa, he is sincere, but not far-sighted. The young man does not think about the fact that Lisa cannot become his wife, because they are from different circles of society.

Does Erast look like an insidious seducer? An analysis of the story "Poor Lisa" shows that it is not. Rather, this is a person who truly fell in love, to whom a weak character prevented him from surviving and carrying his love to the end. I must say that Russian literature did not previously know such a type of character as Karamzin's Erast, but this type was even given a name - "an extra person", and later he began to appear more and more often on the pages of books.

Conclusions in the analysis of the story "Poor Liza"

Briefly speaking, what the work is about, one can formulate the idea as follows: this is a tragic love that led to the death of the main character, while the reader completely passes through her feelings, which is very helpful in vivid descriptions of the environment and nature.

Although we have considered only two main characters - Lisa and Erast, in fact there is also a narrator who himself heard this sad story, and now, with shades of sadness, conveys it to others. Thanks to the incredible psychologism, the acute topic, the ideas and images that Karamzin embodied in his work, Russian literature has been replenished with another masterpiece.

We are glad that a brief analysis of the story "Poor Lisa" was useful to you. In our literary blog you will find hundreds of articles with characteristics of characters and analyzes of famous works of Russian and foreign literature.