Years of realism in Russian literature. Genres and style features of realistic prose

Realism (literature)

Realism in literature - truthful depiction reality.

In every work belles-lettres we distinguish two necessary element: objective - reproduction of phenomena given in addition to the artist, and subjective - something invested in the work by the artist from himself. Stopping at comparative evaluation these two elements, theory in different epochs attaches greater importance now to one, now to the other of them (in connection with the course of the development of art, and with other circumstances).

Hence the two opposite directions in the theory; one - realism- puts before art the task of faithfully reproducing reality; other - idealism- sees the purpose of art in "replenishing reality", in creating new forms. Moreover, the starting point is not so much the facts as the ideal representations.

This terminology, borrowed from philosophy, sometimes introduces artwork non-aesthetic moments: Realism is quite wrongly reproached for the absence of moral idealism. In common usage, the term "Realism" means the exact copying of details, mostly external ones. The inconsistency of this point of view, from which the preference for protocol over the novel and photography over the picture is a natural conclusion, is quite obvious; a sufficient refutation of it is our aesthetic sense, which does not hesitate for a moment between wax figure, reproducing the finest shades of living colors, and a deathly white marble statue. It would be pointless and pointless to create another world, completely identical with the existing one.

The copying of the outside world has never, in itself, even been the aim of art, even in the sharpest realistic theory. In a possibly faithful reproduction of reality, only a guarantee of the artist's creative originality was seen. In theory, idealism is opposed to realism, but in practice it is opposed by routine, tradition, the academic canon, the obligatory imitation of the classics - in other words, the death of independent creativity. Art begins with the actual reproduction of nature; but, once popular examples of artistic thinking are given, second-hand creativity appears, work according to a template.

This is a common occurrence of the school, under whatever banner it may appear for the first time. Almost every school claims a new word precisely in the field of truthful reproduction of life - and each in its own right, and each is denied and replaced by the next in the name of the same principle of truth. This is especially characteristic in the history of the development of French literature, which is all an uninterrupted series of conquests of true Realism. The desire for artistic truth was at the heart of the same movements that, petrified in tradition and canon, later became a symbol of unreal art.

Such is not only Romanticism, which has been so fervently attacked in the name of truth by the doctrinaires of modern naturalism; so is classical drama. Suffice it to recall that the glorified three unities were adopted not at all out of slavish imitation of Aristotle, but only because they determined the possibility of stage illusion. “The establishment of unities was the triumph of Realism. These rules, which became the cause of so many inconsistencies during the decline of the classical theater, were at first a necessary condition for scenic plausibility. In the Aristotelian rules, medieval rationalism found a means to remove from the scene the last remnants of naive medieval fantasy. (Lanson).

The deep inner Realism of the classical tragedy of the French degenerated in the arguments of theorists and in the works of imitators into dead schemes, the oppression of which was thrown off by literature only at the beginning of the 19th century. From a broad point of view, every truly progressive movement in the field of art is a movement towards Realism. In this respect, there are no exceptions and those new currents, which in appearance are the reaction of Realism. In fact, they represent only a reaction to routine, to obligatory artistic dogma - a reaction against realism in name, which has ceased to be a search and artistic recreation of the truth of life. When lyrical symbolism tries by new means to convey the mood of the poet to the reader, when neoidealists, resurrecting old conventional devices artistic image, draw stylized, that is, as if deliberately deviating from reality, images, they strive for the same thing that is the goal of any - even archi-naturalistic - art: the creative reproduction of life. There is no true work of art - from the symphony to the arabesque, from the Iliad to the Whisper, timid breathing”, - which, with a deeper look at it, would not have turned out to be a true image of the soul of the creator, “a corner of life through the prism of temperament”.

It is hardly possible, therefore, to speak of the history of Realism: it coincides with the history of art. One can only characterize individual moments in the historical life of art, when they especially insisted on true image life, seeing him mainly in emancipation from school conventions, in the ability to grasp and the courage to depict details that passed without a trace for the former artist or frightened him with inconsistency with dogmas. Such was romanticism, such modern form Realism - naturalism Literature about Realism is mainly polemical about its modern form. Historical writings(David, Sauvageot, Lenoir) suffer from the uncertainty of the subject of research. In addition to the works indicated in the article Naturalism.

Russian writers who used realism

Of course, first of all, these are F. M. Dostoevsky and L. N. Tolstoy. Outstanding examples of literature in this direction were also the works of the late Pushkin (rightfully considered the founder of realism in Russian literature) - historical drama"Boris Godunov", stories " Captain's daughter”, “Dubrovsky”, “Tales of Belkin”, the novel by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov “A Hero of Our Time”, as well as the poem by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol “ Dead Souls».

The birth of realism

There is a version that realism originated in ancient times, during the time of the Ancient Peoples. There are several types of realism:

• "Antique Realism"
• "Renaissance realism"
• "Realism of the XVIII-XIX centuries"

see also

Notes

Links

• A. A. Gornfeld// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

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spiritual climate Western Europe after 1830, it changed significantly compared to the romantic era. The subjective idealism of the Romantics was replaced by a belief in the omnipotence of reason and science, a belief in progress. Two ideas determine the thinking of Europeans during this period - this is positivism (a direction in philosophy based on the collection of objective facts with the aim of scientific analysis) and organicism (Darwin's evolutionary theory extended to other areas of life). The 19th century is the century of the rapid growth of science and technology, the rise of the social sciences, and this striving for scientificity also penetrates into literature. Realist artists saw their task in describing in literature all the richness of the phenomena of the surrounding world, all the diversity human types, that is science XIX centuries and realistic literature are imbued with the same spirit of collecting facts, systematizing and developing a consistent concept of reality. And the explanation of reality was given on the basis of the principles of evolution: in the life of society and the individual, the action of the same forces as in nature, similar mechanisms of natural selection, was seen.

By the thirties of the 19th century, the new system public relations. It was a bourgeois system, in which each person was quite rigidly assigned to a certain social class environment, that is, the time of romantic "freedom", "restlessness" of a person has passed. In a classical bourgeois society, the belonging of a person to a certain class appeared as an immutable law of being, and, accordingly, became the principle of the artistic development of life. Therefore, realists use the discoveries of the romantics in the field of psychology, but inscribe a newly understood person in a historically reliable, contemporary life. For realists, a person is primarily conditioned by the socio-historical environment, and realism is based on the principle of social class determinism.

Realists have also changed their perception of human character. Among the Romantics, an exceptional character was the subjective property of an individual; hero realistic work— always a unique interaction product historical process and specific (biological, individual, random) circumstances, therefore life experience realists understand each person as unique and valuable by this very uniqueness, and, on the other hand, the life experience of each person is of universal, universal interest, because it contains repeatable, universal features. Here lies the basis of the realistic doctrine of type, the basis of realistic typification.

The realists directly inherited from the romantics the inherent value they discovered human personality, but fixed this personality for a certain place, time, environment. Realist art is democratic - realists first brought to the stage " little man", which was not previously considered an interesting object for literature, restored it to its rights. Realistic literature is imbued with a generally optimistic spirit: criticizing contemporary society, realist writers were confident in the effectiveness of their criticism, that this society could be improved, reformed, believed in the inevitability of progress.

The realism of the 19th century sought to cover life as widely as possible, to show all the details social structure, all types human relations, which, of course, required works of large volumes. This is partly why the leading genre in the literature of realism is the novel - the genre of a major epic narrative, in which there is a place for all this gigantic material of life. Especially on early stage realism novels were distinguished by a larger volume than is customary today. In addition, the novel was in the 19th century the newest of the available genres, that is, a genre without the burden of canonical tradition.

The novel is a genre open to everything new; the novelist explores life freely and without prejudice, not knowing in advance where his artistic quest will lead him. This novel is akin to the spirit of scientific research, this side of the novel was emphasized realists XIX centuries, and under their pen the genre has become a tool for research and cognition of reality, external and internal conflicts human life. The realistic novel reflects reality in the forms of life itself, and since the era of realism the concept of " fiction"begins to be associated not with poetry and drama, but primarily with prose. The novel becomes the dominant genre of world literature.

G.K. Kosikov writes: "The main feature of the romantic situation is the change in the internal and external position of the hero in the course of various collisions with the world around him." In a realistic novel, as a rule, the “positive” hero opposes the existing forms of social coexistence as the bearer of the ideal, but, unlike romantic literature, in a realistic novel, the discord between the hero and the world does not turn into a complete break. The hero may reject his immediate environment, but he never rejects the world as a whole, he always retains the hope of realizing his subjective world in some other spheres of being. Therefore, the realistic novel is based both on the contradiction between the hero and the world and on the deep inner commonality between them. The search for the hero of a realistic novel in the early stages of its existence was limited by the scope of the social circumstances offered by history. In the 19th century, the social mobility of the individual increased sharply; example of Napoleon's fantastic career became a model of change social status for new generations. This new phenomenon of reality was reflected in the creation of such genre variety realistic novel as a "career novel". Consider it on the example of the works of the creators of the realistic novel Stendhal and Balzac.

Realism as a method arose in Russian literature of the first third of XIX century. The main principle of realism is the principle of life's truth, the reproduction of characters and circumstances explained socio-historically (typical characters in typical circumstances).

Realist writers deeply, truthfully depicted various aspects of contemporary reality, recreated life in the forms of life itself.

basis realistic method early XIX centuries are positive ideals: humanism, sympathy for the humiliated and offended, the search for goodie in life, optimism and patriotism.

To late XIX century, realism reached its peak in the works of such writers as F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov.

The 20th century set new tasks for realist writers, forced them to look for new ways of mastering life material. In the conditions of the rise of revolutionary sentiments, literature was increasingly imbued with forebodings and expectations of impending changes, "unheard of revolts."

The sense of impending social shifts caused such intensity artistic life which one did not know yet Russian art. Here is what L. N. Tolstoy wrote about the turn of the century: “ New Age brings the end of one worldview, one faith, one way of communicating people and the beginning of another worldview, another way of communication. M. Gorky called the 20th century a century of spiritual renewal.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, they continued their search for the secrets of existence, the secrets of human existence and the consciousness of the classics of Russian realism L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, L.N. Andreev, I.A. Bunin and others.

However, the principle of the old "realism was increasingly criticized from various literary communities, demanding a more active intrusion of the writer into life and influence on it.

This revision was started by L. N. Tolstoy himself, in last years of his life, calling for the strengthening of the didactic, instructive, preaching principle in literature.

If A.P. Chekhov believed that the “court” (i.e., the artist) is only obliged to raise questions, draw the attention of the thinking reader to important problems, and the “jury” (public structures) are obliged to answer, then for realist writers of the early twentieth centuries, it seemed no longer enough.

So, M. Gorky bluntly stated that “for some reason, the luxurious mirror of Russian literature did not reflect the outbursts of popular anger ...”, and accused literature of the fact that “she was not looking for heroes, she loved to talk about people who were strong only in patience, meek soft, dreaming of heaven in heaven, silently suffering on earth.

It was M. Gorky, a realist writer younger generation, was the founder of the new literary direction which later became known as "socialist realism".

The literary and social activities of M. Gorky played a significant role in uniting the new generation of realist writers. In the 1890s, on the initiative of M. Gorky, a literary circle"Environment", and then the publishing house "Knowledge". Around this publishing house, young, talented writers A.I. Kuprii, I.A. Bunin, L.N. Andreev, A. Serafimovich, D. Bedny and others.

The dispute with traditional realism was conducted at different poles of literature. There were writers who followed the traditional direction, seeking to update it. But there were those who simply rejected realism as an outdated direction.

In these difficult conditions, in the confrontation of polar methods and trends, the work of writers, traditionally called realists, continued to develop.

The originality of Russian realistic literature of the beginning of the 20th century lies not only in the significance of the content, acute social topics, but also in artistic searches, the perfection of technology, and stylistic diversity.

Realism is a trend in literature and art that aims to faithfully reproduce reality in its typical features. The reign of realism followed the era of Romanticism and preceded Symbolism.

1. In the center of the work of realists is objective reality. In its refraction through the worldview of thin-ka. 2. The author subjects vital material to a fil-th processing. 3. the ideal is reality itself. Beautiful is life itself. 4. Realists move towards synthesis through analysis

5. The principle of the typical: typical hero, specific time, typical circumstances

6. Identification of causal relationships. 7. The principle of historicism. Realists address the problems of the present. The present is the convergence of the past and the future. 8. The principle of democracy and humanism. 9. The principle of objectivity of narratives. 10. Socio-political, philosophical issues prevail

11. psychologism

12. .. The development of poetry somewhat subsides 13. The novel is the leading genre.

13. An aggravated socially critical pathos is one of the main features of Russian realism - for example, The Inspector General, Dead Souls by N.V. Gogol

14. The main feature of realism as a creative method is increased attention to the social side of reality.

15. The images of a realistic work reflect general laws beings, not living people. Any image is woven from typical features, manifested in typical circumstances. This is the paradox of art. The image cannot be correlated with a living person, it is richer than a concrete person - hence the objectivity of realism.

16. “An artist should not be a judge of his characters and what they say, but only an impartial witness

Realist writers

The late A. S. Pushkin is the founder of realism in Russian literature (historical drama "Boris Godunov", the stories "The Captain's Daughter", "Dubrovsky", "Tales of Belkin", the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" back in the 1820s - 1830s)

M. Yu. Lermontov ("A Hero of Our Time")

N. V. Gogol ("Dead Souls", "Inspector")

I. A. Goncharov ("Oblomov")

A. S. Griboyedov ("Woe from Wit")

A. I. Herzen (“Who is to blame?”)

N. G. Chernyshevsky (“What to do?”)

F. M. Dostoevsky ("Poor People", "White Nights", "Humiliated and Insulted", "Crime and Punishment", "Demons")

L. N. Tolstoy ("War and Peace", "Anna Karenina", "Resurrection").

I. S. Turgenev ("Rudin", "Noble Nest", "Asya", "Spring Waters", "Fathers and Sons", "Nov", "On the Eve", "Mu-mu")

A. P. Chekhov ("The Cherry Orchard", "Three Sisters", "Student", "Chameleon", "Seagull", "Man in a Case"

Since the middle of the 19th century, the formation of Russian realistic literature has been taking place, which has been created against the backdrop of a tense socio-political situation that developed in Russia during the reign of Nicholas I. A crisis in the serf system is brewing, contradictions between the authorities and common people. There is a need to create a realistic literature that sharply reacts to the socio-political situation in the country.

Writers turn to the socio-political problems of Russian reality. The genre of the realistic novel is developing. Their works are created by I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, I.A. Goncharov. It is worth noting the poetic works of Nekrasov, who was the first to introduce social issues into poetry. His poem “Who is living well in Russia?” is known, as well as many poems, where the hard and hopeless life of the people is comprehended. End of the 19th century - The Realist tradition began to fade. It was replaced by the so-called decadent literature. . Realism becomes, to a certain extent, a method of artistic cognition of reality. In the 40s, a "natural school" arose - Gogol's work, he was a great innovator, discovering that even an insignificant event, such as the acquisition of an overcoat by a petty official, can become a significant event for understanding the most important issues of human existence.

"Natural School" has become initial stage development of realism in Russian literature.

Topics: Life, customs, characters, events from the life of the lower classes became the object of study of "naturalists". The leading genre was the "physiological essay", which was based on the exact "photography" of the life of various classes.

In literature " natural school"The class position of the hero, his professional affiliation and the social function that he performs, decisively prevailed over the individual character.

Adjoining the "natural school" were: Nekrasov, Grigorovich, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Goncharov, Panaev, Druzhinin and others.

The task of truthfully showing and investigating life in realism involves many methods of depicting reality, which is why the works of Russian writers are so diverse both in form and in content.

Realism as a method of depicting reality in the second half of the 19th century. was called critical realism, because his main task was to criticize reality, the question of the relationship between man and society.

To what extent does society influence the fate of the hero? Who is to blame for the fact that a person is unhappy? What can be done to change people and the world? - these are the main questions of literature in general, Russian literature of the second half of XIX in. - in particular.

Psychologism is a characterization of a hero by analyzing his inner world consideration of the psychological processes through which the self-consciousness of the individual is carried out and his attitude to the world is expressed, has become the leading method of Russian literature since the formation of a realistic style in it.

One of the remarkable features of Turgenev's works of the 1950s was the appearance in them of a hero embodying the idea of ​​the unity of ideology and psychology.

The realism of the 2nd half of the 19th century reached its heights precisely in Russian literature, especially in the work of L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, who became the central figures of the world literary process at the end of the 19th century. They enriched world literature with new principles for constructing a socio-psychological novel, philosophical and moral issues, new ways of revealing the human psyche in its deepest layers.

Turgenev is credited with creating literary types of ideologues - heroes, the approach to the personality and characterization of the inner world of which is in direct connection with the author's assessment of their worldview and the socio-historical meaning of their philosophical concepts. At the same time, the fusion of the psychological, historical-typological and ideological aspects is so complete in Turgenev's heroes that their names have become a common noun for a certain stage in the development of social thought, a certain social type representing the class in its historical state, and the psychological makeup of the personality (Rudin, Bazarov, Kirsanov , Mr. N. from the story "Asya" - "Russian man on rendez-vous").

The heroes of Dostoevsky are in the grip of an idea. Like slaves, they follow her, expressing her self-development. Having “accepted” a certain system into their soul, they obey the laws of its logic, go through all the necessary stages of its growth with it, bear the yoke of its reincarnations. So, Raskolnikov, whose concept grew out of the rejection of social injustice and a passionate desire for good, passing along with the idea that has taken possession of his whole being, all its logical stages, accepts murder and justifies the tyranny of a strong personality over a mute mass. In solitary monologues-reflections, Raskolnikov “strengthens” in his idea, falls under its power, gets lost in its sinister vicious circle, and then, having made an “experiment” and suffered an internal defeat, he begins feverishly looking for a dialogue, the possibility of a joint assessment of the results of the experiment.

For Tolstoy, the system of ideas that the hero develops and develops in the process of life is a form of his communication with the environment and is derived from his character, from the psychological and moral characteristics of his personality.

It can be argued that all three great Russian realists of the middle of the century - Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky - depict the mental and ideological life of a person as a social phenomenon and ultimately presupposes an obligatory contact between people, without which the development of consciousness is impossible.

... for me, imagination has always beenhigher than existence, and the strongest loveI experienced in a dream.
L.N. Andreev

Realism, as is known, appeared in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century and throughout the century existed within the framework of its critical current. However, symbolism, which made itself known in the 1890s - the first modernist trend in Russian literature - sharply opposed itself to realism. Following symbolism, other non-realist movements arose. This inevitably led to qualitative transformation of realism as a method of depicting reality.

The symbolists expressed the opinion that realism only glides over the surface of life and is not able to penetrate the essence of things. Their position was not infallible, but since then began in Russian art confrontation and mutual influence of modernism and realism.

It is noteworthy that modernists and realists, outwardly striving for delimitation, internally had a common aspiration for a deep, essential knowledge of the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that the writers of the turn of the century, who considered themselves realists, understood how narrow the framework of consistent realism was, and began to master syncretic forms of narration that made it possible to combine realistic objectivity with romantic, impressionistic and symbolist principles.

If the realists of the nineteenth century paid close attention to social human nature, then the realists of the twentieth century correlated this social nature with psychological, subconscious processes expressed in the clash of reason and instinct, intellect and feeling. Simply put, the realism of the early twentieth century pointed to the complexity of human nature, which is by no means reducible only to his social being. It is no coincidence that Kuprin, Bunin, and Gorky have a plan of events, the environment is barely indicated, but a refined analysis is given. mental life character. The author's gaze is always directed beyond the limits of the characters' spatial and temporal existence. Hence - the emergence of folklore, biblical, cultural motifs and images, which made it possible to expand the boundaries of the narrative, to attract the reader to co-creation.

At the beginning of the 20th century, within the framework of realism, four currents:

1) critical realism continues the traditions of the 19th century and involves an emphasis on the social nature of phenomena (at the beginning of the 20th century, these were the works of A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Tolstoy),

2) socialist realism - the term of Ivan Gronsky, denoting the image of reality in its historical and revolutionary development, the analysis of conflicts in the context of the class struggle, and the actions of heroes - in the context of benefit for humanity ("Mother" by M. Gorky, and later - most of the works of Soviet writers),

3) mythological realism formed in ancient literature, however, in the 20th century under M.R. began to understand the image and understanding of reality through the prism of well-known mythological plots(in foreign literature a prime example serves as the novel by J. Joyce "Ulysses", and in Russian literature of the early 20th century - the story "Judas Iscariot" by L.N. Andreeva)

4) naturalism involves depicting reality with the utmost plausibility and detail, often unsightly ("Pit" by A.I. Kuprin, "Sanin" by M.P. Artsybashev, "Notes of a Doctor" by V.V. Veresaev)

The listed features of Russian realism caused numerous disputes about creative method writers who remained faithful to realistic traditions.

Bitter starts with neo-romantic prose and goes on to create social plays and novels, becomes the ancestor of socialist realism.

Creation Andreeva has always been in borderline: modernists considered him a "contemptible realist", and for realists, in turn, he was a "suspicious symbolist". At the same time, it is generally accepted that his prose is realistic, and his dramaturgy gravitates towards modernism.

Zaitsev, showing interest in the microstates of the soul, created impressionistic prose.

Attempts by critics to define the artistic method Bunin led to the fact that the writer himself compared himself to a suitcase glued huge amount labels.

The complex worldview of realist writers, the multidirectional poetics of their works testified to the qualitative transformation of realism as an artistic method. Thanks to a common goal - the search for the highest truth - at the beginning of the 20th century there was a convergence of literature and philosophy, which was already outlined in the work of Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy.