Enlightenment realism in the Age of Enlightenment. Turaev S.V.

35.Basic methods fiction. Realism. Variety of approaches to the problem of realism in literary criticism. Enlightenment realism.

(1) Realism is an artistic direction, “aiming to convey reality as close as possible, striving for maximum likelihood. We declare realistic those works that seem to us to closely convey reality” [Yakobson 1976: 66]. This definition was given by R. O. Yakobson in the article “On Artistic Realism” as the most common, vulgar sociological understanding. (2) Realism is an artistic direction depicting a person whose actions are determined by the social environment surrounding her. This is the definition of Professor G. A. Gukovsky [Gukovsky 1967]. (3) Realism is such a trend in art, which, unlike the classicism and romanticism that preceded it, where the author’s point of view was respectively inside and outside the text, implements in its texts a systemic plurality of the author’s points of view on the text. This is Yu. M. Lotman's definition [Lotman 1966].
R. Jacobson himself sought to define artistic realism in a functionalist way, at the junction of his two pragmatic understandings:
1. [...] By a realistic work is meant a work conceived by a given author as plausible (meaning A).
2. A realistic work is a work that I, having a judgment about it, perceive as plausible” [Yakobson 1976: 67].
Further, Yakobson says that both the tendency towards the deformation of artistic canons and the conservative tendency towards the preservation of canons can be considered realistic [Yakobson 1976: 70].
Realism as a literary movement was formed in the 19th century. Elements of realism were present in some authors even earlier, starting from ancient times. The immediate forerunner of realism in European literature was romanticism. Having made the unusual the subject of the image, creating an imaginary world of special circumstances and exceptional passions, he (romanticism) at the same time showed a personality richer in spiritual and emotional terms, more complex and contradictory than was available to classicism, sentimentalism and other trends of previous eras. Therefore, realism developed not as an antagonist of romanticism, but as its ally in the struggle against idealization. public relations, for national-historical originality artistic images(color of place and time). It is not always easy to draw clear boundaries between romanticism and realism in the first half of the 19th century; in the work of many writers, romantic and realistic features merged into one - the works of Balzac, Stendhal, Hugo, and partly Dickens. In Russian literature, this was especially clearly reflected in the works of Pushkin and Lermontov (Pushkin's southern poems and Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time). In Russia, where the foundations of realism were still in the 1820s 30s. laid down by the work of Pushkin ("Eugene Onegin", "Boris Godunov" Captain's daughter”, late lyrics), as well as some other writers (“Woe from Wit” by Griboedov, fables by I. A. Krylov), this stage is associated with the names of I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky and others. The realism of the 19th century is usually called “critical”, since the defining principle in it was precisely the socio-critical. Heightened socio-critical pathos one of the main distinguishing features Russian realism "Inspector", "Dead Souls" by Gogol, the activities of writers of the "natural school". The realism of the second half of the 19th century reached its peak precisely in Russian literature, especially in the works of L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky, who at the end of the 19th century became the Central figures of the world literary process. They enriched world literature new principles for constructing a socio-psychological novel, philosophical and moral issues, new ways of revealing the human psyche in its deepest layers.

Signs of realism:

1. The artist depicts life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.

2. Literature in realism is a means of a person's knowledge of himself and the world around him.

3. Cognition of reality comes with the help of images created by typing the facts of reality (typical characters in a typical setting). The typification of characters in realism is carried out through the "truthfulness of details" in the "concreteness" of the conditions of the characters' existence.

4. Realistic art life-affirming art, even in the tragic resolution of the conflict. The philosophical basis for this is gnosticism, the belief in knowability and adequate reflection of the surrounding world, unlike, for example, romanticism.

5. Realistic art is inherent in the desire to consider reality in development, the ability to detect and capture the emergence and development of new forms of life and social relations, new psychological and social types.

Critical realism of the 19th century replaced Enlightenment realism of the 18th century.

Sharply critical attitude to reality. Staging and reflection in the artistic work of acute social problems. Orientation to the image of the life of the disadvantaged sections of society. The study of social contradictions. Realists argue that evil is rooted not in a person (as the Enlighteners did), but in society. Realists are not limited to criticism of mores and contemporary legislation. They raise the question of the inhuman nature of the very foundations of bourgeois and feudal society. Realism arose in France and England under the conditions of the triumph of the bourgeois order, then, having passed through two stages (Renaissance and Enlightenment), it passed into the critical stage. The social antagonisms and shortcomings of the capitalist system determined the sharply critical attitude of realist writers towards it. They denounced acquisitiveness, social inequality, selfishness, hypocrisy. In its ideological focus, it becomes critical realism. Realistic. the hero cannot be considered outside society, outside the environment. Writers focus on the motivation of actions, cat. explained by environment, origin, etc. They showed the influence of society on a person. Enlighten. Realism is full of faith in reason, critical is "lost illusions"

QUESTION 2. . Realism (from lat. realis- real) - an artistic method in art and literature. The very concept of realism has changed at different stages. artistic development, reflecting the persistent desire of artists to true image reality. The focus of realism is not just facts, events, people and things, but those patterns that operate in life. At the same time, while depicting these regularities, realism does not break away from the real soil, selects the features inherent in life with the greatest completeness and thereby enriches the reader with knowledge of life, performs cognitive tasks. From this follows the natural conclusion that realism primarily depends in its specific features on those historical conditions where art develops. Realism is not something once and for all given and unchanging. In the history of world literature, several main types of its development can be outlined. There is no consensus in science about the initial period of realism. Many art historians attribute it to very distant eras: they talk about realism rock paintings primitive people, about the realism of ancient culture.

In the history of world literature, many features of realism are found in the works of the ancient world and early medieval(in folk epic, for example, in Russian epics, in chronicles)

However, the formation realism as an artistic system in European literatures is usually associated with the era renaissance(Revival). A new understanding of life by a person who rejects the slavish obedience of church preaching was reflected in the lyrics of Federico Petrarch, the novels of Francois Rabelais ("Gargantua and Pantagruel"), in the tragedies and comedies of William Shakespeare. After the medieval churchmen preached for centuries that man is a "vessel of sin" and called for humility, the literature and art of the Renaissance glorified man as the highest creation of nature, sought to reveal the beauty of his physical and spiritual and mental beauty. The realism of the Renaissance is characterized by the scale of images (Don Quixote, Hamlet, King Lear), the poeticization of the human personality, its ability to have a great feeling (as in Romeo and Juliet) and at the same time high intensity tragic conflict when the clash of the personality with the forces opposing it is depicted.

The next stage in the development of realism - educational(enlightenment) when Western literature becomes an instrument of direct preparation for the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In the 18th century in Europe, the so-called enlightenment realism, whose theorists were Denis Diderot ( theoretical work"O dramatic literature") in France and G. Lessing ("Hamburg Dramaturgy") in Germany. English realistic novel, the founder of which was Daniel Defoe ("Robinson Crusoe", 1719). A democratic hero appeared in the literature of the Enlightenment (Figaro in the trilogy by P. Beaumarchais, images of peasants by A.N. Radishchev in "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow"). Enlighteners assessed all the phenomena of social life and the actions of people as reasonable or unreasonable (and they saw the unreasonable, first of all, in all the old feudal orders and customs). From this they proceeded in the depiction of the human character: their positive characters are, first of all, the embodiment of reason, the negative ones are a deviation from the norm, the product of unreason and the old feudal order. The realism of the Enlightenment often allowed for the conditionality of circumstances, the behavior of heroes.

new type realism takes shape in the 19th century. it critical realism. It differs significantly from both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Its heyday in the West is associated with the names of Stendhal and O. Balzac in France, C. Dickens, Thackeray in England, in Russia - A. S. Pushkin ("The Captain's Daughter"), N. V. Gogol (" Dead Souls"," The Government Inspector"), I. S. Turgenev ("Notes of a hunter"), F. M. Dostoevsky ("The Brothers Karamazov", "Crime and Punishment"), L. N. Tolstoy ("Sunday", "War and world"), A.P. Chekhov (stories, plays).

Critical realism portrays in a new way the relationship of man and environment. Human character is revealed in organic connection with social circumstances. The subject of deep social analysis was inner world of man, critical realism therefore simultaneously becomes psychological. In preparing this quality of realism, ROMANTISM played an important role, striving to penetrate the secrets of the human "I".

QUESTION 3. The main difference between critical realism and Renaissance and Enlightenment realism is the deepening of knowledge of life and the complication of the picture of the world. But this does not mean its absolute superiority over the previous stages, because the scale of the images of the Renaissance was lost. The pathos of affirmation, characteristic of the enlighteners, their optimistic faith in the victory of good over evil, remained unique. Critical realism captured contemporary reality much more widely. Serf-owning modernity entered the works of critical realists not only as the arbitrariness of the feudal lords, but also as the tragic state of the masses of the people - the serfs, the destitute urban people. In the works of writers of the Enlightenment, a middle-class man was portrayed mainly as the embodiment of nobility, honesty, and thus opposed the corrupt dishonest aristocrats. He revealed himself only in the sphere of his high moral consciousness. His daily life with all its sorrows, sufferings and worries remained, in essence, outside the narrative, he was considered as an individual whose problems lie only in himself, regardless of the environment in which he exists. Critical realism, on the other hand, performs an analytical function: it shows the social conditioning of a person, shows social causes that forced the hero to behave in one way or another. The basis of the aesthetics of critical realism is the PRINCIPLE OF SOCIALITY. Realists argue that evil is rooted not in man, but in society. Realists are not limited to criticism of mores and contemporary legislation. They raise the question of the inhuman nature of the very foundations of bourgeois and feudal society.

In the works of the enlighteners great place occupies the image of a depraved aristocrat who does not recognize any restrictions on his sensual desires. The depravity of rulers is portrayed in enlightenment literature as a product of feudal relations in which the aristocratic nobility knows no prohibition to their feelings. The work of the enlighteners reflected the lack of rights of the people, the arbitrariness of the princes who sold their subjects to other countries. Writers XVIII centuries sharply criticize religious fanaticism (“The Nun” by Diderot, “Nathan the Wise” by Lessinia), oppose prehistoric forms of government, support the struggle of peoples for their national independence (“Don Carlos” by Schiller, “Egmant” by Goethe). Thus, in the enlightenment literature of the 18th century, criticism of feudal society proceeds primarily on an ideological plane. Critical realists expanded the thematic range of the art of the word. A person, no matter what social stratum he belongs to, is characterized by them not only in the sphere of moral consciousness (that is, vices cannot be caused by aristocratic origin and feudal orders instilled from birth), he is also depicted in everyday life. practical activities, to the context with the environment, which is the mother of all his vices, and not an aristocratic origin. Critical realism characterizes a person universally as a specific historically formed individuality. They depict a person as a social being, formed under the influence of certain socio-historical causes. Characterizing the Balzac method, G.V. Plekhanov notes that the creator of " human comedy» «took» passions in the form given to them by contemporary bourgeois society; he watched with the attention of a naturalist how they grow and develop in a given social environment. However, realistic art is something more than a reproduction of a person in social connections. Realism is characterized by the image of a person in unity with his environment, the social and historical concreteness of the image, conflict, plot, the widespread use of such genre structures like a novel, drama, novella, short story. Critical realism was marked by an unprecedented spread of epic and dramaturgy. Among the epic genres, the novel gained the greatest popularity. The reason for its success is mainly that it allows the realist writer to fulfill the analytical function of art to the fullest extent, to expose the causes of the emergence of social evil.

Goodies in the work of realists - truth seekers, people associated with the national liberation or revolutionary movement (Stendhal's Carbonari, Balzac's Neuron) or actively resisting the corrupting attention of individualistic morality (Dickens).

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Enlightenment realism as a literary movement: artistic principles. Genre originality

realism - sets before art the task of faithfully reproducing reality.

Elements of realism arose in Russian literature between 1770 and 1790, simultaneously in different parts of it and in different ways. Such was the main trend in the development of the Russian aesthetic worldview of that time, which prepared it at the first stage - the future Pushkin stage. He grew up out of classicism, he also blew up the principles of classicism.

The forerunner of the realism created by Pushkin, Fonvizin, did more than others in this direction - he first raised the question of realism as a principle, as a system of understanding man and society. Deep Statement of the Problem realistic image man, which arose on the basis of the intensification of the struggle of the best part of the Russian noble intelligentsia with autocratic tyranny and wild forms of serfdom - this was Fonvizin's main merit, and a truly great merit.

The relative well-being of the worldview of noble liberalism collapsed at the time of the Pugachev uprising. The overcoming of this worldview proceeded either along the line of abandoning activity and withdrawing into a dream, into the life of an individual feeling, or along the line of expanding and deepening the base of protest. Everything in the world is bad and it is better to run away from it while there is somewhere to run, - so the faint-hearted decided. The political existence of Russia is no good, and it is necessary to change it drastically in the name of saving not only the nobility, but the whole country, the whole people, and we must fight for this to the last - such was the militant conclusion of Fonvizin.

"Brigadier". In the comedy, F. ridiculed the barbarism, stupidity, meanness of the nobility, not enlightened by the new noble culture, moreover, the nobility of the provincial and “fake”, noble mob. In addition, the comedy discredits the fashion for everything Western, gallomania, the contempt of young nobles for their homeland and their language. Basically, the task of comedy is educational, F. fights for culture, for "the honor of his class."

BUT! The characters in F.'s comedies are schematized (a feature of classicism). At the same time, the task of the artist is not so much the image of individual people as the image of social relations, understood in relation to the ideal norms of the state, determined the content of the person only by the criteria of this. Norms.

Radishchev. He was the first noble revolutionary in Russia who raised his voice in defense of the oppressed peasantry and condemned serfdom. It was the result of the accumulation of the forces of democratic thought, and it appeared at the dawn of future revolutionary movements—the Decembrist, in the shortest possible way.

"Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" is the mouthpiece of popular protest and anger, to the least extent refracted through the prism of bourgeoisness due to specific Russian conditions.

The first, main task of the Journey is the fight against serfdom: the fight against the oppression of man by man in general. "P." - piece of art, and R. In a number of images, he seeks to show the wrong, horror, absurdity, barbarism of serfdom. It was the appeal to folk poetry that could play the role of the most powerful impulse of realism in art; element folk art, bringing the writer closer to the people, the very objectivity of the collective experience, settled in folklore, the realism of the worldview and style of folklore, which arose as a truthful reflection folk life, - all this gave folklore art the power of support and influence that could fertilize the art of the "book" on the way to overcome classicism and in search of vitality. This understanding of folklore is precisely what distinguishes R. human images, created by him, are typological not in the rationalistic-classical sense, but in a collectively social one, which does not contradict the individuality of their features.

Presentation on the topic "Realism as a trend in literature and art" in literature in powerpoint format. A voluminous presentation for schoolchildren contains information about the principles, features, forms, stages of development of realism as a literary movement.

Fragments from the presentation

Literary methods, directions, currents

• artistic method- this is the principle of selecting the phenomena of reality, the features of their assessment and the originality of their artistic embodiment.
• Literary direction- this is a method that becomes dominant and acquires more definite features associated with the characteristics of the era and trends in culture.
• Literary current- manifestation of ideological and thematic unity, homogeneity of plots, characters, language in the work of several writers of the same era.
• Literary methods, trends and currents: classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, realism, modernism (symbolism, acmeism, futurism)

• Realism- a direction of literature and art that arose in the 18th century, which reached a comprehensive disclosure and flourishing in critical realism 19th century and continuing to develop in the struggle and interaction with other areas in the 20th century (up to the present).
• Realism- a truthful, objective reflection of reality by specific means inherent in one or another type of artistic creativity.

principles of realism

1. The typification of the facts of reality, i.e., according to Engels, “in addition to the veracity of the details, the truthful reproduction typical characters under typical circumstances."
2. Showing life in development and contradictions, which are primarily social in nature.
3. The desire to reveal the essence of life phenomena without limiting topics and plots.
4. Striving for moral quest and educational impact.

The most prominent representatives of realism in Russian literature:

A.N.Ostrovsky, I.S.Turgenev, I.A.Goncharov, M.E.Saltykov-Shchedrin, L.N.Tolstoy, F.M.Dostoevsky, A.P.Chekhov, M.Gorky, I. Bunin, V. Mayakovsky, M. Bulgakov, M. Sholokhov, S. Yesenin, A. I. Solzhenitsyn and others.

• Main property- through typification, reflect life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.
• Leading criterion of artistry- fidelity to reality; striving for immediate authenticity of the image, "recreation" of life "in the forms of life itself". The right of the artist to cover all aspects of life without any restrictions is recognized. A wide variety of art forms.
• The task of the realist writer- try not only to catch life in all its manifestations, but also to understand it, to understand the laws by which it moves and which do not always come out; it is necessary, through the play of chances, to achieve types - and with all that, always remain true to the truth, not be content with superficial study, avoid effects and falsehood.

Features of realism

• The desire for a wide coverage of reality in its contradictions, deep patterns and development;
• Attraction to the image of a person in his interaction with the environment:
• the inner world of the characters, their behavior bear the signs of the times;
• much attention is paid to the social background of the time;
• Universality in the image of a person;
• Social and psychological determinism;
• Historical point of view on life.

Forms of realism

• enlightenment realism
• critical realism
• socialist realism

Stages of development

• Enlightenment realism(D.I. Fonvizin, N.I. Novikov, A.N. Radishchev, young I.A. Krylov); "syncretic" realism: a combination of realistic and romantic motifs, with the dominant of the realistic (A.S. Griboedov, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov);
• critical realism- accusatory orientation of works; a decisive break with the romantic tradition (I.A. Goncharov, I.S. Turgenev, N.A. Nekrasov, A.N. Ostrovsky);
• socialist realism- imbued with revolutionary reality and a sense of the socialist transformation of the world (M. Gorky).

Realism in Russia

Appeared in the 19th century. Rapid development and special dynamism.

Features of Russian realism:

• Active development of socio-psychological, philosophical and moral issues;
• Pronounced life-affirming character;
• Special dynamism;
• Syntheticity (closer relationship with previous literary epochs and directions: enlightenment, sentimentalism, romanticism).

18th century realism

• imbued with the spirit of enlightenment ideology;
• is affirmed primarily in prose;
• the defining genre of literature is the novel;
• behind the novel comes the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois drama;
• recreated everyday life modern society;
• reflected his social and moral conflicts;
• the depiction of characters in it was straightforward and obeyed moral criteria that sharply distinguished between virtue and vice (only in individual works the image of personality was distinguished by complexity and dialectical inconsistency (Fielding, Stern, Diderot).

critical realism

critical realism- a trend that arose in Germany at the end of the 19th century (E. Becher, G. Driesch, A. Wenzl, etc.) and specializes in the theological interpretation of modern natural science (attempts to reconcile knowledge with faith and prove the "inconsistency" and "limitedness" of science) .

Principles of critical realism

• critical realism portrays the relationship of man and the environment in a new way
• human character is revealed in organic connection with social circumstances
• the subject of deep social analysis was the inner world of a person (critical realism therefore simultaneously becomes psychological)

socialist realism

socialist realism- one of the most important artistic directions in the art of the 20th century; a special artistic method (type of thinking), based on the knowledge and understanding of the life reality of the era, which was understood as dynamically changing in its "revolutionary development".

Principles of social realism

• Nationality. The heroes of the works must be from the people. As a rule, workers and peasants became the heroes of socialist realist works.
• Party spirit. Reject the truth empirically found by the author and replace it with party truth; show heroic deeds, the search for a new life, the revolutionary struggle for a brighter future.
• Concreteness. In the image of reality show the process historical development, which in turn must comply with the doctrine of historical materialism (matter is primary, consciousness is secondary).

5. Enlightenment realism.

Reading an article from the Enlightenment Realism textbook and answering questions.

Creative workshop "Analysis of the work in the aspect artistic method».

Outline of the study lyrical work.

Russian literature of the 19th century.

"Golden Age" of Russian Literature.

A. S. Pushkin. “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...” (grade 9)

1. Word of the teacher: "Golden age" of Russian literature. The "first row" of Russian writers: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. Literature and painting, literature and music. Traditions of Russian folklore, ancient Russian, spiritual and foreign literature in literature XIX century.

2. Pushkin - "the beginning of all beginnings." The poet's testament is "I have erected a monument to myself not made by hands...".

3. "Slow reading" of the poem.

Comment on (explain) the epithets: “not made by hands” (monument), “rebellious” (head), “cherished” (lyre), “sublunar” (peace), “good” (feelings), “cruel” (age) ...

Highlight the main word (phrase) that carries the idea in each quatrain (“not made by hands”, “I will not die”, “Great Russia”, “good”, “God's command”).

What meaning does Pushkin put into the words "fallen" and "indifferent"?

4. Comparison of Pushkin's poem with Horace's ode, Lomonosov's work "I erected a sign of immortality for myself ...", Derzhavin's "Monument".

Homework: reading Pushkin's novel "The Captain's Daughter" (chapters 1-5).

Abstracts of Methodists.

Literature at school, No. 3, 1995.

N. N. KOROL, M. A. KHRISTENKO The prophetic word of Andrey Platonov.

Achievement of style. XI class

Teaching students to read the works of A. Platonov is an extremely difficult task. Each phrase of the writer, each word-“thought-image” reflects from within that violent revolutionary process of transforming life, which is most adequately and fully expressed in his style - this amazing alloy of “beautiful tongue-tied tongue”, “incorrect flexibility”, “everyday speech, newspaper, slogan, poster, bureaucratic bureaucracy, propaganda stamp, that unorganized verbal element that burst into the language along with the breakdown of former social relations.

In grade XI, in order to find the keys to comprehending the “Pit” or “Chevengur”, we suggest taking the story “Doubting Makar” for work, the text is less voluminous, but contains all the features of the unique Platonic style.

The pivot moment at the initial home reading the students of the story became the task - to trace the movement of the plot, based on the disclosure of the meaning of the metaphorical antithesis "smart head - empty hands" (Lev Chumovoy, "milk boss", "scientific scribe", "trade union boss", "scientific man", pockmarked Peter and Makar ) and “an empty head - smart hands” (Makar, and in the finale - “other working masses”). A simple, but extremely effective search moment in working with text is the task - to pay attention to the number of repetitions with various shades words "head - hands" and their accompanying epithets. This allowed the students to see for themselves the saturation of the text with these dominant words. They also noted their ever-increasing satirical expressiveness from light humor, biting irony to sarcasm of the culminating episode of Makar's fantastic dream and a truly terrible prophetic finale, in which Makar's "smart hands" and Lev Chumovoi's "empty head" and pockmarked Peter "thinking for all the working proletarians" united in the struggle "for the cause of Lenin and the general poor" and settled in an institution nearby in order to "think for the state", which is why the working people stopped going to the institution and "began to think for themselves in their apartments."

So, already at the level of the plot, schoolchildren comprehended the depth of the writer’s anxiety, who warned his contemporaries about the danger of dividing people into those who think for everyone and those who work, about the threat of establishing a state system, where the individual will mean nothing, where in the name of “integral scales” they will be sacrificed " millions of living lives."

The next step is to work on the style. To our question: What folk genre in the manner of narration resembles a story? - the students easily answered: a fairy tale. There are enough arguments: this is a hero, truth seeker and reminiscent fabulous Ivan the Fool, and constant numerous repetitions, playing the same situation, and vocabulary (a tram mistress, a street garbage can, a city ravine, gorges at home, etc.), and the intonation structure of the phrase (“Makar sat on the bricks until the evening and followed in turn how the sun died down, as the fires lit up, as the sparrows disappeared from the manure to rest").

Then we turn to a comparative analysis of the story "Doubting Makar" and the story "Pit". Let's start with the task: to compare the main characters - Makar Ganushkin and Voshchev. As a result of working with the text, students come to the conclusion that both heroes stand out “among other working masses” in that they are people who think, doubt, painfully looking for answers to questions that were not supposed to be discussed and questioned in the 30s. We quote the text (these examples can be continued, the text is oversaturated with similar arguments of the author and characters): Lev Chumovoy says to Makar: “You are not a man, you are an individual farmer! I’ll fine you all around so you know how to think!” (“Doubting Makar”). “The administration says that you stood and thought in the middle of production,” they said in the factory committee. “In the dismissal document, they wrote to him that he was being eliminated from production due to the growth of weakness in him and thoughtfulness amid the general increase in the pace of labor” (“The Pit”).

“Makar lay down on a government bed and fell silent from the doubt that he had been engaged in a non-proletarian cause all his life” ... Makar turns his suffering and doubt to a scientific person. “What should I do in life so that I myself and others need me?” (“Doubting Makar”).

“What were you thinking about, Comrade Voshchev?

About the plan of life.

The plant operates according to the trust's plan. And you could work out a plan for your personal life in a club or a red corner ”(“ Pit ”).

If in the story the reader stops in front of a fantastic picture of new plans ripening in the head of the leader who thinks for all the working people, in whose dead eyes "millions of living lives were reflected", then in "The Foundation Pit" it is told about the week-long stay of the heroes in the village, where they carry out these plans.

We read excerpts from "The Pit", which tells about the events taking place on the General Line collective farm, where the proletarians (Voshchev, Chiklin, Kozlov and others) and the activists of "public works for the implementation of state decrees and any campaigns", accumulating "enthusiasm for indestructible action", mobilize the collective farm “for a funeral procession, so that everyone feels the solemnity of death during the developing bright moment of the socialization of property”, for knocking together logs into one block with the aim of “accurately carrying out measures for complete collectivization and liquidation by rafting a kulak as a class on a raft”.

As a result of this activity - a dead village, in the empty houses of which the wind is walking, and in the forge a bear is working and growling a song, "girls and teenagers lived like strangers in the village, as if yearning for love for something far away."

The symbol of a senseless movement towards a brighter future, to which people are sent in whole echelons, a symbol of cruelty, the collapse of the age-old foundations of life, is the grotesque image of the “correct proletarian old man” of the hammer-bear at the end of the story, who “broke iron as an enemy of life, as if if there were no fists, then there is only one bear in the world”, about whom the members of the collective farm said: “What a sin: everything will burst now! All the iron will be in the wells! But you can’t touch him - they will say, the poor, the proletariat, industrialization!

Thoughts, ideas expressed by the author and his characters are in complex relationships with each other, in constant interaction, movement, attraction and repulsion, they often come into conflict with deeds, deeds, break into dust when in contact with reality. Of course, there is no way to consider at least part of these microtexts. But try to analyze some of them necessary. So, for example, one can trace how the word and deed of one of the most controversial heroes of the story interact - the digger Chiklin, who on various occasions, as if in passing, remarks “The dead are people too” ^ “Every person is dead if he is tortured”; “The dead are also many, just like the living, they are not bored with each other”; "All dead people special." And many of the actions of this "unlearned person" coincide with the tsk view of the world. This is also his love for the girl Nastya, care for her, attention to others, "; mourning for the dead.] But at the same time, it is from Chiklin that a man with yellow eyes receives a blow in the head, and then in the stomach. This is Chiklin diligently knitting raft, "so that the kulak sector would travel along the river to the sea and beyond". Together with a blacksmith bear, he walks through the "strong" huts to dispossess the peasants. When the girl Nastya died, Chiklin "wanted to dig the ground." "In these actions, he wanted forget your mind now." "Now we must dig a pit even wider and deeper," he says to Voshchev. the abyss of the pit". The story ends with such a hopelessly terrible symbol. In the last paragraph of the "Pit" we read: "After resting, Chiklin took Nastya in his arms and carefully carried her to lay in a stone and bury." Here it is appropriate to quote the words of A. Platonov himself about "The Pit" : "The author could be mistaken, fig. aziv in the form of the death of a girl, the death of the socialist generation, but this mistake came from excessive anxiety for something beloved, the loss of which is tantamount to the destruction of not only the entire past, but also the future!

Before proceeding to work on the style of the story "The Foundation Pit", we offer students different points of view of researchers of the writer's language. Approximate teacher's word:

A lot has been written about the language of Andrei Platonov: sometimes as a kind of aesthetic language, sometimes as a language-mask, a language-foolishness, a language-antics. But most often they admired him, his beauty, flexibility, expressiveness. Most of the writers noted the complexity and mystery of the writer's phrase. "... The word of Platonov will never be completely unraveled." Researchers of A. Platonov's creativity emphasize the uniqueness, "special language", its unlikeness to any other. “Platonov has his own words, only he has an inherent manner of connecting them, his own unique intonation.” They write about the “barbaric harmony of the phrase”, about the syntax, similar to the movement of boulders along the slope, about the “reluctance and redundancy of speech”, about the “incorrect flexibility”, “beautiful tongue-tied tongue”, “roughness”, etc.

So, strange, enigmatic, elevating, aesthetic, foolish, tongue-tied, redundant, the word-child and the word-old man at the same time, some kind of unusual fusion, etc. ... What is the word of Andrei Platonov? Listening and delving into the meaning of Platonic metaphors, images, symbols, peering into the world of Platonic utopias, satirical paintings, reading and rereading its pages amazing books, deeper and more fully through dialogue with his time, we begin to understand our own time. As M. Bakhtin said, “direct authorial discourse is not possible in every epoch,” for such a discourse presupposes the existence of “authoritative and well-established ideological assessments.” And so the literature of these epochs expresses the author's thoughts and assessments, refracting them in a "foreign word".

Of course, the era of Andrei Platonov is an era that did not at all contribute to the expression of thoughts in the direct author's word, since this word did not coincide with the official ideology. In Platonov, as L. Shubin rightly noted, the thoughts of the hero and the thoughts of the author coincide ...

Let us turn to the beginning of the "Pit" (together with the students we are convinced of the originality of Plato's speech - we read and comment on the beginning of the story, one paragraph, two sentences).

“On the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life, Voshchev was given a calculation from a small mechanical plant, where he obtained funds for his existence. In the dismissal document, they wrote to him that he was being eliminated from production due to the growth of weakness in him and thoughtfulness amid the general pace of work.

Let's turn to the first phrase: how did it strike you? (Students noted that the phrase immediately caught on with some of its clumsiness, clumsiness, which are intensified in the next sentence.)

Isn't it extra words in this phrase in terms of semantic accuracy? (Yes, there is the phrase "personal life" and subordinate clause"where he got his means of subsistence.")

Let's try to remove these parts of the phrase, how will it look? (“On the day of his thirtieth birthday, Voshchev was given a paycheck from a small mechanical plant.”)

Try to make a small editorial change so that the phrase sounds familiar to our ears. (“On the day of Voshchev’s thirtieth birthday, they fired him from a small mechanical factory.”)

As a result of our experiment, the powerful force, the originality of Plato's speech, disappeared. The phrase is gone. After all, her Magic power precisely in the fact that after the words "on the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life" Voshchev was given not a bonus for conscientious work, but the calculation that Voshchev did not work, but "earned funds" not for life, but "for his existence." This phrase already contains something that literally makes one numb and horrified in the next one, since the accumulating energy of ironic meaning breaks through in the words: "... he is eliminated from production due to the growth of weakness in him and thoughtfulness" - its bitterly ironic effect immerses us readers at a time that was giving birth to a monstrous bureaucratic system that suppresses the individual, turning people into a faceless mass.

This process finds its expression in the emasculation of the language of the people. Platonov reflected that transitional stage, when the living language of the people was broken by bureaucracy, ideological stamp, bureaucratic sterilization.

Hence the roughness, clumsiness, the combination into one whole of incompatible words and expressions of different styles.

The word of A. Platonov is a word-warning, a word-prophecy.

Through the prism of the phrase under consideration, one can see that impersonal, corroded language that we speak today, not noticing the ugliness of such expressions as instead of children - the children's population, instead of a person - a resident, instead of an apartment - living space, etc. And from the so-called "business style" with his countless orders for enrollment, for dismissal, for severe reprimands with entering into a personal file, it seeps into colloquial speech or is replicated by a stamp with millions of identical holiday texts-congratulations, in which workers wish each other success in work and happiness in their personal lives.

Let's return to the text of the "Pit" again.! From these some childishly naive and innocent words “is eliminated from production due to the growth of weakness in it and thoughtfulness in the midst of the general pace of work”, it prophetically gives back to those not far off in the future - it is not “eliminated”, but “taken under investigation”, “arrested” , not "due to the growth of weakness ... and thoughtfulness", but for "sabotage, sabotage", "enemy propaganda", etc.)

So, from the very first sentence of A. Platonov’s story, we are presented with the image of a man who has not lost his personality, who has not dissolved in the mass, a strange, “single”, painfully thinking person and agreeing in the finale to know nothing again, not to know the truth, if only the girl was alive. This is the culmination of a protest against violence, expressed with a genius similar to Dostoevsky: if people are “sent in whole echelons to socialism”, and the result of their hard labor is a huge pit and a pile of coffins stored in one of the niches of the pit, if people are sent on rafts into the ocean, and the wind is blowing in their houses, they are empty, and the girl Nastya - a symbol of faith, a symbol of the future - dies from fatigue, homelessness, loneliness, then “no!” such a path and such a future.

Literature at School No. 6, 1995.

I. I. MOSKOVKINA A lesson in understanding the essay genre

Modern approach to the study of literature involves not only obtaining a certain amount of knowledge on the subject, but also developing one's own position, one's own attitude to what is read: contemplation, empathy, conjugation of one's own and the author's "I". The themes of graduation essays of recent years are also oriented to this: “My Bulgakov”, “Favorite pages of prose”, “My favorite magazine”, etc.

This clearly emerging trend requires the mastery of new genres of compositions, among which the essay is increasingly mentioned. The proposed lesson is an attempt to give students an idea of ​​the features of a genre unfamiliar to them.

2. Class decoration and equipment: book exhibition “Thoughts about the Eternal and Beautiful” (examples of philosophical, philosophical and religious, art history and journalistic essays); video recorder; on the board (on moving parts) - material for vocabulary work:

One-word words:

essay, essayist, essayist, essayization

3. Handout: What is an essay? (Definition of the genre in various reference manuals); text (excerpt from the article by V. V. Rozanov "Return to Pushkin"); text (an excerpt from the chapter "Pushkin" from the book "Silhouettes of Russian Writers" by Y. Aikhenvald); memo for laboratory work with elements of stylistic analysis of the text.

Epigraph to the lesson:

"An essay is a way to tell about the world through yourself and about yourself with the help of the world"

(A. Elyashevich).

During the classes

I. After listening to the proposed passages, try to determine the genre of each.

Reading an excerpt (Osorgin M. Land //From that coast.- M., 1992.- T. 2);

Sermon (any edition);

Reading an excerpt (Ilyin I. Shmelev // Lonely artist. - M., 1992).

During the discussion, we come to the conclusion that the first passage is rather a story, the second is a sermon, the third is a literary-critical article. What brings them closer? An attempt to comprehend the most important problems of life and creativity, a pronounced personal principle, makes these seemingly diverse phenomena in common.

II. Designation of the topic of the lesson. Teacher's word:

Among the genres of prose there is a genre that incorporates memories, diaries, letters, confessions, sermons, even a kind of essay, story (as we have just seen in the example of M. Osorgin's work "Earth"). There is no clear definition for this genre. Some tend to see in it memoirs of a special kind, others apply the name "notes" to it, others carefully use foreign word"essay". And Natalya Ivanova, in her book Point of View, dubbed it “author's prose”, prose of “direct immediate action”, in which the author acts both as a narrator and a hero. "The desire to expose oneself, to understand oneself and one's time, an intense dialogue with oneself ..." - this is the basis of the "author's" prose, one critic claims. Cognition of reality through self-knowledge is the formula of such works, - says another.

Let us turn to the definitions of this genre, given in various literary reference books.

III. Working with handouts.

Task: read the definitions, highlight keywords in them.

What features of the genre are indicated in these definitions?

Features of the essay genre (entry in a notebook after discussion):

Appeal to significant philosophical, historical, art criticism, literary problems (attention to book exhibition, it contains a wide range of issues raised in the essay).

The absence of a given composition, a free form of presentation.

Relatively small volume.

IV. Teacher's lecture. (Assignment: write down this material in the form of abstracts.) History of the genre.

The founder of the essay genre was the French humanist writer M. Leontel, who wrote “Ezyaga” in 1580, where he outlined his thoughts about the fate of society and man. The title "of the work of M. Leontel is translated into Russian as" Experiments ". In 1697, F. Bacon created his" Ezzies ", and then D. Locke, D. Addison, G. Fielding, O. Goldsmith turned to the essay. They have the genre was transformed - it began to be understood as the author's experience in developing a specific problem.

In our century, essays were addressed by such major artists, like B. Shaw, J. Galsuori, A. France, R. Rolland and others.

The term "essay" is widespread in the West, especially in England, France, Poland. In Germany, the term "skeetze" is used - a sketch, a sketch of impressions, a fragmentary story that arose as a result of the transfer of impressionism to the soil of literature. (Students got acquainted with this term when studying the works of A, Fet, I. Bunin and other writers.) Russian essays.

As critic A. Elyashevich noted, “Ever since Radishchev’s Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow and Pushkin’s Journey to Arzrum, their own version of essayistic thinking has been developing.” Radishchev was closer to a journalistic statement, Pushkin - to a travel essay. A unique phenomenon in this genre was A. I. Herzen's novel "The Past and Thoughts", which was called by the critic A. Elyashevich "an essay novel, an epic, an encyclopedia of essayism", in which memories coexist with journalism, a historical chronicle with an essay, a confession with thoughts of a sociologist. This genre includes N.V. Gogol's "Selected passages from correspondence with friends" and L.N. Tolstoy's "Confession".

In the history of essay writing in recent decades, it is necessary to indicate the names of M. Koltsov, M. Prishvin, V. Nekrasov, Yu. Nagibin, V. Soloukhin, A. Adamovich and such works as V. Shklovsky's "Hamburg account", "Not a day without a line" Y. Olesha, " Golden Rose» K. Paustovsky, “Rereading Chekhov”, “Lessons of Stendhal” by I. Ehrenburg, “Grass of Oblivion” and “Holy Well” by V. Kataev, travel essays by D. Granin, V. Nekrasov, “People or Inhumans” by V. Tendryakov.

There was not and will not be a single model, a single sample of an essay; the genre is updated and develops according to the dictates of the times. essay genre in last years. There are times when an open, "frankly" conversation between the artist and the reader becomes essential. Perhaps that is why recent years have been marked by a bright flash of spiritual energy embedded in the essay. Interest in this genre has grown markedly. In an epoch of abrupt universal changes, "author's" prose, like no other, accumulates the sharpest social content.

Nowadays, readers' interest in the personality of the writer has increased. Extraordinarily popular, memoirs, memories of writers, correspondence, | diaries. Gather a huge audience | meetings with writers in the television studio 1 "Ostankino". This is evidence of increased | | demand for a person who is personified in the eyes of the public by a writer who has always been in Russia more than just a poet.

Hence the new phenomenon literary process of recent times - essayization of the genres of the story and the novel. "The Sad Detective" by V. Astafiev, "Everything Flows", "Life and Fate" by V. Grossman, "Pushkin House" by A. Bitov, "All Ahead" by V. Belov, "Faculty of Unnecessary Things" by Y. Dombrovsky, "White Clothes » V. Dudintsev, “Men and Women” by B. Mozhaev, “Berry Places” by E. Yevtushenko ... They have fabric artistic narrative permeated with the currents of journalism, and in the choir of characters' voices, the author's voice sounds distinctly - sometimes even solo.

The law of the genre is the utmost openness of the author, his position, his thoughts. It is very similar to the theater of one actor, where there is no possibility to go into the shadows, to the background, where the spotlight beam is directed only at you, mercilessly highlighting the very essence.

V. Working with texts by V. Rozanov and Y. Aikhenvald (handout).

Questions to the class: Is there anything in common in the grades? What is dear to authors in Pushkin? Support your answers with text. Prove that the works of V. Rozanov and Y. Aikhenwald belong to the essay genre, highlighting the features noted today in the lesson.

VI. Lab with elements linguistic analysis text.

Task: using the memo, find in these passages the features of style characteristic of the essay genre.

VII. Preparing for creative work- essay.

How do you understand Pushkin's words about "secret freedom"? What are the consequences of “secret” and overt lack of freedom?

Homework: Essay "Talent and Freedom".

MATERIALS FOR THE LESSON.

What is an essay?

An essay is a genre of criticism, literary criticism, characterized by a free interpretation of a problem. The author of the essay analyzes the chosen problem (literary, aesthetic, philosophical), not caring about the systematic presentation, the reasoning of the conclusions, the generally accepted issue (Dictionary of literary terms. - M., 1984).

An essay is a kind of essay in which the main role is played not by the reproduction of a fact, but by the image of impressions, thoughts, associations ( Concise Dictionary literary terms. - M., 1987).