The golden age of Russian literature what writers. Russian poetry of the 19th century. The golden age of Russian poetry: the main representatives
When someone once again confesses his love for the poets of the "Silver Age", I am tempted to ask - what do you like from the "Golden Age"? Just don’t say “Pushkin and Lermontov!”, It’s even more banal (though where? Where?) Than “Blok and Yesenin” ... Yes, this is a strange phenomenon (aka Phenomenon) - people usually “love” what is cozy located under their very noses, and to be too lazy to reach out even at the distance of this very hand. But this is a different topic, and today - the top 10 Russian poets of the "Golden Age". And for the hundredth time - my loved ones and my sight. Therefore, today we will manage without Pushkin and Lermontov, and even, God forgive me, without Boratynsky ...
Top 10 Russian poets of the "golden age", why I like them
1. "Namba van" for Russian poetry of both XIX and XX, and even for that insignificant part that does not yet exist in the XXI century chanson - this is not Pushkin, and not Lermontov, and not, forgive me, Boratynsky, and not even Derzhavin, in which he still seethes, thunders and foams with might and main in the 18th century (and for this he is good, valuable and pleasant - both the century and Derzhavin). This is Nikolai Karamzin. I can already hear the screams - what? as? what did he write? sappy sentimental rhymes! against Pushkin! Lermontov! Boratynsky! Yes, my dear dogs, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. Because he gave everyone listed here and below the most important thing, without which the poet is worse than a lowing animal - language. Karamzin banished from the Russian language the pompous style in which it was customary to write "piitika" by pathetic imitators and imitators of Lomonosov, Trediakovsky and the same Derzhavin - all these archaisms, "heroisms" and "rossisms" that jingled like bells. Consistently and painstakingly, with all sorts of magazines and almanacs, Karamzin drilled into the heads of his contemporaries and mastered in them one thought, one - poetry should be written in "living colloquial language", and not in "special pite". For which, by the way, he was the idol of Pushkin, and also Zhukovsky, and Vyazemsky, etc., etc.
2. But the “real main poet”, who “can’t tear off beautiful poems”, for me, among all this host, ambush and a den of talents, will always be Konstantin Batyushkov. Because his poems, no matter how you twist and turn - "not a single flaw." They are beautiful. They are melodic. They are not empty, and at the same time light - a deceptive impression is created that a person wrote them "from a sheet, by inspiration, just like that" - no "tension", no forcedness, no "battle with the word and rhyme". Yes, it’s not without reason that he literally laid down his life for his poems - he burned out from perfectionism and dissatisfaction ... Well, after that somehow I don’t even want to return to my already written one and somehow try to improve it - it’s scary - with.
3. "Honorable third place", and in some ways his first, among me is the prince-father Petr Vyazemsky. Many "literary scholars" blaspheme him as a "great amateur", swear that he has not created anything "great and just big", that all his poems are an inflated collection of writings "just in case" ... But this is how he is - sticks out from all his poems in all sides a huge, powerful individuality. Perhaps, in this he does everyone - both Pushkin, and Lermontov, and, forgive me, Lord ... And his rhymes are "big" and he easily violates the "rules of grammar" at the request of size and greater expressiveness. But the word is sharp, tenacious, biting. Like a surgeon - a cold mind and a firm hand, and cuts in the right place. And Pushkin, and Zhukovsky, and Batyushkov envied this (to themselves, although sometimes out loud) - and all of them, by the way, were his friends. It would be more like our poetry of such dilettantes.
4. The mockingbird is known for its skillful imitation of other birds and even the human voice. So is poetry Vasily Zhukovsky, "singer of devils", as he called himself for his addiction to "grave" plots. His original works, IMHO, suffer from excessive lightness - simple thoughts, simple words, simple sizes ... Everything is simple. Like a kilo of fluff. But as soon as he takes someone else's work, even just a plot - by Schiller, Goethe, Byron, Southey, etc. - both meaning, forms, and grandeur appear. Moreover, this is not "just a translation", but at best a "free translation", or "arrangement" - exactly what Zhukovsky took and created "something of his own". Therefore, he is not a parrot, but a mockingbird. The best part of his poems are just translated ballads.
5. It happens like this - something beautiful grows, smells fragrant in the air, and everyone around gasps and waits - it will grow, and then it will be ... But it does not grow - except that it stupidly increases in size. Nikolay Yazykov always masterfully mastered rhyme and rhythm, and began with cheerful half-joking messages and youthful touchy complaints about "I loved you, but now I don't love you, and I'm telling you about this for a hundred and fifty times." Very nice, sometimes even "better than Pushkin!". But ... years passed, and Yazykov kept writing messages and complaints, and over the years they became less cheerful and youthful, and more bile and senile grumbling. The apogee was his "Slavophile poems", which many contemporaries perceived as "rudeness beyond the bounds of a foul" or even "poetic denunciations". However, for all his inability to create something big and serious (and he was aware of this and suffered greatly from this), Yazykov remained a master of virtuoso rhyme and syllable until his death ... Well, this also happens.
6. Well, here's Homer - he, in fact, is known only as the author of the dilogy "Iliad - Odyssey". Milton is the creator Paradise Lost". And Panikovsky couldn’t steal a goose at all. But each of these works is a mega-masterpiece, for the honor of creating which any poet will hang himself but no. Alexandra Griboedova- everything that is not "Woe from Wit" is vaudeville on the verge of vulgarity, excerpts from some pathetic tragedies, and poems in case. On the other hand, "Woe" is such a block that the people have long ago taken away into quotes and catchphrases, and this is a sure sign of the genius of the work. In addition, "a different Alesan Sergeyich" was the first to portray the type of Russian intellectual - smart, suffering, freedom-loving, as well as pompous, talkative and, in fact, useless ... For us Russians, this thing is stronger than "Faust" Goethe.
7. Approximately all the same can be written about Nikolai Gnedich. Well, yes, a man is forever a bust of the "translator of the Iliad." But how he translated it - for two hundred years no one dared to repeat it, except for Veresaev, who, let's put his hands on his heart, "didn't work out", and Minsky, who since the 19th century, EMNIP, has not been reprinted at all. (They say that a certain Salnikov translated in 2011, but I didn’t see it, I don’t know.) With all these of his “fell, and the armor thundered on the fallen”, or “he threw him to the ground with a powerful hand” Gnedich captured the very essence of the great poem “about war as about life", and each line in his translation fights, fights and fights ... Well, yes, the philoluchs of the scolding that "do not piracy!". Well, firstly, go and translate "as it should be" (you can't see something), and secondly, this is a disadvantage of Gnedich the translator, but a plus for Gnedich the poet.
8. It is very difficult to remain in the "memory of descendants" if you are a relative, and even worse than that- the uncle of a genius, who quite rightly is a head taller and more gifted than you. But don't forget completely, completely! Didn't deserve it Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, beloved, by the way, the uncle of his nephew Sashenka (and not only for sweets and pampering, but also for poetry too). Didn't deserve at least for "Dangerous Neighbor", an absolutely wonderful poem about ... a fight in a brothel between two admirers of one lady of easy virtue. Everyone admired this thing - Vyazemsky, Zhukovsky, and Batyushkov. Some even developed the "ZOG theory" - like, such a weak poet as Vaska Pushkin would not compose such a thing, he stole it somewhere. But this is already gossip - uncle, as everyone knows, had the most honest rules ...
9. Young talents - they "give hope", and in their works "they are looking for inclinations." And it's good when they grow up, justify their hopes and develop inclinations. And if, how Dmitry Venevitinov so they die young? Yes, the poems are fresh, "not without meaning", even and light. But what would grow out of all this - a "new Pushkin", as some insist, or some Boratynsky simply deftly constructing verses "a poet of the second plan"? This is known only to Allah alone... But what remains allows you to believe in the best, and the dead poet will never deceive this faith.
10. Not everyone can be brilliant professionals and cold-blooded craftsmen. Anton Delvig the baron was an impressionable, enthusiastic man, outwardly timid and inwardly "vulcanized". And his poems are 146% amateurish, just as timid, heavily faceted, sometimes naive and generally similar to the work of a big child, carefully copying the "best examples", sticking out his tongue from zeal. But it is precisely this cute dilettantism that gives Delvig's poetry such a strange, unique charm that it sharply distinguishes even among all of the above - no, he is not better, he is different ...
Literature, like any other work, allows a person to express his opinion, attitude to certain events, admiration or disappointment, emotions. The works of poets and writers of all times were influenced by events in society, political or economic changes. Previously, a frequent occurrence among creative natures was the expression of protest against the arbitrariness of influential people with the help of creativity.
Historically important events of the 19th century
At the beginning of the Golden Age of Russian literature, a new reform was carried out by Alexander I, the essence of which was to strengthen the feudal-absolutist policy that promoted the power of the bourgeoisie. This fact called the creators of thought to protest through their art. Starting with Pushkin and Tsvetaeva and ending with aspiring writers and poets, more and more works appeared that glorified freedom.
After a short period of time, the State Council was created, whose tasks included the centralization of laws and the uniformity of the norms of jurisdiction. And as a result, in 1861, serfdom was abolished and a course aimed at capitalism was adopted.
What is the Golden Age?
Why is the 19th century the golden age of Russian literature? The 19th century acquired this name due to its incredible flourishing and wealth of creative masterpieces. Some of the works of this time were distinguished by special courage and audacity. At the same time, sensual romanticism was at the peak of popularity. Without fear, serious topics were raised about the problems of society and political flaws, attention was focused on value factors and aesthetic norms. Never before has poetry had such an impact on society. Each person to the works and listened to what was said. It was at this time that it was especially popular even abroad.
Written in seemingly distant times remains relevant and popular today. Therefore, the 19th century is deservedly called the "Golden Age" of Russian literature.
Characteristics of the Golden Age
In the 19th century, literature again updated its format and style, and previously little-known directions began to develop. Creative innovations include:
- The transition from sentimentalism to romanticism, closely related to political themes. Affected this direction in particular poetry. Many beautiful love poems have come to light.
- Poets and writers have acquired the title of prophets. Thanks to works with philosophical overtones, filled with the reasoning of the creator, creativity had a strong influence on self-awareness and a person’s view of life. the world. At the same time, people of art had a huge responsibility for their role as educators and teachers.
- The development of prose as a way of expressing thoughts. Prose writers were inspired by the novels of the foreign genius W. Scott and other English masterpieces and began to promote this trend in Russia as well. The idea was successful and took a significant place in the literature of the 19th century.
- Development of satirical works. In this way, the main shortcomings of social foundations were portrayed and emphasis was placed on human vices. Also, the use of an abstract and unusual grotesque manner in writing stories began, expressed in sometimes absurd situations, a combination of incongruous, ridiculing certain things and phenomena in a terrible form.
- Significant role of realistic works in the period of special crisis of serfdom. It was during this period of time that terrible and cruel events that really exist were often covered. Public attention was riveted to the problems of the poor strata of society and the lawlessness of power, the bourgeoisie.
- Decadence. After the completion of the revolution and changes in the political system, realism faded into the background. Creativity took the direction of mysticism and religiosity, the alleged future and future changes were touched upon. Over time, the works acquired a symbolic character.
Poetry of the Golden Age of Russian Literature, which does not leave anyone indifferent
A variety of genres and sharp socialist themes made more than one master of word and rhyme popular. The struggle for the rights of the oppressed and offended is reflected in the work of almost every writer. Creativity inspired everyone to rebel large quantity people, gave confidence to action.
Brilliant poets and prose writers of the 19th century
Due to the myriad of creative personalities in the Golden Age, the main idea of the period will be considered using the example of the most famous of them.
- The genius of literature and the leader of the Golden Age of Russian literature is Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich. To this day, it is this poet who is considered the ancestor of the Russian literary word. He is a lyrical innovator and a talented rhymer. Pushkin for the first time ventured to mix different language styles and start experimenting with genres. Thanks to his work, classical realism was developed.
The masterpieces of the literary genius are dedicated to the surrounding world, phenomena, events, thoughts, human philosophy. And Pushkin himself became an inspiration for many people and aspiring poets of the Golden Age of Russian literature.
- Yevgeny Abramovich Baratynsky and Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky are known as the founders of romanticism in literature. Pushkin, as a poet, and other great writers grew up on their work.
- Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. The golden age of Russian literature knew him as a mystical poet with a broad soul and deep inner world. His works are imbued with symbolism, secret subtext and philosophy, saturated with the experiences of the main characters, their thoughts and aspirations. A frequent theme was the problem of loneliness and spiritual imbalance. The main genres used are romanticism and realism.
- Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheev. Genius in revolutionary-democratic poems. Along with bold statements and calls to fight injustice, Pleshcheev was a talented translator of the work of popular foreign authors and the first person who began to create literature for children in Russia.
- Ivan Zakharovich Surikov. The idea of "peasant" literature is peculiar to him. The poet himself, who comes from the people, helped to reveal the creative potential of other poorly educated and poor people.
- Ivan Savvich Nikitin. His art is varied and covers both social genres and lyrics. Nikitin's poems served as the basis for the songs.
- Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet is a representative of philosophical lyrics. An emotional and sensual poet who creates works filled with feelings and thoughts.
- Apollon Nikolaevich Maykov and Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy are the creators of masterpieces on historical themes. The first of the poets dedicated his work to Greece and Byzantium, and the second - Russian history.
- Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. A unique creator of his kind, representing the people's opinion in his works.
- Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev is a Russian poet, distinguished by a special dynamism and emotionality of his works. Despite the small volume of creations, he was able to perfectly reveal the insides of the protagonist, elevated above social concepts and foundations.
Almost forgotten, but no less talented poets and prose writers of the 19th century
Such surnames as Pushkin, Tyutchev, Nekrasov, Tolstoy are always well known, are studied at school and are still popular among lovers of classical literature. But in the 19th century, no less skillful and interesting masters of the word worked, which are not particularly mentioned in the 21st century. For those who want to expand their literary horizons, a list of writers of the Golden Age of Russian literature, little known in modern times, but talented, is provided:
- Grigory Nedetovsky, aka O. Forgotten, is a little-known author of collections with topics that reveal the life of the clergy. He lived in the family of a priest, and therefore adhered to the religious genre. The most famous work is the story "Mirages".
- Innokenty Omulevsky is the creator of the autobiographical novel "Step by Step", which touches upon important problems of society in the 19th century. The topic of psychology was often mentioned in his works, which made readers think about ordinary things that turned out to be not as simple as at first glance. For his work, Innokenty Omulevsky was even arrested.
- George Shilin. The writer who first publicized the subject of sick and oppressed people in social exile. The novel "Lepers" fully shows the experiences, sadness and severity of the existence of people with leprosy. His works are imbued with kindness and sympathy for the characters created on real examples.
- Ivan Kushchevsky is a Siberian author of works about "prosperous" people who are capable of any meanness and tricks to achieve goals and their own benefit. His work is aimed at revealing the psychology of hypocritical and vile people.
- Vasily Sleptsov is a writer who proved himself in the sixties of the 19th century. His works are based on his own observations and deep psychoanalysis of the situation. In novels and short stories, Sleptsov initially gives a superficial vision of what is happening, and then gradually reveals hidden moments that radically change the overall picture. The story "Hard Times" is one of the best brainchild of this writer.
- Vsevolod Garshin. The author of creations on military subjects, which touched upon the senselessness of war in general and its cruelty, the life of ordinary soldiers. Garshin himself also took part in several battles, after which his work subsided and consisted of rare everyday stories and children's tales, such as "The Traveling Frog".
The best works of the "golden" period, which will not lose their significance for many more years
The golden age of Russian culture and literature was considered a period of true writing, rich in masterpieces of creativity. Many books have been studied in educational institutions, many were constantly at the hearing. The following masterpieces belong to the Golden Age of Russian literature:
- The book of Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace" belongs to the genre of the epic novel and describes the events taking place during the invasion of Napoleon. Many chapters and characters, each of which has its own story, the interweaving of storylines and multifaceted meaning raised this work to the highest level of fame.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky "Crime and Punishment" This work belongs to the genre of socio-philosophical novels and tells about a student Rodion Raskolnikov, who kills an old pawnbroker for the sake of profit. The work is based on several draft versions of the author's stories.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky "The Idiot" The most favorite author's own creation, which fully reflects his views on society. The novel qualitatively criticizes the mores of that time, for which the work gained popularity abroad and is included in the list of the hundred best books of the book club of Norway.
- The work "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol was originally planned in three volumes, but the second volume was destroyed by the author, and the third remained only in unfulfilled plans. The poem is written in a mockingly satirical genre and fully shows human vices.
- The list of the most popular works could not do without "Eugene Onegin", written by Alexander Pushkin. The novel in poetic form reveals the hidden aspects of the life of the noble intelligentsia. Over your best job 19th century Pushkin worked for 7 years.
- Leo Tolstoy also wrote a masterpiece about the nobility. The novel "Anna Karenina" tells about the secret love of the main character for the attractive officer Vronsky. The work was printed in parts for 7 years.
- A Hero of Our Time is a classic novel with a unique plot. Mikhail Lermontov shows the main character at first from the side of other characters, and in the other part, the emphasis is on the feelings and inner experiences of Pechorin, he is unraveled as a person.
- The topic of misunderstanding between the older and younger generations, which is still relevant in our time, is described in Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons. The protagonist- the nihilist Bazarov in the 19th century became the idol of youth and a subject for imitation.
- Another example of a high-quality satirical work of the 19th century is the verse comedy Woe from Wit, written by Alexander Griboedov. In this creation, the life of the aristocratic elite is ridiculed.
Actual genres of literature
The 19th century is a period with a great variety of different styles. The writers of the Golden Age of Russian literature experimented with their works, mixed genres, and some of them were opened to Russian readers for the first time. A wide choice of directions of creativity could not fail to please even the most captious lover to spend his leisure time reading a book.
Romanticism, sentimentalism, satire, realism and folk poem
Initially, as already mentioned, romanticism was in demand. The authors of this genre prioritized feelings over reason. Much attention was paid to the love experience of the characters. This genre is clearly visible in the works of Pushkin and the early works of Gogol. Romanticism itself originally originated in Germany, and after some time, gained popularity among Russian writers.
Simultaneously with romanticism at the beginning of the 19th century - the Golden Age of Russian literature - they often wrote in this style aimed at awakening the feelings of readers and their spiritual response. One of the first writers to use this genre was Karamzin. Many authors have been inspired by his example.
Satirical prose is an integral part of the Golden Age. In the works of Gogol, one can fully realize the whole essence of the genre. Creations of a satirical nature were distinguished by criticism of stupidity and laziness, affected all strata of society, higher and lower, focused attention on the low level of spiritual development of the poor.
In the middle of the 19th century - the Golden Age of Russian literature - romanticism and sentimentalism give way to realism. The most prominent representative of realistic novels is Dostoevsky. The creativity of realism shows the real problems of society as they are, and also touches on the dark sides of society and individuals individually.
To a lesser extent, but still relevant, the folk poem remained. Nekrasov in the 19th century pleased with his works in this genre. What is the worth of the poem “Who is living well in Russia?”, in which the revolutionary, peasant and heroic genres are professionally combined.
The end of the history of the Golden Age of Russian literature
At the end of the 19th century, the history of literature was replenished with a myriad of various masterpieces. The variety of genres and styles of authors is interesting to read even after centuries. Despite the time difference in the books, which represent the literature of a great creative period, the characters, their types and actions resemble the people of today's society. Conflicts, injustice, the struggle for freedom have not gone away and are also found in modern times. What was written in the 19th century remained significant for an infinite period of time and has not lost its relevance to this day.
The 19th century is called the "Golden Age" of Russian poetry and the century of Russian literature on a global scale. It should not be forgotten that the literary leap that took place in the 19th century was prepared by the entire course of the literary process of the 17th and 18th centuries. The 19th century is the time of the formation of the Russian literary language, which took shape largely thanks to A.S. Pushkin.
But the 19th century began with the heyday of sentimentalism and the formation of romanticism. These literary trends found expression primarily in poetry. Poetic works of poets E.A. Baratynsky, K.N. Batyushkova, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.A. Feta, D.V. Davydova, N.M. Yazykov. Creativity F.I. Tyutchev's "Golden Age" of Russian poetry was completed. However, the central figure of this time was Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
A.S. Pushkin began his ascent to the literary Olympus with the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" in 1920. And his novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" was called an encyclopedia of Russian life. Romantic poems by A.S. Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman" (1833), "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray", "Gypsies" opened the era of Russian romanticism. Many poets and writers considered A. S. Pushkin their teacher and continued the traditions of creating literary works. One of these poets was M.Yu. Lermontov. His romantic poem "Mtsyri", the poetic story "Demon", many romantic poems are known. Interestingly, Russian poetry of the 19th century was closely connected with the social and political life of the country. Poets tried to comprehend the idea of their special purpose. The poet in Russia was considered a conductor of divine truth, a prophet. The poets urged the authorities to listen to their words. Vivid examples of understanding the role of the poet and influence on the political life of the country are the poems of A.S. Pushkin "Prophet", ode "Liberty", "The Poet and the Crowd", a poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "On the Death of a Poet" and many others.
Along with poetry, prose began to develop. The prose writers of the beginning of the century were influenced by the English historical novels of W. Scott, whose translations were very popular. The development of Russian prose of the 19th century began with prose works A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol. Pushkin, under the influence of English historical novels, creates the story " Captain's daughter”, where the action takes place against the backdrop of grandiose historical events: during the Pugachev rebellion. A.S. Pushkin did a tremendous job exploring this historical period. This work was largely political in nature and was directed to those in power.
A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol identified the main artistic types that would be developed by writers throughout the 19th century. This is the artistic type of the “superfluous person”, an example of which is Eugene Onegin in the novel by A.S. Pushkin, and the so-called type of "little man", which is shown by N.V. Gogol in his story "The Overcoat", as well as A.S. Pushkin in the story "The Stationmaster".
Literature inherited its publicism and satirical character from the 18th century. In the prose poem N.V. Gogol's Dead Souls, the writer in a sharp satirical manner shows a swindler who buys dead Souls, various types of landlords, who are the embodiment of various human vices (the influence of classicism affects). In the same plan, the comedy "The Inspector General" is sustained. The works of A. S. Pushkin are also full of satirical images. Literature continues to satirically depict Russian reality. The tendency to depict the vices and shortcomings of Russian society is a characteristic feature of all Russian classical literature. It can be traced in the works of almost all writers of the 19th century. At the same time, many writers implement the satirical trend in a grotesque form. Examples of grotesque satire are the works of N.V. Gogol "The Nose", M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Gentlemen Golovlevs", "History of one city".
Since the middle of the 19th century, the formation of Russian realistic literature has been taking place, which is being 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 the common people are strong. There is a need to create a realistic literature that sharply reacts to the socio-political situation in the country. Literary critic V.G. Belinsky marks a new realistic trend in literature. His position is being developed by N.A. Dobrolyubov, N.G. Chernyshevsky. A dispute arises between Westerners and Slavophiles about the ways historical development Russia.
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. Socio-political and philosophical problems prevail. Literature is distinguished by a special psychologism.
The development of poetry somewhat subsides. It is worth noting the poetic works of Nekrasov, who was the first to introduce social issues into poetry. Known for his poem “Who in Russia to live well? ”, as well as many poems, where the hard and hopeless life of the people is comprehended.
The literary process of the late 19th century discovered the names of N. S. Leskov, A.N. Ostrovsky A.P. Chekhov. The latter proved to be a master of a small literary genre - a story, as well as an excellent playwright. Competitor A.P. Chekhov was Maxim Gorky.
The end of the 19th century was marked by the formation of pre-revolutionary sentiments. The realist tradition was beginning to fade. It was replaced by the so-called decadent literature, the hallmarks of which were mysticism, religiosity, as well as a premonition of changes in the socio-political life of the country. Subsequently, decadence grew into symbolism. From this opens new page in the history of Russian literature.
Almost every European literature has its own classical and, as a rule, short period, referred to as its "golden age". In Roman literature, this is the name of the time of Emperor Augustus, when Virgil, Horace and Ovid lived. The golden age of French classicism is called the era of Louis XIV, the Sun King, the time of J. Racine, Molière and Boileau. In relation to Russian literature, they most often talk about the golden age of poetry, usually meaning "poetry of the Pushkin era". It is this period that is associated in our minds with the idea of a certain classical norm and impeccable poetic skill. About the latter there is, for example, a remark by D.S. Svyatopolk-Mirsky in a manual on Russian literature intended for an English-speaking audience: “What is especially important is that the technique of the poets of the Golden Age never lags behind inspiration. Their poetry is perfect, even when they are minor poets; when it comes to the great, it is unconditionally great poetry. Technical perfection distinguishes the poetry of the twenties from both the primitive coarseness of the Derzhavin era and the degenerate laxity of the late 19th century.
In its “classicity” (and not only in this) the golden age of Russian poetry is similar to the “golden ages” of Roman and classical French literature, which, of course, is not accidental: for Pushkin and contemporary poets, the aesthetic principles of classicism still retained their relevance ( despite the declared commitment to romanticism by most of them). This similarity is one of the reasons why the expression "golden age of Russian poetry" has become firmly established in our cultural use and is by default taken to refer to Pushkin's time.
Pushkin's time in the proper sense of the word is the time of his life, or rather, that "quarter of a century", which he counted from the date of the founding of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum (October 19, 1811) in a poem written in the autumn of 1836, a few months before his death :
Unsurprisingly - no! A quarter of a century has flown by!
« It was time: our holiday is young ... "(1836)
The "golden age", of course, is not a scientific and very arbitrary concept. But if by the "golden age" of poetry in Russia we mean the most favorable period for it in various respects, then it will not completely coincide with Pushkin's "quarter of a century". The “golden age” is probably the 1810s-1820s, when poets did not yet have to share the public’s attention with great prose writers and philosophizing journalists, as it would be in the 1830s, and it was almost no longer necessary, as first, to convince the Russian educated society that our literature is a little worse than in European countries, and is capable of more. In order for this Golden Age to come, many happy circumstances, both internal and external, came together. At this time, the process of formation of the Russian literary language was completed, which took almost a century from the time of A.D. Cantemir and V.K. Trediakovsky, and besides, unlike their predecessors, the poets of the Golden Age could rely on a fairly rich poetic tradition created before them and had poets recognized as great and became the subject of national pride (M.V. Lomonosov, G.R. Derzhavin and etc.). Poetry 1810-1820s (and only poetry was then considered high literature) was almost exclusively noble, that is, the occupation of leisurely and wealthy people who did not depend on the book market, and at the same time the demand for it increased, and publishers noticeably multiplied, especially in the 1820s ., magazines and almanacs needed the fruits of their poetic leisure. A characteristic feature of this time was a large number of official and unofficial literary societies, salons, circles, thanks to which any aspiring poet could quickly gain fame and support in educated society, and at the same time, the customs of an enlightened monarchy were not yet outdated, when the emperor and members of his family considered it their duty to patronize writers (perhaps, not only were they not outdated, but they even experienced their “golden age”: for example, Empress Maria Feodorovna, the widow of Paul I, could patronize writers both delicately and more disinterestedly than Catherine II, bound by the duties of the reigning monarch). In the romantic era of the 1820s. the poet became a fashionable figure and aroused, if not respect, then general interested attention, and the poetic glory of the young nobles began to seem no less enviable than success in service and high rank. And, finally, the era of the wars with Napoleon, which ended with the entry of the Russian army into Paris in 1814, added to the Russian nobility "love for the fatherland and national pride." Brought up in a European way and in some ways not alien to narrow-class convictions, the authors who entered the literary field in those years realized that they were Russian poets, and that their work was of national importance. And as time has shown, this was not an empty claim.
Love and secret freedom
They inspired a simple hymn to the heart;
There was an echo of the Russian people.
The closest meaning of these lines is from the young Pushkin's message “To N.Ya. Plyuskova (1818) is that, writing complimentary poems for Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna (wife of Alexander I), he expresses the feelings that all Russian people have for her. For descendants, the specific reason for composing these poems became not very important, because Pushkin was recognized as having the right to speak on behalf of the Russian people on any occasion.
N.V. Gogol on September 10, 1831 wrote to V.A. Zhukovsky: “It seems to me that now a huge building of purely Russian poetry is being erected, terrible granites are laid in the foundation, and the same architects will bring out both the walls and the dome, to the glory of the ages, so that descendants worship and have a place where they offer their tender prayers. . How beautiful is your inheritance, Great Architects! What a paradise you are preparing for true Christians! And how terrible is the hell prepared for pagans, renegades and other rabble: they do not understand you and do not know how to pray. - These words were written on the occasion of the composition of Russian fairy tales by Zhukovsky and Pushkin (“The Tale of Tsar Berendey” and “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”), but now they have a more general meaning. The eloquent and slightly foolish Gogol, as usual, turned out to be accurate in his assessments and far-sighted: “a huge building of purely Russian poetry” was indeed erected, and basically it was then. All subsequent generations of Russian poets, accepting or rejecting the heritage of the era of Zhukovsky and Pushkin (and sometimes without thinking too much about it), created on the “terrible granites” laid down then. And in relation to this heritage, to this day they often judge the degree of involvement of a person (writer or reader) in Russian culture.
At the head of the golden age of Russian poetry, of course, stands Pushkin, whom, in the apt expression of one author of the 1820s, “the muses called ... an autocratic singer.” His accession to the Russian Parnassus was sanctioned by the symbolic gesture of the predecessor - Derzhavin's "blessing" at the lyceum exam in January 1815:
And our glorious old man, the king's chosen singer,
Crowned with winged Genius and Grace,
In tears he embraced me with a trembling hand
And predicted happiness to me, unknown to me.
These are verses from the message “To Zhukovsky” written in the year of Derzhavin’s death (1816) (“Bless, poet! .. In the silence of the Parnassian canopy ...”), which the young Pushkin intended to place at the beginning of the collection of poems he had conceived. In it, he also named other senior writers who encouraged him - N.M. Karamzin, I.I. Dmitriev and, of course, the addressee of the message, who in a few years, on the occasion of the completion of Pushkin's "Ruslan and Lyudmila" (1820), will give him his portrait with the famous inscription: "To the victorious student from the defeated teacher." These episodes (especially Derzhavinsky) were important not only to Pushkin, but also to his admirers among his contemporaries, serving as a kind of certificate that he took the place of the first poet not as an impostor, but in a legitimate way.
Since the beginning of the 1820s. Pushkin really becomes the central figure of literary life. The link (first to the south, then to Mikhailovskoye) did not interfere with this, but only added to his popularity. Literary critics and political conspirators pinned their hopes on him, older poets and peers competed with him, and novice poets imitated him. In his romantic poems(“The Prisoner of the Caucasus”, “The Fountain of Bakhchisaray”), the first examples of the most fashionable in Russia in the 1820s. literary genre, found the implementation of the principles of "nationality" and "romanticism" (and in the author himself - "Russian Byron"). Later, as his more mature works appear (“Eugene Onegin”, “Gypsies”, “Poltava”, “Boris Godunov”), the general public will begin to cool towards him, but the most intelligent critics will declare him a “poet of reality” and a national genius, similar in its versatility to the “all-responsive” Goethe. In 1830 I.V. Kireevsky will even write about the onset of a new, "Russian-Pushkin" period of Russian literature (though, as we now know, it was in 1830, having completed "Eugene Onegin", that Pushkin would write "Belkin's Tale", and since then prose has been in his work will take up more space than poetry: the golden age of poetry was ending).
In the 1820s Pushkin's influence on contemporary poets was so significant that some of them were not even aware of it, while others were encouraged to resist and experiment in the field of subject matter, genre and style, to tread unworn paths. Almost every major poet at that time tried (and often quite successfully) to free himself from his powerful charm, but this repulsion itself showed a certain dependence on Pushkin. Even Zhukovsky did not escape his influence, not to mention other older contemporaries, such as P.A. Vyazemsky and F.N. Glinka, and even more so - about peers or poets who had just begun their journey in the 1820s. Gogol wrote about this (exaggerating in particular, but on the whole, as always, rightly): “As for Pushkin, he was for all poets contemporary to him, like a poetic fire thrown from Heaven, from which, like candles, lit other gem poets. A whole constellation of them suddenly formed around him: Delvig, a sybarite poet, who basked in every sound of his almost Hellenic lyre.<…>; Kozlov, a harmonic poet, from whom some hitherto unheard, musical-heart sounds rang out; Baratynsky, a strict and gloomy poet, who showed so early the original desire of thoughts for the inner world<…>. All these poets were aroused to activity by Pushkin; others he simply created. I mean here our so-called anthological poets, who produced little by little; but if a choice is made from these few fragrant flowers, then a book will be published, under which the best poet will sign his name. It is worth mentioning both Tumanskys, A. Krylov, Tyutchev, Pletnev and some others, who would not have shown their own poetic fire and fragrant movements of the soul if they had not been ignited by the fire of Pushkin's poetry. Even former poets began to reshape their lyres.<…>Even those who were not born poets became poets, for whom a field no less lofty was prepared, judging by the spiritual forces that they showed even in their poetic experiments, such as: Venevitinov, stolen from us so early, and Khomyakov<…>. Everyone was seduced by this extraordinary artistic development of poetic creations, which Pushkin showed.
However, with all the power of Pushkin's influence, the poetry of that time cannot be reduced to the echo of his lyre, and even that, in Gogol's words, "the extraordinary artistic development of poetic creations" is not entirely his merit. One can only talk about what was achieved then extraordinarily high level poetic culture, which was personified in Pushkin, but was, in fact, not set by him and was supported not only by his efforts.
The appearance of the golden age of Russian poetry is defined in our eyes by three generations of authors (of course, there are no clear boundaries between them, but they themselves nevertheless felt them). The first is Zhukovsky's peers, who entered the literary field in the 1800s. and who became mentors and senior comrades for the second generation - Pushkin's peers. The first were eyewitnesses and participants in the formidable events of the period of the wars with Napoleon (1805-1815), who, at the end, found the second on the school bench:
Do you remember: the army flowed behind the army,
We said goodbye to older brothers
And in the shade of sciences they returned with annoyance,
Envying the one who is dying
In the second half of the 1810s - early 1820s. "elder brothers" reached their creative maturity, and for the "younger" it was a time of brilliant literary debuts. And, finally, the third group of poets (let's call it the “Venevitinov generation”) declared itself in the second half of the 1820s. Their work is already marked by searches and hobbies that foreshadowed the onset of a new era, when poetry will lose its primacy in literature. It is characteristic, for example, that the friends of the untimely deceased Venevitinov - I.V. Kireevsky, A.S. Khomyakov, S.P. Shevyrev - will take place, first of all, as philosophers, publicists and literary critics, and that Gogol belonged to this generation (who made his debut, by the way, in 1829 as a poet).
1830s for all three generations of poets of the Golden Age, they became a time of departure (if not from life at all, then to the periphery of literary life), summing up, moving from poetry to other pursuits, or an unsuccessful struggle with a new generation of writers, whose tastes and ideas were for all of them if not completely, then for the most part unacceptable (V. G. Belinsky can be called as his iconic figure). This new generation also put forward a number of outstanding and even brilliant poets (suffice it to mention M.Yu. Lermontov), but this was already a different era, followed by a long decline in poetry. 1830s - this is the sunset of the Golden Age, and after the death of Pushkin (1837) his "twilight" came (this is how E.A. Baratynsky in 1842 titled his last collection of poems). However, he also had his own dawn, which came in the first decade of the 19th century, when the poets who were teachers and idols of the Zhukovsky generation were still creating. It was they who made the transformation of Russian lyrics at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. and laid the foundation for a new poetic culture, which reached its heights under Pushkin.
G.R. Derzhavin (1743-1816) made private life, specific life circumstances and sharp features of character - his own and his contemporaries, the property of poetry, demonstrated in practice what originality and free inspiration are. I.I. Dmitriev (1760-1837) introduced into his poems the intonation of a casual secular conversation, combining lightness and elegance with the accuracy of expressing thoughts - albeit not too deep. N.M. Karamzin (1766-1826), acting as a poet, clothed moral and philosophical reflections, sometimes very serious and imbued with bitter skepticism, in the form of an intimate conversation with friends or "dear women". Pushkin (in the above-quoted message “To Zhukovsky”, 1816) named them precisely not only because certain moments in his life were already associated with them, but also because it was on their example that his generation judged that there were peaks of Russian poetry and what is literary glory. Pushkin's attitude towards them was far from unequivocal: in Dmitriev, he appreciated impeccable and delicate taste, but considered his poems to be of little substance and frivolous; Karamzin was denied the title of poet, although he bowed before him as a personality, thinker and historiographer; Derzhavin recognized as a genius and the best of all Russian poets, but ironically over his barbaric disregard for the norms of civilized taste and the rules of the Russian language. They were contemporaries of the golden age of Russian poetry, but nevertheless belonged to the era that preceded it, hence the duality of Pushkin's assessments. And yet their experience was more than relevant to him. Many more authors can be named whose work was the prologue to the golden age of Russian poetry. This, for example, M.N. Muravyov (1757-1807), who, in his poems, brought to life a sensitive heart devoted to the ideals of beauty and goodness, and Derzhavin's friend V.V. Kapnist (1758-1823), in "Anacreontic" and "Horatian" odes, poeticized simple emotional experiences (usually melancholic, caused by sad thoughts and memories). Both of them somehow anticipated the discoveries of the poets of the Golden Age. And, finally, it is impossible not to call I.A., who is, in principle, its full-fledged representative. Krylova (1769-1844): he became a fabulist since 1805, and published his first book of fables in 1809, leaving forever from that moment on his former studies - dramaturgy and journalism. Among the three generations of the Golden Age, however, he was "grandfather Krylov", a living monument of past times (like Dmitriev, also a fabulist, with whom he was then often compared).
All of them - Derzhavin, Muraviev, Kapnist, Karamzin, Dmitriev, Krylov and a number of other authors - created the conditions under which the golden age of Russian poetry could only take place.
The Golden Age begins with Zhukovsky, and he, with no less right than Pushkin, could serve as its symbol if he responded with great sympathy to the political ideas and passions that worried his contemporaries (Decembrists, for example), if at least sometimes he discovered that a rebellious spirit of denial and doubt, etc., lives in him, but he would not be so constantly and monotonously meek, kind and smart. Unlike Pushkin, the metamorphoses of social moods were poorly reflected in his work, moreover, most of what he wrote was translations. Therefore, despite the complete perfection of his poetry, the enormous role that he played in the lives of many contemporary authors, and the duration creative activity, the symbol of the Golden Age (still heterogeneous and contradictory, albeit one in some ways) was not he, but his “victorious student”. If we continue the metaphor with Pushkin's "autocracy" on the Russian Parnassus, then Zhukovsky under him was something like a clergyman and adviser, in a sense - the secret conscience of the golden age of Russian poetry.
In his early elegies ("Rural Cemetery", "Evening"), epistles ("To Nina", "To Philalet"), romances and songs, Zhukovsky gave examples of new lyrics, entirely focused on the "life of the soul". Intimate emotional experiences for him became the basis for the perception of reality, the measure of its value. Simple words(referring, for example, to the details of the landscape: fog, moon, last ray, grave mound), acquire from Zhukovsky additional shades of meaning, emotional depth due to the unity of intonation, the melodic structure of poetry, captivating the reader, conveying to him the mood of the author. Over time, this mood becomes more and more serious, the direction of the evolution of his poetry is the path from sentimental melancholy to sublime "Christian sorrow", which "does not darken life, but revives it, gives it strong activity and strives for light" .
Each verse of Zhukovsky is “an ambassador of the soul, heeded by the soul” (“The Color of the Covenant”, 1819), and since this soul is pure and tuned in a sublime way, the same is required from the reader. In other words, this is poetry, designed to have an ennobling effect, however, only on those who are able to perceive it, poetry "for the few."
Zhukovsky's lyrics are distinguished by internal unity, a general sublime structure, aspiration to another world, beautiful "there". This unity is felt as the unity of the spiritual image of the poet himself. Even in his early poems, behind the general elegiac “complaints about life”, actually experienced losses loomed, behind the maxims about the afterlife retribution - faith accepted by the whole soul, and not just by reason.
And for me at that time it was
Life and poetry are one.
“I am a young Muse, it happened ...” (1823).
This imparted vitality to the indefinite and untranslatable into the language of prose "feelings of the soul" expressed in his poetry. In the late lyrics of 1815-1824. this “life of the soul” is already directly mysterious and “inexpressible” as it participates in the innermost meaning of being, about which “only silence speaks clearly” (“Inexpressible”, 1819), therefore everything that this soul is excited about turns out to be mysterious - Hope, Love, Duma, Poetry, Premonition ("The Mysterious Visitor", 1824). What he is trying to convey in his poems is the state when “the soul is full of a God that it understands” (“On the death of Her Majesty the Queen of Wirtemberg”, 1819).
The “mysticism” of the late Zhukovsky, for which he was reproached more than once (and sometimes with excessive causticity), was only a development of the principles of his early lyrics, when the “life of the soul” looked simpler and, in fact, came down to one emotion - elegiac despondency. Now it has been complicated by a moralistic tendency, philosophical insights and purely religious elements - Christian sorrow and hope, coupled with the ideals of sacrifice and self-denial.
Friend, on the ground the great is not in vain;
Be firm and here you won't be changed.
Oh honey here will not be unanswered
Nothing, nothing: not a thought, not a sigh, not a look.
Ultimately, Zhukovsky's lyrics (like his ballads and later epic works) turn out to be connected with the tasks of Christian didactics, and sometimes even subordinated to them.
In the 1820s in this he had almost no able followers. You can, perhaps, name one I.I. Kozlov, who began writing poetry at the age of forty, when, due to illness, he lost the ability to move and became blind. In one of his first surviving poems - an extensive message “To a friend V.A. F<уковскому>upon his return from a journey ”(1822) - this misfortune is described as a spiritual insight, as a saving awakening of the soul to the truths of faith and the consolations of poetry (moreover, the second without the first does not make sense to him). And in later verses, speaking of his cruel suffering from the surrounding darkness, Kozlov will not curse his misfortune, but affirm its saving meaning:
And if I started life again
Then again, hugging my cross,
Blessed, I would go
Undeterred by past worries
Valley of that and that road,
Where grief met me.
"Elegy" ("Why the spring breeze ...", 1837)
K.N. Batyushkov began with experiments in the kind of "light poetry", cultivating carelessness and sensual pleasures, and in many respects remained its adherent even after the turning point in his work in 1812. Unlike Zhukovsky, everything with him is visible and definite: even in the “memory of the heart” - “blue eyes” and “golden curls” (“My genius”), even in sincere dreams - “rosy lips”, “scattered hair” and “The chest is like snow” of the beloved (“Tavrida”). Batiushkov's images are clear and distinct, almost tangible, his poems are "mellifluous". “His verse is often not only heard by the ear, but seen by the eye: one wants to feel the twists and folds of its marble drapery” (V. G. Belinsky). Inspired by the ideal image of classical antiquity, Batyushkov indulges in a dream of a worry-free and undeniably beautiful world, full of passion and spiritualized pleasures ("sensuality" - in the language of Batiushkov's lyrics), creates a poetic utopia. But this is precisely a dream, an illusion, the clarity of the contours of which only more clearly reveals the hopeless gloominess of real life. Hence the paradoxically dramatic and even tragic sound of his poems, which at the same time are not devoid of some kind of chaste eroticism (as, for example, in Taurida, which Pushkin especially valued). Hence the mournful lamentations about the death of beauty, about the “sea of evil”, “storms of troubles”, about the forever eclipsed “charms of all life” and unconvincing speeches about the “saving oil” of faith (“To a friend”). Unconvincing - because the hero of Batyushkov's lyrics, unlike Zhukovsky, is not a projection of the author's soul, but a conditional image, his dream of himself. This hero is equally conditional in rapture with voluptuousness, in sorrow for a dead friend and in religious inspiration, as conditional, the beautiful world in which he lives is clearly delimited from reality (the least conditional, perhaps, are the heroic emotions in his poems). Batyushkov’s lyrics are in a sense “epic”, and it is no accident that he himself considered the “monumental” elegy “The Dying Tass” to be his best work, and Pushkin called the historical elegy “Crossing the Rhine. 1814".
Pushkin in 1830 wrote about "harmonic precision, a hallmark of the school founded by Zhukovsky and Batyushkov". By "harmonic accuracy" was meant, in particular, the ability to poetic word convey the nuances of emotional experiences, subtle shades of thoughts and feelings. The limited emotional range, the economy of expressive means, subject to the requirements of refined taste, the emphatically “beautiful” sound of poetry were also hallmarks of this “school” (which, perhaps, should be recognized as one of the most characteristic phenomena of the Golden Age). Not to mention the epigones, some fairly large poets of the 1820s never left its borders. Such is V.I. Tumansky with his “sonorous verses”, who, even sometimes turning to civilian topics (in connection with the Greek war for independence), remained primarily an elegiac poet, not losing a sense of proportion either in emotions or in expressive means. Such is partly A.A. Delvig with his good-natured epicureanism and refined "Hellenism". Idylls and "Russian songs" are the most original part of his poetry. In them, he stepped over the boundaries of purely intimate lyrics (“complaints” did not sound directly from the author's face). But both the “common people” and the “classical forms” of Delvig, according to I.V. Kireevsky, dressed in "a shower jacket of the latest despondency." And behind his elegies and romances, the image of a “sensitive sage” arose, as conditional as the hero of Batyushkov’s lyrics.
Denis Davydov also belonged to the elegiac poets. However, the hero of his lyrics is not a meek dreamer, but a bright, eccentric personality. At the same time, all the attributes of the "hussar" - military daring, drunkenness and red tape - in the best poems of Davydov only set off his sensitive nature, capable, for example, of deeply experiencing a love drama. The command of partisan detachments in the Patriotic War of 1812 supplemented his portrait with truly heroic features. Davydov and his lyrical counterpart merged into a single whole. Behind the poetic lines, the reader tried to discern the real biography, the individuality of the poet. "Strong" feelings, contraindicated in the elegy as unnaturally exalted ("trembling of love" and "fury of desire", from which "breath breaks" ["Elegy
Davydov's expressive poetic style expressed the original "feelings" of the partisan poet. Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, brought up in the traditions of philosophical free-thinking of the 18th century, tried in ironic couplets (“Flowers”, 1817, “Ukhab”, 1818), friendly messages (“Tolstoy”, 1818) and meditative elegies (“First Snow”, “Despondency”, 1819) to express his original "mind". His style is variegated and unbalanced. Sentimental phraseology coexists with archaic Slavic phrases, refined "poeticisms" - with rude vernacular and risky neologisms. His poems are often devoid of "melodiousness" and sound "tough" like prose. They give the impression of a smart conversation, confidential or coldly ironic, with a friend or foe, directly transferred to paper without processing. “I will never sacrifice my thought to sound,” he declared in his Autobiography, written shortly before his death. - In my verse I want to say what I want: I do not care about the ears of my neighbor and do not think.<…>I do not sell goods in person. I do not process the goods, but I give them out with raw materials, as God sent.
In Pushkin's time, Vyazemsky was a staunch liberal, indignant at the stupidity and inertness of the government, an irritable participant in all sorts of skirmishes with literary enemies, an apologist for romanticism, a satirist and a wit. As an outstanding lyricist, he appeared rather late, towards the end of the 1820s. His best poems were created already in the post-Pushkin era, when Vyazemsky felt himself in intellectual and moral loneliness, its last representative, the keeper of traditions doomed to disappear. The late Vyazemsky is a caustic opponent of new generations, progress and “liberal servility”, a lyricist who, with great force and unique frankness, expressed the sorrow of the soul, struck by countless losses, the suffering of illness and old age, and constantly vacillating between the deepest faith and fierce unbelief.
Fyodor Glinka, another long-liver of the poets of the Golden Age, also did not accept the new time, but not for “personal”, but religious reasons. Like Vyazemsky, he was an older contemporary of Pushkin. "Letters from a Russian officer" Glinka, reflecting the impressions of a direct participant in the wars with Napoleon in 1805-1815, were widely known, as were his "military songs", which are a chronicle Patriotic War 1812. Some of Glinka's poems (excerpts from them) eventually received an independent life as folk songs and urban romances ("Troika", "I can't hear the noise of the city ..."). His imitations of psalms (Pushkin called them "elegiac psalms") combined in the collection "Experiences of Sacred Poetry" (1826) are an amazing combination of religious didactics, elegiac complaints and denunciations of the vices of modern society and authorities filled with civil pathos (Glinka in 1818-1821. was one of the leaders of the Decembrist Union of Welfare). The most peculiar of his late spiritual lyrics, devoid of political overtones. Unlike Zhukovsky, Glinka's religious feeling is not intimate, but generally significant and morally instructive. This is not so much the innermost "life of the soul" as religious philosophizing or preaching. Christian mentality, "spiritual" orientation permeate even his poem "Karelia" (1830), appreciated by contemporaries for ethnographic details and colorful descriptions of northern nature, and his later poems - "Job. Free Imitation of the Book of Job” (1859) and “The Mysterious Drop. Folk Tradition ”(1861) - already directly religious epics based on the books of Holy Scripture and apocryphal traditions. In Glinka’s later poems (“To F.I. Tyutchev”, “Two Roads”, etc.) - not regret about the past and loneliness among alien generations, like Vyazemsky, but an apocalyptic, thoughts about the inevitable and, perhaps, the imminent end of technocratic European civilization.
Baratynsky was the greatest lyricist who entered literature almost simultaneously with Pushkin. By the beginning of the 1820s, together with Pushkin, Delvig and Kuchelbecker, he was part of a friendly “union of poets” who exchanged poetic messages among themselves. By the end of the 1820s. he is already a famous poet, the author of the poems "Feasts" (1820), "Eda" (1826), "Ball" (1828). Pushkin in "Eugene Onegin" called him like this: "The singer of feasts and languid sadness." "languid" sadness is love sadness. Baratynsky became the creator of unusual love elegies, speaking not about love, but about the fact that it has passed (“Disassurance”, “Recognition”). In them, he focuses not so much on "feelings" as on general patterns human relations, subject to time and fate. In his mature years, this is already a “strict and gloomy poet” (in the words of Gogol), immersed in the painful questions of human existence. “Experience” that cools the soul, time, death, faith and disbelief, a fate hostile to man and the possibility of “justifying” the Creator and His providence for man - these are the cross-cutting themes of Baratynsky's lyrics. Unlike other romantic poets who strove for sincerity in expressing feelings, he made the subject of poetry a “naked” thought, for which there are no prohibitions and restrictions, a thought that exposes any illusions and threatens life itself.
But before you, as before a naked sword,
Thought, sharp ray, earthly life turns pale!
“All thought and thought! Poor artist of words!..” (1840)
Baratynsky's "thought" has become a value more essential than "the heart's useless trembling", it demanded courage and fearlessness from the poet, the ability to accept and survive its consequences with his whole being. Hence the solemn and mournful structure of Baratynsky's poetry - the poetry of "reassurance" and "mysterious sorrows." Thought, mercilessly removing its seductive veils from life, stops only before the "grave boundary", behind which shines "the light that cannot be set." And here again a place is given to faith and hope, but not as a sincere dream or an abstract dogma, but as a reality suffered by the poet, inaccessible to "the light children of worldly fuss."
Before Providence justified you prostrate
You fall with grateful humility,
With a hope that knows no bounds
And satiated understanding...
"Autumn" (1837)
According to P.V. Annenkov, Pushkin's first biographer, "three poets constituted for him a galaxy, put by him almost beyond any possibility of judgment, and even less of any condemnation: Delvig, Baratynsky and Yazykov."
Delvig was a close friend of Pushkin, Baratynsky was his equal and worthy rival in lyrical genres. Languages, in the eyes of Pushkin, is a junior poet with "extraordinary powers", who has great achievements ahead.
He called many of his poems "Elegies", but these are not meditative or dreamy elegies, but, in their best examples, swift, vigorous verses full of life-affirming energy. “His verse,” wrote Gogol, who highly appreciated Yazykov, “only enters the soul when he is all in a lyrical light; For him, an object is only alive when it either moves, or sounds, or shines, and not when it is at rest.
The hero of his early lyrics, created in his student years in Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia), is an enthusiastic, arrogant and freedom-loving student, indulging in violent revels in anticipation of his undoubtedly great future. Yazykov's student revelry is reminiscent of Denis Davydov's "hussarism", but, in fact, does not need biographical and professional motivation, but comes from pure "violence of forces." He avoids everyday themes and feelings and gravitates towards what can become the subject of a solemn hymn or, at worst, an angry invective.
Chosen of the god of song,
Arrogantly feeling who I am
Let me signify with the light of inspiration
A simple desire for pleasure
Crazy life skill?
This world of ordinary poetry -
He is close to glory; other world,
Free, light, limitless,
Like heaven lies before me.
"Doubt" (1826)
The image of the reveler-student of Yazykov quickly outgrows, and the feeling of his own power becomes his personal feature, the trait of a genius marked by an extraordinary gift, a property of his Russian “nature” and, finally, of Russia itself, called to be “the first kingdom in the universe” (“Song” [“From a country, a distant country ...”], 1827). This internal kinship between the power of the poet and the power of the state gave unique samples of patriotic lyrics, giving them an amazing power of influence on the reader (as, for example, in the message "D.V. Davydov" in 1835, which, according to Gogol, caused tears on in the eyes of the unsentimental Pushkin)
I.V. Kireevsky defined the "dominant feeling" of Yazykov's poetry as "some kind of electric delight", and "the dominant tone of his poems" as "sonorous solemnity". There seems to be a contradiction in this (delight is usually associated with something fast, impetuous, and solemnity with a slow procession), but only imaginary. Pushkin described Yazykov's style as "solid, precise and full of meaning." His best poems are full-sounding and weighty, and his usual heady enthusiasm can turn into a huge charge of pent-up power:
Let, unchanged, a new life
I will come to the mysterious gates,
Like the Volga shaft is white-headed
Reaches the whole to the shores!
"Prayer" (1825)
Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Baratynsky, Yazykov, and to some extent Fyodor Glinka relied to varying degrees on the experience of the "school" of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov and, even going very far from it, appreciated its achievements. But this school also had principled critics and opponents. This is, first of all, V.K. Küchelbecker. Some of his early poems are exemplary dull elegies, besides, he is one of Pushkin's closest friends, and he was always impressed by the spiritual and religious Zhukovsky. However, in the early 1820s he acts as a staunch opponent of intimate lyrics, "selfishly" addressed to private experiences, and a supporter of socially significant and high poetry. In the then sensational article “On the direction of our poetry, especially lyric poetry, in the last decade” (1824), he shrewdly noted the weaknesses of the elegy and strongly spoke in favor of an outdated, as it seemed to many then, ode - civil and spiritual. According to Kuchelbecker, “the destiny of an elegy is moderation, mediocrity,” while “in an ode, the poet is disinterested: he is not insignificant events own life rejoices, does not complain about them; he broadcasts the truth and the judgment of Providence, triumphs about the greatness of his native land, throws thunderbolts into comparators, blesses the righteous, curses the monster.
Küchelbecker tried to revive this genre in practice, devoting the lengthy odes Prophecy (1822) and Byron's Death (1824) to the Greek war for independence from the Turks. In these and other poems, he deliberately cultivates an archaic, overflowing with Slavic, incomprehensible style, conveying the passionate intensity and loftiness of the poet's thoughts (Küchelbecker's archaic predilections were influenced by his communication with Griboyedov, who turned to similar experiments in his poems).
The favorite themes of the young Kuchelbecker are sacrificial death in the struggle for freedom, the hostility of this world to the poet, who is “guarded by ferocious sorrows” from everywhere, and the inevitability of a tragic denouement for him. And now - not being a member secret society Decembrists, although sharing their revolutionary aspirations, by a fatal accident on the eve of December 14, 1825, he ended up in St. spent years in solitary confinement and died in a settlement in Siberia. So Küchelbecker was among those who, in his later words, “beautifully seduced by a dream, shrugged off the fateful hour” (“The Fate of Russian Poets”, 1845).
Most and best of what Küchelbecker created, including his poems and dramas, belongs to the period of imprisonment and exile, when the heroic and suffering motifs of his poetry gained vitality, almost everyday concreteness. High style and biblical imagery, which did not fit well with momentary political issues, turned out to be adequate to the truly tragic position of the poet, who appeals to the Creator for help and does not expect it from anywhere else. Verse transcriptions from the Holy Scriptures are very characteristic of his late work, he has many of them. Here, for example, is one of them, written by Kuchelbecker in his diary on March 24, 1835.
AND TAMO LORD
(Kings 3, ch. 19, vv. 11 and 12)
And there was a word to him from the Lord
And so he spoke: "Rise up in the day to come
And there, in the mountains, leaving the dark valley,
Stand before God, and the Almighty will pass!
And lo! a strong spirit arose in the desert,
Great wind, and howling voice
Filled the seer's chest and hearing
And members doused scum shudder.
And uprooting cedars,
And the sea of dust darkens the face of azure,
And tearing apart the rocks, he rushes;
But God is not in him, the Lord is not in the spirit of the storm.
In a whirlwind a coward, and like an ocean
Judas is worried about the sacred land,
Lebanon staggered and vacillated,
Like a husband, intoxicated with hundred years of wine.
But God is not in a coward either. And the depths of the earth
Opened up, and fiery current
Thick waves, gushing, flowed;
But the eye of the prophet does not see the Lord.
The fire went out, and the crackling and thunder froze
(So the sonorous horse clatter falls silent,
Losing gradually), and then
A thin whisper swept into the world of coolness:
And the whisper is quiet, and sweet, and small,
And then the herald recognized God,
He covered his face and presented himself to the Lord
And rivers: "I will heed you, Almighty!"
Among the Decembrist poets, Kuchelbecker was certainly the most significant and original (except for the older ones and not involved in the December uprising itself, Glinka and Katenin). Ryleev, who imitated either Zhukovsky or M.V. Milonov (who died early, a satirist who generally influenced the formation of "civilian" poetry of the 1820s), by the time of the uprising, he was only barely groping for his "special path" (in "Duma", the poem "Voynarovsky"). The wonderful (and in some places brilliant) lyrics of Alexander Odoevsky, unlike the poetry of Kuchelbecker, are devoid of internal unity, breaking up into love elegiac (“My deep dream”, 1827), declamatory civil (“Fiery strings of prophetic sounds ...”, 1827) and motivated by specific circumstances religious poems ("Sunday", 1826).
In general, “civil” poetry in the 1820s was especially attractive not only because such was the public mood, but because it was seen as an alternative to intimate elegiac lyrics, the possibilities of which seemed to be exhausted by Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Baratynsky and others, and content is shallow.
Another alternative was "philosophical" lyrics, "poetry of thought", the need for which was discussed by "wise-minded", graduates of Moscow University, carried away by German philosophy - D.V. Venevitinov, S.P. Shevyrev and others. But, unlike, for example, Baratynsky, the serious, “positive” content of this “poetry of thought” was supposed to be philosophical problems proper. So, Venevitinov, speaking in verses about the poet, "the favorite of the muses and inspiration", and "holy poetry", meant the ideas German philosopher F. Schelling about the "secret cover" of nature, which rises only for the poet who selflessly devoted himself to the highest power, and about poetry as the highest form of philosophizing ("Sacrifice", 1826). Shevyrev tried to develop a new, complicated and "dark" poetic language, corresponding to the depth and complexity of philosophical problems and opposed to the thoughtless "purity" and "transparency" of the elegiac style ("Criticism", 1830). Khomyakov, one of the "fathers" of Slavophilism, close to the circle of "wise men", wrote in a philosophical vein, just like Venevitinov, in a philosophical vein, about a poet who gives "a dead creature a language" ("Poet", 1827). In his later poems, religious and didactic motifs predominate, while verses devoted to understanding the fate and purpose of Russia stand out noticeably (two poems "Russia" in 1839 and 1854; "Repentant Russia", 1854; etc.). In the lyrics of Khomyakov, a poet, publicist, historian and theologian, religious, philosophical and political issues are not just closely related, but are given in an organic unity arising from the author's extremely integral and unshakably firm worldview, which distinguishes him among the poets of Pushkin's time and in general the majority of writers. 19th century However, “civil” and religious-philosophical motives were often intertwined among lesser poets, as, for example, among those who were in contact with both the Decembrists and the “wise-minded” A.A. Shishkov (“Three Words, or the Way of Life”, 1828) and A.G. Rotchev ("The rich man, proud of his estate ...", 1827).
In the late 1820s and early 1830s, one after another, poetry collections, for many poets of the Golden Age, who became the first and last during their lifetime. In 1829 and 1832 three parts of Pushkin's poems are published. In 1827 and 1835 publishes his poems Baratynsky, in 1828, 1832 and 1834. - Kozlov, in 1829 - Delvig. In the same 1829, a collection of Venevitinov published by his friends was published. In 1832 - the first (and last during his lifetime) collections of his poems were published Denis Davydov, Katenin and Gnedich (three years earlier, in 1829, he published the main work of his life - the translation of Homer's Iliad), in 1833 .- Languages. Zhukovsky in 1831 released all his old and new ballads, so as not to return to this genre again (now he turns to experiments in the epic kind, and he practically left pure lyrics back in 1824). It looked like the last "parade" of the outgoing generation of poets.
Meanwhile, significant changes were taking place in the literature. Magazines multiplied, the readership expanded and, accordingly, democratized, tastes changed. "Violent" passions, abstract philosophy, large-scale political ideas came into fashion. The refined poetic culture of the Golden Age, which required education and leisure for its perception, was incomprehensible and not really needed by the new democratic public. In poetry, readers were looking for something that would immediately amaze the imagination - novelty and showiness of expressions, unusual thoughts and passions unknown to a mere mortal. And the poets, in turn, tried to get away from the replicated elegiac dreams and "smooth" poems that had become too easy to compose, and also strove for something extraordinary, beyond human measure.
A.I. Podolinsky, remaining in general a follower of Zhukovsky and Kozlov, in his romantic poems, saturated with oriental exoticism ("Div and Peri", 1827; "Death of Peri", 1834-1835), transferred the action to cosmic spheres (anticipating in part Lermontov's "Demon") . A.I. Polezhaev (1804-1838), a man of unfortunate fate, given to the soldiers for an obscene poem and after serving in the Caucasus, who died in a Moscow military hospital, in verse with equal fury indulged in demonic rebellion and ruthless self-condemnation, godless despair and hope, exalted love passion and simply dirty debauchery (as a result, he almost managed to create his own style, characterized by complete unpredictability). V.G. Teplyakov (1804-1842), the author of the "Thracian Elegies", which Pushkin managed to highly appreciate, finding in them "harmony, lyrical movements, the truth of feelings", introduced the motives of the poetry of J. Byron and the philosophy of F. Schelling into the elegy of the Batyushkov type.
These are, perhaps, the last of the poets who began their work in the 1820s, who can still be classified as part of the Golden Age, if only because of their connections with Pushkin's circle of writers (however, special reservations are needed here with Polezhaev). But V.G. Benediktov (1807-1873), who acquired in the 1830s. great, but short-lived (though largely deserved) popularity, peasant poet A.V. Koltsov (1809-1842) and Lermontov mark with their work a fundamentally new stage in Russian poetry. However, in their time, poetry is already fading into the background, so that in the 1840s. in general, to be forced out by prose to the margins of Russian literature.
Introduction ................................................ ................................................. ...3
1. Golden age of Russian poetry: general characteristics period...........4
2. The golden age of Russian poetry: the main representatives .............................. 6
Conclusion................................................. ...............................................nineteen
Bibliography............................................... ...........20
Introduction
golden age Russian poetry Pushkin Griboyedov
In the history of the thousand-year-old culture of Russia, the 19th century is called the "Golden Age" of Russian poetry and the century of Russian literature on a global scale. It was a rise of the Spirit, a cultural upsurge that can rightly be considered the great Russian Renaissance.
The 19th century fully expressed the synthesizing, philosophical-moral, conciliar-collective character of Russian culture, its patriotic-ideological character, without which it loses its ground and destiny. It manifests itself everywhere - from universal cosmic quests to almost practical "instructions" for answering the age-old Russian questions: "Why? Who is to blame? What to do? And who are the judges?"
Literature in the 19th century is the most influential form of national culture. This is the time when its largest representatives created, who gave spiritual food to two centuries of all mankind! So, Paul Valery called the Russian literature of the 19th century one of the three greatest wonders of human culture.
Poets A.S. Pushkin, V.A. Zhukovsky, K.N. Batyushkov, D.V. Davydov, F.N. Glinka, P.A. Katenin, V.F. .A. Bestuzhev, V.K.Kyukhelbeker, A.I. Odoevsky, P.A. Vyazemsky, A.A. .Venevitinov and others. Their poetry left a noticeable mark in Russian literature.
Thus, this topic is still quite relevant today.
The work consists of introduction, main part, conclusion and bibliography.
Golden Age of Russian Poetry: General Description
Since the beginning of the 19th century, an unprecedentedly high patriotic upsurge has been observed in Russian society; it contributed to a deepening of understanding of national characteristics and the development of citizenship. Art actively interacted with public consciousness, forming it into a national one. The development of realistic tendencies and national features of culture intensified.
The engine of the development of Russian literature of the 19th century, which continues to "work" to this day, was poetry. The works created at that time by brilliant poets to this day remain unsurpassed masterpieces of the classics, examples of the highest poetic skill, magnificent standards of the greatness of the Russian word and the Russian language. The beginning of the "Golden Age" can be called 1808, because already in some of the first mature works of Zhukovsky, the individual intonation, so characteristic of poetry that has become "higher", is very clearly visible. In the early 1920s, Byron's influence was noticeable, and such a form of expression as a poetic story became popular. Pushkin's work is a huge success, poetry monopolizes the book series. A whole galaxy of remarkable poets acted along with him and around him: Batyushkov, Kuchelbeker, Ryleev, Yazykov, Vyazemsky, Delvig, Baratynsky and others. Each of them contributed to the common cause of the rise and renewal of Russian literature. What was the peculiarity of the Russian "golden age"?
Firstly, the breadth and grandeur of the tasks set for ourselves. Secondly, the high tragic tension of poetry and prose, their prophetic effort. Thirdly, the inimitable perfection of form.
The first and third of these features are expressed with the utmost clarity by Pushkin. The universality of his genius made him a symbol of the Russian national ideal. The "Golden Age" in Russian poetry is also commonly called "Pushkin's Time".
The second feature of the "golden age": the tragic, prophetic tension of poetry and prose - even stronger than Alexander Pushkin himself, is expressed by his direct heirs. The poems of this time are very original, in contrast to what earlier previous eras borrowed more. The period of this creativity in Russia coincides in time with the era of the birth of romantic poetry in Western Europe. But it is not romanticism that gives him direction. The poetry of the golden age was more formal, selective and almost flawless, but very classical.
Most of what was written by our classics in the 19th century has long become a literary reader. Today it is impossible to imagine a person who would not know and read such a cult novel in Pushkin's verse as "Eugene Onegin" or Lermontov's great poems "Demon" and "Mtsyri". Dozens of poems memorized from the school bench still evoke feelings of warmth and joy in our hearts, these poems, just like many years ago, continue to breathe and live in our souls. They continue to warm us, give us hope, help us not to lose heart; they are always ready to be our guiding light.
But, perhaps, the most important achievement of our brilliant creators of the 19th century is the creation around poems - the aura of poetry, an aura that still connects our present day with its beginning with its invisible thread. The beginning that we unconsciously use in Everyday life, the beginning that is present in all our affairs. After all, it was they who, for many years in a stubborn and unequal struggle, still managing to win, laid the foundation, and then gave us freedom of thought, speech and choice. The "Golden Age" of Russian poetry gave impetus to the development of subsequent generations, and if it weren't for it, we would not have had the Silver Age. There would not be those brilliant and talented poets and poetesses, there would not be our greatest writers who were inspired by the works of the creators of the last century and from where they drew strength, thoughts and plots, but already for their masterpieces. Masterpieces that we admire and re-read over and over again.
The golden age of Russian poetry: the main representatives
The great folk poet, who embodied the achievements of previous authors, who marked the next stage of its development, is undoubtedly Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. The "golden age of Russian poetry" is characterized by a surge of his creative activity. Alexander Sergeevich was romantic, poetic poems written by him significantly influenced Russian and world culture. Pushkin's works have become classics in our country and in all countries of the world. The name of Pushkin is familiar to every person, regardless of his age, origin and literary preferences.
Pushkin is harmony itself, perfection itself. An insanely talented descendant of the Arap of Peter the Great, Russian by the call of his heart, by the breadth of his soul, by education and blood, Alexander Sergeevich became an indisputable authority for his contemporaries. So different, so invariably beautiful, so indestructibly admired by life, so sincere in every moment of his existence. Even in his political poems, he knows how to enhance the impact and depth of ideas with lyrics, which, accepting, he raised to an unprecedented height with the power of his talent.
In his early lyrics, there is a place for political love of freedom, close to Decembrist poetry (Ode "Liberty", "Village"), and the pathos of the inner liberation of the individual coming from the European Enlightenment, glorifying freedom as love and friendship, fun and feasts ("Bacchic Song" , "Evening Feast"). The period of his southern exile is the time of the formation of Pushkin's romanticism: he creates poems about freedom and love - "The Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Brothers Robbers", "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray". The understanding of freedom becomes more complex in the poem "Gypsies" (1824), written a little later, in Mikhailovsky. The tragedy "Boris Godunov" (1825) clearly shows the features of a realistic style: they are expressed in the understanding of the omnipotence of the objective laws of history, in the depiction of the dramatic relationship between "the fate of man" and "the fate of the people."
And his novel in verse Eugene Onegin" was called the encyclopedia of Russian life(Belinsky). Realism in "Eugene Onegin" acquires a comprehensive character: the fate of a modern young man is combined here with a wealth of pictures of Russian life and an amazingly complete expression of the spiritual experience of the nation.
Pushkin's contemporaries in the "Golden Age of Russian Poetry" were several truly great poets - individuals whose talent and contribution to the formation and development of Russian literature is also great. Many poets and writers considered A.S. Pushkin their teacher and continued the traditions of creating literary works laid down by him.
One of these poets was Lermontov Mikhail Yurievich. Like Pushkin, who left us unacceptably early, but managed to create such works, such images in his short life, which became the cornerstones in the history of the creation and development of great Russian literature. This is a writer of brightly demonstrating spirituality, deep inner concentration, irrepressible, rebellious thought. Undoubtedly, A.S. Pushkin influenced his work.
The demonic, restless, hungering for truth and freedom, the spirit of Lermontov, following his heroes, rushes far ahead, looking into the future. Unprecedented intensity of emotions and intense introspection - character traits hero Lermontov, are expressed in lyrics, in the poems "Demon" and "Mtsyri".
In the late works of Lermontov, new, realistic tendencies appear: he begins, as it were, to separate tragic contradictions from himself, turning them into the subject of an objective image. This gets its highest expression in the novel A Hero of Our Time, whose hero does not coincide with the personality of the author.
Reading the poetic works of Lermontov, it is impossible to simply enjoy poetry, his poems make you think and suffer, seek and find. The great poet stood in the row thinned after the assassination of Pushkin, no, he headed the majestic pantheon of Russian poets, picking up the pen that fell from the hands of the great master.
The second half of the 19th century is an era of non-poetry. But the work of even a few, but talented poets does not allow the traditions of the "golden age" of Russian poetry to be interrupted. One of these poets Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev. During his long life he wrote only about 300 poems, but his genius was fully manifested in them. The personal life of the poet is full of bright ups and tragic falls: the death from a fire on the ship of his first wife in one night made him gray-haired, and happiness with the beautiful Ernestine Dernberg turned out to be short-lived. Already in Russia, Tyutchev fell in love with E.A. Deniseva. The "Denisiev cycle" of the poet, a posthumous farewell to his beloved woman, is a true masterpiece of love lyrics.
Important for the work of Tyutchev and his philosophical convictions. He dreamed of uniting the Slavic peoples headed by Russia, of creating a Slavic world that would develop according to its own laws. But the poet's cosmic perception of nature is especially surprising: "Tyutchev was a poet of infinity, cosmic mystery. He knew how to tremble himself and make the reader tremble before the world of stars" (E. Vinokurov). Being a student and follower of Pushkin and a teacher for the next generation of poets, Tyutchev created excellent examples of philosophical lyrics.
His poems are full of majestic beauty, permeated with reflections on the essence of being. His poem Silentium (lat. - silence) about the inexpressibility of thoughts through human language, including through the "great and mighty", seemed to refute this thesis.
It is interesting that Fedor Ivanovich, who practically does not use Russian speech in everyday life and creates journalistic works only on French, wrote poetry exclusively in Russian.
Despite Tyutchev's own critical and even slightly careless attitude towards his own works, his lyrics are still a magnificent example of the golden age of Russian poetry.
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet- a subtle connoisseur of beauty, including the beauty of the syllable. Throughout his life, Fet was engaged in literary poetic creativity. Despite the fact that his works are published mainly in the second half of the nineteenth century, he still entered our rating, because his poems are a kind of world of lyrics with a subtle soul, fanned by the tragedy of life. Belinsky highly appreciated his poems, placing Fet almost on the same level as the wonderful "Russian Byron" - Lermontov.
Fet's work is characterized by the desire to escape from everyday reality into the "bright realm of dreams." The main content of his poetry is love and nature. His poems are distinguished by the subtlety of the poetic mood and great artistic skill. Fet is a representative of the so-called "pure" poetry. A feature of Fet's poetics is that the conversation about the most important is limited to a transparent hint. The most striking example is the poem " A whisper, a timid breath...".
There is not a single verb in this poem, but the static description of space conveys the very movement of time. The poem is one of the best poetic works of the lyrical genre.
Fet's lyrics are the most piercing, poignant, full of motives of sadness, tragedy. The most beautiful examples of poetry that came out from the pen of Fet are covered with a sad haze, where the beauty of the world is known by the author from two sides, external, drawing inspiration from beauties native nature, and internal, the main stimulus of which is love.
Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov. Ironically, the only poetic thing created by him and which has come down to us in its entirety crossed out all the rest of the poet's work. Few people know his poems, articles and journalism, but almost everyone, sometimes without realizing it, somehow touched the genius. Griboedov is known as the writer of one book, the brilliantly rhymed play Woe from Wit, which is still one of the most popular theatrical productions in Russia, as well as the source of numerous catchphrases. His closest literary allies are P.A.Katenin and V.K.Kyukhelbeker; appreciated him and "Arzamas": Pushkin and Vyazemsky, and among his friends - such different people like P.Ya. Chaadaev and F.V. Bulgarin.
"Woe from Wit" is the pinnacle of Russian dramaturgy and poetry. The comedy was instantly taken up by thousands of human languages, torn into quotations, proverbs, sayings, from which its greatness did not suffer at all, on the contrary, this ensured immortality for the work. "Talking" surnames, brilliant witty characteristics of characters, emotional speech, criticism of society, clothed in an easy and memorable form of poetry - all this has become our property for centuries. "And who are the judges?", "Carriage for me, carriage!" "Women shouted Hurray! And they threw caps into the air" ... We still use these well-aimed expressions with pleasure, which are absolutely accurate, and at the same time, with incredible irony, reflect different life situations.
"Never has a nation been so scourged, never has a country been dragged so in the mud, never has so much rude abuse been thrown into the face of the public, and, however, never achieved a more complete success" - P. Chaadaev (Apology of a madman). An interesting fact is that when Griboyedov finished work on the comedy "Woe from Wit", the first person to whom he went to show his work was the one he was most afraid of, namely the fabulist Ivan Andreevich Krylov. "I brought the manuscript! Comedy..." "Commendable. Well then? Leave it." "I will read my comedy to you. If you ask me to leave from the first scenes, I will disappear." "If you please, begin at once," the fabulist grumpily agreed. An hour passes, another - Krylov is sitting on the sofa, hanging his head on his chest. When Griboyedov put down the manuscript and looked inquiringly at the old man from under his glasses, he was struck by the change that had taken place in the face of the listener. The radiant young eyes shone, the toothless mouth smiled. He held a silk handkerchief in his hand, ready to apply it to his eyes. "No," he shook his heavy head. "The censors won't let this pass. They are swaggering over my fables. And this is much worse! In our time, the empress would have sent her to Siberia for this piece on the first trip to Siberia."
Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov - began writing poetry in 1802. In the minds of our contemporaries, the name Batyushkov always appears next to the name of A.S. Pushkin. Even at the beginning of his work, he became famous as a singer of friendship, fun and love, the so-called "light poetry" (elegy, epistle, anthological poem), which, in his opinion, required "possible perfection, purity of expression, harmony in style, flexibility, smoothness". His poetry was fanned with the spirit of earthly joy of bright hopes.
The poem "My Genius" (1815), "in feeling, in harmony, in the art of versification, in the luxury of imagination," Pushkin called "Batiushkov's best elegy."
Batyushkov's work is multi-genre. Batyushkov's best poems include Tauris (1817), Dying Tass (1817), translations from a Greek anthology (1817-18), and Imitations of the Ancients. But one thing is invariable in all genres - the music of the verse, which captivates the soul of the reader. Certainty and clarity are the main properties of his poetry.
Pushkin admired the musicality of his verse " Charm! Charm and perfection - what harmony! Italian sounds! What a wonderworker this Batyushkov is." Belinsky gave a high appraisal of Batyushkov's work: "Batyushkov lacked a little so that he could cross the line separating talent from genius."
Batyushkov was among the poets of the older generation who prepared the appearance of Pushkin, who was one of his first direct teachers. Batyushkov was one of the first to predict the genius of Pushkin's poetic gift. Batyushkov in many ways contributed to the fact that Pushkin was what he really was. This merit alone on the part of Batyushkov is enough for his name to be pronounced in the history of Russian literature with love and respect.
