The moral pathos of the romantics was associated, first of all, with the affirmation of the value of the individual, which was embodied in the images of romantic heroes. The first, most striking type is the loner hero, the outcast hero, who is usually called the Byronic hero. The opposition of the poet to the crowd, the hero to the mob, the individual to society, which does not understand and persecutes him, is a characteristic feature romantic literature.
E. Kozhina wrote about such a hero: “A man of the romantic generation, a witness of bloodshed, cruelty, tragic destinies people and entire nations, striving for the bright and heroic, but paralyzed in advance by the pitiful reality, out of hatred for the bourgeois, placing the knights of the Middle Ages on a pedestal and even more acutely aware of their own duality, inferiority and instability in front of their monolithic figures, a man who is proud of his “I”, because it is only this that sets him apart from the philistines, and at the same time he is burdened by him, a man who combines protest, and powerlessness, and naive illusions, and pessimism, and unspent energy, and passionate lyricism - this man is present in all romantic canvases of the 1820s."
The dizzying change of events inspired, gave rise to hopes for change, awakened dreams, but sometimes led to despair. The slogans of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity proclaimed by the revolution opened up scope for the human spirit. However, it soon became clear that these principles were not feasible. Having generated unprecedented hopes, the revolution did not live up to them. It was discovered early on that the resulting freedom was not only good. It also manifested itself in cruel and predatory individualism. The post-revolutionary order was less like the kingdom of reason that the thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment dreamed of. The cataclysms of the era influenced the mindset of the entire romantic generation. The mood of romantics constantly fluctuates between delight and despair, inspiration and disappointment, fiery enthusiasm and truly world-wide sorrow. The feeling of absolute and boundless personal freedom is adjacent to the awareness of its tragic insecurity.
S. Frank wrote that “the 19th century opens with a feeling of “world sorrow.” In the worldview of Byron, Leopardi, Alfred Musset - here in Russia in Lermontov, Baratynsky, Tyutchev - in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer, in the tragic music of Beethoven, in the terrible fantasy of Hoffmann, in the sad irony of Heine - a new consciousness of the orphanhood of man in the world, of tragic impossibility is heard his hopes, the hopeless contradiction between the intimate needs and hopes of the human heart and the cosmic and social conditions of human existence.”
Indeed, doesn’t Schopenhauer himself speak about the pessimism of his views, whose teaching is painted in gloomy tones, and who constantly says that the world is filled with evil, meaninglessness, misfortune, that life is suffering: “If the immediate and immediate goal of our life is not there is suffering, then our existence represents the most stupid and inexpedient phenomenon. For it is absurd to admit that the endless suffering flowing from the essential needs of life, with which the world is filled, was aimless and purely accidental. Although each individual misfortune seems to be an exception, misfortune in general is the rule.”
Life human spirit among the romantics it is contrasted with the baseness of material existence. From the feeling of his ill-being, a cult of the unique individual personality. She was perceived as the only support and as the only point of reference life values. Human individuality was thought of as an absolutely valuable principle in itself, torn out from the surrounding world and in many ways opposed to it.
The hero of romantic literature becomes a person who has broken away from old ties, asserting his absolute dissimilarity from all others. For this reason alone, she is exceptional. Romantic artists, as a rule, avoided depicting ordinary and ordinary people. As the main characters in their artistic creativity lonely dreamers perform, brilliant artists, prophets, individuals endowed with deep passions and titanic power of feelings. They may be villains, but never mediocre. Most often they are endowed with a rebellious consciousness.
The gradations of disagreement with the world order among such heroes can be different: from Rene’s rebellious restlessness to novel of the same name Chateaubriand to the point of total disappointment in people, reason and the world order, characteristic of many of Byron's heroes. The romantic hero is always in a state of some kind of spiritual limit. His senses are heightened. The contours of the personality are determined by the passion of nature, the insatiable desires and aspirations. The romantic personality is exceptional due to its original nature and is therefore completely individual.
The exclusive intrinsic value of individuality did not even allow the thought of its dependence on surrounding circumstances. The starting point of a romantic conflict is the individual’s desire for complete independence, the assertion of the primacy of free will over necessity. The discovery of the intrinsic value of the individual was an artistic achievement of romanticism. But it led to the aestheticization of individuality. The very originality of the individual was already becoming a subject of aesthetic admiration. Breaking out of his environment, the romantic hero could sometimes manifest himself in violating prohibitions, in individualism and selfishness, or even simply in crimes (Manfred, Corsair or Cain in Byron). The ethical and aesthetic in assessing a person might not coincide. In this, the romantics differed greatly from the enlighteners, who, on the contrary, completely merged the ethical and aesthetic principles in their assessment of the hero.
The enlighteners of the 18th century created many positive heroes who were carriers of high moral values and, in their opinion, embodied reason and natural norms. Thus, D. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver became the symbols of the new, “natural,” rational hero. Of course, the true hero of the Enlightenment is Goethe's Faust.
A romantic hero is not just positive hero, he is not even always positive; a romantic hero is a hero who reflects the poet’s longing for an ideal. After all, the question of whether the Demon in Lermontov or Conrad in Byron’s “Corsair” is positive or negative does not arise at all - they are majestic, containing in their appearance, in their deeds, indomitable strength of spirit. A romantic hero, as V. G. Belinsky wrote, is “a person who relies on himself,” a person who opposes himself to the entire world around him.
Example romantic hero is Julien Sorel from Stendhal's novel The Red and the Black. The personal fate of Julien Sorel was closely dependent on this change in historical weather. From the past he borrows his internal code of honor, the present condemns him to dishonor. According to his inclinations as a “man of 1993”, a fan of revolutionaries and Napoleon, he was “too late to be born”. The time has passed when positions were won through personal valor, courage, and intelligence. Nowadays, for the “hunt for happiness,” the plebeian is offered the only help that is in use among the children of timelessness: calculating and hypocritical piety. The color of luck has changed, as when turning a roulette wheel: today, in order to win, you need to bet not on red, but on black. And the young man, obsessed with the dream of fame, is faced with a choice: either to perish in obscurity, or to try to assert himself by adapting to his age, putting on the “uniform of the times” - a cassock. He turns away from his friends and serves those whom he despises in his soul; an atheist, he pretends to be a saint; a fan of the Jacobins - trying to penetrate the circle of aristocrats; being endowed with a sharp mind, he agrees with fools. Realizing that “everyone is for himself in this desert of selfishness called life,” he rushed into battle in the hope of winning with the weapons forced upon him.
And yet, Sorel, having taken the path of adaptation, did not completely become an opportunist; Having chosen the methods of winning happiness accepted by everyone around him, he did not fully share their morality. And the point here is not simply that a gifted young man is immeasurably smarter than the mediocrities in whose service he is. His very hypocrisy is not humiliated submission, but a kind of challenge to society, accompanied by a refusal to recognize the right of the “masters of life” to respect and their claims to their subordinates moral principles. The top are the enemy, vile, insidious, vindictive. Taking advantage of their favor, Sorel, however, does not know that he owes his conscience to them, since, even treating a capable young man kindly, they see him not as a person, but as an efficient servant.
An ardent heart, energy, sincerity, courage and strength of character, a morally healthy attitude towards the world and people, a constant need for action, for work, for the fruitful work of the intellect, humane responsiveness to people, respect for ordinary workers, love for nature, beauty in life and art, all this distinguished Julien’s nature, and he had to suppress all this in himself, trying to adapt to the animal laws of the world around him. This attempt was unsuccessful: “Julien retreated before the judgment of his conscience, he could not overcome his craving for justice.”
Prometheus became one of the favorite symbols of romanticism, embodying courage, heroism, self-sacrifice, unbending will and intransigence. An example of a work based on the myth of Prometheus is the poem by P.B. Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound", which is one of the poet's most significant works. Shelley changed the outcome mythological plot, in which, as is known, Prometheus nevertheless reconciled with Zeus. The poet himself wrote: “I was against such a pitiful outcome as the reconciliation of a fighter for humanity with his oppressor.” Shelley creates Prometheus from the image ideal hero, punished by the gods for violating their will and helping people. In Shelley's poem, the torment of Prometheus is rewarded with the triumph of his liberation. The fantastic creature Demogorgon, appearing in the third part of the poem, overthrows Zeus, proclaiming: “There is no return for the tyranny of heaven, and there is no successor for you.”
Women's images Romanticism is also contradictory, but extraordinary. Many authors of the Romantic era returned to the story of Medea. The Austrian writer of the era of romanticism F. Grillparzer wrote the trilogy “The Golden Fleece”, which reflected the characteristic German romanticism"tragedy of fate" “The Golden Fleece” is often called the most complete dramatic version of the “biography” of the ancient Greek heroine. In the first part - the one-act drama "The Guest" we see Medea as a very young girl, forced to endure her tyrant father. She prevents the murder of Phrixus, their guest, who fled to Colchis on a golden ram. It was he who sacrificed the golden fleece ram to Zeus in gratitude for saving him from death and hung the golden fleece in the sacred grove of Ares. The seekers of the Golden Fleece appear before us in the four-act play “The Argonauts.” In it, Medea desperately but unsuccessfully tries to fight her feelings for Jason, against her will, becoming his accomplice. In the third part, the five-act tragedy “Medea,” the story reaches its climax. Medea, brought by Jason to Corinth, appears to others as a stranger from barbarian lands, a sorceress and sorceress. In the works of romantics, it is quite common to see the phenomenon that foreignness lies at the heart of many insoluble conflicts. Returning to his homeland in Corinth, Jason is ashamed of his girlfriend, but still refuses to fulfill Creon’s demand and drive her away. And only having fallen in love with his daughter, Jason himself began to hate Medea.
home tragic theme Grillparzer's Medea lies in her loneliness, because even her own children are ashamed and avoid her. Medea is not destined to get rid of this punishment even in Delphi, where she fled after the murder of Creusa and her sons. Grillparzer did not at all seek to justify his heroine, but it was important for him to discover the motives for her actions. Grillparzer's Medea, the daughter of a distant barbarian country, has not accepted the fate prepared for her, she rebels against someone else's way of life, and this greatly attracted romantics.
The image of Medea, striking in its inconsistency, is seen by many in a transformed form in the heroines of Stendhal and Barbet d'Aurevilly. Both writers portray the deadly Medea in different ideological contexts, but invariably endow her with a sense of alienation, which turns out to be detrimental to the integrity of the individual and, therefore, entails itself death.
Many literary scholars correlate the image of Medea with the image of the heroine of the novel “Bewitched” by Barbet d’Aurevilly, Jeanne-Madeleine de Feardan, as well as with the image of the field famous heroine Stendhal's novel "The Red and the Black" Matilda. Here we see three main components of the famous myth: the unexpected, violent emergence of passion, magical actions with either good or harmful intentions, the revenge of an abandoned witch - a rejected woman.
These are just some examples of romantic heroes and heroines.
The revolution proclaimed individual freedom, opening up “unexplored new roads” before it, but this same revolution gave birth to the bourgeois order, the spirit of acquisition and selfishness. These two sides of personality (the pathos of freedom and individualism) manifest themselves very complexly in the romantic concept of the world and man. V. G. Belinsky found a wonderful formula when speaking about Byron (and his hero): “this is a human personality, indignant against the general and, in his proud rebellion, leaning on himself.”
However, in the depths of romanticism, another type of personality is formed. This is, first of all, the personality of an artist - a poet, musician, painter, also elevated above the crowd of ordinary people, officials, property owners, and secular loafers. Here we are no longer talking about the claims of an exceptional individual, but about the rights of a true artist to judge the world and people.
Romantic image the artist (for example, among German writers) is not always adequate to Byron’s hero. Moreover, Byron's individualist hero is contrasted with a universal personality that strives for the highest harmony (as if absorbing all the diversity of the world). The universality of such a personality is the antithesis of any limitation of a person, whether associated with narrow mercantile interests, or with a thirst for profit that destroys personality, etc.
Romantics did not always correctly assess the social consequences of revolutions. But they were acutely aware of the anti-aesthetic nature of society, which threatens the very existence of art, in which “heartless purity” reigns. Romantic artist, unlike some writers of the second half of the 19th century century, did not at all seek to hide from the world in an “ivory tower.” But he felt tragically lonely, suffocating from this loneliness.
Thus, in romanticism two antagonistic concepts of personality can be distinguished: individualistic and universalistic. Their fate in the subsequent development of world culture was ambiguous. The rebellion of Byron's individualist hero was beautiful and captivated his contemporaries, but at the same time its futility was quickly revealed. History has harshly condemned the claims of an individual to create his own court. On the other hand, the idea of universality reflected the longing for the ideal of a comprehensively developed person, free from the limitations of bourgeois society.
Romanticism (1790-1830) is a trend in world culture that emerged as a result of the crisis of the Age of Enlightenment and its philosophical concept “Tabula rasa”, which translated means “ Blank sheet" According to this teaching, a person is born neutral, pure and empty, like a white sheet of paper. This means that if you educate him, you can raise an ideal member of society. But the flimsy logical structure collapsed when it came into contact with the realities of life: bloody Napoleonic Wars, French revolution 1789 and other social upheavals destroyed people's faith in the healing powers of the Enlightenment. During the war, education and culture did not play a role: bullets and sabers still spared no one. Powerful of the world this they studied diligently and had access to all famous works art, but this did not prevent them from sending their subjects to death, did not prevent them from cheating and cunning, did not prevent them from indulging in those sweet vices that from time immemorial have corrupted humanity, regardless of who and how they are educated. No one stopped the bloodshed, preachers, teachers and Robinson Crusoe with their blessed work and “God’s help” did not help anyone.
People are disappointed and tired of social instability. The next generation was “born old.” “Young people found use for their idle powers in desperation.”- as Alfred de Musset, the author who wrote the most brilliant romantic novel, Confessions of a Son of the Century, wrote. State young man He described his time as follows: “Denial of everything heavenly and everything earthly, if you like, hopelessness”. Society has become imbued with world grief, and the main postulates of romanticism are a consequence of this mood.
The word "romanticism" comes from the Spanish musical term "romance" (a piece of music).
Main features of romanticism
Romanticism is usually characterized by listing its main characteristics:
— Romantic dual world- This is a sharp contrast between ideal and reality. Real world cruel and boring, and the ideal is a refuge from the hardships and abominations of life. A textbook example of romanticism in painting: Friedrich’s painting “Two Contemplating the Moon.” The eyes of the heroes are directed towards the ideal, but the black hooked roots of life do not seem to let them go.
— Idealism– this is the presentation of maximum spiritual demands on oneself and on reality. Example: Shelley's poetry, where the grotesque pathos of youth is the main message.
— Infantilism– this is an inability to bear responsibility, frivolity. Example: the image of Pechorin: the hero does not know how to calculate the consequences of his actions, he easily injures himself and others.
— Fatalism (evil fate)- This tragic character relationship between man and evil fate. Example: " Bronze Horseman"Pushkin, where the hero is pursued by evil fate, having taken away his beloved, and with her all hopes for the future.
— Many borrowings from the Baroque era: irrationality (fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, stories of Hoffmann), fatalism, dark aesthetic(mystical stories by Edgar Allan Poe), fight against God (Lermontov, poem “Mtsyri”).
— Cult of individualism– the clash between the individual and society is the main conflict in romantic works(Byron, Childe Harold: the hero contrasts his individuality with an inert and boring society, setting off on an endless journey).
Characteristics of a Romantic Hero
- Disappointment (Pushkin “Onegin”)
- Nonconformism (rejected existing value systems, did not accept hierarchies and canons, protested against rules) –
- Shocking behavior (Lermontov “Mtsyri”)
- Intuition (Gorky “Old Woman Izergil” (the legend of Danko))
- Denial of free will (everything depends on fate) - Walter Scott "Ivanhoe"
- creation comes first
- psychologism: the main thing is not events, but people’s feelings.
- irony: raising oneself above reality, making fun of it.
- self-irony: this perception of the world reduces tension
- fantasy (going into fictional worlds) – Edgar Allan Poe (“The Red Mask of Death”)
- exoticism (going to an unusual area, into the culture of little-known ethnic groups) - Mikhail Lermontov (Caucasian cycle)
- history (idealization of the past) – Walter Scott (“Ivanhoe”)
- folklore (folk fiction) – Nikolai Gogol (“Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”)
Themes, ideas, philosophy of romanticism
The main theme in Romanticism is the exceptional hero in exceptional circumstances. For example, a highlander captive since childhood, miraculously saved and ending up in a monastery. Usually children are not taken captive in order to take them to monasteries and replenish the staff of monks; the case of Mtsyri is a unique precedent of its kind.
The philosophical basis of romanticism and the ideological and thematic core is subjective idealism, according to which the world is a product of the subject’s personal feelings. Examples of subjective idealists are Fichte, Kant. Good example subjective idealism in literature – “Confession of a son of the century” by Alfred de Musset. Throughout the entire narrative, the hero immerses the reader in subjective reality, as if he were reading Personal diary. Describing his love conflicts and complex feelings, he shows surrounding reality, A inner world, which seems to replace the external one.
Romanticism dispelled boredom and melancholy - typical feelings in society of that period. The secular game of disappointment was brilliantly played out by Pushkin in the poem “Eugene Onegin.” Main character plays to the public when he imagines himself beyond the understanding of mere mortals. A fashion arose among young people to imitate the proud loner Childe Harold, the famous romantic hero from Byron's poem. Pushkin chuckles at this trend, portraying Onegin as a victim of yet another cult.
By the way, Byron became an idol and icon of romanticism. Distinguished by his eccentric behavior, the poet attracted the attention of society, and won recognition with his ostentatious eccentricities and undeniable talent. He even died in the spirit of romanticism: in internecine war in Greece. An exceptional hero in exceptional circumstances...
Active Romanticism and Passive Romanticism: What's the Difference?
Romanticism is by its nature heterogeneous. Active romanticism- this is a protest, a rebellion against that philistine, vile world that has such a detrimental effect on the individual. Representatives of active romanticism: poets Byron and Shelley. An example of active romanticism: Byron's poem "Childe Harold's Travels".
Passive romanticism– this is reconciliation with reality: embellishing reality, withdrawing into oneself, etc. Representatives of passive romanticism: writers Hoffman, Gogol, Scott, etc. An example of passive romanticism is Hoffmann's The Golden Pot.
Features of Romanticism
Ideal- this is a mystical, irrational, unacceptable expression of the world spirit, something perfect that one must strive for. The melancholy of romanticism can be called “longing for an ideal.” People crave it, but cannot receive it, otherwise what they receive will cease to be an ideal, since from an abstract idea of beauty it will turn into a real thing or a real phenomenon with errors and shortcomings.
Features of romanticism are...
Escapism is an escape from reality. Types of escapism in literature:
Rational romanticism originated in England, which is probably explained by the unique mentality of the British. Mystical romanticism appeared precisely in Germany (the Brothers Grimm, Hoffmann, etc.), where the fantastic element is also due to the specifics of the German mentality.
Historicism- this is the principle of considering the world, social and cultural phenomena in a natural historical development.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!(situational - position), along with the position, and Parasite.
Romantics are people who want everyone to do well, but they don’t know who will do it and how. This is what distinguishes romantics from Creators, who not only have lofty intentions, but also realize them themselves.
In a situation of prosperity and abundance, the Romantic really wants to organize a Holiday for everyone, and not just for his own, especially not just for himself. That is why, if such a holiday does not work out, he may be internally sad: “We are happy here, but in Angola the children are starving!”
Who is his for the Romantic and how he sees real, highly human relationships is a complex question. A romantic here often goes to extremes. Often the Romantic chooses Love for everyone, all humanity and all living things in general (including the options “Kill the beaver, save the birch!”). The value of Independence is often proclaimed, then the Romantic talks about Personal Freedom, actually implying that he does not owe anything to anyone. If the Romantic finds himself in a close relationship with someone, he begins to talk about the importance of devotion: “We are responsible for those we have tamed!”
There is no need to lend money to Romantics: they will not return it and will be angry with you.
For Romantics, alternating between unfounded enthusiasm and unjustified sadness. With age, the amount of enthusiasm decreases, sadness becomes the predominant emotional background. See→Development direction
At work:
Definitions of the term "romantic hero"
Romantic hero- one of artistic images literature of romanticism.
● Existence « two worlds»: the world of the ideal, dreams and the world of reality. This leads romantic artists into a mood of despair and hopelessness, " world sorrow».
● Appeal to folk stories, folklore, interest in the historical past, search for historical consciousness.
To learn more about the theory of romanticism, use the presentation on this topic.
Typology of the romantic hero
Word cloud illustrating key character traits romantic hero
Typically, the types of romantic heroes can be represented as national, or else universal.
For example:
● Oddball Hero- ridiculous and ridiculous in the eyes of ordinary people and passers-by
● Lone Hero– rejected by society, aware of his alienness to the world
● "Byronic Hero" - extra person, “son of the century,” suffers from the contradictions of his own nature
● Hero-demonic personality– challenges the world, sometimes even God, a person doomed to be at odds with society
● A hero is a man of the people- rejected by society
The cloud is based on articles "The Romantic Hero in Western European Literature" from the Online Library of the Lyceum Publishing House. The main aspects are visually presented romantic in nature. Thus, the romantic hero appears as a person striving to find peace romantic ideal. This is an exceptional personality, challenging the world around him, thirsting for a moral revolution. Such a person contradicts everyday life and dreams of spiritual perfection.
Analysis of the characters of different German authors
The romantic hero and society are opposing forces, since they represent two different concepts: spirituality and mediocrity. For Novalis, as an innovator, the romantic hero is an eternal wanderer in search of his great ideal and striving for self-improvement, in Hölderlin - lonely recluse And child of nature, deifying Love, and Hoffmann, with his intertwining with realism and romantic irony, has several secularized comical eccentric, capable of that no less, to childish delight and simple-minded faith in miracles. One way or another, all the characters are connected by the desire to indulge in feelings, while putting aside a cold mind. Exactly Love awakens the best in heroes, it opens their eyes to beautiful, truly important things, love transforms a romantic hero, encourages creativity, in it he finds the very embodiment of a dream. " Love is the main thing"- wrote Schilling.
The main romantic character traits that unite heroes literary works at different stages are displayed in a mental map.
The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley said this about romanticism, fatally comparing it with clouds: “I know no permanence, I am always changing my appearance, but I will never die..”
The basis of romanticism literary direction represents the idea of the superiority of spirit over matter, the idealization of everything mental: romantic writers believed that the spiritual principle, also called truly human, must necessarily be higher and more worthy than the world around it, than the tangible. The society around the hero is usually considered to be the same “matter.”
The main conflict of the romantic hero
Thus, main conflict romanticism is the so-called conflict of “personality and society”: the romantic hero, as a rule, is lonely and misunderstood, he considers himself superior to the people around him who do not value him. From classic look The romantic hero later formed two very important archetypes of world literature, the superman and the superfluous man (often the first image smoothly turns into the second).
Romantic literature does not have clear genre boundaries; in the romantic spirit one can maintain a ballad (Zhukovsky), a poem (Lermontov, Byron) and a novel (Pushkin, Lermontov). The main thing in romanticism is not the form, but the mood.
However, if we remember that romanticism is traditionally divided into two directions: “mystical” German, originating from Schiller, and freedom-loving English, the founder of which was Byron, we can trace its main genre features.
Features of the genres of romantic literature
Mystical romanticism is often characterized by a genre ballads, which allows you to fill the work with various “otherworldly” elements that seem to be on the verge of life and death. It is this genre that Zhukovsky uses: his ballads “Svetlana” and “Lyudmila” are largely dedicated to the dreams of the heroines, in which they imagine death.
Another genre used for both mystical and freedom-loving romanticism poem. The main romantic writer of poems was Byron. In Russia, his tradition was continued by Pushkin’s poem “ Prisoner of the Caucasus" and "Gypsies" are usually called Byronic, and Lermontov's poems "Mtsyri" and "Demon". There are many possible assumptions in a poem, which is why this genre is especially convenient.
Pushkin and Lermontov also offer the public a genre novel, maintained in the traditions of freedom-loving romanticism. Their main characters, Onegin and Pechorin, are ideal romantic heroes. .
Both of them are smart and talented, both consider themselves superior to the surrounding society - this is the image of a superman. The goal of such a hero’s life is not the accumulation of material wealth, but serving the high ideals of humanism and developing one’s capabilities.
However, society does not accept them either; they turn out to be unnecessary and misunderstood in a false and deceitful high society, they have nowhere to realize their abilities; thus, the tragic romantic hero gradually becomes a “superfluous person.”