Aesthetic principles of romanticism. The emergence of romanticism in art and literature

Artistic culture of the 19th century.

This century occupies a special place in the history of artistic culture.

I is the era cultural takeoff, affecting all spheres of public consciousness: science, philosophy and art.

II is one of the most dramatic periods in the history of Europe, which experienced deep social upheavals, numerous revolutions and wars.

III - 19th century is very polyphonic, complex and contradictory. Wide spectrum of philosophical ideas – from idealism to Marxism, and everything variety of artistic movements and styles – from classicism to modernity.

This century is a time of amazing coexistence of strong and unshakable traditions and unrestrained experimentation in both the cultural and social spheres.

Century - the foundations of modern post-industrial civilization are laid and formed.

Romanticism.

History of the origin of the term.

The word "romanticism" comes from Latin Romanus- Roman, which arose on the basis of Roman culture. Later, this word began to be used to describe a wide range of different phenomena: it was correlated with the concept of the novel genre, which described the sublime, fantastically implausible feelings of the characters. The words “romantic” or “romantic” were perceived as synonyms.

Over time, the word “romanticism” completely separated from its entire historical root and began to live independent life. So at the end of the 18th century. It was picked up by young German writers and became the name of a new literary school, which replaced sentimentalism and classicism.

The concept of romanticism was sometimes replaced by the concept of romance, which is essentially incorrect. Romance is the basis of romanticism in art, and therefore it is more capacious and broad concept compared to romanticism.

A romantic view of life often determines the artist’s worldview and forms the basis for the creation of his works. In this sense, romanticism can be considered as a kind of universal quality that permeates various historical eras (Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Renaissance) and artistic styles (Gothic, Baroque, neoclassicism, symbolism, modernism).

Romanticism is not only an artistic style, but also a special way of understanding reality and reflecting the world.

Romantics important not so much the idea itself, how much power and means of its expression. It was at this time that the first theoretical and philosophical programs of the Romantics appeared.

The path to freedom through beauty": philosophy and aesthetics of romanticism.

Historical roots Romanticism should be sought in the works of German philosophers: Kant, Schelling, Hegel. The whole world, nature and man are like the eternal movement of the creative spirit, reviving dead nature.

The old classical art must be replaced by a new one, boldly violating previous laws and principles. To capture the free impulse of a free spirit, the uniqueness and exclusivity of one’s own Self, an individual vision of the picture of the world.

With a clear diversity of creative manners and ideological trends within romanticism, it represented a single style of artistic culture that met common aesthetic requirements and principles.

Aesthetic principles of romanticism

1.Rejection of real life, desire to know the unknown.

Dissatisfaction with reality and the crisis of the ideals of classicism caused a desire to escape into the world of ideal ideas, utopian dreams of a perfect world. The new, unknown becomes the main subject of the image.

Usually romantic we call a person who is unable or unwilling to obey the laws of everyday life. A dreamer and maximalist, he is trusting and naive, which is why he sometimes falls into funny situations. He thinks the world is full magical secrets, believes in eternal love and holy friendship, does not doubt his high destiny. This is one of Pushkin’s most sympathetic heroes, Vladimir Lensky, who “... believed that his dear soul // Should unite with him, // That, languishing joylessly, // She waits for him every day; // He believed that friends are ready / / It is his honor to accept the shackles..."

Most often, such a state of mind is a sign of youth, with the passing of which former ideals become illusions; we get used to really look at things, i.e. Don't strive for the impossible. This, for example, happens in the finale of I. A. Goncharov’s novel “An Ordinary Story,” where instead of an enthusiastic idealist there is a calculating pragmatist. And yet, even after growing up, a person often feels the need for romance- in something bright, unusual, fabulous. And the ability to find romance in everyday life helps not only to come to terms with this life, but also to discover high spiritual meaning in it.

In literature, the word "romanticism" has several meanings.

If we translate it literally, it will be common name works written in Romance languages. This language group (Romano-Germanic), originating from Latin, began to develop in the Middle Ages. It was the European Middle Ages, with its belief in the irrational essence of the universe, in the incomprehensible connection of man with higher powers, that had a decisive influence on the themes and issues novels New time. Long time words romantic And romantic were synonyms and meant something exceptional - “what they write about in books.” Researchers associate the earliest found use of the word “romantic” with the 17th century, or more precisely, with 1650, when it was used in the meaning of “fantastic, imaginary.”

At the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries. Romanticism is understood in different ways: both as the movement of literature towards national identity, which involves writers turning to folk poetic traditions, and as the discovery of the aesthetic value of an ideal, imaginary world. Dahl's dictionary defines romanticism as “free, free, not constrained by rules” art, contrasting it with classicism as normative art.

Such historical mobility and contradictory understanding of romanticism can explain the terminological problems relevant to modern literary criticism. The statement of Pushkin’s contemporary, poet and critic P. A. Vyazemsky seems quite topical: “Romanticism is like a brownie - many believe it, there is a conviction that it exists, but where are its signs, how to designate it, how to put a finger on it?”

In modern literary science, romanticism is viewed mainly from two points of view: as a certain artistic method , based on the creative transformation of reality in art, and how literary direction, historically natural and limited in time. More general is the concept of the romantic method; Let’s dwell on it in more detail.

The artistic method presupposes a certain way comprehension of the world in art, i.e. basic principles of selection, depiction and evaluation of reality phenomena. The uniqueness of the romantic method as a whole can be defined as artistic maximalism, which, being the basis of the romantic worldview, is found at all levels of the work - from the problematic and system of images to style.

Romantic picture of the world differs in hierarchical nature; the material in it is subordinated to the spiritual. The struggle (and tragic unity) of these opposites can take on different faces: divine - devilish, sublime - base, heavenly - earthly, true - false, free - dependent, internal - external, eternal - transitory, natural - accidental, desired - real, exceptional - ordinary. Romantic ideal, in contrast to the ideal of the classicists, concrete and accessible for embodiment, it is absolute and therefore is in eternal contradiction with transitory reality. The romantic’s artistic worldview is thus built on the contrast, collision and fusion of mutually exclusive concepts - it, according to researcher A.V. Mikhailov, is “a bearer of crises, something transitional, internally in many respects terribly unstable, unbalanced.” The world is perfect as a plan - the world is imperfect as an embodiment. Is it possible to reconcile the irreconcilable?

This is how it arises two worlds, a conventional model of the romantic Universe, in which reality is far from ideal, and the dream seems impossible. Often the connecting link between these worlds becomes the inner world of a romantic, in which lives the desire from the dull “HERE” to the beautiful “THERE”. When their conflict is insoluble, the tune sounds escape: escape from imperfect reality into another being is thought of as salvation. This is exactly what happens, for example, in the finale of K. S. Aksakov’s story “Walter Eisenberg”: the hero, by the miraculous power of his art, finds himself in a dream world created by his brush; thus, the artist’s death is perceived not as a departure, but as a transition to another reality. When it is possible to connect reality with the ideal, an idea appears transformations: spiritualization of the material world through imagination, creativity or struggle. German writer of the 19th century. Novalis suggests calling this romanticization: “I attach a high meaning to the ordinary, I clothe the everyday and prosaic in a mysterious shell, I give the known and understandable the allure of obscurity, the finite – the meaning of the infinite. This is romanticization.” The belief in the possibility of a miracle still lives on in the 20th century: in the story by A. S. Green " Scarlet Sails", in the philosophical tale of A. de Saint-Exupery "The Little Prince" and in many other works.

It is characteristic that both of the most important romantic ideas are quite clearly correlated with a religious system of values ​​based on faith. Exactly faith(in its epistemological and aesthetic aspects) determines the originality of the romantic picture of the world - it is not surprising that romanticism often sought to violate the boundaries of the artistic phenomenon itself, becoming a certain form of worldview and worldview, and sometimes a “new religion.” According to the famous literary critic, specialist in German romanticism, V. M. Zhirmunsky, the ultimate goal of the romantic movement is “enlightenment in God all my life and all flesh, and every individuality." Confirmation of this can be found in the aesthetic treatises of the 19th century; in particular, F. Schlegel writes in "Critical Fragments": "Eternal life and the invisible world must be sought only in God. All spirituality is embodied in Him... Without religion, instead of complete endless poetry, we will have only a novel or a game, which is now called beautiful art.”

Romantic duality as a principle operates not only at the level of the macrocosm, but also at the level of the microcosm - the human personality as an integral part of the Universe and as the point of intersection of the ideal and the everyday. Motives of duality, tragic fragmentation of consciousness, images doubles, objectifying the various essences of the hero are very common in romantic literature– from “The Amazing Story of Peter Schlemiel” by A. Chamisso and “Elixirs of Satan” by E. T. A. Hoffmann to “William Wilson” by E. A. Poe and “The Double” by F. M. Dostoevsky.

In connection with dual worlds, fantasy acquires a special status in works as an ideological and aesthetic category, and its understanding by the romantics themselves does not always correspond to the modern meaning of “incredible”, “impossible”. Actually romantic fiction (miraculous) often means not violation laws of the universe, and them detection and ultimately - execution. It’s just that these laws are of a higher, spiritual nature, and reality in the romantic universe is not limited by materiality. It is fantasy in many works that becomes a universal way of comprehending reality in art through the transformation of its external forms with the help of images and situations that have no analogues in the material world and are endowed with symbolic meaning, which reveals spiritual patterns and relationships in reality.

The classic typology of fantasy is represented by the work of the German writer Jean Paul “Preparatory School of Aesthetics” (1804), where three types of use of the fantastic in literature are distinguished: “a heap of wonders” (“night fantasy”); “exposing imaginary miracles” (“daytime fiction”); equality of the real and the miraculous (“twilight fiction”).

However, regardless of whether a miracle is “exposed” in a work or not, it is never accidental, fulfilling a variety of functions. In addition to knowledge of the spiritual foundations of existence (so-called philosophical fiction), this can be the revelation of the inner world of the hero (psychological fiction), and the recreation of the people's worldview (folklore fiction), and forecasting the future (utopia and dystopia), and a game with the reader (entertainment fiction ). Separately, it should be said about the satirical exposure of the evil sides of reality - an exposure in which fiction also often plays an important role, presenting real social and human shortcomings in an allegorical form. This happens, for example, in many works by V. F. Odoevsky: “The Ball,” “The Mockery of a Dead Man,” “The Tale of How Dangerous it is for Girls to Walk in a Crowd along Nevsky Prospect.”

Romantic satire is born from the rejection of lack of spirituality and pragmatism. Reality is assessed by a romantic person from the standpoint of the ideal, and the stronger the contrast between what is and what should be, the more active is the confrontation between man and the world, which has lost its connection with a higher principle. The objects of romantic satire are varied: from social injustice and the bourgeois value system to specific human vices. The man of the "Iron Age" profanes his high destiny; love and friendship turn out to be corrupt, faith is lost, compassion is superfluous.

In particular, secular society is a parody of normal human relationships; Hypocrisy, envy, and malice reign in it. In the romantic consciousness, the concept of “light” (aristocratic society) often turns into its opposite (darkness, mob), and the church antonymous pair “secular - spiritual” is returned to its literal meaning: secular means unspiritual. It is generally uncharacteristic of a romantic to use Aesopian language; he does not seek to hide or muffle his caustic laughter. This uncompromisingness in likes and dislikes leads to the fact that satire in romantic works often appears as angry invective, directly expressing the author’s position: “This is a nest of heartfelt depravity, ignorance, feeble-mindedness, baseness! Arrogance kneels there before an impudent occasion, kissing the dusty hem of his clothes, and crushes modest dignity with his heel... Petty ambition is the subject of morning concern and night vigil, shameless flattery rules words, vile self-interest controls actions, and the tradition of virtue is preserved only by pretense. Not a single lofty thought will sparkle in this suffocating darkness, not a single warm feeling will warm up this icy mountain" (M. N. Pogodin. "Adele").

Romantic irony, just like satire, it is directly related to dual worlds. Romantic consciousness strives for the heavenly world, and existence is determined by the laws of the world below. Thus, the romantic finds himself at a crossroads of mutually exclusive spaces. Life without faith in a dream is meaningless, but a dream is unrealizable in the conditions of earthly reality, and therefore faith in a dream is also meaningless. Necessity and impossibility turn out to be one. Awareness of this tragic contradiction results in the romanticist’s bitter smile not only at the imperfections of the world, but also at himself. This grin can be heard in many of the works of the German romantic E. T. A. Hoffmann, where the sublime hero often finds himself in comic situations, and a happy ending - victory over evil and the acquisition of an ideal - can turn into completely earthly bourgeois well-being. For example, in the fairy tale “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober,” romantic lovers, after a happy reunion, receive as a gift a wonderful estate where “excellent cabbage” grows, where food in pots never burns and porcelain dishes do not break. And another fairy tale by Hoffmann, “The Golden Pot,” by its very name ironically “grounds” the famous romantic symbol of an unattainable dream - the “blue flower” from Novalis’s novel “Heinrich von Ofterdingen.”

Events that make up romantic plot , as a rule, bright and unusual; they are a kind of “peaks” on which the narrative is built (entertaining in the era of romanticism it becomes one of the important artistic criteria). At the event level of the work, the desire of the romantics to “throw off the chains” of classicist verisimilitude is clearly visible, contrasting it with the absolute freedom of the author, including in the construction of the plot, and this construction can leave the reader with a feeling of incompleteness, fragmentation, as if calling for independent filling of “blank spots” ". External motivation for the extraordinary nature of what happens in romantic works can be a special place and time of action (for example, exotic countries, the distant past or future), as well as folk superstitions and legends. The depiction of “exceptional circumstances” is aimed primarily at revealing the “exceptional personality” acting in these circumstances. Character as the engine of the plot and the plot as a way of “realizing” character are closely connected, therefore each eventful moment is a kind of external expression of the struggle between good and evil taking place in the soul romantic hero .

One of the artistic achievements of romanticism was the discovery of the value and inexhaustible complexity of the human personality. Man is perceived by the romantics in a tragic contradiction - as the crown of creation, “the proud ruler of fate” and as a weak-willed toy in the hands of forces unknown to him, and sometimes of his own passions. Liberty personality implies its responsibility: having made the wrong choice, you need to be prepared for the inevitable consequences. Thus, the ideal of freedom (both in political and philosophical aspects), which is an important component in the romantic hierarchy of values, should not be understood as preaching and poeticization of self-will, the danger of which was repeatedly revealed in romantic works.

The image of the hero is often inseparable from the lyrical element of the author's "I", turning out to be either consonant with him or alien. Anyway author-narrator in a romantic work it occupies active position; narration tends toward subjectivity, which can also manifest itself at the compositional level - in the use of the “story within a story” technique. However, subjectivity as a general quality of a romantic narrative does not imply authorial arbitrariness and does not abolish the “system of moral coordinates.” According to researcher N.A. Gulyaev, “in... romanticism, the subjective is essentially synonymous with the human, it is humanistically meaningful.” It is from a moral standpoint that the exclusivity of the romantic hero is assessed, which can be both evidence of his greatness and a signal of his inferiority.

The “strangeness” (mysteriousness, difference from others) of the character is emphasized by the author, first of all, with the help of portrait: spiritual beauty, sickly pallor, expressive gaze - these signs have long become stable, almost cliches, which is why comparisons and reminiscences are so frequent in descriptions, as if “quoting” previous examples. Here is a typical example of such an associative portrait (N. A. Polevoy “The Bliss of Madness”): “I don’t know how to describe Adelheid to you: she was likened to Beethoven’s wild symphony and the Valkyrie maidens about whom the Scandinavian skalds sang... her face... was thoughtfully and charmingly, resembled the face of Albrecht Durer’s Madonnas... Adelheide seemed to be the spirit of that poetry that inspired Schiller when he described his Thecla, and Goethe when he depicted his Mignon.”

The behavior of the romantic hero is also evidence of his exclusivity (and sometimes “exclusion” from society); often it “does not fit” into generally accepted norms and violates the conventional “rules of the game” by which all other characters live.

Society in romantic works it represents a certain stereotype of collective existence, a set of rituals that does not depend on the personal will of everyone, so the hero here is “like a lawless comet in a circle of calculated luminaries.” He is formed as if “in spite of the environment,” although his protest, sarcasm or skepticism are born precisely from a conflict with others, i.e. to some extent determined by society. The hypocrisy and deadness of the “secular mob” in romantic depictions are often correlated with the devilish, base principle trying to gain power over the hero’s soul. Humanity in a crowd becomes indistinguishable: instead of faces there are masks (masquerade motif– E. A. Poe "The Mask of the Red Death", V. N. Olin. "Strange Ball", M. Yu. Lermontov. "Masquerade", A.K. Tolstoy. "Meeting after three hundred years"); instead of people there are automata dolls or dead people (E. T. A. Hoffman. “The Sandman”, “Automata”; V. F. Odoevsky. “The Mockery of a Dead Man”, “The Ball”). This is how writers sharpen the problem of personality and impersonality as much as possible: becoming one of many, you cease to be a person.

Antithesis as a favorite structural device of romanticism is especially obvious in the confrontation between the hero and the crowd (and more broadly, the hero and the world). This external conflict can take different forms, depending on the type of romantic personality created by the author. Let's look at the most typical of these types.

The hero is a naive eccentric A person who believes in the possibility of realizing ideals is often comical and absurd in the eyes of “sane people.” However, he compares favorably with them in his moral integrity, childish desire for truth, ability to love and inability to adapt, i.e. lie. Such, for example, is the student Anselm from E. T. A. Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Golden Pot” - it was he, who was childishly funny and awkward, who was given the gift of not only discovering the existence of an ideal world, but also living in it and being happy. The heroine of A. S. Green’s story “Scarlet Sails” Assol, who knew how to believe in a miracle and wait for it to appear, despite the bullying and ridicule of “adults,” was also awarded the happiness of a dream come true.

Children's for romantics, it is generally synonymous with the authentic - not burdened by conventions and not killed by hypocrisy. The discovery of this topic is recognized by many scientists as one of the main merits of romanticism. “The 18th century saw in a child only a small adult. Children begin with romantics; they are valued in themselves, and not as candidates for future adults,” wrote N. Ya. Berkovsky. The Romantics were inclined to broadly interpret the concept of childhood: for them it is not only a time in the life of each person, but also of humanity as a whole... The romantic dream of a “golden age” is nothing more than the desire to return each person to his childhood, i.e. to discover in him, as Dostoevsky put it, “the image of Christ.” The spiritual vision and moral purity inherent in the child make him, perhaps, the brightest of romantic heroes; Perhaps this is why the nostalgic motif of the inevitable loss of childhood is heard so often in works. This happens, for example, in the fairy tale by A. Pogorelsky “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants”, in the stories by K. S. Aksakov (“Cloud”) and V. F. Odoevsky (“Igosha”),

Hero – tragic loner and dreamer, rejected by society and aware of his alienness to the world, he is capable of open conflict with others. They seem to him limited and vulgar, living exclusively by material interests and therefore personifying some kind of world evil, powerful and destructive to the spiritual aspirations of the romantic. Often this type of hero is combined with the theme of “high madness” - a kind of stamp of chosenness (or rejection). Such are Antiochus from “The Bliss of Madness” by N. A. Polevoy, Rybarenko from “The Ghoul” by A. K. Tolstoy, and the Dreamer from “White Nights” by F. M. Dostoevsky.

The opposition “individual – society” acquires its most acute character in the “marginal” version of the hero - a romantic tramp or robber, taking revenge on the world for his desecrated ideals. As examples, we can name the characters of the following works: “Les Miserables” by V. Hugo, “Jean Sbogar” by C. Nodier, “The Corsair” by D. Byron.

Hero – disappointed, "superfluous"" Human, who did not have the opportunity and no longer wanted to realize his talents for the benefit of society, he lost his previous dreams and faith in people. He turned into an observer and analyst, passing judgment on an imperfect reality, but without trying to change it or change himself (for example, Octave in “Confession of a Son of the Century” by A. Musset, Lermontov’s Pechorin). The thin line between pride and egoism, consciousness of one’s own exclusivity and disdain for people can explain why so often in romanticism the cult of the lonely hero is combined with his debunking: Aleko in A. S. Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” and Larra in M. Gorky’s story “The Old Woman” Izergil" are punished with loneliness precisely for their inhuman pride.

The hero is a demonic personality, challenging not only society, but also the Creator, is doomed to a tragic discord with reality and oneself. His protest and despair are organically connected, since the Truth, Goodness, and Beauty that he rejects have power over his soul. According to V.I. Korovin, a researcher of Lermontov’s works, “... a hero who is inclined to choose demonism as a moral position thereby abandons the idea of ​​good, since evil does not give birth to good, but only evil. But this is “high evil”, so how it is dictated by a thirst for good." The rebellion and cruelty of the nature of such a hero often become a source of suffering for those around him and do not bring joy to him. Acting as the “vicar” of the devil, tempter and punisher, he himself is sometimes humanly vulnerable, because he is passionate. It is no coincidence that the motif of the “demon in love,” named after the story of the same name by J. Cazotte, has become widespread in romantic literature. “Echoes” of this motif are heard in Lermontov’s “Demon”, and in V. P. Titov’s “Secluded House on Vasilyevsky”, and in N. A. Melyunov’s story “Who is He?”

Hero - patriot and citizen, ready to give his life for the good of the Fatherland, most often does not meet with the understanding and approval of his contemporaries. In this image, traditional pride for a romantic is paradoxically combined with the ideal of selflessness - the voluntary atonement of collective sin by a lone hero (in the literal, not literary sense of the word). The theme of sacrifice as a feat is especially characteristic of the “civil romanticism” of the Decembrists; for example, the character in K. F. Ryleev’s poem “Nalivaiko” consciously chooses his path of suffering:

I know that death awaits

The one who rises first

On the oppressors of the people.

Fate has already doomed me,

But where, tell me, when was it

Freedom redeemed without sacrifice?

Ivan Susanin from Ryleev’s thought of the same name, and Gorky’s Danko from the story “The Old Woman Izergil” can say something similar about themselves. In the works of M. Y. Lermontov, this type is also common, which, according to the remark of V.I. Korovin, “...became the starting point for Lermontov in his dispute with the century. But it is no longer only the concept of the public good, which was quite rationalistic among the Decembrists, and not civil feelings inspire a person to heroic behavior, and his entire inner world."

Another common type of hero can be called autobiographical, since it represents an understanding of the tragic fate man of art, who is forced to live, as it were, on the border of two worlds: the sublime world of creativity and the everyday world of creation. This self-awareness was interestingly expressed by the writer and journalist N.A. Polevoy in one of his letters to V.F. Odoevsky (dated February 16, 1829): “...I am a writer and a merchant (the connection of the infinite with the finite...).” The German romantic Hoffmann built his most famous novel precisely on the principle of combining opposites, the full title of which is “The Everyday Views of the Cat Murr, Together with Fragments of the Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, Which Accidentally Survived in Waste Paper Sheets” (1822). The depiction of the philistine, philistine consciousness in this novel is intended to highlight the greatness of the inner world of the romantic artist-composer Johann Kreisler. In the short story by E. Poe " Oval portrait"The painter, with the miraculous power of his art, takes away the life of the woman whose portrait he is painting - takes it away in order to give eternal life in return (another name for the short story “In Death there is Life”). “Artist” in a broad romantic context can mean as a “professional” who has mastered in the language of art, and in general, an exalted personality who has a keen sense of beauty, but sometimes does not have the opportunity (or gift) to express this feeling. According to the literary critic Yu. V. Mann, “... any romantic character - a scientist, an architect, a poet, a socialite. person, official, etc. - always an “artist” in his involvement in the high poetic element, even if the latter resulted in various creative acts or remained confined within the human soul." A theme beloved by the romantics is connected with this inexpressible: the possibilities of language are too limited to contain, capture, name the Absolute - one can only hint at it: “Everything immensity is crowded into a single sigh, // And only silence speaks clearly” (V. A. Zhukovsky).

Romantic cult of art is based on an understanding of inspiration as Revelation, and creativity as the fulfillment of Divine destiny (and sometimes a daring attempt to become equal to the Creator). In other words, art for romantics is not imitation or reflection, but approximation to the true reality that lies beyond the visible. In this sense, it opposes the rational way of understanding the world: according to Novalis, “... a poet comprehends nature better than the mind of a scientist.” The unearthly nature of art determines the artist’s alienation from those around him: he hears “the judgment of a fool and the laughter of a cold crowd,” he is lonely and free. However, this freedom is incomplete, because he is an earthly person and cannot live in a world of fiction, and outside of this world life is meaningless. The artist (both the hero and the romantic author) understands the doom of his desire for a dream, but does not abandon the “exalting deception” for the sake of the “darkness of low truths.” This thought concludes I. V. Kireevsky’s story “Opal”: “Everything is beautiful is deception, and the more beautiful, the more deceptive, for the best thing in the world is a dream.”

In the romantic frame of reference, life, devoid of the thirst for the impossible, becomes an animal existence. It is precisely this kind of existence, aimed at achieving the achievable, that is the basis of a pragmatic bourgeois civilization, which the romantics actively do not accept.

Only the naturalness of nature can save civilization from the artificiality - and in this, romanticism is in tune with sentimentalism, which discovered its ethical and aesthetic significance (“landscape of mood”). For a romantic, inanimate nature does not exist - it is all spiritualized, sometimes even humanized:

She has a soul, she has freedom,

It has love, it has language.

(F.I. Tyutchev)

On the other hand, a person’s closeness to nature means his “self-identity,” i.e. reunification with his own “nature,” which is the key to his moral purity (here the influence of the concept of “natural man” belonging to J. J. Rousseau is noticeable).

However, traditional romantic landscape is very different from the sentimentalist one: instead of idyllic rural spaces - groves, oak forests, fields (horizontal) - mountains and the sea appear - height and depth, eternally warring “wave and stone”. According to the literary critic, “...nature is recreated in romantic art as a free element, a free and beautiful world, not subject to human arbitrariness” (N. P. Kubareva). Storms and thunderstorms set the romantic landscape in motion, emphasizing the internal conflict of the universe. This corresponds to the passionate nature of the romantic hero:

Oh I'm like a brother

I would be glad to embrace the storm!

I watched with the eyes of a cloud,

I caught lightning with my hand...

(M. Yu. Lermontov)

Romanticism, like sentimentalism, opposes the classicist cult of reason, believing that “there is much in the world, friend Horatio, that our sages never dreamed of.” But if the sentimentalist considers feeling to be the main antidote to rational limitation, then the romantic maximalist goes further. Feelings are replaced by passion - not so much human as superhuman, uncontrollable and spontaneous. It elevates the hero above the ordinary and connects him with the universe; it reveals to the reader the motives of his actions, and often becomes a justification for his crimes:

No one is made entirely of evil,

And a good passion lived in Conrad...

However, if Byron's Corsair is capable of deep feeling despite the criminality of his nature, then Claude Frollo from “Notre Dame Cathedral” by V. Hugo becomes a criminal because of an insane passion that destroys the hero. Such an “ambivalent” understanding of passion - in a secular (strong feeling) and spiritual (suffering, torment) context is characteristic of romanticism, and if the first meaning presupposes the cult of love as the discovery of the Divine in man, then the second is directly related to the devilish temptation and spiritual fall. For example, the main character of A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky’s story “Terrible Fortune-Telling,” with the help of a wonderful dream-warning, is given the opportunity to realize the crime and fatality of his passion for a married woman: “This fortune-telling opened my eyes, blinded by passion; a deceived husband, a seduced wife , a torn, disgraced marriage and, who knows, maybe bloody revenge on me or from me - these are the consequences of my crazy love!

Romantic psychologism based on the desire to show the internal pattern of the hero’s words and deeds, which at first glance are inexplicable and strange. Their conditioning is revealed not so much through the social conditions of character formation (as it will be in realism), but through the clash of supermundane forces of good and evil, the battlefield of which is the human heart (this idea is heard in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s novel “Elixirs of Satan” ). According to researcher V. A. Lukov, “typification through the exceptional and absolute, characteristic of the romantic artistic method, reflected a new understanding of man as a small Universe... Special attention romantics to individuality, to the human soul as a clot of contradictory thoughts, passions, desires - hence the development of the principle of romantic psychologism. Romantics see in the human soul a combination of two poles - “angel” and “beast” (V. Hugo), rejecting the uniqueness of classic typification through “characters.”

Thus, in the romantic concept of the world, man is included in the “vertical context” of existence as its most important and integral part. The universal depends on personal choice status quo. Hence the greatest responsibility of the individual, not only for actions, but also for words, and even for thoughts. The theme of crime and punishment in the romantic version has acquired particular urgency: “Nothing in the world... nothing is forgotten or disappears” (V.F. Odoevsky. “Improviser”), Descendants will pay for the sins of their ancestors, and unredeemed guilt will become for them a generational curse that determines tragic fate heroes of "The Castle of Otranto" by G. Walpole, "Terrible Vengeance" by N.V. Gogol, "The Ghoul" by A.K. Tolstoy...

Romantic historicism is built on an understanding of the history of the Fatherland as the history of a family; the genetic memory of a nation lives in each of its representatives and explains a lot about their character. Thus, history and modernity are closely connected - turning to the past for most romantics becomes one of the ways of national self-determination and self-knowledge. But unlike the classicists, for whom time is nothing more than a convention, the romantics try to correlate the psychology of historical characters with the customs of the past, to recreate the “local color” and “spirit of the times” not as a masquerade, but as the motivation for events and people’s actions. In other words, there must be an “immersion in the era,” which is impossible without a careful study of documents and sources. “Facts, colored by imagination” is the basic principle of romantic historicism.

Time moves, making adjustments to the nature of the eternal struggle between good and evil in human souls. What drives history? Romanticism does not offer an unambiguous answer to this question - perhaps the will of a strong personality, or perhaps Divine providence, manifesting itself either in the combination of “accidents” or in the spontaneous activity of the masses. For example, F. R. Chateaubriand argued: “History is a novel whose author is the people.”

As for historical figures, in romantic works they rarely correspond to their real (documentary) appearance, being idealized depending on the author’s position and their artistic function- set an example or warn. It is characteristic that in his warning novel “Prince Silver” A.K. Tolstoy shows Ivan the Terrible only as a tyrant, without taking into account the inconsistency and complexity of the king’s personality, and Richard the Lionheart in reality did not at all resemble the exalted image of the king-knight , as shown by W. Scott in the novel "Ivanhoe".

In this sense, the past is more convenient than the present for creating an ideal (and at the same time, seemingly real in the past) model of national existence, opposed to wingless modernity and degraded compatriots. The emotion expressed by Lermontov in the poem "Borodino":

Yes, there were people in our time.

Mighty, dashing tribe:

The heroes are not you, -

very typical of many romantic works. Belinsky, speaking about Lermontov’s “Song about... the merchant Kalashnikov,” emphasized that it “... testifies to the state of mind of the poet, dissatisfied with modern reality and transported from it to the distant past, in order to look for life there, which he does not see in present."

It was in the era of romanticism that the historical novel firmly became one of the popular genres thanks to W. Scott, V. Hugo, M. N. Zagoskin, I. I. Lazhechnikov and many other writers who turned to historical topics. In general the concept genre in its classicist (normative) interpretation, romanticism was subjected to a significant rethinking, which followed the path of blurring the strict genre hierarchy and generic boundaries. This is understandable if we recall the romantic cult of free, independent creativity, which should not be fettered by any conventions. The ideal of romantic aesthetics was a certain poetic universe, containing not only the features of different genres, but the features of various arts, among which a special place was given to music as the most “subtle”, intangible way of penetrating into the spiritual essence of the universe. For example, the German writer W. G. Wackenroder considers music “... the most wonderful of all... inventions, because it describes human feelings in a superhuman language... because it speaks a language that we do not know in our everyday life, which was learned who knows where and how, and which seems to be the language of only angels.” However, in reality, of course, romanticism did not abolish the system of literary genres, making adjustments to it (especially lyrical genres) and revealing the new potential of traditional forms. Let's look at the most typical of them.

First of all, this ballad , which in the era of romanticism acquired new features associated with the development of action: tension and dynamism of the narrative, mysterious, sometimes inexplicable events, fatal predetermination of the fate of the main character... Classic examples of this genre in Russian romanticism are represented by the works of V. A. Zhukovsky - a deeply national understanding European tradition(R. Southey, S. Coleridge, W. Scott).

Romantic poem is characterized by the so-called peak composition, when the action is built around one event, in which the character of the main character is most clearly manifested and his further – most often tragic – fate is determined. This happens in some “eastern” poems. English romance D. G. Byron (“The Giaour”, “Corsair”), and in the “southern” poems of A. S. Pushkin (“ Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Gypsies"), and in Lermontov's "Mtsyri", "Song about... the merchant Kalashnikov", "Demon".

Romantic drama strives to overcome classicist conventions (in particular, the unity of place and time); she does not know the speech individualization of characters: her heroes speak “the same language.” It is extremely conflictual, and most often this conflict is associated with an irreconcilable confrontation between the hero (internally close to the author) and society. Due to the inequality of forces, the collision rarely ends in a happy ending; a tragic ending may also be associated with contradictions in the soul of the main character, his internal struggle. Typical examples of romantic drama include Lermontov’s “Masquerade,” Byron’s “Sardanapalus,” and Hugo’s “Cromwell.”

One of the most popular genres in the era of romanticism was story(most often the romantics themselves used this word to call a story or novella), which existed in several thematic varieties. Plot secular The story is based on the discrepancy between sincerity and hypocrisy, deep feelings and social conventions (E. P. Rostopchina. “The Duel”). Household the story is subordinated to moral descriptive tasks, depicting the life of people who are in some way unlike the others (M. II. Pogodin. “Black Sickness”). IN philosophical The story's problematics are based on the "damned questions of existence", options for answers to which are offered by the heroes and the author (M. Yu. Lermontov. "Fatalist"). Satirical the story is aimed at debunking the triumphant vulgarity, which in various guises represents the main threat to the spiritual essence of man (V.F. Odoevsky. “The Tale of a Dead Body, Nobody Knows Who Belongs to”). Finally, fantastic the story is built on the penetration into the plot of supernatural characters and events, inexplicable from the point of view of everyday logic, but natural from the point of view of the highest laws of existence, which have a moral nature. Most often, the character’s very real actions: careless words, sinful actions become the cause of miraculous retribution, reminiscent of a person’s responsibility for everything he does (A.S. Pushkin.” Queen of Spades", N.V. Gogol. "Portrait"),

Romantics breathed new life into the folklore genre fairy tales, not only by promoting the publication and study of monuments of oral folk art, but also by creating their own original works; one can recall the brothers Grimm, V. Gauff, A. S. Pushkin, P. P. Ershova and others. Moreover, the fairy tale was understood and used quite widely - from the way of recreating the folk (children's) view of the world in stories with so-called folk fiction (for example, "Kikimora" by O. M. Somov) or in works addressed to children (for example, “Town in a Snuffbox” by V.F. Odoevsky), to the general property of truly romantic creativity, the universal “canon of poetry”: “Everything poetic should be fabulous,” Novalis argued.

The originality of the romantic artistic world is also manifested at the linguistic level. Romantic style , of course, heterogeneous, appearing in many individual varieties, has some common features. It is rhetorical and monological: the heroes of the works are the “linguistic doubles” of the author. The word is valuable to him for its emotional and expressive capabilities - in romantic art it always means immeasurably more than in everyday communication. Associativity, saturation with epithets, comparisons and metaphors becomes especially obvious in portrait and landscape descriptions, where main role They play likenings, as if replacing (darkening) the specific appearance of a person or a picture of nature. Here is a typical example of the romantic style of A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky: “Gloomy clumps of fir trees stood around, like dead men, wrapped in snow shrouds, as if stretching out icy hands to us; bushes, covered with tufts of frost, intertwined their shadows on the pale surface of the field; the charred stumps, wafting with gray hairs, took on dreamy images, but all this bore no trace of a human foot or hand... Silence and desert all around!”

According to the scientist L.I. Timofeev, "... the expression of a romantic seems to subjugate the image. This affects the particularly sharp emotionality of the poetic language, the attraction of the romantic to paths and figures, to everything that accepts its subjective beginning in the language" . The author often addresses the reader not just as a friend-interlocutor, but as a person of his own “cultural blood”, an initiate, capable of grasping the unsaid, i.e. inexpressible.

Romantic symbolism based on the endless “expansion” of the literal meaning of some words: the sea and the wind become symbols of freedom; morning dawn - hopes and aspirations; blue flower (Novalis) - an unattainable ideal; night - the mysterious essence of the universe and the human soul, etc.

We have identified some essential typological features romanticism as an artistic method; However, until now the term itself, like many others, is still not an accurate instrument of knowledge, but the fruit of a “social contract”, necessary for the study of literary life, but powerless to reflect its inexhaustible diversity.

The concrete historical existence of the artistic method in time and space is literary direction.

Prerequisites the emergence of romanticism can be attributed to the second half of the 18th century, when in many European literatures, still within the framework of classicism, a turn was made from “imitation of strangers” to “imitation of one’s own”: writers find models among their predecessors-compatriots, turn to domestic folklore not only with ethnographic , but also with artistic purposes. Thus, new tasks gradually take shape in art; after “studying” and achieving a global level of artistry, the creation of original national literature becomes an urgent need (see the works of A. S. Kurilov). In aesthetics, the idea of nationalities as the author’s ability to recreate the appearance and express the spirit of the nation. At the same time, the dignity of the work becomes its connection with space and time, which denies the very basis of the classicist cult of the absolute model: according to Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, “... all exemplary talents bear the imprint of not only the people, but also the century, the place where they lived they, therefore, to imitate them slavishly in other circumstances is impossible and inappropriate.”

Of course, the emergence and development of romanticism was also influenced by many “extraneous” factors, in particular socio-political and philosophical ones. Political system many European countries fluctuates; The French bourgeois revolution suggests that the time of absolute monarchy is over. The world is not ruled by a dynasty, but by a strong personality like Napoleon. A political crisis entails changes in public consciousness; the kingdom of reason ended, chaos burst into the world and destroyed what seemed simple and understandable - ideas about civic duty, about an ideal sovereign, about the beautiful and the ugly... The feeling of inevitable change, the expectation that the world will become better, disappointment in one’s hopes - from these moments a special mentality of the era of catastrophes is formed and developed. Philosophy again turns to faith and recognizes that the world is unknowable rationally, that matter is secondary to spiritual reality, that human consciousness is an infinite universe. The great idealist philosophers - I. Kant, F. Schelling, G. Fichte, F. Hegel - turn out to be closely connected with romanticism.

It is hardly possible to determine with accuracy in which European country romanticism appeared first, and this is hardly important, since the literary movement has no homeland, arising where the need for it arose, and then when it appeared: “...Not there were and could not be secondary romanticisms - borrowed... Each national literature discovered romanticism when the socio-historical development of peoples led them to this..." (S. E. Shatalov.)

Originality English romanticism determined by the colossal personality of D. G. Byron, who, according to Pushkin,

Cloaked in sad romanticism

And hopeless selfishness...

The English poet’s own “I” became the main character of all his works: irreconcilable conflict with others, disappointment and skepticism, God-seeking and God-fighting, the wealth of inclinations and the insignificance of their embodiment - these are just some of the features of the famous “Byronic” type, which found its counterparts and followers in many literatures. In addition to Byron, English romantic poetry is represented by the “Lake School” (W. Wordsworth, S. Coleridge, R. Southey, P. Shelley, T. Moore and D. Keats). The Scottish writer W. Scott is rightfully considered the “father” of popular historical novels, who resurrected the past in his numerous novels, where fictional characters act alongside historical figures.

German romanticism characterized by philosophical depth and close attention to the supernatural. The most prominent representative of this trend in Germany was E. T. A. Hoffmann, who amazingly combined faith and irony in his work; in his fantastic short stories, the real turns out to be inseparable from the miraculous, and completely earthly heroes are able to transform into their otherworldly counterparts. In poetry

G. Heine's tragic discord between the ideal and reality becomes the reason for the poet's bitter, caustic laughter at the world, at himself and at romanticism. Reflection, including aesthetic reflection, is generally characteristic of German writers: the theoretical treatises of the Schlegel brothers, Novalis, L. Tieck, and the Grimm brothers, along with their works, had a significant influence on the development and “self-awareness” of the entire European romantic movement. In particular, thanks to J. de Stael's book "On Germany" (1810), French and later Russian writers had the opportunity to join the "gloomy German genius."

Appearance French romanticism generally indicated by the work of V. Hugo, in whose novels the theme of the “outcasts” is combined with moral issues: public morality and love for a person, external beauty and internal beauty, crime and punishment, etc. The “marginal” hero of French romanticism is not always a tramp or a robber, he can simply be a person who, for some reason, finds himself outside of society and therefore capable of giving it an objective (i.e., negative) assessment. It is characteristic that the hero himself often receives the same assessment from the author for the “disease of the century” - wingless skepticism and all-destroying doubt. It is about the characters of B. Constant, F. R. Chateaubriand and A. de Vigny that Pushkin speaks in Chapter VII of “Eugene Onegin,” giving a generalized portrait of “modern man”:

With his immoral soul,

Selfish and dry,

Immensely devoted to a dream,

With his embittered mind

Seething in empty action...

American romanticism more heterogeneous: it combined the Gothic poetics of horror and the dark psychologism of E. A. Poe, the simple-minded fantasy and humor of W. Irving, Indian exoticism and the poetry of adventure of D. F. Cooper. Perhaps, precisely from the era of romanticism American literature is included in the global context and becomes an original phenomenon, not reducible only to European “roots”.

Story Russian romanticism began in the second half of the 18th century. Classicism, excluding the national as a source of inspiration and subject of depiction, contrasted high examples of artistry with “rough” common people, which could not but lead to “monotony, limitation, conventionality” (A.S. Pushkin) of literature. Therefore, gradually the imitation of ancient and European writers gave way to the desire to focus on the best examples of national creativity, including folk art.

The formation and development of Russian romanticism is closely connected with the most important historical event of the 19th century. - victory in the Patriotic War of 1812. The rise of national self-awareness, faith in the great destiny of Russia and its people stimulate interest in what previously remained outside the bounds of fine literature. Folklore and Russian legends are beginning to be perceived as a source of originality, independence of literature, which has not yet completely freed itself from the student imitation of classicism, but has already taken the first step in this direction: if you learn, then from your ancestors. This is how O. M. Somov formulates this task: “...The Russian people, glorious in military and civil virtues, formidable in strength and magnanimous in victories, inhabiting a kingdom that is the most extensive in the world, rich in nature and memories, must have my folk poetry, inimitable and independent of alien traditions".

From this point of view, the main merit V. A. Zhukovsky consists not in the “discovery of America of romanticism” and not in introducing Russian readers to the best Western European examples, but in a deeply national understanding of world experience, in combining it with the Orthodox worldview, which asserts:

Our best friend in this life is

Faith in Providence, Good

The creator's law...

("Svetlana")

Romanticism of the Decembrists K. F. Ryleeva, A. A. Bestuzhev, V. K. Kuchelbecker in the science of literature they are often called “civil”, since in their aesthetics and creativity the pathos of serving the Fatherland is fundamental. Appeals to the historical past are intended, according to the authors, to “arouse the valor of fellow citizens with the exploits of their ancestors” (words by A. Bestuzhev about K. Ryleev), i.e. contribute to a real change in reality, which is far from ideal. It was in the poetics of the Decembrists that such general features of Russian romanticism as anti-individualism, rationalism and citizenship clearly manifested themselves - features that indicate that in Russia romanticism is more likely a heir to the ideas of the Enlightenment than their destroyer.

After the tragedy of December 14, 1825, the romantic movement entered a new era - civil optimistic pathos was replaced by a philosophical orientation, self-deepening, and attempts to understand the general laws governing the world and man. Russians romantic lovers(D.V. Venevitinov, I.V. Kireevsky, A.S. Khomyakov, S.V. Shevyrev, V.F. Odoevsky) turn to German idealistic philosophy and strive to “graft” it onto their native soil. Second half of the 20s - 30s. - a time of fascination with the miraculous and supernatural. The genre of fantasy story was addressed A. A. Pogorelsky, O. M. Somov, V. F. Odoevsky, O. I. Senkovsky, A. F. Veltman.

In the general direction from romanticism to realism the creativity of the greats is developing classics of the 19th century V. – A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, Moreover, we should not talk about overcoming the romantic principle in their works, but about transforming and enriching it with a realistic method of understanding life in art. It is from the examples of Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol that one can see that romanticism and realism as the most important and deeply national phenomena in Russian culture of the 19th century. do not oppose each other, they are not mutually exclusive, but complementary, and only in their combination is the unique appearance of our classical literature born. We can find a spiritualized romantic view of the world, the correlation of reality with the highest ideal, the cult of love as an element and the cult of poetry as insight in the works of remarkable Russian poets F. I. Tyutchev, A. A. Fet, A. K. Tolstoy. Intense attention to the mysterious sphere of existence, the irrational and the fantastic is characteristic of Turgenev’s late work, developing the traditions of romanticism.

In Russian literature at the turn of the century and at the beginning of the 20th century. Romantic tendencies are associated with the tragic worldview of a person in the “transitional era” and with his dream of transforming the world. The concept of the symbol, developed by the romantics, was developed and artistically embodied in the works of Russian symbolists (D. Merezhkovsky, A. Blok, A. Bely); love for the exoticism of distant travels was reflected in the so-called neo-romanticism (N. Gumilyov); maximalism of artistic aspirations, contrasting worldview, the desire to overcome the imperfection of the world and man are integral components of the early romantic work of M. Gorky.

In science, the question of chronological boundaries, putting an end to the existence of romanticism as an artistic movement. Traditionally called the 40s. XIX century, but increasingly in modern research These boundaries are proposed to be pushed back - sometimes significantly, until the end of the 19th or even the beginning of the 20th century. One thing is indisputable: if romanticism as a movement left the stage, giving way to realism, then romanticism as an artistic method, i.e. as a way of understanding the world through art, remains viable to this day.

Thus, romanticism in the broad sense of the word is not a historically limited phenomenon left in the past: it is eternal and still represents something more than a literary phenomenon. “Where there is a person, there is romanticism... Its sphere... is the entire inner, soulful life of a person, that mysterious soil of the soul and heart, from where all vague aspirations for the best and sublime rise, striving to find satisfaction in the ideals created by fantasy.” . "Genuine romanticism is not only literary movement. He sought to become and became a new form of feeling, a new way of experiencing life... Romanticism is nothing more than a way to arrange, organize a person, a bearer of culture, into a new connection with the elements... Romanticism is a spirit that strives under every frozen form and , in the end, explodes it..." These statements by V. G. Belinsky and A. A. Blok, pushing the boundaries of the usual concept, show its inexhaustibility and explain its immortality: as long as a person remains a person, romanticism will exist as in art , and in everyday life.

Representatives of romanticism

Germany. Novalis (lyrical cycle “Hymns for the Night”, “Spiritual Songs”, novel “Heinrich von Ofterdingen”),

Chamisso (lyrical cycle “Love and Life of a Woman”, story-fairy tale “The Amazing Story of Peter Schlemil”),

E. T. A. Hoffman (novels "Elixirs of Satan", "Worldly Views of the Cat Murr...", fairy tales "Little Tsakhes...", "Lord of the Fleas", "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", short story "Don Juan" ),

I. F. Schiller (tragedies “Don Carlos”, “Mary Stuart”, “Maid of Orleans”, drama “William Tell”, ballads “Ivikov Cranes”, “Diver” (translated by Zhukovsky “The Cup”), “Knight of Togenburg” ", "The Glove", "Polycrates' Ring"; "Song of the Bell", dramatic trilogy "Wallenstein"),

G. von Kleist (story "Michasl-Kohlhaas", comedy "Broken Jug", drama "Prince Friedrich of Hamburg", tragedies "The Schroffenstein Family", "Pentesileia"),

brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm ("Children's and family tales", "German legends"),

L. Arnim (collection of folk songs "The Boy's Magic Horn"),

L. Tick (fairy-tale comedies "Puss in Boots", "Bluebeard", collection " Folk tales", short stories "Elves", "Life pours over the edge"),

G. Heine ("Book of Songs", collection of poems "Romansero", poems "Atta Troll", "Germany. A Winter's Tale", poem "Silesian Weavers"),

K. A. Vulpius (novel "Rinaldo Rinaldini").

England. D. G. Byron (poem "Pilgrimage" Childe Harold", "The Giaour", "Lara", "Corsair", "Manfred", "Cain", "The Bronze Age", "The Prisoner of Chillon", the cycle of poems "Jewish Melodies", the novel in verse "Don Juan"),

P. B. Shelley (poems “Queen Mab”, “The Rise of Islam”, “Prometheus Unbound”, historical tragedy “Cenci”, poetry),

W. Scott (poems “The Song of the Last Minstrel”, “Maid of the Lake”, “Marmion”, “Rokeby”, historical novels"Waverly", "Puritans", "Rob Roy", "Ivanhoe", "Quentin Dorward", ballad "Midsummer Evening" (translated by Zhukovsky

"Castle Smalgolm")), Ch. Matyorin (novel "Melmoth the Wanderer"),

W. Wordsworth ("Lyrical Ballads" - together with Coleridge, poem "Prelude"),

S. Coleridge ("Lyrical Ballads" - together with Wordsworth, poems "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Christabel"),

France. F. R. Chateaubriand (stories "Atala", "Rene"),

A. Lamartine (collections of lyrical poems “Poetic Meditations”, “New Poetic Meditations”, poem “Jocelin”),

George Sand (novels “Indiana”, “Horace”, “Consuelo”, etc.),

B. Hugo (dramas "Cromwell", "Ernani", "Marion Delorme", "Ruy Blas"; novels "Notre Dame", "Les Miserables", "Toilers of the Sea", "93rd Year", "The Man Who laughs"; collections of poems "Oriental motives", "Legend of centuries"),

J. de Stael (novels "Dolphine", "Corinna, or Italy"), B. Constant (novel "Adolphe"),

A. de Musset (cycle of poems "Nights", novel "Confession of a Son of the Century"), A. de Vigny (poems "Eloa", "Moses", "Flood", "Death of the Wolf", drama "Chatterton"),

C. Nodier (novel "Jean Sbogar", short stories).

Italy. D. Leopardi (collection "Songs", poem "Paralipomena Wars of Mice and Frogs"),

Poland. A. Mickiewicz (poems "Grazyna", "Dziady" ("Wake"), "Konrad Walleprod", "Pai Tadeusz"),

Y. Slovatsky (drama "Kordian", poems "Angelli", "Benyovsky"),

Russian romanticism. In Russia, the heyday of romanticism occurred in the first third of the 19th century, which was characterized by increased intensity of life, turbulent events, primarily the Patriotic War of 1812 and the revolutionary movement of the Decembrists, which awakened Russian national self-awareness and patriotic inspiration.

Representatives of romanticism in Russia. Currents:

• 1. Subjective-lyrical romanticism, or ethical-psychological (includes problems of good and evil, crime and punishment, the meaning of life, friendship and love, moral duty, conscience, retribution, happiness): V. A. Zhukovsky (ballads "Lyudmila", "Svetlana", " Twelve Sleeping Maidens", "The Forest King", "Aeolian Harp"; elegies, songs, romances, messages; poems "Abbadona", "Ondine", "Pal and Damayanti"); K. II. Batyushkov (epistles, elegies, poems).
• 2. Social and civil romanticism:

K. F. Ryleev (lyrical poems, “Dumas”: “Dmitry Donskoy”, “Bogdan Khmelnitsky”, “The Death of Ermak”, “Ivan Susanin”; poems “Voinarovsky”, “Nalivaiko”); A. A. Bestuzhev (pseudonym – Marlinsky) (poems, stories “Frigate “Nadezhda””, “Sailor Nikitin”, “Ammalat-Bek”, “Terrible Fortune-Telling”, “Andrei Pereyaslavsky”).

V. F. Raevsky (civil lyrics).

A. I. Odoevsky (elegy, historical poem "Vasilko", response to Pushkin's "Message to Siberia").

D. V. Davydov (civil lyrics).

V. K. Kuchelbecker (civil lyrics, drama "Izhora"),

3. "Byronic" romanticism:

A. S. Pushkin (poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila", civil lyrics, cycle of southern poems: "Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Robber Brothers", "Bakhchisarai Fountain", "Gypsies").

M. Yu. Lermontov (civil poetry, poems “Izmail Bey”, “Hadji Abrek”, “Fugitive”, “Demon”, “Mtsyri”, drama “Spaniards”, historical novel “Vadim”),

I. I. Kozlov (poem "Chernets").

4. Philosophical romanticism:

D. V. Venevitinov (civil and philosophical lyrics).

V. F. Odoevsky (collection of short stories and philosophical conversations "Russian Nights", romantic stories "Beethoven's Last Quartet", "Sebastian Bach"; fantastic stories "Igosha", "La Sylphide", "Salamander").

F. N. Glinka (songs, poems).

V. G. Benediktov (philosophical lyrics).

F. I. Tyutchev (philosophical lyrics).

E. A. Baratynsky (civil and philosophical lyrics).

5. Folk historical romanticism:

M. N. Zagoskin (historical novels “Yuri Miloslavsky, or the Russians in 1612”, “Roslavlev, or the Russians in 1812”, “Askold’s Grave”).

I. I. Lazhechnikov (historical novels “The Ice House”, “The Last Novik”, “Basurman”).

Features of Russian romanticism. The subjective romantic image contained objective content, expressed in a reflection of the social sentiments of Russian people in the first third of the 19th century. - disappointment, anticipation of change, rejection of both Western European bourgeoisism and Russian despotic autocratic, serf-based foundations.

The desire for nationality. It seemed to Russian romantics that by comprehending the spirit of the people, they became familiar with the ideal beginnings of life. At the same time, the understanding of the “people's soul” and the content of the very principle of nationality among representatives of various movements in Russian romanticism was different. Thus, for Zhukovsky, nationality meant a humane attitude towards the peasantry and poor people in general; he found it in the poetry of folk rituals, lyrical songs, folk signs, superstitions, legends. In the works of the romantic Decembrists, the folk character is not just positive, but heroic, nationally distinctive, which is rooted in the historical traditions of the people. They revealed such a character in historical, bandit songs, epics, and heroic tales.

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 of “Tabula rasa,” which translated means “blank slate.” According to this teaching, a person is born neutral, pure and empty, like a white sheet of paper. This means that if you engage in his education, you can raise an ideal member of society. But the flimsy logical structure collapsed when it came into contact with the realities of life: the bloody Napoleonic Wars, the French Revolution of 1789 and other social upheavals destroyed people's faith in the healing properties 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 they studied this diligently and had access to all known works of 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 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. The real world is 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 is the tragic nature of the relationship between man and evil fate. Example: “The Bronze Horseman” by 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 personality 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"

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. A good example of subjective idealism in literature is Alfred de Musset's Confessions of a Son of the Century. Throughout the entire narrative, the hero immerses the reader in subjective reality, as if reading a personal diary. Describing his love conflicts and complex feelings, he shows not the surrounding reality, but the inner world, which, as it were, replaces the outer 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.” The 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 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 we 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...

• 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

Escapism is an escape from reality. Types of escapism in literature:

• fantasy (travel 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”)

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.

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Romanticism - (French romantisme, from the medieval French romant - novel) is a direction in art that was formed within the framework of a general literary movement at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. in Germany. It has become widespread in all countries of Europe and America. The highest peak of romanticism occurs in the first quarter XIX V.

The French word romantisme goes back to the Spanish romance (in the Middle Ages, this was the name for Spanish romances, and then a chivalric romance), the English romantic, which turned into 18th century. in romantique and then meaning “strange”, “fantastic”, “picturesque”. At the beginning of the 19th century. Romanticism becomes the designation of a new direction, opposite to classicism.

Entering into the antithesis of “classicism” - “romanticism,” the movement suggested the opposition of the classicist demand for rules to romantic freedom from rules. The center of the artistic system of romanticism is the individual, and its main conflict is the individual and society. The decisive prerequisite for the development of romanticism were the events of the Great French Revolution. The emergence of romanticism is associated with the anti-enlightenment movement, the reasons for which lie in disappointment in civilization, in social, industrial, political and scientific progress, the result of which was new contrasts and contradictions, leveling and spiritual devastation of the individual.

The Enlightenment preached the new society as the most “natural” and “reasonable”. The best minds of Europe substantiated and foreshadowed this society of the future, but reality turned out to be beyond the control of “reason,” the future became unpredictable, irrational, and the modern social order began to threaten human nature and his personal freedom. Rejection of this society, protest against lack of spirituality and selfishness is already reflected in sentimentalism and pre-romanticism. Romanticism expresses this rejection most acutely. Romanticism also opposed the Age of Enlightenment in verbal terms: the language of romantic works, striving to be natural, “simple”, accessible to all readers, was something opposite to the classics with its noble, “sublime” themes, characteristic, for example, of classical tragedy.

Among the late Western European romantics, pessimism in relation to society acquires cosmic proportions and becomes the “disease of the century.” The heroes of many romantic works are characterized by moods of hopelessness and despair, which acquire a universal human character. Perfection is lost forever, evil rules the world, ancient chaos is resurrected. The theme of the “terrible world”, characteristic of all romantic literature, was most clearly embodied in the so-called “black genre” (in the pre-romantic “Gothic novel” - A. Radcliffe, C. Maturin, in the “drama of rock”, or “tragedy of rock” - Z. Werner, G. Kleist, F. Grillparzer), as well as in the works of Byron, C. Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffmann, E. Poe and N. Hawthorne.

At the same time, romanticism is based on ideas that challenge the “terrible world” - above all, the ideas of freedom. The disappointment of romanticism is a disappointment in reality, but progress and civilization are only one side of it. Rejection of this side, lack of faith in the possibilities of civilization provide another path, the path to the ideal, to the eternal, to the absolute. This path must resolve all contradictions and completely change life. This is the path to perfection, “towards a goal, the explanation of which must be sought on the other side of the visible” (A. De Vigny). For some romantics, the world is dominated by incomprehensible and mysterious forces that must be obeyed and not try to change fate (Chateaubriand, V.A. Zhukovsky). For others, “world evil” caused protest, demanded revenge and struggle (early A.S. Pushkin). What they had in common was that they all saw in man a single essence, the task of which is not at all limited to solving everyday problems. On the contrary, without denying everyday life, the romantics sought to unravel the mystery of human existence, turning to nature, trusting their religious and poetic feelings.

A romantic hero is a complex, passionate personality, whose inner world is unusually deep and endless; it is a whole universe full of contradictions. The romantics were interested in all passions, both high and low, which were opposed to each other. High passion is love in all its manifestations, low passion is greed, ambition, envy. The romantics contrasted the life of the spirit, especially religion, art, and philosophy, with the base material practice. Interest in strong and vivid feelings, all-consuming passions, and secret movements of the soul are characteristic features of romanticism.

We can talk about romance as a special type of personality - a person strong passions and high aspirations, incompatible with ordinary world. Exceptional circumstances accompany this nature. Fantasy, folk music, poetry, legends become attractive to romantics - everything that for a century and a half was considered as minor genres, not worthy of attention. Romanticism is characterized by the affirmation of freedom, the sovereignty of the individual, increased attention to the individual, the unique in man, and the cult of the individual. Confidence in a person’s self-worth turns into a protest against the fate of history. Often the hero of a romantic work becomes an artist who is capable of creatively perceiving reality. The classicist “imitation of nature” is contrasted with the creative energy of the artist who transforms reality. A special world of its own is created, more beautiful and real than the empirically perceived reality. It is creativity that is the meaning of existence; it represents the highest value of the universe. Romantics passionately defended the creative freedom of the artist, his imagination, believing that the genius of the artist does not obey the rules, but creates them.

Romantics turned to various historical eras, they were attracted by their originality, attracted by exotic and mysterious countries and circumstances. Interest in history became one of the enduring achievements of the artistic system of romanticism. He expressed himself in the creation of the genre of the historical novel, the founder of which is considered to be W. Scott, and the novel in general, which acquired a leading position in the era under consideration. Romantics reproduce in detail and accurately the historical details, background, and flavor of a particular era, but romantic characters are given outside of history; they, as a rule, are above circumstances and do not depend on them. At the same time, the romantics perceived the novel as a means of comprehending history, and from history they went to penetrate into the secrets of psychology, and, accordingly, of modernity. Interest in history was also reflected in the works of historians of the French romantic school (A. Thierry, F. Guizot, F. O. Meunier).

It was in the era of Romanticism that the discovery of the culture of the Middle Ages took place, and the admiration for antiquity, characteristic of the previous era, also did not weaken at the end of the 18th - beginning. XIX centuries A variety of national, historical, individual characteristics had and philosophical meaning: the wealth of a single world whole consists of the combination of these individual features, and the study of the history of each people separately makes it possible to trace, as Burke put it, uninterrupted life through new generations following one after another.

The era of Romanticism was marked by the flourishing of literature, one of the distinctive properties of which was a passion for social and political problems. Trying to understand the role of man in what is happening historical events, romantic writers gravitated towards accuracy, specificity, and authenticity. At the same time, the action of their works often takes place in settings that are unusual for a European - for example, in the East and America, or, for Russians, in the Caucasus or Crimea. Thus, romantic poets are primarily lyricists and poets of nature, and therefore in their work (however, in the same way as in many prose writers) significant place occupies the landscape - first of all, the sea, mountains, sky, stormy elements, with which the hero has a complex relationship. Nature can be akin to the passionate nature of a romantic hero, but it can also resist him, turn out to be a hostile force with which he is forced to fight.

Unusual and vivid pictures of nature, life, way of life and customs of distant countries and peoples also inspired the romantics. They were looking for the traits that constitute the fundamental basis of the national spirit. National identity is manifested primarily in oral folk art. Hence the interest in folklore, the processing of folklore works, the creation of their own works based on folk art.

The development of the genres of the historical novel, fantastic story, lyric-epic poem, ballad is the merit of the romantics. Their innovation was also manifested in lyrics, in particular, in the use of polysemy of words, the development of associativity, metaphor, and discoveries in the field of versification, meter, and rhythm.

Romanticism is characterized by a synthesis of genders and genres, their interpenetration. Romantic art system was based on a synthesis of art, philosophy, and religion. For example, for a thinker like Herder, linguistic research, philosophical doctrines, and travel notes serve the search for ways to revolutionize culture. Much of the achievements of romanticism were inherited by realism of the 19th century. - a penchant for fantasy, the grotesque, a mixture of high and low, tragic and comic, the discovery of “subjective man.”

In the era of romanticism, not only literature flourished, but also many sciences: sociology, history, political science, chemistry, biology, evolutionary doctrine, philosophy (Hegel, D. Hume, I. Kant, Fichte, natural philosophy, the essence of which boils down to the fact that nature - one of the garments of God, “the living garment of the Divine”).

Romanticism - cultural phenomenon Europe and America. In different countries, his fate had its own characteristics.

The era of romanticism occupies an important place in world art. This trend existed for a fairly short amount of time in the history of literature, painting and music, but left a big mark in the formation of trends, the creation of images and plots. We invite you to take a closer look at this phenomenon.

Romanticism is an artistic movement in culture, characterized by the depiction of strong passions, an ideal world and the struggle of the individual with society.

The word “romanticism” itself initially meant “mystical”, “unusual”, but later acquired a slightly different meaning: “different”, “new”, “progressive”.

History of origin

The period of romanticism dates back to the end of the 18th century and the first half of XIX century. The crisis of classicism and the excessive journalisticism of the Enlightenment led to a transition from the cult of reason to the cult of feeling. The connecting link between classicism and romanticism was sentimentalism, in which feeling became rational and natural. He became a kind of source of a new direction. The romantics went further and completely immersed themselves in irrational thoughts.

The origins of romanticism began to emerge in Germany, where by that time the literary movement “Storm and Drang” was popular. Its adherents expressed quite radical ideas, which contributed to the development of a romantic rebellious attitude among them. The development of romanticism continued in France, Russia, England, the USA and other countries. Caspar David Friedrich is considered the founder of romanticism in painting. The founder of Russian literature is Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky.

The main trends of romanticism were folk-folklore (based on folk art), Byronic (melancholy and loneliness), grotesque-fantastic (the image is not real world), utopian (search for an ideal) and Voltairean (description of historical events).

Main features and principles

The main characteristic of romanticism is the predominance of feeling over reason. From reality, the author takes the reader to an ideal world or yearns for it. Hence another sign - dual worlds, created according to the principle of “romantic antithesis”.

Romanticism can rightfully be considered an experimental movement in which fantastic images are skillfully woven into works. Escapism, that is, escape from reality, is achieved by motives of the past or immersion in mysticism. The author chooses fantasy, the past, exoticism or folklore as a means of escaping reality.

Displaying human emotions through nature is another feature of romanticism. If we talk about originality in the depiction of a person, then often he appears to the reader as lonely, atypical. The motive of the “superfluous man” appears, a rebel disillusioned with civilization and fighting against the elements.

Philosophy

The spirit of romanticism was imbued with the category of the sublime, that is, the contemplation of beauty. Adherents of the new era tried to rethink religion, explaining it as a feeling of infinity, and put the idea of ​​​​the inexplicability of mystical phenomena above the ideas of atheism.

The essence of romanticism was the struggle of man against society, the predominance of sensuality over rationality.

How did romanticism manifest itself?

In art, romanticism manifested itself in all areas except architecture.

In music

Romantic composers looked at music in a new way. The melodies sounded the motive of loneliness, great attention the focus was on conflict and dual worlds; with the help of a personal tone, the authors added autobiography to their works for self-expression; new techniques were used: for example, expanding the timbre palette of sound.

As in literature, interest in folklore appeared here, and fantastic images were added to operas. The main genres in musical romanticism The previously unpopular song and miniature, which came from classicism, opera and overture, as well as poetic genres: fantasy, ballad and others, became popular. The most famous representatives of this movement are Tchaikovsky, Schubert and Liszt. Examples of works: Berlioz “A Fantastic Story”, Mozart “The Magic Flute” and others.

In painting

The aesthetics of romanticism has its own unique character. The most popular genre in Romanticism paintings is landscape. For example, one of the most famous representatives Russian romanticism of Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky is a stormy sea element (“Sea with a ship”). One of the first romantic artists, Caspar David Friedrich, introduced third-person landscape into painting, showing a person from the back against the backdrop of mysterious nature and creating the feeling that we are looking through the eyes of this character (examples of works: “Two Contemplating the Moon”, “Rocky Mountains”) shores of Ryugin Island"). The superiority of nature over man and his loneliness is especially felt in the painting “Monk on the Seashore.”

Fine art in the era of romanticism became experimental. William Turner preferred to create canvases with sweeping strokes, with almost imperceptible details (“Blizzard. Steamboat at the entrance to the harbor”). In turn, the harbinger of realism Theodore Gericault also painted paintings that bear little resemblance to images of real life. For example, in the painting “The Raft of Medusa,” people dying of hunger look like athletic heroes. If we talk about still lifes, then all the objects in the paintings are staged and cleaned (Charles Thomas Bale “Still Life with Grapes”).

In literature

If in the Age of Enlightenment, with rare exceptions, lyrical and lyric epic genres were absent, then in romanticism they play a major role. The works are distinguished by their imagery and originality of plot. Either this is an embellished reality, or these are completely fantastic situations. The hero of romanticism has exceptional qualities that influence his fate. Books written two centuries ago are still in demand not only among schoolchildren and students, but also among all interested readers. Examples of works and representatives of the movement are presented below.

Abroad

Among the poets early XIX century, one can name Heinrich Heine (the collection “The Book of Songs”), William Wordsworth (“Lyrical Ballads”), Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, as well as George Noel Gordon Byron, the author of the poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”. The historical novels of Walter Scott (for example, "", "Quentin Durward"), the novels of Jane Austen (""), the poems and stories of Edgar Allan Poe ("", ""), the stories of Washington Irving ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow") have gained great popularity ") and the tales of one of the first representatives of romanticism, Ernest Theodore Amadeus Hoffmann ("The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", "").

Also known are the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (“Tales of the Ancient Mariner”) and Alfred de Musset (“Confessions of a Son of the Century”). It is remarkable with what ease the reader gets from the real world to the fictional one and back, as a result of which they both merge into one whole. This is partly achieved by the simple language of many works and the relaxed narration of such unusual things.

In Russia

Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky is considered the founder of Russian romanticism (elegy "", ballad ""). Co school curriculum Everyone is familiar with Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov’s poem “,” where special attention is paid to the motif of loneliness. It was not for nothing that the poet was called the Russian Byron. Philosophical lyrics Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, the early poems and poems of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, the poetry of Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov and Nikolai Mikhailovich Yazykov - all this had a great influence on the development of domestic romanticism.

The early work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is also presented in this direction (for example, mystical stories from the “”) cycle. It is interesting that romanticism in Russia developed in parallel with classicism and sometimes these two directions did not contradict each other too sharply.

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