The character of the romantic hero in German literature. Who is a romantic hero and what is he like? Characteristic features of the style

Romantic hero in Russian literature

Plan

Introduction

Chapter 1. Russian romantic poet Vladimir Lensky

Chapter 2.M.Yu. Lermontov - “Russian Byron”

2.1 Lermontov's poetry

Conclusion

Describing his hero, Pushkin says that Lensky was brought up reading Schiller and Goethe (one can assume that the young poet had good taste if he chose such great teachers) and was a capable poet:

And muses of sublime art,

Lucky, he was not ashamed:

He proudly preserved in his songs

Always high feelings

Gusts of a virgin dream

And the beauty of important simplicity.

He sang love, obedient to love,

And his song was clear,

Like the thoughts of a simple-minded maiden,

Like a baby's dream, like the moon

In the deserts of the serene sky.

Let us note that the concepts of “simplicity” and “clarity” in the poetry of the romantic Lensky do not coincide with the requirement of simplicity and clarity characteristic of the realist Pushkin. For Lensky, they come from ignorance of life, from aspiration to the world of dreams; they are generated by “poetic prejudices of the soul.” Pushkin the realist speaks of simplicity and clarity in poetry, meaning such qualities of realistic literature that are determined by a sober look at life, the desire to understand its patterns and find clear forms of its embodiment in artistic images.

Pushkin points out one feature of the character of Lensky the poet: to express his feelings bookishly and artificially. Here Lensky came to the grave of Olga’s father:

Returned to his penates,

Vladimir Lensky visited

Neighbor's humble monument,

And he dedicated his sigh to the ashes;

And my heart was sad for a long time.

“Poor Yorick,” he said sadly, “

He held me in his arms.

How often did I play as a child?

His Ochakov medal!

He read Olga for me,

He said: Will I wait for the day?

And, full of sincere sadness,

Vladimir immediately drew

His funeral madrigal.

Naturalness and mannerism in the expression of feelings were surprisingly organically combined. On the one hand, Lensky devotes a sigh to the ashes instead of just sighing; and on the other hand, he behaves completely naturally: “And my heart was sad for a long time.” And this is suddenly followed by a quote from Shakespeare (“Poor Yorick...”), which is perceived as another “dedication” of the sigh to Larin. And then again a completely natural memory of the deceased.

Another example. Eve of the duel. Before the fight Olga Lensky. Her simple-minded question: “Why did you disappear so early?” - disarmed the young man and dramatically changed his state of mind.

Jealousy and annoyance disappeared

Before this clarity of sight...

Very natural behavior of a loving and jealous young man, who “was ignorant at heart.” The transition from doubts about Olga’s feelings to hope for her reciprocal feelings gives a new turn to Lensky’s thoughts: he convinces himself that he must protect Olga from the “corrupter” Onegin.

And again thoughtful, sad

Before my dear Olga,

Vladimir has no power

Remind her of yesterday;

He thinks: “I will be her savior.”

I will not tolerate the corrupter

Fire and sighs and praises

He tempted the young heart;

So that the despicable, poisonous worm

Sharpened a lily stalk;

To the two-morning flower

Withered still half-open.”

All this meant, friends:

I'm shooting with a friend.

The situation that led to a quarrel between two friends, as Lensky imagines it, is far from reality. In addition, being alone with his thoughts, the poet does not express them in ordinary words, but resorts to literary cliches (Onegin is a despicable, poisonous worm; Olga is a lily stalk, a two-morning flower), book words: savior, corrupter.

Pushkin also finds other techniques for depicting Lensky’s character. There is a slight irony here: the contrast between the excited state of the young man and Olga’s usual behavior upon meeting (“... as before, Olenka jumped from the porch to meet the poor singer); and a comic resolution of the severity of the situation by introducing a colloquial turn of phrase: “And silently he hung his nose”; and the author’s conclusion: “All this meant, friends: I’m shooting with a friend.” Pushkin translates the content of Lensky's monologue into ordinary, natural spoken language. The author's assessment of everything that is happening as absurdity has been introduced (a duel with a friend).

Lensky anticipates the tragic outcome of the fight for him. As the fateful hour approaches, the melancholy mood intensifies (“A heart full of melancholy sank within him; Saying goodbye to the young maiden, It seemed to be torn”). The first sentence of his elegy:

Where, where have you gone,

Are the golden days of my spring?

- a typically romantic motive of complaint about the early loss of youth.

The above examples indicate that Lensky was immediately conceived as a typical image of a Russian romantic poet at the turn of the 10-20s of the 19th century.

Lensky is depicted in only a few chapters of the novel, so analysis of this image makes it easier to discern that innovative feature of Pushkin’s realism, which is expressed in the ambiguity of the assessments given by the author to his heroes. In these assessments, in relation to the image of Lensky, sympathy, irony, sadness, joke, and sorrow are expressed. Considered separately, these assessments can lead to one-sided conclusions. Taken in conjunction, they help to more correctly understand the meaning of Lensky’s image and to more fully sense its vitality. There is no specificity in the image of the young poet. The further development of Lensky, if he had remained alive, did not exclude the possibility of his transformation into a romantic poet of the Decembrist orientation (he could “be hanged like Ryleev”) under appropriate circumstances.

Chapter 2. M.Yu. Lermontov - “Russian Byron”

2.1 Lermontov's poetry

Lermontov's poetry is inextricably linked with his personality; it is, in the full sense, a poetic autobiography. The main features of Lermontov's nature are an unusually developed self-awareness, efficiency and depth of the moral world, courageous idealism of life aspirations.

All these features were embodied in his works, from the earliest prose and poetic outpourings to mature poems and novels.

Even in his youthful “Tale”, Lermontov glorified will as a perfect, irresistible spiritual energy: “to want means to hate, love, regret, rejoice, live”...

Hence his fiery requests for strong open feelings, indignation at petty and cowardly passions; hence his demonism, which developed amid forced loneliness and contempt for the surrounding society. But demonism is by no means a negative mood: “I need to love,” the poet confessed, and Belinsky guessed this trait after the first serious conversation with Lermontov: “I was pleased to see in his rational, chilled and embittered view of life and people the seeds of deep faith in the dignity of both. That's what I told him; he smiled and said: God willing.”

Lermontov's demonism is the highest level of idealism, the same as the dreams of people of the 18th century about an all-perfect natural man, about freedom and the virtues of the golden age; this is the poetry of Rousseau and Schiller.

Such an ideal is the most daring, irreconcilable denial of reality - and young Lermontov would like to throw off the “educated chain” and be transported to the idyllic kingdom of primitive humanity. Hence the fanatical adoration of nature, the passionate penetration of its beauty and power. And all these features cannot be associated with any external influence; they existed in Lermontov even before he met Byron and merged only into a more powerful and mature harmony when he recognized this truly dear soul to him.

In contrast to the disappointment of Chateaubriand's Rene, rooted solely in egoism and self-adoration, Lermontov's disappointment is a militant protest against “baseness and strangeness”, in the name of sincere feeling and courageous thought.

Before us is poetry not of disappointment, but of sadness and anger. All Lermontov's heroes - Demon, Izmail-Bey, Mtsyri, Arseny - are filled with these feelings. The most real of them - Pechorin - embodies the most apparently everyday disappointment; but this is a completely different person than the “Moscow Childe Harold” - Onegin. He has many negative traits: selfishness, pettiness, pride, often heartlessness, but next to them is a sincere attitude towards himself. “If I am the cause of the misfortune of others, then I myself am no less unhappy” - absolutely truthful words from his mouth. More than once he yearns for a failed life; on other soil, in another air, this strong organism would undoubtedly have found a more honorable cause than persecuting the Grushnitskys.

The great and the insignificant coexist side by side in him, and if it were necessary to distinguish between the two, the great would have to be attributed to the individual, and the insignificant to society...

Lermontov's creativity gradually descended from behind the clouds and from the Caucasus mountains. It stopped at creating very real types and became public and national. In Russian literature of the 19th century there is not a single noble motif in which the untimely silenced voice of Lermontov is not heard: her sadness about the pitiful phenomena of Russian life is an echo of the life of a poet who sadly looked at his generation; in her indignation at the slavery of thought and the moral insignificance of her contemporaries, Lermontov’s demonic impulses are heard; her laughter at stupidity and vulgar comedy can already be heard in Pechorin’s destructive sarcasms against Grushnitsky.

2.2 Mtsyri as a romantic hero

The poem “Mtsyri” is the fruit of the active and intense creative work of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov. Even in his youth, the poet’s imagination painted the image of a young man, on the threshold of death, delivering an angry, protesting speech to his listener - a senior monk. In the poem “Confession” (1830, the action takes place in Spain), the hero, imprisoned, proclaims the right to love, which is higher than monastic regulations. His fascination with the Caucasus, his desire to depict situations in which the hero’s courageous character can be revealed most fully, led Lermontov, at the height of his talent, to create the poem “Mtsyri” (1840), repeating many poems from the previous stages of work on the same image.

Before "Mtsyri" the poem "The Fugitive" was written. In it, Lermontov develops the theme of punishment for cowardice and betrayal. Brief plot: a traitor to duty, forgetting about his homeland, Harun fled from the battlefield without taking revenge on his enemies for the death of his father and brothers. But neither a friend, nor a lover, nor a mother will accept the fugitive; even everyone will turn away from his corpse, and no one will take him to the cemetery. The poem called for heroism, for the fight for the freedom of the homeland. In the poem “Mtsyri” Lermontov develops the idea of ​​courage and protest inherent in “Confession” and the poem “The Fugitive”. In "Mtsyri" the poet almost completely excluded the love motif that played such a significant role in "Confession" (the love of the hero-monk for a nun). This motive was reflected only in a brief meeting between Mtsyri and a Georgian woman near a mountain stream.

The hero, defeating the involuntary impulse of the young heart, renounces personal happiness in the name of the ideal of freedom. The patriotic idea is combined in the poem with the theme of freedom, as in the works of the Decembrist poets. Lermontov does not share these concepts: love for the fatherland and thirst for will merge into one, but “fiery passion.” The monastery becomes a prison for Mtsyri, the cells seem stuffy to him, the walls seem gloomy and deaf, the monk guards seem cowardly and pitiful, and he himself becomes a slave and a prisoner. His desire to find out whether “we were born into this world for freedom or prison” is due to a passionate impulse for freedom. Short days for escape are his will. Only outside the monastery he lived, and did not vegetate. Only these days he calls bliss.

Mtsyri's freedom-loving patriotism is least of all similar to a dreamy love for his native beautiful landscapes and expensive graves, although the hero yearns for them too. It is precisely because he truly loves his homeland that he wants to fight for the freedom of his homeland. But at the same time, the poet with undoubted sympathy sings of the warlike dreams of the young man. The poem does not fully reveal the hero’s aspirations, but they are palpable in hints. Mtsyri remembers his father and acquaintances first of all as warriors; It’s no coincidence that he dreams of battles in which he... wins, it is not for nothing that his dreams draw him into the “wonderful world of worries and battles.” He is convinced that he could be “in the land of his fathers, not one of the last daredevils.” Although fate did not allow Mtsyri to experience the rapture of battle, with all his feelings he is a warrior. He was distinguished by his stern restraint even from his childhood. The young man, proud of this, says: “Do you remember, in my childhood I never knew tears.” He gives vent to tears only during his escape, because no one sees them.

The tragic loneliness in the monastery strengthened Mtsyri's will. It is no coincidence that he fled from the monastery on a stormy night: what frightened the fearful monks filled his heart with a feeling of brotherhood with the thunderstorm. Mtsyri's courage and fortitude are most clearly demonstrated in the battle with the leopard. He was not afraid of the grave, because he knew; returning to the monastery is a continuation of previous suffering. The tragic ending indicates that the approach of death does not weaken the spirit of the hero and the power of his freedom-loving patriotism. The old monk's admonitions do not make him repent. Even now he would “trade paradise and eternity” for a few minutes of life among his loved ones (poems that displeased the censorship). It was not his fault if he failed to join the ranks of the fighters for what he considered his sacred duty: the circumstances turned out to be insurmountable, and he “argued with fate” in vain. Defeated, he is not spiritually broken and remains a positive image of our literature, and his masculinity, integrity, heroism were a reproach to the fragmented hearts of fearful and inactive contemporaries from the noble society. The Caucasian landscape is introduced into the poem mainly as a means of revealing the image of the hero.

Despising his surroundings, Mtsyri feels only a kinship with nature. Imprisoned in a monastery, he compares himself to a pale, typical leaf growing between damp slabs. Having broken free, he, along with the sleepy flowers, raises his head when the east turns rich. A child of nature, he falls to the ground and, like a fairy-tale hero, learns the secret of bird songs, the mysteries of their prophetic chirping. He understands the dispute between the stream and the stones, the thought of separated rocks yearning to meet. His gaze is sharpened: he notices the shine of the snake’s scales and the shimmer of silver on the fur of the leopard, he sees the jagged teeth of distant mountains and a pale strip “between the dark sky and earth”, it seems to him that his “diligent gaze” could follow the flight of angels through the transparent blue of the sky . (The verse of the poem also corresponds to the character of the hero). Lermontov's poem continues the traditions of advanced romanticism; Mtsyri, full of fiery passions, gloomy and lonely, revealing his “soul” in a confessional story, is perceived as the hero of romantic poems.

However, Lermontov, who created “Mtsyri” in those years when the realistic novel “Hero of Our Time” was also being created, introduces features into his work that are not present in his earlier poems. If the past of the heroes of “Confession” and “Boyar Orsha” remains completely unknown, and we do not know the social conditions that shaped their characters, then the lines about Mtsyri’s unhappy childhood and fatherland help us better understand the hero’s experiences and thoughts. The very form of confession, characteristic of romantic poems, is associated with the desire to reveal deeper - to “tell the soul.” This psychologism of the work and the detailing of the hero’s experiences are natural for the poet, who at the same time was creating a socio-psychological novel. The combination of abundant metaphors of a romantic nature in the confession itself (images of fire, ardor) with the realistically accurate and poetically sparse speech of the introduction is expressive. (“Once upon a time a Russian general ... “)

The romantic poem testified to the growth of realistic tendencies in Lermontov’s work. Lermontov entered Russian literature as a successor to the traditions of Pushkin and the Decembrist poets, and at the same time as a new link in the chain of development of national culture. According to Belinsky, he introduced his own “Lermontov element” into national literature. Briefly explaining what should be included in this definition, the critic noted the “original living thought” in his poems as the first characteristic feature of the poet’s creative heritage. Belinsky repeated: “Everything breathes with original and creative thought.”

Conclusion

A romantic hero, no matter who he is - a rebel, a loner, a dreamer or a noble romantic - is always an exceptional person, with indomitable passions, he is always internally strong. This person has a pathetic, appealing speech.

We looked at two romantic heroes: Vladimir Lensky A. Pushkin and Mtsyri M. Lermontov. They are typical romantic heroes of their time.

Romantics are characterized by confusion and confusion in front of the world around them, and the tragedy of the individual’s fate. Romantic poets deny reality; the idea of ​​two worlds was present in all works. In addition, the romantic artist never tried to accurately reproduce reality, because it was more important for him to express his attitude towards it, moreover, to create his own, fictional image of the world, often based on the principle of contrast with the surrounding life, in order to convey through this fiction, through contrast to the reader both his ideal and his rejection of the world he denies.

The Romantics sought to free the individual from superstitions and power, because for them every person is unique and unrepeatable, they opposed vulgarity and evil. They are characterized by the depiction of strong passions, spiritualized, and healing nature, which was also not realistic: the landscape in their works is either very bright, or, on the contrary, thickening the colors, it is devoid of halftones. So they tried to better convey the feelings of the characters. Here are the names of the best romantic writers in the world: Novalis, Jean Paul, Hoffmann, W. Wordsworth, W. Scott, J. Byron, V. Hugo, A. Lamartine, A. Miskevich, E. Poe, G. Melville and our Russian poets - M.Yu. Lermontov, F.I. Tyutchev, A.S. Pushkin.

In our country, romanticism appeared at the beginning of the 11th century. The development of romanticism occurred inseparably from the general movement of European romantic literature, but the work of our romantics has its own specifics, explained by the peculiarities of national history. In Russia, important events that had a huge impact on the entire course of artistic development of our country were the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Decembrist uprising in December 1825.

The restless, rebellious nature of the romantic movement at that time could not have been better suited to the atmosphere of national upsurge, the thirst for renewal and transformation of life that awakened in Russian society, and in particular the romantic poets.

References

1. Belinsky V.G. Articles about Lermontov. - M., 1986. - P.85 - 126.

2. Belskaya L.L. The motive of loneliness in Russian poetry: From Lermontov to Mayakovsky. - M.: Russian speech, 2001. - 163 p. .

3. Blagoy D.D. Lermontov and Pushkin: Life and work of M.Yu. Lermontov. - M., 1941. - P.23-83

4.Russian literature of the 19th century: Large educational reference book. M.: Bustard, 2004. - 692 p.

5. Nightingale N. I am Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". - M.: Education, 2000. - 111 p.

6.Khalizev V.E. Theory of literature. - M., 2006. - 492 p.

7. Shevelev E. Restless genius. - St. Petersburg, 2003. - 183 p.

Solovey N.Ya Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". – M., 2000. – 45 p. Belinsky V.G. Articles about Lermontov. – M., 1986. – P. 85 – 126

Russian literature of the 19th century: Large educational reference book. M.: Bustard, 2004. – P. 325

Romantic hero

Romantic hero- one of the artistic images of romanticism literature. A romantic is an exceptional and often mysterious person who usually lives in exceptional circumstances. The collision of external events is transferred to the inner world of the hero, in whose soul there is a struggle of contradictions. As a result of this reproduction of character, romanticism extremely highly raised the value of the individual, inexhaustible in its spiritual depths, revealing its unique inner world. Man in romantic works is also embodied through contrast, antithesis: on the one hand, he is understood as the crown of creation, and on the other, as a weak-willed toy in the hands of fate, forces unknown and beyond his control, playing with his feelings. Therefore, he often turns into a victim of his own passions.

Signs of a Romantic Hero

1. An exceptional hero in exceptional circumstances
2. Reality is actively being recreated in accordance with the ideal
3. Independence
4. The insolubility of the conflict between the hero and society
5. Abstract perception of time
6. Two or three distinct character traits

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See what “Romantic hero” is in other dictionaries:

romantic hero- see hero of the work + romanticism...

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hero- 1. A person who has accomplished military or labor feats. Selfless, fearless, brilliant (obsolete), daring (obsolete poet.), valiant, glorious (obsolete), famous, famous, true, legendary, courageous, folk, real, ... ... Dictionary of epithets

Grushnitsky ("Hero of Our Time")- See also Juncker. He's only been in the service for a year. He was in an active detachment and was wounded in the leg. Out of a special kind of dandyishness, he wears a thick soldier’s overcoat. He has a St. George's cross. He is well built, dark and black-haired; he looks like he can... Dictionary of literary types

- - born on May 26, 1799 in Moscow, on Nemetskaya Street in Skvortsov’s house; died January 29, 1837 in St. Petersburg. On his father’s side, Pushkin belonged to an old noble family, descended, according to genealogies, from a descendant “from ... ... Large biographical encyclopedia

Pushkin A. S. Pushkin. Pushkin in the history of Russian literature. Pushkin studies. Bibliography. PUSHKIN Alexander Sergeevich (1799 1837) the greatest Russian poet. R. June 6 (according to the old style May 26) 1799. P.’s family came from a gradually impoverished old ... ... Literary encyclopedia

1. The hero of A.P. Sumarokov’s tragedy “Dimitri the Pretender” (1771). The historical prototype is False Dmitry I, also probably Yuri (Grigory) Otrepiev. In 1601, the Pretender appeared in Poland under the name of Dimitri, the son of Ivan IV the Terrible; in the summer of 1604 with... ... Literary heroes

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- (French Jean Valejean) the hero of V. Hugo’s novel “Les Miserables” (1862). One of the prototypes of the hero was the convict Pierre Morin, who in 1801 was sentenced to five years of hard labor for a stolen piece of bread. Only one person, the bishop of the city of Digne, Monsignor de... ... Literary heroes

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• M. Lermontov. Complete Works, M. Lermontov. Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov is a younger contemporary of Pushkin and the second greatest figure after him in Russian poetry of the 19th century. In 2014, the 200th anniversary of the poet’s birth is celebrated. It was his destiny...

The concept of "romanticism" is often used as a synonym for the concept of "romance". This means a tendency to look at the world through rose-colored glasses and an active life position. Or they associate this concept with love and any actions for the sake of their loved one. But romanticism has several meanings. The article will discuss the narrower understanding that is used for the literary term, and the main character traits of the romantic hero.

Characteristic features of the style

Romanticism is a movement in literature that arose in Russia at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th century. This style proclaims the cult of nature and natural human feelings. New characteristic features of romantic literature are freedom of expression, the value of individualism and the original character traits of the main character. Representatives of the movement abandoned rationalism and the primacy of the mind, which were characteristic of the Enlightenment, and put the emotional and spiritual aspects of man at the forefront.

In their works, the authors depict not the real world, which was too vulgar and base for them, but the inner universe of the character. And through the prism of his feelings and emotions, the outlines of the real world are visible, the laws and thoughts of which he refuses to obey.

Main conflict

The central conflict of all works written in the era of romanticism is the conflict between the individual and society as a whole. Here the main character goes against the established rules in his environment. Moreover, the motives for such behavior can be different - actions can either be for the benefit of society or have a selfish plan. In this case, as a rule, the hero loses this fight, and the work ends with his death.

A romantic is a special and in most cases very mysterious person who tries to resist the power of nature or society. At the same time, the conflict develops into an internal struggle of contradictions that occurs in the soul of the main character. In other words, the central character is built on antitheses.

Although in this literary genre the individuality of the main character is valued, literary scholars have identified which features of romantic heroes are the main ones. But, even despite the similarities, each character is unique in its own way, since they are only general criteria for identifying a style.

Ideals of society

The main feature of a romantic hero is that he does not accept the generally known ideals of society. The main character has his own ideas about the values ​​of life, which he tries to defend. He seems to challenge the entire world around him, and not an individual person or group of people. Here we are talking about the ideological confrontation of one person against the whole world.

Moreover, in his rebellion, the main character chooses one of two extremes. Or these are unattainable, highly spiritual goals, and the character is trying to become equal to the Creator himself. In another case, the hero indulges in all sorts of sins, without feeling the extent of his moral fall into the abyss.

Bright personality

If one person is able to withstand the whole world, then it is as large-scale and complex as the whole world. The main character of romantic literature always stands out in society both externally and internally. In the soul of the character there is a constant conflict between the stereotypes already laid down by society and his own views and ideas.

Loneliness

One of the saddest traits of a romantic hero is his tragic loneliness. Since the character is opposed to the whole world, he remains completely alone. There is no person who would understand him. Therefore, he either himself flees from the society he hates, or he himself becomes an exile. Otherwise, the romantic hero would no longer be like that. Therefore, romantic writers focus all their attention on the psychological portrait of the central character.

Either the past or the future

The traits of a romantic hero do not allow him to live in the present. The character is trying to find his ideals in the past, when religious feeling was strong in the hearts of people. Or he consoles himself with happy utopias that supposedly await him in the future. But in any case, the main character is not satisfied with the era of dull bourgeois reality.

Individualism

As already mentioned, the hallmark of the romantic hero is his individualism. But it’s not easy to be “different from others.” This is a fundamental difference from all the people who surround the main character. Moreover, if a character chooses a sinful path, then he realizes that he is different from others. And this difference is taken to the extreme - the cult of personality of the protagonist, where all actions have an exclusively selfish motive.

The era of romanticism in Russia

The founder of Russian romanticism is considered to be the poet Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. He creates several ballads and poems (“Ondine”, “The Sleeping Princess” and so on), in which there is a deep philosophical meaning and a desire for moral ideals. His works are imbued with his own experiences and reflections.

Then Zhukovsky was replaced by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol and Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov. They leave the imprint of an ideological crisis on the public consciousness, which is under the impression of the failure of the Decembrist uprising. For this reason, the creativity of these people is described as disappointment in real life and an attempt to escape into their fictional world, filled with beauty and harmony. The main characters of their works lose interest in earthly life and come into conflict with the outside world.

One of the features of romanticism is its appeal to the history of the people and their folklore. This is most clearly seen in the work “Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the young guardsman and the daring merchant Kalashnikov” and a cycle of poems and poems dedicated to the Caucasus. Lermontov perceived it as the homeland of free and proud people. They opposed a slave country that was under the rule of Nicholas I.

The early works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin are also imbued with the idea of ​​romanticism. An example would be “Eugene Onegin” or “The Queen of Spades”.

Who is a romantic hero and what is he like?

This is an individualist. A superman who has lived through two stages: before colliding with reality, he lives in a “pink” state, he is overcome by the desire for achievement, to change the world; after colliding with reality, he continues to consider this world both vulgar and boring, but he does not become a skeptic or a pessimist. With a clear understanding that nothing can be changed, the desire for achievement degenerates into a desire for danger.

The Romantics could attach eternal lasting value to every little thing, every concrete fact, every single thing. Joseph de Maistre calls this “the paths of Providence,” Germaine de Stael calls it “the fruitful womb of the immortal universe.” Chateaubriand in The Genius of Christianity, in a book dedicated to history, directly points to God as the beginning of historical time. Society appears as an unshakable connection, “a thread of life that connects us with our ancestors and which we must extend to our descendants.” Only a person’s heart, and not his mind, can understand and hear the voice of the Creator, through the beauty of nature, through deep feelings. Nature is divine, a source of harmony and creativity, and its metaphors are often carried into the political lexicon by romantics. For romantics, a tree becomes a symbol of clan, spontaneous development, perception of the juices of the native land, a symbol of national unity. The more innocent and sensitive a person’s nature, the easier he hears the voice of God. A child, a woman, a noble youth, more often than others, perceives the immortality of the soul and the value of eternal life. The thirst for bliss among the romantics is not limited to the idealistic desire for the Kingdom of God after death.

In addition to mystical love for God, a person needs real, earthly love. Unable to possess the object of his passion, the romantic hero became an eternal martyr, doomed to wait for a meeting with his beloved in the afterlife, “for great love is worthy of immortality when it costs a person his life.”

The problem of personality development and education occupies a special place in the work of romantics. Childhood is devoid of laws; its instantaneous impulses violate public morality, obeying its own rules of children's play. In an adult, similar reactions lead to death, to the condemnation of the soul. In search of the heavenly kingdom, a person must comprehend the laws of duty and morality, only then can he hope for eternal life. Since duty is dictated to romantics by their desire to gain eternal life, the fulfillment of duty gives personal happiness in its deepest and most powerful manifestation. To moral duty is added the duty of deep feelings and sublime interests. Without mixing the merits of different sexes, romantics advocate equality of spiritual development between men and women. In the same way, civic duty is dictated by love for God and his institutions. Personal aspiration finds its completion in a common cause, in the aspiration of the whole nation, all humanity, the whole world.

Every culture has had its own romantic hero, but Byron gave the typical representation of the romantic hero in his work "Charold Harold". He put on the mask of his hero (suggests that there is no distance between the hero and the author) and managed to correspond to the romantic canon.

All romantic works are distinguished by characteristic features:

Firstly, in every romantic work there is no distance between the hero and the author.

Secondly, the author does not judge the hero, but even if something bad is said about him, the plot is structured in such a way that the hero is not to blame. The plot in a romantic work is usually romantic. Romantics also build a special relationship with nature; they like storms, thunderstorms, and disasters.

The basis of romanticism as a literary movement is the idea of ​​the superiority of spirit over matter, the idealization of everything mental: romantic writers believed that the spiritual principle, also called truly human, must necessarily be higher and more worthy than the world around it, than the tangible. The society around the hero is usually considered to be the same “matter.”

The main conflict of the romantic hero

Thus, the main conflict of romanticism is the so-called. conflict of “personality and society”: the romantic hero, as a rule, is lonely and misunderstood, he considers himself superior to the people around him who do not value him. From the classical image of the romantic hero, two very important archetypes of world literature were later formed, the superman and the superfluous man (often the first image smoothly turns into the second).

Romantic literature does not have clear genre boundaries; in the romantic spirit one can maintain a ballad (Zhukovsky), a poem (Lermontov, Byron) and a novel (Pushkin, Lermontov). The main thing in romanticism is not the form, but the mood.

However, if we remember that romanticism is traditionally divided into two directions: “mystical” German, originating from Schiller, and freedom-loving English, the founder of which was Byron, we can trace its main genre features.

Features of the genres of romantic literature

Mystical romanticism is often characterized by a genre ballads, which allows you to fill the work with various “otherworldly” elements that seem to be on the verge of life and death. It is this genre that Zhukovsky uses: his ballads “Svetlana” and “Lyudmila” are largely dedicated to the dreams of the heroines, in which they imagine death.

Another genre used for both mystical and freedom-loving romanticism poem. The main romantic writer of poems was Byron. In Russia, his traditions were continued by Pushkin’s poems “Prisoner of the Caucasus” and “Gypsies,” which are usually called Byronic, and Lermontov’s poems “Mtsyri” and “Demon.” There are many possible assumptions in a poem, which is why this genre is especially convenient.

Pushkin and Lermontov also offer the public a genre novel, maintained in the traditions of freedom-loving romanticism. Their main characters, Onegin and Pechorin, are ideal romantic heroes. .

Both of them are smart and talented, both consider themselves superior to the surrounding society - this is the image of a superman. The goal of such a hero’s life is not the accumulation of material wealth, but serving the high ideals of humanism and developing one’s capabilities.

However, society does not accept them either, they turn out to be unnecessary and misunderstood in the false and deceitful high society, they have nowhere to realize their abilities, thus the tragic romantic hero gradually becomes a “superfluous person.”