Testing and measuring materials. Test on the works of A. Ostrovsky. A. N. Ostrovsky reveals the social-typical and individual properties of the characters of a certain social environment, which one - Document Boris and Tikhon belong to the same class
A.N. Ostrovsky was born on March 31 (April 12), 1823 in Moscow, in the family of a member of the clergy, an official, and later a solicitor of the Moscow Commercial Court. The Ostrovsky family lived in Zamoskvorechye, a merchant and bourgeois district of old Moscow. By nature, the playwright was a homebody: he lived almost his entire life in Moscow, in the Yauza part, regularly traveling, except for several trips around Russia and abroad, only to the Shchelykovo estate in the Kostroma province. Here he died on June 2 (14), 1886, in the midst of work on a translation of Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra.
In the early 1840s. Ostrovsky studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, but did not complete the course, entering the service in the office of the Moscow Conscientious Court in 1843. Two years later he was transferred to the Moscow Commercial Court, where he served until 1851. Legal practice gave the future writer extensive and varied material. Almost all of his first plays about modernity developed or outlined crime plots. Ostrovsky wrote his first story at the age of 20, his first play at the age of 24. After 1851, his life was connected with literature and theater. Its main events were litigation with censorship, praise and scolding from critics, premieres, and disputes between actors over roles in plays.
For almost 40 years creative activity Ostrovsky created a rich repertoire: about 50 original plays, several plays written in collaboration. He was also involved in translations and adaptations of plays by other authors. All this constitutes the “Ostrovsky theater” - this is how the scale of what was created by playwright I.A. Goncharov was defined.
Ostrovsky passionately loved theater, considering it the most democratic and effective form of art. Among the classics of Russian literature, he was the first and remains the only writer who devoted himself entirely to drama. All the plays he created were not “plays for reading” - they were written for the theater. For Ostrovsky, stagecraft is an immutable law of dramaturgy, therefore his works belong equally to two worlds: the world of literature and the world of theater.
Ostrovsky's plays were published in magazines almost simultaneously with their theatrical performances and were perceived as bright phenomena of both literary and theatrical life. In the 1860s. they aroused the same lively public interest as the novels of Turgenev, Goncharov and Dostoevsky. Ostrovsky made dramaturgy “real” literature. Before him, in the repertoire of Russian theaters there were only a few plays that seemed to have descended onto the stage from the heights of literature and remained alone (“Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedov, “The Inspector General” and “Marriage” by N.V. Gogol). The theatrical repertoire was filled either with translations or works that did not have any noticeable literary merit.
In the 1850s -1860s. the dreams of Russian writers that theater should become a powerful educational force, a means of shaping public opinion, found real ground. Drama has a wider audience. The circle of literate people has expanded - both readers and those for whom serious reading was not yet accessible, but theater is accessible and understandable. A new social stratum was being formed - the common intelligentsia, which showed increased interest in the theater. The new public, democratic and motley in comparison with the first public half of the 19th century century, gave a “social order” for social and everyday drama from Russian life.
The uniqueness of Ostrovsky's position as a playwright is that, by creating plays based on new material, he not only satisfied the expectations of new viewers, but also fought for the democratization of the theater: after all, theater is the most popular of spectacles - in the 1860s. still remained elitist; there was no cheap public theater yet. The repertoire of the theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg depended on officials of the Directorate of Imperial Theaters. Ostrovsky, reforming Russian drama, also reformed the theater. He wanted to see not only the intelligentsia and enlightened merchants as spectators for his plays, but also “owners of craft establishments” and “craftsmen.” Ostrovsky's brainchild was the Moscow Maly Theater, which embodied his dream of a new theater for a democratic audience.
There are four periods in Ostrovsky’s creative development:
1) First period (1847-1851)- the time of the first literary experiments. Ostrovsky began quite in the spirit of the times - with narrative prose. In his essays on the life and customs of Zamoskvorechye, the debutant relied on Gogol’s traditions and creative experience « natural school» 1840s During these years the first dramatic works, including the comedy “Bankrut” (“We’ll count our own people!”), which became the main work of the early period.
2) Second period (1852-1855) are called “Moskvityanin”, since during these years Ostrovsky became close to the young employees of the Moskvityanin magazine: A.A. Grigoriev, T.I. Filippov, B.N. Almazov and E.N. Edelson. The playwright supported the ideological program of the “young editorial staff,” which sought to make the magazine an organ of a new trend social thought- “soilism”. During this period, only three plays were written: “Don’t get into your own sleigh,” “Poverty is not a vice,” and “Don’t live the way you want.”
3) Third period (1856-1860) marked by Ostrovsky's refusal to search for positive principles in the life of the patriarchal merchants (this was typical for plays written in the first half of the 1850s). The playwright, who was sensitive to changes in the social and ideological life of Russia, became close to the leaders of the common democracy - the employees of the Sovremennik magazine. The creative outcome of this period were the plays “At Someone Else’s Feast there’s a Hangover”, “ Plum” and “Thunderstorm”, “the most decisive”, according to N.A. Dobrolyubov’s definition, is Ostrovsky’s work.
4) Fourth period (1861-1886)- the longest period of Ostrovsky’s creative activity. The genre range has expanded, the poetics of his works have become more diverse. Over the course of twenty years, plays have been created that can be divided into several genre and thematic groups: 1) comedies from merchant life (“Maslenitsa is not for everyone”, “The truth is good, but happiness is better”, “The heart is not a stone”), 2) satirical comedies (“Simplicity is enough for every wise man”, “Warm Heart”, “Mad Money”, “Wolves and Sheep”, “Forest”), 3) plays that Ostrovsky himself called “pictures of Moscow life” and “scenes from the life of the outback ": they are united by the theme of "little people" (" old friend better than the new two”, “Hard Days”, “Jokers” and the trilogy about Balzaminov), 4) historical chronicle plays (“Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, “Tushino”, etc.), and, finally, 5) psychological dramas (“Dowry”, “The Last Victim”, etc.). The fairy-tale play “The Snow Maiden” stands apart.
The origins of Ostrovsky’s creativity are in the “natural school” of the 1840s, although the Moscow writer was not organizationally connected with the creative community of young St. Petersburg realists. Starting with prose, Ostrovsky quickly realized that his true calling was drama. Already early prose experiments are “stage”, despite detailed descriptions life and morals, characteristic of the essays of the “natural school”. For example, the basis of the first essay, “The Tale of How the Quarterly Warden Started to Dance, or One Step from the Great to the Ridiculous” (1843), is an anecdotal scene with a completely complete plot.
The text of this essay was used in the first published work - “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” (published in 1847 in the newspaper “Moscow City Listok”). It was in “Notes...” that Ostrovsky, called by his contemporaries “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye,” discovered a “country” previously unknown in literature, inhabited by merchants, petty bourgeois and petty officials. “Until now, only the position and name of this country were known,” the writer noted, “as for its inhabitants, that is, their way of life, language, morals, customs, degree of education, all this was covered in the darkness of the unknown.” An excellent knowledge of life material helped Ostrovsky the prose writer to create a detailed study of merchant life and history, which preceded his first plays about the merchants. In “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” there are two characteristics Ostrovsky’s creativity: attention to the everyday environment that determines the life and psychology of characters “written from life”, and the special, dramatic nature of the depiction of everyday life. The writer was able to see in ordinary everyday stories potential, unused material for a playwright. The essays about the life of Zamoskvorechye were followed by the first plays.
Ostrovsky considered the most memorable day in his life to be February 14, 1847: on this day, at an evening with the famous Slavophile Professor S.P. Shevyrev, he read his first short play, “Family Picture.” But the real debut of the young playwright is the comedy “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People!” (the original title was “The Bankrupt”), on which he worked from 1846 to 1849. Theater censorship immediately banned the play, but, like “Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedov, it immediately became a major literary event and was a success read in Moscow houses in the winter of 1849/50. by the author himself and major actors - P.M. Sadovsky and M.S. Shchepkin. In 1850, the comedy was published by the magazine “Moskvityanin”, but only in 1861 was it staged on stage.
The enthusiastic reception of the first comedy from merchant life was caused not only by the fact that Ostrovsky, “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye,” used completely new material, but also his amazing maturity dramatic skill. Having inherited the traditions of Gogol the comedian, the playwright at the same time clearly defined his view on the principles of depicting characters and the plot and compositional embodiment of everyday material. The Gogolian tradition is felt in the very nature of the conflict: the fraud of the merchant Bolshov is a product of merchant life, proprietary morality and the psychology of rogue heroes. Bolynov declares himself bankrupt, but this is a false bankruptcy, the result of his conspiracy with the clerk Podkhalyuzin. The deal ended unexpectedly: the owner, who hoped to increase his capital, was deceived by the clerk, who turned out to be an even greater swindler. As a result, Podkhalyuzin received both the hand of the merchant’s daughter Lipochka and capital. The Gogolian beginning is palpable in homogeneity comic world plays: none goodies, as in Gogol’s comedies, the only such “hero” can be called laughter.
The main difference between Ostrovsky's comedy and the plays of his great predecessor is the role of comedic intrigue and the attitude of the characters to it. In “Our People...” there are characters and entire scenes that are not only unnecessary for the development of the plot, but, on the contrary, slow it down. However, these scenes are no less important for understanding the work than the intrigue based on Bolshov’s alleged bankruptcy. They are necessary in order to more fully describe the life and customs of the merchants, the conditions in which the main action takes place. For the first time, Ostrovsky uses a technique that is repeated in almost all of his plays, including “The Thunderstorm”, “The Forest” and “The Dowry” - an extended slow-motion exposition. Some characters are not introduced at all to complicate the conflict. These “personalities of the situation” (in the play “Our People - Let’s Be Numbered!” - the matchmaker and Tishka) are interesting in themselves, as representatives of the everyday environment, morals and customs. Their artistic function similar to the function of household items in narrative works: they complement the image merchant world small but bright, colorful touches.
The everyday, familiar things interest Ostrovsky the playwright no less than something out of the ordinary, for example, the scam of Bolshov and Podkhalyuzin. He finds effective method dramatic depiction of everyday life, making maximum use of the possibilities of the word heard from the stage. Conversations between mother and daughter about outfits and grooms, bickering between them, and the grumbling of the old nanny perfectly convey the usual atmosphere merchant family, the range of interests and dreams of these people. Oral speech characters became an exact “mirror” of everyday life and morals.
It is the heroes’ conversations on everyday topics, as if “excluded” from the plot action, that play an exceptional role in all Ostrovsky’s plays: interrupting the plot, retreating from it, they immerse the reader and viewer in the world of ordinary human relations, where the need for verbal communication is no less important than the need for food, food and clothing. Both in the first comedy and in subsequent plays, Ostrovsky often deliberately slows down the development of events, considering it necessary to show what the characters are thinking about, in what verbal form their thoughts are expressed. For the first time in Russian drama, dialogues between characters became an important means of characterization.
Some critics considered the extensive use of everyday details to be a violation of stage laws. The only justification, in their opinion, could be that the aspiring playwright was the pioneer of merchant life. But this “violation” became the law of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy: already in the first comedy he combined the severity of intrigue with numerous everyday details and not only did not abandon this principle subsequently, but also developed it, achieving maximum aesthetic impact both components of the play - a dynamic plot and static “conversational” scenes.
“Our people - we will be numbered!” - an accusatory comedy, a satire on morals. However, in the early 1850s. the playwright came to the idea of the need to abandon criticism of the merchants, from the “accusatory direction.” In his opinion, the outlook on life expressed in the first comedy was “young and too tough.” Now he justifies a different approach: a Russian person should rejoice when he sees himself on stage, and not be sad. “There will be correctors even without us,” Ostrovsky emphasized in one of his letters. - In order to have the right to correct the people without offending them, you need to show them that you know the good in them; This is what I’m doing now, combining the sublime with the comic.” “High,” in his view, are folk ideals, truths acquired by the Russian people over many centuries of spiritual development.
The new concept of creativity brought Ostrovsky closer to the young employees of the Moskvityanin magazine (published by the famous historian M.P. Pogodin). In the works of the writer and critic A.A. Grigoriev, the concept of “soilism”, an influential ideological movement of the 1850s - 1860s, was formed. The basis of “pochvennichestvo” is attention to the spiritual traditions of the Russian people, to traditional forms of life and culture. The merchants were of particular interest to the “young editors” of “Moskvityanin”: after all, this class was always financially independent and did not experience the pernicious influence of serfdom, which the “soil people” considered the tragedy of the Russian people. It was in the merchant environment, in the opinion of the “Muscovites”, that one should look for genuine moral ideals, developed by the Russian people, not distorted by slavery, like the serf peasantry, and separation from the people's “soil,” like the nobility. In the first half of the 1850s. Ostrovsky was strongly influenced by these ideas. New friends, especially A.A. Grigoriev, pushed him to express the “indigenous Russian view” in his plays about the merchants.
In the plays of the “Moscowite” period of creativity - “Don’t Get in Your Sleigh,” “Poverty is not a Vice” and “Don’t Live the Way You Want” - Ostrovsky’s critical attitude towards the merchants did not disappear, but was greatly softened. A new ideological trend emerged: the playwright portrayed the morals of modern merchants as a historically changeable phenomenon, trying to find out what was preserved in this environment from the rich spiritual experience accumulated by the Russian people over the centuries, and what was deformed or disappeared.
One of the peaks of Ostrovsky’s creativity is the comedy “Poverty is not a vice,” the plot of which is based on a family conflict. Gordey Tortsov, an imperious tyrant merchant, the predecessor of Dikiy from Groza, dreams of marrying his daughter Lyuba to African Korshunov, a merchant of a new, “European” formation. But her heart belongs to someone else - the poor clerk Mitya. Gordey's brother, Lyubim Tortsov, helps break up the marriage with Korshunov, and the tyrant father, in a fit of anger, threatens to give his rebellious daughter in marriage to the first person he meets. By a lucky coincidence, it turned out to be Mitya. A successful comedy plot for Ostrovsky is only an event “shell” that helps to understand true meaning happening: collision folk culture with the “semi-culture” that developed among the merchants under the influence of fashion “for Europe.” The exponent of merchant false culture in the play is Korshunov, the defender of the patriarchal, “soil” principle - We love Tortsov, central character plays.
We love Tortsov - a drunkard who protects moral values, - attracts the viewer with its buffoonery and foolishness. The entire course of events in the play depends on him; he helps everyone, including promoting the moral “recovery” of his tyrant brother. Ostrovsky showed him as the most “Russian” of all the characters. He has no pretensions to education, like Gordey, he simply thinks sensibly and acts according to his conscience. From the author’s point of view, this is quite enough to stand out from the merchant environment, to become “our man on the stage.”
The writer himself believed that a noble impulse is capable of revealing simple and clear thoughts in every person. moral qualities: conscience and kindness. Immorality and cruelty modern society he contrasted Russian “patriarchal” morality, therefore the world of plays of the “Muscovite” period, despite the usual precision of everyday “instrumentation” for Ostrovsky, is largely conventional and even utopian. The main achievement of the playwright was his version of the positive folk character. The image of the drunken herald of truth, Lyubim Tortsov, was by no means created according to tired stencils. This is not an illustration for Grigoriev’s articles, but a full-blooded artistic image It’s no wonder that the role of Lyubim Tortsov attracted actors of many generations.
In the second half of the 1850s. Ostrovsky again and again turns to the theme of the merchants, but his attitude towards this class has changed. He took a step back from the “Muscovite” ideas, returning to sharp criticism the inertia of the merchant environment. The vivid image of the tyrant merchant Tit Titych (“Kita Kitych”) Bruskov, whose name has become a household name, was created in the satirical comedy “There’s a Hangover at Someone Else’s Feast” (1856). However, Ostrovsky did not limit himself to “satire on faces.” His generalizations became broader: the play depicts a way of life that fiercely resists everything new. This, according to the critic N.A. Dobrolyubov, is a “dark kingdom” that lives according to its own cruel laws. Hypocritically defending patriarchy, tyrants defend their right to unlimited arbitrariness.
The thematic range of Ostrovsky's plays expanded, and representatives of other classes and social groups came into his field of vision. In the comedy “Profitable Place” (1857), he first addressed one of the favorite themes of Russian comedians - satirical image officialdom, and in the comedy “The Kindergarten” (1858) he discovered the life of a landowner. In both works, parallels with “merchant” plays are easily visible. Thus, the hero of “A Profitable Place” Zhadov, an exposer of the corruption of officials, is typologically close to the truth-seeker Lyubim Tortsov, and the characters of “The Pupil” - the tyrant landowner Ulanbekova and her victim, the pupil Nadya - resemble the characters early plays Ostrovsky and the tragedy “The Thunderstorm” written a year later: Kabanikha and Katerina.
Summing up the results of the first decade of Ostrovsky’s work, A.A. Grigoriev, who argued with Dobrolyubov’s interpretation of Ostrovsky as an exposer of tyrants and the “dark kingdom,” wrote: “The name for this writer, for such a great writer, despite his shortcomings, is not a satirist, but national poet. The word for clues to his activities is not “tyranny,” but “nationality.” Only this word can be the key to understanding his works. Anything else - more or less narrow, more or less theoretical, arbitrary - restricts the circle of his creativity.”
“The Thunderstorm” (1859), which followed three accusatory comedies, became the pinnacle of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy pre-reform period. Turning again to the depiction of the merchants, the writer created the first and only social tragedy in his work.
Ostrovsky's works of the 1860s-1880s. exceptionally diverse, although in his worldview aesthetic views there were no such sharp fluctuations as before 1861. Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy amazes with the Shakespearean breadth of problems and the classical perfection of artistic forms. One can note two main trends that clearly manifested themselves in his plays: the strengthening of the tragic sound of comedy plots traditional for the writer and the growth of the psychological content of conflicts and characters. "Ostrovsky Theater", declared "outdated", "conservative" playwrights " new wave"in the 1890s-1900s, in fact, developed precisely those trends that became leading in the theater of the early 20th century. It was not at all accidental that, starting with “The Thunderstorm,” Ostrovsky’s everyday and morally descriptive plays were rich in philosophical and psychological symbols. The playwright acutely felt the insufficiency of stage “everyday” realism. Without violating the natural laws of the stage, maintaining a distance between actors and spectators is the basis classical theater, in their best plays he approached the philosophical and tragic sound of the novels created in the 1860s-1870s. his contemporaries Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, to the wisdom and organic strength of the artist, of which Shakespeare was a model for him.
Ostrovsky's innovative aspirations are especially noticeable in his satirical comedies and psychological dramas. Four comedies about the life of the post-reform nobility - "Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man", "Wolves and Sheep", "Mad Money" and "Forest" - are connected by a common theme. The subject of satirical ridicule in them is the uncontrollable thirst for profit, which also gripped the nobles, who had lost their point of support - the forced labor of serfs and " crazy money", and people of a new formation, businessmen amassing their capital on the ruins of collapsed serfdom.
Created in comedies vivid images « business people”, for whom “money has no smell”, and wealth becomes the only life goal. In the play “Every Wise Man Has Enough Simplicity” (1868), such a person appeared as the impoverished nobleman Glumov, who traditionally dreams of receiving an inheritance, a rich bride and a career. His cynicism and business acumen do not contradict the way of life of the old noble bureaucracy: he himself is an ugly product of this environment. Glumov is smart in comparison with those to whom he is forced to bend - Mamaev and Krutitsky, he is not averse to mocking their stupidity and swagger, he is able to see himself from the outside. “I’m smart, angry, envious,” Glumov confesses. He does not seek the truth, but simply benefits from the stupidity of others. Ostrovsky shows a new social phenomenon characteristic of post-reform Russia: it is not the “moderation and accuracy” of the Molchalins that lead to “mad money,” but the caustic mind and talent of the Chatskys.
In the comedy “Mad Money” (1870), Ostrovsky continued his “Moscow chronicle”. Yegor Glumov reappeared in it with his epigrams “for all of Moscow,” as well as a kaleidoscope of satirical Moscow types: socialites who have lived through several fortunes, ladies ready to become kept servants of “millionaires,” lovers of free booze, idle talkers and voluptuous people. The playwright created a satirical portrait of a way of life in which honor and integrity are replaced by an unbridled desire for money. Money determines everything: the actions and behavior of the characters, their ideals and psychology. The central character of the play is Lydia Cheboksarova, who puts both her beauty and her love up for sale. She doesn’t care who to be - a wife or a kept woman. The main thing is to choose a thicker money bag: after all, in her opinion, “you can’t live without gold.” Lydia’s corrupt love in “Mad Money” is the same means for obtaining money as Glumov’s mind in the play “Simplicity is enough for every wise man.” But the cynical heroine, who chooses a richer victim, herself finds herself in a stupid position: she marries Vasilkov, seduced by gossip about his gold mines, is deceived by Telyatev, whose fortune is just a myth, does not disdain the caresses of “dad” Kuchumov, knocking him out of money. The only antipode to the “mad money” catchers in the play is the “noble” businessman Vasilkov, who talks about “smart” money, obtained by honest labor, saved and wisely spent. This hero is guessed by Ostrovsky new type"honest" bourgeois.
The comedy “The Forest” (1871) is dedicated to the popular in Russian literature of the 1870s. the theme of the extinction of the “noble nests” in which they lived “ last mohicans"of the old Russian nobility.
The image of the “forest” is one of Ostrovsky’s most capacious symbolic images. The forest is not only the background against which events unfold in the estate, located five miles from the district town. This is the object of a deal between the elderly lady Gurmyzhskaya and the merchant Vosmibratov, who is buying up their ancestral lands from impoverished nobles. The forest is a symbol of the spiritual wilderness: the forest estate “Penki” almost does not reach the revival of the capitals, “age-old silence” still reigns here. Psychological significance The symbol becomes clear if we correlate the “forest” with the “wilds” of rude feelings and immoral actions of the inhabitants of the “noble forest”, through which nobility, chivalry, and humanity cannot break through. “... - And really, brother Arkady, how did we get into this forest, into this dense damp forest? - says the tragedian Neschastlivtsev at the end of the play, - Why, brother, did we frighten away the owls and eagle owls? Why bother them? Let them live as they want! Everything is fine here, brother, as it should be in the forest. Old women marry high school students, young girls drown themselves from bitter life with their relatives: forest, brother” (D. 5, Rev. IX).
"Forest" - satirical comedy. The comedy manifests itself in a variety of plot situations and turns of action. The playwright created, for example, a small but very topical social cartoon: almost Gogolian characters discuss the topic of the activities of zemstvos, popular in post-reform times - the gloomy misanthrope landowner Bodaev, reminiscent of Sobakevich, and Milonov, as beautiful-hearted as Manilov. However, the main object of Ostrovsky’s satire is the life and customs of the “noble forest.” The play uses a proven plot device - the story of the poor pupil Aksyusha, who is oppressed and humiliated by the hypocritical “benefactor” Gurmyzhskaya. She constantly talks about her widowhood and purity, although in fact she is vicious, voluptuous, and vain. The contradictions between Gurmyzhskaya’s claims and the true essence of her character are the source of unexpected comic situations.
In the first act, Gurmyzhskaya puts on a kind of show: to demonstrate her virtue, she invites her neighbors to sign a will. According to Milonov, “Raisa Pavlovna decorates our entire province with the severity of her life; our moral atmosphere, so to speak, is redolent of her virtues.” “We were all afraid of your virtue here,” Bodaev echoes, recalling how they were expecting her arrival at the estate several years ago. In the fifth act, the neighbors learn about the unexpected metamorphosis that occurred with Gurmyzhskaya. A fifty-year-old lady, who languidly spoke of forebodings and imminent death (“if I don’t die today, not tomorrow, at least soon”), announces her decision to marry a dropout high school student, Alexis Bulanov. She considers marriage a self-sacrifice, “in order to arrange the estate and so that it does not fall into the wrong hands.” However, the neighbors do not notice the comedy in the transition from the dying will to the marriage union of “unshakable virtue” with “the tender, young branch of the noble nursery.” “This is a heroic feat! You are a heroine! - Milonov exclaims pathetically, admiring the hypocritical and depraved matron.
Another knot in the comedy plot is the story of a thousand rubles. The money went around in a circle, which made it possible to add important touches to the portraits of a variety of people. The merchant Vosmibratov tried to pocket a thousand while paying for the purchased timber. Neschastlivtsev, having reassured and “provoked” the merchant (“honor is endless. And you don’t have it”), prompted him to return the money. Gurmyzhskaya gave a “stray” thousand to Bulanov for a dress, then the tragedian, threatening the hapless youth with a fake pistol, took the money away, intending to squander it with Arkady Schastlivtsev. In the end, the thousand became Aksyusha’s dowry and... returned to Vosmibratov.
The completely traditional comedic situation of the “shifter” made it possible to contrast the sinister comedy of the inhabitants of the “forest” with a high tragedy. The pathetic “comedian” Neschastlivtsev, Gurmyzhskaya’s nephew, turned out to be a proud romantic who looks at his aunt and her neighbors with the eyes of noble man, shocked by the cynicism and vulgarity of the “owls and owls.” Those who treat him with contempt, considering him a loser and a renegade, behave like bad actors and common buffoons. “Comedians? No, we are artists, noble artists, and you are the comedians,” Neschastlivtsev angrily throws in their faces. - If we love, we love; if we don’t love, we quarrel or fight; If we help, it’s with our last penny. And you? All your life you talk about the good of society, about love for humanity. What did you do? Who did you feed? Who was consoled? You amuse only yourself, you amuse yourself. You are comedians, jesters, not us” (D. 5, Rev. IX).
Ostrovsky contrasts the crude farce played by Gurmyzhsky and Bulanov with the truly tragic perception of the world that Neschastlivtsev represents. In the fifth act, the satirical comedy is transformed: if earlier the tragedian demonstratively behaved with the “clowns” in a buffoonish manner, emphasizing his disdain for them, maliciously ironizing their actions and words, then in the finale of the play the stage, without ceasing to be a space for comedic action, turns into a tragic theater of one actor, who begins his final monologue as a “noble” artist, mistaken for a jester, and ends as a “noble robber” from the drama of F. Schiller - in the famous words of Karl Moor. The quotation from Schiller again speaks of the “forest,” or more precisely, of all the “bloodthirsty inhabitants of the forests.” Their hero would like to “go berserk against this hellish generation” that he encountered in noble estate. The quote, not recognized by Neschastlivtsev’s listeners, emphasizes the tragicomic meaning of what is happening. After listening to the monologue, Milonov exclaims: “But excuse me, you can be held accountable for these words!” “Yes, just to the police officer. We are all witnesses,” Bulanov, “born to command,” responds like an echo.
Neschastlivtsev is a romantic hero, there is a lot in him from Don Quixote, the “knight of the sad image.” He expresses himself pompously, theatrically, as if he does not believe in the success of his battle with “windmills.” “Where can you talk to me,” Neschastlivtsev addresses Milonov. “I feel and speak like Schiller, and you like a clerk.” Comically playing on Karl Moor’s just spoken words about “bloodthirsty forest inhabitants,” he reassures Gurmyzhskaya, who refused to give him her hand for a farewell kiss: “I won’t bite, don’t be afraid.” All he can do is get away from people who, in his opinion, are worse than wolves: “Give me a hand, comrade! (Gives his hand to Schastlivtsev and leaves).” Last words and Neschastlivtsev’s gesture is symbolic: he offers his hand to his comrade, the “comedian,” and proudly turns away from the inhabitants of the “noble forest” with whom he is not on the same path.
The hero of “The Forest” is one of the first in Russian literature to “break out”, “prodigal children” of his class. Ostrovsky does not idealize Neschastlivtsev, pointing out his everyday shortcomings: he, like Lyubim Tortsov, is not averse to carousing, is prone to trickery, and behaves like an arrogant gentleman. But the main thing is that it is Neschastlivtsev, one of the most beloved heroes of Ostrovsky’s theater, who expresses high moral ideals, completely forgotten by the jesters and Pharisees from the forest estate. His ideas about the honor and dignity of a person are close to the author himself. As if breaking the “mirror” of comedy, Ostrovsky, through the mouth of a provincial tragedian with the sad surname Neschastlivtsev, wanted to remind people of the danger of lies and vulgarity, which easily replace real life.
One of Ostrovsky’s masterpieces, the psychological drama “Dowry” (1878), like many of his works, is a “merchant” play. Leading place it features the playwright’s favorite motifs (money, trade, merchant “courage”), traditional types found in almost every one of his plays (merchants, a minor official, a girl of marriageable age and her mother, trying to “sell” her daughter at a higher price, a provincial actor). The intrigue also resembles previously used plot devices: several rivals are fighting for Larisa Ogudalova, each of whom has their own “interest” in the girl.
However, unlike other works, for example the comedy “Forest”, in which the poor pupil Aksyusha was only a “character of the situation” and did not take part in active participation in the events, the heroine of “Dowry” is the central character of the play. Larisa Ogudalova is not only a beautiful “thing”, shamelessly put up for auction by her mother Kharita Ignatievna and “bought” by rich merchants of the city of Bryakhimov. She is a richly gifted person, thinking, deeply feeling, understanding the absurdity of her situation, and at the same time a contradictory nature, trying to chase “two birds with one stone”: she wants both high love and a rich, beautiful life. It combines romantic idealism and dreams of bourgeois happiness.
The main difference between Larisa and Katerina Kabanova, with whom she is often compared, is freedom of choice. She herself must make her choice: to become the kept woman of the rich merchant Knurov, a participant in the daring entertainments of the “brilliant master” Paratov, or the wife of a proud nonentity - an official “with ambitions” Karandyshev. The city of Bryakhimov, like Kalinov in “The Thunderstorm,” is also a city “on the high bank of the Volga,” but this is no longer the “dark kingdom” of an evil, tyrant force. Times have changed - the enlightened “new Russians” in Bryakhimov do not marry dowry girls, but buy them. The heroine herself can decide whether or not to participate in the auction. A whole “parade” of suitors passes in front of her. Unlike the unrequited Katerina, Larisa’s opinion is not neglected. In a word, " last times”, which Kabanikha was so afraid of, came: the old “order” collapsed. Larisa does not need to beg her fiancé Karandyshev, as Katerina begged Boris (“Take me with you from here!”). Karandyshev himself is ready to take her away from the temptations of the city - to the remote Zabolotye, where he wants to become a justice of the peace. The swamp, which her mother imagines as a place where there is nothing but forest, wind and howling wolves, seems to Larisa to be a village idyll, a kind of swampy “paradise”, a “quiet corner”. In the dramatic fate of the heroine, the historical and everyday, the tragedy of unfulfilled love and bourgeois farce, subtle psychological drama and pathetic vaudeville are intertwined. The leading motive of the play is not the power of the environment and circumstances, as in “The Thunderstorm,” but the motive of man’s responsibility for his destiny.
“Dowry” is, first of all, a drama about love: it was love that became the basis plot intrigue and the source of the heroine’s internal contradictions. Love in “Dowry” is a symbolic, multi-valued concept. “I was looking for love and didn’t find it” - this is the bitter conclusion Larisa makes at the end of the play. She means love-sympathy, love-understanding, love-pity. In Larisa's life true love replaced “love” put up for sale, love as a commodity. The bargaining in the play is precisely because of her. Only those who can buy such “love” more money. For the “Europeanized” merchants Knurov and Vozhevatov, Larisa’s love is a luxury item that is bought in order to furnish their lives with “European” chic. The pettiness and prudence of these “children” of Dikiy is manifested not in selfless swearing over a penny, but in ugly love bargaining.
Sergei Sergeevich Paratov, the most extravagant and reckless among the merchants depicted in the play, is a parody figure. This is the “merchant Pechorin,” a heartthrob with a penchant for melodramatic effects. He considers his relationship with Larisa Ogudalova a love experiment. “I want to know how soon a woman forgets her passionately loved one: the day after separation from him, a week or a month later,” Paratov franks. Love, in his opinion, is only suitable “for household items" Paratov’s own “trip to the island of love” with the dowry Larisa was short-lived. She was replaced by noisy carousing with gypsies and marriage to a rich bride, or rather, her dowry - gold mines. “I, Mokiy Parmenych, have nothing cherished; If I find a profit, I’ll sell everything, whatever I want” - this is the life principle of Paratov, the new “hero of our time” with the habits of a broken clerk from a fashion store.
Larisa’s fiancé, the “eccentric” Karandyshev, who became her killer, is a pitiful, comical and at the same time sinister person. It mixes the “colors” of various stage images in an absurd combination. This is a caricature of Othello, a parody of a “noble” robber (at a costume party “he dressed up as a robber, took an ax in his hands and cast brutal glances at everyone, especially Sergei Sergeich”) and at the same time a “philistine among the nobility.” His ideal is a “carriage with music”, a luxurious apartment and dinners. This is an ambitious official who found himself at a riotous merchant feast, where he received an undeserved prize - the beautiful Larisa. The love of Karandyshev, the “spare” groom, is love-vanity, love-protection. For him, Larisa is also a “thing” that he boasts of, presenting it to the whole city. The heroine of the play herself perceives his love as humiliation and an insult: “How disgusting you are to me, if only you knew!... For me, the most serious insult is your patronage; I didn’t receive any other insults from anyone.”
The main feature that appears in Karandyshev’s appearance and behavior is quite “Chekhovian”: it is vulgarity. It is this feature that gives the figure of the official a gloomy, ominous flavor, despite his mediocrity compared to other participants in the love market. Larisa is killed not by the provincial “Othello”, not by the pathetic comedian who easily changes masks, but by the vulgarity embodied in him, which - alas! - became for the heroine the only alternative to love paradise.
Not a single psychological trait in Larisa Ogudalova has reached completion. Her soul is filled with dark, vague impulses and passions that she herself does not fully understand. She is not able to make a choice, accept or curse the world in which she lives. Thinking about suicide, Larisa was never able to throw herself into the Volga, like Katerina. Unlike tragic heroine"Thunderstorms", she is just a participant in a vulgar drama. But the paradox of the play is that it was precisely the vulgarity that killed Larisa that, in the last moments of her life, also made her a tragic heroine, rising above all the characters. No one loved her the way she would like, but she dies with words of forgiveness and love, sending a kiss to the people who almost forced her to renounce the most important thing in her life - love: “You need to live, but I need to live.” ... die. I don't complain about anyone, I don't take offense at anyone... y'all good people... I love you all... all... (Sends a kiss). This last, tragic sigh of the heroine was answered only by a “loud chorus of gypsies,” a symbol of the entire “gypsy” way of life in which she lived.
A.N. OSTROVSKY
Exercise 1.
A.N. Ostrovsky reveals the social-typical and individual properties of the characters of a certain social environment, which one:
1. Landowner-noble. 3. Aristocratic
2. Merchant 4. People's
Task 2.
In which magazine did A.N. Ostrovsky collaborate at the beginning of his career (until 1856):
"Moscowite" 3. "Contemporary"
"Domestic Notes" 4. "Library for Reading"
Task 3.
A.N. Ostrovsky believed that the highest criterion of artistry was realism and folk literature. How do you understand the term “nationality”:
A special property of literary works in which the author reproduces national ideals, national character, and the life of the people in their artistic world.
Literary works telling about the life of the people.
The manifestation in a work of the national literary tradition on which the author relies in his works.
Task 4.
The article “Dark Kingdom” was written by:
N.G.Chernyshevsky 2. V.G.Belinsky 3.I.A.Goncharov 4. N.A.Dobrolyubov
Task 5.
The work of A.N. Ostrovsky can be divided into 3 periods. Find the correspondence between the titles of the works and the main conflicts underlying them.
1st period: creation of sharply negative images, accusatory plays in the spirit of the Gogol tradition.
2nd period: plays reflecting the life of post-reform Russia - about ruined nobles and businessmen of a new type.
3rd period: plays about the tragic fate of a woman in the conditions of capitalizing Russia, about commoners, actors.
« “Mad money” “We will count our own people!”
"Dowry"
Task 6.
Prominent representatives of the “dark kingdom” in the play “The Thunderstorm” are (find the odd one):
Tikhon. 2. Wild. 3. Kabanikha. 4.Kuligin
Task 7.
Which of the characters in the play clearly demonstrates the collapse of the “dark kingdom” in the pre-reform years:
Tikhon. 2. Varvara 3. Feklusha 4. Kabanova
Task 8.
The satirical denunciation is combined in the play with the affirmation of new forces rising to fight for human rights. Which of the characters in the play does he place his hopes on?
Katerina Kabanova 2. Tikhon Kabanova 3. Varvara Kabanova 4. Boris
Task 9.
Whom N.A. Dobrolyubov called “a ray of light in the dark kingdom”:
1. Varvara 2. Katerina 3. Tikhon 4. Kuligina
Task 10.
The ending of the play is tragic. Katerina’s suicide, according to N.A. Dobrolyubov, is a manifestation of:
Spiritual strength and courage. 3. Instant emotional explosion.
Spiritual weakness and powerlessness
Task 11.
Speech characteristics are a clear demonstration of the character of the hero. Match the speech to the characters in the play:
“Was I like that! I lived, did not grieve for anything, like a bird in the wild!
“Bla-alepie, honey, blah-lepie!... In promised land you all live! And the merchants are all pious people, adorned with many virtues.”
“I haven’t heard, my friend. I haven’t heard, I don’t want to lie. If only I had heard, I would not have spoken to you like that, my dear.”
Kabanikha Ekaterina Feklusha
Task 12.
In the speech of the characters in the play there is (find a match)::
Church vocabulary, saturated with archaisms and vernacular.
Folk-poetic, colloquial, emotional vocabulary.
Philistine-merchant vernacular, rudeness.
Literary vocabulary of the 18th century with Lomonosov-Derzhavin tendencies.
Katerina Kuligin Kabanikha Wild
Task 13.
Find the correspondence of the given characteristics to the characters of the play:
“Who... will please, if... your whole life is based on swearing? And most of all because of the money; not a single calculation is complete without swearing... And the trouble is, if in the morning... someone gets angry! He picks on everyone all day long.”
“Prude, sir! He gives to the poor, but eats up his family [he eats] completely.”
Wild Kabanikha
Task 14.
Which of the play's heroines owns the words that clearly characterize her:
“I say: why don’t people fly like birds! You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how I would run up, raise my hands and fly.”
Varvara 2. Katerina 3. Glasha 4. Feklusha
Task 15.
A.N. Ostrovsky worked closely with the theater, on the stage of which almost all of the playwright’s plays were performed. What is the name of this theater:
1. Art theater. 3. Sovremennik Theater
2. Maly Theater." 4. Bolshoi Theater
Answers to the text:
|
1-"Our people - we'll be numbered!" 2- “Mad Money” 3- “Dowry” |
|
1-Katerina 2-Feklusha 3-Kabanikha |
1-Kabanikha 2-Katerina 4-Kuligin |
Attention! Slide previews are for informational purposes only and may not represent all the features of the presentation. If you are interested in this work, please download the full version.
Slide 1 and 2. Lesson objectives: introduce students to a new author; determine the originality of his work, expressed in reflecting the problems of the era; show innovation and traditions in the work of A.N. Ostrovsky, the originality of his style. Slide 3. During the classesI. Teacher lecture with presentation.Slide 4. 1. Pages of the history of Russian theater before A.N. Ostrovsky (information). Originality of topics dramatic works; characteristics of heroes (class); principles of character development. Predecessors of A. Ostrovsky: D.I. Fonvizin, A.S. Griboedov, A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol. Slide 5. 2. Features of Ostrovsky's plays.New hero, which Russian literature did not know before him. “He revealed to the world a man of a new formation: a merchant-Old Believer and a merchant-capitalist, a merchant in an army coat and a merchant in a three-piece suit, traveling abroad and doing his own business. Ostrovsky opened wide the door to a world hitherto locked behind high fences from prying eyes of others” - wrote V.G. Marantzman. Ostrovsky's new hero determines the uniqueness of the problems and themes of the plays, and the characteristics of the characters' characters. Slides 6-13 3. Pages of the playwright’s biography: family, Zamoskvorechye, study, service. Life in Zamoskvorechye, work in the conscientious and commercial courts, where the main “clients” are merchants, allowed the playwright to observe the life of the merchants. All this was reflected in Ostrovsky’s plays, the characters of which seemed to be taken from life. The writer’s incredible ability to work contributed to the birth of 48 works, in which 547 characters act. Slides 14-19 4. Beginning of literary activity. The creative path of A. Ostrovsky. The first work - the play "The Insolvent Debtor" - appeared in 1847 in the newspaper "Moscow City Listok". In 1850, the same work, revised by the author, was published in the magazine "Moskvityanin". Then it was under arrest for 10 years, because, according to Dobrolyubov, “... it was thrown into dust and brazenly trampled by tyrants human dignity, personal freedom, faith in love and happiness and the shrine of honest work." “This is what I am doing now, combining the sublime with the comic,” Ostrovsky wrote in 1853, defining the emergence of a new hero, a hero with a “warm heart,” honest, straightforward. One after another, the plays “Poverty is not a vice”, “Don’t sit in your own sleigh”, “Profitable place”, “Forest”, “Warm heart”, “Talents and admirers”, “Guilty without guilt” and others appeared. “And such a spirit has become in me: I’m not afraid of anything! It seems that if you cut me into pieces, I’ll still stand on my own,” says the heroine of the play “The Pupil.” “I’m not afraid of anything” - that’s the main thing in Ostrovsky’s new hero. Slide 20 "The Thunderstorm" (1860) is a play about an awakening, protesting individual who no longer wants to live according to laws that suppress the individual. Slide 21 “The Forest” (1870) - the play raises eternal questions of human relationships, tries to solve the problem of moral and immoral. Slide 22 "The Snow Maiden (1873) - a look at the ancient, patriarchal, fairy-tale world, which is also dominated by material relations(Bobyl and Bobylikha). Slide 23 "Dowry" (1879) - the playwright's view 20 years later on the problems raised in the drama "The Thunderstorm". II. Student performances. Individual assignments for the lesson.Slides 24-38 1. Features of Ostrovsky's style ( Individual tasks)
Final questions Slide 39
III. Lesson summary.Slides 40-42 A.N. Ostrovsky turned a page unfamiliar to the viewer, bringing a new hero onto the stage - a merchant. Russian before him theatrical history included only a few names. The playwright made a huge contribution to the development of Russian theater. His work, continuing the traditions of Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Pushkin, Gogol, is distinguished by innovation in the depiction of heroes, in the language of characters and in the social and moral problems raised. Homework: Drama "Thunderstorm". History of creation, system of images, techniques for revealing the characters' characters. The originality of the conflict. The meaning of the name. Group 1. The history of the play. Student messages ( Homework with additional literature). Group 2. The meaning of the title of the play "The Thunderstorm". Group 3. System of characters in the play Group 4. Features of revealing the characters' characters. Preview:Life and work of A.N. Ostrovsky Test 1. A.N. Ostrovsky reveals the social-typical and individual properties of characters in a certain social environment. Which one? A. Landowner-noble B. Merchant V. Aristocratic G. Narodny 2. In which magazine did Ostrovsky collaborate at the beginning of his career (until 1856)? A. "Moskvityanin" B. "Contemporary" V. “Domestic Notes” G. “Library for reading” 3. Ostrovsky considered realism and nationality in literature to be the highest criterion of artistry. How do you understand the term “nationality”? A. A special property of literary works in which the author reproduces national ideals, national character, and the life of the people in their artistic world. B. Literary works, telling about the life of the people. B. Manifestation of nationality in the work folk tradition, on which the author relies in his works. 4. Article " Dark Kingdom» wrote A.N.G. Chernyshevsky B.V.G. Belinsky V.I.A. Goncharov G.N.A. Dobrolyubov 5. Which one? literary genre Can we include the play “The Thunderstorm”? A. Comedy B. Drama B. Tragedy G. Tragicomedy 6. The main conflict in the play “The Thunderstorm” is: A. Conflict between generations (Tikhon and Kabanikha) B. Conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law B. The clash between tyrants and their victims D. Conflict between Katerina and Tikhon 7. Which characters are the main ones in the play from the point of view of conflict? A. Boris and Katerina B. Katerina and Tikhon V. Dikoy and Kabanikha G. Kabanikha and Katerina 8. Which hero owns the words: “ Cruel morals, sir, in our city,” characterizing the “dark kingdom”: A. Feklushe B. Curly V. Kuligina G. Boris 9. Prominent representatives of the “dark kingdom” in the play “The Thunderstorm” are (find the odd one): A. Tikhon B. Dikoy V. Kabanikha G. Kuligin 10. Which of the characters in the play clearly demonstrates the collapse of the “dark kingdom” in the pre-reform years: A. Tikhon B. Varvara V. Feklusha G. Kabanikha 11. In the play, satirical denunciation is combined with the affirmation of new forces rising to fight for human rights. Which of the characters in the play does the author place his hopes on? A. Katerina Kabanova B. Tikhona Kabanova V. Varvara Kabanov G. Boris 12. Kogo N.A. Dobrolyubov called it “a ray of light in a dark kingdom”? A. Varvara B. Katerina V. Tikhon G. Kuligina 13. The ending of the play is tragic. Katerina’s suicide is, according to Dobrolyubov, a manifestation of: A. Spiritual strength and courage B. Spiritual weakness and impotence B. Momentary emotional explosion 14. Speech characteristics is a clear demonstration of the character of the hero. Match the speech to the characters in the play: A. “Was I like that! I lived, didn’t grieve for anything, like a bird in the wild!”, “Violent winds, bear with him the sadness and melancholy.” B. “Bla-alepie, dear, blah-alepie!.. You all live in the promised land! And the merchants are all pious people, adorned with many virtues.” V. “I haven’t heard, my friend, I haven’t heard, I don’t want to lie. If only I had heard, I would not have spoken to you like that, my dear.” A. Kabanikha B. Feklusha V. Katerina 15. In the speech of the characters in the play there is (find a match): A. Church vocabulary, saturated with archaisms and vernaculars. B. Folk-poetic, colloquial, emotional vocabulary. B. Bourgeois-merchant vernacular, rudeness. G. Literary vocabulary of the 18th century with Lomonosov-Derzhavin tendencies. 1. Katerina 2. Kuligin 3. Kabanikha 4. Wild 16. Find the correspondence between the given characteristics and the characters of the play: A. “Who... will please, if... your whole life is based on swearing? And most of all because of the money; not a single calculation is complete without swearing... And the trouble is, if in the morning... someone will get angry! He picks on everyone all day long.” B. “Prudence, sir! He gives food to the poor, but completely gorges on his family.” 1. Kabanikha 2. Wild 17. Which of the play’s heroines owns the words that clearly characterize her: “I say, why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how I would run up, raise my hands and fly.” A. Varvara B. Katerina V. Feklusha G. Glasha 18. A.N. Ostrovsky worked closely with the theater, on the stage of which almost all of the playwright’s plays were staged. What is the name of this theater? A. Art Theater B. Maly Theater V. Sovremennik Theater G. Bolshoi Theater Key to the test 1. B 2. A 3. A 4. G 5 B 6. B 7. G 8. B 9. G 10. B 11. A 12. B 13. A 14. A-B, B-B, V-A 15. A-3, B-1, B-4, G-2 16. A-2, B-1 17. B Editor's Choice
New
Popular
|
Back forward