Literary directions and trends. Literary schools. Literary direction

A literary school is a professional association of a group of writers. The authors of the Dictionary literary terms“V. Lesin and A. Pulinets understand by school “trends, ideological and artistic features,” a style of writing, “inherent in writers who are under the significant influence of a great writer, his contemporary or predecessor. This is what they say about the Pushkin and Nekrasov schools in Russian classical poetry, about the Shevchenko and Frankov schools in... Ukrainian literature." In "Brief literary encyclopedia"(M., 1962-1978), in the "literary dictionary-reference book" (K., 1997) there are no separate articles devoted to the concept of "literary school".

Using the expression of P. Sakulin, the concept of “literary school” can be attributed to “wandering” terms. "Insufficient attention to semantic content“The term literary school,” notes A. Savenets, “... leads to a confusion of concepts, in particular those that denote writing communities of different degrees of organization, classifying them as one paradigm.”

F. Schlegel identified the literary school with style. According to him, the school is “naturally homogeneous in style.”

School is understood as a set of principles for recognizing and reproducing the world. By the way, this is how the method is defined.

A literary school is identified with a direction, a literary movement. In the "literary dictionary-reference book" the direction is characterized as "lake school", "natural school". D. Nalivaiko, highlighting trends within romanticism, calls the “Byronic” and “Hoffmannian” schools. In the textbook “Literary Theory in Connection with Problems of Aesthetics” we read: “Under certain circumstances, within the framework of one literary movement, groups of writers are often formed, related both in aesthetic and socio-political views. Such an ideological and aesthetic community is usually called a literary movement.. ". A literary movement, which includes the closest followers of an outstanding writer, is usually called a literary school. Its representatives are like-minded in all significant issues of artistic creativity."

The literary school is identified with the circle, literary group, grouping. The scope of the school is wider than them, but they are narrower from the concepts of “method” and “direction”.

So what is a literary school? Are there any signs of it? How does it compare with other writing communities? M. Sulima notes: “It is believed that one can speak of a literary school when the unity of programmatic and creative attitude, theme, genre and style is obvious to a certain group of artists. It is important that this group declares itself with an action, an act, a manifesto, what collective publication."

The most accurate definition of a school is given by Yu. Kuznetsov: “A specific education in literature, a group of writers united by common stylistic preferences, genre practice, thematic interests, problems, primarily an aesthetic program, which, projected into a new creative space, relies on a certain tradition, polemicizes with it , rethinks it "2. A literary school is formed on the basis of stylistic similarity. It may have different time frames. "Ionic School" in Greek literature of the 19th century. functioned from the 30s to the 90s. A school almost always exists within the framework of one literary genre (the “Kiev school” of poetry), but can go beyond its boundaries (the “Zhytomyr prose school”).

The school may not have known (noticeable) students.

Literary school sometimes focuses on creativity famous writer(T. Shevchenko, I. Franko), in this case we are talking about the “Shevchenko”, “Frankivsk” schools. A school can develop into a stylistic trend (Byronism), a movement (French symbolism), acquire the characteristics of a method ("natural school"), groupings ("Parnassians", "neoclassicists").

The “Prague school” of poets left a noticeable mark on Ukrainian literature. This name belongs to the literary critic V. Derzhavin. He called the Ukrainian poets of the interwar twenty years, who worked mainly in Poděbrady and Prague, the “Prague School”. The “Prague School” is represented by E. Malanyuk, Y. Daragan, L. Mosendz, A. Stefanovich, Yuri Klen, Natalya Levitskaya-Kholodnaya, Oksana Lyaturinskaya, Y. Lipa, Elena Teliga, Oleg Olzhich, Galya Mazurenko, I. Irlyavsky, and . Ear. This school had neither a program nor a charter. The work of the poets of the “Prague School” is characterized by bright “historiosophism,” national pathos, strong-willed intonations, and tragic optimism. All the poets of the “Prague School” were united by the idea of ​​the national liberation struggle for the freedom and independence of Ukraine.

IN last years The first steps have been taken towards understanding the features of the “Kyiv school” of poetry. This is the opposition wing of the sixties. The “Kyiv school” debuted in the mid-60s of the 20th century, when the Khrushchev thaw ended and arrests of the creative and scientific intelligentsia began. The “Kyiv school” of poetry is represented by V. Goloborodko, M. Vorobyov, V. Kordun, V. Ruban, M. Grigoriev, I. Semenenko, M. Rachuk, Marina Lesnaya, Alla Pavlenko, P. Marusik, M. Moskalenko. The poets of the “Kyiv school” - unlike the sixties, who sometimes flirted with the regime and wrote pro-communist poems - did not cooperate with the authorities, avoided socio-political vocabulary, ideological blinkeredness, political bias, tried to revive mythopoetic consciousness, transform ancient mythological thinking, relied on new philosophy and psychology, intensified folk poetic ideas, focused attention on man, nature, the universe, turned to ancient poetic traditions, used free verse, avoided declarativeness and topicality.

Galina Karplyuk in the article " Summary posts of the Kiev school" notes: "The Kyiv school of poetry can be spoken of in several aspects: as a purely poetic phenomenon, the main feature of which was the freedom of creation; as a group of young nonconformists whose life vector was freedom of freedom in all its manifestations: as an experimental attempt to live differently than other generations, to live as if everything was happening in a free independent country; as a brotherhood of creators, whose main and utmost task was poetry itself."

In the 90s of the 20th century, the “Galician (Lvov-Stanislav)” and “Kiev-Zhytomyr” schools were declared. The “Galician school” (Yu. Andrukhovich, Yu. Vinnichuk, V. Eshkilev, Yu. Izdrik, T. Prokhazko), according to the observation of V. Danilenko, absolutizes formalistic searches, stylization on existing literary samples, and the “Zhytomyr” school - on the study of existential depths of man, observation of love, horror, death." N. Belotserkovets points to the cultivation of these schools various types heroes." The heroes of the Galician-Stanislav school are refined intellectuals, prone to contemplation. The heroes of the Kiev-Zhitomir school are burdened with pathological consciousness." These schools represent the modern Ukrainian modern poet - method, direction and style. Yu. Kuznetsov considers the “Galician” and “Zhitomir” schools to be ephemeral formations, which, in his words, “have not yet taken shape, disappear from the space of literature.” The opinion of Yu. Kuznetsov deserves attention.

Literary direction is often identified with artistic method. Designates a set of fundamental spiritual and aesthetic principles of many writers, as well as a number of groups and schools, their programmatic and aesthetic attitudes, and the means used. In the struggle and change of directions, patterns are most clearly expressed literary process. It is customary to highlight the following literary trends:

Classicism

Sentimentalism

Naturalism

Romanticism (which some include Baroque literature)

Symbolism

Realism (which distinguishes Renaissance realism, i.e. realism of the Renaissance, Enlightenment realism, i.e. realism of the Enlightenment, critical realism and socialist realism).

There is no consensus on the legality of identifying other directions - such as mannerism, pre-romanticism, neoclassicism, neo-romanticism, impressionism, expressionism, modernism, etc. The fact is that literary trends, changing, give rise to many intermediate forms that do not exist for long and are not global in nature. There have been attempts to propose more universal systems of division into literary movements - for example. "classic" and "romance"; or "realistic" and "irrealistic" literature.

Literary movement

2. Literary movement - often identified with a literary group and school. Denotes a collection creative personalities, which are characterized by ideological and artistic closeness and programmatic and aesthetic unity. Otherwise, a literary movement is a type of literary movement.

For example, in relation to Russian romanticism they talk about “philosophical”, “psychological” and “civil” movements. In Russian realism, some distinguish “psychological” and “sociological” trends.

Speech as a means of individualizing an image.

In dramatic literature, the character of the hero is revealed mainly by means of language, by means of stage speech. That is why the method he widely and brilliantly developed in creative practice played such a major role in solving the problem of creating a typical character. speech characteristics acting person.

Psychological analysis in literature

Paradoxically, “psychological analysis” is a concept that is not often found in psychological literature.

Psychological analysis began its starting point long before the appearance of Freud’s works, but it was in his works that it acquired a special sound, like a new birth, and entered scientific practice.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS - variety scientific analysis, similar to philosophical, mathematical, etc. Characteristic feature psychological analysis is that the object of its study is mental reality, mental processes, states, properties of a person. As well as various socio-psychological phenomena that arise in groups and teams: opinions, communication, relationships, conflicts, leadership, etc. The methodological basis of psychological analysis can be philosophical systems, general scientific principles of knowledge, as well as general psychological principles about the subject, the connection between internal and external , the specificity of the psychological patterns to which this or that type of activity is subject. For example, a psychological analysis of self-education involves studying goals, motives, methods independent work on the acquisition, deepening, expansion and improvement of knowledge, skills, abilities, as well as its characteristics in the conditions of general and special education.

Psychological analysis is an example of psychological portrayal in literature.

It consists in the fact that the complex mental states of the characters are decomposed into their components and thereby explained and become clear to the reader. In psychological analysis, third-person narration has its advantages. This artistic form allows the author, without any restrictions, to introduce the reader into the inner world of the character and show it in the most detail and depth.

(Symbol - from the Greek Symbolon - conventional sign)

1. The central place is given to the symbol*
2. The desire for a higher ideal prevails
3. A poetic image is intended to express the essence of a phenomenon
4. Characteristic reflection of the world in two planes: real and mystical
5. Sophistication and musicality of verse

The founder was D. S. Merezhkovsky, who in 1892 gave a lecture “On the causes of the decline and new trends in modern Russian literature” (article published in 1893). Symbolists are divided into older ones ((V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky, 3. Gippius, F. Sologub made their debut in the 1890s) and younger ones (A. Blok, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanov and others made their debut in the 1900s)

Acmeism

(From the Greek “acme” - point, highest point). The literary movement of Acmeism arose in the early 1910s and was genetically connected with symbolism. (N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, S. Gorodetsky, O. Mandelstam, M. Zenkevich and V. Narbut.) The formation was influenced by M. Kuzmin’s article “On Beautiful Clarity,” published in 1910. In his programmatic article of 1913, “The Legacy of Acmeism and Symbolism,” N. Gumilyov called symbolism a “worthy father,” but emphasized that the new generation had developed a “courageously firm and clear outlook on life.”

1. Focus on classical poetry XIX century
2. Acceptance of the earthly world in its diversity and visible concreteness
3. Objectivity and clarity of images, precision of details
4. In rhythm, the Acmeists used dolnik (Dolnik is a violation of the traditional
regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. The lines coincide in the number of stresses, but stressed and unstressed syllables are freely located in the line.), which brings the poem closer to living colloquial speech

Futurism

Futurism - from lat. futurum, future. Genetically, literary futurism is closely connected with the avant-garde groups of artists of the 1910s - primarily with the groups “Jack of Diamonds”, “Donkey’s Tail”, “Youth Union”. In 1909 in Italy, the poet F. Marinetti published the article “Manifesto of Futurism.” In 1912, the manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” was created by Russian futurists: V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov: “Pushkin is more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs.” Futurism began to disintegrate already in 1915-1916.

1. Rebellion, anarchic worldview
2. Negation cultural traditions
3. Experiments in the field of rhythm and rhyme, figurative arrangement of stanzas and lines
4. Active word creation

Imagism

From Lat. imago - image A literary movement in Russian poetry of the 20th century, whose representatives stated that the purpose of creativity is to create an image. Basics means of expression Imagists - metaphor, often metaphorical chains that compare various elements of two images - direct and figurative. Imagism arose in 1918, when the “Order of Imagists” was founded in Moscow. The creators of the “Order” were Anatoly Mariengof, Vadim Shershenevich and Sergei Yesenin, who was previously part of the group of new peasant poets

Poets of the Silver Age.

Atmosphere of the Silver Age

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, Russia experienced an intense intellectual upsurge, especially clearly manifested in philosophy and poetry. The philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev called this time the Russian cultural renaissance.

“Now it’s hard to imagine the atmosphere of that time,” Nikolai Berdyaev wrote about the Silver Age in his “philosophical autobiography” “Self-Knowledge.” - Much of the creative upsurge of that time entered into the further development of Russian culture and is now the property of all Russians cultured people. But then there was the intoxication of creativity, novelty, tension, struggle, challenge. During these years, many gifts were sent to Russia. This was the era of awakening in Russia to independence philosophical thought, the flowering of poetry and the intensification of aesthetic sensuality, religious anxiety and quest, interest in mysticism and the occult. New souls appeared, new sources of creative life were discovered, new dawns were seen, the feeling of decline and death was combined with the hope for the transformation of life. But everything happened in a rather vicious circle...”

But the Silver Age is not only a period chronological period. The concept of “Silver Age” is appropriate to apply to a way of thinking that, being characteristic of artists who were at odds with each other during their lifetime, ultimately merged them in the minds of their descendants into a kind of inseparable galaxy that formed the specific atmosphere of the Silver Age that Berdyaev wrote about.

The names of the poets who formed the spiritual core of the Silver Age are known to everyone: Valery Bryusov, Fyodor Sologub, Innokenty Annensky, Alexander Blok, Maximilian Voloshin, Andrei Bely, Konstantin Balmont, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilev, Marina Tsvetaeva, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Igor Severyanin, Boris Pasternak , Georgy Ivanov and many others.

The poets of the Silver Age also sought to overcome the attempts of the second half of the 19th century centuries to explain human behavior by social conditions, environment and continued the traditions of Russian poetry, for which man was important in himself, his thoughts and feelings, his attitude to eternity, to God, to Love and Death in a philosophical, metaphysical sense were important. Poets of the Silver Age, both in their artistic work and in theoretical articles and statements, questioned the idea of ​​progress for literature. For example, one of the brightest creators of the Silver Age, Osip Mandelstam, wrote that the idea of ​​progress is “the most disgusting type of school ignorance.” And Alexander Blok in 1910 argued: “The sun of naive realism has set; it is impossible to comprehend anything outside of symbolism.”

The poets of the Silver Age believed in art, in the power of words. Therefore, immersion in the element of words and the search for new means of expression are indicative of their creativity. They cared not only about meaning, but also about style - sound, the music of words and complete immersion in the elements were important to them. This immersion led to the cult of life-creativity (the inseparability of the personality of the creator and his art). And almost always, because of this, the poets of the Silver Age were unhappy in their personal lives, and many of them came to a bad end.

LITERARY SCHOOLS AND TRENDS

SYMBOLISM- the first and most significant of the modernist movements in Russia. The philosophy and aesthetics of symbolism developed under the influence of various teachings - from the views ancient philosopher Plato to modern symbolists philosophical systems V. Solovyov, F. Nietzsche, A. Bergson. The symbolists contrasted the traditional idea of ​​understanding the world in art with the idea of ​​constructing the world in the process of creativity. Creativity in the understanding of the symbolists is a subconscious-intuitive contemplation of secret meanings, accessible only to the artist-creator. Moreover, it is impossible to rationally convey the contemplated “secrets”. According to the greatest theorist among symbolists, Vyacheslav Ivanov, poetry is “the secret writing of the ineffable.” The artist is required not only to have super-rational sensitivity, but also to have the subtlest mastery of the art of allusion: the value of poetic speech lies in “understatement,” “hiddenness of meaning.” The main means of conveying the contemplated secret meanings and a symbol was called upon.

Symbolism tried to create a new philosophy of culture and, after going through a painful period of revaluation of values, sought to develop a new universal worldview. Having overcome the extremes of individualism and subjectivism, the symbolists at the dawn of the new century raised the question of public role artists, began to move towards the creation of such forms of art, the experience of which could unite people again.

Symbolist poets

Alexander Blok

Bryusov Valery

Gippius Zinaida

Ivanov Vyacheslav

Acmeism(from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something, blossoming, maturity, peak, edge) - one of the modernist movements in Russian poetry of the 1910s, formed as a reaction to the extremes of symbolism.

Acmeists strove for sensual plastic-material clarity of image and accuracy, precision poetic word. Their “earthly” poetry is prone to intimacy, aestheticism and poeticization of the feelings of primordial man. Acmeism was characterized by extreme apoliticality, complete indifference to the pressing problems of our time.

If in the poetry of symbolism the determining factor was a certain secret, covered with an aura of mysticism, then as cornerstone Acmeism poetry was based on a realistic view of things. The vague instability and vagueness of symbols was replaced by precise verbal images. The word, according to Acmeists, should have acquired its original meaning.

Acmeists often turn to mythological subjects and images. A distinctive feature of the Acmeist circle of poets was their “organizational cohesion.” Essentially, the Acmeists were not so much an organized movement with a common theoretical platform, but rather a group of talented and very different poets who were united by personal friendship. They gave their union the significant name “Workshop of Poets.”

The main ideas of Acmeism were presented in the program articles by N. Gumilyov “The Heritage of Symbolism and Acmeism” and S. Gorodetsky “Some Trends in Modern Russian Poetry.” S. Gorodetsky believed that “symbolism... having filled the world with “correspondences”, turned it into a phantom, important only insofar as it... shines through with other worlds, and belittled its high intrinsic value. Among the Acmeists, the rose again became good in itself, with its petals, scent and color, and not with its conceivable likenesses with mystical love or anything else.”

Basic principles of Acmeism:

Liberating poetry from symbolist appeals to the ideal, returning it to clarity;
- rejection of mystical nebula, acceptance of the earthly world in its diversity, visible concreteness, sonority, colorfulness;
- the desire to give a word a specific, precise meaning;
- objectivity and clarity of images, precision of details;
- appeal to a person, to the “authenticity” of his feelings;
- poeticization of the world of primordial emotions, primitive biological natural principles;
- roll call with the past literary eras, the broadest aesthetic associations, “longing for world culture.”

Acmeist poets

Akhmatova Anna

Gumilev Nikolay

Mandelstam Osip

Sergey Gorodetsky

Mikhail Zenkevich

Vladimir Narbut

Futurism(from Latin futurum - future) - the general name of the artistic avant-garde movements of the 1910s - early 1920s. XX century, primarily in Italy and Russia.

This movement claimed to build a new art - “the art of the future”, speaking under the slogan of a nihilistic negation of all previous artistic experience.

Futurists preached the destruction of the forms and conventions of art in order to merge it with the accelerated life process of the 20th century. They are characterized by a reverence for action, movement, speed, strength and aggression; exaltation of oneself and contempt for the weak; the priority of force, the rapture of war and destruction were asserted. In this regard, futurism in its ideology was very close to both right-wing and left-wing radicals: anarchists, fascists, communists, focused on the revolutionary overthrow of the past.

The idea of ​​the exhaustion of the cultural tradition of previous centuries was the starting point of the aesthetic platform of the Cubo-Futurists. Their manifesto, which bore the deliberately scandalous title “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” became the programmatic one. It declared a rejection of the art of the past, and there were calls to “throw out Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. from the steamship of modern times."

However, despite the rather harsh tone and polemical style of the manifesto, the almanac expressed many ideas about ways further development art, the convergence of poetry and painting. Behind the external bravado of its authors there was a serious attitude towards creativity. And the famous shocking phrase about Pushkin, which seemingly does not allow for other interpretations, was explained by Khlebnikov, to whom, in fact, it belonged, in a completely different way: “Budetlyanin is Pushkin in coverage of the world war, in the cloak of the new century, teaching the right of the century to laugh above Pushkin XIX century” and didn’t sound shocking at all. Russian futurism did not develop into a coherent artistic system; this term denoted a variety of trends in the Russian avant-garde. The system was the avant-garde itself. And it was dubbed futurism in Russia by analogy with Italian. And this movement turned out to be much more heterogeneous than the symbolism and acmeism that preceded it.

One of the founders of the movement, V. Khlebnikov was actively involved in revolutionary changes in the field of the Russian language. In an effort to expand the boundaries of the language and its capabilities, he worked hard to create new words. According to his theory, the word is deprived of its semantic meaning, acquiring a subjective coloring: “We understand vowels as time and space (the nature of aspiration), consonants - paint, sound, smell.”

Very soon the words “futurist” and “hooligan” became synonymous for the modern moderate public. The press followed with delight the “exploits” of the creators of new art. This contributed to their fame in wide circles population, aroused increased interest and attracted increasing attention.

The main features of futurism:

Rebellion, anarchy, expression of the mass mood of the crowd;
- denial of cultural traditions, an attempt to create art aimed at the future;
- rebellion against the usual norms of poetic speech, experimentation in the field of rhythm, rhyme, focus on the spoken verse;
- experiments to create an “abstruse” language;
- cult of technology, industrial cities;
- the pathos of shocking.

Futurist poets:

Burliuk David

Vvedensky Alexander

Kamensky Vasily

Mayakovsky Vladimir

Severyanin Igor

Khlebnikov Velimir

Imagism(from French and English image - image) - a literary and artistic movement that arose in Russia in the first post-revolutionary years on the basis of the literary practice of futurism.

Imagism was the last sensational school in Russian poetry of the 20th century. This direction was created two years after the revolution, but in all its content it had nothing in common with the revolution.

The theory of imagism proclaimed the primacy of the “image as such” as the main principle of poetry. Not a word-symbol with an infinite number of meanings (symbolism), not a word-sound (cubo-futurism), not a word-name of a thing (Acmeism), but a word-metaphor with one specific meaning is the basis of imagism. In their Declaration, the Imagists argued that “the only law of art, the only and incomparable method is the revelation of life through the image and rhythm of images... The image, and only the image, is the instrument of production of the master of art... Only the image, like mothballs pouring over the work, saves this latter from pray for time. The image is the armor of the line.” The theoretical justification for this principle was reduced by the Imagists to likening poetic creativity to the process of language development through metaphor.

Essentially, there was nothing particularly new in their techniques, as well as in their “imagery”. “Imagism” as one of the techniques of artistic creativity was widely used not only by futurism, but also by symbolism. What was new was only the tenacity with which the Imagists brought the image to the fore and reduced everything in poetry to it - both content and form.

A characteristic feature of the development of Russian poetry in the first decades of the 20th century was that each literary movement was born under the sign of an irreconcilable struggle and rivalry with its predecessors. And if the beginning of the 1910s passed under the sign of “overcoming symbolism” by the Acmeists and Futurists, then Imagism, which arose at the end of the decade, designated the ultimate goal of its struggle as “overcoming futurism,” with which it essentially had a family relationship: “A baby, a loud-mouthed guy, died ten years old (born 1909 - died 1919) - Futurism died. Let’s strike out in unison: death to futurism and futurism!”

Over five years of active activity, the Imagists were able to win a loud, albeit scandalous fame. Poetic debates constantly took place, where the masters of the new movement very successfully proved to others the superiority of the newly invented poetic system over all previous ones.

The actions of the Imagists sometimes went beyond the generally accepted norms of behavior. These include painting the walls of the Strastnoy Monastery with blasphemous inscriptions, and the “renaming” of Moscow streets (the “Tverskaya” sign was changed to “Yeseninskaya”), etc. In 1919, the Imagists demanded nothing less than “separation of the state from art” .

The relations of imagists with the authorities - due to the peculiarities of their creative position, extra-literary connections and historical moment - require special attention. Imagists, due to their scandalous, bohemian lifestyle, often fell into the hands of the police and Cheka workers. The only thing that helped them out was their numerous connections with the same security officers.

The main features of imagism:

Imagist poets

Yesenin Sergey

Ivnev Rurik

Mariengof Anatoly

Shershenevich Vadim

The pearls of the Silver Age were the poets, not belonging to any of the literary schools and movements.

Bunin Ivan

Pasternak Boris

Tsvetaeva Marina

Historical and literary process — a set of generally significant changes in the literature. Literature is constantly evolving. Each era enriches art with some new artistic discoveries. The study of the patterns of development of literature constitutes the concept of “historical-literary process”. The development of the literary process is determined by the following artistic systems: creative method, style, genre, literary directions and trends.

Continuous change in literature - obvious fact, but significant changes do not occur every year, or even every decade. As a rule, they are associated with serious historical shifts (change historical eras and periods, wars, revolutions associated with the entry into the historical arena of new social forces etc.). We can identify the main stages in the development of European art, which determined the specifics of the historical and literary process: antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The development of the historical and literary process is determined by a number of factors, among which, first of all, the historical situation (socio-political system, ideology, etc.), the influence of previous literary traditions and the artistic experience of other peoples should be noted. For example, Pushkin’s work was seriously influenced by the work of his predecessors not only in Russian literature (Derzhavin, Batyushkov, Zhukovsky and others), but also in European literature (Voltaire, Rousseau, Byron and others).

Literary process - This a complex system literary interactions. It represents the formation, functioning and change of various literary trends and trends.

Literary directions and trends:

classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism,

realism, modernism (symbolism, acmeism, futurism)

IN modern literary criticism The terms "direction" and "flow" can be interpreted differently. Sometimes they are used as synonyms (classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, realism and modernism are called both movements and directions), and sometimes a movement is identified with a literary school or grouping, and a direction with an artistic method or style (in this case, the direction includes two or more currents).

Usually, literary direction call a group of writers similar in type of artistic thinking. We can talk about the existence of a literary movement if writers realize theoretical basis their artistic activities, promote them in manifestos, program speeches, and articles. Thus, the first programmatic article of the Russian futurists was the manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” which stated the basic aesthetic principles of the new direction.

In certain circumstances, within the framework of one literary movement, groups of writers may be formed, especially close to each other in their aesthetic views. Such groups formed within a particular movement are usually called a literary movement. For example, within the framework of such a literary movement as symbolism, two movements can be distinguished: “senior” symbolists and “younger” symbolists (according to another classification, there are three: decadents, “senior” symbolists, “younger” symbolists).

Classicism(from lat. classicus- exemplary) - artistic direction in European art at the turn of the 17th-18th - early 19th centuries, formed in France at the end of the 17th century. Classicism asserted the primacy of state interests over personal interests, the predominance of civil, patriotic motives, and the cult of moral duty. The aesthetics of classicism is characterized by the rigor of artistic forms: compositional unity, normative style and subjects. Representatives of Russian classicism: Kantemir, Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Knyazhnin, Ozerov and others.

One of the most important features of classicism is the perception of ancient art as a model, an aesthetic standard (hence the name of the movement). The goal is to create works of art in the image and likeness of ancient ones. In addition, the formation of classicism was greatly influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the cult of reason (the belief in the omnipotence of reason and that the world can be reorganized on a rational basis).

Classicists (representatives of classicism) perceived artistic creativity as strict adherence to reasonable rules, eternal laws, created on the basis of the study of the best examples ancient literature. Based on these reasonable laws, they divided works into “correct” and “incorrect”. For example, even Shakespeare’s best plays were classified as “incorrect.” This was due to the fact that Shakespeare’s heroes combined positive and negative traits. And the creative method of classicism was formed on the basis of rationalistic thinking. There was a strict system of characters and genres: all characters and genres were distinguished by “purity” and unambiguity. Thus, in one hero it was strictly forbidden not only to combine vices and virtues (that is, positive and negative traits), but even several vices. The hero had to embody one character trait: either a miser, or a braggart, or a hypocrite, or a hypocrite, or good, or evil, etc.

The main conflict of classic works is the hero’s struggle between reason and feeling. At the same time, a positive hero must always make a choice in favor of reason (for example, when choosing between love and the need to completely devote himself to serving the state, he must choose the latter), and a negative one - in favor of feeling.

The same can be said about the genre system. All genres were divided into high (ode, epic poem, tragedy) and low (comedy, fable, epigram, satire). At the same time, touching episodes were not supposed to be included in a comedy, and funny ones were not supposed to be included in a tragedy. In high genres, “exemplary” heroes were depicted - monarchs, generals who could serve as role models. In the low ones, characters were depicted who were seized by some kind of “passion,” that is, a strong feeling.

Special rules existed for dramatic works. They had to observe three “unities” - place, time and action. Unity of place: classical dramaturgy did not allow a change of location, that is, throughout the entire play the characters had to be in the same place. Unity of time: the artistic time of a work should not exceed several hours, or at most one day. Unity of action implies the presence of only one storyline. All these requirements are related to the fact that the classicists wanted to create a unique illusion of life on stage. Sumarokov: “Try to measure the clock for me in the game for hours, so that I, having forgotten myself, can believe you.”. So, character traits literary classicism:

• purity of the genre(in high genres funny or everyday situations and heroes could not be depicted, and in low genres tragic and sublime ones could not be depicted);
• purity of language(in high genres - high vocabulary, in low genres - colloquial);
• strict division of heroes into positive and negative, wherein goodies When choosing between feeling and reason, they give preference to the latter;
• compliance with the rule of “three unities”;
• affirmation of positive values ​​and the state ideal.

Russian classicism is characterized by state pathos (the state - and not the person - was declared the highest value) combined with faith in the theory of enlightened absolutism. According to the theory of enlightened absolutism, the state should be headed by a wise, enlightened monarch, requiring everyone to serve for the good of society. Russian classicists, inspired by Peter's reforms, believed in the possibility of further improvement of society, which they saw as a rationally structured organism. Sumarokov: “Peasants plow, merchants trade, warriors defend the fatherland, judges judge, scientists cultivate science.” The classicists treated human nature in the same rationalistic way. They believed that human nature is selfish, subject to passions, that is, feelings that are opposed to reason, but at the same time amenable to education.

Sentimentalism(from English sentimental - sensitive, from French sentiment - feeling) - a literary movement of the second half of the 18th century, which replaced classicism. Sentimentalists proclaimed the primacy of feeling, not reason. A person was judged by his capacity for deep experiences. Hence the interest in the hero’s inner world, the depiction of the shades of his feelings (the beginning of psychologism).

Unlike classicists, sentimentalists consider the highest value not the state, but the person. They contrasted the unjust orders of the feudal world with the eternal and reasonable laws of nature. In this regard, nature for sentimentalists is the measure of all values, including man himself. It is no coincidence that they asserted the superiority of the “natural”, “natural” person, that is, living in harmony with nature.

Sensitivity is at the core creative method sentimentalism. If classicists created generalized characters (prude, braggart, miser, fool), then sentimentalists are interested in specific people with individual fates. The heroes in their works are clearly divided into positive and negative. Positive endowed with natural sensitivity (responsive, kind, compassionate, capable of self-sacrifice). Negative- calculating, selfish, arrogant, cruel. The carriers of sensitivity, as a rule, are peasants, artisans, commoners, and rural clergy. Cruel - representatives of power, nobles, high clergy (since despotic rule kills sensitivity in people). Manifestations of sensitivity often acquire a too external, even exaggerated character in the works of sentimentalists (exclamations, tears, fainting, suicide).

One of the main discoveries of sentimentalism is the individualization of the hero and the image of the rich spiritual world of the commoner (the image of Liza in Karamzin’s story “Poor Liza”). The main character of the works was ordinary person. In this regard, the plot of the work often represented individual situations of everyday life, while peasant life was often depicted in pastoral colors. New content required a new form. The leading genres were family novel, diary, confession, novel in letters, travel notes, elegy, epistle.

In Russia, sentimentalism originated in the 1760s (the best representatives are Radishchev and Karamzin). As a rule, in the works of Russian sentimentalism the conflict develops between the serf peasant and the serf-owner landowner, and the moral superiority of the former is persistently emphasized.

Romanticism- an artistic movement in European and American culture of the late 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. Romanticism arose in the 1790s, first in Germany, and then spread throughout Western Europe. The prerequisites for its emergence were the crisis of rationalism of the Enlightenment, the artistic search for pre-romantic movements (sentimentalism), the Great French revolution, German classical philosophy.

The emergence of this literary movement, like any other, is inextricably linked with the socio-historical events of that time. Let's start with the prerequisites for the formation of romanticism in Western European literature. The Great French Revolution of 1789-1799 and the associated revaluation of Enlightenment ideology had a decisive influence on the formation of romanticism in Western Europe. As you know, the 18th century in France passed under the sign of the Enlightenment. For almost a century, French educators led by Voltaire (Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu) argued that the world could be reorganized on a reasonable basis and proclaimed the idea of ​​natural equality of all people. Exactly these educational ideas and inspired the French revolutionaries, whose slogan was the words: “Liberty, equality and fraternity.” The result of the revolution was the establishment of a bourgeois republic. As a result, the winner was the bourgeois minority, which seized power (previously it belonged to the aristocracy, the upper nobility), while the rest were left with nothing. Thus, the long-awaited “kingdom of reason” turned out to be an illusion, as were the promised freedom, equality and brotherhood. There was general disappointment in the results and results of the revolution, deep dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality, which became a prerequisite for the emergence of romanticism. Because at the heart of romanticism is the principle of dissatisfaction with the existing order of things. This was followed by the emergence of the theory of romanticism in Germany.

As you know, Western European culture, in particular French, had a huge influence on Russian. This trend continued into the 19th century, which is why the Great French Revolution also shocked Russia. But, in addition, there are actually Russian prerequisites for the emergence of Russian romanticism. First of all this Patriotic War 1812, which clearly showed the greatness and strength of the common people. It was to the people that Russia owed the victory over Napoleon; the people were the true heroes of the war. Meanwhile, both before the war and after it, the bulk of the people, the peasants, still remained serfs, in fact, slaves. What had previously been perceived as injustice by progressive people of that time now began to seem like a blatant injustice, contrary to all logic and morality. But after the end of the war, Alexander I not only did not cancel serfdom, but also began to pursue a much tougher policy. As a result, a pronounced feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction arose in Russian society. This is how the soil for the emergence of romanticism arose.

The term “romanticism” when applied to a literary movement is arbitrary and imprecise. In this regard, from the very beginning of its occurrence, it was interpreted in different ways: some believed that it comes from the word “romance”, others - from chivalric poetry created in countries speaking Romance languages. For the first time, the word “romanticism” as a name for a literary movement began to be used in Germany, where the first sufficiently detailed theory of romanticism was created.

Very important for understanding the essence of romanticism is the concept of romantic two worlds. As already mentioned, rejection, denial of reality is the main prerequisite for the emergence of romanticism. All romantics reject the world around them, hence their romantic escape from existing life and the search for an ideal outside of it. This gave rise to the emergence of a romantic dual world. The world for romantics was divided into two parts: here and there. “There” and “here” are an antithesis (opposition), these categories are correlated as ideal and reality. The despised “here” is modern reality, where evil and injustice triumph. “There” is a kind of poetic reality, which the romantics contrasted with real reality. Many romantics believed that goodness, beauty and truth, crowded out of public life, were still preserved in the souls of people. Hence their attention to the inner world of a person, in-depth psychologism. The souls of people are their “there”. For example, Zhukovsky was looking for “there” in the other world; Pushkin and Lermontov, Fenimore Cooper - in the free life of uncivilized peoples (Pushkin’s poems “Prisoner of the Caucasus”, “Gypsies”, Cooper’s novels about the life of Indians).

Rejection and denial of reality determined the specifics of the romantic hero. This is a fundamentally new hero; previous literature has never seen anything like him. He is in a hostile relationship with the surrounding society and is opposed to it. This is an extraordinary person, restless, most often lonely and with tragic fate. The romantic hero is the embodiment of romantic rebellion against reality.

Realism(from Latin realis- material, real) - a method (creative attitude) or literary direction that embodies the principles of a life-truthful attitude to reality, aimed at artistic knowledge of man and the world. The term “realism” is often used in two meanings:

1. realism as a method;
2. realism as a direction formed in the 19th century.

Both classicism, romanticism, and symbolism strive for knowledge of life and express their reaction to it in their own way, but only in realism does fidelity to reality become the defining criterion of artistry. This distinguishes realism, for example, from romanticism, which is characterized by rejection of reality and the desire to “recreate” it, rather than display it as it is. It is no coincidence that, turning to the realist Balzac, the romantic George Sand defined the difference between him and herself: “You take a person as he appears to your eyes; I feel a calling within myself to portray him the way I would like to see him.” Thus, we can say that realists depict the real, and romantics depict the desired.

The beginning of the formation of realism is usually associated with the Renaissance. The realism of this time is characterized by the scale of images (Don Quixote, Hamlet) and the poeticization of the human personality, the perception of man as the king of nature, the crown of creation. The next stage is educational realism. In the literature of the Enlightenment, a democratic realistic hero appears, a man “from the bottom” (for example, Figaro in the plays of Beaumarchais “ Barber of Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro"). New types of romanticism appeared in the 19th century: “fantastic” (Gogol, Dostoevsky), “grotesque” (Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin) and “critical” realism associated with the activities of the “natural school”.

Basic requirements of realism: adherence to principles

• nationalities,
• historicism,
• high artistry,
• psychologism,
• depiction of life in its development.

Realist writers showed the direct dependence of the social, moral, and religious ideas of heroes on social conditions, and paid great attention to the social and everyday aspect. Central problem realism— the ratio of credibility and artistic truth. Plausibility, a plausible representation of life is very important for realists, but artistic truth is determined not by plausibility, but by fidelity in comprehending and conveying the essence of life and the significance of the ideas expressed by the artist. One of the most important features realism is the typification of characters (the fusion of the typical and individual, uniquely personal). The persuasiveness of a realistic character directly depends on the degree of individualization achieved by the writer.
Realist writers create new types of heroes: the “ little man"(Vyrin, Bashmachkin, Marmeladov, Devushkin), type " extra person"(Chatsky, Onegin, Pechorin, Oblomov), a type of “new” hero (Turgenev’s nihilist Bazarov, Chernyshevsky’s “new people”).

Modernism(from French modern- the newest, modern) philosophical and aesthetic movement in literature and art that arose at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This term has different interpretations:

1. denotes a number of non-realistic movements in art and literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: symbolism, futurism, acmeism, expressionism, cubism, imagism, surrealism, abstractionism, impressionism;
2. used as symbol aesthetic searches of artists of non-realistic movements;
3. denotes a complex complex of aesthetic and ideological phenomena, including not only the actual modernist movements, but also the work of artists who do not completely fit into the framework of any movement (D. Joyce, M. Proust, F. Kafka and others).

The most striking and significant directions of Russian modernism were symbolism, acmeism and futurism.

Symbolism- a non-realist movement in art and literature of the 1870s-1920s, focused mainly on artistic expression through symbols of intuitively comprehended entities and ideas. Symbolism made itself known in France in the 1860-1870s in the poetic works of A. Rimbaud, P. Verlaine, S. Mallarmé. Then, through poetry, symbolism connected itself not only with prose and drama, but also with other forms of art. The ancestor, founder, “father” of symbolism is considered to be the French writer Charles Baudelaire.

The worldview of symbolist artists is based on the idea of ​​the unknowability of the world and its laws. They considered the spiritual experience of man and the creative intuition of the artist to be the only “tool” for understanding the world.

Symbolism was the first to put forward the idea of ​​​​creating art, free from the task of depicting reality. The symbolists argued that the purpose of art was not to depict the real world, which they considered secondary, but to convey a “higher reality.” They intended to achieve this with the help of a symbol. The symbol is an expression of the poet’s supersensible intuition, to whom in moments of insight the true essence of things. Symbolists developed a new poetic language that did not directly name the object, but hinted at its content through allegory, musicality, colors, and free verse.

Symbolism is the first and most significant of the modernist movements that arose in Russia. The first manifesto of Russian symbolism was the article by D. S. Merezhkovsky “On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature,” published in 1893. It identified three main elements of the “new art”: mystical content, symbolization and “expansion of artistic impressionability”.

Symbolists are usually divided into two groups, or movements:

• "elder" symbolists (V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub and others), who made their debut in the 1890s;
• "younger" Symbolists who began their creative activity in the 1900s and significantly updated the appearance of the current (A. Blok, A. Bely, V. Ivanov and others).

It should be noted that the “senior” and “younger” symbolists were separated not so much by age as by the difference in worldviews and the direction of creativity.

Symbolists believed that art is, first of all, “comprehension of the world by other, non-rational ways”(Bryusov). After all, only phenomena that are subject to the law of linear causality can be rationally comprehended, and such causality operates only in lower forms of life (empirical reality, everyday life). The symbolists were interested in the higher spheres of life (the area of ​​“absolute ideas” in terms of Plato or the “world soul”, according to V. Solovyov), not subject to rational knowledge. It is art that has the ability to penetrate into these spheres, and symbolic images with their endless polysemy are capable of reflecting the entire complexity of the world universe. The symbolists believed that the ability to comprehend the true, highest reality is given only to a select few who, in moments of inspired insight, are able to comprehend the “highest” truth, the absolute truth.

The image-symbol was considered by symbolists as more effective than artistic image, a tool that helps to “break through” the veil of everyday life (lower life) to a higher reality. A symbol differs from a realistic image in that it conveys not the objective essence of a phenomenon, but the poet’s own, individual idea of ​​the world. In addition, a symbol, as Russian symbolists understood it, is not an allegory, but, first of all, a certain image that requires a response from the reader. creative work. The symbol, as it were, connects the author and the reader - this is the revolution brought about by symbolism in art.

The image-symbol is fundamentally polysemantic and contains the prospect of limitless development of meanings. This feature of his was repeatedly emphasized by the symbolists themselves: “A symbol is only a true symbol when it is inexhaustible in its meaning” (Vyach. Ivanov); "The symbol is a window to infinity"(F. Sologub).

Acmeism(from Greek Akme- the highest degree of something, blooming power, peak) - a modernist literary movement in Russian poetry of the 1910s. Representatives: S. Gorodetsky, early A. Akhmatova, L. Gumilev, O. Mandelstam. The term “Acmeism” belongs to Gumilyov. The aesthetic program was formulated in the articles by Gumilyov “The Heritage of Symbolism and Acmeism”, Gorodetsky “Some Trends in Modern Russian Poetry” and Mandelstam “The Morning of Acmeism”.

Acmeism stood out from symbolism, criticizing its mystical aspirations towards the “unknowable”: “With the Acmeists, the rose again became good in itself, with its petals, smell and color, and not with its conceivable likenesses with mystical love or anything else” (Gorodetsky) . The Acmeists proclaimed the liberation of poetry from symbolist impulses towards the ideal, from polysemy and fluidity of images, complicated metaphors; they talked about the need to return to the material world, the object, the exact meaning of the word. Symbolism is based on rejection of reality, and the Acmeists believed that one should not abandon this world, one should look for some values ​​in it and capture them in their works, and do this with the help of precise and understandable images, and not vague symbols.

The Acmeist movement itself was small in number, did not last long - about two years (1913-1914) - and was associated with the “Workshop of Poets”. "Workshop of Poets" was created in 1911 and at first united a fairly large number of people (not all of them later became involved in Acmeism). This organization was much more united than the scattered symbolist groups. At the “Workshop” meetings, poems were analyzed, problems of poetic mastery were solved, and methods for analyzing works were substantiated. The idea of ​​a new direction in poetry was first expressed by Kuzmin, although he himself was not included in the “Workshop”. In his article "On Beautiful Clarity" Kuzmin anticipated many declarations of Acmeism. In January 1913, the first manifestos of Acmeism appeared. From this moment the existence of a new direction begins.

Acmeism declared the task of literature to be “beautiful clarity,” or clarism(from lat. claris- clear). Acmeists called their movement Adamism, linking with the biblical Adam the idea of ​​a clear and direct view of the world. Acmeism preached a clear, “simple” poetic language, where words would directly name objects and declare their love for objectivity. Thus, Gumilyov called for looking not for “shaky words”, but for words “with a more stable content.” This principle was most consistently implemented in Akhmatova’s lyrics.

Futurism- one of the main avant-garde movements (avant-garde is an extreme manifestation of modernism) in European art of the early 20th century, which received its greatest development in Italy and Russia.

In 1909, in Italy, the poet F. Marinetti published the “Manifesto of Futurism.” The main provisions of this manifesto: rejection of traditional aesthetic values and the experience of all previous literature, bold experiments in the field of literature and art. Marinetti names “courage, audacity, rebellion” as the main elements of futurist poetry. In 1912, Russian futurists V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh, and V. Khlebnikov created their manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.” They also sought to break with traditional culture, welcomed literary experiments, and sought to find new means speech expressiveness(proclamation of a new free rhythm, loosening of syntax, destruction of punctuation marks). At the same time, Russian futurists rejected fascism and anarchism, which Marinetti declared in his manifestos, and turned mainly to aesthetic problems. They proclaimed a revolution of form, its independence from content (“it is not what is important, but how”) and the absolute freedom of poetic speech.

Futurism was a heterogeneous movement. Within its framework, four main groups or movements can be distinguished:

1. "Gilea", which united the cubo-futurists (V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh and others);
2. "Association of Egofuturists"(I. Severyanin, I. Ignatiev and others);
3. "Mezzanine of Poetry"(V. Shershenevich, R. Ivnev);
4. "Centrifuge"(S. Bobrov, N. Aseev, B. Pasternak).

The most significant and influential group was “Gilea”: in fact, it was it that determined the face of Russian futurism. Its members released many collections: “The Judges’ Tank” (1910), “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” (1912), “Dead Moon” (1913), “Took” (1915).

The futurists wrote in the name of the crowd man. At the heart of this movement was the feeling of “the inevitability of the collapse of old things” (Mayakovsky), the awareness of the birth of a “new humanity.” Artistic creativity, according to the futurists, should have become not an imitation, but a continuation of nature, which through the creative will of man creates “ new world, today, iron...” (Malevich). This determines the desire to destroy the “old” form, the desire for contrasts, and the attraction to colloquial speech. Relying on the living colloquial, futurists were engaged in “word creation” (creating neologisms). Their works were distinguished by complex semantic and compositional shifts - the contrast of the comic and tragic, fantasy and lyricism.

Futurism began to disintegrate already in 1915-1916.