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The most ancient form of AD, (abbreviated as English-language dramaturgy) associated with pagan people. games, - dialogues between two singers (or female with Kim and male semi-choirs) in Nar. ballads (recordings date back to later times).
A turning point in the development of the English drama as art. forms was the appeal (under the influence of Italian humanists) to ancient samples and the emergence of the so-called. correct drama, the next classic. rules. From Ser. 16th century the first “correct” comedies appear - “Ralph Royster Doyster” (c. 1551) by N. Yudalla
The highest flowering of A. d. the Renaissance reaches after 1588, during the period of strengthening the position of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility, in an environment of nat. upsurge caused by the struggle against Spain. At this time, a galaxy of playwrights appeared in London, creating vivid examples of poetic. dramas (Kid, Green, Shakespeare) Main white verse becomes the form of the literary language of a.d., introduced for the first time by Marlo and Kid and replacing the rhymed verse that dominated the drama of the Middle Ages. Prod. of this period are imbued with the ideas of humanism, assert human rights to enjoy all the blessings of life (Marlo), deny feud. - estate restrictions, emphasize the heroism and dignity of people from the people (Green).
After the completion of the creative activity of Shakespeare (1613), the decline of Renaissance art began. The reason for this was the aristocratization of the theater, its deepening gap with the bunks. spectator.
Late 18th century marked the emergence of a new genre of tragedy "nightmares and horrors", akin to the romantic genre of the Gothic novel. The creator of the genre H. Walpole had numerous. imitators who cultivated this type of play in the beginning. 19
Critical approval. realism in English literature, the emergence of socio-critical. novels by Ch. Dickens and W. Thackeray who denounced the vices of the bourgeoisie. society, was not reflected in the AD, the repertoire of theaters was dominated by production. epigones of romanticism - S. Knowles, S. Phillips, and others. The establishment of realism in AD was hindered by government censorship and the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, which blocked the access of life's truth to the stage.
Truly realistic. and socio-critical. the character of A. d. acquired in creativity B. Shaw, performing in the 1890s. with their " unpleasant plays"- "Widower's House" (1892), "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893, "Stage Society" - 1902).
AT "Unpleasant Plays"We have in front of us outwardly quite decent respectable English bourgeois, who have significant capital and lead a calm, orderly life. But this calmness is deceptive. It conceals such phenomena as exploitation, like dirty, dishonest enrichment of the bourgeois at the expense of the poverty and misfortunes of the common people. Before our eyes Readers and viewers of Shaw's plays go through pictures of the injustice, cruelty and meanness of the bourgeois world.It is characteristic that Shaw's plays begin with traditional pictures of the everyday life of a bourgeois family.The second cycle of Bernard Shaw's plays was "Pleasant Plays" These included: "War and Man", "Candida", "The Chosen One of Fate", "Never You Can Tell". In "Pleasant Pieces" Shaw changes the methods of satirical denunciation. In these plays, Shaw aims to throw off those romantic veils that hide the cruel truth of reality. He calls on people to take a sober and bold look at life and free themselves from the sticky web of prejudices, obsolete traditions, delusions and empty illusions. In the very name - "Pleasant Pieces" - quite frank irony sounds. In the period from 1897 - 1899. created "Plays for the Puritans" - "The Devil's Disciple", "Caesar and Cleopatra", "Appeal of Captain Brassbound".
How authentic innovator Shaw acted in the field of drama. He approved a new type of drama in the English theater - intellectual drama, in which the main place belongs not to intrigue, not to an exciting plot, but to those intense disputes, witty verbal duels that his characters wage. Shaw called his plays discussion plays.
Other playwrights, trying to show social conditions in their plays, approached naturalism. The well-known novelist J. Galsworthy, who created significant social dramas such as The Silver Box (1909), The Struggle (1909), The Mob (1914), The Stranglehold (1920), and others, contributed to realism in academia.
Creativity was of great importance in the period between the 1st and 2nd World Wars. J.B. Priestley. Representative of a radical petty-bourgeois. intellectuals, Priestley reflected conflicting tendencies in his plays. Social and ethical bourgeois criticism. society (“A Dangerous Turn”, 1932, “Time and the Conway Family”, 1937, “They Came to the City”, 1943, “The Linden Family”, 1947, etc.) is combined in his work with decadent and mystical. motives ("Music at night", 1938, "Johnson over Jordan", 1939
In 1932, Priestley wrote and staged the play "Dangerous turn" The local conflict of the play "Dangerous Turn" is clearly expressed and fairly straightforward - it is a conflict of truth and lies. The characters form two opposing camps: on the one hand, Robert Kaplan, a "stubborn truth-seeker", a seeker of truth, on the other hand, his relatives and friends - Robert's wife Fred, the Whitehouse spouses, as well as Stanton and Olwen, who believe that without lies and hypocrisy, human existence will become simply unbearable. Maud Mockridge occupies a special position - she acts as a spectator of everything that happens and does not openly express her position on the issue under discussion. The plot of the action becomes a "dangerous turn", when those present from the conversation between Freda and Olwen learn that both of them are hiding some kind of secret. The emergence of a conflict may be due to Robert's decision to reveal this secret - if he had come to terms with the current situation, the action would have developed differently.
In 1937 he completed the philosophical drama "Time and the Conway family". In none of these plays is there a trace of that optimism which determines the general intonation of the novels. Priestley the playwright refers to the image of the intelligentsia and the upper strata of the so-called middle class or "people of society". It shows the moral collapse experienced by these people, their deep emptiness. Refusing any conclusions, and even more so any instructive tendency, the playwright seeks refuge in imaginary objectivity. At the same time, in all his plays of these years, one feels confusion: neither his characters nor he himself can answer the question that arises before them - how to live. Priestley is trying to create a theory of the new drama, contrasting it with the traditional "well-made play" or the parlor-entertainment play. His drama should be active, devoid of any didactic conclusions imposed on the viewer beforehand. Time and the Conway Family” is complicated by tangible philosophical overtones. The confusion of the author in front of the steady course of time, acting as a terrible monster devouring a person, is noticeable. In the second act, Priestley shows the collapse of the illusions and hopes of several young people, whose images are outlined in the first. The third act develops the first, is its direct continuation. But the viewer already knows where what is happening on the stage will lead to in the future. Thanks to the shift in time, Priestley makes the viewer understand what awaits the actors-drama in 20 years, what the future conceals from them - how their bright, but illusory hopes will inevitably collapse. Each piece of the life of this or that person, Priestley wants to say, acquires meaning only if one understands the direct connection of the future with the present, the fragility of the lines between “today” and “tomorrow”. The history of human existence is perceived by the author not as a complex process, subject to the general laws of development, but as a predetermined value. The characters act as voiceless puppets in the hands of omnipotent necessity, they are completely helpless before the fate that awaits each of them.
SEAN O'CASEY(1880-1964) Defending the ideologically rich drama of B. Shaw, he opposes supporters of entertaining plays, he fights for the theater of high passions and big ideas all his life. The stages of the national liberation struggle of Ireland form the background of three plays of the so-called "Dublin cycle": "Shadow of the Gunslinger" (1923), "Juno and the Peacock" (1924) and "The Plow and the Stars" (1926).
In them, O "Casey spoke about the real Ireland - the Ireland of the Dublin slums, a bleeding country. The viewer saw life's clashes, the occurrence of which was caused by social storms. The carriers of the positive beginning in his early plays were not the participants in the battles, but the victims of the struggle, mainly women: young girls and mothers crushed by worries and grief.
The playwright's ability to reveal the bright humanistic principle in ordinary working people was deeply innovative. Time of the tragedy "The Shadow of the Arrow»-1920 year. The national liberation uprising was brutally suppressed. The English are atrocious. They are not far behind the detachments of the Irish Auxiliary Police, formed by the reactionaries and nicknamed because of the mixing of military uniforms in khaki with black police "black and pie". Looting and reprisals against the civilian population cause hatred and fear.
The Irish are guerrilla warfare against terrorists. “The slums of Dublin are at war with the British Empire. All the might of the army, flanked by gangs of ruthless hooligans, all the forces of the government of the crown, all the monetary power of the banks, took up arms against the ragged tenement girls. The fight is unequal, but the slums will win!” - wrote O "Casey.
O "Casey managed, following B. Shaw and D. M. Sing (1), to reveal the dangerous tendency of the Irish people to a romantic perception of life. O" Casey was able not only to ridicule this dangerous property of the national character of the Irish, but also present it in a tragic aspect. The playwright urged to get rid of romantic illusions, not to die a meaningless death, taught to prepare for a conscious struggle for a better life. At the heart of the play "Plow and Stars" lies the uprising of 1916. The duration of the first two acts is the eve of the uprising, the period of preparation of the civil army for action. The third and fourth acts are the days of the famous Dublin uprising. The name "Plow and Stars" is associated with the emblem depicted on the flag of the civilian army. “On heavy poplin, on a deep blue background, a symbolic pattern stretched in full length and width - a plow, uplifting golden-brown, reddish layers of earth, and above all this a magnificent abundance of stars sparkled, flooding the northern sky with light.”
O "Casey was a participant in the uprising. Together with the ordinary people of Ireland, he suffered his defeat hard. But he could not help but see the weak preparation of the uprising, its prematureness, the isolation of its leaders from the people. The tragic sound of the play is connected with this.
In the first place in the play is the tragedy of a woman who lost her husband during the days of the struggle. Before us is the clash of two opposing human natures: Jack and Nora Cliterow, which is the central conflict of the play.
Nora Cliterow loves her husband dearly. She has no other interests, except for the interests of a small family, except for thoughts about the future of the child, how to decorate and furnish the apartment, dress smartly. She seeks to isolate herself from the outside world and does everything possible to prevent her husband from participating in the political life of the country.
But the rhythm of another life, full of struggle and danger, persistently invades a quiet family corner; the homeland calls its sons under the banner of struggle, and Jack Cliterow goes to the camp of the defenders of the independence of Ireland. The fear of losing a loved one drives Nora crazy.
Bricklayer Jack Cliterow is the first and only hero of the tragedies of O'Casey's "Dublin cycle" who takes a direct part in the national struggle and dies in open battle.
The playwright was able to show the process of formation of the character of his hero. At the beginning of events, Clitheroe is a man like everyone else. He has no mature political convictions, he is vain. But here we are listening to Brannon's story and we understand that Jack's ostentatious heroism has grown into a genuine one, that he managed to find his place among the fighters for the bright future of his homeland.
Talking about the personal tragedy of the Cliterow spouses, the author reveals a topic of great importance - the defeat of the 1916 uprising. Introducing many characters into the play, the playwright sought to give a more complete picture of the life of Dublin on the eve and during the uprising.
Influence of Russian literature
CASEY. Throughout his life, O "Casey considered Russian literature, the work of Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gorky, to be a great school of realism, high artistic skill. Here is his assessment of A. Chekhov's work: “What is the meaning of Chekhov's work for me? a great writer, a great playwright, a great person... A poet, like Whitman, a playwright, like Shakespeare, a great person, like all of them, he seemed to combine everyone in himself. But Chekhov is even more, he is a friend.”
No less deeply O "Casey knew and appreciated the work of L. Tolstoy: "Tolstoy had an extremely deep and courageous mind and a broad outlook ... His powerful intellect was complex and multifaceted. All of Tolstoy's thinking was stamped with poetic spirituality. Such minds combined with a poetic worldview are so rare, their significance for humanity is so great that they are not allowed to die. ”O" Casey always drew a lot of thoughts from the treasury of Russian literature: “In my youth I recognized Tolstoy; a little later I heard about Turgenev, but I had no idea about Gorky ... Now Gorky is my comrade ”
In Priestley's plays, the influence of Chekhov's dramaturgy is palpable. In accordance with the Chekhovian tradition, Priestley seeks to convey the drama of everyday life, to achieve a free development of events, to show life with all its halftones, to reveal the characters of not only central, but also secondary characters. Based on the traditions of Chekhov's drama, Priestley also develops his own original techniques, which are associated primarily with special attention to the category of time. In the second act of the drama Conway Time and the Family, Priestley moves the action into the future, trying to imagine what his characters could become, and in the third act returns them again to the time of the first act.
America, as you know, was officially discovered by the Genoese Columbus in 1492. But by chance, she received the name of the Florentine Amerigo.
The discovery of the New World was the greatest event in the global history of mankind. Not to mention the fact that it dispelled many false ideas about our planet, which contributed to significant changes in the economic life of Europe and caused a wave of emigration to a new continent, it also affected the change in the spiritual climate in countries with a Christian faith (i.e., Christians). to. at the end of the century, Christians, as always, expected the "end of the world", "the Last Judgment", etc.).
America provided abundant food for the most enthusiastic dreams of European thinkers about a society without a state, without the social vices common to the Old World. A country of new opportunities, a country where you can build a completely different life. A country where everything is new and clean, where a civilized person has not yet spoiled anything. But there you can avoid all the mistakes made in the Old World - so thought European humanists in the 16th and 17th centuries. And all these thoughts, views and hopes, of course, found a response in literature, both European and American.
However, in reality, everything turned out quite differently. The history of the settlement of the newly discovered lands by immigrants from Europe was bloody. And not all writers of that time decided to show this truth of life (the Spaniards Las Casas and Gomara reflected this in their works).
In today's speech, the name "America" usually refers to only a part of that huge continent that was discovered at the end of the 16th century, namely the United States. This part of the American continent will be discussed.
Since the 17th century, the settlement of this territory by immigrants from Europe began. It continued in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 17th century, a state arose called New England and subordinate to the English king and parliament. And only in the 70s of the XVIII century, 13 states gained strength in themselves to force England to recognize their independence. Thus, a new state appeared - the United States of America.
Fiction in the proper sense of the word, and in a capacity that allows it to enter the history of world literature, begins in America only in the 19th century, when such writers as Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper appeared on the literary scene.
During the period of the first settlers, in the 17th century, when the development of new lands was just beginning, the foundation of the first settlements was not yet up to literature. Only a few settlers kept diaries, records, chronicles. Although the soul of their authors still lived in England, its political and religious problems. They are not of particular literary interest, but are more valuable as a living picture of the first settlers of America, a story about the difficult days of settling in new places, ordeals, etc. Here are some famous diaries: Jan Winthrop 1630-1649, A History of New England, William Bradford's A History of the Settlement at Plymouth (1630-1651), John Smith's A General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624) .
Of the purely literary works, one should perhaps mention the poems of the poetess Anna Bredstreet (1612-1672), religiously edifying, very mediocre, but amusing the hearts of the first settlers (poem-dialogues "Quartets").
18th century
The 18th century in America passes under the flag of the struggle for independence. The central place is occupied by the ideas of the Enlightenment, which came from England and France. Cities grew in New England, universities were founded, newspapers began to appear. The first literary swallows also appeared: novels created under the influence of English educational literature and the "Gothic" novel, Henry Breckenridge (1748-1816) - "Modern Chivalry, or the Adventures of Captain John Farrato and Tig O'Reegen, his servant", Brockden Brown ( 1771-1810) - Wieland, Ormond, Arthur Mervin; poems Timothy Dwight (1752-1818) - "The Conquests of Canaan", "Greenfield Hill".
The second half of the century was marked by the appearance of a large group of poets who reflected the political passions of the era in their works. Conventionally, they were divided into sympathizers with the federalists (the most famous group is the “university poets”) and supporters of the revolution and democratic government. One of the most significant poets, an associate of Payne and Jefferson, is Philip Frenot (1752 - 1832). In his poems, he vividly reflected the political events in the country, although he later became disillusioned with the new American reality. In his best poems, he sang of nature and reflected on eternal life. Already in the work of Freno, it is easy to catch the beginnings of romanticism, which was fully formed in the USA only in the 19th century.
However, the main asset of American literature of the 18th century was its educational journalism with the names of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. These three people entered the history of American social thought, they left a noticeable mark in the history of world literature.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the author of the Declaration of Independence, the third President of the United States, is an undeniably talented and original person. A scientist, philosopher, inventor, possessing great and versatile knowledge, he should be mentioned in the history of literature as a brilliant stylist, who possessed a clear, precise and figurative language of a writer. His "Notes on Virginia", his "General Survey of the Rights of the British Empire" were valued by contemporaries not only for their expression of thought, but also for their literary merit. Mathematics, architecture, astronomy, natural sciences, linguistics (compiling dictionaries of Indian languages), history, music - all this was the subject of this person's hobbies and knowledge.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was one of the brilliant and versatile minds of the 18th century. Public thought in America was formed under the influence of this powerful mind, a self-taught genius.
For 25 years, Franklin published the famous calendar "The Simpleton Richard's Almanac", which in America served as a kind of encyclopedia, a collection of scientific information and, at the same time, witty everyday instructions. He printed a newspaper. He organized a public library in Philadelphia, a hospital, and wrote philosophical essays. He described his life in his Autobiography (published posthumously in 1791). His Teachings of the Simpleton Richard went around Europe. Many European universities gave him an honorary doctorate. Well, and, finally, he is a politician who carried out responsible diplomatic missions in Europe.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) is a talented, selfless revolutionary and educator. Published the pamphlet Common Sense. On January 10, 1776, the pamphlet became the sensation of the day. He called Americans to the war for independence, to the revolution. During the French bourgeois revolution, T. Payne fought on the side of the rebels. In addition, Payne wrote the book "Age of Reason" - an outstanding work of American enlightenment thought of the 18th century. The book, part of which was written in a Parisian prison, contains in rather harsh terms a condemnation of Christianity.
The American Enlightenment did not produce authors on such a scale as the enlighteners of England, France, and Germany distinguished themselves. We will not find in the writings of Franklin, Jefferson, Paine and others the brilliance and wit of Voltaire, the depth of thought of Locke, the eloquence and passion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the poetic imagination of Milton. These were more practitioners than thinkers and. Of course, least of all artists. They mastered the ideas of the European Enlightenment and tried, taking into account the possibilities, to apply them to their country. Thomas Paine was the boldest and most radical of them all.
American educators emphasized the issues of society, the individual and the state. Society is above the state. It can change its political system if the new generation finds it useful, they reasoned.
Thus, the American educational journalism of the 18th century theoretically substantiated the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. Thus, the American Enlightenment contributed to the development of emancipatory ideas and historical progress.
19th century
A priority direction in US policy in the XIX century. was the expansion of territories (attached: Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Upper California and other territories). One of the consequences of this is the military conflict with Mexico (1846-1848). As for the internal life of the country, the development of capitalism in the United States in the XIX century. was uneven. The "slowdown", the postponement of its growth in the first half of the 19th century, prepared for its especially wide and intensive development, a particularly violent explosion of economic and social contradictions in the second half of the century.
When studying the history of American culture and literature, one cannot but pay attention to the fact that such an uneven development of capitalism left a characteristic imprint on the ideological life of the United States, in particular, it caused the relative backwardness, “immaturity” of social thought and the social consciousness of American society. The provincial isolation of the United States from European cultural centers also played its role. The social consciousness in the country was largely dominated by obsolete illusions and prejudices.
Disappointment with the results of the post-revolutionary development of the country leads American writers to search for a romantic ideal that opposes inhumane reality.
American romantics are the creators of the national literature of the United States. This, above all, distinguishes them from their European counterparts. While in Europe at the beginning of the XIX century. national literatures have secured for themselves qualities that have evolved over almost a whole millennium and have become their specific national features, American literature, like the nation, was still being defined. And in the New World, not only at the beginning of the 19th century, but also later, several decades later. The book market was dominated mainly by the works of English writers and literature translated from other European languages. The American book hardly made its way to the domestic reader. At that time, literary clubs already existed in New York, but English literature and an orientation towards European culture reigned in tastes: American in the bourgeois environment was considered "vulgar".
A rather serious task was entrusted to the American Romantics, in addition to the formation of national literature, they had to create the entire complex ethical and philosophical code of the young nation - to help it form.
In addition, it should be noted that for its time, romanticism was the most effective method of artistic development of reality; without it, the process of the nation's aesthetic development would be incomplete.
The chronological framework of American romanticism is somewhat different from European romanticism. The romantic trend in US literature took shape between the second and third decades and maintained its dominant position until the end of the Civil War (1861-1865).
Three stages can be traced in the development of romanticism. The first stage is early American Romanticism (1820-1830s). His immediate predecessor was pre-romanticism, which developed as early as within the framework of enlightenment literature (the work of F. Freno in poetry, C. Brockden Brown in the novel, etc.). The largest writers of early romanticism - V. Irving, D.F. Cooper, W.K. Bryant, D.P. Kennedy and others. With the appearance of their works, American literature for the first time receives international recognition. There is a process of interaction between American and European romanticism. An intensive search for national artistic traditions is underway, the main themes and problems are outlined (the war for independence, the development of the continent, the life of the Indians). The worldview of the leading writers of this period is painted in optimistic tones associated with the heroic time of the war for independence and the grandiose prospects that opened before the young republic. There is a close continuity with the ideology of the American Enlightenment. It is significant that both Irving and Cooper actively participate in the social and political life of the country, striving to directly influence the course of its development.
At the same time, critical tendencies are ripening in early romanticism, which are a reaction to the negative consequences of the strengthening of capitalism in all spheres of life in American society. They are looking for an alternative to the bourgeois way of life and find it in the romantically idealized life of the American West, the heroism of the War of Independence, the free sea, the country's patriarchal past, and so on.
The second stage is mature American romanticism (1840-1850s). This period includes the work of N. Hawthorne, E.A. Poe, G. Melville, G.W. Longfellow, W.G. Simms, transcendentalist writers R.W. Emerson, G.D. Toro. The complex and contradictory reality of America in these years led to noticeable differences in the worldview and aesthetic position of the romantics of the 1940s and 1950s. Most of the writers of this period are deeply dissatisfied with the course of the country's development. The gap between reality and the romantic ideal deepens, turns into an abyss. It is no coincidence that among the romantics of the mature period there are so many misunderstood and unrecognized artists rejected by bourgeois America: Poe, Melville, Thoreau, and later the poetess E. Dickinson.
In mature American romanticism, dramatic, even tragic tones predominate, a sense of the imperfection of the world and man (Hawthorne), moods of sorrow, longing (Poe), consciousness of the tragedy of human existence (Melville). A hero with a split psyche appears, bearing the stamp of doom in his soul. The balanced-optimistic world of Longfellow and the transcendentalists about universal harmony in these decades stand apart.
At this stage, American romanticism is moving from the artistic development of national reality to the study of the universal problems of man and the world on the basis of national material, and acquires philosophical depth. In the artistic language of mature American romanticism, symbolism penetrates, rarely found among the romantics of the previous generation. Poe, Melville, Hawthorne in their works created symbolic images of great depth and generalizing power. Supernatural forces begin to play a noticeable role in their creations, mystical motifs intensify.
Transcendentalism is a literary and philosophical trend that appeared in the 30s. The Transcendental Club was organized in September 1836 in Boston, Massachusetts. From the very beginning it included: R.U. Emerson, J. Ripley, M. Fuller, T. Parker, E. Olcott, in 1840 they were joined by G.D. Toro. The name of the club is associated with the philosophy of "Transcendental Idealism" by the German thinker I. Kant. Club from 1840 to 1844 published his own magazine, Dial. The teaching of American transcendentalism raised questions of a global nature for contemporaries - about the essence of man, about the relationship between man and nature, man and society, about the ways of moral self-improvement. As for their views on their country, the transcendentalists argued that America had its own great destiny, but at the same time they were sharply critical of the bourgeois development of the United States.
Transcendentalism marked the beginning of American philosophical thought and influenced the formation of national character and self-consciousness. And what is more remarkable, transcendentalism was used in the ideological struggle in the 20th century. (M. Gandhi, M. L. King). And the controversy around this trend has not subsided so far.
The third stage is late American romanticism (60s). The period of crisis phenomena. Romanticism as a method is increasingly unable to reflect the new reality. Those writers of the previous stage who are still continuing their path in literature enter a period of severe creative crisis. The most striking example is the fate of Melville, who went into voluntary spiritual self-isolation for many years.
During this period, there is a sharp division among the romantics, caused by the Civil War. On the one hand, the literature of abolitionism stands out, protesting against slavery from aesthetic, general humanistic positions within the framework of romantic aesthetics. On the other hand, the literature of the South, romanticizing and idealizing "southern chivalry", stands up in defense of a historically doomed wrong cause and a reactionary way of life. Abolitionist motifs occupy a prominent place in the work of writers whose work developed in the previous period - Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, etc., become the main ones in the work of G. Beecher Stowe, D.G. Whittier, R. Hildreth and others.
There were also regional differences in American Romanticism. The major literary regions are New England (Northeastern States), the Middle States, and the South. The Romanticism of New England (Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Bryant) is characterized primarily by the desire for a philosophical understanding of the American experience, for the analysis of the national past, for the study of complex ethical problems. The main themes in the work of the romantics of the middle states (Irving, Cooper, Paulding, Melville) are the search for a national hero, interest in social issues, a comparison of the past and present of America. Southern writers (Kennedy, Simms) often sharply and justly criticize the vices of America's capitalist development, but at the same time they cannot get rid of the stereotypes of glorifying the virtues of "southern democracy" and the advantages of the slave-owning order.
At all stages of development, American romanticism is characterized by a close connection with the socio-political life of the country. This is what makes Romantic literature specifically American in content and form. In addition, there are some other differences from European romanticism. American romantics express their dissatisfaction with the country's bourgeois development and do not accept the new values of modern America. The Indian theme becomes a cross-cutting theme in their work: American romantics show sincere interest and deep respect for the Indian people.
The romantic trend in US literature was not immediately replaced by realism after the end of the Civil War. A complex fusion of romantic and realistic elements is the work of the greatest American poet Walt Whitman. A romantic worldview - already outside the chronological framework of romanticism - is imbued with Dickinson's work. Romantic motifs organically enter the creative method of F. Bret Hart, M. Twain, A. Beers, D. London and other US writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Peculiar swallows of realism appeared in America already in the middle of the century. One of these - the most striking - is Rebecca Harding's story "Life in the Foundries" (1861). In which, without any embellishment and with almost documentary detail, the living conditions of American workers in the eastern region of the United States are drawn.
The transitional period was marked by the work of writers (W.D. Howells, H. James, etc.), whose method was called “soft”, “gentle realism”, or, according to the definition of Gowells himself, “restrained” (reticent) realism. The essence of their views was the exclusivity and "enduring advantages" of American life over the life of the Old World; in their opinion, the problems that arose in the works of European realism and Russian (the most popular at that time) had no points of contact with American ones. This was the reason for their attempt to limit critical realism in the United States. But later the injustice of these views became so obvious that they had to abandon them.
Boston School. One of the most important places in the literature of the United States after the Civil War received a current known as the "literature of conventions and decorum", "traditions of refinement", etc. This trend includes writers who lived mainly in Boston and associated with the journals published there and with Harvard University. Therefore, the writers of this group are often referred to as "Bostonians". This included such writers as Lowell ("The Biglow Papers"), Aldrich, Taylor, Norton, and others.
Widespread at the end of the 19th century. received the genre of historical novel and short story. There were such works as "Old Creole Times" by D. Cable (1879), "Colonel Carter of Cartersville" by Smith, "In Old Virginia" by Page. Some of them were not devoid of artistic merit, such as "Old Creole Times", which vividly reproduced the life and customs of the American South at the beginning of the century. In this regard, Cable will act as one of the representatives of "regional literature".
On the whole, the development of the historical genre had a rather negative significance for American literature of that time. The historical novel led away from the pressing problems of our time. In most books of this genre the past was idealized, nationalistic and racist aspirations were kindled, and that historical truth, which is the main condition for a truly artistic historical novel, was almost completely absent.
Many creators of the historical novel sought only to entertain the reader. It was this task that D.M. Crawford, author of many pseudo-historical novels. That is why realist writers fought against pseudo-historical novels, seeing them as one of the most important obstacles to the development of realistic literature.
Along with the historical and adventurous-adventure novel, the genre of "business story" became widespread. Works of this type usually told about a poor, but energetic and enterprising young man who, through his work, perseverance and perseverance, achieved success in life. The sermon of businesslikeness in literature (S. White "Conquerors of the Forests", "Companion"; D. Lorrimer "Letters of a self-created merchant to his son") was reinforced by the teachings of pragmatists in American philosophy. W. James, D. Dewey and other American pragmatists laid a philosophical foundation for businessmanship, contributed to the development of the cult of individualism and business among the broad strata of the American population.
The development of American literature is largely associated with the American Dream. Some writers believed in it, propagandized it in their works (the same "delicious literature", later - representatives of apologetic, conformist literature). Others (most of the romantics and realists) sharply criticized this myth, showed its underside (for example, Dreiser in "An American Tragedy").
American novel of the 19th century.
Quite a strong position in American literature of the XIX century. occupied by the novel. American writer Bret Hart even said that the short story is "the national genre of American literature." But one cannot, of course, assume that interest in the novel was the exclusive privilege of the Americans. Quite successfully, the short story (story) developed in Europe as well. However, the main form of European literary development in the XIX century. was a realistic social novel. It was different in America. Due to the historical circumstances of the country's social and cultural development, the critical-realist novel did not find its proper embodiment in American literature. Why? The main reason for this, like many other anomalies of American culture, must be sought in the backwardness of public consciousness in the United States during the 19th century. The failure of American literature to create in the nineteenth century a great social novel is explained, firstly, by its unpreparedness, lack of historical experience and unwillingness to perceive this experience in European literature, and, secondly, by those significant objective difficulties that any social reality presents for the artist’s understanding, “shrouded in a fog of immature economic relations” (Engels). A great critical-realistic novel appeared in the USA, but with a significant delay, only at the beginning of the 20th century.
American literature in each of its generations puts forward outstanding master storytellers like E. Poe, M. Twain, or D. London. The form of a short entertaining narrative becomes typical of American literature.
One of the reasons for the prosperity of the novel is the rapidity of life in America at that time, as well as the "magazine way" of American literature. A prominent role in American life, and hence in literature, XIX century. still plays the oral story. American oral history goes back originally to the legends (which survive for almost the entire nineteenth century) of trappers.
The main component of the novel is "American humor". The humorous life-descriptive short story of the 1930s is formed mainly on the basis of folklore. And an essential element of American folklore was the oral tradition of the Negroes, who brought with them the traditions of the African primitive epic (The Tales of Uncle Remus by Joel Harris).
A typical feature of American short stories is such a construction of the story, where there is always a sharpened plot leading to a paradoxical, unexpected denouement. It should be noted that it was in this that he saw the advantages of E. Poe's short story, as well as in its size, which makes it possible to read it at once, thus. not lose the integrity of the impression, which, in his opinion, is impossible in the case of the novel.
The short story also plays an outstanding role in the art of American romanticism (Poe, Hawthorne, Melville).
In the 60s and 70s, the development of the American short story is associated with the names of such writers as Bret Hart, Twain, Cable. Their main theme is public and private relations in the colonized lands. One of the most striking works of this period is "California Tales" by Bret Garth.
In the 1980s and 1990s, a new generation of writers appeared (Garland, Norris, Crane), who are characterized as representatives of American naturalism. Their naturalistic short story depicts American life in sharp and harsh terms, groping for its fundamental social contradictions and not being afraid to draw experience from European socio-political and fiction. But the social protest of the American naturalists was nowhere reduced to a rejection of the capitalist system as a whole. And yet the role of these writers in the movement of American literature towards social realism is much more significant than it can be limited within the framework of naturalism.
20th century
In the new, twentieth century, the problems of American literature are determined by a fact of tremendous significance: the richest, most powerful capitalist country, leading the whole world, is producing the most gloomy and bitter literature of our time. Writers have acquired a new quality: they have a sense of the tragedy and doom of this world. Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" expressed the desire of writers for great generalizations, which distinguishes the literature of the United States of that time.
In the XX century. the short story no longer plays such an important role in American literature as in the 19th century, it is replaced by a realistic novel. But all novelists continue to pay considerable attention to it, and a number of prominent American prose writers devote themselves mainly or exclusively to the short story.
One of them is O. Henry (William Sidney Porter), who made an attempt to outline a different path for the American short story, as if “bypassing” the already clearly defined critical-realist direction. O. Henry can also be called the founder of the American happy ending (which was present in most of his stories), which later will be very successfully used in American popular fiction. Despite the sometimes not very flattering reviews of his work, it is one of the important and turning points in the development of the American short story of the 20th century.
A peculiar influence on American novelists of the 20th century. provided by representatives of the Russian realistic story (Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky). The features of the construction of the plot of the story were determined by essential life patterns and were fully included in the general artistic task of a realistic depiction of reality.
At the beginning of the XX century. new trends appeared that made an original contribution to the formation of critical realism. In the 900s, a current of "mudrakers" arose in the USA. "Mudrakers" - an extensive group of American writers, publicists, sociologists, public figures of a liberal orientation. In their work there were two closely interconnected streams: journalistic (L.Steffens, I.Tarbell, R.S. Baker) and literary and artistic (E.Sinclair, R.Herrick, R.R.Kauffman). At certain stages of their career, such major writers as D. London and T. Dreiser came close to the muckrakers movement (as President T. Roosevelt called them in 1906).
The performances of the "mudrakers" contributed to the strengthening of socially critical tendencies in US literature and the development of a sociological variety of realism. Thanks to them, the journalistic aspect becomes an essential element of the modern American novel.
The 10s were marked by a realist take-off in American poetry, called the "poetic renaissance." This period is associated with the names of Carl Sandberg, Edgar Lee Master, Robert Frost, W. Lindsay, E. Robinson. These poets addressed the life of the American people. Relying on the democratic poetry of Whitman and the achievements of realist prose writers, they, breaking outdated romantic canons, laid the foundations of a new realistic poetics, which included updating the poetic vocabulary, prose prose, and in-depth psychologism. This poetics met the requirements of the time, helped to display American reality in its diversity by poetic means.
The 900s and 10s of our century were marked by the long-awaited appearance of a great critical-realistic novel (F. Norris, D. London, Dreiser, E. Sinclair). It is believed that critical realism in the latest US literature has developed in the process of the interaction of three historically determined factors: these are the real elements of the protest of American romantics, the realism of Mark Twain, which grew up on an original folk basis, and the experience of American writers of a realistic direction, who perceived in one way or another tradition of the 19th century European classic novel.
American realism was the literature of public protest. Realist writers refused to accept reality as a natural result of development. Criticism of the emerging imperialist society, the depiction of its negative sides, became the hallmarks of American critical realism. New themes appear, brought to the fore by the changed conditions of life (the ruin and impoverishment of farming; the capitalist city and the little man in it; the denunciation of monopoly capital).
The new generation of writers is connected with the new region: it relies on the democratic spirit of the American West, on the elements of oral folklore and addresses its works to the widest mass readership.
It is appropriate to say about the stylistic diversity and genre innovation in American realism. The genres of the psychological and social short story, the socio-psychological novel, the epic novel, and the philosophical novel develop, the genre of the social utopia becomes widespread (Bellamy's Looking Back, 1888), and the genre of the scientific novel is created (S. Lewis's Arrowsmith). At the same time, realist writers often used new aesthetic principles, a special look “from the inside” at the surrounding life. Reality was portrayed as an object of psychological and philosophical understanding of human existence.
The typological feature of American realism was authenticity. Starting from the traditions of late romantic literature and the literature of the transition period, realist writers sought to portray only the truth, without embellishment and omissions. Another typological feature was the social orientation, the markedly social nature of novels and short stories. Another typological feature of American literature of the XX century. - its inherent publicity. Writers in their works sharply and clearly delineate their likes and dislikes.
By the 1920s, the formation of American national dramaturgy, which had not previously received significant development, dates back to the 1920s. This process proceeded in conditions of acute internal struggle. The desire for a realistic reflection of life was complicated by modernist influences among American playwrights. Eugene O'Neill occupies one of the first places in the history of American drama. He laid the foundations of the American national drama, created vivid psychological plays; and all his work had a great influence on the subsequent development of American drama.
An eloquent and peculiar phenomenon in the literature of the 1920s was the work of a group of young writers who entered literature immediately after the end of the First World War and reflected in their art the difficult conditions of post-war development. All of them were united by disappointment in bourgeois ideals. They were especially concerned about the fate of a young man in post-war America. These are the so-called representatives of the "lost generation" - Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Dos Passos, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Of course, the term “lost generation” itself is very approximate, because the writers who are usually included in this group are very different in political, social and aesthetic views, in the characteristics of their artistic practice. And yet, to some extent, this term can be applied to them: the awareness of the tragedy of American life had a particularly strong and sometimes painful effect on the work of these young people who had lost faith in the old bourgeois foundations. F.S. Fitzgerald gave his name to the Lost Generation era: he called it the Jazz Age. In this term, he wanted to express the feeling of instability, the transience of life, a feeling that is characteristic of many people who have lost faith and hastened to live and thereby escape, albeit illusory, from their loss.
Around the 1920s, modernist groups began to appear that fought against realism, propagated the cult of "pure art", and engaged in formalist research. The American school of modernism is most vividly represented by the poetic practice and theoretical views of such masters of modernism as Ezra Pound and Thomas Stearns Eliot. Ezra Pound also became one of the founders of the modernist movement in literature, called Imagism. Imagism (from image) tore literature from life, defended the principle of the existence of "pure art", proclaimed the primacy of form over content. This idealistic conception, in turn, underwent minor changes over time and laid the foundation for another variety of modernism, known as vorticism. Vorticism (from vortex) is close to Imagism and Futurism. This movement made it an obligation for poets to figuratively perceive the phenomena they were interested in and depict them through words that took into account only their sound. Vorticists tried to achieve visual perception of sound, tried to find such words-sounds that would express movement, dynamics, without regard to their meaning and meaning. Freudian theories, which were widespread at that time, also contributed to the emergence of new trends in modernist literature. They became the basis of the stream of consciousness novel and various other schools.
Although the American writers who were in Europe did not create the original modernist schools. They were actively involved in the activities of various modernist groups - French, English and multinational. Among the "exiles" (as they called themselves), the majority were writers of the younger generation, who had lost faith in bourgeois ideals, in capitalist civilization, but could not find real support in life. Their confusion expressed itself in modernist quests.
In 1929, the first John Reed Club arose in the USA, uniting proletarian writers and advocating revolutionary art and literature, and in the 30s there were already 35 such clubs, and later the League of American Writers was created on their basis, which existed from 1935 to 1942. During its existence, four congresses were convened (1935, 1937, 1939, 1941), which laid the foundation for the unification of US writers around democratic social tasks, contributed to the ideological growth of many of them; this association has played a prominent role in the history of American literature.
"Pink Decade" It can be said that in the 1930s literature of a socialist orientation in the USA took shape as a trend. Its development was also facilitated by the stormy socialist movement in Russia. Among its representatives (Michael Gold, Lincoln Steffens, Albert Maltz, and others) there is a distinct desire for the socialist ideal, strengthening ties with social and political life. Very often in their works there was a call for resistance, for the struggle against the oppressors. This feature has become one of the important features of American socialist literature.
In the same years, a kind of “explosion of documentaryism” takes place; it was associated with the desire of writers to promptly, directly respond to current socio-political events. Turning to journalism, primarily to the essay, writers (Anderson, Caldwell, Frank, Dos Passos) turn out to be pioneers of new topics that later receive artistic comprehension.
At the end of the 1930s, there was a clear rise in the critical-realist trend after a noticeable decline at the beginning of the decade. New names appear: Thomas Wolfe, Richard Wright, Albert Maltz, D. Trumbo, E. Caldwell, D. Farrell and others. And the development of the epic genre, which was formed in the atmosphere of the popular struggle against monopolies and the fascist threat, became an outstanding achievement of critical realism in USA. Here, first of all, it is necessary to name the names of such authors as Faulkner, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Dos Passos.
During World War II, American writers joined the fight against Hitlerism: they condemned Hitler's aggression and supported the fight against the fascist aggressors. Publicistic articles and reports by war correspondents are published in large numbers. And later, the theme of World War II will be reflected in the books of many writers (Hemingway, Mailer, Saxton, etc.). Some writers, creating anti-fascist works, saw their task in unconditional support for the actions of the US ruling circles, which sometimes could lead to a departure from the truth of life, from a realistic depiction of reality. John Steinbeck took a similar position in those years.
After World War II, there is some decline in the development of literature, but this does not apply to poetry and drama, where the work of poets Robert Lowell and Alan Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, playwrights Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee gained worldwide fame.
In the post-war years, the anti-racist theme, so characteristic of Negro literature, deepens. This is evidenced by the poetry and prose of Langston Hughes, the novels of John Killens ("Young Blood, and Then We Heard Thunder"), and the fiery publicism of James Baldwin, and the dramaturgy of Lorraine Hensberry. One of the brightest representatives of Negro creativity was Richard Wright ("Son of America").
Increasingly, literature is created "under the order" of the ruling circles of America. The novels of L. Nyson, L. Stalling, and others, depicting in a heroic halo the actions of American troops during World War I and other "benefits" of America, are thrown into the book market in huge numbers. And during the years of World War II, the ruling circles of the United States managed to subjugate many writers. And for the first time on such a scale, US literature was put at the service of government propaganda. And as many critics note, this process had a detrimental effect on the development of US literature, which, in their opinion, was clearly confirmed in its post-war history.
The so-called mainstream fiction, which sets itself the goal of transporting the reader to a pleasant and iridescent world, is gaining popularity in the United States. The book market was flooded with novels by Kathleen Norris, Temple Bailey, Fenny Hearst, and other purveyors of "women's literature," producing lightweight, patterned novels with an indispensable happy ending. In addition to love books, popular literature was also represented by detective stories. Pseudo-historical works have also become popular, combining entertainment with an apology for American statehood (Kenneth Roberts). However, the most famous work in this genre was the American bestseller - the novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1937), depicting the life of the southern aristocracy during the era of the war between the North and the South and Reconstruction.
In the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, on the basis of the mass Negro and anti-war movement in the country, there was an obvious turn of many writers towards significant social problems, the growth of socially critical sentiments in their work, and a return to the traditions of realistic creativity.
The role of John Cheever as the leader of US prose is becoming increasingly significant. Another representative of the literature of that time, Saul Bellow, was awarded the Nobel Prize and won wide recognition in America and beyond.
Among the modernist writers, the leading role belongs to the "black humorists" Barthelme, Bart, Pynchon, in whose work irony often hides the absence of their own vision of the world and who are more likely to have a tragic feeling and misunderstanding of life than its rejection.
In recent decades, many writers have come to literature from universities. And so the main themes became: memories of childhood, youth and university years, and when these topics were exhausted, the writers ran into difficulties. To a certain extent, this also applies to such remarkable writers as John Updike and Philip Roth. But not all of these writers remained in their perception of America at the level of university impressions. By the way, F. Roth and J. Updike in their latest works go far beyond these problems, although this is not so easy for them.
Among the middle generation of American writers, the most popular and significant are Kurt Vonnegut, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Gardner. The future belongs to these writers, although they have already said their special and original word in American literature. As for the developing concepts, they express various varieties of contemporary bourgeois currents in American literary criticism.
But, of course, modern US literature, already time-tested, will be studied, evaluated and comprehended, maybe from other positions only after a certain amount of time has passed - which will most likely be more reliable from the point of view of the development of American literature as a whole.
Bibliography
S.D. Artamonov, History of foreign literature of the XVII-XVIII centuries, M.: 1988
History of foreign literature of the 19th century, ed. M.A. Solovieva, M.: 1991
History of foreign literature of the 19th century, Part I, ed. A.S. Dmitrieva, M.: 1979
M.N. Bobrova, Romanticism in American Literature of the 19th Century, M.: 1991
History of foreign literature of the XX century 1871-1917, ed. V.N. Theological, Z.T. Civil, M.: 1972
History of foreign literature of the XX century 1917-1945, ed. V.N. Theological, Z.T. Civil, M.: 1990
History of foreign literature of the XX century, ed. L.G. Andreeva, M.: 1980
B.A. Gilenson, American literature of the 30s of the XX century, M.: 1974
A. Startsev, From Whitman to Hemingway, Moscow: 1972
Literary History of the United States of America, Volume III, ed. R. Spiller, W. Thorpe, T.N. Johnson, G.S. Kenby, M.: 1979
UDK 821.111+821.161.1
ON THE INFLUENCE OF RUSSIAN CLASSICS OF THE 19TH CENTURY ON AMERICAN WRITERS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Babushkina I.E.
This work aims to help students to better understand the potential and prospects of Russian civilization through the spiritual and social experience of the greatest writers of the United States of the twentieth century and, at the same time, to show how the influence of Russian spirituality is interconnected with the deepening of their criticism of their own, that is, American civilization. Two little-studied literary and philosophical novels were analyzed: "East of Eden" (1952) by John Steinbeck and "The Eighth Day" (1967) by Thornton Wilder. The analysis is made from the point of view of intercivilizational relations. Key words: intercultural dialogue, philosophical parables, intercivilizational relations, reaffirm, the ways of salvation, the influence of Russian spirituality, the philosophy of social Darwinism, the fundamental principles of Christianity, the role of Orthodoxy.
ABOUT INFLUENCE OF THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS OF THE XIX CENTURY ON THE AMERICAN WRITERS OF THE XX CENTURY
The article is devoted to the influence of the Russian classical literature of the XIX century upon the classical American writers of the XX century. The author presents her conception of the debatable message inherent in the two masterpieces created by the famous classical writers of the U.S.A. - John Steinbeck's novel "East of Eden" (1952), and Thornton Wilder's novel "The Eighth Day" (1967). She reveals the d e-cisive role of the Orthodox religion in the solution of the problems raised in the novels. The genre of these works of art is considered to be philosophical parable.
Keywords: cross-cultural dialogue, philosophical parables, the intercivilization relations, anew to claim, ways of rescue, influence of the Russian spirituality, philosophy of social Darwinism, the Christianity fundamental principle, Orthodoxy role.
In our time in world politics, its humanitarian component is becoming increasingly important. According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation S.V. Lavrov, this is one of the "new dimensions" in the field of international cooperation "in the context of globalization". “Increasing” their knowledge in the field of culture, including “high morality”, our students acquire “a deep understanding of national interests and readiness to defend them skillfully”1.
It was said about the need to master the art of effectively conducting intercultural dialogue: “... to develop skills, abilities to
1 Transcript of the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Lavrov S.V. at MGIMO (U) on the occasion of the start of the new academic year. M. September 1, 2005. S. 5 - 6.
“Unity,” proclaimed the oracle of our days, “can only be soldered with iron and blood.
But we will try to solder it with love, and then we will see what is stronger.
F.I. Tyutchev
it is quick, convincing, interesting to convey what you know ... to your partners, interlocutors.
The most important facet of intercultural exchange is the dialogue of national literatures. Today, in the conditions of the information war, the high quality of dialogue as a “soft tool” that affects the worldview of the interlocutor, his system of values is doubly necessary. The greatest potential in this regard, according to the author of the article, is the influence of Russian classics of the 19th century on US writers. The scale of the influence of the works of Russian geniuses - primarily L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky - on the best representatives of the young
Lavrov S.V. Sound recording of the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation at MGIMO (U) on the occasion of the start of the new academic year. M. September 1, 2005
oceanic republic, thirsting for new spiritual ideals, was, in a certain sense, a unique fact in the history of world culture of our time. It is no coincidence that Kurt Vonnegut sums up: "The contribution of Leo Tolstoy to the formation of American literature is so great that it cannot be defined in any one word ...".
The result was "oases" of spirituality that arose among the various strata of the American nation. Didn’t Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia have in mind, in particular, when in his report at the XX World Russian People’s Council in Moscow (October 31 - November 1, 2016) he stated: “We know that, in addition to the usual of officialdom formed by the media, there is another America. ”, which is not going to abandon traditional spiritual and moral values. This conclusion was the result of the report's in-depth analysis of post-Cold War trends. It is explained that much of our usual views on the problem of Russia and the West "does not correspond to the real spiritual and cultural situation in the world" and speaks of "signs" indicating a "possible gradual change in worldview coordinates." Here is what, according to the patriarch, is “the most acute conflict of our time”: it is “not the “clash of civilizations” declared by the American philosopher Samuel Huntington, not the struggle of religious and national cultures among themselves, ... and not even the confrontation between East and West,. but the collision of a transnational, radical, secular globalist project with all traditional cultures and with all local civilizations. And this struggle takes place not only along borders, but also within countries and peoples ... And here there is a clash of two worlds, two views on a person and on the future of human civilization. The Patriarch warns us about what threatens human civilization with “a growing gap in values between Russia and the countries of Western civilization, which did not exist even during the Cold War. . The undermining of the moral basis of human existence, which is taking place before our eyes, threatens to dehumanize the world. It is no coincidence that futurologists are increasingly raising the topic of posthuman ..., the doctrine of the imminent overcoming of human nature and the emergence of a new class
intelligent beings. ".
Support in the struggle for a true alternative to such a process is “... a new dialogue of peoples, carried out on fundamentally new grounds. This is a dialogue aimed at restoring the value unity within which each of the civilizations. could exist while retaining its identity. The Patriarch is convinced that "only on the basis of eternal spiritual and moral values is it possible to successfully overcome the existing civilizational challenges." It follows from the report that the mainstay in the struggle for an alternative is the fact that within American society there is “an expressed desire to preserve their Christian roots and cultural traditions. This desire finds expression in religious quests, artistic creation and everyday life. The proposed article shows that the "other America" clearly manifested itself in the artistic work of the largest writers of the United States, especially in the second half of the twentieth century, under the influence of Russian classics.
Lux Orientalis (Light from the East)
The fascination of Americans with Russian classical literature began at the turn of the 19th century.
XX centuries. The first ambassador of Russian literature in America was I.S. Turgenev. “Following The Hunter's Notes, American writers also discovered novels - Rudin, Fathers and Sons, Nov, Smoke, Noble Nest. Turgenev, as a master of psychological writing, who subtly felt the peculiarities of the Russian character, became an indisputable authority for American writers, from whom they learned writing skills. But he was destined to somewhat fade into the shadows when the works of L.N. began to appear in English. Tolstoy. They brought about a kind of spiritual upheaval to the reading part of the American nation. Many readers wanted to establish epistolary contact with him. The greatest US philosopher William James compared the mighty nature of Tolstoy with an old oak tree. “He rejects luxury, falsehood, greed and cruelty, all the conventions of our civilization, . we don't have that kind of natural power. But at least we think it would be nice to follow in the footsteps of Tolstoy.
What was the reason for such an unprecedented interest? Firstly, Tolstoy answered questions disturbing readers related to
with the prospect of social arrangement of the country in the transitional (to the era of imperialism) period. And this - in turn - was due to the unusual for them the moral principles of the Russian genius, his laws of Good.
The most interesting journalists who visited Yasnaya Polyana were James Creelman and William Walling. The interview, taken from Tolstoy by Creelman and reprinted in many newspapers, caused enthusiastic responses from Americans and was perceived as Tolstoy's address to the American people.
And Walling, who visited Russia in 1905-1907, compiled a whole book from his reports under the title "Russia's Message". The True Import of the Revolution "(" Message from Russia. The global significance of the Russian revolution "(1908). In his opinion, Russia was ahead of others not only in social thought and ideals, but also in many areas of culture. Wallace came to the conclusion about the leading role of Russia in the field of spiritual life. "For him," light from the East "(Lux Orientalis) came precisely from Russia" .
As for the young and honest writers of the United States at the turn of the century, the most famous of which will be Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser, for them "Light from the East" "sparked" in the last decade of the 19th century. Their talents arose in an era of rapid growth of monopolies, accompanied by a sharp increase in the exploitation of the masses of the people, the ruin of farms. In the sphere of ideology, this process found its justification in the philosophy of positivism, especially in the sociological views of such a social Darwinist as Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who believed that human society, like an animal organism, is subject to biological laws, and therefore relations between classes, characteristic of capitalism are allegedly "natural" and "eternal" in nature. Spencer was a supporter of the application of the one-sided Darwinian doctrine of the struggle for existence and natural selection in the world of animals and plants to explain the laws of social development and relations between people. Justifying social inequality under capitalism, Spencer defended the idea that in human society only the “strong” and “adapted” individuals survive in the struggle for existence, while nature doomed the weaker ones to extinction. As evidence-
the well-known sociologist Yu.A. Zamoshkin, it was “social Darwinism, which widely used the formula “survival of the fittest and fittest” and was “the embodiment of egocentric and aggressively militant individualism,” that received “the broadest and most consistent forms of expression in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries” .
Young writers in America, who dreamed of writing the truth about life, faced the need to master this philosophy in one way or another: either in an apologetic spirit - and this led them to a naturalistic reproduction of reality, or in a critical spirit. It was a cardinal dilemma, a kind of inflamed nerve of their consciousness. He demanded a choice, which was extremely difficult to decide. The very everyday social practice associated with the activities of the all-powerful monopolies - "octopuses", who subjugated all aspects of national life, seemed to confirm the postulates of social Darwinism. And the literature of the United States of those years did not yet possess a developed tradition of realism. The book market was dominated by false pseudo-realistic works, which, as a rule, romanticized money-grubbing; the chauvinistic literature of the “red blood” was also gaining strength, which was supported in every possible way by the then President Theodore Roosevelt. And if something in the sphere of literature kept them from being swallowed up by the spiritless element of positivism and helped them break through to the spiritual values of realistic art, then it was, above all, classical Russian literature.
For Norris, London - as, indeed, for the subsequent major US writers of the 20th century - the most attractive work of their favorite Tolstoy was the novel "Anna Karenina".
Why Anna Karenina?
There is no direct answer. But, if you read this work through the "eyes" of a thoughtful American writer, then the answer becomes clear. and boils down to the fact that the special burning interest of American authors, apparently, is the spiritual evolution of one of the central characters of the novel, with autobiographical features - Konstantin Levin. The essence of his spiritual evolution lies in the painful process of overcoming the influence of the philosophy of social Darwinism. This is a young, university-educated landowner, with
the shortest circle of reading. He is fascinated not only by his work for the benefit of the estate and his closeness to the peasants, but also by reflections on the fate of agriculture throughout the country, and, therefore, about the fate of Russia.
Levin has a whole, multifaceted personality, brought up in the traditions of Orthodoxy, who is able to act independently in accordance with his convictions, which are always determined by the dictates of conscience and the immutable laws of Good. But in his student years, in St. Petersburg, he came under the influence of social Darwinism, fashionable at that time in certain professorial circles. The result was a violent discord - a crisis; young man thinks about suicide. However, a feeling of disagreement with the inhuman philosophy, rejection, inexorably matured in the soul. His fate was decided through a miraculous insight: in a casual brief conversation with the peasant Fyodor during the harvest. And Levin returns to Orthodoxy.
Getting acquainted with Levin's thoughts regarding the fate of the peoples of Russia, we learn that he does not accept Spencer. And at the end of the novel, Katavasov, who came to talk with Levin, asks him: “Have you read Spencer? “No, I didn’t finish it,” said Levin, “however, I don’t need it now.”
“- How so? It is interesting. From what?
That is, I was finally convinced that I would not find solutions to the questions that occupied me in him and others like him.
In the final reflections of Levin, one can clearly hear the polemic with social Darwinism. “The organism, its destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the law of conservation of force... - These words and related concepts were very good for mental purposes, but they did not give anything for life. With reason, perhaps, have I reached the point that I need to love my neighbor and not strangle him? ... Reason discovered the struggle for existence and the law that requires strangling everyone who interferes with the satisfaction of my desires.
By the whole logic of his complex evolution, Levin acts as an antipode to the ideologists of social Darwinism. The theme of confrontation between the principle of strangling the weak for the sake of material wealth, on the one hand, and the Christian laws of kindness, mercy, and love for one's neighbor, on the other hand, is the most important facet of the novel Anna Karenina, which has not yet been adequately mastered by Russianists.
“All Russian classics are poorly read and poorly understood - for the same reason. Our society does not know Orthodox culture well,” writes the well-known researcher of creativity N.V. Gogol Vladimir Voropaev, Chairman of the Gogol Commission of the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences "History of World Culture". (Newspaper "Culture" December 23 - 29, 2016, p. 12.) "He (Gogol - I.B.) understood: it was Orthodoxy that determined the unique identity of Russia. Which road our country will take depends on you and me.
culture: If Gogol and Belinsky got into the program of Vladimir Solovyov "Duel", who would win? Whose truth is closer to the people? Voropaev: Life has confirmed the correctness of Gogol. (ibid.).
Leo Tolstoy through the eyes of Frank Norris The work of Norris (1870-1902) confirms the idea that it was the anti-Social Darwinist facet of Anna Karenina that initially attracted the hearts of honest writers in the United States.
Tragically killed early (at the age of 32), the writer did not become as widely known in our country as his contemporaries Jack London, Theodore Dreiser. But his bright creative personality and outstanding talent are perceived as a kind of overture to the powerful subsequent development of US literature.
Having broken with his millionaire father and having a brilliant education (including studies in Europe), Norris does a great spiritual job and grows into a literary leader who comprehensively analyzes the modern literary process. In the article, "The Great American Novelist" talks about the kind of writer the people need. He must give "a picture of the whole nation, . to penetrate deeply into the life of the people", that is, to become the "second Tolstoy", with his "deepest philanthropy".
The pinnacle achievement of Norris is the novel The Octopus (1901), in which the multifaceted influence of Tolstoy's work is clearly felt.
Of course, The Octopus shows that both the writer's worldview and his creative method are a very complex and contradictory picture. Creating only at the dawn of the twentieth century, he could not oppose any positive alternative to the prevailing philosophical theories. His thought struggled in search of Truth. By-
Like the famous author of the novel "Moby Dick" - Herman Melville - Norris often dresses his anxieties and hopes regarding the future of his native country in romantic images. Some facets of the "Octopus" give reason to talk about the trend of naturalism.
And yet, the novel "Octopus" testifies to the author's active rejection of the philosophy of social Darwinism, which determines the clearly dominant nature of realism.
In The Octopus, Tolstoy's image of Konstantin Levin is consonant with the image of the young poet Presley, who comes from New York to California in the hope of writing a romantic poem about the US West. But as he plunges into the stormy social atmosphere of turn-of-the-century California and witnesses the drama that unfolds in which his best farmer friends are murdered by the railroad monopoly, Presley is spiritually transformed. Both characters - both Levin and Presley - are largely autobiographical, and they have a lot in common in spiritual and social aspirations, in rapprochement with the people.
Like Levin, Presley is increasingly aware that his country has moved into a different stage of development and, in connection with this, the painful thoughts of both characters about the fate of the Motherland3.
Having experienced all their tragedy together with the farmers, Presley perceives the preaching of social Darwinism with a much greater degree of criticism and distrust. “Now try to spread your theories in front of us, in front of us farmers, in front of those who have suffered, in front of those who know. Try talking to us about "the rights of capital, about the expediency of trusts, about "harmony between classes". Norris gives the phrase "harmony between classes" in quotation marks. This is undoubtedly a quote from Spencer.
In the last chapters of the novel, Presley seeks a meeting with the president of the railway monopoly, Shelgrim. He makes attempts to justify the crimes of monopoly, using social Darwinist arguments, with which Norris vehemently argues. He contrasts the thoughts of Shell-grim with the figurative logic of his famous scenes of contrasts, using the technique of parallel alternating images of scenes of a feast in the palace of a railway magnate, on the one hand, and scenes of starvation of the wife of the murdered poor tenant Guven, on the other. Anti social Darwinist sound
See more about this.
these scenes are built on the principle of a crescendo. First, this is the author's monologue, designed to arouse sympathy for the disadvantaged, for the weak (oh, this via dolorosa.). Then, speaking about the death of a woman, Norris condemns those who are guided by the principle of survival of the fittest. "What was he before her, the least adapted, unable to survive." ("the unfit, not able to survive"). This is followed by a hyperbole symbolizing the unnaturalness of the policy of exploitation carried out by the monopolists: ladies feasting in the palace turn into harpies tormenting human flesh. And finally - the prophecy: "Yes, the people will rise someday." . In a historical perspective, Norris includes the idea of the inevitability of the people's liberation struggle. Here, for the only time, he does not follow the precepts of Tolstoy.
One of the followers of Norris was Jack London. The process of forming a worldview in his short life (1876 - 1916) was no less complicated. Young London is characterized by: a strong will, unbridled energy, a habit of decisive conclusions and actions. Such a character predetermined a special drama in the struggle for the longed-for Truth, when, on the one hand, Spencer, Darwin, Nietzsche, chauvinistic-racist propaganda, which in many ways impressed the writer, and on the other hand, classical Russian literature, with its spirit of compassion, fought.
Schematically, this confrontation can be represented as follows: London began to determine the attitude towards the philosophy of social Darwinism from a young age. There is a contradiction in his Northern stories. In the story “The Law of Life”, the cruel act of the leader of the tribe (he dooms the weakened father to a terrible death) is justified, and in the story “Love for Life”, such an act of the character is condemned.
In the subsequent years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, London intensively studied the Russian classics. He even expanded the circle, including, in addition to Turgenev and Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky.
How carefully London got acquainted with the Russian classics is evidenced by the following: in 1901, Gorky’s novel “Foma Gordeev” appeared in English translation in the USA, and 25-year-old London published a brilliant book just a few months later.
review. In it, the American writer, in particular, compares the characteristic features of the artistic method of Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gorky.
The Russian Revolution of 1905 was warmly welcomed by London.
Realizing that the revolution was suppressed, London began to seriously deal with the moral and philosophical problems of the human person. This is evidenced by the life story of the protagonist of his largely autobiographical realistic masterpiece - the novel "Martin Eden". (1909). Approximately half of the novel is devoted to revealing the enormous potential for the development of the soul and mind of a person from the people. Here you can feel the influence of the poetry of Walt Whitman. However, the coming degradation of the personality of his hero, which ended tragically, was predetermined by the ideas absorbed by reading philosophical books. The first "discovery" he made was the philosophy of G. Spencer, and the second was the philosophy of F. Nietzsche. These "discoveries" devastated a rich soul full of benevolence and compassion for people. " - I am sick. - Martin Eden explains his condition - no, not with his body. My soul is sick, my brain. Everything has lost its value for me. I do not want anything" .
The tragedy of Martin Eden is somewhat reminiscent of the dramatic ups and downs experienced by Konstantin Levin in the novel Anna Karenina, due to the temporary influence of the philosophy of social Darwinism on him. Both found themselves in an acute spiritual crisis and began to think about suicide. The difference between them lies in the fact that Levin's fundamental mood of soul was Orthodox from early childhood, while Martin did not have such a powerful support, brought up "with mother's milk" - like Jack London himself, by the way. The main character was not destined to acquire saving ideas, and this was the main reason for his death.
20 - 30s of XX century
This period presented Americans with unprecedented conflicts and upheavals. The "Jazz Age" (as Fitzgerald aptly put it) - when in the post-war carnival frenzy of "prosperity" the hardships of the war and its heroes were forgotten, and the newly-minted "Cowperwoods", who did not sniff gunpowder, rushed to make their multimillion-dollar fortunes - suddenly gave way to years of collapsed under the influence of a severe economic crisis.
The sharpness of social life led US writers to new frontiers and accomplishments.
This period is not without reason called the "Golden Age" of US literature. Here is just a short list of realistic peaks: "American Tragedy" - Theodore Dreiser; "The Great Gatsby" - Scott Fitzgerald; "Fiesta", "Farewell to Arms!", "For Whom the Bell Tolls" - Ernest Hemingway; "The Grapes of Wrath" - John Steinbeck; "Village" - William Faulkner.
The main event - in addition to the cult of L. Tolstoy - was the "discovery" by American writers of the novels of F. Dostoevsky. It is no coincidence that Faulkner has already put Dostoevsky in the first place in the "cage" of Russian geniuses: » .
“After the First World War, we read from a researcher of the influence of Russian classics of the 19th century on American writers of the first third of the 20th century, Yu.I. Sokhryakova - The United States is entering a new stage of development, which is characterized by the beginning of the collapse. hopes for the exclusivity of the economic and social development of the country. The cult of individualism is affirmed, deeply penetrating the consciousness of Americans: “It was at this time,” the scientist continues, “that Dostoevsky begins to be perceived by them. as a great genius who comprehended the tragic consequences of the implementation of bourgeois criteria in direct life practice. It is this angle of view that is present in the mentioned works of Fitzgerald and Steinbeck. “In the period between the two world wars,” the Russianist Yu.I. Sokhryakova literary critic-Americanist T.L. Morozov, “the “Russian presence”, which has been growing in the literary life of the United States since the last quarter of the 19th century, has reached its maximum.
It is important to note that the "Golden Age" has already paved the way for topics related to the concept of civilization and its fate, i.e. topics that came to the fore in the second half of the 20th century.
Here, for example, is the last page of the novel The Great Gatsby, where the author seeks to convey to the reader his final thought about the dramatic fate of the motherland, starting with the first "visits" of the Northern Europeans, and up to
modernity.
Nick Caraway, after the death of Gatsby, having come at night to look at his house for the last time, "went down to the shore and lay down on the sand." A vivid picture of the promising birth of the New World surfaced in the inner eye: “the ancient island that once arose before the eyes of Dutch sailors was seeing the untouched green bosom of the new world. The rustle of its trees, those that then disappeared, giving way to Gatsby's house, was once the music of the last and greatest human dream; ... a man held his breath in front of a new continent, involuntarily succumbing to the beauty of the spectacle ... ".
And then follows a metaphorical subtext with an imperceptible transition to disturbing thoughts, identified with the individual fate of Gatsby, “who probably thought that now, when his dream is so close, it is worth stretching out his hand - and he will catch it. Gatsby believed in a green light, the light of incredible future happiness. Let it slip away today, it doesn't matter - tomorrow we will run even faster.
So we try to swim forward, fighting the current, but it blows everything and blows our boats back to the past.
Speaking about the history of the creation of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald emphasized: “Working on it. I learned a lot, and if anything influenced her, it was the courageous manner of The Brothers Karamazov - creations of unsurpassed form. .
Fitzgerald's masterpiece, apparently, has entered the flesh and blood of a reading and thinking America. This is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that, in an effort to comprehend the causes of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and linking them with the history of American civilization, one of the modern American writers refers specifically to The Great Gatsby, tragically exclaiming: “Somewhere there is“ untouched green the womb of the new world" about which Fitzgerald wrote, today?" (Where is Scott Fitgerald "s "fresh, green breast of the new world" now?". The problems of civilization and its fate are already guessed by Fitzgerald, but not yet associated with the possibility of the appearance of "light in the tunnel".
50 - 60s of the XX century
Unlike the first half of the twentieth century, in which the theme of the influence of Russian classics was thoroughly developed, the second half,
May, dramatic in the history of the United States and associated with our day more strongly than previous eras, is far behind in the study of this topic. Unfortunately, this period also fell out of the recently published academic "History of US Literature" (1997 - 2013).
The author of the article has chosen two of the largest works, in which the problems associated with civilizational themes are already clearly manifested. We are talking about the novel East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1952) and the novel by Thornton Wilder The Eighth Day (1967), which are considered by their creators to be their highest achievement throughout their entire creative life. They are written in the complex genre of a philosophical parable and still do not find a place in the mainstream of our research activity, apparently, as a “thing in itself” that is too difficult to unravel.
The author of the article came to the conclusion that the “key” to their knowledge can only be a look at them from the point of view of intercivilizational relations. They already clearly show the problems associated with the topical civilizational themes. The architectonics of the works is such that they contain two parallel scales of comprehension of reality: a generalized planetary one, connected with the fate of all mankind, and a specific national one, carrying out artistic detailing on the life material of the United States. The first attempt to use the "key" presented in the article gives promising results. For example, it immediately becomes clear that the novel "East of Eden" is not at all a "traditional family novel", as the author of the preface to the six-volume edition of the writer's works presented it to our reader, and the novel "The Eighth Day" does not at all look like a "historical novel in proper sense of the word."
The works were born in an environment of acute historical cataclysms: the first - on the dark night of the Cold War with a nuclear confrontation between the West and the East; the second - in the whirlwind of turbulent events of the 60s that shook the American nation (the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, anti-war and youth movements, Negro Harlem is on fire.). The writers accepted the challenge of History, and their creations carry the idea that the world already needs decisive measures to prevent a planetary catastrophe. Here is one of the early
philosophical essays in Steinbeck's novel: "The world is undergoing monstrous changes and we do not know what features the future will acquire under the pressure of the forces that create it." His words sound even more expressive: “Unprecedented tension, growing, brings the world to a critical point, people are restless, they are confused.”
The leading theme of the novels arises: the ways of saving mankind. The general idea that predetermines the paths of salvation is the need for a conscious change in the mentality of people: their worldview, value system, type of thinking. Ultimately, it is self-improvement achieved by a conscious moral will. The novels are a search and artistic development of an alternative to the American and, more broadly, to the universal human status quo. The author of the article seeks to understand in what direction the search is being carried out and comes to the conclusion that the goal is to re-assert the moral foundations of Christianity. First of all, this concerns the fundamental principle of the unity of mankind, which does not allow division into a superior race of masters and an inferior race of outcasts, bearing the burden of labor and responsibility - in other words, the principles of social Darwinism. And the specific methods of translating moral principles into practice in some aspects are akin to the position of our philosophers, in particular the direction of the modern methodology they are developing, aimed at extracting a true answer to the question of interest to all of us - about the role of Orthodoxy in the world: “The world calling of Orthodoxy ... in reaffirming, “rediscovering” the unity of humanity, the unity of the “Greek and the barbarian”, “the pagan and the Jew, - which first appeared together with Christianity and was gradually lost on the path of secularization” (i.e. de-Christianization, “secularization "-I.B.).
The first thing that catches your eye when reading novels is the desire of writers to emphasize the idea of the unity of mankind. In contrast to Kipling's well-known and seemingly unshakable postulate “West is West, East is East and they cannot come together”, Steinbeck and Wilder for the first time carry the banner of the unity of the ethnic groups of the West and the East. The depicted representatives of non-American ethnic groups are among the main and most attractive positive characters, whose mentalities are close to the standard conceived by the writers. For example, in the novel
"East of Eden" is a highly educated Chinese born and living in the United States. His soul perceives the ideas of classical Confucianism as something modern and relevant. Such a breadth of spiritual outlook helped him to further appreciate the Christian biblical myth. And in the novel "The Eighth Day" is also a highly educated, but already a woman of Russia, who, by the will of fate, ended up in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. She is presented as the embodiment of the imperishable faith of the Russian people. Both literary heroes are destined for the most important role of educators of young, unexpectedly orphaned Americans, with the aim of forming full-fledged personalities from them with an already renewed mentality. This is how the theme of educating a young soul declares itself. Boring didacticism is alien to the pedagogy of educators. Everything is presented in the form of an exciting intellectual game, and it keeps the reader's attention in suspense. The novels have features of a deep epic narrative, but they have elements of a detective story and some sentimentality that create entertainment and make it easier to understand.
In Steinbeck's novel East of Eden, the plot begins with a contrasting depiction of two farming families living in California's Salinas Valley at the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century: Samuel Hamilton's lovingly depicted large family of many children and Cyrus Trask's critically small, dilapidated family of himself and his two sons, Adam and Carl. The life of families differs primarily in the value orientation of those who lead them. For Hamilton, spiritual, Christian values are a priority, for Trask, material values, and he acts according to the "philosophy of success."
Hamilton is represented as a personality with a capital letter. The Hamilton family is admired by the whole district. The author emphasizes impeccable honesty, the desire to help others, multifaceted talent, while “God, alas, did not reward him with the talent to make money. All the Hamiltons were surprisingly educated and well-read. Since Hamilton had "golden hands", from all over the district they took him to repair "different tools". At the same time, his visitors “stole the ideas of Samuel,. sold them and became rich. Samuel, being a workaholic, “had barely made ends meet all his life.”
Steinbeck emphasizes that Hamilton's mentality was not formed in American conditions. Due to difficulties in his personal life, young Samuel decided to move to the United States already being a family man. And he was born and raised in the green land of Ireland in a family of poor farmers. The prototype of the character is Steinbeck's maternal grandfather. Thus, a peculiar autobiographical facet is introduced into the novel, making the author's numerous digressions even more emotional. The writer emphasizes that “Samuel forever retained something un-American in himself. The inhabitants of the valley felt in him a foreigner. And further: “There was something unearthly in him that distinguished him from everyone else, and therefore people trusted him without fear.” Moreover, they deeply respected him, apparently feeling that individuals like Hamilton ensure the viability of the nation, since there was a lot in the human material from which it was formed. vagabonds and troublemakers, brawlers and wranglers, psychopaths and criminals.
A descendant of such ingredients of American civilization is Cyrus Trask and his highest patrons in Washington. "Cyrus, Adam's father, was what is called a dashing man - recklessness distinguished him from his youth." All his life he was not shy about using lies that brought him a lot of money. Attributing to himself non-existent military merits during a brief stay at the front in the First World War, this adventurer managed to deftly and easily acquire considerable weight even in the highest military circles in Washington and was solemnly buried in the presence of the vice president.
The upbringing of the sons of Trask comes down, in fact, to the mutilation of their children's souls. Suspicious of Adam's subtle mental organization, he forcibly enrolls the young man in the army so that his "unfitness" for life will be eradicated there with the help of violence. Steinbeck describes the sophisticated methods of corrupting young soldiers who are bound to become mindless killers: “Go and kill your brothers of this and that kind. And we will reward you for this, because by your deed you will violate the commandment, which you were previously accustomed to honor. This theme grows up in the novel not only as a purposeful suppression of personality development in the US military life, but also as a protest against the prepared
fratricidal world wars in general.
In the army, Adam resisted the pressure of violence as best he could. And after returning home after so many years of torment and a fruitless thirst for spiritual warmth, he brings all the heat of his heart to the altar of his first and only love, not knowing that he is sacrificing himself to a moral monster. His wife cheats on him with her brother, and immediately after the birth of the twins, she leaves her sons, attempts on Adam's life and leaves to become the owner of a brothel. Adam is in deep depression.
In this situation, the Chinese Lee, who worked as a cook in the family of Cyrus Trask, considered it his moral duty to start raising babies; and Hamilton, who lived nearby, who "could not fence himself off from other people's suffering," began to help him. They developed a strong friendship. Having decided to give the twins names worthy of the meaningful name "Adam", they are thus drawn into the problems of the biblical myth of Cain and Abel.
The myth attracted Steinbeck's attention not by chance. He plays a multifunctional role in the novel. It is within the framework of this myth that Steinbeck conveys to the reader the hard-won thought about the direction in which the mentality of people should change. Steinbeck's position is well known: it is necessary to reaffirm the moral foundations of Christianity. The myth helps the writer to substantiate his position and "get to the root" in search of the origins, that is, the motivations for the emergence of certain (positive or negative) feelings in the soul of a young, or even very young person. Comparing the soul of Cain and the soul of Hamilton and Lee, the writer, as it were, keeps his finger on the pulse of the psychological mechanisms that determine the essence of the emerging personality.
Cain, already expelled from paradise, lets new sinful feelings into his soul - pride, envy, hatred, vindictiveness, leading him to fratricide. And by the middle of the twentieth century, these feelings - as Steinbeck makes it clear - blossomed into a magnificent ominous color and led
to a war that threatened the death of all mankind.
It is on this historical subtext that Steinbeck develops, by artistic means, his methodology for the correct formation of the human soul, i.e. bringing all people of the West and East to the desired Truth
non - voluntary determination to be guided in life by a fundamental choice in favor of divine moral laws.
At the level of the plot, the writer's credo is clothed in the form of a new interpretation of the myth, unusual for many, expressed by Hamilton in sharp, but quite friendly dialogues with the Chinese. “God did not condemn Cain at all,” he says with conviction. after all, even God can give preference to something? For example, lamb was dearer to God than vegetables. . But Cain was upset. Offended. And the offended person is looking for something to vent his frustration on - and Cain vented his anger on Abel. And isn't it strange that three adults, after so many thousands of years, are discussing this crime, as if only yesterday it was committed. .
And here Lee's sympathetic soul makes itself felt, which the novelty of Hamilton's thought awakens from the fettering "serenity of China", laying the foundation for a stormy spiritual activity. Lee seeks to find evidence of Hamilton's correctness in the very text of the Bible, looking, in fact, for a solution to both the root problem of the myth and the entire novel: did God provide an encouraging prospect for the development of the soul of Cain, and therefore of all mankind - his children? For help, Li turns to a group of Chinese sages living in San Francisco and embodying the wisdom of the East, with a request to clarify the meaning of the most important verb of myth, which determines the interpretation of man in the sacred scripture.
After studying the Hebrew language, the Chinese sages discovered a new, apparently encouraging translation of this verb as "you can rule" over sin. Lee is convinced that such a translation gives a person a choice: he says that the path is open for a person to overcome his sins and straighten up spiritually. “And in his weakness, in the dirt and filth of fratricide, he still retains a great opportunity to choose. . it invests a person with greatness. He can choose a path, break through and win.
The Chinese associates the psychological matrix of the myth with the life of ordinary people, which often gives rise to mutual misunderstanding between father and son. As if anticipating that in the future it will be necessary to resolve such misunderstandings in the course of raising the twins, Lee immediately tries to look at the situation from the point of view of correcting it. "My thought
For more on linguistic evidence, see .
is groping now, so don't look for it." he says to a friend. But under Steinbeck's pen, Lee's thoughts break through to the widest horizon. He is aware of the universal significance of the Christian myth, which "contains the human history of all times, cultures and races" . Lee guesses that "in this story is the whole root, the whole beginning of the trouble." The trouble is contained in the psychological mechanisms of the soul of a sinful person who misperceives the lesson of the Lord as condemnation and rejection. It lies in the fact that the elder ("strong") - father, educator, mentor - does not observe the divine law of love, which excludes the rejection of the younger ("weak") - son, educated, subordinate. “For a child, the worst thing is the feeling that he is not loved, the fear that he will be rejected - this is hell for a child,” Lee says with conviction. “stretching for love and rejected,” the child “kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt in his heart; and the other steals in order to get love with money; and the third conquers the world - and in all cases, guilt, and revenge, and new guilt. . I think everyone in the world, to a greater or lesser extent, felt that he was rejected. Rejection entails anger, and anger pushes to crime, in retaliation for rejection, but crime will give rise to guilt - and this is the whole history of mankind.
The described events became a bright insight for friends. It transformed the moral structure of Hamilton's soul, awakening for an active and uncompromising struggle for the spiritual support of the people around him. “Of course,” he says in his last friendly “round” with Lee, “most of the fighters die defeated, but there are others that, like a pillar of fire, lead frightened people through the darkness.” And sums up: “Everyone changed your two newly translated words. "You can dominate." They took me by the throat and shook me. And when the head stopped spinning, a new and bright path opened up.
Li is determined to faithfully continue the work of his "spiritual father." The plot switches to the image of the various destinies of the representatives of the new generation: nine children of Hamilton and two Adam Trask. The Chinese man's spiritual ascent is brilliantly revealed through his role as educator of the young soul of Cale, whose maturation - like that of his father Adam - is built into the already known
a matrix of the relationship between father and son, reminiscent of a biblical myth.
Steinbeck puts his outstanding pedagogical knowledge into the hearts and mouths of the main characters of the novel. The writer purposefully forms in the mind of the reader a belief in the need to voluntarily realize the potential of the human soul, this "shining miracle". The same goal is served by the desire to open before the reader - on the example of the fascinating scientific work of the Chinese sages - the inspiring effect and beauty of the struggle for Truth. “I wish you, Mr. Hamilton,” says Lee, “sit out with us one of those nights of discussion and argument. Oh, what a beauty, what a charm of thought!” .
Steinbeck imagined the proper ascent of the mentality as the experience of a series of insights (in the original - glory). The English term contains a religious facet associated with the “descent” of something from above onto a person, and then “something flashes in the brain, and the world appears before you illuminated by light”. It can be assumed that such a tonality of presentation is associated with the influence of Russian classics of the 19th century; it is saturated with a special “hidden” Christian energy of salvation and “addresses a person not only on behalf of the “human, too human”, but on behalf of the highest truth with its heavenly maximalism” .
Steinbeck himself repeatedly experienced similar states. He said that for him “some books were more real than life experiences. I read them when I was very young, but I remember them not as books, but as events that happened to me. And in the first place in this list of books is Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Reading it young Steinbeck consciously or unconsciously got acquainted with the idea of Orthodoxy.
The writer attached special importance to insights. He writes: “I think the value of a person in this world is measured by the number and nature of the insights that come to him. If the spark that gives rise to insights is extinguished in us, we are lost. But in order to experience them, a person must be internally free. The writer understood freedom not as relaxation and irresponsibility, but as an enormous tension of the creative spirit characteristic of an Orthodox person, seeking a deeper understanding of his responsibility.
responsibility for everything that happens on Earth.
The writer is extremely concerned about the trends in the contemporary socio-political life of various countries, aimed at suppressing the free individual. "To. shackle, blunt and stupefy the independent rebellious mind, it is humiliated, starved, persecuted, raped, tortured with merciless prohibitions and restrictions. Answering the question posed to himself: “Against what should I fight?”, he writes: “Against any ideas, religions and governments that limit or destroy the personality in a person. These are my convictions, and this is who I am.”
Passionately defending the freedom of the individual, Steinbeck comes to a negative attitude towards the very concept of "collective". “The mass, or, as it is also called, the collective method has already entered the economy, politics and even religion, which is why other peoples replace the concept of God with the concept of the Collective. This is what scares the time in which I live. Here, apparently, one of the national features of the thinking of the American writer, individual centrism, makes itself felt, which clearly manifested itself in the 19th century, during the movement of the transcendental sheets. Its leader, Ralph Emerson, made an outstanding contribution to the development of progressive literary and philosophical thought in the United States, which helped fight slavery. But at the same time, his doctrine of "Confidence in oneself" or "Reliance on oneself" (Self - Reliance, 1841) is rooted in individualism. In the future, Emerson began to "slide" to the positions of the predecessors of social Darwinism. Steinbeck, on the other hand, - and this is of fundamental importance - has evolved towards Orthodoxy.
In the last pages of the novel, Steinbeck uses the image of the Chinese Li to sum up his views. Mentally looking back at his life, Lee confesses to Kay-lu: “My main stupidity was this: I believed that good always perishes, while evil lives and flourishes. But it's a deceiving feeling." - he inspires the young man. What is the meaning of the concept of "good" and "evil" here? While creating the novel, Steinbeck shared his thoughts with his publisher. The writer wanted to tell. perhaps the greatest story of good and evil, strength and weakness, love and hate, beauty and ugliness. I will try to show. how these twins are inseparable - . and how creativity is born from their union, that is, how good takes over, as historical
the scales are folded in the direction of Good. Steinbeck is convinced of the indestructibility of the creative potential of the human soul. Evidence is the endless attempts to achieve "what no one will ever stop striving for - perfection". The future belongs to the likes of Hamilton and Lee. They turn out to be brilliant educators who are able to straighten young souls spiritually and open the way for the crystallization of beautiful human relationships.
In an era when the struggle between Good and Evil is "on the edge of a knife", Steinbeck prepares compatriots (and not only them) for spiritual enlightenment and rebirth. The novel carries in its subtext the idea of the possibility of a breakthrough at the level of the whole society to an alternative system of values based on newly approved moral principles. The final word of the novel - "can" sounds like a bell ringing, prompting decisive action.
In Wilder's novel The Eighth Day, written in a parable genre with features of an experiment, Steinbeck's suffering thoughts received a powerful development. It depicts the contrast of two civilizations: the American, in whose official ideology the philosophy of social Darwinism plays an important role, with its double standards, fraught with disastrous consequences, and the Russian, based on Russian spiritual and cultural traditions, and opening - thanks to worldwide responsiveness - the path to salvation. The salvation of mankind is conceived by the writer in close connection with the appearance on the historical arena of the Savior - the Messiah. The question arises point-blank: which country will be able to give birth to the Messiah and when - in the near future or in centuries?
Wilder is convinced that in order to overcome the tragedies of the twentieth century, humanity must rise to a higher level of the Spirit, that is, become worthy of the "Eighth Day". Then there will be a society of people capable of opening a new page in history. That is why the Prologue poses cardinal questions that affect all people. For example: ". do we have the right to hope that one day the time will come when the spiritual principle finally triumphs in man-animal? . A positive answer is given by the entire content of the novel, which is devoted to the problems of educating a person during the "Eighth Day" period.
The backbone of the plot is as follows: in a small coal-mining region of Illinois, in a miner
The town of Coletown, at the beginning of the 20th century, two families live: John Ashley, a mine engineer, and Breckeridge Lansing, a mine manager. One day they had a friendly shooting competition near their homes. When Ashley took aim and fired, Lansing, who was standing nearby, suddenly fell dead. He was killed by shooting from the window of the house, his son George, since his father, in his opinion, was an unbearable tyrant in the family. But Ashley was accused of murder, and the court sentenced him to death. As John was being taken in a wagon to the place of execution, some people in black masks rescued him, managed to steal him from the wagon, and put him on a prepared horse to flee the country. American justice established the engineer's innocence only five years later, when he was no longer alive.
Ashley left a sick passive wife and four children: the eldest - Roger - 17 years old, the eldest daughter Sophie - 14. And two more younger girls. The society of the town - both the authorities and the townsfolk - subject innocent children to ostracism, they are threatened with a debtor's prison and - ultimately - death. The fate of adolescents depends on whether they will be able to feel in themselves a sufficiently strong moral core of the individual and show the necessary willpower. The result of their development exceeded expectations. A few years later, to the surprise of others, the abandoned family was reborn like a Phoenix bird: almost all of Ashley's children, as well as the young George Lansing, became amazing extraordinary personalities - as if pulled up to the desired level of Personality of the Eighth Day period.
With great artistic power, Wilder represents all three main sources of effective educational influence: the head of the Anglo-Saxon family, John Ashley, the religious community of the Covenantors, i.e. supporters of friendship with the Indians and a Russian woman, Olga Dubkova. All these characters are united in the main thing: the core of the human personality - the value orientation - is directed towards the idea of non-possessiveness, while the surrounding inhabitants live according to the Protestant philosophy of material success: the inextricable link between God's grace and money. Falling into want was not just a loss of a person's place in society. It was a sign that the Almighty turned away from him -
sya ". The writer puts his characters in the position of free choice of religious beliefs. ". for religion is only the dress of true faith, and this dress is often badly made, judging by Coaltown, Illinois. The reader is given the opportunity to judge literary heroes not by words, but by deeds.
Let's start with the father of the family - John Ashley, since it was he who was the basis for educating the character of children, starting from an early age.
The modest mine engineer seemed to many around him to be a “strange” person. He had no ambition, he received "a meager salary" and "was poor", but he lived "without feeling lack of anything". Not money, but peace of mind was the wealth of the Ashley family. During the investigation of the murder case, the townsfolk discovered a sensational fact: for seventeen years, John had violated the "immutable law of civilization", namely: he did not save money and did not have significant savings in the bank. He didn't feel fear. To some of those sitting in the courtroom awaiting the verdict, John seemed to be "that alien from the outside - perhaps from a future era - who is always and everywhere doomed to the fate of an outcast." It felt inner harmony, ease of being. It was the voice of faith, true and unselfish. In the description of Ashley's character, the reader may feel some distant resemblance to the appearance of Prince Myshkin from the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Idiot" The main feature of the character of Wilder was the commitment in the depths of his soul to "faith". But John “did not know that he could believe, and. he would vehemently deny if he were told that he was a religious person.
John's personality was formed under the influence of two factors: his grandmother, in whose spiritual appearance one can feel the best features of marginal religious beliefs in America since the middle of the 19th - the first half of the 20th centuries (meaning various communities, communes, sects, etc.) - since on the one hand, and on the other hand, under the influence of classical Russian literature, which, as our famous philosopher I.A. Ilyin, "is the flowering of the Russian spirit from the roots of Orthodoxy".
The structure of John's soul from early childhood was formed by his grandmother. Raised in a Catholic environment, she broke with Catholicism and joined the ascetic sect. She herself read sermons there, selflessly turning to God.
“Thoughts were focused on one thing: on the structure of the world, as the Creator intended it, she asked me to show her her place in this world.” And she managed to instill in her grandson an orientation towards moral values, such as diligence, non-acquisitiveness, the desire to live according to conscience. Disillusioned with the official Protestant church of Coletown, the young man began to reach out to another church that reminded him of the one where his grandmother took: located on the outskirts of Coletown, on Herkomer's Hill and belonged to the Covenantor community.
The community of Covenantors, created by the writer's imagination, plays an important role in helping Wilder convey to the reader his ideas about where, on what paths, he sees the salvation of the country, and, therefore, of all mankind. The community is made up of people with half Indian blood. Their principles of life are built on high morality and oppose the degraded consumer society that surrounds them.
The spiritual image of the community creates a complex two-layer subtext in the novel: it is consonant with the spirit of the American Pilgrim Fathers, who had neither individualism nor private property, and at the same time, with the spirit of the moral foundations of Christianity preserved by Orthodoxy. Here is the project of a return to Christian asceticism as opposed to the official Protestantism of the Coletown type, and compassion, and the struggle for justice. Here is the freedom of the spirit, which implies a great responsibility before God for everything that happens on Earth, and a kind of religion of creativity - "passionate" industriousness, and not the appropriation of finished products. John Ashley is deeply sympathetic to the Covenantors, and when their temple - the most important thing for the community - was destroyed in a natural disaster, Ashley, as a true friend, helped restore it "by doing more than he could" - as the Deacon would later say. And when a misfortune happened to Ashley's family, the Covenanters took her under guardianship.
Consonance with the principles of Orthodoxy can also be heard in the description of John Ashley's life in exile. If earlier he lived “without thinking about anything”, now there is a dynamic mental maturation. “He has almost passed the period when every normally developing young man is asked by the philosophical problems of being. And now. Ashley experienced the mental anguish he should have experienced.
twenty years earlier. his thoughts echoed the thoughts of another young man, "who turns out to be Konstantin Levin. And there follows a quotation from the novel "Anna Karenina", characterizing the complete despair in Levin's state of mind, just on the eve of his "revelation", which cured him of the influence of social Darwinism. “In infinite time, in the infinity of matter, in infinite space, a bubble-organism stands out, and this bubble will hold on and burst, and this bubble is me” 5.
Ashley also experiences similar revelations in exile, which prompt him to turn a now fully conscious look at himself and evaluate his previous life, his actions and the actions of those around him. The theme of self-improvement begins to sound. “Father was stingy. John suddenly realized that he was striving to become the opposite of his father. And Ashley strives to do Good, the “spirit of chivalry” manifests in him. He thinks about the “amazing opportunity” bestowed by the process of self-improvement: to pay old debts, to atone for old mistakes made “out of blindness, out of stupidity”.
After the disappearance of the head of the family, the baton of raising teenagers was picked up by a Russian woman, Olga Dubkova, who, by the will of fate, ended up in America. By origin, she is a countess who received an excellent domestic education, primarily in the field of classical literature.
Being adopted in both families - as an excellent embroiderer, dressmaker and just a respected and interesting person, she, in parallel with John, with whom she was "a little in love", unobtrusively carried out work on the spiritual education of adolescents. After the disaster, she immediately began to focus them not on survival, but on the full development of the individual. Olga Sergeevna lovingly shapes the young souls of Americans.
Dubkova's educational talent is most clearly revealed in her relationship with George Lansing. Perfectly understanding the soul of the unfortunate teenager, Olga was the first to guess that it was he who killed his father. With her compassion, the Russian woman managed to heal George's terrible spiritual wound and prepared the young man for repentance. Realizing the inevitability
5 When translating the novel The Eighth Day into Russian, the translator E. Kalashnikova did not recognize the quote from Anna Karenina and gave her own crude version of one of the key phrases of the novel. The experts who wrote the prefaces did not help either.
whom she leaves home, she seeks to strengthen the young soul, directing George's spiritual development into the bosom of divine truths: she inspires that at present he does not experience happiness, because. still too young and does not have a cherished goal in life. But after all, “God set before each of the people one main task. It seems to me that the one that you have to decide will require a lot of courage, a lot of stamina; your path will not be easy, but you will win.” George, spellbound, listens to her stories about Russian writers who are "the greatest writers in the world" - and the young man is imbued with love for Pushkin. He has an idea to learn Russian and go to live in Russia. George enthusiastically masters the Russian language. He invented the form of the lessons himself, in accordance with the acting talent and rich imagination that he had discovered: “. here he seemed to have arrived in St. Petersburg, enters a hotel, rents a room. Goes to church. He visits taverns and enters into conversation with young people of his age. He advises not to forget that Russia is a great country, the greatest in the world.
Under the influence of Dubkova, George becomes a famous actor and, as it were, the standard of the “Eighth Day” person.
The image of Olga Dubkova, apparently, is close to the author himself. He carries the idea underlying the novel that the Western European countries in their time changed the most important principles of Christianity, which must be reaffirmed. She inspires her pupils: “The states of Europe are falling into decay more and more every day. I have observed it with my own eyes. They are destroyed by the thirst for wealth and pleasure. They have forgotten God." The thoughts put into the mouth of a Russian woman echo the position of our modern philosopher: “If we really dream of the liberation of all mankind, and not just its privileged part, we will have to reinterpret the emancipatory project of European modernity, getting rid of its hedonistic-individualistic , consumer intention".
In the novel, one can clearly feel the writer's awareness that a godless spirit dominates in contemporary Russia. But Wilder’s heroine is convinced that the Russian people will keep faith in God in their souls, and she will triumph: “We Russians keep God in our hearts, just as they hide a lantern under
hollow, leaving the house on a stormy night.". Moreover, the writer puts into her mouth words about the exceptional historical mission of Russia: “. its history, its greatness, its sacred purpose and its future, which will surprise the world. Russia - she inspires young listeners - is the ark where humanity will be saved in the hour of the global flood.
The semantic apogee of the novel is the evolution of the seventeen-year-old Roger, the son of John Ashley, who, like his father, bears a reflection of the innovative figure of Konstantin Levin. It is this image that most clearly represents the model for the formation of the character of a young man during the “Eighth Day” period and finally highlights the “moment of Truth” in a philosophical parable.
The fate of Roger is as follows: After the disappearance of his father, he immediately decided to go to work in Chicago to save an orphaned family. The morality brought up in the family helped to overcome enormous difficulties and
What is especially important is to get out of the spiritual quagmire of nihilism and decadence, where he was destined to plunge while living in Chicago. And no matter how much new acquaintances inspired Roger that “man is insignificant, and all his efforts to change for the better are fruitless”, that “the whole globe is rotten”, and “property
The most sacred thing in this world is more sacred than conscience” - all such arguments were neutralized by Roger's adherence to his father's faith, to his spiritual image.
In the process of searching for a life goal, Roger is heading for a philosophical understanding of it. “Something is wrong in the very basis of the world order, and he will get to the bottom of what it is. he wanted to come up with an explanation for human existence and such worldly rules that would allow people to coexist rationally and peacefully. . He seeks to derive the "laws of human communication", outline the "constitution of an ideal state." But then comes "an epiphany: he realized that he knew nothing." There is a huge work of self-education, fascinatingly depicted in the novel. Roger's life's work will be the moral improvement of the people through the creation of a special kind of journalism, which has not happened before. As a journalist, he becomes known throughout the country, recognizable by the words of "a person who is used to convincing with moral arguments."
Ten years after Roger arrived in Chicago, people began to wonder about
the fate of John Ashley's family. They were especially puzzled by the fate of Roger. "No one could discover that hidden spring that set in motion and directed his irrepressible energy."
Much later, a philosophically-minded acquaintance of Roger would say that the young man “came to Chicago as a total ignoramus. Fifteen years later. he was the most educated man in America." . Not without deep irony in the address of American civilization, an acquaintance identified what were Roger's "advantages over all of us: . Socially, he was a pariah. In the philosophical - just before his eyes, his family was swallowed alive by a civilized Christian society. Economically, he had no property. In academics, he never heard a single lecture in his life and did not take a single exam. .
Where was the “hidden spring” that allowed the young man to break through to the Truth? The answer is given by the final chapter of the novel, which is dedicated to depicting a decisive moment in the formation of Roger's personality. The spirit of this chapter is consonant with Wilder's own ability to subtly feel and deeply experience everything that life brings, touching the strings of his soul. The fact is that Wilder stands somewhat apart in the history of US literature of the 20th century as a result of the unusual formation of his personality. Fate wanted to acquaint the future writer with the ancient wisdom of the East even in his youth (he lived for a long time in China, where his father-diplomat worked). Contact with another civilization could not but expand the horizons of his spiritual vision beyond the worldview of other American writers.
European culture also had a great influence on Wilder, especially ancient Greek and Roman antiquity, as well as the Renaissance. In addition to Yale University, he studied in Rome, participated in archaeological excavations, which developed his creative imagination. His encyclopedic education was combined with a very active and courageous attitude to life. He tried himself in a variety of roles: novelist, playwright, director, actor, military man (voluntarily participated in World War II), university teacher, professional lecturer who visited many parts of the country, musicologist.
At the age of 65, the writer retired to the desert regions of Arizona, apparently
in order to see the future of mankind through the "magic crystal" of their richest spiritual experience. Five years later, on the anniversary year of his seventieth birthday, he, unexpectedly for everyone, published his masterpiece - “The Eighth Day”.
The clergyman explains that, according to the writings of the holy fathers, these words carry the idea of the victory of the bright righteous in the future fate of mankind.
But back to Roger. The final chapter presents the events that will become the “springboard” that lifts the young man to the Truth: the experiences and revelations associated with reading the father’s letter, written before going to the place of execution and handed over to the Deacon for delivery to Roger on the day of his coming of age; the ensuing significant conversation of the Deacon; the focus of Roger's spiritual vision on the face of a Russian woman.
The author's strategy for these scenes is to evoke as deeply as possible in the reader a sense of ownership of Roger's experiences. The scenes are saturated with emotionality and psychological detail to the limit.
Before reading the letter, Roger experiences “fear” due to the fact that communication with a letter that is holy to him can take him by surprise, since he has not yet clearly realized his place and duties in the course of the “cruel battle”, “light forces” and "dark" ("the powers of light and the powers of darkness"). conducted under the cover of external decency - it’s scary, yes, it’s scary that he is destined to live the life of a slave or a four-legged creature with his head down to the end. But the heartfelt words of the letter straighten the young man spiritually. Here he comes to the most important final lines: “I am going (to the place of execution - I.B.). repeating my grandmother's favorite prayer to myself. She prayed that our life would serve the fulfillment of the providence of the Lord. I want to hope that I have not lived my life in vain. The young man is shocked. Reading the letter causes an insight in him, which, as he feels, will determine his entire future fate.
In the conversation between the Deacon and Roger, who has just finished reading the letter, Wilder, through the mouth of a clergyman, sums up the civilized theme of the novel. As a wise man, the Deacon avoids making any firm predictions for the future, although he does not question the appearance of the Messiah - the Savior of man.
eternity. He opens a window into the future, uttering, with a thoughtful air, a series of questions addressed to the interlocutor, containing assumptions and doubts that can give Roger (and along with the reader) rich food for thought. For example:
“- Could it be that this country is destined for such a great fate - this country that caused so much evil to my ancestors? ...
God works in mysterious ways. I do not undertake to answer all these questions. Perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps both this family and this America are mirages of my old eyes. There are other countries and other "family trees." .
Reading the letter and communicating with the Deacon brought the young man into a state of ecstasy. Coming out of the temple, he “ran at a run downstairs. He stumbled; he fell; he sang" . At home, at Christmas dinner, Roger "carefully peered into the faces of his family", persistently thinking about who could now, truly, share his thoughts and feelings. The gaze settled on only one face - "Miss Dubkova". He singled her out from all.
This final look is symbolic: the hero of The Eighth Day stops him on a Russian woman, whose soul is woven from Orthodox threads of compassion and the desire to help the weak. This happens at the moment of his highest spiritual concentration and the feeling of a breakthrough to the Truth, resolutely fighting for which he now firmly decided.
Neither Steinbeck nor Wilder operate with such a civilizational concept as Orthodoxy, but we venture to suggest that it is, as it were, invisibly present in the subtext of their novels as the sought-after and attractive alternative towards which the arrow of their spiritual compass strives. Subtext plays a big role in both novels. In a letter to the publisher, Steinbeck admitted that in the upcoming work, the inexplicable should receive an explanation - after all, "the art of writing consists in an awkward attempt to find designations for the inexpressible in words."
Of course, it is difficult to find words when speaking about faith, since this concept has a transcendental, divine character. Both writers passionately hope for the salvation of mankind through the freedom of the spirit and their books are a call for the mobilization of spiritual forces in order to tip the scales in the direction of the “light forces” (Wilder) and “good” during the “fierce battle”
(Steinbeck). Yes, so far in the minority are those who “like a pillar of fire lead frightened people through the darkness. . But everything changes the possibility of choice - the possibility of victory!” .
“And then the true face of freedom is revealed to us, as it was revealed to Christianity: the freedom of the spirit is divine sonship and it implies the greatest all-encompassing responsibility for all people living on earth. Freedom is not relaxation, but the greatest concentration, the greatest tension of the spirit, breaking through the boundaries of the obvious -. to the transcendent, from matter to the idea, from finished results to origins and genesis.
I think that the sage writers of the USA of the 20th century would not refuse to subscribe to such thoughts of our modern philosopher.
The article attempts to analyze two major literary and philosophical works from a civilizational point of view, the problems of which are consonant with such historical challenges of our time, which future workers of the diplomatic front will hardly be able to ignore. It is to a certain extent debatable, sometimes experimental, and is limited in terms of the number of both historical periods and writers' names.
Bibliography
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The Russian translation of the novel "Octopus", unfortunately, is not always adequate. In such cases, references are given in the translation of the author of the article.
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Babushkina Irina Evgenievna - Candidate of Philology, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia
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Despite its relatively short history, American literature has made an invaluable contribution to world culture. Although already in the 19th century all of Europe was reading the gloomy detective stories of Edgar Allan Poe and the beautiful historical poems of Henry Longfellow, these were only the first steps; It was in the 20th century that American literature flourished. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, two world wars and the struggle against racial discrimination in America, classics of world literature, Nobel Prize winners, writers are born who characterize an entire era with their works.
The radical economic and social changes in American life in the 1920s and 1930s provided the perfect breeding ground for realism, which reflected the desire to capture the new realities of America. Now, along with books whose purpose was to entertain the reader and make him forget about the surrounding social problems, works appear on the shelves that clearly show the need to change the existing social order. The work of the realists was distinguished by a great interest in various kinds of social conflicts, attacks on the values accepted by society and criticism of the American way of life.
Among the most prominent realists were Theodore Dreiser, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. In their immortal works, they reflected the true life of America, sympathized with the tragic fate of young Americans who went through the First World War, supported the struggle against fascism, spoke openly in defense of workers, and unashamedly portrayed the depravity and spiritual emptiness of American society.
THEODORE DREISER
(1871-1945)
Theodore Dreiser was born in a small town in Indiana to a bankrupt small business owner. Writer from childhood he knew hunger, poverty and need, which was later reflected in the themes of his works, as well as in a brilliant description of the life of the ordinary working class. His father was a strict Catholic, limited and despotic, which made Dreiser hate religion till the end of one's days.
At the age of sixteen, Dreiser had to leave school and work part-time in order to somehow earn his living. Later, he was still enrolled in the university, but he could only study there for a year, again because of money problems. In 1892, Dreiser began working as a reporter for various newspapers, and eventually moved to New York, where he became editor of the magazine.
His first significant work is the novel "Sister Kerry"- comes out in 1900. Dreiser tells the story of a poor country girl, close to his own life, who recovers in search of work in Chicago. As soon as the book barely made it to print, it immediately was called contrary to morality and withdrawn from sale. Seven years later, when it became too difficult to hide the work from the public, the novel nevertheless appeared on store shelves. Writer's second book "Jenny Gerhard" published in 1911 was also crushed by critics.
Further, Dreiser begins to write a cycle of novels "Trilogy of Desires": "Financier" (1912), "Titanium"(1914) and unfinished novel "Stoic"(1947). Its purpose was to show how, at the end of the 19th century, America was "big business".
In 1915, a semi-autobiographical novel was published. "Genius", in which Dreiser describes the tragic fate of a young artist whose life was broken by the cruel injustice of American society. Myself the writer considered the novel his best work, but critics and readers greeted the book negatively and it is practically not for sale.
Dreiser's most famous work is the immortal novel. "American tragedy"(1925). This is a story about a young American who is corrupted by the false morals of the United States, which leads him to become a criminal and a murderer. novel reflects american lifestyle, in which the poverty of workers from the outskirts stands out against the backdrop of the wealth of the privileged class.
In 1927, Dreiser visited the USSR and published a book the following year. "Dreiser looks at Russia", which became one of the first books about the Soviet Union, published by a writer from America.
Dreiser also supported the movement of the American working class and wrote several non-fiction works on this topic - "Tragic America"(1931) and "America Worth Saving"(1941). With tireless strength and the skill of a true realist, he depicted the social order around him. However, despite how harsh the world appeared before his eyes, the writer never did not lose faith to the dignity and greatness of man and his beloved country.
In addition to critical realism, Dreiser worked in the genre naturalism. He scrupulously depicted seemingly insignificant details of the everyday life of his heroes, cited real documents, sometimes very long in size, clearly described the actions related to business, etc. Because of this style of writing, criticism is often accused Dreiser in the absence of style and fantasy. By the way, despite such condemnations, Dreiser was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in 1930, so you yourself can judge their veracity.
I do not argue, maybe sometimes the abundance of small details is confusing, but it is their ubiquitous presence that allows the reader to most clearly imagine the action and, as it were, become a direct participant in it. The writer's novels are large in size and can be quite difficult to read, but they are undoubtedly masterpieces american literature, worth spending time on. It is highly recommended to fans of Dostoevsky's work, who will certainly be able to appreciate Dreiser's talent.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
(1896-1940)
Francis Scott Fitzgerald is one of America's most famous writers. lost generation(these are young people called to the front, sometimes who have not finished school yet and start killing early; after the war they often could not adapt to civilian life, drank too much, committed suicide, some went crazy). They were devastated people who had no strength left to fight the corrupt world of wealth. They try to fill their spiritual emptiness with endless pleasures and entertainment.
The writer was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in a wealthy family, so he got the opportunity to study in prestigious Princeton University. At that time, the university was dominated by a competitive spirit, under the influence of which Fitzgerald also fell. He tried with all his might to become a member of the most fashionable and famous clubs, which attracted with their atmosphere of sophistication and aristocracy. Money for the writer was synonymous with independence, privilege, style and beauty, and poverty was associated with avarice and narrow-mindedness. Later Fitzgerald realized the falsity of their views.
He never finished his studies at Princeton, but it was there that his literary career(he wrote for the university magazine). In 1917, the writer volunteered for the army, but he never took part in real military operations in Europe. At the same time he falls in love with Zelda Sayre who came from a wealthy family. They married only in 1920, two years later, after the resounding success of Fitzgerald's first serious work. "On the Other Side of Paradise" because Zelda didn't want to marry a poor unknown man. The fact that beautiful girls are attracted only by wealth made the writer think about social injustice, and Zelda was later often called the prototype of the heroines his novels.
Fitzgerald's wealth grows in direct proportion to the popularity of his novel, and soon the spouses become epitome of luxury lifestyle they even came to be called the king and queen of their generation. They lived chic and ostentatious, enjoying a fashionable life in Paris, expensive rooms in prestigious hotels, endless parties and receptions. They constantly threw out various eccentric antics, scandals and became addicted to alcohol, and Fitzgerald even began to write articles for glossy magazines of that time. All this is undoubtedly destroyed the talent of the writer, although even then he managed to write several serious novels and stories.
His major novels appeared between 1920 and 1934: "On the Other Side of Paradise" (1920), "The Beautiful and the Damned" (1922), "The Great Gatsby", which is the writer's most famous work and is considered a masterpiece of American literature, and "Night is tender" (1934).
The Best Fitzgerald Stories Included in Collections "Tales of the Jazz Age"(1922) and "All those sad young people" (1926).
Shortly before his death, in an autobiographical article, Fitzgerald compared himself to a broken plate. He died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940 in Hollywood.
The main theme of almost all of Fitzgerald's works was the corrupting power of money, which leads to spiritual decay. He considered the rich to be a special class, and only over time began to realize that it was based on inhumanity, his own uselessness and lack of morality. He realized this along with his characters, who were mostly autobiographical characters.
Fitzgerald's novels are written in beautiful language, understandable and refined at the same time, so the reader can hardly tear himself away from his books. Although after reading the works of Fitzgerald, despite the amazing imagination a journey into the luxurious Jazz Age, there remains a feeling of emptiness and futility of being, he is rightfully considered one of the most prominent writers of the 20th century.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
(1897-1962)
William Cuthbert Faulkner is one of the leading novelists of the mid-twentieth century, in New Albany, Mississippi, in an impoverished aristocratic family. He studied at Oxford when the First World War began. The experience of the writer, received at this time, played an important role in shaping his character. He entered military flight school, but the war ended before he could complete the course. After that, Faulkner returned to Oxford and worked head of the post office at the University of Mississippi. At the same time, he began taking courses at the university and trying to write.
His first published book, a collection of poems "Marble Faun"(1924), was not successful. In 1925, Faulkner met the writer Sherwood Anderson which had a great influence on his work. He recommended Faulkner engage in poetry, prose, and gave advice to write about American South, about the place Faulkner grew up in and knows best. It is in Mississippi, namely in the fictional district Yoknapatofa most of his novels will take place.
In 1926 Faulkner wrote the novel "Soldier Award" who was close in spirit to the lost generation. The writer showed tragedy of people who returned to civilian life crippled both physically and mentally. The novel was also not a great success, but Faulkner was recognized as an inventive writer.
From 1925 to 1929 he worked carpenter and painter and successfully combines this with writing work.
In 1927, the novel "Mosquitoes" and in 1929 - "Sartoris". In the same year, Faulkner published the novel "Sound and Fury" which brings him fame in literary circles. After that, he decides to devote all his time to writing. His work "Sanctuary"(1931), a story about violence and murder, became a sensation and the author finally gained financial independence.
In the 1930s, Faulner wrote several gothic novels: "When I was dying"(1930), "Light in August"(1932) and "Absalom, Absalom!"(1936).
In 1942, the writer publishes a collection of short stories "Come down, Moses", which includes one of his most famous works - the story "Bear".In 1948 Faulkner writes "The Defiler of Ashes", one of the most important social novels associated with racism.
In the 40s and 50s, his best work, a trilogy of novels, was published. "Village", "City" and "Mansion" dedicated the tragic fate of the aristocracy of the American South. Faulkner's last novel "The Kidnappers" coming out in 1962, it also enters the Yoknapatof saga and depicts the story of the beautiful but dying South. For this novel, and for "Parable"(1954), whose themes are humanity and war, Faulkner received Pulitzer Prizes. In 1949, the writer was awarded "for his significant and artistically unique contribution to the development of the modern American novel".
William Faulkner was one of the most important writers of his time. He belonged to Southern School of American Writers. In his writings, he turned to the history of the American South, especially during the Civil War.
In his books, he tried to deal with racism, knowing full well that it is not so much social as psychological. Faulkner saw African Americans and whites as inextricably linked to each other by a common history. He condemned racism and cruelty, but was sure that both whites and African Americans were not ready for legislative action, so Faulkner mainly criticized the moral side of the issue.
Faulkner was proficient with the pen, although he often claimed to have little interest in writing technique. He was a bold experimenter and had an original style. He wrote psychological novels, in which great attention was paid to the replicas of the characters, for example, the novel "When I was dying" built like a chain of characters' monologues, sometimes long, sometimes one or two sentences. Faulkner fearlessly combined opposing epithets to powerful effect, and his writings often have ambiguous, indefinite endings. Of course, Faulkner knew how to write in such a way that excite the soul even the pickiest reader.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
(1899-1961)
Ernest Hemingway - one of the most widely read writers of the 20th century. He is a classic of American and world literature.
He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the son of a provincial doctor. His father was fond of hunting and fishing, he taught his son shoot and fish and also instilled a love for sports and nature. Ernest's mother was a religious woman who was entirely devoted to the affairs of the church. On the basis of different views on life, quarrels often broke out between the writer's parents, because of which Hemingway couldn't feel at home.
Ernest's favorite place was a house in northern Michigan, where the family usually spent their summers. The boy always accompanied his father on various trips to the forest or fishing.
Ernest's school gifted, energetic, successful student and excellent athlete. He played football, was a member of the swim team and boxed. Hemingway also loved literature, writing weekly reviews, poetry and prose for school magazines. However, the school years were not calm for Ernest. The atmosphere created in the family by his demanding mother put a lot of pressure on the boy, so that he ran away from home twice and worked on farms as a laborer.
In 1917, when America entered World War I, Hemingway wanted to join the army, but due to poor eyesight, he was refused. He moved to Kansas to live with his uncle and started working as a reporter for the local newspaper. The Kansas city star. Journalistic experience clearly visible in the distinctive style of Hemingway's writing, laconic, but at the same time clear and precise language. In the spring of 1918, he learned that the Red Cross needed volunteers for Italian front. It was his long-awaited chance to be at the center of the battles. After a short stop in France, Hemingway arrived in Italy. Two months later, while rescuing a wounded Italian sniper, the writer came under fire from machine guns and mortars and was badly injured. He was taken to a hospital in Milan, where, after 12 operations, 26 fragments were removed from his body.
An experience Hemingway received in war, was very important for the young man and influenced not only his life, but also his writing. In 1919 Hemingway returns as a hero to America. Soon he travels to Toronto, where he begins working as a reporter for a newspaper. The Toronto star. In 1921, Hemingway married the young pianist Hadley Richardson, and the couple moves to Paris, the city that the writer has long dreamed of. To collect material for his future stories, Hemingway travels around the world, visiting Germany, Spain, Switzerland and other countries. His first job "Three Stories and Ten Poems"(1923) was not successful, but the next collection of short stories "Nowadays", published in 1925, achieved public recognition.
Hemingway's first novel "And the Sun Rises"(or "Fiesta") published in 1926. "Bye weapons!", a novel depicting World War I and its aftermath, comes out in 1929 and brings great popularity to the author. In the late 20s and into the 30s, Hemingway released two collections of short stories: "Men Without Women"(1927) and "Winner Gets Nothing" (1933).
The most outstanding works written in the first half of the 30s are "Death in the Afternoon"(1932) and "Green Hills of Africa" (1935). "Death in the Afternoon" narrates about the Spanish bullfight, "Green Hills of Africa" and the well-known collection "Snows of Kilimanjaro"(1936) describe Hemingway's hunting in Africa. nature lover, the writer skillfully draws African landscapes for readers.
When in 1936 began Spanish Civil War Hemingway hastened to the theater of war, but this time as an anti-fascist correspondent and writer. The next three years of his life are closely connected with the struggle of the Spanish people against fascism.
He took part in the filming of the documentary "Land of Spain". Hemingway wrote the script and read the text himself. The impression of the war in Spain reflected in the novel "For whom the Bell Tolls"(1940), which the writer himself considered his best job.
A deep hatred of fascism made Hemingway active participant in World War II. He organized counterintelligence against Nazi spies and hunted German submarines in the Caribbean on his boat, after which he served as a war correspondent in Europe. In 1944, Hemingway took part in combat flights over Germany and even, standing at the head of a detachment of French partisans, was one of the first to liberate Paris from German occupation.
After the war Hemingway moved to Cuba, occasionally visited Spain and Africa. He ardently supported the Cuban revolutionaries in their struggle against the dictatorship that had developed in the country. He talked a lot with ordinary Cubans and worked hard on a new story. "The Old Man and the Sea", which is considered the pinnacle of the writer's work. In 1953 Ernest Hemingway received Pulitzer Prize for this brilliant story, and in 1954 Hemingway was awarded Nobel Prize in Literature "for storytelling once again demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea."
During his trip to Africa in 1953, the writer was in a serious plane crash.
In the last years of his life he was seriously ill. In November 1960, Hemingway returned to America in the town of Ketchum, Idaho. Writer suffered from a number of diseases, because of which he was admitted to the clinic. He was in deep depression, because he believed that FBI agents were watching him, listening to telephone conversations, checking mail and bank accounts. In the clinic, this was taken as a symptom of mental illness and the great writer was treated with electric shock. After 13 Hemingway sessions I lost my memory and ability to create. He was depressed, suffered from bouts of paranoia, and increasingly thought about suicide.
Two days after his release from the psychiatric hospital, on July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway shot himself with his favorite hunting rifle at his home in Ketchum, leaving no suicide note.
In the early 80s, the Hemingway case at the FBI was declassified, and the fact of surveillance of the writer in his last years was confirmed.
Ernest Hemingway was by far the greatest writer of his generation, with an amazing and tragic fate. He was freedom fighter, vehemently opposed wars and fascism, and not only through literary works. He was incredible master of writing. His style is distinguished by conciseness, accuracy, restraint in describing emotional situations, and concrete details. The technique he developed was included in the literature under the name "iceberg principle", because the writer gave the main meaning to the subtext. The main feature of his work was truthfulness, he was always honest and sincere with his readers. While reading his works, there is confidence in the reliability of events, the effect of presence is created.
Ernest Hemingway is the writer whose works are recognized as real masterpieces of world literature and whose works, no doubt, should be read by everyone.
MARGARET MITCHELL
(1900-1949)
Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia. She was the daughter of a lawyer who was chairman of the Atlanta Historical Society. The whole family loved and was interested in history, and the girl grew up in atmosphere of stories about the Civil War.
At first, Mitchell studied at the Washington Seminary, and then entered the prestigious Smith College for Women in Massachusetts. After graduation, she began working in The Atlanta Journal. She wrote hundreds of essays, articles and reviews for the newspaper, and in four years she has grown to reporter, but in 1926 she suffered an ankle injury that made her work impossible.
The energy and liveliness of the character of the writer were traced in everything she did or wrote. Margaret Mitchell married John Marsh in 1925. From that moment on, she began to write down all the stories about the Civil War that she heard as a child. This resulted in a novel "Gone With the Wind", which was first published in 1936. The writer has been working on it for ten years. This is a novel about the American Civil War, told from the point of view of the North. The main character is, of course, a beautiful girl named Scarlett O'Hara, the whole story revolves around her life, family plantation, love relationships.
After the release of the novel, the American classic bestseller, Margaret Mitchell quickly became a world-famous writer. Over 8 million copies have been sold in 40 countries. The novel has been translated into 18 languages. He won Pultzer Prize in 1937. The very successful movie with Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable and Leslie Howard.
Despite numerous fan requests for a continuation of O'Hara's story, Mitchell did not write more. not a single novel. But the name of the writer, like her magnificent work, will forever remain in the history of world literature.
6 votesAlexander Genis: In my opinion, only a foreigner can say what a typical Russian novel is, and I do not undertake to describe what happens in his mind, because usually they do not share with me, for fear of offending. Deciphering the DNA of our literature is indeed not easy, starting right with Pushkin, who wrote prose like a European, like Walter Scott. Yes, that's how it was, in essence, if we talk about the plot, but not the execution - Pushkin's is a hundred times better.
With Tolstoy it is not easier. Although War and Peace is considered a national epic, the European aristocracy operates in the book. Napoleon and Kutuzov read French, and it is easier for Pierre to find a common language with an enemy officer than with his own men. The count's Russian is couleur locale: Natasha dances the "lady", Platon Karataev beats in the chains of the author's intention.
Another candidate is the primordially Russian Oblomov, but not a novel, but a hero. National here is not a book, but a riddle: why does he not get out of bed? There remains, of course, Dostoevsky, first of all, the Karamazovs. But I have problems with my brothers. Ivan is a scheme of a European, Alyosha is a Christian ideal, Dmitry is his reverse, but also a good side (in The Brothers Karamazov, as in a Möbius strip, this is possible). Dostoevsky, which constantly happened with our classics, overdid it and raised universal heroes from Russian heroes, like Gulliver.
In any case, I have not seen any. Father Karamazov is another matter: if not the root, then the stump of the nation. He does not let the novel out of his hands even dead - such is the life force in it, which the Chinese call qi and value in tree growths. Heroes aren't skinny. Temperament twists them into a spiral, as if for overclocking. Especially in Russia, where you can only get away from the power of tyrants with a fool.
In short, the problem of the specifics of Russian classics takes us so far that perhaps it really is better to entrust it to foreigners. Marina Efimova will tell our listeners about what they get.
Marina Efimova: An article by the American writer and publicist Francine Prowse in the Book Review of the New York Times is called "What Made Russian Literature of the 19th Century So Significant?". Probably every Russian-speaking reader has his own answer to this question, but it is extremely interesting to know what remains of great literature to the modern, discerning American reader after it is translated into English. Prose starts with a comparison:
Speaker: “Why do we still read Russian writers of the century before last with unflagging pleasure and admiration? What is their secret? In persuasive power? In directness and honesty? In the accuracy with which they described the most important aspects of human experience? .. Exactly - the most important ones. No dating experience with computer-selected partners; not violent irritation due to minor inconveniences; not indignant at the delay of an order completed a day later. No, they unforgettably described events and feelings of a different rank in their works: birth, death, childhood dramas, first love, marriage, happiness, loneliness, betrayal, poverty, wealth, war and peace.
Marina Efimova: Glancing over the breadth and depth of the themes of the Russian classics, Prowse captures several other features of 19th-century writers: “They represent each person as a whole world,” she writes. “This is probably why all their heroes (although they were born and raised in the same country) are so uniquely individual.” Prowse admits that she wants to "applaud the ability of these writers to convince us that there are forces in human nature, in the human soul, ready to overcome the barriers set by the requirements of society, class and national differences, and even time."
Prowse admires Gogol's wild imagination - so vivid that the creations of his fantasy seem to readers not only quite possible, but even natural - for example, if a person wakes up in the morning and discovers his own nose is missing. The persuasiveness and vividness of Gogol's fantasy, according to Francine Prowse, allows foreigners to fully appreciate Gogol, despite Vladimir Nabokov's warning, which Prowse cites in the article:
Speaker: “Of course, we can bristle at Nabokov’s assertion that “if Gogol is NOT read in Russian, then you can not read him at all.” Nabokov speaks of Gogol's language - fresh, descriptive, rich in humor and unexpected details. And our admiration is further enhanced by Nabokov's explanation of how Gogol avoided the platitudes "inherited from the ancients." From the century “the sky was blue, the sunset was scarlet, the foliage was green. Nabokov explains. “Only Gogol, the first, saw yellow and lilac.”
Marina Efimova: Briefly discussing the giants of Russian classics in a short article, Prowse tries to highlight the traits of their literary talents that impressed her most: no one behaves like them: throwing themselves at each other's feet or telling shocking details of their whole life to the first comer in the pub.
Speaker: "A sad refinement, a supernatural art to reveal the hidden, deep emotions of the men, women and children who inhabit his plays, his novels and stories."
Marina Efimova: About Tolstoy:
Speaker: “The monumentality of the idea and the sharpest insight elevate each episode of Tolstoy’s novels to an epic level – from the ordinary cooking of jam or theft of plums by village girls – to the tragic canvases of the Battle of Borodino in War and Peace or the horse races in Anna Karenina.
Marina Efimova: About Turgenev:
Speaker: “For Turgenev, nature becomes as important a character as people. Just like them, it is meticulously described, and just like them, it still remains incomprehensibly mystical.
Marina Efimova: “In addition,” writes Francine Prowse, “I can advise those who are looking for the most complete answer to the question of the mystery of the Russian classics of the 19th century to read Nabokov's Lectures on Russian Literature.
Speaker: “Some aspects of Nabokov's book can be annoying: for example, his aristocratic prejudices, his contempt for the characters in Dostoevsky's novels - these, as he writes, "neurotics and lunatics"; his rejection of almost all Soviet-era literature. (I would like to ask: what about Akhmatova, Platonov, Babel?). But on the other hand, no one has written as insightfully as Nabokov about two of Chekhov's most moving stories: "In the Ravine" and "The Lady with the Dog"; no one has provided more convincing evidence of the brilliant splendor of Anna Karenina. And yet, believe me, reading Russian classics is even better than reading Nabokov's lectures on their works. Read and re-read, because their books are even more striking in their beauty and significance every time we return to them. Therefore, having closed the last page of the last book of Russian classics, take the first one again and start reading from the beginning.
Marina Efimova: Did Francine Prowse answer the question she asked in the title of her article - "What makes Russian literature of the 19th century so significant?". In a poetic sense, of course. But there is a more mundane answer. In the 19th century, censorship was atrocious in Russia - state and church, not letting free thought into historical science, philosophy, theology. The state and the Church have monopolized the answers to the eternal questions of the human soul: what is the meaning of life? What is good and what is bad? Perhaps this circumstance partly explains the special concentration of talents in fiction, where censorship was not so impenetrable. And, perhaps, that is why Russian literature of the 19th century was so enriched with historical and philosophical ideas, and God-seeking.
It seems to me (from a long experience of immigration) that many Americans treat fiction as an exclusively cultural attribute. Reading is the lot of the elite. Apparently, therefore, in public schools, literature is taught carelessly and illegibly. And for Russians of many generations, Russian fiction was in childhood the main tool for entering into life. Even before our personal, always limited experience, we learned from the invaluable observations of great writers about the complexity of human relationships. We recognized our own vices in their heroes, we learned to catch humor, we even learned the Russian language more from them than from textbooks. The one who, in childhood, laughed at the entry in the Chekhov's "Complaint Book": "Approaching the city, my hat fell off," for the rest of his life he learned the rules for dealing with adverbial phrases. It seems to me that the wisdom and talent of great writers, proven over the centuries, help modern children grow up too - much more worthy and effective than the instructions of school psychologists or the lessons of sexual educational program.
