J. G. Byron
English romantic poet. The younger generation is a romantic. His contribution to literature is determined, firstly, by the significance of the works and images he created, and secondly, by the development of new literary genres (lyrical epic poem, philosophical mystery drama, verse novel ...), innovation in various areas of poetics, in ways of creating images, and finally, participation in the political and literary struggle of his time. Byron's inner world was complex and contradictory. He was born in a turning point. The castle was inherited by Byron at the age of 10 with the title of lord
Byron is the embodiment of real human virtues; indestructible fighter for justice; a rebel against the then politics; ideal for a whole generation; wrestler, poet, cynic, socialite, aristocrat, romantic, idealist, satirist; passionate and impulsive, easily fell in love, disappointed, captured by new ideas, strong in spirit, sensitive and impressionable, acutely felt not only his own defeats, the troubles of life, all the sorrows of the world, the Byronic hero, universal sorrow.
Born in poverty in London, lame, his father lowered the family fortune. Raised by mother. Never got along with her. At school they made fun of him. Byron University never graduated, had fun, played cards. Debts were growing.
Byron fought with representatives of the "lake school" (a satire on them)
The first collection "Leisure Hours". The collection received negative reviews.
The disclosure of the idea of freedom as a proper life in unity with nature reaches its greatest strength in the poem “I want to be a free child ...”
Made a big trip. Traveling impressions formed the basis of the lyrical poem "Childe-Harold's Pilgrimage". The poem became famous throughout Europe, gave rise to a new type of literary hero. Byron was introduced into high society, and he plunged into secular life, although he could not get rid of the feeling of awkwardness due to a physical defect, hiding it behind arrogance.
Byron's poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" sounded the idea of freedom for all peoples, asserted not only the right, but also the duty of every people to fight for independence and freedom from tyranny. In another sense, freedom for Byron is the freedom of the individual.
But the synthesis of the epic and lyrical layers peculiar to the poem gives a special complexity to the composition: it is not always possible to determine exactly who owns the lyrical thoughts: the hero or the author. The lyrical beginning is brought into the poem by the images of nature, and above all by the image of the sea, which becomes a symbol of the uncontrollable and independent free element.
In the third song, the poet refers to the turning point in European history - the fall of Napoleon. Childe Harold visits the site of the Battle of Waterloo. And the author reflects on the fact that in this battle both Napoleon and his victorious opponents defended not freedom, but tyranny.
The problem is the role of the poet, art in the struggle for the freedom of peoples. The poet compares himself to a drop that has poured into the sea, to a swimmer who is related to the sea element. This metaphor becomes understandable if we consider that the image of the sea embodies the people who have been striving for freedom for centuries. The author in the poem is thus a citizen poet.
"Oriental stories"
The appeal to the East was characteristic of the romantics: it revealed to them a different type of beauty compared to the ancient Greco-Roman ideal, which the classicists were guided by; The East for romantics is also a place where passions rage, where despots stifle freedom, resorting to oriental cunning and cruelty, and the romantic hero placed in this world reveals his love of freedom more vividly in a collision with tyranny. "Corsair", "Gyaur", "Abydos Bride"
Unlike Childe Harold, the hero-observer who has withdrawn from the struggle with society, the heroes of these poems are people of action, active protest.
Swiss period
Byron's political free-thinking and the freedom of his religious and moral views caused a real persecution of the whole of English society against him. His break with his wife was used to campaign against the poet. Byron leaves for Switzerland. His disappointment is in fact becoming universal.
"Manfred". The symbolic-philosophical dramatic poem "Manfred" was written in Switzerland. Manfred, who comprehended "all earthly wisdom", is deeply disappointed. Manfred's suffering, his "world sorrow" is inextricably linked with the loneliness that he himself chose. Manfred's egocentrism reaches the ultimate level, he considers himself above everything in the world, he wants complete, absolute freedom. But his self-centeredness brings doom to all those who love him.
Italian period. The Italian period is the pinnacle of Byron's work. Taking part in the struggle of the Italians for the freedom of the country, the poet creates works full of revolutionary ideas. " Cain"
"Don Juan" Byron's greatest work. It remained unfinished (16 songs were written and the beginning of the 17th). "Don Juan" is called a poem, but in genre it is so different from Byron's other poems that it is more correct to see in "Don Juan" the first example of a "novel in verse" (like Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin"). "Don Juan" is not the story of just one hero, it is also an "encyclopedia of life." Don Juan is a hero taken from a Spanish legend about the punishment of an atheist and seducer of many women. witty description of the exploits of the legendary and tireless hero-lover
Byron in Greece. The desire to take part in the national liberation struggle, about which Byron wrote so much, leads him to Greece. Sick Dying. The Greeks still regard Byron as their national hero.
Byron, who never knew the measure of desires, striving to get as much as possible from life, fed up with the available benefits, was looking for new adventures and impressions, trying to get rid of deep spiritual anguish and anxiety.
Byron's poems are more autobiographical than those of other English Romantics.
Unlike most romantics, Byron respected the heritage of English classicism,
Byronism is a romantic trend. Byronists are characterized by disappointment in society and the world, moods of "world sorrow", a sharp discord between the poet and others, the cult of the superman
Byronic hero
The protest of the human personality against the social system that constrains it.
With the advent of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and other works by Byron, the concept of "Byronic hero" became widely used, which became the literary embodiment of the spirit of the era, those moods that society lived in the early 19th century. This was the artistic discovery of the poet, which he made in observations of himself and his generation.
Extraordinary personality, freethinker,
His hero is disillusioned with the world, he is not happy with wealth, entertainment, or fame. His main spiritual state is boredom. The Byronic hero is lonely and aloof. The heroes of the works listed by Pushkin are superior to those around them in intelligence and education, they are mysterious and charismatic, irresistibly attracting the weaker sex. They place themselves outside society and the law, look at social institutions with arrogance, sometimes reaching cynicism. Digging in yourself. Conclusion. The English poet J. Byron in his work created a type of hero who became the literary embodiment of the spirit of the era of romanticism. Characteristic for him are disappointment in the surrounding reality, protest against it, boredom, wandering in the slum of his own soul, disappointment, melancholy, longing for unrealizable ideals. Rebel strong character, dreamer
This is a lone traveler, an exile. Usually the Byronic hero is an exceptional character, acting under exceptional circumstances. He is characterized by deep and intense feelings, longing, melancholy, spiritual impulses, ardent passions, he rejects the laws that others obey, so such a hero always rises above the environment.
The hero is disappointed in the values of the world, he is not happy with wealth, entertainment, or fame. The main state of mind is boredom. He is dissatisfied with the environment, cannot find a place in it. The hero does not correlate his life with his homeland, country, land, he stands above the borders, he belongs to everyone. His suffering and feelings are the main subject of the author's research.
Poem
THE SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS
Sleepless sun, mournful star,
Your wet beam reaches us here.
With him, the night seems darker to us,
You are the memory of happiness that rushed away.
The vague light of the past still trembles,
Still flickers, but there is no heat in it.
Midnight ray, you're alone in the sky
Clean, but lifeless, clear, but far away!..
The verse "Remembrance" can be considered an example of poetic reticence, behind which the reasons for the author's sadness are hidden. Byron's poetic world is rich and spacious. At the same time, the "lost paradise", lost hopes and expectations, the lost absolute of human happiness - this is the inner theme of the poet's lyrics.
End! Everything was just a dream.
There is no light in my future.
Where is happiness, where is charm?
Trembling under the wind of an evil winter,
My dawn is hidden behind a cloud of darkness,
Gone is the love, the radiance of hope...
Oh, if only a memory!
George (Lord) Byron
Sleepless sun, sad star,
How tearfully your beam always flickers,
Like the darkness is even darker with him,
How it resembles the joy of former days!
So the past shines on us in the night of life,
But powerless rays do not warm us,
The star of the past is so visible to me in grief,
Visible, but far away - bright, but cold!
"Eugene Onegin" was ironic about the popularity of such writings:
British muse of fiction
The maiden's dream is disturbing,
And now her idol has become
Or a brooding Vampire
Or Melmoth, the gloomy vagabond,
Ile the Eternal Jew, or Corsair,
Or the mysterious Sbogar.
Lord Byron by a lucky whim
Wrapped in dull romanticism
And hopeless selfishness.
Pushkin claimed that in the novel Adolf of 1816, the French writer "Constan was the first to bring this character to the stage, subsequently promulgated by the genius of Lord Byron." In fact, the debut of a wanderer disappointed in himself and in the world was Chateaubriand's semi-autobiographical novel René (1802), which, in turn, continues the sentimentalist tradition of savoring one's own sorrows, coming from Goethe's The Sufferings of Young Werther (1774). Examples of Byronic characters in later Victorian literature are Heathcliff and Rochester in the novels of the Brontë sisters. The main characters of many adventure novels of the 19th and 20th centuries (for example, Edmond Dantes) are also endowed with Byronian features.
For the Byronic hero, transplanted to Russian soil, reflection is characteristic, that is, the desire for self-digging: this is Hamlet and Don Juan rolled into one. The demonism inherent in the heroes of this type was fully embodied in Lermontov's The Demon. As a Byronic hero, Russian poets rethought Napoleon, who was expelled to a distant island. Eugene Onegin and Pechorin represent a further development of the type in the conditions of Russian society - this is the so-called. extra people.
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An excerpt characterizing the Byronic hero
– Oh, no, Isidora! Man is extraordinarily strong in his survival. You can't even imagine how strong he is! And a real Man never gives up... Even if he is left alone. It has always been so. And so it will always be. The power of Love and the power of Struggle are very strong on Earth, even if people do not understand this yet. And there will always be someone who will lead the rest. The main thing is that this Leader does not turn out to be “black”... From the very birth, a person is looking for a goal. And it depends only on him whether he finds it himself or turns out to be the one to whom this goal will be given. People must learn to think, Isidora. In the meantime, unfortunately, many are satisfied with what others think for them. And as long as this continues, the Earth will still lose its best sons and daughters, who will pay for the ignorance of all the “led ones”. That's why I won't help you, Isidora. And none of us will. It is not yet time for everything to be at stake. If we die now, fighting for a handful of Enlightened Ones, even if the time has come for them to KNOW, then after that, there will be no one else to “know” ... I see, I haven’t convinced you, – Sever’s lips were touched by a slight smile. - Yes, you would not be yourself if you convinced ... But I ask you only one thing - go away, Isidora! This is not your time, and this is not your world!I felt wildly sad... I realized that I had lost here too. Now everything depended only on my conscience - whether I would agree to leave, or whether I would fight, knowing that there was no hope of victory ...
– Well, Sever, I will stay... I may not be as wise as you and your Great Ancestors... but I think if they really were such “Great” ones, you would help us, and they would forgive you. Well, if not, then perhaps they are not so “great” after all!..
Bitterness spoke through my lips, not allowing me to think soberly ... I could not admit the thought that there was no one to wait for help ... Well, right here there were people who were able to help, just by stretching out their hand. But they didn't want to. They "defended" themselves with lofty goals, refusing to interfere... They were WISE... Well, I just listened to my heart. I wanted to save my loved ones, I wanted to help the rest not to lose people dear to them. I wanted to destroy Evil... Perhaps, in the "wise" sense, I was just a "child". Maybe not grown up. But even if I had lived a thousand years, I would never have been able to calmly watch how an innocent, beautiful person perishes from someone's bestial hand! ..
– Do you want to see the real Meteora, Isidora? Most likely, you will never have such an opportunity again, - Sever said sadly.
– May I ask what the word meteora means?
– Oh, it was a long time ago when they called him... Now it doesn't matter anymore. But at one time it sounded a little different. It meant - WE-TE-U-RA, which meant - close to the light and knowledge, keeping them and living by them. But then too many "ignorant" began to look for us. And the name has changed. Many did not hear its sound, and many did not care at all. They didn't realize that even as they set foot here, they were already in contact with FAITH. That she met them already at the very threshold, starting with the name and understanding of it ... I know that this is not your speech, and it is probably difficult for you to understand it, Isidora. Although your name is also one of those... It is significant.
“You forgot that language is not important to me, Sever. I feel and see it - I smiled.
– Forgive me, in charge... I forgot who you are. Do you want to see what is given only to those who know, Isidora? You won't get another chance, you won't come back here again.
I just nodded, trying to hold back the angry, bitter tears that were ready to pour down my cheeks. The hope to be with them, to receive their strong, friendly support, was dying, even without having time to wake up properly. I remained alone. Never having learned something very important for me... And almost defenseless, against a strong and terrible man, with a formidable name - Karaffa...
But the decision was made, and I was not going to retreat. Otherwise, what was our Life worth if we had to live betraying ourselves? Suddenly, I completely calmed down - everything finally fell into place, there was nothing more to hope for. I could only rely on myself. And that was exactly where it should have come from. And what will be the end - I forced myself not to think about it anymore.
The generalized image of a person created by J.G. Byron, reflecting Byron's ideas about the human personality and in many ways close to the author himself. The heroes of Byron's poems and dramas are different, but in all the images created by the English poet, one can trace a certain general idea, highlight the features that bring them all together.
"B. G." different from other people already outwardly. Despite his youth, his forehead is cut with wrinkles - evidence of the strength of his experiences. The look of the hero is also expressive: it can be gloomy, fiery, mysterious, frightening (to such an extent that only a few are able to withstand it), it can burn with anger, rage, determination, one can guess from it the secret passions that torment “B. G.".
Corresponds to the scale of the personality of the hero and the environment in which he is depicted: over the sea, at the entrance to the cave (Corsair), at night on a narrow mountain path (Gyaur), in an old gloomy castle (Lara).
"B. G." proud, gloomy, lonely, and the passion that owns him absorbs him entirely, without a trace (Selim's passion for Zuleika, Giaur's desire to take revenge on Gassan). The hero's desire for freedom is indomitable, he rebels against any coercion, restriction, even against the existing world order (Cain).
Next to such a hero is usually his beloved - the complete opposite of him, a meek, gentle, loving creature. She is the only one who can reconcile "B. G." with the world and tame his violent temper. The death of a beloved means for the hero the collapse of all his hopes for happiness, the loss of the meaning of existence (Gyaur, Manfred). The existence of such a generalized type of “B. G." A.S. also pointed out Pushkin. According to the Russian poet, in the person of his hero, Byron displays "the ghost of himself." Pushkin calls "B. G." "gloomy, powerful", "mysteriously captivating".
Researcher M.N. Rozanov characterized such a hero as "titanic". V.M. Zhirmunsky in his study "Byron and Pushkin" speaks of "B. G." not only as a hero of Byron's works.
The titanic, heroic image created by Byron turned out to be so interesting to his contemporaries that the features of Byronism can also be found in the works of other authors. Thus, “B. G." ceases to belong to Byron alone and turns into a kind of socio-cultural phenomenon that continues the traditions of English "terrible novels" of the 18th century. and reinterpreted in a new way by the authors of the 19th century. In Russian literature, in particular, in the work of Pushkin, to whom the monograph by V.M. Zhirmunsky, "B. G." debunked, showing not only his strength, but also his weakness.
Of the recent studies on this issue, the work Byron and Romanticism (Cambridge, 2002) by Jerome McGann, the author of several books about Byron, and also the editor of the complete collection of his works, is especially interesting. The key concepts for this work are "mask" and "masquerade". According to McGann, "B. G." - this is a kind of mask put on by Byron not in order to hide his true face, but, on the contrary, in order to show it, since, paradoxically, "Byron puts on a mask and is able to tell the truth about himself." The mask acts as a means of self-knowledge: the poet, depicting a hero close, but not identical to himself, sought to objectify himself, to explore his own thoughts and feelings. However, this way of self-knowledge is imperfect, since in the end the heroes created by Byron act according to his "poetic orders".
Byron's "masks" McGann refers not only to fictional characters - Childe Harold, Giaur, Corsair, Lara, Manfred - but also images of real historical figures that appear in Byron's work: Dante, Torquato Tasso, Napoleon.
Partly the relationship between Byron and "B. G." reminiscent of L.'s attitude to the "Lermontov man", but there are some differences. The hero L. is not necessarily his "mask", his self-projection.
The poet is also interested in other heroes, unlike him, "ordinary people": fishermen, peasants, highlanders, soldiers, and later - the old "Caucasian" Maxim Maksimych. L.'s interest in the other is also manifested in the fact that he refers to the image of a neighbor in Art. Neighbor (1830 or 1831), Neighbor (1837), Neighbor (1840).
This dissimilarity between the two poets is especially clearly seen when comparing Byron's poem "Lara" and Lermontov's novel "Vadim". Both Lara and Vadim are the leaders of the peasant uprising, tragic demonic personalities. But if Byron is only interested in the spiritual life of Lara (and partly in love with him a girl who, under the guise of a page, accompanies him), then L. was so carried away by the image of ordinary people that they obscured the image of Vadim and turned out to be more convincing from an artistic point of view. However, at an early stage of creativity, Byron's heroes - rebellious, incomprehensible, lonely - were precisely those people to whom L. had an "aesthetic interest". Byron attracted the young man L. with strength, passion, energy, and a thirst for activity. It is these heroes that prevail in his early work: Vadim, who takes revenge on Rurik for the death of Leda and the enslavement of his native Novgorod, Fernando, who seeks to snatch Emilia from the clutches of the insidious Sorrini, etc. Even the Corsair in the early poem, written before Byron was known in the original, is already endowed with these character traits. Consequently, L.'s interest in strong and passionate personalities is explained not by imitation of Byron, but by the inner need of the poet himself to portray just such people. The Russian poet sincerely admired the British genius, but wanted to "achieve" him, i.e. to catch up with him in terms of the strength of his talent, fame, the degree of originality of his creative and personal destiny, and not to become like him.
Lit.: 1) Belova N.M. Byronic hero and Pechorin. - Saratov: Publishing Center "Nauka", 2009 - 95 p.; 2) Zhirmunsky V.M. Byron and Pushkin. Pushkin and Western Literature. - L.: Nauka, 1978. - 424 p.; 3) Pushkin A.S. Full. coll. cit.: In 10 vols. - vol. VII. - L.: Science. Leningrad. Department, 1977–1979; 4) Rozanov M.N. Essay on the history of English literature of the 19th century. Part one. Age of Byron. - M.: State publishing house, 1922. - 247 p.; 5) McGann, Jerome J. Byron and Romanticism. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
T.S. Milovanova
As already noted, the Byronic exile hero, a rebel who rejects society and is rejected by it, has become a special type of romantic hero. Of course, one of the brightest Byronic heroes is Childe-Harold, however, in other works of Byron, the images of romantic heroes, rebel heroes, and exile heroes are vivid and distinct.
In the context of our theme - the theme of the outcast hero in Byron's work, one of his early poems - "The Corsair" (1814), which is part of the Oriental Poems cycle, is of the greatest interest, where the Byronic conflict of an outstanding personality and a society hostile to her is presented in a particularly full and direct expression.
Corsair. The hero of the "Corsair" - the sea robber Konrad, by the very nature of his activity, is an outcast. His way of life is a direct challenge not only to the prevailing moral standards, but also to the system of prevailing state laws, the violation of which turns Conrad into a "professional" criminal. The reasons for this sharpest conflict between the hero and the entire civilized world, beyond which Conrad retired, are gradually revealed in the course of the plot development of the poem. The guiding thread to its ideological concept is the symbolic image of the sea, which appears in the song of the pirates, prefaced by the narrative in the form of a kind of prologue. This appeal to the sea is one of Byron's constant lyrical motifs. A. S. Pushkin, who called Byron "the singer of the sea", likens the English poet to this "free element":
Shumi, get excited by bad weather:
He was, O sea, your singer!
Your image was marked on it
He was created by your spirit:
Like you, mighty, deep and gloomy,
Like you, nothing is indomitable.
"To sea"
The entire content of the poem can be seen as a development and substantiation of its metaphorical prologue. The soul of Konrad - a pirate plowing the sea - is also the sea. Stormy, indomitable, free, resisting all attempts to enslave, it does not fit into any unambiguous rationalistic formulas. Good and evil, generosity and cruelty, rebellious impulses and longing for harmony exist in it in an inseparable unity. A man of powerful unbridled passions, Conrad is equally capable of murder and heroic self-sacrifice (during the fire of the seraglio belonging to his enemy Pasha Seid, Conrad saves the latter's wives).
The tragedy of Konrad lies precisely in the fact that his fatal passions bring death not only to him, but to everyone who is somehow connected with him. Marked with the seal of sinister fate, Conrad sows death and destruction around him. This is one of the sources of his grief and, as yet, not very clear, barely outlined, mental discord, the basis of which is the consciousness of his unity with the underworld, complicity in his atrocities. In this poem, Konrad is still trying to find an excuse for himself: “Yes, I am a criminal, like everyone else. Of whom shall I say otherwise, of whom?” And yet, his way of life, as if imposed on him by a hostile world, to some extent burdens him. After all, this freedom-loving rebel-individualist is by no means intended by nature for "dark deeds":
He was created for good, but evil
To itself, its mangling, attracted.
Everyone mocked, and betrayed everyone;
Like the feeling of fallen dew
Under the arch of the grotto; and how this grotto
It petrified in its turn,
Having passed his earthly bondage ...
Per. Y. Petrova
Like many of Byron's heroes, Conrad was pure, trusting, and loving in the distant past. Slightly lifting the veil of mystery that envelops the backstory of his hero, the poet reports that the gloomy lot chosen by him is the result of persecution by a soulless and evil society that persecutes everything bright, free and original. Laying the responsibility for the destructive activities of the Corsair on a corrupt and insignificant society, Byron poeticizes his personality and the state of mind in which he is. As a true romantic, the author of The Corsair finds a special "night" "demonic" beauty in this confused consciousness, in the chaotic impulses of the human heart. Its source is a proud thirst for freedom - against all odds and at all costs.
It was this angry protest against the enslavement of the Personality that determined the tremendous artistic impact of the Byronic poems on the readers of the 19th century. At the same time, the most perceptive of them saw in Byron's apology for individualistic self-will and the potential danger contained in it. So, A. S. Pushkin, admired Byron’s love of freedom, but condemned him for the poeticization of individualism, behind the gloomy “pride” of Byron’s heroes, he saw the “hopeless egoism” lurking in them (“Lord Byron with a successful whim / Clothed in dull romanticism and hopeless egoism” ).
In his poem "Gypsies", Pushkin put into the mouth of one of its characters - an old gypsy, words that sound like a sentence not only to Aleko, but also to the Byronic hero as a literary and psychological category: "You only want freedom for yourself." These words contain an extremely precise indication of the most vulnerable spot in Byron's concept of personality. But with all the fairness of such an assessment, one cannot fail to see that this most controversial side of the Byronic characters also arose on a very real historical basis. It is no coincidence that the Polish poet and publicist A. Mickiewicz, along with some of Byron's critics, saw in not only Manfred, but also the Corsair, a well-known similarity with Napoleon.
Prometheus. J. Gordon Byron drew many of his ideas from the ancient myth of Prometheus. In 1817, Byron wrote to the publisher J. Merry: “I deeply admired Aeschylus' Prometheus in my boyhood years ... "Prometheus" has always occupied my thoughts so much that it is easy for me to imagine its influence on everything that I have written. In 1816 in Switzerland, in the most tragic year of his life, Byron wrote the poem "Prometheus".
Titanium! To our earthly lot,
To our mournful vale,
For human pain
You looked without contempt;
But what was the reward?
Suffering, stress
Yes kite, that without end
Torments the liver of the proud,
Rock, chains a sad sound,
The suffocating burden of torment
Yes, the groan that is buried in the heart,
You suppressed, calmed down,
So that about your sorrows
He couldn't tell the gods.
The poem is built in the form of an appeal to a titan, a solemn, odic intonation recreates the image of a stoic sufferer, warrior and fighter, in whom “Greatness is hidden / For the human race!”. The attention is especially focused on the silent contempt of Prometheus in relation to Zeus, the "proud god": "... the groan that is buried in the heart, / suppressed by You, subsided ...". The “silent answer” of Prometheus to the Thunderer speaks of the silence of the titan as the main threat to God.
In the context of Byron's historical events and life circumstances in 1816 (restoration of monarchical regimes in Europe, exile), the most important theme of the poem is of particular importance - a bitter reflection on a furious fate, omnipotent fate, which turn a person's earthly lot into a "mournful vale". In the last part of the poem, human fate is tragically comprehended - "mortal path - / Human life - a bright current, / Running, sweeping away the path ...", "aimless existence, / Resistance, vegetation ...". The work ends with the affirmation of the will of man, the ability to "triumph" "in the depths of the most bitter torment."
In the poem "Prometheus" Byron painted the image of a hero, a titan, persecuted because he wants to alleviate the human pain of those living on earth. Almighty Rock chained him as a punishment for his good desire to "put an end to misfortunes." And although the suffering of Prometheus is beyond all strength, he does not humble himself before the Tyranny of the Thunderer. The heroism of the tragic image of Prometheus is that he can "turn even death into victory." The legendary image of the Greek myth and tragedy of Aeschylus acquires in Byron's poem the features of civic prowess, courage and fearlessness characteristic of the hero of revolutionary romantic poetry.
The images of Prometheus, Manfred and Cain in Byron's poems of the same name are consonant with the proud protest of circumstances and the challenge of tyranny. So, Manfred declares to the spirits of the elements who came to him:
Immortal spirit, legacy of Prometheus,
The fire lit in me is just as bright,
Mighty and all-encompassing, like yours,
Although clothed with earthen dust.
But if Byron himself, creating the image of Prometheus, only partly brought his fate closer to his own, then readers and interpreters of the poet's work often directly identified him with Prometheus. So, V. A. Zhukovsky in a letter to N. V. Gogol, speaking of Byron, whose spirit is “high, powerful, but the spirit of denial, pride and contempt”, writes: “... before us is the titan Prometheus, chained to a rock Caucasus and proudly cursing Zeus, to whom the kite tears his insides.
Belinsky gave a vivid description of Byron’s work: “Byron was the Prometheus of our century, chained to a rock, tormented by a kite: a mighty genius, on his grief, looked ahead, and without considering, beyond the flickering distance, the promised land of the future, he cursed the present and declared to him irreconcilable and eternal enmity ... ".
Prometheus became one of the most beloved symbols of romanticism, embodying courage, heroism, self-sacrifice, unbending will and intransigence.
"Manfred". In the philosophical drama "Manfred" (1816), one of the initial remarks of its hero, the wizard and magician Manfred, reads: "The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life." This bitter aphorism summarizes not only the results of historical experience, but also the experience of Byron himself, whose play was created under the sign of a certain reassessment of his own values. Building his drama in the form of a kind of excursion into the area of the inner life of the "Byronic" hero, the poet shows the tragedy of his hero's spiritual discord. Romantic Faust - the magician and magician Manfred, like his German prototype, was disappointed in knowledge.
Having received superhuman power over the elements of nature, Manfred was at the same time plunged into a state of cruel internal conflict. Possessed by despair and heavy remorse, he wanders through the heights of the Alps, finding neither oblivion nor peace. The spirits, subject to Manfred, are unable to help him in his attempts to escape from himself. The complex spiritual collision, which is the dramatic axis of the work, is a kind of psychological modification of Byron's conflict between a gifted person and a hostile world.
Having retired from the world he despised, the hero of the drama did not break his inner connection with it. In "Manfred" Byron, with much greater certainty than in previously created works, indicates those destructive principles that are hidden in the individualistic consciousness of his time.
The titanic individualism of the proud "superman" Manfred is a kind of sign of the times. As the son of his age, Manfred, like Napoleon, is the bearer of epochal consciousness. This is indicated by the symbolic song of "fates" - the peculiar spirits of history flying over Manfred's head. The image of the “crowned villain cast into dust” (in other words, Napoleon), which appears in their ominous chant, clearly correlates with the image of Manfred. For the romantic poet, both of them - both his hero Manfred and the deposed emperor of France - are tools of "fates" and their masters - the evil genius Ahriman.
The knowledge of the secrets of life, which are hidden from ordinary people, was bought by Manfred at the cost of human sacrifices. One of them was his beloved Astarte (“I shed blood,” says the hero of the drama, “it was not her blood, and yet her blood was shed”).
Parallels between Faust and Manfred constantly accompany the reader. But if Goethe was characterized by an optimistic understanding of progress as a continuous progressive movement of history, and the unity of its creative and destructive principles (Faust and Mephistopheles) acted as a necessary prerequisite for the creative renewal of life, then for Byron, to whom history seemed to be a chain of catastrophes, the problem of the costs of progress seemed tragic. insoluble. And yet, the recognition of the laws of the historical development of society that are not subject to reason does not lead the poet to surrender to the principles of being hostile to man. His Manfred up to the last minute defends his right to think and dare. Proudly rejecting the help of religion, he closes himself in his mountain castle and dies, as he lived, alone. This inflexible stoicism is affirmed by Byron as the only form of life behavior worthy of man.
This idea, which forms the basis of the artistic development of the drama, acquires the utmost clarity in it. This is facilitated by the genre of "monodrama" - a play with a single character. The image of the hero occupies the entire poetic space of the drama, acquiring truly grandiose proportions. His soul is a true microcosm. Everything that is in the world is born from its bowels. It contains all the elements of the universe - in himself Manfred bears hell and paradise and he himself creates judgment on himself. Objectively, the pathos of the poem is in the affirmation of the greatness of the human spirit. From his titanic efforts, a critical, rebellious, protesting thought was born. It is she who constitutes the most valuable conquest of mankind, paid for at the cost of blood and suffering. Such are Byron's reflections on the results of the tragic path traversed by mankind at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.
"Prisoner of Chillon" (1816). This poem was based on a real life fact: the tragic story of the Genevan citizen Francois de Bonivare, who was imprisoned in the Chillon prison in 1530 for religious and political reasons and was imprisoned until 1537. Using this episode of the distant past as material for one of his most lyrically mournful works, Byron put into it a sharply modern content. In his interpretation, it became an indictment of the political reaction of any historical variety. Under the pen of the great poet, the gloomy image of the Chillon Castle grew to the scale of an ominous symbol of a cruel tyrannical world - a prison world, where people suffer torment for their loyalty to moral and patriotic ideals, before which, in the words of V. G. Belinsky, “the hell of Dante himself seems like - something paradise.
The stone tomb in which they are buried gradually kills their body and soul. Unlike his brothers, who died in front of Bonivar, he remains physically alive. But his soul is half dead. The darkness surrounding the prisoner fills his inner world and settles in him a formless chaos:
And I saw, as in a bad dream,
All pale, dark, dull to me...
It was - darkness without darkness;
It was - the abyss of emptiness
Without stretch and borders;
They were images without faces;
That was some kind of terrible world,
Without sky, light and luminaries,
Without time, without days and years,
Without fishing, without blessings and troubles,
Neither life nor death - like a dream of coffins,
Like an ocean without a shore
Crushed by the heavy haze,
Motionless, dark and mute...
Per. V. A. Chukovsky
The stoically adamant martyr of an idea does not embark on the path of renunciation, but he turns into a passive person, indifferent to everything, and, perhaps the worst thing, resigns himself to bondage and even begins to love the place of his imprisonment:
When outside the door of your prison
I stepped free
I sighed about my prison.
Starting from this work, according to critics, a new image of a fighter for the happiness of mankind, a philanthropist, ready to put the heavy burden of human suffering on his shoulders, is put forward in the center of Byron's works in many respects.
The hero free from society - an outcast, present in all Byron's works, is unhappy, but independence is dearer to him than peace, comfort, even happiness. The Byronic hero is uncompromising, there is no hypocrisy in him, because ties with a society in which hypocrisy is a way of life are severed. Only one human connection is recognized by the poet as possible for his free, non-hypocritical and lonely hero - a feeling of great love, only one ideal exists for him - the ideal of Freedom, for which he is ready to give up everything, become an outcast.
This individualistic pride, sung by Byron, was a feature of the epochal consciousness in its romantic, exaggeratedly vivid expression. This ability to penetrate the spirit of the era explains the significance of the influence that Byron's work has had on modern and subsequent literature.
Conclusion
The work of the great English poet Byron (1788-1824) is undoubtedly one of the most significant phenomena in the history of world literary and social thought. His poetic works embodied the most acute, vital problems of his era. The image of Byron becomes the image of an entire era in the history of European self-consciousness. It will be named after the poet - the era of Byronism. In his personality, they saw the embodied spirit of the times, and he himself was considered the recognized leader of European romanticism in one of its most militant rebellious variants.
In literary criticism, romanticism is a broad literary movement, the beginning of which falls on the last decade of the 18th century. It dominated the literatures of the West throughout the first third of the 19th century, and in some countries even longer.
Born as a reaction to the rationalism and mechanism of the aesthetics of classicism and the philosophy of the Enlightenment, established in the era of the revolutionary breakdown of feudal society, the former, seemingly unshakable world order, romanticism (both as a special kind of worldview and as an artistic direction) has become one of the most complex and internally contradictory phenomena. in cultural history. Disappointment in the ideals of the Enlightenment, in the results of the Great French Revolution, the denial of the utilitarianism of modern reality, the principles of bourgeois practicality, the victim of which was human individuality, a pessimistic view of the prospects for social development, the mindset of "world sorrow" were combined in romanticism with the desire for harmony in the world order, the spiritual integrity of the individual , with an inclination towards the "infinite", with the search for new, absolute and unconditional ideals.
The moral pathos of the romantics was associated primarily with the assertion of the value of the individual, which was embodied in the images of romantic heroes. The most striking type of romantic hero is the lone hero, the outcast hero, who is usually called the Byronic hero. The opposition of the poet to the crowd, the hero to the mob, the individual to the society that does not understand and persecute him, is a characteristic feature of romantic literature. The hero of romantic literature becomes a person who has broken away from old ties, asserting his absolute dissimilarity to all others. That alone makes her exceptional. Romantic artists, and Byron the first among them, as a rule, avoided portraying ordinary and ordinary people. Lonely dreamers, brilliant artists, prophets, individuals endowed with deep passions, titanic power of feelings act as the main characters in their artistic work. They may be villains, like Manfred or the Corsair, they may be fighters rejected by society, like Prometheus or the Prisoner of Chillon, but never mediocre. Most often, they are endowed with a rebellious consciousness that puts them above ordinary people.
The outcast hero free from society, present in all Byron's works, is unhappy, but independence is dearer to him than peace, comfort, even happiness. The Byronic hero is uncompromising, there is no hypocrisy in him, because ties with a society in which hypocrisy is a way of life are severed. Only one human connection is recognized by the poet as possible for his free, non-hypocritical and lonely hero - a feeling of great love, only one ideal exists for him - the ideal of Freedom, for which he is ready to give up everything, become an outcast. This individualistic pride, sung by Byron in the images of his outcast heroes, was a feature of the epochal consciousness in its romantic, exaggeratedly vivid expression.
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Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine Kharkiv National University. V.N. KarazinFaculty of Foreign Philology Rebel Hero in Byron's WorksContent IntroductionSection 1. George Gordon Byron and his work as part of European culture and European politics Byron's legacy2.1 Reflection of Byron's worldview in the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
Introduction Creativity D.G. Byron reflected the difficult and critical era in the history of Europe that came after the French Revolution. Being the son of his age, Byron as a person absorbed the conflicting aspirations of the post-revolutionary era, characterized by unstable social relations. Much in the personality of the poet is explained not so much by natural innate qualities inherited from aristocratic ancestors, his high position as an English peer, but by social disasters, the imperfection of bourgeois relations established throughout Europe. Byron's poetry was born in the conditions of the growth of the national liberation movement, it was saturated with the heroism of the struggle . The poet glorified an active heroic personality, free and independent, adamant in his decision to oppose himself to the generally accepted, petty, vulgar. Subject of research of this course work is Byron's depiction of a lyrical hero as a rebel, rebelling against the mental and physical slavery of a person in the historical setting of the early 19th century. Target of this work is to determine and analyze how the author expresses his socio-political views, which he embodied in the main character, giving him rebellious features. Relevance The research consists in the interest of literary criticism in the depiction by the author of the protagonist of the work as an exponent of his worldview. Research material served as a poem by D.G. Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. theoretical value work consists in the fact that it is a certain contribution to the development of the problem of studying the work of D.G. Byron. Practical value consists in the possibility of using materials and research results in the course of the history of foreign literature of the 19th century, when writing term papers and theses, as well as in school practice. In domestic literary criticism, certain aspects of D.G. Byron are considered in the studies of R. Usmanov, N. Solovyova, N. Paltsev.
Section 1. George Gordon Byron and his work as part of European culture and European politics 1.1 Age of Byron - a time of deep division of forces in the literature of romanticism The work of the great English poet Byron entered the history of world literature as an outstanding artistic phenomenon associated with the era of romanticism. A new trend in art that arose in Western Europe at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century was a reaction to the French Revolution and the enlightenment associated with it. Dissatisfaction with the results of the French Revolution, the strengthening of political reaction in European countries after it turned out to be suitable soil for the development of romanticism. Among the romantics, some called on society to return to the former patriarchal way of life, to the Middle Ages, and, refusing to solve the pressing problems of our time, went into the world of religious mysticism; others expressed the interests of the democratic and revolutionary masses, calling for the continuation of the cause of the French Revolution and the realization of the ideas of freedom, equality and fraternity. An ardent defender of the national liberation movement of peoples, an exposer of tyranny and the policy of aggressive wars, Byron became one of the leading initiators of the progressive trend in romanticism. The innovative spirit of Byron's poetry, his artistic method of a new type of romance was picked up and developed by subsequent generations of poets and writers of various national literatures. England. The French writer Stendhal, a contemporary of the poet, defined this hatred for Byron as "political hatred". The hostile campaign against the poet, which began in 1816, forced him to leave his homeland forever. In exile, Byron took an active part in the movement of the Italian Carbonari and Greek rebels for the independence of Italy and Greece. Both as a poet and as a freedom fighter, Byron was the "ruler of thoughts" for his time, but in the future his work continued to remain relevant. More than one and a half passed centuries since Byron's death, but interest in his personality and his work is still great, and passions and disputes are still raging around his name. Along with an objective assessment of his work, with the study of him in the complex of all problems, historical and aesthetic, in the literature about Byron there are works in which some foreign literary critics try to consider the poet's work only as an illustration of his biography and in each of his works they see hints of those or other facts of his personal life. Byron gained great recognition among the Decembrists, for whom he was an example of service to the cause of freedom. The Decembrists translated his works, dedicated verses and poems to him, and were the first in the world to highly appreciate the revolutionary pathos in Byron's work. V.G. Belinsky. By the time of Belinsky, in a number of countries, but most of all in the poet's homeland, a fairly significant number of detailed articles, memoirs and books about Byron had appeared. Belinsky began a polemic with the authors, who directly judged the work of the poet, considering his features as a result of an accidental combination of the circumstances of his life and the originality of his character. “You see,” they say, “he was unhappy in life, and therefore melancholy is the distinctive character of his works,” wrote Belinsky. Briefly and clearly! This way one can easily explain the gloomy character of Byron's poetry: criticism will be both short and satisfactory. But that Byron was unhappy in life is already old news: the question is, why was this spirit endowed with wondrous powers doomed to misfortune? Empirical critics will not think even here: irritable temper, hypochondria, some of them will say, and indigestion, perhaps others will add, good-naturedly not realizing in the base simplicity of their gastric views that such small causes cannot result in such great phenomena like the poetry of Byron" (V. G. Belinsky, 1955, p. 585-586)
The inner world of this remarkable humanist poet is open to meet the fresh and exciting trends of the times. Byron becomes part of European culture, European politics. A recent frequenter of secular salons and drawing rooms, Byron is involved in the struggle for a just cause - in Italy he helps the Carbonari, in Greece he equips ships and arms people at his own expense, works hard on developing a company plan and dies of a fever in Missolungi, burning with a passionate desire to help Greece break free from the Turkish yoke. The hero of Byron's poetry does not belong to one nation, he, like his creator, is inseparable from the national liberation struggle of peoples, he sympathizes with the disadvantaged, admires the courage of patriots, and he is always active. At the same time, this is a hero of his time, eager to find himself, his place in life, still unclear and uncertain, in the process of formation and formation.
Byronism, according to F.M. Dostoevsky is a whole philosophy, a system of views that arose during a period of terrible longing for people, their disappointment and almost despair, when old idols lay broken. And it was at this time that a great genius appeared, a passionate poet, in whose sounds all the longing of mankind and gloomy disappointment in the ideals that deceived him sounded.
Byron's poetry, like the poet's personality, was built on the contrasts of often mutually exclusive aspirations, indignation at Castlereagh's politics, impassioned defense of the Luddites and the heavy gloomy coloring of "Darkness", witty brilliant cascades of situations in "Beppo" and satirical uncompromising condemnation of sanctimonious puritan morality. Romantic idealization of passion, a sublime idea of love that conquers all conventions and prejudices, and Byron himself condemns women who have changed virtues.
A whole epoch in the development of not only English, but also world literature of the 19th century is associated with the name of Byron. Byron's age is a time of deep division of forces in the literature of romanticism. In the fight against the Leukists, Byron defended not only the possibilities of a new artistic method, he asserted the position of an active perception of life.
Like other romantics, Byron understood that in the world there are inexplicable forces beyond the control of man, his consciousness and activity, which influence the fate of individuals and societies. But he did not regard man as a passive object of these forces. The activity of Byron's hero is conditioned by the very outlook of the poet, his perception of the essence of the antagonistic relationship between the individual and society.
The highest purpose of man (and this is the leitmotif of all Byron's poetry) is not only to challenge his fate, these forces hostile to man, but also to stand in this unequal struggle with evil, without losing the desire to fight, suffer, hate, love life and surrender to her completely without a trace.
1.2 Reflection of the irreconcilability of the soul, the search for truth and the dramatic period of human history in Byron's poetryByron's work also captivates the modern reader with the nobility of his aspirations, the uncompromising rebellion against everything inert, sanctimonious, cowardly and petty.
The depth and tragedy of the conflict of a lonely person with society at different stages of Byron's work are different. The poet is trying to find the objective prerequisites for this rebellion, his characters overcome individualism and return to it again.
Many of the contradictions of Byron and his poetry reflect the contradictions of the era, about which the poet himself said: “We live in a time of gigantic exaggerated proportions, when everything smaller than Gog and Magog seems to us to be pygmies” (Byron, 1963)
The style of the poet's best poems is characterized by laconicism, dynamics, internal philosophical tension, softening the rigidity of the classic vocabulary and form. Most of the reviewers of Byron's first poetic experience were sympathetic in their assessments. Only the influential Scottish magazine The Edinburgh Review, having subjected to a thorough analysis of the shortcomings and failures of individual poems, attacked the author with sharp criticism, questioning, in a rather rude form, the existence of Byron's poetic talent.
March 13, 1809 Byron became a member of the House of Lords. Political activity had long attracted Byron, although he was skeptical about the parliamentary system and the struggle of the parties ("English bards and Scottish observers"). The poet was partly prepared for this activity at the university, improving his oratory skills. How seriously Byron took politics, striving even then, in 1809, to determine his position, can be judged by the following lines from his letter of January 15, 1809: “I will take my place in the House as soon as circumstances permit. I have not yet decided whom to join in politics, and do not intend to rashly bind myself with statements or promises of support to this or that person or cause; I do not want to rush headlong into the opposition, but I will do my best to avoid contact with the ministry. I cannot say that I fully sympathize with this or that party. I will stand aside, I will say what I think, but not often and not immediately. If I succeed, I hope to maintain independence, but if I join any party, then I will try to be there not among the last ”(Byron, 1963)
The rather secluded life that Byron led in Newstead after graduation did not contribute to the expansion of his knowledge of life, which, in his opinion, was necessary for an aspiring politician. At the same time, events on the continent developed rapidly. On May 21-22, 1809, Napoleon was defeated at Lobau, it was restless in Paris, and a guerrilla war against the French began in Tyrol. Byron believed that he needed to know the life and way of life of other peoples, and he went on a journey with his friend Hobhouse. From Portugal (Lisbon, Sintra), Byron went to Spain (Seville, Cadiz), then spent a month in Malta, then went to Greece and Albania, visited Constantinople and stayed in Athens for a long time. Byron returned to England two years later in 1811. During the trip, Byron kept a diary, which reflected numerous external events of the most interesting wandering, vivid ethnographic details of the life of individual peoples, depicted the internal appearance and national character of a Spaniard, Portuguese, Albanian, Greek. In the diaries and letters of Byron 1809-1811. the ideological maturation of a great poet and deep thinker is quite clearly traced. Travels truly form the original talent of Byron - a lyrical poet. The whole life of Byron the young man, rich in thoughts and feelings, was reflected in his early poems. In 1806, as a student at Cambridge, he anonymously published a collection of his poems, Flying Sketches, but almost the entire small print run was destroyed. In 1807, a new collection of Poems on Various Occasions appeared anonymously. In the same year, the third collection of the poet's poems was published, already indicating the author's name - "Leisure Hours", original poems and translations by George Gordon, Lord Byron. Minor". The "Hours of Leisure" included poems from previously published collections and new ones, published for the first time. Many of the poems of the collection were still imperfect, they reflected the imitation of English poetry of the 18th century, but a wide range of poetic possibilities of young Byron, mastering various poetic dimensions, looking for expressive means for the figurative and accurate transmission of his thoughts.At the end of June 1809, Byron went on a two-year journey.During the journey, he finishes the poem "In the Footsteps of Horace", conceived by him as a continuation of "English Bards and Scottish Reviewers", and writes travel impressions in verse, which formed the basis of the first two songs of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Byron's connection with the 18th century, that is, the century of Enlightenment, has long attracted attention both in foreign and in our domestic science. Byron the critic, who proclaimed the principles of Enlightenment classicism, contradicted Byron the poet, who affirmed with his poetry the artistic method of romanticism, which destroyed the normative aesthetics of the Enlightenment. Byron had much in common with the enlighteners. Persistent intransigence towards religious and political hypocrisy gave Byron confidence in the fights with many-sided hypocrisy and political cunning. Byron's personality was answered by the spirit of active intervention in life, which denounced the thinkers and writers of the 18th century. Byron was a supporter of the usual propaganda of knowledge for an educator, their dissemination among his contemporaries. What, if not the true need to share the acquired knowledge with people, explains the large amount of notes and applications written by him to many of his works. And, finally, Byron picked up and continued the educational attitude not only to literature, but also to other types of art. He believed, for example, that by means of the theater it was possible to develop the mind and feelings of people, and, criticizing the contemporary stage from the moral positions of the enlighteners of the 18th century, he looked ahead, anticipating the possibility of a different development of the theater. And it is by no means accidental that Byron in 1820 returns to the idea of publishing the poem "In the footsteps of Horace", a significant part of which is devoted to the theater. Romantic poems were Byron's new achievement in poetry. They are distinguished by a variety of poetic vision of the spiritual world of a person in the most stressful moments of life. The hero, his thoughts, experiences are consonant with nature and its elements. Their movement and continuous change in time give the landscapes in the poems a special beauty. Wherever the poet sees his heroes - against the background of the endless sea, wild rocks or the ruins of castles - he uses the landscape not only to emphasize their loneliness, but also to show the transience of time. Simultaneously with romantic poems, Byron created love and heroic lyrics, to which the cycle "Jewish Melodies" belongs. The poem was written in the style of satirical poems of the 18th century. And everything that it says about the poet's responsibility for the fate of artistic creativity, Byron attributed to himself. But it so happened that before the poem "In the footsteps of Horace" the first two songs of "Childe Harold" appeared in print, which made him "famous in one morning." And now many lines of the poem "In the Footsteps of Horace", in particular, are: Poetry knows no middle, Here is the one at the bottom who has not reached the top, Everyone has a gray poet in contempt, God, people and newspapers. .. (Byron, 1939) - would be perceived by the literary environment as arrogant instructions to all poets less significant than him, that is, ethical considerations came into force, so Byron suspended the printing of the fifth edition of The English Bards prepared by him ..., postponed the publication of In the Footsteps of Horace, for, as he observed, any continuation of The English Bards ... "would have brought down an avalanche of burning coals on his head" (Byron, 1939) . The poem was never published during the life of the poet. The journey that Byron made in 1809-1811 was of great importance for the development of his personality and poetic gift. It began with Portugal, followed by the cities of Spain. From Spain, Byron went to about. Malta, after Malta he visited Greece, Albania, from here he went to Constantinople, returned to Greece again. No matter how amazing the nature and majestic ancient culture of these southern countries were in their beauty, Byron did not perceive them outside the life of the peoples who inhabited them. People, their way of life, language, customs, clothes - everything arouses the keen interest of the poet. He is struck by the social contrasts in these countries: on the one hand, poverty, the slavery of peoples, on the other, the unlimited power and arbitrariness of a handful of tyrants. During the trip, Byron became deeply aware of his public vocation as a poet, he sought to convey what he saw in stanzas that denounced the policies of the governments of those countries that supported tyranny and violence against peoples. the yoke of tyranny, then delights before the beauty of women, before the exoticism of nature. These entries were mostly written in Spencer's stanza, nine-line, with a complex alternation of rhymes; Byron was then working on mastering this stanza, which has its origins in English Renaissance poetry. During the trip, he also created many lyrical poems about memorable meetings and events. At the same time, poems appeared that gave rise to the political lyrics of the poet - "The Song of the Greek Rebels", "Farewell to Malta", which adjoined the satire "The Curse of Minerva", also written during the travel years.
It is no coincidence that the Baron's name was popular in many European countries. His work attracted with its relevance, connection with contemporary phenomena of life. It expressed the trends of the era. Byron was appreciated by Pushkin and Lermontov, Mickiewicz and Goethe, Petofi and Heine, Hugo and Stendhal.
The name of Byron, a poet, in the words of Pushkin, "mourned by freedom", is always close and dear to those for whom the high and beautiful feelings of people are sacred, their noble struggle against arbitrariness and tyranny. Byron's work was innovative, it contained ideas that excited both contemporaries and subsequent generations. What was unsaid, what was not understood by Byron was said or gave rise to new disputes, but his work always disturbed the minds, awakened the imagination. And the poet, as if foreseeing this, said: ... I did not live in vain! flight, Neither the slander of the enemies will destroy, What will come to life in the repeated echo ... (Byron, 1939) Section 2. Hero - a rebel in the poetic heritage of Byron 2.1 Reflection of Byron's worldview in the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is Byron's first romantic poem. It was distinguished, first of all, by a new genre form - a lyric-epic poem, which combines the story of the life and travels of the hero with the free improvisations of the poet, who made not just a fascinating journey to the East, but discovered the life and customs of countries that entered a period of rapid and rapid development. The first two songs of "Childe Harold" in form resemble both the lyrical diary of the poet-traveler, and the inner dramatic monologue of the hero entering an independent life, and a poetic essay about the fate of the peoples of Europe during the Napoleonic wars and national liberation movements. Without binding himself to rigid genre rules, Byron not only gives freedom to his imagination, he experiments in the field of content and language. The poem is written in a Spencer stanza, which allows the poet to recreate the complex, multidimensional inner world of Harold and his own; to talk with the reader about ancient cultures and lost civilizations, to enjoy the pictures of nature, and sometimes the hero and the poet himself are inseparable in conveying the strongest feelings and excitement at the sight of mountain gorges and waterfalls, the calm surface of the sea, a stormy stormy night. The true nature of Spain, Portugal, Albania, Greece arouses in Harold the same keen and lively interest as the cityscapes of Lisbon, the palace of the Turkish Pasha, the war-ravaged roads of Spain, the ruins of ancient Greek temples. The new genre form determined the compositional structure of the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. The poet freely handles not only the narrative line of the poem, breaking it up with inserts - ballads, stanzas, lyrical digressions - he freely treats his hero, presenting him to the reader, giving him plenty to admire the general close-up, then Harold's personality is blurred in a stream of impressions from personally seen and experienced by the poet. Childe Harold is a new hero in literature, a romantic type who embodies the main features of his time. He differs sharply from the enlightening hero, for whom travel was a means of acquiring life experience that helps him find his place in society, no matter how critically he treats him. Childe Harold also differs from the heroes of sentimental novels, where the motive of the journey gives the author the opportunity to show the hero’s complex and painful search for his own “I”, the discovery of those aspects of the personality that, in the process of “educating feelings”, become the cause of the tragic discord of the individual with society.
Childe Harold is the offspring of an old noble family who spent a rather idle life, fed up with feasts and pleasures, but was not happy. He discovered in himself a terrible disease caused by the emptiness of an arranged and outwardly prosperous existence. He was bored with the sight of the family estate, and the beauties, as well as all the surrounding people, the country in which he was so alone.
Harold is a romantic person, rushing into the unknown, which seems to him the best, he wants dangerous and scary adventures, he is attracted not by a calm, secluded life, conducive to reflection, but by an unusual reality full of worries and battles, which attracts with its energy, unusual passions and a variety of experiences :
All that luxury pleases revelers,
He traded for the winds and fogs,
On the roar of the southern waves and barbarian countries. (Byron, 1994)
Like a romantic hero, Harold is not satisfied with success in society and the ideal that was prepared for such people in his circle. Ordinary prosaic reality disgusted him with its boredom and monotony. Byron dresses up his hero in knightly clothes of the 16th century, gives him a retinue of a page, a squire, servants, but Harold travels through Europe in the 19th century. Such an anachronism is not accidental and is associated with Byron's new understanding of historicism, introduced into use precisely by the romantics. “Our age,” Belinsky wrote, “is the age of consciousness, the philosophizing spirit, reflection, reflection ... reflection (reflection) is a legitimate element of the poetry of our time, and almost all the great poets of our time have paid him full tribute.” The lyrical-epic poem confronts the poet with a new experience - a gigantic epic of people's struggle, suffering, persecution, pain, death unfolding before his eyes. Byron's hero was the first in romantic literature, and therefore, naturally, unprepared to understand and perceive this new historical experience of peoples. Centuries-old history, belonging not to the present, but to the past, as it were, pushed the boundaries of his consciousness, making it possible to embrace the immensity. Unfamiliar, largely incomprehensible (in accordance with educational ideas and criteria) feelings of the hero are made more mysterious, more mysterious and captivating. Medieval, chivalrous passions, evoking in him a spirit of implacability and at the same time restlessness, disturbing his mind and nerves, boil and rush outward, sometimes seem natural precisely in the conditions of the 19th century.
Against the storm and the mist
On the road, helmsman!
Lead the ship to any land
But not to my own!
Hello, hello, sea expanse,
And you - at the end of the road -
Hello, forests, desert mountains! My country, sorry! (Byron, 1994)
In the magnificent old ballad known as "Forgive me", put into the mouth of Byron's hero, everything that is akin to a romantic image is contained: longing for an unknown ideal, restlessness, striving for the beautiful world of free elements, isolation from any soil, native environment, restlessness and at the same time enviable inner freedom, grief and disappointment, activity and contemplation. However, all these qualities inherent in Harold are universal and universal. A gloomy and restless hero, carrying a mystery - "not a whim, not an imitation." This is a thinking hero and therefore suffering.
Running from myself
Looking for oblivion, but with me
My evil demon is my thought,
And there is no peace in the heart. (Byron, 1994)
As part of the lyrical-epic poem, Byron gives his hero the opportunity each time in a new way, either in the form of a ballad (“Forgive me”), now in stanzas (“Iness”), to pour out his soul, tormented by painful longing.
It was the thirst for knowledge, the desire to see the human race himself that entrusted Harold to such a dangerous journey. Contemplation, the desire to look into the depths of his own soul does not make Harold a passive observer of exciting and tragic events.
Perhaps this is the greatest similarity between Harold and his creator. Having known yourself, discover the world for yourself, and having discovered the world, understand your place in it. But Byron in the first two songs is still very persistently and consistently separating himself and his hero. The third-person narrative complements the characterization of Harold and at the same time hints at the existing gap between Byron and his hero.
He rushes along the mysterious road,
Not knowing where the pier will find,
He will wander around the world a lot,
It won't be long before his anxiety subsides.
It won't be long before he gets to know each other. (Byron, 1994)
Byron's personal attitude to what he saw during his wanderings is reflected in the poem, and often it is the lyrical hero who determines its sound. Anticipating, however, that he - the author - would be identified with Childe Harold, Byron wrote to Dallas: “I do not intend to identify myself with Harold in any way; I deny any relationship with him. , believe me that this is only in places, and I do not even want to admit this ... I would not want to be like my hero for anything in the world "(Byron, 1963, p. 38) Preparing" Childe Harold "for publication, the poet met with obstacles. His publisher Murray demanded that a number of stanzas of a political nature be excluded from the poem, to which Byron firmly replied: “I’m afraid that in terms of politics and philosophy I can’t change anything; but I can refer in my delusions to high authorities, for even the Aeneid was a political poem, written for a political purpose - and as for my unfortunate opinions on more important matters, I am too sincere to retract them. Of Spanish affairs I speak as an eyewitness and every day I am convinced that I have formed a correct judgment on the spot. .. As you can see, I cannot change my opinions, but if you would like changes in the structure of the verse, I am ready to string rhymes and compose stanzas as much as you like ... "(Byron, 1963, p. 37). In the same letter, Byron points out that his poem is "of a completely different kind than the previous ones", emphasizing the fundamental novelty of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. 2.2 The collision of the lyrical hero Byron with the gigantic epic of the struggle of the peoples of Europe "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" is Byron's first romantic work, a new type of romance, different from all his predecessors. Defending the freedom of peoples, their right to the national liberation struggle, Byron did not run away from reality, but called for intervention in it. Standing up for the spiritual emancipation of man, speaking out in defense of him from violence and humiliation, he also demanded active actions from the man himself, he branded him with shame for having submitted to slavery, bowed his head before the tyrant. Like all romantics, Byron sang of Nature, but not in general, but in connection with man, arguing the idea that only a spiritually developed and free person can understand its beauty, realize harmony between man and nature. The whole poem is permeated by the connection of times, the past is illuminated by the light of modernity, and the past and present allow the poet to look into the future. In the first song of the poem, which tells about the invasion of Napoleon's troops on the Iberian Peninsula, the poet writes: the ardent god of war welcomes strife." War is terrible, and this is conveyed through allegory: the god of war is a monstrous, repulsive giant with his appearance. The poet associates the war with the rulers of states, unleashing wars for the sake of seizing foreign lands, - after all, the troops subject to them are only "tools of bloody greed - Their thousands of tyrants throw into dust, erecting their throne on turtles ...". Using the example of Spain, the poet clearly distinguishes such a war from the war waged by the people for their independence; people die in it, too, but in the name of life. The struggle of the Spanish people is important not only for Spain itself, the poet believes that it can become an inspiring example for other enslaved peoples: "But the enslaved peoples are waiting to see if Spain will achieve freedom so that more countries will rise behind it." Byron manages to create an image of a people in motion , In action. Embracing it as a whole, showing in mass scenes how the people fight, work, have fun, he also dwells on a single one: on the manifestation of the character of the Spanish people in individual heroic personalities; he speaks with admiration of a maiden from Zaragoza, a member of the people's militia. In the unity of the heroic personality with the people, Byron sees the key to the success of the Spaniards in the struggle for a just cause. The poet has a different view of those who have achieved honors and glory as a result of wars of conquest. In the first song of the poem, you can see how the reassessment of the deeds of Byron-Napoleon, the idol of youth, began: for a moment, - Only a brief moment he hesitated, amazed. But soon he will move the legions again, He is the Scourge of the Earth!.. (Byron, 1994) In the second song, Childe Harold finds himself first in Albania, then in Greece. The peoples of these countries are under the yoke of Turkey. Insidious and sophisticated is Eastern tyranny, and its imprint on the faces of local despots, governors of the Sultan. The portrait of Ali Pasha, the ruler of Albania, with whom Byron was personally acquainted, is short and expressive in the poem. The facial features of old Ali Pasha are handsome, it is difficult to suspect him of cruelty, but through these features a face stained with crimes shines through, and he is disgusted, because "he who began with blood ends his way in bloody deeds" (Byron, 1939, p. 140) concludes Byron. The traitor of the people, Ali Pasha, is opposed by simple freedom-loving Albanians who sacredly keep the memory of their national hero Iskander, who frightened the Turkish army, and this gives the poet hope that the people will not reconcile with the despotism of their feudal lords and the Turkish yoke. He devoted his age only to idle entertainment, In a mad thirst for joy and negligence, Debauchery not shunning the ugly, In his soul devoted to base temptations, But equally alien to honor and shame, He loved the manifold in the world, Alas! only short ties in a series Yes drinking companions a cheerful horde. All that luxury pleases the reveler, He exchanged for winds and fogs, For the roar of the southern waves and barbaric countries. (Byron, 1994) The poet's love for Greece is invariable, it is close and dear to him, and the stanzas about Greece in this poem help to better understand why Byron will become a fighter for the freedom of the Greek people. And in the first and second songs of the poem, Byron more than once touches on foreign policy England. He warns the Spaniards not to trust the allied role of England: "... that dangerous ally, in whose help it is right to believe, labor is in vain." The British diplomat Lord Elgin removed from Greece a huge collection of monuments of ancient culture, and Byron writes about this as a shame for all of England. In condemning the foreign policy of his country, Byron took a definitely democratic position, reflecting the views of the advanced part of English society. The alignment of political forces in Europe was quite clear to the author of Childe Harold, but the general patterns of the historical process seemed somewhat one-sided. Based on external facts, Byron calls the Portuguese "despicable slaves", accusing the whole people of obedience and unwillingness to fight for freedom, which was, of course, unfair. True, the poet felt the need to understand more deeply the causes of many phenomena and events in the life of peoples, to see the relationship between their external manifestation and social causes. The lack of knowledge in this area was sometimes filled with emotional rhetoric. But already in the last songs of the poem - the third and fourth - Byron reveals one of the remarkable aspects of his genius - to find the exact poetic expression of deep philosophical thought. The innovative content of the poem also dictated the rejection of generally accepted ideas of what a poet's language should be. Byron reviews the entire arsenal of artistic means of English poetry, selecting what is necessary for himself; in particular, when making generalizations, he uses the principle of allegory, known since the time of English poetry of the Middle Ages; He also willingly turns to popular English. The absence of constraint in the use of all the richness of his native language gave him ample opportunities for the poetic presentation of the constantly changing content of the poem. The first two songs of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage opened new horizons for the poetry of romanticism. Pushkin placed Byron with his "Childe Harold" among the luminaries of world poetry. There is a well-known logic in the desire to combine these poems into one cycle, prompted by common features characteristic of all these poems. In them, Byron creates that romantic personality, which subsequently, mainly in the 19th century, became known as "Byronic" and was fully embodied in the images of Manfred and Cain. The heroes of the poems in question reject a society where tyranny and despotism reign, proclaim the freedom of the individual, not subject to the conditions that oppress him. And for all the difference in plots, the personality of the romantic hero from poem to poem is developed by Byron, enriched with new character traits, and at the same time, in Pushkin's words, "hopeless egoism" deepens in it. The romantic hero of Byron also has a great attraction due to his nobility, proud and indomitable character, the ability to love passionately and selflessly, to avenge evil, to take the side of the weak and defenseless. Base feelings are alien to this hero: venality, cowardice, deceit and deceit. In Switzerland, Byron continues to work on Childe Harold. Having finished the third canto of the poem, he gave it to Shelley, who in July 1816 was leaving for England. In November of the same year, Byron's publisher published it. The song begins and ends with the poet's appeal to his daughter Ada. Here is the suffering of the father, who is not destined to take part in the upbringing of his daughter; and the hope that the people around Ada will not be able to inspire her with hatred for her father, and she will love him; and a premonition that he would never see his daughter again. Ada Byron, later Lady Lovelace, an outstanding mathematician, really loved her father and bequeathed to bury herself next to him. In the third song, Byron describes in detail the battle of Waterloo and reveals his attitude towards Napoleon in this regard. By the time of Waterloo, Napoleon began to resemble the tyrants he fought. He could not stand the test of glory and “began to seem like a new god to himself”, remaining a “slave of passions.” The lyrical hero of the poem, recalling Waterloo, compares it with a battle in the 15th century, when the Swiss of the city of Morata defended their independence: “It was not the tyrants who won the battle there, And Liberty, and Citizenship, and Law." Only such goals can justify wars in the eyes of the poet. From the Battle of Waterloo, the poet looks at the calm picture of majestic nature, but does not stop thinking about how wars have destroyed its beauty at all times. The nature of Switzerland leads the poet to the idea that man is part of nature and in this unity the joy of life. Developing this idea, Byron glorifies the theme of Rousseau, an educator who stood up for the connection of man with nature, proclaiming the ideas of equality and freedom of people. The poet believes that "the people awakened by Rousseau with his friends" raised the banner of the French Revolution. But recalling that the people "failed to establish themselves in freedom", I am nevertheless convinced that: "... he who knew what he was fighting for, let the battle be lost, does not give up in spirit." Byron also recalls another thinker who prepared the minds for the revolution - Voltaire, whose "reason, on the foundation of doubts, dared to create a temple of rebellious thought." In the final stanzas, the hero sees Italy in his thoughts, where he will go. And he believes that the future will bring Kindness and Happiness. The fourth song of "Childe Harold" was written in Italy. Italy became for Byron a country in which many of his creative and life ideas came true. Byron came to Italy when the Carbonari movement had already begun there, and took part in it. In Italy, Byron found personal happiness when he met Teresa Guiccioli. The Italian, that is, the fourth, song of "Childe Harold" is the largest of all the songs of the poem in terms of volume. Byron strives to give in it an integral and at the same time versatile image of Italy, which has become his second homeland, which he looks at through the eyes of a man who does not forget his homeland. He believes that he will remain in the memory of his people, "as long as the language of Britain is spoken." must reconcile. The poet calls on the people of Italy to turn to the heroic history of their land, reminds Venice of her "thousand-year freedom", cannot see her reconciled with a foreign yoke, refusing to fight. A large place is given to Rome in the song. From adolescence, Byron was fond of the history of Rome. Rome became for him the "Land of his dreams". The stanzas about Rome say that the poet reads its history in a new way. He strives to “clothe into sounds, into images” everything that has been preserved from past centuries, but he refers to the past of Rome as a person already enriched by experience after blowing generations, worried about the future of Italy. The history of Rome is both an edification, a lesson, and an example for the modern generation of people. Just like in previous songs, the poet sings of nature with inspiration: the description of the sea at the end of the poem is unforgettable, the picture conveying the beauty of the Velino waterfall. According to Byron, it is nature that gives a person the opportunity to come into contact with eternity: here is a waterfall "like Eternity, terrible for the living," and the sea - "The Face of Eternity, the Invisible Throne." Eternity and time. Eternity in the mind of the poet is an unchanging and constant category, time is fleeting, it is in motion, it takes lives, instead of them new ones appear, which are also destined to go into the past. The flow and work of time often plunge the poet into despondency and sadness, but often he pins hopes on time, which is "false judgments, the faithful corrector." So, the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" was completed. She absorbed Byron's life experience from his youth to the beginning of the most fruitful period of his work. The poem reveals a rich world of feelings, the evolution of the author's worldview in close connection with the events and problems of the century. Byron embodied this worldview in the protagonist of his poem, giving him all the features that are inherent in a revolutionary rebel, a person who rebels against the lack of freedom of a person, both spiritual and physical, a person who cannot come to terms with the existing political regime, who sees suffering destitute people and cannot remain indifferent, becoming the defense of the national liberation movement. Being a free lyrical narrative, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" stands out in Byron's work in its genre, and above all, in the peculiar relationship between the author and the protagonist, but remains consonant with all his works. Byron Childe Harold rebel
CONCLUSIONS
If an attempt is made to fit into one word the prevailing mood of the time, to give a capacious embodiment of the ideological position and, at the same time, the everyday, behavioral "pose" of a fairly wide range of noble youth, whose consciousness of their own alienation from the environment has shaped into the forms of romantic protest, then the most vivid exponent of this critical worldview Byron appeared, and the literary hero who most fully and completely embodied this ethical-emotional complex was the titular character of his vast lyric poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, created over almost a decade - a work to which Byron owed sensational international fame.
Combining a lot of various events of a turbulent author's biography, this poem of travel impressions, written in a "Spencer stanza", was born from the experience of young Byron's trips to the countries of South and South-Eastern Europe in 1809-1811. and the subsequent life of the poet in Switzerland and Italy, fully expressed the lyrical power and unprecedented ideological and thematic breadth of Byron's poetic genius. Its creator had every reason, in a letter to his friend John Hobhouse, the addressee of its dedication, to characterize Childe Harold's Pilgrimage as "the largest, most thoughtful, and most extensive of my writings." For decades to come, having become the standard of romantic poetics on a pan-European scale, it entered the history of literature as an exciting, penetrating testimony “about time and about itself”, which outlived its author.
Innovative against the background of Byron's contemporary English poetry was not only the view of reality captured in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; fundamentally new was the typically romantic relationship between the protagonist and the narrator, in many respects similar, but, as Byron emphasized in the preface to the first two songs and in addition to the preface, by no means identical to one another.
Anticipating many creators of a romantic and post-romantic orientation, Byron stated in the hero of his work the disease of the century: “early depravity of the heart and neglect of morality lead to satiety with past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and the beauty of nature, and the joy of travel, and in general all motives, with the exception of only ambition, the most powerful of all, are lost to a soul so created, or rather misguided." And yet, it is this largely imperfect character that turns out to be a receptacle for the innermost aspirations and thoughts of a poet who is unusually perceptive to the vices of his contemporaries and judges the present and the past from the maximalist humanistic positions of the poet, before whose name the bigots, hypocrites, zealots of official morality and the inhabitants of not only prim Albion trembled. , but also of all Europe, which groaned under the burden of the "Holy Alliance" of monarchs and reactionaries. In the final song of the poem, this fusion of the narrator and his hero reaches its apogee, embodied in a new artistic whole for the great poetic forms of the 19th century. This whole can be defined as an unusually sensitive to the conflicts of the surrounding thinking consciousness, which is rightfully the main character of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
LITERATURE
