Griboedov's comedy called "Woe from Wit" is a work that does not need special efforts in order to revive it and make it modern. On the one hand, his characters can often be found in everyday life, and on the other hand, their experiences are sometimes present in the reality of many readers.
What is the uniqueness of the work "Woe from Wit"? The meaning of this comedy is not killed by time! And this is one of the unique cases of its kind in the history of not only Russian, but also world literature. Years have no power over this creation. Over the past two hundred years, successive generations have been able to discover new meaning comedy "Woe from Wit".
The unique creation of Alexander Sergeevich
The very name of the comedy touches on those life circumstances that almost every reader has to experience from time to time. The opposition of mind and stupidity is very important for any person. Indeed, at each stage of their growing up, people constantly gain experience, become wiser, and develop. What is the meaning of the name? "Woe from Wit" relies precisely on those events that happen to any person in reality.
This opposition is one of the most important dramatic collisions that exists in world literature. And the idea that the mind is a dangerous property of the human body is mentioned by many authors in their works. But only Griboedov conveys the meaning of the work "Woe from Wit" in a comedic form.
Theatrical art in the time of Alexander Sergeevich
Comedy during this time outstanding writer represented a rather important part of life, since the entertainment of most nobles was centered around theatrical art. In Moscow at that time there were more than twenty home temples of Melpomene.
Tickets were not sold there, and only close friends and relatives came. And along with balls and holidays, such home performances were an important part of the life and daily life of all educated people Russia.
The combination of funny and serious is a technique that helps to reveal the meaning of the work "Woe from Wit" in a completely special light. Firstly, Alexander Sergeevich wanted to create a work that was supposed to diversify the leisure and free pastime of the people of his society, and secondly, he wanted to show what worried everyone individually.
Bitterness mixed with joy. Laughter filled with tears. It is this paradoxical combination that gives rise not only to the moment of insight, but also conveys the meaning of the comedy "Woe from Wit". This happens when main character understands that many people around him perceive his mind as madness.
Balagan language used in the book
How did the readers and contemporaries of Alexander Sergeevich perceive the meaning of the title - "Woe from Wit"? To represent this, one must take into account historical factors and the style of writing this creation.
At the time of writing Griboedov's comedy, farce or fair performances were very popular, where the border between the stage of the theater and auditorium, in which the audience was, became conditional. And the actor, who was on the stage, often performed improvised actions.
It was in this language of street performances that Alexander Sergeevich tried to convey the meaning of the work "Woe from Wit". Behind each character in his creation, the reader could recognize the person he met in life. Several conjectures and legends about the prototypes of heroes are connected with this.
Legends about the creation of a unique creation
There is a legend that the author began to write his work after he ran into the public in one of the salons of secular society. And Chatsky's monologues are, in essence, his own speeches when he came into conflict with others.
Another version says that the source is the story of Chaadaev, who was declared insane. And many more speculations have the right to exist. The thing is that in comedy the plot is built in such a way that any projection on existing life will find confirmation in real facts.
On stage, everyone can find out what is happening to him or his friends in Everyday life, and even draw a parallel with some characters. This is the power of the comedy "Woe from Wit".
The meaning of the story about the life of Famusov - show typical representative nobility of his time. He obeys public opinion rather than expressing one's own point of view.
Chatsky, on the contrary, is constantly trying to fight the surrounding mores. Many other characters also often resemble the people around them. This constant possibility of transition from stage circumstances to real ones is an integral property of the comedy of Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov.
The history of the creation of comedy
Not only the meaning of the name is important - "Woe from Wit" - but also the main task work, which consists in revealing the causes of human stupidity through laughter. The goal of Alexander Sergeevich is not the depiction of characters, but the direct expression of the feelings that his stage characters carry with them.
Griboyedov's comedy has been remade countless times. This was done so that one person could read the work, depicting all the characters in their faces. This form of the play was preserved until the year 1833, that is, until the moment the comedy was staged on the theater stage.
Contents "Woe from Wit" (brief). The meaning of the work
Why did censorship so stubbornly fight comedy for several decades, not allowing it to be staged not only in the imperial theater, but also as home performance. The editors saw too much seditious and reprehensible in Chatsky's ridicule and did not allow the creation of Alexander Sergeevich to be published. Very easily, the characters judged what was happening at that time in the country.
As a result, a rather paradoxical situation has arisen. The comedy was banned from full print publication by censors. Therefore, today there are a huge number of handwritten copies.
In almost every noble family was the text of this work, transcribed by hand. It has been used for home productions or simple reading. And the censorship was well aware of this state of affairs. But comedy still continued to be banned.
At first glance, the content of the work is rather unpretentious. All the action takes place in Famusov's house, where the main character Chatsky appears, who was absent from the city long time. His visit immediately caused a mass negative emotions, both from his longtime girlfriend Sophia and her father.
As new comedy characters appear, the reader not only sees their diverse characters, but also constantly hears young Chatsky's sharp judgments regarding each of the guests of Famusov's home. Visitors to this house try to exalt the owner of the estate and the customs that reign around.
The young man is full of modern views and not only tries to defend his own point of view, but also to reach out to the rest of the comedy characters. Unfortunately, he remains misunderstood, and all his judgments are perceived by Famusov's society very categorically, which leads to a grandiose scandal at the end of the play.
The protagonist of the work of Alexander Sergeevich
In order to understand not only the meaning of the name - "Woe from Wit" - but also its entire storyline, it is enough to pay attention to the monologues of the main character - Chatsky - and evaluate them. It is in them that there are those plastic images that Alexander Sergeevich wanted to convey. He expresses those feelings and views that interest his generation.
All phrases in Griboyedov's comedy are constructed in such a way that they create the appearance of a dialogue between the actor and the audience. AND main point does not consist of what the character says, but how he does it. This is of great importance for understanding any dramatic plot. In any dialogue or monologue of "Woe from Wit" you can find both signs of the character's mind and signs of stupidity. And even the greatness of the mind, which is characteristic of the sages.
And it is quite obvious that Chatsky is not the mouthpiece of the author's idea, but an independent hero. And Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov is the person who nourished him with thoughts and feelings. Author and character are not unity. Therefore, the meaning of comedy for each reader will be different, depending on his perception of the surrounding reality.
The collapse of hopes and illusions
What is the meaning of the finale? "Woe from Wit" consists of unexpected discoveries of the main characters. For some, this is a drama in personal relationships, while for others it is the collapse of their own illusions and ideals. For example, for Chatsky, who tried to enter into a struggle with the outside world, a tragic discovery was the conservatism of a society that is not going to accept new political and social views character.
And, despite the fact that Chatsky was expelled from this circle, who did not want to change anything in his usual way, this man, with his innovative ideas, was still able to make a significant gap in the minds of society. But, unfortunately, like all pioneers, he was not understood, rejected and expelled.
The most remarkable work created by Alexander Griboyedov is "Woe from Wit". The meaning of this comedy is to describe to the reader living and real types of people with their real problems, conflicts, not only personal, but also social. Thanks to this, comedy not only became popular among the author's contemporaries, but also continues to be relevant for many generations.
I'm strange, but who's not strange? —
The one who looks like all the fools...
A. S. Griboyedov
In Griboedov's time, "mind" was understood broadly - as intelligence, enlightenment. The concepts of "mind", "clever", "smart" were used in the meaning of "free-thinking", "free-thinker", a person of advanced convictions, a bearer of new ideas, independent freedom-loving views. The opposite meaning was given to the words "stupid", "stupidity", that is, backward, conservative, reactionary.
Initially, Griboyedov called his comedy "Woe to the Mind" - by this he wanted to emphasize the dramatic position of the mind in a society of obscurantism and inertia. Griboyedov’s own statement about the idea and main conflict of the work helps to understand the meaning of the play’s title: “In my comedy there are 25 fools per sane person, and this person, of course, is in contradiction with the society surrounding him, no one understands him, no one wants to forgive, why he a little higher than others."
Already in the first act of the comedy, that political situation, in which in society there is not and cannot be a place for those who think: "After all, now they love the dumb." In the era of Alexander I, reaction intensified in Russia, the Arakcheev regime was established, when not active minds were needed, but wordless, silent performers serving "not the cause, but persons." Everything original, original, bold was smothered, everyone who dared to have their own independent judgment seemed to the authorities just crazy, their lot was grief from the mind.
It is Chatsky's mind that is the root cause of his clash with the Famus society and his personal drama. Best human qualities Chatsky make him, in the view of those around him, at first "an eccentric", " a strange person', and then a madman. The protagonist understands the "destiny of the century" and, being a citizen, a patriot, cannot "drug out his youthful age in shameful idleness." He fights society with a damning word. Chatsky throws angry, accusatory words in the face of the Famus society about thoughtless imitation of foreigners, in contempt for mother tongue, to the people national culture. Chatsky's convictions are deeply suffered. The lifestyle of the Moscow metropolitan nobility is unacceptable for him. Chatsky knows perfectly well that there is no need to wait for changes in high society:
What new will Moscow show me? Yesterday there was a ball, and tomorrow there will be two.
The past century, which Famusov admired so much, Chatsky calls "the century of humility and fear." In the monologue “And who are the judges? ..” he falls upon those “noble scoundrels” who change servants for greyhounds, drive for their undertakings to a fortress ballet “from mothers, fathers of rejected children” and sell them “one by one”. All Chatsky's attacks against the high-society nobility are warmed by an ardent love for the motherland and for its "smart and kind" people.
Among the guests of Famusov, Chatsky is completely alone. For them, accustomed to living according to the precepts left to them by the “gone century”, he is a stranger, moreover, a “carbonari”. Chatsky in the comedy is opposed by Famusov, Molchalin, Skalozub. Each of them is smart in their own way.
Griboyedov in the images of comedy embodied his idea of two types of "mind". Chatsky is the bearer of a real mind - bright, inquisitive, seeking the truth. The mind of the Famusites is worldly, practical, vulgar, and serves as a means for personal prosperity. For Chatsky supreme value- "a mind hungry for knowledge." He puts the mind above all in people and evaluates them according to the mind. People like Molchalin and Famusov understand "mind" as the ability to live, that is, to adapt to life, to spend all their intellectual strength on "taking awards and having fun."
People of the Famus circle have their own ideas about the values of life, their own ideas about how to succeed in society, how to advance in the service.
Famusov:
Here, for example, we have been doing from time immemorial, That honor is due to father and son; Be poor, but if there are two thousand family souls, - He and the groom.
Molchalin:
At my age, one should not dare to have one's own judgment... After all, one must depend on others.
Repetilov is convinced: “ clever man can't be a rogue." Sophia more than once expresses doubts about the merits and role of the mind. “Why look for the mind and drive so far?” she asks, referring to Chatsky. Sophia uses her sharp mind to lie and spread rumors. It is to her that Chatsky owes gossip about his madness.
All guests famus house with contempt for the sciences, enlightenment. It is not for nothing that Chatsky's education and free-thinking are taken by them for madness. Famusov considers enlightenment to be the source of all evil: material from the site
Learning - that's the plague, learning - that's the reason, That now more than ever, Crazy divorced people, and deeds, and opinions.
He even has a recipe for how to get rid of this "plague": "If you stop the evil: take away all the books and burn them." Khlestova echoes him, cursing all the centers of education - "boarding houses, schools, lyceums, the St. Petersburg Institute." Skalozub dreams that in "lyceums and gymnasiums" they would teach "in our way: one, two! .."
Ignorance, neglect of all sorts moral principles, dependence on opinions high society, social uselessness - traits that unite all members of the comedy Famus Society.
Having created the image of Chatsky, Griboyedov showed that the mind is a powerful force in the fight against inertia and despotism. It was this kind of mind that was regarded in the Famus society as madness, madness. Griboyedov spoke about the grief of a freethinker who opposes the inert society of feudal lords. The title of the comedy indicates the inevitability of the tragedy of the smart advanced man in the Famusov society. The tragedy of Chatsky is a tragedy the best people era.
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"Woe from Wit" - the first realistic comedy in Russian literature. The realistic method of the play lies not only in the fact that there is no strict division into positive and bad guys, a happy ending, but also in the fact that several conflicts are present in it at the same time: love (Chatsky and Sophia) and public (Chatsky and Famus society).
The name of the first edition of the comedy was different - "Woe to the mind." Then the meaning of the comedy would be quite clear: Chatsky, a truly intelligent person, tries to open people's eyes to how they live and what they live, tries to help them, but the ossified, conservative Famus society does not understand him, declares him crazy, and in in the end, betrayed and rejected, Chatsky flees from the world he hates. In this case, one could say that the plot of the comedy is based on a romantic conflict, and Chatsky himself - romantic hero. The meaning of the name of the comedy would be just as clear - woe to a smart person.
But Griboyedov changed the name, and the meaning of the comedy immediately changed. To understand it, you need to study the problem of the mind in the work. First, you need to understand how smart Chatsky is. Pushkin, in his letter to Bestuzhev, generally denied Chatsky the mind. He wrote that the first hallmark smart man is that he is able to see who he is talking to. Only a stupid person can "throw beads in front of repetitive and the like." "What is Chatsky? - Pushkin writes in his letter to Vyazemsky. - An ardent, noble, kind fellow, who spent some time with a very smart person (namely with Griboedov) and was fed by his thoughts, witticisms and satirical material. If we analyze Chatsky's behavior, we can see that he utters his accusatory monologues completely out of place, he does not understand that this is absolutely not interesting to anyone. It often turns out that he does not need listeners, for example, at the end of the third act, he is carried away by his speech, not noticing that no one is listening to him ("looks around, everyone is waltzing with the greatest zeal"). Chatsky laughs at everyone, but never at himself, because he believes that a truly intelligent person cannot look funny. He behaves very stupidly with Sophia, cannot understand in any way whether she loves him or not, and if not, then whom she loves. Chatsky is sure that a smart girl can never fall in love stupid person, rejecting smart. Chatsky blindly does not notice how Sophia defends and even extols Molchalin, believing that "she does not respect him", "does not put a penny", "does not love". Chatsky takes Sophia's pathos towards Molchalin as irony. He is sure that the mind is the key to Sophia's heart. As a result, we see that Chatsky is not a smart person at all. Or maybe Griboyedov understands the word "mind" more broadly, not only as intellectual abilities, but also as an idea of life? All comedy characters in their own way smart people. And they have a completely different understanding of life.
For Famusov, the main thing in life, what he strives for, is to live his life quietly and at the same time widely, without going beyond secular laws, without giving a reason to condemn his actions or Sophia's actions secular society. Molchalin's goal in life is to slowly but surely move up the corporate ladder. He does not love Sophia at all, for him Sophia is another opportunity for the implementation of his plans.
Sophia dreams of a timid, quiet lover. Her ideal is "boy-husband", "servant husband". Each of these heroes has their own ideals, each of them has a different mind, and therefore they do not understand each other. In the end, each hero of the play turns out to be unhappy: Famusov, Molchalin, Sofya, Chatsky are unhappy because of their misconceptions about life. Famusov always tried to live according to the laws of the world, tried not to cause condemnation, disapproval of the world. And what did he get at the end? He was disgraced by his own daughter. He cares about only one question: “Ah! My God! what will Princess Marya Aleksevna say!
Molchalin is unhappy because all his efforts were in vain. Sophia - due to the fact that her loved one betrayed her, that she was disappointed in her ideal of a worthy husband.
But the most unfortunate is Chatsky, an ardent freedom-loving educator, an advanced man of his time, an accuser of the rigidity and conservatism of Russian life. The smartest in comedy, he still cannot, with all his mind, make Sophia fall in love with him. Everything that he believed in: in his mind, advanced ideas, not only did not help win the heart of his beloved girl, but, on the contrary, pushed her away from him. And it is precisely because of these freedom-loving thoughts that the Famus society declares Chatsky crazy. Griboyedov shows that the reason for the misfortune of Chatsky and other heroes is the discrepancy between their ideas about life and life itself. Is this correspondence possible and is happiness real at all? The image of Chatsky, in my opinion, gives a negative answer to this question.
Chatsky is sympathetic to Griboedov, he compares favorably with the Famus society. His image reflects typical features Decembrist, but his views are far from real life, they do not lead him to happiness. Maybe A. S. Griboyedov foresaw, foresaw tragic end and the defeat of the Decembrists, who believed in their advanced ideas, which, however, were divorced from real life.
The meaning of the name of the comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit"
A. S. Griboedov, a diplomat, talented poet, composer, entered the history of Russian literature as the author of the only, brilliant comedy"Woe from Wit".
Man with excellent education and a brilliant mindset, Griboyedov devoted his life to serving the motherland, believing: "The more enlightened a person is, the more useful it is to his fatherland." A close acquaintance with the Decembrists and the sharing of their ideas and hatred towards the autocratic-serf system gave a lot to the poet. However, he did not believe in the revolutionary way of changing Russian reality and in the happy outcome of the Decembrist conspiracy. Early little-known creativity Griboyedov was closely connected with dramaturgy. The writer co-authored with P. A. Katenin (“Student”), A. A. Shakhovsky and B. M. Khmelnitsky (“His family, or a married bride”), Gendre (“Feigned infidelity”, a brilliant translation of the comedy by G. Bart) . First independent work» writer - comedy "Young Spouses" - a free adaptation of the famous plot of the French playwright C. de Lesser.
The main theme of the work is the depiction of reality as it is: the depravity of the morals and life principles of the decaying nobility and the sad, in many respects, unfair position of an advanced person who finds himself in such an environment. The problems that the author poses in the work are really serious. They concern the position of the Russian people, the principles of upbringing and education, obsolete and obsolete, autocracy and the identity of Russia. Many of them were raised earlier in the works of other authors of this time, but most of them have not received their logical resolution.
The title of any work is the key to its understanding; it contains an indication (direct or indirect) of the main idea, the problem posed by the author. The title of A. S. Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit" perhaps allows us to see an unusually important category in the conflict of the play, namely, the category of the mind. The source of such an expression, which was the basis of the title and originally sounded like “Woe to the mind”, goes back to a Russian proverb in which the confrontation between the smart and the stupid ended in the victory of the fool. Conflict between a wise man and a fool
was important and relevant for the comedians who preceded A. S. Griboyedov, who belonged to the school of classicism (for example, he is present in the comedies of Molière, Beaumarchais). In Woe from Wit, this conflict looks different, here it is rethought. Contemporaries could not but feel this, so several opinions arose, for example, I. A. Goncharova and A. S. Pushkin, about Chatsky and about who, according to Griboyedov’s plan, is the bearer of the mind in comedy. Goncharov in his article “A Million of Torments” wrote: “Griboyedov himself attributed Chatsky’s grief to his mind, and Pushkin denied him any mind at all. But Chatsky is not only smarter than all other people, but also positively smart. Pushkin did indeed say in a letter to Bestuzhev that "smart actor"In comedy - Griboyedov, and Chatsky is only" an ardent, noble and kind fellow, "who spent some time with a very smart person (namely with Griboyedov) and was fed by his thoughts, witticisms and satirical remarks" So, what is the mind in comedy Griboedov and who is a smart person in it?Mind is theoretically a virtue.For comedians early period this quality has never been a disadvantage (Filint, an intelligent person, is a reasoner in Moliere's The Misanthrope; goodies are Starodum, Pravdin in Fonvizin's "Undergrowth", etc.). On the contrary, the authors ridiculed fools (Mitrofan in Fonvizin, for example). It is important to note that it was the observance of the measure in everything that was considered the mind (therefore, for Moliere, the clever Alceste is not an ideal worthy of imitation). Mind, as well as a sense of proportion, has just Molchalin, and not Chatsky. Molchalin's mind serves the owner and thoroughly helps him, while Chatsky's mind (and "his speech boils with intelligence, wit," as I. A. Goncharov says) only harms, it is akin to madness for those around him, it is he who brings him "A million torments". The obsequious mind of Molchalin is opposed to the strange and sublime mind of Chatsky, but this is no longer a confrontation between mind and stupidity. There are no fools in the play by A. S. Griboedov, its conflict is based on confrontation different types mind. "Woe from Wit" is a comedy that has stepped over the narrow limits of classicism.
The category of the mind is related to the philosophical content of the play, the presence of such a layer is simply impossible in the comedy of classicism, focused on the already given absolute truths. In his work, A. Griboedov raises the question of what is the mind. Almost every hero has his own answer, almost everyone talks about the mind (Famusov:
“Modest, but nothing but leprosy and the wind on my mind”; Sofya: “Sharp, smart, eloquent, / Ah, if someone loves whom, / Why is it smart to look for and travel so far”, etc.), but these are statements of a different series. Each hero has his own idea of the mind, which he substantiates in the course of his appearance in the play, so the comedy does not at all boil down to a clear distinction between the representatives of high society and Chatsky in order to reveal the mind. There is no standard of mind in A. Griboyedov's play, therefore there is no winner in it either. "Comedy gives Chatsky only" Million torments "and leaves, apparently, in the same position of Famusov and his brethren, in which they were, without saying anything about the consequences of the struggle. Chatsky differs from others not in that he is smarter, but in that he is more humane, more sensitive (“sensitive, and cheerful, and sharp,” as Lisa says). For Chatsky, there are two mutually exclusive categories: mind and feeling (he tells Sofya that his “mind and heart are not in harmony”; describing Molchalin, he again distinguishes between these concepts: “Let Molchalin have a lively mind, a brave genius, / But is there Is there that passion in him? That feeling? That ardor?.. "The feeling, in fact, turns out to be higher than the mind of the secular, sophisticated (Chatsky at the end of the play says:" I run, I won’t look back, I’ll go looking around the world, / Where there is a corner for the offended feeling! ”, i.e., he runs away not to protect his lonely mind, but to forget about the insults inflicted on his feelings). love drama as if it becomes an expression of the ideological loneliness of the hero. “His personal grief came not from one mind, but more from other reasons, where his mind played passive role, and this gave Pushkin a reason to deny him the mind. “Woe from the mind” of Chatsky consists in the fact that his mind differs sharply from the mind recognized in the world, but by feeling (“He has a heart, and, moreover, he is impeccably honest”), as I. A. Goncharov says in the article “ A million torments”, he is nevertheless attached to the society where he rotates, depending to some extent on the opinions of the world.
The title of A. Griboedov's play "Woe from Wit" contains an unusually important question: and what is the mind for Griboyedov himself. The writer does not give a direct answer to this question, and this already reveals a rethinking of the traditions of classicism. Calling Chatsky “smart”, A. Griboedov turned everything upside down, ridiculing the old understanding of such a quality in a person as the mind. A. Griboyedov showed a man full of enlightening pathos, constantly encountering an unwillingness to understand him, which stemmed precisely from the traditional concept of “prudence”, which in “Woe from
mind" is associated with a certain social and political program. A. Griboedov's comedy, starting from the title, is addressed not at all to the Famusovs, but to the Chatskys - funny and lonely (“one smart person for 25 fools”), seeking to change the world that is not subject to rapid changes by reasoning. A. Griboyedov created a comedy that was unconventional for his time. He enriched and psychologically rethought the characters of the characters and introduced into the text new problems, unusual for the comedy of classicism. However, although his method is close to realistic, the writer still does not achieve realism in its entirety when showing the characters, life, social environment and all the deep problems hidden in the society of that time.
The bright, figurative, aphoristic language of comedy still makes the work interesting for modern reader. There is no such work either in Russian or in foreign literature that would sparkle with such abundance winged words and expressions. A. S. Pushkin spoke of Griboedov's skill as follows: "I'm not talking about poetry: half should become a proverb." catch phrases not only embellished the text of the work, organically woven into it and flowing out of it, but also became the wealth of the Russian language, went “to the people”.
The topicality of comedy is still undeniable. Silencers are blissful in the world. typical people and now they are found only in masks of decency, with behavior that makes them less noticeable in the crowd, and with a new “gloss”, which modern Sophia is greedy for.
Every character in the comedy has become a household name. Unfortunately, there is no doubt about the existence of such images in real life. Take, for example, Repetilov - the most useless, most unnecessary person for society, who, however, was accepted into it thanks to his brilliant abilities - the ability to “stick” to a smarter person and feed on his thoughts and ideas, perverting them and awarding their authorship to himself. It is not for nothing that a phrase was put into his mouth, which became winged:
"Yes, an intelligent person cannot but be a rogue."
"Woe from Wit" appeared the greatest work similar sense to his contemporaries. Until now, his images are alive, the characters and themes exist side by side with reality. Sometimes it's scary to look into the future.
- centuries pass, generations change, but Griboedov's comedy continues to exist, because human thought and human judgments are largely conservative. And who are the judges? Permanent Famusovs and Molchalins. Chatsky? There are plenty of them, but they occupy the same place as several centuries ago. They can criticize, quite rightly and justifiably, they can scold the ossified and dilapidated, but without that no less vulgar social conditions. But the matter usually does not advance further than criticism, and there is only one way out: to run like the main character of a comedy.
Get out of Moscow!
I don't come here anymore.
I run, I don't look back
I'm going to search the world
Where there is a corner for the offended feeling.
Griboyedov's timeless work will remain so not only because of its particular sharpness and relevance, but also thanks to the brilliant figurative range, perfectly superimposed on modern society:
Well ball! Well Famusov!
Know how to call guests!
Some freaks with beyond the light,
And there is no one to talk to, and no one to dance with.
Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit" was admired, admired, praised, rewritten by hand. And with no less energy - scolded and scolded.
And most of all they argued about Chatsky, which is quite understandable: he is the main character. Another thing was not clear: was he smart? Or, to put it another way, is grief from the mind?
In January 1825, responding to the criticism of Pavel Aleksandrovich Katenin, Griboyedov wrote to him: “You find the main error in the plan: it seems to me that it is simple and clear in purpose and execution - the girl herself is not stupid, she prefers a fool to an intelligent person (not because so that the mind of us sinners was ordinary, no! And in my comedy there are twenty-five fools per sane person) - and this person, of course, is in contradiction with the society surrounding him, no one understands him, no one wants to forgive, why he is a little higher than the others ".
This is how Griboyedov looked at his hero. But Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, a brilliant poet and a brilliant reader, assessed the situation differently. In January of the same 1825, he shared with Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky: "Chatsky is not a smart person at all, but Griboyedov is very smart." In another letter, to Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev, he clarified: “Do you know who Chatsky is? An ardent, noble and kind fellow, who spent some time with a very intelligent person (namely with Griboyedov) and was fed by his thoughts, witticisms and satirical remarks. Everything he says is very smart. But to whom does he say all this? Famusov? Puffer? At the ball for Moscow girls? Mol-chalin? It's unforgivable. The first sign of an intelligent person is to know at a glance who you are dealing with and not throw pearls in front of Repetilov and the like.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Dmitriev, who was angry with Griboedov for his comedy “The Moscow Old-Timer”, spoke out more sharply: “Mr. Griboyedov wanted to present an intelligent and educated person. But we see in Chatsky a man who slanders and says whatever comes to mind. Chatsky is nothing but a madcap who is in the company of people who are not at all stupid, but uneducated, and who is clever in front of them, because he considers himself smarter. Chatsky, who should be
smartest face plays, is presented least of all reasonable "Orest Mikhailovich Somov did not agree with Dmitriev, because he believed that Griboedov" represented in the person of Chatsky an intelligent, ardent and kind young man, but not entirely free from weaknesses: it has two of them - arrogance and impatience. Belinsky scolded both Griboyedov and his hero, Chatsky: “He is just a screamer, a phrase-monger, an ideal jester, who at every step profanes everything sacred that he talks about. Does it really mean to enter society and start scolding everyone in the eyes as fools and beasts? deep man? This is a new Don Quixote, a boy on a stick on horseback, who imagines that he is sitting on a horse. Someone deeply appreciated this comedy (here it should be said about the coincidence of the views of Belinsky and Mikhail Dmitriev), who said that this grief is only not from the mind, but from cleverness. We clearly see that the poet, in earnest, wanted to depict in Chatsky the deep contradiction between man and society, and God knows what happened? Later, Belinsky's views began to change - "from censure to admiration."
With admiration, or, more precisely, with obvious sympathy, Apollo Aleksandrovich Grigoriev wrote about Chatsky. For the first time in Russian literature, he brought the comedy hero closer to the Decembrists. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky also considered Chatsky a Decembrist, however, unlike Herzen, others drew conclusions from this: “Chatsky is a Decembrist. His whole idea is in the denial of the former recent, naive worship. Everyone sniffed Europe and liked the new manners. Just manners, because the essence of worship and servility in Europe is the same,” Dostoevsky noted, reflecting on Chatsky’s isolation from the foundations of Russian life.
It is difficult to say to what extent the words of Shatov, the hero of Libra, correspond to the views of Dostoevsky, but in preparatory materials to the novel, a unique assessment of its kind was put into his mouth: "Chatsky did not understand, how limited a fool is, to what extent he himself is stupid." These judgments for a long time were kept in Dostoevsky's papers and, of course, were not known for a long time.Griboedov created an unconventional comedy for his time. He enriched and psychologically rethought the characters of the characters and the problems traditional for the comedy of classicism, his method is close to realistic, but still does not achieve realism in its entirety.
The title of any work is the key to its understanding; it contains an indication (direct or indirect) of the main idea, the problem posed by the author. The title of AS Griboyedov's comedy “Woe from Wit” perhaps allows us to see an unusually important category in the play's conflict, namely, the category of the mind. The source of such an expression, which was the basis of the title and originally sounded like “Woe to the mind”, goes back to a Russian proverb in which the confrontation between the smart and the stupid ended in the victory of the fool. The conflict between the clever man and the fool was important and relevant for the comedians who preceded A. S. Griboedov, who belonged to the school of classicism (for example, he is present in the comedies of Molière, Beaumarchais). In "Woe from Wit" the same the conflict looks different, here it is rethought. Contemporaries could not but feel this, so several opinions arose, for example, I. A. Goncharova and A. S. Pushkin, about Chatsky and about who, according to Griboyedov’s plan, is the bearer of the mind in comedy. Goncharov in the article “A Million of Torments” wrote: “Griboedov himself attributed Chatsky’s grief to his mind, and Pushkin denied him a mind at all<...>But Chatsky is not only smarter than all other people, but also positively smart. Pushkin, on the other hand, did say in a letter to Bestuzhev that the “smart character” in the comedy is Griboedov, and Chatsky is only “an ardent, noble and kind fellow who spent some time with a very smart person (namely with Griboyedov) and was fed by his thoughts , witticisms and satirical remarks. So, what is the mind in Griboedov's comedy and who is the smart person in it?
Mind is theoretically a virtue. For comedians of the early period, this quality was never a disadvantage (Filint, an intelligent person, is the reasoner in Moliere's The Misanthrope; Starodum, Pravdiv in Fonvizin's The Undergrowth, etc. are good characters). On the contrary, the authors ridiculed fools (Mitrofan in Fonvizin, for example). It is important to note that it was the observance of the measure in everything that was considered the mind (therefore, for Moliere, the clever Alceste is not an ideal worthy of imitation). Mind, as well as a sense of proportion, has just Molchalin, and not Chatsky. Molchalin's mind serves the owner and thoroughly helps him, while Chatsky's mind (and "his speech boils with intelligence, wit", as I. A. Goncharov says) only harms, it is akin to madness for those around him, it is he who brings him "a million torments". The obsequious mind of Molchalin is opposed to the strange and sublime mind of Chatsky, but this is no longer a confrontation between mind and stupidity. There are no fools in the play by A. S. Griboyedov, its conflict is based on the confrontation of different types of mind. “Woe from Wit” is a comedy that has stepped over the narrow limits of classicism.
The category of the mind is related to the philosophical content of the play, the presence of such a layer is simply impossible in the comedy of classicism, focused on already given absolute truths. In his work, A. Griboedov raises the question of what is the mind. Almost every hero has his own answer, almost everyone talks about the mind (Famusov: “Modest, but nothing but mischief and the wind on the mind”; Sophia: “Sharp, smart, eloquent, / Oh, if someone loves whom, / Why look for the mind and travel so far”, etc.), but these are different kinds of statements. Each hero has his own idea of the mind, which he substantiates in the course of his appearance in the play, so the comedy does not at all boil down to a clear distinction between the representatives of high society and Chatsky in order to reveal the mind. There is no standard of mind in A. Griboyedov's play, therefore there is no winner in it either. “Comedy gives Chatsky only “a million torments” and apparently leaves Famusov and his brethren in the same position as they were, without saying anything about the consequences of the struggle.” Chatsky differs from those around him not in that he is smarter, but in that he is more humane, more sensitive (“sensitive, and cheerful, and sharp,” as Liza says). For Chatsky, there are two mutually exclusive categories: mind and feeling (he tells Sofya that his “mind and heart are not in harmony”; describing Molchalin, he again distinguishes between these concepts: “Let Silent not have a lively mind, a brave genius, / But is there that passion in him? That feeling? That ardor?.. " The feeling turns out to be higher than the secular, sophisticated mind (Chatsky at the end of the play says: corner!", i.e., he runs away not to protect his lonely mind, but to forget about the insults inflicted on his feelings). The love drama, as it were, becomes an expression of the hero's ideological loneliness. "His personal grief It happened not from one mind, but more from other reasons, where his mind played a suffering role, and this gave Pushkin a reason to deny him his mind. “Woe from the mind” of Chatsky lies in the fact that his mind differs sharply from the mind recognized in the world, but by feeling (“He has a heart, and, moreover, he is impeccably honest”), as I. A. Goncharov says in the article “ A million torments”, he is nevertheless attached to the society where he rotates, depending to some extent on the opinions of the world.
The title of A. Griboedov's play "Woe from Wit" contains an unusually important question: what is the mind for Griboyedov himself. Direct response to the same the writer does not give a question, and this already reveals a rethinking of the traditions of classicism. Calling Chatsky “smart”, A. Griboyedov turned everything upside down, ridiculing the old understanding of such a quality in a person as the mind. A. Griboyedov showed a man full of enlightening pathos, constantly encountering an unwillingness to understand him, which stemmed precisely from the traditional concept of “prudence”, which in “Woe from Wit” is associated with a certain social and political program. A. Griboyedov's comedy, starting from the title, is addressed not at all to the Famusovs, but to the Chatskys - funny and lonely (“one smart person for 25 fools”), seeking to change the world that is not subject to rapid changes by reasoning. A. Griboyedov created a comedy that was unconventional for his time. He enriched and psychologically rethought the characters of the characters and introduced into the text new problems, unusual for the comedy of classicism. However, although his method is close to realistic, the writer still does not achieve realism in its entirety when showing the characters, life, social environment and all the deep problems hidden in the society of that time.
