Realism (from late Latin reālis - material) is an artistic method in art and literature. The history of realism in world literature is extraordinarily rich. The very idea of him changed to different stages artistic development, reflecting the persistent desire of artists for a true depiction of reality.
Illustration by V. Milashevsky for the novel by Charles Dickens "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club".
Illustration by O. Vereisky for Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina".
Illustration by D. Shmarinov for F. M. Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment.
Illustration by V. Serov for M. Gorky's story "Foma Gordeev".
B. Zaborov's illustration for M. Andersen-Neksø's novel Ditte is a Human Child.
However, the concept of truth, truth - one of the most difficult in aesthetics. So, for example, the theoretician of French classicism N. Boileau called for being guided by the truth, "imitating nature." But the ardent opponent of classicism, the romantic V. Hugo, urged "to consult only with nature, truth and your inspiration, which is also truth and nature." Thus, both defended "truth" and "nature".
The selection of life phenomena, their assessment, the ability to present them as important, characteristic, typical - all this is connected with the artist's point of view on life, and this, in turn, depends on his worldview, on the ability to catch the advanced movements of the era. The desire for objectivity often forces the artist to depict the real balance of power in society, even contrary to his own political convictions.
The specific features of realism depend on the historical conditions in which art develops. National-historical circumstances also determine the uneven development of realism in different countries.
Realism is not something once and for all given and unchanging. In the history of world literature, several main types of its development can be outlined.
There is no consensus in science about initial period realism. Many art historians attribute it to very distant eras: they talk about realism rock paintings primitive people, about the realism of ancient sculpture. In the history of world literature, many features of realism are found in the works of ancient world and the early Middle Ages (in the folk epic, for example, in Russian epics, in chronicles). However, the formation of realism as art system in European literatures it is customary to associate with the Renaissance (Renaissance), the greatest progressive upheaval. A new understanding of life by a person who rejects the church preaching of slavish obedience was reflected in the lyrics of F. Petrarch, the novels of F. Rabelais and M. Cervantes, in the tragedies and comedies of W. Shakespeare. After medieval churchmen preached for centuries that man is a "vessel of sin" and called for humility, the literature and art of the Renaissance glorified man as the highest creation of nature, seeking to reveal the beauty of his physical appearance and the wealth of soul and mind. The realism of the Renaissance is characterized by the scale of images (Don Quixote, Hamlet, King Lear), poetization human personality, her ability to a great feeling (as in "Romeo and Juliet") and at the same time a high intensity tragic conflict when the clash of the personality with the inert forces opposing it is depicted.
The next stage in the development of realism is the Enlightenment (see Enlightenment), when literature becomes (in the West) an instrument for the direct preparation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Among the enlighteners were supporters of classicism, their work was influenced by other methods and styles. But in the XVIII century. So-called Enlightenment realism is taking shape (in Europe), the theorists of which were D. Diderot in France and G. Lessing in Germany. English acquired world significance realistic novel, the founder of which was D. Defoe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe" (1719). A democratic hero appeared in the literature of the Enlightenment (Figaro in the trilogy by P. Beaumarchais, Louise Miller in the tragedy "Treachery and Love" by J. F. Schiller, and the images of peasants by A. N. Radishchev). Enlighteners assessed all the phenomena of social life and the actions of people as reasonable or unreasonable (and they saw the unreasonable, first of all, in all the old feudal orders and customs). From this they proceeded in the depiction of the human character; their positive heroes are, first of all, the embodiment of reason, the negative ones are a deviation from the norm, the product of unreason, the barbarism of former times.
Enlightenment realism often allowed for convention. Thus, the circumstances in the novel and drama were not necessarily typical. They could be conditional, as in the experiment: "Let's say that a person ended up on a desert island ...". At the same time, Defoe depicts Robinson's behavior not as it could be in reality (the prototype of his hero went wild, even lost articulate speech), but as he wants to present a person, fully armed with his physical and mental powers, as a hero, a conqueror of forces. nature. Just as conventional is Goethe's Faust, shown in the struggle for the affirmation of lofty ideals. The features of a well-known convention also distinguish the comedy of D. I. Fonvizin "Undergrowth".
A new type of realism takes shape in the 19th century. This critical realism. It differs significantly from both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Its heyday in the West is associated with the names of Stendhal and O. Balzac in France, C. Dickens, W. Thackeray in England, in Russia - A. S. Pushkin, N. V. Gogol, I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov.
Critical realism portrays in a new way the relationship of man and environment. Human character is revealed in organic connection with social circumstances. The subject of deep social analysis was inner world of man, critical realism therefore simultaneously becomes psychological. In preparing this quality of realism, romanticism played a large role, striving to penetrate the secrets of the human "I".
Deepening the knowledge of life and complicating the picture of the world in the critical realism of the 19th century. do not mean, however, some absolute superiority over the previous stages, for the development of art is marked not only by gains, but also by losses.
The scale of the images of the Renaissance was lost. The pathos of affirmation, characteristic of the enlighteners, their optimistic faith in the victory of good over evil, remained unique.
The rise of the labor movement in Western countries, the formation in the 40s. 19th century Marxism not only influenced the literature of critical realism, but also brought to life the first artistic experiments in depicting reality from the standpoint of the revolutionary proletariat. In the realism of such writers as G. Weert, W. Morris, the author of the "Internationale" E. Pottier, new features are outlined, anticipating the artistic discoveries of socialist realism.
IN Russia XIX century is a period of exceptional strength and scope of the development of realism. In the second half of the century, the artistic conquests of realism, bringing Russian literature to international arena win her worldwide recognition.
The richness and diversity of the Russian realism XIX V. allow us to talk about its different forms.
Its formation is associated with the name of A. S. Pushkin, who brought Russian literature to wide way images of "the fate of the people, the fate of man." In the conditions of the accelerated development of Russian culture, Pushkin, as it were, makes up for its former lag, paving new paths in almost all genres and, with its universality and optimism, turns out to be akin to the titans of the Renaissance. The foundations of critical realism, developed in the work of N.V. Gogol and after him in the so-called natural school, are laid in Pushkin's work.
Performance in the 60s. revolutionary democrats, headed by N. G. Chernyshevsky, gives new features to Russian critical realism (the revolutionary nature of criticism, images of new people).
A special place in the history of Russian realism belongs to L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky. It is thanks to them that the Russian realistic novel acquired global importance. Their psychological skill, penetration into the "dialectics of the soul" opened the way for the artistic searches of writers of the 20th century. Realism in the 20th century all over the world bears the imprint of the aesthetic discoveries of L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky.
The growth of the Russian liberation movement, which by the end of the century transferred the center of the world revolutionary struggle from the West to Russia, leads to the fact that the work of the great Russian realists becomes, as V. I. Lenin said about L. N. Tolstoy, “the mirror of the Russian revolution” according to their objective historical content, despite all the differences in their ideological positions.
The creative scope of the Russian social realism manifests itself in genre richness, especially in the field of the novel: philosophical and historical (L. N. Tolstoy), revolutionary journalistic (N. G. Chernyshevsky), everyday (I. A. Goncharov), satirical (M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin ), psychological (F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy). By the end of the century, A.P. Chekhov became an innovator in the genre of realistic storytelling and a kind of “lyrical drama”.
It is important to emphasize that Russian realism of the XIX century. did not develop in isolation from the world historical and literary process. This was the beginning of an era when, according to K. Marx and F. Engels, “the fruits of spiritual activity separate nations become common property."
F. M. Dostoevsky noted as one of the features of Russian literature its “ability for universality, all-humanity, all-response”. Here it is not so much about Western influences how much about organic development in the mainstream European culture its centuries-old traditions.
At the beginning of the XX century. the appearance of M. Gorky's plays "The Philistines", "At the Bottom" and in particular the novel "Mother" (and in the West - the novel "Pelle the Conqueror" by M. Andersen-Neksö) testifies to the formation of socialist realism. In the 20s. announces itself with great success Soviet literature and in the early 1930s in many capitalist countries there is a literature of the revolutionary proletariat. The literature of socialist realism is becoming an important factor world literary development. At the same time, it should be noted that Soviet literature as a whole retains more ties with artistic experience XIX century than literature in the West (including socialist).
The beginning of the general crisis of capitalism, two world wars, acceleration revolutionary process around the world under the influence of the October Revolution and the existence Soviet Union, and after 1945 the formation of the world system of socialism - all this affected the fate of realism.
Critical realism, which continued to develop in Russian literature until October (I. A. Bunin, A. I. Kuprin) and in the West, in the 20th century. was further developed, while undergoing significant changes. In the critical realism of the XX century. in the West, a wide variety of influences are more freely assimilated and crossed, including some features of the unrealistic trends of the 20th century. (symbolism, impressionism, expressionism), which, of course, does not exclude the struggle of realists against non-realistic aesthetics.
From about the 20s. in the literatures of the West, there is a tendency towards in-depth psychologism, the transmission of a “stream of consciousness”. There is a so-called intellectual novel by T. Mann; subtext acquires special significance, for example, in E. Hemingway. This focus on the individual and his spiritual world in the critical realism of the West significantly weakens its epic breadth. Epic scale in the 20th century. is the merit of the writers of socialist realism (“The Life of Klim Samgin” by M. Gorky, “ Quiet Don" M. A. Sholokhov, "Walking through the agony" by A. N. Tolstoy, "The dead remain young" by A. Zegers).
Unlike realists XIX V. writers of the 20th century more often they resort to fantasy (A. France, K. Capek), to conventionality (for example, B. Brecht), creating parable novels and parable dramas (see Parable). At the same time, in the realism of the XX century. triumphs document, fact. Documentary works appear in different countries within the framework of both critical realism and socialist realism.
So, while remaining documentary, the autobiographical books of E. Hemingway, S. O "Casey, I. Becher are works of great generalizing meaning, such classic books socialist realism, such as Yu. Fuchik's "Report with a noose around his neck" and A. A. Fadeev's "Young Guard".
Realism (lat. Realis - - material, real) - a direction in literature and art, which consists in a true, objective and comprehensive reflection. In the Middle Ages, realism was called one of the directions medieval philosophy who attributed real existence to abstract concepts. In the XVIII century. realism was understood as a type of thinking and behavior (practical), which differs from the type of dreamer, "idealist". Realists were called people who set themselves such a goal that could be achieved.
In the 20s of the XIX century. French critics called realism the "new school" in literature, which differed from the "literature of ideas" (classicism) and the literature of images (romanticism). French writers(J. Chanfleury, L. Duranty) issued a collection of articles called "Realism" (1857) and several issues of the journal with the same name. The magazine published a manifesto of the realistic school of the artist G. Courbet, in which calls were made to depict the everyday life of the people, to raise social problems. Courbet created two famous paintings "Stonebreakers" and "Funeral in Orna", which became the manifesto of realism in painting. Duranty wrote that the task of realism is to create literature for the people. The magazine argued with the romantics, demanded to abandon the idealization of life and heroes.
D. Diderot and Lessing were the first to turn to the theory of realism. Problems of realism during the 19th century. excited O. Balzac, G. Flaubert, Turgenev, L. Tolstoy. In the works of I. Franko, E. Zola, the term "realism" was used as a synonym for the term "naturalism". Hence the name "natural school".
The aesthetics of realism are basically mimetic, that is, associated with the understanding of art as a form of imitation of reality. In our literary criticism there is no consensus regarding the genesis, historical parameters, stages of development artistic nature and functionality of realism. Some believe that the art of realism is rooted in folk poetry with her spontaneous desire for truth. E. Auerbach speaks of ancient (mythological) realism ("Mimesis. Depiction of reality in Western European literature"). The realistic type of thinking has been inherent in art since ancient times, but the term "realism" is inappropriate to use in relation to the art of antiquity and the Middle Ages, conditions, realistic artistic systems could not be established, but, as D. Nalivaiko notes, “only manifestations of realistic creativity on an experiential level, predominantly in low, comic genres."
Many researchers believe that realism as an aesthetic and artistic system began to take shape in the Renaissance. Renaissance realism of the XIV-XV centuries. called humanistic, it is characteristic of the work of Cervantes, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Chaucer. According to D. Nalivaiko, Renaissance realism is NOT a direction, but a trend of artistic thinking.
A significant part of researchers associate the beginning of realism with the Enlightenment, in particular with the work of D. Defoe, Voltaire, Diderot, J. Swift, G.E. Lessing. These writers have deeply revealed causality between man and environment. M. Konrad, D. Blagoy, V. Zhirmunsky believe that the history of realism begins not with the Renaissance and not with the Enlightenment, but in the literature of the 19th century. V. Zhirmunsky notes that one can speak about the realism of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Rabelais "in the broad sense of the word", in the sense of truthfulness, and not in the sense of Balzac or Tolstoy. The main sign of realism, according to V. Zhirmunsky, is sociality. He sees the beginning of classical realism in English literature XVIII century., In particular in the work of Defoe, Fielding, Smolett. In the history of realism, the scientist finds no place for Shakespeare.
Most modern researchers associate the emergence of realism with the 30s of the 19th century, and consider the Renaissance and Enlightenment to be the prehistory of classical realism. IN Soviet period realism of the 19th century was called "critical".
The term "critical realism", which entered the literature with the "light" hand of M. Gorky, does not reflect the complexity of the direction, because not all works have only a critical element. By the way, critical pathos is inherent in the works of different eras.
The essence of realism was well revealed by one of its most representative I. Nechuy-Levitsky: “Realism or naturalism in literature requires that literature be a scene of truthful, real life, similar to a coastline in water, with a city or village, with forests, mountains and all objects that are on the ground. Real Literature should be a mirror in which to switches true life, though subtle, is like a dream, like the glow itself."
The realist trend was a form of rejection of romanticism, a reaction to the Byronism of the 1930s. According to B. Reizov, realism became a protest against "titanic heroes", "crazy" literature, against historical themes in novel and drama... vs. symbolic drama and sentimental-philosophical lyrics "".
Romantics portrayed exceptional heroes in exceptional circumstances, realists focused on the image of an ordinary "little man" not in exotic, but in ordinary conditions. The language of romanticism is poetic, realists use the usual colloquial speech with dialects and jargon. However, realists do not abandon romantic pathos and those depiction techniques used by the romantics. Elements of romanticism in the works of Balzac, Dixens, Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, Shevchenko, Frank. The experience of romanticism played a positive role for realism. The Romantics were allies of the realists in the struggle against classicism. By the way, realism took something from classicism, in particular, rationalism, the compositional harmony of the work, the consistency of the presentation of the material, certain methods of depicting characters (attention to the intellectual life of a person, fidelity to duty, the contradiction between duty and personal interests). Both romantics and realists turned to the conflict between man and society.
Between romanticism and realism half of XIX V. not easy to draw the line. Balzac in stories and novels uses the means of romantic fiction and irony (" Shagreen leather"). There are romantic motifs in Stendhal's novel "Red and Black". "Each great realist," notes G. Pomerants, "is a romantic in his own way. The writers, whom we classify as classical realism, do not exclude, but continue romantic traditions." Romanticism, according to the literary critic, gravitates "more towards an old man than towards an adult. Romanticism is 8 and at the same time 80 years old, realism is 40, romanticism is a fairy tale that a grandfather tells his granddaughter, and realism is a serious story for serious people. But adult serious people are not can tell the truth about Little Prince or the planet of the funny man (from fantasy story realist Dostoevsky): they will ridicule, humiliate the idea. But the wizard-poet pretends to be... a serious business man. This game of the magician at the professor of sociology is called realism."
Realism denied the creative principles of naturalism with its factualism, impartiality, attention to biological factors. He does not fix the facts, but penetrates into their essence, analyzes them. Realist writers are analytic researchers. Romantics did not engage in a specific analysis of life, they condemned the social vices of the past and present. Realists explore the source of evil, they believe that socio-economic conditions have a decisive influence on a person.
An important role in the development of realism was played by the achievements of natural, economic and philosophical thought, in particular, Hegel's dialectic, Feuerbach's materialism, the idea of historicism in the works of French historians (Thierry, Mignet, Guizot).
Rationalism became the ideological basis of realism; the Enlightenment theory is rational. The leading principle of realism is fidelity to reality, a concrete historical approach to it, a view of history as a constant progress, the desire to reproduce life, depict it as it is in the inner world of a person without idealization and satirical caricature.
Realism abandoned the division of objects and phenomena into aesthetic and non-aesthetic. It reflects reality in its entirety and authenticity.
Creating life-like images and situations, realists do not abandon myth, fairy tale, allegory, symbol. The realists considered it their task to create for the people, to serve them.
I will exalt those small dumb slaves! I am on guard of their circle. I will put a word, - T. Shevchenko wrote. Realistic literature, according to I. Franko, "collects and describes the facts of everyday life, considering only the truth, not aesthetic rules, but at the same time analyzes them (facts - N. F.) and draws conclusions from them - this is her scientific realism, because of this she points out shortcomings social order where not everything can be reached by science (in daily life, in the development of psychological passions and human inconsistencies), and tries to awaken the desire and strength in readers to eliminate those shortcomings - this is its gradual tendency.
Truthfulness is related to typing. All textbooks published in Soviet time, is the definition of realism given by F. Engels: "In my opinion, realism implies, in addition to the truthfulness of details, the truthfulness in the reproduction of typical characters in typical circumstances" 2. This definition is not accurate, universal. However, the veracity of details, typical characters and typical circumstances are features of realism. But in many works, characteristic circumstances are exceptional, unusual. In a letter to N. Strakhova dated February 28, 1869, Dostoevsky wrote: “I have my own view of reality (in art) and what is called almost fantastic and exceptional, for me constitutes the very reality of reality. in my opinion, not yet realism, and even vice versa.In every issue of the newspapers you come across an account of real facts and oh bizarre. For our writers, they are fantastic, and they do not deal with them, but meanwhile they are reality. " Typification makes the images standard, simplified. Each person is perceived as a representative of the corresponding class.
The innovation of realism is in the structure of character, its development, in connection with typical circumstances. The characters of realistic works are multifaceted, motivated, and develop in a logical sequence. Heroes act in specific socio-historical conditions that motivate their actions. Realism recognizes not only the determinism of human behavior, but also the ability to rise above circumstances, to resist them. Realists reflect a reality full of sharp contradictions and conflicts. They adhere to the principle of sociality and historicism. The behavior of the heroes of realistic works is determined by objective socio-historical conditions. For a realist, man is a social being. The principle of historicism consists in reproducing the color of time and place, in understanding history as a process of qualitative changes that characterize the national-historical originality of a particular stage in each country. Historicism and sociality are interconnected. Historicism concretizes the principle of sociality, contributes to the disclosure of the development of social conditions. The actions of the hero stem from the characteristics of character and psychology, and the character and psychology are conditioned by life circumstances and the social environment. Changing circumstances of life affect the fate of the characters. Heroes of the novel "Do oxen roar when the manger is full?" Panas Mirny and Ivan Bilyk, the stories "Borislav laughs" by I. Franko are socially and historically specific.
IN Ukrainian literature realism took hold in the first half of the 19th century. This realism is called enlightenment. "For the first time in Ukrainian literature, the educational ideology in the field of artistic functioning appears, - notes M. Yatsenko - in mid-eighteenth V. In the work of G. Skovoroda. However, on the one hand, it exists in a certain symbiosis with the philosophical and ethical teachings of antiquity (Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Horace) and goes into the area of philosophical junction, where the main place is occupied by the ideas of self-knowledge and moral self-improvement of the individual, and on the other hand, it acts in in general, not yet in the educational artistic structure, but within the limits of the old bookish-theological tradition and the baroque." In the work of I. Kotlyarevsky, the features of classicism, enlightenment realism and sentimentalism were combined. with classicism.
In Enlightenment realism, the place was occupied by the social environment. But social determinism was for the characters, according to M. Yatsenko, "not yet a conscious phenomenon." " Public environment acts as a world of laws that have not yet been revealed, the characters themselves are rather objects acting at the level of empirical relations, and not subjects of action that transform themselves and the world. Hence the trend of displacement social conflict into the moral and ethical sphere, which Shaftesbury considered independent of social conditions. "Orientation on the educational principle provided a leading place in the literature of educational realism for petty-bourgeois dramas, comedies, tragedies, the novel of education, and satirical genres.
The lyrics did not differ in genre richness. M. Yatsenko explains this by the fact that in Enlightenment realism the focus was "not on individual characters and studies of their psychology, but on the depiction of a person's fate, its ancestral and estate characteristics."
The "low" genres came to the fore - a burlesque poem, a fable, a folk social drama, folk tale and stories. Enlightenment realism affected the burlesque poem unknown author"Voyage by Little Russia General of the infantry Bekleshov", on burlesque alterations of Gulak-Artemovsky from Horace ("To Parkhom", "XIV ode to Horace, book II"), on his poetic messages ("Real Kindness", "Grigory K's petition [branches] and "). Perhaps the most operational and effective genre of educational realism was a tale with varieties of tale-tale, fable-saying ("Grave Families", "Sinner" by E. Grebenka, "Doctor and Health", "Two Birds in a Cage" P Gulak-Artemovsky), fable-short story, fable-lie ("Pidbrehach", "Soldatsky on the third" by G. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko). I. Kotlyarevsky's dramas "Natalka Poltavka" and "Moskal the Magician" combine sentimental and realistic features , in the comedy by G. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko "Shelmenko-batman" - classic and realistic. Such a combination of different stylistic systems is also observed in prose, which was formed after dramaturgy, in particular in the works of G. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko. The humorous burlesque works combined classical and enlightening aesthetics ("Dead Easter", "Here's a treasure for you", "petition of Mr. Publisher").
"Literary Enlightenment in Ukraine, - according to M. Yatsenko, - is not limited to half of the 19th century. Having passed the stage of a kind of symbiosis with sentimentalism and romanticism, enlightenment realism coexists with critical realism almost until the very end of the 19th century."
In the 40-60s of the XIX century. realism coexisted with romanticism. This synthesis of romantic and realistic beginnings is in the work of T. Shevchenko. In the works of Enlightenment realism, certain shortcomings of the social system were criticized, the realists of the second half of the 19th century. criticize the entire autocratic-feudal system. In the realism of the 1940s and 1960s, ethnographic-everyday, social-everyday and socio-psychological currents were formed.
The strengthening of the realistic trend in Ukrainian literature is associated with the work of T. Shevchenko, Marko Vovchok, I.S. Nechui-Levitsky, A. Svidnitsky, Panas Mirny, Ivan Karpenko-Kary, M. Kropivnitsky, Ganna Barvinok. Literature has been enriched in terms of genre. Socio-political, elegiac lyrics, satire gained popularity. Uriznomanitnilas prose, appeared social, ethnographic-everyday, psychological-everyday stories, socio-psychological short story, social, historical tale, socio-psychological novel, novel-chronicle. The problems of literature are enriched. In addition to the peasant, writers raise the topic of the clergy, the bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia.
Realistic literature has a certain type of author. The author is always a certain view of the depicted, the concept of the depicted, the expression of which is piece of art. G. Flaubert compares the author with God, who should be in the work, like God in the universe - everywhere and nowhere. Realist writers who felt like demiurges were not always "invisible" in their writings. They believed that the intuition and mind of the artist can penetrate into everything that exists and adequately reproduce it. This artist gravitates towards the collective "consciousness of the era", its intellectual part, possesses necessary knowledge V various fields. The demiurgeism of realistic literature is the author's position, which is based on the worldview and epistemological paradigm of the era.
The leading means of narration in the works of realists is display, which displaces description, which is clearly manifested in the works of G. Flaubert, A. Chekhov, I. Franko.
In Soviet literary criticism, realism was a cult art system, it was placed above all other areas. In the 30s of the XX century, the concept of realism spread as the only correct and most progressive artistic method. The development of literature was reduced to the progress of realism. The view of the evolution of literature as an irreconcilable struggle between realism and anti-realist trends is already outdated.
Some of the literary critics reject the term "realism", doubt the existence of a realistic direction. So, in the "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Culture of the XX century" (2001) it is noted that realism - "anti-term", the term "totalitarian thinking", that such a trend in the XIX century was not. realistic works classified as romantic.
A critical attitude towards realism is characteristic of modernists, who considered this trend outdated, inconsistent with the dynamic reality of the 20th century. But realism, by its very nature, is a dynamic artistic system; it develops and renews itself. In the 10-20s of the 20th century, neo-avant-garde movements opposed realism, they called realism the art of the bourgeois era, doomed to disappear.
The realism of the 20th century is an open art system that interacts with other trends, in particular with modernism, adopting from it such features as the stream of consciousness, collage, montage, associativity, "telegraphic style".
Before the emergence of realism as a literary movement, the approach to depicting a person in most writers was one-sided. The classicists depicted a person mainly from the side of his duties to the state and had very little interest in him in his life, in his family, privacy. Sentimentalists, on the contrary, switched to depicting a person’s personal life, his intimate feelings. The Romantics were also mainly interested in mental life man, the world of his feelings and passions.
But they endowed their heroes with feelings and passions of exceptional strength, put them in unusual conditions.
Realist writers portray a person in many ways. They draw typical characters and at the same time show in what social conditions this or that hero of the work was formed.
This ability to give typical characters in typical circumstances is the main feature of realism.
We call typical such images in which the most vividly, fully and truthfully embodied the most important features characteristic of a particular historical period for a particular social group or phenomenon (for example, the Prostakovs-Skotinins in the comedy Fonvizin- typical representatives Russian middle-local nobility second half of XVIII century).
In typical images, the realist writer reflects not only those features that are most common at a certain time, but also those that are just beginning to appear and develop fully in the future.
The conflicts underlying the works of the classicists, sentimentalists, and romantics were also one-sided.
Classicist writers (especially in tragedies) depicted a clash in the hero's soul of the consciousness of the need to fulfill a duty to the state with personal feelings and inclinations. Among sentimentalists, the main conflict grew on the basis of the social inequality of heroes belonging to different classes. In romanticism, the basis of conflict is the gap between dream and reality. In realist writers, conflicts are as diverse as in life itself.
Krylov and Griboyedov played an important role in the formation of Russian realism at the beginning of the 19th century. Krylov became the creator of the Russian realistic fable. In Krylov's fables, the life of feudal Russia in its essential features is deeply truthfully depicted. Idea content his fables, democratic in their orientation, the perfection of their construction, wonderful verse and a lively colloquial language developed on a folk basis - all this was a major contribution to Russian realistic literature and had an impact on the development of the work of such writers as Griboyedov, Pushkin, Gogol and other.
Griboyedov, with his work Woe from Wit, gave an example of Russian realistic comedy.
But the true ancestor of Russian realistic literature, who gave perfect examples of realistic creativity in the most diverse literary genres, was the great folk poet Pushkin.
Realism- 19th - 20th century (from Latin realis- valid)
Realism can define heterogeneous phenomena united by the concept of life's truth: the spontaneous realism of ancient literatures, the realism of the Renaissance, enlightenment realism, the "natural school" as the initial stage in the development of critical realism in the 19th century, realism XIX-XX centuries, "socialist realism"
- The main features of realism:
- Depiction of life in images corresponding to the essence of life phenomena, through the typification of the facts of reality;
- True reflection of the world, wide coverage of reality;
- historicism;
- Attitude to literature as a means of man's knowledge of himself and the world around him;
- Reflection of the relationship between man and the environment;
- Typification of characters and circumstances.
Realist writers in Russia. Representatives of realism in Russia: A. S. Pushkin, N. V. Gogol, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, N. A. Nekrasov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, L N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, I. A. Bunin and others.
Effective preparation for the exam (all subjects) -
Realism is usually called a direction in art and literature, whose representatives strove for a realistic and truthful reproduction of reality. In other words, the world was portrayed as typical and simple, with all its advantages and disadvantages.
General features of realism
Realism in literature is distinguished by a number of common features. First, life was portrayed in images that corresponded to reality. Secondly, the reality for the representatives of this trend has become a means of knowing themselves and the world around them. Thirdly, the images on the pages literary works distinguished by the veracity of details, specificity and typification. It is interesting that the art of the realists, with their life-affirming positions, strove to consider reality in development. Realists discovered new social and psychological relations.
The emergence of realism
Realism in literature as a form artistic creation originated in the Renaissance, developed during the Enlightenment and proved to be independent direction only in the 30s of the 19th century. The first realists in Russia include the great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin (he is sometimes even called the ancestor of this trend) and no less outstanding writer N.V. Gogol with his novel Dead Souls". Concerning literary criticism, then within its limits the term "realism" appeared thanks to D. Pisarev. It was he who introduced the term into journalism and criticism. Realism in the literature of the 19th century became a hallmark of that time, having its own characteristics and characteristics.
Features of literary realism
Representatives of realism in literature are numerous. The most famous and outstanding writers include Stendhal, C. Dickens, O. Balzac, L.N. Tolstoy, G. Flaubert, M. Twain, F.M. Dostoevsky, T. Mann, M. Twain, W. Faulkner and many others. All of them worked on the development creative method realism and embodied in their works its most striking features inextricably linked with their unique author's features.
The emergence of realism
In the 30s of the XIX century. realism is gaining significant popularity in literature and art. The development of realism is primarily associated with the names of Stendhal and Balzac in France, Pushkin and Gogol in Russia, Heine and Buchner in Germany. Realism develops initially in the depths of romanticism and bears the stamp of the latter; not only Pushkin and Heine, but also Balzac experienced a strong passion for romantic literature in their youth. However, unlike romantic art, realism renounces the idealization of reality and the predominance of the fantastic element associated with it, as well as an increased interest in the subjective side of man. Realism is dominated by a tendency to depict a wide social background against which the life of the characters takes place (" human comedy"Balzac, "Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin, "Dead Souls" by Gogol, etc.). Depth of understanding social life realist artists sometimes surpass the philosophers and sociologists of their time.
Stages of development of 19th century realism
The formation of critical realism occurs in European countries and in Russia almost at the same time - in the 20s - 40s XIX years century. In the literatures of the world, it becomes the leading direction.
True, this simultaneously means that the literary process of this period is irreducible only in a realistic system. And in European literatures, and - in particular - in the literature of the United States, the activity of romantic writers continues in full measure. Thus, the development of the literary process goes largely through the interaction of coexisting aesthetic systems, and the characterization of both national literatures and the work of individual writers requires that this circumstance be taken into account.
Speaking about the fact that since the 1930s and 1940s realist writers have occupied a leading place in literature, it is impossible not to note that realism itself is not a frozen system, but a phenomenon in constant development. Already within the 19th century, it becomes necessary to talk about “different realisms”, that Mérimée, Balzac and Flaubert equally answered the main historical questions that the era suggested to them, and at the same time their works are distinguished by their different content and originality. forms.
In the 1830s - 1840s, the most remarkable features of realism as a literary movement that gives a multifaceted picture of reality, striving for an analytical study of reality, appear in the work of European writers (primarily Balzac).
The literature of the 1830s and 1840s was fed largely by claims about the attractiveness of the age itself. Love for the 19th century was shared, for example, by Stendhal and Balzac, who never ceased to be amazed at its dynamism, diversity and inexhaustible energy. Hence the heroes of the first stage of realism - active, with an inventive mind, not afraid of a collision with adverse circumstances. These heroes were largely associated with the heroic era of Napoleon, although they perceived his duplicity and developed a strategy for their personal and social behavior. Scott and his historicism inspires the heroes of Stendhal to find their place in life and history through mistakes and delusions. Shakespeare forces Balzac to speak about the novel "Father Goriot" in the words of the great Englishman "Everything is true" and to see in the fate of the modern bourgeois echoes of the harsh fate of King Lear.
Realists of the second half of the 19th century will reproach their predecessors for "residual romanticism." It is difficult to disagree with such a reproach. Indeed, the romantic tradition is very tangibly represented in the creative systems of Balzac, Stendhal, Mérimée. It is no coincidence that Sainte-Beuve called Stendhal "the last hussar of romanticism." Traits of romanticism are revealed
- in the cult of the exotic (Merime's short stories of the type " Matteo Falcone”, “Carmen”, “Tamango”, etc.);
- in the writers' predilection for portraying bright personalities and passions of exceptional strength (Stendhal's novel "Red and Black" or the short story "Vanina Vanini");
- in the predilection for adventurous plots and the use of elements of fantasy (Balzac's novel Shagreen Skin or Mérimée's short story Venus Ilskaya);
- in an effort to clearly divide the heroes into negative and positive - the bearers of the author's ideals (Dickens' novels).
Thus, between the realism of the first period and romanticism there is a complex “family” connection, which manifests itself, in particular, in the inheritance of techniques characteristic of romantic art and even individual themes and motives (the theme of lost illusions, the motive of disappointment, etc.).
In the domestic historical and literary science " revolutionary events 1848 and the important changes that followed them in the socio-political and cultural life of bourgeois society" are considered to be what divides "realism foreign countries XIX century into two stages - the realism of the first and second half of the XIX century "(" History foreign literature XIX century / Under the editorship of Elizarova M.E. - M., 1964). In 1848, popular uprisings turned into a series of revolutions that swept across Europe (France, Italy, Germany, Austria, etc.). These revolutions, as well as the unrest in Belgium and England, followed the "French model", as democratic protests against the class-privileged and not meeting the needs of the time of government, as well as under the slogans of social and democratic reforms. On the whole, 1848 marked one huge upheaval in Europe. True, as a result of it, moderate liberals or conservatives came to power everywhere, in some places even a more brutal authoritarian government was established.
This caused a general disappointment in the results of the revolutions, and, as a result, pessimistic moods. Many representatives of the intelligentsia became disillusioned with the mass movements, the active actions of the people on a class basis, and transferred their main efforts to the private world of the individual and personal relationships. Thus, the general interest was directed to an individual, important in itself, and only secondarily - to its relationship with other personalities and the surrounding world.
The second half of the 19th century is traditionally considered the "triumph of realism". By this time, realism loudly declares itself in the literature not only in France and England, but also in a number of other countries - Germany (the late Heine, Raabe, Storm, Fontane), Russia ("natural school", Turgenev, Goncharov, Ostrovsky, Tolstoy , Dostoevsky), etc.
At the same time, from the 1950s new stage in the development of realism, which involves a new approach to the image of both the hero and the society surrounding him. The social, political and moral atmosphere of the second half of the 19th century "turned" the writers towards the analysis of a person who can hardly be called a hero, but in whose fate and character the main signs of the era are refracted, expressed not in a major deed, significant deed or passion, compressed and intensely conveying global shifts of time, not in large-scale (both in social and psychological) confrontation and conflict, not in typicality brought to the limit, often bordering on exclusivity, but in everyday, everyday everyday life. The writers who began to work at this time, like those who entered literature earlier, but created during the indicated period, for example, Dickens or Thackeray, certainly focused on a different concept of personality. Thackeray's novel "Newcombs" emphasizes the specifics of "human science" in the realism of this period - the need for understanding and analytical reproduction of multidirectional subtle spiritual movements and indirect, not always manifested social connections: It's hard to imagine how much different reasons determines our every act or passion, how often, analyzing my motives, I took one for another ... ". This phrase of Thackeray conveys, perhaps, the main feature of the realism of the era: everything focuses on the image of a person and character, and not circumstances. Although the latter, as they should in realistic literature, "do not disappear," their interaction with character acquires a different quality, connected with the fact that circumstances cease to be independent, they become more and more characterologised; their sociological function is now more implicit than it was with the same Balzac or Stendhal.
Due to the changed concept of personality and the “human-centrism” of the entire artistic system (and the “man-center” was by no means necessarily a positive hero who conquered social circumstances or perished - morally or physically - in the fight against them), one might get the impression that the writers of the second half centuries abandoned the basic principle of realistic literature: dialectical understanding and depiction of the relationship of character and circumstances and following the principle of socio-psychological determinism. Moreover, some of the brightest realists of that time - Flaubert, J. Eliot, Trollot - in the case when they talk about the world around the hero, the term "environment" appears, often perceived more statically than the concept of "circumstances".
An analysis of the works of Flaubert and J. Eliot convinces that artists need this "stakeout" of the environment, first of all, so that the description of the environment surrounding the hero is more plastic. The environment often narratively exists in the inner world of the hero and through him, acquiring a different character of generalization: not placard-sociologised, but psychologized. This creates an atmosphere of greater objectivity of the reproduced. In any case, from the point of view of the reader, who trusts such an objectified narrative about the era more, since he perceives the hero of the work as a close person, the same as himself.
The writers of this period do not in the least forget about another aesthetic setting of critical realism - the objectivity of what is reproduced. As you know, Balzac was so preoccupied with this objectivity that he was looking for ways to bring literary knowledge(understanding) and scientific. This idea appealed to many realists of the second half of the century. For example, Eliot and Flaubert thought a lot about the use of scientific, and therefore, as it seemed to them, objective methods of analysis by literature. Flaubert thought about this especially a lot, who understood objectivity as a synonym for impartiality and impartiality. However, this was the trend of the entire realism of the era. Moreover, the work of the realists of the second half of the 19th century fell on a period of take-off in the development natural sciences and flourishing experimentation.
In the history of science it was important period. Biology developed rapidly (Ch. Darwin's book "The Origin of Species" was published in 1859), physiology, psychology was developing as a science. O. Comte's philosophy of positivism, which later played important role in the development of naturalistic aesthetics and artistic practice. It was during these years that attempts were made to create a system of psychological understanding of man.
However, even at this stage in the development of literature, the character of the hero is not conceived by the writer outside of social analysis, although the latter acquires a slightly different aesthetic essence, different from that which was characteristic of Balzac and Stendhal. Of course, that in the novels of Flaubert. Eliot, Fontana and some others are striking " new level images of the inner world of a person, a qualitatively new skill psychological analysis, which consists in the deepest disclosure of the complexity and unpredictability of human reactions to reality, the motives and causes of human activity ”(History of World Literature. V.7. - M., 1990).
It is obvious that the writers of this era dramatically changed the direction of creativity and led literature (and the novel in particular) towards in-depth psychologism, and in the formula “social-psychological determinism”, the social and psychological, as it were, changed places. It is in this direction that the main achievements of literature are concentrated: writers began not only to draw the complex inner world of a literary hero, but to reproduce a well-functioning, well-thought-out psychological “character model”, in it and in its functioning artistically combining the psychological-analytical and socio-analytical. The writers updated and revived the principle of psychological detail, introduced a dialogue with deep psychological overtones, found narrative devices to convey "transitional", contradictory spiritual movements that were previously inaccessible to literature.
This does not mean at all that realistic literature abandoned social analysis: social basis reproducible reality and reconstructed character did not disappear, although it did not dominate character and circumstances. It was thanks to the writers of the second half of the 19th century that literature began to find indirect ways of social analysis, in this sense continuing the series of discoveries made by writers of previous periods.
Flaubert, Eliot, the Goncourt brothers, and others "taught" literature to go to the social and what is characteristic of the era, characterizes its social, political, historical and moral principles, through the ordinary and everyday existence of an ordinary person. Social typification among writers of the second half of the century - typification of "mass character, repetition" (History of World Literature. V.7. - M., 1990). It is not as bright and obvious as that of the representatives of the classical critical realism of the 1830s-1840s and most often manifests itself through the “parabola of psychologism”, when immersion in the character’s inner world allows one to ultimately plunge into the era, into historical time as the writer sees it. Emotions, feelings, moods are not of an overtime, but of a concrete historical nature, although it is primarily ordinary everyday existence that is subjected to analytical reproduction, and not the world of titanic passions. At the same time, writers often even absolutized the dullness and wretchedness of life, the triviality of the material, the unheroism of time and character. That is why, on the one hand, it was an anti-romantic period, on the other, a period of craving for the romantic. Such a paradox, for example, is characteristic of Flaubert, the Goncourts, and Baudelaire.
There is one more important point associated with the absolutization of imperfection human nature and slavish subordination to circumstances: often writers perceived the negative phenomena of the era as a given, as something irresistible, and even tragically fatal. Therefore, in the work of realists of the second half of the 19th century, a positive beginning is so difficult to express: they are of little interest in the problem of the future, they are “here and now”, in their own time, comprehending it with the utmost impartiality, as an era, if worthy of analysis, then critical.
As noted earlier, critical realism is literary direction on a global scale. A notable feature of realism is also the fact that it has a long history. IN late XIX and in the 20th century worldwide fame received the work of such writers as R. Rolland, D. Golussource, B. Shaw, E. M. Remark, T. Dreiser and others. Realism continues to exist up to the present time, remaining the most important form of world democratic culture.
