What is realism in literature definition briefly. Realism as an art direction

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 of literary works were distinguished by the truthfulness 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 of artistic creation arose in the Renaissance, developed during the Enlightenment and emerged as an independent trend 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 founder of this trend) and no less outstanding writer N.V. Gogol with his novel Dead Souls. As for literary criticism, the term "realism" appeared within it 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 of the creative method of realism and embodied in their works its most striking features inextricably linked with their unique authorial features.

Realism (lat. realis- real, real) - a direction in art, whose figures seek to understand and depict the interaction of a person with his environment, and the concept of the latter includes both spiritual and material components.

The art of realism is based on the creation of characters, understood as the result of the influence of socio-historical events, individually comprehended by the artist, as a result of which a living, unique and at the same time carrying generic features of the artistic image. "The cardinal problem of realism is the ratio credibility and artistic truth. The outward resemblance of an image to its prototypes is not, in fact, the only form of expression of truth for realism. More importantly, such similarity is not enough for true realism. Although plausibility is an important and most characteristic form of realism for the realization of artistic truth, the latter is ultimately determined not by plausibility, but by fidelity in comprehension and transmission. entities life, the significance of the ideas expressed by the artist ". From what has been said, it does not follow that realist writers do not use fiction at all - without fiction, artistic creativity is generally impossible. Fiction is necessary already when selecting facts, grouping them, highlighting some heroes and briefly characterizing others etc.

The chronological boundaries of the realistic trend in the works of various researchers are defined differently.

Some see the beginnings of realism as early as antiquity, others attribute its emergence to the Renaissance, others date back to the 18th century, and others believe that realism as a trend in art arose no earlier than the first third of the 19th century.

For the first time in domestic criticism, the term "realism" was used by P. Annenkov in 1849, although without a detailed theoretical justification, and came into general use already in the 1860s. The French writers L. Duranty and Chanfleury were the first to make an attempt to comprehend the experience of Balzac and (in the field of painting) G. Courbet, giving their art a "realistic" definition. "Realism" is the title of a magazine published by Duranty in 1856-1857 and a collection of articles by Chanfleury (1857). However, their theory was largely contradictory and did not exhaust the complexity of the new artistic direction. What are the basic principles of the realistic trend in art?

Until the first third of the 19th century, literature created artistically one-sided images. In antiquity, this is the ideal world of gods and heroes and the limitedness of earthly existence opposed to it, the division of characters into “positive” and “negative” (echoes of such a gradation still make themselves felt in primitive aesthetic thinking). With some changes, this principle continues to exist in the Middle Ages, and in the period of classicism and romanticism. Only Shakespeare was far ahead of his time, creating "diverse and multifaceted characters" (A. Pushkin). It was precisely in overcoming the one-sidedness of the image of a person and his social relations that the most important shift in the aesthetics of European art consisted. Writers are beginning to realize that the thoughts and actions of characters often cannot be dictated by the author's will alone, since they depend on specific historical circumstances.

The organic religiosity of society under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, which proclaimed the human mind the supreme judge of all that exists, was replaced during the 19th century by such a social model in which the place of God was gradually occupied by supposedly omnipotent productive forces and class struggle. The process of forming such a worldview was long and complex, and its supporters, declaratively rejecting the aesthetic achievements of previous generations, relied heavily on them in their artistic practice.

England and France at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries had a particularly large number of social upheavals, and the rapid change of political systems and psychological conditions allowed the artists of these countries to realize more clearly than others that each era leaves its own unique imprint on the feelings, thoughts and actions of people.

For writers and artists of the Renaissance and classicism, biblical or ancient characters were only mouthpieces for the ideas of modernity. No one was surprised that the apostles and prophets in the paintings of the 17th century were dressed in the fashion of this century. Only at the beginning of the 19th century did painters and writers begin to follow the correspondence of all everyday details of the depicted time, coming to the understanding that both the psychology of the heroes of ancient times and their actions cannot be fully adequate in the present. It was precisely in capturing the "spirit of the times" that the first achievement of art at the beginning of the 19th century consisted.

The ancestor of literature, in which the course of the historical development of society was comprehended, was the English writer W. Scott. His merit is not so much in the exact depiction of the details of the life of past times, but in the fact that, according to V. Belinsky, he gave "the historical direction to the art of the 19th century" and portrayed it as an indivisible common individual and universal. The heroes of W. Scott, involved in the epicenter of turbulent historical events, are endowed with memorable characters and at the same time are representatives of their class, with its social and national characteristics, although in general he perceives the world from a romantic position. The outstanding English novelist also managed to find in his work that edge that reproduces the linguistic flavor of the past years, but does not literally copy archaic speech.

Another discovery of the realists was the discovery of social contradictions caused not only by the passions or ideas of "heroes", but also by the antagonistic aspirations of estates and classes. The Christian ideal dictated sympathy for the downtrodden and destitute. Realistic art is also based on this principle, but the main thing in realism is the study and analysis of social relations and the very structure of society. In other words, the main conflict in a realistic work is the struggle between "humanity" and "inhumanity", which is due to a number of social patterns.

The psychological content of human characters is also explained by social causes. When depicting a plebeian who does not want to accept the fate destined for him from birth ("Red and Black", 1831), Stendhal renounces romantic subjectivism and analyzes the psychology of the hero seeking a place in the sun, mainly in the social aspect. Balzac in the cycle of novels and short stories "The Human Comedy" (1829-1848) sets a grandiose goal to recreate the multi-figured panorama of modern society in its various modifications. Approaching his task as a scientist describing a complex and dynamic phenomenon, the writer traces the fate of individuals over a number of years, discovering significant adjustments that the "zeitgeist" makes to the original qualities of the characters. At the same time, Balzac focuses on those socio-psychological problems that remain almost unchanged, despite the change in political and economic formations (the power of money, the moral decline of an outstanding personality who pursued success at any cost, the disintegration of family ties that were not sealed with love and mutual respect, and etc.). At the same time, Stendhal and Balzac reveal truly high feelings only among inconspicuous honest workers.

The moral superiority of the poor over the "high society" is also proved in the novels of C. Dickens. The writer was not at all inclined to portray the "high society" as a bunch of scoundrels and moral freaks. “But all the evil is,” Dickens wrote, “that this pampered world lives as if in a jewel case ... and therefore does not hear the noise of larger worlds, does not see how they revolve around the sun. This is a dying world, and the generation it is painful, because there is nothing to breathe in it. In the work of the English novelist, psychological authenticity, along with somewhat sentimental conflict resolution, is combined with gentle humor, sometimes developing into sharp social satire. Dickens outlined the main pain points of contemporary capitalism (the impoverishment of the working people, their ignorance, lawlessness and the spiritual crisis of the upper classes). No wonder L. Tolstoy was sure: "Sift the world's prose, Dickens will remain."

The main spiritualizing force of realism are the ideas of individual freedom and universal social equality. Everything that hinders the free development of the individual, realist writers denounced, seeing the root of evil in the unjust organization of social and economic institutions.

At the same time, most writers believed in the inevitability of scientific and social progress, which would gradually destroy the oppression of man by man and reveal its initially positive inclinations. This mood is typical for European and Russian literature, especially for the latter. So, Belinsky sincerely envied the "grandchildren and great-grandchildren" who would live in 1940. Dickens wrote in 1850: “We strive to bring out of the seething world around us under the roofs of countless houses the announcement of a multitude of social miracles - both beneficial and harmful, but those that do not detract from our conviction and perseverance, indulgence towards each other, loyalty to the progress of mankind. and gratitude for the honor that has fallen to us to live in the summer dawn of time. N. Chernyshevsky in "What is to be done?" (1863) painted pictures of a wonderful future, when everyone will have the opportunity to become a harmonious personality. Even Chekhov's heroes, who belong to an era in which social optimism has already noticeably diminished, believe that they will see "the sky in diamonds."

And yet, first of all, a new direction in art focuses on criticizing the existing order. The realism of the 19th century in Russian literary criticism of the 1930s - early 1980s was commonly called critical realism(definition proposed M. Gorky). However, this term does not cover all aspects of the phenomenon being defined, since, as already noted, the realism of the 19th century was by no means devoid of affirming pathos. In addition, the definition of realism as predominantly critical "is not entirely accurate in the sense that, emphasizing the specific historical significance of the work, its connection with the social tasks of the moment, it leaves in the shadow the philosophical content and universal significance of the masterpieces of realistic art" .

A person in realistic art, in contrast to romantic art, is not seen as an autonomously existing individuality, interesting precisely because of its uniqueness. In realism, especially at the first stage of its development, it is important to demonstrate the influence of the social environment on the personality; at the same time, realist writers strive to depict the way of thinking and feelings of characters that change over time (Oblomov and Ordinary History by I. Goncharov). Thus, along with historicism, at the origins of which was W. Scott (transfer of the color of place and time and the realization of the fact that the ancestors saw the world differently than the author himself), the rejection of static, the image of the inner world of characters depending on the conditions of their life and made the most important discoveries of realistic art.

No less significant for its time was the general movement towards the nationality of art. For the first time, the problem of nationality was touched upon by the Romantics, who understood national identity as national identity, which was expressed in the transfer of customs, features of life and habits of the people. But Gogol already noticed that a truly folk poet remains so even when he looks at a "completely different world" through the eyes of his people (for example, England is depicted from the position of a Russian artisan from the provinces - "Lefty" N. Leskov, 1883).

In Russian literature, the problem of nationality has played a particularly important role. This problem was substantiated in most detail in the works of Belinsky. The critic saw an example of a truly folk work in Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", where "folk" paintings as such take up little space, but the moral atmosphere in the society of the first third of the 19th century is recreated.

By the middle of this century, nationality in the aesthetic program of most Russian writers becomes the central point in determining the social and artistic significance of a work. I. Turgenev, D. Grigorovich, A. Potekhin strive not only to reproduce and study various aspects of folk (i.e., peasant) life, but also directly address the people themselves. In the 60s, the same D. Grigorovich, V. Dal, V. Odoevsky, N. Shcherbina and many others published books for popular reading, published magazines and brochures designed for a person who was just starting to read. As a rule, these attempts were not very successful, because the cultural level of the lower strata of society and its educated minority was too different, which is why writers looked at the peasant as a "little brother" who should be taught to reason. Only A. Pisemsky ("The Carpenter's Artel", "Pitershchik", "Leshy" 1852-1855) and N. Uspensky (novels and short stories of 1858-1860) managed to show the true peasant life in its original simplicity and rudeness, but most writers preferred to sing the folk "soul of life".

In the post-reform era, the people and "nationality" in Russian literature turn into a kind of fetish. L. Tolstoy sees in Platon Karataev the focus of all the best human qualities. Dostoevsky calls to learn worldly wisdom and spiritual sensitivity from the "kufelny peasant". Folk life is idealized in the works of N. Zlatovratsky and other writers of the 1870s–1880s.

Gradually, nationality, understood as an appeal to the problems of people's life from the point of view of the people themselves, becomes a dead canon, which nevertheless remained unshakable for many decades. Only I. Bunin and A. Chekhov allowed themselves to doubt the object of worship of more than one generation of Russian writers.

By the middle of the 19th century, another feature of realistic literature was also determined - tendentiousness, that is, the expression of the moral and ideological position of the author. Previously, artists in one way or another revealed their attitude towards their heroes, but basically they didactically preached the harmfulness of universal human vices, independent of the place and time of their manifestation. Realist writers make their social and moral-ideological predilections an integral part of the artistic idea, gradually leading the reader to an understanding of their position.

Tendentiousness gives rise in Russian literature to a division into two antagonistic camps: for the first, the so-called revolutionary-democratic, the most important thing was criticism of the state system, the second defiantly declared political indifference, proving the primacy of "artistic" over "the topic of the day" ("pure art"). The prevailing public mood - the decay of the feudal system and its morality was obvious - and the active offensive actions of the revolutionary democrats formed in the public the idea of ​​​​those writers who did not agree with the need for an immediate breakdown of all "foundations" as anti-patriots and obscurants. In the 1860s and 1870s, the "civic position" of a writer was valued more than his talent: this can be seen in the example of A. Pisemsky, P. Melnikov-Pechersky, N. Leskov, whose work was regarded negatively or hushed up by revolutionary democratic criticism.

This approach to art was formulated by Belinsky. “And I need poetry and artistry no more than enough for the story to be true ... - he said in a letter to V. Botkin in 1847. - The main thing is that it raises questions, makes a moral impression on society. If it reaches this goal and without poetry and creativity at all - it is for me Nonetheless interesting..." Two decades later, this criterion became fundamental in revolutionary democratic criticism (N. Chernyshevsky, N. Dobrolyubov, M. Antonovich, D. Pisarev). a fierce uncompromising attitude, a desire to "destroy" dissenters.6-7 more decades will pass, and in the era of the dominance of socialist realism, this trend is realized in the literal sense.

However, all this is still far ahead. In the meantime, new thinking is being developed in realism, a search is underway for new themes, images and style. The focus of realistic literature alternately "little man", "superfluous" and "new" people, folk types. The "little man" with his sorrows and joys, having first appeared in the works of A. Pushkin ("The Stationmaster") and N. Gogol ("The Overcoat"), became an object of sympathy in Russian literature for a long time. The social humiliation of the "little man" atoned for all the narrowness of his interests. Barely outlined in The Overcoat, the property of the "little man" to turn into a predator under favorable circumstances (at the end of the story a ghost appears, robbing any passer-by without regard to rank and condition) was noted only by F. Dostoevsky ("Double") and A. Chekhov (" The Triumph of the Winner", "Two in One"), but on the whole remained uncovered in the literature. Only in the 20th century will M. Bulgakov (The Heart of a Dog) devote a whole story to this problem.

Following the "little one" in Russian literature came the "extra person", the "smart uselessness" of Russian life, not yet ready to accept new social and philosophical ideas ("Rudin" by I. Turgenev, "Who is to blame?" A. Herzen, "Hero of our time" M. Lermontov and others). "Superfluous people" have mentally outgrown their environment and time, but due to their upbringing and property status they are not capable of everyday work and can only denounce self-satisfied vulgarity.

As a result of reflections on the possibilities of the nation, a gallery of images of "new people" appears, most vividly presented in "Fathers and Sons" by I. Turgenev and "What is to be done?" N. Chernyshevsky. Characters of this type are presented as resolute overthrowers of outdated morality and the state system and are an example of honest work and devotion to the "common cause". These are, as their contemporaries called them, "nihilists", whose authority among the younger generation was very high.

In contrast to the works about "nihilists" there is also an "anti-nihilist" literature. In works of both types, standard characters and situations are easily found. In the first category, the hero thinks independently and provides himself with intellectual work, his bold speeches and deeds make young people want to imitate authority, he is close to the masses and knows how to change their lives for the better, etc. In anti-nihilistic literature, "nihilists "usually depicted as depraved and unscrupulous phrase-mongers who pursue their narrowly selfish goals and crave power and worship; Traditionally, the connection between "nihilists" and "Polish rebels" was noted, etc.

There were not so many works about the "new people", while among their opponents were such writers as F. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, N. Leskov, A. Pisemsky, I. Goncharov, although it should be recognized that, for with the exception of "Demons" and "Cliff", their books are not among the best creations of these artists - and the reason for this is their pointed tendentiousness.

Deprived of the opportunity to openly discuss the pressing problems of our time in representative state institutions, Russian society concentrates its mental life in literature and journalism. The writer's word becomes very weighty and often serves as an impulse for making vital decisions. The hero of Dostoevsky's novel "The Teenager" admits that he went to the village in order to make life easier for the peasants under the influence of D. Grigorovich's "Anton Goremyka". The sewing workshops described in What Is to Be Done? have spawned many similar establishments in real life.

At the same time, it is noteworthy that Russian literature practically did not create the image of an active and energetic person, engaged in a specific business, but not thinking about a radical reorganization of the political system. Attempts in this direction (Kostanzhoglo and Murazov in "Dead Souls", Stolz in "Oblomov") were regarded by modern critics as groundless. And if the "dark kingdom" of A. Ostrovsky aroused keen interest among the public and critics, then subsequently the playwright's desire to draw portraits of entrepreneurs of a new formation did not find such a response in society.

The solution in literature and art of the "damned questions" of its time required a detailed justification of a whole range of tasks that could only be solved in prose (due to its ability to touch upon political, philosophical, moral and aesthetic problems at the same time). In prose, priority is given to the novel, this "epos of modern times" (V. Belinsky), a genre that made it possible to create broad and multifaceted pictures of the life of various social strata. A realistic novel turned out to be incompatible with plot situations that had already turned into clichés, which were so readily exploited by romantics - the secret of the hero's birth, fatal passions, extraordinary situations and exotic scenes in which the will and courage of the hero are tested, etc.

Now writers are looking for plots in the everyday existence of ordinary people, which becomes the object of close study in all details (interior, clothing, professional activities, etc.). Since the authors strive to give the most objective picture of reality, the emotional narrator either goes into the shadows or uses the mask of one of the characters.

Poetry, which has receded into the background, is largely oriented towards prose: poets master some features of prose narration (citizenship, plot, description of everyday details), as was the case, for example, in the poetry of I. Turgenev, N. Nekrasov, N. Ogarev.

Realistic portraiture also gravitates toward detailed description, as was also the case with the Romantics, but now it carries a different psychological burden. “By examining facial features, the writer seeks out the “main idea” of the physiognomy and conveys it in the fullness and universality of the inner life of a person. A realistic portrait, as a rule, is analytical, there is no artificiality in it; everything in it is natural and conditioned by character.” At the same time, the so-called "material characteristic" of the character (costume, home decoration) plays an important role, which also contributes to an in-depth disclosure of the psychology of the characters. Such are the portraits of Sobakevich, Manilov, Plyushkin in Dead Souls. In the future, the enumeration of details is replaced by some detail that gives scope to the reader's imagination, calling him to "co-authorship" when familiarizing himself with the work.

The depiction of everyday life leads to the rejection of complex metaphorical constructions and refined style. More and more rights in literary speech are being won by vernacular, dialectal and professional speeches, which, as a rule, were used by classicists and romantics only to create a comic effect. In this regard, "Dead Souls", "Notes of a Hunter" and a number of other works by Russian writers of the 1840s-1850s are indicative.

The development of realism in Russia proceeded at a very rapid pace. In just less than two decades, Russian realism, starting with the "physiological essays" of the 1840s, gave the world such writers as Gogol, Turgenev, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky ... Already in the middle of the 19th century, Russian literature became the focus of domestic social thoughts, going beyond the art of the word in a number of other arts. Literature "is imbued with moral and religious pathos, publicism and philosophy, is complicated by meaningful subtext; it masters the "Aesopian language", the spirit of opposition, protest; the burden of literature's responsibility to society and its liberating, analytical, generalizing mission in the context of the whole culture become fundamentally different. Literature becomes self-forming factor of culture, and above all, this circumstance (that is, cultural synthesis, functional universality, etc.) ultimately determined the universal significance of Russian classics (and not its direct relation to the revolutionary liberation movement, as Herzen tried to show, and after Lenin - almost all Soviet criticism and the science of literature).

Closely following the development of Russian literature, P. Merimee once said to Turgenev: "Your poetry seeks, first of all, truth, and then beauty appears by itself." Indeed, the mainstream of Russian classics is represented by characters who follow the path of moral quest, tormented by the consciousness that they did not fully use the opportunities provided by nature. Such are Pushkin's Onegin, Lermontov's Pechorin, Pierre Bezukhov and L. Tolstoy's Levin, Turgenev's Rudin, Dostoevsky's heroes. "The hero, who acquires moral self-determination on the paths given to man "from the ages", and thereby enriches his empirical nature, was exalted by Russian classic writers to the ideal of a person involved in Christian ontologism" . Is it not because the idea of ​​a social utopia at the beginning of the 20th century found such an effective response in Russian society that the Christian (specifically Russian) search for the "promised city", transformed in the popular consciousness into a communist "bright future", which is already visible beyond the horizon, had in Russia has such long and deep roots?

Abroad, the inclination towards the ideal was expressed much weaker, despite the fact that the critical element in literature sounded no less weighty. Here the general trend of Protestantism, which considers prosperity in the business sphere as the fulfillment of the will of God, has affected. The heroes of European writers suffer from injustice and vulgarity, but first of all they think about own happiness, while Turgenev's Rudin, Nekrasov's Grisha Dobrosklonov, Chernyshevsky's Rakhmetov are concerned not with personal success, but with general prosperity.

Moral problems in Russian literature are inseparable from political problems and, directly or indirectly, are associated with Christian dogmas. Russian writers often take on a role similar to the role of the Old Testament prophets - teachers of life (Gogol, Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy). “Russian artists,” N. Berdyaev wrote, “will have a thirst to move from the creation of works of art to the creation of a perfect life. The religious-metaphysical and religious-social theme torments all significant Russian writers.”

The strengthening of the role of fiction in public life entails the development of criticism. And here the palm also belongs to Pushkin, who moved from taste and normative assessments to the discovery of the general patterns of the contemporary literary process. Pushkin was the first to realize the need for a new way of depicting reality, "true romanticism", as he defined it. Belinsky was the first Russian critic who tried to create an integral historical and theoretical concept and periodization of Russian literature.

During the second half of the 19th century, it was the activities of critics (N. Chernyshevsky, N. Dobrolyubov, D. Pisarev, K. Aksakov, A. Druzhinin, A. Grigoriev and others) that contributed to the development of the theory of realism and the formation of Russian literary criticism (P. Annenkov, A. Pypin, A. Veselovsky, A. Potebnya, D. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky and others).

As you know, in art its main direction is laid by the achievements of outstanding artists, whose discoveries are used by "ordinary talents" (V. Belinsky). Let us characterize the main milestones in the formation and development of Russian realistic art, the conquests of which made it possible to call the second half of the century "the century of Russian literature."

At the origins of Russian realism are I. Krylov and A. Griboyedov. The great fabulist was the first in Russian literature to recreate the "Russian spirit" in his works. The lively colloquial speech of Krylov's fable characters, his thorough knowledge of folk life, the use of folk common sense as a moral standard made Krylov the first truly "folk" writer. Griboyedov expanded the scope of Krylov's interests, focusing on the "drama of ideas" by which educated society lived in the first quarter of the century. His Chatsky in the fight against the "Old Believers" defends national interests from the same positions of "common sense" and popular morality. Krylov and Griboedov still use the dilapidated principles of classicism (Krylov's didactic fable genre, the "three unities" in Woe from Wit), but their creative power even within these outdated frameworks declares itself in full voice.

In the work of Pushkin, the main problems, the pathos, and the methodology of realism have already been outlined. Pushkin was the first to give the image of the "superfluous person" in "Eugene Onegin", he also outlined the character of the "little man" ("The Stationmaster"), he saw in the people that moral potential that determines the national character ("The Captain's Daughter", "Dubrovsky" ). Under the poet's pen, for the first time, such a hero as Hermann ("Queen of Spades"), a fanatic, obsessed with one idea and not stopping for its implementation in front of any obstacles, arose for the first time; Pushkin also touched upon the theme of emptiness and insignificance of the upper strata of society.

All these problems and images were picked up and developed by Pushkin's contemporaries and subsequent generations of writers. "Superfluous people" and their possibilities are analyzed both in "A Hero of Our Time", and in "Dead Souls", and in "Who is to Blame?" Herzen, and in "Rudin" by Turgenev, and in "Oblomov" by Goncharov, depending on time and circumstances, acquiring new features and colors. "Little Man" is described by Gogol ("Overcoat"), Dostoevsky (Poor people"). Landowners-tyrants and "non-smokers" were portrayed by Gogol ("Dead Souls"), Turgenev ("Notes of a Hunter"), Saltykov-Shchedrin ("Lord Golovlevs "), Melnikov-Pechersky ("Old Years"), Leskov ("Dumb Artist") and many others. Of course, such types were supplied by Russian reality itself, but it was Pushkin who identified them and developed the basic techniques for their depiction. And folk types in them relations between themselves and the masters arose in objective coverage precisely in the work of Pushkin, subsequently becoming the object of close study of Turgenev, Nekrasov, Pisemsky, L. Tolstoy, and populist writers.

Having passed the period of romantic depiction of unusual characters in exceptional circumstances, Pushkin opened up to the reader the poetry of everyday life, in which the place of the hero was taken by an "ordinary", "small" person.

Pushkin rarely describes the inner world of characters, their psychology is more often revealed through actions or commented on by the author. The depicted characters are perceived as the result of environmental influences, but most often they are given not in development, but as some kind of already formed reality. The process of formation and transformation of the psychology of characters will be mastered in literature in the second half of the century.

Pushkin's role is also great in the development of norms and the expansion of the boundaries of literary speech. The colloquial element of the language, which clearly manifested itself in the work of Krylov and Griboyedov, still has not yet fully established its rights, it was not for nothing that Pushkin called for learning the language from Moscow prosvirens.

Simplicity and precision, "transparency" of Pushkin's style at first seemed to be a loss of the high aesthetic criteria of previous times. But later "the structure of Pushkin's prose, its style-forming principles were adopted by the writers who followed him - with all the individual originality of each of them" .

It is necessary to note one more feature of Pushkin's genius - his universalism. Poetry and prose, dramaturgy, journalism and historical studies - there was no genre in which he would not say a weighty word. The subsequent generations of artists, no matter how great their talent, still basically gravitate towards any one kind.

The development of Russian realism was not, of course, a straightforward and unambiguous process, during which romanticism was consistently and inevitably supplanted by realistic art. On the example of the work of M. Lermontov, this can be seen especially clearly.

In his early works, Lermontov creates romantic images, coming to the conclusion in "A Hero of Our Time" that "the history of the human soul, at least the smallest soul almost more curious and more useful than the history of a whole people ... ". The object of close attention in the novel is not only the hero - Pechorin. With no less care, the author peers into the experiences of "ordinary" people (Maxim Maksimych, Grushnitsky). The method of studying the psychology of Pechorin - confession - is associated with a romantic worldview, however, the general author's attitude to the objective depiction of characters determines the constant comparison of Pechorin with other characters, which makes it possible to convincingly motivate those actions of the hero that the romantic would have remained only declared.In different situations and in collisions with different people Pechorin opens up from new sides every time, revealing strength and effeminacy, determination and apathy, disinterestedness and selfishness ... Pechorin, like a romantic hero, experienced everything, lost faith in everything, but the author is not inclined to either blame or justify his hero - a position for romantic artist is unacceptable.

In "A Hero of Our Time" the dynamism of the plot, which would be quite appropriate in the adventure genre, is combined with a deep psychological analysis. This is how the romantic attitude of Lermontov, who embarked on the path of realism, manifested itself here. And having created "The Hero of Our Time", the poet did not completely part with the poetics of romanticism. The heroes of "Mtsyri" and "Demon", in essence, solve the same problems as Pechorin (achieving independence, freedom), only in the poems the experiment is set up, as they say, in its purest form. Almost everything is available to the demon, Mtsyri sacrifices everything for the sake of freedom, but the realist artist sums up the sad result of the desire for an absolute ideal in these works.

Lermontov completed "... begun by G. R. Derzhavin and continued by Pushkin, the process of eliminating genre boundaries in poetry. Most of his poetic texts are "poems" in general, often synthesizing features of different genres."

And Gogol began as a romantic ("Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka"), however, even after "Dead Souls", his most mature realistic creation, romantic situations and characters do not cease to attract the writer ("Rome", the second edition of "Portrait").

At the same time, Gogol refuses the romantic style. Like Pushkin, he prefers to convey the inner world of the characters not through their monologues or "confessions". Gogol's characters certify themselves through deeds or by means of "proper" characteristics. Gogol's narrator plays the role of a commentator, which makes it possible to reveal shades of feelings or details of events. But the writer is not limited only to the visible side of what is happening. For him, what is hidden behind the outer shell is much more important - the "soul". True, Gogol, like Pushkin, basically portrays already established characters.

Gogol laid the foundation for the revival of the religious and instructive trend in Russian literature. Already in the romantic "Evenings" dark forces, devilry, retreat before kindness and religious firmness of spirit. Taras Bulba is animated by the idea of ​​a direct defense of Orthodoxy. And "Dead Souls", inhabited by characters who neglected their spiritual development, were supposed to show the way to the revival of fallen man, according to the author's intention. The appointment of a writer in Russia for Gogol at the end of his career becomes inseparable from the spiritual service to God and people who cannot be limited only by material interests. Gogol's "Reflections on the Divine Liturgy" and "Selected passages from correspondence with friends" are dictated by a sincere desire to educate oneself in the spirit of highly moral Christianity. However, it was the last book that was perceived even by Gogol's admirers as a creative failure, since social progress, as it seemed to many then, was incompatible with religious "prejudices".

The writers of the "natural school" also did not accept this side of Gogol's creativity, having assimilated only its critical pathos, which in Gogol serves to affirm the spiritual ideal. The "natural school" limited itself, so to speak, to the "material sphere" of the writer's interests.

And subsequently, the realistic trend in literature makes the fidelity of the depiction of reality reproduced "in the forms of life itself" the main criterion of artistry. For its time, this was a huge achievement, since it made it possible to achieve such a degree of lifelikeness in the art of the word that literary characters begin to be perceived as real people and become an integral part of national and even world culture (Onegin, Pechorin, Khlestakov, Manilov, Oblomov, Tartarin, Madame Bovary, Mr. Dombey, Raskolnikov, etc.).

As already noted, a high degree of lifelikeness in literature by no means excludes fiction and fantasy. For example, in Gogol's famous story "The Overcoat", from which, according to Dostoevsky, all Russian literature of the 19th century came out, there is a fantastic story of a ghost that terrifies passers-by. Realism does not renounce the grotesque, symbol, allegory, etc., although all these pictorial means do not determine the main tone of the work. In those cases where the work is based on fantastic assumptions ("History of a City" by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin), they have no place for the irrational principle, without which romanticism cannot do.

Orientation to the facts was the strength of realism, but, as you know, "our shortcomings are a continuation of our virtues." In the 1870s and 1890s, a trend emerged within European realism called "naturalism". Under the influence of the success of the natural sciences and positivism (philosophical doctrine of O. Comte), writers want to achieve complete objectivity of the reproduced reality. “I don’t want, like Balzac, to decide what the structure of human life should be, to be a politician, philosopher, moralist ... The picture I draw is a simple analysis of a piece of reality, such as it is,” said one of the ideologists of “naturalism” E. Zola.

Despite internal contradictions, the group of French naturalist writers that developed around Zola (brothers E. and J. Goncourt, Ch. Huysmans and others) professed a common view on the task of art: the image of the inevitability and invincibility of rough social reality and cruel human instincts that everyone is drawn in a stormy and chaotic "stream of life" into the abyss of passions and actions that are unpredictable in their consequences.

The human psychology of "naturalists" is rigidly determined by the environment. Hence the attention to the smallest details of life, fixed with the dispassionateness of the camera, and at the same time, the biological predestination of the fate of the characters is emphasized. In an effort to write "according to the dictation of life", naturalists tried to erase any manifestation of the subjective vision of the problems and objects of the image. At the same time, pictures of the most unattractive aspects of reality appear in their works. The writer, naturalists argued, like the doctor, has no right to ignore any phenomenon, no matter how disgusting it may be. With such an attitude, the biological principle involuntarily began to look more important than the social. The books of naturalists shocked adherents of traditional aesthetics, but nevertheless, later writers (S. Crane, F. Norris, G. Hauptman and others) used individual discoveries of naturalism - primarily the expansion of the field of vision of art.

In Russia, naturalism has not received much development. We can only talk about some naturalistic tendencies in the work of A. Pisemsky and D. Mamin-Sibiryak. The only Russian writer who declaratively professed the principles of French naturalism was P. Boborykin.

The literature and journalism of the post-reform era gave rise in the thinking part of Russian society to the conviction that the revolutionary reorganization of society would immediately lead to the flowering of all the best aspects of the individual, since there would be no oppression and lies. Very few did not share this confidence, and first of all F. Dostoevsky.

The author of "Poor People" was aware that the rejection of the norms of traditional morality and the precepts of Christianity would lead to anarchy and a bloody war of all against all. As a Christian, Dostoevsky knew that in every human soul can prevail

God or the devil, and that it depends on each one to whom he will give preference. But the path to God is not easy. To get closer to him, you need to be imbued with the suffering of others. Without understanding and empathy for others, no one will be able to become a full-fledged person. With all his work, Dostoevsky proved: “A person on the surface of the earth has no right to turn away and ignore what is happening on earth, and there are higher moral reasons for it."

Unlike his predecessors, Dostoevsky strove not to capture established, typical, forms of life and psychology, but to capture and designate emerging social conflicts and types. His works are always dominated by crisis situations and characters outlined in large, sharp strokes. In his novels, "dramas of ideas", intellectual and psychological fights of characters are brought to the fore, moreover, the individual is inseparable from the universal, behind a single fact are "world issues".

Finding the loss of moral guidelines in modern society, the impotence and fear of the individual in the grip of an unspiritual reality, Dostoevsky did not believe that a person should capitulate to "external circumstances". He, according to Dostoevsky, can and must overcome "chaos" - and then, as a result of the common efforts of everyone, "world harmony" will reign, based on overcoming unbelief, egoism and anarchic self-will. A person who has embarked on the thorny path of self-improvement will face material deprivation, moral suffering, and misunderstanding of others ("Idiot"). The most difficult thing is not to become a "superman", like Raskolnikov, and, seeing others only as "rags", to indulge any desire, but to learn to forgive and love without demanding a reward, like Prince Myshkin or Alyosha Karamazov.

Like no other leading artist of his time, Dostoevsky is close to the spirit of Christianity. In his work, the problem of the original sinfulness of man is analyzed in various aspects ("Demons", "Teenager", "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "The Brothers Karamazov"). According to the writer, the result of the original fall is world evil, which gives rise to one of the most acute social problems - the problem of theomachism. "Atheistic expressions of unprecedented power" are contained in the images of Stavrogin, Versilov, Ivan Karamazov, but their throwing does not prove the victory of evil and pride. This is the way to God through His initial denial, the proof of God's existence by way of contradiction. The ideal hero in Dostoevsky must inevitably take as a model the life and teachings of the One who for the writer is the only moral guide in the world of doubt and hesitation (Prince Myshkin, Alyosha Karamazov).

With the ingenious instinct of the artist, Dostoevsky felt that socialism, under the banner of which many honest and intelligent people rush, is the result of the decline of religion ("Demons"). The writer predicted that on the path of social progress humanity would face severe upheavals, and directly connected them with the loss of faith and its replacement by socialist doctrine. The depth of Dostoevsky's insight was confirmed in the 20th century by S. Bulgakov, who already had reason to assert: "... Socialism today acts not only as a neutral area of ​​​​social policy, but, usually, as a religion based on atheism and human-godliness, on self-deification of man and human labor and on the recognition of the elemental forces of nature and social life as the only building principle of history. In the USSR, all this was realized in practice. All means of propaganda and agitation, among which literature played one of the leading roles, introduced into the consciousness of the masses that the proletariat, always led by the leader and the party, always right in any undertakings, and creative labor are forces designed to transform the world and create a society of universal happiness (a kind of Kingdom of God on earth). The only thing Dostoevsky was mistaken about was his assumption that the moral crisis and the subsequent spiritual and social cataclysms would erupt primarily in Europe.

Along with "eternal questions", Dostoevsky the realist is also characterized by attention to the most ordinary and at the same time hidden from the mass consciousness facts of modernity. Together with the author, these problems are given to the heroes of the writer's works, and comprehension of the truth is very difficult for them. The struggle of the individual with the social environment and with himself determines the special polyphonic form of Dostoevsky's novels.

The author-narrator takes part in the action on the rights of an equal, and even a minor character ("chronicler" in "Demons"). The hero of Dostoevsky not only has an inner secret world that the reader will have to know; he, according to M. Bakhtin’s definition, “most of all thinks about what others think and can think about him, he strives to get ahead of someone else’s consciousness, every other thought about him, every point of view on him. With all his own moments of his confessions, he tries to anticipate the possible definition and evaluation of him by others, to guess these possible other people's words about him, interrupting his speech with imaginary other people's remarks. In an effort to guess other people's opinions and arguing with them in advance, Dostoevsky's heroes, as it were, call to life their doubles, in whose speeches and actions the reader receives a justification or denial of the position of the characters (Raskolnikov - Luzhin and Svidrigailov in "Crime and Punishment", Stavrogin - Shatov and Kirillov in "Demons").

The dramatic intensity of the action in Dostoevsky's novels is also due to the fact that he brings events as close as possible to the "topics of the day", sometimes drawing plots from newspaper notes. Almost always in the center of Dostoevsky's work is a crime. However, behind the sharp, almost detective plot, there is not a desire to solve an ingenious logical problem. Criminal events and motives are elevated by the writer to the level of capacious philosophical symbols ("Crime and Punishment", "Demons", "The Brothers Karamazov").

The scene of action of Dostoevsky's novels is Russia, and often only its capital, and at the same time the writer received worldwide recognition, because for many decades ahead he anticipated the general interest in global problems for the 20th century ("superman" and the rest of the mass, "man of the crowd" and state machine, faith and spiritual anarchy, etc.). The writer created a world populated by complex, contradictory characters, saturated with dramatic conflicts, for the solution of which there are no and cannot be simple recipes - one of the reasons that in Soviet times Dostoevsky's work was either declared reactionary or hushed up.

Dostoevsky's work outlined the main direction of literature and culture of the 20th century. Dostoevsky inspired Z. Freud in many ways, A. Einstein, T. Mann, W. Faulkner, F. Fellini, A. Camus, Akutagawa and other outstanding thinkers and artists spoke about the enormous influence on them of the works of the Russian writer.

L. Tolstoy also made a huge contribution to the development of Russian literature. Already in his first published story "Childhood" (1852), Tolstoy acted as an innovative artist.

The detail and clarity of his description of everyday life are combined with a microanalysis of the complex and mobile psychology of the child.

Tolstoy uses his own method of depicting the human psyche, observing the "dialectics of the soul." The writer seeks to trace the formation of character and does not emphasize its "positive" and "negative" sides. He argued that it makes no sense to talk about some "defining trait" of the character. "... In my life I have never met an evil, proud, kind, or intelligent person. In humility I always find a suppressed desire for pride, in the smartest book I find stupidity, in the conversation of the stupidest person I find smart things, etc. etc., etc.".

The writer was sure that if people learn to understand the multi-layered thoughts and feelings of others, then most psychological and social conflicts will lose their sharpness. The task of the writer, according to Tolstoy, is to teach others to understand. And for this it is necessary that truth in all its manifestations become the hero of literature. This goal is already declared in the "Sevastopol Tales" (1855-1856), which combines the documentary accuracy of what is depicted and the depth of psychological analysis.

The tendentiousness of art promoted by Chernyshevsky and his supporters turned out to be unacceptable for Tolstoy, if only because the a priori idea that determines the selection of facts and the angle of view was put at the forefront in the work. The writer almost demonstratively adjoins the camp of "pure art", which rejects all "didactics". But the position "above the fight" turned out to be unacceptable for him. In 1864, he wrote the play "Infected Family" (it was not printed and staged in the theater), in which he expressed his sharp rejection of "nihilism". In the future, all of Tolstoy's work is devoted to the overthrow of hypocritical bourgeois morality and social inequality, although he did not adhere to any specific political doctrine.

Already at the beginning of his creative path, having lost faith in the possibility of changing social orders, especially by violent means, the writer is looking for at least personal happiness in the family circle ("Roman of the Russian Landowner", 1859), however, having constructed his ideal of a woman capable of selflessness in the name of her husband and children, comes to the conclusion that this ideal is also unrealizable.

Tolstoy longed to find a model of life in which there would be no place at all for any artificiality, any falsehood. For a while, he believed that one could be happy among simple, undemanding people close to nature. It is only necessary to completely share their way of life and be content with the few that form the basis of the "correct" being (free labor, love, duty, family ties - "Cossacks", 1863). And Tolstoy also strives in real life to be imbued with the interests of the people, but his direct contacts with the peasants and the work of the 1860s and 1870s reveal an ever-deepening gulf between the peasant and the master.

Tolstoy also tries to discover the meaning of modernity, which eludes him, by delving into the historical past, by returning to the origins of the national worldview. He came up with the idea of ​​a huge epic canvas, which would reflect and comprehend the most significant moments in the life of Russia. In War and Peace (1863-1869), Tolstoy's heroes painfully strive to comprehend the meaning of life and, together with the author, are imbued with the conviction that it is possible to comprehend the thoughts and feelings of people only at the cost of renouncing one's own egoistic desires and gaining the experience of suffering. Some, like Andrei Bolkonsky, learn this truth before their death; others - Pierre Bezukhov - find it, rejecting skepticism and defeating the power of the flesh with the power of reason, find themselves in high love; the third - Platon Karataev - this truth is given from birth, because they embody "simplicity" and "truth". According to the author, Karataev's life "as he himself looked at it, did not make sense as a separate life. It made sense only as a particle of the whole, which he constantly felt." This moral position is also illustrated by the example of Napoleon and Kutuzov. The gigantic will and passions of the French emperor succumb to the actions of the Russian commander, devoid of external effect, for the latter expresses the will of the entire nation, united in the face of formidable danger.

In creativity and in life, Tolstoy strove for harmony of thought and feeling, which could be achieved with a general understanding of individual particulars and the general picture of the universe. The path to such harmony is long and thorny, but it is impossible to shorten it. Tolstoy, like Dostoevsky, did not accept the revolutionary doctrine. Paying tribute to the disinterested faith of the "socialists", the writer nevertheless saw salvation not in the revolutionary demolition of the state system, but in the unswerving adherence to the gospel commandments, both simple and just as difficult to fulfill. He was sure that one should not "invent life and demand its implementation."

But the restless soul and mind of Tolstoy could not fully accept the Christian doctrine either. At the end of the 19th century, the writer opposes the official church, which is largely related to the state bureaucracy, and tries to correct Christianity, create his own doctrine, which, despite numerous followers ("Tolstoyism"), had no future prospects.

In his declining years, having become a "teacher of life" for millions in his homeland and far beyond its borders, Tolstoy still constantly had doubts about his own rightness. Only in one thing he was unshakable: the custodian of the highest truth is the people, with its simplicity and naturalness. The interest of the decadents in the dark and hidden twists of the human psyche for the writer meant a departure from art, which actively serves humanistic ideals. True, in the last years of his life, Tolstoy was inclined to think that art is a luxury that not everyone needs: first of all, society needs to comprehend the simplest moral truths, the strict observance of which would eliminate many "damned questions."

And one more name cannot be dispensed with when speaking about the evolution of Russian realism. This is A. Chekhov. He refuses to recognize the complete dependence of the individual on the environment. "Dramatically conflicting positions in Chekhov do not consist in opposing the volitional orientation of different sides, but in objectively caused contradictions, before which the individual will is powerless" . In other words, the writer gropes for those painful points of human nature that will later be explained by congenital complexes, genetic programming, etc. Chekhov also refuses to study the possibilities and desires of the "little man", the object of his study is an "average" person in all respects. Like the characters of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Chekhov's heroes are also woven from contradictions; their thought also aspires to the knowledge of the Truth, but they do not succeed well, and almost none of them thinks about God.

Chekhov discovers a new type of personality born of Russian reality - the type of an honest but limited doctrinaire who firmly believes in the power of social "progress" and judges living life using socio-literary templates (Dr. Lvov in Ivanov, Lida in Dom with a mezzanine, etc.). Such people talk a lot and willingly about duty and the need for honest work, about virtue, although it is clear that behind all their tirades there is a lack of genuine feeling - their tireless activity is akin to mechanical.

Those characters with whom Chekhov sympathizes do not like loud words and significant gestures, even if they experience a real drama. Tragic in the understanding of the writer is not something exceptional. In modern times, it is everyday and ordinary. A person gets used to the fact that there is no other life and cannot be, and this, according to Chekhov, is the most terrible social ailment. At the same time, the tragic in Chekhov is inseparable from the funny, satire is merged with lyrics, vulgarity coexists with the sublime, as a result of which an "undercurrent" appears in Chekhov's works, the subtext becomes no less significant than the text.

Dealing with the "little things" of life, Chekhov gravitates towards an almost plotless narrative ("Ionych", "Steppe", "The Cherry Orchard"), towards an imaginary incompleteness of the action. The center of gravity in his works is transferred to the story of the spiritual hardening of the character ("Gooseberry", "The Man in the Case") or, on the contrary, his awakening ("The Bride", "Duel").

Chekhov invites the reader to empathy, not saying everything that is known to the author, but pointing to the direction of the "search" only in separate details, which he often grows into symbols (a dead bird in "The Seagull", a berry in "Gooseberry"). "Both symbols and subtext, combining in themselves opposite aesthetic properties (of a concrete image and an abstract generalization, of a real text and an "inner" thought in the subtext), reflect the general trend of realism, which has intensified in Chekhov's work, towards the interpenetration of heterogeneous artistic elements."

By the end of the 19th century, Russian literature had accumulated a huge aesthetic and ethical experience, which won world recognition. And yet, for many writers, this experience already seemed dead. Some (V. Korolenko, M. Gorky) tend to merge realism with romance, others (K. Balmont, F. Sologub, V. Bryusov and others) believe that "copying" reality has become obsolete.

The loss of clear criteria in aesthetics is accompanied by a "crisis of consciousness" in the philosophical and social spheres. D. Merezhkovsky in the pamphlet "On the Causes of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature" (1893) concludes that the crisis in Russian literature is due to an excessive enthusiasm for the ideals of revolutionary democracy, which requires art, above all, civic sharpness. The obvious failure of the precepts of the sixties gave rise to public pessimism and a tendency towards individualism. Merezhkovsky wrote: “The latest theory of knowledge has erected an indestructible dam that forever separated the solid earth accessible to people from the boundless and dark ocean that lies beyond our knowledge. And the waves of this ocean can no longer invade the inhabited earth, the realm of exact knowledge. .. Never before has the boundary line of science and faith been so sharp and inexorable... Wherever we go, no matter how we hide behind the dam of scientific criticism, with our whole being we feel the proximity of mystery, the proximity of the ocean. alone! No enslaved mysticism of the past ages can compare with this horror. Never before have people felt the need to believe so much and so understood the impossibility of believing with reason. L. Tolstoy also spoke about the crisis of art in a somewhat different way: "Literature was a blank sheet, and now it is all written over. We must turn it over or get another one."

Realism, which had reached its highest peak, seemed to many to have finally exhausted its possibilities. Symbolism, which originated in France, claimed a new word in art.

Russian symbolism, like all previous trends in art, dissociated itself from the old tradition. Yet the Russian Symbolists grew up on the ground prepared by such giants as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov, and could not ignore their experience and artistic discoveries. "... Symbolic prose actively involved the ideas, themes, images, techniques of the great Russian realists in its own artistic world, forming by this constant comparison one of the defining properties of symbolic art and thus giving many themes of realistic literature of the 19th century a second reflected life in the art of the 20th century ". And later "critical" realism, which was declared abolished in Soviet times, continued to nourish the aesthetics of L. Leonov, M. Sholokhov, V. Grossman, V. Belov, V. Rasputin, F. Abramov and many other writers.

What is realism in literature? It is one of the most common areas, reflecting a realistic image of reality. The main task of this direction is reliable disclosure of phenomena encountered in life, with the help of a detailed description of the depicted characters and the situations that happen to them, through typing. Important is the lack of embellishment.

In contact with

Among other directions, only in the realistic one, special attention is paid to the correct artistic depiction of life, and not to the emerging reaction to certain life events, for example, as in romanticism and classicism. The heroes of realist writers appear before readers exactly as they were presented to the author's gaze, and not as the writer would like to see them.

Realism, as one of the most widespread trends in literature, settled closer to the middle of the 19th century after its predecessor, romanticism. The 19th century was subsequently designated as the era of realistic works, but romanticism did not cease to exist, it only slowed down in development, gradually turning into neo-romanticism.

Important! The definition of this term was first introduced into literary criticism by D.I. Pisarev.

The main features of this direction are as follows:

1. Full compliance with reality depicted in any work of the picture.
2. True specific typing of all the details in the images of the characters.
3. The basis is the conflict situation between the individual and society.
4. Image in the work deep conflict situations the drama of life.
5. The author pays special attention to the description of all environmental phenomena.
6. A significant feature of this literary trend is the writer's considerable attention to the inner world of a person, his state of mind.

Main genres

In any of the areas of literature, including the realistic, a certain system of genres is being formed. It was the prose genres of realism that had a special influence on its development, due to the fact that they were more suitable than others for a more correct artistic description of new realities, their reflection in literature. The works of this direction are divided into the following genres.

1. A social and everyday novel that describes the way of life and a certain type of characters inherent in this way of life. A good example of a social genre is Anna Karenina.
2. A socio-psychological novel, in the description of which one can see a complete detailed disclosure of the human personality, his personality and inner world.
3. The realistic novel in verse is a special kind of novel. A wonderful example of this genre is "", written by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
4. A realistic philosophical novel contains age-old reflections on topics such as: the meaning of human existence, the opposition of good and evil sides, a certain purpose of human life. An example of a realistic philosophical novel is "", the author of which is Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov.
5. Story.
6. Tale.

In Russia, its development began in the 1830s and became a consequence of the conflict situation in various spheres of society, the contradictions between the highest ranks and the common people. Writers began to address the topical issues of their time.

Thus begins the rapid development of a new genre - a realistic novel, which, as a rule, described the hard life of the common people, their hardships and problems.

The initial stage in the development of the realistic trend in Russian literature is the "natural school". During the period of the “natural school”, literary works were more inclined to describe the position of the hero in society, his belonging to any kind of profession. Among all genres, the leading place was occupied by physiological outline.

In the 1850s-1900s, realism began to be called critical, since the main goal was to criticize what was happening, the relationship between a certain person and spheres of society. Such questions were considered as: the measure of society's influence on the life of an individual; actions that can change a person and the world around him; reason for the lack of happiness in human life.

This literary trend has become extremely popular in Russian literature, as Russian writers were able to make the world genre system richer. There were works from in-depth questions of philosophy and morality.

I.S. Turgenev created an ideological type of heroes, the character, personality and internal state of which directly depended on the author's assessment of the worldview, finding a certain meaning in the concepts of their philosophy. Such heroes are subject to ideas that are followed to the very end, developing them as much as possible.

In the works of L.N. Tolstoy, the system of ideas that develops during the life of a character determines the form of his interaction with the surrounding reality, depends on the morality and personal characteristics of the heroes of the work.

Founder of realism

The title of the initiator of this direction in Russian literature was rightfully awarded to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. He is a generally recognized founder of realism in Russia. "Boris Godunov" and "Eugene Onegin" are considered a vivid example of realism in the domestic literature of those times. Also distinguishing examples were such works by Alexander Sergeevich as Belkin's Tales and The Captain's Daughter.

Classical realism gradually begins to develop in Pushkin's creative works. The depiction of the personality of each character of the writer is comprehensive in an effort to describe the complexity of his inner world and state of mind which unfold very harmoniously. Recreating the experiences of a certain personality, its moral character helps Pushkin to overcome the willfulness of describing passions inherent in irrationalism.

Heroes A.S. Pushkin appear before readers with the open sides of their being. The writer pays special attention to the description of the sides of the human inner world, depicts the hero in the process of development and formation of his personality, which are influenced by the reality of society and the environment. This was served by his awareness of the need to depict a specific historical and national identity in the features of the people.

Attention! Reality in the image of Pushkin collects in itself an accurate concrete image of the details of not only the inner world of a certain character, but also the world that surrounds him, including his detailed generalization.

Neorealism in literature

New philosophical, aesthetic and everyday realities at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries contributed to a change in direction. Implemented twice, this modification acquired the name neorealism, which gained popularity during the 20th century.

Neorealism in literature consists of a variety of currents, since its representatives had a different artistic approach to depicting reality, which includes the characteristic features of a realistic direction. It is based on appeal to the traditions of classical realism XIX century, as well as to problems in the social, moral, philosophical and aesthetic spheres of reality. A good example containing all these features is the work of G.N. Vladimov "The General and his army", written in 1994.

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 broad social background in which the life of the characters takes place (Balzac's Human Comedy, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Gogol's Dead Souls, etc.). In their depth of understanding of 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 takes place in European countries and in Russia almost at the same time - in the 20-40s of the XIX 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 such as "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 domestic historical and literary science, “the revolutionary events of 1848 and the important changes that followed them in the socio-political and cultural life of bourgeois society” are considered to be what divides “the realism of foreign countries of the 19th century into two stages - the realism of the first and second half of the 19th century "("History of foreign literature of the 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, a new stage in the development of realism begins in the 50s, 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 man 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. In Thackeray's novel Newcombs, the specificity of "human science" in the realism of this period is emphasized - the need for understanding and analytical reproduction of multidirectional subtle spiritual movements and indirect, not always manifested social ties: how often, when analyzing my motives, I took one for the other ... ". 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 closer together. 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 of the natural sciences and the flourishing of experimentation.

This was an important period in the history of science. 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 an important role in the development of naturalistic aesthetics and artistic practice, became widespread. 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 "a new level of depiction of the inner world of a person, a qualitatively new mastery of psychological analysis, which consists in the deepest disclosure of the complexity and unforeseenness 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 techniques for conveying "transitional", contradictory spiritual movements that were previously inaccessible to literature.

This does not mean at all that realistic literature abandoned social analysis: the social basis of 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 inner world of the character allows you to ultimately immerse yourself in the era, in historical time, as he sees it. writer. 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 another important point related to the absolutization of the imperfection of 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 a worldwide literary trend. A notable feature of realism is also the fact that it has a long history. At the end of the 19th and in the 20th centuries, the works of such writers as R. Rollan, D. Golussource, B. Shaw, E. M. Remarque, T. Dreiser and others gained worldwide fame. Realism continues to exist up to the present time, remaining the most important form of world democratic culture.

Realism is a literary trend in which the surrounding reality is depicted specifically historically, in the variety of its contradictions, and "typical characters act in typical circumstances." Literature is understood by realist writers as a textbook of life. Therefore, they strive to comprehend life in all its contradictions, and a person - in the psychological, social and other aspects of his personality. Features common to realism: Historicism of thinking. The focus is on the regularities that operate in life, due to cause-and-effect relationships. Fidelity to reality becomes the leading criterion of artistry in realism. A person is depicted in interaction with the environment in authentic life circumstances. Realism shows the influence of the social environment on the spiritual world of a person, the formation of his character. Characters and circumstances interact with each other: the character is not only conditioned (determined) by circumstances, but also acts on them (changes, opposes). In the works of realism, deep conflicts are presented, life is given in dramatic clashes. Reality is given in development. Realism depicts not only the already established forms of social relations and types of characters, but also reveals emerging, forming a trend. The nature and type of realism depends on the socio-historical situation - in different eras it manifests itself in different ways. In the second third of the XIX century. increased critical attitude of writers to the surrounding reality - and to the environment, society, and man. Critical understanding of life, aimed at denying its individual aspects, gave reason to call the realism of the XIX century. critical. The largest Russian realists were L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, I.S. Turgenev, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A.P. Chekhov. The depiction of the surrounding reality, human characters from the point of view of the progressiveness of the socialist ideal created the basis of socialist realism. M. Gorky's novel "Mother" is considered the first work of socialist realism in Russian literature. A. Fadeev, D. Furmanov, M. Sholokhov, A. Tvardovsky worked in the spirit of socialist realism.

15. French and English realistic novel (author of choice).

French novel Stendhal(Literary pseudonym Henri Marie Bayle) (1783-1842). In 1830, Stendhal finished the novel "Red and Black", which marked the onset of the writer's maturity .. The plot of the novel is based on real events related to the court case of a certain Antoine Berthe. Stendhal found out about them by looking through the chronicle of the Grenoble newspaper. As it turned out, a young man sentenced to death, the son of a peasant, who decided to make a career, became a tutor in the family of the local rich man Mishu, but, caught in a love affair with the mother of his pupils, lost his place. Failures awaited him later. He was expelled from the theological seminary, and then from the service in the Parisian aristocratic mansion de Cardone, where he was compromised by his relationship with the owner's daughter and especially by a letter from Mrs. Misha, who was shot in the church by a desperate Berthe and then tried to commit suicide. This court chronicle is not accidental. attracted the attention of Stendhal, who conceived a novel about the tragic fate of a talented plebeian in France during the Restoration. However, the real source only awakened the creative imagination of the artist, who was always looking for opportunities to confirm the truth of fiction with reality. Instead of a petty ambitious man, the heroic and tragic personality of Julien Sorel appears. The facts undergo no less metamorphosis in the plot of the novel, which recreates the typical features of an entire era in the main patterns of its historical development.

English novel. Valentina IvashevaAN ENGLISH REALISTIC NOVEL OF THE XIX CENTURY IN ITS MODERN SOUND

The book by Doctor of Philology Valentina Ivasheva (1908-1991) traces the development of the English realistic novel from the end of the 18th century to the end of the 19th century. - from the works of J. Osten, W. Godwin and to the novels of George Eliot and E. Trollope. The author shows the new and original that was introduced into its development by each of the classics of critical realism: Dickens and Thackeray, Gaskell and Bronte, Disraeli and Kingsley. The author traces how the legacy of the classics of the "Victorian" novel is being rethought in modern England.