Gilenson B.A.: History of foreign literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. France

French novelist and critic Anatole France (real name Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault) was born in Paris, the son of second-hand bookseller Francois Noel Thibault and Antoinette (Galla) Thibault. As a child, Anatole, an only child in the family, spent a lot of time on the Seine embankment, rummaging through piles of books ("It was a library three blocks long," as he himself later wrote) and listening to the conversations of bookworms who often went to his father's shop.

Frans (a diminutive of Francois, his father's name) entered Stanislas College, a Jesuit school in Paris. The boy read Greek and Roman authors, but U. did not like school. He was a mediocre student, receiving excellent marks only for essays, and his mother advised him to become a writer. After failing several times in his final exams, he finally passed them at the age of 20.

When his father retired in 1866, F., forced to earn his own living, got a job in a magazine. Working as a bibliographer for the publisher Alphonse Lemerre, he met the newly created literary group Parnassus. creativity of the poet Alfred de Vigny, F. becomes one of the central figures in Parnassus.

During the Franco-Prussian War, F. served in the army for some time, after demobilization, he continued to write and perform various editorial work. In 1875, he had his first real opportunity to prove himself as a journalist, the Parisian newspaper Le Temps ordered him a series of critical articles on contemporary writers, and the very next year he became the leading literary critic of this newspaper, F. maintains his own rubric called "Literary Life" ("La Vie litteraire"). Articles appearing in this column for several years were published as a separate edition in four volumes in 1889-1892. under the heading "Literary Life". In the preface to this edition, F. expressed his attitude to the subjectivity of literary criticism. "A good critic, wrote F., - tells not so much about what he read, but about the adventures of his own soul." In 1876, Mr.. F. appointed Deputy Director of the Library of the Senate and for 14 years held this post, which gave him the opportunity and means to engage in literature. In 1877 he marries Valerie Guérin de Sauville.

At this time, the writer gradually moves away from Parnassus and approaches Kalman Levy, who became the publisher of his two next books. The first (1879) included two stories - "Jocaste" ("Jocaste") and "The Skinny Cat" ("Le Chat maigre"), the second (1881) - the novel "The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard" ("Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard" ), which brought F. fame and the award of the French Academy "The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard" is still the most read book of F. The hero of the novel, the old scientist Sylvester Bonnard, a skeptic by nature, charming and condescending to people, became the first of F.'s literary heroes, in which the personality of the writer himself and the spirit of the era were embodied. As the literary critic Jules Lemaitre noted, the literary heroes of previous eras were a citizen, an artist, a knight, a priest, a secular person, “the end of the 19th century. represented by a lonely elderly scientist, intelligent, thoughtful, ironic and very soft"

Thanks to the success of "Sylvester Bonnard" and the popularity of his weekly column in the "Tempe" F. included in the high Parisian society. In 1883 he met Leontina Armand de Canave, who kept one of the most brilliant literary, political and artistic salons. After 5 years, Leontina becomes his lover, and after F. divorced his wife in 1893, he and Leontina live in an informal marriage until her death (1910). Leontina showed touching concern for the writer (F. himself was completely helpless in everyday life), taught him secular manners and contributed to his literary career.

Other significant works of this period include a novel about a Christian fanatic and ascetic, a religious hermit Pafnutia "Tais" ("Thai" s", 1890) and "The Tavern of Queen Goose Feet" ("La Rotissene de la reine Pedauque", 1893) - a novel , where another famous literary hero F. is bred - Abbé Jérôme Coignard, a sage, vagabond and lover of life of the 18th century. "The judgments of Mr. Jerome Coignard" ("Les Opinions de M. Jerome Coignard", 1893). "The Red Lily" ("Ze Lys rouge", 1894) is a novel inspired by F.'s love for Leontine de Caiava and their first trip to Italy The collection of short stories "Mother of Pearl Casket" ("L" Etui de nacre", 1892) included one of the most famous stories of F. "The Procurator of Judea" ("Le Procurateur de Judee"). In 1896, Mr.. F. elected a member of the French Academy. During these years, F. begins to take an interest in social and political issues and in 1897 begins work on a tetralogy under the general title "Modern History" ("L" Histoire contemporame"), through which the third significant hero of F. passes - Mr. Bergeret, a provincial school teacher.

In 1898, Mr.. F. took part in the Dreyfus affair. Under the influence of Marcel Proust, F. was the first to sign Emile Zola's famous manifesto letter I Accuse (1898). This letter denounced the attempt to accuse Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer of the French army, of high treason and argued that this accusation was fabricated in order to save the high army command, convicted of corruption, from scandal. F. describes the Dreyfus case in the 4th volume of "Modern History", entitled "Mr. Bergeret in Paris" ("Monsieur Bergeret a Paris", 1900). parties.

The writer's next work, the two-volume historical work The Life of Joan of Arc (Vie de Jeanne d'Arc, 1908), written under the influence of F.'s friend, the historian Ernest Renan, was received poorly. Catholics objected to the demystification of Jeanne, and historians F.'s book seemed insufficiently truthful. But the parody of the French story "Penguin Island" ("L" Ile de pingouins"), also published in 1908, was received with great enthusiasm. In "Penguin Island", the short-sighted Abbé Mael mistakenly mistook the penguins for people and christened them, which caused a lot of difficulties in heaven and on earth.In the book "The Gods are thirsty" ("Les Dieux ont soif", 1912), a historical novel about the French Revolution, F. relied on the knowledge that he learned from books read in childhood in his father's bookstore.

After 1913, F. returns to the autobiographical themes of his early works, he writes essays on childhood and adolescence, which were later included in the novels "Little Pierre" ("Le Petit Pierre", 1918) and "Life in Bloom" ("La Vie en fleur", 1922).

In 1921, Mr.. F. awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for brilliant literary achievements, marked by sophistication of style, deeply suffering humanism and truly Gallic temperament." In his welcoming speech, a member of the Swedish Academy, Eric Karlfeldt, emphasized the impeccability of F.'s style and its role in world culture. “Today, F. is the most authoritative representative of French culture,” Karlfeldt said. – He is the last great classic. He is even called the last European.” In response, F. condemned all wars and expressed support for pacifism.

F. died October 13, 1924 in Tours, where he moved 10 years before his death. Members of the French government attended his funeral. After F.'s death, his popularity declined sharply. Representatives of the post-war generation adhered to the point of view of the English novelist Arnold Bennett, who at one time reproached F. with "spiritual anemia." Since that time, the work of F. mainly engaged in scientists, textual critics and literary critics. For example, Wayne Booth explored irony in the works of F., Murray Sachs - the writer's contribution to the development of the French short story. According to Paul Valery, F. clearly showed that priceless treasures can still be created in French, continuing the great cultural tradition. Dushan Breschi, speaking of the writer Joseph Conrad once called "the prince of prose," concluded: "Despite all the vicissitudes of critical fashion, F. will always stand next to [George Bernard] Shaw as the great satirist of our age and with such writers as Rabelais, Molière and Voltaire as one of the greatest French wit."

Anatole France was born four years before the French Revolution of 1848 and lived for eight decades shattered by political passions, uprisings, coups and wars. A poet, publicist, novelist, satirist, he was an active person who showed extraordinary power of mind and originality of nature. His literary work was the same - passionate, sarcastic, organically combined with dreaminess, a poetic attitude to life.

Anatole France was called "the most French writer, the most Parisian, the most refined." And Leo Tolstoy, noting his truthful and strong talent, said about him: "Europe now has no real artist-writer, except for Anatole France."
Anatole France (real name Anatole Francois Thibault) was born on April 16, 1844 in Paris to the second-hand book dealer Francois Noel and Antoinette Thibault.

Frans explained his pseudonym, already being a venerable writer, by the fact that his father, Francois Noel Thibault, who came from an ancient family of Angevin winegrowers, was called Frans all his life in this region.

Anatole grew up in an atmosphere of books and a professional interest in the printed word; from childhood, the bookstore was a "treasury" for him, as he later wrote in his memoirs. Already at the age of eight, little Anatole compiled a collection of moralizing aphorisms (for which he even read La Rochefoucauld) and called it New Christian Thoughts and Maxims. He dedicated this work to "dear mother", accompanying it with a note and a promise to publish this book when he grows up.

In the Catholic College of St. Stanislaus, Anatole received a classical education, slightly tinged with theology. Almost all of his college comrades belonged to noble or wealthy families, and the boy suffered from humiliation. Perhaps that is why he became a fighter and a mocker, and began to compose epigrams early. The college made the future writer a rebel for life, forming an independent, caustic and rather unbalanced character.

Literary creativity attracted Anatole as a child. Already at the age of 12, he enjoyed reading Virgil in the original, like his father, he preferred historical writings, and Cervantes' Don Quixote became his reference book in his youth. In 1862, Anatole graduated from college, but did not pass the bachelor's exams, having received unsatisfactory grades in mathematics, chemistry and geography. France nevertheless became a bachelor, having re-passed the exams at the Sorbonne in 1864.

By this time, Frans was already a decently earning professional critic and editor. He collaborated in two bibliographic journals, and in addition, he tried his hand at the art of versification, criticism, and the dramatic genre. In 1873, the first book of poems by Frans "Golden Poems" was published, where nature, love were sung, and reflections on life and death were side by side.
In 1876, after a ten-year wait, Frans was included in the staff of the Senate library - to the great satisfaction of his father: finally, Anatole had both a position and a stable income.

In April 1877, Anatole Francois Thibaut got married. It was a traditional bourgeois marriage: the bride had to get married, and the groom had to acquire marital status. Twenty-year-old Marie-Valery de Sauville - the daughter of a major official of the Ministry of Finance - was an enviable party for the son of a second-hand book dealer and the grandson of a village shoemaker. Frans was proud of his wife's genealogy, admired her timidity and taciturnity. True, it later turned out that the wife's silence was due to disbelief in his talent as a writer and contempt for this profession.

A significant dowry Valerie went to the arrangement of the mansion on the street near the Bois de Boulogne. Here Frans began to work hard. In the library of the Senate, he was known as a negligent worker, but as for literary work, here the writer did not reject a single proposal from the publishers, collaborating simultaneously with five dozen magazines. He edited the classics, wrote numerous articles - not only on literature, but also on history, political economy, archeology, paleontology, human origins, etc.
In 1881, Frans became a father, his daughter Suzanne was born, whom he dearly loved all his life. In the year of his daughter's birth, Frans' first book was also published, in which he found his hero, Sylvester Bonnard, and with him his own individual style. The book "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, Fellow of the Institute" won the French Academy Prize. In the Academy's decision on the award, it was said: it was awarded to "an elegant, outstanding, perhaps exceptional work."

In 1883 Frans became a regular chronicler in The Illustrated World. Every two weeks his review "Paris Chronicle" appears, covering different aspects of French life. From 1882 to 1896 he will write over 350 articles and essays.
Thanks to the success of "Sylvester Bonnard" and the extraordinary popularity of the "Paris Chronicle", France enters high society. In 1883 he met Leontine Armand de Caiavet, whose salon was one of the most brilliant literary, political and artistic salons in Paris. This smart, imperious aristocrat was the same age as Frans. From her he heard what he needed so much at home: an encouraging assessment of his work. Long-term, jealous, tyrannical devotion to Leontina will fill the writer's personal life for a long time. And his wife, Valerie France, every year will increasingly experience a militant need to sort things out and settle scores. Alien to the spiritual life of her husband, she managed to make alien to France and their own house, which he filled with books, a collection of paintings, engravings, antiques. The situation in the house escalated to such an extent that Frans stopped talking to his wife altogether, communicating with her only by notes. Finally, one day, unable to bear the silence, Valerie asked her husband: "Where were you last night?" In response to this, Frans silently left the room and left the house in what he was: in a dressing gown, with a crimson velvet "cardinal" cap on his head, with a tray in his hand, on which there was an inkwell and a started article. Defiantly walking through the streets of Paris in this form, he rented a furnished room under the fictitious name of Germain. In such an unusual way, he left home, finally breaking off family relations, which he had tried to maintain in recent years only for the sake of his beloved daughter.

In 1892, Anatole France filed for divorce. From now on, the ambitious Leontina became his faithful and devoted friend. She did everything to make France famous: she herself looked for material for him in libraries, made translations, put manuscripts in order, read proofs, wanting to free him from work that seemed boring to him. She also helped him improve the small Villa Said near the Bois de Boulogne, which soon turned into a museum filled with works of art and furniture from different centuries, countries and schools.

In 1889, the novel "Tais", which later became famous, was published. In it, France finally found that way of self-expression, where he had no equal. Conventionally, it could be called intellectual prose, combining the image of real life with the author's reflections on its meaning.

After the publication of the novels "The Gods Thirst", "Rise of the Angels" and "The Red Lily", the fame of Anatole France acquired a worldwide sound. Letters began to come to him from everywhere, and not only as a famous novelist, but also as a sage and philosopher. In numerous portraits, however, the writer tried not to look majestic, but rather elegant.

Unfortunately, sad changes also affected the personal life of the writer. France's daughter, his "tenderly beloved Suzon", in 1908, having already divorced her first husband, fell in love with Michel Psicari, the grandson of the famous religious philosopher Renan, and became his wife. Anatole France did not like this alliance. He moved away from his daughter, and as it turned out, forever. His relationship with Leontina de Caiave also worsened. For a long time she nurtured and took care of the talent of Frans, taking care of his success, proud that she helps him, knowing that he loves her too. Every year they traveled around Italy, visited Greece several times. However, in her old age, Leontina becomes more and more vigilant and jealous. She wanted to control her friend's every move, which was beginning to tire and annoy Frans. The bad mood of the writer was exacerbated by guilt. The fact is that Leontina's health, already fragile, was shaken in the summer of 1909, when rumors reached her that France, sailing on a steamer to Brazil to lecture on Rabelais, could not resist the coquetry of a fifty-year-old actress of the French Comedy. Jealous Leontina took to her bed. “This is a child,” she said to her friend, “if you knew how weak, naive he is, how easy it is to fool him!” Returning to Paris, France confessed to his unworthy frivolity. Together with Leontina, he went to Capian, her country house, where Madame de Caiave suddenly fell ill with pneumonia and died on January 12, 1910.

For Frans, the death of Leontina was a huge emotional trauma. The grief was helped by another devoted woman, Ottilie Kosmutze, a Hungarian writer known in her homeland under the pseudonym Sandor Kemeri. At one time she was the writer's secretary and with her sensitivity, kindness helped "to cure a great mind" of depression.

The years of the First World War made Anatole France old. From Paris, he moved to the small estate of Bechelrie, near the province of Touraine, where Emma Laprevote, the former maid of Leontine de Caiavet, lived. This woman was sick and poor. Frans placed her in the hospital, and after her recovery she became the writer's housekeeper, taking care of him. In 1918, Frans suffered a new grief - his daughter, Suzanne Psicari, died of influenza. Her thirteen-year-old son Lucien was left an orphan (Michel Psicari died in the war in 1917), and Frans took up his beloved grandson, who later became the only heir of the writer.

In 1921, Frans was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for brilliant literary achievements, marked by sophistication of style, deeply suffered humanism and a truly Gallic temperament."

Throughout his long life, Anatole France rarely complained about his health. Until the age of eighty, he almost did not get sick. However, in April 1922, a vascular spasm paralyzed him for several hours. And the writer admitted that he could no longer "work as before." But, nevertheless, until his death, he retained good spirits and amazing performance. He dreamed of visiting Brussels, London, finishing a book of philosophical dialogues called "Sous la rose", which can be translated as "Not for prying ears".
In July 1924, Frans went to bed with a diagnosis of the last stage of sclerosis. The doctors warned the writer's friends and relatives that his hours were numbered. On the morning of October 12, Frans said with a smile: "This is my last day!" And so it happened. On the night of October 13, 1924, "the most French, the most Parisian, the most refined writer" died.

As the writer Dushan Breschi said about him: "Despite all the vicissitudes of critical fashion, Anatole France will always stand next to B. Shaw, as the great satirist of the era, and next to Rabelais, Moliere and Voltaire, as one of the greatest French wit."

Chapter V

ANATELE FRANCE: THE POETRY OF THOUGHT

At the dawn of literary activity: poet and critic. — Early novels: the birth of a prose writer. - At the turn of the century: from Coignard to Bergeret. — At the beginning of the century: new horizons. - "Penguin Island": history in the mirror of satire, - Late France: the autumn of the patriarch. - France's poetics: "the art of thinking."

Literature arrogantly detached from the people is like a plant uprooted. The heart of the people is where poetry and art must draw strength in order to turn green and bloom without fail, It is for them a source of living water.

The work of the "most French writer" Anatole France has deep roots in national culture and tradition. The writer lived for 80 years, witnessed the fateful events in national history. For six decades he intensively created and left a vast legacy: novels, short stories, historical and philosophical writings, essays, criticism, journalism. An intellectual writer, erudite, philosopher and historian, he sought to climb the breath of time in his books. Frans was convinced that masterpieces "are born under the pressure of inexorable inevitability", that the writer's word is "an action whose strength is generated by circumstances", that the value of a work is "& in its relationship with life."

At the dawn of literary activity: poet and critic

Early years. Anatole France (Anatole France, 1844-1924) was born in 1844 in the family of a bookseller Francois Thibault. In his youth, his father worked as a laborer on a farm, but then he made his way into the people and moved to the capital. From a very young age, being in the world of ancient folios, the future writer became a book reader. Frans helped his father compile catalogs, bibliographic reference books, which allowed him to constantly replenish his knowledge in the field of history, philosophy, religion, art and literature. Everything he learned was subjected to critical evaluation by his analytical mind.

His "universities" were books. They awakened in him a craving for writing. And although the father opposed his son to choose the literary path, Frans' desire to write became a vital need. As a sign of gratitude to his father, he signs his publications with the pseudonym France, taking his abbreviated name.

Frans' mother, a religious woman, sent him to a Catholic school, and then to a lyceum, where at the age of 15 Frans received an award for an essay that reflected his historical and literary interests - The Legend of St. Rodagund.

The origins of creativity. Frans' work grew out of the deep artistic and philosophical traditions of his country. He continued the satirical line presented in the literature of the Renaissance by Rabelais, and in the literature of the Enlightenment by Voltaire. Among the idols of France were also Byron and Hugo. Of the modern thinkers, Francis was close to Auguste Renan, who advocated the combination of science and religion (the book "The Life of Jesus"), for "God in the Soul", showed skepticism in relation to common truths. Like the Enlighteners, Frans condemned all forms of dogmatism and fanaticism and valued the "teaching" mission in literature. In his works, clashes of different points of view are often presented, and one of the main characters is the human intellect, capable of exposing lies and discovering the truth.

Poet. Frans made his debut as a poet4 close to the Parnassus group, which included Anatole France, Lecomte de Lisle, Charles Baudelaire, Theophile Gauthier, and others. Like all "Parnassians", France bows before the "divine word", "embracing the world", glorifies the high mission of the poet:

Adam saw everything, he named everything in Mesopotamia,
So should the poet, and in the mirror of poetry
The world will become forever, immortal, fresh and new!
Happy ruler of both vision and speech! (translated by V. Dynnik)

The collection of Frans "Gilded Poems" (1873) contains more than thirty poems, many of which relate to landscape lyrics ("Seascape", "Trees", "Abandoned Oak", etc.). static images that carry a bookish or historical-mythological coloring. A significant role in the work of the young Frans, as well as among the “Parnassians” in general, is played by ancient images and motifs. This is evidenced by his dramatic poem "The Corinthian Wedding" (1876).

Critic. Frans gave brilliant examples of literary criticism. Erudition, combined with a fine literary taste, determined the importance of his critical writings on both the history of literature and the current literary process.

From 1886 to 1893, Frans headed the critical department in the newspaper "Tan" and at the same time appeared on the pages of other periodicals. His critical publications of tech-letes made up the four-volume Literary Life (1888-1892).

The work of a journalist was reflected in his writing style. Frans was constantly at the center of literary, philosophical discussions and political problems of the end of the century, this determined the ideological richness and polemical orientation of many of his works of art.

Frans was one of the first French critics to write about Russian literature. In an article about Turgenev (1877), whose work Frans greatly appreciated, he said that the writer “remained a poet” even in prose. Frans' rationalism did not prevent him from admiring Turgenev's "poetic realism", which opposes the "ugliness" of naturalism and the barrenness of those writers who are not saturated with the "juices of the earth".

An important role in the formation of France's aesthetics was played by the example of Tolstoy. In a speech dedicated to the memory of the Russian writer (1911), he said: “Tolstoy is a great lesson. With his life he proclaims sincerity, directness, purposefulness, firmness, calm and constant heroism, he teaches that one must be truthful and one must be strong.

Early Novels: The Birth of the Novelist

"The Crime of Sylvester Bonard". From the end of the 1870s, Frans began to write fiction, without stopping to engage in criticism and journalism. He became widely known for his first novel, The Crime of Sylvester Bonard (1881). Sylvester Bonard is a typical François hero: a humanitarian scholar, a bit of an eccentric scribe, a kind man, detached from practical life, he is spiritually close to the writer. A lonely dreamer, an old bachelor doing "pure" science, he seems strange when he leaves his office and comes into contact with prosaic reality.

The novel consists of two parts. The first one describes the history of the hero's search for and acquisition of an old manuscript of the lives of the saints "The Golden Legend". The second part tells about the relationship of the hero to Jeanne, the granddaughter of Clementine, a woman whom Bonar unrequitedly loved. Jeanne's guardians, wanting to take advantage of her inheritance, identified the girl in the boarding house Bonar, driven by compassion, helps Jeanne to escape, after which the scientist is also accused of a serious crime - the kidnapping of a minor.

France appears in the novel as a satirist, exposing the soullessness and hypocrisy of society. Frans's favorite method of paradox is revealed when correlating the title of the novel with the content: Bonard's noble deed is regarded as a crime.

The novel was awarded an Academy Award. Criticism, wrote that France managed to make Bonar "full of life image, growing into a symbol."

"Thais": a philosophical novel. In the new novel "Thais" (1890), the writer plunged into the atmosphere of the first centuries of Christianity. The novel continued the themes of Frans' early poem "The Corinthian Wedding", which argued the incompatibility of religious fanaticism with love, a sensually joyful perception of being.

"Thais" is defined by Frans himself as a "philosophical story". At its center is the clash of two ideologies, two civilizations: Christian and pagan.

The dramatic story of the relationship between the religious fanatic Paphnutius and the seductive courtesan Thais unfolds against the richly written cultural and historical background of Alexandria in the 4th century. It was the time when paganism, faced with Christianity, was also leaving the past. In terms of the mastery of reproducing historical color, France is worthy of comparison with Flaubert, the author of the novels "Salambo" and "The Temptation of St. Anthony."

The novel is built on contrast. On the one hand, before us is Alexandria - a magnificent ancient city with palaces, pools, mass spectacles, imbued with pagan sensuality. On the other hand, the desert, the hermitages of Christian monks, the refuge of religious fanatics and ascetics. Paphnutius, the abbot of the monastery, is famous among them. He longs to accomplish a charitable deed - to direct a beautiful courtesan on the path of Christian piety. Thais is a dancer and actress whose performances cause a sensation in Alexandria and plunge men at her feet. Paphnutius, by the power of his passionate conviction, induces Thais to renounce vice and sin in order to gain the highest bliss in the service of the Christian God. The monk takes Thais out of the city to a nunnery, where she indulges in merciless mortification of the flesh. Paphnutius falls into a trap: he is powerless before the carnal attraction to Thais that has seized him. The image of the beauty does not leave the hermit, and Pafnutiy comes to her, begging for love at the moment when Tale lies on her deathbed. Thais no longer hears the words of Paphnutius. The distorted face of the monk causes horror in those around him, shouts are heard: “Vampire! Vampire!" The hero can only execute himself. The ascetic doctrine of Paphnutius, opposed to the true, living reality, suffers a severe defeat.

Notable in the romance is the figure of the philosopher Nikias, who acts as an observer. Nicias proclaims the philosophical ideas and ethics of the "divine sin" of Epicurus. For the relativist and skeptic Nikias, everything in the world is relative, including religious beliefs, if we evaluate them from the position of eternity. A person strives for happiness, which everyone understands in their own way.

In Thais, the most important element of Frans' artistic system is formed - the reception of dialogue as a philosophical and journalistic genre. The tradition of philosophical dialogue, dating back to Plato, was further developed by Lucian, and is widely represented in French literature of the 17th-18th centuries: by B. Pascal (“Letters to a Provincial”), F. Fenelon (“Dialogues of the Ancient and New Dead”), D. Diderot ("Rano's Nephew"). The method of dialogue made it possible to visually identify the points of view of the characters involved in the ideological dispute.

Based on "Thais", the opera of the same name by J. Massenet was created, and the novel itself was translated into many languages.

At the turn of the century: from Coignard to Bergeret

The last decades of the 19th century were full of acute socio-political struggle, France was at the center of events. The evolution of Frans the ideologist is reflected in his work: his hero begins to show great social activity.

Dilogy about the abbe Coignard. An important milestone in the work of Frans were two novels about the abbot Jerome Coignard "The Tavern of Queen Goose Feet" (1893) and, as it were, continuing his book, "The Judgments of Mr. Jerome Coignard" (1894), which collected Coignard's statements on a variety of issues - social, philosophical, ethical. These two books form a kind of duology. The adventure plot of "The Tavern of Queen Goosepaws" becomes the core on which the philosophical content is strung - the statements of Abbé Coignard.

A frequenter of the village tavern, Jerome Coignard is a philosopher, a wandering theologian, deprived of his position due to addiction to the fair sex and wine. He is a man "obscure and poor", but endowed with a sharp and critical mind, Jerome Coignard is not young, has tried many professions, a bookworm, a freethinker and a lover of life.

The novel "The Judgments of Mr. Jerome Coignard" is composed of a series of scenes, dialogues in which the most lengthy and convincing statements belong to the protagonist. The image of Coignard, his ideological position give unity to this collection of episodes that are not united by the plot. M. Gorky wrote that everything that Coignard talked about "turned to dust" - so "strong were the blows of Frans' logic on the thick and rough skin of walking truths." Here France acted as a successor to the traditions of Flaubert, the creator of the ironic Lexicon of common truths. The caustic assessments of the French realities of the 18th century given by Coignard turned out to be largely relevant for France at the end of the 19th century. The novel contains allusions to the predatory colonial wars that France waged in North Africa, to the shameful Panamanian scam, to the attempted monarchist coup by General Boulanger in 1889. The text contains Coignard's caustic judgments about militarism, false patriotism, religious intolerance, corrupt officials, unfair legal proceedings punishing the poor and covering the rich.

At the time when these novels were being created, in France, in connection with the centenary of the French Revolution (1889), there were heated discussions about the problems of reorganizing society. The French hero does not pass by these questions either, about whom it is said that he "most diverged in his principles from the principles of the Revolution." “The madness of the revolution lies in the fact that it wanted to establish virtue on earth,” Coignard is sure. “And when people want to be made kind, intelligent, free, moderate, generous, they inevitably come to the conclusion that they are eager to kill them all to one. Robespierre believed in virtue - and created terror. Marat believed in justice - and killed two hundred thousand heads. Isn't this paradoxical and ironic judgment of Frans also applicable to the totalitarianism of the 20th century?

"Modern History": The Third Republic in a Tetralogy. During the period of the Dreyfus affair, France becomes decisively on the side of those who opposed the impudent reaction, the chauvinists and anti-Semites who raised their heads. Although Frans had disagreements with Zola on aesthetic issues, and Frans called the novel "Land" "dirty", its author became for Frans an example of "modern: heroism", "bold frankness". After the forced departure of Zola to England, France began to show increased political activity, in particular, he organized the League for the Defense of Human Rights.

The novel "Modern History" (1897-1901) is the largest work of Frans, it occupies an important place in the creative evolution of the writer and his ideological and artistic quest.

What is new in the novel is, first of all, that, unlike the previous works of Frans, which take the reader into the distant past, here the writer plunges into the socio-political conflicts of the Third Republic.

France covers a wide range of social phenomena: the life of a small provincial town, the hot political air of Paris, theological seminaries, high society salons, "corridors of power". The typology of French characters is rich: professors, clergymen, small and big politicians, demimonde lamas, liberals and monarchists. Passions boil in the novel) intrigues are woven and conspiracies are woven.

New was not only the life material, but also the way of its artistic embodiment. "Modern History" is the most significant work of Frans in terms of volume. Before us is a tetralogy, which includes the novels Under the City Elms (1897), The Willow Mannequin (1897), The Amethyst Ring (1899), Monsieur Bergeret in Paris (1901). Combining the novels into a cycle, France gave his narrative an epic scale; he continued the national tradition of combining works into one huge canvas (remember Balzac's The Human Comedy and Zola's Rougon-Macquart). Compared with Balzac and Zola France, Brad has a narrower time period - the last decade of the 19th century. The novels of the French cycle were written in hot pursuit of events. The relevance of "Modern History" allows us to see in the tetralogy, especially in the final part, the features of a political pamphlet. This applies, for example, to the description of the ups and downs associated with the "Case" (meaning the Dreyfus affair).

The adventurer Esterhazy, a traitor who was defended by the anti-Dreyfusards, appears in the novel under the name of the secular lion Papa. The figures of a number of participants in the "Case" are written off from specific politicians and ministers. In the ongoing discussions, socio-political problems that worried Frans and his contemporaries emerge: the position in the army, the growth of aggressive nationalism, the venality of officials, etc.

The tetralogy involves a huge amount of life material, in connection with which the novels acquire cognitive significance. France uses a wide range of artistic means: irony, satire, grotesque, caricature; introduces elements of feuilleton, philosophical and ideological discussion into the novel. Frans brought fresh colors to the image of the central character - Bergeret. A man of sharp critical thought, an erudite, he resembles Sylvester Bonard and Jerome Coignard. But unlike them, he is just an observer. Bergeret is undergoing evolution under the influence of events not only of a personal, but also of a political nature. Thus, in the French hero, a transition from thought to action is planned.

In the depiction of the image of Bergeret, there is certainly an autobiographical element (in particular, the participation of Frans himself in public life in connection with the Dreyfus affair). Professor Lucien Bergeret is a teacher of Roman literature at the theological seminary, a philologist who has been conducting many years of research on such a rather narrow topic as Virgil's nautical vocabulary. For him, a man of insight and skeptical thinking, science is an outlet from the dull provincial life. His discussions with the rector of the seminary, Abbé Lanten, are devoted to historical-philological or theological questions, although they often concern the problems of the present. The first part of the tetralogy (“Under the Prod Elms”) serves as an exposition. It presents the alignment of forces in a provincial town, reflecting the general situation in the country. Important in many respects is the typical figure of the mayor of Worms-Clovlen, a clever politician who strives to please everyone and be in good standing in Paris.

The central episode of the second part of the tetralogy, "The Willow Mannequin" is an image of Bergeret's first decisive act, which until then had manifested itself only in statements.

Bergeret's wife, "grumpy and quarrelsome", irritated by her husband's impracticality, appears in the novel as the embodiment of militant philistinism. In Bergeret's cramped office, she places a willow mannequin for her dresses. This mannequin becomes a symbol of life's inconvenience. When Bergeret, who came home at an inopportune time, finds his wife in the arms of his student Jacques Roux, he breaks up with his wife and throws the hated mannequin into the yard.

In the third part of the tetralogy, "The Amethyst Ring" - a family scandal in the Bergeret house is obscured by more serious events.

After the death of the Bishop of Tourcoing, his place is vacant. For the possession of an amethyst ring, a symbol of episcopal power, a struggle flares up in the city. Although the most worthy candidate is the Abbé Lantaigne, he is overtaken by the dexterous Jesuit Guitrel. The fate of vacancies is decided in the capital, in the ministry. The supporters of Guitrel “command” a certain courtesan there, who by intimate services pays for the adoption of the desired decision by high-ranking officials.

The almost grotesque story of Guitrel's acquisition of the episcopate; the ring allows the novelist to present the ins and outs of the mechanism of the state machine.

It exposes Frans and the technology of fabricating the "case", i.e., the Dreyfus affair. Officials from the military department, careerists and lazy, servile, envious and impudent, grossly falsified the “case”, “created the most vile and vile thing that can be done with pen and paper, and also demonstrating anger and stupidity.”

Bergeret moves to the capital (the novel "Mr. Bergeret in Paris"), where he was offered a chair at the Sorbonne. Here the satire of France develops into a pamphlet. It seems that he takes the reader to the theater of masks. Before us is a motley gallery of anti-Dreyfusards, duplicitous people who hide their true nature under the masks of aristocrats, financiers, high officials, bourgeois, military men.

In the finale, Bergeret becomes a staunch opponent of the anti-Dreyfusards, he seems to be France's alter ego. In response to the accusation that the Dreyfusards allegedly “shaken the national defense and lowered the prestige of the country abroad”, Bergeret proclaims the main thesis: “... The authorities persisted, patronizing the monstrous lawlessness, which swelled every day thanks to the lies that tried to cover it up” .

At the turn of the century: new horizons

At the beginning of the new century, France's skepticism and irony are combined with the search for positive values. Like Zola, France takes an interest in the socialist movement.

The writer who does not accept violence, who calls the Commune "a monstrous experiment", refers with approval to the possibility of achieving social justice, to the socialist doctrine that answered "the instinctive aspirations of the masses."

In the last part of the tetralogy, an episodic figure of the socialist carpenter Rupar appears, into whose mouth Frans puts the following words: apple trees."

In the early 1900s, Frans' views become more radical. He joins the socialist party, is published in the socialist newspaper L'Humanite. The writer participates in the creation of people's universities, the purpose of which is to intellectually enrich the workers, to introduce them to literature and art. Frans responds to the revolutionary events of 1905 in Russia: he becomes an activist in the "Society of Friends of the Russian People", aligns himself with the Russian democracy fighting for freedom; condemns the arrest of Gorky.

Frans' journalism of the early 1900s, marked by radical moods, compiled a collection with a characteristic n-title - "To Better Times" (1906).

It was in the early 1900s that a vivid image of a worker appeared in the work of Frans - the hero of the story "Crainquebil" (1901)

Krenkebil": the fate of the "little man". This story is one of the few works by Frans, in the center of which is not an intellectual, but a commoner - a greengrocer, walking around the streets of the capital with a cart. He is chained to his cart, like a slave to a galley, and, being arrested, is primarily concerned with the fate of the cart. His life is so poor and wretched that even prison awakens positive emotions in him.

Before us is a satire not only on justice, but on the entire state system. Police officer number sixty-four, who unfairly arrested Crainquebille, is a cog in this system (the policeman thought the greengrocer had insulted him). Chief Justice Burrish decides against Krenquebille against the facts because "police number sixty-four is a government official." Least of all does the court serve the law, wrapping its verdict in vaguely pompous words, incomprehensible to the unfortunate Crainquebil, who is overwhelmed by the pomposity of the trial.

A stay in prison, albeit a short one, breaks the fate of the “little man”. Krenkebil, released from prison, becomes a suspicious person in the eyes of her clients. His affairs are getting worse and worse. He goes down. The ending of the story is bittersweet. Krenkebil dreams of returning to a prison where it was warm, clean and fed regularly. This is seen by the hero as the only way out of the distress. But the policeman, to whom he throws the abusive elephant in the face, expecting to be arrested for this, only brushes off Crainquebil,

In this story, France threw his message to society: "I accuse!" The words of L. N. Tolstoy, who appreciated the French writer, are known: “Anatole France captivated me with his Krenquebille.” Tolstoy made a translation of the story for his Reading Circle series addressed to the peasants.

"On a white stone": a journey into the future. At the beginning of the new century, in an atmosphere of growing interest in socialist theories, there arose a need to look into the future, to predict trends in social development. Anltol France also paid tribute to these sentiments by writing the utopian novel On the White Stone (1904).

The novel is based on dialogue. A kind of "frame" of the novel is formed by the conversations of characters - participants in archaeological excavations in Italy. One of them is outraged by the vices of modernity: these are colonial wars, the cult of profit, the incitement of chauvinism and national hatred, contempt for the "lower races", human life itself.
In the novel there is an insert story "Gate of horn, go Gate of ivory."
The hero of the short story ended up in 2270, when people "are no longer barbarians", but have not yet become "wise men". The power belongs to the proletariat, in life "there is more light and beauty than it was before, in the life of the bourgeoisie." Everyone is working, the depressing social contrasts of the past have been eliminated. However, the finally achieved equality is more like “equalizing”. People are unified, they do not have surnames, but only names, they wear almost the same clothes, their dwellings of the same type resemble geometric cubes. Frans, with his perspicacity, understands that the attainment of perfection both in society and in relations between people is nothing more than an illusion. “Human nature,” says one of the heroes, “is alien to the feeling of perfect happiness. It cannot be easy, and strenuous effort does not happen without fatigue and pain.

"Penguin Island": history in the mirror of satire

The decline of the social movement in the second half of the 1900s, after the end of the Dreyfus Affair, led Frans to become disillusioned with radical ideas and politics as such. The year 1908 was marked for the writer by the publication of two of his works, polar in tone and style. They were new evidence of how wide the creative range of Anatoly France was. At the beginning of 1908, a two-volume work by Frans, dedicated to Joan of Arc, was published.

In world history, there are great, iconic figures who become heroes of fiction and art. These are Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Peter I, Napoleon and others. Among them is Joan of Arc, who became the national myth of France. There are many mysterious, almost miraculous things in her fate. The name of Joan of Arc has become not only a symbol of heroism and a subject of national pride but also the object of heated ideological discussions.

In the two-volume Life of Joan of Arc, Frans acts as a writer and as a learned historian. Frans based his work on a whole layer of carefully studied documents. Combining a sober analysis with "critical imagination", the writer sought to clear the image of Jeanne from all sorts of conjectures, legends France's research was relevant and timely, because it opposed clerical propaganda and an explosion of "exalted patriotism", as well as the active use of the image of the "warrior maiden", which was presented in the spirit of "lives". The greatness of Jeanne France defined a certain formula: "When each I thought about myself, she thought about everyone.

Rise and fall of the Penguin: a satirical allegory. Frans' appeal to history in the famous book "Penguin Island" (1908) was relevant. In the history of world literature, vivid examples are known when allegory and fantasy acted as means of creating works of a large socio-historical scale. These are Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais, Gulliver's Travels by Swift, and The History of a City by Saltykov-Shchedrin.

In the history of the Penguins, the stages of French national history are easily guessed, which France clears of myths and legends. And Frans writes wittily, cheerfully, giving free rein to violent imagination. In "Penguin Island" the writer uses many new techniques, immersing the reader in the element of comedy, grotesque, parody. The plot of the penguin story is ironic,

A blind-sighted priest, Saint Mael, takes the penguins that live on the island for people and baptizes the birds. Penguins gradually learn the norms of behavior, morals and value orientations of people: one penguin sinks its teeth into its defeated rival, the other "brains a woman's head with a huge stone." In a similar way, they "create law, establish property, establish the foundations of civilization, the foundations of society, laws ..."

On the pages of the book devoted to the Middle Ages, Frans makes fun of all sorts of myths that glorify feudal rulers who appear in the novel in the form of dragons; makes fun of legends about saints and laughs at churchmen. Speaking of the recent past, he does not spare even Napoleon; the latter is presented as the militarist Trinco. The episode of Dr. Obnubil's voyage to New Atlantis (which means the United States) and Gigantopolis (New York) is also significant.

The Case of the Eighty Thousand Bundles of Hay. In the sixth chapter, which has the title "Modern Time", Frans moves on to the events of the present - the Dreyfus case is reproduced, about which the novelist narrates in a satirical vein. The object of denunciation is the military and corrupt legal proceedings.

Minister of War Gretok has long hated the Jew Piro (Dreyfus) and, having learned about the disappearance of eighty thousand armfuls of hay, concludes that Piro stole them in order to “sell them cheaply” not to anyone, but to the sworn enemies of the penguins - the dolphins. Gretok starts a lawsuit against Piro. There is no evidence, but the Minister of War orders them to be found, because "justice demands" that. “This process is simply a masterpiece,” says Gretok, “it was created from nothing.” The true kidnapper and thief, Lübeck de la Dacdulenx (in the case of Dreyfus - Esterhazy) is a count of a noble family, related to the Draconids themselves. In this regard, it should be whitewashed. The trial against Pyro is fabricated.

The novel reveals the contours of almost Kafkaesque absurdity: obsequious and ubiquitous Gretok collects tons of waste paper around the world, called "evidence", but no one even unpacks these bales,

Colomban (Zola), "a short, short-sighted man with a gloomy face", "the author of one hundred and sixty volumes of penguin sociology" (the Ruton-Macquart cycle), the most industrious and respected of writers, comes to Piro's defense. The crowd begins to poison the noble Columbine. He finds himself in the dock, for he dared to encroach on the honor of the national army and the security of the Penguins.

In the future, another character invades the course of events, Bido-Koky, "the poorest and happiest of astronomers." Far from earthly affairs, completely absorbed in the problems of heavenly, starry landscapes, he descends from his observatory, equipped on an old water pump, to take the side of Colomban. In the image of an eccentric astronomer, some features of Frans himself appear.

"Penguin Island" testifies to the noticeable disappointment of Frans in the socialists, who declared themselves champions of "public justice". Their leaders - comrades Phoenix, Sapor and Larine (real faces are guessed behind them) - are just self-serving politicians.

The final, eighth book of the novel is titled A History Without End.

In Penguinia - a huge material progress, its capital - a gigantic city, and in which the power was in the hands of billionaires obsessed with hoarding. The population is split into two parties: trade and bank employees and industrial workers. The former receive solid salaries, while the latter are in need. Since the proletarians are powerless to change their fate, the anarchists intervene. Their attacks eventually lead to the destruction of the Pilgwin civilization. Then a new city is built on its ruins, which is destined for a similar fate. France's conclusion is gloomy: history moves in a circle, civilization, having reached its apogee, perishes in order to be reborn, repeating previous mistakes.

Late France: autumn of the patriarch

"The Gods Are Thirsty": Lessons from the Revolution. After "Penguin Island" begins a new period of creative search for Frans. The satirical fantasy about Penguinia is followed by the novel The Gods Are Thirsty (1912), written in the traditional realistic style. But both books are intrinsically linked. Reflecting on the nature and driving forces of history, France comes close to a fateful milestone in the life of France - the revolution of 1789-1794.

The Gods Thirst is one of Frans' best novels. A dynamic plot, free from congestion with ideological disputes, a vivid historical background, psychologically reliable characters of the main characters - all this makes the novel one of the most widely read works of the writer.

The novel takes place in 1794, during the last period of the Jacobin dictatorship. The protagonist is a young, talented artist Evariste Gamelin, Jacobin, devoted to the lofty ideals of the revolution, gifted painter, he seeks to capture on his canvases the spirit of the times, the pathos of sacrifice, feats in the name of ideals. Gamelin portrays Orestes, the hero of the ancient drama, who, obeying the will of Apollo, kills his mother Clytemnestra, who took the life of his father. The gods forgive him this crime, but people do not, since Orestes renounced human nature by his own act, became inhuman.

Gamelin himself is an incorruptible and disinterested man. He is poor, forced to stand in lines for bread, and sincerely wants to help the poor. Gamelin is convinced that it is necessary to fight speculators, traitors, and there are many of them.

The Jacobins are merciless, and Gamelin, appointed as a member of the revolutionary tribunal, turns into an obsessed fanatic. Without much trial, death sentences are stamped. Innocent people go under the guillotine knife. The country is engulfed in an epidemic of suspicion, flooded with denunciations.

The principle "the end justifies the means" is expressed by one of the members of the Convention in the cynical formula: "For the happiness of the people, we will be like robbers from the highway." In an effort to eradicate the vices of the old regime, the Jacobins condemn "old men, young men, masters, servants." Not without horror, one of his inspirers talks about the "saving, holy terpope".

Frans' sympathies are given in the novel to the aristocrat Brotto, an intelligent and educated man, devastated by the revolution. It belongs to the same type as Bonard or Bergeret. A philosopher, an admirer of Lucretius, he does not part with his book On the Nature of Things even on the way to the guillotine. Brotto does not accept fanaticism, cruelty, hatred; he is benevolent to people, ready to come to their aid. He does not like clerics, but he provides a corner for the homeless monk Longmar in his closet. Upon learning of the appointment of Gamelin as a member of the tribunal, Brotto predicts: "He is virtuous - he will be terrible."

At the same time, for Frans, it is obvious that terror is not only the fault of the Jacobins, but also a sign of the immaturity of the people.

When the Thermidorian coup takes place in the summer of 1794, yesterday's judges who sent people to the guillotine suffer the same fate. Gamelin did not escape this fate.

At the end of the novel, Paris is shown in the winter of 1795: “equality before the law gave birth to a “kingdom of rogues”. Profiteers and speculators succeed. A bust of Marat was smashed, portraits of his killer Charlotte Corday are in vogue. Elodie; beloved Gamelin, quickly finds a new lover.

Today, Frans' book is perceived not only as a condemnation of the Jacobin terror, but also as a warning novel, a prophetic novel. It seems that Frans predicted the big terpop of the 1930s in Russia.

"Rise of the Angels" Frans returns to the theme of revolution in Rise of the Angels (1914). At the heart of the novel, which tells about the rebellion of angels against the god Jehovah, is the idea that the replacement of one ruler by another will not give anything, that violent revolutions are meaningless. Not only the management system is vicious, but the human race itself is in many respects imperfect, and therefore it is necessary to eradicate envy, lust for power that nest in the souls of people.

Last decade: 1914 - 1924. The novel "Rise of the Angels" was completed on the eve of the First World War. The disasters of the war stunned the writer. Frans was seized by the rise of patriotic feelings, and the writer published a collection of articles On the Glorious Path (1915), imbued with love for his native country and hatred for the German aggressors. He later admitted that he was at that time "in the grip of a contagious exaltation."

Gradually, France reconsiders his attitude to the war and moves to an anti-militarist position. About a writer who is politically active, newspapers write: "In him we again find Monsieur Bergeret." He shares his solidarity with the Klarte group, headed by A. Barbusse. In 1919, Anatole France, as the leader of the French intellectuals, condemned the intervention of the Entente against Soviet Russia.

“A beautiful gray-bearded old man”, the master, a living legend, France, despite his years, surprises with energy. He expresses sympathy for the new Russia, writes that "light comes from the East", declares solidarity with the left socialists.

At the same time, in 1922, like many Western intellectuals, he protested against the trial of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, seeing in this the intolerance of the Bolsheviks to any opposition and dissent.

The work of Frans in recent years is a summing up. After a break of almost forty years, the writer returns to memoirs and autobiographical prose, which he began to work on back in the 1880s (My Friend's Book, 1885; Pierre Nozieres, 1899). In the new books - "Little Pierre" (1919) and "Life in Bloom" (1922) - Frans recreates the world of childhood so dear to him.

He writes about his autobiographical hero in this way: “I mentally enter his life, and it is a pleasure to reincarnate into a boy and a young man who have long been gone.”

In 1921, A. Frans was awarded the Nobel Prize for "brilliant literary achievements, marked by sophistication of style, deeply suffered humanism and a truly Gallic temperament."

Frans managed to celebrate his 80th birthday. He was very worried about the painful and inexorable fading of strength. The writer died on October 12, 1924. He, like Hugo in his time, was given a national funeral.

Frans' poetics: "the art of thinking"

Intellectual prose. The genre range of Frans' prose is very wide, but his element is intellectual prose. Frans, developing the traditions of writers and philosophers of the 18th century, Diderot and especially Voltaire. A thinker with a capital letter, Frans, with his highest authority and education, was alien to snobbery. In terms of his artistic outlook and temperament, he was close to the enlighteners and persistently defended the thesis about the "educational" function of literature. Even at the beginning of his writing career, he was perceived as "an enlightened writer who absorbed the intellectual work of the century." Frans saw "forms of art in constant motion, in continuous becoming." He had a keen sense of history, a sense of time, an understanding of its demands and challenges.

Frans claimed "the art of thinking". He was fascinated by the poetry of knowledge of the world, the triumph of truth in a collision with false points of view. He believed that the "exquisite history of the human mind", its ability to debunk illusions and prejudices, could itself be the subject of artistic attention.

Impressionistic style. The writer himself, speaking about the structure of his works, used the expression "mosaic", since in them "politics and literature are mixed." While working on a work of art, Frans usually did not interrupt his collaboration in periodicals. For him, journalism and fiction are internally connected, interdependent.

Fran's "mosaic" is not chaotic, it has its own logic. The text of the works includes extra-plot elements, inserted novels (for example, in "Thais", in books about Coignard, in "Modern History", in "Penguin Island"). A similar organization of narration is also found in Apuleius, Cervantes, Fielding, Gogol, and others. In French literature at the turn of the century, this form reflected the aesthetic trends of a new direction - impressionism.

A. V. Lunacharsky called Frans "the great impressionist." Frans brought prose closer to poetry and painting, applied the impressionist technique in verbal art, which manifested itself in a tendency to a sketchy manner. In the book “Life in Bloom”, he expressed the idea that the finished painting is dry, “dry, cold”, and in the sketch “more inspiration, feelings, fire”, therefore the sketch is “truthful, more vital”.

The intellectual prose of Frans did not imply an exciting plot with intrigue. But this still did not prevent the painter from skillfully capturing the ups and downs of life, for example, in such works as Thais, The Gods Are Thirsty, and The Rise of the Angels. This largely explains their popularity with the general reader.

"Two-dimensionality" of Frans' prose. In the works of Frans, two plans can be distinguished, interconnected: ideological and eventful. So, they are clearly revealed in the "Modern History". The ideological plan is those discussions that Bergeret leads throughout the novel with his opponents, friends, and acquaintances. To understand the full depth of Frans' thought, its nuances, an inexperienced reader should look into the historical and philological commentary on his texts. The second plan - event - is what happens to France's characters. Often the ideological plan plays a greater role than the event plan.

word artist. France was Flaubert's heir as a master of style. His chased phrase is full of meaning and emotions, it contains irony and mockery, lyricism and grotesque. The thought of Frans, who knows how to write clearly about the complex, often results in aphoristic judgments. Here he continues the traditions of La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère. In an essay on Maupassant, France wrote: "The three greatest virtues of a French writer are clarity, clarity and clarity." A similar aphorism can be applied to Frans himself.

Frans is a master of dialogue, which is one of the most expressive elements of his manner. In his books, the clash of points of view of the characters is a way of discovering the truth.

In his intellectual prose, Frans anticipated some important genre and style trends in 20th-century literature. with its philosophical and educational beginning, the desire to influence not only the heart and soul of the reader, but also his intellect. We are talking about philosophical novels and parable-allegorical works that give artistic expression to some philosophical postulates, in particular existentialism (F. Kafka, J. Sartre, A. Camus, etc.). This also applies to "intellectual drama" (G. Ibsen, B. Shaw), drama-parable (B. Brecht), drama of the absurd (S. Beckett, E. Ionesco, partly E. Albee),

France in Russia. Like his illustrious compatriots - Zola, Maupassant, Rolland, symbolist poets - France early received recognition in Russia.

During a short stay in Russia in 1913, he wrote: “As for Russian thought, so fresh and so deep, the Russian soul, so responsive and so poetic by its very nature, I have long been imbued with them, admire them and love them".

In the difficult conditions of the Civil War, M. Gorky, who highly appreciated Frans, published in his publishing house World Literature in 1918-1920. several of his books. Then a new collected works of Frans (1928-1931) appeared in 20 volumes, edited and with an introductory article by A. V. Lunacharsky. The perception of writers in Russia was succinctly defined by the poet M. Kuzmin: "France is a classic and lofty image of the French genius."

Literature

Artistic texts

Frans A. Collected works; in 8 t./A. Frans; lod gen., ed. E. A. Gunsta, V. A. Dynnik, B. G. Reizova. - M., 1957-1960.

Frans A. Collected works; in 4 tons / A. France. - M., I9S3 - 1984.

Frans A. Selected works /A. France; post-last L. Tokareva. - M., 1994. - (Ser. "Nobel Prize Laureates").

Criticism. Tutorials

Yulmetova S.F. Anatole France and some questions of the evolution of realism / SF. Yulmetova, Saratov, 1975.

Fried J. Anatole France and his time / J. Fried. - M., 1975.

Encyclopedic YouTube

• 1 / 5

  Anatole France's father was the owner of a bookstore that specialized in literature on the history of the Great French Revolution. Anatole France hardly graduated from the Jesuit College, where he studied extremely reluctantly, and, having failed several times in his final exams, he passed them only at the age of 20.

  Since 1866, Anatole France was forced to earn a living himself, and began his career as a bibliographer. Gradually, he gets acquainted with the literary life of that time, and becomes one of the prominent participants in the Parnassian school.

  Anatole France died in 1924. After his death, his brain was examined by French anatomists, who, in particular, found that his mass was 1017 g. He was buried in the cemetery in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

  Social activity

  In 1898, Frans took an active part in the Dreyfus affair. Under the influence of Marcel Proust, France was the first to sign the famous letter-manifesto of Emile Zola.

  From that time on, Frans became a prominent figure in the reformist, and later the socialist camp, took part in the organization of public universities, lectured to workers, and participated in rallies organized by leftist forces. France becomes a close friend of the socialist leader Jean Jaurès and literary master of the French Socialist Party.

  Creation

  Early work

  The novel that brought him fame, The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard (fr.) Russian, published in 1881, is a satire that favors frivolity and kindness over harsh virtue.

  In subsequent novels and stories by Frans, with great erudition and subtle psychological instinct, the spirit of different historical eras is recreated. "Tavern Queen Crow's feet" (fr.) Russian(1893) - a satirical story in the style of the 18th century, with the original central figure of Abbé Jerome Coignard: he is pious, but leads a sinful life and justifies his "falls" by the fact that they strengthen the spirit of humility in him. The same Abbé France deduces in Les Opinions de Jérôme Coignard (1893) in Les Opinions de Jérôme Coignard.

  In a number of stories, in particular, in the collection "Mother of Pearl" (fr.) Russian(1892), Frans discovers a vivid fantasy; his favorite topic is the juxtaposition of pagan and Christian worldviews in stories from the first centuries of Christianity or the early Renaissance. The best examples of this kind are "Saint Satyr". In this he had a certain influence on Dmitry Merezhkovsky. Roman "Tais" (fr.) Russian(1890) - the story of the famous "ancient" courtesan who became a saint - written in the same spirit of a mixture of Epicureanism and Christian charity.

  Characteristics of the worldview from the encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

  Frans is a philosopher and poet. His worldview is reduced to refined epicureanism. He is the sharpest of the French critics of modern reality, without any sentimentality revealing the weaknesses and moral falls of human nature, the imperfection and ugliness of social life, morals, relations between people; but in his criticism he introduces a special reconciliation, philosophical contemplation and serenity, a warming feeling of love for weak humanity. He does not judge or moralize, but only penetrates into the meaning of negative phenomena. This combination of irony with love for people, with an artistic understanding of beauty in all manifestations of life, is a characteristic feature of Frans' works. The humor of Frans lies in the fact that his hero applies the same method to the study of the most heterogeneous phenomena. The same historical criterion by which he judges events in ancient Egypt serves him to judge the Dreyfus case and its impact on society; the same analytical method with which he proceeds to abstract scientific questions helps him explain the act of his wife who cheated on him and, having understood it, calmly leave, without judging, but not forgiving either.

  Quotes

  "Religions, like chameleons, take on the color of the soil on which they live."

  "There is no magic stronger than the magic of the word."

  "A chance is a pseudonym for a god when he doesn't want to sign with his own name"

  Compositions

  Modern History (L'Histoire contemporaine)

  • Under the city elms (L'Orme du mail, 1897).
  • Willow mannequin (Le Mannequin d'osier, 1897).
  • Amethyst ring (L'Anneau d'améthyste, 1899).
  • Mr. Bergeret in Paris (Monsieur Bergeret à Paris, 1901).

  Autobiographical cycle

  • My friend's book (Le Livre de mon ami, 1885).
  • Pierre Nozière (1899).
  • Little Pierre (Le Petit Pierre, 1918).
  • Life in Bloom (La Vie en fleur, 1922).

  Novels

  • Jocasta (Jocaste, 1879).
  • "Skinny Cat" (Le Chat maigre, 1879).
  • Crime of Sylvester Bonnard (Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, 1881).
  • Passion of Jean Servien (Les Désirs de Jean Servien, 1882).
  • Count Abel (Abeille, conte, 1883).
  • Thais (Thais, 1890).
  • Tavern of Queen Goose Feet (La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque, 1892).
  • Jérôme Coignard's judgments (Les Opinions de Jérôme Coignard, 1893).
  • Red lily (Le Lys rouge, 1894).
  • Epicurus Garden (Le Jardin d'Épicure, 1895).
  • Theatrical History (Histoires comiques, 1903).
  • On a white stone (Sur la pierre blanche, 1905).
  • Penguin Island (L'Île des Pingouins, 1908).
  • The Gods Thirst (Les dieux ont soif, 1912).
  • Rise of the Angels (La Révolte des anges, 1914).

  Novels collections

  • Balthasar (Balthasar, 1889).
  • Mother-of-pearl casket (L'Étui de nacre, 1892).
  • Well of St. Clare (Le Puits de Sainte Claire, 1895).
  • Clio (Clio, 1900).
  • Procurator of Judea (Le Procurateur de Judée, 1902).
  • Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and many other useful stories (L'Affaire Crainquebille, 1901).
  • The Stories of Jacques Tournebroche (Les Contes de Jacques Tournebroche, 1908).
  • The Seven Wives of Bluebeard (Les Sept Femmes de Barbe bleue et autres contes merveilleux, 1909).

  Dramaturgy

  • What the hell is not kidding (Au petit bonheur, un acte, 1898).
  • Crainquebille (pièce, 1903).
  • Willow mannequin (Le Mannequin d'osier, comédie, 1908).
  • A comedy about a man who married a mute (La Comédie de celui qui épousa une femme muette, deux actes, 1908).

  Essay

  • Life of Joan of Arc (Vie de Jeanne d'Arc, 1908).
  • Literary life (Critique littéraire).
  • Latin genius (Le Génie latin, 1913).

  Poetry

  • Golden Poems (Poèmes dorés, 1873).
  • Corinthian wedding (Les Noces corinthiennes, 1876).

  Publication of works in Russian translation

  • France A. Collected Works in eight volumes. - M.: State publishing house of fiction, 1957-1960.
  • France A. Collected works in four volumes. - M.: Fiction, 1983-1984.
  
  

  en.wikipedia.org

  Biography

  Anatole France's father was the owner of a bookstore that specialized in literature on the history of the French Revolution. Anatole France hardly graduated from the Jesuit College, where he studied extremely reluctantly, and, having failed several times in the final exams, passed them only at the age of 20.

  In 1866, Anatole France was forced to earn a living himself, and began his career as a bibliographer. Gradually, he gets acquainted with the literary life of that time, and becomes one of the prominent participants in the Parnassian school.

  
  
  
  

  During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, Frans briefly served in the army, and after demobilization he continued to write and perform various editorial work.

  In 1875 he had his first real opportunity to prove himself as a journalist, when the Parisian newspaper Le Temps commissioned him for a series of critical articles on contemporary writers. The very next year, he becomes the leading literary critic of this newspaper and leads his own column called "Literary Life".

  In 1876, he was also appointed deputy director of the library of the French Senate and held this post for the next fourteen years, which gave him the opportunity and means to engage in literature.

  
  
  

  In 1896, France was elected a member of the French Academy.

  In 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

  In 1922, his writings were included in the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books.

  France's social activities

  He was a member of the French Geographical Society.

  
  
  

  In 1898 Frans took an active part in the Dreyfus affair. Under the influence of Marcel Proust, France was the first to sign Emile Zola's famous manifesto letter "I accuse".

  From that time on, Frans became a prominent figure in the reformist, and later the socialist camp, took part in the organization of public universities, lectured to workers, and participated in rallies organized by leftist forces. France becomes a close friend of the socialist leader Jean Jaurès and a literary master of the French Socialist Party.

  Creativity Frans

  Early work

  The novel that brought him fame, Le Crime de Silvestre Bonnard, published in 1881, is a satire that favors frivolity and kindness over harsh virtue.

  
  
  

  In subsequent novels and stories by Frans, with great erudition and subtle psychological instinct, the spirit of different historical eras is recreated. "The Tavern of Queen Goose Feet" ("La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque", 1893) is a satirical story in the taste of the 18th century, with the original central figure of Abbé Jerome Coignard, he is pious, but leads a sinful life and justifies his "falls" by the fact that they strengthen in him the spirit of humility. The same abbot France displays in "The judgments of Mr. Jerome Coignard" ("Les Opinions de Jerome Coignard", 1893).

  In a number of stories, in particular, in the collection "Mother-of-Pearl Casket" ("L'Etui de nacre", 1892), France reveals a vivid fantasy; his favorite topic is the juxtaposition of pagan and Christian worldviews in stories from the first centuries of Christianity or the early Renaissance. The best examples of this kind are "Saint Satyr". In this he had a certain influence on Dmitry Merezhkovsky. The story "Thais" ("Thais", 1890) - the story of the famous ancient courtesan who became a saint - is written in the same spirit of a mixture of Epicureanism and Christian mercy.

  In the novel "Red Lily" ("Lys Rouge", 1894), against the backdrop of exquisitely artistic descriptions of Florence and painting of primitives, a purely Parisian adultery drama in the spirit of Bourges is presented (with the exception of beautiful descriptions of Florence and paintings).

  Social romance period

  Then Frans began a series of peculiar novels with sharp political content under the general title: "Modern History" ("Histoire Contemporaine"). This is a historical chronicle with a philosophical coverage of events. As a modern historian, Frans reveals the insight and impartiality of a scientific prospector, along with the subtle irony of a skeptic who knows the value of human feelings and undertakings.

  
  
  

  The fictional plot is intertwined in these novels with real social events, depicting election campaigning, the intrigues of the provincial bureaucracy, incidents of the Dreyfus trial, and street demonstrations. Along with this, the scientific research and abstract theories of the armchair scientist, the troubles in his home life, the betrayal of his wife, the psychology of a puzzled and somewhat short-sighted thinker in life affairs are described.

  In the center of events that alternate in the novels of this series, there is one and the same person - the learned historian Bergeret, who embodies the author's philosophical ideal: a condescending and skeptical attitude towards reality, ironic equanimity in judgments about the actions of those around him.

  satirical novels

  The next work of the writer, the two-volume historical work "The Life of Joan of Arc" ("Vie de Jeanne d'Arc", 1908), written under the influence of the historian Ernest Renan, was poorly received by the public. The clerics objected to the demystification of Jeanne, and the book seemed to historians to be insufficiently faithful to the original sources.

  
  
  
  

  On the other hand, a parody of the French story "Penguin Island" ("L'Ile de pingouins"), also published in 1908, was received with great enthusiasm. In Penguin Island, the myopic Abbot Mael mistook the penguins for humans and christened them, causing a lot of trouble in heaven and on earth. In the future, in his indescribable satirical manner, France describes the emergence of private property and the state, the emergence of the first royal dynasty, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Most of the book is devoted to contemporary events of Frans: the attempted coup by J. Boulanger, the clerical reaction, the Dreyfus affair, the mores of the Waldeck-Rousseau cabinet. At the end, a gloomy forecast of the future is given: the power of financial monopolies and nuclear terrorism that destroys civilization.

  The writer's next great work of fiction, the novel The Gods Are Thirsty (Les Dieux ont soif, 1912), is dedicated to the French Revolution.

  His novel "The Rise of the Angels" ("La Revolte des Anges", 1914) is a social satire written with elements of game mysticism. Not the all-good God reigns in Heaven, but the evil and imperfect Demiurge, and Satan is forced to raise an uprising against him, which is a kind of mirror reflection of the social revolutionary movement on Earth.

  
  
  
  

  After this book, Frans fully turns to autobiographical topics and writes essays on childhood and adolescence, which later became part of the novels "Little Pierre" ("Le Petit Pierre", 1918) and "Life in Bloom" ("La Vie en fleur", 1922 ).

  France and opera

  The works of Frans "Thais" and "The Juggler of Our Lady" served as a source for the libretto of the composer Jules Massenet's operas.

  Characteristics of the worldview of Frans from the Brockhaus Encyclopedia

  Frans is a philosopher and poet. His worldview is reduced to refined epicureanism. He is the sharpest of the French critics of modern reality, without any sentimentality revealing the weaknesses and moral falls of human nature, the imperfection and ugliness of social life, morals, relations between people; but in his criticism he introduces a special reconciliation, philosophical contemplation and serenity, a warming feeling of love for weak humanity. He does not judge or moralize, but only penetrates into the meaning of negative phenomena. This combination of irony with love for people, with an artistic understanding of beauty in all manifestations of life, is a characteristic feature of Frans' works. The humor of Frans lies in the fact that his hero applies the same method to the study of the most heterogeneous phenomena. The same historical criterion by which he judges events in ancient Egypt serves him to judge the Dreyfus case and its impact on society; the same analytical method with which he proceeds to abstract scientific questions helps him explain the act of his wife who cheated on him and, having understood it, calmly leave, not judging, but not forgiving either.
  When writing this article, material from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1890-1907) was used.

  Compositions

  Modern History (L'Histoire contemporaine)

  * Under the city elms (L'Orme du mail, 1897).
  * Willow mannequin (Le Mannequin d'osier, 1897).
  * Amethyst ring (L'Anneau d'amethyste, 1899).
  * Mister Bergeret in Paris (Monsieur Bergeret a Paris, 1901).

  Autobiographical cycle

  * The book of my friend (Le Livre de mon ami, 1885).
  * Pierre Noziere (1899).
  * Little Pierre (Le Petit Pierre, 1918).
  * Life in bloom (La Vie en fleur, 1922).

  Novels

  * Jocaste (Jocaste, 1879).
  * "Skinny cat" (Le Chat maigre, 1879).
  * Crime of Sylvester Bonnard (Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, 1881).
  * Passion of Jean Servien (Les Desirs de Jean Servien, 1882).
  * Count Abel (Abeille, conte, 1883).
  * Thais (Thais, 1890).
  * Tavern Queen Goose Feet (La Rotisserie de la reine Pedauque, 1892).
  * Judgments of M. Jerome Coignard (Les Opinions de Jerome Coignard, 1893).
  * Red lily (Le Lys rouge, 1894).
  * Garden of Epicurus (Le Jardin d'Epicure, 1895).
  * Theatrical history (Histoires comiques, 1903).
  * On a white stone (Sur la pierre blanche, 1905).
  * Penguin Island (L'Ile des Pingouins, 1908).
  * The gods thirst (Les dieux ont soif, 1912).
  * Revolt of the Angels (La Revolte des anges, 1914).

  Novels collections

  * Balthasar (Balthasar, 1889).
  * Mother-of-pearl casket (L'Etui de nacre, 1892).
  * Well of St. Clare (Le Puits de Sainte Claire, 1895).
  * Clio (Clio, 1900).
  * Procurator of Judea (Le Procurateur de Judee, 1902).
  * Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet, and many other useful stories (L'Affaire Crainquebille, 1901).
  * Stories by Jacques Tournebroche (Les Contes de Jacques Tournebroche, 1908).
  * The Seven Wives of Bluebeard (Les Sept Femmes de Barbe bleue et autres contes merveilleux, 1909).

  Dramaturgy

  * What the hell is not kidding (Au petit bonheur, un acte, 1898).
  * Crainquebille (piece, 1903).
  * Willow mannequin (Le Mannequin d'osier, comedie, 1908).
  * A comedy about a man who married a mute (La Comedie de celui qui epousa une femme muette, deux actes, 1908).

  Essay

  * Life of Joan of Arc (Vie de Jeanne d'Arc, 1908).
  * Literary life (Critique litteraire).
  * Latin genius (Le Genie latin, 1913).

  Poetry

  * Golden Poems (Poemes dores, 1873).
  * Corinthian wedding (Les Noces corinthiennes, 1876).

  Publication of works in Russian translation

  * Collected works in 8 volumes. - M., 1957-1960.
  * Collected works in 4 volumes. - M., 1983-1984.

  Mikhail Kuzmin Anatole France

  
  
  

  Speaking pompously, one could say about the death of Anatole France: "The last Frenchman died." This would be true if the concept of a Frenchman did not change, like all concepts in general, sometimes even leaving its periphery.

  France is a classic and lofty image of the French genius, although it harmoniously combines properties that mutually destroy each other, as it were. Maybe there is a law that the quality, brought to the limit, turns into the opposite.

  
  
  

  Being connected by the deepest and tenacious roots with the French nationality, France refined and expanded this national element to a worldwide internationality.

  Being an anti-religious thinker, in any case, anti-church, Frans only does what he draws inspiration and thoughts from church antiquity and church dogmas.

  
  
  
  

  While mocking the various methods of historiography, he resorts to them in his works of a historical nature.

  A principled violator of traditions, Frans sacredly and inviolably observes them.

  The enemy, as a skeptic, of all kinds of fanaticism and enthusiasm, he brings a certain fervor into the very enmity. Although, of course, ardor is the least appropriate definition for Frans' work. Warmth, humanity, liberalism, irony, compassion - these are the qualities that are remembered when the name of Frans is pronounced. Words are not cold, not hot - warm, supporting human life, but not pushing for action. Unthinkable in disasters. In the time of the Apocalypse, at its current moment, Frans "would have been cast out of his mouth" as an angel of the Laodicean church, who was neither hot nor cold. Such people are not suitable for the Apocalypse, just as all kinds of Apocalypses cannot be to their liking. This is not the kind of atmosphere where they feel like a fish in water. The so-called epochs of decline before the explosions are a good time for skepticism; the weathered beams will support the dilapidated building, the wind is probably already blowing, but not strong enough, you can say yes and no, or neither yes nor no, and objectively come to no conclusion. Not only war requires warlike people, but every definite and strong action. Frans was a deeply civilian and literary man. Orthodoxy rejects the dogma of purgatory (neither yes nor no), but the icons of the Last Judgment sometimes depict souls in the form of a naked person trembling in the air, sins do not allow him to heaven, and good deeds save him from hell. This is how Frans appears to me. Only he does not tremble, but has arranged the hanging garden of Epicurus and argues intelligently and liberally about all sorts of things, until the trumpet roar of the last judgment drowns out human words and does not require an animal or divine cry. Of course, Frans will not let a cry. He doesn't want to, and he can't. But as long as intellectually human qualities are sufficient - brilliance, humanity and breadth of thought, understanding, gentleness, responsiveness, charm and brilliance of the greatest human talent, harmony and balance - France has no equal. Looking for a definite answer from him is an enterprise doomed to failure in advance. An anecdote about a wise man comes to mind, from whom a student asked for advice: whether to marry him or not to marry. “Do as you like, you will still regret it.” Frans would have answered everything: “Do whatever you like: you will still make a mistake.” Errors and difficulties he always saw vigilantly and subtly, but he would have found it difficult to point out where they were not. He wouldn't take responsibility for anything. He willingly helps to destroy, but he is careful not to lay a brick in a new building. If he does, he will always doubt whether he is building a newly destroyed building again. There are no buildings that would not be subject to destruction, in his opinion. It's not worth the trouble for a while, And it's impossible to love forever.

  In the meantime, watch with a smile how the houses of cards of passions, desires, philosophies, governments, empires and solar systems collapse. Approximately all are of equal importance from a certain point of view. Of course, this is very hopeless. But if you think logically, then, first of all, everyone needs to hang themselves, and then it will be seen. France, on the other hand, thinks mostly logically, terribly logically, deadly logically. And yet, I don't want to get rid of him. Not because he offers the rope with the meekest smile, and even lathered this rope, but because in addition to the human mind, which “understands everything” with sad logic, there is something in him that makes it all alive. A skeptic, an atheist, a destroyer, etc. - all this is in him, but partly all this is a position, a mask that hides the most valuable thing that Frans never discovered, which he was chastely ashamed of, which, perhaps, he would have renounced in favor of the old skeptical coat. Maybe this is love, I do not know and do not want to find out secrets. But it is she who holds the whole building of Frans, despite his apologetic smiles. Sometimes, as in "Rise of the Angels", he came very close to her, the word is ready to break from his lips, but again he makes a diversion to the side, again he is ashamed, again - neither yes nor no. A hint of a key is given by the "Saint Satyr", whom the author almost identifies with himself.

  
  
  

  The usual disguises of the author: Abbé Coignard, Mr. Bergeret, little Pierre. In the person of the child, Frans opposes conventional common sense with even more common sense, natural and naive. Naivety, of course, is a polemical device, similar to the polemical devices of Leo Tolstoy, who appears, when he needs it, completely stupid. The next stage of polemical naivety is Riquet's dog, the same mask of Frans. All masks, like almost all novels, are reasons for reasoning. Frans' range of interests is very wide, and he does not miss the opportunity to express his opinion, to quote in his own way illuminated, to tell a forgotten and caustic anecdote. In this respect, the four volumes of Modern History can serve as a most curious example of a new form of fiction. Of course, these are not novels and not one novel in four books. These are feuilletons, an excursion into history, theology, ethnography, pictures of manners. The barely outlined double plot of the struggle for the episcopal see and the family history of Mr. Bergeret is drowned in digressions and topical diatribes. Some pages are so valuable to Frans that he repeats them almost without any changes in several books. This persistence does not always correspond to the specificity of these places in the work of Frans.

  Frans' encyclopedism is his great erudition. Great reader. The absence of a system in his reading gives his knowledge freshness and breadth, but at the same time, of course, makes him related to the compilers of antiquity, like Aulus Gellius. This system, being brought to the point of popurrizatory absurdity, certainly leads to a tear-off calendar with information for each day. To read Frans, you will need a subject index and a list of authors mentioned. The Opinions of the Abbé Coignard and The Garden of Epicurus, completely devoid of plot, do not differ so much from his novels as might be expected. The new form is "On the White Stone", a work of course poetic, fiction, but by no means a novel in the generally accepted sense of the word.

  A quotation torn from a book lives a separate life, sometimes more significant than that left in its proper place. It gives room for imagination and reflection. As an epigraph, lines taken from works of very dubious significance impress and excite. Frans is well aware of this strange psychological phenomenon, and he, in turn, brilliantly uses it, all the more so since the method of reticence with outward clarity is made by the author as a principle.

  
  
  

  Frans sees clearly at close range, like a physically nearsighted person. Hence the lack of large lines. Fantasy, generally uncharacteristic of the Latin races, is also weakly manifested in Frans. The use of ready-made mythological or legendary figures, such as angels, nymphs and satyrs, should not, of course, be mistaken for a fantastic element. Slight deviations towards pathology and telepathy cannot count. Frans is a genius, highly natural. Only by the power of talent does he make his ordinariness extraordinary, in contrast to geniuses of a different composition, who impose their unnaturalness on the world as naturalness.

  Frans has few utopian dreams, and they all look like a fairy tale about a white bull. So in White Stone and Penguin Island, the picture of the socialist system ends with anarchist uprisings, the rise of colored races, destruction, savagery, and again the slow growth of the same culture. The law of connection between opposites brought to the limit is especially clear in The Revolt of the Angels, where immediately after the victory of Lucifer over Jehovah, the celestial becomes an oppressor, and the overthrown despot becomes an oppressed rebel, so that the external rebellion has to be transferred inside oneself and each one in himself overthrows his own Jehovah which, of course, is both harder and easier. Transferring the center of gravity of any liberation to the realm of thinking and feeling, and not social and state conditions, partly comes into contact with Tolstoy's teaching, partly repeats the "know thyself" of the ancient Greeks, which can either serve as an invitation to a flat and material study of anatomy and biology or lead to mystically irresponsible wilds. And yet this formula, similar to the ambiguous dictum of the oracle, was, perhaps, the only affirmative proposition of Frans.

  The deliberate destruction of large generalizing lines and perspectives in the depiction of historical epochs and events leads to the relegation of heroism and to the glorification (at least in potency) of everyday modernity. The insignificance of the causes, the grandeur of the consequences and vice versa. In passing, let us recall Tolstoy's War and Peace (Napoleon, Kutuzov) and Pushkin's notes on Count Nulin. What if Lucretia just slid on Tarquinius' face? For Frans, many Tarquinias are nothing more than Counts Nulins, and the story takes on an unusually caustic, familiar and modern character. The little things of our lives suddenly have projections into world history.

  A similar attitude to history can already be found in Niebuhr and, of course, in Taine, whose dry and corrosive spirit was very close to Frans. Taine can generally be counted among the teachers of Frans.

  Voltaire, Taine and Renan.

  
  
  

  Salon, sworn scoffing, analytical, corrosive destruction of idealistic generalizations and seminary, clerical revolt against the church, mainly as a well-known institution. Voltaire, Taine and Renan influenced both the style and the language of France.

  A clear, well-aimed, venomous phrase, the audacity of which is always tempered by sociability; dry and clear definitions, deliberately and deadly materialistic and, finally, sweet floridity, honey and oil, when the French language turns into an organ, harp and flute, secular church sermons and funeral speeches, Bossuet, Massillon and Bourdalou - sweet-tongued Renan.

  
  
  
  

  Voltaire's novels are ancestors in the most direct line of many of the stories of Frans ("Shirts") and even the epic "Penguin Island".

  Not only does The Gods Thirst adjoin directly to Taine's The Origin of Modern France, but even in his own time Frans applies partly the same method. "Thomas Grandorge", Taine's only fictional experience, had an undeniable influence on some of the works of Frans.

  To Renan, France owes, in addition to the sweetest harmonic language in lyric-philosophical places, the painting of landscapes and the local atmosphere (compare the beginning of Joan of Arc with Renan's Palestinian landscapes).

  Objects of attacks and ridicule by Frans in the field of the humanities: the method of historiography, the method of ethnography and the interpretation of folklore and legends. The brilliance and play of his mind and imagination in these cases are unparalleled. But, as he himself repeatedly repeated, old prejudices are replaced only by new prejudices. So, in place of the history, ethnography and legends he ridiculed, he puts his own, though charming, the easiest, but still fairy tales and fantasies.

  Of the public institutions hated by Francis (although hatred is too hot a feeling for him), are the court, the church and the state. He analyzes them ready-made, as they exist, therefore, he is an anti-clerical and a socialist. But my opinion is that he does not recognize them, in essence, in general, as any self-affirming phenomenon. A non-militant anarchist is perhaps Frans' most accurate definition. He sees elements of anarchism and communism in the infantile period of Christianity, and from the personality of Francis of Assisi ("The Human Tragedy") he makes a figure that is very indicative of his worldview.

  Not hot, not cold, warm. This is how Frans carried himself to the end, surprising the world, how a person of such significance and height can be a smiling and reasoning witness. This is where the mystery of Frans lies, so unsuited for the role of a man with a mystery. Not so much a mystery as a figure of default. Unspoken words. Hints are given, very cautious, but given. And yet this word keeps Frans at an unattainable height. Perhaps it will turn out to be quite simple and will deceive many conflicting opinions about the great writer.

  Frans Anatole

  France (France) Anatole (pseudonym; real name - Anatole Francois Thibault; Thibault) (April 16, 1844, Paris - October 12, 1924, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire), French writer. Member of the French Academy since 1896. Son of a second-hand book dealer. He began his literary career as a journalist and poet. Having become close with the Parnassus group, he published the book A. de Vigny (1868), the collection Golden Poems (1873, Russian translation 1957) and the dramatic poem Corinthian Wedding (1876, Russian translation 1957). In 1879 he wrote the stories "Jocasta" and "Skinny Cat", reflecting his passion for positivism and the natural sciences. Fame came after the publication of the novel "The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard" (1881, Russian translation 1899). In the 70-80s. wrote articles, prefaces to editions of the classics of French literature, which then compiled the collection "Latin Genius" (1913). Influenced by the philosophy of J. E. Renan F. in the 80s. contrasts the vulgarity and squalor of bourgeois reality with the enjoyment of spiritual values ​​​​and sensual joys (the novel "Tais", 1890, Russian translation 1891). The most complete expression of F.'s philosophical outlook was found in the collection of aphorisms The Garden of Epicurus (1894, full Russian translation, 1958). The rejection of bourgeois reality manifests itself in F. in the form of skeptical irony. The spokesman for this irony is the Abbé Coignard, the hero of the books The Tavern of Queen Goose Feet (1892, Russian translation under the title Salamander, 1907) and The Judgments of Monsieur Jérôme Coignard (1893, Russian translation 1905). Confronting his heroes with the life of the royal 18th century, F. ironically not only over the orders of the past, but also over the contemporary social reality of the Third Republic. In the short stories (collections Belshazzar, 1889; Mother-of-Pearl Casket, 1892; Saint Clare's Well, 1895; Clio, 1900), F. is a fascinating conversationalist, a brilliant stylist and stylist. Condemning fanaticism, hypocrisy, the writer affirms the greatness of the natural laws of life, the human right to joy and love. F.'s humanistic and democratic views opposed decadent literature, irrationalism, and mysticism.

  In the late 90s. in connection with the intensification of the reaction, one of the manifestations of which was the "Dreyfus affair" (see the Dreyfus affair), F. writes a sharp and bold satire - the tetralogy "Modern History", consisting of the novels "Under the roadside elm" (1897, Russian translation . 1905), "Willow Mannequin" (1897), "Amethyst Ring" (1899, Russian translation 1910) and "Mr. Bergeret in Paris" (1901, Russian translation 1907). In this satirical review, F. reproduced the political life of the late 19th century with documentary accuracy. The image of the humanist, philologist Bergeret, dear to the author, runs through the entire tetralogy. The social theme is also characteristic of most of the stories in the collection Crainquebil, Putois, Riquet, and Many Other Useful Stories (1904). The fate of the greengrocer Krenkebil, the hero of the story of the same name, who became a victim of judicial arbitrariness, a ruthless state machine, is raised to a great social generalization.

  At the beginning of the 20th century F. became close to the socialists, with J. Zhores; in the newspaper L'Humanite for 1904, he published the socio-philosophical novel On the White Stone (separate edition, 1905), the main idea of ​​which is the affirmation of socialism as the natural and only positive ideal of the future. F. the publicist consistently opposed the clerical-nationalist reaction (the book The Church and the Republic, 1904). The highest rise of F.'s journalistic activity is associated with the Revolution of 1905–07 in Russia; His journalism 1898-1906 was partly included in the collections "Social convictions" (1902), "To better times" (1906). The defeat of the revolution was a heavy blow for F. F.’s works also expressed painful contradictions, doubts, and criticism of bourgeois society that became even more aggravated and deepened after 1905: the novels Penguin Island (1908, Russian translation 1908), The Rise of the Angels ( 1914, Russian translation 1918), short stories in the collection "The Seven Wives of Bluebeard" (1909). In the historical novel The Gods Are Thirsty (1912, Russian translation, 1917), F., showing the greatness of the people, the selflessness of the Jacobins, at the same time affirms the pessimistic idea of ​​the doom of the revolution. At the beginning of World War I (1914–18), F. fell for some time under the influence of chauvinist propaganda, but already in 1916 he understood the imperialist nature of the war.

  A new rise in F.'s journalistic and social activities was associated with the revolutionary events of 1917 in Russia, which restored the writer's faith in the revolution and socialism. F. became one of the first friends and defenders of the young Soviet Republic, protested against intervention and blockade. Together with A. Barbus, F. is the author of manifestos and declarations of the Klarte association. In 1920, he fully sided with the newly founded French Communist Party. In recent years, F. completed a cycle of memories of childhood and adolescence - "Little Pierre" (1919) and "Life in Bloom" (1922) - previously written "My Friend's Book" (1885) and "Pierre Nozière" (1899); worked on the philosophical "Dialogues under the Rose" (1917-24, published 1925). Nobel Prize (1921)

  F. went through a difficult and difficult path from a refined connoisseur of antiquity, a skeptic and contemplative to a satirist writer, a citizen who recognized the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, the world of socialism. The value of F.'s books is in the bold, merciless exposure of the vices of bourgeois society, in the affirmation of the high ideals of humanism, in original and subtle artistic skill. M. Gorky called F.'s name among the great realists; he was highly valued by A. V. Lunacharsky.

  Cit.: CEuvres completes illustrees, v. 1-25, ., 1925-1935; Vers les temps meilleurs, Trente ans de vie sociale, v. 1-3, ., 1949-1957; in Russian per. - Complete collection of works, ed. A. V. Lunacharsky, vol. 1-14; vol. 16-20, M. - L., (1928) -31; Sobr. soch., v. 1-8, M., 1957-1960.

  Lit .: History of French literature, vol. 3, M., 1959; Lunacharsky A. V., Writer of irony and hope, in his book: Articles on literature, M., 1957; Dynnik V., Anatole France. Creativity, M. - L., 1934; Fried J., Anatole France and his time, M., 1975; Corday M., A. France d "apres ses confidences et ses souvenirs, ., (1927); Seilliere E., A. France, critique de son temps, ., 1934; Suffel J., A. France, ., 1946 ; his own, A. France par luimeme, (., 1963); Cachin M., Humaniste - socialiste - communiste, "Les Lettres francaises", 1949, 6 Oct., No. 280; "Europe", 1954, No. 108 ( the number is dedicated to A. France); Ubersfeld A., A. France: De l "humanisme bourgeois a l" humanisme socialiste, "Cahiers du communisme", 1954, No. 11-12; Vandegans A., A. France. Les annees de formation ., 1954; Levaililant J., Les aventures du scepticisme. Essai sur l`evolution intellectuelle d`A. France, (., 1965); Lion J., Bibliographic des ouvrages consacres a A. France, ., 1935.

  I. A. Lileeva.

  Island of penguins. annotation

  Anatole France is a classic of French literature, a master of the philosophical novel. Penguin Island depicts in a grotesque way the history of human society from its inception to modern times. As the plot of the novel develops, a satire on contemporary French bourgeois society occupies an increasing place in it. The wit of the narrator, the brightness of social characteristics give the book an unfading freshness.

  The celebrated satirist Anatole France was a proven master of paradoxes. Expressed in brief maxims, honed to a diamond sharpness, embodied in the form of whole scenes, situations, plots, often defining the idea of ​​a work, paradoxes permeate French creativity, giving it brilliance and originality. But these are by no means the paradoxes of an inveterate wit. In their whimsical form, France portrayed the contradictions of bourgeois existence. Frans' paradoxes are not tinsel, but sparks, cut out in a sharp collision of humanistic ideas, dear to the mind and heart of the writer, with the social untruth of his time.

  "Penguin Island" - the most intricate creation of Anatole France. A bold play of fantasy, an unusual turn of habitual images, audacious joking of generally accepted judgments, all facets of comedy - from buffoonery to the subtlest mockery, all means of exposure - from a poster pointing finger to a sly squint of the eyes, an unexpected change of styles, the interpenetration of skillful historical restorations and the topic of the day - all this striking, sparkling variety is at the same time a single artistic whole. The idea of ​​the book is one, the author's intonation that dominates it is one. "Penguin Island" is a genuine brainchild of sparkling French irony, albeit sharply different from other, older brainchildren, such as, for example, "The Crime of Sylvester Bonard" or even "Modern History", but retaining an undoubted "family" resemblance to them.

  In his long life, Anatole France (1844-1924) wrote poetry and poems, short stories, fairy tales, plays, “childhood memories” (due to the unreliability of these memories, one has to resort to quotation marks), political and literary critical articles; he wrote the story of Joan of Arc and much more, but the main place in all his work belongs to the philosophical novel. From the philosophical novel “The Crime of Sylvester Bonard, Academician” (1881), Frans’ literary fame began, philosophical novels (“Thais”, books about the abbot Coignare, "The Red Lily", "Modern History", "The Gods Are Thirsty", "The Rise of the Angels") marked the main stages of his ideological and artistic quest.

  Perhaps even more rightly can be called a philosophical narrative and "Penguin Island" (1908), which reproduces in a grotesquely caricatured form the history of human civilization. Frans, this tireless collector of old prints and rare manuscripts, a fine connoisseur of the past, a skillful recreator of distant, bygone times, scatters historical facts and characteristic signs of various eras in Penguin Island with a generous hand. All this, however, by no means turns Penguin Island into a historical novel. History itself, artistically reinterpreted by the great French satirist, serves him only as a springboard for satirical attacks on modern capitalist civilization.

  In a humorous preface to the novel, France speaks of a certain Jaco the Philosopher, the author of a comic story about the deeds of mankind, where he included many facts from the history of his people - does the definition given to the work of Jaco the Philosopher fit the "Isle of Penguins" written by Jacques -Anatole Thibault (real name of Frans)? Doesn't one feel here the intention of Frans to present Jaco the Philosopher as his artistic "second self"? (By the way, the nickname "Philosopher" in this case is very significant.) The recursion of the various depicted eras - from ancient to modern - not only in the subject (property as a result of violence, colonialism, wars, religion, etc.), but also in the plot (the emergence of the cult of St. Orbrosa in primitive times and the restoration of this cult by politicians and saints of modern times) serves Francis as one of the true artistic means for the philosophical generalization of modern, including the most topical, material of French reality. The depiction of the very origins of civilization, which reveals the history of the penguins, which in the future is more and more specifically connected with French history, gives it a more generalized character, spreads the generalization far beyond the borders of France, makes it applicable to the entire exploiting society as a whole, - not without reason Jaco the Philosopher , despite numerous references to facts from the life of his homeland, calls his work a story about the deeds of all mankind, and not just any one people. Such a connection of a broad socio-philosophical generalization with specific episodes of French life protects the artistic world of Penguin Island from the sin of abstraction, which is so tempting for the creators of philosophical novels. In addition, such a connection makes this philosophical novel amusing, sometimes hilariously funny, no matter how strange such a characterization sounds in relation to such a serious literary genre.

  The organic fusion of the funny and the profound is not new to Frans' art. As early as in Modern History, he not only depicted the monarchist conspiracy against the Third Republic as a ridiculous farce, boldly mixing in it the erotic adventures of secular ladies with the machinations of political conspirators, he also drew from this farce profound socio-philosophical conclusions about the very nature of the bourgeois republic. Frans proclaimed the legitimacy of the combination of the funny and the serious already in his first novel through the mouth of the most learned Sylvester Bonard, who was convinced that the desire for knowledge is alive and well only in joyful minds, that only by having fun can you truly learn. In a paradoxical form (also funny in its own way!) it expresses not only a fruitful pedagogical idea, but a primordially humanistic view of the life-affirming nature of knowledge.

  The commonwealth of life-affirming laughter, even buffoonery, and the cognitive power of socio-philosophical generalizations is clearly embodied in the humanistic epic of the 16th century - "Gargantua and Pantagruel" by the great Rabelais. The philosophical novels of Frans absorbed the traditions of various masters of this genre - Voltaire and Montesquieu, Rabelais and Swift. But if in the books of 1893 - "The Tavern of Queen Goose Paws" and "The Judgments of Mr. Jerome Coypiard" - Frans most of all feels the spirit of the Enlighteners, especially Voltaire - both in composition, and in an adventurous plot, and in caustic irony, - then in " Penguin Island” is dominated by the tradition of Rabelais, sometimes combined with the tradition of Swift. Voltaire's caustic chuckle is here and there drowned out by Rabelaisian rolling laughter, and sometimes by Swift's bilious laughter.

  Rabelais was for France the most beloved writer of the French Renaissance, and among all his literary favorites in general, he gave way, perhaps, only to Racine. Rabelais, one might say, was the companion of the entire creative life of Frans. France reveled not only in the monstrous play of his fantasy in Gargantua and Pantagruel, but also in stories about the stormy life of Rabelais himself. Even before Penguin Island, Frans often paid tribute to the Rabelaisian grotesque in his work. Rabelais's buffoonish fantasy, his inventive mockery of the most seemingly inviolable concepts, unshakable institutions, his magnificent mischief in creating images and situations - all this was reflected in France's "Penguin Island", and not in individual episodes and some features of style, but in the main idea, in the whole artistic nature of the book.

  The main themes of Penguin Island are already defined in the preface, where Frans gives a vicious satire on official historical pseudoscience, clenched into a fist. In an ironically respectful tone, parodying the scientific judgments and pseudo-academic language of his interlocutors, the narrator, who allegedly turned to them for advice, conveys all the stupidity, all the absurdities, political obscurantism and obscurantism of their advice and recommendations to the penguin historian - to promote pious feelings, devotion to the rich in his work. , the humility of the poor, who supposedly form the foundations of any society, with special reverence to interpret the origin of property, the aristocracy, the gendarmerie, not to reject the intervention of the supernatural in earthly affairs, etc. Throughout all subsequent pages of Penguin Island, Frans ruthlessly reviews the entire set similar principles. He decisively cracks down on officially propagated illusions about the emergence of property, social order, religious legends, wars, moral ideas, and so on. and so on. All this is done in such a way that the well-aimed and sharp mockery of the satirist, with a calculated rebound, falls into the very foundations of contemporary capitalist society - no, not only modern, but any capitalist society in general: after all, the novel also speaks of the future. In the depiction of Frans, these foundations turn out to be monstrously absurd, their absurdity is also emphasized by the author's favorite artistic means - the grotesque.

  The intro to the vast catalog of absurdities, into which the history of mankind turns under the pen of Anatole France, is a story about the very emergence of the penguin society, about the beginning of their civilized life. The mistake of the blind-sighted Mael, a zealot of the Christian faith, who accidentally baptized penguins, mistaking them from a distance for people - this is what grandiose absurdity the penguins owe their introduction to humanity. In the face of penguins, really funny in their external resemblance to a person, the writer has at his disposal a whole troupe of actors for the farce he has started - the image of centuries-old human civilization.

  In such a farce, Anatole France, who has long rejected the property system, penetrates its very essence, throws off all the hypocritical veils fabricated by the ideologists of the bourgeoisie from property, and shows it as the prey of predators, as the result of the most brutal violence. Watching how an enraged penguin, already turned into a man by the will of God, shreds the nose of his fellow tribesman with his teeth, the meek old man Mael, in the simplicity of his soul, cannot understand what is the meaning of such cruel fights; his companion comes to the aid of the bewildered old man, explaining that in this wild struggle the foundations of property are laid, and hence the foundations of future statehood.

  In such scenes, the former French paradoxes, being embodied in real images, still double their crushing power.

  The French grotesque manifests itself just as clearly in relation to religion and the church. The anti-Christian theme runs through all of Frans' work. However, nowhere until now his atheistic and anti-church convictions, which are included as an organic part in the "creed" of this atheist, have not been expressed in such burning sarcasm as in "Penguin Island".

  Regarding the ludicrous mistake of the blind-sighted preacher, Frans staged a scientific discussion in heaven, in which the fathers of the church, teachers of the Christian faith, holy ascetics and the Lord God himself take part. In the temperamental argumentation of the disputants, who in the heat of the dispute interfere with the highly solemn language of the Bible with the official eloquence of judicial chicaners, and even with the rough vocabulary of fair barkers, Frans pushes together various dogmas of Christianity and the establishment of the Catholic Church, demonstrating their complete contradiction and absurdity. Even more scope for anti-religious pathos is given in the story of Orbrosa, the highly revered penguin saint, whose cult arose from a combination of arrogant selfish deceit and dense ignorance. The writer not only ridicules here the cult of St. Genevieve, given out by the Catholic Church as the patroness of Paris, but refers, so to speak, to the origins of all such legends.

  Religion as an instrument of political reaction, the Catholic Church as an ally of the racists and monarchist adventurers of the Third Republic, as a fabricator of miracles that dull the consciousness of the people, has already been subjected to sarcastic consideration in Modern History. By the way, the theme of Orbrosa is already outlined there: the depraved girl Honorna amuses the tender listeners with ridiculous stories about her “visions” in order to lure out handouts that she shares with the spoiled boy Isidore on their next love date. However, the theme of a debauchee and a deceiver who enjoys religious veneration receives a much more ramified and generalized interpretation in Penguin Island: the cult of St. Orbrosa is here being artificially revived by the secular rabble of modern times in order to serve the cause of reaction. Frans will give the religious theme the most acute topicality.

  The same synthesis of historical generalization and the political topic of the day is also observed in the treatment of the military theme. Here, the ideological and artistic closeness of Anatole France to Francois Rabelais is especially noticeable: now and then behind the shoulders of the penguin warriors of old and new times one can see King Picrochole with his advisers and inspirers, marked with a shameful stigma in Gargantua and Pantagruel. In Penguin Island, the theme of war, which has long disturbed Frans, sharply escalates. First of all, this affected the image of Napoleon. Napoleon was, so to speak, almost an obsessive image for France - as if France had an unquenchable personal enmity towards him. In "Penguin Island" the satirist pursues the military glory of Napoleon up to the statue of the emperor on top of a proud column, up to the allegorical figures of the Arc de Triomphe. He, as always, gloatingly enjoys the demonstration of his spiritual limitations. Moreover, Napoleon loses all presentability, acquires the buffoonish appearance of a character of some fair performance. Even his sonorous name is replaced in "Penguin Island" by the foolish pseudonym Trinco.

  By this kind of grotesque downgrading of the image, France debunks not only Napoleon, but also the militaristic idea of ​​​​military glory associated with him. The writer fulfills his satirical task by telling about the journey of a certain Malay ruler to the country of penguins, which gives him the opportunity to collide old, traditionally consecrated judgments about military exploits with a fresh perception of a traveler who is not bound by European conventions and - in the manner of an Indian from Voltaire's story "Innocent" or Persian from Montesquieu's "Persian Letters" - with his naive bewilderment helping the author to reveal the very essence of the matter. Resorting to such estrangement as a tried and tested method of discrediting, France makes the reader look at military glory through the eyes of the Maharaja of Jambi, and instead of the heroic guards, spectacular battle clutches, victorious gestures of the commander, he sees a picture of miserable post-war everyday life, inevitable physical and moral degeneration, with which the people are paying for the aggressive policy of their rulers.

  In Penguin Island, Frans convincingly showed the inseparable inner connection between imperialist politics and modern capitalism. When the scientist Obnubil goes to New Atlantis (in which one can easily recognize the North American United States), he naively believes that in this country of developed and flourishing industry, at any rate, there is no place for the shameful and senseless cult of war, with which he could not reconcile at home in Penguinia. But, alas, all his beautiful-hearted illusions were immediately dispelled as soon as he attended a meeting of the New Atlantic Parliament and witnessed how statesmen vote for declaring war on the Emerald Republic, seeking world hegemony in the trade in hams and sausages. Obnubil's journey to New Atlantis enables the author to further generalize the satirical review of modernity.

  The fact that Anatole France, like Jaco the Philosopher, borrows a lot “from the history of his own country” is explained not only by the author’s desire to write about the life he knew well, but also by the cynical exposure of the typical vices of capitalism, which was characteristic of the Third Republic. Boulanger's monarchical adventure, the Dreyfus affair, the corruption of rulers and officials, the betrayal of pseudo-socialists, the conspiracies of royalist thugs indulged by the police - this general pandemonium of the reactionary forces just begged for the poisonous satirist France to capture it in his book. And love for France, for his people, gave his sarcasms a special bitterness.

  The leaders of the Third Republic are playing a vile game in Penguin Island. Fictional names and names do not hide the connection of France's characters and situations with real ones taken from life itself: Emiral Chatillon is easily deciphered as General Boulanger, the "Pyro case" - as the Dreyfus case, Count Dandulenks - as Count Esterhazy, who should have been put in the dock instead of Dreyfus, Robin Medotochivy - as Prime Minister of Media, Laperson and Larnwe - as Mnlierand and Aristide Briand, etc.

  Frans combines real material with fictitious material in his depiction, and the erotic episodes that are not uncommon in the book give the depicted even more emphasized pamphlet character. Such, for example, is the episode involving the seductive Viscountess Olive in the preparation of the Châtillon plot. Such is the amorous scene on the “favorite sofa” between the wife of Minister Seres and Prime Minister Vizier, which led to the fall of the ministry. Such is the journey of the royalist conspirator monk Agarik in the company of two girls of dubious behavior in the car of Prince Cruchot.

  France does not seem to have left a single corner where shameful uncleanliness, moral and political decay, self-interest and the aggressiveness of reactionary forces dangerous for humanity could hide from his vigilance of the satirist. Frans' confidence that capitalist society was incorrigible no longer allowed him here (as was the case in The Crime of Sylvester Bonard) to appeal exclusively to the precepts of humanism or console himself (like M. Bergeret from Modern History) with the dream of socialism, which will change the existing system "with the merciful slowness of nature." It is characteristic that the longtime, beloved character of Frans - a man of intellectual labor and humanistic convictions - was almost completely stifled in Penguin Island, except for individual episodes. And in these episodes, the French hero is depicted in a completely different way. Humor, which had previously colored figures of this kind, gave them only special touchingness, and in Penguin Island it performs a completely different, much more woeful function for them - it emphasizes their unviability, the vagueness of their ideas and ideas, their impotence in the face of the pressure of reality.

  The very names of these episodic characters are already marked with humor: Obnubil (Latin obnubilis) - surrounded by clouds, shrouded in fog; Kokiy (French coquille) - shell, shell; Talpa (lat. talpa) - mole; Colomban (from lat. columba) - dove, dove, etc. And the characters live up to their names. Obnubil really has his head in the clouds, idealizing the New Atlantean pseudo-democracy, the chronicler John Talpa is really blind as a mole, and calmly writes his chronicle, not noticing that everything around is destroyed by the war; Colomban (France depicts him with especially bitter humor - after all, Emile Zola was bred under this name, who won France's boundless respect for his work in defense of Dreyfus) and is really clean like a dove, but like a dove, defenseless against an angry pack of political gangsters .

  Frans does not limit the humorous reassessment of his favorite hero to this: Bido-Koky is presented in the most caricatured form: from the world of solitary astronomical calculations and reflections, where Bido-Koky was hidden, like in a shell, he, overwhelmed by a sense of justice, rushes into the thick of the fight around “Pyro’s affairs”, but, having made sure how naive it was to console himself with the hope that justice in the world can be established with one blow, he again goes into his shell. This brief foray into political life demonstrates the illusory nature of his ideas. France does not spare Bido-Kokia, forcing him to go through a farcical romance with an elderly cocotte who decides to adorn herself with the halo of a heroic "citizen". France does not spare himself either, because Bido-Koky is undoubtedly autobiographical in many character traits (we note, by the way, that the first part of the character's surname is consonant with the surname of Thibault, the true name of the writer himself). But it is precisely the ability to so boldly parody his own humanistic illusions that is a sure symptom of the fact that France has already embarked on the path of overcoming them. The path was not easy.

  In search of a real social ideal, Francis could not be helped by the French socialists of his time - their opportunistic moods, their inability to lead the revolutionary movement of the working masses of France, were too obvious. How clearly France saw the deplorable confusion that characterized the ideology and political actions of the French socialists is evidenced by many pages of Penguin Island (especially Chapter VIII of Book 6) and many characters in the novel (Phoenix, Sapor, Laperson, Larive, etc.) .

  Convinced that his dream of a just social system is unrealizable in states that call themselves democratic, Dr. Obnubil bitterly thinks: “A wise man must stock up on dynamite to blow up this planet. When it shatters into pieces in space, the world will imperceptibly improve and the world conscience will be satisfied, which, however, does not exist. Obnubil's idea that the land that has grown a shameful capitalist civilization deserves complete destruction is accompanied by a very important skeptical caveat - about the senselessness of such destruction.

  This angry verdict and this skeptical reservation, as it were, anticipate the gloomy ending of the whole work. Frans' narrative style takes on the tone of the apocalypse here, giving vent to the writer's social anger. And at the same time, the last word in "Penguin Island" remains with the inexhaustible irony of Frans. Book Eight, entitled "The Future," bears the significant subtitle: "History Without End." Let the penguins, returned to their primitive state by a social catastrophe, lead a shepherd's peaceful life for some time on the ruins of former gigantic structures, violence and murder burst into this idyll again - the first signs of a future inhuman "civilization". And again, humanity completes its historical path in the same vicious circle.

  Having subjected to skeptical analysis his own formidable conclusion that capitalist civilization should be wiped off the face of the earth, France himself refuted this conclusion. His skepticism was creative skepticism: helping the writer to comprehend not only the contradictions of life, but also the contradictions of his inner world, he did not allow him to be satisfied with the anarchist idea of ​​general destruction, no matter how tempting it was for him.

  Penguin Island opens up a new period for Frans in his search for social truth, perhaps the most difficult period. From the idea of ​​the anarchic destruction of civilization, rejected in Penguin Island, his probing thought turned to revolution. And if in the novel The Gods Are Thirsty (1912) Anatole France has not yet found a way out of the contradictions of the social struggle, then the October Revolution helped him in this. There is a deep meaning in the fact that the great skeptic, the insightful satirist of bourgeois civilization, believed in Soviet socialist culture.