What is the main idea of ​​the story poor Liza. Poor Lisa - analysis of the work

Composition

Words and tastes contrary

And contrary to wishes

On us from a faded line

Suddenly, there is charm.

What a strange thing for our days

It's not a secret for us.

But there is merit in it:

She's sentimental!

Lines from the first performance Poor Lisa»,

libretto by Yuri Ryashentsev

In the era of Byron, Schiller and Goethe, on the eve of French Revolution, in the intensity of feelings that was characteristic of Europe in those years, but with the ceremonial and pomp of the Baroque still preserved, the leading trends in literature were sensual and sensitive romanticism and sentimentalism. If the emergence of romanticism in Russia was due to translations of the works of these poets, and later it was developed by its own Russian writings, then sentimentalism became popular thanks to the works of Russian writers, one of which is “Poor Lisa” by Karamzin.

In the words of Karamzin himself, the story "Poor Lisa" is "a very uncomplicated fairy tale." The story of the fate of the heroine begins with a description of Moscow and the author's admission that he often comes to the "deserted monastery" where Lisa is buried, and "listens to the muffled groan of times swallowed up by the abyss of the past." With this technique, the author indicates his presence in the story, showing that any value judgment in the text is his personal opinion. The coexistence of the author and his hero in the same narrative space before Karamzin was not familiar to Russian literature. The title of the story is built on the connection own name heroine with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her, who at the same time constantly repeats that he has no power to change the course of events (“Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad story?”).

Liza, forced to work hard to feed her old mother, one day comes to Moscow with lilies of the valley and meets her on the street young man, who expresses his desire to always buy lilies of the valley from Lisa and finds out where she lives. The next day, Lisa is waiting for the appearance of a new acquaintance - Erast, without selling her lilies of the valley to anyone, but he only comes the next day to Lisa's house. The next day, Erast tells Lisa that he loves her, but asks to keep their feelings secret from her mother. For a long time "their embraces were pure and blameless," and Erast "all the brilliant amusements big light”appear “insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul fed his heart.” However, soon the son of a wealthy peasant from a neighboring village woo Lisa. Erast objects to their wedding, and says that, despite the difference between them, for him in Lisa "the most important thing is the soul, a sensitive and innocent soul." Their dates continue, but now Erast "could not be satisfied with being just innocent caresses." “He wanted more, more, and finally, he could not want anything ... Platonic love gave way to such feelings that he could not be proud of and which were no longer new to him. After some time, Erast informs Lisa that his regiment is going on a military campaign. He says goodbye, gives Lisa's mother money. Two months later, Liza, having arrived in Moscow, sees Erast, follows his carriage to a huge mansion, where Erast, freeing himself from Lisa's embrace, says that he still loves her, but circumstances have changed: on the campaign he lost almost all of his estate, and is now forced to marry a rich widow. Erast gives Lisa a hundred rubles and asks the servant to escort the girl out of the yard. Lisa, having reached the pond, under the canopy of those oaks, which just "a few weeks before had witnessed her delights", meets the neighbor's daughter, gives her the money and asks her to tell her mother with the words that she loved the man, and he cheated on her. After that, he jumps into the water. The neighbor's daughter calls for help, Lisa is pulled out, but too late. Lisa was buried near the pond, Lisa's mother died of grief. Erast until the end of his life "could not be consoled and considered himself a murderer." The author met him a year before his death, and learned the whole story from him.

The story revolutionized public consciousness XVIII century. Karamzin, for the first time in the history of Russian prose, turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically mundane features. His words "and peasant women know how to love" became winged. Not surprisingly, the story was very popular. In the noble lists, many Erasts appear at once - the name was previously infrequent. The pond, located under the walls of the Simonov Monastery (a 14th-century monastery, preserved on the territory of the Dynamo plant on Leninskaya Sloboda Street, 26), was called Lisiny Pond, but thanks to Karamzin's story, it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees around the pond was cut with inscriptions, both serious (“Poor Liza died in these streams for days; / If you are sensitive, passerby, take a breath”), and satirical, hostile to the heroine and author (“Erastov died in these streams bride. / Drown yourself, girls, there is enough room in the pond”).

"Poor Lisa" has become one of the pinnacles of Russian sentimentalism. It is in it that the sophisticated psychologism of Russian culture, recognized throughout the world, is born. fiction. Of great importance was the artistic discovery of Karamzin - the creation of a special emotional atmosphere corresponding to the theme of the work. The picture of a pure first love is drawn very touchingly: “Now I think,” Liza says to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your dark eyes, a bright month; without your voice, the nightingale singing is boring ... "Sensuality - supreme value sentimentalism - pushes the characters into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The main characters are also characteristically drawn: chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Liza appears as a beautiful shepherdess, least of all like a peasant woman, rather like a sweet secular young lady, brought up on sentimental novels; Erast, despite the dishonest act, reproaches himself for him until the end of his life.

In addition to sentimentalism, Karamzin gave Russia a new name. The name Elizabeth is translated as "honoring God." In biblical texts, this is the name of the wife of the high priest Aaron and the mother of John the Baptist. Later appears literary heroine Eloise, friend of Abelard. After it, the name is associated with love theme: the story of the "noble girl" Julie d "Entage, who fell in love with her humble teacher Saint-Pre, Jean-Jacques Rousseau calls "Julia, or New Eloise» (1761). Until the beginning of the 80s of the XVIII century, the name "Lisa" was almost never found in Russian literature. Having chosen this name for his heroine, Karamzin broke the strict canon of European literature of the 17th-18th centuries, in which the image of Liza, Lisetta was associated primarily with comedy and with the image of a maid-servant, who is usually quite frivolous and understands everything related to love intrigue. The gap between the name and its usual meaning meant going beyond classicism, weakened the ties between the name and its bearer in literary work. Instead of the “name-behavior” link familiar to classicism, a new one appears: character-behavior, which was a significant achievement for Karamzin on the way to the “psychologism” of Russian prose.

Many readers were struck by the audacity of the author in the style of presentation. One of the critics from the Novikov circle, which once included Karamzin himself, wrote: “I don’t know if Mr. Karamzin made an era in the history of the Russian language: but if he did, it’s very bad.” Further, the author of these lines writes that in "Poor Liza" "bad morals are called good manners"

The plot of "Poor Lisa" is maximally generalized and compressed. Possible lines developments are only outlined, often the text is replaced by dots and dashes, which become its “significant minus”. The image of Lisa is also only outlined, each feature of her character is a topic for a story, but not yet the story itself.

Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the opposition of the city and the countryside into Russian literature. In world folklore and myth, heroes are often able to act actively only in the space allotted to them and are completely powerless outside of it. In accordance with this tradition, in Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - turns out to be defenseless, falling into an urban space, where laws operate that are different from the laws of nature. No wonder Lisa's mother tells her: "My heart is always in the wrong place when you go to the city."

The central feature of Liza's character is sensitivity - this is how the main dignity of Karamzin's stories was defined, meaning by this the ability to sympathize, to discover "the tenderest feelings" in the "bends of the heart", as well as the ability to enjoy the contemplation of one's own emotions. Liza trusts the movements of her heart, lives "gentle passions." Ultimately, it is ardor and fervor that lead her to death, but morally she is justified. The idea consistently pursued by Karamzin that for the mentally rich, sensitive person commit good deeds naturally eliminates the need for normative morality.

Many perceive the novel as a confrontation between honesty and windiness, kindness and negativity, poverty and wealth. In fact, everything is more complicated: this is a clash of characters: strong - and accustomed to go with the flow. The novel emphasizes that Erast is a young man "with a fair mind and good heart, kind by nature, but weak and windy. It was Erast, who, from the point of view of the Lisa social stratum, is the “darling of fate”, was constantly bored and “complained about his fate.” Erast is represented by an egoist who thinks that he is ready to change for the sake of a new life, but as soon as he gets bored, he, without looking back, changes his life again, without thinking about the fate of those whom he abandoned. In other words, he thinks only about his own pleasure, and his desire to live, not burdened by the rules of civilization, in the bosom of nature, is caused only by reading idyllic novels and oversaturation. social life.

In this light, falling in love with Lisa is only a necessary addition to the idyllic picture being created - it’s not for nothing that Erast calls her his shepherdess. Having read novels in which “all people carelessly walked along the rays, bathed in clean springs, kissed like turtledoves, rested under roses and myrtle”, he decided that he “found in Liza what his heart had been looking for for a long time.” Therefore, he dreams that he will “live with Lisa, like a brother and sister, I will not use her love for evil and I will always be happy!”, And when Lisa gives herself to him, the satiated young man begins to grow cold in his feelings.

At the same time, Erast, being, as the author emphasizes, “kind by nature,” cannot just leave: he is trying to find a compromise with his conscience, and his decision comes down to paying off. The first time he gives money to Liza's mother, when he no longer wants to meet with Lisa and goes on a campaign with the regiment; the second time - when Lisa finds him in the city and he informs her about his upcoming marriage.

The story "Rich Lisa" in Russian literature opens the theme of the "little man", although social aspect in relation to Liza and Erast, he is somewhat muffled.

The story caused a lot of frank imitations: 1801. A.E. Izmailov "Poor Masha", I. Svechinsky "Seduced Henrietta", 1803 "Unfortunate Margaret". At the same time, the theme of "Poor Lisa" can be traced in many works of high artistic value and plays different roles in them. So, Pushkin, moving to realism in prose works and wanting to emphasize both his rejection of sentimentalism and its irrelevance for contemporary Russia, took the plot of "Poor Liza" and turned the "sad story" into a story with happy ending"The young lady is a peasant woman." Nevertheless, the same Pushkin in The Queen of Spades shows the line of the future life of the Karamzin Lisa: the fate that would have awaited her if she had not committed suicide. An echo of the theme of a sentimental work also sounds in the novel “Sunday” written in the spirit of realism by L.T. Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under a train.

Thus, the plot, which existed in literature before and became popular after, was transferred to Russian soil, while acquiring a special national flavor and becoming the basis for the development of Russian sentimentalism. Russian psychological, portrait prose and contributed to the gradual departure of Russian literature from the norms of classicism to more modern literary trends.

Other writings on this work

Karamzin's story "Poor Liza", was published by the author in 1792, this story became an example of sentimentalism. Also, for the first time, the heroine's suicide was introduced into literature. The author borrowed the idea for creating "Poor Lisa" from the works foreign literature, masterfully inscribing the atmosphere of a picturesque place where he rested in the country. Such an author's move gave credibility to the plot, and the characters were perceived as real people. We offer an analysis of the work "Poor Lisa" according to the plan. Material for 8th grade students.

Brief analysis

Year of writing– 1792

History of creation– The progressive views of Karamzin as a writer who decided to introduce the genre of sentimentalism into Russian literature helped him to study European literature and find the plot of the story.

Subject- In "Poor Lisa" the writer touched on many topics, these are social inequality, the theme of the "little man", the theme of love, betrayal.

Composition- The events of the story last three months, ending with a tragic denouement.

Direction- Sentimentalism.

History of creation

Karamzin traveled around Europe in 1789 - 1790, written after the trip “Letters from a Russian traveler brought fame to the writer. Having settled in Moscow, Karamzin began his professional writing activity, and became the publisher of the Moscow Journal.

The year of writing "Poor Lisa" was 1072, in the same year, the story was published in his journal. The writer introduced the genre of sentimentalism into Russian literature, from which the story of the creation of "Poor Lisa" began.

Karamzin introduced the death of the main character into the plot of the story, which fundamentally distinguished this short story from traditional Russian works from happy ending and the story gained immense popularity among readers.

Subject

Conducting an analysis of the work in "Poor Liza", one can single out several main topics that the author touches on. In describing the life of the peasants, the writer idealizes the peasant life and the life of the peasants in close contact with nature. According to Karamzin main character a story that grew up in nature, in fact, cannot be negative character, she is pure and highly moral, possessing all the virtues of a girl who grew up on the sacredly revered traditions of a peasant family.

Main idea The story is about the love of an innocent peasant girl for a rich nobleman. Forgetting about the existing social inequalities, the young girl plunged headlong into the pool of her feelings, falling in love with the nobleman. But the betrayal of a loved one awaited Lisa, and the girl, having learned about Erast's treachery, threw herself into the lake in despair.

multifaceted issues The work also includes the opposition of life in the city and in the countryside. The images of the village and the city are comparable to the images of the main characters. The city represents terrible force, a colossus capable of enslaving and destroying, so Erast does with Lisa. As the city grinds everything that comes in its millstones, throwing aside the used and waste material, so the nobleman uses an innocent girl as a toy, and after playing enough, he throws it away. It's all the same little man theme: petty, uneducated person from the lower class, cannot wait in his love further development, the generally accepted norms of representatives of different social strata are too strong. The conclusion suggests itself that such relationships are doomed from the outset: just as Erast could not feel comfortable in a peasant environment, so Lisa would not be accepted in his society, this is an obvious fact.

the main problem Lisa is that she succumbed to her feelings, not her mind. Most likely, Lisa assumed that they could not have a joint future, she simply closed her eyes to the realities of life and gave vent to her feelings. When she lost Erast, she also lost the meaning of life.

Composition

The narrator recounts events that took place thirty years ago and lasted three months. The author begins the story with a description of the landscape near the Simonov Monastery. After that, the plot develops, in which the reader gets acquainted with the main characters of the story. The plot of this unpretentious story is quite ordinary: a young poor girl falls in love with a rich man. The feelings of young people are developing rapidly, but between them there is an insurmountable barrier - social inequality, and it is impossible for Erast and Lisa to be together. The young man, having experienced new sensations, leaves the girl, without thinking about her moral experiences. No one is surprised that a young boy marries an old lady - such are the customs noble society, and such a step is common. Leading role in high society money and position play, sincere feelings are relegated to the background.

But this is not how a peasant girl behaves. She knows how to truly love. A striking feature of the composition of the work is that Karamzin ends the life of a girl by suicide. colorful description real place, Simonov Monastery, a pond - the description of these landscapes and the truthful characterization of the heroes give the impression of the authenticity and reality of the events taking place.

The special composition of the work of each reader leads to his own perception of the characters, each in his own way determines what this sentimental and tragic story teaches.

Main characters

Genre

Before Karamzin appeared in the writing field, multi-volume novels were in use. The founder of short stories was the author of "Poor Lisa", who created psychological story.

The criticism of this work was different, some of Karamzin's contemporaries found implausibility in the characters' characters, but in general, psychological work, which is centered on a moral conflict, was received kindly, and aroused great public interest.

The sentimental direction of the story with a tragic denouement became a role model for many writers, and opened new page in Russian literature.

XVIII century, which glorified many wonderful people, including the writer Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. By the end of this century, he publishes his most famous creation- the story "Poor Liza". It was it that brought him great fame and great popularity among readers. The book is based on two characters: poor girl Liza and the nobleman Erast, who appear in the course of the story in their attitude towards love.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin made a huge contribution to cultural development homeland in the late 18th century. After numerous trips to Germany, England, France and Switzerland, the prose writer returns to Russia, and while relaxing at the dacha of the famous traveler Pyotr Ivanovich Beketov, in the 1790s he takes on a new literary experiment. The local surroundings near the Simonov Monastery greatly influenced the idea of ​​the work "Poor Lisa", which he hatched during his travels. Nature was of great importance for Karamzin, he truly loved it and often changed the bustle of the city for forests and fields, where he read his favorite books and immersed himself in thought.

Genre and direction

"Poor Liza" is the first Russian psychological story that contains a moral disagreement between people of different classes. Lisa's feelings are clear and understandable to the reader: for a simple bourgeois, happiness is love, so she loves blindly and naively. Erast's feelings, on the contrary, are more confused, because he himself cannot understand them in any way. At first, the young man wants to simply fall in love just like in the novels he read, but it soon becomes clear that he is not able to live love. City life, full of luxury and passion, had a huge impact on the hero, and he discovers a carnal attraction that completely destroys spiritual love.

Karamzin is an innovator, he can rightfully be called the founder of Russian sentimentalism. Readers took the work admiringly, as society has long wanted something like this. The audience was exhausted by the moralizing of the classic direction, the basis of which is the worship of reason and duty. Sentimentalism, on the other hand, demonstrates the emotional experiences, feelings and emotions of the characters.

About what?

According to the writer, this story is “a rather uncomplicated fairy tale.” Indeed, the plot of the work is simple to genius. It begins and ends with an outline of the area of ​​the Simonov Monastery, which evokes in the memory of the narrator thoughts about the tragic turn in the fate of poor Lisa. This is a love story of a poor provincial woman and a wealthy young man from the privileged class. The acquaintance of the lovers began with the fact that Lisa was selling lilies of the valley collected in the forest, and Erast, wanting to start a conversation with the girl he liked, decided to buy flowers from her. He was subdued natural beauty and Lisa's kindness, and they started dating. However, soon the young man was fed up with the charm of his passion and found a more profitable party. The heroine, unable to withstand the blow, drowned herself. Her lover regretted it all his life.

Their images are ambiguous, first of all, the world of a simple natural person, unspoiled by city fuss and greed, is revealed. Karamzin described everything in such detail and picturesquely that readers believed in this story and fell in love with his heroine.

Main characters and their characteristics

1. The main character of the story is Lisa, a poor village girl. At an early age, she lost her father and was forced to become a breadwinner for her family, accepting any job. The hardworking provincial is very naive and sensitive, she sees only good features in people and lives with her emotions, following the call of her heart. She takes care of her mother day and night. And even when the heroine decides on a fatal act, she still does not forget about her family and leaves her money. Main Talent Lisa is a gift to love, because for the sake of her loved ones she is ready to do anything.
2. Lisa's mother is a kind and wise old woman. She experienced the death of her husband Ivan very hard, as she devotedly loved him and lived happily with him for many years. Her only consolation was her daughter, whom she sought to marry to a worthy and wealthy man. The character of the heroine is internally solid, but a little bookish and idealized.
3. Erast is a wealthy nobleman. He leads wild image life, thinking only about fun. He is smart, but very fickle, spoiled and weak-willed. Without thinking about the fact that Lisa is from a different class, he fell in love with her, but still he cannot overcome all the difficulties of this unequal love. Erast cannot be named villain because he admits his guilt. He read and was inspired by novels, was dreamy, looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Therefore, his real love did not stand such a test.

Subject

• The main theme in sentimental literature are the sincere feelings of a person in a collision with indifference real world. Karamzin was one of the first to decide to write about spiritual happiness and suffering. common people. He reflected in his work the transition from civic theme, which was extended in the Enlightenment, to the personal one, in which the main subject of interest is spiritual world individual. Thus, the author, having described in depth inner world characters, together with their feelings and experiences, began to develop such literary device like psychology.
• Theme of love. Love in "Poor Liza" is a test that tests the heroes for strength and loyalty to their word. Liza completely surrendered to this feeling, her author exalts and idealizes for this ability. She is the embodiment of the feminine ideal, the one that completely dissolves in the adoration of her beloved and is faithful to him until last breath. But Erast could not stand the test and turned out to be cowardly and pathetic person, incapable of self-giving in the name of something more important than material wealth.
• Contrasting city and countryside. The author prefers countryside, it is there that natural, sincere and good people who know no temptation. But in big cities they acquire vices: envy, greed, selfishness. Erast's position in society was more precious than love, he was fed up with it, because he was not able to experience a strong and deep feeling. Lisa, on the other hand, could not live after this betrayal: if love died, she follows her, because without her she cannot imagine her future.

Problem

Karamzin in the work "Poor Liza" touches on various problems: social and moral. The problematic of the story is based on opposition. The main characters differ both in quality of life and in character. Lisa is pure, honest and naive girl from the lower class, and Erast is a spoiled, weak-willed, thinking only about his own pleasures, a young man belonging to the nobility. Lisa, having fallen in love with him, cannot go a single day without thinking about him, while Erast, on the contrary, began to move away as soon as he got what he wanted from her.

The result of such fleeting moments of happiness for Lisa and Erast is the death of a girl, after which the young man cannot stop blaming himself for this tragedy and remains unhappy until the end of his life. The author showed how class inequality led to an unhappy ending and served as a reason for the tragedy, as well as the responsibility a person bears for those who trusted him.

the main idea

The plot is not the most important thing in this story. Emotions and feelings awakening while reading deserve more attention. The narrator himself plays a huge role, because he tells about the life of a poor rural girl with sadness and sympathy. For Russian literature, the image of an empathic narrator who knows how to empathize with the emotional state of the characters turned out to be a discovery. Any dramatic moment makes his heart bleed, as well as sincerely shed tears. Thus, the main idea of ​​the story "Poor Liza" is that one should not be afraid of one's feelings, love, experience, sympathize with the full breast. Only then can a person overcome immorality, cruelty and selfishness in himself. The author starts with himself, because he, a nobleman, describes the sins of his own class, and gives sympathy to a simple village girl, urging people of his position to become more humane. The inhabitants of poor huts sometimes outshine the gentlemen from old estates with their virtue. This is the main idea of ​​Karamzin.

The attitude of the author to the protagonist of the story also became an innovation in Russian literature. So Karamzin does not blame Erast when Lisa dies, he demonstrates the social conditions that caused tragic event. Big city influenced the young man, destroying in him moral principles and making him corrupt. Liza, on the other hand, grew up in the village, her naivety and simplicity played with her bad joke. The writer also demonstrates that not only Liza, but also Erast was subjected to the hardships of fate, becoming a victim of sad circumstances. The hero experiences guilt throughout his life, never becoming truly happy.

What does it teach?

The reader has the opportunity to learn something from the mistakes of others. The clash of love and selfishness is a hot topic, since anyone at least once in their life has experienced unrequited feelings, or experienced betrayal loved one. Analyzing Karamzin's story, we learn important life lessons, become more humane and more responsive to each other. The creations of the era of sentimentalism have a single property: they help people to enrich themselves spiritually, and also bring up the best humane and moral qualities in us.

The story "Poor Lisa" has gained popularity among readers. This work teaches a person to be more responsive to other people, as well as the ability to sympathize.

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Words and tastes contrary

And contrary to wishes

On us from a faded line

Suddenly, there is charm.

What a strange thing for our days

It's not a secret for us.

But there is merit in it:

She's sentimental!

Lines from the first performance "Poor Liza",

libretto by Yuri Ryashentsev

In the era of Byron, Schiller and Goethe, on the eve of the French Revolution, in the intensity of feelings characteristic of those years for Europe, but with the ceremonial and pomp of the Baroque still preserved, the leading trends in literature were sensual and sensitive romanticism and sentimentalism. If the emergence of romanticism in Russia was due to translations of the works of these poets, and later it was developed by its own Russian writings, then sentimentalism became popular thanks to the works of Russian writers, one of which is “Poor Lisa” by Karamzin.

In the words of Karamzin himself, the story "Poor Lisa" is "a very uncomplicated fairy tale." The story of the fate of the heroine begins with a description of Moscow and the author's admission that he often comes to the "deserted monastery" where Lisa is buried, and "listens to the muffled groan of times swallowed up by the abyss of the past." With this technique, the author indicates his presence in the story, showing that any value judgment in the text is his personal opinion. The coexistence of the author and his hero in the same narrative space before Karamzin was not familiar to Russian literature. The title of the story is built on the combination of the heroine's own name with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her, who at the same time constantly repeats that he has no power to change the course of events ("Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad story?").

Liza, forced to work hard to feed her old mother, one day comes to Moscow with lilies of the valley and meets a young man on the street who expresses his desire to always buy lilies of the valley from Lisa and finds out where she lives. The next day, Lisa is waiting for the appearance of a new acquaintance - Erast, without selling her lilies of the valley to anyone, but he only comes the next day to Lisa's house. The next day, Erast tells Lisa that he loves her, but asks to keep their feelings secret from her mother. For a long time, “their embraces were pure and immaculate,” and to Erast, “all the brilliant amusements of the great world” seem “insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul fed his heart.” However, soon the son of a wealthy peasant from a neighboring village woo Lisa. Erast objects to their wedding, and says that, despite the difference between them, for him in Lisa "the most important thing is the soul, a sensitive and innocent soul." Their dates continue, but now Erast "could not be satisfied with being just innocent caresses." “He wanted more, more, and finally, he could not wish for anything ... Platonic love gave way to such feelings that he could not be proud of and which were no longer new to him.” After some time, Erast informs Lisa that his regiment is going on a military campaign. He says goodbye, gives Lisa's mother money. Two months later, Liza, having arrived in Moscow, sees Erast, follows his carriage to a huge mansion, where Erast, freeing himself from Lisa's embrace, says that he still loves her, but circumstances have changed: on the campaign he lost almost all of his estate, and is now forced to marry a rich widow. Erast gives Lisa a hundred rubles and asks the servant to escort the girl out of the yard. Lisa, having reached the pond, under the canopy of those oaks, which just "a few weeks before had witnessed her delights", meets the neighbor's daughter, gives her the money and asks her to tell her mother with the words that she loved the man, and he cheated on her. After that, he jumps into the water. The neighbor's daughter calls for help, Lisa is pulled out, but too late. Lisa was buried near the pond, Lisa's mother died of grief. Erast until the end of his life "could not be consoled and considered himself a murderer." The author met him a year before his death, and learned the whole story from him.

The story made a complete revolution in the public consciousness of the XVIII century. Karamzin, for the first time in the history of Russian prose, turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically mundane features. His words "and peasant women know how to love" became winged. Not surprisingly, the story was very popular. In the noble lists, many Erasts appear at once - the name was previously infrequent. The pond, located under the walls of the Simonov Monastery (a 14th-century monastery, preserved on the territory of the Dynamo plant on Leninskaya Sloboda Street, 26), was called Lisiny Pond, but thanks to Karamzin's story, it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees around the pond was cut with inscriptions, both serious (“Poor Liza died in these streams for days; / If you are sensitive, passerby, take a breath”), and satirical, hostile to the heroine and author (“Erastov died in these streams bride. / Drown yourself, girls, there is enough room in the pond”).

"Poor Lisa" has become one of the pinnacles of Russian sentimentalism. It is in it that the refined psychologism of Russian artistic prose, recognized throughout the world, is born. Of great importance was the artistic discovery of Karamzin - the creation of a special emotional atmosphere corresponding to the theme of the work. The picture of a pure first love is drawn very touchingly: “Now I think,” Liza says to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your dark eyes, a bright month; without your voice, the nightingale singing is boring ... "Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the characters into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The main characters are also characteristically drawn: chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Liza appears as a beautiful shepherdess, least of all like a peasant woman, rather like a sweet secular young lady, brought up on sentimental novels; Erast, despite the dishonest act, reproaches himself for him until the end of his life.

In addition to sentimentalism, Karamzin gave Russia a new name. The name Elizabeth is translated as "honoring God." In biblical texts, this is the name of the wife of the high priest Aaron and the mother of John the Baptist. Later, the literary heroine Eloise, a friend of Abelard, appears. After her, the name is associated with a love theme: the story of the "noble maiden" Julie d "Entage, who fell in love with her modest teacher Saint-Pre, Jean-Jacques Rousseau calls "Julia, or New Eloise" (1761). Until the early 80s of the XVIII century, the name "Liza" was almost never found in Russian literature... By choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin broke the strict canon of European Literature XVII--XVIII centuries, in which the image of Lisa, Lisetta was associated primarily with comedy and with the image of a servant-maid, who is usually quite frivolous and understands everything connected with a love affair. The gap between the name and its usual meaning meant going beyond the framework of classicism, weakened the ties between the name and its bearer in a literary work. Instead of the “name-behavior” link familiar to classicism, a new one appears: character-behavior, which was a significant achievement for Karamzin on the way to the “psychologism” of Russian prose.

Many readers were struck by the audacity of the author in the style of presentation. One of the critics from the Novikov circle, which once included Karamzin himself, wrote: “I don’t know if Mr. Karamzin made an era in the history of the Russian language: but if he did, it’s very bad.” Further, the author of these lines writes that in "Poor Liza" "bad morals are called good manners"

The plot of "Poor Lisa" is maximally generalized and compressed. Possible lines of development are only outlined, often the text is replaced by dots and dashes, which become its “significant minus”. The image of Lisa is also only outlined, each feature of her character is a topic for a story, but not yet the story itself.

Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the opposition of the city and the countryside into Russian literature. In world folklore and myth, heroes are often able to act actively only in the space allotted to them and are completely powerless outside of it. In accordance with this tradition, in Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - turns out to be defenseless, falling into urban space, where laws operate that are different from the laws of nature. No wonder Lisa's mother tells her: "My heart is always in the wrong place when you go to the city."

The central feature of Lisa's character is sensitivity - this is how the main dignity of Karamzin's stories was defined, meaning by this the ability to sympathize, to discover "tender feelings" in the "bends of the heart", as well as the ability to enjoy the contemplation of one's own emotions. Liza trusts the movements of her heart, lives "gentle passions." Ultimately, it is ardor and fervor that lead her to death, but morally she is justified. The idea consistently pursued by Karamzin that it is natural for a spiritually rich, sensitive person to do good deeds removes the need for normative morality.

Many perceive the novel as a confrontation between honesty and windiness, kindness and negativity, poverty and wealth. In fact, everything is more complicated: this is a clash of characters: strong - and accustomed to go with the flow. The novel emphasizes that Erast is a young man "with a fair mind and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and windy." It was Erast, who, from the point of view of the Lisa social stratum, is the “darling of fate”, was constantly bored and “complained about his fate.” Erast is represented by an egoist who thinks that he is ready to change for the sake of a new life, but as soon as he gets bored, he, without looking back, changes his life again, without thinking about the fate of those whom he abandoned. In other words, he thinks only about his own pleasure, and his desire to live, not burdened by the rules of civilization, in the bosom of nature, is caused only by reading idyllic novels and oversaturation with social life.

In this light, falling in love with Lisa is only a necessary addition to the idyllic picture being created - it’s not without reason that Erast calls her his shepherdess. Having read novels in which “all people carelessly walked along the rays, bathed in clean springs, kissed like turtledoves, rested under roses and myrtle”, he decided that he “found in Liza what his heart had been looking for for a long time.” Therefore, he dreams that he will “live with Lisa, like a brother and sister, I will not use her love for evil and I will always be happy!”, And when Lisa gives herself to him, the satiated young man begins to grow cold in his feelings.

At the same time, Erast, being, as the author emphasizes, “kind by nature,” cannot just leave: he is trying to find a compromise with his conscience, and his decision comes down to paying off. The first time he gives money to Liza's mother, when he no longer wants to meet with Lisa and goes on a campaign with the regiment; the second time - when Lisa finds him in the city and he tells her about his upcoming marriage.

The story "Rich Lisa" in Russian literature opens the theme of the "little man", although the social aspect in relation to Lisa and Erast is somewhat muffled.

The story caused a lot of frank imitations: 1801. A.E. Izmailov "Poor Masha", I. Svechinsky "Seduced Henrietta", 1803 "Unfortunate Margaret". Along with this, the theme of "Poor Liza" can be traced in many works of high artistic value, and plays a variety of roles in them. So, Pushkin, turning to realism in prose works and wanting to emphasize both his rejection of sentimentalism and its irrelevance for contemporary Russia, took the plot of "Poor Liza" and turned the "sad reality" into a story with a happy ending "The young lady - a peasant woman" . Nevertheless, the same Pushkin in The Queen of Spades shows the line of the future life of the Karamzin Lisa: the fate that would have awaited her if she had not committed suicide. An echo of the theme of a sentimental work also sounds in the novel “Sunday” written in the spirit of realism by L.T. Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under a train.

Thus, the plot, which existed in literature before and became popular after, was transferred to Russian soil, while acquiring a special national flavor and becoming the basis for the development of Russian sentimentalism. Russian psychological, portrait prose and contributed to the gradual departure of Russian literature from the norms of classicism to more modern literary trends.