All the romantic pathos that shrouded the Middle Ages is presented in Ivanhoe. Valiant knights, beautiful ladies, castle sieges and the political subtleties of vassal relations - all this found a place in the novel by Walter Scott.
In many ways, it was his creation that contributed to the romanticization of the Middle Ages. The author described the historical events that affect the period in the history of England after the Third Crusade. Of course, there were some serious artistic improvisations and fiction, but this made the story only more exciting and beautiful.
It was impossible not to include in this selection the most famous creation of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. For many schoolchildren, the study of "Dead Souls" is the highlight of the literature lessons.
Nikolai Gogol is one of the few classics who knew how to write about the problems of petty-bourgeois life and Russia as a whole in such a sarcastically direct tone. There is neither the epic heaviness of Tolstoy, nor the unhealthy psychologism of Dostoevsky. Reading is easy and enjoyable. However, hardly anyone will deny him the depth and subtlety of the observed phenomena.
The adventure novel "The Headless Horseman" is multi-layered: detective and love motives are intertwined in it. The plot intricacies create intrigue and keep you in suspense until the very last pages of the book. Who is this headless horseman? A ghost, a figment of the heroes' imagination, or someone's insidious trick? You are unlikely to fall asleep until you get an answer to this question.
Charles Dickens was extremely popular during his lifetime. People were waiting for his next novels in much the same way that we are now waiting for the release of some Transformers. The educated English public loved his books for their inimitable style and plot dynamism.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club is Dickens' funniest work. The adventures of English snobs, who proclaimed themselves to be researchers of human souls, are full of ridiculous and comical situations. Social issues, of course, are present here, but it is presented in such a simple form that it is simply impossible not to fall in love with the English classic after reading it.
Madame Bovary is rightfully considered one of the greatest novels of the world classics. This title does not detract from the fascination of Flaubert's creation - the defiant story of Emma Bovary's love adventures is bold and daring. After the publication of the novel, the writer was even brought to trial for insulting morality.
The psychological naturalism that permeates the novel allowed Flaubert to clearly reveal the problem that is relevant in any era - the convertibility of love and money.
The most famous work of Oscar Wilde touches the nerve with a deeply developed image of the protagonist. Dorian Gray, an aesthete and a snob, has an extreme beauty that contrasts with the internal ugliness that develops over the course of the story. You can revel in watching Gray's moral decline, allegorically reflected in the visual change in his portrait, for hours on end.
"An American Tragedy" is the underside of the American Dream. The desire for wealth, respect, position in society, money is characteristic of all people, however, for the majority, the path to the top is closed by default for various reasons.
Clyde Griffiths - a native of the lower classes, who is trying with all his might to break into high society. He is ready to do anything for his dreams. But society, with its ideals of success as an absolute life goal, is itself a catalyst for the violation of morality. As a result, Clyde breaks the law in order to achieve his goals.
To Kill a Mockingbird is an autobiographical novel. Harper Lee described her childhood memories. The result is a story with an anti-racist message, written in simple and accessible language. Reading the book is useful and interesting, it can be called a textbook of morality.
Not so long ago, a continuation of the novel was published under the title " Go set a watchman". It turns inside out the images of the characters of the writer's classic work so much that cognitive dissonance cannot be avoided when reading.
Lifehacker can receive a commission from the purchase of goods presented in the publication.
Many of us from school have remained convinced that, for the most part, Russian classics are a rather boring and unthinkably drawn-out work for several hundred pages about the hardships of life, mental suffering and the philosophical searches of the main characters. We have collected Russian classics that are impossible not to read to the end.
Anatoly Pristavkin "A golden cloud spent the night"
“A golden cloud spent the night” by Anatoly Pristavkin- a story that is piercing in its tragedy, which happened to orphans, the twin brothers Sasha and Kolka Kuzmin, who were evacuated along with the rest of the children from the orphanage during the war years to the Caucasus. Here it was decided to establish a labor colony for land development. Children turn out to be innocent victims of the government's policy towards the peoples of the Caucasus. This is one of the most powerful and honest stories about military orphans and the deportation of the Caucasian peoples. “A golden cloud spent the night” has been translated into 30 languages of the world and is rightfully one of the best works of Russian classics. 10th place in our rating.
Boris Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago"
Novel Boris Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago", which brought him world fame and the Nobel Prize - in 9th place in the list of the best works of Russian classics. For his novel, Pasternak was sharply criticized by representatives of the official literary world of the country. The manuscript of the book was banned for publication, and the writer himself, under pressure, was forced to refuse to present the prestigious award. After the death of Pasternak, she was transferred to his son.
Mikhail Sholokhov "Quiet Flows the Don"
In terms of the scale and scope of the period of life of the main characters described in it, it can be compared with Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". This is an epic story about the life and fate of the representatives of the Don Cossacks. The novel covers the three most difficult eras of the country: the First World War, the 1917 revolution and the Civil War. What happened in the souls of people in those days, what reasons forced relatives and friends to stand on opposite sides of the barricades? The writer tries to answer these questions in one of the best works of Russian classical literature. "Quiet Don" - on the 8th place in our rating.
Stories by Anton Chekhov
The universally recognized classic of Russian literature, occupy 7th place in our list. One of the most famous playwrights in the world, he wrote more than 300 works of various genres and died very early, at 44. Chekhov's stories, ironic, funny and eccentric, reflected the realities of life of that era. They have not lost their relevance even now. The peculiarity of his short works is not to answer questions, but to ask them to the reader.
I. Ilf and E. Petrov "The Twelve Chairs"
The novels of writers with a wonderful sense of humor I. Ilf and E. Petrov "The Twelve Chairs" and "The Golden Calf" take 6th place among the best works of Russian classics. After reading them, every reader will understand that classical literature is not only interesting and exciting, but also funny. The adventures of the great strategist Ostap Bender, the protagonist of the books by Ilf and Petrov, will not leave anyone indifferent. Immediately after the first publication, the writers' works were ambiguously perceived in literary circles. But time has shown their artistic value.
In fifth place in our ranking of the best works of Russian classics - The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This is not only a great novel about one of the most difficult and terrible periods in the country's history - repressions in the USSR, but also an autobiographical work based on the author's personal experience, as well as letters and memoirs of more than two hundred camp prisoners. The release of the novel in the West was accompanied by a loud scandal and persecution against Solzhenitsyn and other dissidents. The publication of The Gulag Archipelago became possible in the USSR only in 1990. The novel is one of best books of the century.
Nikolai Gogol "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka"
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is a universally recognized classic of world significance. The novel "Dead Souls" is considered the crown of his work, the second volume of which was destroyed by the author himself. But our rating of the best works of Russian classics included the first book Gogol - "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka". It is hard to believe that the stories included in the book and written with sparkling humor were practically the first experience in Gogol's writing. A flattering review of the work was left by Pushkin, who was sincerely amazed and fascinated by Gogol's stories, written in a lively, poetic language without pretentiousness and stiffness.
The events described in the book take place in different time periods: in XVII, XVIII XIX centuries.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky "Crime and Punishment"
Novel "Crime and Punishment" by F. M. Dostoevsky ranks third in the list of the best works of Russian classics. He received the status of a cult book of world significance. This is one of the most frequently filmed books. This is not only a deeply philosophical work in which the author poses the problems of moral responsibility, good and evil to readers, but also a psychological drama and a fascinating detective story. The author shows the reader the process of turning a talented and respectable young man into a murderer. He is no less interested in the possibility of Raskolnikov's atonement for guilt.
Great epic novel Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace", the volume of which terrifies schoolchildren for many decades, is actually very interesting. It covers the period of several military campaigns against France, the strongest at that time, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. This is one of the brightest examples of the best works of not only Russian, but also world classics. The novel is recognized as one of the most epic works in world literature. Here every reader will find his favorite topic: love, war, courage.
Mikhail Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"
Topping our list of best classics is the marvelous novel. The author never lived to see the publication of his book - it was published 30 years after his death.
The Master and Margarita is such a complex work that not a single attempt to film the novel has succeeded. The figures of Woland, the Master and Margarita require filigree accuracy in the transfer of their images. Unfortunately, no actor has yet managed to achieve this. The film adaptation of the novel by director Vladimir Bortko can be considered the most successful.
“How the classic teaches”, “I’ll go read the classics” - these turns can be heard in everyday speech. However, it is unlikely that we are fully aware of which writers have the right to be included in the golden fund of belles-lettres, and what this phenomenon is in general - a classic of world literature. This article will answer such questions.
Terminology issues
It is quite difficult to outline the concept of classical, because this definition is used in a variety of meanings. For an ordinary native speaker, it is akin to an ideal, a standard, something to strive for. However, it would not be an exaggeration to say that, in relation to literature, the scope of these parameters is mobile and varies depending on a particular era. So, for Corneille and Racine, the classics of world literature are primarily works of the times of Antiquity, while the Middle Ages did not welcome them at all. And at the beginning of the 19th century, there were even lovers to assert that all the best in Russia had already been written. Agree: fans of Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, such hypotheses seem extremely ridiculous.
Another point of view
Also, "classical literature" is sometimes understood as works that were created before modernism. Although now such a view can be considered somewhat outdated, since the novels of Kafka, Joyce and Proust, the canvases of Dali and Malevich have long passed into the category of the golden fund of art, weeding out less talented contemporaries.
At the same time, despite historical modifications, the classics of world literature remain timeless, universal and talented. Even after hundreds of years, humanity turns to the works of Shakespeare, Goethe or Pushkin, interpreting them in various discourses. This becomes possible due to the depth of their content, relevance to one and all.
So, to sum up: what does classical literature include? whose works are still read today.
Are classical and "high" literature the same thing?
The division of literature into three "floors" - high, fiction and mass - appeared relatively recently. More precisely, when entertaining books began to be created specifically for the average reader. The classics of world literature largely correspond to the "high" works. They are intellectual, require considerable work on the part of the reader, his experience. However, the term "classical" is also applied to samples of the so-called mass literature, though in a slightly different meaning. An example of this is the detective stories of Agatha Christie and the fantasy of Tolkien. When their fans claim that this is a classic of world literature, they mean that "Ten Little Indians" or "The Lord of the Rings" served as a successful model for subsequent writers who worked within these genres. It is difficult to judge to what extent these works will remain in the memory of readers; literary criticism does not give an exact answer to this question.
List of world classics
It has already become traditional to rank books that are required reading for those who want to be considered a truly educated person. Open such lists of creations of ancient Greek and Roman authors: Homer ("Iliad"), Aeschylus ("Prometheus chained") and Virgil ("Aeneid"). These works have the unconditional right to bear the honorary title of "classic of world literature". became the cradle of the work of J. Chaucer and F. Villon, as well as an infinite number of literary monuments that do not have an author.
The Renaissance gave us the creators of eternal images - Shakespeare and Cervantes. However, one must also remember Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Francois Rabelais and some others. The 17th century was marked by baroque (Pedro Calderon, Gongora) and classic (Racine, Corneille, Molière) art. Then came the enrichment of literature with the names of Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe and Schiller.
The 19th century opens the romantic work of Byron, Scott, Hoffmann, Hugo, Poe. Somewhere in the middle of the century, romanticism is replaced by the novels of Stendhal, Balzac, Dickens.
The turn of the century is distinguished by the emergence of the first modernist movements - symbolism (Verlaine, Rimbaud, Wilde), naturalism (Zola) and impressionism. At the same time, the so-called new drama (Ibsen, Shaw, Maeterlinck) is gaining popularity, striving to completely rethink outdated dramatic techniques. The twentieth century enriched literature with the modernist novel (mentioned by Kafka, Proust and Joyce), a large number of avant-garde movements - surrealism, dadaism, expressionism. The second half of the last century was marked by the work of Brecht, Camus, Hemingway and Marquez. One can also talk about contemporary postmodern works that have become classics (Pavic, Suskind).
Russian classic writers
Russian classics is, of course, a separate conversation. The XIX and XX centuries discovered the names of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Fet, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Blok, Gorky, Yesenin, Bulgakov, Sholokhov ... Classics of Russian and world literature are formed from their works.
All the romantic pathos that shrouded the Middle Ages is presented in Ivanhoe. Valiant knights, beautiful ladies, castle sieges and the political subtleties of vassal relations - all this found a place in the novel by Walter Scott.
In many ways, it was his creation that contributed to the romanticization of the Middle Ages. The author described the historical events that affect the period in the history of England after the Third Crusade. Of course, there were some serious artistic improvisations and fiction, but this made the story only more exciting and beautiful.
It was impossible not to include in this selection the most famous creation of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. For many schoolchildren, the study of "Dead Souls" is the highlight of the literature lessons.
Nikolai Gogol is one of the few classics who knew how to write about the problems of petty-bourgeois life and Russia as a whole in such a sarcastically direct tone. There is neither the epic heaviness of Tolstoy, nor the unhealthy psychologism of Dostoevsky. Reading is easy and enjoyable. However, hardly anyone will deny him the depth and subtlety of the observed phenomena.
The adventure novel "The Headless Horseman" is multi-layered: detective and love motives are intertwined in it. The plot intricacies create intrigue and keep you in suspense until the very last pages of the book. Who is this headless horseman? A ghost, a figment of the heroes' imagination, or someone's insidious trick? You are unlikely to fall asleep until you get an answer to this question.
Charles Dickens was extremely popular during his lifetime. People were waiting for his next novels in much the same way that we are now waiting for the release of some Transformers. The educated English public loved his books for their inimitable style and plot dynamism.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club is Dickens' funniest work. The adventures of English snobs, who proclaimed themselves to be researchers of human souls, are full of ridiculous and comical situations. Social issues, of course, are present here, but it is presented in such a simple form that it is simply impossible not to fall in love with the English classic after reading it.
Madame Bovary is rightfully considered one of the greatest novels of the world classics. This title does not detract from the fascination of Flaubert's creation - the defiant story of Emma Bovary's love adventures is bold and daring. After the publication of the novel, the writer was even brought to trial for insulting morality.
The psychological naturalism that permeates the novel allowed Flaubert to clearly reveal the problem that is relevant in any era - the convertibility of love and money.
The most famous work of Oscar Wilde touches the nerve with a deeply developed image of the protagonist. Dorian Gray, an aesthete and a snob, has an extreme beauty that contrasts with the internal ugliness that develops over the course of the story. You can revel in watching Gray's moral decline, allegorically reflected in the visual change in his portrait, for hours on end.
"An American Tragedy" is the underside of the American Dream. The desire for wealth, respect, position in society, money is characteristic of all people, however, for the majority, the path to the top is closed by default for various reasons.
Clyde Griffiths - a native of the lower classes, who is trying with all his might to break into high society. He is ready to do anything for his dreams. But society, with its ideals of success as an absolute life goal, is itself a catalyst for the violation of morality. As a result, Clyde breaks the law in order to achieve his goals.
To Kill a Mockingbird is an autobiographical novel. Harper Lee described her childhood memories. The result is a story with an anti-racist message, written in simple and accessible language. Reading the book is useful and interesting, it can be called a textbook of morality.
Not so long ago, a continuation of the novel was published under the title " Go set a watchman". It turns inside out the images of the characters of the writer's classic work so much that cognitive dissonance cannot be avoided when reading.
Lifehacker can receive a commission from the purchase of goods presented in the publication.
