Methodological development in literature.
The meaning of the landscape in Karamzin's story "Poor Lisa".
One of the features of European literature of the 18th century, compared with the literature of an earlier period, is the aesthetic understanding of the landscape. Russian literature is no exception; the landscape in the works of Russian writers has an independent value. The most indicative in this regard is the literary work of N. M. Karamzin, one of whose many merits is the discovery of the multifunctionality of the landscape in Russian prose. If the poetry of Russia could already be proud of natural sketches in the works of Lomonosov and Derzhavin, Russian prose of that time was not rich in pictures of nature. After analyzing the descriptions of nature in Karamzin's story "Poor Lisa", we will try to comprehend the meaning and functions of the landscape.
Karamzin's story is very close to European novels. We are convinced of this by the opposition to the city of a morally pure village, and the world of feelings and life of ordinary people (Lisa and her mother). The introductory landscape with which the story opens is written in the same pastoral style: “... a magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it ...! Fat, densely green flowering meadows spread below, and behind them, along the yellow sands, a bright river flows, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats. This landscape has not only a purely pictorial meaning, but also performs a preliminary function, it introduces the reader into the spatio-temporal situation created in the story. We see “the golden-domed Danilov Monastery; ... almost at the edge of the horizon ... the Sparrow Hills are blue. On the left side, you can see vast fields covered with bread, forests, three or four villages, and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace.
In a certain sense, the landscape not only precedes, but also frames the work, since the story also ends with a description of nature “near the pond, under a gloomy oak ... a pond flows in my eyes, leaves rustle above me,” although not as detailed as the first.
An interesting feature of Karamzin's story is that the life of nature sometimes moves the plot, the development of events: "The meadows were covered with flowers, and Liza came to Moscow with lilies of the valley."
The story of Karamzin is also characterized by the principle of psychological parallelism, which is expressed in the comparison of the inner world of man and the life of nature.
Moreover, this comparison takes place in two plans - on the one hand - comparison, and on the other - opposition. Let's turn to the text of the story.
“Until now, waking up with the birds, you had fun with them in the morning, and a pure, joyful soul shone in your eyes, like the sun shines in drops of heavenly dew ...,” writes Karamzin, referring to Lisa and recalling the times, when her soul was in perfect harmony with nature.
When Liza is happy, when joy controls her whole being, nature (or “nature”, as Karamzin writes) is filled with the same happiness and joy: “What a beautiful morning! How fun it is in the field!
The larks never sang so well, the sun never shone so brightly, the flowers never smelled so pleasantly!..” At the tragic moment of the loss of innocence by Karamzin’s heroine, the landscape perfectly matches Liza’s feelings: “Meanwhile, lightning flashed and thunder roared. Liza trembled all over ... The storm roared menacingly, rain poured from black clouds - it seemed that nature was lamenting about Liza's lost innocence.
The juxtaposition of the feelings of the characters and the picture of nature at the moment of the farewell of Lisa and Erast is significant: “What a touching picture! The morning dawn, like a scarlet sea, spilled over the eastern sky. Erast stood under the branches of a tall oak, holding in his arms his poor, languid, sorrowful girlfriend, who, bidding farewell to him, said goodbye to her soul. All nature was silent. Nature echoes Lisa’s grief: “Often a sad turtledove combined her plaintive voice with her moaning ...”
But sometimes Karamzin gives a contrasting description of nature and what the heroine is experiencing: Soon the rising luminary of the day awakened all creation: groves, bushes came to life, birds fluttered and sang, flowers raised their heads to drink life-giving rays of light. But Lisa was still sitting in a sad mood. Such a contrast helps us to more accurately understand the sadness, Lisa's split, her experience.
“Oh, that the sky would fall on me! If the earth had swallowed up the poor!..” Memories of former happy days bring her unbearable pain when, in a moment of grief, she sees ancient oaks, “which, a few weeks before, were weak-willed witnesses of her delights.”
Sometimes Karamzin's landscape sketches cross both descriptive and psychological boundaries, growing into symbols. Such symbolic moments of the story include a thunderstorm (by the way, this technique - the punishment of a criminal with a thunderstorm, a thunderstorm as God's punishment - later became a literary cliché), and a description of the grove at the time of the parting of the heroes.
The comparisons used by the author of the story are also based on a comparison of man and nature: “not so soon the lightning flashes and disappears in the clouds, as quickly her blue eyes turned to the earth, meeting his gaze, her cheeks burned like a dawn on a summer evening.”
Karamzin's frequent appeals to the landscape are natural: as a sentimentalist writer, he primarily addresses the feelings of the reader, and it is possible to awaken these feelings through descriptions of changes in nature in connection with changes in the feelings of the characters.
Landscapes that reveal to the reader the beauty of the Moscow region, though not always vital, but always truthful, recognizable; therefore, perhaps, "Poor Liza" so excited Russian readers. Accurate descriptions gave the story a special credibility.
Thus, we can single out several lines of landscape meaning in N.M. Karamzin's story "Poor Liza": the descriptive, pictorial role of the landscape, which is reflected in the detailed pictures of nature; psychological. The function of natural descriptions is in those cases when, with the help of a landscape, the author emphasizes the feelings of his characters, showing them in comparison or contrast with the state of nature, the symbolic meaning of nature paintings, when the landscape carries not only pictorialism, but also embodies a certain supernatural power.
The landscape in the story also has, in a certain sense, a documentary meaning, which creates the authenticity and truthfulness of the image, since all the pictures of nature are almost written off by the author from nature.
The appeal to the pictures of nature goes on at the language level of Karamzin's story, which can be seen in the comparisons used in the text.
N.M. Karamzin significantly enriched Russian prose with natural sketches and detailed landscapes, raising it to the level that Russian poetry was at that time.
The story "Poor Lisa" was written by N.M. Karamzin in 1792. She made a huge impression on the Russian reader. Uneducated young ladies learned to read and write in order to read about the unfortunate fate of Lisa on their own. Although the plot of unequal love was far from new, the writer managed to write the story in such a way that for more than two hundred years we have been feeling pity and compassion for the deceived young girl.
And the point is not only that the author was one of the first in our literature to describe not the events, but the feelings of the characters. “Peasant women also know how to love!” - says the writer. And this was a discovery for his contemporaries in serf Russia. He does not give assessments, but just like we worry about his heroine, he sympathizes with her. The main theme of the story, as befits a sentimental work, is love. But there is also the theme of fate and circumstance, and, importantly for me, the theme of nature. Each event in the story is accompanied by a description of the picture of nature. And this is also a very unusual artistic device for Russian literature of the late 18th century. The artistic skill of N.M. Karamzin is obvious.
Liza's first meeting with Erast. And fog in the morning. Uncertainty. Nature suggests that this meeting does not promise happiness, what lies ahead is unknown. Next to Lisa is always the sun, light. But Erast never gets the sun's rays. And this is not accidental either. Liza is a sweet, pure, naive girl, but Erast is not like that at all. He is accustomed to pleasures, luxury. He is kind, but windy, as the author emphasizes. He says one thing and does another. When Liza yields to Erast in his desires, blindly trusting him, nature is indignant. Wind, thunder, rain. Nature cries, foreseeing the unfortunate fate of the girl. Erast lost interest in poor Lisa. And when he leaves, Liza grieves and nature mourns with her. The flowers in the story are also symbolic. White lilies of the valley in Lisa's hands at the first meeting. The next day, Lisa throws them into the water without waiting for Erast. Together with flowers, dreams of a happy life, of true and bright love are drowning.
What role do landscapes play in the story? The writer wants to show us that nature is not a judge, it does not condemn anyone, does not give judgments. She is a friend, a good adviser. She tells Lisa how to do the right thing. But the heroine forgot about her mind, succumbing to her feelings. For a while, the girl lost harmony with nature, and trouble happened. Therefore, a tragic ending was inevitable, as a punishment for a fatal mistake. Punishment awaits and Erast. N.M. Karamzin wanted to show that one should not succumb to passion, forgetting about the mind, that one must perceive nature as a friend who is trying to prompt and save us from mistakes that cannot be corrected.
The story "Poor Lisa" is the best work of N. M. Karamzin and one of the most perfect examples of Russian sentimental literature. It has many beautiful episodes that describe subtle emotional experiences.
In the work there are pictures of nature, beautiful in their picturesqueness, which harmoniously complement the narrative. At first glance, they can be considered random episodes that are just a beautiful backdrop for the main action, but in fact everything is much more complicated. Landscapes in "Poor Lisa" are one of the main means of revealing the emotional experiences of the characters.
At the very beginning of the story, the author describes Moscow and the “terrible mass of houses,” and immediately after that he begins to paint a completely different picture: “Down below ... along the yellow sands, a bright river flows, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats ... On the other side of the river an oak grove is visible, near which numerous herds graze; there young shepherds, sitting under the shade of trees, sing simple, dull songs ... "
Karamzin immediately takes the position of everything beautiful and natural. The city is unpleasant to him, he is drawn to "nature". Here the description of nature serves to express the author's position.
Further, most of the descriptions of nature are aimed at conveying the state of mind and feelings of the main character, because it is she, Lisa, who is the embodiment of everything natural and beautiful. “Even before the sun rose, Liza got up, went down to the banks of the Moskva River, sat down on the grass and, grieving, looked at the white mists ... silence reigned everywhere, but soon the rising luminary of the day awakened all creation: groves, bushes came to life, birds fluttered and sang, the flowers raised their heads to be nourished by the life-giving rays of light.
Nature at this moment is beautiful, but Lisa is sad, because a new feeling is born in her soul, which she has not experienced before.
Despite the fact that the heroine is sad, her feeling is beautiful and natural, like the landscape around.
A few minutes later, an explanation takes place between Lisa and Erast. They love each other, and her feelings immediately change: “What a beautiful morning! How fun everything is in the field! Never have larks sang so well, never have the sun shone so brightly, never have flowers smelled so pleasantly!”
Her experiences dissolve in the surrounding landscape, they are just as beautiful and pure.
A wonderful romance begins between Erast and Lisa, their attitude is chaste, their embrace is "pure and immaculate." The surrounding landscape is just as clean and immaculate. “After this, Erast and Liza, afraid not to keep their word, saw each other every evening ... most often under the shade of hundred-year-old oaks ... - oaks that overshadow a deep, clean pond, dug up in ancient times. There, the often quiet moon, through the green branches, silvered Liza's blond hair with its rays, with which the marshmallows and the hand of a dear friend played.
The time for an innocent relationship passes, Liza and Erast become close, she feels like a sinner, a criminal, and the same changes take place in nature as in Liza’s soul: “... not a single star shone in the sky ... Meanwhile, lightning flashed and thunder struck ... "This picture not only reveals Lisa's state of mind, but also portends the tragic ending of this story.
The heroes of the work part, but Lisa does not yet know that this is forever. She is unhappy, her heart is breaking, but a faint hope still glimmers in it. The morning dawn, which, like a "red sea", spills "over the eastern sky", conveys the pain, anxiety and confusion of the heroine and testifies to an unkind ending.
Lisa, having learned about Erast's betrayal, ended her miserable life. She threw herself into the very pond, near which she had once been so happy, she was buried under the “gloomy oak”, which is a witness to the happiest moments of her life.
The examples given are quite enough to show how important the description of pictures of nature in a work of art is, how deeply they help to penetrate into the soul of the characters and their experiences. It is simply unacceptable to consider the story "Poor Lisa" and not take into account the landscape sketches, because they help the reader to understand the depth of the author's thought, his ideological intent.
In this lesson, we will get acquainted with the story of N.M. Karamzin "Poor Lisa". We will find out why this work was in a special place among other works of Russian literature, and also analyze the role of landscape in this story.
Theme: LiteratureXVIIIcentury
Lesson: "Poor Lisa." The inner world of heroes. The role of the landscape
In the last lesson, we talked about the unity of everything written by Karamzin, about one thought that permeates everything that Karamzin wrote, from beginning to end. This idea is to write the history of the soul of the people along with the history of the state.
Everything written by Karamzin was intended for a narrow circle of readers. First of all, for those with whom he was personally acquainted and with whom he communicated. This is that part of the high society, the St. Petersburg and Moscow nobility, which was involved in literature. And also for a certain part of the people, whose number was measured by the number of seats in the imperial theater. As a matter of fact, those one and a half to two thousand people who gathered at the performances of the imperial theaters and made up the entire audience to which Karamzin addressed. These were people who could see each other, see, first of all, in the theater, at balls, meetings of high society, which were sometimes official, sometimes not. But these meetings always represented the circle of contacts and interests that formed the future of Russian literature.
Everything written by Karamzin is addressed to the circle of people whom he calls friends. If we open the “Letters of a Russian Traveler”, then we read the very first phrase - an appeal to friends: “I broke up with you, dear, I broke up! My heart is attached to you with all the most tender feelings, but I am constantly moving away from you and will continue to move away! After 18 months, returning from a trip, Karamzin ends the Letters of a Russian Traveler again with an appeal to his friends: “Shore! Fatherland! I bless you! I’m in Russia and in a few days I’ll be with you, my friends!..” And further: “And you, my dears, quickly prepare for me a neat hut in which I could have fun with the Chinese shadows of my imagination, be sad with my heart and hang out with friends." An appeal to friends, as a cross-cutting motif, is constantly present in the text, and in the text of any work by Karamzin.
Rice. 2. Title page of "Letters from a Russian Traveler" ()
About the landscape
The story "Poor Lisa" consists of fragments connected by a story about the author's experiences, and these are fragments of two kinds. The first of these (and this is where the story begins) is a description of nature. Description of nature, which serves Karamzin solely as a reflection of the inner state of the narrator. There is some idea about the person who writes the text. Without this representation, it turns out to be impossible to read. In order to read the text, one must, as it were, take the place of the one who wrote it, one must merge with the author and see through his eyes what he saw, and feel for him what he felt. This is a special kind of landscape, which appears in Karamzin for the first time in Russian literature. Here is the beginning: “... no one is more often than me in the field, no one more than me wanders on foot, without a plan, without a goal - wherever your eyes look - through meadows and groves, over hills and plains. Every summer I find new pleasant places or new beauties in old ones.
Karamzin does not dwell on details, he does not describe color, he does not convey sound, he does not talk about some small details, objects ... He talks about impressions, about the trace left by visible objects (their colors and sounds) in his soul . And this in some way sets the reader up and makes him think and feel in unison with how the author thinks and feels. And whether Karamzin wanted it or not, whether he did it intentionally or by accident, it appeared. But this is precisely what became such a material sign of Russian prose for several future centuries.
Rice. 3. Illustration for the story "Poor Liza". G.D. Epifanov (1947) ()
And "Poor Liza" in a number of these works is in a special place. The fact is that the friendly meetings of the time of Karamzin represented a very clear line between the male and female parts of society. Men, as a rule, communicated separately. If this is not a ball, not a children's holiday, then most often in the meeting, where future or current Russian writers met, only men were present. The appearance of a woman was as yet impossible. Nevertheless, women were the subject of men's conversations, men's interests, and women were most often addressed by what men wrote. Karamzin already noted that the Russian reader at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries was predominantly women. And his story, dedicated to a woman, the main character of which was a woman, was addressed mainly to the reader, and not to the reader. Karamzin addressed the male reader later in his multi-volume History of the Russian State. He addressed the female reader at the very moment when, apparently, the idea of the unity of the history of the country and the history of the soul was born. It was the female soul that was of particular interest.
It must be understood that in the system of education, in the system of communication that existed in that era (both separate education for boys and girls, and separate communication between men and women) was a very important part. And in this sense, in the male community of writers, women were something of an ideal, which they served, before which they bowed, to which the texts they wrote turned.
Rice. 4. "Poor Liza." O.A. Kiprensky (1827) ()
"Poor Lisa" is the embodiment of that feminine ideal that Karamzin and his circle of friends see. At the same time, one must understand that the fiction, some kind of artificiality, the schematic nature of the entire plot of "Poor Liza" is a completely natural thing for that time.
There is an abyss between a nobleman and a peasant, there is an abyss between a master and his serf. The love story between a rich and noble man named Erast and a poor peasant girl named Lisa is a very real story. And in the circle of acquaintances to whom Karamzin addresses his story, the majority should have recognized the real prototypes - those people whose story Karamzin tells in his story. All the rest, who personally did not know about these circumstances, could guess that there were real people behind the characters. And Karamzin does not finish speaking, does not give any actual instructions, no allusions to those who are really behind these characters. But everyone guesses that the story is not fictional, the story is actually the most ordinary and traditional: the master seduces the peasant woman and then leaves her, the peasant woman commits suicide.
Rice. 5. Illustration for the story "Poor Lisa". M.V. Dobuzhinsky (1922) ()
This standard situation is now for us, for those who look at this history from the height of two centuries that have passed since then. There is nothing unusual and mysterious in it. In essence, this story is a television series. This is a story that is repeatedly rewritten in notebooks, and now these notebooks have migrated to the Internet and are called blogs, and there, in essence, exactly the same sentimental stories are told that girls have become accustomed to since Karamzin. And to this day, these stories are extremely popular. What is the feature? What keeps our attention in this story now, two centuries later? From this point of view, it is very interesting to look at the reviews and comments that are left on the Internet by modern readers who have just read the story "Poor Lisa". They, it turns out, try on this story for themselves. They put themselves in Lisa's shoes and talk about what they would do in similar circumstances.
The men in this story are completely different. None of the readers identify themselves with Erast and do not try to try on this role. A completely different male look, a completely different idea of the text, completely different thoughts, completely different feelings for men.
Apparently, then in 1792, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin discovered Russian literature as women's literature. And this discovery still continues to be important and relevant. The successors of this women's story, and then the women's novel, which Karamzin created, are very common today, and bookstores show a wide selection of women's stories and novels. And not always they are composed by women, more often they are composed by men. But, nevertheless, these novels are still very popular.
Women's literature. Contemporary Women's Stories. The pattern of formation of Russian literature: a woman as a judge for a man
After the landscapes, the second element, the second part of the texts that are included in the story, are conversations. These are conversations that, as a rule, give only a hint, an outline. They are completely different from the real conversations that people have with each other. Both now and in the 18th century, when Karamzin's story was written, people spoke differently. Those dialogues that Karamzin reproduces, they rather outline, give some hints, short designations of the feelings that people experience when they pronounce these words. The words themselves are not important, the feelings behind them are important. Here is Lisa's mother talking about the impression that Erast makes on her:
“Yes, what should we call you, kind, affectionate gentleman?” asked the old woman. “My name is Erast,” he replied. “Erast,” Lisa said softly, “Erast!” She repeated this name five times, as if trying to solidify it. Erast said goodbye to them and left. Liza followed him with her eyes, and the mother sat in thought and, taking her daughter by the hand, said to her: “Ah, Liza! How good and kind he is! If only your fiancé were like this!” Liza's whole heart fluttered. "Mother! Mother! How can this be? He is a gentleman, and between the peasants ... "- Liza did not finish her speech."
Perhaps this is the first case in the entire history of Russian literature when a character's broken speech gives more than its continuation. What Lisa is silent about is more important than what she talks about. The technique of silence, when the unspoken word acts much stronger, is perceived much brighter than the sounding word, was known in poetry. As a matter of fact, Karamzin also has a poem called "Melancholia" where he uses it. This is an imitation of Delil, which ends with the words: “There is a feast ... but you do not see, do not heed, and put your head on your hand; Your joy is to think, to be silent and to turn a gentle gaze on the past. In a poem, trying to convey feelings through silence is something like a pause in music. When the sound of a voice or a musical instrument stops, the listener has a pause, a time appears when he can experience, feel what he just heard. Karamzin gives the same thing: he interrupts Lisa's monologue, and she does not talk about what worries her most. She is worried about the abyss that is between her and her lover. She worries that their marriage is impossible.
Lisa sacrifices herself, she refuses the rich peasant groom who proposed to her. And she is silent here about what is most important for the reader. This ability to let the reader hear, feel, understand what cannot be expressed in words, Karamzin, to a large extent, discovered as the possibility of literature.
Speaking about the fact that "Poor Liza" begins women's literature in Russia, you need to understand that women's literature is not at all forbidden for men. And when we say that the characters do not identify themselves with the negative character of this story, we do not mean at all that this story arouses disgust in the male reader. We're talking about the male reader identifying with another character. This character is the narrator.
A man who, walking around the outskirts of Moscow, stumbled upon the hut where Liza lived with her mother and tells the whole story not at all in order to read another morality as a warning to posterity and contemporaries. No. He talks about his experiences, about what touched him. Let's pay attention: the words "touch" and "feel" are among those that Karamzin used in Russian for the first time.
Another thing is that he borrowed these words from the French language and sometimes simply used French words, replacing French roots with Russian ones, sometimes without changing them. Nevertheless, readers (both men and women) remain readers of Karamzin, because it is important for them to follow the movement of the soul, which makes up the meaning, which makes up the core, the essence of the story.
This discovery of Karamzin is much more important than his discoveries in literature and history. And the discovery of the soul, the discovery of the opportunity to look deep into a person, as an opportunity to look into the soul of another person and look into your own soul and read something there, previously unknown - this is Karamzin's main discovery. A discovery that largely determined the entire future course of Russian literature.
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1. What was the audience to which N.M. Karamzin? Describe the circle of its readers.
2. What is the work of N.M. Karamzin is predominantly addressed to a male reader, and which one is addressed to a female reader?
3. With what character from the story N.M. Karamzin's "Poor Liza" often identify themselves with male readers?
4. How does the default method used by N.M. contribute to understanding the emotional state of the characters? Karamzin?
5. * Read the text “Poor Lisa” by N.M. Karamzin. Tell us about your impressions.
