"The Miserly Knight" was conceived in 1826, and completed in the Boldin autumn in 1830. It was published in 1836 in the Sovremennik magazine. Pushkin gave the play the subtitle "From Chenstone's tragicomedy". But the writer of the 18th century Shenstone (in the tradition of the 19th century his name was spelled Chenstone) there was no such play. Perhaps Pushkin referred to a foreign author so that his contemporaries would not suspect that the poet described the relationship with his father, known for stinginess.
Theme and plot
Pushkin's play "The Miserly Knight" is the first work in a cycle of dramatic sketches, short plays, which were later called "Little Tragedies". Pushkin intended in each play to reveal some side of the human soul, an all-consuming passion (stinginess in The Miserly Knight). Mental qualities, psychology are shown in sharp and unusual plots.
Heroes and images
The baron is rich but stingy. He has six chests full of gold, from which he does not take a penny. Money is not servants and not friends for him, as for the usurer Solomon, but the Lord. The Baron does not want to admit to himself that money has enslaved him. He believes that thanks to the money, quietly sleeping in chests, everything is subject to him: love, inspiration, genius, virtue, work, even villainy. The baron is ready to kill anyone who encroaches on his wealth, even his own son, whom he challenges to a duel. The duel is prevented by the duke, but the very possibility of losing money kills the baron. The passion that the baron is possessed consumes him.
Solomon has a different attitude to money: it is a way to achieve a goal, to survive. But, like the baron, for the sake of enrichment, he does not shun anything, offering Albert to poison his own father.
Albert is a worthy young knight, strong and brave, winning tournaments and enjoying the favor of the ladies. He is completely dependent on his father. The young man has nothing to buy a helmet and armor, a dress for a feast and a horse for the tournament, only out of desperation he decides to complain to the duke.
Albert has excellent spiritual qualities, he is kind, gives the last bottle of wine to the sick blacksmith. But he is broken by circumstances and dreams of the time when the gold will pass to him by inheritance. When the usurer Solomon offers to set Albert up with an apothecary who sells poison to poison his father, the knight casts him out in disgrace. And soon Albert already accepts the baron's challenge to a duel, he is ready to fight to the death with his own father, who insulted his honor. The duke calls Albert a monster for this act.
The Duke in the tragedy is a representative of the authorities who voluntarily assumed this burden. The duke calls his age and the hearts of people terrible. Through the mouth of the Duke, Pushkin also speaks of his time.
Issues
In every little tragedy, Pushkin peers intently at some vice. In The Miserly Knight, this pernicious passion is stinginess: the change in the personality of a once worthy member of society under the influence of vice; the hero's obedience to vice; vice as a cause of loss of dignity.
Conflict
The main conflict is external: between a stingy knight and his son, who claims his share. The Baron believes that wealth must be endured so as not to be wasted. The goal of the baron is to preserve and increase, the goal of Albert is to use and enjoy. The conflict is caused by the clash of these interests. It is aggravated by the participation of the duke, to whom the baron is forced to slander his son. The strength of the conflict is such that only the death of one of the parties can resolve it. Passion destroys the stingy knight, the reader can only guess about the fate of his wealth.
Composition
There are three scenes in the tragedy. From the first, the reader learns about the difficult financial situation of Albert, associated with the stinginess of his father. The second scene is a monologue of a stingy knight, from which it is clear that passion has completely taken possession of him. In the third scene, the just duke intervenes in the conflict and unwittingly causes the death of the hero obsessed with passion. The climax (the death of the baron) is adjacent to the denouement - the conclusion of the duke: "A terrible age, terrible hearts!"
Genre
The Miserly Knight is a tragedy, that is, a dramatic work in which the protagonist dies. Pushkin achieved the small size of his tragedies, excluding everything unimportant. Pushkin's goal is to show the psychology of a person obsessed with the passion of stinginess. All "Little Tragedies" complement each other, creating a three-dimensional portrait of humanity in all its variety of vices.
Style and artistic originality
All "Little Tragedies" are intended not so much to be read as to be staged: how theatrical the stingy knight looks in a dark cellar among gold, flickering in the light of a candle! The dialogues of the tragedies are dynamic, and the stingy knight's monologue is a poetic masterpiece. The reader can see how bloodied villainy crawls into the basement and licks the hand of a miserly knight. The images of The Miserly Knight are impossible to forget.
- "The Miserly Knight", a summary of the scenes of Pushkin's play
- "The Captain's Daughter", a summary of the chapters of Pushkin's story
History of creation
"The Miserly Knight" was conceived in 1826, and completed in the Boldin autumn in 1830. It was published in 1836 in the Sovremennik magazine. Pushkin gave the play the subtitle "From Chenstone's tragicomedy". But the writer of the 18th century Shenstone (in the tradition of the 19th century his name was spelled Chenstone) there was no such play. Perhaps Pushkin referred to a foreign author so that his contemporaries would not suspect that the poet described the relationship with his father, known for stinginess.
Theme and plot
Pushkin's play "The Miserly Knight" is the first work in a cycle of dramatic sketches, short plays, which were later called "Little Tragedies". Pushkin intended in each play to reveal some side of the human soul, an all-consuming passion (stinginess in The Miserly Knight). Mental qualities, psychology are shown in sharp and unusual plots.
Heroes and images
The baron is rich but stingy. He has six chests full of gold, from which he does not take a penny. Money is not servants and not friends for him, as for the usurer Solomon, but the Lord. The Baron does not want to admit to himself that money has enslaved him. He believes that thanks to the money, quietly sleeping in chests, everything is subject to him: love, inspiration, genius, virtue, work, even villainy. The baron is ready to kill anyone who encroaches on his wealth, even his own son, whom he challenges to a duel. The duel is prevented by the duke, but the very possibility of losing money kills the baron. The passion that the baron is possessed consumes him.
Solomon has a different attitude to money: it is a way to achieve a goal, to survive. But, like the baron, for the sake of enrichment, he does not shun anything, offering Albert to poison his own father.
Albert is a worthy young knight, strong and brave, winning tournaments and enjoying the favor of the ladies. He is completely dependent on his father. The young man has nothing to buy a helmet and armor, a dress for a feast and a horse for the tournament, only out of desperation he decides to complain to the duke.
Albert has excellent spiritual qualities, he is kind, gives the last bottle of wine to the sick blacksmith. But he is broken by circumstances and dreams of the time when the gold will pass to him by inheritance. When the usurer Solomon offers to set Albert up with an apothecary who sells poison to poison his father, the knight casts him out in disgrace. And soon Albert already accepts the baron's challenge to a duel, he is ready to fight to the death with his own father, who insulted his honor. The duke calls Albert a monster for this act.
The Duke in the tragedy is a representative of the authorities who voluntarily assumed this burden. The duke calls his age and the hearts of people terrible. Through the mouth of the Duke, Pushkin also speaks of his time.
Issues
In every little tragedy, Pushkin peers intently at some vice. In The Miserly Knight, this pernicious passion is stinginess: the change in the personality of a once worthy member of society under the influence of vice; the hero's obedience to vice; vice as a cause of loss of dignity.
Conflict
The main conflict is external: between a stingy knight and his son, who claims his share. The Baron believes that wealth must be endured so as not to be wasted. The goal of the baron is to preserve and increase, the goal of Albert is to use and enjoy. The conflict is caused by the clash of these interests. It is aggravated by the participation of the duke, to whom the baron is forced to slander his son. The strength of the conflict is such that only the death of one of the parties can resolve it. Passion destroys the stingy knight, the reader can only guess about the fate of his wealth.
Composition
There are three scenes in the tragedy. From the first, the reader learns about the difficult financial situation of Albert, associated with the stinginess of his father. The second scene is a monologue of a stingy knight, from which it is clear that passion has completely taken possession of him. In the third scene, the just duke intervenes in the conflict and unwittingly causes the death of the hero obsessed with passion. The climax (the death of the baron) is adjacent to the denouement - the conclusion of the duke: "A terrible age, terrible hearts!"
Genre
The Miserly Knight is a tragedy, that is, a dramatic work in which the protagonist dies. Pushkin achieved the small size of his tragedies, excluding everything unimportant. Pushkin's goal is to show the psychology of a person obsessed with the passion of stinginess. All "Little Tragedies" complement each other, creating a three-dimensional portrait of humanity in all its variety of vices.
Style and artistic originality
All "Little Tragedies" are intended not so much to be read as to be staged: how theatrical the stingy knight looks in a dark cellar among gold, flickering in the light of a candle! The dialogues of the tragedies are dynamic, and the stingy knight's monologue is a poetic masterpiece. The reader can see how bloodied villainy crawls into the basement and licks the hand of a miserly knight. The images of The Miserly Knight are impossible to forget.
The tragedy "The Miserly Knight" by Pushkin was written in 1830, in the so-called "Boldino autumn" - the most productive creative period of the writer. Most likely, the idea of the book was inspired by the difficult relationship between Alexander Sergeevich and his stingy father. One of Pushkin's "little tragedies" was first published in 1936 in Sovremennik under the title "Scene from Chenstone's tragicomedy".
For a reader's diary and better preparation for a literature lesson, we recommend reading the online summary of The Miserly Knight chapter by chapter.
main characters
Baron- a mature man of the old school, in the past a valiant knight. He sees the meaning of all life in the accumulation of wealth.
Albert- A twenty-year-old youth, a knight, forced to endure extreme poverty due to the excessive stinginess of his father, the baron.
Other characters
Jew Solomon is a pawnbroker who regularly lends money to Albert.
Ivan- a young servant of the knight Albert, who serves him faithfully.
duke- the main representative of the authorities, in whose subordination are not only ordinary residents, but also all the local nobility. Acts as a judge during the confrontation between Albert and the baron.
Scene I
Knight Albert shares his problems with his servant Ivan. Despite the noble origin and knighthood, the young man is in great need. At the last tournament, his helmet was pierced by the spear of Count Delorge. And, although the enemy was defeated, Albert is not too happy about his victory, for which he had to pay a price that was too high for him - damaged armor.
The horse Emir was also injured, which after a fierce battle began to limp. In addition, the young nobleman needs a new dress. During a dinner party, he was forced to sit in armor and make excuses to the ladies that "I got to the tournament by accident."
Albert confesses to the faithful Ivan that his brilliant victory over Count Delorge was not due to courage, but to the stinginess of his father. The young man is forced to make do with the crumbs that his father gives him. He has no choice but to sigh heavily: “O poverty, poverty! How it humiliates our hearts!”
To buy a new horse, Albert is forced once again to turn to the usurer Solomon. However, he refuses to give money without a mortgage. Solomon gently leads the young man to the idea that "what time is it for the baron to die", and offers the services of a pharmacist who makes an effective and fast-acting poison.
Enraged, Albert chases away the Jew who dared to suggest that he poison his own father. However, he is no longer able to drag out a miserable existence. The young knight decides to seek help from the duke so that he can influence the stingy father, and he will stop holding his own son, "like a mouse born underground".
Scene II
The baron descends into the basement to pour "a handful of accumulated gold" into the still incomplete sixth chest. He compares his savings to a hill that has grown thanks to small handfuls of earth brought by soldiers on the orders of the king. From the height of this hill, the ruler could admire his possessions.
So the baron, looking at his wealth, feels his power and superiority. He understands that, if desired, he can afford anything, any joy, any meanness. The feeling of one's own strength calms a man, and he is quite "enough of this consciousness."
The money that the baron brings to the cellar has a bad reputation. Looking at them, the hero remembers that he received the “old doubloon” from an inconsolable widow with three children, who sobbed in the rain for half a day. She was forced to give the last coin in payment of the debt of her dead husband, but the tears of the poor woman did not pity the insensitive baron.
The miser has no doubts about the origin of the other coin - of course, it was stolen by the rogue and rogue Thibaut, but this in no way worries the baron. The main thing is that the sixth chest of gold is slowly but surely replenished.
Every time he opens the chest, the old curmudgeon falls into "heat and trepidation." However, he is not afraid of the attack of the villain, no, he is tormented by a strange feeling, akin to the pleasure that an inveterate killer experiences, plunging a knife into the chest of his victim. The baron is “pleasant and scared together”, and in this he feels true bliss.
Admiring his wealth, the old man is truly happy, and only one thought gnaws at him. The Baron understands that his last hour is near, and after his death, all these treasures, acquired through years of hardship, will be in the hands of his son. Golden coins will flow like a river into “satiny pockets”, and a careless young man will instantly spread his father’s wealth around the world, squander it in the company of young charmers and cheerful friends.
The Baron dreams that even after death, in the form of a spirit, he will guard his chests with gold with a “guard shadow”. A possible separation from the dead weight acquired by good falls on the soul of an old man, for whom the only joy of life lies in increasing his wealth.
Scene III
Albert complains to the duke that he has to experience "the shame of bitter poverty", and asks to reason with his overly greedy father. The duke agrees to help the young knight - he remembers the good relations between his grandfather and the miserly baron. In those days, he was still an honest, brave knight without fear and reproach.
Meanwhile, the duke notices in the window the baron, who is heading to his castle. He orders Albert to hide in the next room, and receives his father in his chambers. After an exchange of mutual pleasantries, the duke invites the baron to send his son to him - he is ready to offer the young knight a decent salary and service at court.
To which the old baron replies that this is impossible, because the son wanted to kill him and rob him. Unable to bear such impudent slander, Albert jumps out of the room and accuses his father of lying. The father tosses the glove to the son, who picks it up, indicating that he accepts the challenge.
Stunned by what he saw, the duke separates father and son, and in anger drives them out of the palace. Such a scene causes the death of the old baron, who in the last moments of his life thinks only about his wealth. The duke is in dismay: "A terrible age, terrible hearts!".
Conclusion
In the work "The Miserly Knight" under the close attention of Alexander Sergeevich is such a vice as greed. Under its influence, irreversible personality changes occur: the once fearless and noble knight becomes a slave to gold coins, he completely loses his dignity, and is even ready to harm his only son, if only he does not take possession of his wealth.
After reading the retelling of The Miserly Knight, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the full version of Pushkin's play.
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All Pushkin's works are filled with galleries of various images. Many conquer the reader with their nobility, self-esteem or courage. More than one generation has grown up on the wonderful work of Alexander Sergeevich. Reading his poems, poems and fairy tales, people of all ages get great pleasure. The same can be said about the work "The Miserly Knight". His heroes and their actions make even the youngest lover of Alexander Sergeevich's creativity think.
Acquaintance with a brave but poor knight
In our article, only a brief summary will be presented. "The Miserly Knight", however, is worthy of familiarizing yourself with the tragedy in the original. So let's get started...
A young knight, whose name is Albert, is going to the next tournament. He asked Ivan's servant to bring his helmet. As it turned out, he was pierced through. The reason for this was the previous participation in the battle with the knight Delorge. Albert is upset. But Ivan tries to comfort his master, saying that one should not be sad because of the damaged helmet. After all, young Albert still repaid the offender. The enemy has not yet recovered from the terrible blow.
But the knight replies that it was the damaged helmet that gave him heroism. It was stinginess that became the reason to finally defeat the enemy. Albert complains about his poverty and modesty, which did not allow him to take off his helmet from Delorge. He tells the servant that during dinners at the duke's, all the knights sit at the table in chic outfits made of expensive fabrics, while Albert, due to lack of money to buy new clothes, has to be present in armor...
This is how the tragedy itself begins, and from this we began to present its summary.
"The Miserly Knight": the emergence of a new hero of the work
Young Albert, in his conversation with a servant, mentions his father, who is such a stingy old baron that he not only does not allocate money for clothes, but also regrets new weapons and a horse. There is also an old Jewish moneylender, whose name is Solomon. The young knight often used his services. But now this creditor refuses to give him a loan. Only with a deposit.
But what can a poor knight bail out but his uniform and good name! Albert even tried to persuade the moneylender, saying that his father was already very old and would probably die soon, and, accordingly, all the huge fortune that he owns would go to Albert. Then he will definitely be able to pay off all his debts. But Solomon was not convinced by this argument either.
The meaning of money in a person's life, or his attitude towards them
Solomon himself mentioned by the knight appears. Albert, taking this opportunity, wants to beg him for another amount. But the usurer, though gently, but firmly refuses him. He explains to the young knight that his father is still quite healthy and will live even thirty years. Albert is crushed. After all, then he will be fifty years old and the money will no longer be needed.
To which the Jewish usurer reprimands the young man that he is wrong. At any age, a person needs money. Just in every period of life, people relate to wealth in different ways. The young are mostly too careless, and the elderly find true friends in them. But Albert argues with Solomon, describing his father's attitude towards wealth.
He denies himself everything, and puts the money in chests, which he then guards like a dog. And the only hope for a young man is that the time will come when he will be able to use all this wealth. How do the events that our summary describes develop further? The Miserly Knight will tell the reader about the terrible advice that Solomon gives to the young Albert.
When Solomon sees the plight of the young knight, he advises him in hints to hasten his father's departure to the other world, giving him poison to drink. When the meaning of the usurer's hints reached Albert, he was even about to hang him, he was so indignant. The frightened Jew tries to offer him money to avoid punishment, but the knight kicks him out.
Frustrated, Albert asks the servant to bring some wine. But Ivan says that he is not left in the house at all. And then the young man decides to turn to the duke for help and tell him about his misfortunes, as well as about his stingy father. Albert cherishes the hope that he will at least be able to get his father to support him, as it should be.
The greedy baron, or a description of a new character
What happens next in the tragedy? Let's continue with the summary. The miserly knight finally appears to us in person: the author introduces the reader to the father of poor Albert. The old man went to the basement, where he hides all his gold, in order to carry another handful of coins. Having opened all the chests full of wealth, the baron lights a few candles and sits nearby to admire his fortune. All Pushkin's works very vividly convey the images of the characters, and this tragedy is no exception.
The Baron remembers how he got each of these coins. Many of them brought people a lot of tears. Some even caused poverty and death. It even seems to him that if you collect all the tears shed because of this money together, then a flood will certainly happen. And then the thought comes to his mind that after his death, the heir, who did not deserve it at all, will begin to use all this wealth.
Leads to resentment. This is how Alexander Sergeevich describes Father Albert in his work The Miserly Knight. An analysis of the entire tragedy will help the reader figure out what the baron's attitude towards money and neglect of his own son led to.
The meeting of a greedy father and a poor son
In fashion, the knight at this time tells the duke about his misfortunes, about his greedy father and lack of maintenance. And he promises the young man to help convince the baron to be more generous. After some time, the father himself appeared in the palace. The duke ordered the young man to hide in the next room, and he himself began to inquire about the health of the baron, about why he appeared so rarely at court, and also about where his son was.
The old man suddenly begins to complain about the heir. Allegedly, young Albert wants to kill him and take possession of the wealth. The Duke promises to punish the young man. But he himself runs into the room and calls the baron a liar. Then the angry father throws the glove to his son, and the young man accepts it. The Duke is not only surprised, but outraged. He took away this symbol of the upcoming duel and drove both of them out of the palace. But the health of the old man could not withstand such shocks, and he died on the spot. Thus ends the last events of the work.
"The Miserly Knight" - which not only introduced the reader to all his characters, but also made him think about one of the human vices - greed. It is she who often destroys the relationship between close friends and relatives. Money sometimes makes people go to inhuman acts. Many of Pushkin's works are filled with deep meaning and point the reader to one or another shortcoming of a person.
The motif of gold, which permeates all musical development in the second scene of the opera, undergoes especially diverse changes. In a small orchestral introduction to the picture, he sounds muffled and gloomy, even somewhat mysterious, in the low register of trembling strings. The same motif takes on a different color in the central section, which begins with the words of the Baron:
I want to arrange a feast for myself today:
I will light a candle before every chest,
And I will open them all, and I will become myself
Among them look at the shining heaps.
The gradual increase in light and brilliance, which reach dazzling brightness at the moment when all the candles are lit in front of the open chests of gold and the gloomy cellar is as if flooded with the glow of a fire, is conveyed by Rachmaninoff in a large symphonic episode, which is the pinnacle of this picture. A long organ point on the dominant prepares the culmination of the theme of gold in the radiant D-dur (Rakhmaninov chose D-dur as the "tonality of gold" following Rimsky-Korsakov, in whom it also sounds extremely bright, with great force in the fourth scene "Sadko" , in the episode of the transformation of fish into gold bars. Of course, when comparing these two examples, one must take into account their completely different expressive character.). The brilliant sonority of the four horns, accompanied by a powerful orchestral tutti, and the change in the rhythmic pattern of the theme give it a majestic knightly character:
This climax is followed by a sudden breakdown. The selfless delight of the Baron, exclaiming in ecstasy: "I reign!., my power is strong ..." - is replaced by anxiety and despair at the thought of what will happen to the wealth he has accumulated after his death. The picture ends with an episode of an ariose character (Moderato: “Who knows how many bitter abstinences”) in d-moll - a key that Rachmaninoff usually served to express mournful dramatic experiences. The dramatic construction of this picture is based on three reference points: the introduction, built on the theme of gold, the central episode of the miser's feast, in which the same theme develops, and the minor final construction. They affirm the dominant importance of the keys D-dur - d-moll in it. In the final picture of the arioso (d-moll), the three themes are summarized and partially rethought. Thus, from the motif of human tears and suffering, the pathetic theme of conscience arises, combined with the theme of gloomy obsession and heavy, concentrated reflections:
The theme of gold, being “resigned”, seems to fade, lose its brilliance and shimmer, and a mournful phrase grows out of it, which alternately passes by the oboe, cor anglais and bassoon, descending into an ever lower register:
In the very last bars of the second scene, the expressive-sounding chromatic sequence of harmonies, “sliding” to the d-moll tonic, attracts attention:
This phrase, imbued with a mood of gloomy despair, resembles both the theme of gold and the leitmotif of Albert, thus emphasizing the fatal relationship between father and son, whom rivalry and the struggle for the possession of gold made irreconcilable enemies. The same turnover sounds at the end of the whole opera, at the moment of the death of the old Baron.
Third painting operas, the most concise and concise, are almost entirely built on the thematic material that has already sounded before; here he often appears in the same presentation and even in the same keys in which he stated earlier (this picture begins with the introduction of Albert's theme in Es-dur, very reminiscent of the beginning of the first picture). If this achieves the integrity of the characteristics, then at the same time the abundance of repetition becomes somewhat tedious towards the end and weakens the power of the dramatic effect.
After the basement scene, in which, despite the well-known disequilibrium of the vocal and orchestral-symphonic beginnings, Rachmaninov managed to achieve a high tragic pathos, a clear decline in dramatic tension is felt in the final picture. One of the sharpest dramatic moments, where there is a direct clash between father and son, ending in the death of the old Baron, turned out to be rather colorless and significantly inferior in strength of expression to much of the previous one. This disequilibrium affects the overall impression of the opera. The Baron's monologue so rises above everything else that the two paintings surrounding it seem, to some extent, to be optional appendices to it.
