Contemporaries put Sumarokov's comedies much lower than his tragedies. These comedies did not constitute a significant stage in the development of Russian drama, although they possessed a number of advantages that make the historian of literature take a closer look at them - and above all because Sumarokov was still the first to write comedies in Russia, with the exception of interludes of a semi-folklore type and advanced plays.
In total, Sumarokov wrote twelve comedies. Chronologically, they are divided into three groups: first there are three plays: "Tresotinius", "An Empty Quarrel" and "Monsters", written in 1750. Then comes a break of no less than fourteen years; from 1764 to 1768 six more comedies were written: "Dowry by deceit" (circa 1764). "Guardian" (1765), "Likhoimets", "Three Brothers Together", "Poisonous", "Narcissus" (all four in 1768). Then - the last three comedies of 1772 - "Cuckold by Imagination", "Mother Daughter's Companion", "Squat". Sumarokov wrote his comedies in impulses, seizing on this genre, which in general was not very close to him, as a strong polemical or satirical weapon, during periods of aggravation of his anger at those around him. He did not work on his comedies long and carefully. This can be seen from their text, and from their dates, and from his own notes; so, in the text of Tresotinius, he made a note: “Conceived on January 12, 1750, completed on January 13, 1750. St. Petersburg.” With the text of "Monsters" - a note: "This comedy was composed in June 1750 at the Primorsky Court."
Sumarokov's first comedies were still firmly connected with those traditions of drama that existed before Sumarokov in Russia and in Russian, and perhaps most of all in Italian theater. In general, Sumarokov's comedies have minimal relation to traditions and norms. French classicism throughout his work, and especially in his first group; this does not mean, of course, that they stand outside the bounds of Russian classicism. First of all, even outwardly: in France, comedies in five acts in verse were considered correct, “real” comedy. Of course, Moliere and after him many wrote comedies in prose, but these comedies were considered, from the point of view of classical dogma, to be, so to speak, a lower grade. Another thing is Sumarokov, the canonizer of Russian classicism; all his comedies are written in prose. None of them has the full volume and "correct" arrangement of the composition of the classical comedy of the West in five acts; Sumarokov's eight comedies have only one action each, four - three each. Basically - these are small plays, almost skits, almost interludes. Sumarokov only conditionally endures even unity. The time and place of action fit into the norm, but there is no unity of action, especially in the first plays. Needless to say about the nobility of the tone of the French classical comedy; there is not even a trace of him in Sumarokov's rough, semi-farcical plays.
In the first comedies of Sumarokov, in fact, there is not even any real connecting plot. We will find in them, of course, a rudiment of the plot in the form of a couple in love, who at the end marry; but this vestige love theme does not affect the course of action; Or rather, there is no action in comedy. The comedy is a series of more or less mechanically connected scenes; one after another, comic masks come out to the theater; the actors representing the derided vices, in a dialogue that does not move the action, show the public each of its vices. When the catalog of vices and comic dialogue is exhausted, the play ends. The struggle for the heroine's hand does not unite even a small share of themes and dialogues. Such a construction of the play comes close to the construction of folk "areal" games-interludes or nativity scenes of satirical scenes, and especially parsley comedy. It is characteristic that, in contrast to the tragedies of Sumarokov, in his first comedies, despite their small volume, there are a lot of characters; so, in "Tresotinius", a comedy in one act, there are ten of them, in "Monsters" - eleven.
If a single action does not take place on the stage of Sumarokov's early comedies, then there is no true life, life in them. Like the conventional interlude scene, the stage of Tresotinius or The Monsters or The Empty Quarrel represents a conventional abstract place in which no one lives, but only characters appear to demonstrate their conventionally depicted shortcomings. The whole manner of Sumarokov in these plays is conventionally grotesque. Comic takes place on stage in "Monsters" court hearing, moreover, the judges are dressed like foreign judges - in big wigs, but in general they are not judges at all, and the trial itself takes place in a private house, and all this is a complete farce, and behind the ridiculousness of the scene it is impossible to make out how to take it seriously. Sumarokov loves farcical comedy - fights on stage, funny picks of characters. All this grotesque ludicrousness in him depends to a large extent on the tradition of the Italian comedy of masks.
The very composition of the comic characters of the first Sumarokov comedies is determined mainly by the composition of the stable masks of the Italian folk comedy. This - traditional masks, the centuries-old tradition of which goes back most often to Roman comedy. So, in front of us are: a pedant-scientist (in Tresotinius there are three of them: Tresotinius himself, Xaxoxymenius, Bobembius; in Monsters it is Criticiondius); it is the "doctor" of Italian comedy; he is followed by a boastful warrior, lying about his unheard-of exploits, but in fact a coward (in "Tresotinius" Bramarbas); this is the "captain" of Italian comedy, going back to the "boastful soldier" Pir-gopolinik Plautus. Further - dexterous servants Kimar in Tresotinius and Empty Quarrel, Harlequin in Monsters; this is Harlequin commedia dell "arte; finally - perfect lovers- Clarice and Dorant in Tresotinius, Infimena and Valera in Monsters. Characteristic of Sumarokov's conditionally grotesque manner are the very names of the heroes of his first comedies, not Russian, but conditionally theatrical.
In addition to the tradition of Italian comedy, Sumarokov used in his early comedies the dramaturgy of the Danish classic Golberg, which he knew in German translation (for example, Golberg took his Brambarbas along with his name); it should be noted that Golberg himself depended on the tradition of the same Italian comedy. Something Sumarokov also takes from the French, but not the method, but individual motives, modified from him beyond recognition. So, from Molière ("Learned Women"), he took the name Tresotinius (Moliere's Tresoten), and from Racine the scene in "Monsters" (from "Sutyag").
No matter how conditional the manner of Sumarokov's first comedies was, there were features of Russian topicality in it, enlivening and comprehending it. Thus, the comic masks of the clerk and petimeter introduced by Sumarokov are closely connected with his political and cultural preaching. His clerk in "Tresotinius" (only an outlined image), in "Monsters" the clerk Khabzey and the judges Dodon and Finist are included in the general line of his struggle against the bureaucracy; his petimeters, Frenchmen, secular dandies - Dulizh in "Monsters" and Dulizh in "The Empty Quarrel" - are included in the line of his struggle against the court "nobility", against gallomania, for Russian culture, for native language. Sumarokov's comedies, even the first three of them, are sprinkled with literary and polemical attacks, allusions to Sumarokov himself and his enemies. This applies especially to Tresotinius, whose main character, which gave the comedy its name, is a pamphlet against Trediakovsky, unusually caricatured, but unambiguous. This is characteristic of Sumarokov's entire comic style of this period; his comic masks do not rise to a broad social typology. This can even be said about the role of Fatyuy, the village landowner ("Empty Quarrel"), the most Russian and in everyday terms full-fledged so much that one can guess some features of the future Mitrofan Prostakov in it. Finally, Sumarokov's early comedies are enlivened by their language, lively, sharp, cheeky in its unvarnishedness, subjected very little to the sublime vivisection of French classicism.
Sumarokov's six comedies of 1764-1768 are noticeably different from the first three, although much in them is the same; the method of conditional representation, the absence of life on the stage, remains basically the same; only in one comedy do the Tigers, their father, mother and daughter Olga, the three Radugin brothers, Yaroslav, Svyatoslav and Izyaslav (“Three Brothers Together”) appear. Meanwhile, the very structure of the plays changed. Sumarokov moves on to the type of so-called comedy of characters. In each play, one image is at the center of his attention, and everything else is needed either to set off the central image, or to falsify the plot, which is still of little importance. So, "Guardian" is a play about a nobleman-usurer, a swindler and a hypocrite Outsider. The same image is the only one in "Likhoimets" under the name of Kashchei, and he is the same in "Dowry by deceit" under the name of Salidar. Poisonous is a comedy about the slanderer Herostratus. "Narcissus" - a comedy about a narcissistic dandy; His name is Narcissus. In addition to these central images, and there are three of them, there are no characters in all Sumarokov's comedies of 1764-1768; all other actors are goodies, barely lively copybooks. On the contrary, the central characters are drawn carefully, especially the triple image of the Outsider - Kashchei - Salidar. They are furnished with a number of household details of a fairly real type; they are connected with the topic of the day not only by the idea, but also by individual hints. At the same time, the satirical and everyday features that build the character of Kashchei, Chuzhekhvat and others are empirical and not generalized, they do not form a unity of type. These roles are composed of individual particles and do not have an organic character; they do not change throughout the play, they do not live on the stage, although they have a considerable power of sharp caricature. The fact is that Sumarokov, even during this period, was most often a pamphleteer, as he was in Tresotinius. His comedies have a personal address; These are face satires. Kashchei in Likhoimets is Buturlin, a relative of Sumarokov, and a number of details of Kashchei's life are due not to the logic of his character, but to a portrait resemblance to Buturlin. Apparently, both Salidar and the Outsider are the same person. Herostratus in "Poisonous" is the literary and personal enemy of Sumarokov F.A. Emin. Probably, Narcissus is a certain person. From interludes and commedia dell "arte, Sumarokov moved in comedy not to the French classics of the 18th century, but to Fonvizin.
Meanwhile, the very movement of Sumarokov towards the comedy of characters in the mid-1760s was due not so much to his personal evolution as to the influence that he experienced from the emerging Russian comedy repertoire of the 1750s and 1760s. The first three comedies of Sumarokov opened the way. When a permanent theater was organized in 1756, he needed a repertoire, and in particular a comedy one. The director of the theater, Sumarokov, did not write comedies at that time; his students began to work for him, and again I.P. Yelagin. Young people followed Yelagin, again all the pupils of the Shlyakhetny cadet corps. These are A. Volkov, V. Bibikov, I. Kropotov, A. Nartov, Iv. Chaadaev and others. They mainly translate the comedies of Molière and other French playwrights.
The first original Russian comedy after the Sumarokovskys was a play by M.M. Kheraskov, also a student of Sumarokov and a pupil of the cadet corps, - "Godless"; this is a small play in verse, standing aside from the theatrical and dramatic revival around the St. Petersburg Theater (Kheraskov lived in Moscow since 1755), continuing the line, not so much intermedia as instructive school dramaturgy. In the early 1760s, two original comedies by A.A. Volkov "Unsuccessful stubbornness" and "Children's love". These are conditional plays of intrigue that have nothing to do with Russian life, and indeed with no real life. By the same time, in the first half of the 1760s, Elagin attempted to propose a means of bringing the Western comedy repertoire closer to Russian life, namely: translate them, somewhat altering them in a Russian way, replacing foreign names Russians, etc. So, Elagin himself translated the comedy “French-Russian” from Golberg, and the young man Fonvizin, who served under him, remade his “Korion” from Soren's play “Sidney”, a comedy in verse. All this revival on the front of Russian comedy and, in particular, the impact of the great French comedies of characters (for example, Detouche) determined the direction of Sumarokov's work as a comedian in 1764-1768.
In 1766, a great event took place in the history of Russian comedy: Fonvizinsky's Brigadier became known in the capital's circles. In 1772, the first comedies of Catherine II appeared. The last three comedies of Sumarokov belong to the same year. They were most decisively influenced by the discovery made by Fonvizin already in The Brigadier - a new display of life on stage, and it is Russian provincial landowner life in the first place, and a new display of a person with a more complex psychological characteristic and in more clarified specific social conditions. . All three of Sumarokov's last comedies are more compact in plot.
The undoubted masterpiece of Sumarokov's entire comedy work is his "Cuckold by Imagination", a comedy that, as it were, stands in the way of Fonvizin from "The Brigadier" to "The Undergrowth", despite Sumarokov's lesser comedic talent. The theme of this play was not new, but it was not framed in the way it was done in the French comedy (with Molière's comedy Sganarelle, or the imaginary cuckold, Sumarokov's play has nothing in common). Sumarokov introduces the viewer into the life of a seedy, provincial, poor and uncultured landowner's house. Before us are two elderly people, a husband and wife, Vikul and Khavronya. They are stupid, ignorant; they are backward, wild people, and the comedy should ridicule their backwater barbarism. But at the same time, they are touching in their ridiculous affection for each other. They are a bit old-world landowners. In their house lives a poor noblewoman Floriza, educated and virtuous, but without a dowry. A noble and rich neighbor, Count Cassander, comes to visit them on the way from hunting. Old man Vikul was jealous of the brilliant count for his Khavronya. He is sure that Khavronya put horns on him. In the end, he learns that the Count and Florise fell in love, that the Count will marry Florise; thereby dissipating his jealousy.
The comedy is built primarily on the display of two characters - Vikul and Khavronya; the rest of the faces are traditional and abstract, although in the role of the dowry Florisa there is psychological drawing, very idiosyncratic. But Vikul, and especially Khavronya, are everyday figures, important in the history of Russian comedy. True, in both of these roles, and especially in the role of Khavronya, the influence of the “Brigadier” and, above all, the image of the brigadier, is noticeable. But Sumarokov managed to so learn the lessons of his young rival that he was then able to give something to him for his future great comedy.
In "Cuckold by Imagination" the notes of "Undergrowth" sound. First of all, the very circle of what is depicted is the same life of a poor and wild landlord province; this is the same rough and colorful language of landowners of a non-capital type. Floriza is in the family of Vikul and Khavronya, like Sofya with the Prostakovs, although Floriza is not offended; In general, these two roles are correlated. Similar to the well-known scene after the fight between Prostakova and her brother, the exit of Vikul and his wife who had just fought (d. 2, y. 6). In the name of Khavronya, the punning of the Skotinins' surname sounds, and the manner of everyday drawing and the very theme in places converge in both comedies.
Sumarokov raised the theme, developed in The Undergrowth, about the barbaric social practice of the dark reactionary landlord "masses" (and right there - Skotinin's pigs).
Sumarokov paints the life of Vikul and Khavronya with rich colors. His victory has to be considered such scenes as, for example, ordering a ceremonial dinner by Khavronya or clumsy "social" conversations with which she tries to entertain the count. In these scenes, as in the dialogues of both spouses, Sumarokov reaches the highest point in his desire to convey everyday speech, bright, lively, quite colloquial, in places close to the warehouse of a folk tale, interspersed with proverbs and sayings. He conveys this speech naturalistically, without crystallizing its forms; he considers it uncultured speech, serving to characterize his landowners as barbarians; but still genuine, real speech sounds in his play; it sounded in his previous comedies, but it is Cuckold by Imagination that is his best prose play in this respect.
Here is an example of a conversation about jealousy:
“Khavronya - Fu, dad! How are you not afraid of God? What thoughts do you have in your old age? How to say this to people, so they will laugh. By the way, did you think of that?
Vikul - How not to be afraid that people happen to others.
Khavronya - I am no longer a young woman; so why should you be afraid!
Vikul - Yes, there is a proverb that thunder does not always rumble from a heavenly cloud, but sometimes from a dunghill.
Khavronya - Pip would be on your tongue; what kind of dung do you have?
Floriza - What is it, madam, is it?
Vikul - Wife, keep it to yourself.
Khavronya - FAQ to yourself? This is shame and rubbish.
Vikul - Don't talk, my treasure, my diamond pebble.
Khavronya - Yes, this is not good, my cherry berry.
Vikul - Wife, stop it.
Khavronya - Kiss me, strong, mighty hero.
Vikul - Let's kiss, my sunflower star.
Khavronya - Be more cheerful, and as bright as a new month, but don’t be jealous.
Vikul - Wife, who is talking about jealousy?
Khavronya - What broke through me! Yes, that’s enough, a horse with four legs, and even he stumbles, and I’m an illiterate woman, because I can’t say anything ...
In 1766, a great event took place in the history of Russian comedy: Fonvizinsky's Brigadier became known in the capital's circles. In 1772, the first comedies of Catherine II appeared. The last three comedies of Sumarokov belong to the same year. They were most decisively influenced by the discovery made by Fonvizin already in The Brigadier - a new display of life on stage, and it is Russian provincial landowner life in the first place, and a new display of a person with a more complex psychological characteristic and in more clarified specific social conditions. .
All three of Sumarokov's last comedies are more compact in plot.
The undoubted masterpiece of Sumarokov's entire comedy work is his "Cuckold by Imagination", a comedy that, as it were, stands in the way of Fonvizin from "The Brigadier" to "The Undergrowth", despite Sumarokov's lesser comedic talent. The theme of this play was not new, but it was not framed in the way it was done in the French comedy (with Molière's comedy Sganarelle, or the imaginary cuckold, Sumarokov's play has nothing in common). Sumarokov introduces the viewer into the life of a seedy, provincial, poor and uncultured landowner's house. Before us are two elderly people, a husband and wife, Vikul and Khavronya. They are stupid, ignorant; they are backward, wild people, and the comedy should ridicule their backwater barbarism. But at the same time, they are touching in their ridiculous affection for each other. They are a bit old-world landowners. In their house lives a poor noblewoman Floriza, educated and virtuous, but without a dowry. A noble and rich neighbor, Count Cassander, comes to visit them on the way from hunting. Old man Vikul was jealous of the brilliant count for his Khavronya. He is sure that Khavronya put horns on him. In the end, he learns that the Count and Florise fell in love, that the Count will marry Florise; thereby dissipating his jealousy.
The comedy is built primarily on the display of two characters - Vikul and Khavronya; the rest of the faces are traditional and abstract, although there is a psychological pattern in the role of the dowry Florisa, which is very peculiar. But Vikul, and especially Khavronya, are everyday figures, important in the history of Russian comedy. True, in both of these roles, and especially in the role of Khavronya, the influence of the “Brigadier” and, above all, the image of the brigadier, is noticeable. But Sumarokov managed to so learn the lessons of his young rival that he was then able to give something to him for his future great comedy.
In "Cuckold by Imagination" the notes of "Undergrowth" sound. First of all, the very circle of what is depicted is the same life of a poor and wild landlord province; this is the same rough and colorful landowners of a non-capital type. Floriza is in the family of Vikul and Khavronya, like Sofya with the Prostakovs, although Floriza is not offended; In general, these two roles are correlated. Similar to the well-known scene after the fight between Prostakova and her brother, the exit of Vikul and his wife who had just fought (d. 2, y. 6). In the name of Khavronya, the punning of the Skotinins' surname sounds, and the manner of everyday drawing and the very theme in places converge in both comedies.
Sumarokov raised the theme, developed in The Undergrowth, about the barbaric social practice of the dark reactionary landlord "masses" (and right there - Skotinin's pigs).
Sumarokov paints the life of Vikul and Khavronya with rich colors. His victory has to be considered such scenes as, for example, ordering a ceremonial dinner by Khavronya or clumsy "social" conversations with which she tries to entertain the count. In these scenes, as in the dialogues of both spouses, Sumarokov reaches the highest point in his desire to convey everyday speech, bright, lively, quite colloquial, in places close to the warehouse of a folk tale, interspersed with proverbs and sayings. He conveys this speech naturalistically, without crystallizing its forms; he considers it uncultured speech, serving to characterize his landowners as barbarians; but still genuine, real speech sounds in his play; it sounded in his previous comedies, but it is Cuckold by Imagination that is his best prose play in this respect.
Here is an example of a conversation about jealousy:
“Khavronya - Fu, dad! How are you not afraid of God? What thoughts do you have in your old age? How to say this to people, so they will laugh. By the way, did you think of that?
V and k u l - How not to be afraid that people happen to others.
Khavronya - I am no longer a young woman; so why should you be afraid!
Q and k l - Yes, there is a proverb that thunder does not always rumble from a heavenly cloud, but sometimes from a dunghill.
Khavronya - Pip would be on your tongue; what kind of dung do you have?
Floriza - What is it, madam, is it?
Q and k l - Wife, keep it to yourself.
Khavronya - FAQ to yourself? This is shame and rubbish.
V and k l - Do not talk, my treasure, my diamond pebble.
Khavronya - Yes, this is not good, my cherry berry.
V and k u l - Wife, stop it.
Khavronya - Kiss me, strong, mighty hero.
V and k u l - Let's kiss, my sunflower star.
Khavronya - Be more cheerful, and as bright as a new month, but don’t be jealous.
Q and k l - Wife, who is talking about jealousy?
Khavronya - What broke through me! Yes, that’s enough, a horse with four legs, and he stumbles, and I’m an illiterate woman, because I can’t say anything ...
Comedy Sumarokov. Household comedy. "Guardian", "Cuckold by imagination" To whom does the title refer? (imagined that his wife was cheating on him)
In comedies, S. A strong feature is the elements of everyday life and spoken language. The individualization of the speech of the characters appeared. S. treated comedies easily, in them he denounced the ignorant nobility, criticized clerks, portrayed the negative traits of people. He wrote short comedies: 8 for 1 act, 4 for 4 acts. Sumarokov's comedies Guardian (1765), Likhoimets (1768) and others are directed against class arrogance and ignorance of the provincial nobility. In the Epistle on Poetry, S. says that the property of comedy is “to rule the temper with a mockery,” which should be separated from tragedy on the one hand and from farcical games on the other. S. deviated from tradition. form class. five act comedy. 12 comedies. According to thin values below tragedy. Most often, comedies served for S. as a means of controversy, hence the pamphlet genre of most of them.
In his first comedies in the 1950s (“Tresotinius”, “Monsters”, “A Simple Quarrel”), each of the actions. the faces that appeared on the stage showed their vice to the public, and the scenes were mechanically connected. IN small comedy- Lots of characters.
In the comedies of the second group (60s) - ("Guardian", "Poisonous", "Likhoiets", "Narcissus", "Three Brothers Together"), the depth and conditionality of the image of the main characters. They also wore a conditional character and were far from typical generalizations. Other actions faces serve to reveal the features of the protagonist. "guardian" - a comedy about a nobleman - usurer, swindler and hypocrite Outsider, ripping off orphans, a cat. came under his care. "Poisonous" - about the slanderer. Rest faces - reasoners.
In the 70s, three more projects were written (“Cuckold by Imagination”, “Mother Daughter's Companion”, “Squabbler”).
By 1772, "everyday" comedies belong: "Mother is a daughter's partner", "Squabbler" and "Cuckold by imagination". The last of them was influenced by Fonvizin's play "The Brigadier".
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"RpoV".
The focus of the writer's attention is the life of the provincial poor landowners Vikul and Khavronya. Tied to others. Close-minded, but not one-sided. Kind to Floriza, pupil of the yard. kind. V. was jealous of X. for the rich Cassandra, a neighbor, a cat. fell in love with F. Rough vernacular. The pinnacle of satire. TV S.
In The Cuckold, two types of nobles are opposed to each other: the educated, endowed with subtle feelings Florisa and Count Cassander - and the ignorant, rude, primitive landowner Vikul and his wife Khavronya. This couple eats a lot, sleeps a lot, plays cards out of boredom. The story of Khavronya about her visit to the St. Petersburg theater, where she watched Sumarokov's tragedy "Khorev", is amusing. She took everything she saw on stage as a genuine incident, and after Khoreva's suicide, she decided to leave the theater as soon as possible. "Cuckold by Imagination" is a step forward in Sumarokov's dramaturgy. Unlike previous plays, the writer here avoids too straightforward condemnation of the characters. In essence, Vikul and Khavronya are not bad people. They are good-natured, hospitable, touchingly attached to each other. Their trouble is that they have not received proper upbringing and education.
On "R. by imagination" was influenced by the "Foreman" Fonvizin, and "R ..." - on the "Undergrowth". This comedy is more of an irony than an accusation.
Plot: The main characters in it are a couple of provincial petty nobles with characteristic names Vikul and Khavronya. Vikul's unfounded suspicions of his wife, a lady immersed in household chores, somewhat reminiscent of Brigadier Fonvizin, form the basis of numerous comic episodes. Scenes of jealousy arise in the course of the development of a melodramatic plot - the love of a rich count for poor girl brought up by these kind but ignorant couch potatoes. Main artistic interest the play lies in the juicy chronicle of manners. The speech individualization of the images of Vikul and Khavronya grew out of an unpretentious way of life with its daily village worries and hospitality. These people are characterized by spontaneity in expressing their feelings, their language is a vivid example of a lively colloquial Russian speech, saturated folk proverbs and sayings ("For a dear friend and an earring from an ear", "The hut is not red with corners, it is red with pies", "It happens even for an old woman," "You can't hide an awl in a bag", etc.). And the whole comedy ends with a proverb that Vikul utters, reconciling with his involuntarily offended wife: "Kiss me, Khavronyushka: and whoever remembers the old, get out of his sight." In terms of brightness and folklore coloring of style, Sumarokov's latest comedies generally stand out against the background of his earlier plays.
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"Guardian". Characters: Stranger (nobleman), Sostrata (noble daughter), Valery (her lover), Nisa (noblewoman and maid Ch.), Paskvin (servant Ch.), Palemon (friend of the late father V.), secretary, soldiers. Action in St. Petersburg.
Plot: a nobleman took orphans under guardianship, mercilessly robbed them. He is greedy, hypocritical, depraved, does not understand how a girl can refuse him if he is rich. By the way, there is not 1 trait in him (but usually S. has 1 character with 1 trait)
The Outsider believes that "what is taken is holy", loves the feast of all saints.
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During the period of writing these comedies, Sumarokov has been living in Moscow for several years. He is all in worries about the creation of a new theater in Moscow. The aging playwright does not leave the thought of new plays, although he is aware that his strength is running out. Sumarokov's state of mind during this period is eloquently expressed by his letters to Empress Catherine II. In one of them, dated April 30, 1772, he shares his plans with the monarch: “And I think that my comedies can make no less amendments, how much fun and laughter they can bring, and comedies in Moscow and for the sake of driving away ignorance to your wise rule And if the time of my fading life and my weakening strength are supported by your royal mercy, then I hope to work for the theater for another four years, and especially I hope to serve comedies, for I compose prosaic comedies , having both theory and practice, and seeing the daily stupidity and delusions in ignoramuses, it is very easy "(Letters of Russian writers of the 18th century. L., 1980, p. 153.). And in latest comedies Sumarokov does not cease to realize himself primarily as a satirist. Although it is impossible to speak about the pamphlet content of these plays, their accusatory pathos is undeniable. And the main object of denunciation is still the vices of the representatives of the ruling class, and above all the spiritual narrow-mindedness and class arrogance of the nobles. The methods of satirical ridicule of the gentlemen who dishonor their rank are diverse. Sometimes these are invectives interspersed in the speeches of neutral characters along the way, such as the remark of the maid Nisa to the ignorant landowners, boasting of their noble origin: “There is no more unbearable creature that is magnified by one shadow of a noble name and which, sitting near the sourdough, is surrounded by servants in bast shoes and sashes ... rises with a boyar title" ("Cuckold by Imagination"). Much more often, the main characters of comedies themselves turn out to be the direct object of satirical denunciation. Such, for example, is the aging coquette and fashionista Minodora, who is caring for her daughter's fiancé. And in the image of the wild and wayward landowner Burda (the comedy "Squabbler"), in her own way, some of the character traits of Mrs. Fonvizin's Prostakova are anticipated.
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Interest in this genre Russia XVIII century is confirmed by the abundance of translations and adaptations of European comedies and the extraordinary intensity of the development of the genre by Russian authors. Sumarokov also stood at the origins of this process. The popularity of comedy in Russia was historically determined. It rested on the traditions of laughter culture, which were formed on Russian soil as early as the 17th century and which were embodied with particular relief in the democratic satire of this century. And in the system of theoretical views of Sumarokov, the subject and function of comedy are thought inseparably from the satirical task:
The property of comedy by mockery is to correct temper:
Laugh and use its direct charter.
Imagine a soulless clerk in an order,
A judge that does not understand what is written in the decree,
Imagine me a dandy who lifts his nose to that,
That the whole age thinks about the beauty of hair.<...>
Imagine a Latin man at his disputation,
Who will not lie without ergo nothing ...
This is how Sumarokov writes about the purpose and meaning of the comedy genre in his Epistle on Poetry. Accordingly, in developing the structural properties of comedy, Sumarokov proceeds primarily from the fulfillment of the main task - ridiculing the vice exposed on stage. This is already evident in the construction of his earliest comedies, created in 1750: "Tresotinuios", "Monsters" ( original name comedies were "Arbitration Court") and "Empty Quarrel" (original title - "Quarrel between husband and wife"). The first two plays were then presented in St. Petersburg along with tragedies.
The plot basis of the action in the early comedies of Sumarokov is unusually simple: the parents choose a groom for their daughter, whose hand is sought by several applicants. And since the desires of the daughter herself usually do not coincide with the plans of the parents, the action of the comedy comes down to discrediting the suitors and the destruction of parental intentions. Here, the influence of the traditions of the Italian comedy of masks was felt, with the repertoire of which Sumarokov could get to know quite well when the Italian troupe toured in St. Petersburg on the court stage. True, in Italian comedy an important role was assigned to intrigue, built on the ingenious tricks of the ubiquitous Brighella and Harlequin. In Sumarokov's comedies, the servant is usually alone, and intrigue as the organizing principle of comic action is also practically absent.
The spectacle of comic action is understood by Sumarokov in the spirit of the tradition of interludes, that is, as a stage portrait of vices. Therefore, the plot acts in his early comedies as just a kind of framework for the consistent self-identification of the exposed characters, personifying some kind of vice. This is the pedant Tresotinius, together with his colleagues Bobembius and Xaxoxymenius, this is the boastful Captain Bramarbas from the same comedy; clerk Khabzey ("Monsters"); the gallomantic dandy Dyulizh, the village undergrowth Fatyuy, the coquette Delamida ("Empty Quarrel"). In depicting certain types, Sumarokov followed the traditions of famous European playwrights. So, some of the character traits of the main character in the first comedy, along with his name, are borrowed from Molière's comedy The Learned Women. The image of the boastful officer Bramarbas was suggested by the German translation of L. Golberg's comedy "The Boastful Soldier". At the same time, in a number of farcical scenes of fights, brawls, deceptions, disguises, caricatured scholarly disputes, the comedy principles of the Molière theater are combined by Sumarokov with the traditions of folk interludes.
characteristic feature The content of Sumarokov's comedies, especially early ones, is their pamphlet. All researchers of Sumarokov's work pointed to this trait. He uses the comedy genre as a means of dealing with his opponents. In two early comedies, the object of Sumarokov's attacks was his literary opponent V. K. Trediakovsky, who was portrayed in the first play as the learned pedant Tresotinius, and in the second under the name of the pedant Kritsiondius. Later, Sumarokov will expand the circle of persons he ridicules, presenting on stage in a caricature form both the famous novelist F. Emin and his relative A. I. Buturlin, and others.
Speaking of Sumarokov's early comedies, one cannot fail to note a specific trend in the playwright's approach to depicting the setting in which the action of the plays takes place. Unlike tragedies, which, as we remember, were based on the material of legendary events ancient Russian history, in the comedies of Sumarokov, the action is almost devoid of national coloring. Marriage contracts are signed on the stage, the servants behave rather cheekily with their masters, deceiving and instructing them. From play to play in the early comedies of Sumarokov, the names of comedy characters traditional for the European theater pass: Orontes, Valere, Dorant, Clarice, Dorimena, Delamis, the servants Pasquin and Arlikin. In a word, the action takes place in some conventional forms, far from the Russian way of life. True, in deducing his literary opponents or outlining the characters of the undersized Fatyuya, the absurd noblewoman Gidima ("Monsters"), Sumarokov quite successfully conveys the living types generated by national living conditions. But these are rather exceptions to the rule. What is the reason for this situation?
Sumarokov stood at the origins of the creation of a new type of Russian comedy. He recognized the importance of his efforts to enrich national repertoire correct plays, which is indicated, by the way, by a significant remark in his Epistle on Poetry regarding the purpose of the comedy genre:
For knowledgeable people you do not write games,
To laugh without reason is the gift of a vile soul.
In these verses, Sumarokov actually repeated the thoughts of Boileau, who in his treatise "Poetic Art" warned the authors against transferring the traditions of the common folk farce into comedy. On Russian soil, the bearer of the stage laughter tradition, against which the theoretician of French classicism warned his compatriots, was, in the eyes of Sumarokov, of course, interludes, those "between-thrown games" that migrated from school dramas on the stage of farce theaters that served the common people. And when Sumarokov, in his first comedies, brought the Orontes, Dorants, Clarice and Paskvivs to the stage, this was dictated by his desire to establish on the Russian stage new type comic performances. At the first stage of the formation of the genre, the task was precisely to demarcate the traditions of the grassroots theater, which Sumarokov did in his early comedies.
However, with all his emphasized rejection of the spirit of the common folk scene, Sumarokov remained dependent on it in developing the structural properties of the comedy genre. There was no impassable line between the traditions of farcicalness, adopted by Sumarokov from the European theater, and the traditions of farcical farce of school interludes. Therefore, the observation of G. A. Gukovsky, who noted at one time that "the first comedies-farces of Sumarokov are more like interludes from those that were presented on the stage of the folk theater under Peter the Great, than the correct comedy of Molière and Regnard" (Gukovsky G A. Russian poetry of the XVIII century. L., 1927, p. 11.).
In the 1760s, the method of Sumarokov the comedian undergoes changes. There is a reorientation in the choice of sources of plot schemes. The comedies of this period are marked by a clear influence of the traditions of the "tearful" philistine drama - a genre that arose in Europe as a reflection of the interests of the bourgeois audience. Transitional in this respect is the play Dowry by Deception (1756). Its plot still retains traces of the Italian comedy of masks, for the main character is the servant Pasquin, deceiving his master, the miserly Salidar. Pasquin's tricks form the basis of the intrigue of the play. The heiress of Salidar, in whose interests a clever servant acts, is called upon to embody virtue, suffering under the yoke of vice. Such a motif was typical of a "tearful" drama, and for all that, negative attitude Sumarokov to such plays "Dowry by deceit" meant a rapprochement with this genre.
Sumarokov's comedies of the 1760s ("Guardian", "Likhoimets", "Poisonous") mark a new stage in the evolution of his comedic satire. The action in these plays is freed from farcical comedy. Sumarokov resorts to the grotesque, focusing on the denunciation of the central characters who embody vicious passions. This is the insidious Outsider, the main character in the comedy "Guardian", who claims the inheritance of orphans and illegally turns a young nobleman into a servant. This is the usurer Kashchei, who reaches fanaticism (the comedy "Likhoimets"), who, due to stinginess, starves his servants and makes them steal firewood. This, finally, is the godless hypocrite and evil-pagan Herostratus (the comedy "Poisonous"), blackmailing his daughter and father, who have become dependent on him.
Accordingly, in the comedies of the 1760s, it develops the new kind plot stereotype: temporarily triumphant vice, personified in the ominous images of Outsider, Kashchei and Herostratus, is opposed by suffering virtue. The loss of wealth, the unknown origin, the imaginary death of relatives increase the burden of suffering that befell the virtuous characters. But vice inevitably awaits retribution. At the same time, the playwright uses the techniques traditional for the genre of "tearful" drama. Here is the motive of recognition by the cross, and the appearance on the stage of eyewitnesses of the crime, and the sudden discovery of the noble origin of the innocent suffering, and the unexpectedly fair decision of the court. In the end, vice is punished, and virtue triumphs. All the action of comedies appears as a kind of moral lesson; now the plays are designed not so much to treat the audience with laughter, but to touch with sensitivity.
The focus on sensitivity and the associated rejection of the methods of farcical comedy meant a turn towards a serious moralistic comedy. Sumarokov is no longer satisfied with the combination of satire with entertainment, but puts denunciation at the center ideological concept. At the same time, pamphletery still remains hallmark his comedies. A number of features in the character of the Outsider or Kashchei give reason to believe that in them Sumarokov brought out a caricature portrait of his son-in-law, A.I. Buturlin, known for exorbitant stinginess, hypocrisy and cruel treatment of courtyard people. It is possible with all probability to assume the pamphlet nature of the comedy "Poisonous", where in the image of the evil-tongued Herostratus, the personality traits of the writer F. Emin and the poet I. S. Barkov are simultaneously guessed (The question of the prototypes of Sumarokov's pamphlet comedies is considered in detail by P. N. Berkov in the book "History Russian comedy of the 18th century" (L., 1977, pp. 86--90).). In ideological terms, such pamphletery was supplemented by broad generalizations that followed from the playwright's sharply critical attitude to certain phenomena of the then reality - usury, corruption in the courts, the system of farming out, the estate swagger of the nobles. If in the tragedies of the mature period, the focus on modernity of the problematic was manifested in the strengthening of the allusive principle, then in the comedies, the actualization of the content was achieved by parodying the code of estate morality, when the very essence of moral concepts that define good and evil was perverted in the mouths of vicious characters. Such, for example, are the tirades about "honor" that sound in the arguments of the Outsider or Kashchei.
A person thinks a lot about his own person, taking everything to heart. If someone laughs behind his back, then the reason for laughter can only be in him. And if someone kisses his wife's hand, then it's worth talking about a clear betrayal, most likely already happened. And it does not matter if the wife is over sixty. Is there a little hurriedness in it? Twenty-year-old girls did not stand nearby. It is with such an imagination that the nobleman Vikul lives, regardless of anything: neither with time in the yard, nor with a reasonable understanding of what is understood.
Taking over, Vikul does not pay attention to everyday life. Sumarokov did not show a person with strong convictions, presenting to the attention an amorphous character endowed with the ability to be jealous. Vikul does not know how to be proud and show no other feelings, except for doubts about his wife's fidelity. What is happening without him could be shown to the viewer, since the thoughts of the owner of the house are not so important, especially since they do not really represent anything.
The focus is on the impoverished noblewoman Floriza and Vikula's wife's maid Nysa. They are of interest to Count Kassandra, who lives on the neighboring estate, and his huntsman, respectively. There is no conflict of interest between them. Everyone understands what choice he will have. No one interferes with mutual happiness. Weddings will be easily played, it is worth announcing. There is a single misunderstanding that does not affect anything. It's about Vikul's jealousy.
But nothing just happens. Relationships need to be born. Suffice it to say about the intention, as the answer is likely to be positive. Life can make adjustments, it is worth wishing the author of the work. If there were five acts in comedy, then there would be a place for something else. For three actions, it is enough to show interest, inform about it and eliminate a number of misunderstandings that have arisen, after which it is permissible to lower the curtain.
Vikul's jealousy brings an additional feature to the events taking place on the stage. He does not oppose and does not create intrigues, only expressing concern from what seems strange to him. After all, it was not without reason that the wife undertook to restore order at home, prepare festive dishes and look forward to the arrival of the count. In addition, it is known that earlier the wife and the count met in Moscow, where they attended a theater performance together. Moreover, the wife speaks of a positive impression of that meeting. You won't be comforted by such confessions. The wife's assurances of the firmness of her former love will not help to find balance, supposedly she will not exchange her husband even for a prince.
By the third act, the spectator fully agrees with the opinion of the butler, who directly tells Vikul about his suspicions: "Ears wither, dear sir." Just think, in his old age, the nobleman decided to beat his forehead at the authorities. You never know to what insanity he lived in the surrounding pastoral. Let the viewer not be sad - all misunderstandings will end immediately, as soon as Count Kasander announces certain intentions, and not regarding Vikul's wife, but Floriza, against which the owner of the house will not object.
Sumarokov wanted to see a smile of appeasement among the visitors of the play staged according to his comedy. Easy plot without malicious intent - to show the importance of good neighborliness. Seemingly important should be taken more condescendingly. Decisive action will be later, when everything is finally clarified. In any other case, it is better to pretend that nothing is happening. Just think: they laugh behind your back, or someone kissed his wife's hand. There can be a million reasons for that. Therefore, it is better to calm the imagination, directing it to another useful channel, such as writing edifying comedies. Sumarokov did just that.
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Tresotinius Orontes. Oh! I died!<...>. Tresotinius. Oh! Commanding soul, you ruined me! (V;323). "Guardian" Palemon. You doomsday, and to him the resurrection already dead came<...>. Outsider. The end of the world has come. I'm dying! I'm dying! I'm burning! Tonu! Help! I'm dying! I'm going to hell! (V;47-48). "Cuckold by Imagination" Vikul. In hell, in tartar, in architartar you will be, damn woman! (VI;49). So tragedy, gravitating towards a happy marriage in the finale, and comedy, fraught with death at the end, turn out to be aesthetically similar genres in Sumarokov's work. Both genre models are complex and mixed, combining features of the opposite genres of tragedy and comedy. Not only for classical genre thinking, but also for the world dramatic tradition, this situation is completely atypical. It was in the synthetism of the dramatic genre that its national originality on Russian soil most of all affected. However, the world of Sumarokov's comedies is too bizarre and fantastic to be identified with the Russian reality that gave birth to it: comedy theater Sumarokov clearly lacks the vitality and recognizability of national social life. This circumstance gave rise in the 1760s. an alternative line of development of Russian comedy to Sumarokov's theater - a comedy of manners, culminating in Fonvizin's Brigadier. Genre composition lyrics by Sumarokov. Poetics of the song genre: song and tragedy Sumarokov's lyrics are perhaps the most extensive area of his literary heritage, precisely because here, too, he was a consistent universalist. The genre composition of his lyrics includes absolutely all the genres known in his era: from solid stable forms of the sonnet, rondo, stanzas to lyrical miniatures - epigrams, epitaphs and madrigals. Traditional genres Russian classic poetry - a solemn, spiritual, Anacreontic ode, satire, fable, love song; eclogue, idyll, heroide, elegy popular in Western European classicism; genres that were just beginning their lives in Russian literature - a poetic message, a parody - all this together makes up an idea of the inclusiveness of Sumarokov's lyrical repertoire. Of course, not all of these genres were equal in the creative mind of Sumarokov. Some genre forms(sonnet, rondo, ballad, stanzas) are represented by one or more texts and have the character of a clear creative experiment. In other genres - such as, for example, a solemn ode - Sumarokov followed his older contemporaries, Trediakovsky and Lomonosov, relying on the variants of odic genre models developed by them. And, of course, in his lyrics there are favorite genres in which Sumarokov was not only a leader, but also an innovator. It is a song, a fable and a parody. Song - lyric poem , written to already existing music or intended to be performed with musical accompaniment, was one of the most popular genres of Russian literature of the 18th century. since the Petrine era. However, only Sumarokov legitimized the position of the song in the genre system of Russian lyrics, since the political, socio-civil direction adopted by the new secular literature immediately rejected the song as a personal and chamber genre, in the name of older genres saturated with socio-political issues. Sumarokov treated the song genre differently. He saw in it a convenient form of expressing an immediate private feeling, expelled from the high genres of the official literary hierarchy, but imperiously encouraged by the personalism of the new secular culture of Russia. This understanding of the genre led to the enormous productivity of the song in his lyrics: having started writing songs in the 1730s, Sumarokov did not part with this genre until the early 1770s. and created only about 160 song lyrics. It was in Sumarokov's songs that love - an individual passion, as all-consuming as a socio-political passion, acquired not only the rights of citizenship, but also its own poetic language. The song becomes, as it were, an isolated monologue of the tragic hero, in which the passions of the heart are articulated in the language of psychological lyrics. Thus, Sumarokov's songs are a form of realization of dramatic psychologism, suppressed in Russian tragedy by the absolute predominance of social problems. Sumarokov's song psychologism is directly connected with the specifics of the dramatic genre, which closes the author from the reader with the image of a character, a character, apparently absolutely independent and free in his speeches and actions. The lyricism of Sumarokov's songs is also devoid of the author's subjectivity in the sense that here, too, there is an intermediary character between the author's feeling and the reader's emotion, not equal to the author of the text: the lyrical subject on whose behalf the song is written. I.Z. Serman successfully defined this type of lyrical psychologism as “abstract-poetic”. The abstract nature of song psychologism is reflected in the fact that in Sumarokov's song there is always an independent lyrical subject, the bearer of passion, expressing it in direct speech. This subject, who prevents the song from becoming a direct emotional outpouring of the author, can be a man and a woman with equal success. He seems to play his role, and the personal pronoun "I" almost always belongs to him, and not to the author: In those few cases when the personal pronoun belongs to the author, his image has a generalized character (in this case, the personal pronoun is plural), and individuality is hidden behind the mask of a neutral narrator-observer: The most common song situation is betrayal and separation, which give rise to a psychological conflict in the soul of the lyrical subject of the song. Hence the extreme drama, as a special sign of Sumarokov's song: “love, depicted in Sumarokov's songs, has become the highest manifestation of the human in man, the ideal expression of his nature. That is why Sumarokov's song, as it were, outgrows the boundaries of its genre and becomes<...>collapsed dramatic situation". Therefore, song and tragedy intersect in a series artistic techniques. Just like in tragedy, there is a twist in the song (a change in position from the best to the worst): Just like the character of the tragedy, the lyrical subject of the song is in a state of internal conflict and struggle of passions: Universal for song genre the concept of love is concretized in more specific terms denoting different psychological states: jealousy, betrayal, sorrow, joy, happiness, etc. Thus, in songs, a spiritual ideal world image, just as abstract as in tragedy, is created, but not ideological, but psychological. state of mind The lyrical subject of the song is described by typically tragic antitheses (freedom - bondage, joy - sorrow, shame - passion). And often such antitheses unfold into a picture of a clash and struggle of opposing passions, which, in fact, turn out to be not at all mutually exclusive, but closely interconnected and capable of passing one into another: elements, which is also outlined in the dramatic genres of Sumarokov, with the only difference being that in the drama formal-structural elements tend to synthesis, and in the song - plot and content. The absence of formal canons for the genre of the song led to another important property of the poetics of Sumarokov's songs: an unusual metrical variety, which, against the background of the predilection of Sumarokov's contemporaries for one or two meters (for example, Lomonosov's well-known predilection for 4- and 6-foot iambic) was of great importance for enrichment rhythmic structure of Russian lyrics. Already from the above examples it is clear how diverse the rhythm and metrics of Sumarokov's songs are. With the general predominance of the choreic rhythm, Sumarokov widely varies the footness of the chorea, alternating verses with a different number of stops within a stanza, and also enriches the rhythmic pattern of the verse with the wide use of lightened (pyrrhic) and truncated (without an unstressed syllable) feet along with the stops of a complete formation: And, of course because the song is primordial folk genre, folklore rhythms and poetic devices are very noticeable in Sumarokov's songs: Sumarokov's song, the thematic analogue of the elegy, it was with its metrical freedom that rendered an invaluable service to Russian lyrics in terms of content art forms, which would serve as an additional way of expressing lyrical emotions and meanings. Different shades of mood and feeling in Sumarokov's songs correspond to different rhythms, rhyming methods and strophic forms. Thus, in his search for song rhythms corresponding to different shades of content, Sumarokov not only continued, but also developed Lomonosov's poetic practice. If Lomonosov to express the category of high in solemn ode substantiated the need to use an iambic foot with an ascending intonation, then Sumarokov in his polymetric songs created a whole arsenal of rhythms adapted to convey different shades of the psychology of passion. And this is the main role of his songs, the connecting link in the tradition of Russian lyrics of the 18th century. - from Lomonosov to poets late XVIII V. Poetics of the fable genre: fable and comedy A kind of antonymic pair, constituting a parallel and antithesis to the song, is the fable genre in Sumarokov's poetry, even more productive than the song. During his lifetime, Sumarokov published three collections of fables (1762-1769); a large number of fables were printed by him in different periodicals 1750-1760s In total, he wrote about 400 fables. Just like the song, the fable was one of the freest genres of classicism, which manifested itself in the fable verse legalized precisely by Sumarokov - free (diversified) iambic. In their genre relations, the fable and the song divide the spheres of aesthetic competence between them in much the same way as satire and ode, comedy and tragedy, with the only difference that the fable and the song are connected not with public, but with private life. If in privacy love is a spiritual passion, and the song in which this passion is realized gravitates towards high genres with its non-material abstract psychological world image, then the fable is entirely concentrated in the world of low everyday material passions: such as hypocrisy, arrogance, greed, ignorance, etc. d. And this, of course, includes the fable in a certain chain of literary genre continuity. Just as the psychological conflict expelled from Sumarokov's tragedy triumphed in the song, the fable fully realizes the material everyday world image that was not fully embodied in his comedy. Therefore, the fable world-image is close to the world-image of Russian satire. The satirical beginning in Sumarokov's fable is manifested in two ways: both as an aesthetic attitude towards plastic everyday life, and as a moral and ethical pathos of denial, denunciation and edification. Sumarokov himself called his fables "parables", thereby emphasizing their didactic origin. All the originality of Sumarokov's fable is connected with the category of the author-narrator: it is the forms of manifestation of the author's position that determined the features of the fable plot, style, and comic methods of narration. In this sense, the fable can also be correlated with the song and opposed to it. If the lyrical subject of the song, the bearer of emotion, is a character separate from the author, who has his own personal pronoun, then in the fable the author's voice is incomparably more specific: both the personal pronoun, intonation, and attitude to the events narrated belong to the narrator of the fable, whose image for Sumarokov is practically coincides with the personality of the fabulist. The moments of the open manifestation of the author's beginning are connected, as a rule, with the beginning of the fable, the motivation of the narration: “I will add a trick // And a fairy tale // I will tell” (“Beetles and bees” - VII; 49), or with its finale, as the main moral thesis of the fable plot: “Reader! do you know what my words mean? // What is the Thorn Bush, Satire is like this ”(“ The Thorn Bush” - VII; 91). Quite often, these traditional inclusions of the author's voice are combined in a ring of appeals-comments framing the fable plot: “Undivided power is commendable, // But multi-authority is impudent. // I will offer this // In a fable that I will say" - "I'm not talking about slaves, // But only about subjects in the freedom of the king" ("Undivided power" - VII; 283). Much more interesting than these traditional forms of including the author's voice in the narrative are those cases where the manifestation of the author's principle serves as a form of direct contact between the author and the reader: by openly addressing the reader on his own behalf or expressing his opinion directly, the author engages the reader in a dialogue that vividly resembles the dialogic structure of satire or comedy: So, copyright activity speech forms determines the intonational structure of the fable: the author's voice becomes the bearer of a comical, ironic beginning in the fable narration, partly foreshadowing the slyly ironic intonations of the fables of "grandfather Krylov", in which a sharp, caustic mockery is hidden behind a mask of imaginary innocence and narrow-mindedness. Such intonations, which hide essential denial behind a visible affirmation, and denunciation and mockery behind praise, begin to sound in the Russian fable tradition precisely in the direct author's speech of Sumarokov's fables: This crafty intonation allows Sumarokov to do without such obligatory traditional components of a fable as morality and moralizing. . The ironic effect, which lies in the very manner of narration, relieves the plot of the need for explanation, emphasizing the intrinsically valuable laughter nature of the genre in Sumarokov's interpretation: . So, in a fable, a pun is very productive - Sumarokov's favorite verbal game on polysemy and consonance. But if in comedy a pun based on the polysemy of a word was more productive, then a sharper and more colloquial style of fable prefers a pun based on consonance, which gives rise to an additional comic effect due to the absolute incompatibility of consonant words. A typical example of such a purely comic game of consonance is the fable “The Donkey Ambassador”, which tells about a stupid after, who was called a donkey in a diplomatic dispatch, trying to excuse his stupidity: “Forgive him, he is a fool, There will be no fights with a donkey.” They say: “And we are not scarce here with donkeys, However, we do not make donkeys ambassadors” (VII; 205). Obviously, in these cases, the comic effect is born from the collision of words that are similar in sound, but belong to different stylistic spheres of speech. In this sense, purely stylistically, Sumarokov's fables are very similar to Trediakovsky's poems by the boundless freedom with which Sumarokov combines colloquial vulgarisms with high-style words within one verse or syntactic unit: “So the proud belly and proud thoughts fell” (“Kite” - VII; 330), “Neither the knights themselves, who are at war, // Which are under each other’s sides // And stick in the nose and snout” (“Kulashny fight” - VII; 244). However, this effect, which in Trediakovsky arose in addition to the author's intentions, in Sumarokov acquires the meaning of a conscious comic reception. The clash of different styles of words in him, as a rule, is emphasized by rhyme - the strong position of the word in the poetic text: Colliding Slavism (“stopped”) and vulgarism (“freak”) within the same verse, rhyming “evil-goat”, “open-wool” , and in other fables: “sky is a foal”, “beetles are sciences”, “ranks are hams”, “praise is an ox”, etc. Sumarokov quite consciously uses comic effect similar stylistic discord, especially bright against the background of high and low styles completely differentiated by Lomonosov's stylistic reform literary language. This tangible author's intention to make the reader laugh and compromise vice by purely linguistic means also emphasizes the author's position organizing the entire fable genre. Finally, the originality of plot construction is also determined by the activity of the author's principle in Sumarokov's fables. The same moral thesis often unfolds not only in the main plot of the fable, but also in its side branches, which are similar in meaning to the main plot and its moral thesis. Such, for example, is the fable "The Donkey in Lion's Skin", the plot of which goes back to the fable of the same name by La Fontaine and is directed against false vanity. The basis of the fable plot is set in the first verses: However, before deploying it in the traditional fable animal allegory, Sumarokov introduces an additional situation that immediately reveals this allegory, transferring from an allegorical plan to a real everyday one, and, moreover, emphasized in its social affiliation: This technique , which is called amplification (multiplication), not only gives the fable narration an unconstrained freedom; he also introduces reliable details of Russian life into international plots, giving Sumarokov's fables a bright imprint national identity and Russifying abstract and conditional fable allegory. Due to the amplification of the plot, Sumarokov's fable, as one of the main elements of its content, includes many everyday sketches that quite obviously resurrect the satirical everyday world image in this new genre, and often these are almost direct reminiscences of Cantemir's everyday writing motifs. So, for example, the fable “Lack of time” is clearly written based on Satire II “Filaret and Eugene”: It is in such everyday scenes that fill the texts of Sumarokov’s fables that their satirical nature finally manifests itself. Digesting aesthetic reasons satire (everyday worldview), the fable under the pen of Sumarokov also absorbs the negative ethical setting of satire, turning into a denunciation of vice, and not just its ridicule. This is also a sign of the national originality of the genre model of the Russian fable in the form in which it first developed in the work of Sumarokov: after all, the fable genre itself is by no means satirical. Moreover, the name of the fable in the European tradition: “plot” (lat.) and “apologist” (fr.) - emphasize its narrative and didactic (affirmative) nature. Making the fable a satirical genre, Sumarokov, therefore, combined within its genre framework the affirmation of moral truth, which is inherent in the fable, with the denial of vice - and, therefore, Sumarokov's fable also became a complex genre that combines elements of opposite genre structures. This is a manifestation of the same tendency towards genre synthesis, which we have already observed in Sumarokov's tragedies, comedies and songs.
