Sumarokov is a cuckold by imagination. Sumarokov's last three comedies

A. P. Sumarokov

Cuckold by imagination

A. P. Sumarokov. Dramatic works. L., "Art", 1990

CHARACTERS

Vikul, nobleman. Khavronya, his wife. Florisa, poor maid. Cassander, Count. Butler. Nisa, Khavronin's maid. Huntsman of Count Kasander.

STEP ONE

PHENOMENON I

Nisa (one).

Someone sent a huntsman to us; Of course, there will be guests for us, but the master is still resting. Usually it is that those husbands do not get out of bed for a long time, who love their wives very dearly; and our old people, it seems, it is already not under the summer.

PHENOMENON II

Nisa and Jaeger.

Gamekeeper. Are you at home, girl, your lord? Nisa. He's still in bed. Who are you from and why? Gamekeeper. To whom I am sent, I will tell him from whom I was sent and why. Nisa. Fu, dad, what an arrogant! Gamekeeper. Phew, mother, what a curiosity. Nisa. Of course you're a joker? Gamekeeper. And you, darling, are so good that I have seen few pretty ones. Do you know, girl, that I fell in love with you to death. Nisa. Stop fooling around. Gamekeeper. What a joke! If this is a lie, then hang me. Nisa. It's time for me to go to the bars, soon the lady will get up. So what can I say about you? Gamekeeper. Say that a huntsman has been sent from Count Kasander.

PHENOMENON III

Jaeger (one).

Oh sudden wound! Oh Cupid! You are completely trafic: you are more skillful and quicker in shooting than me! And if all the huntsmen were like you in shooting, then in one year there would not be a single sandpiper and not a single thrush in the world.

EVENT IV

Vikul and Jaeger.

Vikul. What are you, my friend? Gamekeeper. I was sent from Count Kasander to your this... to your excellent... to your high... What, sir, are you in rank? Vikul. What do you care about my rank, brother? Whatever it is. Gamekeeper. I have been sent from Count Kasander to your High Blessed... Do you, sir, have the rank of major? Vikul. No, brother. Gamekeeper. I was sent from Count Kasander to your noble ... Yes, sir, are you a nobleman? Vikul. Although not rich ... But why and from whom were you sent? Gamekeeper. I have been sent from Count Kasander to your health. The Count ordered you to bow to the lowest. (Bows in ground.) Vikul. It's very low. Gamekeeper. There is nothing lower than the lowest bow. And what is the most humble bow, I don’t understand this anymore. Vikul. What else are you ordered? Gamekeeper. So live together ... also your spouse ... How, sir, are the wives of the village nobles titled? Vikul. Title as you wish. What does the count have to do with my wife? Gamekeeper. The thing is to pay her respects. Vikul. Yes, he doesn't know her. Gamekeeper. He is your neighbor, so he knows the name of your cohabitant ... spouse ... well, whatever it is. Vikul. Why is it known? Gamekeeper. Because she's the landlady here. Vikul. No, brother, I am the landowner, not she. And she owns only a seventh of my real estate. And even then she will get it, if she survives me. Gamekeeper. I was ordered to give her the lowest bow. Vikul. Well, my friend, I will take this bow to her. Gamekeeper. You, sir, are not a young man, so you need to watch your back. I think that you feel bad weather? Vikul. Speak, my friend, what you were sent for, in short. Gamekeeper. Count Kasander, traveling with canine hunting, to you at the crossroads will be. Vikul. Welcome. Bow down to his lordship.

EVENT V

Vikul (one).

Isn't that why the Count wants to come to me, to follow my wife? It's not very useful to me. And you, count, show your teeth in vain at someone else's good, for this honor, your excellency, I humbly thank you.

EVENT VI

Vikul and Khavronya.

Sow. What kind of adjutant did we have? Vikul. Not an adjutant, he was a huntsman. In our opinion, a servant who shoots walking birds. Sow. What a servant; all in prosume. Vikul. Now the gentlemen have such a manner. It was the huntsman from Count Kasander: his excellency would like to visit us. Sow. His Excellency! Vikul. And what? Does he know you? Sow. Yes, I will not forget his high mercy, as long as the soul is in the body. And if he had shown me such sinful fatherly mercy and ordered the painter to paint his person with paints, I would have put her in front of my bed and would not take my eyes off her. Vikul (especially). As if my heart heard it! Why do you know him, and what kindness has he done you? Sow. And here, my dear, I will convey to you. As I was in Moscow this winter without you, they praised me for some kind of intermecia and persuaded me to go there. There is also a hole in the old woman. I went, I entered the hall, they played the violinists, and the oboes, and the clevicorts; some of them came out and started talking all sorts of things, and they were already waving, waving their hands, like the very dolls; then some one came out, and a woman was brought to him on a chain, from whom he asked I don’t know what letter, and she answered that she tore him up; came out, they gave him a gilded goblet, but with what drink, I don’t know; he sent this goblet to her, and all was well; then someone else came, we talked a little, and something came over him; when he, father, screamed, his hat flew off, and he began to rush about like a mad cat, and taking out a knife, as he laughed at himself, so I died. And this count, sitting with me then in the same closet and talking before the interlude that I was his neighbor, then with Mungal vodka, as I died from fear, he saved me from death. Vikul. Is graph-at good? Sow. So handsome, preconceived and courteous that eight taba. Vikul. Wife! even if you praise him less. Sow. How not to praise! Yes, a good fellow and old people do not remember. Vikul. Wife! I don't like it. Sow. AND! my swallow! Are you jealous of him already? Yes, I won’t exchange you for Bova the prince. Vikul. Wife! I don't know what's breaking my skin! Go lie down. Sow. And I will order food and snacks.

PHENOMENON VII

Khavronya (one).

For the mercy of his high-reis-count excellency, it is necessary to treat him better; for a sweet friend and an earring from an ear. Butler!

SCENE VIII

Khavronya and Butler.

Sow. Do we have pork legs? Butler. There are, sir. Sow. Tell them to cook them with sour cream and horseradish, tell them to stuff the stomach, so that it is sewn up with silk, not threads. Yes, they led the porridge to make a mess ... Butler. Will you order in a pot, madam-empress, or on a platter? Sow. In a pot, but in an ant, and cover it with a Venetian plate; pies with carrots, pies with salted milk mushrooms, levashniki with dried raspberries, pork frucase with prunes, a French pie from sleeve flour, and a lingonberry marshmallow filling. Do we have Kaluga dough? Butler. Available. Sow. And besides that, order yourself what to cook, fry, bake, if only everything was enough. Serve salad not with hemp, but with nut butter. Butler. Noble gentlemen mostly use wooden oil for salad: so don’t you order it better to put oil on lampatnov’s salad? Sow. Fu, dad! I'm not a basurman! And after the meal, put the pods, beans, carrots, turnips and cucumbers, both fresh and freshly salted, and serve coffee with sugar, and not with molasses. Fix everything as it should, but go to the market to buy gilded gingerbread, but the cobwebs were swept, and the doors were greased so that they would not creak, and the people were fed. Butler. This, noble empress, is not common, it is an old fashion. Formerly, drawing-room horses were fed, but now people are not fed either. Sow. Feed both the people and the horses of His Excellency; everything would be as you were ordered. Butler. Our business, sir. Everything will be fine.

PHENOMENON IX

Khavronya (one).

For one-at day will be us! And you, Count's Excellency, can not shamefully eat our bread and salt. It is for nothing that our mansions are not colored: the hut is not red in the corners, it is red in pies.

EVENT X

Khavronya and Nisa.

Nisa. The butler orders forty for the sake of the table of your dishes to prepare. And Florisa, having canceled that, only cook twelve dishes, ordered: I know better to establish this. And you know that she grew up, brought up in St. Petersburg. So won't you order us to attend our feast, so as not to be dishonored? And she grew up with people. Sow. How is this better!

PHENOMENON XI

Khavronya, Floriza and Nisa.

Sow. Intercede, mother, in our salvation. Florisa. Well, madam, I have already ordered everything, and besides that, I will look after everything myself. Sow. And I'll go and confirm them.

PHENOMENON XII

Floriza and Nisa.

Florisa. Why are you so cheerful, Nisa? Nisa. And you, mother, why are you so sad? Florisa. When you see me cheerful? Nisa. And today you are wonderfully sad. Florisa. When others are having fun or preparing themselves for a pleasant pastime, then I am usually sadder, imagining that fate has brought me to poverty and despondency. Nisa. Maybe your life will change someday. Florisa. Doesn't tend to that. Nisa. You are still young; so maybe you will marry such a husband who will turn all your current sadness into gaiety. Florisa. It is difficult for a meager or, rather, poor girl to have a worthy groom: a meager and worthy one will not take me, and I will not go for an unworthy rich man. Nisa. Or maybe your husband will be smart, and good, and rich. Florisa. Such lots are now very rare, so that sufficient people marry meager girls. Nisa. Yes, you have all the virtues: you are beautiful, smart, well-behaved, young, raised nobly by your late parents, you know the teaching that is proper for noble girls, a reader of books ... Floriza. Let it all be in me, but I have the first dignity - I have no dowry. Nisa. What exactly does this word dowry signify? And why is the wealth of the bride so called? Florisa. Giving to a person. However, for the most part, it is not money and property that is attached to a person, but a person is attached to property and money, but when discussing this, can I ever not be sad? Here is my thought. Why are you so happy today? Nisa. And today I am cheerful that I got the hope of breaking out of the local dwelling. Did you, madam, hear from me how I got into this house? Florisa. I heard it, but I really don't remember exactly. Nisa. I inherited this house from the late Vikulova sister. I grew up in Moscow, and now, wearing the rest of my dress, I have to live like a village and hear only about hay, about reaping, about threshing, about chickens, about ducks, about geese, about rams, and, seizing my age, should still expect such a groom who will say: FAQ taba, heart-to, publish? beista with me - and other similar peasant speeches. And the petty nobles themselves are unbearable. I'm not talking about everyone; there are quite good people among them. And in some parts they pout like frogs, and think only of their nobility, which they know by name alone, and expect their peasants to be created from God to their masters to reproach themselves. There is no more unbearable creature, which is magnified with one shadow of a noble name and which, sitting near the sourdough, is surrounded by servants in bast shoes and sashes and barefoot servants and in sundresses, rises with a boyar title. Florisa. What hope do you have of getting out of this house? Nisa. The huntsman sent by Count Kasander fell in love with me. Florisa. How are you, Nisa, not ashamed! With what feeble hope you rejoice! Nisa. Don't take her from me; let her amuse me at least empty. Florisa. And I do not see hope in a dream.

PHENOMENON XIII

Vikul, Khavronya, Floriza and Nisa.

Sow. Fu, dad! How are you not afraid of God? What thoughts came to you in old age; how to say this to people, they will laugh so much! By the way, did you think of that? Vikul. How not to be afraid that people happen to other people. Sow. I'm 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. Sow. Pip would taba on the tongue; what kind of dung do you have? Florisa. What is this, madam? Vikul. Wife, keep it to yourself. Sow. FAQ about yourself? This is shame and rubbish. Vikul. Do not talk, my treasure, my diamond pebble. Sow. Yes, this is not good, my cherry berry. Vikul. Wife, stop it. Sow. Kiss me, strong mighty hero. Vikul. Let's kiss, my sunflower star. Sow. Be more cheerful and as bright as a new month; do not be jealous. Vikul. Wife who talks about jealousy. Sow. What broke 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. Vikul. Yes, you are not in a word, but in deed you said something. Sow. I am a father, a village, and I don’t know what the word is, what the deed is. Vikul. The thing is more, and the word is less. Sow. And I thought that the word is more, but the action is less. The clerk told me this former years fifty in the detective order. Vikul. Not that you sing and only rave. Sow. From now on, I won’t say a word about your jealousy of the saber towards Count Kasander. Vikul. Fool, you've gone mad: who's telling you about Count Kassandra? Sow. You baesh ... so hot! Wow, I got really flustered. Vikul. Now what you want, then lie. Florisa. Is it already under summer, sir, she likes with others, and you are jealous of her. Vikul. Love does not count years.

SCENE XIV

The same and Butler.

Butler. His Excellency, the Most Honorable and Most Excellent Count, deigns to go. Sow. We'll go to the gate. Vikul. Enough to get off the porch. Edakov her graph-at! (Especially.)

PHENOMENON XV

Florisa andNisa.

Florisa. Your ears are laughing, Nisa. Nisa. I'm not hiding, it's your truth. Florisa. And as the guests go, so your ears will begin to cry. Nisa. Or it won't be the case. Florisa. I wish that your hope does not deceive you; you know how much I love you and that I come to this house more for you. Nisa. And in Moscow, mother, I would become a matchmaker. Florisa. For me, there is neither happiness nor a groom in the world.

APPEARANCE XVI

Vikul, Khavronya, Kasander, Floriza and Nisa.

Sow. Would you deign, your high-ranking excellency, to drink a glass of vodka? Kasander. I humbly thank you, mother, it's hot and without vodka. Sow. Yes, that vodka, your vysokoreysgrafskaya lordship, the most noble and rich. Kasander. Thank you, sir. Sow. So, if you please, Your High Graf Excellency, at least a glass of Rhenish or church? Kasander. No, sir, thank you. Sow. Ying honey or brew? Kasander. No, sir. Sow. So what to treat such a dear guest? Vikul. Dear, don't bother his excellency. Did you have fun, sir, on the hunt? Kasander. Pretty good, sir. And having already arrived here, we got a bear, but I almost fell into his clutches: he rushed at me and I almost dodged him. Sow. Is this a matter of state? Kasander. And why not stately, madam? Sow. How dare he attack your Excellency? Kasander. Yes, madam, they are born in the forests and grow up in the forests: so they do not know any courtesy. Sow. So you, my handsome man, better deign to poison a tame bear, and some of them are more courteous of us, village nobles, because they not only bow politically, but also know how to dance. Kasander. And my poor huntsman, he is from a horse ... Nisa. Oh! My God. Kasander. The girl seems to be very timid or very compassionate... Don't be afraid. He didn't hurt him or the horse, because he hit him so hard in the forehead with a bullet that he fell over. Sow. Where is his mercy now? Was he sick with fear? Kasander. Hello, sir. And I sent him to Moscow for some need. Nisa (especially). Oh, flattering hope! Oh, poor Nisa!

PHENOMENON XVII

The same and Butler.

Butler. Already iced on the table, sir, put. florisa (especially for him). I didn't order you to do this. Butler (especially for her). How without it? Vikul. You are welcome, most illustrious count, to taste our bread and salt. florisa (To the butler aloud). Have we swept the upper room? Butler (aloud). And the mansions, madam, are all swept, and the doors are greased, and the cobwebs have been removed.

PHENOMENON XVIII

Nisa (one).

My sweet dream has passed, and my hope has passed. I hoped that this day was for me, the day of my joy, and it is the saddest time of my life. Suffer now: your sweetest hope has turned into bitterest despair. Cry, Nisa, cry and weep, desperate Nisa! End of the first act

ACT TWO

PHENOMENON I

Vikul, Khavronya, Count and Butler.

Sow. And I drank a cup of coffee to the health of your great excellency, but something grumbles on my stomach; Yes, that’s enough, this is from last night: I ate fried roach and scavengers, and ate botvinya, and most of all from peas. And the peas were the lightest; and they served me on a grated plate, and the butter for it was walnut, and not some other. Graph. In some homes this oil is also eaten with salad, although wood oil is usually used with salad. Sow. Ahti! Yes, this does not seem to be a solution. Butler. Mixing with the tongues and getting used to their deeds. Sow. If you please, Count's Excellency, have some fun with cards. Graph. No, sir. Sow. Yes, we will not play for money. Graph. Thank you, sir. Sow. Although in bonks or in messenger kings? Graph. I don't want to be king, ma'am, but I don't want to be beaten. Sow. As if we would even dare to do such impoliteness to your excellency: just beat us, most illustrious count. Graph. I don't want to hit you, and I don't want to. Sow. But how can we, fools, not be taught? We are guilty before your Excellency and without guilt. Vikul. Would you like to rest, most illustrious? Graph. I'm not tired, sir... don't you want to rest? Vikul. I'm used to it, my dear sir, but don't you be disgusted. Graph. Nothing, sir. Vikul. Wife, let's go and rest ... And you, merciful sovereign, have some fun here ... Butler, may you be inseparable from his excellency. And we, so that your high-ranking excellency is not bored, will send Floriza. And she is learned in conversations, and she speaks French. Graph. Very good.

PHENOMENON II

Count and Butler.

Graph. You are the butler here, and who is your clerk? Butler. I, gracious sovereign, and the clerk, I am a lawyer and a psalmist; Yes, I'm the barber of his nobility. Graph. Are your peasants alive? Butler. Almost everyone walks around the world, it’s not said here and it’s not for you. Graph. Why is this? Butler. Our boyar does not favor idleness, and every hour she deigns to force the peasants to work. Panache and card games have multiplied, and if the peasants work less, then our landowners will have more to gain. And my gentlemen, although they do not favor panache or gambling, however, collecting money, they save white money for a rainy day. Graph. Okay, brother. Butler. Don't be angry, dear one! The boyar at this time deigns to feed the pigs, so I must be present there.

PHENOMENON III

Count (one).

House-building is commendable, but it seems that it is not the master's business to feed the pigs. In the countryside, the landowners have a lot to do without this, and the landowner and the landowner will find enough necessary and fun exercises.

EVENT IV

Count and Florisa.

Graph. I wonder, madam, how you can live among such people. Florisa. What can you do, sir, and you will inevitably live when this cannot be changed. I was left in orphanage and in poverty, and only one after my father came to me as a legacy of the village. Graph. You certainly deserve a different fate, and I knew your father too. And even then I know that everyone has it for him good qualities was in reverence. Florisa. Usually, after respectable people, children are left in contempt: bribe-takers leave wealth to children, and good people leave poverty. Graph. Don't fret about it. You have barely blossomed yet, so your life is not yet founded. It may be that God will not leave you. Florisa. My hope in God does not perish; however, in this temporary life, happiness may not be prescribed for me. However, I, submitting to my fate, overcome as much as possible. Graph. Put it on me, madam, so I will take care of your happiness as much as possible. Florisa. I am very grateful and accept your kind and generous intention for fulfillment, even if I never received any success from you in changing my life. Yes, but your strength will not be to help the poor, when you, seeing someone for the first time, are filled with so much generosity. Graph. Not much can be done for everyone, but you are not included. Florisa. Yes, I did not deserve your special indulgence. Graph. I would like you to receive such zeal for me, which I received for you in a short time. Florisa. We and our hearts are closed! I believe you, and believe me also, that I have no less zeal for you. Graph. If I were prosperous, madam, I would at least try to marry you to one of my wealthy friends. Florisa. I do not rely on you for this commission, and no matter how poor I am, I will not marry looking for wealth: with whom to live forever, it is not necessary to look for wealth in him. Graph. I present the groom to you, and it will be up to you whether you agree or not. Florisa. Whom you consider among your friends, so of course he is worthy of respect, I have no doubt about that; however, when choosing a groom, more than one mind acts: every person in such circumstances, in addition to a righteous analysis of merits, also has his own taste. I think it’s funny to you that a poor village girl is so empty filled with pride and, having barely food, is so picky. Graph. I can't laugh at this. Any noble soul this opinion with you, despite the fact that for the most part the opposite of this happens. And even that is not surprising, because the human race is for the most part corrupted. And I tell you directly that it was with this intention that I came here to make sure, obviously, of what I have heard enough to your piety; and then marry you. Florisa. Leave it; I don’t want to have a fiancé whom I haven’t seen in my life, and for me to be married, of course, I don’t have much need for myself. Graph. Isn't it because my wooing is already unpleasant to you, because you are disgusted with the matchmaker. Florisa. I wish, more than anything in the world, that I was as much repulsive to you as you are repulsive to me. Graph. And what I would like more than anything else is that you also have the same thoughts about me that I have about you. Florisa. You don't know my thoughts. Graph. And so that you feel the same as I feel. Florisa. Your Excellency, you speak obscurely and make I don't know what hints that I don't understand. Graph. Let me speak more clearly. Florisa. Only so that your speeches are similar to my honor. Graph. Toliko honoring you a lot, I, of course, will not say anything that can touch your hearing and your honor with obscenity. Florisa. This is strange to me. Graph. Give me permission to speak, and if you do not agree to my proposal, then leave me my insolence. Florisa. Say what you will; and why should I be angry and consider it insolence, which is not at odds with my honor. Graph. Oh, if only I could hear the desired answer! Florisa. Whatever is not contrary to my honor and what is possible for me, I will do whatever you please. Graph. I entrust all my fate, my happiness and my heart to you. Florisa. What can follow this? Graph. Eternal union and eternal love. Florisa. What union and what love? Graph. Can you love me as much as I love you? Florisa. Well, if I love you so much already; what of that? Graph. And from the fact that you were my wife. Florisa. Didn't you find a bride for yourself in Moscow? Don't you forget that I am the poorest girl. Graph. I, madam, am not of the quality to fall in love with wealth. Florisa. Do not follow the first impulse of your passion and the heat of love; it might fade soon. Graph. Then it will go out when my life goes out. Florisa. Think, Count, your wife is not a temporary mistress. Graph. Do not torment my soul, if you love me too. Florisa. This happiness is incredible to me. Graph. Resolve my anxiety. Florisa. I will gladly accept your offer when I am so happy that I have become pleasing to you. Graph. Oh day, oh happy day! Florisa. Is this not a dream for me! Graph (kisses her hand). In your image I see all my happiness, all my joys, my life and my soul... That is the reason for my coming here.

EVENT V

Earl, Florisa And Gamekeeper.

Graph. So soon you're back! Yes, from here to Moscow, more than a hundred miles. Gamekeeper. Forgive me, dear sir. Graph. What is the reason why you didn't go? Gamekeeper. Love. Graph. Which? Nisa (running in). They were about to lie down to rest, but I just ran to see who had arrived, and, saying two or three words with the visitor, I came back and saw that they were fighting. For what, I don't know.

EVENT VI

Count, Floriza, Vikul, Khavronya, Jaeger and Nisa.

Sow. What order is this! He broke a woman for nothing: he was jealous of your excellency; so therefore me with kind people and not speak. Vikul. All right, fool. Sow. Lots of taba, fools. Florisa. Be ashamed. Sow. Yes!.. My sides hurt. Vikul. Better get out and don't be embarrassed. (Taking leads her by the hand.) Graph. Let's go and reconcile them.

PHENOMENON VII

Jaeger and Nisa.

Gamekeeper. Do you remember, girl, what I told you the other day? Nisa. It’s enough to mock me; to say something that you never had in your heart and never will? Gamekeeper. Yes, will you love me? And I’m not telling you in mockery: if you don’t, then why should I waste my time. Instead of empty speeches, I would shoot birds at this time. Nisa. Yes, again, fall into the paws of a bear. Gamekeeper. You are scarier than a bear. I know how to recover with him, but neither a shot nor a bullet can get your heart. Nisa. You're joking. Gamekeeper. So you don't want to love me? Nisa. I can bow to you, but not as a mistress, but as a bride. Gamekeeper. But what is better, to be a wife and not love her husband, or to be a mistress and be faithful to her lover? Nisa. To be a wife and not love her husband is torment for both wife and husband, but to be a faithful mistress and after losing a lover, leave shame on a woman’s neck and everything is worse. Will you take me for yourself? Gamekeeper. I am ready to marry you five times. Nisa. And change five times. Gamekeeper. Many husbands and wives would still be called permanent, if only they cheated on each other five times. Nisa. I'm not that built. Gamekeeper. Yes, and I'm not like that. Nisa. Yeah tell me do you love me? Gamekeeper. Didn't I tell you this? Nisa. Yes, tell me. Gamekeeper. To her! to her! I love. More to say? Nisa. And you want to marry me? Gamekeeper. And I want to marry you. Nisa. And will you always be faithful to me? Gamekeeper. You don’t have to sign a subscription to this from me. And even though I have signed, such a subscription is not a bill of exchange and it is impossible to protest it. Nisa. So you can see that you do not rely on yourself? Gamekeeper. Completely, my dear, empty something to rave, I will always be faithful; why am I talking to you, my gun has not yet been cleaned. Nisa. Will you be faithful? Gamekeeper. I am not a fortune teller so that I can find out what will happen in the future.

End of the second act

ACT THREE

PHENOMENON I

Count and Khavronya.

Sow. For you, my most merciful father, my wormy yacht, Finista the falcon's feather, I would not stand for anything; Yes, this is impossible to do, this slave is my right hand. Graph. I will pay you, madam, five hundred rubles for this girl. Sow. Radiant, yes, so much to take money for a girl, is it complete and not a sin. Graph. I take this sin of yours on myself. Sow. Ying be according to your will, there is no refusal in anything.

The Count kisses her hand.

PHENOMENON II

Count, Khavronya and Vikul.

Vikul. I thank you most humbly, most illustrious one, that you deign to favor me so much for my bread and salt. And you, unfaithful wife, hide somewhere so that you and the mice are not seen. Sow. Are you sane, dad? Here, high count! Burmitskaya is my pearl! Your Excellency sees how he treats me. Graph. How are you, sir, not afraid of God. Vikul. Your Excellency, yes, the horns planted on me by your high-ranking lordship will not make me a count. Graph. What horns? I don't even have them in my head. Vikul. Yes, I have them on my head. Not enough for my sins! Sow. What rubbish! Yes, you would thank his lordship for favors such that he kisses the sinful hand of a village woman, out of his natural philanthropy. Vikul. Yes!.. Do you answer a kiss? You won't be denied anything from me. Sow. Yes, listen to what it was about. Vikul. I heard and saw. Leave me for an hour, most illustrious, most noble earl, and you fool, come out.

PHENOMENON III

Vikul (one).

That's what my head has lived to! .. My wife, an old woman, but she took it into her head to remove my head in a new manner. Neither my father, nor grandfather, nor great-grandfather sewed a horn!.. All their sins were cut short on me! O Khavronya, Khavronya! You cut me off my feet! Here we are not equal, but in the next world the count, and the master, and the baron, and the petty nobleman will be equal. Maybe a serf, by inscrutable destinies, to be in the next world more than a governor. Answer then that you have exacted me, an old peasant, with such a high-ranking grace! .. Butler!

EVENT IV

Vikul and Dvoretsky.

Vikul. Tell me, what is required by law for planting a horn? And in which collegium it is necessary to beat with a brow about this. Butler. In which county the said planting of the horn followed, in the voivodship office of that city, a petition must be submitted about that. Vikul. What kind of production happens then? Butler. Although there have been many such incidents, however, information about this is not obtained: until this year and to this day, no request has been made for such progress from anyone. Vikul. I'm starting a business with my wife. Butler. Is it stately business! Vikul. You can’t hide an awl in a bag: so, by the condescension of his excellency. Butler. Whoever from this soul, which is in your assistant, could expect this! Vikul. I would have divorced her, but I would have made many children and grandchildren with her, and soon there will be great-grandchildren. Yes, and I love her passionately, and although she is already over sixty years old, and when she takes a swing, she will shut up a twenty-year-old woman by the belt. Butler. And besides beauty, your health, what a memory she has! Bova, Yeruslana knows the length and breadth, and such a craftswoman reaps, as you yourself know, and even in domestic life: she salts cabbage herself, and feels chickens, and feeds pigs. Vikul. But what is in all her art when she is unfaithful to her husband? Butler. A cup of honey, but a fly in the ointment. Vikul. Yes, tar-at this gosling. Butler. Your Majesty! You are not the first, you are not the last. Vikul. Yes, I didn't want that. Butler. What is written for someone, so be it. Vikul. Yes, this was not written for me. Butler. If it hadn't been written, it wouldn't have happened. Vikul. What do you think, to bash about it or not? Butler. Isn't it better to keep it to yourself? So avoid abuse. And what has been done cannot be turned back: what has been spilled is never complete. Vikul. Yes, the Count will tell everyone. To twist everything now in a new way: before this, they were loved for the sake of voluptuousness, and now for the sake of vanity more. Butler. The count is a merciful man and will not do this, being such an honest gentleman. Vikul. I humbly thank him for his honesty. Butler. He only got into it when he was young. Vikul. Yes, my old age is not tasty. Butler. We must love our enemies. Vikul. If someone planted horns on you, you would speak differently. Butler. Yes, you, boyar sovereign, do not intend to divorce your concubine. Vikul. And he would have intended, but love prevents this. Butler. So why let this thing go public? Vikul. Yes, and I don't want to bear the insults. Butler. Yes, you don’t overtighten the graph; according to the proverb: do not fight with the strong, but do not fight with the rich. And with such a rich and noble person where can we move? Vikul. Yes, it’s a miracle, isn’t it, my friend: a louse will become more expensive than a casing.

EVENT V

Vikul, Jaeger, Nisa and Butler.

Nisa. I am grateful for the gracious dismissal of myself from your wife and for the gracious maintenance in this house. The mistress deigned to give me to the count, and I am marrying this man whom you see. Vikul. Butler! Edak she will completely ruin me. Others, for the most part, get rich with horns, and I go bankrupt from them. Gamekeeper. It's not a ruin, Mr. Vikul, when she received this five hundred rubles for a girl. Nisa. The count gave her five hundred rubles for me. Vikul. Five hundred lashes to you. Gamekeeper. Your Majesty! Such a great sum of such blows and you will not endure. Nisa. Why did I piss you off? I have served you faithfully. Vikul. It can be seen from everything that the horns were planted on me and you helped. And I won’t believe it soon, so that someone would give five hundred rubles for you. Gamekeeper. I would give for her Turkish sultan and five thousand reds. Vikul. Five hundred rubles is a great deal! Who would pay that kind of money for her? Gamekeeper. They have already been paid, and your partner has already accepted them. Vikul. Inquire, butler, and spank me. Butler. Will you order yourself to be leported in writing or verbally? Vikul. Spell verbally; It is better to receive money in words than in writing nothing.

EVENT VI

Vikul and Jaeger.

Vikul. A noble gentleman can take away a girl without money. We twist the dust of the earth before him; so it’s better to take the money, good gentlemen favor; Otherwise, go back to Moscow, and rub your archives for two years, and give away a hundred rubles. Gamekeeper. Now it is strictly forbidden to eat some kind of shilnicheskoy craft. Vikul. To a drunkard and a hookmaker and the sea is knee-deep. Yes, and the pillow of the tellers does not spin much: those who spin more, who, observing their honesty, go around the world and ask for mercy from them for the sake of food.

PHENOMENON VII

Vikul, Jaeger and Butler.

Butler. Money, boyar sir, is accepted in full by the Russian silver current coin. Vikul. This is better, but for copper money today, both when buying and when exchanging, the interest is very high. It would seem to me that this is a new article of extortion, and it should inform where it belongs. Butler. To take interest on silver money and banknotes, it seems, is dissimilar to decrees. And if it comes at a distance, then this covetousness will not be praised. Vikul. Whatever you say, my horns never go out of my mind. Gamekeeper. Shame on you! People are about business, and he is about horns: they won’t fall off your head from this, what you say about them. Vikul. They won't fall off.

SCENE VIII

Vikul, Jaeger, Butler and Khavronya.

Sow. Some kind of nonsense riveted on me. Vikul. In hell, in tartar, in architartar you will be, damn woman. Sow. Yes, even though I really am in what fell iniquity, so do I not already have repentance? Vikul. Yes, even though you will repent, the horns will not fall off me ... Khavronya. Where is my graph-at! That he hesitated so much, I can't wait for him, my light. Vikul. Do you hear, butler? Butler. Ears wither, dear sir. Vikul. How the sky won't fall on her. Gamekeeper. Yes, if the sky falls, it will crush us too ... Such an upstart! So that for the sake of his horn the sky fell on us.

PHENOMENON LAST

Graph. Will you really leave your suspicion when I clearly show you that I have not even touched your concubine with my thought? Vikul. Most illustrious Count! How can you assure me? Graph. I kissed her hand because she conceded Nisa to me. Vikul. I would have you, sovereign, ten Nis and beat with a brow for nothing, but I myself need Khavronya. Sow. So kiss me, my handsome, when you need me! No matter how graph-at is preposterous, you are more beautiful to me and him. Vikul. No, Khavronya, don't kiss me now on my mind. Graph. Here is my mistress: she is my bride, and on the same day she will be my wife. Has your suspicion ended? Vikul. Most gracious and most merciful Count, is this true? Florisa. Indeed, sir, your concubine is faithful to you, and the count will marry me today. Vikul. Khavronya, is it so? Sow. That I am a tabe, my red sun, is true, it is true, but that the count takes her for himself, this I myself now only hear. God bless her! And she deserves it. Butler. Worthy and righteous. Sow. Do not forget us, most illustrious countess! Florisa. I am not a countess yet, and I will never forget your friendship. Vikul. Most eminent Countess! Do not leave us, if there is any need... Florisa. I am not yet a countess; but I think that the count of your shortcomings... Count. As in your house, please send me. Have all abundance from my house as from your house. I have all my joys. Vikul. Kiss me, Khavronyushka. And whoever remembers the old, that eye out. (They kiss.)

The end of comedy

Notes

CONVENTIONAL ABBREVIATIONS

Archives

GPB -- State public library them. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Department of Manuscripts (Leningrad) IRLI - Institute of Russian Literature ( Pushkin House) USSR Academy of Sciences. Manuscript department (Leningrad)

Printed sources

Berkov - Berkov P.N. History of Russian comedy of the XVIII century. L., 1977 Chosen. -- Sumarokov A.P. Selected works [Introduction. article, text preparation and notes. P. N. Berkova]. L., 1957 (Library of the poet. Large series. 2nd ed.) Izvestia - Izvestia of the Department of the Russian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences. T. XII, book. 2. SPb., 1907 Letters - Letters from Russian writers of the 18th century. L., 1980 PSVS - Complete collection of all works in verse and prose of the late real state councilor, Order of St. Anna Knight and Leipzig Academic Assembly member Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov. Ch. I-X. M., 1781--1782 Collection - Collection of materials for history Imperial Academy sciences in the 18th century. [Edited by A. A. Kunik]. SPb., 1865, part II Semennikov -- Semennikov VP Materials for the history of Russian literature and for the dictionary of writers of the era of Catherine II. SPb., 1914 Synopsis - Gizel Innokenty. Synopsis, or a brief description of the beginning of the Slovenian people, of the first princes of Kyiv, and of the life of the holy, noble and great prince Vladimir... 4th ed. SPb., 1746 The collection of dramatic works by A. P. Sumarokov offered to the reader's attention includes thirteen plays. The five tragedies, seven comedies and one drama selected for this edition are far from exhausting everything Sumarokov created for the stage. The published works are intended to give an idea of ​​his dramatic heritage in the context of the formation of the Russian classical repertoire. theater XVIII V. and show the evolution of Sumarokov's interpretation of dramatic genres at different stages creative way. The main selection criteria were the ideological and artistic originality of the plays and their typicality for the Sumarokov drama system as a whole. Many of Sumarokov's plays appeared in print even before they were staged or soon after. Moreover, the playwright constantly strived to improve the text of the plays, bringing them closer to the requirements of the time and the tastes of the audience. In 1768, he radically revised almost all the dramatic works he had created since 1747 and at the same time printed most of them in a corrected form. This second edition of the early plays became canonical, and in this form they were placed by N. I. Novikov in the corresponding (3-6) volumes of the "Complete collection of all works in verse and prose of the late real state councilor, the Order of St. Anna" prepared by him after the death of the writer Cavalier and Leipzig Academic Assembly member Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov "(parts I-X. M., 1781-1782). The second edition (M., 1787) repeated the first. N. I. Novikov published the texts of plays based on manuscripts he received from the playwright’s relatives, as well as on the latest lifetime editions of Sumarokov’s works. Therefore, Novikov's "Complete collection of all works in verse and prose ..." A.P. Sumarokov remains today the most authoritative and accessible source of texts of the playwright's works. In preparing this collection, we also relied on this edition. In particular, the texts of all published comedies by Sumarokov, his drama "The Hermit", as well as two tragedies ("Sinav and Truvor" and "Artiston") were taken by us from the corresponding volumes of the named publication. In Soviet times, Sumarokov's dramatic works were rarely reprinted. Individual plays, often presented in abbreviated form, were included in university "readers on Russian literature of the 18th century." In essence, the first scientific publication of this period was the one-volume prepared by P. N. Berkov: Sumarokov A. P. Selected Works. L., 1957 (Library of the poet. Large series), including three tragedies: "Khorev", "Semira" and "Dimitri the Pretender". In the collection "Russian Comedy and comic opera XVIII century" (L., 1950) P. N. Berkov published the first edition of the comedy "Empty Quarrel" ("Quarrel between a husband and wife"). Finally, in the collection "Russian dramaturgy of the XVIII century" (M ., 1986), prepared by G. N. Moiseeva and G. A. Andreeva, included the tragedy of A. P. Sumarokov "Dimitri the Pretender". This exhausts the number of modern editions of Sumarokov's dramatic works. The proposed book will enable the general reader to more deeply and fully get acquainted with the dramatic heritage of Sumarokov and Russian theater repertoire 18th century Special meaning when publishing texts of the 18th century. has to bring them into line with current spelling norms. The system of spelling and punctuation in the time of Sumarokov was quite different from modern requirements. This concerned the most diverse aspects of morphological paradigmatics: the spelling of case endings of nouns, adjectives, participles, demonstrative, possessive and personal pronouns, the endings of adverbs and verbs with a reflexive particle -sya (for example: a crown - instead of a crown, shoulders - shoulders; dragia - others, from here - from here, which is - whom, for whom - whom; praise - more laudable, hurry - sooner; wife - marry, etc.). Sound combinations were also written differently in prefixes, suffixes and roots of individual words (for example: I take - instead of I collect, anxiety - anxiety, conspiracy - collusion, marriage - marriage, sad - sad, happiness - happiness, better - - better, soldier - soldier, heart - heart, late - late, skirt - skirt, etc.). The spelling of allied particles not, nor, whether, with, in combination with a meaningful word, also had its own specifics. The norm of the written language of the XVIII century. separate spelling of particles with pronouns and verbs was considered (for example: nothing - instead of nothing, is there - if, with everything - at all, without lying - impossible, not like - no way, etc.). In most of these cases, the spelling of words was brought into line with modern spelling standards. True, sometimes it seemed appropriate to preserve outdated forms of spelling. P. N. Berkov already pointed out this point in his time in the above-mentioned edition of A. P. Sumarokov’s Selected Works, referring to the reproduction of the text of tragedies. The specificity of the verse structure of tragedies sometimes dictated the need to preserve obsolete orthoepic forms in spelling. This concerned those cases when the modernization of spelling could lead to a violation of the verse rhythm or affect the rhyming endings of the verses. Here are examples of the preservation of such a stylistically justified archaism of spelling: "And this disastrous pain of grieving blood ..."; or: "You go against the one you love..."; or: "The silence of the people's border will break ...", as well as examples of rhyme pairs: I want - I will turn, anger - delete, love - blood, I will soften - I will return, etc. Sometimes modernizing old spelling norms can lead to a distorted understanding of the author’s thought contained in the phrase, as we see, for example, in the following verse from the tragedy “Khorev”: “Open the gates of the beloved prison for me”, where the adjective refers to the last word, although in pronunciation it can be perceived as referring to the word " gate." And there are plenty of such examples in the plays. In general, when publishing the texts of tragedies, we were guided by the textual principles adopted in the indicated edition of the selected works of A.P. Sumarokov, carried out by P.N. Berkov in 1957. Somewhat different principles were adopted when publishing the texts of Sumarokov's comedies. The specificity of this genre determined the installation on the maximum preservation of the colloquial elements of the language of comic characters. Only such an approach allows us to convey to the modern reader the flavor of everyday speech communication of people of that era. This applies in particular to the transfer individual forms endings of nouns, adjectives, gerunds, reflecting the old norms of speech practice, such as: two days, bribes, rubles, speeches, saint, taking out, eating, coming, etc .; or to preserve the specific sound of individual words, as it was accepted in spoken language XVIII century, for example: by name, doubtfully, resistance, shameless, genevarya, frightened, go, want, hug, etc. We also tried to fully preserve the colloquial vowels of foreign words adopted in the XVIII century. Russian language, as well as dialectisms, like: clevicorts, intermecia, otleportovt, enaral, provisions; now, three times, sabe, tabe, started, here, vit, etc. Words, the meaning of which may not be clear modern reader, are included in the "Dictionary of Obsolete and Foreign Words and Expressions" attached at the end. We also have to face certain difficulties in covering the stage fate of Sumarokov's plays. Undoubtedly, the tragedies and comedies of Sumarokov were played in the second half of the 18th century. quite widely, being included in the repertoire of most Russian troupes of that time. But information about the activities of even the court theater, not to mention the performances of serf theaters and free Russian troupes, is generally fragmentary. Therefore, the surviving data on the productions of Sumarokov's plays do not guarantee the completeness of knowledge about stage life one play or another. We tried to use as much as possible all the sources of such information available to modern theater studies. In preparing the publication, in particular when working on comments, the searches in this field of other researchers were taken into account: P. N. Berkov, V. N. Vsevolodsky-Gerngross, B. A. Aseev, T. M. Elnitskaya, G. Z. Mordison , to which the corresponding references are given in the text of the notes.

Cuckold by Imagination

For the first time - PSVS (part VI, pp. 1-56; 2nd ed. M., 1787, pp. 1-52). Written around 1772. The construction of the plot collision combines the traditions of Voltaire's comedy "Scotch" (1760) - the line of Count Kasander and Floriza and Fonvizin's comedy "The Brigadier" (1769) - a couple of landowners. The comedy was part of the repertoire of the Petrovsky Theater of M.E. Maddox in Moscow. It is known that it was staged on the stage of this theater on November 2, 1782, p. 388. You are completely trafficking ... - that is, you please well. P. 390. ... they praised me some kind of intermecia and persuaded me to go there. - We are talking about Sumarokov's tragedy "Khorev", the staging of which is further described by Khavronya. P. 391. Yes, I won’t exchange you for Bova the prince. - See note. to s. 305. S. 406. Burmitz pearls - large rounded pearls.

Dictionary of obsolete and foreign words and expressions

Abie(old-fashioned) -- but avantage(French - avantage) - advantage Adorate(French - adorer) - to adore Amantha(French - amante) - mistress Asche(old term) -- if Baysta(dialect.) - from "bait" (to speak) - talkative, talkative Beth(French - bete) - cattle Bostroks-- jacket type, sleeveless jerseys bhma(Old Russian) - in every possible way publicly(old-timer) - loudly, publicly Gehenna(old word) -- underworld, hell Distre(French - distraite) - scattered Eliko-- how Emblem(French - aimable) - amiable, worthy of love Estimate(French - estimer) - appreciate, respect Zelo-- so many Zernshy(grainer) - a dice player, or grain player, in bazaars and fairs Zograf(also - isographer - Old Russian) - icon painter, artist Izzheni(old-timer) - cast out intention(French-- intention) -- intention Kalite(French - qualite) - dignity, advantage Casing(French - casser) - to break Kupno(old-timer) - together Mamer(French - ma mere) - mother meprise(French - mepriser) - to despise Measure(French - meriter) -- to deserve, to be worthy Metressa-- mistress Nakra- drums, timpani The other day- the day before, recently obache-- however lick-- slander Odarater(French - adorateur) - adorer ODR(old-timer) - bed flatter-- seduce Packs(old-timer) - again Panse(French - la pensee) - thought Pace(old word) -- more Penyaz- small coin Perun- the supreme deity of the ancient Slavs, peruny-- zippers Ponezhe(kans.) - because, since Prezelny- plentiful, plentiful Prosumer(gown) - decoration of ceremonial clothes service-- crime Rachit- try to take care Regulations-- rules Remark(French - remarquer) - to notice Rival(French - rival) - rival Lilac(old-fashioned) - that is Skufya- a pointed velvet cap in black or purple, which was the headdress of the Orthodox clergy Stavets(dial.) - a wooden deep cup, a common table bowl superstition-- delusion Trafi- to please, to catch the similarity Trezemable(French - tres emable) - very kind Oody- members of the body finish(French-- finir) -- finish float(French - flatter) - to flatter wormfourth-- Beautiful Chiriqui- type of footwear Shilnichestvo- snitching, denunciation Epitimia- corrective punishment imposed by the church on a penitent sinner, in the form of fasting, long prayers, etc. Ergo(lat.-- ergo) -- therefore, so

In this respect, the comedic form that Sumarokov gave to his literary pamphlets is quite optional: Sumarokov could just as well achieve his extraneous goals in journalism, satire or parody. But here is the reason for the controversy - Trediakovsky's extremely harsh review of the tragedy "Khorev" - from the very beginning parodically projected Sumarokov's comedy onto the aesthetics and poetics of the tragic genre.

Beginning with the comedy Tresotinius, in which a caricature of literary personality Trediakovsky - criticism of the tragedy "Khorev", the tragedy is the constant literary background of Sumarokov's comedy. In Monsters, for example, one of Trediakovsky's attacks against Sumarokov's word usage is parodied:

Have you seen a Russian tragedy?

kritsiondius

I saw for my sins. ‹…› Kiyu was given a chair, God knows what, as if he was in such a state that he couldn’t even stand. ‹…› A chair is called a seat, as if it could not be called a chair (V;263).

Here we have in mind the following critical passage of Trediakovsky: “Kiy asks, having come into extreme indignation, that a seat be given to him ‹…›. The Author knows that this word is Slavic, and is used in the psalms for a chair: but he does not know that the Slavonic Russian language ‹…› has now combined with this word a vile idea, namely, what we call in scripture an aphedron. Therefore, whatever Kiy asks to be served, then let Kiy himself, like a tragic person introduced from the Author, smell.

A kind of rhyme to this exchange of pleasantries about the tragedy "Khorev" in Sumarokov's late comedy is a self-parody of the same tragedy, put into the mouth of the main comic character, the landowner Khavronya in the comedy "Cuckold by Imagination" (1772):

Sow

‹…› then some one came out, and a woman was brought to him on a chain ‹…› they gave him a gilded goblet, ‹…› he sent this goblet to her, and everything was fine; then someone else came, we talked a little, and something came over him; as he, father, screams, his hat flew off, and he began to rush about like a mad cat, but taking out a knife, as he laughed at himself, so I died (VI; 9).

Thus, the shadow of his first tragedy fell on all of Sumarokov's comedic work, from the caricature of the critic of Khorev in Tresotinius to the self-parody in Cuckold by Imagination. One of Kyi’s most famous remarks in the tragedy “Khorev”, clearly formulating the political nature of the conflict of the Russian tragedy: “In the whole sunflower, the royal passion thunders, // And the strict power turns into tyranny” (Ш; 47) gives rise to the incredible productivity of the phrase “throughout the sunflower” in the mouths of comedy characters who use this high stylistic cliché in an emphatically everyday, comical context. Here is just one example from the comedy "Guardian": "Outsider. There is nothing more useful in the whole sunflower industry than the sun and money” (V; 23). On the other hand, the ability of parody not only to repeat what has already been said, but also to predict what has yet to be sounded, gives rise to the motif of the hellish torment of sinful souls in the finals of Sumarokov’s comedies, which will be cast in the equally famous replica of the tragedy “Dimitri the Pretender”: “Go to hell, soul, and be forever captive!” (IV;26). Before finding its precise verse incarnation in tragedy, this final remark will sound repeatedly in comedy finals, for example, in the same comedy The Guardian: “Nisa. Where is the soul? to hell? “Outsider. I'm dying! I'm going to hell!" (V; 13.48).

The punning word and the function of dual concepts in a comedic conflict

The constant parodic correlation of Sumarokov's tragic and comedy texts, in addition to giving rise to an additional comic effect of the action of the comedy, has important genre-forming consequences. Along with this parodic duality of a comedic text, one of the leading methods for achieving purely linguistic comedy is Sumarokov's pun: a context in which the word appears in two meanings at once - direct and figurative, objective and metaphorical:

Tresotinius:

I ‹…› I prefer the firmly anxious to the one-legged. If this one's leg breaks, then throw it away: and even though two of its legs break, the third one will still remain.

Bobembius.

Mine is firm on three legs, and for that it stands firm, ergo it is firm; and yours is not solid, ergo it is not solid (V; 305-306).

This parodic-comic dispute about the graphics of the letter "t", in which its Slavic name "firmly" and direct, material value of this word, a dispute that refers to the Latin ("t" - "firmly one-legged") and Slavic ("t" - "firmly tripod") ways of writing it and aiming at Trediakovsky's grammatical studies, opens a genuine parade of puns in Sumarokov's comedies. Almost none of his comedies can do without word play. Here are just a few examples:

"Guardian"

Outsider. And for an honest man, the children came to beg for mercy, whom their father traveled to the Chinese kingdom and was in the Kamchatka state ‹…›, and the daughters have his dyed bostroks, ‹…› and for that reason they call them krasheninkins (V; 12) .

"Cuckold by Imagination"

Graph. What horns? I don't even have them in my head. In and to l. Yes, I have them on my head (VI;40).

Thus, punning word initially bifurcates the entire verbal plan of comedy into substantive and figurative meanings the same word, thing, concept. These meanings are found in one word, and each object and concept can be interpreted in two senses - real and ideal. The attributive-spatial organization of the comedic world image is also connected with the punning nature of the word. The environment in which the action of the comedy takes place is completely identical to the environment of the tragedy, immaterial and conditional. The scene in a comedy is also a conditional place, approximately designated as someone's house, without any real detail. On the other hand, at the level of a comedic word, the action of a comedy is essentially shaped by the growth of an array of words with the meaning of a thing in the speech characteristics of the characters, and these words gravitate towards the three semantic centers already familiar to us. satirical worldview: food, clothing and money motifs come to life as the main plots of the dialogues.

Fluctuations of the comedic word on the verge of subject and figurative meanings cause doubling of the comedic world image at the next level - a fundamentally important level of the concept, which, just like in tragedy, is a conflict-forming category in Sumarokov's comedy. The entire comedic conflict, like the conflict of tragedy, is built not so much on a clash of characters as on a clash of concepts. Perhaps the most expressive example is the incredible productivity of the concept of honor, which is genetically tragic, in Sumarokov's comedies. All the characters of the comedy are determinedly concerned with honor and dishonor: this word does not leave their lips in ordinary phraseological units: honestly, honest name, honestly swear, I have the honor, and also becomes a subject of discussion, forming the moral position of vice (false honor) and virtue (true honor) in the conflict. At the same time, the concept of honor is also a pun in Sumarokov's comedies, since the false interpretation of this concept has a distinct material-objective, and the true one has a spiritual-ideal character in those contexts that are created around the word "honor".

Lyric Sumarokov. Sumarokov's satires ("Chorus to the Perverted Light", "Satire on Nobility").

Sumarokov's comedies "Guardian", "Cuckold by imagination".

Comedy "Guardian"(60s) - in the center of attention is the image of a hypocrite, a miserly nobleman Outsider, ripping off orphans who fell under his care. The “original” of the Outsider was a relative of Sumarokov Buturlin. In the comedy "Guardian" he does not show the bearer of some kind of vice, but draws a complex portrait. Before us is not only a miser who knows neither conscience nor pity, but also a hypocrite, an ignoramus, a debauchee. Sumarokov creates a generalized conditional satirical image Russian vicious nobleman. Disclosure of character is facilitated by both speech characteristics and everyday details. The speech of the Outsider is full of proverbs and sayings. In his sanctimonious repentance, the Outsider turns to God, filling his speech with Church Slavonicisms.

Positive characters Sumarokov's comedies are deprived of vitality, they often act in comedies as reasoners - such is Valery in the comedy "Guardian".

"Cuckold by Imagination" (1772) - The focus of the writer's attention is the life of the provincial poor landowners, Vikul and Khavronya. Limited interests, ignorance, narrow-mindedness characterize them. At the same time, the characters of this comedy are devoid of one-sidedness. Ridiculing the savagery, the absurdity of these people, who only talk about “sowing, reaping, chickens,” whose peasants go around the world, Sumarokov also shows features that evoke sympathy for them. Vikul and Khavronya touch with their mutual affection. They are kind to their pupil, a poor girl of a noble family, Floriza. The absurdity of the life of Vikul and Khavronya is also emphasized by the plot of the comedy. Vikul was jealous of his 60-year-old for the brilliant Count Cassandra, a wealthy neighbor who fell in love with Florisa. The dialogues are full of comedy, in which Vikul reproaches Khavronya for infidelity, believing that she set the horns on him.

The speech characteristics of the characters help to recreate the appearance and customs of the provincial nobles.

Sumarokov's lyrics are addressed to a person, to his natural weaknesses. Despite the still conventional image of the lyrical hero, in his songs he seeks to reveal the inner world, depth and sincerity of the feelings of the hero or heroine. His lyrics are distinguished by sincere simplicity and immediacy.

Satires: 1. " Choir to the perverse light "- was written by Sumarokov to order for the street masquerade "Triumphant Minerva". But "Chorus" turned out to be so satirically topical that it was allowed only in an abbreviated version. In the form of a story about an ideal overseas country and the order in it, worthy of praise, Sumarokov tells about the order, or rather the unrest and disorder in his country.

The "overseas" country is a utopia, Sumarokov's dream, but the story about it gives him the opportunity to expose the bribery and extortion, ignorance that flourishes in the Russian monarchy, and to speak out sharply against the cruelty of the treatment of landlords with serfs. Everyone in this country works, everyone serves the state. "Chorus" in its poetic warehouse was close to Russian folk songs. "Chorus" occupies an important place in the satirical and accusatory line of Russian literature of the 18th century.

The satire "On Nobility" both in its subject matter and in its direction directly goes back to Cantemir's satire "Filaret and Eugene". It is aimed at ridiculing the nobility, which boasts of its "nobility" and "noble title". Sumarokov recalls the natural equality of people.

In the tragedies, Sumarokov's political views were especially clearly manifested. He strove to create a harmonious society in which each member of society would know his duties and honestly fulfill them. He longed to return the "golden ages", believing that they are possible under the existing social order, but for this it is necessary to eliminate the lawlessness and disorder that exist in the absolutist-noble monarchy. His tragedies were supposed to show what a true enlightened monarch should be, they were supposed to educate the “first sons of the fatherland”, the nobility, arousing in them a sense of civic duty, love for the fatherland, true nobility. Standing in opposition to Elizabeth Petrovna, he soon understood the pseudo-enlightened absolutism of Catherine's reign and, while promoting the ideas of enlightened absolutism in his tragedies, at the same time exposes the despotism of the reign of monarchs. The tyrannical tendencies in his tragedies sharply intensified by the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s, reflecting the general growth of noble opposition to the regime of Catherine II. The socio-political pathos of Sumarokov's tragedies had a huge impact on the development of subsequent Russian tragedy.

For 28 years he wrote 9 tragedies.

For example, "Sinav and Truvor"(1750) (included in the program). The tragedy is built on a plot taken from ancient Russian history However, as before, the historical background is extremely arbitrary. In the center are Prince Sinav, the monarch, during whose reign prosperity reigned in Novgorod, which was previously consumed by strife, his young brother Truvor, the noble Novgorod boyar Gostomysl and his daughter Ilmena. To these actors are added the persons necessary for external action: warriors, a messenger, a page. There are 5 obligatory actions in a tragedy. The main conflict is the conflict of feeling and duty, a virtuous monarch, forgetting about duty for a moment, invariably becomes a tyrant. Monarch Sinav loves Ilmena, his rival is the young Truvor, beloved by Ilmena. There are no historically specific features either in the place of action or in the images of the characters. The faces of the tragedies are not living characters, but spokesmen for the author's ideas about the superiority of duty over passion, state interests over personal ones. Gostomysl, an adamant performer of duty in the tragedy, promised to give Ilmen Sinava as a wife as a reward for saving Novgorod. Seeing the suffering of his daughter, he remains adamant: where the position speaks or love for the people, there is no lover, there is no father, no family. Ilmena's sense of duty is just as strongly developed. “I know that a nasty marriage will happen to me, but nothing will separate me from my position.” A brave warrior, a virtuous monarch, Sinav, having learned about the love of Ilmena and Truvor, is unable to suppress the feeling of jealousy that has gripped him. He forgets about his duty to manage his subjects for their benefit and becomes the culprit in the death of Ilmena and Truvor. Realizing his involuntary "tyranny", Sinav wants to commit suicide, but Gostomysl and the soldiers snatch the sword from his hands.

Proceeding from his ideal of a class monarchy, Sumarokov, with his characteristic vehemence and insolence, attacked those social phenomena and social forces that he regarded negatively. In his recent tragedies tyrannical motives are intensified. A monarch who is unable to establish order in the state and be the father of his subjects is worthy of contempt, he is an "enemy of the people" who must be overthrown from the throne. ("Dimitri the Pretender").

Sumarokov's tragedies were of great educational value. Spectators sitting in the hall received lessons in morality, listened to lofty words about duty, nobility, love for the Motherland, learned to resent tyranny. Designed for the education and upbringing of the nobility, the tragedy of Sumarokov had a wider resonance, a wider sphere of influence.

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 is 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 relevance to the traditions and norms of 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 - 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 tradition. Italian comedy 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; is following him 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 "Empty Quarrel" - are included in the line of his struggle against the court "nobility", against gallomania, for Russian culture, for his 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, a 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, the early comedies of Sumarokov are enlivened by their language, lively, sharp, cheeky in its unadornedness, 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 in the center of his attention, and everything else is needed either for shading central image, or for the fiction of the plot, which is still unimportant. 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 the other characters 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 placed side by side household parts enough 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 a literary and personal enemy Sumarokova F.A. Emin. Probably, Narcissus is a certain person. From interludes and commedia dell "arte, Sumarokov moved in comedy not to French classics XVIII 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 in 1756 was organized permanent theater, 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 gentry 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 of an intermedia as an instructive school dramaturgy. In the early 1760s, two original comedies 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, Yelagin attempted to propose a means of bringing the Western comedy repertoire closer to Russian life, namely: "incline" borrowed plays to our morals, i. translate them, somewhat altering them in a Russian way, replacing foreign names with Russian ones, 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; it's retarded wild people, and the comedy should make fun of 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 stock. 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 ...

Leningrad State University named after A.S. Pushkin

Faculty of Philology

Department of Russian Language and Literature

Essay on the course "Russian literature of the XVIII century" on the topic:

Ideological and artistic originality of Sumarokov's comedies (on the example of the comedy "Cuckold by Imagination")

Performed:

2nd year student

full-time education

Ershova Valeria

Checked:

Associate Professor, Candidate of Phil. n. Vigerina L. I.

Content

Introduction 3

The history of the interpretation of the concept of "comedy" 4

The origins of A.P. Sumarokova 5

The ideological and artistic originality of A.P. Sumarokova 6

Analysis of the comedy "Cuckold by Imagination" 8

Conclusion 10

Introduction

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1717-1777) occupies a special place in the history of Russian culture. He is not only the founder of the Russian theater, writer, poet and journalist, but also one of the most prominent representatives of the socio-political thought of his time. His work differs from his contemporaries in the originality of form and content. The unusual manner of presentation, about which researchers have spoken so much, cannot leave the reader indifferent. Guskov N.A. suggests that its formation was influenced not only by the social upbringing and position of the writer (the ideology of the aristocratic opposition), but also by the awareness of the "uniqueness of one's own personality" and the experience of "bitterness from the mismatch of self-esteem with the reaction of others" . This, as you understand, led to a conflict with society. But precisely because of this, the writer revealed himself as an original, original, sometimes contradictory, but still unique personality, whose works played a big role in the development of Russian drama and literature in general.

A.P. Sumarokov (1717-1777): Life and work: Sat. Art. and materials / Ros. Go. B-ka; Comp. E.P. Mstislavskaya. - M .: Pashkov House, 2002. - 304 p. - (To the 285th anniversary of the birth and 225th anniversary of the death) p. 42

The history of the interpretation of the concept of "comedy"

The definition of comedy in ancient time differs sharply from modern understanding. Now comedy is a genre of fiction characterized by a humorous and satirical approach. It is also a type of drama in which the moment of effective conflict or struggle of antagonistic characters is specifically resolved.

And in ancient, ancient times, comedy was defined as a genre of fiction, which is characterized by a bad beginning and a happy ending.

Sumarokov himself in his "Epistle on Poetry" defines the social and educational function of comedy, its purpose:

The property of comedy is to correct temper with a mockery;

To laugh and use is its direct charter.

That is, by exposing human vices in a funny way, comedy should contribute to the liberation from them.

The origins of comedy creativity Sumarokov

During the period of his literary activity (second half of the 1730s - late 1750s) Sumarokov became the largest literary exponent of the ideology of the advanced nobility of the middle of the 18th century. His worldview was determined by "an understanding of the role and significance of the nobility in the Russian state as the main driving force of social progress." In his opinion, people differ in public life only in the degree of clarity of their "mind". Sumarokov also recognizes the natural equality of people and inequality in society. At the same time, the poet did not approve of the slavish forms of exploitation of serfs by landlords, because the nobles had to be impeccable in everything.

In the work of Sumarokov, as in other phenomena noble culture those years, reflected the changes that took place in the Russian nobility in the 50-60s. XVIII century. Palace coups did not affect the social basis of the feudal state, but only led to a change in the “handfuls” of the ruling class. The coup of 1741, which placed Elizabeth on the throne and removed the Germans from power, led to the emergence of a new “handful” (Bestuzhev, Vorontsov, Shuvalov). The embezzlement, embezzlement, bribery, arbitrariness of officials that followed this event caused indignation. On the other hand, the development of luxury among the nobility, extravagance, increased exploitation of the peasants by the landlords - all this resented Sumarokov.

That is why in his early work there was criticism of the courtier, “proud, swollen like a frog”, and high society dandy, and bribe-takers - clerks. And as time went on, he felt more compelled to oppose the ways of Elizabethan rule.

The ideological and artistic originality of A.P. Sumarokova

P.N. Berkov. History of Russian comedy of the 18th century. L.: Ed. "Science", 1977. pp. 31-43

Comedy creativity Sumarokov lasted over 20 years. Sumarokov's comedies are by no means abstract satires on universal human vices. Almost all of his comedies, with the possible exception of "Three brothers of partners", are characterized by one common feature- pamphlet. This is a frank means of literary and social struggle, directed against certain individuals, against specific, personal enemies of the playwright - Trediakovsky, Sumarokov's son-in-law A.I. Buturlin, writer F.A. Emlin and others, or against those whom he considered enemies of the noble group to which he himself belonged. This feature of Sumarokov's comedies was clear to his contemporaries.

Sumarokov's comedies are divided into 3 periods of the writer's work:

1 period - 1750

2nd period - 1764-1768

3rd period - 1772-1774

Outside of these groups, the comedy Dowry by Deception differs from the rest not only in the chronology of its appearance, but also in themes, construction methods and some other characteristics. We will consider it a little later.

1 period. Of Sumarokov's comedies of the 1750s - Tresotinius, Arbitration Court, Husband and Wife Quarrel, Narcissus - the pamphlet is most clearly expressed in Tresotinius. The audience immediately recognized Trediakovsky in the main character. The focus of Sumarokov's attention is not the entertaining of the plot, but the depiction of the main negative character as a concrete personality - in other words, the pamphlet in Tresotinius prevails over the comic in action.

The scheme outlined in Tresotinius is maintained by Sumarokov basically in almost all of his other comedies: the comic action develops only in order to show in more detail the main character in pamphlet and - to a certain extent - socially generalized.

The pamphlet character of Sumarokov's first comedies also determined the manner of "building" the language of the main characters. Being an outstanding parodist and loving this literary genre, Sumarokov successfully and, apparently, vividly conveyed the language of Trediakovsky, petimeters, clerks, the prototype of Fatyuya and Narcissus-Beketov. This parody-caricature style helped the playwright to make his characters easily recognizable, funny, and sometimes even completely funny. However, it also had a negative meaning: against the backdrop of a bright, noticeably stylized, parodic speech of the main characters, the language of the rest of the characters somehow smoothed out, lost its expressiveness.

It is also noteworthy that the characters, when they have to express the idea of ​​the play, do not speak their usual language, as in other parts of the comedy, but a higher, even somewhat bookish one, reminiscent of the language of Sumarokov's prose. As a result, Sumarokov's early comedies do not leave a holistic impression in terms of language.

In the "Arbitration Court" ridicule of pedantry and clergy is vehemently expressed. What was new was that Sumarokov ironically depicted here a dandy - the gallomaniac Dyulizh, who has a pamphlet portrait combined with socially generalized features. It is noteworthy that Sumarokov in the "Arbitration Court" takes the opportunity to show the "monstrosity" of his heroes in relation to the Russian language. For example, in the VI phenomenon of the first act, Krititsyondius, a hero-parody of Trediakovsky, repeating the arguments from his article, ridicules the expression “Give me a seat!” Used in the tragedy “Khorev” by Prince Kiy. Dulizh proposes to change the phrase to "Give me a canapé!".

For Sumarokov, the “corruption of the language” by clerks with their bureaucracy, pedants with their Slavic and Latin language is a phenomenon that should be fought in all kinds of literary genres: in satire, in the theoretical “epistole”, in comedy. "Spoilage of the language" for Sumarokov is a public disaster, and he pays attention to this issue great attention. Thus, in the comedy "A Quarrel between a Husband and Wife", we are presented with an example of the jargon of "helicopters" and "helicopters", which in the future will lay the foundation for the motive of satirical ridicule of these types in Russian literature.

Expanding the circle of the comedic image, Sumarokov in “A Quarrel between a Husband and Wife” gives the first sketch in Russian comedy of a village nobleman, Fatya, distinguished by ignorance, playing with his serfs in a pile and drinking honey and kvass.

From the foregoing, we can conclude that Sumarokov is beginning to grope for new ways of artistic generalization. From this side, the comedy "Narcissus" also deserves attention, interesting topics that Sumarokov sets new tasks in it. Meaning "passion" and not "personality", Sumarokov admits that Narcissus "is a man like a man, but because of his pride on his beauty, he is completely shawl" (i.e. a madman).

There is a certain system in the choice of characters' names in Sumarokov's comedies of 1750, as well as in later ones. "Lovers", father of the bride, maid, i.e. characters familiar to the court audience from French comedies received names from classical French comedy (Doront, Octavius, Clarice, etc.) or built on their model (Infimena), as well as from Italian interludes (Arlikin, Pasquin). Some negative characters were supplied with fanciful, invented nicknames, such as Tresotinius, Krititsiondius; others received from Sumarokova Russian folklore names - Fatyuy, Dodon. This style of name marked the beginning of a certain tradition of Russian comedy. This gave Sumarokov's comedies some kind of non-Russian character.

The intrigue in Sumarokov's comedies of the 1750s is simple, but the number of actors is quite large. Unsuccessful matchmaking was the main line of development of the plot. In the center are the positive hero and heroine, whose marriage ends the comedy, they are opposed by a negative applicant or several applicants; the parents of the bride, or at least her father, are obligatory; the servants of the "lovers" or the servant of the owner of the house, the clerk are also obligatory characters. The rest of the characters (pedants, Erast the bully in Tresotinius, judges in the Arbitration Court) are episodic, although they sometimes have significant significance. A deviation from the usual plot scheme is "A quarrel between a husband and wife." This comedy does not have the usual denouement, but is limited to Delamida's statement that she does not intend to get married. Thus, the unusual denouement was supposed to serve the purpose of ridiculing "crazy coquettes."

Sumarokov introduces in his early comedies one technique that will remain for a long time in the practice of Russian comedians of the XV I I I century: the action of the play often begins with a brief monologue of a servant or maid, in which the content of the comedy is succinctly stated and a general description of the main characters is given. least replaced the then usual libretto of the play. There are few remarks in these comedies: they sparingly characterize the movement or intonations of the characters, but do not aim to depict the interior.

These features, linking Sumarokov's early comedies with the Italian comedy of masks, were largely preserved in his subsequent works.

2 period. Despite the fact that the method of conditional depiction of characters is also characteristic of the second group of comedies, nevertheless, they differ from the first ones in a greater depth and conditionality of the image of the main characters.

The second group of comedies written between 1764 and 1768 are comedies of character. Their essence is that all attention is paid to the main character, and the rest of the characters serve to reveal the character traits of the main character. So, "Guardian" is a comedy about a nobleman - usurer, swindler and hypocrite Outsider, "Poisonous" - about the slanderer Herostratus, "Narcissus" - a comedy about a narcissistic dandy. The rest of the characters are positive and act as reasoners. Sumarokov's images of negative heroes are most successful, in whose characters many satirical features are noticed, although their image is still far from creating a socially generalized type.

One of the best comedies of this period is the comedy "The Guardian", which focuses on the image of a bigot, a miserly nobleman Outlander, ripping off orphans who fell under his care. The “original” of the Outsider is a relative of Sumarokov, son-in-law of Buturlin. It is characteristic that he is also depicted as a central image in other comedies (The Likhoimets, Dowry by Deception). In the comedy "Guardian" Sumarokov does not show the bearer of some kind of vice, but draws a complex character. Before us is not only a miser who knows neither pity nor conscience, but he is a hypocrite, an ignoramus, a debauchee. Disclosure of character is facilitated by both speech and characteristics, and everyday details.

New in comedies about the miser is a broader reflection of Russian reality. The comedies of this period include everyday life, sometimes even in small details.

Sumarokov's comedy "Poisonous" (1768) is close to the comedies about the miserly. This is the most pamphlet play. It is generally accepted that, in the person of Herostratus, the author settled accounts with his literary opponent, the writer F.A. Emin. Although a closer analysis of the hints scattered in the comedy, one can understand that the situation was more complicated. The image of Herostratus is made up of features characteristic of various literary and other figures of that time. The principle of "expansion" of the originally given image of the "poisonous", i.e., the slanderer, the slanderer, is found here to a greater extent than in comedies about the stingy.

The influence of the achievements of Russian comedy of the late 1750s - the first half of the 1760s is also reflected in the language of the characters: noble "lovers" speak in a "high" style, their speech is rich in inversions, often has a dactylic ending.

Sumarokov's pamphlet comedies of the 1760s have a number of features that make them related to his tragedies of the same time: they also carry out a certain political trend, which manifests itself in different ways in different comedies. So, in the comedies about the miser, the main idea is the assertion that usury, to which both Elizabeth and Catherine II declared war on the throne upon accession to the throne, continues, despite everything, to flourish.

In the comedy Dowry by Deception, the usurer Salidar says: “Before, they took sevo for fifteen, twenty rubles and more from a hundred percent, and now they are ordered to take only six rubles from a hundred; Isn't this a ruin, but especially for kind people who know how to save money? Such a profit brings the state bank! However, many still take it, who are smarter and do not look at it: if you act according to the Holy Scriptures and according to the decrees in everything, you will never get rich. In The Guardian, this motive is not developed, but replaced by the theme of misappropriation of other people's property, but it is emphasized with particular force in the comedy Likhoimets.

Elements of a pamphlet orientation in the comedy "Guardian" are manifested in the reasoning of Pasquin's servant that "cuckolds cannot wear skufey, but they wear orders"

Z period. In the early 1770s. Sumarokov continues his dramatic work, moreover, in pamphlet terms, despite Catherine's struggle with accusatory comedies. By 1772, 3 of his comedies belong: “Cuckold by Imagination”, “Mother - Daughter's Companion” and “Scumbag”. There is no data confirming their writing in this particular year.

Everything new in Russian comedy that emerged at the turn of the 1760s and 1770s was reflected in Sumarokov's last three comedies.

Here the principle of generalization, which had only just begun to emerge in the comedies of the 1750s and which was not fully developed in his “comedies about the miserly” of the 1760s, became dominant. They also have both pafletism and portraiture, but they no longer play such a major role, but the principle of generalization.

In The Cuckold by Imagination, for the first time in a Russian comedy, the question of the sale of serfs is raised. However, when it comes to the sale of Nisa, Khavronya condemns not the sale of people in general, but the fact that it is a sin to “take so much money for a girl” (d. III, vl. 1). But this feature characterizes only the "wildness" of the landowner.

In Minodora, the heroine of the comedy "Mother is a Daughter's Companion", despite her emphasized pamphlet and portraiture, Sumarokov again seeks to give a generalization. “Edaky ladies are wound up now! - speaks of the servant B a r b a r and s. - So that they don’t eat meat during the posts, they watch it, but in order not to like strangers, they forgot about it, as if robbers: they cut people, and they don’t sip milk on Wednesdays ”(case I I, I in sheet 8)

The pamphlet comedies of Sumarokov, thanks to the principle of generalization applied by him, acquired great social acuteness. In them, he shows both the rural and Moscow nobility from an unattractive side. The “new” promised by Catherine did not justify itself: “Whatever they do now, it will soon deteriorate,” the pessimistic author says through the Fool (I am in fol. 13).

The principle of generalization, already outlined by Sumarokov, finally took shape in his work under the influence of the achievements of comedy in the 1760s and early 1770s. It is possible that Sumarokov, when he wrote "Vzdorshchitsu", knew the early "Undergrowth": both comedies have common elements, for example, the play on words "klob - bug" at rak at the end of the 2nd I in len and I); it is possible that the image of the Fool was inspired by Sumarokov, in addition to everyday observations, by M. I. Verevkin’s comedy “So It Should Be”, in which there is a similar character. In "Cuckold by Imagination" one passage is completely reminiscent of the "tearful comedies" hated by Sumarokov; this is a monologue of N and with s, beginning with the words: “Cry, N and with a! Cry and sob, O dear Nisa!” (d. I, yavl. 18).

Sumarokov's comedies of the early 1770s are thus of considerable interest. In his old age, at the end of his creative activity, Sumarokov created perhaps his best comedies. In any case, with regard to the "Cuckold by Imagination" these words are certainly true. One can only regret that Sumarokov “left Talya” for “his most gracious Melpomene” and, returning in 1774 for the last time to dramatic activity, wrote the tragedy “Mstislav”, which added nothing to his fame, and did not turn yet time for comedy.

Exposing the life of the nobility in his latest comedies, touching on the issue of the sale of serfs along the way, Sumarokov undoubtedly contributed to the penetration into the public consciousness of many, for that time, extremely advanced ideas. For example, just before the start of the Pugachev uprising, such a part of the dialogue between the landowner Burda and the servant Rosemary should have sounded topical (“Vzdorshchitsa”):

R o z m a r i n. Whenever you mutilate a driver, being a horse, it would be lost, because horses are not subject to laws; although people do not all obey the laws.

B u r d a. Yes, horses are whipped without guilt.

R o z m a r i n. Other gentlemen whip people without guilt, and they sell them in the same way as they sell horses.

B u r d a. To press between an ignoble person and a horse and there is little difference.

R o z m a r i n. We, madam, are never born either crow-footed or bay-footed, but we still have the same wool as you, and we do not eat hay.

B u r d a. Whatever it is, you are not a noble.

R o z m a r i n. Not noble, not noble! like a name of nobility and a dignity like feathers in the world! It’s like it’s a great title then, when I don’t know how to sit face to face.

(D. I, yavl. 9)

Along with issues of serfdom, Sumarokov, in his last comedies, also touches on the old in his work, but very topical in the early 1770s, the topic of "orders", clerks and their rogues (see "Mother - daughter's partner", d. I I I, yavl 5) .

However, Sumarokov did not take into account all the achievements of young playwrights: the environment in which the action of his new comedies unfolds does not interest him. In "The Bouncer" there are no indications at all where the action takes place, and in the comedy "Mother - Daughter's Companion" this is said very briefly: "Action in Moscow."

Analysis of the comedy "Cuckold by Imagination".

The comedy Cuckold by Imagination (1772) belongs to the period of Sumarokov's mature comedies and is the most outstanding. Here he raised the theme developed in Fonvizin's "Undergrowth" - about the barbaric social practice of the dark reactionary landlord "masses".

The main characters in it are a couple of provincial small estate nobles with characteristic, typical names - Vikul and Khavronya. Limited interests, ignorance, narrow-mindedness characterizes them. With all this, the characters of the comedy are not one-sided. Ridiculing the savagery, the absurdity of these people who talk about "sowing, reaping, chickens," Sumarokov also shows features that evoke sympathy for them. Vikul and Khavronya touch with their mutual affection. They are kind to their pupil, the poor girl of the yard family Floriza.

The absurdity of the life of the main characters is also emphasized by the plot of the comedy. Vikul was jealous of his sixty-year-old Khavronya for the brilliant Count Kassandra, who is in love with Floriza. Vikul reproaches Khavronya for infidelity, believing that she set the horns on him. Here is a short dialogue:

Sow. Fu, dad! How are you not afraid of God? What thoughts came to you in old age; how to say this to people, they will laugh so much! By the way, did you think of that?

Vikul. How not to be afraid that people happen to other people.

Sow. I'm 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.

The speech characteristics of the characters help to recreate the appearance and customs of the provincial nobles. Their speech individualization grows out of an unpretentious way of life with its daily village cares and hospitality. These people are characterized by spontaneity in expressing feelings, their language is a vivid example of a living colloquial speech. It is full of proverbs and sayings:

Butler. Yes, you don’t overtighten the graph; according to the proverb: Don't fight the strong, don't fight the rich. And with such a rich and noble person, where can we fight?

Vikul. It's amazing, isn't it, my friend? the louse will become more expensive than the casing.

The scene of Khavronya ordering a “ceremonial” dinner and social events is remarkable.

conversations with which Khavronya tries to entertain the count:

And I drank a cup of coffee to the health of your great excellency, but something grumbles on my stomach; Yes, that’s enough, this is from last night: I ate fried roach and scavengers, and ate botvinya, and most of all from peas. And the peas were the lightest; and they served me on a grated plate, and the butter for it was walnut, and not some other.

"Cuckold by Imagination" is an undoubted masterpiece of all Sumarokov's comedic work.

The value of comedy creativity Sumarokov

Creativity Sumarokov - the most important link in the Russian historical and literary process. His achievements were accepted by modern writers, and what he did was included in the treasury of great Russian literature. This continuity was one of the first to be pointed out by A.N. Radishchev, while noting the merit of Lomonosov: “A great husband can give birth to a great husband; and here is your victorious crown. ABOUT! Lomonosov, you produced Sumarokov. (Radishchev A.N. selected works. Moscow - 1952. From 196)

Gukovsky G.A. in his work "Russian Literature of the 18th Century" says that Sumarokov's comedies did not constitute a significant stage in the development of Russian dramaturgy, although they have certain advantages - first of all, the fact that Sumarokov was the first to write comedies in Russia, with the exception of interludes and advanced plays.

In the first comedies of Sumarokov there is no real connecting plot. There is no unity of action in them, therefore, there is no truly life, way of life. The whole manner in these plays is conditionally grotesque. Everything on the stage is a complete farce.

In the subsequent period of his work, Sumarokov moves on to the type of so-called comedies of characters (find what it is !!!) In each play, one image is in the center of attention, all other characters are created either to shade the central image, or to fiction the plot.

In 1765, V. I. Lukin wrote about Sumarokov's comedies:

“I once read comedies, it is very similar to our old games

living creatures that I was told were made in the same way

laid down and decently in characters sustained and pre

lay them down to novice writers as an example of comic writings.

But against the aspirations of these gentlemen, all readers do not find mentors

in them there is neither a tie, nor a tie, but they find the only thing that

they are unsuccessfully taken from foreign writers, and they, to our shame,

due to the non-property of characters and due to the strange arrangement and interweaving into our language, they are almost dragged by force.

Finally, in the Dramatic Dictionary (1 7 8 7), where sympathetic and sometimes enthusiastic reviews of various plays of the Russian repertoire of the 1750-1780s are often found, all Sumarokov's comedies are only described and not accompanied by any ratings (with the exception of " Dowry by deceit”, about which it is said that this comedy “has been presented many times at Russian theaters and has always been favorably received by the public”). All this testifies that by the end of the 1780s Sumarokov's comedies, both early and later, ceased to be an actual phenomenon of the Russian stage.