The brightest representative of the classic was Alexander Sumarokov (1717 - 1777). However, already in his work there are differences from the high "calm", which he declared. In "high tragedy" he introduced elements of medium and even low style. The reason for this creativity was that the playwright sought to give vitality to his creations, coming into conflict with the previous literary tradition.

The purpose of creativity and the ideas of Sumarokov's plays

belonging to the ancient noble family and brought up on the ideals of nobility and honor, he believed that all nobles should correspond to this high bar. Education in the gentry corps, friendship and communication with other young idealist nobles only strengthened his idea. But the reality did not match the dreams. The playwright everywhere encountered laziness, cowardice in high society, was surrounded by intrigues and flattery. This made him very angry. Unbridled character young talent often led the writer to conflicts with the noble society. For example, Alexander could easily throw a heavy glass at the landowner, who enthusiastically talked about how he punishes his serfs. But the future genius got away with a lot, as he gained fame as a court poet and enjoyed the patronage of monarchs.

A.P. Sumarokov, art. F. Rokotov

The goal of his work - both dramaturgy and poetry - Sumarokov considered the education of noble character traits among the nobles. He even risked teaching royal people, because they did not correspond to the ideal he had drawn. Gradually, the author's mentoring began to irritate the court. If at the beginning of his career the playwright had special immunity, then at the end of his life the playwright lost the patronage of even Catherine II, who never forgave him for vicious epigrams and messages. Alexander Petrovich died alone and in poverty at the age of 61.

His dramaturgy was frankly didactic in nature. But this does not mean that it was uninteresting or unoriginal. Sumarokov's plays are written in brilliant language. The playwright gained fame among his contemporaries

"northern Racine", "confidant of Boileau", "Russian Molière".

Of course, in these plays there is some imitation of Western classicists, but it was almost impossible to avoid this. Although the Russian drama of the 18th century was deeply original, it could not but use the best Western models to create Russian dramatic works.

Tragedies of Sumarokov

Peru Alexander Petrovich owns 9 tragedies. Literary critics divide them into two groups.

The first includes tragedies written in 1740-1750.

These are Horev (1747), Hamlet (1748), Sinav and Truvor (1750), Ariston (1750), Semira (1751), Dimiza (1758).

The second group of tragedies was written after a 10-year break:

"Yaropolk and Dimiza" (1768) (revised "Dimiza" 1958) "Vysheslav" (1768), "Dimitri the Pretender" (1771), "Mstislav" (1774).

From tragedy to tragedy, the tyrannical pathos of the author's works increases. Heroes of tragedies, in accordance with aesthetics, are clearly divided into positive and negative. In tragedies, there is practically a minimum of action. The main part of the time is occupied by the monologues of the main characters, often addressed to the viewer, and not to what is happening on the stage. In monologues, the author, with his characteristic directness, sets out his moralizing thoughts and principles of morality. Due to this, tragedies lose in dynamics, but the essence of the play turns out to be contained not in the actions, but in the speeches of the characters.

The first play "Khorev" was written and staged by the playwright while still studying in the gentry corps. She quickly gained recognition and popularity. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna herself loved to watch it. The action of the play has been moved to the era Kievan Rus. But the "historicity" of the play is very arbitrary, it is just a screen for expressing thoughts that are quite modern for the era of the playwright. It is in this play that the author claims that the people are not created for the monarch, but the monarch exists for the people.

The tragedy embodies the conflict characteristic of Sumarokov between the personal and the public, between desire and duty. Main character play - the Kiev Tsar Kiy - himself guilty of the tragic denouement of the conflict. Wanting to test the loyalty of his subject Khorev, he instructs him to oppose the father of his beloved Osmelda, Zavlokh, once expelled from Kyiv. The finale of the tragedy could have been happy (as in a free translation of Hamlet with a changed ending), but court intrigues ruin the beloved. According to Alexander Petrovich, the reason for this is the despotism and arrogance of the king.

The tyrannoborst thought was most embodied in his last tragedy, Demetrius the Pretender. The play contains direct calls for the overthrow of the royal power, set out through the mouths of minor characters: Shuisky, Parmen, Xenia, Georgy. How strong the resonance was caused by the publication and staging of the tragedy can be judged by the reaction of Catherine II, who read the essay and said that it was "an extremely harmful little book." At the same time, this tragedy went on in theaters until the 20s of the 19th century.

Comedy Sumarokov

The author's comedies, despite the fact that in their own artistic features they are weaker than "high tragedies", have great importance formation and development of Russian dramaturgy. Like tragedy, comedy plays written with "educational", enlightening purposes, are distinguished by accusatory pathos. Comedies, unlike tragedies, are written in prose and are not very large in volume (1-2, less often 3 acts). They often lack a clear plot, what is happening in them looks like a farce. The characters in the comedies of the playwright are the people he noticed in ordinary life: priests, judges, peasants, soldiers, etc.

The greatest strength of the comedies was their colorful and deeply original language. Despite the fact that the author spent much less time creating comedies than tragedies, he managed to convey the flavor of his contemporary folk life. Of the 12 comedies he wrote, most famous got a comedy called. "A Cuckold by Imagination", in which the playwright ridiculed the denseness and despotism of the landowners.

On the significance of the playwright's activity in the creation and development of the Russian theater -

Russian literature of the 18th century

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov

Biography

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov, the most consistent of the classic writers, along with practice literary activity was able to give a theoretical justification for classicism as literary direction characteristic of Russia in the middle of the century. In literature, Sumarokov acted as a successor at the same time as an antagonist of Lomonosov. In 1748, in the Epistle on Poetry, Sumarokov writes about Lomonosov: “He is Malgerb of our countries; he is like Pindar. Subsequently, Sumarokov recalled the time when he and Lomonosov were friends and daily interlocutors "and took advice from each other sensible" ("On versification"). Then the literary-theoretical and personal enmity of writers began.

A.P. Sumarokov is an outstanding playwright and poet of his time, passionately devoted to literary work, believing in the almighty power of the word addressed to the mind. One of the most prolific and active writers of the XVIII c., he turned his literary creativity to the nobility. And his classicism was of a narrow noble class character, in contrast to the nationwide and nationwide character of Lomonosov's classicism. According to Belinsky, "Sumarokov was excessively extolled by his contemporaries and excessively humiliated by our time." At the same time, the work of Sumarokov was an important milestone in the history of the development of Russian literary process 18th century

Biography

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov was born on November 14 (25), 1717 in an aristocratic, but by that time impoverished family. Having received the initial home education, Sumarokov in 1732, 14 years old, entered the land gentry corps, open only to nobles. In this corps, which was obliged to produce the "chiefs" of the military, civil and court service, Sumarokov received an excellent education and became familiar with literature and theater. Here they taught general education disciplines like history, geography, law, languages, fencing and dancing. The body becomes the focus of a new noble culture. Much time was devoted to literature and art. No wonder future writers studied in the corps at different times: A. P. Sumarokov, M. M. Kheraskov, I. P. Elagin, A. A. Nartov and others. In 1759, a group of students and officers of the corps undertook the publication of the journal Idle time, for the benefit of the used, ”in which Sumarokov also collaborated, who graduated from the corps in 1740. Literary interests also determined that it was in the gentry corps that the first Russian tragedy written by Sumarokov and laid the foundation for the creation of the Russian dramatic repertoire. Already in the years of study, the poetic talent of Sumarokov was revealed. His first published works were two odes to the new year, 1740, published as a separate brochure. At the end of the course of sciences Sumarokov, despite military service, which was mostly formal in nature, gives all the time to literature. He writes odes, elegies, songs, fables, acts as a playwright, treating literature for the first time as a professional matter.

During the years of study in the corps, Sumarokov developed firm and lofty ideas about the dignity of a nobleman, about the need for public service to the fatherland, perfect performances about noble honor and virtue. In the spirit of these ideals, he dreamed of educating noble society and chose literature as a medium for this. Sumarokov addressed the government on behalf of the nobility, on which he focused his main attention. He becomes the ideologist of the nobility, the ideologist of the new nobility, born of Peter's time. A nobleman must serve for the good of society. And Sumarokov, in turn, protects the interests of the nobles. Seeing in the existing feudal system a completely natural and legal phenomenon, Sumarokov at the same time opposed the excessive cruelty of the feudal landowners, against the transformation of serfdom into slavery. “People should not be sold like cattle,” he said in his remarks on Catherine II’s “Instruction”. And at the same time he was convinced that "peasant freedom is not only harmful to society, but also pernicious, and why it is pernicious, that should not be interpreted." Recognizing the natural equality of people, he believed that it was upbringing and education that made the nobles "the first members of society", "sons of the fatherland":

What is the difference between a gentleman and a peasant?

And that, and that - earth animate clod,

And if you do not clear the mind of the master's man,

So I don't see any difference.

("About nobility")

The nobility, according to Sumarokov, occupying a privileged position in society, must be educated, enlightened, must prove their right to manage the "slaves of the fatherland", that is, the peasants. In this regard, the program poem was his satire "On Nobility":

I bring this satire to you, nobleman!

I am writing to the first members of the fatherland.

The nobles know their duty well enough without me,

But many remember one nobility,

Not remembering that born from women and from ladies

Without exception, all forefather Adam.

Is that why we are nobles, so that people work,

And we would have swallowed their works of nobility?

This satire repeats the main provisions of Cantemir's satire about the nobility of birth and the nobility of merit, about the natural equality of people. “Our honor does not consist in titles,” wrote Sumarokov, “that radiant one who shines with heart and mind, that superior one who surpasses other people with dignity, that boyar who is sick of the fatherland.” Sumarokov never managed to bring the nobility closer to the ideal he bore.

Being a monarchist, a supporter of enlightened absolutism, Sumarokov sharply opposed the monarchs, who, in his opinion, do not fulfill their duties to their subjects, forgetting that “we were born for you. And you were born for us." Sumarokov never tired of recalling this in his odes and tragedies. He now and then becomes in opposition to the government.

Sumarokov's life, outwardly full of success and recognition, was extremely difficult. Not seeing worthy representatives of his class among the nobles, he tirelessly denounces the cruel, unenlightened nobles, who are so far from the ideal he created. He ridicules them in fables and satires, denounces bribery and lawlessness of officials, favoritism at court. The noble society, which did not want to listen to Sumarokov, began to take revenge on the writer. Proud, irritable, accustomed to the recognition of his literary success by writers, Sumarokov, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, often lost his temper, could not restrain himself. Honest and direct, he never let anyone down. “His indomitability and hysteria are proverbial. He jumped up, scolded, ran away when he heard how the landowners called the serf servants "the boorish knee." He reached the point of hysteria, defending his copyright from the encroachments of the Moscow commander in chief; he loudly cursed arbitrariness, bribes, the savagery of society; noble "society" took revenge on him, infuriating him, mocking him.

The name of Sumarokov is associated with the emergence of a permanent "Russian, for the performances of tragedies and comedies, theater", the first director of which in 1756, Elizabeth appointed Sumarokov. Sumarokov saw in the theater the possibility of fulfilling an educational role in relation to the nobility. The creation of the theater depended largely on the appearance of Sumarokov's tragedies, which made up his repertoire. By the time the theater opened, Sumarokov was the author of five tragedies and three comedies. His contemporaries rightly called him "the founder of the Russian theatre". For five years he stood at the head of the theater, the work in which was unusually difficult: there was no permanent premises, there was not enough money for productions, the actors and the director did not receive a salary for months. Sumarokov wrote desperate letters to Shuvalov, entering into constant conflicts. A passionate love of art, devoted to the cause, Sumarokov was neither a sufficiently accommodating person, nor a good administrator. In 1761 he had to leave the theater.

The last period of life is especially difficult for Sumarokov. He moves to Moscow, continues to write a lot. At the end of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, he joined the noble opposition, who succumbed to the liberal declarations of Catherine, who by all means went to power. The coup of 1762, which brought Catherine II to the throne, did not fulfill Sumarokov's political hopes. He becomes in opposition to the queen and creates politically acute tragedies "Demetrius the Pretender", "Mstislav". In the first tragedy, the plot is based on a sharp exposure of the despot monarch and a call for his overthrow. The nobility is still dissatisfied with the writer. He enjoys fame mainly in literary circles, but she cannot console Sumarokov. Sharp in his views and irreconcilable in his judgments, he sets the Empress against him. The persecution intensified when he, an aristocrat by birth, an ideologue of the nobility, having violated all class prejudices, married a serf girl. Relatives of the first wife began a lawsuit against the writer, demanding the deprivation of the rights of his children from his second wife. The process ended in favor of Sumarokov. However, bankrupt, entangled in debt, Sumarokov was forced to humiliate himself in front of the rich man Demidov, who drives him out of the house for an unpaid debt. There is gossip about him all over town. The commander-in-chief of Moscow, Saltykov, organizes the failure of the Sinav and Truvor tragedy. A beggar, abandoned and ridiculed by everyone, Sumarokov descends and begins to drink. In the poem "Complaint" he writes:

... Weak consolation to me that glory will not fade,

Which the shadow will never feel.

What need do I have in mind

If I only carry crackers in my bag?

What an honor to me as a writer,

If there is nothing to drink or eat?

On October 11, 1777, after a short illness, Sumarokov died. There was not a single ruble to bury the poet. According to Pavel Ivanovich Sumarokov, the writer's nephew, Sumarokov was "buried at his own expense by the actors of the Moscow theater" in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery.

Sumarokov was the first noble writer for whom literature became the main business of life. It was impossible to live by literature at that time, this largely determined the severity of Sumarokov's material hardships. In a petition addressed to Catherine II, Sumarokov wrote about his plight: “To all this main reason my love for poetry, for I relied on it and on verbal sciences, not so much about the ranks and about the estate of rachil, as about his muse. Sumarokov himself was inclined to consider himself the founder of syllabic-tonic poetry, and in an article polemically directed against Lomonosov, “To the senseless rhymers,” he stated that when he began to write, “we didn’t even have poets and there was no one to learn from. It was as if I was passing through a dense forest, hiding from my eyes the dwelling of the muses, without a guide ... ". This, of course, was far from the truth, but Sumarokov's merits in the development of Russian poetry are beyond doubt.

If Trediakovsky discovered that Russian poetry should be tonic, and Lomonosov made a true reform, then Sumarokov provided samples of almost all types of tonic verse. Speaking as a playwright, poet, theorist, critic, Sumarokov believed that his literary activity was a service to society, a form of active participation in the public life of the country. He was an advanced man of his time, a noble educator, whose work was highly valued by Radishchev and Novikov.

Sumarokov - theorist of classicism

A. P. Sumarokov, with his literary work, contributed to the establishment of classicism on Russian soil. He acted both as a theoretician of classicism and as a writer who gave in his literary practice examples of diverse genres provided by the poetics of classicism. Sumarokov began by writing odes, the first two odes dedicated to Anna Ioannovna were published in 1740. In them, the novice poet imitated Trediakovsky. Since the appearance of Lomonosov's odes, Sumarokov has been strongly influenced by his creative genius. However, the ode genre did not become dominant in the work of Sumarokov, who was destined to find fame as a great playwright and lyric poet, creators of love songs, idylls, elegies, eclogues.

important literary event were printed in 1748 by Sumarokov two poetic epistles - "On the Russian language" and "On poetry", in which Sumarokov acted as a theorist of classicism. In the first, he speaks of the need to enrich literary language at the expense of outdated Church Slavonic words and avoid foreign words. In this he approaches Lomonosov. In the Epistle on Poetry (1747), already unlike Lomonosov, Sumarokov, theoretically substantiating the genres of classicism, asserts the equality of all genres, without giving preference to any of them:

Everything is laudable: drama, eclogue or ode -

Write down what your nature attracts you to ...

Subsequently, both of these epistles were revised and made up one - "Instruction to those who want to be writers", published in 1774.

To Trediakovsky’s reproach for borrowing epistles from The Art of Poetry, Boileau Sumarokov replied that he “took no weight from Boileau,” referring to his understanding of the aesthetic code and independent development them separate genres. Nevertheless, Sumarokov does not deny his dependence on Boileau's theory. “My epistle on poetry,” he says, “is all Boalova, and Boalo took from Horace. No: Boalo did not take everything from Horace, and I did not take everything from Boalo ... "

The beginning of Sumarokov's dramaturgical activity also dates back to the 40s, for he considered the theater to be the strongest means of educating the nobility. In his tragedies, one of the most characteristic genres of classicism, Sumarokov puts great, social significant issues. Contemporaries highly appreciated this type of Sumarokov's dramaturgy, calling him "Northern Racine", the founder of the dramaturgy of Russian classicism.

Tragedies of Sumarokov

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. Sumarokov did not get tired of convincing the monarchs that "we (subjects) were born for you, and you were born for us." And although Sumarokov constantly repeats that "monarchical rule, I do not say despotic, is the best," he did not stop at a sharp condemnation of monarchs who did not correspond to the ideal he had outlined. 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 the tragedies of Sumarokov had a huge impact on the development of the subsequent Russian tragedy, which preserved political orientation.

For 28 years, Sumarokov wrote nine tragedies. The first group of tragedies, 1740-1750, is "Khorev" (1747), "Hamlet" (1748), which was a free adaptation from the French prose translation of Shakespeare's tragedy, "Sinav and Truvor" (1750), "Ariston" (1750 ), "Semira" (1751), "Dimiza" (1758), later revised and called "Yaropolk and Dimiza" (1768).

Sumarokov's first tragedy "Khorev" was published in 1747. This is the first experience of the playwright, it only outlines the main provisions, motives, situations that will develop later. The tragedy is addressed to Ancient Rus', however, the connection with ancient Russian history very conditional, it is actually limited to names, nevertheless it is important to note that, taking plots from his native history, Sumarokov considered them more effective in educating the "virtue" of the nobility. This, undoubtedly, gave the most pronounced patriotic character to the tragedies of the playwright and was hallmark Russian classicism, because Western European dramaturgy was built mainly on ancient subjects.

In the tragedy "Khorev" the central image is Prince Kiy. His brother Horev loves Osnelda, the daughter of Zavlokh, who was expelled from Kyiv by Prince Kiy. Osnelda reciprocates Khorev, but her love is contrary to the duty of a daughter and a patriot. By order of Kiy, who wants to test Horev's loyalty, the latter must march with an army against his beloved's father. This is how the conflict between public and personal, between duty and passion, which is characteristic of Sumarokov's subsequent tragedies, is determined.

The denouement is tragic, and Prince Kiy, who trusted the scammer Stalverh, is to blame for it. In this first tragedy of Sumarokov, there is not yet that clarity of the main idea, that rigor and integrity in construction that will be characteristic of his best tragedies, but the main collisions are outlined, and the moralistic, didactic orientation of the tragedy is decisive. The monarch, who subjugated the voice of reason to the pernicious passion that gripped him, becomes a tyrant for his subjects. In the speeches of Khorev and Osnelda, lessons of noble morality were concluded.

The next group of tragedies, in which tyrannical motifs sounded most clearly, was written after a ten-year break: Vysheslav (1768), Dimitry the Pretender (1771), Mstislav (1774). However, even in these tragedies, despite the sharper socio-political sound, the plot-compositional structure is subordinated to the clarification of the main problem: the attitude of the tsarist authorities to the subjects and the subjects to this authority. In the center of the tragedies is the monarch, invested with power, his subjects - princes, nobles, representatives of a noble family, often subjects of the monarch - two lovers, but this love is undesirable, it is condemned by the law of honor and duty. Devotion to one's feelings and one's duty creates a tragic collision. Usually, a tragic conflict is based on a violation of duty by a monarch who does not know how to control his passions and becomes a tyrant in relation to his subjects. In the tragedies of Sumarokov, the monarch, unable to suppress his passion, attraction, has no right to control others. And from here in most tragedies important point in the development of the plot is a speech against the tyrant. This speech is successful if it is directed against despots (Hamlet, Demetrius the Pretender). In other cases, when the ruler is a reasonable monarch (“Semira”, “Vysheslav”) or a monarch who repented of his actions (“Artiston”, “Mstislav”, etc.), the uprising ends in failure. Characteristically, the triumph of Sumarokov's didactic concept of morality leads to happy endings in tragedies (exceptions: "Sinav and Truvor" and "Khorev").

Creating patterns of behavior of a true monarch and a true subject, whose high feelings and thoughts were to educate the Russian nobility, Sumarokov divides his heroes into positive and negative, virtuous and villains, who are revealed to the viewer primarily in his monologues. Action in tragedies is minimized, monologues actors turned into auditorium and are an expression of certain ideas of the author.

translated into French the tragedy "Sinav and Truvor" received the approval of Voltaire. Sumarokov's last tragedies Vysheslav (1768), Dimitry the Pretender (1771) and Mstislav (1774) were written at a time when the playwright was in disgrace and clearly saw that the Russian monarchy was despotic. Sumarokov's opposition to the government and his fight against favoritism were reflected in these tragedies, which were clearly political in nature.

The goal of Sumarokov is the education of monarchs, an indication of their duties towards their subjects:

He reigns over the people to bliss

And the common benefit leading to perfection:

The orphan does not cry under his scepter,

The innocent fear no one,

The flatterer does not bow down at the feet of a nobleman.

The king is an equal judge and an equal father to all.

("Vysheslav")

Proceeding from his ideal of a class monarchy, Sumarokov attacked those social phenomena and social forces, which 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 a “vile idol”, an “enemy of the people”, who must be overthrown from the throne (“Demetrius the Pretender”). Sumarokov spoke about the "villains" on the throne. No wonder the tragedy "Demetrius the Pretender" was included in the collection the best works Russian literature, published in Paris in 1800. Its compilers explained the choice of this play by the fact that “its plot, almost revolutionary, is obviously in direct conflict with morals and political system this country: secondary characters(Shuisky, George, Parmen and Xenia) make speeches about the rights of the people and the duties of sovereigns. The theme of the violent overthrow of the tyrant by the people sounds in the tragedy. And although Sumarokov has in mind only a palace coup, and the concepts of “people”, “society”, “sons of the fatherland” are nobles, which P. N. Berkov rightly pointed out in his work on Sumarokov, nevertheless, the socio-political sound this tragedy was very strong.

The tragedy of Sumarokov had a huge 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. N. I. Novikov, the most prominent educator of the 18th century, wrote about Sumarokov: “... although he was the first of the Russians to start writing tragedies according to all the rules theatrical art, but managed so much in them that he deserved the name of northern Racine. It is characteristic that Sumarokov himself expressed dissatisfaction with the audience. In the preface to Demetrius the Pretender, complaining about the frivolity and indifference of the public, he wrote: “You who traveled, who were in Paris and London, tell me! do they gnaw nuts there during the performance, and when the performance is in its greatest heat, do the drunken coachmen who quarreled among themselves flog to the alarm of the entire stalls, boxes and theater?

Designed for the education and upbringing of the nobility, the tragedies of Sumarokov had a wider resonance, more broad scope influence. The play "Demetrius the Pretender", according to contemporaries, was "the people's favorite" even in the 20s years XIX V. The socially progressive role of Sumarokov's tragedies was great, and the type of classical tragedy he created remained for a long time a model followed by modern playwrights and playwrights of later times.

Comedy Sumarokov

Sumarokov said his word in the genre of comedy. In the Epistle on Poetry, the playwright defines the social and educational function of comedy: “The property of comedy is to correct temper with a mockery; / To laugh and use - its direct charter. Making it look funny human vices By denouncing them, the comedy must thereby contribute to the liberation from them. In "Epistole", formulating the theory of the comedy genre, Sumarokov wrote that comedy should be separated from tragedy, on the one hand, and from farcical games, on the other:

For knowledgeable people, you do not write games:

To laugh without reason is the gift of a vile soul.

Separating comedy from folk games, Sumarokov nevertheless turned to the practice of folk theater in his comedies. His comedies are small in volume (from one to three acts), written in prose, they often lack a plot basis (this applies especially to Sumarokov's first comedies), comedies are characterized by farcical comedy, the characters are a clerk, a judge, a dandy and other characters noticed Sumarokov in Russian life.

Imagine a soulless podyachev in an order,

The judge that he does not understand what is written in the decree.

Imagine me a dandy who picks up his nose,

That the whole age thinks about the beauty of hair,

Who was born, as he imagines, for Cupid,

In order to persuade such a fool somewhere to yourself.

In an effort to imitate, above all, the French comedy of Moliere, Sumarokov was far from the comedies of Western classicism. Classical comedy had to consist of five acts in verse (Molière's comedy The Misanthrope served as an example), it had to have compositional rigor, completeness, obligatory observance of unity (of course, in Western comedy there were deviations from the classical model: comedies in prose were written and Molière). With Sumarokov, the imitation of French comedy and Italian interludes was reflected primarily in the borrowing of conditional names of characters: Erast, Dulizh, Dorant, Isabella, etc.

Sumarokov wrote twelve comedies, which, although they had a number of undoubted merits, were lower in their ideological significance and artistic value than his tragedies.

The first comedies "Tresotinius", "Monsters", "Empty Quarrel" he writes in 1750. The next group of comedies appears in the 60s: "Dowry by deceit", "Guardian", "Poisonous", "Likhoimets", "Narcissus" , "Three brothers are partners", and, finally, in 1772 three more comedies were written - "Cuckold by imagination", "Mother daughter's partner", "Squat". Most often, Sumarokov's comedies served him as a means of polemic, hence the pamphlet nature of most of them. Unlike tragedies, Sumarokov worked on comedies for a short time. In his first comedies, each of the characters who appeared on the stage showed the public his vice, and the scenes were mechanically connected. In a small comedy, there are many actors (in Tresotinius - 10, in Monsters - 11). The portraiture of the characters made it possible for contemporaries to find out who in reality served as the prototype of this or that character. Real faces, everyday details, negative phenomena of Russian life - all this gave Sumarokov's comedies, despite the conventionality of the image, a connection with reality. The strongest side of Sumarokov's comedies was their language: bright, expressive, it is often colored with features of a lively dialect. This manifested the writer's desire to individualize the characters' speech, which is especially characteristic of Sumarokov's later comedies.

The polemical nature of the early comedies, often directed against enemies in the literary field, can be traced in the comedy-pamphlet Tresotinius, in the main character of which, the scientist-pedant, Trediakovsky was depicted in an exaggerated and grotesque form. A parody of Trediakovsky's poems sounds in Tresotinius's song:

Looking at your beauty, I was inflamed, she-she!

Oh, if you please, save me from my passion,

You torment me, Clymene, and knocked me down with an arrow.

The images created in the first comedies were conditional and far from typical generalizations.

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 1764-1768, refers to the comedies of characters, when all attention is focused on the main character, while other characters serve only 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. Other characters - positive characters acting as resonators. The most successful images in Sumarokov's comedies bad guys, in whose characters many satirical and everyday 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 was a relative of Sumarokov 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 conscience nor pity, but also a hypocrite, an ignoramus, a debauchee. With some resemblance to Moliere's Tartuffe, Sumarokov creates a generalized conditional satirical image Russian vicious nobleman. Disclosure of character contribute and speech characteristic, And household parts. The speech of the Outsider is full of proverbs and sayings: “the purse is empty, the head is also empty”, “what an honor, if there is nothing to eat?”, “Swearing does not hang on the collar”, “what is taken is holy”. In his sanctimonious repentance, the Outsider turns to God, filling his speech with Church Slavonicisms: the slightest love; alone trusting in your philanthropy, I cry out to you: remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.

The positive characters of Sumarokov's comedies are deprived of vitality, they often act in comedies as reasoners - such is Valery in the comedy "Guardian". Preachers characteristic of classicism also corresponded to moralistic goals. pictorial names negative characters: Alien grip, Kashchei, Herostratus.

The late 60s - 70s are characterized by the growth of oppositional sentiments in relation to enlightened absolutism among the advanced nobility and the raznochintsy intelligentsia. This was the time when Russian enlightenment thought turned to the formulation of the peasant question. More closely, socially meaningful in different genres Literature began to address the issue of the relationship between landowners and peasants. Attention to the life surrounding a person, the desire for a more complex psychological disclosure of characters in certain social conditions are characteristic of the best dramatic works second half of the century. At this time (between 1766-1769) Fonvizin wrote the first household comedy from the life of the Russian provincial nobility "Brigadier", whose influence affected latest comedies Sumarokov. Following Fonvizin's Brigadier, the best play in Sumarokov's comedy work, Cuckold by Imagination, appeared, which, in turn, anticipated the appearance of Fonvizin's Undergrowth (some commonality of situations, characters).

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 Sumarokov's comedy are devoid of one-sidedness. Ridiculing the savagery, the absurdity of these people, who only talk about “sowing, reaping, threshing, chickens,” whose peasants go around the world, Sumarokov also shows features that evoke sympathy for them. Vikul and Khavronya touch with their mutual affection (here they precede Gogol's "Old World Landowners"). "Cuckold by imagination" is the pinnacle of Sumarokov's comedy creativity.

Poetry Sumarokov

The diverse work of Sumarokov was also manifested in the richness of poetic genres. Sumarokov sought to give samples of all types of poetry provided for by the theory of classicism. He wrote odes, songs, elegies, eclogues, idylls, madrigals, epigrams, satires, parables. In his poetry, two directions were fundamental - lyrical and satirical. He began writing love songs in his first decade. creative activity. In area love lyrics, which enjoyed great success among contemporaries, Sumarokov owns undoubted discoveries. His lyrics are addressed to a person, to his natural weaknesses. Despite the still conventional image of the lyrical hero, in his songs Sumarokov seeks to reveal the inner world, depth and sincerity of the feelings of the hero or heroine. His lyrics are distinguished by sincere simplicity, immediacy, sincerity and clarity of expression are inherent in it. After the lyrics of the time of Peter the Great, Sumarokov's lyrics, both in the field of content and in the field of verse technique, made a big step forward.

Here is an example of one of those love songs that created Sumarokov's first fame:

Hidden those hours, as you were looking for me,

And all my joy is taken away by you.

I see that you have become unfaithful to me now,

Against me, you have become completely different.

My moan and sadness are fierce,

imagine

And remember those moments

How sweet I was to you.

Look at the places where you saw me

All tenderness they will bring to memory.

Where are my joys? Where has your passion gone?

Gone and never come back to me.

Another life has come;

But was I expecting this?

Lost life dragging

Hope and peace.

Sumarokov often uses the antithesis technique to reveal

Sumarokov Alexander Petrovich was born in Moscow in 1717. He is known to readers of his contemporaries as a poet and playwright.

Alexander Petrovich grew up in a noble family. Education and initial education he received at home. At the age of 15 he entered the land gentry corps. Here begins his work as a young poet.

Sumarokov is known to his fans as a writer of love songs that have received success and public recognition. In his lines, the poet uses the theme interpersonal conflicts, which he later begins to use in his tragedies. The most famous of them: "Khorev" (1747), "Hamlet" (1748), "Sinav and Truvor" (1750). Poetic tragedies became an incentive for the playwright to create a theater in Russia, which was headed by Sumarokov himself.

During the reign of Catherine II, the popularity of Alexander Petrovich reaches its full flowering. He has support in the circles of Novikov and Fonvizin. His works are aimed at ridiculing bribe-takers, landowners who treated their serfs cruelly.

But in 1770, a conflict arose between Sumarokov and Saltykov. In this situation, the empress supported the poet, and he wrote her a mocking letter. This event had a negative impact on his literary position.

Throughout his life, the playwright wrote most interesting works comedy and tragedy genre. But in his dying years, he somewhat lost his popularity, which contributed to the passion for bad habits. Consequence - sudden death Sumarokov in 1777.

SUMAROKOV Alexander Petrovich was born in the ancient noble family- writer.

His father, Pyotr Pankratievich, was a military man of the time of Peter the Great and rose to the rank of colonel. In 1737, Pyotr Pankratievich entered the civil service with the rank of state councilor, in 1760 he received the rank of privy councilor, and upon his resignation in 1762 - a real privy councilor.

Alexander Petrovich received a good education at home under the guidance of his father (“I owe my father for the first foundations in Russian”) and foreign tutors, among whom is the name of I. A. Zeikan, who taught the future Peter II at the same time.

May 30, 1732 Sumarokov was admitted to the newly established land gentry cadet corps ("knight's academy", as it was then called) - the first secular educational institution elevated type, preparing their pupils for the "positions of officers and officials." Teaching in the corps was rather superficial: the cadets were taught, first of all, good manners, dancing and fencing, but the interest in poetry and theater, which was widespread among the students of the "knight's academy", turned out to be useful for the future poet. The cadets participated in court festivities (performed in ballet divertissements, dramatic performances), brought congratulatory odes to the empress of their composition (at first without the name of the authors - from the entire "Shlyakhetskaya Academy of Sciences of Youth", and then poems signed by Mikhail Sobakin began to be added to them).

In 1740, the first literary experience in print took place, two congratulatory odes to Anna Ioannovna are known “on the first day of the new year 1740, from cadet corps composed through Alexander Sumarokov.

In April 1740, Alexander Petrovich was released from the gentry corps and appointed to the post of adjutant to the Vice-Chancellor Count. M. G. Golovkin, and soon after the arrest of the latter he became the adjutant of gr. A. G. Razumovsky - the favorite of the new Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. The post of adjutant general of major rank gave him access to the palace.

In 1756, already in the rank of brigadier, he was appointed director of the newly opened permanent Russian theater. Almost all the worries about the theater fell on Sumarokov's shoulders: he was a director and teacher of acting, selected repertoire, dealt with household issues, even compiled posters and newspaper announcements. For five years he worked tirelessly in the theater, but as a result of a series of complications and repeated clashes with K. Sievers, who was in charge of the court office, who had the theater under his control since 1759, he was forced to resign in 1761.

From 1761, the writer did not serve anywhere else, devoting himself entirely to literary activity.

In 1769 he moved to Moscow, where, with occasional trips to St. Petersburg, he lived until the end of his days.

The socio-political views of Alexander Petrovich were of a clearly expressed noble character: he was a supporter of the monarchy and the preservation of serfdom in Russia. But the demands that he made on both monarchs and nobles were very high. The monarch must be enlightened, for him the “good” of his subjects is above all, he must strictly observe the laws and not succumb to his passions; the nobility must also justify their privileges by zealous service to society (“not in title - in action one should be a nobleman”), education (“and if the mind of the master’s peasant is not clearer, || so I don’t see any difference”), humane attitude towards serfs ( "Ah! Should cattle have people? || Isn't it a pity? Can a bull sell people to a bull?"). But, since over time the reigning empress and the nobility surrounding the writer less and less corresponded to the ideal created by Sumarokov, his work took on a sharper satirical and accusatory orientation. Being mainly a rationalist in his philosophical and aesthetic views, he was no stranger to sensationalism. Having categorically declared that “the mind always abhors dreams”, Sumarokov at the same time could say:

“He works in vain,

Who with his mind only infects the mind:

Not a poet yet

Who only depicts a thought,

Having cold blood;

But the poet is the one who infects the heart

And the feeling depicts

Having hot blood" ( "Lack of Image").

Like most poets of the 18th century, Alexander Petrovich began his career with love lyrics. The love poems (songs, eclogues, idylls, elegies) that he wrote throughout his entire literary career were still quite conventional, but in the best of them the poet managed to express sincere emotional experiences, immediacy of feelings

“O beings, composition without an image is mixed”,

"In vain do I hide the hearts of sorrow of the fierce",

"Don't cry so much, dear" and others.

In some of his songs he used elements of folk poetry

"The girls were walking in the grove",

"Oh, you are strong, strong Bendergrad",

"Wherever I walk, wherever I walk" and others.

The love works of the writer gained great popularity among secular society, causing many imitators, they also penetrated into the democratic environment (in handwritten songbooks). Diverse in terms of stanza, rich in rhythm, simple in form, his songs favorably differed from the previous love lyrics and played positive role in the development of Russian poetry. Sumarokov won the greatest fame among his contemporaries as a playwright, and primarily as an author of tragedies. He wrote nine tragedies:

"Khorev" (1747),

"Hamlet" (1748),

"Sinav and Truvor" (1750),

"Aristona" (1750),

Semira (1751),

"Demiza" (1758, later remade into "Yaropolk and Demiza"),

"Vysheslav" (1768),

"Dimitri the Pretender" (1771),

"Mstislav" (1774).

Sumarokov's tragedies are sustained in the strict rules of the poetics of classicism, which for Russian literature were formulated by him in the "epistole" on poetry (in the brochure "Two Epistles". The first suggests about the Russian language, and the second about poetry ", St. Petersburg, 1748).

In the tragedies of the writer, the unity of action, place and time is observed; sharply carried out the division of characters into positive and negative; the characters are static, and each of them was the bearer of any one "passion"; a well-proportioned five-act composition and a small number of characters helped the plot to develop economically and in the direction of revealing the main idea. The author's desire to convey his thoughts to the viewer was served by a relatively simple and clear language; The “Alexandrian” verse (iambic six-foot with paired rhyming), with which all tragedies are written, sometimes acquired an aphoristic sound.

In tragedies, persons were removed from the aristocratic environment; the plots for most of them the playwright took from national history. Although the historicism of the writer's tragedies was very conditional and was limited mainly to the use of historical names, nevertheless, the historical and national themes were a hallmark of Russian classicism: the Western European classicist tragedy was built mainly on the material of ancient history. The main conflict in the tragedies of Sumarokov A.P. usually consisted in the struggle of "reason" with "passion", public duty with personal feelings, and the social principle won in this struggle. Such a conflict and its resolution were intended to educate the civic feelings of the noble spectator, to inspire him with the idea that state interests should be above all else. Besides public sound Sumarokov's tragedies were aggravated by the fact that they began to acquire a political orientation more and more, the tyrannical autocrats were more and more sharply exposed in them (“Is it a nobleman, or a leader, a victorious, tsar || A contemptuous creature without virtue”), and in “Dimitrius the Pretender” the playwright demanded to overthrow the tyrant tsar from the throne: he is "Moscow, Russia, an enemy and torturer of subjects." At the same time, it is characteristic that the “people”, who first appeared here on the Russian stage, had to overthrow the villainous ruler. Transferring the action of the tragedy to the relatively recent past of the Russian state, the author filled "Demetrius the Pretender" with burning questions of his time - about the nature of political power in the country. Of course, Sumarokov could not openly declare the reign of Catherine II despotic, but with many topical and fairly transparent hints he quite definitely expressed his negative attitude towards Catherine's regime. However, the pronounced tyrannical orientation of this tragedy should not be taken as S.’s condemnation of the very monarchical principle of government: even in the most pathetic passages of Demetrius the Pretender, it was about replacing the tyrant king with a “virtuous” monarch. But the objective impact of the tragedy could be much wider than the subjective, class-limited intent of the playwright. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the interpretation that was given to its translation into French, published in Paris in 1800 (“its plot, almost revolutionary, is obviously in direct conflict with the mores and political system of this country ...”). "Dimitri the Pretender" marked the beginning of the Russian political tragedy.

The merits of Sumarokov, the tragic artist, should also include the creation by him of a whole gallery of various, attractive female images. Tender and meek, courageous and strong-willed, they were distinguished by high moral principles.

In addition to tragedies, Alexander Petrovich wrote 12 comedies at different times, the drama The Hermit (1757), operas Cephalus and Prokris(1755) and "Alceste" (1758).

His comedies were less successful than tragedies, as they touched on less significant aspects of social life and served as an addition to the main part of the performance. Yet in the process of becoming a Russian national dramaturgy his comedies have taken a certain place. Like tragedy, comedy, according to Sumarokov, pursued educational goals, satirically ridiculed personal and social shortcomings. Her characters were most often faces taken from the environment ("originals"). Hence the pamphlet character of most of Sumarokov's comedies:

Tresotinius,

"The Tribunal"

"Quarrel between husband and wife"

"Guardian"

"Likhoimets" and others. The playwright himself pointed out the connection of his comedies with living reality: “It is very easy for me to compose prosaic comedies ... seeing stupidities and delusions everyday in ignoramuses.” In the comedy work of the Sumarokov, ignorant nobles, gallomantic dandies and dandies, bribe-takers-officials, misers, litigants, pedants-“Latinschiks” were ridiculed. This was already the world of an ordinary, ordinary person, sharply different from the world of the heroes of the tragedy.

To the number best achievements in the creative heritage of Sumarokov A.P. his fables (“parables”) should also be attributed. He created 378 fables, most of which were published during his lifetime (2 parts of the "parables" were published in 1762, part 3 - in 1769). Filled with topical satirical content, written in simple (with the inclusion of "low" words), living language, close to colloquial, Sumarokov's fables earned high praise from his contemporaries: “His parables are revered as the treasure of Russian Parnassus; and in this kind of poem he far surpasses Phaedrus and de la Fontaine, the most glorious in this kind ”(N. I. Novikov). Sumarokov's parables greatly facilitated the path of Krylov the fabulist.

Of his other works, satire should be noted. "About nobility" And "Chorus to the Perverse Light".

“Chorus to the Perverted Light” is perhaps Sumarokov's most harsh satirical work. In it, the writer condemned many aspects of social reality.

Writer-educator, poet-satirist, who fought against social evil and human injustice all his life, enjoyed well-deserved respect from both N. I. Novikov and A. N. Radishchev, Sumarokov in the history of Russian literature XVIII V. occupies a prominent position. Later, many Russian writers denied the writer literary talent, but still V. G. Belinsky was right, saying that “Sumarokov had tremendous success with his contemporaries, and without talent, your will, you cannot have any success at any time.”

The personal life of the writer was unsuccessful. With his first wife, Johanna Khristianovna (camer-jungfer then still Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna), he divorced, the subsequent marriage with the serf girl Vera Prokhorovna led to a scandal and a final break with noble relatives. Shortly before his death, the writer married a third time, and also to the serf girl Ekaterina Gavrilovna.

Alexander Petrovich spent the last years of his life in poverty, the house and all his property were sold to pay off debts.

Died -, Moscow.

Sumarokov Alexander Petrovich
(1717 - 1777)

Sumarokov Alexander Petrovich (1717 - 1777), poet, playwright. Born on November 14 (25 n.s.) in Moscow in an old noble family. Until the age of fifteen, he was educated and brought up at home.
In 1732 - 40 he studied at the land gentry corps, where he began to write poetry, imitating Trediakovsky. He served as an adjutant to Count G. Golovkin and Count A. Razumovsky and continued to write, at that time being strongly influenced by Lomonosov's odes.
After some time, he finds his own genre - love songs, which received public recognition and diverged in the lists. He designs poetic devices images of mental life and psychological conflicts, later applied by him in tragedies.
Sumarokov's lyrics were disapprovingly received by Lomonosov, a supporter of civic themes. The controversy between Lomonosov and Sumarokov on questions of poetic style represented an important stage in the development of Russian classicism.
From love songs, Sumarokov moves on to poetic tragedies - "Khorev" (1747), "Hamlet" (1748), "Sinav and Truvor" (1750). In these works, for the first time in the history of the Russian theater, the achievements of French and German educational dramaturgy were used. Sumarokov combined in them personal, love themes with public and philosophical problems. The appearance of tragedies served as an impetus for the creation of the Russian theater, the director of which was Sumarokov (1756 - 61).
In 1759 he published the first Russian literary magazine, Hardworking Bee, which supported the court group, which was guided by the future Empress Catherine II.
At the beginning of the reign of Catherine II, Sumarokov's literary fame reaches its zenith. Young satirists, grouped around N. Novikov and Fonvizin, support Sumarokov, who writes fables against bureaucratic arbitrariness, bribery, and the inhuman treatment of serfs by landowners.
In 1770, after moving to Moscow, Sumarokov came into conflict with the Moscow commander-in-chief P. Saltykov. The Empress took the side of Saltykov, to which Sumarokov replied with a mocking letter. All this worsened his social and literary position.
In the 1770s, he created his best comedies ("The Cuckold by Imagination", "The Buffoon", 1772) and the tragedy "Dmitry the Pretender" (1771), "Mstislav" (1774). Participated as a director in the work of the theater at Moscow University, published collections of "Satire" (1774), "Elegy" (1774).
The last years of his life were marked by material deprivation, loss of popularity, which led to addiction to alcoholic beverages. This was the cause of Sumarokov's death on October 1 (12 n.s.) 1777 in Moscow.
Brief biography from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.

Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1718 - 1777). The son of a general and an aristocrat. At the age of 14 he entered the gentry cadet corps, opened in 1732 by the government of Anna Ioannovna. Art, including literature, occupied a significant place in the building. Sumarokov is the first who took up the literary business professionally.

Sumarokov's life was extremely sad. It was nervous person, sharply reacting to the surrounding wildness of morals; had extraordinary ideas about serving the Fatherland, honor, culture, and virtue. He was the creator of a new type of drama, the first director, theater director.

Sumarokov’s first poems are odes of 1739 in a brochure entitled: “To Her Imperial Majesty, the Most Gracious Empress Anna Ivanovna, Autocrat of the All-Russian Congratulatory Ode on the First Day of the New Year 1740 from the Cadet Corps, composed through Alexander Sumarokov.

He was influenced by the work of Trediakovsky, and then by Lomonosov, with whom he was friendly. In the late 40s - early. 50x - disagreement with Lomonosov.

Sumarokov believed that his poetic activity is a service to society, a form of participation in political life countries. According to his political views, he is a nobleman-landowner. He considered serfdom necessary, believed that the state was based on two classes - the peasantry and the nobility. Nevertheless, the nobleman, in his opinion, does not have the right to consider the peasants his property, to treat them like slaves. He must be the judge and chief of his vassals and has the right to receive food from them. Sumarokov believed that the tsar must obey the laws of honor embodied in state laws.

From January 1759, Sumarokov began publishing his own journal, The Hardworking Bee. Published monthly, published in the Academy of Sciences. Published mainly by one person. In the eyes of the government, such a body of independent noble public opinion was undesirable, and the magazine had to be closed down.

Being one of the friends of Nikita Panin, after the coup, as a result of which Catherine the Second came to power, Sumarokov was close to the palace, received support as a writer. However, by the end of the 60s, he fell into disgrace, because. Catherine began to crack down on all sorts of freethinking. Sumarokov gradually made enemies for himself. Was in the life of Sumarokov and unhappy love. He fell in love with a simple girl - his serf, married her. Relatives of Sumarokov's first wife started a process against him, demanding to deprive the rights of his children from his second marriage. Although the case ended in favor of Sumarokov, it caused damage to his health, he began to drink; he became so impoverished that when he died, there was no money even for a funeral. The coffin of the writer was carried in their arms to the cemetery by the actors of the Moscow theater. In addition to them, two people came to see him off.

As a poet and theorist, Sumarokov completed the construction of the classicist style in Russia. The basis of Sumarokov's concrete poetics is the requirement of simplicity, naturalness, and clarity of poetic language. Poetry must avoid the fantastic and the vaguely emotional. He preaches simplicity in verse and prose.

Sumarokov argues a lot with Lomonosov, disagrees with his grammar and word usage. Sometimes he refers directly to the analysis of Lomonosov's works. Sumarokov considered the change in the meaning of a word as a violation of the correctness of the grammatical nature.

In 1747, Sumarokov published his first tragedy, Chorev, and the following year, Hamlet. "Khorev" was put in the cadet corps in 49. Something like a cadet troupe was created, which played at the court. Sumarokov was her soul. Later he was the director of the theater organized by F. Volkov. (see ticket about the tragedy)

Sumarokov wrote tragedies and comedies. He was a brilliant comedian, but soon he was surpassed in this by Fonvizin, Knyazhnin, Kapnist. As an author of tragedies, he was not surpassed. In total, Sumarokov wrote 12 comedies: Tresotinius, Empty Quarrel and Monsters, written in 1750. Then after 14 years - "Dowry by deceit", "Guardian", "Likhoimets", "Three brothers joint", "Poisonous", "Narcissus". Then three comedies in 1772 - "Cuckold by Imagination", "Mother Daughter's Companion", "Squat". Sumarokov's comedies have a minimal connection with the traditions of French classicism. All his comedies are written in prose, none of them have the full volume and correct arrangement of the composition of the classical tragedy of the West in five acts. Eight comedies have one action, four have three. These are small pieces, almost interludes. Sumarokov very conditionally withstands the three unities. There is no unity of action. In the first comedies, there is a vestige of the plot in the form of a couple in love, who at the end marry. The composition of comic characters in them is determined by the composition of the stable masks of Italian folk comedy. They are enlivened by Sumarokov's language - lively, sharp, cheeky in its unadornedness.

The six comedies of 1764-1768 differed markedly from the first three. Sumarokov moves on to the type of comedy of characters. In each play, one image is in the center of attention, and everything else is needed either to shade it or to create a fiction of the plot. The undoubted masterpiece of all Sumarokov's comedic work is his comedy Cuckold by Imagination. (Actually, I don’t think there’s a need for a lot of detail about comedy, because they mostly went through tragedy, so I think that’s enough.)

Sumarokov's poetic work is striking in its diversity, richness of genres and forms. Considering himself the creator of Russian literature, Sumarokov sought to show his contemporaries and leave to posterity samples of all types of literature. He wrote exceptionally much and, apparently, quickly. Sumarokov wrote songs, elegies, eclogues, idylls, parables (fables), satires, epistles, sonnets, stanzas, epigrams, madrigals, solemn, philosophical odes, etc. He also translated the Psalter.

In total, Sumarokov wrote 374 parables. It was he who discovered the fable genre for Russian literature. He borrowed a lot from La Fontaine. Sumarokov's parables are often topical, aimed at ridiculing the specific disorders of the Russian social life of his time. Sometimes they were very small in volume. The main theme of the fables is Russian nobility. The language of fables is lively, bright, sprinkled with sayings, colloquial turns. In the middle of the 18th century, the main direction in the development of the fable was determined. 1st model: the fable is written in the middle style, in Alexandrian verse. A moralistic story. 2nd model (Sumarokov's model): offers a multi-layered verse, elements of a low style - a fable story. In the satirical works of Sumarokov one can feel acrimony, conceit, scandalous temperament.

In Lyrica Sumarokov seeks to give a generalized analysis of a person in general. The love face gives an image of love in " pure form". In songs and elegies, Sumarokov speaks only of happy or unhappy love. Other feelings and moods are not allowed. We will also not find the features of the individual characteristics of those who love and are loved. There are no facts, events of real life in lyrical verses. Sumarokov wrote songs on behalf of a man and a woman. The text consists of repetitive formulas, devoid of the specific character expression. Sumarokov created the language of love as a high feeling. Sumarokov did not publish his songs. Pastoral motifs appear in a number of songs and idylls. The elegies and eclogues are written in iambic six-foot, the songs give all sorts of rhythmic combinations.

1747 "Epistole on language", "Epistole on poetry". In the Epistle on Language, general principles assimilation of antiquity. The Epistle on Poetry has its own theory, exemplary writers, and genres. (at first General characteristics, then the main samples, then the characteristics of individual genres.)

The tragedy of Sumarokov.

Sumarokov, the author of the first Russian tragedies, used the example of the French tragedians of the 17th and 18th centuries. A number of characteristic features of their system are the Alexandrian verse (iambic six-foot with a caesura on the 3rd foot), 5 acts, the absence of extra-plot inserts and digressions, the absence of comic elements, “high syllable”, etc. Sumarokov transferred to his tragedies. However, it cannot be said that Sumarokov borrowed the tragedy from the French, since it was constantly developing there, and, borrowing, he should have transferred the final version to Russian soil, i.e. variant of Voltaire. Sumarokov built his tragedy on the principles of extreme cost savings, simplicity, restraint, and naturalness. The simplicity of the dramatic plot of his plays does not allow talking about intrigue, because. there is no node of events, all action tends to be limited to one vicissitudes. The initial situation stretches through the entire tragedy and is removed at the end. The roles of Sumarokov are also usually motionless. The tragedy is filled to a large extent with the disclosure of the main situation in its significance for each pair of heroes separately. Dialogues, especially the central characters (lovers) receive a lyrical coloring. No narrative inserts. The central place of the drama is the third act, which is marked mainly by an extra-plot device: the characters draw swords or daggers from their scabbards. (because there is no plot climax). The action of most of the tragedies of Sumarokov is attributed to ancient Rus'; here Sumarokov violates the custom of depicting distant epochs and distant countries in tragedy. Unlike the French tragedy, Sumarokov has almost no confidants, their role is extremely small. He either turns into a herald, or vice versa, becomes a separate hero. The departure from the system of confiding led to the development and abundance of monologues, since a monologue can replace a false dialogue with a confidante. The monologue is used to inform the viewer about the thoughts, feelings and intentions of the characters. The desire to reduce total number characters. Thus, Sumarokov created a very unified compositional system of tragedy, in which all elements are merged and conditioned by the principle of simplicity and economy.

Sumarokov believed that “the tragedy is done in order ... to put love for virtue into the caretakers, and extreme hatred for vices.” She wanted to correct the souls of the audience, not the minds, not the state apparatus. Hence the predominance of happy endings. (Tragically for the heroes, only Horev and Sinav and Truvor end.) The presence of a distinct moral and evaluative characteristic. Before us are either wise virtuous heroes (Semira, Dimisa, Truvor) or black villains (Demetrius the Pretender, Claudius in Hamlet), villains die, virtuous heroes emerge victorious from disasters.

Conflict is understood as a conflict between a person's life and how he should live. (“Demetrius the Pretender”) is not a conflict between feeling and duty. The tragedy of a man who does not live the way he should live. The collision of man with fate. At these moments, the scale of the hero's personality is revealed. In tragedies, the location is not important. Heroes are devoid of character traits. Classicism negatively perceived everything concrete - it was perceived as a distortion of human nature. Existential image of life. The tragic hero must be unhappy. Kupriyanova writes that “the hero of a classical tragedy should be neither good nor bad. He must be unhappy." Tragedy elevates viewers and readers (catharsis… blah blah blah ).

The tragedy of Sumarokov gave birth to a tradition. His successors - Kheraskov, Maikov, Knyaznin - nevertheless introduced new features into the tragedy.