Romanticism is an ideological movement in art and literature that appeared in the 90s of the 18th century in Europe and became widespread in other countries of the world (Russia is one of them), as well as in America. The main ideas of this direction are the recognition of the value of the spiritual and creative life of every person and his right to independence and freedom. Very often, the works of this literary movement depicted heroes with a strong, rebellious character, the plots were characterized by a bright intensity of passions, nature was depicted in a spiritualized and healing way.

Having appeared in the era of the Great French Revolution and the world industrial revolution, romanticism was replaced by such a direction as classicism and the Age of Enlightenment in general. In contrast to the adherents of classicism, who support the ideas of the cult significance of the human mind and the emergence of civilization on its foundations, the romantics put Mother Nature on a pedestal of worship, emphasizing the importance of natural feelings and the freedom of aspirations of each individual.

(Alan Maley "Delicate Age")

The revolutionary events of the late 18th century completely changed the course of everyday life, both in France and in other European countries. People, feeling acute loneliness, distracted themselves from their problems by playing various games of chance and having fun in a variety of ways. It was then that the idea arose to imagine that human life is an endless game where there are winners and losers. Romantic works often depicted heroes opposing the world around them, rebelling against fate and fate, obsessed with their own thoughts and reflections on their own idealized vision of the world, which sharply did not coincide with reality. Realizing their defenselessness in a world ruled by capital, many romantics were in confusion and confusion, feeling endlessly alone in the life around them, which was the main tragedy of their personality.

Romanticism in Russian literature of the 19th century

The main events that had a huge impact on the development of romanticism in Russia were the War of 1812 and the Decembrist uprising of 1825. However, distinguished by originality and originality, Russian romanticism of the early 19th century is an inseparable part of the pan-European literary movement and has its general features and basic principles.

(Ivan Kramskoy "Unknown")

The emergence of Russian romanticism coincides in time with the maturation of a socio-historical turning point in the life of society at that time, when the socio-political structure of the Russian state was in an unstable, transitional state. People of progressive views, disillusioned with the ideas of the Enlightenment, promoting the creation of a new society based on the principles of reason and the triumph of justice, decisively rejecting the principles of bourgeois life, not understanding the essence of antagonistic contradictions in life, felt feelings of hopelessness, loss, pessimism and disbelief in a reasonable solution to the conflict.

Representatives of romanticism considered the main value of the human personality, and the mysterious and beautiful world of harmony, beauty and high feelings contained in it. In their works, representatives of this trend did not depict the real world, which was too base and vulgar for them; they reflected the universe of the protagonist’s feelings, his inner world, filled with thoughts and experiences. Through their prism, the outlines of the real world appear, which he cannot come to terms with and therefore tries to rise above it, not submitting to its social-feudal laws and morals.

(V. A Zhukovsky)

One of the founders of Russian romanticism is considered to be the famous poet V.A. Zhukovsky, who created a number of ballads and poems with fabulous fantastic content (“Ondine”, “The Sleeping Princess”, “The Tale of Tsar Berendey”). His works are characterized by a deep philosophical meaning, a desire for a moral ideal, his poems and ballads are filled with his personal experiences and reflections, inherent in the romantic direction.

(N.V. Gogol)

Zhukovsky's thoughtful and lyrical elegies are replaced by the romantic works of Gogol (The Night Before Christmas) and Lermontov, whose work bears a peculiar imprint of an ideological crisis in the minds of the public, impressed by the defeat of the Decembrist movement. Therefore, romanticism of the 30s of the 19th century is characterized by disappointment in real life and withdrawal into an imaginary world where everything is harmonious and ideal. Romantic protagonists were portrayed as people divorced from reality and having lost interest in earthly life, coming into conflict with society, and denouncing the powers that be for their sins. The personal tragedy of these people, endowed with high feelings and experiences, was the death of their moral and aesthetic ideals.

The mindset of progressively thinking people of that era was most clearly reflected in the creative heritage of the great Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov. In his works “The Last Son of Liberty”, “To Novgorod”, in which the example of the republican love of freedom of the ancient Slavs is clearly visible, the author expresses warm sympathy for the fighters for freedom and equality, for those who oppose slavery and violence against the personality of people.

Romanticism is characterized by an appeal to historical and national origins, to folklore. This was most clearly manifested in Lermontov’s subsequent works (“Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the young guardsman and the daring merchant Kalashnikov”), as well as in a cycle of poems and poems about the Caucasus, which the poet perceived as a country of freedom-loving and proud people opposing the country of slaves and masters under the rule of Tsar-autocrat Nicholas I. The main images in the works of “Ishmael Bey” “Mtsyri” are depicted by Lermontov with great passion and lyrical pathos, they carry the aura of chosen ones and fighters for their Fatherland.

The romantic movement also includes the early poetry and prose of Pushkin (“Eugene Onegin”, “The Queen of Spades”), the poetic works of K. N. Batyushkov, E. A. Baratynsky, N. M. Yazykov, the work of the Decembrist poets K. F. Ryleev, A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, V. K. Kuchelbecker.

Romanticism in foreign literature of the 19th century

The main feature of European romanticism in foreign literature of the 19th century is the fantastic and fabulous nature of the works of this movement. For the most part, these are legends, fairy tales, stories and short stories with a fantastic, unreal plot. Romanticism manifested itself most expressively in the culture of France, England and Germany; each country made its own special contribution to the development and spread of this cultural phenomenon.

(Francisco Goya" Harvest " )

France. Here, literary works in the style of romanticism had a bright political coloring, largely opposed to the newly-minted bourgeoisie. According to French writers, the new society that emerged as a result of social changes after the Great French Revolution did not understand the value of the personality of each person, ruined its beauty and suppressed freedom of spirit. The most famous works: the treatise “The Genius of Christianity”, the stories “Attalus” and “René” by Chateaubriand, the novels “Delphine”, “Corina” by Germaine de Stael, the novels by George Sand, Hugo’s “Notre Dame Cathedral”, a series of novels about Dumas’s musketeers, collection works of Honore Balzac.

(Karl Brullov "Horsewoman")

England. Romanticism has been present in English legends and traditions for quite a long time, but did not emerge as a separate movement until the mid-18th century. English literary works are distinguished by the presence of a slightly gloomy Gothic and religious content; there are many elements of national folklore, the culture of the working and peasant class. A distinctive feature of the content of English prose and lyrics is the description of travel and wanderings to distant lands, their exploration. A striking example: “Eastern Poems”, “Manfred”, “Childe Harold’s Travels” by Byron, “Ivanhoe” by Walter Scott.

Germany. The idealistic philosophical worldview, which promoted the individualism of the individual and his freedom from the laws of feudal society, had a huge influence on the foundations of German romanticism; the universe was viewed as a single living system. German works, written in the spirit of romanticism, are filled with reflections on the meaning of human existence, the life of his soul, and they are also distinguished by fairy-tale and mythological motifs. The most striking German works in the style of romanticism: tales of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, short stories, fairy tales, novels by Hoffmann, works by Heine.

(Caspar David Friedrich "Stages of Life")

America. Romanticism in American literature and art developed a little later than in European countries (30s of the 19th century), its heyday occurred in the 40s-60s of the 19th century. Its emergence and development were greatly influenced by such large-scale historical events as the American War of Independence at the end of the 18th century and the Civil War between North and South (1861-1865). American literary works can be divided into two types: abolitionist (supporting the rights of slaves and their emancipation) and oriental (supporting plantation). American romanticism is based on the same ideals and traditions as European, in its rethinking and understanding in its own way in the conditions of the unique way of life and pace of life of the inhabitants of a new, little-explored continent. American works of that period are rich in national trends; in them there is a keen sense of independence, the struggle for freedom and equality. Prominent representatives of American romanticism: Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, “The Phantom Bridegroom”, Edgar Allan Poe (“Ligeia”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”), Herman Melville (“Moby Dick”, “Typee”), Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (The Legend of Hiawatha), Walt Whitman (poetry collection Leaves of Grass), Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin), Fenimore Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans).

And even though romanticism reigned in art and literature for only a short time, and heroism and chivalry were replaced by pragmatic realism, this in no way diminishes his contribution to the development of world culture. Works written in this direction are loved and read with great pleasure by a large number of fans of romanticism around the world.

The moral pathos of the romantics was associated, first of all, with the affirmation of the value of the individual, which was embodied in the images of romantic heroes. The first, most striking type is the loner hero, the outcast hero, who is usually called the Byronic hero. The opposition of the poet to the crowd, the hero to the mob, the individual to a society that does not understand and persecutes him is a characteristic feature of romantic literature.

About such a hero E. Kozhina wrote: “A man of the romantic generation, a witness to bloodshed, cruelty, the tragic destinies of people and entire nations, striving for the bright and heroic, but paralyzed in advance by the pitiful reality, out of hatred for the bourgeoisie, elevating the knights of the Middle Ages to a pedestal and even more acutely aware in front of their monolithic figures is his own duality, inferiority and instability, a man who is proud of his “I”, because only it sets him apart from the philistines, and at the same time is burdened by him, a man who combines protest, and powerlessness, and naive illusions, and pessimism, and unspent energy, and passionate lyricism - this man is present in all the romantic paintings of the 1820s.”

The dizzying change of events inspired, gave rise to hopes for change, awakened dreams, but sometimes led to despair. The slogans of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity proclaimed by the revolution opened up scope for the human spirit. However, it soon became clear that these principles were not feasible. Having generated unprecedented hopes, the revolution did not live up to them. It was discovered early that the resulting freedom was not only good. It also manifested itself in cruel and predatory individualism. The post-revolutionary order was less like the kingdom of reason that the thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment dreamed of. The cataclysms of the era influenced the mindset of the entire romantic generation. The mood of romantics constantly fluctuates between delight and despair, inspiration and disappointment, fiery enthusiasm and truly world-wide sorrow. The feeling of absolute and boundless personal freedom is adjacent to the awareness of its tragic insecurity.

S. Frank wrote that “the 19th century opens with a feeling of “world sorrow.” In the worldview of Byron, Leopardi, Alfred Musset - here in Russia in Lermontov, Baratynsky, Tyutchev - in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer, in the tragic music of Beethoven, in the eerie fantasy of Hoffmann, in the sad irony of Heine - there is a new consciousness of the orphanhood of man in the world, the tragic impossibility of his hopes, the hopeless contradiction between the intimate needs and hopes of the human heart and the cosmic and social conditions of human existence.”

Indeed, doesn’t Schopenhauer himself speak about the pessimism of his views, whose teaching is painted in gloomy tones, and who constantly says that the world is filled with evil, meaninglessness, misfortune, that life is suffering: “If the immediate and immediate goal of our life is not there is suffering, then our existence represents the most stupid and inexpedient phenomenon. For it is absurd to admit that the endless suffering flowing from the essential needs of life, with which the world is filled, was aimless and purely accidental. Although each individual misfortune seems to be an exception, misfortune in general is the rule.”

The life of the human spirit among the romantics is contrasted with the baseness of material existence. From the feeling of his ill-being, the cult of a unique individual personality was born. She was perceived as the only support and as the only point of reference for life values. Human individuality was thought of as an absolutely valuable principle, torn out from the surrounding world and in many ways opposed to it.

The hero of romantic literature becomes a person who has broken away from old ties, asserting his absolute dissimilarity from all others. For this reason alone, she is exceptional. Romantic artists, as a rule, avoided depicting ordinary and ordinary people. The main characters in their artistic work are lonely dreamers, brilliant artists, prophets, individuals endowed with deep passions and titanic power of feelings. They may be villains, but never mediocre. Most often they are endowed with a rebellious consciousness.

The gradations of disagreement with the world order among such heroes can be different: from the rebellious restlessness of Rene in Chateaubriand’s novel of the same name to the total disappointment in people, reason and the world order, characteristic of many of Byron’s heroes. The romantic hero is always in a state of some kind of spiritual limit. His senses are heightened. The contours of the personality are determined by the passion of nature, the insatiable desires and aspirations. The romantic personality is exceptional by virtue of its original nature and is therefore completely individual.

The exclusive intrinsic value of individuality did not even allow the thought of its dependence on surrounding circumstances. The starting point of a romantic conflict is the individual’s desire for complete independence, the assertion of the primacy of free will over necessity. The discovery of the intrinsic value of the individual was an artistic achievement of romanticism. But it led to the aestheticization of individuality. The very originality of the individual was already becoming a subject of aesthetic admiration. Breaking free from his surroundings, the romantic hero could sometimes manifest himself in violating prohibitions, in individualism and selfishness, or even simply in crimes (Manfred, Corsair or Cain in Byron). The ethical and aesthetic in assessing a person might not coincide. In this, the romantics differed greatly from the enlighteners, who, on the contrary, completely merged the ethical and aesthetic principles in their assessment of the hero.

The enlighteners of the 18th century created many positive heroes who were carriers of high moral values ​​and, in their opinion, embodied reason and natural norms. Thus, D. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver became the symbols of the new, “natural,” rational hero. Of course, the true hero of the Enlightenment is Goethe's Faust.

A romantic hero is not just a positive hero, he is not even always positive; a romantic hero is a hero who reflects the poet’s longing for an ideal. After all, the question of whether the Demon in Lermontov or Conrad in Byron’s “Corsair” is positive or negative does not arise at all - they are majestic, containing in their appearance, in their deeds, indomitable strength of spirit. A romantic hero, as V. G. Belinsky wrote, is “a person who relies on himself,” a person who opposes himself to the entire world around him.

An example of a romantic hero is Julien Sorel from Stendhal's novel The Red and the Black. The personal fate of Julien Sorel was closely dependent on this change in historical weather. From the past he borrows his internal code of honor, the present condemns him to dishonor. According to his inclinations as a “man of 1993”, a fan of revolutionaries and Napoleon, he was “too late to be born”. The time has passed when positions were won through personal valor, courage, and intelligence. Nowadays, for the “hunt for happiness,” the plebeian is offered the only help that is in use among the children of timelessness: calculating and hypocritical piety. The color of luck has changed, as when turning a roulette wheel: today, in order to win, you need to bet not on red, but on black. And the young man, obsessed with the dream of fame, is faced with a choice: either to perish in obscurity, or to try to assert himself by adapting to his age, putting on the “uniform of the times” - a cassock. He turns away from his friends and serves those whom he despises in his soul; an atheist, he pretends to be a saint; a fan of the Jacobins - trying to penetrate the circle of aristocrats; being endowed with a sharp mind, he agrees with fools. Realizing that “everyone is for himself in this desert of selfishness called life,” he rushed into battle in the hope of winning with the weapons forced upon him.

And yet, Sorel, having taken the path of adaptation, did not completely become an opportunist; Having chosen the methods of winning happiness accepted by everyone around him, he did not fully share their morality. And the point here is not simply that a gifted young man is immeasurably smarter than the mediocrities in whose service he is. His hypocrisy itself is not humiliated submission, but a kind of challenge to society, accompanied by a refusal to recognize the right of the “masters of life” to respect and their claims to set moral principles for their subordinates. The top are the enemy, vile, insidious, vindictive. Taking advantage of their favor, Sorel, however, does not know that he owes his conscience to them, since, even treating a capable young man kindly, they see him not as a person, but as an efficient servant.

An ardent heart, energy, sincerity, courage and strength of character, a morally healthy attitude towards the world and people, a constant need for action, for work, for the fruitful work of the intellect, humane responsiveness to people, respect for ordinary workers, love for nature, beauty in life and art, all this distinguished Julien’s nature, and he had to suppress all this in himself, trying to adapt to the animal laws of the world around him. This attempt was unsuccessful: “Julien retreated before the judgment of his conscience, he could not overcome his craving for justice.”

Prometheus became one of the favorite symbols of romanticism, embodying courage, heroism, self-sacrifice, unbending will and intransigence. An example of a work based on the myth of Prometheus is the poem by P.B. Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound", which is one of the poet's most significant works. Shelley changed the outcome of the mythological plot, in which, as is known, Prometheus nevertheless reconciled with Zeus. The poet himself wrote: “I was against such a pitiful outcome as the reconciliation of a fighter for humanity with his oppressor.” Shelley creates from the image of Prometheus an ideal hero, punished by the gods for violating their will and helping people. In Shelley's poem, the torment of Prometheus is rewarded with the triumph of his liberation. The fantastic creature Demogorgon, appearing in the third part of the poem, overthrows Zeus, proclaiming: “There is no return for the tyranny of heaven, and there is no successor for you.”

Female images of romanticism are also contradictory, but extraordinary. Many authors of the Romantic era returned to the story of Medea. The Austrian writer of the era of romanticism F. Grillparzer wrote the trilogy “The Golden Fleece”, which reflected the “tragedy of fate” characteristic of German romanticism. “The Golden Fleece” is often called the most complete dramatic version of the “biography” of the ancient Greek heroine. In the first part, the one-act drama “The Guest,” we see Medea as a very young girl, forced to endure her tyrant father. She prevents the murder of Phrixus, their guest, who fled to Colchis on a golden ram. It was he who sacrificed the golden fleece ram to Zeus in gratitude for saving him from death and hung the golden fleece in the sacred grove of Ares. The seekers of the Golden Fleece appear before us in the four-act play “The Argonauts.” In it, Medea desperately but unsuccessfully tries to fight her feelings for Jason, against her will, becoming his accomplice. In the third part, the five-act tragedy “Medea,” the story reaches its climax. Medea, brought by Jason to Corinth, appears to others as a stranger from barbarian lands, a sorceress and sorceress. In the works of romantics, it is quite common to see the phenomenon that foreignness lies at the heart of many insoluble conflicts. Returning to his homeland in Corinth, Jason is ashamed of his girlfriend, but still refuses to fulfill Creon’s demand and drive her away. And only having fallen in love with his daughter, Jason himself began to hate Medea.

The main tragic theme of Grillparzer's Medea is her loneliness, because even her own children are ashamed and avoid her. Medea is not destined to get rid of this punishment even in Delphi, where she fled after the murder of Creusa and her sons. Grillparzer did not at all seek to justify his heroine, but it was important for him to discover the motives for her actions. Grillparzer's Medea, the daughter of a distant barbarian country, has not accepted the fate prepared for her, she rebels against someone else's way of life, and this greatly attracted romantics.

The image of Medea, striking in its inconsistency, is seen by many in a transformed form in the heroines of Stendhal and Barbet d'Aurevilly. Both writers portray the deadly Medea in different ideological contexts, but invariably endow her with a sense of alienation, which turns out to be detrimental to the integrity of the individual and, therefore, entails itself death.

Many literary scholars correlate the image of Medea with the image of the heroine of the novel “Bewitched” by Barbet d’Aurevilly, Jeanne-Madeleine de Feardan, as well as with the image of the famous heroine of Stendhal’s novel “The Red and the Black” Matilda. Here we see three main components of the famous myth: unexpected, stormy the birth of passion, magical actions with either good or harmful intentions, the revenge of an abandoned witch - a rejected woman.

These are just some examples of romantic heroes and heroines.

The revolution proclaimed individual freedom, opening up “unexplored new roads” before it, but this same revolution gave birth to the bourgeois order, the spirit of acquisition and selfishness. These two sides of personality (the pathos of freedom and individualism) manifest themselves very complexly in the romantic concept of the world and man. V. G. Belinsky found a wonderful formula when speaking about Byron (and his hero): “this is a human personality, indignant against the general and, in his proud rebellion, leaning on himself.”

However, in the depths of romanticism, another type of personality is formed. This is, first of all, the personality of an artist - a poet, musician, painter, also elevated above the crowd of ordinary people, officials, property owners, and secular loafers. Here we are no longer talking about the claims of an exceptional individual, but about the rights of a true artist to judge the world and people.

The romantic image of the artist (for example, among German writers) is not always adequate to Byron’s hero. Moreover, Byron's individualist hero is contrasted with a universal personality that strives for the highest harmony (as if absorbing all the diversity of the world). The universality of such a personality is the antithesis of any limitation of a person, whether associated with narrow mercantile interests, or with a thirst for profit that destroys personality, etc.

Romantics did not always correctly assess the social consequences of revolutions. But they were acutely aware of the anti-aesthetic nature of society, which threatens the very existence of art, in which “heartless purity” reigns. The romantic artist, unlike some writers of the second half of the 19th century, did not at all seek to hide from the world in an “ivory tower.” But he felt tragically lonely, suffocating from this loneliness.

Thus, in romanticism two antagonistic concepts of personality can be distinguished: individualistic and universalistic. Their fate in the subsequent development of world culture was ambiguous. The rebellion of Byron's individualist hero was beautiful and captivated his contemporaries, but at the same time its futility was quickly revealed. History has harshly condemned the claims of an individual to create his own court. On the other hand, the idea of ​​universality reflected the longing for the ideal of a comprehensively developed person, free from the limitations of bourgeois society.

The concept of "romanticism" is often used as a synonym for the concept of "romance". This means a tendency to look at the world through rose-colored glasses and an active life position. Or they associate this concept with love and any actions for the sake of their loved one. But romanticism has several meanings. The article will discuss the narrower understanding that is used for the literary term, and the main character traits of the romantic hero.

Characteristic features of the style

Romanticism is a movement in literature that arose in Russia at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th century. This style proclaims the cult of nature and natural human feelings. New characteristic features of romantic literature are freedom of expression, the value of individualism and the original character traits of the main character. Representatives of the movement abandoned rationalism and the primacy of the mind, which were characteristic of the Enlightenment, and put the emotional and spiritual aspects of man at the forefront.

In their works, the authors depict not the real world, which was too vulgar and base for them, but the inner universe of the character. And through the prism of his feelings and emotions, the outlines of the real world are visible, the laws and thoughts of which he refuses to obey.

Main conflict

The central conflict of all works written in the era of romanticism is the conflict between the individual and society as a whole. Here the main character goes against the established rules in his environment. Moreover, the motives for such behavior can be different - actions can either be for the benefit of society or have a selfish plan. In this case, as a rule, the hero loses this fight, and the work ends with his death.

A romantic is a special and in most cases very mysterious person who tries to resist the power of nature or society. At the same time, the conflict develops into an internal struggle of contradictions that occurs in the soul of the main character. In other words, the central character is built on antitheses.

Although in this literary genre the individuality of the main character is valued, literary scholars have identified which features of romantic heroes are the main ones. But, even despite the similarities, each character is unique in its own way, since they are only general criteria for identifying a style.

Ideals of society

The main feature of a romantic hero is that he does not accept the generally known ideals of society. The main character has his own ideas about the values ​​of life, which he tries to defend. He seems to challenge the entire world around him, and not an individual person or group of people. Here we are talking about the ideological confrontation of one person against the whole world.

Moreover, in his rebellion, the main character chooses one of two extremes. Or these are unattainable, highly spiritual goals, and the character is trying to become equal to the Creator himself. In another case, the hero indulges in all sorts of sins, without feeling the extent of his moral fall into the abyss.

Bright personality

If one person is able to withstand the whole world, then it is as large-scale and complex as the whole world. The main character of romantic literature always stands out in society both externally and internally. In the soul of the character there is a constant conflict between the stereotypes already laid down by society and his own views and ideas.

Loneliness

One of the saddest traits of a romantic hero is his tragic loneliness. Since the character is opposed to the whole world, he remains completely alone. There is no person who would understand him. Therefore, he either himself flees from the society he hates, or he himself becomes an exile. Otherwise, the romantic hero would no longer be like that. Therefore, romantic writers focus all their attention on the psychological portrait of the central character.

Either the past or the future

The traits of a romantic hero do not allow him to live in the present. The character is trying to find his ideals in the past, when religious feeling was strong in the hearts of people. Or he consoles himself with happy utopias that supposedly await him in the future. But in any case, the main character is not satisfied with the era of dull bourgeois reality.

Individualism

As already mentioned, the hallmark of the romantic hero is his individualism. But it’s not easy to be “different from others.” This is a fundamental difference from all the people who surround the main character. Moreover, if a character chooses a sinful path, then he realizes that he is different from others. And this difference is taken to the extreme - the cult of personality of the protagonist, where all actions have an exclusively selfish motive.

The era of romanticism in Russia

The founder of Russian romanticism is considered to be the poet Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. He creates several ballads and poems (“Ondine”, “The Sleeping Princess” and so on), in which there is a deep philosophical meaning and a desire for moral ideals. His works are imbued with his own experiences and reflections.

Then Zhukovsky was replaced by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol and Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov. They leave the imprint of an ideological crisis on the public consciousness, which is impressed by the failure of the Decembrist uprising. For this reason, the creativity of these people is described as disappointment in real life and an attempt to escape into their fictional world, filled with beauty and harmony. The main characters of their works lose interest in earthly life and come into conflict with the outside world.

One of the features of romanticism is its appeal to the history of the people and their folklore. This is most clearly seen in the work “Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the young guardsman and the daring merchant Kalashnikov” and a cycle of poems and poems dedicated to the Caucasus. Lermontov perceived it as the homeland of free and proud people. They opposed a slave country that was under the rule of Nicholas I.

The early works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin are also imbued with the idea of ​​romanticism. An example would be “Eugene Onegin” or “The Queen of Spades”.

Conclusion

A romantic hero, no matter who he is - a rebel, a loner, a dreamer or a noble romantic - is always an exceptional person, with indomitable passions, he is always internally strong. This person has a pathetic, appealing speech.

We looked at two romantic heroes: Vladimir Lensky A. Pushkin and Mtsyri M. Lermontov. They are typical romantic heroes of their time.

Romantics are characterized by confusion and confusion in front of the world around them, and the tragedy of the individual’s fate. Romantic poets deny reality; the idea of ​​two worlds was present in all works. In addition, the romantic artist never tried to accurately reproduce reality, because it was more important for him to express his attitude towards it, moreover, to create his own, fictional image of the world, often based on the principle of contrast with the surrounding life, in order to convey through this fiction, through contrast to the reader both his ideal and his rejection of the world he denies.

The Romantics sought to free the individual from superstitions and power, because for them every person is unique and unrepeatable, they opposed vulgarity and evil. They are characterized by the depiction of strong passions, spiritualized, and healing nature, which was also not realistic: the landscape in their works is either very bright, or, on the contrary, thickening the colors, it is devoid of halftones. So they tried to better convey the feelings of the characters. Here are the names of the best romantic writers in the world: Novalis, Jean Paul, Hoffmann, W. Wordsworth, W. Scott, J. Byron, V. Hugo, A. Lamartine, A. Miskevich, E. Poe, G. Melville and our Russian poets - M.Yu. Lermontov, F.I. Tyutchev, A.S. Pushkin.

In our country, romanticism appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. The development of romanticism occurred inseparably from the general movement of European romantic literature, but the work of our romantics has its own specifics, explained by the peculiarities of national history. In Russia, important events that had a huge impact on the entire course of artistic development of our country were the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Decembrist uprising in December 1825.

The restless, rebellious nature of the romantic movement at that time could not have been better suited to the atmosphere of national upsurge, the thirst for renewal and transformation of life that awakened in Russian society, and in particular the romantic poets.

Bibliography

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2. Belskaya L.L. The motive of loneliness in Russian poetry: From Lermontov to Mayakovsky. - M.: Russian speech, 2001. - 163 p. .

3. Blagoy D.D. Lermontov and Pushkin: Life and work of M.Yu. Lermontov. - M., 1941. - P.23-83

4. Russian literature of the 19th century: Large educational reference book. M.: Bustard, 2004. - 692 p.

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It is distinguished by an interest in fairy-tale and mythological motifs, which is especially clearly expressed in the works of the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, and Hoffmann. Heine, starting his work within the framework of romanticism, later subjected it to critical revision.
Closely related to German influences is the emergence of Romanticism in England, where its first representatives were the poets of the “Lake School”, Wordsworth and Coleridge. They established the theoretical foundations of their direction, having become acquainted, during a trip to Germany, with the philosophy of Schelling and the views of the first German romantics. English romanticism is characterized by an interest in social problems: they contrast modern bourgeois society with old, pre-bourgeois relationships, glorification of nature, simple, natural feelings.
A prominent representative of English romanticism is Byron, who, in the words of Pushkin, “clothed himself in dull romanticism and hopeless egoism.” His work is imbued with the pathos of struggle and protest against the modern world, glorifying freedom and individualism.
The works of Shelley, John Keats, and William Blake also belong to English romanticism.
Romanticism became widespread in other European countries, for example, in France (Chateaubriand, J. Stael, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Prosper Merimee, George Sand), Italy (N.U. Foscolo, A. Manzoni, Leopardi) , Poland (Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiński, Cyprian Norwid) and in the USA (Washington Irving, Cooper, W. C. Bryant, Edgar Poe, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Herman Melville)
It is usually believed that in Russia romanticism appears in the poetry of V.A. Zhukovsky (although some Russian poetic works of the 1790-1800s are often attributed to the pre-romantic movement developing from sentimentalism). In Russian romanticism, freedom from classical conventions appears, a ballad and a romantic drama are created. A new idea is being established about the essence and meaning of poetry, which is recognized as an independent sphere of life, an expression of the highest, ideal aspirations of man; the old view, according to which poetry seemed to be empty fun, something completely serviceable, turns out to be no longer possible.
Early poetry of A.S. Pushkin also developed within the framework of romanticism. The poetry of M.Yu. can be considered the pinnacle of Russian romanticism. Lermontov, "Russian Byron". Philosophical lyrics by F.I. Tyutchev is both the completion and overcoming of romanticism in Russia.

Chapter 1. Russian romantic poet Vladimir Lensky

In a creative dispute with supporters and practitioners of romanticism, fighting for the establishment of realism, Pushkin introduced into the novel a collective image of a Russian romantic poet at the turn of the 1910s-20s. Vladimir Lensky. Developing this character, he analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of romanticism. The author's attitude towards Lensky is complex: good-natured irony, sympathy for the hero in love, bitterness over his premature and senseless death.
While working on “Eugene Onegin,” Pushkin, as already mentioned, experienced the tragedy of the defeat of the Decembrist uprising. Among those executed and taken to hard labor were many writers, Pushkin’s friends: K. Ryleev, the largest representative of the civil romanticism of the Decembrists; A. Bestuzhev, V. Kuchelbecker, A. Odoevsky, V. Raevsky. The sixth chapter of the novel, which tells about the duel and death of Lensky, was created in 1826, largely after the news of the execution of Ryleev and his comrades... In the subtext of the stanzas dedicated to Lensky's duel - Pushkin's painfully painful experience. The excited story about Lensky's death and the author's lyrical thoughts about the possible fate of the hero were perceived by the most sensitive contemporaries as a poetic requiem for the Decembrists. The image of Lensky is multifaceted and should not be interpreted unambiguously.
Describing his hero, Pushkin says that Lensky was brought up reading Schiller and Goethe (one can assume that the young poet had good taste if he chose such great teachers) and was a capable poet:
And muses of sublime art,
Lucky, he was not ashamed:
He proudly preserved in his songs
Always high feelings
Gusts of a virgin dream
And the beauty of important simplicity.
And further:
He sang love, obedient to love,
And his song was clear,
Like the thoughts of a simple-minded maiden,
Like a baby's dream, like the moon
In the deserts of the serene sky.
Let us note that the concepts of “simplicity” and “clarity” in the poetry of the romantic Lensky do not coincide with the requirement of simplicity and clarity characteristic of the realist Pushkin. For Lensky, they come from ignorance of life, from aspiration to the world of dreams, they are generated by “poetic prejudices of the soul.” Pushkin the realist speaks of simplicity and clarity in poetry, meaning such qualities of realistic literature that are determined by a sober view of life, aspiration understand its patterns and find clear forms of its embodiment in artistic images.
Pushkin points out one feature of the character of Lensky the poet: to express his feelings bookishly and artificially. Here Lensky came to the grave of Olga’s father:
Returned to his penates,
Vladimir Lensky visited
Neighbor's humble monument,
And he dedicated his sigh to the ashes;
And my heart was sad for a long time.
“Poor Yorick,” he said sadly, “
He held me in his arms.
How often did I play as a child?
His Ochakov medal!
He read Olga for me,
He said: Will I wait for the day?
And, full of sincere sadness,
Vladimir immediately drew
His funeral madrigal.
Naturalness and mannerism in the expression of feelings were surprisingly organically combined. On the one hand, Lensky devotes a sigh to the ashes instead of just sighing; and on the other hand, he behaves completely naturally: “And my heart was sad for a long time.” And this is suddenly followed by a quote from Shakespeare (“Poor Yorick...”), which is perceived as another “dedication” of the sigh to Larin. And then again a completely natural memory of the deceased.
Another example. Eve of the duel. Before the fight Olga Lensky. Her simple-minded question: “Why did you disappear so early?” disarmed the young man and dramatically changed his state of mind.
Jealousy and annoyance disappeared
Before this clarity of sight...
Very natural behavior of a loving and jealous young man, who “was ignorant at heart.” The transition from doubts about Olga’s feelings to the hope of her reciprocal feelings gives a new turn to Lensky’s thoughts: he convinces himself that he must protect Olga from the “corrupter” Onegin.
And again thoughtful, sad
Before my dear Olga,
Vladimir has no power
Remind her of yesterday;
He thinks: “I will be her savior.”
I will not tolerate the corrupter
Fire and sighs and praises
He tempted the young heart;
So that the despicable, poisonous worm
Sharpened lily stalk;
To the two-morning flower
Withered still half-open."
All this meant, friends:
I'm shooting with a friend.
The situation that led to a quarrel between two friends, as Lensky imagines it, is far from reality. In addition, being alone with his thoughts, the poet does not express them in ordinary words, but resorts to literary cliches (Onegin is a despicable, poisonous worm; Olga is a lily stalk, a two-morning flower), book words: savior, corrupter.
Pushkin also finds other techniques for depicting Lensky’s character. There is a slight irony here: the contrast between the excited state of the young man and Olga’s usual behavior upon meeting (“... as before, Olenka jumped from the porch to meet the poor singer); and a comic resolution of the severity of the situation by introducing a colloquial turn of phrase: “And silently he hung his nose”; and the author’s conclusion: “All this meant, friends: I’m shooting with a friend.” Pushkin translates the content of Lensky's monologue into ordinary, natural spoken language. The author's assessment of everything that is happening as absurdity has been introduced (a duel with a friend).
Lensky anticipates the tragic outcome of the fight for him. As the fateful hour approaches, the melancholy mood intensifies (“A heart full of melancholy sank within him; Saying goodbye to the young maiden, It seemed to be torn”). The first phrase of his elegy:
Where, where have you gone,
Are the golden days of my spring?
a typically romantic motive of complaint about the early loss of youth.
The above examples indicate that Lensky was immediately conceived as a typical image of a Russian romantic poet at the turn of the 10-20s of the 19th century.
Lensky is depicted in only a few chapters of the novel, so analysis of this image makes it easier to discern that innovative feature of Pushkin’s realism, which is expressed in the ambiguity of the assessments given by the author to his heroes. In these assessments, in relation to the image of Lensky, sympathy, irony, sadness, joke, and sorrow are expressed. Considered separately, these assessments can lead to one-sided conclusions. Taken in conjunction, they help to more correctly understand the meaning of Lensky’s image and to more fully sense its vitality. There is no specificity in the image of the young poet. The further development of Lensky, if he had remained alive, did not exclude the possibility of his transformation into a romantic poet of the Decembrist orientation (he could “be hanged like Ryleev”) under appropriate circumstances.

Chapter 2. M.Yu. Lermontov - "Russian Byron"

2.1 Lermontov's poetry

Lermontov's poetry is inextricably linked with his personality; it is, in the full sense, a poetic autobiography. The main features of Lermontov's nature are an unusually developed self-awareness, efficiency and depth of the moral world, courageous idealism of life aspirations.
All these features were embodied in his works, from the earliest prose and poetic outpourings to mature poems and novels.
Even in his youthful “Tale”, Lermontov glorified will as a perfect, irresistible spiritual energy: “to want means to hate, love, regret, rejoice, live”...
Hence his fiery requests for strong open feelings, indignation at petty and cowardly passions; hence his demonism, which developed amid forced loneliness and contempt for the surrounding society. But demonism is by no means a negative mood: “I need to love,” the poet confessed, and Belinsky guessed this trait after the first serious conversation with Lermontov: “I was pleased to see in his rational, chilled and embittered view of life and people the seeds of deep faith in the dignity of both. I told him this; he smiled and said: God willing."
Lermontov's demonism is the highest level of idealism, the same as the dreams of people of the 18th century about an all-perfect natural man, about freedom and the virtues of the golden age; this is the poetry of Rousseau and Schiller.
Such an ideal is the most daring, irreconcilable denial of reality - and young Lermontov would like to throw off the “educated chains” and be transported to the idyllic kingdom of primitive humanity. Hence the fanatical adoration of nature, the passionate penetration of its beauty and power. And all these features cannot be associated with any external influence; they existed in Lermontov even before he met Byron and merged only into a more powerful and mature harmony when he recognized this truly dear soul to him.
In contrast to the disappointment of Chateaubriand's Rene, rooted solely in egoism and self-adoration, Lermontov's disappointment is a militant protest against “baseness and oddities”, in the name of sincere feeling and courageous thought.
Before us is poetry not of disappointment, but of sadness and anger. All Lermontov's heroes - Demon, Izmail-Bey, Mtsyri, Arseny - are filled with these feelings. The most real of them - Pechorin - embodies the most, apparently, everyday disappointment; but this is a completely different person than the “Moscow Childe Harold” - Onegin. He has many negative traits: selfishness, pettiness, pride, often heartlessness, but next to them is a sincere attitude towards himself. “If I am the cause of the misfortune of others, then I myself am no less unhappy” - absolutely truthful words in his mouth. More than once he yearns for a failed life; on other soil, in another air, this strong organism would undoubtedly have found a more honorable cause than persecuting the Grushnitskys.
The great and the insignificant coexist side by side in him, and if it were necessary to distinguish between the two, the great would have to be attributed to the individual, and the insignificant to society...
Lermontov's creativity gradually descended from behind the clouds and from the Caucasus mountains. It stopped at creating very real types and became public and national. In Russian literature of the 19th century there is not a single noble motive in which the untimely silenced voice of Lermontov is not heard: her sadness about the pitiful phenomena of Russian life is an echo of the life of a poet who sadly looked at his generation; in her indignation at the slavery of thought and the moral insignificance of her contemporaries, Lermontov’s demonic impulses are heard; her laughter at stupidity and vulgar comedy can already be heard in Pechorin’s destructive sarcasms against Grushnitsky.

2.2 Mtsyri as a romantic hero

The poem "Mtsyri" is the fruit of the active and intense creative work of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov. Even in his youth, the poet’s imagination painted the image of a young man, on the threshold of death, delivering an angry, protesting speech to his listener - a senior monk. In the poem “Confession” (1830, the action takes place in Spain), the hero, imprisoned, proclaims the right to love, which is higher than the monastery regulations. His passion for the Caucasus, the desire to depict situations in which the courageous character of the hero can be revealed to the fullest, leads Lermontov, at the time of the highest flowering of his talent, to create the poem "Mtsyri" (1840), repeating many poems from the previous stages of the work over the same image.
Before "Mtsyri" the poem "The Fugitive" was written. In it, Lermontov develops the theme of punishment for cowardice and betrayal. Brief plot: a traitor to duty, having forgotten about his homeland, Harun fled from the battlefield without taking revenge on his enemies for the death of his father and brothers. But neither a friend, nor a lover, nor a mother will accept the fugitive; even everyone will turn away from his corpse, and no one will take him to the cemetery. The poem called for heroism, for the fight for the freedom of the homeland. In the poem "Mtsyri" Lermontov develops the idea of ​​courage and protest inherent in "Confession" and the poem "The Fugitive". In "Mtsyri" the poet almost completely excluded the love motive, which played such a significant role in "Confession" (the love of the hero-monk for a nun). This motive was reflected only in a brief meeting between Mtsyri and a Georgian woman near a mountain stream.
The hero, defeating the involuntary impulse of a young heart, renounces personal happiness in the name of the ideal of freedom. The patriotic idea is combined in the poem with the theme of freedom, as in the works of the Decembrist poets. Lermontov does not share these concepts: love for the fatherland and thirst for will merge into one, but “fiery passion.” The monastery becomes a prison for Mtsyri, the cells seem stuffy to him, the walls seem gloomy and deaf, the monk guards seem cowardly and pitiful, and he himself seems like a slave and a prisoner. His desire to find out whether “we were born into this world for freedom or prison” is due to a passionate impulse for freedom. Short days for escape are his will. Only outside the monastery he lived, and did not vegetate. Only these days he calls bliss.
Mtsyri's freedom-loving patriotism is least of all similar to a dreamy love for his native beautiful landscapes and expensive graves, although the hero yearns for them too. It is precisely because he truly loves his homeland that he wants to fight for the freedom of his homeland. But at the same time, the poet with undoubted sympathy sings of the warlike dreams of the young man. The poem does not fully reveal the hero’s aspirations, but they are palpable in hints. Mtsyri remembers his father and acquaintances first of all as warriors; It’s no coincidence that he dreams of battles in which he... wins, it is not for nothing that his dreams draw him into the “wonderful world of worries and battles.” He is convinced that he could be “in the land of his fathers, not the last of the daredevils.” Although fate did not allow Mtsyri to experience the rapture of battle, with all the structure of his feelings he is a warrior. He was distinguished by his stern restraint even from his childhood. The young man, proud of this, says: “Do you remember, in my childhood I never knew tears.” He gives vent to tears only during his escape, because no one sees them.
The tragic loneliness in the monastery strengthened Mtsyri's will. It is no coincidence that he fled from the monastery on a stormy night: what frightened the fearful monks filled his heart with a feeling of brotherhood with the thunderstorm. Mtsyri's courage and fortitude are most clearly demonstrated in the battle with the leopard. He was not afraid of the grave, because he knew; returning to the monastery is a continuation of previous suffering. The tragic ending indicates that the approach of death does not weaken the spirit of the hero and the power of his freedom-loving patriotism. The old monk's admonitions do not make him repent. Even now he would “exchange paradise and eternity” for a few minutes of life among his loved ones (poems that displeased the censorship). It was not his fault if he failed to join the ranks of fighters for what he considered his sacred duty: the circumstances turned out to be insurmountable, and he “argued with fate” in vain. Defeated, he is not spiritually broken and remains a positive image of our literature, and his masculinity, integrity, heroism were a reproach to the fragmented hearts of fearful and inactive contemporaries from the noble society. The Caucasian landscape is introduced into the poem mainly as a means of revealing the image of the hero.
Despising his surroundings, Mtsyri feels only kinship with nature. Imprisoned in a monastery, he compares himself to a pale, typical leaf growing between damp slabs. Having broken free, he, along with the sleepy flowers, raises his head when the east turns rich. A child of nature, he falls to the ground and, like a fairy-tale hero, learns the secret of bird songs, the mysteries of their prophetic chirping. He understands the dispute between the stream and the stones, the thought of separated rocks yearning to meet. His gaze is sharpened: he notices the shine of the snake’s scales and the shimmer of silver on the fur of the leopard, he sees the jagged teeth of distant mountains and a pale strip “between the dark sky and earth”, it seems to him that his “diligent gaze” could follow the flight of angels through the transparent blue of the sky . (The verse of the poem also corresponds to the character of the hero). Lermontov's poem continues the traditions of advanced romanticism; Mtsyri, full of fiery passions, gloomy and lonely, revealing his “soul” in a confessional story, is perceived as the hero of romantic poems.
However, Lermontov, who created “Mtsyri” in those years when the realistic novel “Hero of Our Time” was also being created, introduces features into his work that are not present in his earlier poems. If the past of the heroes of “Confession” and “Boyar Orsha” remains completely unknown, and we do not know the social conditions that shaped their characters, then the lines about Mtsyri’s unhappy childhood and fatherland help to better understand the hero’s experiences and thoughts. The very form of confession, characteristic of romantic poems, is associated with the desire to reveal deeper - to “tell the soul.” This psychologism of the work and the detailing of the hero’s experiences are natural for the poet, who at the same time was creating a socio-psychological novel. The combination of abundant metaphors of a romantic nature in the confession itself (images of fire, ardor) with the realistically accurate and poetically sparse speech of the introduction is expressive. ("Once upon a time a Russian general...")
The romantic poem testified to the growth of realistic tendencies in Lermontov’s work. Lermontov entered Russian literature as a successor to the traditions of Pushkin and the Decembrist poets, and at the same time as a new link in the chain of development of national culture. According to Belinsky, he introduced his own “Lermontovian element” into national literature. Briefly explaining what should be included in this definition, the critic noted the “original living thought” in his poems as the first characteristic feature of the poet’s creative heritage. Belinsky repeated: “Everything breathes with original and creative thought.”

Conclusion

The romantic hero, whether he is a rebel, a loner, a dreamer or a noble