Romain Rolland ends the novel: Jean Christophe. Gilenson B.A.: History of foreign literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries
Known to Russian readers, perhaps, like no other French writer. His work was perceived as an example of humanism and realism. This article tells about one of his most significant works Romain Rolland - "Jean-Christophe" - summary novel, the history of writing, features are given in the article.
A little about the author
The French writer was born in January 1866 in the city of Clamcy in the family of a notary. From childhood he was fond of the history of music and played the piano. Graduated from the prestigious Lyceum in Clamcy and high school Ecole Normal in Paris. After graduation, he lived in Italy for two years, where he studied art. He returned to his homeland and defended his dissertation at the Sorbonne. As a professor of music history, he lectured at the Sorbonne.
Rolland was well versed in philosophy and painting. Produced a music magazine, published art and dramatic works. He appreciated the work of Leo Tolstoy, knew him personally and corresponded. He defined his moral code as follows: “Dedicate life to the good of people, persevere in the search for truth.”
Creativity Rolland
Romain Rolland left an extremely diverse creative heritage: plays, essays, novels, memoirs and biographies - Leo Tolstoy, Michelangelo, Ramakrishna, Mahatma Gandhi, Beethoven, Vivekananda. In 1914 he completed the novel "Jean-Christophe", followed by "Cola Breugnon". In 1920 he published the story Pierre and Luce. The writer's articles on the tasks of art and social contradictions are collected in the collections Through the Revolution to Peace and Fifteen Years of Struggle.
In 1933, the novel "The Enchanted Soul" was published, followed by the essays "Lenin", "Valmy", the drama "Robespierre". In 1942 Rolland completed autobiographical work"Inner Journey", in 1946 "Circumnavigation" was published, in 1944 - a cycle about Beethoven, a biography of Peguy. A few months before death French writer lucky to see Paris free. Romain Rolland died in December 1944 in Vezlay, occupied by the Germans.
"Jean Christophe"
The most significant work is Jean-Christophe. The writer worked on it for eight years. The idea to create a "musical novel" was born in the late 90s. According to the author, he did not want to "analyze", but to evoke a feeling in the reader like music. This desire determined the genre specifics of the work.
Romain Rolland and his novel "Jean-Christophe" destroyed the traditional ideas about the form of the novel. Each of the three parts has its own rhythm and tonality. This is a novel-symphony, a novel-flow. Without disturbing the usual course, the life of the hero, the impressions and emotions of Jean-Christophe open before us. In books 1 and 5, Rolland Romain remarkably revealed the first impressions of the child, then, already in Paris, young man. Insert episodes and digressions create an atmosphere of emotional uplift.
- In volume I of Jean Christophe, Romain Rolland covers early years hero - the first impulses of the heart and feelings, the first losses and trials. But they help Christoph understand his mission in life.
- Volume II tells how young hero will come to grips with the lies that corrode both art and society.
- Volume III, on the contrary, sounds like a song in praise of love and friendship.
- Volume IV is the middle life path, on which the spiritual storms and doubts of the hero are ready to smash everything, but are resolved by a serene ending.
Romain Rolland's ten-volume novel Jean-Christophe was published separate parts and immediately brought fame to its creator. After international recognition Rolland left the Sorbonne and devoted his life to creativity. Mainly thanks to "Jean-Christophe", the author was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1915, which he received only in 1916 because of the scandal that erupted around the anti-war articles published by Rolland.
The plot of the novel
At the heart of the book "Jean-Christophe" by Romain Rolland are constant motives and ethical postulates - rebirth through death, victory in defeat, defeat in victory. as the main character, musical genius Jean-Christophe realized the dream of " contemporary Beethoven". The plot is based on his biography.
Having rebelled against the violence and despotism of the German authorities, the hero of the novel flees to France, but European culture and he perceives politics as a "fair in the square" where everything is bought and sold. After going through many trials, Jean-Christophe understands that freedom is limited only for himself. So, alone, absurdly and accidentally perishes him best friend Olivie. At the end of the work, the hero loses his rebellious spirit, but remains true to his talent and nature.
The action of "Jean-Christophe" by Romain Rolland takes place in a small German town where a boy is born in a family of musicians. Little Christoph is delighted with everything - the sound of a drop, the singing of birds, the sound of the wind. Everywhere he hears music and, unnoticed by himself, comes up with melodies. Grandfather writes down and collects them in a separate notebook. Soon the boy becomes a court musician and earns his first money.
The father spends most of his income on drink and the mother is forced to work as a cook. Christoph realizes that they are poor and others laugh at their bad manners and illiteracy. To help the family, Christoph plays in the orchestra with his father and grandfather, gives music lessons. He has little contact with his peers, and the only consolation is conversations with his grandfather and a traveling merchant.
heavy losses
After the death of his grandfather, the family was on the verge of poverty. The father drinks, and the mother asks the duke to give the money earned by the father to his son. At one of the concerts, the father behaves disgustingly and he is refused a place. Christoph writes music and dreams of a great future.
But not everything is smooth in his life. He found a friend, but soon he and Otto broke up. Christoph fell in love with a girl from a noble family, but he was pointed out the difference in position. The father dies and the family is forced to move to more modest housing. Christoph meets the owner of a haberdashery shop, Sabina. The unexpected death of a beloved girl leaves a deep wound in his soul.
Uncle's words - "The main thing is not to get tired of wanting to live" - give him strength. Unknown forces wake up in it. He hears false notes in the works famous musicians and folk songs. Christoph declares this publicly and writes a melody. But the people are not ready for innovative music, and soon the whole city turns away from Christophe.
Forced escape
Acquaintance with French actress makes him think of going to Paris, but he cannot leave his mother. But fate decreed otherwise. On one of village holidays he quarrels with the soldiers, a criminal case is brought against him and he is forced to flee the country.
Dirty, bustling Paris met Christophe unfriendly. He earns his living by giving private lessons, and soon notices that French society is no better than German society. Party leaders cover up selfish interests with loud phrases. The press is false, and works of art are created to please the rich. The young man sees falsehood and mediocrity everywhere. The audience boos the symphony he composed.
Christophe is starving, but not giving up. After a serious illness, he feels renewed, and the unique charm of Paris opens before him. He has a friend - a young poet Olivier. In the house where they rent an apartment, people of different social strata live and shun each other. But Christophe's music brings them closer.
Confession
Glory comes to Christophe. He becomes a fashionable composer and the doors to secular society. At one of the receptions, Olivier meets Jacqueline, marries and leaves for the province. Soon the spouses return to Paris, but there is no former understanding between them. Jacqueline leaves her family for young lover and Olivier and their son move in with Christophe. But friends can no longer live under the same roof, as before, and he rents a separate apartment.
Christophe meets the revolutionaries, he does not attach importance to their ideas, but he likes to meet with them and argue. On the first of May, he goes to a demonstration and takes Olivier, who has not yet recovered from his illness, with him. During a clash with the police, his friend dies, but Christoph does not know about it - he is forced to flee to Switzerland, where he receives news of the death of a friend. He takes this tragedy hard, and the music becomes unbearable for him.
"The Gates Are Opening"
Christoph is gradually coming back to life, friends help him find students. A relationship develops between Christoph and the doctor's wife. When the betrayal is revealed, Anna tries to commit suicide, while Christophe flees the city for the mountains. He writes music and soon receives worldwide recognition.
One of Christophe's students falls in love with him and they dream of getting married. But her son in every possible way prevents the marriage of his mother: he pretends to have nervous attacks and cough. In the end, he really fell ill and died. Grace blames herself for his death and cannot bear it - she dies after her son.
Having lost the woman he loves, Christophe feels the thin thread that connects him to life break. But it is at this moment that he creates the most profound works. He arranges the fate of his son Olivier and introduces him to his daughter Grazia. Christoph is seriously ill, but carefully hides it, not wanting to overshadow the happiness of the young.
Dying Christoph lies in his room and hears the orchestra playing the anthem of life, remembers his mother, friends, lovers: “Here is the chord that I was looking for. The gates are opening."
The work of Romain Rolland
"Jean-Christophe": the structure of the novel, the image of the protagonist, features of poetics, genre specificity, the essence of innovation
"Jean-Christophe" is unusual by the very idea. This is a story about the life of a brilliant musician, from birth to death. The novel is also unusual in its structure: no romantic intrigue, few external events, but a lot of reflection, sometimes - pages of lyrical prose, and sometimes - transitions of the narrative into direct journalism. The manner of presentation is uneven, in places unusually elevated and not free from length; dialogues are expressive, saturated with thought and feeling, but bear little resemblance to everyday, everyday speech. Least of all "Jean-Christophe" resembled fiction for easy reading: the author clearly did not care about entertaining, did not really care about the complete general availability of his novel. Every now and then the names of composers and writers appear on its pages. different eras, various associations with works of art arise in the course of action; often in question and about such events of public and artistic life which are not so well known to the reading public.
And, despite all this, the novel won unexpectedly wide recognition. "Jean-Christophe" began to come out book after book. It began to be translated into foreign languages. Immediately upon completion of his work in 1913, Romain Rolland received the Grand Prize of the French Academy, and even earlier - the Order of the Legion of Honor. "Jean-Christophe" was perceived and realized as a social event, entered the circle literary works that defined the face artistic culture XX century. It is worth considering the reasons for this success.
In Jean-Christophe, the generation of 1904 found a basis for hope, for struggle, in social and historical conditions that had changed from those that had driven the people of previous generations to despair. The objective meaning of this historical change, reflected in its own way on the pages of the novel, is the advancement into the arena of history of the working class, which, despite wavering and mistakes, was gaining strength, gaining independence, and attracting non-proletarian sections of the working people to its side. Jean-Christophe reflected in its own way both the growing danger of war and the latent protest against it.
Such a characterization of the ideological essence of "Jean-Christophe" may seem at first glance too straightforward. After all, we still have before us the story of a musician, because we are talking about the formation, search, creative ascent of a composer, a man rebellious in his spirit, but by the very essence of his profession, far from political life. But indignation at the power of the owners, hostile to genuine culture and art, aversion to huckstering, philistinism, to the phenomena of bourgeois decay, protest against the oppression of man by man and, at the same time, the expectation of great historical shifts in people's lives - all this lives in the novel, animates it. . It is from here that the fundamental traits of Jean-Christophe's character and attitude are intransigence, independence and, at the same time, deep sympathy for the working people. And you can understand why French readers, tired of the twilight, decadent literature of the end of the century, imbued with the spirit of despondency and moral nihilism, perceived Jean-Christophe as a breath of fresh air.
The depth and complexity of the concept of the novel was not immediately revealed - not only to the general public, but also to critics and literary critics. However, readers of thinking, spiritually alive from the very beginning were attracted by the image of the main character - a rebel, creator, humanist, a man of a brave and generous soul. I was also attracted by the unusual artistic structure of the novel, in which the writer's faith in life, in the progressive movement of mankind, was embodied in a peculiar way.
"Jean-Christophe" is rich in harsh critical content, - both where the petty-bourgeois world of Germany is depicted, moving from loyal provincial vegetation to militaristic fury, and where the bourgeois (and literary, artistic) elite of France is shown without embellishment, mired in corruption and cynicism. The fifth book of the novel, where the Parisian “fair on the square” opens to the astonished, indignant gaze of Jean-Christophe, is distinguished by a special sharpness of tone. Rolland was well acquainted with the mores of the "fair" and said aloud about it what was on his mind, not being afraid to make powerful enemies for himself. He had to listen to reproaches about this book even from some friends, and he defended himself with great sincerity. “Attacking the corrupt French,” says Romain Rolland through the mouth of his hero, “I defend France ... You need to tell her the truth, especially when you love her.” This principled position of the French master was able to understand - both in his country and abroad - the most insightful readers of his novel. Romain Rolland tried in the subsequent development of the action of the novel to "restore the measure." Friendship with the French writer Olivier, closer personal contacts with Parisian neighbors, far from the dirty bustle of the "fair" - all this helps Jean-Christophe to see "true France ..." more clearly. And as the novel progresses, the abyss that separates the oppressed from the oppressors opens up ever deeper.
If little Jean-Christophe first knew injustice when he, the son of a visiting cook, was insulted and beaten by arrogant barchuks, then adult Jean-Christophe Kraft is horrified, looking at the living conditions of the Parisian poor. And together with Christophe, his friend Olivier painfully reflects on the grief of the destitute. With increasing acuteness, the problem of the revolutionary transformation of the world rises in Jean-Christophe, especially in his penultimate book, The Burning Bush. It rises - and turns out to be a stumbling block both for Rolland himself and for the heroes who are close to him in spirit.
Romain Rolland soberly saw weak sides of the French working-class movement before the First World War - disunity into separate trends and groups, the sectarian narrowness of some, the opportunism of others "anarchist phrase-mongering of the third. All this to some extent obscured the real historical prospects of the proletariat in his eyes. Doubts, partly prejudices of the writer (as well as insufficient knowledge of the material) were reflected in those chapters of the novel that deal with the attempts of Jean-Christophe and Olivier to take part in the struggle of the working class.The barrier between the heroes of Rolland and the leaders of proletarian organizations are those features that were characteristic of the writer himself no less than his heroes: distrust of politics, heightened moral rigor... There is a pattern in the fact that Jean-Christophe, after the tragic death of Olivier in a fight with the police, completely departs from public life.
It would be unfair to suspect Jean-Christophe (and even more so Rolland himself) of intellectual arrogance, a kind of spiritual aristocracy. No, an innovative musician throughout his life is drawn to ordinary workers, he knows how to find with them mutual language. Among the characters of the novel there are many simple and honest people with soul, open to art. Christoph finds support in friendship with them.
Jean-Christophe's sunset is given in soft colors. After a long life that has passed in deprivation, unrest, hard work, he has the right to consider himself a winner. He did not bow to the commercial mores of the "fair in the square", did not adapt to its vulgar tastes. His music, bold, full of energy, unusual in many respects, received recognition - even after his death it will bring joy to people.
But Christoph himself, a former indomitable rebel, changed in his old age, lost his fighting ardor. In his way of life and way of thinking, a certain spiritual fatigue is reflected, prompting him to listen indulgently to such speeches, such opinions with which he cannot agree. The younger generation of French, succumbing to militant nationalist sentiments, does not arouse anger in him.
And yet there is no reason to consider "Jean-Christophe" as a novel "farewell to the past", as a renunciation of the writer or his hero from past ideals. To the extent that Christophe's rebellion had an individualistic and abstract character, this rebellion reveals, in terms of social ideas, its inherent fragility: this is shown, in essence, quite soberly. In the last book of the novel - even though the action in it is transferred to an indefinite future - some real features of the spiritual atmosphere of France on the eve of the First World War are reflected.
The image of Jean-Christophe - not a peaceful old man from last book, and the young brave rebel, as he appeared in the books "Riot", "Fair on the Square", - now and then appeared in front of Rolland. He created this image, and now the hero had the opposite effect on the author, strengthened his stamina, encouraged him to actively resist the forces of imperialism.
The idea of peace and mutual understanding of peoples is deeply embedded in the very essence of the story of Jean-Christophe. Having conceived a novel about the great musician, focusing on the majestic image of Beethoven, Romain Rolland had to make his hero a German, dip him into the atmosphere of the old German province. But from the life of Beethoven, he borrowed only a few facts relating to the childhood and early youth of the composer. Jean-Christophe - "a hero of the Beethoven type" becomes an adult on turn of XIX and XX centuries; circumstances force him to emigrate to France. This turn of events came in handy for R. Rolland because it made it possible to show the literary and artistic world of Paris and France as a whole through a sharply fresh, sharply critical perception of a foreigner. This is how an originally constructed narrative developed, in which different nations and different national cultures interact and compare.
The ideological essence of a great work of art is expressed, as a rule, not in the author's declarations, and even more so not in hasty solutions to problems that have not been solved by life itself. Many important socio-political issues of the era could not be clear to the creator of Jean-Christophe. But it was clear to him that the renewal of the whole order of life of people in France and throughout the world on the basis of morality and social justice was on the order of the day. And Rolland strove to bring this future, which was unclear to him, to participate by the power of his art in the movement of mankind forward. The artistic structure of the novel is subordinated to this task.
The elevation of the narrative above reality is also reflected in Rolland's free handling of romantic time: the action of the last book, which deals with the old age and death of the hero, takes place many years after the author finished his novel. And this did not embarrass Romain Rolland, just as he was not embarrassed by the chronological inaccuracies and inconsistencies that meticulous critics pointed out to him. He wanted to recreate modernity in large lines, in the main trends, but he did not try to tie each event to a specific year. The most important thing for him was to convey the general spirit of the era, its drama and the obscure, but, be that as it may, encouraging possibilities that it opens up.
In "Jean-Christophe" - as it happens and should be in a good realistic novel- each of the main characters is depicted in its social existence, in its social connections and represents a type. But Romain Rolland wanted more. He said about Jean-Christophe that this is not only a type, but also a symbol (in other words, an artistic generalization of a large philosophical scale). And in fact, Christophe is presented in interaction not only with society, but also with the various peoples of Europe, even more widely - with the whole world.
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In 1912 Romain Rolland ends the novel 10 volumes: Jean-Christophe / Jean-Christophe.
“Jean Christophe was conceived from the very beginning as a novel about a ‘new Beethoven’; in his hero, Rolland embodied some features of the composer he loved, whose music was dear to him for its heroic, life-affirming spirit. Shortly before the release of the first part of Jean-Christophe, a small book by Rolland, The Life of Beethoven, appeared and excited many readers. It was not just a biography. Here Rolland, in a concise and original form, expresses his own views on art and the duty of the artist. He cites the words of the great composer that he would like to work "for the sake of suffering humanity", for the sake of "humanity of the future". He shares Beethoven's opinion: "Music should strike fire from the human soul."
Reading Rolland's Life of Beethoven, especially its first pages, we clearly see the motifs that later unfolded in Jean-Christophe.
Rolland talks about Beethoven's harsh childhood. His father was a singer, and his mother was a servant before marriage; the family lived in poverty.
"Father decided to take advantage of musical ability son and showed it to the public small miracle. From the age of four, he kept the boy at the harpsichord for hours or locked him up with the violin, forcing him to play to the point of exhaustion ... It got to the point that Beethoven had to be almost forcefully instructed to learn music. His adolescence was overshadowed by worries about bread, the need to earn a living early ... At the age of seventeen, he had already become the head of the family, he was responsible for raising two brothers; he had to take on the humiliating chores of assigning a pension to his father, a drunkard who was unable to support his family: the pension was given to his son, otherwise the father would have drunk everything. These sorrows left a deep imprint in the soul of the young man.
The story of Jean-Christophe's childhood and youth, as told by Romain Rolland, is not just an author's fiction: real facts biographies of the greatest German composers. And it is not for nothing that the majestic Rhine and its picturesque green banks become the poetic background of the action - after all, here, on the banks of the Rhine, Beethoven spent the first twenty years of his life.
In the first books of Jean-Christophe the contact with the Life of Beethoven is particularly evident; V further fate Rolland's hero separates from the real primary source and develops in his own way. But in character spiritual form Jean-Christophe is not only young, but also mature years many things bring him closer to Beethoven. Not only a passionate passion for art, but also an indomitable, independent disposition, a stubborn unwillingness to bow before those in power. And at the same time - the ability to endure hardship and grief, the ability to maintain in the most difficult conditions both the will to create and love for people. Jean-Christophe's music, like Beethoven's, is imbued with life energy and the joy of being."
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE (fr. Jean-Christophe) is the hero of the ten-volume epic novel by R. Rolland "Jean-Christophe" (1904-1912). The great composer L. van Beethoven (1770-1827) served as a kind of prototype for the hero. This is clearly manifested at the beginning of the novel: J.-C. - half-German-half-Flemish, he has a broad face with rough large features and a mane of thick unruly hair, he was born in a small German town. In the future, the factual similarity ends; J.-K. lives almost a century later, and his fate is different. But the fictional and real composers are still related by creative power and rebellious spirit, - J.K. worthy of his surname Kraft, which means "strength" in German. The first four books ("Dawn", "Morning", "Youth", "Riot") consistently describe the childhood and youth of J.-K. in one of the seedy principalities of Iberian Germany. The son of a court musician, J.-C. V early age discovers an extraordinary musical talent. A drunkard father, wanting to capitalize on his son's talent, seeks to make him a child prodigy. He, brutally beating, trains the baby, seeking from him a virtuoso playing the violin. Grandfather J.-K., also a musician, records the boy's improvisations, promising him a great future. At the age of six, J.-K. becomes the duke's court musician. His musical opuses addressed to the duke are accompanied by servile dedications written by his father. Maternal uncle, peddler Goth-fried, opens J.-C. charm folk song and a simple truth: music must have meaning, must be "modest and truthful, express genuine, not fake feelings." At the age of eleven, J.-K. is the first violin of the court orchestra, and at fourteen, he alone provides for the whole family: his father, expelled for drunkenness, drowned. J.-K. earns money by teaching in rich houses, enduring ridicule and humiliation. Lessons, rehearsals, concerts in the ducal castle, composing cantatas and marches for official festivities, unsuccessful love for the petty bourgeois Minna, - J.-C. lonely, he suffocates in an atmosphere of vulgarity, servility, servility, and only when he is alone with nature, unprecedented melodies are born in his soul. J.-K. dreams of France, she sees him as the center of culture. The novel "Fair on the Square" is dedicated to the life of J.-K. in Paris. This is the most passionate and angry novel of the entire series, a pamphlet against the decaying art of the 19th century. Everything is sold at the Paris Fair: beliefs, conscience, talent. As in the circles of Dante's hell, Rolland guides his hero through the layers of the Parisian cultural society: literature, theater, poetry, music, press, and J.-C. more and more clearly feels "at first the insinuating, and then the stubborn suffocating smell of death." J.-K. declares an irreconcilable struggle to the fair, he writes the opera "David". But the newly-minted David did not defeat Goliath, the opera did not see the stage: the influential writer, the “salon anarchist” Levy-Coeur, with whom J.-K. reluctantly entered the battle. J.-K. suffers hunger, poverty, falls ill, and then working-class Paris opens up to him, he is nursed by a girl from the people, the servant Sidoni. And soon the rebellious J.-K. finds a friend - the poet Olivier Janin. Rolland emphasizes the contrast between the looks and characters of his friends: a huge, strong, self-confident J.-K. and small, round-shouldered, frail, timid, afraid of conflicts and harshness Olivier. But both of them are pure in heart and generous in soul, both are disinterestedly devoted to art. Friends set themselves the goal of finding and uniting good and honest people. In the novels "In the House" and "Girlfriends" Rolland shows these searches. (The influence of Leo Tolstoy and his idea of reconciling love is noticeable here.) Without adhering to any party, friends draw closer to the workers, to the social democratic movement. The heroism of the struggle intoxicates J.-K., and he composes a revolutionary song, which the working-class Paris sings the very next day. Stormy romance J.-K. with Anna Brown ("The Burning Bush") is also akin to a struggle, J.-K. still far from pacifying love. Immersed in the boiling of passions, J.-C. drags Olivier with him to a May Day demonstration, which turns into an armed clash with the police. J.-K. at the barricade, he sings revolutionary songs, he shoots and kills a policeman. Friends hide J.-K. from arrest and sent abroad. There he learns that Olivier has died of his wounds. J.-K. lives in the mountains of Switzerland, he is again lonely, crushed, broken. Little by little, mental health and the ability to create are returning to him. And after some time, he also finds a new friendship-love, having met his former student, Italian Grace. In the final part of the novel, Rolland leads his rebel hero to faith, to the possibility of resolving social conflicts peacefully, to the idea of an extra-social worldwide brotherhood of the intelligentsia - the international of the Spirit.
Proust TV
Proust made his creative debut at the age of 25. In 1896, Pleasures and Regrets, a collection of short stories and poems, was published. Then, over the course of several years, Marcel translated into french work John Ruskin. In 1907, Proust published an article in the Le Figaro newspaper, in which he tried to analyze the concepts that later became key in his work - memory and guilt.
In 1909, Proust wrote an essay "Against Sainte-Beuve", which later grew into a multi-volume novel, which was in the process of being written until the end of Proust's life. In this book, the writer, in polemic with Sainte-Beuve's biographical method, develops the main provisions of his aesthetics and discovers formula for a future novel. Proust's most important thought is the position that "a book is a derivative of a different "I" than the one that we find in our habits, in society, in our vices." The writer is convinced that Sainte-Beuve "underestimated all the great writers of his time", carried away by his biographical method, which assumed the inseparability of man and creator in the writer.
Thus Proust gradually comes to the discovery of such a method of narration and such an image of the narrator, which would not be the likeness of the author and a reflection of his biography, but the creation of his imagination. In Against Sainte-Beuve, Proust, as before, tries to combine literary criticism and novelistic narrative: he oscillates between essay and short story ("un récit"). The conceived article about Sainte-Beuve is framed by the narration of the morning awakening of the hero-narrator, who then expounds to his mother the main ideas of the article. Thus, Proust found the image of the narrator - a person awakening from sleep as a carrier of "involuntary memory", staying on the verge of sleep and wakefulness, in the midst of several times.
In history French literature Proust is known as the founder psychological novel. In 1896, a collection of short stories, Delights and Days, was published, in which Marcel's observations of high-society snobs were reflected. In 1895-1904, Proust worked on the novel Jean Santeuil, which was published only in 1952.
In Joys and Days, Proust not only finds his own material, which has become secular life, but also develops his own view of what is depicted. He is convinced that secular life is an inauthentic existence, just as any human existence is conditional and false in social space. A person's acquisition of his real "I" is possible only through immersion in inner world. Subjective reality turns out to be more valuable for Proust than real life.
In his first book, the writer showed himself as a master of subtle psychological analysis and a fleeting impressionistic sketch (“Regrets and Dreams of the Color of Time”).
Thus, the collection "Joys and Days" and the sketches of "Jean Santeuil" already contained the concept of the novel "In Search of Lost Time" in a folded form, demonstrated the main features of the Proustian style, declared the main themes of his work. But Proust has not yet found a form of narration that could give integrity and completeness to scattered sketches and sketches. "Jean Santeuil" and "Joys and Days" can be considered as a creative laboratory, where materials for the novel "In Search of Lost Time" were prepared. Around 1907, he began work on his main work, In Search of Lost Time. By the end of 1911, the first version of The Search was completed. It had three parts ("Lost Time", "Under the Shadow of Girls in Bloom" and "Time Regained"), and the book had to fit into two voluminous volumes. In 1912 it was called "Interruptions of Feeling". Proust can't find a publisher. At the end of the year, Faskel and Nouvel Revue Française (Gallimard) publishing houses send refusals, at the beginning of the next year Ollendorf is rejected. The publisher was Bernard Grasset. He released the book (at the expense of the author), but demanded that the manuscript be cut.
All seven books are united by the image of the storyteller Marseille, waking up in the middle of the night and reminiscing about his life: about his childhood spent in the provincial town of Combray, about his parents and acquaintances, about his beloved and secular friends, about travels and secular life. However, the Proustian novel is neither a memoir nor an autobiographical novel. Proust saw it as his task not to sum up what had been lived. It was important for him to convey to the reader a certain emotional mood, to inspire a certain spiritual attitude, to discover the truth that is important for the author himself and acquired by him, formulated in the process of writing the novel.
60. Antoine de Saint-Exupery(1900 -1944) - writer, poet and professional pilot.
Born in Lyon, raised by his mother. In 1912, he first took to the air in an airplane. In 1914 - with his brother in Switzerland. 1921 - drafted into the army, takes aerobatics lessons. 1923 - lieutenant, military and civil pilot. 1926 - essay "Pilot", beginning literary activity. In 1931, Night Flight was published, and the writer was awarded literary prize"Femina". 1935 attempts to set a record on the flight Paris - Saigon, but crashes in the Libyan desert. Saved by the Bedouins. 1938 - Exupery begins work on the book The Planet of the People. 1939 - military part of aerial reconnaissance. In 1941, he moved to his sister in the unoccupied part of the country, and later left for the United States. He lived in New York, where, among other things, he wrote his most famous book, The Little Prince (published in 1943). Died under unexplained circumstances. Many patented inventions.
Creativity: “Southern Postal”, “Night Flight”, “Planet of People”, “Letters to a Hostage”, “Military Pilot”. Human Planet is a wonderful collection of essays. A story about the first flight over the Pyrenees, about how old, experienced pilots introduce beginners to the craft. About how during the flight there is a struggle with “three primordial deities - with mountains, sea and storm”. Portraits of the author's comrades - Mermoz, who disappeared into the ocean, Guillaume, who escaped in the Andes, thanks to his courage and perseverance. Essays on “airplane and planet”, skyscapes, oases, desert landings, in the very camp of the Moors ( primitive tribe, who lived in the desert), and the story of how, lost in the Libyan sands, the author himself almost died of debilitating thirst. But the plots in themselves mean little, the main thing is that a person who surveys the planet of people from such a height knows: “Spirit alone, touching the clay, creates a Man out of it.” Over the past twenty years, too many writers have been buzzing our ears about the shortcomings and weaknesses of man. Finally, there was at least one author who tells us about his greatness: “By God, I managed it,” exclaims Guillaume, “that not a single beast can do!”
In her works, the author touches on topics that will be brightly decorated in The Little Prince. The relationship between the Prince and the Rose and the theme of the relationship between an adult pilot and a child first appear in the "Southern Postal", in the episode "Planet of People", in stories from "Notebooks". In Letters to a Hostage, the theme of adults who have forgotten their homeland arises. "Where am I from?" says Antoine Exupery, "I come from my childhood, as if from some country." The theme of death and life is understood in the book "Military Pilot". In "The Citadel" there is a vivid episode with three white pebbles, which make up the entire wealth of the child. The image of a gardener who, dying, thinks about his favorite business from the "Planet of People", and the image little prince caring for his Rose. The author himself says that he was created in order to be a gardener, and at the same time notes "but for people there are no gardeners." A writer, he not only understands questions about humanity, but also leads the way to solve the awakening of humanity. Although we might doubt that this humanity is capable of changing in any way. If we talk about the fairy tale as the culmination of the writer's work, then the time of writing and the subsequent death of Antoine de Saint-Exupery can be presented as fate or fate. The writer in the fairy tale sums up all his aspirations and his philosophy, the main thing in his life is done, although he does not immediately receive huge recognition, so his departure is quite planned. Recognition comes later, when his fairy tale becomes a world bestseller, along with the Bible. This draws attention to his fate, life, creativity, attracts producers to stage performances, films, cartoons, musicals. The name of Antoine de Saint-Exupery is associated primarily with the "Little Prince", and the most common phrase "We are responsible for those we have tamed" is becoming more of a household name. Although, quoting it, does not always know where it is taken from. Independent life quotes from the fairy tale are worthy praise for the author and confirmation that Antoine de Saint-Exupery will still “be” humanity.
Land of the people" Exupery
Tale (1939)
The book is written in the first person. Exupery dedicated it to one of his fellow pilots, Henri Guillaume.
Man reveals himself in the struggle with obstacles. The pilot is like a farmer who tills the land, and in so doing wrests some of nature's secrets from nature. The work of the pilot is just as fruitful. The first flight over Argentina was unforgettable: the lights flickered below, and each of them spoke about the miracle of human consciousness - about dreams, hopes, love.
Exupery began working on the Toulouse-Dakar line in 1926. Experienced pilots were somewhat aloof, but in their jerky stories arose fairy world mountain ranges with traps, dips and whirlwinds. The "oldies" skillfully maintained admiration, which only increased when one of them did not return from the flight. And then the turn of Exupery came: at night he went to the airfield in an old bus and, like many of his comrades, felt how a ruler was born in him - a man responsible for Spanish and African mail. The officials sitting nearby talked about illnesses, money, petty household chores - these people voluntarily imprisoned themselves in the prison of petty-bourgeois well-being, and a musician, poet or astronomer will never wake up in their hardened souls. Another thing is the pilot, who will have to enter into an argument with a thunderstorm, mountains and the ocean - no one regretted his choice, although for many this bus became the last earthly shelter.
Of his comrades, Exupery singles out, first of all, Mermoz - one of the founders of the French airline Casablanca - Dakar and the discoverer of the South American line. Mermoz "led reconnaissance" for others and, having mastered the Andes, handed over this site to Guillaume, and he himself took up the domestication of the night. He conquered the sands, mountains and sea, which, in turn, swallowed him more than once - but he always got out of captivity. And now, after twelve years of work, during the next voyage across the South Atlantic, he briefly announced that he was turning off the right rear engine. All radio stations from Paris to Buenos Aires were on a dreary watch, but there was no more news from Mermoz. After resting at the bottom of the ocean, he completed his life's work.
Nobody will replace the dead. And pilots experience the greatest happiness when the one who has already been mentally buried is suddenly resurrected. This happened to Guillaume, who disappeared during a voyage over the Andes. For five days, his comrades unsuccessfully searched for him, and there was no longer any doubt that he had died - either in a fall or from the cold. But Guillaume performed the miracle of his own salvation by passing through the snow and ice. He said later that he endured what no animal could endure - there is nothing nobler than these words, showing the measure of the greatness of man, determining his true place in nature.
The pilot thinks in terms of the universe and rereads history in a new way. Civilization is just fragile gilding. People forget that under their feet there is no deep layer of earth. An insignificant pond, surrounded by houses and trees, is subject to the action of the ebb and flow. Under a thin layer of grass and flowers, amazing transformations take place - only thanks to the plane they can sometimes be seen. Another magical property of an airplane is that it takes the pilot to the heart of the miraculous. With Exupery it happened in Argentina. He landed in some field, not suspecting that he would end up in a fairy house and meet two young fairies who were friends with wild herbs and snakes. These savage princesses lived in harmony with the universe. What happened to them? Transition from girlhood to fortune married woman fraught with fatal mistakes - perhaps some fool has already taken the princess into slavery.
In the desert, such meetings are impossible - here the pilots become prisoners of the sands. The presence of the rebels made the Sahara even more hostile. Exupery knew the burden of the desert from the very first flight; when his plane crashed near a small fort in West Africa, the old sergeant received the pilots as messengers from heaven - he cried when he heard their voices.
But in the same way, the recalcitrant Arabs of the desert were shocked when they visited France unfamiliar to them. If rain suddenly falls in the Sahara, a great migration begins - whole tribes go three hundred leagues in search of grass. And in Savoy, precious moisture gushed, as if from a leaky cistern. And the old leaders said later that the French god is much more generous to the French than the god of the Arabs to the Arabs. Many barbarians have wavered in their faith and almost succumbed to outsiders, but there are still those among them who suddenly rebel to return
Existentialism
The idea of absolute freedom of the chela. In the late 40s and early 50s. French prose is going through a period of "dominance" of the literature of existentialism, which has had an influence on art that is comparable only to the influence of Freud's ideas. It took shape at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century in the works of Heidegger and Jaspers, Shestov and Berdyaev. How literary direction formed in France during World War II works of art and theoretical works Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and had a significant impact on the entire post-war culture, primarily on cinema (Antonioni, Fellini) and literature (W. Golding, A. Murdoch, Kobo Abe, M. Frisch). Existentialism was not widespread in the literature of the beginning of the century. so widely, however, he colored the worldview of such writers as Franz Kafka and William Faulkner, under his "auspices" absurdity was fixed in art as a device and as a view of human activity in the context of all history.
Existentialism is one of the darkest philosophical and aesthetic trends of our time. The man in the image of the existentialists is immensely burdened by his existence, he is the bearer of inner loneliness and fear of reality. Life is meaningless social activity fruitless, morality is untenable. There is no god in the world, there are no ideals, there is only existence, fate-calling, to which a person stoically and unquestioningly submits; existence is a concern that a person must accept, because the mind is not able to cope with the hostility of being: a person is doomed to absolute loneliness, no one will share his existence.
Practical Conclusions existentialism are monstrous: it makes no difference - to live or not to live, it makes no difference - who to become: an executioner or his victim, a hero or a coward, a conqueror or a slave.
Proclaiming absurdity human being, existentialism for the first time openly included "death" as a motive for proving mortality and an argument for the doom of a person and his "chosenness". Ethical problems are worked out in detail in existentialism: freedom and responsibility, conscience and sacrifice, the goals of existence and purpose, which are widely included in the lexicon of the art of the century. Existentialism attracts with the desire to understand a person, the tragedy of his destiny and existence; he was approached by many artists different directions and methods.
Existentialism, also the philosophy of existence, is a direction in the philosophy of the 20th century, focusing its attention on the uniqueness of the irrational being of a person. Existentialism developed in parallel with related areas of personalism and philosophical anthropology, from which it differs primarily in the idea of overcoming (rather than revealing) a person’s own essence and a greater emphasis on the depth of emotional nature. In pure form existentialism as a philosophical direction never existed. The inconsistency of this term comes from the very content of "existence", since by definition it is individual and unique, it means the experiences of a single individual who is not like anyone else.
This inconsistency is the reason why practically none of the thinkers who are classified as existentialists was in reality an existentialist philosopher. The only one who clearly expressed his belonging to this direction was Jean-Paul Sartre. His position was outlined in the report "Existentialism is humanism", where he made an attempt to generalize the existentialist aspirations of individual thinkers of the early 20th century.
Existential philosophy is the philosophy of human being
The philosophy of existence reflected the crisis of optimistic liberalism, based on technical progress, but powerless to explain the instability, disorder human life inherent human feeling of fear, despair, hopelessness.
The philosophy of existentialism is an irrational reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment and German classical philosophy. According to the existentialist philosophers, the main flaw of rational thinking is that it proceeds from the principle of opposition between subject and object, that is, it divides the world into two spheres - objective and subjective. All reality, including man, rational thinking considers only
63. Sartre. First philosophical works Sartre - “The Transcendence of the Ego”, “Imagination”, “Sketch of the Theory of Emotions”, “Imaginary. Sartre least of all strives to generalize the data of natural and social sciences, but tries to give a description of specific, separate states of consciousness of the individual. This explains the writer's special interest in the problem of emotions and imagination, their nature and role in the life of the individual. He puts forward the thesis about the inefficiency of emotive behavior, because, from his point of view, emotion is the flight of the individual from the world. Faced with real problems, a person gives in to emotions, which, as it were, "disconnect" him from a dangerous or difficult situation. Thus, emotion is an illusory way of solving a problem. Sartre's treatment of the problem of the imagination close to the concept of "intentional acts" by E. Husserl. Sartre speaks of the creative essence of imagination, although he limits the action of imagination to the sphere of consciousness. He contrasts the imaginative consciousness with practical consciousness. For him, imagination is unreal and presupposes the "non-antization" of reality in its most essential structures.
In the novel "Nausea" ("La Nausée", 1938) there are already separate existentialist motives and ideas. This series of "insights" develops into the plot of the novel, main theme which becomes the discovery of the personality of the absurd. Roquentin's discovery of the absurdity of being occurs as a result of his collision with surrounding objects. The world of things and, more broadly, natural existence turn out to be hostile to human subjectivity. The immersion of the subject in this natural "mush", in formless and dead objectivity, causes him a feeling of nausea.
In the writer's choice of the diary form of narration, in the confession of the novel intonation, Sartre's understanding of nature was affected. philosophical idea. For him, it is not the result of speculative, abstract-logical thinking, but an intimate, personal experience.
Sartre's literary activity began with the novel "Nausea" (fr. La Nausée; 1938). This novel is considered the best work Sartre, in it he rises to the deep ideas of the Gospel, but from an atheistic position. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his work, rich in ideas, imbued with the spirit of freedom and the search for truth, which has had a huge impact on our time." He refused to accept this award, declaring his unwillingness to be indebted to any social institution and question their independence. In addition, Sartre was embarrassed by the "bourgeois" and pronounced anti-Soviet orientation. Nobel committee, who, according to him (“Why I refused the prize”), chose the wrong moment for awarding the prize - the prize was awarded when Sartre openly criticized the USSR. In the same year, Sartre announced his refusal from literary activity, describing literature as a surrogate for effective transformations of the world. Sartre's outlook was formed under the influence, first of all, of Bergson, Husserl, Dostoyevsky and Heidegger. Interested in psychoanalysis. He wrote a preface to the book by Franz Fanon "Cursed", thereby contributing to the popularization of his ideas in Europe. In the collection of short stories and short stories "The Wall" ("Le Mur", 1939), Sartre develops the main theme of "Nausea". In the short story of the same name, the writer shows the transformation of a person into a thing, into trembling and agonizing flesh in the face of inevitable death. Awareness of the nearness of the end robs a person of freedom. The fear of death turns a person into an animal. Three Republicans fighting against the Spanish fascists are captured and in the basement where they were put, they are waiting for their fate to be decided. They are doomed to the torture of waiting. They are trembling, they are covered with cold sweat. These physiological manifestations of fear are observed by a military doctor. The heroes of the novel are overcome by apathy, they lose their will and courage.
The “gospel” of French atheistic existentialism was Sartre’s philosophical work “Being and Nothingness” (“L’Etre et le Néant”, 1943), in which the writer undertakes a systematic exposition of his philosophy. He analyzes the dialectic of the relationship between man (“being-for-itself”) and objective reality (“being-in-itself”). "Being-in-itself" is devoid of self-development, which only "being-for-itself" is endowed with. Man denies objective reality in order to achieve freedom.
In the work, Sartre substantiates the concept of the absurd, asserting the randomness and meaninglessness of being, which "has neither reason, nor reason, nor necessity." Human existence in the world is fragile, death is inevitable (“being-for-death”). his dramatic work
64. The play "The Flies" was created by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1943. According to its genre, it belongs to the philosophical drama. Underlying "Flies" ancient greek myth about the murder by Orestes of his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus for many centuries was a favorite plot of many literary tragedies. In Sartre's play, history as old as the world is filled with new philosophical sense. The French existentialist uses the ancient heroic image of Orestes for analysis contemporary problems existence.
"Flies" is a drama in three acts. The composition of the play is simple and logical. In the first act, the main characters(Orestes, Jupiter, Electra and Clytemnestra), the prehistory is told - it is also an explanation of what is happening in Argos (fifteen years of general repentance entrusted to citizens for the crimes of the current king and queen), a problem is outlined (the possible revenge of Orestes for the murder of his father - Agamemnon). The second act is full of action: Aegisthus, in accordance with the once chosen political course, intimidates the people with the dead coming out of hell; Elektra tries to tell the people of Argos that it is possible to live in happiness and joy; Jupiter helps Aegisthus to plunge the crowd into fear; Elektra is banished from the city and sentenced to death; Orestes opens up to his sister and decides to kill. The events of the second part of the work grow like a snowball and break off at the death of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. After accomplishing a just revenge, the surviving heroes can only think - about their past and future, about the desired and actual, about the world around them and their own lives.
The first act of The Flies can be compared to a slow, realistic narrative of the past and present. The second act is more like a thriller than ancient Greek tragedy or contemporary drama. The third act tells nothing and does not move anywhere. It is a chain of philosophical reasoning devoted to the problem of human freedom. Free in "Flies" is main character- Orestes. He comes to Argos as a man without a past, with a soul like a "magnificent void". At this stage of his life, he is free from memories, people, feelings. The prince knows only what the Teacher taught him: he knows the world, cities, countries, culture, art. But in itself, as a person, he is nothing. He has no attachments, no desires. Only with the advent of a conscious thirst for revenge does a new awareness of freedom come to Orestes. It lies in the freedom to choose one's future path, in refusing to obey the will of the gods, who once created people free, but over time decided to take away this knowledge from them. Committing a crime, Orestes does not feel remorse, because, in his opinion, he is doing a just thing. Once deciding to kill his mother, he decides to always bear this burden. In a sense, he is even glad for him, because, finally, the hero has something of his own - his own story, his own crime, his own burden. Unlike Orestes, Electra, like all the inhabitants of Argos, is deprived true understanding freedom. She can only dream about her, but she cannot live with her. Elektra dreams of killing her family the way little girls dream of dolls. She is happy in her fantasies, but when they come true, she hates them.
TV Camus
Thanks to J. Grenier, Camus gets acquainted with the ideas of religious existentialism, his interest in philosophy is determined. The first notes and essays of Camus, for all their immaturity, contain some important motives: an anarchist rebellion against social conventions, withdrawal into the world of dreams, belittling the rational principle in art. In general, the first works of Camus reflect the crisis state of mind, characteristic of a significant part of the European intelligentsia after the First World War.
In 1937, Camus left the Communist Party. In the same year, he published a collection of essays, "The inside and the face" ("L'Envers et l'Endroit"), main problem which becomes the question of acquiring dignity in an absurd world by a person. Camus says “yes” to life, despite the absurdity of being, for one must “be oneself the eternal joy of becoming”. Creating in the collection of lyrical essays "Mediterranean myth", Camus seeks to escape from the chaos of history into the wisdom of nature.
In 1938, Camus took up journalistic activities in the newspaper "Alge Repubbliken" and at the same time continued literary work, wrote philosophical drama"Caligula" ("Caligula", 1944), the story "The Outsider" ("L'étranger", 1942), the essay "Dostoevsky and Suicide", which later became part of the "Myth of Sisyphus" under the title "Kirillov", finished work on the novel "Happy Death" ("La mort heureuse", 1971). During the occupation of France by the Nazis, Camus conducted underground work in the Combat organization.
The story "The Outsider" was a huge success, for a long time becoming one of the most read works French literature of the 20th century The story received critical acclaim.
Almost unconsciously, he kills a man. In the second part of the story, the story of the protagonist appears as if in a distorted mirror during the trial. Meursault is being judged, in fact, not for a murder, but for an attempt to neglect the conventional forms of relations between people accepted in society, for violating the rules of the game, for being an “outsider”. The writer puts his hero in a “boundary situation” typical of existentialists, that is, in a situation of choice in the face of death and absurdity, when, according to existentialist philosophy, insight comes.
Camus replied to the teacher that he "learned from Kafka the spirit, but not the style." Meanwhile, with the obvious difference in the style of Kafka and Camus, both of them gravitated towards parable forms of genre thinking, both are characterized by brevity of the linguistic form with a philosophical depth of content. Noting the outwardly dispassionate tone of the narration in The Outsider, R. Barth spoke of the "zero degree of writing" in the story. Indeed, Camus is convinced that life is simple, that people complicate everything, and therefore it is necessary to talk about it simply, without metaphors, hints, complex cultural reminiscences, behind which is the desire to escape from the awareness of the tragedy of the human lot.
milestone for Camus work was the book "The Myth of Sisyphe" ("Le mythe de Sisyphe", 1942), completing the first period in the writer's work. The Myth of Sisyphus is subtitled An Essay on the Absurd. The problems of the absurd and the "supreme suicide" as an expression of human rebellion against it become central in this cycle. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus defines the absurd. However, it is significant that for Camus the recognition of the absurd is not the final conclusion, but only the starting point in the search for true values.
Philosophical views Camus himself did not consider himself a philosopher, much less an existentialist. However, the works of representatives of this philosophical trend had an impact on the work of Camus big influence. The highest embodiment of the absurd, according to Camus, are various attempts to forcibly improve society - fascism, Stalinism, etc. Being a humanist and anti-authoritarian socialist, he believed that the fight against violence and injustice "with their own methods" could only give rise to even greater violence and injustice
66. The story "Outsider"”was a huge success, for a long time becoming one of the most widely read works of French literature of the 20th century. The story received critical acclaim.
The hero of the story - Meursault - is a generalized image representing the existentialist version of the "natural person". Having severed ties with society, the petty employee Meursault lives with the consciousness of the absurdity of being. This acute sense of the absurd makes him "outside", alien to the values and norms of society. Meursault lives, obeying instincts, acutely sensing beauty natural world; Meursault has an extraordinary lyrical gift.
Romain Rolland(1866-1944) - a classic of French literature. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1915. A writer close to Hugo, an emotional optimist, a romantic. Rolland sings of heroes strong in spirit, creatively, giving their bright talent to people. He believes that the ideal is achievable, at least one should strive for it, someday most people on earth will become happy and spiritually developed (such is the highest goal).
“The world is dying of suffocation in its prudent and vile egoism. The world is suffocating. Let's open the windows. Let's get free air. Let's breathe the breath of heroes." Rolland writes brightly, romantically, with inspiration, because his goal is to inspire the reader to sacrificial service to humanity. Above is a quote from Rolland's first significant book, The Life of Beethoven, he also wrote biographies of many prominent creators: The Life of Michelangelo, The Life of Tolstoy. All this bright examples heroes, fighters fighting against human misunderstanding, with their own shortcomings and ailments. Beethoven - greatest composer- most of his life he was deaf and courageously overcame his illness.
The main work of Rolland of the period under study, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize, is a huge 10-volume flow novel (such a genre) " Jean-Christoff» (1912). This detailed history the life of one person, mainly the history of his spiritual life - from the moment of birth to death itself. Jean-Christoff is a brilliant composer, fictionalized by Rolland, but Rolland took many moments of his biography, many of his character traits from Beethoven. Jean-Kristoff, in addition to talent, is endowed with a sublime pure soul, hot open feelings, intolerance for evil and injustice - it is impossible not to love him. His relationship with women (he was very amorous), with the world, nature, God, the search for the meaning of life are described very interestingly. The main question of the novel is: what is the meaning and purpose of art. The answer is traditional within the framework of the classical worldview: to serve the people and enrich them spiritually.
23. Creativity Kipling
KIPLING Joseph Redyard was an English novelist and poet. R. in Bombay. From the age of 17 - an employee of the Indian "Military and Civil Newspaper"; the essays, stories and poems published in it made up the first books of K. Subsequently, a war correspondent (one of his last books is devoted to the activities of the Irish Guards in the imperialist war). Autobiographical features - in the novel "The Light went out". He received the Nobel Prize in 1907.
The special position of K. in English literature is marked not only by high distinctions - he is a doctor honoris causa of nine universities, - not only by fees, 25 times higher than usual (on a shilling per word in 1900, that is, about 3 thousand rubles. per printed sheet), but also by the presence of four lifetime collected works, an unusual fact for England, which almost does not know lifetime collected works.
The ideology expressed by K.'s work is the ideology of the associates of British imperialism, who actually created "Greater Britain" (a world empire). The expansion populates the most distant geographical points with young men who go to the colonies to make a career for themselves. They dream about the fate of the clerk Clive, who conquered India, settle down, get married, and have children. Throughout the "Seven Seas" (a book of poems by K.) the problem of the "native born" (native born) is growing. These people form, as it were, an "irregular legion", a brotherhood, the friendly support of the conquistadors binds them. They bear the "burden of the white man" (a slogan thrown by Kipling).
The colony (especially India, the birthplace of K. himself) for the “native-born” is not the exotic of the traditional imperialist novel, but the business reality of everyday work. A representative of colonial naturalism, K. was the first in English literature to perceive India as a fact of life.
The psychology of the ordinary conqueror is characterized by efficiency, self-confidence, sentimental nostalgia (sickness for the homeland), alienism (jingoism). K. is the spokesman for the thoughts and feelings of a prosperous young official (the favorite hero of any average English novel), an agent of colonialism, who “conscientiously” carries it out. In this environment, the characters of K. are common nouns, and many lines of his poems have become proverbs.
The ideological baggage of K. is imperialist, die-hard conservatism, racial pride, Anglo-Saxon chosenness. The political position of K. is above all the fate of the Empire, anyone who encroaches on its safety is criminal. Hence - hatred for possible encroachers on India - for tsarist Russia (the novel "Kim", "The World with the Bear", the story "The Man Who Was" and many others); hence the frenzied Germanism during and after the World War. Existing system competition, the survival of the strong, is correct ("Imperial order"), and although there are some defects in it, for example. bureaucracy (a number of early Indian stories), is not subject to drastic changes either to the right (“Old Exodus”) or to the left. Reforms are acceptable, but the basis is the “freedom” obtained by the ancestors for everyone, which, of course, applies only to whites. Rather, there are different laws for whites and for coloreds. “The West is the West, the East is the East, and they cannot come together” (“The Ballad of the West and the East”) - a verse that has become a proverb. That's the burden white man to subdue the East to the great English civilization by persuasion or force. The greatness of the task lies in the fact that its executors are nameless, and their path is difficult. But only these people, acting in places where "neither God's nor human law has power north of 53 ° latitude" ("The Tale of the Three Catheads", a verse that has become a proverb), - only these people are valuable, because they builders and workers of life (“Mary Gloucester”, “Tomlinson”, etc.) Such are the prerequisites for K.’s literary activity. or otherwise (for example, instruction in the "soldier's song" "Robbery"). Three series of facts are characteristic here: 1. Absolute protocol accuracy of time and place of action: data that accurately establishes the route of the horse thief in the "Ballad of the West and East", the springboard of hostilities in the "Ballad of Bo-Da-Ton"; it is even sharper, of course, in prose. The author is present in the short story as an observer of events or a person listening to a report about them. The story therefore resembles a diary entry. 2. Novels end with a moral; the short story is a conclusion that reveals that (colloquial) association, by virtue of which it is told (this is how the whole book “At the stern of the steamer pipe” is built). So. arr. the short story erases its edges and approaches the essay. It is characteristic that such a wonderful story as "The City of Terrible Night" was first published in a book of travel essays. Equally indicative is the presence of a cycle of story books from English history, creatively culminating in The School History of England (with Fletcher, 1911), a children's history textbook. 3. In order to finally confirm the authenticity of the material presented, K. cycles the short stories not only around some heroes, but also in a Balzac fashion, with a random roll call: the episodic face of one short story is the hero of another. This device acquires particular poignancy when the character acts both in prose and in verse (the narrator of the Ballad of the Royal Joke, the hawker Mahbub-Ali, is one of Kim's teachers, and a number of other examples).
English criticism sees the literary tradition of K. in Bret Garth (cm.) But Garth captures and explains the world, explores Ch. arr. the spiritual content of the hero, moreover, purely naturalistic and thus objectivistic, while K.'s work is directly political-utilitarian; caring about protocol timing, Kipling neglects objective naturalism, but strives for applied and agitational naturalism. Purely psychological works (the novel The Light went out, a number of stories) are the least successful for K. In the named parallel, the only significant thing is that both authors went through the school of newspaper essay (cm.). Hence the vigilance of K. to purely professional details and the extraordinary versatility of his subjects, which surprises many researchers.
The applied naturalism of K.'s prose found a very peculiar expression in his world-famous "animal" cycles, especially in the two Jungle Books, enthusiastically received by all critics. The Mowgli cycle can be considered the founder of a new genre of stories about animals: C. J. D. Roberts and E. T. Seton, both older contemporaries of K., appear with their fiction books about animals only after K. The second “animal” cycle, “ That's how fairy tales ”, is already a fantastic development of established genres, a complex crossing of the traditions of a children's fairy tale with its natural magic, cognitive
