Aesthetic ideas of O. Wilde
Problematics (rp. problema - something thrown forward, that is, isolated from other aspects of life) is the writer's ideological understanding of those social characters that he depicted in the work. This comprehension lies in the fact that the writer singles out and enhances those properties, aspects, relations of the characters depicted, which he, based on his ideological worldview, considers the most significant.
Defining the main tasks of art, Chernyshevsky emphasized that "besides the reproduction of life, art has another meaning - the explanation of life" (99, 85). While agreeing in principle with this idea, it should be noted that the word "explanation" is not quite suitable for works of art, it is more appropriate in science. Writers rarely, and usually to a small extent, strive for "explanations" of their design; almost always they express their understanding of the characters in their image.
So in Pushkin's poem "Gypsies" the characters of "wild" gypsies wandering in the steppes of Bessarabia are depicted, and the character of the young man Aleko, who previously belonged to the educated and freedom-loving circle "m of the capital society, but fled from the "bondage of stuffy cities" ("he is pursued by the law "") to the gypsies. This is the theme of the poem, unusual, until then not known to Russian readers. This new theme of the poem was generated by a new, romantic problematic. The latter lies in the fact that the poet emphasizes in every possible way in the image gypsy life her perfect liberty, complete absence there is some kind of coercion in it (labor, civil, family), and in the character of Aleko - the desire to join the free life of the gypsies, to become "free, like them", and the failure of such aspirations of him, caused by an outbreak of egoistic passions in his soul, brought up " involuntarily stuffy cities.
The problem is still more than the subject matter depends on the worldview of the author. Therefore, the life of one and the same social environment can be perceived differently by writers with different ideological worldviews. Gorky and Kuprin portrayed in their
porazvedeniya factory-working environment. However, in understanding her life, they are far from each other. Gorky in the novel "Mother", in the drama "Enemies" is interested in people in this environment who are politically minded and morally strong. He notices in them those sprouts of socialist self-consciousness, the development of which will soon make this class environment the most active and socially progressive force opposing the entire degrading bourgeois-noble system. Kuprin, in the story “Moloch”, sees in the workers a faceless mass of exhausted, suffering, worthy of sympathy people who are not able to resist the capitalist Moloch, devouring their strength, mind, health and causing the most bitter reflections among the humanistically minded democratic intelligentsia.
But the social characters themselves, depicted in the work, and their emotional comprehension on the part of the author can be in different proportions. In many works of literature of antiquity, the Middle Ages and the beginning of the new time, understanding of characters, highlighting and strengthening some of their most significant ones. properties often had for the authors and readers themselves more importance than the depiction of these characters in all their integrity, in all their versatility and reality. At the same time, the properties of character recognized by the author were so distinguished and intensified that they obscured and subjugated all others. As a result, characters became, as it were, only carriers of these most essential properties - heroism, selflessness, wisdom or cruelty, flattering, greed, etc., and these properties themselves therefore received a broad generalizing meaning. The images of the characters in the works, based on such an understanding of their characters, easily acquired a nominal value.
This is how Shakespeare portrayed Danish prince Hamlet, highlighting and sharply intensifying moral hesitations in his character, a heavy internal struggle between a sense of duty to avenge the death of his father to his murderer, who seized the throne, and a vague consciousness of the impossibility of one to oppose the evil reigning all around; Therefore, this image received a nominal value.
Molière in the comedy "Tartuffe", deducing in the face of the protagonist a swindler and a hypocrite who deceives straightforward and honest people, depicted all his thoughts and actions
as manifestations of this basic negative character trait. Pushkin wrote about this: “In Molière, the hypocrite drags himself behind the wife of his benefactor, the hypocrite; accepts the estate for preservation - a hypocrite; asks for a glass of water - a hypocrite" (50, 322). The name Tartuffe has become a household name for hypocrites.
Analyzing such images and whole works, one must pay attention not only to their very pointed problems, but also to the socio-historical essence of the characters depicted in them, which made it possible to comprehend them in such a way. In Molière, Tartuffe is not a random upstart who penetrated the noble environment. He hypocritically covers up his deceptions with the preaching of religious morality, which was characteristic of the reactionary churchmen - France of the era of Molière. In later eras, especially early XIX century, leading writers from different European countries began to penetrate deeper into the essence human relations, more clearly to realize the connection of human characters with a certain environment, certain conditions of life. Therefore, the awareness of the characters of the characters portrayed by them became more and more versatile and multifaceted. The problematic of the works now consisted in the fact that the most important properties of the characters' characters stood out among many others related to them, but sometimes contradicting them.
IN realistic works problems can be especially difficult to analyze, since these works often contain a very wide and. versatile depiction of characters; and in the versatility of their image, those of their essential features that are most important for the writer are revealed. An example of this is the image of some of the main characters in L. Tolstoy's War and Peace. So, Prince Andrei is shown by the writer in a variety of connections and relationships with many heroes, both in peaceful life as well as in war. A variety of qualities are manifested in his personality - intelligence, education, ability for military and state activities, a critical attitude towards light, sincere sympathy for his father and sister, love for his son and Natasha, friendly attitude to Pierre, etc.
But this versatility of Andrei's character still conceals a certain author's understanding. Tolstoy focuses on those features that seem to him the most significant in the moral and psychological
In a logical sense, this is an overly developed personality and some rationality, the predominance of the mental sphere of consciousness over the emotional and the resulting skeptical attitude towards life. The presence of characters with the integrity of behavior, worldview, experiences is a necessary condition for the existence of full-fledged epic and dramatic works 1 .
When analyzing the problems, one must keep in mind that writers very often resort to juxtaposing characters and revealing traits of interest to the writer by contrast. At the same time, it is precisely those facets of characters that appear to the writers as the most important, significant and in which the ideological problem of the work lies. Yes, back in folk tales a good witch was opposed to an evil stepmother, smart older brothers - younger brother Ivanushka the Fool, who turned out to be smarter and more successful than them.
The antithetical nature of the characters is usually sharply emphasized in the works of classicism. Antitheses constitute an essential side of the problem in realistic works as well. They reflect and refract real contradictions of reality itself with even greater clarity. So, Lermontov's story "Princess Mary" is built on the antithesis of the character of Pechorin, with his deep and hidden romantic aspirations, the character of Grushnitsky, with his simulated and ostentatious romance; Chekhov's story "The Man in the Case" - in contrast to Belikov's political cowardice and Kovalenko's free-thinking; "Russian Forest" Leonov - on the antithesis of citizens
"In modernist literature, the misconception was widespread that the concept of "character" was outdated, since the consciousness of a modern person is something unconsolidated and chaotic. Such thoughts, based on the experience of the literature of the "stream of consciousness" (J. Joyce, M. Proust), insistently express the representatives of the French "new novel" (A. Robbe-Griys, N. Sarrot). The subject of the artistic image proclaims the "pure" consciousness of a person who has lost his personality under the pressure of impressions from the outside. The character is considered only as a "support" (optional, ultimately even unnecessary) to reproduce this "pure" consciousness. The denial of the character means at the same time the denial of the entire system of artistic development of life, characteristic of the epic and drama. Hence the slogans "anti-romance", "anti-theatre", etc., common in modernist aesthetics.
the honesty of Vikhrov and the careerism and venality of Gratsiansky; "The Living and the Dead" by Simonov is based on the opposition of the deeply conscious patriotism of Serpilin, Sintsov and many other representatives of Soviet society to the cowardly egoism of people like Baranov.
The problems of literary works can reflect different aspects public life. It can be moral, philosophical, social, ideological-political, socio-political, etc. It depends on what sides of the characters and what contradictions the writer focuses on.
Pushkin in the character of Onegin, Lermontov in Pechorin were mainly aware of ideological and political dissatisfaction with the reactionary way of Russian life. Turgenev in " noble nest”reveals in Lavretsky, first of all, a sense of civic and moral duty to Russia and its people. In "Fathers and Sons" by Turgenev, the main attention is focused on the philosophical positions of the characters, in particular on the materialistic views of Bazarov; therefore in the novel such a significant place is occupied by philosophical disputes between
It is especially important how deep and significant literary works on their issue. The significance and depth of the problem depends on how serious and significant are the contradictions of reality itself, which writers can realize due to the peculiarities of their worldview.
Such, for example, are the differences in the depiction of peasant life by Turgenev and Nekrasov. Turgenev, with his liberal educational views, sees in the life of the peasants their suffering under the yoke of the landowners and realizes that the misfortunes and sorrows of the people stem not so much from the cruelty and frivolity of individual nobles, but from the slavish position of the peasantry in general. But at the same time, he is mainly interested in the moral dignity of individual peasants and shows that often peasants, to a much greater extent than landowners, can possess not only a good heart, but also a deep mind and aesthetic inclinations, and sometimes even a capacity for social discontent. The very disclosure of the high moral qualities and human dignity of people from the people was an expression of the writer's protest against serfdom.
Nekrasov, with his revolutionary democratic ideals, understands the life of the people much more deeply. In his depiction, a peasant oppressed by landowners and officials is, first of all, a worker, a "sower and keeper" native land, the creator of all material values, due to which the whole society lives. At the same time, his peasantry is an independent social force capable of resisting its enslavers.
From the foregoing, we can conclude that the issue is a more active side ideological content works, rather than their themes, and that the themes are largely determined by the problems.
The writer always chooses certain characters and relationships for his depiction precisely because he is especially interested in certain aspects and properties of these characters and relationships.
Problems of creativity
"Is blood beautiful? Can the world rely on beauty as salvation? After all, beauty is holiness", "Can evil do good?" These are the main questions of Anatoly Korolyov's creativity. "The dual nature of all the values that are familiar and, it seems, long ago approved in the consciousness of mankind - man himself, his language and his freedom, beauty and goodness, God, and finally, God, who, it seems, is the source of beauty and goodness, but why then good is sometimes deadly, and evil is so beautiful that a person cannot morally resist this disastrous beauty? - writes Korolev in one of the stories.
What drives a person when he commits crimes that are incompatible with the concept of humanity, with philanthropy, mercy? These questions are particularly acute in one of the most amazing and profound works modern literature- the story "Gogol's Head".
"Gogol's Head" - a sentence or justification for mankind? The poetics of evil in the story
This story has everything: starting with the brightest signs of postmodernism in literature - dialogism, intertextuality; ending with the eternal questions of world literature and the universe as a whole (naturally, without an answer, because the author follows the tradition of the geniuses of Russian literature and leaves the reader the opportunity to choose answers on their own).
Drawing the beauty of evil, raising it to aesthetics, the author takes us to revolutionary France. This is where you can truly "enjoy" the exquisite aesthetics of death, the aesthetics of mortification, only here you can meet true aesthetes-connoisseurs, where "an object is born new beauty…: the head of the enemy of the people must be shown to the citizens of free Paris."
Even at the very beginning of the story, when it would seem that the fate of Russia is being discussed, the author talks about the presence of Turgenev at the execution in France. They executed a certain Tropman, who committed the brutal murder of an entire family. He writes about Dostoevsky's indignation at the fact that Turgenev, having agreed to see the outlandish spectacle, did not find the strength to watch it, turning his "face, eyes, thought and soul away from death." "You can't turn away, you can't..."
Turning away, he still did not see something significant: "two Frenchmen broke through the cordon and, crawling under the guillotine, began to soak white handkerchiefs in the blood that flowed to the ground through the plank cracks of the platform. In this gesture - all of France, with its pathetic savoring of death … the scene is absolutely impossible in Russia.
So, Korolev begins to compare France and Russia. It would seem that what could be different in the two most famous and most bloody revolutions that ever shook the world? But the master of thought and word is looking for these differences - and finds them in the most unexpected places.
If in France executions and the triumph of revolutionary revelry, bloody and merciless, are a gesture of a new, bloody in essence, but pure precisely thanks to this blood, Freedom, then in Russia the situation is not quite like that. Russia, either with a revolutionary, or with Satan himself, conveys the bow of the October Revolution to the Great French Revolution. Stalin is the master dead souls(greetings to Nikolai Vasilyevich) - here for God. Executions, death, horror are also exaggerated, brought to the point of absurdity, but on Russian soil all this is seen and sounds somehow different: instead of the high pathos and aesthetics of Evil in France - in Russia Corpus mysticum, exuding only poisons, denunciations, envy and malice. And at the same time there is a glimmer of hope, and even a manifestation of spirituality. Only in a conversation about Russia, concepts appear on the pages of the story: pity, compassion, thoughts about God, although in the sense of their absence. But still, this is not the cold, insensitive aesthetics of France, people here still feel pain and experience torment.
But the main idea is that both there, in cold France, and here, in the cruel and elusive trinity bird - Russia - there is that very absolute Evil, Satan, who tempts the people and forces them to commit unimaginable crimes against themselves. human heart. But does it make, or is it the essence of human nature itself - at the first call of the tempter to plunge into the most unnatural that only exists on earth - the murder of one's own kind for the sake of glory, for one's own good? And if it is not your own good, but the benefit of future generations? What if you don't survive otherwise?
And what about Gogol?
Do not forget that we are talking about a postmodernist work, where Gogol is just a tool, although the main key to understanding. Consider how Korolyov uses the figure of Gogol.
Satan is present in the work, constantly appearing in different guises, taking on different guises, identifying himself with different characters, but most often with Gogol, perhaps because of his diabolical mystique. Or maybe because Gogol was the first to show all the ugliness of the world (the Russian hinterland) in his own, Gogol's, mirror reflection, in which he "multiplied the amount of evil things in the world by fantasy." Gogol, like the devil, serves as a magnifying lens, "which, as soon as it looks at someone, magnifies a person at once to the essence of the question," and "there is nowhere for a person to hide in Gogol's desert." The basis of the plot is a rehash of the myth about Gogol: his nervous nature, suffering from persecution mania, love of devilry and at the same time an almost fanatical faith in Christianity, an intractable and incomprehensible illness that "clouds the mind with inexpressible forebodings", the circumstances of death and, finally, terrifying rumors about his burial alive still excite the imagination.
Why is Gogol charged with responsibility for the fate of Russia? Gogol is a great master of the word. But the word has huge force. Korolev says that the language is an ordinary fascist, that the power of the word is too great and the deity of the verb craves blood, that the head of the enemy of the people, severed on the guillotine of the revolution, becomes the shadow of a round phrase. War can be not only a war of guns, but also of phrases. Phrases crave offerings. "Dead men become exclamation points in a phrase. The deadly flowering of phrases bears fruit."
In his assessments, Korolev reveals this tendency towards postmodern duality, towards the search for absolute objectivity. The word can do both good and evil, but the line is so thin that you can never know exactly how the spoken word will respond - that's the pathos French Revolution(as well as the October Revolution and the revolution as a whole) - that only the word Freedom turned their heads, and their owners rushed forward to defend their Freedom, so that later, once on top, they would lose their heads in the most usual sense - on the guillotine , under the fierce exclamations of the crowd drunk from the smell of blood. And again we see duality, opposite poles of the same phenomenon, which, despite the polarity, easily pass one into the other, once again recalling the well-known French proverb that opposites converge. Inconsistency and duality - in almost every phrase of the story: evil is beautiful, beauty is good, but beauty is generated by evil. Everything is ambiguous: Stalin, who commits lynching, is actually trying to attract the attention of God in order to find salvation; the severed head of John the Baptist is "a red-red fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
To this day, it is one of the most interesting topics in literary criticism. After all, the work of Mikhail Yuryevich provides a vast ground for reflection, it strikes with its depth, as well as the range of feelings and emotions embedded in them. In many ways, the theme of Lermontov's work is connected with his biography, in addition, it is dictated to the writer by time itself. In this regard, poetry, lyrical-epic works and the author's prose should be considered separately.
Lyrics
M. Yu. Lermontov left a huge legacy in the form of his immortal poems. He began to write very early, and even the very first experiments were imbued with great feelings. The problems allow us to divide all his lyrical work into several categories:
1. Poems about loneliness, in which the main motive is misunderstanding, a break with people.
2. Poet and poetry.
3. Poems about love.
4. Poems about nature, about the Motherland.
5. Poems about the war.
Let's look at each of the categories.
Lermontov's poems about loneliness
Mikhail Lermontov was brought up by his grandmother. He did not recognize either his father's, or perhaps this is what influenced all the work of the poet. In particular, this had an impact on the formation of this theme of creativity. Lermontov was worried about how people treated him. He was also depressed by the mores that prevailed in his time. An example is the poem "How often surrounded by a motley crowd", in which one hears a cruel reproach to a hypocritical society. Heroes of Lermontov are often carried away to the world of dreams, in this text it is the world of childhood, carefree and pure. In later work, the motive of loneliness ceases to be associated with accusations, but it intensifies even more. How strong the lines of the poem "The Rock" sound! In eight lines, the poet managed to express all the pain and longing of a lonely heart. This issue of Lermontov's works is closely connected with such images as a sail, a leaf, a cliff.
Poems about nature
Lermontov had the warmest feelings for Russian landscapes. It is in nature that his lyrical hero feels more calm, balanced and harmonious. The most striking work dedicated to the beauty of Russian nature is "When the yellowing field is agitated." The piece is very harmonious and melodic. The first three stanzas are a description of nature. Lermontov revives what surrounds him. The field is worried, the raspberry plum is “hiding in the garden”, the lily of the valley “nods its head amiably”. Admiring what is happening, the hero begins to feel humility and peace, all his worries fade away, and in heaven he begins to see the face of God.
love lyrics
The problems of Lermontov's works about human feelings are not limited to loneliness. The poet also pays attention to love. True, love in his lyrics is always shown as a tragedy. From the very first poems, Lermontov draws us a tragic relationship between the lyrical hero and his beloved. The hero suffers because of ridicule, misunderstanding. The most striking example is the poem "The Beggar". It is built on the principle of the first part - the story of a beggar who, instead of alms, put a stone in his hand. The second part is the deceived feelings of the lyrical hero. After meeting Lermontov, the mood changes. Now the feelings are mutual, but the lovers are not allowed to be together. This is the poem "We are accidentally brought together by fate."
Military poetry
The themes of Lermontov's work are not limited to feelings. He also addressed the topic of war. The peculiarity of the poetry of this subject is that Lermontov pays great attention to the unnaturalness of violence. So, in the poem "Valerik" the poet draws the beautiful nature of the Caucasus, she is not interested in bloody events, arranged by people. In the poem, he refers to the theme of the historical past of his native country, he is delighted with the former might of the nation. This is a deeply patriotic work.
Prose Lermontov
The most striking was the novel "A Hero of Our Time". In the center of the image is Pechorin. This is a hero who does things recklessly. He destroys people without realizing it. At the same time, Pechorin is deeply convinced that people do not understand him, that many are unworthy of him. In fact, he is talented and smart, he can be admired. But there are features that cannot be called positive: the inability to make friends and love, pride and selfishness. The problems that Lermontov raises (the summary of the work clearly shows this) are the search for a hero of the time and the debunking of modern egocentric youth, as well as the problems of morality.
Lyric epic works
One of the brightest poems by Mikhail Lermontov is "Mtsyri". Lonely romantic hero abandoned by the will of fate in the monastery. He is brought up in it, but does not feel at home. Mtsyri feels his restlessness, he is as if in prison, he dreams of getting free. The problems of Lermontov's works intersect in this poem. Both the theme of loneliness and the theme of freedom are raised here, and it is clearly seen how reverently Lermontov treats nature.
Moreover, the poem is a prime example romantic work. Mtsyri aspires to the world of dreams. After spending one day in the wild, he understands what real life is. Staying in the monastery now becomes impossible. Having received mortal wounds in a fight with a leopard (the personification of the violent forces of nature), Mtsyri dies. Such is the tragic pathos of the entire work of the writer. The heroes of Lermontov in a collision with reality most often lose. Their dreams are not destined to come true, but life in this world is unbearable.
Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine
Cherkasy National University
named after Bohdan Khmelnitsky
Faculty of Russian Philology and Social Pedagogy
Department of Foreign Literature
Shpilevaya Galina Vasilievna
PROBLEMS OF OSCAR WILDE'S CREATIVITY
4th year students
Scientific adviser:
Assoc. Kozyura O.V.
Cherkasy - 2008
INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………….……………3
CHAPTER I. AESTHETISM AS A LITERARY TREND. THE INFLUENCE OF AESTHETISM ON THE WORKS OF OSCAR WILDE ……………….………
1. 1. Aestheticism as a literary movement ………………………………..….….5
1. 2. Aesthetic theories of J. Ruskin and W. Pater, their influence on Wilde's work …………………………………………………….…...…………6
1. 3. Aesthetic ideas of Wilde in the collection "Intentions" ...…………….……..9
Conclusions to the section ……………………………………………………..…….…..11
CHAPTER II. THE PROBLEM OF OSCAR WILDE’S FAIRY TALES…..….……...12
2. 1. The problem of the correlation of heroes and the world around ……….……….… 13
2. 2. The problem of the ratio of external and internal beauty ………….…....14
2. 3. The theme of self-sacrifice ……………………………..……………….….….16
Conclusions to the section ……………………………………………………….………17
CHAPTER III. PHILOSOPHICAL AND AESTHETIC PROBLEMS OF THE NOVEL "THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY" ……………………………….………18
3. 1. The novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" as the embodiment of the aesthetic ideas of the writer …………………………………………………..…………………….…..19
3. 2. The problem of the relationship between art and reality ..………….……21
3. 3. The conflict of asceticism and yadonism in the novel ……………………………….24
Conclusions to the section ……...……………………………………………….……….27
CONCLUSIONS ……………………………………………….……………………….28
REFERENCES …………………………………………………………30
LIST OF SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL………..34
INTRODUCTION
The theme of our study is the problematics of Oscar Wilde's creativity.
When writing the work, we used articles and research materials of such literary critics as Andronik A., Afanaschenko L., Bulvarenko L., Sokolyansky M.
The relevance of the work lies in the fact that O. Wilde's work is very multifaceted, but it has not been studied enough.
The purpose of the work is to study in more detail the problems of O. Wilde's work, to pay special attention to his collection of literary-critical and aesthetic articles "Intentions", fairy tales and, of course, the novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray", highlighting the main problems disclosed by the writer .
This goal involves solving the following tasks:
· Consider aestheticism as a literary trend, determine its influence on O. Wilde's work;
· Identify the main problems revealed by the writer in his fairy tales, analyze them;
· To study the problems of the novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray", highlight the aesthetic motives in it.
The object of the study is the work of Oscar Wilde (In this
case - collection critical articles Intentions, Fairy Tales and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The subject of the research is the problems of the writer's creativity.
The material of the work was the collection "Intentions", fairy tales and the novel "The Picture of Doreen Gray".
The theoretical significance is determined by the fact that the work analyzes the problems of works and argues the existence of the concept of aestheticism in the literary context.
The practical significance of the work lies in the possibility of using it in literature lessons when studying the work of Oscar Wilde, in studying foreign literature in higher educational institutions, as well as when writing term papers.
The structure of the work: the work consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion and lists of references and factual material.
CHAPTER I . AESTHETISM AS A LITERARY TREND. THE INFLUENCE OF AESTHETISM ON THE WORK OF OSCAR WILDE
Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde(1854-1900) - the most famous English writer, author of poetry, fairy tales, comedies, action-packed novels. His most famous work - "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - is the brightest example of an intellectual novel of the 19th century. O. Wilde's work expresses both the romantic traditions of the first half of the 19th century and the realistic and modernist aesthetic principles of its second half.
In the history of world literature, the writer entered as the most prominent representative of a phenomenon in art known as aestheticism.
1.1. Aestheticism as a literary movement
Aestheticism is a trend in English aesthetic thought and art. It originated in the 1870s, finally formed in the 1880s-1890s. and lost its position at the beginning of the twentieth century, merging with various forms of modernism.
“Aestheticism,” we find the definition in T. Krivina’s article, “is artistic direction, which raised to the absolute the idea of pure Beauty towering over real life, which is the substance of refined, refined art ".
“Aestheticism places art and Beauty on the other side of good and evil,” D. Yakovlev says in the article “The Way of Aestheticism,” removing from artistic creativity responsibility for "collateral" possible consequences of an unaesthetic nature. It was the ideal of aestheticism - art for art's sake - that turned out to be the most tenacious and acceptable both for modernist artists and for adherents of postmodernism.
The desire for a beautiful ideal, which is born in the artist's creative search, was reflected in ancient myths. Recall the myth of Pygmalion, who fell in love with the statue he created. Wasn't this story one of the first human attempts to prove that art is in some sense stronger, more perfect than life itself? In world literature, such attempts were repeated and most fully - in the aesthetic works of Schiller and Shelley, in the work of Goethe and Keats, in the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, from time to time the idea was proclaimed: "Beauty will save the world." The artists of the past, while praising beauty, did not absolutize the gap between their ideals and real life and believed in the educational power of Art. At the same time, their very desire to lead a person to the world of beauty through theater, poetry, painting was explained by a deep dissatisfaction with everyday reality. Aestheticism was the extreme manifestation of this dissatisfaction. .
1.2. Aesthetic theories of J. Ruskin and W. Pater and their influence on the work of O. Wilde
A significant role in the formation of the theory of aestheticism was played by the publicist, historian and art theorist, literary critic John Ruskin. Ruskin's artistic essays, original in form, provide an aesthetic justification for many trends in English literature of the 19th century. Most of all, he was able to assimilate and formulate the principles of romantic aesthetics, but he also came to realize a number of principles of realistic creativity. Hence - the transitional nature of Ruskin's aesthetic worldviews, which are in evolution from romanticism to realism. Ruskin's aesthetic treatises were polemical in nature. Not accepting the ideas of conservative critics, he created theories imbued with a democratic understanding of culture.
The treatise Modern Artists (1843-1860) in five volumes was conceived as a defense of the artist Turner, whose art was not understood by the critics of the time, but in the process of writing this treatise grew into a systematic exposition of Ruskin's aesthetic ideas and was a remarkable work of art criticism. in nineteenth century England. Ruskin's ideas became popular and his name famous.
Ruskin turned to the work of great writers and artists of the past and present in order to reveal the high ideals of beauty, freedom, peace, to understand the meaning of being and the laws of social and cultural development society. In his Lectures on Art, Ruskin said that the art of any country is a representative of its social and political properties and accurately expresses it. moral life. This is the essence of artistic truth.
The category of beauty plays a leading role in Ruskin's aesthetics. The critic writes a lot about the ideal of beauty. The idea of beauty giving a feeling of happiness, he contrasted reality with ugliness. The beautiful in his interpretation means mainly moral force and the truth of a person striving for perfection and happiness, as well as the harmony of natural forms.
Ruskin developed the idea of the connection between the aesthetic and ethical principles in art and literature. According to him, art can exist and be improved only under the condition of an appropriate level of morality. Ruskin's theory formed the basis of Wilde's theory of aestheticism. The very core of Ruskin's theory - Beauty as an absolute - was adopted by O. Wilde and was further developed in his collection Ideas and the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. However, we cannot say that Oscar Wilde accepted Ruskin's theory completely and unconditionally. The most serious discrepancies arose in the aspect of the connection between art and morality. As mentioned above, John Ruskin believed that art and Beauty are inseparable from morality, Oscar Wilde departs from his teacher in the collection “Intentions”, and then in the preface to the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” says that “... moral human life is just one of the themes of ... creativity" (2, 7), entering into direct polemics with Ruskin, who claims that "... the art of any country is a representative of its social and political properties and accurately expresses its moral life" , in his article " The Decline of the Art of Lying” Oscar Wilde says that “… life imitates art much more than art imitates life…” (1, 258)
Closer to the worldview of Oscar Wilde were the principles of aestheticism, set forth by John Ruskin's student Walter Pater, who adhered to the subjectivist version of the concept of "art for art's sake". For him, art should not teach good, it is indifferent to morality. Beautiful is subjective, so the task of the critic is only to express his personal experience from meeting with a work of art. Such, for example, is Peiter's presentation of his impressions of the Gioconda by Leonardo da Vinci, in which he saw "the animality of Greece, the voluptuousness of Rome, the mysticism of the Middle Ages, the return of the pagan world, the sins of the Borgia" ("Essays on the History of the Renaissance").
After Peter, Oscar Wilde became the leader of aestheticism. The cult of beauty leads him to a paradoxical statement: art is not only higher than life, but also shapes reality in accordance with the artist's fantasy. This is the climax of the development of aestheticism.
1.3 Aesthetic ideas of O. Wilde. Collection "Intentions"
O. Wilde's theory of aestheticism finds further development in his collection "Intentions", which includes such well-known treatises as: "The Decline of the Art of Lies", "Pencil, Pen, Poison", "The Critic as an Artist". In this collection, Wilde proclaimed basically the same ideas, developing them in a paradoxical manner, carried away by the play on words and meanings.
The treatise "The Decline of the Art of Lying" (1889) was written about E. Zola's novel "Germinal", which caused heated controversy. Bourgeois criticism accused Zola of immorality. Oscar Wilde recognizes Zola's novel as quite moral, but nevertheless condemns it from the point of view of art. Denying naturalism, Wilde also attacks the very principles of realism.
Constructed as a dialogue, the treatise displays two views on art. The common position for both polemists was the position of the crisis contemporary art. But one of the opponents - Cyril (the name of the first son of the writer) believes that salvation for art can only be found in a return to nature, to life. The thoughts of his opponent Vivian (who bears the name of the second son of the writer) are more radical (critics consider him an alter ego of Wilde himself). He believes that the craving for "truthfulness" is the death of the artist. Art, in his opinion, is, first of all, the art of lies: “... At the moment when art renounces fiction and fantasy, it renounces everything ... The only beautiful things are those that we don’t care about ... Lies, the transfer of beautiful fables - this is the true goal of art" (1, 253). Also, according to Vivian, it is not art that should imitate nature, but life holds a mirror before art. “Art expresses nothing but itself… It does not need to be realistic in the age of realism or spiritual in the age of faith… In no case does it reproduce its age… Life imitates art much more than art imitates life. This happens because we have an imitative instinct in us, and also because the conscious goal of life is to find expression for itself, namely, art shows it certain beautiful forms in which it can embody its aspiration. external nature imitates art... (1, 258). Vivian argues his statements with the example of "appearance in life" of the nihilist type "created" by Turgenev and "completed" by Dostoevsky. He has many such examples. Developing his own theory, Vivian teeters on the edge of the serious and the paradoxical. The paradox becomes one of the features of the style of the writer himself.
Another article included in the collection "Intentions" is the dialogue "The Critic as an Artist". It outlines the views of the writer on art criticism.
The first participant in the discussion, Ernest, opposes art criticism as such: “Why do we need art criticism? Why not leave the artist to himself? (1, 494). “What does an artist care about criticism and scolding criticism? Why do those who themselves are not capable of creating take the liberty of judging creativity? (1,495). Ernest turns to ancient literature, arguing that “the Greeks had no art critics, in its best days, art did very well without critics. (1,498). Gilbert takes the exact opposite position. "I could understand a statement like creative genius The whole Greeks have gone into criticism, but if they tell me that the people to whom we owe the spirit of criticism were themselves incapable of criticism - this is already too much ”(1, 503) - he says and relies on the aesthetic treatise Poetics by Aristotle.
“Talking about something is much more difficult than creating this “something”. Everyone can create history. Only great people are able to write it ”(1, 511) - Gilbert says, this proves the idea that criticism is also an art form, no less complex than art itself. This idea is destined to find its reflection in the future work of the writer.
Conclusions to the section
So, in this section, we paid attention to such a special aspect of O. Wilde's work as aestheticism.
In the section, we explored such issues as the definition of aestheticism as a literary trend in the middle of the 19th century; the influence of W. Pater and D. Ruskin on Wilde's work, as well as the main theses of aestheticism, set forth by the writer in the collection "Intentions", such as: Real art, it is always the "art of lies", a beautiful lie - brings salvation to art, "truth speaking" - death; Art does not and should not imitate life, it is life that imitates art; Criticism is a special kind of art.
CHAPTER II . THE PROBLEM OF OSCAR WILDE'S FAIRY TALES
The work of Oscar Wilde is very versatile. In addition to bright plays, art history articles and brilliant novel"The Picture of Dorian Gray", written by the writer beautiful fairy tales.
In 1888, O. Wilde published the collection The Happy Prince and Other Tales, which included five fairy tales: The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Faithful Friend, The Miraculous Rocket; and in 1891 the second book of fairy tales was published: "The Pomegranate House", consisting of four fairy tales: "The Young King", "The Birthday of the Infanta", "The Fisherman and His Soul", "The Star Boy".
Some researchers of O. Wilde's work focus on the contradictions of the writer, but almost everyone agrees that contradictions (as well as immorality) are almost never found in fairy tales. house." The aestheticism of the writer in his fairy tales is full of morality, the main problems are the problems of human relationships with the need for mutual understanding and honesty.
So, we are moving on to identifying the main problems of fairy tales and analyzing them.
The tales of O. Wilde, like all his work, are very multifaceted, they raise many problems. We will focus on the most expressive, such as:
The problem of the correlation of heroes and the world around them (“The Young King”, “ devoted friend"," Birthday of the Infanta ");
· the problem of the ratio of external and internal beauty (“Star Boy”, “Infanta's Birthday”, “Happy Prince”);
the problem of self-sacrifice ("The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Happy Prince", "The Devoted Friend").
2.1. The problem of the ratio of heroes and the world around
The problem of the relationship between the characters and the world around them, cruel reality occupies a special place in the writer's work. It is most clearly shown in the fairy tales: "The Young King", "A Loyal Friend", "The Birthday of the Infanta".
At the beginning of the tale, the young King is shown to us as a man who feels uncomfortable in the arms of reality: “He lay ... looking ahead of him with shy eyes, like a swarthy-faced forest faun or a young beast that fell into a trap set by hunters” (1, 409).
The young King was previously a simple shepherd, enjoying a carefree life, and had no idea about his origin. But, once in the castle, the King is carried away by the beauty and luxury around, until in a dream he understands the price, and the price is the lives of many, many people. The young King refuses fine clothes: “Take this away and hide it from me. Although today is my coronation day, I will not accept it. For this garment is woven on the loom of Sorrow by the white hands of Pain. In the heart of a ruby is blood, and in the heart of a pearl is death” (1, 417).
But those around do not understand the King: “Truly, he has lost his mind… And what is the life of those who work for us? And should you abstain from bread until you see the plowman, and from wine until you speak a word with the vinedresser? - the courtiers say with surprise (1, 419) and break into the doors of the church to kill the King they did not accept. The conflict reaches its climax, but highest point reaches and found spiritual harmony of the King. Higher powers reward him: “And now, through the window winds, sunlight poured on him, and the rays of the sun wove around him a garment more beautiful than what they did for the sake of his luxury. ... He stood in royal attire and from the crystal facets of the monstrance a mysterious marvelous light poured out ”(1, 421). Kneeling, the bishop reverently says: “He who is taller than me crowned you!”
And indeed, higher power resolve this conflict. Such is the ending of this tale and such is the writer's peculiar conclusion. Its essence is that inner world heroes cannot always find understanding in the real world, but there is another world - the world of harmony, justice, and he always stands up for the pure, sincere souls of heroes.
2.2. The problem of the ratio of beauty external and internal
This problem occupies a special place in O. Wilde's work.
In The Boy-Star, the writer very consistently defends the principle of the inseparability of the external and internal beauty of a person, and illustrates the idea that the basis of morality is an aesthetic sense.
The star-boy at the beginning of the tale pesters us with surprisingly handsome: “Every year he became more beautiful and more beautiful, and the inhabitants of the village marveled at his beauty ... His face was white and tender, as if carved from ivory, and his golden curls were like petals of a narcissus, and lips like the petals of a scarlet rose, and eyes like violets reflected in clear water stream" (1, 476).
This beauty conquered everyone around, made the boy obey: "... And his peers obeyed him, because he was handsome" (1, 477).
But beauty and unlimited power brought him only evil, "for he grew up selfish, proud and cruel" (1, 466). Because of his cruelty, the hero of this tale becomes a freak: spiritual malice, exorbitant pride, inability to love anyone, and, above all, his mother - this, in the end, is reflected on his face: “He went to the reservoir and looked at him, but what did he see! His face became like a toad, and his body was covered with scales, like that of a viper ”(1, 479).
The impetus for correction as spiritual purification is disgust for one's own ugly appearance. Beauty returns to him only after he atones for his sins.
In "The Boy-Star" the writer most clearly shows the ratio of internal and external beauty. The boy-star is beautiful, but his inner world is ugly, but everything falls into place - as a punishment, they take away the most valuable thing from him - beauty. And so we see that the inner world corresponds to the outer one. As soon as the hero repents, his body becomes beautiful, like his soul.
So the writer reveals the problem of the ratio of internal and external beauty in the fairy tale "The Boy-Star".
In a different way, he considers her in the fairy tales "The Birthday of the Infanta" and "The Happy Prince".
“The central idea of O. Wilde’s fairy tales, says T. Krivina, is the idea that life is ugly, but a beautiful lie is beautiful, and as soon as reality invades a dream, fantasy, modern beauty created by someone, how all this perishes.”
With a beautiful illusion, Wilde connects spiritual ideals that turn out to be incompatible with reality. TO perfect love the Dwarf strives (“The Infanta’s Birthday”), as does the Nightingale (“The Nightingale and the Rose”), but the truth of life destroys them. But reality destroys only the outer, ugly shell in order to expose its amazing, invincible inner beauty to the world.
2.3. The theme of self-sacrifice
The theme of self-sacrifice is central to such tales as The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and the Rose.
The Happy Prince sacrifices himself to heal the pain of his, albeit tin, but still heart. First, after giving the poor seamstress a ruby from his sword, the Happy Prince gives his eyes. But he sacrifices not just stones and gold - but his beauty: “God! What a ragamuffin this Happy Prince has become! the Mayor exclaimed. “The ruby is no longer in his sword, his eyes have fallen out, and the gilding has come off him ... He is worse than any beggar!” (1, 373).
But the Happy Prince, as well as the Swallow, who sacrificed her life, are rewarded: “And the Lord commanded his angel: bring me the most valuable thing that you will find in this city.
And the angel brought him a pewter heart and a dead bird.
“You made the right choice,” said the Lord. “For in my gardens of Eden this little bird will sing forever and ever, and in my shining hall the Happy Prince will give me praise” (1, 373).
The Nightingale ("The Nightingale and the Rose") and the Dwarf ("The Infanta's Birthday") remain without a reward for their sacrifice - the rose for which the Nightingale gave his life, disappointed by the refusal of the Professor's Daughter, the Student simply throws away. And the little Dwarf, dancing for the externally beautiful and internally terrible Infanta, unable to bear the despair of his own ugliness, dies simply on the floor of the castle where he danced. But, the higher the sacrifice of both the Nightingale and the Dwarf, the lower, uglier, Wilde draws and the soulless Infanta, and the too rational Student. It is on the basis of contrast that the writer shows the beautiful inner world of his characters and the ugliness of external reality.
Conclusions to the section
So, this section was devoted to the analysis of the problems of fairy tales by Oscar Wilde. Analyzing fairy tales, we came to the following conclusions:
1. The problem of the relationship between heroes and the outside world is very clearly presented in the writer's fairy tales. And, having singled out such fairy tales as "The Young King", "Devoted Friend", "Infanta's Birthday", we came to the conclusion that often the inner world of heroes - the world of romantic illusions - collapses from a collision with reality. These tales are a kind of warning, they contain reproach and criticism of the cruel real world.
2. The problem of the ratio of external and internal beauty in the fairy tales "The Boy-Star", "The Happy Prince", "The Infanta's Birthday". The essence of this ratio is that the outer and inner worlds are not always identical, but fate puts everything in its place.
CHAPTER III . PHILOSOPHICAL AND AESTHETIC PROBLEMS OF THE NOVEL "THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY"
The most important stage in the life and work of Oscar Wilde was his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The novel has a very interesting history of creation. Once in the workshop of his friend, the artist Basil Orda, the writer saw a sitter, which struck him with amazing beauty. Oscar cried out: “What a pity that he cannot escape old age with all its disgust!” And Basil said that he would draw a new portrait every year, so that nature would leave its inexorable marks on the canvas, and not on the appearance of the "cherub" that Wilde saw. Such is the story of the creation of the novel that made the name of Oscar Wilde famous.
The novel, written in 1891, is an extremely controversial work. It feels the influence of gothic novels about a man who sold his soul to the devil for unfading beauty and youth.
The only novel Wilde - relies on the wide literary erudition of the author. In it, researchers easily find common features with the romanticism of the early 19th century, in particular with the works of Hoffmann (for example, the theme of twins is unleashed in an original way, the existence of two worlds: real and fantastic, gloomy mystery, as in "Elixirs of Satan"), or Chamisso ("Amazing the story of Peter Schlemel”), and that in the work of Balzac, which had a romantic beginning, responded in Wilde's novel. First of all, this is Shagreen Skin, with which The Picture of Dorian Gray has too many echoes.
Wilde's novel is very close to the neo-romantic prose of his contemporaries. And here, first of all, it is worth mentioning " strange story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde "Stevenson, some things Conrad and Kipling. The list of sources of ideological and artistic inspiration for Wilde when writing The Picture of Dorian Gray can be continued. The main thing that the novel testifies to is that it piece of art with a great literary, actually bookish, basis. We can argue that in our time this is not regarded as a disadvantage, as something negative. On the contrary, most of the works of modernism and all postmodern literature of the 20th century were based on the wide use of the entire array of previous sources. This is one of the most important aesthetic principles of our time. Most importantly, no matter what other artistic discoveries Oscar Wilde was inspired by, he created an original, outstanding work, which belongs to the most significant art finds of the last third of the twentieth century.
3.1. The novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" as the embodiment of the writer's aesthetic ideas
It is impossible not to say about this novel at the same time both a hymn to aestheticism and an “aesthetic dystopia” (K. Chukovsky “Oscar Wilde”, p. 693). In this novel, O. Wilde most fully expresses the main positions of his theory of aestheticism. Twenty-five aphorisms of the preface in concentrated form define the system aesthetic views author.
We turn to the analysis of the first problem of the novel.
“The artist is the one who creates the beautiful (2, 7),” says the first of the aphorisms. And indeed, the artist Basil Hallward created a beautiful portrait: “... there was a portrait of a young man of extraordinary beauty on the easel”, “... the artist looked at a beautiful young man, with such art displayed by him in the portrait ...” (2, 9). But isn't this same portrait - a beautiful work of art - creating the terrible monster that Dorian becomes? “... A scream of horror escaped the artist when, in the twilight, he saw a terrible face, mockingly grinning at him from the canvas. There was something in the expression of that face that revolted the soul, filled it with disgust. Heavenly powers, why is this the face of Dorian! (2, 119). “You told me you destroyed the portrait!” Basil says moments before his death. "It is not true. He destroyed me ”(2, 119), Dorian answers before finally destroying his soul, and, putting these words into the mouth of his character, Oscar Wilde, perhaps not expecting it himself, refutes his first thesis.
“Those who find evil in beauty are corrupted people... Those who are able to see it in beauty lofty sense, are cultured people. They are not hopeless" (2, 7). - Wilde's next aphorism. But he is also destined to be refuted on the pages of the novel. Neither Basil nor the more shrewd Lord Henry perceives only external beauty Dorian, do not see the terrible soul of the hero. No one believes that Dorian is capable of committing a crime. The amazing beauty of Dorian overshadows the eyes of James Wayne, who, wanting to avenge his dead sister, could not carry out his plan, simply not believing that such a beautiful young man could be so cruel and ruthless. And he, like Basil, pays for his mistake in life.
“The artist is not a moralist,” says Wilde, but the true artist Basil - only one of the heroes of the novel - is trying to return Dorian to the righteous path: “Pray, Dorian, pray! .. the prayer of repentance will be heard” (2, 120) - in he says in a fit of horror when he sees the portrait.
But does the ending of the novel, in which the hero is punished and appears before the readers in the most horrifying form, contradict the author's statement "The artist is not a moralist"? I think not. In essence, Wilde did not deny the moral content of literature: he opposed only deliberate edification. The theme of morality in the novel remains open. And we turn to the study of the problems of the novel.
3.2. The problem of the relationship between art and reality
Next in our work, we will highlight the problem of the relationship between art and reality. This problem occupies a special, leading place both in the work and in all the work of Oscar Wilde.
We can already see a close connection with art in the name of the protagonist: “Dorian” (from the English “Doric”) is an art history term, which means ancient monuments classical antiquity.
The theme of the relationship between art and reality runs throughout the novel. It is realized in many aspects, the main of which are the ratio of form and content (here we can give an example of Dorian Gray himself - his appearance and inner world); eternity and a moment of beauty, art, the attitude of the creator and his creation, the ethical attitude to art, beauty.
The problem of the relationship between the creator and his creation is interestingly depicted in the work. In the words of the artist Basil Hallward, “In the history of mankind there are only two important moments. The first is the appearance in art of new ways of depiction, the other is the appearance of a new image in it” (2, 12).
Basil Hallward created a portrait of his friend Dorian Gray, a perfect work of art. And from that moment on, the portrait and the sitter become indivisible (here, we see the close interweaving of art and reality). At first Dorian Gray does not see his own beauty, then Lord Henry appears. In his words - a hymn to beauty, a warning that it will pass. “The wonderful beauty of youth has been given to you, and youth is the only wealth that is worth protecting” (2, 23), “Youth will pass, and beauty will pass with it - and then it will suddenly become clear to you that the time of victories has passed” (2, 23) .
When Dorian looks at the portrait, envy wakes up in him, because this beauty is immortal. “If I could be forever young, and the portrait grew old!” (2, 27). Dorian's thought materializes. And there is a division into form and content, which will lead to the death of Dorian, his fall. Portrait and sitter (art and reality) change places. The portrait becomes content, internal, and Dorian becomes just a perfect form, a shell.
It is interesting to trace the relationship between form and content among the other heroes of the work, we will talk about this later. So, for Lord Henry, his soul, Dorian Gray becomes the essence, and he himself remains the external "decent" shell. For Dorian Gray, his real "I" is contained in the portrait, and he himself is only a humanized image. On the other hand, for Basil Hallward, the portrait becomes both form and content, because it contains his cherished dream, ideal, absolute beauty. In Sibyl Vane, Dorian Gray loves only the external (the images of various heroines she created): “All the great heroines of the world live in her! - Dorian admires, - she is more than one being ”(2, 45). But this is how Dorian speaks of Sibylla at the beginning of their relationship, drawn into the world of art and roles created by Sibylla, calling her "Holy" (2, 45). But soon he will speak differently to everyone: “I would like to think that she is sick,” Dorian objected. “But I see that she is just cold and soulless. She has completely changed. Yesterday she was still a great artist. And today - only the most ordinary average actress (2, 68) - in a fit of despair, he tells his friends and this moment becomes a turning point in Dorian's fate. He preferred the form to the content, and with this, in fact, he killed Sibylla and destroyed part of his soul, initiating the monstrous transformations of the portrait.
Irina Kuzminchuk in the article "The Paradoxes of Oscar Wilde" conditionally divides the heroes of the novel into two camps: people who create art (artists) - Sybil, Hallward; and people who perceive, think about art (critics) - Dorian and Lord Henry.
The artist, according to the author, is the one who creates beauty. A critic is one who is capable of new form or with the help of other ways to convey the impressions of the beautiful. Perhaps for this reason, "artists" value friendship, love more than art, and "critics" are not able to look beyond the shell, they discard real feelings, being satisfied with what they see - theatrical, aesthetic. “Everything on the stage is much more realistic than life,” says Lord Henry.
The highest, as well as the lowest form of criticism, the author considered, is one of the types of autobiography. Depicting the biography of Dorian, the writer raises questions, the answers to which we are looking for every time we open a novel.
Having driven a knife into a mutilated portrait, Dorian kills himself. This affirms the idea of the eternity of beauty, the eternity of art (the portrait becomes the same as Basil created it). “On entering the room, they saw a magnificent portrait of their master, in all the splendor of his wondrous youth and beauty, and on the floor with a knife in his chest lay dead man in tailcoat. His face was wrinkled, withered, repulsive. And only by the rings on the hands of the servants did they know who it was” (2, 168).
With the death of his hero - paradoxically, perhaps unexpectedly for himself - Oscar Wilde removes the cornerstones from the foundation of the philosophical doctrine of Lord Henry (and they were so often identified!), forcing him to look for other life beliefs, truths.
3. 3. The conflict of asceticism and hedonism in the novel
So, we move on to our next problem, inextricably linked with the name of Lord Henry. This is a conflict between asceticism and hedonism.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a polygenre novel: it is both a secular story, and an everyday-realistic novel, and a novel depicting the life of high society (Lord Henry and Dorian Gray are their home, friendly and club environment) and the life of London aristocratic bohemia; a philosophical-alegorical novel-myth is one in which personified ideas act next to people: Time, Beautiful (or simply Beauty), Fate (or Fatum), Genius, Science, whose names Wilde, according to medieval tradition, derives from capital letter(Time, Beauty, Fate, Genius, Science). The first place among them is occupied by the allegory Pleasure: addressing his new acquaintance, Dorian Gray, Lord Henry philosophizes: he proclaims a sermon on the protection of life, youth and physical perfection of a person, which is at the same time a flattering ode to the beauty of Dorian. “A new hedonism is what our age needs, and you, Dorian, could become a personified symbol (2.15).
Hedonism (gr. - pleasure) is a philosophical and ethical theory, a kind of anthropological naturalism, to some extent an ahistorical mind and an asocial view of a person, which simplifies the motives of her behavior. Hedonism claims that the highest good of life is pleasure, it is also the only criterion of morality. And this, in turn, justifies moral and ethical relativism. Everyone has their own morals! From here opens a direct road to preaching and moralism and extreme individualism, as it, in fact, was in the circle of Oscar Wilde.
The founder of the current ancient Greek philosopher Aristippus (IV century BC), Epicurus (341 - 270 BC) and his followers (Epicureans) considered the criterion of pleasure the absence of suffering and carelessness - the ideal state of the spiritual being of a person.
Philosophical hedonism of the Epicurean type promoted the limitation of human needs, its rationalism and self-removal from society and its problems.
Hedonistic motives became widespread during the Renaissance. The Enlightenment philosophers - Hobbes, Locke, Gassendi - do not bypass them either.
As a life-asserting principle, hedonism protests against asceticism (from the Greek “ascetic – hermit, black man”) – the voluntary restriction of a person’s natural feelings, the desire to feel suffering, physical pain, and loneliness. The ultimate goal of asceticism is to achieve freedom from everyday needs, the focus of the spirit, ecstasy. As in hedonism, but by means opposite to it! .
Subjectively, both hedonists and ascetics strive for the highest good, for the achievement of truth, for their own happiness, they enjoy life - each in his own way. And the pleasure of each of them - the desires of the hedonist and the suffering of the ascetic - are the only possible measure of good and evil. The paradox on which the conflict of Wilde's novel is also based: the hedonistic heroes, "the theorist Lord Henry and the "practitioner" Dorian Gray - the favorite of Henry and Basil, their protégé on the stage of the theater of vice, Terrible, expanded to the smallest detail, the scene of the murder of Basil Hallward by Dorian Gray (the hedonist kills the ascetic!) has a broader meaning than the gory details of the crime novel: the trivial, purely English murder acquires a symbolic-alegorical meaning: pleasure cracks down on Asceticism. Authentic medieval theatre. But both actors this bloody farce - criminal and inhumane - destroying the soul and shedding blood. And the ideal of life - its golden mean - must be sought elsewhere, among other ideas, in the harmonious unity of the sensual-physical and intellectual life personality .
The order of ascetics in the novel is not limited to the membership in it of Basil Hallward alone: a worthy company is made up of I. Alan Campbell.
In the detective part of the plot, this old friend of Dorian, one of the victims of his influence on people, acts against his will as the devil's assistant! .
Alan Campbell graduated with honors from the University of Cambridge. He had his own research laboratory. He plunged into the study of biology - the science of man, his name has already appeared twice on the pages of scientific journals. But only research he conducted some incomprehensible, mysterious. He became an ascetic.
It is quite possible that the antipode of the hedonist Gray, the ascetic Campbell, in his lonely Faustian life paid tribute not only to science, but also saw in it a means of protection from such as this former friend of his. It is also possible that this was the atonement for sin, which he no doubt considered his friendship with Dorian. But he was not lucky to hide from Dorian Gray in his fortress-laboratory.
Dorian lured him to his home by cunning (although Alan had long sworn not to cross his threshold), and did not let him out again until he saved him - freed him from the corpse that he had killed Basil Hallward. There was no blackmail.
Once again, hedonism wins.
But "again" does not mean "always". A vivid proof of this will be the finale of the novel, in which - the debunking of both the hedonistic and aesthetic views of the author; the collapse of a man who worships only pleasure and permissiveness
Conclusions to the section.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde's most famous and brilliant work.
In this section, examining the novel, we have come to the following conclusions:
1. The novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" contains both the aesthetic worldview of the author and its debunking on the example of the fate of the protagonist.
2. The problem of the relationship between art and reality is sharply posed in the novel, here the writer follows the thesis proclaimed in the "Intentions": "Life imitates art."
3. In addition to these problems, a special place is occupied by the conflict of asceticism and hedonism - one of the central ones in the novel. Its essence is that at first we see the superiority of hedonism in everything, but the ending of the novel radically changes their positions. By this, the writer, in fact, abandons the principles of hedonism,
CONCLUSIONS
The period of creativity of O. Wilde is the period of development of aestheticism in English and world literature.
Aestheticism is a trend in English aesthetic thought and art that originated in the 1870s, finally took shape in the 1880s and 1890s and lost its position at the beginning of the 20th century, merging with various forms of modernism. This is an artistic direction that elevated to the absolute the idea of pure Beauty, towering over real life, which is the substance of refined, exquisite art. Aestheticism had a huge impact on the work of Oscar Wilde.
The work of Oscar Wilde is very multifaceted, it reveals many philosophical, aesthetic and moral problems.
In his tales, the writer touches upon such issues as:
1. The problem of the ratio of heroes and the world around them (“Young King”, “Devote Friend”, “Infanta's Birthday”). The essence of this problem is that often the inner world of heroes - the world of beautiful illusions - cannot always find understanding in the surrounding, real world.
2. The problem of the relationship between external and internal beauty (“Star Boy”, “Infanta's Birthday”, “Happy Prince”). This problem is very accurately defined by T. Krivina. “The central idea of O. Wilde’s fairy tales,” she says, “is the idea that life is ugly, but a beautiful lie is beautiful, and as soon as reality invades a dream, fantasy, beauty created by someone, how it all perishes.”
3. The problem of self-sacrifice ("The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Happy Prince", "The Devoted Friend"). The essence of this problem is that the higher the sacrifice of the heroes, the lower and uglier the external reality in which this sacrifice is not accepted.
The philosophical and aesthetic problems of the novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" are very multifaceted, it is also worth saying that the novel is the embodiment of the writer's aesthetic ideas. An important place both in the work and in all the work of Oscar Wilde is occupied by the problem of the relationship between art and reality. It is realized in many aspects, the main of which are the ratio of form and content, eternity and the moment of beauty, art, the relationship of the creator and his creation, the ethical attitude towards art, beauty.
In the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, we also identified the conflict between hedonism and aspetism, the essence of which is that, as a principle of life-affirmation, hedonism opposes asceticism, the ultimate goal of which is to achieve freedom from everyday needs, the focus of the spirit, ecstasy. Subjectively, both hedonists and ascetics strive for the highest good, for the achievement of truth, for their own happiness, they enjoy life - each in his own way. And the pleasure of each of them - the desire of the hedonist and the suffering of the ascetic - are the only possible measures of good and evil. This is the main paradox on which the conflict of Wilde's novel is based.
LIST OF USED LITERATURE
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3. Anikin A. V. Oscar Wilde and his dramaturgy. // Oscar Wilde. Plays.
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5. Babenko K. P. Zlochin against beauty // All-world literature and culture in the beginnings of Ukraine. - No. 7. - S. 14 - 15.
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7. Boyarshinova S. I. “Zoyk zhakhu snorted at the artist…” Two lessons from the study of the novel “Portrait…” // Foreign Literature in the Beginnings. - 2002. - No. 6. - S. 17-20.
8. Bulvarenko L. V. A handsome prince with an indulgent soul. 10 cells // Foreign literature in the beginnings. - 2006. - No. 7. - P. 5 - 17.
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11. Gavrishko I. I. “Prince Paradox?”, “Apostle to Sectism?”, “King of Life?” Zradzheny, v'yazen, vignanets, zlidar? // All-World Literature in the Middle Primary Mortgages of Ukraine. - 2000. - No. 3. - S. 51-53.
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15. Zakharenko N. Rab paint chi spіvets paint? (A lesson for the creation of O. Wilde's works) // Foreign Literature. - 2003. - No. 7. - P. 8 - 12.
16. Kabkova O. Carnival in the life and work of O. Wilde. // Foreign literature. - 2003. - No. 7. - P. 8 - 12.
17. Kovalenko N. M. “Because I am a man, I love people ...” Comparative analysis of O. Wilde’s tales “Happy Prince O. Sheintakh “It’s gone”, Grade 5 // All-world literature and culture in the beginnings of Ukraine. - 2003. - No. 2. - S. 12 - 13.
18. Korpan T. O. Wild. "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Lesson-gra. // Foreign literature. - 2003. - No. 7. - S. 6 - 7.
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LIST OF SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL
1. Oscar Wilde. Selected: Per. from English. / Comp. and intro. Art. S. Belza; approx. A. Zvereva; - M .: Pravda, - 1989. - 736s.
2. Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Grey; Prison confession: Per. from English. - K .: Publishing Center "Posrednik", - 1998. - 266 p.
A problem is an aspect of the content of a work that the author focuses on. The range of problems covered by the author's interest, issues constitutes the problems of the work. Solving the problem is part of the writer's creative process.
The issue is directly related to the author's intention. It can be reflected "directly" when the problems are revealed in the text, regardless of the figurative system. The author emphasizes the most significant, from his point of view, aspects of the subject of the image.
The problem can be realized at different levels of the work, most often in the depiction of characters, in an artistic conflict (Pushkin "Mozart and Salieri")
Along with this, problems can organically weave out of the subject matter of the work. This is what happens in a historical and artistic-historical work (Pushkin's "Arape of Peter the Great")
The issue depends on many factors: historical events, social problems, "ideas of time", "literary fashion". But first of all - the worldview of the author, his point of view. It is reflected in those author's accents that constitute the problematics of a work of art. (Turgenev "Fathers and Sons" and Chernyshevsky "What is to be done?")
Problematicness as a quality appeared rather late, it didn’t exist: in the archaic, ancient epic, or it was limited to the framework of various rules (for example, the position of a character in classicism is unchanged and the choice is predetermined).
The more diversely depicted, the more important and interesting the problems. It is diverse (philosophical, social, moral, etc.). In Russian literature, a prominent place is occupied by the social and socio-psychological (Nekrasov, “Who should live well in Rus'”).
The problem is realized either directly or indirectly (through images, system).
Theme - subject artistic image(what is said) and artistic knowledge (which became the basis of the author's interest, evaluation). How the foundation subjugates the individual elements of the work. Topics are divided into several groups:
“Eternal themes” become the subject of knowledge. This is a complex of meanings for humanity in all eras and in all literary phenomena - the theme of life and death, light and darkness, love, freedom, duty, etc. they are perceived by writers in their own way, but always leave an integral part of the theme. Some scientists distinguish subgroups:
Ontological - existential, universal, chaos and cosmos, mythology
Anthropological - the deep foundations of human existence, bodily and spiritual) (Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita")
The realities of life of peoples, countries and times in their historical concreteness (Block "Twelve"). They are characteristic in epics, legends, historical novels.
Future, Science fiction, fantasy (Dante's "The Divine Comedy")
Modernity, problems that concern the writer's contemporary society (Gogol, Turgenev, etc.)
The most significant is the theme of man and his existence in the world, the inner world. Several conditional thematic groups:
Loneliness (Lermontov)
Creativity and art (Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita")
Image and knowledge of reality
Epic and drama works most often contain many themes. Allocate main theme or a theme that forms the content plan of the work, and side themes that arise along the way. Deep themes enrich the works and enable ambiguous interpretations (Nabokov).
