Analysis of one of R. Rolland's novels (“Jean-Christophe”). Gilenson B.A.: History of foreign literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries
Characteristics of the hero
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE (French: Jean-Christophe) is the hero of the ten-volume epic novel by R. Rolland “Jean-Christophe” (1904-1912). Served as a kind of prototype for the hero great composer L. van Beethoven (1770-1827). This is clearly evident at the beginning of the novel: J.-C. - half-German, half-Flemish, he has a wide face with rough, large features and a mane of thick, unruly hair, he was born in a small German town. Subsequently, the factual similarity ends; J.-C. lives almost a century later, and his fate is different. But the fictional and real composers are still united 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”, “Revolt”) consistently describe the childhood and youth of J.-C. in one of the seedy principalities of Pyrenean Germany. The son of a court musician, J.-C. V early age discovers extraordinary musical talent. A drunkard father, wanting to benefit from his son's talent, strives to make him a child prodigy. He brutally beats the child and trains him to become a virtuoso violinist. Grandfather J.-K., also a musician, records the boy’s improvisations and promises a great future for him. At the age of six, J.-C. becomes the Duke's court musician. His musical opuses addressed to the Duke are accompanied by obsequious dedications written by his father. Maternal uncle, peddler Gottfried, opens J.-C. the charm of folk song and the simple truth: music should have meaning, should be “modest and truthful, express genuine, not fake feelings.” At the age of eleven, J.-K. was the first violin of the court orchestra, and at fourteen, he alone supported the whole family: his father, kicked out for drunkenness, drowned. J.-C. earns money by giving lessons in rich houses, enduring ridicule and humiliation. Lessons, rehearsals, concerts in the ducal castle, composing cantatas and marches for official celebrations, unsuccessful love for the bourgeois Minna, - J.-C. lonely, he suffocates in an atmosphere of vulgarity, servility, servility, and only when he finds himself alone with nature, unprecedented melodies arise in his soul. J.-C. dreams of France; he sees it as the center of culture. The novel “Fair on the Square” is dedicated to the life of J.-C. in Paris. This is the most passionate and angry novel of the entire series, a pamphlet against the decaying art of the 19th century. At the Paris fair, everything is sold: convictions, conscience, talent. As in the circles of Dante's Inferno, Rolland guides his hero through the layers of Parisian cultural society: literature, theater, poetry, music, press, and J.-C. feels more and more clearly “first the insinuating, and then the persistent suffocating smell of death.” J.-C. declares an irreconcilable struggle for the fair, he writes the opera “David”. But the newly-minted David did not defeat Goliath, the opera did not see a stage: the influential writer, the “salon anarchist” Levi-Coeur, with whom J.-C. carelessly entered the battle. J.-C. suffers hunger, poverty, falls ill, and then working-class Paris opens up to him, he is nursed by a girl from the people, the maid Sidonie. And soon the rebellious J.-C. makes a friend - the poet Olivier Janin. Rolland emphasizes the contrast in the appearance and characters of his friends: huge, strong, self-confident, always eager to fight J.-C. and short, stooped, frail, timid, afraid of conflicts and harshness of Olivier. But both of them are pure in heart and generous in soul, both are selflessly 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 this search. (Here the influence of Leo Tolstoy and his idea of all-reconciling love is noticeable.) Without joining any party, friends become closer to the workers, to the Social Democratic movement. The heroism of the struggle intoxicates J.-C., and he composes a revolutionary song, which the workers of Paris sing the very next day. A whirlwind romance J.-C. with Anna Brown (“The Burning Bush”) is also akin to a struggle, J.-C. is still far from pacifying love. Immersed in the boiling of passions, J.-C. takes Olivier along with him to a May Day demonstration, which escalates into an armed clash with the police. J.-C. on the barricade, he sings revolutionary songs, he shoots and kills a policeman. Friends are hiding J.-C. from arrest and transported abroad. There he learns that Olivier died from his wounds. J.-C. lives in the mountains of Switzerland, he is again lonely, crushed, broken. Little by little, his mental health and the ability to create are returning to him. And after some time, he finds a new friendship-love, having met his former student, Italian Grazia. 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 (“The Coming Day”). Death of J.-C. Rolland depicts it with a symbolic picture: the hero, crossing a stormy stream, carries a baby on his shoulders - the Coming Day. After a century of sympathy " little man"with his infirmities and weaknesses Rolland in J.-C. made the dream of " big man" J.-C. is personified power, but not the superhuman Nietzschean, but the creative creative power of a genius: he selflessly devotes himself to art, and through this service to all humanity. The novel “Jean-Christophe” is a novel of ideas, there are few signs of everyday life, few events, the main attention is focused on the inner world of the hero, on his spiritual evolution.
The novel “Jean Christophe”: materials for analysis
Characterizing the history of the creation of the novel, we note that it is interesting and characteristic of creative process Rolland. He wrote about this in detail in the “Afterword to the Russian edition of 1931.” 1 . The idea for the work originated in 1890, the final chapters were written in June 1912. The idea was hatched for ten years. The structure of the work was carefully thought out and balanced. “I belong to the old breed of bourgeois builders,” wrote Rolland. “I would never begin a work without first laying out its foundation and defining all its main outlines.” For almost ten years, Rolland devoted all his intellectual, spiritual and emotional strength to the book. All this time, Rolland had to combine work on the novel with other responsibilities - teaching, writing historical and musicological works, working for a piece of bread. He later recalled: “But during these ten years not a single one day, whenever he (“Jean Christophe.” - B. G.) would not be with me. He didn't even need to speak. He was here: the author was talking to his shadow.” Note that the fifth book of the epic, “Fair in the Square,” is preceded by a preface by Rolland, which is called “Dialogue of the Author with a Shadow.”
1. Defining the pathos of his work, Rolland testified: “I’m not writing literary work. I am writing a creed."
How do you understand these words? Comment on Rolland's words:
“The commitment I took on in Jean Christophe was to awaken, during a period of moral and social decay in France, the spiritual fire dormant under the ashes.”
2. Introduction to the work and the very appearance of Beethoven, who captivated Rolland, was one of the main incentives in working on the novel. Why did the great composer become the most important hero for a writer? Why exactly did Beethoven’s personality type correspond to the writer’s life philosophy and aesthetics? Describe Beethoven's life as a "heroic biography" and the composer himself as a "titan" in the field of creativity. Remember the titanic images in world literature, such as Prometheus, Faust, Manfred. What are the features of these images?
What is the originality and complexity of Rolland’s plan, which captured a genius, a musician against the backdrop of his contemporary society? Do you detect autobiographical traits of the writer in the image of the main character? Did Rolland himself, a man of fragile health, have the fortitude and courage in defending his convictions that were characteristic of Jean Christophe? At what moments in Rolland’s life did his uncompromisingness and resilience become especially apparent?
What is the meaning of the novel's dedication: “To the free souls of all nations who suffer, struggle and conquer”? Describe the internationalist pathos of the novel. Why did it take courage and independence from the writer to make a German the main character of the book? Remember the events of the Franco-Prussian War, the Dreyfus affair. What is the role of music in the history of German culture? What great composers besides Beethoven can you name? What is the significance of Wagner’s music for the literary process at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries?
3. Describe the structure of the novel “Jean Christophe”. How does Rolland himself define it in the preface to the Paris edition of 1921 2? The writer calls his work a “four-part symphony.” What is the content and pathos of each part?
Analyze the genre nature of the novel “Jean Christophe”. What is epic novel 3? What examples of this genre in the literature of the period under review do you know (remember the works of E. Zola, A. France, G. Mann)? Name the cycles of novels that form epic canvases (E. Zola, G. Mann, T. Hardy, T. Dreiser, etc.).
In which works of the period under review is fate at the center? creative personality- painter, musician, scientist? Remember the work of E. Zola, G. de Maupassant, T. Dreiser, J. London. Why does Western literary critics call the novel “Jean Christophe” a “river novel”? How do you understand this definition?
4. Explain Rolland’s judgment about his novel: “This is a kind of intellectual and moral epic modern soul».
Why, tracing the life of a brilliant musician, does Rolland focus on his inner, emotional state?
"Jean Christophe" is called a "musical novel." How does Rolland achieve the harmonious unity of form and content, that is, the image of the composer, the specifics of his creative work and the very figurative and stylistic system of the work with its internal musicality?
5. Describe the first three books of the novel (“Dawn”, “Morning”, “Adolescence”). As Rolland conveys, “the awakening of the hero’s feelings and heart” in the parental nest, within narrow limits “ small homeland"? How does it lead him to his first life tests? How Jean Christophe develops an idea of his life mission. Trace the most significant plot milestones in the first three books of the novel.
What is the situation in Jean Christophe's family? How does the child perceive the world and how does his musical impulses manifest itself? Analyze his relationship with his grandfather, father, and uncle Gottfried; the first musical compositions of Jean Christophe and early performances in the court orchestra. How does the hero’s musical talent mature? What are the nature of the hero's hobbies? How does maximalism manifest itself in love and friendship? What is the “bar” for human relationships?
How does Rolland depict the “life of the soul” of his hero?
6. Identify the problems of the following two books: “Revolt”, “Fair in the Square”. What role did his “German” and “French” experiences play in the development of the hero’s worldview and character? How does the hero’s spiritual growth occur? Jean Christophe tears off his “yesterday, already dead shell.” What does it mean?
How does Jean Christophe transition from “rebellion” in the musical sphere to “rebellion” in the social sphere? What was the reason for his flight from Germany?
7. Why does the book “Fair in the Square” occupy a special place in the novel? Which famous writer used the word “fair” in the meaning of “marketplace” to characterize a bourgeois-aristocratic society? In what cases do features of the grotesque, satire, and pamphlet appear in the style of the novel? Give examples. How do Jean Christophe's illusions about France as a country of freedom, opposed to Germany with its spirit of militarism and class remnants, disappear in Paris? Describe the hero’s reaction to contemporary art that has become the subject of sale and purchase. How do literature, theater, and “new music” appear to Jean Christophe? What is Levi-Coeur, Jean Christophe's antagonist, like? Why did his symphonic film “David” fail?
Try to compare the image of corrupt art in Rolland’s “Fair on the Place” with similar paintings in the novels: “Lost Illusions” by O. de Balzac, “Money” by E. Zola, “Belarus Ami” Where is Maupassant. Who do you think Rolland is closer to: his older contemporaries - Zola and Maupassant, or to Balzac?
8. The role of philosophy, moral, ethical and aesthetic views of L.N. Tolstoy in the development of Rolland is known, as the author of “Jean Christophe” himself has repeatedly written about. Do you agree with the point of view of literary critic T. L. Motyleva, who in her book “On the World Significance of L. N. Tolstoy” writes: “... An understanding of the artist’s duty close to Tolstoy’s ideas underlies the entire concept of the novel “Jean Christophe” . This understanding is expressed by Rolland and in biographical sketches about Beethoven, Michelangelo, Mill and in articles about the composer"? T. L. Motyleva also believes that “Rolland, like Tolstoy, is meticulously intolerant of any distortion for the sake of external effect” 4. Express your opinion on this topic.
In the article “The Poison of Idealism” (1900), Rolland wrote: “Whatever the sphere of our activity, let us serve the truth... there are only two kinds of art in the world: that which is inspired by life, and that which is content with convention. Truth comes first." Can this point of view be fully accepted? Doesn't this lead to mistrust and underestimation of convention in art, as well as its “unrealistic” forms, such as naturalism and symbolism?
9. Describe the plot twists and turns of the following books of the novel: “Antoinette”, “In the House”. How does the tone of the story change? Let us think about the words of Rolland, who writes that these books are covered in an atmosphere of tenderness and spiritual concentration, serve as a contrast to the previous part with its frenzied enthusiasm and hatred and sound like an elegiac song in praise of Friendship and Pure Love. What is the meaning of the hero’s search for “another France”? Describe the image of Olivier Jeannin, the milestone of his friendship with Jean Christophe. What is the basis of this friendship? Do the relationships of the characters to some extent reflect Rolland’s life philosophy and the moral and ethical pathos of the novel? Is the friendship between a German and a Frenchman the embodiment of the novelist's internationalist beliefs?
Follow storyline Olivie.
10. Describe latest books novels: “Girlfriends”, “The Burning Bush”, “The Coming Day”, in which the life odyssey of the main character is completed. How, together with Olivier, does the hero seek the “symbol of faith”, wants to bring life to the “altar of the new god - the people”? How is the theme of political struggle implemented in The Burning Bush? How are the labor movement, its methods and its leaders characterized in the novel? Give examples. What position do Olivier and Jean Christophe take? Comment on Rolland's words: “Olivier has returned to his solitude. Christophe was quick to join him. Positively, they felt out of place in the revolutionary social movement. Olivier could not join to the common people. Christophe didn't want to. Olivier moved away from them in the name of the weak, Christophe in the name of the strong, independent ones.”
What is Rolland's own position? What was the writer’s attitude towards the revolution, revolutionary violence? Remember the nature of his polemics with A. Barbusse, his philosophy, often called “Rolandism”.
Describe the episode with the May Day demonstration. What is her role in the fate of the hero?
11. Describe the final, “Swiss” stage of Jean Christophe’s life (the book “The Coming Day”). What is the nature of Jean Christophe's new passion for Anna Brown, Doctor Brown's wife? Why did this harmonious feeling end in tragedy? Describe last love Jean Christophe to Grazia, his former student. What role does the motive of death, the departure of the protagonist’s closest people, play in the novel? What is the meaning of Jean Christophe's last wish - to unite the children of his dead friends - daughter Grazia and son Olivier?
Describe the ending of the novel. What is the significance of identifying Jean Christophe with St. Christopher? Pay attention to the religious-Christian ideas of the novel, for a long time obscured by Marxist criticism, to the following detail: “On the day when you look at the image of Christ, you will not die a bad death.” This inscription, carved on the base of the statue of St. Christopher at the entrance to medieval churches (for example, in the cathedral Notre Dame of Paris), given by Rolland at the end of each volume when the novel was first published in the Weekly Notebooks.
How is the motif of generational change, the inexorable birth of a new one, implemented in the final book of the epic? Rolland writes in a short afterword to the book:
“I wrote the tragedy of the passing generation, without hiding anything.<...>People of today, youth, it is your turn! Let our bodies be steps for you - walk forward along them. Be stronger and happier than us.<...>Life is an alternation of deaths and rebirths. Let us die, Christophe, in order to be born again!”
11. French critic Lamy called the novel "a poem of feelings." What is unique about the portrayal of the main character? What does Rolland focus on: on the depiction of external events, the “material” interior or the world of feelings, emotions, and experiences of Jean Christophe?
How is the musical, structure-forming principle implemented in the novel? How does Rolland achieve the fact that the life of a musician is divided into separate phases, like a monumental symphonic composition?
To what extent is the historical background and social context outlined?
12. Describe the poetics and stylistics of the novel. Emphasize the originality of Rolland's style by comparing it with the style of such his contemporaries as E. Zola, Where is Maupassant, A. France.
How in the narrative Rolland achieves a harmonious synthesis of words and music: give examples of lyricism, pathos, expression, emotional intensity, metaphor in Rolland’s manner. Show that the novelist appears not only as an artist of words, a psychologist, but also as an art connoisseur, a musicologist.
13. Justify the romantic beginning in the novel associated with its musical nature. Show Rolland's penchant for thickening colors, for depicting the special intensity of the main character's feelings and experiences. Is it possible to talk about the mirror “life-likeness” of the images and situations in the novel, or did Rolland continue the romantic traditions of V. Hugo?
Based on the romantic nature of the novel, characterize the sensual two-dimensionality of the image of Jean Christophe (on the one hand, he is alive human image, on the other - a symbol of Goodness, Justice, Creative Spirit).
14. The novel was a huge success and caused a pan-European resonance. Find and cite critics' statements. Summarize your observations: What is the impressive strength of the novel? What is his innovation 5?
How is the novel “Jean Christophe” perceived by today's readers?
Notes
1 See: Rolland R. Collected Works: in 14t. - M, 1956. - T. 6. - P. 369 -377.
2. See: Rolland R. Collected works: in 14 volumes. - M., 1955. - T. 3. - P. 78.
3. See: Literary encyclopedia terms and concepts. - M., 2001. - P. 1235-1238.
4. See: Motyleva T. L. On the global significance of L. N. Tolstoy. - M., 1957. - P. 398 - 416. On the creative relationships between L.N. Tolstoy and R. Rolland, also see: Chicherin A.V. The emergence of an epic novel. - M., 1958. - P. 246 - 260.
5. See: Chicherin A.V. Decree. op. - Ch. 6. Innovation and tradition in R. Rolland’s epic “Jean Christophe.”
Known to Russian readers, perhaps, like no other French writer. His work was perceived as an example of humanism and realism. This article talks about one of his most significant works Romain Rolland - "Jean-Christophe" - summary the 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. Since childhood, he was interested in the history of music and played the piano. Graduated from the prestigious Lyceum in Clamcy and high school Ecole Normale in Paris. After studying, 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. Published a music magazine, published fiction and dramatic works. He appreciated the work of Leo Tolstoy, knew him personally and corresponded with him. He defined his moral code as follows: “Dedicate your life to the good of people, persist in the search for truth.”
Rolland's creativity
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 Brugnon”. 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”, and 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 Pegi. A few months before his death, the French writer was lucky enough to see Paris free. Romain Rolland died in December 1944 in German-occupied Vézelay.
"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 genre specificity works.
Romain Rolland and his novel Jean-Christophe destroyed 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 flow, the life of the hero, the impressions and emotions of Jean-Christophe opens before us. In books 1 and 5, Rolland Romain wonderfully revealed the child’s first impressions, then, already in Paris, young man. Inserted episodes and lyrical digressions create an atmosphere of emotional uplift.
- In Volume I of Jean-Christophe, Romain Rolland covers early years the hero - the first impulses of the heart and feelings, the first losses and trials. But they help Christophe understand his life mission.
- Volume II will tell you how young hero will come to grips with the lies that are corroding 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, in which the hero’s emotional storms and doubts are ready to destroy everything, but are resolved with a serene ending.
Romain Rolland's ten-volume novel Jean-Christophe was published in 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 in 1915 Nobel Prize, which he received only in 1916 due to the scandal that erupted around the anti-war articles published by Rolland.
Plot of the novel
The book “Jean-Christophe” by Romain Rolland is based on constant motives and ethical postulates - rebirth through death, victory in defeat, defeat in victory. In the form of the main character, musical genius Jean-Christophe's dream of " modern Beethoven" The plot is based on his biography.
Revolting 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. Having gone through many trials, Jean-Christophe understands that freedom is limited only for himself. So, alone, absurdly and accidentally, he dies 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 Romain Rolland's "Jean-Christophe" takes place in a small German town, where a boy is born into a family of musicians. Little Christophe is fascinated by everything - the sound of drops, the singing of birds, the sound of the wind. He hears music everywhere and, unnoticed by himself, comes up with melodies. Grandfather writes them 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. Christophe understands that they are poor and those around them laugh at their bad manners and illiteracy. To help his family, Christophe plays in an orchestra with his father and grandfather and gives music lessons. He communicates little with his peers, and his only consolation is conversations with his grandfather and a traveling merchant.
Heavy losses
After the death of their grandfather, the family found themselves on the brink of poverty. The father drinks, and the mother asks the Duke to give the money the father earned to his son. At one of the concerts, the father behaves disgustingly and is refused a seat. Christophe writes music and dreams of a great future.
But not everything is smooth in his life. He found himself a friend, but soon he and Otto broke up. Christophe fell in love with a girl from a noble family, but they pointed out to him the difference in position. The father dies and the family is forced to move to more modest housing. Christophe meets the owner of a haberdashery shop, Sabina. The unexpected death of his beloved girl leaves a deep wound in his soul.
The uncle’s words - “The main thing is not to get tired of wanting to live” - give him strength. Unknown forces awaken within him. He hears false notes in the works famous musicians and folk songs. Christophe 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
Getting to know French actress makes him think of leaving for 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 opened against him and he is forced to flee the country.
Dirty, bustling Paris greeted Christophe unfriendly. He earns his living by giving private lessons, and soon notices that French society is no better than German society. Party leaders use loud phrases to cover their selfish interests. The press is lying, and works of art are created to please the rich. The young man sees falsehood and mediocrity everywhere. The public boos the symphony he composed.
Christophe is starving, but does not give up. After a serious illness, he feels renewed, and the unique charm of Paris opens up before him. He makes a friend - the young poet Olivier. In the house where they rent an apartment, people of different social classes live and avoid each other. But Christophe's music brings them closer.
Confession
Fame 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 couple return to Paris, but there is no former mutual understanding between them. Jacqueline leaves her family for young lover and Olivier and his 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, still weak from illness, with him. During a clash with the police, his friend dies, but Christophe does not know about it - he is forced to flee to Switzerland, where he receives news of his friend's death. He takes this tragedy hard, and the music becomes unbearable for him.
"The Gates Open"
Christophe is gradually returning to life, his friends help him find students. A relationship begins between Christophe and the doctor's wife. When the betrayal is revealed, Anna tries to commit suicide, and 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 does everything he can to prevent his mother from marrying: he feigns nervous attacks and a cough. In the end he became really seriously ill and died. Gracia blames herself for his death and cannot stand it - she dies after her son.
Having lost the woman he loved, Christophe feels the thin thread connecting him to life being torn. But it is at this moment that he creates his most profound works. He arranges the fate of Olivier's son and introduces him to Grazia's daughter. Christophe is seriously ill, but carefully hides it, not wanting to overshadow the happiness of the young people.
The dying Christophe lies in his room and hears an orchestra playing a hymn to life, remembering his mother, friends, lovers: “This is the chord that I was looking for. The gates are opening."
In 1912 Romain Rolland ends the novel in 10 volumes: Jean-Christophe / Jean-Christophe.
“Jean-Christophe was conceived from the very beginning as a novel about the “new Beethoven”; in his hero, Rolland embodied some of the traits of his beloved composer, whose music was dear to him for its heroic, life-affirming spirit. Shortly before the release of the first part of “Jean-Christophe,” Rolland’s short book “The Life of Beethoven” appeared and excited many readers. This 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 quotes the words of the great composer that he would like to work “for the sake of suffering humanity,” for the sake of “the 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 motives 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 her marriage; the family lived poorly.
"Father decided to take advantage of musical abilities 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 with the violin, forcing him to play until exhaustion... It got to the point that Beethoven had to be almost forced to learn music. His adolescence was overshadowed by worries about bread, the need to earn food early... At the age of seventeen he had already become the head of the family, and he was charged with raising two brothers; he had to take on the humiliating hassle 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 it all away. These sorrows left a deep imprint on the young man’s soul.”
The story of Jean-Christophe's childhood and youth, as told by Romain Rolland, is not just the author's fiction: it was realized real facts biography of the greatest of German composers. And it is not for nothing that the majestic Rhine and its picturesque green banks become the poetic backdrop 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 especially obvious; V future fate Rolland's hero is isolated from the real source and develops in his own way. But in character, in mental appearance Jean-Christophe not only in his youth, but also in mature years Much brings him closer to Beethoven. Not only a passionate passion for art, but also an indomitable, independent character, a stubborn reluctance to bow to those in power. And at the same time - the ability to steadfastly endure need and grief, the ability to preserve the will to creativity and love for people in the most difficult conditions. Jean-Christophe’s music, like Beethoven’s, is imbued with vital energy and the joy of being.”
Chapter VI
ROMAIN ROLLAN: HIGH HEROIC
The Making of a Writer: From Clumsy to the Normal School. — Drumzturg; struggle for new theater. — “Heroic biographies”: great at heart. —— “Jean Christophe”: “epic” modern life" — “Cola Brugnon”: Burgundian character. — War years: “Above the fray.”
The world is dying, strangled by its cowardly and vile egoism. Let's open the windows! Let's let you in Fresh air! Let the breath of heroes wash over us.
R. Rolland
R. Rolland left a multi-genre legacy - novels, drama, memoirs, diaries, letters. He was in the center of public and political events of his time, communicated and corresponded with many people - from ordinary readers to famous writers, philosophers, statesmen who lived in different corners globe. His authoritative voice - the voice of a humanist, a truth-seeker - was listened to throughout the world. Rolland proceeded from the idea of high moral mission literature and the responsibility of a writer In 1915, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for “sublime idealism” and “sympathy and love for truth.”
The Making of a Writer: From Clumsy to the Normal School
Romain Rolland was born in 1986 in the town of Clamcy in the south of France. This city inherited the spirit of free people from the Middle Ages, and republicanism from the times of the revolution. It is in Clumsy that the novel Cola Breugnon takes place.
The writer's father owned a notary office in Klamsey. He had enviable health and lived to be 95 years old. His mother, a devout Catholic, loved her son madly and instilled in him a passion for music and admiration for Beethoven. Unlike his father, Rolland was of fragile health, often sick, but had an inexhaustible supply of creative energy. Thanks to his natural talent, Rolland became the pride of the local school; he especially shone in the humanities.
To help his son get a decent education, Rolland's father sells his office and moves to Paris, where he works as a bank employee. In IS86, Rolland becomes a student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Rolland's interests were multifaceted: history, world literature, art history, music, philosophy. He was a writer and scientist; In his multi-genre heritage, research works, primarily musicological, occupy an important place.
Rolland and Tolstoy. Significant role in spiritual formation Rolland was played by Leo Tolstoy. In the 1880s, translations of the works of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy appeared, and Russian literature firmly entered the cultural life Europe. In 1886, Melchior le Vogüe’s book “The Russian Novel” was published in France, becoming a notable page in the history of Russian-French literary connections. Introducing his compatriots to the works of Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, the author of the book noted the humanistic pathos of Russian writers and expressed the conviction that their influence could be “saving” for modern “exhausted art.”
Tolstoy was Rolland's spiritual companion almost throughout his life French writer: Rolland corresponded with him, created a biographical book about him, Tolstoy’s name is constantly present in his letters, articles, diaries, and memoirs.
Rolland, based on the idea of the moral mission of art, wanted it to carry “a small ray of Love”, “the divine light of Mercy”. “Neither Aeschylus nor Shakespeare could shake the souls of their compatriots more deeply than The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina and the great epic, which in my eyes takes the place of the new Iliad among these masterpieces, shook us - “War and peace," wrote Rolland. Tolstoy’s article “So what should we do?”, containing harsh criticism of a society built on the oppression of some people by others, stunned Rolland. A Normal School student decides to send a letter to the Yasnaya Polyana sage with a list of questions, the main one among which was: “How to live?” Imagine Rolland’s surprise when, one evening in October 1887, a 17-page letter from Count Tolstoy himself arrived in his modest attic! The letter, beginning with the words “Dear brother,” written in French by the hand of the brilliant Russian writer, made an indelible impression on Rolland. Tolstoy, in the spirit of his doctrine, defended the thesis about the “false role” of science and art, which serve the privileged classes. Under the influence of Tolstoy, Rolland began to think about the “rotten civilization of exploiters.” Not all of Tolstoy’s views appealed to Rolland, but he was largely in tune with Tolstoy’s treatise “What is Art?”, and above all the idea that art and literature are called upon to morally influence society, to elevate and ennoble the souls of people.
Young scientist. In 1889, Rolland graduated from the Normal School and received a tempting offer for a two-year scientific trip to Rome for independent scientific studies. His stay in Italy turned out to be extremely fruitful for him. In his youth, he read books on the history of art with interest and now could get acquainted with wonderful museums, see masterpieces of sculpture and painting, and listen to the famous Italian opera.
Scientific work in the field of music forced us to penetrate into the psychology of the composer and think about the nature of the creative process. In Italy, Rolland first had the idea of writing about Beethoven. The first dates back to this time literary experiments the writer - sketches of plays from Italian and Roman history (Orsino, Caligula, Siege of Mantua, etc.). In Italy, two of his dissertations were prepared and defended in 1895: “The Origin of Modern musical theater. The History of European Opera before Lully and Scarlatti" and "On the Decline Italian painting in the 16th century." At the same time, the first attempt (unsuccessful) to break onto the stage with the opera “Niobe” took place.
Teacher. Uncertainty about prospects writing activity encourages Rolland to take up teaching (first at the Ecole Normale, and later at the Sorbonne), which gives him financial independence; he devotes his free time to literary creativity - Work the teacher had her own positive sides- spiritual communication with students and listeners who saw in him not an ordinary teacher, but a bright, outstanding personality.
Maybe, pedagogical activity“slowed down” Rolland’s writing plans. But at the same time, teaching helped him accumulate that extensive knowledge of art history, which later became the foundation of many of his works. Rolland the writer in many ways evolved from Rolland the psdagogue with his teacher, moral and educational attitude,
Playwright: the struggle for a new theater
Rolland's writing career begins with plays. In the late 189G - early 1900s, he worked primarily as a playwright. This was natural in its own way.
At the end of the 19th century, the birth of “ new drama", which meant breaking the outdated canons of entertainment theater. Rolland's plays with their humanistic pathos and serious problems form two genre-thematic groups: “Tragedies of Faith” and “Dramas of the Revolution.”
"Tragedies of Faith". The action of these plays takes place in the past, but history is only a background, a decoration. The main thing for Rolland is moral conflicts, good and evil in man. Rolland is looking for an answer to a question that is invariably relevant to him: what is the nature of the heroic in man? In “Saint Louis” (1897), the protagonist is the French king Louis IX, leader of the crusaders, a man of high moral qualities, the personification of generosity and the people's favorite, and therefore the object of envy of intriguers. And although the historical background in the drama is largely stylized and conventional, and the figure of the main character is idealized, the play expresses the deep, humanistic aspirations of its author. The theme of “hero and people” is broken down in the drama “Aert” (1898), which takes place in the 17th century in Holland. The young Prince Aert, a generous, brave man, seeks to lead the movement against Spanish rule.
"Dramas of the Revolution". In the context of the intensity of the social struggle in France at the end of the 1890s (the Dreyfus affair, the confrontation between the forces of democracy and reaction), Rolland approaches the understanding of the most important historical lessons in the life of the country - the lessons of the Great french revolution 1789-1794, which remained the subject of heated debate a century later. This is how “Dramas of the Revolution” appear.
The cycle opened with the play “Wolves” 0898), in which echoes of the Dreyfus affair are heard.
An honest officer of the revolutionary army, the nobleman d'Uaron, is accused of treason. Verra, a brave warrior driven by hatred of the aristocracy, insists on this. The Jacobin Tellier comes to the defense of the accused. Having a personal dislike for d'Uaron, he proves his innocence. But the acquittal of d'Huarope would mean the dismissal of Verre, the favorite of the soldiers, an experienced commander. To resolve the issue, the Commissioner of the Convention Quesnel arrives. Tellier advocates that justice must prevail under any circumstances. Quesnel, understanding Tellier's legal correctness, nevertheless accepts less on Verra's side, saves him from death, for such an outcome is needed by the revolution.
"Danton." The second drama of the cycle, “The Triumph of Reason” (1899), is dedicated to the fate of the Girondin party. The most significant drama in the cycle is Danton (1900). At its center is the problem of the revolutionary leader. There are two of them in the play, these are polar characters: Danton and Robespierre. Their confrontation is not only personal, but also reflects the clash of two tendencies in the revolution; a similar conflict was reproduced by V. Hugo in the novel “The Ninety-Third Year,” showing the bearers of two principles; “revolution of violence” (Cimurdain) and “revolution of mercy” (Gauvain).
Danton and Robespierre began together as leaders of the masses who crushed the monarchy. But time has changed them. Danton is tired of the role of the “punishing sword”. The writer characterizes him this way: “Gargantua in the Shakespearean style, cheerful and powerful.” Tired of violence, blood and murder, he wants mercy and leniency, which, in his opinion, are more useful for the good of France than uncompromising terror.
Robespierre is stern and incorruptible, his devotion to the Revolution and the Republic is fanatical. Pity and condescension are alien to him. About people like Robespierre, Danton says: “Suffering does not touch them, they have one morality, one policy - to impose their ideas on others.” Akin to Robespierre is his friend Saint-Just. Any criticism of the all-powerful Salvation Committee, any dissent on the part of recent popular leaders is perceived as a crime and, worse, betrayal. The only means of fighting them is a guillotine knife. Legal proceedings are carried out not according to laws, but according to concepts. The following thesis was put into Robespierre’s mouth: “Revolutionary storms do not obey ordinary laws. To the power that transforms the world and creates new morality, cannot be approached from the point of view of common morality,” the arrested Danton and his comrades appear before the Revolutionary Tribunal,
Rolland was one of the first to construct an entire act of his drama as a kind of transcript of a court hearing, a violent clash of points of view.
In his courageous speech, Danton brushes aside many accusations, in particular, that he lived in grand style while the people were starving. Simple people in the hall they sympathize with Danton. Saint-Just saves the situation: he reports that a caravan of ships with flour and fuel is arriving at the port in the evening. After this, the courtroom quickly empties, people rush to replenish their meager supplies. As a result, Danton and his friends are left alone, without moral support. The jury is on the side of the authorities. The verdict, a foregone conclusion, charges them with conspiracy against the Republic, punishable by death.
While working on a series of plays about the revolution, Rolland could not ignore the theme of the people. Here the writer was helped by the experience of Shakespeare, the author of historical chronicles, whose legacy Rollal carefully studied. The cycle “Dramas of the Revolution” concluded with the play “The Fourteenth of July”, in the center of which is the great event - the storming of the Bastille. According to Rolland, “here individuals disappear into the ocean of the people. To depict a storm, there is no need to write out a separate wave - you need to write the future sea.”
The drama expresses a powerful popular protest against the crimes of the monarchy and the entire feudal system. Rolland portrayed the participants in the storming of the Bastille brightly and catchily, showing the euphoria, heroism and faith in the triumph of justice that characterize the first steps of the revolution. The drama contains elements of a folk holiday performance, during which choirs sound, orchestras ring, and people form a round dance around the romantic symbol of Freedom. This play was a kind of prototype of the “mass action dramas” dedicated to class struggle, which were popular in the West in the 1930s.
"People's Theatre": "the art of action". Completing his work on the cycle of plays, Rolland summarizes his theoretical conclusions in the book “People's Theater. Experience of the aesthetics of the new theater" (1903). In this book, Rolland substantiates the program of the “art of action”, which has a moral impact on the audience. The people's theater should focus on a wide democratic audience. No matter how significant the plays of classical dramas are, the repertoire modern theater should be modern authors. Theater can draw spiritual strength from the people. Rolland is convinced that “folk theater is the key to the whole world of new art, to a world that art is only just beginning to anticipate.” Time has, however, shown Rolland’s good-naturedness. He later admitted that his plan to create folk theater collapsed when faced with real practice. The book was, he said, the product of "the enthusiastic faith of youth."
Does this mean, however, that the very idea of such a theater is utopian, naive, incompatible with the very nature of the stage, for which family, socio-psychological plays are most natural? It seems that the answer to this question cannot be simplified and unambiguous. Theater reflects the times; in revolutionary eras, its problematics and style change. Suffice it to recall Mayakovsky’s “Mystery-bouffe”, Trenev’s “Yarovaya Love”, Bulgakov’s “Turbin Days”, “Armored Train 14-69” Sun. Ivanov and many others, whose artistic merits, longevity and stage success are undoubted.
"Heroic Biographies": Great at Heart
In the early 1900s, at a time of intense spiritual and creative quest, Rolland conceived a series of biographies of great people - statesmen, generals, scientists, artists. Only part of the plan was realized - this is a kind of triptych, which included the biographies of Beethoven, Michelangelo, and Tolstoy.
In the preface to the series, Rolland, in his characteristic emotional and pathetic manner, wrote: “There is stifling stale air around us. Decrepit Europe is hibernating in this oppressive, musty atmosphere... The world is suffocating. Let's open the windows! Let's let in some free air! Let the breath of a hero wash over us."
Who is the hero in Rolland's interpretation? These are not those who conquered with thought or force. For him, heroes are those who are big in heart. Without greatness of soul one cannot be either a great man or a great artist. The model for Rolland was “powerful and pure soul Beethoven."
Rolland turns to his hero, to his contemporary, to a loved one: “Dear Beethoven!” He writes with admiration about how, tormented by illnesses, the collapse of love, and deafness, terrible for a musician, Beethoven creates his most life-affirming, jubilant work for choir to the words of Schiller - the Ninth Symphony with its final “Hymn to Joy.” And in harmony with the final chords of Beethoven’s masterpiece - the pathetic finale of Rolland’s essay: “What battle of Bonaparte, what sun of Austerlitz can compete in glory with this superhuman labor, with this victory, the most radiant of all that the spirit has ever won?” Beethoven's theme would dominate Rolland's entire life and creative pursuits.
The book about Michelangelo was also written in the same key. creative genius Renaissance. The material for this book was Rolland's research made in Italy. It was an extensive work, consisting of three parts, containing both biographical description and art historical analysis. The writer entitled the two main stages of the artist’s life as “Struggle” and “Detachment”, and last section called "Loneliness".
In 1911, after Tolstoy's death, he wrote his “heroic biography”, paying tribute to his beloved artist.
Beethoven, Michelangelo and Tolstoy are a special type of hero. Life's adversities are not able to extinguish their creative enthusiasm. Triumphing over a merciless fate, they turn out to be moral winners. Inner meaning their heroic life is determined by Rolland's favorite formula: Per aspera ad astra (through thorns to the stars).
"Jean Christophe": "an epic of modern life"
All of Rolland's previous work in the field of drama, journalism, and art criticism turned out to be a prologue to the creation of a large-scale prose form - the novel Jean Christophe (1904-1912). It became Rolland's main book and brought him European fame. In “Jean Christophe” the aesthetics, life philosophy and artistic methodology of the writer are most fully expressed.
Genre originality: “river novel”. The idea for the novel arose back in 1890, when Rolland was in Italy, where he was amazed by great works of art. Rolland thought about their creators, who seemed to him to be genuine titans. Then he was captivated by Beethoven's personality.
The history of world literature knows the “titanic” images of Prometheus, Faust, Manfred, built on the combination of reality and fantasy. Rolland puts the genius at the center and places him in a concrete, real environment. The writer introduced many facts of Beethoven's biography into the life of Jean Christophe, endowed his hero with Beethoven's character, his passion, and uncompromisingness.
Autobiographical motifs are noticeable in the novel: Rolland's fragility, poetry, and delicacy are reflected in the image of Olivier, Christophe's friend. Rolland's firmness and courage in defending his principles, his love for music is in Jean Christophe. The writer gave his hero the surname Kraft, i.e. strength.
At the center of the story is the fate of a brilliant musician, traced from birth to death. “This is a kind of intellectual and moral epic of the modern soul...” wrote Rolland about “Jean Christophe.”
Of course, Rolland has a sonical-historical context, but the main thing is the depiction of the hero’s life path. Jean Christophe, with his high spirituality and moral purity, is the personification of “ the best people Europe,” with which the novelist pinned his hopes. The comparison of Jean Christophe with the Christian hero, Saint Christopher, is significant. The epigraph to the novel is significant: “To the free souls of all nations who suffer, fight and win.” Rolland made Jean Christophe a German, thereby emphasizing that great art is above national barriers. Christophe's close friend is French.
New vital material was required new form. Rolland writes a ten-volume epic novel, unlike the usual novel cycles, such as Zola's Rougon-Macquart and T. Mann's Buddenbrooks. “Jean Christophe” in its own way anticipated M. Proust’s epic “In Search of the Lost Time.”
Rolland devoted almost ten years of work and burning to the novel, living “in the armor of Jean Christophe.” The novel was published in separate parts in the magazine “Weekly Notebooks” (1904-J912), of which he was the editor. famous writer and Rolland's friend Charles Peguy. And in 1921, in the preface to the next edition of “Jean Christophe,” the writer proposed combining books that were similar in “atmosphere” and “sound” into four parts. As a result, the work appeared as a “four-movement symphony.”
Spiritual Odyssey of a Hero: Life as a Creative Process. The first part of the epic (“Dawn”, “Morning”, “Adolescence”) covers Christophe’s early years. Rolland explores the awakening of his feelings and heart in the narrow confines of his small homeland and puts the hero in the face of trials. The features here are especially clear.” novel-education”, the model of which was Goethe’s “Wilheim Meister” for Rolland, the internal theme is the collision of a brilliant child with the harsh realities of life and the formation in him of artistic talent and musical worldview.
In a provincial German town on the banks of the “old man of the Rhine” a child is born who will have to live long life. The child learns about the world around him, the warmth of his mother’s hands, colors, sounds, voices. “A huge stream of time rolls slowly... Islands of memories appear in the river of life.”
The future musician pays special attention to the skills that form the melodies. The family is in dire need. Jean Christophe's father Melchior Craft, a musician in the Duke's court orchestra, makes a living out of the modest family budget; mother Louise works as a cook. Jean Christophe learns the humiliation of poverty.
Grandfather gives his grandson an old piano. Touching the keys, Jean Christophe plunges into the world of enchanting sounds and tries to compose. For the first time in literature, Rolland lifts the curtain of secrecy over the composer's work. In the child’s perception, plovers merge with the surrounding world and nature. Uncle Gottfried, loving grandson, endowed with a sensitive soul, teaches: music should be “modest” and truthful,” help expose inner world"to the very bottom."
At the age of six, Jean Christophe composed pieces for the piano, then began performing in the court orchestra and composing music to order.
He doesn’t like this kind of art: “the very source of his life and joy is poisoned.” After the death of his grandfather and father, Jean Christophe is forced to take care of his mother and two younger brothers.
Maturation musical talent the hero is inseparable from his inner growth. Like many extraordinary people, Jean Christophe is lonely. He needs a close friend, a beloved woman.
Jean Christophe experiences many hobbies. His feelings are sublime, spontaneous, not always subordinate to common sense, and therefore usually do not find a worthy response. Christophe is a maximalist who values love and friendship high bar, requiring complete dedication, excluding selfishness, lies, and frivolity. As the narrative develops, the “life of the soul” of the hero becomes the center of artistic attention, his emotions become hyperbolic and acquire a special scale and energy.
Hero and Society: The Rebellion of Jean Christophe. The second part of the epic includes the books “Revolt”, “Fair on the Square”, in which the new important stage in the life of a hero. First of all, Jean Christophe rebels against his former self, tears off his “yesterday, already dead shell,” and evaluates his early works harshly, as “warm water, cartoonishly funny nonsense.” With the fervor of youth, he attacks many classical composers, seeing falsehood and sentimentality in their works. With youthful maximalism, he is ready to do everything “again or redo it.” Christophe also appears in a local music magazine with shocking articles in which he subverts the authorities of the masters.
From rebellion in the musical sphere, Jean Christophe moves on to a critical understanding of society. He notices the changes that took place in Germany at the end of the century: in the country of philosophers and musicians, a “suffocating atmosphere of crude militarism” was thickening. During a peasant festival, Jean Christophe, standing up for the girls, gets into a fight with the soldiers. To avoid prosecution, he is forced to leave Germany and flee to Paris.
The book “Fair on the Square” occupies a special place in the novel. The narration here takes on the character of a pamphlet, satirical intonations appear.
Christophe arrives in Paris, filled with illusions, because France is a country of freedom, unlike Germany with its class remnants. But in the French capital he sees only a “great comedy.” Once Thackeray wrote about bourgeois-aristocratic society as a “vanity fair”, Jean Christophe opens another fair - a fair of general corruption, a gigantic marketplace. Modern Art, which has turned into an object of purchase and sale, Jean Christophe calls “intellectual prostitution.” Lies and vulgarity in art cause him a strong reaction. Christophe faces representatives different areas metropolitan society. Communication with politicians convinces him that for them “serving the people” is in fact only the realization of selfish interests, “a profitable but little-respected branch of trade and industry.” In the works of modern French composers Jean Christophe criticizes the anemic, naive nature of the plots. The champions " new music“He finds only “a tangle of professional tricks,” imitation of “superhuman acts,” and a lack of “naturalness.” In literature, Jean Christophe is irritated by decadent phenomena; in the theater - entertainment, the dominance of lightweight genres.
Overcoming illness and mental pain, Christophe continues to work. But his symphonic painting "David", on the basis of which - biblical story, is not understood by the public and fails. The fruit of the shock experienced is the hero’s serious illness.
In search of “another France”. The third part includes the books “Antoinette”, “In the House”, “Girlfriends”, surrounded by an atmosphere of gentle “spiritual concentration”. Jean Christophe is looking for “another France” that he could love, and finds it in the person of Olivier Janin.
Olivier is a young poet, intelligent, generous, “hating hate”, he admires Christophe’s music. Despite their external dissimilarity, they are close in spirit: both are distinguished by spiritual purity and adherence to high moral and ethical concepts. Thanks to Olivier, Christophe is convinced: there is true France, “an indestructible granite block.” Their relationship is a unique model of creative mutual enrichment of the cultures of the two countries. Rolland is not faithful to his moral postulate: culture is an international kinship of souls, which must triumph over national barriers.
Not without Olivier's help, the press finally pays favorable attention to Christophe. The long-awaited success comes to him. Jean Christophe helps Olivier get closer to Jacqueline Lantier, knowing that this will be detrimental to their friendship. This is what happens. Having married Jacqueline, Olivier, absorbed in joys family life, moves away from Christophe.
The fourth part of the novel includes two books: “The Burning Bush” and “The Coming Day.” This is the finale of the hero’s long, difficult life, his spiritual Odyssey.
Christophe's life is a persistent search for a kind of “symbol of faith.” Together with Opivier, they want to bring life to the “altar of the new god - the people.” In The Burning Bush, the novel includes the theme of political struggle; the hero must choose who to be with - with the labor leaders or against them. At the May Day demonstration, Jean Christophe meets Olivier; there is a clash with the police. Christophe kills the policeman, and Olivier, trampled by the crowd, later dies in hospital.
After the Parisian events, Jean Christophe flees to Switzerland and finds refuge in the house of Doctor Brown. There he worries new love- to the doctor's wife, Anna Brown. Christophe and Anna show physical and spiritual harmony; Anna, a sincere nature, a believer, suffers, cheating on her husband, even tries to commit suicide. They break up, and Christophe experiences another spiritual crisis.
And again love heals the hero from despair and returns him to creativity. Christophe meets Grazia, who was his student in her youth. Now she is a widow with two children. They want to get married. But an obstacle arises: Gracia's son, a sickly and unbalanced boy, is insanely jealous of his mother. After his death, Grazia herself passes away.
Christophe is left alone. He experiences a happy merger with nature, composes using the motifs of Spanish folk songs and dances like "bursts of flame." Jean Christophe's last wish is deeply symbolic: to unite the children of his departed friends - daughter Grazia and son Olivier. Vitality leaving Christophe. One of the exciting scenes of the novel: images of people dear to him pass before the blurred gaze of the dying hero. The river of life, overflowing its banks, flows into the ocean of eternity.
“Musical novel”: a sounding word. The novel made a huge impression and promoted Rolland to the ranks of writers of world significance. Readers were struck by the originality and emotional strength of the main character and art form works. Rolland made the musical “symphonic” principle the structure-forming principle in the novel. For a musician, life is full of internal integrity: its individual phases are like parts of a monumental symphonic composition. Rolland is in love with music. He hears it in the rhythms of Christophe's life. This is how a happy synthesis of sound and word is formed.
"Jean Christophe" showed a new genre variety. This is a “river novel”. In Rolland's style there is lyricism, expression, metaphor. This manner corresponded to the state of the main character, immersed in a world of sublime feelings and impulses.
The final, tenth book, “The Coming Day,” begins like this: “Life passes. Body and soul dry up like a stream. The years are marked in the core of the trunk of an aging tree. Everything in the world dies and is reborn. Only you, Music, are not mortal, you alone are immortal. You are the inner sea. You are as deep as a soul..."
The author is not only a prose writer with a poetic vision of the world, but also a musicologist who gravitates towards abstract, metaphorical and emotional vocabulary. The musicality of the novel is also determined by its sublime pathos. Not material calculations, not selfish pettiness, but breadth of soul, commitment to spiritual values, love, friendship, inspired creativity - this is the life credo of the main character. And it is close to its creator.
Romantic element. Musicality grows out of the romantic element of the novel, which is expressed in the thickening of colors, in the special strength of the characters’ experiences. It is inappropriate to approach a novel with measures of life-likeness, including psychological ones. Not only Jean Christophe, but also his friends feel stronger than ordinary people, and in connection with this they act more boldly, more recklessly.
The well-known duality of the novel, and especially of the main character, is also connected with romance. On the one hand, we can say that Jean Christophe is a representative figure, in the words of Rolland, “the heroic representative of a new generation moving from one war to another, from 1870 to 1914.” On the other hand, the image of the main character is symbolic: Jean Christophe is the embodiment of Good and Justice in the eternal confrontation between light and dark forces.
To a certain extent, Herzen’s formula is applicable to Rolland’s hero: “history in man.” The writer had the right to say that in no country on the globe Jean Christophe is no longer a stranger. The novel made Rolland an internationally significant figure, allowed him to hear how people from different countries They said: “Jean Christophe is ours. He is mine. He is my brother. He is myself."
"Cola Brugnon": Burgundian character
“Jean Christophe” is followed by the story “Cola Brugnon” (1914), which appeared on the eve of the First World War. This is a book of a completely different tone; a “new” Rolland appeared in it. While collecting material for the book, the writer visited his native places, Burgundy, and Clamcy. He immersed himself in history, folklore, folk traditions. Rolland placed it at the center of the work common man, Cola Brugnon, woodcarver. The narration is told on behalf of the hero, which gives the story a special, confidential intonation. While working on the story, Rolland was guided by the style of French medieval fabliaux, folklore, and the aesthetics of Rabelais.
The story, which takes place in 1616, conveys the historical flavor of the late Middle Ages: feudal civil strife, rude behavior of soldiers, folk peasant holidays with ritual games, anti-clerical sentiments among the townspeople. The hero reads Plutarch; and this is a sign of the times: it was during the Renaissance that the treasures of the ancient world were discovered. The story is structured like the diary of the main character. Before the readers is a series of episodes told with a kind smile, sometimes mockery or irony.
Cola Brugnon, completely different from Jean Christophe, is close to him internally. He is devoted to creativity, although he calls it prosaically: “work hunger.” Brugnon creates furniture, utensils, and skillfully inlays his products. Work for him - " old comrade who will not betray." “Armed with a hatchet, a chisel and a chisel with a fugaik in my hands, I reign at my workbench over the knotted oak, over the glossy maple,” writes Brugnon in his diary. For the hero, the products he created are like children who have scattered around the world.
The story conveys the poetry of labor. With the same inspiration as about the art of a musician, Rolland writes about the skill of this folk craftsman.
The writer admires people who know how to “sow, grow oats and wheat, prune, graft grapes, reap, knit sheaves, thresh grain, squeeze grapes... in a word, be the masters of French soil, fire, water, air - all four elements.”
Cola Brugnon's personal life is not going very well. His poetic feeling for Lasochka was not mutual. Kol's wife is grumpy, the children do not make their father very happy. His only daughter Martina, as well as his students Robinet and Capier, evoke tender feelings.
Cola is an optimist. Neither the strife of his sons, nor the plague, nor the fire, nor feudal strife can crush his love of life. A continuator of the traditions of Rabelais, Rolland endows Brugnon with “pantagruelism”, an unchanging sense of the beauty of the world, the ability to rejoice and enjoy life.
The material of the novel is in harmony with his style: the writer uses rhythmic prose, includes jokes, proverbs, and sayings in the text of the work. “Cola Brugnon, an old sparrow of Burgundian blood, vast in spirit and belly.” All this was masterfully conveyed into Russian by M. L. Lozinsky (known to us from his translations of “ Divine Comedy"Dante, Shakespeare's Hamlet and other masterpieces of world literature).
In Rolland’s “Notes of Brygnon’s Grandson” we read: “And when Gorky writes that Cola Brygnon, which he likes more than all my books, is a Gallic challenge to war, then he is not so wrong.” In the early 1930s, an edition of the novel was published with illustrations by the artist E. A. Kibrik, which the author really liked. Composer D. B. Kabalevsky wrote the opera “Cola Brugnon” (1937) based on the novel.
War years: "Above the fray"
First World War(1914-1918) - a historical watershed in the life of Europe, its cultures and literature. This war became fateful for Rolland and his spiritual quest; was a huge test, not only physical, but also moral, for many cultural masters.
Social activist and humanist. Rolland perceived the war both as a personal tragedy and as a crime against humanity and civilization. Instead of the universal brotherhood that Rolland dreamed of, he observed an orgy of hatred and the collapse of the foundations of culture. Out of compassion for the victims of the war, the writer refused to join the patriotic choir. His anti-war, pacifist position caused furious attacks and a stream of accusations against him, including accusations of treason. At first he was lonely. To survive under these conditions required considerable civic courage. Like Jean Christophe, Rolland, a man of fragile health, had the soul of an unbending fighter. He continued the tradition personified by Voltaire, Hugo and
During the war years, the writer became involved in the work of the International Red Cross in Geneva, providing assistance to war victims - refugees and prisoners of war. Rolland writes hundreds of letters pleading for different people. And he receives news from all over Europe - his authority is so high, his name is so significant.
Rolland publishes the journalistic book “Above the Fight” (1915). The writer set himself the task of protecting himself from “mental militarism” and preserving the spiritual values of “world civilization for the future.” He wrote in his book: “ Great people, drawn into war, must defend not only his borders, he must also defend his mind...”
During the war, Rolland made many new friends. The writer was supported by Roger Martin du Gard, the future Nobel laureate physician Alberta Schweitzer, brilliant physicist Albert Einstein, philosopher Bertrand Russell, playwright Bernard Shaw. Rolland promotes the unity of the anti-war forces of the advanced European intelligentsia.
In 1915, Rolland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The presentation noted “the sublime idealism of his literary creativity and the sympathetic precision with which he depicted the various human types.”
The beginning of correspondence between R. Rolland and M. Gorky dates back to 1916. Their twenty-year friendship and creative contacts are one of the most interesting pages of Russian-French literary ties. Rolland is friends with Stefan Zweig, who wrote the first book about him. The writer supports the anti-militarist speeches of John Reed, Henri Barbusse, the author of the anti-war novel “Fire”. He followed with interest the developments in Russia after October 1917. Rolland sympathized with the processes of renewal of life, but at the same time felt alarm about revolutionary violence.
War in artistic creativity and in journalism. Rolland's artistic and journalistic heritage during the war period is varied and significant. At this time, the writer kept detailed diaries that were not intended for publication. They contain frank, impartial assessments of events, an analysis of the writer’s quests and doubts. Rolland does not spare nationalist writers and exposes the connection between war crimes and financial interests. During his stay in Moscow in 1935, Rolland donated the manuscripts of the “Diary of the War Years” to the V. I. Lenin Library with a request to publish them in 20 years, which was done in 1955.
A kind of continuation of the collection “Above the Fight” was nonfiction book“Forerunners” (1319), dedicated to the memory of those who became victims of terror and militarism: Jean Jaurès, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht. Rolland calls them "martyrs for new faith- the universal brotherhood of peoples." Among them he includes Leo Tolstoy.
"Lilyuli": the power of laughter. Among works of art related to the theme of war is the farce play “Lilyuli”, written in a satirical Aristophanic manner. The pathos of the work lies in the exposure of the war and its ideological veils. Numerous active linden trees represent modern society. It is unfair, built on a class-hierarchical principle and resembles a masquerade carnival.
People live in a world of phantoms, fetishes, they believe in a blindfolded Mind, in Brotherhood and Freedom, which have lost their meaning and turned into their opposite. This state is actually ruled by Illusion (Lilyuli), who appears in the guise of a blond, blue-eyed, seductive girl, whom no one can resist. It is she who causes rivalry between two young men: Altair (French) and Antares (German), who begin a fratricidal struggle, believing that they are doing a just cause.
The only sane character in this absurd world is the hunchback Polichinelle, the bearer of laughter and at the same time common sense. Genetically he is “ brother Cola Breugnon”, the embodiment of folk straightforwardness, the ability to “cut the truth.”
"Pierre and Luce": "knife of war." Rolland's story "Pierre and Luce" (1920) was written in a different tone.
The heroes of the story, Pierre and Luce, are modern young people, their love faces the madness of war. Main character, 18-year-old Pierre Aubier, is the predecessor of " lost generation" - the generation that went through the crucible of war (heroes of the works of E. M. Remarque, E. Hemingway). Drafted into the army and given a six-month deferment, he, like many of his peers, feels the monstrous absurdity of what is happening.
Pierre meets Luce, a simple, sweet girl. Their feeling is pure, joyful and at the same time filled with sadness. The date of separation is inexorably approaching. But evil fate overtakes them first. Filled with deep tenderness for each other, immensely happy, they come to church and die under the rubble of a column that collapsed as a result of a bomb explosion.
"Clerambault": the hero's grave insight. Another aspect of the anti-war theme - the liberation of man from illusions and misconceptions - is revealed by Rolland in the novel Clerambault (1920).
The main character, Agenor Clerambault, is a middle-aged intellectual, a dedicated poet, and a little naive in public affairs. When the war begins, he will succumb to a jingoistic impulse, hatred of the “Huns,” and spy mania. These sentiments are gradually fading away. Clerambault's patriotic sentiments collapse after the news of the death of the son of Front-line Soldier Maksha. The reasoning of the young revolutionary Juliec Moreau, an admirer of Lenin, scares away Clerambault. In despair, seeing no other way out, the hero goes to the front, where he dies. Before dying, he forgives his enemy.
Later radical critics emphasized the ideological vulnerability of what they called "clerambism" (the hero's pacifist position).
After the First World War, Romain Rolland continued to write. It was an extremely fruitful and significant time for the writer. Rolland's work of this time is already considered in the course of literature of the 20th century.
First post-war years For Rolland there were sometimes intense spiritual quests associated with the challenges of the time. He had to engage in polemics with such radical communists as Henri Barbusse, the leader of Clarte. He contrasted supporters of revolutionary actions with his position as an opponent of violence, a champion of the spiritual and moral renewal of society.
In the 1920s, Rolland wrote a book about the Indian philosophers Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, the drama “The Game of Love and Death” (1925), “ Palm Sunday"(1926), "Leonids" (1927), is intensively working on a large epic work"Enchanted Soul" (1922-1934), dedicated to the topic difficult quests of the Western intelligentsia. Rolland’s views are noticeably radicalized (collection “Farewell to the Past”, 1934), he expresses his sympathies for the USSR and, together with M. Gorky, strives to unite the “masters of culture” in confronting the fascist threat. In 1935 he came to the USSR and met with Gorky.
In 1939, Rolland wrote the drama Robespierre, in which he reflects on the revolution and the fate of its leaders. Meanwhile, the “purges” that began in the USSR worry Rolland; his attempts to help his “disappeared” (repressed) friends have no response. Only in the late 1980s were his notes relating to his stay in the USSR and meetings with Gorky made public. Rolland survived the German occupation; last years he is working on his memoirs, completing research on Beethoven, and writing a book about Charles Peguy.
Romain Rolland always had grateful readers and numerous friends in our country; M. P. Kudasheva, the translator of his works, later became the writer’s wife and the keeper of his archive. In 1966, the USSR celebrated the 100th anniversary of Rolland's birth. He was invariably the object of attention from Russian researchers (I. I. Anisimova, T. L. Motyleva, V. E. Balakhonov, I. B. Duchesne, etc.), however, their works reflected the ideological stereotypes of the pre-perestroika period. Several times, starting from the 1930s, collected works of the writer were published. As an artist of words and humanist thinker, Romain Rolland occupies an undeniable place in the history of world literature. In his work, the writer responded to the most important literary, aesthetic and socio-political problems of the 20th century. His vast legacy requires a historical approach and objective analysis.
Literature
Literary texts
Roman R. Collected works: in 14 volumes / R. Rolland; edited by I. I. Anisimov. - M., 1954-1958.
Roman R. Memoirs / R. Roland. - M., 1966.
Roman R. Articles, letters / R. Roland. - M., 1985.
Roman R. Fav. works / R. Roland; afterword 3. Kirnoze. - M., 1988. - (Ser. “Nobel Prize Laureates”).
Criticism. Teaching aids.
Balakhonov V. E. Romain Rolland and his time. early years/ V. E. Balakhonov. - L., 1972.
Duchesne I. B. “Jean Christophe” by Romain Rolland / I. B. Duchesne. - M., 1966.
Motyleva T. L. Romain Rolland /T. L. Motyleva. - M, 1969- - (Ser. ZhZL).
Motyleva T. L. The work of Romain Rolland / T. L. Motyleva. - M., 1959.
