Analysis of one of the novels by R. Rolland (“Jean-Christophe”). Gilenson B.A.: History of foreign literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries
Characteristics of the hero
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE (fr. Jean-Christophe) is the hero of the ten-volume epic novel by R. Rolland "Jean-Christophe" (1904-1912). Served as a kind of prototype of the hero great composer L. van Beethoven (1770-1827). This is clearly manifested at the beginning of the novel: J.-K. - half-German-half-Flemish, he has a broad face with rough large features and a mane of thick unruly hair, he was born in a small German town. In the future, the factual similarity ends; J.-K. lives almost a century later, and his fate is different. But the fictional and real composers are still related by creative power and rebellious spirit, - J.K. worthy of his surname Kraft, which means "strength" in German. The first four books ("Dawn", "Morning", "Youth", "Riot") consistently describe the childhood and youth of J.-K. in one of the seedy principalities of Iberian Germany. The son of a court musician, J.-C. V early age discovers an extraordinary musical talent. A drunkard father, wanting to capitalize on his son's talent, seeks to make him a child prodigy. He, brutally beating, trains the baby, seeking from him a virtuoso playing the violin. Grandfather J.-K., also a musician, records the boy's improvisations, promising him a great future. At the age of six, J.-K. becomes the duke's court musician. His musical opuses addressed to the duke are accompanied by servile dedications written by his father. Maternal uncle, peddler Goth-fried, opens J.-C. the charm of a folk song and a simple truth: music should have meaning, should be "modest and truthful, express genuine, not fake feelings." At the age of eleven, J.-K. is the first violin of the court orchestra, and at fourteen, he alone provides for the whole family: his father, expelled for drunkenness, drowned. J.-K. earns money by teaching in rich houses, enduring ridicule and humiliation. Lessons, rehearsals, concerts in the ducal castle, composing cantatas and marches for official festivities, unsuccessful love for the petty bourgeois Minna, - J.-C. lonely, he suffocates in an atmosphere of vulgarity, servility, servility, and only when he is alone with nature, unprecedented melodies are born in his soul. J.-K. dreams of France, she sees him as the center of culture. The novel "Fair on the Square" is dedicated to the life of J.-K. in Paris. This is the most passionate and angry novel of the entire series, a pamphlet against the decaying art of the 19th century. Everything is sold at the Paris Fair: beliefs, conscience, talent. As in the circles of Dante's hell, Rolland guides his hero through the layers of the Parisian cultural society: literature, theater, poetry, music, press, and J.-C. more and more clearly feels "at first the insinuating, and then the stubborn suffocating smell of death." J.-K. declares an irreconcilable struggle to the fair, he writes the opera "David". But the newly-minted David did not defeat Goliath, the opera did not see the stage: the influential writer, the “salon anarchist” Levy-Coeur, with whom J.-K. reluctantly entered the battle. J.-K. suffers hunger, poverty, falls ill, and then working-class Paris opens up to him, he is nursed by a girl from the people, the servant Sidoni. And soon the rebellious J.-C. finds a friend - the poet Olivier Janin. Rolland emphasizes the contrast between the looks and characters of his friends: a huge, strong, self-confident J.-K. and small, round-shouldered, frail, timid, afraid of conflicts and harshness Olivier. But both of them are pure in heart and generous in soul, both are disinterestedly devoted to art. Friends set themselves the goal of finding and rallying good and honest people. In the novels "In the House" and "Girlfriends" Rolland shows these searches. (The influence of Leo Tolstoy and his idea of reconciling love is noticeable here.) Without adhering to any party, friends draw closer to the workers, to the social democratic movement. The heroism of the struggle intoxicates J.-K., and he composes a revolutionary song, which the working-class Paris sings the very next day. Stormy romance J.-K. with Anna Brown ("The Burning Bush") is also akin to a struggle, J.-C. still far from pacifying love. Immersed in the boiling of passions, J.-C. drags Olivier with him to a May Day demonstration, which turns into an armed clash with the police. J.-K. at the barricade, he sings revolutionary songs, he shoots and kills a policeman. Friends hide J.-K. from arrest and sent abroad. There he learns that Olivier has died of his wounds. J.-K. lives in the mountains of Switzerland, he is again lonely, crushed, broken. Little by little, mental health and the ability to create are returning to him. And after some time, he also finds a new friendship-love, having met his former student, Italian Grace. In the final part of the novel, Rolland leads his rebel hero to faith, to the possibility of resolving social conflicts peacefully, to the idea of an extra-social worldwide brotherhood of the intelligentsia - the international of the Spirit ("The Coming Day"). Death of J.-K. Rolland portrays 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 come true big man". J.-K. is the personified power, but not the superhuman Nietzschean, but the creative creative power of a genius: he disinterestedly gives himself to art, and through this service to all mankind. 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
Describing the history of the creation of the novel, we note that it is interesting and typical for creative process Rolland. He wrote about this in detail in the "Afterword to the Russian edition of 1931" 1 . The idea of the work was born 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 weighed. “I belong to the old breed of bourgeois builders,” Rolland wrote. “I would never have started a work without first laying out its foundation and defining all its main outlines.” For almost ten years, Rolland gave the book all his intellectual, spiritual and emotional strength. All this time, Rolland had to combine work on the novel with other duties - teaching, writing historical and musicological works, working for a piece of bread. He later recalled: “But in these ten years not a single single day whenever he (“Jean Christophe.” - B. G.) would not be with me. He didn't even have to speak. He was there: the author was talking to his shadow.” Note that the fifth book of the epic, "Fair on the Square", is preceded by Rolland's preface, which is called "The Dialogue of the Author with the Shadow."
1. Defining the pathos of his work, Rolland testified: “I do not write literary work. I'm writing a creed."
How do you understand these words? Comment on Rolland's words:
“The obligation that I took upon myself in Jean Christophe was to awaken the spiritual fire dormant under the ashes during the period of the moral and social decay of France.”
2. Introduction to the work and the very appearance of Beethoven, who captivated Rolland, was one of the main stimuli in the work on the novel. Why did the great composer become the most important hero for a writer? Why did Beethoven's personality type correspond to the life philosophy and aesthetics of the writer? 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 characteristics of these images?
What is the originality and complexity of Rolland's idea, capturing a genius, a musician against the backdrop of contemporary society? Do you see autobiographical features of the writer in the image of the protagonist? Did Rolland himself, a man of fragile health, have the fortitude, courage in defending his convictions, characteristic of Jean Christophe? At what moments in Rolland's life did his uncompromising and steadfastness manifest itself most realistically?
What is the meaning of the dedication in the novel: "To the free souls of all nations who suffer, fight and win"? Describe the internationalist pathos of the novel. Why was courage and independence required of a writer to make a German the protagonist of a 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 of the parts?
Analyze the genre nature of the novel "Jean Christophe". What is an epic novel 3? What examples of this genre in the literature of the period under review do you know (remember the work of E. Zola, A. Frans, G. Mann)? Name the cycles of novels that form epic canvases (E. Zola, G. Mann, T. Hardy, T. Dreiser, etc.).
In what 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 is the novel "Jean Christophe" called by Western literary critics "novel-river"? How do you understand this definition?
4. Explain Rolland's judgments about your 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, i.e., the image of the composer, the specifics of his creative work and the figurative and stylistic system of the work with its inner musicality?
5. Describe the first three books of the novel ("Dawn", "Morning", "Boyhood"). As Rolland conveys "the awakening of the feelings and heart of the hero" in the parental nest, within narrow limits " small homeland"? How does it lead him to the first trials of life? How does Jean Christophe develop an idea of his life mission. Follow the most significant plot milestones in the first three books of the novel.
What is the situation in the family of Jean Christophe? How does the child perceive the world And how does his musical impulse manifest itself? Analyze his relationship with his grandfather, father, uncle Gottfried; the first musical compositions of Jean Christophe and early performances in the court orchestra. How does the musical talent of the hero mature? What is the nature of the hero's hobbies? What is the manifestation of maximalism in love and friendship? What is the “bar” of human relations?
How does Rolland portray the "life of the soul" of his hero?
6. Identify the issues of the following two books: "Riot", "Fair in the Square." What role did his "German" and "French" experience play in the development of the worldview and character of the hero? How is the spiritual growth of the hero? Jean Christophe tears off his "yesterday's, already dead shell." What does it mean?
How does the transition of Jean Christophe from "rebellion" in the musical sphere to "rebellion" in the social sphere take place? What was the reason for his flight from Germany?
7. Why does the book Fair in the Square have a special place in the novel? Which famous writer used the word "fair" in the meaning of "trade" to characterize the bourgeois-aristocratic society? In what cases do the features of the grotesque, satire, 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 militaristic spirit and vestiges of class, disappear in Paris? Describe the character's reaction to contemporary art being bought and sold. What are the views of Jean Christophe on literature, theater, "new music"? What is Levi-Coeur, the antagonist of Jean Christophe? Why does his symphonic painting "David" fail?
Try to compare the image of corrupt art in Rolland's "Fair on the Square" with similar pictures in the novels: "Lost Illusions" by O. de Balzac, "Money" by E. Zola, "Dear Friend" Where is Maupassant. To whom, in your opinion, is Rolland 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 well known, as the author of Jean Christophe himself repeatedly wrote about. Do you agree with the point of view of the literary critic T. L. Motyleva, who in her book “On the World Significance of L. N. Tolstoy” writes: “... Close to Tolstoy’s ideas, an understanding of the artist’s duty 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”? TL Motyleva also believes that "Rolland, like Tolstoy, is meticulously intolerant of any distortion for the sake of an external effect" 4 . Express your opinion on this topic.
In the article “The Poison of Idealism” (1900), Rolland wrote: “Whatever the scope of our activity, we will serve the truth ... there are only two kinds of art in the world: one that is inspired by life, and one that is content with conventionality. Truth first." Can this point of view be fully accepted? Does this not result in distrust, an underestimation of the conventions in art, as well as its "non-realistic" forms, such as naturalism, 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 ponder the words of Rolland, who writes that these books are fanned by 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 to the glory of Friendship and Pure Love. What is the meaning of the hero's search for "another France"? Describe the image of Olivier Jeannin, milestones 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 German-French friendship an embodiment of the novelist's internationalist convictions?
trace storyline Olivie.
10. Describe recent books novels: "Girlfriends", "Burning Bush", "The Coming Day", in which the main character's life odyssey 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 realized in The Burning Bush? How is the labor movement, its methods and its leaders characterized in the novel? Give examples. What is the position of Olivier and Jean Christophe? Comment on Rolland's words: “Olivier returned to his seclusion. Christophe was not slow to join him. Positively, they felt out of place in the revolutionary social movement. Olivier could not join common people. Christoph didn't want to. Olivier moved away from them in the name of the weak, Christophe in the name of the strong, the independent.
What is the position of Rolland himself? What was the attitude of the writer to the revolution, revolutionary violence? Remember the nature of his polemic with A. Barbusse, his philosophy, often called "Rollandism".
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 the life of Jean Christophe (the book "The Coming Day"). What is the nature of Jean Christophe's new infatuation with Anna Braun, Dr. 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 motif of death, the departure of the closest people of the protagonist play in the novel? What is the meaning of Jean Christophe's last wish - to unite the children of his dead friends - the daughter of Grazia and the son of Olivier?
Describe the ending of the novel. What is the meaning of identifying Jean Christophe with Saint 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 plinth of the statue of St. Christopher at the entrance to medieval temples (for example, in the Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris), cited by Rolland at the end of each volume when the novel was first published in the Weekly Notebooks.
How is the motif of the change of generations, the inexorable birth of the new, realized in the final book of the epic? Rolland writes in a brief afterword to the book:
“I wrote the tragedy of the passing generation without hiding anything.<...>People of today, youth, it's your turn! Let our bodies be steps for you - step forward on them. Be stronger and happier than us.<...>Life is a series of deaths and rebirths. Let us die, Christophe, to be born again!”
11. French critic Lamy called the novel "a poem of feelings". What is the originality of the description of the main character? What does Rolland focus on: the depiction of external events, the "real" interior, or the world of feelings, emotions, experiences of Jean Christophe?
How is the musical, structure-forming principle realized in the novel? How does Rolland achieve that the life of a musician is divided into separate phases, like a monumental symphonic composition?
To what extent is the historical background, the social context, outlined?
12. Describe the poetics and style of the novel. Emphasize the originality of Rolland's manner by comparing it with the style of such contemporaries as E. Zola, Gde Maupassant, A. France.
How in narration Rolland achieves a harmonic synthesis of words and music: give examples of lyricism, pathos, expression, emotional richness, metaphor in Rolland's manner. Show that the novelist appears not only as an artist of the word, a psychologist, but also as a connoisseur of art, a musicologist.
13. Justify the romantic beginning in the novel, associated with its musical nature. Show Rolland's tendency to thicken colors, to depict the special intensity of feelings and experiences of the main character. Is it possible to talk about the mirror "life-likeness" of 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 duality 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 response. Find and quote the statements of critics. 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 reader?
Notes.
1 See: Rolland R. Collected Works: in 14 volumes. - M, 1956. - T. 6. - S. 369 -377.
2. See: Rolland R. Collected Works: in 14 volumes. - M., 1955. - T. 3. - S. 78.
3. See: Literary Encyclopedia terms and concepts. - M., 2001. - S. 1235-1238.
4. See: T. L. Motyleva, On the World Significance of L. N. Tolstoy. - M., 1957. - S. 398 - 416. On the creative relationship between L. N. Tolstoy and R. Rolland, see also: Chicherin A. V. The emergence of an epic novel. - M., 1958. - S. 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 tells about one of his most significant works Romain Rolland - "Jean-Christophe" - summary novel, the history of writing, features are given in the article.
A little about the author
The French writer was born in January 1866 in the city of Clamcy in the family of a notary. From childhood he was fond of the history of music and played the piano. Graduated from the prestigious Lyceum in Clamcy and high school Ecole Normal in Paris. After graduation, he lived in Italy for two years, where he studied art. He returned to his homeland and defended his dissertation at the Sorbonne. As a professor of music history, he lectured at the Sorbonne.
Rolland was well versed in philosophy and painting. Produced a music magazine, published art and dramatic works. He appreciated the work of Leo Tolstoy, knew him personally and corresponded. He defined his moral code as follows: “Dedicate life to the good of people, persevere in the search for truth.”
Creativity Rolland
Romain Rolland left an extremely diverse creative heritage: plays, essays, novels, memoirs and biographies - Leo Tolstoy, Michelangelo, Ramakrishna, Mahatma Gandhi, Beethoven, Vivekananda. In 1914 he completed the novel "Jean-Christophe", followed by "Cola Breugnon". In 1920 he published the story Pierre and Luce. The writer's articles on the tasks of art and social contradictions are collected in the collections Through the Revolution to Peace and Fifteen Years of Struggle.
In 1933, the novel "The Enchanted Soul" was published, followed by the essays "Lenin", "Valmy", the drama "Robespierre". In 1942 Rolland completed autobiographical work"Inner Journey", in 1946 "Circumnavigation" was published, in 1944 - a cycle about Beethoven, a biography of Peguy. A few months before his death, the French writer was lucky to see Paris free. Romain Rolland died in December 1944 in Vezlay, occupied by the Germans.
"Jean Christophe"
The most significant work is Jean-Christophe. The writer worked on it for eight years. The idea to create a "musical novel" was born in the late 90s. According to the author, he did not want to "analyze", but to evoke a feeling in the reader like music. This desire determined genre specifics works.
Romain Rolland and his novel "Jean-Christophe" destroyed the traditional ideas about the form of the novel. Each of the three parts has its own rhythm and tonality. This is a novel-symphony, a novel-flow. Without disturbing the usual course, the life of the hero, the impressions and emotions of Jean-Christophe open before us. In books 1 and 5, Rolland Romain remarkably revealed the first impressions of the child, then, already in Paris, young man. Insert episodes and digressions create an atmosphere of emotional uplift.
- In volume I of Jean Christophe, Romain Rolland covers early years hero - the first impulses of the heart and feelings, the first losses and trials. But they help Christoph understand his mission in life.
- Volume II tells how young hero will come to grips with the lies that corrode both art and society.
- Volume III, on the contrary, sounds like a song in praise of love and friendship.
- Volume IV is the middle life path, on which the spiritual storms and doubts of the hero are ready to smash everything, but are resolved by a serene ending.
Romain Rolland's ten-volume novel Jean-Christophe was published separate parts and immediately brought fame to its creator. After international recognition Rolland left the Sorbonne and devoted his life to creativity. Mainly thanks to "Jean-Christophe", the author was awarded in 1915 Nobel Prize, which he received only in 1916 because of the scandal that erupted around the anti-war articles published by Rolland.
The plot of the novel
At the heart of the book "Jean-Christophe" by Romain Rolland are constant motives and ethical postulates - rebirth through death, victory in defeat, defeat in victory. as the main character, musical genius Jean-Christophe realized the dream of " contemporary Beethoven". The plot is based on his biography.
Having rebelled against the violence and despotism of the German authorities, the hero of the novel flees to France, but European culture and he perceives politics as a "fair in the square" where everything is bought and sold. After going through many trials, Jean-Christophe understands that freedom is limited only for himself. So, alone, absurdly and accidentally perishes him best friend Olivie. At the end of the work, the hero loses his rebellious spirit, but remains true to his talent and nature.
The action of "Jean-Christophe" by Romain Rolland takes place in a small German town where a boy is born in a family of musicians. Little Christoph is delighted with everything - the sound of a drop, the singing of birds, the sound of the wind. Everywhere he hears music and, unnoticed by himself, comes up with melodies. Grandfather writes down and collects them in a separate notebook. Soon the boy becomes a court musician and earns his first money.
The father spends most of his income on drink and the mother is forced to work as a cook. Christoph realizes that they are poor and others laugh at their bad manners and illiteracy. To help the family, Christoph plays in the orchestra with his father and grandfather, gives music lessons. He has little contact with his peers, and the only consolation is conversations with his grandfather and a traveling merchant.
heavy losses
After the death of his grandfather, the family was on the verge of poverty. The father drinks, and the mother asks the duke to give the money earned by the father to his son. At one of the concerts, the father behaves disgustingly and he is refused a place. Christoph writes music and dreams of a great future.
But not everything is smooth in his life. He found a friend, but soon he and Otto broke up. Christoph fell in love with a girl from a noble family, but he was pointed out the difference in position. The father dies and the family is forced to move to more modest housing. Christoph meets the owner of a haberdashery shop, Sabina. The unexpected death of a beloved girl leaves a deep wound in his soul.
Uncle's words - "The main thing is not to get tired of wanting to live" - give him strength. Unknown forces wake up in it. He hears false notes in the works famous musicians and folk songs. Christoph declares this publicly and writes a melody. But the people are not ready for innovative music, and soon the whole city turns away from Christophe.
Forced escape
Acquaintance with French actress makes him think of going to Paris, but he cannot leave his mother. But fate decreed otherwise. On one of village holidays he quarrels with the soldiers, a criminal case is brought against him and he is forced to flee the country.
Dirty, bustling Paris met Christophe unfriendly. He earns his living by giving private lessons, and soon notices that French society is no better than German society. Party leaders cover up selfish interests with loud phrases. The press is false, and works of art are created to please the rich. The young man sees falsehood and mediocrity everywhere. The audience boos the symphony he composed.
Christophe is starving, but not giving up. After a serious illness, he feels renewed, and the unique charm of Paris opens before him. He has a friend - a young poet Olivier. In the house where they rent an apartment, people of different social strata live and shun each other. But Christophe's music brings them closer.
Confession
Glory comes to Christophe. He becomes a fashionable composer and the doors to secular society. At one of the receptions, Olivier meets Jacqueline, marries and leaves for the province. Soon the spouses return to Paris, but there is no former understanding between them. Jacqueline leaves her family for young lover and Olivier and their son move in with Christophe. But friends can no longer live under the same roof, as before, and he rents a separate apartment.
Christophe meets the revolutionaries, he does not attach importance to their ideas, but he likes to meet with them and argue. On the first of May, he goes to a demonstration and takes Olivier, who has not yet recovered from his illness, with him. During a clash with the police, his friend dies, but Christoph does not know about it - he is forced to flee to Switzerland, where he receives news of the death of a friend. He takes this tragedy hard, and the music becomes unbearable for him.
"The Gates Are Opening"
Christoph is gradually coming back to life, friends help him find students. A relationship develops between Christoph and the doctor's wife. When the betrayal is revealed, Anna tries to commit suicide, while Christophe flees the city for the mountains. He writes music and soon receives worldwide recognition.
One of Christophe's students falls in love with him and they dream of getting married. But her son in every possible way prevents the marriage of his mother: he pretends to have nervous attacks and cough. In the end, he really fell ill and died. Grace blames herself for his death and cannot bear it - she dies after her son.
Having lost the woman he loves, Christophe feels the thin thread that connects him to life break. But it is at this moment that he creates the most profound works. He arranges the fate of his son Olivier and introduces him to his daughter Grazia. Christoph is seriously ill, but carefully hides it, not wanting to overshadow the happiness of the young.
Dying Christoph lies in his room and hears the orchestra playing the anthem of life, remembers his mother, friends, lovers: “Here is the chord that I was looking for. The gates are opening."
In 1912 Romain Rolland ends the novel 10 volumes: Jean-Christophe / Jean-Christophe.
“Jean Christophe was conceived from the very beginning as a novel about a ‘new Beethoven’; in his hero, Rolland embodied some features of the composer he loved, whose music was dear to him for its heroic, life-affirming spirit. Shortly before the release of the first part of Jean-Christophe, a small book by Rolland, The Life of Beethoven, appeared and excited many readers. It was not just a biography. Here Rolland, in a concise and original form, expresses his own views on art and the duty of the artist. He cites the words of the great composer that he would like to work "for the sake of suffering humanity", for the sake of "humanity of the future". He shares Beethoven's opinion: "Music should strike fire from the human soul."
Reading Rolland's Life of Beethoven, especially its first pages, we clearly see the motifs that later unfolded in Jean-Christophe.
Rolland talks about Beethoven's harsh childhood. His father was a singer, and his mother was a servant before marriage; the family lived in poverty.
"Father decided to take advantage of musical ability son and showed it to the public small miracle. From the age of four, he kept the boy at the harpsichord for hours or locked him up with the violin, forcing him to play to the point of exhaustion ... It got to the point that Beethoven had to be almost forcefully instructed to learn music. His adolescence was overshadowed by worries about bread, the need to earn a living early ... At the age of seventeen he had already become the head of the family, he was responsible for raising two brothers; he had to take on the humiliating chores of assigning a pension to his father - a drunkard who was unable to support his family: the pension was given to his son, otherwise the father would have drunk everything. These sorrows left a deep imprint in the soul of the young man.
The story of Jean-Christophe's childhood and youth, as told by Romain Rolland, is not just an author's fiction: real facts biographies of the greatest German composers. And it is not for nothing that the majestic Rhine and its picturesque green banks become the poetic background of the action - after all, here, on the banks of the Rhine, Beethoven spent the first twenty years of his life.
In the first books of Jean-Christophe the contact with the Life of Beethoven is particularly evident; V further fate Rolland's hero separates from the real primary source and develops in his own way. But in character spiritual form Jean-Christophe is not only young, but also mature years many things bring him closer to Beethoven. Not only a passionate passion for art, but also an indomitable, independent disposition, a stubborn unwillingness to bow before those in power. And at the same time - the ability to endure hardship and grief, the ability to maintain in the most difficult conditions both the will to create and love for people. Jean-Christophe's music, like Beethoven's, is imbued with vitality and the joy of being."
Chapter VI
ROMAIN ROLLAND: HIGH HEROICS
Becoming a Writer: From Clamcy to the Normal School. — Dramzturge; struggle for new theater. - "Heroic Biography": great at heart. — "Jean Christophe": "an epic modern life". - "Cola Breugnon": Burgundy character. - War years: "Above the fight."
The world is perishing, strangled by its cowardly and vile egoism. Let's open the windows! Let's let in Fresh air! Let us be blown by the breath of heroes.
R. Rollan
R. Rolland left a legacy of many genres - novels, dramaturgy, memoirs, diaries, letters. He was at 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 the globe. His authoritative voice - the voice of a humanist, a truth seeker - was listened to in the world. Rolland proceeded from the idea of high moral mission literature and writer's responsibility In 1915, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for "sublime idealism" and "sympathy and love for the truth."
Becoming a Writer: From Clamcy to the Normal School
Romain Rolland was born in! 86b in the town of Clamcy in southern France. This city inherited the spirit of freemen from the Middle Ages, and republicanism from the time of the revolution. It is in Clamcy that the action of the novel "Cola Breugnon" takes place.
The writer's father owned a notary's office in Clamcy. He was distinguished by enviable health and lived to be 95 years old. Mother, a zealous Catholic, madly loved her son, instilled in him a passion for music and admiration for Beethoven. Unlike his father, Rolland was in fragile health, often ill, but he had an inexhaustible supply of creative energy. Thanks to 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 Higher Normal School. 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 is firmly included in cultural life Europe. In 1886, Melchior le Vogüet's book "The Russian Romance" was published in France, which became a significant 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, memoirs.
Rolland, proceeding from the idea of the moral mission of art, wanted it to carry "a small ray of Love", "the divine light of Mercy". “Neither Aschille 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 occupies the place of the new Iliad among these masterpieces, War and the world," Rolland wrote. Tolstoy's article "So what are we to do?", containing harsh criticism of a society built on the oppression of some people by others, stunned Rolland. The student of the Normal School 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, which began with the words "Dear Brother", written in French by the hand of a 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 the exploiters." Not all of Tolstoy's views appealed to Rolland, but Tolstoy's treatise "What is Art?" was in many ways consonant with him, and above all the idea that art and literature are called upon to influence society morally, to elevate and ennoble the souls of people.
Young scientist. In 1889, Rolland graduated from the Normal School and received a tempting offer of a two-year scientific trip to Rome for independent scientific studies. His stay in Italy turned out to be exceptionally fruitful for him. In his younger years, he read books on the history of art with interest and now he could personally get acquainted with excellent museums, see masterpieces of sculpture and painting, and listen to the famous Italian opera.
Scientific work in the field of music forced him to penetrate into the psychology of the composer, to think about the nature of the creative process. In Italy, Rolland first came up with the idea of writing about Beethoven. By this time are the first literary experiments writer - sketches of plays from Italian and Roman history ("Orsino", "Caligula", "Siege of Mantua", etc.). In Italy, two of his dissertations were prepared, and in 1895 defended: “The Origin of the Modern musical theater. The History of European Opera Before Lully and Scarlatti” and “On the Decline of 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 in prospects writing activity encourages Rolland to take up teaching (first at the Normal School, and later at the Sorbonne), which gives him financial independence; he devotes his free time to literary creativity- work the teacher had her 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" the writer's intentions of Rolland. But at the same time, teaching helped him to accumulate those extensive knowledge of art history, which later became the foundation of many of his works. Rolland the writer in many respects dived from Rolland the psdagogue with his teaching, moral and educational attitude,
The playwright: the struggle for a new theater
Rolland's writing path begins with plays. In the late 189G - early 1900s, he worked mainly as a playwright. It was natural in its own way.
At the end of the 19th century, in Europe, the birth of " new drama”, which meant breaking the outdated canons of the 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 the story is only a background, a decoration. The main thing for Rolland is moral conflicts, good and evil in a person. Rolland is looking for an answer to a question that is invariably relevant to him: what is the nature of the heroic in a person? In "Saint Louis" (1897), the protagonist is the French king Louis IX, the leader of the crusaders, a tall man 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 protagonist is idealized, the play expresses the deep, humanistic aspirations of its author. The theme "hero and people" is broken up in the drama "Aert" (1898), which takes place in the 17th century, in Holland. Young Prince Aert, a generous, brave man, aspires to be at the head of a movement against Spanish rule.
"Drama of the Revolution". In the conditions of the heated 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 comprehension of the most important historical lessons in the life of the country - the lessons of the Great french revolution 1789-1794, which a century later remained the subject of heated debate. This is how the "Dramas of the Revolution" appear.
The cycle was opened by the play "Wolves" 0898), in which echoes of the Dreyfus case sound.
An honest officer of the revolutionary army, a nobleman d "Ouaron, is accused of treason. Verra, a brave warrior, driven by hatred for the aristocracy, insists on this. The Jacobin Tellier stands up to defend the accused. Feeling a personal dislike for d" Ouaron, he proves his innocence. But the justification of d "Warope would mean the dismissal of Verr, a favorite of the soldiers, an experienced commander. To resolve the issue, the Commissioner of the Convention Quesnel arrives. Tellier advocates that justice should prevail under any circumstances. Quesnel, understanding Tellier's legal correctness, nevertheless accepts less the side of Werra, saves him from death, for such an outcome is necessary for the revolution.
"Danton". The second drama of the cycle, "The Triumph of Reason" (1899), is dedicated to the fate of the Girondins. The most significant in the cycle is the drama "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; "revolutions of violence" (Cimourdin) and "revolutions of mercy" (Govin).
Danton and Robespierre started out 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 as follows: "Gargantua in Shakespeare's taste, cheerful and powerful." Tired of violence, blood and murder, he wants mercy and indulgence, 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 and his friend Saint-Just. Any criticism addressed to the all-powerful Salvation Committee, any dissent on the part of recent people's leaders is perceived as a crime and, worse, a betrayal. The only means of combating them is the guillotine knife. Judicial proceedings are carried out not according to laws, but according to concepts. The following thesis was put into the mouth of Robespierre: “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 morals, ”Arrested Danton and his associates appear before the Revolutionary Tribunal,
Rolland is one of the first to build an entire act of his drama as a kind of transcript of a court session, a violent clash of points of view.
In his courageous speech, Danton dismisses many accusations, in particular, that he lived in a big way, while the people were starving. Simple people in the audience sympathize with Danton. The situation is saved by Saint-Just: he reports that in the evening a caravan of ships with flour and fuel arrives at the port. After that, the courtroom rapidly 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 government. The verdict, predetermined, incriminates them with a conspiracy against the Republic, punishable by death.
While working on a cycle 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 heritage Rollal carefully studied. The cycle of "Drama of the Revolution" was concluded by the play "The Fourteenth of July", in the center of which is a great event - the storming of the Bastille. According to Rolland, “here, individuals dissolve in 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 crime of the monarchy and the entire feudal system. Rolland depicted the participants in the storming of the Bastille vividly and brightly, showing that euphoria, heroism and faith in the triumph of justice that characterize the first steps of the revolution. The drama contains elements of a folk festive action, during which choirs sound, orchestras ring, and the people form a round dance around the romantic symbol of Freedom. This play was a kind of prototype for the “dramas of mass action” dedicated to the class struggle, which were popular in the West in the 1930s.
"People's Theatre": "the art of action". Finishing work on a cycle of plays, Rolland sums up his theoretical conclusions in the book “People's Theatre. Experience in the Aesthetics of the New Theatre” (1903). In this book, Rolland substantiates the "art of action" program that has a moral impact on the audience. The people's theater should be guided by a broad democratic audience. No matter how significant the plays of the drama turgos and classics are, the repertoire contemporary theater should be contemporary authors. The theater can draw spiritual strength from the people's environment. Rolland is convinced that "the folk theater is the key to the whole world of new art, to a world that art is only just beginning to anticipate." Time, however, has shown Rolland's fine soul. 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 "rapturous 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 time; in revolutionary eras, its problems and style change. Suffice it to recall Mayakovsky's Mystery Buff, Trenev's Love Yarovaya, Bulgakov's Days of the Turbins, Armored Train 14-69 Vs. Ivanova and many others, whose artistic merit, longevity and stage success are undeniable.
"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, military leaders, scientists, and artists. Only a part of the plan was implemented - this is a kind of triptych, which included the biographies of Beethoven, Michelangelo, Tolstoy.
In the preface to the series, Rolland wrote in his usual emotionally pathetic manner: “There is stuffy stale air around us. Decrepit Europe falls into hibernation in this oppressive, musty atmosphere... The world is suffocating. Let's open the windows! Let's let the free air in! Let us be blown by the breath of a hero.”
Who is the hero in Rolland's interpretation? These are not the ones who won by thought or force. For him, heroes are those who are great at heart. Without the greatness of the soul, one cannot be either a great person or a great artist. The model for Rolland was "powerful and pure soul Beethoven".
Rolland addresses his hero, a contemporary, close person: "Dear Beethoven!" He writes with admiration about how, exhausted by ailments, the collapse of love, terrible deafness for a musician, Beethoven creates his most life-affirming, exultant work for the 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 work, with this victory, the most radiant of all that the spirit has ever won?" The Beethoven theme would become the dominant feature of Rolland's entire life and creative quest.
The book about Michelangelo was written in the same tone, creative genius Renaissance. The material for this book was the investigations of Rolland, made in Italy. It was an extensive work, consisting of three parts, containing both a biographical description and an art history analysis. The writer titled the two main stages of the artist's life as "Struggle" and "Rejection", 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. The hardships of life are not able to extinguish their creative enthusiasm. Triumphing over a ruthless fate, they turn out to be moral winners. inner meaning their heroic life is defined by Rolland's favorite formula: Per aspera ad astra (through thorns to the stars).
"Jean Christophe": "the epic of modern life"
All of Rolland's previous work in the field of dramaturgy, 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). He became the main book of Rolland, brought him European fame. In "Jean Christophe" the aesthetics, life philosophy and artistic methodology of the writer are most fully expressed.
Genre originality: "novel-river". The idea for the novel originated as early as 1890, when Rolland was in Italy, where he was struck by great works of art. Rolland thought about their creators, who seemed to him to be true titans. Then he was captivated by the personality of Beethoven.
The history of world literature knows the "titanic" images of Prometheus, Faust, Manfred, built on the combination of reality with 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 biography of Jean Christophe, endowed his hero with Beethoven's character, his passion, uncompromisingness.
Autobiographical motifs are noticeable in the novel: the fragility, poetry, delicacy of Rolland are reflected in the image of Olivier, a friend of Christophe. The firmness, courage of Rolland in defending his principles, his love for music - in Jean Christophe. The writer gave his hero the name Kraft, that is, strength.
In 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...,” Rolland wrote about Jean Christophe.
Of course, Rolland has a sonial-historical context, but the main thing is the image 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 life material demanded new form. Rolland writes a ten-volume epic novel, unlike the usual novel cycles, such as Zola's Rougon-Macquarts, T. Mann's Buddenbrooks. "Jean Christophe" in its own way anticipated M. Proust's epic "In Search of the Lost Name".
Almost ten years of labor, burning, Rolland gave to the novel, he lived "in the armor of Jean Christophe." The novel was published in separate parts in the journal Weekly Notebooks (1904-J912), the editor of which was famous writer and Rolland's friend Charles Peguy. And in 1921, in the preface to the next edition of "Jean Christophe", the writer proposed to combine books that are similar in "atmosphere" and "sound", and 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", "Boyhood") covers Christoph'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. Here the features are especially clear. novel-education”, the model of which was for Rolland “Wilheim Meister” Goethe, the internal theme is the collision of a brilliant child with the harsh realities of life and the formation of artistic talent and musical worldview in him.
In a provincial German town on the banks of the "old man of the Rhine", a child is born who will live long life. The child learns the world around him, the warmth of mother's hands, colors, sounds, voices. “A huge stream of time rolls slowly ... 6 islands of memories appear in the river of life.”
With special attention, the future musician perceives the zauks that form into melodies. The family is in dire need. Jean Christophe's father Melchior Kraft, a musician in the duke's court orchestra, is kicking clear of the family's modest budget; mother Louise works as a cook. Jean Christophe recognizes 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 mystery over composer creativity. In the perception of the child, zooks merge with the outside world, nature. Uncle Gottfried, loving grandson, endowed with a sensitive soul, teaches: music should be “modest” and truthful, help to expose inner world"down to the very bottom."
At the age of six, Jean Christophe composed pieces for the piano, then began performing in the court orchestra, composing music to order.
Art of this kind is not to his liking: "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 has many hobbies. His feelings are sublime, direct, not always subject to common sense, and therefore usually do not find a worthy response. Christophe is a maximalist who puts in love and friendship high bar, requiring complete dedication, excluding selfishness, lies, frivolity. As the story develops, the “soul life” of the hero is in the center of artistic attention, his emotions are exaggerated, acquire a special scale and energy.
The Hero and Society: The Revolt of Jean Christophe. The second part of the epic includes the books "Riot", "Fair on the Square", in which the new milestone in the life of a hero. First of all, Jean Christophe rebels against his former self, tearing off his “yesterday, already dead shell”, and sharply evaluates his early works as “warm water, caricature-ridiculous nonsense”. With the vehemence of youth, he falls upon many classical composers, seeing falsehood and sentimentality in their works. With youthful maximalism, he is ready to do everything “again or redo”. Christoph 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" is thickening. During a peasant holiday, 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 narrative here takes on the character of a pamphlet, satirical intonations appear.
Christophe arrives in Paris full of illusions, because France is a country of freedom, unlike Germany with its estate remnants. But in the French capital, he sees only the "great comedy." Once Thackeray wrote about the bourgeois-aristocratic society as a "vanity fair", Jean Christophe opens another fair - a fair of general venality, a giant marketplace. Modern Art, which has become an object of sale, Jean Christophe calls "intellectual prostitution". Lies and vulgarity in art cause him a violent reaction. Christoph faces reps 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 work of modern French composers Jean Christophe criticizes the anemic, naivety of the plots. At the champions new music"He finds only a "tangle of professional tricks", imitation of "superhuman ruptures", the absence of "naturalness". In the literature of Jean Christophe, decadent phenomena irritate; in the theater - entertainment, the dominance of lightweight genres.
Overcoming illness, mental pain, Christophe continues to work. But his symphonic painting "David", based on which - biblical story, is not understood by the public and fails. The fruit of the experienced shock is the serious illness of the hero.
In search of "another France". The third part includes the books "Antoinette", "In the House", "Girlfriends", fanned by the atmosphere of gentle "spiritual concentration". Jean Christophe is looking for "another France" to love and finds it in Olivier Janin.
Olivier is a young poet, intelligent, generous, "hating hate", he admires Christophe's music. With outward dissimilarity, they are spiritually close: both are distinguished by spiritual purity, adherence to high moral and ethical concepts. Thanks to Olivier, Christophe is convinced: there is true France, "an indestructible block of granite." Their relationship is a kind of model of creative mutual enrichment of the cultures of the two countries. Rolland is unreflective of his moral postulate: culture is an international kinship of souls, which must triumph over national barriers.
Not without the help of Olivier, the press finally pays favorable attention to Christophe. The long-awaited success comes to him. Jean Christophe helps bring Olivier closer to Jacqueline Lantier, knowing that it will be detrimental to their friendship. And so it happens. Marrying Jacqueline, Olivier, absorbed in joys family life, moves away from Christoph.
The fourth part of the novel includes two books: The Burning Bush and The Coming Day. This is the finale of the long, difficult life of the hero, his spiritual Odyssey.
Christophe's life is a persistent search for a kind of "creed". Together with Opivier, they want to bring life to the "altar of the new god - the people." In The Burning Bush, the theme of political struggle enters the novel; the hero has to choose with whom he will be - with the workers' leaders or against them. At a May Day demonstration, Jean Christophe meets Olivier; clashes with the police. Christophe kills a policeman, and Olivier, trampled by the mob, later dies in the hospital.
After the events in Paris, Jean Christophe flees to Switzerland and takes refuge in Dr. Brown's house. There he experiences new love— to the doctor's wife, Anna Brown. Christoph and Anna show physical and spiritual harmony; Anna, a sincere, believing nature, suffers, cheating on her husband, even tries to lay hands on herself. They part, and Christophe is going through another spiritual crisis.
And again, love heals the hero from despair, brings creativity back to life. 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: the son of Grazia, a sickly and unbalanced boy, is insanely jealous of his mother. After his death, Grazia herself passes away.
Christoph is alone. He experiences a happy merging with nature, composes using the motives of Spanish folk songs and dances like "flashes of flame". The last wish of Jean Christophe is deeply symbolic: to unite the children of his departed friends - the daughter of Grazia and the son of Olivier. Vitality leaving Christoph. One of the exciting scenes of the novel: before the blurred gaze of the dying hero, images of people dear to him pass. The river of life, overflowing its banks, flows into the ocean of eternity.
"Musical novel": a sounding word. The novel made a huge impression, put forward Rolland in a number of writers of world importance. Readers were struck by the originality and emotional strength of the protagonist and art form works. Rolland made the musical "symphonic" principle structure-forming in the novel. Life for a musician is filled with inner 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" revealed a new genre variety. This is a "roman-river". In the style of Rolland - lyricism, expression, metaphor. Such a manner corresponded to the state of the protagonist, immersed in the 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. 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 inland sea. You are as deep as the soul ... "
The author is not only a prose writer with a poetic vision of the world, but also a musicologist who gravitates toward abstract, metaphorical and emotional vocabulary. The musicality of the novel is also determined by its sublime pathos. Not material calculations, not selfish pettiness, but the breadth of the soul, commitment to spiritual values, love, friendship, inspired creativity - this is the life credo of the protagonist. 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' feelings. It is unlawful to approach the novel with the standards of lifelikeness, including psychological. Not only Jean Christophe, but also his friends feel stronger than ordinary people, and in this regard they act more boldly, more recklessly.
The well-known duality of the novel, and especially of the protagonist, is also connected with romance. On the one hand, it can be said that Jean Christophe is a representative figure, according to Rolland, "the heroic representative of a new generation, passing from one war to another, from 1870 to 1914." On the other hand, the image of the protagonist is symbolic: Jean Christophe is the embodiment of Goodness 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 is in man." The writer had the right to say that Jean Christophe is no longer a stranger in any country on the globe. 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 Breugnon": Burgundy character
"Jean Christophe" is followed by the story "Cola Bruignon" (1914), which appeared on the eve of the First World War. This is a book of a completely different tone, it introduced the "new" Rolland. Collecting material for the book, the writer visited his native places, in Burgundy, in Clamcy. He immersed himself in history, in folklore, in folk traditions. Rolland put in the center of the work common man, Colas Brugnon, wood carver. The narration is conducted on behalf of the hero, which gives the story a special, confidential intonation. While working on the story, Rolland focused on the style of the French medieval fablios, on folklore, on 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 built like a diary of the protagonist. Before readers - a series of episodes, told with a kind smile, sometimes mockery or irony.
Cola Breugnon, quite unlike Jean Christophe, is close to him internally. He is devoted to creativity, although he calls it prosaically: "labor hunger." Brugnon creates furniture, utensils, skillfully inlaid his products. Work for him old friend who will not betray." “Armed with an ax, a chisel and a chisel with a fugaik in my hands, I reign at my workbench over knotted oak, over 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 sings 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, cut, graft grapes, reap, knit sheaves, thresh grain, squeeze bunches ... in a word, be masters of French soil, fire, water, air - all four elements."
The personal life of Cola Breugnon is not very happy. His poetic feeling for Lasochka was not mutual. Kolya's wife is grumpy, the children do not make their father very happy. Tender feelings are caused by his only daughter Martin, as well as his students Robin and Capie.
Cola is an optimist. Neither the strife of his sons, nor the plague, nor the fire, nor the feudal civil strife can crush his love of life. A successor to the traditions of Rabelais, Rolland endows Brunion with "pantagruelism", an invariable 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, 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 translations “ Divine Comedy"Dante, Shakespeare's Hamlet and other masterpieces of world literature).
In Rolland's "Notes of Brugnon's Grandson" we read: "And when Gorky writes that Cola Brugnon, which he likes more than all my books, is a Gallic challenge to war, he is not so wrong." In the early 1930s, 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 Breugnon (1937) based on the novel.
War years: "Above the fight"
First World War(1914-1918) - a historical watershed in the life of Europe, its cultures and literature. This war became fatal for Rolland, his spiritual quest; was a huge test, not only physical, but also moral, for many masters of culture.
Public figure and humanist. Rolland took the war both as a personal tragedy and as a crime against humanity and civilization. Instead of the all-human brotherhood that Rolland dreamed of, he observed an orgy of hatred and the collapse of the foundations of culture. Sympathizing with the victims of the war, the writer refused to join the patriotic choir. His anti-war, pacifist stance provoked fierce attacks, a stream of accusations against him, including accusations of treason. At first he was alone. It took a lot of civic courage to survive in these conditions. As in Jean Christophe, in Rolland, a man of fragile health, lived the soul of an unbending fighter. He continued the tradition that was personified by Voltaire, Hugo and
During the war years, the writer is included in the work of the International Red Cross in Geneva, provides assistance to war victims, refugees, prisoners of war. Rolland writes hundreds of letters, interceding for different people. And he receives news from all over Europe - his authority is so high, his name is so significant.
Rolland publishes a publicist book "Above the Fight" (1915). The writer set himself the task of protecting himself from "mental militarism", preserving the spiritual values of "world civilization for the future." He wrote in his book: great people, drawn into the war, must not only protect his borders, he must also protect his mind ... "
During the war years, Rolland made many new friends. The writer was supported by Roger Martin du Gard, the future Nobel Laureate physician Albert Schweitzer, brilliant physicist Albert Einstein, philosopher Bertrand Russell, playwright Bernard Shaw. Rolland helps to rally the anti-war forces of the progressive European intelligentsia.
In 1915, Rolland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The performance noted "the sublime idealism of his literary creativity and the sympathetic accuracy with which he described the various human types.
The beginning of R. Rolland's correspondence with 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 development of events in Russia after October 1917. Rolland sympathized with the processes of renewal of life, but at the same time he was anxious about revolutionary violence.
War in artistic creativity and in journalism. The artistic and journalistic heritage of Rolland during the war period is diverse and weighty. At this time, the writer keeps detailed diaries that were not intended for publication. They contain frank, impartial assessments of events, an analysis of the writer's searches and doubts. Rolland does not spare nationalist writers, exposes the connection between war crimes and financial interests. During his stay in Moscow in 1935, Rolland handed over the manuscripts of the “Diary of the War Years” to the Lenin Library with a request to make it public in 20 years, which was done in 1955.
A kind of continuation of the collection "Over 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.
"Liliuli": the power of laughter. Among works of art related to the theme of war - the play-farce "Lilyuli", written in a satirical Aristophanes manner. The pathos of the work is in exposing the war, its ideological covers. Numerous active limes represent modern society. It is unfair, built on a class-hierarchical principle and resembles a carnival-masquerade.
People live in a world of phantoms, fetishes, they believe in the Blindfolded Mind, in Brotherhood and Freedom, which have lost their meaning, turned into their opposite. In this state, Illusion (Lilyuli) actually rules, appearing in the guise of a blond, blue-eyed, seductive girl, before whom no one can resist. It is she who causes rivalry between two young men: Altair (Frenchman) 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 Polichinel, the bearer of laughter and common sense at the same time. He is genetically brother Cola Breugnon”, the embodiment of people's straightforwardness, the ability to “cut the truth-womb”.
"Pierre and Luce": "knife of war". Rolland's story "Pierre and Luce" (1920) is written in a different tone.
The heroes of the story, Pierre and Luce, are modern young people, their love collides with the madness of war. Main character, 18-year-old Pierre Aubier, is the forerunner 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 covered with sadness. The time for parting is inexorably approaching. But evil fate overtakes them earlier. Filled with deep tenderness for each other, immensely happy, they come to the church and die under the rubble of a column that collapsed as a result of a bomb explosion.
"Clerambault": the heavy epiphany of the hero. Another aspect of the anti-war theme - the liberation of man from illusions, delusions - is revealed by Rolland in the novel Clerambo (1920).
The protagonist, Agenor Clerambault, is a middle-aged intellectual, a gifted poet, a little naive and social affairs. When the war starts, he will succumb to the jingoistic impulse, hatred for the "Huns", spy mania. These sentiments are gradually fading away. The patriotic sentiments of Clerambault collapse after the news of the death of the son of Front-line soldier Makshen. The reasoning of the young revolutionary Juliec Moreau, an admirer of Lenin, frightens Clerambault. In desperation, 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 period is already considered in the course of literature of the 20th century.
First post-war years were for Rolland sometimes intense spiritual quest associated with the challenges of the time. He had to carry on polemics with such radical communists as Henri Barbusse, the leader of the Clarte. To supporters of revolutionary actions, he opposed his position as an opponent of violence, an advocate of the spiritual and moral renewal of society.
In the 1920s, Rolland wrote a book about the Indian philosophers Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, the dramas The Game of Love and Death (1925), Palm Sunday"(1926), "Leonids" (1927), is intensively working on a large epic work"The Enchanted Soul" (1922-1934), dedicated to the topic difficult searches of the Western intelligentsia. Rolland's views are markedly radicalized (collection "Farewell to the Past", 1934), he expresses his sympathy for the USSR and, together with M. Gorky, seeks to unite the "masters of culture" in confronting the fascist threat. In 1935 he came to the USSR, 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 related to his stay in the USSR and meetings with Gorky made public. Rolland survived the German occupation; last years he is working on memoirs, completing a study on Beethoven, writing a book on 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, the keeper of his archive. In 1966, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rolland was celebrated in the USSR. He was invariably the object of attention of Russian researchers (I. I. Anisimov, T. L. Motyleva, V. E. Balakhonov, I. B. Dyushen, etc.), however, ideological stereotypes of the pre-perestroika period were reflected in their works. Several times, starting from the 1930s, collected works of the writer were published. As an artist of the word and a 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 needs a historical approach and objective analysis.
Literature
Artistic texts
Roman R. Collected works: in 14 volumes / R. Rolland; under the editorship of 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; post-last 3. Kirnose. - M., 1988. - (Ser. "Nobel Prize Laureates").
Criticism. Teaching aids.
Balakhonov V.E. Romain Rolland and his time. early years/ V. E. Balakhonov. - L., 1972.
Duchen I. B. "Jean Christophe" Romain Rolland / I. B. Duchen. - M., 1966.
Motyleva T. L. Romain Rolland /T. L. Motyleva. - M, 1969- - (Ser. ZhZL).
Motyleva T. L. Creativity of Romain Rolland / T. L. Motyleva. - M., 1959.
