The system of images in the work of Oblomov. Artistic features. Images of the main characters

In accordance with the ideological and thematic content, a system of images of the novel is built, in the center of which is the main character - Oblomov. It received extremely controversial interpretations and assessments in criticism. Dobrolyubov’s critical assessment of Oblomov, who saw in him a symbol of the collapse of the entire serfdom system, a reflection of the “superfluous man” complex, taken to its logical conclusion, beyond which only decay and death are possible, was disputed by the critic A.V. Druzhinin. In the article “Oblomov,” a novel by I. A. Goncharov,” he agrees with Dobrolyubov

The fact is that the image of Oblomov reflects the essential aspects of Russian life. But at the same time, the critic asserts: “Oblomovism” is bad, “the origins of which are rot and corruption”; it’s another matter if it’s “the immaturity of society and the hesitation of pure-hearted people before practicality,” which happens in young countries like Russia. Druzhinin's conclusion: Oblomov is worthy not of contempt, but of love. The critic even found in Oblomov the features of an epic hero, similar to Ilya Muromets, who slept until his time, and in Oblomovka - a lost patriarchal paradise.
Subsequently, the opinions of critics and readers leaned either towards Dobrolyubov’s - critical - assessment, or towards a point of view close to Druzhinin, in which Oblomov’s character was regarded as positive. So, for example, the Russian philosopher and poet of the “Silver Age” B. S. Solovyov called Oblomov “an all-Russian type,” “whose breadth we do not find in any of the Russian writers.” The poet and critic of the same time, I. F. Annensky, without idealizing Oblomov, argues that the hero is not without selfishness and softness, but “there is no complacency in him, this main sign of vulgarity.” In the work of the greatest philosopher of the mid-20th century, N. O. Lossky, it is emphasized that the explanation of Oblomov’s laziness by the corrupting influence of serfdom is only partly correct; in many ways it is connected with the peculiarities of the national character. This position is closest to the author's. The writer gives a versatile characterization of his hero using various artistic means, one of which is a comparison of Oblomov with other heroes.
To identify the features of “Oblomovism” in him, Goncharov uses “doubles”. This is a series of minor images of the novel: Zakhar, Oblomov’s servant, who is his caricatured reflection; Alekseev, “a man without actions”; Tarantiev is a “master of talking,” but not doing. At the same time, each of these images has an independent meaning and function in the novel.
The other group is extra-plot characters: these are visitors who come to Oblomov’s apartment on Gorokhovaya Street. They are designed to show the environment in which the hero lives, and at the same time they represent a personification of the activities that captivate the people of this circle. The dandy Volkov is a social success, the official Sudbinsky is a career, the novelist Penkin is a “game of accusation.” Such “activity” is not capable of filling Oblomov’s life, cannot “awaken” him.
Much more significant is the comparison between Oblomov and Stolz, built on the principle of antithesis. Stolz is the antipode of Oblomov. According to the author, it should have combined different national cultural and socio-historical elements. It is not for nothing that his mother, a Russian noblewoman with a tender heart and poetic soul, passed on her spirituality to Andrei, and his father was a German, who instilled in his son the skills of independent and hard work, the ability to rely on his own strength. Such a combination, according to the writer, was supposed to create a harmonious character, alien to any extreme. But the implementation of the plan made its own adjustments, revealing a certain limitation of such a personality. Indeed, Oblomov’s apathy and inactivity are contrasted with Stolz’s energy and dynamism, but the author’s sympathies are still not on his side, since rationality and practicality lead this hero to the loss of humanity, and the writer’s ideal is “mind and heart together.” It is not for nothing that, starting with Dobrolyubov, critics treated Stolz mostly negatively. The hero was reproached for rationality, dryness, selfishness, and the author himself was doubtful about such a quality as practicality, which since the middle of the 19th century has stood out as a distinctive feature of Russian business people, strong-willed, enterprising, but often overly rationalistic or morally unstable. After all, for a writer, like for Oblomov, it is not just the activity itself that is important, but what it leads to.
Stolz's ideal is too prosaic and down-to-earth. “You and I are not Titans,” he says to his wife Olga, “we will bow our heads and humbly go through this difficult moment.” This is the logic of a person who sees the practical side of the matter and is ready to focus on specific issues without resolving the main thing. But it’s a different matter for natures like Oblomov, tormented by a “universal human illness,” and therefore not satisfied with the solution to particular problems. They are the ones who have an incomprehensible power to influence women’s hearts.
Female characters play a special role in the novel. The main ones - Olga Ilyinskaya and Agafya Pshenitsyna - are also presented on the basis of antithesis. Olga Ilyinskaya, according to the author, is close to the harmonious human norm that the writer dreamed of. Her moral formation was free from the influence of a class-limited environment. It combines spiritual purity and striving for the ideal, beauty and naturalness, artistry of nature and a sound mind. Olga is a character as much expected by the author as she is real, hence her certain uncertainty. She manages to awaken Oblomov from sleep for a while, but she is not able to change the essence of his character, and therefore their love ends in a break. Olga admits: “I loved the future Oblomov.”
As he is, he is accepted by another heroine - Agafya Matveevna Pshenitsyna. She is the opposite of Olga in everything. Even their portrait characteristics are sharply contrasting. The spiritual appearance of Ilyinskaya, whose features reflected the “presence of a speaking thought” and the richness of her inner life, is emphasized, and the portrait of Pshenitsyna with her “full, rounded elbows” and “simplicity” of spiritual movements is contrasted. It is all the more surprising that it was Agafya Matveevna who managed to simply and naturally, without hesitation, embody that selflessness in love that turned out to be unbearable for Olga in her love for Oblomov.

The novel “Oblomov” was written over more than ten years. Work on the work began in 1846, “Oblomov’s Dream” was published in 1849, the novel was completed in 1858, and published in 1859. Its first part was created in the 40s, the second and the next two in the 50s. In the first part of the novel, Goncharov places the main emphasis on the depiction of Oblomovism as a certain social environment. The further evolution of the creative concept led to the author coming to a conscious complication of the topic: the personality, given in complex relationships with the environment and time, presented against a broad socio-historical background, becomes the main object of Goncharov’s research.

The character of Oblomov required from the author a special organization of action and plot construction. The writer used the structural principle - a fragmentary, episodic structure of parts with a chronological mixture of events. The hero’s personality is given in evolution - from childhood to old age and death, but the author focuses only on those episodes of Oblomov’s biography that are necessary to place ideological accents. Goncharov identifies four temporary milestones: childhood - life on Gorokhovaya Street - love - Vyborg side - death. Moreover, the main burden in explaining the character of the hero is borne by the childhood and adolescence recreated in the novel, while practically nothing is said about youth, the time when the personality is finally formed. Each of these temporary parts is an independent narrative unit, with a special internal structure. Each is autonomous, closed, the hero is placed in a certain time and space, surrounded by a circle of local characters, who then seem to disappear from him. This structure creates the impression of episodic fragmentation of life, devoid of development and integrity.

Oblomov's action covers the time from 1819 to 1856. In the first part there is almost no plot movement; this is a kind of introduction to the novel. Oblomov’s “parade of guests” occupies an unusually important place in the novel. Clearly extra-plot characters, they appear in strict order, replacing each other. The author needs guests as a means of characterizing the main character and as a necessary attribute of the environment in which Oblomov lives. All of them are peculiar “doubles” of the hero, and each represents one or another version of Oblomov’s possible fate, but he rejects everything: neither secular success, nor a career, nor the game of distinction seduces him. The appearance of the guests expands the spatio-temporal framework of the novel and allows the author to imagine various spheres of St. Petersburg: secular Petersburg (Volkov), bureaucratic Petersburg - clerical and departmental (Sudbinsky), literary Petersburg (Penkin).

The author traces in detail the path that led Oblomov to his famous sofa: university, youthful hobbies for poetry and art, social life and, as a result, disappointment in everything. The life that the hero lives now does not satisfy him, but he cannot and does not want to change anything in it: he is a gentleman, he is “not like everyone else,” he has the right to do nothing. Realizing, however, the inferiority of his existence, Oblomov is tormented by the question: “Why am I like this?” “Oblomov’s Dream” is the answer to this question.

“Oblomov” is a centripetal novel of its type. The figurative system is built on the principle of radii, where Oblomov is in the center, and other characters are located along the radii to him. All plot lines are drawn towards the main character, and the characteristics of other characters are directed towards him. Using this technique, the author achieves maximum objectification of the hero, who is, as it were, illuminated continuously from different sides by different light sources.

In the novel, two forces are fighting for Oblomov: the active intellectual principle, which Olga and Stolz embody, and the old Oblomovka. Stolz connects all hopes for the future of Ilya Ilyich with a small circle of activities (to restore order in the village, change the headman, go abroad; Stolz connects all hopes for the future of Ilya Ilyich with a small circle of activities () polished by Olga and Stolz, and old Oblomovka.), and Olga , for whom “life is a duty, an obligation,” I want Oblomov to engage in socially useful activities.

Stolz's purpose in the novel is to be the antipode of Oblomov, social and psychological. Therefore, his personality emphasizes such qualities as sobriety, rationality, skepticism towards feelings, and calculation. Stolz is an activist, work for him is “the image, content, element and purpose of life.” But the more such qualities are injected, the more Stolz loses to Oblomov with his soft soul, humanity, purity and selflessness. One thing is clear to the author: the future does not lie in the sphere of practicality and bourgeois entrepreneurship.

The main plot situation is the relationship between Oblomov and Olga. Olga Ilyinskaya, a deep, original personality, is the only character in the novel equivalent to Oblomov. The love that gripped the heroes revealed the best in everyone’s nature and gave the strongest impulse for spiritual development. Olga becomes a “guiding star” for Oblomov, he happily carries out the “re-education program” prepared for him by Olga, not noticing that with his life he simply “duplicates” the life of his chosen one - he reads what she reads, goes where Olga goes, carries out all her instructions. The gap is inevitable: Oblomov’s sublime, ideal, romantic love cannot constitute the happiness of a woman who approaches life from the position of a strong personality.

Having suffered deeply, both heroes forever retain love for each other in their souls, although Oblomov will soon marry his landlady Agafya Pshenitsyna, and Olga will marry Stolz.

Oblomov's death at the end of the novel is presented as a natural conclusion to the drama that began in childhood: from the inability to put on stockings to the inability to live.

Zakhar is one with Oblomov; they go through the entire plot as an inseparable couple. Goncharov connects the heroes with the principle of complementarity: both do not know how to live, both have never committed independent actions, both have been devastated by the usual routine of life. Both go to the dramatic finale as a contradictory couple. Oblomov dies - poverty, porch and starvation await Zakhara.

The novel “Oblomov” was the pinnacle of Goncharov’s creativity. With great artistic force, he branded it as serfdom, which, in his opinion, was inevitably heading towards its collapse. He denounced the inertia and conservatism of the local nobility and showed “Oblomovism” as an evil and a scourge of Russian life. The material for the novel was Russian life, which the writer observed from childhood.

The reason for the separation of Olga and Oblomov was a combination of several factors. Firstly, the discrepancy between the characters’ worldviews. The apathy and indifference of the hero is not only natural laziness and force of habits, but also a kind of protest against the meaningless, hectic life of St. Petersburg. However, rejecting this way of life, Ilya Ilyich dreams of a different, meaningful activity. Life for Oblomov is not only love. The hero's personal potential is much broader than what happy love can offer him. Olga, dreaming of reviving Oblomov, plunges him into the same “mud of little things.” Instead of personal fulfillment in a broad life plan, the hero is immersed in concerns about personal well-being (organizing an estate in the village). Olga is a bright, extraordinary nature, dreaming of noble activity, but in reality her dreamy impulses subside in her small family world. The relationship with Olga does not give the hero the fullness of happiness, a sense of harmony in life. In addition, Oblomov is a romantic, and love for him is an extraordinary dream.

The entire system of images in the novel is built on the device of antithesis (Oblomov - Stolz, Olga - Agafya Matveevna) Portrait characteristics of the heroes in opposition. So, Oblomov is plump, plump, and Stolz is all bones and muscles, “he is constantly in motion.”

Olga Ilyinskaya fell in love with him for his kind heart, “dovelike tenderness and inner purity.”

Olga Ilyinskaya and Agafya Matveevna Pshenitsyna are a contrast. Two life paths for Oblomov: Olga is a strong, proud and purposeful person; Agafya Matveevna is kind, simple and thrifty. The choice of path with Olga is merging with the outside world. Oblomov is open to the world, but some invisible film prevents him from merging with it. (=to walk the same road with Stolz, to live an active, full life) Choosing a path with Agafya Timofeevna: plunges into apathy and finds peace in her cozy home.

In the beginning. Romana Alekseev, Tarantiev and others highlight the image of Oblomov. “Where is the man?” - Oblomov answers their proposals (where is the deepest thing in a person).

Stolz understands that “at the basis of Oblomov’s nature lay a pure, bright and kind beginning”, he is able to understand the creative inclinations of “this simple, uncomplicated, eternally trusting heart”, destroyed by lordly habits.

For Stolz, the idea of ​​one’s own well-being is inseparable from the thought of work. existence without labor and struggle seems uninteresting to him.

Oblomov is a historically outgoing type of bearer of noble culture; Stolz is a man of the new era of active commoners, developing industry, promoting the restructuring of Russian life and expecting benefits from this restructuring for themselves and for society.

"Oblomov", conceived in 1847, was written over 10 years. In 1849, the chapter “Oblomov’s Dream” was published as an independent work in the almanac “Literary Collection with Illustrations” at Sovremennik. The entire novel “Oblomov” was first published only in 1859 in the first four issues of the journal “Otechestvennye zapiski”.

Like any system, the character sphere of a work is characterized through its constituent elements (characters) and structure - “a relatively stable way (law) of connecting elements.” This or that image receives the status of a character precisely as an element of the system, part of the whole,

Oblomov, Ilya Ilyich - landowner, nobleman living in St. Petersburg. Leads a lazy lifestyle, doing nothing but reasoning.

Zakhar is Oblomov’s servant, faithful to him since childhood.

Stolz, Andrei Ivanovich - Oblomov's childhood friend, half-German, practical and active. A double look at the image: on the one hand, Oblomov’s antipode, on the other, his exact copy. The same concept of action: Oblomov does not do anything in which he is not sure, in which he does not feel his integrity, while Stolz feels confident in everything he does.

Tarantyev, Mikhei Andreevich - an acquaintance of Oblomov, roguish and cunning.

Ilyinskaya, Olga Sergeevna - noblewoman, Oblomov’s beloved, then Stolz’s wife. Olga is a stranger in her own environment. But she is not a victim, because she has both intelligence and determination to defend the right to her position in life, to behavior that is not oriented towards generally accepted norms. It is no coincidence that Oblomov perceived Olga as the embodiment of the ideal that he dreamed of. As soon as Olga sang “Casta diva”, he immediately “recognized” her. Not only Oblomov “recognized” Olga, but she also recognized him. Love for Olga becomes not only a test. “Where did she take her life lessons?” - Stolz thinks about her with admiration, who loves Olga just like this, transformed by love. Oblomov and Olga expect the impossible from each other. It comes from him - activity, will, energy; in her mind, he should become like Stolz, but only while preserving the best that is in his soul. He is from her - reckless, selfless love. And both of them are deceived, convincing themselves that this is possible, and therefore the end of their love is inevitable. Olga loves the Oblomov whom she herself created in her imagination, whom she sincerely wanted to create in life. “I thought that I would revive you, that you could still live for me, but you have died a long time ago,” Olga hardly pronounces a harsh sentence and asks a bitter question: “Who cursed you, Ilya? What did you do / What ruined you? There is no name for this evil...” “There is,” answers Ilya. - Oblomovism!” The tragedy of Olga and Oblomov becomes the final verdict on the phenomenon that Goncharov portrayed.

Anisya is Zakhar's wife.

Pshenitsyna, Agafya Matveevna - the owner of the apartment in which Oblomov lived, then his wife.

Mukhoyarov, Ivan Matveevich - Pshenitsyna’s brother, official.

Alekseev is an acquaintance of Oblomov, vague and always agrees with everything. A pale man, no one knows who he is, no one remembers exactly his name or appearance. No one will remember him after death.

In Oblomov’s dream, a description of Oblomovka is given. On the one hand, life in this village is striking in its drowsiness, silence, inactivity, primitiveness, and focus on food. On the other hand, in the description of Oblomovka there is a noticeable emphasis on the splendor of the surrounding nature, the beauty of folk holidays, and the affection of the mother. A certain idyll arises. Oblomovism, as a product of serfdom, infected not only the Oblomovs with moral slavery, but also those around them, instilling in them its negative traits. This is Zakhar.

Oblomov. The portrait of Oblomov is distinguished by great expressiveness, in which both a pleasant appearance and a lack of concentration in his facial features are noted. All day long he lies on the sofa in a robe.

But his character is multifaceted. He is distinguished by his sincerity, conscientiousness, gentleness, and sincerity. He is kind and cannot harm a person. The hero's dreams are characterized by impossibility and idyllicity. Stolz. Being the antagonist of the hero, he tries to stir up his friend. From childhood, Stolz was instilled with the habit of work, independence, the will to achieve goals, and fearlessness in the face of difficulties. Stolz makes his own way in life. He does not deny romantic experiences. But his most important advantage is that he denies any manifestations of Oblomovism. It was he who accurately diagnosed his friend’s illness and found the exact word: “this is... Oblomovism.” Stolz's mind prevails over his heart. Olga Ilyinskaya. She is a truly positive heroine. Her image develops the action of the novel, unites the central male characters, and reveals the strengths and weaknesses of both antipodean main characters. Olga’s character and human charm are most evident in her relationship with Oblomov. Possessing a gentle and at the same time hot nature, she responds to Ilya Ilyich’s suddenly flared up feelings. Olga has a desire to resurrect a person who is interesting to her, albeit weak-willed. The result of the first meeting with Olga is Oblomov’s order to wipe his windows and brush away the cobwebs. After the second meeting, he feels a surge of spiritual strength. The third meeting and intense perception of the girl’s singing gives birth to the first declaration of love. All of Olga’s best qualities are revealed in her love for Oblomov: nobility, desire to be a “guiding star,” determination, spiritual beauty. There is nothing bourgeois about her; she is drawn to significant deeds and struggles that have a universal meaning. Pshenitsyna. A woman from a bourgeois environment, simple, ordinary, uneducated. Goncharov sometimes compares her to a horse. Subjectively, she loves Ilya Ilyich, touchingly takes care of him, providing peace. A kind and gentle woman found the meaning of her life in her devoted feeling for Oblomov.9. Roman Goncharov “Breakage”. Image of a "patriarchal idyll".

In “The Precipice,” as in the first two novels, Goncharov paints a broad, general picture of Russian life at a turning point. In the first part of the novel, Goncharov depicts the appearance of the capital's bright environment, its soulless and cold aristocracy, the hypocrisy and arrogance of the highest noble-bureaucratic circles, presented in the novel in the images of the old secular juir Pakhotin, the epicurean bureaucrat Ayanov, Belovodova and others. Goncharov believed that the big world had long broken with Russian morals, the Russian language, and was imbued with selfishness and cosmopolitan sentiments. Ayanov is the same Oblomovite, for whom the goal of life is the rank of Privy Councilor, quiet service with a high salary in some unnecessary committee. The image of Belovodova represents the wall of isolation in the family’s own family traditions.

Robin image as a typical stronghold of a patriarchal idyll, with established customs, centuries-worn values, common both for the nobles of this estate and for the peasant hut. This patriarchy opposes everything new. Its embodiment in the “Cliff” is manifested. grandmother. Patriarchy is primitive simplicity; traditionalism, conservatism. A certain stagnation of customs, views, values, defended by such representatives of the people of the 40-60s as the grandmother.

19. “Cliff” by I.A. Goncharova. The image of the artist, the ideological and aesthetic searches of the main character. The symbolism of the cliff. If you ask the question of how a writer connects numerous characters and disparate plot lines into a single novel whole (five parts!), Boris Pavlovich Raisky appears as such a compositionally connecting figure. He was left an orphan early. Coming from a wealthy aristocratic family, he lives in St. Petersburg, while his estates are managed by his guardian and distant relative, Tatyana Markovna Berezhkova. Raisky’s life path repeats Oblomov’s in its main milestones. He also graduates from the university, serves in St. Petersburg (though not only in the office, but even “entered the cadet,” but “his civil service was no better than his military service”). Disappointed, he retired with the same insignificant rank of collegiate secretary and has since lived without any responsibilities: “...Raisky is thirty years old, and he has not yet sown anything, reaped anything, and has not walked along any ruts.”<…>. He is neither an officer nor an official; he does not make any way for himself through labor or connections. As if on purpose, in defiance of everyone, he remains an undergrowth in St. Petersburg.”

At the same time, his image carries fundamentally new features. Raisky is an artist. Alexander Aduev, as we remember, reveals in himself a talent of very modest proportions. Boris Pavlovich, on the contrary, was naturally blessed with a “divine spark” of talent. His active, impressionable nature manifests itself even in childhood. Narrating about the childhood years of his hero, Goncharov creates an essay on the development of a talented child; with all the makings and mysteries of an artistic nature. “When his guardian brought him to school,” says Goncharov, “<…>The first step for a beginner would be to listen to what the teacher asks, what the students answer. And first of all, he looked at the teacher: what he is like, how he speaks, how he sniffs tobacco, what eyebrows and sideburns he has...” At school, Raisky became interested in painting and asked the art teacher for a “head” to copy. Boris indulged in his work with rapture and delight - “at night he took the drawing to the dormitory, and one day<…>there was such a sinking feeling in his chest, it took his breath away so much that in a state of oblivion, with his eyes closed and an involuntary, slightly restrained groan, he pressed the drawing with both hands to the place where it was so hard to breathe. The glass crunched and fell to the floor with a ringing sound...”

The praise for the first drawing, alas, spoiled the young man. “Reveling in easy success, he walked proudly: “Talent, talent!” - sounded in his ears.” Raisky forgot that it was the teacher who put the final, most important touches on his painting. “But drawing pupils, noses, lines of foreheads, necks and hands a hundred times - he was bored to death.” Instead of perfecting one painting, he preferred to move on to the next painting, avoiding all the details that require hard work. “After three days, the picture faded, and another one was already crowding into the imagination.<…>. A week later, this picture was forgotten and again replaced by another...” The same thing happens with music. “He loved music to the point of intoxication,” the author reports. He even became friends with the despised boy Vasyukov, who knew how to play the violin. Boris is ready to protect his comrade from insults; “with emotion” and “with surprise” listens to his playing. But attempts to learn - first on the violin from the same Vasyukov, then on the piano from a German - failed, because Boris wanted it “easier”, “quickly”. “When he finally overcame, with great ease, the first steps, his fingers were already playing something of their own<…>, “but they didn’t play the difficult school.”

Nevertheless, Boris Pavlovich decides to devote his life to art. And he encounters opposition from his relatives, which reflects all the contempt of the world for the working creative person. “Of course, for society, why not have pleasant talents: play the piano, draw something in an album, sing a romance<…>. But to be an artist by profession – what a nonsense!..” says the guardian. Despite the persuasion of his relatives, Raisky commits act: Having abandoned his service, he begins to attend the Academy of Painting, studying with the real artist Kirilov. Kirilov, guessing Raisky’s talent, urges him: “You can’t enjoy life, play pranks, go on visits, dance and, by the way, write, draw, draw and sculpt.”<…>. Give everything to art<…>and no matter what happens around you, no matter where life takes you<…>, feel one feeling, experience one passion - for art!” And then he adds skeptically: “Where are you! you are a gentleman, you were born not in the nursery of art, but in silk, in velvet. But art doesn’t like the bar...” The artist’s monologue reveals the root cause of Boris Pavlovich’s creative failures. This is why Goncharov calls him “Oblomov’s son”, this is why this hero is a tragicomic figure - banal laziness, covered up by pompous phrases, prevents him from self-realization.

An episode is introduced into the novel that can rightfully be called symbolic. A poor musician settled opposite Raisky. Day and night, for many hours, he practices his instrument, mercilessly tormenting the ears of his neighbors. “And the months passed like this.” In his hearts, Boris Pavlovich more than once calls his neighbor a donkey. Only one day he “stopped and froze in place,” “listening with a trembling of almost horror”: “The sounds are not the same: not mooing, not repetition of difficult passages he hears. A strong hand moved the bow, as if along the nerves of the heart: the sounds obediently cried and laughed, washed over the listener like a sea wave, threw them into the abyss and suddenly threw them up into the air and carried them into the air.” The unknown cellist overcame the difficulties of studying and can now speak freely, tell his thoughts to listeners through the strings: “...Can’t hear either the bow or the strings; there was no instrument, but she sang freely with inspiration, like the artist’s own chest.” Shocked, Raisky reflects: “...Where did he get these sounds from? Who gave them to him? Are there really months and years of asinine patience and perseverance?

The meaning of the name: according to legend, one family died at the cliff and their killer killed himself. All tragic events take place near the cliff. Vera's prosperous life ends at a cliff. The double meaning of the novel: external and psychological.

20. Satirical poetry (A.K. Tolstoy, Kozma Prutkov, N.F. Shcherbina, V.S. Kurochkin, D.D. Minaev, etc.). Main themes, genres, techniques. Using the example of 2-3 works.

In general, narrative and somewhat satirical genres played a special role in the poetry of this time, so satire developed and was quite in demand. This time, the natural school did not play a special role in the development of satirical poetry. Two magazines played their role - “Svistok” and “Iskra”.
“Whistle” was created at the suggestion of Nekrasov and Dobrolyubov, and the poet Kurochkin and artist Stepanov founded the magazine “Iskra”. These magazines were very popular and ridiculed everything possible.
“Whistle” was published for only 4 years, then it was banned by censorship, but managed to leave a noticeable mark on history. Iskra lasted longer, but was also banned by censorship. Its circulation reached as many as 10 thousand copies. At first I went out once a week, and then twice. Kurochkin was the soul of Iskra and outlived the magazine by only 2 years, dying in dire need. He mainly saw autocracy as the cause of all sorrows and constantly wrote about it. “I have found, friends, I have found who is the stupid culprit of our misfortunes, our evils! Our armorial, bilingual, two-headed, All-Russian eagle is to blame for everything!”
He believed in victory over triumphant evil someday, but not without blood and revolutionary violence. “We need terrible efforts again, sacrifices, Torment, prisons and blood, so that even a grain of them will yield - brute force, elemental force!”
An interesting phenomenon of satirical poetry of that time was Kozma Prutkov. A collective image, a mask, under which it is believed that Alexei Tolstoy and the brothers Alexei, Vladimir and Alexander Zhemchuzhnikov were hiding. His works ridiculed mental stagnation, political good intentions, parodied literary epigonism, otherwise - imitation. Examples: “Epigram” (Lysimachus once told me in deep thought that a sighted person sees with a healthy eye, a blind person cannot see even with glasses). Fable (once a worm crawled behind the neck of the priest, and she told the footman to get it out. The servant began to play pranks with the priest. - but what are you doing? - I’m squashing the worm! Oh, if a worm has crawled behind your neck, crush it yourself and don’t give it to the footman).
Also from Kozma Prutkov came many aphorisms that are still relevant today. For example, “it’s better to say little, but well” or “what will others say about you if you can’t say anything about yourself?”
Satirical poetry developed separately, but its themes did not go far from other genres that worried other poets and writers. They wrote in different genres: fables, epigrams, romances, letters, satirical imitations.

21. Poetry A.K. Tolstoy. Main motives, historical theme, genres. Using the example of 3-4 works.

A.K. Tolstoy is a poet with a pronounced originality. His ideas about poetry, its place in human life, the purpose, and nature of poetic creativity developed under the influence of idealistic ideas. In one of the letters to his wife, S.A. Tolstoy, the poet, defined the nature of creativity in this way: “...you know what I told you about poems floating in the air, and that it is enough to grab them by one hair in order to attract them from the primitive world to our world... It seems to me that also applies to music, sculpture, painting.

It seems to me that often, having grasped a small hair of this ancient creativity, we clumsily tug, and in our hand we are left with something torn or mutilated or ugly, and then we tug again, piece by piece, and then try to glue them together or what what is missing, we replace it with our own inventions, correct what we ourselves have spoiled with our clumsiness, and hence our uncertainty and our shortcomings, which offend the artistic instinct...

In order not to spoil or destroy what we want to bring into our world, we need either a very keen eye, or completely complete detachment from external influences, great silence around ourselves and concentrated attention, or love, similar to mine, but free from sorrow and anxiety." These views were expressed in poetic form by A.K. Tolstoy in his programmatic poem “It’s in vain, artist, you imagine that you are the creator of your creations...”:

In vain, artist, do you imagine that you are the creator of your creations!

They always hovered over the earth, invisible to the eye.

But only those who know how to see and hear will convey them,

Who, having caught only the line of a drawing, only a consonance, only a word,

The whole with him draws the creature into our world in surprise.

Presenting an overview of the poet’s work in the article “Poetry gr. A.K. Tolstoy", Vl. Soloviev noted the main idea of ​​the poem: “The true source of poetry, like all art, is not in external phenomena and also not in the subjective mind of the artist, but in the original world of eternal ideas or prototypes.”

A.K. Tolstoy called himself “a singer who held a banner in the name of beauty.” In the poem “John of Damascus” he wrote:

We catch a glimpse of eternal beauty:

The forest sounds joyful to us with news about her,

About her the stream thunders like a cold stream,

And they say, swaying, flowers.

“My conviction is,” noted A.K. Tolstoy, “that the purpose of a poet is not to bring people any direct benefit or benefit, but to raise their moral level, instilling a love of beauty, which will find its own use without any propaganda.” Tolstoy expressed this idea already at the end of his days, in 1874, when the results of his life were summed up, but starting from the 1840s, the poet did not accept the pragmatic understanding of art that began to take root in literature. Many Russian writers and thinkers spoke about the primitively understood benefits, including art, - F.M. Dostoevsky, I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov and others. In 1871, Tolstoy will write a “ballad with trends” “Sometimes Merry May”, in which in a bright satirical form (a dialogue between a naive bride and a pragmatic groom) he presents the “useful” views of the new time:

And he met her gaze,

And the camp embraced her flexible.

Oh honey! - answered,

With a passionate smile:

Here is real paradise with you!

Truly everything is ridiculous!

But this garden is blooming,

They will soon sow turnips!

The highest manifestation of the beauty of life was for A.K. Tolstoy's love. It is love that reveals to a person the essence of the world:

Me, in the darkness and dust

Who has been dragging his chains until now,

Love's wings have risen,

To the homeland of flame and words;

And my dark gaze brightened,

And the invisible world became visible to me.

And the ear hears from now on,

What is elusive to others

And from the highest heights I came down,

Full of its rays,

And to the troubled valley,

I look with new eyes.

And I hear a conversation

Everywhere the silent sound is heard,

Like the stone heart of the mountains,

Beats with love in the dark depths,

With love in the blue firmament,

Slow clouds are swirling,

And under the tree bark,

In spring fresh and fragrant,

With love, living juice into the leaves,

The stream rises melodiously.

And with my prophetic heart I understood

That everything born of the Word

Rays of love are all around,

She longs to return to him again.

And every stream of life,

Love obedient to the law,

Strives with the power of being

Irrepressibly towards God's bosom.

And everywhere there is sound, and everywhere there is light,

And all the worlds have one beginning,

And there is nothing in nature

So that love does not breathe.

(“Me in the darkness and dust”, 1851, 1852)

As in Pushkin’s “Prophet”, which is close in imagery to the poem by A.K. Tolstoy, the work paints a picture of the rebirth of an ordinary person into a prophet, a poet under the influence of the powerful Divine power of love. For Tolstoy, love is a comprehensive, supreme concept, the basis on which life is built. One of the manifestations of the highest love is earthly love, love for a woman. It is natural that even at the beginning of his work A.K. Tolstoy turns to the eternal plot of Don Juan in world literature. His dramatic poem “Don Juan” depicts the main character as a true knight of love, and it is love that reveals “the wonderful system of the laws of existence, the hidden beginning of all phenomena.”

A significant place in the poetic heritage of A.K. Tolstoy is interested in love lyrics, cycles of poems associated with the image of S.A. Miller (Tolstoy). These are works such as “Among the noisy ball”, “The sea sways”, “Don’t trust me, friend”, “When the forest is silent all around”, “Why did you bow your head”, “Sleep, sad friend”, “Not the wind, blowing with heights”, “Passion has passed”, “A tear trembles” and others. The feeling of love is expressed by Tolstoy psychologically concretely, precisely and simply, sometimes even naively, but at the same time refined. Tolstoy varied in the forms of expression of lyrical feelings. Researcher of creativity A.K. Tolstoy I.G. Yampolsky noted that the words sadness, melancholy, grief, despondency are most often used by the poet when defining his own love experiences and the experiences of the poet’s beloved (“And I sadly remembered the previous years,” “And it’s so sad to think about it,” “And I’m so sad.” I’m falling asleep”, etc.). In poems stylized as folk songs, the intonation, as a rule, is different - daring, passionate, in them the spontaneous feeling of freedom, independence, recklessness is inextricably linked with the feeling of love (the poems “Don’t ask, don’t ask”, “If you love, so without reason”, etc.).

Beauty for A.K. Tolstoy is full of not only the world of human feelings, but also the world of nature. A hymn to earthly beauty sounds in the poem “John of Damascus”:

I bless you, forests,

Valleys, fields, mountains, waters!

I bless freedom

And blue skies!

And I bless my staff,

And this poor sum

And the steppe from edge to edge,

And the light of the sun and the darkness of the night,

And a lonely path

Which way, beggar, am I going,

And in the field every blade of grass,

And every star in the sky!

Recreating the beauty of nature and the world, the poet resorts to sound, visual, and tactile impressions. Tactile impressions are important for the poet. He himself admitted: “The fresh smell of mushrooms awakens a whole series of memories in me. ...And then all the other forest aromas appear, for example, the smell of moss, tree bark, the smell of the forest during intense heat, the smell of the forest after rain... and so many others..., not counting the smell of flowers in the forest.” In the ballad “Ilya Muromets” he writes:

The wild will blows again,

There's room for him

And resin and strawberries,

It smells like dark forest.

Often, especially in early works (mainly in the 1840-1850s), pictures of nature in the poetry of A.K. Tolstoy was accompanied by historical and philosophical reflections. Thus, in the famous poem “My Bells,” the poetic picture of nature is replaced by the thoughts of the lyrical hero about the fate of the Slavic peoples:

The bells are ringing louder,

The harp sounds

The guests sat around the tables,

Honey and mash are flowing,

The noise flies to the far south,

To the Turk and to the Hungarian -

And the sound of Slavic ladles,

The Germans don't like it!

The poem becomes modern, coupled with the thoughts of the Russian intelligentsia about the unity of the Slavic peoples. In a later period of creativity, landscape in the poetry of A.K. Tolstoy will be an independent and valuable painting, devoid of decorative brightness, unpretentious, real, modest. The everyday, everyday in Pushkin’s way is poetically transformed by A.K. Tolstoy:

It shines through the glow of the darkening skies,

And a small pattern is drawn in front of me,

The forest is barely dressed in spring leaves,

A slope descends into a swampy meadow.

And wilderness and silence. Only sleepy blackbirds

How reluctantly they finish their singing;

Steam rises from the meadow...

("On the pull")

Landscape sketches are often combined in the works of A.K. Tolstoy with ballad motifs. In the poem “A pine forest stands in a lonely country,” the character of the landscape has ballad features - a night forest immersed in fog, the whisper of a night stream, the unclear light of the moon, etc. The line “I love to remember the old days in that forest” evokes the idea of ​​further ballad unfolding of the plot, which, however, does not happen.

For the poetry of A.K. Tolstoy is characterized by a moment of reticence, understatement. “It is good in poetry not to finish a thought, allowing everyone to complete it in their own way,” the poet noted in a letter of 1854 to S.A. Miller. Such understatement, the inexhaustibility of thoughts and feelings can be noted in the poems “On an uneven and shaking rowing”, “The Earth was in bloom”, etc. In the ballad “Alyosha Popovich” the poet writes:

Who can understand the song?

Who will understand it in words?

But the sounds make my heart melt,

And my head is spinning.

Not only the world of beauty becomes the subject of depiction in the works of A.K. Tolstoy. The world of beauty is contrasted in his poetry with the world of secular prejudices, vices, the world of everyday life, with which Tolstoy, like a warrior, but with a “good sword” enters into battle. It is no coincidence that images with military paraphernalia often appear in the poet’s works:

Two stans is not a fighter, but only a random guest,

For the truth I would be glad to raise my good sword.

The Lord prepared me for battle,

He put love and anger in my chest,

And by my holy right hand,

He showed the true path...

The motives of open opposition to the evil of the surrounding world are heard in the poems “I recognized you as holy convictions”, “The heart, flaring up more strongly from year to year”, etc. These motives sound most powerfully, clearly, and polemically in the poem of 1867 “Against the Current”:

The truth is still the same!

In the midst of stormy darkness,

Believe in the wonderful star of inspiration,

Row together in the name of beauty,

Against the stream!

In a sharp form, the motives of rejection of everything that is contrary to beauty and inner freedom are heard in the humorous and satirical poems of A.K. Tolstoy.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov worked on the novel “Oblomov” for ten years. The characterization of the main character is so convincingly presented by the classic that it went beyond the scope of the work, and the image became a household name. The quality of the author's elaboration of the characters in the story is impressive. All of them are integral, possessing the features of people contemporary to the writer.

The topic of this article is the characteristics of the heroes of Oblomov.

Ilya Ilyich Oblomov. Sliding on the plane of laziness

The central image of the book is the young (32-33 years old) landowner Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a lazy, imposing dreamer. He is a man of average height, with dark gray eyes, pleasant facial features, and childishly pampered plump hands. The person living in the St. Petersburg apartment on the Vyborg side is ambiguous. Oblomov is an excellent conversationalist. By his nature, he is not capable of causing harm to anyone. His soul is pure. He is educated and has a broad outlook. At any given time, his face reflects a continuous stream of thoughts. It would seem that we are talking about if not for the enormous laziness that has taken over Ilya Ilyich. Since childhood, numerous nannies took care of him in small ways. “Zakharki da Vanya” from the serfs did any work for him, even small ones. His days pass in idleness and lying on the sofa.

Trusting them, Oblomov signed an enslaving agreement for his Vyborg apartment, and then paid fake “moral damages” to Agafya’s brother Mukhoyarov in the amount of ten thousand rubles through a fake loan letter. Ilya Ilyich's friend Stolz exposes the scoundrels. After this, Tarantiev “goes on the run.”

People close to Oblomov

Those around him feel that he is a sincere person, Oblomov. The characterization is a characterization, but the protagonist’s self-destruction through laziness does not prevent him from having friends. The reader sees how a true friend Andrei Stolts is trying to snatch Oblomov from the tight embrace of doing nothing. After Oblomov’s death, he became, according to the latter’s will, an adoptive father for his son Andryusha.

Oblomov has a devoted and loving common-law wife - the widow Agafya Pshenitsyna - an unrivaled housewife, narrow-minded, illiterate, but honest and decent. Outwardly she is plump, but well-behaved and hard-working. Ilya Ilyich admires it, comparing it to a cheesecake. The woman breaks off all relations with her brother Ivan Mukhoyarov, having learned about his low deception of her husband. After the death of her common-law husband, a woman feels that “the soul has been taken out of her.” Having given her son to be raised by the Stolts, Agafya simply wants to follow her Ilya. She is not interested in money, as can be seen from her refusal of the income due from Oblomov’s estate.

Ilya Ilyich is served by Zakhar - an unkempt, lazy, but idolizing his master and a loyal servant of the old school to the end. After the master's death, the former servant prefers to beg, but remains near his grave.

More about the image of Andrei Stolts

Often the topic of school essays is Oblomov and Stolz. They are opposite even in appearance. Tawny, dark, with sunken cheeks, it seems that Stolz consists entirely of muscles and tendons. He has a rank behind him and a guaranteed income. Later, while working in a trading company, he earned money to buy a house. He is active and creative, he is offered interesting and lucrative work. In the second part of the novel, it is he who tries to bring Oblomov together with Olga Ilyinskaya, introducing them. However, Oblomov stopped building a relationship with this lady because he was afraid to change housing and engage in active work. Disappointed Olga, who planned to re-educate the lazy man, left him. However, Stolz’s image is not ideal, despite his constant creative work. He, as the opposite of Oblomov, is afraid to dream. Goncharov put an abundance of rationality and rationalism into this image. The writer believed that he had not finalized the image of Stolz. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov even considered this image negative, the judgment that he was “too pleased with himself” and “thinks too well of himself.”

Olga Ilyinskaya - woman of the future

The image of Olga Ilyinskaya is strong, complete, beautiful. Not a beauty, but surprisingly harmonious and dynamic. She is deeply spiritual and at the same time active. met her singing the aria "Casta diva". This woman turned out to be capable of stirring up even such a guy. But re-educating Oblomov turned out to be an extremely difficult task, no more effective than training woodpeckers; laziness took deep roots in him. In the end, Oblomov is the first to give up his relationship with Olga (due to laziness). A characteristic of their further relationship is Olga’s active sympathy. She marries the active, reliable and faithful Andrei Stolz, who loves her. They have a wonderful, harmonious family. But the astute reader will understand that the active German “does not reach” the spiritual level of his wife.

Conclusion

A string of Goncharov’s images passes before the eyes of the reader of the novel. Of course, the most striking of them is the image of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov. Having wonderful prerequisites for a successful, comfortable life, he managed to ruin himself. At the end of his life, the landowner realized what had happened to him, giving this phenomenon the capacious, laconic name “Oblomovism.” Is it modern? And how. Today's Ilya Ilyichs, in addition to their dream flight, also have impressive resources - computer games with stunning graphics.

The novel did not reveal the image of Andrei Stolts to the extent intended by Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov. The author of the article considers this to be natural. After all, the classic depicted two extremes in these heroes. The first is a useless dream, and the second is a pragmatic, unspiritual activity. It is obvious that only by combining these qualities in the right proportion will we get something harmonious.