^ 6Characteristic features of the elegy genre by K. N. Batyushkov
In the XVIII century, the ode was supposed to solve serious problems of human life. Batyushkov's elegy begins to serve this purpose.
He owes a lot to Karamzin and the Western European elegiacs, but to a large extent, the "Batiushkov" elegy is a kind of lyric poetry created by himself.
The subject of poetry is the spiritual life of a person, not as a "small" part of the big world, but as a measure of the value of this world.
The essence of Batyushkov's poetic method is understood in different ways. It is customary to talk about his poetry as a model of literary convention. True, he already had an idea, unusual for the previous literary era, about the duty of a poet to choose the kind of poetry that corresponds to his spiritual experience.
The nature of this "action" is stage, like the episode with the warrior. Batyushkov often constructs a poem as an appeal of the hero to those present right there. The hero, as it were, comments on the scene taking place in front of him.
Internal experiences are usually given by depicting their external signs: voices, hand movements. What is depicted is that which is related to the main theme in a secondary, veiled relationship.
The lyrical hero of Batyushkov is not a lonely romantic "singer", as in Zhukovsky's: he rather resembles the "leading figure" of the ancient choir.
No matter how remarkable Batyushkov's monumental historical elegies are, in creating their romantic coloring the poet followed the tradition that already existed in European literatures. In "ancient" verses, he is the creator of a style that is one of a kind.
By entrusting feelings to an ancient (or “northern”) lyrical hero, Batyushkov, on behalf of this hero, expresses them with spontaneity and expression.
In all three historical elegies of Batyushkov (the elegy “The Dying Tass”, of course, is given on behalf of the Italian poet), there is a personal beginning: “I am here, on these rocks hanging over the water ...” (“On the ruins of a castle in Sweden”), “Oh joy! I am standing at the Rhine waters!..” (“Crossing the Rhine”), etc. Batyushkov is a lyricist both where he is “theatrical” and where he is epic.
Another type of Batyushkov's elegy is the "intimate" elegy of disappointment. It led to Pushkin, to psychological lyrics.
Among the works of Batyushkov, several intimate elegies written at different times stand out, where the poet's personal feeling is expressed more directly - "Evening" (1810). The feeling of sorrow is due to unhappy love, loss of friendship, personal spiritual experience. Batyushkov achieves here not only emotional intensity, but also genuine psychologism.
Elegies of this type can be divided into two groups. The first is composed of poems in which the experience is recreated with the help of epic or dramatic devices. The poet visits different countries, he fights, admires nature
However, Batyushkov clearly felt the need for the emotional richness of the elegiac style. He achieved it in various ways in the relatively early "Convalescence"1 and in the later poems "My Genius" (1815) and "The Awakening". These three masterpieces represent the second group of Batyushkov's elegies.
Instead of duration in time - the fixation of instantaneous states.
But here, too, Batyushkov expresses not the fluctuation and uniqueness of his mood, but, on the contrary, his constancy. The lyricism of Batyushkov's most intimate elegies is very soft, tender, restrained, alien to any kind of affectation, not only pathetic, but also "sensitive". Lyrical self-disclosure is carried out not so much by immersion in oneself, but by the image of the outside world, which awakens the feelings of the poet.
Batyushkov's attraction to broad generalizing image-symbols was expressed in his muting of the direct, concrete meaning of words.
A feature of Batyushkov's style is the use of repetitive words and phrases, a kind of poetic cliche, passing from one poem to another.
The beauty of the language in the understanding of Batyushkov is not just a “form”, but an integral part of the content. The poet skillfully created a linguistic "image" of beauty
Batyushkov's language image was created not only by phonetic and syntactic means. The subtlest use of lexical coloring of words is one of the main innovative properties of Batyushkov's poetry.
Batyushkov in his work joined the direction in the lyrics, which is characterized by the desire to express subjective feelings. This trend has been established in the literature since the 70s of the XVIII century.
The poetry of personal feeling was the main line of his lyrics, but its content changed. The first poems of Batyushkov, except for a number of didactic satires, sing of the enjoyment of life.
This philosophy of carelessness, laziness, pleasure and poetic daydreaming is already complicated in the first poems by pre-romantic melancholy and sentimental moods of the transitional period.
And most importantly: This is the meaning of the sublimating, uplifting principle in Batyushkov's erotic poems.
^
7Light poetry K.N. Batyushkov before the ideological crisis of 1812 - 1813.
creativity is divided into:
1802-1813 (Patriotic war, the ruin of Moscow)
1813-1821 finished writing.
"Light poetry (Anacreontic) of the 2nd third of the 18th century - Lomonosov Sumarokov Tredyakov's cantemir laid down its traditions in Russian literature"
features of light poetry:
1. two-dimensionality, and not two worlds - heroes can be divided into 2 camps: those who correctly understand the meaning of life: feelings, love and joys of life, friendship, rural solitude, poetry, idleness, and those who incorrectly see the purpose of a person - kings, monks - service, pursuit for prosperity and money
2. preaching moderation, contentment with little until the age of 12-13, he gravitates toward light poetry. Batyushkov was an eyewitness to the Moscow fire.
Belinsky is credited with clearly defining the pathos of Batyushkov's poetry. Considering the poet’s “powerful thought”, which found its full embodiment in artistic form, as the pathos of the work, Belinsky sees the basis of Batyushkov’s work in “elegant epicureanism”, which is “in all its poetic charm”, in “a desire full of passion ... for pleasure, for an eternal feast life" (VII, 234 and 269).
In a speech delivered upon joining the Moscow Society of Russian Literature Lovers (at the university), he emphasized his commitment to “erotic” poetry to a hostile audience, borrowing this term from the title of Parny’s collection of elegies: Erotic Poems. In the same speech, he formulated the ideal of light poetry based on a new direction in art: simplicity, clarity, harmony: “In a light kind of poetry, the reader requires possible perfection, purity of expression, harmony in style, flexibility, smoothness; he demands truth in feelings and the preservation of the strictest propriety in all respects.
In the first half of his creative life, before the war of 1812, Batyushkov worked out his own "little" philosophy, as he put it. An admirer of Montaigne and Voltaire (he one-sidedly understood the latter as a predominantly judicious sage-Epicurean), Batyushkov uniquely combined skepticism with sensitivity and hedonism. Paradoxically, it was precisely the cruel historical experience that gave birth to Batyushkov's life and poetic philosophy - the humane epicureanism of his youth, the deification of personal happiness.
The poet has never been a supporter of revolutionary enlightenment with its grandiose plans for a reasonable reorganization of the world. Disappointment in the "age of Enlightenment" brought Batyushkov closer to his older contemporary, Karamzin. But Batyushkov's position differed from Karamzin's not without fatalism. According to Karamzin, a person and his life are an inevitable mixture of shadow and light, good and evil, sadness and joy, continuously turning one into another and inseparable from each other. Hence the "melancholy" of Karamzin.
Karamzin felt precisely pity for the person, and not admiration for him (his sentimentalism is based on this). According to Batyushkov, the meaning of life is in the joy it gives:
My friend! Hurry for happiness We will fly on the path of life; Let's get drunk with voluptuousness And we'll get ahead of death; Let's pluck flowers furtively Under the blade of a scythe And the laziness of a short life Let's extend, extend the hours! ("My Penates")
His hedonism, however, had an aesthetically sublime character, was generally devoid of "libertine" free-thinking; on the contrary, combined with "beautiful soul", he approached Karamzin's sentimentalism. Batyushkov believed that true enjoyment of life is possible only for a virtuous soul. Batyushkov came up with the idea of an ideal person, in which a high moral character, the ability to self-denial are combined with a love of life. Under the influence of the teachings and lyrical poetry of M. N. Muravyov, “sensibility” and morality were inoculated into Epicureanism in Batyushkov’s lyrics of those years. The poet's Epicureanism included, as something absolutely necessary, the enjoyment of spiritual joys.
This period is an ode to God, a dream, To chloe, to Felice, a merry hour, my penates tibulloa elegy, bacchante, joy
^ 8Post-war romantic lyrics by K. N. Batyushkov
Batyushkov's "small" philosophy, surrounded from the very beginning by the raging elements of European history, was permeated with disturbing notes that run through all his work. New historical events, the hard experience of personal failures influenced the structure of his thoughts. As a result of the events of 1812-1814, his outlook and work changed. Captured by a strong patriotic feeling, in 1813 Batyushkov voluntarily joined the army, participated in the battle of Leipzig, and entered Paris together with the Russian troops. However, Batyushkov perceived the events of the Patriotic War in many ways differently than most of his contemporaries. Despite the victorious course of the war, bitterness and disappointment grew in him. In this, Batyushkov was alone - in Russian society, a mood of general enthusiasm and bright hopes dominated. The very year 1812, which sharply increased public activity, gave impetus to the Decembrist movement, plunged Batyushkov into gloomy thoughts. Batyushkov is disappointed in the “reasonableness” and “harmony” of a person. The historical role of the revolutionary enlightenment is already disastrous for him. Batyushkov is no longer attracted to Epicureanism, even in that elegant form that admired him from M. N. Muravyov. The poet now considers the Christian religion to be the only means of salvation. However, faith does not save the poet from despair. All his later work is permeated with a sense of acute tragedy, a sense of the irrevocable happiness. Overwhelmed by the fear of the revolution, its violence and destructive power, he fears for Russia. It is possible that in the catastrophic exacerbation of the hereditary mental illness that turned Batyushkov out of life in the early 1820s, his awareness of the existence of secret Decembrist societies played a role. In his understanding of the general tasks of literature, Batyushkov is an undoubted Karamzinist, although he was distinguished from Karamzin at first by epicureanism, and then by a gloomy sense of life. After some hesitation in 1812-1813, he was faithful to Europeanism to the very end and condemned the "Slavenophiles". Batyushkov is the author of brilliant satires on the "Varyagorossians" ("Vision on the banks of the Leta" and "The Singer in the Conversation of the Lovers of the Russian Word"). + poems the shadow of a friend the passage of Russian troops through the Neman, the crossing of the Rhine
^ 9Psychological elegies by E. A. Baratynsky
"Dream" is the basis of the entire figurative structure of "Reassurance". The "sleep" of the last verses turns out to be akin to the "dreams" of the first. This “drowsiness” of the patient, this calmness is also a kind of “seduction”, which the poet asks for the time being “not to disturb”. His skepticism is uncompromising: is it not an illusion that the former beloved is now a “caring friend”? The illusory nature of amorous happiness is the theme of the poem "The Kiss" (published in 1822). The real kiss given by the heroine turns into a "dream", a deceit, a "dream". "Dream", as a synonym for "illusion", appears dozens of times in Baratynsky's elegies and later poems. Close to the meaning of "sleep" and the meaning of the word "dreams". “Jealous dreams are removed from the heart,” says the “Confession”. “Love dreams”, “dreams of the past”, “young dreams”, etc., always appear in Baratynsky in opposition not to “high” to “low”, but to the illusory reality. This is tantamount to opposing love to indifference, on which one of the most remarkable elegies of the young Baratynsky, "Confession", is based. Pushkin considered "Recognition" "perfection" and intended to "never publish his elegies" after it. The poem reveals how the "dreams" of love were replaced by a sober understanding of the patterns of indifference. The poet in his elegiac monologue foresees a future marriage "without love" with another woman. Not yet perfect, existing only in the imagination, a “deliberate marriage” is in its own way more real than “lifeless memories” of what really happened. No wonder it is given in the form of a listing of specific, albeit assumed, circumstances: “And in the temple I will stand next to her ... And I will call her mine ... And the message will come to you.” Placing the fate of feelings at the center of the image, Baratynsky approaches the problem of human responsibility for change in a new way. He considers the human person to be “powerless in itself” (“Recognition”). He does not have a hint of individualistic arbitrariness of passions. Baratynsky's elegies have long been regarded as a new word in the development of lyrical psychologism. This is true: Baratynsky knows how to show various shades of love, and the stages of development of a love feeling or its cooling. It is no coincidence that his lyrics are compared with a psychological novel. Baratynsky's elegies contain a completely new understanding of man for his time. The poet is interested in it as a point of application of universal laws, which distinguished the generalizing method of Baratynsky from both the psychological novel and the psychological lyrics of Zhukovsky or Pushkin. In Baratynsky, unhappy love is depicted as a consequence of the spiritual isolation of people, the inability of one person to understand the feelings of another. Unhappy love is inevitable due to the low permeability of the inner world of one to the inner world of the other, the mismatch of moods. In The Confession, the separation of the lovers intensified precisely their separation. Baratynsky presents man as even more lonely than the Byronists. According to Baratynsky, happiness is impossible, and human souls are far from each other. It is not "hearts" that unite, but "lots" ("Recognition"). The very feeling of love, according to Baratynsky, is different for every human being. Baratynsky changed the structure of the elegy, which in the 18th century was based on the inviolability of the concepts of love, jealousy, etc. Baratynsky's generalization has exceptional depth, as it is combined with another feature of his poetry - differentiation. Differentiation involves distinguishing objects in their multiplicity. Differentiation in Baratynsky's elegies is directly related to the main dilemma for him: "illusory - real". In "Justification", the poet, despite all his many "infidelities", is "a naughty, not a traitor." The heroine, despite her seeming preoccupation with feeling, is "more arrogant than gentle." It is easy to take a prank for treason, it is easy to take jealousy for love. The reflective thought of the poet is actively occupied, as it were, with some kind of continuous classification, distinguishing things that are similar, but essentially different. “Subtlety and fidelity of shades” was considered by Pushkin as a distinctive feature of Baratynsky’s poetry. Shades, semitones, transitions are needed by Baratynsky not to deepen the same emotional tonality, but for the strict accuracy of definition and distinction. Baratynsky's favorite technique is juxtaposition-opposition with the help of the "not" particle. "Naughty, not a traitor"; "two guilty - not one"; "No Pity" ("Confession"); “Not a friend of beauty, not a friend of wit, he was a friend of myself” (“Young graces wove a wreath for you ...”); “not love - excitement” (“Disassurance”); “not tenderness is a whim” (“K ... o”); "not ecstasy, but happiness" ("To-well"). The "differentiating" style of Baratynsky is devoid of a single poetic tone. The sublime, dreamy coloring of Zhukovsky's poetry expressed his belief in the high qualities of the human soul, capable of perceiving the meaning of life hidden from "prosaic" minds. Baratynsky in the early 1820s used the traditional vocabulary of the Russian elegy, its conditional formulas. But he deprives these formulas of harmony. The disunity, the mutual impenetrability of human souls, is extended by Baratynsky not only to the sphere of feelings, but also to the sphere of thought. One of the most intelligent Russian poets entered the battle with enlightenment in his own field. Having survived the shock after the massacre of the Decembrists, Baratynsky even more deeply lost faith in the fact that social transformations can overcome the loneliness of man in the world. On these paths, for a short time, he became close to the "wise men" - a philosophical trend associated with a completely different wing of European romanticism, hostile to enlightenment. The intellectualism and analyticism of Baratynsky, the strictness of his genre principles, as well as his penchant for aphoristic style, etc., gave contemporaries reason to associate him with the classic literary tradition. Nevertheless, there is no need to exaggerate Baratynsky's connections with classicism. The problems of his lyrics do not fit into this framework - a complex result of a thought that critically reassessed both enlightenment, and Byronism, and natural philosophy.
The historical upheavals of the end of the century shattered the harmonious balance that prevailed in poetry between man and the world. A new approach was required, a more complex and sensitive analysis tool.
In Batyushkov's poems, with amazing artistry, the most important problem of the era was developed - the relationship between the "common" life of mankind and the spiritual life of an individual. Batyushkov is one of the first poets in Russia, in whose work the image of the author was consciously built as a thinking person who perceives and evaluates the world.
The beginning of the 19th century brought with it the idea of deeply personal connections between man and the outside world. A single human consciousness, anew, "for itself" comprehending universal life, declared its absolute value by romanticism. Heine later wrote: “Under every tombstone is the history of the whole world.”6
Batyushkov is a figure in many respects characteristic of this transitional period. His personality, his reflective consciousness, basically belongs to the new era. He is already almost separated by an abyss from Derzhavin, who, with his wholeness, is all in the 18th century.
The first biographer of the poet, L. N. Maikov, compares Batyushkov with the pre-Byronian hero of the beginning of the century - Rene from the novel of the same name by Chateaubriand. Batyushkov had a deep sense of discord between the ideal and reality. His worldview and creativity have a pronounced humanistic basis, which was based on a broad tradition of European thought. From the standpoint of this somewhat abstract humanism, the poet regarded his own modernity. He painfully experienced the consequences of the French Revolution.
Batyushkov's position differed from Karamzin's not without fatalism. According to Karamzin, a person and his life are an inevitable mixture of shadow and light, good and evil, sadness and joy, continuously turning one into another and inseparable from each other. Hence the "melancholy" of Karamzin. The thought of the imperfection of the spiritual nature of man made Karamzin almost above all appreciate self-restraint, moral discipline, the ability to pity, to good deeds, manifesting the good inherent in a person.
Karamzin felt precisely pity for the person, and not admiration for him (his sentimentalism is based on this). According to Batyushkov, the meaning of life lies in the joy it gives:
While running after us
gray-haired god of time
And destroys the meadow with flowers
pitiless scythe,
My friend! soon for happiness
We will fly on the path of life;
Let's get drunk with voluptuousness
And death is ahead;
Pick flowers furtively
Under the blade of a scythe
And the laziness of a short life
Let's extend the hours!
("My penates").
In his understanding of the general tasks of literature, Batyushkov is an undoubted Karamzinist, although he was distinguished from Karamzin at first by epicureanism, and then by a gloomy sense of life. After some hesitation in 1812-1813, he was already faithful to Europeanism to the very end and condemned the “Slavenophiles” (then the followers of A. S. Shishkov were called) for hostility to European enlightenment and idealization of ancient barbarism. Batyushkov is the author of brilliant satires on the "Varyagorossians" ("Vision on the banks of the Leta" and "The Singer in the Conversation of the Lovers of the Russian Word").
The poet believed that a true patriot of Russia should think most of all about her education.
For Russian poetry, Batyushkov saw only one - a pan-European - path.
At the beginning of the 19th century, classicism gave way to romanticism in European art. At the very center of the emerging new poetry were the tasks of lyrical expression of personality.
And yet, with the active assistance of Batyushkov, a matter of paramount importance was accomplished: “love poems” were to enter the realm of “high poetry” and become an expression of a person’s worldview in the fullness of his being.
“Light poetry” as a genre flourished in Russia in the last third of the 18th century (drinking songs, romances, friendly messages, elegies), but it was both ideologically and artistically the periphery of poetry, since the “small”, “inner” "The world was, according to the genre thinking of classicism, isolated from the "big", "external". In the 18th century, the ode was supposed to solve serious problems of human life (such is Derzhavin's ode). Batyushkov's elegy begins to serve this purpose.
The essence of Batyushkov's poetic method is understood in different ways. It is customary to talk about his poetry as a model of literary convention; such is the interpretation of Yu. N. Tynyanov, L. Ya. Ginzburg. The views of V. V. Vinogradov and G. A. Gukovsky on Batyushkov as a romantic poet who developed subjective experience in lyrics gained wide resonance.
As applied to Batyushkov, it is still impossible to speak of romantic individualism.
True, he already had an idea, unusual for the previous literary era, about the duty of a poet to choose the kind of poetry that corresponds to his spiritual experience.
In his work, the poet creates a peculiar, very complex system of artistic mediations and transformations, with the help of which he builds his author's image.
Everyone who read Batyushkov's poems will forever remember the harmonious image of the "author", who at first was passionately carried away by the joys of life, accompanying him even to the "realm of shadows", and then just as passionately mourned their frailty. Innocent, kind, passionate, peace-loving, disinterested - this is how the poet is portrayed to us:
Not wine is fragrant,
Not fat incense
The poet brings you
But tears of tenderness
But the heart is quiet heat
And sweet songs
Goddesses Permes gift!
("My Penates")
This harmonic self-portrait, however, corresponded least of all to Batyushkov's character. Let us cite another, very expressive self-portrait sketched by the poet in a notebook. Its features are inconsistency, disharmony, a tendency to reflection:
In his lyrics, Batyushkov was not yet able to recreate this purely romantic character, with such a clear orientation towards “demonism,” a character that leads directly to Onegin and Pechorin. In addition, he did not want to portray himself in his poetry that way.
The tragic content of Batyushkov's late lyrics does not destroy the integrity of the harmonic image of the "author". An idea arises in the mind of the reader about his spiritual path, as a path in its own natural way: from a passionate feeling of the great fullness and value of life to sorrow for its loss.
This show is majestic! Azure king of the desert
O sun! you are wonderful among heavenly miracles!
And there are so many beautiful things on earth!
But everything fake or wasted silver:
Cry, mortal! cry! your good
In the hand of a strict Nemesis!
("imitations of the ancients")
In the later poems of Batyushkov, there is the ideal of courage, the readiness to pay with dignity with life for the experienced joy of being:
Do you want honey, son? - so do not be afraid of the sting;
A crown of victory? - boldly to battle!
Are you craving pearls? - so go down
To the bottom, where the crocodile gapes under the water.
Don't be afraid! God will decide. He is only a father to the brave
Only bold pearls, honey or death ... or a crown.
All this was written when Batyushkov was already tormented by fears, suspicions, morbid suspiciousness, when the symptoms of mental illness that frightened his friends and relatives were already present.
For the first time in Russian poetry Batyushkov created a "lyrical hero". Derzhavin's spontaneous autobiography is a completely different phenomenon.
The expression "lyrical hero" is sometimes used broadly, denoting the author's image in poetry. Since the simple replacement of one term by another is not fruitful, it also has strong opponents. Clarifying this term, L. Ya. Ginzburg uses it only in cases where the author's personality in the lyrics acts as the main "object" of the image36.
The term "lyrical hero" really helps to distinguish between the diverse ways of expressing the inner world of the poet.
Batyushkov, Denis Davydov, the young Zhukovsky, and Yazykov created the "lyrical hero" from the poets of Pushkin's time. (Delvig's stylizations, being poetic masks, are even further removed from the real spiritual experience of the poet.)
Individuality in Batyushkov's poetry is not alien to a kind of "polysemy", and here, perhaps, is one of the clues to the attractiveness of his poetry.
In the poetry of classicism, the author's image was essentially determined by the genre in which the work was written; and the 'Epicurean' author, like the odic 'author', etc., was an abstraction. Not he, the bearer of feelings of joy, love, friendship, was the subject of the image, but these feelings themselves in their abstract, “pure” form.
In Batyushkov's elegy, the "author" of a genre by nature is turned into a "lyrical hero" - into the subject of the image, into character, into individuality. Epicureanism, genre in its origin, becomes an individual characteristic of the lyrical hero, who personified the values of life in the poet's understanding.
Love for Batyushkov, like beauty, is the “personification” of life, image, symbol earthly life. The qualities that Batyushkov's lyrical hero is endowed with are intended to symbolize the fullness of physical existence. This is youth, a feeling of love, beauty.
The beloved of the Batyushkov hero is always perfectly beautiful. Her lips are certainly scarlet, her eyes are blue, her "cheeks" are blazing like roses, her curls fall in a golden or chestnut wave; her hands are lilies, etc. She is fragrant and adorned with fragrant flowers:
Batyushkov claims that beauty is the most important of the properties of life and belongs only to it; in the presence of death, even a beautiful lily loses its beauty, becoming like a wax statue: ("Imitation of the ancients")
Batyushkov's love is not singled out as a separate world of pleasures, but is connected with a wide range of high values of human life. The hero of Batyushkov's erotic poems is not only an ardent lover: he is also endowed with a thirst for independence, disinterestedness, and humanity.
Antiquity was for Batyushkov the ideal of harmonious relationships between man and the world. That is why the importance of the ancient theme is so great in his poetry.
The theme of antiquity - the focus of the most important problems of classicism - gradually gave way to the theme of the Middle Ages, raised to the shield by the romantics. But she still attracted artistic thought.
Batyushkov's poetry is "theatrical" (this feature, in principle, goes back to the features of classicism poetry). In the poem "My penates" there is an episode with Lileta's disguise: Lileta enters in the clothes of a warrior, then throws it off and appears before the hero and the "spectators" in the outfit of a shepherdess:
And with a gentle smile
Sits by the fire
With a snow-white hand
Leaning towards me...
The nature of this “action” is scenic, as is the episode with the warrior (the warrior, in turn, must “knock, come in, dry off” and start a song about his campaigns). Batyushkov often constructs a poem as a hero's appeal to those present right there ("Joy", "Ghost", "False Fear", "Lucky" and many others). The hero, as it were, comments on the scene taking place in front of him.
Batyushkov's poetry is characterized by initial phrases, where "I" immediately attracts attention: "I feel that my gift in poetry has gone out" ("Elegy"); “In vain did I shower the altar with flowers” (“Tibull’s Elegy III”); “I left foggy Albion” (“Shadow of a friend”); "My friend! I saw a sea of evil” (“To Dashkov”); “Forgive me, my balladeer” (“To Zhukovsky”); “How I love, my friend” (“To Nikita”); “Do you remember, my priceless friend” (“False fear”); "Messallah! Without me you are rushing through the waves” (“Elegy from Tibullus”); "Dreams! “You accompanied me everywhere” (“Recollection”); "Fatherly penates, O my fosters!" (“My penates”), etc.
In all three historical elegies of Batyushkov (the elegy “The Dying Tass”, of course, is given on behalf of the Italian poet), there is a personal beginning: “I am here, on these rocks hanging over the water ...” (“On the ruins of a castle in Sweden”), “Oh joy! I am standing at the Rhine waters!..” (“Crossing the Rhine”), etc. Batyushkov is a lyricist both where he is “theatrical” and where he is epic.
Another type of Batyushkov's elegy is the "intimate" elegy of disappointment.
Among the works of Batyushkov, several intimate elegies written at different times stand out, where the poet's personal feeling is expressed more directly. This is "Memoirs of 1807" and "Recovery" (both between 1807-1809); "Evening" (1810); “The Shadow of a Friend”, “Elegy” (“I feel my gift in poetry has gone out ...”, 1815), “Separation” (“I left the country of my fathers in vain ...”), “Awakening” (1815). The feeling of sorrow is due to unhappy love, loss of friendship, personal spiritual experience. Batyushkov achieves here not only emotional intensity, but also genuine psychologism.
Elegies of this type can be divided into two groups. The first is composed of poems in which the experience is recreated with the help of epic or dramatic devices.
The lyricism of Batyushkov's most intimate elegies is very soft, tender, restrained, alien to any kind of affectation, not only pathetic, but also "sensitive". Lyrical self-disclosure is carried out not so much by immersion in oneself, but by the image of the outside world, which awakens the feelings of the poet. So, in "Recovery" and especially in "My Genius", the compositional center is the image of the beloved woman, to whom the grateful delight of the poet is addressed. In Awakening, the intensity of lovesickness is given as insensitivity to the marvelous beauty of nature, which has become the main subject of the image:
Nor the sweetness of pink rays
Forerunners of morning Phoebus,
Nor the meek gleam of the azure sky,
Nor the smell blowing from the fields,
Nor the fast years of the zealous horse
On the slope of velvet meadows,
And hounds barking, and ringing horns
Around the desert bay -
Nothing makes the soul happy
A soul disturbed by dreams...52
The discord between the infinitely attractive world and the soul, which in its anguish is alien to pleasure, is for the first time in Russian poetry the basis of the composition itself. Similarly, Baratynsky, Batyushkov's heir, will later build his "Autumn".
Batyushkov's poetry is very complex with its diverse artistic and historical material, multi-layered and polysemantic. Her entire figurative structure is saturated with “bookish”, historical and cultural, etc. associations.
Batyushkov stands at the very beginning of a new era of Russian lyrics. Creating his original poetic system, he experienced great difficulties.
For Batyushkov, the main criterion for evaluating a work of art is the concept of "taste". Batyushkov's "taste" is manifested in the unity of form and content, which is almost always present in his poetry. Batyushkov demands accuracy and clarity from the poet. Batyushkov himself is attracted not only by bright colors. In his dynamic paintings, we almost physically feel specific details: “happy Ile de France, plentiful, rich in water”, “a huge god of the seas”, “a thick shadow under this elm tree” ...
Batyushkov does not invent new words (which we will see in Yazykov's work) and very rarely new combinations ("ruins of luxurious attire"). The poet boldly uses in his poems archaisms (“straight agreement”, “zane”), Slavicisms (“right hand”, “vesi”, “stogny”); philosophical "lexicon" ("proportionality", "phenomena", "balance"); colloquial expressions.
In his elegy "Tauris" (1815) we find the same peculiarities of style; with “sublime phraseology” (“under the sweet sky of a midday country”, “under the roof of a quiet night”), everyday words (“rural garden”, “simple hut”) peacefully combine.
The author boldly inserts proverbs into the poetic text (“And happiness lives only there, // Where there are no us crazy ones”, “The day is long, painful for a lazy fool, // But short, on the contrary, useful for a wise man”; “Here there will be a meeting not according to dresses").
Contemporaries in Batyushkov's poems especially appreciated harmony, musicality, "sweetness". “No one has the charm of euphony to such an extent as he,” wrote V.A. Zhukovsky. - Gifted with a brilliant imagination and a refined sense of expression and subject matter, he gave authentic patterns of style. His poetic language is inimitable ... in the harmony of expressions. “Italian sounds, what a wonderworker this Batyushkov is”, “charm and perfection - what harmony,” Pushkin wrote admiringly, making his remarks on Batyushkov’s “Experiments”.
The smoothness and musicality of the rhythm - this is what especially captivates Batyushkov's poetry. So, in Batyushkov's poem "The Song of Harald the Bold" (1816), the picture of sailing on a stormy sea receives sound coloring due to the constant alliteration "l" - "r" - the intensification of the injection of these sounds is characteristic of the entire poem. Here is just one stanza:
There were only three of us on the light boat;
And the sea heaved, I remember, mountains;
The black night at noon loomed with thunders,
And Gela gaped in the salty wave.
But the waves in vain, raging, whipped,
I scooped them with a helmet, I worked with an oar:
With Harald, oh friends, you didn't know fear
And they flew into the peaceful marina with a boat!
In this poem, sound repetitions are also interesting (Wall, Stanina, pier, whipped), which give the verse greater expressiveness. Phonetic harmony is the background against which Batyushkov's poetic originality manifests itself with amazing force.
The rhythmic effect is achieved in various ways. The poet loves the anaphora:
To him alone, - all the warriors broadcast, -
He alone will lead us to glory.
("an excerpt from the 1st song" of "Jerusalem Delivered") (1808).
He also resorts to inversion (“I left the foggy Albion on the shore” - the arrangement of the words depends on the rhythm of the verse); intersperses various iambs (often six-, five- and four-foot); likes truncated adjectives:
You sang stormy abuse, and the Eumenides are pale
All the horrors of war were revealed by gloomy views ...
Scattered... gentle beauty...
That roses are young, dedicated to Cyprida ...
And what do my bewitched eyes see?
"To Tass", 1808
Batyushkov boldly combines different vocabulary, different styles. In the late Batyushkov, this diversity of usage “performs the most important task of destroying the harmonious image of the world,” writes N. Fridman, “Batiushkov needs the reader to experience the depth of loss with the greatest vividness of memories, so that he recognizes the beautiful before losing it.”
Summarizing all that has been said, one can determine the historical and literary significance of K.N. Batyushkov in the words of V.G. Belinsky: “Batiushkov contributed much and much to the fact that Pushkin was what he really was.
This merit alone on the part of Batyushkov is enough for his name to be pronounced in the history of Russian literature with love and respect.
Questions about the work of K.N. Batyushkov
- In what genres does Batyushkov try his hand?
- What is the main idea of his "Anacreontic" lyrics?
- What type of satire does Batyushkov use?
- In what genre does his talent flourish with particular force?
- What new things did Batyushkov bring to Russian poetry?
- Can it be argued that Batyushkov managed to recreate the "anthological" verse?
- Is it possible to agree that Batyushkov created the beauty of the “ideal” form with his poetry?
- What distinguishes Batyushkov's poetic language?
- Do you agree with Belinsky’s words that in Batyushkov’s lyrics “the old and the new lived together side by side without interfering with one another”?
- Did Batyushkov manage to create his own “school”?
- What is the main difference between Batyushkov's poetry and Zhukovsky's poetry?
- How can one determine the role of Batyushkov and his significance in the history of Russian poetry?
New literature in the first third of the 19th century developed rapidly, but the Russian people had to go through the Napoleonic and Turkish wars, Caucasian clashes with local tribes, the shame of the defeat at Austerlitz and the Treaty of Tilsit, humiliating for Russia, the heroic epic of 1812 and the foreign campaign of our troops and the sad their return to their serf despotic homeland in order to gain that rich inner experience without which the final shaping of this literature was impossible: it needed a hero and a reader. The subtle and sad lyricist, himself being an officer of the guard and having traveled through the whole changing Europe, understood this well and therefore in the 19th century acted as a great educator, historian and journalist, reformer of the literary language, teacher of writers and readers.
O memory of the heart! You are stronger
Reason of sad memory,
And often with its sweetness
You captivate me in a distant country.
BASIC CONCEPTS
Classicism.
Sentimentalism.
Romanticism.
Russian antiquity.
Literary translation.
Lyrics.
Lyric hero.
Autobiography.
Elegy.
REPORTS AND SUMMARY
Belinsky about Batyushkov.
The theme of war in the lyrics of Batyushkov.
Gukovsky G.A. Pushkin and Russian Romantics. M., 1995.
Koshelev V.A. Konstantin Batyushkov. Wanderings and passions. M., 1987.
© Vsevolod Sakharov . All rights reserved.
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Slides captions:
“And in joy I cry out: O Muses! I'm drinking!" The originality of the lyrics of K.N. Batyushkova Pukhalskaya L.V., teacher of literature
Three stages of K. Batyushkov's poetry: the first - the time of creating "light poetry", developing the "little philosophy" of the Epicureans, personal happiness and hedonism, combined with skepticism, a favorite genre - a message to friends. Epicureanism is a philosophical doctrine based on the ideas of Epicurus and his followers. The Epicureans believed that for a happy life a person needs: the absence of bodily suffering; equanimity of the soul; friendship. Hedonism (ancient Greek ἡδονή - “pleasure”, “pleasure”) is an ethical doctrine, according to which pleasure is the highest good and the goal of life.
Three stages of K. Batyushkov's poetry: 2) the second - a turning point in the worldview as a result of the events of 1812-1814, the rejection of epicureanism, the emergence of historical thinking, citizenship (a program poem that expressed new ideological and artistic attitudes - "To Dashkov", 1813 .), the appearance of tragic disturbing notes in poetry, disappointment in the "reasonableness" and "harmony of man";
Three stages of K. Batyushkov's poetry: 3) the third - the strengthening of romantic rejection of reality, philosophizing, reflected in the genre of elegies.
The originality of the lyrics of K. Batyushkov For the first time in Russian poetry, Batyushkov created a "lyrical hero". His lyrical subject 1802-1812 - a predominantly enthusiastic person, although at times his enthusiasm is replaced by melancholy, he seems to soar above a prosaic life. Therefore, the image of wings, wingedness is often associated with it. Melancholy - "spill of black bile"; figuratively - mental depression, gloomy mood
The originality of the lyrics of K. Batyushkov Personification is a characteristic feature of Batyushkov. The qualities that the lyrical hero is endowed with are designed to symbolize the fullness of physical existence. This is youth, love, beauty. The beloved of a hero is always beautiful. Even Belinsky noticed that the love of Batyushkov's lyrical hero is fanned with a halo of spirituality.
Originality of K. Batyushkov's lyrics Batyushkov's elegies are characterized by an epic element and the use of means of dramatic art. His lyrical hero often turns out to be a genuine character, whose character is revealed in the course of the plot and plot, which is specific not to the lyricist, but to other types of literature (epos, drama). Plot - the actual side of the story, events in a causal, chronological sequence.
The originality of K. Batyushkov's lyrics Allegoricalness, symbolism are an important difference between Batyushkov's lyrics. His poetry is very complex, multi-layered and polysemantic. It is full of book, historical and cultural associations. Allegory (from the Greek allёgoria - allegory) is one of the forms of allegory, in which an abstract concept or phenomenon (wisdom, cunning, kindness, justice, faith, etc.) is depicted through a specific image (justice - scales, faith - cross).
The originality of K. Batyushkov's lyrics The peculiarity of Batyushkov's style is the use of repetitive words and phrases, peculiar poetic clichés - "flame of love", "cup of joy", "rapture of the heart", "heat of the heart", "drink the breath", "dark gaze".
Originality of K. Batyushkov's lyrics Batyushkov's poems are unique in their purely linguistic richness - phonetic and syntactic expressiveness. They are characterized by "sweetness", "euphony", "harmony". The poet skillfully created the linguistic "image" of beauty. As an example, we can cite the harmonic combination of sounds that are grouped around the sound “l” throughout the text in the poem “Ghost” (“If the lily with sheets ... clings ... with rays ... flashes ... flames ... to the cheeks").
SHADOW OF A FRIEND Sunt aliquid manes: letum non omnia finit; Luridaque evictos effugit umbra rogos. Propertius1 I left the shore of foggy Albion: It seemed that he was drowning in lead waves. Galcyone hovered behind the ship, And the quiet voice of her swimmers amused. The evening wind, the splashing of the waves, The monotonous noise, and the trembling of the sails, And the helmsman on deck, crying out To the guard, dozing under the sound of the waves, - All sweet thoughtfulness nourished. As if enchanted, I stood at the mast And through the fog and the night cover The luminary of the North was looking for a kind one. My whole thought was in remembrance Under the sweet sky of my father's land, But the noise of the winds and the swaying of the sea On the eyelids brought languid oblivion. Albion is the ancient name of England. Halcyon is a seagull. Eyelids - eyelids.
Dreams were replaced by dreams, And suddenly ... was it a dream? But the view was not terrible; His forehead did not retain deep wounds, Like May morning, it bloomed with joy And everything heavenly reminded the soul. “Is it you, dear friend, comrade of better days! Are you this? - I cried, - O warrior, forever cute! Was it not I, above your untimely grave, Under the terrible glow of Bellonin's fires, Was it not I, with my true friends, With a sword on a tree, inscribed your feat And accompanied the shadow to the heavenly homeland With prayer, sobbing and tears? Pleyssky streams - the waters of the Pleyssa River in Germany, near which Petin was killed. Bellonina fires are military fires.
Shadow of the Unforgettable! answer, dear brother! Or the past was all a dream, a daydream; Everything, everything - and a pale corpse, a grave and a ceremony, Accomplished by friendship in your memory? O! say a word to me! let the familiar sound still caress my greedy ear, let my hand, O unforgettable friend! He squeezes yours with love...” And I flew to him... But the mountain spirit disappeared In the bottomless blue of cloudless skies, Like smoke, like a meteor, like a phantom of midnight, And the dream left my eyes. Everything slept around me under the roof of silence. The menacing elements rolled silently. In the light of a cloud-covered moon A breeze blew a little, the waves barely sparkled, But the sweet peace fled my eyes, And my soul flew after the ghost, I wanted to stop the heavenly guest: You, oh dear brother! O best of friends! June 1814 The elegy is dedicated to the memory of Batyushkov's close friend Ivan Alexandrovich Petin (1789-1813), who was killed in the Battle of Leipzig.
Questions for analysis 1). With what feelings does Batyushkov remember his friend? What are the poet's thoughts about military friendship, duty, courage, death and immortality? 2). What semantic parts can the poem be divided into? What meaning is revealed when comparing the 2 worlds depicted in it? 3). What figurative and expressive means does the poet use to create the real and imaginary world? four). To whom is the monologue of the lyrical hero addressed and what emotions are imbued with? 5). Find Old Church Slavonicisms. What mood do they give to the text?
