Nicolas Boileau

Boileau Nicolas (1636/1711) French poet and critic. The main contribution to the literary process was Boileau's poetic treatise "Poetic Art", which secured him the title of the theorist of classicism.

Guryeva T.N. New literary dictionary / T.N. Guriev. - Rostov n / a, Phoenix, 2009, p. 39.

Boileau Nikola, also Boileau-Depreo (Paris, 1636 - ibid., 1711). The son of a judicial official of the Parisian parliament studies theology, then law. Having chosen a poetic path, he publishes caustic "Satires" (1666-1668), and later more restrained "Messages"; his first judgments about literature and its representatives are definite. Since 1674 he receives a royal pension, in the same year he publishes The Art of Poetry, where he expounds the principles of classical aesthetics in the field of literature in four songs. The "theorist of literature" subsequently became the king's historiographer (1677), and then an academician (1684). However, his polemicist temperament does not fade away: in 1687 he fiercely opposed Charles Perrault and, through epigrams, odes and satires, supported the side of ancient authors in the famous dispute about the ancient and the new.

Bassine J.-F. France of Louis XIV. Great time of great people (1643-1715). Jean-Francois Bassine. - M., 2016, p. 221-222.

Boileau (Boileau), Boileau-Depreau, Nicola (November 1, 1636, Paris - March 13, 1711, Paris) - French poet, major theorist classicism. He studied law at the University of Paris. In 1677 he was appointed court historiographer. Louis XIV. Since 1684 he was a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He was strongly influenced by the rationalism of Descartes. The main provisions of the aesthetics of classicism are set out by Boileau in the poetic treatise “Poetic Art” (L "art poetique, 1674, Russian translation 1957). The treatise consists of four parts (or a song). The first outlines general principles; the second is devoted to lyrical genres (idyll , elegy, ode, sonnet, epigram); in the third, tragedy, epic and comedy are analyzed; the fourth touches on the ethical problems of artistic creativity. The fundamental rule of Boileau's aesthetics is the requirement to follow reason. "Meaning" is the most important thing in a work of art, Boileau put beauty itself in dependence on the mind: the beautiful is the rational The composition must be carefully thought out, the words used must be clear and precise Another important rule of Boileau's aesthetics is the requirement to "imitate nature"; we are talking about human nature, the main manifestations of which, expressed in various characters, must be to study deeply. Boileau called for following ancient art, placing it above modern. A work of art, in his opinion, must comply with the rule of three unities (action, place, time). The true poet must act as a teacher of wisdom, to be virtuous, alien to gain, envy, vicious thoughts. The influence of the aesthetic views of Boileau was experienced by supporters of classicism not only in France, but also abroad (for example, I. K. Gottsched in Germany, A. Pop in England, A. D. Kantemir, A. P. Sumarokov, V. K. Trediakovsky in Russia).

A. A. Krotov

New Philosophical Encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Huseynov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Thought, 2010, vol. I, A - D, p. 317.

Read further:

Philosophers, Lovers of Wisdom (Chronos biographical guide).

Historical Persons of France (biographical index).

Compositions:

Oeuvres completes. P., 1979.

Literature:

Lanson G. Boileau. P., 1892;

Mornet D. Nicolas Boileau. P., 1941;

Bray R. Boileau. L "homme et l" oeuvre. P., 1942;

Nicolas Boileau-Depreau(French Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux; November 1, 1636, Paris - March 13, 1711, Paris) - French poet, critic, theorist of classicism. In the poem "Poetic Art" he formulated a number of dogmas and laws of poetry.

Biography and creativity

Nicolo Boileau was born into the family of a secretary of parliament. He received an excellent classical education, first studied jurisprudence and theology, but then devoted himself to belles-lettres. In this field, he gained early fame with his Satyrs (1660).

In 1677, Louis XIV appointed him his court historiographer, along with Racine, retaining his favor with Boileau despite the audacity of his satyrs.

Boileau's best satyrs are the eighth ("Sur l'homme") and the ninth ("À mon esprit"). In addition, he wrote many epistles, odes and epigrams.

"Poetic Art"

The most famous work of Boileau - a treatise poem in four songs "Poetic Art" (French "L'art poétique") - is a summing up of the aesthetics of classicism. Boileau proceeds from the conviction that in poetry, as in other spheres of life, bon sens, reason or common sense, must be placed above all else, to which fantasy and feeling must obey. Both in form and in content, poetry should be generally understandable, but lightness and accessibility should not turn into vulgarity and vulgarity, the style should be elegant, high, but at the same time simple and free from pretentiousness and crackling expressions.

Influence of Boileau

As a critic, Boileau enjoyed an unattainable authority and had a huge influence on all the poetry of the 18th century, until it was replaced by romanticism. He successfully cast down the bloated celebrities of the time, ridiculed their affectation, sentimentality and pretentiousness, preached imitation of the ancients, pointing to the best examples of French poetry of the time (Racine and Moliere), and in his "Art poétique" created a code of elegant taste that for a long time was considered obligatory in French literature ("Legislator of Parnassus").

The same indisputable authority Boileau was in Russian literature at the end of the 18th century. The Russian representatives of pseudoclassicism not only blindly followed the rules of Boileau's literary code, but also imitated his works (for example, Cantemir's satire "To my mind" is a free translation of Boileau's "À mon esprit").

"Naloy"

With his comic poem Le Lutrin, Boileau wanted to show what true comedy should be and protest against the comic literature of that time, full of gross farces, catering to the ignorant taste of a significant part of the readers; but containing some funny episodes, the poem is devoid of a live stream of true humor and is distinguished by boring lengths.

Boileau and the "controversy about the ancient and the new"

In his old age, Boileau intervened in a dispute about the comparative dignity of ancient and modern authors, which was very important for that time: some proved the superiority of the new French poets, who managed to combine the beauty of the ancient form with the diversity and high morality of the content, over the ancient Greek and Roman; others were convinced that French writers would never surpass their great teachers. By publishing commentaries on the writings of Longinus, Boileau acted as an ardent admirer of the ancient classics. However, his defense did not have the expected result, and French society continued to prefer Horace himself Boileau.

Boileau and other classicists

The name Boileau is usually placed next to the names of Racine and Molière, with whom he had a close friendship. And we must do justice to the moral character of Boileau, who never experienced envy of his famous contemporaries. On the contrary, Boileau was the first to defend Racine from attacks on him after the publication of the Phaedra; he gave the same support to Moliere, realizing the literary superiority of these two major writers over the then popular, now forgotten writers like Chaplin and others.

Boileau and women

At the age of twelve, Boileau was operated on for urolithiasis. The consequence of the operation was impotence. The mutilation explains the dryness that was often reproached to him, the lack of warm tones in his poetry, attacks on love and women, and the general reserved, cold character of the style.

Compositions

• "Satires" ( Satires, 1660-1668).
• "Messages" ( Epîtres, 1669-1695)
• "Poetic Art" ( Art poetry, 1674)
• "Treatise on the Sublime" (translation of the work of Longinus; Traite du sublime, 1674)
• "Naloy" ( Le Lutrin, 1674-1683)
• "Dialogue about the heroes of the novel" ( Dialogue sur les heros de roman, 1688)
• "Critical Reflections on Longinus" ( Reflections critiques sur Longin, 1694-1710)
• Letters to Charles Perrault Letters a Charles Perrault, 1700)

Nicolas Boileau, Boileau-Despreaux (11/1/1636, Paris - 13/3/1711, ibid.), French poet, critic, theorist of classicism. A native of the bourgeois-bureaucratic environment. He studied theology at the Sorbonne, then law. In 1660-1666 he wrote 9 satires on everyday, moral and literary topics. They angrily ridicule precision literature and burlesque. The dialogue Heroes of Novels (1665, published 1701) is devoted to criticism of precision literature. "Discourse on the ode" (1693) and "Critical reflections on some passages by the rhetorician Longinus" (1694) are connected with the so-called "controversy between the ancients and the new." Boileau defended the superiority of the ancients over modern authors. The main aesthetic principles of French classicism were formulated by Boileau in the poem "Poetic Art" (1674). The aesthetics of Boileau is imbued with rationalism: the beautiful for him is identical to the reasonable. Having put the principle of "imitation of nature" as the basis of his poetics, Boileau limits it to the image of the abstractly universal, typical, excluding everything individual, changeable. According to Boileau, such a character of "imitation of nature" was inherent in ancient art, which he considers as an absolute aesthetic norm (Aristotle, especially Horace). Boileau establishes unshakable rules of "good taste", treats folk poetry as "vulgar", "barbaric", "public" art. Boileau put forward the requirement to observe the law of three unities in the drama - place, time, action. Boileau pays great attention to the issues of artistic form as a manifestation of the mind of the writer. The normative nature of Boileau's aesthetics was reflected in the theory of genres. The aesthetics of Boileau does not allow any mixture of the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic, the heroic and the buffoon.

The poetics of Nicolas Boileau influenced the aesthetic thought and literature of the 17th and 18th centuries in many European countries. In Russia, the aesthetics of Boileau were followed Cantemir , Sumarokov, especially V. K. Trediakovsky, who in 1752 translated "Poetic Art" into Russian.

V. Ya. Bakhmutsky.
Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

Nicholas Boileau-Depreau(Boileau-Despreaux) - French poet and critic, born November 1, 1636 in Paris, received a thorough scientific education, first studied law and theology, but then exclusively indulged in belles-lettres. In this field, he already early gained fame for his "Satires". In 1677 Louis XIV appointed him his court historiographer, along with Racine, retaining his disposition towards Boileau, despite the boldness of his satyrs. Boileau's best satires are the 8th ("Sur l" homme") and the 9th ("A son esprit"). In addition, he wrote many messages, odes, epigrams, etc., distinguished by the elegance of the verse; they lack However, Boileau owes his outstanding importance in the history of French literature to his didactic poem in 4 songs: "L" art po e tique ", which is the most complete expression of the provisions of the false, or new classical, school. Boileau proceeds from the conviction that in poetry, as in other spheres of life, bon sens, reason, to which fantasy and feeling must obey, should be placed above all else. Both in form and content, poetry should be generally understandable, but ease and accessibility should not turn into vulgarity and vulgarity, the style should be elegant, high, but at the same time, simple and free from pretentiousness and crackling expressions. As a critic, Boileau enjoyed an unattainable authority and had a tremendous influence on his age and on all the poetry of the 18th century, until it was replaced by romanticism. He successfully cast down the bloated celebrities of that time, ridiculed their affectation, sentimentality and pretentiousness, preached imitation of the ancients, pointing to the best examples of contemporary French poetry (Racine and Molière), and in his "Art poe tique" created a code of elegant taste, which for a long time was considered indispensable in French literature ("Legislator of Parnassus"). The same indisputable authority Boileau was in Russian literature at the end of the 18th century. Our representatives of pseudo-classism not only blindly followed the rules of Boileau's literary code, but also imitated his works (for example, Cantemir's satire "To my mind" is a fragment of Boileau's "A son e sprit").

With his comic poem "Le Lutrin," Boileau wanted to show what true comedy should be and protest against the comic literature of that time, full of gross farces, catering to the ignorant taste of a large part of the readers; but containing some funny episodes, the poem is devoid of a live stream of true humor and is distinguished by boring lengths. In his old age, Boileau intervened in a very important dispute for that time about the comparative dignity of ancient and modern authors. The essence of the dispute was that some proved the superiority of the new French poets over the ancient Greek and Roman ones, since they were able to combine the beauty of the ancient form with the diversity and high morality of the content. Others were convinced that French writers would never surpass their great teachers. Boileau at first refrained from saying his weighty word for a long time, but finally published commentaries on the writings of Longinus, in which he is an ardent admirer of the ancient classics. However, his defense did not have the expected result, and French society continued to prefer Horace himself Boileau. The name Boileau is usually placed next to the names of Racine and Molière, with whom he had a close friendship. And we must do justice to the moral character of Boileau, in which one does not notice petty envy of his famous contemporaries. On the contrary, Boileau was the first to defend Racine when everyone attacked him for the "Phaedra"; he gave Molière the same support, guessing with his subtle critical instinct the superiority of the latter over the then popular, now forgotten constellation of writers like Chapelin and others. Boileau never knew women. This explains the dryness, often reproached to him, the absence of warm tones in his poetry, the attacks on love and women, and the general reserved, cold character of the style. Nicolas Boileau died in Paris on March 13, 1711.

Encyclopedic Dictionary. Brockhaus F. A., Efron I. A.

In the literature of mature classicism, the creativity and personality of Boileau have a special place. His friends and like-minded people - Molière, La Fontaine, Racine - left unsurpassed examples of the leading classical genres - comedies, fables, tragedies, which have retained the power of artistic influence up to the present day. Boileau worked in genres that, by their very nature, were not so durable. His satires and messages, acutely topical, prompted by the literary life and struggle of those years, faded over time. However, the main work of Boileau, the poetic treatise "Poetic Art", which summarized the theoretical principles of classicism, has not lost its significance to this day. In it, Boileau summed up the literary development of the previous decades, formulated his aesthetic, moral and social positions and his attitude towards specific trends and writers of his time.

Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux (Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, 1636-1711) was born in Paris in the family of a wealthy bourgeois, a lawyer, an official of the Parisian parliament. His biography is not marked by any remarkable events. Like most young people of that time, he was educated at a Jesuit college, then studied theology and law at the Sorbonne, but he did not feel any attraction to either a legal or spiritual career. Having found himself financially independent after the death of his father, Boileau could devote himself entirely to literature. He did not need, like many poets of that time, to look for rich patrons, to write poems for them "in case", to engage in literary day labor. He could quite freely express his opinions and assessments, and their frankness and harshness pretty soon determined the circle of his friends and enemies.

Boileau's first poems appeared in print in 1663. Among them, Stanzas to Molière attracts attention in connection with the comedy A Lesson for Wives. In the fierce struggle that unfolded around this play, Boileau took a completely unambiguous position: he welcomed Molière's comedy as a problematic work that poses deep moral questions, saw in it the embodiment of Horace's classic formula "to teach while entertaining." Boileau carried this attitude towards Moliere throughout his life, invariably taking his side against the powerful enemies who pursued the great comedian. And although not everything in Moliere's work corresponded to his artistic tastes, Boileau understood and appreciated the contribution made by the author of Tartuffe to national literature.

During the 1660s, Boileau published nine poetic satires. Then he wrote a parody dialogue in the manner of Lucian "Heroes of novels" (published in 1713). Using the satirical form of Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, Boileau deduces the pseudo-historical heroes of precision novels (see Ch. 6), who find themselves in the realm of the dead face to face with the judges of the underworld - Pluto and Minos and with the sage Diogenes. The ancients are perplexed about the strange and inappropriate speeches and actions of Cyrus, Alexander the Great and other heroes of the novels, they make fun of their sugary and cutesy manner of expression, far-fetched feelings. In conclusion, the heroine of Chaplin's poem "The Virgin" appears - Joan of Arc, with difficulty pronouncing the ponderous, tongue-tied, meaningless verses of the elderly poet. The attack against the genre of the novel will be repeated by Boileau in a more concise and precise form in the Art Poetic.

From the beginning of the 1660s, he had a close friendship with Molière, Lafontaine, and especially Racine. During these years, his authority as a theoretician and literary critic is already generally recognized.

The implacable position of Boileau in the struggle for the approval of a large problematic literature, the protection of Molière and Racine from persecution and intrigue by third-rate writers, behind whose back very influential people often hid, created criticism of many dangerous enemies. Representatives of the nobility could not forgive him for attacks against aristocratic arrogance in his satires, the Jesuits and hypocrites - satirical sketches like Moliere's Tartuffe. This conflict reached a particular urgency in connection with the intrigue started against Racine's "Phaedra" (see Chapter 8). Boileau's only protection in this situation could be provided by the patronage of the king, who considered his opinion in literary matters and favored him. Louis XIV was inclined to oppose "his people", the humble and indebted to him, to the obstinate aristocracy. Since the beginning of the 1670s, Boileau has become a person close to the court. During these years, in addition to the Poetic Art, he published nine epistles, a Treatise on the Beautiful, and the ironic poem Nala (1678).

In 1677, Boileau received, together with Racine, the honorary position of royal historiographer. However, from that moment on, his creative activity noticeably decreases. And this is explained not so much by his new official duties as by the general atmosphere of those years. Moliere passed away, stopped writing for the Racine theater, Lafontaine was in unspoken disgrace. To replace them, the literature of the 1680s did not put forward any worthy successors. But epigones and second-class writers flourished. In all spheres of life, the despotic regime made itself felt more and more; the influence of the Jesuits, whom Boileau hated all his life, increased; cruel persecution fell upon the Jansenists, with whom he had long-standing friendly ties and respect for their moral principles. All this made impossible that relatively free and bold critique of morals, with which Boileau made in his first satires. The fifteen-year silence of the poet almost exactly coincides with the break in the work of Racine and is a characteristic symptom of the spiritual atmosphere of these years. Only in 1692 did he return to poetry and write three more satires and three epistles. The last, XII satire (1695) with the subtitle "On ambiguity", directed against the Jesuits, was published after the death of the author, in 1711. In the 1690s, the theoretical treatise "Reflections on Longinus" was also written - the fruit of the controversy begun by Charles Perrault in defense of modern literature (see ch. 13). In this controversy, Boileau was a strong supporter of the ancient authors.

The last years of Boileau were overshadowed by serious illnesses and loneliness. He far outlived his friends, the creators of the brilliant national literature, in the formation of which he took such an active part. His own theory, created in a tense struggle, gradually turned into a frozen dogma in the hands of pedants and epigones. And the sprouts of new literature, which was to give magnificent shoots in the coming age of Enlightenment, did not fall into his field of vision, remained unknown and inaccessible to him. In his declining years, he found himself aloof from the living literary process.

Boileau entered literature as a satirist poet. His models were the Roman poets - Horace, Juvenal, Martial. Often he borrows from them a moral, social or simply everyday theme (for example, in III and VII satires) and fills it with modern content that reflects the characters and customs of his era. In the “Discourse on Satire” (published together with the IX satire in 1668), Boileau, referring to the example of Roman poets, defends the right to personal satire directed against specific, well-known people, sometimes speaking under his own name, sometimes under transparent aliases. This is exactly what he did in satires and in the Poetic Art. In addition to the Roman classics, Boileau had a model and predecessor in national literature - the satirist poet Mathurin Rainier (1573-1613). Boileau in his satires continues many of Renier's themes, journalistic and everyday, but in contrast to the freer manner of Renier, who widely used the techniques of the grotesque and buffoonery, he treats his subject in a strict classical style.

The main themes of Boileau's satires are the vanity and vacuity of metropolitan life (satires I and VI), the eccentricities and delusions of people who worship their own idols - wealth, vain fame, secular reputation, fashion (satire IV). In satire III, the description of a dinner party, which should be attended by fashionable celebrities (Molière, who will read Tartuffe), serves as an occasion for the ironic depiction of a whole string of characters, in the spirit of Molière's comedies. Of particular note is satire V, which poses in a generalized way the theme of nobility - genuine and imaginary. Boileau opposes the nobility of the soul, moral purity and strength of mind, which are inherent in a truly noble person, to the estate arrogance of aristocrats, boasting of the antiquity of the family and “noble origin”. This theme, which appeared only occasionally in the literature of the 17th century, would become one of the main ones in the literature of the Enlightenment a century later. For Boileau, a man of the third estate, who, by the force of circumstances, entered the environment of the highest nobility, this topic had both social and personal significance.

Many of Boileau's satires pose purely literary questions (for example, satire II dedicated to Molière). They are full of the names of contemporary authors, whom Boileau subjected to sharp, sometimes devastating criticism: these are precision poets with their affectation, vapidity, pretentiousness; this is a reckless literary bohemian who does not take into account the norms of "good taste", decency, widely using vulgar words and expressions, and finally, these are learned pedants with their ponderous style. In the second satire, which treats a seemingly purely formal problem - the art of rhyming, one of the main thoughts of "Poetic Art" sounds for the first time - in poetry, meaning, reason should dominate rhyme, and not "obey it."

Boileau's satires are written in harmonious and harmonious Alexandrian verse with a caesura in the middle, in the form of a casual conversation with the reader. Often they include elements of dialogue, peculiar dramatic scenes in which sketches of characters appear, a social type, outlined succinctly and aptly. But at times the author's voice rises to a lofty rhetorical denunciation of vices.

A special place in the work of Boileau is occupied by the ironic poem "Naloy". It was conceived as a counterpoint to the burlesque poem, which Boileau considered an insult to good taste. In the preface to Naloy, he writes: “This is a new burlesque that I have created in our language; instead of that other burlesque, where Dido and Aeneas speak like bazaar traders and hookers, here the watchmaker and his wife speak like Dido and Aeneas. In other words, the comic effect here also arises from the discrepancy between the subject and the style of presentation, but their relationship is directly opposite to the burlesque poem: instead of reducing and vulgarizing the high topic, Boileau tells in a pompous solemn style about an insignificant domestic incident. The quarrel between the key-keeper and the psalm-reader of the Notre Dame Cathedral over the place where the choir should stand is described in a high style, in compliance with the traditional genre and stylistic features of the heroic-comic poem. Although Boileau emphasizes the novelty of his poem for French literature, in this case he also relies on examples - antique (“The War of Mice and Frogs”) and Italian (“The Stolen Bucket” by Alessandro Tassoni, 1622). Mentions of these poems are found in the text of "Naloi". Undoubtedly, there are elements of a parody of the grandiose epic style in Boileau's poem, perhaps directed against the experiments of the modern epic poem, which were severely criticized in the Poetic Art. But this parody, unlike the burlesque poem, did not affect the very foundations of the classicist poetics, which put up a decisive barrier to the "vulgar" language and style. "Naloy" served as a genre model for the 18th-century heroic-comic poems. (for example, "The Abduction of the Lock" by Alexander Pop).

Boileau worked on his main work, Poetic Art, for five years. Following the "Science of Poetry" by Horace, he set forth his theoretical principles in poetic form - easy, relaxed, sometimes playful and witty, sometimes sarcastic and harsh. The style of "Poetic Art" is characterized by a polished conciseness and aphoristic formulations that naturally fall into the Alexandrian verse. Many of them have become catchwords. Horace also gleaned certain provisions to which Boileau attached particular importance, considering them "eternal" and universal. However, he managed to apply them to the current state of French literature, to put them at the center of the controversy that took place in the criticism of those years. Each thesis of Boileau is supported by specific examples from modern poetry, in rare cases - examples worthy of imitation.

"Poetic Art" is divided into four songs. The first lists the general requirements for a true poet: talent, the right choice of his genre, following the laws of reason, the content of a poetic work.

From this, Boileau concludes: do not get carried away by external effects (“empty tinsel”), overly extended descriptions, deviations from the main story line. The discipline of thought, self-restraint, reasonable measure and conciseness - Boileau partly learned these principles from Horace, partly from the work of his outstanding contemporaries and passed them on to the next generations as an immutable law. As negative examples, he cites "unbridled burlesque" and the exaggerated, cumbersome imagery of baroque poets. Turning to a review of the history of French poetry, he ironically over the poetic principles of Ronsard and contrasts him with Malherbe:

But Malherbe came and showed the French

A simple and harmonious verse, pleasing to the Muses in everything.

He commanded harmony to fall at the feet of reason

And by placing the words, he doubled their power.

In this preference for Malherbe, Ronsard was affected by the selectivity and limitations of Boileau's classicist taste. The richness and variety of Ronsard's language, his bold poetic innovation seemed to him chaos and learned "pedantry" (ie, excessive borrowing of "learned" Greek words). The sentence passed by him on the great poet of the Renaissance remained in force until the beginning of the 19th century, until the French romantics "discovered" Ronsard and other poets of the Pleiades for themselves, and made them the banner of the struggle against the ossified dogmas of classicist poetics.

Following Malherbe, Boileau formulates the basic rules of versification, which have long been entrenched in French poetry: the prohibition of "transfers" (enjambements), i.e., the mismatch between the end of a line and the end of a phrase or its syntactically completed part, "yawning", i.e., the collision of vowels in neighboring words, clusters of consonants, etc. The first song ends with advice to listen to criticism and be demanding of yourself.

The second song is devoted to the characteristics of lyrical genres - idylls, eclogues, elegies, etc. Naming as examples of ancient authors - Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, Boileau ridicules false feelings, far-fetched expressions and banal clichés of modern pastoral poetry. Turning to the ode, he emphasizes its high socially significant content: military exploits, events of national importance. Casually touching on the small genres of secular poetry - madrigals and epigrams - Boileau dwells in detail on the sonnet, which attracts him with its strict, precisely regulated form. Most of all, he talks about satire, which is especially close to him as a poet. Here Boileau departs from ancient poetics, which attributed satire to the "low" genres. He sees in it the most effective, socially active genre that contributes to the correction of morals:

Not malice, but good, trying to sow in the world,

Truth reveals its pure face in satire.

Recalling the courage of the Roman satirists who denounced the vices of the powerful of this world, Boileau highlights Juvenal, whom he takes as a model. Recognizing the merits of his predecessor, Mathurin Rainier, he, however, blames him for "shameless, obscene words" and "obsceneness."

In general, lyrical genres occupy a clearly subordinate place in the mind of a critic compared to the major genres - tragedy, epic, comedy, to which the third, most important song of the "Poetic Art" is dedicated. Here the key, fundamental problems of poetic and general aesthetic theory are discussed, and above all the problem of “imitation of nature”. If in other parts of the Poetic Art, Boileau mainly followed Horace, here he relies on Aristotle.

Boileau begins this canto with a thesis about the ennobling power of art:

Sometimes on the canvas a dragon or a vile reptile

Lively colors catches the eye,

And what in life would seem terrible to us,

Under the brush of the master becomes beautiful.

The meaning of this aesthetic transformation of life material is to arouse in the viewer (or reader) sympathy for the tragic hero, even guilty of a serious crime:

So to captivate us, Tragedy in tears

Orestes of the gloomy draws grief and fear,

Oedipus plunges into the abyss of sorrows

And, entertaining us, weeps weep.

Boileau's idea of ​​ennobling nature does not at all mean a departure from the dark and terrible sides of reality into a closed world of beauty and harmony. But he resolutely opposes admiring criminal passions and atrocities, emphasizing their "greatness", as often happened in Corneille's baroque tragedies and justified in his theoretical writings. The tragedy of real life conflicts, whatever its nature and source, must always carry a moral idea that contributes to the “purification of passions” (“catharsis”), in which Aristotle saw the purpose and purpose of tragedy. And this can only be achieved through the ethical justification of the hero, "criminal involuntarily", by revealing his spiritual struggle with the help of the most subtle psychological analysis. Only in this way is it possible to embody the universal human principle in a separate dramatic character, to bring his “exceptional fate”, his suffering closer to the structure of thoughts and feelings of the viewer, to shock and excite him. A few years later, Boileau returned to this idea in Epistle VII to Racine after the failure of Phaedra. Thus, the aesthetic impact in the poetic theory of Boileau is inextricably merged with the ethical.

Related to this is another key problem of the poetics of classicism - the problem of truth and plausibility. Boileau solves it in the spirit of rationalist aesthetics, continuing and developing the line outlined by the theoreticians of the previous generation - Chaplin, the main critic of the Cid (see Ch. 7) and Abbé d'Aubignac, author of the book "Theatrical Practice" (1657). Boileau draws a line between truth, by which he understands a fact or historical event that has actually taken place, and fiction, created according to the laws of likelihood. However, unlike Chaplin and d'Aubignac, Boileau considers the criterion of plausibility not the usual, generally accepted opinion, but the eternal universal laws of reason. Actual authenticity is not identical to artistic truth, which necessarily presupposes an internal logic of events and characters. If a contradiction arises between the empirical truth of a real event and this internal logic, the viewer refuses to accept the "true" but implausible fact:

The incredible is incapable of touching,

Let the truth always look believable.

We are cold-hearted to absurd miracles,

And only the possible is always to our taste.

The concept of the plausible in the aesthetics of Boileau is closely connected with the principle of generalization: not a single event, fate or personality can interest the viewer, but only that which is common to human nature at all times. This range of questions leads Boileau to a resolute condemnation of any subjectivism, bringing the poet's own personality to the fore. The critic regards such aspirations as contrary to the requirement of plausibility and a generalized artistic embodiment of reality. Speaking against "originality", which is quite widespread among the poets of the precision direction, Boileau wrote in the first song:

With a monstrous line, he is in a hurry to prove

What to think like everyone else, sickens his soul.

Many years later, in the preface to his collected works, Boileau expressed this position with the utmost accuracy and completeness: “What is a new, brilliant, unusual thought? The ignorant say that this is such a thought that has never appeared to anyone and could not appear. Not at all! On the contrary, it is a thought that should have appeared in everyone, but which one alone was able to express first.

From these general questions, Boileau moves on to more specific rules for constructing a dramatic work: the plot must be put into action immediately, without tedious details, the denouement must also be quick and unexpected, while the hero must “remain himself”, that is, maintain integrity and consistency intended character. However, it must initially combine greatness and weakness, otherwise it will not be able to arouse the interest of the viewer (a position also borrowed from Aristotle). The rule of three unities is also formulated (with incidental criticism of the Spanish playwrights who did not observe it), and the rule of taking the most tragic events “behind the stage”, which should be reported in the form of a story:

Excites the visible more than the story,

But what can be tolerated by the ear, sometimes cannot be tolerated by the eye.

Some of the specific advice is given in the form of opposing the high genre of tragedy and the novel, rejected by classicist poetics.

The hero, in whom everything is small, is only suitable for a novel ...

The example of "Clelia" is not good for you to follow:

Paris and ancient Rome are not similar to each other ...

Inconsistencies with the novel are inseparable,

And we accept them - if only they were not boring!

Thus, the novel, in contrast to the lofty educational mission of tragedy, is assigned a purely entertaining role.

Turning to the epic, Boileau draws on the example of the ancients, mainly Virgil and his Aeneid. The epic poets of modern times are subjected to sharp criticism, which affects not only modern French authors (mostly secondary ones), but also Torquato Tasso. The main subject of controversy is their use of Christian mythology, with which they tried to replace the ancient one. Boileau strongly objects to such a substitution.

In relation to ancient and Christian mythology, Boileau takes a consistently rationalistic position: ancient mythology attracts him with its humanity, the transparency of allegorical allegory that does not contradict reason; in Christian miracles, he sees fantasy, incompatible with the arguments of reason. They must be blindly taken on faith and cannot be the subject of an aesthetic embodiment. Moreover, their use in poetry can only compromise religious dogmas:

And so, thanks to their zealous efforts,

The gospel itself becomes a legend!

Let our lyre love fiction and myths, -

From the god of truth we do not create an idol.

Boileau's controversy with the authors of the "Christian epics", in addition to purely literary grounds, also had a social background: some of them, such as Desmarets and Saint-Sorlin, the author of the poem "Clovis" (1657), adjoined the Jesuit circles and occupied an extremely reactionary position in the ideological struggle of that time.

Boileau was also unacceptable for pseudo-national heroics glorifying the kings and military leaders of the early Middle Ages (Alaric by Georges Scudéri). Boileau shared the general dislike of his time for the Middle Ages as an era of "barbarism". On the whole, none of the epic poems of the XVII. could not imagine a worthy example of this genre. The rules formulated by Boileau, focused on the epic of Homer and Virgil, have not been fully implemented. In fact, this genre has already become obsolete, and even Voltaire's attempt to resurrect it in the Henriade half a century later was unsuccessful.

In his judgments about the comedy, Boileau is guided by a serious moral comedy of characters, represented in antiquity by Menander and especially Terentius, and in modern times by Molière. However, in the work of Molière, he does not accept everything. He considers The Misanthrope to be the highest example of serious comedy (Tartuffe is also repeatedly mentioned in other works), but he resolutely rejects the traditions of folk farce, which he considers rude and vulgar:

I don’t recognize in the bag where the crafty Scapen is hidden,

The one whose "Misanthrope" is crowned with loud glory!

“Merging Terence with Tabarin” (a famous fair actor), in his opinion, detracts from the glory of the great comedian. This was reflected in the social limitations of the aesthetics of Boileau, who called for "studying the courtyard and the city", that is, conforming to the tastes of the upper strata of society as opposed to the ignorant mob.

In the fourth song, Boileau again addresses general issues, of which the most important are the moral character of the poet and criticism, the social responsibility of the writer:

Your critic must be reasonable, noble,

Deeply knowledgeable, free from envy ...

Let your work keep the seal of the beautiful soul,

Vicious thoughts and uninvolved dirt.

Boileau warns against greed, greed, which makes the poet trade his gift and is incompatible with his high mission, and concludes his treatise with a doxology to the generous and enlightened monarch who patronizes poets.

Much in the "Poetic Art" is a tribute to the time, specific tastes and disputes of that time. However, the most general problems posed by Boileau retained their significance for the development of art criticism in subsequent eras: this is the question of the social and moral responsibility of the writer, high demands on his art, the problem of plausibility and truth, the ethical principle in art, the generalized typified reflection of reality. The indisputable authority of Boileau in the rationalistic poetics of classicism was preserved throughout most of the 18th century. In the era of romanticism, the name Boileau became the main target of criticism and ironic ridicule, as well as a synonym for literary dogmatism and pedantry (against which he himself fought vigorously in his time). And only when the topicality of these discussions faded, when the literature of classicism and its aesthetic system received an objective historical assessment, did the literary theory of Boileau take its well-deserved place in the development of world aesthetic thought.

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Biography

He received a thorough scientific education, first studied jurisprudence and theology, but then exclusively indulged in belles-lettres. In this field, he already gained early fame with his Satyrs (1660). In 1677, Louis XIV appointed him his court historiographer, along with Racine, retaining his favor with Boileau despite the audacity of his satyrs.

The best satyrs of Boileau are considered the eighth ("Sur l'homme") and the ninth ("A son esprit"). In addition, he wrote many letters, odes, epigrams, etc.

"Poetic Art"

Boileau's most famous work - a treatise poem in four songs "Poetic Art" ("L'art poetique") - is a summing up of the aesthetics of classicism. Boileau proceeds from the conviction that in poetry, as in other spheres of life, bon sens, reason, to which fantasy and feeling must obey, should be placed above all else. Both in form and content, poetry should be generally understandable, but ease and accessibility should not turn into vulgarity and vulgarity, the style should be elegant, high, but at the same time, simple and free from pretentiousness and crackling expressions.

Influence of Boileau

As a critic, Boileau enjoyed an unattainable authority and had a huge influence on his age and on all the poetry of the 18th century, until romanticism replaced it. He successfully cast down the bloated celebrities of the time, ridiculed their affectation, sentimentality and pretentiousness, preached imitation of the ancients, pointing to the best examples of contemporary French poetry (Racine and Molière), and in his "Art poetique" created a code of elegant taste that for a long time was considered obligatory in French literature ("Legislator of Parnassus"). The same indisputable authority Boileau was in Russian literature at the end of the 18th century. Our representatives of pseudo-classism not only blindly followed the rules of Boileau's literary code, but also imitated his works (for example, Cantemir's satire "To my mind" is a copy of Boileau's "A son esprit").

"Naloy"

N. Boileau. Beginning of the first song of "Poetic Art". 1674 edition

With his comic poem Le Lutrin, Boileau wanted to show what true comedy should be and protest against the comic literature of that time, full of gross farces, catering to the ignorant taste of a significant part of the readers; but containing some funny episodes, the poem is devoid of a live stream of true humor and is distinguished by boring lengths.

Boileau and the "controversy about the ancient and the new"

In his old age, Boileau intervened in a very important dispute for that time about the comparative dignity of ancient and modern authors. The essence of the dispute was that some proved the superiority of the new French poets over the ancient Greek and Roman ones, since they were able to combine the beauty of the ancient form with the diversity and high morality of the content. Others were convinced that never the French. writers will not surpass their great teachers. Boileau at first refrained from saying his weighty word for a long time, but finally published comments on the writings of Longinus, in which he is an ardent admirer of the ancient classics. However, his defense did not have the expected result and the French. society continued to prefer Boileau himself to Horace.

Boileau and other classicists

The name Boileau is usually placed next to the names of Racine and Molière, with whom he had a close friendship. And we must do justice to the moral character of Boileau, in which one does not notice petty envy of his famous contemporaries. On the contrary, Boileau was the first to defend Racine when everyone attacked him for the "Phaedra"; he gave Moliere the same support, guessing with his subtle critical instinct the superiority of the latter over the popular at that time, now forgotten constellation of writers like Chaplin and others.

Boileau and women

At the age of twelve, Boileau was operated on for urolithiasis. The result of the operation was impotence. This circumstance is played up in Pushkin's obscene lyceum epigram:

Do you want to know my dear
What's the difference between Boileau and me?
Depreo only had a comma
And I have two semicolons.

The mutilation explains the dryness that was often reproached to him, the absence of warm tones in his poetry, the attacks on love and women, and the general reserved, cold character of the style.

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Biography

Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas (1636-1711), French poet and critic. Born November 1, 1636 in Paris. He was the fifteenth child in the family of a wealthy judicial clerk, lost his mother at the age of two. From 1643 to 1652 he studied at the colleges of Harcourt and Beauvais, where he received a thorough classical education. At the insistence of the family, he took the rank in 1646, but the career of a clergyman did not attract him, and he began to study law (1652–1656).

Thanks to the modest inheritance received in 1657, Boileau left his studies in jurisprudence, devoting himself entirely to poetry and literary criticism. Between 1660 and 1666 he wrote his first Satires (Satires), partly in imitation of Horace and Juvenal, but at the same time evidence of the undoubted originality of the author. The main innovation was that Boileau began to call bad poets by name, regardless of the secular conventions of his time. The satires were a success, and pirated editions soon appeared in France and Holland. Between 1668 and 1677 a series of verse Epistles (Epistles) was published.

In 1674 the Satires and some of the Epistles were republished in the Collected Works (Oeuvres). The translation of the anonymous (usually attributed to Longinus) Greek treatise On the Sublime (Traite de sublime) and Poetic Art (Art poetique) was also printed there for the first time.

Boileau's most famous work, The Poetic Art, has long been considered a textbook of classical "rules" that unreasonable contemporaries were allegedly forced to obey. Boileau did succeed in capturing many prescriptions and definitions in marvelous Alexandrian stanzas, but much more significant and original was his insistence on the role of passion and power in aesthetic experience. These considerations also explain his longstanding interest in the Greek treatise On the Sublime.

In 1677, together with his close friend J. Racine Boileau, he received the honorary position of historiographer at the court of Louis XIV, and in 1684 - also at the insistence of the king - he was elected to the French Academy. In 1685 he bought a house in Auteuil (now a fashionable Parisian suburb). Leading an almost reclusive life, he hosted the most famous writers and theologians of his time. During the last years of his life, the role of Boswell was played by the young Lyon lawyer C. Brosset, who in 1716 published the Complete Works of Boileau (Oeuvres completes) with his comments.

Most of the writings written in Auteuil are polemical in nature. In January 1687 Ch. Perrault read a poem at a meeting of the French Academy, which proclaimed the spiritual superiority of the "Century of Louis the Great" over antiquity. In response to this and subsequent attempts to defame the classical heritage, Boileau issued Critical reflections on certain places in the rhetoric Longin (Reflexions critiques sur Longin), where, with deadly irony, he cited evidence of Perrault's almost implausible ignorance.

Boileau died in Paris on March 13, 1711.

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Biography

Nicolas Boileau

Boileau Nicolas, own. Boileau-Depreaux (Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, 1636-1711) - French poet, critic, theorist of classicism. R. in the old bourgeois-bureaucratic family, from theology passed to the right, was a lawyer, but never spoke, devoted himself entirely to literature; in 1672 he was presented to Louis XIV, who awarded him a pension as one of his historiographers; in 1683 he entered the Academy.

In his person, the “third estate” appeared on the stage, still vitally connected then with the royal power, an ally in the struggle against the remnants and remnants of the feudal nobility, and with the court society, on which the king relied in his alliance with the rising bourgeoisie. Just as Louis XIV strove to subjugate the states of the last independent feudal lords to “reason”, so B. subjected secular salon feudal-aristocratic poetry, the gallant-heroic novels of Ms. Scuderi, the secular verses of Kotin, etc. to ridicule and slander (in his satires 1660-1668) .

How royal power regulated the entire economic and administrative life of France in the 17th century. (the era of mercantilism), so B. subjected poetic creativity to the strictest regulation. In his “Poetic Art” (L’art poetique, 1674), B. prescribes how a poet should create genuine verbal art. As the king sought to rationalize the economic and administrative life of the country and, in particular, court life with rules built by reason, so B. suggested to poets: “Apply to reason: let your poems receive all their charms from him.” The aesthetic expression of the absolutist culture of the 17th century, the theory of B. is saturated at the same time with the tendencies of the ascending and emerging bourgeoisie, which was expressed both in the general rationalist interpretation of art as an expression, first of all, of thought (“It is easy to clothe a clear thought in a beautiful verse”), and in the proclamation “ nature” as a material for artistic imitation (“nature is true”, “let nature be the only subject of your study”), and, finally, in the approval of samples of ancient poetry as the highest aesthetic norm.

Rationalism, naturalism, orientation towards antiquity - these were, according to Boileau, the main features of the classical form as the antithesis of the anarcho-fantastic way of thinking, feeling and creativity of the medieval nobility, which was still preserved in a vestigial state in the 17th century. If the classical form is bourgeois in its rationalistic, naturalistic, and antikysitic tendencies, then, according to B., its “content” should be “courtyard” and “city” (“study the courtyard and get to know the city”), i.e., those two social the groups that served as the basis for absolutism were the court society and the bourgeois elite close to it.

Speaking as a poet, B., both in his Satyrs and in Le Lutrin, painted in realistic terms scenes, episodes, figures of everyday city (Paris) life in the spirit of realistic bourgeois everyday life, in the last poem already turning into some offensive against the clergy, being subsequently in close relations with the Jansenists, as evidenced by his message "On the Love of God." A theoretician of the bourgeoisie, which was still rising in a circle of nobility in alliance with absolutism, B. was naturally attacked by the secular “feudal” aristocracy. In response to his "satire", a series of counter-satires followed from both the noble writers (Koten) ridiculed by him and their supporters (Burso, Pradon), accusing, among other things, B. of what he was proud of, namely, that he "bourgeois" who knows nothing about the intricacies of secular life and secular poetry.

Later, after his "Poetic Art", the Perrault brothers opposed him on behalf of the secular aristocracy, especially Charles Perrault, who portrayed B. caricatured in his "Envious Perfection" and then in his poem "The Age of Louis the Great", and in his "Parallels ancient and modern authors" who defended national poetry against antiquity. La Fontaine and La Bruyère interceded for the primacy of the ancients, and, finally, Boileau himself in his Critical Reflections on Longinus, who later, however, extended the hand of reconciliation to the enemy in his Message to Perrault (he, who tirelessly proved the greatness of La Fontaine, Molière and Racine). The aesthetics of Byzantium enjoyed great prestige in the era of the dominance of classicism everywhere, in particular in our country in the 18th century. (Kantemir, Tredyakovsky, Sumarokov). "Poetic Art" B. was first translated by Tredyakovsky.

Bibliography

I. Collection. sochin. B. in 4 vols., Berriat S. Priest, 1830–1837

Translation of "Poetic Art", ed. and intro. Art. P. S. Kogan, transl. S. S. Nesterova, P., 1914.

II. Lanson, B., P., 1892

Brunetiere, Evolution de la critique, 1890

Rigault, Histoire de la Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes, 1856

Gillot H., La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes, P., 1914.

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://feb-web.ru/