Changes in the political, cultural, and economic life of Russia posed a number of urgent tasks for literature: it was necessary to realize the changes that had taken place and, having comprehended them, reflect the surrounding reality. The literature of this period not only reproduces new phenomena, but also evaluates them, comparing them with the past, speaking in defense of Peter's conquests. In the 1930s and 1950s, a new direction was formed in literature – Russian classicism . This led to radical changes in the field of literature, which can be called the first steps of Russian classicism: new classic genres are being created, a literary language and versification are being formed, theoretical treatises are being written substantiating such innovations. The founders of this trend in Russian literature are Kantemir, Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, Sumarokov whose work entirely belongs to the 18th century. All of them were born in the era of Peter the Great, from childhood they breathed its air and with their creativity sought to approve and protect the reforms of Peter the Great in the years that followed the death of Peter the Great. The basis of Russian classicism in literature was the ideology that emerged as a result of the awareness of the strengths of Peter's reforms. Russian classicism was created by a generation of European-educated young writers who defended this ideology.
Word classicism comes from the Latin word classicus, i.e. exemplary. This was the name of ancient literature, which was widely used by the classicists. Classicism was most vividly embodied in the 17th century in France in the works of Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Boileau. The foundation of European classicism is absolutism and advanced philosophical teachings of that time. The aesthetic ideal of classicism becomes a man who has mastered his passions, subordinating the personal to the public. In art, the concept of "duty" in relation to one's state arises, this duty is above all. In a conflict between passion and duty, duty always wins. A person must have high moral principles, then he will prefer the fulfillment of state or public duty to his personal interests.
The main thing in the ideology of classicism is state pathos. The state was declared the highest value. The classicists believed in the possibility of its further improvement. The state in their view was a rationally arranged social organism, where each class performs its duties. A man, from the point of view of the classicists, is an egoist, but he lends himself to education, to the influence of civilization. The key to positive changes in human "nature" is the mind, which the classicists opposed to emotions, "passions". Reason helps to realize "duty" to the state, while "passions" distract from socially useful activities.
Russian classicism was formed under similar conditions of the absolutist power of the emperor, but it arose much later, therefore it has its own differences:
1. Russian classicism is formed in the era of the European Enlightenment, therefore, its main task is to reorganize society based on the ideas of the Enlightenment. Classicist writers were sure that it was possible on reasonable grounds, through proper education, which should organize the state headed by an enlightened monarch, put an end to human "malice", create a perfect society.
2. Russian classicism arises after the death of Peter I, during the period of reaction, and the new Russian literature begins not with odes glorifying the deeds of the emperor, but with the satires of Cantemir, whose heroes are not ancient heroes, but contemporaries, and Cantemir ridicules not specific human vices, but denounces social shortcomings, fights against reactionaries.
3. The first Russian classicists already knew the enlightening idea of the natural equality of people. But this thesis at that time was not yet embodied in the demand for the equality of all classes before the law. Cantemir, based on the principles of "natural law", called on the nobles to humane treatment of the peasants. Sumarokov pointed to the natural equality of nobles and peasants.
4. The main difference between Russian classicism and European classicism was that he combined the ideas of absolutism with the ideas of the early European Enlightenment. First of all, it is the theory of enlightened absolutism. According to this theory, the state should be headed by a wise "enlightened" monarch, who requires each of the estates and individuals to serve honestly for the benefit of the whole society. For the Russian classicists, Peter the Great was an example of such a ruler. Russian literature begins the process of instructing and educating the autocrat.
He reigns over the people to bliss,
And the common benefit leading to perfection:
The orphan does not cry under his scepter,
The innocent nikovo is not afraid...
... The flatterer does not bow at the feet of the nobleman
The king is a judge equal to all and a father equal to all ...
- wrote A.P. Sumarokov. The king must remember that he is the same person as his subjects, if he cannot establish the proper order, then this is a “vile idol”, “an enemy of the people”.
5. The word "enlightened" meant not just an educated person, but a citizen who was helped by knowledge to realize his responsibility to society. "Ignorance" meant not only a lack of knowledge, but also a lack of understanding of one's duty to the state. That is why in Russian classicism of the 30-50s a huge place was given to sciences, knowledge, and enlightenment. In almost all of his odes, M.V. speaks about the benefits of the sciences. Lomonosov. The first satire of Kantemir “To your mind. On those who blaspheme the teaching."
6. Russian classicists were close to the struggle of the enlighteners against the church, church ideology. They denounced the ignorance and rude morals of the clergy, defended science and its adherents from persecution by the church.
7. The art of Russian classicists is based not only on the works of antiquity, it is quite closely connected with the national tradition and oral folk art, their literature often takes the events of national history as a basis.
8. In the artistic field, the Russian classicists faced very difficult tasks. Russian literature of this period did not know a well-crafted literary language and did not have a definite genre system. Therefore, Russian writers of the second third of the 18th century had to not only create a new literary trend, but also put in order the literary language, the system of versification and master genres unknown in Russia until that time. Each of the authors was a pioneer: Kantemir laid the foundation for Russian satire, Lomonosov legitimized the ode genre, Sumarokov acted as the author of tragedies and comedies.
9. Russian classicists created many theoretical works in the field of genres, literary language and versification. V. K. Trediakovsky wrote a treatise “A New and Brief Method for Composing Russian Poems” (1735), in which he substantiated the basic principles of the new syllabo-tonic system, and Lomonosov in his “Letter on the Rules of Russian Poetry” (1739) developed and finalized syllabo-tonic system of versification /41 /. In his discussion “On the Usefulness of Church Books in the Russian Language,” Lomonosov reformed the literary language and proposed the doctrine of the “three calms.” Sumarokov in his treatise "Instruction to those who want to be writers" gave a description of the content and style of classic genres.
As a result of such research, a literary movement was created, which had its own program, creative method and a coherent system of genres.
Artistic creativity was considered by the classicists as strict adherence to "reasonable" rules, eternal laws, created on the basis of studying the best examples of ancient authors and French literature of the 17th century. According to the classic canons, "correct" and "incorrect" works were distinguished. Even the works of Shakespeare were among the “wrong” ones. Strict rules existed for each genre and required the strictest observance. The genres were distinguished by "purity" and unambiguity. For example, it was not allowed to introduce “touching” episodes into comedy, and comic episodes into tragedy. The classicists developed a strict system of genres. Genres were divided into "high" and "low". The "high" genres included an ode, an epic poem, a laudatory speech. To the "low" - comedy, fable, epigram. True, Lomonosov also offered "medium" genres - tragedy and satire, but tragedy gravitated towards the "high", and satire - to the "low" genres. In the "high" genres, heroes were depicted who could serve as role models - monarchs, generals, etc., the most popular of them was the image of Peter the Great. In the "low" genres, characters were drawn, captured by one or another "passion".
The basis of the creative method of the classicists was rational thinking. The classicists sought to decompose human psychology into its simplest composite forms. In this regard, abstract-generalizing, without individualization, images (a miser, a hypocrite, a dandy, a braggart, a hypocrite, etc.) appear in the literature of classicism. It should be noted that in one character it was strictly forbidden to combine various "passions" and even more so "vices" and "virtues". The intimate, everyday aspects of the life of an ordinary (private) person were not of interest to classic writers. Their heroes, as a rule, are kings, commanders, devoid of typical national features, abstract schemes, carriers of author's ideas.
When creating dramatic works, it was necessary to observe equally strict rules. These rules concerned three unities" - place, time and action. The classicists wanted to create a kind of illusion of life on the stage, so the stage time had to be close to the time that the viewer spends in the theater. The duration of the action could not exceed 24 hours - this is unity of time. Unity of place due to the fact that the theater, divided into a stage and an auditorium, gave the audience the opportunity to see someone else's life. If the action is transferred to another place, then this illusion will be broken. Therefore, it was believed that it is best to play the action in the same, non-removable scenery, much worse, but acceptable, when events developed within the same house, castle or palace. Unity of action required the presence in the play of only one storyline and a minimum number of characters. The strictest observance of the three unities fettered the inspiration of playwrights. However, there was a rational grain in such stage regulation - the desire for a clear organization of a dramatic work, the concentration of the viewer's attention on the characters themselves and their relationships. All this made many theatrical performances of the era of Russian classicism a true art.
Despite the strict regulation of creativity, the works of each of the classicists differed in their individual characteristics. So, Kantemir and Sumarokov attached great importance to civic education. They called on the nobles to fulfill their public duty, denounced self-interest and ignorance. To achieve this goal, Cantemir wrote his satires, and Sumarokov wrote his tragedies, where he subjected the monarchs themselves to severe judgment, appealing to their civic duty and conscience.
Table of contents
1. Introduction.Classicism as an artistic method...................................2
2. Aesthetics of classicism.
2.1. Basic principles of classicism .................................…………….….....5
2.2. The picture of the world, the concept of personality in the art of classicism...…...5
2.3. Aesthetic nature of classicism .............................................................. ........nine
2.4. Classicism in painting ....................................................... .........................fifteen
2.5. Classicism in sculpture .............................................................. .......................sixteen
2.6. Classicism in architecture ............................................................... .....................eighteen
2.7. Classicism in Literature .................................................................. .......................20
2.8. Classicism in music .............................................................. ...............................22
2.9. Classicism in the theater .............................................................. ...............................22
2.10. The originality of Russian classicism .............................................................. ....22
3. Conclusion……………………………………...…………………………...26
Bibliography..............................…….………………………………….28
Applications ........................................................................................................29
1. Classicism as an artistic method
Classicism is one of the artistic methods that really existed in the history of art. Sometimes it is denoted by the terms "direction" and "style". Classicism (fr. classicisme, from lat. classicus- exemplary) - an artistic style and aesthetic trend in European art of the 17th-19th centuries.
Classicism is based on the ideas of rationalism, which were formed simultaneously with the same ideas in the philosophy of Descartes. A work of art, from the point of view of classicism, should be built on the basis of strict canons, thereby revealing the harmony and logic of the universe itself. Interest for classicism is only eternal, unchanging - in each phenomenon, he seeks to recognize only essential, typological features, discarding random individual signs. The aesthetics of classicism attaches great importance to the social and educational function of art. Classicism takes many rules and canons from ancient art (Aristotle, Horace).
Classicism establishes a strict hierarchy of genres, which are divided into high (ode, tragedy, epic) and low (comedy, satire, fable). Each genre has strictly defined features, mixing of which is not allowed.
The concept of classicism as a creative method implies a historically conditioned way of aesthetic perception and modeling of reality in artistic images: the picture of the world and the concept of personality, the most common for the mass aesthetic consciousness of a given historical era, are embodied in ideas about the essence of verbal art, its relationship with reality , its own internal laws.
Classicism arises and is formed in certain historical and cultural conditions. The most common research belief connects classicism with the historical conditions of the transition from feudal fragmentation to a single national-territorial statehood, in the formation of which the absolute monarchy plays a centralizing role.
Classicism is an organic stage in the development of any national culture, despite the fact that different national cultures go through the classic stage at different times, due to the individuality of the national variant of the formation of a general social model of a centralized state.
The chronological framework for the existence of classicism in different European cultures is defined as the second half of the 17th - the first thirty years of the 18th century, despite the fact that early classicist trends are palpable at the end of the Renaissance, at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. Within these chronological limits, French classicism is considered the standard embodiment of the method. Closely associated with the flourishing of French absolutism in the second half of the 17th century, it gave European culture not only the great writers - Corneille, Racine, Molière, Lafontaine, Voltaire, but also the great theorist of classic art - Nicolas Boileau-Depreau. Being himself a practicing writer who earned fame during his lifetime with his satires, Boileau was mainly famous for creating the aesthetic code of classicism - the didactic poem "Poetic Art" (1674), in which he gave a coherent theoretical concept of literary creativity, derived from the literary practice of his contemporaries. Thus, classicism in France became the most self-conscious embodiment of the method. Hence its reference value.
The historical prerequisites for the emergence of classicism connect the aesthetic problems of the method with the era of aggravation of the relationship between the individual and society in the process of becoming an autocratic statehood, which, replacing the social permissiveness of feudalism, seeks to regulate the law and clearly distinguish between the spheres of public and private life and the relationship between the individual and the state. This defines the content aspect of art. Its main principles are motivated by the system of philosophical views of the era. They form a picture of the world and the concept of personality, and already these categories are embodied in the totality of artistic techniques of literary creativity.
The most general philosophical concepts present in all philosophical currents of the second half of the 17th - late 18th centuries. and directly related to the aesthetics and poetics of classicism - these are the concepts of "rationalism" and "metaphysics", relevant for both idealistic and materialistic philosophical teachings of this time. The founder of the philosophical doctrine of rationalism is the French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650). The fundamental thesis of his doctrine: "I think, therefore I exist" - was realized in many philosophical currents of that time, united by the common name "Cartesianism" (from the Latin version of the name Descartes - Cartesius). In essence, this is an idealistic thesis, since it derives the material existence from an idea. However, rationalism, as an interpretation of reason as the primary and highest spiritual ability of a person, is equally characteristic of the materialistic philosophical currents of the era - such as, for example, the metaphysical materialism of the English philosophical school of Bacon-Locke, which recognized experience as a source of knowledge, but put it below the generalizing and analytical activity of the mind, extracting from the multitude of facts obtained by experience the highest idea, a means of modeling the cosmos - the highest reality - from the chaos of individual material objects.
To both varieties of rationalism - idealistic and materialistic - the concept of "metaphysics" is equally applicable. Genetically, it goes back to Aristotle, and in his philosophical teaching it denoted a branch of knowledge that explores the inaccessible to the senses and only rationally speculatively comprehended by the highest and unchanging principles of everything that exists. Both Descartes and Bacon used the term in the Aristotelian sense. In modern times, the concept of "metaphysics" has acquired an additional meaning and has come to denote an anti-dialectical way of thinking that perceives phenomena and objects without their interconnection and development. Historically, this very accurately characterizes the peculiarities of thinking of the analytical era of the 17th-18th centuries, the period of differentiation of scientific knowledge and art, when each branch of science, standing out from the syncretic complex, acquired its own separate subject, but at the same time lost its connection with other branches of knowledge.
2. Aesthetics of classicism
2.1. Basic principles of classicism
1. Cult of reason2. The cult of civic duty
3. Appeal to medieval subjects
4. Abstraction from the image of life, from the historical national identity
5. Imitation of antique samples
6. Compositional harmony, symmetry, unity of a work of art
7. Heroes are carriers of one main trait, given out of development
8. Antithesis as the main technique for creating a work of art
2.2. Worldview, personality concept
in the art of classicism
The picture of the world generated by the rationalistic type of consciousness clearly divides reality into two levels: empirical and ideological. The external, visible and tangible material-empirical world consists of many separate material objects and phenomena that are not connected with each other in any way - this is a chaos of individual private entities. However, above this chaotic multitude of individual objects, their ideal hypostasis exists - a harmonious and harmonious whole, the universal idea of the universe, which includes the ideal image of any material object in its highest, purified from particulars, eternal and unchanging form: in the way it should be according to original intention of the Creator. This general idea can only be comprehended in a rational-analytical way by gradually purifying an object or phenomenon from its specific forms and appearance and penetrating into its ideal essence and purpose.
And since the idea precedes creation, and the indispensable condition and source of existence is thinking, this ideal reality has the highest primary character. It is easy to see that the main patterns of such a two-level picture of reality are very easily projected onto the main sociological problem of the period of transition from feudal fragmentation to autocratic statehood - the problem of the relationship between the individual and the state. The world of people is the world of individual private human beings, chaotic and disorderly, the state is a comprehensive harmonious idea that creates a harmonious and harmonious ideal world order from chaos. It is this philosophical picture of the world of the XVII-XVIII centuries. determined such substantive aspects of the aesthetics of classicism as the concept of personality and the typology of conflict, universally characteristic (with the necessary historical and cultural variations) for classicism in any European literature.
In the area of human relations with the outside world, classicism sees two types of connections and positions - the same two levels that make up the philosophical picture of the world. The first level is the so-called "natural person", a biological being, standing along with all the objects of the material world. This is a private entity, possessed by selfish passions, disorderly and unrestricted in its desire to ensure its personal existence. At this level of human connections with the world, the leading category that determines the spiritual image of a person is passion - blind and unrestrained in its desire for realization in the name of achieving individual good.
The second level of the concept of personality is the so-called "social person", harmoniously included in society in his highest, ideal image, aware that his good is an integral part of the common good. A “public person” is guided in his worldview and actions not by passions, but by reason, since it is reason that is the highest spiritual ability of a person, giving him the opportunity of positive self-determination in the conditions of a human community based on the ethical norms of consistent community life. Thus, the concept of the human personality in the ideology of classicism turns out to be complex and contradictory: a natural (passionate) and social (reasonable) person is one and the same character, torn apart by internal contradictions and in a situation of choice.
Hence - the typological conflict of the art of classicism, which directly follows from such a concept of personality. It is quite obvious that the source of the conflict situation is precisely the character of the person. Character is one of the central aesthetic categories of classicism, and its interpretation is significantly different from the meaning that modern consciousness and literary criticism puts into the term "character". In the understanding of the aesthetics of classicism, character is precisely the ideal hypostasis of a person - that is, not the individual warehouse of a particular human personality, but a certain universal view of human nature and psychology, timeless in its essence. Only in this form of an eternal, unchanging, universal human attribute could character be an object of classic art, unambiguously related to the highest, ideal level of reality.
The main components of character are passions: love, hypocrisy, courage, stinginess, a sense of duty, envy, patriotism, etc. It is by the predominance of one passion that the character is determined: “in love”, “stingy”, “envious”, “patriot”. All these definitions are precisely "characters" in the understanding of the classic aesthetic consciousness.
However, these passions are not equivalent to each other, although according to the philosophical concepts of the XVII-XVIII centuries. all passions are equal, since they are all from human nature, they are all natural, and it is not possible for any passion to decide which passion is consistent with the ethical dignity of a person and which is not. These decisions are made only by the mind. While all passions are equally categories of emotional spiritual life, some of them (such as love, avarice, envy, hypocrisy, etc.) are less and more difficult to agree with the dictates of reason and are more connected with the concept of selfish good. Others (courage, sense of duty, honor, patriotism) are more subject to rational control and do not contradict the idea of the common good, the ethics of social ties.
So it turns out that rational and unreasonable passions, altruistic and egoistic, personal and public passions collide in the conflict. And reason is the highest spiritual ability of a person, a logical and analytical tool that allows you to control passions and distinguish good from evil, truth from falsehood. The most common type of classic conflict is a conflict situation between personal inclination (love) and a sense of duty to society and the state, which for some reason excludes the possibility of realizing love passion. It is quite obvious that by its nature this is a psychological conflict, although a necessary condition for its implementation is a situation in which the interests of an individual and society collide. These most important ideological aspects of the aesthetic thinking of the era found their expression in the system of ideas about the laws of artistic creativity.
2.3. Aesthetic nature of classicism
The aesthetic principles of classicism have undergone significant changes during its existence. A characteristic feature of this trend is the worship of antiquity. The art of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome was considered by the classicists as an ideal model of artistic creativity. Aristotle's "Poetics" and Horace's "Art of Poetry" had a great influence on the formation of the aesthetic principles of classicism. Here, there is a tendency to create sublimely heroic, ideal, rationalistically clear and plastically completed images. As a rule, in the art of classicism, modern political, moral and aesthetic ideals are embodied in characters, conflicts, situations borrowed from the arsenal of ancient history, mythology or directly from ancient art.
The aesthetics of classicism oriented poets, artists, composers to the creation of works of art that are distinguished by clarity, logic, strict balance and harmony. All this, according to the classicists, was fully reflected in ancient artistic culture. For them reason and antiquity are synonymous. The rationalistic nature of the aesthetics of classicism manifested itself in the abstract typification of images, the strict regulation of genres and forms, in the interpretation of the ancient artistic heritage, in the appeal of art to reason, and not to feelings, in the desire to subordinate the creative process to unshakable norms, rules and canons (norm - from lat. norma - guiding principle, rule, pattern; generally accepted rule, pattern of behavior or action).
As in Italy, the aesthetic principles of the Renaissance found their most typical expression, so in France of the 17th century. - aesthetic principles of classicism. By the 17th century the artistic culture of Italy has largely lost its former influence. But the innovative spirit of French art was clearly indicated. At this time, an absolutist state was formed in France, which united society and centralized power.
The strengthening of absolutism meant the victory of the principle of universal regulation in all spheres of life, from the economy to the spiritual life. Debt is the main regulator of human behavior. The state embodies this duty and acts as a kind of entity alienated from the individual. Submission to the state, fulfillment of public duty is the highest virtue of the individual. A person is no longer thought of as free, as was typical of the Renaissance worldview, but as subordinate to norms and rules alien to him, limited by forces beyond his control. The regulating and limiting force appears in the form of an impersonal mind, to which the individual must obey and act, following his commands and prescriptions.
The high rise in production contributed to the development of the exact sciences: mathematics, astronomy, physics, and this, in turn, led to the victory of rationalism (from Latin ratio - mind) - a philosophical direction that recognizes the mind as the basis of human knowledge and behavior.
Ideas about the laws of creativity and the structure of a work of art are due to the same epoch-making type of worldview as the picture of the world and the concept of personality. The mind, as the highest spiritual ability of a person, is thought not only as an instrument of knowledge, but also as an organ of creativity, and a source of aesthetic pleasure. One of the most striking leitmotifs of Boileau's Poetic Art is the rational nature of aesthetic activity:
Tambov State University G.R. Derzhavin
University of the Foreign languages
ESSAY
by discipline: "Introduction to Literary Studies"
on the topic: "Classicism as a literary movement»
Tambov 2008
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….3
The history of the emergence of classicism in world literature……...5
The fundamental principles of classicism as a literary trend……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Features of the development of classicism in French literature…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Features of the development of classicism in Russian literature………15
Classicism in other European literatures…………………..17
Distinctive features of the classicism of Russia from the classicism of France and other European countries……………………………………….18
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...20
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………...22
Introduction
Classicism is one of the most important trends in the literature of the past. Having established itself in the works and creativity of many generations, putting forward a brilliant galaxy of poets and writers, classicism left such milestones on the path of the artistic development of mankind as the tragedies of Corneille, Racine, Milton, Voltaire, the comedies of Molière and many other literary works. History itself confirms the viability of the traditions of the classicist artistic system and the value of the concepts of the world and the human person underlying it, primarily the moral imperative characteristic of classicism.
Undoubtedly, classicism did not always and in everything remain identical to itself. Like any significant phenomenon of human culture, it was characterized by a tense dialectic of development. This is especially obvious if we consider classicism in the perspective of its three centuries of existence and in various national variants, in which it appears to us in France, in Germany and in Russia. Taking its first steps in the 16th century, that is, at the time of the mature Renaissance, classicism absorbed and reflected the atmosphere of this revolutionary era, and at the same time it carried new trends that were destined to vigorously manifest themselves only in the next century. Scholars rightly place emphasis on the continuity of the classicism of the 17th century with a wide range of ideological and aesthetic concepts of the Renaissance. And at the same time, the 17th century, with its inherent complexity and inconsistency of the historical process, is already breaking the old ideas about the world and man, determining the nature and development of culture in general and classicism in particular as one of the leading artistic trends of the era. At the same time, the difference in the fate of classicism in individual countries, its national specificity, clearly emerges.
The fact that classicism is one of the most studied and theoretically thought-out literary trends is indisputable. But, despite this, its detailed study is still an extremely relevant topic for a modern researcher, largely due to the fact that it requires special flexibility and subtlety of analysis. This is primarily due to the complex dynamics of various literary movements of the era of the emergence of classicism, as well as the conventionality of schematizing classifications given by researchers of the 18th century. The formation of the concept of classicism requires a systematic, purposeful work of the researcher based on attitudes towards artistic perception and the development of value judgments in the analysis of the text. Therefore, in modern science, contradictions often arise between the new tasks of literary research and the old approaches to the formation of theoretical and literary concepts about classicism. This problem determines the need for theoretical and experimental substantiation of the ways of formation of theoretical and literary concepts in the framework of considering classicism as a literary trend.
In connection with the need to develop theoretical and methodological foundations for the formation of the concept of classicism, the purpose of this work can be formulated as considering the history of the formation of classicism as a literary movement, identifying its main features and tracing the features of its development in French, Russian and other European national literatures.
The purpose of the study, in turn, determines the following tasks:
To study works on the theory and history of literature that are directly related to the research problem, and, having systematized the material worked out, to trace the history of the development of classicism as a literary trend
Highlight the fundamental principles of classicism
Reveal the original nature of the development of classicism within the framework of various national literatures (French, Russian and others)
Determine the distinctive features of the development of classicism in Russia from the classicism of France and other European countries.
ChapterI
The history of the emergence of classicism in world literature
Classicism (from the Latin classicus - “exemplary, first-class”) is an artistic movement that originated in the Renaissance, which, along with the Baroque, occupied an important place in the literature of the 17th century and continued to develop in the Enlightenment - until the first decades of the 19th century.
The adjective "classical" is very ancient: even before getting its main meaning in Latin, "classicus" meant "noble, wealthy, respected citizen." Having received the meaning of "exemplary", the concept of "classical" began to be applied to such literary works and authors that became the subject of school study, were intended for reading in classes. It was in this sense that the word was used both in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, and in the 17th century the meaning "worthy of study in classes" was enshrined in dictionaries (for example, in the Dictionary of Richlet 1680). The definition of "classical" was therefore applied only to ancient, ancient authors, and not to modern writers, even if their works were recognized as artistically perfect and aroused the admiration of readers.
Voltaire was the first to use the epithet "classical" in relation to the writers of the 17th century. The modern meaning of the word "classical", which significantly expands the list of authors belonging to the literary classics, began to take shape in the era of romanticism. At the same time, the concept of "classicism" appeared. Both terms among the romantics often had a negative connotation: classicism and "classics" were opposed to "romantics" as outdated literature, blindly imitating antiquity - innovative literature. On the contrary, the opponents of romanticism, primarily in France, began to use these words as a designation of truly national literature, opposing foreign (English, German) influences, they defined the word "classics" of the great authors of the past - Corneille, Racine, Moliere, La Rochefoucauld.
The high appreciation of the achievements of French literature of the 17th century, its importance for the formation of other national literatures of the New Age - German, English and others - contributed to the fact that this century was considered the "era of classicism", in which French writers and their diligent students in other countries played a leading role. countries. The same writers who clearly did not fit into the framework of classicist principles were assessed as "lagging behind" or "lost their way." In fact, two terms were established, the meanings of which partly intersected: “classical” - exemplary, artistically perfect, included in the fund of world literature, and “classic” - referring to classicism as a literary movement, embodying the artistic principles of classicism.
“Classicism” is a concept that entered the history of literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, written by scientists of the cultural-historical school (G. Lanson and others). Following these works, the term “classicism” began to be actively used in literary criticism. The features of classicism were primarily determined from the dramatic theory of the 17th century and from N. Boileau's treatise “Poetic Art” (1674). It was considered as a direction oriented towards ancient art, drawing its ideas from Aristotle's Poetics, and on the other hand, as literature of the era of absolute monarchy, embodying absolutist ideology.
The revision of this concept of classicism both in foreign and domestic literary criticism falls on the 1950s and 60s: from now on, classicism began to be interpreted by most scientists not as an “artistic expression of absolutism”, but as a “literary movement that experienced a period of bright heyday in the 15th century, in years of strengthening and triumph of absolutism”. The term "classicism" retained its role even when scientists turned to non-classical, baroque works of literature of the 15th century. In the definition of classicism, they singled out, first of all, the desire for clarity and accuracy of expression, strict obedience to the rules (the so-called “three unities”), and alignment with antique samples.
The origin and spread of classicism was associated not only with the strengthening of the absolute monarchy, but with the emergence and influence of the rationalist philosophy of R. Descartes, with the development of the exact sciences, especially mathematics. In the first half of the 20th century, classicism was called the "school of the 1660s" - a period when great writers - Racine, Moliere, Lafontaine and Boileau - simultaneously worked in French literature.
Gradually, the origins of classicism were revealed in the Italian literature of the Renaissance: in the poetics of D. Cintio, J. Ts. Scaliger, L. Castelvetro, in the tragedies of D. Trissino and T. Tasso. The search for an “ordered manner”, the laws of “true art” was found both in English (F. Sidney, B. Johnson, D. Milton, D. Dryden, A. Pope, D. Addison), and in German (M. Opitz, G. .Gotsched, I.V. Goethe, F. Schiller), and in the same Italian (D. Chiabrera, V. Alfieri) literature of the 17-18 centuries. A significant place in European literature was also occupied by Russian classicism of the Enlightenment (A.P. Sumarokov, M.V. Lomonosov, G.R. Derzhavin and others). All this made modern researchers consider classicism as one of the important components of the artistic life of Europe for several centuries and as one of the two main literary trends that laid the foundations of the culture of the New Age.
The fundamental principles of classicism as a literary movement
Classicism is formed, experiencing the influence of other pan-European trends in art that are directly in contact with it: it repels the aesthetics of the Renaissance that preceded it and opposes the baroque art that actively coexists with it, imbued with the consciousness of general discord generated by the crisis of the ideals of the past era. Continuing some of the traditions of the Renaissance (admiration for the ancients, faith in reason, the ideal of harmony and measure), classicism was a kind of antithesis to it. Behind the external harmony in classicism lies the internal antinomy of the worldview, which made it related to the baroque. Generic and individual, public and private, reason and feeling, civilization and nature, which acted as a single harmonious whole in the art of the Renaissance, are polarized in classicism, becoming mutually exclusive concepts. This reflected a new historical state, when the political and private spheres began to disintegrate, and social relations turned into a separate and abstract force for a person.
The principles of rationalism (from the Latin ratio - “reason, rationality, expediency, reasonable validity of everything, the harmony of the Universe, due to its spiritual beginning”), corresponding to the philosophical ideas of R. Descartes and Cartesianism, underlie the aesthetics of classicism. Descartes defended the inviolability of the visible picture of the world, which corresponded to the state model of absolute monarchy, which was a “public pyramid”, where the monarch was at the top, and the rest were subjects of His Majesty. Classicism formulated the goal of literature as an impact on the mind to correct vices and educate virtue, which clearly expressed the author's point of view (for example, Corneille glorifies the heroes who defend the state, the absolute monarch). In accordance with it, the denunciation of ignorance, selfishness, despotism of the feudal order and the assertion of human dignity, civic and moral duty should be carried out from the standpoint of statehood and enlightenment. At the same time, the monarchy was glorified, which reasonably governs the people and cares about education. Classicists define the view of a work of art as an artificial creation - consciously created, reasonably organized, logically built.
The exaltation of the mind was due to the belittling of feelings, direct perception of the surrounding reality. Creating a work of art, the writer tried in every possible way to get closer to antique samples and strictly follow the rules specially developed for this by the theoreticians of classicism. This hampered the freedom of creativity, tore literature away from life, the writer from modernity, and thus gave his work a conditional, artificial character. The most important thing is that the socio-political system of this era, based on the oppression of the common people, in no way corresponded to reasonable concepts of natural, normal relations between people.
Having put forward the principle of "imitation of nature", the classicists consider it an indispensable condition for its strict observance of the unshakable rules drawn from ancient poetics (Aristotle, Horace) and art, which determine the laws of the artistic form, in which the reasonable creative will of the writer is manifested, turning life material into beautiful, logically slender and clear work of art. The artistic transformation of nature, the transformation of nature into beautiful and ennobled, is at the same time an act of its highest knowledge - art is called upon to reveal the ideal regularity of the universe, often hidden behind the external chaos and disorder of reality. Therefore, the mind, which comprehends the ideal pattern, acts as an “arrogant” principle in relation to individual characteristics and the living diversity of life.
Aesthetic value for classicism has only generic, enduring, timeless. In each phenomenon, classicism seeks to find and capture its essential, stable features (this is connected with the appeal to antiquity as an absolute supra-historical aesthetic norm, as well as the principles of typification of characters that act as the embodiment of any social or spiritual forces). The classic image gravitates towards the model in which life is stopped in its ideally eternal form, it is a special mirror where the individual turns into generic, temporary into eternal, real into ideal, history into myth, it depicts what is everywhere and what is not anywhere. in the reality. He is the triumph of reason and order over chaos and the fluid empiricism of life. The embodiment of sublime ethical ideas in harmoniously beautiful forms that are adequate to them gives the works created according to the canons of classicism a shade of utopianism, which is also due to the fact that the aesthetics of classicism attaches great importance to the social and educational function of art.
The aesthetics of classicism establishes a strict hierarchy of genres, which are divided into "high" (tragedy, epic, ode, heroic poem, etc.), the sphere of which was state life or religious history, and the heroes were monarchs, generals, mythological characters, religious ascetics) and "low" (comedy, satire, fable), depicting the private everyday life of people of the middle classes. An intermediate place was occupied by "middle" genres (drama, message, elegy, idyll, sonnet, song), depicting the inner world of an individual. They did not play a prominent role in the literary process. The classification of genres was based on the theory of “three styles” (high, low and medium), known since ancient times. One of the styles was provided for each genre, each genre has strict boundaries and clear formal features. No mixing of the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic, the heroic and the mundane is allowed.
The heroes of the works of classicism, mainly tragedies, were "high": kings, princes, generals, leaders, nobles, higher clergy, noble citizens who care about the fate of the fatherland and serve it. Heroes were depicted only in verse and in an elevated style, since prose was considered humiliating, “despicable” for high-ranking officials. In comedies, not only high-ranking persons were depicted, but also commoners, serf servants.
In the works of classicism, the characters were divided into strictly positive and negative, into virtuous, ideal, devoid of individuality, acting at the behest of reason, and carriers of vice, who are in the grip of selfish passions. At the same time, in the depiction of positive characters, there was schematism, reasoning, that is, a tendency to moralizing reasoning from the author's positions.
The characters, as a rule, were unilinear: the hero personified any one quality (passion) - intelligence, courage, courage, nobility, honesty or greed, deceit, stinginess, cruelty, flattery, hypocrisy, boasting (for example, Mitrofan's leading feature in " Undergrowth "- laziness). Heroes were portrayed statically, without the evolution of characters. In fact, they were just images-masks. Often used "talking" names of characters (Tartuffe, Pravdin).
In the works of classic writers, there has always been a conflict between good and evil, reason and stupidity, duty and feeling, that is, the so-called stereotypical collision, in which good, reason, and duty won. In other words, in the works of classicism, vice was always punished, and virtue triumphed. Hence the abstractness and conventionality of the image of reality.
The heroes of classicism spoke in a pompous, solemn, upbeat language. Writers, as a rule, used such poetic means as Slavicisms, hyperbole, metaphor, personification, metonymy, comparison, antithesis, emotional epithets, rhetorical questions and exclamations, appeals, mythological similes. Syllabic versification dominated and Alexandrian verse was used. The actors uttered long monologues in order to more fully reveal their views, beliefs, principles. Such monologues slowed down the action of the play.
In dramaturgy, the theory of “three unities” dominated - place (all the action of the play took place in one place), time (events in the play developed during the day), action (what happened on the stage had its beginning, development and end, while there were no “extra” episodes and characters that are not directly related to the development of the main plot). Proponents of classicism usually borrowed plots for works from ancient history or mythology. The rules of classicism demanded a logical unfolding of the plot, harmony of composition, clarity and conciseness of the language, rational clarity and noble beauty of style.
ChapterII
Features of the development of classicism in French literature
The poetics of French classicism takes shape and is gradually realized in the struggle with precision literature and burlesque, but it receives a complete systemic expression only in N. Boileau's Poetic Art (1674), which generalized the artistic experience of French literature of the 17th century.
The initiator of poetry and poetics of classicism was F. Malherbe. The reform of language and verse carried out by him was consolidated by the French Academy, which was entrusted with the task of creating a universally binding linguistic and literary canon. The leading genre of classicism was tragedy, solving the most important social and moral problems of the century. Social conflicts are depicted in it as reflected in the souls of the characters, who are faced with the need to choose between moral duty and personal passions. This collision reflected the emerging polarization of the public and private being of a person, which also determined the structure of the image. The generic, social essence, the thinking, rational "I" opposes the direct individual being of the hero, who, taking the point of view of reason, surveys himself as if from the outside, reflects, languishes with his split, feels the imperative to become equal to his ideal "I".
At an early stage (according to P. Corneille), this imperative merges with the duty to the state, and later (according to J. Racine), as the alienation of the state intensifies, it loses its political content and acquires an ethical character. The inner feeling of the impending crisis of the absolutist system is reflected in the tragedies of Racine and in the fact that an ideally harmonious artistic construction is in conflict with the chaos of blind and spontaneous passions reigning in them, before which the mind and will of man are powerless.
In French classicism, "low" genres also reached a high development - fable (J. La Fontaine), satire (Boileau), comedy (Molière). It was in the "low" genres, the image of which is built not in the ideal distance of the historical or mythological past, but in the zone of direct contact with the present, that the realistic beginning was developed. This primarily applies to Moliere, whose work absorbed various ideological and artistic trends and largely determined the further development of literature.
Within the framework of classicism, prose also develops, which is characterized by typification of passions, analytical characteristics, accuracy and clarity of style (the prose of the moralists F. La Rochefoucauld, B. Pascal, J. La Bruyère, as well as the psychological novel by M. M. Lafayette).
The genre nature of the thinking of the French classicists led to the fact that each of the writers contributed to the development of a particular genre, which occupied a hierarchical place in the general genre system.
In the work of J. Racine, the dominant genre was the psychological tragedy: "Andromache", "Phaedra" and others. Racine believed that rationality is the basis of the work: "common sense and reason were the same at all times." The playwright refused the "perfect" hero: "Heroes must have average virtues, that is, virtue capable of weakness."
The leading genre in the work of P. Corneille was the political tragedy: "Sid", "Horace", etc. The main conflict in his plays is the struggle of feelings and duty to the state, fatherland, king, society. "Tragedy," he argued, "needs a nobler and more masculine passion than love..." Therefore, the tragedy of Corneille is formed as a political treatise on contemporary problems of the historical era to the playwright.
The leading genre in the work of J.-B. Moliere - "high comedy" ("Tartuffe", "Miserly", etc.). With Molière, comedy ceased to be a "low" genre: his best plays were called "high comedies", because in them, as in tragedy, the most important social, moral and philosophical problems of the century were solved. Molière put forward the demand for scenic truth. He argued: "The theater is a mirror of society." His plays were predominantly satirical. "We," noted the comiciographer, "inflict a heavy blow on vices, expose them to general ridicule." Moliere subordinated the development of the plot, the conflict, not to the disclosure of character, but centered the image on revealing the main character trait.
Having entered a period of decline at the end of the 17th century, classicism was revived in the Age of Enlightenment. A new, enlightening classicism coexisted throughout the 18th century. with enlightenment realism, and by the end of the century it becomes again the dominant artistic trend. Enlighteners in many ways continue the traditions of classicism of the 17th century. They turned out to be close to the position expressed in classicism of a person who consciously relates to the world and to himself, capable of subordinating his aspirations and passions to social and moral duty.
However, the socio-political orientation of Enlightenment classicism is changing. In the traditions of classicism, Voltaire creates tragedies imbued with the struggle against religious fanaticism, absolutist oppression, and the pathos of freedom. The appeal to antiquity as to the world of ideal prototypes, which was the essence of classicism, including enlightenment, had deep roots in the ideology of the Enlightenment. Where enlighteners sought to penetrate beyond the external empiricism of life, to go beyond private life, they found themselves, as a rule, in the world of ideal abstractions, because in all their constructions they proceeded from an isolated individual and did not seek the essence of a person in the social conditions of his being. , not in history, but in abstractly understood human nature. The literature of the Great French Revolution, which clothed heroic aspirations in ancient myths and legends (the work of M. J. Chenier and others), is closely connected with enlightenment classicism.
In the era of the Napoleonic Empire, classicism lost its lively progressive content. Nevertheless, as an epigone current, it existed in France until the 30s and 40s. 19th century
Features of the development of classicism in Russian literature
Classicism in Russia originated in the second quarter of the 18th century. under the ideological influence of the era of Peter the Great (with its pathos of unconditional subordination of the individual to consciously understood national interests) in the work of the first Russian enlighteners - the founders of the new Russian literature Kantemir, Trediakovsky, Lomonosov.
V.I. Fedorov proposes to subdivide the history of the formation of classicism in Russia into several periods:
1st period: literature of the time of Peter the Great, which is of a transitional nature. The main feature is the intensive process of "secularization" (that is, the replacement of religious literature with secular literature - 1689-1725). The main genres at this stage were oratorical prose, political treatises and sermons directed against the reforms of Peter I. During this period, the first published newspaper Vedomosti appeared, textbooks, poems, novels appeared, and dramaturgy appeared. The most striking figure, one of the most educated people was Feofan Prokopovich.
3rd period: 1760-1770 - the further evolution of classicism, the flowering of satire, the emergence of prerequisites for the emergence of sentimentalism. During this period, parodic genres, humorous poems, novellas were actively developed, and literary magazines were published.
4th period: the last quarter of a century - the beginning of the crisis of classicism, the design of sentimentalism, the strengthening of realistic tendencies. The literature of the last, 4 periods, developed during the period of upheavals, social explosions, foreign revolutions (American, French). During this period, the comic opera flourished, the work of Fonvizin (fables, songs, comedies), the work of Derzhavin (odes), the work of Radishchev (author of Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow), Krylov (fables, comedies, tragedies).
The main thing in the ideology of classicism is state pathos. The state, created in the first decades of the 18th century, was declared the highest value. The classicists, inspired by the Petrine reforms, believed in the possibility of its further improvement. It seemed to them a rationally arranged social organism, where each estate performs the duties assigned to it. “Peasants plow, merchants trade, warriors defend the fatherland, judges judge, scientists cultivate science,” wrote A.P. Sumarokov. The state pathos of the Russian classicists is a deeply contradictory phenomenon. It also reflected the progressive tendencies associated with the final centralization of Russia, and at the same time - utopian ideas coming from a clear overestimation of the social possibilities of enlightened absolutism.
Equally contradictory is the attitude of the classicists to the "nature" of man. Its basis, in their opinion, is selfish, but at the same time amenable to education, the influence of civilization. The key to this is the mind, which the classicists opposed to emotions, "passions". Reason helps to realize "duty" to the state, while "passions" distract from socially useful activities. “Virtue,” Sumarokov wrote, “we owe not to our nature. Morality and politics make us useful to the common good in terms of enlightenment, reason and purification of hearts. And without that, people would have long ago exterminated each other without a trace.
The originality of Russian classicism lies in the fact that in the era of its formation it combined the pathos of serving the absolutist state with the ideas of the early European Enlightenment. In 18th century France absolutism had already exhausted its progressive possibilities, and society was facing a bourgeois revolution, which was ideologically prepared by the French enlighteners. In Russia in the first decades of the XVIII century. absolutism was still at the head of progressive transformations for the country. Therefore, at the first stage of its development, Russian classicism adopted from the Enlightenment some of its social doctrines. These include primarily the idea of enlightened absolutism.
Russian classicism was distinguished by its constant appeal to national themes, to plots from Russian reality, from Russian history. In the preaching of national ideas, in the formation of socially useful, civic qualities of a person, in the development of an anti-despotic orientation, in educational tendencies, the objectively progressive significance of Russian classicism lay, its connection with life, the people, was closer.
In Russian classicism, a accusatory-realistic tendency manifested itself, expressed in satire, comedy, fable, which violated the principle of abstract depiction of reality inherent in traditional classicism. There was a strong connection with folk art, which gave the works of Russian classicism a democratic imprint, while Western European classicism avoided the inclusion of colloquial expressions and the use of folklore techniques.
Classicism in other European literatures
Under the influence of French literature, classicism also developed in other European countries: in England (A. Pope, J. Addison), Italy (V. Alfieri, partly Hugo Foscolo), and Germany (Gotsched, Schiller, Goethe). However, in European literature, classicism was not as widespread as in French and Russian.
The classicist works of Gottsched, wholly oriented to French models, did not leave a significant mark in German literature, and only in the second half of the 18th century. a new German classicism is emerging as an original artistic phenomenon (the so-called Weimar classicism). Unlike French, he puts forward moral and aesthetic problems to the fore. Its foundations were laid by J. I. Winkelmann, but it reached its highest peak with J. W. Goethe and F. Schiller in the Weimar period of their work. The "noble simplicity", harmony and artistic perfection of the Greek classics, which arose under the conditions of polis democracy, were opposed by German poets to the squalor of German reality and all modern civilization, crippling a person. Schiller and, to some extent, Goethe, sought in art the main means of educating a harmonious personality and, turning to antiquity, sought to create a new, modern, high-style literature capable of fulfilling this task.
Distinctive features of classicism in Russia from the classicism of France and other European countries
In contrast to the French classicism of the XVII century. and in direct accordance with the Age of Enlightenment in Russian classicism of the 30-50s, a huge place was given to the sciences, knowledge, and enlightenment. The country has made the transition from church ideology to secular. Russia needed accurate, useful knowledge for society. Lomonosov spoke about the benefits of the sciences in almost all of his odes. The first satire of Kantemir “To your mind. On those who blaspheme the teaching." The very word "enlightened" meant not just an educated person, but a citizen who was helped by knowledge to realize his responsibility to society. "Ignorance" meant not only a lack of knowledge, but at the same time a lack of understanding of one's duty to the state.
In the Western European educational literature of the 18th century, especially at the late stage of its development, "enlightenment" was determined by the degree of opposition to the existing order. In Russian classicism of the 30s-50s, "enlightenment" was measured by the measure of civil service to the absolutist state. The Russian classicists - Kantemir, Lomonosov, Sumarokov - were close to the struggle of the enlighteners against the church and church ideology. But if in the West it was about protecting the principle of religious tolerance, and in some cases atheism, then Russian enlighteners in the first half of the 18th century. denounced the ignorance and rude morals of the clergy, defended science and its adherents from persecution by church authorities. The first Russian classicists already knew the enlightening idea of the natural equality of people. “The flesh in your servant is one-sided,” Cantemir pointed out to a nobleman who was beating a valet. Sumarokov reminded the "noble" class that "born from women and from ladies / / Without exception, all forefather Adam." But this thesis at that time was not yet embodied in the demand for the equality of all classes before the law. Cantemir, based on the principles of "natural law", called on the nobles to humane treatment of the peasants. Sumarokov, pointing to the natural equality of nobles and peasants, demanded from the "first" members of the fatherland of education and service to confirm their "nobility" and command position in the country.
In the purely artistic realm, the Russian classicists faced such difficult tasks that their European counterparts did not know. French literature of the middle of the 17th century. already had a well-crafted literary language and secular genres that had developed over a long period of time. Russian literature at the beginning of the 18th century. had neither one nor the other. Therefore, the share of Russian writers of the second third of the XVIII century. the task was not only to create a new literary trend. They were supposed to reform the literary language, master genres unknown in Russia until that time. Each of them was a pioneer. Kantemir laid the foundation for Russian satire, Lomonosov legitimized the ode genre, Sumarokov acted as the author of tragedies and comedies.
In the field of literary language reform, the main role belonged to Lomonosov. The Russian classicists also fell to such a serious task as the reform of Russian versification, the replacement of the syllabic system with a syllabic-tonic one. Trediakovsky wrote a treatise entitled "A New and Short Way to Add Russian Poetry", in which he substantiated the basic principles of a new, syllabic-tonic system. Lomonosov, in his discussion "On the Usefulness of Church Books in the Russian Language," carried out a reform of the literary language and proposed the doctrine of the "three calms."
Conclusion
Summing up, it should be noted once again that classicism was one of the main trends in the literature of the 17th - early 19th centuries, an important feature of which was the appeal to the images and forms of ancient literature and art as an ideal aesthetic standard. The aesthetics of classicism are based on the principles of rationalism, which affirms the view of a work of art as a creation consciously created, reasonably organized and logically constructed. Images in classicism are devoid of individual features, as they are recognized primarily to capture stable, generic features that act as the embodiment of any social or spiritual forces. A strict hierarchy of genres has been established, which are divided into high, low and medium. Each genre has strict boundaries and clear formal features. Classical dramaturgy approved the so-called principle of "unity of place, time and action", which also had to be observed. These are the main features of classicism as a literary trend identified in the course of the study.
Also of no small importance is the fact that classicism had national variants, often quite significantly different from each other. Basically, these differences concerned preferences in the choice of genres and subjects. The most complex and controversial path of development fell to the lot of Russian classicism, since in the era of the emergence of this literary trend in Russia there was no basis for its development, which led to a reform of versification. The features of European classicism in Russia were manifested in the most clearly presented civil-patriotic pathos, a pronounced satirical and accusatory tendency, as well as in the connection of literature with the origins of folk art.
Like any major literary trend, classicism, having actually left the stage, continues to live in the literature of later eras and even partly in modern literature. Classicism bequeathed to her a high civic pathos, the principle of a person's responsibility to society, the idea of duty based on the suppression of a personal, selfish beginning in the name of common state interests.
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Classicism as a literary trend originated in Europe in the 17th century and preceded the Enlightenment, which took shape in the 18th century.
European classicism accepted the idea of Descartes that the beginning of knowledge and development of the world is the mind, consciousness. On the scale of the Universe, it is the absolute Mind, God.
On the scale of human society - the human mind. In contrast to the Renaissance, which, by pushing man to the center of the earthly community, equalized the body and spirit, classicism and the Enlightenment gave primacy to consciousness. “I think, therefore I am,” declared Descartes. In the future, enlighteners will say: "Opinions rule the world." Thus, all Being is a product of Reason.
Picking up the ideas of 17th-century philosophy about the power of reason in human life and in the history of society, classicist writers considered the sphere of feelings as omnipotent as reason. Unintelligible feelings often triumph over everyday reason. Between the mind and the senses, therefore, there is a continuous struggle. These views led the classicists to the conclusion that the state of the world is fundamentally tragic. Therefore, tragedy became the main and widespread genre, high examples of which were given by Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine in France, and on Russian soil by Sumarokov and Knyaznin.
Classicism perceived the world hierarchically, in the form of an ascent from lower to higher levels. The same arrangement extended to human society. Below were uneducated, unenlightened people. Above them are those who have experienced the light of reason, capable of thinking, creating and creating a new “nature”, ennobled by thought. At an even higher level - people with a state mind, on whom the course of history depends; they could have vices, but thanks to reason they always overcame them.
From the point of view of the classicists, the real world in which they lived corresponded to the requirements of an enlightened mind, ideal images of a beautiful and perfect nature, a beautiful and perfect society, a beautiful and perfect person, the samples of which were left to us by the art of antiquity, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome in the heyday of during the High Classic period.
This is where the term “classicism” comes from. The Latin word classicus means "exemplary".
Modern life, the classicists believed, cannot serve as an example of a truly intelligent life. If life is depicted only as it is, then people cannot be captivated by pictures, Sumarokov, in which there is no complete triumph of enlightened reason over the elements of passions that dominate reality. From this, the classicists concluded that their main concern and the main object of their attention should be the ideal life, the life that will certainly arise if it is filled with the light of reason. Thus, reality was admitted into fiction as unprocessed, spontaneous material that had no independent meaning and was subject to the influence of an enlightened mind.
Consequently, the description of any object or person in classicism should be both the way he is in life and the way the artist sees him, and others, corresponding to the concepts of him, that is, reasonable (ideal) norms. Classicism demanded from the writer the image of a living person and a human-ideal, if, of course, it was a hero. At the same time, the true interest of the classicist writer was focused on the idealized, invented world that arose in his head and the attractiveness of which he proved with his work. The aesthetic ideal of a classicist writer is a person whose feelings are ruled by an enlightened mind. In this respect, the man of classicism is opposed to the man of the Renaissance, freed from ascetic church morality, but unrestrained in his individualism, in his desires. The man of classicism, on the contrary, holds on to high moral principles. For him, above all duty to the state. Therefore, he condemns the arbitrariness of passions and subordinates the personal to the public, suppressing his feelings or mastering them.
Since the highest mind is the state mind, the main characters should be kings, emperors, kings, who are guided by the state mind. Classicism asserted the unlimited possibilities of an enlightened monarch who knows what his social duty is.
On the contrary, negative characters, for example, in the comedies of Molière or Fonvizin distort their rights and obligations. So, Mrs. Prostakova in Fonvizin's comedy "Undergrowth" perverts the meaning of the decree on the freedom of the nobility, understanding freedom as complete, unaccountable power over serfs without any moral, social and other restrictions. She considers a single arbitrariness to be her law and says that the nobleman is free, when he wants, to do whatever he wants with the serfs. On this occasion, the positive hero, Starodum, who embodies the true mind, ironically exclaims: “The expert in interpreting decrees!”
On the example of Prostakova, the reader and viewer of the comedy were convinced that she was possessed by low feelings and that reasonable concepts were unknown to her. The historian V. O. Klyuchevsky noted that Prostakova “wanted to say that the law justifies her lawlessness. She said nonsense, and that nonsense is the whole point of The Undergrowth.
Since Prostakova's mind is asleep, she does not understand her duty to society, to her family. The place of reason is occupied by unrestrained base passions. Not controlled by the mind, they turn Prostakova into a despotic tyrannical petty bourgeois.
It is quite natural that Prostakov, who is not aware of her duties, subject to the coarse passions, in the finale of the comedy, suffers a complete collapse both as a landowner and as a teacher of her son.
The behavior of the heroes of classicism is based on strict logic. They act rationalistically (from the word "rationo" - reason). Just as the whole world in the view of the classicists is built hierarchically (from the lowest level to the highest), so the objects of the image, pictures of life in fiction were divided into lower and higher. Each of them corresponds to strictly defined genres.
To depict uneducated, unenlightened people, whose mind is undeveloped, the inner world is simple and uncomplicated, the classicists assigned the genres of comedy, fables, epigrams, songs, which they considered low. Elegies, epistles, idylls (eclogues) were intended to express the soul of an ordinary private person. These genres were called medium. The mind of mighty statesmen, their participation in historical events was sung in heroic poems, commendable, solemn odes. Philosophical odes were devoted to scientific discoveries, the life of the spirit and reflections on the perniciousness of evil, which were an arrangement of psalms on Russian soil, and satire odes full of indignation, sarcastic laughter, but devoid of comedy. These most important genres were considered high.
So, classicism saw the world in the light of high, medium and low genres. This is genre thinking. It lies in the fact that the genre "dictates" to the writer what vital material should be included in the work and what style should be chosen to cover it. It was impossible to express admiration for low pictures in a laudatory ode. In tragedy, comedy was not allowed, and comedy was freed from tragic episodes or conflicts. The mixing of genres was initially considered a violation of rights, although in the future they were not strictly observed and were increasingly loosened.
The works of ancient ancient authors served as examples for the classicists, but not for blind, thoughtless imitation, but to give even greater rationality, nobility, to create a model. The works of ancient authors are not crude, unprocessed nature, but nature already illuminated by thought. Therefore, they become the source and soil of the art of classicism, which alone can reveal their true meaning.
The most important significance of reason is manifested in the fact that it does not tolerate understatement, ambiguity, ambiguity. The writer's word must be precise, containing a direct meaning or, if nature is meant, an objective meaning that conveys objective signs (for example, a fast, deep river; yellow sand, etc.). Similarly, the theorists of classicism insisted on a clear, logical syntactic structure of the sentence and of the entire text.
Russian classicism began to take shape not in the 17th century, like French, but in the 18th century, when, after the death of Peter I, there was a threat to Peter's conquests, a threat of a return to pre-Petrine orders. Russian classicism is more closely connected than French classicism with the ideology of enlightenment, with the idea of an enlightened monarchy. Classicist writers set themselves the task of enlightening the kings, encouraging them to patronize the sciences, promote education, and develop industry - in a word, they taught the monarchs the wise management of the state. As an ideal enlightened autocrat, imbued with an hourly concern for the good of the fatherland, Peter I was glorified, whom all writers, starting with Lomonosov, set as a model for his descendants.
Now, after all that has been said, we can define classicism as a literary movement.
Classicism is a literary trend on a European scale, characterized by rationalism (the mind is the “supreme judge” over the outside world) and genre thinking (the genre system of classicism is strictly regulated and divided into high, medium and low genres). As an example of the ideal norm, classicism put forward in the center the image of a person endowed with a high social and moral consciousness and feelings, capable of transforming life according to the laws of reason.
Questions and tasks
- When did classicism appear in Europe and in Russia? What is the origin of the word "classicism"? What are the features of classicism as a literary movement?
- How did the classicists imagine the structure of the world and society? What did they consider the main object of attention? What is the main pathos of classicism literature? What is the relationship between reason and feelings in the literature of classicism?
- What is genre thinking? Expand this concept on the familiar odes of Lomonosov, Fonvizin's comedy. Describe the genres of high and low on the examples of odes, fables. Which genres in classicism were considered dominant, and which ones were considered secondary, and why?
Classicism. Literature and theatre.
Reasonable and rational beginnings and strict rules were also present in literature. The aesthetic categories of classicism are unambiguous. The courageous hero is courageous in everything and to the end; a loving woman loves to the grave; a hypocrite is hypocritical to the grave, but a miser is stingy. Of course, great artists: Corneille, Racine and Moliere filled this strict scheme with life.
Strict rules were supposed to help the masters get closer to the ideal examples of the beautiful of ancient times. In the name of this, a hierarchy and clear boundaries for each genre were established (epic and tragedy were considered high genres, comedy was considered low). Each genre had its own language: tragedies - sublime, pathetic, comedies - simple colloquial.
The theoretician of classicism, the poet Boileau, declared the meaning to be the highest property of classicism:
So let the meaning be dearest to you, Let it alone give brilliance and beauty to poetry!
French classicism found its most striking expression in dramaturgy.
The work of Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) represents the early period of classicism. His strong-willed heroes express the idea of patriotic duty, which was understood as service to the state in the person of the king. So Horace in the tragedy of the same name kills his opponents, the Curiatii brothers, despite the fact that his sister is the bride of one of them. She, for this, curses her brother and Rome, to whom this sacrifice was brought. Horace kills his sister for insulting the motherland. Patriotic feat is above all.
And if the most honorable order is given to you,
All other feelings may perish at the same hour.
The work of the second great tragedian - Jean Racine (1639-1699) dates back to the time when absolutism was fully established and the court had fun before the flood, which Louis XV spoke about. In the images of Racine, the display of heroics is increasingly fading into the background, giving way to a psychological analysis of a person’s personal feelings and passions. Suffering and spiritual struggle form the basis of his works. Rasinovskaya Phaedra from the tragedy of the same name says about herself:
I rule! I will reign over the whole country,
When my weak mind no longer rules me!
When I have no control over feelings
When I barely breathe under the yoke of low passion?
In Racine, royal persons are not the highest wise judges, but people torn apart by passions (Phaedra loved her stepson). The creator of the French comedy and one of the founders of the French national theater was Jean-Baptiste Molière (1622-1673). The folk and realistic principle in his works is more pronounced than in any of the writers of classicism. This angered the critics. In the mid-60s, Molière creates three of the greatest comedies - `Tartuffe`, `Don Juan` and `The Misanthrope`. In `Tartuffe` Moliere shows how hypocritical religious preaching destroys all normal human and family relationships. So Orgon, who fell under the influence of Tartuffe, says:
I become different from these conversations with him.
From now on, I have no attachments!
It makes me a stranger to everything in the world.
May my brother, mother, wife and children die,
I'm so upset about this, she-she-she!
In the comedy `The bourgeois in the nobility` Moliere gave the most vivid satirical image of the bourgeois Jourdain, bowing to the nobility. The absurd inventions of Jourdain are opposed by the bourgeois sobriety and common sense of his wife. Thanks to the work of Moliere, comedy has ceased to be a low genre.
The plays of classicism were subject to three unities: place, time and action. The action must take place in the same house and on the same day. This simplification was done in retaliation for the intricate and polysyllabic pieces of the Baroque.
In the performing arts of classicism, everything was subject to the `art of recitation`. Gestures, postures, costumes and even language were conditional, but the feelings had to be sincere. Such wonderful actors G. Mondori, M. Chanmelet, M. Baron and, of course, the brilliant comedian J.-B. Moliere, who until the end of his life played the main roles in his comedies.
