The most famous and most talented prose writer of German romanticism is Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann. He is the greatest master of fairy tales and fantastic novels. His works are distinguished by the richness of humor, satirical orientation. Witty and evil, Hoffmann ridiculed dwarf German absolutism and cowardly philistinism. "... German corrugators - philistines and pedants," wrote Belinsky, "should feel the power of Hoffmann's humorous scourge to their bones."
However, the vulgar German reality had an impact on Hoffmann, tenaciously kept him in its captivity. The writer did not find a real way out of the contradictions of modernity. Heine called his work "an amazing scream of horror in twenty volumes." In search of an ideal, Hoffmann sometimes went into mysticism, taking revenge on his enemies in the realm of his dreams. Hence his "absurd and monstrous fantasy, in which, like a priceless pearl in mud, his brilliant and mighty talent drowned."
As an artist, Hoffmann developed at the beginning of the 19th century. at a turning point in the history of Germany, when new bourgeois relations were maturing in the depths of the feudal-monarchist system. Joyfully seeing off the obsolete past to the grave, Hoffmann carefully looked at capitalist reality. He was frightened off by many of its phenomena: the strengthening of individualism, the indifferent or purely utilitarian attitude of the owner to art, etc. However, due to the weakness of the German liberation movement, Hoffmann was unable to see positive forces in the depths of bourgeois society that could be relied upon in the struggle to translate his social and aesthetic ideal into reality. Hence the dualism of his thinking, the fragmentation of dreams and reality in his work, the romantic nature of his criticism. It seemed to Hoffmann that the world was in the grip of something supernatural, rationally incomprehensible. Therefore, he willingly populates his works with both good and evil spirits (fairies, wizards, gnomes, etc.), which have a decisive influence on the fate of people. The fantastic in Hoffmann is not just one of the conditional artistic devices, not an element of style, but a characteristic feature of the writer's worldview, which organically enters into his artistic method. Hoffmann should be considered as an artist of a romantic warehouse. He is a romantic not only in the originality of his nature, but also in the nature of the explanation of life, its contradictions.
Nevertheless, the best works Hoffmann, despite their fantastic coloring, truthfully reflect the essential aspects of German reality. “Hoffmann as a poet,” Heine rightly wrote, “is much higher than Novalis. For the latter, with his ideal images, is constantly hovering in a blue fog, while Hoffmann, with his truthful caricatures, always and invariably clings to earthly reality. However, it should be noted that the concreteness of life in Hoffmann's work is the fruit of a romantic worldview, the feudal and bourgeois society under his pen appear in a caricature, and everything positive is outside the reality he depicts.
Hoffmann came from a bureaucratic environment. He was born in Koenigsberg. From childhood, he knew well the interests and spiritual needs of the German provincial officials. After graduating from school, Hoffman enters the law faculty of the University of Königsberg. Already on the student bench, his numerous abilities showed up - he draws well, writes, composes music. Gofmai himself dreams of a musical career, he wants to become a composer, but his life turned out differently. Having received a law degree, he nevertheless serves as a small clerk in various cities in Poland. From 1808 to 1813, Hoffmann wandered around Germany (Bamberg, Dresden, Leipzig), having experienced all the bitterness of the position of a "little man" in a feudal society. Since 1814, Hoffmann settled in Berlin, he was an official of the Ministry of Justice, combining clerical service with intense literary work. He appears in the press with stories, musical reviews, composes the opera Ondine, writes novels and short stories. Prolonged material deprivation, the life of a bohemian - all this undermined the health of the writer, brought him to the grave at the age of 46.
Hoffmann's work combines critical and life-affirming tendencies. Extinguishers of enlightenment, defenders of inertia side by side in his works with creative natures, glorifying all that is good and beautiful on earth. The forces of darkness are represented in him, as a rule, by the rulers of dwarf principalities, courtiers stupefied from idleness, various bureaucratic people, mired in the quagmire of philistinism. The bearers of the ideals of beauty and justice in his short stories are the ministers of art (composers, musicians), who are not subject to the pernicious influence of their environment.
Artistic images in the work of Hoffmann are built, like all romantics, according to the principle of compliance or non-compliance with the aesthetic ideal. Hence their contrast in relation to each other and the well-known artistic single-linearity. Hoffmann's negative characters are always somewhat caricatured, satirically pointed, they personify only one lack of spirituality of the social environment they represent. Positive characters, on the contrary, embody the spiritual principle of life in its most diverse modifications. Hoffmann usually confronts reality, devoid of beauty, with the world of his romantic dreams.
All the features of Hoffmann's artistic thinking and method were clearly revealed in his first collection Fantasies in Callot's Manier (1815), which included his early works - Cavalier Gluck, Don Giovanni, Kreisleriana , The Golden Pot, etc. All of them abound in internal dissonances, based on the conflict of a spiritually rich personality endowed with a fine aesthetic taste, with the prose of the life around her. compositional technique visible already in the first short story "Cavalier Gluck" (Ritter Gltick, 1808). Its main character is a famous German composer of the 18th century. Gluck, an innovative artist who boldly broke with existing musical traditions. Gluck reformed the opera, abandoning external spectacular effects, focusing all attention on revealing inner world heroes. Hoffmann saw in Gluck a genius, misunderstood by court and aristocratic circles, a nature akin to the writer himself. The hero of the novel does not find understanding in the society around him: “Yes, everything around me is empty, because I am not destined to meet my soulmate, I am completely alone.” Hoffmann endowed Gluck with romantic traits: a fiery temperament, hatred for the unspiritual reality and aspiration to the "other world", to the fictional realm of beauty and freedom.
Like Gluck, the writer's favorite hero, composer Johann Kreisler, is in a tragic conflict with society, with whom the reader first meets in the story "Kreisleriana" (fyreisleriana, 1810).
A talented artist, he cannot forgive the aristocratic nobility for their disdain for art, for the spiritual values of human life. Kreisler suffers from tragic loneliness. He finds the only consolation in creativity, understanding it purely romantically, as a desire for the infinite, as a protest against the conditions of social life that oppress the human personality.
In the short story "Don Juan" (Don Juan, 1814), Hoffmann in a completely new, romantic way created the image of the hero, which was repeatedly developed in art (Tirso de Molina, Moliere, Mozart, etc.). In Hoffmann, Don Juan is not an ordinary voluptuary, but a man of powerful romantic impulse, looking for such love that “lives in our soul as a foretaste of unearthly bliss and gives rise to an inescapable passionate longing that binds us to heaven.” Under the pen of Hoffmann, Don Juan turned not only into a dreamer, in the grip of romantic languor, but also into a kind of rebel, protesting against the inert morality of petty-bourgeois society. Don Juan raises his love affairs to the level of a moral principle. Hoffmann endows him with the features of a fighter who stands up for the realization of the romantic ideal.
Fantasia also includes The Golden Pot (Der goldene Topf, 1814), which Hoffmann considered his favorite work. The main object of ridicule here is the German burghers. It is represented by the proofreader Paulman, his daughter Veronica, the registrar Geerbrand. The dull burgher everyday life contrasts with the bright world of a romantic dream, inhabited by people in love with art and beauty. Here archivist Lindgorst, Serpentina, student Anselm.
In The Golden Pot, not only the contrast of images characteristic of Hoffmann, reflecting the contradiction between dream and reality, but also their two worlds emerge. Many of the characters in the novel live double lives. Lindgorst is not only an archivist, but also the lord of the salamanders, a powerful sorcerer who defeats the forces of darkness, which is protected by the merchant Lisa, who has the gift of miraculous reincarnation. She, like Lindhorst, is able to take on the appearance of not only living beings, but also to move into inanimate objects (a door knocker, a coffee pot, etc.).
It is characteristic that in two worlds - real and fabulous - those who live in Everyday life deprived of fate, in any case, can not boast of any significant success. Suffering from their social humiliation, " small man"in the work of Hoffmann involuntarily resorts to the help of fantasy. Only in the realm of dreams can he be omnipotent and easily deal with his oppressors. Such are the socio-psychological roots of Hoffmann's own romanticism. It reflected the writer's dissatisfaction with his position as a petty official, his sympathy for the suffering and at the same time powerless people. Hoffmann expressed his protest and his impotence in the struggle for his human dignity. Hence the departure into fantasy with its unlimited possibilities of reprisals against all kinds of significant persons. In the sphere of fiction, Hoffmann boldly and mercilessly deals with the tormentors of the people. Taking revenge for himself, for all desecrated humanity, he disfigures small and big rulers to a caricature, pours his hatred on them, exposing them to ridicule, to public disgrace. Hoffmann is an outstanding master of the grotesque; outwardly implausible situations and heroes that arose by deforming reality. However, grotesque paintings and images allow Hoffmann to more deeply reveal the essence of the ridiculed phenomenon.
The protagonist of The Golden Pot is the student Anselm. This is a typical romantic dreamer. His daydreaming is the source of all sorts of comic situations: either he knocks over the stalls of traders in the market, or he finds himself near the windows of houses just at the moment when the housewives pour the contents of the basins into the street, etc.
Anselm is only outwardly connected with the burgher milieu. Spiritually, he is all in the realm of romantic visions. The sense of beauty in him is so strongly developed that he, as it were, transforms reality, spiritualizes it. He understands the language of nature, she reveals her beauty to him, completely inaccessible to those who are mired in petty material interests. Thus, the rather wretched greenhouse of Lindgorst was turned by Anselm's romantic imagination into some kind of fairy-tale world inhabited by rare birds and plants. Anselm selflessly falls in love with a snake with wonderful dark blue eyes. In the future, it turns out that Serpentina is the enchanted daughter of Lindhorst, and she can take on the appearance of a girl again only under the influence of the extraordinary love of a young man, selflessly devoted to everything beautiful, believing in the miraculous.
However, Hoffmann destroys the magical kingdom he created with the power of merciless irony. Anselm is finally freed from his witchcraft obsession. The veil of romantic fog falls from his eyes, and life again turns to him with its prosaic side. He marries Serpentina, who turned out to be a rather ordinary young lady in real life. The young couple receive as a gift a golden pot stolen by Lindhorst in the kingdom of Phosphorus. The decline of the romantic goes along all lines. As a reward for all the suffering, Anselm gets a very prosaic thing - a pot, an evil parody of the “blue flower” of Novalis.
Passionately dreaming of a poetic transformation of life, Hoffmann did not believe in such a possibility. The reaction in Germany was too strong and the progressive forces were weak. Hence the traits of tragedy in his worldview, disbelief in a real victory over the forces of darkness. Irony in the work of Hoffmann acquires an absolute character. It is expressed not only in the denial of ugly forms, but also in the destruction of all illusions about the onset of an era of a beautiful future.
In 1815, Hoffmann completes the novel The Elixir of Satan (Die Elexiere des Teufels), which is replete with extremely intricate intrigue, all kinds of horrors and nightmares. Thus, Hoffmann seeks to show that a person has no power over his fate, that his actions are guided by fatal forces that plunge him into the abyss of misfortune. The pessimism of the writer reached its climax in this work.
In 1817, Hoffmann published Night Tales. The collection includes such works as "Sandman", "Automatic", "Double", sharply criticizing the "mechanical", i.e. bourgeois, devoid of spiritual content, life. Hoffmann angrily ridicules the lack of spirituality of a man-owner, reminiscent of a clockwork mechanism.
The short story "Sandman" (Der Sandmann) is very characteristic in this respect. The story is told on behalf of the impressionable, kind student Nathaniel. Since childhood, he has been tormented by the ghost of the Sandman, who appears in their house under the guise of a lawyer Coppelius (he is also a seller of barometers), who is engaged in some mysterious experiments with Nathaniel's father, which ended in disaster.
Coppelius, in the understanding of Hoffmann, is the embodiment of a “mechanical” principle that has penetrated deeply into life, inflicting deep wounds on spiritually rich natures. The lack of spirituality of modernity is not, from the point of view of Hoffmann, the result of the natural, organic development of reality. She is a product of satanic forces, the personification of which is the evil Coppelius.
The disgusting nature of a soulless, "mechanical" society is revealed by Hoffmann in a bizarre, fantastic form. The beautiful Olympia, with whom Nathaniel falls in love, turns out to be a skillfully crafted automaton. Olympia can dance, can even utter monosyllabic phrases, but she is lifeless, the breath of death comes from her. Nathaniel is driven mad by his discovery.
In 1819, Hoffmann wrote his most famous work - "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (Klein Zaches genannt Zinnober). Never before had his mockery of German philistinism, of the ruling circles, been so caustic as in this satire. No wonder she was highly appreciated by K. Marx and V.G. Belinsky. Resorting, as usual, to fantastic fiction, Hoffmann very witty revealed the sinister power of money in the conditions of bourgeois reality. Tsakhes is the son of a poor peasant woman, Liza. He is ugly: he has "spider legs and instead of talking, he only purrs and meows like a cat." The compassionate fairy Rosenshen intervenes in the fate of a miserable freak. She gives him three golden hairs. Their action turned out to be magical, they completely transformed Tsakhes. His speech became quite intelligible, the repulsive ugliness disappeared, or rather, people stopped noticing it. Tsakhes began to seem like a miracle of beauty. Golden hairs not only transformed the appearance of the little somersaulter, they made a complete revolution in his spiritual appearance. More precisely, remaining, as before, intellectually poor, Tsakhes begins to seem the embodiment of intelligence and even genius. Everyone admires his actually non-existent talents. Golden hairs work wonders, turning the ugly into the beautiful. Growing up, the ugly gnome makes a brilliant career. It reveals the qualities of a major public figure. Prince Barsanuf makes him the first minister of his principality, rewards him with the order of the "green-spotted tiger with twenty buttons" for the fact that Tsakhes gave advice on removing stains on his excellency's uniform. Hoffmann takes every opportunity to ridicule the meager nature of the activities in the dwarf German states. Thus, the State Council at Barsanuf sat for seven days straight to decide the enormously important question of how best to attach the sash to the ugly figure of Tsakhes. Members of the chapter of orders, in order not to overload their brains, were forbidden to think a week before the historic meeting, and during it in the palace "everyone walked around in thick felt shoes and explained himself by signs."
Hoffmann reveals the reactionary orientation of the domestic policy at the court of Barsanuf and his ancestor, Prince Paphnutius the Great, who, taking care of the peace of the state, ordered all people of “a dangerous way of thinking who are deaf to the voice of reason and seduce the people to various foolishness” to be evicted from its borders.
"Little Tsakhes" is also an evil satire on the German burghers, on philistines from science. They are adequately represented in the story by the naturalist Professor Mosh Terpin. He has a very vague idea of nature, he knows it only from various reference books. But Turpin has mastered the science of making a career to perfection. To please the all-powerful freak Zinnober, he intends to marry him his daughter, the beautiful Candida, the bride of the poet Balthasar. In return, Turpin receives the position of general director of natural sciences. Puffed up with "stupid pride", Terpin uses his official position to "explore" the contents of the prince's cellars in order to obtain necessary materials for the scientific essay "On the dissimilarity in taste of wine with water." Turpin orders the rarest game to be delivered to himself from the forests, which he “orders to roast and eat” for study.
Insignificant princes, townsfolk in the story are opposed by people of a poetic warehouse. This is the poet Balthazar and the good wizard Alpanus. Only they discover the true essence of the world, its beauty and its ugly features. Only they see the ugliness and intellectual poverty of Tsakhes. Alpanus unraveled the mystery of the unprecedented rise of Tsakhes. On the day of his marriage to Candida, Balthazar pulls out three magic hairs from Zinnober's hair, and he immediately becomes himself - an ugly, insignificant person.
Fleeing from the angry mob, Tsakhes hides in fear in the bedroom under the bed and drowns in a silver pot.
AND LATE GERMAN ROMANTISM
E.T.A. Hoffmann (E.T.A. Hoffmann, 1776-1822) is one of the brilliant writers of world literature, a master of fantastic novels and fairy tales, a bright satirist, whose artistic discoveries were reflected in different ways in the work of artists of the word of Russia, France, and the USA. By family tradition Having received a law degree, Hoffmann served in the judicial institutions of Prussia and Poland. However, his real vocation was art. He was a talented composer, conductor, music critic, graphic artist, decorator, but he gained world fame as a writer.
Hoffmann published his first short story "Cavalier Gluck" ("Ritter Gluk", 1808) when he was already thirty-three years old - in February 1809. For fourteen years, he created several cycles of short stories: "Fantasy in the manner of Callot" ("Phantasiestücke in Callot's Manier", 1808-1814), "Night Studies" ("Nachtstücke", 1815-1817), "The Serapion Brothers" ("Die Serapionsbrüder ", 1819-1821). The last novella, The Corner Window (Des Vetters Eckfenster, 1822), was completed in April 1822, two months before his death.
Hoffmann is a late romantic. He came to literature during the heyday of the Heidelberg Romantics (1805-1808), but was not part of their group. Moreover, his position was closer to the Jena romantics (1798-1802). Unlike the early romantics, who considered it possible to replace reality with a fairy-tale world, Hoffmann believed that such a replacement was impossible. Hence the different perception of the dual world, the change in the ratio of the ideal and reality. G. Heine in the "Romantic School" contrasts Novalis and Hoffmann: if the first "with his ideal images constantly hovering in a blue fog, while Hoffmann with his caricatures always and invariably clings to earthly reality" . Earthly reality becomes the source material for the creation of Hoffmann's fantasy.
Of the contemporary writers, Hoffmann is close to A. von Chamisso (A. von Chamisso, 1781-1838) and F. de la Mott Fouque (F. de la Mott Fouque, 1777-1843). Choosing similar themes for the image, they still gave them a different interpretation. Here, the individual style of E.T.A. Hoffmann is especially pronounced. So, Hoffmann's short story "Adventure in the night under New Year"(1815) is close to Chamisso's story" Amazing story Peter Schlemil (1813) and Fouquet's short story The Inhabitant of Hell (1810). These works are thematically connected and date back to L. Tick's short story "Blond Ekbert" (1796). They are based on fairy tales and legends about harmfulness of dishonest ways for personal enrichment or achieving happiness.
The hero of Hoffmann's short story "Adventure on New Year's Eve" passionately fell in love with an Italian beauty. To achieve reciprocity, he gives his reflection in the mirror. Juliet and Dr. Dapertutto, who accompanies her, then demand that Erasmus the Speaker kill his wife and his son. The awakened hero refuses. Now, abandoned by everyone, he roams the world. Hoffmann's hero even meets Peter Schlemiel, who has lost his shadow. Appeal to the familiar- a technique that Hoffmann often uses. However, the unfortunate Peter finds himself: he becomes a scientist, a naturalist. The hero Chamisso sees the purpose of life in the pursuit of science. In the short story "Infernal Inhabitant" Fouquet depicts another version of the deal with evil spirits. Reichard becomes the owner of a flask with an infernal inhabitant that fulfills his desires. Like Peter Schlemil, freed from the "master in gray", Reichard also gets rid of the "hellish inhabitant". Erasmus The speaker in Hoffmann is deprived of hope. The tragic finale of "Adventures on the Night of the New year” the author translates into the sphere of the earthly. E.T.A. Hoffman is convinced of the insurmountability of reality.
Hoffmann's short stories are based on strange incidents that happen to unusual people. His heroes are most often people of art. Hoffmann even divided “the entire human race into two unequal parts. One consists only of good people, but bad or not musicians at all, the other of true musicians. Good people, but not musicians, Hoffmann calls philistines. These people may be happy, but they do not understand that their happiness is false. True musicians (Hoffmann also called them enthusiasts) usually do not feel happy in earthly life, but become happy in the world of art or in the realm of dreams and dreams. Musicians can be not only people who are professionally involved in music. The musician is state of mind.
Art and artist theme is leading in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann. The hero of the short story "Cavalier Gluck" - the great composer, who became a Knight of the Order of the Golden Spur in 1756 and died in 1787 - finds himself in the real city of Berlin in the late autumn of 1808. Hoffmann shows the loneliness of the hero among the motley string of philistines walking along Unter den Linden. However, the conflict between the musician and the philistine society is not the main one. The hero is accustomed to "languishing in the realm of dreams": "There, right there! I found myself in a luxurious valley and listened to what flowers sang to each other. Only the sunflower was silent and mournfully bowed down to the valley with a closed corolla. Invisible ties drew me to him. He raised his head - the rim opened, and from there an eye shone towards me. And the sounds, like rays of light, stretched from my head to the flowers, and they greedily absorbed them. The sunflower petals opened wider and wider - streams of flame poured out of them, engulfed me - the eye disappeared, and I found myself in the cup of the flower. flower symbol, which describes creative inspiration, is significant for German Romanticism, starting with the blue flower of Novalis.
However, in the short story "Cavalier Glitch" there is not only the traditional conflict of discord between the composer, the creative person and society, earthly life. Hoffmann shows that the composer suffers to a greater extent not from a misunderstanding of others, but from the “imperfection” of his works: life goes on, but his creations remain unchanged, he would like to make changes to them, but cannot. In E.T.A. Hoffmann's novel "Don Juan" (1812), the performer of the role of Donna Anna also suffers not so much because of a misunderstanding of others, but because she feels better on stage, in a fictional world, and not in real life.
Musical short stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann go back to the short story by W. Wackenrodel “The noteworthy musical life of the composer Josef Berglinger” (1796), which became the first work with the symbol “short story about the artist”. W.Wackenroder (1773-1798) introduces a prayer composed by Berglinger, poetry and writing into the narrative. They vividly reflect the agonizing state of the protagonist, who is in a "bitter contradiction" between "natural enthusiasm and inevitable participation in a life destined for everyone, forcibly pulling out of the world of dreams" . Most of the short story is a presentation in chronological order of the life of a man endowed with "heavenly enthusiasm". Other conflicts characteristic of this genre variety were also formulated here: between the composer and listeners, performers; between the desire for creativity and everyday, earthly concerns; between the idea and the possibilities of its practical implementation.
The romantic musical novel will become very popular in Germany. After W. Wakenroder and E. T. A. Hoffmann, this genre will be addressed by: G. Heine (“Florentine Nights”), E. Merike (“Mozart on the way to Prague”), R. Wagner (“Pilgrimage to Beethoven”) and etc.
W. Wackenroder's short story and his other works were included by L. Tieck (L. Tieck, 1773-1853) in the book "On Art and Artists: Reflections of a Hermit, Lover of the Fine, published by L. Tieck" (1799). It began with a chapter written by W. Wakenroder, "The Vision of Raphael." It talked about how the hermit found in the library of the monastery a record of Raphael's oral story about his vision of the image of the Mother of God in his dream. On the wall, Rafael allegedly saw something that he could not convey on the canvas for a long time. “He woke up as if reborn into the world; the vision was forever clearly imprinted in his soul, and now he always managed to depict the Mother of God as she was seen by his inner gaze, and since then he himself has looked at his own paintings with reverence. A miraculous dream, a vision through which the artist unconsciously completes the creation of a miracle, will be found more than once in the treatises and works of art of the German Romantics.
On the basis of the legend of Raphael, the theme of the artist-creator, considered within the framework of the romantic worldview, sounded in a new way. In addition, the country of Raphael is presented here as a calling land, a promised land of art. The novel by L. Tick "The Wanderings of Franz Sternbald" (1798), created under the influence of W. Wakenroder, tells the story of a German artist, a student of Dürer, who travels from Germany to Italy to master the skill of Raphael. Starting with these works, German literature formed opposition Italy is my native country. She is often present in short stories about German artists.
The favorite book of the hero of the short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann "The Choice of the Bride" (1820 ) are Franz Sternbald's Wanderings. Edmund even "liked to recognize himself in the hero of this novel." The novel revered by Hoffmann is projected onto the fate of the hero of the novel. The attitude to art, to the skill of the painter, to beautiful Italy unites the heroes of early romanticism and Hoffmann. However, relationships with women are built differently. L.Thick's novel depicts an exalted, mysterious stranger. Edmund's bride is very down to earth and practical. After parting with her artist fiancé, who went to Italy, Albertine quickly found a replacement for him in the form of a courteous speaker on court cases.
In Hoffmann's short story "Arthur's Court" (1819), the comparison of Germany and Italy is plot-forming. Aspiring businessman Traugot is a bright creative person. The "homeland of art" appeared before him in a "magical light". The vocation of the artist and love for the Italian Dorina forever leave the employee of the company in Italy.
Departs for Italy and a young German artist from Hoffmann's short story "The Church of the Jesuits in G." (1816). Berthold for a long time failed to understand the essence of things. Once in a dream, as if in reality, he sees the Great Martyr Catherine, radiating heavenly light. Under the influence of the contemplation of the angelic face of the saint, creative inspiration finally comes to him, as to Wackenroder's Raphael.
Italy Theme for E.T.A. Hoffmann is not as unambiguous as for the Jena romantics. Italy is not only the "promised land of the arts", but country of danger for romantic dreamers. Italy is the birthplace of not only Raphael, but also Count Cagliostro, to whom Hoffmann was extremely negative. It is in Italy that the German artist Erasmus Speaker (short story "Adventure on New Year's Eve") meets the fatal Italian beauty and Dr. Dapertutto accompanying her. Italy is a country of demonic figures, all kinds of sorcerers, alchemists, pseudoscientists, as well as talented, beautiful, but destructive women. Thus, in Hoffmann's short story The Sandman (1815), the creators of the puppet with lively eyes, with which the German dreamer Nathanael falls in love, have Italian surnames - Professor Spalanzani and Coppola, the seller of barometers. One of Hoffmann's most sinister heroes who colluded with Satan is Dr. Trabacchio from the novel Ignaz Denner (1814). He invented miraculous drops, which he made “from the heart of a child who is nine weeks old, nine months old or nine years old, while it is necessary that the child be handed over to the healer voluntarily. The closer a child is to him by kinship, the more invigorating the balm, he is able to bestow rejuvenation, and with his help you can make artificial gold.
In contrast to the art-devoted German musicians E.T.A. Hoffmann describes Italian prima donnas in the short stories Counselor Crespel (1818) and Fermata (1819). Councilor Crespel is called an eccentric. He is a learned lawyer and a maker of the finest violins. The adviser ended up in Italy in search of rare violins. In Venice, he heard the famous singer Angela L., who struck him with her art and angelic beauty. The hobby ended with a wedding. However, behind the angelic appearance of the brilliant singer, the features of a tyrant and tormentor were hidden. A sincere passion for the Italian prima donna ends with a break in all relations with her. In the short story "Fermata" mysterious and charming Italian singers awakened the composer's talent in a nineteen-year-old German youth. Theodore leaves his native places and goes with them. However, insight soon comes. At first he was offended by the capricious Lauretta, and then became a casual listener of the sisters' conversation with an Italian tenor, in which they mercilessly mocked the naive young man. Like Councilor Crespel, who managed to make a quick decision, so Theodore forever leaves the Italians who insulted and humiliated him.
For E.T.A. Hoffmann, Italy was also fabulously elevated country. He made plans several times to travel to Italy, but never visited it. However, Hoffmann clearly imagined this country from works of art, first of all, from the artistic world of his favorite writer C. Gozzi (1720-1806). In the short story "Doge and Dogaressa" (1819), the space of Italy is presented by Hoffmann in a halo of grandeur and destruction. Moonlight, running waves, enchanting melodies, towers and palaces of beautiful Venice create an atmosphere of fabulous mystery and anxiety. The rebellious natures of the aged Doge Mariino Faglieri, as well as the father and uncle of his young wife Annunziata, are the product of a fairy-tale world in which passions are obligatory: they were executed. Fantastic events, mysterious coincidences and accidents connect the Italian dogaressa and the German youth, who turned out to be toys in the hands of the conspirators against the signoria. Antonio, together with Annunziata, set off for Germany, but a storm arose and the "bottomless abyss" swallowed up the young people. Despite the tragic ending of the lives of young people, the love that was sent down to them from above united them before death and made them immensely happy.
However, in general, the image of Italy by E.T.A. Hoffmann and the later Romantics is fundamentally different from the Wackenroder-Tik tradition. In place of "delightful Italy" with "beautiful skies", "invigorating air" comes demonic-chaotic the country. If earlier she inspired the heroes of the Jena romantics, now the departure of the heroes from Rome is a turning point in their fate, preparing a happy denouement. The hero of E.T.A. Hoffmann's novel Elixirs of Satan (1816) travels to Rome. Medard is driven to Italy by the spirit of his ancestors. Only after returning back to the monastery of St. Linden, located in East Prussia, he, like his ancestor Francesco once, finds peace. Hoffmann associates with his native country the idea not only of true music, but also of true religion.
J.Eichendorf (J.Eichendorf, 1788-1857) - a late German romantic - in the short story "From the Life of a Loafer" (1826) also depicts the hero's journey to Rome and back. Eichendorff's hero, after meeting Italy, gives her the following description: "I firmly decided to leave treacherous Italy forever, its crazy artists, Pomeranians and maids ...". The emotionally elevated tone of W. Wakenroder and L. Tieck (sometimes Hoffmann) when depicting Italy changes in J. Eichendorff to grotesque comic.
The theme of the intervention of "hostile forces" E.T.A. Hoffmann was interested in human life throughout the entire career. According to the writer, a person often turns out to be powerless against the dark forces, which he calls the "hostile principle." This topic is considered by Hoffmann in different directions.
Especially popular in the Romantic era was the legend of man's pact with the devil. Since the Middle Ages in Germany, the most famous was the legend of Dr. Faust. The motive of a contract between a man and the devil is vividly depicted in Hoffmann's short stories with the help of veiled fiction. In the short story "Magnetizer" (1814), the Danish major's contract with the devil is released from the author's certificate: this important event is timed to the past. Therefore, the story about him is translated into the form of rumors and assumptions. The old baron tells about his meetings in his youth with the Danish major: “The disabled old man, assigned to me as a servant, declared with all confidence that the matter was not clean with the major, and that many years ago the devil appeared to him at sea, promising salvation from death and superhuman strength to work miracles, and he accepted this, thereby surrendering to Satan ... ". E.T.A. Hoffmann usually depicts representatives of other nations as making a deal with the devil. So, in the short story "The Elemental Spirit" (1822), Major O'Malley enters into an agreement with the evil spirit. Very tall, clumsy, Irish by birth, with wide-set glassy eyes. He owed his life to Victor von P., felt affection for a young friend, calling him "my son." A grateful O'Malley makes a teraph or salamander doll for a romantically inclined Victor, which turns into a female creature that delights: "I have never seen such a gentle noble figure, nor such a beautiful face, even in a dream." Victor called the mysterious stranger Aurora and dreamed of an alliance with her. However, icy horror seized him when he had to pay the price of bliss in the afterlife for the possession of Aurora. The hero feels himself "fallen into the claws of the devil": "The major laughed after me. It seemed to me in this laughter the mocking laughter of Satan himself. The "devilish art" of evoking elemental spirits is called the "black art". The demonic force that invaded the life of Viktor von P. brings suffering, but does not lead the hero to death. A faithful servant comes to his aid. As a result, Victor von P. does not sell his soul to the devil, although he realizes that he has entered into an alliance with demonic forces. This distinguishes the hero from the heroes of "The History of Peter Schlemil" by A. von Chamisso and "Adventures on New Year's Eve" by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Peter Schlemiel sells his shadow to the “Mr. in Grey”, and Erasmus Spyker sells his reflection in the mirror.
In the short story The Sandman (1815), Hoffmann describes in detail the intervention of "hostile forces" in the life of a German dreamer. According to the author, it is the enthusiastic personality that is especially susceptible to the influence of demonic forces. Nathanael is perniciously affected by "the image of the disgusting barometer salesman Coppola". Devilish power in the guise of heroes with Italian surnames (Coppola and Spalanzani) helps them become the creators of the automaton puppet. Nathanael fell in love with Olympia, not knowing that it was an elaborate mechanical doll. Hoffmann refers to "hostile forces" as " demonic mechanics, creating a cynical likeness of a person. In the context of this topic, optical instruments are also described - glasses, mirrors. They can distort the perception of the world, as happened with Nathanael. The pocket spyglass zooming in on objects distorted Olympia's appearance: her eyes, which seemed dead and motionless, now seem to radiate moonlight.
The first to introduce the image of an automaton that replaces a real person was the German romantic of the Heidelberg group A. von Arnim (A. von Arnim, 1781-1831). The story "Isabella of Egypt" (1812) uses the image of a golem - a clay man. Here the golem is Isabella's double and rival.
Double motif also associated with the "hostile principle." The barometer salesman Coppola is the counterpart of the old lawyer Coppelius, who, in turn, in Nathanael's imagination, goes back to the image of the Sandman from the nanny's fairy tale: “he was a disgusting ghostly sorcerer who, wherever he appeared, brought sorrow, attack - temporary and eternal death". The incredible story of the little freak Tsakhes from the short story by E.T.A. The double arrogates to itself the social position and merits of others. Everyone around is blinded by visibility. For them, Tsakhes-Zinnober is smart, handsome, endowed with many talents.
The motif of duality is already present in L. Tick's short story "Blond Ekbert" (1797). The doubles of the old woman who took revenge on Bertha and Ekbert are Philip Walter and Hugo von Wolfsberg, who eventually lead to the death of the heroes.
The gloomy coloring in the depiction of the duality motif unites E.T.A. Hoffmann, A. von Arnim and L. Tiek. However, in the view of Novalis, the author of the novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802), a positive interpretation can also be associated with the images of twins.
E.T.A. Hoffman became the creator of an exemplary romantic novel. Although he often entered into polemics with his predecessors and contemporaries, "life in a dream", "life in poetry" was more important for him. Therefore, he transfers his favorite heroes to imaginary fairy tale countries. Happy Anselm and Serpentina, the heroes of the short story The Golden Pot (1814), end up in Atlantis. E.T.A. Hoffman gives the reader the right to choose: one can take seriously the fabulous mythological fiction as opposed to the squalor of the surrounding life, or one can come to terms with its illusory nature. But the dreamer Hoffmann himself, in an address to the reader, calls: “Try, benevolent reader, in that magical kingdom full of amazing miracles that cause the greatest bliss and the greatest horror with mighty blows ... Try, I say, benevolent reader, to recognize there long-familiar faces and images, surrounding you in ordinary or, as they say, everyday life, and you will believe that this wonderful kingdom is much closer to you than you think ... ".
List of used literature
1. Heine G. Romantic school // Heine G. Collected works: In 10 vols. - M., 1976. - V.6. - P.219.
Hoffman E.T.A. Diaries // Hoffman E.T.A. Kreislerian. Worldly views of the cat Murr. Diaries. - M., 1972. - P. 467.
Hoffman E.T.A. Cavalier Gluck / Per. N.Kasatkina //Hoffman E.T.A. Kreislerian. Worldly views of the cat Murr. Diaries. - M., 1972. - P.13.
Wackenroder V.G. The noteworthy musical life of the composer Josef Berglinger. A. Alyavdina // Selected Prose of the German Romantics: In 2 vols. - M., 1979. - T.1. - P.34.
About art and artists; Reflections of a hermit, a lover of the elegant, published by L. Thicke / Per. S. Shevyreva. - M., 1826. - P.15.
Hoffman E.T.A. The choice of the bride / Per. I.Tatarinova // Hoffman E.T.A. Novels / Comp. N.A. Zhirmunskaya. - L., 1990. - P. 446.
Hoffman E.T.A. Ignaz Denner / Per. B. Khlebnikova // Hoffman E.T.A. Collected Works: In 6 vols. - M., 1994. - V.2. - P.363.
Eihendorf J. From the life of a loafer / Per. D. Usova // Life overflows. Tales and stories of German romantics / Comp. I. Solodinina. - M., 1991. - P.536.
Hoffman E.T.A. Magnetizer / Translated by A. Slavinskaya // Hoffman E.T.A. Novels. - L., 1990. - P.28.
Hoffman E.T.A. Elemental spirit / Per. A. Sokolovsky // Hoffman E.T.A. Serapion brothers. Works: In 2 vols. - Minsk, 1994. - V.2. - P.247.
Hoffman E.T.A. Sandman / Translated by A. Morozov // Hoffman E.T.A. Collected Works: In 6 vols. - M., 1994. V.2. - P.304.
Hoffman E.T.A. The Golden Pot / Per. In Soloviev // Hoffman E.T.A. The Golden Pot and Other Stories. - M., 1981. - P.89.
A. Mickiewicz as the founder of Polish romanticism. Features of the cycle "Crimean Sonnets"
Polish romanticism is associated with the peculiarities of the historical situation. In the 20s of the 19th century, the active activity of Polish conspiratorial organizations unfolded. Romanticism is considered as a direction capable of expressing new social moods.
Sentimentalism played an important role in the preparation of the "romantic turning point". Kazimierz Brodzinski in his article "On the Classical and Romantic, and also on the Spirit of Polish Poetry" (1818) suggests a "middle" path, since there are advantages and disadvantages in classicism and romanticism. The "middle" path is associated with the use of national tradition associated with folklore. The theoretical developments of the new artistic system are presented in the works of Maurycy Mokhnatsky, a critic and a member of a secret society. He relied on the philosophy of F. Schelling and considered national literature as a means of "self-knowledge of the nation in its essence", defended the principles of the creative freedom of the artist, demanded that literature reflect reality.
Adam Mitskevich (1798 - 1855) - a native of Belarus, the son of a lawyer, graduated from Vilna University. He was an active member of the secret societies "philomancers" (= friend of science) and "philarets" (= friends of virtue), for his activities in 1824 he was expelled from Lithuania, where at that time he worked as a teacher in Kovno. He spent four years in Russia - St. Petersburg, Odessa, Moscow; became close to the future Decembrists, with A.S. Pushkin, was engaged to Karolina Janisch. In 1829 he left Russia, but did not return to his homeland, he lived in Europe, mainly in Paris.
The collection "Poetry" (1822) by A. Mickiewicz is considered a manifesto of Polish romanticism. In the preface, he talks about historical roots romantic poetry. The condition for the flourishing of literature is its truly national character, orientation towards the people, and not towards the elect. The basis of the cycle is "Ballads and Romances". In these genres, the passion for folklore, the enrichment of the language at the expense of common dialects, was clearly manifested. Mickiewicz uses the motives of folk art, rethinks, highlighting the moral aspect; actively uses fantasy: supernatural forces protect innocence, punish crimes. The influence of the invisible world on human life is associated with a romantic dual world.
Mickiewicz's work is divided into two periods: I - 1817 - 1831: the dramatic poem "Dzyady" (dzyady is a Belarusian folk rite of commemoration of the dead; the peasant choir pronounces judgments about morality and duty, calling the spirits of the dead to court and passing judgment on their actions), the romantic poem "Grazhina" (depicting the time of the struggle of the Lithuanians with the Teutonic Order), "Crimean Sonnets", the poem "Konrad Wallenrod" (the era of the wars with the Crusaders, the hero is of the Byron type); II - 1831-1855: the poem "Pan Tadeusz" (a panorama of the life of the Polish gentry at the beginning of the 19th century), etc.
The collection "Crimean Sonnets" (1826) was written during the "Russian period" of Mickiewicz's work. He is united by the theme of the homeland and the unity of the hero. Pushkin wrote in Onegin's Journey:
Inspired Mickiewicz sang there.
And, in the middle of the coastal rocks,
I remembered my Lithuania ...
Homesickness- the main mood of the lyrical hero. This is a Polish poet, expelled from his Fatherland, hard going through separation. So, in the sonnet "Akkerman Steppes" he writes:
Wait! What silence! Listen! - away
The invisible ones rustle with the wings of cranes;
I hear - the moth barely shakes the ear,
I hear a snake crawling through the thickets ...
But no... Let's go! no one is calling us
Translation by A.M. Revich
This mood is clearly heard in the sonnet "Pototskaya's Tomb". One of the Crimean legends is associated with the name of a Pole from the Potocki family - the beloved of Khan Kerim-Giray. He erected a monument to his slave.
Daughter of Poland! So I will die in a foreign country.
Oh, if only I were buried with you!
Wanderers will pass here, as they used to pass,
And I will hear my native speech half asleep,
And maybe the poet, coming to your grave,
He will notice a hill nearby, and sing about me.
Translation by A.M. Revich
Looking at the starry sky, the exile is unable to admire the beauty of the eastern night. The stars with dotted lines indicate to him the path to his native land, where his thought rushes:
Why did so many stars sparkle in the darkness
Over there, to the north, over the Polish side?
Or your burning gaze, flying to your native land,
Scattered embers when you were fading?
Translation by A.M. Revich
Homesickness is expressed in opposition south/north. The swamps of the native land appear in the imagination more beautifully than the Crimean gardens with their lush veils.
Lyrical hero - wanderer, who does not bend under the blows of fate, admires the "land of contentment and beauty", but yearns for the Fatherland and loved ones. The lyrical hero expresses an important feature of Polish romanticism - a person is considered not only as an object of application of external forces, but also as a subject that influences circumstances.
In the "Crimean Sonnets" a kind of poetic biography is created, which could coincide with the real one, but was not identical to it.
Orientalism of Mickiewicz arose not only under the direct impression of a trip to the Crimea, but also as an artistic style that made it possible to express the originality of the wanderer's personality.
At that time, Crimea retained the bright color of Muslim culture. Mickiewicz creates own cosmogony, referring to hyperbolization, using images of Eastern mythology and complicated metaphorical language. The cycle contains lush and colorful descriptions of southern nature. Steppes, sea, mountains are very brightly represented. For example, the sonnet "Chatyrdag":
Great Chatyrdag, O mast of the Crimean mountains!
I kiss with trepidation the foot of the formidable steep.
Universal minaret. Mighty sultan of peaks!
You lifted your head into the sky.
Translation by A.M. Revich
The lyrical hero of the sonnets is constantly trying to overcome the abyss of alienation from nature - to climb to the top of Chatyrdag, to look into the mysterious cleft of the universe, to find peace in the stormy elements of the sea. But the bitterness of memories is always with him. In this tragic discord with reality, main idea"Crimean sonnets".
Sonnets are rich visual observations. For example, Mickiewicz dedicates several sonnets to Bakhchisarai - "Bakhchisarai Palace", "Bakhchisarai at night", he describes Alushta in sonnets - "Alushta by day", "Alushta by night".
Each of Mickiewicz's sonnets has been translated into Russian many times. So, one and the same fragment of the sonnet "Bakhchisarai at night" looks like this:
The harem of heaven is embroidered with lamps of the stars;
Between them a cloud floats slowly,
Like a swan dozing on the blue of the bay, -
The steep chest is white, the wing, like heat, burns ...
Translation by A.M. Revich
In the harem of the sky - millions of stars shine;
In the blue ether there floats among them
Just one cloud, like a sleepy swan,
The chest is white - the edges are rimmed with gold...
Translation by Y.I. Poznansky
The firmament lit up with a harem of stars,
Only one cloud in the azure ether,
Like a white swan in the mirror expanse,
With a golden border twisted, it floats ...
Plan
Introduction
The creative path of E.T.A. Hoffmann
"Double World" Hoffmann
Conclusion
List of used literature
Introduction
Hoffmann belongs to those writers whose posthumous fame is not limited to numerous editions of collected works.
His fame is rather light and winged, it is poured into the spiritual atmosphere that surrounds us. Whoever has not read the "tales of Hoffmann" will sooner or later hear them, or see them, but will not pass by! Let us recall at least The Nutcracker ... in the theater on the ballets of Tchaikovsky or Delibes, and if not in the theater, then at least on theater poster or on a television screen. The invisible shadow of Hoffmann constantly and beneficially overshadowed Russian culture in the 19th, and in the 20th, and in the current, 21st, century ...
This paper examines the life and creative path of the writer, analyzes the main motives of Hoffmann's work, his place in contemporary literature for him - and for us. . The issues related to Hoffmann's dual world are also considered.
The creative path of E.T.A. Hoffmann
Hoffmann took up literature late - at the age of thirty-three. Contemporaries met the new writer with caution, his fantasies were immediately identified as romantic, in the spirit of the then popular mood, and after all, Romanticism was associated primarily with the generation of young people infected with the French revolutionary virus.
Entering literature at a time when the Jena and Heidelberg romantics had already formulated and developed the basic principles of German romanticism, Hoffmann was a romantic artist. The nature of the conflicts underlying his works, their problems and the system of images, the artistic vision of the world itself remain within the framework of romanticism. Like the Jensen, most of Hoffmann's works are based on the artist's conflict with society. The original romantic antithesis of the artist and society is at the heart of the writer's attitude. Following the Jens, Hoffmann considers the creative person to be the highest embodiment of the human "I" - an artist, an "enthusiast", in his terminology, who has access to the world of art, the world of fairy tale fantasy, those only areas where he can fully realize himself and find refuge from the real philistine everyday life.
But the embodiment and resolution of the romantic conflict in Hoffmann are different than in the early romantics. Through the denial of reality, through the artist's conflict with it, the Jensen rose to the highest level of their worldview - aesthetic monism, when the whole world became for them the sphere of poetic utopia, fairy tale, the sphere of harmony in which the artist comprehends himself and the Universe. The romantic hero of Hoffmann lives in the real world (beginning with Gluck's gentleman and ending with Kreisler). With all his attempts to break out of it into the world of art, into the fantastic fairy-tale kingdom of Dzhinnistan, he remains surrounded by real, concrete historical reality. Neither a fairy tale nor art can bring him harmony in this real world, which ultimately subjugates them. Hence the constant tragic contradiction between the hero and his ideals, on the one hand, and reality, on the other. Hence the dualism from which Hoffmann's heroes suffer, the two worlds in his works, the insolubility of the conflict between the hero and outside world in most of them, the characteristic duality of the writer's creative manner.
The creative individuality of Hoffmann in many characteristic features is already defined in his first book, Fantasies in the Manner of Callot, which includes works written from 1808 to 1814. significant aspects of his worldview and creative manner. The short story develops one of the main, if not the main idea of the writer's work - the insolubility of the conflict between the artist and society. This idea is revealed through the artistic device that will become dominant in all subsequent work of the writer - the two-dimensionality of the narrative.
The collections of short stories "Fantasy in the manner of Callot" (1814-1815), "Night stories in the manner of Callot" (1816-1817) and the Serapion brothers (1819-1821) are considered the most significant; a dialogue about the problems of theatrical business “The Unusual Sufferings of a Theater Director” (1818); a story in the spirit of a fairy tale "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (1819); and two novels - "Devil's Elixir" - about the irrationality of everyday life (1816), a brilliant study of the problem of duality, and "Everyday views of the cat Murr" - a satire on the German bourgeoisie (1819 - 1821), partly an autobiographical work, full of wit and wisdom. Among the most famous stories of Hoffmann, which were included in the mentioned collections, are the fairy tale "The Golden Pot", the gothic story "Mayorat", a realistically reliable psychological story about a jeweler who is unable to part with his creations, "Mademoiselle de Scudery", and some other.
Eight years after the release of Fantasies, Hoffmann died. He was already dying as a writer, not exactly famous, but very popular. During these eight years, he managed to write surprisingly much, this is evidenced by the above list of just a few, the most significant, works.
Brilliant fantasy, combined with a strict and transparent style, provided Hoffmann with a special place in German literature. Germany appreciated this much later, already in the 20th century ...
"Double World" Hoffmann
In the 20th century, and today, the reader associated and still associates the name of Hoffmann, first of all, with the famous principle of "two worlds" - a romantically pointed expression of the eternal problem of art, the contradiction between the ideal and reality, "essentiality", as the Russian romantics used to say. “Essentiality” is prosaic, that is, petty and miserable, this life is inauthentic, improper; the ideal is beautiful and poetic, it is true life, but it lives only in the chest of the artist, the "enthusiast", but he is persecuted by reality and unattainable in it. The artist is doomed to live in the world of his own fantasies, fenced off from the outside world with a protective shaft of contempt or bristling against him with a prickly armor of irony, mockery, satire. And in fact, Hoffmann is like that in Cavalier Gluck, and in The Golden Pot, and in Berganets the Dog, and in Little Tsakhes, and in Lord of the Fleas, and in Murre the Cat.
There is another image of Hoffmann: under the mask of a mad joker hides a tragic singer of the duality and alienation of the human soul (not excluding the artistic soul). And it is also easy to find grounds for this image: in The Sandman, Majorat, Elixirs of the Devil, Magnetizer, Mademoiselle de Scudery, The Gambler's Happiness.
These two images, iridescent, flickering, are the main ones in Hoffmann's work, but there are also others: a cheerful and kind storyteller - the author of the famous Nutcracker; singer of ancient crafts and patriarchal foundations - author of "Master Martin the Cooper" and "Master Johannes Watch"; the selfless priest of Music - the author of "Kreisleriana"; secret admirer of Life - the author of "The Corner Window".
Perhaps the most virtuosic elaboration of the psychological - and, by the way, social too - problematics is given in the striking study "Counsellor Crespel" from "The Serapion Brothers". It says about the title character: “There are people whom nature or merciless fate have deprived of cover, under the cover of which we, the rest of the mortals, imperceptibly to the eyes of others, proceed in our follies ... Everything that remains a thought in Crespel is immediately transformed into action. Bitter mockery, which, it must be assumed, is constantly concealed on its lips by the spirit languishing in us, squeezed in the vice of an insignificant earthly vanity, Crespel shows us with his own eyes in his extravagant antics and antics. But this is his lightning rod. Everything that rises up in us from the earth, he returns to the earth - but he keeps the divine spark sacredly; so that his inner consciousness, I believe, is quite healthy, despite all the seeming - even eye-catching - folly.
This is a significantly different twist. As it is easy to see, we are not talking about a romantic individual only, but about human nature in general. Crespel is characterized by one of the "other mortals" and all the time he says "we", "in us". In the depths of our souls, we all “come out in our follies”, and the dividing line, the notorious “two worlds” begins not at the level of the inner, spiritual structure, but at the level of only its external expression. What "other mortals" reliably hide under a protective cover (everything "earthly") is not forced out in Crespel's depths. On the contrary, it is released outside, “returns to the earth” (psychologists of the Freudian circle will call it “catharsis” - by analogy with the Aristotelian “purification of the soul”).
But Crespel - and here he again returns to the romantic chosen circle - sacredly keeps the "divine spark". And it is possible - and quite often - also when neither morality nor consciousness are able to overcome "everything that rises up in us from the earth." Hoffmann fearlessly enters this sphere as well. His novel "Devil's Elixirs" at a superficial glance may now appear to be just a mixture of a horror novel and a detective story; in fact, the story of the unrestrained moral sacrilege and criminal offenses of the monk Medardus is a parable and a warning. What, in relation to Crespel, is softened and philosophically abstractly designated as “everything that rises up in us from the earth”, here it is called much sharper and harsher - we are talking about “a blind beast raging in a person”. And here not only the uncontrolled power of the subconscious, "repressed" is rampant - here also the dark force of blood, bad heredity, presses.
According to Hoffmann, man is thus oppressed not only from the outside, but also from the inside. His "crazy antics and antics", it turns out, is not only a sign of dissimilarity, individuality; they are also Cain's seal of the race. The "cleansing" of the soul from the "earthly", splashing it outward can give rise to the innocent eccentricities of Crespel and Kreisler, and maybe even the criminal unbridledness of Medardus. Pressed from two sides, torn apart by two impulses, a person balances on the verge of a break, a split - and then already genuine madness.
The phantom of bifurcation, which had haunted his soul and occupied his mind all his life, Hoffmann embodied this time in an unheard of bold art form, not only placing two different biographies under one cover, but also demonstratively mixing them. We are talking about the novel "Everyday worldviews of the cat Murr". It is interesting that both biographies reflect the same epochal issues, the history of Hoffmann's time and generation, that is, one subject is given in two different illuminations, interpretations. Hoffmann sums up here; the outcome is ambiguous.
The confession of the novel is emphasized primarily by the fact that the same Kreisler appears in it. With the image of his literary double, Hoffmann began - "Kreislerian" in the cycle of the first "Fantasy" - and ends with it.
At the same time, Kreisler is by no means a hero in this novel. As the publisher immediately warns (fictitious, of course), the proposed book is precisely the confession of the learned cat Murr; and the author and the hero - he. But when the book was being prepared for publication, it is ruefully explained further, there was an embarrassment: when the proof sheets began to arrive at the publisher, he was horrified to find that the notes of the cat Murr were constantly interrupted by fragments of some completely different text! As it turned out, the author (that is, the cat), expounding his worldly views, along the way, tore apart the first book that fell into his paws from the owner’s library in order to use the torn pages “partly for laying, partly for drying.” The book, cut up in such a barbaric way, turned out to be a biography of Kreisler; due to the negligence of typesetters, these pages were also printed.
biography brilliant composer like scrap paper in a cat's biography! It was necessary to have a truly Hoffmannian fantasy in order to give such a form to bitter self-irony. Who needs Kreisler's life, his joys and sorrows, what are they good for? Is that to dry the graphomaniac exercises of a learned cat!
However, with graphomaniac exercises, everything is not so simple. As we read Murr's autobiography itself, we are convinced that the cat is also not so simple, and by no means without reason claims to be leading role in the novel, the role of the romantic "son of the century". Here he is, now wiser with both worldly experience and literary and philosophical studies, reasoning at the beginning of his biography: “How rare, however, is the true affinity of souls in our wretched, inert, selfish age! .. My writings will undoubtedly ignite in the chest not one young, gifted with reason and heart cat, the high flame of poetry ... but another noble young cat will be completely imbued with the lofty ideals of the book that I now hold in my paws, and will exclaim in an enthusiastic impulse: Oh Murr, divine Murr, the greatest genius of our glorious feline race! Only to you I owe everything, only your example made me great! » Remove specific cat realities in this passage - and you will have a completely romantic style, lexicon, pathos.
To depict a romantic genius in the image of an imposingly sloppy cat is already a very funny idea in itself, and Hoffmann makes full use of its comic possibilities. Of course, the reader is quickly convinced that, by nature, Murr simply learned the fashionable romantic jargon. However, it is not so indifferent that he "works" under romance with success, with an outstanding sense of style! Hoffmann could not but know that such a masquerade risks compromising romanticism itself; it's a calculated risk.
Here are the "waste sheets" - with all the "Hoffmannian" reigning here, the sad story of the life of Kapellmeister Kreisler, a lonely, little-understood genius; sometimes inspired romantic, sometimes ironic tirades explode, fiery exclamations sound, fiery eyes blaze - and suddenly the narration breaks off, sometimes literally in the middle (the torn page ends), and the same romantic tirades rapturously mumble the learned cat: “... I know for sure : my homeland is an attic! The climate of the motherland, its customs, how inextinguishable are these impressions... Where does such an exalted way of thinking come from in me, such an irresistible desire for higher spheres? Whence such a rare gift to instantly ascend upwards, such courageous, most ingenious jumps worthy of envy? Oh, sweet longing fills my chest! Longing for my native attic rises in me in a powerful wave! I dedicate these tears to you, oh beautiful homeland ... "
The demonstrative, almost literal fragmentation of the novel, its outward narrative confusion (again: either the extravaganza of fireworks, or the whirlwind of the carnival) is compositionally soldered tightly, with ingenious calculation, and it must be realized.
At first glance, it may seem that the parallel biographies of Kreisler and Murr are a new version of the traditional Hoffmannian dual world: the sphere of "enthusiasts" (Kreisler) and the sphere of "philistines" (Murr). But even a second glance complicates this arithmetic: after all, in each of these biographies, in turn, the world is also divided in half, and each has its own sphere of enthusiasts (Kreisler and Murr) and philistines (environment of Kreisler and Murr). The world is no longer doubling, but quadrupling - the score here is "twice two"!
And this changes the whole picture very significantly. We isolate the experiment for the sake of Kreisler's line - before us will be another "classical" Hoffmann's story with all its characteristic attributes; if we single out Murr's line, there will be a "hoffmanized" version of the genre of satirical allegory, the "animal epic" or fable with a self-revealing meaning, which is very common in world literature. But Hoffmann mixes them up, pushes them together, and they must certainly be perceived only in mutual relation.
These are not just parallel lines - they are parallel mirrors. One of them - Murrovsky - is placed in front of the former Hoffmannian romantic structure, reflects and repeats it again and again. Thus, this mirror inevitably removes absoluteness from the history and figure of Kreisler, gives it a shimmering ambiguity. The mirror turns out to be a parody, "worldly views of the cat Murr" - an ironic paraphrase of "the musical suffering of Kapellmeister Kreisler."
One of the essential components of Hoffmann's poetics, as well as the early romantics, is irony. Moreover, in Hoffmann's irony as a creative technique, which is based on a certain philosophical, aesthetic, worldview position, we can clearly distinguish two main functions. In one of them, he appears as a direct follower of the Yenese. We are talking about those of his works in which are solved purely aesthetic problems and where the role of romantic irony is close to that which it performs in the Jena romantics. Romantic irony in these works of Hoffmann receives a satirical sound, but this satire does not have a social, public orientation. An example of the manifestation of such a function of irony is the short story "Princess Brambilla" - brilliant in its artistic performance and typically Hoffmann in demonstrating the duality of his creative method. Following the Jenians, the author of the short story "Princess Brambilla" believes that irony should express a "philosophical outlook on life", that is, be the basis of a person's attitude to life. In accordance with this, as with the Jenese, irony is a means of resolving all conflicts and contradictions, a means of overcoming that “chronic dualism” from which the main character of this short story the actor Giglio Fava.
In line with this main trend, another and more essential function of his irony is revealed. If among the Yenese irony as an expression of a universal attitude to the world became at the same time an expression of skepticism and refusal to resolve the contradictions of reality, then Hoffmann saturates irony with a tragic sound, for him it contains a combination of the tragic and the comic. The main bearer of Hoffmann's ironic attitude to life is Kreisler, whose "chronic dualism" is tragic, in contrast to the comical "chronic dualism" of Giglio Fava. The satirical beginning of Hoffmann’s irony in this function has a specific social address, significant social content, and therefore this function of romantic irony allows him, a romantic writer, to reflect some typical phenomena of reality (“The Golden Pot”, “Little Tsakhes”, “The Worldly Views of the Cat Murra" - works that most characteristically reflect this function of Hoffmann's irony).
For Hoffmann, the superiority of the poetic world over the world of real everyday life is undeniable. And he sings of this world of a fabulous dream, giving it preference over the real, prosaic world.
But Hoffmann would not have been an artist with such a contradictory and, in many respects, tragic worldview if such a fairy tale novel had determined the general direction of his work, and did not demonstrate only one of its sides. At its core, however, the writer's artistic worldview does not at all proclaim the complete victory of the poetic world over the real. Only madmen like Serapion or philistines believe in the existence of only one of these worlds. This principle of duality is reflected in a number of Hoffmann's works, perhaps the most striking in their artistic quality and most fully embodied the contradictions of his worldview. Such, first of all, is the fairy-tale short story The Golden Pot (1814), the title of which is accompanied by the eloquent subtitle A Tale from Modern Times. The meaning of this subtitle lies in the fact that the characters in this tale are contemporaries of Hoffmann, and the action takes place in the real Dresden at the beginning of the 19th century. This is how Hoffmann rethinks the Jena tradition of the fairy tale genre - the writer includes a plan of real everyday life in its ideological and artistic structure. The hero of the novel, student Anselm, is an eccentric loser, endowed with a "naive poetic soul", and this makes the world of the fabulous and wonderful accessible to him. Faced with him, Anselm begins to lead a dual existence, falling from his prosaic existence into the realm of a fairy tale, adjacent to ordinary real life. In accordance with this, the short story is compositionally built on the interweaving and interpenetration of the fabulous-fantastic plan with the real. Romantic fairy-tale fantasy in its subtle poetry and elegance finds here in Hoffmann one of its best exponents. At the same time, the real plan is clearly outlined in the novel. Not without reason, some researchers of Hoffmann believed that this novel could be used to successfully reconstruct the topography of the streets of Dresden at the beginning of the last century. A significant role in the characterization of the characters is played by a realistic detail.
A widely and vividly developed fairy-tale plan with many bizarre episodes, so unexpectedly and seemingly randomly invading the story of real everyday life, is subject to a clear, logical ideological and artistic structure of the short story, in contrast to the deliberate fragmentation and inconsistency in the narrative manner of most early romantics. The two-dimensional nature of Hoffmann's creative method, the two-world nature in his worldview, were reflected in the opposition of the real and the fantastic world and in the corresponding division of the characters into two groups. Konrektor Paulman, his daughter Veronica, registrar Geerbrand - prosaically thinking Dresden townsfolk, which can be attributed, in the author's own terminology, to good people, devoid of any poetic flair. They are opposed by the archivist Lindhorst with his daughter Serpentina, who came to this philistine world from a fantastic fairy tale, and the dear eccentric Anselm, whose poetic soul opened the fairy-tale world of the archivist.
In the happy ending of the novel, which ends with two weddings, its ideological intent is fully interpreted. The court adviser becomes the registrar Geerbrand, to whom Veronika gives her hand without hesitation, having abandoned her passion for Anselm. Her dream comes true - “she lives in a beautiful house in the New Market”, she has “a hat of the latest style, a new Turkish shawl”, and, having breakfast in an elegant negligee by the window, she gives orders to the servants. Anselm marries Serpentina and, having become a poet, settles with her in fabulous Atlantis. At the same time, he receives as a dowry a “pretty estate” and a golden pot, which he saw in the archivist’s house. The golden pot - this peculiar ironic transformation of Novalis' "blue flower" - retains the original function of this romantic symbol. It can hardly be considered that the completion of the Anselm-Serpentina storyline is a parallel to the philistine ideal embodied in the union of Veronica and Geerbrand, and the golden pot is a symbol of bourgeois happiness. After all, Anselm does not give up his poetic dream, he only finds its realization.
The philosophical idea of the short story about the incarnation, the realm of poetic fantasy in the world of art, in the world of poetry, is affirmed in the last paragraph of the short story. Its author, who suffers from the thought that he has to leave the fabulous Atlantis and return to the miserable squalor of his attic, hears the encouraging words of Lindhorst: “Weren’t you yourself just in Atlantis and don’t you own at least a decent manor there as poetic property your mind? Is Anselm's bliss nothing else than life in poetry, which reveals the sacred harmony of all that exists as the deepest of the mysteries of nature!
V. G. Belinsky highly appreciated Hoffmann's satirical talent, noting that he was able to "depict reality in all its truth and execute philistinism ... his compatriots with poisonous sarcasm."
These observations of the remarkable Russian critic can be fully attributed to the fairy tale short story "Little Tsakhes". The new fairy tale completely preserves Hoffmann's two worlds in the perception of reality, which is again reflected in the two-dimensional composition of the short story, in the characters' characters and their arrangement. Many of the main characters of the novel are fairy tales.
"Little Tsakhes" have their literary prototypes in the short story "The Golden Pot": student Balthazar - Anselma, Prosper Alpanus - Lindhorst, Candida - Veronica.
The duality of the novel is revealed in the opposition of the world of poetic dreams, the fabulous country of Dzhinnistan, the world of real everyday life, the principality of Prince Barsanuf, in which the action of the novel takes place. Some characters and things lead a dual existence here, as they combine their fairy-tale magical existence with existence in the real world. Fairy Rosabelverde, she is also the Canoness of the Rosenshen Orphanage for Noble Maidens, patronizes the disgusting little Tsakhes, rewarding him with three magical golden hairs.
In the same dual capacity as the fairy Rosabelverde, she is also Canoness Rosenshen, the good wizard Alpanus also acts, surrounding himself with various fabulous miracles that the poet and dreamer student Baltazar well sees. In his ordinary incarnation, only accessible to philistines and sober-minded rationalists, Alpanus is just a doctor, prone, however, to very intricate quirks.
Artistic plans compared short stories are compatible, if not completely, then very close. In terms of ideological sound, for all their similarity, the novellas are quite different. If in the fairy tale "The Golden Pot", which ridicules the attitude of the bourgeoisie, satire has a moral and ethical character, then in "Little Tsakhes" it becomes more acute and receives a social sound. It is no coincidence that Belinsky noted that this short story was banned by the tsarist censorship for the reason that it contains "a lot of ridicule of stars and officials."
It is in connection with the expansion of the address of satire, with its strengthening in the short story, that one significant moment in its artistic structure also changes - the main character becomes not positive hero, a characteristic Hoffmannian eccentric, a poet-dreamer (Anselm in the short story "The Golden Pot"), and the negative hero is the vile freak Tsakhes, a character who, in a deeply symbolic combination of his external features and internal content, first appears on the pages of Hoffmann's works. “Little Tsakhes” is even more of a “tale from new times” than “The Golden Pot”. Tsakhes - a complete nonentity, devoid of even the gift of intelligible articulate speech, but with an exorbitantly swollen swaggering pride, disgustingly ugly in appearance - due to the magical gift of the Rosabelverde fairy, in the eyes of those around him, he looks not only a stately handsome man, but also a person endowed with outstanding talents, bright and clear mind. In a short time, he makes a brilliant administrative career: without completing a law course at the university, he becomes an important official and, finally, the all-powerful first minister in the principality. Such a career is only possible due to the fact that Tsakhes appropriates other people's labors and talents - the mysterious power of the three golden hairs makes blinded people attribute to him everything significant and talented done by others.
So within the limits of the romantic worldview and artistic means The romantic method depicts one of the great evils of the modern social system. However, the unfair distribution of spiritual and material wealth seemed fatal to the writer, arising under the influence of irrational fantastic forces in this society, where power and wealth are endowed with insignificant people, and their insignificance, in turn, by the power of power and gold turns into an imaginary brilliance of mind and talents. The debunking and overthrowing of these false idols, in accordance with the nature of the writer's worldview, comes from outside, thanks to the intervention of the same irrational fairy-tale-magical forces (the sorcerer Prosper Alpanus, in his confrontation with the fairy Rosabelverde, patronizing Balthazar), which, according to Hoffmann, gave rise to this ugly social phenomenon. The scene of indignation of the crowd bursting into the house of the all-powerful minister Zinnober after he lost his magical charm, of course, should not be taken as an attempt by the author to seek a radical means of eliminating the social evil that is symbolized in the fantastically fabulous image of the freak Tsakhes. This is just one of the minor details of the plot, which by no means has a programmatic character. The people are not rebelling against the evil temporary minister, but only mocking the disgusting freak, whose appearance finally appeared before them in its true form. Grotesque within the framework of the fairy-tale plan of the novel, and not socially symbolic, is the death of Tsakhes, who, fleeing the raging crowd, drowns in a silver chamber pot.
hoffman creativity writer dual world
Conclusion
It was Hoffmann who most poignantly embodied words in the art of "dvoe-world"; it is his identification mark. But Hoffmann is neither a fanatic nor a dogmatist of dual worlds; he is his analyst and dialectician...
... Since then, many wonderful masters have come into the world, somewhat similar and completely different from Hoffmann. And the world itself has changed beyond recognition. But Hoffmann continues to live in world art. Much was revealed for the first time to the intent and kind gaze of this artist, and therefore his name often sounds like a symbol of humanity and spirituality. For the great romantics, among whom Hoffmann occupies one of the most honorable places, the contradictions of life that painfully wounded them remained a mystery. But they were the first to talk about these contradictions, about the fact that the struggle with them - the struggle for the ideal - is the happiest lot of man ...
List of used literature
- Belinsky V.G. Full composition of writings. T. 4. - L., 1954. - S. 98
- Berkovsky N.Ya. Romanticism in Germany. SPb., 2002. S.463-537.
- Braudo E.M. THIS. Hoffmann. - Pgd., 1922. - S. 20
- Herzen A.I. Collected works in 30 volumes. T. 1. Hoffmann. - M., 1954. - S. 54-56.
- Zhirmunsky V.M. German romanticism and modern mysticism. M., 1997.
- Foreign literature of the 19th century. Romanticism. Reader of historical and literary materials. Comp. A.S. Dmitriev et al. M., 1990.
- Selected Prose of the German Romantics. M., 1979. T. 1-2.
- History of foreign literature of the 19th century. Ed. A.S. Dmitrieva. M., 1971. 4.1.
- History of foreign literature of the 19th century. Ed. Ya.N. Zasursky, S.V. Turaev. M., 1982.
- History of foreign literature of the 19th century. Ed. N.P.Mikhalskaya. M., 1991. 4.1.
- Karelsky A. Drama of German Romanticism. - M., 1992.
- The Literary Theory of German Romanticism. - M., 1934.
- Mirimsky I. Romanticism E.T.A. Hoffmann. Issue. 3. - M., 1937. - S. 14
- Novikov M. "And I saw the world like this" // Literary Review. - 1996. - No. 9-10.
- Turaev S.V. German Literature // History of World Literature in 9 vols. - T.6. - M.: Nauka, 1989. - S.51-55.
- Ferman V.E. German romantic opera // Opera theatre. Articles and research. - M., 1961. - S. 34
- The artistic world of E.T.A. Hoffmann. - M.: Nauka, 1982. - 292 p.
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The fantastic novels and novels of Hoffmann are the most significant achievement of German romanticism. He bizarrely combined elements of reality with a fantastic game of the author's imagination.
Assimilates the traditions of his predecessors, synthesizes these achievements and creates his own unique romantic world.
Perceived reality as an objective reality.
Two worlds are vividly represented in his work. The real world is opposed to the unreal world. They collide. Hoffmann not only recites them, he depicts them (there was a figurative embodiment for the first time). He showed that these two worlds are interconnected, it is difficult to separate them, they are interpenetrating.
He did not try to ignore reality, replacing it with artistic imagination. Creating fantastic paintings, he was aware of their illusory nature. Fantasy served him as a means of comprehending the conditions of life.
In the works of Hoffmann, there is often a bifurcation of characters. The appearance of twins is associated with the peculiarities of the romantic worldview. The double in the author's fantasy arises because the writer notices with surprise the lack of integrity of the personality - the consciousness of a person is torn, striving for good, he, obeying a mysterious impulse, commits villainy.
Like all predecessors in the romantic school, Hoffmann is looking for ideals in art. The ideal hero of Hoffmann is a musician, an artist, a poet who, with a burst of imagination, with the power of his talent, creates a new world, more perfect than the one where he is doomed to exist every day. Music seemed to him the most romantic art, because it is not directly connected with the surrounding sensory world, but expresses a person's attraction to the unknown, the beautiful, the infinite.
Hoffman divided the heroes into 2 unequal parts: true musicians and just good people, but bad musicians. An enthusiast, a romantic is a creative person. Philistines (highlighted as good people) are philistines, people with a narrow outlook. They are not born, they are made. In his work, they are subjected to constant satire. They preferred not to develop, but to live for the sake of "purse and stomach." This is an irreversible process.
The other half of humanity - musicians - are creative people (the writer himself belongs to them - some works have elements of autobiography). These people are extraordinarily gifted, able to turn on all the senses, their world is much more complex and subtle. They find it difficult to connect with reality. But the world of musicians also has drawbacks (reason 1 - the world of philistines does not understand them, 2 - they often become prisoners of their own illusions, begin to experience fear of reality = tragic result). It is true musicians who are very often unhappy because they themselves cannot find a charitable connection with reality. The artificially created world is not a way out for the soul.
Question 20. Hoffmann's work - a general characteristic.
Hoffman (1776 Koenigsberg - 1822 Berlin), German romantic writer, composer, music critic, conductor, decorator. He combined subtle philosophical irony and bizarre fantasy, reaching the mystical grotesque, with a critical perception of reality, a satire on the German bourgeoisie and feudal absolutism. Brilliant fantasy, combined with a strict and transparent style, gave Hoffmann a special place in German literature. The action of his works almost never took place in distant lands - as a rule, he placed his incredible heroes in an everyday setting. One of the founders of romantic musical aesthetics and criticism, the author of one of the first romantic operas, Ondine (1814). Hoffmann realized poetic images in his writings ("The Nutcracker"). Son of an official. He studied law at the University of Königsberg. In Berlin, he was in the civil service as an adviser to justice. Hoffmann's short stories Cavalier Gluck (1809), Musical Sufferings of Johann Kreisler, Kapellmeister (1810), Don Giovanni (1813) were later included in the collection Fantasies in the Spirit of Callot. In the story "The Golden Pot" (1814), the world is presented, as it were, in two planes: real and fantastic. In the novel The Devil's Elixir (1815–1816), reality appears as an element of dark, supernatural forces. In The Amazing Sufferings of a Theater Director (1819), theatrical manners are depicted. His symbolic-fantastic story-tale "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (1819) is clearly satirical. In Night Stories (parts 1–2, 1817), in the collection The Serapion Brothers, in Last Stories (1825), Hoffmann sometimes satirically, sometimes tragically draws the conflicts of life, romantically interpreting them as the eternal struggle of the bright and dark forces. The unfinished novel The Worldly Views of Cat Murr (1820–1822) is a satire on German philistinism and feudal-absolutist orders. The novel The Lord of the Fleas (1822) contains bold attacks against the police regime in Prussia. A vivid expression of Hoffmann's aesthetic views are his short stories "Cavalier Gluck", "Don Giovanni", the dialogue "Poet and Composer" (1813). In the short stories, as well as in Fragments of the Biography of Johannes Kreisler, introduced into the novel The Worldly Views of Cat Murr, Hoffmann created the tragic image of the inspired musician Kreisler, who rebels against philistinism and is doomed to suffering. Acquaintance with Hoffmann in Russia began in the 1920s. 19th century Hoffmann studied music with his uncle, then with the organist Chr. Podbelsky, later took composition lessons from. Hoffmann organized the Philharmonic Society, Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw, where he served as a state councillor. In 1807–1813 he worked as a conductor, composer and decorator in theaters in Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden. One of the founders of romantic musical aesthetics and criticism, Hoffmann is already on early stage The development of romanticism in music formulated its significant trends, showed the tragic position of the romantic musician in society. He imagined music as a special world (“an unknown kingdom”), capable of revealing to a person the meaning of his feelings and passions, the nature of the mysterious and inexpressible. Hoffmann wrote about the essence of music, about musical compositions, composers, and performers. Hoffmann is the author of the first German. romantic opera Ondine (1813), opera Aurora (1812), symphonies, choirs, chamber compositions.
Hoffmann, a sharp realist satirist, opposes feudal reaction, philistine narrow-mindedness, stupidity and complacency of the German bourgeoisie. It was this quality that Heine highly appreciated in his work. The heroes of Hoffmann are modest and poor workers, most often intellectuals-raznochintsy, suffering from the stupidity, ignorance and cruelty of the environment.
Question 21
Hoffman (1776 Koenigsberg - 1822 Berlin), German romantic writer, composer, music critic, conductor, decorator. He combined subtle philosophical irony and bizarre fantasy, reaching the mystical grotesque, with a critical perception of reality, a satire on the German bourgeoisie and feudal absolutism. Brilliant fantasy, combined with a strict and transparent style, provided Hoffmann with a special place in German literature. Dedicated only to the theme of music and musicians: the musician tells the story, its characters are the characters of Mozart's opera and the performers of the main parts. The author conveys the shock that he experiences during the performance of Mozart's opera, tells about an amazing singer who lives a full life only on stage and dies when her heroine, Donna Anna, is forced to marry the unloved. The mastery of the construction of the work leads to the fact that the reader cannot fully understand how the split personality of the singer happened, how it could happen that she was both on the stage and in the narrator's box. It is important for Hoffmann to show how music can work wonders, completely capturing the imagination and feelings of the listener and performer. It is no coincidence that the singer dies when the soul of her heroine is abused: she is forced to give up true love. The second world is represented by philistines who talk about music without understanding it, and condemn the singer for putting too much feeling into her performance: this led to her death.
Question 22. Romantic irony as the basis for seeing the world and creating the main symbol in Hoffmann's Little Tsakhes.
Fairy tale novel golden pot ”(1814), the title of which is accompanied by the eloquent subtitle “A Tale from Modern Times”. The meaning of this subtitle lies in the fact that the characters in this tale are contemporaries of Hoffmann, and the action takes place in the real Dresden at the beginning of the 19th century. This is how Hoffmann rethinks the Jena tradition of the fairy tale genre - the writer includes a plan of real everyday life in its ideological and artistic structure. The hero of the novel, student Anselm, is an eccentric loser, endowed with a "naive poetic soul", and this makes the world of the fabulous and wonderful accessible to him. Faced with him, Anselm begins to lead a dual existence, falling from his prosaic existence into the realm of a fairy tale, adjacent to ordinary real life. In accordance with this, the short story is compositionally built on the interweaving and interpenetration of the fabulous-fantastic plan with the real. Romantic fairy-tale fantasy in its subtle poetry and elegance finds here in Hoffmann one of its best exponents. At the same time, the real plan is clearly outlined in the novel. Not without reason, some researchers of Hoffmann believed that this novel could be used to successfully reconstruct the topography of the streets of Dresden at the beginning of the last century. A significant role in the characterization of the characters is played by a realistic detail. A widely and vividly developed fairy-tale plan with many bizarre episodes, so unexpectedly and seemingly randomly invading the story of real everyday life, is subject to a clear, logical ideological and artistic structure of the short story, in contrast to the deliberate fragmentation and inconsistency in the narrative manner of most early romantics. The two-dimensional nature of Hoffmann's creative method, the two-world nature in his worldview, were reflected in the opposition of the real and the fantastic world and in the corresponding division of the characters into two groups. Konrektor Paulman, his daughter Veronica, registrar Geerbrand - prosaically thinking Dresden townsfolk, which can be attributed, in the author's own terminology, to good people, devoid of any poetic flair. They are opposed by the archivist Lindhorst with his daughter Serpentina, who came to this philistine world from a fantastic fairy tale, and the dear eccentric Anselm, whose poetic soul opened the fairy-tale world of the archivist. In the happy ending of the novel, which ends with two weddings, its ideological intent is fully interpreted. The court adviser becomes the registrar Geerbrand, to whom Veronika gives her hand without hesitation, having abandoned her passion for Anselm. Her dream comes true - “she lives in a beautiful house in the New Market”, she has “a hat of the latest style, a new Turkish shawl”, and, having breakfast in an elegant negligee by the window, she gives orders to the servants. Anselm marries Serpentina and, having become a poet, settles with her in fabulous Atlantis. At the same time, he receives as a dowry a “pretty estate” and a golden pot, which he saw in the archivist’s house. The golden pot - this peculiar ironic transformation of Novalis' "blue flower" - retains the original function of this romantic symbol. It can hardly be considered that the completion of the Anselm-Serpentina storyline is a parallel to the philistine ideal embodied in the union of Veronica and Geerbrand, and the golden pot is a symbol of bourgeois happiness. After all, Anselm does not give up his poetic dream, he only finds its realization. The philosophical idea of the short story about the incarnation, the realm of poetic fantasy in the world of art, in the world of poetry, is affirmed in the last paragraph of the short story. Its author, suffering from the thought that he has to leave the fabulous Atlantis and return to the pitiful squalor of his attic, hears the encouraging words of Lindhorst: “Weren’t you yourself just in Atlantis and don’t you own there, at least, a decent the poetic property of your mind? Is Anselm's bliss nothing else than life in poetry, which reveals the sacred harmony of all that exists as the deepest of the mysteries of nature! highly appreciated the satirical talent of Hoffmann, noting that he was able to "depict reality in all its truth and execute philistinism ... his compatriots with poisonous sarcasm."
Question 23. Romantic. grotesque as the basis for seeing the world and creating the main symbol in "Little Tsakhes".
The years 1815-1830 in Germany, as well as throughout Europe, are the dead time of the regime of the Holy Alliance. In German romanticism, complex processes take place during this period that significantly change its character. In particular, the features of tragedy are intensified, evidence of which is primarily the work of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822). The relatively short career of the writer - 1808-1822. - covers mainly the time of the post-Napoleonic reaction in Germany. As an artist and thinker, Hoffmann is successively associated with the Jena school. He develops many of the ideas of F. Schlegel and Novalis, such as the doctrine of universal poetry, the concept of romantic irony and the synthesis of arts. A musician and composer, the author of the first romantic opera (Ondine, 1814), a decorative artist and a master of graphic drawing, Hoffmann, like no one else, was close to not only comprehending, but also practically implementing the idea of synthesis. The fairy tale "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (1819), like the "Golden Pot", stuns with its bizarre fantasy. Hoffmann's program hero Balthazar belongs to the romantic tribe of enthusiastic artists, he has the ability to penetrate into the essence of phenomena, secrets are revealed to him that are inaccessible to the mind of ordinary people. At the same time, the career of Tsakhes - Zinnober, who became a minister at the princely court and a holder of the Order of the Green-Spotted Tiger with twenty buttons, is grotesquely presented here. Satire is socially specific: Hoffmann denounces the mechanism of power in the feudal principalities, and the social psychology generated by autocratic power, and the poverty of the townsfolk, and, finally, the dogmatism of university science. At the same time, it is not limited to denunciation of specific carriers of social evil. The reader is invited to reflect on the nature of power, on how public opinion is formed, political myths are created. The tale of the three golden hairs of Tsakhes acquires an ominous generalizing meaning, becoming a story about how the alienation of the results of human labor is brought to the point of absurdity. Before the power of the three golden hairs, talents, knowledge, moral qualities lose their meaning, even love is wrecked. And although the tale has a happy ending, it, like in the Golden Pot, is quite ironic. Within the framework of the romantic worldview and the artistic means of the romantic method, one of the great evils of the modern social system is depicted. However, the unfair distribution of spiritual and material wealth seemed fatal to the writer, arising under the influence of irrational fantastic forces in this society, where power and wealth are endowed with insignificant people, and their insignificance, in turn, by the power of power and gold turns into an imaginary brilliance of mind and talents. The debunking and overthrowing of these false idols, in accordance with the nature of the writer's worldview, comes from outside, thanks to the intervention of the same irrational fairy-tale-magical forces (the sorcerer Prosper Alpanus, in his confrontation with the fairy Rosabelverde, patronizing Balthazar), which, according to Hoffmann, gave rise to this ugly social phenomenon. The scene of indignation of the crowd bursting into the house of the all-powerful minister Zinnober after he lost his magical charm, of course, should not be taken as an attempt by the author to seek a radical means of eliminating the social evil that is symbolized in the fantastically fabulous image of the freak Tsakhes. This is just one of the minor details of the plot, which by no means has a programmatic character. The people are not rebelling against the evil temporary minister, but only mocking the disgusting freak, whose appearance finally appeared before them in its true form. Grotesque within the framework of the fairy-tale plan of the novel, and not socially symbolic, is the death of Tsakhes, who, fleeing the raging crowd, drowns in a silver chamber pot.
Question 24. The originality of the composition in Hoffmann's Cat Murre.
The years 1815-1830 in Germany, as well as throughout Europe, are the dead time of the regime of the Holy Alliance. In German romanticism, complex processes take place during this period that significantly change its character. In particular, the features of tragedy are intensified, evidence of which is primarily the work of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822). The relatively short career of the writer - 1808-1822. - covers mainly the time of the post-Napoleonic reaction in Germany. As an artist and thinker, Hoffmann is successively associated with the Jena school. He develops many of the ideas of F. Schlegel and Novalis, such as the doctrine of universal poetry, the concept of romantic irony and the synthesis of arts. A musician and composer, the author of the first romantic opera (Ondine, 1814), a decorative artist and a master of graphic drawing, Hoffmann, like no one else, was close to not only comprehending, but also practically implementing the idea of synthesis. The funny and the tragic coexist, they live side by side in the novel The Worldly Views of Cat Murr (vols. 1 - 1819, vols. 2 - 1821), which is considered the pinnacle of Hoffmann's creative path. The whimsical composition of the book, presenting in parallel the biography of the cat and the history of court life in a dwarf German principality (in “waste sheets from the biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler”) gives the novel volume, multidimensionality, especially since several storylines fit into the “waste sheets”.
The satirical plan of the novel is extensive: court morals are subjected to critical ridicule - intrigues, hypocrisy, a constant desire to hide behind the pompous conventions of etiquette and feigned politeness mental squalor and moral uncleanliness, the psychology of a German philistine, at the same time a philistine with pretensions. At the same time, this is a kind of parody of the romantic fad, when romanticism becomes a fashion or rather a pose behind which vulgarity and spiritual poverty hide. It can be said that in Hoffmann, along with the romantic hero, a kind of romantic “anti-hero” appears. All the more significant against this background is the image of the program hero - Johannes Kreisler. It is Kreisler who personifies conscience and the highest truth in this world. The bearer of the idea of justice, he is more insightful than others and sees what others do not notice. Illness and death prevented Hoffmann from writing the last, third volume of this novel. But even in its unfinished form, it is one of the most significant works of the writer, representing in the most perfect artistic embodiment almost all the main motives of his work and artistic style. The composition of the novel is peculiar and unusual, based on the principle of two-dimensionality, the opposition of two antithetical principles, which in their development are skillfully combined by the writer into a single line of narration. A purely formal technique becomes the main ideological and artistic principle of the embodiment of the author's idea, philosophical understanding of moral, ethical and social categories. The autobiographical narrative of a certain scientist cat Murr is interspersed with excerpts from the life of the composer Johannes Kreisler. Already in the combination of these two ideological and plot plans, not only by their mechanical combination in one book, but also by the plot detail that the owner of the cat Murra, Meister Abraham is one of the main characters in Kreisler's biography, a deep ironic parodic meaning is laid. dramatic destiny true artist, a musician, tormented in an atmosphere of petty intrigues, surrounded by high-born nonentities of the chimerical Principality of Sighartsweiler, the being of the “enlightened” philistine Murr is contrasted. Moreover, such an opposition is given in a simultaneous comparison, because Murr is not only the antipode of Kreisler.
The whole cat-and-dog world in the novel is a satirical parody of the class society of the German states: on the “enlightened” philistine burghers, on student unions - burschenschafts, on the police (yard dog Achilles), on the bureaucratic nobility (spitz), on the highest aristocracy (poodle Scaramouche , Salon of the Italian Greyhound Badina).
Question 25
The years 1815-1830 in Germany, as well as throughout Europe, are the dead time of the regime of the Holy Alliance. In German romanticism, complex processes take place during this period that significantly change its character. In particular, the features of tragedy are intensified, evidence of which is primarily the work of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822). The relatively short career of the writer - 1808-1822. - covers mainly the time of the post-Napoleonic reaction in Germany. As an artist and thinker, Hoffmann is successively associated with the Jena school. He develops many of the ideas of F. Schlegel and Novalis, such as the doctrine of universal poetry, the concept of romantic irony and the synthesis of arts. A musician and composer, the author of the first romantic opera (Ondine, 1814), a decorative artist and a master of graphic drawing, Hoffmann, like no one else, was close to not only comprehending, but also practically implementing the idea of synthesis. The collection of short stories "The Serapion Brothers", four volumes of which appeared in print in the city, contains works that are unequal in their artistic level. There are stories here that are purely entertaining, plot-driven (Signor Formica), Interdependence of Events, Visions, Doge and Dogaressa, and others, banal and instructive (Player's Happiness). But still, the value of this collection is determined by such stories as "The Royal Bride", "The Nutcracker", "Artus Hall", "Falun Mines", "Mademoiselle de Scudery", testifying to the progressive development of the writer's talent and containing, with a high perfection of artistic form significant philosophical ideas.
“The Serapion Brothers” (vols. 1-2 - 1819, vol. 3 - 1820, vol. 4 - 1821) - a collection of short stories very different in genre, united by a framing short story, in which a circle of four friends performs, taking turns reading their works and representing, in fact, different aesthetic positions. The story told here about how a man created his own imaginary world in the middle of the real world, having retired to live in the forest and imagining himself as a hermit Serapion, represents a whole aesthetic concept: an illusion must be recognized as reality. However, in the disputes of fellow writers, the opposite principle is also indicated: the basis for any fantasy must certainly be real life. The frame of The Serapion Brothers is very arbitrary: Hoffmann included stories from different years in it, and there is no direct connection between them. Among them are novels historical theme(“Doge and Dogaressa”), and a number of short stories about musicians and artists (“Fermata”, “Artus Hall”), and a radiant and festive fairy tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”. The "Serapion principle" is also interpreted in the sense that the artist must isolate himself from the social life of the present and serve only art. The latter, in turn, is a self-sufficient world, rising above life, standing apart from the political struggle. With the undoubted fruitfulness of this aesthetic thesis for many of Hoffmann's works, one cannot but emphasize that his work itself, in certain strengths, by no means always fully corresponded to these aesthetic principles, as evidenced by a number of his works of the last years of his life, in particular the fairy tale "Little Tsakhes nicknamed Zinnober" (1819).
Question 26
The years 1815-1830 in Germany, as well as throughout Europe, are the dead time of the regime of the Holy Alliance. In German romanticism, complex processes take place during this period that significantly change its character. In particular, the features of tragedy are intensified, evidence of which is primarily the work of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822). The relatively short career of the writer - 1808-1822. - covers mainly the time of the post-Napoleonic reaction in Germany. As an artist and thinker, Hoffmann is successively associated with the Jena school. He develops many of the ideas of F. Schlegel and Novalis, such as the doctrine of universal poetry, the concept of romantic irony and the synthesis of arts. A musician and composer, the author of the first romantic opera (Ondine, 1814), a decorative artist and a master of graphic drawing, Hoffmann, like no one else, was close to not only comprehending, but also practically implementing the idea of synthesis. The fate of the human person remains, as for other romantics, central to Hoffmann. Developing the ideas of Wackenroder, Novalis and other Yenese, Hoffmann focuses especially close attention on the personality of the artist, in which, in his opinion, all the best that is inherent in a person and is not spoiled by selfish motives and petty worries is most fully revealed. The short stories "Cavalier Gluck" and "Don Juan" not only provide a brilliant example of the poetic reproduction of musical images - the collisions presented there reveal the most important theme of Hoffmann: the clash between the artist and the vulgar environment surrounding him. These short stories were included in the book “Fantasy in the manner of Callo. Leaflets from the diary of a wandering enthusiast" (1814-1815). This theme runs through many works: the artist is forced to serve those who, with all their worldview, interests, tastes, are deeply alien to real art. An artist for Hoffmann is not a profession, but a vocation. It can be a person who is not engaged in this or that art, but gifted with the ability to see and feel. Such is Anselm from the story "The Golden Pot" (1814). The story has a subtitle: "A Tale from New Times". This is one of those genre transformations that literature owes to the German Romantics. Like the Jensen, most of Hoffmann's works are based on the artist's conflict with society. The original romantic antithesis of the artist and society is at the heart of the writer's attitude. Following the Jens, Hoffmann considers the creative person to be the highest embodiment of the human "I" - an artist, an "enthusiast", in his terminology, who has access to the world of art, the world of fairy tale fantasy, those only areas where he can fully realize himself and find refuge from the real philistine everyday life. But the embodiment and resolution of the romantic conflict in Hoffmann are different than in the early romantics. Through the denial of reality, through the artist's conflict with it, the Jensen rose to the highest level of their worldview - aesthetic monism, when the whole world became for them the sphere of poetic utopia, fairy tale, the sphere of harmony in which the artist comprehends himself and the Universe. The romantic hero of Hoffmann lives in the real world (beginning with Gluck's gentleman and ending with Kreisler). With all his attempts to break out of it into the world of art, into the fantastic fairy-tale kingdom of Dzhinnistan, he remains surrounded by real, concrete historical reality. Neither a fairy tale nor art can bring him harmony in this real world, which ultimately subjugates them. Hence the constant tragic contradiction between the hero and his ideals, on the one hand, and reality, on the other. Hence the dualism from which Hoffmann's heroes suffer, the two worlds in his works, the insolubility of the conflict between the hero and the outside world in most of them, the characteristic two-dimensionality of the writer's creative manner.
Question 27. English romanticism: general characteristics.
England can be considered, to a certain extent, the ancestral home of romanticism. The early bourgeois development there also gave rise to the first anti-bourgeois aspirations, which later became characteristic of all romantics. The very concept of "romantic" arose in English literature as early as the 17th century, during the era of the bourgeois revolution. Throughout the XVIII century. in England, many essential features of the romantic worldview were outlined - ironic self-esteem, anti-rationalism, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe "original", "extraordinary", "inexplicable", craving for antiquity. And critical philosophy, and the ethics of rebellious individualism, and the principles of historicism, including the idea of "people" and "folk", developed over time precisely from English sources, but already in other countries, primarily in Germany and France. So the initial romantic impulses that arose in England returned to their native soil in a roundabout way. The decisive impetus that crystallized romanticism as a spiritual trend came to the British from outside. It was the impact of the French Revolution. In England, at the same time, the so-called “quiet”, although in fact it was not at all quiet and very painful, revolution was taking place - industrial; its consequences were not only the replacement of the spinning wheel with a loom, and muscle strength with a steam engine, but also profound social changes: the peasantry disappeared, the proletariat, rural and urban, was born and grew, the position of “master of life” was finally won by the middle class, the bourgeoisie. The chronological framework of English romanticism almost coincides with German (1790–1820). The English, in comparison with the Germans, tend to be less theorizing and more oriented towards poetic genres. Exemplary German romanticism is associated with prose (although almost all of its adherents wrote poetry), English with poetry (although novels and essays were also popular). English romanticism is focused on the problems of the development of society and humanity as a whole. The English romantics have a sense of the catastrophic nature of the historical process. The poets of the "lake school" (W. Wordsworth, R. Southey) idealize antiquity, sing of patriarchal relations, nature, simple, natural feelings. The work of the poets of the "lake school" is imbued with Christian humility, they tend to appeal to the subconscious in man. Romantic poems on medieval plots and historical novels by W. Scott are distinguished by an interest in native antiquity, in oral folk poetry.
The main theme of the work of J. Keats, a member of the "London Romantics" group, which in addition to him included Ch. Lam, W. Hazlitt, Lee Hunt, is the beauty of the world and human nature. The greatest poets of English romanticism are Byron and Shelley, poets of the "storm" who were carried away by the ideas of struggle. Their element is political pathos, sympathy for the oppressed and disadvantaged, protection of individual freedom. Byron remained true to his poetic ideals until the end of his life, death found him in the thick of the "romantic" events of the Greek War of Independence. The images of rebel heroes, individualists with a sense of tragic doom, for a long time retained their influence on all European literature, and adherence to the Byronian ideal was called "Byronism".
Poetry Blake contains all the main ideas that will become the main ones for romanticism, although in its contrasts an echo of the rationalism of the previous era is still felt. Blake perceived the world as an eternal renewal and movement, which makes his philosophy related to the ideas of the German philosophers of the romantic period. At the same time, he was able to see only what his imagination revealed to him. Blake wrote: "The world is an endless vision of Fantasy or Imagination." These words define the foundations of his work: Democracy and humanism.
Question 28. Images and ideas of W. Blake.
An early, bright and at the same time insufficiently recognized phenomenon of English romanticism was the work of William Blake (1757-1827). He was the son of an average London merchant, his haberdasher father, noticing his son's ability to draw early, assigned him first to an art school, and then as an apprentice to an engraver. In London, Blake spent his whole life and became, to a certain extent, the poet of this city, although his imagination was torn upwards, into transcendental spheres. In drawings and poems, which he did not print, but engraved like drawings, Blake created his own special world. These are like waking dreams, and in his life, Blake from an early age said that he saw miracles in broad daylight, golden birds in the trees, and in later years he said that he talked with Dante, Christ and Socrates. Although the professional environment did not accept him, Blake found true friends who helped him financially under the guise of "orders"; at the end of his life, which nevertheless turned out to be very difficult (especially in 1810-1819), a kind of friendly cult developed around him, as if as a reward. Blake was buried in the center of the City of London, next to Defoe, in the old Puritan cemetery, where preachers, propagandists and commanders of the 17th century revolution had previously found peace. Just as Blake made homemade engraved books, so did he create an original homemade mythology, the components of which turned out to be taken by him in heaven and in the underworld, in the Christian and pagan religions, from old and new mystics. The task of this special, rationalized religion is a universal synthesis. The combination of extremes, their connection through struggle - this is the principle of building Blake's world. Blake seeks to bring heaven to earth, or rather, to reunite them, the crown of his faith is a deified person. Blake created his main works in the 18th century. These are “Songs of Innocence” (1789) and “Songs of Experience” (1794), “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” (1790), “The Book of Urizen” (1794). In the 19th century he wrote "Milton" (1804), "Jerusalem, or the Incarnation of the Giant Albion" (1804), "The Ghost of Abel" (1821). In terms of genre and form, Blake's poetry is also a picture of contrasts. Sometimes these are lyrical sketches, short poems that capture a street scene or a movement of feeling; sometimes these are grandiose poems, dramatic dialogues, illustrated with equally large-scale author's drawings, in which there are giants, gods, powerful human figures symbolizing Love, Knowledge, Happiness, or unconventional symbolic creatures invented by Blake himself, like Urizen and Los, personifying the forces of knowledge and creativity, or, for example, Theotormon - the embodiment of weakness and doubt. Blake's whimsical gods are meant to fill in the gaps in the already known mythology. These are symbols of those forces that are not indicated either in ancient or biblical myths, but which, according to the poet, exist in the world and determine the fate of man. Everywhere and in everything, Blake sought to look deeper, further than was customary. “In one moment to see eternity and the sky - in a cup of a flower” is Blake's central principle. It's about seeing the inside, not the outside. In every grain of sand, Blake sought to see a reflection of the spiritual essence. Blake's poetry and all his work is a protest against the leading tradition of British thinking, empiricism. The notes left by Blake in the margins of the writings of Bacon, "the father of modern science," really show how alien Blake was from the beginning to this fundamental principle of modern thinking. For him, Baconian "certainty" is the worst lie, just as Newton appears in Blake's pantheon as a symbol of evil and deceit. Poetry Blake contains all the main ideas that will become the main ones for romanticism, although in its contrasts an echo of the rationalism of the previous era is still felt.
Blake perceived the world as an eternal renewal and movement, which makes his philosophy related to the ideas of the German philosophers of the romantic period. At the same time, he was able to see only what his imagination revealed to him. Blake wrote: "The world is an endless vision of Fantasy or Imagination." These words define the foundations of his work: Democracy and humanism. Beautiful and bright images appear in the first cycle (Songs of Innocence), they are overshadowed by the image of Jesus Christ. In the introduction to the second cycle, one can feel the tension and uncertainty that arose during this period in the world, the author sets a different task, and among his poems there is "Tiger". In the first two lines, an image contrasting with the Lamb (lamb) is created. For Blake, the world is one, although it consists of opposites. This idea would become fundamental to romanticism.
As a revolutionary romantic, Blake consistently rejects the gospel's central message of humility and submissiveness. Blake firmly believed that in the end the people would win, that on the green soil of England "Jerusalem" would be built - a just, classless society of the future.
Question 29. Leikist poetry: main themes and genres.
From English. Lake - a lake. LAKE SCHOOL poets, a group of English, romantic poets con. 18 - beg. 19th centuries, who lived in the north of England, in the so-called. "Land of the Lakes" (Counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland). Poets "O. sh." U. Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge and R. Southey also known under the name of "leukists" (from English, lake-lake). Contrasting his work with the classicist and enlightening. traditions of the 18th century, they carried out the romantic. reform in English. poetry. At first, warmly welcoming the Great French. revolution, the poets "O. sh." subsequently recoiled from it, not accepting the Jacobin terror; political the views of the "leukists" became more and more reactionary over time. Rejecting rationalism. ideals of the Enlightenment, poets "O. sh." opposed them with faith in the irrational, in the traditional. Christ. values, in the idealized Middle Ages. past. Over the years, there has been a decline in the very poetic. creativity of the "leukists". However, their early, best products. are still the pride of English poetry. "O. sh." had a great influence on the English, romantic poets of the younger generation (J. G. Byron, J. Keats). The poets of the "lake school" (W. Wordsworth, R. Southey) idealize antiquity, sing of patriarchal relations, nature, simple, natural feelings. The work of the poets of the "lake school" is imbued with Christian humility, they tend to appeal to the subconscious in man. Romantic poems on medieval plots and historical novels by W. Scott are distinguished by an interest in native antiquity, in oral folk poetry. Wordsworth's legacy, in proportion to his long life, is quite extensive. These are lyrical poems, ballads, poems, of which the most famous are "The Walk" (1814), "Peter Bell" (1819), "The Charioteer" (1805-1819), "Prelude" (1805-1850), which is a spiritual autobiography of the poet . He left, in addition, several volumes of correspondence, a lengthy description of the lake district and a number of articles, among which a special place is occupied by the preface to the second edition (1800) of Lyric Ballads, which played such a significant role in English literature that it is called the Preface ”: it’s like an “introduction” to a whole poetic era.