The epigraph to "Mtsyri" was taken by Lermontov from the Bible - "The First Book of Kings". According to biblical legend, during one of the battles, Saul strictly forbade his soldiers to touch food until the enemy was broken.

But the king's son did not hear the order and ate the honey. For disobedience, the ruler ordered to deprive the young man of his life. Jonathan was indignant and sadly said: “Eating, I tasted a little honey, and now I die.” These words served as an epigraph to the poem.

Honey can be considered as a kind of good, sweet for the soul, happiness, for which it is not scary to die. Jonathan is a disobedient son, outraged by injustice, because honey gave him the strength that was so necessary during the battle. He is ready to die for a drop of honey, but not submissively, but with his head held high.

The epigraph to "Mtsyri" unites them with a strong will, the spirit of the struggle for freedom. But the fate of the hero of the poem is more tragic. He doesn’t even have a name, because mtsyri means “novice”.

Due to circumstances, as a little boy, he ends up in a monastery, which has become a prison for him. He did not resign himself to his situation, thinking about escaping. Mtsyra's heart, like a vessel, is overflowing with bitterness and longing for the distant aul, for dear sisters, for a proud father.

The author shows us an extraordinary personality, a hero for whom the philosophical question - why we live on this earth - is not empty words. We see a young man determined to regain his freedom at all costs. It is no coincidence that Lermontov depicts the flight of Mtsyri from the monastery on one of the terrible nights, full of dangers, when a thunderstorm rumbles, the earth trembles. This speaks to the power of the drama of the poem.

Three wonderful days spent in the wild, this is a blessing, a joy that illuminated the soul of a young captive. For the sake of these "blissful" days, a brief moment of freedom, sweet as honey, he is ready to die.

Having tasted freedom, having merged with nature, having experienced the happiness of fighting a strong rival - a leopard, Mtsyri leaves this land. We perceive his death not as a defeat, but as a deliverance from fetters, a victory of the spirit over slavish obedience. After all, for minutes of freedom in his native land, he was ready to sacrifice his whole life.

So, the meaning of the epigraph “Eating, tasting a little honey and now I die” is that the hero only for a moment knowing the happiness of freedom, the beauty of nature, not having time to enjoy all the blessings of life, dies. The biblical phrase leads one to think about human life, about its short duration.

One can draw a parallel to the life of M.Yu. Lermontov and the hero of the poem. The author dreamed of freedom, justice, a different fate. He, like Mtsyri, wanders, not understood by society. Lermontov, not having time to enjoy the fullness of life, dies in the prime of life.

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An epigraph is a quote chosen from some source and placed at the beginning of a work, usually of great importance for its understanding and analysis. The epigraph conveys the meaning that the author put into the text, reminds us of other eras and cultures in which something similar has already happened. In the 19th century in Russia, epigraphs became especially widespread, their use became fashionable, because it could emphasize the erudition of the author. The most famous are the epigraphs of Pushkin and Lermontov, for example, the epigraph "Mtsyri".

Initially, Lermontov chooses the French saying “There is only one Motherland” as the epigraph for his poem - it is found in the drafts of Mtsyri. This saying emphasized Mtsyri's love for his homeland, explained the desire to return home at all costs. But later the poet decides that the meaning of the poem cannot be reduced to one theme of love for the motherland. He crosses out the French sentence and changes the epigraph, thereby expanding the problematic of the poem. New topics are introduced into it, and it can rightly be called philosophical.

The final epigraph to Lermontov's poem "Mtsyri" is taken from the Bible, from the 14th chapter of the 1st Book of Kings. These are the words:

“Eating, taste a little honey, and now I die.”

The choice of the Bible is not accidental - for Lermontov's contemporaries, this book was one of the most significant. At that time, everyone was familiar with the text of the Bible; it was taught at school in the lessons of the Law of God. Therefore, everyone could understand the meaning of the epigraph.

What is the meaning of the epigraph "Mtsyri"? The words "Eating, tasting a little honey, and now I die" in the Book of Kings is pronounced by the son of the biblical king Saul, Jonothan. His words are preceded by the following story. Once, during a battle with enemies, Saul's army was exhausted and needed food and rest. But Saul, blinded by the fury of the battle, cursed his subjects. He told no one to "eat bread until I have avenged my enemies." None of Saul's subjects dared to disobey the king. Jonothan did not know about his father's curse, so he dipped the stick in his hands into honey and ate some of the honey.

God told Saul about his son's violation of the taboo. Then Saul came to Jonothan and asked him, "Tell me, what did you do?" Ionofan told his father about his act and was indignant at the injustice of the ban: "My father confused the land: look, my eyes brightened up when I tasted a little of this honey." For this, Saul sentenced him to death: "... you, Jonathan, must die today!". Expecting death, Ionofan pronounces the famous words that served as an epigraph to the poem "Mtsyri": "Eating, tasting little honey, and now I die."

They do not sound humility, but sadness. Regret is not about a violated ban, but about an unlived life that will soon end because of the ridiculous decision of Saul. Nevertheless, the execution did not take place: the people stood up for Ionofan and canceled the unjust decision of the king.

From the biblical narrative it is clear that the sympathy of the narrator here is completely on the side of the son of Saul. A young man who managed to show all the stupidity of the tsar's ban and was not afraid of death, as a result, deserves people's love. Honey is viewed in a broad sense as earthly goods and liberties that people are trying to deprive. Here the theme of rebellion begins to sound, a rebellion against the authorities and even against God - for the freedom of man. Why should a person worthy of happiness and a free life die? - this is the main meaning of the epigraph.

Interestingly, Jonothan is repeatedly referred to in Scripture as "a son of no good and rebellious." His protest against his father was permanent. Jonothan befriends another biblical figure, David, who displeases Saul. And for him, he is ready to give both his life and his throne. Ionofan is called a brave young man - this is indeed so, because he was a brave military leader, and in his dispute with his father he risked his life more than once. In the end, he, while still young, dies on the battlefield.

As we can see, Ionofan can be regarded as a hero-rebel quite in the spirit of romantic traditions. The choice of just such a character is deeply symbolic, because, firstly, in the protest of Ionofan against King Saul, one can easily read the protest against the thoughtless autocracy as a whole. And secondly, Jonothan is an example of a truly free person. For a few drops of honey, he is ready to lay down his head - “in a few minutes between the steep and dark rocks” of his homeland, he is ready to give his soul to Mtsyri. Their determination is equally high and admirable.

Through the epigraph in "Mtsyri" the image of the "honey path" is introduced, as the path is forbidden, but desired. This path is the most important for a person (it is not for nothing that Ionofan, who tasted honey, "brightened his eyes"). But at the same time, if there is no power behind the hero that can protect him (as the people behind Jonothan), then this path will inevitably lead him to death. This image can be called a leitmotif, since it also appears in Lermontov's earlier works. For example, in his lyrics ("Boulevard"), as well as in the poem "Boyarin Orsha". In it, the judging monk is mentioned about the honey path.

The parallel between Ionofan and Mtsyri is easy to draw, but Mtsyri is an even more tragic hero. Everything romantic in it is brought to the limit by Lermontov: in this way the poet rethinks and deepens the essence of the epigraph he used. Mtsyri, unlike the biblical character, guesses where this path will lead him. “Eating, tasting little honey, and now I die” - an early death awaits both Mtsyri and Ionofan. And yet it is their image that will be admired by future generations, because the “honey” they have chosen is the path of sweet freedom, without which life is meaningless.

Artwork test

To complete the task of part 2, select only ONE of the proposed essay topics (2.1−2.4). In the answer sheet, indicate the number of the topic you have chosen, and then write an essay of at least 200 words (if the essay is less than 150 words, then it is estimated at 0 points).

Rely on the author's position (in the essay on lyrics, consider the author's intention), formulate your point of view. Argument your theses based on literary works (in an essay on lyrics, you must analyze at least two poems). Use literary-theoretical concepts to analyze the work. Consider the composition of the essay. Write your essay clearly and legibly, following the rules of speech.

2.5. What plots from works of domestic and foreign literature are relevant to you and why? (Based on the analysis of one or two works.)

Explanation.

Comments on essays

2.1. Why did Molchalin become Sophia's chosen one? (According to the comedy by A. S. Griboyedov “Woe from Wit”)

Sophia is a child of her society. She drew ideas about people and about life from French sentimental novels, and it was this sentimental literature that developed dreaminess and sensitivity in Sophia. She says about Molchalin:

He takes his hand, shakes his heart,

Breathe from the depths of your soul

Not a free word, and so the whole night passes,

Hand in hand, and the eye does not take my eyes off me.

Therefore, it was not by chance that she paid attention to Molchalin, who, with his features and his behavior, reminded her of her favorite heroes.

Sophia also fell in love with Molchalin because she, a girl with character, needed a person in her life whom she could manage. “The desire to patronize a loved one, poor, modest, not daring to raise his eyes to her, to elevate him to himself, to his circle, to give him family rights” - this is her goal, according to I. A. Goncharov.

2.2. What is the meaning of the epigraph to M. Yu. Lermontov's poem "Mtsyri"?

At the beginning of the poem "Mtsyri" M.Yu. Lermontov put the expression "Eating, tasting little honey, and now I'm dying." What is its meaning?

An epigraph is a quotation or phrase that precedes a work and focuses thought on its idea. The saying before the poem is taken from the "First Book of Kings" of the Bible. The meaning of this expression is that a person, having little knowledge of the beauty and versatility of life, soon dies.

M.Yu. Lermontov used the epigraph as a reflection of the main theme of the poem: his hero, having lived only three days truly free and seeing nature, his native land died in the prime of life.

Mtsyri is somewhat similar to the author: he is also lonely and cannot be free to choose. M.Yu. Lermontov drew a hidden parallel of his life with the life of a lyrical hero. The poet wrote this work on the eve of death, which he seemed to have foreseen. It can be assumed that the epigraph to the poem refers to the life of M.Yu. Lermontov. In the short period of life allotted to him, he did not have much time: he did not have time to know the whole versatility of the world around him, he did not manage to paint all his “pictures”. The poet was not given the opportunity to create freely and, thus, as if locked in captivity, made a slave, like Mtsyri.

2.3. Exposure of servility and servility in the stories of A.P. Chekhov.

Russian bureaucracy is a phenomenal phenomenon in our national history and modernity. In Gogol's work, the morals of the bureaucracy are revealed in the comedy "The Inspector General, Stories (Overcoat"), the poem "Dead Souls". Saltykov-Shchedrin radically changed his attitude towards bureaucracy; in his works, the "little man" becomes the "petty man", whom Shchedrin ridicules, making him the subject of satire in fairy tales, in the "History of a City". But it is with Chekhov that the “little man” - the official becomes “petty”, forced to hide, go with the flow, obey established habits and laws.

The main object of ridicule in Chekhov's story "Thick and Thin" was a small official who grovels and crawls when no one forces him to do so. Showing how the object of humiliation itself becomes its herald, Chekhov asserted a more sober view of the nature of slave psychology, medically diagnosing it in its essence as a spiritual illness. The fall in the sense of personality, the loss of one's "I" by a person are brought to a critical limit in the story. Both Gogol, and Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Chekhov are united in depicting how a person’s social position determines all other aspects of life (including family, companionship and love relationships), becomes the main human function, and everything else is derivative, such a person does not see a person in another, but only a rank, a certain symbol indicating subordination, and nothing more. Human communication is supplanted by service subordination. The social function turns out to be dominant, absorbing the whole person.

2.4. The work of which Russian poet of the second half of the 20th century interested you and why?

Some call Vladimir Vysotsky a poet, others a singer, and still others a bard. But no matter how anyone characterizes him, he was, is and will be the personified conscience of that generation of Soviet people who, in childhood, experienced the horrors and upheavals of the Great Patriotic War and post-war devastation. Despite the fact that the work of V. Vysotsky was not openly dissident, he was always under special control by the competent authorities, and he constantly had to make excuses for his songs and his actions:

I was the soul of bad society.

And I can tell you

My last name, first name, patronymic

They are well known in the KGB.

In the poem “Silver Strings”, the eternal companion, the seven-string guitar, is the personification of the freedom of creativity, and the silver strings are that inner voice, that inspiration, without which there can be no creativity:

Cut my throat, cut my veins -

Just don't break the silver strings!

And Vysotsky's poems about love! “I will lay fields for lovers” ... Real feelings. Relationships you can only dream of. And poems about friendship! “If a friend suddenly turned out to be neither a friend nor an enemy, but just like that…”. How difficult it is sometimes to distinguish true friendship from friendly relations, how to learn to be friends yourself and not make a mistake in a friend?

How many questions! And the answers can be found in Vysotsky. That is why his poetry is hard not to love.

P. A. Viskontov, one of the first biographers of M. Yu. Lermontov, connects the emergence of the idea of ​​writing a poem with the poet’s journey along the old Georgian Military Highway. There, M. Yu. Lermontov (according to the testimony of his relatives) met a monk who told him a story about how, as a child, he was taken prisoner by General Yermolov. On the way, the prisoner fell seriously ill, and the general had to leave him in the monastery. Having recovered, the boy could not get used to life in the monastery for a long time, he tried to run away more than once. During the next escape, he fell seriously ill and almost died. In the end, he resigned himself and spent the rest of his life in a monastery. The prototype of the monastery described by M. Yu. Lermontov in the poem was the monastery of Jvari.

The poet addressed this plot more than once: first he wrote the poem "Confession", the main character of which is a monk who fell in love with a nun, violated his vow and was sentenced to death for this. In 1835-1836, the poem "Boyarin Orsha" was written. It tells about Arseny, a boyar's slave, brought up in a monastery. He fell in love with the daughter of a boyar and was also condemned to death, but he managed to escape. But the full idea of ​​the monk, who told M. Yu. Lermontov his story, was embodied in the poem "Mtsyri", written in 1839.

The epigraph to the poem is taken from the biblical legend about the king of Israel, Saul, and his son Jonathan, whom his father, in the heat of anger, called "unfit and rebellious." One day Saul "made an oath on the people, saying: Cursed is he who eats bread until evening, until I have avenged my enemies." Jonathan arbitrarily attacked the enemies and, having defeated them, exhausted, quenched his hunger by dipping a stick in a honeycomb and turning "his hand to his mouth, and his eyes brightened." Saul, believing that his son had violated the oath, decided to kill him. Jonathan said, “I tasted some honey with the end of the stick that was in my hand; and behold, I must die.” But the people of Israel said to the king: “Shall Jonathan die, who brought such great salvation to Israel? Let it not be!”. And Jonathan survived.

And at the hour of the night, a terrible hour,

When the storm scared you

When, crowding at the altar,

You lay prostrate on the ground

I ran.

Mtsyri not only strives to be free, his passionate dream is to be among his relatives, to return to his native land. Initially, M. Yu. Lermontov chose the French saying “There is only one Motherland” as the epigraph to the poem. But later he replaced it with a saying from the Bible: "Eating, I tasted little honey, and now I die."

Honey is those “three blessed days” that Mtsy-ri spent in the wild. He saw Caucasian nature in all its diversity, felt its life, experienced the joy of communicating with it, fought (and won!) with a leopard. He realized how beautiful this world is, how sweet the air of freedom is. Mtsyri says to the old man:

Do you want to know what I did

At will? Lived - and my life

Without these three blessed days

It would be sadder and gloomier

Your powerless old age.

The idea of ​​the work is that three days of life in the wild is better than many years of bleak existence in captivity. “Behold I die” - for a hero who has known real life, death is better than life in a monastery. The death of a hero causes a feeling of sadness, but not pity. The death of Mtsyra is not a defeat, but a victory: fate doomed him to slavery, but the young man managed to know freedom, experience the happiness of struggle, the joy of merging with nature. The hero himself perceives death as liberation from captivity.

1. What is the meaning of the epigraph to the novel by M. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"?

The epigraph of M. Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita": "I am part of that force that always wants evil and always does good" - taken from Goethe's Faust. He shows the role of Woland in the philosophical system of the novel. Woland punishes those who deserve punishment for their misdeeds. Only the court of the devil can be given to that system that does not obey the moral (God's) court. Being an evil force, Woland objectively does good.

2. What are the features of the composition of M. Bulgakov's novel "Master and Margarita"?

The Master and Margarita is a novel within a novel. M. Bulgakov's novel includes a novel about Yeshua and Pilate, written by the Master. Events unfold in three space-time plans. The present time of action is four days of Holy Week 1929 in Moscow. Here are given both dramatic episodes of the creativity and love of the Master and Margarita, as well as satirical scenes of Moscow life. Historical, biblical time includes the events taking place in Yershalaim: the interrogation of Yeshua by Pilate, the trial and execution of Yeshua. The fantastic plan expands time and space into infinity; this includes the adventures of Woland and his retinue in Moscow and the departure of the heroes of the novel into infinity. In all three worlds, there are heroes and events similar in function.

3. What is the satirical line of M. Bulgakov's novel "Master and Margarita" connected with?

The satirical plan of the novel is associated with the image of Moscow in the late 1920s - early 30s. The writer flaunts the bureaucracy, greed, vulgarity, theft of Muscovites, giving them in a grotesque form (a suit that signs papers without an owner; an institution that sings in chorus; MASSOLIT, which has become a fly fodder for crafty mediocrity, etc.). Satire is almost everywhere connected with the actions of Woland and his retinue, exposing shortcomings both in people and in the state.

4. How is the problem of retribution for good and evil solved in M. Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita"?

M. Bulgakov did not see in contemporary reality a force that would punish evil and reward virtue. Therefore, he assigns the function of retribution to the unreal diabolical power - Woland. Woland rewards merit and crime. Berlioz is punished by cutting off his head, Ivan Bezdomny - by madness, Pilate - by immortality, which is worse than death.

5. What is the moral and philosophical meaning of the scene of the conversation between Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Nozri in rumane M. Bulgakov "Master and Margarita"?

The conversation between Yeshua and Pilate appears as a drama of ideas. Yeshua is a physically weak, but internally free person, convinced of the idea of ​​goodness. Horseman of the Golden Spear Pontius Pilate, the fifth procurator of Judea, is personally a brave warrior. But he is afraid of power. Spiritually not free, he turns out to be a coward in front of Caesar. M. Bulgakov considered the most terrible human vice to be precisely cowardice, from which betrayal and murder grow. material from the site

6. What is the strength and weakness of Yeshua's preaching in M. Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita?

The power of Yeshua's preaching is in the conviction of the existence of an ideal. Yeshua acts as the spokesman for the pure idea of ​​goodness and faith. But his preaching is not supported by concrete action. The idea of ​​goodness turns out to be weak in everyday practice.

7. Why is the Master awarded peace and not light as the highest reward?

The master was rewarded not with light (because he is not a saint), but with peace, with what is so important for creativity and what he lacked all the time in life. M. Bulgakov follows the world tradition, considering peace as one of the highest human values.

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