Romanticism of Zhukovsky (ballad “Forest Tsar”)
read by S. Yursky
Sergei Yuryevich Yursky (March 16, 1935, Leningrad) - Soviet and Russian theater and film actor, theater director, screenwriter. People's Artist of the RSFSR.
I'll be consoled silent sadness,
And playful joy will reflect.
A. Pushkin
Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky is an outstanding Russian poet and public figure, who devoted a lot of effort and talent to the development national literature and Russian literature. He is the founder of the ballad genre in Russia. His pen includes not only original “Russian” ballads, but also talented translations from foreign classics, for example, “Forest King”. This is a translation of Goethe’s ballad “Erlkonig”, the plot of which the German poet-philosopher borrowed from Danish folk epic.
Zhukovsky deviated from the original, but his translation was immediately recognized as exemplary in terms of its perfection of form.
Who gallops, who rushes under the cold darkness?
The rider is late, his young son is with him.
The little one came close to his father, shuddering;
The old man hugs him and warms him.
Many of Zhukovsky's translations and adaptations have become classics. In them, the poet first of all captured the tone and spirit of the model, experiencing dramatic situations. So in the ballad “The Forest King” we hear the soulful voice of the narrator, who feels sorry for the sick child who mistakes feverish delirium for reality. The poet not only conveys the conversation between father and son, he himself feels the child’s fear and the father’s powerlessness to help him:
“Child, why are you clinging to me so timidly?”
“Darling, the king of the forest sparkled in my eyes:
He wears a yellow crown and has a thick beard.”
“Oh no, the fog is white over the water.”
And the forest king, the king of spirits, is perceived as a romantic villain, a spirit tempting an innocent soul:
“Child, look around; baby, to me;
There is a lot of fun in my side:
Turquoise flowers, pearly streams;
My palaces are made of gold...”
With each quatrain the drama of the ballad increases. The poet keeps his readers in constant suspense, who involuntarily ask themselves the question: who will win in this single combat - spirit or man?
“Child, I was captivated by your beauty:
Willingly or willingly, you will be mine.”
The emotional and artistic impact of the work is so great that it seems to us that we physically feel the child’s suffering, his pain, horror and fear of the forest elf:
“Darling, the king of the forest wants to catch up with us;
Here it is: I’m stuffy, it’s hard for me to breathe.”
The timid rider does not gallop, he flies;
The baby is sad, the baby is screaming...
And the unexpected original ending is completely discouraging: where are the goodness and justice that are destined to triumph? They don't exist in our world.
The rider urges on, the rider gallops...
In his hands lay a dead baby.
Evil always overtakes the weak and defenseless.
In translations, Zhukovsky acts as a true creator, allowing himself to deviate from the literal accuracy of the original. He seemed to be composing ballads on a given topic, “embroidering new patterns on the old canvas.” He said that the poet-translator is the author's rival, and practically proved this with his excellent translations.
Pushkin and Zhukovsky. Friendship story
Pushkin and Zhukovsky are closest friends, on a first-name basis: the truth is so familiar that we no longer notice anything unusual in these relations. Meanwhile, fate tried very hard to separate them.
Childhood and early youth the two poets have almost nothing in common: Pushkin, born in 1799, is the scion of an albeit not rich, but noble Moscow family: Zhukovsky, born in 1783, 16 years earlier, in fact, is not even Zhukovsky: the Tula landowner Afanasy Bunin asked the local soldier to bring “a pretty little Basurman.” He fulfilled the request of the former master: he delivered the young Turkish woman Salkha to the Bunin harem, who on January 29, 1783 gave birth to a son, Vasily. We can say that then and after the boy will acquire several famous relatives - the once famous poetess Anna Bunina, as well as Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (the legitimate son of another representative of the same family).
However, Zhukovsky will not become Bunin. By the will of his father, under any surname, he could easily be enrolled as a peasant or bourgeois; then the way to high education, literature would be very difficult, practically closed, and, probably, there would be fewer poets in Russia...
However, Bunin invited the poor nobleman Andrei Zhukovsky, who took advantage of the bounty of a rich neighbor, and he registered the newborn as his son. “Vasily Afanasyevich Bunin” became a nobleman Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. He never gave up on his illiterate, unresponsive mother; he loved and helped. In the year when Pushkin was born, Zhukovsky, thanks to his father’s efforts, is in one of the best noble establishments, Noble boarding school at Moscow University, and soon makes acquaintance with Karamzin, the Turgenev brothers, brothers Sergei Lvovich and Vasily Lvovich Pushkin.
With little, curly-haired Alexander Sergeevich, it is still an ordinary acquaintance between a 20-year-old aspiring poet and a 4-year-old “unsuspecting”...
1816
33-year-old Zhukovsky appears in Tsarskoe Selo and becomes reacquainted with 17-year-old Pushkin.
Is there a lot general topics? Hardly. But one of them is probably freaky" Turkish roots“: Pushkin’s great-grandfather was also brought from Turkey, and, for the sake of paradox, let us recall that another literary family is involved here: Hannibal was transported to Russia by Leo Tolstoy’s great-great-grandfather, Peter I’s ambassador in Istanbul, Peter Andreevich Tolstoy...
Zhukovsky is twice as old; formally, he could even be Pushkin’s father; He famous poet, author of the “Singer in the Camp of Russian Warriors” that has traveled all over the country; then and later, Zhukovsky’s poems and translations were so well known to the reading public as if they had always existed.
Soul Maiden Ring
I dropped it into the sea...
Who gallops, who rushes under the cold darkness?
The rider is late, with his young son...
About dear companions who are our light
They gave us life with their companionship,
Don't talk sadly: they don't exist,
But with gratitude: they were.
Today, at the end of the 20th century, we are too - alas! - we are accustomed to the common type of important, venerable poet, so as not to be surprised by the friendship of the more than famous Zhukovsky with a young man whose poetic fame has not yet been established even within the walls of the lyceum. Zhukovsky also managed to pass not an easy path humiliation, suffering: love for a relative, Masha Protasova, refusal of her parents due to the “dubious origin” of Vasily Andreevich... He thought about complaining about the highest name, but then he didn’t want to, he decided that happiness could not be created by such means. From now on sad oriental eyes Zhukovsky is even sadder: Pushkin’s carefree youth has not yet been overshadowed by “terrible times and terrible destinies”...
And yet, literally from the first meetings, the elder and the younger became friends: the relationship is close, cheerful, creative and, most importantly, completely equal.
Soon, with like-minded people, they were already sitting in the famous literary society "Arzamas", where there was no problem of fathers and sons, where all were children and 17-year-old Pushkin, and twice as old Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Denis Davydov, and even 50-year-old guest Karamzin: jokes on equal terms, exchange of poetry, no one lectures anyone. We strongly suspect, although we do not insist, that the well-known inscription on the portrait of Zhukovsky, presented to the author of “Ruslan and Lyudmila” - “To the victorious student from the defeated teacher on that highly solemn day on which he finished his poem...” - is not entirely serious, flavored with Arzamas humor: there was no custom here to divide into teachers and students, such a “table of ranks” was more likely to suit the literary opponents of “Arzamas”, the decorous, prim, old-fashioned “Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word”. Pushkin is in some respects a student of Zhukovsky - and all the more reason that one should talk about this while laughing... One way or another, the living, creative relationships two poets are preserved forever, although they are subjected to constant, difficult tests.
Pushkin has to regularly listen to everyday moral teachings and instructions from Zhukovsky (albeit in a humorous, Arzamas form); Zhukovsky needs to reckon with the very fact of existence Pushkin's poetry. The idea that from this time onwards the elder increasingly went into translations, as if “not daring” to compose under Pushkin, was expressed more than once - and in this, of course, there is some truth. Pushkin often read Zhukovsky’s poems by heart, and if he suddenly made a mistake in a word, Zhukovsky immediately replaced that word... A serious test for a master - natural for a true master! Karamzin assigns Zhukovsky to the court - first to teach Russian to Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of Nicholas I. and then to raise the heir, the future Alexander II. On this occasion, many acquaintances, especially the Decembrists, expressed displeasure and hinted that the “poor singer” was cheating on himself and was being sold supreme power. However, his closest friends, Pushkin and Vyazemsky, who by no means shared the moderates political views Zhukovsky, they ardently defended him, proving that Vasily Andreevich is “a representative of literacy near the throne of the illiterate.” In the end, even the revolutionaries agreed that court service would be ruin for another person, but for Zhukovsky “with such eyes” anything is possible, he will be good everywhere. During his life, Vasily Andreevich managed to help Gogol, Lermontov, Baratynsky, Shevchenko, Herzen, Kireyevsky, many Decembrists... In short, he managed - in words, advice, recommendations, money - to help, perhaps, all literature and culture.
I heard one modern lecturer feel sorry for a poet who was often distracted from creativity for the sake of “ social work" We dare to say that Zhukovsky would not have been able to compose at all if he had not constantly “disturbed himself.”
Probably every culture, every to the younger generation We need such kind “guys”, natural, not tediously artificial mentors. In Russian literature, however, we constantly see such continuity: Derzhavin helped Karamzin a lot (who was twenty-three years younger), Karamzin supported the younger, seventeen-year-old Zhukovsky.
There is a legend that one famous poet(they name Bryusov, but not him alone) lent money to a beginner: when the young man “came out into the world,” he wanted to repay the debt, but the elder bequeathed it - to give it to the newcomer who really needed it...
And so, they say, the “Bryusovskaya” (or maybe “Zhukovskaya”?) thousand walk around Russia - from senior to junior...
Legends are legends, and the kind guy, “Father Vasily Andreevich,” helped and helped. Everyone. And Pushkin, probably most of all, because he needed help most of all. The younger one repeatedly turns to the older one in poetry, and one day he will write the best “portrait” of Zhukovsky.
His poems are captivatingly sweet
Centuries will pass the envious distance,
And, listening to them, youth will sigh for glory,
Silent sadness will be consoled
And playful joy will reflect.
A. Pushkin
Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky - one of the most educated people of the end XVIII-early XIX century. At nineteen, with a translation of Gray's elegy " Rural cemetery“Literary fame came to the poet. Gray's Elegy had been translated before, but none of the translations became a real event in literary life. The elegy was not chosen by Zhukovsky by chance. It concerns the “eternal” themes of life and death. But he tackles this topic in a new way. An ordinary person is deprived of fair retribution and compassion not only during life, but also after death:
And you, confidants of fortune, are blinded,
Hurry to despise those sleeping here in vain
Because their coffins are small and forgotten,
That flattery does not think of erecting altars for them.
Inequality in the world continues beyond the threshold of death, depending on the accidents of fate, which elevates its favorites to the pedestals of greatness and leaves in the shadows ordinary workers, whose “ useful works"consigned to humiliation. And how inhumane the attitude towards ordinary people in life! It's not their fault that
...a temple of enlightenment built over centuries.
Was closed for them by gloomy fate,
Their fate burdened squalor with chains,
Their genius has been killed by strict need...
The poet says that both the mortal path and the earthly destiny of all people are perverted, therefore the true virtues of a person are not the titles, awards, ranks he has acquired, but the ability for tender love and friendship, sensitivity, responsiveness, compassion. This is how the humane idea is born about an unnoticed person who becomes higher than the lucky ones.
Zhukovsky, in his thoughtful solitude, seems to rise above the prose of life and turn to unconditional values. Being alone with nature, the poet finds in her an attentive interlocutor. These artistic quests were most fully and deeply reflected in his elegy “Evening”. The poem conveys a person’s worldview new era, for whom “the search for honors,” the thirst for fame, success in society and with women are just transitory blessings, and true purpose a person in the world is higher and more significant.
I was destined by fate: to wander along an unknown path,
To be a friend of faithful villages, to love the beauty of nature,
Breathe oak forest silence under the dusk
And, looking down at the foam of water,
Sing the Creator, friends, love and happiness.
O songs, pure fruit of heartfelt innocence!
Blessed is he to whom it is given to revive
The hours of this fleeting life!
Zhukovsky, describing nature, does not strive. only to animate it, but also to find in it something consonant with your soul, to convey personal perception and psychological condition the subject being described.
The sunset is captivating like the sun behind the mountain, -
When the fields are in the shade and the groves are distant
And in the mirror of water there is swaying hail
Illuminated with a crimson shine.
Zhukovsky searches in words double meaning, he is not interested in specifics, he seeks harmony not only in the objects described, but also in his soul. From contemplation of harmony in nature, the poet naturally moves to sadness and thoughtfulness caused by memories of departed friends. A foggy evening “in the lap of dormant nature” gives rise to thoughts of transience human life and the inevitability of death. The evening of nature turned into an “evening” of the soul, and the picture of nature was transformed into a “landscape of the soul,” so the title of the poem is symbolic. Later, in his programmatic poem “The Inexpressible,” Zhukovsky spoke about what, in his opinion, is the secret of poetry and where he, as a creator, experiences the greatest difficulties. This poem reflects the poet's philosophical and aesthetic views on lyrics.
What is our earthly language compared to wondrous nature?
With what carelessness and easy freedom
She scattered beauty everywhere
And diversity agreed with unity!
But where, what brush painted it?
Zhukovsky is confident that nature is a great creator, “composing” her paintings according to the laws of beautiful harmony. Man does not want and cannot be satisfied with simple contemplation. Creative fire lives in him too, and he yearns
to create like nature “with careless and easy freedom.” Zhukovsky saw his goal as a poet in giving the “earthly” language the same greatness that is characteristic of nature.
From poem to poem, Zhukovsky becomes more and more convinced that moments of earthly happiness are reflections of the eternal and beautiful spiritual fire that awaits a person after death. Earthly life is only a preparation of a person to meet the ideal world, intended for perfect man who in earthly life perfects his soul to meet the mysterious kingdom. There, beyond days, there will be no misfortunes, no betrayals, no self-interest, no separation. There we will again find - and forever - those whose souls became dear to us and gave us bright hours of joy, spiritual communication, pleasures and made us higher and purer than we could have been without them.
The depth of thought and the novelty of Zhukovsky’s language put him among the first poets; beginners followed and imitated him. And when his first ballad, “Lyudmila,” was published in 1808, Zhukovsky’s primacy in poetry became indisputable.
Dawn has risen. Pleasant breathing
She stole sleep from my eyes;
From the hut for the blessed guest
I ascended to the top of my mountain;
Dew pearls with aromatic herbs
Already shone with the young fire of rays,
And the day took off like a light-winged genius!
And everything was life to the living heart.
Zhukovsky understood the tragedy of his love as the tragedy of a thinking and feeling person, as the inevitability of the collapse of his best hopes. He argued that man cannot defeat the powerful forces standing in the way of happiness.
The beautiful died in full bloom...
Such is the lot of beauty in the world.
Bitter and sad conclusion.
In Russian, additional means of expression, for example, tropes and figures of speech
Tropes are speech patterns that are based on the use of words in figurative meaning. They are used to enhance the expressiveness of the speech of the writer or speaker.
The tropes include: metaphors, epithets, metonymy, synecdoche, comparisons, hyperbole, litotes, periphrasis, personification.
Metaphor is a technique in which words and expressions are used in a figurative meaning based on analogy, similarity or comparison.
And my tired soul is enveloped in darkness and cold. (M. Yu. Lermontov)
An epithet is a word that defines an object or phenomenon and emphasizes any of its properties, qualities, or characteristics. Usually an epithet is a colorful definition.
Your thoughtful nights are transparent twilight. (A. S. Pushkin)
Metonymy is a means that is based on replacing one word with another based on contiguity.
The hiss of foamy glasses and the blue flame of punch. (A.S. Pushkin)
Synecdoche is one of the types of metonymy - transferring the meaning of one object to another based on the quantitative relationship between them.
And you could hear the Frenchman rejoicing until dawn. (M.Yu. Lermontov)
Comparison is a technique in which one phenomenon or concept is explained by comparing it with another. Typically comparative conjunctions are used.
Anchar, like a formidable sentinel, stands alone in the entire universe. (A.S. Pushkin).
Hyperbole is a trope based on excessive exaggeration of certain properties of the depicted object or phenomenon.
For a week I won’t say a word to anyone, I keep sitting on a stone by the sea... (A. A. Akhmatova).
Litotes is the opposite of hyperbole, an artistic understatement.
Your Spitz, lovely Spitz, is no more than a thimble... (A.S. Griboyedov)
Personification is a means based on the transfer of properties animate objects to inanimate.
The silent sadness will be consoled, and the joyful joy will reflect. (A.S. Pushkin).
Periphrasis is a trope in which the direct name of an object, person, or phenomenon is replaced by a descriptive phrase in which the characteristics of a not directly named object, person, or phenomenon are indicated.
"King of beasts" instead of lion.
Irony is a technique of ridicule that contains an assessment of what is being ridiculed. Irony always has a double meaning, where the truth is not what is directly stated, but what is implied.
Thus, the example mentions Count Khvostov, who was not recognized as a poet by his contemporaries due to the mediocrity of his poems.
Count Khvostov, a poet beloved by heaven, was already singing in immortal verses the misfortunes of the Neva banks. (A.S. Pushkin)
Stylistic figures are special expressions that go beyond the necessary norms for creating artistic expressiveness.
It must be emphasized once again that stylistic figures make our speech informationally redundant, but this redundancy is needed for the expressiveness of speech, and therefore for a stronger impact on the addressee
These figures include:
And you, arrogant descendants…. (M.Yu. Lermontov)
A rhetorical question is a structure of speech in which a statement is expressed in the form of a question. A rhetorical question does not require an answer, but only enhances the emotionality of the statement.
And will the desired dawn finally rise over the fatherland of enlightened freedom? (A. S. Pushkin)
Anaphora - repetition of parts of relatively independent segments.
It’s as if you curse days without light,
As if the gloomy nights scare you...
(A. Apukhtin)
Epiphora - repetition at the end of a phrase, sentence, line, stanza.
Dear friend, and in this quiet house
The fever hits me
I can't find a place in a quiet house
Near the peaceful fire. (A.A. Blok)
Antithesis is an artistic opposition.
And day, and hour, and in writing, and orally, for the truth, yes and no... (M. Tsvetaeva)
An oxymoron is a combination of logically incompatible concepts.
You, who loved me with the falsehood of truth and the truth of lies... (M. Tsvetaeva)
Gradation - grouping homogeneous members offers in in a certain order: according to the principle of increasing or decreasing emotional and semantic significance
I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry... (With A. Yesenin)
Silence is a deliberate interruption of speech based on the guesswork of the reader, who must mentally complete the phrase.
But listen: if I owe you... I own a dagger, I was born near the Caucasus... (A.S. Pushkin)
Polyunion - repetition of a conjunction, perceived as redundant, creates emotionality in speech.
And for him they were resurrected again: deity, inspiration, life, tears, and love. (A.S. Pushkin)
Non-union is a construction in which unions are omitted to enhance expression.
Swede, Russian, chops, stabs, cuts, drumming, clicks, grinding... (A.S. Pushkin)
Parallelism is the identical arrangement of speech elements in adjacent parts of the text.
Some houses are as long as the stars, others as long as the moon.. (V.V. Mayakovsky).
Chiasmus is a cross arrangement of parallel parts in two adjacent sentences.
Automedons (coachman, driver - O.M.) are our fighters, our troikas are indomitable... (A.S. Pushkin). Two parts complex sentence in the example, according to the order of arrangement of the members of the sentence, they are, as it were, in mirror image: Subject - definition - predicate, predicate - definition - subject.
Inversion - reverse order words, for example, the location of the definition after the word being defined, etc.
At the frosty dawn, under the sixth birch tree, around the corner, near the church, wait, Don Juan... (M. Tsvetaeva).
In the example given, the adjective frosty is in the position after the word being defined, which is inversion.
To check or self-check on the topic, you can try to solve our crossword puzzle
Did you like it? Don't hide your joy from the world - share itMaterials are published with the personal permission of the author - Ph.D. O.A. Maznevoy
Exercise 1.
1. Maturity joked, youth sang (personification). 2. Foundry was filled with blouses and caps (metonymy). 3. A rare bird (epithet) will fly to the middle of the Dnieper (hyperbole). 4. And in the door there are pea coats, overcoats, sheepskin coats (metonymy).
Exercise 2.
1. Dear friend, and in this quiet house the fever strikes me. I can’t find a place in a quiet house Near a peaceful fire! (Epiphora.) 2. I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry, Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees (gradation). 3. The rich feast on weekdays, but the poor grieve on holidays (antithesis). 4. Young people are treasured everywhere, old people are honored everywhere (antithesis). 5. O powerful lord of fate ( rhetorical appeal)! Aren't you above the abyss, at the height of the bridle? iron Russia reared up (rhetorical question)? 6. In my simple corner (inversion), amid slow labors, I wanted to be forever a spectator of one picture (inversion). 7. You are also poor, You are also abundant, You are also powerful, You are also powerless, Mother Rus' (anaphora, antithesis). 8. Oh! How easy! How the chest breathes freely! The wide horizon has expanded my soul ( rhetorical exclamation). 9. That it is not a horse's trumpet, not a human rumor, It is not a trumpeter's trumpet that is heard from the field, But the weather whistles, hums, Whistles, hums, pours out (anaphora, pickup, parallelism). 10. The scientist fell in love with the stupid one, The ruddy one fell in love with the pale one (anaphora, antithesis). 11. Rus'! Rus! I see you from my wonderful, beautiful distance, I see you: poor, scattered and uncomfortable in you (rhetorical exclamation, gradation)... 12. Sasha cried (inversion) as the forest was cut down, She still feels sorry for him to the point of tears. How many curly birches there were here (rhetorical exclamation). 13. Dear, kind, old, gentle (gradation), Don’t be friends with sad thoughts (inversion).
Exercise 3.
1. Let us remember those who retreated with us, Who fought for a year or an hour, Those who fell, those who went missing, Whom we saw at least once, Those who saw us off, those who met us again, Those who gave us water to drink, Those who prayed for us (alliteration). 2. The cold gold of the moon, The smell of oleander and gillyflower, It’s good to wander among the peace of the Blue and gentle country (assonance). 3. The hissing of foamy glasses and blue flames of punch (onomatopoeia). 4. The golden stars dozed off, The mirror of the backwater trembled (alliteration). 5. Evening. Seaside. Sighs of the wind. The majestic cry of the waves. A storm is coming. A black boat alien to enchantment hits the shore (alliteration). 6. Now the rain has sneaked in (onomatopoeia). 7. In paradise they splash impatiently, And, rising, the curtain makes a noise (onomatopoeia); And restless Petersburg has already been awakened by the drum (onomatopoeia). 8. No wonder I shuddered. Not nonsense. Comrade “Theodor Nette” (alliteration) turned around and entered the port, burning like molten summer.
