Proud defiance of fate and daring love of freedom. Heroic character. The romantic hero strives for unfettered freedom, without which there is no true happiness for him and which is more valuable than life itself.

At an early stage of his creativity, the writer turned to romanticism, thanks to which he created a number of bright literary images. This literary direction allowed the writer not only to create perfect image, but also to convey the romantic spirit: the Proud Falcon, dying in a deep gorge, the daredevil Danko, who illuminated the road with the torch of his heart

People, Radda with his beautiful voice - all these Gorky heroes are united by the desire for freedom, they are not afraid even of death itself. In Gorky's stories, only freedom is a real value for a person. As an example, he tells a legend about the love of two young gypsies, stronger than the love of freedom.

The ending of the poem is tragic - Loiko kills Rada in front of the entire camp and dies himself. Gorky draws exactly this ending to the poem because neither Loiko nor Rada wanted to lose freedom.

The heroes of the legends told by the Moldavian Izergil also strive for freedom. The heroes of the story - Larra and Danko - are opposed to each other, but they also have common similarities. Strength of character and pride are emphasized in Lara. But good qualities turn into their opposite because she despises people.

Danko also strives for freedom, takes on a difficult mission - to lead people out of the forest. He rips out his heart, thereby lighting the way for them. Gorky's romantic heroes have many positive, human qualities– love of freedom, as well as the ability to serve people

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37. For romantic art world The contrast between the hero and reality is characteristic. The genre originality of Gorky's works of the initial period is associated with this feature of romanticism as an artistic method. “Stories within a story” using legends, tales, stories, fairy-tale elements - this is the genre of “Makar Chudra” and “Old Woman Izergil”. In these stories, Gorky turns to the genre of literary legend, because it makes it possible […]...
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e as a literary direction.) Romanticism involves affirmation exceptional personality, serving alone with the world, suitable to reality from the standpoint of your ideal making exceptional demands on her. The hero is head and shoulders above the people around him, their society is rejected by him. This explains the loneliness that is so typical of the romantic hero, which is most often thought of by him as a natural state, because people do not understand him and do not accept his ideals. The romantic hero finds an equal beginning only in communication with the elements, with the natural world.

Remember the romantic works of Pushkin and Lermontov.

That is why it plays such a big role in romantic works. scenery, usually devoid of halftones, based on bright colors, expressing the indomitable power of the element, its beauty and exclusivity. The landscape, thus, becomes animated and, as it were, emphasizes the originality of the character of the hero. Attempts to bring the romantic hero closer to the real world are most often futile: reality does not accept the romantic ideal of the hero due to its exclusivity .

The relationship between characters and circumstances in romanticism. For the romantic consciousness, the correlation of character with real life circumstances is almost unthinkable - this is how the most important feature of the romantic artistic world is formed -the principle of romantic duality. Romantic, and therefore the hero's ideal world contrasts with the real world , contradictory and far from the romantic ideal. The confrontation between romance and reality, romance and the surrounding world is the main feature of this literary movement.

This is exactly how we see the heroes of Gorky’s early romantic stories. Old gypsy Makar Chudra appears before the reader in a romantic landscape: he is surrounded by " haze of autumn night", which "shuddered and, timidly moving away, opened for a moment to the left - boundless steppe, right - endless sea». Pay attention to the animation of the landscape, to the boundlessness of the sea and steppe, which seem to emphasize the boundlessness of the hero's freedom, his inability and unwillingness to exchange this freedom for anything. A few lines later, Makar Chudra will directly state this position, talking about a person, from his point of view, not free: “Does he know his will? Is the expanse of the steppe clear? Does the sound of the sea wave make his heart happy? He is a slave - as soon as he was born, he is a slave all his life, and that’s it!”

Against the background of a romantic landscape, the old woman Izergil is depicted: « The wind flowed in a wide, even wave, but sometimes it seemed to jump over something invisible and, giving rise to a strong gust, blew the women’s hair into fantastic manes that billowed around their heads. It made women strange and fabulous . They moved further and further from us, and night and fantasies dressed them more and more beautifully.».

It is in such a landscape - seaside, night, mysterious and beautiful- Makar Chudra and Old Woman Izergil - the main characters of these stories - can realize themselves. Their consciousness and characters, with their sometimes mysterious contradictions, become the main subject of the image. . For the sake of these heroes, stories were written, and artistic media, used by the author, he needs to show the heroes in all their complexity and inconsistency, in order to explain their strength and weakness. Makar Chudra and Izergil, being at the center of the narrative, they receive the maximum opportunity for self-realization. The writer gives them the right to talk about themselves, to freely express their views. Legends stories told by them, possessing undoubted artistic independence, nevertheless serve, first of all, as a means of revealing the image of the main character, after whom the work is named .

The legends express the ideas of Makar Chudra and the old woman Izergil about the ideal and anti-ideal in man, i.e. presented romantic ideal and anti-ideal . Telling about Danko and Larra, about Radda and Loiko Zobar, Izergil and Chudra talk more about themselves. The author needs these legends so that Izergil and Chudra, in the most accessible form for them, can express your own views on life. Let's try to determine the main qualities of these characters.

Makar Chudra, like any romantic, has in his characterthe only beginning which he considers valuable: maximalist desire for freedom . Izergil is sure that her whole life was subordinated to only one thing - love for people. The same single principle, brought to the maximum extent, is embodied by the heroes of the legends told by them. For Loiko Zobar, the highest value is also freedom, openness and kindness: « He loved only horses and nothing else, and even then not for long - he would ride and sell them, and whoever wants the money, take it. He didn’t have what he cherished - you need his heart, he himself would tear it out of his chest and give it to you, if only it would make you feel good" Radda - the highest, exceptional display of pride, which even love for Loiko Zobar cannot break: “ I have never loved anyone, Loiko, but I love you. And I also love freedom! Will, Loiko, I love you more than you. ...Bow down at my feet in front of the whole camp and kiss me right hand mine - and then I will be your wife».

The insoluble contradiction between two principles in a romantic character - love and pride - is considered by Makar Chudra as completely natural, and it can only be resolved the way it was resolved - by death . The only character trait in its maximum manifestation is carried by Danko and Larra, about whom the old woman Izergil talks. Danko embodies the extreme degree of self-sacrifice in the name of love for people, Larra - extreme individualism .

Romantic character motivation. Larra's exceptional individualism is due to the fact that he is the son of an eagle, who embodies the ideal of strength and will. There is simply no need to talk about the motivation of the characters of Danko, Radda or Zobar - they are so in essence, so they are from the beginning .

The action of the legends takes place in chronologically uncertain ancient times - then, as it were, the time preceding the beginning of history, the era of first creations . However in the present there are traces directly related to that era - these are the blue lights left from Danko’s heart, the shadow of Larra, which Izergil sees ; Handsome Loiko and proud Radda circling smoothly and silently in the darkness of the night.

Composition of romantic stories. The composition of the narrative in romantic stories is entirely subordinated to one goal: to most fully show the image of the main character, be it Izergil or Makar Chudra. By forcing them to tell the legends of their people, the author presents a system of values, their understanding of the ideal and anti-ideal in human character, shows which personality traits, from the point of view of his heroes, are worthy of respect or contempt. In other words, the heroes thus seem to set a coordinate system, based on which they themselves can be judged.

So, a romantic legend is the most important means of creating the image of the main character. Makar Chudra is absolutely sure that pride and love are two wonderful feelings, brought by the romantics to their highest expression, cannot be reconciled, because compromise is generally unthinkable for the romantic consciousness. TO The conflict between the feeling of love and the feeling of pride that Radda and Loiko Zobar experience can only be resolved by the death of both: a romantic cannot sacrifice either love that knows no boundaries or absolute pride. But love presupposes humility and the mutual ability to submit to the beloved. This is something neither Loiko nor Radda can do.

How does Makar Chudra evaluate this position? He believes that this is how he should perceivelife is a real person worthy of imitation, and that only with such life position you can maintain your own freedom. An interesting conclusion is that he made long ago from the story of Radda and Loiko: “Well, falcon, do you want me to tell you a true story? And you remember it, and as you remember it, you will be a free bird throughout your life.” In other words, a truly free person could only realize himself in love, as the heroes of “were”, told by Makar Chudra, did.

But does the author agree with his hero? What is the author's position and what are the artistic means of expressing it? To answer this question, we must turn to such an important compositional feature of Gorky’s early romantic stories as the presencenarrator's image. In fact, this is one of the most inconspicuous images; it hardly shows itself in action. But it is precisely the look of this man, wandering around Russia and meeting on his way many of the most different people, is very important for a writer. At the compositional center of any Gorky epic work there will always be a perceiving consciousness - negative, distorting the real picture of life, or positive, filling existence with higher meaning and content. It is this perceiving consciousness that is ultimately the most important subject of the image, the criterion author's assessment reality and means of expression author's position.

In the later cycle of stories “Across Rus',” Gorky will call the hero-narrator not a passer-by, butpassing, emphasizing his caring view of reality. Both in the cycle “Across Rus'” and in the early romantic stories, the fate and worldview of the “passing one” reveal the features of Gorky himself; the fate of his hero largely reflected the fate of the writer, who had known Russia from his youth in his travels. Therefore, many researchers suggest talking about Gorky’s narrator in these stories asautobiographical hero.

It is the close, interested gaze of the autobiographical hero that snatches from the meetings given to him by fate the most interesting and ambiguous characters - they turn out to be the main subject of depiction and research. In them the author sees a manifestation folk character turn of the century, trying to explore his weaknesses and strengths. Author's attitude to them - admiration for their strength and beauty(as in the story “Makar Chudra”), or poetry, a penchant for aesthetic perception of the world(as in “Old Woman Izergil”), but at the same time disagreement with their position, the ability to see contradictions in their characters. This a complex relationship is expressed in stories not directly, but indirectly, using a variety of artistic means .

Makar Chudra only skeptically listens to the objection of the autobiographical hero: what, in fact, is their disagreement remains, as it were, behind the scenes of the narrative. But the end of the story, where the narrator, looking into the darkness of the steppe, sees how the handsome gypsy Loiko Zobar and Radda, the daughter of the old soldier Danila, “were spinning in the darkness of the night smoothly and silently, and there was no way the handsome Loiko could compare with the proud Radda,” shows his position. These words convey the author’s admiration for their beauty and uncompromisingness, the strength of their feelings, and an understanding of the impossibility of any other resolution to the conflict for the romantic consciousness. At the same time, this is an awareness of the futility of such an outcome of the matter: after all, even after death, Loiko in his pursuit will not catch up with the proud Radda.

The position of the autobiographical hero in “Old Woman Izergil” is more complexly expressed. By creating the image of the main character, Gorky, using compositional means, gives her the opportunity to present a romantic ideal that expresses the highest degree of love for people (Danko), and an anti-ideal who embodied individualism and contempt for others brought to its apogee (Larra). The ideal and the anti-ideal, the two romantic poles of the narrative, expressed in legends, set the coordinate system within which Izergil herself wants to place herself. The composition of the story is such that two legends seem to frame the narrative of her own life, which constitutes the ideological center of the narrative. Undoubtedly condemning Larra’s individualism, Izergil thinks that her own life and destiny tend more towards Danko’s pole, which embodies the highest ideal of love and self-sacrifice. In fact, her life, like Danko’s life, was entirely devoted to love - the heroine is absolutely sure of this. But the reader immediately draws attention to how easily she forgot her former love for the sake of a new one, how simply she left the people she once loved. They ceased to exist for her when the passion passed. The narrator is constantly trying to bring her back to the story about those who just occupied her imagination, and whom she has already forgotten:

“Where did the fisherman go? - I asked.

— Fisherman? And he... here...<...>

— Wait!..Where is the little Turk?

— Boy? He's dead, boy. From homesickness or love...»

Her indifference to her once beloved people amazes the narrator: “I left then. And I never met him again. I was happy about this: never met again those whom I once loved. These are not good meetings, it’s like meeting dead people » .

In everything - in the portrait, in the author's comments - we see a different point of view on the heroine. It is through the eyes of the autobiographical hero that the reader sees Izergil. Her portrait immediately reveals a very significant aesthetic contradiction . A young girl or a young woman full of strength should be talking about beautiful sensual love. Before us is a very old woman, in her portrait anti-aesthetic features are deliberately intensified: « Time had bent her in half, her once black eyes were dull and watery. Her dry voice sounded strange, it crunched, as if the old woman was speaking with bones.». « Her creaky voice sounded as if all forgotten centuries were grumbling, embodied in her chest by the shadows of memories».

Izergil is sure that her life, full of love, passed completely differently from the life of the individualist Larra; she cannot even imagine anything in common with him, but the gaze of the autobiographical hero finds this commonality, paradoxically bringing their portraits closer together. “He has now become like a shadow—it’s time! He lives for thousands of years, the sun dried his body, blood and bones, and the wind scattered them. This is what God can do to a man for pride!..” says Izergil about Larra. But the narrator sees almost the same features in the ancient old woman Izergil: “ Ilooked into her face. Her black eyes were still dull, they were not revived by the memory. The moon illuminated her dry, cracked lips, her pointed chin with gray hair on it, and her wrinkled nose, curved like an owl's beak. In place of her cheeks there were black pits, and in one of them lay a strand of ash-gray hair that had escaped from under the red rag that was wrapped around her head. The skin on the face, neck and hands is all cut up with wrinkles, and with every movement of old Izergil one could expect that this dry skin would rip all apart, fall apart in pieces and a naked skeleton with dull black eyes would stand in front of me».

Everything in the image of Izergil reminds the narrator of Larra - first of all, of course, her individualism, taken to the extreme, almost approaching Larra’s individualism, her antiquity, her stories about people who have long ago passed their circle of life: “And all of them are just pale shadow, and the one they kissed sits next to me, alive, but withered by time, without a body, without blood, with a heart without desires, with eyes without fire—also almost a shadow,” remember that Larra turned into a shadow.

The fundamental distance between the position of the heroine and the narrator forms the ideological center of the story and determines its problematics. The romantic position, for all its beauty and sublimity, is denied by the autobiographical hero. He shows its futility and affirms the relevance of a more sober, realistic position.

In fact, the autobiographical hero is the only realistic image in Gorky’s early romantic stories . His realism is manifested in the fact that his character and fate reflected the typical circumstances of Russian life in the 1890s. The development of Russia along the capitalist path led to the fact that millions of people were torn from their places, forming an army of tramps, vagabonds, who seemed to have “broken out” of the previous social framework and did not find new strong social ties. Gorky's autobiographical hero belongs to precisely this layer of people. Researcher of M. Gorky’s work B.V. Mikhailovsky called such a character “broke out” from the traditional circle of social relations.

Despite all the drama of this process, it was positive: the outlook and worldview of the people who set off on a journey through Russia was incomparably deeper and richer than that of previous generations; completely new aspects of national life were revealed to them. Russia seemed to be getting to know itself through these people. That is why the view of the autobiographical hero is realistic, he can understand the limitations of a purely romantic worldview, which dooms Makar Chudra to loneliness and leads Izergil to complete exhaustion.

What features of romanticism were reflected in “Song of the Falcon” (1895, second edition - 1899)? How can you determine the genre of this work? What is an allegory? How is the conflict embodied? What is the role of landscape? What are the artistic means of creating images? How is the author's position expressed?

Sergey VOLKOV

“Inscribed” portrait

Speaking about the skill of creating a portrait in literary work, we should not forget about one of its types, which can conditionally be called “inscribed”. A person is not only “described”, but also “fits in”, is included in a broader background, becoming its constructive part. And at the same time, this background environment casts its light on a person, makes him look different, reveals essential features in his appearance that are hidden from the eye without such inclusion.

And we find interesting examples of “inscribed” portraits in the prose of the turn of the century. M. Gorky uses it in his first story “Makar Chudra”: “A humid wind blew from the sea, spreading across the steppe the pensive melody of the splash of a wave running onto the shore and the rustling of coastal bushes. Occasionally, his gusts brought with them wrinkled, yellow leaves and threw them into the fire, fanning the flames; the darkness of the autumn night that surrounded us trembled and, fearfully moving away, revealed for a moment on the left - the boundless steppe, on the right - the endless sea and directly opposite me - the figure of Makar Chudra, an old gypsy...” The hero of the story is presented against the backdrop of nature, powerful, elemental; The position of Makar Chudra in this almost mise-en-scène is interesting - he is exactly in the center, the “boundless” steppe and the “endless” sea are like two wings behind his back (the dash sign helps to read this fragment of text, making pauses and gestures after words indicating directions: “left”, “right”, “directly opposite me”). The next sentence of the story is again arranged symmetrically, but now the main attention is given to the character. The element surrounding him has already been named and characterized (in the sentence it is “removed” into adverbial phrases), now it is important to emphasize that the hero is not only similar to her, but also higher, stronger than her (symmetry is indicative negative particles accompanying the hero’s actions in relation to the elements): “ Not paying attentionattention to the fact that the cold waves of the wind, having opened the checkmen, exposed his hairy chest and beat it mercilessly, he reclined in beautiful, strong pose, facing me, methodically sipped from his huge pipe... and... talked to me, without stopping And without making a single move to protection from sharp wind blows” (italics hereinafter are ours. - S.V.).

Another function is performed by the landscape environment in the description of Princess Vera from “ Garnet bracelet» Kuprina. The heroine appears against a background of autumn flowers: “...she walked around the garden and carefully cut flowers with scissors for the dining table. The flower beds were empty and looked disorganized. Multi-colored double carnations were blooming, as well as gillyflower - half in flowers, and half in thin green pods that smelled like cabbage; the rose bushes were still producing - for the third time this summer - buds and roses, but already shredded, sparse, as if degenerated. But dahlias, peonies and asters bloomed magnificently with their cold, arrogant beauty, spreading an autumnal, grassy, ​​sad smell in the sensitive air. The remaining flowers, after their luxurious love and excessive motherhood, quietly scattered countless seeds of future life onto the ground.” The heroine, it seems, does not exist yet - we have a description of the flowers that she cuts. Let's take a closer look at it: from all the flowers, dahlias, peonies and asters are highlighted (and again placed in the center of the fragment) - the union “but” contrasts them with left-handed flowers and roses, which bloom not so “lush”, “coldly” and “arrogantly”, the word “ the rest” at the beginning of the next sentence again distinguishes them from the series - this time by the attribute sterility. All the other flowers not only bloomed, but also gave seeds, they knew the love and joy of motherhood, autumn for them is not only the time of dying, but also the time of the beginning of the “future life”.

“Human” motives in the description of flowers prepare the characterization of the heroine herself. On the same page we read: “...Vera took after her mother, beauty Englishwoman, my highly flexible figure, gentle, but cold And proud face..." The definitions we have highlighted connect in the reader’s mind Vera, who has no children and whose passion for her husband has long passed, with beautiful but barren flowers. She's not just among them - it seems that she is alone from them. Thus, the image of the heroine, who has entered the time of her autumn, is again integrated into a broader landscape context, which enriches this image with additional meanings.

The work of early Gorky should not be reduced only to romanticism: in the 1890s. he created works that were both romantic and realistic in style (among the latter, for example, the stories “The Beggar Woman,” “Chelkash,” “Konovalov” and many others). Nevertheless, it was precisely the group of romantic stories that was perceived as a kind of calling card of the young writer; it was they that testified to the arrival in literature of a writer who stood out sharply from his predecessors.

First of all, the type of hero was new. Much in Gorky's heroes made us remember the romantic literary tradition. This is the brightness, exclusivity of their characters, which distinguished them from those around them, and the drama of their relationship with the world of everyday reality, and the fundamental loneliness, rejection, and mystery for others. Gorky's romantics make too stringent demands on the world and the human environment, and in their behavior they are guided by principles that are “crazy” from the point of view of “normal” people.

Two qualities are especially noticeable in Gorky’s romantic heroes: pride and strength, which force them to defy fate and boldly strive for boundless freedom, even if they have to sacrifice their lives for the sake of freedom. It is the problem of freedom that becomes the central problem of the writer’s early stories.

These are the stories “Makar Chudra” and “Old Woman Izergil”. The poeticization of love of freedom itself is a completely traditional feature for the literature of romanticism. The appeal to the conventional forms of legends was not fundamentally new for Russian literature. What is the meaning of the conflict in Gorky’s early romantic stories, what are the specifically Gorky features of its artistic embodiment? The uniqueness of these stories lies in the fact that the source of conflict in them is not the traditional confrontation between “good” and “evil,” but the clash of two positive values. This is the conflict of freedom and love in Makar Chudra - a conflict that can only be resolved tragically. Radda and Loiko Zobar, who love each other, value their freedom so much that they do not allow the thought of voluntary submission to their loved one.

Each of the heroes will never agree to be led: the only role worthy of these heroes is to dominate, even if we are talking about mutual feelings. “Will, Loiko, I love you more than you,” says Radda. The uniqueness of the conflict lies in the complete equality of equally “proud” heroes. Unable to conquer his beloved, Loiko at the same time cannot give up on her. Therefore, he decides to kill - a wild, “crazy” act, although he knows that he is thereby sacrificing his pride and his own life.

The heroine of the story “Old Woman Izergil” behaves in a similar way in the sphere of love: feelings of pity or even regret give way to the desire to remain independent. “I was happy... I never met those I once loved,” she tells her interlocutor. “These are not good meetings, it’s like meeting dead people.” However, the heroes of this story are involved not only and not so much in love conflicts: it is about price, meaning and various options for freedom.

The first option is presented by the fate of Larra. This is another “proud” person (such a characteristic in the mouth of the narrator is more likely to be praise than a negative assessment). The story of his “crime and punishment” receives an ambiguous interpretation: Izergil refrains from direct assessment, the tone of her story is epically calm. The verdict was entrusted to the nameless " to a wise man»:

“- Stop! There is punishment. This is a terrible punishment; You wouldn’t invent something like this in a thousand years! His punishment is in himself! Let him go, let him be free. This is his punishment!”

So, Larra’s individualistic freedom, not enlightened by reason, is the freedom of rejection, turning into its opposite - into punishment by eternal loneliness. The opposite “mode” of freedom is revealed in the legend of Danko. With his position “above the crowd,” his proud exclusivity, and finally, his thirst for freedom, at first glance, he resembles Larra. However, the elements of similarity only emphasize the fundamentally different directions of the two “freedoms”. Danko’s freedom is the freedom to take responsibility for the team, the freedom to selflessly serve people, the ability to overcome the instincts of self-preservation and subordinate life to a consciously defined goal. The formula “in life there is always a place for achievement” is an aphoristic definition of this freedom. True, the ending of the story about Danko’s fate is not unambiguous: the people saved by the hero are not at all complimentary attested by Izergil. Admiring the daredevil Danko is complicated here by a note of tragedy.

The central place in the story is occupied by the story of Izergil herself. The framing legends about Larra and Danko are deliberately conventional: their action is devoid of specific chronological or spatial signs, and is attributed to an indefinite deep antiquity. On the contrary, Izergil’s story unfolds on a more or less specific historical background(during the course of the story, famous historical episodes are mentioned, real place names are used). However, this dose of reality does not change the principles of character development - they remain romantic. The life story of the old woman Izergil is a story of meetings and partings. None of the heroes of her story are awarded detailed description— the metonymic principle dominates in the characterization of characters (“a part instead of the whole,” one expressive detail instead of a detailed portrait). Izergil is endowed with character traits that bring her closer to the heroes of legends: pride, rebellion, rebellion.

Like Danko, she lives among people and is capable of heroic deeds for the sake of love. However, her image does not have the integrity that is present in Danko’s image. After all, the series of her love interests and the ease with which she parted with them evokes associations with Danko’s antipode, Larra. For Izergil herself (namely, she is the narrator), these contradictions are invisible; she tends to bring her life closer to the model of behavior that makes up the essence of the final legend. It is no coincidence that, starting with the story of Larra, her story rushes to Danko’s “pole”.

However, in addition to Izergil’s point of view, the story also expresses another point of view, belonging to the young Russian who listens to Izergil, occasionally asking her questions. This persistent character in Gorky’s early prose, sometimes called “passing,” is endowed with some autobiographical features. Age, range of interests, wandering around Rus' bring him closer to biographical Alexey Peshkov, therefore in literary studies the term “autobiographical hero” is often used in relation to him. There is also another version of the terminological designation - “author-narrator”. You can use any of these designations, although from the point of view of terminological rigor, the concept of “image of the narrator” is preferable.

Often, the analysis of Gorky’s romantic stories comes down to talking about conventional romantic heroes. Indeed, the figures of Radda and Loiko Zobar, Larra and Danko are important for understanding Gorky’s position. However, the content of his stories is broader: they themselves romantic stories are not independent, included in a larger narrative structure. Both in “Makar Chudra” and in “Old Woman Izergil” the legends are presented as stories of old people who have seen life. The listener of these stories is the narrator. From a quantitative point of view, this image takes up little space in the texts of the stories. But for understanding the author’s position, its significance is very great.

Let us return to the analysis of the central plot of the story “Old Woman Izergil”. This segment of the narrative - the heroine’s life story - is framed in a double frame. The inner frame consists of the legends about Larra and Danko, told by Izergil herself. External - landscape fragments and portrait characteristics of the heroine, communicated to the reader by the narrator himself, and his short remarks. The outer frame determines the spatio-temporal coordinates of the “speech event” itself and shows the narrator’s reaction to the essence of what he heard. Internal - gives an idea of ethical standards the world in which Izergil lives. While Izergil’s story is directed towards Danko’s pole, the narrator’s meager statements make important adjustments to the reader’s perception.

Those short remarks with which he occasionally interrupts the old woman’s speech, at first glance, are of a purely official, formal nature: they either fill pauses or contain harmless “clarifying” questions. But the very direction of the questions is indicative. The narrator asks about the fate of the “others,” the heroine’s life companions: “Where did the fisherman go?” or “Wait!..Where is the little Turk?” Izergil tends to talk primarily about herself. Her additions, provoked by the narrator, indicate a lack of interest, even indifference, to other people (“The boy? He died, the boy. From homesickness or from love...”).

It is even more important that in the portrait description of the heroine given by the narrator, features are constantly recorded that associatively bring her closer not only to Danko, but also to Larra. Speaking of portraits. Note that both Izergil and the narrator act as “portrait painters” in the story. The latter seems to deliberately use in his descriptions of the old woman certain signs that she endowed legendary heroes, as if “quoting” her.

The portrait of Izergil is given in some detail in the story (“time has bent her in half, her once black eyes were dull and watery,” “the skin on her neck and arms is all cut up with wrinkles,” etc.). The appearance of the legendary heroes is presented through individually selected characteristics: Danko is “a handsome young man,” “a lot of strength and living fire shone in his eyes,” Larra is “a handsome and strong young man,” “only his eyes were cold and proud.”

The antithetical nature of the legendary heroes is already given by the portrait; however, the appearance of the old woman combines individual features of both. “I was alive, like a ray of sunshine” - a clear parallel with Danko; “dry, cracked lips”, “wrinkled nose, curved like an owl’s beak”, “dry... skin” - details that echo the features of Larra’s appearance (“the sun dried up his body, blood and bones”). The “shadow” motif common in the description of Larra and the old woman Izergil is especially important: Larra, having become a shadow, “lives for thousands of years”; the old woman is “alive, but withered by time, without a body, without blood, with a heart without desires, with eyes without fire, - also almost a shadow.” Loneliness turns out to be the common fate of Larra and the old woman Izergil.

Thus, the narrator does not at all idealize his interlocutor (or, in another story, his interlocutor Makar Chudra). He shows that the consciousness of a “proud” person is anarchic, not enlightened by a clear idea of ​​the price of freedom, and his love of freedom itself can take on an individualistic character. That is why the final landscape sketch sets the reader up for concentrated reflection, for the counter-activity of his consciousness. There is no straightforward optimism here, the heroism is muted - the pathos that dominated the final legend: “It was quiet and dark in the steppe. The clouds kept crawling across the sky, slowly, boringly... The sea rustled dully and sadly.” The leading principle of Gorky’s style is not spectacular external depiction, as it might seem if only “legends” came into the reader’s field of view. The internal dominant of his work is conceptuality, tension of thought, although this quality of style in his early work is somewhat “diluted” by stylized folk imagery and a tendency towards external effects.

The appearance of the characters and the details of the landscape background in Gorky's early stories are created by means of romantic hyperbolization: showiness, unusualness, “excessiveness” - the qualities of any Gorky image. The very appearance of the characters is depicted with large, expressive strokes. Gorky does not care about the visual concreteness of the image. It is important for him to decorate, highlight, enlarge the hero, and attract the reader’s attention to him. In a similar way, Gorky's landscape is created, filled with traditional symbolism and imbued with lyricism.

Its stable attributes are the sea, clouds, moon, wind. The landscape is extremely conventional, it serves as a romantic decoration, a kind of screensaver: “... dark blue patches of sky, decorated with golden specks of stars, sparkled tenderly.” Therefore, by the way, within the same description, the same object can be given contradictory, but equally catchy characteristics. For example, the initial description of the moonlit night in “Old Woman Izergil” contains contradictory color characteristics in one paragraph. At first the “disc of the moon” is called “blood-red,” but soon the narrator notices that the floating clouds are saturated with the “blue radiance of the moon.”

The steppe and the sea are figurative signs of the endless space that opens up to the narrator in his wanderings across Rus'. Art space a specific story is organized by the correlation of the boundless world and the “meeting place” of the narrator with the future narrator highlighted in it (the vineyard in “The Old Woman Izergil”, the place by the fire in the story “Makar Chudra”). In the landscape painting, the words “strange”, “fantastic” (“fantasy”), “fabulous” (“fairy tale”) are repeated many times. Fine precision gives way to subjective expressive characteristics. Their function is to present an “other”, “unearthly”, romantic world, and contrast it with the dull reality. Instead of clear outlines, silhouettes or “lace shadow” are given; lighting is based on the play of light and shadow.

The external musicality of speech is also noticeable in the stories: the flow of phrases is leisurely and solemn, replete with various rhythmic repetitions. The romantic “excessiveness” of the style is also manifested in the fact that nouns and verbs are entwined in the stories with “garlands” of adjectives, adverbs, participles - whole series of definitions. This stylistic manner, by the way, was condemned by A.P. Chekhov, who friendly advised the young writer: “...Cross out, where possible, the definitions of nouns and verbs. You have so many definitions that the reader finds it difficult to understand and gets tired.”

In Gorky’s early work, “excessive” colorfulness was closely connected with the young writer’s worldview, with his understanding of true life as a free play of unfettered forces, with the desire to introduce a new, life-affirming tone into literature. Subsequently, M. Gorky’s prose style evolved towards greater conciseness of descriptions, asceticism and accuracy portrait characteristics, syntactic balance of the phrase.

Romanticism as a movement in literature arose in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and became most widespread in Europe in the period from 1790 to 1830. The main idea of ​​romanticism was the assertion creative personality, and its peculiarity is the violent depiction of emotions. The main representatives of romanticism in Russia were Lermontov, Pushkin and Gorky.

Gorky's romantic mood was prompted by growing discontent in society and the expectation of change. It was thanks to the protest against “stagnation” that images of heroes who were capable of saving the people, leading them out of darkness, and showing them the right path began to appear in the writer’s head. But this path seemed completely different to Gorky, different from his usual existence; the author despised everyday life and saw salvation only in freedom from social shackles and conventions, which was reflected in his early stories.

Historically, this period of Gorky’s work coincided with the flourishing of revolutionary movements in Russia, whose views the author clearly sympathized with. He sang the image of a selfless and honest rebel, consumed not by greedy calculations, but by romantic aspirations to change the world for the better and destroy an unjust system. Also, in his works of that time, a craving for freedom and unrealistic ideals was revealed, because the writer had not yet seen the changes, but only had a presentiment of them. When dreams of a new social system took on real shape, his work transformed into socialist realism.

Main features

The main feature of romanticism in Gorky’s work is a clear division of characters into bad and good, that is, there are no complex personalities, a person has either only good qualities, or only bad. This technique helps the author more clearly show his sympathy and highlight those people who need to be imitated.

In addition, all of Gorky’s romantic works show a love of nature. Nature is always one of the main acting characters, and all romantic moods are transmitted through her. The writer loved to use descriptions of mountains, forests, seas, endowing every particle of the surrounding world with its own character and behavior.

What is revolutionary romanticism?

The early romantic works of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov were based on the ideas of classicism and, in fact, were a direct continuation of it, which did not correspond to the sentiments of progressive and radically thinking people of that period. There were few of them, so romanticism acquired classical forms: conflict between the individual and society, an extra person, longing for an ideal, etc. However, time passed, and there were more and more revolutionary-minded citizens.

The divergence of literature and popular interests led to a change in romanticism, to the emergence of new ideas and techniques. The main representatives of the new revolutionary romanticism were Pushkin, Gorky and the Decembrist poets, who, first of all, promoted progressive views on the development prospects of Russia. The main theme was folk identity - the possibility of independent existence of peasants, hence the term nationality. New images began to appear, and the main ones among them were the genius poet and hero, capable at any moment of saving society from an impending threat.

Old woman Izergil

In this story there is a contrast between two characters and two types of behavior. The first is Danko - an example of that very hero, the ideal who must save the people. He feels free and happy only when his tribe is free and happy. The young man is filled with love for his people, sacrificial love, which personifies the spirit of the Decembrists, who were ready to die for the well-being of society.

Danko saves his people, but at the same time dies himself. The tragedy of this legend is that the tribe forgets its heroes, it is ungrateful, but for the leader this does not matter, because the main reward for the feat is the happiness of the people for whom it was accomplished.

The antagonist is the son of the eagle, Larra, he despised people, despised their way of life and law, he recognized only freedom, turning into permissiveness. He did not know how to love and limit his desires; as a result, he was expelled from the tribe for violating social foundations. Only then did the proud young man realize that without the people he was nothing. When he is alone, no one can admire him, no one needs him. Having shown these two antipodes, Gorky brought everything to one conclusion: the values ​​and interests of the people should always be higher than your values ​​and interests. Freedom is to free people from the tyranny of the spirit, ignorance, that darkness that hid behind the forest, unsuitable for life for the Danko tribe.

It is obvious that the author follows the canon of romanticism: here is the confrontation between the individual and society, here is the longing for the ideal, here is the proud freedom of loneliness and extra people. However, the dilemma about freedom was not resolved in favor of Larra’s proud and narcissistic loneliness; the writer despises this type, glorified by Byron (one of the founders of romanticism) and Lermontov. Its perfect romantic hero- this is the one who, being above society, does not renounce it, but helps it even when it persecutes the savior. In this feature, Gorky is very close to the Christian understanding of freedom.

Makar Chudra

In the story “Makar Chudra,” freedom is also the main value for the heroes. The old gypsy Makar Chudra calls her the main treasure of a person; in her he sees an opportunity to preserve his “I”. Revolutionary romanticism is colorfully manifested precisely in this understanding of freedom: the old man claims that under conditions of tyranny a moral and gifted individual will not develop. This means that it is worth taking risks for the sake of independence, because without it the country will never become better.

Loiko and Radda have the same message. They love each other, but see marriage only as chains and shackles, and not as a chance to find peace. As a result, the love of freedom, which so far appears in the form of ambition, since the heroes cannot use it correctly, leads to the death of both characters. Gorky puts individualism above marriage ties, which only lull a person’s creative and mental abilities with everyday worries and petty interests. He understands that it is easier for a loner to sacrifice his life for the sake of freedom, it is easier to find complete harmony with his inner world. After all, married Danko cannot really rip out the heart.

Chelkash

The main characters of the story are the old drunkard and thief Chelkash and the young village boy Gavrila. One of them was going to go on a “deal,” but his partner broke his leg, and this could complicate the whole operation, and that’s when the experienced rogue met Gavrila. During their conversation, Gorky paid great attention to Chelkash’s personality, noticed all the little things, described his slightest movements, all the feelings and thoughts that arose in his head. The refined psychologism of the image is a clear adherence to the romantic canon.

Nature also occupies a special place in this work, since Chelkash had a spiritual connection with the sea, and his state of mind often depended on the sea. The expression of feelings and moods through the states of the surrounding world is again a romantic trait.

We also see how Gavrila’s character changes over the course of the story, and if at first we felt pity and compassion for him, then in the end they turn into disgust. The main idea of ​​the story is that it doesn’t matter what you look like or what you do, but what’s important is what’s in your soul, the most important thing is to always remain a decent person in any matter. This thought itself carries a revolutionary message: how does it matter what the hero does? Does this mean that the murderer of a dignitary can also be a decent person? So, a terrorist can blow up His Excellency’s carriage and at the same time maintain moral purity? Yes, this is exactly the kind of freedom the author deliberately allows: not everything is a vice that society condemns. A revolutionary kills, but his motive is sacred. The writer could not say this directly, so he chose abstract examples and images.

Features of Gorky's romanticism

The main feature of Gorky's romanticism is the image of a hero, a certain ideal designed to save the people. He does not renounce the people, but on the contrary wants to lead them to the right path. The main values ​​that the writer exalted in his romantic stories are love, freedom, courage and self-sacrifice. Their understanding depends on the revolutionary sentiments of the author, who writes not only for the thinking intelligentsia, but also for the ordinary Russian peasant, therefore the images and plots are not ornate and simple. They have the character of a religious parable and are even similar in style. For example, the author very clearly shows his attitude towards each character, and it is always clear who the author likes and who he doesn’t.

Gorky also had nature actor and influenced the heroes of the stories. In addition, its individual parts are symbols that must be perceived allegorically.

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Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov, 1868-1936) is one of the most significant figures in world culture of our century and at the same time one of the most complex and controversial. In the last decade, attempts have been made to “throw Gorky’s work off the steamship of modernity.” However, let’s not forget that at the beginning of the century they tried to do the same thing with Pushkin and Tolstoy...

Perhaps only Gorky managed to reflect in his work the history, life and culture of Russia in the first third of the twentieth century on a truly epic scale.

Early work of A.M. Gorky is marked by the influence of romanticism. There may be some things you like about any writer’s legacy and some things you don’t like. One will leave you indifferent, while the other will delight you. And this is even more true for the huge and varied creativity of A.M. Gorky. His early works - romantic songs and legends - leave the impression of contact with real talent. The heroes of these stories are beautiful. And not only externally - they refuse the pitiful fate of serving things and money, their life has a high meaning. Heroes of the early works of A.M. Gorky are courageous and selfless (“Song of the Falcon”, the legend of Danko), they glorify activity, the ability to act (images of the Falcon, Petrel, Danko). One of the most striking early works of A.M. Gorky's story "The Old Woman Izergil" (1894). The story was written using the writer’s favorite form of framing: the legend of Larra, the story of the life of Izergil, the legend of Danko. What makes the three parts of the story a single whole is the main idea - the desire to reveal true value human personality.

In 1895, Gorky wrote his “Song about the Falcon.” In the contrasting images of the Snake and the Falcon, two forms of life are embodied: rotting and burning. To more clearly show the courage of the fighter, the author contrasts the Falcon with the adaptable Snake, whose soul is rotting in petty-bourgeois complacency. Gorky pronounces a merciless verdict on philistine prosperity: “He who is born to crawl cannot fly.” In this work, Gorky sings a song to the “madness of the brave,” claiming it as the “wisdom of life.”

Gorky believed that with the organization of a “healthy working people - democracy,” a special spiritual culture would be established, in which “life would become joy, music; labor is pleasure." That is why at the beginning of the 20th century the writer’s confessions about the happiness of “living on earth” were very frequent, where “ new life in the new century."

This romanticized feeling of the era was expressed by “Song of the Petrel” (1901). In this work, a personality was revealed through romantic means, overthrowing a stagnant world. The image of the “proud bird” contains all the manifestations of feelings dear to the author: courage, strength, fiery passion, confidence in victory over a meager and boring life. The petrel combines truly unprecedented abilities: to soar high, to “pierce” the darkness, to summon a storm and enjoy it, to see the sun behind the clouds. And the storm itself is their realization.

Everywhere and always A.M. Gorky strove for the revival by nature of the given foundations of human existence. Gorky's early romantic works contained and captured the awakening human soul- the most beautiful thing that the writer has always worshiped.

Born on March 28, 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod. At the age of 11 he became an orphan and until 1888 he lived with relatives in Kazan. He tried many professions: he was a cook on a ship, worked in an icon-painting workshop, and was a foreman. In 1888 he left Kazan for the village of Krasnovidovo, where he was engaged in propaganda. revolutionary ideas. Maxim Gorky's first story, "Makar Chudra", was published in 1892 in the newspaper "Caucasus". In 1898, the collection “Essays and Stories” was published, and a year later his first novel “Foma Gordeev” was published. In 1901, Gorky was expelled from Nizhny Novgorod in Arzamas Durnov A.N. Gorky, whom we do not know. // Literary newspaper, 1993, March 10 (No. 10). .

A little later, the writer’s collaboration with the Moscow Art Theater began. The plays “At the Lower Depths” (1902), “The Bourgeois” (1901) and others were staged at the theater. The poem “Man” (1903), the plays “Summer Residents” (1904), “Children of the Sun” (1905), “Two Barbarians” (1905) belong to the same period. Gorky becomes an active member of the “Moscow Literary Environment” and takes part in the creation of collections of the “Knowledge” society. In 1905, Gorky was arrested and immediately after his release he went abroad. From 1906 to 1913, Gorky lived in Capri. In 1907, the novel “Mother” by R.M. Mironov was published in America. Maxim Gorky. His personality and works. - M., 2003..

The plays “The Last” (1908), “Vassa Zheleznova” (1910), the stories “Summer” (1909) and “The Town of Okurov” (1909), and the novel “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” (1911) were created in Capri. In 1913, Gorky returned to Russia, and in 1915 he began publishing the journal Letopis. After the revolution, he worked at the World Literature publishing house.

In 1921, Gorky again went abroad. In the early 20s, he finished the trilogy “Childhood”, “In People” and “My Universities”, wrote the novel “The Artamonov Case”, and began work on the novel “The Life of Klim Samgin”. In 1931, Gorky returned to the USSR. He died on June 18, 1936 in the village of Gorki.

At the end of the 90s, the reader was amazed by the appearance of three volumes of “Essays and Stories” by a new writer - M. Gorky. “Great and original talent,” was the general judgment about the new writer and his books G.D. Veselov.

Growing discontent in society and the expectation of decisive changes caused an increase in romantic tendencies in literature. These trends were reflected especially clearly in the work of young Gorky, in such stories as “Chelkash”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “Makar Chudra”, and in revolutionary songs. The heroes of these stories are people “with the sun in their blood”, strong, proud, beautiful. These heroes are Gorky's dream. Such a hero was supposed to “strengthen a person’s will to live, arouse in him a rebellion against reality, against all its oppression.”

The central image of Gorky's early romantic works is the image of a hero, ready to perform a feat for the good of the people. The story “Old Woman Izergil,” written in 1895, is of great importance in revealing this image. In the image of Danko, Gorky put a humanistic idea of ​​a man who devotes all his strength to serving the people.

Gorky's work on initial stage bears a strong imprint of the new literary movement- the so-called revolutionary romanticism. The philosophical ideas of the beginning talented writer, the passion and emotionality of his prose, the new approach to man differed sharply from both naturalistic prose, which went into petty everyday realism and chose the hopeless boredom of human existence as its theme, and from the aesthetic approach to literature and life, which saw value only in “refined” emotions, characters and words.

For youth there are two most important components of life, two vectors of existence. This is love and freedom. In Gorky's stories "Makar Chudra" and "Old Woman Izergil" love and freedom become the theme of the stories told by the main characters. Gorky's plot discovery - that old age tells about youth and love - allows us to give a perspective, the point of view of a young man who lives by love and sacrifices everything for it, and a man who has lived his life, seen a lot and is able to understand what is really important, what remains at the end of a long journey.

The heroes of the two parables told by the old woman Izergil are complete opposites. Danko is an example of love-self-sacrifice, love-giving. He cannot live, separating himself from his tribe, people, he feels unhappy and unfree if the people are unfree and unhappy. Pure sacrificial love and the desire for heroism were characteristic of romantic revolutionaries who dreamed of dying for universal human ideals, could not imagine life without sacrifice, did not hope and did not want to live to old age. Danko gives his heart, illuminating the path for people.

This is a fairly simple symbol: only a pure heart, full of love and altruism, can become a beacon, and only a selfless sacrifice will help free the people. The tragedy of the parable is that people forget about those who sacrificed themselves for them. They are ungrateful, but perfectly aware of this, Danko does not think about the meaning of his dedication, does not expect recognition or reward. Gorky argues with the official church concept of merit, in which a person does good deeds, knowing in advance that he will be rewarded. The writer gives an opposite example: the reward for a feat is the feat itself and the happiness of the people for whose sake it was accomplished.

The son of an eagle is the complete opposite of Danko. Larra is a loner. He is proud and narcissistic, he sincerely considers himself higher, better than other people. He evokes disgust, but also pity. After all, Larra does not deceive anyone, he does not pretend that he is capable of love. Unfortunately, there are many such people, although their essence is not so clearly manifested in real life. For them, love and interest come down only to possession. If it cannot be possessed, it must be destroyed. Having killed the girl, Larra says with cynical frankness that he did it because he could not own her. And he adds that, in his opinion, people only pretend to love and observe moral standards. After all, nature gave them only their body as their property, and they own both animals and things.

Larra is cunning and knows how to talk, but this is a deception. He loses sight of the fact that a person always pays for the possession of money, labor, time, but ultimately a life lived in one way and not another. Therefore, Larra’s so-called truth becomes the reason for his rejection. The tribe expels the apostate, saying: you despise us, you are superior - well, live alone if we are unworthy of you. But loneliness becomes endless torture. Larra understands that his whole philosophy was just a pose, that even in order to consider himself superior to others and be proud of himself, others are still needed. You can’t admire yourself alone, and we all depend on evaluation and recognition from society.

The romanticism of Gorky's early stories, his heroic ideals are always close and understandable to youth; they will be loved and will inspire more and more generations of readers to search for truth and heroism.