I.L. Finkelstein
The name of Corneille has long and firmly taken a place in the programs of our humanitarian universities; his major works are read and studied by students of universities, pedagogical institutes and institutes foreign languages. Meanwhile, Corneille's tragedy "Horace", which rightfully occupies a place next to "The Cid" and is the key to many problems of French classicism, has not yet received sufficiently complete coverage in our press.
This article attempts to fill this gap.
The study of the ideological and specific historical content of the tragedy “Horace” is combined here with an analysis of the form of the work, which should clearly show their organic unity.
The analysis of “Horace” is preceded by some comments about the ideological and political orientation and objective significance of Corneille’s work. These remarks seem all the more appropriate since Corneille’s tragedy was repeatedly falsified in reactionary bourgeois criticism:
The transitional period in the history of France, the 17th century, brought forward the important task of creating new state, legal, aesthetic and moral norms. The intensive strengthening of the absolutist state put on the agenda the question of the relationship between the state and society, the state and the individual, the question of the rights and responsibilities of the state and the individual, the question of the place of the individual in society, and the norms of his behavior. The absolutist state was directly interested in ensuring that all these issues were resolved in the direction it desired. Realizing the important social and educational significance of literature and theater, it made a lot of efforts to put them at the service of its interests. His literary policy, as eloquently evidenced by, for example, the role of Richelieu in the “dispute about the Cid,” had as its main goal to put the development of drama under state control, to make the theater a tribune for the propaganda of official morality, to increase its separation from folk roots and from the great elements folk language. And absolutism, as Pushkin and Stendhal already noted, achieves noticeable success here. The aesthetics and artistic practice of classicism acquire a clearly class imprint: only crowned and “high-born” characters are allowed onto the tragic stage, and the “three unities” turn out to be a sharp line between the protagonists of the tragedy and the people; one of the basic rules is the observance of the so-called “decency”, which, as in life, plays the role of a caste barrier separating the nobility from all other layers of the French population; in the speech of tragic characters, elements of precious aristocratic jargon appear. All these features of classicist tragedy, already defined by Corneille, constitute those moments of its class limitations and narrowness, which, bringing it closer to the long-forgotten court dramaturgy of Scuderi, Boyer, T. Corneille and many others, were the object of cruel and quite fair democratic criticism XVIII-XIX centuries
Exalting the stoic renunciation of personal interests by a person in the name of the interests of the state, the classic tragedy contributed to the establishment of one of the basic principles of the noble state: not the law, not the state for man, but “man for the law,” for the state. Speaking in various forms in Corneille and Racine, but always imparting a stoic beginning to their tragedies, the demand for self-denial was partly nothing more than a sublimated, idealized reflection of the existence of man and the people for the law, an idealized expression of the demand to subordinate man and society to the absolutist state. By elevating the renunciation of the personal to an ideal, classicist tragedy actively helped absolutism to strengthen and exalt itself.
While noting these moments of contact between the ideological content of classic tragedies and the prevailing morality, they should not be identified at all. Absolutism declaratively gave state interests the character of universal significance, universal rationality and legality, identifying them with the good of the entire society. But there was a deep discrepancy between these declarations and the actual policies of the noble state, whose main function was to keep the exploited masses in check. A deep discrepancy also existed between the practice of absolutism and the ideals and illusions of the creators of classic tragedy.
Corneille's civic ideals, formed during the period of rising national consciousness of the French people, who fought for the unity and independence of their homeland, had a pronounced patriotic character. The playwright's ideal was truly nation state, embodying the highest interests of the French people. This ideal was clearly outlined already in “Sid”, where royal power acts as a force that helps resolve conflicts between subjects, and state policy meets the humane aspirations of individuals. Corneille does not dream of a state based on Machiavellian principles, as reactionary literary scholars are trying to present. On the contrary, the playwright’s ideal is a powerful state, where the absolute power of the monarch rests on justice and, while limiting freedom, does not enter into antagonistic contradictions with the interests of society and the individual. This ideal served as the measure with which Corneille and then Racine approached ancient subjects, trying to find either its embodiment or showing deviation from it.
During the period of creating his best tragedies, Corneille believed in the national mission of the absolute monarchy, in the fact that by its very essence it really is the national representative of the highest interests of all layers of French society. However, this illusion of the poet was not only his personal delusion. In these eras, “the fighting classes achieve such a balance of power that state power temporarily gains a certain independence in relation to both classes as an apparent mediator between them. The appearance of independence of the absolutist state, supposedly standing above classes, rising above the narrow interests of individuals and classes and representing the highest interests of the entire society, was the basis on which the illusory idea of Corneille and Racine about the national mission of the absolutist state arose.
In reality, however, there was an insurmountable contradiction between the absolute monarchy and society, which was already manifested in the fact that the absolutist state increasingly alienated itself from civil society and increasingly opposed itself to the world of private relations. This “process of separation of political life from civil society,” which occurred as the medieval estates developed into classes of bourgeois society, was completed by the first French Revolution. At the same time, it completed the “split” of man into homme and citoyen, reducing “man,” on the one hand, to a member of civil society, to an egoistic, independent individual, and on the other, to a citizen of the state, to a legal entity.” But already in the 17th century, during the period of the powerful strengthening of French absolutism, this process became very clear: society and man became more and more “bifurcated”, the state increasingly contrasted itself with civil society, man “as a member of the state” found himself opposed to himself as a private individual.
The alienation of the absolutist state from civil society and the “split” of a person into a citizen of the state and a private individual was precisely the ground on which the conflict of Corneille’s tragedy arose. In the clashes of Corneille's heroes, in the cruel internal struggle they endured, the tragic contradictions of public and private, civic duty and passion, reason and feeling were deeply revealed. The incompleteness of the “bifurcation” process partly explains why in Corneille’s best tragedies these principles not only oppose, but also penetrate each other, so that duty becomes passion, and passion becomes duty.
The development of the contradiction between the absolute monarchy and civil society was inextricably linked with the previously unprecedented strengthening of the noble state in France as an organ of class domination and the colossal increase in exploitation of the masses. Therefore, the main burden of this process fell on the shoulders of the French people, who suffered all the horrors of primitive accumulation and centralized rent. Countless taxes of the absolutist state, the arbitrariness of the nobles, tax farmers and tax collectors, violence and robberies of soldiers sent to billets to enforce the taxes collected, barbarously cruel reprisals against the rebellious people - all this brought the broad masses to extreme despair, tore thousands and thousands of peasants from the land, forced them to flee to the forests, to other provinces and outside the borders of their homeland, turning them into beggars, vagabonds, wandering around the country in crowds, into the future army of labor, deprived of shelter and food. It was here that the alienation of the absolutist state from society became the greatest tragedy that played out on lands watered with the sweat, tears and blood of the people.
Due to its narrowness, the Cornell theater reflected this tragedy not directly, but in its characteristic generalized, “ennobled” forms. But his great life truth was that the essence of his conflicts, the cause of the suffering of his heroes, was the “split” of society and man, the growing contradiction between the state and the world of private relations, which was the greatest tragedy for the most disadvantaged part of civil society - for the people. This is, first of all, the realistic and critical (usually not intentional, but objective) beginning of Corneille’s best tragedies. Pushkin’s idea that Racine’s tragedy, despite its narrow form, reflected human fate, the fate of the people, can rightfully be extended to the largest works of the founder of the French national theater.
The discrepancy between Corneille's ideals and reality, between his belief in the national mission of the absolutist state and the real politics of the noble monarchy was too obvious to go unnoticed by the great artist. Absolutism could declare in the person of Richelieu that the monarchy rests on reasonable foundations. But Richelieu immediately added that the main support of the state is armed force. And the entire 17th century - the great century of numerous and large peasant and plebeian uprisings - showed a terrible picture of the use of this force against a people mercilessly exploited and tortured, but again and again rising to the liberation struggle. Corneille not only knew about these reprisals - he witnessed at least one of the bloodiest atrocities of absolutism, its reprisal against the “barefoot” uprising that broke out in the poet’s homeland, Normandy. The poet did not rise to the level of revolutionary defense of the people. The historical limitations of Corneille's worldview did not allow him to understand the actions of the people and made him fear them. But it does not at all follow from this that Corneille was a completely orthodox poet who accepted absolute monarchy with all its crimes and completely indifferent to the fate of its native people, as some bourgeois literary critics strive to present. The severe suffering of the people, their anger and their struggle, the tragedy of the people, which was the true tragedy of the alienation of the absolutist state from civil society, latently nourished the realistic and critical principle of his work. This is evidenced by the tragedy “Cinna” (1640), which sounded like the poet’s call for the mercy of absolutism, which dealt with the uprising of the “barefoot” (1639). This is evidenced by the tragedy “Nycomed” that appeared during the Fronde, where the people are perceived as defenders of justice and freedom of their homeland. The unjustly forgotten prologue to The Golden Fleece (1659) speaks to the same thing, where Corneille expresses an angry protest against the incessant wars waged by absolutism, and ardently defends the French people, robbed and tortured to the greater glory of the state. Through the mouth of an allegorical character - France - the poet paints here a terrible picture of national disasters: deserted cities, burned villages, residents ruined by the king's rampaging soldiers, the death and misfortune of thousands of people... The state is prosperous, says France, but the people are groaning... and the glory of the king places a heavy burden on his subjects. These lines are worth thinking about. Although intertwined with words of flattery, they still eloquently indicate that the spectacles of popular disasters, the culprit of which the poet here names the monarchy, undermined and dissipated his faith in the absolutist state as the exponent of the highest interests of all layers of French society.
The pathos was fueled by the rise of the national self-awareness of the French people, Corneille’s faith in the national mission of absolutism, and the progressive aspects of the activities of French absolutism, which were strongest during the reign of Richelieu. But when in the 40s of the 17th century the absolutist state entered a period of temporary crisis, when during the years of the Fronde absolutism carried out unprecedented reprisals against the rebellious peasant and plebeian masses, Corneille’s faith in the national mission of absolutism could not help but shake. Thus, life itself ceased to nourish that great social content on which the heroic, Corneillean tragedy was based. But without civic pathos - the basis of its power and organizing principle - Corneille's tragedy is unthinkable. Its crisis in the early 40s was historically natural.
The national character of Corneille's tragedy is clearly revealed in the fact that its development is connected not only with the history of French absolutism, but also with the suffering and struggle of the French people. This connection is of a complexly mediated nature. But it exists, and without it it is impossible to understand either the power of the tragic pathos of the playwright’s best works, or the crisis of his work.
Corneille's tragedy reached its peak at the end of the most progressive period of French absolutism in the 17th century, during the years of the high rise of national consciousness of the French people, who defended the sovereignty of their homeland in the fight against the reactionary Habsburg empire. The short period from 1637 to 1640, when the best works of the playwright appeared, was at the same time a period of the rise of popular liberation movement: in 1636-1637 The peasant uprising covered about a quarter of the country's territory; in 1639, a large uprising of the "barefoot" broke out in Normandy, Corneille's homeland. These concrete historical conditions explain both the heroic pathos and the tragic power of Corneille's best works. Belinsky correctly and expressively characterized the genius of Corneille as majestic and powerful, pointing to the “terrible inner strength... pathos” of his tragedies.
The entire advanced culture of France in the first half of the 17th century. reflects and expresses the progressive tendencies of this historical period and the patriotic aspirations of the French people. Not only the best Corneille tragedies, but also the paintings of Poussin and the ethics of Descartes are imbued with the pathos of rational creation and faith in the enormous capabilities of man, the pathos of the desire for a great rational goal and the conscious subordination of this goal to the will of individual individuals. “...When a private individual,” writes Descartes, “voluntarily unites his interest with the interests of his sovereign or his country, he must... consider himself only a very small part of the whole into which he is included, and must be afraid to go for their sake.” to certain death... nothing more than letting a little blood from the arm so that the rest of the body feels better.”
But the demand for high self-sacrifice and self-denial, presented with such force to the individual by the best people of France, did not mean in their minds the enslavement of man. On the contrary, they recognized it as a socially reasonable restriction of individual freedom, as an affirmation of generally valid reasonable boundaries within which only true greatness and freedom of the state and man are possible. That is why this restriction was directed not only against the arbitrariness of the individual, but also against the arbitrariness of the bearers of political power, and, therefore, against the despotism of the state. Both Corneille and Descartes, demanding heroic self-sacrifice from a person, at the same time think of ideal state power not only as unlimited, but also as fair. The philosopher believes that the ideal absolute monarch is, by his very nature, that person of “great soul” who is put forward by him as an ideal and who, as is known, is in many ways similar to Corneille’s heroes.
The unity of a strong will and a clear mind, which distinguishes Cornell's hero, determines all his behavior. If Corneille's hero deviates from the ideal line of behavior, it is because he is mistaken, or because his human dignity is deeply offended.
High self-esteem is also important distinctive feature Cornelian hero. If he places the public good and civic duty above all else, then at the same time he highly values his personal feelings and his blood and family ties, not seeing in them anything base and worthy of destruction. He is convinced only that all personal and family feelings should, when circumstances require it, be restrained and sacrificed to the greater good, and he always finds the strength to conform his behavior to the ethical standards he recognizes.
Dependent in this way on the dictates of the hero’s mind, neither duty nor the personal feelings of Corneille’s hero are, however, something cold and calculating. On the contrary, they so powerfully take possession of the hero’s consciousness and soul that fulfilling his duty becomes his conscience, and loyalty to his passion becomes his duty.
All these qualities of Cornell's hero give him majestic monumentality and raise him above the ordinary level of life, making him capable of extraordinary emotional impulses and heroic deeds, regardless of whether he is driven by the pathos of civic, family or personal duty. But precisely because civic duty and personal feelings and connections appear in Corneille’s best tragedies as great principles that deserve deep respect and are capable of powerfully capturing a person, their collision occurs with enormous force. The tragedy of the conflicts of the Cornell theater lies in the fact that great principles collide in it with colossal force in irreconcilable antagonism, which can only be removed ideally (“Cinna”), but not in reality. Kornel's “Horace” (1640) was the first French play where, in strictly classic forms, the greatness of patriotic feat and statehood was asserted with enormous power and at the same time the tragedy of the alienation of the absolutist state from civil society, from the world of private relations, was deeply revealed.
In creating his tragedy, Corneille starts from the material he found in Titus Livy's story about the final episode of the war between Rome and Alba Longa. According to the narrative of the Roman historian, the outcome of the struggle of these two cities for political primacy was decided in the battle of three Horatii with three Curiatii, the winner of which was the warrior fielded by Rome. Alone, having survived the battle, Horace struck to death his own sister, who was mourning her fiancé, who had fallen in battle, had to stand trial as a murderer and was acquitted as the savior of the freedom of Rome.
This episode attracted Corneille as a shining example of the civic virtues of ancient Rome, greatness of soul and patriotism. The picture of contradictions emerging in the story of Titus Livy between the state and the family and the individual just as powerfully captured the creative imagination of the playwright and turned under his pen into a canvas of enormous artistic power. In general, following the story of Livy, Corneille took the election of the combatants, the protest of the army, the appeal to the oracle and the battle itself off stage and limited the scene of action to the walls of the Horatii house.
The conflict on which the tragedy is based was outlined extremely clearly. Each of the five main characters of the tragedy appeared connected by kinship and a feeling of friendship or love with the involuntary enemy of the freedom of his homeland and, as a son of his fatherland, as a citizen, he found himself opposed to himself as a private individual. In other words, the contradictions between the state and the world of private relations appeared in the tragedy in the classically clear form of a repeatedly repeated and richly varied antithesis of patriotic duty and private virtues. Feelings that are dear to every individual, that unite people and make their communication wonderful - love, friendship, family ties - all this must be sacrificed by Corneille's heroes to a high and conscious patriotic duty. And precisely because they - friends, lovers, relatives - feel and understand the greatness, significance and beauty of not only the many-sided personal connections that unite them, but also the connections that unite people into a single state whole - precisely because Corneille’s heroes realize the tragic necessity of what lies ahead of them choice.
This necessity makes its way through a series of contingencies given by Corneille in the turns of intrigue and perceived by his heroes as the vicissitudes of fate. Skillful composition is used by the playwright both to create dramatic tension and to develop the characteristics of the characters in the tragedy. Already at the beginning, the poet depicts women experiencing bitter anxiety for their husband and lover, fighting in warring camps, for brothers and loved ones opposing each other on the battlefield. As soon as the anxiety of Sabina and Camilla gives way to hope for a happy outcome of the war for their families with the news of a truce, the choice of cities falls on the Horatii and Curiatii and the hope that flared up goes out, giving way to even greater despair; and barely having time to light up again with an uncertain light at the news that the troops did not allow the battle, it fades away again, this time forever, when the oracle confirms the correctness of the choice made. So from the very beginning of the tragedy, fate throws its heroes from despair to hope and from hope to despair, before throwing them into the abyss of human grief. Thus, the exhibition already allows one to penetrate into the inner world of Corneille’s heroines.
But only when the action first reaches a very high tension, at that extremely dramatic moment when the choice of Rome and Alba Longa becomes known, only then do the colossal figures of Horace and Curiatius appear on the stage in their full height. Without bowing their proud heads, they courageously, with open eyes, look into the face of fate and challenge it boldly. In vain do Sabina and Camilla, who appeared next to them like offended geniuses of the hearth, adjure them not to stain the holy bonds of kinship, marriage, love with blood - nothing can shake them in their once-made decision to fulfill their high duty to their homeland. In spite of fate, in spite of themselves, they go towards death, and only one of them returns from the battlefield - Horace.
Proud, intoxicated by the glory of the winner, he is still ready to sacrifice everything for his homeland. And again, pitting brother against sister and forming the second, culminating peak of the tragedy, the curve of dramatic tension soars up, then falls steeply down, and before the viewer’s gaze stands no longer an impeccable hero, but a criminal who has stained himself with the murder of his sister.
In these two symmetrically located (2nd and 4th acts) peak points of the tragedy, when its heroes are subjected to the most severe tests, their characters are revealed most fully. These are people of different will and energy, different spiritual sensitivity and strength, and each of them experiences the trials that befell them in their own way. The great advantage of Cornell's tragedy is that in a masterfully written gallery of images it deeply reflected the various life manifestations of the main conflict of the tragedy.
The antagonistic principles are embodied most sharply in the images of Horace and his sister. In other images these principles are somehow softened. Thus Curiatius, whose image stands in the geometric center of the gallery of images of the tragedy, experiences a difficult internal struggle, drawn both by his civic duty and his personal attachments. So the old man Horace, not inferior to his son in civic valor, at the same time at other moments is not alien to deep compassion for the fate of the younger generation. But at the same time, the character of the image is determined by its greatest closeness to Horace the winner compared to other characters in the tragedy: the famous “Qu’il mourut” - the words of a father filled with high patriotism, ready to sacrifice the lives of all his sons for the sake of the freedom of the fatherland. These words greatly enhance the high civic pathos of the work.
In addition to the old man Horace, three images of the tragedy deserve special attention: Horace the son, Camilla and Curiatius standing between them. The most strong-willed and integral, but at the same time the most one-sided of them is Horace. At the very moment when the choice falls on him and his brothers, conjugal love, brotherly affection and friendship completely cease to exist for him. With one effort of his colossal will, he suppresses all these feelings in himself in order to completely consciously become only an instrument and weapon of Rome: Rome a choisi mon bras, je n "examine rien.
The courageous and stern “je ne vous connais plus” of Horace refers not only to Curiatius, but to everything that connected him with his family. From now on, all his thoughts, his whole being are imbued with one desire - to honorably fulfill his holy patriotic duty and at the same time achieve the highest personal glory, to defend the honor of the Horatii. Duty to the homeland is not only an idea for Horace, but also a matter of honor, a true passion.
Patriotism and service to the public good is the essence of Horace, the most striking and powerful feature of his nature. Thanks to this, he maintains his integrity: without knowing any fluctuations between the ideals of the state and privacy, he triumphs over the splitting of his “I,” asserting it as the dominance of the richest and most significant side of his nature. Thousands are ready to die in battle for their homeland, Horace says with passionate conviction to his enemy, but only we are capable of breaking the ties of blood in the name of duty and sacrificing to the fatherland everything that is dear to us and for which we would be glad to give our own lives. Thus, in the image of Horace, the greatness of high patriotic duty and love for the homeland is powerfully affirmed.
The enormous significance of the principle embodied in Horace determines the power and content of this image, which is more complex than it might seem at first glance. The greatness and valor of the hero shines through both in his actions and in his spiritual movements. In fulfilling his duty, he knows that he is sacrificing in the name of the public good everything that was dear to him as a private individual and thus turning the weapon against himself. But he recognizes only one path: to win or die; Moreover, he demands from Sabina and Camilla that they meet the winner, whoever it turns out to be, not as a murderer who shed the blood of a loved one, but as a hero who managed to defend the freedom of his homeland.
But Horace’s constant and passionate readiness to serve the Roman state also has its downside. By merging his will with the will of the state, Horace destroys the family man, relative and friend in himself. He not only suppresses all humane feelings in himself, but steps on them with the heavy foot of a soldier, cruelly demanding that others follow his example. This cruel side of his nature is especially clearly manifested in the murder of his own sister, whose suffering he not only does not understand, but does not recognize at all, considering them shameful. The valiant but cruel Horace in the tragedy is opposed by the weaker Curiatius, in courage he is slightly inferior to the chosen one of Rome. The duty of a patriot is as sacred a duty for him as for his opponent. But he cannot painlessly break all the threads connecting him with the world of private relationships. Civic duty and personal feelings and attachments live in him. However, the tragic situation confronts him with the inexorable need to disrupt the harmony of his inner world, crush and destroy one of the sides of your “I”. Curiatius faces the same tragic alternatives as Horace. He must fight with his friend, oppose the brother of his beloved Camilla and the husband of his sister. But heroically suppressing the private person within himself, he continues to preserve friendship, love and brotherly affection in his soul. Consciously opposing himself to Horace, Curiatius, however, understands that it is his humanity that makes his fate deeply tragic. That is why, in response to Horace’s “je ne vous connais plus,” he throws out, full of dignity of bitterness and pain, “Je vous connais encore, et c" est qui me tue.”
The image of his sister Camilla is contrasted even more sharply with Horace. A Roman, conscious of her patriotic duty, the sister of the warriors chosen by Rome, she passionately loves the involuntary enemy of her homeland and therefore has long been in the grip of painful contradictions. But gradually passion takes hold of her more and more, forcing her to see only her lover in Curiatia. As the son of Alba Longa, he ceases to exist for her. AND
Bad tendentiousness usually leads to a distortion of reality. Corneille the playwright possessed the objectivity of a truly great artist. Confronting his heroes, he clearly saw the truth of those principles in whose name they fought, suffered and died. The verbal duel between Horace and Curiatius, the scene in which Camilla confronts Horace as a heroic person, equal to him in willpower and in the strength of the pathos driving her - bright ones examples.
But at the same time, Corneille was not an impartial observer of the changes taking place around him. The tragedy was written after the “dispute about the Cid,” which forced Corneille to more clearly express his attitude towards the absolutist state. It appeared in 1640, after three years of reflection by the poet, and bears the stamp of deep maturity. In "Horace" Corneille's positive attitude towards the absolutist state is much more clearly expressed. There is no doubt that the pressure of Richelieu’s literary policy played a certain role in this, which the poet himself admits, dedicating his tragedy to the all-powerful cardinal. However, the role of the influence of the literary policy of absolutism on Corneille should not be exaggerated - never before has another great work been born only as a result of violent pressure from above. The solution to the problem should be sought deeper.
The course of history, which caused a revaluation and destruction of old values and a sharp foregrounding of new ethical values, required Corneille, like all his contemporaries, to take a definite position. Responding to this demand, Corneille creates a truly patriotic tragedy, in which the state appears as a great principle, and civic duty is placed above all else. But if Corneille puts above all else the duty of man to the state, it is because he still believes in the national mission of absolutism. It is not the strength and heroism of the will - here they are equal - that allows Corneille to place Horace above Camilla and justify him, despite the gravity of his crime, but the inequality of life principles in the name of which they act. The meaning of these principles in the general system of moral values, the true essence of good, in which Corneille’s hero sees the goal of his aspirations and his happiness, is that second moment which, along with the strength or weakness of his will, determines not only his entire appearance, but also his attitude towards it the playwright who created it - just as not only willpower, but also its direction determine human activity in the eyes of Descartes. That is why, without removing Horace’s guilt, Corneille at the same time places him as a valiant servant of the state and defender of the independence of Rome.
Civic pathos and tragic conflict“Horace” identified the main points of the strict classicist form of conduct and found its adequate embodiment in it.
The composition of the tragedy is subject to the principle of strict symmetry, maintained both as a whole and in individual parts of the work. So, for example, the first act of “Horace” opens with a dialogue of female characters, the second - with a dialogue of male characters. Thus, the false news about Horace’s battle, marking that moment in the development of the intrigue, after which the action begins to move toward a denouement, is reported in the third, that is, in the middle act of the tragedy.
The same principle of symmetry is observed in the number and grouping of characters. Two female characters - Camilla and Sabina - are opposed by two male characters - Horace and Curiatius; at the same time, the son and daughter of Alba Longa are contrasted with the Roman and the Roman woman.
The widespread use of antithesis clearly expresses the struggle of two principles on which the tragic conflict of the work is built, while strict symmetry expresses the disciplinary principle characteristic of classicism, the desire for balance, the desire to contain this conflict within clearly defined boundaries. The unity of form and content inherent in the best tragedies of Corneille appears here very clearly.
Antithesis is only one of the manifestations of dualism, generally characteristic of classical theater. The underlying alienation of the state from civil society was at the same time the concrete historical ground on which a clear distinction arose between genres into high and low, into opposing tragedy and comedy, one of which depicts the political sphere of social life, the other - the world of his private relationships.
Limiting the action of the tragedy to the sphere of political life significantly narrowed the visual possibilities of the Cornell theater. It closed access to the tragic stage to the people, allowing only representatives of the ruling class; it deprived Corneille’s tragedy of a national “Falstaffian” background and made its hero lonely; it determined the one-sidedness of Corneille's hero, the concentration of the playwright's attention on the spiritual appearance of the characters, the departure of the high genre from the concrete and material, and other narrow aspects of the classic tragedy, which, as shown above, were affirmed under the influence of the literary policy of absolutism.
However, at the same time, it must be emphasized that the alienation of the absolutist state from society, which developed in France in its classical forms, also determined the deep historical, political and ethical content of the conflicts on which the French tragedy is based.
These qualities of Corneille's tragedy find their expression in its sublime style, and in the ennoblement of the characters depicted in it, and in its unique interpretation of antiquity.
Corneille's courageous, chiseled verse perfectly expresses the powerful spirit of his heroes, and their clear thought requires clear, concise forms of verse and language.
The tendency towards idealization of reality inherent in the Cornell theater was clearly reflected in the playwright’s unique interpretation of antiquity. It was in this form that this trend was already noted by the most educated and insightful contemporaries of the playwright.
K.'s works, written in 1636-1643, are usually attributed to the “first manner”. Among them are “Sid”, “Horace”, “Cinna”, “The Death of Pompey”, and some other works, including “The Liar” (“Le menteur”, 1643) - the first French moral comedy, written based on the Spanish comedy playwright Alarcón's "Dubious Truth."
Researchers of these works highlight the following features of K.'s “first manner”: glorification of civic heroism and greatness; glorification of ideal, rational state power; depiction of the struggle between duty and passions and curbing them with reason; a sympathetic portrayal of the organizing role of the monarchy; giving political topics an oratorical form; clarity, dynamism, graphic clarity of the plot; Special attention by the way, a verse in which some influence of baroque precision is felt.
During the period of the “first manner” Corneille. develops a new understanding of the category of the tragic. Aristotle, who was the greatest authority for classicists, associated the tragic with catharsis (“catharsis” is a word difficult to translate, usually it is understood as “purification through fear and compassion”). K. bases the tragic not on a feeling of fear and compassion, but on a feeling of admiration that grips the viewer at the sight of noble, idealized heroes who always know how to subordinate their passions to the demands of duty and state necessity. And indeed, Rodrigo, Jimena, Horace, Curiatius, Augustus, Pompey’s widow Cornelia and Julius Caesar (from the tragedy “The Death of Pompey”) delight the viewer with the strength of their reason, the nobility of their soul, their ability, despising the personal, to subordinate their lives to public interest. The creation of majestic characters and the description of their sublime motives is the main achievement of K. during the “first manner”.
10. Poetics of Corneille’s tragedies of the “second manner”
From the beginning of the 1640s, Baroque features became more and more apparent in Corneille's tragedies (this period is sometimes called Corneille's “second manner”). While outwardly observing the rules of classicist poetics (appeal to ancient material and lofty heroes, preserving three unities), Corneille actually explodes them from the inside. From an extensive arsenal of events and heroes ancient history he chooses the least known ones, which are easier to transform and rethink. He is attracted to complex plots with intricate initial dramatic situations that require detailed explanation in the opening monologues. Thus, the formal unity of time (24 hours) comes into conflict with the real plot content of the play. Corneille now resolves this contradiction differently than in “The Cid” - the exposition, taken out of the scope of the stage action, grows disproportionately due to the story of long-past events. Thus, the word gradually becomes the main expressive and visual means, little by little displacing external action. This is especially noticeable in “Rodogun” (1644) and “Heraclius” (1647).
Plot situations and turns in the fate of the heroes of Corneille’s later tragedies are determined not by generally typical, “reasonable” ones, but by out-of-the-ordinary, exceptional, irrational circumstances, often by chance - the substitution of children growing up under a false name in the family of an enemy and usurper of the throne (“Heraclius "), the rivalry of twins, whose rights are decided by the secret of primogeniture hidden from everyone ("Rodoguna"). Corneille now willingly turns to dynastic revolutions, motives for usurpation of power, cruel and unnatural enmity of close relatives. If in his classicist tragedies strong people morally dominated circumstances, even at the cost of life and happiness, now they become the plaything of unknown blind forces, including their own, blinding passions. The worldview characteristic of the Baroque man pushes aside the classically strict “reasonable” consciousness, and this is reflected in all parts of the poetic system. Corneille’s heroes still retain willpower and “greatness of soul” (as he himself wrote about them), but this will and greatness no longer serve the common good, not a high moral idea, but ambitious aspirations, thirst for power, revenge, which often turn into immorality . Accordingly, the center of dramatic interest shifts from the internal spiritual struggle of the characters to the external struggle. Psychological tension gives way to the tension of plot development.
The ideological and artistic structure of Corneille's tragedies of the “second manner” reflects the atmosphere of political adventurism, intrigue, and growing chaos of political life, which at the end of the 1640s resulted in open resistance to royal power - the Fronde. The idealized idea of the state as a defender of the common good is replaced by an outright declaration of political willfulness, the struggle for the individual interests of certain aristocratic groups. A significant role in them was played by women frontiers (who were against the king, but aristocrats), active participants and inspirers of the struggle. In Corneille's plays, the type of powerful, ambitious heroine increasingly appears, directing the actions of the people around her with her will.
Along with the general typical features of the era, contemporaries tended to see in Corneille’s tragedies a direct reflection of the events of the Fronde. Thus, in the tragedy “Nycomedes” (1651) they saw the story of the arrest and release of the famous commander, Prince Condé, who led the so-called “Fronde of Princes”, and in the characters of the play - Anne of Austria, the minister Cardinal Mazarin and others. The external arrangement of characters seemed to give rise to such comparisons, however, in its ideological problems, “Nycomed” goes far beyond the limits of a simple “play with a key.” The political reality of the era is reflected in the play not directly, but indirectly, through the prism of history. Here such important general political problems are posed as the relationship between great and small powers, “puppet” sovereigns who betray the interests of their country for the sake of personal power and security, the treacherous diplomacy of Rome in the states subject to it. It is noteworthy that this is the only tragedy of Corneille, where the fate of the hero is decided by the uprising of the people (though it is not shown on stage, but its echoes are heard in the excited remarks of the characters). Masterfully delineated characters, apt lapidary formulas of political wisdom, compact and dynamic action distinguish this tragedy from other works of Corneille of this period and return to the dramatic principles of his classical plays.
In the same years and under the influence of the same events, the “heroic comedy” “Don Sancho of Aragon” (1650), marked by a kind of democracy, was written. Although its hero, the imaginary son of a simple fisherman Carlos, who accomplished military feats and captivated the heart of a Castilian princess, in the finale turns out to be the heir to the Aragonese throne, throughout the entire comedy he considers himself a plebeian, is not ashamed of his origin, asserts personal dignity in contrast to the class arrogance of his rivals - Castilian grandees. Corneille tried to theoretically substantiate the innovations introduced in this play in the dedication. Demanding a revision of the traditional hierarchy of dramatic genres, he proposes to create a comedy with high characters of royal origin, while in tragedy to show people of the middle class who are “more capable of arousing fear and compassion in us than the fall of monarchs with whom we have nothing in common.” This bold statement anticipates the reform of dramatic genres proposed by the enlightener Diderot by exactly one hundred years.
"Nycomed" and "Don Sancho of Aragon" mark the last rise of Corneille's work. At this time, he was recognized as the first playwright of France; his plays, starting from 1644, were staged in the best theater troupe of the capital - the Burgundy Hotel; in 1647 he was elected a member of the French Academy. However, the tragedy “Pertarit” (1652), which followed “Nikomed”, suffered a failure, which was painfully perceived by Corneille. He again leaves for Rouen with the intention of moving away from drama and theater. For seven years he lived away from the capital, translating Latin religious poetry. A return to dramatic creativity and theatrical life in the capital (the tragedy “Oedipus”, 1659) does not bring anything new either to his work or to the development of French theater. Ten tragedies written between 1659-1674, mainly on historical subjects, no longer pose big moral and social questions dictated by the time. A new, younger generation in the person of Racine was called upon to raise these problems. The exclusivity of the heroes and the tension of situations is replaced in Corneille's later tragedies by the lethargy of plots and characters, which did not escape the attention of critics. Corneille's authority is preserved mainly among people of his generation, former frondeurs, who were reluctant to accept new trends and tastes of the court of Louis XIV. After the resounding success of Racine’s Andromache, which coincided with the failure of his next tragedy, the aging playwright was forced to stage his plays no longer in the Burgundy Hotel, but in the more modest Moliere troupe. An unsuccessful competition with Racine in writing a play on the same plot (Titus and Berenice, 1670) finally confirmed his creative decline. For the last ten years of his life he wrote nothing for the theater. These years were overshadowed by material deprivation and the gradual oblivion of his merits.
The originality of the ideological and artistic structure of Corneille's tragedies, especially the “second manner,” was reflected in his theoretical works - three “Discourses on Dramatic Poetry” (1663), in “Analysis” and prefaces to each play. The theme of the tragedy should be, according to Corneille, political events of great national importance, but the love theme should be given a secondary place. Corneille consistently followed this principle in most of his plays. The plot of the tragedy should not be believable, because it rises above the everyday and ordinary, depicting extraordinary people who can show their greatness only in exceptional situations. Corneille seeks to justify the deviation from verisimilitude, as the classical doctrine understood it, by fidelity to “truth,” i.e., to a truly confirmed historical fact, which, by virtue of its reliability, already contains an internal necessity and a pattern. In other words, reality seems to Corneille richer and more complex than its generalized abstract interpretation according to the laws of rationalistic consciousness.
These views of Corneille are polemically directed against the basic foundations of the classicist doctrine and, despite numerous references to Aristotle, sharply distinguish his position among modern theorists. They caused sharp rejection on the part of representatives of mature classicism - Boileau and Racine.
Sid."
The tragicomedy “The Cid” (1637) brought a real triumph to Corneille, which opened a new era in the history of French theater and drama. In this tragedy, Corneille for the first time embodied the main moral and philosophical problem of French classicism - the struggle between duty and feelings, which became the focus of dramatic interest.
When creating the tragicomedy, Corneille turned not to ancient sources, but to the play of the modern Spanish playwright Guillen de Castro, “The Youth of the Cid” (1618). The romantic love story of the Spanish knight, the future hero of the reconquista Rodrigo Diaz, for Dona Jimena, the daughter of the count he killed in a duel, served as the basis for a tense moral conflict. The mutual feeling of a young couple, unclouded at the beginning, comes into conflict with the feudal concept family honor: Rodrigo is obliged to take revenge for the undeserved insult - a slap in the face inflicted on his old father, and challenge the father of his beloved to a duel. This decision is made after the trial. shower. struggles (famous stanzas).
The murder in the duel of Count Gormas is transferred internally. dramatic conflict enters Ximena’s soul: now she, too, finds herself facing the same torment. solving the problem of mastiff and feelings (obliged to avenge his father and demand the execution of Rodrigo). This one is symmetrical. morals conf. in both cases it is decided in the spirit of moral and philosophical. concept "free" will" - reasonable duty triumphs over "unreasonable" passion. Outwardly, in their behavior, the heroes strictly follow this principle. But! not only external. Artist the truth casts doubt on the abstract. moral scheme. For K-lya, the debt of family honor is not able to balance the strength of the living feeling of two lovers. This debt is not an unconditionally “reasonable” beginning: the source of the conflict was not the confrontation of two equal high ideas, but only the offended vanity of Count Gormas, who was bypassed by the royal mercy: the king chose not him, but Rodrigo’s father, as the teacher of his son. Individual act self-will, envy of an ambitious person => tragic. collision and the destruction of the happiness of the young couple. K-l not could recognize the absolute. the value of this debt: despite their actions, the heroes continue to love each other.
Psychological, ideological and plot resolution of the conflict is carried out by introducing into the play a super-personal principle, the highest duty, to which both love and family honor are forced to bow. The turn in the destinies of the heroes is determined by the patriot. the feat of Rodrigo, who heroically fought the army of the Moors and saved his country. This motive introduces true morality into the play. the measure of things and at the same time serves as an impetus for a successful outcome: national the hero is placed above ordinary legal norms, above ordinary trial and punishment. Just as earlier the feeling was sacrificed by him to feudal debt, so now this debt recedes to a higher state. beginning.
Also, fragmentarily:
“Sid” started quickly. Almost no exposition. The cloudless beginning is charged internally. tension. X. is full of forebodings.
The hero of Corneille's tragedy, for example Rodrigo, is depicted growing up before our eyes. From an unknown young man he turns into fearless warrior and a skilled commander. R.'s glory is the work of his own hands, and is not inherited. In this sense, he is far from a feud. traditions and is the heir of the Renaissance.
For K-lya as a representative of the culture of the 17th century. characterized by a keen interest in human thought. A person acts after deep thought. WITH knowledge belongs to man, not to god. Humanism!
Acquiring exceptional significance in K-lya’s dramaturgy the principle of intention before action. Already in “Sid”, the monologues of R. and H. attract attention in this regard: the characters independently discuss the situation that has arisen as a result of the insult inflicted on R.’s father by Count Gormas. R. feels obligated to avenge Don D., but does not want to lose X. Painfully looking for a way out of this situation, weighing everything pro and contra; finally decides to challenge the count to a duel.
The discussion of the so-called was of great importance for K. “3 unities” in dramaturgy. [Vannik: Strives to concentrate as much as possible. action both in space and time. rel. But not strictly!: Place: not a palace, but a city. Who follows you, but not dogmatically.] The principle of “one place” reduced spaces. the length of what is depicted. The principle of “unit of time” cut off the future and the past, closing what was depicted within the boundaries of “today”. The principle of “units of action” reduced the number of events and actions to the limit. In K-lya's exercises, external action often played a relatively large role. But for the playwright, the rule of “three unities” was not a simple convention, which he was forced to reluctantly obey. He also used those internal ones. the possibilities contained in this aesthetic. rule. The fight against the predominant image of the external world presupposed a more detailed revelation of the human soul, which means a lot. a step forward in art. development.
The human soul seemed to K-lyu to be more voluminous and capacious. It revealed a variety of feelings and desires. Rodrigo, Ximena, and the Infanta are not limited to one passion in “The Cid”; in fact, each of them would be completely possessed. Kh., like R., combines both love for R. and the thought of his family honor. Family and patriot. duty for R. is not the sober dictates of reason, but, first of all, the irresistible call of the heart.
Humanist. K's tendencies are combined in his mind with the recognition of the king. authorities as the most authoritative societies. forces of modernity. Motives aimed at establishing historical merit absolute monarchy, sound with particular force in the tragedies created by Corneille in the early 1640s. True, these motives are not the only ones in K-lya’s tragedies. With them in 1 tragedies of the playwright coexisted. theme of insubordination, rebellion. By the way, the image of King Don Ferdinand is not entirely appropriate. the ideal of monarchy:p
As for “Sid”, this figure has the image of an independent center full of pride. the character is not softened in any way; The image of Rodrigo, who organized resistance to the conquerors independently of the king, spoke rather of the opposite. But it was not for nothing that “Sid” was rejected by Richelieu. A whole campaign was launched against the play, which lasted 2 years; a number of critical articles and polemics were launched at it. notes written by Mere, Georges Scuderi, Claveret and others.
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The teacher brings Dona Jimena good news: of the two young nobles in love with her - Don Rodrigo and Don Sancho - Jimena's father Count Gormas wants to have the first as a son-in-law; namely, Don Rodrigo is given the girl’s feelings and thoughts. Jimena’s friend, the daughter of the Castilian king Dona Urraca, has long been passionately in love with Rodrigo. But she is a slave of her high position: duty tells her to make her chosen one only equal by birth - a king or a prince of the blood. In order to stop the suffering that her obviously unquenchable passion caused her, the infanta did everything so that fiery love would bind Rodrigo and Jimena. Her efforts were successful, and now Dona Urraca cannot wait for her wedding day, after which the last sparks of hope should fade away in her heart, and she will be able to be resurrected in spirit. Fathers R. and X. - Don Diego and Count Gormas - are glorious grandees and faithful servants of the king. But if the count still represents the most reliable support of the Castilian throne, the time of the great exploits of Don D. is already behind him - at his age he can no longer lead Christian regiments on campaigns against the infidels. When King Ferdinand was faced with the question of choosing a mentor for his son, he gave preference to the experienced Don Diego, which unwittingly put the friendship of the two nobles to the test. Count Gormas considered the sovereign's choice unfair, Don D. - on the contrary.)) Word for word, and discussions about the merits of one and the other grandee turn into an argument, and then into a quarrel. Mutual insults are poured in, and in the end the Count gives Don D. a slap in the face; he draws his sword. The enemy easily knocks her out of the weakened hands of Don D., but does not continue the fight, because for him, the glorious Count G., it would be the greatest disgrace to stab a decrepit, defenseless old man. The mortal insult inflicted on Don D. can only be washed away with the blood of the offender. Therefore, he orders his son to challenge the count to a mortal battle. Rodrigo is confused - after all, he has to raise his hand against his beloved’s father. Love and filial duty are desperately fighting in his soul, but one way or another, Rodrigo decides, even life with his beloved wife will be an endless shame for him if his father remains unavenged. King F. is angered by the count’s unworthy act, but the arrogant nobleman, for whom honor is above all else in the world, refuses to obey the sovereign and apologize to D. No matter how further events develop, none of the possible outcomes bodes well for Jimena: if in a duel Rodrigo will die, and her happiness will die with him; if the young man gains the upper hand, an alliance with her father’s killer will become impossible for her; Well, if the fight doesn’t take place, R. will be disgraced and lose the right to be called a Castilian nobleman.
The Count fell at the hands of the young Don Rodrigo. As soon as the news of this reaches the palace, a sobbing Jimena appears before Don F. and on her knees begs him for retribution for the murderer; such retribution can only be death. Don D. objects that winning a duel of honor cannot in any way be equated with murder. The king listens favorably to both and announces his decision: Rodrigo will be judged.
R. comes to the house of Count G., whom he killed, ready to appear before the unforgiving judge - Jimena. The teacher Kh. Elvira, who met him, is frightened: after all, Kh. may not return home alone, and if his companions see him at her home, a shadow will fall on the girl’s honor. R. is hiding.
Indeed, X. comes accompanied by Don Sancho, who is in love with her, and offers himself as an instrument of retribution to the murderer. H. does not agree with his proposal. Left alone with the teacher, Kh. admits that he still loves R. and cannot imagine life without him; and, since her duty is to condemn her father’s murderer to execution, she intends, having taken revenge, to go to the grave after her beloved. R. hears these words and comes out of hiding. He hands H. a sword and begs her to bring judgment on him with her own hand. But H. drives R. away, promising that she will do everything to make sure that the killer pays for what he did with his life, although in his heart he hopes that nothing will work out for her.
Don D. is incredibly glad that the stain of shame has been washed away from him.
For Ryu, it is equally impossible to change his love for X., nor to unite his fate with his beloved; All that remains is to call upon death. He leads a detachment of daredevils and repels the army of the Moors.
The foray of a detachment led by R. brings a brilliant victory to the Castilians: the infidels flee, two Moorish kings are captured by the hand of the young military leader. Everyone in the capital praises R. except H.
The Infanta persuades H. to give up revenge: R. is the stronghold and shield of Castile. But X. must fulfill her duty(
F. is immensely admired by R.'s feat. Even royal power is not enough to adequately thank the brave man, and F. decides to take advantage of the hint that the captive kings of the Moors gave him: in conversations with the king, they called Rodrigo Cid - lord, master. From now on, R. will be called by this name, and his name alone will begin to tremble Granada and Toledo.
Despite the honors shown to R., Kh. falls at the feet of the sovereign and begs for revenge. F., suspecting that the girl loves the one whose death he is asking for, wants to test her feelings: with a sad look, he informs X. that R. died from his wounds. H. turns deathly pale, but as soon as he finds out that in fact R. is alive and well, he justifies his weakness by saying that if her father’s murderer had died at the hands of the Moors, it would not have washed away the shame from her; allegedly she was afraid that she was now deprived of the opportunity to take revenge.
As soon as the king forgave R., Kh. announces that the one who defeats the count’s murderer in a duel will become her husband. Don Sancho, in love with X., immediately volunteers to fight with R. The king is not too pleased that the life of the most faithful defender of the throne is endangered not on the battlefield, but he allows the duel, setting the condition that whoever emerges victorious , he will get X's hand.
R. comes to H. to say goodbye. She wonders if Don Sancho is really strong enough to defeat him. The young man replies that he is not going to battle, but to execution, in order to wash away the stain of shame from X’s honor with his blood; he did not allow himself to be killed in battle with the Moors: then he fought for the fatherland and the state, now it is a completely different case.
Not wanting the death of R., H. first resorts to a far-fetched argument - he cannot fall at the hands of Don Sancho, since this will damage his glory, while for her, H., it is more gratifying to realize that her father was killed by one of most glorious knights Castile, - but in the end he asks R. to win so that she does not have to marry someone she doesn’t love.
Confusion is growing in H.’s soul: she is afraid to think that R. will die, and she herself will have to become Don Sancho’s wife, but the thought of what will happen if the battlefield remains with R. does not bring her relief.
H.'s thoughts are interrupted by Don Sancho, who appears before her with a drawn sword and starts talking about the duel that has just ended. But X. does not allow him to say even two words, believing that Don Sancho will now begin to boast of his victory. Hastening to the king, she asks him to have mercy and not force her to go to the crown with Don Sancho - it would be better if the winner takes all her goods, and she herself goes to the monastery.
It was in vain that H. did not listen to Don Sancho; now she learns that, as soon as the duel began, R. knocked the sword out of the enemy’s hands, but did not want to kill the one who was ready to die for X.. The king proclaims that the duel, albeit short and not bloody, washed away the stain of shame from her , and solemnly hands H. R.’s hand.
Jimena no longer hides her love for Rodrigo, but still, even now, she cannot become the wife of her father’s killer. Then the wise King Ferdinand, not wanting to cause violence to the girl’s feelings, suggests relying on the healing property of time - he schedules a wedding in a year. During this time, the wound in Jimena’s soul will heal, and Rodrigo will accomplish many feats for the glory of Castile and its king. ©. J
12."Horace"
Summary:
First, a dedication to Cardinal Richelieu. This is a gift to the patron. The plot is from ancient legends. “It is unlikely that in the legends of antiquity there is an example of greater nobility.” All sorts of self-deprecation about how everything could have been presented with more grace. He owes everything to the cardinal: “you gave art a noble goal, because instead of pleasing the people... you gave us the opportunity to please you and entertain you; By promoting your entertainment, we contribute to your health, which is necessary for the state.”
Plot. Rome and Alba went to war with each other. Now that the Albanian army is at the walls of Rome, a decisive battle must take place. Sabina is the wife of the noble Roman Horace. But she is also the sister of three Albanians, among whom is Curiatius. That's why she's terribly worried. Horace's sister Camilla also suffers. Her fiancé Curiatius is on the Albanian side, and her brother is Roman. Camilla and Sabina's friend Julia insists that her situation is easier, because she only exchanged an oath of allegiance, and this means nothing when her homeland is in danger. Camilla turned to a Greek soothsayer for help to find out her fate. He predicted that the dispute between Alba and Rome would end peacefully the next day, and she would unite with Curiatius. But that same day she had a dream with a brutal massacre and a pile of dead bodies.
When the armies converged, the leader of the Albanians turned to the Roman king Tull that it was necessary to avoid fratricide, because the Romans and Albanians were related by family ties. The dispute must be resolved by a duel between three fighters on each side. The city whose warriors lose will become the subject of the winner. The Romans accepted the offer. A temporary truce was established between the cities until the choice of warriors. Curiatius visited Camilla. The girl thought that for the sake of love for her, the noble Albanian sacrificed his duty to his homeland, and in no way condemned the lover.
The Romans chose three Horatii brothers. Curiatius envies them because they will exalt their homeland or lay down their lives for it. But he regrets that in any case he will have to mourn either the humiliated Alba or his dead friends. This is incomprehensible to Horace, because the one who accepted death in the name of the country is worthy not of regret, but of admiration. At this time, an Albanian warrior brings the news that the brothers of Curiatia will oppose the Horatii. Curiatius is proud of the choice of his compatriots, but at the same time he would like to avoid a duel, since he will have to fight with the bride's brother and sister's husband. Horace, on the contrary, is glad, because it is a great honor to fight for the fatherland, but if at the same time he overcomes the ties of blood and affection, then this glory is perfect.
Camilla tries to dissuade Curiatius from fighting and almost succeeds, but at the last moment Curiatius changes his mind. Sabina, unlike Camilla, does not even think of dissuading Horace. She just wants the fight not to become fratricidal. To do this, she needs to die, because with her death the family ties connecting Horace and Curiatius will be broken.
Horace's father appears. He commands his son and son-in-law to fulfill their duty. Sabina is trying to overcome mental grief, convincing herself that the main thing is not who brought death to whom, but in the name of what; she convinces herself that she will remain a faithful sister if her brother kills her husband, or a loving wife if her husband kills her brother. But in vain: Sabina understands that in the winner she will see the murderer of a person dear to her. Sabina's sorrowful thoughts are interrupted by Julia, who brought her news from the battlefield: as soon as six fighters came out to meet each other, a murmur swept through both armies: both the Romans and the Albanians were outraged by the decision of their leaders, who doomed the Horatii and the Curiatii to a duel. King Tullus announced that sacrifices should be made in order to find out from the entrails of animals whether the choice was acceptable to the gods.
Hope again settles in the hearts of Sabina and Camilla, but old Horace informs them that, by the will of the gods, their brothers entered into battle among themselves. Seeing the grief this news plunged the women into and wanting to strengthen their hearts, the father of the heroes starts talking about the greatness of the lot of his sons, performing feats for the glory of Rome; Roman women - Camilla by birth, Sabina by marriage - both of them at this moment should only think about the triumph of their homeland.
Julia tells her friends that two sons of old Horace fell from the swords of the Albanians, and Sabina’s husband escaped; Julia did not wait for the outcome of the fight, because it was obvious.
Julia's story amazes old Horace. He swears that the third son, whose cowardice has covered the hitherto honest name of the Horatii with indelible shame, will die by his own hand.
A messenger from the king comes to old Horace Valery, a noble young man whose love was rejected by Camilla. He starts talking about Horace and, to his surprise, hears from the old man terrible curses against the one who saved Rome from shame. Valery talks about what Julia did not see: Horace’s flight was a ruse - running away from the wounded and tired Curiatii, Horace thus separated them and fought with each in turn, one on one, until all three fell from his sword.
Old Horace is triumphant, he is filled with pride for his sons. Camilla, shocked by the news of the death of her lover, is consoled by her father, appealing to reason and fortitude. But Camilla is inconsolable. Her happiness is sacrificed to the greatness of Rome, and she is required to hide her grief and rejoice. No, this will not happen, Camilla decides, and when Horace appears before her, expecting praise from his sister for his feat, he unleashes a stream of curses on him for killing his groom. Horace could not imagine that in the hour of triumph of the fatherland one could be killed after the death of an enemy; when Camilla begins to call curses on Rome, his patience comes to an end - with the sword with which her fiancé was killed shortly before, he stabs his sister.
Horace is sure that he did the right thing - Camilla ceased to be his sister and her father’s daughter the moment she cursed her homeland. Sabina asks her husband to stab her too, because she, too, contrary to her duty, grieves for her dead brothers, envying the fate of Camilla, whom death saved from grief and united with her beloved. It takes a lot of effort for Horace not to fulfill his wife’s request.
Old Horace does not condemn his son for the murder of his sister - having betrayed Rome with her soul, she deserved death; but by executing Camilla, Horace ruined his honor and glory. The son agrees with his father and asks him to pass a sentence - whatever it may be, Horace agrees with him in advance. In order to honor the father of the heroes, King Tullus arrives at the Horatii's house. He praises the valor of old Horace, whose spirit was not broken by the death of his three children, and speaks with regret about the villainy that overshadowed Horace's feat. But there is no talk of the fact that this crime should be punished until Valery takes the floor.
Appealing to royal justice, Valery speaks of the innocence of Camilla, who succumbed to a natural impulse of despair and anger, that Horace not only killed her for no reason, but also violated the will of the gods, sacrilegiously desecrating the glory bestowed by them.
Horace asks the king for permission to pierce himself with his own sword, but not to atone for the death of his sister, for she deserved it, but in the name of saving her honor and the glory of the savior of Rome. Wise Tullus also listens to Sabina. She asks to be executed, which will mean the execution of Horace, since husband and wife are one; her death - which Sabina seeks as deliverance, unable to either love the murderer of her brothers or reject him - will satisfy the wrath of the gods, and her husband will be able to continue to bring glory to the fatherland. Tull pronounced the verdict: although Horace committed an atrocity usually punishable by death, he is one of those heroes who serve as a reliable stronghold for their sovereigns; These heroes are not subject to the general law, and therefore Horace will live and continue to be jealous of the glory of Rome.
"Horace" was written after the "Cid" controversy, when the offended Corneille left for Rouen and then returned to Paris. The tragedy was staged in 1640. Separate publication " Horace" came out in 1641. Corneille dedicated it to Cardinal Richelieu. Predicted by tragedy "Review" Corneille indicated the source from which he drew his plot, and also responded to criticism.
The stoic renunciation of personal feelings in this tragedy is committed in the name of the state idea. Debt takes on a super-personal meaning. The glory and greatness of the homeland form a new patriotic heroism. The state is considered by Corneille as the highest generalized principle, requiring unquestioning submission from the individual in the name of the common good.
Selection of the plot. The plot is based on a legend told by the Roman historian Titus Livius. The war between Rome and Alba Longa ended in a duel between three twin brothers, the Horaces, and their three twin brothers, the Curiacies. When, having defeated everyone, the only survivor Horace returned from the battlefield, his sister, the bride of one of the Curiatii, greeted the winner with reproaches. The indignant young man, drawing a sword, pierced his sister with it and exclaimed: “Go to the groom with your untimely love, since you have forgotten about your fallen brothers and about the living, you have forgotten about your fatherland.” For the murder of Horace, severe punishment awaited him, but the people justified him, admiring his valiant feat in defending the people. Corneille changed the ending of this story and introduced it into tragedy image of Sabina, as a result, the ancient legend received a new sound.
In the minds of people of the 17th century, the Romans are the embodiment of civic valor. Corneille turned to this plot in order to reflect the moral principles of his own time.
Antithesis personal-state. A characteristic technique of Corneille’s dramatic technique is the opposition of two positions, which are realized not in the actions of the heroes, but in their words. Horace and Curiatius express their views on the public debt. Horace is proud of the exorbitant demand presented to him, since fighting an enemy for his homeland is a common thing, and in order to overcome a kindred feeling, greatness of spirit is required. He sees this as a manifestation of the state’s highest trust in the citizen called upon to protect him. Curiatius, although he submits to the choice, internally protests; he does not want to suppress the human principles in himself - friendship and love (“I am not a Roman, and therefore everything human in me has not completely died out”). Horace measures a man's worth by how he performs his public duty. He almost denies the personal in a person. Curiatius measures the dignity of a person by his fidelity to human feelings, although he recognizes the importance of duty to the state.
The characters’ assessment of both the situation itself and their behavior is fundamentally different. The idea of blind submission of the individual to the will of the state, embodied in Horace, comes into conflict with humanistic ethics, with the recognition of natural human feelings in the person of Curiatius. This conflict is not being resolved successfully.
After the duel between Horace and Curiatia, the personal and the state collide with such force that it leads to disaster. Horace killed his rivals. Camilla, who has lost her fiancé, must praise the winner, but her feelings prevail over duty. Camilla rejects the inhumane state good. Horace kills her and thereby undoes his exploits.
The antithesis of the state and the personal remained in history even after the tragedy, in which it was not removed. Camilla's curse on Rome is built on the rhetorical effect of "prophecy" of the collapse of the Roman Empire. The meaning of the prophecy returns us to the tragic dilemma of the play: the severe suppression of everything human, which was the source of power, will someday become the source of the death of Rome.
Corneille put forward a new look at the problems of history in tragedy. Corneille combined the principles of classicism with baroque expression. Corneille's action is violent, although it is subordinated to a rational principle. Corneille is called by various researchers both a baroque author with elements of classicism, and a classic with strong elements of baroque.
Poetics of classicism in tragedy. More consistent with the requirements of classicism than “Sid”. External action is kept to a minimum and begins at the moment when the dramatic conflict is already evident and its development is taking place. The dramatic interest centers around three characters - Horace, Camilla and Curiatius. The symmetrical arrangement of the characters, corresponding to their family relationships and origin (Romans - Albanians), also attracts attention. The positions of the heroes are opposite. The device of antithesis covers the entire artistic structure of the play.
Controversy with the Abbot D'Aubignac. In the Review, Corneille debates the ending of the tragedy. Corneille diverged somewhat from the requirements of classicist theory. The abbot noted, citing the rule of “decency”, that in the theater one should not show how a brother stabs his sister to death, although this is in accordance with the story. To save moral feelings, the abbot offered this option: Camilla, in despair, throws herself on her brother’s sword, and Horace cannot be blamed for her death. In addition, according to D’Aubignac, Valery’s behavior in the last act goes against the ideas of nobility and knightly honor.
Corneille responded to the objections in the Review. He rejected the abbot’s suggestions about Camilla’s death, since he considered such an end too implausible. Regarding Valery's behavior, Corneille stated that he wants to remain true to the truth of history. Valery could not act in accordance with the French concepts of honor, because he is a Roman. And Corneille’s task was to show the heroes of Roman history, not the French.
Later, in theoretical work "Discourse on the Three Unities" (1660), Corneille expressed regret that the theme of Camille in his tragedy sounds so loud and irreconcilable. He declared that by introducing this theme into his play, he had made a mistake and violated the integrity of Horace.
13. "Rodoguna"
Characters (like Corneille)
Cleopatra - Syrian queen, widow of Demetrius
Seleucus, Antiochus - sons of Demetrius and Cleopatra
Rodoguna - sister of the Parthian king Phraates
Timagenes - teacher of Seleucus and Antiochus
Orontes - Ambassador of Phraates
Laonica – sister of Timagenes, confidante of Cleopatra
Detachments of Parthians and Syrians
Action in Seleucia, in the royal palace.
The preface to the author's text is a fragment from the book of the Greek historian Appian of Alexandria (2nd century) “The Syrian Wars”. The events described in the play date back to the middle of the 2nd century. BC e., when the Seleucid kingdom was attacked by the Parthians. The background to the dynastic conflict is outlined in a conversation between Timagenes (educator of the twin princes Antiochus and Seleucus) with his sister Laonica (confidante of Queen Cleopatra). Timagenes knows about the events in Syria firsthand, since the queen mother ordered him to hide both sons in Memphis immediately after the supposed death of her husband Demetrius and the rebellion raised by the usurper Tryphon. Laonica remained in Seleucia and witnessed how the people, dissatisfied with the rule of a woman, demanded that the queen enter into a new marriage. Cleopatra married her brother-in-law (i.e. brother of Demetrius) Antiochus, and together they defeated Tryphon. Then Antiochus, wanting to avenge his brother, attacked the Parthians, but soon fell in battle. At the same time, it became known that Demetrius was alive and in captivity. Stung by Cleopatra's betrayal, he planned to marry the sister of the Parthian king Phraates Rodogune and regain the Syrian throne by force. Cleopatra managed to repel her enemies: Demetrius was killed - according to rumors, by the queen herself, and Rodoguna ended up in prison. Phraates threw a countless army into Syria, however, fearing for the life of his sister, he agreed to make peace on the condition that Cleopatra would give up the throne to the eldest of her sons, who would have to marry Rodogun. Both brothers fell in love with the captive Parthian princess at first sight. One of them will receive the royal title and the hand of Rodoguna - this significant event will put an end to the long unrest.
The conversation is interrupted by the appearance of Prince Antiochus (this is another Antiochus - the son of Cleopatra). He hopes for his lucky star and at the same time does not want to deprive Seleucus. Having made a choice in favor of love, Antiochus asks Timagenes to talk with his brother: let him reign, abandoning Rodoguna. It turns out that Seleucus also wants to give up the throne in exchange for the princess. The twins swear to each other eternal friendship - there will be no hatred between them. They made a too hasty decision: Rodoguna should reign together with her elder brother, whose name his mother would name.
The alarmed Rodogune shares her doubts with Laonica: Queen Cleopatra will never give up the throne, as well as revenge. The wedding day is fraught with another threat - Rodoguna is afraid of a marriage with an unloved person. Only one of the princes is dear to her - a living portrait of her father. She does not allow Laonike to name her: passion can betray itself with a blush, and persons of the royal family must hide their feelings. Whoever heaven chooses to be her husband, she will be faithful to duty.
Rodoguna's fears are not in vain - Cleopatra is full of anger. The queen does not want to give up power, which she acquired at too high a price, and besides, she has to crown her hated rival, who stole Demetrius from her. She openly shares her plans with the faithful Laonica: the throne will be given to the son who avenges his mother. Cleopatra tells Antiochus and Seleucus about the bitter fate of their father, destroyed by the villain Rodoguna. The right of birthright must be earned - the eldest will be determined by the death of the Parthian princess (quote - I will give the throne to the one who // can pay, // the Parthian woman’s head // at my feet) .
The stunned brothers realize that their mother is offering them a crown at the cost of crime. Antiochus still hopes to awaken good feelings in Cleopatra, but Seleucus does not believe in this: the mother loves only herself - there is no place in her heart for sons. He suggests turning to Rodoguna - let her chosen one become king. The Parthian princess, warned by Laonica, tells the twins about the bitter fate of their father, killed by the villainess Cleopatra. Love must be won - the one who will avenge Demetrius will become her husband. The dejected Seleucus tells his brother that he is renouncing the throne and Rodoguna - the bloodthirsty women have taken away his desire to both reign and love. But Antiochus remains convinced that his mother and lover will not be able to resist their tearful pleas.
Appearing to Rodoguna, Antiochus betrays himself into her hands - if the princess is burning with a thirst for revenge, let her kill him and make her brother happy. Rodoguna can no longer hide her secret - her heart belongs to Antiochus. Now she does not demand to kill Cleopatra, but the agreement remains unbreakable: despite her love for Antiochus, she will marry the elder - the king. Inspired by success, Antiochus hurries to his mother. Cleopatra greets him sternly - while he hesitated and hesitated, Seleucus managed to take revenge. Antiochus admits that they are both in love with Rodoguna and are not able to raise a hand against her: if his mother considers him a traitor, let her order him to commit suicide - he will submit to her without hesitation. Cleopatra is broken by the tears of her son: the gods are favorable to Antiochus - he is destined to receive the power and the princess. The immensely happy Antiochus leaves, and Cleopatra tells Laonica to call Seleucus. Only when left alone does the queen give vent to her anger: she still thirsts for revenge and mocks her son, who so easily swallowed the hypocritical bait.
Cleopatra tells Seleucus that he is the eldest and the throne rightfully belongs to him, which Antiochus and Rodogune want to take possession of. Seleucus refuses to take revenge: in this terrible world, nothing seduces him anymore - let others be happy, and he can only wait for death. Cleopatra realizes that she has lost both sons - the cursed Rodoguna has bewitched them, as before Demetrius. Let them follow their father, but Seleucus will die first, otherwise she will face inevitable exposure.
The long-awaited moment of the wedding celebration is coming. Cleopatra's chair is below the throne, which means she is in a subordinate position. The queen congratulates her “dear children,” and Antiochus and Rodoguna sincerely thank her. In Cleopatra's hands is a cup of poisoned wine, from which the bride and groom must sip. At the moment when Antiochus raises the cup to his lips, Timagenes bursts into the hall with terrible news: Seleucus was found in the park alley with a bloody wound in his chest. Cleopatra suggests that the unfortunate man committed suicide, but Timagenes refutes this: before his death, the prince managed to convey to his brother that the blow was struck “by a dear hand, by his own hand.” Cleopatra immediately blames Rodoguna for the murder of Seleucus, and she blames Cleopatra. Antiochus is in painful thought: the “dear hand” points to his beloved, the “native hand” to his mother. Like Seleucus, the king experiences a moment of hopeless despair - having decided to surrender to the will of fate, he again raises the cup to his lips, but Rodoguna demands to try the wine brought by Cleopatra on the servant. The queen indignantly declares that she will prove her complete innocence. After taking a sip, she hands the cup to her son, but the poison acts too quickly. Rodoguna triumphantly points out to Antiochus how his mother turned pale and staggered. The dying Cleopatra curses the young spouses: may their union be filled with disgust, jealousy and quarrels - may the gods give them the same respectful and obedient sons as Antiochus. Then the queen asks Laonik to take her away and thereby save her from the final humiliation - she does not want to fall at the feet of Rodoguna. Antiochus is filled with deep sorrow: the life and death of his mother equally frighten him - the future is fraught with terrible troubles. The marriage celebration is over, and now we need to begin the funeral rites. Perhaps the heavens will still be favorable to the unfortunate kingdom.
The material that I found in the comments to “Rodogun”.
Corneille worked on the tragedy for about a year.
The plot of the tragedy is based on the relationship between Syria and the Parthian kingdom - states that arose in the Middle East after the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great (3-2 centuries BC)
Corneille exactly follows the story of Appian of Alexandria, set out in his work “The Syrian Wars”: The Syrian king Demetrius II Nicanor, having been captured by the Parthian king Phraates, married his sister Rodogune. After the disappearance of Demetrius, the Syrian throne passed from hand to hand for a long time, and finally Antiochus, Demetrius’ brother, came to occupy it. He married Demetria's widow, Cleopatra.
Corneille changed the course of events a little, because... he was very moral and wanted everything to be orderly and smooth:
1) Firstly, he only has Rodogun as his fiancée, Demetrius, which means that the love of the twin sons of Antiochus and Seleucus for her loses its incestuous connotation. (They love not their wife, but their father’s fiancée).
2) 2) Secondly, he justifies Cleopatra; at Corneille, she marries Antiochus because receives false news of her husband's death.
The tragedy was first staged in 1644 on the stage of the Burugunda Hotel. It has firmly entered the repertoire of the French theater and has been staged more than 400 times. Published as a separate book in 1647. First published in our country in 1788 in Knyazhnin’s translation.
The tragedy opens with a very flattering letter to the Prince of Conde, where Corneille praises the military merits of this Conde and in every possible way begs him, the great commander, to at least take a little look at this unworthy creation of the despicable, worthless slave Corneille. A very flattering letter of praise to Conde, if asked. Prince Condé is a real historical figure, a famous French commander. After the letter there follows a huge prose excerpt from Appian about the Syrian Wars, and only then the text of the tragedy itself.
Cleopatra- Syrian queen who killed King Demetrius Nicanor for his intention to ascend the throne
together with the Parthian queen Rodoguna. K. is the true protagonist
tragedy, although its name is not in the title; first negative character
from the subsequent string of “villains” who took place in the tragedies of Corneille’s “old
All the queen's speeches breathe frenzy
malice and hatred towards any, even related, contender for the throne. IN
In her very first monologue, she swears to take cruel revenge on Rodoguna, who “dreamed
reign" with Nikanor, "covering her with shame." K. does not neglect anything
and sets before his sons a task beyond their strength - to kill their beloved
Rodogun for the sake of the throne. This terrible command comes from the lips of Seleucus, her son,
gloomy question: “Should I really call you mother, Megaera?” Cunning and insidious
K. plays with his own sons, not giving up outright lies. Seeing
in her neighbor only herself, suspecting treason in everyone, she kills Seleucus, drowning out
maternal feelings within. K. gives an imaginary blessing for the marriage to Antiochus
and Rodogune. But during the celebration, Antiochus learns about the death of his brother and, shocked
mother's inhumanity, tries to drink a cup of wine poisoned by her. TO.,
filled with burning hatred for his daughter-in-law and son, who took the place of the ruler,
she drinks the poison herself, her face is distorted with pain and anger, and even on the edge of the grave
she spews out terrible curses.
Rodoguna- sister
Parthian king Phraates, captured by the queen of Syria Cleopatra. Her beauty
and proud greatness conquered the hearts of Cleopatra's two sons - Seleucus and Antiochus.
14. Dispute about "Sid" (Criticism)
Dispute about "Sid" - the most important stage the formation of French classicism not only as a system of rules, non-compliance with which could become the starting point for severe criticism of the writer, but also as a reflection of a certain type of creative practice, significantly enriched over the seven years that separate the “Opinion of the French Academy on the tragicomedy “Cid” on the rule of twenty-four hours " In addition, it showed how royal power interfered (and influenced) literature (in this case we are talking about Cardinal Richelieu).
The glorification of feudal knightly honor seemed extremely untimely in the political situation of the 1630s, and its defense in a duel came into direct conflict with the official prohibition of duels, which were severely punished by law. Royal power appeared in the play as a completely secondary force, only formally participating in the action. Finally, not the least role in the minister’s dissatisfaction was played by the very appeal to the Spanish plot and characters at a time when France was waging a long and exhausting war with Spain, and the “Spanish party” of Queen Anne of Austria, hostile to Richelieu, was active at court.
Having written his "Cid", Corneille found himself the object of slander, unfair attacks and was forced to submit his work to the court of the French Academy, although, not being a member of it, he was not obliged to report to them. But such was the unspoken will of Richelieu, which neither Corneille nor the Academy dared to disobey. The "Opinion of the French Academy" on the tragicomedy "Cid" was compiled, and the main part of the text is believed to have belonged to Chaplin, and the last edition was carried out by Richelieu.
I will note some points regarding “Opinions about “Sid”:
Criticism is addressed to a specific work and does not deviate from its text for a minute
In contrast to the openly hostile criticism of Scuderi and Maire, tribute is paid here to the artistic merits of the work - the skill of constructing the plot, the impressive depiction of passions, the vividness of metaphors, the beauty of the verse (nevertheless, it is the success of the play and its artistry that, according to the authors of Opinion, forces to her critical analysis)
The criterion comes to the fore credibility . The old guys believed that verisimilitude is only achieved if the viewer believes in what he sees, and this can only happen when nothing that happens on stage repels him. In “Sid,” in their opinion, the viewer should be repulsed by many things. The “immorality” of the heroine violates the verisimilitude of the play. In the treatise, the analysis of the plot, the behavior of the characters, and their moral character aims to prove that verisimilitude is not just the similarity of what is depicted on stage with reality. Plausibility presupposes the consistency of the depicted event with the requirements of reason and, moreover, with a certain moral and ethical norm, namely, with the ability of an individual to suppress his passions and emotions in the name of a certain moral imperative. The fact that the episode of Rodrigo’s marriage to the daughter of the count he killed was presented in many earlier sources could not, according to the authors, serve as an excuse for the poet, for “reason makes the property of epic and dramatic poetry precisely the plausible, and not the truthful... There is such a monstrous a truth the portrayal of which should be avoided for the good of society.” The depiction of an ennobled truth, an orientation not towards the historically reliable, but towards the plausible, i.e. towards a generally accepted moral norm, later became one of the main principles of classicist poetics and the main point of divergence from Corneille.
They condemned the love of the heroes of the play, contrasting it with a daughter's duty, commanding Jimena to reject her father's murderer. Khryshchi believed that this love would be justified if the marriage of Rodrigo and Jimena was necessary to save the king or the kingdom (- Jimena, if you don’t marry me, then the Moors will attack our kingdom and devour our king! - in fact, I just don’t I can imagine another situation in which the king’s life could depend on the marriage of X with P)
An overt political tendency, but, we must pay tribute to the editor, political remarks are introduced as if incidentally, and universal and aesthetic ones are put forward as the main arguments (critics needed a different pathos and a different artistic structure)
Critics wanted to see fanatics of duty as heroes of the tragedy - a moral imperative that leaves an imprint on the inner world of the individual.
The characters' personalities must be consistent, i.e. the good are good, and the evil do evil (Corneille is not entirely clear on this point)
The plot must be chosen based not on the truth of events, but on considerations of plausibility.
Overload of action with external events that required, according to her calculations, at least 36 hours (instead of the allowed 24)
Introduction of the second storyline (the Infanta's unrequited love for Rodrigo)
Use of free strophic forms
Corneille stubbornly continued, directly or indirectly, to object to critics regarding the condemnation of “The Cid” and the limitations of art by rules. During the 20 years separating his first speeches on questions of theory from his Discourses on Dramatic Poetry, his tone changed. The argumentation was enriched by the analysis of ancient texts and justifications taken from Italian theorists. And at the same time, in the main, Corneille adhered to his previous opinions, defending the rights of the artist within the classicist system. In particular, admitting the principle of verisimilitude, which he initially denied, Corneille emphasized that it is accompanied by the principle of necessity, i.e., what “directly relates to poetry,” which is due to the poet’s desire to “please according to the laws of his art.”
Corneille believed that he needed to fit a sufficient number of events within the play - otherwise he would not be able to build a developed intrigue. And he suggested this method: let the stage time coincide with the real one, but during intermissions time flows faster and, say, out of 10 hours of action, 8 occur during intermissions. The only exception should be made for the 5th act, where time can be compressed, otherwise this part of the play will seem simply boring to the viewer, eagerly awaiting the denouement. Corneille advocates the maximum concentration of time within not only the stage, but also the play as a whole. The playwright broadly formulates for himself the principle of unity of action. In a play, he writes, “there must be only one completed action... but it can unfold only through several other, unfinished actions that serve to develop the plot and maintain, to the satisfaction of the spectator, his interest.” Secondly, he interprets the unity of place in an expanded place - as the unity of the city. This is due to the need to build a relatively complex intrigue. This does not conflict with the principle of the unity of time, because, due to the proximity of the distance, you can move from one place to another quite quickly, and the construction of intrigue is simplified and made more natural. Regarding the unity of the scene, Corneille wrote that the scenery should change only during intermissions, and in no case in the middle of the act, or it should be ensured that the scenes of action do not have different scenery at all, but have a common name (for example, Paris, Rome, London etc.). In addition, Corneille considered it absolutely contraindicated for drama to remove part of the events from its chronological framework.
Now about Chaplin (this is a gloomy dude who worked as a secretary at the French Academy and wrote the most charming version of “Opinion” in order to please Mister Richelieu). It should be noted that this felt boot was also one of the founders of the doctrine of classicism. He believed that “perfect imitation” should be associated with utility (as the goal of dramatic poetry). He wrote that the benefit is achieved if the viewer believes in the authenticity of what is depicted, experiences it as a real event, gets excited thanks to “the power and clarity with which various passions are depicted on stage, and through this cleanses the soul of bad habits that could lead to him to the same troubles as these passions.” Moreover, imitation for Chaplain does not simply mean copying events and characters: “Poetry for its perfection needs verisimilitude.” Even pleasure “is created by order and plausibility” (in general, you get the idea: you need to pray, fast, listen to Radio Radonezh). Chaplain writes that “plausibility is the poetic essence of a dramatic poem.” Regarding the 3 unities, Chaplain writes the following: the viewer's eye must inevitably come into conflict with the imagination, and everything possible must be done so that because of this the faith in the authenticity of what is happening on stage is not lost.
Such ideas of Corneille corresponded to the general line of development of literary critical ideas in France. In the 30s - 60s. appears in numerous treatises on the art of theater (most famous are “Poetics” by Jules de la Menardiere and “Practice of the Theater” by Abbé d’Aubignac -> they highlight the requirements that turn the art of theater into a tool suitable for illustrating “useful truths”). Corneille polemicized with them in his Discourses on Dramatic Poetry. He believed that art should first of all be “liked,” mastering the viewer’s senses and mind at the same time + be useful.
The discussion about the "Sid" served as an occasion for a clear formulation of the rules of classical tragedy. “The opinion of the French Academy on the tragicomedy “Cid”” became one of the program manifestos of the classical school.
In short:
The novelty of “The Cid” lies in the severity of the internal conflict - in contrast to its contemporary “proper tragedies” (dramatic tension, dynamism, which ensured the play a long stage life) -> it is thanks to this that it has achieved unprecedented success -> Richelieu’s dissatisfaction with the “Spanish” theme and violation of the norms of classicism - > the dispute goes beyond the literary environment -> within one year, over 20 critical works appear, making up the so-called the fight against the “Cid” -> the main opponent is Scuderi -> the “battle” acquires a wide public resonance -> the French Academy presented its opinion to Richelieu three times, but only the third version, compiled by Chaplin, was approved by the cardinal and published at the beginning of 1638. entitled “Opinion of the French Academy on the tragicomedy “Cid”” (the genre definition of the play given by Corneille himself is explained primarily by the happy ending, the unconventional “romantic” plot and the fact that the main characters did not belong to the “high” category of kings or heroes).
15. Poetics of Racine’s tragedies of the 60s (Andromache, Britannic)
"Andromache" A year has passed since Troy was destroyed, and the Greeks divided all the spoils. Pyrrhus (the son of Achilles, the same one who killed Hector), the king of Epirus, received, among other things, Andromache (Hector’s widow) with a little boy (to whom his father gave wooden toys in the film “Troy”). Pyrrhus burns with passion for Andromache, and therefore does not touch her and his son and periodically harasses her. Andromache honors the memory of Hector. Pyrrhus, meanwhile, has an already brought bride, Hermione (not Granger), the daughter of that same Elena and Menelaus. Actually, it was originally intended for Orestes (the son of Agamemnon), but Menelaus decided that the son of Achilles would be cooler than the son of Agamemnon. Orestes does not agree with this - he wants Hermione. As a wife, of course. He arrives in Epirus. The tragedy begins.
Orestes explains to his friend Pylades that he came to Epirus as an ambassador “on behalf of Hellas” - to ask to hand over the captives to Andromache and the boy. Otherwise there will be war. But there is another option in stock - give Hermione away and not disgrace her - he still doesn’t intend to marry.
Pyrrhus listens to Orestes and reasonably notes that a year after the war, it is bad manners to carry out reprisals against prisoners. And besides, this is his prey. So, I sent him to Hermione.
Pyrrhus admits to his mentor Phoenix that he will only be glad to get rid of Hermione. He took her out of respect for Menelaus, he wanted to get married, and then Andromache went all crazy. It turns out ugly. And everything seems to be fine.
But then he goes to A. and tells her that Greece is asking her and her son to be killed. But he will not give them offense if she marries him. A. says that she doesn’t need her life, she lives only for her son. And Pyrrhus should not blackmail her, but should take pity on the boy for free. Pyrrhus was not impressed and changed his mind.
Orestes reminds Hermione that he loves her. But Pyrrhus does not. He asks to leave with him. Hermione (for her personal reasons of pride) does not want to leave, but Orestes tells him to ask Pyrrhus. Which is what he does.
Pyrrhus says - yes, take it. Prisoners. Just go to my wedding with Hermione first. Orestes turns green, but doesn’t show it. Hermione is rejoicing, she thinks that Pyrrhus has finally seen WHO the daughter of Helen the Beautiful is here.
Andromache is in despair, she understands that Pyrrhus is alien to humanism and something needs to be done. After a few pages she decides to agree, but how! At the ceremony in the temple, make Pyrrhus promise to adopt her child and stab himself with a dagger with a calm soul.
Hermione finds out that Pyrrhus is marrying A. She calls Orestes (he was going to kidnap her, but here he was so lucky). He says that he will become his as soon as he avenges her honor - he will kill Pyrrhus, right in the temple. Orestes turns green again, but goes away to think.
Pyrrhus comes to G. to ask for forgiveness and releases her on all four sides.
Orestes comes running to Hermione, says that everything is chick-fuck, Pyrrhus married A., and his lukewarm one was cut right on the altar by Orestes’ subjects (he himself could not get into their crowd). Hermione goes crazy with grief, says that O. is a monster, he killed the best man in the world and there is no forgiveness for him. And the fact that she herself told him this is that there is no need to listen to the nonsense of a “woman in love.”
G. goes and kills himself with a dagger and falls to Pyrrhus. Orestes finds out about this, sees corpses and snake-headed Erinyes (demons of revenge) and falls unconscious. His friend asks to take him away and, upon awakening, to remove all piercing and cutting objects away from him.
Britannic Britannicus is the name of one of the main characters, the brother of Emperor Nero, through his mother Agrippina. Their fathers are different. Moreover, Britannicus is the natural son of the former emperor Claudius, who foolishly adopted Nero, the son of Agripinna from her first husband (A. is a twice widow). Therefore, the elder Nero became emperor.
Plot
First novel, Life and amazing Adventures Robinson Crusoe" is written as a fictional autobiography of Robinson Crusoe, a sailor from York who spent 28 years on a desert island after a shipwreck. During his life on the island, he faced various difficulties and dangers, both natural and emanating from savages, cannibals and pirates. All events are recorded in the form of memories and create a realistic picture of a pseudo-documentary work. Most likely, the novel was written under the influence real story which happened to Alexander Selkirk, who spent time on a desert island in Pacific Ocean four years (today this island, part of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, is named after the literary hero Defoe).
The tragedy of P. Corneille “The Cid”: the source of the plot, the essence of the conflict,
system of images, ideological meaning of the ending. Controversy surrounding the play.
In the days of Corneille, the norms of classicist theater were just beginning to take shape, in particular the rules of three unities - time, place and action. Corneille accepted these rules, but followed them very relatively and, if necessary, boldly violated them.
Contemporaries greatly valued the historical writer of everyday life in the poet. “Cid” (medieval Spain), “Horace” (the era of kings in Roman history), “Cinna” (imperial Rome), “Pompeii” (civil wars in the Roman state), “Attila” (Mongol invasion), “Heraclius” ( Byzantine Empire), “Polyeukt” (the era of initial “Christianity”), etc. - all these tragedies, like others, are built on the use historical facts. Corneille took the most acute, dramatic moments from the historical past, depicting the clashes of various political and religious systems, the fate of people at moments of major historical shifts and revolutions. Corneille is primarily a political writer.
Psychological conflicts, the history of feelings, the vicissitudes of love in his tragedy faded into the background. He, of course, understood that theater is not parliament, that tragedy is not a political treatise, that “a dramatic work is... a portrait of human actions... the more perfect the portrait it is, the more it resembles the original” (“Reflections on three unities"). And yet he built his tragedies according to the type of political disputes.
The tragedy of the Cid (according to Corneille's definition - a tragicomedy) was written in 1636 and became the first great work of classicism. Characters are created differently than before. They are not characterized by versatility, acute conflict in the inner world, and inconsistency in behavior. The characters in Sid are not individualized; it is not by chance that a plot was chosen in which the same problem faces several characters, and they all solve it in the same way. Classicism tended to understand character as one trait that seemed to suppress all the others. Character is possessed by those characters who can subordinate their personal feelings to the dictates of duty. Creating such characters as Ximena, Fernando, Infanta, Corneille gives them majesty and nobility. The majesty of the characters and their civic spirit color the feeling of love in a special way. Corneille denies treating love as a dark, destructive passion or gallant, frivolous entertainment. He fights against the precise idea of love, introducing rationalism into this area, illuminating love with deep humanism. Love is possible if lovers respect each other's noble personality. Corneille's heroes are taller than ordinary people, they are people with feelings, passions and suffering inherent in people, and - they are people of great will... (images for reading days) Of the many stories associated with the name of Sid, Corneille took only one - the story of his marriage. He simplified the plot scheme to the limit, reduced the characters to a minimum, moved all events off the stage and left only the feelings of the characters
Conflict. Corneille reveals a new conflict - the struggle between feeling and duty - through a system of more specific conflicts. The first of these is the conflict between the personal aspirations and feelings of the heroes and the duty to the feudal family, or family duty. The second is the conflict between the hero’s feelings and his duty to the state, to his king. The third is the conflict between family duty and duty to the state. These conflicts are revealed in a specific sequence: first through the images of Rodrigo and his beloved Ximena - the first, then through the image of the Infanta (the king's daughter), who suppresses her love for Rodrigo in the name of state interests - the second, and finally, through the image of the King of Spain Fernando - third.
An entire campaign was launched against the play, which lasted 2 years. She was attacked by a number of critical articles written by Mere, Scuderi, Clavere and others. Mere accused K. of plagiarism (apparently from Guillen de Castro), Scuderi analyzed the play from the point of view. "Poetics" of Aristotle. K. was condemned for not observing the 3 unities, and especially for the apology of Rodrigo and Jimena, for the image of Jimena, for the fact that she marries her father’s murderer. A special “Opinion of the French Academy on the Cide”, edited by Chaplin and inspired by Richelieu, was also formed against the play. The attacks affected the playwright to such an extent that he first fell silent for 3 years, and then tried to take into account the wishes. But it’s no use – Richelieu didn’t like “Horace” either.
The reproaches hurled at “Sid” reflected real features that distinguished it from modern “correct” tragedies. But it was precisely these features that determined the dramatic tension and dynamism that provided the play with a long stage life. “Sid” is still included in the world theater repertoire. These same “shortcomings” of the play were highly appreciated two centuries after its creation by the romantics, who excluded “The Cid” from the number of classicist tragedies they rejected. The unusual nature of its dramatic structure was also appreciated by the young Pushkin, who wrote to N.N. Raevsky in 1825: “The true geniuses of tragedy never cared about verisimilitude. Look how Corneille deftly dealt with Sid: “Oh, do you want to comply with the 24-hour rule? If you please” - and piled up events for 4 months.”
The discussion about the "Sid" served as an occasion for a clear formulation of the rules of classical tragedy. “The opinion of the French Academy on the tragicomedy “Cid”” became one of the program manifestos of the classical school.
5.Lope de Vega as a theorist of new drama.
The originality of the genre of love comedy in the work of the playwright.
The Spaniards created a "theater for everyone." Its creation and approval is rightly associated with the name of Lope de Vega. It is his titanic figure that stands at the beginning of the original Spanish drama. New dramatic art and Lope de Vega are almost synonymous.
Lope de Vega created a new “theatrical empire” and became, as Cervantes put it, “its autocrat.” The empire was created with difficulty and not immediately. Lope relied on the experience of his predecessors, searched, improvised. The first disputes were often compromises; the usual literary consciousness collided with a living feeling. It was not enough to be a supporter of the traditional folk poetry, cultivate romances and profess Platonic ideas about nature. “Introducing” them into dramaturgy did not mechanically solve the matter.
“A New Guide to Writing Comedies in Our Time,” which Lope de Vega wrote seven years after this motto, is precisely dedicated to substantiating the new principles. Its essence comes down to several basic provisions. First of all, we must abandon admiration for the authority of Aristotle. Aristotle was right for his time. Applying the laws he derived today is absurd. The legislator should be ordinary people (that is, the main viewer). New laws are needed that correspond to the most important of them: to provide pleasure to the reader and viewer.
Dwelling on the notorious three unities, a law derived by the learned theoreticians of the Renaissance from Aristotle, Lope leaves only one thing as unconditional: the unity of action. Let us note that Lope himself and, especially, his students and followers brought this law to such an absolute that it sometimes turned into a burden no less than the unity of place and time among the classicists. As for the other two unities, here the Spanish playwrights really acted with new freedom. Although in many comedies the unity of place was, in essence, protected, which was caused partly by the technique of the stage, partly by excessive observance of the unity of action, that is, its extreme concentration. In general, it must be said that both in the time of Lope de Vega and in the polemics of the romantics with the classicists, the question of the “law of three unities” acquired almost paramount importance in theoretical disputes, but in practice it was taken into account only on the basis of the specific needs of one or the other works.
Lope also speaks in his “Manual” about the fundamental mixture of the comic and the tragic. As in life - so in literature. In the era of young Lope, the term “comedy” had a militant, polemical meaning. It denoted plays built on a fundamental mixture of tragic and comic in the name of greater life verisimilitude. Some types of dramatic works appeared, intermediate between comedy and tragedy in the classicist understanding. The indignant keepers of scientific traditions called these new species “monstrous hermaphrodite,” and Lope de Vega, who made fun of their indignation, called them a more elegant and classic word “minotaur.”
The goal of the playwright, according to Lope de Vega, is to please the audience. Therefore, he recognized the main nerve of comedy as intrigue, which should capture and captivate the viewer from the very first scene and keep him in suspense until the last act.
The role of Lope de Vega in the development of Spanish theater is incomparable to that of any other playwright. They laid all the foundations
Based on the theme, Lope de Vega's plays are divided into several groups.
The largest Soviet researcher of Spanish literature, K. Derzhavin, believes that they are grouped around problems of a state-historical (so-called “heroic dramas”), socio-political and family-domestic nature. The latter are usually called "comedies of cloak and sword."
In love comedies, Lope had no equal in Spanish drama. He may have been inferior to Tirso or Alarcón in the development of characters, in the technique of building intrigue to Calderon and Moreto, but in sincerity and intensity of feelings they were inferior to him, all together. According to the scheme, in all comedies of this type, love is always an “obstacle race”, where the finish is the reward.
In most cases, especially among Lope's followers, interest is based on the maximum accumulation of obstacles. In such comedies, the interest is in overcoming obstacles, not in the feeling itself. It’s different in Lope de Vega’s best comedies. There, interest rests primarily on the development of feelings. This is the main subject of comedy. In this sense, “Dog in the Manger” is remarkable. In it, love step by step sweeps away class prejudices, overcomes selfishness and gradually, but without a trace, fills the entire being of the heroes with its highest meaning.
Lope gave many samples for different types of love comedy: for the comedy of “intrigue,” and for the “psychological” comedy, and the “moral and edifying” comedy. But in the best examples there was always a feeling as the main core of the action; literally all varieties of comedy, which later, under the pen of his students, filled Spanish theaters with varying success, were given by the great teacher. Over time, he turned them into diagrams. What remains are love comedies “without love”.
6. The genre of religious and philosophical drama in the works of P. Calderon.
The play “Life is a Dream” as the “quintessence” of the Baroque worldview.
"LIFE IS A DREAM" P. Calderon. Reality and dream, illusion and reality here lose their uniqueness and become similar to each other: sueno in Spanish is not only a dream, but also a dream; therefore, “La vida es sueno” can also be translated as “Life is a dream.” Pedro Calderon is a prominent representative of Baroque literature, in particular Baroque drama. He was a follower of Lope de Vega. Pedro Calderon de la Barga (1600-1681) from an old noble family graduated from college and university, where he studied scholasticism. Potto he began to write and gained fame; since 1625 he has been the court playwright. Big influence His worldview was influenced by the teachings of the Jesuits - Life and death, reality and dreams form complex interweavings. This complex world it is impossible to understand, but the mind can control feelings and by suppressing them a person can find the path, if not to truth, then to peace of mind.
Features of dramaturgy: 1) harmonious exposition, composition 2) intense dramatic action and its concentration around 1-2 characters 3) schematism in the depiction of the characters' characters 4) expressive language (often it refers to metaphor, transition)
Creativity can be divided into 2 periods: 1) early - until the 1630s. – the comedy genre predominates 2) from 30 to the end of life. Late period, he takes the priesthood, his worldview and the direction of his work change. A new genre appears - it denotes a sacred action (today it is a moral and philosophical religious drama)
Drama “Life is a Dream”. Written in 1635 The story of the Polish prince Sigismund, when his father was born with a prediction - his son would be cruel. Since childhood, he imprisoned his son; he had only a teacher. Time passes, the father decides to check the prediction. He gets to the ball and shows his temper. Captivity again.
Sigismund is shown as a man as he emerged from the bosom of nature. He morally depends on nature, on his passions. Confirmation is the words of Sigismund himself: “the combination of man and beast.” A man, because he thinks and his mind is inquisitive. A beast, because he is a slave of his nature.
He does not believe that the animal nature is only from nature. From birth he was placed in such harsh conditions that he turned into a human beast. He blames his father. It is ironic that they tried to have the bestial nature in him, bringing him to an animal state. Believes that humanity should not be asserted by force. After awakening, the prince is transformed. He asks the servant what happened. He says that everything was a dream, and a dream is something transitory. He awoke from the dream of being a prince, but did not awaken from the sleep of life. At this moment he comes to the conclusion: everything he lives with (royal power, wealth) is a dream, but a dream of a rich man. Poverty is a poor man's dream. These are all dreams anyway. All human life is a dream. This means that all this is not so important, neither aspirations nor vanity, having understood this, the prince becomes a wise man.
The topic is raised, the idea of human self-education (which is associated with reason). Reason helps the prince overcome passions.
The theme of freedom. The prince discusses this already in the first act of the drama, where he discusses the human right to freedom. He compares himself with a bird, an animal, a fish and is surprised that he has more feeling and knowledge, but he is less free than them.
In the finale, the prince is wise. The king saw this and decides to choose another heir (a foreign man). The prince became king as a result of his upbringing. The king is in his power, but Sigismund was not for the restoration of his dynastic rights, but for the sake of restoring human rights. Remembering his path from beast to man, Sigismund pardoned his father and left him alive.
Calderon's dramatic method consists of exposing life's contradictions. HE guides his hero through hostile circumstances and reveals his inner struggle, leading the hero to spiritual enlightenment. This work meets the laws of the Baroque. 1
) the action takes place in Polonia (Poland), but this is an abstract place, there is no specification of time, the characters are schematic and express the author’s idea, and do not represent a value image. 2) The hero is not static (changes and is formed under external circumstances) 3) The introduction reflects the idea of hostility, chaos of the world around us, and human suffering (Rosaura’s monologue)
Ideological and artistic originality of P. Corneille’s tragedy “Horace”.
Corneille dedicated the tragedy “Horace” (1639) to Cardinal Richelieu. K. borrowed the plot for his tragedy from the Roman historian Tito Livy. We are talking about the initial semi-legendary events of the formation of the ancient Roman state. Two city-polises: Rome and Alba Longa, which later merged into one state, still remain separate, although their inhabitants are already connected with each other by common interests and family ties. To decide under whose leadership the cities should unite, they decided to resort to a duel.
In “Horace” (1640), the image of the main character is unique, not reasoning, blindly obeying the decision taken and at the same time striking in its determination. Horace inspires admiration for his integrity and confidence in his rightness. Everything is clear to him, everything is decided for him. Corneille's position does not completely coincide with the position of Horace, who is closer not to Corneille, but to Richelieu, to the real political practice and ideology of absolutism. It is no coincidence that next to Horace in the tragedy there is Curiatius, a character who accepts someone else’s principle, only after personally convinced of the correctness of this principle. The triumph of the sense of duty to the homeland comes to Curiatius only as a result of long hesitations and doubts, during which he carefully weighs this feeling. In addition, in the play, other characters other than him act alongside Horace, and among them is his direct antagonist Camilla. The success of the tragedy in the years French Revolution is explained precisely by the fact that its patriotic pathos, namely to which the play owes its success in 1789-1792, permeates not only the image of Horace, but also the images of his father, Sabina, Curiatius. The moral and philosophical conflict between passion and duty is transferred here to a different plane: the stoic renunciation of personal feelings is carried out in the name of a high state idea. Debt takes on a super-personal meaning. The glory and greatness of the homeland, the state form a new patriotic heroism, which in “Sid” was only just outlined as the second theme of the play.
The plot of “Horace” is borrowed from the Roman historian Titus Livy and refers to the semi-legendary period of the “seven kings”. However, the theme of monarchical power as such is not raised in the tragedy, and King Tull plays an even less significant role in it than the Castilian king Fernando in “The Cid”. Corneille is interested here not in a specific form of state power, but in the state as the highest generalized principle, requiring unquestioning submission from an individual in the name of the common good. In the era of Corneille, ancient Rome was considered a classic example of a powerful power, and the playwright sees the source of its strength and authority in the stoic renunciation of citizens from personal interests for the benefit of the state. Corneille reveals this moral and political problem by choosing a laconic, tense plot.
The source of the dramatic conflict is the political rivalry of two cities - Rome and Alba Longa, whose inhabitants have long been connected by family and marriage ties. Members of one family find themselves drawn into a conflict between two warring parties.
The fate of the cities must be decided in a triple duel of fighters fielded by each side - the Roman Horatii and the Albanian Curiatii, who were related to each other. Faced with the tragic necessity of fighting for the glory of the fatherland with close relatives, Corneille's heroes perceive their civic duty differently. Horace is proud of the exorbitant demand presented to him, and sees in this a manifestation of the highest trust of the state in its citizen, called upon to protect him: But the main dramatic conflict does not receive a harmonious resolution. The central problem of the play - the relationship between the individual and the state - appears in a tragic aspect, and the final triumph of stoic self-denial and the affirmation of the civic idea does not remove this tragedy. Nevertheless, throughout the long stage life of Horace, it was precisely this civic spirit of the play that determined its social relevance and success; this was the case, for example, during the years of the French bourgeois revolution, when Corneille's tragedy was very popular and was staged many times on the revolutionary stage. In its structure, “Horace” meets the requirements of classical poetics much more than “Cid”. External action here is reduced to a minimum; it begins at the moment when the dramatic conflict is already evident and then it only develops. No extraneous, incidental plot lines complicate the main one; the dramatic interest is centered around the three main characters - Horace, Camilla and Curiatius. The symmetrical arrangement of the characters, corresponding to their family relationships and origin (Romans - Albanians), also attracts attention. Against the background of this strict symmetry, the contrast between the internal positions of the heroes appears especially clearly. The device of antithesis permeates the entire artistic structure of the play, including the construction of the verse, which, as a rule, breaks up into two hemistiches that are opposite in meaning. “Horace” finally established the canonical type of classical tragedy, and Corneille’s next plays, “Cinna” and “Polyeuctus,” consolidated it.
21. The tragedy of J. Racine “Andromache”: the source of the plot,
conflict, system of images, psychologism.
Racine's appeal to the ancient Greek mythological plot differs from Thebaid primarily in the scale of the moral problem, the organic cohesion of the various elements of the ideological and artistic structure of the work. The main dramatic situation of "Andromache" was drawn by Racine from ancient sources - Euripides, Seneca, Virgil. But it also returns us to the typical plot scheme of pastoral novels, seemingly infinitely far in their artistic principles from the strict classical tragedy: In “A” the ideological core is the collision of the rational and moral principle in a person with the elemental passion that leads him to crime and death .
Three - Pyrrhus, Hermione and Orestes - become victims of their passion, which they recognize as undue, contrary to the moral law, but beyond their control. The fourth - Andromache - as a moral person stands outside passions and above passions, but as a defeated queen, a captive, she finds herself, against her will, drawn into the whirlpool of other people's passions, playing with her fate and the fate of her son. The primordial conflict on which French classical tragedy grew, especially the tragedy of Corneille - the conflict between reason and passion, feeling and duty - is completely rethought in this tragedy of Racine, and in this for the first time his inner liberation from the shackles of tradition and models is manifested. The freedom of choice that Corneille's heroes possessed, in other words, the freedom of rational will to make a decision and implement it at least at the cost of life, is not available to Racine's heroes: the first three because of their internal powerlessness, doom in the face of their own passion; A - because of her external lack of rights and doom before someone else’s ruthless and despotic will. The alternative facing Andromache - to betray her husband's memory by becoming the wife of the murderer of her entire family, or to sacrifice her only son - does not have a reasonable and moral solution. And when A finds such a solution - in suicide at the wedding altar, then this is not just a heroic refusal of life in the name of a high duty. This is a moral compromise, built on the double meaning of her marriage vow - after all, the marriage with which the life of her son will be purchased will not actually be consummated.
Thus, if the heroes of Corneille knew what they were going to, what and in the name of what they were sacrificing, then the heroes of Racine frantically fight with themselves and with each other in the name of imaginaries that reveal their true meaning too late. And even the outcome that is favorable for the main character - the rescue of her son and her proclamation as queen of Epirus - bears the stamp of imaginaryness: without ever becoming the wife of Pyrrhus, she nevertheless accepts as an inheritance, along with the throne, the obligation to avenge the one who should have taken Hector's place.
The novelty and even the well-known paradox of the artistic construction of "A" is not only in this discrepancy between the actions of the heroes and their results. The same discrepancy exists between the actions and external position of the heroes. The consciousness of the spectators of the 17th century. was brought up on stable stereotypes of behavior, fixed by etiquette and identified with the universal laws of reason. Heroes "A" violate these stereotypes at every step, and this also shows the strength of the passion that gripped them. Pyrrhus not only loses interest in Hermione, but plays an undignified game with her, designed to break A’s resistance. Hermione, instead of rejecting Pyrrhus with contempt and thereby maintaining her dignity and honor, is ready to accept him, even knowing about his love to the Trojan. Orestes, instead of honestly fulfilling his ambassadorial mission, does everything to ensure that it is unsuccessful.
Reason is present in tragedy as the ability of heroes to realize and analyze their feelings and actions and ultimately pass judgment on themselves, in other words, in the words of Pascal, as awareness of their weakness. The heroes of “A” deviate from the moral norm not because they are not aware of it, but because they are unable to rise to this norm by overcoming the passions that overwhelm them.
22. Moral and philosophical content of Racine’s tragedy “Phaedra”:
interpretation of the image of Phaedra in the ancient tradition and in the plays of Racine.
Over the years, changes have occurred in Racine's artistic outlook and creative style. For the playwright, the conflict between humanistic and anti-humanistic forces increasingly develops from a clash between two opposing camps into a fierce combat between a person and himself. Light and darkness, reason and destructive passions, muddy instincts and burning remorse collide in the soul of the same hero, infected with the vices of his environment, but striving to rise above it, unwilling to come to terms with his fall.
However, these trends reach the peak of their development in Phaedrus. Phaedra, constantly betrayed by Theseus, who is mired in vices, feels lonely and abandoned, and a destructive passion for her stepson Hippolytus arises in her soul. Phaedra fell in love with Hippolytus to some extent because in his appearance the former, once valiant and beautiful Theseus seemed to be resurrected. But Phaedra also admits that a terrible fate weighs down on her and her family, that the tendency towards corrupting passions is in her blood, inherited from her ancestors. Hippolytus is also convinced of the moral depravity of those around him. Addressing his beloved Aricia, Hippolytus declares that they are all “engulfed in the terrible flames of vice” and calls on her to leave “the fatal and defiled place where virtue is called upon to breathe polluted air.”
But Phaedra, who seeks reciprocity from her stepson and slanderes him, appears in Racine not only as a typical representative of her corrupt environment. She simultaneously rises above this environment. It was in this direction that Racine made the most significant changes to the image inherited from antiquity, from Euripides and Seneca. Racine's Phaedra, for all her spiritual drama, is a person of clear self-awareness, a person in whom the heart-corroding poison of instincts is combined with an irresistible desire for truth, purity and moral dignity. Moreover, she does not forget for a moment that she is not a private person, but a queen, a bearer of state power, that her behavior is intended to serve as a model for society, that the glory of a name doubles the torment. The culminating moment in the development of the ideological content of the tragedy is Phaedra’s slander and the victory that a sense of moral justice then wins in the heroine’s mind over the egoistic instinct of self-preservation. Phaedra restores the truth, but life is no longer bearable for her, and she destroys herself.
3. The problem of baroque in modern literary studies. The character of baroque light. Baroque aesthetics. Baroque tipi
Instead of a linear Renaissance perspective, there was a “strange baroque perspective”: double space, mirroring, which symbolized the illusory nature of ideas about the world.
The world is split. But not only that, it is also moving, but it is not clear where. Hence the theme of the transience of human life and time in general (“the traces of centuries, like moments, are short” - Calderon). Luis de Gongora's sonnet is about the same thing, which, unlike the above-quoted sonnet by Calderon, is formally baroque: repetition of the same thought, a string of metaphors, a bunch of historical reminiscences, which testified to the scope of time, the instantaneity of not only people, but also civilizations. (Vannikova spoke about this sonnet at a lecture; no one was obliged to read it. Just like talking about it in the exam).
But it would be good to say that the Baroque poets were very fond of metaphor. She created the atmosphere intellectual game. And play is a property of all baroque genres (in metaphors, in the combination of unexpected ideas and images). In dramaturgy, the game led to a special theatricality and the technique of “scene on stage” + the metaphor “life-theater” (Calderon’s autograph “The Great Theater of the World” is the apotheosis of this metaphor). Theater is also used to reveal the elusiveness of the world and the illusory nature of ideas about it.
And in such conditions, when everything is bad, a certain beginning begins to emerge, on the basis of which natural chaos is overcome - the resilience of the human spirit.
At the same time, classicism emerges. Both of these systems arise as an awareness of the crisis of Renaissance ideals.
Artists of both Baroque and Classicism rejected the idea of harmony underlying the humanistic Renaissance concept. But at the same time, Baroque and classicism clearly oppose each other.
in dramaturgy: there is no strict norming, no unity of place and time, a mixture of tragic and comic in one work, and the main genre is tragicomedy, baroque theater - theater of action.
Let me remind you that classicism opposed baroque. Classicism seems to resurrect the style of the High Renaissance. The most vile monster should be written in such a way that it pleases the eye, which is what Boileau writes about. Moderation and good taste should be observed in everything. The peculiarity of classicism is that the rules are clearly formulated and fixed and mainly relate to the form of the work.
1670s - “Poetic Art” by Boileau. Manifesto of classicism. In this work, B. relies on Aristotle and Horace. The work consists of three parts: 1 – about the poet. art in general, 2 - about small poetic genres, 3 - large genres (tragedy, epic, comedy), 4 - again in general.
General principles: love reason and choose nature as your mentor.
Two quotes on this matter:
If you love the thought in poetry, let it be the only one
They owe both brilliance and price.
You should always go towards common sense.
Whoever leaves this path dies immediately.
There is one path to reason - there is no other.
Reason is clarity, harmony of the world, the most important sign of beauty. What is unclear is unreasonable and ugly (medieval myths, for example). In dramaturgy there is a movement from medieval to ancient drama (and they called it modern art). B. generally rejected all medieval art (what a fool!).
He also denied baroque, namely preciosity and burlesque (these were varieties of French baroque). Precision was a reaction to sobriety, rationalism, and lack of spirituality. She contrasted all this with the sophistication of morals, the height of feelings and passions. Not the best kind of baroque, but within its framework the novel developed with its psychologism and plot intrigue. Precious works were distinguished by a complicated plot, a large number of descriptions, exuberant metaphors and play on words, which infuriated Boileau.
Burlesque opposed precision. It was a lower form of baroque with a desire for brutal truth, the triumph of the vulgar over the sublime. It was based on a humorous adaptation of ancient and medieval heroic tales. The language was, accordingly, superficial, which B did not like.
Another divergence from the Baroque, this time imaginary. This is a question of imitation and imagination. Baroque artists rejected the ancient principle of imitation of nature, instead - unfettered imagination. And B. seems to be faithful to imitation. But he believes that art reproduces not primordial nature, but nature transformed by the human mind (see about the monster). The principle of imitation is combined with the principle of imagination, and the true way of imitating nature is according to the rules created by the mind. They are the ones who bring beauty to the work that is impossible in reality. I quote Vannikova’s favorite phrase:
Incarnated in art, both monster and reptile,
We are still pleased with the wary look.
B.'s focus is on tragedy (in passing about the novel - a novel, an entertaining read; one can forgive him for what cannot be forgiven for a tragedy, for example, not a great hero, incongruity). Rejects tragicomedy. Tragedy is cruel and terrible, but the world of art is beautiful because the rules allow it to be so. Tragedy works through horror and compassion. If the play does not evoke compassion, the author’s efforts were in vain. Orientation towards a traditional plot, where the poet competes with his predecessors. The author creates within the framework of tradition. They comprehended their problems in the mirror of ancient stories.
But B. proposed to interpret the antique. the stories are believable. Truth does not equal credibility! The truth may be such that the viewer will not believe it, but the untruth may be plausible. The main thing is for the viewer to believe that everything happened. Such a misfortune happened to Corneille’s “The Cid”: he was reproached that the plot was implausible. And he replied that this was recorded by history. Quote from B. regarding truth (literal translation): “The mind of a person will not be moved by what it does not believe.” In Neserova's translation:
Don’t torment us with the incredible, disturbing the mind.
And the truth is sometimes unlike the truth.
I will not be delighted with wonderful nonsense.
The mind does not care about what it does not believe.
Truth is compliance with the universal laws of reason.
Classical heroes are sublime and noble natures. But heroism must necessarily be combined with weakness (this is plausible and explains the hero’s mistakes). The requirement for consistency in the character of the heroes in all circumstances (but a variety of feelings and aspirations is not excluded). In a tragic hero, multidirectional feelings must collide, but they are set from the very beginning.
The notorious 3 unities are also explained by the requirement of verisimilitude. They had to reduce to a minimum all the conventions that presuppose theatrical performance. The main thing is unity of action, i.e. intrigue, which should begin immediately, develop quickly and logically end. Unity liberated the theater from medieval entertainment and shifted the emphasis from external action to internal action. Classical theater is a theater of internal action, where attention is focused on analyzing the feelings of the characters; intrigue does not play a dominant role here. The most poignant moments of the play should be off stage; they are not worthy of entertainment. Here is what Racine writes on this occasion in the first preface to Britannicus (this is about what should not be done): “Instead of a simple action, not too overloaded with events - as an action limited to one day should be - supported only with the interests, feelings and passions of the characters who gradually lead it to the end, it would be necessary to fill this very action with many incidents for which a whole month would not be enough, with a large number of vicissitudes, all the more amazing the less believable they are, with endless declamation, during in which the actors would be forced to say exactly the opposite of what should be said.”
B. created his theory of tragedy in the 70s, when Corneille and Racine had already written their plays.
Boileau also ordered not to write about low subjects:
Avoid the low, it is always ugliness.
In the simplest style there should still be nobility.
5. Renaissance traditions in dramaturgy of the 17th century. Theater Lope de Vega.
Renaissance origins of the theater of the 17th century. At the end of the Renaissance, a great tradition of dramatic art took shape in two countries - Spain and England. The golden age of drama lasted from the mid-16th to the mid-17th centuries.
The memory of the past lives in combination with the features of new art. They are most distinct in Spain.
Spanish influence spread throughout Europe until, by the beginning of the second half of the 17th century, the center of European culture finally moved to Paris. This geographical movement will be accompanied by a change in the dominant style - from Baroque to Classicism. Spain is an example of the first, France of the second. In England, where neither one nor the other style certainly triumphed, the commonality of the Renaissance basis is most noticeable. Both styles originated in the same literary circle - Shakespeare's younger contemporaries and associates.
A special place was given to the theater. In Jacob's coronation procession on July 25, 1603, there were actors from Shakespeare's Globe Theater, who from then on began to be called "the king's servants" and actually became a court troupe. Theatrical performance became a part of court life. The court, including the monarch himself, took part in the staging of allegorical court performances - masks. Until this time, their main authors were the composer and the artist, but with the advent of Ben Jonson (1573–1637) to the court, the text began to play a much greater role.
From Ben Jonson a direct path to classicism opens, but he himself only outlined it as one of the possibilities. Sometimes he writes didactic comedy, observing the rules, sometimes he easily deviates from them. Many playwrights still don't think about rules, just as Shakespeare didn't think about them. However, his younger contemporaries sometimes allow even more freedom, especially those who became acquainted with Italian and Spanish theater. These are primarily the most popular among viewers, John Fletcher (1579–1625) and Francis Beaumont (1584–1616). They wrote many plays together, earning the reputation of entertaining the gentry, that is, the nobility. Having a social address is also a new feature: Shakespeare wrote for everyone; Now London artisans have their own favorites, and the nobles have their own. And in the sphere of art there is a division of tastes.
The recipe for entertainment is not sought from ancient authors. It is found in Italy, where the genre of tragicomedy arose for the first time at the end of the 16th century. From the name it is clear that this genre is a combination of comic and tragic. Isn't he in Shakespeare's tragedies? Yes, but it happens differently. Tragicomedy is more reminiscent of Shakespeare's late comedies, where the nature of the conflict changes. Evil enters deeper into him, and therefore it ceases to seem as if all is well that ends well. The happy ending, as a surprise, crowns the intricate intrigue, but does not remove the feeling that the world has ceased to be happy and harmonious.
In the preface to one of his plays (“The Faithful Shepherdess”), Fletcher defined the genre: “Tragic-comedy received such a nickname not because it contains both joy and murder, but because there is no death in it, which is enough for it to not be considered a tragedy, but death in it turns out to be so close that this is enough for it not to be considered a comedy, which represents ordinary people with their difficulties, which do not contradict ordinary life. So in tragicomedy the appearance of a deity is as legitimate as in tragedy, and of ordinary people as in comedy."
In England, tragicomedy coexists with satirical comedy of characters. The didactic task does not negate the possibility of unbridled entertainment; the mixedness and chaos of the new genre does not negate the desire for orderliness. Both trends emerge from Renaissance theater and worldview. The Renaissance heritage is strong in Spain, but the nature of the changes made there is more consistent, associated with one direction and one name - Lope de Vega.
Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) is an example of another Renaissance figure. His father, a goldsmith, a lover of poetry, gave his son a good education: in addition to university knowledge, the skill of a dancer, mastery of a sword and poetry. However, in poetry Lope had a gift for improvisation, without which he simply would not have had time to create more than two thousand plays (about five hundred have survived), not counting sonnets, poems and novels in verse.
From his youth, he was possessed by a thirst for achievement, which forced him, together with the “Invincible Armada,” to set off to conquer England in 1588. The fate of the Spanish fleet was sad. Lope de Vega, fortunately, escaped. He's back to conquer the stage. In Spain, theater is a folk spectacle. This is the last bastion of freedom that neither the harsh Spanish monarchs nor the threats of the Inquisition could break: the bans were renewed, but the theater lived on. The troupes continued to play in hotel courtyards - corrals (theatres were also called that) and on the capital's stages. It is impossible to imagine a performance without music, dance, and dressing up, just as it is impossible to imagine Spanish drama bound by strict rules. She was born and continued to be part of the carnival action.
Nevertheless, in the heyday of his creativity, Lope de Vega wrote a treatise “The New Art of Composing Comedies in Our Time” (1609). This is not so much a set of rules as a justification of the freedom of the Spanish theater with its predilection for confusing, unpredictable intrigue, the brightness of passions. All this is still quite close to the Renaissance, the ideals of which will be reminded more than once by Lope de Vega, who begins the treatise with the goal of “... gilding // I want the people’s delusions.” However, we must not forget about Aristotle, who rightly taught that “the subject of art is Verisimilitude...” The general principle of art was inherited from Horace - to teach by entertaining.
In Spain, a dramatic action is divided not into five acts, but into three parts - jornadas (from the word day), and therefore each jornada should not contain more than a day. The first hornada is the beginning, the second is the complications, the third is the denouement. This gives consistency and speed to the development of intrigue. Is it necessary to maintain unity? Only one thing is required - unity of action, and the rest:
There is no need to observe the boundaries of the day,
Although Aristotle orders them to be observed,
But we've already broken the laws
Mixing up the tragic speech
With comic and everyday speech.
(Translated by O. Rumer)
The difference between comedy and tragedy is preserved in the choice of material: “... history feeds tragedy, // Comedy is fiction...” The dignity of historical characters is higher than modern ones, and this determines the dignity of each genre. Among the many plays written by Lope de Vega, there are many that are kept within fairly strict genre boundaries, but most of all, others are remembered - mixing high characters with low ones, history and modernity. Lope called them comedies. Later, based on the title of the treatise, they will be referred to as “new comedy,” although the term “tragicomedy”, which has already entered European languages, would be quite appropriate.
The genre, which developed in Spain, is also known as the “comedy of the cloak and sword.” This term has theatrical origins - in reference to the necessary props for the performance of these plays, where most of the characters were nobles, that is, they had the right to wear a cloak and sword. However, in Lope’s most famous plays, the intrigue is built precisely around who has this right, and with it, possesses noble honor.
“Dog in the Manger” (publ. 1618; exact time the creation of most of Lope de Vega's plays is unknown) - the best work of this genre, which to this day does not leave the stages of the whole world. Wit, play of passions, carnival, secret dates - in their totality weave the intrigue characteristic of this type of comedy. Teodoro must decide who he loves - his mistress (he is her secretary) Diana de Belleflore, a young widow, or her maid Marcella. Pie in the sky or bird in the hand? The play, however, is named after another proverb that defines the choice of a mistress who does not know what to sacrifice - love or honor, having associated herself with her secretary, a man of ignoble origin. In the meantime, she is jealous of Marcella, does not let him go and does not allow him to come to her.
Love triumphs, resorting to carnival techniques - dressing up and substituting. Teodoro's servant Tristan, a jester by his theatrical pedigree, finds the old count, whose son disappeared many years ago, appears to him in the form of an overseas merchant, and then introduces Teodoro, who allegedly turned up as his son. He who has human dignity is worthy of honor - such is the poetic justice of this ending. Here it is achieved through cunning intrigue, but in other cases it requires truly heroic effort.
Along with comedies, Lope de Vega created dramas. Based on their pathos, the genre is often called heroic drama. Its most memorable example in Lope is the “Sheep Spring”, or (according to Spanish name the town in which the action takes place) “Fuente Ovejuna” (published 1619). The play is also an example of tragicomic confusion. Its material, like a tragedy, is history: the action is related to the events of the Reconquista (the liberation of Spain from the Moors) in 1476. The main characters are peasants, that is, characters appropriate in a low genre - comedy.
The commander of the Order of Calatrava (one of the spiritual and secular orders of knighthood created during the Reconquista) Fernando Gomez de Guzman meets the resistance of the girl Laurencia who liked him from the town of Fuente Ovejuna that came under his rule. All the peasants are on her side, one of whom says to the commander: “We want to live as before, // Honoring your honor and our honor” (translated by M. Lozinsky). The commander does not understand the speech about honor from the lips of a peasant. He stubbornly pursues his goal, becoming more and more angry, and finally appears at the head armed detachment, inciting the peasants to revolt. The commander is killed. The investigation is led by the king, but to the question: “Who killed?” - even under torture, the peasants repeat: “Fuente Ovejuna.”
The play, which ends with the readiness of people from the people to defend their dignity up to the point of armed uprising, begins with the fact that one of them - Laurencia - in response to the declaration of love by the young peasant Frondoso, laughingly replied that she loves only her honor. Are these different scale events connected? Undoubtedly. Between the initial love for oneself (for to love honor is to love oneself) and the final scene, the formation of the heroine’s personality takes place. She fell in love with Frondoso, and their love was accompanied not by the silence of the pastoral, but by the threat emanating from powerful of the world this. Against this formidable background, the feeling of love emerges in its former Renaissance quality as a path to dignity, not in the sense of social privilege, but as an integral property of humanity.
There is a return to Renaissance values, which Lope de Vega did not abandon, but which are leaving his contemporary world, being replaced by new ones, devoid of universal human meaning. They are designed for an individual, and not for everyone, but only for someone who can confirm his right with a charter of nobility. The former dignity is achievable only as a result of a heroic act.
Lope de Vega was not only the finalizer of a certain tradition of Spanish drama, but also a person reminiscent of the heights of the Renaissance ideal, which in new conditions is exposed to new dangers and temptations. Previous values are rethought, sometimes distorted, as happens with love. One of those who is considered to be the “school of Lope”, Tirso de Molina (1583?–1648), introduced world literature from the Spanish legend the image of Don Juan (“The Mischief of Seville, or the Stone Guest”). This image seems to be one of the projections of the Renaissance idea of a free, loving person. However, love now, as the name implies, is mischief, and freedom is self-will. The story of the mischievous man will immediately turn into one of the eternal (archetypal) images of world culture and will receive a philosophical interpretation back in the 17th century (see Moliere).
6.Creativity of P. Calderon in the context of Baroque literature. The name of the work is called “Life is a dream” in a vaguely metaphorical place. The problem of the share in the drama is its role in the development of the main conflict of the soul. Philosophical sense drama.
"LIFE IS A DREAM" P. Calderon. Reality and dream, illusion and reality here lose their uniqueness and become similar to each other: sueno in Spanish is not only a dream, but also a dream; therefore, “La vida es sueno” can also be translated as “Life is a dream.”
His worldview was greatly influenced by the teachings of the Jesuits - Life and death, reality and dreams form complex interweavings. This complex world is impossible to understand, but the mind can control feelings and by suppressing them a person can find the path, if not to truth, then to peace of mind.
Calderon's dramatic method consists of exposing life's contradictions. HE guides his hero through hostile circumstances and reveals his inner struggle, leading the hero to spiritual enlightenment. This work meets the laws of the Baroque.
1) the action takes place in Polonia (Poland), but this is an abstract place, there is no specification of time, the characters are schematic and express the author’s idea, and do not represent a value image.
2) The hero is not static (changes and is formed under external circumstances)
3) The introduction reflects the idea of hostility, the chaotic nature of the world around us, and human suffering (Rosaura’s monologue)
The language of drama is replete with decorations, especially metaphors and allegories, and complex syntactic constructions. Multilayer composition: several storylines(central: love theme line).
Considering the problem of struggling with fate (traditional for this genre), Calderon, in the process of developing the plot, shows that the fatal prediction is fulfilled precisely because this was facilitated by the blind will of his despot father, who imprisoned him in a tower, where the unfortunate man grew up in savagery and, naturally, could not go wild. Here Calderon touches on the thesis of free will and the fact that people only fulfill the will of heaven, playing the roles predetermined for them, and they can improve and change their fate in only one way - by changing themselves and constantly fighting against the sinfulness of human nature. “In Calderon, the implementation of the thesis about free will is distinguished by extreme tension and drama in the conditions of hierarchical reality, fraught in the understanding of Baroque writers with contradictory extremes - mysterious, but inhuman heavenly predestination and the destructive self-will of man or weak-willed obedience and humility, which suddenly turn out to be a tragic delusion (the image of Basilio )" (3, p. 79). The Baroque understanding of the world as the triumph of two opposing essences - divinity and non-existence - deprives man of the place of honor that the Renaissance assigned to him. Therefore, the activity of the individual in a situation where his fate is predetermined from above does not mean the atheistic deification of man; free will is synonymous with “the identity of the individual, who threatens to dissolve in the uncontrollable element of higher forces and his own passions” (3, p. 79). The episode of the prince's test of power allows us to understand the measure of moral responsibility that Calderon places on the ideal ruler. In his understanding (characteristic of the Baroque), a person who has achieved a moral victory over himself has the highest value.
Calderon builds his philosophical drama, of course, on a somewhat pessimistic worldview arising from religious Christian mysticism. However, there is no true pessimism here - after all, there is always God next to a person, and a person endowed with free will can always turn to Him. Calderon, although in a certain sense inherits the thoughts of ancient Greek philosophers and moralists that life is just a dream, and everything around a person is only shadows of objects, and not the objects themselves, but to a greater extent he follows the early Christian moralists, who said that life is a dream compared to the reality of eternal life. The playwright never tires of asserting that immortal life is built by the person himself, by his actions, and that good certainly remains good, even in a dream. The polemic with Renaissance moralists on the issue of human freedom is clearly visible in the drama in the line of Segismundo and Basilio. The king, frightened by terrible signs, imprisons the prince in a tower in order, as he thinks, to overcome fate with the power of reason and thus rid the state of the tyrant. However, reason alone, without love and without faith, is not enough. The prince, having lived his whole life in prison in dreams of being free, like a bird or like an animal, finds himself free and becomes like a beast. So Calderon shows that the king, wanting to avoid evil, created it himself - after all, it was the prison that embittered Segismundo. Perhaps this is exactly what the stars predicted? And it turns out that fate cannot be defeated? But the playwright objects: no, it’s possible. And it shows how. His hero, once again imprisoned, realizes that “animal freedom” is actually false. And he begins to seek freedom within himself, turning to God. And when Segismundo leaves prison again, he is freer than the beast - he is free precisely as a man, since he has learned the freedom of choice given to him by God. And Segismundo chooses good, and understands that he must constantly remember the choice he has made and follow this path.
7. “Simplicissimus” was published in 1669 in an atmosphere of mystery and mystification. The frontispiece depicts a strange creature. The title page states that this is “The Biography of an outlandish vagant named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchsheim,” and it was published by a certain Hermann Schleifheim von Suhlsfoort. Judging by the title page, the book was printed in the little-known city of Montpelgart by an unknown publisher Johann Fillion. In the same year, the Continuatio, or sixth book of Simplicissimus, appeared, where it was reported that this was the work of Samuel Greifensohn von Hirschfeld, who, for unknown reasons, placed a different name on the title page, for which he “rearranged the letters” of his original one. The work was published posthumously, although the author managed to submit the first five parts to print. He partially wrote the book while he was still a musketeer. The note was signed with mysterious initials: “N. I. C. V. G. R. zu Cernhein.” In 1670, the novel “Simplicity in Contrary, or the Extensive and Outlandish Biography of the hardened deceiver and tramp Courage” appeared... dictated directly from the pen of the author, this time calling himself Philarch Grossus von Trommenheim. Printed in Utopia by Felix Stratiot." In the same year, on behalf of the same author, the novel “Outlandish Springinsfeld, that is, full of jokes, ridiculous and very amusing, a biography of a once vigorous, experienced and brave soldier, now exhausted, decrepit, but very insightful tramp and beggar, was published... Printed in Paphlagonia at Felix Stratiot's. Thus, the same publisher is indicated, but the place of publication is different and, moreover, obviously fictitious. But in 1672, the first part of the novel “The Wonderful Bird's Nest” appeared, related in content to the previous ones. Its author has already been named Michael Rehulin von Semsdorff. And when (around 1673) the last (second) part of the same novel was published, its author was indicated by a whole line of letters from which it was proposed to make up his name. It was as if the author was not so much hiding behind a mask as indicating the possibility of opening it slightly. And, apparently, for many this was not much of a secret. But he was too clever, and as soon as historical circumstances changed, the key to the riddle that he thrust into the reader’s hands was lost. Meanwhile, a whole hail of books began to fall, no longer connected in any way with the content of the series of novels mentioned above, but simply attached to the name of Simplicissimus. In 1670, a funny brochure “The First Lounger” was published, which is a reworking of the folk legend with the addition of “Simplicissimus’s Pocket Book of Tricks” - a series of engravings depicting merry jesters, townspeople, landsknechts, mythological creatures, images of a tent city, weapons, medals, maps and mysterious inscriptions. The author calls himself an Ignorant and even an Idiot. In 1672, an equally remarkable book was published, full of bizarre fiction and sharp satire, “The Intricate Simplicissimus The World Inside Out.” And a year after it, an essay appeared full of superstitious tales and legends about a magic root that supposedly grows under the gallows - “Simplicissimus’s Gallows Man.” And a little earlier, an intricate treatise on socio-political topics, “Pluto’s Judgment, or the Art of Getting Rich,” where Simplicissimus and all his relatives speak, gathered at a fashionable resort to talk about this and that. The treatise, presented in a theatrical form, is not without caustic satire and parodies the literary small talk and games common at that time. In 1673, a certain Senor Messmal published a serious discourse on the purity of the German language under the cheerful title “The World-famous Simplicissimus Boasting and Boasting of his German Michel, with permission for everyone who can, to read without laughing.” The place of publication is the country where the printing press was invented (Nuremberg), and the year of publication is simply classified by highlighting individual letters (as in the publication of some other books with the name of Simplicissimus). And in the same year, an anonymous book was published - a comic New Year's gift - “The War of the Beards, or the Removal of the Unnamed Red Beard from the World Famous Black Beard of Simplicissimus.” The question about the author (or authors) of all these works was far from idle. In those days they appropriated to themselves the names and works of very famous authors. Several “Simplicissimus” folk calendars appear, filled with economic advice and astrological predictions, funny anecdotes about Simplicissimus, and even entire stories serving as a continuation of the novel, attached to its later edition. As if at least these continuations should be attributed to one author. A new chain of novels, sometimes entertaining, sometimes watery stories about the adventures of various vagabonds, retired soldiers, jesters and rogues, filled either with descriptions of military operations or clownish tricks, such as “The Simplician Staring-Eyes-at-the-World, or The Adventures of Jan Rebhu in four parts" (1677 - 1679, "An ancient biography of the French warrior Simplicissimus" (1682), in addition released by the publisher Fillion, whose name appears on the first editions of "Simplicissimus", "Hungarian or Dacian Simplicissimus" (1683) and, finally, "Very amusing and intricate Malcolmo von Libandus... Composed for rare amusement by Simplicius Simplicissimus” (1686). In 1683 – 1684 The Nuremberg publisher Johann Jonathan Felsecker published a collection of Simplician works in three volumes with copious comments by an unknown author. The preface to the first volume proclaimed: “The highly respected reader will be pleased to know that this German Simplicissimus, risen from the grave of oblivion, is much improved, multiplied and adorned with the addition of excellent notes and euphonious verses, as well as with many more important recreational and instructive things than ever before.” . The words about the “grave of oblivion” should be considered a publishing trick, designed for the fact that Simplicissimus was still well remembered, but it was already difficult to get it. Otherwise, two more collections of works published by the heirs of I. Felsecker in 1685 - 1699 would not have been published soon. and 1713. The edition of Fel-sekers includes poetic addresses to the reader and explanations of the engraved title pages. The couplets outlining the contents of the chapters are carried throughout the entire publication. At the end of the novel “Springinsfeld” and “The Wonderful Bird's Nest” there are also moralizing poems that were missing in the first editions. It also included some little-known works associated with the name of Simplicissimus, about which for a long time it was impossible to say with complete certainty who they belonged to. All works included in this publication were published under the same pseudonyms under which they appeared in their time. The biography of the author reported by the Commentator, as we shall see, turned out to be confusing and illusory. We can safely say that by the end of the century the memory of him was erased. All that remains is the hero's name. In 1751, Jocher’s “General Lexicon of Scientists” reported under the heading “Simplicius” that this was “the false name of a satirist, under which the “Intricate Simplicius” was published in 1669. Simplicissimus", translated into German by Hermann Schleifheim; 1670 "Perpetual Calendar", "The Hanging Man", to which Israel Fromschmidt or Jog. Ludv. Hartmann wrote notes; "The World Topsy-Turvy"; 1671 "Satirical Pilgram"; 1679 "Gawk at the World" in 4o; and in 1681 the German translation of Francis from Claustro “Bestia Civitatus”. This information is fantastic. The author of “Simplicissimus” is credited with books to which he is not involved, and the most important ones are omitted, which are its continuation: “Courage” and “Springinsfeld”. Israel Fromschmidt is identified with the minor writer Johann Ludwig Hartmann (1640 - 1684).The compiler of the note, apparently, did not see a single copy of Simplicissimus, for he omitted the name "Zulsfort", displayed on all editions of this book, and did not know that it was revealed as the pseudonym of Samuel Greifensohn von Hirschfeld. Lessing became interested in Simplicissimus and even intended to rework it for a new edition. He began to compile a note about its author for the “Additions” to the Jocher dictionary, where it was placed by Adelung in unfinished form: “Greifensohn (Samuel) from Hirschfeld lived in the last century and in his youth was a musketeer. Nothing more is known about him, although he wrote various works, namely: “Simplicissimus” - a favorite novel of his time, which he initially published under the false name of Germanie Schleifheim von Selsfort and which in 1684 was published again in Nuremberg in two parts in the 8th part of the sheet along with other other people’s works. “The Chaste Joseph”... also in two parts of the previous Nuremberg edition. “Satirical Pilgram... (From Lessing’s handwritten heritage).”
13.Landscape sketches play a big role in the poem. Nature is not just the background against which the action takes place, but a full-fledged protagonist of the work. The author uses the technique of contrast. In paradise, the first people are surrounded by ideal nature. Even the rains there are warm and beneficial. But this idyll surrounding still sinless people is replaced by another nature - a gloomy landscape. The stylistic originality of the poem lies in the fact that it is written in a very pompous ornate style. Milton literally piles comparison upon comparison. For example, Satan is at the same time a comet, a menacing cloud, a wolf, and a winged giant. There are a lot of drawn out descriptions in the poem. At the same time, the author resorts to individualizing the speech of the characters. You can be convinced of this by comparing the furious, menacing appeal of Satan, the slow, majestic speech of God, the monologues of Adam full of virtues, and the gentle melodious speech of Eve.
15.European Baroque lyrics
The seventeenth century is the highest stage in the development of European Baroque poetry. Baroque flourished especially brightly in the 17th century in the literature and art of those countries where feudal circles, as a result of tense socio-political conflicts, temporarily triumphed, slowing down for a long time the development of capitalist relations, that is, in Italy, Spain, Germany. Baroque literature reflects the desire of the court environment, crowding around the throne of absolute monarchs, to surround themselves with splendor and glory, to glorify their greatness and power. The contribution made to the Baroque by the Jesuits, figures of the Counter-Reformation, on the one hand, and representatives of the Protestant Church, on the other (along with the Catholic, Protestant Baroque was also richly represented in Western European literature of the 17th century). The stages of the flourishing of the Baroque in the literature of the West, as a rule, coincide with periods of time when church forces become more active and a wave of religious sentiments grows ( religious wars in France, the crisis of humanism caused by the aggravation of social contradictions in Spain and England in the first quarter of the 17th century, the spread of mystical tendencies in Germany at the time Thirty Years' War), or with periods of growth experienced by noble circles.
Taking all this into account, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the emergence of the Baroque was due to objective reasons rooted in the laws public life Europe in the second half of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Baroque was, first of all, the product of those deep socio-political crises that shook Europe at that time and which acquired particular proportions in the 17th century. The Church and the aristocracy tried to take advantage of the sentiments that arose as a result of these SDs.
Longtime allies Rome and Alba went to war with each other. Until now, only minor skirmishes had occurred between the enemy armies, but now, when the Albanian army stood at the walls of Rome, a decisive battle was about to take place.
The heart of Sabina, the wife of the noble Roman Horace, is filled with confusion and sorrow: now either her native Alba or Rome, which has become her second homeland, will be defeated in a fierce battle. Not only is the thought of defeat on either side equally sad for Sabina, but by the evil will of fate, in this battle the people dearest to her must draw their swords against each other - her husband Horace and her three brothers, the Albanians of Curiatia.
Horace’s sister, Camilla, also curses the evil fate that brought two friendly cities together in mortal enmity, and does not consider her position easier than Sabina’s, although her and Sabina’s friend and confidante Julia tells her about this. Julia is sure that Camilla should root for Rome with all her soul, since only her birth and family ties are connected with it, and the oath of fidelity that Camilla exchanged with her fiancé Albanian Curiatius is nothing when the honor and prosperity of the homeland are placed on the other side of the scale.
Exhausted with worry about the fate of her hometown and her fiancé, Camilla turned to the Greek soothsayer, and he predicted to her that the dispute between Alba and Rome would end peacefully the next day, and she would unite with Curiatius, never to be separated again. The dream that Camilla had that same night dispelled the sweet deception of the prediction: in her dream she saw a cruel massacre and piles of dead bodies.
When suddenly the Curiatia, alive and unharmed, appears before Camilla, the girl decides that for the sake of love for her, the noble Albanian sacrificed his duty to his homeland, and in no way condemns the lover.
But it turns out that everything is not so: when the armies came together for battle, the leader of the Albanians turned to the Roman king Tull with the words that it was necessary to avoid fratricide, - after all, the Romans and Albanians belong to the same people and are connected by numerous family ties; he proposed to resolve the dispute by a duel of three fighters from each army, with the condition that the city whose warriors were defeated would become a subject of the victorious city. The Romans gladly accepted the offer of the Albanian leader.
By the choice of the Romans, three Horace brothers will have to fight for the honor of their hometown. Curiatius envies the great fate of the Horatii - to exalt their homeland or lay down their lives for it - and regrets that no matter the outcome of the duel, he will have to mourn either the humiliated Alba or his dead friends. Horace, the embodiment of Roman virtues, does not understand how one can grieve for someone who died for the glory of his native country.
An Albanian warrior finds his friends speaking such speeches, bringing the news that Alba has chosen three Curiatius brothers as her defenders. Curiatius is proud that it was he and his brothers who were chosen by his compatriots, but at the same time, in his heart he would like to avoid this new blow of fate - the need to fight with his sister’s husband and the bride’s brother. Horace, on the contrary, warmly welcomes the choice of the Albanians, who destined him for an even more exalted lot: it is a great honor to fight for the fatherland, but at the same time overcome the ties of blood and human affections - few have ever achieved such perfect glory.
Camilla tries with all her might to dissuade Curiatius from entering into a fratricidal duel, conjures him in the name of their love and almost achieves success, but the noble Albanian still finds the strength not to betray duty for the sake of love.
Sabina, unlike her relative, does not think of dissuading her brother and husband from the duel, but only wants this duel not to become fratricidal - for this she must die, and with her death the family ties connecting the Horatii and Curiatians will be broken.
The appearance of old Horace stops the heroes' conversations with women. The honored patrician commands his son and son-in-law, relying on the judgment of the gods, to hasten to fulfill their high duty.
Sabina is trying to overcome her emotional grief, convincing herself that no matter who falls in battle, the main thing is not who brought him death, but in the name of what; she inspires herself that she will certainly remain a faithful sister if her brother kills her husband, or a loving wife if her husband kills her brother. But everything is in vain: Sabina admits again and again that in the winner she will first of all see the murderer of the person dear to her.
Sabina's sorrowful thoughts are interrupted by Julia, who brought her news from the battlefield: as soon as six fighters came out to meet each other, a murmur swept through both armies: both the Romans and the Albanians were outraged by the decision of their leaders, who doomed the Horatii and the Curiatii to a criminal fratricidal duel. King Tullus heeded the voice of the people and announced that sacrifices should be made in order to find out from the entrails of animals whether the choice of fighters was pleasing to the gods or not.
Hope again settles in the hearts of Sabina and Camilla, but not for long - old Horace informs them that, by the will of the gods, their brothers entered into battle with each other. Seeing the grief this news plunged the women into, and wanting to strengthen their hearts, the father of the heroes starts talking about the greatness of the lot of his sons, performing feats for the glory of Rome; Roman women - Camilla by birth, Sabina by marriage - both of them at this moment should only think about the triumph of their homeland...
Appearing again before her friends, Julia tells them that two sons of old Horace fell from the swords of the Albanians, while the third, Sabina’s husband, is fleeing; Julia did not wait for the outcome of the fight, because it was obvious.
Julia's story strikes old Horace to the heart. Having paid tribute to the two gloriously deceased defenders of Rome, he swears that the third son, whose cowardice covered the hitherto honest name of the Horatii with indelible shame, will die by his own hand. No matter how Sabina and Camilla ask him to moderate his anger, the old patrician is implacable.
Valery, a noble young man whose love was rejected by Camilla, comes to old Horace as a messenger from the king. He starts talking about the surviving Horace and, to his surprise, hears from the old man terrible curses against the one who saved Rome from shame. Only with difficulty interrupting the bitter outpourings of the patrician, Valery talks about what, having prematurely left the city wall, Julia did not see: Horace’s flight was not a manifestation of cowardice, but a military ploy - running away from the wounded and tired Curiatii, Horace thus separated them and fought with each in turn, one on one, until all three fell from his sword.
Old Horace is triumphant, he is filled with pride for his sons - both those who survived and those who laid down their heads on the battlefield. Camilla, struck by the news of the death of her lover, is consoled by her father, appealing to reason and fortitude, which have always adorned Roman women.
But Camilla is inconsolable. And not only is her happiness sacrificed to the greatness of proud Rome, this very Rome demands that she hide her grief and, together with everyone else, rejoice in the victory won at the cost of crime. No, this will not happen, Camilla decides, and when Horace appears before her, expecting praise from his sister for his feat, he unleashes a stream of curses on him for killing his groom. Horace could not imagine that in the hour of triumph of the fatherland one could be killed after the death of its enemy; when does Camilla begin to use her last words to vilify Rome and call for hometown terrible curses, his patience comes to an end - with the sword with which her fiancé was killed shortly before, he stabs his sister.
Horace is sure that he did the right thing - Camilla ceased to be his sister and her father’s daughter the moment she cursed her homeland. Sabina asks her husband to stab her too, because she, too, contrary to her duty, grieves for her dead brothers, envying the fate of Camilla, whom death saved from hopeless grief and united with her beloved. It takes a lot of effort for Horace not to fulfill his wife’s request.
Old Horace does not condemn his son for the murder of his sister - having betrayed Rome with her soul, she deserved death; but at the same time, by executing Camilla, Horace irrevocably ruined his honor and glory. The son agrees with his father and asks him to pass a sentence - whatever it may be, Horace agrees with him in advance.
In order to personally honor the father of the heroes, King Tullus arrives at the Horatii’s house. He praises the valor of old Horace, whose spirit was not broken by the death of his three children, and speaks with regret about the villainy that overshadowed the feat of the last of his surviving sons. However, there is no talk of the fact that this crime should be punished until Valery takes the floor.
Appealing to royal justice, Valery speaks of the innocence of Camilla, who succumbed to a natural impulse of despair and anger, that Horace not only killed a blood relative for no reason, which in itself is terrible, but also violated the will of the gods, sacrilegiously desecrating the glory bestowed by them.
Horace does not even think of defending himself or making excuses - he asks the king for permission to pierce himself with his own sword, but not to atone for the death of his sister, for she deserved it, but in the name of saving his honor and the glory of the savior of Rome.
Wise Tullus also listens to Sabina. She asks to be executed, which will mean the execution of Horace, since husband and wife are one; her death - which Sabina seeks as deliverance, unable to either selflessly love the murderer of her brothers or reject her beloved - will satisfy the wrath of the gods, while her husband will be able to continue to bring glory to the fatherland.
When everyone who had something to say spoke out, Tull pronounced his verdict: although Horace committed an atrocity usually punishable by death, he is one of those few heroes who, on decisive days, serve as a reliable stronghold for their sovereigns; These heroes are not subject to the general law, and therefore Horace will live and continue to be jealous of the glory of Rome.
Retold
In very distant times, when the most developed countries today did not exist, there were two main states, Rome and Alba, and they were allies and trading partners. One day they did not share something, and their once strong friendship turned into great enmity. Now the formidable army of Alba has approached the walls of Rome and finally longs for a great war.
The wife of one Roman Horace was named Sabina. During this fight, she was faced with a choice, because it was at this moment that the life of her Alba, as well as her three beloved Curiatii brothers, was being decided. She understands that because of the war they will have to fight against her husband.
Horace's sister, whose name is Camilla, also has a hard time. After all, one of the brothers is her fiancé. He will have to fight Horace. Her friend, whose name is Julia, says that she should not root for her beloved groom, but for the victory of Rome in this difficult and bloody battle.
In order to find out the results of this difficult and one of the most brutal wars of that time, Camilla decides to go to the mysterious and mysterious soothsayer. Using his miraculous abilities, he informs the excited Camilla that everything will end in the best way for her personally. Unfortunately, Camilla saw a terrible and nightmare dream in which everyone dies after the end of the war.
The smart and wise ruler of strong Rome named Tullus, as well as the strong and persistent leader of Alba, together decide on an unusual way to sort things out. From each city, only the three strongest and most courageous warriors will come together in battle. The winners of this type of duel will take power over the city.
Unfortunately for the main character, the choice of three warriors happened to be her three Horatii brothers. They were chosen in order to protect the city from foreigners and defend the Rome that is dear to them. But for Alba, three Curatia brothers were also chosen. Now they have to try to capture Rome and thereby show that they are excellent warriors. All of them are faced with a very difficult choice that not everyone would make. They need to win and protect Rome, but at the same time they are relatives to each other. Horace has made his choice and now he is ready for a real fight to the death.
Camilla, as a loving wife, dissuades him from this mortal battle, but honor and valor for Curatius are much more significant and he still goes to battle.
So that Horace and Curatia would not be disgraced with the stigma of fratricide, Sabina makes a terrible and terrible decision to die in order to interrupt the family relationship connecting them.
Horace, no longer young, tells his own son and son-in-law to fulfill their duty and fight each other to the death.
Sabina realizes that in any case, no matter who wins the fight, she will only see the winner as a killer who will bring her a lot of pain and suffering.
The valiant Romans and Albins are also not particularly happy with this cruel state of affairs; they do not want two families connected by family ties to enter into battle. The wise leaders of the two states decide to ask the gods for permission and therefore make a sacrifice to them. For one moment, Sabina had hope for a good outcome, but it fades away very quickly, as the Gods decided that there would be a fratricidal duel.
Julia comes and reports information from the battlefield and it says that two of Horace’s brothers died in battle, and the third fled in disgrace. Old Horace curses him and says that he is disgraced. After which Valery arrives, who reports that the surviving patrician used a special tactic and lured them one by one into a trap and there killed them all with a sword.
His father changes his curses to praises, Camilla is upset and full of sadness and is not at all happy that Rome will continue to exist. Unable to bear it, she decides to tell everything to her heroically victorious brother, he cannot stand it all and kills her. Now Sabina also wants to die, so as not to be saddened by the death of her brothers.
Horace, having committed all these atrocities, asks the king's permission to kill himself with a sword.
The wise king Tullus says that supposedly the hero Horace will live, since he violated all permitted norms in order to protect his own homeland. And this is higher than everything else that exists in the world.
Picture or drawing Corneille - Horace
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