Physiological essay: description of a social class, its life, environment, customs and values

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Certain shifts in public consciousness in the middle of the nineteenth century caused the emergence of such a genre as a physiological essay. Nekrasov and Belinsky, creating almanacs of the so-called new school, seemed to be trying to return the literary activity of Russia to the militant adherence to principles of the Ryleev and Bestuzhev "Polar Star". A fairly large group of writers was united by the advanced ideology of that time, so the understanding of creative tasks has changed radically.

Problems of realism

Revolutionary nobles have long been replaced by revolutionary democrats, so civic romanticism has been replaced by realistic creativity. The physiological sketch has become one of the brightest signs of the pre-revolutionary period. The very word"physiology" was not applied to literature by the creators and adherents of the new school. It appeared much earlier.

F. Back in 1841, Koni published miniature ironic sketches with funny titles in the Literary Gazette: "Physiology of Female Beauty", "Physiology of the Nose", for example. Translators of the same years brought from French "Physiology of the Parisian Theaters" and "Physiology of a Married Man".

The modern understanding of this word does not at all correspond to what Nekrasov's contemporaries meant by it. Russian literature of the 19th century saw it as a study of everyday life and customs in a certain professional or social environment.

Physiology of Petersburg

Writers-researchers of a new trend in literature decided to address the reader with the physiology of St. Petersburg. And not the official, front side of this largest commercial and administrative center, they creatively considered, but the life of its social bottom. The physiological essay as a genre was replenished with meticulously written pictures of the common people's life, moreover, its most distant backstage sides, that is, nooks and slums.

So, Vladimir Dal brought an essay about the St. Petersburg janitor, Ivan Ivanovich Panaev described the St. Petersburg feuilletonist, Alexander Kulchitsky - the St. Petersburg omnibus, and Evgeny Grebenka - the St. Petersburg side … The writers had to plunge into this nature with their heads in order to consider as carefully as possible all the details are not very familiarim the bottom world.

A world of details

The physiological essay in the Russian literature of that time was not good because it was too closely interested in physiology, that is, this interest became self-sufficient. The depiction of everyday, portrait, speech or psychological details completely overwhelmed the most important tasks of the writer, even expressing sympathy for the poor was not always possible.

Such falls into naturalism - in the narrowest sense of the term - made the writer vulnerable to criticism. Although the artistic development of social life, of course, was moving forward. Moral descriptiveness became not only the problematic of the work, but also the genre and composition.

The characters of the characters were revealed by describing the everyday way of life, the narrative was given less and less space, the plot construction came to naught, since the outline prevailed - separate paintings and everyday scenes connected not by a plot, not by a single action, but by one ideological problem.

Physiology of the peasantry

The genre of the physiological essay was rapidly becoming fashionable, becoming a new word in the literature of the 1840s. Petersburg writers were not limited. Interest in the life of a peasant, his serf share was also very great. Young writers especially distinguished themselves in the disclosure of this topic: Grigorovich ("Anton Goremyka" and "Village"), Dal ("Russian peasant"), Herzen ("The Thieving Magpie").

Special noteNekrasov and his poem "On the Road", where the image of an ordinary peasant woman, although very gifted, but ruined by serfdom, is very talentedly conveyed. Ivan Turgenev also well joined the direction of realism with the physiology of the Russian village, who from 1847 began to publish essays from landowner and peasant life.

Sympathy for criticism

Belinsky was very sympathetic to the development of the new genre. He tried to theoretically substantiate the appearance, originality and necessity of such a phenomenon as a physiological essay. Its definition as one of the genres of journalism or essays that explores a certain social class, as well as its foundations, values and habitat, is given in the review articles of the critic, where he characterizes new stories from the life of the peasantry. Usually Belinsky highly appreciated the works of writers in this genre.

Compositional features received his special attention. Belinsky believed that a physiological essay should not become either a story or a novel. So, criticizing Grigorovich, he noted the writer's talent for essays on social life, but reproached The Village for its narrative. The disadvantages of this work, according to Belinsky, is that in the essay all the pictures of rural life should be outwardly devoid of any connection, but should breathe with one thought.

Everyday essay

A new direction in literature did not take shape immediately, both the participants and the main trends in creativity were revealed gradually. Belinsky was sure that everyday writing began with Gogol, who introduced new and sobright elements that gave rise to many imitators, it was Gogol who showed society the true contemplation of the Russian novel, and therefore it was from him that a new period of our literature began.

From the followers of Nikolai Vasilievich, Belinsky singled out Vladimir Sollogub with his stories "Two Students", "The Story of Two Galoshes", "The Bear" and "Pharmacist". Sollogub, this conservative aristocrat, saw the emptiness of secular life, contrasting it with the sincerity and honesty of people from the lower class. Belinsky noted that Sollogub does not have deep faith and ardent convictions, therefore, in places the image turns out to be indifferent. However, the simplicity and precise sense of reality present make Sollogub's stories extremely valuable.

Educational role

The features of the physiological sketch in "Oblomov's Dream" are especially clearly visible. The character of the hero is guessed by all the things described by Goncharov that surround him. Everything seems to be good, but even goodness does not speak of Oblomov's satisfaction with his own life. His current position is empty and miserable, and the hero is aware of this.

He dreams of his childhood, which was spent in the patriarchal Oblomovka, where an inquisitive and frisky little boy was not even allowed to dress himself. Only servants work there. The dream takes Oblomov to a moment in his life that is not so noticeable, but a turning point. As in childhood, Oblomov, now aware of everything, and waking up, did not turn anywhere.

Unfulfilled hopes

Werewriters whom Belinsky resolutely put in the forefront of Russian literature, despite the fact that he himself saw some shortcomings in writing them, but he was sure that the writers could overcome everything.

The critic's hope was, for example, I. I. Panaev, whose stories "The Lady", "Onagr", "Akteon" and others were called no less than the most remarkable phenomena of Russian literature of the 19th century. He noted that in these stories there are exceptionally many true, characteristic, deftly and tenaciously grasped. Belinsky also saw something hesitant, indecisive, unsteady, but he explained this by the immaturity of his remarkable talent. In fact, these were the properties of the author's thinking, which he never managed to overcome.

The critic also extolled the stories of V. I. He generally contributed the story "Batman" to the treasury of Russian literature. And he enthusiastically repeated that after Gogol, Dal was the only first talent, a true poet of a physiological essay. In fact, Dal is not great at all for fiction, and the future quickly set priorities.

Fantasy world vs hard truth

It is now we all know that there is the truth of life and the truth of literature, and it is absolutely true that the second art is much more expensive. And in the nineteenth century, writers walked the unbeaten path in search of true literary realism. Belinsky wrote about the huge difference between the direction, manner, content and spirit of the literature of the old and new schools. The old stories depicted the world of fantasy, and the new ones depicted real life.

The new school took shape organizationally when even younger writers joined Belinsky - Grigorovich, Nekrasov, a little later - Dostoevsky. Then three almanacs were collected and published under the editorship of Nekrasov: two volumes of "Physiology of Petersburg" and "Petersburg Collection", which became a kind of manifesto of this literary trend. It contained both a list of creative principles (Belinsky's foreword) and the path of creative implementation.

Naturally, this rather primitive genre was not left without masterpieces - with such and such authors. Here, first of all, it is necessary to name Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter": when all the principles of writing a physiological essay were followed, all eight genre paintings turned out to be examples of the highest poetic word. Plus - the anti-serfdom thought that accompanies the reader throughout the "Notes".

Old new magazine

Since 1847, the completely renewed "Sovremennik" began to appear, which became the organ of the most advanced Russian literary movement. Despite the change of chief editors (zits-chairmen), N. A. Nekrasov ruled the magazine entirely. For twenty years this magazine was the most popular in the country.

The works published in Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski were clearly wider and more completephysiological essay, and the creative techniques used by the authors were not limited to everyday details of the characters' lives. Goncharov's "Ordinary History" was published here, and the second part of Herzen's excellent novel "Who is to blame?" was published here. The entire novel was published as an appendix to Sovremennik. ME S altykov (not yet Shchedrin) appeared with his first stories. And Fyodor Dostoevsky. Russian literature of the 19th century, through a physiological essay, found and mastered a new direction, not a school, - realism.