Pushkin's Lyceum period. Pushkin's works in the lyceum period

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

Pushkin did not chase inspiration. He could write anytime and anywhere - on a walk, in class, in the garden, during prayer. In the poem “To My Aristarchus,” the 16-year-old poet tells how his poems are born: “I’ll think, I’ll wave my hands, I’ll suddenly speak in rhymes.”

Erased childhood from memory. I remembered only Lyceum

If we consider such a thing as Pushkin's biography, the lyceum period is where to start. It is this stage of life that describes the formation of a classic in the field of a poet. Until the age of seven, Pushkin grew up as a closed, gloomy, silent, clumsy boy, with a cloudy look and sluggish reactions to everything. At times he gave the impression of being almost mentally handicapped.

And Sasha was just an unloved child. He did not receive a drop of tenderness from his parents. Both Nadezhda Osipovna and Sergei Lvovich were treated kindly by sister Olga and especially the younger brother Levushka. Isn't that why Pushkin's poems of the Lyceum period do not contain the image of a loving mother?

Only babysitter and grandmother

And about the nanny Arina Rodionovna and her fairy tales in the lyceum period of Pushkin, we have heard a lot. The muse in the poem "Dream" appears in the form of "mother". It was inspired by memories of Arina Rodionovna. Exactlyshe also became the prototype of the nanny Orina Egorovna in the story "Dubrovsky".

And Arina Rodionovna's son-in-law Nikita Timofeevich, who became the boy's "uncle" and sincerely loved him, resembles the faithful servant Savelich from The Captain's Daughter. Kozlov, who so devotedly loved his barchuk Sasha all his life, will see him off on his last journey to the cemetery of the Svyatogorsk monastery. These people are one of the few who truly appreciated the poet for who he was.

Night Readings

The change in young Pushkin happened abruptly, thanks to the fact that he had a nanny with her love, care and fairy tales. Communication with grandmother Maria Alekseevna Gannibal, in whose village the teenager spent the summer, also influenced.

Sasha was unrecognisable. He no longer sat crouched in a corner, but ran around the rooms, jumping over chairs, laughing out loud. Became a fidget, fidget. Or Cricket, as his peers at the Lyceum later called him.

He had an early interest in literature. At the age of eight, he read fluently and wrote well. At night, he secretly made his way to his father's huge library and leafed through books by ancient authors, French, Russian. At the same age he began to compose. The first works were in French. These are epigrams for their tutors and teachers. According to Leva's brother, he had an excellent memory and at the age of 11 "knew all French literature by heart."

I don't know what will become of my eldest grandson

So said Maria Alekseevna, who loved Sasha very much, and he was very attached to her. She was worried about the futureboy. The grandson, although he was a hunter for books, studied poorly. Lecturers complained that he was also windy, frivolous. Maria Alekseevna was worried about how his life would go if he did not change.

Thank God, Sasha has changed! But this transformation of a quiet girl into a teenager with an ardent temperament brought a lot of trouble to the family. Neither tutors nor parents could curb him. And there was an idea to give the boy to a closed educational institution with a strict regime. They chose the prestigious, newly opened Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.

12-year-old Sasha successfully passed the entrance exams. Moreover, if we talk briefly about Pushkin's lyceum period, he arrived there with a stock of a variety of life experiences and knowledge gleaned from books. His "first and invaluable friend" Ivan Pushchin recalled that his classmates were quite surprised to learn that Alexander Sergeevich was ahead of them in his development.

Strict and did not smell

However, there was no special strictness in the Lyceum. Even corporal punishment during the lyceum period of Pushkin were abolished, unlike other educational institutions. In general, the atmosphere was liberal, democratic.

Teaching Cricket was easy. Teachers of subjects that Pushkin did not like did not make any special demands on him. So, the mathematics teacher, knowing Sasha's attitude to this science, only scolded him.

But Pushkin adored Russian and foreign literature. And as always, I read a lot of fiction, historical books.

Friends-lyceum students created their own literary circle. Issued handwrittenmagazines, played games based on the works of the classics of the time.

Thanks to this, Pushkin, whose other nickname was French (as he shone with knowledge of this language), fell in love with his native speech. So much so that he later created the modern Russian style of writing.

Pushkin's lyceum period's poems are witty, well-aimed epigrams, skits, lyrics. He even began the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila". But he finished only three years after leaving the Lyceum - in 1820.

Friends, our union is beautiful

For the first time in his life, he was surrounded by people who respected and admired him. “Friends, our union is beautiful!” - he wrote to his classmates. It was during the lyceum period of Pushkin that such an important change took place in his life: the “luxury of human communication” was acquired.

His comrades, together with Professor Alexander Kunitsyn, who read 12 subjects at once, and Alexander Galich, a teacher of Latin and Russian literature, heatedly discussed the events of the Patriotic War of 1812. It began a year after they entered the Lyceum. Together they searched for the meaning of life, each for their own purpose, serving a higher purpose.

In the history of world literature, there has never been such a thing that one of the poets or writers in his works devoted so much space to his alma mater, as Pushkin did to his Lyceum. Years later, he even drew a Lyceum on the manuscript of Eugene Onegin.

This educational institution is displayed in his poems, early and late, messages to friends, on the pagesimperishable novels, in dedications to school anniversaries.

In the gardens of the Lyceum, the Muse began to appear to me

Pushkin's Lyceum period lasted six years, from 1811 to 1817. He began writing seriously at the age of 13. And also early hit the print media. In the July issue of Vestnik Evropy, the 15-year-old poet's opus appeared for the first time under the title "To a Poetic Friend". True, he put the pseudonym "Alexander N.k.sh.p." Modern philologists have deciphered it: these were the consonants of his last name, but in reverse order. In this manner, his uncle, Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, signed some of his poems. He just threw out all the vowels - P.sh.k.n.

Pushkin's poems of the lyceum period, according to a great connoisseur of his work, Boris Tomashevsky, show that he has completely mastered the technique of poetry. And what he wrote at the age of 13 was a milestone, a turn in fate.

120 poems reached

During the lyceum period, many poems were created in Pushkin's work. 120 have come down to us. The topics are different, from love for the motherland, the high appointment of the poet, to love for a woman. He drew inspiration from everywhere. And also, among the poets of France of the XVII-XVIII centuries. He was attracted to Guys and Voltaire. That is why the works of Pushkin in the lyceum period combine the interweaving of French classicism with Russian.

The poem "To Natalia", written in 1813, has a specific addressee. This is a serf actress of the theater, the owner of which in Tsarskoe Selo was Count V. Tolstoy. And the lyceum student Pushkin was in love with Natalia.

The lyceum period in Pushkin's work is associated with a huge number of works about true friendship. These are "On the seventeenth birthday of I. Pushchin", and "Feasting students", and poems in honor of beloved teachers.

Thanks to the imitation of Zhukovsky, who led the course of romanticism in Russia, the lyceum period in Pushkin's life is characterized by writing elegies on the theme of unrequited love, separation, and early death. However, all this fashionable imitation did not prevent the poet himself from completely indulging in the joys of a young life.

Friendship with the greats

The lyceum period in Pushkin's life is inextricably linked with the appearance in the poet's life of real teachers who determined his future path. Alexander was accepted into the Arzamas circle of advanced writers. These were supporters of a new trend in literature, "Karamzin's". It involved fighting against outdated writing rules and traditions.

Pushkin establishes creative and friendly relations with the outstanding poets of that time Vasily Zhukovsky and Pyotr Vyazemsky. And he himself learns from them.

He was also interested in the poems of Konstantin Batyushkov, a popular master of "light poetry". When he left his writing for a while, the young poet did not hesitate to send a message to the master. It was called "To Batyushkov". Yes, it's so great that he, having read it, came to the Lyceum to meet the author. But after the conversation, to remarks about the poems of the youngest poet, Pushkin replied with another message: “I am wandering my own way. Be everyone to your own.”

Old man Derzhavin noticed us

His lyrics are not yet completely independent, more and more imitative. It has a lot of stamps, clichés. But, without abandoning chamber poetry, Pushkin is already turning to the themes of civic sound. These are, first of all, the well-known "Memories in Tsarskoye Selo". The work is dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812.

The young Pushkin read the poem under unusual conditions. In January 1815, an open exam in Russian literature was held at the Lyceum for students who were moving from the first year to the second. It was compulsory to read their own works.

Guests were invited to the exam. There were many spectators in the hall, of course - the parents of the lyceum students and the very famous Gavriil Derzhavin.

Listening to Pushkin, the patriarch was delighted. “Yes, this is true poetry!” he exclaimed, and with tears in his eyes he wanted to embrace the author as his most worthy successor. But Sasha was very embarrassed and ran away.

Wandering my way

The characteristic features of Pushkin's lyceum period are clearly visible in the poem "Licinia", where the life of Russia, headed by despot Arakcheev, is critically displayed. The poet writes the story "Bova", poetry is represented by the works "Unbelief", "Napoleon on the Elbe" - under the impression of the emperor's flight from the island. Also epigrams. For example, "Two Alexander Pavlovich". Here he compares Tsar Alexander I with his namesake, the tutor from the Lyceum - "a vile and vile fool."

To sum up Pushkin's lyceum period briefly, there is less and less in his poemsimitation, a bold, fresh and strong voice breaks through more and more.

The masterpieces that will allow us to call Alexander Sergeevich "the sun of our poetry" are still ahead. However, it was the young years of the poet that were the base, thanks to which he received his ideas about genuine literature.