Genres of sentimentalism. Features of sentimentalism in literature

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

The genres of sentimentalism, in contrast to the classic ones, called the reader to the knowledge of simple human feelings, to the naturalness and kindness of the inner state, to merge with wildlife. And if classicism worshiped only reason, building the whole existence on logic, system (according to Boileau's theory of poetry), the sentimentalist artist was free in feeling, expressing it, in flight of imagination. Born in protest against the dryness of reason inherent in the Enlightenment, all genres of sentimentalism carry not what they inherited from culture, but what the depths of the soul get from their bottom.

Prerequisites for the emergence of sentimentalism

The absolutist regime of feudalism fell into the deepest crisis. Social values were replaced by values embodied in the human personality, and all-class ones at that. Sentimentalism is the definition in literature of the moods of the widest sections of society with the most powerful anti-feudal pathos.

The third estate, economically we althy, but socially and politically disenfranchised, activated against the aristocracy and the clergy. It was there, in the third estate, that the famous was born:"Freedom, equality, brotherhood" - which has become the slogan of all revolutions. The social culture of society demanded democratization.

The rationalistic worldview postulates the primacy of the idea, hence the ideological nature of the crisis. Absolute monarchy as one of the forms of state structure fell into decay. The idea of monarchism was discredited, and the idea of an enlightened monarch was discredited, too, since practically none of them corresponded to the real needs of society.

Cultural Conquest

The possibilities of the bourgeoisie by the second half of the 18th century had increased so much that it began to dictate terms to all other classes, especially through culture. Being a supporter of the ideas of progress, she extended them to literature and art.

Moreover, she occupied them with representatives of her own environment: Rousseau - from the family of a watchmaker, Voltaire - a notary, Diderot - a craftsman … There is no point in remembering artists, since they are completely the third estate, one and only.

Although in all sectors of society in the 18th century, democratic sentiment grew by leaps and bounds, not only in the third estate. It was these moods that demanded other heroes from the late Enlightenment, a special atmosphere and new feelings. However, the genres of sentimentalism in literature were not newcomers. Elegiac lyrics, epistolary genre, memoirs - all well-known forms were filled with new content.

The main features of sentimentalism in literature

As an alternative to the rationalistic principle of the Enlightenmentin philosophy, another means of world perception is clarified: not by the mind, but by the heart, that is, referring to the category of sensations and feelings. Literature is precisely the field where all genres of sentimentalism flourished.

Sentimentalists were sure that a person by nature should be alien to prudence and rationality, he is close to the natural environment, which, through the cultivation of feelings, bestows inner harmony. Virtue must be natural, they wrote, and only with a high degree of sensitivity can mankind obtain real happiness. The main genres of sentimentalism in literature were therefore chosen according to the principle of intimacy: pastoral, idyll, travel, personal diaries or letters.

Reliance on natural principles (education of feelings) and staying in the natural environment - in nature - these are the two pillars on which all genres of sentimentalism are based.

Technical and social progress, state, society, history, education - these words in line with sentimentalism are mostly abusive. Progress as the foundation on which Encyclopedic scientists built the Age of Enlightenment was considered superfluous and very harmful, and any manifestations of civilization were disastrous for humanity. As a minimum, private rural life was ascended to the cult, and as a maximum, life was primitive and as wild as possible.

The genres of sentimentalism did not contain the heroic stories of the past. Everyday life, simplicity of impressions filled them. Instead of bright passions, the struggle of vices and virtues, sentimentalism in the literature of the 18th century presented purity of feelings and we alth.inner world of an ordinary person. Most often a native of the third estate, the origin is sometimes very low. Sentimentalism, the definition of democratic pathos in the literature, completely denies the class differences imposed by civilization.

The inner world of man: a different look

Completing the Age of Enlightenment, the new direction, of course, did not go far from enlightenment principles. Nevertheless, sentimentalism and classicism in literature are easy to distinguish: among classic writers, the character is unambiguous, in character - the predominance of one trait, an obligatory moral assessment.

Sentimentalists, on the other hand, showed the hero as an inexhaustible and contradictory personality. He could combine both genius and villainy, since from birth both good and evil are embedded in him. Moreover, nature is a good beginning, civilization is evil. A monosyllabic assessment most often does not suit the actions of the hero of a sentimentalist work. He may well be a villain, but no one is absolute, because he always has the opportunity to listen to nature and return to the path of good.

It is this didacticism, and sometimes bias, that sentimentalism is firmly connected with the era that gave birth to it.

Cult of feeling and subjectivism

The main genres of sentimentalism are highly related to the subject, in this way they are most fully able to show the movements of the human heart. These are novels in letters, these are elegies, diaries, memoirs and everything that allows you to tell in the first person.

Author notmoves away from the subject he depicts, and his reflection is the most important element of the narrative. The structure is also freer, the literary canons do not constrain the imagination, the composition is arbitrary, and as many lyrical digressions as you like.

Born in the tenth years on the shores of England, the main genres of sentimentalism by the second half of the century had already flourished throughout Europe. Most brightly - in England, France, Germany and Russia.

England

The lyrics were the first to let into their lines the features of sentimentalism in literature. The most prominent representatives are: a follower of the classicist theorist Nicolas Boileau - James Thomson, who dedicated his elegies full of pessimism to English nature; the founder of "graveyard" poetics Edward Jung; Scotsman Robert Blair supported the theme with the poem "The Grave" and Thomas Gray with an elegy composed in a rural cemetery. For all these authors, the main idea is the equality of people before Death.

Then - and most fully - the features of sentimentalism in literature manifested themselves in the genre of the novel. Samuel Richardson broke decisively with the tradition of the adventure, adventure, and picaresque novel by writing a novel in letters. Lawrence Stern became the "father" of the direction after writing the novel "Mr. Yorick's Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy", which gave the name to the direction. The peak of critical English sentimentalism is rightfully considered the work of Oliver Goldsmith.

France

The most classic form of sentimentalism is seen in the first third of the eighteenth century in France. De Marivaux was at the very origins of such prose, describing the life of Marianne and the peasant who came out into the world. Abbé Prevost enriched the palette of feelings described by literature - passion leading to disaster.

The culmination of sentimentalism in France is Jean-Jacques Rousseau with his epistolary novels. Nature in his writings is valuable in itself, man is natural. The novel "Confession" is the most frank autobiography in world literature.

De Saint-Pierre, a student of Rousseau, continued to substantiate the truth that the main genres of sentimentalism preach: the happiness of man in harmony with virtue and nature. He also anticipated the flowering of the "exotic" in romanticism, depicting tropical lands beyond distant seas.

Also did not give up the position of the followers of Rousseau and J.-S. Mercier, pushing together in the novel "The Savage" the primitive (ideal) and civilizational forms of existence. Mercier identified the fruits of civilization as a publicist in "The Picture of Paris".

The self-taught writer de La Bretonne (two hundred volumes of writings!) is one of Rousseau's most devoted followers. He wrote about how destructive the urban environment is, turning a moral and pure young man into a criminal, and also discussed the ideas of pedagogy in terms of women's education and upbringing.

With the beginning of the revolutions, the features of sentimentalism in literature naturally disappeared. The genres of sentimentalism in literature have been enriched with new realities.

Germany

A new look at literature in Germany was formed under the influence of G.-E. Lessing. It all started with a polemic between the professors of the University of Zurich Bodmer and Breutinger with an ardent adherent of classicism - the German Gottsched. The Swiss stood up for poetic fantasy, but the German did not agree.

F.-G. Klopstock strengthened the position of sentimentalism with the help of folklore: medieval German traditions were easily intertwined with the feelings of the German heart. But the heyday of German sentimentalism came only in the seventies of the 18th century in connection with the work on the creation of a national original literature by members of the Sturm und Drang movement.

I.-V. Goethe. "The suffering of young Werther" Goethe poured provincial German literature into the pan-European. The dramas of I.-F. Schiller.

Russia

Russian sentimentalism was discovered by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin - "Letters from a Russian Traveler", "Poor Liza" are masterpieces of sentimental prose. Sensitivity, melancholy, suicidal tendencies - the main features of sentimentalism in literature - were combined by Karamzin with many other innovations. He became the founder of a group of Russian writers who fought against the grandiloquent archaism of the style and for a new poetic language. I. I. Dmitriev, V. A. Zhukovsky and others belonged to this group.