Pushkin's romantic lyrics. The southern period in the life and work of A. S. Pushkin

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

Pushkin's romantic lyrics are poems created during the period of southern exile. It was a difficult time for Alexander Sergeevich. He was in southern exile from 1820 to 1824. In May 1820, the poet was expelled from the capital. Officially, Alexander Sergeevich was only sent to a new duty station, but in fact he became an exile. The period of the southern exile is divided into 2 segments - before and after 1823. They are separated by the crisis that occurred in 1823.

Influence of Byron and Chenier

In these years, Pushkin's romantic lyrics are considered dominant. Alexander Sergeevich in the south got acquainted with the works of Byron (his portrait is presented above), one of the best poets of this direction. Alexander Sergeevich began to embody in his lyrics the character of the so-called "Byronian" type. This is a disappointed individualist and a freedom-loving dreamer. It was Byron's influence that determined the creative content of Pushkin's poetry.southern period. However, it is wrong to associate this time solely with the influence of the English poet.

Pushkin in the south was influenced not only by Byron, but also by Chenier (the portrait is presented above), who worked in the system of classicism. Therefore, the work of 1820-24. develops from the contradiction between these two directions. Alexander Sergeevich tried to reconcile them. In his poetic system, there is a synthesis of classicism and romanticism, the expression of psychological experiences, emotional subjectivity in a clear and precise word.

General characteristics of Pushkin's work of the southern period

The works written in 1820-1824 are distinguished by frank lyricism. Pushkin's romantic lyrics of the period of his southern exile lose the patina of apprenticeship, characteristic of the early period of his work. The didacticism characteristic of civil poems also disappears. Genre normativity disappears from the works, and their structure is simplified. Features of Pushkin's romantic lyrics also relate to his attitude to his contemporary. Alexander Sergeevich draws his psychological portrait. He correlates the contemporary emotionally with his own character, poetically reproduced. Basically, the personality of the poet appears in the elegiac tone. The main themes that mark Pushkin's romantic lyrics are the thirst for freedom, the feeling of new impressions, the feeling of will, the spontaneous and contrasting everyday life. Gradually, the main theme becomes the desire to show the internal incentives for the behavior of a freedom-loving hero.

Twoexile

Pushkin's romantic lyrics during his southern exile have other characteristic features. In particular, in the elegies of Alexander Sergeevich, a specific image (based on biographical circumstances) of an unwilling exile appears. However, a conditionally generalized image of a voluntary exile appears next to him. He is associated with Ovid, the Roman poet, and with Childe Harold (Byron's hero). Pushkin rethinks his biography. It was no longer he who was exiled to the south, but Alexander Sergeevich himself left the stuffy society of the capital, following his own moral quest.

The light of day went out…

The intonation of elegiac meditation, which will become dominant in all of Pushkin's romantic lyrics, is already observed in the first poem created in the south. This is a work of 1820 "The daylight went out …". At the center of the elegy is the personality of the author, who is entering a new stage in his life. The main motive is the rebirth of the soul, which yearns for moral purification and freedom.

The work sums up the St. Petersburg inner life of the poet. He interprets it as morally unsatisfactory, unfree. Hence there is a contrast between the former life and the expectation of freedom, which is compared with the formidable ocean element. The personality of the author is placed between the "sad shores" and "the distant shore". Pushkin's soul craves spontaneous natural life. It is characterized by an active principle, personified in the image of the ocean.

The significance of this elegy cannot be overestimated. For the first time, the lyrical character of a contemporary appears in the work, presented through self-knowledge, self-observation. This character is created in an emotional way. Pushkin builds a conventionally romantic biography on top of biographical facts, which in some ways coincides with the real one, but in another differs significantly from it.

Pushkin's spiritual crisis of 1823

The radicalism of the public position, characteristic of the author in the early 20s, is replaced by a spiritual crisis. The reason for it is the events of Russian and European life. Pushkin's early romantic lyrics are characterized by a belief in revolution. However, in 1823 the poet had to endure a great disappointment. Alexander Sergeevich took the defeat of the revolutions that took place in Europe hard. Peering into the life of his country, he did not find opportunities for the victory of freedom-loving moods. In the eyes of Pushkin appeared in a new light and "peoples", and "chosen" nature, and "leaders". He condemns all of them, but it is the "leaders" who gradually become the main target of Alexander Sergeevich's ironic reflections. The crisis of 1823 was reflected mainly in the parting of the author with the illusions of enlightenment. Pushkin's disillusionment extended to the role of the chosen personality. She proved unable to fix the environment. The significance of the "chosen ones" was not justified in yet another respect: the people did not follow the "enlighteners". However, Pushkin was dissatisfied with himself, and "illusions", and"false ideals". The disappointment of Alexander Sergeevich sounds especially clearly in the poems "The Demon" and "Freedom, the Desert Sower …", which are analyzed especially often when the theme "Pushkin's Romantic Lyrics" is revealed.

Demon

"The Demon" is a poem written in 1823. At its center is a disappointed person who believes nothing, doubts everything. A negative and gloomy lyrical hero is presented. In "The Demon", the author, with the spirit of doubt and denial, attractive to him, united the spiritual emptiness that does not satisfy him. A disillusioned person who protests against the existing order turns out to be insolvent himself, since he does not have a positive ideal. A skeptical view of reality leads to mortification of the soul.

Freedom sower desert…

In 1823 the poem "Freedom sower of the desert…" was created. The epigraph to this parable was taken by the author from the Gospel of Luke. It is he who informs the work of eternity and universal significance, sets the scale of the poem. The sower of freedom is shown alone. No one responds to his calls and sermons. The desert of the world is dead. The nations do not follow him, do not heed him. The image of the sower is tragic, because he came into the world too early. The word addressed to the nations is thrown to the wind.

Romantic lyrics and romantic poems

Pushkin's romantic lyrics were created by him at the same time as romantic poems. It's about the firsthalf of the 1820s. However, its commonality with romantic poems is not limited to the fact that they were created in the same years. It manifests itself in Alexander Sergeyevich's choice of life material, in the characters of the characters, in the main themes, in style and in the plot. Revealing the main romantic motifs in Pushkin's lyrics, one cannot fail to mention the "foggy homeland" motif. He is one of the main ones, which is not surprising, because the author was in exile.

Foggy homeland motif

One of the most characteristic poems of Alexander Sergeevich, relating to the romantic period, is "The light of day went out …". In it, the motif of the "foggy homeland" is structurally important. We also find it in the work "Prisoner of the Caucasus", the famous poem by Pushkin ("To Russia, a long journey leads …").

Crowd denunciation theme

In the poem "To VF Raevsky" created in 1822, the theme of denunciation of the crowd, characteristic of romantic poetry, sounds. Pushkin contrasts the lyrical hero, tall, capable of feeling and thinking, with the lack of spirituality of people and the life that surrounds him. For the "deaf" and "insignificant" crowd, the "noble" "voice of the heart" is ridiculous.

After analyzing Pushkin's romantic lyrics, one can see that there are similar thoughts in the 1823 poem "My careless ignorance…". Before "fearful", "cold", "vain","cruel" crowd "ridiculous" "noble" voice of truth.

The same theme is revealed in the poem "Gypsies". The author puts his thoughts into the mouth of Aleko. This hero says that people are ashamed of love, trade their will, bow their heads before idols, ask for chains and money.

Thus, the drama of a disappointed hero, the opposition to the inner freedom of a person’s lack of freedom, as well as the rejection of the world with its slavish feelings and vile vices – all these are the motives and themes that equally mark both romantic poems and Pushkin’s romantic lyrics. We will also briefly talk about how the closeness of the works of Alexander Sergeevich in the lyrical and epic kind can be explained.

Subjectivity and self-portrait in lyrics and romantic poems

Lyrics, as noted by V. G. Belinsky, is mostly subjective, internal poetry. In it, the author expresses himself. Naturally, Pushkin's poems had just such a character. However, in the romantic, southern period, these features were characteristic not only of the lyrics. "Poetry subjective" to a large extent also included romantic poems, which were also in many ways the expression of the author himself.

Self-portraiture, as well as subjectivity, closely associated with it, are visible not only in the work "Prisoner of the Caucasus", but also in "Gypsies", and in other poems of Alexander Sergeyevich related to the southern period. This makes these creations close to the author's romantic lyrics. Both the lyrics and the poems are largely the same. However, this does not mean that self-portraiture and subjectivity are equally important for these two genres in Pushkin's work. Subjectivity in the epic is a specific sign of romanticism, but in lyrics it is a generic sign, not a specific one: to one degree or another, any work of this genre is subjective.

Movement from romanticism to realism

The process of development of Alexander Sergeevich's work from romanticism to realism can be roughly, with some degree of approximation, represented as a movement towards the objective from the subjective, towards the socially typical from the self-portrait. However, this applies only to the epic, and not to the lyrics. As for the latter, Alexander Sergeevich's departure from traditional romanticism in it is connected not with its excessive subjectivity, but with "systematic". The poet was not satisfied with a limited and closed system. Pushkin's romantic lyrics do not fit into strict canons. However, due to tradition, Alexander Sergeevich had to obey them and did it, although not always and not in everything.

Features of systems of romanticism and realism

Romantic stylistics and poetics, in contrast to realistic, existed within an established artistic system, rather closed. In a fairly short time, stable concepts of a "romantic hero" (he had to be necessarily opposing the crowd, disappointed, sublime), plot (usually exotic, non-domestic), landscape (sublime, intense, boundless, thunderous, gravitating towards the mysterious andspontaneous), style (with a repulsion from objective details, from everything purely concrete), etc. Realism, on the other hand, did not create stable and closed concepts to the same extent. Within this system, the concepts of plot or hero sound very vague. Realism in relation to romanticism proved to be not only progressive, but also liberating. The freedom declared in romanticism was fully expressed only in realism. This was reflected with particular clarity in the work of Pushkin.

The concept of "romanticism" in the work of Pushkin

Alexander Sergeevich was aware of the insufficiency of romantic poetics ever since its patterns and norms began to hamper his creativity and poetic impulse. It is noteworthy that the author himself interpreted the movement towards realism as a path from misunderstood romanticism to "true" romanticism. The freedom-loving declarations of this system were internally close to him. Perhaps that is why he did not want to give up the concept of "romanticism".