M. Gorky entered literature on the verge of two historical eras, he seemed to combine these two eras. The time of moral turmoil and disappointment, general discontent, mental fatigue - on the one hand, and the maturation of future events that have not yet been openly manifested - on the other, found its bright and passionate artist in early Gorky.
At the age of twenty, Gorky saw the world in such terrifying diversity that his bright faith in man, in his spiritual nobility, in his strength and capabilities seems incredible. But the young writer was inherent in the desire for the ideal, for the beautiful - here he was a worthy successor to the best traditions of Russian literature of the past.
In the story “Chelkash” (1894), the romantic image of a tramp and thief who broke with his environment (his father was one of the richest people in the village) is not at all idealized by the writer. Although in comparison with the spiritually wretched, greedy and pitiful Gavrila, Chelkash turns out to be the winner. But the opposition goes along the line of relation to property, to the essence that enslaves it. Gavrila's dream turns out to be a dream leading to slavery. “The power of darkness”, the power of money Chelkash denies. “Chelkash listened to his joyful cries, looked at his shining face, distorted by the delight of greed, and felt that he - a thief, a reveler, cut off from everything dear to him - would never be like that!”
For his stories, Gorky took earthly and real people, with all their contradictions and shortcomings.
He considered activity, the ability to act in the name of man, to be a measure of the value of the human personality. This motif can already be heard in the writer’s first story, “Makar Chudra” (1892). The story of the amazing, proud love of Loiko Zobar and Radda is a hymn to freedom. “Well, falcon,” says Makar, “do you want me to tell you a true story? And you remember it and, as you remember it, you will be a free bird throughout your life.”
Gorky's romanticism is no stranger to drama. He assumes it. The fates of the heroes of his first stories are always dramatic. But this is dramatic, giving rise to a protest against the slave position in society. Makar Chudra says at the beginning of the story to the author-narrator: “They are funny, those people of yours. They huddled together and crushed each other, and there is so much space on earth... Well, he was born then, perhaps, to dig up the earth, and to die... Does he know his will? Is the expanse of the steppe clear? Does the sound of the sea wave make his heart happy? He is a slave - as soon as he was born, he is a slave all his life, and that’s it!”
This is what worries the artist, what becomes the central idea of many of his stories of the early period. Everything was unusual in this story: the fate of the characters, their speech, their appearance, and the author’s speech. “I didn’t want to sleep. I looked into the darkness of the steppe, and the royally beautiful and proud figure of Radda floated in the air before my eyes. She pressed her hand with a lock of black hair to the wound on her chest, and through her dark, thin fingers blood oozed drop by drop, falling to the ground in fiery red stars...”
Already here the contrast between free and slave existence is outlined, which will be in different options be present in all the early romantic stories of the writer. It will change and deepen. Already - Falcon, Siskin - Woodpecker, Girl - Death, Larra - Danko.
The fairy tale in verse “The Girl and Death” (published in 1917) is also imbued with faith in the power of man, in the power of action, in the power of love. The all-conquering hymn of “the joy of love and the happiness of life” - love without fear and doubt - is a vivid manifestation of that peculiarity of Gorky’s talent and his position in life, which characterizes the writer’s creative path.
In the work of young Gorky, “unsolvable” questions began to sound with renewed vigor: how to live? what to do? what is happiness? Questions that are eternal, if only because not a single generation has yet managed to avoid them.
In the fairy tale “About the Siskin Who Lied, and the Woodpecker – Lover of Truth,” in which the writer tells “very true story“about how “among the songbirds of that grove,” where pessimistic songs were sung and the crows were considered “very wise birds,” suddenly other, “free, bold songs” began to sound, reminiscent of a hymn to reason:
… Let us ignite our hearts with the fire of our minds,
And light will reign everywhere!..
...Who honestly accepted death in battle,
Has he fallen and been defeated?
...Follow me, who dares! Let the darkness disappear!
For the writer, the important idea here is that a “spark” can be planted, faith and hope can be awakened. In this tale, the artist noted the awakening of consciousness only for a moment. In “Song of the Falcon” (1895), the death of a proud and brave bird already confirms the victory of that outlook on life, the bearer of which was the beautiful Falcon. “Earthly” is already defeated by the fact that he does not understand what flying into the sky, freedom means, and is sure that “there is only empty space there.” His “real” view of life excludes the spirituality of human existence on earth.
The idea of self-sacrifice arises naturally in “Song of the Falcon” and becomes a hymn to action in the name of freedom and light. “The madness of the brave is the wisdom of life!” - does not contain only a statement of self-awareness, although this is also important for the writer. One would think so if not for the words: “... and drops of your hot blood, like sparks, will flare up in the darkness of life and many brave hearts will be ignited with an insane thirst for freedom and light!”
The story “The Old Woman Izergil” (1894) can be called programmatic for the young Gorky. All the favorite and dear themes and thoughts of the young writer converge here. Everything here is fundamentally important for him.
The composition of the story is strictly subordinated to the idea - affirmation of the correctness of the feat in the name of life. Three independent episodes are united by the images of the author and the old woman Izergil. The image of Izergil is contradictory. It is realistic at its core. In Izergil’s life, unusual and bright, there was a lot that can be assessed ambiguously. Good and evil - everything is mixed up here, just like in life. And yet there is something that seems to unite her with Danko. “There is always a place for exploits in life” - this is the main idea, although the events in the life of the old gypsy cannot be regarded only as heroic, she often acted in the name of personal freedom.
Danko's spiritual beauty is contrasted with the wretchedness of Larra's existence. Individualism, contempt for people, egocentrism of Larra, who is confident that freedom is independence from people, from responsibilities to society, are debunked by the artist with such strength and energy that it seems that Larra’s shadow, “restless and unforgiven,” still wanders around the world. “... And he keeps searching, walking, walking... and death does not smile at him. And there is no place for him among people..."
Punishment by loneliness is a theme in many modern and, I think, future works. Two different “I”s, opposed with such force, Danko and Larra, are two radically opposite attitudes to life that live and oppose even now. It is precisely because of the latter that Danko is interesting today. “What will I do for people?!” – Danko shouted louder than thunder.” The death of Danko, who illuminates the path of his tired and faithless people with the torch of his heart, is his immortality. This question was the main one for Danko, because without asking yourself such a question, you cannot live meaningfully, you cannot believe in anything and act consciously in life.
That is why today the early work of the writer is so interesting, who openly declared at the end of the last century about his faith in man, in his mind, in his creative, transformative capabilities.
Bykova N. G
Trilogy by M. Gorky “Childhood”
In the stories of the autobiographical trilogy “Childhood”, “In People” (1913–1916) and “My Universities” (1925), M. Gorky portrays a hero capable of spiritual self-development. The process of human formation was new in literature. In famous works about the childhood years of S. Aksakov, L. N. Tolstoy, A. N. Tolstoy, the main attention was paid to depicting the inner world of a child. Researchers of Gorky's work believe that the social nature of the hero of the trilogy and the commonality of fate with the people distinguish this work from other examples of the autobiographical genre.
Childhood, depicted by Gorky, is far from a wonderful period of life. This is not only the story of a child’s soul, but also Russian life in a certain era. The hero of “Childhood” peers into this life, at the people around him, tries to understand the origins of evil and hostility, and reaches out to the bright. The writer himself saw and experienced a lot in childhood. He wrote: “Remembering these leaden abominations of wild Russian life, I ask myself for minutes: is it worth talking about this? And, with renewed confidence, I answer myself: it’s worth it; for this is a tenacious, vile truth, it has not died out to this day. This is the truth that needs to be known to the roots, in order to root it out from memory, from a person’s soul, from our entire life, difficult and shameful.
And there is another, more positive reason that prompts me to draw these abominations. Although they are disgusting, although they crush us, crushing many beautiful souls to death, the Russian person is still so healthy and young at heart that he overcomes and will overcome them.”
Despite the fact that these statements are given by the writer only in the 12th chapter, they are the leading thread of the story. Not in chronological order, the narrative moves consistently and calmly: the pictures drawn by the writer arise as a result of the most powerful impressions left in the child’s mind from collisions with reality. Knowing the characteristics of the child’s psyche, Gorky shows the dark and tragic in contrast with the bright and joyful, which makes the strongest impression on the child.
Thus, the heavy impression from the pictures of the tragic death of the father is replaced by a feeling of happiness from closeness with an extraordinary person - the grandmother; the picture of the grandfather’s inhuman cruelty during the punishment of children is adjacent to the description of the grandfather’s intimate conversation with Alyosha; The inquisitorial entertainments of the uncles are contrasted with the kind and witty amusements of the Gypsy.
It is important to see the “close, stuffy circle of terrible impressions” in which Alyosha lived in the Kashirin family, how the hero’s ideas about the morals of his own world expanded outside of his grandfather’s house. Alyosha was greatly influenced by those “beautiful souls” whom he met in his grandfather’s house and in the world around him and who instilled “hope for rebirth... to a bright, human life.”
The peculiarity of “Childhood” is that the narration is told on behalf of the narrator. This type of presentation is not new, but the difficulty lies in the fact that what is depicted in the story is seen both through the eyes of a child, the main character, who is in the thick of things, and through the eyes of a wise person, assessing everything from the standpoint of great life experience. It is precisely the fact that the narrator preserves in the story the ardent spontaneity of a child’s perception of the world and at the same time gives a deep socio-psychological analysis that allows us to conclude that Gorky was trying to arouse disgust for the “abominations of life” and instill love for the mentally generous, persistent and the talented Russian people.
Bykova N. G
M. Gorky's novel "Mother"
The novel tells not just about the revolutionary struggle, but about how in the process of this struggle people are reborn, how spiritual birth comes to them. “A resurrected soul will not be killed!” - Nilovna exclaims at the end of the novel, when she is brutally beaten by police and spies, when death is close to her. “Mother” is a novel about the resurrection of the human soul, seemingly tightly crushed by the unjust system of life. This topic could be explored especially broadly and convincingly using the example of a person like Nilovna. She is not only a person of the oppressed masses, but also a woman on whom, due to her darkness, her husband takes out countless oppressions and insults, and, moreover, a mother who lives in eternal anxiety for her son. Although she is only forty years old, she already feels like an old woman. In the early version of the novel, Nilovna was older, but then the author “rejuvenated” her, wanting to emphasize that the main thing is not how many years she lived, but how she lived them. She felt like an old woman, having not truly experienced either childhood or youth, without feeling the joy of “recognizing” the world. Youth comes to her, in essence, after forty years, when the meaning of the world, man, her own life, and the beauty of her native land begin to open up to her for the first time.
In one form or another, many heroes experience such spiritual resurrection. “A person needs to be renewed,” says Rybin and thinks about how to achieve such renewal. If dirt appears on top, it can be washed off; and “how to cleanse a person from the inside”? And so it turns out that the very struggle that often embitters people is the only one capable of purifying and renewing their souls. " iron Man“Pavel Vlasov is gradually freeing himself from excessive severity and from the fear of giving vent to his feelings, especially the feeling of love; his friend Andrei Nakhodka - on the contrary, from excessive softness; “son of thieves” Vesovshchikov - from distrust of people, from the conviction that they are all enemies of each other; Rybin associated with the peasant masses - from distrust of the intelligentsia and culture, from the view of all educated people as “masters”.
And everything that happens in the souls of the heroes surrounding Nilovna also happens in her soul, but it happens with special difficulty, especially painfully. From an early age she was accustomed to not trusting people, to fear them, to hide her thoughts and feelings from them. She teaches her son this too, seeing that he has entered into an argument with life that is familiar to everyone: “I only ask one thing - do not talk to people without fear! You have to be afraid of people - they all hate each other! They live by greed, they live by envy. Everyone is happy to do evil. As soon as you begin to expose and judge them, they will hate you and destroy you!” The son replies: “People are bad, yes. But when I found out that there is truth in the world, people became better!”
When Paul says to his mother: “We all perish from fear! And those who command us take advantage of our fear and intimidate us even more,” she admits: “I lived in fear all my life - my whole soul was overgrown with fear!” During the first search at Pavel's, she experiences this feeling with all its severity. During the second search, “she was not so afraid... she felt more hatred for these gray night visitors with spurs on their feet, and the hatred consumed the anxiety.” But this time Pavel was taken to prison, and the mother, “closing her eyes, howled long and monotonously,” just as her husband had howled in animal anguish before. Many times after this, fear gripped Nilovna, but it was increasingly drowned out by hatred of her enemies and the consciousness of the high goals of the struggle.
“Now I’m not afraid of anything,” says Nilovna after the trial of Pavel and his comrades, but the fear in her has not yet been completely killed. At the station, when she notices that she is recognized by a spy, she is again “persistently squeezed by a hostile force... humiliating her, plunging her into dead fear.” For a moment, a desire flares up in her to throw the suitcase with leaflets containing her son’s speech at the trial and run. And then Nilovna inflicts the final blow on her old enemy - fear: “... with one big and sharp effort of her heart, which seemed to shake her whole, she extinguished all these cunning, small, weak lights, commandingly saying to herself: “Shame!.. Don’t shame on your son! No one is afraid..."
This is a whole poem about the fight against fear and victory over it, about how a person with a resurrected soul gains fearlessness.
The theme of “resurrection of the soul” was the most important in all of Gorky’s works. In the autobiographical trilogy “The Life of Klim Samgin,” Gorky showed how two forces, two environments, fight for a person, one of which seeks to revive his soul, and the other - to devastate it and kill it. In the play “At the Bottom” and in a number of other works, Gorky depicted people thrown to the very bottom of life and yet retaining hope for revival - these works lead to the conclusion about the indestructibility of the human in man.
Ledenev A. V
Bykova N. G
Bykova N. G
The pathos of the early romantic works of M. Gorky
(ideas and style of Gorky’s romantic works)
I. “The time has come for the need for the heroic” (Gorky). The reasons for Gorky’s turn to romantic poetics during the heyday of realism.
II. Faith in man and the contrast of his heroic impulse to a “languorously poor life.”
1. The pathos of freedom in the early stories.
2. Don’t suffer, but act!
3. Opposition to individualistic self-affirmation of feat in the name of people.
4. Stories about tramps. “Not so much rejected as rejected.”
5. “Man – that sounds proud!” Elements of romantic pathos in a realistic play.
III. A combination of revolutionary romanticism and realism.
2. Conciseness, expressiveness, fabulousness of the plot.
3. Dramatic tension of the conflict.
4. Techniques of romantic portrait and landscape.
5. Romantic narrative structure.
IV. “Everyone is his own destiny” (Gorky).
The search for truth and the meaning of life in M. Gorky’s play “At the Depths”
I. What truth about man did Gorky dream of creating? Hatred of vulgarity, the boredom of life and aversion to patience and suffering.
II. A dispute about truth is like a dispute about the meaning of life.
1. The fate of the night shelters is an indictment of an inhumane society.
2. The naked truth of Bubnov.
3. Luke's comforting philosophy. What did Luke know about people and life? The discrepancy between Luke's good desires and the results of his advice.
4. The Actor’s monologue and Satin’s monologue as two ways out of the dead end of life, two ideas of being.
5. What did Satin understand in Luke’s consolations, why does he protect him, and what does he oppose to the old man’s comforting kindness?
III. How Gorky's contemporaries perceived the play. Gorky's solution to the problem of humanism in a general social sense.
The play "At the Bottom"
In all of M. Gorky’s plays, an important motif sounded loudly - passive humanism, addressed only to such feelings as pity and compassion, and contrasting it with active humanism, arousing in people the desire for protest, resistance, and struggle. This motive formed the main content of the play, created by Gorky in 1902 and immediately causing heated discussions, and then giving rise in a few decades to such a huge critical literature that few dramatic masterpieces have generated in several centuries. We are talking about the philosophical drama “At the Bottom”.
Gorky's plays are social dramas in which the problems are common and the characters are unusual. The author does not have main or secondary characters. The main thing in the plot of plays is not the clash of people in some kind of life situations, but a clash of life positions and views of these people. These are social and philosophical dramas. Everything in the play is subordinated to a philosophical conflict, a clash of different life positions. And that is why intense dialogue, often argument, is the main thing in the playwright’s work. Monologues in the play are rare and are the completion of a certain stage of the characters’ argument, a conclusion, even an author’s declaration (for example, Satin’s monologue). The disputing parties strive to convince each other - and the speech of each of the heroes is bright and rich in aphorisms.
The development of the action of the play “At the Bottom” flows along several parallel channels, almost independent of each other. The relationship between the owner of the flophouse Kostylev, his wife Vasilisa, her sister Natasha and the thief Ash is tied into a special plot knot - on this life material one could create a separate social drama. Separately developed story line, connected with the relationship between the locksmith Kleshch, who lost his job and sank to the bottom, and his dying wife Anna. Separate plot nodes are formed from the relationships of Baron and Nastya, Medvedev and Kvashnya, from the destinies of Actor, Bubnov, Alyoshka and others. It may seem that Gorky gave only the sum of examples from the life of the inhabitants of the “bottom” and that, essentially, nothing would have changed if there had been more or fewer of these examples.
It even seems that he deliberately sought to separate the action, dividing the stage every now and then into several sections, each of which is inhabited by its own characters and lives its own special life. In this case, an interesting polyphonic dialogue arises: the lines sounding on one part of the stage, as if by chance, echo the lines sounding on another, acquiring an unexpected effect. In one corner of the stage, Ash assures Natasha that she is not afraid of anyone or anything, and in the other, Bubnov, who is patching his cap, says drawlingly: “But the threads are rotten...” And this sounds like evil irony addressed to Ash. In one corner, a drunken Actor tries and fails to recite his favorite poem, and in the other, Bubnov, playing checkers with the policeman Medvedev, gloatingly tells him: “Your queen is missing...” And again, it seems that this is addressed not only to Medvedev, but and to the Actor that we are talking not only about the fate of a game of checkers, but also about the fate of a person.
This end-to-end effect is complex nature in this play. To understand it, you need to understand what role Luke plays here. This wandering preacher consoles everyone, promises everyone deliverance from suffering, says to everyone: “You hope!”, “You believe!” Luka is an extraordinary person: smart, he has enormous experience and a keen interest in people. Luke's entire philosophy is condensed into one saying: "What you believe is what you believe." He is sure that truth will never cure any soul, and nothing can cure it, but you can only soften the pain with a comforting lie. At the same time, he sincerely feels sorry for people and sincerely wants to help them.
It is from collisions of this kind that the through-action of the play is formed. For his sake, Gorky needed the parallel developing destinies of different people. These are people of different vitality, different resistance, different ability to believe in a person. The fact that Luke's sermon, its real value, is "tested" by such different people, makes this test especially convincing.
Luke says to the dying Anna, who knew no peace during her life: “You die with joy, without anxiety...” And in Anna, on the contrary, the desire to live intensifies: “... a little more... I wish I could live... a little more! If there is no flour there... here we can be patient... we can!” This is Luke's first defeat. He tells Natasha a parable about the “righteous land” in order to convince her of the destructiveness of the truth and the saving power of deception. And Natasha makes a completely different, directly opposite conclusion about the hero of this parable, who committed suicide: “I couldn’t stand the deception.” And these words throw light on the tragedy of the Actor, who believed Luke’s consolations and was unable to endure bitter disappointment.
Brief dialogues between the old man and his “wards,” intertwining with each other, impart intense internal movement to the play: the illusory hopes of the unfortunate people grow. And when the collapse of illusions begins, Luka quietly disappears.
Luke suffers the biggest defeat from Satin. In the last act, when Luka is no longer in the shelter and everyone is arguing about who he is and what he is actually trying to achieve, the tramps’ anxiety intensifies: how, how to live? The Baron expresses the general state. Having admitted that he had “never understood anything” before and lived “as if in a dream,” he thoughtfully notes: “... after all, for some reason I was born...” People begin to listen to each other. Satin first defends Luka, denying that he is a conscious deceiver, a charlatan. But this defense quickly turns into an attack—an attack on Luke's false philosophy. Satin says: “He lied... but it was out of pity for you... There is a comforting lie, a reconciling lie... I know the lie! Those who are weak at heart... and those who live on other people's juices need a lie... Some people are supported by it, others hide behind it... And who is their own master... who is independent and does not eat someone else's things - why does he need a lie? Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” Lies as the “religion of the owners” are embodied by the owner of the shelter, Kostylev. Luke embodies lies as the “religion of slaves,” expressing their weakness and oppression, their inability to fight, their inclination toward patience and reconciliation.
Satin concludes: “Everything is in man, everything is for man! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain.” And although for Satin his roommates were and will remain “dumb as bricks,” and he himself will not go further than these words, for the first time in the shelter a serious speech is heard, pain is felt because of the lost life. Bubnov's arrival reinforces this impression. “Where are the people?” - he exclaims and suggests “singing... all night”, crying out for his inglorious fate. That is why Satin responds to the news of the Actor’s suicide with harsh words: “Eh... ruined the song... fool!” This remark also has a different emphasis. The passing of an Actor is again the step of a man who could not stand the truth.
Each of the last three acts of “At the Bottom” ends with someone’s death. In the finale of Act II, Satin shouts: “Dead men don’t hear!” The movement of the drama is associated with the awakening of “living corpses,” their hearing, and emotions. This is where the main humane, moral meaning of the play lies, although it ends tragically.
The problem of humanism is complex in that it cannot be solved once and for all. Each new era and each shift in history forces us to pose and solve it anew. This is why disputes about the “softness” of Luke and the rudeness of Satin can arise again and again.
The ambiguity of Gorky's play led to different theatrical productions. The most striking was the first stage embodiment of the drama (1902) by the Art Theater, directed by K. S. Stanislavsky, V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, with the direct participation of M. Gorky. Stanislavsky later wrote that everyone was captivated by “a kind of romanticism, on the one hand bordering on theatricality, and on the other – on preaching.”
In the 60s, Sovremennik, under the leadership of O. Efremov, seemed to enter into polemics with the classical interpretation of “At the Depths.” The figure of Luke was brought to the fore. His consoling speeches were presented as an expression of concern for a person, and Satin was reprimanded for being “rude.” The spiritual impulses of the heroes turned out to be dampened, and the atmosphere of the action was mundane.
Disputes about the play are caused by different perceptions of Gorky's dramaturgy. In the play “At the Bottom” there is no subject of dispute or clashes. There is also no direct mutual assessment of the characters: their relationship developed a long time ago, before the start of the play. Therefore, the true meaning of Luke’s behavior is not immediately revealed. Next to the embittered remarks of the inhabitants of the shelter, his “good” speeches sound contrasting and humane. This is where the desire to “humanize” this image comes from.
M. Gorky psychologically expressively embodied the promising concept of man. The writer revealed in unconventional material the acute philosophical and moral conflicts of his time, their progressive development. It was important for him to awaken the personality, its ability to think and comprehend the essence.
M. Gorky entered literature on the verge of two historical eras; he seemed to combine these two eras in himself. The time of moral turmoil and disappointment, general discontent, mental fatigue - on the one hand, and the maturation of future events that have not yet been openly manifested - on the other, found its bright and passionate artist in early Gorky.
At the age of twenty, Gorky saw the world in such terrifying diversity that his bright faith in man, in his spiritual nobility, in his strength and capabilities seems incredible. But the young writer was inherent in the desire for the ideal, for the beautiful - here he was a worthy successor to the best traditions of Russian literature of the past.
In the story “Chelkash” (1894), the romantic image of a tramp and thief who broke with his environment (his father was one of the richest people in the village) is not at all idealized by the writer. Although in comparison with the spiritually wretched, greedy and pitiful Gavrila, Chelkash turns out to be the winner. But the opposition goes along the line of relation to property, to the essence that enslaves it. Gavrila's dream turns out to be a dream leading to slavery. “The power of darkness”, the power of money Chelkash denies. “Chelkash listened to his joyful cries, looked at his shining face, distorted by the delight of greed, and felt that he - a thief, a reveler, cut off from everything dear to him - would never be like that!”
For his stories, Gorky took earthly and real people, with all their contradictions and shortcomings.
He considered activity, the ability to act in the name of man, to be a measure of the value of the human personality. This motif can already be heard in the writer’s first story, “Makar Chudra” (1892). The story of the amazing, proud love of Loiko Zobar and Radda is a hymn to freedom. “Well, falcon,” says Makar, “do you want me to tell you a true story? And you remember it and, as you remember it, you will be a free bird throughout your life.”
Gorky's romanticism is no stranger to drama. He assumes it. The fates of the heroes of his first stories are always dramatic. But this is dramatic, giving rise to a protest against the slave position in society. Makar Chudra says at the beginning of the story to the author-narrator: “They are funny, those people of yours. They huddled together and crushed each other, and there is so much space on earth... Well, he was born then, perhaps, to dig up the earth, and to die... Does he know his will? Is the expanse of the steppe clear? Does the sound of the sea wave make his heart happy? He is a slave - as soon as he was born, he is a slave all his life, and that’s it!”
This is what worries the artist, what becomes the central idea of many of his stories of the early period. Everything was unusual in this story: the fate of the characters, their speech, their appearance, and the author’s speech. “I didn’t want to sleep. I looked into the darkness of the steppe, and the royally beautiful and proud figure of Radda floated in the air before my eyes. She pressed her hand with a lock of black hair to the wound on her chest, and through her dark, thin fingers blood oozed drop by drop, falling to the ground in fiery red stars...”
Already here the opposition between free and slave existence is outlined, which will be present in different versions in all the early romantic stories of the writer. It will change and deepen. Already - Falcon, Siskin - Woodpecker, Girl - Death, Larra - Danko.
The fairy tale in verse “The Girl and Death” (published in 1917) is also imbued with faith in the power of man, in the power of action, in the power of love. The all-conquering hymn of “the joy of love and the happiness of life” - love without fear and doubt - is a vivid manifestation of that peculiarity of Gorky’s talent and his position in life, which characterizes the writer’s creative path.
In the work of young Gorky, “unsolvable” questions began to sound with renewed vigor: how to live? what to do? what is happiness? Questions that are eternal, if only because not a single generation has yet managed to avoid them.
In the fairy tale “About the Siskin Who Lied, and About the Woodpecker – Lover of Truth,” in which the writer tells a “very true story” about how “among the songbirds of that grove,” where pessimistic songs were sung and crows were considered “very wise birds” , suddenly other, “free, bold songs” began to sound, reminiscent of a hymn to reason:
… Let us ignite our hearts with the fire of our minds,
And light will reign everywhere!..
...Who honestly accepted death in battle,
Has he fallen and been defeated?
...Follow me, who dares! Let the darkness disappear!
For the writer, the important idea here is that a “spark” can be planted, faith and hope can be awakened. In this tale, the artist noted the awakening of consciousness only for a moment. In “Song of the Falcon” (1895), the death of a proud and brave bird already confirms the victory of that outlook on life, the bearer of which was the beautiful Falcon. “Earthly” is already defeated by the fact that he does not understand what flying into the sky, freedom means, and is sure that “there is only empty space there.” His “real” view of life excludes the spirituality of human existence on earth.
The idea of self-sacrifice arises naturally in “Song of the Falcon” and becomes a hymn to action in the name of freedom and light. “The madness of the brave is the wisdom of life!” - does not contain only a statement of self-awareness, although this is also important for the writer. One would think so if not for the words: “... and drops of your hot blood, like sparks, will flare up in the darkness of life and many brave hearts will be ignited with an insane thirst for freedom and light!”
The story “The Old Woman Izergil” (1894) can be called programmatic for the young Gorky. All the favorite and dear themes and thoughts of the young writer converge here. Everything here is fundamentally important for him.
The composition of the story is strictly subordinated to the idea - affirmation of the correctness of the feat in the name of life. Three independent episodes are united by the images of the author and the old woman Izergil. The image of Izergil is contradictory. It is realistic at its core. In Izergil’s life, unusual and bright, there was a lot that can be assessed ambiguously. Good and evil - everything is mixed up here, just like in life. And yet there is something that seems to unite her with Danko. “There is always a place for exploits in life” - this is the main idea, although the events in the life of the old gypsy cannot be regarded only as heroic, she often acted in the name of personal freedom.
Danko's spiritual beauty is contrasted with the wretchedness of Larra's existence. Individualism, contempt for people, egocentrism of Larra, who is confident that freedom is independence from people, from responsibilities to society, are debunked by the artist with such strength and energy that it seems that Larra’s shadow, “restless and unforgiven,” still wanders around the world. “... And he keeps searching, walking, walking... and death does not smile at him. And there is no place for him among people..."
Punishment by loneliness is a theme in many modern and, I think, future works. Two different “I”s, opposed with such force, Danko and Larra, are two radically opposite attitudes to life that live and oppose even now. It is precisely because of the latter that Danko is interesting today. “What will I do for people?!” – Danko shouted louder than thunder.” The death of Danko, who illuminates the path of his tired and faithless people with the torch of his heart, is his immortality. This question was the main one for Danko, because without asking yourself such a question, you cannot live meaningfully, you cannot believe in anything and act consciously in life.
That is why today the early work of the writer is so interesting, who openly declared at the end of the last century about his faith in man, in his mind, in his creative, transformative capabilities.
(1868–1936) By the beginning of the century, Gorky had knowledge in many areas of culture and showed great erudition. The idea that Gorky was primarily a publicist, and not an artist, was picked up in the 1980s and 1990s by modern criticism, which “in the bustle of changing ideas” lost the objectivity of assessments.. For some, he was a “singer of tramping” and a Nietzschean, for for others - a “talented nugget from the people”, for others - a “petrel of the revolution”. After the publication of the novel "Mother" Symbolist criticism announced the final decline of Gorky’s talent, the “end” of him as an artist. In the 1930s, Gorky - founder of the literature of socialist realism. First literary experiences Maxim Gorky(Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) date back to the 80s. Peshkov's first acquaintance with populists and Marxists dates back to this time. The writer's name appeared in print in 1892; his story was published in the Tiflis newspaper "Caucasus" "Makar Chudra". A struggle between various ideological and artistic movements flared up around Gorky’s work. In 1889, Gorky brought Korolenko the poem “ Song of the Old Oak" The poem was unsuccessful, weak. After Korolenko’s criticism, Gorky destroyed it, but in his memory a line was preserved that expressed the main idea of the poem: “I came into the world to disagree.” The pathos of “disagreement” and “denial” will permeate his work of the 90s. N the aspiring writer called for active “disagreement” with existing reality. In the early period of his creativity, Gorky wrote several works in which the traditions of the revolutionary-democratic satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin are even palpable (“Conversation from the heart”, 1893; “The Wise Radish”; stories about the “masters of life”). Exposing the “leaden abominations” of life, the artist contrasted them with his ideal of moral and social relations between people. In the mind of a young writer literature should be a “scourge” and a “noble bell” calling for action. The pathos of protest and the desire to awaken in the reader an active attitude towards life, to influence his social psychology expressed primarily in the heroic-romantic works of Gorky, built on a legendary-fantastic plot basis. This was clearly expressed in the legends about Danko and Larra, included in the story "Old Isergil" (1895). The Legend of Larra directed against the false heroics of individualism, which was poeticized by the symbolists, the legend of Danko contrasted the heroism of collectivism with individualistic ethics. Gorky’s faith in the ability of the human spirit to create the beauty of the world determined the social and moral optimism of his works. In Gorky’s early work, the writer’s thought about the hero of life was not yet based on the established worldview and was filled with many contradictions. Later, when he finally frees himself from the influence of populist ideology and begins to reflect on the ideals of socialism, as a social and moral teaching close to him, he will refute Nietzsche. An original understanding of the traditions of Russian literature is also revealed by Gorky’s stories, dedicated to the peasant theme. The Russian village at the end of the century as depicted by Gorky is full of internal contradictions. Gorky destroys the populists’ illusions about the harmony of the village “world” (“Conclusion”, 1895; “Shabry”, 1896). The pictures of rural life in these works are reminiscent of sketches of rural life in the works of writers of the sixties. But the pathos of Gorky's stories was different. Gorky wrote primarily about the spiritual health of the Russian peasant, about his social and moral quests, while hidden, but real creative forces. A unique programmatic work on this topic was the story “ Kirilka" ( 1899). Gorky speaks of the awakening of the social consciousness of the Russian peasant, predicting the inevitability of an explosion of contradictions in Russian life. Gorky's heroes are not people of average dignity, but they have extraordinary natures; they are united by the rarest qualities of character and unusual actions. Gorky strives to put his heroes in extremely acute situations, to show a person in turning points his fate, self-determination in the difficult turns of life. Gorky's landscape usually had a general meaning, philosophical content. Landscape symbolism expressed the author's forebodings of a social storm, a social explosion. Such is the scene of the approaching thunderstorm in "Former People" (1897), pictures of the storm in “Song of the Petrel” (1901), thunderstorms in "Chelkashe" (1895). In stories "For their sake" « Bell", "Obsession", Gorky painted a gallery of entrepreneurs - from small pioneers to the latest type of bourgeois. In these stories, for the first time in the writer’s work, the theme of generations appears: the very successes of the “masters of the modern situation” push them to death: the more they “triumph”, the faster it will come. Gorky tried to show Russian life in its historical movement . (“Foma Gordeev", 1899; " Three", 1900) and dramaturgy (" Bourgeois", 1901; " At the bottom", 1902; " Summer residents", 1904).In the novel “Foma Gordeev”, published in 1899 in the magazine “Life”, a theme was set that would resound in full force in Gorky’s work in subsequent years - the internal decay of the bourgeois class, the historical doom of the existing world order . "Foma Gordeev" became the writer's first novel about the fate of generations. Gorky himself defined work on the novel as “a transition to new form literary existence." In the novel, the reader passes a line of pioneers who have become “masters of life.” But it is not these people who are brought to the fore, but the bourgeoisie of the new formation, who inherited their fathers’ money and adopted new methods of handling capital. The central character of this circle is Yakov Mayakin, an “ideologist” and leader of the new merchant class, not only interested in the fate of the altyn that was put into circulation, but also striving for power and social influence. He glorifies bourgeois progress, the merchant class, which he views as the only life-giving force of Russian economic and cultural life. Therefore, Mayakin demands “space in life” for the merchants, a share in the government of the country. Gorky wrote that he gave Mayakin the features of Nietzscheanism. As for the attitude of the writer himself to the hero, Gorky’s polemic with the philosophy of Nietzsche is already heard here, which the writer considered the philosophy of the “masters”, justifying their power over people. The tragedy of Thomas is that he cannot oppose anything to the immoral power of this world. He rebels, but his rebellion is doomed, it is the rebellion of a weak loner. In the early 1900s, Gorky turned to drama, seeing in the theater a platform from which he could directly address the mass democratic reader. The first work of Gorky the playwright was the play "Bourgeois" ( Scenes in the Bessemenovs' house) (1901) The main conflict of Gorky's play is the collision of the world of the philistine owners with the opposing Nile camp, bourgeois ideology and ethics with new views on the world and man, emerging among the advanced democratic intelligentsia. The play is based on ideological disputes, clashes of different ideological platforms. At one pole are Nile and Polya, democratically minded intellectuals are drawn to them, at the other are the Bessemenovs (both older and younger generations). The play “Philistines” is usually compared with “Three Sisters.” The theme of philistinism and tense anticipation of the future is at the center of both plays. But if in Chekhov’s play philistinism is attacking, then in Gorky’s play a different situation arises: it is actively attacking the entire way of life new power– new people whose dream of the future is based on real foundations in the present. The main conflict of "The Bourgeois" is clearly expressed in the ideological struggle. Gorky's second play "At the bottom", written during the winter and summer of 1902, brought him worldwide fame. It was the writer’s response to the most pressing social, philosophical and moral problems of the time. The ideological topicality immediately attracted the attention of the Russian public to the play. A sharp struggle between various ideological currents unfolded around it. Critics of the reactionary-monarchist trend saw in it a revolutionary sermon that undermined social foundations. Liberal criticism presented the writer as a preacher of Christian morality. Narodnik critics questioned the realistic content of Gorky's work, and regarded his humanism as proud contempt for the little man. The history of the struggle around the play emphasized its ideological relevance. Thematically, the play completed the cycle of Gorky’s works about “tramps.” It reflects the facts and events of our time that actually took place. In this sense, it was a verdict on the social system, which threw many people endowed with intelligence, feeling, and talent to the “bottom” of life, leading them to tragic death. Gorky argued that a society that has distorted the humanity in a person cannot exist. The heroes of the play - Actor, Ash, Nastya, Natasha, Kleshch - strive to break free from the “bottom” of life, but they feel their own powerlessness in front of this “prison”. They have a feeling of hopelessness of their fate and a craving for a dream, an illusion that gives at least some hope for the future. When the illusory nature of their hopes becomes obvious, these people die. The loss of hope caused the death of his soul, Gorky said about the fate of the Actor. Klesch works hard and passionately wants to return to working life. Luke appears as the bearer of the idea of consoling deception in the play. The principle of his attitude towards man is the idea of compassion. Throughout the course of the play, Gorky shows the inhumanity of passive, compassionate humanism. Subjectively, Luka, the bearer of the idea of such humanism, is honest, arouses the sympathy of even the gloomy Tick; he wants to help people by instilling in them, albeit illusory, hope for the future. For Luke, a person is weak and insignificant before the circumstances of life, which, in his opinion, cannot be changed. And if so, it is necessary to reconcile the person with life by instilling a comforting “truth” that is convenient for him. And there are as many such truths as there are those who are eager to find it: truth and the truth of life become relative concepts. And it turns out that even in this world, where compassion would be a natural expression of a humane attitude towards a person, a comforting lie leads to a tragic outcome. And it comes in the fourth act of the play. The illusions have dissipated. The Actor dies, Nastya rushes about. The shelter is a picture of complete destruction. The so-called “heroless” composition dramas. If in the play “At the Lower Depths” Gorky summed up the theme of the “tramp” in his work, then in other plays a new stage in the development of the theme of the intelligentsia was marked. In 1904–1905. Gorky writes plays “Summer Residents” (1904), “Children of the Sun” (1905), “Barbarians” (1905). The central problem of the plays is the intelligentsia and the people, the intelligentsia and the revolution. The cycle of these plays opened “ Summer residents" Gorky himself determined the main theme of the play in a letter to the director. : “I wanted to portray that part of the Russian intelligentsia that came out of the democratic strata and, having reached a certain height of social position, lost contact with the people - their blood relatives, forgot about their interests and the need to expand life for them...” This Gorky judgment reveals the meaning of the images of Ryumin and Kaleria. These intellectuals, presenting themselves as the antipodes of the philistines, are in fact people of the same life and ideological direction, a product of the same environment as the Basovs and Suslovs, who, without hiding their life credo, declare the “right to rest” after the unrest of the social movement. All these people have isolated themselves from life and its demands. Gorky tears off the philistine's mask of spiritual sophistication and complexity. Here again the writer’s thought about decadence as a spiritual mask of the bourgeois sounds. Gorky contrasts the renegade intellectuals, the “dacha residents,” with the democratic intelligentsia. This is doctor Marya Lvovna, Vlas, Sonya. Marya Lvovna's monologue about the purpose of the intelligentsia in modern Russian life, as Gorky himself pointed out, was the “key” to the play. “We all must be different, gentlemen! Children of laundresses, cooks, Children of healthy working people - we must be different! After all, never before in our country have there been educated people connected with the mass of the people by blood kinship... This blood kinship should feed us with an ardent desire to expand, rebuild, illuminate the lives of our dear people, who only work all their days, suffocating in the darkness and dirt... They sent us ahead of them so that we could find for them the path to a better life.”“Summer Residents” is Gorky’s most “Chekhovian” play. But the conflict of the play acquired a socio-ideological character in Gorky. The problem of relations between the intelligentsia and the people, the intelligentsia and the revolution became the leading one in another play by Gorky in this cycle - "Children of the Sun". The stratum of the Russian intelligentsia is depicted - these are people of science and art, sincerely devoted to their work and sincerely mistaken in the social issues of life. Therefore, the theme of the intelligentsia sounds in this play in a different key. Central character plays - Protasov, a scientist, dreams of man's victory over death, he is filled with faith in man, in the possibilities of his creative thought and stands on the threshold of some great scientific discovery. Protasov's monologue about Man directly echoes the thoughts expressed by Gorky in the poem "Human". In the summer of the same 1905, Gorky wrote the third play of this cycle - "Barbarians" in which the playwright, using new material, developed the theme outlined in “Foma Gordeev” - the theme of the contradictions of bourgeois progress and civilization. Gorky contrasted the existing social world order, its ideology and ethics in the play “ Enemies" and the novel "Mother" a world of new human relations, new people with a new social psychology that takes shape in the revolutionary struggle. The idea of writing a play about the labor movement arose from Gorky in the early 1900s, but the plan was realized only after 1905. The plot is based on real revolutionary events in Russia in the 1900s years. This is a plot of a new type, it is determined by the clash of classes and political trends. “Enemies” is the first work in Russian drama that shows an open political clash of social camps, political views, moral concepts. The play seemed to sum up the creative quest of Gorky the playwright and marked a new stage in the development of his dramatic style. Previously, in Gorky's dramas, conflicts were expressed primarily in the clash of ideological views and philosophical concepts. This also determined the type of their plot movement. The ideological and ethical ideals of the heroes collided with reality and were tested by it. In "Enemies" the basis of all conflicts is the unfolding political struggle. Socio-political circumstances test everything: political and ethical views, and a person’s attitude towards art.
Features of the creativity of M. M. Gorky.
It was as if two people lived in Gorky: an artist and a publicist. And if the publicist called on his brothers to write about Stalin’s camps and did not notice the tragedy of what was happening, then the artist wrote about the fate of the individual in the terrible reality of the twentieth century, which deprives a person of his natural social and creative freedom.
The problem of human freedom or lack of freedom is the central theme of Gorky’s entire work. In the writer’s first stories, it sounded like a hymn to the romantically interpreted complete freedom of the individual from all the shackles of the external social world, but even then it contained doubts about the value of such freedom for a person. Gorky's last work - "The Life of Klim Samgin" - leads the reader to the conclusion about the impossibility of gaining personal freedom in the tragic conditions of Russian reality of the twentieth century.
The question of freedom is a philosophical question, and each era, including literary times, interprets it in its own way, based on the prevailing philosophical principles.
In the new type of realism, the emergence of which is associated with the name of Gorky, a new concept of personality is being formed - a person not simply reacting to the life around him, but creating, realizing himself not in the sphere of private intrigue, but in the public arena. In addition, in a new type of realism, historical time is established as typical circumstances affecting personality, and man, the hero of new literature, is entrusted with being the father of history.
The writer outlines two possible types of relationships between the individual and historical time: contact with it and alienation from it. A person alienated and not alienated from historical time are two poles, two giant differently charged magnets, between which Gorky’s concept of the human personality is formed.
By placing private human destiny in the context of historical time, insisting on the indispensability of this connection, the writer changed the entire system of values proposed by the romantic tradition of the last century. The most important, the most valuable is no longer the person, not his right inner life and the secret of freedom, which Pushkin insisted on, and social life and the value of the individual are placed in direct dependence on participation in this life.
The traditional proportions of the relationship between man and time in Gorky's works are shifted. Now a person is no longer confined to the narrow confines of his environment, but comes face to face with his era, whether he wants it or not.
Gorky interpreted the relationship between character and history as fatal and saw in it the beginning that elevates a person capable of contact with the leading historical pattern. He perceived a person’s reluctance or inability to make such contact as negative and denied such a hero the right to sympathy and respect.
Thus, in Gorky’s epic there are two objects of depiction: objective reality and the consciousness of the hero, who perceives this reality. The interaction of these two objects forms the conflict between reality and its perception and, ultimately, the problematic of the work.
Romantic stories of Gorky
In his early works, Gorky appears to the reader as a romantic writer. For the romantic consciousness, the correlation of character with circumstances is unthinkable - hence main feature romantic artistic world - two worlds. The confrontation between romance and reality, romance and the surrounding world is the main feature of this literary movement.
This is exactly how the heroes of Gorky’s early romantic stories are presented. Their consciousness and characters, with sometimes mysterious contradictions, become the main subject of the image. An insoluble contradiction between two principles in a romantic character - love and pride
- is thought of as completely natural, and it can only be resolved by death.
The composition of the narrative in romantic stories is subordinated to one goal - to most fully show the image of the main character, and a romantic legend is the most important means for creating his image. With its help, the author presents a system of values, shows which personality traits, from the point of view of his heroes, are worthy of respect or contempt. In other words, the heroes thus seem to set a coordinate system, based on which they themselves can be judged.
A very important compositional feature of Gorky’s early romantic stories is the presence of the image of the narrator, who is an autobiographical hero.
It is the close, interested gaze of the autobiographical hero that snatches from the meetings given to him by fate the most interesting and ambiguous characters, which turn out to be the main subject of depiction and research. In them the author sees a manifestation of the folk character of the turn of the century and tries to explore its strengths and weaknesses. Autobiographical view. The hero is realistic, he can understand the limitations of a purely romantic worldview.
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Slide captions:
Alexey Maksimovich Gorky (Peshkov) Early creativity using the example of the story “Old Woman Izergil”
Gorky's creative path began in September 1892 with the publication of the story "Makar Chudra". (at the same time his pseudonym appears) 1895. The story “Old Woman Izergil” was published. The early stories are romantic in nature.
Romanticism Displaying and reproducing life outside of the real concrete connections of a person with the surrounding reality, the depiction of an exceptional personality, often lonely and dissatisfied with the present, striving for a distant ideal and therefore in sharp conflict with society, with people.
Early romantic works “Makar Chudra”, “The Girl and Death”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “Chelkash”, “Song of the Falcon”, “Song of the Petrel”, etc. At the center of the story is a romantic hero - a proud, strong, freedom-loving, lonely man, a destroyer of the bitter vegetation of the majority. The action takes place in an unusual, often exotic setting: in a gypsy camp, in communication with the elements, with the natural world. Actions are often transferred to legendary times.
“Old Woman Izergil” The heroes appear in a romantic landscape. Give examples to prove this. At what time of day do the events in the story take place? Why? What natural images could you highlight? Which artistic media did the author use in depicting nature? Why is the landscape shown in this way in the story? What is the compositional solution of the story?
Analysis of the legend of Larra Who are the main characters of the first legend? Is the story of a young man’s birth important for understanding his character? How does the hero relate to other people? For romantic work characterized by a conflict between the crowd and the hero. What lies at the heart of the conflict between Larra and people? What is the difference between pride and arrogance. Distinguish between these words. Prove that it is pride, and not pride, that is characteristic of Larra.
What does the hero's extreme individualism lead to? What punishment did Larra suffer for his pride? Why do you think such punishment is worse than death? What is the author’s attitude to the psychology of individualism?
Analysis of the legend about Danko What are the main features of Danko? What is the basis of his actions? What act did the hero do for the sake of love for people? How is the relationship between Danko and the crowd?
CONCLUSION We see that Larra is a romantic anti-ideal, so the conflict between the hero and the crowd is inevitable. Danko is a romantic ideal, but the relationship between the hero and the crowd is also based on conflict. This is one of the features of a romantic work. ? Why do you think the story ends with the legend of Danko?
Independent work Comparison of the images of Danko and Larra. Criteria. Danko Larra 1. Attitude to the crowd 2. The crowd is the hero 3. Distinctive feature character 4. Attitude to life 5. Legend and modernity 6. Actions performed by the heroes 7. The writer’s attitude towards the heroes
Homework: Reading the play “At the Bottom”; Consider the history of the play, the genre of the work, the conflict.
On the topic: methodological developments, presentations and notes
Literature lesson in 11th grade "Early works of M. Gorky"
The material presents the development of a meta-subject lesson based on Gorky's story "Old Woman Izergil", the concept of "pride" is considered on the material of the story, the concept of "pride" is introduced; samosa offered...
Life and work of Maxim Gorky. Early Romantic Stories. Problems and features of the story composition.
Purpose of the lesson: to introduce students to the milestones of Gorky’s biography and creativity; show the features of Gorky's romanticism. To trace how the writer's intention is revealed in the composition of stories. Method...
