Man and nature in Russian literature
Gradual fading of classicism and the emergence and development of Romanticism led to a new approach to solving problems that occupy Russian writers. There is a change of canons, the characters of the works change and the hero’s ideal. Many secondary themes come to the fore and acquire a new meaning, as happened with the theme of nature. On the example of Pushkin’s creativity, one can trace the multifaceted nature of this problem and the variety of ways to solve it.
In Russian literature the flowering of romanticism falls on the beginning of the twenties of the nineteenth century. During this period, Pushkin wrote poems “The Caucasian Prisoner”, “Gypsies”. In one thousand eight hundred and twenty-fourth year the poet wrote a poem “To the Sea”. For the lyrical hero, the sea is not just a water element, it combines several images. The hero addresses him as a friend:
As a friend grumbling,
As his call in a farewell hour,
Your sad noise, your cry of
conscience I heard the last time.
And again:
How I loved your comments,
Deaf sounds, the depths of a voice,
And the silence in the evening hour,
And willful impulses!
At the same time, the sea is the guardian of Napoleon’s peace:
One rock, the tomb of glory.
There they sank into a cold dream.
Memories are majestic:
Napoleon died there.
And the third romantic image mentioned in this connection is the image of D. Byron:
Shumi, get excited by the bad weather:
He was, about the sea, your singer.
Thus, in the sea there is a kind of triune: it is itself perceived as a living being, and at the same time became the cradle and the last shelter of two geniuses – the genius of romantic poetry and the genius of glory.
However, this poem was Pushkin’s farewell to Romanticism. In one thousand eight hundred and twenty-fifth year in Mikhailovsky in the work of the poet there is a turning point. His works take on a different character, Christian motives begin to be clearly heard.
. And I heeded the shudder of the sky,
And the angels of the flight,
And the reptile of the sea underwater,
And the distant vines are squandered.
And the poet needs to call the Creator to create,
But only the divine verb
To the ear of the sensitive will touch,
The soul of the poet will start,
like an awakened eagle.
And creativity is only possible away from people and the world, in harmony with nature:
. He runs wild and stern,
And sounds and confusion full,
On the banks of desert waves,
Into the broad-sounding oak forests.
Initially, the world created by the Creator was harmonious and beautiful. But because of the only reason, the fall of man, there was evil, sickness, death.
Evil exists in nature in the form of an anchor, the tree of poison, but it is separated and distant:
In the desert, stunted and stingy,
In the heat of the heat,
Anchar, like a menacing sentry,
stands alone in the whole universe.
None of the living beings dares approach it. And only a man with his will and “imperious glance” sent another person to the anchor, so that he, at the cost of his own life, brought evil, poison into the world. And the result – evil breeds evil:
And the prince with that poison nourished
His obedient arrows
And with them the destruction sent
To neighbors in strange limits.
However, nature does not remain indifferent and the invasion of man is answered by revenge.
In the poem “The Bronze Horseman” is about how Petr Veliky invades the natural world and attempts to curb her
. On the busy banks of the
Gromada the harmonious crowded
palaces and towers; ships The
crowd from all corners of the earth
To the rich quays are eager;
The Neva was dressed in granite;
The bridges hung over the waters;
Dark-green gardens
Her covered islands.
But the element responded to this invasion with a terrible storm, encased in granite Neva left the banks and flooded the city, carrying death to all living things.
In the poem “The Possessed”, written in one thousand eight hundred and thirtieth year, already depicts the full rampage of the elements. A man is powerless before her. In the snowstorm everything disappears: both the sky and the earth. Objects lose outlines, and it is impossible to make out what lies ahead: “a stump or a wolf?” Here, nature is represented in the form of an indomitable demonic force, over which no one is powerful:
The clouds are racing, the clouds are winding;
Invisible moon
Flies snow;
The sky is dull, the night is turbid.
The demons are rushing after the swarm
In the boundless height,
Squealing plaintively and howling
Throat heart to me.
In prose works the role of nature is not only in landscape sketches. The element influences the fate of the heroes. Vladimir, lost in the snowstorm, is late for the wedding (“The Story of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin”, “Snowstorm”). Burmin appears from the blizzard. In the story “The Captain’s Daughter” the meeting between Peter Grinev and Pugachev occurs during a severe snowstorm.
In the work of Alexander Pushkin definitely felt the influence of the philosophy of J. J. Rousseau. Favorite Pushkin heroes live in harmony with the world of nature and find in it new spiritual forces. So, Tatyana Larina, who “in her family seemed to be a strange girl,” “loved her Russian cold with her cold beauty.” Description of the changing seasons in the novel as it is transmitted through the perception of Tatiana
. Tatyana Poutru saw a
white courtyard,
Kurtiny, roofs and a fence,
On the windows light patterns,
Trees in winter silver,
Forty cheerful in the yard
And gently strewn mountains of
Winter with a brilliant carpet.
Everything is bright, everything is white all around.
But the city in the image of Pushkin is devoid of nature. Fields, forests, spaciousness belong to the village. When old habit Tatiana sits at the window of the Moscow house, she sees only the stable, the kitchen and the fence.
In the last years of the life and work of the poet, the theme of memory, the interrelations of generations, has become the most interesting.
The hero of the poem. “Once again I visited.” Returns to “this corner of the earth,” where he “spent two years unobtrusive.” Everything has remained the same, as it seems at first glance. But at the same time, life does not stand still:
. three pine trees
stand – one at a distance, two others.
A friend to a friend is close.
. They are all the same,
All the same their familiar ear rustle –
But near the roots of their obsolete
(Where once it was all empty, hollow)
Now the young grove has grown, The
green family, bushes are crowded
Under their canopy as children.
The hero greets the “tribe of the young, unfamiliar,” who is destined to change his generation. But as the old pine reborn in young shoots, and between ancestors and descendants stretches connecting thread:
. But let my grandson.
. He will pass you by in the darkness of the night
And remember me.
Genre and problems determine the nature of the work, the main artistic means. On the example of the works of Alexander Pushkin, we traced how complex and multifaceted the image of nature is and how diverse the relationship between man and her is.
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