The story "Clean Monday" is included in Bunin's cycle of stories "Dark Alleys". This cycle was the last in the life of the author and took eight years of creativity. The creation of the cycle fell on the period of the Second World War. The world was collapsing, and the great Russian writer Bunin wrote about love, about the eternal, about the only force capable of preserving life in its high destiny.
The cross-cutting theme of the cycle is love in all its diversity, the merging of the souls of two unique, inimitable worlds, the souls of lovers.
The story "Clean Monday" contains an important idea that the human soul is a mystery, and women's - especially. And that every person is looking for his own path in life, often doubting, making mistakes, and happiness - if he finds it.
Bunin begins his story by describing a gray winter day in Moscow. By evening, life in the city revived, residents were freed from daytime worries: “... cab sledges rushed thicker and more cheerfully, overcrowded diving trams rattled harder, in the dusk it was already clear how red stars were falling from the wires with a hiss, they hurried more lively along the sidewalks blackening passers-by. The landscape prepares the reader for the perception of the story of "strange love" of two people whose paths tragically parted.
The story shocks with sincerity in the description of the hero's great love for his beloved. Before us is a kind of confession of a man, an attempt to recall old events and understand what happened then. Why did the woman, who said that she had no one besides her father and him, leave him without explanation. The hero, on behalf of whom the story is being told, evokes sympathy and sympathy. He is smart, handsome, cheerful, talkative, madly in love with the heroine, ready for anything for her. The writer consistently recreates the history of their relationship.
The image of the heroine is shrouded in mystery. The hero adoringly remembers every feature of her face, hair, dresses, all her southern beauty. It is not for nothing that the famous Kachalov enthusiastically calls the heroine the Queen of Shamakhan at the acting “skit” at the Art Theater. They were a wonderful couple, both beautiful, rich, healthy. Outwardly, the heroine behaves quite normally. She accepts the courtship of her lover, flowers, gifts, goes with him to theaters, concerts, restaurants, but her inner world is closed to the hero. She is laconic, but sometimes expresses opinions that her friend does not expect from her. He knows almost nothing about her life. With surprise, the hero learns that his beloved often visits churches, knows a lot about the services in them. At the same time, she says that she is not religious, but in churches she is admired by chants, rituals, solemn spirituality, some kind of secret meaning that is not in the bustling city life. The heroine notices how her friend is burning with love, but she herself cannot answer him in the same way. In her opinion, she is also not suitable for a wife. In her words, there are often hints of monasteries where you can go, but the hero does not take this seriously.
In the story, Bunin immerses the reader in the atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Moscow. He lists the numerous temples and monasteries of the capital, along with the heroine admires the texts of ancient chronicles. Memories and discussions about modern culture are also given here: the Art Theater, an evening of poetry by A. Bely, an opinion on Bryusov's novel "The Fiery Angel", a visit to Chekhov's grave. Many heterogeneous, sometimes incompatible phenomena form the outline of the life of heroes.
Gradually, the tone of the story becomes more and more sad, and at the end - tragic. The heroine decided to part with the man who loves her, to leave Moscow. She is grateful to him for truly loving her, so arranges a farewell and later sends him a final letter asking him not to look for her. material from the site
The hero can not believe the reality of what is happening. Unable to forget his beloved, for the next two years he “disappeared for a long time in the dirtiest taverns, drank himself, sinking more and more in every possible way. Then he gradually began to recover - indifferently, hopelessly ... ". But all the same, on one of those winter days, he drove along those streets where they were alone, "and kept crying, crying ...". Obeying some feeling, the hero enters the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent and in the crowd of nuns sees one of them with deep black eyes, looking somewhere into the darkness. It seemed to the hero that she was looking at him.
Bunin does not explain anything. Whether it was really the hero's beloved remains a mystery. But one thing is clear: there was a great love that first illuminated, and then turned the life of a person upside down.
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On this page, material on the topics:
- psychologism in the prose of m twain
- an essay on the psychologism of Bunin's prose
- clean monday secret psychologism
- psychology of Bunin's prose
- Bunin's psychologism
Master class on the use of "Reflection Sheets" at the lesson-workshop
on the topic "Analysis of the features of psychologism in the story of I. A. Bunin "Clean Monday"
teacher of Russian language and literature
highest qualification category
MBOU Sarsak-Omga Lyceum
Agryz municipal district of the Republic of Tatarstan
The purpose of the lesson: to promote the formation of spiritual and moral guidelines; to help students comprehend the complexity, depth, features of the psychologism of the story by I.A. Bunin; improve the ability to speak with reason; develop oral and written skills.
Equipment: slide presentation, "Sheets of Reflections", texts of I.A. Bunin's story "Clean Monday", musical accompaniment: Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata (Piano Sonata N14), Cancan (mp3ostrov.com), Russian-Orthodox-liturgy-Symbol -faith(muzofon.com).
I . Inductor (switching on feelings). The goal is to create an emotional mood, connect the subconscious, a problem situation is the beginning that motivates the creative activity of everyone.
The story of I.A. Bunin “Clean Monday” is a story about the love of a young couple. But the main characters don't have names. The deliberate absence of names is indicated by the fact that there are a lot of names in the story. And these are the names of real people. These are either the authors of fashionable works (Hoffmansthal, Schnitzler, Tetmayer, Pshibyshevsky); or fashionable Russian writers of the beginning of the century (A. Bely, Leonid Andreev, Bryusov); or genuine figures of the Art Theater (Stanislavsky, Moskvin, Kachalov, Sulerzhitsky); or Russian writers of the last century (Griboyedov, Ertel, Chekhov, L. Tolstoy); or heroes of ancient Russian literature (Peresvet and Oslyabya, Yuri Dolgoruky, Svyatoslav Seversky, Pavel Muromsky); the characters of "War and Peace" are mentioned in the story - Platon Karataev and Pierre Bezukhov; once the name of Chaliapin is mentioned; the true name of the owner of the tavern in Okhotny Ryad Egorov was named. One fictitious name is mentioned - the name of the coachman Fedor.
II . Self-instruction (individual solution). Students' opinions are heard.
Information for the teacher. Behind the actions and appearance of the heroes of Clean Monday, we unmistakably feel the presence of something more significant, which is subtly, with amazing skill, but also with amazing perseverance, Bunin weaves into his usual love plot. This essential is the soul, the inner world of the characters in the story.
III . Socioconstruction. The most important element of the master class technology is group work. Building, creating a result by a group. Groups work on a specific topic. The work of the group is organized as communication by correspondence, during which both individual writing products and collective creative work are created.
Teacher: a system of means and techniques aimed at a complete, deep and detailed disclosure of the inner world of heroes is called psychologism in literary criticism.
There are two main forms of psychological depiction in the literature:
1. Psychologism is open, explicit, direct, demonstrative. The main technique is psychological introspection, which is complemented by a system of artistic techniques close to it: internal monologue, dialogue, letters, diaries, confessions, dreams and visions of heroes, first-person narration, improperly direct inner speech, “dialectics of the soul”, “stream of consciousness” (an extreme form of internal monologue).
2. Hidden, indirect, "subtext" psychologism, aimed at analyzing the inner world of the hero "from the outside". The main technique is psychological analysis, which is used in combination with other techniques: portrait, landscape, interior, artistic detail, commentary, silence.
What forms and techniques of psychologism are used in the story by I.A. Bunin “Clean Monday? We will try to answer this question in the course of group work. Two groups will work: one on the topic “Open psychologism” in I.A. Bunin’s story “Clean Monday”, the other on the topic “Hidden psychologism in I.A. Bunin’s story “Clean Monday”. Everyone gets a "Thinking Sheet" with a question on it. Answer the question, pass the “Sheet” to a neighbor in your group. The “leaf” must return to the “owner” with the opinions of all members of the group on the question asked.
Sample questions for a group working on the topic "Hidden psychologism" in I.A. Bunin's story "Clean Monday" and information for the teacher.
(The teacher can choose some of the questions at his own discretion, he can create another one within the group, since there are many methods of “hidden psychologism” in the story)
1. How does the portrait reveal the heroine?
Information for the teacher. This is an oriental beauty in all the splendor of her non-Russian, non-Slavic beauty. And when she “in a black velvet dress” appeared at the skit of the Art Theater and “pale with hops,” Kachalov approached her with a glass of wine and, “looking at her with mock gloomy greed,” said to her: “The Tsar Maiden, the Queen of Shamakhan, your health!" - we understand that it was Bunin who put into his mouth his own concept of duality: the heroine, as it were, is both a “tsar-maiden” and a “shamakhani queen” at the same time. It is important for Bunin, it is extremely necessary to see and emphasize in it the duality of appearance, a combination of contradictory and mutually exclusive features.
2. How does the heroine reveal her origin?
Information for the teacher. Russian, Tver is hidden inside, dissolved in the mental organization, while the appearance is completely given over to the power of Eastern heredity.
3. The heroine visits both ancient temples, monasteries, and restaurants, skits. How does this characterize her?
Information for the teacher. Her whole being is a continuous throwing between flesh and spirit, momentary and eternal. Behind the visible secular gloss, it has primordially national, Russian principles. And they turn out to be stronger, as they manifest themselves in beliefs.
4. Why was the view from the window of the Kremlin and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and a visit to the Novodevichy Convent and the Rogozhsky cemetery so important for the heroine?
Information for the teacher. In the story, the signs of the modern era are correlated with the inner world of the narrator, yet, as for antiquity, churches, cemeteries, it is the inner world of the heroine. And also mentions of holy places (Conception Monastery, Miracle Monastery, Archangel Cathedral, Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, Iberian Chapel, Cathedral of Christ the Savior) testify to Bunin's deep nostalgia.
5. How does the interior characterize the heroine?
Information for the teacher. In the heroine’s apartment there is a “wide Turkish sofa”, next to it is an “expensive piano”, and above the sofa, the writer emphasizes, “for some reason a portrait of barefoot Tolstoy hung”. A Turkish sofa and an expensive piano are East and West, barefoot Tolstoy is Russia. Bunin expresses the idea that his homeland, Russia, is a strange but obvious combination of two layers, two cultural patterns - "Western" and "Eastern", European and Asian. This idea runs like a red thread through all the pages of Bunin's story. In numerous allusions and half-hints that abound in the story, Bunin emphasizes the duality, the contradictory nature of the way of Russian life, the combination of the incongruous.
6. The poetry of the story is manifested in the sound and rhythmic organization of the text. Contrasts are also striking here: “the slow, somnambulistically beautiful beginning of the Moonlight Sonata is replaced by a can-can, and the sounds of the liturgy are replaced by a march from Aida. Throughout the story, the heroine plays Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. How does this characterize the inner world of the heroine?
Information for the teacher. The alternation of the most important motifs - temporal and eternal, the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit - forms the rhythmic basis of the story. The heroine is attracted to the eternal.
7. The heroine of the story finally decided to go to the monastery on "Clean Monday". Why on this particular day and how does it characterize her?
Information for the teacher. Pure Monday is the first Monday after Shrovetide, therefore, the action takes place in early spring (end of February - March). The last day of Shrove Tuesday is “Forgiveness Sunday”, on which people “forgive” each other insults, injustices, etc. Then comes “Clean Monday” - the first day of fasting, when a person who has been cleansed of filth enters a period of strict observance of rituals when the Maslenitsa festivities end and the fun is replaced by the severity of the life routine and self-focus. On this day, the heroine of the story finally decided to go to the monastery, parting with her past forever. Pure Monday is both a transition and a beginning: from a secular, sinful life to an eternal, spiritual one.
8. How can one explain the chronological discrepancy between the facts mentioned in the story? (At the end of the story, Bunin even accurately indicates the year in which the action takes place. Bely, who lived in Germany, was no longer in Moscow. By that time, the Literary and Artistic Circle had almost ceased its actual existence).
Information for the teacher. Bunin calls the time of the action of his story the spring of the thirteenth year. 1913 is the last pre-war year in Russia. This year is chosen by Bunin as the time of the story, despite its obvious discrepancy with the details of the described Moscow life of the era that survived it, this year has generally grown into a historical milestone of great importance. Bunin combines facts separated in reality by several years in order to further strengthen the impression of the diversity of Russian life at that time, the diversity of faces and people who did not suspect what a great test history was preparing for them. Anxiety and restlessness emanates from its pages. The bearer of these properties - the properties of time - is to a large extent the heroine.
9. Does the landscape play a role in depicting the heroine’s inner world: “A Moscow gray winter day grew dark, gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, shop windows were warmly lit - and Moscow’s evening life liberated from daytime affairs flared up: cab sledges rushed thicker and more cheerfully, thundered harder crowded, diving trams…”?
Information for the teacher. The landscape seems to anticipate an acquaintance with the contradictory nature of the heroine. Antithesis technique is used in the landscape. A whole system of oppositions is built in the story: the hero and the heroine are different in character; the elegant secular life of the heroine and her deep religiosity; love without external obstacles, and its tragic ending. The movement of the text seems to be controlled by two opposite motives - the vulgarity of the surrounding reality and the spirituality of eternal values.
10. Why does Bunin saturate the story with an abundance of names of writers?
Information for the teacher. To show the different inner worlds of the heroine and the hero, he uses literary names (tell me what you read and I will tell you who you are). The hero gives his beloved fashionable works of European decadence, a novel by V. Bryusov, which are not interesting to her. In her hotel room, “for some reason, a portrait of barefoot Tolstoy hangs,” but somehow, for no apparent reason, she recalls Platon Karataev ... In an aristocratically refined and mysterious, the features of Katyusha Maslova, sacrificial and pure, suddenly appear in her resurrecting soul from the last (most beloved by Bunin) novel by L.N. Tolstoy "Resurrection".
eleven . What is the meaning of the main episode - "skit" in the Art Theater?
Information for the teacher. The cycle of “fake, comic and buffoonish theatrical action” does not attract the heroine, but causes aching mental pain, which strengthens the heroine’s religiosity, her desire to go to the monastery.
12. In the story, impersonal verb constructions are often used (“... for some reason, I definitely wanted to go there ...”). What is the purpose of these constructs?
Information for the teacher. The movements of the soul of Bunin's heroes defy logical explanation, the heroes seem to have no power over themselves. This is the essential difference between Bunin's psychologism and L. Tolstoy's "dialectics of the soul" and I. Turgenev's "secret psychologism".
13. What role do the details play in creating the psychological portrait of the heroine?
Information for the teacher. In "Clean Monday" the motifs of the vain world and spiritual life echo with other works by Bunin. The substantive basis for the motif of the vain world is functionally loaded details: literary bohemianism is depicted as a meaningless "skit", where there are only "shouts", antics and posturing. The “spontaneous” details correspond to the motive of spiritual life: descriptions of nature and architectural monuments (“The evening was peaceful, sunny, with frost on the trees; on the bloody brick walls of the monastery, jackdaws resembling nuns chatted in silence, played on the bell tower). The feelings of the artist, who loves his native nature with all his heart, are conveyed through the color scheme and emotionally tinted epithets (“subtle and sad”, “light”, “wonderful”, “on the golden enamel of sunset”).
Sample questions for a group working on the topic “Open psychologism in I.A. Bunin’s story “Clean Monday”
1. How is the heroine characterized by her interest in the legend of the maiden Fevronia and her husband Peter?
Information for the teacher. These are signs of a dramatic internal struggle, the agony of choosing between the available attributes of happiness and the call of infinity, the last secrets of Russia. its religious depth. An extraordinary restrained force emanates from the words of the heroine, retelling a well-known story. Moreover, two pages earlier, it was about a completely similar temptation, in the face of which, as it turns out, the heroine herself is, also authoritatively taking him aside. “When I arrived at dusk,” says the hero, “I sometimes found her on the sofa in only one silk arkhaluk trimmed with sable ... I sat next to her in the semi-darkness, without lighting a fire, and kissed her hands, feet, amazing in its smoothness body. .. And she did not resist anything, but everything was silent. I constantly looked for her hot lips - she gave them, breathing already impetuously, but she was silent. When I felt that I was no longer able to control myself, she pushed me away ... ”The connection between these two moments is obvious - the Old Russian narrative and what happens in the story.
2. To the bewildered question of the hero, how does his beloved know about the details of the Old Believer funeral rite, the heroine meaningfully answers: “You don’t know me.” How is the inner world of the heroine revealed in this dialogue?
Information for the teacher. Her vague answer conceals, according to the writer, a hint of the tremendous importance of the work that is being done in her mind and which leads her in the end to the thought of a monastery. In the context of the whole story, this means - to the idea of the need to abandon the clearly expressed duality that constitutes the essence of its origin, its nature and its external appearance.
3. How is the heroine revealed in the dialogue about the future?
Information for the teacher. Insisting on his love and expressing readiness to wait for the consent of his beloved to become his wife, the hero of the story fervently asserts that only in love for her is happiness for him. And he hears a calm answer: “Our happiness, my friend, is like water in a delusion: you pull - it puffed up, but you pull it out - there’s nothing.” - “What is this?” - the hero asks warily and again receives in response: "This is how Platon Karataev spoke to Pierre." And then he waves his hand in despair: “Oh, God bless her, with this oriental wisdom!”. There was an opinion in Russian literature that the theory of non-resistance arose in the East. The heroine professes the "oriental wisdom" of non-resistance. However, it is not contemplation and social passivity that characterizes it in the first place, namely duality - nature, origin, spiritual makeup, passions IV. Socialization. Any activity in the group represents a comparison, reconciliation, evaluation, correction of the surrounding individual qualities, in other words, a social test, socialization.
V. Advertising - presentation of the results of the activities of the participants of the master class by groups.
VI. Gap (internal awareness by the participant of the master class of the incompleteness or inconsistency of the old knowledge with the new, internal emotional conflict).
Teacher: why is the heroine given so much attention in this story and why was this story so dear to I.A. Bunin? (Children's opinions are heard)
Information for the teacher. The saturation of the inner life of the heroine, the constant presence behind everything that she says and does, of the second, hidden plan and creates the impression of the significance of the image. Solving the problem of the future life for herself, the heroine of the story solves it against a very turbulent background of a well-defined historical period. In these searches there was a share of the mental participation of Bunin himself. He completely departed from the revealing tendencies of pre-revolutionary creativity, which caused the specific nature of the solution to the problem of fate he proposed in Clean Monday. Bunin's thought struggles in a certain way to resolve the "mystery" of Russia. He offers us one of the answers in his story.
VII. Reflection. How will I solve the problem of the future life?
Used literature and Internet resources:
I.A. Bunin. Arseniev's life. Dark alleys. Bustard. Moscow. 2004
T.Yu.Gerasimova. New knowledge through the pedagogical workshop "What is spirituality"
S.A. Zinin. Literature in school or school without literature? literature at school. 2009. No. 9
T.A. Kalganova. The problem of reading in modern society and ways to solve it. Literature in school. 2009. No. 12
Undoubtedly, the problem of depicting Russian reality was the most relevant for I. A. Bunin in the 1910s in comparison with other periods of his work. The surge of national self-consciousness caused by the revolutionary events of 1917 is fully reflected in Bunin's psychological prose and is associated precisely with an active understanding of the nature of the Russian person, his abilities, opportunities and future fate. Later, I. A. Bunin continues to write stories about Russian people, continuing to reflect on the "mystery of the Russian soul." This thinking has reached a new level, if only for the reason that significant changes have taken place with Russia, which could not but affect the national self-consciousness of the writer.
The main direction in which Bunin's creativity developed in the 1914-17s was a combination of lyricism of style and psychological self-development of character, analysis and synthesis. I. A. Bunin became the finalist of a whole period of Russian classical literature, “associated with the strengthening of psychologism in it, which obliged him to further develop and enrich poetics and stylistics, to develop new forms of artistic representation ...”
The peculiarities of the poetics of Bunin's lyrical miniatures embodied the specifics of the genre of lyrical prose as fully as possible. Lyrical prose is characterized by the emotional and intellectual self-expression of the hero, the artistic transformation of his individual life experience, which is no less important than the objective depiction of the realities of material reality. Bunin's miniatures include a description presented by A.I. Pavlovsky: “The content of a lyrical work is no longer the development of an objective incident, but the subject itself and everything that passes through it. This determines the fragmentation of the lyrics: a separate work cannot embrace the integrity of life, because the subject cannot be everything at the same moment. An individual person at different moments is full of different content. Although the whole fullness of the spirit is available to him, but not suddenly, but separately, in countless different moments.
Grasping reality in its most important object-sensual manifestations from the point of view of Bunin's hero, the narrator of lyrical miniatures thereby, as it were, splits them into separate realities, each of which is comprehended by him with the greater intensity and depth, the greater the emotional impact it has on him.
No matter how complex and deep phenomena of the spiritual sphere are discussed in Bunin's works of these years, the comprehension of these phenomena invariably turns under the artist's pen into a poetically penetrating, spiritualized self-expression of his lyrical hero. This is achieved by various means. Here is the open lyrical aspiration of the narration, and the balanced musical and rhythmic organization of phrases, and the intensive use of poetic tropes that direct the reader's thoughts in the right direction. As a result, internal monologues, permeated with sad and elegiac reflections on the secrets of life and death, cannot but evoke a certain reciprocal empathy in the soul of the reader.
However, this does not mean that the writer departs from the principles of the artistic depiction of life and man. His stories and stories are based on the same realistic method as in the works of the turn of the century, written in an objective manner, with the only difference that now the disclosure of the comprehended life is refracted through the subjective perception of the individual, whose thoughts and feelings act on the mind and heart of the reader. with no less force than visual realities.
In order to enhance the emotional and aesthetic impact, the writer resorts to his favorite method of associative comparison of life facts and phenomena. Unlike modernists, I. A. Bunin saw in the artistic association not a self-sufficient symbol and not a simple set of spectacular poetic tricks that are not capable of a critical attitude to the depicted, but the most important means of realizing the author's thought, idea. Even with the help of the most remote associations, I. A. Bunin sought to direct the reader in the right direction. Through the complex associative plan, the naked reality of the material and social environment in which he lives, acts and reflects always appears. For example, in the story "Antonov's apples" expressive details of a small local, settled life for centuries, the image of which is one of the leading motifs of the writer's early work, clearly emerge. We see with our own eyes the picking of apples and the fair, and the whole way of the average noble life, going to its decline.
And yet, it is not the realities of socio-historical reality that are significant for the hero-narrator, but the beauty, grandeur of nature, which are the subject of his own thoughts.
In full accordance with the genre of lyrical prose, most of Bunin's works are written in the first person. They resemble the pages of a lyrical hero's diary, who, as a rule, is the only character who unites the action. Of course, one can talk about a specific action with a stretch. There is no well-defined traditional plot containing intrigue or a clash of human characters. Instead, in the foreground, we see "the flow of thoughts and feelings of the hero, subtly feeling and reflecting, passionately in love with life and at the same time tormented by its riddles" . Most pre-revolutionary critics considered Bunin's miniatures as a phenomenon that had nothing to do with the early stories of I. A. Bunin.
The artistic system of I. A. Bunin, his psychologism is bipolar. One of their poles is descriptive (landscape, interior, portrait, and so on). It occupies a different volume in the works - from a relatively modest, functionally connected with the plot, to a self-sufficing text that fills the entire space. But it is constant, firstly, that it is always created according to the same aesthetic laws, and, secondly, it goes beyond strict subordination to the logic of the narrative and exceeds what is necessary.
Its second pole is the plot. Its range is wide from zero to acutely psychological and intense. His presentation can be sequential or discrete, that is, interrupted in time. The plot can be built according to the logic of linear time or on the displacement of time layers. If in the descriptive elements I. A. Bunin is monotonous, then in everything that concerns the plot, he is virtuoso inventive.
The functions of psychological descriptiveness and plot can be understood by comparing them. The system of their interaction is the most important component of the artistic world of I. A. Bunin, which originates from the depths of his philosophy of being. In some fragments, descriptiveness is traditionally subordinated to the plot; its function is to overcome the schematism of the plot, to give it concreteness and plausibility. In other cases, not quite subordinate descriptiveness performs other tasks. Thirdly, descriptiveness is sovereign from the plot and correlates with it on other artistic grounds.
The problem of the interaction of two aesthetic poles - plot and psychological descriptiveness - has a special perspective in works where "reality appears through the prism of subjective states that are intermediate in nature from slightly distorted to surreal..." The function of descriptiveness as a beginning that overcomes the centrality of the plot is always A. Bunina prevailing, often acting as the only function.
Many of Bunin's works before the emigration period had no plot. The writer translates their epic content into lyrical content. Everything that the lyrical hero sees is both the phenomena of the external world and the facts of his inner existence (general properties of lyrics).
Life is incommensurably wider than any event, and the aesthetic reality of a story is wider than a storyline. The story is just a fragment of the boundless being, the frame of the beginning and the end can be arbitrarily imposed in any place. The title plays the same role. Neutral names are often preferred so as not to distort the meaning. The names of Bunin's works are also unpretentious: "New Road", "Pines", "Meliton", etc. The most characteristic among the plotless works of I. A. Bunin is "Epitaph", filled with memories of the past. Bunin's memories are already transformed and poeticized in the depths of consciousness, because they exist in the emotional field of longing for the forever gone. This is manifested primarily in the fact that every detail becomes convex, bright, valuable in itself.
One of the most important functions of the plot and descriptiveness in their totality is the expression of the space-time dimension of life. The verbal art of the 20th century, as it were, is torn beyond its limits. The spatial form allows you to fully feel the value of any moment and any frozen particle of life. It opens the world beyond the boundaries of human existence and correlates its scale with the infinity of human existence.
In descriptiveness, I. A. Bunin realizes the feeling of infinite being. Although the plot sometimes drops to zero, the descriptiveness never does. It has priority, it is always focused on what is outside the work.
The constant and most important function of descriptiveness is the expansion of the human model, in the center of which there is a person, to a cosmic model. Since descriptiveness prevails in lyrical miniatures, their essence is well traced when comparing descriptiveness and plot and revealing their relationship.
Perhaps it is precisely in this connection that the writer removes a negative ethical assessment from some of the negative properties of the Russian person, not having confidence in their national nature and - even in this case - implying the existence of some justifications for the fact that they arose. So, for example, cruelty in a peasant environment can be justified by strong, exhausting love (“Ignat”, “On the Road”) or a peremptory desire for justice (“Good Bloods”). In addition, Bunin's prose artistically embodied the Old Testament worldview of the Russian people, according to which both God and the world that exists according to His laws appear cruel in relation to a defenseless person who is forced only to obey (“Sacrifice”). Love for one's neighbor ("Cricket", "Shoes", "Thin Grass"), beauty of Russian Orthodoxy ("Aglaya", "Prelate", "Saints", "Dream of the Blessed Virgin Mary"), mercy, emotional sensitivity, special (kindred) the nature of spiritual closeness to God (“Saints”, “Prelate”), closeness to nature, including in relation to life and death (“Thin Grass”, “Merry Yard”), striving for a feat (“Zakhar Vorobyov”) , the preservation of ancient tribal traditions that benefit people (“Good Bloods”) - these are a number of positive properties of the soul of a Russian person that create a multifaceted image of the national ideal in the prose of I. A. Bunin and directly correlate with the Christian ideal.
So, in a number of stories by I. A. Bunin, the guardians of the best properties of the Russian character are the old men and old women who are living out their lives or on the verge of oblivion: Anisya (“Merry Yard”), Ilya Kapitonov (“Cricket”), Averky (“Thin Grass” ) and others. The courageous calmness with which the Russian peasant awaits death characterizes the national attitude to life, the question of which I. A. Bunin considers, in particular, in the story "Flies".
The power of selfless parental love is depicted by I. A. Bunin in the story "The Cricket", whose hero, the saddler Ilya Kapitonov, entered into an irreconcilable confrontation with death, trying to win back his son from her. Selflessness as a feature of the national ideal is also manifested in the story "Lapti", but already without determination by kindred feelings. The writer evaluates the death of the hero as a feat that bestowed salvation on other people. The fact that the lost men were able to navigate along the dead body of Nefed and thereby escape, shows the symbolism of the sacrifice made by the hero, and its highest meaning is the battle with death that took place and, to a certain extent, won. Thus, the feature of the national ideal in the perception of I. A. Bunin is not only organic and natural, but also deeply national.
The specificity of the psychologism of I. A. Bunin - the most subjective singer of the objective world - is that it is impossible to talk about the priority of external or internal, subjective or objective. The objective world in its true scales, forms, proportions is such a high value that the soul takes it into itself reverently, avoiding any distortions. But in this soul he exists as a fact of her most intimate life, colored by her entire emotional structure.
Bunin's work is characterized by an interest in ordinary life, the ability to reveal the tragedy of life, the saturation of the narrative with details. Bunin is considered to be the successor of the traditions of Chekhov's realism. But Bunin's realism differs from Chekhov's in its extreme sensitivity. Like Chekhov, Bunin addresses eternal themes. For Bunin, the mental state of the characters is important, however, in his opinion, the highest judge of a person is memory. It is the memory that protects Bunin's heroes from inexorable time, from death. Bunin's works are considered a synthesis of prose and poetry. They have an unusually strong confessional beginning.
More than sixty years of Bunin's writing activity splits in two: a convinced monarchist, a person far from politics, an opponent of all violence, he tragically experienced the events that followed 1917, and emigrated from Bolshevik Russia, preserving in emigration the former Russia, nostalgically painted in warm colors.
In the work of the pre-October period, two ideological and thematic centers can be traced: rural prose and lyric-philosophical (in which eternal values rise: beauty, love, nature). During this period, the following were created: "Antonov apples", "Village", "Sukhodol", "Zakhar Vorobyov", "Lirnik Rodion", "Brothers", "Grammar of Love", "Master from San Francisco", "Light Breath" .
Story "Antonov apples" (1900) deservedly considered the pinnacle of the writer's work. What is this story about? What is its plot?
The question raises certain difficulties, because in "Antonov's Apples" there is no plot, the plot outline is the "stream of consciousness of the narrator", consisting of a chain of memories, sensations, experiences. This story is a memory, a story is an impression.
The composition of the story consists of four parts. The content of the chapters is a narrative about certain "autumn" events of Russian old noble life. Each chapter is firmly “tied” to a specific month: August (1), September (2), October (3), November (4).
The reader sees the wonderful and poetic world of ancient noble nests through the eyes of a nameless narrator. He knows well and dearly loves this still breathing life, but already doomed to die world, he wants to remember everything that is worthy of memory: bright, kind, original, primordially Russian.
The writer describes the way of life of the nobility on the example of his aunt's estate. A description of the interior of the estate follows, full of details - "blue and purple glass in the windows", "old mahogany furniture with inlays, mirrors in narrow, twisted gold frames." "The fading spirit of the landlords" is supported only by hunting. The author recalls the "rite" of hunting in the house of his brother-in-law Arseny Semenovich. A particularly pleasant rest, “when it happened to oversleep the hunt” - silence in the house, reading old books in “thick leather bindings”, memories of girls in noble estates (“aristocratically beautiful heads in ancient hairstyles meekly and femininely lower their long eyelashes on sad and tender eyes").
Lamenting that noble estates are dying, the narrator is surprised at how quickly this process is happening: “These days were not long ago, but meanwhile it seems to me that almost a whole century has passed since then ... The kingdom of small estates, impoverished to beggary, is coming.”
A whole world is leaving life, an amazing, reasonable, expedient world, a world saturated with the wonderful aroma of "Antonov apples", a world in which it was so "cold, dewy and ... so good to live."
"Antonov apples" - a story about the forever lost.
The theme of parting with Russia, close to Bunin since childhood, is revealed in the works "Village" and "Sukhodol".
In the story "Village" (1910) reflects the writer's dramatic thoughts about Russia, about its future, about the fate of the people, about the Russian character. Bunin reveals a pessimistic view of the prospects of people's life.
In the story, the writer shows the life of the peasantry on the eve of the first Russian revolution, the events of which completely destroy the usual course of life in the countryside. The heroes of the story are trying to understand the environment, to find a foothold. But the turbulent events of the beginning of the century exacerbate not only the social problems of the village, but also destroy normal human relationships, lead the heroes of "The Village" into a dead end.
The writer sincerely believes that only in the natural world lies that eternal and beautiful that is not subject to man with his earthly passions. The laws of the life of human society, on the contrary, lead to cataclysms and upheavals. This world is unstable, it is devoid of harmony. Yes, in the story "Dry Valley" (1911) reveals the problem of human relationships with the outside world. The work raises the theme of the doom of the noble estate world, this is a chronicle of the tragic death of the Russian nobility. In the center of the story is the life of the impoverished noble family of the Khrushchevs and their courtyards. Both the love and the hatred of the heroes of "Dry Valley" are the sadness of decay, inferiority, the laws of the end. In the work of the absurdity of human relationships, the beauty of Sukhodol, its wide steppe expanses with their smells, colors and sounds, is contrasted.
"Sir from San Francisco" was written in 1916, during the First World War. In the days of social and economic upheavals, society involuntarily begins to think about the “eternal”: life and death, individual fate and the fate of all mankind. Bunin was no exception: in his small, but maximally rich in philosophical content story, the writer reflects on universal human problems.
The writer in the title of the story symbolically displayed his forecasts for the fate of contemporary bourgeois civilization, rejected ghostly, imaginary bourgeois values and affirmed true values, inseparable from living life, from nature, from natural harmony with man.
"Cursed Days" (1918-1920)- a milestone from which a new stage begins in the life and work of Bunin. The author presents the revolution of 1917 in the work as a “bloody game”, an “orgy of cruelty”, which disgraced the Russian people. With deep pain, Bunin writes about the chain reaction of evil and violence that began in 1917, about the death of Russian culture, about the hatred of the intelligentsia incited by the Bolsheviks.
In exile, Bunin's talent began to play with new facets. In the 1920s, collections of short stories "Rose of Jericho", "Mitina's Love", "Shadow of a Bird", "God's Tree", etc. were published. The largest work created in emigration was the novel " Arsenyev's life "(1927-1933) awarded the Nobel Prize in 1933.
One of the main themes of Bunin's work has always been love. “All love is a great happiness, even if it is not shared” - in this phrase, the pathos of Bunin’s image of love. In almost all works on this subject, the outcome is tragic. The writer sees the eternal mystery of love and the eternal drama of lovers in the fact that a person is unwilling in his love passion: love is a feeling that is initially spontaneous, inevitable, often tragic - happiness turns out to be unattainable.
The most perfect creation of I.A. Bunin considered the collection "Dark Alleys" (1943). Most of the stories contained in this book were written during the Second World War, when the need for love, a feeling that spiritualizes life, is especially acute, as opposed to a death-bearing war.
Love for Bunin is a brief moment of the highest happiness and bliss, followed by everyday life, even more unbearable because the hero managed to know true happiness. The stories from the "Dark Alleys" series, as a rule, are built according to a repeating pattern - a meeting, a quick rapprochement of the characters, a dazzling outburst of feelings and an inevitable parting. Often the author does not even mention the names of the main characters in order to focus entirely on their feelings. The author focuses on the experiences of the characters after they have experienced the highest happiness of love, after they parted for one reason or another with their loved ones, and the very description of a date or a period of happy love takes no more than a page.
Bunin's work is the largest phenomenon in Russian culture of the 20th century. His "universalism", "synthesis of poetry and prose", innovative forms of psychoanalysis, rethinking of "eternal" themes and traditional forms of poetics make this author one of the brightest and original writers of our time.
Russian literature of the 20th century: general characteristics
The literature of the 20th century dates back to the last decade of the 19th century. Late XIX - early. XX centuries became the time of the bright dawn of Russian culture. In science, literature, art, new talents appeared one after another, bold innovations were born, different directions, groupings, styles competed. At the same time, the culture of this period was characterized by deep contradictions, characteristic of the entire Russian life of that time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the traditions of realistic literature continue and develop. Realism still remains a large-scale, influential, fairly widely represented trend. The "late Tolstoy", Chekhov, Korolenko, Veresaev, Gorky, Kuprin, Bunin, Andreev and other realist writers work in the mainstream of realistic literature. The realistic prose of the beginning of the century saw the increasingly complicated relations of man with the world, shed new light on the “structure” of the personality itself, showed the fate of man in the transitional period of history.
In Russian literature of the late 19th century - early 20th century, a crisis of old ideas about art will be felt, a feeling of the exhaustion of past development, a reassessment of values will be formed. Renewal of literature, its modernization will cause the emergence of new trends and schools. The rethinking of the old means of expression and the revival of poetry will mark the onset of the Silver Age of Russian literature.
The term "silver age of Russian literature" first appeared in the works of the philosopher N. Berdyaev, but it received its final form in the 60s, when the critic S. Makovsky introduced it into literary circulation. The chronological framework of the literature of the "Silver Age" is traditionally considered the end of the XIX - early. XX centuries (approximately 1890-1917 or 1890-1921). If researchers are quite unanimous in determining the lower limit of the Silver Age, this is a phenomenon of the turn of the century, and it is characterized by the country's exit from the era of timelessness, the beginning of a social upsurge in the country. The upper limit of the Silver Age is controversial. It can be attributed to both 1917 and 1921. Some researchers believe that after 1917, with the outbreak of the Civil War, the Silver Age ceased to exist. Others believe the silver age of Russian literature ended in 1921-22. - this was the time of the collapse of past illusions that began after the death of Blok and Gumilyov, the mass emigration of figures of Russian culture abroad, the expulsion of groups of writers, philosophers, historians from the country. The concept of the "Silver Age" is primarily associated with modernist trends. Modernism implies a new phenomenon in literature, especially in poetry. He united a number of literary movements, trends, the most significant of which were acmeism, symbolism, futurism. Each of these literary movements had its own bright representatives: Bryusov, Merezhkovsky Balmont, Annensky, Bely, Gumilyov, Akhmatova, and others. In Russian poetry at the beginning of the century, there is also a galaxy of “peasant poets”. Representatives of this direction in poetry were guided by the image of the "leaving" rural Rus', which was created by S. Yesenin.
The 1920s was a period of heightened ideological struggle in literature, the time of the creation and vigorous activity of many literary groups, circles, and associations. This is a complex, but dynamic and creatively fruitful period in the development of literature. Although many figures of Russian culture in this difficult time were expelled from the country, others went into voluntary emigration, yet the artistic life in the country does not stop. On the contrary, many talented young writers, recent participants in the civil war, appeared: Leonov, Sholokhov, Fadeev, and others. The main literary trends of the 1920s were “renewed realism,” normativism, and modernism. The main theme of the literature of this period is the revolution and the civil war. It was reflected in the "diary prose" of Bunin, Gorky, Gippius, in the works of the Silver Age poets Blok, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Pasternak and others, in the official poetry of Mayakovsky, Poor, Bagritsky, Aseev, in the prose of Furmanov, Serafimovich.
In the thirties of the XX century, the active intervention of the party in the sphere of culture began. Under these conditions, the development of literature was extremely intense and ambiguous. The desire to squeeze literature into the framework of a single aesthetic template led to the discovery of a new artistic method - socialist realism. It was the only true one, and everything that did not fit into its framework was considered ideologically harmful and was deprived of access to readers. Writers and poets who tried to maintain their style in literature were either physically destroyed (Babel, Mandelstam, Pilnyak, Klyuev, and others) or banned (Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Pasternak, and others).
In the thirties, Bunin, Kuprin, Andreev, Balmont, Severyanin and other prominent Russian poets and writers emigrated from the country. They continued in their foreign work the traditions of classical Russian literature and the literature of the "Silver Age". At the same time, in the thirties, the talent of Sholokhov, Ilf, Petrov, Zoshchenko, Tolstoy, Platonov, Tvardovsky and many other Soviet writers and poets flourished.
The Great Patriotic War put forward new tasks for literature. Works of different genres and types reflected the theme of the heroism of the Russian people. In the foreground was patriotic lyrics (Simonov, Tvardovsky and others). Prose writers cultivated their most active genres: journalistic essays, reports, stories (Sobolev, Grossman, and others). The literature of the post-war years significantly supplemented the ideas about the tragedy experienced by the people. The military theme was reflected in the works of Sholokhov, Abramov, Vasiliev, Bondarev, Chakovsky, Astafiev, Rasputin and many other authors.
The next major stage in the development of literature was the period of the second half of the 20th century. Within the second half of the 20th century, researchers distinguish several relatively independent periods: late Stalinism (1946-1953), "thaw" (1953-1965), stagnation (1965-1985), perestroika (1985-1991), modern times (1991-2000 gg.). Literature in these very different periods developed with great difficulties, experiencing alternately unnecessary guardianship, indulgence, restraint, persecution, emancipation. From the 1950s until the first half of the 1980s, literary development proceeded in two directions: official and "second culture" (samizdat). Only during the period of Khrushchev's "thaw" was the ideological pressure on literature eased. The stage of change did not last very long, but brought significant, fundamental changes in literature and art. New literary journals began to appear, new literary trends were born, which received the conditional names of "military", "village", "urban prose"; there was a real "poetic boom"; the genre of author's song became popular, studio theaters appeared; science fiction took off. During the period of perestroika, the time has come for the “returned literature”, which has become a symbol of opposition to the totalitarian regime. In the last third of the 20th century, postmodernism became widespread in literature.
In the second half of the 20th century, literature acquired a huge creative potential and acquired considerable artistic experience. This period was marked by the work of talented poets and prose writers, whose works became the pride of Russian literature Solzhenitsyn, Shukshin, Astafiev, Rasputin, Rubtsov, Vampilov, Vysotsky, Brodsky, Okudzhava, Voznesensky, Aitmatov and many others.
"The Silver Age of Russian Poetry"
"Silver Age" - this name has become stable to refer to Russian poetry of the late XIX - early. XX centuries It was given in analogy with the "golden age" - the so-called beginning of the 19th century, Pushkin's time.
Russian poetry of the Silver Age was created in the atmosphere of a general cultural upsurge. In the history of world literature, this phenomenon was unique.
The poetry of the Silver Age was characterized primarily by mysticism and a crisis of faith, spirituality, and conscience. It absorbed the heritage of the Bible, ancient mythology, the experience of European and world literature, and is closely connected with Russian folklore.
This period is characterized by an active literary life: books and magazines, poetry evenings, competitions, literary salons, an abundance and variety of poetic talents, a huge interest in poetry, primarily in modernist movements, the most influential of which were symbolism, acmeism, futurism. All these directions are very different, have different ideals, pursue different goals, but converge on one thing: work on rhythm, word, sound.
Symbolism(from the Greek symbolon - a sign, a conventional sign) - a literary and artistic direction, which considered the goal of art to be an intuitive comprehension of world unity through symbols. Symbolism arose in France in the 70s-80s of the 19th century, and in domestic literature it was formed at the turn of the century and is represented in the works of Bryusov, Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Bely, Blok and others.
The three main elements of the new art are symbol, mystical content, and artistic impressionability.
The key concept of symbolism symbol- polysemantic allegory, in contrast to allegories - multi-valued allegory. The symbol contains the prospect of a limitless expansion of meanings.
From the point of view of the symbolists, it is impossible to comprehend the diversity of the world by reason, one should trust intuition. Therefore, in the verses of the authors of this trend, the specifics give way to hints, halftones, understatement, and the symbol is a conductor of the true meaning. In the poetry of symbolism, reality acts as a background against which the motifs of mysticism, individualism, religiosity, eroticism, death, mystery, a large hostile city, longing for lost beauty, love, etc. develop.
The poetry of the Symbolists makes an extraordinary artistic impression. Symbolists gave the word an unprecedented ambiguity, discovered in it many additional shades and meanings. Symbolist poetry is very musical, rich in assonances and alliterations. But most importantly, symbolism tried to create a new philosophical culture, develop a new worldview, make art more personal, fill it with new content.
Symbolists carried out serious work on the poetic form. Their works are rich in metaphors, allegory, literary quotations, etc. Greek and Roman mythology served as a favorite source of artistic reminiscences. The Symbolists not only turned to ready-made mythological plots, but also created their own. All this made their poetry multi-valued, not accessible to everyone.
Symbolism is an elitist art. Symbolist writers focused on a special reader - not on the consumer, but on the accomplice of creativity, the co-author. The poem was supposed not only to convey the thoughts and feelings of the author, but also to awaken his own thoughts and feelings in the reader, sharpen his perception, develop intuition, and evoke associations.
From the very beginning, symbolism proved to be a heterogeneous current. It was divided into junior and senior symbolists.
Symbolism has had an exceptional influence on literature. The trends that appeared in literature later were forced in one way or another to correlate themselves with symbolism, to enter into polemics with it. The Symbolists returned the significance of poetry, updated the phonetic, lexical, figurative structure of the verse. The Symbolists stood at the origins of the "Silver Age" of Russian poetry.
Examples of symbolic works include the following works: A. Bely "Silver Dove", V. Bryusov "Fiery Angel", A. Blok "Poems about the Beautiful Lady", K. Balmont's lyrical cycle "Outlines of Dreams", etc.
Acmeism- a modernist trend (from the Greek akme - a point, a peak, the highest degree, a pronounced quality), declaring a concrete-sensual perception of the outside world, returning the word to its original, non-symbolic meaning. Acmeism appeared in literature in the 10s. 20th century and opposed mysticism and symbolism.
Acmeists are interested in the real, and not the other world, the beauty of life in its concrete sensual manifestations. Nebula and hints of symbolism were opposed by a major perception of reality, the authenticity of the image, and the clarity of the composition. Acmeism represents the world of simple and ordinary feelings and everyday spiritual manifestations. Therefore, the Acmeists still called themselves "Adamists". Adamism implied "a courageous, firm and clear outlook on life."
Acmeism is characteristic of the early work of N. Gumilyov and A. Akhmatova. So, in the poetry of N. Gumilyov, his heroes are people of strong will, they are distinguished by the freshness of their worldview, the passion of desires, life. The meaning of life of the heroines of A. Akhmatova's lyrics is love. Feelings are reflected in the objective world, in everyday details, in a psychologically significant gesture.
The poetry of acmeism is distinguished by an increased tendency to cultural associations; it entered into a roll call with past literary eras. In some ways, the poetry of acmeism was the revival of the "golden time" of Pushkin and Baratynsky.
Acmeists strove for exquisite beauty and clarity of language, and creativity was understood as a craft, as work on a verbal image. This is also indicated by the name of their literary organization - "The Workshop of Poets". It was headed by N. Gumilyov, who attracted A. Akhmatova, G. Adamovich, S. Gorodetsky, G. Ivanov, O. Mandelstam and others to participate in this association.
The new literary trend, which rallied great Russian poets, did not last long. The creative searches of Akhmatova, Gumilyov, Mandelstam went beyond the framework of acmeism. But the humanistic meaning of this trend was significant - to revive a person's thirst for life, to return a sense of its beauty.
Futurism(from Latin futurum - future) - an avant-garde trend in foreign and Russian literature of 1910-20, mainly in poetry, expressed in the rejection of traditional forms of creativity in favor of experiments with the word and versification, experiments to create a new poetic language, language future.
Symbolism became the aesthetic premise of futurism. Based on the principles of this literary trend, the futurists placed man at the center of the world, sang the benefit, not the mystery, rejected the understatement, nebulousness, veil, mysticism inherent in symbolism.
Futurists sought to free the sound of the word and semantic content. This was also led to the violation of syntactic constructions, the creation of neologisms, figurative versification, the creation of a new language - zaum.
One of the first to appear was a group of so-called cubo-futurists (1910), which included V. Khlebnikov, a little later V. Mayakovsky and others. Cubo-futurists sought to convey the rhythm and image of modern life in the technique of verse.
In 1911, another literary trend took shape - egofuturism, founded by I. Severyanin. It advocated individualism and the abolition of ethical restrictions in creativity (ego-I). It included K.Olimpov, I.Ignatiev, V.Bayan, G.Ivanov and others.
The third notable association in Futurism was the Centrifuga group, close to the Cubo-Futurists, developing a new poetic imagery. It included B. Pasternak, N. Aseev and others.
In the 1920s, futurism was condemned by Soviet literary criticism and ceased to exist. Having accepted Soviet power, the majority of futurists actively participated in its political and agitational undertakings. An exceptional role here belongs to Mayakovsky.
Lessons 4–5 “AND IN THIS IS ALL BUNIN” (A. N. ARKHANGELSKY). THE ORIGINALITY OF LYRICAL NARRATIVE IN BUNIN'S PROSE. THE PSYCHOLOGISM OF BUNIN'S PROSE AND
30.03.2013 31330 0Lessons 4–5
« And this is the whole Bunin " (A. N. Arkhangelsky).
The peculiarity of the lyrical narrative
in Bunin's prose. Psychologism of Bunin's prose
and features of external depiction
Goals : to acquaint with the variety of subjects of Bunin's prose; to teach to identify the literary devices used by Bunin to reveal human psychology, and other characteristic features of Bunin's stories; develop prose text analysis skills.
Course of lessons
I. Checking homework.
Reading by heart and analysis of Bunin's poems: "Epiphany Night", "Loneliness", "The Last Bumblebee".
II. Working with new material.
1. The word of the teacher.
Features of Bunin as an artist, the originality of his place among his contemporaries and, more broadly, in Russian realism of the 19th–20th centuries. are revealed in works in which, according to him, he was occupied by "the soul of a Russian person in a deep sense, the image of the traits of the psyche of a Slav." Let's take a look at some of the stories.
2. Student messages.
a) The story "The Village" (based on textbook material, pp. 39-43).
b) Collection "Dark Alleys".
Having worked on the cycle "Dark Alleys" for many years, I. A. Bunin, already at the end of his career, admitted that he considers this cycle "the most perfect in terms of craftsmanship." The main theme of the cycle is the theme of love, a feeling that reveals the most secret corners of the human soul. Bunin's love is the basis of all life, that ghostly happiness that everyone strives for, but often misses.
Already in the first story, which, like the entire collection, received the name "Dark Alleys", one of the main themes of the cycle appears: life moves inexorably forward, dreams of lost happiness are illusory, because a person cannot influence the development of events.
According to the writer, only a limited amount of happiness is released to mankind, and therefore what is given to one is taken away from another. In the story "Caucasus", the heroine, running away with her lover, buys her happiness at the cost of her husband's life.
I. A. Bunin describes the last hours of the hero’s life in amazing detail and prosaically. All this is undoubtedly connected with Bunin's general concept of life. A person dies not in a state of passion, but because he has already received his share of happiness in life and there is no need for him to live anymore.
Running away from life, from pain, the heroes of I. A. Bunin experience joy, because the pain sometimes becomes unbearable. All the will, all the determination, which a person so lacks in life, is invested in suicide.
In an effort to get their share of happiness, Bunin's heroes are often selfish and cruel. They realize that it is pointless to spare a person, because happiness is not enough for everyone, and sooner or later you will experience the pain of loss - it does not matter.
The writer even tends to absolve his characters of responsibility. Acting cruelly, they only live according to the laws of life in which they are unable to change anything.
IN the story "Muse" the heroine lives according to the principle dictated to her by the morality of society. The main theme of the story is the theme of a fierce struggle for short happiness, and the great tragedy of the hero is that he perceives love differently from his beloved, an emancipated woman who does not know how to take into account the feelings of another person.
But, despite this, even the slightest glimpse of love can become for Bunin's heroes the moment that a person will consider the happiest all his life.
Love for Bunin is the greatest happiness bestowed on a person. But eternal fate hangs over it. Love is always associated with tragedy, true love does not have a happy ending, because a person has to pay for moments of happiness.
Loneliness becomes the inevitable lot of a person who has not been able to discern a close soul in another. Alas! How often found happiness turns into loss, as happened with the heroes of the story "In Paris".
I. A. Bunin surprisingly accurately knows how to describe the complexity and diversity of those feelings that arise in a loving person. And the situations described in his stories are very different.
In the stories “Steamboat Saratov”, “Raven”, Bunin shows how intricately love can be intertwined with a sense of possessiveness.
In the story "Natalie", the writer talks about how terrible passion is, not warmed by true love.
Love in Bunin's stories can lead to destruction and grief, because it arises not only when a person "has the right" to fall in love ("Rusya", "Kavkaz").
In the story "Galya Ganskaya" we are talking about what a tragedy the lack of spiritual closeness in people can end when they feel differently.
And the heroine of the story "Dubki" deliberately goes to her death, wanting to feel true love at least once in her life. Thus, many of Bunin's stories are tragic. Sometimes in one short line the writer reveals the collapse of hopes, the cruel mockery of fate.
The stories of the cycle "Dark alleys" - sample of amazing Russian psychological prose, in which love has always been one of those eternal secrets that the artists of the word sought to reveal. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was one of those brilliant writers who came closest to unraveling this mystery.
3. Working with texts(check home preparation).
A) The gentleman from San Francisco.
In his work, Bunin continues the traditions of Russian classics. Following Tolstoy, the philosopher and artist, Bunin turns to the broadest socio-philosophical generalizations in the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco", written in 1915, at the height of the First World War.
In the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”, the powerful influence of Leo Tolstoy, a philosopher and artist, is noticeable. Like Tolstoy, Bunin judges people, their craving for pleasure, the injustice of the social structure from the point of view of the eternal laws that govern humanity.
The idea of the inevitable death of this world was reflected with the greatest force in this story, in which, according to the critic A. Derman, “with some kind of solemn and righteous sadness, the artist painted a large image of enormous evil - the image of sin in which the life of a modern proud person flows with an old heart.
The giant “Atlantis” (with the name of the sunken mythical continent), on which Capri, an American millionaire, travels to the island of pleasure, is a kind of model of human society: with lower floors where workers, stunned by the roar and hellish heat, tirelessly scurry about, and upper, where the privileged classes live.
- What is he, the "hollow" man, in the image of Bunin?
I. A. Bunin needs only a few strokes so that we can see the whole life of an American millionaire. Once he chose a model for himself, which he wanted to be equal to, and after many years of hard work, he finally realized that he had achieved what he aspired to. He is rich.
And a hero story decides that the moment has come when he can enjoy all the joys of life, especially since he has money for this. People of his circle go to rest in the Old World - he goes there too. The hero's plans are extensive: Italy, France, England, Athens, Palestine and even Japan. The gentleman from San Francisco has made it his goal to enjoy life - and he enjoys it the best he can, more precisely, focusing on how others do it. He eats a lot, drinks a lot.
Money helps the hero to create a kind of scenery around him, which protects from everything that he does not want to see.
But it is precisely behind this scenery that a living life passes, a life that he has never seen and will never see.
- What is the climax of the story?
The climax of the story is the unexpected death of the protagonist. In its suddenness lies the deepest philosophical meaning. The gentleman from San Francisco is postponing his life until later, but none of us is destined to know how much time is allotted to us on this earth. Life cannot be bought with money. The hero of the story brings youth to the altar of profit for the sake of speculative happiness in the future, he does not even notice how mediocre his life has been.
The gentleman from San Francisco, this poor rich man, is contrasted with the episodic figure of the boatman Lorenzo, a rich poor man, "a carefree reveler and a handsome man", indifferent to money and happy, full of life. Life, feelings, the beauty of nature - these are, according to Bunin, the main values. And woe to him who has made money his goal.
How does the theme of love sound in the work?
It is not by chance that I. A. Bunin introduces the theme of love into the story, because even love, the highest feeling, turns out to be artificial in this world of the rich.
It is love for his daughter that the gentleman from San Francisco cannot buy. And she is in awe when she meets an oriental prince, but not because he is handsome and can excite the heart, but because “unusual blood” flows in him, because he is rich, noble and belongs to a noble family.
And the highest level of vulgarization of love is a pair of lovers who are admired by the passengers of the Atlantis, who themselves are not capable of such strong feelings, but about which only the captain of the ship knows that she is “hired by Lloyd to play love for good money and has long been floating on one, then on the other ship.
Read the textbook article (pp. 45-46).
Make a plan to answer the question: How is the theme of the doom of the world expressed in the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco"?
Sample Plan
1. "The artist painted ... the image of sin ... a proud man with an old heart."
2. Symbolic name ship: Atlantis - a sunken mythical continent.
3. Passengers of the ship - a model of human society:
b) the death of a gentleman from San Francisco.
4. The theme is in the epigraph: "Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!". Select quotes from the text of the story to answer according to the resulting plan.
B) "Clean Monday" - one of the stories on the eternal theme of love, which occupies a special place in the work of I. A. Bunin.
– Prove that the images of the main characters are built on antithesis.
- Explain the title of the story.
- Prove that the story is characterized by artistic brevity, thickening of external depiction, which allows us to speak of neo-realism as a writing method.
III. Analysis of the text of the story by I. A. Bunin "Antonov apples".
Home training in groups. The assessment of the work is drawn up in a table (on the board), the results are summed up, the number of points is calculated.
When answering, reliance on the text is required.
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Answer (5 points) |
Addition (3 points) |
Question (1 point) |
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Teacher's word.
In Bunin's story "Antonov apples" there are motifs of withering and desolation of noble nests, the motif of memory and the theme of Russia. Isn't it sad to watch how everything dear to you from childhood irrevocably disappears into the past?
For the heir to noble literature, I. A. Bunin, who was proud of his genealogy (“a hundred-year-old selection of blood and culture!”, in the words of I. Ilyin), such was manor Russia, the whole way of landowner life, closely connected with nature, agriculture, tribal customs and the life of the peasants.
The memory of the artist revives the pictures of the past, as if he sees colorful dreams about the past, with the power of imagination he tries to stop the moment. The withering of noble nests was associated by Bunin with the autumn landscape. Fascinated by autumn and the poetry of antiquity, Bunin wrote one of the best stories of the beginning of the century - "Antonov apples", an enthusiastic and sad epitaph to the Russian estate.
"Antonov apples" are extremely important for understanding Bunin's work. With great artistic power, they capture the image of their native land, its wealth and unpretentious beauty.
Life is steadily moving forward, Russia has just entered a new century, and the writer calls us not to lose what is worthy of memory, what is beautiful and eternal.
In his "autumn" story, Bunin subtly captured and conveyed the unique atmosphere of the past.
Critics are unanimous in their admiration for the amazing artistic skill of the Antonov Apples, their indescribable aesthetic charm.
As a result of the drawing of lots, each group receives a question, for discussion of which 5-7 minutes are given. The questions were presented to the students in advance to give them the opportunity to prepare in advance.
1. What pictures come to mind when reading a story?
To help complete this task, lexical models are offered:
nostalgia for fading noble nests;
elegy of parting with the past;
pictures of patriarchal life;
poeticization of antiquity; apotheosis of old Russia;
wilting, desolation of manor life;
sad lyricism of the story.
2. What are the features of the composition? Plan your story.
Comprehending the composition, we come to the conclusion that the story is built as a mosaic of diverse impressions, memories, lyrical revelations and philosophical reflections.
In the alternation of chapters, we see, first of all, calendar changes in nature and the associations associated with them.
1. Remembrance of an early fine autumn. Bustle in the garden.
2. Remembrance of the "harvest year." Silence in the garden.
3. Memories of hunting (small local life). Storm in the garden.
4. Remembrance of deep autumn. A half-cut, bare garden.
3. What is the personality of the lyrical hero?
The lyrical hero in his spiritual mood is close to the author himself. His appearance is sketched, he is not personified (appearance, biography, etc.).
But the spiritual world of this person can be imagined very vividly.
It should be noted his patriotism, dreaminess, poetic-subtle vision of the world: “And the black sky is drawn with fiery stripes by shooting stars. For a long time you look into its dark blue depth, overflowing with constellations, until the earth floats under your feet. Then you will start up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, you will quickly run along the alley to the house ... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!
In the center of the image is not only the successive change of the autumn months, but also the “age” view of the world, for example, a child, a teenager, a young man and a mature person.
“Early fine autumn”, with the description of which the story begins, we see through the eyes of a boy, “barchuk”.
In the second chapter, the lyrical hero has largely lost the joy and purity inherent in children's perception.
In the third and fourth chapters, light tones decrease and dark, gloomy, hopelessly dreary ones are affirmed: “Here I see myself again in the village, in deep autumn. The days are bluish, cloudy... In the footman's room, a worker heats the stove, and, as in childhood, I squat down near a heap of straw, which already smells sharply of winter freshness, and look first into the flaming stove, then at the windows, behind which, turning blue, twilight dies sadly.
So, Bunin tells not only about how they come to the dilapidated estates and the wind of change destroys the old way of life, but also about how a person moves towards his autumn and winter seasons.
4. Lexical center - the word GARDEN. How does Bunin describe the garden?
Bunin is an unsurpassed master of verbal coinage. In "Antonov apples" the lexical center is the word SAD, one of the key words not only in Bunin's work, but throughout Russian culture as a whole.
The word "garden" revived memories of something dear, close to the soul.
The garden is associated with a friendly family, a home, with a dream of a serene heavenly happiness that humanity may lose in the future.
You can find many symbolic shades of the word garden: beauty, the idea of time, the memory of generations, homeland. But most often the famous Chekhovian image comes to mind: the garden is the noble nests, which recently experienced a period of prosperity, and now have fallen into decay.
Bunin's garden is a mirror reflecting what is happening with the estates and their inhabitants.
In the story "Antonov apples" he appears as a living being with his own mood and character. The garden is shown every time through the prism of the author's moods. In the fertile time of Indian summer, it is a symbol of well-being, contentment, prosperity: “... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinned garden, I remember maple alleys, the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness.” In the early morning, it is cool, filled with a "lilac fog", as if hiding the secrets of nature.
But "farewell festival of autumn" came to an end and “the black garden will shine through the turquoise sky and dutifully wait for winter, warming itself in the sunshine”.
In the last chapter, the garden is deserted, dull... On the threshold of a new century, only memories of the once shining garden remained. The motifs of an abandoned noble estate are consonant with Bunin's famous poem "Desolation" (1903):
A mute silence torments me.
The native nest is tormented by desolation.
I grew up here. But looking out the window
Dead garden. Smoldering over the house...
5. The story “Antonov apples”, in the words of A. Tvardovsky, is exceptionally “fragrant”: “Bunin breathes in the world; he sniffs it and gives it to the reader." Expand the meaning of this quote.
You read Bunin and as if you physically feel the rye aroma of new straw and chaff, “the smell of tar in the fresh air” (ethnographic interest in rural life), “the delicate aroma of fallen leaves”, the fragrant smoke of cherry boughs, the strong smell of mushroom dampness, which smells from ravines ( romance of childhood, a whirlwind of memories); the smell of “old mahogany furniture, dried lime blossom”, the smell of old perfumes that smell like church breviaries (nostalgia for the past, imagination).
The story is dominated by "the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness" (this is the key phrase of the story). The wonderful gift of autumn - Antonov apples - was chosen by the author as a symbol of the outgoing native life. Antonovka is an old winter variety of apples, beloved from time immemorial, widespread.
A characteristic feature of Antonovka is “a strong, peculiar ethereal-apple aroma” (synonymous with “spirit apple”). A native of the Oryol province, Bunin knew perfectly well that Antonov apples were one of the signs of Russian autumn. Loving Russia, Bunin poetized them.
Homework.
Selection of material for an essay based on the work of I. A. Bunin. Individual task for groups of students:
- Write essay topics.
- Develop an essay plan on the topic "Love in the understanding of Bunin."