Who told the storyteller Lisa's story. "Poor Liza" Karamzin: analysis of the work, characterization of heroes, tests, quotes

One of the key literary works 18th century is the story of N.M. Karamzin " Poor Lisa". In his twenty-five years, the writer has become debated and popular due to the disclosure of many problems and topics of society. He was one of the first to introduce features of sentimentalism into the story and became an innovator. The vivid images of the heroes of the work greatly influenced the worldview of the readers.
The first time "Poor Liza" was printed and saw the light in 1792 by the "Moscow Journal". At the time of publication, the author himself was the editor of this magazine. Four years later, the work was published as a separate book.

main characters

An ordinary peasant girl named Liza is the main heroine of Karamzin's work. Her father died and she stayed with her mother. The girl works in the city of Moscow, selling flowers and knitted products.
The main male character of the story is a young man named Erasmus, of aristocratic origin. He has a gentle character, which made both himself and Liza suffer, madly in love with him.
Another female image is Lisa's mother. This is a simple woman of peasant origin. A woman wishes her beloved daughter a calm, measured life, unclouded by problems and condemnation.
Thanks to the image of the author, readers are immersed in the action of the work and are able to observe events very closely.

The plot of the story

The events take place in Moscow. The young girl Liza has to support herself and her sick mother after the death of her father. She knitted, weaved carpets and sold flowers she collected. One fine day a young man approached Lisa - Erasmus. At first sight, the aristocrat fell in love with the girl and began to constantly buy flowers from her. The young girl also falls in love with him and is completely absorbed by this feeling. Erasmus admires the purity and purity of the girl.
But, unfortunately, the girl's mother wants to marry her daughter to a rich peasant. Erasmus cannot marry Lisa because of class barriers. The girl tells him about her mother's decision and the young man offers to take her to his house, but the young peasant woman notices that then he will no longer be able to become her husband. On that very evening, Lisa lose her integrity.
After what happened, Erasmus began to look at Lisa in a completely different way. She ceased to be for him the ideal of purity and purity. The couple in love has to leave, as the young man leaves for military service. The girl hopes that their relationship will be able to survive this test, but the events turned out differently. The young man began to play cards and practically lost his fortune. He was saved only by his marriage to a wealthy elderly woman. After the news of their wedding, Lisa decided to commit suicide by drowning in the river.

Peasant life theme

Through the image of Liza's family, the author reveals to the readers the life of the peasant people with all its features. Earlier in the literature, they showed the image of peasants without their individual characteristics. Karamzin, as an innovator, described the character of the peasants and their personal qualities. Of course, Lisa has no education, but she is able to maintain a conversation, she speaks well and expresses her thoughts.

The problem of finding happiness

Any person, regardless of class, dreams of happiness, including the main characters of the story - Lisa and Erasmus. Their love gave them a sense of happiness and made them feel terribly unhappy. The reader involuntarily thinks about what is necessary for happiness and whether it is always possible to find it.

The problem of social inequality

The story "Poor Liza" clearly emphasizes the social inequality between peasants and nobles. Their union is almost impossible and would be a reason for condemnation.

The problem of fidelity in relationships

After reading the work, it becomes clear that in real life, such a romantic relationship could not last long. They could resist public opinion and pressure from their families.
Despite the fact that Erasmus made a promise to a young girl in eternal love, he himself married a rich widow in order to improve his poor financial situation. Lisa remains faithful to her lover, and the aristocrat betrayed her feelings.

The problem of the city and the countryside

One of the problems raised by N.M. Karamzin in the story - the opposition between the village and the city. For city dwellers, the city is the center of everything new and progressive. In contrast to the city, the village is something backward and undeveloped, the villagers have no desire for development and education. And the residents themselves see this significant difference.

Main idea

In the main idea, the author lays down the idea of ​​how strong feelings and emotions can affect a person's life, regardless of the class of a person and his position in society. Quite often, noble and rich people are inferior in human qualities to simple uneducated people who are much lower in the class ladder.

Direction in literature

Traits of sentimentalism are clearly expressed in the story "Poor Liza". Lisa's parents embodied the features of this genre of literature.
The main part of this trend was embodied in the image of a young peasant woman, Liza. She is completely absorbed in feelings and emotions and does not notice anyone or anything around. She is so worried about her romantic relationship that she cannot assess the situation sensibly and critically.
Summing up, we can safely say that N.M. Karamzin's "Poor Liza" is an innovative work of that time. It accurately describes the heroes, extremely close to reality. Each hero combines both positive and negative traits character. The story reveals eternal rhetorical questions that have worried many generations for many years.

The history of the creation of the work of Karamzin "Poor Liza"

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin is one of the most educated people of his time. He preached advanced educational views, widely promoted Western European culture in Russia. The personality of the writer, multifacetedly gifted in various directions, played a significant role in the cultural life of Russia at the end of the 18th century. early XIX centuries. Karamzin traveled a lot, translated, wrote original works of art, was engaged in publishing. The formation of professional literary activity is associated with his name.
In 1789-1790 Karamzin undertook a trip abroad (to Germany, Switzerland, France and England). Upon the return of N.M. Karamzin began to publish the Moscow Journal, in which he published the story Poor Liza (1792), Letters of a Russian Traveler (1791-92), which placed him among the first Russian writers. In these works, as well as in literary-critical articles, the aesthetic program of sentimentalism was expressed with its interest in a person regardless of class, his feelings and experiences. In the 1890s. the writer's interest in the history of Russia is growing; he gets acquainted with historical works, the main published sources: chronicle monuments, notes of foreigners, etc. In 1803, Karamzin began work on the History of the Russian State, which became the main work of his entire life.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, in the 1790s. the writer lived at Beketov's dacha near the Simonov Monastery. The environment played a decisive role in the idea of ​​the story "Poor Liza". The literary plot of the story was perceived by the Russian reader as a plot of vitally reliable and real, and its heroes - as real people. After the publication of the story, walks in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery, where Karamzin settled his heroine, and to the pond, into which she threw herself, became fashionable, which was named "Lizin's Pond". As researcher V.N. Toporov, defining the place of the Karamzin story in the evolutionary series of Russian literature, "for the first time in Russian literature, fiction created such a way of true life, which was perceived as stronger, poignant and convincing than life itself." "Poor Liza" - the most popular and best story - brought Karamzin, who was then 25 years old, real fame. The young and previously unknown writer suddenly became a celebrity. Poor Liza was the first and most talented Russian sentimental story.

Rod, genre, creative method

In Russian literature of the 18th century. multivolume classic novels have become widespread. Karamzin was the first to introduce the genre of a short story - a "sensitive story", which enjoyed particular success among his contemporaries. The role of the narrator in the story "Poor Liza" belongs to the author. Small volume makes the plot of the story clearer and more dynamic. The name of Karamzin is inextricably linked with the concept of "Russian sentimentalism."
Sentimentalism is a trend in European literature and culture of the second half of the 17th century, highlighting human feelings, not reason. Sentimentalists focused on human relations, the confrontation between good and evil.
In the story of Karamzin, the life of the heroes is portrayed through the prism of sentimental idealization. The images of the story are embellished. Liza's deceased father, an exemplary family man, because he loves work, plowed the land well and was quite prosperous, everyone loved him. Liza's mother, "a sensitive, kind old woman," grows weaker from incessant tears for her husband, for peasant women know how to feel. She loves her daughter touchingly and admires nature with religious tenderness.
The very name Lisa until the early 80s. XVIII century almost never occurred in Russian literature, and if it did, it was in its foreign language version. Choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin went to break the rather strict canon that had developed in literature and predetermined in advance what Liza should be like, how she should behave. This behavioral stereotype was defined in the European literature of the ХUN-ХУШ centuries. the fact that the image of Lisa, Lisette (OhePe), was associated primarily with comedy. Lisa of the French comedy is usually a maid (maid), confidante of her young mistress. She is young, good-looking, quite frivolous and perfectly understands everything related to a love affair. Naivety, innocence, modesty are the least characteristic of this comedic role. Shattering the expectations of the reader, removing the mask from the heroine's name, Karamzin thereby destroyed the foundations of the very culture of classicism, weakened the connections between the signified and the signifier, between the name and its bearer in the space of literature. For all the conventionality of the image of Lisa, her name is associated precisely with the character, and not with the role of the heroine. Establishing the relationship between "internal" character and "external" action was a significant achievement of Karamzin on the way to the "psychologism" of Russian prose.

Subject

Analysis of the work shows that Karamzin's story contains several themes. One of them is an appeal to the peasant environment. The writer portrayed a peasant girl who retained patriarchal ideas about moral values ​​as the main character.
Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the opposition of town and village into Russian literature. The image of the city is inextricably linked with the image of Erast, with the "terrible bulk of houses" and the shining "golden domes". The image of Lisa is associated with the life of beautiful natural nature. In Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - turns out to be defenseless, falling into urban space, where laws differ from those of nature. It is not for nothing that Liza's mother tells her (thereby indirectly predicting everything that will happen later): “My heart is always out of place when you go to town; I always put a candle in front of the image and pray to the Lord God to keep you from any misfortune and misfortune. "
The author in the story raises not only the topic of the "little man" and social inequality, but also such topics as fate and circumstances, nature and man, love-grief and love-happiness.
With the author's voice, the theme of the great history of the fatherland is included in the private plot of the story. The juxtaposition of the historical and the private makes the story "Poor Liza" a fundamental literary fact, on the basis of which the Russian socio-psychological novel will subsequently emerge.

The story attracted the attention of contemporaries with its humanistic idea: "and peasant women know how to love." The author's position in the story is the position of a humanist. Before us is Karamzin the artist and Karamzin the philosopher. He sang the beauty of love, described love as a feeling that can transform a person. The writer teaches: a moment of love is beautiful, but long life and only reason gives strength.
Poor Liza immediately became extremely popular in Russian society. Humane feelings, the ability to sympathize and be sensitive turned out to be very consonant with the trends of the time, when literature from civil themes, characteristic of the Enlightenment, moved to the topic of personal, private life of a person and became the main object of its attention inner world a separate person.
Karamzin made another discovery in literature. With "Poor Lisa" such a concept as psychologism appeared in her, that is, the writer's ability to vividly and touchingly depict a person's inner world, his feelings, desires, and aspirations. In this sense, Karamzin paved the way for 19th century writers.

The nature of the conflict

The analysis showed that there is a complex conflict in Karamzin's work. First of all, this is a social conflict: the gap between a rich nobleman and a poor villager is very large. But, as you know, "peasant women know how to love." Sensitivity - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness, and then leads Liza to death (she “forgets her soul” - commits suicide). Erast is also punished for his decision to leave Lisa and marry another: he will forever reproach himself with her death.
The story "Poor Liza" is written on a classic story about the love of representatives of different classes: its heroes - the nobleman Erast and the peasant woman Liza - cannot be happy not only for moral reasons, but also for social conditions of life. The deep social root of the plot is embodied in Karamzin's story at its most external level as a moral conflict between Liza and Erast, "a beautiful soul and body" - "a rather rich nobleman with a fair mind and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and windy." And, of course, one of the reasons for the shock produced by Karamzin's story in literature and the reader's mind was that Karamzin was the first Russian writer who addressed the topic of unequal love to decide to unleash his story as such a conflict would most likely be resolved in real conditions. Russian life: the death of the heroine.
The main characters of the story "Poor Liza"
Liza is the main character of Karamzin's story. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, the writer turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically ordinary features. His words "... and peasant women know how to love" became winged. Sensitivity is central to Lisa's character. She trusts the movements of her heart, lives with "tender passions." Ultimately, it is ardor and fervor that lead Liza to death, but she is morally justified.
Liza does not look like a peasant woman. “A beautiful in body and soul settler,” “tender and sensitive Liza,” passionately loving her parents, cannot forget about her father, but hides her sadness and tears so as not to disturb her mother. She lovingly takes care of her mother, gets her medicines, works day and night (“she weaved canvases, knitted stockings, picked flowers in the spring, and took berries in the summer and sold them in Moscow”). The author is sure that such activities fully provide for the life of the old woman and her daughter. According to his plan, Lisa is completely unfamiliar with the book, but after meeting Erast, she dreams of how nice it would be if her beloved "was born a simple peasant shepherd ..." - these words are quite in the spirit of Lisa.
Liza not only speaks in a bookish way, but also thinks. Nevertheless, the psychology of Lisa, who first fell in love with a girl, is revealed in detail and in a natural sequence. Before throwing herself into the pond, Lisa remembers her mother, she took care of the old woman as best she could, left her money, but this time the thought of her was no longer able to keep Lisa from taking a decisive step. As a result, the character of the heroine is idealized, but internally whole.
The character of Erast is much different from that of Lisa. Erast is depicted in greater accordance with the social environment that raised him than Lisa. This is a "rather rich nobleman", an officer who led an absent-minded life, thought only of his own pleasure, looked for him in secular amusements, but often did not find him, he was bored and complained about his fate. Endowed with "a fair mind and a kind heart," being "kind by nature, but weak and windy," Erast represented a new type of hero in Russian literature. In it, for the first time, the type of a disappointed Russian aristocrat was outlined.
Erast recklessly falls in love with Lisa, not thinking that she is not a girl of his circle. However, the hero does not stand the test of love.
Before Karamzin, the plot automatically determined the type of hero. In Poor Liza, the image of Erast is much more complex than the literary type to which the hero belongs.
Erast is not an "insidious seducer", he is sincere in his oaths, sincere in his deception. Erast is as much the culprit of the tragedy as the victim of his "fervent imagination." Therefore, the author does not consider himself entitled to judge Erast. He is on a par with his hero - because he converges with him at the "point" of sensitivity. After all, it is the author who acts in the story as a “retelling” of the plot that Erast told him: “... I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Lisa's grave ... ".
Erast begins a long line of heroes in Russian literature, the main feature of which is weakness and unsuitability for life, and for whom the label of "superfluous person" has been for a long time entrenched in literary criticism.

Plot, composition

In the words of Karamzin himself, the story "Poor Liza" is "a very uncomplicated tale." The plot of the story is simple. This is the love story of a poor peasant girl Liza and a rich young nobleman Erast. He was tired of social life and secular pleasures. He was constantly bored and "complained about his fate." Erast "read idyllic novels" and dreamed of that happy time when people, not burdened with the conventions and rules of civilization, would live carelessly in the bosom of nature. Thinking only of his own pleasure, he "looked for it in amusements." With the appearance of love in his life, everything changes. Erast falls in love with the pure "daughter of nature" - the peasant woman Liza. Chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Lisa seems to be a wonderful shepherdess. After reading novels in which "all people carelessly walked along the rays, bathed in clean springs, kissed like turtle doves, rested under roses and myrtles," he decided that "he found in Liza what his heart had been looking for for a long time." Liza, although “the daughter of a rich peasant”, is only a peasant woman who is forced to earn her own living. Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The picture of pure first love is drawn in the story very touching. “Now I think,” says Lisa to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. The bright month is dark without your eyes; the singing nightingale is boring without your voice ... ”Erast also admires his“ shepherdess ”. "All the brilliant fun of the great world seemed to him insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul nourished his heart." But when Lisa surrenders to him, the jaded young man begins to cool in his feelings for her. Lisa hopes in vain to regain her lost happiness. Erast goes on a military campaign, loses all his fortune at cards and, in the end, marries a rich widow. And Liza, deceived in her best hopes and feelings, rushes into a pond near the Simonov Monastery.

The artistic originality of the analyzed story

But the main thing in the story is not the plot, but the feelings that she was supposed to awaken in the reader. Therefore, the main character of the story becomes the narrator, who, with sadness and sympathy, tells about the fate of the poor girl. The image of the sentimental narrator became a revelation in Russian literature, since before the narrator remained “behind the scenes” and was neutral in relation to the events described. The narrator learns the story of poor Liza directly from Erast and himself often comes to be sad at Liza's grave. The narrator of Poor Lisa is emotionally involved in the relationships of the heroes. Already the title of the story is built on the combination of the heroine's own name with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her.
The author-narrator is the only intermediary between the reader and the life of the heroes, embodied by his word. The narration is carried out in the first person, the constant presence of the author reminds of himself with his periodic appeals to the reader: "now the reader must know ...", "the reader can easily imagine ...". These formulas of address, emphasizing the intimacy of emotional contact between the author, the heroes and the reader, are very reminiscent of the methods of organizing the narrative in the epic genres of Russian poetry. Karamzin, transferring these formulas into narrative prose, achieved that the prose acquired a heartfelt lyrical sound and began to be perceived as emotionally as poetry. The story "Poor Lisa" is characterized by short or detailed lyrical digressions, at each dramatic plot twist we hear the author's voice: "my heart is bleeding ...", "a tear is rolling down my face."
In their aesthetic unity, the three central images of the story - the author-narrator, poor Liza and Erast - with a completeness unprecedented for Russian literature, implemented the sentimentalist concept of a personality, valuable for its extra-class moral merits, sensitive and complex.
Karamzin was the first to write smoothly. In his prose, words were intertwined in such a correct, rhythmic way that the reader had the impression of rhythmic music. Smoothness in prose is the same as meter and rhyme in poetry.
Karamzin introduces rural literary landscape into the tradition.

The meaning of the work

Karamzin laid the foundation for a huge cycle of literature about "little people", opened the way for the classics of Russian literature. The story "Rich Liza" essentially opens the theme of the "little man" in Russian literature, although the social aspect in relation to Liza and Erast is somewhat muted. Of course, the gap between a rich nobleman and a poor peasant woman is very large, but Liza is least of all like a peasant woman, rather like a sweet secular young lady brought up on sentimental novels. The theme of "Poor Lisa" appears in many works of A.S. Pushkin. When he wrote "The Young Lady-Peasant", he was definitely guided by "Poor Liza", turning the "sad reality" into a novel with a happy ending. In "The Station Keeper" Dunya is seduced and taken away by a hussar, and her father, unable to bear grief, dies and dies. In "The Queen of Spades" the further life of Liza of Karamzin is seen, the fate that would have awaited Lisa if she had not committed suicide. Liza also lives in the novel "Sunday" by Leo Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under the train. Although she remains to live, her life is full of filth and humiliation. The image of the heroine Karamzin continued in the works of other writers.
It is in this story that the refined psychologism of Russian fiction, recognized throughout the world, is born. Here Karamzin, opening a gallery of "superfluous people", stands at the source of yet another powerful tradition - images of clever idlers, whom idleness helps to maintain a distance between themselves and the state. Thanks to blessed laziness, "extra people" are always in opposition. If they served their fatherland honestly, they would not have had time to seduce Liz and witty retreats. In addition, if the people are always poor, then the "extra people" always have funds, even if they squandered, as happened with Erast. He has nothing to do in his story except love.

It is interesting

Poor Liza is perceived as a story about true events. Lisa belongs to the characters with a "registration". "... More and more often attracts me to the walls of Si ... the new monastery is a memory of the deplorable fate of Liza, poor Liza" - this is how the author begins his story. Behind the gap in the middle of the word, any Muscovite guessed the name of the Simonov Monastery, the first buildings of which date back to the XIV century. The pond, located under the walls of the monastery, was called the Lisin Pond, but thanks to Karamzin's story, it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage for Muscovites. In the XX century. the Lizin pond was named Lizin square, Lizin deadlock and the Lizino railway station. To date, only a few buildings of the monastery have survived, most of them were blown up in 1930.The pond was gradually filled up, it finally disappeared after 1932.
First of all, the same unfortunate girls in love as Liza herself came to cry to the place of Liza's death. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees growing around the pond was mercilessly cut with the knives of the "pilgrims". The inscriptions carved on the trees were both serious ("Poor Liza died in these streams; / If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh"), and satirical, hostile to Karamzin and his heroine (the couplet acquired special fame among such "birch epigrams": "Erast's bride perished in these streams. / Drown yourself, girls, there is enough room in the pond").
Festivities at the Simonov Monastery were so popular that a description of this area can be found on the pages of the works of many writers of the 19th century: M.N. Zagoskin, I.I. Lazhechnikova, M. Yu. Lermontov, A.I. Herzen.
Karamzin and his story were certainly mentioned when describing the Simonov Monastery in Moscow guidebooks and special books and articles. But gradually these references began to bear an increasingly ironic character, and already in 1848, in the famous work of M.N. Zagoskin "Moscow and Muscovites" in the chapter "A Walk to the Simonov Monastery" not a word was said either about Karamzin or about his heroine. As sentimental prose lost its charm of novelty, Poor Liza ceased to be perceived as a story about true events, and even more so as an object for worship, but became in the minds of most readers a primitive invention, a curiosity reflecting the tastes and concepts of a bygone era.

Good DD. History of Russian Literature of the 18th Century. - M., 1960.
Weill P., Genis A. Native speech. The legacy of "Poor Lisa" Karamzin // Star. 1991. No. 1.
ValaginAL. Let's read it together. - M., 1992.
DI. Fonvizin in Russian criticism. - M., 1958.
History of Moscow districts: encyclopedia / ed. K.A. Averyanov. - M., 2005.
Toporov VL. "Poor Liza" by Karamzin. Moscow: Russkiy Mir, 2006.

Today in the lesson we will talk about the story of N.M. Karamzin "Poor Liza", we will find out the details of its creation, the historical context, determine what the author's innovation is, analyze the characters of the heroes of the story, and also consider the moral issues raised by the writer.

I must say that the publication of this story was accompanied by extraordinary success, even excitement among the Russian readership, which is not surprising, because the first Russian book appeared, the heroes of which could be as empathic as Goethe's The Suffering of Young Werther or Novaya Eloise "Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We can say that Russian literature has begun to become one level with European literature. The delight and popularity were such that even a pilgrimage to the site of the events described in the book began. As you remember, this is happening not far from the Simonov Monastery, the place was named "Lizin Pond". This place is becoming so popular that some evil-speaking people even write epigrams:

Drowned here
Erastov's bride ...
Drown yourself girls
There is plenty of room in the pond!

Well, can I do
Godless and Worse?
Fall in love with a tomboy
And drown yourself in a puddle.

All this contributed to the extraordinary popularity of the story among Russian readers.

Naturally, the popularity of the story was given not only by the dramatic plot, but also by the fact that it was all artistically unusual.

Rice. 2.N.M. Karamzin () Here's what he writes: “They say that the author needs talents and knowledge: a sharp, perceptive mind, vivid imagination, and so on. Fair, but not enough. He needs to have a kind, tender heart, if he wants to be a friend and favorite of our soul; if he wants his gifts to shine with a flickering light; if he wants to write for eternity and collect the blessings of the nations. The Creator is always portrayed in creation, and often against his will. The hypocrite thinks in vain to deceive the readers and hide an iron heart under the golden robe of magnificent words; in vain speaks to us of mercy, compassion, virtue! All his exclamations are cold, without a soul, without life; and never the nourishing, ethereal flame will pour from his creations into the gentle soul of the reader ... "," When you want to paint your portrait, then first look in the right mirror: can your face be an object of art ... "," You take up the pen and want to be an author: ask yourself, alone, without witnesses, sincerely: what am I like? for you want to paint a portrait of your soul and heart ... "," You want to be an author: read the history of the misfortunes of the human race - and if your heart does not shed blood, leave the pen, - or it will depict to us the cold gloom of your soul. But if all the sorrowful, all the oppressed, all the tears open the way to your sensitive chest; if your soul can rise to a passion for good, can nourish in itself the holy, unlimited desire for the common good: then boldly call on the goddesses of Parnassus - they will pass by the magnificent palaces and visit your humble hut - you will not be a useless writer - and none of the kind will not look with dry eyes at your grave ... "," In a word: I am sure that a bad person cannot be a good author. " Here is Karamzin's artistic motto: a bad person cannot be a good writer.

So before Karamzin in Russia, no one has written. Moreover, the unusualness began already with the exposition, with the description of the place where the action of the story would take place.

“Perhaps no one living in Moscow knows the surroundings of this city as well as I do, because no one is more often than mine in the field, no one else wanders on foot, without a plan, without a goal - wherever they look - through the meadows and groves, hills and plains. Every summer I find new pleasant places or new beauty in old ones. But the most pleasant thing for me is the place on which the gloomy, Gothic towers of Si rise ... the new monastery. "(fig. 3) .

Rice. 3. Lithograph of the Simonov Monastery ()

Here, too, there is an unusualness: on the one hand, Karamzin accurately describes and designates the place of action - the Simonov Monastery, on the other hand, this encryption creates a certain mystery, understatement, which is very consistent with the spirit of the story. The main focus is on the non-fiction of events, on the documentary. It is no coincidence that the narrator will say that he learned about these events from the hero himself, from Erast, who told him about this shortly before his death. It was this feeling that everything was happening side by side, that it was possible to witness these events, that intrigued the reader and gave the story a special meaning and special character.

Rice. 4. Erast and Lisa ("Poor Lisa" in a modern production) ()

It is curious that this private, uncomplicated story of two young people (the nobleman Erast and the peasant woman Liza (Fig. 4)) is inscribed in a very broad historical and geographical context.

“But the most pleasant thing for me is the place where the gloomy, Gothic towers of Si ... the new monastery rise. Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost all of Moscow, this terrible bulk of houses and churches, which appears to the eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheater»

Word amphitheater Karamzin singles out, and this is probably no coincidence, because the scene becomes a kind of arena where events unfold open to the eyes of everyone (Fig. 5).

Rice. 5.Moscow, XVIII century ()

“A magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it, when its evening rays glow on countless golden domes, on countless crosses that ascend to the sky! Below there are thick, densely green flowering meadows, and behind them, on yellow sands, flows a bright river, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats or rustling under the steering wheel of heavy plows that float from the most fertile countries of the Russian Empire and endow greedy Moscow with bread "(fig. 6) .

Rice. 6. View from Sparrow Hills ()

On the other side of the river is an oak grove, near which numerous herds graze; there young shepherds, sitting under the shade of the trees, sing simple, depressing songs and thus shorten the summer days, so uniform for them. Further, in the dense greenery of ancient elms, the golden-domed Danilov Monastery shines; still further, almost on the edge of the horizon, the Vorobyovy Hills are blue. On the left side one can see vast fields covered with bread, woods, three or four villages and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace. "

It is curious, why does Karamzin seem to frame his private history with this panorama? It turns out that this story is becoming a part of human life, belonging to Russian history and geography. All this gave the events described in the story a generalizing character. But, giving a general hint of this world history and this extensive biography, Karamzin nevertheless shows that private history, the history of individual people, not famous, simple, attracts him much more strongly. Ten years will pass, and Karamzin will become a professional historian and begin to work on his "History of the Russian State", written in 1803-1826 (Fig. 7).

Rice. 7. Cover of the book by N. M. Karamzin "History of the Russian State" ()

But so far in the center of his literary attention is the story of ordinary people - the peasant woman Liza and the nobleman Erast.

Creating a new language fiction In the language of fiction, even at the end of the 18th century, the theory of three calmness still dominated, created by Lomonosov and reflecting the needs of the literature of classicism, with its ideas about genres of high and low. The Three Calms Theory- a classification of styles in rhetoric and poetics, distinguishing three styles: high, medium and low (simple). Classicism- an artistic direction focused on the ideals of the ancient classics. But it is natural that by the 90s of the 18th century this theory was already outdated and became a brake on the development of literature. Literature demanded more flexible linguistic principles, there was a need to bring the language of literature closer to the spoken language, but not a simple peasant language, but an educated noble language. The need for books that would be written the way people say in this educated society was already very acute. Karamzin believed that a writer, having developed his taste, could create a language that would become the spoken language of a noble society. In addition, another goal was implied here: such a language was supposed to oust the French language from everyday life, in which the predominantly Russian noble society still spoke. Thus, the language reform carried out by Karamzin is becoming a general cultural task and has a patriotic character.

Perhaps the main artistic discovery of Karamzin in Poor Liza is the image of the narrator, the narrator. It comes from the person of a person who is interested in the fate of his heroes, a person who is not indifferent to them, compassionate for other people's misfortunes. That is, Karamzin creates the image of the narrator in full accordance with the laws of sentimentalism. And now it becomes unprecedented, this is the first time in Russian literature.

Sentimentalism- this is the attitude and tendency of thinking, aimed at identifying, strengthening, emphasizing the emotional side of life.

In full accordance with Karamzin's plan, the narrator does not accidentally say: "I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!"

The description in the exposition of the decayed Simonov Monastery, with its collapsed cells, as well as the crumbling hut in which Lisa and her mother lived, from the very beginning introduces the theme of death into the story, creates that gloomy tone that will accompany the story. And at the very beginning of the story one of the main themes and favorite ideas of the figures of the Enlightenment sounds - the idea of ​​the extra-word value of a person. And it will sound unusual. When the narrator talks about the story of Lisa's mother, about the early death of her husband, Lisa's father, he will say that she could not be comforted for a long time, and will utter the famous phrase: "... because peasant women know how to love".

Now this phrase has become almost winged, and we often do not correlate it with the original source, although in Karamzin's story it appears in a very important historical, artistic and cultural context. It turns out that the feelings of commoners, peasants are no different from the feelings of noble people, noblemen, peasant women and peasants are capable of subtle and tender feelings. This discovery of the extra-class value of man was made by the figures of the Enlightenment and becomes one of the leitmotifs of Karamzin's story. And not only in this place: Lisa will tell Erast that there can be nothing between them, since she is a peasant. But Erast will begin to console her and will say that he does not need any other happiness in life, except for Lisa's love. It turns out, indeed, the feelings of ordinary people can be as subtle and refined as the feelings of people of noble birth.

At the beginning of the story, there will be another very important topic. We see that in the exposition of his work, Karamzin concentrates all the main themes and motives. This is the topic of money and its destructive power. At the first date of Liza and Erast, the guy will want to give her a ruble instead of the five cents requested by Lisa for a bouquet of lilies of the valley, but the girl will refuse. Subsequently, as if paying off from Liza, from her love, Erast will give her ten imperials - one hundred rubles. Naturally, Liza will automatically take this money, and then try to transfer it to her mother through her neighbor, a peasant girl Dunya, but her mother will not need this money either. She will not be able to use them, since she will die herself upon the news of Lisa's death. And we see that, indeed, money is the destructive force that brings people unhappiness. Suffice it to recall the sad story of Erast himself. For what reason did he abandon Lisa? Leading a frivolous life and losing at cards, he was forced to marry a rich elderly widow, that is, he, too, is actually sold for money. And this incompatibility of money as an achievement of civilizations with the natural life of people is demonstrated by Karamzin in Poor Liza.

With a fairly traditional literary plot - the story of how a young rake-nobleman seduces a commoner - Karamzin still solves it in a not quite traditional way. It has long been noticed by researchers that Erast is not at all such a traditional example of an insidious seducer, he really loves Lisa. He is a man with a kind mind and heart, but weak and windy. And this frivolity destroys him. And too strong sensitivity ruins him, like Liza. And here is one of the main paradoxes of the Karamzin story. On the one hand, he is a preacher of sensitivity as a way of moral improvement of people, and on the other hand, he also shows how excessive sensitivity can bring harmful consequences. But Karamzin is not a moralist, he does not call to condemn Liza and Erast, he calls on us to sympathize with their woeful fate.

In the same unusual and innovative way, Karamzin uses landscapes in his story. For him, the landscape ceases to be just a place of action and a background. The landscape becomes a kind of landscape of the soul. What happens in nature often reflects what happens in the souls of the heroes. And nature seems to be responding to the heroes to their feelings. For example, let us recall the beautiful spring morning when Erast first sails down the river on a boat to Lisa's house, and vice versa, a gloomy, starless night, accompanied by storm and thunder, when the heroes fall into sin (Fig. 8). Thus, the landscape also became an active artistic force, which was also an artistic discovery of Karamzin.

Rice. 8. Illustration for the story "Poor Liza" ()

But the main artistic discovery is the image of the narrator himself. All events are presented not objectively and dispassionately, but through his emotional reaction. It is he who turns out to be a genuine and sensitive hero, because he is able to experience the misfortunes of others as his own. He mourns his overly sensitive heroes, but at the same time remains faithful to the ideals of sentimentalism and a loyal adherent of the idea of ​​sensitivity as a way to achieve social harmony.

Bibliography

1. Korovina V.Ya., Zhuravlev V.P., Korovin V.I. Literature. Grade 9. M .: Education, 2008.
2. Ladygin M.B., Esin A.B., Nefedova N.A. Literature. Grade 9. M .: Bustard, 2011.
3. Chertov V.F., Trubina L.A., Antipova A.M. Literature. Grade 9. M .: Education, 2012.

1. Internet portal "Lit-helper" ()
2. Internet portal "fb.ru" ()
3. Internet portal "KlassReferat" ()

Homework

1. Read the story Poor Liza.
2. Describe the main characters of the story "Poor Lisa".
3. Tell us what is the innovation of Karamzin in the story "Poor Liza".

"Poor Lisa"- a sentimental story by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, written in 1792.

History of creation and publication

Plot

After the death of her father, a "wealthy peasant", young Liza is forced to work tirelessly to feed herself and her mother. In the spring, she sells lilies of the valley in Moscow and there she meets a young nobleman Erast, who falls in love with her and is ready to leave the light even for his love. Lovers spend all evenings together, share the bed. However, with the loss of innocence, Lisa lost her attractiveness for Erast. One day he says that he must go on a campaign with the regiment and they will have to leave. A few days later, Erast leaves.

Several months pass. Liza, finding herself in Moscow, accidentally sees Erast in a magnificent carriage and learns that he is engaged (he lost his estate at cards and is now forced to marry a rich widow). In desperation, Lisa rushes into the pond.

Artistic identity

The plot of the story was borrowed by Karamzin from European love literature, but transferred to the "Russian" soil. The author hints that he personally knows Erast ("I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Lisa's grave") and emphasizes that the action takes place in Moscow and its environs, describes, for example , Simonov and Danilov monasteries, Sparrow Hills, creating the illusion of authenticity. For Russian literature of that time, this was an innovation: usually the action of the works took place "in one city." The first readers of the story perceived Liza's story as a real tragedy of a contemporary - it was no coincidence that the pond under the walls of the Simonov Monastery was named Lizin's Pond, and the fate of the heroine Karamzin was a lot of imitations. The oaks that grew around the pond were covered with inscriptions - touching ( “In these streams poor Liza passed away her days; If you are sensitive, passer-by, breathe! ") and caustic ( “Here Erastov's bride threw herself into the pond. Drown yourself, girls: there is enough room in the pond! ").

However, despite the seeming plausibility, the world depicted in the story is idyllic: the peasant woman Lisa and her mother have sophistication of feelings and perception, their speech is literate, literary and does not differ in any way from the speech of the nobleman Erast. The life of the poor villagers is like a pastoral:

Meanwhile, a young shepherd drove the flock along the river bank, playing the pipe. Liza fixed her eyes on him and thought: “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant, a shepherd, - and if he were now driving his flock past me: ah! I would bow to him with a smile and say kindly: “Hello, dear shepherd boy! Where are you driving your flock? And here grows green grass for your sheep, and here flowers shine, from which you can weave a wreath for your hat. " He would look at me with an air of affection - he would take, perhaps, my hand ... Dream! " The shepherd, playing the flute, passed by and with his motley flock disappeared behind a nearby hill.

The story has become a model of Russian sentimental literature. In contrast to classicism with its cult of reason, Karamzin asserted the cult of feelings, sensitivity, compassion: “Ah! I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow! " Heroes are important, first of all, by the ability to love, to surrender to feelings. There is no estate conflict in the story: Karamzin is equally sympathetic to Erast and Liza. In addition, unlike the works of classicism, "Poor Liza" is devoid of morality, didactism, edification: the author does not teach, but tries to arouse the reader's empathy for the heroes.

The story is also distinguished by a "smooth" language: Karamzin abandoned Old Slavicism, grandiloquence, which made the work easy to read.

Criticism about the story

V. V. Sipovsky:

“Poor Liza” was therefore received by the Russian public with such enthusiasm that in this work Karamzin was the first in our country to express the “new word” that Goethe said to the Germans in his “Werther”. Such a "new word" was the heroine's suicide in the story. The Russian public, accustomed in old novels to comforting outcomes in the form of weddings, believing that virtue is always rewarded and vice is punished, for the first time in this story met the bitter truth of life.

"Poor Lisa" in art

In painting

• In 1827, Orest Kiprensky painted the painting "Poor Liza".

Literary reminiscences

• Sentimental story "Unhappy Liza" by an unknown author (published in the magazine "Aglaya" in 1810).
• The plot of "Poor Liza" is clearly reflected in the stories of Alexander Pushkin "The Young Lady" and "", and in the first case, the history of the relationship between the peasant woman and the master is revealed as a comedy, in the second - as a tragedy.
• The story of Erast and Lisa is played up in the names of the heroes and the plot of Boris Akunin's novels "Azazel", "The whole world is theater".

Dramatizations

• 1989 - the musical "Poor Liza" - the theater "At the Nikitsky Gate", director Mark Rozovsky.
• Chamber opera Poor Liza - State Theater of Nations, director Alla Sigalova, composer Leonid Desyatnikov, starring Chulpan Khamatova, Andrey Merkuriev.

Screen adaptations

• 1967 - "Poor Liza" (TV show), director Natalia Barinova, David Livnev, starring Anastasia Voznesenskaya, Andrey Myagkov.
• 1978 - "Poor Liza", director Idea Garanin, composer Alexey Rybnikov
• 1998 - Poor Liza, directed by Slava Tsukerman, starring Irina Kupchenko, Mikhail Ulyanov.

Karamzin's story "Poor Liza" became a key work of its time. The introduction of sentimentalism into the work and the presence of many topics and problems allowed the 25-year-old author to become extremely popular and famous. Readers were absorbed in the images of the main characters of the story - the story about the events of their lives became an occasion to rethink the features of the humanistic theory.

Writing history

In most cases, unusual works of literature have unusual stories of creation, however, if Poor Lisa had such a story, it was not provided to the public and was lost somewhere in the wilds of history. It is known that the story was written as an experiment at the dacha of Peter Beketov, which was located not far from the Simonov Monastery.

Data on the publication of the story are also rather scarce. For the first time "Poor Liza" was published in the "Moscow Journal" in 1792. At that time, N. Karamzin himself was its editor, and 4 years later the story was published as a separate book.

Heroes of the story

Lisa is the main character of the story. The girl belongs to the peasant class. After her father's death, she lives with her mother and earns money selling knitwear and flowers in the city.

Erasmus is the protagonist of the story. The young man has a gentle character, he is not able to defend his life position, which makes him and Liza, who is in love with him, unhappy.

Lisa's mother is a peasant by birth. She loves her daughter and wants the girl to live her future life without difficulties and sorrows.

We propose to trace which N. Karamzin wrote.

The plot of the story

The story takes place in the vicinity of Moscow. A young girl Lisa lost her father. Because of this, her family, consisting of her and her mother, gradually began to grow poorer - her mother was constantly ill and therefore could not work fully. The main workforce in the family was represented by Lisa - the girl actively weaved carpets, knitted stockings for sale, and also collected and sold flowers. Once a young aristocrat, Erasmus, approached the girl, he fell in love with the girl and therefore decided to buy flowers from Lisa every day.

However, the next day Erasmus did not come. The distressed Lisa returns home, but fate presents the girl new gift- Erasmus comes to Lisa's home and says that he can come for flowers himself.

From this moment begins new stage in the life of a girl - she is completely captivated by love. However, in spite of everything, this love adheres to the framework of platonic love. Erasmus is captivated by the girl's spiritual purity. Unfortunately, this utopia did not last long. Mother decides to marry Lisa - a rich peasant decided to get married to Lisa. Erasmus, despite his love and admiration for the girl, cannot claim her hand - social norms strictly regulate their relationship. Erasmus belongs to the nobles, and Liza belongs to simple peasants, so their marriage is a priori impossible. Lisa in the evening comes on a date with Erast as usual and tells the young man about the upcoming event in the hope of support.

The romantic and devoted Erast decides to take Lisa to his house, but the girl chills his ardor, noting that in this case he will not be her husband. This evening the girl is deprived of her integrity.

Dear Readers! We suggest that you familiarize yourself with Nikolai Karamzin.

After that, the relationship between Lisa and Erasmus was no longer the same - the image of a virgin and holy girl faded away in the eyes of Erasmus. The young man starts military service, and the lovers part. Lisa sincerely believes that their relationship will retain its former fervor, but the girl is in for a huge disappointment: Erasmus is addicted to playing cards and does not become a successful player - marriage with a rich old woman helps him to avoid poverty, but does not bring happiness. Lisa, having learned about the wedding, committed suicide (drowned in the river), and Erasmus forever acquired a sense of guilt for her death.

The reality of the events described

The peculiarities of the artistic construction of the plot and the description of the background of the work suggest the reality of the events taking place and the literary reminiscence of Karamzin. After the publication of the story among young people, the surroundings of the Simonov Monastery, near which, based on the story of Karamzin, Liza lived, began to enjoy particular popularity. Readers also took a liking to the pond, presumably in which the girl drowned, and even nicely renamed it "Lizin". However, there is no information about the real basis of the story, it is believed that its heroes, as well as the plot, were the fruit of the author's imagination.

Subject

The story as a genre does not imply a huge number of themes. Karamzin fully complies with this requirement and is limited in fact to only two topics.

Peasant life theme

Using the example of Liza's family, the reader can become widely acquainted with the peculiarities of the life of the peasants. Readers are presented with a non-generalized image. From the story you can learn about the details of the life of the peasants, their everyday and not only everyday difficulties.

Peasants are people too

In literature, one can often find the image of peasants as a generalized one, devoid of individual qualities.

Karamzin shows that the peasants, despite their ignorance and lack of involvement in art, are not devoid of intelligence, wisdom, or moral character.

Lisa is a girl who can support a conversation, of course, these are not topics about innovations in the field of science or art, but her speech is built logically, and her content makes her associate the girl as an intelligent and talented interlocutor.

Problematic

The problem of finding happiness

Every person wants to be happy. Lisa and Erasmus are also no exception. The platonic love that arose between young people allowed them to realize how it is to be happy and at the same time how it is to be deeply unhappy. The author in the story raises an important question: is it always possible to become happy and what is needed for this.

The problem of social inequality

One way or another, but our real life is subject to some unspoken rules and social stereotypes. Most of them arose on the principle of social distribution into layers or castes. It is this moment that Karamzin sharply personifies in the work - Erasmus by his origin is an aristocrat, a nobleman, and Liza is a poor girl, a peasant woman. A marriage between an aristocrat and a peasant woman was unthinkable.

Fidelity in a relationship

When reading the story, you understand that such lofty relations between young people, if they were transferred to the plane of real time, would not exist forever - sooner or later the love ardor between Erasmus and Lisa would have faded away - the position of the public hindered further development, and the resulting stable uncertainty provoked the degradation of romance.

Guided by the possibility of materially improving his situation, Erasmus decides to marry a rich widow, although he himself gave Lisa a promise to always love her. While the girl is truly waiting for the return of her lover - Erasmus cruelly betrays her feelings and hopes.

The problem of urban orientation

Another global problem that found its reflection in Karamzin's story is the comparison of a city and a village. In the understanding of urban residents, the city is the engine of progress, newfangled trends and education. The village is always presented as something backward in its development. Residents of the village, respectively, are also backward in all senses of the word.

Villagers also note differences between urban and rural residents. In their concept, the city is the engine of evil and danger, while the village is a safe place that preserves the moral character of the nation.

Idea

The main idea of ​​the story is to denounce sensuality, morality and the influence of the emerging emotions on the fate of a person. Karamzin brings readers to the concept: empathy is an important part of life. Do not deliberately give up compassion and humanity.

Karamzin argues that a person's morality is a factor that does not depend on class and position in society. Very often people with aristocratic titles are lower in their moral development than ordinary peasants.

Direction in culture and literature

The story "Poor Liza" is indicated by the peculiarities of the direction in literature - sentimentalism successfully embodied in the work, which was successfully embodied in the image of Liza's father, who, according to Karamzin's description, was an ideal person within his social cell.

Lisa's mother also possesses multiple traits of sentimentalism - she experiences significant mental anguish after her husband leaves, she is sincerely worried about her daughter's fate.

The main body of sentimentalism falls on the image of Liza. She is depicted as a sensual person who is so absorbed in her emotions that she is unable to be guided by critical thinking - after meeting Erasmus. Lisa is so absorbed in new romantic experiences that, besides these feelings, she does not take any others seriously - the girl is not able to sensibly assess her life situation, she is not worried about her mother's feelings and her love.

Instead of love for her mother (which was previously inherent in Lisa), now the girl's thoughts are occupied by love for Erasmus, which reaches a critical egoistic climax - Lisa perceives the tragic events in her relationship with a young man as an irrevocable tragedy of her entire life. The girl does not try to find a "middle ground" between sensual and logical - she completely surrenders to emotions.

Thus, the story of Karamzin "Poor Liza" became a breakthrough of its time. For the first time, readers were provided with the image of the heroes, as close as possible to life. Characters do not have a clear division into positive and negative. In each hero, you can find positive and negative qualities. The work reflects the main social themes and problems, which in their essence are philosophical problems outside of time - their relevance is not regulated by the framework of chronology.