An essay on the topic Saltykov-Shchedrin called fiction “an abbreviated universe. Quotes about literature Literature abridged universe

Composition

The indissoluble connection of times is especially clearly embodied in the pinnacle works of fiction, which we call classic: in their cognitive significance, the undying moral influence of their heroes on many generations of people, and also in the fact that these works continue to serve as an inexhaustible spring of beauty. Great art does not know the past, it lives in the present and the future. We must not only read the classics, we must also learn to reread them. Because every meeting with them is fraught with the joy of discovery. A person at each subsequent stage of his existence is able to perceive spiritual values more and more deeply. An outstanding work, once read and perceived anew, introduces us to an atmosphere of inexplicable charm, caused, among other things, by the opportunity to really feel our own, aesthetic, in the words of Herzen, “increase.” Perhaps it is appropriate to recall here the excellent note of the young Herzen: “I have a passion for rereading the poems of the great maestros: Goethe, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Walter Scott. It would seem, why read the same thing, when at this time you can “decorate” your mind with the works of Messrs. A., B., S? Yes, the fact of the matter is that these are not the same thing; in between, some spirit changes a lot in the maestro’s ever-living works. Just as Hamlet and Faust were previously wider than me, so they are wider now, despite the fact that I am convinced of my expansion. No, I will not give up the habit of rereading, this is why I visually measure my growth, improvement, decline, direction... Humanity in its own way rereads entire millennia of Homer, and this is a touchstone for it on which it tests the power of age.”

Every turn of history gives people the opportunity to take a fresh look at themselves and rediscover the immortal pages of works of art. Each era reads them in its own way. Goncharov noted that Chatsky is inevitable when one century changes to another, that every business that requires updating gives birth to Chatsky’s shadow.

Great artists are responsive to the calls of all times; they are rightly called the eternal companions of humanity. The remarkable thing about the classical heritage is that it expresses the self-awareness of not only its era. Time moves, and with it, the classics move along the same orbit, in which a constant process of renewal takes place. She has something to say to every generation, she has many meanings. Of course, today we perceive the legacy of Gogol and Dostoevsky differently than their contemporaries, and we understand it more deeply. And this happens not because we are smarter or more insightful. The social experience of generations forms the historical tower from which a person of our era understands the spiritual culture of the past. From this donut we see many things further and more clearly. The classics are inexhaustible. Its depth is infinite, just like space is infinite. Shakespeare and Pushkin, Goethe and Tolstoy enrich the reader, but the reader, in turn, continuously enriches the works of great artists with his new historical experience. This is why our knowledge of the classics can never be considered final, absolute. Each subsequent generation discovers new, previously unseen facets in old works. This means an increasingly capacious comprehension of the meaning and artistic nature immortal works past.

The development of the classical heritage meets the modern needs of society, because society itself, this heritage, becomes an active participant modern life. The social content of the works of Russian classics is extremely important. It has always been fertilized by the progressive ideas of the time and expressed the spirit of the people's liberation struggle, their hatred of despotism and the indomitable desire for freedom. German writer Heinrich Mann famously said that the Russian classical literature was a revolution “even before the revolution happened.”

Russian literature has always been distinguished by its extraordinary sensitivity to decisions moral issues, invariably intertwined with the most important social problems modernity. Great poet he was proud that in his “cruel age” he “glorified ... freedom” and awakened “good feelings.” What is striking here is the unexpected juxtaposition of such seemingly different historical meaning words like “freedom” and “kind”. The first of them in romantic poetry was almost always associated with boiling passions, with a titanic and cruel struggle, with courage, daring, a dagger, and revenge. And here it stands next to the words “good feelings.” Remarkable is Pushkin’s conviction that someday in the future the awakening of good feelings in people will be interpreted as something equivalent to the glorification of freedom. But all Russian classics are a preaching of humanity, goodness and the search for paths leading to it!

Tolstoy urged people to improve their soul, their moral world. How Lermontov imagined the extinction in Pechorin as the most terrible tragedy best qualities his character - love for people, tenderness for the world, desire to embrace humanity.

For the great Russian writers, hatred of various manifestations of injustice was the highest measure of a person’s moral virtues. With its indomitable moral pathos, as well as artistic perfection, Russian literature has long won recognition throughout the world. “Where, for forty years,” recalled Romain Rolland, “we looked for our spiritual food and our daily bread, when our black soil was no longer enough to satisfy our hunger? Who else but Russian writers were our leaders?”

In our struggle today for a new man, the great artists of the past are with us. The struggle against injustice and various manifestations of evil is nothing more than a struggle in the name of the victory of goodness and humanity. Such an “evil” genre of literature as satire knows this too. Wasn’t Gogol’s heart most tender, dreaming of a different, more perfect reality! Didn’t Shchedrin, who was so merciless with his time, want Russia well? Good people in the name of good they became irreconcilable to various manifestations of evil and what gave rise to it. Beautiful ideals require wonderful feelings.

Every great artist is the whole world. To enter this world, to feel its versatility and unique beauty means to bring oneself closer to the knowledge of the infinite diversity of life, to place oneself on some higher level of spirituality, aesthetic development. The work of every major writer is a precious storehouse of artistic and spiritual, one might say, “human-science” experience, which is of enormous importance for the progressive development of society. Shchedrin called fiction"condensed universe". By studying it, a person gains wings and is able to understand history more broadly and deeply, and he is always restless. modern world where he lives. The great past is connected with the present by invisible threads. The artistic heritage captures the history and soul of the people. That is why it is an inexhaustible source of his spiritual and emotional enrichment.

This is also the real value of Russian classics. With his civic temperament, his romantic impulse, with her deep and fearless analysis of the real contradictions of reality, she had a tremendous influence on the development of the liberation movement in Russia. Heinrich Mann rightly said that Russian literature was a revolution “even before the revolution took place.”

A special role in this regard belonged to Gogol. “... We don’t know,” wrote Chernyshevsky, “how Russia could manage without Gogol.” These words perhaps most clearly reflected the attitude of revolutionary democracy and all advanced Russian social thoughts XIX century to the author of “The Inspector General” and “ Dead souls».

Herzen spoke about Russian literature: “... while composing songs, it destroyed; Laughing, she undermined.” Gogol's laughter also had enormous destructive power. He undermined faith in the imaginary inviolability of the police-bureaucratic regime, to which Nicholas I tried to give an aura of indestructible power; he exposed to the “public eyes” the rottenness of this regime, all that Herzen called “the impudent frankness of autocracy.”

The appearance of Gogol's work was historically natural. In the late 20s - early 30s of the last century, new, great tasks arose before Russian literature. The rapidly developing process of the disintegration of serfdom and absolutism evoked in the advanced strata of Russian society an increasingly persistent, passionate search for a way out of the crisis, awakening the thought of further paths of historical development of Russia. Gogol's creativity reflected the people's growing dissatisfaction with the serfdom system, its awakening revolutionary energy, its desire for a different, more perfect reality. Belinsky called Gogol “one of the great leaders” of his country “on the path of consciousness, development, progress.”

Gogol's art arose on the foundation that was erected before him by Pushkin. In "Boris Godunov" and "Eugene Onegin", " Bronze Horseman" And " The captain's daughter"The writer made the greatest discoveries. The amazing skill with which Pushkin reflected the entirety of contemporary reality and penetrated into the recesses of the spiritual world of his heroes, the insight with which he saw in each of them a reflection of real processes public life, the depth of his historical thinking and the greatness of his humanistic ideals - Pushkin discovered all these facets of his personality and his creativity new era in the development of Russian literature and realistic art.

Gogol followed the trail laid by Pushkin, but he went his own way. Pushkin revealed deep contradictions modern society. But for all that, the world, artistically realized by the poet, is full of beauty and harmony, the element of negation is balanced by the element of affirmation. The denunciation of social vices is combined with the glorification of the power and nobility of the human mind. Pushkin, in the true words of Apollo Grigoriev, “was a pure, sublime and harmonious echo of everything, transforming everything into beauty and harmony.” Art world Gogol is not so universal and comprehensive. His perception of modern life was also different. There is a lot of light, sun, and joy in Pushkin’s work. All his poetry is imbued with the indestructible power of the human spirit, it was the apotheosis of youth, bright hopes and faith, it reflected the boiling of passions and that “revelry at the feast of life” that Belinsky enthusiastically wrote about.

Pushkin covered all aspects of Russian life, but already in his time there was a need for a more detailed study of its individual spheres. Gogol's realism, like Pushkin's, was imbued with the spirit of a fearless analysis of the essence of social phenomena of our time. But the uniqueness of Gogol’s realism was that it combined a broad understanding of reality as a whole with a microscopically detailed study of its most hidden nooks and crannies. Gogol depicts his heroes in all the concreteness of their social existence, in all the smallest details of their everyday life, their everyday existence.

“Why depict poverty, and poverty, and the imperfection of our life, digging people out of the wilderness, from the remote corners of the state?” These opening lines from the second volume of Dead Souls perhaps best reveal the pathos of Gogol's work. Much of it was focused on depicting poverty and the imperfections of life.

Never before have the contradictions of Russian reality been so exposed as in the 30s and 40s. The critical depiction of its deformities and ugliness became the main task of literature. And Gogol sensed this brilliantly. Explaining in the fourth letter “Regarding “Dead Souls”” the reasons for the burning of the second volume of the poem in 1845, he noted that it was pointless now “to bring out several wonderful characters that reveal the high nobility of our breed.” And then he writes: “No, there is a time when it is impossible to otherwise direct society or even an entire generation towards the beautiful until you show the full depth of its real abomination.”

Gogol was convinced that in the conditions of contemporary Russia, the ideal and beauty of life can be expressed primarily through the denial of ugly reality. This is exactly what his work was like, this was the originality of his realism.

In his famous discussion about two types of artists, to whom the seventh chapter of Dead Souls opens, Gogol contrasts the romantic inspiration soaring in the skies with the hard but noble work of a realist writer who dares to expose to the public eyes “all the terrible, stunning mud of little things that entangle our lives, the whole depth of cold, fragmented, everyday characters with which our earthly, sometimes bitter and boring road is teeming.” Most of all, Gogol was hostile to the false idealization of life, which always seemed to him offensive to the artist. Only the truth, no matter how expensive it may be achieved, is worthy of art.

Gogol understood well tragic character contemporary social life. His satire did not simply deny and expose. For the first time it acquired an analytical, research character. In his works, Gogol not only showed certain aspects of Russian “daily reality,” but also revealed its internal mechanism, not only depicted evil, but also tried to find out where it comes from, what gives rise to it. The study of the material, material and everyday basis of life, its invisible features and the spirit-poor characters emerging from it, who arrogantly believed in their dignity and right, was Gogol’s discovery in the history of Russian literature.

The critic saw the national significance of Gogol in the fact that with the appearance of this artist, our literature exclusively turned to Russian reality. “Perhaps,” he wrote, “through this it became more one-sided and even monotonous, but also more original, original, and therefore true.” A comprehensive depiction of the real processes of life, a study of its “roaring contradictions” - all great Russian literature of the post-Gogol era will follow this path.

This subtle and precise definition is quite applicable to the heritage of the classics, in which the centuries-old spiritual experience of mankind is compressed. Classics have always been a powerful stimulant in the development of the culture of any nation. To isolate modern literature from classical traditions would mean cutting it off from its national roots - it would become drained of blood and wither away. The indissoluble connection of times is especially clearly embodied in the pinnacle works of fiction, which we call classic: in their cognitive significance, the undying moral influence of their heroes on many generations of people, and also in the fact that these works continue to serve as an inexhaustible spring of beauty. Great art does not know the past, it lives in the present and the future. We must not only read the classics, we must also learn to reread them. Because every meeting with them is fraught with the joy of discovery. A person at each subsequent stage of his existence is able to perceive spiritual values more and more deeply. An outstanding work, once read and perceived anew, introduces us to an atmosphere of inexplicable charm, caused, among other things, by the opportunity to really feel our own, aesthetic, in the words of Herzen, “increase.” Perhaps it is appropriate to recall here the excellent note of the young Herzen: “I have a passion for rereading the poems of the great maestros: Goethe, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Walter Scott. It would seem, why read the same thing, when at this time you can “decorate” your mind with the works of Messrs. A., B., S? Yes, the fact of the matter is that these are not the same thing; in between, some spirit changes a lot in the maestro’s ever-living works. Just as Hamlet and Faust were previously wider than me, so they are wider now, despite the fact that I am convinced of my expansion. No, I will not give up the habit of rereading, this is why I visually measure my growth, improvement, decline, direction... Humanity in its own way rereads entire millennia of Homer, and this is a touchstone for it on which it tests the power of age.” Every turn of history gives people the opportunity to take a fresh look at themselves and rediscover the immortal pages of works of art. Each era reads them in its own way. Goncharov noted that Chatsky is inevitable when one century changes to another, that every business that requires updating gives birth to Chatsky’s shadow. Great artists are responsive to the calls of all times; they are rightly called the eternal companions of humanity. The remarkable thing about the classical heritage is that it expresses the self-awareness of not only its era. Time moves, and with it, the classics move along the same orbit, in which a constant process of renewal takes place. She has something to say to every generation, she has many meanings. Of course, today we perceive the legacy of Gogol and Dostoevsky differently than their contemporaries, and we understand it more deeply. And this happens not because we are smarter or more insightful. The social experience of generations forms the historical tower from which a person of our era understands the spiritual culture of the past. From this donut we see many things further and more clearly. The classics are inexhaustible. Its depth is infinite, just like space is infinite. Shakespeare and Pushkin, Goethe and Tolstoy enrich the reader, but the reader, in turn, continuously enriches the works of great artists with his new historical experience. This is why our knowledge of the classics can never be considered final, absolute. Each subsequent generation discovers new, previously unseen facets in old works. This means an ever more comprehensive comprehension of the meaning and artistic nature of the immortal works of the past. The development of the classical heritage meets the modern needs of society, because society itself, this heritage, becomes an active participant in modern life. The social content of the works of Russian classics is extremely important. It has always been fertilized by the progressive ideas of the time and expressed the spirit of the people's liberation struggle, their hatred of despotism and the indomitable desire for freedom. The German writer Heinrich Mann famously said that Russian classical literature was a revolution “even before the revolution happened.” Russian literature has always been distinguished by its extraordinary sensitivity to solving moral issues, which are invariably intertwined with the most important social problems of our time. The great poet was proud that in his “cruel age” he “glorified ... freedom” and awakened “good feelings.” What is striking here is the unexpected juxtaposition of words so seemingly different in historical meaning as “freedom” and “good.” The first of them in romantic poetry was almost always associated with boiling passions, with a titanic and cruel struggle, with courage, daring, a dagger, and revenge. And here it stands next to the words “good feelings.” Remarkable is Pushkin’s conviction that someday in the future the awakening of good feelings in people will be interpreted as something equivalent to the glorification of freedom. But all Russian classics are a preaching of humanity, goodness and the search for paths leading to it! Tolstoy urged people to improve their soul, their moral world. Lermontov imagined the extinction of the best qualities of his character in Pechorin - love for people, tenderness for the world, the desire to embrace humanity - as a terrible tragedy. For the great Russian writers, hatred of various manifestations of injustice was the highest measure of a person’s moral virtues. With its indomitable moral pathos, as well as artistic perfection, Russian literature has long won recognition throughout the world. “Where, for forty years,” recalled Romain Rolland, “we looked for our spiritual food and our daily bread, when our black soil was no longer enough to satisfy our hunger? Who else but Russian writers were our leaders?” In our struggle today for a new man, the great artists of the past are with us. The struggle against injustice and various manifestations of evil is nothing more than a struggle in the name of the victory of goodness and humanity. Such an “evil” genre of literature as satire knows this too. Wasn’t Gogol’s heart most tender, dreaming of a different, more perfect reality! Didn’t Shchedrin, who was so merciless with his time, want Russia well? Good people, in the name of good, became irreconcilable to various manifestations of evil and what gave rise to it. Beautiful ideals require wonderful feelings.

It's subtle and precise the definition is quite applicable to the heritage of the classics, which compresses the centuries-old spiritual experience of mankind. Classics have always been a powerful stimulant in the development of the culture of any nation. To isolate modern literature from classical traditions would mean cutting it off from its national roots - it would become drained of blood and wither away.

An indissoluble bond times is especially clearly embodied in the pinnacle works of fiction, which we call classic: in their cognitive significance, the undying moral influence of their heroes on many generations of people, and also in the fact that these works continue to serve as an inexhaustible spring of beauty. Great art does not know the past, it lives in the present and the future. We must not only read the classics, we must also learn to reread them. Because every meeting with them is fraught with the joy of discovery. A person at each subsequent stage of his existence is able to perceive spiritual values more and more deeply. An outstanding work, once read and perceived anew, introduces us to an atmosphere of inexplicable charm, caused, among other things, by the opportunity to really feel our own, aesthetic, in the word, “increase.” Perhaps it is appropriate to recall here the excellent note of the young Herzen: “I have a passion for rereading the poems of the great maestros: Goethe, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Walter Scott. It would seem, why read the same thing, when at this time you can “decorate” your mind with the works of Messrs. A., B., S? Yes, the fact of the matter is that these are not the same thing; in between, some spirit changes a lot in the maestro’s ever-living works. Just as before they were wider than me, so now they are wider, despite the fact that I am convinced of my expansion. No, I will not give up the habit of rereading, this is why I visually measure my growth, improvement, decline, direction... Humanity in its own way rereads entire millennia of Homer, and this is a touchstone for it on which it tests the power of age.”

Every turn history gives people the opportunity to take a fresh look at themselves and rediscover the immortal pages of works of art. Each era reads them in its own way. Goncharov noted that it is inevitable when one century changes to another that every business that requires updating gives birth to Chatsky’s shadow.

Great artists are responsive to the calls of all times; they are rightly called the eternal companions of humanity. The remarkable thing about the classical heritage is that it expresses the self-awareness of not only its era. Time moves, and with it, the classics move along the same orbit, in which a constant process of renewal takes place. She has something to say to every generation, she has many meanings. Of course, today we perceive the heritage differently than their contemporaries, and we understand it more deeply. And this happens not because we are smarter or more insightful. The social experience of generations forms the historical tower from which a person of our era understands the spiritual culture of the past. From this donut we see many things further and more clearly. The classics are inexhaustible. Its depth is infinite, just like space is infinite. Shakespeare and Goethe and Tolstoy enrich the reader, but the reader, in turn, continuously enriches the works of great artists with his new historical experience. This is why our knowledge of the classics can never be considered final, absolute. Each subsequent generation discovers new, previously unseen facets in old works. This means an ever more comprehensive comprehension of the meaning and artistic nature of the immortal works of the past.

Mastering the classical heritage meets the modern needs of society, because it itself, this heritage, becomes an active participant in modern life. The social content of the works of Russian classics is extremely important. It has always been fertilized by the progressive ideas of the time and expressed the spirit of the people's liberation struggle, their hatred of despotism and the indomitable desire for freedom. The German writer Heinrich Mann famously said that Russian classical literature was a revolution “even before the revolution happened.”

Russian literature She has always been distinguished by her extraordinary sensitivity to solving moral issues, which are invariably intertwined with the most important social problems of our time. The great poet was proud that in his “cruel age” he “glorified ... freedom” and awakened “good feelings.” What is striking here is the unexpected juxtaposition of words so seemingly different in historical meaning as “freedom” and “good.” The first of them in romantic poetry was almost always associated with boiling passions, with a titanic and cruel struggle, with courage, daring, a dagger, and revenge. And here it stands next to the words “good feelings.” Remarkable is Pushkin’s conviction that someday in the future the awakening of good feelings in people will be interpreted as something equivalent to the glorification of freedom. But all Russian classics are a preaching of humanity, goodness and the search for paths leading to it!

Improve Tolstoy called people to his soul, his moral world. I imagined the extinction in Pechorin of the best qualities of his character - love for people, tenderness for the world, the desire to embrace humanity - as a terrible tragedy.

In today's In our struggle for a new man, the great artists of the past are with us. The struggle against injustice and various manifestations of evil is nothing more than a struggle in the name of the victory of goodness and humanity. Such an “evil” genre of literature as satire knows this too. Wasn’t Gogol’s heart most tender, dreaming of a different, more perfect reality! Didn’t Shchedrin, who was so merciless with his time, want Russia well? Good people, in the name of good, became irreconcilable to various manifestations of evil and what gave rise to it. Beautiful ideals require wonderful feelings.

Most popular articles:

Homework on the topic: Saltykov-Shchedrin called fiction a “condensed universe”.

Russian classical literature amazes with its inexhaustible moral potential. The sharpness of the critical principle here is always crowned with a powerful internal resistance to vice and stagnation. This feature of the worldview determined the line of continuity in Russian prose and drama. L. A. Smirnova

Let's enter a portrait gallery, but not quite an unusual one. There are no paintings by artists visible on the walls. This is a gallery of imaginary portraits, those that once came to life under the writer’s pen, and then for a long time, if not forever, merged in our memory, next to living, real people. The gallery is large and rich. There are halls of Dickens and Balzac, there are Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, ... Sholokhov, Hemingway, Alexei Tolstoy ... B. Galanov.

The “village theme” itself is a constant theme in our literature. But it has acquired a new and very significant meaning. For a number of prose writers who, in my opinion, constitute one of the leading trends in today's literature, it is of fundamental nature, is, so to speak, not only a theme, but also an idea V Kozhinov

In fact, a true artist of words creates, creates the reality of his novel or poem, just as a sculptor, musician, artist creates his work. Creativity in words presupposes intense activity not only of the mental and emotional, but even of the physical and bodily forces of the artist of the word V. Kozhinov.

The skill of a writer or poet is an endless, innumerable variety of ways to create an artistic world. But the whole point is that these methods must be organically born directly in the very process of V. Kozhinov’s creativity.

We relatively recently began to clearly understand that a writer cannot rise to the level of great literature without a deep mastery of history. V Kozhinov

When we pick up volumes of poems by Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, when we re-read the works of Gogol, Turgenev, Chekhov, Tolstoy and many other Russian writers of the last century, we are overcome with a feeling of deep excitement and pride. All these are large, real books about people, deeds and events of days gone by, books created by the great writers of our country. N. S. Sher.

Progressive writers and artists, composers and actors, inventors, scientists devoted all their strength and knowledge, all their talent to serving the fatherland, fought for the freedom, honor and prosperity of Russia. N. S. Sher

Russian literature is especially instructive, especially valuable for its breadth - there is no question that it does not pose and does not try to resolve, it is primarily a literature of questions M. Gorky

Our literature... is historically valuable for us, because it gives us the richest material for making judgments about the ways of human thought M Gorky

Scientific literature saves people from ignorance, and elegant literature saves people from rudeness and vulgarity.” N. G. Chernyshevsky

The team of scientists and writers, no matter what kind they are, is always ahead... in all attacks of education. A. S. Pushkin.

Literature is... an abbreviated universe. (Saltykov-Shchedrin)

In fact, there is no more enlightening, soul-cleansing feeling than that which a person feels when acquainted with a great work of art! (Saltykov-Shchedrin)

“If it can be fairly assumed that society lives among normal humanity and can rework its nature, then it has exactly the same beneficial influence on the child’s nature and what it is is subject to strict choice.” (Saltykov-Shchedrin)

“Nothing explains well-known phenomena better to the reader than the idea of a living image. Having only an image that is not ideally distorted, but true to reality, the explanatory work will be born of itself in the reader’s mind.” Saltykov-Shchedrin

Here God fights with the devil, and the battlefield is the hearts of people F.M. Dostoevsky

"Look into your inner world, think again about the purpose and meaning of existence.” M. Gorky

Literary hero

I've lived through my desires

I fell out of love with my dreams;

All that's left for me is suffering

The fruits of heart emptiness. (Pushkin)

I am destined to breathe with doubt,

And I tremble, and my heart avoids

Seek what cannot be understood. (Fet)

In whom the feeling has not cooled down for a long time,

Who has an incorruptible heart

Who has talent, accuracy, strength. (N.A. Nekrasov) (you can refer to the essay about Andrei Bolkonsky)

About fairy tales

“A fairy tale is inseparable from beauty. ... Thanks to a fairy tale, a child learns about the world not only with his mind and heart. And not only knows, but responds to events and phenomena of the surrounding world, expresses his attitude towards good and evil” V. A. Sukhomlinsky

And this childishness is in him forever

Tells people to be generous

So that somewhere in every person

There lived a good doctor Aibolit.

Yu.Okunev.

The colors are burning fantastically,

And, no matter how wise the head is,

Do you still believe the fairy tale?

The fairy tale is always right!

(E. Asadov)