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What is ode? An ode is a song of praise. Oh yeah

What is ode? An ode is a song of praise. Oh yeah

Derzhavin is an innovative poet. The evolution of the ode genre in the last third of the 18th century

Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) lived a long and difficult life, full of ups and downs, honorary appointments to high positions and stormy quarrels with nobles and kings. The son of a poor officer, he began his service as an ordinary soldier and became one of the largest statesmen in Russia in the 18th century. But what became immortal over the centuries was not Derzhavin the official, secretary of state, senator, minister, but Derzhavin the poet.

Derzhavin is great, first of all, as the first Russian realist poet and as a brilliant poet-artist in general. He was the first of the Russian writers to recognize himself as a Russian, national poet - Russian not only in language, but, most importantly, in thinking, “philosophy,” as he himself said. The origins of Derzhavin’s “Russian mindset” of mind and creativity are rooted in the conditions in which his formation as a person and an artist took place. For poetry of the 1760s - early 1770s. characterized by a keen interest in national history and folklore. In Derzhavin’s early poems one can notice the strong influence of A.P.’s songs. Sumarokov, the most prominent lyric poet of the mid-century, who created a number of talented literary stylizations of folk songs. On the other hand, the satirical works of Sumarokov, as well as the satirical line of folk literature of the 17th-18th centuries, with which Derzhavin was well acquainted, had a great influence on Derzhavin’s development. The work of M.V. had a significant influence on the formation of Derzhavin as a poet. Lomonosov, although in one of the early program poems, “Idyll,” Derzhavin completely renounced “high” poetry:

I never think of chasing Pindar

And rise like a stormy whirlwind up to the sun,

fearing that “in the heat I wouldn’t burn out in my half century,

would not crack from the fire"

But, confirming this statement with his songs and other poems of “light” genres, and at the same time in a number of works he rose “up to the sun” in a “stormy whirlwind”. At the same time, in many odes Derzhavin was guided not by Lomonosov, but by Sumarokov with his open journalisticism. Such an orientation toward a “model” was necessary for a classicist poet, since one of the fundamental principles of the theory and practice of classicism was the principle of “imitation of models.”

Following Lomonosov, young Derzhavin diligently reproduces not only the programmatic “educationalism”, but also the very form of the “model” odes, introducing a huge number of borrowings and direct quotes from Lomonosov’s poems. Imitating Sumarokov, Derzhavin writes sharply journalistic works, much more original in form, reproduces the civic style of the “model”, but he has almost no direct borrowings from Sumarokov.

Derzhavin’s different approach to the problem of imitation, made dependent on how the poet, whom Derzhavin was guided by in this work, solved this problem - such an approach definitely indicates the meaningfulness and awareness of his searches, his awareness of the essence of the literary and theoretical disputes of the era. However, the overwhelming majority of the poems of the first period of Derzhavin’s work are not distinguished by high merits: they are imitatively traditional, sluggish and heavy.

Derzhavin was helped to “find himself” in poetry by getting closer to the “Lvov circle” - a group of young poets, composers, artists, connected by friendly relations and a common search for new paths in literature and art. The circle included such subsequently famous people as the poets N.A. Lvov, M.N. Muravyov, I.I. Khemnitser, V.V. Kapnist, composers E.I. Fomin, D.S. Bortnyansky, V.A. Pashkevich, artists D.G. Levitsky, V.L. Borovikovsky and others. Ya.B. was close to the circle. Knyazhnin and D.I. Fonvizin; some (until now undisclosed) relations were connected with A.N.’s circle. Radishcheva. It was in the circle that the direction that in the history of Russian literature later received the name “pre-romanticism” was formed.

In the works of the pre-Romanticists, human individuality and the objective-real, concrete-sensory world surrounding it are brought to the fore; Having rejected the theory of “imitation of models,” the pre-Romanticists came to the romantic concept of genius and inspiration as a source of poetic creativity. And from here inevitably flowed a new poetic vision of the world; the idea of the value of the individual, attention to ethical problems, issues of morality of the individual and society; the private life of a private person and the associated complete breakdown of the existing genre and figurative systems; rejection of both classicist and sentimentalist normativity in general, and “rules” in particular; the image of the author, organically included in the works: attempts to create individual characteristics of people; an abundance of specific hints; attention to everyday details, the embodiment of everyday life in pictorial and plastic images: a bold combination of prosaism and vernacular with high archaic vocabulary; experiments going in one direction in the field of metrics, stanzas, rhymes; search for an individual form of a work; close interest in the problem of national content and national form, that is, recognition of the fact that in different eras and people of different nationalities there were different “tastes” - in other words, rejection of the criterion of “graceful taste”, uniform for all times and peoples, and a way out to the idea of the historical and national conditioning of man, peoples, and literatures.

Pre-Romanticism put forward as central the problems of historicism, the philosophy of history, the dependence of national character on history, etc. Only realism could fully solve these problems, but an important step that the Pre-Romanticists took was the very formulation of these problems in philosophy and literature. Pre-Romantic poets from different countries of Europe raised with particular urgency the question of national forms of poetry, national systems of versification, turning to folklore for help as a source, firstly, of specifically national rhythms, and secondly, means of artistic expression peculiar only to a given people, an arsenal of images, a source of ancient mythology, etc. The same purpose had an appeal to the mythologies of various peoples of the West and East. So, for example, Derzhavin, in addition to Old Russian (“Slavic”) and ancient, used images and motifs of “Varangian-Russian” (Scandinavian), Hebrew (biblical), Chinese and Indian mythology.

In the formation of the ideology and aesthetics of pre-romanticism, the greatest role in Europe was played by Rousseau, Jung and especially Herder, and in Russian poetry by the Lvov circle, with which Derzhavin became close in early 1779. Apparently, it was N.A. Lvov, one of the most original poets of the century and an encyclopedic educated person, introduced him to the ideas of Rousseau and Jung about original creativity, and the poems of M. N. Muravyov, who since 1775 found his way in poetry, showed the practical possibility of individual realization of poetic talent .

Freed from the shackles of normativity, “rules” and “imitation of models” that shackled him, Derzhavin’s rare individual talent unfolded with lightning speed and enormous poetic power.

In September of the same 1779, “Ode to the death of K. M. k***” appeared in the magazine “St. Petersburg Bulletin” - that is, “On the death of Prince Meshchersky,” and then, one after another, such magnificent works followed as “The Key”, “Poems for the birth of a porphyry-born youth in the North”, “To the first neighbor”, “To rulers and judges”, etc. Derzhavin received access to the pages of the magazine again thanks to the mug: one of the publishers of “St. Petersburg Bulletin” was I WOULD. Knyazhnin.

Already in the ode “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky,” which begins the second period of Derzhavin’s work, new features of Derzhavin’s poetry clearly emerged, and many sides of Derzhavin’s mature talent clearly emerged. What was also new was that Derzhavin dedicated an ode to the death not of an all-powerful nobleman, not of a statesman, not of a commander, but of a private person, his acquaintance; and the fact that the poet addressed the friend of the deceased S.V. Perfilyev, also not a noble man. In this poem, the Russian reader for the first time (Muravyov almost never succeeded in publishing his new poems) saw the image of a private person - the author, Derzhavin himself. When Lomonosov said “I” in his odes, this “I” did not mean the real M.V. Lomonosov, and “piita” in general is a kind of generalized voice of the nation. And for Derzhavin, “I” is a completely concrete living person, Derzhavin himself, with his personal sorrows and joys, with his private life, thoughts and deeds.

Thanks to the inclusion of autobiographical motifs, a poem on a general philosophical theme acquired an unusually personal, individual character.

Like a dream, like a sweet dream,

My youth has also disappeared;

Beauty is not very tender,

It's not so much joy that delights,

The mind is not so frivolous,

I'm not so prosperous...

Such words could never be said by a conventional “piit”. This is said by Gavrila Derzhavin himself, a man struck by the news of the sudden death of a friend, who thought about his own life and came to the conclusion:

This day or tomorrow to die,

Perfilyev! Of course we must -

Why should one be tormented and grieved?

That your mortal friend did not live forever?

Life is heaven's instant gift;

Arrange her for your peace

And with your pure soul

Bless the fates blow.

The poem was written by the hand of a mature master. The image of a clock, symbolizing the inevitable passage of time, was created using magnificent sound recording:

Verb of times! metal ringing!

The illusion of a measured, rhythmic chiming of the clock is achieved by repeating the sonorous “l” and “n” at the end of each foot. To a certain extent, already in this poem one can see a mixture of “high”, solemn thoughts and images with those close to life, “low”, everyday images. For example, a solemn address to the clock:

Verb of times! metal ringing!

Your terrible voice confuses me;

Calls me, calls your moan,

He calls - and brings him closer to the coffin -

is replaced by an image of death, drawn in slightly reduced tones, images taken from real everyday life:

I barely saw this light,

Death is already gnashing its teeth.

Like lightning, the scythe shines

And my days are cut down like grain.

The figure of death (death!) is very concrete and visually tangible. The artistic images themselves are taken from everyday Russian life: death cuts a person with a scythe, like a peasant reaping rye. Further, this “vitality” is further reinforced:

And pale death looks at everyone...

(The vast majority of poets, Derzhavin’s contemporaries, would say “sees”)

And sharpens the blade of his scythe...

From here it’s not far to a completely “everyday” image of death:

And death looks at us through the fence...

("Invitation to Dinner")

“His syllable is so large,” wrote N.V. Gogol, noting one of the main features of Derzhavin’s poetry, “like none of our poets. If you open it with an anatomical knife, you will see that this comes from the extraordinary combination of the highest words in the very low and simple, something that no one would dare to do except Derzhavin. Who, other than him, would dare to express himself the way he expressed it? Who, other than Derzhavin, would dare to connect such a thing as the expectation of death with such an insignificant action as torsion mustache?"

The idea of the greatness of simple human feelings, as well as the frailty of everything earthly, permeates the ode “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky.” It is very typical for Derzhavin to dedicate an ode to one of his acquaintances, whose name would have sunk into history if the poet had not written about his death. The author seems to want to say: life divides people into rich and poor, well-fed and hungry, kings and subjects, and death makes everyone equal:

Looks at everyone - and at the kings,

For whom the world is too small for power;

Looks at the magnificent rich people,

What are the idols in gold and silver,

Looks at the charm and beauty,

Looks at the sublime mind,

Looks at the tears boldly

And sharpens the blade of the scythe.

It is interesting that in very different years, in very different poems, the poet breaks out the theme of death.

And V.G. spoke well about the artistic impression that the poem made on the reader. Belinsky: “How terrible is his ode “On the death of Meshchersky”: the blood runs cold in your veins, the hair, in Shakespeare’s words, stands on your head like an alarmed army, when the prophetic battle of the verb of times is heard in your ears, when the terrible skeleton of death with a scythe is seen in your eyes hands!" Derzhavin was a brave man; he did not shy away from either the Tsar’s or the noble’s wrath.

But his ability to live and feel fully, to passionately experience life in words did not allow him to take his eyes off death. In his amazing ode “God,” he talks about his understanding of life, death, immortality, addressing the Creator:

Your truth needed it

So that the abyss of death may pass

My immortal being:

So that my spirit is clothed in mortality

And so that through death I return,

Father! To Your immortality.

Reflecting on life and death, the poet in his quest came to comprehend the truth through faith in the Savior. He leaves words of hope for himself and others in consolation:

And with your pure soul,

Bless the fates blow."

And it is no coincidence that Derzhavin wrote a lot of works about earthly joys and sorrows, which are close to all people without exception. These are “Declaration of Love”, “Separation”, “Cupid”, “Different Wines” and others. Their style is very simple, bright and accessible even to the reader of the twentieth century, just as the experiences of sadness, love, and the joy of friendship are accessible. It was very important for the poet to establish in the minds of his readers these eternal values of the human soul as opposed to the already familiar priorities that subordinate the individual to the state.

Even more obvious than in the ode “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky” are the innovative elements in the poems “The Key” and “On the Birth of a Porphyry Youth in the North.” In “The Key,” for the first time in Russian poetry, nature appeared as an independent object of depiction, an independent aesthetic value, and at the same time as a source of poetic inspiration. True, “The Key” begins with a personification in the ancient spirit, but then the poet unfolded a series of magnificent pre-romantic pictures of the very real Grebenevsky key as it looks at different times of the day. Particularly interesting is the 7th stanza, in which Derzhavin, according to the correct remark of researcher A.V. Zapadov, “outlined not only the essential elements of the night landscape, then so widespread in sentimental and romantic poetry, but also a vocabulary with the expressions “pleasant,” “pale,” “slumbering,” “hills,” “groves,” “silence.” According To tell the truth, little was added to this dictionary in the future."

The poems “On the Birth of a Porphyritic Youth in the North” are dedicated to the birth of the grandson of Catherine II, the future Alexander I. The birth of a child in the royal family has always been the topic of only solemn odes, and Derzhavin took on the form characteristic of light, so-called “anacreontic” poems. However, Derzhavin’s work is not an Anacreontic ode. This is an “allegorical composition” with elements of a fairy-tale plot, similar in content to the beginning of “The Sleeping Beauty” by Charles Perrault. A new artistic unity is emerging that does not fall under any of the previously existing genre categories. The plot, oriented toward French light poetry and fairy tales, required the introduction of new characters - geniuses, who in the future would become mandatory attributes of romanticism. Even more interesting and important are the changes that traditional mythological characters underwent in the poems of 1779. Particularly curious is the metamorphosis that Derzhavin Borey underwent.

D.D. Blagoy noted that Derzhavin, undoubtedly, started from Lomonosov’s image (“Where the frozen Boris flutters your banners with your wings”), and certain details were taken from the description of the southern wind, translated from Ovid in Lomonosov’s “Rhetoric”. The image is updated by carefully selecting specific details of the winter landscape. However, while supplementing the description of Borey’s actions and his “portrait” with many details, Derzhavin discarded one detail - and this loss is very characteristic: Derzhavin’s Borey has no wings. As a result, leaving his character with an ancient name, the poet turns him into the “dashing old man” of Russian folk tales, into the direct predecessor of Nekrasov’s “Moroz the Voevoda.” And against the backdrop of Boreas, transformed into a fairy-tale Santa Claus, the ancient satyrs, gathering “around the fires” to “warm their hands,” are perceived as ordinary Russian peasants around the fires, and the nymphs, falling asleep “out of boredom among the caves and reeds,” are perceived as peasant women in the snow. hut covered with snow. With these nymphs and satyrs the second life of ancient images in Russian poetry begins.

Mythological characters in classic poetics always have a certain allegorical meaning and at the same time retain clear connections with antiquity and contain an element of comparison with a specific myth. In the poetics of Derzhavin’s type, the mythological image loses its allegorical nature and turns into a synonym for an abstract, generalized concept or into a common noun for a Russian everyday phenomenon, for a given human type. At the same time, permanent, obligatory “literary” logical connections are destroyed, but the associative-emotional poetic meaning of the word-name, often determined by the given context, expands. A poetic image becomes polysemantic from a single-valued one, and at the same time more concrete, since it is built on a selection from numerous features, connections, associations of one thing, sometimes unexpected, but decisive in a given context, while simultaneously preserving other connections, other shades.

The ode “To the First Neighbor”, written in 1780, is based on a series of images of this kind, and not one of them has the slightest relation to antiquity, to mythology (in the literal sense of the word) and at the same time is not an allegory. For example, a “tender nymph” is a kept woman, an Italian beauty is a singer, and a “parka” is simply death. Or in "The Nobleman": "muse" - Derzhavin's poetry) "nymphs" who "sing in the groves in the middle of winter" - singers, and maybe - a serf choir (another, already third meaning of the word, compared to " Poems for birth in the North" and "To the first neighbor"); "Circe" - beauty, lover. But, as in previous examples, the poetic meaning of Derzhavin’s images is much broader than the literal interpretation. The name Circe is also needed to characterize the moral character of the nobleman, defining his bestial (morally) way of life. The desire for individualization of the artistic whole, for the original development of the image quite naturally led Derzhavin to abandon figurative and verbal cliches. For the same theme, motive, situation, Derzhavin finds different embodiments, even in works that are chronologically close.

Let us turn to the theme of the onset of winter in various poems by Derzhavin. “Poems for Birth in the North” contained the first winter Russian landscape in Derzhavin’s poetry, embodied in the image of the “dashing old man” Borey. In 1787-1788 the poet creates three paintings of the same type in content, and at the same time completely different in emotional and artistic structure. In the poem "Winter's Wish" the change of seasons is depicted in frankly rough, "area" tones. A similar picture, but expressed very concisely and quite “seriously,” appears under the pen of Derzhavin in the next year, 1788, in the poem “To Euterpe.” And in the same 1788, as if competing with himself, in “Autumn during the Siege of Ochakov” the poet finds completely different words, different colors for the same picture; the laconic sketch, which took only 4 verses, unfolds into a wide canvas of 6 stanzas.

Speaking at the end of his life about his work, Derzhavin saw one of the reasons for embarking on a new path in poetry in the failures of imitating Lomonosov. The poet explained these failures by the fact that he could not constantly maintain with a “beautiful set of words” the “splendor and pomp” characteristic only of Lomonosov. Derzhavin had one thing left from Lomonosov: the affirmation of a positive ideal by showing a positive example; Moreover, Derzhavin initially searches for his ideal in the same place where almost all writers of the 18th century searched - in the theory of enlightened absolutism.

The fact is that the struggle against the abuses of nobles, nobility and officials for the good of Russia was a defining feature of Derzhavin’s activities both as a statesman and as a poet. A force capable of leading the state with dignity, leading Russia to glory, to prosperity, to “bliss”, Derzhavin saw only an enlightened monarchy. Hence the appearance in his work of the theme of Catherine II - Felitsa. This theme, a red thread running through Derzhavin’s work of the 80s, unites many of his works: “Felitsa”, “Gratitude to Felitsa”, “Reshemysl”, “Vision of Murza”, etc.

As already noted, Derzhavin’s odes are mostly dedicated to Empress Catherine the Great. But the heroine of the most famous of them is called by the poet Felitsa, which means “happy”, and not great and “wise”, as one might expect. The name itself, Felitsa, was borrowed by the author from “The Tale of Prince Chlorus,” written by Catherine for her grandchildren. In the early 80s. Derzhavin was not yet closely acquainted with the empress. Creating her image in the odes of these years, the poet used stories about her, the dissemination of which Catherine herself took care of, a self-portrait painted in her literary works, ideas preached in her “Instructions” and decrees. At the same time, Derzhavin knew very well many prominent nobles of Catherine’s court, under whose command he had to serve. Therefore, Derzhavin’s idealization of the image of Catherine II is combined with a critical attitude towards her nobles.

The high poetic merits of the ode "Felitsa", created in 1782, brought it wide popularity at that time in the circles of the most advanced Russian people. A.N. Radishchev, for example, wrote: “If you rewrite many stanzas from the ode to Felitsa, and especially where Murza describes himself, almost poetry will remain without poetry.” “Everyone who can read Russian found it in their hands,” O.P. testified. Kozodavlev, editor of the magazine where the ode was published.

And indeed, this “princess of the Kirghiz-Kaisatsky horde” is great precisely because she is happy and humane. Her dignity is that she walks and eats simple food, allowing her to think independently and speak the truth. It seems that, as if in order to emphasize its simplicity, the author also draws “his own portrait” next to it, which, in his words, “the whole world is like”:

Derzhavin ode humanistic mythological

And I, having slept until noon,

I smoke tobacco and drink coffee;

Transforming everyday life into a holiday,

My thoughts are spinning in chimeras...

It should be noted that in his odes G. Derzhavin largely departed from the rules of classicism. First of all, in the ode “Felitsa” the writer mixed different genres in one work, combined the ode with satire, sharply contrasting the positive image of the queen with the negative images of her nobles. Under the pen of the great master, the ode approached a work that truthfully and simply depicted reality.

Violating the strict rules of classicism, Derzhavin rejected Lomonosov’s theory of three styles, established in literature. Thus, he carried out a kind of “simplification”, “lowering” of the high syllable, adapting it to the norms of colloquial language, far from the sophistication of the secular noble salon.

Very colorful N.V. Gogol characterizes this feature of Derzhavin’s style of mixing high style with low: “His (Derzhavin’s) syllable is as large as any of our poets, if you cut it open with an anatomical knife, you will see that this comes from the extraordinary combination of the highest words with the lowest and simplest.” .

Denouncing the “society” and the court nobility, the poet notes that representatives of this circle are mired in vanity, fun and entertainment, inertia and lack of enlightenment. With amazing directness and sharpness, he ridicules the nobles who boast of their high position, without having any merits to the country and people.

So, for example, in the ode “Nobleman” Derzhavin writes:

A donkey will remain a donkey

Although shower him with stars,

Where should one act with the mind,

He just flaps his ears.

What was fundamentally new was that from the very first lines of the ode the poet depicts the Russian Empress (and in Felitsa, readers easily guessed it was Catherine) primarily from the point of view of her human qualities:

Without imitating your Murzas,

You often walk

And the food is the simplest

It happens at your table...

The virtuous Felitsa is contrasted with the vicious nobleman, “Murza” - a collective satirical portrait of the largest nobles: G.A. Potemkina, P.I. Panina, A.A. Vyazemsky, A.G. Orlova, S.K. Naryshkin and others.

It must be said that in Derzhavin’s poetry the word “man,” associated with the requirement of high morality and citizenship, was the highest praise and criterion. "Be a man on the throne!" - the poet called on the future Tsar Alexander I (“For births in the North...”). “There was a nobleman,” Derzhavin wrote about the old patron of the arts and sciences, I. I. Shuvalov (“Epistola to I. I. Shuvalov,” draft version, 1777).

The human mind and heart

Were my genius

The poet emphasized in the poem “Confession,” which he considered “an explanation for all his writings.”

This humanistic idea of Derzhavin is fully shared by the members of the Lvov circle and Fonvizin, who is close to them, who wrote in “Nedorosl”: “Have a heart, have a soul, and you will be a man at all times.” The insufficiency of humanity alone was understood by the younger contemporary of Derzhavin and Fonvizin, A.N. Radishchev, who came to the idea of the inevitability of revolution.

But the demand for high morality, the call for humanity “at all times” led the next generation of nobles to openly oppose serfdom and autocracy. The fact is that when Derzhavin, for example, wrote about a wise and fair executor of power ("Time", 1804):

Even time has no control over him.

Below is gold, nor silver;

He cares about the order of things,

Loves the common good;

Escaping lush nonsense

And shiny little things

He is in the rank of prosecutors,

All nobles, judges, kings

Honors only the person

And he wants to be one himself, -

then such thoughts raised the idea of humanity and man to a height that was absolutely alien to autocracy, since “the principle of monarchy in general is a despised, despicable, dehumanized person. Hence, the enormous educational power of the progressive humanistic ideas of Derzhavin and Fonvizin is clear - writers who are subjectively far from revolutionary sentiments and even hostile related to the revolution, but objectively contributed a lot to the spiritual and moral formation of the first, noble generation of Russian revolutionaries.

Another thing is also important: hope for the human heart and soul, tireless moral searches - this is what unites writers so distant in time and so seemingly different as Derzhavin and Fonvizin - and Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy (and otherwise - Radishchev, Griboyedov, Chernyshevsky, and Nekrasov are included in this search)...

Derzhavin’s philosophical poems are connected with the other side of the human problem - “man and the universe”. The largest of them is the ode “God,” completed in 1784, an inspired hymn to the omnipotence of the human mind:

My body is crumbling into dust.

I command thunder with my mind,

I am a king - I am a slave; I am a worm - I am a god! -

and at the same time, the recognition that man is only a link in a common chain of beings (and yet religion taught that man is a completely exceptional creation of God and God created everything else for man).

Derzhavin introduces into his poem the ideas of contemporary science about the plurality of worlds; God acquires from him the features inherent in matter: “infinite space, continuous life in the movement of matter and the endless flow of time.” Essentially, these provisions contradict religious ideas: the church taught that the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun was created by God alone; The Christian religion denied continuous movement as the main property of matter, because space and time supposedly had a “beginning” and will have an “end.”

It is not surprising, therefore, that Derzhavin’s ode provoked a decisive protest from zealots of Orthodoxy and clergy. But the poem became the first work of Russian literature to achieve truly worldwide fame...

Standing up for “man,” it was precisely the inhumanity of kings and nobles that Derzhavin exposed in his strongest satirical works - “To Rulers and Judges,” “On Cunning,” “On Happiness,” “Nobleman.”

The organizing center of Derzhavin’s poetry is increasingly becoming the image of the author, which remains uniform in all works. This is a specific person with flesh and blood who conveys his personal attitude towards the world, things and people, regardless of their social status. And as a person, and not a conditionally abstract “piit,” he sees the everyday shortcomings of nobles, “sky-blue gazes” and Catherine’s “hasty pen.” Along with the image of the author, Derzhavin’s poetry includes a colloquialism that is quite natural in the mouth of a person - a living colloquial language, what the poet himself later called “a funny Russian syllable.”

The ode "Felitsa", in which Derzhavin combined opposite principles: positive and negative, pathetic and satire, ideal and real, finally consolidated in Derzhavin's poetry what began in 1779 - mixing, breaking, eliminating the strict genre system. In one work he often combines satire and elegy, a pathetic ode and a friendly message. Not really caring about terminology, Derzhavin called the same poems sometimes “odes,” sometimes “songs,” sometimes “lyrical poems.” And at the end of his life, reflecting on his creative path, the poet directly declared the uselessness of genre gradations: “If names do not give things respect without their direct dignity, then I must agree with me that they, that is, those names, or special sections of songs, are more there is cleverness or arrogance of teachers in the knowledge of their antiquity, rather than a direct need." Speaking against the “pedantic sections of lyric poems” (that is, against their genre division), Derzhavin argued that a poet can talk about everything in a “social ode.” Elsewhere, Derzhavin called this genre common to all lyric poetry “mixed ode.”

A witty definition for Derzhavin’s poems was found by M.N. Muravyov - "confusion". Having essentially the same content as Derzhavin’s term “mixed ode,” Ant’s “mixup” is perhaps more accurate, because it quite correctly takes Derzhavin’s work out of the mainstream of any kind of description, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it does not cover not only a mixture of genres themselves, but also a mixture of emotional and thematic, stylistic, figurative, etc.

Derzhavin did not admire Catherine the man for long. Already at the end of the 80s. Felitsa turns into the image of a statesman - and only (“Image of Felitsa”). And when the poet found himself at court, when he “saw up close the original human with great weaknesses,” the theme of Felitsa in his poetry completely died out. The disappointment in Catherine that occurred in the early 90s could not but be reflected in the poet’s self-esteem. It raised the question before Derzhavin about the meaning of his own poetic activity, about his right to immortality. From this moment on, the theme of poetry and the poet, evaluation of one’s own creativity becomes one of the leading ones in Derzhavin’s work.

Derzhavin always spoke about the great role of poetry and the poet in the life of society, seeing his right to immortality precisely in poetic activity. But the idea of exactly which aspects of his poetry would make his name immortal changed. Previously, Derzhavin saw the right to immortality in the practice of poetry itself, then for some time he believed that he would live in the memory of posterity as a singer of the deeds of Catherine II.

He most fully outlined his new view of the meaning of his work in the ode “My Idol.” It is in the form of a conversation-monologue addressed to the sculptor Rachette, who worked on the bust of Derzhavin. The poet immediately rejects the idea of fame for “ordinary things” - “my trifle.” Highly appreciating his odes dedicated to Felitsa, Derzhavin believes that he is worthy of fame for them. But will his descendants honor him for this? And, prophetically guessing the future, the poet gives a negative answer. Rejecting the right to immortality for the glorification of Felitsa, Derzhavin claims that posterity will honor his memory as the singer of Russia, the Russian people, its leaders and heroes, for the fact that he was always a champion of truth and truth, defended virtue. According to Derzhavin, a great poet-patriot, poet-citizen is no less worthy of immortality than a great commander. He carries out this idea by placing his name next to the name of Field Marshal Rumyantsev (“Idols of your chisel” are busts of Rumyantsev and Derzhavin, sculpted by Rachette).

However, in real life, telling the truth to kings was not that easy. In his second letter to Khrapovitsky (1797), Derzhavin directly pointed out the oppressive power of autocracy, which fetters the poetic word. Therefore, he had to either speak the truth “with a smile”, in a humorous form, or cover it up with references to the authority of the monarch, or disguise it with hints, allegories, and allegories - and the poet himself wrote about this more than once.

Closely related to the struggle for the “common good” are the themes of “personal good,” which is possible only under the condition of the common good: a clear conscience, contentment with little, moderation, “peace,” etc. A person can be happy only when he “desires the common good "and actively fights for it. One who cares only about himself, without caring about Russia, cannot be truly happy, Derzhavin argued.

In the works of 1790 - early 1800s. Derzhavin takes a new step in depicting a person. In poems dedicated to G.A. Potemkin (“Anacreon in the Assembly”, “Waterfall”), L.A. Naryshkin (“On the Birth of Queen Gremislava”), A.G. Orlov (“The Athenian Knight”), A.V. Suvorov (“On Suvorov’s stay in the Tauride Palace”, “On the crossing of the Alpine Mountains”, etc.; especially “The Bullfinch”), Derzhavin tries to draw people in all their complexity, depicting both their positive and negative sides (this is especially true Potemkin and Naryshkin).

Derzhavin divided all poetry into two parts: “ode” and “song”. If for a lyrical poem - an "ode" - Derzhavin put forward inspiration as a defining property and believed that "errors" are excusable for it, "like spots on the Sun", then the distinctive feature of a "song", according to Derzhavin, is poetic skill. And, it must be said, the skill of Derzhavin the poet in anacreontics is manifested with particular clarity, for in these short poems there is absolutely no place for either detailed journalism or the rhetoric associated with it. The extraordinary economy of artistic means, extreme precision and clarity, refinement of language and verse make many of the poems in this cycle small masterpieces. But it would be wrong to believe that Derzhavin composed these poems only to demonstrate his poetic skill - no, he set himself much more serious goals. “For the love of the Russian word,” the poet emphasized, releasing the collection of “Anacreontic Songs” as a separate edition in 1804, “I wanted to show its abundance, flexibility, lightness and in general the ability to express the most tender feelings, which are hardly found in other languages ". Readers, already well acquainted with Derzhavin’s lyrical hero - a poet-citizen, a fighter for truth - now saw in all their versatility the same image from the side of his private life, his personal preferences, inclinations, even “pranks”.

And finally, both aspects of Derzhavin’s lyrical hero fully merged into one full-blooded realistic character in the largest work of the last period of Derzhavin’s work - the poem “Eugene. The Life of Zvanskaya” (1807).

This poem is a kind of response to the romantic elegy of V.A. Zhukovsky "Evening". Derzhavin entered into an extensive dispute with Zhukovsky about what a poet should depict, who should be the hero of a poetic work, how life should be treated in general, and how to depict nature and human characters. It was a dispute about the ways of development of modern poetry.

Derzhavin felt that the new direction could lead poets and readers away from active participation in life to an exclusive deepening into their own experiences. For him, a man with a stormy and complex biography, the very principle of escaping from real life was unacceptable. He decided to answer Zhukovsky - and answer in the same form that the young poet had chosen. “Life of Zvanskaya” is written in the same size, the same stanza as Zhukovsky’s poem. Derzhavin has the same composition, the same hero-poet.

Derzhavin contrasts Zhukovsky’s melancholic and largely conventional landscape with a concrete, real landscape, characteristic specifically for central Russia. Zhukovsky's hero - a sad young man, disappointed and suffering, completely immersed in memories and thoughts of impending death - is opposed by Derzhavin's cheerful old man. Although he is already close to the edge of the grave in age, he perceives everything vividly and is interested in everything without exception: from food and objects of peasant labor to events on a European scale, questions of history, and philosophical reflections. In contrast to the romantic “poetry of suffering,” Derzhavin put forward the poetry of “real life.” Before Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” Derzhavin’s “Life of Zvanskaya” is the most striking work that elevates human everyday life to poetry. Derzhavin showed that poetry exists not only in nature or sublime experiences: it can also be found in everyday “stuff”, and in reading newspapers and magazines, and in tea by the evening fire, and in distributing pretzels to peasant children.

The main character of the poem is both a type and a bright individual: ultimately, it is Derzhavin himself, but at the same time a typical landowner of a certain type, living in typical circumstances, with his own clearly expressed individual interests, inclinations, habits, way of thinking, assessments, attitude to the world, etc. This combination of the individual and the typical, given in certain typical circumstances, is evidence that realism was born in Russian literature, and it was born as a result of the long evolution of Derzhavin’s creativity.

It is very important that Derzhavin tried to learn the most valuable thing from Zhukovsky’s creative method - attention to the inner world of a person. True, the depiction of the inner world for Zhukovsky is a deepening into complex emotional experiences isolated from the outside world and associated with memories. Derzhavin’s inner world of the hero is a person’s experiences that are born from constant communication with the outside world. But Derzhavin learned the very principle of depicting a person’s inner world from Zhukovsky, just as Zhukovsky himself learned from him attention to the individual and colorful painting of nature.

References

1. Gogol N.V. Full collection cit., vol. VIII. M.-L., 1952, p. 374.
2. Belinsky V.G. Full collection soch., vol. 1. M, 1953, p. 50.
3. Zapadov A.V. Derzhavin's mastery. M., 1958, p. 122.
4. See: Blagoy D.D. Literature and reality. Questions of theory and history of literature. M., 1959, p. 136.
5. Marx K. and Engels F. Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 374.
6. Chernyshevsky N.G. Full collection soch., vol. 3. M., 1947, p. 137.
7. Zapadov A.V. Derzhavin's mastery, p. 146.

1. M.V. Lomonosov “On the day of the accession to the throne of Empress Elizabeth... 1747.” Here the poet glorifies peace, fearing a new war. This ode had a particularly acute effect the contradiction of the entire genre of laudatory ode- the contradiction between its complementarity and real political content: the poet, on behalf of Elizabeth, sets out his own program for the world. Peculiarities: deep ideological content, ardent patriotism, the majestic and solemn style of Lomonosov’s ode of a new type, unlike the others, its stable strophic organization, the correct size - iambic tetrameter, rich and varied rhyme - all this was new not only for Russian literature, but also for history of this genre in general. Pushing the boundaries of the genre, introducing patriotic pathos, Lomonosov turned the ode into a multi-volume work that served the poet’s highest ideals and his ardent interest in the fate of the Motherland. 2. G.R. Derzhavin "Felitsa". If we compare some of Derzhavin’s best poems and the given division of odes in his theoretical treatise “Discourse on Lyric Poetry, or on the Ode,” then the closest to the poet himself will be the so-called “mixed ode,” which combines elements of high, low and middle genres. The genre and style of the ode “Felitsa” is the best confirmation of this. “God-like” Felitsa is shown in a reduced, ordinary way. Derzhavin himself admitted that he did not know how to “withstand” the magnificent “Lomonosov” soaring in odes and therefore chose a new, very special path. But even on this “own” path I had to stumble. Eloquence, not warmed by living feeling, was something opposite to the genius of the poet. He could exaggerate (hyperbole is characteristic of high style), sometimes he had to flatter, but the poet did not at all consider this his merit . 3. Sumarokov. Sumarokov’s ode is a strictly “complimentary” genre, formed as a result of the poet’s refusal to take a break in the disclosure of the main theme. Sumarokov “loses” the educational sound of the ode, deliberately abandoning “inserted episodes”, narrowing his poetic task to a clear “presentation” of a single theme. Sumarokov’s style, “gentle” as defined by his contemporaries, is also much simpler and more concise. Sumarokov's epithets are often accurate. The poet's metaphors are built on the use of already established images and symbols. The genre of laudable ode was not the main thing in the poet’s work. “Spiritual” odes, or arrangements of psalms, opened up much greater prospects for Sumarokov’s creative gift. Sumarokov translated psalms into verse. Translations of the psalter were not something secondary for the poet, only paraphrastic exercises in versification - most likely, the poet turned to the psalter in difficult moments of life, in moments of grief, endowing biblical characters with autobiographical features in order to convey his own sorrow, anxiety, and excitement. Sumarokov was also familiar with German poetic transcriptions of psalms. Perhaps, when creating his “spiritual odes,” he was guided by the rhythmic structure of German works of this type. In general, Sumarokov was characterized by using the rich experience of ancient and Western European poetry in his work. 4.A.N. Radishchev "Liberty" » . The ode “Liberty” by the great Russian revolutionary educator is one of the works most often found in lists of free poetry since the end of the 18th century. and until the 1830s. Oda was persecuted with particular fury by the censors: its discovery by the authorities, even under accidental circumstances, promised serious reprisals. The plot of “Liberty” is based on general educational theories of natural law and social contract, rethought by Radishchev in a revolutionary spirit. The ode summed up the evolution of Russian advanced political thought on the eve of the French bourgeois revolution. Subsequently, it had a huge influence on the formation of the ideology of noble revolutionaries. Tyranny-fighting pathos and the call for The revolution, which should sweep away the power of the kings, determined the constant, profound influence of the ode.

Report 7th grade.

Ode is a genre of lyric poetry; solemn, pathetic, glorifying work. In literature, there are odes of laudatory, festive, and lamentable. By their nature, Lomonosov's odes are works intended to be spoken aloud. Solemn odes were created with the intention of reading aloud in front of the addressee; the poetic text of a solemn ode is designed to be a sounding speech perceived by ear. The ode stated a specific theme - a historical incident or an event of national scale. Lomonosov began writing ceremonial odes in 1739, and his first ode is dedicated to the victory of Russian weapons - the capture of the Turkish fortress of Khotyn. In 1764, Lomonosov wrote his last ode. Over the entire creative period, he created 20 examples of this genre - one per year, and these odes are dedicated to such major events as the birth or marriage of the heir to the throne, the coronation of a new monarch, the birthday or accession to the throne of the empress. The very scale of the odic “occasion” provides the solemn ode with the status of a major cultural event, a kind of cultural culmination in the national spiritual life.

The ode is characterized by a strict logic of presentation. The composition of the solemn ode is also determined by the laws of rhetoric: each odic text invariably opens and ends with appeals to the addressee. The text of the solemn ode is constructed as a system of rhetorical questions and answers, the alternation of which is due to two parallel operating settings: each individual fragment of the ode is designed to have the maximum aesthetic impact on the listener - and hence the language of the ode is oversaturated with tropes and rhetorical figures. Compositionally, the ode consists of three parts:

Part 1 - poetic delight, praise to the addressee, description of his services to the Fatherland;

Part 2 - glorification of the past successes of the country and its rulers; a hymn to modern educational successes in the country;

Part 3 - glorification of the monarch for his deeds for the benefit of Russia.

All of Lomonosov's solemn odes are written in iambic tetrameter. An example of a solemn ode is “Ode on the day of accession to the All-Russian throne of Her Majesty Empress Elizabeth Petrovna 1747.” The ode genre allowed Lomonosov to combine lyrics and journalism within one poetic text and to speak out on issues of civil and social significance. The poet admires the innumerable natural resources of the Russian state:

Where, in the luxury of cool shadows In the pasture of galloping fir trees, the catching cry did not disperse; The hunter did not aim his bow anywhere; The farmer did not frighten the singing birds with his axe.

The abundance of natural resources is the key to the successful development of the Russian people. The central themes of the ode are the theme of labor and the theme of science. The poet appeals to the younger generation to devote themselves to the service of science:

Dare now, encouraged by your zeal, to show that the Russian land can give birth to its own Platos And quick-witted Newtons.

Lomonosov writes about the benefits of science for all ages. The ode creates an ideal image of a ruler who cares about the people, the spread of education, and the improvement of economic and spiritual development. The high “calm” of the ode is created by the use of Old Slavonicisms, rhetorical exclamations and questions, and ancient mythology.

If in a solemn ode Lomonosov very often replaces the author’s personal pronoun “I” with its plural form - “we”, then this does not indicate the impersonality of the author’s image in the ode, but that for a solemn ode only one facet of the author’s personality is significant - namely one in which he is not different from all other people, but gets closer to them. In a solemn ode, what is important is not the individual-private, but the national-social manifestation of the author’s personality, and in this regard, Lomonosov’s voice in the solemn ode is in the full sense the voice of the nation, the collective Russian.

Another thing is the spiritual and anacreontic ode, which occupies in Lomonosov’s poetic heritage not as significant as the solemn ode, but still a very important place. The spiritual and anacreontic odes are brought together in Lomonosov and express the author’s personal emotion, which is reflected in the productivity of the author’s personal pronoun. In these texts, Lomonosov’s “I” becomes a full-fledged lyrical embodiment of the author’s individual emotion. Only the lyrical emotions themselves, which determine the genre content of the spiritual and anacreontic ode, are different. If we use classic terminology, a spiritual ode is a form of expression of high lyrical passion. As for the Anacreontic ode, this is a form of expression of private, everyday lyrical passion.

In the 18th century, spiritual odes were called poetic transcriptions of psalms - lyrical texts of a prayerful nature that make up one of the books of the Bible - the Psalter. For the Russian reader of the 18th century, the Psalter was a special book: any literate person knew the Psalter by heart, because they were taught to read from the texts of this book. Therefore, transcriptions of psalms (actually, a poetic Russian translation of Old Church Slavonic texts) as a lyrical genre were very popular. All of Lomonosov's spiritual odes were written between 1743 and 1751. This is the time when Lomonosov had to establish himself and assert his scientific views at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, where the majority of scientists and administrative posts were occupied by scientists from European countries, mainly Germans. The process of Lomonosov’s self-assertion in science was far from simple. Therefore, in spiritual odes the pathos of self-affirmation sounds. For example, in the transcriptions of Psalms 26 and 143:

In anger, devour my flesh

Disgusted, they rushed;

But it’s bad advice to even start,

Having fallen, they were crushed.

Even if a regiment rises up against me:

But I'm not horrified.

Let the enemies raise a battle:

I trust in God (186).

I was embraced by a strange people,

I'm deep in the abyss,

Stretch your hand high from the firmament,

Save me from many waters.

The tongue of enemies speaks lies,

Their right hand is strong in enmity,

The lips are full of vanity;

They hide an evil cob in the heart (197-198).

Questions about the report:

1) What are the features of the ode genre?

2) What types of ode can you name?

3) List the main parts of a traditional ode. What should you write about in each part?

4) Name the most famous ode to M.V. Lomonosov.

5) Did M.V. write? Lomonosov spiritual odes? What are they about?

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov did a lot for the development of Russian literature. In his work, the great Russian philologist relied on odes.

Preface

The origins of the ode go back to antiquity. The 18th century of Russian literary creativity is represented by a wide variety of odes, such as laudable, spiritual, victorious-patriotic, philosophical and anacreontic. As usual, it is a quatrain with a repeating rhyme. In its domestic version, most of the stanzas consisted of ten verses.

Victorious-patriotic “Ode to the Capture of Khotin”

Mikhail Vasilyevich presented his victorious and patriotic creation called “Ode to the Capture of Khotin” in 1739. In it, Lomonosov makes it possible to separate three basic parts: the introduction, the very description of the battle scenes and then the climax, represented by the glorification and awarding of the winners. The battle scenes are shown with Lomonosov's characteristic style of hyperbolization, with many impressive comparisons, metaphors and personifications, which in turn most clearly reflect the drama and heroism of military actions.

Drama and pathos intensify with the appearance of rhetorical questions and exclamations of the author, which he addresses either to Russian soldiers or to their opponents. In addition, there are also references to the historical past, which in turn enriches the ode, performed in the spirit of patriotism.

The first to use male and female rhymes in his odes was Lomonosov. The ode genre is the true pinnacle of his creativity. Subsequently, iambic tetrameter was also presented in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Yesenin, Blok and other poets.

Laudatory odes

Most of the odes written by Mikhail Vasilyevich were associated with the coronation of one or another ruler. He dedicated his odes to John IV Antonovich, Peter III, Anna II and others. An integral part of the idle coronation was the genre of ode. Lomonosov was overwhelmed by inspiration, and each of his creations described the official court role of rulers in a much broader and more colorful way. In each of the odes, Mikhail Vasilyevich put his own ideological plan and anticipated the bright future of the Russian people.

The ode genre was used by Mikhail Vasilyevich as one of the most convenient forms of conversation with crowned rulers. In the form of this praise for deeds that, as a rule, the monarch had not yet performed, Lomonosov expressed his preferences, instructions and advice in favor of a great power state. The ode allowed them to be presented in a soft, approving and flattering tone for the rulers. The wishful thinking in Lomonosov's coronation praise was passed off as reality and thus obliged the monarch to prove worthy of it in the future.

The ode genre in the work of Mikhail Vasilyevich also reflected various events in the political life of that time. The greatest attention was paid to battle events. The great Russian poet was proud of the glory of Russian artillery and the greatness of the Russian state, capable of resisting any enemy.

The poetic individuality of Mikhail Vasilyevich’s laudable odes is completely identified with their ideological content. Each ode is an enthusiastic monologue of the poet.

Spiritual odes

Lomonosov fully showed himself in writing spiritual odes. In the 18th century they were called poetic expositions of biblical writings with lyrical content. At the forefront here was the book of psalms, where poets continually looked for themes similar to their thoughts and experiences. For this reason, spiritual odes could carry a wide variety of directions - from a particularly personal performance to a lofty, general civil one.

Lomonosov's spiritual odes are filled with rapture, delight, harmony and splendor of the universe.

When presenting one of the most dramatic biblical books, “The Book of Job,” Lomonosov isolated its pious and ethical problematics and provided the foreground with a description of its truly reverent pictures of living nature. And again, before us, the readers, there appears an immense sky, painted with stars, a raging deep sea, a storm, an eagle, abstractly soaring in the heavenly expanses, a huge hippopotamus, furiously trampling the raging thorns, and even the mythical Leviathan in its splendor, living at the bottom of the ocean.

In contrast to commendable ones, the genre of spiritual ode is distinguished by its laconicism and elegance of presentation. Stanzas consisting of ten verses are here replaced, as a rule, by quatrains with a ring or The style of writing spiritual odes seems laconic and devoid of various kinds of “decorations”.

Finally

An ode was presented to our attention. What other genre can boast such beautiful lyrical content? Thanks to the variety of means of expression and ideological content used, the works of Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov to this day occupy their rightful place among the majestic creations of Russian poetry.

5. Ode of the 18th century: from Lomonosov to Derzhavin

1. Oh yeah(from the Greek “song”) is a literary genre that genetically dates back to the choral lyricism of the ancient Greeks. In antiquity there were odes Pindaric(Pindar is an ancient Greek poet of the 5th century BC, author of solemn choral chants and songs of praise in honor of winners at the Olympic, Delphic and other sports games), anacreontic(Anacreon is an ancient Greek poet of the 6th-5th centuries BC, whose poetry is dominated by motives for enjoying the sensual joys of life) and Horatian(Horace is a Roman poet of the 1st century BC, author of philosophical odes in the spirit of Stoicism). In other words, in antiquity, ode was a formal designation of the genre, and its different varieties were assigned different themes. The Renaissance, with its orientation towards antiquity, revives the genre of ode (the first half of the 16th century - neo-Latin odes) precisely in this understanding: the strophic principle of construction is called as its main feature, and it is divided into Horatian and Pindaric (differing from each other in form (type) stanzas), style (moderate and clear in the Horatian odes and high, often dark in the Pindaric ones) and theme).

2. In addition to the European odic tradition (which, in turn, goes back to the ancient one), the Russian ode was also influenced by the tradition of “praises” and panegyrics, which existed in ancient Russian literature and survived in the time of Peter the Great (the influence was first identified by Sobolevsky). The odes came closest in their creations to the modern understanding Simeon of Polotsk(1, author of the collections “Vertograd multicolored” and “Rhythmologion”, including cycles of panegyric poems, as well as “The Rhyming Psalter” - a complete poetic and NB! strophically organized arrangement of the book of psalms (the arrangement of psalms by classicists is interpreted as a spiritual ode) and Feofan Prokopovich(1, court poet of Peter I, author of the “Laudatory Word about the glorious victory over the Suean troops” (1709) - a sermon conceived as a panigyric, to the publication of which he added “rhythms” - a poetic description of the victory under the title “Epenikion, siest song of victory about the same glorious victory." After Peter's death, he wrote odes to Catherine I, Peter II, and Anna Ioannovna.

3. The first ode in Russia with this genre designation appeared in the “Notes on the St. Petersburg Gazette” of 1732, its German original belongs to Juncker(who developed the scripts for court illuminations), Russian poetic translation, probably by Schwanwitz. It was a completely classicist ode, which was based on the doctrine of Boileau’s ode and the example he created of the “correct ode” “For the Taking of Namur” (1693); it belonged to the subgenre of the Pindaric ode, invented by Ronsard, picked up by Malherbe, and then legitimized by Boileau’s ode stanza of ten lines ( dizen). Subsequently, Juncker placed odes at the beginning of the descriptions of illuminations he compiled, Juncker’s “Descriptions”, and with them the odes, translated.

4. Lomonosov’s immediate predecessors were: in the subgenre Pindaric odes - Tredyakovsky(the song “We begin the New Year...” (1732), “Ode of welcome...” (1733), as well as the first Russian Pindaric ode “For the surrender of the city of Gdansk” (1734) and the accompanying treatise “Discourse on the Ode in General” (arrangements, respectively, of “Ode on the Capture of Namur” and “Discours sur l’ode” by Boileau), translations of the annual panegyrics presented to the tsar from the Academy of Sciences. In the treatise, Tredyakovsky divides Pindaric an ode associated with “extreme enthusiasm,” “red disorder,” and “insolent dithyrambicism,” and average ode, or stanza); in subgenre Horatian odes - Cantemir(in London, where he was sent as an ambassador, he wrote 4 “songs”, which were originally called “odes” - “Against the Godless”, “On Hope in God”, “On an Evil Man”, “In Praise of the Sciences”; He also created several Pindaric odes, but did not consider them suitable for printing and destroyed them).

5. Odes Lomonosov.

a) Lomonosov is guided not only by the panegyric tradition of Polotsky - Prokopovich and the classicistic research of Boileau - Tredyakovsky (by the way, here is the treatise of Pseudo-Longinus “On the Sublime”, which served as a source for Boileau), but also by the tradition of German Baroque (especially on Johann Gunther, as Pumpyansky claims), hence there are many embellishments that even Pindar never dreamed of.

b) And finally, in 1739 he writes “Ode to the Capture of Khotin” - the first Russian syllabo-tonic ode. The style of Lomonosov's solemn odes is already evident in it. But most characteristically he expressed himself in the program “Ode on the Day of Accession...1747.”

c) In form, this is a 4th, 10-line stanza with a stable rhyme system (mandatory alternation of m/f endings in the first 4 lines, then zhzh, the last 4 alternate again - the so-called rule alternations), which is a closed period with a complex hierarchy of subordinate elements

d) Ode is characterized sublime style(a necessary condition for the success of a solemn ode for Lomonosov, since sublime things must be spoken of in a sublime style, “Rhetoric”, 1748) using “decorations” - sound writing (“gradov ohrada”), Church Slavonicisms, metaphors, periphrases (“great luminary world" instead of "sun"), hyperbole, so-called. words-topics(i.e., certain generalized concepts that create a certain semantic halo around themselves. For example, the word-theme “silence” from the first stanza includes in its halo almost the entire vocabulary of this stanza - joy, bliss, fence, benefit, beauty, flowers, treasures, generosity, wealth. Thus, the dictionary meaning of the word is blurred, and the mind soars!), inversions, an abundance of ancient symbolism (“In the bloody fields, Mars was afraid, His sword in Peter’s hands was in vain, And Neptune marveled with trepidation, Looking at the Russian flag "), mixing it with Christian symbolism, enthusiastic intonation (every third sentence is exclamatory), etc. The poet’s main emotion is lyrical delight.

e) Theme of the ceremonial odes - glorification sovereign, but also lesson to him. Ideal - enlightened monarch(a la Voltaire), he is embodied in Petre, therefore, each next (in this case, Elizaveta Petrovna) must be “legitimized” by proximity to the body - she is Peter’s daughter, and by the comparability of her actions with his. At the same time, what is desired is often presented as reality. This phenomenon has two sources: the first is the need for a “lesson” for the monarch from an enlightened court poet (this is a sign of a kind of “good form” in court poetry vs the tradition of the so-called servile poetry); second - theory " common places“- an image not of a specific monarch, but of an ideal one, who has such and such exemplary (that is, inherent in all ideal monarchs) merits. The most important “lesson” is the need for enlightenment (“Sciences feed young men...”).

f) The creation of a solemn ode laid the foundations for Lomonosov’s literary reputation, which Pumpyansky compares with “ Malherbian myth”, which Lomonosov was probably guided by. It is important that the notorious “sublimity” (of language, style, genre) correlates in Lomonosov’s mind with the greatness of the poet, hence the absolute dominance of solemn odes in his poetic system, ensuring him a high place in the literary hierarchy.

g) In addition, Lomonosov also has Horatian odes - scientific and didactic - “Evening reflection on the occasion of the great northern lights”, “Letter on the benefits of glass”; spiritual - “Morning (and evening) reflections on God’s majesty”, “Ode selected from Job”. They are characterized by less strict formal laws and a more restrained tone.

6. An attempt to reform the solemn ode is made by Sumarokov, the creator of the so-called. dry ode, an example of which can be considered “Ode to Empress Catherine II on her birthday in 1768...”. He, appealing to Pseudo-Longinus, says that Pindar’s merit is not in the sublimity of the syllable, but in naturalness, and therefore condemns the deviation from the usual meaning of words, demanding clarity and precision; words-themes are unacceptable for him; he himself uses rather words-terms: “Perish such splendor in which there is no clarity!” His solemn odes are shorter and more didactic. And in general, he himself understands that in this genre he is not a competitor to Lomonosov. But he develops more philosophical (and near-philosophical) odes.

7. This is picked up by the poets of his school - Maikov And Kheraskov, author of the collections “New Odes”, 1762 and “Philosophical Odes or Songs”, 1769. Kheraskov’s style of odes-reflections is the style of friendly conversations, restrained, but not devoid of signs of colloquial language, striving for grace and fine finishing of the elements of verse (“Happy with that one, When I can sing in a simple syllable on the lyre” - an ode “To my lyre”).

8. The period of the second heyday of the solemn Pindaric ode was the mid-60s, when Catherine thought: Elizabeth had Lomonosov, and why am I worse? and brought her closer Petrova, declaring him after the release of “Ode on a Magnificent Carousel” in 1766 as “the second Lomonosov,” however, he was mediocre and pretentious, focusing on the difficulty of style, pomp and bulk (“Covered with expensive finery, The horses’ manes wave in the wind; Their reins are foam drenched, The dust rises like a whirlwind from under the hips" - "Ode to the Carousel"). And the entire literary fraternity was not slow in starting to fight him.

9. Odes Derzhavina.

a) And finally, the reformation of the solemn ode reaches its logical conclusion in creativity Derzhavina. Here the program should be considered the ode “Felitsa”, 1783 (Felitsa is the allegorical name of Catherine II, suggested by her own “The Tale of Prince Chlorus”, written for her grandson Alexander Pavlovich). It is not the form or content (praise and lesson to the empress) of the solemn ode that is being reformed, but the style. The sublime style of Lomonosov's ode, which deprived the poet of human features and transported him to transcendental spheres, from which he communicated with an equally unattainable ideal ruler, is replaced by a simple human (even autobiographical) image of the author conducting a conversation with an equally humanoid monarch:

Without imitating your Murzas,

You often walk

And the food is the simplest

Happens at your table;

Not valuing your peace,

You read and write in front of the lectern

And all from your pen

You shed bliss on mortals;

Like you don't play cards,

Like me, from morning to morning.

b) The reverse process - with philosophical odes. Derzhavin takes the Horatian ode out of the circle of everyday lyrical genres (such as songs), where Sumarokov’s followers placed it, filling it with the problematic of life/death (“Where there was a table of food, there is a coffin” - “On the death of Prince Meshchersky”, 1779) and human ambivalence being (“I am a slave, I am a king, I am a worm, I am God” - “God”, 1780-84).