"Bualo. Quotes from the book "Bualo

Nicolas Boileau

poetic art

"Poetic Art" Boileau

The work of Boileau, the greatest theoretician of French classicism, who summarized in his poetics the leading trends in the national literature of his time, falls in the second half of the 17th century. During this period, the process of formation and strengthening of centralized state power is completed in France, absolute monarchy reaches the apogee of its power. This is the strengthening of centralized power. , committed at the cost of cruel repression, nevertheless played a progressive role in the formation of a single national state and - indirectly - in the formation of a nationwide French culture and literature. According to Marx, in France, the absolute monarchy acts "as a civilizing center, as the founder of national unity" .

Being by its nature a noble power, French absolutism, at the same time, tried to find support in the upper strata of the bourgeoisie: throughout the 17th century, royal power consistently pursued a policy of strengthening and expanding the privileged, bureaucratic stratum of the bourgeoisie - the so-called "nobility of the mantle". This bureaucratic character of the French bourgeoisie is noted by Marx in a letter to Engels dated July 27, 1854: “Immediately, at least from the moment the cities arose, the French bourgeoisie becomes especially influential due to the fact that it organizes itself in the form of parliaments, bureaucracy, etc., and not as in England, thanks to trade and industry alone. At the same time, the French bourgeoisie in the 17th century, in contrast to the English bourgeoisie, which was making its first revolution at that time, was still an immature, non-independent class, incapable of defending its rights in a revolutionary way.

The inclination of the bourgeoisie to compromise, its obedience to the power and authority of the absolute monarchy, was especially clearly revealed in the late 40s and early 50s of the 17th century, during the Fronde period. a wide response among the peasant masses, the top of the urban bourgeoisie, who constituted the Parisian parliament, betrayed the interests of the people, laid down their arms and submitted to royal power. In turn, the absolute monarchy itself, in the person of Louis XIV (reigned 1643–1715), deliberately sought to draw the top of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intelligentsia, opposing it, on the one hand, to the remnants of the opposition feudal nobility, and on the other, to the broad masses of the people.

This bourgeois stratum at court was supposed to be a hotbed and conductor of court ideology, culture, aesthetic tastes among the wider circles of the urban bourgeoisie (just as in the field of economic life Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV, the first bourgeois in the history of France, performed a similar function as a minister).

This line, consciously pursued by Louis XIV, was, as it were, a continuation of the “cultural policy” launched by his political predecessor, Cardinal Richelieu (reigned 1624–1642), who for the first time placed literature and art under the direct control of state power. Along with the French Academy founded by Richelieu - the official legislator of literature and language - the Academy of Fine Arts was founded in the 1660s. Academy of Inscriptions, later Academy of Music, etc.

But if at the beginning of his reign, in the 1660s and 1670s, Louis XIV played mainly the role of a generous patron of the arts, striving to surround his court with outstanding writers and artists, then in the 1680s his interference in ideological life takes on a purely despotic and reactionary character, reflecting the general turn of French absolutism towards reaction. Religious persecution of the Calvinists and the Jansenists, a Catholic sect close to them, begins. In 1685, the Edict of Nantes, which ensured the equality of Protestants with Catholics, is canceled, forcible conversion to Catholicism begins, the property of the recalcitrant is confiscated, and the slightest glimmer of oppositional thought is persecuted. The influence of the Jesuits, the reactionary churchmen, is growing.

The literary life of France is also entering a period of crisis and calm; the last significant work of brilliant classical literature is La Bruyère's Characters and Morals of Our Age (1688), a publicist book that captures a picture of the moral decline and degradation of French high society.

A turn towards reaction is also observed in the field of philosophy. If the leading philosophical direction of the middle of the century - the teachings of Descartes - included materialistic elements along with idealistic elements, then at the end of the century the followers and students of Descartes included materialistic elements along with idealistic elements, then at the end of the century the followers and students of Descartes develop precisely the idealistic and metaphysical side of his teachings. “The whole richness of metaphysics was now limited only to mental entities and divine objects, and this is just at such a time when real entities and earthly things began to concentrate all interest on themselves. Metaphysics has become flat. In turn, the tradition of materialistic philosophical thought, presented in the middle of the century by Gassendi and his students, is going through a crisis, being exchanged for small coins in aristocratic free-thinking circles of disgraced nobles; and only one major figure embodies the legacy of French materialism. and atheism, is the emigrant Pierre Bayle, who is rightly considered spiritual. father of the French Enlightenment.

The work of Boileau, in its consistent evolution, reflected these complex processes taking place in the social and ideological life of his time.

Nicolas Boileau-Depreau was born on November 1, 1636 in Paris, in the family of a wealthy bourgeois, a lawyer, an official of the Parisian parliament. Having received the classical education that was usual for that time in the Jesuit college, Boileau first entered the theological and then the law faculty of the Sorbonne (University of Paris), however, not feeling any attraction to this profession, he refused the first court case entrusted to him. Finding himself in 1657, after the death of his father, financially independent (his father's inheritance provided him with a decent life annuity), Boileau devoted himself entirely to literature. From 1663, his small poems began to be published, and then satires (the first of which was written back in 1657). Until the end of the 1660s, Boileau published nine satires, provided, as a preface to the ninth, with a theoretical Discourse on Satire. In the same period, Boileau becomes close to Molière, La Fontaine and Racine. In the 1670s, he wrote nine Epistles, a "Treatise on the Beautiful", and an heroic-comic poem "Naloy". In 1674, he completed the poetic treatise The Art of Poetry, conceived on the model of Horace's Science of Poetry. During this period, the authority of Boileau in the field of literary theory and criticism is already generally recognized.

At the same time, the implacable position of Boileau in the struggle for progressive national literature against the reactionary forces of society, in particular, the support he rendered in his time to Molière and later to Racine, a resolute rebuff to third-rate writers, behind whose back sometimes very influential persons were hiding, created criticism of many dangerous enemies both among the literary clique and in the aristocratic salons. The bold, "free-thinking" attacks in his satires, directed directly against the highest nobility, the Jesuits of high-society hypocrites, also played a significant role. So, in the V satire, Boileau stigmatizes "empty, vain, idle nobility, boasting of the merits of ancestors and other people's valor", and contrasts the hereditary noble privileges with the third-estate idea of \u200b\u200b"personal nobility".

The enemies of Boileau did not stop at nothing in their struggle against him - the enraged aristocrats threatened to punish the impudent bourgeois with stick blows, church obscurantists demanded that he be burned at the stake, insignificant writers excelled in insulting lampoons.

Under these conditions, the only guarantee and protection from persecution could be given to the poet only

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From the author's book

Boileau Nicolas Boileau (1636-1711) - French poet, critic, theorist of classicism. Whoever thinks clearly, speaks clearly. Beware of joking at the expense of common sense. Each age has its own pleasures, its own style of wit and its own ways. The wisest is the one who

The whole passage is again directed against Corneille's tragedies of the so-called "second manner", with an unusually complex and intricate plot, which is usually set out in a lengthy introductory monologue.

This refers to Lope de Vega (1562-1635) - the famous Spanish playwright, whose plays were widely known in France and caused many imitations. In his verse treatise The New Art of Composing Comedies in Our Day (1609), Lope de Vega rejects the classical dramaturgy of the ancient model, in particular, the rule of three unities. The plays of Lope de Vega and other Spanish playwrights of the "golden age" were considered in France in the 17th-18th centuries as a model of "wrong" dramaturgy and were subsequently raised to the shield by the Romantics in their struggle against the classical canon.

A rule established in the poetics of classicism even before Boileau. So, in Corneille's "Horace" (1640), the hero kills his sister behind the stage, from where her death cry is heard (d. IV, yavl.5). Even more often, such moments are transferred to the story of some character: a classic example is the story of Teramen about the death of Hippolytus (Phaedra by Racine, d. V, yavl.6).

Thespis, or Thespis (VI century BC) is considered the first Greek tragedian. Naming after him the work of Aeschylus and Sophocles as subsequent stages in the development of tragedy, Boileau does not mention Euripides, believing, apparently, that he did not introduce anything fundamentally new into tragedy.

A sharp assessment of medieval mysteries is associated with the denial of medieval culture in general and Christian themes in particular, characteristic of Boileau. This also explains the fundamentally distorted picture of the development of the French theater that Boileau gives here.

In the last two tragedies of Racine, written on biblical themes, in Esther (1689) and Athalia (1691), choirs are reintroduced. In a footnote to a later edition of the Poetic Art, Boileau welcomes this innovation by Racine.

In Artamen, or the Great Cyrus, a ten-volume novel by the precision writer Madeleine Scuderi (1607–1701), the warlike Persian king Cyrus (6th century BC) is given the second fictitious name Artamen and bred as an ideal lover. The Scudéri novels are brutally satirized by Boileau in the parody dialogue "Heroes from the novels".

Quote from the monologue of the Trojan queen Hecuba in the tragedy of Seneca (1st century AD) “The Trojan Women”. The tragedies of Seneca are characterized by a declamatory pathetic style, partially adopted in French literature by Corneille. Tanais is the Greek name for the Don River. Pont Euxinus - Black Sea.

The attack is directed against Desmarais de Saint-Sorlin, who tried to theoretically substantiate the superiority of Christian fiction over "pagan" mythology. Desmarets' position on this issue was later supported by the supporters of the "new" in the "Dispute of the Ancients and the New", in particular Charles Perrault.

The work of Boileau, the greatest theoretician of French classicism, who summarized in his poetics the leading trends in the national literature of his time, falls in the second half of the 17th century.
Nicolas Boileau, Boileau-Depreau, French poet, critic, theorist of classicism. A native of the bourgeois-bureaucratic environment. He studied theology at the Sorbonne, then law. Boileau defended the superiority of the ancients over modern authors. The main aesthetic principles of French classicism were formulated by Boileau in the poem "Poetic Art" (1674). The aesthetics of Boileau is imbued with rationalism: the beautiful for him is identical to the reasonable. Having put the principle of "imitation of nature" as the basis of his poetics, Boileau limits it to the image of the abstractly universal, typical, excluding everything individual, changeable. According to Boileau, this character of "imitation of nature" was inherent in ancient art, which he considers as an absolute aesthetic norm (Aristotle, especially Horace). Boileau establishes unshakable rules of "good taste", treats folk poetry as "vulgar", "barbaric", "public" art. The poetics of Nicolas Boileau influenced the aesthetic thought and literature of the 17th and 18th centuries in many European countries. In Russia, the aesthetics of Boileau were followed by Kantemir, Sumarokov, especially V. K. Trediakovsky, who in 1752 translated The Art of Poetry into Russian.

Below are excerpts from this famous work.

POETIC ART

1.
“O you who are attracted by the flinty path of success,
In whom ambition kindled an unclean fire,
You will not reach the heights of poetry:
A versifier will never become a poet.
Not heeding the voice of empty vanity,
Test your talent both soberly and severely.
Nature is a generous, caring mother,
He knows how to give everyone a special talent.

2.
“Whether in tragedy, in an eclogue or in a ballad,
But rhyme should not live in discord with meaning;
There is no quarrel between them and there is no struggle:
He is her master. she is his slave.
If you learn to look for her persistently,
She will humbly come to the voice of reason.

3.
“So let the meaning be dearest to you.
Let only he give brilliance and beauty to poetry!

4.
“Most important is the meaning; but to come to him,
We'll have to overcome the obstacles on the way,
Follow the marked path strictly:
Sometimes the mind has only one way.

5.
“Beware of empty listings
Unnecessary little things and long digressions!
Excess in verse and flat and funny:
We are fed up with it, we are weighed down by it.”

6.
“Do you want us to love reading you?
Monotony run like the plague!
Easily smooth, measured lines
All readers are put into a deep sleep.
The poet who endlessly mumbles a dull verse,
He will not find admirers among them.

7.
“Flee vile words and gross ugliness.
Let the low style keep both order and nobility.

8.
"Take your story with graceful simplicity
And learn to be pleasant without embellishment.
Try to please your readers.
Remember the rhythm, do not stray from the size;
Divide your verse into half lines
So that the meaning of caesura is emphasized in them.

9.
You must make special efforts
To prevent gaping between vowels.
Merge consonant words into a harmonious choir:
We are disgusted by consonants, a rude argument.
Poems where thoughts are. but the sounds hurt the ear,
When Parnassus emerged from the darkness in France,
Arbitrariness reigned there, unstoppable and wild.
Having bypassed Caesura, streams of words sought ...
Rhyming lines were called poetry!
But Malherbe came and showed the French
A simple and harmonious verse, pleasing to the muses in everything,
He commanded harmony to fall at the feet of reason
And by placing the words, he doubled their power.
Having cleansed our tongue of rudeness and filth,
He formed a demanding and faithful taste,
The lightness of the verse was closely followed
And the line break was strictly forbidden.

10.
“It is not surprising that drowsiness tends to us,
When the meaning is indistinct, when it drowns in darkness;
From idle talk we quickly get tired
And, putting the book aside, we stop reading.
Another in his poems so obscure the idea,
That a dull veil of mist lies over her
And the rays of reason cannot break it, -
You need to think about the idea and only then write!
While it is not clear to you what you want to say,
Do not look in vain for simple and precise words
But if the plan in your mind is ready
All the right words will come at the first call.
Obey the laws of the language, humble,
And firmly remember: they are sacred to you.
The harmony of the verse will not attract me,
When the turn is alien and strange to the ear.
Foreign words run like an infection,
And build clear and correct phrases.

12.
"Hurry slowly and, triple your courage,
Finish the verse, not knowing peace,
Grind, clean, while you have patience:
Add two lines and cross out six.
When verses are teeming with mistakes without counting,
Who will want to look for the brilliance of the mind in them?

13.
“There is no need to interrupt the smooth course of events,
Captivating us for a moment with the sparkle of witticisms.
Are you afraid of the verdict of public opinion?
Only a fool should always praise himself.
Ask your friends for harsh judgment.
Direct criticism, nit-picking and attacks
They will open your eyes to your shortcomings.

14.
Arrogant arrogance does not suit the poet,
And, listening to a friend, do not heed the flatterer:
He flatters, and behind the eyes blackens in the opinion of the world.
A good friend is in a hurry to please you:
He praises every verse, exalts every sound;
Everything was wonderfully successful and all the words are in place;
He cries, he trembles, he pours streams of flattery,
And a wave of empty praise knocks you off your feet, -
And the truth is always calm and modest.
That true friend among the crowd of acquaintances,
Who, without fear of the truth, will point you to a mistake,
Pay attention to weak verses, -
In short, he will notice all sins.
He will severely scold for the lush emphasis,
Here the word will emphasize, there the pretentious phrase;
This thought is dark, and this turnover
It will confuse the reader...
Thus will the zealot of poetry speak.
But the intractable, stubborn writer
Protects his creation so
It’s as if he’s facing not a friend, but an enemy.”
To end this song, we will say in conclusion:
A fool always inspires admiration for a fool.

15.
"And the Greek Theocritus and the Roman Virgil,
You must study them day and night:
After all, the muses themselves suggested the verse to them.
They will teach you how, keeping ease,
And keeping purity, and not falling into rudeness,
Sing Flora and fields, Pomona and gardens.

16.
"An elegy of mourning, tears are pouring over the coffin
Not impudent, but her verse flight is high.
She draws us lovers' laughter and tears,
And joy, and sadness, and jealousy threats;
But only a poet who himself has known the power of love.
Will be able to describe truthfully this passion ..
Frankly, I hate cold poets,
What they write about love, not warmed by love,
Feigned tears pour, depict fear
And, indifferent, go mad in verse.
Unbearable bigots and idle talkers,
They only know how to sing chains and shackles.

17.
“Let the frisky muse captivate us sometimes
Merry chatter, word game,
With an unexpected joke and his glibness,
But let good taste not change her:
Why strive for you to epigrams sting
Hiding a pun by all means?
Every poem has special features,
The seal of only her inherent beauty:
With the intricacy of rhymes we like the Ballad
Rondo with naivete and simplicity of harmony,
Graceful, sincere love Madrigal
He charmed me with the loftiness of feelings of the heart.
Not malice, but good, trying to sow in the world,
Truth reveals its pure face in Satire.

18.
“The one who has a cynical, vulgar style in verse,
Cannot denounce debauchery and vice.

19.
"But let not the shameless rhymer think
Choose the Almighty as a target for jokes:
Joker, whom godlessness incites,
On the Greve Square, the path ends sadly.

20.
“When you write down a successful rhyme,
Try not to lose your head from happiness.
Another mediocre jester, endowing us with a verse,
He arrogantly imagines himself to be some kind of poet.

21.
“Let the fire of passions filled with lines
Disturb, delight, give birth to tears streams!
But if the valiant and noble fervor
Pleasant horror did not capture the heart
And did not sow in them living compassion
Your labor was in vain and all your efforts were in vain
Praise will not sound rational verses,
And no one will applaud you.”

22.
"Find a way to hearts: the secret of success is
To captivate the viewer with an excited verse.
Let it enter into action easily, without tension
The ties are a smooth, skillful movement.
How boring is the actor who pulls his story
And only confuses and distracts us!
He seems to be groping around the main theme wandering
And a deep sleep leads the viewer!

23.
“The hero, in whom everything is small, is only suitable for a novel.
May he be brave, noble
But still, without weaknesses, he is not nice to anyone.
The quick-tempered, impetuous Achilles is dear to us;
He cries from resentment - a useful detail,
So that we believe in its plausibility.

24.
“You sincerely must convey sadness;
For me to be moved, you need to sob;
And the eloquence in which the feeling drowns,
It will sound in vain and will not touch the audience.

25.
“To please connoisseurs haughty,
The poet must be both proud and humble,
High thoughts show flight,
Depict love, hope, grief oppression,
Write sharply, gracefully, with inspiration,
Sometimes deep, sometimes boldly
And polish verses to make your mark in the minds
They left for many days and years.”

26.
“Let our lyre love fiction and myths, -
From the god of truth we do not create an idol,
The legends of antiquity are full of beauty.
Poetry itself lives there in names.”

27.
“Let your syllable be compressed in the story,
And descriptions are magnificent and rich:
Try to achieve magnificence in them,
Do not stoop to vulgar trifles anywhere.
Take my advice: the poet is not to face
In something to imitate a mediocre fool,
May the harmonious, graceful creation
The richness of images bestows pleasure.
With greatness you must combine pleasantness:
Ornate syllable unbearable to read.

28.
“Without the due help of labor and reflection
The poet's inspiration will not last long.
Readers scold him vying with each other,
But our poet admires himself,
And, blinded by arrogant and stubborn,
He burns himself with incense of delight.”

29.
“Consider the language of each hero,
So that the old man was different from the young man.
Know the townspeople, study the courtiers;
Between them diligently look for characters.
Molière looked at them carefully;
He would give us an example of a higher art."

30.
“When, in an effort to seduce the people,
Sometimes he did not distort his face with grimaces,
I repeat again: listen carefully
To worthy arguments and knowledge and reason,
And let the judgment of ignorance not frighten you.
It happens that a fool, taking on a learned look,
Spreads beautiful creations
For the boldness of the image and the brightness of expression.
In vain would you answer him:
Despising all arguments, not heeding anything,
He, in conceit blind and arrogant,
He considers himself a connoisseur and perspicacious.
You'd better ignore his advice
Otherwise, your ship will inevitably leak.

31.
“Your critic must be reasonable, noble,
Deeply knowledgeable, free from envy:
Those misses then he can catch,
What even from yourself you tried to hide.
Let your work keep the seal of the beautiful soul,
Vicious thoughts and uninvolved dirt.

32.
"Severe judgment deserves the one
Who shamefully betrays morality and honor,
Drawing us depravity tempting and sweet.
But I will not stretch out my hands to hateful hypocrites,
Whose haunting swarm is stupidly ready
Love is completely banished from prose and poetry,
So let virtue be your sweetest!
After all, even if the mind is clear and deep,
The corruption of the soul is always visible between the lines.

33.
"Flee from envy that the heart angrily gnaws
A talented poet cannot envy
And this passion for himself will not be let on the threshold.
The most shameful vice of mediocre minds,
Opponent of everything that is gifted in the world,
She slanders poisonously in the circle of nobles,
He tries, puffing, to become taller
And he blackens the genius in order to equalize with himself.
We will not stain ourselves with this baseness
And, striving for honors, let us not forget about honor.
You should not bury yourself in poetry with your head:
The poet is not a bookworm, he is a living person.
Knowing how to captivate us in his verses with his talent,
Learn not to be a ridiculous pedant in society.

34.
“Students of the Muses! Let it draw you
Not a golden calf, but glory and honor.
When you write and long and hard,
It’s not shameful for you to receive income later,
But how disgusting and hateful is he,
Who, having cooled to glory, is waiting for one profit!

35.
“But another century has come, sad and hungry,
And Parnassus lost his noble appearance.
Ferocious self-interest - dirty mother vices -
I put a seal on souls and poems,
And she composed false speeches for profit,
And shamelessly traded in words.
You must despise such base passion.
How many feats worthy of praise!
Poets to sing as they should,
Forge the verse with special care!”

APHORISMS OF NICOLAS BOILOT

Who thinks clearly, speaks clearly.

Every fool will find an even greater fool who will admire him.

Idleness is a painful burden

Boileau. poetic art bualo

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Title: Boileau. poetic art

About the book "Bualo. Poetic Art" Boileau

The poem "Poetic Art" is the most famous work of the French poet, critic, theoretician of classicism, Nicolas Boileau-Despreo.

As a poet, Nicolas Boileau is little known today, but at the end of the 17th century he enjoyed great influence as a critic. He had amazing instincts. Nicolas Boileau considered Racine and Molière to be the greatest writers of his time, contrasting them with the famous poet Jean Chaplain at the end of the 17th century. Boileau turned out to be absolutely right: few people will remember Chaplin today and in France.

The treatise in four songs "Poetic Art" became a generalization of all the principles of French classicism and at the same time a poem that perfectly illustrated all the theoretical positions set forth in it. No wonder Nicolas Boileau worked on this small book for five years. Following the "Science of Poetry" by Horace, Boileau expresses his thoughts clearly, clearly and concisely in the form of Alexandrian verse. Sometimes with humor, and sometimes even with sarcasm. It is ridiculous to read, for example, how he writes about the "excesses" of pastoral poetry.

The first song is dedicated to the triumph of reason in poetry. The main thing is meaning, writes Boileau, and rhyme is “only its slave.” And the very first song is a perfect confirmation of that. Nicolas Boileau practically writes a textbook, analyzes the most common mistakes of poets: lengthy descriptions, excessive "beautifulness", etc., even gives specific examples. And all this in beautiful, ironic poems, which are a pleasure to read!

The second song is devoted to the classification of poetry genres: elegies, odes, idylls. Here Nicolas Boileau uses examples from ancient literature - Virgil, Ovid. He also pays attention to epigrams, satires, madrigals.

The third part of the book "Poetic Art" talks about major genres - comedy, tragedy, epic. Of great importance for Nicolas Boileau, as for all classicists, is the truth, or rather the plausibility, of the plots. “The unbelievable cannot move,” he writes. “We are cold-hearted to absurd miracles.” Here Boileau writes what should be the beginning, climax and denouement of any book.

In the last song of the book, Boileau writes about the moral character of the poet, that he should not pursue fame and money, but use his talent only for the good of society. Nicolas Boileau was not difficult to write like this - he was a court historiographer and enjoyed the special favor of Louis XIV. At one time, he even asked the king to protect Racine from the attacks of ill-wishers and also give him a place at court.

The book "Poetic Art" for a long time remained a textbook not only for French, but also for Russian classicists. However, it is interesting and useful to read it even today.

On our site about books, you can download the site for free without registration or read the online book “Bualo. Poetic Art” by Boileau in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and a real pleasure to read. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For novice writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you can try your hand at writing.

Quotes from the book “Bualo. Poetic Art" Boileau

Do not torment us with incredible things, disturbing the mind:
And the truth is sometimes not the truth.
I will not admire a wonderful look:
The mind does not care what it does not believe.

That true friend among the crowd of acquaintances,
Who, without fear of the truth, will point out to you a mistake.