Features of the literary ballad genre. Features of the ballad genre and its development in European literature of the 18th–19th centuries

The term "ballad" comes from the Provencal word and means "dance song". Ballads originated in the Middle Ages. By origin, ballads are associated with legends, folk legends, they combine the features of a story and a song. Many ballads about a folk hero named Robin Hood existed in England in the 14th-15th centuries.

The ballad is one of the main genres in the poetry of sentimentalism and romanticism. The world in ballads appears mysterious and enigmatic. They are bright characters with clearly defined characters.

The literary ballad genre was created by Robert Burns (1759-1796). The basis of his poetry was oral folk art.

A person is always at the center of literary ballads, but the poets of the 19th century who chose this genre knew that human strength does not always make it possible to answer all questions, to become the sovereign master of one's own destiny. Therefore, often literary ballads are a plot poem about a fatal fate, for example, the ballad "Forest King" by the German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

The Russian ballad tradition was created by Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky, who wrote both original ballads ("Svetlana", "Aeolian harp", "Achilles" and others), and translated Burger, Schiller, Goethe, Uhland, Southey, Walter Scott. In total, Zhukovsky wrote more than 40 ballads.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin created such ballads as "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg", "The Bridegroom", "The Drowned Man", "The Raven Flies to the Raven", "There Lived a Poor Knight...". Also, his cycle of "Songs of the Western Slavs" can be attributed to the ballad genre.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov has separate ballads. This is the Airship from Seydlitz, the Sea Princess.

The ballad genre was also used by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy in his work. He calls his ballads on the themes of his native antiquity epics ("Alyosha Popovich", "Ilya Muromets", "Sadko" and others).

Entire sections of their poems were called ballads, using this term more freely, A.A. Fet, K.K. Sluchevsky, V.Ya. Bryusov. In his "Experiences" Bryusov, speaking of a ballad, points to only two of his ballads of the traditional lyrical-epic type: "The Abduction of Bertha" and "Divination".

A number of comic ballads-parodies were left by Vl. Soloviev ("The Mysterious Sexton", "Knight Ralph's Autumn Walk" and others)

The events of the turbulent 20th century once again brought to life the literary ballad genre. E.Bagritsky's ballad "Watermelon", although it does not tell about the turbulent events of the revolution, was born precisely by the revolution, the romance of that time.

Features of the ballad as a genre:

the presence of a plot (there is a climax, a plot and a denouement)

combination of real and fantastic

romantic (unusual) landscape

mystery motif

plot can be replaced by dialogue

conciseness

combination of lyrical and epic beginnings

Trying to give a clear and complete definition of the term ballad in English, one may encounter considerable difficulties. They are due to the fact that the range of its meanings is very wide. The reasons for this lie in the peculiarities of the history and development of those poetic genres that were designated by this word.

The term ballad comes from the Latin verb ballare (to dance). Therefore, the song that accompanied the dance was called balada in Provence, and balata in Italy (XIII century). Over time, the term ballad changes its meaning: in the XIV century. the French ballade is a genre of court poetry that required sophisticated skill from the author. This is a poem of three stanzas with three continuous rhymes (usually in the pattern ab ab bc bc) with an obligatory refrain followed by a shorter “parcel” (envoi) repeating the rhymes of the second half of each stanza. The number of verses in a stanza had to match the number of syllables in a line (8, 10 or 12). Male rhymes had to alternate with female ones. It was very difficult to follow all these rules.

Already in the XIV century. the English borrow the ballad genre from French literature. Karl Ormansky (XV century), who spent 25 years in English captivity, wrote ballads freely in both French and English. Naturally, along with the genre, the word denoting it is also borrowed. It is spelled differently: ballades, balats, ballets, ballets, balletys, ballads.

In the XIV-XVI centuries. the term ballad was not used to refer to that oral genre of English and Scottish folk poetry, which is now called in English literary criticism: popular ballad, ancient ballad, ballad of tradition, traditional ballad. These old folk ballads at that time (in the XIV-XVI centuries) were known as songs (sometimes tales or ditties). The performers did not distinguish them from the mass of other songs in their repertoire.

At the same time, from the XVI century. the word ballad was widely used in relation to the artless, usually anonymous poems on the topic of the day, which were distributed in the form of printed leaflets on city streets. This genre was called: street ballad, stall ballad, broadside or broadsheet.

In dictionary Longman Dictionary of English. Longman Group UK Limited 1992 broadside and broadsheet are generally considered synonymous, but in highly specialized bibliographic terminology broadside is text printed on one side of a sheet, regardless of its size, and broadsheet is text continued on the back of the sheet. In domestic literary criticism, the term “lubok” was proposed for this urban street ballad.

It is hard to imagine two more different than the refined, stylistically complex French court ballad and the rough street ballad of the London common people. Scientists have long been occupied with the mystery associated with the transfer of the name from one genre to another. The explanation offered by some scholars for this transfer, that both the French and the English ballad were connected with dance, is now recognized as untenable.

Folklorist D.M. Balashov writes about the English ballad: “It would be erroneous to associate the origin of other genres with the name “ballad” with this genre. Balashov D.M. Folk ballads - M., 1983. It is possible that this statement is too categorical. The American scientist A. B. Friedman offered a convincing explanation for the paradox in question. He considers the link between French and English street ballads to be the so-called “pseudo-ballad”, which was one of the main genres of English poetry of the 15th century. (Gasparov M.L., 1989, 28). The fact is that in England the French ballad is undergoing significant changes. Justified by the lack of equally rhyming words in the English language, poets increase the number of rhymes, and also abandon the “sending” (envoi). The number of stanzas increases from three to 10-20.

The strict form is blurred. With an increase in the circle of readers, the pseudo-ballad is democratized. Simplifies her style. Increasingly used "ballad stanza" (ballad stanza), widespread in English folk poetry. This is a quatrain in which lines of four-foot and three-foot iambic alternate with rhyming according to the ab ac scheme (some other options are also possible). It is characteristic that one of the first printed street ballads that have come down to us, “A ballade of Luther, the pope, a cardinal and husbandman”, circa 1530) reveals traces of a connection with a pseudo-ballad.

This is a possible way of turning a French court ballad into an English street ballad.

During the XVI-XVII centuries. there is a gradual expansion of the meaning of the word ballad. So, in 1539, in the so-called “episcopal” translation of the Bible (Bishop's Bible), King Solomon’s “Song of Songs” was translated: “The ballet of bollets”, although there was some inappropriateness of the term “ballet” in relation to the text of the sacred And in 1549 the first poet-translator W. Bolvin (William Baldwin) published Canticles or Balades of Salomon, phraslyke declared in Englyshe Metres.

After 16th century the French ballad was long forgotten in England. However, by the end of XIX - beginning of XX centuries. imitation of this genre can be found in the work of some English poets (A. Lang, A. Swinburne, W. Henley, E. Goss, G.K. Chesterton).

The English street ballad existed from the 16th century until almost the 20th century, when it was supplanted by the tabloid newspaper, which borrowed from it the subject matter, the noisy manner of presenting the material, and even some design details (the use of Gothic font in the titles of English newspapers comes from the ballad) (English folk ballads, 1997 , 63).

The theme of the street ballad was extremely diverse. First of all, this is all kinds of sensational news: various miracles, omens, catastrophes, criminal stories, detailed descriptions of the execution of criminals. A variety of street ballad called “Good night” was very popular, which was a description of the last night of a criminal before execution. He remembers all his sins and calls on good Christians not to follow a bad example. In 1849, the circulation of two such ballads amounted to 2.5 million copies.

The street ballad did not lack plots, borrowing them from everywhere: from chivalric novels, historical chronicles (for example, T. Deloni's ballads), fablio, etc. Personal scores could be settled in ballads: Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV (1596) threatens his drinking companions to compose for each “a ballad with music to be sung at all crossroads” (part I, act II, sc.2, lines 48 -49). The ballad could tell a touching love story. There were also comic ballads, rough to the point of obscenity.

The attitude to the street ballad was ambivalent. A contemporary of Shakespeare, the poet and playwright Ben Jonson wrote: “The poet must abhor the writers of ballads” Jonson Ben Dramatic works: trans. from English / ed. I.A. Aksenova - M. Academy, 1931. And at the same time, ballads were an integral part of the urban culture of that time. The dramas of the Elizabethans are full of allusions to contemporary ballads. John Selden (1584-1654), a scholar and friend of Ben Jonson, notes: “Nothing captures the zeitgeist like ballads and lampoons” (Questions of English Contextology, Issue 1).

The street ballad served as a powerful weapon of struggle and invariably accompanied all the political crises of the 16th-18th centuries. During the years of the revolution and the civil war (40-60s of the 17th century), the printing of ballads was prohibited by parliament, and special spies monitored the observance of this ban. In 1688 King James II was exiled to the accompaniment of the ballad "Lilliburleo". In 1704, the poet J. Fletcher of Saltown wrote: “... if anyone were allowed to write all the ballads in the country, then he would no longer care who makes the laws” (Questions of English Contextology, Issue 2).

The number of ballads has steadily increased. From 1557 to 1709, more than 3,000 titles were printed, according to the far from complete data of the London Booksellers' Register. The printed ballad is also conquering rural England, displacing the old oral songs. However, much of this oral poetry ends up in print.

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. the word ballad came to mean any song that was sung by the people, regardless of whether it was printed or transmitted orally. Thus, ancient songs of a narrative nature that have existed for many centuries also began to be called ballads. Domestic literary critic M.P. Alekseev understands English and Scottish ballad as a lyric-epic or lyrical-dramatic story, which has a strophic form, intended for singing, often accompanied by playing musical instruments (Alekseev, 1984, 292).

Scholars rightly consider the old traditional ballad and the printed street ballad to be genres. The main feature of the first is that, as a result of a long process of oral transmission, it has acquired a number of high artistic merits: brevity, expressiveness, drama, dynamic narration, etc. its figurative system, motives, plots, serious tone, depth of feelings sharply distinguish it from a cheeky, cynical, superficial, wordy street ballad, which is bound by printed text and is not able to improve in the process of oral transmission.

However, the two genres have a lot in common. Both belonged to the common people and were felt as something different from the fiction of the upper classes of society. For four centuries they were closely interconnected and influenced each other. Both were a specific combination of narrative, lyrical and, sometimes, dramatic elements (with the former predominating). They shared a common ballad stanza (with a few exceptions). And finally, all the ballads were closely connected with music and were often sung to the same old tunes.

As noted above, the ballad is a short folk song with narrative content. It is the plot that is the special feature that distinguishes the ballad from other poetic genres. The sources of ballad plots were Christian legends, chivalric romances, ancient myths and works of Greek and Roman authors in medieval retelling, the so-called “eternal” or “wandering” plots, as well as genuine historical events stylized on the basis of ready-made song schemes.

The development of ballad plots followed two main directions: the plots of the heroic-historical genre turned out to be extremely productive; in parallel, they intensively developed plots related to love themes. In fact, there was no sharp dividing line between these two groups. Heroic and love plots were often intertwined with each other within the framework of one ballad, absorbed fairy-tale folklore motifs, were sometimes interpreted in a comic way, acquired some specific features associated with the place of origin or existence of a particular ballad, but beyond the boundaries of the two named plots. -themed folk English and Scottish ballads never came out.

Heroic ballads, which are predominantly epic in nature, are based on specific historical events that can be traced to a greater or lesser extent in each of them, which gives the right to call them heroic-historical.

But not only historical events underlie the plots of such ballads. Ancient folk songs not only supplement the meager facts of history with information about events unknown to the chronicles, but give a vivid idea of ​​human relations, how the distant ancestors of modern Englishmen and Scots thought and spoke, experienced and felt. From history, readers first of all learn what people did, and from ballads - what they were. Having directly become acquainted with the way of life, manners and customs of long-gone generations with the help of ballads, we can better understand the writings of the chroniclers.

Heroic-historical folk ballads depict the wars between the English and the Scots, heroic deeds in the struggle for personal and national freedom. "Frontier" ballads were formed in the border zone between England and Scotland in the era of frequent clashes between these countries. Some of the ballads can be dated fairly accurately, as they probably appeared shortly after the events they are told, taking listeners and readers back to the 14th century.

Such, for example, is the ballad "The Battle of Derham" (Durham field), which tells how King David of Scotland wanted to take advantage of the absence of the English king, who fought in France, and conquer England; he gathers an army, leads him to the English borders. There is a bloody battle at Durham (1346); the Scots are defeated, their king is taken prisoner; he is taken to London, and here he meets not only with the English king Edward, but also with the king of France, who was captured by the Black Prince and also brought to London: according to the composers of the ballad, the battle of Crescy (mixed here with the battle of Poitiers) in France and at Derham in northern England took place on the same day. The tendency of this "military" ballad betrays its English origin.

Another bloody episode in the history of the Anglo-Scottish clashes, dating back to 1388, is captured with almost chronicle accuracy in the ballad "The Battle of Otterburn" ("The Battle of Otterbourne"). The Scots, led by the successful and fearless Douglas, make daring raids on the English borderlands. Once, in a skirmish with a detachment of the British, commanded by Percy, Douglas captured the battle flag. Percy vowed to take revenge on Douglas and return the banner. Not far from Otterburn, a fierce battle takes place between them. As in most battles of this kind, there were no winners: Douglas died and Percy was taken prisoner. But in the ballad (because it is of Scottish origin) it is stated that the victory was with the Scots.

Widely known (judging by the abundance of options in which it has come down to us) was the ballad "The Hunting of the Cheviot Hills" ("The Hunting of Cheviot", in the later edition of "Chevy Chase"), the main characters of the ballad are still the same Douglas and Percy . The latter once hunted near the Cheviot Hills, located along the ever-changing line of the Anglo-Scottish border. Douglas felt that Percy had invaded his domain and decided to defend his rights. Another fierce battle ensued: Douglas died, Percy died. The news of the death of glorious heroes reached London and Edinburgh. "The Scots no longer have such military leaders as: Douglas," the Scottish king sighed. "There were no better warriors in my kingdom than Percy," said the English king. And, with the logic inherent in those times, he gathered the army belonging to the narrator, the final military and moral victory was asserted either for the British or for the Scots.

Along with the "Hunting at the Cheviot Hills" in the XIV-XV centuries. other ballads connected with the border strip between England and Scotland were also known; most of them are dedicated to the same bloody raids, battles, struggles and are just as epic in nature. Such, for example, is the "Battle of Garlo" (The battle of Hag1aw). In most other historical ballads, the events of the 15th century, the Anglo-French wars, the feudal feuds of the English barons, etc. are meant. All these events were idealized, epic generalizations, the influence of traditional song legend. Wandering epic motifs were attached to some of them; some have been subjected, perhaps even to book influences.In the ballad "The Conquest of France by King Henry V" (King Henru the Fifth's Conquest of Fganse), for example, there is a motif also known from the legends of Alexander the Great: the French king does not pay attention to Henry's threats and; to caustically emphasize youth and inexperience in battles, sends him three balls instead of tribute; exactly the same is told in the pseudo-Kallisthenian "Alexandria" about Tsar Darius, who sends several children's toys to Alexander along with a mocking letter.

Some clashes between the English and the Scots, long since effaced in popular memory and insignificant in themselves, served as the basis for such ballads as "Kinmont Billy", "Katherine Johnston" (Katherine Johnston), "Lady Maesri" (Lady Maisry) and a number of others. The deep causes of the clashes between the English and the Scots are not touched by the nameless authors of the ballads, but they were hardly clear to them. In their minds, each collision had its own separate and only reason: someone wandered off to hunt in the wrong forest, someone kidnapped the bride, someone just wanted to "amuse the right hand" and made a robbery raid on a nearby neighbor, etc. .

Perhaps the greatest poetic charm was preserved by those ballads that tell not about military exploits, but about their sad consequences for human destinies. Remarkable in this regard is the ballad "Bold George Campbell" (Bonnie George Campbell). A young and brave young man goes to fight for no one knows why and no one knows where (however, according to the general mood of the ballad, it is not difficult to guess that we are talking about the same Anglo-Scottish border). But soon the horse returns without a rider:

High upon Highlands

And low upon Tay,

Bonnie George Cambell

Ride out on a day.

saddled and bred

And gallant rade he;

Hame cam his guid horse,

But never cam he.

The mother weeps bitterly, the bride cries. But such is the fate of women on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border. One of the most celebrated Scottish ballads, A boardeline widow, is also devoted to this theme.

Among the heroic-historical ballads that have an epic character are the ballads about Robin Hood, which were most popular for many centuries. Robin Hood with his retinue of dashing people, an "outlaw" - (outlaw) and enemy of the feudal lords, but a friend and protector of the poor, widows and orphans, became a beloved folk hero. He is sung in a large number of ballads, which make up one of the most important cycles, which is represented by four dozen separate works that tell about the various adventures of the hero and his comrades.

Robin Hood was at the head of hundreds of free shooters, who were powerless to cope with government units. He and his gang robbed only the rich, spared and rewarded the poor, did no harm to women; the deeds and adventures of this man “all Britain sings in their songs” (“The Ballads of Robin Hood”, 1987).

In their early development, the Robin Hood ballads did not provide a coherent account of his life; they told only about some of his adventures. A large place in them was occupied primarily by stories about the formation of his squad. Many ballads are based on a simple plot scheme: some craftsman, for example, a tanner, boilermaker, potter or forest ranger, at the behest of the king, sheriff, or on his own impulse, tries to capture Robin Hood as standing “outlaw”, fights with him, but, having experienced his strength and courage, voluntarily, joins his retinue. Thus begins Robin's acquaintance and friendship with the most faithful of his comrades and assistants - "Little John" (Little John), a daring and strong man, whose nickname - "little", "small" - is ironic, since he is seven feet tall. A dashing fight begins Robin Hood's friendship with the defrocked monk, brother Tuck, who does not take off his cassock, even joining the squad of daring men, and does not use other weapons in battles with enemies, except for his weighty club. The ballads also name other members of the squad (Scath-locke, Mutch, etc.), who freely and cheerfully live in Sherwood Forest. They are united by hatred for the feudal lords and all oppressors of the people.

In many ballads, one can recognize the features of this particular time - the anti-feudal moods of the peasant masses, acute hatred of the highest church authorities, provincial administration, etc. The socio-historical situation of the 15th century, with outbreaks of peasant uprisings, feudal wars, growing military taxes, etc. etc., contributes to the further development of the same legends, finally crystallizes them, completes the process of epic idealization of the main character.

Generous, generous, courageous persecutor of all injustice, Robin Hood gives a helping hand to everyone who needs it; he is tireless, dexterous, skillfully eludes all the traps that lie in wait for him, runs away from any pursuit, knows how to get out of any trouble and take good revenge on his enemies.

The story of Robin Hood has left a noticeable mark in world fiction. In England, Shakespeare's contemporaries: Robert Green, Mondey and Chetl processed ballad motifs in their dramatic works. These ballads have been known in Russian literature since the 1930s; some of them exist in Russian translations by N. Gumilyov, V. Rozhdestvensky and others.

Ballads dedicated to love and having a lyric-dramatic character make up the largest group among all ballad cycles. They tell about the sorrows of love, about the innumerable dangers and obstacles that lay in wait for lovers in those distant times. It would probably be possible to group love plots on the basis of an equal kind of misfortunes and obstacles. There would be a fair list: feuds between Scots and English, feuds between clans, feuds between families, feuds within families, jealousies, envy, kidnappings, misunderstandings. Many ballads sound tragic, for example, in “Annie of Loch Royan”.

... A young woman hurries to her lover, the father of her child, but she is not allowed into the castle: her lover is sleeping and does not hear the call, and his mother drives the young woman away. She sets off on her way back and dies in the depths of the sea along with her child. Sensing something unkind, the father hurries to the seashore… the raging surf brings the corpse of his beloved to his feet.

Perhaps the consciousness of the impossibility of happy love in those years poisoned by blood and hatred gave rise to numerous motives for otherworldly love. In the ballad “Billy” (“Billy”), unconditional and unshakable fidelity was affirmed, which even death cannot shake. This, apparently, the most important idea of ​​love and fidelity for the moral consciousness of that era, is realized in English and Scottish ballads not only in fantastic plots, but also quite real ones, in some cases supplemented by a symbolic ending. Thus ends the plot of love and fidelity in the already mentioned ballad “Lady Maisry” (“Lady Maisry”, William throws herself into the fire to die like his beloved) or in the ballad “Clyde waters” (“Clyde waters”, the girl throws herself into water that killed her beloved, to perish with him).

In the ballads "Edward" (Edward), "Prince Robert" ("Prince Robert"), "Lady Isabel" ("Lady Isabel") women are not inferior to men in hatred, enmity or revenge; ballads depict an evil mother, stepmother, wife, mistress, mad with envy, jealousy, despair.

In some old ballads, the motif of conscious or unconscious incest is often found, perhaps an echo of song plots from the era of ancient tribal relations, such as in the ballad Sheath and Knife and Lizie Wan.

Tragedies of jealousy are frequent in ballads. But even stronger than jealousy is the feeling of spontaneous, endless love, which delivers not only boundless grief, but also the greatest happiness. In the ballad "Child Waters" (Child Waters), to which Byron refers in the preface to "Child Harold", Ellen follows her lover, disguised as a page, endures all the hardships of the campaign, guards and cleans his horse, is ready to accept even his new mistress and make a bed for her; at night, in the stable, in terrible agony, abandoned and ridiculed, she gives birth to a baby, and then only her love is rewarded: Waters marries her. If fate haunts those who love until the end of their lives, then they unite behind the grave; the symbol of love, which knows no barriers even in death itself, becomes a rose, wild rose or other flowers that grow on their graves and intertwine with their branches.

Thus, most ballads have an ominous flavor and end in a fatal outcome. The drama of the situation and dialogues, the lyrical excitement reach great tension here. Feelings of revenge, jealousy and love rage in the hearts of the characters; blood flows in torrents; madness, crime, murder are as frequent as the lyrical ups and downs of the greatest, completely captivating love.

In the minds of most people, a ballad is almost synonymous with devilry: supernatural events are piled one on top of the other, coffins are torn off their chains, ghosts scurry through castles, forests and glades are inhabited by goblin and fairies, the waters are teeming with mermaids. These representations, inspired by the romantic literary ballad, do not quite correspond to the actual content of the folk ballad. Of the more than 300 English and Scottish folk ballads currently known, hardly 50 - that is, about one in six - contain supernatural events.

It is rather difficult to explain this, given that the medieval consciousness was literally permeated with faith in miracles and accepted the existence of devils, brownies and goblin as a self-evident element of everyday life.

Mythologism as a worldview is preserved only in the most ancient ballads, as well as in ballads, where their archaic basis emerges in one form or another. used as a poetic device or for allegorical purposes.

In the ballad "The Boy and the Cloak" (The Boy and the Cloak) magical motifs - a mantle that has the miraculous property of detecting a woman's infidelity; the head of a boar, against which the braggart's knife breaks; a magic horn splashing wine on a coward's dress - all this is used by the nameless author of the ballad for a more vivid and convincing moral assessment of real human vices.

Especially often, magical motifs are used as an extended poetic metaphor in stories about the test of loyalty, courage, and nobility. In the ballad The Young Templane, the hero's bride, true to her love, courageously goes through difficult trials.

Not only purely physical suffering, but also moral suffering associated with negative aesthetic emotions can be a test of the moral qualities of heroes. For example, the noble Evain had to go through such trials, who saved the girl, whom the evil stepmother turned into an ugly beast (“Knight Evain” - The Knight Avain). A peculiar version of the fantastic motif of the "test of fidelity" is also the story of the bride following her beloved to the grave. Another variation of the same motive is plots where, in response to the call of a woman (usually a mermaid), a man with boundless courage rushes into the depths of the sea after her (ballad "Mermaid" - Kemp Oweyne).

It is fantastic ballads that will attract the attention of European romantics, including English ones (Coleridge, Southey, Scott), who will bring them to the fore among the entire ballad heritage; however, in the heyday of ballad creativity, fabulous, fantastic ballads do not occupy such an exclusive place and their fantasy does not bear an ominous imprint.

In the popular mind, the tragic and the comic always go hand in hand. In the funniest comic stories, it is not uncommon to find hidden elements of tragedy. It is pointless to find out which ballads - tragic or comic sounding - appeared earlier: the origins of both are lost in the depths of time and are practically inaccessible to rigorous research. They probably appeared almost simultaneously, although, perhaps, in a different social environment. The point of view is hardly fair, according to which comic ballads appeared much later than tragic ones, in the course of ballad evolution towards "simplification" of plots and the penetration of everyday elements into them. Everyday details are also characteristic of the earliest ballads; the fact that people were able to see the funny and laugh at all times is evidenced by numerous comedies, satires, fables, comic songs, medieval farces and fablios.

Take, for example, the famous "Ballad of the Miller and His Wife". The game's comic dialogue is clearly farcical in nature. The tipsy miller, returning home in the evening, is still not so drunk as not to notice some signs of his wife's infidelity: men's boots with copper spurs, a raincoat, etc. But the lively and crafty "hostess" is by no means inclined to give up and with enviable resourcefulness tries to dissuade the "master" of his suspicions. But even the miller is not a fool: in every explanation of his wife, not without humor, he finds some detail that destroys all her ingenious constructions; and finally, the miller discovers a man in bed.

Equally comical is the dialogue between husband and wife in the ballads Get up and Bar the Door, The Old Cloak, or the dialogue between a knight and a peasant girl in the ballad Deceived knight".

Comic ballads are diverse in content and are by no means confined to everyday subjects. They affect the social sphere, complex psychological relationships between people, love topics ("The Tramp", "The Shepherd's Son", "A Trip to the Fair"). In a number of ballads, which in terms of content it would be wrong to classify as "purely" comic, nevertheless, the comic element is unusually strong ("The King and the Bishop", "Two Wizards", etc.)

If you like stories about mysterious events, about the fate of fearless heroes, the sacred world of spirits, if you are able to appreciate noble chivalrous feelings, female devotion, then you will certainly love literary ballads.

In the literature lessons this academic year, we got acquainted with several ballads. This genre blew me away.

These poems, which combine elements of lyric, epic and drama, are a kind of "universal" poetry, according to the famous 19th century poet Wordsworth.

The poet “selecting events and situations from the most everyday life of people, tries to describe them, if possible, in the language that these people actually speak; but at the same time, with the help of the imagination, give it a coloring, thanks to which ordinary things appear in an unusual light. ".

The topic "Features of the literary ballad genre" seemed interesting to me, I continue to work on it for the second year.

The topic is undoubtedly relevant, as it allows you to show independence and develop the abilities of a critic.

2. Literary ballad: the emergence of the genre and its features.

The term "ballad" itself comes from the Provencal word meaning "mysterious song", ballads originated in the harsh times of the Middle Ages. They were created by folk narrators, transmitted orally, and in the process of oral transmission they were greatly modified, becoming the fruit of collective creativity. The plot of the ballads was Christian legends, chivalric romances, ancient myths, works of ancient authors in medieval retelling, the so-called "eternal" or "wandering" stories.

The plot of the ballad is often built as a disclosure, recognition of a certain secret that keeps the listener in suspense, makes him worry, worry about the hero. Sometimes the plot breaks off and is essentially replaced by dialogue. It is the plot that becomes the sign that distinguishes the ballad from other lyrical genres and begins its rapprochement with the epic. It is in this sense that it is customary to speak of the ballad as a lyrical genre of poetry.

In ballads there is no border between the world of people and nature. A person can turn into a bird, a tree, a flower. Nature enters into a dialogue with the characters. This reflects the ancient idea of ​​the unity of man with nature, of the ability of people to turn into animals and plants and vice versa.

The literary ballad owes its birth to the German poet Gottfried August Burger. The literary ballad was very similar to the folklore ballad, since the first literary ballads were created as an imitation of the folk ones. Thus, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the folk ballad was replaced by a literary ballad, that is, an author's ballad.

The first literary ballads arose on the basis of pastiche, and therefore it is very often difficult to distinguish them from genuine folk ballads. Let's turn to table number 1.

A literary ballad is a lyrical epic genre based on a narrative narrative with dialogue included in it. Like the folklore ballad, its literary sister often opens with a landscape opening and closes with a landscape ending. But the main thing in a literary ballad is the voice of the author, his emotional lyrical assessment of the events described.

And now we can note the features of the difference between a literary ballad and a folklore one. Already in the first literary ballads, the author's lyrical position is manifested more clearly than in folk works.

The reason for this is understandable - folklore is guided by the national ideal, and the literary ballad contains the author's personal attitude to the very popular ideal.

At first, the creators of literary ballads tried not to go beyond the themes and motives of folk sources, but then they more and more often began to turn to their favorite genre, filling the traditional form with new content. Fairy-tale ballads, satirical, philosophical, fantastic, historical, heroic ballads began to appear along with family, "terrible", etc. A broader theme distinguished the literary ballad from the folk one.

There were also changes in the form of a literary ballad. First of all, it concerned the use of dialogue. A literary ballad much more often resorts to a hidden dialogue, when one of the interlocutors is either silent or takes part in the conversation with short remarks.

3. Literary ballads by V. A. Zhukovsky and M. Yu. Lermontov.

The wide poetic possibilities of the Russian ballad opened up to the Russian reader thanks to the literary activity of V. A. Zhukovsky, who worked at the beginning of the 19th century. It was the ballad that became the main genre in his poetry, and it was she who brought him literary fame.

Zhukovsky's ballads were usually based on Western European sources. But the ballads of V. A. Zhukovsky are also a major phenomenon of Russian national poetry. The fact is that when translating English and German literary ballads, he used artistic techniques and images of Russian folklore and Russian poetry. Sometimes the poet went very far from the original source, creating an independent literary work.

For example, a wonderful translation of the literary ballad of the great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe "King of the Elves", written on the basis of German folklore, conveys the inner tension of the fantastic ballad and the lyrical attitude of the author (J. W. Goethe) to the events described. At the same time, Zhukovsky, in his ballad The Tsar of the Forest, describes a forest that is surprisingly similar to Russian, and if you don’t know that we have a translation, you can easily take this work as created in the Russian tradition. "The Forest King" is a ballad about a fatal fate, in which an age-old dispute between life and death, hope and despair, hidden by an ominous plot, takes place. The author uses various artistic techniques.

Let's turn to table number 2.

1. In the center is not an event, not an episode, but a human person acting against one or another background - this is a colorful landscape of the forest kingdom and oppressive reality.

2. Division into two worlds: earthly and fantastic.

3. The author uses the image of the narrator to convey the atmosphere of what is happening, the tone of the depicted: a lyrically scary tone at the beginning with an increase in a sense of anxiety and a hopelessly tragic one at the end.

4. Images of the real world and an alien from the "other" world.

5. The characteristic rhythm of the ballad is the stomp of a horse associated with the chase.

6. Use of epithets.

There are many bright colors and expressive details in Zhukovsky's ballads. The words of A. S. Pushkin about Zhukovsky are applicable to them: “No one had and will not have a style equal in its power and diversity to his style.”

“The Judgment of God on the Bishop” is a translation of the work of the English romantic poet Robert Southey, a contemporary of V. A. Zhukovsky. "God's Judgment on the Bishop" - written in March 1831. First published in the edition of "Ballads and Tales" in 1831. in two parts. Translation of the ballad of the same name by R. Southey, based on medieval legends about the stingy Bishop Gatton of Metz. According to legend, during the famine of 914, Gatton treacherously invited the starving to a "feast" and burned them in the barn; for this he was eaten by mice.

This time, the Russian poet very closely follows the original "terrible" ballad, describing the cruelty of a foreign bishop and his punishment.

1. You won’t find such a beginning in a folklore ballad: not only a certain lyrical mood is created here, but through the description of a natural disaster, a picture of people’s grief is briefly and vividly created.

2. There is no dialogue in R. Southey's ballad. The poet introduces only replicas into the narrative, but the characters do not address each other. The people are surprised at Gatton's generosity, but the bishop does not hear people's exclamations. Gatton talks to himself about his atrocities, but only God can know his thoughts.

3. This is a ballad of retribution and redemption. In it, the Middle Ages appears as a world of opposition between earthly and heavenly forces.

The tragic tone remains unchanged in this ballad, only the images and the narrator's assessment of their position change.

4. The ballad is built on the antithesis:

“There was a famine, people were dying.

But the bishop, by the grace of heaven

Huge barns are full of bread"

The general misfortune does not touch the bishop, but at the end the bishop “calls God in a wild frenzy”, “the criminal howls”.

5. In order to evoke sympathy from the reader, the author uses unity of command.

“There were both summer and autumn rainy;

Pastures and fields were sunk"

Zhukovsky always chose works for translation that were internally consonant with him. Good and evil in a sharp confrontation appear in all ballads. Their source is always the human heart and otherworldly mysterious forces that control it.

"Castle Smalholm, or Midsummer's Evening" - a translation of Walter Scott's ballad "St. John's Eve". The castle was in the south of Scotland. Belongs to one of Walter Scott's relatives. The poem was written in July 1822. This ballad has a long censored history. Zhukovsky was charged with “blasphemous combination of the love theme with the theme of Ivanov’s evening. Midsummer evening - the eve of the national holiday of Kupala, rethought by the church, as a celebration of the birth of John the Baptist. Censorship demanded a radical reworking of the finale. Zhukovsky appealed to the censorship committee to the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod and the Ministry of Public Education, Prince A.N. Golitsyn. The ballad was printed by changing "Midsummer's Day" to "Duncan's Day".

Of the ballads I have read, I would like to highlight the ballads of M. Yu. Lermontov.

The ballad "The Glove" is a translation of the knightly ballad by the German writer Friedrich Schiller. Lermontov, the translator, relies on the experience of Zhukovsky, so he seeks to convey not so much the form of the work as his emotional attitude towards a treacherous woman who, for fun, subjects her knight to a death test.

1. The landscape beginning depicts a crowd in a circus, gathered in anticipation of a spectacle, a dangerous game - a fight between a tiger and a lion.

2. There is a dialogue in the ballad: there is an appeal by Kunigunde to the knight, there is also his answer to the lady. But the dialogue is broken: the most important event takes place between the two remarks.

3. The tragic tone replaces the general fun.

4. An important element of the composition is its brevity: it looks like a spring compressed between the tie and the denouement.

5. In the field of artistic speech, the generosity of metaphors is noted: “The choir of beautiful ladies shone”, “but the slave in front of his master grumbles and gets angry in vain”, “the annoyance of the cruel blazing in the fire”

The heroic ballad, glorifying the feat and intransigence towards enemies, was widespread in Russia.

One of the best patriotic poems created by Russian poets is M. Yu. Lermontov's ballad "Borodino".

1. 1. The whole ballad is built on an extended dialogue. Here, the element of the landscape beginning ("Moscow burned by fire") is included in the question of a young soldier, with whom the ballad begins. Then follows the answer - the story of a participant in the Battle of Borodino, in which the replicas of the participants in the battle are heard. It is these remarks, as well as the speech of the narrator himself, that allow the poet to convey a truly popular attitude towards the Motherland and towards its enemies.

2. This ballad is characterized by polyphony - many voices sound. For the first time in Russian poetry, true images of Russian soldiers, heroes of the famous battle, appeared. The story of the day of the Battle of Borodino begins with a call from the soldier, with flashing eyes, the commander-colonel. This is the speech of an officer, a nobleman. He easily calls the old honored soldiers "guys", but is ready to go into battle together and die like their "brother".

3. The battle is beautifully depicted in the ballad. Lermontov did everything so that the reader could, as it were, see the battle with his own eyes.

The poet gave a great picture of the Battle of Borodino, using sound writing:

"Damask steel sounded, buckshot screeched"

“I prevented the nuclei from flying

Mountain of bloody bodies»

Belinsky highly appreciated the language and style of this poem. He wrote: "In every word one hears the language of a soldier who, without ceasing to be crudely ingenuous, is strong and full of poetry!"

In the 20th century, the ballad genre was in demand by many poets. Their childhood and youth passed in a difficult time of great historical upheaval: revolution, civil war, the Great Patriotic War brought blood, death, suffering, devastation. Overcoming hardships, people reshaped their lives anew, dreaming of a happy, just future. This time, swift as the wind, was difficult and cruel, but it promised to make the most daring dreams come true. Among the poets of this time, you will not find fantastic, family or "terrible" ballads; in their time, heroic, philosophical, historical, satirical, social ballads are in demand.

Even if the work tells about an event from ancient times, it is experienced as today's in D. Kedrin's ballad "The Architects".

Tragic is K. Simonov's ballad "An old song of a soldier" ("How a soldier served").

A newspaper excerpt, which gives the work a publicity, is preceded by the "Ballad of Poaching" by E. Yevtushenko. Its text includes a salmon monologue that appeals to the human mind.

Noble solemnity and rigor distinguishes V. Vysotsky's "Ballad of the Struggle", lines appear in memory:

If, cutting through the path with his father's sword,

You wound salty tears on your mustache,

If in a hot battle I experienced what how much, -

So, you read the necessary books as a child!

The ballad "Architects" by D. Kedrin is the pride of Russian poetry in the first half of the 20th century, written in 1938.

In The Architects, Kedrinsky's understanding of Russian history, admiration for the talent of the Russian people, faith in the all-conquering power of beauty and art were manifested.

In the center of the poem is the story of the creation of the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on Red Square in Moscow, known as St. Basil's Cathedral.

The temple was built in 1555-1561 in honor of the victory over the Kazan Khanate. Skillful architects Postnik and Barma conceived and implemented an unprecedented deed: they united eight temples into one whole - according to the number of victories won near Kazan. They are grouped around the central ninth tent camp.

There is a legend about the blinding of the builders of St. Basil's Cathedral. The atrocity was allegedly committed at the behest of Tsar Ivan IV, who did not want a cathedral like this to appear anywhere. Documentary evidence of the legend does not exist. But what is important is that the legend arose, that it was passed down from generation to generation, already testifying by the fact of its existence that such cruelty of the autocrat was possible in the popular mind. Kedrin gave the topic a generalizing meaning.

1. This poem tells about an important historical event. There is a plot, and we see here a typical ballad technique - “repetition with growth”. The king twice addresses the architects: "And the benefactor asked." This technique enhances the swiftness of the action, thickens the tension.

2. Dialogue is used, which drives the plot in ballads. The characters of the characters are outlined convexly, in relief.

3. The composition is based on antithesis. The poem is clearly divided into 2 parts, which are opposed to each other.

4. The story is told as if on behalf of the chronicler. And the chronicle style requires dispassion, objectivity in the depiction of events.

5. There are very few epithets at the beginning of the text. Kedrin is stingy with paints, he is more concerned about the tragic nature of the fate of the masters. Speaking about the giftedness of the Russian people, the poet emphasizes their moral health and independence with epithets:

And two came to him

Unknown Vladimir architects,

Two Russian builders

When the "chronicler" comes to the description of the "terrible royal favor", his voice suddenly trembles:

falcon eyes

If they use an iron awl

To white light

They couldn't see.

They were branded

They were flogged with batogs, sick,

And threw them

On the cold bosom of the earth.

The form of folk lamentation is emphasized here by folklore "permanent" epithets.

There are several comparisons in the poem that emphasize the beauty and purity of the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos:

and, wondering, as if in a fairy tale,

I looked at that beauty.

That church was

Like a bride!

What a dream!

There is only one metaphor here (they are out of place in the annals):

And at the feet of the building

The market place was buzzing

6. The rhythm is suggested by the phrase "the chronicler's tale speaks": the measured, impressive voice of history itself. But the rhythm in the poem changes: the stanzas associated with the presence of the sovereign sound solemn and majestic. When it comes to the unfortunate blinded architects, emotional tension dictates a sharp change in intonation, rhythm: instead of solemnity - the sound of one piercingly sharp note in the whole line:

And in the gluttonous row,

Where the blockage of the tavern sang,

Where the fuselage reeked

Where it was dark from a couple

Where the deacons shouted:

"The state's word and deed!"

Masters for Christ's sake

They asked for bread and wine.

The tension of the rhythm is also created by the anaphora (where, where, where), forcing tension.

7. Archaisms and historicisms enter the work organically, they are always understandable in the context.

Tat - a thief, circled - a tavern, torovo - generously, right - punishment, blasphemy - beauty, green - very much, velmi - very much, smerd - a peasant, zane - because

Kedrin ends with the expression “popular opinion”:

And a forbidden song

About the terrible royal mercy

Sang in secret places

Across wide Russia, guslars.

August 29, 1926 "Komsomolskaya Pravda" published "Grenada" - and Svetlov suddenly became the most popular Soviet poet. V. Mayakovsky, having read "Grenada", learned it by heart and recited it at his creative evenings. For some reason, it seems to everyone that this ballad is about the Spanish Civil War. In fact, the war began a few years after the poem appeared. The lyrical hero simply dreams of fanning the world fire.

From one word "grew" the poem "Grenada". What fascinated this word of the poet? Why did it become the song of a Ukrainian lad, a cavalry soldier who died in the civil war? Of course, Mikhail Svetlov first of all liked the sound of the word Grenada. There is so much energy in it, and there is absolutely no aggression, rudeness; in its sound at the same time, and strength, and tenderness, and the distinctness of reality, and the unsteadiness of a dream, and the swiftness of an impulse, and the calmness of the end of the path. In the mouth of a young fighter, this beautiful name becomes the sound symbol of his dream of a new life for all.

1. The landscape beginning draws a wide expanse of the Ukrainian steppes. The ballad tells about the fate and heroic death of a young soldier.

3. M. Svetlov sharpens the rhythm of the ballad, breaking the quatrains into eight lines. In this rhythm, the rhythm of the movement of the cavalry detachment is clearly heard:

He sang while looking

Native lands:

"Grenada, Grenada,

Grenada is mine!

The word Grenada itself reproduces the size of the ballad: it has three syllables and the stress falls on the second syllable.

4. The tragic tone is replaced by the ringing melody of the resurrection of a dream.

Here's over the corpse

The moon bowed

Only the sky is quiet

Slipped later

On the velvet of sunset

teardrop of rain

Personification and metaphor indicate that no matter how grandiose the event, its meaning cannot alleviate the pain of loss.

Vysotsky wrote 6 ballads - “The Ballad of Time” (“The Castle is Hidden by Time”), “The Ballad of Hate”, “The Ballad of Free Arrows”, “The Ballad of Love” (“When the Water of the Flood”), “The Ballad of Two Dead swans", "Ballad of the struggle" ("Among the swollen candles and evening prayers") for the film by Sergei Tarasov "Arrows of Robin Hood".

“I wanted to write a few songs for the youth who will watch this picture. And he wrote ballads about struggle, about love, about hatred - six rather serious ballads in total, not at all like what I did before, ”the author writes.

Finally, he spoke out in direct speech - as they say, without a pose and a mask. Only the "Song of the free shooters" - conditional, role-playing, or something. And the rest - without a game bifurcation, without hints and subtexts. There is some kind of anti-irony here: courageous directness, like a blow of a sword, crushes ironic smirks, cuts off the head of any cynicism

But the ballads were banned and Vysotsky’s recordings were later used by Tarasov in the film “The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe”.

1. The beginning in the “Ballad of Time” is interesting: not only a certain lyrical mood is created here, but through the description of an ancient castle, “hidden by time and wrapped in a delicate blanket of green shoots”, a picture of the past is created with campaigns, battles and victories.

2. In V. Vysotsky's ballad, the dialogue is hidden. The form of a dramatic monologue is used. The poet introduces only his own lines into the narrative - appeals to descendants, the characters do not address each other, tournaments, sieges, battles take place in front of us, as on the screen.

3. This ballad of eternal values. In it, the Middle Ages appears as a world built on antithesis:

Enemies fell into the mud, screaming for mercy

But not everyone, staying alive,

Keeping hearts in kindness

Protecting your good name

From the deliberate lies of a scoundrel

4. The solemn tone remains unchanged in this ballad. The author uses unity of command:

And the price is the price, and the wine is the wine,

And it's always good if the honor is saved

“In these six ballads the life position of the poet is stated. It's deeper than at first glance. This is like his inspiration, testament, ”wrote one of V. Vysotsky’s friends.