From what genre did the literary ballad originate? Characteristic features of the ballad genre

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Department of Education of the Administration of Khabarovsk

Municipal educational institution

gymnasium №3 named after M.F. Pankova

FEATURES OF THE GENRE BALLAD

IN THE WORKS OF V. A. ZHUKOVSKY

Literature examination paper

Completed:

Pesotsky Alexander,

student 9 "B" class

Supervisor:

Fadeeva T.V.

Khabarovsk

Introduction

Several times the name of Columbus as a symbol of the discoverer of new worlds is added by V.G. Belinsky to the name of V. A. Zhukovsky: “The appearance of Zhukovsky amazed Russia, and not without reason. He was the Columbus of our fatherland." 1 Indeed, in the pre-Pushkin period of the development of Russian literature, Zhukovsky occupies the first place; he stood out for the strength of artistic talent, innovative undertakings, the scale of creativity, and literary authority.

Zhukovsky can be safely called the founder of romanticism in Russian literature. A.S. Pushkin enthusiastically exclaimed in one of his letters: “What a charm of his damn heavenly soul! He is a saint, although he was born a romantic, not a Greek, and a man, and what else! Contemporaries noted the extraordinary sincerity of Zhukovsky's poetry.

V.G. Belinsky, defining the essence and originality of Zhukovsky’s poetry and its significance for Russian literature of the early 19th century, noted: “Only the romanticism of the Middle Ages could spiritualize our literature ... Zhukovsky was a translator into Russian of the romanticism of the Middle Ages, resurrected at the beginning of the 19th century by German and English poets, mostly by Schiller. Here is the significance of Zhukovsky and his merit in Russian literature. 2 It was Zhukovsky who introduced the Russian reader to one of the most beloved genres of Western European romantics - the ballad. The ballad becomes the poet's favorite genre, in which his romantic aspirations were expressed to the greatest extent.

Creativity V.A. Zhukovsky is devoted to a significant number of literary studies, although for the most part these are introductory articles to collections of the poet's works.

In the course of work on the abstract, the works of R.V. Jezuitova "Zhukovsky and his time", V.N. Kasatkina “Poetry of V.A. Zhukovsky, A.S. Yanushkevich "In the world of Zhukovsky", I.M. Semenko "Life and Poetry of Zhukovsky" and others. The works of I.M. Semenko. 3 The researcher claims that Zhukovsky can rightly be called a translation genius. After all, the poet wrote 39 ballads, including 34 translated ones. He translated not only ballads, but also many other works, among which the most famous is Homer's Odyssey. An attentive researcher of Zhukovsky’s art of translation, V. Cheshikhin, noted in his best translations “verbatimity in conveying the author’s thoughts, accurate reproduction of the poetic form of the original, and self-restraint in the sense of boundless respect for the original ...” 4 Zhukovsky always chose for translation only works that were internally consonant with him.

Significant assistance in writing the abstract was provided by the work of V.N. Kasatkina, in which the literary critic analyzes Zhukovsky's ballads, reveals their main themes and reveals the artistic originality of Zhukovsky's poetry.

Good and evil, in sharp contrast, appear in all Zhukovsky's ballads. The poet was also deeply occupied with the problems of fate, personal responsibility and retribution. The atmosphere in Zhukovsky's ballads is purely romantic. It has nothing to do with conventionality. It creates the impression of romantic inspiration, the participation of the poet and the reader in the mysterious and sublime life of the world.

In the school literature course, ballads by V.A. Zhukovsky is studied very little, although the themes of his ballads are relevant and interesting because the criterion of humanity is decisive for all Zhukovsky's works. In them, the poet, as it were, puts an equal sign between "eternal" and "modern".

The purpose of this essay is to reveal the features of the ballad genre in the work of V. A. Zhukovsky.

In accordance with the goal in the abstract, the following tasks were solved:

identify the characteristic features of the ballad as a genre of literature;
consider the significance of Zhukovsky's work as a translator of famous Western European ballads;
reveal the main themes of Zhukovsky's ballads;
analyze the cycle of ballads about love;
to show the artistic originality of Zhukovsky's ballads.

1. Ballad as a literary genre

The ballad is a lyrical-epic genre in which historical, fantastic and love-dramatic plots are depicted.

Folk ballads were created by nameless narrators, transmitted orally, and in the process of oral transmission they were greatly modified, thus becoming the fruit of not individual, but collective creativity. The sources of ballad plots were Christian legends, chivalric romances, ancient myths or 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 first editions of folk ballads appeared in the 18th century. and were associated with the revival of the interest of writers, philologists and poets in the national past and folk sources of literary creativity.

The literary ballad genre, having revived to life several decades before the beginning of the 19th century, reached its peak and peak popularity in the era of romanticism, when for some time it took almost the leading place in poetry. The popularity and timeliness of this genre in the Romantic era is primarily due to its multifunctionality, the ability to serve the most diverse (and sometimes multidirectional) social and literary goals. A popular ballad (knightly, heroic, historical) could satisfy the interest in the national past, in the Middle Ages, in general, in antiquity, awakened among wide circles of readers. The mythological or miraculous element, natural for a ballad, fully corresponded to the romantics' desire for everything unusual, mysterious, mysterious, and often mystical or otherworldly. The ballad's primordial inclination towards the synthesis of epic, lyrical and dramatic elements was well combined with the attempts of the romantics to create "universal poetry", "mix artificial poetry and natural poetry", update it, convey human experiences, dramatic intensity of feelings. The ballad provided great opportunities for the search for new expressive means of poetic language.

Basically, romantic ballads are built around one, often tragic event. The expositions in some ballads are information on behalf of the author, introducing the reader to the course of events, but most often the ballads have a sharp beginning that does not give the reader any explanation. Very often, obscurity and incomprehensibility accompany the ballad from beginning to end. Although the generalizing reflection of the author sometimes acts as a conclusion in some ballads, for the most part, the authors do not impose ready-made conclusions on the reader, leaving him alone with himself, giving him the opportunity to draw his own conclusions.

At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century, the ballad genre was not perceived in Russian literature as an independent lyrical-epic genre. Classicism was still in force and imposed certain obligations on poets in their work. However, the need for development and the acquisition of something new was already felt at the beginning of the 19th century, this led to the emergence of creative searches for Russian poets. Relations between genres at the turn of the century became more mobile, the interaction of different genres gave rise to something new in the genre system. Ballads appear in the work of many poets, but these experiments are not yet perfect, their genre structure is not clear. Against their background, Zhukovsky's ballad appears, which brought popularity to the poet and established the demand for the ballad as a genre.

It was the ballad that helped Zhukovsky, according to Belinsky, bring into Russian literature "the revelation of the secrets of romanticism" 5: the romance of the fantastic and the terrible, the interest in folk art characteristic of the romantics.

2. Features of the ballad genre in the work of V. A. Zhukovsky

2.1. Zhukovsky - translator of famous Western European ballads

Almost all of Zhukovsky's thirty-nine ballads are translations. V. A. Zhukovsky translated Schiller’s ballads: “Cassandra”, “Ivikov’s Cranes”, “The Triumph of the Winners”, Goethe: “The Forest King”, “Fisherman”, Southey: “Warwick”, “Adelstan”, “Donika”, Walter Scott: "Castle Smalholm, or Ivan's Evening", "Repentance", Burger's "Lenora", etc. Among them there are many free translations, where the poet recreates the meaning and plot, does not aim to literally follow the text. Accurate translations reproduce the text of the original, but even here there are discrepancies, since an adequate literary translation from one language to another is impossible.

Zhukovsky was rightly called a translation genius. He always chose for translation only works that were internally consonant with him, set off and emphasized in them the motives that are closest to the translator, but not secondary, but related to the very essence of the translated work. The translated ballads give Zhukovsky the impression of being original, because the poet, by the power of his imagination, recreates the inner essence of the phenomena depicted, deeply experiencing with the author of the original.

Here are the poet's own statements about the essence of poetic translation: “A translator in prose is a slave, a translator in verse is a rival”; "This is generally the nature of my author's work: almost everything I have is either someone else's, or about someone else's - and everything, however, is mine." 6

Zhukovsky's translation style is based on a deep synthesis of thematic, figurative, linguistic means. So the poet reaches the heights of translation skills. In his best ballads, while preserving the most important features of the original, Zhukovsky enhances them, slightly pushing into the shadows the accompanying moments, which are not paramount for the ideological essence. So, in Schiller's ballads, the desire for unattainable beauty is accentuated. In accordance with the general structure of his poetry, Zhukovsky conveys the plot in ballads in a somewhat generalized way, precisely because he prefers to recreate the essence, rather than the detail. However, this does not mean at all that Zhukovsky did not convey details: in such a case, it would be impossible to speak of the accuracy of the translation at all.

Among the ballads of Zhukovsky, one can single out a group of genuine masterpieces of accurate poetic translation. First of all, these are Schiller's translations: "Cassandra", "Ivikov Cranes", "Knight Togenburg", "Count Gapsburg", "The Triumph of the Winners", "The Cup", "Polycrates' Ring", "Eleusinian Feast". Also remarkable is the ballad, which describes how one old woman rode a black horse together, and who was sitting in front, “The Queen of Uraka and the Five Martyrs” (from R. Southey), “Smalholm Castle, or Midsummer Evening” (from Walter Scott), "Forest King" and "Fisherman" (from Goethe). It is significant that the group of the most accurate translations includes the most significant works in a foreign original.

All thirty-nine ballads, despite the thematic differences, are a monolithic whole, an artistic cycle, fastened not only by genre, but also by semantic unity. Zhukovsky was attracted by samples that dealt with the issues of human behavior and the choice between good and evil with particular urgency.

2.2. Crime and punishment - the main theme of the ballads of V. A. Zhukovsky

The main theme of ballads by V.A. Zhukovsky - crime and punishment. The ballad poet denounced various manifestations of egocentrism. The constant hero of his ballads is a strong personality who has cast aside moral restrictions and fulfills his personal will, aimed at achieving a purely selfish goal. Warwick (from the ballad of the same name) seized the throne, killing his nephew, the rightful heir to the throne, because Warwick wants to reign, such is his will. The greedy Bishop Gatton ("God's Judgment on the Bishop") does not share bread with the starving people, believing that he, the owner of the bread, has the right to do so. Knight Adelstan (ballad "Adelstan"), like a new Faust, contacted the devil, bought his personal beauty, knightly prowess and beauty's love at a terrible price. The robbers kill the unarmed poet Ivik in the forest, asserting the right of the physically strong over the weak and defenseless (the ballad "Ivik's Cranes"). The poet also pointed to immorality in family relations: while the husband-baron is participating in battles, his wife is cheating on him with someone who is also called a knight. But the baron kills his rival not in a fair duel, not like a knight, but from behind a corner, secretly, cowardly, protecting himself from danger. Everyone thinks only of himself and his own good. The egoistic will, egoistic self-consciousness turns out to be so short-sighted, morally miserable, blind before retribution!

According to Zhukovsky, crime is caused by individualistic passions - ambition, greed, greed, jealousy, selfish self-affirmation. The man failed to curb himself, succumbed to passions, and his moral consciousness turned out to be weakened. Under the influence of passions, a person forgets his moral duty. But the main thing in the ballads is still not the crime itself, but its consequences - the punishment of a person. How is punishment done? In Zhukovsky's ballads, as a rule, it is not people who punish the criminal. In the Ivikov Cranes, which speaks of the massacre of citizens with robbers, the behavior of people is still a secondary act, because they fulfill the will of the furies, avenging goddesses. The exception is "Three Songs", here the son takes revenge on the mighty Oswald for the murder of his father. Punishment often comes from a person's conscience - it does not withstand the yoke of a crime and torments. No one punished the murderer-baron and his unfaithful wife ("Castle Smalholm, or Ivan's Evening"), they voluntarily went to the monastery, but the monastic life did not bring them moral relief and consolation: she is "sad and does not look at the world," he gloomy, "and shy of people and is silent." By committing crimes, they have deprived themselves of both happiness and the joys of life, excluded themselves from a harmoniously bright being. Warwick's conscience, Adelstan's, is not calm. P. Florensky said: "Sin is the moment of discord, disintegration and disintegration of the spiritual life" 7 . He also revealed the moral and psychological mechanism of sin: “Wishing only for itself, in its “here” and “now” the evil self-affirmation is inhospitably locked away from everything that is not it; but, striving for self-deity, it does not even remain similar to itself and crumbles. and decomposes and fragments in the internal struggle.Evil by its very essence is a kingdom divided into "sya".Similar thoughts about the alienation of the individual from the moral, arranged by God being, self-concentration of the individual, awareness of self-worth, the desire to satisfy one's own "I" in the end leads to the neglect of all "not-I", to a detrimental effect on him. And since the existence of one person, his happiness depends on another person and other people, they find themselves drawn into a vicious circle of self-affirmation of a strong personality that tramples them. Having destroyed the barriers that stand in the way of satisfying the will of his "I", the sinner in the ballad world of the poet kills both his soul and his life. He sows death not only around of himself, but also in himself. Sin "eats itself" (P. Florensky). Zhukovsky was aware of the idea of the self-destructive nature of evil.

The plot motif of many ballads is the expectation of retribution. The crime is committed, but immediately the offender begins to feel on the eve of retribution. The freshness of valleys and forests, the transparency of rivers are dimming in his eyes: “Warwick alone was alien to the beauties of nature”, “but beauty is not noticeable to sinful eyes”, and he is now alien to the usual feasting fun, alienated from his beloved and native places, from his own home - " there is no shelter in the world." From the one who violated the humane principle of life, peace of mind, spiritual harmony depart. He rushes about in search of his place in life, a prosperous existence and does not find them. The psychological drawing of the poet is aimed at analyzing the experiences of fear. Warwick is afraid of retribution, and fear takes possession of his heart more and more, the sinful old woman is horrified by the expectation of retribution, fear is increasingly seizing the criminal Bishop Gatton (“he is stupefied; he is breathing a little with fear”), forcing him to panic seek shelter. The awakened conscience prompted the need to be afraid: "Tremble! (the voice of conscience tells him)." The offender is constantly "trembling", "confused", "fearful", "trembling". Fear is the result of "godforsakenness". Conscience does not allow the sinner to renounce what he has done, to forget it. He hears the groan of the murdered man, his voice, his prayers, he sees his shining eyes, his pale face - "like a terrible monster, conscience roams after him everywhere." The plot of the ballads "Warwick", "Adelstan", "Donica", "God's Judgment on the Bishop" is all built on the secret expectation of retribution, the horror of it more and more embraces the criminal, changes the whole world in his eyes and transforms him. He has been turned into a renegade, into a living dead.

Description of work

“Zhukovsky was the first poet in Russia, whose poetry came out of life,” V.G. Belinsky. Zhukovsky made a great contribution to Russian literature. Today we cannot imagine not only Russian, but also world literature without V. A. Zhukovsky, just as we cannot imagine it without A. S. Pushkin. Zhukovsky can be safely called the founder of romanticism in Russian literature. A.S. Pushkin enthusiastically exclaimed in one of his letters: “What a charm of his damn heavenly soul! He is a saint, although he was born a romantic, not a Greek, and a man, and what else! Contemporaries noted the extraordinary sincerity of Zhukovsky's poetry.

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 the strength of a person 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

I. Andronnikov. "Why am I so hurt and so sad ...". And sullenly You concealed what the thought languished about, And came out to us with a smile on your lips. An immortal and always young poet. Childhood of the poet. Arakcheev. Loneliness is socially conditioned, generated by a gloomy and suffocating era, early orphanhood. “No, it’s not you that I love so passionately.” “Abandon vain worries.” "When the yellowing field is agitated." About nature. About the motherland. Purpose: to understand what are the origins of Lermontov's work. "Don't trust yourself..." Philosophical Poems. “I love my homeland, but with a strange love…”.

"V.A. Zhukovsky ballad Svetlana" - Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. V.A. Zhukovsky ballad "Svetlana". Characteristic features of the ballad genre. The presence of a plot basis, a plot. Moral outcome. A tense dramatic, mysterious, or fantasy story. Symbolic character of space and time. Exposition Outcome Development of action Climax Decoupling. Literature lesson in grade 9 Author: teacher of Russian language and literature Kirpitneva L.B. A.S. Pushkin. Often (but not necessarily) the presence of a folklore element.

"Gogol Dead Souls Lesson" - Story. A.P. Chekhov. Tale. Let's check our knowledge. Svetly, 2009. Chapter? Literature lesson for grade 9. A.S. Pushkin. Lesson plan. Working with a table. Novel. Travel notes.

"Dante Alighieri" - Love ... Life and work. Last years. Dante Alighieri. Target. Birth. @ OU secondary school No. 23, the city of Rybinsk, Yaroslavl region, 2007. What was the name of Alighieri's love of life? The years of Dante Alighieri's life… Creativity. Studies. In what year was Dante sentenced to exile from the country and the death penalty? Born in May or June 1265 in Florence. Harsh sentence. World fame.

"S.P. Sysoy" - I remember everything that my mother said, And I simply cannot live otherwise. S. Sysoy. "Milder than all the native land." With firm faith in the victory of their beloved country, the soldiers marched forward against the enemy. "My prayers and my love." You are a gift of fate to me, The fragrance of delicate roses. "About love, fate and eternity, "The Fatherland remembers by name." To study the principles of analysis and interpretation of a poetic text.

"Tyutchev and Fet" - What other feelings are expressed in the poem? What kind of person is each poet? "What a night!" Grade 9 What are the features of the poetic language of each poem? Consider the theme, idea, composition, movement of poetic thought in works. Before us are two landscape sketches. Note the time of writing. Reading poetry. What feelings do you get after reading the poem? Comparative analysis of the poems "Summer Evening" by F.I. Tyutchev and "What a Night" by A.A. Fet.

In this article we will talk about such a literary genre as a ballad. What is a ballad? This is a literary work written in the form of poetry or prose, which always has a pronounced plot. Most often, ballads have a historical connotation and you can learn about certain historical or mythical characters in them. Sometimes ballads are written to be sung in theatrical productions. People fell in love with this genre, first of all, because of the interesting plot, which always has a certain intrigue.

When creating a ballad, the author is guided either by the historical event that inspires him, or by folklore. In this genre, specially fictional characters are rarely present. People like to recognize the characters they liked before.

The ballad as a literary genre has the following features:

The presence of the composition: introduction, main part, climax, denouement.
Having a storyline.
The attitude of the author to the characters is conveyed.
The emotions and feelings of the characters are shown.
A harmonious combination of real and fantastic moments of the plot.
Description of landscapes.
The presence of mystery, riddles in the plot.
Character dialogues.
A harmonious combination of lyrics and epic.

Thus, we figured out the specifics of this literary genre and gave a definition of what a ballad is.

From the history of the term

For the first time, the term "ballad" was used in ancient Provençal manuscripts as early as the 13th century. In these manuscripts, the word "ballad" was used to describe dance movements. In those days, this word did not mean any genre in literature or other forms of art.

As a poetic literary form, the ballad began to be understood in medieval France only at the end of the 13th century. One of the first poets who tried to write in this genre was a Frenchman named Jeannot de Lecurel. But, for those times, the ballad genre was not purely poetic. Such poems were written for musical performances. The musicians danced to the ballad, thus amusing the audience.

In the 14th century, a poet named Guillaume fe Machaux wrote more than two hundred ballads and quickly became famous as a result. He wrote love lyrics, completely depriving the genre of "dancing". After his work, the ballad became a purely literary genre.

With the advent of the printing press, the first ballads printed in newspapers began to appear in France. People really liked them. The French loved to gather with the whole family at the end of a hard day's work in order to enjoy the interesting plot of the ballad together.

In classical ballads, from the time of Machaux, in one stanza of the text, the number of verses did not exceed ten. A century later, the trend changed and ballads began to be written in square stanzas.

One of the most famous balladists of that time was Christina Pisanskaya, who, like Masho, wrote ballads for print, and not for dances and dances. She became famous for her work The Book of a Hundred Ballads.

After some time, this genre found its place in the work of other European poets and writers. As for Russian literature, the ballad appeared in it only in the 19th century. This happened due to the fact that Russian poets were inspired by German romanticism, and since the Germans of that time described their lyrical experiences in ballads, this genre quickly spread here as well. Among the most famous Russian ballad poets are Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Belinsky and others.

Among the most famous world writers, whose ballads, no doubt, went down in history, one can name Goethe, Kamenev, Victor Hugo, Burger, Walter Scott and other outstanding writers.

In the modern world, in addition to the classical literary genre, the ballad has also acquired its primary musical roots. In the West, there is a whole musical direction in rock music, which is called "rock ballad". The songs of this genre sing mainly about love.

The word "ballad" comes from the French "ballade", and then, in turn, from the late Latin "ballo" - "I dance." The ballad genre developed in the Middle Ages. Initially, this was the name of the folk dance song; then ballads about crimes, bloody feuds, unhappy love and orphanhood became widespread. The development of ballad plots went in two main directions: plots of a heroic-historical nature turned out to be extremely productive; in parallel, they developed plots related to love themes. In fact, there was no clear line between these two groups. Heroic and love stories were often intertwined, absorbed fabulous folklore motifs, sometimes interpreted in a comic way, acquiring some specific features associated with the place of origin or existence of a particular ballad.

Heroic ballads were formed when the times of myths, legends, epic heroes receded into the distant past. Heroic ballads 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.

Ballads of love made up the largest group. Are they only about love? Rather, about love sorrows, innumerable dangers and obstacles that lay in wait for lovers at every step in those distant times.

Such was the ballad in the Middle Ages. With the development of other literary genres, the ballad faded into the background and was not widely popular.

In the 18th century there is a revival of this genre. The reason for this was the amazing lyricism and plasticity of the ballad: it combines the historical, legendary, terrible, mysterious, fantastic, funny. Perhaps that is why S. Coleridge, G. Burger, F. Schiller, I.V. Goethe, R. Burns, W. Scott, A. Mickiewicz. These writers not only revived this genre, but also found new sources for it, proposed new themes, and outlined new trends. What they were, we have to consider on the example of I.V. Goethe, F. Schiller, R. Burns and W. Scott.

The great German writer and scientist, classic of German and world literature, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) was a great master in lyrics. Here the diversity of the poet's genius was especially clearly manifested. He mastered the most diverse forms of verse and poetic style: philosophical lyrics, folk songs; he has an ancient cycle "Roman Elegies", an eastern cycle "West-Eastern Divan". Often Goethe turned to the ballad, was the initiator of its revival.

The early Goethe ballads of the era of storm and onslaught (“Rose of the Steppe”, 1771, “King of Ful”, 1774, etc.) are close in style and manner to a folk song with its predominantly emotional impact and lyrical, love themes. The ballads of the transitional period (“The Fisherman”, 1778, “The Forest King”, 1782) are already somewhat moving away from the simplicity of the composition of the folk song style, but retain a common lyrical character: their themes are drawn from folklore, but used to express a modern, romantically colored sense of nature. . Ballads of a later period (“The Corinthian Bride”, “God and Bayadere”, etc. 1797) are extensive and complex narrative compositions, small poems in which a specific narrative plot becomes a typical case, embodies a general moral and philosophical idea; such classical typification and objectivity are facilitated by a high style, devoid of subjective emotional coloring, and the use of complex strophic forms as a method of metrical stylization.

In Goethe's ballads there is certainly something mysterious, instructive, scary, less often funny. Many of them are written in the tradition of a terrible gloomy ballad (for example, “The Pied Piper”, “The Forest King”, “The Corinthian Bride” permeate the sensations of night fears). But there are also works whose motive is the affirmation of earthly joys; neither divination nor treasure hunting will bring happiness, it is in love, in friendship, in the person himself.

Goethe's ballads combine the fantastic and the improbable, the terrible and the funny, but all this is always permeated by a clear thought, everything logically follows one from the other - and suddenly an often unexpected tragic ending. The nakedness of feelings, so characteristic of folklore works, is another important feature of Goethe's ballads.

For a long time Goethe was fond of ancient art. That is why the main sources of his ballads are ancient myths, legends and traditions. But Goethe humanizes reality, he endows even nature with real properties, using the method of forcing. Thus, a complete dramatic work is obtained, in which everything is important, and even the smallest detail plays its role.

We are familiar with Goethe's ballads from V.A. Zhukovsky, F.I. Tyutcheva, B.L. Pasternak, who managed to clearly convey the emotional mood, and the unique atmosphere, and color created by the genius of Goethe. Later, his works were translated by romantics (Venevitinov), poets of "pure art", symbolist poets.

One of the leading places is occupied by the ballad genre in the work of another German writer, Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805). Schiller turned to this genre at the same time as Goethe, in a number of cases his influence is felt. The writers were friendly, together they published the Ory magazine. In the process of creating ballads, constant creative communication was maintained, and in 1797 a friendly competition was arranged in writing them.

The first cycle of Schiller's ballads - "The Cup", "The Glove", "Polycrates' Ring", "Ivikov's Cranes" - was published in 1798 in the "Almanac of the Muses", following the epigrams.

The writer's interest in this genre turned out to be very long. And subsequently, he repeatedly expressed his innermost thoughts in ballads. Until the end of the 90s, “Knight Togenburg”, “Walking for the Iron Hammer”, “Bail”, “Battle with the Dragon”, etc. were written.

Just like Goethe, Schiller was interested in ancient art, which was reflected in a number of poems (“Gods of Greece”, 1788, “Artists”, 1789) and ballads. The best of them in terms of ideological orientation and style are closely connected with his philosophical position and historical dramaturgy. They are dramatic in the development of the plot, the historical or legendary conflict reflected in them is significant. Schiller widely used in ballads such means of dramaturgy as monologue and dialogue (“The Glove”, “Polycrates' Ring”, “Cassandra”). All this gives grounds to call them “little dramas” or “dramatic episodes”.

Schiller's ballads reflected his reflections on the meaning of human existence, the power of moral duty, through which he still hoped to improve social relations.

Schiller uses ancient Greek legends and stories, ancient folk legends and myths as sources.

Thus, the ballad “The Cup” (“The Diver”) is based on a German legend of the 12th century. But it is devoid of romantic motives: the reason for the death of the swimmer was supposedly his greed. Schiller, on the other hand, has a tragic theme of the struggle of a person with unequal forces.

The ballad “The Complaint of Ceres” is an adaptation of the ancient myth about the marriage of Proserpina (Greek – Persephone), the daughter of the goddess of fertility Ceres (Demeter) with Pluto, the god of the underworld (Greek – Hades). According to the myth, Proserpina leaves Pluto's domain in the spring and visits her mother: the time of her stay on earth is marked by the awakening of nature, flowering and fertility. Schiller psychologizes the myth, endows the gods with human feelings and traits, emphasizes the humanity of the motherly feeling of the goddess.

Schiller also creates ballads on the plot of medieval feudal life (“The Glove”).

New - social - motives appear in Schiller's work, he seeks to solve global, universal problems: relations between people, the connection of man with nature, with art, with the outside world. There is nothing terrible and inexplicable in his ballads. However, some of them show romantic tendencies: the idea of a dual world (the world of dreams is better than the real world), the appearance of symbols, the dynamism of the development of events, and later - a departure from reality.

Among German writers, Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794) also turned to the ballad genre. His "Lenora", "The Wild Hunter", "The Song of an Honest Man" and other ballads brought him European fame. Burger's main source is German folklore. So in "Lenora" he skillfully uses his lyrical and fantastic motives.

The most famous are the ballads of Schiller and Burger in the translations of V.A. Zhukovsky. He managed to preserve the "stately - epic architectonics" of Schiller's ballads and the "vulgarity" of Burger's style.

The oldest Anglo-Scottish ballads have retained a genetic connection with the legends and tales of the tribal system. Their distinguishing feature is their focus on a single event, usually tragic and bloody. The reasons that led to this event, the circumstances that preceded it, are given only as a hint, giving the plot a touch of mystery. Robert Burns (1759-1796) borrowed this plot structure, as well as many other things, from English and Scottish ballads. His passion for old folklore began with a book by Robert Ferguson, who published a small volume of poetry in the Scottish dialect. Then Burns realized for the first time that his native language exists not only as the language of old half-forgotten ballads, but also as a real literary language. Subsequently, Burns devoted all his free time to collecting old songs and ballads. For years he participated in the creation of the multi-volume “Music Museum”, restoring the most undistorted texts from a variety of oral versions and composing new words to old melodies if the texts were lost or replaced by vulgar and illiterate verses.

So Burns became one of the direct participants in the revival of rich folklore, not only as the best poet of Scotland, but also as a scientist, as a great connoisseur of her life, legends. That is why most of his works are deeply original reworkings of old songs; Burns used the plot, melody, rhythm, meter of old poems. But under his pen, weak, half-forgotten ancient stanzas and plots acquired a modern edge and were filled with new content.

So, for example, the ballad “John Barleycorn” was born, in which the idea of the immortality of the people is expressed in an allegorical form.

The ballad Tam O'Shanter is based on an anecdote about farmer Douglas Graham O'Shanter, a desperate drunk who feared his grumpy wife more than anything in the world. Once, while Douglas was sitting in a tavern, the boys tore the tail off his horse. He noticed it only after returning home. To justify himself in the eyes of his wife, Douglas composed a story about devils and witches. This episode prompted Burns the plot of the ballad, which he himself was very fond of.

And here is an adaptation of the old Scottish folk ballad “Lord Gregory”, which tells a simple story about how a handsome young lord deceived a gullible peasant woman and then left her. The ancient text of this song contains only endless sad complaints and describes the bitter tears that a deceived girl sheds. There is no action, no plot. Burns altered the old text beyond recognition: he put a passionate monologue into the mouth of the heroine - now she does not cry, but accuses. As a result of this reworking, the ballad acquired a modern sound, and the stingy, passionate and exciting speech gave it a genuine artistry.

The composition and style of Burns' works is dominated by elements of folk poetry: repetitions, refrains, beginnings ("The Tree of Freedom", "Honest Poverty"). Syncretism is taken from folklore, a mixture of various genres, poetic sizes, and various metric lengths. At the same time, elements of dramatic poetry are more inherent in Burns's ballads: he uses dialogues and monologues, skillfully uses impersonal direct speech.

As his poetic skills improved, Burns, without abandoning folklore traditions, also turned to the creation of realistic pictures of morals: the detail begins to play an increasingly important role in his work, the analysis of the feelings of the characters is combined with the image and analysis of the social environment in which they live and act. The desire to show the characters in dynamics, in development, made me carefully think over the construction of the narrative: some ballads develop into a miniature story with a well-developed plot, well-aimed, vivid characteristics of the characters (“Tam O'Shanter”).

The main theme of Burns' ballads is love, friendship, human freedom, the theme of pride of the “honest commoner”. The poet most often finds true friendship, love, cordiality and sincere participation among the poor. This theme becomes a leitmotif in Burns's later ballads.

The first translations and reports about R. Burns appeared in Russian journals at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The lyrics of Burns were translated by I. Kozlov, M. Mikhailov, T. Shchepkina - Kupernik, E. Bagritsky, S. Marshak.

With the realization that the era of creating folk ballads has passed, and their existence among the people is about to stop, in England and Scotland, an intensive collection of songs and ballads began, no longer for further processing, but as independent values. However, the right to interfere in the text of a folk ballad, be it the publication of an old manuscript or a recording of an oral performance, was recognized for a long time as a principle that was quite acceptable and even desirable. Ballads were collected by scholars - literary critics, folklorists, poets and writers: Percy, Hurd, Ritson.

Walter Scott (1771–1831) also published folk ballads. More than once he was tempted to enhance their poetic sound. In any case, he repeatedly mentions the adjustment and combination of options in the explanations to his publications.

In addition to collecting ballads, V. Scott was also involved in their creation. But Scott's ballads are not a processing of old material, they are the most interesting works written in the traditions of a medieval chivalric romance. Often their plot and themes echo Scott's prose works, especially Ivanhoe. The basis of W. Scott's ballads is not only historical facts or legends, but also national Scottish folklore. Such an organic combination formed the basis of such ballads as “The Song of the Last Minstrel”, “Grey Brother” (i.e. “Gray Monk”). In many of Scott’s ballads, themes of duty, love, honor, moral and ethical themes can be traced. Thus, in "The Gray Brother" the author poses the problem of atonement for sin, earthly and heavenly.

In Scott's ballads, romanticism manifests itself quite clearly: gloomy landscapes, haunted castles appear in them, and there is romantic symbolism. According to such works, in the minds of most people, the ballad is supernatural events that pile up one on top of the other: coffins are torn off their chains, ghosts scurry through castles, forests and meadows are inhabited by goblin and fairies, the waters are teeming with mermaids. But these performances are inspired by a romantic ballad, and in the 18th century romanticism had not yet taken shape. Scott's work is at the turn of the century, and it is quite reasonable that it has absorbed "the current century and the past century."

The ballad genre is a traditional genre in English and Scottish literature. Later, S. Coleridge, R. Southey and others addressed him.

Obviously, the 18th century was the century of the revival of the old ballad genre. This was facilitated by the formation of national self-consciousness, and consequently the awakening of interest in folk art, its history. The revival of the ballad went through three stages:

recording and collecting ballads;
creation of their own poetic variants on their basis;
creation of author's ballads.

The third stage is the most interesting, since it contributed not only to the revival, but also to the development of the ballad genre. A new, broader and more relevant topic appeared, the ballad became more problematic. The ever-increasing role of the plot, the ever more complete disclosure of its potential possibilities, was precisely the path along which the development of the ballad proceeded. “Subjectivity” gradually becomes that special feature that distinguishes the ballad from other genres. It is in this sense that it is customary to speak of the ballad as a lyrical-epic form of poetry.

As the ballad genre develops, it becomes psychologized, concrete, particular, and not abstract concepts of good and evil, as among the Enlighteners, come to the fore, but the main source (antiquity) remains.

In the course of the further development of the ballad, especially as the genre of the literary ballad developed, the lyrical beginning, now reinforced by psychologism, again begins to prevail over the plot. The mixture of genres, the penetration of epic and dramatic elements into lyrical poetry unusually enriched the ballad, made it more flexible, made it possible to show the world of feelings deeper and more truthfully, which contributed to the fact that the ballad became one of the main genres of sentimentalism and romanticism.

English and German ballads become known in Russia at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. At this time, the mythological images of antiquity (which would adorn Russian poetry many years later) were subjected to a powerful onslaught of the “northern muse”. Through the efforts of Karamzin and Andrei Turgenev, who died early, and then Batyushkov about Zhukovsky, the Russian reader first became acquainted with Shakespeare, and then with the pre-romantic and romantic literature of England and Germany. The motifs of German, English, Scottish ballads and legends have flowed into Russian literature like a wide river. Thanks to the translations of Pushkin, Batyushkov, Zhukovsky, Lermontov, the ballad genre adapted and developed on Russian soil.

Literature.

Alekseev M.P. Folk ballads of England and Scotland // History of English literature. M.; L., 1943. T. 1. Issue. I.
Balashov D. M. Russian folk ballad//Folk ballads. M.; L., 1963.
Gasparov M.L. Ballad // Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary. M., 1987.
Levin Yu.D.“Poems of Ossian” by James Macpherson // Macpherson D. Poems of Ossian. L., 1983.
Literary manifestos of Western European romantics / Comp. and before. A.S. Dmitriev. M., 1980.
Smirnov Yu.I. East Slavic ballads and related forms. Experience index plots and versions. M., 1988.
Aeolian harp. Ballad Anthology: Language Student's Library. M., Higher school. 1989.