Vasily Zhukovsky - the king of the forest. Major tropes and stylistic figures

Preparation for the exam. Task B 2. Reference materials.

Fine- means of expression.

Test tasks require to determine what means of artistic expression are used in the analyzed text. We list the most common means language expressiveness, which are called paths and figures.

Trope - the use of words and expressions in figurative meaning in order to create an artistic image.

Trails include:

Epithet- figurative definition object, phenomenon. The epithet is different from simple definition artistic expressiveness, it conveys the author's feeling for the depicted object, creates a lively, vivid idea of ​​​​it: On a blue evening, on a moonlit evening I was once beautiful and young. Irresistibly, uniquely Everything flew ... far ... past(S. Yesenin); Accidentally on a pocket knife Find a speck of dust from distant lands- And the world will again appear strange, Wrapped in a colored fog(A. Blok). Epithets, usually expressed by adjectives in a figurative sense, may be of a general language character, included, for example, in a dictionary of epithets (iron will, golden character, hot blood). The general language ones are opposed by individual author's epithets found in literary texts. The appearance of such epithets is based on unexpected associations: moth beauty(A. Chekhov), hindwing acquaintance(M. Saltykov-Shchedrin), colorful joy(V. Shukshin).

Some of the most expressive epithets are oxymorons: "Hot Snow"(Yu. Bondarev), "Living Dead"(L. Tolstoy), sad joy(S. Yesenin). oxymoron- artistic technique compounds of words denoting usually incompatible concepts: But beauty their ugly I soon comprehended the mystery(M. Lermontov); Eat melancholy cheerful in the scares of dawn(S. Yesenin); You who loved me false truth And the truth of a lie (M. Tsvetaeva).

Comparison- assimilation of the depicted phenomenon to another according to some common feature for them in order to identify new ones in the object of comparison important properties: The sky is like a bell, a month- language...(S. Yesenin); Your eyes look like the eyes of a cautious cat(A. Akhmatova). Comparisons are made in the form of syntactic constructions of various types. The most common of these is comparative turnover from a word or phrase, attached with the help of unions as, as if, as if, exactly, as if, that: I sent you a black rose in a glass as golden as the sky, ai(A. Blok). The same unions can attach a comparison, drawn up in the form of a subordinate clause: Golden foliage swirled In the pinkish water on the pond, Like butterflies, a light flock With fading flies to the star(S. Yesenin). Comparison can also be transmitted using a noun in instrumental case, such a construction is called "creative comparison": Curly-moon lamb walks in the blue grass(S. Yesenin) (a month in the sky, like a lamb in the grass). Comparison can also be conveyed by an adjective in comparative degree with dependent noun: Under it, a stream of lighter azure(M. Lermontov).

Metaphor- a word or expression used in a figurative sense. The transfer of the name is based on the similarity of objects or phenomena on any basis: The warm velvet of the night is richly embroidered, decorated with blue silver lights...(M. Gorky); The barge of life got aground(A. Blok); the fire of the dawn Burned and parted the pale sky(A. Blok). The metaphor is based on a comparison, but it is not formalized with the help of comparative conjunctions, so the metaphor is sometimes called hidden comparison. Sometimes the entire text or a significant text fragment is an extended metaphor. So, in the poem "The Cart of Life" a metaphor is developed "the path of a person from birth to death is a trip in a cart through the potholes and potholes of life's troubles."

personification- a kind of metaphor, the assignment to objects of inanimate nature or abstract concepts of the properties of living beings: To her lay down in the bedchamber her nurse- silence (A. Blok); And blooming bird cherry brushes Soaps leaf frame transoms(B. Pasternak); Over the meager clay of the yellow cliff In the steppe haystacks are sad (A. Block).

Metonymy- the transfer of the name, which is based on the adjacency of objects, concepts, various relationships between them. Such a relationship can occur 1) between content and containing: I ate three bowls(I. Krylov); 2) between the author and his work: I read Apuleius willingly, but I did not read Cicero(A. Pushkin); Funeral Chopin rumbled at sunset(M. Svetlov); 3) between an action or its result and the instrument of this action: Their villages and fields for a violent raid he doomed to swords and fires(A. Pushkin); 4) between the object and the material from which the object is made: Amber in his mouth smoked(A. Pushkin); Porcelain and bronze on the table(A. Pushkin); 5) between the place of action and the people who are in this place: The theater is full. Lodges shine; stalls and armchairs- everything is boiling(A. Pushkin); Violent Rome rejoices(M. Lermontov); 6) a part instead of a whole, for example, a detail of appearance or clothing instead of the name of a person: Gray helmets with a red star in a white horn shouted: Halt!(V. Mayakovsky); All flags will visit us(A. Pushkin).

Synecdoche- a kind of metonymy, tropes, consisting in the use of a part instead of a whole or a whole instead of a part. Usually synecdoche uses 1) singular instead of plural: And it was heard before dawn how the Frenchman rejoiced(M. Lermontov); 2) plural instead of singular: We all look at Napoleons(A. Pushkin); 3) a generic name instead of a specific one: Well, sit down, luminary(i.e. the sun) (V. Mayakovsky); 4) specific name instead of generic: Best of all, save a penny(i.e. money) (N. Gogol).

Hyperbola- an artistic technique based on the exaggeration of certain properties of the depicted object or phenomenon: In a hundred and forty suns the sunset burned(V. Mayakovsky); Tears the mouth of a yawn wider than the Gulf of Mexico(V. Mayakovsky). In Russian, not only individual author's, but also general language hyperbolas are presented: wait for an eternity, love to the point of madness, be scared to death, dream all your life, strangle in your arms.

Litotes- an artistic technique based on the excessive underestimation of the properties of the depicted object or phenomenon: Your spitz, lovely spitz, no more than a thimble(A. Griboyedov). There are also common language litotes in the language: a drop in the sea, a cat cried, a sip of water, at hand, not a penny, not a drop.

Pun- play on words, use of ambiguity, homonymy or sound similarity of words in order to achieve a comic effect: The people are just awakening, Now they are giving them charters, They are shouting: “Shut your mouth!” And instantly put a seal on the mouth(K. Fofanov).

Irony- an artistic technique when a word or statement acquires a meaning in the text that is opposite to the literal or questioning it: Otkle, smart, you wander, head(when referring to a donkey) (I. Krylov).

Sarcasm- a judgment containing a caustic, caustic mockery of the depicted, highest degree irony: You will fall asleep, surrounded by the care of a dear and beloved family (Looking forward to your death)(N. Nekrasov).

Paraphrase (paraphrase)- a descriptive turn of speech used to replace a word or group of words in order to avoid repetition, to give the story more expressiveness. Usually such a turnover contains a description of the essential features of a person, object or phenomenon: king of beasts("instead of lion), Country rising sun(instead of Japan), singer of Giaur and Juan(instead of Byron), our smaller brothers (animals).

To create a certain artistic effect are widely used figures- special style syntactic constructions giving expressiveness of speech.

The figures include:

Inversion- the arrangement of the members of the sentence in a special order that violates the usual, direct order, in order to enhance the expressiveness of speech: A gift in vain, a random gift, Life, why are you given to me?(A. Pushkin.)

Anaphora- repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of adjacent statements: Wait me and I'll be back. Just keep waiting... Wait when yellow rains bring sadness, Wait when it snows, Wait when the heat Wait when others are not expected, Forgetting yesterday(K. Simonov).

Epiphora- repetition of words or phrases at the end of adjacent statements: I don't know where the border is Between North and South, I don't know where the border is Between comrade and friend(M. Svetlov).

Composite joint- repetition, when a new statement begins with the same as the previous one ends: Children are never to blame- Adults are always to blame.

Parallelism- parallel arrangement structural elements in two or three related sentences. A figure based on the same syntactic construction of sentences: Ah, if only the flowers were not frosty, And in winter the flowers would bloom; Oh, if it wasn’t for me, I wouldn’t grieve about something(folk song). The artistic effect of parallelism is often enhanced lexical repetition:I look at the future with fear, I look at the past with longing(M. Lermontov).

Antithesis- sharp opposition of concepts, thoughts, images: White eats ripe pineapple, black- soaked with rot. White does the white work, does the dirty work- black(V. Mayakovsky). Usually the antithesis is based on the use of antonyms: You are wretched, You are plentiful, You are powerful, You are powerless, Mother Rus'!(N. Nekrasov.)

gradation- sequential arrangement of words or parts of phrases in the order of their increasing (less often decreasing) meaning: All diversity, all charm, all beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.(); I swear to the wounds of Leningrad, The first devastated hearths: I will not break, I will not falter, I will not get tired, I will not forgive a grain of enemies(O. Bergholz).

A rhetorical question- a question that does not require an answer, an affirmation or denial, expressed in the form of an interrogative sentence: How long, happiness, will you decorate the Villains with crowns?(M. Lomonosov); Wealth is good to have; But should anyone dare to be proud of him?(A. Sumarokov.)

Rhetorical exclamation- an exclamatory sentence that plays the role of emotional reinforcement in the text: That was in the morning of our years- Oh happiness! O tears! O forest! O life! O light of the sun! O fresh spirit of the birch!(A. Tolstoy.) Most often, rhetorical exclamations are designed in the form rhetorical appeals, which are directed not to the real interlocutor, but to the subject artistic image: Black, then reeking howl! How can I not caress you, not love you?(S. Yesenin.)

Asyndeton- construction of a sentence in which homogeneous members or parts complex sentence communicate without the help of unions, a figure that gives speech dynamism, richness. Swede, Russian stabs, cuts, cuts. Drum beat, clicks, rattle(A. Pushkin). The opposite of a multi-alliance.

polyunion- repetition of the union, felt as redundant and used as an expressive means, usually in the position of anaphora. And shine, and shadow, and the sound of waves(A. Pushkin).

Period- a long, polynomial complex sentence or a very common simple sentence, which is distinguished by completeness, unity of the theme and intonation splitting into two parts. In the first part, the syntactic repetition of the same type of subordinate clauses (or members of the sentence) goes with an increasing increase in intonation, then there is a separating significant pause, and in the second part, where the conclusion is given, the tone of the voice drops noticeably. This intonation design forms a kind of circle: Whenever I want to limit my life to the circle of my home, Whenever I would be a father, a pleasant lot ordered my husband, Whenever I was captivated by the family picture even for a single moment,- then, it’s true, besides you, one bride was not looking for another(A. Pushkin).

Parceling- an artistic technique consisting in dividing a sentence into separate fragments, which represent incomplete sentences. This dismemberment is graphically displayed using dots. Parceling imitates colloquial speech. For example: Last time on the way from Luga at some station, despite the uniform overflow, some other type gets into the car. Not old yet. With mustaches. Pretty smartly dressed. In Russian boots(M. Zoshchenko).

In addition, the authors of the tests consider as expressive means such syntactic constructions as series homogeneous members, separate members sentences (separate definitions, circumstances, applications), introductory constructions.

The expressive means of phonetics include:

Assonance- repetition in a literary text of the same or similar vowels, which serves to create a sound image: I quickly fly along cast-iron rails. I think my mind(N. Nekrasov).

Alliteration- repetition in a literary text of consonants that create a sound image: Satisfied with the holiday dinner, the neighbor sniffs in front of the neighbor(A. Pushkin); Frost drunk puddles are crunchy and fragile, like crystal(I. Severyanin).

Onomatopoeia- the transmission of auditory impressions in words resembling sound natural phenomena or sounds made by animals: Midnight sometimes in the swampy wilderness(K. Balmont).

When analyzing artistic text knowledge of these terms will be useful:

Aphorism- a short, well-aimed and usually figurative saying, close to a proverb. Thought spoken is a lie(F. Tyutchev).

Allegory- allegorical representation of abstract concepts with the help of artistic images. (When one is said and another is meant.) All ridicule is over lions, over eagles. Whoever say anything, even though animals- but still the kings(A. Griboyedov).

Parable- household history, a story about ordinary events in people's lives, which has an allegorical moralizing character (gospel parable).

Epigraph- a quote, a proverb placed by the author after the title of the work before the text, which helps to correctly understand the main idea of ​​the text.

Exercise 1. Determine which paths are used as a means artistic expressiveness in the following sentences.

Exercise 2. Determine which figures are used as means of artistic expression in the following sentences.

1. Dear friend, and in this quiet house Fever beats me. Do not find me a place in a quiet house Near a peaceful fire! (A. Blok). 2. I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry, Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees (S. Yesenin). 3. The rich feast on weekdays, but the poor mourn on holidays. 4. Young people are dear to us everywhere, old people are honored everywhere (V. Lebedev-Kumach). 5. O powerful lord of fate! Are you not so above the abyss, At the height of the bridle iron Russia reared up? (A. Pushkin). 6. In my simple corner, in the midst of slow labors, I wanted to be forever a spectator of one picture (A. Pushkin). 7. You are poor, You are plentiful, You are powerful, You are powerless, Mother Rus'! (N. Nekrasov). 8. Oh! How easy! How the chest breathes freely! A wide horizon expanded my soul (A. Maikov). 9. What is not a horse top, not a human rumor, Not a trumpeter's trumpet is heard from the field, But the weather is whistling, buzzing, Whistle, buzz, flood (A. Pushkin). 10. A scientist fell in love with a stupid one, A ruddy one fell in love with a pale one (M. Tsvetaeva). 11. Rus'! Rus! I see you from my wonderful, beautiful far away, I see you: poor, scattered and uncomfortable in you ... (N. Gogol). 12. Sasha cried as the forest was cut down, and now she feels sorry for him to tears. How many curly birches there were! (N. Nekrasov). 13. Dear, kind, old, tender, Do not make friends with sad thoughts (S. Yesenin).

Exercise 3 Determine which expressive means of phonetics are used as means of artistic expression in the following sentences.

1. Let us remember those who retreated with us, Who fought for a year or an hour, Fallen, missing, Whom we saw at least once, Seeing us off, meeting again, Who gave us a drink of water, Prayed for us (A. Tvardovsky). 2. Cold gold of the moon, The smell of oleander and levkoy, It is good to wander among the peace of the Blue and gentle country (S. Yesenin). 3. The hiss of frothy glasses and blue flame punch (A. Pushkin). 4. Golden stars dozed off, The mirror of the backwater trembled (S. Yesenin). 5. Evening. Seaside. Sighs of the wind. The majestic cry of the waves. Storm is near. A black boat, alien to charms, is beating against the shore (K. Balmont). 6. Here the rain insinuatingly crept (A. Tvardovsky). 7. There is impatient splashing in the paradise, And, having risen, the curtain rustles; And restless Petersburg Already awakened by a drum (A. Pushkin). 8. I shuddered for a reason. Not an afterthought. Comrade "Theodor Nette" (V. Mayakovsky) turned around and entered the port, burning like molten summer. 9. Will the eagle's eye grow dim? Will we stare at the old? Put your fingers on the throat of the proletariat! (V. Mayakovsky).

Keys to exercise.

Exercise 1.

Exercise 2.

1. Dear friend, and in this quiet home The fever is hitting me. Do not find me a place in a quiet house Near a peaceful fire! (Epiphora.) 2. I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry, Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees (gradation). 3. The rich feast on weekdays, and the poor mourn on holidays (antithesis). 4. Young everywhere we have a road, old people everywhere we honor (antithesis). 5. O mighty lord fate (rhetorical appeal)! Are you not so above the abyss itself, At the height of the iron bridle, Russia raised on its hind legs (rhetorical question)? 6. In my simple corner (inversion), in the midst of slow labors, One picture I wanted to be forever a spectator (inversion). 7. You and miserable, You and plentiful, You and mighty, You and powerless, Mother Rus' (anaphora, antithesis). 8. Oh! How easy! How the chest breathes freely! A wide horizon expanded my soul (rhetorical exclamation). 9. What Not horse top, not human talk, Not the trumpeter's trumpet is heard from the field, And the weather whistling, buzzing, whistling, buzzing, poured (anaphora, pickup, parallelism). 10. fell in love scientist - stupid, fell in love ruddy - pale (anaphora, antithesis). 11. Rus! Rus! I see you from my wonderful, beautiful far away, I see you: poor, scattered and uncomfortable in you (rhetorical exclamation, gradation)... 12. Sasha cried (inversion), how the forest was cut down, and now she feels sorry for him to tears. How many curly birches were there (rhetorical exclamation). 13. Sweet, kind, old, tender (gradation), With sad thoughts (inversion) you don't make friends.

Exercise 3

1. Let us remember those who retreated with us, Who fought for a year or an hour, Fallen, missing, Whom we saw at least once, Seeing us off, meeting again, Who gave us a drink of water, Prayed for us (alliteration). 2. Cold gold of the moon, The smell of oleander and levkoy, It is good to wander among the peace of the Blue and gentle country (assonance). 3. Hiss of foamy glasses and punch flame blue (onomatopoeia). 4. Golden stars dozed off, The mirror of the backwater trembled (alliteration). 5. Evening. Seaside. Sighs of the wind. The majestic cry of the waves. Storm is near. Beats on the shore Uncharmed black boat (alliteration). 6. Here the rain insinuatingly crept (onomatopoeia). 7. In paradise they are impatiently splashing, And, flying up, the curtain rustles (onomatopoeia); And restless Petersburg Already awakened by the drum (onomatopoeia). 8. I shuddered for a reason. Not an afterthought. Comrade "Theodor Nette" was turning around and entering the port, burning like molten summer. (alliteration).

Used Books:

1. , . Russian language. Preparation for the exam. Didactic and reference materials. Tests. Moscow. " Russian word". 2008.

2. . Methods of preparation for the exam in the Russian language. Reasoning algorithms for choosing the correct answer. Moscow. "Education". 2009.

3. . . Preparing for the exam in Russian. Tutorial for university applicants. Dubna. 2008.

In Russian, additional expressive means are widely used, for example, tropes and figures of speech.

Tropes are such speech turns that are based on the use of words in a figurative sense. They are used to enhance the expressiveness of the writer or speaker.

Tropes include: metaphors, epithets, metonymy, synecdoche, comparisons, hyperbole, litotes, paraphrase, personification.

Metaphor is a technique in which words and expressions are used in a figurative sense based on analogy, similarity or comparison.

And my tired soul is embraced by darkness and cold. (M. Yu. Lermontov)

An epithet is a word that defines an object or phenomenon and emphasizes any of its properties, qualities, signs. Usually an epithet is called a colorful definition.

Your thoughtful nights transparent dusk. (A S. Pushkin)

Metonymy is a means of replacing one word with another on the basis of adjacency.

The hiss of frothy goblets and punch blue flames. (A.S. Pushkin)

Synecdoche - one of the types of metonymy - the transfer of the meaning of one object to another on the basis of the quantitative relationship between them.

And it was heard until dawn how the Frenchman rejoiced. (M.Yu. Lermontov)

Comparison is a technique in which one phenomenon or concept is explained by comparing it with another. Comparative conjunctions are usually used in this case.

Anchar, like a formidable sentry, stands alone in the whole universe. (A.S. Pushkin).

Hyperbole is a trope based on the excessive exaggeration of certain properties of the depicted object or phenomenon.

For a week I won’t say a word to anyone, I’m all sitting on a stone by the sea ... (A. A. Akhmatova).

Litota is the opposite of hyperbole, an artistic understatement.

Your spitz, lovely spitz, is no more than a thimble ... (A.S. Griboyedov)

Impersonation is a tool based on the transfer of properties animate objects to the inanimate.

Silent sadness will be consoled, and joy will reflect friskyly. (A.S. Pushkin).

Paraphrase - a trope in which the direct name of an object, person, phenomenon is replaced by a descriptive turn, which indicates the signs of an object, person, phenomenon that is not directly named.

"King of beasts" instead of a lion.

Irony is a technique of ridicule, containing an assessment of what is ridiculed. There is always irony double meaning, where the true is not directly stated, but implied.

So, in the example, Count Khvostov is mentioned, who was not recognized by his contemporaries as a poet because of the mediocrity of his poems.

Count Khvostov, a poet beloved by heaven, was already singing with immortal verses of the misfortune of the Neva banks. (A.S. Pushkin)

Stylistic figures are special turns that go beyond the necessary norms for creating artistic expressiveness.

It must be emphasized again that stylistic figures make our speech informationally redundant, but this redundancy is needed for the expressiveness of speech, and therefore for more strong impact to the addressee

These figures include:

And you, arrogant descendants…. (M.Yu. Lermontov)

A rhetorical question is such a structure of speech in which the statement is expressed in the form of a question. A rhetorical question does not require an answer, but only enhances the emotionality of the statement.

And over the fatherland of enlightened freedom will the longed-for dawn finally rise? (A. S. Pushkin)

Anaphora is the repetition of parts of relatively independent segments.

As if you curse the days without a light,

As if gloomy nights scare you ...

(A. Apukhtin)

Epiphora - repetition at the end of a phrase, sentence, line, stanza.

Dear friend, and in this quiet house

The fever hits me

Can't find me a place in a quiet house

Near peaceful fire. (A.A. Blok)

Antithesis is an artistic opposition.

And the day, and the hour, both in writing and orally, for the truth yes and no ... (M. Tsvetaeva)

An oxymoron is a combination of logically incompatible concepts.

You are the one who loved me with the falseness of truth and the truth of lies ... (M. Tsvetaeva)

Gradation is a grouping of homogeneous members of a sentence in a certain order: according to the principle of increasing or weakening emotional and semantic significance

I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry ... (With A. Yesenin)

Silence is a deliberate interruption of speech, based on the guess of the reader, who must mentally finish the phrase.

But listen: if I owe you ... I own a dagger, I was born near the Caucasus ... (A.S. Pushkin)

Polyunion - the repetition of the union, perceived as redundant, creates the emotionality of speech.

And for him resurrected again: and the deity, and inspiration, and life, and tears, and love. (A. S. Pushkin)

Non-union is a construction in which unions are omitted to enhance expression.

Swede, Russian, cuts, stabs, cuts, drumming, clicks, rattle ... (A.S. Pushkin)

Parallelism is the identical arrangement of speech elements in adjacent parts of the text.

Some houses are as long as the stars, others as long as the moon .. (V. V. Mayakovsky).

Chiasmus is a cross arrangement of parallel parts in two adjacent sentences.

Automedons (coachman, charioteer - O.M.) are our strikers, our troikas are indomitable ... (A.S. Pushkin). The two parts of the complex sentence in the example, in order of the members of the sentence, are, as it were, in mirror reflection: Subject - definition - predicate, predicate - definition - subject.

Inversion - reverse order words, for example, the location of the definition after the word being defined, etc.

At the frosty dawn under the sixth birch, around the corner, by the church, wait, Don Juan... (M. Tsvetaeva).

In the above example, the adjective frosty is in the position after the word being defined, which is the inversion.

To check or self-control on the topic, you can try to guess our crossword

Materials are published with the personal permission of the author - Ph.D. O.A. Maznevoy

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Romanticism of Zhukovsky (ballad "Forest King")
read by S. Yursky

Sergei Yurievich Yursky (March 16, 1935, Leningrad) - Soviet and Russian theater and film actor, theater director, screenwriter. People's Artist of the RSFSR.

I will be comforted by silent sorrow,
And frisky joy will think.
A. Pushkin

Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky - an outstanding Russian poet and public figure, who gave a lot of strength and talent to the development of national literature and Russian literature. He is the founder of the ballad genre in Russia. He wrote not only original “Russian” ballads, but also talented translations from foreign classics, for example, "Forest King". This is a translation of Goethe's ballad "Erlkonig", the plot of which the German poet-philosopher borrowed from a Danish folk epic.
Zhukovsky departed from the original, but his translation was immediately recognized as exemplary due to the perfection of the form.

Who is jumping, who is rushing under the cold haze?
The rider is belated, his young son is with him.
To the father, all trembling, the little one clung;
Having embraced, the old man holds and warms him.

Many translations and arrangements by Zhukovsky have become classics. In them, the poet first of all captured the tone and spirit of the model, experiencing dramatic situations. So in the ballad “Forest King” we hear the soulful voice of the narrator, who feels sorry for the sick child who takes delirium for reality. The poet not only conveys the conversation between father and son, he himself feels the fear of the child and the powerlessness of the father to help him:

“Child, why are you so timidly clinging to me?”
“Darling, the forest king flashed into my eyes:
He wears a yellow crown and has a thick beard.”
“Oh no, then the fog is whitening over the water.”

And the forest king, the king of spirits, is perceived as a romantic villain, a spirit that tempts an innocent soul:

“Child, look around; baby, to me;
There is a lot of fun in my side:
Turquoise flowers, pearly jets;
My palaces are made of gold...”

With each quatrain, the drama of the ballad grows. The poet keeps his readers in relentless tension, involuntarily asking themselves the question: who will win in this martial art - spirit or man?

“Child, I was captivated by your beauty:
Willy-nilly, willy-nilly, but you will be mine.”

The emotional and artistic impact of the work is so great that it seems to us that we physically feel the suffering of the child, his pain, horror and fear of the forest elf:

“Darling, the forest king wants to catch up with us;
Here it is: I’m stuffy, it’s hard for me to breathe.”
The timid rider does not jump, he flies;
The baby is yearning, the baby is crying...

And the unexpected original ending is completely discouraging: where are the goodness and justice that are destined to triumph? They are not in our world.

The rider drives, the rider rode ...
In his arms was a dead baby.

Evil always overtakes the weak and defenseless.
In translations, Zhukovsky acts as a true creator, allowing himself to deviate from the literal accuracy of the original. He seemed to be composing ballads on a given topic, “embroidering new patterns on the old canvas”. He said that the poet-translator is the rival of the author, and practically proved this with his excellent translations.

Characters: 6 presenters, 6 readers, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.S. Pushkin, Masha Protasova, guide Heroes of the fairy tale “The Sleeping Princess”: Tsar Matvey, the Queen, 12 sorceresses (sketch)

Equipment: a reproduction of the portrait of V.A. Zhukovsky by O.A. Kiprensky, a candle, paintings with landscapes (seasons), a set of postcards “V.A. Zhukovsky”, diary, letters, pen, gifts from sorceresses, a cradle with a baby doll, hoops, books with works by V.A. Zhukovsky (exhibition of books)

Introductory speech of the teacher:

His poetry captivating sweetness
Centuries will pass the envious distance,
And, listening to them, youth will sigh about glory,
Silent sorrow will be comforted
And frisky joy will think.

In these lines of a short poem by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin “To the Portrait of Zhukovsky” one admires both the elegance of rhyme, the depth of thought, and the accuracy of prediction, which any clairvoyant can envy. Today it can be argued that Pushkin's prophecy has come true!

We are happy to greet you, Dear friends, in our living room dedicated to the 225th anniversary of the birth of Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. We will consider the life and work of the great romantic through the prism of his relationship with Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.

Feel the atmosphere of the first half of the nineteenth century will help us:

V.A. Zhukovsky

A.S. Pushkin

Masha Protasova

Guide

Readers leading

(The heroes bow and take their seats.)

Zhukovsky (sitting at the table, looking at the landscapes on the wall, then begins to write):

What is our earthly language before wondrous nature?
With what careless and easy freedom
She scattered beauty everywhere
And diversity agreed with unity!
But where, what brush depicted it?
Barely one of her traits
With effort, inspiration can be caught ...
But is it possible to transfer it to the dead living?
Who could recreate creation in words?
Is the inexpressible subject to expression?

Guide:

Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky could express the “inexpressible”. His portrait, painted in 1816 by Orest Adamovich Kiprensky, hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery. Everything in this portrait is subject to disclosure. internal appearance romantic poet: his pensive gaze directed into the distance, his hair swayed by the wind, the towers of a medieval castle against a rainy cloudy sky, the general gloomy coloring of painting. This is Zhukovsky of the time of his greatest popularity, Zhukovsky - the author of elegies and ballads, Zhukovsky, about whom Pushkin said the most accurate words ...

Pushkin (referring to the portrait):

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! (Music plays.)

1st host:

This was a man who believed that the main thing in a poet was his talent, and the poet must persistently overcome life's obstacles so that they could not muddy the poetic spring of his soul. This is what attracted Pushkin, who admitted that Zhukovsky always retained human dignity. And there were many difficulties in Zhukovsky's life that would have broken and embittered any other person.

2nd presenter: (during his story, postcards with views of the Oka, Belev, Mishensky are projected on the screen)

January 29 (February 10), 1783 in the village of Mishenskoye, which is three miles from county town Belev, Tula province, a boy was born. His parents are the landowner Afanasy Ivanovich Bunin and the captive Turkish woman Salkha, who received the name Elizaveta Dementyevna at baptism. Andrey Grigoryevich Zhukovsky, a poor landowner from Ukraine, a half-friend, half-employee in the Bunin house, became the godfather; godmother - 15-year-old Varvara Bunina, the boy's sister by father.

The name of the baby was given Vasily (in Greek - the king), recorded as follows: Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky.

Marya Grigorievna, Bunin's wife, accepted the boy in her house, fell in love with him, raised him with her granddaughters. So among the girls, in the silence and expanse of lordly Russia, under the blessing of Oka, the future poet began his life.

Illicit origin left a certain imprint on the character of the boy. He was very modest, devoid of arrogance, arrogance, nobility.

The discreet beauty of nature in the vicinity of Mishenskoye, the silence and tranquility of these places forever sunk into the soul of the poet.

1st reader (poem “There the skies and waters are clear ...”):

There the skies and waters are clear!
There the songs of the birds are sweet!
O motherland, all your days are beautiful!
Wherever I am, but everything is with you
Soul
Do you remember how under the mountain,
Silvered with dew,
The ray was whitening at times in the evening
And silence flew into the forest
From heaven?
Do you remember our calm pond,
And the shadow from the willows at midday sultry,
And above the water from the herd, the rumble is discordant,
And in the bosom of the waters, as through glass,
Village?
There, at dawn, the bird sang;
The distance lit up and brightened;
There, there my soul flew;
It seemed to the heart and eyes -
It's all there!...

September-November 1816

(A fragment from “The Seasons” by P.I. Tchaikovsky sounds)

3rd presenter: In 1800, V.A. Zhukovsky brilliantly graduated from the Noble Boarding School at Moscow University, his name was written on a golden plaque.

The service in the Office of Salt Affairs was short-lived: the dreamy young man was attracted by another passion - poetry. In April 1802 he came home to Mishenskoye. Here, in the Russian fields and hills, he wandered and composed. Curly-haired, with dreamy eyes, he read to his friends the translation of the English poet T. Gray's elegy "Rural Cemetery" and caused general delight. The elegy was long, melodious, filled with pure and beautiful sadness. The poet was able to express his “in someone else's”. In the village cemetery, the “villagers” are sleeping, people unknown, but perhaps unknown geniuses, who have left without showing themselves, just as the young singer of this cemetery himself will leave, wandering languidly near the river.

The elegy was published in the sixth issue of Vestnik Evropy. This was already the Zhukovsky who entered Russian literature in order to occupy a prominent place in it.

2nd reader (excerpt from the elegy “Rural Cemetery”):

... Here the ashes of the young men untimely hid;
That glory, happiness, he did not know in this world.
But the muses did not turn away his face
And melancholy stamp was on it.
He was meek in heart, sensitive in soul -
The creator has put a reward on the sensitive.
He gave the unfortunate than he could - with a tear,
As a reward from the creator, he received a friend.
Passerby, pray over this grave;
He found shelter in her from all earthly anxieties,
Here he left everything that was sinful in him,
With the hope that his savior, God, is alive.

(music plays)

4th presenter:

Vladimir Solovyov found that the lyrical poetry of Russia of the 19th century was born near Belev - from the light stanzas of the young Zhukovsky.

Where did this new, beautiful sound come from - sighing, gentle yearning, elegy and melancholy? First of all, it was Vasily Andreevich's own life that echoed.

Listen to the diary entries of V.A. Zhukovsky in 1805.

Zhukovsky (writes in his diary)

“Not having my own family, in which I would mean anything, I saw around me people who were briefly familiar to me, because I was raised in front of them, but I did not see relatives who belong to me by right; I was accustomed to separating myself from everyone, because no one took a special part in me, and because any participation seemed to me a favor. I was not abandoned, abandoned, but was not loved by anyone ... The very company of my mother, unfortunately, cannot make me happy: I am not the same with her as a son should be with his mother; this very thing torments me, and it seems to me that I love her much more in absentia than up close ... ”

5th presenter:

Zhukovsky appeared in literature when Pushkin was two years old. By the time Pushkin entered Russian literature, Zhukovsky's poetic style had already taken shape, he was a recognized master of poetry. Critics unanimously asserted that Zhukovsky’s poems are “melodious, like the quiet murmuring of a stream, like a light breeze.”

Vasily Andreevich met the young man Pushkin in September 1815 in Tsarskoye Selo. By that time, Pushkin was already the author of twenty poems published in magazines.

Zhukovsky (writes)

“I made another pleasant acquaintance! With our young miracle worker Pushkin. I was with him for a minute in Tsarskoye Selo. Sweet living creation! He rejoiced at me and firmly pressed my hand to my heart ...

This is the hope of our literature. We all need to come together to help grow this future giant that will outgrow all of us.”

6th presenter:

Zhukovsky for Pushkin is a poet-predecessor, a poet-teacher and at the same time an older friend.

The teacher revealed to the student the poetic ambiguity of the word, the ability of the word to carry an emotional and psychological load and express soul feelings, the inner life of man.

Young Pushkin does not imitate Zhukovsky, but either composes in the spirit of Zhukovsky (the poem "The Singer"), or uses his style. In the message of 1816, Pushkin admitted that he took Zhukovsky as an example (“You are an example to me ...”)

The teacher showed his student the high purpose of the poet, the responsible attitude to the poetic, the word, the need to strive for the ideal.

3rd reader (against the background of music, he reads an excerpt from the elegy “The Sea”)

Silent sea, azure sea,
I stand enchanted over your abyss.
You are alive! ;You breathe; confused love,
You are filled with anxiety.
Silent sea, azure sea,
Reveal to me your deep secret:
What drives your immense bosom?
How does your tight chest breathe?
Or pulls you out of earthly bondage
Distant bright sky towards you?
... Deceiving your immobility look:
You hide confusion in the abyss of the dead,
You, admiring the sky, tremble for him.

1st presenter:

Zhukovsky from adolescence was perceived by Pushkin as a poet by vocation, as a model of a true poet.

Young Pushkin spoke passionately sharply about Zhukovsky, saying that as a poet Zhukovsky had exhausted himself, sometimes he was inclined to joke about the melancholy and dreamy sentimentality of Vasily Andreevich, ironically over Zhukovsky's attempts to bring the ideal world of beauty, into which he plunged, with reality. The perception of Zhukovsky's poetry was partly reflected in a comic light in a parody of "The Twelve Sleeping Virgins" in the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" and in a number of other works. Subsequently, Pushkin sincerely regretted this and gave the following characterization to his teacher: "In the struggle with difficulty, an extraordinary strongman."

There came a time when the student outgrew his teacher. On March 26, 1820, at Zhukovsky's apartment, Pushkin read his poem Ruslan and Lyudmila. At the end of the reading, Zhukovsky handed Pushkin his portrait with the inscription “To the winner-student from the defeated teacher on that highly solemn day on which he graduated from the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, 1820, March 26, Good Friday.”

Zhukovsky gave way to Pushkin. What kind of person did you have to be to do this without pain and envy!

Now Pushkin is the head of Russian literature, and Zhukovsky reveres his talent and cherishes it.

Zhukovsky (writes a letter):

“... For everything that happened to you, and that you brought on yourself, I have one answer: POETRY. You have not a talent, but a genius... You were born to be a great poet; be worthy of it. In this phrase, all your morality, all your possible happiness and all rewards. The circumstances of life, happy or unhappy, are husks. You will say that I preach from a calm shore to a drowning man. No! I am standing on an empty shore, I see a strong man in the waves and I know that he will not drown if he uses his strength, and I only show him the best coast, to which he will certainly swim if he wants to. Swim strong man. And I embrace you ... By the authority given to me, I offer you the first place in the Russian Parnassus ... ”(1824).

(music plays)

2nd leader:

In the summer of 1831, in Tsarskoe Selo, Zhukovsky and Pushkin entered into a kind of playful state: who would better write a fairy tale like a folk tale. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, who was with them, recalled: “Almost every evening we gathered - Zhukovsky, Pushkin and I ... How many delights came from the pen of these husbands! Pushkin .. Russian folk tales ... Zhukovsky also has Russian folk tales. Wonderful thing! Zhukovsky is unrecognisable. It seems that a new extensive poet has appeared, and already a purely Russian one”…

Zhukovsky then finished “The Tale of Tsar Berendey” and “The Sleeping Princess.” Pushkin wrote only one, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan ...” (But, perhaps, in the fall of 1833 in Boldino, he returned to the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcompetition and created “The Tale of the Dead Princess and about the seven heroes”, which can be compared with Zhukovsky’s fairy tale “The Sleeping Princess”).

Your attention is invited to a scene from a fairy tale by V.A. Zhukovsky "The Sleeping Princess". (Tsar Matvey had a daughter, and he invited eleven sorceresses to the feast, but he did not call “the twelfth one, lame-footed, old, evil”, because the twelfth golden dish disappeared).

Scene from the fairy tale “The Sleeping Princess”

Characters: twelve sorceresses, the king and queen at the cradle where the doll lies, the author.

Gathered to feast
Guests called by the king!
They drank, they ate, and then
hospitable king
Thank you for the welcome
They began to give his daughter:

1st sorceress:

You will walk in gold;

2nd sorceress:

You will be a miracle of beauty;

3rd sorceress:

You will be in this for joy
Blessed and quiet;

4th sorceress:

ladies handsome groom
I am for you, my child;

5th sorceress

Your life will pass jokingly
Between friends and family...

(The sorceresses approach the cradle, put their gifts. One remains standing)

In a word, ten young
Enchantress, bestowing
So child vying,
retired; in your turn
And the last one goes;
But still she say
I didn’t have time to say - look!
And the uninvited stands
Above the princess and grumbles;

Witch: (leaning over the cradle):

I was not at the feast
But she brought a gift;
In the sixteenth year
You will meet beta;
At this age
Your hand is a spindle
Scratch my light
And you will die in the bloom of years!

Grumbling like that, immediately
The witch disappeared from sight;
But staying there
The speech was said:

12th Enchantress:

"…I'm not giving it
No way to swear at her
Above my princess;
It will not be death, but sleep;
It will last three hundred years;
The deadline will pass
And the princess will come to life;
Will live long in the world;
Grandchildren will have fun
Together with her mother, father
To their earthly end.

(The guest leaves, the king and queen cry over the cradle).

3rd leader:

Although Pushkin and Zhukovsky had much in common and although they looked at many things in the same way, nevertheless, the sharp contrast of their characters did not hide from contemporaries and descendants, just as the difference in their poetic talents did not hide. Zhukovsky and Pushkin were very different in character and temperament. As a result, they reacted differently to the same events. Zhukovsky was always inclined to compromise, to a gradual and prolonged "siege". Pushkin - to the assault, to quick action.

In Pushkin's lyrics, a huge place is occupied by love poems dedicated to various women who met in his life. The heroine of the love lyrics of Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky was only one woman - Masha Protasova, Maria Andreevna Moyer.

(Her portrait is projected on the screen. Music sounds)

Masha: In 1805, when I was twelve years old and my sister Alexandra was ten, my mother, Ekaterina Afanasievna, invited her paternal brother, the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, to be our teacher. His daily arrival was a holiday for us. Whole new world, the world of beautiful poetry, appeared to us in a charming guise. With goose quills, we wrote down excerpts from poets, historians, and the names of European scientists in student notebooks. Next to him it was impossible to be inattentive, not to prepare the task. The lessons lasted three years, I grew up, and vague, vague dreams appeared, everything was so languid, tenderly I did not understand myself (sits down by the window, embroiders on the hoop).

Zhukovsky: What's happening to me? Sadness, excitement in the soul, some unknown feeling, some vague desire! Is it possible to be in love with a child? But in my soul there has been a change in her reasoning! The third day is sad, dull! From what? Because she left!

4th leader:

Love for Masha gives rise to “heavenly sounds” in Zhukovsky, he lives in the fire of love.

Later he will say about this time: "It was a poetic life, and only then I was a poet." This time was expressed in the poem “Where is the name for you?”. Masha kept it in her briefcase, which was found after her death. It was printed after Zhukovsky's death.

Where is your name?
Not much mortal art
Express your beauty!
Lyra is not for you!
What songs? Feedback is incorrect
Late rumors about you?
If the heart could be
They hear every feeling
It would be your anthem!

5th presenter:

Masha was seventeen years old, Zhukovsky was twenty-seven, when everything became clear between them - in a bright and high spirit. It was a matter of "union of lives." However, there could be no talk of marriage until the mother blesses. The first explanation of Zhukovsky with Ekaterina Afanasyevna happened in 1810. Referring to a close relationship, she declared that marriage was impossible, and refused to bless.

This love had no future. On January 14, 1817, Masha married Dr. Ivan Filippovich Moyer. On March 19, 1823, Masha - Maria Moyer - died in childbirth.

V.A. Zhukovsky was very upset by the loss. He never wrote more about love, the muse of his love lyrics fell silent.

The poem “You are in front of me ...” is a tombstone for my beloved.

You are in front of me
She was quiet.
Your eyes are sad
Was full of feeling.
He reminded me
About the sweet past...
He was the last
In this world.
You left
Like a quiet angel;
Your grave
Like heaven, calm down!
There are all earthly
memories
All the saints are there
About the sky of thought.
the stars of heaven,
Quiet night!...

(music plays)

6th presenter:

Despite all the suffering that fell to his lot, V.A. Zhukovsky was not embittered. He always came to the aid of his friends, was their kind genius.

It was Vasily Andreevich who came to Pushkin's defense in 1820, when the very life of the poet was in danger: Pushkin was threatened with exile to Siberia for freedom-loving poems. Zhukovsky used all his influence to replace the link to Siberia with a link to the south of Russia. He is busy trying to get Pushkin back in St. Petersburg. Censorship does not allow Pushkin's beloved child, the tragedy Boris Godunov, to be printed, and here again Zhukovsky comes to the rescue. Having received news of Alexander Sergeevich's chronic aneurysm, Zhukovsky persuaded the surgeon Moyer to go to Pskov and operate on the patient.

1st host:

Zhukovsky introduced Pushkin to literature, and he took his last breath brilliant poet. He told us about last minutes Pushkin's life, about his unbearable suffering. So, on January 28, Zhukovsky wrote that the poet began to stubbornly reject the doctors’ prescriptions, “being frightened by his torments and expecting (crossed out: eagerly wishing) death to stop them.” At parting, the poet silently shook hands with everyone and made a sign to leave. Danzas, Zhukovsky and Dal kissed his hand. So the teacher and student said goodbye.

Thanks to the efforts of Zhukovsky, the family of the deceased Pushkin received material support from the tsar. As during Pushkin's lifetime, Zhukovsky defended him even after his death, risking a quarrel with Nicholas I. He was faithful to the memory of his friend who had departed early. He was true to himself.

(Mozart's Requiem music sounds)

Final word of the teacher:

One can talk a lot about Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky as a poet and as a great man.

He was the tutor of the future Tsar-Liberator Alexander P.

In his declining years, the poet's dream of family happiness came true: he married the daughter of his friend, the artist Reitern, Elizabeth.

Died V.A. Zhukovsky on April 12 (24), 1852 in Baden-Baden (Germany), was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.

The teacher outlived his student by 15 years. They went in life and literature on different, but intersecting paths. V.G. Belinsky remarked very accurately: "Without Zhukovsky, we would not have had Pushkin."

Today we can say with confidence: “the captivating sweetness of poetry” by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky has passed “the envious distance of centuries”! It was a great romantic poet and a person of the highest soul, mentor, friend and guardian angel of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.

(Lights a candle and puts it to the portrait of Zhukovsky. Music sounds)

Literature.

1. A.S. Pushkin: School Encyclopedic Dictionary. (compiled by V.Ya. Korovin, V.I. Korovin; Edited by V.I. Korovin. - M .: Education, 1999-776s.: ill. - pp. 426-429.
2. Wreath to Pushkin: Collection (Compiled and commented by S.A. Nebolsin. - 2nd ed., Revised and added. - M .: Soviet Russia, 1987. - 256 p. - pp. 13-14
3. Granik G.G., Kontsevaya L.A. And ... again about Pushkin (literary and psychological work of A.S. Pushkin). - M. : Chleksa, 1999-136s. : ill. - pp. 110-111.
4. Zhukovsky V.A. Fairy tales, poems, elegies and ballads. - M .: Astrel: AST, 2007. - 189 p.: ill.
5. Zaitsev B.K. Zhukovsky. Literary biography. - M .: "Friendship of peoples", 2001 - 176s.
6. Skrynnikov R.G. Pushkin. The secret of death. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House"Neva", 2006-384s.
7. Sokolov V.D. Near Pushkin. Portraits with brush and pen. Part one. - M .: "Tverskaya, 13", 1998.- 608 pp. ill.- pp. 345-347.

Pushkin and Zhukovsky. Friendship story

Pushkin and Zhukovsky are closest friends, on "you": the truth is so familiar that we no longer notice anything unusual in these relations. Meanwhile, fate tried very hard to separate them.

The childhood and early youth of the two poets have almost nothing in common: Pushkin, born in 1799, is the offspring of a not rich, but noble Moscow family: Zhukovsky, who was born in 1783, 16 years earlier, in fact, is not even Zhukovsky : Tula landowner Afanasy Bunin asked a local soldier to bring a "pretty little fool". He fulfilled the request of the former master: he delivered a young Turkish woman, Salkha, to the Bunin harem, who on January 29, 1783 gave birth to a son, Vasily. We can say that then and after the boy will acquire several well-known relatives - the once famous poetess Anna Bunina, as well as Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (the legitimate son of another of the representatives of the same family).

However, Zhukovsky will not become Bunin. By the will of his father, under any surname, he could easily be enlisted as a peasant or philistine; then the path to high education, literature would be very difficult, practically closed, and, probably, there would be less poet in Russia ...

However, Bunin invited the poor nobleman Andrei Zhukovsky, who enjoyed the bounties of a wealthy neighbor, and he recorded the newborn as his son. "Vasily Afanasyevich Bunin" became a nobleman Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. He never refused an illiterate, unrequited mother, he loved, helped. In the year when Pushkin was born, Zhukovsky, thanks to the efforts of his father, is in one of the best noble institutions, the Noble Boarding School at Moscow University, and soon makes acquaintance with Karamzin, the Turgenev brothers, brothers Sergei Lvovich and Vasily Lvovich Pushkin.

With the small, curly-haired Alexander Sergeevich, it is still an ordinary acquaintance of a 20-year-old novice poet with a 4-year-old "unsuspecting" ...

1816

33-year-old Zhukovsky appears in Tsarskoye Selo and reacquaints himself with 17-year-old Pushkin.

Are there many common themes? Hardly. But one of them is probably bizarre “Turkish roots”: Pushkin’s great-grandfather was also delivered from Turkey, and, for the sake of paradox, we recall that another one is involved here. literary family: Hannibal was transported to Russia by the great-great-grandfather of Leo Tolstoy, the ambassador of Peter I in Istanbul, Peter Andreevich Tolstoy ...

Zhukovsky is twice as old, technically he could even be Pushkin's father; He famous poet, the author of the "Singer in the camp of Russian soldiers" that went around the whole country; then and later, Zhukovsky's poems and translations are so well known to the reading public, as if they had always existed.

Maiden Soul Ring
I dropped into the sea...

Who is jumping, who is rushing under the cold haze?
A belated rider, with him a young son ...

About dear companions who are our light
They gave life to us with their companions,
Do not speak with longing: they are not,
But with gratitude: they were.

Today, at the end of the 20th century, we are too - alas! - are accustomed to the common type of an important, venerable poet, so as not to be surprised at the friendship of the more than famous Zhukovsky with a young man whose poetic fame has not yet been established even within the walls of the Lyceum. Zhukovsky also managed to pass hard way humiliation, suffering: love for a relative, Masha Protasova, her parents' refusal because of Vasily Andreevich's "dubious origin" ... He thought to complain about the highest name, but then did not want to, he decided that happiness was not created by such means. Since then, Zhukovsky's sad oriental eyes have been even sadder: Pushkin's carefree youth has not yet been overshadowed by "terrible times and formidable fates" ...

Nevertheless, literally from the first meetings, the elder and the younger became friends: the relationship is close, cheerful, creative and, most importantly, completely equal.

Soon, with like-minded people, they are already sitting in the famous literary society"Arzamas", where there was no problem of fathers and children, where everyone was children and 17-year-old Pushkin, and twice as old as Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Denis Davydov, and even 50-year-old guest Karamzin: jokes on an equal footing, exchange of poems, no one teaches. We strongly suspect, although we do not insist, that the well-known inscription on the portrait of Zhukovsky, presented to the author of "Ruslan and Lyudmila", - "To the winner-student from the defeated teacher on that highly solemn day on which he finished his poem ..." - is not quite serious, flavored with Arzamas humor: there was no custom here to divide into teachers and students, such a “table of ranks” rather stuck to the literary opponents of “Arzamas”, a sedate, old-fashioned prim “Conversation of Russian Word Lovers”. Pushkin is in some respects a student of Zhukovsky - and all the more evidence that it is necessary to talk about it laughing ... One way or another, the living, creative relationship between the two poets is preserved forever, although they are subjected to constant, difficult trials.

Pushkin has to regularly listen to Zhukovsky's everyday moralizing and instructions (albeit in a playful, Arzamas form); Zhukovsky, on the other hand, needs to reckon with the very fact of the existence of Pushkin's poetry. The idea that since that time the elder has been more and more involved in translations, as if “not daring” to compose under Pushkin, was expressed more than once - and, of course, there is some truth in this. Pushkin often read Zhukovsky's poems by heart, and if he suddenly made a mistake in a word, then Zhukovsky immediately replaced this word ... A serious test for the master - natural for a real master! Karamzin attaches Zhukovsky to the court - first to teach the Russian language to Alexandra Fedorovna, the wife of Nicholas I. and then to raise an heir, the future Alexander II. On this occasion, many acquaintances, especially the Decembrists, expressed displeasure, hinted that the “poor singer” was cheating on himself, supreme power. However, the closest friends, Pushkin, Vyazemsky, who by no means shared the moderate political views Zhukovsky, they warmly defended him, they argued that Vasily Andreevich was “a representative of literacy near the throne of the illiterate.” In the end, even the revolutionaries agreed that court service would be death for another person, but Zhukovsky "with such eyes" - everything is possible, it will be good everywhere. During his life, Vasily Andreevich managed to help Gogol, Lermontov, Baratynsky, Shevchenko, Herzen, Kireevsky, many Decembrists ... In short, he managed - in a word, advice, recommendation, money - to help, perhaps, all literature, culture.

I heard one modern lecturer pity the poet, who was often distracted from creativity for the sake of " community service". We dare to assert that Zhukovsky would not have been able to compose at all if he had not constantly "interfered with himself."

Probably every culture, every young generation we need such kind "uncles", natural, and not tedious artificial mentors. In Russian literature, however, we constantly see such continuity: Derzhavin helped Karamzin a lot (who was twenty-three years younger), Karamzin supported the younger Zhukovsky by seventeen years.

There is a legend that one famous poet(Bryusov is called, but not him alone) lent money to a beginner: when the young one “came out to the people”, he wanted to repay the debt, but the elder bequeathed - to give it to that newcomer who really needs ...

And so, they say, the “Bryusovskaya” (or, perhaps, “Zhukovskaya”?) Thousand walks around Russia - from the oldest to the youngest...

Legends are legends, and the kind uncle, "Father Vasily Andreevich," helped and helped. Everyone. And Pushkin, probably, most of all, because he most of all needed help. The younger one repeatedly refers to the older one in verse, and one day he will write the best “portrait” of Zhukovsky.