The history of the creation of poor Lisa Karamzin is brief. Poor Lisa - analysis of the work. The problem of urban orientation
The story “Poor Liza,” written by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, became one of the first works of sentimentalism in Russia. The love story of a poor girl and a young nobleman won the hearts of many of the writer’s contemporaries and was received with great delight. The work brought unprecedented popularity to the then completely unknown 25-year-old writer. However, with what descriptions does the story “Poor Liza” begin?
History of creation
N. M. Karamzin was distinguished by his love for Western culture and actively preached its principles. His role in the life of Russia was enormous and invaluable. This progressive and active man traveled extensively throughout Europe in 1789-1790, and upon his return he published the story “Poor Liza” in the Moscow Journal.
Analysis of the story indicates that the work has a sentimental aesthetic orientation, which is expressed in interest in people, regardless of their social status.
While writing the story, Karamzin lived at his friends’ dacha, not far from which he was located. It is believed that he served as the basis for the beginning of the work. Thanks to this, the love story and the characters themselves were perceived by readers as completely real. And the pond not far from the monastery began to be called “Liza’s Pond.”
“Poor Liza” by Karamzin as a sentimental story
“Poor Liza” is, in fact, a short story, a genre in which no one had written in Russia before Karamzin. But the writer’s innovation is not only in the choice of genre, but also in the direction. It was this story that secured the title of the first work of Russian sentimentalism.
Sentimentalism arose in Europe in the 17th century and focused on the sensual side human life. Issues of reason and society faded into the background for this direction, but emotions and relationships between people became a priority.
Sentimentalism has always strived to idealize what is happening, to embellish it. Answering the question about what descriptions the story “Poor Liza” begins with, we can talk about the idyllic landscape that Karamzin paints for readers.
Theme and idea
One of the main themes of the story is social, and it is connected with the problem of the attitude of the noble class towards the peasants. It is not for nothing that Karamzin chooses a peasant girl to play the role of bearer of innocence and morality.
Contrasting the images of Lisa and Erast, the writer is one of the first to raise the problem of contradictions between the city and the countryside. If we turn to the descriptions with which the story “Poor Liza” begins, we will see a quiet, cozy and natural world that exists in harmony with nature. The city is frightening, terrifying with its “huge houses” and “golden domes.” Lisa becomes a reflection of nature, she is natural and naive, there is no falsehood or pretense in her.
The author speaks in the story from the position of a humanist. Karamzin depicts all the charm of love, its beauty and strength. But reason and pragmatism can easily destroy this wonderful feeling. The story owes its success to its incredible attention to a person’s personality and his experiences. “Poor Liza” aroused sympathy among its readers thanks to Karamzin’s amazing ability to depict all the emotional subtleties, experiences, aspirations and thoughts of the heroine.
Heroes
A complete analysis of the story “Poor Liza” is impossible without a detailed examination of the images of the main characters of the work. Lisa and Erast, as noted above, embodied different ideals and principles.
Lisa is an ordinary peasant girl, whose main feature is the ability to feel. She acts according to the dictates of her heart and feelings, which ultimately led to her death, although her morality remained intact. However, there is little peasant in the image of Lisa: her speech and thoughts are closer to the book language, but the feelings of a girl who has fallen in love for the first time are conveyed with incredible truthfulness. So, despite the external idealization of the heroine, her inner experiences are conveyed very realistically. In this regard, the story “Poor Liza” does not lose its innovation.
What descriptions does the work begin with? First of all, they are in tune with the character of the heroine, helping the reader to recognize her. This is a natural, idyllic world.
Erast appears completely different to the readers. He is an officer who is only puzzled by the search for new entertainment; life in society tires him and makes him bored. He is intelligent, kind, but weak in character and changeable in his affections. Erast truly falls in love, but does not think at all about the future, because Lisa is not his circle, and he will never be able to take her as his wife.
Karamzin complicated the image of Erast. Typically, such a hero in Russian literature was simpler and endowed with certain characteristics. But the writer makes him not an insidious seducer, but a sincerely in love with a person who, due to weakness of character, could not pass the test and preserve his love. This type of hero was new to Russian literature, but it immediately caught on and later received the name “superfluous person.”
Plot and originality
The plot of the work is quite simple. This is history tragic love a peasant woman and a nobleman, which resulted in the death of Lisa.
What descriptions does the story “Poor Liza” begin with? Karamzin paints a natural panorama, the vastness of the monastery, a pond - it is here, surrounded by nature, that the main character lives. But the main thing in a story is not the plot or descriptions, the main thing is feelings. And the narrator must awaken these feelings in the audience. For the first time in Russian literature, where the image of the narrator has always remained outside the work, a hero-author appears. This sentimental narrator learns a love story from Erast and retells it to the reader with sadness and sympathy.
Thus, there are three main characters in the story: Lisa, Erast and the author-narrator. Karamzin also introduces the technique of landscape descriptions and somewhat lightens the ponderous style of the Russian literary language.
The significance of the story “Poor Lisa” for Russian literature
Analysis of the story, thus, shows Karamzin’s incredible contribution to the development of Russian literature. In addition to describing the relationship between city and village, the appearance of the “extra person,” many researchers note the emergence of the “little person” - in the image of Lisa. This work influenced the work of A. S. Pushkin, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, who developed the themes, ideas and images of Karamzin.
The incredible psychologism that brought Russian literature worldwide fame also gave rise to the story “Poor Liza.” What descriptions does this work begin with! There is so much beauty, originality and incredible stylistic lightness in them! Karamzin’s contribution to the development of Russian literature cannot be overestimated.
The story “Poor Liza,” which became an example of sentimental prose, was published by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin in 1792 in the Moscow Journal publication. It is worth noting Karamzin as an honored reformer of the Russian language and one of the most highly educated Russians of his time - this is an important aspect that allows us to further evaluate the success of the story. Firstly, the development of Russian literature had a “catch-up” character, since it lagged behind European literature by about 90-100 years. While sentimental novels were being written and read in the West, clumsy classical odes and dramas were still being composed in Russia. Karamzin’s progressiveness as a writer consisted in “bringing” sentimental genres from Europe to his homeland and developing a style and language for the further writing of such works.
Secondly, the assimilation of literature by the public at the end of the 18th century was such that at first they wrote for society how to live, and then society began to live according to what was written. That is, before the sentimental story, people read mainly hagiographic or church literature, where there were no living characters or living speech, and the heroes of the sentimental story - such as Lisa - gave secular young ladies a real life scenario, a guide to feelings.
Karamzin brought the story about poor Liza from his many trips - from 1789 to 1790 he visited Germany, England, France, Switzerland (England is considered the birthplace of sentimentalism), and upon his return he published a new revolutionary story in his own magazine.
“Poor Liza” is not an original work, since Karamzin adapted its plot for Russian soil, taking it from European literature. We are not talking about a specific work and plagiarism - there were many such European stories. In addition, the author created an atmosphere of amazing authenticity by depicting himself as one of the heroes of the story and masterfully describing the setting of events.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, soon after returning from the trip, the writer lived in a dacha near the Simonov Monastery, in a picturesque, calm place. The situation described by the author is real - readers recognized both the surroundings of the monastery and the “Lizin Pond”, and this contributed to the fact that the plot was perceived as reliable, and the characters as real people.
Analysis of the work
Plot of the story
The plot of the story is love and, as the author admits, extremely simple. The peasant girl Lisa (her father was a wealthy peasant, but after his death the farm is in decline and the girl has to earn money by selling handicrafts and flowers) lives in the lap of nature with her old mother. In a city that seems huge and alien to her, she meets a young nobleman, Erast. Young people fall in love - Erast out of boredom, inspired by pleasures and a noble lifestyle, and Liza - for the first time, with all the simple, ardor and naturalness of a “natural person”. Erast takes advantage of the girl’s gullibility and takes possession of her, after which, naturally, he begins to be burdened by the girl’s company. The nobleman leaves for war, where he loses his entire fortune at cards. The way out is to marry a rich widow. Lisa finds out about this and commits suicide by throwing herself into a pond, not far from the Simonov Monastery. The author, who was told this story, cannot remember poor Lisa without holy tears of regret.
Karamzin, for the first time among Russian writers, unleashed the conflict of a work with the death of the heroine - as, most likely, it would have happened in reality.
Of course, despite the progressiveness of Karamzin’s story, his heroes differ significantly from real people, they are idealized and embellished. This is especially true for peasants - Lisa does not look like a peasant woman. It is unlikely that hard work would have contributed to her remaining “sensitive and kind”; it is unlikely that she would conduct internal dialogues with herself in an elegant style, and she would hardly be able to carry on a conversation with a nobleman. Nevertheless, this is the first thesis of the story - “even peasant women know how to love.”
Main characters
Lisa
The central heroine of the story, Lisa, is the embodiment of sensitivity, ardor and ardor. Her intelligence, kindness and tenderness, the author emphasizes, are from nature. Having met Erast, she begins to dream not that he, like a handsome prince, will take her into his world, but that he would be a simple peasant or shepherd - this would equalize them and allow them to be together.
Erast differs from Lisa not only in social terms, but also in character. Perhaps, the author says, he was spoiled by the world - he leads a typical life for an officer and a nobleman - he seeks pleasure and, having found it, grows cold towards life. Erast is both smart and kind, but weak, incapable of action - such a hero also appears in Russian literature for the first time, a type of “aristocrat disillusioned with life.” At first, Erast is sincere in his impulse of love - he does not lie when he tells Lisa about love, and it turns out that he is also a victim of circumstances. He does not stand the test of love, does not resolve the situation “like a man,” but experiences sincere torment after what happened. After all, it was he who allegedly told the author the story about poor Lisa and led him to Lisa’s grave.
Erast predetermined the appearance in Russian literature of a number of heroes of the “superfluous people” type - weak and incapable of making key decisions.
Karamzin uses “speaking names.” In the case of Lisa, the choice of name turned out to be a “double bottom.” The fact is that classical literature provided typification techniques, and the name Lisa was supposed to mean a playful, flirtatious, frivolous character. This name could have been given to a laughing maid - a cunning comedy character, prone to love adventures, and by no means innocent. By choosing such a name for his heroine, Karamzin destroyed the classical typification and created a new one. He built a new relationship between the name, character and actions of the hero and outlined the path to psychologism in literature.
The name Erast was also not chosen by chance. It means “lovely” from Greek. His fatal charm and the need for new impressions lured and destroyed the unfortunate girl. But Erast will reproach himself for the rest of his life.
Constantly reminding the reader of his reaction to what is happening (“I remember with sadness...”, “tears are rolling down my face, reader...”), the author organizes the narrative so that it acquires lyricism and sensitivity.
Theme, conflict of the story
Karamzin's story touches on several topics:
- The theme of the idealization of the peasant environment, the ideality of life in nature. The main character is a child of nature, and therefore by default she cannot be evil, immoral, or insensitive. The girl embodies simplicity and innocence due to the fact that she is from a peasant family, where eternal moral values are kept.
- Theme of love and betrayal. The author glorifies the beauty of sincere feelings and talks with sorrow about the doom of love, not supported by reason.
- The theme is the contrast between countryside and city. The city turns out to be evil, a great evil force capable of breaking a pure being from nature (Lisa’s mother intuitively senses this evil force and prays for her daughter every time she goes into town to sell flowers or berries).
- Theme "little man". Social inequality, the author is sure (and this is an obvious glimpse of realism) does not lead to happiness for lovers from different backgrounds. This kind of love is doomed.
The main conflict of the story is social, because it is because of the gap between wealth and poverty that the love of the heroes, and then the heroine, perishes. The author extols sensitivity as the highest human value, asserts the cult of feelings as opposed to the cult of reason.
Karamzin’s story “Poor Liza” tells about the love of the young nobleman Erast and the peasant woman Liza. Lisa lives with her mother in the outskirts of Moscow. The girl sells flowers and here she meets Erast. Erast is a man “with a fair amount of intelligence and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and flighty.”
His love for Lisa turned out to be fragile. Erast plays cards.
In an effort to improve matters, he is going to marry a rich widow, so he leaves Lisa. Shocked by Erast's betrayal, Lisa throws herself into the pond in despair and drowns. This tragic end is largely predetermined by the class inequality of the heroes.
Erast is a nobleman. Lisa is a peasant woman. Their marriage is impossible. But the ability to love and be happy do not always coincide.
In the story, the author values not nobility and wealth, but spiritual qualities, the ability to deeply feel. Karamzin was a great humanist, a man with a subtle soul. He denied serfdom, not recognizing the power of people to control the lives of other people. Although the heroine of the story is not a serf girl, but a free peasant woman, nevertheless, the class wall between her and her lover is insurmountable.
Even Lisa's love could not break this barrier. Reading the story, I am completely on Lisa’s side, experiencing the delight of love and grieving over the death of the girl. Turning to the lofty theme of unrequited love, Karamzin understood and felt that the drama of human feelings cannot be explained only by social reasons. The image of Erast in this sense is very interesting, his character is contradictory; He has a gentle, poetic nature and is handsome, which is why Lisa fell in love with him.
At the same time, Erast is selfish, weak-willed, and capable of deception; with cold cruelty he takes Lisa out of his house, but upon learning of her death, he could not be consoled and considered himself a murderer. The author emphasizes that no class superiority frees a person from responsibility for his actions. The state of a young, chaste and naive girlhood with a joyful trust in life, fused with the bright colors of a sunny day and blooming nature, is psychologically authentically represented. Then there is an anxious period of bewilderment in front of a new, unfamiliar feeling after meeting Erast.
It gives way to a touching picture of pure first love, happy and spiritually inspired. But when poor Liza gives herself to Erast, the girl’s pure delights are overshadowed by the consciousness of something lawless that has interfered with her love. And nature responds to this new state of mind in its own way: “Meanwhile, lightning flashed and thunder thundered. Lisa trembled all over: “Erast, Erast!
She said. - I'm scared! I’m afraid that thunder will kill me like a criminal!” The anxiety turns out to be unfounded: the jaded young nobleman begins to cool in his feelings for Lisa.
And in her soul, the fear of losing her loved one is replaced by hope for the opportunity to return lost happiness. Here Erast leaves Lisa for a long time, going on a military campaign, where he loses all his fortune at cards, and upon his return decides to improve matters by marrying a rich widow.
Having learned about this from the lips of Erast himself, Lisa falls into despair. Deceived in her best hopes and feelings, the girl throws herself into a pond near the Simonov Monastery - the place of her happy meetings with Erast.
In the character of Erast, Karamzin anticipates the type of disappointed person common in new Russian literature. By nature, Erast is kind, but weak and flighty. He is tired of social life and social pleasures; he is bored and complains about his fate. Under the influence of sentimental novels, which Erast read a lot, he dreams of happy times when people, not burdened by the conventions and rules of civilization, lived carefree and amicably in the lap of nature. Disappointed in the world, in the people of his circle, Erast is looking for new impressions. Meeting with Lisa satisfies his dreams of a harmonious life away from society, in the natural simplicity of morals and customs. But he soon becomes tired of the shepherd's idyll.
The motives of the story associated with Erast will be heard in different variations in our literature - in Pushkin’s “Gypsies”, in L. N. Tolstoy’s late drama “The Living Corpse” and the novel “Resurrection”. And Lisa’s fate will be echoed in Pushkin’s “The Station Agent” and in Dostoevsky’s “Poor People.”
Essentially, “Poor Liza” opens the key theme of the “little man” in Russian literature. True, the social aspect in the relationship between Liza and Erast is muted: Karamzin is most concerned in the story with proving that “even peasant women know how to love.”
But that is precisely why Karamzin lacks social flavor in his depiction of Lisa’s character. This is, perhaps, the weakest point of the story, for Liza is least like a peasant woman, and more like a sweet society young lady of Karamzin’s era, brought up on sensitive sentimental novels.
Nowadays, such a writer’s approach to depicting people from the people seems naive and inartistic. But Karamzin’s contemporaries, who had not yet read Krylov, Pushkin, or Gogol, not only did not feel this falsehood, but admired the artistic truth of the story to tears. The pond at the Simonov Monastery became a place of pilgrimage for admirers of Karamzin’s talent and was named “Lizin’s Pond.” Sentimental couples came here for a date, people with sensitive and broken hearts came here to yearn and indulge in “melancholy.” So, one of the secular wits wrote the following announcement about this: Here Erast’s bride threw herself into the water, - Drown yourself, girls, there’s plenty of room in the pond! But the monks simply stopped these pilgrimages: they surrounded the pond with a fence and posted a sign that this pond was not called Lizin at all.
All this now cannot but cause a smile at the naivety and simplicity of people of a time distant from us. But upon mature reflection, one cannot but agree that the story of girlish love, “attached” to a peasant woman and expressed in a somewhat archaic, outdated literary language, from its inception to the catastrophe, was conveyed by Karamzin with psychological authenticity, the grain of which already contains the future Turgenev, the singer of “first love.” and a subtle connoisseur of a girl’s heart, and Leo Tolstoy with insight into the spiritual process with its forms and laws. The refined psychologism of Russian artistic prose, recognized throughout the world, is anticipated and arises in Karamzin’s now seemingly naive and even inept story.
One of the key literary works The 18th century is a story by N.M. Karamzin "Poor Liza". At the age of twenty-five, the writer became discussed and popular thanks to the disclosure of many problems and topics of society. He was one of the first to introduce the features of sentimentalism into the story and became an innovator. The vivid images of the heroes of the work greatly influenced the worldview of readers.
“Poor Liza” was first published and published in 1792 by the Moscow Journal. At the time of publication, the author himself was the editor of this journal. Four years later the work was published as a separate book.
Main characters
An ordinary girl of the peasant class named Lisa is the main character of Karamzin’s work. Her father died and she remained with her mother. The girl works in Moscow, selling flowers and knitted items.The main male character of the story is a young man named Erasmus, of aristocratic origin. He has a gentle character, which made both himself and Lisa, who was madly in love with him, suffer.
Another female image is Lisa's mother. This is a simple woman of peasant origin. The woman wishes her beloved daughter a calm, measured life, unclouded by problems and condemnation.
Thanks to the image of the author, readers are immersed in the action of the work and are able to observe events extremely closely.
Plot of the story
Events take place in Moscow. A young girl, Lisa, has to support herself and her sick mother after the death of her father. She knitted, weaved carpets and sold the flowers she collected. One fine day, a young man, Erasmus, approached Lisa. At first sight, the aristocrat fell in love with the girl and began constantly buying flowers from her. The young girl also falls in love with him and is completely absorbed by this feeling. Erasmus admires the girl’s purity and purity.But, unfortunately, the girl’s mother wants to marry her daughter to a rich peasant. Erasmus cannot marry Lisa due to class barriers. The girl tells him about her mother’s decision and the young man offers to take her to his house, but the young peasant woman notices that then he will no longer be able to become her husband. That very evening Lisa loses her purity.
After what happened, Erasmus began to look at Lisa completely differently. She ceased to be for him the ideal of purity and purity. A couple in love has to separate because the young man leaves for military service. The girl hopes that their relationship can survive this test, but events turned out differently. The young man began to play cards and practically lost his fortune. He was saved only by marriage to a wealthy elderly woman. After the news of their wedding, Lisa decided to commit suicide by drowning herself in the river.
The theme of peasant life
Through the image of Lisa's family, the author reveals to readers the life of the peasant people with all its features. Previously, literature showed the image of peasants without their individual characteristics. Karamzin, as an innovator, described the character of the peasants and their personal qualities. Of course, Lisa has no education, but she is able to carry on a conversation, she speaks well and expresses her thoughts.The problem of finding happiness
Any person, regardless of class, dreams of happiness, including the main characters of the story - Lisa and Erasmus. Their love gave them a feeling of happiness and made them feel terribly unhappy. The reader involuntarily thinks about what is necessary for happiness and whether it is always possible to find it.The problem of social inequality
The story “Poor Liza” clearly emphasizes the social inequality between peasants and nobles. Their union is practically impossible and would be a reason for condemnation.The problem of fidelity in relationships
After reading the work, it becomes clear that in real life such romantic relationships could not last long. They would be able to withstand public opinion and pressure from their families.Despite the fact that Erasmus made a promise to a young girl of eternal love, he himself married a rich widow in order to improve his poor financial situation. Lisa remains faithful to her lover, but the aristocrat betrayed her feelings.
The problem of town and country
One of the problems raised by N.M. Karamzin in the story is a contrast between the village and the city. For urban residents, the city is the center of everything new and progressive. In contrast to the city, the village is something backward and undeveloped; village residents have no desire for development and education. And the residents themselves see this significant difference.main idea
The author puts into the main idea the idea of how strong feelings and emotions can affect a person’s life, regardless of a person’s class and position in society. It is quite common that noble and rich people are inferior in human qualities to simple uneducated people who are much lower than them on the class ladder.Direction in literature
The story “Poor Liza” clearly expresses the features of sentimentalism. Lisa's parents embodied the features of this genre of literature.The main part of this direction was embodied in the image of the young peasant woman Lisa. She is completely absorbed in feelings and emotions and does not notice anyone or anything around her. She worries so much about her romantic relationships that she cannot assess the situation sensibly and critically.
To summarize, we can safely say that the story by N.M. Karamzin's "Poor Liza" is an innovative work of that time. It accurately describes the characters, extremely close to reality. Each hero combines both positive and negative character traits. The story reveals eternal rhetorical questions that have worried many generations for many years.
The history of the creation of Karamzin’s work “Poor Liza”
Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin is one of the most educated people of his time. He preached advanced educational views and widely promoted Western European culture in Russia. The personality of the writer, multifacetedly gifted in a variety of directions, played a significant role in the cultural life of Russia at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. Karamzin traveled a lot, translated, wrote original works of art, and was engaged in publishing. The development of professional literary activity is associated with his name.
In 1789-1790 Karamzin took a trip abroad (to Germany, Switzerland, France and England). Upon the return of N.M. Karamzin began publishing the Moscow Journal, in which he published the story “Poor Liza” (1792), “Letters of a Russian Traveler” (1791-92), which placed him among the first Russian writers. These works, as well as literary critical articles, expressed the aesthetic program of sentimentalism with its interest in a person, regardless of class, his feelings and experiences. In the 1890s. the writer's interest in the history of Russia increases; he gets acquainted with historical works, the main published sources: chronicles, notes of foreigners, etc. In 1803, Karamzin began work on the “History of the Russian State,” which became the main work of his life.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, in the 1790s. the writer lived at Beketov’s dacha near the Simonov Monastery. The surrounding environment played a decisive role in the concept of the story “Poor Liza.” The literary plot of the story was perceived by the Russian reader as a life-like and real plot, and its heroes as real people. After the publication of the story, walks in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery, where Karamzin settled his heroine, and to the pond into which she threw herself and which was called “Lizin’s Pond” became fashionable. As researcher V.N. accurately noted. Toporov, defining the place of Karamzin’s story in the evolutionary series of Russian literature, “for the first time in Russian literature, artistic prose created such an image of authentic life, which was perceived as stronger, sharper and more convincing than life itself.” “Poor Liza” - the most popular and best story - brought Karamzin, who was then 25 years old, real fame. A young and previously unknown writer suddenly became a celebrity. “Poor Liza” was the first and most talented Russian sentimental story.
Genre, genre, creative method
In Russian literature of the 18th century. Multi-volume classic novels became widespread. Karamzin was the first to introduce the genre of short novella - a “sensitive story”, which enjoyed particular success among his contemporaries. The role of the narrator in the story “Poor Lisa” belongs to the author. The small volume makes the plot of the story clearer and more dynamic. Karamzin’s name is inextricably linked with the concept of “Russian sentimentalism.”
Sentimentalism is a movement in European literature and culture of the second half of the 17th century, highlighting human feelings rather than reason. Sentimentalists focused on human relationships and the opposition between good and evil.
In Karamzin's story, the life of the heroes is depicted through the prism of sentimental idealization. The images of the story are embellished. Lisa's deceased father was an exemplary family man, because he loved work, plowed the land well and was quite prosperous, everyone loved him. Liza’s mother, “a sensitive, kind old woman,” weakens from incessant tears for her husband, for even peasant women know how to feel. She touchingly loves her daughter and admires nature with religious tenderness.
The name Lisa itself until the early 80s. XVIII century almost never found in Russian literature, and if it did, it was in its foreign language version. By choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin set out to break a fairly strict canon that had developed in literature and predetermined in advance what Liza should be like and how she should behave. This behavioral stereotype was defined in European literature in the 16th and 18th centuries. in that the image of Lisa, Lisette (OhePe), was associated primarily with comedy. The Lisa of a French comedy is usually a maid-servant (chambermaid), the confidante of her young mistress. She is young, pretty, quite frivolous and understands everything related to a love affair at a glance. Naivety, innocence, and modesty are the least characteristic of this comedic role. By breaking the reader's expectations, removing the mask from the heroine's name, Karamzin thereby destroyed the foundations of the very culture of classicism, weakened the connections between the signified and the signified, between the name and its bearer in the space of literature. Despite the conventionality of the image of Lisa, her name is associated precisely with her character, and not with the role of the heroine. The establishment of a relationship between “internal” character and “external” action became a significant achievement of Karamzin on the path to the “psychologism” of Russian prose.
Subjects
An analysis of the work shows that Karamzin’s story identifies several themes. One of them is an appeal to the peasant environment. The writer portrayed as the main character a peasant girl who retained patriarchal ideas about moral values.
Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the contrast between city and countryside into Russian literature. The image of the city is inextricably linked with the image of Erast, with the “terrible bulk of houses” and the shining “golden domes.” The image of Lisa is associated with the life of beautiful natural nature. In Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - finds himself defenseless when he finds himself in an urban space, where laws different from the laws of nature apply. It’s not for nothing that Lisa’s mother tells her (thus indirectly predicting everything that will happen later): “My heart is always in the wrong place when you go to town; I always put a candle in front of the image and pray to the Lord God that he will protect you from all troubles and misfortunes.”
The author in the story raises not only the theme of the “little man” and social inequality, but also such topics as fate and circumstances, nature and man, love-sorrow and love-happiness.
With the voice of the author, the theme enters into the private plot of the story great history fatherland. The comparison of the historical and the particular makes the story “Poor Liza” a fundamental literary fact, on the basis of which the Russian socio-psychological novel will subsequently arise.
The story attracted the attention of contemporaries with its humanistic idea: “even peasant women know how to love.” The author's position in the story is that of a humanist. Before us is Karamzin the artist and Karamzin the philosopher. He sang the beauty of love, described love as a feeling that can transform a person. The writer teaches: the moment of love is beautiful, but only reason gives long life and strength.
“Poor Liza” immediately became extremely popular in Russian society. Humane feelings, the ability to sympathize and be sensitive turned out to be very consonant with the trends of the time, when literature moved from civil themes, characteristic of the Enlightenment, to the topic of personal, private life of a person and the main object of its attention became the inner world of an individual.
Karamzin made another discovery in literature. With “Poor Lisa,” such a concept as psychologism appeared, that is, the writer’s ability to vividly and touchingly depict the inner world of a person, his experiences, desires, aspirations. In this sense, Karamzin prepared the ground for writers of the 19th century.
Nature of the conflict
The analysis showed that there is a complex conflict in Karamzin’s work. First of all, this is a social conflict: the gap between a rich nobleman and a poor village woman is very large. But, as you know, “peasant women know how to love.” Sensitivity - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness, and then leads Lisa to death (she “forgets her soul” - commits suicide). Erast is also punished for his decision to leave Lisa and marry someone else: he will forever reproach himself with her death.
The story “Poor Liza” is written on a classic plot about the love of representatives of different classes: its heroes - the nobleman Erast and the peasant woman Liza - cannot be happy not only for moral reasons, but also for social conditions life. The deep social root of the plot is embodied in Karamzin’s story at its most external level as a moral conflict between the “beautiful soul and body” of Lisa and Erast - “a rather rich nobleman with a fair mind and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and flighty.” And, of course, one of the reasons for the shock produced by Karamzin’s story in literature and the reader’s consciousness was that Karamzin was the first of the Russian writers who addressed the theme of unequal love, who decided to resolve his story in the way that such a conflict would most likely be resolved in real conditions Russian life: the death of the heroine.
The main characters of the story “Poor Lisa”
Lisa is the main character of Karamzin's story. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, the writer turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically ordinary features. His words “...even peasant women know how to love” became popular. Sensitivity is a central character trait of Lisa. She trusts the movements of her heart, lives with “tender passions.” Ultimately, it is ardor and ardor that lead to Lisa’s death, but she is morally justified.
Lisa doesn't look like a peasant woman. “A beautiful settler in body and soul,” “tender and sensitive Liza,” loving her parents dearly, cannot forget about her father, but hides her sadness and tears so as not to disturb her mother. She takes tender care of her mother, gets her medicine, works day and night (“she wove canvas, knitted stockings, picked flowers in the spring, and in the summer she took berries and sold them in Moscow”). The author is sure that such activities fully provide for the life of the old woman and her daughter. According to his plan, Lisa is completely unfamiliar with the book, but after meeting Erast, she dreams of how good it would be if her beloved “was born as a simple peasant shepherd...” - these words are completely in the spirit of Lisa.
Liza not only speaks like a book, but also thinks. Nevertheless, the psychology of Lisa, who fell in love with a girl for the first time, is revealed in detail and in a natural sequence. Before throwing herself into the pond, Lisa remembers her mother, she took care of the old woman as best she could, left her money, but this time the thought of her was no longer able to keep Lisa from taking a decisive step. As a result, the character of the heroine is idealized, but internally integral.
Erast's character is much different from Lisa's character. Erast is depicted in greater accordance with the social environment that raised him than Lisa. This is a “rather rich nobleman,” an officer who led an absent-minded life, thought only about his own pleasure, looked for it in social amusements, but often did not find it, was bored and complained about his fate. Endowed with “a fair amount of intelligence and a kind heart,” being “kind by nature, but weak and flighty,” Erast represented a new type of hero in Russian literature. For the first time, the type of disappointed Russian aristocrat was outlined in it.
Erast recklessly falls in love with Lisa, not thinking that she is a girl not in his circle. However, the hero does not stand the test of love.
Before Karamzin, the plot automatically determined the type of hero. In “Poor Liza,” the image of Erast is much more complex than the literary type to which the hero belongs.
Erast is not a “cunning seducer”; he is sincere in his oaths, sincere in his deception. Erast is as much the culprit of the tragedy as he is the victim of his “ardent imagination.” Therefore, the author does not consider himself to have the right to judge Erast. He stands on a par with his hero - because he converges with him at the “point” of sensitivity. After all, it is the author who acts in the story as a “reteller” of the story that Erast told him: “..I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Lisa’s grave...”
Erast begins a long series of heroes in Russian literature, the main feature of which is weakness and inability to adapt to life, and for whom the label of “superfluous person” has been assigned for a long time in literary criticism.
Plot, composition
As Karamzin himself puts it, the story “Poor Liza” is “a very simple fairy tale.” The plot of the story is simple. This is the love story of a poor peasant girl Lisa and a rich young nobleman Erast. He was tired of social life and social pleasures. He was constantly bored and “complained about his fate.” Erast “read idyll novels” and dreamed of that happy time when people, unencumbered by the conventions and rules of civilization, would live carefree in the lap of nature. Thinking only about his own pleasure, he “looked for it in amusements.” With the advent of love in his life, everything changes. Erast falls in love with the pure “daughter of nature” - the peasant woman Lisa. Chaste, naive, joyfully trusting of people, Lisa seems to be a wonderful shepherdess. Having read novels in which “all people carelessly walked along the rays, swam in clean springs, kissed like turtle doves, rested under roses and myrtles,” he decided that “he found in Lisa what his heart had been looking for for a long time.” Lisa, although “the daughter of a rich villager,” is just a peasant woman who is forced to earn her own living. Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, giving them a moment of happiness. The picture of pure first love is drawn in the story very touchingly. “Now I think,” says Lisa to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your eyes the bright month is dark; without your voice the nightingale singing is boring...” Erast also admires his “shepherdess.” “All the brilliant amusements of the great world seemed insignificant to him in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul nourished his heart.” But when Lisa gives herself to him, the jaded young man begins to cool in his feelings for her. In vain does Lisa hope to regain her lost happiness. Erast goes on a military campaign, loses all his fortune at cards and, in the end, marries a rich widow. And Liza, deceived in her best hopes and feelings, throws herself into the pond near the Simonov Monastery.
The artistic originality of the analyzed story
But the main thing in the story is not the plot, but the feelings that it was supposed to awaken in the reader. Therefore, the main character of the story is the narrator, who talks with sadness and sympathy about the fate of the poor girl. The image of a sentimental narrator became a discovery in Russian literature, since previously the narrator remained “behind the scenes” and was neutral in relation to the events described. The narrator learns the story of poor Liza directly from Erast and often comes to be sad at “Liza’s grave.” The narrator of “Poor Lisa” is mentally involved in the relationships of the characters. Already the title of the story is based on the connection own name a heroine with an epithet characterizing the narrator’s sympathetic attitude towards her.
The author-narrator is the only intermediary between the reader and the life of the characters, embodied in his word. The narration is told in the first person, the constant presence of the author reminds of himself with his periodic appeals to the reader: “now the reader should know...”, “the reader can easily imagine...”. These formulas of address, emphasizing the intimacy of emotional contact between the author, characters and reader, are very reminiscent of the methods of organizing narrative in the epic genres of Russian poetry. Karamzin, transferring these formulas into narrative prose, ensured that the prose acquired a soulful lyrical sound and began to be perceived as emotionally as poetry. The story “Poor Liza” is characterized by short or extended lyrical digressions; at every dramatic turn of the plot we hear the author’s voice: “my heart is bleeding...”, “a tear is rolling down my face.”
In their aesthetic unity, the three central images of the story - the author-narrator, poor Liza and Erast - with a completeness unprecedented in Russian literature, realized the sentimentalist concept of the individual, valuable for his extra-class moral virtues, sensitive and complex.
Karamzin was the first to write smoothly. In his prose, words were intertwined in such a regular, rhythmic way that the reader was left with the impression of rhythmic music. Smoothness is to prose what meter and rhyme are to poetry.
Karamzin introduces the rural literary landscape into the tradition.
Meaning of the work
Karamzin laid the foundation for a huge cycle of literature about “little people” and opened the way for the classics of Russian literature. The story “Rich Liza” essentially opens the theme of the “little man” in Russian literature, although the social aspect in relation to Liza and Erast is somewhat muted. Of course, the gap between a rich nobleman and a poor village woman is very large, but Lisa is least like a peasant woman, more like a sweet society young lady brought up on sentimental novels. The theme of “Poor Lisa” appears in many works by A.S. Pushkin. When he wrote “The Peasant Young Lady,” he was most definitely guided by “Poor Liza,” turning the “sad story” into a novel with a happy ending. In “The Station Agent,” Dunya is seduced and taken away by a hussar, and her father, unable to bear the grief, becomes an alcoholic and dies. In “The Queen of Spades,” the further life of Karamzin’s Liza is visible, the fate that would have awaited Liza if she had not committed suicide. Lisa also lives in the novel “Sunday” by L.N. Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under the train. Although she remains to live, her life is full of dirt and humiliation. The image of Karamzin’s heroine continued in the works of other writers.
It is in this story that the sophisticated psychologism of Russian artistic prose, recognized throughout the world, originates. Here Karamzin, opening the gallery of “extra people,” stands at the source of another powerful tradition - the depiction of smart slackers, for whom idleness helps maintain a distance between themselves and the state. Thanks to blessed laziness, “superfluous people” are always in opposition. If they had served their fatherland honestly, they would not have had time to seduce Liz and make witty asides. In addition, if the people are always poor, then the “extra people” always have money, even if they squandered it, as happened with Erast. He has no affairs in the story except love.
This is interesting
“Poor Lisa” is perceived as a story about true events. Lisa belongs to the characters with “registration”. “...More and more often I am attracted to the walls of the Si...nova Monastery - the memory of the deplorable fate of Lisa, poor Lisa,” - this is how the author begins his story. With a gap in the middle of a word, any Muscovite could guess the name of the Simonov Monastery, the first buildings of which date back to the 14th century. The pond, located under the walls of the monastery, was called the Fox Pond, but thanks to Karamzin’s story it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage for Muscovites. In the 20th century along Lizino Pond were named Lizino Square, Lizino Dead End and Lizino Railway Station. To date, only a few buildings of the monastery have survived, most of them were blown up in 1930. The pond was filled up gradually, and it finally disappeared after 1932.
At the place of Liza’s death, those who came to cry, first of all, were the same unhappy girls in love, like Liza herself. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees growing around the pond was mercilessly cut by the knives of the “pilgrims.” The inscriptions carved on the trees were both serious (“In these streams, poor Liza passed away her days; / If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh”), and satirical, hostile to Karamzin and his heroine (the couplet acquired particular fame among such “birch epigrams”: “Erast’s bride perished in these streams. / Drown yourself, girls, there’s plenty of room in the pond.”
Celebrations at the Simonov Monastery were so popular that descriptions of this area can be found on the pages of the works of many writers of the 19th century: M.N. Zagoskina, I.I. Lazhechnikova, M.Yu. Lermontov, A.I. Herzen.
Karamzin and his story were certainly mentioned when describing the Simonov Monastery in guidebooks to Moscow and special books and articles. But gradually these references began to be more and more ironic, and already in 1848 in the famous work of M.N. Zagoskin “Moscow and Muscovites” in the chapter “Walk to the Simonov Monastery” did not say a word about Karamzin or his heroine. As sentimental prose lost the charm of novelty, “Poor Liza” ceased to be perceived as a story about true events, much less as an object of worship, but became in the minds of most readers a primitive fiction, a curiosity reflecting the tastes and concepts of a bygone era.
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