Landscape as a means of depicting the romantic hero demon. "demon" as a bright romantic poem. The image of the Demon created by Lermontov
The image of the Demon in the poem “Demon” is a lonely hero who has transgressed the laws of good. He has contempt for the limitations of human existence. M.Yu. Lermontov worked on his creation for a long time. And this topic worried him throughout his life.
The image of the Demon in art
Images other world have long excited the hearts of artists. There are many names for Demon, Devil, Lucifer, Satan. Every person must remember that evil has many faces, so you always need to be extremely careful. After all, insidious tempters constantly provoke people to commit sinful deeds so that their souls end up in hell. But the forces of good that protect and preserve man from the evil one are God and the Angels.
The image of the Demon in the literature of the early 19th century is not only villains, but also “tyrant fighters” who oppose God. Such characters were found in the works of many writers and poets of that era.
If we talk about this image in music, then in 1871-1872. A.G. Rubinstein wrote the opera “The Demon”.
M.A. Vrubel created excellent canvases depicting the fiend of hell. These are the paintings “Demon Flying”, “Demon Seated”, “Demon Defeated”.
Lermontov's hero
The image of the Demon in the poem “Demon” is drawn from the story of an exile from paradise. Lermontov reworked the content in his own way. The main character's punishment is that he is forced to wander forever in complete solitude. The image of the Demon in the poem “Demon” is a source of evil that destroys everything in its path. However, it is in close interaction with the opposite principle. Since the Demon is a transformed angel, he remembers the old days well. It’s as if he is taking revenge on the whole world for his punishment. It is important to pay attention to the fact that the image of the Demon in Lermontov’s poem differs from Satan or Lucifer. This is the subjective vision of the Russian poet.
Demon Characteristics
The poem is based on the idea of the Demon's desire for reincarnation. He is dissatisfied with the fact that he is assigned the fate of sowing evil. Unexpectedly, he falls in love with the Georgian Tamara - an earthly woman. He strives in this way to overcome God's punishment.
The image of the Demon in Lermontov's poem is characterized by two main features. This is heavenly charm and alluring mystery. An earthly woman cannot resist them. The demon is not just a figment of the imagination. In Tamara’s perception, he materializes in visible and tangible forms. He comes to her in her dreams.
He is like the element of air and is animated through voice and breath. Demon is missing. In Tamara’s perception, he “looks like a clear evening,” “shines quietly like a star,” “glides without a sound or a trace.” The girl is excited by his enchanting voice, he beckons her. After the Demon killed Tamara's fiancé, he appears to her and brings back “golden dreams,” freeing her from earthly experiences. The image of the Demon in the poem “Demon” is embodied through a lullaby. It traces the poeticization of the night world, so characteristic of the romantic tradition.
His songs infect her soul and gradually poison Tamara’s heart with longing for a world that does not exist. Everything earthly becomes hateful to her. Believing her seducer, she dies. But this death only makes the Demon's situation worse. He realizes his inadequacy, which leads him to the highest point of despair.
The author's attitude towards the hero
Lermontov's position on the image of the Demon is ambiguous. On the one hand, the poem contains an author-narrator who expounds on the “eastern legend” of bygone times. His point of view differs from the opinions of the heroes and is characterized by objectivity. The text contains the author's commentary on the fate of the Demon.
On the other hand, the Demon is a purely personal image of the poet. Most of the meditations of the main character of the poem are closely related to the author’s lyrics and are imbued with his intonations. The image of the Demon in Lermontov’s work turned out to be consonant not only with the author himself, but also with the younger generation of the 30s. The main character reflects the feelings and aspirations inherent in people of art: philosophical doubts about the correctness of existence, a huge longing for lost ideals, eternal search absolute freedom. Lermontov subtly felt and even experienced many aspects of evil as a certain type of personality behavior and worldview. He recognized the demonic nature of the rebellious attitude towards the universe with the moral impossibility of accepting its inferiority. Lermontov was able to understand the dangers hidden in creativity, because of which a person can plunge into a fictional world, paying for it with indifference to everything earthly. Many researchers note that the Demon in Lermontov's poem will forever remain a mystery.
The image of the Caucasus in the poem “Demon”
The theme of the Caucasus occupies a special place in the works of Mikhail Lermontov. Initially, the action of the poem “The Demon” was supposed to take place in Spain. However, the poet takes him to the Caucasus after he returned from Caucasian exile. Thanks to landscape sketches, the writer managed to recreate a certain philosophical thought in a variety of poetic images.
The world over which the Demon flies is described in a very surprising way. Kazbek is compared to the facet of a diamond that shone with eternal snow. “Deep below” the blackened Daryal is characterized as the dwelling of the serpent. The green banks of the Aragva, the Kaishaur valley, and the gloomy Gud Mountain are the perfect setting for Lermontov’s poem. Carefully selected epithets emphasize the wildness and power of nature.
Then the earthly beauties of magnificent Georgia are depicted. The poet concentrates the reader’s attention on the “earthly land” seen by the Demon from the height of his flight. It is in this fragment of text that the lines are filled with life. Various sounds and voices appear here. Next, from the world of the celestial spheres, the reader is transported to the world of people. The change of perspectives occurs gradually. The general plan gives way to a close-up.
In the second part, pictures of nature are conveyed through Tamara’s eyes. The contrast of the two parts emphasizes the diversity. It can be both violent and serene and calm.
Characteristics of Tamara
It’s hard to say that the image of Tamara in the poem “The Demon” is much more realistic than the Demon himself. Her appearance is described by generalized concepts: deep gaze, divine leg and others. The poem focuses on the ethereal manifestations of her image: the smile is “elusive”, the leg “floats”. Tamara is characterized as a naive girl, which reveals the motives of childhood insecurity. Her soul is also described - pure and beautiful. All Tamara’s qualities (feminine charm, spiritual harmony, inexperience) paint an image of a romantic nature.
So, the image of the Demon occupies a special place in Lermontov’s work. This topic was of interest not only to him, but also to other artists: A.G. Rubinstein (composer), M.A. Vrubel (artist) and many others.
INconducting
We all, to a greater or lesser extent, live in a fantasy world. Each of us wants to escape from everyday prose into the world of dreams, thereby becoming a romantic. We call majestic and bright pictures of nature, beautiful and significant events of human life, pure, poetic love romantic.
Romance, according to K.G. Paustovsky, “does not allow us to calm down and always shows us new, sparkling distances, a different life, it disturbs and makes us passionately desire this life.”
Lermontov is one of the greatest masters of Russian artistic expression. Pushkin's successor and continuator of his work in poetry and prose, Lermontov used the literary experience of many other Russian and Western European writers - his contemporaries and predecessors. At the same time, he organically mastered and creatively processed everything inherited and traditional, resulting in an original, unique poetic art. He is a prominent representative of Russian romanticism in literature.
Based on his work, new works of art appeared in Russia: artistic, musical. After meeting them, my interest in Lermontov, his creative heritage, That's why object of study is romanticism in Russian art of the 19th century.
Subject of study– features of romanticism in the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov’s “Demon” and the influence of this work on the work of M.A. Vrubel and Rubinstein.
Hypothesis: we assume that
1. Poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Demon" is a romantic work;
2. She gave impetus to the emergence of new works in painting and music.
Based on the hypothesis, it follows target our research: to get acquainted with the phenomenon of romanticism in Russian art of the 19th century, to identify the features of romanticism in the work “The Demon”.
1. Explore the information space on the stated topic
2. Determine the features of romanticism in the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "Demon"
3. Analyze the poem “Demon” as a work of romanticism
4. Identify the influence of Lermontov’s creativity on the appearance of works of painting and music.
To implement the assigned tasks, we used general scientific and specific scientific theoretical methods: specification, analysis, synthesis, comparison, literature analysis, analysis of the conceptual and terminological system.
In solving the assigned problems, books by D.E. Maksimov, V.E. Vatsuro, reproductions of M. Vrubel’s paintings and Internet resources for listening to the opera “Demon” played a big role.
1. Romanticism in Russian art
1.1 general characteristics romanticism
Let's turn to " Explanatory dictionary Russian language" S.I. Ozhegov and find out the lexical meaning of the word “romanticism”.
Romanticism . 1. Art direction late XVIII- the first quarter of the 19th century, opposing the canons of classicism and characterized by a desire for national and individual originality, for the depiction of ideal heroes and feelings. 2. A movement in art imbued with optimism and the desire to show the high purpose of man in vivid images.
Romanticism arises in countries Western Europe at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries as a reaction to the consequences of the Great French Revolution (1789–1794) and existed as a literary movement until the 30s of the 19th century, when it was replaced by critical realism.
Characteristic feature Romanticism is extreme dissatisfaction with reality, contrasting it with a beautiful dream. The inner world of a person, his feelings, and the creative imagination of romance were proclaimed to be genuine values. Distinctive feature Romantic creativity is the author’s clearly expressed attitude towards everything that is depicted in the work.
Romantic heroes are always in conflict with society. They are exiles, wanderers. Lonely, disillusioned, the heroes challenge an unjust society and turn into rebels, rebels.
The first romantic works appeared in Russia in the very early XIX V. In the 1820s, romanticism became the main event of literary life, literary struggle, and the center of lively and noisy journal-critical polemics.
1.2 Features of Russian romanticism
Russian romanticism arose in conditions different from those of Western Europe. In Russia, it was formed in an era when the country had yet to enter a period of bourgeois transformations. It reflected the disappointment of advanced Russian people in the existing serfdom, the unclearness of their understanding of the paths of the historical development of the country. It is quite natural that Russian romanticism differed from Western European.
The names of its greatest representatives in Russian literature are associated with romanticism - A.S. Pushkina, M.Yu. Lermontov and N.V. Gogol, outstanding lyricists E.A. Baratynsky, V.A. Zhukovsky, F.I. Tyutcheva. Italy became the romantic dream of Russian painting. It was there that A.A. created his best paintings. Ivanov, K.P. Bryullov, O.A. Kiprensky and others.
In the development of Russian romanticism, three main periods are usually distinguished. First stage – 1801–1815. – the period of the emergence of the romantic movement in Russia. The founders of Russian romanticism are considered to be K.N. Batyushkova and V.A. Zhukovsky.
Second stage – 1816–1825. - a time of intensive development of romanticism. The most important phenomenon of this period was the activity of the Decembrist writers and the work of a number of remarkable lyricists: D.V. Davydova, P.A. Vyazemsky, E.A. Baratynsky. But the central figure of Russian romanticism was, of course, A.S. Pushkin.
In the third, post-December period (1826–1840), romanticism became most widespread in Russian literature. It acquires new features, conquers new genres, and captures more and more new writers into its orbit. The peak achievements of romanticism in the 1830s are the works of M.Yu. Lermontov, early works of N.V. Gogol, lyrics by F.I. Tyutcheva. The most striking romantic work by M.Yu. Lermontov's poem "The Demon".
2. Romanticism of “Demon”
2.1 Creation of the poem “Demon”»
Poem “Demon” by M.Yu. Lermontov began composing at the age of fifteen and worked on it for about ten years. Many times he took it on, left it, then started again. But it’s interesting: the first line - “Sad demon, spirit of exile” - went through all editions of the poem and remained in it until the end. In the first versions, the action of the poem takes place outside of time and space, in an unreal, conditional setting.
Sad demon, spirit of exile,
Wandered under the blue vault,
Having written a few more lines, Lermontov outlined his further plan in parentheses:
The demon finds out that an angel loves a mortal, seduced her, telling her that God is unjust, but she soon dies and becomes the spirit of hell.
Already in this first experience, the atheistic nature of the poem, the denial of divine power, is clearly expressed. After that, in the same notebook, there is a continuation:
He forgot love forever.
Deceit, hatred, enmity
They now rule over him...
It is empty, empty: like in the desert.
... piles of dying people
His eyes do not please...
“Heaps of people” is not very well said, but remember: the poet is only 15 years old. After these verses, new and new plans arose. And let’s imagine: living in Moscow, on Malaya Molchanovka, in a one-story house with a mezzanine, a short, stocky and dark-skinned teenager with huge dark eyes, sitting at the table, in his room under the very roof, from time to time looking up from the paper, raising his eyes, sees the roofs of squat Arbat mansions and writes about the spirit of evil, about the destroyer demon. He has friends - this boy, friends who love him, highly value his poems, and sometimes make fun of him a little. And he is serious, cheerful and witty. He loves them. But deep down he is infinitely lonely. He is completely different from them. He hates secular society, he would like to escape from this stuffy environment, from its laws. He is full of contempt and anger. And the heroes of his poems and tragedies, like him, are alone in the world around them. And every time they die or live out lonely days. Like Pushkin's Prisoner, like Girey, like Aleko. Like the heroes of Byron's poems. No, he kills them more often!
Having begun work on the poem “Demon” in 1829, the poet in 1829–1831. writes or outlines four editions of it. In 1833–1834 Lermontov created the fifth edition of the poem, and in 1838 the sixth. The heroine's appearance changes. She gradually lost the features of an abstract romantic sinner and acquired a psychologically motivated biography. In the sixth edition, Lermontov found the final location of action - the Caucasus, and the plot turned out to be immersed in the atmosphere of folk legends and enriched with details of everyday life and ethnography, and Princess Tamara appeared as a living and full-blooded image.
With the appearance of such an image, the Demon received a measure of the value of his deeds. In its philosophical and ethical content, the image of Tamara is equal to the image of the Demon. She is endowed with that fullness of experience that disappeared in modern world; her love is selfless and combined with redemptive suffering. Therefore, having destroyed Tamara, the Demon is not only punished by hopeless loneliness (as was the case in the early, “Byronic” editions), but also defeated at the very moment of his imaginary victory - for his victim rose above him. This last stage in the evolution of the plan was associated with a general revaluation of the individualistic idea that affected all of Lermontov’s work in the late 30s. However, revaluation did not mean “exposure” or discrediting. The demon remained a rebellious and suffering creature; in his monologues there was a denial of the existing world order, and his voice began to merge with the voice of the author. In “The Demon,” Lermontov’s characteristic motives of fighting against God found the clearest embodiment. They caused the poem to be banned from publication.
By 1839, Lermontov considered the idea of “Demon” exhausted. In 1840, in “A Fairy Tale for Children,” he recalled the “crazy, passionate, childish delirium” that tormented him for many years, from which he finally “got rid of it in poetry.” The last edition of “The Demon” dates back to 1839.
"Daemon"
(subtitle “Eastern Tale”)
The “Sad Demon, the spirit of exile” flies over our sinful land, remembers the time when he lived in paradise, when “he believed and loved.” He flew over the peaks of the Caucasus: Kazbek sparkles like the face of a diamond, Terek leaps like a lioness - and feels nothing but contempt. Evil even got bored with the spirit of evil. Everything is a burden: indefinite loneliness, immortality, and limitless power over an insignificant earth. Meanwhile, the landscape is changing. Under the wing of the flying Demon is no longer a collection of rocks and abysses, but the lush valleys of happy Georgia: the sparkle and breath of a thousand plants. Alas, these luxurious paintings do not evoke new thoughts in the inhabitants of the superstellar regions. Only for a moment does the Demon’s distracted attention catch the festive revival in the usually silent possessions of the Georgian feudal lord: the owner of the estate, Prince Gudal he has wooed his only heiress, and in his high house they are preparing for a wedding celebration.
The relatives have gathered ahead of time, the wine is already flowing, and the groom will arrive by sunset Princess Tamara- illustrious ruler of the Synodal, while the servants are unrolling ancient carpets: according to custom, on the carpeted roof, the bride, even before the groom appears, must perform a traditional dance with a tambourine. Princess Tamara is dancing! Oh, how she dances! Now he rushes like a bird, circling a small tambourine above his head, now he freezes like a frightened doe, and a light cloud of sadness runs across his lovely face. After all, this is the princess’s last day in her father’s house! How will someone else's family meet her? No, no, Tamara is not being married off against her will. She likes the groom chosen by her father: in love, young, handsome - what more! But here no one constrained her freedom, but there... Having driven away the “secret doubt,” Tamara smiles again. Smiles and dances. The gray-haired Gudal is proud of her daughter, the guests admire, they raise their horns and say sumptuous toasts: “I swear, such a beauty / She never bloomed under the sun of the south!” The demon even fell in love with someone else’s bride. Circling and circling over the wide courtyard of a Georgian castle. There is an inexplicable excitement in the desert of his soul. Has a miracle really happened? Truly it happened: “The feeling suddenly began to speak in him / In his once native language!” Well, what will a free son of the ether do, enchanted by a powerful passion for an earthly woman? Alas, immortal spirit acts in the same way as a cruel and powerful tyrant would do in his situation: he kills his opponent. (On the way, the caravan passes a chapel where “some prince, now a saint, killed by a vengeful hand” lies. Each traveler brought a fervent prayer to the chapel, and “that prayer saved him from the Muslim dagger.” But the daring groom listened to the Demon, imagined himself kissing his beloved, he disdained the custom of his great-grandfathers and galloped past.) Tamara’s fiancé, at the instigation of the Demon, is attacked by robbers. Having plundered the wedding gifts, killed the guards and dispersed the timid camel drivers, the abreks disappear. The wounded prince is carried out of the battle by a faithful horse (of a priceless color, golden), but he, already in the darkness, is overtaken, at the tip of an evil spirit, by an evil stray bullet. With the dead owner in a saddle embroidered with colored silks, the horse continues to gallop at full speed: the rider must keep the prince’s word: to ride to the wedding feast, alive or dead, and only upon reaching the gate does he fall dead.
There is groaning and crying in the bride's family. Blacker than a cloud, Gudal sees God’s punishment in what happened. Falling onto the bed as she was - in pearls and brocade, Tamara sobs. And suddenly: a voice. Unfamiliar. Magic. She consoles, calms down, heals, tells fairy tales and promises to fly to her every evening - as soon as the night flowers bloom - so that “on silk eyelashes / to bring golden dreams...”. Tamara looks around: no one!!! Was it really your imagination? But then where does the confusion come from? Which has no name! In the morning, the princess nevertheless falls asleep and sees a strange thing - is it not the first of the promised gold ones? - dream. Shining with unearthly beauty, a certain “alien” leans towards her head. This is not a guardian angel, there is no luminous halo around his curls, but he doesn’t seem to look like a fiend from hell either: he’s too sad, he looks at him with love! And so every night: as soon as the night flowers wake up, it appears. Guessing that it is not someone who is confusing her with her irresistible dream, but the “evil spirit” himself, Tamara asks her father to let her go to the monastery. (Part II begins with Tamara’s request). Gudal is angry - suitors, one more enviable than the other, are besieging their house, and Tamara is refusing everyone. Tamara admits that she is tormented by an evil spirit, and Gudal concedes. And here she is in a secluded monastery, but here, in the sacred monastery, during the hours of solemn prayers, through the church singing, she hears the same magical voice, Tamara sees the same image and the same eyes - irresistible, like a dagger.
Falling to her knees in front of the divine icon, the poor virgin wants to pray to the saints, and her disobedient heart “prays to Him.” The beautiful sinner is no longer deceived about herself: she is not just confused by a vague dream of love, she is in love: passionately, sinfully, as if the night guest who captivated her with her unearthly beauty was not a stranger from the invisible, immaterial world, but an earthly youth. The demon, of course, understands everything, but, unlike the unfortunate princess, he knows what she does not know: the earthly beauty will pay for a moment of physical intimacy with him, an unearthly creature, with death. That’s why he hesitates; he is even ready to give up his criminal plan. At least, he thinks so. One night, having already approached the treasured cell, he tries to leave, and in fear he feels that he cannot flap his wing: the wing does not move! Then he sheds a single tear - an inhuman tear burns through the stone.
Realizing that even he, seemingly omnipotent, cannot change anything, the Demon appears to Tamara no longer in the form of an obscure nebula, but incarnated, that is, in the image of a beautiful and courageous man, albeit winged. However, the path to sleeping Tamara’s bed is blocked by her guardian angel and demands that the vicious spirit not touch his angelic shrine. The Demon, smiling insidiously, explains to the messenger of heaven that he appeared too late and that in his, the Demon’s, domain - where he owns and loves - the cherubs have nothing to do. Tamara, upon waking up, does not recognize the young man of her dreams in the random guest. She also doesn’t like his speeches (Tamara’s dialogue with the Demon) - charming in a dream, in reality they seem dangerous to her. But the Demon opens his soul to her - Tamara is touched by the immensity of the mysterious stranger’s sorrows, now he seems to her like a sufferer. And yet, something bothers her both in the appearance of the alien and in the reasoning that is too complex for her weakening mind. And she, oh holy naivety, asks him to swear that he is not lying, that he is not deceiving her gullibility. And the Demon swears. He swears by everything - heaven, which he hates, and hell, which he despises, and even a shrine that he does not have. He says that he wants to make peace with heaven, to love, to pray. The Demon's Oath is a brilliant example of male love eloquence - something a man does not promise to a woman when “the fire of desire burns in his blood!” In the “impatience of passion,” he does not even notice that he is contradicting himself: he either promises to take Tamara to the super-stellar regions and make her the queen of the world, or he assures that it is here, on insignificant land, that he will build magnificent palaces for her - made of turquoise and amber. And yet, the outcome of the fateful date is decided not by words, but by the first touch - from hot male lips - to trembling female lips. The night watchman of the monastery, making a scheduled round, slows down his steps: in the cell of the new nun there are unusual sounds, something like “two lips kissing in agreement.” Confused, he stops and hears: first a groan, and then a terrible, although weak - like a dying cry.
Notified of the death of the heiress, Gudal takes the body of the deceased from the monastery. He firmly decided to bury his daughter in a high-mountain family cemetery, where one of his ancestors, in atonement for many sins (robbery and robbery), erected a small temple. Moreover, he does not want to see his Tamara, even in a coffin, in a rough hair shirt. By his order, the women of his hearth dress up the princess in a way that they did not dress up on days of fun. For three days and three nights, higher and higher, the mournful train moves, ahead of Gudal on a snow-white horse. He is silent, and the others are silent. So many days have passed since the death of the princess, but decay does not touch her - the color of her brow, as in life, is whiter and purer than the bedspread. And this smile, as if frozen on your lips?! Mysterious as her death itself!!! Having given his peri to the gloomy earth, the funeral caravan sets off on its way back... The wise Gudal did everything right! The river of time washed away from the face of the earth both his tall house, where his wife bore him a beautiful daughter, and the wide courtyard where Tamara played with her children. But the temple and cemetery with it are intact, they can still be seen now - there, high, on the line of jagged rocks, for nature, with its supreme power, has made the grave of the Demon’s beloved inaccessible to humans. The angel took Tamara’s soul to heaven (“she suffered and loved, and heaven opened for love”), and the demon was again left alone without hope and love.
Poem "Demon" started in 1829 year, has eight editions, the eighth - December 1838 - January 1839 of the year.
At the heart of the poem - biblical myth about the spirit of evil who rebelled against God, was defeated and expelled from paradise.
Created under the influence of the advanced ideas of the liberation movement of its time, it is based on literary and oral poetic sources, primarily on folklore Caucasian peoples and legends of Georgia.
The main ideological pathos of the poem “Demon” is exaltation of man in his desire for freedom, for unlimited knowledge of the world. Lermontov's Demon “denies for affirmation, destroys for creation. This theme of the movement of eternal renewal, eternal rebirth" (Belinsky).
In the poem "Demon" is widely used symbolism. In her fantastic “cosmic” plot about the “spirit of exile” who fell in love with a mortal maiden, earthly signs are clear.
This philosophical and socio-political work boldly poses the most complex and pressing questions of existence: about the meaning of life, the rights and purpose of man, about thoughtless faith and reasonable skepticism, about slavery and freedom, good and evil.
The demon in the full sense of the word is the “hero of the century.” It concentrates the main contradictions of the best people of the 30s: effective skepticism and criticism towards prevailing social relations and powerlessness to change them; powerful impulses to activity and forced passivity; painfully passionate search for a socio-political, moral, aesthetic ideal, and the bitter consciousness of the futility of these searches; a feeling of terrifying political oppression and an uncontrollable desire for freedom; an indefatigable thirst for happiness and the aimlessness of life.
The inexplicable excitement of the Demon serves as the beginning of the poem. Lermontov tells about the relationship between the Demon and Tamara, focusing on the peak episodes. The ideological opposition of the poem, built on the struggle between good and evil, on the internal contradictions of the Demon, was the reason for numerous stylistic antitheses.
Undoubtedly poem - “story of the soul” Main character. But the “history of the soul” of the Demon is a method, a form of solution to social, philosophical and political issues. problems.
"Demon" - romantic poem, but completed during a transitional period of acute struggle between romantic and realistic tendencies in Lermontov’s work. These are objective descriptive images of the nature of the Caucasus, Georgia, the life of Gudan, preparations for the wedding, the beauty of Tamara, the death of her groom, views of the monastery, the appearance of the watchman, the farewell of relatives to the deceased Tamara.
The setting for Lermontov's action is very often a monastery - the embodiment of asceticism, the laws of the spirit, which fundamentally reject the sinful earth. The ardent protests of the beloved children of his imagination are directed against monastic holiness, against the heavenly principle, in defense of other laws - the laws of the heart, they are also the laws of human blood and flesh. Blasphemous speeches are clearly heard in “Mtsyri”, although in a softened form. The same negative attitude towards the monastery is in all the essays of “The Demon”, not excluding even the last ones: within the walls of the holy monastery he forces the demon to seduce his beloved. This is how this original antithesis emerges deeper and deeper: earth and sky.
The struggle between them is inevitable, the battlefield is the human soul. The demon is closer, more akin to Lermontov, than the angel. The demon is not homogeneous; gloomy, rebellious, he always wanders “alone among the worlds, without mingling with the formidable crowd of evil spirits.” He is equally far from both light and darkness, not because he is neither light nor darkness, but because in him not everything is light and not everything is darkness; in him, as in every person, “the sacred met the vicious,” and the vicious won, but not completely, for “God did not give oblivion (about the sacred), and he would not have taken oblivion.” The resident of the cell, the holy virgin, is still not an angel, and she does not oppose him as an irreconcilable opposite. She would rather understand his mental anguish and, perhaps, heal him, give him part of her strength to defeat evil, without completely renouncing the earthly principle. The demon breaks “fatal oaths”, loves pure love, refuses “revenge, hatred and malice” - he already wanted “to return to the path of salvation, to forget the crowd of evil deeds.”
But the angel, who stood guard over absolute purity, not understanding him, again aroused his dark, cold thoughts in him, called his anger into action. Love, through the fault of the angel, did not save the demon, and he, unredeemed, remained with his former darkened suffering. The demon did not repent, did not humble himself before God; He was too proud for this, he considered himself too right. It’s not his fault that his soul is so dual; The Creator created him this way and thereby doomed him to irresistible torment. We must appeal to Him, ask Him about the meaning of this mental torture.
In the cold world of everyday cruelty, where a person with a mind and heart is humiliated and crushed, finds himself in a dead end in life, the lyrical hero of belated romantic poetry cannot be an angel, he constantly feels the pressure of “common evil” and darkness, hence his stoic despair and calm melancholy, disbelief in everything, proud contempt and conscious demonism of universal denial.
In Russia "Demon" fully first published only in 1860.
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov in his work often touched on the theme of the “lonely” person. Romanticism, in which genre, in addition to the presence of a single hero, has other features that distinguish it from other literary movements, can be seen in such works of the writer as “Mtsyri”, “Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich...”, “Our Hero time", as well as in many poems and in the poem "Demon".
The main features of this genre include: an exotic landscape (for Lermontov - the Caucasus, Georgia), the confrontation of the hero with society, a special emphasis on the inner world of a person, in some cases - dual worlds.
Thus, in “The Demon” all these points are perfectly intertwined thanks to the poetic skill of the author.
As a rule, in a romantic work the hero is not like the others.
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This is an exceptional personality who does not always find a response in society. The Demon, a fallen Angel (“spirit of exile”), living in another world, also became such a hero. Before his exile, he was the same as everyone else: “When he believed and loved, Happy firstborn of creation! I knew neither malice nor doubt...”
The hero has become superfluous, not understood by anyone (“I am the one whom no one loves”). He "sowed evil without pleasure" by watching happy life ordinary people. He understood that he was so different from them that he would never be able to return to his usual life. In addition to the comparison of the Demon and society, there is also a comparison of two worlds: the one in which the romantic hero lives, with the one where his beloved is. These worlds are so different, so opposite to each other, that they can never intersect. To better show the difference between them, the author moves away from reality through mysticism, which is inherent only in passive romanticism. It only enhances the effect of antithesis, which is already present in the poem in its bright manifestation (the Demon and Tamara, his beloved; two worlds; nature, so different in these two worlds). What does a lone hero fight against? Why is he always in search of himself, his place? A romantic hero is, first of all, a thinking person. Not finding himself in society, having some distinctive features from everyone else, he will always be in search, will always look for something for which he is worth living. The demon saw the meaning of his life in a girl from another world. He truly loved her and was ready to give everything for her, he was ready to change (“I want to believe in goodness”). He knew that he was not worthy of love, but it was this bright feeling that awakened in him the desire to be better, to be like her. He fought for the right to love, for the right to “be like everyone else,” but fate plays a significant role in everyone’s life, and it is she who determines the further outcome of events. Thus, the Demon, the “extra” hero, will never be able to become part of the whole, he will always be separated from society, misunderstood by it, perhaps despised, even despite his attempts to fix everything. And the ending of the poem once again proves this truth to us.
The inner world of such a hero is very diverse. He thinks and reflects a lot. And not only about your destiny, but also about life in general, about the purpose of everyone. But, not agreeing with established norms, he seeks his own, ideal world, goes against this order of things, and therefore cannot find happiness, has the right to love, but not to be loved.
Updated: 2018-06-04
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A romantic hero who was first depicted by A.S. Pushkin in “Prisoner of the Caucasus” and in “Gypsies” and in which the author of the named poems, in his own words, depicted “ distinctive features youth of the 19th century”, found complete development in the romantic image of the Demon. In “Demon” M.Yu. Lermontov gave his understanding and his assessment of the individualist hero.
Lermontov used in “The Demon”, on the one hand, the biblical legend about the spirit of evil, overthrown from heaven for his rebellion against the supreme divine power, and on the other, the folklore of the Caucasian peoples, among whom there were widespread legends about a mountain spirit that swallowed up a girl. Georgian This gives the plot of “The Demon” an allegorical character. But beneath the fantasy of the plot, there is a deep psychological, philosophical, and social meaning.
The proud affirmation of personality, opposed to the negative world order, is heard in the words of the Demon: “I am the king of knowledge and freedom.” On this basis, the Demon develops that attitude towards reality, which the poet defines in an expressive couplet:
And everything that he saw before him
He despised or hated.
But Lermontov showed that one cannot stop at contempt and hatred. Having settled for absolute denial, the Demon also rejected positive ideals. In his own words, he
“Everything noble has been dishonored
And he blasphemed everything beautiful.”
This led the Demon to that painful state of inner emptiness, disembodiment, hopelessness, and loneliness in which we find him at the beginning of the poem. The “Shrine of love, goodness and beauty”, which the Demon again left and, under the impression of beauty, opens to him in Tamara - this is the Ideal worthy of a person wonderful free life. The plot of the plot lies in the fact that the Demon acutely felt the captivity of the sharp Ideal and rushed towards it with all his being. This is the meaning of the attempt to “revive” the Demon, which is described in the poem in conventional biblical and folklore images.
But later he recognized these dreams as “crazy” and cursed them. Lermontov, continuing the analysis of romantic individualism, with deep psychological truth, hides the reasons for this failure. He shows how, in the development of experiences about an event, a noble social ideal is replaced by another - individualistic and egoistic, returning the Demon to its original position. Responding with “temptation with full speeches” to Tamara’s pleas, the “evil spirit” forgets the ideal of “love, goodness and beauty.” The demon calls for departure from the world, from people. He invites Tamara to leave “the pitiful light of his fate,” invites her to look at the earth “without regret, without pity.” The Demon places one minute of his “unacknowledged torment” above “the painful hardships, labors and troubles of the crowd of people...” The Demon was unable to overcome selfish individualism in himself. This caused the death of Tamara and the defeat of the Demon:
And again he remained, arrogant,
Alone, as before, in the universe
Without hope and love!.
Belinsky correctly saw the inner meaning of Lermontov’s poem: “The demon,” the critic wrote, “denies for affirmation, destroys for creation. ..."
Lermontov, in a romantic form, showed the futility of such sentiments of denial and put forward the need for other ways of fighting for freedom.
Overcoming romantic individualism and revealing the inferiority of “demonic” negation confronted Lermontov with the problem of effective ways to fight for personal freedom, the problem of a different hero.
Lermontov’s demon is a “mighty image,” “mute and proud,” which shone for the poet with “magically sweet beauty” for so many years. In Lermontov's poem, God is depicted as the strongest of all the tyrants in the world. And the Demon is the enemy of this tyrant. The most cruel accusation against the creator of the Universe is the Earth he created:
Where there is no true happiness,
No lasting beauty
Where there are only crimes and executions,
Where petty passions only live;
Where they can’t do it without fear
Neither hate nor love.
This evil, unjust god is like the protagonist of the poem. He's somewhere behind the scenes. But they constantly talk about him, they remember him, the Demon tells Tamara about him, although he does not directly address him, as the heroes of other works of Lermontov do. "You are guilty!" - the reproach that the heroes of Lermontov’s dramas throw at God, blaming the creator of the Universe.
Lermontov loves understatement; he often speaks in hints.
The demon is punished not only for murmuring: he is punished for rebellion. And his punishment is terrible, sophisticated. The tyrant god, with his terrible curse, incinerated the soul of the Demon, making it cold and dead. He not only expelled him from paradise - he devastated his soul. But this is not enough. The all-powerful despot held the Demon responsible for the evil of the world. By the will of God, the Demon “burns with a fatal seal” everything it touches, harming all living things. God made the Demon and his fellow rebels evil, turned them into an instrument of evil. This is the terrible tragedy of Lermontov’s hero:
But what? Former brother
I didn't recognize any of them.
Exiles, their own kind,
I began to call in desperation,
But the words and faces and glances of evil,
Alas, I didn’t find out myself.
And in fear I, flapping my wings,
He rushed - but where? For what?
I don’t know, former friends
I was rejected like Eden
The world has become deaf and mute for me...
The love that flared up in the Demon’s soul meant rebirth for him. The “inexplicable excitement” that he felt at the sight of Tamara dancing enlivened the “dumb desert of his soul”,
And again he comprehended the shrine
Love, kindness and beauty!
Dreams about past happiness, about the time when he “wasn’t evil” woke up, the feeling spoke in him “in a native, understandable language.” Returning to the past did not at all mean for him reconciliation with God and a return to serene bliss in paradise. To him, an ever-searching thinker, such a thoughtless state was alien; he did not need this paradise with carefree, calm angels, for whom there were no questions and everything was always clear. He wanted something else. He wanted his soul to live, to respond to the impressions of life and to be able to communicate with another kindred soul and experience great human feelings. Live! Living life to the fullest is what rebirth meant for the Demon. Having felt love for one living being, he felt love for all living things, felt the need to do genuine, real good, admire the beauty of the world, everything that the “evil” god had deprived him of was returned to him.
In the early editions, the joy of the Demon, who felt the thrill of love in his heart, young poet describes very naively, primitively, somehow childishly, but surprisingly simply and expressively:
That iron dream
Passed. He can love, he can,
And he really loves it!
The "Iron Dream" strangled the Demon and was the result of God's curse, it was a punishment for the battle. In Lermontov, things speak, and the poet conveys the power of his hero’s suffering with the image of a stone burned by a tear. Feeling for the first time “the longing of love, its excitement,” the strong, proud Demon cries. A single, stingy, heavy tear rolls from his eyes and falls onto the stone:
To this day, near that cell
The stone is visible through the burnt hole
A hot tear like a flame,
An inhuman tear.
The image of a stone burned by a tear appears in a poem written by a seventeen-year-old boy. The demon was the poet's companion for many years. He grows and matures with him. And Lermontov more than once compares his lyrical hero with the hero of his poem:
I'm not for angels and heaven
Created by God Almighty;
But why do I live, suffering,
He knows more about this.
“Like my demon, I am the chosen one of evil,” the poet says about himself. He himself is as much a rebel as his Demon. The hero of the early editions of the poem is a sweet, touching young man. He wants to pour out his anguished soul to someone. Having fallen in love and felt “goodness and beauty,” the young Demon retires to the top of the mountains. He decided to abandon his beloved, not to meet with her, so as not to cause her suffering. He knows that his love will destroy this earthly girl locked in a monastery; she will be severely punished both on earth and in heaven. The terrible punishments of “sinning” nuns have been told many times in works of literature, foreign and Russian.
The young Demon also manifests the sense of true goodness that has awakened in him in helping people who are lost in the mountains during a snowstorm, blowing snow off the face of a traveler “and seeking protection for him.”
Lermontov’s poetic landscapes of the Caucasus have a documentary character; these gray, naked rocks are comparable to the emptiness of the soul of their hero. But the action of the poem develops. And the Demon has already flown over the Cross Pass:
And before him there is a different picture
Living beauties bloomed...
This dramatic change in landscape is true. It amazes everyone who passes through Krestovaya Mountain:
Luxurious Georgia Valley
They spread out like a carpet in the distance.
And Lermontov, with the same skill with which he had just described the harsh and majestic landscape of the Caucasus Range to the Cross Pass, now paints a “luxurious, lush edge of the earth” - with rose bushes, nightingales, spreading, ivy-covered plane trees and “ringing running streams” . The full life and luxurious picture of nature prepares us for something new, and we begin to involuntarily wait for events. Against the backdrop of this fragrant earth, the heroine of the poem appears for the first time. Just as the image of the Demon is complemented by the landscape of the rocky mountains, so the image of the young, full-of-life Georgian beauty Tamara becomes brighter in combination with the lush nature of her homeland. On a roof covered with carpets, among her friends, Prince Gudal's daughter Tamara spends her last day in her home. Tomorrow is her wedding. The thought that excited Tamara about the “fate of a slave” was a protest, a rebellion against this fate, and the Demon felt this rebellion in her. It was to her that he could promise to open “the abyss of proud knowledge.” Only a girl whose character contained rebellious traits could be addressed by the Demon with these words:
Leave your old desire
And a pitiful light to his fate;
The abyss of proud knowledge
In return, I will open it for you.
There is some similarity of characters between the hero and heroine of the poem “The Demon”. A philosophical work is at the same time a romantic and psychological poem. It also has a huge social meaning. The hero of the poem bears the features of living people, the poet’s contemporaries.
Summarizing the above, we note that all the features inherent in romanticism as an artistic method are clearly visible in the poem “Demon”:
· Main character- a loner who challenged not even human society - God himself
· The demon is a bright, strong personality, as befits a romantic hero.
· The landscapes of the Caucasus play a huge role in the poem: The demon is akin to these mountains, he is just as independent, and is also doomed to Eternity
Grade: 3.3 (16 votes)