"SYMBOLISM" is a trend in European and Russian art that emerged at the turn of the 20th century, focused mainly on artistic expression through the SYMBOL of "things in themselves" and ideas that are beyond sensory perception. Striving to break through the visible reality to the "hidden realities", the supertemporal ideal essence of the world, its "incorruptible" Beauty, the Symbolists expressed their longing for spiritual freedom.

Symbolism in Russia developed along two lines, which often intersected and intertwined among many of the largest Symbolists:
1. symbolism as an artistic direction and 2. symbolism as an outlook, worldview, a kind of philosophy of life. The interweaving of these lines was especially difficult for Vyacheslav Ivanov and Andrei Bely, with a clear predominance of the second line.

Symbolism had a wide peripheral zone: many great poets adhered to the Symbolist school, not being listed as its orthodox adherents and not professing its program. Let's call at least Maximilian Voloshin and Mikhail
Kuzmina. The influence of the Symbolists was also noticeable on young poets who were members of other circles and schools.

First of all, the concept of the “Silver Age” of Russian poetry is associated with symbolism. This name, as it were, recalls the past golden age of literature, the time of Pushkin. They call the time of the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the Russian Renaissance. Indeed: in Russia at that time, Leo Tolstoy and Chekhov worked,
Gorky and Bunin, Kuprin and Leonid Andreev; Surikov and Vrubel, Repin and Serov, Nesterov and Kustodiev, Vasnetsov and
Benois, Konenkov and Roerich; in music and theater - Rimsky-Korsakov and Scriabin,
Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, Stanislavsky and Kommisarzhevskaya, Chaliapin and
Nezhdanova, Sobinov and Kachalov, Moskvin and Mikhail Chekhov, Anna Pavlova and
Karsavin.

The first signs of the symbolist movement in Russia were the treatise
Dmitry Merezhkovsky "On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature" (1892), his collection of poems "Symbols", as well as the books of Minsky "In the light of conscience" and A. Volynsky "Russian critics". In the same period of time - in 1894-1895 - three collections "Russian Symbolists" were published, in which the poems of their publisher, the young poet Valery Bryusov, were printed. The initial books of poems by Konstantin Balmont - "Under the northern sky", "In the vastness" were also adjacent here. In them, too, gradually crystallized a symbolist view of the poetic word.

French poetry (Verlaine, Rimbaud,
Mallarmé), both English and German, where symbolism manifested itself in poetry a decade earlier.

At first, in the nineties, the poems of the Symbolists, with their unusual phrases and images for the public, were often ridiculed and even mocked. The symbolist poets were given the name decadents, meaning by this term decadent moods of hopelessness, a feeling of rejection of life, and pronounced individualism.
The traits of both can be easily found in the young Balmont - motives of longing and depression are characteristic of his early books, just as demonstrative individualism is inherent in Bryusov's initial poems; the symbolists grew up in a certain atmosphere and in many ways carried its stamp. But already by the first years of the twentieth century, symbolism as a literary movement, as a school, stood out with all certainty, in all its facets. It was already difficult to confuse him with other phenomena in art, he already had his own poetic structure, his own aesthetics and poetics, his own teaching. The year 1900 can be considered a borderline when Symbolism established its special face in poetry - this year, mature symbolist books, brightly colored by the author's individuality, were published: Tertia Vigilia (The Third Guard) by Bryusov and Burning Buildings by Balmont.

The arrival of the “second wave” of symbolism foreshadowed the emergence of contradictions in their camp. It was the poets of the “second wave,” the Young Symbolists, who developed theurgic ideas. The rift was, first of all, between the generations of the Symbolists - the elders, “which included, in addition to Bryusov, Balmont, Minsky, Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Sologub, and the younger ones (Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Blok, S. Soloviev). The 1905 revolution, during which the Symbolists took by no means the same ideological positions, exacerbated their contradictions. By 1910, there was a clear split between the Symbolists. In March of this year, first in Moscow, as a son-in-law in St. Petersburg, in the Society of Zealots of the Artistic Word, Vyacheslav Ivanov read his report “Testaments of Symbolism”. Blok, and later Bely, came out in support of Ivanov. The discussion of the Symbolists in 1910 was perceived by many not only as a crisis, but also as the collapse of the Symbolist school. There is a regrouping of forces and a splitting in it. In the tenths, the youth left the ranks of the Symbolists, forming an association of Acmeists, who opposed themselves to the Symbolist school. Futurists made a noisy performance in the literary arena, unleashing a hail of ridicule and mockery on the Symbolists. Later, Bryusov wrote that symbolism in those years lost its dynamics, ossified; the school “froze in its traditions, lagged behind the pace of life”. Symbolism, as a school, fell into decay and did not give new names.

Historians of literature date the final fall of the Symbolist school in different ways: some designate it in 1910, others - the beginning of the twenties. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that symbolism as a trend in Russian literature disappeared with the advent of the revolutionary year 1917.

Symbolism has outlived itself, and this elimination went in two directions. On the one hand, the requirement of obligatory “mysticism”, “disclosure of secrets”, “comprehension” of the infinite ultimately led to the loss of the authenticity of poetry; The “religious and mystical pathos” of the luminaries of symbolism turned out to be replaced by a kind of mystical stencil, a template. On the other hand, his enthusiasm for the “musical basis” of verse led to the creation of poetry devoid of any logical meaning, in which the word is reduced to the role of no longer a musical sound, but a tinny, ringing trinket.

Accordingly, the reaction against symbolism, and subsequently the struggle against it, followed the same two main lines.

Different modernist groups and trends have united different writers, different both in their ideological and artistic appearance and in their further individual destinies in literature. For some representatives of Symbolism, Acmeism and Futurism, being in these groups marked only a certain (initial) period of creativity and in no way the essence of their subsequent ideological and artistic searches (V. Mayakovsky, A. Blok, V.
Bryusov, A. Akhmatova, M. Zenkevich, S. Gorodetsky, V. Rozhdestvensky). For others (D. Merezhkovsky, 3. Gippius, Ellis, G. Adamovich, G. Ivanov, V.
Ivanov, M. Kuzmin, A. Kruchenykh, I. Severyanin, B. Lishits, B. Sadovskaya, etc.) the fact of belonging to a certain modernist trend expressed the main direction of their work.

The work of the Symbolist poets is closely intertwined with the decadent trend. For the Symbolists, decline is far more valuable than normal mediocrity. They not only wrote decadent poems, but also intentionally lead a decadent lifestyle.

The philosopher and poet had a huge influence on the Russian Symbolists
Vladimir Soloviev. His teaching was based on the origin of the ancient Greek
Plato's idea of ​​the existence of two worlds - the local, earthly, and the otherworldly, higher, perfect, eternal. Earthly reality is only a reflection, a distorted semblance of the supreme, transcendental world, and man is “a connecting link between the divine and the natural world”. In his mystical religious and philosophical prose and in the poems of Vl. Soloviev called to break free from the power of material and temporary existence to the otherworldly - eternal and beautiful world. This idea of ​​two worlds - "dual world" - was deeply assimilated by the Symbolists.

The symbol in art has become a means of such insight and initiation. A symbol (from the Greek symbolus - a sign, an identifying omen) in art is an image that carries both allegoricality and its material content, and a wide, devoid of strict boundaries, the possibility of interpretation. It conceals in itself a deep meaning, as if shining with it. Symbols, according to Vyacheslav Ivanov, are “signs of a different reality”.
“I am not a symbolist,” he said, “if my words are equal to themselves, if they are not an echo of other sounds that you do not know about, as about the Spirit, where they come from and where they go”. "The creations of art," wrote Bryusov, "are the opened doors to Eternity." The symbol, according to his formula, was supposed to “express what cannot be simply“ uttered ”. Later, Vyacheslav Ivanov, supplemented the interpretation of the symbol: the symbol values ​​its materiality, "loyalty to things," he said, the symbol "leads from earthly reality to the highest" (a realibus ad realiora) "; Ivanov even used the term “realistic symbolism”.

The principles proclaimed by the Symbolists were expressed in their work
Y. Baltrushaitis, I. Anninsky, Ellis, M. Voloshin, S. Soloviev, A.
Remizov, G. Chulkov and other writers. In general, the philosophical program of symbolism was a jumble of idealistic teachings of Plato,
Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Mach, spiced with the mysticism of Vl. Solovyov.

While some Symbolists (Merezhkovsky, Gippius) saw the meaning of poetry only in the embodiment of mystical, otherworldly reality, other Symbolists strove for a harmonious combination in the depiction of the existing and otherworldly worlds.

Petersburg Symbolists strove to demonstrate heightened sensitivity, experiences incomprehensible to an ordinary person, unexpected visions. The Symbolists describe the spirit world as accessible to the Spiritualists.

Petersburg-style symbolism is a play with light and shadow. The belief that besides the visible, real world, there is another - invisible, supernatural; belief in a person's ability to communicate with this world.
Symbolism in St. Petersburg is a breakthrough of borders and a breakthrough into the future, and at the same time into the past, a breakthrough into another dimension.

The three main elements of the new art, according to the Symbolists, are mystical content, symbols and the expansion of artistic impressionability.

Petersburg symbolism is sometimes called "religious".

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov.

Bryusov created his own style - sonorous, chased, picturesque.
It is characterized by a variety of forms, their relentless search, the desire to embrace all times and countries in his work. Bryusov is characterized by the poetry of allusions.

Introduction

The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century went down in history under the beautiful name of the "Silver Age". For the first time this name was proposed by the philosopher N. Berdyaev, but finally entered the literary circulation in the 60s of the twentieth century.

The socio-political situation of that time was characterized by a deep crisis of the existing government, a stormy, turbulent atmosphere in the country that required decisive changes. Perhaps that is why the paths of art and politics crossed. The "Silver Age" gave birth to the great rise of Russian culture and became the beginning of its tragic fall.

Writers and poets strove to master new art forms, put forward bold experimental ideas. The realistic portrayal of reality ceased to satisfy the artists, and in the polemic with the classics of the 19th century, new literary movements were established: symbolism, acmeism, futurism.

The poetry of this period was characterized primarily by mysticism and crises of faith, spirituality, and conscience.

The composition of the poets is wide and varied. This is a relocation of all representatives of modernist trends, as well as realists and authors who do not belong to any of the trends. Let's single out the main representatives of modernist trends: D. Merezhkovsky, V. Brusov, A. Bely, A. Blok, N. Gumilev, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, G. Ivanov, V. Khodasevich, I. Severyanin, V. Khlebnikov, I. Bunin, M. Tsvetaeva and others.

The poetry of the "Silver Age" strives for synthetics, for the fusion of various elements into a single whole. It is fundamentally based on musicality and painting.

The Symbolists performed melodism, creating complex musical and verbal constructions.

Futurists sought to emphasize the "fluidity" of poetic speech with a kind of performance.

Acmeists were worth a pictorial, plastic, pictorial image in poetry.

Cubo-futurists tried to create poetry "cubic structure of the verbal mass."

Synthetics manifested itself in the fact that, not content with the literary role, poets invaded other spheres - philosophy, religion, occultism; burst into life itself, went out into the people, into the crowd, into the street.

Symbolism

Symbolism (from the Greek simbolon - sign, symbol) is the first and largest of the modernist movements that arose in Russia and laid the foundation for the "Silver Age". The beginning of the theoretical self-determination of symbolism was the position of D.S. Merezhkovsky. The symbolists oppose the idea of ​​knowing the world to the idea of ​​constructing the world in the process of creativity. "Creativity is higher than knowledge" - the Symbolists believe. “A symbol is only a true symbol when it is inexhaustible in its meaning,” the theoretician of symbolism Vyacheslav Ivanov believed. “The symbol is a window to infinity,” Fyodor Sologub echoed. The poetic style of the Symbolists is intensely metaphysical, since the Symbolists use whole chains of metaphors that have acquired the meaning of independent lyrical themes.

Russian symbolism arose during the years of the collapse of Narodism and the widespread spread of pessimistic sentiments. All this led to the fact that the literature of the "Silver Age" raises not topical social issues, but global philosophical ones. The chronological framework of Russian symbolism is the 1890s - 1910. The formation of Symbolism in Russia was influenced by two literary traditions:

Russian - poetry by Fet, Tyutchev, prose by Dostoevsky;

French symbolism is the poetry of Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire. The main idea: art is a means of knowing the world.

Symbolism was not uniform. Schools and currents stood out in it: "senior" and "junior" symbolists.

Let's talk in more detail about the "senior" symbolists.

At the origins of Symbolism in St. Petersburg were Merezhkovsky and his wife Zinaida Gippius, Valery Bryusov - in Moscow. But the most radical and striking representative of the early St. Petersburg symbolism was Alexander Dobrolyubov, who in his student years created one of the most important biographical legends of the Silver Age.

In Moscow, Russian Symbolists are published at their own expense and are met with a "cold reception" from critics; St. Petersburg was more fortunate with modernist editions - already at the end of the century there are "Northern Herald", "World of Art" ... However, Dobrolyubov and his friend, a fellow student at the gymnasium VV Gippius, also publish the first cycles of poems at their own expense; come to Moscow and meet Bryusov. Bryusov did not have a high opinion of the art of versification of Dobrolyubov, but the very personality of Alexander made a strong impression on him, which left a mark on his further destiny. Already in the first years of the twentieth century, as the editor of the most significant symbolist publishing house "Scorpio" that appeared in Moscow, Bryusov would publish Dobrolyubov's poems. By his own, later, recognition, at an early stage of his work, the greatest influence of all contemporaries Bryusov took from Alexander Dobrolyubov and Ivan Konevsky (a young poet, whose work was highly appreciated by Bryusov; died at the twenty-fourth year of his life).

Fyodor Sologub (Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov) created his own special poetic world and innovative prose independently from all modernist groupings - apart from him, but one that cannot be overlooked. The novel "Heavy Dreams" was written by Sologub in the 1880s, the first poems were marked in 1878. Until the 1890s he worked as a teacher in the provinces, since 1892 he settled in St. Petersburg. Since the 1890s, a circle of friends has gathered in the writer's house, often uniting authors from different cities and warring publications. Already in the twentieth century, Sologub became the author of one of the most famous Russian novels of this era - The Little Devil (1907), introducing the terrible teacher Peredonov into the circle of Russian literary characters; and even later in Russia he is declared "the king of poets" ...

But, perhaps, the most read, sonorous and musical verses at the early stage of Russian Symbolism were the works of Konstantin Balmont. Already at the end of the nineteenth century K. Balmont most clearly states about the "search for correspondences" characteristic of the Symbolists between sound, meaning and color (similar ideas and experiments are known in Baudelaire and Rimbaud, and later in many Russian poets - Bryusov, Blok, Kuzmin , Khlebnikov and others). For Balmont, as, for example, for Verlaine, this search is primarily in the creation of the sound-semantic fabric of the text - music that gives rise to meaning. Balmont's enthusiasm for sound writing, colorful adjectives displacing verbs, leads to the creation of texts that are almost "meaningless", according to ill-wishers, but this phenomenon, which is interesting in poetry, eventually leads to the emergence of new poetic concepts (sound writing, zaum, melodeclamation); Balmont is a very prolific author - more than thirty books of poetry, translations (W. Blake, E. Poe, Indian poetry and others), numerous articles.

Let's look at the poetry of KD Balmont using the example of the poem "I was catching the outgoing shadows with a dream ...":

I was dreaming of catching shadows that leave,

Fading shadows of an extinguished day

I climbed the tower, and the steps trembled,

And the higher I went, the clearer they were,

The clearer the outlines were drawn in the distance,

And some sounds were heard in the distance,

Around me were heard from Heaven and Earth.

The higher I ascended, the brighter they sparkled,

The heights of the slumbering mountains shone brighter,

And with the farewell radiance, it was as if they were caressing,

As if gently caressing a misty gaze.

And below me the night has already come,

Night has already come for the sleeping Earth,

For me, the daylight was shining,

The fiery luminary was burning out in the distance.

I learned how to catch the passing shadows

Fading shadows of a tarnished day

And higher and higher I went, and the steps trembled,

And the steps trembled under my foot.

Balmont's poem "I was dreaming to catch the outgoing shadows ..." was written in 1895.

I believe that this poem most vividly reflects the work of Balmont and is a hymn of symbolism.

In the poem "I was catching the outgoing shadows with a dream ...", as you can easily see, there is "obvious beauty" and another, hidden meaning: a hymn to the eternal striving of the human spirit from darkness to light.

The whole figurative structure of Balmont's poem is built on contrasts: between the top ("And the higher I went ..."), and the bottom ("And below me ..."), heaven and earth (both of these words in the text are written with a capital letter - hence, they are given an exceptionally weighty symbolic meaning), by day (light) and darkness (extinction). The lyrical plot consists in the movement of the hero, removing the indicated contrasts. Ascending the tower, the hero leaves the familiar earthly world in pursuit of new, never-before-experienced sensations. He dreams ("I was catching a dream ..."), to stop the passage of time, to approach eternity, in which "leaving shadows" live. He succeeds quite well: while “for the sleeping Earth” night falls - the time of oblivion and death continues to shine for the hero, bringing renewal and spiritual uplift, and the distant outlines of the “heights of dormant mountains” are becoming more and more visible. Above the hero, an unclear symphony of sounds awaits ("And some sounds were heard around ..."), which marks his complete merging with the upper world.

The majestic picture, recreated in the poem, is rooted in romantic ideas about a proud loner who defies earthly institutions. But here the lyrical hero enters into a confrontation no longer with society, but with universal, cosmic laws and emerges victorious (“I learned how to catch the outgoing shadows ...”). Thus, Balmont hints at the chosenness of God for his hero (and, ultimately, at his own God-chosenness, because for the senior Symbolists, to whom he belonged, the idea of ​​the poet's high, "priestly" destiny was important).

However, the poem captivates mainly not with its idea, but with its enchanting plasticity, musicality, which is created by the wavelike movement of intonational ups and downs, quivering overflows of the sound structure (hissing and sibilant consonants, as well as the sonorant "r" and "l", carry a special load), finally, with the mesmerizing rhythm of the four-foot anapest (in odd lines it is weighted down with a caesure build-up). This is about the language. As for the content of the poem, it is filled with deep meaning. A person goes through life higher and higher, closer and closer to his goal.

Younger Symbolists in Russia are mainly the writers who published their first publications in the 1900s. Among them were really very young authors, like Sergei Solovyov, A. Bely, A. Blok, Ellis, and very respectable people, like the director of the gymnasium I. Annensky, scientist Vyacheslav Ivanov, musician and composer M. Kuzmin. In the first years of the century, representatives of the young generation of Symbolists created a romantically colored circle where the skills of future classics matured, which became known as "Argonauts" or Argonautism. In St. Petersburg at the beginning of the century, Vyach's "tower" is perhaps the most suitable for the title of "center of symbolism". Ivanova, - the famous apartment on the corner of Tavricheskaya Street, among the inhabitants of which at different times were Andrey Bely, M. Kuzmin, V. Khlebnikov, A. R. Mintslova, which was visited by A. Blok, N. Berdyaev, A. V. Lunacharsky , A. Akhmatova, "people of the world" and spiritualists, anarchists and philosophers. A famous and mysterious apartment: legends are told about it, researchers study the meetings of secret communities that took place here (Hafisites, theosophists, etc.), gendarmes organized searches and surveillance here, in this apartment for the first time most of the famous poets of the era read their poems publicly, here for several years at the same time, three completely unique writers lived at once, whose works often present fascinating riddles for commentators and offer readers unexpected language models - this is the invariable "Diotima" of the salon, Ivanov's wife, L.D. later - novels and books of poetry), and - of course the owner. The owner of the apartment, the author of the book "Dionysus and Dionysianism", was called "Russian Nietzsche." With the undoubted importance and depth of influence in culture, Viach. Ivanov remains a "semi-familiar continent"; This is partly due to his long stays abroad, and partly to the complexity of his poetic texts, in addition to everything that requires the reader to rarely meet erudition.

In Moscow in the 1900s, the editorial office of the Scorpion publishing house is without hesitation called the authoritative center of symbolism, where Valery Bryusov became the permanent editor-in-chief. This publishing house prepared the issues of the most famous symbolist periodical, Libra. Among the permanent employees of "Libra" were Andrey Bely, K. Balmont, Jurgis Baltrushaitis; Other authors also regularly collaborated - Fedor Sologub, A. Remizov, M. Voloshin, A. Blok, etc., many translations from the literature of Western modernism were published. There is an opinion that the story of "Scorpio" is the history of Russian symbolism, but this is probably still an exaggeration.

Let's consider the poetry of the Young Symbols by the example of A. Blok. As an example, I'll take one of my favorite poems by this writer, "The Stranger."

Stranger

In the evenings over restaurants

The hot air is wild and deaf

And rules drunken shouts

Spring and pernicious spirit.

Far above the dust of the alley

Over the boredom of country cottages,

The bakery's pretzel is slightly gilded,

And the crying of children is heard.

And every evening, behind the barriers,

Breaking the bowlers

Ladies walk among the ditches

Tried and tested wit.

Oarlocks creak over the lake

And there is a woman's screeching

And in the sky, accustomed to everything

The disc bends senselessly.

Reflected in my glass

And moisture tart and mysterious

As me, humble and deafened.

And next to the neighboring tables

Sleepy lackeys stick out

And drunks with rabbit eyes

"In vino veritas!" screaming.

And every evening at the appointed hour

(Or is it just my dream?)

Girlish camp, captured by silks,

In the foggy window moves.

And slowly, passing between the drunks,

Always without companions, alone

Breathing with spirits and mists

She sits by the window.

And they blow with ancient beliefs

Her elastic silks

And a hat with mourning feathers

And in the rings is a narrow hand.

And chained by a strange closeness,

Looking beyond the dark veil

And I see the coast enchanted

And an enchanted distance.

Deaf secrets are entrusted to me,

Someone's sun is handed to me

And all the souls of my bend

A tart wine pierced.

And ostrich feathers bowed

In my brain swaying

And deep blue eyes

Blossom on the distant shore.

There is a treasure in my soul

And the key is entrusted only to me!

You really are a drunken monster!

I know: the truth is in wine.

This poem by Alexander Blok belongs to the period of writing "The Terrible World", when the main in the poet's perception of the world were feelings of melancholy, despair and disbelief. The gloomy motives of many poems of this period expressed Blok's protest against the cruelty of the terrible world, which turns all the highest and most valuable into objects of bargaining. It is not beauty that reigns here, but cruelty, lies and suffering, and there is no way out of this impasse. The lyrical hero surrenders himself to the poison of hops and wild revelry

And every night the only friend

Reflected in my glass

And moisture tart and mysterious,

As me, humble and deafened.

During this period, the poet breaks with his Symbolist friends. His first love left him - Lyubochka, the granddaughter of the famous chemist Mendeleev, went to his close friend, the poet Andrei Bely. It seemed that Blok was drowning despair in wine. But, despite this, the main theme of the poems of the "Terrible World" period is still love. But the one about whom the poet writes his magnificent poems is no longer the former Beautiful Lady, but a fatal passion, a temptress, a destroyer. She torments and burns the poet, but he cannot escape from her power.

Even about the vulgarity and rudeness of the terrible world, Blok writes soulfully and beautifully. Although he no longer believes in love, does not believe in anything, the image of a stranger in the poems of this period still remains beautiful. The poet hated cynicism and vulgarity, they are not in his poems.

“Stranger” is one of the most characteristic and beautiful poems of this period. Blok describes the real world in it - a dirty street with gutters, prostitutes, a kingdom of deceit and vulgarity, where “tried and tested wits” with ladies walk among the pouring slops.

In the evenings over restaurants

The hot air is wild and deaf

And rules drunken shouts

Spring and pernicious spirit.

The lyrical hero is alone, surrounded by drunks, he rejects this world terrifying his soul, similar to a booth, in which there is no place for anything beautiful and holy. The world poisons him, but amid this intoxicating intoxication, a stranger appears, and her image awakens bright feelings, it seems that she believes in beauty. Her image is surprisingly romantic and alluring, and it is clear that faith in goodness is still alive in the poet. The vulgarity and filth cannot tarnish the image of a stranger, reflecting Blok's dreams of pure, selfless love. And although the poem ends with the words “In vino veritas”, the image of a beautiful stranger inspires faith in the bright beginning of life.

The poem has two parts, and the main literary device is antithesis, opposition. In the first part - the filth and vulgarity of the surrounding world, and in the second - a beautiful stranger; this composition allows you to convey the main idea of ​​the Blok. The image of a stranger transforms the poet, his poems and thoughts change. In place of the everyday vocabulary of the first movement, there are spiritualized lines that amaze with their musicality. Artistic forms are subordinated to the content of the poem, allowing them to penetrate deeper. Alliterations in the description of a dirty street, heaps of coarse consonants are then replaced by assonances and alliterations of sonic sounds - [p], [l], [n]. Thanks to this, the most beautiful melody of the sounding verse is created.

This poem does not leave anyone indifferent, it cannot be forgotten after reading it once, and the beautiful image excites us. These verses touch to the depths of the soul with their melodiousness; they are like pure, magnificent music pouring from the heart. After all, it cannot be that there is no love, there is no beauty, if there are such beautiful verses.

The turn of the 19th - 20th centuries is a special time in the history of Russia, a time when life was rebuilt, the system of moral values ​​changed. The key word of this time is crisis. This period had a beneficial effect on rapid development of literature and was named the "Silver Age", by analogy with the "Golden Age" of Russian literature. This article will examine the features of Russian symbolism that arose in Russian culture at the turn of the century.

In contact with

Definition of the term

Symbolism is direction in literature, which was formed in Russia at the end of the 19th century. Together with decadence, it was the product of a deep spiritual crisis, but it was a response to the natural search for artistic truth in the direction opposite to realistic literature.

This movement became a kind of attempt to get away from contradictions and reality into the realm of eternal themes and ideas.

Homeland of symbolism became France. Jean Moreas, in his manifesto "Le symbolisme", for the first time gives the name to a new trend from the Greek word symbolon (sign). The new direction in art was based on the works of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, "The Soul of the World" by Vladimir Soloviev.

Symbolism became a violent reaction to the ideologization of art. Its representatives were guided by the experience that their predecessors left them.

Important! This current appeared at a difficult time and became a kind of attempt to escape from the harsh reality into an ideal world. The emergence of Russian Symbolism in literature is associated with the publication of a collection of Russian Symbolists. It includes poems by Bryusov, Balmont and Dobrolyubov.

The main signs

The new literary movement relied on the works of famous philosophers and tried to find in the human soul a place where you can hide from the frightening reality. Among the main features of symbolism in Russian literature, the following are distinguished:

• All secret meanings must be conveyed through symbols.
• It is based on mysticism and philosophical works.
• The plurality of meanings of words, associative perception.
• The works of the great classics are taken as a model.
• It is proposed to comprehend the diversity of the world through art.
• Creation of your own mythology.
• Special attention to the rhythmic structure.
• The idea of ​​transforming the world through art.

Features of the new literary school

The forerunners of the newfound symbolism it is considered A.A. Fet and F.I. Tyutchev. They became those who laid something new in the perception of poetic speech, the first features of the future trend. Lines from Tyutchev's poem "Silentium" became the motto of all Symbolists in Russia.

The greatest contribution to the comprehension of the new direction was made by V.Ya. Bryusov. He saw symbolism as a new literary school. He called it "hint poetry", the purpose of which was designated as follows: "Hypnotize the reader."

In the foreground among writers and poets the personality of the artist and his inner world. They destroy the concept of new criticism. Their teaching is based on domestic positions. Particular attention was paid to the predecessors of Western European realism such as Baudelaire. At first, both Bryusov and Sologub imitated him in their work, but later they found their own perspective of literature.

Objects of the outside world became symbols of some kind of inner experience. Russian Symbolists took into account the experience of Russian and foreign literature, but it was refracted by new aesthetic requirements. This platform has absorbed all the signs of decadence.

The heterogeneity of Russian symbolism

Symbolism in the literature of the coming Silver Age was not an internally homogeneous phenomenon. At the beginning of the 90s, two currents stand out in it: the older and younger symbolist poets. A sign of older symbolism was its own special view of the social role of poetry and its content.

They argued that this literary phenomenon was a new stage in the development of the art of words. The authors were less concerned with the very content of poetry and believed that it needed artistic renewal.

The younger representatives of the movement were adherents of a philosophical and religious understanding of the world around them. They opposed the elders, and agreed only that they recognized the new design of Russian poetry and were inseparable from each other. General themes, images united by critical attitude to realism. All this made possible their collaboration in the framework of the magazine "Vesy" in 1900.

Russian poets understood goals and objectives differently Russian literature. Senior Symbolists believe that the poet is a creator of exclusively artistic value and personality. The younger ones interpreted literature as life-building, they believed that a world that had outlived itself would fall, and a new one would come to replace it, built on high spirituality and culture. Bryusov said that all previous poetry was "the poetry of flowers," and the new one reflects shades of color.

An excellent example of the differences and similarities of Russian symbolism in the literature of the turn of the century was V. Bryusov's poem "The Younger". In it, he turns to his opponents, the young symbolists, and laments that he cannot see that mysticism, harmony and the possibilities of cleansing the soul in which they so sacredly believe.

Important! Despite the opposition of the two branches of the same literary direction, all the Symbolists were united by the themes and images of poetry, their desire to get away from it.

Representatives of Russian Symbolism

Among the senior adherents, several representatives stood out: Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, Dmitry Ivanovich Merezhkovsky, Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont, Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius, Fyodor Kuzmich Sologub. Concept developers and ideological inspirers of this group of poets were considered Bryusov and Merezhkovsky.

The "Young Symbols" were represented by such poets as A. Bely, A. Blok, V. Ivanov.

Examples of new symbolist themes

For representatives of the new literary school, there was the theme of loneliness is characteristic... Only in the distance and in complete solitude is the poet capable of creativity. Freedom in their understanding is freedom from society in general.

The theme of love is rethought and viewed from the other side - "love is an incinerating passion", but it is an obstacle on the way to creativity, it weakens the love for art. Love is the feeling that leads to tragic consequences, makes you suffer. On the other hand, it is portrayed as a purely physiological attraction.

Symbolist poems discover new topics:

• The theme of urbanism (glorification of the city as a center of science and progress). The world is presented as two Moscow. Old, with dark paths, new - the city of the future.
• Anti-urbanism theme. Glorification of the city as a certain rejection from the old life.
• Death theme. It was very common in symbolism. The motives of death are considered not only in the personal plane, but also in the cosmic one (the death of the world).

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov

Symbol theory

In the field of the artistic form of the poem, the Symbolists took an innovative approach. He had obvious connections not only with previous literature, but also with ancient Russian and oral folk art. Their creative theory took root on the concept of a symbol. Symbols are a common technique both in folk poetry and in romantic and realistic art.

In oral folk art, a symbol is an expression of a person's naive ideas about nature. In professional literature, it is a means of expressing a social position, attitude to the surrounding world or a specific phenomenon.

The adherents of the new literary movement rethought the meaning and content of the symbol. They understood it as a kind of hieroglyph in another reality, which is created by the imagination of an artist or philosopher. This conventional sign is recognized not by reason, but by intuition. Based on this theory, the Symbolists believe that the visible world is not worthy of the artist's pen, it is just a nondescript copy of the mystical world, through penetration into which the symbol becomes.

The poet acted as a cipher, hiding the meaning of a poem behind allegories and images.

The painting of MV Nesterov "Vision to the youth Bartholomew" (1890) often illustrates the beginning of the Symbolist movement.

Features of rhythm and tropes used by symbolists

The Symbolist poets considered music to be the highest art form. They strove for the musicality of their poems. For this traditional and non-traditional techniques were used... They improved the traditional ones, turned to the reception of euphony (phonetic capabilities of the language). She was used by the Symbolists in order to give the poem a special decorative effect, picturesqueness and euphony. In their poetry, the sound side dominates the semantic side, the poem approaches the music. The lyrical work is deliberately saturated with assonances and alliterations. Melodiousness is the main goal of creating a poem. In their creations, the Symbolists, as representatives of the Silver Age, refer not only to, but also to the elimination of line breaks, syntactic and lexical division.

Active work is being carried out in the field of the rhythm of the poem. Symbolists are guided by folk system of versification, in which the verse was more mobile and free. An appeal to free verse, a poem that has no rhythm (A. Blok "I came rosy from the cold"). Thanks to experiments in the field of rhythm, conditions and prerequisites were created for the reform of poetic speech.

Important! The symbolists considered the musicality and melodiousness of a lyrical work to be the basis of life and art. The poems of all the poets of that time, with their melodiousness, are very reminiscent of a piece of music.

Silver Age. Part 1. Symbolists.

Literature of the Silver Age. Symbolism. K. Balmont.

Output

Symbolism as a literary movement did not last long; it finally disintegrated by 1910. The reason was that the symbolists deliberately detached themselves from the surrounding life... They were supporters of free poetry, did not recognize pressure, so their work was inaccessible and incomprehensible to the people. Symbolism took root in the literature and work of some poets who grew up in classical art and the traditions of symbolism. Therefore, the features of the disappeared symbolism in literature are still present.

The term "symbolism" comes from the Greek word "sign" and denotes the aesthetic trend that emerged in France at the end of the 19th century and influenced all areas of art: literature, music, painting and theater. Especially widespread

symbolism was wounded in literature.

Emergence

As noted above, symbolism in literature is associated primarily with France: a group of young poets, including Mallarmé, Moreas, Guille, de Regno, Valerie and Claudel, announced the creation of a new direction in art. At the same time in the journal "Figaro" was published "Manifesto of Symbolism", which came out from the pen of Moreas - he described the basic aesthetic principles based on the views of Baudelaire, Verlaine and Henri. In particular, the author of the Manifesto defined the nature and function of the symbol: according to Moreas, he supplanted the traditional artistic image and embodied the Idea.

The essence of the symbol

To talk about what symbolism in literature is, one should first of all define what a symbol is. Its main distinguishing feature is its polysemy, so it cannot be deciphered. Perhaps the most successful interpretation of this concept belongs to the Russian writer Fyodor Sologub: he called the symbol a window to infinity. The symbol contains a number of meanings, while the image is a single phenomenon.

Symbolism in literature

If we talk about French literature, it is necessary to name the names of Baudelaire, Verlaine and Mallarmé. Charles Baudelaire owns a kind of poetic motto of symbolism - the sonnet "Correspondence"; the search for correspondences formed the basis of the symbolist principle of synthesis, the desire to unite all the arts. The motives of duality dominate in Baudelaire's work: love and death, genius and illness, external and internal. Stephen Mallarmé argued that the purpose of a writer is not to describe things, but to convey his impressions of them. Particularly popular was his poem "Luck will never abolish chance", consisting of a single phrase, typed without a single punctuation mark. Paul Verlaine also manifested symbolism in his poems. Literature, according to the poet, should be musical, because it is music that is at the top of all arts.

Symbolism in B

elgia

At the words "Belgian symbolism" comes to mind, first of all, the work of Maurice Maeterlinck, the author of such famous plays as "The Blue Bird", "The Blind", "There, Inside." His heroes exist in a semi-fantastic setting, the action of the plays is saturated with mysticism, magic, hidden meanings. Maeterlinck himself, quite in the spirit of symbolism, insisted that the creator should convey not actions, but a state.

Russian symbolism in literature

In Russia, this trend split into two branches - "old symbolists" and "young symbolists". By the beginning of the 20th century, the current reached its true heyday, however, Tyutchev and Fet are considered the forerunners of symbolism in Russia. Also, the content and philosophical base of Russian symbolism was influenced by the views of Vladimir Solovyov, in particular, his images of the World Soul and Eternal Femininity. These ideas were subsequently transformed in an original way in the poetry of Bely, Blok, Gumilyov.

Nothing | New Peasants' Poets | Poets of "Satyricon" | Constructivists | Oberiuts | Poets outside the currents | Personalities

Silver Age. Symbolism

Symbolism (from Greek simbolon - sign, symbol) - a trend in European art in the 1870s - 1910s; one of the modernist trends in Russian poetry at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. Focuses primarily on expressing through symbol intuitively comprehended essences and ideas, vague, often sophisticated feelings and visions.

The word itself "symbol" in traditional poetics means "polysemous allegory", that is, a poetic image that expresses the essence of a phenomenon; in the poetry of symbolism, he conveys the individual, often momentary representations of the poet.

The poetics of symbolism are characterized by:

• transmission of the subtlest movements of the soul;
• maximum use of sound and rhythmic means of poetry;
• exquisite imagery, musicality and lightness of the syllable;
• the poetics of hints and allegories;
• symbolic content of everyday words;
• the attitude to the word as to the cipher of a certain spiritual secret writing;
• understatement, concealment of meaning;
• striving to create a picture of an ideal world;
• aestheticization of death as an existential principle;
• elitism, orientation towards the reader-co-author, the creator.