"Feast in Time of Plague". A.S

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"," Mozart and Salieri", "Stone guest".) Below is her summary.

London during the terrible plague epidemic of 1665. The city is engulfed in horror and sorrow from many deaths. But in the middle of one of the streets, several men and women are feasting carelessly at a laid table. In the midst of a terrible misfortune, these libertines decided to forget themselves, plunging into blasphemous pleasures for all to see.

One of those sitting at the table proclaims a toast to the recently deceased Jackson - their mutual friend, merry fellow and wit. The chairman of the company, gloomy Walsingam, gives everyone a sign to drink, and then asks one of the girls, Mary, to sing a song.

Thoughtful, in Scottish yellow-haired Mary, plaintively sings about the past happiness of the former days of her dear homeland. (See Song of Mary.) He was brutally cut short by a relentless plague that emptied the village church and school. Now in the cemetery, to the groaning of the living, the dead are carried every minute. The singer asks: if she herself dies, let her beloved Edmond not approach the infected body, but rather flee from his native village. She will always remember him in heaven.

The Appearance of the Virgin to the Victims of the Plague. Painting by A. Zanka, painted a year after the London epidemic of 1665

Walsingam thanks Mary for the song. Dissatisfied with this, the beauty Louise begins to ridicule Mary's "noisy voice" and "tearful eyes", saying that she only fools gullible men with them. At this time, a cart full of dead bodies is carried past the feasters. Looking at her, the rude Louise faints. Mary comforts this "sister of her sorrow and shame" on her chest. The chairman philosophically remarks that “the tender is weaker than the cruel, and fear lives in the soul, tormented by passions!”

The feasters ask that Valsingam himself now sing to them - and the song is not plaintive, but Bacchic. The chairman says: just yesterday, for the first time in his life, "a strange desire for rhymes" found on him. He composed a hymn to the plague, which he will now perform.

Pushkin puts one of his most heartfelt poems into the mouth of Walsingham. (See Song of the Chairman.) A terrible plague, like a harsh winter, comes to people, knocking on the windows not with frost, but with a grave shovel. So let's not lose heart, but in spite of the plague, let's "brew" fun feasts and balls, because:

... There is rapture in battle,
And the dark abyss on the edge,
And in the angry ocean
Amid the stormy waves and stormy darkness,
And in the Arabian hurricane
And in the breath of the Plague.

Everything, everything that threatens death,
For the heart of a mortal conceals
Inexplicable pleasures -
Immortality, maybe a pledge!
And happy is he who is in the midst of excitement
I could acquire and know them ...

Pushkin. Feast in Time of Plague. Song of the President. In the role of Walsingam - A. Trofimov

An old priest approaches the feasters. He warmly reproaches the depraved madmen who rejoice "in the midst of the horror of deplorable funerals", embarrassing the silence of the coffins and shaking the earth above the dead bodies. The participants in the feast drive the priest away. But he recognizes Walsingham and begins to reproach him. Three weeks ago, he fought with a cry over the corpse of his deceased mother, then lost his wife Matilda, who selflessly loved him. The priest urges the chairman to leave the revelry and remember the name of God.

Walsingam rises in a passionate outburst. He admits the rightness of the priest, but says that despair, a terrible memory and the horror of a dead emptiness in his own house will no longer allow him to return to his former life. He is lost forever, and let no one else care about him.

Asking Walsingam for forgiveness, calling God's salvation to his soul, the priest leaves. The feast in the midst of the plague continues. The Chairman sits deep in thought.

There is a set table outside, at which several young men and women are feasting. One of the feasters, a young man, turning to the chairman of the feast, recalls their mutual friend, the cheerful Jackson, whose jokes and witticisms amused everyone, enlivened the feast and dispersed the darkness that a ferocious plague now sends to the city. Jackson is dead, his chair at the table is empty, and the young man offers a drink in his memory. The Chairman agrees, but believes that drinking should be done in silence, and everyone drinks silently in memory of Jackson.

The chairman of the feast turns to a young woman named Mary and asks her to sing a dull and drawn-out song of her native Scotland, so that later she can turn to fun again. Mary sings about her native side, which flourished in contentment, until misfortune fell upon her and the side of fun and work turned into a land of death and sadness. The heroine of the song asks her darling not to touch her Jenny and leave her native village until the infection is gone, and vows not to leave her beloved Edmond even in heaven.

The chairman thanks Mary for the mournful song and suggests that once her region was visited by the same plague as the one that now mows down all living things here. Mary recalls how she sang in her parents' hut, how they loved to listen to their daughter ... But suddenly the caustic and impudent Louise bursts into the conversation with the words that such songs are not in fashion now, although there are still simple souls ready to melt from women's tears and blindly believe them. Louise screams that she hates the yellowness of that Scottish hair. The chairman intervenes in the dispute, he calls on the feasters to listen to the sound of the wheels. A cart loaded with corpses approaches. The negro rules the cart. At the sight of this sight, Louise becomes ill, and the chairman asks Mary to splash water in her face to bring her to her senses. With her swoon, the chairman assures, Louise proved that "the gentle is weaker than the cruel." Mary calms Louise, and Louise, gradually coming to her senses, tells that she dreamed of a black and white-eyed demon who called her to his terrible cart, where the dead lay and babbled their "terrible, unknown speech." Louise doesn't know if it was in a dream or in reality.

The young man explains to Louise that the black cart has the right to travel everywhere, and asks Walsingam to sing a song, but not a sad Scottish one, “but a violent, Bacchic song”, instead of a Bacchic song, to stop disputes and “consequences of female fainting”, and the chairman instead of a Bacchic song sings a gloomy inspirational hymn in honor of the plague. In this hymn, praise is given to the plague, which can bestow an unknown rapture that a strong-willed person is able to feel in the face of threatening death, and this pleasure in battle is “immortality, perhaps, a guarantee!” Happy is he, sings the chairman, to whom it is given to feel this pleasure.

While Walsingam is singing, an old priest enters. He reproaches the feasters for their blasphemous feast, calling them atheists, the priest believes that with their feast they commit a desecration of the "horror of sacred funerals", and with their delights "confuse the silence of the tombs." The feasters laugh at the gloomy words of the priest, and he conjures them with the Blood of the Savior to stop the monstrous feast if they wish to meet the souls of their departed loved ones in heaven and go home. The chairman objects to the priest that their homes are sad, and youth loves joy. The priest reproaches Walsingam and reminds him how only three weeks ago he hugged his mother's corpse on his knees "and wailed over her grave." He assures that now the poor woman is crying in heaven, looking at her feasting son. He orders Valsingam to follow him, but Valsingam refuses to do so, because he is kept here by despair and a terrible memory, as well as by the consciousness of his own lawlessness, he is kept here by the horror of the dead emptiness of his home, even the shadow of his mother is unable to take him away from here, and he asks the priest to leave. Many admire Walsingham's bold rebuke to the priest, who conjures the wicked with the pure spirit of Matilda. This name brings the chairman into mental confusion, he says that he sees her where his fallen spirit will no longer reach. A woman remarks that Walsingam has gone mad and "raves about his buried wife." The priest persuades Walsingam to leave, but Walsingam, in the name of God, begs the priest to leave him and go away. After invoking the Holy Name, the priest leaves, the feast continues, but Walsingam "remains in deep thought."

You have read the summary of the tragedy Feast in the Time of Plague. We also suggest that you visit the Summary section to read the presentations of other popular writers.

Please note that the summary of the tragedy Feast during the plague does not reflect the full picture of events and characterization of the characters. We recommend you to read the full version of the tragedy.

1

The article deals with one of the early replicas of "A Feast in the Time of Plague" - the mystery play by A. V. Timofeev "The Last Day" (1835). Its exposition reproduces the beginning of the “little tragedy” with surprising completeness, but as the plot develops, other pretexts turn out to be more significant: the mystery of Byron’s “Heaven and Earth”, as well as the Christian apocalyptic. In Pushkin's "Feast ..." Timofeev was attracted by the combination of the themes of death and life's celebration, the problem of human behavior in the face of death. However, their development is polemical in relation to its predecessor: Timofeev’s feast during the plague is replaced by a feast the day before Doomsday. Timofeev is trying to realize the eschatological potential of Pushkin's text that was not revealed, as it seemed to him, within the framework of a work of a different genre (mystery) and a different, from his point of view, philosophical scale.

dramaturgy

eschatology

romanticism

popular literature

intertext relations

1. Alekseev M. P. J. Wilson and his “Plague City” // Alekseev M. P. From the history of English literature: Etudes. Essays. Research. - M.; L .: Goslitizdat, 1960. - S. 390-418.

2. Byron. Heaven and earth. Mystery / Per. I. A. Bunina // Earth. - M .: Moscow book publishing house, 1909. - Sat. 2. pp. 1–44.

3. Zhirmunsky V. M. Goethe in Russian literature. - L.: Nauka, Leningrad branch, 1981. - 539 p.

4. Kiselev-Sergenin V.S. Notes // Poets of the 1820–1830s / General. ed. L. Ya. Ginzburg. - L .: Leningrad branch of the publishing house " Soviet writer”, 1972. - V. 2. - S. 733–736.

5. Pushkin A. S. Feast during the plague // Pushkin A. S. Full. coll. cit.: In 20 vols. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2009. - Vol. 7: Dramatic works. - P. 163-174.

6. Pushkin in lifetime criticism. 1831–1833 / Ed. ed. E. O. Larionova. - St. Petersburg: State Pushkin Theater Center in St. Petersburg, 2003. - 544 p.

7. A. V. Timofeev, “The Last Day,” Experiments of T.m.f.a. - St. Petersburg: In the printing house of Christian Ginze, 1837. - Part I. - S. 305-347.

Pushkin's Feast During the Plague (1830) was first published in 1832 in Alcyone, Baron Rosen's almanac. Soon the author included it in the collection of his "Poems" (St. Petersburg, 1832. Part 3). Criticism did not show much interest in "Feast ...". In accordance with the subtitle - "From Wilson's tragedy" The city of the plague " "- it was perceived as an ordinary translation. For some reviewers - the translation of the scene "it is not clear by what respect the poet's choice and attention attracted attention", for others - a translation, "where the charm and sonority of the verses argue with the depth of thought". that in the work of Pushkin's contemporaries his "little tragedy" almost immediately found a lively response. Evidence of this is the "poetic picture" "The Last Day" by the then popular poet and prose writer, a representative of Russian "grassroots" romanticism A. V. Timofeev. Dated 1834 year, Timofeev's work was published in 1835 (Library for Reading. Vol. 10. Sep. 1), with minor changes and the addition of an epigraph, reprinted in the three-volume "Experiments" by Timofeev (St. Petersburg, 1837. Part I).

Apparently, for the first time the connection of "The Last Day" with Pushkin's dramatic scene was noted by MP Alekseev. Later, regardless of its predecessor, V. S. Kiselev-Sergenin also drew attention to it. Unfortunately, both researchers limited themselves to a laconic statement of Timofeev's dependence on Pushkin. Meanwhile, the nature of the reflection of "Feast during the Plague" in the text of Timofeev's "poetic picture" deserves the closest attention.

Associated with the "little tragedy" of the general situation of the feast, the beginning of "The Last Day" testifies to its careful reading. True, unlike Pushkin's play, Timofeev's "poetic picture" is a drama for reading, which has no stage prospects. In particular, extensive remarks play a special semantic and pictorial role in it, the purpose of which is far from the usual staged explanations. This also applies to the description of the place of action that opens the text of The Last Day: it both resembles Pushkin’s and differs significantly from it in scope and content: "Adorable valley . The sky is clear. Dawn. Light morning breeze. From all sides, the fragrance of flowers and the singing of birds.

The valley is lined with tables laden with food and wine. There are many people of both sexes around the tables. In the distance there is a city, several villages and fields covered with harvest. .

The initial pages of the "picture" are, in essence, tracing paper from Pushkin's text. The very first remark is the appeal of the protagonist of the work, the Chairman of the feast to his girlfriend: “Well, Emma, ​​sing something to us! / With songs it's somehow more fun / And you talk, and eat, and drink. / Look, the morning is dawning a little, / And we are all dozing like night / We were lulled like a nanny ... ") - at the same time it reminds Valsingam's request: "Sing, Mary, we are sad and drawn out, / So that later we turn to fun / Crazier, like one who is from the earth / Was excommunicated by some vision ", and the call to him of Pushkin's Young Man:" ... sing / To us a song, a free, living song, / Not to the sadness of Scottish inspiration, / But violent, Bacchic hymn, / Born behind a boiling cup. The role of both Mary's "mournful song" and, in part, the expected "Bacchic" song of Valsingam in "The Last Day" is played by a rather primitive text that reproduces the common places of Anacreontic poetry - the motives of the value and at the same time the transience of life and its pleasures: "E m m a (sings). Friends, this light is beautiful, / Even more beautiful is inspiration; / Beautiful is the glory of youth, - / The most beautiful thing is pleasure. / Not forever life blooms for us; / So let's stock up on flowers! / Otherwise the wind will blow them away / And we will trample them under our feet. / Life does not care about us - / It flies like an arrow... Hurry up and catch it! / Friends, wake up! The hour is precious: - / It will pass, - it will die ... Do not return.

The feasters perceive Emma's song as a program, exactly corresponding to their philosophy of life. They enthusiastically repeat her lines, respond to her with the same words with which Pushkin's heroes express their readiness to listen to the Walsingham hymn to the Plague: “Charming! - Bravo, bravo! - Handicap! / "Life does not bloom forever for us!" ... ", do not hesitate to follow the appeals contained in the song: "Emma's health! - Yours. - Drink! - / "Friends, wake up! Dear hour!" - / Guilt! I am cheerful as a child! / More! More! - Hurry!.. A glass! - / Well, our music has stopped! - / Gay, musicians!.. ".

The fun of the participants in the feast is interrupted for a while by the ringing of bells and the view of the funeral procession (an analogue of Pushkin's "cart filled with dead bodies"). It turns out that one of the recent participants in the feast is being buried (an obvious parallel to the memories of the late Jaxon in the "little tragedy"). This event leads the audience to think about the frailty of everything earthly: “Poor Yorik / Was very ill, they say. /<...>Here is our life. / How long, it seems, between us / He sat here and talked, / What if he decides get hold of, / Then the whole world will survive! .. ". So in The Last Day, along with the call "carpe diem", the theme "memento mori" appears, dotted through the next few episodes of the feast.

Like Pushkin's Young Man, who in a similar situation tries to distract those around him from sad thoughts and turns to Walsingam with a request to perform a "violent, Bacchic song", the Timofeevsky Chairman calls on those present to "flood" the blues: "Drink the cups to the fullest!", "Let's get down to a fun story" : "So, let each of the guests / Tell us<...>when I was happy." The reasoning of the numerous characters of the "poetic picture" sounding in response takes up the entire middle part of this rather great work. Each of the speakers offers their own understanding of happiness. For some, this is love, art, modest prosperity, the joy of motherhood, for others - fame, wealth, power, honors ... The Chairman of the feast sums up the discussion with a story about his own life. It turns out that in the past he experienced much of what the participants of the feast strive for - from mad love passion to glory, wore royal purple, but in the end he was disappointed in everything, finding satisfaction only in a cheerful friendly circle. Like the anthem of Walsingam, the monologue of the Chairman of the feast sharply elevates the central character of the work above his surroundings.

An extensive fragment of the "poetic picture" devoted to the theme of happiness means that its author deviated from the original principle of consistent copying of Pushkin's text. However, the connection between the two works is not interrupted. Immediately before the Chairman's speech, another character appears on the pages of The Last Day - the Old Man in rags, closely resembling Pushkin's Old Priest. He calls on those who feast: “Repent! The time is near!<...>Open your eyes; wake up / From the sleep of sin”, and immediately after the Chairman’s story, he already exposes the whole modern world: “Debauchery is all around, temptations are all around, / Shamelessness and shame are all around; / There is no religion, no honor.” However, Timofeev's hedonists, like the characters of the "little tragedy", remain deaf to his invectives and apocalyptic prophecies: "Away with him! - Get out! - Get out! - / Let him preach to the stones! .. ".

Despite the striking difference in the artistic level of the works under consideration, the degree of closeness between The Last Day and The Feast in the Time of the Plague is impressive. Obviously, the attention of the author of the "poetic picture" was attracted by the combination in the "little tragedy" of the themes of death and life's holiday, the problem of human behavior in the face of terrible danger. However, he tries to develop these themes within the framework of a different plan, further departing far from his source. And the main thing here is an attempt to philosophically deepen Pushkin's situation, to give it a new scale, to sharpen and directly bring the eschatological theme to the fore. Within the framework of this new plot, the part of the text of The Last Day that duplicates “A Feast in the Time of Plague” plays the role of an exposition.

As already mentioned, when reissuing his dramatic poem Timofeev preceded its text with a previously missing epigraph - a fragment of the 24th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew (vv. 37-39): “As it was in the days of Noah: so will the coming of the son of man.

As if in the days before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and encroaching, before him, Noah went into the ark, and did not go away, until the water came and took all: such will be the coming of the son of man ".

It is highly probable that the above lines served as an impetus for the conception of The Last Day. The epigraph not only points to the global cataclysm depicted in the work, but also emphasizes the mysterious nature of the “picture”, defines its plot and two-part composition: Timofeev’s numerous heroes immersed in earthly joys and cares (and humanity as such) are not ready for already very close to the Last Judgment.

A fragment of the Gospel predetermines the nature of the rethinking of Pushkin's work: a feast during plague under the pen of Timofeev turns into a feast the day before Last Judgment. Not embarrassed in places to almost copy the text of the “little tragedy” (it can be assumed that this was due to its perception as an ordinary translation, that is, not quite original, not actually Pushkin’s text), the author of The Last Day tries to see its central situation, to realize, as it apparently seemed to him, the not fully revealed eschatological potential of the "Feast ...". He offered his development of Pushkin's themes within the framework of a work of a different genre (mystery) and, from his point of view, a different philosophical scale.

As in "A Feast in the Time of Plague", in Timofeev's dramatic poem, the feasting fun of the characters is constantly overshadowed by reminders of death and suffering. In addition to the already mentioned funeral of “poor Iorik”, these are the complaints of the sick Old Man, the longing of the unfortunate young man, the song of the dancers about the "evil Saturn", the prophecies of the Elder in rags, ominous natural omens. But if the actors of the "little tragedy", being in mortal danger, consciously respond to this threat - trying to forget themselves, showing humility and selflessness, or throwing a daring challenge to the Plague - then the characters of The Last Day simply do not notice the impending catastrophe, thoughtlessly plunge into fun. Their "last day" is vain. They drive away the thought of a departed brother from themselves, laughingly drive away the accuser-prophet, frivolously explain the burning in the West morning dawn by natural causes, and the one that rises after that second the sun is perceived as a comet. They are not ready to meet their end, and they remember faith and mercy only at the very moment of the universal catastrophe.

The final part of The Last Day depicts this cataclysm - earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, the prayers of the human crowd, the destruction of humanity and the planet itself, disintegrating into many fragments. A decisive role in creating a picture of general destruction is played by extensive remarks: “ Water turns into blood.<...>Everywhere is deep darkness and solemn silence, interrupted by groans, roars and gnashing of teeth. Coffins open with a bang; the dead rise and join the living". “The earth cracks terribly and splits in different places. Masses of fire with sulphurous suffocating smoke begin to flare up from huge clefts, and at times illuminate the crowds of people who have accumulated in the darkness. .

If for the beginning of the "poetic picture" Pushkin's pretext is most relevant, then in its second part Timofeev focuses on Christian apocalypticism and the tradition of European eschatological literature associated with it - first of all, on Byron's mystery "Heaven and Earth", also based on Holy Scripture and directly dedicated to the global flood - the very times of Noah, which are mentioned in the epigraph to the "Last Day". From Byron, Timofeev borrows the genre form of the work with its conditionally mythological plan and the cosmic arena of action. Timofeev's picture of the destruction of the world in its details resembles both Byron's "Heaven and Earth" and the famous poem by the English poet "Darkness". Timofeev's chorus of the earth spirits from Byron's mystery corresponds to the Choir of fiery spirits and the Choir of black spirits representing the forces of evil, the Byron Choir of mortals - the Choir of spirits in a bloody pillar (innocent victims of the world) and the Choir of the righteous. The final flight of the Chairman of the feast and his beloved - Emma (" The wind blows them off the cliff. They circle for a while in the fog and disappear.”) evokes Byron’s remark: “Carrying Anu and Agolibamu with them, Azaziel and Samiaz disappear into the sky.”

The image of the universal cataclysm contains numerous references to the Holy Scriptures - the Revelation of St. John the Theologian, the First Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, the First Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, the Gospel of Matthew ... But it is curious that in this part of the "Last Day" his connection with the "Feast in the Time of Plague" is not interrupted. At the time of the collapse of the world main character Timofeeva perceives only the poetic side of what is happening: “Look! When should we expect / Such a picture? .. Never! . In the literal sense, finding himself in the situations that Walsingham sings in his hymn - “the gloomy abyss on the edge, / And in the furious ocean / Amid the menacing waves and stormy darkness”, he also experiences the Walsingham “rapture” with disastrous: “ (The earth is shaking. Volcanoes erupt in different places.<...>The chairman of the feast and Emma escape to the cliff(i.e. really find themselves on the edge of the abyss . - A.K.)). <...>Chairman.<...>Look here, / At this wonderful picture! / See how chaos boiled, / Exploding with stormy waves / Airy, terrible ocean, / And suddenly, crumbling into mountains, / Like an endless hurricane, / Roared, waved, rose up and proudly / Rested against the formidable vault of heaven. Truly, “Everything, everything that threatens death / For the heart of a mortal conceals / Inexplicable pleasures ...”.

Much like Walsingham, Timofeev's character is clearly superior to him in his titanism. The motive of the hero's affinity with the raging elements, characteristic of romantic literature, appears in the author of the mystery play in its hyperbolic, maximum possible expression. The chairman of the feast is also endowed with demonic contempt for humanity (“Look! What is blackening in the distance / And swarming like worms? - / Ah! These are people! - Here they are / Heroes - in festive caftans, / And miserable cowards - in trouble! .. ". Timofeev's desire, noted above, to "enlarge" the problems of "A Feast in the Time of Plague" also determines the transformation of the image of its protagonist.

Comparison of Pushkin's "little tragedy" and Timofeev's mystery allows us to describe one of the options for mastering the pinnacle achievements of modern Russian literature by "mass" literature. Taken in its relation to "A Feast in the Time of Plague", "The Last Day" reveals a paradoxical combination of secondary and originality, epigonism and polemic. Leaning on Pushkin's dramatic scene, the ambitious Timofeev was clearly not going to appear before the reader as a successor and, moreover, an imitator of his famous predecessor. He strove to surpass him, to be an artist of a different type, a "poet of thought" - a "Russian Byron".

Reviewers:

Bagno V.E., Doctor of Philology, Professor, Director of IRLI RAS, St. Petersburg;

Virolainen M.N., Doctor of Philology, Professor, Head. Department of Pushkin Studies, IRLI RAS, St. Petersburg.

Bibliographic link

Karpov A.A. "Feast DURING THE PLAGUE" by A. S. PUSHKIN IN "POETIC PICTURE" by A. V. TIMOFEEV "The LAST DAY" // Contemporary Issues science and education. - 2014. - No. 6.;
URL: http://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=16505 (date of access: 02/06/2020). We bring to your attention the journals published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural History"

The play "Feast during the Plague" was written in 1930 in Boldino and published in 1832 in the almanac "Alcyone". For his "little tragedy", Pushkin translated an excerpt from John Wilson's dramatic poem "City of the Plague". This poem depicts the plague epidemic in London in 1666. There are 3 acts and 12 scenes in Wilson's work, many heroes, among which the main one is a pious priest.

In 1830, cholera was rampant in Russia. Pushkin could not come from Boldin to Moscow, cordoned off by quarantines, to see his bride. These moods of the poet are consonant with the state of the heroes of Wilson's poem. Pushkin took from it the most suitable passage and completely rewrote two inserted songs.

genre

The cycle of four short dramatic fragments began to be called "little tragedies" after Pushkin's death. Although the heroes of the play do not die, their death from the plague is almost inevitable. In A Feast During the Plague, only Pushkin's original songs are rhymed.

Theme, plot and composition

The passion portrayed by Pushkin in this play is the fear of death. In the face of imminent death from the plague, people behave differently. Some live as if death does not exist: feast, love, enjoy life. But death reminds them of itself when the cart with the dead passes down the street.

Others seek comfort in God, praying humbly and accepting any will of God, including death. Such is the priest who persuades the feasters to go home and not to defile the memory of the dead.

Still others do not want to be consoled, they experience the bitterness of separation in poetry, in songs, resign themselves to grief. This is the way of the Scottish girl Mary.

The fourth, like Walsingam, does not reconcile with death, but overcomes the fear of death with the power of the spirit. It turns out that the fear of death can be enjoyed, because the victory of the fear of death is a guarantee of immortality. At the end of the play, everyone remains with his own: the priest could not convince the feasters led by the chairman, they did not influence the position of the priest in any way. Only Valsingam thinks deeply, but, most likely, not about whether he did well when he did not follow the priest, but about whether he can continue to resist the fear of death with the strength of his spirit. Wilson does not have this final remark; it is introduced by Pushkin. The climax, the moment of the highest tension (Valsingam's momentary weakness, his impulse to a pious life and to God), is not equal here to the denouement, Walsingham's refusal from this path.

Heroes and images

The protagonist is the chairman of the Valsing feast. He is a brave man who does not want to avoid danger, but comes face to face with it. Walsingam is not a poet, but at night he composes a hymn to the plague: "There is rapture in battle, And the dark abyss is on the edge..." maybe a pledge! Even thoughts about the mother who died three weeks ago and the recently deceased beloved wife do not shake the convictions of the chairman: “We are not afraid of the darkness of the grave ...”

The chairman is opposed by a priest - the embodiment of faith and piety. He supports everyone in the cemetery who has lost loved ones and despaired. The priest does not accept any other way of resisting death, except for humble prayers that will allow the living after death to meet beloved souls in heaven. The priest conjures those feasting on the holy blood of the Savior to interrupt the monstrous feast. But he respects the position of the chairman of the feast, asks his forgiveness for reminding him of his dead mother and wife.

The young man in the play is the embodiment of cheerfulness and energy of youth, not resigned to death. Feasting women are the opposite types. Sad Mary indulges in melancholy and despondency, remembering a happy life in her home, and Louise is outwardly courageous, although she is frightened to fainting by a cart filled with dead bodies, which is being driven by a Negro.

The image of this cart is the image of death itself and its messenger - a black man whom Louise takes for a demon, a devil.

Conflict

In this play, the conflict of ideas does not lead to direct confrontation, everyone remains in his own way. Only deep reflections of the chairman testify to the internal struggle.

Artistic originality

The plot of the play is completely borrowed, but the best and main parts in it were composed by Pushkin. Mary's song is a lyrical song about the desire to live, love, but the inability to resist death. The chairman's song reveals his courageous character. She is his life credo, his way of resisting the fear of death: “So, praise to you, Plague, We are not afraid of the darkness of the grave ...”