The history of the creation of the work of Karamzin "Poor Liza"

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin is one of the most educated people of his time. He preached advanced enlightenment views, widely promoted Western European culture in Russia. The personality of the writer, multifacetedly gifted in various directions, played a significant role in the cultural life of Russia in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Karamzin traveled a lot, translated, wrote original works of art, was engaged in publishing. The formation of professional literary activity is associated with his name.
In 1789-1790. Karamzin undertook a trip abroad (to Germany, Switzerland, France and England). Upon his return N.M. Karamzin began to publish the Moscow Journal, in which he published the story Poor Liza (1792), Letters of a Russian Traveler (1791-92), which placed him among the first Russian writers. In these works, as well as in literary critical articles, the aesthetic program of sentimentalism was expressed with its interest in a person, regardless of class, his feelings and experiences. In the 1890s. the writer's interest in the history of Russia is growing; he gets acquainted with historical works, the main published sources: chronicles, notes of foreigners, etc. In 1803, Karamzin began work on the History of the Russian State, which became the main work of his entire life.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, in the 1790s. the writer lived at Beketov's dacha near the Simonov monastery. The environment played a decisive role in the idea of \u200b\u200bthe story "Poor Liza". The literary plot of the story was perceived by the Russian reader as a plot of vitally reliable and real, and its heroes - as real people. After the publication of the story, walks in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery, where Karamzin settled his heroine, and to the pond, into which she threw herself, became fashionable, which was named "Lizin's Pond". As researcher V.N. Toporov, defining the place of the Karamzin story in the evolutionary series of Russian literature, "for the first time in Russian literature, fiction created such a way of true life, which was perceived as stronger, acute and convincing than life itself." "Poor Liza" - the most popular and best story - brought Karamzin, then 25 years old, real fame. The young and previously unknown writer suddenly became a celebrity. "Poor Liza" was the first and most talented Russian sentimental story.

Genre, genre, creative method

In Russian literature of the 18th century. multivolume classic novels became widespread. Karamzin was the first to introduce the genre of a short novella - a "sensitive story", which enjoyed particular success among his contemporaries. The role of the narrator in the story "Poor Liza" belongs to the author. The small volume makes the plot of the story clearer and more dynamic. The name of Karamzin is inextricably linked with the concept of "Russian sentimentalism."
Sentimentalism is a trend in European literature and culture of the second half of the 17th century, highlighting human feelings, not reason. Sentimentalists focused on human relations, the confrontation between good and evil.
In Karamzin's story, the life of the heroes is portrayed through the prism of sentimental idealization. The images of the story are embellished. Liza's deceased father, an exemplary family man, because he loves work, plowed the land well and was quite prosperous, everyone loved him. Liza's mother, "a sensitive, kind old woman," grows weaker from incessant tears for her husband, for peasant women know how to feel. She loves her daughter touchingly and admires nature with religious tenderness.
The name itself Lisa until the early 80s. XVIII century. almost never occurred in Russian literature, and if it did, it was in its foreign language version. Choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin was going to break the rather strict canon that had developed in literature and predetermined in advance what Liza should be like, how she should behave. This behavioral stereotype was defined in the European literature of the XUN-XUSH centuries. the fact that the image of Lisa, Lisette (OhePe), was associated primarily with comedy. Lisa of the French comedy is usually a maid (maid), confidante of her young mistress. She is young, good-looking, quite frivolous and perfectly understands everything related to a love affair. Naivety, innocence, modesty are the least characteristic of this comedic role. Breaking the reader's expectations, removing the mask from the heroine's name, Karamzin thereby destroyed the foundations of the very culture of classicism, weakened the connections between the signified and the signifier, between the name and its bearer in the space of literature. For all the conventionality of the image of Lisa, her name is associated precisely with the character, and not with the role of the heroine. Establishing the relationship between "internal" character and "external" action was a significant achievement of Karamzin on the way to the "psychologism" of Russian prose.

Subject

Analysis of the work shows that Karamzin's story contains several themes. One of them is an appeal to the peasant environment. The writer portrayed a peasant girl who retained patriarchal ideas about moral values \u200b\u200bas the main character.
Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the opposition of town and village into Russian literature. The image of the city is inextricably linked with the image of Erast, with the “terrible bulk of houses” and the shining “golden domes”. The image of Lisa is associated with the life of beautiful natural nature. In Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - turns out to be defenseless, falling into an urban space, where laws differ from those of nature. It is not for nothing that Lisa's mother tells her (thereby indirectly predicting everything that will happen later): “My heart is always out of place when you go to town; I always put a candle in front of the image and pray to the Lord God to keep you from any misfortune and misfortune. "
In the story, the author raises not only the topic of the "little man" and social inequality, but also such topics as fate and circumstances, nature and man, love-grief and love-happiness.
With the author's voice, the theme of the great history of the fatherland is included in the private plot of the story. The juxtaposition of the historical and the private makes the story "Poor Liza" a fundamental literary fact, on the basis of which the Russian socio-psychological novel will subsequently emerge.

The story attracted the attention of contemporaries with its humanistic idea: "and peasant women know how to love." The author's position in the story is the position of a humanist. Before us is Karamzin the artist and Karamzin the philosopher. He sang the beauty of love, described love as a feeling that can transform a person. The writer teaches: a moment of love is beautiful, but only reason gives long life and strength.
"Poor Liza" immediately became extremely popular in Russian society. Humane feelings, the ability to sympathize and be sensitive turned out to be very consonant with the trends of the time, when literature from civic themes, characteristic of the Enlightenment, moved to the topic of personal, private life of a person and the inner world of an individual became the main object of its attention.
Karamzin made one more discovery in literature. With "Poor Liza" such a concept as psychologism appeared in her, that is, the writer's ability to vividly and touchingly depict a person's inner world, his feelings, desires, and aspirations. In this sense, Karamzin paved the way for 19th century writers.

The nature of the conflict

The analysis showed that there is a complex conflict in Karamzin's work. First of all, it is a social conflict: the gap between a rich nobleman and a poor villager is very large. But, as you know, "peasant women know how to love." Sensitivity - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness, and then leads Liza to death (she “forgets her soul” - commits suicide). Erast is also punished for his decision to leave Lisa and marry another: he will forever reproach himself with her death.
The story "Poor Liza" is written on a classic story about the love of representatives of different classes: its heroes - the nobleman Erast and the peasant woman Liza - cannot be happy not only for moral reasons, but also for social conditions of life. The deep social root of the plot is embodied in Karamzin's story at its most external level as a moral conflict between Liza and Erast, "a beautiful soul and body" - "a rather rich nobleman with a fair mind and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and windy." And, of course, one of the reasons for the shock generated by Karamzin's story in literature and the reader's mind was that Karamzin was the first Russian writer who addressed the topic of unequal love to decide to unleash his story in the way that such a conflict would most likely be resolved in real conditions Russian life: the death of the heroine.
The main characters of the story "Poor Lisa"
Liza is the main character of Karamzin's story. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, the writer turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically ordinary features. His words "... and peasant women know how to love" became winged. Sensitivity is Lisa's central character trait. She trusts the movements of her heart, lives "tender passions." Ultimately, it is the ardor and fervor that lead Liza to death, but she is morally justified.
Liza does not look like a peasant. “Beautiful in body and soul, the settler,” “tender and sensitive Liza,” passionately loving her parents, cannot forget about her father, but hides her sadness and tears so as not to disturb her mother. She lovingly takes care of her mother, gets her medicines, works day and night (“she weaved canvases, knitted stockings, picked flowers in the spring, and took berries in the summer and sold them in Moscow”). The author is sure that such activities fully provide for the life of the old woman and her daughter. According to his plan, Lisa is completely unfamiliar with the book, but after meeting Erast, she dreams of how nice it would be if her beloved "was born a simple peasant shepherd ..." - these words are quite in the spirit of Lisa.
Liza not only speaks in a bookish way, but also thinks. Nevertheless, the psychology of Lisa, who first fell in love with a girl, is revealed in detail and in a natural sequence. Before diving into the pond, Lisa remembers her mother, she took care of the old woman as best she could, left her money, but this time the thought of her was no longer able to keep Lisa from taking a decisive step. As a result, the character of the heroine is idealized, but internally whole.
The character of Erast is much different from that of Lisa. Erast is depicted in greater accordance with the social environment that raised him than Lisa. This is a "rather rich nobleman", an officer who led an absent-minded life, thought only of his own pleasure, looked for him in worldly amusements, but often did not find him, he was bored and complained about his fate. Endowed with "a fair mind and a kind heart," being "kind by nature, but weak and windy," Erast represented a new type of hero in Russian literature. In it, for the first time, the type of a disappointed Russian aristocrat was outlined.
Erast recklessly falls in love with Lisa, not thinking that she is not a girl of his circle. However, the hero does not stand the test of love.
Before Karamzin, the plot automatically determined the type of hero. In Poor Liza, the image of Erast is much more complex than the literary type to which the hero belongs.
Erast is not a "cunning seducer", he is sincere in his oaths, sincere in his deception. Erast is as much the culprit of the tragedy as the victim of his "fervent imagination." Therefore, the author does not consider himself entitled to judge Erast. He stands on a par with his hero - because he converges with him at the "point" of sensitivity. After all, it is the author who acts in the story as a “retelling agent” of the plot that Erast told him: “... I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Lisa's grave ... ".
Erast begins a long line of heroes in Russian literature, the main feature of which is weakness and unsuitability for life, and for whom the label of "superfluous person" has long been fixed in literary criticism.

Plot, composition

In the words of Karamzin himself, the story "Poor Liza" is "a very simple tale." The plot of the story is simple. This is the love story of a poor peasant girl Lisa and a rich young nobleman Erast. He was tired of social life and secular pleasures. He was constantly bored and "complained about his fate." Erast "read idyllic novels" and dreamed of that happy time when people, not burdened by the conventions and rules of civilization, would live carelessly in the bosom of nature. Thinking only of his own pleasure, he "looked for it in amusements." With the advent of love in his life, everything changes. Erast falls in love with the pure "daughter of nature" - the peasant woman Liza. Chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Lisa seems to be a wonderful shepherdess. Having read novels in which "all people carelessly walked along the rays, swam in clean springs, kissed like turtle doves, rested under roses and myrtles," he decided that "he found in Liza what his heart had been looking for for a long time." Liza, although “the daughter of a rich peasant”, is only a peasant woman who is forced to earn her own living. Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The picture of pure first love is drawn in the story very touching. “Now I think,” says Liza to Erast, “that life without you is not life, but sadness and boredom. The bright month is dark without your eyes; without your voice the singing nightingale is boring ... ”Erast also admires his“ shepherdess ”. "All the brilliant fun of the great world seemed to him insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul fed his heart." But when Lisa surrenders to him, the jaded young man begins to cool in his feelings for her. Liza hopes in vain to regain lost happiness. Erast goes on a military campaign, loses all his fortune at cards and, in the end, marries a rich widow. And Liza, deceived in her best hopes and feelings, rushes into a pond near the Simonov Monastery.

The artistic originality of the analyzed story

But the main thing in the story is not the plot, but the feelings that it was supposed to awaken in the reader. Therefore, the main character of the story becomes the narrator, who, with sadness and sympathy, tells about the fate of the poor girl. The image of the sentimental narrator became a revelation in Russian literature, since before the narrator remained “behind the scenes” and was neutral in relation to the events described. The narrator learns the story of poor Liza directly from Erast and himself often comes to be sad at Liza's grave. The narrator of Poor Lisa is emotionally involved in the heroes' relationship. Already the title of the story is built on the combination of the heroine's own name with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her.
The author-narrator is the only intermediary between the reader and the life of the heroes, embodied by his word. The narration is carried out in the first person, the constant presence of the author reminds of himself by his periodic appeals to the reader: "now the reader must know ...", "the reader can easily imagine ...". These formulas of address, emphasizing the intimacy of emotional contact between the author, the heroes and the reader, are very reminiscent of the methods of organizing the narrative in the epic genres of Russian poetry. Karamzin, transferring these formulas into narrative prose, achieved that the prose acquired a heartfelt lyrical sound and began to be perceived as emotionally as poetry. The story "Poor Liza" is characterized by short or detailed lyrical digressions, at each dramatic turn of the plot we hear the author's voice: "my heart is bleeding ...", "a tear is rolling down my face."
In their aesthetic unity, the three central images of the story - the author-narrator, poor Liza and Erast - with a completeness unprecedented for Russian literature, have realized the sentimentalist concept of a personality, valuable for its extra-class moral merits, sensitive and complex.
Karamzin was the first to write smoothly. In his prose, words were intertwined in such a regular, rhythmic way that the reader had the impression of rhythmic music. Smoothness in prose is the same as meter and rhyme in poetry.
Karamzin introduces the rural literary landscape into the tradition.

The meaning of the work

Karamzin laid the foundation for a huge cycle of literature about "little people", opened the way for the classics of Russian literature. The story "Rich Liza" essentially opens up the theme of the "little man" in Russian literature, although the social aspect in relation to Liza and Erast is somewhat muted. Of course, the gap between a rich nobleman and a poor peasant woman is very large, but Liza is least of all like a peasant woman, rather like a sweet society lady, brought up on sentimental novels. The theme of "Poor Lisa" appears in many works of A.S. Pushkin. When he wrote "The Young Lady-Peasant", he was definitely guided by "Poor Liza", turning the "sad reality" into a novel with a happy ending. In "The Station Keeper", Dunya is seduced and taken away by a hussar, and her father, unable to bear grief, dies and drinks. In "The Queen of Spades" the further life of the Karamzin Liza is seen, the fate that would have awaited Liza if she had not committed suicide. Liza also lives in the novel "Sunday" by Leo Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under the train. Although she remains to live, her life is full of filth and humiliation. The image of the heroine Karamzin continued in the works of other writers.
It is in this story that the refined psychologism of Russian fiction, recognized throughout the world, is born. Here Karamzin, opening a gallery of "superfluous people", stands at the source of yet another powerful tradition - images of clever idlers, whom idleness helps to maintain a distance between themselves and the state. Thanks to blessed laziness, "superfluous people" are always in opposition. If they served their fatherland honestly, they would not have had time to seduce Liz and witty retreats. In addition, if the people are always poor, then "superfluous people" always have means, even if they squandered, as happened with Erast. He has nothing to do in his story except love.

It is interesting

“Poor Liza” is perceived as a story about true events. Lisa belongs to the characters with a "registration". "... More and more often attracts me to the walls of Si ... the new monastery is a memory of the deplorable fate of Liza, poor Liza" - this is how the author begins his story. Behind the gap in the middle of the word, any Muscovite guessed the name of the Simonov Monastery, the first buildings of which date back to the XIV century. The pond, located under the walls of the monastery, was called the Lisin Pond, but thanks to Karamzin's story it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage for Muscovites. In the XX century. the Lizin pond were named Lizin square, Lizin deadlock and Lizino railway station. To date, only a few buildings of the monastery have survived, most of them were blown up in 1930.The pond was gradually filled up, it finally disappeared after 1932.
First of all, the same unfortunate girls in love as Lisa herself came to the place of Lisa's death. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees growing around the pond was mercilessly cut by the knives of the "pilgrims". The inscriptions carved on the trees were both serious ("In these streams poor Liza died her days; / If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh"), and satirical, hostile to Karamzin and his heroine (the couplet acquired special fame among such "birch epigrams": "Erast's bride died in these streams. / Drown yourself, girls, there is enough room in the pond").
Festivities at the Simonov Monastery were so popular that a description of this area can be found on the pages of the works of many 19th century writers: M.N. Zagoskin, I.I. Lazhechnikova, M. Yu. Lermontov, A.I. Herzen.
Karamzin and his story were certainly mentioned when describing the Simonov Monastery in Moscow guidebooks and special books and articles. But gradually these references began to be more and more ironic, and already in 1848 in the famous work of M.N. Zagoskin "Moscow and Muscovites" in the chapter "A Walk to the Simonov Monastery" not a word was said either about Karamzin or about his heroine. As sentimental prose lost its charm of novelty, Poor Liza ceased to be perceived as a story about true events, and even more so as an object for worship, but became in the minds of most readers a primitive invention, a curiosity reflecting the tastes and concepts of a bygone era.

Good DD. History of Russian Literature of the 18th Century. - M., 1960.
Weil P., Genis A. Native speech. The legacy of "Poor Liza" Karamzin // Star. 1991. No. 1.
ValaginAL. Let's read it together. - M., 1992.
DI. Fonvizin in Russian criticism. - M., 1958.
History of Moscow districts: encyclopedia / ed. K.A. Averyanov. - M., 2005.
Toporov VL. "Poor Liza" Karamzin. Moscow: Russkiy Mir, 2006.

The story of N. M. Karamzin "Poor Liza" was first published in the June issue of "Moscow Journal" for 1792. It marked the beginning not only of the original Karamzin prose, but also of all Russian classical literature. Until the appearance of the first novellas and short stories of Pushkin and Gogol, Poor Liza remained the most perfect work of fiction.

The story was extremely popular with Russian readers. Much later, critics will accuse the author of excessive “sentimentality” and “sugaryness”, forgetting about the historical era in which Karamzin lived.

“Poor Liza” became a necessary transitional stage in the formation of the modern Russian language. The story is strikingly different from the ponderous style of the 18th century and anticipates the best examples of the golden age of Russian literature.

The meaning of the name

"Poor Liza" is the name and at the same time a figurative characteristic of the main character. The definition of "poor" refers not only to the girl's financial situation, but also to her unhappy fate.

The main theme of the work

The main theme of the work is tragic love.

Lisa is an ordinary peasant girl who, after the death of her father, is forced to support herself and her mother. Man's strength is needed to run a peasant farm, so until Liza is married, she takes on any feminine job: weaving, knitting, collecting and selling flowers and berries. The old mother is infinitely grateful to her only nurse and dreams that God would send her a good man.

The turning point in Lisa's life is a meeting with the young nobleman Erast, who begins to show her attention. For a simple peasant woman, an elegant and well-mannered young man seems to be a demigod, strikingly different from his fellow villagers. Lisa is not a fool after all, she does not allow anything superfluous and reprehensible to a new acquaintance.

Erast is a windy and careless young man. He has long been fed up with the entertainment of high society. Lisa becomes for him the embodiment of an unfulfilled dream of a patriarchal love idyll. At first, Erast really does not have any low thoughts about the girl. He is happy from innocent meetings with a naive peasant woman. Due to his carelessness, Erast does not even think about the future, about the insurmountable abyss that separates the nobleman and the commoner.

Erast's modest behavior and respect for Lisa conquer the girl's mother. She treats the young man as a good friend of the family, and does not even know about the romance between the young people, considering it impossible.

The purely platonic relationship between Lisa and Erast could not last forever. The reason for physical intimacy was the mother's desire to marry her daughter. For lovers it was a heavy blow of fate. Hugs, kisses and passionate vows of allegiance led to the fact that Lisa lost her innocence.

After the incident, the nature of the relationship between lovers changes dramatically. For Lisa, Erast becomes the closest person, without whom she cannot imagine her future life. The nobleman "descended from heaven to earth." Lisa has lost her former magic charm in his eyes. Erast began to treat her as a familiar source of sensual pleasure. He is not yet ready to abruptly break off relations with Lisa, but begins to see her less and less.

The further course of events is not difficult to predict. Erast does not deceive Lisa that he is going to war. However, he returns pretty soon and, having forgotten his beloved, finds a rich bride, equal to him in social status.

Lisa continues to believe and wait for a loved one. A chance meeting with Erast, the news of his engagement and imminent wedding, and finally, humiliating money alms for love inflict a huge mental trauma on the girl. Unable to survive her, Lisa commits suicide.

Thus ends a short romance between a nobleman and a peasant woman, which from the very beginning was doomed to a tragic ending.

Problematic

Karamzin was one of the first writers to raise the problem of love between representatives of different classes. Subsequently, this topic received great development in Russian literature.

Love, as you know, knows no boundaries. However, in pre-revolutionary Russia, such borders existed and were strictly protected by law and public opinion. The physical connection of a nobleman with a peasant woman was not forbidden, but the fate of a seduced woman was unenviable. At best, she became a kept woman and could only hope for the adoption of the jointly acquired children by the master.

At the beginning of the love story, Erast behaves simply stupidly, dreaming that he will "live with Liza like a brother and sister", take her to his village, etc. In the finale, he forgets about promises and acts as he tells he is of noble origin.

Deceived and dishonored Liza prefers to die and take her love and shameful secret to the grave.

Composition

The story has a clear classical structure: an exposition (the author's lyrical digression, smoothly turning into Lisa's story), an outset (Lisa's meeting with Erast), a climax (physical intimacy between lovers) and a denouement (Erast's betrayal and Lisa's suicide).

What does the author teach

Lisa's story evokes great pity for the unfortunate girl. The main culprit of the tragedy, of course, is the careless Erast, who had to seriously think about the consequences of his love interest.

Plot this lyrical work is based on a love story between a poor peasant girl Liza and a wealthy nobleman Erast. To get to know the beauty he liked, he buys lilies of the valley from her, which she collected in the forest for sale. Lisa charmed the guy with her naturalness, purity and kindness. They started dating, but, unfortunately, the happiness was short-lived. Soon, Erast got bored with the girl and he found a more profitable party for himself. The young man regretted his thoughtless act for the rest of his life. After all, Liza, unable to bear parting with her beloved, drowned herself in the river.

The main theme this sad tale, of course, is love. She serves as a test for the main characters. Lisa is devoted and faithful to her beloved, literally dissolves in him, completely surrenders to feelings, she cannot live without him. While Erast turns out to be a miserable, petty and narrow-minded person for whom material wealth is much more important than feelings. For him, position in society is dearer than love, which quickly bored him. Lisa, on the other hand, cannot live after such a betrayal. She cannot imagine her future without love and is ready to say goodbye to life. So strong is her affection for her beloved. For her, he is even more important than life itself.

main idea "Poor Lisa" is that you must completely surrender to your feelings and not be afraid of them. After all, this is the only way to conquer egoism and immorality in oneself. In his work, Nikolai Mikhailovich shows that sometimes poor people are much kinder than wealthy gentlemen.

Surprisingly, Karamzin does not blame Erast for Liza's death at all, but explains to the reader that the big city influenced the young man so negatively, making him more cruel and depraved. The village brought up simplicity and naivety in the main character, which played a cruel joke on her. But not only the fate of Liza, but also of Erast was tragic, because he never became really happy and for the rest of his life felt a strong sense of guilt for his fateful act for the girl.

Its the author builds a work on opposition. Erast is the complete opposite of an honest, pure, naive and kind girl from the lower class. He is a selfish, cowardly, spoiled youth belonging to the noble family. Their feelings are also different. Liza's love is sincere and real, she cannot live a day without a lover, while Erast, as soon as he got his own, on the contrary, begins to move away and his feelings quickly cool down, as if nothing had happened.

Thanks to Poor Lisa, you can learn from the mistakes made by the protagonists. After reading this story, I want to become at least a little more human and responsive. Nikolai Mikhailovich tries to teach the reader to be kinder, more attentive to those around him, to better think over his words and actions. Also, this story awakens in a sense of compassion for other people, makes you reconsider your behavior and attitude towards the world around you.

Option 2

With his stories, Karamzin made a great contribution to the development of Russian literature, including prose. He decided to apply new techniques in narrative prose. He abandoned the traditional plots of works taken from the mythology of ancient states. He applied an innovative technique, that is, he began to write about modern events, and even stories about ordinary people. So the story about a simple girl Liza, who was called "Poor Liza", was written.

The author worked on the story for two forests from 1789-1790. Karamzin did not try to write a story with a happy ending. As I said, he was an innovator in Russian prose. In this work, the main character died and there was no happy ending.

During the reading of this work, several are distinguished under the themes that form the main theme of the story. One of the topics is when the author begins to describe the life of the peasants in full swing. He repeatedly emphasizes the relationship between the peasant and wildlife. According to the author, the main character, who grew up in communication with nature, cannot act as a negative character. She grew up observing centuries-old traditions. She is cheerful and kind. In general, Karamzin expressed in Liza all the best qualities of a person. She is perfect from all sides and from this character begins the formation of the beauty and meaning of the work "Poor Liza".

The main idea can be safely called true love. Lisa fell in love with a wealthy nobleman. The girl immediately forgot about social inequality and plunged headlong into the dark pool of love. He girl did not expect betrayal from her beloved. When she learned that she was betrayed, she threw herself into the lake in grief and drowned. It also touched upon the theory of the little man, that is, there can be no full-fledged love between people who belong to different strata of society. Most likely, such a relationship does not need to be started, because initially they will not last long. All this because they were born and used to their special life. And if other layers fell, they felt out of place.

The main problem of the story can be called that Lisa succumbed to an impulse of feelings, and not to reason. We can safely say that her momentary weakness ruined her.

Poor Lisa - Analysis 3

N.M. Karamzin wrote the work "Poor Liza" very beautifully. The main acting characters were a simple peasant woman and a young rich nobleman. Having created this work, the young writer gains great fame. The idea of \u200b\u200bwriting this story by the author was the Simonov Monastery, which was located not far from the house where Karamzin spent time with close friends. With this story, Karamzin wanted to show that there are enormous misunderstandings between peasants and nobles. It was with this thought that the heroine Lisa was created.

Liza Karamzin described as a very sincere and pure-minded person, she embodied her own image of principles and ideals, which was not entirely clear to Erast. Although she was an ordinary peasant woman, she lived as her heart prompted her. Lisa was a very well-read girl, so it was difficult to determine from her conversation that she was of peasant origin.

Erast, Lisa's lover, was an officer who lived a high life. I only thought about how to brighten up life with entertainment so as not to get bored. Despite the fact that he was very smart, his character was very changeable. He did not think that Liza would never be able to become his wife, because they were from different classes. A truly in love with Erast. Having a wayward weak character, he could not withstand and carry their love with Lisa to the end. He preferred a lady from his own society, did not think about the feelings of poor Liza. This, of course, did not surprise anyone, because money for high society has always been in the foreground, rather than real, sincere feelings. Therefore, the ending of this story was very tragic.

Despite the fact that the work is written very interesting. The end of the sentimental love story ended with the tragedy of the main character Lisa. The reader is literally imbued with the events described. Nikolai Mikhailovich was able to describe the once heard story in such a way that the reader literally carries through himself all the sensuality of the work. Each new line is filled with the depth of feelings of the main characters. In some moments, you involuntarily imbued with the harmony of nature. The author was so accurately able to describe the place where Lisa committed suicide that the reader has no doubts about the veracity of this story.

Thanks to the uniqueness of the work, Nikolai Karamzin enriched Russian literature with his masterpiece. Thus, taking a huge step in its development. Due to its inherent sentimentality and tragedy, the work became a model for many writers of that time.

Essence, meaning, idea and thought. For grade 8

For the first time, the story "poor Liza" was published in 1792. It is published by the author himself. At that time, Nikolai Mikhailovich was the owner of the "Moscow Journal". It is on its pages that the story appears. A simple story with an unpretentious plot brought the writer extraordinary fame.

In the story, the author is the narrator. The story tells about the life of a young peasant woman. She works tirelessly. To earn extra money the girl go to the city. Sells berries and flowers there. In the city, Liza meets the young man Erast. Erast is a nobleman. Has some wealth. He is described as a frivolous person who lives for fun. But at the same time, he was already bored with everything.

Liza, on the contrary, is described as pure, trusting, kind, in no way inexperienced. However, two opposite heroes - Lisa and Erast - fall in love with each other. They're happy. It seems to them that happiness will last forever.

However, everything changes after intimacy. Erast begins to lose interest in the girl. And at some point disappears from her life. But Lisa still loves him. She is trying to find a lover. And it soon turns out that Erast lost all his wealth at cards. And to save his position, he is forced to marry.

Lisa cannot survive betrayal. Without telling anyone about her experiences, she decides to leave this life. The pond near the Simonov Monastery became her last refuge.

The author sympathizes with his heroine. He is bitter from Erast's immoral act. The author condemns the hero. But he softens, knowing that Erast himself cannot forgive himself. He is tormented. According to the writer, Erast's torment is fair.

The work "Poor Liza" Karamzin wrote, guided by foreign literature. From it, he took a stylistic direction. Poor Liza is written in the style of classic sentimentalism.

During the time of Karamzin, classicism flourished. The works of many writers came out in several volumes. But N.M. Karamzin is considered to be the author of short stories. And the work about a peasant girl is also written in the genre of a short story. But it is also called a short story. Despite the small volume, “poor Liza” did not belong to any cycle of stories. After being published in the Moscow magazine, the story gained wide popularity and recognition. Subsequently, the Work was published as a separate book.

the story raises questions of morality, social inequality, betrayal, and touches on the theme of the "little man".

Themes of immorality and betrayal are still relevant today. Very often, people do things without thinking that they might hurt.

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The history of the creation of "Poor Lisa"

karamzin lisa story literature

In 1789-1790. Karamzin traveled abroad (to Germany, Switzerland, France and England). Upon his return N.M. Karamzin began publishing the Moscow Journal, in which he published the novel Poor Liza (1792) and Letters from a Russian Traveler (1791-92), which placed Karamzin among the first Russian literary men. In these works, as well as in literary-critical articles, the aesthetic program of sentimentalism was expressed with its interest in a person regardless of class, his feelings and experiences. In the 1890s, the writer's interest in the history of Russia increased; he gets acquainted with historical works, the main published sources: chronicles, notes of foreigners, etc.

According to the recollections of contemporaries, in the 1790s the writer lived at the dacha near Beketov near the Simonov Monastery. The environment played a decisive role in the idea of \u200b\u200bthe story "Poor Liza". The literary plot of the story was perceived by the Russian reader as vitally accurate and real, and the heroes as real people. After the publication of the story, walks in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery, where Karamzin settled his heroine, and to the pond, into which she threw herself, became fashionable and later received the name "Lizin's Pond". As researcher V.N. Toporov, defining the place of the Karamzin story in the evolutionary series of Russian literature: "For the first time in Russian literature, fiction created such a way of true life that was perceived as stronger, poignant and convincing than life itself."

“Poor Liza” brought real fame to twenty-five years old Karamzin. The young and previously unknown writer suddenly became a celebrity. "Poor Liza" was the first and most talented Russian sentimental story.

Today in the lesson we will talk about the story of N.M. Karamzin "Poor Liza", we will find out the details of its creation, the historical context, determine what the author's innovation is, analyze the characters of the heroes of the story, and also consider the moral issues raised by the writer.

It must be said that the publication of this story was accompanied by extraordinary success, even excitement among the Russian readership, which is not surprising, because the first Russian book appeared, the heroes of which could be as empathic as Goethe's The Suffering of Young Werther or Novaya Eloise "Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We can say that Russian literature has begun to become one level with European literature. The delight and popularity were such that even a pilgrimage to the site of the events described in the book began. As you remember, this is not far from the Simonov Monastery, the place was named "Lizin Pond". This place is becoming so popular that some evil-speaking people even write epigrams:

Drowned here
Erastov's bride ...
Drown yourself girls
There is plenty of room in the pond!

Well, can I do
Godless and Worse?
Fall in love with a tomboy
And drown yourself in a puddle.

All this contributed to the extraordinary popularity of the story among Russian readers.

Naturally, the popularity of the story was given not only by the dramatic plot, but also by the fact that it was all artistically unusual.

Figure: 2.N.M. Karamzin ()

Here's what he writes: “They say that an author needs talents and knowledge: a sharp, discerning mind, vivid imagination, and so on. Fair enough, but not enough. He needs to have a kind, tender heart, if he wants to be a friend and a favorite of our soul; if he wants his gifts to shine with a flickering light; if he wants to write for eternity and collect the blessings of the nations. The Creator is always portrayed in creation, and often against his will. The hypocrite thinks in vain to deceive the readers and to hide the iron heart under the golden garment of magnificent words; in vain speaks to us of mercy, compassion, virtue! All his exclamations are cold, without a soul, without life; and never a nutritious, ethereal flame will flow from his creations into the gentle soul of the reader ... "," When you want to paint your portrait, then first look in the right mirror: can your face be an object of art ... "," You grab a pen and want to be an author: ask yourself, alone, without witnesses, sincerely: what am I like? for you want to paint a portrait of your soul and heart ... "," You want to be an author: read the history of the misfortunes of the human race - and if your heart does not shed blood, leave the pen, - or it will depict to us the cold gloom of your soul. But if all the sorrowful, all the oppressed, all the tears open the way into your sensitive chest; if your soul can rise to a passion for good, can nourish in itself the sacred, unlimited desire for the common good: then boldly call on the goddesses of Parnassus - they will pass by the magnificent palaces and visit your humble hut - you will not be a useless writer - and none of the kind will not look with dry eyes at your grave ... "," In a word: I am sure that a bad person cannot be a good author. "

Here is Karamzin's artistic motto: a bad person cannot be a good writer.

So before Karamzin, no one in Russia had ever written. Moreover, the unusualness began already with the exposition, with the description of the place where the action of the story would take place.

“Perhaps no one living in Moscow knows the surroundings of this city as well as I do, because no one is more often than mine in the field, no one else wanders on foot, without a plan, without a goal - wherever they look - in the meadows and groves, hills and plains. Every summer I find new pleasant places or new beauty in old ones. But the most pleasant thing for me is the place on which the gloomy, Gothic towers of Si ... the new monastery "(fig. 3) .

Figure: 3. Lithograph of the Simonov Monastery ()

Here, too, there is an unusualness: on the one hand, Karamzin accurately describes and designates the place of action - the Simonov Monastery, on the other hand, this encryption creates a kind of mystery, understatement, which is very consistent with the spirit of the story. The main focus is on the non-fiction of events, on the documentary. It is no coincidence that the narrator will say that he learned about these events from the hero himself, from Erast, who told him about this shortly before his death. It was this feeling that everything happened nearby, that it was possible to witness these events, that intrigued the reader and gave the story a special meaning and special character.

Figure: 4. Erast and Lisa ("Poor Lisa" in a modern production) ()

It is curious that this private, uncomplicated story of two young people (the nobleman Erast and the peasant woman Liza (Fig. 4)) is inscribed in a very broad historical and geographical context.

“But the most pleasant thing for me is the place on which the gloomy, Gothic towers of Si ... new monastery rise. Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost all of Moscow, this terrible bulk of houses and churches, which appears to the eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheater»

Word amphitheater Karamzin singles out, and this is probably no coincidence, because the scene becomes a kind of arena where events unfold open to the eyes of everyone (Fig. 5).

Figure: 5.Moscow, XVIII century ()

“A magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it, when its evening rays glow on countless golden domes, on countless crosses that ascend to the sky! Below there are thick, densely green flowering meadows, and behind them, on yellow sands, flows a bright river, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats or rustling under the steering wheel of heavy plows that float from the most fertile countries of the Russian Empire and endow greedy Moscow with bread "(fig. 6) .

Figure: 6. View from Sparrow Hills ()

On the other side of the river is an oak grove, near which numerous herds graze; there young shepherds, sitting under the shade of the trees, sing simple, depressing songs and thus shorten the summer days, so uniform for them. Further, in the dense greenery of ancient elms, the golden-domed Danilov Monastery shines; still further, almost on the edge of the horizon, the Vorobyovy Hills are blue. On the left side one can see vast fields covered with bread, woods, three or four villages and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace. "

It is curious, why does Karamzin seem to frame his private history with this panorama? It turns out that this history is becoming a part of universal human life, belonging to Russian history and geography. All this gave the events described in the story a generalizing character. But, giving a general hint of this world history and this extensive biography, Karamzin nevertheless shows that private history, the history of individual people, not famous, simple, attracts him much more strongly. Ten years will pass, and Karamzin will become a professional historian and start working on his "History of the Russian State", written in 1803-1826 (Fig. 7).

Figure: 7. Cover of N. M. Karamzin's book "History of the Russian State" ()

But so far in the center of his literary attention is the story of ordinary people - the peasant woman Liza and the nobleman Erast.

Creation of a new language of fiction

In the language of fiction, even at the end of the 18th century, the theory of three calmness still dominated, created by Lomonosov and reflecting the needs of the literature of classicism, with its ideas about genres of high and low.

The Three Calms Theory - a classification of styles in rhetoric and poetics, distinguishing three styles: high, medium and low (simple).

Classicism - an artistic direction focused on the ideals of the ancient classics.

But it is natural that by the 90s of the 18th century this theory was already outdated and became a brake on the development of literature. Literature demanded more flexible linguistic principles, there was a need to bring the language of literature closer to the language of the spoken, but not a simple peasant language, but an educated noble language. The need for books that would be written the way people say in this educated society was already very acute. Karamzin believed that a writer, having developed his taste, could create a language that would become the spoken language of a noble society. In addition, another goal was implied here: such a language was supposed to oust the French language from everyday life, in which the predominantly Russian noble society still spoke. Thus, the language reform that Karamzin is carrying out is becoming a general cultural task and has a patriotic character.

Perhaps the main artistic discovery of Karamzin in Poor Liza is the image of the storyteller, the narrator. It comes from the person of a person interested in the fate of his heroes, a person who is not indifferent to them, compassionate for other people's misfortunes. That is, Karamzin creates the image of the narrator in full accordance with the laws of sentimentalism. And now it becomes unprecedented, this is the first time in Russian literature.

Sentimentalism - this is the attitude and the tendency of thinking aimed at identifying, strengthening, emphasizing the emotional side of life.

It is no coincidence that the narrator says, in full accordance with Karamzin's plan: "I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!"

The description in the exhibition of the decayed Simonov Monastery, with its collapsed cells, as well as the crumbling hut in which Lisa and her mother lived, from the very beginning introduce the theme of death into the story, creating that gloomy tone that will accompany the story. And at the very beginning of the story one of the main themes and favorite ideas of the figures of the Enlightenment sounds - the idea of \u200b\u200bthe extra-word value of a person. And it will sound unusual. When the narrator talks about the story of Lisa's mother, about the early death of her husband, Lisa's father, he will say that she could not be comforted for a long time, and will say the famous phrase: "... because peasant women know how to love".

Now this phrase has become almost winged, and we often do not correlate it with the original source, although in Karamzin's story it appears in a very important historical, artistic and cultural context. It turns out that the feelings of commoners, peasants are no different from the feelings of noble people, noblemen, peasant women and peasants are capable of subtle and tender feelings. This discovery of the extra-class value of man was made by the leaders of the Enlightenment and becomes one of the leitmotifs of Karamzin's story. And not only in this place: Lisa will tell Erast that there can be nothing between them, since she is a peasant. But Erast will begin to console her and will say that he does not need any other happiness in life, except for Lisa's love. It turns out, indeed, the feelings of ordinary people can be as subtle and sophisticated as the feelings of people of noble birth.

At the beginning of the story, there will be another very important theme. We see that in the exposition of his work, Karamzin concentrates all the main themes and motives. This is the theme of money and its destructive power. At the first date of Liza and Erast, the guy will want to give her a ruble instead of the five kopecks requested by Lisa for a bouquet of lilies of the valley, but the girl will refuse. Subsequently, as if paying off from Liza, from her love, Erast will give her ten imperials - one hundred rubles. Naturally, Liza will automatically take this money, and then she will try to transfer it to her mother through her neighbor, a peasant girl Dunya, but her mother will not need this money either. She will not be able to use them, since at the news of Lisa's death she will die herself. And we see that, indeed, money is the destructive force that brings people unhappiness. It is enough to recall the sad story of Erast himself. For what reason did he abandon Lisa? Leading a frivolous life and losing at cards, he was forced to marry a rich elderly widow, that is, he, too, is actually sold for money. And this incompatibility of money as an achievement of civilizations with the natural life of people is demonstrated by Karamzin in Poor Liza.

Given a fairly traditional literary plot - the story of how a young rake-nobleman seduces a commoner - Karamzin still solves it in a not quite traditional way. It has long been noticed by researchers that Erast is not at all such a traditional example of an insidious seducer, he really loves Lisa. He is a man with a kind mind and heart, but weak and windy. And this frivolity destroys him. And too strong sensitivity ruins him, like Liza. And here is one of the main paradoxes of the Karamzin story. On the one hand, he is a preacher of sensitivity as a way of moral improvement of people, and on the other hand, he also shows how excessive sensitivity can bring detrimental consequences. But Karamzin is not a moralist, he does not call to condemn Liza and Erast, he calls on us to sympathize with their woeful fate.

In the same unusual and innovative way, Karamzin uses landscapes in his story. The landscape for him ceases to be just a place of action and a background. The landscape becomes a kind of landscape of the soul. What happens in nature often reflects what happens in the soul of the heroes. And nature seems to be responding to the characters' feelings. For example, let us remember a beautiful spring morning when Erast first sails down the river on a boat to Lisa's house, and vice versa, a gloomy, starless night, accompanied by storm and thunder, when the heroes fall into sin (Fig. 8). Thus, the landscape also became an active artistic force, which was also an artistic discovery of Karamzin.

Figure: 8. Illustration for the story "Poor Liza" ()

But the main artistic discovery is the image of the narrator himself. All events are presented not objectively and dispassionately, but through his emotional reaction. It is he who turns out to be a genuine and sensitive hero, because he is able to experience the misfortunes of others as his own. He mourns his overly sensitive heroes, but at the same time remains faithful to the ideals of sentimentalism and a faithful adherent of the idea of \u200b\u200bsensitivity as a way to achieve social harmony.

List of references

Korovina V.Ya., Zhuravlev V.P., Korovin V.I. Literature. Grade 9. M .: Education, 2008.
Ladygin M.B., Esin A.B., Nefedova N.A. Literature. Grade 9. M .: Bustard, 2011.
Chertov V.F., Trubina L.A., Antipova A.M. Literature. Grade 9. M .: Education, 2012.