Features of the ballad genre in the works of V. A. Zhukovsky

V. A. Zhukovsky introduced the Russian reader to one of the most beloved genres of Western European romantics - the ballad. And although the ballad genre appeared in Russian literature long before Zhukovsky, it was he who gave it poetic charm and made it popular. Moreover, he merged the poetics of the ballad genre with the aesthetics of romanticism, and as a result, the ballad genre turned into the most characteristic sign of romanticism.

What is a ballad? And why exactly did this genre attract Zhukovsky?

A ballad is a short poetic story of a predominantly heroic-historical or fantastic nature. The presentation of a pronounced plot in the ballad is lyrically colored. Zhukovsky wrote 39 ballads, of which only five are original, the rest are translations and adaptations. Early XIX

century. Zhukovsky is disappointed in life, his soul suffers from unfulfilled happiness with his beloved girl, and from an early age he constantly feels the bitterness of social inequality. He constantly faces social issues. This is the Decembrist movement, which he is forced to perceive from two points of view: both as a friend of many Decembrists and people from their circle, and as a courtier close to the royal family. All this prompted Zhukovsky to take the path of ethical solutions to pressing problems. From the very beginning of his ballad work, Zhukovsky fought for a morally pure personality. The main theme of his ballads is crime and punishment, good and evil. Constant hero of ballads - strong personality who has thrown off moral restrictions and fulfills her personal will aimed at achieving a purely selfish goal. Let's remember the ballad "Warwick" - original translation

According to Zhukovsky, crime is caused by individualistic passions: ambition, greed, jealousy, selfish self-affirmation.

The man failed to control himself, succumbed to passions, and his moral consciousness turned out to be weakened. Under the influence of passions, a person forgets his moral duty. But the main thing in ballads is not the act of crime, but its consequences - the punishment of a person. The criminal in Zhukovsky’s ballads is, as a rule, not punished by people. Punishment comes from a person's conscience. Thus, in the ballad “Castle Smalholm,” no one punished the murderer of the baron and his wife; they voluntarily go to monasteries because their conscience torments them. But monastic life does not bring them moral relief and consolation: the wife is sad, the world is not dear to her, and the baron “is shy of people and is silent.” By committing a crime, they deprive themselves of the happiness and joys of life. But even when a criminal’s conscience does not awaken, punishment still comes to him. According to Zhukovsky, it comes as if from the very depths of life. The conscience is silent in the greedy Bishop Gatton, who burned a barn with hungry poor people and thought with cynical satisfaction that he had rid the hungry region of greedy mice (ballad "

God's judgment

over the bishop").

“Nature in Zhukovsky’s ballads is fair, and she herself takes on the function of revenge - for a crime: the Avon River, in which the little heir to the throne was drowned, overflowed its banks, overflowed, and the criminal Warwick drowned in the furious waves. The mice began a war against Bishop Gatton and killed him.

In the ballad world, nature does not want to absorb evil into itself, to preserve it, it destroys it, takes it away forever from the world of existence. The ballad world of Zhukovsky asserts: in life there is often a duel between good and evil. In the end, goodness, a high moral principle, always wins), Zhukovsky’s JjbcV pp is fair retribution. The poet firmly believes that a vicious act will definitely be punished. And the main thing in Zhukovsky’s ballads is the triumph of the moral law. A special place among Zhukovsky’s works is occupied by ballads dedicated to love: “Lyudmila”, “Svetlana”, “Eolian Harp” and others. The main thing here for the poet is to calm down and guide a person in love who has experienced a tragedy in love on the true path. Zhukovsky here also demands the curbing of selfish desires and passions. and the bitterness of the loss of her fiancé blinds her so much that she forgets about her moral duties towards other people. Zhukovsky, using romantic means, seeks to prove how unreasonable and even dangerous for a person this selfish desire for his own happiness in spite of everything:

Coffin, open;
live fully;
Twice to the heart
not to love.

This is how Lyudmila, distraught with grief, exclaims. The coffin opens and the dead man takes Lyudmila into his arms. The heroine’s horror is terrible: her eyes turn to stone, her eyes fade, her blood runs cold. And it is no longer possible to regain the life that she so unreasonably rejected. But Zhukovsky’s terrible ballad is life-loving. The poet gives preference real life, despite the fact that it sends severe trials to a person.

The ballad "Svetlana" is close in plot to "Lyudmila", but also deeply different. This ballad is a free arrangement of the ballad of the German poet G. A. Burger “Lenora”. It tells how a girl wonders about her groom: he has gone far away and has not sent news for a long time. And suddenly he appears in a charming dream inspired by fortune telling. The darling calls the bride to get married, they gallop through the blizzard on mad horses. But the groom suddenly turns into a dead man and almost drags the bride to the grave. However, everything ends well: awakening occurs, the groom appears in reality, alive, and the desired, joyful wedding takes place. Zhukovsky goes far from the original, introducing national Russian flavor into the ballad: he includes a description of fortune-telling in the “Epiphany evening”, signs and customs:

Once on Epiphany evening
The girls wondered:
A shoe behind the gate.
They took it off their feet and threw it,
Snow was shoveled under the window
Listened, fed
Counting chicken grains,
The ardent wax was drowned,
Into a bowl with clean water
They laid a gold ring,
Emerald earrings,
White boards spread out
And over the bowl they sang in harmony
The songs are amazing.

The poet reproduces an attractive and graceful girl’s world, in which a shoe, emerald earrings, and a gold ring are significant.

The ballad not only told about an episode from the life of a young creature, but presented her inner world. The whole ballad is full of life, movement, both internal and external, some kind of girlish bustle. Soulful world Svetlana is also full of movement. She either refuses the baptismal games, or agrees to join the fortune-tellers; she is both afraid and hopes to receive the desired news, and in a dream she is overcome by the same feelings: fear, hope, anxiety, trust... in the groom.

Her feelings are extremely intense, her sensations are heightened, her heart responds to everything. The ballad is written in a rapid rhythm: the ballad horses are racing, the girl and her groom are rushing towards them, and her heart is breaking. The color scheme in the ballad “Svetlana” is also interesting. The entire text is permeated with white color: it is, first of all, snow, the image of which appears immediately, from the first lines, the snow that Svetlana dreams about, the blizzard over the sleigh, the blizzard all around. Next is a white scarf used during fortune telling, a table covered with a white tablecloth, a snow-white dove and even a snow sheet with which the dead man is covered. The color white is associated with the name of the heroine: Svetlana, light, and: to the like - white light. Zhukovsky here

White color

, undoubtedly, a symbol of purity and innocence. The second contrasting color in the ballad is not black, but rather dark: dark in the mirror, dark is the distance of the road along which the horses are racing. The black color of the terrible ballad night, the night of crimes and punishments, is softened and brightened in this ballad., Thus, White snow

dark night

and bright points of candlelight or eyes - this is a kind of romantic background in the ballad “Svetlana”.
And yet the charm of the ballad is in the image of the young lover Svetlana. Her fears were dispelled; she was not guilty of anything. But the poet, true to his ethical principles, warned the young creature about the vice of the sagas of prayer. Faith in providence turns into faith in life:
Smile, my beauty,
To my ballad
There are great miracles in it,
« Very little stock. Here are my sense of ballads:
Best friend
to us in this life -
The blessing of the creator of the backwater:

Here misfortune is a false dream; Happiness is awakening.” So, using the example of the best and main ballads of V. A. Zhukovsky, we tried to analyze the basic principles of the ballad genre. It must be said that, after Zhukovsky, Russian writers actively turned to this genre: this is A. S. Pushkin’s “Song of

prophetic Oleg

The word “ballad” comes from the French “ballade”, and that in turn from the late Latin “ballo” - “dancing”. The ballad genre developed in the Middle Ages. Initially, this was the name of the folk dance song; then ballads telling about crimes, bloody feuds, unhappy love and orphanhood became widespread. The development of ballad plots proceeded in two main directions: plots of a heroic-historical nature turned out to be extremely productive; In parallel with them, plots related to love themes developed. In reality, there was no clear line between these two groups. Heroic and love stories often intertwined, absorbed fairy-tale folklore motifs, were sometimes interpreted in a comic way, and acquired some specific features associated with the place of origin or existence of this or that ballad.

Heroic ballads developed when the times of myths, legends, and epic heroes were a thing of the distant past. Heroic ballads are based on specific historical events that, to a greater or lesser extent, to a lesser extent can be traced in each of them, which gives the right to call them heroic-historical.

Love ballads made up the largest group. Are they only about love? Rather, it is about the sorrows of love, the innumerable dangers and obstacles that awaited lovers at every step in those distant times.

This was the ballad in the Middle Ages. With the development of other literary genres, the ballad faded into the background and did not enjoy wide popularity.

In the 18th century there was a revival of this genre. The reason for this was the amazing lyricism and plasticity of the ballad: it combines the historical, legendary, scary, mysterious, fantastic, and funny. Perhaps that is why S. Coleridge, G. Burger, F. Schiller, I.V. turned to the ballad. Goethe, R. Burns, W. Scott, A. Mickiewicz. These writers not only revived this genre, but also found new sources for it, proposed new topics, and outlined new trends. What they were, we have to consider using the example of I.V. Goethe, F. Schiller, R. Burns and W. Scott.

The great German writer and scientist, classic of German and world literature Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) was a great master of lyricism. Here the diversity of the poet’s genius was especially clearly demonstrated. He mastered a variety of forms of verse and poetic style: philosophical lyrics, folk song; he has an ancient cycle “Roman Elegies”, an eastern cycle “West-Eastern Divan”. Goethe often turned to the ballad and was the initiator of its revival.

Goethe's early ballads of the era of Sturm und Drang (“Steppe Rose”, 1771, “The King of Fula”, 1774, etc.) are close in style and manner to folk song with its predominantly emotional impact and lyrical, love theme. Ballads of the transitional period (“Fisherman”, 1778, “Forest King”, 1782) are already somewhat moving away from the simplicity of the composition of the folk song style, but retain a general lyrical character: their themes are drawn from folklore, but are used to express a modern, romantically colored sense of nature . Ballads of a later period (“The Corinthian Bride”, “God and the Bayadere”, etc. 1797) are extensive and complex narrative compositions, small poems in which a specific narrative plot becomes a typical case, embodies a general moral and philosophical idea; such classical typification and objectivity contribute High style, devoid of subjective emotional coloring, and the use of complex strophic forms as a method of metrical stylization.

In Goethe's ballads there is certainly something mysterious, instructive, scary, and less often, funny. Many of them are written in the tradition of a terrible gloomy ballad (for example, “The Pied Piper”, “The Forest King”, “The Corinthian Bride” permeate the sensations of night fears). But there are also works whose motive is the affirmation of earthly joys; neither fortune telling nor treasure hunting will bring happiness, it is in love, in friendship, in the person himself.

Goethe's ballads combine the fantastic and the unlikely, the terrible and the funny, but all this is always permeated by a clear thought, everything logically follows from one another - and suddenly there is often an unexpected tragic ending. The nakedness of feelings, so characteristic of folklore works, is another important property of Goethe’s ballads.

For a long time, Goethe was interested in ancient art. That is why the main sources of his ballads are ancient myths, legends and traditions. But Goethe humanizes reality, he even endows nature with real properties, using the technique of forcing. Thus, the result is a complete dramatic work in which everything is important, and even the smallest detail plays its role.

We are familiar with Goethe's ballads from translations by V.A. Zhukovsky, F.I. Tyutcheva, B.L. Pasternak, who were able to clearly convey and emotional mood, and the unique atmosphere and color created by the genius of Goethe. Later, his works were translated by romantics (Venevitinov), poets of “pure art,” and symbolist poets.

One of the leading places is occupied by the ballad genre in the work of another German writer - Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805). Schiller turned to this genre simultaneously with Goethe, and in a number of cases his influence is felt. The writers were friendly, together they published the magazine “Ory”. In the process of creating ballads, constant creative communication was maintained, and in 1797 a friendly competition was organized in their writing.

Schiller’s first cycle of ballads – “The Cup”, “The Glove”, “Polycrates’ Ring”, “Ivikov’s Cranes” - was published in 1798 in the “Almanac of the Muses”, following the epigrams.

The writer's interest in this genre turned out to be very long-lasting. And subsequently he repeatedly expressed his innermost thoughts in ballads. Until the end of the 90s, “The Knight of Togenburg”, “Walking for the Iron Hammer”, “Bail”, “Battle with the Dragon”, etc. were written.

Like Goethe, Schiller was interested in ancient art, which was reflected in a number of poems (“Gods of Greece”, 1788, “Artists”, 1789) and ballads. The best of them, in their ideological orientation and style, are closely related to his philosophical position and historical dramaturgy. They are dramatic in the development of the plot, and the historical or legendary conflict reflected in them is significant. Schiller widely used such dramatic means as monologue and dialogue in ballads (“The Glove,” “Polycrates’ Ring,” “Cassandra”). All this gives reason to call them “small dramas” or “dramatic episodes.”

Schiller's ballads reflected his thoughts about the meaning of human existence, the power of moral duty, through which he still hoped to improve social relations.

Schiller uses ancient Greek legends and stories, ancient folk legends and myths as sources.

Thus, the ballad “Cup” (“Diver”) is based on a German legend of the 12th century. But it is devoid of romantic motives: the cause of the swimmer’s death was allegedly his greed. In Schiller it appears tragic theme human struggle against unequal forces.

The ballad “Ceres’s Complaint” is an adaptation of the ancient myth about the marriage of Proserpina (Greek - Persephone), daughter of the fertility goddess Ceres (Demeter) with Pluto, the god underground kingdom(Greek – Hades). According to myth, Proserpina leaves Pluto's domain in the spring and visits her mother: her time on earth is marked by the awakening of nature, flowering and fertility. Schiller psychologizes the myth, endows the gods with human feelings and traits, and emphasizes the humanity of the goddess’s maternal feelings.

Schiller also creates ballads based on the plot of medieval feudal life (“The Glove”).

In Schiller's work, new - social - motives appear; he strives to solve global, universal problems: relationships between people, the connection of man with nature, with art, with the outside world. There is nothing scary or inexplicable in his ballads. However, some of them show romantic tendencies: the idea of ​​two worlds (dream world better than the world real), the appearance of symbols, the dynamism of events, and later - a departure from reality.

Among German writers, Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794) also turned to the ballad genre. His “Lenora”, “Wild Hunter”, “Song of an Honest Man” and other ballads brought him European fame. The main source for the Burger is German folklore. So in “Lenore” he masterfully uses its lyrical and fantastic motifs.

The most famous are the ballads of Schiller and Burger in translations by V.A. Zhukovsky. He managed to preserve the “majestic - epic architectonics” of Schiller’s ballads and the “common people” of Burger’s style.

The most ancient Anglo-Scottish ballads retained a genetic connection with the legends and tales of the tribal system. Their distinctive feature is their focus on one event, usually tragic and bloody. The reasons that led to this event, the circumstances that preceded it, are given only in a hint, giving the plot a touch of mystery. This plot structure, as well as many other things, was borrowed from English and Scottish ballads by Robert Burns (1759–1796). His fascination with ancient folklore began with a book by Robert Fergusson, who published a small volume of poetry in the Scottish dialect. It was then that Burns realized for the first time that he native language exists not only as the language of ancient half-forgotten ballads, but also as a real literary language. Subsequently everything free time Burns devoted himself to collecting old songs and ballads. For years he participated in the creation of the multi-volume “Musical Museum,” restoring the most undistorted texts from many oral versions and composing new words to ancient melodies if the texts were lost or replaced by vulgar and illiterate verses.

Thus, Burns became one of the direct participants in the revival of rich folklore, not only as best poet Scotland, but also as a scientist, as a great expert on its life and legends. That is why most of his works are deeply original reworkings of ancient songs; Burns used the plot, melody, rhythm, and meter of ancient poetry. But under his pen, weak, half-forgotten ancient stanzas and stories acquired modern poignancy and were filled with new content.

Thus, for example, the ballad “John Barleycorn” was born, in which the idea of ​​​​the immortality of the people is expressed in an allegorical form.

The ballad Tam O'Shanter is based on an anecdote about farmer Douglas Graham O'Shanter, a desperate drunkard who feared his shrewish wife more than anything else in the world. One day, while Douglas was sitting in a tavern, the boys tore out the tail of his horse. He noticed this only upon returning home. To justify himself in the eyes of his wife, Douglas composed a story about devils and witches. This episode suggested to Burns the plot of the ballad, which he himself loved very much.

And here is an adaptation of the old Scottish folk ballad “Lord Gregory”, which tells a simple story about how a handsome young lord deceived a gullible peasant woman and then left her. The ancient text of this song contains only endless sad complaints and describes the bitter tears that the deceived girl sheds. There is no action, no plot here. Burns remade the ancient text beyond recognition: he put a passionate monologue into the heroine’s mouth - now she does not cry, but accuses. As a result of such processing, the ballad acquired a modern sound, and the spare, passionate and exciting speech gave it genuine artistry.

The composition and style of Burns’s works are dominated by elements of folk poetry: repetitions, refrains, beginnings (“Tree of Liberty”, “ Honest poverty"). From folklore we take syncretism, a mixture of different genres, poetic meters, and different metric lengths. At the same time, Burns's ballads are more characterized by elements of dramatic poetry: he uses dialogues and monologues, and skillfully uses impersonal and direct speech.

As Burns improves his poetic skill, without abandoning folklore traditions, he also turns to creating realistic pictures of morals: the detail begins to play everything higher value in his work, analysis of the characters’ feelings is combined with depiction and analysis social environment in which they live and act. The desire to show characters in dynamics and development forced us to carefully think through the construction of the narrative: some ballads develop into a miniature story with a well-developed plot, well-aimed, vivid characteristics characters(“Tam O'Shanter”).

The main themes of Burns's ballads are love, friendship, human freedom, the theme of the pride of the “honest commoner.” The poet most often finds genuine friendship, love, cordiality and sincere participation among the poor. This theme also becomes a leitmotif in Burns's later ballads.

The first translations and reports about R. Burns appeared in Russian magazines at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. Burns' lyrics were translated by I. Kozlov, M. Mikhailov, T. Shchepkina - Kupernik, E. Bagritsky, S. Marshak.

As they realized that the era of creating folk ballads had passed, and their existence among the people was about to end, intensive collection of songs and ballads began in England and Scotland, no longer for subsequent processing, but as independent values. However, the right to intervene in the text of a folk ballad - be it the publication of an ancient manuscript or a recording of an oral performance - was recognized for a long time as a completely acceptable and even desirable principle. Ballads were collected by scientists - literary scholars, folklorists, poets and writers: Percy, Hurd, Ritson.

Walter Scott (1771–1831) also published folk ballads. More than once he was tempted to enhance their poetic sound. In any case, he repeatedly mentions the adjustment and combination of options in the explanations to his publications.

In addition to collecting ballads, V. Scott was also involved in their creation. But Scott's ballads are not adaptations of ancient material; they are most interesting works, written in the tradition of medieval chivalric romance. Often their plot and themes have something in common with prose works Scott, especially with “Ivanhoe”. The basis of W. Scott's ballads is not only historical facts or legends, but also national Scottish folklore. This organic compound formed the basis of such ballads as “The Song of the Last Minstrel”, “Grey Brother” (i.e. “gray monk”). In many of Scott’s ballads, themes of duty, love, honor, morality and ethical topics. Thus, in “The Gray Brother” the author poses the problem of atonement for sin, earthly and heavenly.

In Scott's ballads, romanticism manifests itself quite clearly: gloomy landscapes, haunted castles appear in them, and romantic symbolism is present. It is according to such works that in the minds of most people, a ballad is supernatural events that are piled one on top of another: coffins are torn from their chains, ghosts scurry through castles, forests and glades are inhabited by goblins and fairies, waters are teeming with mermaids. But these ideas are inspired by a romantic ballad, and in the 18th century romanticism had not yet developed. Scott’s work is located at the turn of the century, and it is quite reasonable that it incorporates “the present century and the past century.”

The ballad genre is a traditional genre in English and Scottish literature. Later S. Coleridge, R. Southey and others turned to him.

Obviously, the 18th century was the century of the revival of the ancient ballad genre. This was facilitated by the formation national identity, and consequently the awakening of interest in folk art and one’s history. The revival of the ballad went through three stages:

1. recording and collecting ballads;
2. creating your own poetic versions based on them;
3. creation of original ballads.

The third stage is the most interesting, since it contributed not only to the revival, but also to the development of the ballad genre. A new, broader and more relevant theme has emerged, and the ballad has become more problematic. The ever-increasing role of the plot, the ever-more complete disclosure of its potential was precisely the path along which the development of the ballad took place. “Plot content” gradually becomes that special feature that distinguishes the ballad from other genres. It is in this sense that the ballad is usually spoken of as a lyric-epic form of poetry.

As the ballad genre develops, it becomes psychologized, the concrete, the particular comes to the fore, rather than abstract concepts of good and evil, as with the Enlightenment, but the main source (antiquity) remains.

During further development ballads, especially as the genre matured literary ballad, the lyrical principle, now strengthened by psychologism, again begins to prevail over the plot. The mixing of genres, the penetration of epic and dramatic elements into lyrical poetry unusually enriched the ballad, made it more flexible, and allowed it to show the world of feelings more deeply and truthfully, which contributed to the fact that the ballad became one of the main genres of sentimentalism and romanticism.

English and German ballads became known in Russia at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. At this time, the mythological images of antiquity (which many years later would adorn Russian poetry) were subjected to a powerful onslaught of the “northern muse.” Through the efforts of Karamzin and the early deceased Andrei Turgenev, and then Batyushkov and Zhukovsky, the Russian reader first became acquainted with Shakespeare, and then with the pre-romantic and romantic literature of England and Germany. Motifs from German, English, and Scottish ballads and tales flowed into Russian literature like a wide river. Thanks to the translations of Pushkin, Batyushkov, Zhukovsky, Lermontov, the ballad genre was adapted and developed on Russian soil.

Literature.

1. Alekseev M.P. Folk ballads of England and Scotland // History English literature. M.; L., 1943. T. 1. Issue. I.
2. Balashov D. M. Russian folk ballad//Folk ballads. M.; L., 1963.
3. Gasparov M.L. Ballad // Literary encyclopedic dictionary.
4. M., 1987. Levin Yu.D.
5. “The Poems of Ossian” by James Macpherson // Macpherson D. The Poems of Ossian. L., 1983. Literary manifestos of Western European romantics / Comp. and prev. A.S. Dmitrieva.
6. M., 1980. Smirnov Yu.I.
7. East Slavic ballads and forms close to them. Experience in indexing plots and versions. M., 1988.

Aeolian harp. Ballad Anthology: The Literature Student's Library. M., Higher school. 1989.

If you like stories about mysterious events, about the destinies of fearless heroes, the protected world of spirits, if you are able to appreciate noble knightly feelings, female devotion, then, of course, you will love literary ballads.

In literature classes this school year we were introduced to several ballads. I was amazed by this genre. These poems, which combine elements of lyricism, epic and drama, are a kind of “universal” poetry, according to famous poet

19th century Wordsworth.

The poet “choosing events and situations from the very everyday life of people, tries to describe them, if possible, in the language in which these people actually speak; but at the same time, with the help of imagination, give it color, thanks to which ordinary things appear in an unusual light. "

The topic “Features of the literary ballad genre” seemed interesting to me, I continue to work on it for the second year.

The topic is undoubtedly relevant, as it allows you to show independence and develop the abilities of a critic.

The term “ballad” itself comes from a Provençal word meaning “mysterious song”; ballads arose during the harsh times of the Middle Ages. They were created by folk storytellers, transmitted orally, and in the process of oral transmission were greatly modified, becoming the fruit of collective creativity. The plot of the ballads were Christian legends, chivalric romances, ancient myths, works of ancient authors in medieval retelling, the so-called “eternal” or “wandering” plots.

The plot of the ballad is often structured as a revelation, the recognition of a certain secret that keeps the listener in suspense, makes him worry, worry about the hero. Sometimes the plot breaks down and is essentially replaced by dialogue. It is the plot that becomes the feature that distinguishes the ballad from other lyrical genres and begins its rapprochement with the epic. It is in this sense that it is customary to talk about the ballad as a lyrical genre of poetry.

In ballads there is no boundary between the world of people and nature. A person can turn into a bird, a tree, a flower. Nature enters into dialogue with the characters. This reflects ancient performance about the unity of man with nature, about the possibility of people turning into animals and plants and vice versa.

The literary ballad owes its birth to the German poet Gottfried August Burger. The literary ballad was very similar to the folk ballad, since the first literary ballads were created as an imitation of folk ballads. Thus, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the folk ballad was replaced by a literary ballad, that is, an author's ballad.

The first literary ballads arose on the basis of stylization, and therefore very often they are difficult to distinguish from genuine folk ballads. Let's turn to table No. 1.

A literary ballad is a lyric-epic genre, which is based on a plot narrative with dialogue included in it. Like the folk ballad, its literary sister often opens with a landscape opening and closes with a landscape ending. But the main thing in a literary ballad is the author’s voice, his emotional lyrical assessment of the events described.

And now we can note the features of the difference between a literary ballad and a folk ballad. Already in the first literary ballads, the author’s lyrical position is manifested more clearly than in folk works.

The reason for this is clear - folklore is oriented towards a national ideal, and a literary ballad contains the author’s personal attitude towards the national ideal itself.

At first, the creators of literary ballads tried not to go beyond themes and motifs folk sources, but then they began to turn to their favorite genre more and more often, filling the traditional form with new content. Fairy-tale ballads, satirical, philosophical, fantastic, historical, heroic ballads began to appear, along with family, “scary”, etc. A broader theme distinguished the literary ballad from the folk ballad.

There were also changes in the form of the literary ballad. This primarily concerned the use of dialogue. A literary ballad much more often resorts to hidden dialogue, when one of the interlocutors is either silent or takes part in the conversation in short remarks.

3. Literary ballads of V. A. Zhukovsky and M. Yu. Lermontov.

The Russian reader discovered the wide poetic possibilities of the Russian ballad thanks to literary activity V. A. Zhukovsky, who worked at the beginning of the 19th century. It was the ballad that became the main genre in his poetry, and it was it that brought him literary fame.

Zhukovsky's ballads were usually based on Western European sources. But the ballads of V. A. Zhukovsky are also a major phenomenon of Russian national poetry. The fact is that, translating English and German literary ballads, he used artistic techniques and images of Russian folklore and Russian poetry. Sometimes the poet went very far from the original source, creating an independent literary work.

For example, an excellent translation of the literary ballad of the great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe “The Elf King”, written on the basis of German folklore, conveys the internal tension of a fantastic ballad and lyrical attitude author (J.V. Goethe) to the events described. At the same time, Zhukovsky in his ballad “The Forest Tsar” describes a forest that is surprisingly similar to Russian, and if you don’t know that this is a translation, you can easily mistake this work for being created in the Russian tradition. “The Forest King” is a ballad about fate, in which the eternal dispute between life and death, hope and despair, hidden by an ominous plot, takes place. The author uses various artistic techniques.

Let's turn to table No. 2.

1. The center is not an event, not an episode, but human personality, acting against one background or another, is a colorful landscape of the forest kingdom and the oppressive reality of reality.

2. Division into two worlds: earthly and fantastic.

3. The author uses the image of the narrator to convey the atmosphere of what is happening, the tonality of what is being depicted: a lyrically terrible tonality at the beginning with an increasing feeling of anxiety and a hopelessly tragic one at the end.

4. Images real world and an alien from the “other” world.

5. The characteristic rhythm of the ballad is the stomping of a horse, associated with a chase.

6. Use of epithets.

There are many bright colors and expressive details in Zhukovsky’s ballads. The words of A. S. Pushkin about Zhukovsky are applicable to them: “No one has had or will have a syllable equal in its power and diversity to his syllable.”

“God's Judgment on the Bishop” is a translation of the work of the English romantic poet Robert Southey, a contemporary of V. A. Zhukovsky. “God's Judgment on the Bishop” - written in March 1831. Published for the first time in the publication “Ballads and Tales” in 1831. in two parts. A translation of the ballad of the same name by R. Southey, based on medieval legends about the stingy Bishop Gatton of Metz. As legend has it, during the famine of 914, Gatton insidiously invited the starving people to a “feast” and burned them in the barn; For this he was eaten by mice.

This time the Russian poet very closely follows the original “terrible” ballad, describing the cruelty of a foreign bishop and his punishment.

1. You will not find such a beginning in a folk ballad: not only a certain lyrical mood is created here, but through the description of a natural disaster, a picture of the people's grief is briefly and vividly created.

2. There is no dialogue in R. Southey's ballad. The poet introduces only lines into the narrative, but the characters do not address each other. The people are surprised by Gatton's generosity, but the bishop does not hear people's exclamations. Gatton talks to himself about his atrocities, but only God can know his thoughts.

3. This ballad of retribution and redemption. In it, the Middle Ages appear as a world of opposition between earthly and heavenly forces.

The tragic tone remains unchanged in this ballad; only the images and the narrator’s assessment of their situation change.

4. The ballad is built on an antithesis:

“There was a famine, the people were dying.

But the bishop, by the grace of heaven,

Huge barns are full of bread"

The general misfortune does not touch the bishop, but in the end the bishop “calls on God in a wild frenzy,” “the criminal howls.”

5. In order to evoke sympathy from the reader, the author uses unity of command.

“Both summer and autumn were rainy;

Pastures and fields were drowned"

Zhukovsky always chose works for translation that were internally consonant with him. Good and evil appear in sharp opposition in all ballads. Their source is always the human heart and the otherworldly mysterious forces that control it.

“Smalholm Castle, or Midsummer’s Eve” - translation of Walter Scott’s ballad “St. John’s Eve.” The castle was located in the south of Scotland. Belongs to one of Walter Scott's relatives. The poem was written in July 1822. This ballad has a long history of censorship. Zhukovsky was charged with “blasphemous connection love theme with the theme of Midsummer evening. Midsummer's Eve national holiday Kupala, reinterpreted by the church as a celebration of the birth of John the Baptist. Censorship demanded a radical reworking of the ending. Zhukovsky filed a complaint with the censorship committee, the chief prosecutor of the synod and the Ministry of Public Education, Prince A. N. Golitsyn. They managed to publish the ballad by changing “Midsummer’s Day” to “Duncan’s Day.”

Of the ballads I have read, I would like to especially highlight the ballads of M. Yu. Lermontov.

The ballad “The Glove” is a translation of a knight’s ballad German writer Friedrich Schiller. Lermontov, the translator, relies on Zhukovsky’s experience, so he strives to convey not so much the form of the work as his emotional attitude towards the treacherous woman who, for the sake of fun, subjects her knight to a mortal test.

1. The landscape opening depicts a crowd in a circus, gathered in anticipation of a spectacle, dangerous fun - a fight between a tiger and a lion.

2. There is a dialogue in the ballad: there is Cunegonde’s appeal to the knight, and there is also his response to the lady. But the dialogue is broken: between two replicas the most important event occurs.

3. A tragic tone gives way to general joy.

4. An important element of the composition is its brevity: it is like a spring compressed between the beginning and the end.

5. In the field of artistic speech, the generosity of metaphors is noted: “The choir of beautiful ladies shone,” “but the slave grumbles and gets angry in vain before his master,” “cruel annoyance blazing in the fire”

The heroic ballad, glorifying feat and intransigence towards enemies, was widespread in Russia.

One of the best patriotic poems created by Russian poets is M. Yu. Lermontov’s ballad “Borodino”.

1. 1. The entire ballad is built on an extensive dialogue. Here the element of the landscape opening (“Moscow, burned by fire”) is included in the question of the young soldier with whom the ballad begins. Then follows the answer - the story of a participant in the Battle of Borodino, in which replicas of the participants in the battle are heard. It is these remarks, as well as the speech of the narrator himself, that allow the poet to convey a truly popular attitude towards the Motherland and its enemies.

2. This ballad is characterized by polyphony - many voices sound. For the first time in Russian poetry, true images of Russian soldiers and heroes appeared famous battle. The soldier begins the story of the day of the Battle of Borodino with a call, which is addressed by the commander-colonel, his eyes sparkling. This is the speech of an officer, a nobleman. He easily calls old, honored soldiers “guys,” but is ready to go into battle together and die like their “brother.”

3. The ballad depicts combat beautifully. Lermontov did everything so that the reader could see the battle with his own eyes.

The poet gave a great picture of the Borodino battle using sound writing:

“The damask steel sounded, the buckshot screeched”

“I prevented the cannonballs from flying

Mountain of bloody bodies"

Belinsky extremely highly appreciated the language and style of this poem. He wrote: “In every word one hears the language of a soldier who, without ceasing to be rudely simple-minded, is strong and full of poetry!”

In the 20th century, the ballad genre was in demand by many poets. Their childhood and youth passed in hard time great historical upheavals: revolution, civil war, Great Patriotic War brought with them blood, death, suffering, destruction. Overcoming hardships, people remade their lives anew, dreaming of a happy, fair future. This time, swift as the wind, was difficult and cruel, but it promised to make the wildest dreams come true. You will not find fantastic, family or “scary” ballads from the poets of this time; in their time, heroic, philosophical, historical, satirical, and social ballads were in demand.

Even if the work tells about an event from ancient times, it is experienced as today’s in D. Kedrin’s ballad “Architects”.

K. Simonov’s ballad “The Old Song of a Soldier” (“How a Soldier Served”) is tragic.

“The Ballad of Poaching” by E. Yevtushenko is preceded by a newspaper excerpt, which gives the work a journalistic feel. Its text includes a monologue of salmon appealing to human reason.

Noble solemnity and severity distinguish V. Vysotsky’s “Ballad of Struggle”; the lines come to mind:

If, cutting the path with my father's sword,

You wrapped salty tears around your mustache,

If in a hot battle you experienced what it cost, -

Means, necessary books you read as a child!

The ballad "Architects" by D. Kedrin is a source of pride for Russian poetry in the first half of the 20th century, written in 1938.

“The Architects” showed Kedrin’s understanding of Russian history, admiration for the talent of the Russian people, and faith in the all-conquering power of beauty and art.

At the center of the poem is the history of the creation of the Temple of the Intercession Holy Mother of God on Red Square in Moscow, known as St. Basil's Cathedral.

The temple was built in 1555 - 1561 in honor of the victory over the Kazan Khanate. The skillful architects Postnik and Barma conceived and implemented an unprecedented thing: they united eight churches into one whole - according to the number of victories won near Kazan. They are grouped around the central ninth tent camp.

There is a legend about the blinding of the builders of St. Basil's Cathedral. The crime was allegedly committed at the behest of Tsar Ivan IV, who did not want a cathedral like this to appear anywhere. There is no documentary evidence of the legend. But the important thing is that the legend arose, that it was passed down from generation to generation, the very fact of its existence indicating that in the popular consciousness such cruelty of the autocrat was possible. Kedrin gave the topic a general meaning.

1. This poem talks about something important historical event. There is a plot, and we see here typical reception ballads - “repetition with increasing intensity.” The king twice addresses the architects: “And the benefactor asked.” This technique enhances the speed of action and thickens the tension.

2. Dialogue is used, which drives the plot in ballads. The characters' characters are depicted in bold relief.

3. The composition is based on an antithesis. The poem is clearly divided into 2 parts, which are opposed to each other.

4. The story is told as if from the perspective of a chronicler. And the chronicle style requires dispassion and objectivity in depicting events.

5. There are very few epithets at the beginning of the text. Kedrin is stingy with paints; he is more concerned about the tragic nature of the fate of the masters. Speaking about the talent of Russian people, the poet emphasizes their moral health and independence with epithets:

And two people came to him

Unknown Vladimir architects,

Two Russian builders

When the “chronicler” comes to describe the “terrible royal mercy,” his voice suddenly trembles:

Falcon eyes

Stab them with an iron awl

So that white light

They couldn't see.

They were branded with a brand,

They were flogged with batogs, sick ones,

And they threw them

To the frozen bosom of the earth.

Form people's crying emphasized here by folklore “permanent” epithets.

The poem contains several comparisons emphasizing the beauty and purity of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

and, marveling, as if at a fairy tale,

I looked at that beauty.

That church was

Like a bride!

It’s like I was dreaming!

There is only one metaphor here (they are inappropriate in the chronicle):

And at the feet of the building

The shopping area was buzzing

6. The rhythm is suggested by the phrase “the chronicler’s tale says”: the measured, impressive voice of history itself. But the rhythm in the poem changes: the stanzas associated with the presence of the sovereign sound solemn and majestic. When we talk about the unfortunate blinded architects, emotional tension dictates a sharp change in intonation and rhythm: instead of solemnity, there is the sound of one piercingly sharp note in the whole line:

And in the gluttonous row,

Where the tavern barrage sang,

Where it smelled of fusel,

Where it was steamy dark,

Where the clerks shouted:

“The sovereign's word and deed!”

Master for Christ's sake

They asked for bread and wine.

The tension of the rhythm is also created by anaphora (where, where, where), increasing tension.

7. Archaisms and historicisms are included in the work organically; they are always understandable in context.

Tat - thief, kruzhalo - tavern, torovato - generously, pravezh - punishment, lepota - beauty, zelo - very, velmi - very, smerd - peasant, zane - because

Kedrin ends with the expression “popular opinion”:

And the forbidden song

About the terrible royal mercy

Sang in secret places

Across wide Rus', guslars.

August 29, 1926 "Komsomolskaya Pravda" published "Grenada" - and Svetlov overnight became the most popular Soviet poet. V. Mayakovsky, having read "Grenada", learned it by heart and recited it in his creative evenings. For some reason, everyone thinks that this ballad is about the Spanish Civil War. In fact, the war began a few years after the poem appeared. The lyrical hero simply dreams of starting a world fire.

The poem “Grenada” “grew” from one word. What fascinated the poet with this word? Why did it become the song of a Ukrainian lad, a soldier - a cavalryman who died in the civil war? Of course, Mikhail Svetlov first of all liked the sound of the word Grenada. He has so much energy, and there is no aggression or rudeness at all; in its sound there is simultaneously strength, tenderness, clarity of reality, fragility of dreams, swiftness of impulse, and calmness of the end of the path. In the mouth of a young fighter this beautiful name becomes a sound symbol of his dream of a new life for everyone.

1. The landscape opening depicts the wide expanse of the Ukrainian steppes. The ballad tells about the fate and heroic death of a young fighter.

3. M. Svetlov sharpens the rhythm of the ballad, breaking the quatrains into eight lines. In this rhythm one can clearly hear the rhythm of the movement of the equestrian detachment:

He sang, looking around

Native lands:

"Grenada, Grenada,

Grenada is mine!

The word Grenada itself reproduces the meter of a ballad: it has three syllables and the stress falls on the second syllable.

4. The tragic tonality is replaced by the ringing melody of the resurrection of a dream.

Over the corpse

The moon has bowed

Only the sky is quiet

Slipped down after a while

On the velvet of sunset

A teardrop of rain

Personification and metaphor indicate that no matter how great the event, its meaning cannot ease the pain of loss.

Vysotsky wrote 6 ballads - “The Ballad of Time” (“The castle is torn down by time”), “The Ballad of Hatred”, “The Ballad of Free Shooters”, “The Ballad of Love” (“When the Water of the Flood”), “The Ballad of Two Dead swans”, “Ballad of Struggle” (“Among the melting candles and evening prayers”) for Sergei Tarasov’s film “Robin Hood’s Arrows”.

“I wanted to write several songs for the youth who will watch this picture. And I wrote ballads about struggle, about love, about hatred - in total six rather serious ballads, not at all similar to what I did before,” writes the author.

Finally, he expressed himself in direct speech - as they say, without posture or mask. Only “Song of Free Shooters” is conventional, role-playing, or something. And the rest - without game dichotomy, without hints and subtexts. There is some kind of anti-irony here: brave directness, like a blow of a sword, destroys ironic grins, cuts off the head of any cynicism

But ballads were banned and Tarasov later used Vysotsky’s recordings in the film “The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe.”

1. The beginning of “The Ballad of Time” is interesting: not only a certain lyrical mood is created here, but through the description of an ancient castle, “hidden by time and wrapped in a delicate blanket of green shoots,” a picture of the past with campaigns, battles and victories is created.

2. In V. Vysotsky’s ballad the dialogue is hidden. The form of dramatic monologue is used. The poet introduces only his own remarks into the narrative - addresses to descendants, but the characters do not address each other; tournaments, sieges, and battles take place before us as if on a screen.

3. This ballad eternal values. In it, the Middle Ages appear as a world built on an antithesis:

Enemies fell into the mud, screaming for mercy

But not all, remaining alive,

They kept their hearts in kindness,

Protecting your good name

From the deliberate lies of a scoundrel

4. The solemn tonality remains unchanged in this ballad. The author uses unity of command:

And the price is the price, and the wines are the wines,

And it's always good if honor is saved

“These six ballads set out life position poet. It's deeper than meets the eye. This is like his insight, his testament,” wrote one of V. Vysotsky’s friends.

The term “ballad” comes from a Provençal word and means “dance song.” Ballads arose in the Middle Ages. By origin, ballads are associated with legends, folk legends, combine the features of a story and a song. Many ballads about a folk hero named Robin Hood existed in England in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The ballad is one of the main genres in the poetry of sentimentalism and romanticism. The world in ballads appears mysterious and enigmatic. They feature bright heroes with clearly defined characters.

The creator of the literary ballad genre was Robert Burns (1759-1796). The basis of his poetry was oral folk art.

There is always a person at the center of literary ballads, but poets of the 19th century centuries who chose this genre knew that human strength does not always provide the opportunity to answer all questions, to become the absolute master of one’s destiny. Therefore, often literary ballads are a plot poem about fate, for example, the ballad “The Forest King” by the German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

The Russian ballad tradition was created by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky, who wrote both original ballads ("Svetlana", "Aeolian Harp", "Achilles" and others), and translated Burger, Schiller, Goethe, Uhland, Southey, Walter Scott. In total, Zhukovsky wrote more than 40 ballads.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin created such ballads as “The Song of the Prophetic Oleg”, “The Groom”, “The Drowned Man”, “A Raven Flies to a Raven”, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Poor Knight...”. His cycle of “Songs of the Western Slavs” can also be classified as a ballad genre.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov has some ballads. This is the "Airship" from Seydlitz, "The Sea Princess".

Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy also used the ballad genre in his work. He calls his ballads on themes from his native antiquity epics ("Alyosha Popovich", "Ilya Muromets", "Sadko" and others).

Entire sections of their poems were called ballads, using this term more freely by A.A. Fet, K.K. Sluchevsky, V.Ya. Bryusov. In his “Experiments,” Bryusov, speaking about the ballad, points to only two of his ballads of the traditional lyric-epic type: “The Abduction of Bertha” and “Divination.”

A number of comic ballad parodies were left by Vl. Soloviev ("The Mysterious Sexton", "The Autumn Walk of Knight Ralph" and others).

The events of the turbulent 20th century once again brought to life the genre of literary ballads. E. Bagritsky's ballad "Watermelon", although it does not tell about the turbulent events of the revolution, was born precisely of the revolution, the romance of that time.

Features of the ballad as a genre:

presence of a plot (there is a climax, beginning and denouement)

combination of the real and the fantastic

romantic (unusual) landscape

mystery motive

the plot can be replaced by dialogue

brevity

combination of lyrical and epic principles

Ballad: history and features of the genre

Ballad- a lyric-epic poetic work with a pronounced plot of a historical or everyday nature, in which themes and characters from myths are often used.
The term “ballad” comes from a Provençal word and means “dance song.” Ballads arose in the Middle Ages. By origin, ballads are associated with traditions, folk legends, and combine the features of a story and a song. Many ballads about a folk hero named Robin Hood existed in England in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The ballad is one of the main genres in the poetry of sentimentalism and romanticism. The world in ballads appears mysterious and enigmatic. They feature bright heroes with clearly defined characters.

The creator of the literary ballad genre was Robert Burns (1759-1796). The basis of his poetry was oral folk art.

A person is always at the center of literary ballads, but the poets of the 19th century who chose this genre knew that human powers do not always provide the opportunity to answer all questions and become the absolute master of one’s destiny. Therefore, often literary ballads are a plot poem about fate, for example, the ballad “The Forest King” by the German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

The Russian ballad tradition was created by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky, who wrote both original ballads ("Svetlana", "Aeolian Harp", "Achilles" and others), and translated Burger, Schiller, Goethe, Uhland, Southey, Walter Scott. In total, Zhukovsky wrote more than 40 ballads.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin created such ballads as “The Song of the Prophetic Oleg”, “The Groom”, “The Drowned Man”, “The Raven Flies to the Raven”, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Poor Knight...”. His cycle of “Songs of the Western Slavs” can also be classified as a ballad genre.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov has some ballads. This is the "Airship" from Seydlitz, "The Sea Princess".

Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy also used the ballad genre in his work. He calls his ballads on themes from his native antiquity epics ("Alyosha Popovich", "Ilya Muromets", "Sadko" and others).

Entire sections of their poems were called ballads, using this term more freely by A.A. Fet, K.K. Sluchevsky, V.Ya. Bryusov. In his “Experiments,” Bryusov, speaking about the ballad, points to only two of his ballads of the traditional lyric-epic type: “The Abduction of Bertha” and “Divination.”

A number of comic ballad parodies were left by Vl. Soloviev (“The Mysterious Sexton”, “The Autumn Walk of Knight Ralph” and others)

The events of the turbulent 20th century once again brought to life the genre of literary ballads. E. Bagritsky's ballad "Watermelon", although it does not tell about the turbulent events of the revolution, was born precisely of the revolution, the romance of that time.

Features of the ballad as a genre:

presence of a plot (there is a climax, beginning and denouement)

combination of the real and the fantastic

romantic (unusual) landscape

mystery motive

the plot can be replaced by dialogue

brevity

combination of lyrical and epic principles