In a desire to please the empress, he took her as the basis for his work. own work, recently published in a small edition. Naturally, for a brightly talented poet this story began to sparkle with richer colors, in addition to this, adding to the history of Russian versification a new style and made the poet a celebrity.

Ode Analysis

“Felitsa” has a subtitle that clarifies the purpose of writing this work. It talks about contacting to the wise princess Tatar Murza, who settled in Moscow, but is on business in St. Petersburg. The reader is also mystified by the fact that the ode was supposedly translated from Arabic. The analysis of the ode “Felitsa” must begin with a name that does not sound familiar to either Russians or Arabs.

The fact is that this is what Catherine II called her heroine in her fairy tale about Prince Chlorus. Served as soil Italian language(here you can remember someone like Cutugno with the exclamation “Felicita”) Latin translates the word “Felitsa” (Felitsa - felicitas) as happiness. Thus, Derzhavin from the first line began to praise the empress, and then could not resist satire in the descriptions of her environment.

Artistic synthesis

Analysis of the ode “Felitsa” shows the orientation towards the usual solemn ode of praise for the date, accepted in those days. The ode is written in traditional stanzas - ten lines, and, as expected, But before Derzhavin, no one had yet dared to merge two genres that were opposite in purpose - the majestic laudatory ode and the caustic

The first was the ode "Felitsa". Derzhavin seemed to have “stepped back” in his innovation, judging by the precisely fulfilled conditions of the genre, at least in comparison with “Birthday Poems,” which are not even separated by stanzas. However, this impression disappears as soon as the reader gets through the first few stanzas. Still, even the composition of the ode “Felitsa” represents a much broader artistic synthesis.

Fairy tale "Felitsa"

It is interesting to consider what motives prompted Derzhavin to write this “fan fiction”, what served as the primary basis and whether this topic was worthy of continuation. Apparently, she is worthy, and very much so. Catherine II wrote her fairy tale for her grandson, still small, but in the future great Alexander I. The Empress's fairy tale is about the Kiev prince Chlorus, who was visited by the Kyrgyz khan to check whether the prince was really as smart and dexterous as they say about him.

The boy agreed to take the test and find the rarest flower - a rose without thorns - and set off on his journey. On the road, having responded to the invitation of Murza Lazy ( telling name), the prince tries to resist the temptations of that luxury and idleness with which the Lazy Man seduces him. Fortunately, this Kyrgyz khan had a very good daughter, whose name was Felitsa, and an even better grandson, whose name was Reason. Felitsa sent her son with the prince, who, with the help of Reason, went to the goal of his journey.

Bridge between fairy tale and ode

In front of them was steep mountain, no paths or stairs. Apparently, the prince himself was quite persistent, because, despite enormous work and trials, he still climbed to the top, where he decorated his life with a rose without thorns, that is, with virtue. An analysis of the ode “Felitsa” shows that, as in any fairy tale, the images here are conventionally allegorical, but in Derzhavin at the beginning of the ode they stand up very strongly, and all the odic beginnings of classical examples, where the ascent to Parnassus and communication with the muses are inevitable, fade next to with seemingly simple images of a children's fairy tale.

Even the portrait of Catherine (Felitsa) is given absolutely in in a new way, which is completely different from the traditional laudatory description. Usually in odes the honored character appears in the inexpressive image of a goddess, walking through the solemn, echoing rhymes of the verse with heavy rhythmic shortness of breath. Here the poet is inspired, and - most importantly - equipped with poetic skill. The poems are not lame and are not inflated with excessive pathos. The plan of the ode “Felitsa” is such that Catherine appears before the reader as an intelligent, but simple and active Kyrgyz-Kaisat princess. It plays well into the harmony of the construction of this image and the contrast - the image of Murza, vicious and lazy, which Derzhavin uses throughout the ode. Hence the unprecedented genre diversity, which distinguishes the ode "Felitsa".

Derzhavin and the Empress

The singer’s pose here also changes in relation to the subject of the chanting, if we consider not only all previous Russian literature, but even the poems of Derzhavin himself. Sometimes a certain godlike quality of the queen still slips through the ode, but with all this and with the general respect that the ode “Felitsa” demonstrates, the content also shows a certain shortness of relationship, not familiarity, but the warmth of almost family closeness.

But in satirical lines, Derzhavin can sometimes be understood in two ways. The collective features of the image of Murza ridicule all of Catherine’s nobles in turn, and it is here that the poet does not forget himself. Self-irony is an even more rare fact in the poetry of those years. The author’s “I” is not devoid of lyrics, but it is made clear that “This is how I am, Felitsa!”, “Today I rule over myself, and tomorrow I am a slave to my whims.” The appearance of such an author’s “I” in an ode is a huge fact artistic value. Lomonosov also began his odes with “I,” but as a loyal slave, while Derzhavin’s author is concrete and living.

Narration from the author

Naturally, the composition of the ode “Felitsa” would not have withstood the author’s full-fledged individuality. Derzhavin most often presents under the author's "I" a conventional image of a singer, which is usually always present in odes as well as in satires. But there is a difference: in an ode the poet plays only sacred delight, but in satire only indignation. Derzhavin combined “one-string” genres with the creation of a living human poet, with an absolutely concrete life, with a variety of feelings and experiences, with “multi-stringed” music of verse.

An analysis of the ode “Felitsa” certainly notes not only delight, but also anger, blasphemy and praise in one bottle. Along the way he manages to be disingenuous and ironic. That is, he behaves throughout the entire work as a completely normal and living person. And it should be noted that this individual personality has undoubted features of a nationality. In ode! And now similar case It would be unprecedented if someone in our time wrote odic poetry.

About genres

Ode "Felitsa", the content of which is so rich in contradictions, as if warm sun rays warmed by the lungs colloquial speech from the reality of everyday life, light, simple, sometimes humorous, which directly contradicts the laws of this genre. Moreover, a genre revolution, almost a revolution, took place here.

It must be clarified that Russian classicism did not know poetry as “just poetry.” All poetry was strictly divided into genres and types, sharply demarcated, and these boundaries stood unshakable. Ode, satire, elegy and other types of poetic creativity could not be mixed with each other.

Here the traditional categories of classicism are completely broken after the organic fusion of ode and satire. This applies not only to “Felitsa”; Derzhavin did this both before and later. For example, the ode “To death is half elegy. Genres become polyphonic with light hand Derzhavina.

Success

This ode became a colossal success immediately after its publication: “Everyone who could read Russian found it in the hands of everyone,” according to a contemporary. At first, Derzhavin was wary of widely publishing the ode and tried to hide the authorship (probably the depicted and very recognizable nobles were vindictive), but then Princess Dashkova appeared and published “Felitsa” in the magazine “Interlocutor,” where Catherine II herself did not hesitate to collaborate.

The Empress liked the ode very much, she even cried with delight, ordered the authorship to be immediately exposed and, when this happened, she sent Derzhavin a golden snuffbox with a dedicatory inscription and five hundred chervonets in it. It was after this that real fame came to the poet.

1. In 1781, it was published in a small number of copies, written by Catherine for her five-year-old grandson, Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich, The Tale of Prince Chlorus. Chlorus was the son of the prince, or king of Kyiv, who was kidnapped by the Kirghiz khan during his father’s absence. Wanting to believe the rumor about the boy’s abilities, the khan ordered him to find a rose without thorns. The prince set off on this errand. On the way, he met the Khan’s daughter, cheerful and amiable. Felitsa. She wanted to go to see off the prince, but her stern husband, Sultan Grumpy, prevented her from doing so, and then she sent her son, Reason, to the child. Continuing his journey, Chlorus was subjected to various temptations, and among other things, he was invited to his hut by Murza Lazy, who, with the temptations of luxury, tried to dissuade the prince from an undertaking that was too difficult. But Reason forcibly carried him further. Finally, they saw in front of them a steep rocky mountain, on which grows a rose without thorns, or, as one young man explained to Chlorus, virtue. Having climbed the mountain with difficulty, the prince picked this flower and hurried to the khan. Khan sent him along with the rose to to the prince of Kyiv. “This one was so happy about the arrival of the prince and his successes that he forgot all the melancholy and sadness.... Here the fairy tale will end, and whoever knows more will tell another.”

This fairy tale gave Derzhavin the idea to write an ode to Felitsa (the goddess of bliss, according to his explanation of this name): since the empress loved funny jokes, he says, this ode was written in her taste, at the expense of her entourage.

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18. Dividing Chaos into spheres harmoniously etc. - a hint at the establishment of provinces. In 1775, Catherine published the “Establishment on the Provinces,” according to which all of Russia was divided into provinces. ()

19. That she renounced and was considered wise. – Catherine II, with feigned modesty, rejected the titles of “Great”, “Wise”, “Mother of the Fatherland”, which were presented to her in 1767 by the Senate and the Commission for developing a draft of a new code; she did the same in 1779, when Petersburg nobility offered to accept her the title “Great”. (

History of creation

Ode “Felitsa” (1782) is the first poem that made the name of Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin famous. It became a striking example of a new style in Russian poetry. The subtitle of the poem states: "Ode to the wise Kyrgyz-Kaisak princess Felitsa, written by Tatarsskiy Murza, who has long settled in Moscow, and lives on his businessthem in St. Petersburg. Translated from Arabic." This work received its unusual name from the name of the heroine of “The Tale of Prince Chlorus,” the author of which was Catherine II herself. This name, which translated from Latin means happiness, it is also named in Derzhavin’s ode, glorifying the empress and satirically characterizing her environment.

It is known that at first Derzhavin did not want to publish this poem and even hid the authorship, fearing the revenge of the influential nobles satirically depicted in it. But in 1783 it became widespread and, with the assistance of Princess Dashkova, a close associate of the Empress, was published in the magazine “Interlocutor of Lovers of the Russian Word,” in which Catherine II herself collaborated. Subsequently, Derzhavin recalled that this poem so moved the empress that Dashkova found her in tears. Catherine II wanted to know who wrote the poem in which she so accurately depicted her. In gratitude to the author, she sent him a golden snuff box with five hundred chervonets and an expressive inscription on the package: “From Orenburg from the Kirghiz Princess to Murza Derzhavin.” From that day on, literary fame came to Derzhavin, which no Russian poet had known before.

Main themes and ideas

The poem "Felitsa", written as a humorous sketch from the life of the empress and her entourage, at the same time raises very important issues. On the one hand, in the ode “Felitsa” a completely traditional image“God-like princess,” which embodies the poet’s idea of ​​the ideal of an enlightened monarch. Clearly idealizing the real Catherine II, Derzhavin at the same time believes in the image he painted:

Bring it on, Felitsa! instruction:
How to live magnificently and truthfully,
How to tame passions and excitement
And be happy in the world?

On the other hand, the poet’s poems convey the idea not only of the wisdom of power, but also of the negligence of performers concerned with their own profit:

Seduction and flattery live everywhere,
Luxury oppresses everyone. –
Where does virtue live?
Where does a rose without thorns grow?

This idea in itself was not new, but behind the images of nobles drawn in the ode, features clearly emerged real people:

My thoughts are spinning in chimeras:
Then I steal captivity from the Persians,
Then I direct arrows towards the Turks;
Then, having dreamed that I was a sultan,
I terrify the universe with my gaze;

Then suddenly, seduced by the outfit,
I'm off to the tailor for a caftan.

In these images, the poet’s contemporaries easily recognized the empress’s favorite Potemkin, her close associates Alexei Orlov, Panin, and Naryshkin. Drawing them brightly satirical portraits, Derzhavin showed great courage- after all, any of the nobles he offended could deal with the author for this. Only Catherine’s favorable attitude saved Derzhavin.

But even to the empress he dares to give advice: to follow the law to which both kings and their subjects are subject:

You alone are only decent,
Princess! create light from darkness;
Dividing Chaos into spheres harmoniously,
The union will strengthen their integrity;

From disagreement to agreement
And from fierce passions happiness
You can only create.

This favorite thought of Derzhavin sounded bold, and it was expressed in simple and understandable language.

The poem ends with the traditional praise of the Empress and wishing her all the best:

I ask for heavenly strength,

Yes, their sapphire wings spread out,

They keep you invisibly

From all illnesses, evils and boredom;

May the sounds of your deeds be heard in posterity,

Like the stars in the sky, they will shine.

Artistic originality

Classicism forbade combining in one work high ode and satire related to low genres. But Derzhavin doesn’t even just combine them in his characterization different persons, written in the ode, he does something completely unprecedented for that time. Breaking the traditions of the laudatory ode genre, Derzhavin widely introduces colloquial vocabulary and even vernacular into it, but most importantly, he does not draw ceremonial portrait the empress, but depicts her human appearance. That's why they end up in odes everyday scenes, still life:

Without imitating your Murzas,

You often walk

And the food is the simplest

Happens at your table.

“God-like” Felitsa, like other characters in his ode, is also shown in an ordinary way (“Without valuing your peace, / You read, write under the cover...”). At the same time, such details do not reduce her image, but make her more real, humane, as if exactly copied from the drawing. Reading the poem “Felitsa”, you are convinced that Derzhavin really managed to introduce into poetry the individual characters of real people, boldly taken from life or created by the imagination, shown against the backdrop of a colorfully depicted everyday environment. This makes his poems bright, memorable and understandable. Thus, in “Felitsa” Derzhavin acted as a bold innovator, combining the style of a laudatory ode with the individualization of characters and satire, introducing elements into the high genre of ode low styles. Subsequently, the poet himself defined the genre of “Felitsa” as mixed ode. Derzhavin argued that, in contrast to the ode traditional for classicism, which praised government officials, military leaders, solemn events were sung, in a “mixed ode” “the poet can talk about everything.” Destroying the genre canons of classicism, with this poem he opens the way for new poetry- “the poetry of reality”, which received brilliant development in the work of Pushkin.

Meaning of the work

Derzhavin himself subsequently noted that one of his main merits was that he “dared to proclaim Felitsa’s virtues in a funny Russian style.” As the researcher of the poet’s work V.F. rightly points out. Khodasevich, Derzhavin was proud “not that he discovered Catherine’s virtues, but that he was the first to speak in a “funny Russian style.” He understood that his ode was the first artistic embodiment Russian life, that she is the embryo of our romance. And, perhaps,” Khodasevich develops his thought, “if “old man Derzhavin” had lived at least to the first chapter of “Onegin,” he would have heard echoes of his ode in it.”

Russian history literature XVIII century Lebedeva O. B.

Odo-satirical world image in the solemn ode "Felitsa"

In formal terms, Derzhavin in “Felitsa” strictly adheres to the canon of Lomonosov’s solemn ode: iambic tetrameter, ten-line stanza with the rhyme aBaBVVgDDg. But this strict form of the solemn ode in in this case is a necessary area of ​​contrast, against the background of which the absolute novelty of the content and style plans appears more clearly. Derzhavin addressed Catherine II not directly, but indirectly - through her literary personality, using for the ode the plot of a fairy tale that Catherine wrote for her little grandson Alexander. Characters allegorical “Tales of Prince Chlorus” - the daughter of the Kyrgyz-Kaisak Khan Felitsa (from the Latin felix - happy) and the young prince Chlorus are busy searching for a rose without thorns (an allegory of virtue), which they find, after many obstacles and overcoming temptations, at the top high mountain, symbolizing spiritual self-improvement.

This is an indirect appeal to the empress through her artistic text gave Derzhavin the opportunity to avoid the protocol-odic, sublime tone of addressing the highest person. Picking up the plot of Catherine's fairy tale and slightly aggravating oriental flavor, characteristic of this plot, Derzhavin wrote his ode on behalf of “a certain Tatar Murza,” playing on the legend about the origin of his family from the Tatar Murza Bagrim. In the first publication, the ode “Felitsa” was called as follows: “Ode to the wise Kyrgyz-Kaisak princess Felitsa, written by some Tatar Murza, who had long settled in Moscow, and living on their business in St. Petersburg. Translated from Arabic."

Already in the title of the ode, no less attention is paid to the personality of the author than to the personality of the addressee. And in the text of the ode itself, two plans are clearly drawn: the author’s plan and the hero’s plan, connected by the plot motif of the search for a “rose without thorns” - virtue, which Derzhavin learned from “The Tale of Prince Chlorus”. The “weak”, “depraved”, “slave of whims” Murza, on whose behalf the ode was written, turns to the virtuous “god-like princess” with a request for help in finding a “rose without thorns” - and this naturally sets two intonations in the text of the ode: apology against Felitsa and denunciation against Murza. Thus, Derzhavin’s solemn ode combines the ethical principles of older genres - satire and ode, which were once absolutely contrasting and isolated, but in “Felitsa” united into a single picture of the world. This combination in itself literally explodes from within the canons of the established oratorical genre of ode and classicist ideas about the genre hierarchy of poetry and the purity of the genre. But the operations that Derzhavin performs with the aesthetic attitudes of satire and ode are even more daring and radical.

It would be natural to expect that the apologetic image of virtue and the denounced image of vice, combined in a single odo-satirical genre, would be consistently maintained in their traditional typology artistic imagery: the abstract-conceptual embodiment of virtue would have to be opposed by the everyday image of vice. However, this does not happen in Derzhavin’s “Felitsa,” and both images, from an aesthetic point of view, represent the same synthesis of ideologizing and everyday-descriptive motifs. But if the everyday image of vice could, in principle, be subject to some ideologization in its generalized, conceptual presentation, then Russian literature before Derzhavin fundamentally did not allow the everyday image of virtue, and even a crowned one. In the ode “Felitsa”, contemporaries, accustomed to the abstract conceptual constructions of odic images of the ideal monarch, were shocked by the everyday concreteness and authenticity of the appearance of Catherine II in her daily activities and habits, listing which Derzhavin successfully used the motif of the daily routine, going back to the satire of II Cantemir “Filaret and “Eugene”:

Without imitating your Murzas,

You often walk

And the food is the simplest

Happens at your table;

Not valuing your peace,

You read and write in front of the lectern

And all from your pen

Shedding bliss to mortals:

Like you don't play cards,

Like me, from morning to morning (41).

And just as a descriptive picture of everyday life is not fully consistent with one typology of artistic imagery (“the bliss of mortals”, wedged into a number of concrete everyday details, although Derzhavin is also accurate here, meaning the famous legislative act of Catherine: “The Commission’s order on composing a draft of a new code"), the ideologized image of virtue also turns out to be rarefied by a concrete material metaphor:

You alone are only decent.

Princess! create light from darkness;

Dividing Chaos into spheres harmoniously,

The union will strengthen their integrity;

From disagreement to agreement

And from fierce passions happiness

You can only create.

So the helmsman, sailing through the show-off,

Catching the roaring wind under sail,

Knows how to steer a ship (43).

There is not a single verbal theme in this stanza that does not genetically go back to the poetics of Lomonosov’s solemn ode: light and darkness, chaos and harmonious spheres, union and integrity, passions and happiness, show-off and swimming - all this is familiar to the reader of the 18th century. a set of abstract concepts that form the ideological image of wise power in a solemn ode. But “the helmsman sailing through the show-off”, skillfully steering the ship, with all the allegorical meaning of this image-symbol of state wisdom, is incomparably more plastic and concrete than “Like a capable wind in a swimmer’s show-off” or “The feed flies between the watery depths” in the ode Lomonosov 1747

The individualized and specific personal image of virtue is opposed in the ode “Felitsa” by the generalized collective image vice, but is opposed only ethically: how aesthetic essence, the image of vice is absolutely identical to the image of virtue, since it is the same synthesis of odic and satirical typology of imagery, deployed in the same plot motive daily routine:

And I, having slept until noon,

I smoke tobacco and drink coffee;

Transforming everyday life into a holiday,

My thoughts are spinning in chimeras:

Then I steal captivity from the Persians,

Then I direct arrows towards the Turks;

Then, having dreamed that I was a sultan,

I terrify the universe with my gaze;

Then suddenly, I was seduced by the outfit,

I’m off to the tailor for a caftan (41).

That's it, Felitsa, I'm depraved!

But the whole world looks like me.

No matter how much wisdom you have,

But every person is a lie.

We do not walk the paths of light,

We run debauchery after dreams,

Between a lazy person and a grouch,

Between vanity and vice

Did anyone accidentally find it?

The path of virtue is straight (43).

The only aesthetic difference between the images of Felitsa the virtue and Murza the vice is their correlation with the specific personalities of Derzhavin’s contemporaries. In this sense, Felitsa-Ekaterina is, according to the author's intention, an accurate portrait, and Murza - the mask of the author of the ode, the lyrical subject of the text - is a collective, but concrete to such an extent that to this day its concreteness tempts researchers of Derzhavin's work to see in the features This mask is similar to the face of the poet himself, although Derzhavin himself left unambiguous and precise indications that Potemkin, A. Orlov, P. I. Panin, S. K. Naryshkin and their characteristic properties and everyday passions - “whimsical disposition”, “hunt for horse racing”, “exercises in dress”, passion for “all kinds of Russian youth” (fist fighting, hound hunting, horn music). When creating the image of Murza, Derzhavin also meant “in general ancient customs and Russian fun" (308).

It seems that in the interpretation of the lyrical subject of the ode “Felitsa” - the image of the vicious “Murza” - I. Z. Serman is closest to the truth, seeing in his speech in the first person “the same meaning and the same meaning” as “speech in the first person” has faces in the satirical journalism of the era - in “The Drone” or “The Painter” by Novikov. Both Derzhavin and Novikov use the assumption common to the literature of the Enlightenment, forcing their exposed and ridiculed characters to talk about themselves with all possible frankness.”

And here it is impossible not to notice two things: firstly, that the method of self-exposing characterization of vice in its direct speech genetically goes back directly to genre model Cantemir’s satire, and secondly, the fact that, creating his collective image of Murza as the lyrical subject of the ode “Felitsa” and forcing him to speak “for the whole world, for everything noble society", Derzhavin, in essence, used Lomonosov's odic method of constructing the image of the author. In Lomonosov’s solemn ode, the author’s personal pronoun “I” was nothing more than a form of expression general opinion, and the image of the author was functional only insofar as it was capable of embodying the voice of the nation as a whole - that is, it had a collective character.

Thus, in Derzhavin’s “Felitsa,” ode and satire, intersecting with their ethical genre-forming guidelines and aesthetic features of the typology of artistic imagery, merge into one genre, which, strictly speaking, can no longer be called either satire or ode. And the fact that Derzhavin’s “Felitsa” continues to be traditionally called an “ode” should be attributed to the odic associations of the theme. In general, this is a lyrical poem that has finally parted with the oratorical nature of the high solemn ode and only partially uses some methods of satirical world modeling.

Perhaps this is precisely the formation of synthetic poetic genre, relating to the field of pure lyricism, should be recognized as the main result of Derzhavin’s work in 1779-1783. And in total it poetic texts this period clearly reveals the process of restructuring the Russian lyric poetry in line with the same patterns that we have already had occasion to observe in journalistic prose, fiction, poetic epic and comedy of the 1760-1780s. With the exception of dramaturgy, which is fundamentally authorless in external forms expressions of the type of verbal creativity - in all these branches of Russian belles lettres the result of crossing high and low worldviews was the activation of forms of expression of the author's, personal beginning. And Derzhavin’s poetry was no exception in this sense. It is precisely the forms of expression of the personal author’s principle through the category lyrical hero and the poet as a figurative unity that fuses the entire set of individual poetic texts into a single aesthetic whole, are the factor that determines the fundamental innovation of Derzhavin the poet relative to the national poetic tradition that preceded him.