Realism in art (XIX-XX centuries). Mid-19th century realism Jean Francois Millet

Realism as an independent direction established itself in the 40s of the 19th century, later turning into the form of critical realism (the highest point of realism - exposing the vices of society). The development of realism was accompanied by the development of the capitalist mode of production, and, consequently, the growth of social contradictions, which was reflected in the art of this time.

Realism in 19th century art. combines with romanticism

Disappointment with the results of revolutions

Negative attitude towards bourgeois reality

Appeal to the spiritual world of man

The struggle for personal self-affirmation

The theme of nationality is close

However, unlike the romantics, who flee from reality, considering emergency situations, extraordinary personalities, heroic situations, life of stormy passions, realism penetrates deeply into reality, into public life.

New approaches of realist artists of the 19th century. is to reflect what is really happening “here and now.” The artists were convinced of the possibility of understanding the objectively existing world through art. They turned to scenes of bourgeois life, illuminated the life of peasants, and the everyday work of the urban lower classes.

One of the first realists in French painting was Gustave Courbet, who addressed the theme of labor (“Stone Crusher”), wrote social canvases based on real motives (“Funeral in Ornans”). Courbet's “prosaism” is an open challenge to official criticism.

Francois Millet- peasant genre, without melodramatic and ethnographic shades, but through the transmission of poses, gestures, body movements, revealed the nature of the labor process, the strength and dexterity of the peasants (“Peasant Women with Twigs”, “Gatherers of Ears”) - epically monumental canvases full of vitality and truth .

Honoré Daumier is an artist of critical realism who, like O. Balzac, created the “Human Comedy” of the era in thousands of lithographs, drawings and paintings - caricatures of King Louis Philippe in the satirical magazines “Caricature” and “Charivari” (“Down the Curtain” ), its main genre is the satire of morals: the philistine world of swindlers, fools, provincials in the capital (“Leaders of Justice”). “The Laundress” is not a portrait, but a collective image of all Parisian laundresses; a portrait in which the author expressed all his love for the people. A series of illustrations for “Don Quixote”, where in the image of the main character the artist tried to reflect his own position in society, the theme of human suffering. The social relevance of his stories is a counterbalance to the prohibited censorship.

French national landscape:

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot– poetic spirituality of nature; favorite motif – “after the rain”, i.e. changing state of nature; the silvery tonality of his painting is “Coro’s gray haze”.

Barbizon School– main goal: depicting the uniqueness of the national landscape, conveying the changing states of nature, rejecting compositional canons. Theodore Rousseau– “Landscape with a Bridge” is a landscape from life, special attention to form, all the trees are individual, the picturesque modeling makes them voluminous and almost sculptural, their monumentality is emphasized by the low horizon.

Jules Dupre– “Autumn landscape” - the effect of the setting sun emphasizes the contrast of colors of the autumn landscape after the rain, the trees dominating the composition are especially solemn.

Charles Daubigny– river landscapes (“Banks of the Oise River”), the desire to capture the slightest changes in the state of nature, subtle picturesque transmission of light enveloping objects.

French realism of the 19th century goes through two stages in its development. The first stage - the formation and establishment of realism as a leading trend in literature (late 20s - 40s) - is represented by the works of Beranger, Merimee, Stendhal, Balzac. The second (50-70s) is associated with the name of Flaubert - the heir to realism of the Balzac-Stendhal type and the predecessor of the “naturalistic realism” of the Zola school.

The history of realism in France begins with Beranger’s songwriting, which is quite natural and logical. The song is a small and therefore the most mobile genre of literature, instantly reacting to all the remarkable phenomena of our time. During the period of the formation of realism, the song gives way to the social novel. It is this genre, due to its specificity, that opens up rich opportunities for the writer for a broad depiction and in-depth analysis of reality, allowing Balzac and Stendhal to solve their main creative task - to capture in their creations the living image of contemporary France in all its completeness and historical uniqueness. A more modest, but also very significant place in the general hierarchy of realistic genres is occupied by the short story, of which Merimee is rightfully considered an unsurpassed master in those years.

The emergence of realism as a method occurred in the second half of the 20s, that is, during the period when the romantics played a leading role in the literary process. Next to them, in the mainstream of romanticism, Merimee, Stendhal, and Balzac began their writing journey. All of them are close to the creative associations of the romantics and actively participate in their struggle with the classicists. It was the classicists of the first decades of the 19th century, protected by the monarchical Bourbon government, who were the main opponents of the emerging realistic art in these years. Almost simultaneously published, the manifesto of the French romantics - the Preface to the drama "Cromwell" by Hugo and the aesthetic treatise of Stendhal "Racine and Shakespeare" - have a common critical focus, being two decisive blows to the code of laws of classicist art that has long since become obsolete. In these most important historical and literary documents, both Hugo and Stendhal, rejecting the aesthetics of classicism, advocated for the expansion of the subject of depiction in art, for the abolition of forbidden subjects and themes, for the presentation of life in all its fullness and contradictions. Moreover, for both, the highest example that should be oriented toward when creating new art is the great Renaissance master Shakespeare (perceived, however, by the romantic Hugo and the realist Stendhal in different ways). Finally, the first realists of France and the romantics of the 20s are also brought together by a common socio-political orientation, revealed not only in the opposition to the Bourbon monarchy, but also in the acutely critical perception of the bourgeois relations that were establishing themselves before their eyes.

After the revolution of 1830, which was a significant milestone in the history of France, the paths of realists and romantics diverged, which, in particular, will be reflected in their polemics of the early 30s (see, for example, two critical articles by Balzac about Hugo’s drama “Hernani” and his article “Romantic Akathists”). Romanticism will be forced to give up its primacy in the literary process to realism as a direction that most fully meets the requirements of the new time. However, even after 1830, contacts between yesterday’s allies in the fight against the classicists will continue. Remaining true to the fundamental principles of their aesthetics, the romantics will successfully master the experience of the artistic discoveries of the realists (especially Balzac), supporting them in almost all the most important creative endeavors. Realists, in turn, will also be interested in following the work of the romantics, greeting each of their victories with constant satisfaction (this, in particular, will be Balzac’s relationship with Hugo and J. Sand).

Realists of the second half of the 19th century. will reproach their predecessors for the “residual romanticism” found in Merimee, for example, in his cult of exoticism (the so-called exotic short stories like “Mateo Falcone”, “Colombi” or “Carmen”), in Stendhal - in his passion for depicting bright individuals and exceptional in their strength of passions (“The Parma Monastery”, “Italian Chronicles”), Balzac’s craving for adventurous plots (“The History of the Thirteen”) and the use of fantasy techniques in philosophical stories and the novel “Shagreen Skin”. These reproaches are not without foundation. The fact is that between French realism of the first period - and this is one of its specific features - and romanticism there is a complex “family” connection, which is revealed, in particular, in the inheritance of techniques and even individual themes and motifs characteristic of romantic art (the theme of lost illusions , motive of disappointment, etc.).

Note that in those days there was no demarcation between the terms “romanticism” and “realism”. Throughout the first half of the 19th century. realists were almost invariably called romantics. Only in the 50s - after the death of Stendhal and Balzac - did the French writers Chanfleury and Duranty propose the term “realism” in special declarations. However, it is important to emphasize that the method, to the theoretical substantiation of which they devoted many works, was already significantly different from the method of Stendhal, Balzac, Merimee, which bears the imprint of its historical origin and the dialectical connection with the art of romanticism conditioned by it.

The importance of romanticism as the forerunner of realistic art in France can hardly be overestimated. It was the romantics who were the first critics of bourgeois society. They are also credited with discovering a new type of hero who enters into confrontation with this society. Consistent, uncompromising criticism of bourgeois relations from the high positions of humanism will be the strongest side of the French realists, who expanded and enriched the experience of their predecessors in this direction and, most importantly, gave anti-bourgeois criticism a new, social character.

One of the most significant achievements of the romantics is rightfully seen in their art of psychological analysis, in their discovery of the inexhaustible depth and complexity of the individual personality. With this achievement, the romantics also served the realists, paving the way for them to new heights in understanding the inner world of man. Special discoveries in this direction were to be made by Stendhal, who, relying on the experience of contemporary medicine (in particular, psychiatry), would significantly clarify the knowledge of literature about the spiritual side of human life and connect the psychology of the individual with his social existence, and present the inner world of man in dynamics, in evolution caused by the active influence on the personality of the complex environment in which this personality resides.

Of particular importance in connection with the problem of literary continuity is the most important of the principles of romantic aesthetics, inherited by realists - the principle of historicism. It is known that this principle presupposes consideration of the life of mankind as a continuous process in which all its stages are dialectically interconnected, each of which has its own specifics. It was this, called historical coloring by the romantics, that word artists were called upon to reveal in their works. However, the principle of historicism among the romantics, which was formed in a fierce polemic with the classicists, had an idealistic basis. It acquires a fundamentally different content from the realists. Based on the discoveries of the school of contemporary historians (Thierry, Michelet, Guizot), who proved that the main engine of history is the struggle of classes, and the force that decides the outcome of this struggle is the people, the realists proposed a new, materialist reading of history. This is what stimulated their special interest both in the economic structures of society and in the social psychology of the broad masses (it is no coincidence that Balzac’s “Human Comedy” begins with “The Chouans”, and one of its last novels is “The Peasants”; these works reflect the experience artistic study of the psychology of the masses). Finally, speaking about the complex transformation of the principle of historicism discovered by the romantics in realistic art, it is necessary to emphasize that this principle is put into practice by realists when depicting not long-ago eras (which is typical for the romantics), but modern bourgeois reality, shown in their works as a certain stage in historical development of France.

The heyday of French realism, represented by the works of Balzac, Stendhal and Mérimée, occurred in the 1830s and 1840s. This was the period of the so-called July Monarchy, when France, having put an end to feudalism, established, in the words of Engels, “the pure rule of the bourgeoisie with such classical clarity as no other European country. And the struggle of the rising proletariat against the ruling bourgeoisie also appears here in such an acute form that is unknown in other countries.”* The “classical clarity” of bourgeois relations, the particularly “acute form” of the antagonistic contradictions that emerged in them, prepares for the exceptional accuracy and depth of social analysis in the works of the great realists. A sober view of modern France is a characteristic feature of Balzac, Stendhal, and Merimee.

Great realists see their main task in the artistic reproduction of reality as it is, in the knowledge of the internal laws of this reality that determine its dialectics and diversity of forms. “The historian itself was supposed to be French society, I could only be its secretary,” Balzac declares in the Preface to “The Human Comedy,” proclaiming the principle of objectivity in the approach to depicting reality as the most important principle of realistic art. But an objective reflection of the world as it is - in the understanding of the realists of the first half of the 19th century - is not a passive mirror reflection of this world. For sometimes, Stendhal notes, “nature reveals unusual spectacles, sublime contrasts; they may remain incomprehensible to the mirror, which unconsciously reproduces them.” And, as if picking up Stendhal’s thought, Balzac continues: “The task of art is not to copy nature, but to express it!” A categorical rejection of flat empiricism (which some realists of the second half of the 19th century would be guilty of) is one of the remarkable features of classical realism of the 1830-1840s. That is why the most important of the principles - the recreation of life in the forms of life itself - does not at all exclude for Balzac, Stendhal, Mérimée such romantic techniques as fantasy, grotesque, symbol, allegory, subordinated, however, to the realistic basis of their works.

An objective reflection of reality in realistic art always organically includes a subjective principle, which is revealed primarily in the author’s concept of reality. The artist, according to Balzac, is not a simple chronicler of his era. He is a researcher of her morals, an analytical scientist, a politician and a poet. Therefore, the question of the worldview of a realist writer always remains the most important for a literary historian studying his work. It happens that the artist’s personal sympathies conflict with the truth he discovers. The specificity and strength of a realist lies in the ability to overcome this subjectiveness in the name of the highest truth of life for him.

Among the theoretical works devoted to the substantiation of the principles of realistic art, special mention should be made of Stendhal’s pamphlet “Racine and Shakespeare” created during the formation of realism and Balzac’s works of the 1840s “Letters on Literature, Theater and Art”, “Study of Bayle” and especially - Preface to The Human Comedy. If the first, as it were, precedes the onset of the era of realism in France, declaring its main postulates, then the latter generalizes the rich experience of the artistic achievements of realism, comprehensively and convincingly motivating its aesthetic code.

The realism of the second half of the 19th century, represented by the work of Flaubert, differs from the realism of the first stage. There is a final break with the romantic tradition, officially declared already in the novel Madame Bovary (1856). And although the main object of depiction in art remains bourgeois reality, the scale and principles of its depiction are changing. The bright individualities of the heroes of the realistic novel of the 30s and 40s are being replaced by ordinary, unremarkable people. The multicolored world of truly Shakespearean passions, cruel fights, heartbreaking dramas, captured in Balzac’s “Human Comedy”, the works of Stendhal and Mérimée, gives way to a “mold-colored world”, the most remarkable event in which is adultery, vulgar adultery.

Fundamental changes are noted, in comparison with the realism of the first stage, in the artist’s relationship with the world in which he lives and which is the object of his image. If Balzac, Stendhal, Mérimée showed an ardent interest in the destinies of this world and constantly, in the words of Balzac, “felt the pulse of their era, felt its illnesses, observed its physiognomy,” that is, they felt themselves to be artists deeply involved in the life of our time, then Flaubert declares his fundamental detachment from bourgeois reality, which is unacceptable to him. However, obsessed with the dream of breaking all the threads connecting him with the “mildew-colored world”, and taking refuge in the “ivory tower”, devoting himself to the service of high art, Flaubert is almost fatally chained to his modernity, remaining its strict analyst and objective judge all his life. Brings him closer to the realists of the first half of the 19th century. and the anti-bourgeois orientation of creativity.

It is the deep, uncompromising criticism of the inhumane and socially unjust foundations of the bourgeois system, established on the ruins of the feudal monarchy, that constitutes the main strength of realism of the 19th century.

However, we should not forget that the principle of historicism, which formed the basis of the creative method of the great masters of the last century, always determines the depiction of reality in continuous development, movement, which involves not only a retrospective, but also a perspective display of life. Hence Balzac’s ability to see the people of the future in republicans fighting for social justice against the bourgeois oligarchy, and the life-affirming principle that permeates his work. Despite all the paramount importance that a critical analysis of reality acquires, one of the most important problems for the great masters of realism remains the problem of the positive hero. Aware of the complexity of its solution, Balzac notes: “...vice is more effective; it catches the eye... virtue, on the contrary, reveals only unusually thin lines to the artist’s brushes. Virtue is absolute, one and indivisible, like the Republic; vice is diverse, multi-colored, uneven, bizarre.” The “multiple and multi-colored” negative characters of Balzac’s “Human Comedy” are always opposed by positive heroes, who at first glance are not very, perhaps “winning and catchy.” It is in them that the artist embodies his unshakable faith in man, the inexhaustible treasures of his soul, the limitless possibilities of his mind, perseverance and courage, willpower and energy. It is this “positive charge” of the “Human Comedy” that gives special moral force to Balzac’s creation, which absorbed the specific features of the realistic method in its pinnacle classical version.

Ticket 2. The origins of realism as a literary movement.
Ticket 4. Literature of France 30-40 years of the 19th century.

Ticket 5. French realism.
The emergence of realism as a method occurs during a period when the romantics play a leading role in the literary process. Next to them, in the mainstream of romanticism, Merimee, Stendhal, and Balzac began their writing journey. All of them are close to the creative associations of the romantics and actively participate in the struggle against the classicists. It was the classicists of the first half of the 19th century, sponsored by the monarchical Bourbon government, who were the main opponents of the emerging realistic art in these years. Almost simultaneously published, the manifesto of the French romantics - “Preface” to the drama “Cromwell” by V. Hugo and Stendhal’s aesthetic treatise “Racine and Shakespeare” have a common critical focus, being two decisive blows to the already outdated set of laws of classicist art. In these most important historical and literary documents, both Hugo and Stendhal, rejecting the aesthetics of classicism, advocated for expanding the subject of depiction in art, for the abolition of forbidden subjects and themes, for presenting life in all its fullness and contradictions. Moreover, for both, the highest example that should be oriented toward when creating new art is the great master of the Renaissance, Shakespeare (perceived, however, by both Hugo and Stendhal in different ways). Finally, the first realists of France and the romantics of the 20s are brought together by a common socio-political orientation, revealed not only in the opposition to the Bourbon monarchy, but also in the critical perception of the bourgeois relations that were establishing themselves before their eyes.

After the revolution of 1830, which was a significant milestone in the development of France, the paths of realists and romantics diverged, which, in particular, was reflected in the polemics of the 30s (for example, Balzac’s critical reviews of Hugo’s drama “Ernani” and his article “Romantic Akathists” ). However, after 1830, contacts between yesterday's allies in the fight against the classicists remained. Remaining true to the fundamental methods of their aesthetics, the romantics will successfully master the experience of the realists (especially Balzac), supporting them in almost all the most important endeavors. Realists, in turn, will also be interested in following the work of the romantics, greeting each of their victories with constant satisfaction (this, in particular, was the relationship between J. Sand and Hugo with Balzac).

Realists of the second half of the 19th century will reproach their predecessors for the “residual romanticism” found in Merimee, for example, in his cult of exoticism (the so-called exotic short stories), and in Stendhal for his predilection for depicting bright individuals and exceptional passions (“Italian Chronicles”) , Balzac’s craving for adventurous plots and the use of fantastic techniques in philosophical stories (“Shagreen Skin”). These reproaches are not without foundation, and this is one of the specific features - there is a subtle connection between realism and romanticism, which is revealed, in particular, in the inheritance of techniques or even themes and motifs characteristic of romantic art (the theme of lost illusions, the motif of disappointment).

The importance of romanticism as the forerunner of realistic art in France can hardly be overestimated. It was the romantics who were the first to criticize the bourgeois society of their time, and the consistent and uncompromising criticism of bourgeois relations from the high positions of humanism constitutes the strongest side of the aesthetics of the realists, who expanded and enriched the experience of their predecessors.

Of particular importance in connection with the problem of literary continuity is the most important principle of romantic aesthetics studied by realists - the principle of historicism. It is known that this principle presupposes consideration of human life as a continuous process in which all its stages are dialectically interconnected, each of which has its own specifics. It was this, renamed historical coloring in the realistic tradition, that the authors were called upon to reveal. However, in the already formed polemics of 20-30 with the classicists, this principle had its own specifics. Based on the discoveries of the school of modern historians (Thierry, Michelet, Guizot), who proved that the main engine of history is the struggle of classes, and the force that decides the outcome is the people, the masses, the realists proposed a new method of reading history.

The great realists see their task as the reproduction of reality as it is, in the knowledge of its internal laws that determine the dialectics and diversity of forms. “The historian itself was supposed to be French society; I could only be its secretary,” writes Balzac in the Preface. But an objective image is not a passive mirror reflection of this world, for sometimes, as Stendhal notes, “nature reveals unusual spectacles, sublime contrasts” and they may remain incomprehensible to the unconscious mirror. Taking up Stndahl's thought, Balzac argues that the task is not to copy nature, but to express it. That is why the most important of the attitudes - the reconstruction of reality - for Balzac, Stendhal, Mérimée does not exclude such techniques as allegory, fantasy, grotesque, symbolism.

The realism of the second half of the 19th century, represented by the work of Flaubert, differs from the realism of the first stage. A final break with the romantic tradition occurs, officially declaimed already in Madame Bovary (1856). And although the main object of depiction in art still remains bourgeois reality, the scale and principles of its depiction are changing. The bright individualities of the heroes of the novel of the 30s and 40s are replaced by ordinary people, not much remarkable. The multicolored world of truly Shakespearean passions, cruel fights, heartbreaking dramas, captured in Balzac’s “Human Comedy”, the works of Stendhal and Mérimée, gives way to a “mildew-colored world”, the most remarkable event of which is adultery.

Fundamental changes are noted, in comparison with the realism of the first stage, in the artist’s relationship with the world in which he chooses the image as an object. If Balzac, Merimee, Stendhal showed an ardent interest in the destinies of this world and constantly, according to Balzac, “felt the pulse of their era, saw its illnesses,” then Flaubert declares a fundamental detachment from the unacceptable reality for him, which he draws in his works. Obsessed with the idea of ​​solitude in an ivory castle, the writer is chained to modernity, becoming a stern analyst and an objective judge. However, despite all the paramount importance that critical analysis acquires, one of the most important problems of the great masters of realism remains the problem of the positive hero, because “vice is more effective... virtue, on the contrary, reveals only unusually thin lines to the artist’s brushes.” Virtue is indivisible, but vice is manifold.

B.'s election to the National Assembly in 1848 had no real significance, since he did not take part in the work of the Assembly, and was only a demonstration of respect for B. from broad sections of the Parisian population. B.'s glory during this period was so great that after his death the government of Napoleon III was forced to take his funeral at its own expense and officially give it the significance of a national act.

You give a lot of spring flowers,

Daughter of the people, singer of people's rights.

You owed him this since you were a child,

Where he sang, quelling your first cry.

You to the Baroness or Marquise

I don't change them for the sake of embellishment.

Don't be afraid, with the muse we are true to the motto:

When as a boy, having no fame,

I came across ancient castles,

I didn’t rush Carla the sorcerer,

To open a closed portal for me.

I thought: no, neither singing, nor love,

We won't be greeted here like troubadours.

Let's go from here to the third estate:

My taste and I are from the masses.

Down with the balls, where the old-believer boredom is

Where the shower of fireworks fades,

Where laughter is silent before it can be heard!

Week away! You come in in a white dress

You call to the fields to start a Sunday dance;

I want to catch up with your heel, your bow...

My taste and I are from the masses!

Child! Not only with any lady -

You can argue with the princess.

Can anyone compare with your beauty?

Whose gaze is more tender? Whose features are more correct?

Everyone knows - with two yards in a row

I fought and saved the honor of the people.

His singer will receive as a reward:

My taste and I are from the masses.

Lebrun, you are tempting me!

After all, I'm just a simple singer,

And in your letter you offer me

Academic crown!..

But wait, have patience!

Having lived my whole life as if in a child,

I loved the solitude

And I won’t answer your call.

Your social noise frightens me;

I'm addicted to silence.

“The world has been missing you for a long time...”

The world hardly remembers me!

Give him less glory

And more money - the light is like this;

Enough of the buffoons!..

“Get involved in politics!” - to the poet

They insist persistently alone.

Really, friends, on this topic

I didn't sing much in the old days?!

Others shout to me: “Prophet

From now on you will call yourself

And in this high rank

You will earn incense from us.”

Be known as a great man

I would never wish:

Our uneconomical age,

Alas, the pedestal has been vulgarized!

Each sect has its own prophet,

And in every club there is a genius:

They are in a hurry to elect him as prefect,

They hasten to build an altar for him...

Ticket 6. The work of Stendhal.

The work of Stendhal (the literary aceudonym of Henri Marie Bayle) opens a new period in the development of not only French, but also Western European literature. It was Stendhal who took the lead in substantiating the main principles and program for the formation of modern art, theoretically stated in the first half of the 20s, when classicism still reigned, and soon brilliantly embodied in the artistic masterpieces of the outstanding novelist of the 19th century.

During the “years of study,” Stendhal’s worldview developed under the influence of materialist educators such as Helvetius, Montesquet and de Trusti, the founder of “philosophical medicine” Cabanis. In 1822, Stendhal, who went through these scientific studies, wrote: “Art always depends on science, it uses methods discovered by science.” The true discovery for him was the utilitarian concept of “personal interest”, substantiated by Helvetius, as the natural basis of man, for whom the “pursuit of happiness” is the main incentive for all actions. A person, living in a society of his own kind, not only cannot help but take them into account, but must also do good for them. The “hunt for happiness” was dialectically connected with civic virtue, thereby guaranteeing the well-being of the entire society. “A noble soul acts for its own happiness, but its greatest happiness is to bring happiness to others.” “The hunt for happiness” as the main driver of human actions will become a constant subject of depiction by Stendhal.

Stendhal gives an example of a mathematically accurate analysis in 1822 in his treatise “On Love”, tracing the “process of crystallization” of one of the most intimate feelings - love passion.

The writer's early quests were marked by the evolution of his aesthetic preferences: admiration for the classicist theater of Racine was replaced by a passion for the Italian neoclassicism of Alfieri, to which Shakespeare was ultimately preferred. This change in aesthetic guidelines not only reflected trends characteristic of the evolution of the aesthetic tastes of French society, but also outlined a certain approach to Stendhal’s upcoming literary manifesto “Racine and Shakespeare”, which sums up the struggle of the romantic classicists, and also outlines the main programmatic conclusions for author's creativity. Stendhal proves the inconsistency of the aesthetic concept of his literary opponents, arguing that art evolves along with society and changes in its aesthetic demands.

Somewhat later, in the article “Walter Scott and “The Princess of Cleves”, supplementing and correcting the main provisions of Racine and Shakespeare, Stendhal will note: “The 19th century will differ from everything that preceded it in its accurate and soulful portrayal of the human heart.” Stendhal sees the primary task of modern literature in a truthful and accurate depiction of a person, his inner world, the dialectic of feelings determined by the spiritual and physical make-up of the individual, formed under the influence of the environment, upbringing and social conditions of existence.

At the same time, the genre in which Stendhal made his main artistic discoveries was determined, embodying the principles of realistic aesthetics. The originality of his creative individuality will be fully revealed in the type of socio-psychological novel he created. The writer's first experience in this genre was the novel Armans, written in 1827. In 1830, Stendhal completed “Red and Black,” which marked the onset of the writer’s maturity. The plot of the novel is based on real events related to the case of a certain Antoine Berthe, a young man from a peasant family who decided to make a career by entering the service of a tutor in the family of a local rich man, Misha. Soon, however, caught for having an affair with the mother of his pupils, he lost his place, was expelled from the theological seminary and then from service in a Parisian aristocratic mansion, where he was also compromised by his relationship with the owner’s daughter, not without the help of Madame Mishu. In despair, Berthe returns to Grenoble and shoots Madame Misha, and then tries to commit suicide. It was no coincidence that this court chronicle attracted the attention of Stendhal, who conceived a novel about the tragic fate of a talented plebeian in Restoration France.

The first of Stendhal's Italian Chronicles, Vanina Vanini (1829), is dialectically connected with The Red and the Black. The hero of the novel is close to Julien Sorel, but in life he chooses the opposite path.

In 1830, a wave of revolutionary events swept away the Restoration regime, which Stendhal hated. However, the bourgeoisie that came to power was superior to the aristocracy and clergy in the power of oppression of the working people. This year did not bring joyful changes to the creator of “Red and Black”. Stendhal's masterpiece was not noticed by official criticism. The same fate befell his new novel, “Lucien Leuven” (“Red and White”). This novel is an indisputable evidence of the enrichment of the art of Stendhal the novelist. Created in the early years of the July Monarchy, the novel amazes with the depth and accuracy of its analysis of the socio-political regime that had just established itself in France. Staying true to himself, Stendhal takes into account the shortcomings of the previous novel, where only the central characters are clearly highlighted, and creates a whole gallery of striking, impressively outlined secondary characters.

The main theme in Stendhal's work in the second half of the 30s is connected with Italy, where he spent many years. Four stories are published - “Vittoria Accoramboni”, “Duchess di Palliano”, “Cenci”, “Abbess of Castro”. Together with “Vanina Vanini”, they, based on the artistic treatment of real manuscripts found by the writer in the archives of Italy, represent the cycle of Stendhal’s “Italian Chronicles”.

The contents of one of the ancient manuscripts, telling about the scandalous adventures of Pope Paul 3 Farnese, served as the basis for the creation of Stendhal's last masterpiece - the novel The Monastery of Parma (1839). Marking the highest stage and creative result of Stendhal's evolution, the “Abode of Parma” represents a complex genre and stylistic unity, reflecting the originality of the development of the writer’s artistic method.

The artist, who paved the way for the future of literature, was not understood by his contemporaries, and this hurt Stendhal painfully. And yet, in his declining years, he managed to hear his loud confession, which belonged to Balzac, who responded to the appearance of the “Parma Monastery” with “Etude about Bayle”.

Stendhal lived in an era of great disruption and renewal. Before his eyes (and to some extent with his participation) the world was changing. The class structure of society was revealed to him not in its pre-revolutionary statics, but in the struggle, at the moment of transition, redistribution of power. He realized that a person’s consciousness somehow depends on his being. Therefore, in his view, literature and art are socially dependent. They cannot proceed from an absolute, unchanging ideal of beauty; Such views of Stendhal (generally characteristic of Balzac and Mérimée) determined the method of his work.

As later for Balzac, Scott was his predecessor, even his teacher. “The famous novelist,” he wrote, “made a revolution in French literature,” “I confess that I owe a lot to the works of Walter Scott.” But in 1830, in the article “Walter Scott and the Princess of Cleves,” Stendhal, answering the question: “...should we describe the clothes of the heroes, the landscape among which they are located, their facial features? Or is it better to describe the passions and various feelings that excite their souls?”, he clearly preferred the second. But one should not think that all disagreements with Scott and “his imitators” come down to this: the manner of writing, the abundance or restraint of descriptions. The differences lay deeper and were of a fundamental nature. Stendhal reproached Walter Scott for the fact that, due to his political conservatism, he did not give justice to his rebellious heroes and that the expression of high civic pathos was not given to him. “The characters of the Scottish novelist,” he wrote in the article “VSiPK,” “the more sublime feelings they have to express, the more they lack courage and confidence. I confess that this upsets me most about Sir Walter Scott." The question of the truthfulness of art is closely connected with the problem of beauty, with the understanding of beauty. S. I am convinced that the ideal of beauty is historically conditioned, it develops along with the development of society. He argued, giving a materialistic and a dialectical interpretation of the ideal: “Beauty is the promise of happiness.” And he deciphered his position regarding art: “Beauty in art is an expression of the virtues of a given society; the beautiful and the useful are united in it; beauty does not exist outside of the moral, and if one of the virtues is C.” Reason believed that beauty does not exist without reason, just as beauty does not exist without spirituality. The concept of spiritual beauty also includes energy, ambition, duty, will and, of course, the ability to experience passions. passions control a person, S. with particular care researched one of the most important - love (see “About Love”)

At the center of S.’s aesthetics is man, human character. His judgment about character in a letter to Balzac is specific: “I take one of the people I knew and say to myself: this person has acquired certain habits by going every morning on the hunt for happiness, and then I give him a little more intelligence.” His art is based on experience. S. I am convinced that there are “neither completely good nor completely bad people.” A person is determined by what he understands by “happiness”, i.e. the purpose of your life and the means to achieve it. He compares his method of displaying reality to a mirror; it displays the entire diversity of the world with all its good and bad sides. The author condemned in his diaries contemporary writers who, out of a misunderstood sense of morality, “did not dare to call a bedroom a bedroom” and “said little about what surrounded them.” In the pamphlet “Racine and Shakespeare” S. very clearly expresses his attitude towards two types of modern art, taking part in the heated controversy between the “classics” and the “romantics”. His first thesis: “From now on, we need to write tragedies for us, reasoning, serious and envious people,” these modern people “do not look like the marquises in embroidered camisoles of 1670.” “Classicism...offers us the literature that gave the greatest pleasure...to our great-grandfathers.” “Romanticism is the art of giving people such literary works as, given the current state of their customs and beliefs, can give them the greatest pleasure.” Sophocles and Euripides were also romantics, as were Racine and Shakespeare in theirs, because they wrote for their time. . “In essence, all great writers were romantics. And the classics are those who, a century after their death, imitate them, instead of opening their eyes and imitating nature.” Hence, at first glance, a paradoxical thesis that unites Racine and Shakespeare. S. attributes to Shakespeare what his contemporaries valued W. Scott for - the combination of political and historical situations with the history of the characters, but S. at the same time managed to penetrate into the souls of his heroes.

Stendhal believed that the future belonged to his style of writing, and at the same time he found his model - “The Princess of Cleves” - in the 17th century. And his work is indeed something like a bridge between the past and the future. Stendhal acts as a realist, at the same time original, looking for his own, untrodden paths.

Literature of France in the 1830s. reflected the new features of the social and cultural development of the country that took shape after the July Revolution. The leading trend in French literature is critical realism. In the 1830-1840s. all the significant works of O. Balzac, F. Stendhal, P. Mérimée appear. At this stage, realist writers are united by a common understanding of art, which comes down to an objective displaying processes occurring in society. Despite all their individual differences, they are characterized by a critical attitude towards bourgeois society. In the early stages of artists’ creative development, their close connection with the aesthetics of romanticism, (often called “residual romanticism” (The Abode of Parma by Stendhal, Shagreen Skin by Balzac, Carmen by Merimee).

Theoretical works played a significant role in the formation of the aesthetics of critical realism Stendhal (1783-1842). During the Restoration, fierce disputes developed between the romantics and the classicists. He took an active part in them, publishing two brochures under the same title - “Racine and Shakespeare” (1823, 1825), where he outlined his views on literature, which, in his opinion, is an expression of the interests of the currently existing society, and aesthetic norms must change along with the historical development of society. For Stendhal, epigone classicism, officially supported by the government and propagated by the French Academy of Sciences, is an art that has lost all connection with the life of the nation. The task of a true artist "to give the people such literary works as, given the present state of customs and beliefs, can give them the greatest pleasure." Stendhal, not yet knowing the term “realism,” called such art “romanticism.” He believed that imitating the masters of previous centuries meant lying to his contemporaries. While drawing closer to the romantics in his rejection of classicism and veneration of Shakespeare, Stendhal, at the same time, understood the term “romanticism” as something different from them. For him, classicism and romanticism are two creative principles that have existed throughout the history of art. “In essence, all great writers were romantics in their time. And the classics are those who, a century after their death, imitate them, instead of opening their eyes and imitating nature.” The original principle and the highest purpose of the new art is “the truth, the bitter truth.” The artist must become a life explorer, and literature is “a mirror with which you walk along the high road. Sometimes it reflects the azure of the sky, sometimes dirty puddles and potholes.” In fact, Stendhal called the emerging direction of French critical realism “romanticism.”

In the artistic work of Stendhal for the first time in the literature of the 19th century. proclaimed a new approach to people. The novels "The Red and the Black", "Lucien Leveille", "The Parma Monastery" are full of deep psychological analysis with internal monologue and reflections on moral problems. A new problem arises in Stendhal's psychological mastery - problem of the subconscious. His work represents the first attempt at artistic generalization of national character ("Italian Chronicles", "Parma Monastery").

The generally recognized pinnacle of critical realism in France was the work of Balzac's support (1799-1850). Early stage His work (1820-1828) is marked by his closeness to the romantic school of the “violent”, and at the same time, some of his works uniquely reflected the experience of the “Gothic novel”. The writer's first significant work, the novel "Chouans" (1829), in which the romantic exclusivity of the characters and the dramatic development of the action are combined with the utmost objectivity of the image, was subsequently included by the author in "Scenes of Military Life."

Second period Balzac's creativity (1829-1850) is marked by the formation and development of the writer's realistic method. At this time, he created such significant works as “Gobsek”, “Shagreen Skin”, “Eugenia Grande”, “Père Goriot”, “Lost Illusions” and many others. The dominant genre in his work was the socio-psychological novel of a relatively small volume. The poetics of these novels undergoes significant changes at this time, where a socio-psychological novel, a biographical novel, sketches and much more are combined into an organic whole. The most important element in the artist’s system was the consistent application the principle of realistic typification.

Third period begins in the mid-1830s, when Balzac conceives the idea of ​​a cycle of the future “Human Comedy”. In 1842, a memorable year for the history of the creation of the cycle, the author prefaced the first volume of the collected works, which began to be published under the general title “The Human Comedy,” with a preface that became a manifesto of the writer’s realistic method. In it, Balzac reveals his titanic task: “My work has its geography, as well as its genealogy, its families, its localities, settings, characters and facts; it also has its armorial, its nobility and bourgeoisie, its artisans and peasants , politicians and dandies, his army - in a word, the whole world."

This monumental cycle, which acquired its complete structure - as a kind of parallel and at the same time opposition to Dante's "Divine Comedy" from the point of view of the modern (realistic) understanding of reality, included the best of those already written and all new works. Striving to combine in The Human Comedy the achievements of modern science with the mystical views of E. Swedenborg, to explore all levels of people's lives from everyday life to philosophy and religion, Balzac demonstrates the impressive scale of artistic thinking.

One of the founders of French and European realism, he thought of the “Human Comedy” as single work based on the principles of realistic typification he developed, setting himself the majestic task of creating a socio-psychological and artistic analogue of contemporary France. By dividing The Human Comedy into three unequal parts, the writer created a kind of pyramid, the basis of which is a direct description of society - "studies on morals". Above this level there are a few "philosophical studies" and the top of the pyramid is made up of "analytical sketches". Calling his novels, stories and short stories included in the cycle “studies,” the realist writer considered his activity precisely research. "Studies on Morals" consisted of six groups of "scenes" - scenes of private life, provincial, Parisian, political, military and rural. Balzac considered himself the "secretary of French society" depicting "modern history." Not only the difficult-to-see theme itself, but also the methods of its implementation made a huge contribution to the formation of a new artistic system, thanks to which Balzac is considered the “father of realism.”

The image of the moneylender Gobsek - “the ruler of life” in the story of the same name (1842) becomes a household word to designate a miser, personifying the forces dominant in society and superior to Harpagon from Moliere’s comedy “The Miser” (“Scenes of Private Life”).

The first work in which Balzac consistently embodied the features of critical realism as an integral aesthetic system was the novel Eugenie Grande (1833). The characters developed in it implement the principle of personality formation under the influence of circumstances. The author acts as an outstanding psychologist, enriching psychological analysis with the techniques and principles of realistic art.

For “Scenes of Parisian Life” the novel “Père Goriot” (1834) is very indicative, which became the key one in the cycle of “studies on morals”: ​​it was in it that about thirty characters from previous and subsequent works were supposed to “come together”, which was the reason for the creation of a completely new the structure of the novel: multi-centered and polyphonic. Without highlighting a single main character, the writer made the central image of the novel, as if in contrast to the image of Notre Dame Cathedral in Hugo's novel, the modern Parisian boarding house of Madame Boke - a model of Balzac's contemporary France.

One of the descending centers is formed around the image of Father Goriot, whose life story resembles the fate of Shakespeare's King Lear. Another, ascending, line is associated with the image of Eugene Rastignac, who came from a noble but impoverished provincial noble family, who came to Paris to make a career. With the image of Rastignac, who is also an active character in other works of The Human Comedy, the writer laid down the theme of the fate of a young man in society, which is relevant for French and European literature, and later the character’s name became a household name for an upstart who achieved success. Based on the principle "openness" cycle, the “flowing” of characters from novel to novel, the author depicts the flow of life, movement in development, which creates a complete illusion of the authenticity of what is happening and forms the integrity of the picture of French life. Balzac found a compositional means of connecting the characters not only in the finale, but throughout the entire novel and subsequent works, preserving it polycentricity.

In the novels of The Human Comedy, different facets of Balzac's colossal talent were revealed, including the unprecedented richness of the vocabulary. Insightful analytical thought, the desire to systematize observations of the surrounding life, to express its patterns historically and socially through the typification of characters were embodied in the immortal cycle - a whole world built on the basis of a serious scientific and aesthetic study of society, close observation and synthesizing work of thought that explains the multifaceted and at the same time single panorama. Balzac's work is the highest point of the versatile possibilities of realism as an artistic method.

To a large extent, the character of the development of the literary process in France was determined by the defeat of the revolution of 1848, on which the creative intelligentsia pinned many hopes. Timeless atmosphere tragic hopelessness led to the spread of the theory "pure art". In French literature, a poetic group called “Parnas” (1866) is emerging. Representatives of this group (G. Gautier, L. de Lisle, T. de Bamville and others) opposed the social tendentiousness of romanticism and realism, preferring the dispassion of “scientific” observation and the apoliticism of “pure art.” Pessimism, a retreat into the past, descriptiveness, a passion for the careful finishing of a sculptural, dispassionate image, which turns into an end in itself with the external beauty and euphony of the verse, are characteristic of the work of the Parnassian poets. The contradictions of the era were reflected in their own way in the tragic pathos of the poems of the greatest poet of the 1850-1860s. Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867) - collections "Flowers of Evil" (1857) and "Wreckage" (1866).

As the most important artistic movement, method and style naturalism (fr. naturalisme from lat. natura - nature) developed in the last third of the 19th century. in the literature of Europe and the USA. The philosophical basis of naturalism was positivism. The literary prerequisites for naturalism were the work of Gustave Flaubert, his theory of “objective”, “impersonal” art, as well as the activities of “sincere” realists (G. Courbet, L.E. Duranty, Chanfleury).

Naturalists set themselves a noble task: from the fantastic inventions of the romantics, who in the middle of the 19th century. They are increasingly moving away from reality into the realm of dreams, turning art to face the truth, to the real fact. The work of O. Balzac becomes a model for naturalists. Representatives of this trend turn primarily to the life of the lower classes of society; they are characterized by genuine democracy. They expand the scope of what is depicted in literature; for them there are no taboo topics: if the ugly is depicted reliably, it acquires the meaning of genuine aesthetic value for naturalists.

Naturalism is characterized by a positivist understanding of reliability. The writer must be objective observer and experimenter. He can only write about what he has studied. Hence the image of only a “piece of reality” reproduced from photographic accuracy, instead of a typical image (as a unity of the individual and the general); refusal to portray the heroic personality as “atypical” in a naturalistic sense; replacing plot (“fiction”) with description and analysis; aesthetically neutral position of the author in relation to the depicted (for him there is no beautiful or ugly); analysis of society on the basis of strict determinism, which denies free will; showing the world in static terms, like a jumble of details; the writer does not seek to predict the future.

Naturalism was influenced by other methods and came close to impressionism And realism.

Since the 1870s at the head of the naturalists stands Emile Zola (1840-1902), who in his theoretical works developed the basic principles of naturalism, and his artistic works combine the features of naturalism and critical realism. And this synthesis makes a strong impression on readers, thanks to which naturalism, initially rejected by them, later receives recognition: the name Zola has become almost synonymous with the term “naturalism.” His aesthetic theory and artistic experience attracted young contemporary writers who formed the core of the naturalistic school (A. Sear, L. Ennick, O. Mirbeau, C. Huysmans, P. Alexis and others). The most important stage in their joint creative activity was the collection of stories “Medan Evenings” (1880).

The work of E. Zola constitutes the most important stage in the history of French and world literature of the 19th century. His legacy is very extensive: not counting his early works, this is the twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle, the natural and social history of one family during the era of the Second Empire, the Three Cities trilogy, the unfinished cycle of novels The Four Gospels, several plays, a huge number of articles dedicated to literature and art.

The theories of I. Taine, C. Darwin, C. Bernard, and C. Letourneau had a huge influence on the formation of Zola’s views and the development of Zola’s creative method. That is why Zola’s naturalism is not only aesthetics and artistic creativity: it is a worldview, a scientific and philosophical study of the world and man. Creating experimental novel theory, he motivated the likening of the artistic method to the scientific method: “The novelist is both an observer and an experimenter. As an observer, he depicts facts as he observed them, establishes a starting point, finds solid ground on which his characters will act and events unfold. Then he becomes an experimenter and carries out an experiment - that is, he sets in motion the characters within the framework of a particular work, showing that the sequence of events in it will be exactly what the logic of the phenomena being studied requires... The ultimate goal is human knowledge, scientific knowledge. him as an individual and as a member of society."

Under the influence of new ideas, the writer creates his first naturalistic novels, Therese Raquin (1867) and Madeleine Ferrat (1868). Family stories served the writer as the basis for a complex and deep analysis of human psychology, examined from a scientific and aesthetic perspective. Zola wanted to prove that human psychology is not a single “life of the soul,” but the sum of diverse interacting factors: hereditary properties, environment, physiological reactions, instincts and passions. In order to designate a complex of interactions, Zola, instead of the usual term “character,” proposes the term "temperament". Focusing on the theory of I. Taine, he describes in detail “race”, “environment” and “moment”, giving a brilliant example of “physiological psychology”. Zola developed a harmonious, well-thought-out aesthetic system that hardly changed until the end of his life. At its core - determinism, those. the conditioning of a person’s inner world by hereditary inclinations, environment and circumstances.

In 1868, Zola conceived a series of novels, the purpose of which was to study, using the example of one family, issues of heredity and environment, to study the entire Second Empire from the coup d'etat to the present, to embody in types the modern society of scoundrels and heroes ("Rougon-Macquart",

1871 -1893). Zola's large-scale plan is realized only in the context of the entire cycle, although each of the twenty novels is complete and quite independent. But Zola achieved literary triumph by publishing the novel “The Trap” (1877), included in this cycle. The first novel of the series “The Career of the Rougons” (1877) revealed the direction of the entire narrative, both its social and physiological aspects. This is a novel about the establishment of the Second Empire, which Zola calls “an extraordinary era of madness and shame,” and about the roots of the Rougon and Macquart families. The coup d'état of Napoleon III is depicted indirectly in the novel, and the events in provincial Plassans, inert and far from politics, are shown as a fierce battle between the ambitious and selfish interests of the local masters of life and the common people. This struggle is no different from what is happening throughout France, and Plassans is the social model of the country.

The novel "The Career of the Rougons" is a powerful source of the entire cycle: the history of the emergence of the Rougon and Macquart family with a combination of hereditary qualities that will then give an impressive variety of options in the descendants. The ancestor of the clan, Adelaide Fuc, the daughter of a Plassans gardener, distinguished by her illness, strange manners and actions from her youth, will pass on to her descendants weakness and instability of the nervous system. If in some descendants this leads to the degradation of personality, its moral death, then in others it turns into a tendency towards exaltation, sublime feelings and the pursuit of an ideal. Adelaide's marriage to the farmhand Rougon, who has practicality in life, mental stability and the desire to achieve a strong position, gives subsequent generations a healthy start. After his death, Adelaide’s first and only love appears in her life for the drunkard and tramp smuggler Makkar. From him, his descendants will inherit drunkenness, love of change, selfishness, and reluctance to do anything serious. The descendants of Pierre Rougon, the only legitimate son of Adelaide, are successful businessmen, and Macquart are alcoholics, criminals, madmen, as well as creative people... But both of them have one thing in common: they are children of the era and they have an inherent desire to rise up at any cost.

The entire cycle and each group of novels are permeated with a system of leitmotifs, symbolic scenes and details, in particular, the first group of novels - “Prey”, “The Belly of Paris”, “His Excellency Eugene Rougon” - is united by the idea of ​​spoils, which are shared by the winners, and the second - " Trap", "Nana", "Scum", "Germinal", "Creativity", "Money" and some others - characterize the period when the Second Empire seems to be the most stable, lush and triumphant, but behind this appearance lies blatant vices, poverty, the death of the best feelings, the collapse of hopes. The novel "The Trap" is a kind of core of this group, and its leitmotif is the approaching catastrophe.

Zola passionately loved Paris and he can be called the main character of Rougon-Makarov, tying the cycle together: the action of thirteen novels takes place in the capital of France, where readers are presented with a different face of the great city.

Several of Zola's novels reflect another side of his worldview - pantheism, that is the “breath of the universe”, where everything is interconnected in the wide flow of life (“Earth”, “The Misdemeanor of Abbot Mouret”). Like many of his contemporaries, the writer does not consider man as the final goal of the universe: he is as much a part of nature as any living or inanimate object. This is a kind of fatal predestination and a sober view of the purpose of human life - to fulfill one’s destiny, thereby contributing to the general process of development.

The last, twentieth novel of the cycle - "Doctor Pascal" (1893) is a summing up of the final results, primarily an explanation of the problem of heredity in relation to the Rougon-Macquart family. The curse of the family did not fall on the old scientist Pascal: only obsession and emotionality unite him with other Rougons. As a doctor, he reveals the theory of heredity and explains its laws in detail using the example of his family, thereby giving the reader the opportunity to cover all three generations of the Rougons and Macquarts, understand the vicissitudes of each individual fate and create a family tree of the clan.

Zola did a lot for the development of modern theater. Articles and essays, dramatizations of his novels, staged on the stage of the advanced Free Theater and on many stages around the world, formed a special direction within the framework of the movement of European playwrights for the “new drama” (G. Ibsen, B. Shaw, G. Hauptmann, etc. ).

Without the work of Zola, who, based on the aesthetics of naturalism he developed, combined the entire palette of styles (from romanticism to symbolism), it is impossible to imagine either the movement of French prose from the 19th to the 20th and 21st centuries, or the formation of the poetics of the modern social novel.

The largest writer of French literature of the second half of the 19th century. was Gustave Flaubert (1821 -1880), despite the deep skepticism and tragic pessimism of his worldview. Establishing the principles of impersonal and dispassionate art, his aesthetic program was close to the theory of “art for art’s sake” and partly to the theory of Zola the naturalist. Nevertheless, the artist’s powerful talent allowed him, despite the classic example of the “objective manner” of narration, to create the novel masterpieces “Madame Bovary” (1856), “Salammbo” (1862), “Education of Sentiments” (1869).

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In the 1830-1840s, especially in the works of Balzac, the characteristic features of realism appeared. Realists see their main task in the artistic reproduction of reality, in the knowledge of the laws that determine its dialectics and diversity of form.

“French society itself was supposed to be the historian; all I could do was be its secretary,” Balzac pointed out in the preface to The Human Comedy, proclaiming the principle of objectivity in the approach to depicting reality as the most important principle of realistic art. Along with this, the great novelist notes: “The task of art is not to copy nature, but to express it!” Indeed, as art that gives a multidimensional picture of reality; realism is far from being limited to moral descriptions and everyday life; its tasks also include an analytical study of the objective laws of life - historical, social, ethical, psychological, as well as a critical assessment of modern man and society, on the one hand, and the identification of a positive principle in living reality, on the other .

One of the key postulates of realism - the establishment of the principles of realistic typification and their theoretical understanding - is also associated primarily with French literature, with the work of Balzac. The principle of cyclization introduced by Balzac also became innovative for the first half of the 19th century and significant for the fate of realism in general. “The Human Comedy” represents the first attempt at creating a series of novels and stories interconnected by a complex chain of causes and consequences and the destinies of characters, each time appearing at a new stage of their fate and moral and psychological evolution. Cyclization corresponded to the desire of realism for an all-encompassing, analytical and systematic artistic study of reality.

Already in Balzac’s aesthetics an orientation towards science is revealed, first of all towards biology. This trend develops further in the work of Flaubert, who seeks to apply the principles of scientific research to the modern novel. Thus, the “scientific” attitude characteristic of positivist aesthetics manifests itself in the artistic practice of realists long before it becomes leading in naturalism. But in both Balzac and Flaubert, the desire for “scientificness” is free, but from the tendency inherent in naturalists to absolutize natural laws and their role in the life of society.

The strong and bright side of realism in France is psychologism, in which the romantic tradition appears in-depth and more multifaceted. The range of causal motivations of psychology, character, and actions of a person, from which his destiny ultimately consists, is significantly expanded in the literature of realism; emphasis is placed equally on historical and social determinism and on the personal and individual principle. Thanks to this, the greatest reliability of psychological analysis is achieved.

The leading genre of realism in France, as in other countries, is the novel in its varieties: moral descriptive, socio-psychological, psychological, philosophical, fantasy, adventure, historical.

New themes are reflected in the works of realists: the development of modern society, the emergence of new types and relationships, new morality and new aesthetic views. These themes are embodied in the works of Stendhal, Balzac and Merimee. The national originality of French realism was reflected in the desire of these writers to understand the essence of the rich social experience accumulated by French society during the turbulent period that began with the revolution of 1789 and continued during the lifetime of the writers.

Armed not only with their talent, but also with a deep knowledge of reality, the realists created a gigantic panorama of French life, showing it in motion. The works of Stendhal, Balzac, Mérimée and Bérenger indicated that in the course of history the French nobility was approaching complete decline. Realists also saw the pattern of the emergence of new masters of life - representatives of the bourgeoisie, which they branded in the images of Valno or Gobsek.

The features of emerging realism immediately manifest themselves in different ways in the works of different writers. Despite the fact that the problems of the works of Balzac and Stendhal are in many ways similar, the individual characteristics of their creative method differ significantly: Stendhal is, first of all, a master of the psychological novel, striving to deeply explore the inner world of individual people. Balzac creates a huge canvas of French reality, a whole world populated by many figures.

Both Stendhal and Balzac are characterized by historicism. The idea that society is in a constant state of change runs through their works, and they are looking for the reasons for this evolution. Historicism is also inherent in Merimee. For him, the life of society is a constant change in the balance of social forces that affects human character. In a number of his works, Merimee shows his contemporaries, mutilated and corrupted by bourgeois society (“Double Fault”, “Etruscan Vase”, etc.).

All of the above features of French realism appeared already in the 1830s and 40s, primarily in the works of Balzac and Stendhal. However, the fundamental novelty of realism as an artistic method remains poorly understood by the writers and critics of that time. Stendhal's theoretical speeches (including “Racine and Shakespeare”, “Walter Scott and “The Princess of Cleves””) are entirely in line with the struggle for romanticism. Although Balzac feels the fundamental novelty of the “Human Comedy” method, he does not give it any specific definition. In his critical works, he separates himself from Stendhal and Mérimée, while recognizing at the same time the closeness that connects him with these writers. In “Etude on Bayle” (1840), Balzac tries to classify the phenomena of contemporary literature, but at the same time classifies himself (the “eclectic”) and Stendhal (the “literature of ideas”) as different movements. Balzac considered the “school of ideas” to be characterized by an analytical principle aimed at revealing the complex conflicts of the inner world. By “eclectic school” he meant art that strives for a broad epic coverage of reality and social generalizations contained in a variety of types created by artists based on observations of life. Even such an authoritative critic of the 19th century as Sainte-Beuve, in the article “Ten Years Later in Literature” (1840), dispenses with the term “realism”, and in “The Human Comedy” he sees only a manifestation of excessive and reprehensible truthfulness, comparing its author with “ a doctor who immodestly divulges the shameful illnesses of his patients.” The critic interprets the works of Stendhal equally shallowly. And only with the appearance of “Madame Bovary” (1857) by Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve declares: “...I seem to catch the signs of a new literature, features that are apparently distinctive for representatives of new generations” (“Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert" (1857)).

All this indicates that the formation of a theoretical concept of a new artistic method at the first stage of its evolution lags significantly behind practice. In general, the first stage of French realism represents the creation of a new method, the theoretical justification of which will begin somewhat later.

The growth of the critical trend in French literature followed an ascending line, intensifying as the anti-popular essence of the bourgeois monarchy of Louis Philippe was revealed. As evidence of this, in the second half of the 30s, Balzac’s “Lost Illusions” appeared, dedicated to the theme of disappointment in bourgeois reality.

In France, realistic aesthetics received a more pronounced theoretical formulation than in other countries, and the word “realism” itself was first used as a term expressing a set of artistic principles, the proponents of which created something like a school.

As noted earlier, the term “realism” begins to appear on the pages of French magazines already in the 1820s, but only in the 1840s is the word freed from its negative evaluative meaning. Profound changes in the attitude towards the concept of “realism” will occur somewhat later, in the mid-50s and will be associated with the activities of J. Chanfleury and L. E. Duranty and their like-minded people.

It should be noted that the path of the early French realists was far from smooth. Bourgeois society poisoned and persecuted those who wrote the truth about it. The biographies of Bérenger, Stendhal, and Balzac are rich in facts that testify to how cleverly the bourgeois ruling circles used a variety of means to get rid of writers they disliked. Beranger was put on trial for his works. Stendhal was almost unknown during his lifetime; Balzac, widely known abroad, died without receiving due recognition in France. Merimee's career was quite successful, but he was also appreciated as a writer only after his death.

The 1830s and 40s represented an important period in the history of France and its literature. By the end of this period, that is, by the eve of the revolution of 1848, it had already become clear that the most significant, the newest in the rich literary experience of the 30s and 40s was associated with the realistic movement, whose representatives were able to create the most vivid and truthful pictures of French life between the two revolutions, to lay a solid foundation for the further development of national French literature.