In 1839, Lermontov finished writing the poem "The Demon". A summary of this work, as well as its analysis, is presented in the article. Today, this creation of the great Russian poet is included in the compulsory school curriculum and is known throughout the world. Let us first describe the main events that Lermontov depicted in the poem “The Demon”.
"Sad Demon" flies over the Earth. He surveys the central Caucasus from a cosmic height, its wonderful world: high mountains, stormy rivers. But nothing attracts the Demon. He feels only contempt for everything. The demon is tired of immortality, eternal loneliness and unlimited power that he has over the earth. The landscape under his wing has changed. Now he sees Georgia, its lush valleys. However, they do not impress him either. Suddenly, the festive revival that he noticed in the possessions of a certain noble feudal lord attracted his attention. The fact is that Prince Gudal wooed his only daughter. A festive celebration is being prepared at his estate.
The demon admires Tamara
Relatives have already gathered. The wine flows like a river. The groom should arrive in the evening. The young princess Tamara marries the young ruler of the Synodal. Meanwhile, the ancient carpets are being laid out by the servants. According to custom, the bride must, even before her groom appears, perform a dance with a tambourine on a roof covered with carpets.
The girl starts dancing. It is impossible to imagine anything more beautiful than this dance. She is so good that the Demon himself fell in love with Tamara.
Tamara's thoughts
Various thoughts are circling in the head of the young princess. She leaves her father's house, where she knew nothing was denied. It is unknown what awaits the girl in a foreign land. She is pleased with her choice of groom. He is in love, rich, handsome and young - everything that is necessary for happiness. And the girl drives away doubts, devoting herself entirely to the dance.
The demon kills the girl's fiancé
Lermontov continues his poem “The Demon” with the next important event. The summary of the episode associated with it is as follows. The demon is no longer able to take his eyes off the beautiful Tamara. He is fascinated by her beauty. And he acts like a real tyrant. The robbers, at the behest of the Demon, attack the princess's fiancé. The synodal is wounded, but rides to the bride’s house on a faithful horse. Having arrived, the groom falls dead.
Tamara goes to the monastery
The prince is heartbroken, the guests are crying, Tamara is sobbing in her bed. Suddenly the girl hears a pleasant, unusual voice, comforting her and promising to send her magical dreams. While in the world of dreams, the girl sees a handsome young man. She understands in the morning that she is being tempted by the evil one. The princess asks to be sent to a monastery, where she hopes to find salvation. The father does not immediately agree to this. He threatens a curse, but eventually gives in.
Murder of Tamara
And here Tamara is in the monastery. However, the girl did not feel any better. She realizes that she has fallen in love with the tempter. Tamara wants to pray to the saints, but instead she bows to the evil one. The demon realizes that the girl will be killed by physical intimacy with him. He decides at some point to abandon his insidious plan. However, the Demon no longer has control over himself. He enters her cell at night in his beautiful winged form.
Tamara does not recognize him as the young man who appeared in her dreams. She is afraid, but the Demon opens his soul to the princess, speaks to the girl passionate speeches, so similar to the words of an ordinary man, when the fire of desires boils in him. Tamara asks the Demon to swear that he is not deceiving her. And he does it. What does it cost him?! Their lips meet in a passionate kiss. Passing by the door of the cell, the watchman hears strange sounds, and then a faint death cry made by the princess.
The ending of the poem
Gudal was told about the death of his daughter. He is going to bury her in the family high-mountain cemetery, where his ancestors erected a small hill. The girl is dressed up. Her appearance is beautiful. There is no sadness of death on him. A smile seemed to freeze on Tamara’s lips. The wise Gudal did everything right. Long ago, he, his yard and estate were washed away from the face of the earth. But the cemetery and the temple remained undamaged. Nature made the grave of the Demon’s beloved inaccessible to man and time.
This is where Lermontov ends his poem “The Demon”. The summary conveys only the main events. Let's move on to the analysis of the work.
Specifics of the analysis of the poem "Demon"
The poem "Demon", which Lermontov created from 1829 to 1839, is one of the poet's most controversial and mysterious works. It is not so easy to analyze it. This is due to the fact that there are several plans for the interpretation and perception of the text that Lermontov created (“The Demon”).
The summary describes only the outline of events. Meanwhile, the poem has several plans: cosmic, which includes relationships with God and the Demon universe, psychological, philosophical, but, of course, not everyday. This should be taken into account when analyzing. To carry it out, you should turn to the original work, the author of which is Lermontov (“The Demon”). A summary will help you remember the plot of the poem, knowledge of which is necessary for analysis.
The image of the Demon created by Lermontov
Many poets turned to the legend of a fallen angel who fought against God. Suffice it to recall Lucifer from Byron’s work “Cain”, Satan depicted by Milton in “Paradise Lost”, Mephistopheles in Goethe’s famous “Faust”. Of course, Lermontov could not help but take into account the tradition that existed at that time. However, he interpreted this myth in an original way.
Lermontov (“The Demon”) portrayed the main character very ambiguously. The chapter summaries point out this ambiguity but leave out the details. Meanwhile, the image of Lermontov’s Demon turned out to be very contradictory. It combines tragic powerlessness and enormous inner strength, the desire to join the good, to overcome loneliness and the incomprehensibility of such aspirations. The demon is a rebellious Protestant who has opposed himself not only to God, but also to people, to the whole world.
Lermontov's protesting, rebellious ideas appear directly in the poem. The demon is the proud enemy of heaven. He is the “king of knowledge and freedom.” The demon is the embodiment of the rebellious uprising of power against that which fetters the mind. This hero rejects the world. He says that there is neither lasting beauty nor true happiness in him. Here there are only executions and crimes, only petty passions live. People cannot love or hate without fear.
Such universal denial, however, means not only the strength of this hero, but at the same time his weakness. The demon is not given the opportunity to see earthly beauty from the heights of the boundless expanses of space. He cannot understand and appreciate the beauty of nature. Lermontov notes that the brilliance of nature did not arouse, apart from cold envy, either new strength or new feelings in his chest. Everything that the Demon saw in front of him, he either hated or despised.
Demon's love for Tamara
In his arrogant solitude, the protagonist suffers. He yearns for connections with people and the world. The demon is bored with life exclusively for himself. For him, love for Tamara, an earthly girl, should have meant the beginning of a way out of gloomy loneliness to people. However, the search for “love, goodness and beauty” and harmony in the world is fatally unattainable for the Demon. And he cursed his crazy dreams, remained arrogant again, alone in the Universe, as before, without love.
Unmasking the Individualistic Consciousness
Lermontov's poem "The Demon", a brief summary of which we have described, is a work in which individualistic consciousness is exposed. Such revelation is also present in previous poems by this author. In this, the destructive, demonic principle is perceived by Lermontov as anti-humanistic. This problem, which deeply worried the poet, was also developed by him in prose (“Hero of Our Time”) and drama (“Masquerade”).
The author's voice in the poem
It is difficult to identify the author’s voice in the poem, his direct position, which predetermines the ambiguity of the work and the complexity of its analysis. M. Yu. Lermontov (“The Demon”) does not at all strive for unambiguous assessments. The summary you just read may have given you a number of questions to which the answer is not obvious. And this is no coincidence, because the author does not answer them in the work. For example, does Lermontov see in his hero an unconditional bearer (albeit suffering) of evil or only a rebellious victim of a divine “unjust verdict”? Was Tamara's soul saved for the sake of censorship? Perhaps for Lermontov this motive was just an ideological and artistic inevitability. Does the defeat of the Demon and the ending of the poem have a conciliatory or, on the contrary, non-conciliatory meaning?
The poem “The Demon” by Lermontov, a summary of the chapters of which was presented above, can prompt the reader to answer all these questions. They talk about the complexity of the philosophical problems of this work, about the fact that the Demon dialectically combines good and evil, hostility to the world and the desire to reconcile with it, the thirst for the ideal and its loss. The poem reflects the poet's tragic worldview. For example, in 1842 Belinsky wrote that the “Demon” had become a fact of life for him. He found in it worlds of beauty, feelings, truth.
"The Demon" is an example of a romantic poem
The artistic originality of the poem also determines the richness of its philosophical and ethical content. This is a vivid example of romanticism, built on antitheses. The heroes confront each other: Demon and God, Demon and Angel, Demon and Tamara. The polar spheres form the basis of the poem: earth and sky, death and life, reality and ideal. Finally, ethical and social categories are contrasted: tyranny and freedom, hatred and love, harmony and struggle, evil and good, denial and affirmation.
Meaning of the work
The poem that Lermontov created (“The Demon”) is of great importance. The summary and analysis presented in this article may have given you this idea. After all, deep problematics, powerful poetic fantasy, pathos of doubt and denial, high lyricism, plasticity and simplicity of epic descriptions, a certain mystery - all this should lead and led to the fact that Lermontov’s “Demon” is rightfully considered one of the pinnacle creations in the history of the romantic poem . The significance of the work is great not only in the history of Russian literature, but also in painting (Vrubel’s paintings) and music (Rubinstein’s opera, in which its summary is taken as a basis).
"Demon" - a story? Lermontov defined this work as a poem. And this is correct, because it is written in verse. The story is a prose genre. These two concepts should not be confused.
The poem “Demon” can be called the crown of Lermontov’s entire work. The poet worked on it for ten years, the poem has eight editions. It is based on the biblical myth of a fallen angel who rebelled against God, was expelled from paradise for this and turned into a spirit of evil. In the poem, Lermontov reflected tyrant-fighting pathos. Lermontov gave the concept of good and evil a meaning opposite to what they have in traditional Christian morality, where good means obedience to God, and evil means disobedience to him. The ardent protests of the beloved children of his imagination are directed against monastic holiness, against the heavenly principle, in defense of other laws - the laws of the heart, they are also the laws of human blood and flesh. The negative attitude towards the monastery is also in all the essays of “The Demon”, not excluding even the last ones: within the walls of the holy monastery he forces the demon to seduce his beloved. This is how this original antithesis emerges deeper and deeper: earth and sky. The struggle between them is inevitable, the battlefield is the human soul. The demon is the same martyr, the same sufferer of spiritual contrasts, like Lermontov himself. The demon is not homogeneous; gloomy, rebellious, he always wanders “alone among the worlds, without mingling with the formidable crowd of evil spirits.” He is equally far from both light and darkness, not because he is neither light nor darkness, but because in him not everything is light and not everything is darkness; in him, as in every person - and above all, as in the soul of Lermontov himself - “the sacred met the vicious,” and the vicious won, but not completely, for “God did not give oblivion (about the sacred), and he would not have taken oblivion." The demon did not repent, did not humble himself before God; He was too proud for this, he considered himself too right. It's not his fault that his soul is so dual. The sense of truth was suppressed and insulted in the heart of an entire generation. These people were left alone, without angels and hope, a “sea of evil” was revealed to them, disbelief and “emptiness of heart” were born in their souls. Is it any wonder at the appearance of demons... But it is Lermontov and his poetry that are excellent proof of the obvious circumstance that the “lost” generation of post-Pushkin youth did not want to be such, did not retreat, did not resign themselves to the life role of eternal losers, petty demons and " naughty." For him, “Demon” is inevitably followed by “Angel”. Otherwise, the poet would not have become the judge of this generation. It was Lermontov who wrote about the language of poetry: “Like a savage, only obedient to freedom, our proud tongue does not bend.” Such is the poet himself, such is his lyrical hero, who expressed the soul and thoughts of the “lost” generation of youth.
35. “Song about the merchant Kalashnikov...” M.Yu. Lermontov: folklore images and motifs.
“The Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the young guardsman and the daring merchant Kalashnikov” is the only successful stylization of folklore in the 19th century in a large epic form, in verse close to the speech organization of the song “mode”. In “Song...” there are no purely negative characters, the ennobled, elevated past is generally contrasted with the crushing modernity. Information from the “History of the Russian State” by N.M. Karamzin about Ivan the Terrible’s encouragement of the abduction by his favorites of the beautiful wives of noble people, clerks, merchants, that the tsar chose some abducted women for themselves were not included in the poem, as well as the fact that historical Grozny confiscated the property of those executed, and did not provide for their families. Lermontov's Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich does not know that Kiribeevich is in love with a married woman, and is ready to help only in a legal way: “When you fall in love, celebrate the wedding, / If you don’t fall in love, don’t be angry.” “The wicked slave” deceived the king, violated the Christian law, almost going mad with love. His passion is so great that he, like Mtsyri later, is ready to be content with a few moments of happiness. This ability to love evokes sympathy for the author and even the conventional narrators of the guslar. The death of Kiribeevich is described as the death of the traditional “good fellow” is described in folklore. Both Kiribeevich and Kalashnikov are typically Lermontov strong-willed, active heroes, but of very different moral dignity. Kalashnikov’s cause is just, but he commits lynching. In the poem, in addition to the conflicts “Kiribeevich - the Kalashnikov family” and “Kalashnikov - the Tsar,” there is a third conflict, a romantic conflict between a worthy person and the crowd, which in this case took the form of a completely historical social psychology. The fact that the head of a dishonored family killed the offender “of his own free will” should be known to everyone. This is what will wash away the stain of shame from the family. As the study of Russian romanticism correctly states, “The Terrible in the poem is convinced of his power not only over life and death, but also over the souls of his subjects.” Personal dignity in Kalashnikov is inseparable from popular moral ideas. Therefore, despite the “shameful” execution (which in this case partly means staged as a spectacle), Stepan Paramonovich, who was not buried entirely according to Christian rites - not in a cemetery - left a good memory among the people. The narrative in “The Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov” is based on two principles - collective and individual. The element of the song performance of the guslars is most manifested in the word. The characteristic “stable” formulas, syntactic structures with gradations, repetitions, and inversions that are characteristic of poetic speech are recognizable. An individual author's narration, expressing a different point of view, not reducible to the folk one, is more difficult to notice in the text. It is expressed not in stylistic, but in compositional forms. The illusion of direct guslar performance with the characteristic framing of the story by the beginning, chorus, ending, outcome, appeals to the listeners is so great that only a comparison with a similar type of frame structure in folklore, in particular in epics, allows us to notice the individual author’s point of view that embraces the story Guslyarov. Comparison with epics allows us to note that the chorus, joke, and outcome in “The Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov” fulfill a broader task than in epics, framing the narrative. As in the folklore epic, this “frame” is directly related to the content of the “Song” with its assessment, the intonation of glorifying reconciliation, which harmoniously completes the work. But there is also a difference. Strung together by repeated “moments” of performance, these traditional narrative details carry additional meaning that is not found in the epic “jokes.” They specify the place of performance - the courtyard of the boyar Matvey Romodanovsky - they mention the guslar accompaniment to the story, the singers' treats and a “white towel, sewn with silk” - a gift from the white-faced boyar. Thanks to the details and semantic unity of the frame, an idea emerges about the peculiarities of guslar singing, their audience, place and time of performance. Let us note that it is here, in the framing part, that one of the special concepts is introduced that defines the nature not only of the singing of the guslar-buffoons, but of ancient Russian art as a special phenomenon in general - this is “fun”. The “Song” contains a wide range of ancient meanings and meanings of this word. The guslars “amuse” the people, remembering the torment of the Tsar’s oprichnik, the harsh sentence of the Tsar, the heralds call to “amuse” the Tsar-Father with the spectacle of a fist fight, Kiribeevich “chuckles”, promising to let his opponent go, and the executioner “walks around cheerfully,” “rubbing his bare hands " Traces of ancient ritual laughter, heard at playgrounds and during ritual holidays, add a special flavor to the dramatic story. In the “song about a song” of Lermontov’s guslars, the deep foundations of the serious-laughing culture of Ancient Rus' emerge, which harmoniously united the polar principles of laughter and crying, life and death in the carnivalized action of a buffoon. Within the poem, this author's position is expressed by a personal narrator. Compositionally, the forms of its manifestation in the text are expressed in active intervention during events. Such activity is not typical for an epic storyteller, just as it is not typical for the early forms of classical epic. In Lermontov's poem, the endings of the chapters are not completed in the form of separate song units of the epic, but, on the contrary, contain motives of uncertainty, even unpredictability of the further course of events. In their own way, the “old man”, and the “well done”, and the “maiden”, and the guslars, who, passing by his grave, “sing a song,” pay tribute to him. With a major, truly song chord, “Song...” ends.
Poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Demon" can be considered the writer's calling card. Here we see the author’s beloved Caucasus, and the author’s philosophical thoughts regarding good and evil. The poem is not devoid of the theme of the impossibility of love, which was so relevant for Mikhail Yuryevich himself. A masterful depiction of nature, dialogues full of psychologism and romantic pathos, a variety of mythological and folklore motifs - all this is contained in this masterpiece of Russian literature.
The poem “The Demon” has 8 editions, since Lermontov began writing his work at the age of 14 and returned to work on his brainchild throughout his life. Early editions are distinguished by lack of integrity of images and a large number of philosophical discussions. The year 1838 became a turning point for the development of the author’s idea, when the 6th and 7th editions appeared from the poet’s pen. Now a more mature creator does not draw a parallel between the Demon and himself and gives his hero monologues.
The poem is based on the biblical myth of a fallen angel, and also refers to Georgian folklore and details of local life.
Genre and direction
The main character of the poem can be called the prototype of the exiled hero, who firmly took his place in the literature of romanticism. This is a Fallen Angel, suffering for his insolence and disobedience. The very appeal to such an image is a characteristic feature of romanticism. One of the first was Milton (“Paradise Lost”), who turned to this character and influenced Russian literature, Byron, and does not shy away from the eternal image of A.S. Pushkin.
The poem is permeated with ideas of struggle both at the global level (the confrontation between the Demon and God) and within the soul of an individual character (the Demon wants to improve, but pride and thirst for pleasure torment him).
The presence of folklore motifs also allows us to classify “The Demon” as a romantic poem.
About what?
In Georgia, in the luxurious house of Prince Gudal, his daughter, a girl of incredible beauty, Tamara, lives. She is waiting for her wedding, the yard has already been cleared for the celebration, but the Demon flying over the peaks of the Caucasus has already noticed the girl, he is captivated by her. The groom hurries to the wedding, followed by a rich caravan of camels, but in the gorge the travelers are overtaken by robbers. So the joy of a wedding turns into the grief of a funeral.
The demon, now without rivals, appears to Tamara, wanting to take possession of her. The poor girl wants to find protection from God and goes to a monastery. There she is guarded by a Guardian Angel, but one night the Demon overcame this barrier and seduced the girl. Tamara died, but an Angel saved her soul and transported her to Paradise, where she found peace.
The main characters and their characteristics
- Daemon- a very complex character in the poem. The very image of the Demon goes back to Biblical stories, but in Lermontov’s poem we already encounter the author’s interpretation of this archetype. He is punished with eternal life, and his existence will always be accompanied by loneliness and melancholy. It would seem that one could envy this unique opportunity: to observe the mountain beauty from a bird's eye view, but even this bored the hero. Even evil no longer brings him pleasure. But the characteristics of the Demon cannot be reduced to only negative ones. He meets a girl comparable to a fairy-tale maiden, possessing such beauty that “the world has never seen before.” But she is beautiful not only in appearance and outfits, but also in her soul.
- Tamara modest, chaste, believes in God, she was not created for this world, it is no coincidence that the Demon wants to find salvation through love for her. Feeling this new feeling for him, the Fallen Angel wants to do only good, to take the true path. But, as we see further, the hero cannot cope with his pride, and all his good intentions turn into dust. The tempter is bold and persistent; on the path to pleasure, he is not going to give in to either the pleas of a defenseless girl or the persuasion of God's messenger.
- Love. Love occupies a special place in the poem. It has limitless power: sometimes it destroys heroes, sometimes it gives hope, and sometimes it promises eternal torment. A jealous rush to the bride destroys Tamara’s fiancé, but for the Demon this girl is the hope of salvation. Love awakens long-forgotten feelings in the Fallen Angel; it makes him, who terrifies him, afraid and cry.
- Struggle. The Demon, rejected by Heaven, can no longer bear his torment. In the poem, he appears to the reader as having already lost all taste for existence; even evil does not bring him pleasure. The last chance to win forgiveness is the love of a young, pure girl. For the Demon, Tamara is a weapon to fight Heaven. He got rid of the Angel, seduced Tamara, but he is not able to overcome himself, his vices, for which he is doomed to suffer forever. Tamara fights the tempter, she does not succumb to his words against the Almighty, desperately wanting to escape the hellish abode.
- Loneliness. The “spirit of exile” has been wandering “in the desert of the world without shelter” for several centuries. The only joy of his existence is the memories of the past, when he was among his brothers - the “pure cherubs.” Love for a pure mortal girl makes the Demon celebrate his melancholy and loneliness even more keenly. It seems that at some point he is ready to show humility and bow before the Almighty: he hears the evening song, it reminds the Fallen Angel of Paradise. The demon, who had previously brought fear and horror to everyone, now cries himself with hot tears.
- Faith. Only thanks to her unshakable faith in God does Tamara escape the torment of hell. A disdainful attitude towards religion destroys, according to the author's plan, the princess's groom. Tempting the beauty, the Demon whispers to her that God is busy only with heavenly affairs and does not pay attention to earthly ones. But the girl did not succumb to the slander of evil, for which her soul was saved by the Guardian Angel.
Themes
Idea
Angel and Demon are two sides of one soul. Man is dual by nature; Good and Evil always fight within him. The purpose of the main character of the poem is to sow doubt, to awaken evil thoughts in a person. For obedience to the Demon, God can severely punish, as happened with Tamara’s fiancé.
The Demon is also defeated, but is Heaven so cruel to him? It gives the exile a chance to be saved through sincere love leading to virtue, but the hero cannot cope with his negative beginning and thereby destroys himself and the girl.
Issues
Love and vice are incompatible - this problem is actualized by Lermontov in “The Demon”. For the author, this feeling is rather sacred, given by Heaven, rather than earthly. When they forget about the beauty of the soul and think only about the pleasures of the flesh, love is replaced by sin. True feeling calls for virtue, self-sacrifice, and renunciation of pride.
But not everyone is given the ability to love in this way. Obsessed with a thirst for superiority over Heaven and the desire to experience pleasure for the first time in many hundreds of years, the Demon breaks the last saving thread. Both the Fallen Angel and Tamara become victims of sinful passion, but the girl who worships God is saved, and the Demon, who stubbornly opposes the Creator, dooms himself to eternal suffering. This is how the moral problem of pride is reflected - the dark side of the soul of each of us.
The heroes are faced with the problem of moral choice. Between humility and passion, the demon chooses the latter, for which he receives even greater suffering. Tamara’s fiancé listened to the evil voice and neglected prayer on the road, for which he paid dearly. Tamara manages to resist the temptations of the tempter, so the Gates of Paradise are open for her.
Criticism
In the assessment of critics, “The Demon” in certain periods of its literary history, the poem is presented differently. The appearance of this demonic image on Russian soil was in some way a literary event; reviewers treated the work with trepidation, primarily because they realized what history this topic had behind it in world literature. One of the largest authorities of criticism of that time, V.G. Belinsky himself admits that “Demon” became for him a measure of “truths, feelings, beauties.” V.P. Botkin saw in the poem a revolutionary view of the universe. Many of the researchers of Lermontov's work still argue about the importance of some editions, without unconditionally giving the palm to the final version.
The criticism of a later period was completely different. “The Demon” became the object of ridicule and mockery, especially the realists, V. Zaitsev, A. Novodvorsky, had an extremely negative attitude towards one of the main symbols of romanticism.
A. Blok, the beacon of poetry at the beginning of the last century, rehabilitates the poem, continuing the tradition of Lermontov in his poem “Demon”.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!"Daemon"
(subtitle “Eastern Tale”)
The “Sad Demon, the spirit of exile” flies over our sinful land, remembers the time when he lived in paradise, when “he believed and loved.” He flew over the peaks of the Caucasus: Kazbek sparkles like the face of a diamond, Terek leaps like a lioness - and feels nothing but contempt. Evil even got bored with the spirit of evil. Everything is a burden: indefinite loneliness, immortality, and limitless power over an insignificant earth. Meanwhile, the landscape is changing. Under the wing of the flying Demon is no longer a collection of rocks and abysses, but the lush valleys of happy Georgia: the sparkle and breath of a thousand plants. Alas, these luxurious paintings do not evoke new thoughts in the inhabitants of the superstellar regions. Only for a moment does the Demon’s distracted attention catch the festive revival in the usually silent possessions of the Georgian feudal lord: the owner of the estate, Prince Gudal he has wooed his only heiress, and in his high house they are preparing for a wedding celebration.
The relatives have gathered ahead of time, the wine is already flowing, and the groom will arrive by sunset Princess Tamara- illustrious ruler of the Synodal, while the servants are unrolling ancient carpets: according to custom, on the carpeted roof, the bride, even before the groom appears, must perform a traditional dance with a tambourine. Princess Tamara is dancing! Oh, how she dances! Now he rushes like a bird, circling a small tambourine above his head, now he freezes like a frightened doe, and a light cloud of sadness runs across his lovely face. After all, this is the princess’s last day in her father’s house! How will someone else's family meet her? No, no, Tamara is not being married off against her will. She likes the groom chosen by her father: in love, young, handsome - what more! But here no one constrained her freedom, but there... Having driven away the “secret doubt”, Tamara smiles again. Smiles and dances. The gray-haired Gudal is proud of her daughter, the guests admire, they raise their horns and say sumptuous toasts: “I swear, such a beauty / She never bloomed under the sun of the south!” The demon even fell in love with someone else’s bride. Circling and circling over the wide courtyard of a Georgian castle. There is an inexplicable excitement in the desert of his soul. Has a miracle really happened? Truly it happened: “The feeling suddenly began to speak in him / In his once native language!” Well, what will a free son of the ether do, enchanted by a powerful passion for an earthly woman? Alas, the immortal spirit does the same thing as a cruel and powerful tyrant would do in his situation: he kills his opponent. (On the way, the caravan passes a chapel where “some prince, now a saint, killed by a vengeful hand” lies. Each traveler brought a fervent prayer to the chapel, and “that prayer saved him from the Muslim dagger.” But the daring groom listened to the Demon, imagined himself kissing his beloved, he disdained the custom of his great-grandfathers and galloped past.) Tamara’s fiancé, at the instigation of the Demon, is attacked by robbers. Having plundered the wedding gifts, killed the guards and dispersed the timid camel drivers, the abreks disappear. The wounded prince is carried out of the battle by a faithful horse (of a priceless color, golden), but he, already in the darkness, is overtaken, at the tip of an evil spirit, by an evil stray bullet. With the dead owner in a saddle embroidered with colored silks, the horse continues to gallop at full speed: the rider must keep the prince’s word: to ride to the wedding feast, alive or dead, and only upon reaching the gate does he fall dead.
There is groaning and crying in the bride's family. Blacker than a cloud, Gudal sees God’s punishment in what happened. Falling onto the bed as she was - in pearls and brocade, Tamara sobs. And suddenly: a voice. Unfamiliar. Magic. She consoles, calms down, heals, tells fairy tales and promises to fly to her every evening - as soon as the night flowers bloom - so that “on silk eyelashes / to bring golden dreams...”. Tamara looks around: no one!!! Was it really your imagination? But then where does the confusion come from? Which has no name! In the morning, the princess nevertheless falls asleep and sees a strange thing - is it not the first of the promised gold ones? - dream. Shining with unearthly beauty, a certain “alien” leans towards her head. This is not a guardian angel, there is no luminous halo around his curls, but he doesn’t seem to look like a fiend from hell either: he’s too sad, he looks at him with love! And so every night: as soon as the night flowers wake up, it appears. Guessing that it is not someone who is confusing her with her irresistible dream, but the “evil spirit” himself, Tamara asks her father to let her go to the monastery. (Part II begins with Tamara’s request). Gudal is angry - suitors, one more enviable than the other, are besieging their house, and Tamara is refusing everyone. Tamara admits that she is tormented by an evil spirit, and Gudal concedes. And here she is in a secluded monastery, but here, in the sacred monastery, during the hours of solemn prayers, through the church singing, she hears the same magical voice, Tamara sees the same image and the same eyes - irresistible, like a dagger.
Falling to her knees in front of the divine icon, the poor virgin wants to pray to the saints, and her disobedient heart “prays to Him.” The beautiful sinner is no longer deceived about herself: she is not just confused by a vague dream of love, she is in love: passionately, sinfully, as if the night guest who captivated her with her unearthly beauty was not a stranger from the invisible, immaterial world, but an earthly youth. The demon, of course, understands everything, but, unlike the unfortunate princess, he knows what she does not know: the earthly beauty will pay for a moment of physical intimacy with him, an unearthly creature, with death. That’s why he hesitates; he is even ready to give up his criminal plan. At least, he thinks so. One night, having already approached the treasured cell, he tries to leave, and in fear he feels that he cannot flap his wing: the wing does not move! Then he sheds a single tear - an inhuman tear burns through the stone.
Realizing that even he, seemingly omnipotent, cannot change anything, the Demon appears to Tamara no longer in the form of an obscure nebula, but incarnated, that is, in the image of a beautiful and courageous man, albeit winged. However, the path to sleeping Tamara’s bed is blocked by her guardian angel and demands that the vicious spirit not touch his angelic shrine. The Demon, smiling insidiously, explains to the messenger of heaven that he appeared too late and that in his, the Demon’s, domain - where he owns and loves - the cherubs have nothing to do. Tamara, upon waking up, does not recognize the young man of her dreams in the random guest. She also doesn’t like his speeches (Tamara’s dialogue with the Demon) - charming in a dream, in reality they seem dangerous to her. But the Demon opens his soul to her - Tamara is touched by the immensity of the mysterious stranger’s sorrows, now he seems to her like a sufferer. And yet, something bothers her both in the appearance of the alien and in the reasoning that is too complex for her weakening mind. And she, oh holy naivety, asks him to swear that he is not lying, that he is not deceiving her gullibility. And the Demon swears. He swears by everything - heaven, which he hates, and hell, which he despises, and even a shrine that he does not have. He says that he wants to make peace with heaven, to love, to pray. The Demon's Oath is a brilliant example of male love eloquence - something a man does not promise to a woman when “the fire of desire burns in his blood!” In the “impatience of passion,” he does not even notice that he is contradicting himself: he either promises to take Tamara to the super-stellar regions and make her the queen of the world, or he assures that it is here, on insignificant land, that he will build magnificent palaces for her - made of turquoise and amber. And yet, the outcome of the fateful date is decided not by words, but by the first touch - from hot male lips - to trembling female lips. The night watchman of the monastery, making a scheduled round, slows down his steps: in the cell of the new nun there are unusual sounds, something like “two lips kissing in agreement.” Confused, he stops and hears: first a groan, and then a terrible, although weak - like a dying cry.
Notified of the death of the heiress, Gudal takes the body of the deceased from the monastery. He firmly decided to bury his daughter in a high-mountain family cemetery, where one of his ancestors, in atonement for many sins (robbery and robbery), erected a small temple. Moreover, he does not want to see his Tamara, even in a coffin, in a rough hair shirt. By his order, the women of his hearth dress up the princess in a way that they did not dress up on days of fun. For three days and three nights, higher and higher, the mournful train moves, ahead of Gudal on a snow-white horse. He is silent, and the others are silent. So many days have passed since the death of the princess, but decay does not touch her - the color of her brow, as in life, is whiter and purer than the bedspread. And this smile, as if frozen on the lips?! Mysterious as her death itself!!! Having given his peri to the gloomy earth, the funeral caravan sets off on its way back... The wise Gudal did everything right! The river of time washed away from the face of the earth both his tall house, where his wife bore him a beautiful daughter, and the wide courtyard where Tamara played with her children. But the temple and cemetery with it are intact, they can still be seen now - there, high, on the line of jagged rocks, for nature, with its supreme power, has made the grave of the Demon’s beloved inaccessible to humans. The angel took Tamara’s soul to heaven (“she suffered and loved, and heaven opened for love”), and the demon was again left alone without hope and love.
Poem "Demon" started in 1829 year, has eight editions, the eighth - December 1838 - January 1839 of the year.
At the heart of the poem - biblical myth about the spirit of evil who rebelled against God, was defeated and expelled from paradise.
Created under the influence of the advanced ideas of the liberation movement of its time, it is based on literary and oral poetic sources, primarily on folklore Caucasian peoples and legends of Georgia.
The main ideological pathos of the poem “Demon” is exaltation of man in his desire for freedom, for unlimited knowledge of the world. Lermontov's Demon “denies for affirmation, destroys for creation. This theme of the movement of eternal renewal, eternal rebirth" (Belinsky).
In the poem "Demon" is widely used symbolism. In her fantastic “cosmic” plot about the “spirit of exile” who fell in love with a mortal maiden, earthly signs are clear.
This philosophical and socio-political work boldly poses the most complex and pressing questions of existence: about the meaning of life, the rights and purpose of man, about thoughtless faith and reasonable skepticism, about slavery and freedom, good and evil.
The demon in the full sense of the word is the “hero of the century.” It concentrates the main contradictions of the best people of the 30s: effective skepticism and criticism in relation to prevailing social relations and powerlessness to change them; powerful impulses to activity and forced passivity; painfully passionate search for a socio-political, moral, aesthetic ideal, and the bitter consciousness of the futility of these searches; a feeling of terrifying political oppression and an uncontrollable desire for freedom; an indefatigable thirst for happiness and the aimlessness of life.
The inexplicable excitement of the Demon serves as the beginning of the poem. Lermontov tells about the relationship between the Demon and Tamara, focusing on the peak episodes. The ideological opposition of the poem, built on the struggle between good and evil, on the internal contradictions of the Demon, was the reason for numerous stylistic antitheses.
Undoubtedly poem - “story of the soul” Main character. But the “history of the soul” of the Demon is a method, a form of solution to social, philosophical and political issues. problems.
"Demon" - romantic poem, but completed during a transitional period of acute struggle between romantic and realistic tendencies in Lermontov’s work. These are objective descriptive images of the nature of the Caucasus, Georgia, the life of Gudan, preparations for the wedding, the beauty of Tamara, the death of her groom, views of the monastery, the appearance of the watchman, the farewell of relatives to the deceased Tamara.
The setting for Lermontov's action is very often a monastery - the embodiment of asceticism, the laws of the spirit, which fundamentally reject the sinful earth. The ardent protests of the beloved children of his imagination are directed against monastic holiness, against the heavenly principle, in defense of other laws - the laws of the heart, they are also the laws of human blood and flesh. Blasphemous speeches are clearly heard in “Mtsyri”, although in a softened form. The same negative attitude towards the monastery is in all the essays of “The Demon”, not excluding even the last ones: within the walls of the holy monastery he forces the demon to seduce his beloved. This is how this original antithesis emerges deeper and deeper: earth and sky.
The struggle between them is inevitable, the battlefield is the human soul. The demon is closer, more akin to Lermontov, than the angel. The demon is not homogeneous; gloomy, rebellious, he always wanders “alone among the worlds, without mingling with the formidable crowd of evil spirits.” He is equally far from both light and darkness, not because he is neither light nor darkness, but because in him not everything is light and not everything is darkness; in him, as in every person, “the sacred met the vicious,” and the vicious won, but not completely, for “God did not give oblivion (about the sacred), and he would not have taken oblivion.” The resident of the cell, the holy virgin, is still not an angel, and she does not oppose him as an irreconcilable opposite. She would rather understand his mental anguish and, perhaps, heal him, give him part of her strength to defeat evil, without completely renouncing the earthly principle. The demon breaks “fatal oaths,” loves with pure love, refuses “revenge, hatred and malice” - he already wanted to “return to the path of salvation, forget the crowd of evil deeds.”
But the angel, who stood guard over absolute purity, not understanding him, again aroused his dark, cold thoughts in him, called his anger into action. Love, through the fault of the angel, did not save the demon, and he, unredeemed, remained with his former darkened suffering. The demon did not repent, did not humble himself before God; He was too proud for this, he considered himself too right. It’s not his fault that his soul is so dual; The Creator created him this way and thereby doomed him to irresistible torment. We must appeal to Him, ask Him about the meaning of this mental torture.
In the cold world of everyday cruelty, where a person with a mind and heart is humiliated and crushed, finds himself in a dead end in life, the lyrical hero of belated romantic poetry cannot be an angel, he constantly feels the pressure of “common evil” and darkness, hence his stoic despair and calm melancholy, disbelief in everything, proud contempt and conscious demonism of universal denial.
In Russia "Demon" fully first published only in 1860.
The image of the Demon from the poem of the same name is the image of a romantic hero in Lermontov’s works.
He is a rebel; the thirst for knowledge turned him into a “spirit of exile” rejected by God, into a “king of freedom.” They do not recognize the ideality of the universe; they also deny the perfection of life on earth, where untruth reigns. The demon takes revenge not only on God, but also on the people of the “insignificant” land. This is an individualist rebel, opposed to everything that exists.
The brave merchant Kalashnikov (and maybe even Kiribeevich) can also be considered among the romantic heroes of Lermontov’s poems. The trait that connects all Lermontov's romantic characters is rebellion.
Kiribeevich and Kalashnikov are variations of the heroes of Lermontov’s romantic poems. The main feature of Kiribeevich is his unrestricted individualistic nature. This hero is a kind of demon in folklore and song coverage. Kalashnikov continued the line of rebel heroes and avengers. But Kalashnikov’s rebellion, unlike the riot of the heroes of the early poems, is motivated by the fact that he defends specific values: family honor and popular ideas about morality. Kalashnikov appears as the standard of justice and goodness, while Kiribeevich is the standard of immorality and evil.
In “Song about... the merchant Kalashnikov” Lermontov showed various types of individual rebellion. Kiribeevich’s behavior is also a rebellion, but fundamentally different in comparison with the Kalashnikov rebellion. Kiribeevich rebels against popular ideas about honor and conscience. He denies not only the conventions of “Domostroevsky” life, but also simply decency, and is ready to kill anyone who stands in his way.
For him there is no law except the word of the king and the command of dark, unbridled passion.
The “untruth” of one (Kiribeevich) and the “true truth” of the other (Kalashnikov) is what separates the two revolts in Lermontov’s poem.
Finally, speaking about romantic heroes, one cannot fail to mention Mtsyri.
The image of Mtsyri is a huge artistic generalization. It embodies tragedy, inescapable suffering, the extreme dissatisfaction of progressive people of the 30s with autocratic-serf despotism, their desire for freedom, their dream of an active-heroic life, their faith in the power of an exceptional individual speaking out in defense of his violated rights. In this poem, Lermontov for the first time emphasized the historical importance of the union with Russia for Georgia. The theme of the poem is freedom and, more broadly, in the sense of human existence. Its main ideological pathos is a protest against the stuffy bondage that enslaves people, the poeticization of struggle as the most natural expression of human strength, a call for freedom, an affirmation of love for the motherland and its heroic service.
This is a poem about an ideal hero, imbued with a passionate thirst for life. Mtsyri inseparably merged rebellious mighty strength, strong will, heroic masculinity and sincerity, softness, lyrical tenderness.
He is not an individualist, not an egoist, like the heroes of Pushkin’s romantic poems. His proud loneliness in monastic captivity is a means of self-defense, an expression of protest. He yearns for his native village, for communication with people close to him in customs and spirit. Mtsyri dies, reconciling with the people around him. But his reconciliation is not a recognition of external powerlessness while justifying his indestructible attractions to the will. Freedom remained above all else for him.
In the poem, the author and the main character, distinguished by the hyperbolic nature of his experiences, endowed with signs of titanism (“caught lightning with his hand”), seem to merge. Therefore, Belinsky and Ogarev considered Mtsyri to be the poet’s “favorite” and “only” ideal.
(from lecture)"Mtsyri" is a poem about modernity. There are no journalistic elements in it, but the conversation about freedom is perceived as a very relevant conversation. Lermontov appeals to the oriental poems of Byron, but uses them in a creative and original way. Mtsyri is a rebel hero; but if Byron’s hero is a disappointed rebel, then Mtsyri is quite the opposite: he is grateful for the three days spent in freedom. The main text of the poem is a confession (a mandatory feature of a Byronic poem). But if we talk about confession as a phenomenon of Christian and spiritual culture in general, then such a confession must carry repentance.
But there is no repentance here. The hero directly states that he has nothing to ask God for forgiveness for - this emphasizes his rebellious mood. The sign of a romantic poem is also hidden in some reticence in the hero’s story. We know how he ends up in the Georgian monastery. He gets there, but does not find people there who are kindred to him in spirit.
Mtsyri is a boy from the North Caucasus, so everyone is a stranger to him: the monks who raised him... even the Georgian woman he saw by the stream could not stop him - he is leaving, this is not his world.
The basis of the plot of the poem is the escape from the monastery. But this special flight is a sign of freedom-loving peoples who cannot live without freemen. It is also special because it is an escape-return. A parallel with Pushkin’s hero suggests itself: Aleko runs from his world to someone else’s, a free world, a world of gypsies living without laws. And Mtsyri runs from someone else’s world to his own, and his dream is to cling to his native breast. Although vague, he remembers his relatives. And such an escape to his homeland determines his determination.
(from the textbook) The romantic content of the poem “Mtsyri” also determined the corresponding form of its expression. The poem is structured as a pathetic monologue-confession, unfolding rapidly. Her focus is the personality of the young novice. Mtsyri’s confession about three days spent in freedom is contrasted with the life of the monastery-prison. The dynamism of the composition of the poem is also facilitated by the fact that Mtsyri tells the old Circassian only the most striking episodes of his three-day wandering: contemplation of the nature spread out before him; memories of childhood in his native village and the path to it; meeting with a Georgian woman; fight against leopard; wanderings that led him again to the monastery; delirium and sleep. Each episode of his story is subject to the revelation of his inner appearance. /
* “strike of the sword” - this is what Belinsky called the masculine rhymes of this poem, which are intensified by the adjacent arrangement.
12. “Demon” as a romantic poem by M.Yu. Lermontov. Question about the poet's alter ego.
The poem “demon” is based on the biblical myth of the spirit of evil who rebelled against God, was defeated and expelled from paradise. This theme has become widespread in Western European literature (“Paradise Lost” by Milton, “Cain”, “Heaven and Earth” by Byron, “Faust” by Goethe...).
It also manifested itself in a unique way on Russian soil, for example in Pushkin (“Demon”, “Angel”). “The Demon” is a masterpiece in terms of the power of creative imagination, the intellectual depth and breadth of ideological and moral issues, the plastic depiction, and the power of emotional and poetic impact.
The poem incorporates the best achievements of Russian and world poetry.
Some researchers claim the realism of “The Demon,” but most classify it as a romantic genre.
Created under the influence of the advanced ideas of the liberation movement of its time, it is based on literary and oral-poetic sources, primarily on the folklore of the Caucasian peoples and the legends of Georgia.
The main ideological pathos of “The Demon” is the exaltation of man in his desire for freedom, for unlimited knowledge of the world.
Lermontov's Demon - according to Belinsky - “the demon of movement, eternal renewal.”
The thirst for knowledge turned him into a “spirit of exile” rejected by God, into a “king of freedom.” They do not recognize the ideality of the universe; they also deny the perfection of life on earth, where untruth reigns. The demon takes revenge not only on God, but also on the people of the “insignificant” land. This is an individualist rebel, opposed to everything that exists.
Admiring the image of a mighty Protestant, an indomitable and proud rebel, the poem glorifies the feeling of love as a force that revives a person and raises him against evil. The demon, despising or hating everything, is carried away by Tamara, who personifies the ideal of beauty. The passion that flared up in the Demon awakens all the best feelings in him, and he, ready to love, appears before Tamara “with a soul open to good.” The path of good that he decided to take is the path of merging with the world, with nature, with people on the basis of the highest truths he has learned.
A struggle takes place in Tamara: her reason tells her to defend herself from the “evil spirit,” but her feelings unconsciously draw her to the Demon. While winning with the sky for Tamara, he at the same time suffers defeat. Tamara dies from his kiss, and he remains suffering, proud and “without triumph,” filled with hatred, despising nature and people. He is not connected with either heaven or earth - this is his tragedy. The poem poses the most complex questions of existence: about the meaning of life, rights, the purpose of man, thoughtless faith and reasonable skepticism, slavery and freedom, good and evil.
(from lecture) The demon thirsts for love, he is not just tired of evil: for him, loving turns out to be a need that cannot be realized. This is the tragedy of the poem. “Love and make peace with heaven” is practically synonymous with God. This is all said in the third person - which can be considered an objective characteristic of Lermontov’s Demon. The Demon is not entirely a monocentric work. The opposition to the Demon is very important - a character who acts as its complete opposite: Tamara is an angelic soul. The last, final scene is very important - why does the Angel win at the second meeting of the Angel and the Demon in the fight for Tamara’s soul? She fell, did she kiss the Demon? But here the Angel shows the essence of Christian salvation through repentance, suffering and resistance to temptation: “She suffered and loved, she is mine.”
Love is a threshold that the Demon cannot cross. He is not capable of great, saving love. Even his tears burn through the stone: it is destructive, like his essence. The demon in the full sense of the word is the “hero of the century.” It concentrates the main contradictions: skepticism and criticism towards prevailing social relations and the powerlessness to change them; powerful impulses to activity and forced passivity; search for an ideal, socio-political, moral,
The demon is a symbol of continuous, never-ending striving in search of truth, which cannot be reversed. To reconcile with heaven meant for him to destroy his essence. Lermontov's discovery was the image of the Demon, who was bored with evil. Rebelling against fate, he turned to the earth, simple human values and wished to “reconcile with heaven.” But even here he is contradictory: he wants to “believe in goodness,” but at the same time he acts like an evil tempting spirit, stupefying and destroying Tamara.
The image of the Demon occupies a special place in the work - more broadly - in the spiritual life of Lermontov. “In all poems,” V.V. Rozanov astutely noted, “there is already the beginning of a “demon”, a “demon” that is not fully drawn, a “demon” that is diverse.” If Mtsyri is a captive, one of many captive heroes in Lermontov’s works, then Demon is one of Lermontov’s many exiled heroes. But the image of the Demon is more multifaceted. The demon is only expelled from heaven and can never return to it. Otherwise it is absolutely free. The spirit of evil, the “spirit of exile” is free in time and space. He is immortal: for him the concept of “age” does not exist, without which the image of the “eternal youth” - Mtsyri - is not conceivable. Despite all the unusualness of the Demon, it is not difficult to see in him the traits of a romantic hero: individualism, skepticism, contempt for an ordinary, “vulgar” person, denial of human values. The Demon considers the destruction of spiritual and material values to be its main goal. He sows evil because, in his opinion, the world is imperfect and filled with nonsense. And this, probably, is the alter ego of Lermontov himself. The demonic worldview embodied in his hero expressed dissatisfaction with public morality, restlessness and spiritual emptiness.
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