In the outskirts of Moscow, not far from the Simonov Monastery, once a young girl Liza lived with her old mother. After the death of Lisa's father, a rather prosperous peasant, his wife and daughter became impoverished. The widow grew weaker day by day and could not work. Only Liza, not sparing her tender youth and rare beauty, worked day and night - weaving canvases, knitting stockings, picking flowers in the spring, and selling berries in the summer in Moscow.
One spring, two years after her father's death, Liza came to Moscow with lilies of the valley. A young, well-dressed man met her on the street. Upon learning that she was selling flowers, he offered her a ruble instead of five kopecks, saying that "beautiful lilies of the valley plucked by the hands of a beautiful girl are worth a ruble." But Lisa refused the offered amount. He did not insist, but said that from now on he would always buy flowers from her and would like her to pick them only for him.
Arriving home, Liza told her mother everything, and the next day she picked up the best lilies of the valley and again came to the city, but young man did not meet this time. Throwing flowers into the river, she returned home with sadness in her soul. The next evening, a stranger himself came to her house. As soon as she saw him, Liza rushed to her mother and excitedly announced who was coming to them. The old woman met the guest, and he seemed to her very kind and nice person. Erast - that was the name of the young man - confirmed that he was going to buy flowers from Lisa in the future, and she did not have to go to the city: he himself could call on them.
Erast was a rather wealthy nobleman, with a fair mind and a naturally kind heart, but weak and windy. He led a distracted life, thinking only about his own pleasure, looking for it in secular amusements, and not finding it, he got bored and complained about his fate. The immaculate beauty of Liza at the first meeting shocked him: it seemed to him that in her he found exactly what he had been looking for for a long time.
This was the start of their long relationship. Every evening they saw each other either on the banks of the river, or in a birch grove, or under the shade of hundred-year-old oaks. They embraced, but their embrace was pure and innocent.
So several weeks passed. It seemed that nothing could interfere with their happiness. But one evening Lisa came to the meeting sad. It turned out that the groom, the son of a rich peasant, was wooing her, and the mother wanted her to marry him. Erast, comforting Lisa, said that after the death of his mother, he would take her to him and would live with her inseparably. But Lisa reminded the young man that he could never be her husband: she was a peasant woman, and he noble family. You offend me, Erast said, for your friend, your soul is most important, sensitive, innocent soul, you will always be closest to my heart. Liza threw herself into his arms - and at this hour chastity was to perish.
The delusion passed in one minute, giving way to surprise and fear. Liza cried, saying goodbye to Erast.
Their dates continued, but how everything had changed! Liza was no longer an angel of purity for Erast; platonic love gave way to feelings that he could not be "proud of" and which were not new to him. Liza noticed a change in him, and it saddened her.
Once, during a date, Erast told Lisa that he was being drafted into the army; they will have to part for a while, but he promises to love her and hopes to never part with her upon his return. It is not difficult to imagine how hard Liza felt the separation from her beloved. However, hope did not leave her, and every morning she woke up with the thought of Erast and their happiness upon his return.
So it took about two months. Once Lisa went to Moscow and on one of the big streets she saw Erast passing by in a magnificent carriage, which stopped near a huge house. Erast went out and was about to go to the porch, when he suddenly felt himself in Liza's arms. He turned pale, then, without saying a word, led her into the study and locked the door. Circumstances have changed, he announced to the girl, he is engaged.
Before Lisa could come to her senses, he led her out of the study and told the servant to escort her out of the yard.
Finding herself on the street, Liza went aimlessly, unable to believe what she heard. She left the city and wandered for a long time, until suddenly she found herself on the shore of a deep pond, under the shade of ancient oaks, which, a few weeks before, had been silent witnesses of her delights. This memory shocked Lisa, but after a few minutes she fell into deep thought. Seeing a neighbor girl walking along the road, she called her, took all the money out of her pocket and gave it to her, asking her to give it to her mother, kiss her and ask her to forgive the poor daughter. Then she threw herself into the water, and they could not save her.
Liza's mother, learning about terrible death daughter, could not stand the blow and died on the spot. Erast was unhappy until the end of his life. He did not deceive Lisa when he told her that he was going to the army, but instead of fighting the enemy, he played cards and lost all his fortune. He had to marry an elderly rich widow who had been in love with him for a long time. Upon learning of Liza's fate, he could not console himself and considered himself a murderer. Now, perhaps, they have already reconciled.
Once there lived a young and sweet girl Lisa. Her prosperous father died, and Lisa was left with her mother to live in poverty. The unfortunate widow grew weaker every day and could no longer work. Liza wove canvases day and night, knitted stockings, went for flowers in the spring, and picked berries in the summer, after which she sold them in Moscow.
Two years after the death of her father, the girl went to the city to sell lilies of the valley and met a young man on the street. He offered a whole ruble instead of five kopecks for her goods, but the girl refused. The guy asked to always sell him flowers plucked only for him.
When Lisa returned home, she told her mother about the stranger. In the morning she picked the most beautiful lilies of the valley, but she did not meet a guy. Frustrated, Liza threw the flowers into the river, and in the evening of the next day the young man came to her house himself.
Lisa and her mother greeted the guest. He seemed very nice and kind to them. The guy called himself Erast and said that from now on he would become the only buyer of Liza, and that the girl would no longer go to the city.
Erast was rich, smart, kind, but weak and fickle in character. The beauty of Lisa sunk deep into the soul of a nobleman. Thus began their meetings and long dates. A few weeks passed and everything was fine, but one day Lisa came with a sad look on her face. A rich groom began to woo her, and her mother decided to give her in marriage. Erast promised the girl to take her to him after the death of her mother, despite the fact that a peasant woman and a nobleman cannot be together. Another moment and the couple would have drowned in depravity, but delusion was replaced by reason.
After some time, Erast went into the army, but promised to return and love the girl forever. But two months later, Lisa met Erast in the city and found out that he was engaged. Lisa was beside herself with grief. She walked down the street and reached the local deep pond. She stood for a long time, immersed in her thoughts. I saw a girl passing by, and gave her all the money to give it to her mother, and then threw herself into the water.
Upon learning of the death of her daughter, the old woman died on the spot. And Erast was unhappy until the end of his days. In the army, he played cards and lost his entire fortune, after which he had to marry an elderly rich widow in order to pay off the debt. He learned about the fate of Lisa and felt guilty.
The best story of Karamzin is rightly recognized as "Poor Lisa" (1792), which is based on the enlightenment idea of the extra-class value of the human person. The problematic of the story is of a social and moral nature: the peasant woman Lisa is opposed by the nobleman Erast. The characters are revealed in relation to the heroes to love. Lisa's feelings are distinguished by depth, constancy, disinterestedness: she perfectly understands that she is not destined to be Erast's wife. Twice throughout the story she talks about it. Lisa loves Erast selflessly, without thinking about the consequences of her passion. No selfish calculations can interfere with this feeling. During one of their dates, Lisa informs Erast that the son of a wealthy peasant from a neighboring village is wooing her and that her mother really wants this marriage.
Erast is depicted in the story as not a treacherous deceiver-seducer. Such a solution to the social problem would be too crude and straightforward. He was, according to Karamzin, “a rather rich nobleman” with a “naturally kind” heart, “but weak and windy ... He led a scattered life, thinking only about his own pleasure ...”. Thus, the whole, selfless character of the peasant woman is opposed to the character of a kind, but spoiled by an idle life gentleman, unable to think about the consequences of his actions. The intention to seduce a gullible girl was not part of his plans. At first, he thought about "pure joys", intended to "live with Lisa as brother and sister." But Erast did not know his character well and overestimated his moral strength too much. Soon, according to Karamzin, he “could no longer be satisfied with ... one pure embrace. He wanted more, more, and finally, he could not want anything. There comes satiety and a desire to get rid of the bored connection.
It should be noted that the image of Erast is accompanied by a very prosaic leitmotif - money, which in sentimental literature has always aroused a condemning attitude towards itself. Real sincere help is expressed by sentimentalist writers in selfless deeds. Let us recall how Radishchev's Anyuta resolutely rejects the hundred rubles offered to her. The blind singer in the chapter "The Wedge" behaves in exactly the same way, refusing the "ruble note" and accepting only a neckerchief from the traveler.
Erast, at the first meeting with Liza, seeks to amaze her imagination with his generosity, offering a whole ruble instead of five kopecks for lilies of the valley. Liza resolutely refuses this money, which causes the full approval of her mother. Erast, wanting to win over the girl's mother, asks only him to sell her products and always strives to pay ten times more, but "the old woman never took too much." Lisa, loving Erast, refuses the prosperous peasant who asked her to marry her. Erast, for the sake of money, marries a wealthy elderly widow. At the last meeting with Lisa, Erast tries to pay off her with "ten imperials." This scene is perceived as blasphemy, as a desecration of Lisa's love: on one side of the scale - all life, thoughts, hopes, on the other - "ten imperials". A hundred years later, Leo Tolstoy would repeat it in the novel Resurrection.
For Lisa, the loss of Erast is tantamount to the loss of life. Further existence becomes meaningless, and she lays hands on herself. The tragic ending of the story testified to the creative courage of Karamzin, who did not want to reduce the significance of the social and ethical problem put forward by him with a successful denouement. Where a great, strong feeling came into conflict with the foundations of the feudal world, there could be no idyll.
For the sake of maximum plausibility, Karamzin connected the plot of his story with specific places in the then suburbs of Moscow. Lisa's house is located on the banks of the Moskva River, not far from the Simonov Monastery. Liza and Erast's dates take place near Simonov's Pond, which after the release of the story was called "Lizina's Pond". All these realities made a stunning impression on the readers. The surroundings of the Simonov Monastery became a place of pilgrimage for numerous admirers of the writer.
In the story "Poor Lisa" Karamzin showed himself to be a great psychologist. He managed to masterfully reveal the inner world of his characters, primarily their love experiences. Before Karamzin, the experiences of the heroes were declared in the monologues of the heroes. The latter applies primarily to epistolary works. Karamzin found more subtle, more complex artistic means that help the reader, as it were, guess what feelings his characters experience through their external manifestations. The lyrical content of the story is also reflected in its style. In a number of cases, Karamzin's prose becomes rhythmic, approaching poetic speech. This is how Lisa's love confessions sound to Erast: “Without your dark eyes, a bright month, / without your voice, the singing nightingale is boring; // without your breath, the breeze is not pleasant to me.
Analysis of the work
This story is one of the first sentimental works in Russian literature of the 18th century. Its plot was not new, as it was encountered more than once by domestic and foreign novelists. But feelings play a decisive role in Karamzin's story.
One of the main characters of the work is the narrator, who tells with immense sadness and. sympathy for the fate of the girl. The introduction of the image of a sentimental narrator turned out to be Karamzin's innovation in Russian literature, since earlier the narrator remained, as it were, on the sidelines and was neutral in relation to the events described. Already in the title of this story, a proper name is combined with a certain attitude of the author towards it. The plot of Karamzin develops in an unusual way, the ideological and artistic center is not the event and the constancy of the characters, but their experiences, that is, the plot has a psychological character.
The exposition of the work is a description of the surroundings of Moscow, the author recalls the times when this city was waiting for help in severe disasters.
The plot is the meeting of Lisa, a poor girl, with a young nobleman Erast.
The climax is Lisa's chance meeting with Erast, during which he asks her to leave him alone because he is getting married.
The denouement is the death of Lisa. She chooses death in order to resolve all problems, not to live deceived and abandoned by a loved one. For Lisa, life without Erast does not exist.
It was very important for the sentimentalist writer to address social issues. The author does not condemn Erast for the death of Lisa. After all, a young nobleman is just as unhappy as a peasant girl. For the rest of his life, he feels guilt towards Lisa, his own life path did not work out. material from the site
Karamzin was one of the first in Russian literature to discover the subtle and vulnerable inner world of a representative of the lower class, as well as the ability to selflessly and selflessly love. It is from his story that another tradition of Russian literature originates - compassion for ordinary people, sympathy for their joys and experiences, protection of the disadvantaged and oppressed. Thus, we can say that Karamzin prepared the basis for the work of many writers of the 19th century.
Retelling plan
- Description of the environs of Moscow.
- Lisa's life.
- Acquaintance with Erast.
- Declaration of love.
- Chance meeting with Erast in Moscow.
- Lisa's death.
- The further fate of Erast.
The history of the creation of Karamzin's work "Poor Lisa"
Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin is one of the most educated people of his time. He preached advanced educational views, widely promoted Western European culture in Russia. The personality of the writer, multifacetedly gifted in various fields, played a significant role in the cultural life of Russia. late XVIII — early XIX centuries. Karamzin traveled a lot, translated, wrote original works of art engaged in publishing activities. His name is associated with the formation of professional literary activity.
In 1789-1790. Karamzin undertook a trip abroad (to Germany, Switzerland, France and England). Upon the return of N.M. Karamzin began to publish the Moscow Journal, in which he published the story Poor Liza (1792), Letters from a Russian Traveler (1791-92), which put him among the first Russian writers. In these works, as well as in literary critical articles, the aesthetic program of sentimentalism was expressed with its interest in a person, regardless of class, his feelings and experiences. In the 1890s the writer's interest in the history of Russia is growing; he gets acquainted with historical works, the main published sources: chronicle monuments, notes of foreigners, etc. In 1803, Karamzin began work on The History of the Russian State, which became the main work of his life.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, in the 1790s. the writer lived in a dacha near Beketov near the Simonov Monastery. The environment played a decisive role in the concept of the story "Poor Lisa". The literary plot of the story was perceived by the Russian reader as a vital and real plot, and its characters as real people. After the publication of the story, walks in the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery, where Karamzin settled his heroine, and to the pond into which she threw herself and which was called "Lizin's pond", became fashionable. As the researcher V.N. Toporov, defining the place of Karamzin's story in the evolutionary series of Russian literature, "for the first time in Russian literature, fiction created such an image of true life, which was perceived as stronger, sharper and more convincing than life itself." "Poor Liza" is the most popular and the best story- brought Karamzin, who was then 25 years old, real fame. Young and no one before famous writer unexpectedly became a celebrity. "Poor Lisa" was the first and most talented Russian sentimental story.
Genus, genre, creative method
Russian literature of the 18th century multi-volume classic novels were widely used. Karamzin was the first to introduce the genre of the short novel, the “sensitive story,” which enjoyed particular success among his contemporaries. The role of the narrator in the story "Poor Liza" belongs to the author. The small volume makes the plot of the story clearer and more dynamic. Karamzin's name is inextricably linked with the concept of "Russian sentimentalism".
Sentimentalism is a trend in European literature and culture of the second half of XVII in., highlighting the feelings of a person, and not the mind. Sentimentalists focused on human relations, the opposition between good and evil.
In Karamzin's story, the life of the characters is depicted through the prism of sentimental idealization. The characters in the story are embellished. The deceased father of Liza, an exemplary family man, because he loves work, plowed the land well and was quite prosperous, everyone loved him. Lisa's mother, "a sensitive, kind old woman," is weakening from incessant tears for her husband, for even peasant women know how to feel. She touchingly loves her daughter and admires nature with religious tenderness.
The very name Lisa until the early 80s. 18th century almost never met in Russian literature, and if it did, then in its foreign language version. Choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin went to break the rather strict canon that had developed in literature and predetermined in advance what Lisa should be like, how she should behave. This behavioral stereotype was defined in the European literature of the 18th-18th centuries. the fact that the image of Lisa, Lisette (OhePe), was associated primarily with comedy. Lisa of the French comedy is usually a servant-maid (maid), the confidante of her young mistress. She is young, pretty, rather frivolous and understands perfectly everything that is connected with a love affair. Naivety, innocence, modesty are the least characteristic of this comedic role. Breaking the reader's expectations, removing the mask from the name of the heroine, Karamzin thereby destroyed the foundations of the very culture of classicism, weakened the ties between the signified and the signifier, between the name and its bearer in the space of literature. With all the conventionality of the image of Lisa, her name is associated precisely with the character, and not with the role of the heroine. Establishing a relationship between the "internal" character and "external" action was a significant achievement for Karamzin on the way to the "psychologism" of Russian prose.
Subject
An analysis of the work shows that several themes are identified in Karamzin's story. One of them is an appeal to the peasant environment. The writer portrayed a peasant girl as the main character, who retained patriarchal ideas about moral values.
Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the opposition of the city and the countryside into Russian literature. The image of the city is inextricably linked with the image of Erast, with the “terrible bulk of houses” and the shining “gold of domes”. The image of Lisa is associated with the life of a beautiful natural nature. In Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - turns out to be defenseless, falling into an urban space, where laws operate that are different from the laws of nature. No wonder Liza's mother tells her (thus indirectly predicting everything that will happen next): “My heart is always out of place when you go to the city; I always put a candle in front of the image and pray to the Lord God that he save you from all trouble and misfortune.
The author in the story raises not only the topic " little man"and social inequality, but also such a topic as fate and circumstances, nature and man, love-woe and love-happiness.
With the voice of the author, the theme enters into the private plot of the story. big story fatherland. The comparison of the historical and the particular makes the story "Poor Liza" a fundamental literary fact, on the basis of which the Russian socio-psychological novel will subsequently arise.
The story attracted the attention of contemporaries with its humanistic idea: "peasant women know how to love." The author's position in the story is the position of a humanist. Before us is Karamzin the artist and Karamzin the philosopher. He sang the beauty of love, described love as a feeling that can transform a person. The writer teaches: a moment of love is beautiful, but only reason gives long life and strength.
"Poor Liza" immediately became extremely popular in Russian society. Humane feelings, the ability to sympathize and be sensitive turned out to be very in tune with the trends of the time, when literature moved from the civil theme characteristic of the Enlightenment to the theme of a person’s personal, private life and the inner world of an individual became the main object of its attention.
Karamzin made another discovery in literature. With “Poor Lisa”, such a concept as psychologism appeared in it, that is, the writer’s ability to vividly and touchingly depict the inner world of a person, his experiences, desires, aspirations. In this sense, Karamzin paved the way for the writers of the 19th century.
The nature of the conflict
The analysis showed that there is a complex conflict in Karamzin's work. First of all, this is a social conflict: the gap between a rich nobleman and a poor villager is very large. But, as you know, "peasant women know how to love." Sensitivity - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the characters into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness, and then leads Lisa to death (she "forgets her soul" - commits suicide). Erast is also punished for his decision to leave Lisa and marry another: he will forever reproach himself with her death.
The story "Poor Liza" is written in the classic story about the love of representatives of different classes: its heroes - the nobleman Erast and the peasant woman Lisa - cannot be happy not only for moral reasons, but also for social conditions life. The deep social root of the plot is embodied in Karamzin's story at its most external level as a moral conflict. beautiful soul and body" of Lisa and Erast - "a rather rich nobleman with a fair mind and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and windy." And, of course, one of the reasons for the shock produced by Karamzin's story in literature and the reader's mind was that Karamzin was the first Russian writer who turned to the topic of unequal love and decided to unleash his story in the way that such a conflict would most likely be resolved in real conditions. Russian life: the death of the heroine.
The main characters of the story "Poor Lisa"
Lisa is the main character of Karamzin's story. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, the writer turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically mundane features. His words "... and peasant women know how to love" became winged. Sensitivity is a central character trait of Lisa. She trusts the movements of her heart, lives "gentle passions." Ultimately, it is ardor and ardor that lead Lisa to death, but she is morally justified.
Lisa doesn't look like a peasant woman. “Beautiful in body and soul of a settler”, “tender and sensitive Lisa”, passionately loving her parents, cannot forget about her father, but hides her sadness and tears so as not to disturb her mother. She tenderly takes care of her mother, gets her medicine, works day and night ("weaving canvases, knitting stockings, picking flowers in the spring, and taking berries in the summer and selling them in Moscow"). The author is sure that such activities fully ensure the life of the old woman and her daughter. According to his plan, Lisa is completely unfamiliar with the book, but after meeting with Erast, she dreams of how good it would be if her lover "was born a simple peasant shepherd ..." - these words are completely in the spirit of Lisa.
Lisa not only speaks like a book, but also thinks. Nevertheless, the psychology of Liza, who fell in love with a girl for the first time, is revealed in detail and in a natural sequence. Before throwing herself into the pond, Lisa remembers her mother, she took care of the old woman as best she could, left her money, but this time the thought of her was no longer able to keep Lisa from taking a decisive step. As a result, the character of the heroine is idealized, but internally whole.
The character of Erast is much different from the character of Lisa. Erast is described more in line with the social environment that brought him up than Lisa. This is a "rather rich nobleman", an officer who led a dispersed life, thought only of his own pleasure, looked for him in secular amusements, but often did not find him, was bored and complained about his fate. Endowed with a "fair mind and a kind heart", being "kind by nature, but weak and windy", Erast represented new type hero in Russian literature. In it, for the first time, the type of a disappointed Russian aristocrat is outlined.
Erast recklessly falls in love with Lisa, not thinking that she is not a girl of his circle. However, the hero does not stand the test of love.
Before Karamzin, the plot automatically determined the type of hero. In Poor Liza, the image of Erast is much more complicated than the literary type to which the hero belongs.
Erast is not a "treacherous seducer", he is sincere in his oaths, sincere in his deceit. Erast is as much the culprit of the tragedy as he is the victim of his "ardent imagination". Therefore, the author does not consider himself entitled to judge Erast. He stands on a par with his hero - because he converges with him at the "point" of sensitivity. After all, it is the author who acts in the story as a “narrator” of the plot that Erast told him: “.. I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Liza's grave ... ".
Erast begins a long line of heroes in Russian literature, main feature which is weakness and inability to live and for which the label of “extra person” has long been entrenched in literary criticism.
plot, composition
In the words of Karamzin himself, the story "Poor Liza" is "a very uncomplicated fairy tale." The plot of the story is simple. This is the love story of a poor peasant girl Liza and a rich young nobleman Erast. Public life and worldly pleasures bored him. He was constantly bored and "complained about his fate." Erast "read idyllic novels" and dreamed of that happy time when people, not burdened by the conventions and rules of civilization, would live carelessly in the bosom of nature. Thinking only of his own pleasure, he "looked for it in amusements." With the advent of love in his life, everything changes. Erast falls in love with the pure "daughter of nature" - the peasant woman Lisa. Chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Lisa appears as a wonderful shepherdess. After reading novels in which "all people carelessly walked along the rays, bathed in clean springs, kissed like turtle doves, rested under roses and myrtle", he decided that he "found in Lisa what his heart had been looking for for a long time." Liza, although "the daughter of a rich peasant", is just a peasant woman who is forced to earn her own living. Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the characters into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The picture of pure first love is drawn very touchingly in the story. “Now I think,” Liza says to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your dark eyes, a bright month; the singing nightingale is boring without your voice...” Erast also admires his “shepherdess”. "All the brilliant fun big light seemed to him insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul fed his heart. But when Lisa gives herself to him, the satiated young man begins to grow cold in his feelings for her. In vain Lisa hopes to regain her lost happiness. Erast goes on a military campaign, loses all his fortune in cards and, in the end, marries a rich widow. And deceived in her best hopes and feelings, Liza throws herself into a pond near the Simonov Monastery.
Artistic originality of the analyzed story
But the main thing in the story is not the plot, but the feelings that it was supposed to awaken in the reader. Therefore, the main character of the story becomes the narrator, who, with sadness and sympathy, tells about the fate of the poor girl. The image of a sentimental narrator became a discovery in Russian literature, since before the narrator remained “behind the scenes” and was neutral in relation to the events described. The narrator learns the story of poor Lisa directly from Erast, and he himself often comes to be sad at Liza's Grave. The narrator of "Poor Liza" is mentally involved in the relationship of the characters. Already the title of the story is built on the connection own name heroines with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her.
The author-narrator is the only mediator between the reader and the life of the characters, embodied by his word. The narration is conducted in the first person, the constant presence of the author reminds of himself by his periodic appeals to the reader: "now the reader should know ...", "the reader can easily imagine ...". These address formulas, emphasizing the intimacy of the emotional contact between the author, the characters and the reader, are very reminiscent of the methods of organizing narrative in the epic genres of Russian poetry. Karamzin, transferring these formulas into narrative prose, ensured that prose acquired a penetrating lyrical sound and began to be perceived as emotionally as poetry. The story "Poor Lisa" is characterized by short or extended lyrical digressions, at each dramatic turn of the plot we hear the author's voice: "my heart bleeds ...", "a tear rolls down my face."
In their aesthetic unity, the three central images of the story - the author-narrator, poor Lisa and Erast - with a completeness unprecedented in Russian literature, realized the sentimentalist concept of a person, valuable for his extra-class moral virtues, sensitive and complex.
Karamzin was the first to write smoothly. In his prose, words were intertwined in such a regular, rhythmic way that the reader was left with the impression of rhythmic music. Smoothness in prose is the same as meter and rhyme in poetry.
Karamzin introduces the tradition of the rural literary landscape.
The meaning of the work
Karamzin laid the foundation for a huge cycle of literature about "little people", opened the way for the classics of Russian literature. The story "Rich Lisa" essentially opens the theme of the "little man" in Russian literature, although the social aspect in relation to Liza and Erast is somewhat muffled. Of course, the gulf between a rich nobleman and a poor peasant woman is very large, but Lisa is least of all like a peasant woman, rather like a sweet secular young lady, brought up on sentimental novels. The theme of "Poor Liza" appears in many works by A.S. Pushkin. When he wrote "The Young Lady-Peasant Woman", he definitely focused on "Poor Lisa", turning the "sad story" into a novel with a happy ending. AT " stationmaster Dunya is seduced and taken away by the hussars, and her father, unable to bear the grief, becomes an inveterate drunkard and dies. In The Queen of Spades, the further life of Karamzin's Liza is visible, the fate that would have awaited Liza if she had not committed suicide. Lisa also lives in the novel "Sunday" by Leo Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under a train. Although she remains to live, her life is full of dirt and humiliation. The image of Karamzin's heroine continued in the works of other writers.
It is in this story that the refined psychologism of Russian artistic prose, recognized throughout the world, is born. Here Karamzin, opening the gallery of "superfluous people", stands at the source of another powerful tradition - the image of smart loafers, for whom idleness helps to keep a distance between themselves and the state. Thanks to blessed laziness, "superfluous people" are always in opposition. If they had served their country honestly, they would have had no time for Liz's seduction and witty digressions. In addition, if the people are always poor, then the "extra people" are always with funds, even if they squandered, as happened with Erast. He has no affairs in the story, except for love.
It is interesting
"Poor Lisa" is perceived as a story about true events. Lisa belongs to the characters with a "registration". “... Increasingly, it draws me to the walls of the Si...nova monastery - the memory of the deplorable fate of Liza, poor Liza" - this is how the author begins his story. For a gap in the middle of a word, any Muscovite guessed the name of the Simonov Monastery, the first buildings of which date back to the 14th century. The pond, located under the walls of the monastery, was called Lisiny Pond, but thanks to the story of Karamzin, it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage for Muscovites. In the XX century. Lizina Pond was named Lizina Square, Lizin Dead End and Lizino Station railway. To date, only a few buildings of the monastery have survived, most of them were blown up in 1930. The pond was filled up gradually, it finally disappeared after 1932.
To the place of Lisa's death, first of all, the same unfortunate girls in love, like Liza herself, came to cry. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees growing around the pond was mercilessly cut with the knives of the "pilgrims". The inscriptions carved on the trees were both serious (“In these streams, poor Liza passed away for days; / If you are sensitive, a passer-by, take a breath”), and satirical, hostile to Karamzin and his heroine (of particular fame among such “birch epigrams” was the couplet: "Erast's bride died in these streams. / Drown yourself, girls, there is enough space in the pond").
The festivities at the Simonov Monastery were so popular that the description of this area can be found on the pages of the works of many writers of the 19th century: M.N. Zagoskina, I.I. Lazhechnikova, M.Yu. Lermontov, A.I. Herzen.
Karamzin and his story were certainly mentioned when describing the Simonov Monastery in guidebooks around Moscow and special books and articles. But gradually these references began to take on an increasingly ironic character, and already in 1848, in the famous work of M.N. Zagoskin "Moscow and Muscovites" in the chapter "A walk to the Simonov Monastery" did not say a word about either Karamzin or his heroine. As sentimental prose lost its charm of novelty, "Poor Lisa" ceased to be perceived as a story about true events, and even more so as an object for worship, but became in the minds of most readers a primitive fiction, a curiosity, reflecting the tastes and concepts of a bygone era.
Good DD. History of Russian literature of the 18th century. - M., 1960.
WeilP., GenisA. Native speech. The legacy of "Poor Lisa" Karamzin // Star. 1991. No. 1.
ValaginAL. Let's read together. - M., 1992.
DI. Fonvizin in Russian criticism. - M., 1958.
History of Moscow districts: encyclopedia / ed. K.A. Averyanov. - M., 2005.
Toporov VL. "Poor Liza" Karamzin. Moscow: Russian world, 2006.
N. M. Karamzin’s story “Poor Lisa” was first published in the June issue of the Moscow Journal for 1792. It marked the beginning not only of the original Karamzin prose, but of all Russian classical literature. Until the appearance of the first novels and stories by Pushkin and Gogol, Poor Liza remained the most perfect work of art.
The story was very popular with Russian readers. Much later, critics will reproach the author for excessive "sentimentality" and "sweetness", forgetting about the time in which historical era lived Karamzin.
"Poor Lisa" became a necessary transitional stage in the formation of the modern Russian language. The story is strikingly different from the ponderous style of the 18th century and anticipates the best samples golden age of Russian literature.
The meaning of the name
"Poor Liza" is the name and at the same time a figurative characteristic of the main character. The definition of "poor" refers not only to financial situation girls, but also to her unfortunate fate.
The main theme of the work
The main theme of the work is tragic love.
Liza is an ordinary peasant girl who, after the death of her father, is forced to support herself and her mother. Manpower is needed to run a peasant economy, so until Liza gets married, she takes on any feasible female work: weaving, knitting, picking and selling flowers and berries. The old mother is infinitely grateful to her only nurse and dreams that God will send her a good man.
The turning point in Lisa's life is the meeting with the young nobleman Erast, who begins to show signs of attention to her. For a simple peasant woman, an elegant and well-mannered young man seems to be a demigod, strikingly different from his fellow villagers. Lisa is not a fool after all, she does not allow a new acquaintance anything superfluous and reprehensible.
Erast is a windy and careless young man. He had long been fed up with the entertainment of high society. Lisa becomes for him the embodiment of an unfulfilled dream of a patriarchal love idyll. At first, Erast really does not have any low thoughts about the girl. He is happy from innocent meetings with a naive peasant woman. Due to his carelessness, Erast does not even think about the future, about that insurmountable abyss that separates the nobleman and the commoner.
Erast's modest behavior and respectful attitude towards Lisa conquer the girl's mother. She treats the young man as a good friend of the family, and does not even know about the romance that has arisen between young people, considering it impossible.
The purely platonic relationship between Lisa and Erast could not last forever. The reason for physical intimacy was the desire of the mother to marry her daughter. For lovers, this was a heavy blow of fate. Hugs, kisses and passionate vows of fidelity led to the fact that Lisa lost her innocence.
After the incident, the nature of the relationship between the lovers changes dramatically. For Lisa, Erast becomes the closest person, without whom she cannot imagine her future life. The nobleman "descended from heaven to earth." Lisa lost her former magical charm in his eyes. Erast began to treat her as a familiar source of sensual pleasure. He is not yet ready to abruptly cut off relations with Lisa, but he begins to see her less and less.
It is not difficult to predict the further course of events. Erast does not deceive Lisa that he is going to war. However, he returns soon enough and, forgetting his beloved, finds a rich bride, equal to him in social status.
Lisa continues to believe and wait for her loved one. A chance meeting with Erast, the news of his engagement and imminent wedding, and finally, a humiliating monetary alms for love inflict a huge mental trauma on the girl. Unable to survive her, Lisa commits suicide.
Thus ends a short romance between a nobleman and a peasant woman, which from the very beginning was doomed to a tragic ending.
Issues
Karamzin was one of the first writers to raise the problem of love between representatives of different classes. In the future, this topic has received great development in Russian literature.
Love, as you know, knows no boundaries. However, in pre-revolutionary Russia such borders existed and were strictly protected by law and public opinion. physical connection a nobleman with a peasant woman was not forbidden, but the fate of the seduced woman was unenviable. At best, she became a kept woman and could only hope for the adoption by the master of jointly acquired children.
At the beginning love story Erast behaves simply stupidly, dreaming that he will “live with Lisa, like a brother and sister”, take her to his village, etc. In the finale, he forgets about promises and does what his noble origin tells him to do.
Deceived and dishonored, Lisa prefers to die and take her love and shameful secret to the grave.
Composition
The story has a clear classical structure: exposition (the author's lyrical digression, smoothly turning into Lisa's story), plot (Lisa's meeting with Erast), climax (physical closeness between lovers) and denouement (Erast's betrayal and Lisa's suicide).
What does the author teach
The story of Lisa causes great pity for the unfortunate girl. The main culprit of the tragedy, of course, is the careless Erast, who should have seriously thought about the consequences of his love interest.
