How real events are refracted in Derzhavin’s poetry. Analysis of the poem “Monument”

Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin occupies a significant place in Russian literature along with D.I. Fonvizin and M.V. Lomonosov. Together with these titans of Russian literature, he is included in the brilliant galaxy of founders of Russian classical literature of the Enlightenment era, dating back to the second half of the 18th century. At this time, largely thanks to the personal participation of Catherine the Second, science and art were rapidly developing in Russia.

This is the time of the appearance of the first Russian universities, libraries, theaters, public museums and a relatively independent press, although very relative and for a short period, which ended with the appearance of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” by A.P. Radishcheva. The most fruitful period of the poet’s activity dates back to this time, as Famusov Griboyedov called it, “the golden age of Catherine.”

Life

The future poet was born on July 14, 1743 in the family estate of Sokury near Kazan.
Even in early childhood, he lost his father, an officer in the Russian army, and was raised by his mother Fyokla Andreevna Kozlova. Derzhavin's life was bright and eventful, largely thanks to his intelligence, energy and character. There have been incredible ups and downs. Based on his biography, one could write an adventure novel based on real events. But, more about everything.

In 1762, as befits children of the nobility, he was accepted into the Preobrazhensky Regiment as an ordinary guardsman. In 1772 he became an officer and from 1773 to 1775. took part in the suppression of the Pugachev rebellion. At this time, two completely opposite in significance and improbability events happen to him. During the Pugachev riot, he completely lost his fortune, but soon won 40,000 rubles in a card game.

It was only in 1773 that his first poems were published. Some interesting facts of his life relate to this period of his life. Like many officers, he did not shy away from carousing and gambling, which almost deprived Russia of a great poet. Cards drove him to cheating; all sorts of unseemly tricks were committed for the sake of money. Fortunately, he was able to realize in time the harmfulness of this path and change his lifestyle.

In 1777 he retired from military service. Enters to serve as a state councilor in the Senate. It is worth noting that he was an incorrigible truth-teller, and, moreover, did not particularly worship his superiors, for which he never enjoyed the love of the latter. From May 1784 to 1802 was in public service, including from 1791-1793. cabinet secretary of Catherine II, but his inability to openly flatter and promptly stop reports unpleasant to the royal ears contributed to the fact that he did not stay here for long. During his service, he rose in his career to become the Minister of Justice of the Russian Empire.

Thanks to his truth-loving and irreconcilable character, Gabriel Romanovich did not stay in each position for more than two years due to constant conflicts with thieving officials, as can be seen from the chronology of his service. All attempts to achieve justice only irritated his high patrons.

During all this time he was engaged in creative activities. The odes “God” (1784), “Thunder of Victory, Ring Out!” were created. (1791, the unofficial anthem of Russia), well known to us from Pushkin’s story “Dubrovsky”, “The Nobleman” (1794), “Waterfall” (1798) and many others.
After retirement, he lived on his family estate Zvanka in the Novgorod province, where he devoted all his time to creativity. He passed away on July 8, 1816.

Literary creativity

Derzhavin became widely known in 1782 with the publication of the ode “Felitsa,” dedicated to the Empress. Early works - an ode to the wedding of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, published in 1773. In general, the ode occupies one of the dominant places in the poet’s work. His odes have reached us: “On the death of Bibikov”, “On the nobles”, “On Her Majesty’s Birthday”, etc. In his first compositions one can feel an open imitation of Lomonosov. Over time, he moved away from this and accepted the works of Horace as a model for his odes. He published his works mainly in the St. Petersburg Bulletin. These are: “Songs to Peter the Great” (1778), an epistole to Shuvalov, “On the death of Prince Meshchersky”, “The Key”, “On the birth of a porphyry-born youth” (1779), “On the absence of the empress in Belarus”, “To the first neighbor”, “ To rulers and judges" (1780).

The sublime tone and vivid pictures of these works attracted the attention of writers. The poet attracted the attention of society with his “Ode to Felitsa,” dedicated to the queen. A snuff box studded with diamonds and 50 chervonets were the reward for the ode, thanks to which he was noticed by the queen and the public. His odes “To the Capture of Ishmael” and “Waterfall” brought him no less success. The meeting and close acquaintance with Karamzin led to cooperation in Karamzin’s Moscow Journal. His “Monument to a Hero”, “On the Death of Countess Rumyantseva”, “The Majesty of God” were published here.

Shortly before the departure of Catherine the Second, Derzhavin presented her with his handwritten collection of works. This is remarkable. After all, the poet’s talent flourished precisely during her reign. In fact, his work became a living monument to the reign of Catherine II. In the last years of his life he tried to experiment with tragedies, epigrams and fables, but they do not have the same height as his poetry.

Criticism was mixed. From awe to almost complete denial of his work. Only the works of D. Grog, dedicated to Derzhavin, which appeared after the revolution, and his efforts to publish the works and biography of the poet made it possible to evaluate his work.
For us, Derzhavin is the first poet of that era whose poems can be read without additional comments and explanations.

Determining Derzhavin’s place in Russian poetry, Belinsky accurately correlated with his work that moment in the development of Russian poetry of the 18th century, when the aesthetic relevance of the Lomonosov-Sumarokov school of poetry finally and irrevocably ceased, and that turning point in the aesthetic criteria of literary creativity, which had already made itself felt in journalistic prose, poetic and prose epics and drama, it extended to the area of ​​lyric poetry: “Poetry is not born suddenly, but, like everything living, it develops historically; Derzhavin was the first living verb of young Russian poetry"; “With Derzhavin, a new period of Russian poetry begins, and just as Lomonosov was its first name, so Derzhavin was its second. ‹…› Derzhavin ‹…› a purely artistic nature, a poet by vocation; His works are filled with elements of poetry as art."

It was in Derzhavin’s work that lyric poetry finally found freedom from extraneous social and moral tasks and became an end in itself. In all the forms of literary creativity listed above, this turning point was carried out on the basis of a synthesis of high and low genres, the interpenetration of everyday and ideological world images, and Derzhavin’s poetry in this sense was by no means an exception.

Derzhavin did not create a new norm of poetic language and his own literary school, as Lomonosov and Sumarokov did: Derzhavin’s poetic style forever remained a unique phenomenon in Russian poetry. Lomonosov and Derzhavin together created Russian poetry. If Lomonosov gave it metrical and rhythmic forms - so to speak, a body, a shell, then Derzhavin breathed into it a living soul, and in his sharply individual poetic style the universal aesthetic foundations of the future Russian lyrics were expressed.

As Derzhavin himself believed, his own real poetic activity began in 1779, when he finally abandoned attempts to imitate his poetic idols. In 1805, when creating an autobiographical note and referring to himself in it in the third person, Derzhavin defined the meaning of the turning point in his position as follows: “He tried to imitate Mr. Lomonosov in expression and style, but, wanting to soar, he could not stand the constant, beautiful a set of words characteristic of the only Russian Pindar of splendor and pomp. And for that, since 1779, he chose a completely different path.”

Dedications to Lomonosov and Kantemir resurrect the genre and style traditions of ode and satire in Derzhavin’s aesthetic consciousness. The epitaph, developing the traditional theme of the transience of earthly life and glory, is built on the contrasting clash of the concepts “radiance - insignificance”, “hero - decay”. It is precisely the contrasting relationship between the elements of interpenetrating odic and satirical world images, the contrast of genre and style, and the conceptual contrast that distinguishes Derzhavin’s lyrics at the moment when his poetic voice is gaining strength and the formation of an individual poetic manner takes place in line with the general trend of Russian literature of the 1760-1780s. to the synthesis of previously isolated genres and the interpenetration of genre-style structures that are opposite in hierarchy.

The first example of such a complex genre formation in Derzhavin’s lyrics is “Poems for the birth of a porphyry-born youth in the North” (1779), dedicated to the birth of the future Emperor Alexander I, the elder, grandson of Catherine II. Thematically, the poem is undeniably a solemn ode. But Derzhavin calls his poem differently - “Poems”, thereby giving it the character of chamber, homely lyrics. What will later be called “poems for the occasion” relates entirely to the area of ​​a person’s intimate private life. Thus, by combining the odic subject with the genre form of “poems for the occasion,” Derzhavin abolishes the distance between the historically and socially significant fact of the life of the state and private human life.

Another synthetic genre formation in the lyrics of 1779-1783. offers an ode “On the death of Prince Meshchersky” (1779). The theme of death and loss is traditionally elegiac, and in the work of Derzhavin himself in subsequent years it will find both a completely adequate genre embodiment (a heartfelt elegy on the death of Derzhavin’s first wife, Ekaterina Yakovlevna, written in 1794), and a travesty: the theme of death, with in all its tragedy, was always realized and embodied by Derzhavin in contrast. So, perhaps, one of the most characteristic poems for Derzhavin’s style of poetic thinking, which concisely demonstrates in four verses the uniqueness of his poetic style, was also written for death: “For the death of the dog Milushka, who, upon receiving the news of the death of Louis XVI, fell from the lap of her mistress and killed herself to death" (1793).

The equality of all facts of life in Derzhavin’s aesthetic consciousness makes it possible for him to do the unthinkable - the combination of an absolutely historical incident significant for the fate of humanity as a whole (the execution of Louis XVI during the French Revolution) and the fact of an absolutely private life (the sad fate of a lap dog) in one picture of the world , where everything alive and living is inexorably subject to a common fate: to live and die. Thus, a poetic impromptu, perceived as a mischievous joke, turns out to be fraught with deep philosophical meaning, and it is not surprising that, turning to the topic of death in 1779, Derzhavin wrote a deeply emotional philosophical ode on a traditionally elegiac theme.

Thus, in the poetry of 1779, the basic aesthetic principles of Derzhavin’s individual poetic style are outlined: the attraction to synthetic genre structures, the contrast and concreteness of poetic figurative thinking, the convergence of categories of historical events and circumstances of private life in a close connection between the biographical facts of the poet’s life and his texts, which he considers it necessary to comment on messages about the specific circumstances of their occurrence and information about the people mentioned in them.

Derzhavin's satire

The level of social life of the individual in Derzhavin’s lyrics appears to be the most conflicting. The social aspect of personality is associated with poems in which satire emerges more clearly as a semantic tendency and the author’s position, although in their genre appearance these poems do not necessarily retain the features of genetic continuity with the genre of satire as such. One of these poems, which cost Derzhavin many troubles at court, the ode to “Rulers and Judges,” is genetically a spiritual ode, that is, an arrangement of the biblical Psalm 81. He managed to publish a softened version of the ode in 1787... but in 1795, after the events of the Great French Revolution, presenting a handwritten volume of his poems, which included this ode, to Catherine II, Derzhavin almost fell into the hands of the secret police secretary accused of Jacobinism. Indeed, in the context of European history at the end of the 18th century. King David’s psalm, denouncing the “earthly gods” on behalf of the Most High, acquired an acute political meaning both as an edification to earthly rulers and in an angry denunciation of their unrighteous power.

The accusatory pathos of the spiritual ode was also strengthened by Derzhavin’s characteristic duality of his lyrical subject: a human voice unexpectedly wedges into God’s accusatory speech against the unrighteous rulers, proclaiming the truth already discovered by Russian literature and Derzhavin in satirical and odic terms that the tsar is also a man .

Derzhavin's lyrics, which reproduce the social appearance of a person, no less than other genre varieties of his poetry, are characterized by contrast and specificity of poetics. His satirical ode “The Nobleman” (1794) is one of the largest and most consistently accusatory satirical poems - for all its apparent generality, it has a completely precise address. Despite the fact that not a single name was named in the ode, contemporaries could not have the slightest doubt as to who Derzhavin’s denunciation of the unworthy courtier was aimed at.

The satirical image of a typical courtier, concerned most of all with his own peace and pleasure, has a collective meaning, as in “Felitsa”. But this collectivity, just as in “Felitsa,” is made up of the characteristic features of many courtiers known to Derzhavin.

In the “Explanations” to the ode “Nobleman”, Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky and Count Bezborodko are mentioned, in whose reception rooms, presumably, Derzhavin had to observe such pictures more than once. But the satirical ode “The Nobleman” also outlines the sphere of contrast necessary for Derzhavin. The antithesis of the unworthy nobleman, whose image is presented in satirical and everyday tones, is contrasted with the thesis - the image of a genuine nobleman, worthy, valiant, virtuous - that is, the bearer of the highest spiritual values.

Thus, in Derzhavin’s satirical lyrics, a figurative chronicle of his historical era is created, a gallery of portraits of his living contemporaries, whose personalities and deeds, as it was clear already during their lifetime, would become the property of Russian history. And this brings us to the next aspect of personality in Derzhavin’s work - the great history of his era embodied in people and deeds.

Anacreontic poetry

In the translation-imitative poetry of the late period of creativity, Derzhavin writes poems combined into the poetry collection of 1804 “Anacreontic Songs”. In this collection, Derzhavin included not only his free translations of Anacreon’s poems and classical ancient Anacreontic lyrics, but also his original texts, written in the spirit of light lyrics, glorifying the simple joys of earthly human life. The plasticism of the ancient worldview was deeply related to Derzhavin’s plastic worldview - this led to his interest in the genre of the Anacreontic ode.

The general aesthetic tendency of translations of Anacreontics is the obvious Russification of ancient texts. Translating Anacreon's poems, Derzhavin saturates his translations with numerous realities and historical signs of Russian life.

Therefore, it is not surprising that against the background of the “alien”, although very similar in type of worldview, “one’s own” is more prominently indicated - the feeling of belonging to a certain national type and an attempt to reproduce the national character by purely poetic means. This is how one of Derzhavin’s lyrical masterpieces arises, the poem “Russian Girls,” which in its very rhythm conveys the melody and rhythm of folk dance, and through an appeal to folk art expresses the idea of ​​national character.

At the crossroads of aspects of personal existence - empirical life and historical existence, social connections and national self-awareness of a person in Derzhavin’s lyrics, the genre of philosophical ode is born, corresponding to the highest level of personal existence - spiritual, intellectual and creative.

In Derzhavin's philosophical odes, man finds himself faced with eternity. In late philosophical lyric poetry, the concept of eternity can be concretized through the idea of ​​deity and the picture of the universe, the cosmos as a whole (ode “God”, 1780-1784), through the concepts of time and historical memory (ode “Waterfall”, 1791-1794), finally, through the idea creativity and the posthumous eternal life of the human spirit in creation (ode “Monument”, 1795. poem “Eugene. Life of Zvanskaya”, 1807). And every time in these antitheses of man and eternity, man turns out to be involved in immortality.

In the ode “God,” written under the obvious influence of Lomonosov’s spiritual odes, Derzhavin creates a picture of the infinity of the cosmos and the incomprehensibility of the deity, close to Lomonosov’s poetics, and this picture is closed in the minted canonical stanza of Lomonosov’s solemn ode.

Against the background of this grandiose cosmic picture, a person is not lost precisely because the material and spiritual, earthly and divine principles are fused in him - this is how the poetics of Derzhavin’s contrasting worldview receives its philosophical and theological justification.

From the awareness of the duality of human nature, Derzhavin’s conviction is born that the true destiny of man is the immortality of the spirit, which cannot be abolished by the finitude of the flesh. It is this idea that is internally organizing for the entire cycle of Derzhavin’s philosophical lyrics. The next stage of its development, more specific in comparison with the universal pathos of the ode “God,” can be observed in the large philosophical and allegorical ode “Waterfall.” As always, Derzhavin goes by the visual impression, and in the first stanzas of the ode, in magnificent verbal painting, the Kivach waterfall on the Suna River in the Olonets province is depicted.

However, this landscape sketch immediately takes on the meaning of a symbol of human life - open and visible in its earthly phase and lost in the darkness of eternity after the death of a person.

In the evolution of the genre of Derzhavin’s philosophical ode, there is a noticeable tendency towards concretizing its object: from a general philosophical problem (death in the ode “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky”) to universal human aspects of personal existence (ode “God”) to understanding, in line with these problems, the specific destinies of their historical contemporaries ( "Waterfall"). In Derzhavin’s works of the second half of the 1790s – early 1800s. there comes a moment when the object of philosophical lyrics - man in general, merges with its subject - the author of a philosophical ode, and it is transformed into an aesthetic manifesto: the poet’s reflection on his personality and creativity, on his place in his historical contemporaneity and on the posthumous life of the poetic spirit embodied in poetic texts (“My idol”, 1794; “Monument”, 1795; “Swan”, 1804; “Confession”, 1807; “Eugene. The Life of Zvanskaya”. 1807).

The time to sum up the results of poetic life is marked by a free translation of Horace’s ode “Exegimonumentum...”, which Derzhavin created in 1795 under the title “Monument”. This work is not a translation in the exact sense of the word, as Lomonosov's translation was. Rather, it is a free imitation, reminiscence, the use of a general poetic motif with filling it with the specific realities of one’s own poetic life, and along with verses that closely convey the thought of Horace (“So! - all of me will not die, but a large part of me, // Having escaped from decay , after death he will begin to live,” 175), Derzhavin introduces into his text a specific poetic self-esteem: as such, this motif is also Horatian, but its realities are Derzhavin’s poetic biography.

One of the poet’s later masterpieces is the message “Eugene. Life of Zvanskaya,” which arose as a result of Derzhavin’s acquaintance with Evgeniy Bolkhovitinov, the author of the “Dictionary of Russian Secular Writers,” who asked Derzhavin for information about his life and work. Derzhavin’s poem is a kind of poetic parallel to Derzhavin’s documentary biography, and in it, as if in focus, all the characteristic properties of Derzhavin’s lyrics came together - a mirror of the poetic personality and human life.

– almost exclusively lyrics. The tragedies he wrote in recent years are irrelevant. Prose is more important. His Discourse on lyric poetry is a wonderful example of uninformed but inspired criticism. The commentary he wrote on his own poems is full of charming, strange and many clarifying details. Memoirs They portray his difficult and stubborn character very convincingly. His prose, swift and nervous, is completely free from the pedantic flourishes of German-Latin rhetoric and, together with Suvorov’s, represents the most individual and courageous prose of the century.

Portrait of Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin. Artist V. Borovikovsky, 1811

Derzhavin is great in lyric poetry. Even just by the power of imagination, he is one of the few greatest Russian poets. The spirit of his poetry is classical, but it is the classicism of a barbarian. His philosophy is a cheerful and greedy Epicureanism, which does not deny God, but treats him with disinterested admiration. He accepts death and destruction with courageous gratitude for the joys of a fleeting life. He amusingly combines a highly moral sense of justice and duty with a firm and conscious decision to enjoy life to the fullest. He loved the sublime in all its forms: the metaphysical grandeur of a deistic God, the physical grandeur of a waterfall, the political grandeur of an empire, its builders and warriors. Gogol was right when he called Derzhavin “the poet of greatness.”

But although all these features are inherent in classicism, Derzhavin was a barbarian, not only in his love of material pleasures, but also in his use of language. “His genius,” said Pushkin, “thought in Tatar and, due to lack of time, did not know Russian grammar.” His style is constant violence against the Russian language, an incessant, strong, individualistic, courageous, but often cruel deformation of it. Like his great contemporary Suvorov, Derzhavin was not afraid of losses when it came to victory. His greatest odes (and Waterfall including) often consist of individual dizzying peaks of poetry, rising above a chaotic desert of clumsy commonplaces. Derzhavin's poetic sphere is very wide. He wrote laudatory and spiritual odes, Anacreontic and Horatian poems, dithyrambs and cantatas, and in later years even ballads. He was a bold innovator, but his innovations did not contradict the spirit of classicism. In his paraphrase of Horace Exegi Monumentum (Monument) he justifies his right to immortality by the fact that he created a new genre: the playful ode of praise. A daring mixture of the sublime with the real and the comic is a characteristic feature of Derzhavin’s most popular odes, and it was this novelty that struck the hearts of his contemporaries with such unknown force.

Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin

But besides his innovations, Derzhavin is the greatest Russian poet of the most orthodox-classical style, he is the most eloquent singer of the great and immemorially ancient commonplaces of poetry and universal human experience. The greatest of his moralistic odes: On the death of Prince Meshchersky– never Horatian philosophy carpe diem(take advantage of today) was not spoken with such biblical grandeur; a short and strong paraphrase of Psalm 81 - against bad kings, who after the French Revolution brought great displeasure on the poet (he could only answer the accusations with the words “ King David was not a Jacobin, and therefore my poems cannot be unpleasant to anyone"); And Nobleman, a powerful indictment of the most eminent favorites of the 18th century, where caustic sarcasm goes hand in hand with the strictest moral seriousness.

But what Derzhavin is inimitable in is his ability to convey impressions of light and color. He saw the world as a mountain of precious stones, metals and flames. His greatest achievements, in this sense, were the beginning waterfall, where he simultaneously reached the pinnacle of his rhythmic power; startling Peacock(so capriciously spoiled in the end by flat moral maxim) and stanzas On the return of Count Zubov from Persia(which, by the way, serve as a striking example of Derzhavin’s independence and spirit of contradiction: the poems were written in 1797, immediately after the accession to the throne of Paul I, whom Zubov especially hated, and were addressed to the brother of the late empress’s last favorite). It is in such poems and passages that Derzhavin’s genius reaches its heights. It is very difficult to convey this in another language, since it is precisely on the extraordinary character of the words, the syntax and, above all, the metrical division that the effect they produce is based. It is his brilliant visual flashes and rhetorical outbursts that make Derzhavin the poet of the “purple spots” par excellence.

Anacreontic poems of recent years (first collected in 1804) represent a very unique section of Derzhavin’s poetic creativity. In them he gives free rein to his barbaric epicureanism and passionate love of life. Of all the Russian poets, only Derzhavin, in his blooming old age, sounded this note of joyful, healthy and strong sensuality. The poems express not only sexual sensuality, but also a great love for life in all its forms. This is Zvanskaya life; gastronomic-moralistic Invitation to lunch and lines to Dmitriev about the gypsies (Derzhavin, the first of a long line of Russian writers - Pushkin, Grigoriev, Tolstoy, Leskov, Blok - paid tribute to the passion for gypsy music and dance). But among the later Anacreontic poems there are poems of extraordinary melody and tenderness, in which (as Derzhavin himself says in his comments) he avoided “the letter “r” in order to prove the mellifluity of the Russian language.”

Derzhavin’s poetry is a whole world of amazing riches; its only drawback is that the great poet was neither an example nor a teacher of mastery. He did nothing to raise the level of literary taste or to improve the literary language; as for his poetic ascents, it was absolutely clear that it was impossible to accompany him to these dizzying heights.

During the lesson you will get acquainted with the life and work of a representative of Russian literature of the 18th century. G. R. Derzhavin. A researcher of his work, V.L. Zapadov, notes that “Derzhavin is great as a brilliant poet-artist in general and as the first Russian realist poet. Derzhavin was the first of the Russian writers to recognize himself as a Russian, national poet, Russian not only in language, but, most importantly, in thinking, “philosophy,” as he himself said.” The proof of this statement will be the works of the poet, which will be heard in the lesson.

Subject: From 18th century literature

Lesson: G. R. Derzhavin. Poetry

Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) (Fig. 1). It was with him that Russian lyric poetry essentially began. For the first time in Russian poetry, high calm was replaced by clear, popular, understandable language. For the first time, the content of the poem became the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the lyrical hero.

Rice. 1. G.R. Derzhavin. Portrait. Hood. V. Borovikovsky ()

“The human mind and heart were my genius,” says the poet himself.

Derzhavin's work became a model for the subsequent Pushkin generation.

Analysis of the poem “Confession”

I didn't know how to pretend

Look like a saint

To inflate yourself with an important dignity

And the philosopher takes the form:

I loved sincerity

I thought only they would like me,

The human mind and heart

They were my genius.

If I shone with delight,

Fire flew from my strings.

I didn’t shine with myself, but with God;

Outside myself, I sang to God.

If the sounds were dedicated

My lyres to the kings, -

Seemed like virtues

To me they are equal to gods.

If the victories are loud

I wove crowns for the leaders, -

I thought about passing it on to descendants

Their souls and their children.

If where the powerful nobles

I dared to blurt out the truth out loud, -

I thought I had an impartial heart

They, the king, are a friend to the fatherland.

Even if I'm fussing

He himself was seduced by the world, -

I admit, beauty

Having been captured, his wives also sang.

In a word, I burned love with a flame,

I fell, I got up in my time.

Come on, sage! on my coffin there is a stone,

If you're not human.

The poet says about himself that he was sincere, did not know how to pretend, be hypocritical, or seem better than he really is. He loved sincerity, that is, the truth. He appreciated and respected people for their intelligence and kind heart. If he shone in his deeds, he did not boast of it, because everything he did, all his talent was given by God. If the poet praised the kings, it means that he sincerely believed them, and they really seemed to him Gods are equal. The poet admits that he sang praises to the military leaders for their great victories and wanted to see their descendants as such. He admits to his shortcomings, that he spent a lot of time in the world, in vanity, that he loved women very much and composed songs about them. The poet’s life had everything: ups and downs. Gabriel Romanovich ends the poem with lines that should be regarded as follows: the reader will not reproach the poet for anything, because the poet is sure that there is simply nothing to reproach him for.

Analysis of the poem “To the Bird”

And well, squeeze it with your hand.

The poor thing squeaks instead of whistling,

And they keep telling her: Sing, birdie, sing!

It depicts a conflict between freedom, which the bird represents, and unfreedom, the cage in which it was put. What does this quatrain make you think about? Of course, over the fact that freedom of choice helps to reveal creative abilities.

Analysis of the poem “River of Time”

The river of times in its rush

Takes away all people's affairs

And drowns in the abyss of oblivion

Nations, kingdoms and kings.

And if anything remains

Through the sounds of the lyre and trumpet,

Then it will be devoured by the mouth of eternity

And the common fate will not go away.

Time moves swiftly. It takes away people, their affairs, everything disappears from the face of the earth, from memory: peoples, kingdoms and kings. And who is given immortality, according to G. R. Derzhavin? Immortal is what passed through the sounds of the lyre - lyre, lyrics, poetry. Immortal, in his thoughts, is creativity and music, if they are in tune with the thoughts and soul of a person.

Rice. 2. Monument to Derzhavin. Kazan. ()

Analysis of the poem “Monument”

I erected a wonderful, eternal monument to myself,

It is harder than metals and higher than the pyramids;

Neither a whirlwind nor a fleeting thunder will break it,

And time's flight will not crush it.

So! - all of me will not die, but part of me is big,

Having escaped from decay, he will live after death,

And my glory will increase without fading,

How long will the universe honor the Slavic race?

Rumors will spread about me from the White Waters to the Black Waters,

Where the Volga, Don, Neva, the Urals flow from Riphean;

Everyone will remember this among countless nations,

How from obscurity I became known,

That I was the first to dare in a funny Russian syllable

To proclaim Felitsa’s virtues,

Talk about God in simplicity of heart

And speak the truth to kings with a smile.

O muse! be proud of your just merit,

And whoever despises you, despise them yourself;

With a relaxed, unhurried hand

Crown your brow with the dawn of immortality.

In this poem, Derzhavin raises the topic of the high purpose of the poet and poetry. Derzhavin's poems differ from Lomonosov's poems, although they belong the era of classicism. The point is that Derzhavin’s poems are lyrical. The poet boldly declares his thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The content of his poems is more understandable to us, which means it is accessible to the reader. It is difficult to attribute the texts to any style, because in one poem we can find features of both high and low calm. This is it innovation G.R. Derzhavina. The goal of his work was to achieve greater expressiveness and liveliness of verse, to bring the language closer to living speech.

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7. Kurdyumova T.F. Textbook-reader on literature. 7th grade. Part 1. - 2011.
8. Phonochrestomathy on literature for the 7th grade for Korovina’s textbook.

1. FEB: Dictionary of literary terms ().
2. Dictionaries. Literary terms and concepts ().
3. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language ().
4. V.L. Zapadov. The poetic path of Derzhavin ().
5. G.R. Derzhavin. Biography. Creation ().

Homework

1. Read Horace's ode "To Melpomene." Compare with Derzhavin’s free translation. Why do you think Derzhavin was interested in the poem by the ancient author?

I created a monument for myself stronger than copper;

He took over the royal pyramids,

The rain will not wash it away, it will not break like a whirlwind,

Solid, it will withstand countless years,

Will not sense the traces of fast time.

So; all of me will not die - most of me

Will avoid funeral: between descendants

I will grow in glory, forever being renewed,

They see the silent march to the Capitol

Virgin of the Vestals, following the High Priest.

Where Avfid spins the noisy waves,

In the villages, scarce with water, where Davnus reigned,

It will be heard that I am a kind of ignorant

Branch - the first to dare in the Roman dialect

Aeolian folded measures of poetry.

Let me be proud of this according to my dignity,

Muse! Hereby crown my head with laurel.

1. From Derzhavin’s poem “Monument”, write down archaisms and words that have changed in spelling or pronunciation. How do these words sound or are written in modern Russian? Look at Fig. 2. Describe the monument. Why do you think the sculptor depicted Derzhavin in antique clothes?

The poet Derzhavin Gabriel Romanovich was born on July 3 (July 14), 1743 in the Kazan province into a family of impoverished nobles. His childhood was spent on a family estate in the village of Sokury. Since 1759, Derzhavin studied at the Kazan gymnasium.

In 1762, the future poet entered service as an ordinary guardsman in the Preobrazhensky Regiment. In 1772 he was promoted to ensign, receiving his first officer rank. In 1773 - 1775, Derzhavin, as part of the regiment, participated in the suppression of the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev.

Civil service

Since 1777, Derzhavin entered the civil service in the Government Senate with the rank of state councilor. In 1784 - 1788 he held the post of ruler of the Olonetsky, and then the Tambov governorship. Even in a brief biography of Derzhavin, it is worth mentioning that he was actively involved in improving the economy of the region and contributed to the formation of provincial administrative, judicial and financial institutions.

In 1791, Derzhavin was appointed cabinet secretary of Catherine II. Since 1793, the poet has served as the empress's secret adviser. In 1795, Derzhavin received the post of president of the Commerce Collegium. From 1802 to 1803 he served as Minister of Justice.

Last years of life

In 1803, Derzhavin retired and settled on his Zvanka estate in the Novgorod province. The poet devotes the last years of his life to literary activity. In 1813, Derzhavin, whose biography was full of trips even during this period, went to Ukraine to visit V.V. Kapnist. In 1815, he attended an exam at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, listening to the works of the young Alexander Pushkin.

On July 8 (July 20), 1816, Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin died on his estate. The poet was buried in the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Varlaamo-Khutyn Monastery near Veliky Novgorod.

Creation

The work of Gabriel Derzhavin is considered the pinnacle of Russian classicism. The poet's first works appeared during his military service. In 1773, Derzhavin made his debut in the magazine “Antiquity and Novelty” with a translation of the passage “Iroizha, or Letters of Vivlida to Kavno” from the works of Ovid. In 1774, the works “Ode on Greatness” and “Ode on Nobility” saw the light of day.

In 1776, the poet’s first collection of poems, “Odes Translated and Composed at Mount Chitalagoe,” was published.

Since 1779, Derzhavin has been moving away from the traditions laid down by Sumarokov and Lomonosov, working on philosophical lyrics. In 1782, the ode “Felitsa” was published, dedicated to Empress Catherine II, which brought the poet wide literary fame. Soon other famous works of Derzhavin appeared - “The Nobleman”, “Eugene. Life of Zvanskaya”, “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky”, “God”, “Dobrynya”, “Waterfall”, “Herod and Mariamne”, etc.

In 1808, a collection of Derzhavin’s works was published in four volumes.