Presentation for a literature lesson on the topic “ballad as a literary genre.” Characteristic features of the ballad genre

Definition of genre.
Classification of ballads.
Tragic in ballads.
Types of tragic heroes.
The structure of a folk ballad and the system of artistic means.
Features of poetic language

Definition of genre. A ballad is a poetic genre. This is an epic (narrative) song, which is characterized by family themes and frequent tragic resolutions of conflicts.

Putilov B.N. notes: “The main content of ballads is a narrative about dramatic individual destinies, about family conflicts caused by social and everyday circumstances... When such narratives grow on the basis of political history, a historical ballad arises.

The idea is often expressed that the ballad is a lyric-epic genre. A.V. Kulagina identifies the epic features of a ballad: an objective and consistent depiction of events and characters; the presence of objective epic images; depiction of the characters in their actions, speeches and thoughts; the dominance of typification of phenomena of reality, rather than expression of attitude towards it. Thus, the Russian folk ballad belongs to the epic type of poetry.

^ Classification of ballads. The generally accepted classification of folk ballads is the classification according to the thematic principle (although classification according to the chronological principle is also known: ballads of the 18th - 16th centuries; 18th century and the end of the 18th - early 20th centuries).

Based on thematic principles, four groups of ballads can be distinguished: historical, love, family and social.

In historical ballads, a person or family members find themselves in a tragic situation in special historical conditions (enemy invasion, war). B.N. Putilov divides the plots of historical ballads into 2 cycles: about the Tatar or Turkish polon (“A girl escapes from the Tatars”) and about tragic meetings of relatives (“A husband-soldier visiting his wife”).

The plots of love ballads are built on the relationship between a young man and a girl, and only one ballad, “Vasily and Sophia,” tells about the mutual love of the heroes who were destroyed by Vasily’s mother. Family ballads are divided into groups depending on the relationship of family members: husband - wife, mother-in-law - daughter-in-law, brother - sister, parents - children. The largest and most popular group of ballads about tragic conflicts between husband and wife. Usually the wife dies at the hands of her husband (“The Slandered Wife”).

In social ballads, social conflict is usually intertwined with family conflict. They distinguish 4 cycles: 1) about tragic conflicts as a result of social inequality (“Prince Volkonsky and Vanya the Keymaster”), 2) anticlerical ballads (“The Prince and the Elders”), 3) ballads about grief and poverty; 4) ballads about robbery and its tragic consequences (“Sister and the Robbers”).

The specificity of ballads is manifested not only in their themes, but also in the various plots and motifs that make up them. Motifs can be defined as realistic (reproducing events that took place or could have taken place in reality) and fantastic (depicting supernatural events).

The central motive of a ballad is usually the motive of crime (murder, suicide).

^ Tragic in ballads. The theme of the ballads is the tragic fate of a person in a feudal society, suffering from enemy raids, social inequality, and family despotism. The tragic in historical ballads is manifested in revealing the plight of the people.

Social ballads reveal the tragic contradictions between those in power and the dispossessed.

The basis of the tragic in family ballads is, on the one hand, the despotism of parents, husband, brother, mother-in-law, and, on the other, the lack of rights and submission of children, wife, sister, daughter-in-law.

In a group of love ballads, the victim is usually a girl. The behavior of people in ballads is assessed from the standpoint of an ideal family. The tragic occurs when sharp contradictions are created between strict moral principles and people's behavior.

^ Types of tragic heroes. Destroyer. Victim. Suffering character. The tragic outcome contains the poetic essence of the ballad, and the people are aware of this.

In life, tragic conflicts are possible both between strangers and between relatives, but it is more shocking when the participants in the conflict are close people. The characters in ballads who face such conflict are usually family members.

The impact of the tragic in ballads is compassion for the heroes, fear for their fate leads to purification, to spiritual enlightenment.

Based on the nature of the plot development, there are three types of ballads:

^ Open course of action- in those ballads where its development begins with the central episode of atrocity (“Vasily and Sophia”). Predicted fatal outcome. Tragic recognition. Such plots are based on an unexpected meeting of relatives who recognize each other by signs or by asking questions.

^ The structure of a folk ballad and the system of artistic means. The structure of a folk ballad and the system of its artistic means are subordinated to the ideological purposefulness of the genre - the condemnation of evil, violence, untruth, slander, hatred, injustice. This condemnation can be expressed most clearly by contrast. The composition of the genre is determined by the antithetical plot and the antithetic grouping of images. Features of poetic language. In the system of poetic means of the ballad, the epithet plays the main role. Constant epithets often define the personal relationships of characters. Figurative epithets are more common than expressive ones. Both simple epithets (formed from words with the same root) and double, less often triple (thin, pale, red maiden) are identified.

Main literature

Russian folk poetry. Reader / Comp. Kruglov Yu.G. –M., 1993.- P.369-378
Russian folk poetry. Epic poetry./Comp. Putilov B.N. –L., 1984
Kravtsov N.I., Lazutin S.G. Russian oral folk art. – M., 1983.- P.189-199.
Zueva T.V., Kirdan B.P. Russian folklore. Textbook for higher educational institutions. – M., 2002. –P.267-277.

additional literature

Balashov D.M. History of the development of the Russian ballad genre. Petrozavodsk, 1986
Kulagina A.V. Russian folk ballad. – M., 1977
Propp V.Ya. Poetics of folklore. –M., 1998.- P.92-139

- 155.50 Kb

Department of Education of the Khabarovsk Administration

Municipal educational institution

Gymnasium No. 3 named after. M.F. Pankova

FEATURES OF THE BALLAD GENRE

IN THE WORK OF V. A. ZHUKOVSKY

Examination paper on literature

Completed:

Pesotsky Alexander,

student of 9th grade "B"

Scientific adviser:

Fadeeva T.V.

Khabarovsk

Introduction

Several times the name of Columbus as a symbol of the discoverer of new worlds is added by V.G. Belinsky to the name of V.A. Zhukovsky: “The appearance of Zhukovsky amazed Russia, and not without reason. He was the Columbus of our fatherland." 1 Indeed, in the pre-Pushkin period of the development of Russian literature, Zhukovsky took first place; He stood out for his strength of artistic talent, innovative endeavors, scale of creativity, and literary authority.

Zhukovsky can safely be called the founder of romanticism in Russian literature. A.S. Pushkin exclaimed enthusiastically in one of his letters: “What a delight his devilish heavenly soul is! He is a saint, although he was born a romantic, not a Greek, and a man, and what else!” Contemporaries noted the extraordinary soulfulness of Zhukovsky's poetry.

V.G. Belinsky, defining the essence and originality of Zhukovsky’s poetry and its significance for Russian literature of the early 19th century, noted: “Only the romanticism of the Middle Ages could spiritualize our literature... Zhukovsky was a translator into Russian of the romanticism of the Middle Ages, resurrected at the beginning of the 19th century by German and English poets, mainly by Schiller. This is the significance of Zhukovsky and his merit in Russian literature.” 2 It was Zhukovsky who introduced the Russian reader to one of the most beloved genres of Western European romantics - the ballad. The ballad becomes the poet’s favorite genre, in which his romantic aspirations are most expressed.

The creativity of V.A. A significant amount of literary research has been devoted to Zhukovsky, although most of these are introductory articles to collections of the poet’s works.

During the work on the abstract, the works of R.V. were studied. Jesuitova “Zhukovsky and his time”, V.N. Kasatkina “Poetry of V.A. Zhukovsky", A.S. Yanushkevich “In the world of Zhukovsky”, I.M. Semenko “The Life and Poetry of Zhukovsky” and others. The works of I.M. aroused the greatest interest. Semenko. 3 The researcher claims that Zhukovsky can rightly be called a translation genius. After all, the poet wrote 39 ballads, including 34 translated ones. He translated not only ballads, but also many other works, among which the most famous is Homer’s Odyssey. An attentive researcher of Zhukovsky’s art of translation, V. Cheshikhin, noted in his best translations “the literalness in conveying the author’s thoughts, the exact reproduction of the poetic form of the original and self-restraint in the sense of boundless respect for the original...” 4 Zhukovsky always chose for translation only works that were internally consonant with him.

Significant assistance in writing the abstract was provided by the work of V.N. Kasatkina, in which the literary scholar analyzes Zhukovsky’s ballads, reveals their main themes and reveals the artistic originality of Zhukovsky’s poetry.

Good and evil, in sharp contrast, appear in all Zhukovsky’s ballads. The poet was also deeply interested in the problems of fate, personal responsibility and retribution. The atmosphere in Zhukovsky’s ballads is purely romantic. It has nothing to do with convention. It creates the impression of romantic inspiration, the participation of the poet and the reader in the mysterious and sublime life of the world.

In the school literature course, ballads by V.A. Zhukovsky is studied very little, although the themes of his ballads are relevant and interesting because the criterion of humanity is decisive for all of Zhukovsky’s works. In them, the poet seems to equate the “eternal” with the “modern.”

The purpose of this essay is to reveal the features of the ballad genre in the works of V. A. Zhukovsky.

In accordance with the stated goal, the following tasks were solved in the abstract:

identify the characteristic features of the ballad as a genre of literature;
consider the significance of Zhukovsky’s work as a translator of famous Western European ballads;
reveal the main themes of Zhukovsky’s ballads;
analyze the cycle of love ballads;
show the artistic originality of Zhukovsky’s ballads.

1. Ballad as a literary genre

The ballad is a lyric-epic genre that depicts historical, fantastic and love-dramatic plots.

Folk ballads were created by nameless storytellers, transmitted orally and were greatly modified in the process of oral transmission, thus becoming the fruit of collective rather than individual creativity. The sources of the plots of the ballads were Christian legends, chivalric romances, ancient myths or works of Greek and Roman authors in medieval retelling, the so-called “eternal” or “wandering” plots, as well as genuine historical events, stylized on the basis of ready-made song schemes. The first editions of folk ballads appeared in the 18th century. and were associated with the revival of interest among writers, philologists and poets in the national past and the folk sources of literary creativity.

The genre of literary ballad, having been revived several decades before the beginning of the 19th century, reached its heyday and highest popularity in the era of romanticism, when for some time it took almost the leading place in poetry. The popularity and timeliness of this genre in the romantic era is explained primarily by its versatility and ability to serve a variety of (and sometimes multidirectional) social and literary purposes. A popular ballad (knightly, heroic, historical) could satisfy the interest awakened among wide circles of readers in the national past, in the Middle Ages, and in antiquity in general. The mythological or miraculous element natural to the ballad was fully consistent with the romantics’ desire for everything unusual, mysterious, mysterious, and often mystical or otherworldly. The inherent tendency of the ballad to synthesize epic, lyrical and dramatic elements combined well with the attempts of the romantics to create “universal poetry”, “to mix artificial poetry and natural poetry”, to update it, to convey human experiences, the dramatic intensity of feelings. The ballad provided great opportunities for searching for new expressive means of poetic language.

Basically, romantic ballads are built around one, often tragic, event. The exposition in some ballads is information on behalf of the author, introducing the reader to the course of events, but most often ballads have an abrupt beginning that does not give the reader any explanation. Very often, ambiguity and incomprehensibility accompany a ballad from beginning to the very end. Although the author’s general reflection sometimes acts as a conclusion in some ballads, for the most part the authors do not impose ready-made conclusions on the reader, leaving him alone, giving him the opportunity to draw his own conclusions.

At the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries in Russian literature, the ballad genre was not perceived as an independent lyric-epic genre. Classicism was still in force and imposed certain obligations on poets in their work. However, the need to develop and acquire something new was already felt at the beginning of the 19th century; this led to the emergence of creative quests of Russian poets. Relations between genres at the turn of the century became more fluid, the interaction of different genres gave birth to something new in the genre system. Ballads appear in the works of many poets, but these experiments are not yet perfect, their genre structure is not clear. Against their background, Zhukovsky’s ballad appears, which brought popularity to the poet and established the relevance of the ballad as a genre.

It was the ballad that helped Zhukovsky, according to Belinsky, bring into Russian literature the “revelation of the secrets of romanticism” 5: the romance of the fantastic and terrible, the interest in folk art characteristic of romantics.

2. Features of the ballad genre in the works of V. A. Zhukovsky

2.1. Zhukovsky - translator of famous Western European ballads

Almost all thirty-nine ballads of Zhukovsky are translations. V. A. Zhukovsky translated Schiller’s ballads: “Cassandra”, “The Cranes of Ivik”, “The Triumph of the Winners”, Goethe: “The Forest King” “The Fisherman”, Southey: “Warwick”, “Adelstan”, “Donika”, Walter Scott: “Castle Smalholm, or Midsummer’s Evening”, “Repentance”, Burger’s “Lenora”, etc. Among them there are many free translations, where the poet recreates the meaning and plot, and does not aim to follow the text literally. Accurate translations reproduce the original text, but even here there are discrepancies, since adequate literary translation from one language to another is impossible.

Zhukovsky was rightly called a translation genius. He always chose for translation only works that were internally consonant with him, highlighting and emphasizing in them the motives that were closest to the translator, but not secondary, but related to the very essence of the work being translated. Translated ballads give Zhukovsky the impression of being original, because the poet, with the power of his imagination, recreates the inner essence of the depicted phenomena, deeply experiencing with the author of the original.

Let us quote the poet’s own statements about the essence of poetic translation: “The translator in prose is a slave, the translator in poetry is a rival”; “This is generally the nature of my creative work: almost everything I do is either someone else’s, or about someone else’s - and everything, however, is mine.” 6

The basis of Zhukovsky’s translation style is a deep synthesis of thematic, figurative, and linguistic means. This is how the poet reaches the heights of translation skill. In his best ballads, while preserving the most important features of the original, Zhukovsky strengthens them, slightly pushing into the shadow the accompanying moments that are not primary for the ideological essence. Thus, in Schiller's ballads the desire for unattainable beauty is emphasized. In accordance with the general structure of his poetry, Zhukovsky conveys the plot in ballads somewhat generally, precisely because he prefers to recreate the essence rather than the detail. However, this does not mean at all that Zhukovsky did not convey details: in such a case it would be impossible to talk about the accuracy of the translation at all.

Among Zhukovsky's ballads one can distinguish a group of genuine masterpieces of accurate poetic translation. These are, first of all, Schiller’s translations: “Cassandra”, “The Cranes of Ivik”, “Knight Togenburg”, “Count of Hapsburg”, “The Triumph of the Winners”, “The Cup”, “The Ring of Polycrates”, “The Eleusinian Feast”. Also remarkable are the ballad, which describes how one old woman rode together on a black horse, and who sat in front, “The Queen of Urak and the Five Martyrs” (from R. Southey), “Smalholm Castle, or Midsummer” (from Walter Scott), “The Forest King” and “The Fisherman” (from Goethe). It is significant that the group of the most accurate translations includes the most significant works in the foreign original.

All thirty-nine ballads, despite thematic differences, represent a monolithic whole, an artistic cycle, held together not only by genre, but also by semantic unity. Zhukovsky was attracted to samples that particularly acutely addressed issues of human behavior and the choice between good and evil.

2.2. Crime and punishment are the main theme of V. A. Zhukovsky’s ballads

The main theme of V.A.’s ballads Zhukovsky - crime and punishment. The ballad poet denounced various manifestations of egocentrism. The constant hero of his ballads is a strong personality who has cast aside moral restrictions and fulfills his personal will aimed at achieving a purely selfish goal. Warwick (from the ballad of the same name) seized the throne, killing his nephew, the rightful heir to the throne, because Warwick wants to reign, such is his will. The greedy Bishop Gatton (“God’s judgment on the bishop”) does not share bread with the starving people, believing that he, the owner of the bread, has the right to do so. Knight Adelstan (ballad “Adelstan”), like a new Faust, contacted the devil, bought from him personal beauty, knightly valor and the love of a beauty at a terrible price. Robbers kill the unarmed poet Ivik in the forest, asserting the right of the physically strong over the weak and defenseless (ballad “Ivik Cranes”). The poet also pointed out immorality in family relationships: while the baron husband is participating in battles, his wife is cheating on him with someone who is also called a knight. But the baron kills his opponent not in a fair fight, not like a knight, but from around the corner, secretly, cowardly, protecting himself from danger. Everyone thinks only about themselves and their own good. Selfish will, selfish self-consciousness turn out to be so short-sighted, morally poor, blind to retribution!

According to Zhukovsky, crime is caused by individualistic passions - ambition, self-interest, greed, jealousy, selfish self-affirmation. The man failed to control himself, succumbed to passions, and his moral consciousness turned out to be weakened. Under the influence of passions, a person forgets his moral duty. But the main thing in ballads is not the crime itself, but its consequences - the punishment of a person. How is punishment carried out? In Zhukovsky’s ballads, as a rule, it is not people who punish the criminal. In “Ivikov Cranes,” which talks about the reprisal of citizens against robbers, people’s behavior is still a secondary act, because they carry out the will of the Furies, avenging goddesses. The exception is “Three Songs”, here the son takes revenge on the mighty Oswald for the murder of his father. Punishment often comes from a person’s conscience - it cannot withstand the pressure of crime and torments. No one punished the murderous baron and his unfaithful wife (“Smalholm Castle, or Midsummer’s Evening”), they voluntarily entered the monastery, but monastic life did not bring them moral relief and consolation: she is “sad and does not look at the light,” he gloomy, "and shuns people and is silent." By committing crimes, they deprived themselves of the happiness and joys of life, and excluded themselves from a harmoniously bright existence. Warwick and Adelstan have an uneasy conscience. P. Florensky said: “Sin is a moment of discord, disintegration and collapse of spiritual life” 7. He also revealed the moral and psychological mechanism of sin: “Desiring only itself, in its “here” and “now,” evil self-affirmation inhospitably closes itself off from everything that is not it; but, striving for self-divinity, it does not even remain similar to itself and crumbles and decomposes and fragments in the internal struggle. Evil in its very essence is a kingdom divided into “selves.” Similar thoughts about the alienation of the individual from the moral existence created by God, self-focus of the individual, awareness of self-worth, the desire to satisfy one’s own “I” ultimately leads to neglect of all “not-I”, to a detrimental effect on it. And since the existence of one person, his happiness depends on another person and other people, they find themselves drawn into the vicious circle of self-affirmation of a strong personality who tramples them. But trampling them Having destroyed the obstacles standing in the way of satisfying the will of his “I”, the sinner in the ballad world of the poet kills both his soul and his life. He sows death not only around himself, but also in himself. Sin “eats itself” (P. Florensky). Zhukovsky was aware of the idea of the self-destructive nature of evil.

The plot motive of many ballads is the expectation of retribution. The crime is committed, but immediately the criminal begins to feel like he is on the eve of retribution. The freshness of the valleys and forests, the transparency of the rivers dim in his eyes: “Warwick alone was alien to the beauties of nature,” “but beauty is not noticeable to sinful eyes,” and he is now alien to the usual feasting fun, alienated from his beloved and native places, from his own home - “ there is no shelter in the world." From the one who violated the humane principle of life, peace of mind and spiritual harmony depart. He rushes about in search of his place in life, a prosperous existence, and does not find them. The poet's psychological drawing is aimed at analyzing the experiences of fear. Warwick is afraid of retribution, and fear increasingly takes hold of his heart; the sinful old woman is terrified of the expectation of retribution; fear increasingly seizes the criminal Bishop Gatton (“he is stupefied; he can barely breathe with fear”), forcing him to panic and seek shelter. An awakened conscience suggested the need to be afraid: “Tremble! (the voice of conscience tells him).” The criminal is constantly “in awe,” “in confusion,” “with fear,” “trembling.” Fear is the result of being “forsaken by God.” Conscience does not allow the sinner to renounce what he has done, to forget it. He hears the groan of the murdered man, his voice, his pleas, he sees his shining eyes, his pale face - “a terrible monster, conscience wanders everywhere after him.” The plot of the ballads “Warwick”, “Adelstan”, “Donika”, “God’s judgment on the bishop” is all built on the secret expectation of retribution, the horror of it increasingly grips the criminal, changes the whole world in his eyes and transforms him. He has been turned into a renegade, into a living dead.

Description of work

“Zhukovsky was the first poet in Rus' whose poetry came out of life,” believed V.G. Belinsky. Zhukovsky made a great contribution to Russian literature. Nowadays we cannot imagine not only Russian, but also world literature without V. A. Zhukovsky, just as we cannot imagine it without A. S. Pushkin. Zhukovsky can safely be called the founder of romanticism in Russian literature. A.S. Pushkin exclaimed enthusiastically in one of his letters: “What a delight his devilish heavenly soul is! He is a saint, although he was born a romantic, not a Greek, and a man, and what else!” Contemporaries noted the extraordinary soulfulness of Zhukovsky's poetry.

In this article we will talk about such a literary genre as the ballad. What is a ballad? This is a literary work, written in the form of poetry or prose, which always has a clearly defined plot. Most often, ballads have a historical connotation and in them you can learn about certain historical or mythical characters. Sometimes ballads are written to be sung in theatrical productions. People fell in love with this genre, first of all, because of the interesting plot, which always has a certain intrigue.

When creating a ballad, the author is guided either by a historical event that inspires him or by folklore. This genre rarely features specially invented characters. People like to recognize characters they previously liked.

The ballad as a literary genre has the following features:

The presence of a composition: introduction, main part, climax, denouement.
Having a storyline.
The author's attitude towards the characters is conveyed.
The emotions and feelings of the characters are shown.
A harmonious combination of real and fantastic plot points.
Description of landscapes.
The presence of secrets, riddles in the plot.
Availability of character dialogues.
A harmonious combination of lyricism and epic.

Thus, we figured out the specifics of this literary genre and gave a definition of what a ballad is.

From the history of the term

For the first time, the term “ballad” was used in ancient Provençal manuscripts back in the 13th century. In these manuscripts, the word "ballad" was used to describe dance movements. In those days, this word did not mean any genre in literature or other forms of art.

As a poetic literary form, the ballad began to be understood in medieval France only at the end of the 13th century. One of the first poets who tried to write in this genre was a Frenchman named Jeannot de Lecurel. But, for those times, the ballad genre was not purely poetic. Such poems were written for musical productions. The musicians danced to the ballad, thereby amusing the audience.

In the 14th century, a poet named Guillaume fe Machaut wrote more than two hundred ballads, as a result of which he quickly became famous. He wrote love lyrics, completely depriving the genre of “danceability.” After his work, the ballad became a purely literary genre.

With the advent of the printing press, the first ballads printed in newspapers began to appear in France. People really liked them. The French loved to gather with the whole family at the end of a hard day of work to enjoy the interesting plot of the ballad together.

In classical ballads from the time of Machaut, in one stanza of text, the number of verses did not exceed ten. A century later, the trend changed, and ballads began to be written in square stanza.

One of the most famous balladeers of that time was Christina of Pisa, who, like Machaut, wrote ballads for print, and not for dancing. She became famous for her work “The Book of a Hundred Ballads”.

After some time, this genre found its place in the works of other European poets and writers. As for Russian literature, the ballad appeared in it only in the 19th century. This happened due to the fact that Russian poets were inspired by German romanticism, and since the Germans of that time described their lyrical experiences in ballads, this genre quickly spread here too. Among the most famous Russian poets who wrote ballads are Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Belinsky and others.

Among the world's most famous writers, whose ballads have undoubtedly gone down in history, one can name Goethe, Kamenev, Victor Hugo, Burger, Walter Scott and other outstanding writers.

In the modern world, in addition to the classical literary genre, the ballad has also found its primary musical roots. In the West there is a whole musical movement in rock music called “rock ballad”. The songs of this genre are sung mainly about love.

“Ballad” is a word that came into the Russian lexicon from the Italian language. It is translated as “dance”, from the word “ballare”. Thus, a ballad is a dance song. Such works were written in poetic form, and there were many couplets. It is worth noting that they were performed only to some kind of musical accompaniment. But over time they stopped dancing to ballads. Then they completely transformed. Ballad poems began to have an epic and very serious meaning.

Foundation of the genre

In literature? Firstly, this is one of the most important poetic genres of romanticism and sentimentalism. The world that poets painted in their ballads is mysterious and mysterious. It features extraordinary heroes with definite and clearly defined characters.

It is impossible not to mention such a person as Robert Burns, who became the founder of this genre. At the center of these works there was always a person, but the poets who worked in the 19th century, who chose this genre, knew that human forces cannot always provide the opportunity to answer every question and become the rightful master of their own destiny. That is why a ballad is often a narrative poem that talks about rock. Similar works include “The Forest King”. It was written by the poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

Centuries-old traditions

It is worth noting that the ballad is a genre that has undergone changes and continues to endure them. In the Middle Ages, these works became songs with everyday themes. They talked about the raids of robbers, the courageous exploits of knights, historical warriors, as well as any other events that affected people's lives. It should be noted that conflict has always been at the heart of any ballad. It could have unfolded between anyone - children and parents, a young man and a girl, due to the invasion of enemies or But the fact remains - there was a conflict. And there was one more moment. Then the emotional impact of the data was based on the fact that the dramatic conflict between death and life helped to begin to appreciate the meaning of essence and being.

Disappearance of a literary genre

How does the ballad develop further? This is an interesting story, because in the 17th and 18th centuries it ceases to exist as a character. During this period, plays of a mythological nature or those that told about the heroes of ancient history were staged on theater stages. And all this was very far from the life of the people. And a little earlier it was said that the center of the ballad is the people.

But in the next century, in the 19th century, the ballad again appeared in literary as well as musical art. Now it has turned into a poetic genre, receiving a completely different sound in the works of such authors as Lermontov, Pushkin, Heine, Goethe and Mickiewicz. It appeared in Russian literature at the very beginning of the 19th century, when in Europe it returned to its existence again. In Russia at that time, the traditions of pseudo-classicism were quickly falling due to romantic German poetry. The first Russian ballad was a work called “Gromval” (author - G.P. Kamenev). But the main representative of this literary genre is V.A. Zhukovsky. He was even given the appropriate nickname - “balladeer”.

Ballad in England and Germany

It should be noted that the German and English ballads were extremely gloomy. Previously, people assumed that these poems were brought by Norman conquerors. English nature inspired a mood that was reflected in the depiction of terrible storms and bloody battles. And bards sang in ballads about Odin’s feasts and battles.

It is worth mentioning that in Germany such a word as ballad is used as a term denoting poems that are written in the character of Scottish and English old songs. The action in them, as a rule, develops very episodicly. In this country, the ballad was especially popular at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the next, when romanticism flourished and works of such great authors as Goethe, Heine, Burger, and Uhland appeared.

Ballad as a literary genre

The characteristics of the ballad genre are very different from those inherent in works written in another form. So, there must be a plot with a plot, climax and denouement. Much attention is paid to the feelings of the characters and the emotions of the author himself. The works combine the fantastic with the real. There is an unusual presence. The entire ballad is necessarily filled with mystery and intrigue - this is one of the key features. Sometimes the plot was replaced by dialogue. And, of course, the works of this genre combined the epic and lyrical principles. In addition, the authors who wrote ballads knew how to compose the work as succinctly as possible, which did not in the least affect the meaning.

If you like stories about mysterious events, about the destinies of fearless heroes, the protected world of spirits, if you are able to appreciate noble knightly feelings, female devotion, then, of course, you will love literary ballads.

In literature classes this school year we were introduced to several ballads. I was amazed by this genre.

These poems, which combine elements of lyric, epic and drama, are a kind of “universal” poetry, according to the famous 19th century poet Wordsworth.

The poet “choosing events and situations from the very everyday life of people, tries to describe them, if possible, in the language in which these people actually speak; but at the same time, with the help of imagination, give it color, thanks to which ordinary things appear in an unusual light. "

The topic “Features of the literary ballad genre” seemed interesting to me, I continue to work on it for the second year.

The topic is undoubtedly relevant, as it allows you to demonstrate independence and develop the abilities of a critic.

2. Literary ballad: the emergence of the genre and its features.

The term “ballad” itself comes from a Provençal word meaning “mysterious song”; ballads arose during the harsh times of the Middle Ages. They were created by folk storytellers, transmitted orally, and in the process of oral transmission were greatly modified, becoming the fruit of collective creativity. The plot of the ballads were Christian legends, chivalric romances, ancient myths, works of ancient authors in medieval retelling, the so-called “eternal” or “wandering” plots.

The plot of the ballad is often structured as a revelation, the recognition of a certain secret that keeps the listener in suspense, makes him worry, worry about the hero. Sometimes the plot breaks down and is essentially replaced by dialogue. It is the plot that becomes the feature that distinguishes the ballad from other lyrical genres and begins its rapprochement with the epic. It is in this sense that it is customary to talk about the ballad as a lyrical genre of poetry.

In ballads there is no boundary between the world of people and nature. A person can turn into a bird, a tree, a flower. Nature enters into dialogue with the characters. This reflects the ancient idea of the unity of man with nature, the ability of people to turn into animals and plants and vice versa.

The literary ballad owes its birth to the German poet Gottfried August Burger. The literary ballad was very similar to the folk ballad, since the first literary ballads were created as an imitation of folk ballads. Thus, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the folk ballad was replaced by a literary ballad, that is, an author's ballad.

The first literary ballads arose on the basis of stylization, and therefore very often they are difficult to distinguish from genuine folk ballads. Let's turn to table No. 1.

A literary ballad is a lyric-epic genre, which is based on a plot narrative with dialogue included in it. Like the folk ballad, its literary sister often opens with a landscape opening and closes with a landscape ending. But the main thing in a literary ballad is the author’s voice, his emotional lyrical assessment of the events described.

And now we can note the features of the difference between a literary ballad and a folk ballad. Already in the first literary ballads, the author’s lyrical position is manifested more clearly than in folk works.

The reason for this is clear - folklore is oriented towards a national ideal, and a literary ballad contains the author’s personal attitude towards the national ideal itself.

At first, the creators of literary ballads tried not to go beyond the themes and motifs of folk sources, but then they more and more often began to turn to their favorite genre, filling the traditional form with new content. Fairy-tale ballads, satirical, philosophical, fantastic, historical, heroic ballads began to appear, along with family, “scary”, etc. A broader theme distinguished the literary ballad from the folk ballad.

There were also changes in the form of the literary ballad. This primarily concerned the use of dialogue. A literary ballad much more often resorts to hidden dialogue, when one of the interlocutors is either silent or takes part in the conversation in short remarks.

3. Literary ballads of V. A. Zhukovsky and M. Yu. Lermontov.

The Russian reader discovered the wide poetic possibilities of the Russian ballad thanks to the literary activity of V. A. Zhukovsky, who worked at the beginning of the 19th century. It was the ballad that became the main genre in his poetry, and it was it that brought him literary fame.

Zhukovsky's ballads were usually based on Western European sources. But the ballads of V. A. Zhukovsky are also a major phenomenon of Russian national poetry. The fact is that, translating English and German literary ballads, he used artistic techniques and images of Russian folklore and Russian poetry. Sometimes the poet went very far from the original source, creating an independent literary work.

For example, an excellent translation of the literary ballad of the great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe “The King of the Elves”, written on the basis of German folklore, conveys the internal tension of a fantastic ballad and the lyrical attitude of the author (J.V. Goethe) to the events described. At the same time, Zhukovsky in his ballad “The Forest Tsar” describes a forest that is surprisingly similar to Russian, and if you don’t know that this is a translation, you can easily mistake this work for being created in the Russian tradition. “The Forest King” is a ballad about fate, in which the eternal dispute between life and death, hope and despair, hidden by an ominous plot, takes place. The author uses various artistic techniques.

Let's turn to table No. 2.

1. In the center is not an event, not an episode, but a human personality acting against one or another background - this is a colorful landscape of the forest kingdom and the oppressive reality of reality.

2. Division into two worlds: earthly and fantastic.

3. The author uses the image of the narrator to convey the atmosphere of what is happening, the tonality of what is being depicted: a lyrically terrible tonality at the beginning with an increasing feeling of anxiety and a hopelessly tragic one at the end.

4. Images of the real world and an alien from the “other” world.

5. The characteristic rhythm of the ballad is the stomping of a horse, associated with a chase.

6. Use of epithets.

There are many bright colors and expressive details in Zhukovsky’s ballads. The words of A. S. Pushkin about Zhukovsky are applicable to them: “No one has had or will have a syllable equal in its power and diversity to his syllable.”

“God's Judgment on the Bishop” is a translation of the work of the English romantic poet Robert Southey, a contemporary of V. A. Zhukovsky. “God's Judgment on the Bishop” - written in March 1831. Published for the first time in the publication “Ballads and Tales” in 1831. in two parts. A translation of the ballad of the same name by R. Southey, based on medieval legends about the stingy Bishop Gatton of Metz. As legend has it, during the famine of 914, Gatton insidiously invited the starving people to a “feast” and burned them in the barn; For this he was eaten by mice.

This time the Russian poet very closely follows the original “terrible” ballad, describing the cruelty of a foreign bishop and his punishment.

1. You will not find such a beginning in a folk ballad: not only a certain lyrical mood is created here, but through the description of a natural disaster, a picture of the people's grief is briefly and vividly created.

2. There is no dialogue in R. Southey's ballad. The poet introduces only lines into the narrative, but the characters do not address each other. The people are surprised by Gatton's generosity, but the bishop does not hear people's exclamations. Gatton talks to himself about his atrocities, but only God can know his thoughts.

3. This ballad of retribution and redemption. In it, the Middle Ages appear as a world of opposition between earthly and heavenly forces.

The tragic tone remains unchanged in this ballad; only the images and the narrator’s assessment of their situation change.

4. The ballad is built on an antithesis:

“There was a famine, the people were dying.

But the bishop, by the grace of heaven,

Huge barns are full of bread"

The general misfortune does not touch the bishop, but in the end the bishop “calls on God in a wild frenzy,” “the criminal howls.”

5. In order to evoke sympathy from the reader, the author uses unity of command.

“Both summer and autumn were rainy;

Pastures and fields were drowned"

Zhukovsky always chose works for translation that were internally consonant with him. Good and evil appear in sharp opposition in all ballads. Their source is always the human heart and the otherworldly mysterious forces that control it.

"Smalgolm Castle, or Midsummer's Eve" - translation of Walter Scott's ballad "St. John's Eve." The castle was located in the south of Scotland. Belongs to one of Walter Scott's relatives. The poem was written in July 1822. This ballad has a long history of censorship. Zhukovsky was accused of “blasphemously combining the love theme with the theme of Midsummer’s Eve. Midsummer's Eve is the eve of the national holiday of Kupala, reinterpreted by the church as a celebration of the birth of John the Baptist. Censorship demanded a radical reworking of the ending. Zhukovsky filed a complaint with the censorship committee, the chief prosecutor of the synod and the Ministry of Public Education, Prince A. N. Golitsyn. They managed to publish the ballad by changing “Midsummer’s Day” to “Duncan’s Day.”

Of the ballads I have read, I would like to especially highlight the ballads of M. Yu. Lermontov.

The ballad “The Glove” is a translation of a knightly ballad by the German writer Friedrich Schiller. Lermontov, the translator, relies on Zhukovsky’s experience, so he strives to convey not so much the form of the work as his emotional attitude towards the treacherous woman who, for the sake of fun, subjects her knight to a mortal test.

1. The landscape opening depicts a crowd in a circus, gathered in anticipation of a spectacle, dangerous fun - a fight between a tiger and a lion.

2. There is a dialogue in the ballad: there is Cunegonde’s appeal to the knight, and there is also his response to the lady. But the dialogue is broken: between two replicas the most important event occurs.

3. A tragic tone gives way to general joy.

4. An important element of the composition is its brevity: it is like a spring compressed between the beginning and the end.

5. In the field of artistic speech, the generosity of metaphors is noted: “The choir of beautiful ladies shone,” “but the slave grumbles and gets angry in vain before his master,” “cruel annoyance blazing in the fire”

The heroic ballad, glorifying feat and intransigence towards enemies, was widespread in Russia.

One of the best patriotic poems created by Russian poets is M. Yu. Lermontov’s ballad “Borodino”.

1. 1. The entire ballad is built on an extensive dialogue. Here the element of the landscape opening (“Moscow, burned by fire”) is included in the question of the young soldier with whom the ballad begins. Then follows the answer - the story of a participant in the Battle of Borodino, in which replicas of the participants in the battle are heard. It is these remarks, as well as the speech of the narrator himself, that allow the poet to convey a truly popular attitude towards the Motherland and its enemies.

2. This ballad is characterized by polyphony - many voices sound. For the first time in Russian poetry, true images of Russian soldiers, heroes of the famous battle appeared. The soldier begins the story of the day of the Battle of Borodino with a call, which is addressed by the commander-colonel, his eyes sparkling. This is the speech of an officer, a nobleman. He easily calls old, honored soldiers “guys,” but is ready to go into battle together and die like their “brother.”

3. The ballad depicts combat beautifully. Lermontov did everything so that the reader could see the battle with his own eyes.

The poet gave a great picture of the Borodino battle using sound writing:

“The damask steel sounded, the buckshot screeched”

“I prevented the cannonballs from flying

Mountain of bloody bodies"

Belinsky extremely highly appreciated the language and style of this poem. He wrote: “In every word one hears the language of a soldier who, without ceasing to be rudely simple-minded, is strong and full of poetry!”

In the 20th century, the ballad genre was in demand by many poets. Their childhood and youth passed through a difficult time of great historical upheaval: revolution, civil war, and the Great Patriotic War brought with them blood, death, suffering, and devastation. Overcoming hardships, people remade their lives anew, dreaming of a happy, fair future. This time, swift as the wind, was difficult and cruel, but it promised to make the wildest dreams come true. You will not find fantastic, family or “scary” ballads from the poets of this time; in their time, heroic, philosophical, historical, satirical, and social ballads were in demand.

Even if the work tells about an event from ancient times, it is experienced as today’s in D. Kedrin’s ballad “Architects”.

K. Simonov’s ballad “The Old Song of a Soldier” (“How a Soldier Served”) is tragic.

“The Ballad of Poaching” by E. Yevtushenko is preceded by a newspaper excerpt, which gives the work a journalistic feel. Its text includes a monologue of salmon appealing to human reason.

Noble solemnity and severity distinguish V. Vysotsky’s “Ballad of Struggle”; the lines come to mind:

If, cutting the path with my father's sword,

You wrapped salty tears around your mustache,

If in a hot battle you experienced what it cost, -

This means you read the right books as a child!

The ballad "Architects" by D. Kedrin is a source of pride for Russian poetry in the first half of the 20th century, written in 1938.

“The Architects” showed Kedrin’s understanding of Russian history, admiration for the talent of the Russian people, and faith in the all-conquering power of beauty and art.

At the center of the poem is the story of the creation of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Red Square in Moscow, known as St. Basil's Cathedral.

The temple was built in 1555 - 1561 in honor of the victory over the Kazan Khanate. The skillful architects Postnik and Barma conceived and implemented an unprecedented thing: they united eight churches into one whole - according to the number of victories won near Kazan. They are grouped around the central ninth tent camp.

There is a legend about the blinding of the builders of St. Basil's Cathedral. The crime was allegedly committed at the behest of Tsar Ivan IV, who did not want a cathedral like this to appear anywhere. There is no documentary evidence of the legend. But the important thing is that the legend arose, that it was passed down from generation to generation, the very fact of its existence indicating that in the popular consciousness such cruelty of the autocrat was possible. Kedrin gave the topic a general meaning.

1. This poem talks about an important historical event. There is a plot, and we see here a typical technique of a ballad - “repetition with increasing intensity.” The king twice addresses the architects: “And the benefactor asked.” This technique enhances the speed of action and thickens the tension.

2. Dialogue is used, which drives the plot in ballads. The characters' characters are depicted in bold relief.

3. The composition is based on an antithesis. The poem is clearly divided into 2 parts, which are opposed to each other.

4. The story is told as if from the perspective of a chronicler. And the chronicle style requires dispassion and objectivity in depicting events.

5. There are very few epithets at the beginning of the text. Kedrin is stingy with paints; he is more concerned about the tragic nature of the fate of the masters. Speaking about the talent of Russian people, the poet emphasizes their moral health and independence with epithets:

And two people came to him

Unknown Vladimir architects,

Two Russian builders

When the “chronicler” comes to describe the “terrible royal mercy,” his voice suddenly trembles:

Falcon eyes

Stab them with an iron awl

So that the white light

They couldn't see.

They were branded with a brand,

They were flogged with batogs, sick ones,

And they threw them

To the frozen bosom of the earth.

The form of folk crying is emphasized here by folklore “permanent” epithets.

The poem contains several comparisons emphasizing the beauty and purity of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

and, marveling, as if at a fairy tale,

I looked at that beauty.

That church was

Like a bride!

It’s like I was dreaming!

There is only one metaphor here (they are inappropriate in the chronicle):

And at the feet of the building

The shopping area was buzzing

6. The rhythm is suggested by the phrase “the chronicler’s tale says”: the measured, impressive voice of history itself. But the rhythm in the poem changes: the stanzas associated with the presence of the sovereign sound solemn and majestic. When we talk about the unfortunate blinded architects, emotional tension dictates a sharp change in intonation and rhythm: instead of solemnity, there is the sound of one piercingly sharp note in the whole line:

And in the gluttonous row,

Where the tavern barrage sang,

Where it smelled of fusel,

Where it was steamy dark,

Where the clerks shouted:

“The sovereign's word and deed!”

Master for Christ's sake

They asked for bread and wine.

The tension of the rhythm is also created by anaphora (where, where, where), increasing tension.

7. Archaisms and historicisms are included in the work organically; they are always understandable in context.

Tat - thief, kruzhalo - tavern, torovato - generously, pravezh - punishment, lepota - beauty, zelo - very, velmi - very, smerd - peasant, zane - because

Kedrin ends with the expression “popular opinion”:

And the forbidden song

About the terrible royal mercy

Sang in secret places

Across wide Rus', guslars.

August 29, 1926 "Komsomolskaya Pravda" published "Grenada" - and Svetlov overnight became the most popular Soviet poet. V. Mayakovsky, having read "Grenada", learned it by heart and recited it at his creative evenings. For some reason, everyone thinks that this ballad is about the Spanish Civil War. In fact, the war began a few years after the poem appeared. The lyrical hero simply dreams of starting a world fire.

The poem “Grenada” “grew” from one word. What fascinated the poet with this word? Why did it become the song of a Ukrainian lad, a soldier - a cavalryman who died in the civil war? Of course, Mikhail Svetlov first of all liked the sound of the word Grenada. He has so much energy, and there is no aggression or rudeness at all; in its sound there is simultaneously strength, tenderness, clarity of reality, fragility of dreams, swiftness of impulse, and calmness of the end of the path. In the mouth of a young fighter, this beautiful name becomes a sound symbol of his dream of a new life for everyone.

1. The landscape opening depicts the wide expanse of the Ukrainian steppes. The ballad tells about the fate and heroic death of a young fighter.

3. M. Svetlov sharpens the rhythm of the ballad, breaking the quatrains into eight lines. In this rhythm one can clearly hear the rhythm of the movement of the equestrian detachment:

He sang, looking around

Native lands:

"Grenada, Grenada,

Grenada is mine!

The word Grenada itself reproduces the meter of a ballad: it has three syllables and the stress falls on the second syllable.

4. The tragic tonality is replaced by the ringing melody of the resurrection of a dream.

Over the corpse

The moon has bowed

Only the sky is quiet

Slipped down after a while

On the velvet of sunset

A teardrop of rain

Personification and metaphor indicate that no matter how great the event, its meaning cannot ease the pain of loss.

Vysotsky wrote 6 ballads - “The Ballad of Time” (“The castle is torn down by time”), “The Ballad of Hatred”, “The Ballad of Free Shooters”, “The Ballad of Love” (“When the Water of the Flood”), “The Ballad of Two Dead swans”, “Ballad of Struggle” (“Among the melting candles and evening prayers”) for Sergei Tarasov’s film “Robin Hood’s Arrows”.

“I wanted to write several songs for the youth who will watch this picture. And I wrote ballads about struggle, about love, about hatred - in total six rather serious ballads, not at all similar to what I did before,” the author writes.

Finally, he expressed himself in direct speech - as they say, without posture or mask. Only “Song of Free Shooters” is conventional, role-playing, or something. And the rest - without game dichotomy, without hints and subtexts. There is some kind of anti-irony here: brave directness, like a blow of a sword, destroys ironic grins, cuts off the head of any cynicism

But ballads were banned and Tarasov later used Vysotsky’s recordings in the film “The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe.”

1. The beginning of “The Ballad of Time” is interesting: not only a certain lyrical mood is created here, but through the description of an ancient castle, “hidden by time and wrapped in a delicate blanket of green shoots,” a picture of the past with campaigns, battles and victories is created.

2. In V. Vysotsky’s ballad the dialogue is hidden. The form of dramatic monologue is used. The poet introduces only his own remarks into the narrative - addresses to descendants, but the characters do not address each other; tournaments, sieges, and battles take place before us as if on a screen.

3. This ballad is of eternal values. In it, the Middle Ages appear as a world built on an antithesis:

Enemies fell into the mud, screaming for mercy

But not all, remaining alive,

They kept their hearts in kindness,

Protecting your good name

From the deliberate lies of a scoundrel

4. The solemn tonality remains unchanged in this ballad. The author uses unity of command:

And the price is the price, and the wines are the wines,

And it's always good if honor is saved

“These six ballads set out the poet’s life position. It's deeper than meets the eye. This is like his insight, his testament,” wrote one of V. Vysotsky’s friends.