The story of Karamzin "Poor Liza", was published by the author in 1792, this story became an example of sentimentalism. Also, for the first time in the literature, the suicide of the heroine was introduced. The author borrowed the idea for the creation of Poor Lisa from the works of foreign literature, masterfully inscribing the setting of the picturesque place where he was resting in the country. Such an author's move gave credibility to the plot, and the heroes were perceived as real people. We offer an analysis of the work "Poor Liza" according to plan. Material for grade 8 students.
Brief analysis
Year of writing- 1792
History of creation- Karamzin's progressive views as a writer who decided to introduce the genre of sentimentalism into Russian literature helped him study European literature and find the plot of the story.
Theme- In "Poor Liza" the writer touched upon many topics, this is social inequality, the theme of the "little man", the theme of love, betrayal.
Composition- The events of the story last three months, ending in a tragic denouement.
Direction- Sentimentalism.
History of creation
Karamzin traveled around Europe in 1789-1790, written after the trip “The letters of the Russian traveler brought fame to the writer. After settling in Moscow, Karamzin began his professional writing career, and became the publisher of the "Moscow Journal".
The year of writing "Poor Lisa" was 1792, in the same year, the story was published in his magazine. The writer introduced the genre of sentimentalism into Russian literature, from which the story of the creation of Poor Lisa began.
In the plot of the story, Karamzin introduced the death of the main character, which fundamentally distinguished this story from traditional Russian works with a happy ending, and the story gained immense popularity among readers.
Theme
Analyzing the work in Poor Liza, we can single out several main themes that the author touches on. In describing the life of peasants, the writer idealizes peasant life and the life of peasants in close contact with nature. According to Karamzin, the main character of the story, who grew up in nature, in fact cannot be a negative character, she is pure and highly moral, possessing all the virtues of a girl who grew up on the sacred traditions of a peasant family.
The main thought the story is the love of an innocent peasant girl for a rich nobleman. Forgetting about the existing social inequalities, the young girl plunged headlong into the pool of her feelings, falling in love with a nobleman. But Liza was expected by the betrayal of a loved one, and the girl, having learned about Erast's treachery, threw herself into the lake in despair.
Multifaceted problematic the work also includes the opposition of life in the city and in the countryside. The images of the village and the city are comparable to those of the main characters. The city is a terrible force, a colossus capable of enslaving and destroying, and Erast does the same with Lisa. As the city grinds in its millstones everything that comes, throwing away used and waste material, so the nobleman uses an innocent girl as a toy, and after playing enough, throws it away. It's all the same "little man" theme: a small, uneducated person from the lower class, cannot wait in his love for further development, the generally accepted norms of representatives of different social strata are too strong. The conclusion suggests itself that such a relationship is doomed from the beginning: just as Erast could not feel comfortable in a peasant environment, so Liza would not be accepted in his society, this is an obvious fact.
the main problem Liza is that she succumbed to her feelings, not reason. Most likely, Lisa assumed that they could not have a joint future, she just closed her eyes to the realities of life, and gave vent to her feelings. When she lost Erast, she also lost the meaning of life.
Composition
The narrator tells about events that took place thirty years ago and lasted three months. The author begins the story with a description of a landscape near the Simonov Monastery. After that, the plot develops, in which the reader gets to know the main characters of the story. The plot of this simple story is rather ordinary: a poor young girl falls in love with a rich man. The feelings of young people are developing rapidly, but between them there is an insurmountable barrier - social inequality, and it is impossible for Erast and Lisa to be together. The young man, having experienced new sensations, leaves the girl without thinking about her moral experiences. No one is surprised that a young boy marries an elderly lady - such are the customs of the noble society, and such a step is common. Money and position play the main role in high society, sincere feelings are relegated to the background.
But this is not how a peasant girl behaves. She knows how to love for real. A striking feature of the composition of the work is that Karamzin ends the girl's life by suicide. A colorful description of a real place, the Simonov monastery, a pond - the description of these landscapes and the true characterization of the heroes create the impression of the authenticity and reality of the events taking place.
The special composition of the work of each reader leads to his own perception of the characters, each in his own way determines what this sentimental and tragic story teaches.
main characters
genre
Before Karamzin appeared in the literary field, multivolume novels were in use. The founder of novelistic works was the author of Poor Lisa, who created psychological story.
The criticism of this work was different, some of Karamzin's contemporaries, found implausibility in the characters of the heroes, but in general, the psychological work, in the center of which lies a moral conflict, was received benevolently, and aroused great public interest.
The sentimental direction of the story with a tragic denouement became a role model for many writers, and opened a new page in Russian literature.
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Analysis rating
Average rating: 4.6. Total ratings received: 1087.
> Compositions based on Poor Lisa
The characters of the main characters. The main idea of the story
The story "Poor Liza" was written by N. M. Karamzin at the end of the 18th century and became one of the first sentimental works in Russian literature. The plot of the work is quite simple and straightforward. In it, a weak-willed but kind-hearted nobleman falls in love with a poor peasant woman. Their love awaits a tragic ending. Erast, having lost, marries a rich widow, and Lisa, unable to bear her grief, rushes into the waters of a deep pond and dies.
However, the most important thing in this story is not the plot, but the feelings that it awakens in the reader. The narrator himself deserves special attention. With sadness and understanding, he conveys the story of a poor village girl. In Russian literature, the image of the empathic narrator has become a revelation. At every dramatic turn of events, you can hear how "his heart is bleeding" and "tears are rolling down his cheeks."
The attitude of the writer to the protagonist is also new. He does not blame Erast himself for the death of Lisa, but shows the social factors that served as the impetus. So, for example, Erast was influenced by the "big" city, which made him depraved. And Liza was rustic and simple and naive. The author shows that not a single Liza fell victim to circumstances, Erast is also deeply unhappy and carries a feeling of guilt throughout his life.
For the first time in the history of Russian literature, the writer touches upon the “living soul” in the representatives of the lower class. He notes that "And peasant women know how to love." This phrase has remained a catchword for a long time. We can say that Karamzin laid the foundation for the tradition of compassion for the common man. Thus, his story became extremely popular in society. She, first of all, appeals to the humanity of a person and the ability to sympathize.
The story "Poor Liza" appeared just at the turn of the century and a change in style. It reflects the transition from the civic theme, which was so popular during the Enlightenment, to the personal theme. It was the inner world of a person that became the main object of attention. Thus, the author introduced such a new trend as psychologism, which manifested itself in the ability to vividly convey the inner world of the heroes along with their feelings.
The story "Poor Liza", which became a model of sentimental prose, was published by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin in 1792 in the publication "Moscow Journal". It is worth noting Karamzin as an honored reformer of the Russian language and one of the most highly educated Russians of his time - this is an important aspect that makes it possible to further evaluate the success of the story. First, the development of Russian literature had a “catching up” character, since it lagged behind European literature by about 90-100 years. While in the West they wrote and read sentimental novels with might and main, clumsy classical odes and dramas were still being put together in Russia. Karamzin's progressiveness as a writer consisted in “bringing” sentimental genres to his homeland from Europe and developing a style and language for further writing such works.
Secondly, the assimilation of the literature of the late 18th century by the public was such that at first they wrote for society how to live, and then society began to live according to what was written. That is, before the sentimental story, people read mainly hagiographical or church literature, where there were no living characters or lively speech, and the heroes of the sentimental story - such as Liza - gave secular young ladies a real scenario of life, a guide to feelings.
The history of the creation of the story
Karamzin brought a story about poor Lisa from his numerous trips - from 1789 to 1790 he visited Germany, England, France, Switzerland (England is considered the birthplace of sentimentalism), and upon his return he published a new revolutionary story in his own magazine.
Poor Liza is not an original work, since Karamzin adapted its plot for Russian soil, taking it from European literature. We are not talking about a specific work and plagiarism - there were many such European stories. In addition, the author has created an atmosphere of amazing authenticity by painting himself as one of the heroes of the story and masterfully describing the setting of events.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, shortly after returning from a trip, the writer lived in a dacha not far from the Simonov Monastery, in a picturesque quiet place. The situation described by the author is real - the readers recognized both the surroundings of the monastery and the "lysine pond", and this contributed to the fact that the plot was perceived as reliable, and the heroes - as real people.
Analysis of the work
The plot of the story
The plot of the story is loving and, according to the author, utterly simple. The peasant girl Liza (her father was a well-to-do peasant, but after his death the farm was in decline and the girl had to earn money by selling handicrafts and flowers) lives in the bosom of nature with her old mother. In a city that seems huge and alien to her, she meets a young nobleman, Erast. Young people fall in love - Erast out of boredom, inspired by pleasures and the noble way of life, and Liza - for the first time, with all the simple, ardor and naturalness of a "natural man". Erast takes advantage of the girl's gullibility and takes possession of her, after which, of course, begins to be weighed down by the girl's company. The nobleman leaves for the war, where he loses all his fortune at cards. The way out is to marry a rich widow. Liza finds out about this and commits suicide by throwing herself into a pond near the Simonov Monastery. The author, who was told this story, cannot remember poor Lisa without holy tears of regret.
For the first time among Russian writers, Karamzin unleashed the conflict of the work with the death of the heroine - as, most likely, it would have been in reality.
Of course, despite the progressiveness of Karamzin's story, his characters differ significantly from real people, they are idealized and embellished. This is especially true of the peasants - Liza does not look like a peasant. Hard work would hardly have contributed to the fact that she remained "sensitive and kind", it is unlikely that she conducted internal dialogues with herself in an elegant style, and she could hardly keep up a conversation with a nobleman. Nevertheless, this is the first thesis of the story - "and the peasant women know how to love."
main characters
Lisa
The central heroine of the story, Liza, is the personified sensitivity, ardor and ardor. Her intelligence, kindness and tenderness, the author emphasizes, is by nature. Having met Erast, she begins to dream not that he, like a handsome prince, will take her to his world, but that he would be a simple peasant or a shepherd - this would equalize them and allow them to be together.
Erast differs from Lisa not only in social terms, but also in character. Perhaps, the author says, he was spoiled by the light - he leads a lifestyle typical for an officer and a nobleman - he seeks pleasures and, having found them, cools to life. Erast is both clever and kind, but weak, incapable of actions - such a hero also appears in Russian literature for the first time, a type of "disappointed aristocrat's life." At first, Erast is sincere in his love impulse - he does not lie when he tells Lisa about love, and it turns out that he is also a victim of circumstances. He does not withstand the test of love, does not resolve the situation "like a man", but experiences a sincere torment after what happened. After all, it was he, allegedly, who told the author the story of poor Lisa and brought him to Lisa's grave.
Erast predetermined the appearance in Russian literature of a number of heroes such as "superfluous people" - weak and incapable of making key decisions.
Karamzin uses “speaking names”. In the case of Lisa, the choice of the name turned out to be "double bottom". The fact is that classical literature provided for typing techniques, and the name Liza was supposed to mean a playful, flirtatious, frivolous character. Such a name could have been given to a laughing maid - a cunning comedy character, prone to love adventures, by no means innocent. Choosing such a name for his heroine, Karamzin destroyed the classical typing and created a new one. He built a new relationship between the name, character and actions of the hero and outlined the path to psychologism in literature.
The name Erast was also not chosen by chance. It means "adorable" from the Greek. His fatal charm, the need for novelty of impressions lured and ruined the unfortunate girl. But Erast will reproach himself for the rest of his life.
Constantly reminding the reader of his reaction to what is happening (“I remember with sadness ...”, “tears are rolling down my face, reader….”), The author organizes the story so that it acquires lyricism and sensitivity.
Quotes
"Mother! Mother! How can this happen? He is a master, but among the peasants ...". Lisa.
"Nature calls me into her arms, to her pure joys," he thought, and decided - at least for a while - to leave the big light. ".
"I can't live," Liza thought, "I can't! .. Oh, if the sky had fallen on me! If the earth had swallowed up the poor! .. No! The sky does not fall; the earth does not vibrate! Woe is me." Lisa.
"Now, maybe they have already reconciled!" author
Theme, conflict of the story
Karamzin's story touches on several topics:
- The theme of the idealization of the peasant environment, the ideality of life in nature. The main character is a child of nature, and therefore, by default, she cannot be evil, immoral, insensitive. The girl embodies simplicity and innocence due to the fact that she is from a peasant family, where eternal moral values are kept.
- The theme of love and betrayal. The author praises the beauty of sincere feelings and sadly talks about the doom of love, not backed up by reason.
- The theme of the opposition of the village and the city. The city turns out to be evil, a great unkind force capable of breaking a pure creature from nature (Lisa's mother intuitively feels this evil force and prays for her daughter every time she goes to the city to sell flowers or berries).
- The "little man" theme. Social inequality, the author is sure (and this is an obvious glimpse of realism) does not lead to happiness for lovers from different backgrounds. This kind of love is doomed.
The main conflict of the story is social, because it is because of the abyss between wealth and poverty that the love of the heroes perishes, and then the heroine. The author extols sensitivity as the highest value of a person, asserts the cult of feelings as opposed to the cult of reason.
XVIII century, which glorified many wonderful people, including the writer Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. Towards the end of this century, he publishes his most famous creation - the story "Poor Liza". It was it that brought him resounding fame and immense popularity among readers. The book is based on two characters: the poor girl Lisa and the nobleman Erast, who appear in the course of the plot in their attitude to love.
Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin made a huge contribution to the cultural development of the fatherland at the end of the 18th century. After numerous trips to Germany, England, France and Switzerland, the prose writer returns to Russia, and while vacationing at the dacha of the famous traveler Pyotr Ivanovich Beketov In the 1790s, he undertakes a new literary experiment. The local surroundings near the Simonov Monastery strongly influenced the concept of Poor Liza, which he nurtured during his travels. Nature for Karamzin was of great importance, he truly loved her and often changed the city bustle for forests and fields, where he read his favorite books and plunged into thought.
Genre and direction
Poor Liza is the first Russian psychological story that contains the moral disagreement between people of different classes. Liza's feelings are clear and understandable to the reader: for a simple bourgeois woman, happiness is love, so she blindly and naively loves. Erast's feelings, on the contrary, are more confused, because he himself cannot understand them in any way. At first, the young man simply wants to fall in love just like in the novels he has read, but it soon becomes clear that he is not able to live by love. City life, full of luxury and passion, had a huge impact on the hero, and he discovers a carnal attraction that completely destroys spiritual love.
Karamzin is an innovator, he can rightfully be called the founder of Russian sentimentalism. Readers perceived the work with admiration, since society has long been wanting something like this. The audience was exhausted by the moral teachings of the classicist direction, the basis of which is the worship of reason and duty. Sentimentalism, on the other hand, demonstrates the emotional experiences, feelings and emotions of the heroes.
About what?
According to the writer, this story is "a very uncomplicated tale." Indeed, the plot of the work is simple to the point of genius. It begins and ends with an outline of the area of the Simonov Monastery, which evokes in the memory of the narrator the thoughts of a tragic turn in the fate of poor Liza. This is the love story of a poor provincial woman and a wealthy young man from a privileged class. The acquaintance of the lovers began with the fact that Lisa was selling lilies of the valley collected in the forest, and Erast, wanting to strike up a conversation with a girl he liked, decided to buy flowers from her. He was captivated by the natural beauty and kindness of Lisa, and they began to meet. However, soon the young man was fed up with the charm of his passion and found a more profitable party. The heroine, unable to withstand the blow, drowned herself. Her lover regretted it all his life.
Their images are ambiguous, first of all, the world of a simple natural person, unspoiled by city bustle and greed, is revealed. Karamzin described everything in such detail and picturesquely that readers believed in this story and fell in love with his heroine.
The main characters and their characteristics
- The main character of the story, Lisa, is a poor country girl. At an early age, she lost her father and was forced to become the breadwinner for her family, agreeing to any job. The industrious provincial is very naive and sensitive, she sees only good features in people and lives by her emotions, following the call of her heart. She looks after her mother day and night. And even when the heroine decides on a fatal act, she still does not forget about the family and leaves her money. Lisa's main talent is the gift of love, because for the sake of her loved ones she is ready to do anything.
- Lisa's mother is a kind and wise old woman. She very hard experienced the death of her husband Ivan, since she loved him faithfully and lived happily with him for many years. The only joy was her daughter, whom she tried to marry off to a worthy and wealthy man. The character of the heroine is internally whole, but a little bookish and idealized.
- Erast is a wealthy nobleman. He leads a riotous lifestyle, thinking only of fun. He is smart, but very fickle, spoiled and weak-willed. Without thinking that Lisa is from a different class, he fell in love with her, but still he cannot overcome all the difficulties of this unequal love. Erast cannot be called a negative hero, because he admits his guilt. He read and was inspired by novels, was dreamy, looking at the world with pink glasses. Therefore, his real love did not stand such a test.
Subject
- The main theme in sentimental literature is the sincere feelings of a person in the face of the indifference of the real world. Karamzin was one of the first to decide to write about the spiritual happiness and suffering of the common people. He reflected in his work the transition from the civic theme, which was widespread during the Enlightenment, to a personal one, in which the main subject of interest is the spiritual world of the individual. Thus, the author, having described in depth the inner world of the characters together with their feelings and experiences, began to develop such a literary device as psychologism.
- Love theme. Love in Poor Lisa is a test that tests the characters for strength and loyalty to their word. Lisa completely surrendered to this feeling, her author elevates and idealizes for this ability. She is the embodiment of the female ideal, the one that completely dissolves in the adoration of her beloved and is faithful to him until her last breath. But Erast could not stand the test and turned out to be a cowardly and pitiful person, incapable of self-giving in the name of something more important than material wealth.
- Contrasting city and village. The author prefers the countryside, it is there that natural, sincere and kind people are formed, who do not know the temptation. But in big cities they acquire vices: envy, greed, selfishness. Erast's position in society was more precious than love, he was fed up with it, because he was not able to experience a strong and deep feeling. Liza, however, could not live after this betrayal: if love died, she follows her, because without her she cannot imagine her future.
Problem
Karamzin in the work "Poor Liza" touches upon various problems: social and moral. The problematic of the story is based on opposition. The main characters differ in both quality of life and character. Liza is a pure, honest and naive girl from the lower class, and Erast is a spoiled, weak-tempered, thinking only about his pleasures, a young man belonging to the nobility. Lisa, having fallen in love with him, cannot even a day without thinking about him, while Erast, on the contrary, began to move away as soon as he received what he wanted from her.
The result of such fleeting moments of happiness for Liza and Erast is the death of the girl, after which the young man cannot stop blaming himself for this tragedy and remains unhappy for the rest of his life. The author showed how class inequality led to an unhappy ending and was the reason for the tragedy, as well as what responsibility a person bears for those who trusted him.
the main idea
The plot is far from the most important thing in this story. Emotions and feelings that awaken during reading are worthy of more attention. The narrator himself plays a huge role, because he tells with sadness and sympathy about the life of a poor rural girl. For Russian literature, the image of an empathic narrator who knows how to empathize with the emotional state of the heroes turned out to be a discovery. Any dramatic moment makes his heart bleed, as well as sincerely shed tears. Thus, the main idea of the story "Poor Liza" is that one must not be afraid of one's feelings, love, experience, and compassion with full breasts. Only then will a person be able to conquer immorality, cruelty and selfishness in himself. The author begins with himself, because he, a nobleman, describes the sins of his own class, and gives sympathy to a simple village girl, urging people of his position to become more humane. Inhabitants of poor huts sometimes overshadow the masters of old estates with their virtue. This is the main idea of Karamzin.
The attitude of the author to the main character of the story also became an innovation in Russian literature. So Karamzin does not blame Erast when Liza dies, he demonstrates the social conditions that caused the tragic event. The big city influenced the young man, destroying his moral principles and making him depraved. Lisa, on the other hand, grew up in the countryside, her naivety and simplicity played a cruel joke on her. The writer also demonstrates that not only Lisa, but also Erast was subjected to the hardships of fate, becoming a victim of sad circumstances. The hero experiences a sense of guilt throughout his life, never becoming truly happy.
What does it teach?
The reader has the opportunity to learn something from the mistakes of others. The clash of love and selfishness is a hot topic, since anyone at least once in his life has experienced unrequited feelings, or survived the betrayal of a loved one. Analyzing Karamzin's story, we gain important life lessons, become more human and responsive to each other. The creations of the era of sentimentalism have a single property: they help people to mentally enrich themselves, and also bring up the best humane and moral qualities in us.
The story "Poor Lisa" has gained popularity among readers. This work teaches a person to be more responsive to other people, as well as the ability to compassion.
Interesting? Keep it on your wall!When a person wants to hear the most concise review of a work, he asks about its main ideological content. Since we have N.M. Karamzin on our agenda, the topic will sound like this: "Poor Liza": the main idea and its variations ", because everyone is also well aware that the main idea is usually not one in a work - the main authors there are usually several messages.
So, let's begin.
Plot
The events here will not be examined in detail, it is just worth reminding the reader that this is an extremely dramatic story about a poor naive girl named Lisa and a rich handsome but shameless young man named Erast.
First, he shows her that he loves, that he likes her purity and innocence, then, when Erast gets his way, he leaves the girl under various pretexts.
Lisa gets upset, finds a deep pond and takes her own life.
NM Karamzin wants to convince the reader that young Erast also suffered and lived a life without happiness, but for some reason it is hard to believe in this. If life teaches anything, it is that people who are shameless and selfish live much better than those who have at least some moral principles and beliefs. The work "Poor Liza", the main idea hidden in it, does not lead the reader to this kind of understanding, which is a pity.
"Love is evil ..."
And we know who uses it. But seriously, evil is only when “one loves, and the other allows himself to be loved” (La Rochefoucauld). Love in return is beautiful, but it is usually everyday and ends in a happy marriage and children. Who wants to read about this? Either it is tragic, as in the work "Poor Liza", the main idea of which is in our field of vision.
How fresh is the lending narrated by Karamzin?
Poor Lisa's story is eternal. There will always be silly and naive girls and voluptuous guys who want to seduce these girls. Now in certain circles it is fashionable to say about any classic that it is, they say, a warning - a "warning novel", "warning story", etc. If we can say that the work "Poor Liza" (his main idea) is warning, then it is empty, because girls one way or another will fall into the net of callous, soulless guys. Why? Because young women will always want “big and pure love,” and this desire will lead them through the labyrinth of suffering.
Is there an antidote to unhappy fate?
Of course, yes, and it is only one thing - training the mind, education. If Liza were cynical, smart, educated (besides, she is also beautiful, like an angel), would she need such an empty and meaningless person like Erast? The answer is negative. Of course, the reflection presented at this point is not the main idea of the work "Poor Liza", but when it is read such a conclusion suggests itself.
Liza was due to the fact that she was taught from an early age: "Your destiny is to live on your knees and not contradict the masters." Unfortunately, it could not have been taught otherwise in those days (18th century). So, let's dwell on the fact that the main idea of the story "Poor Liza" is "love of evil." In turn, we hope that Lisa's story will still serve as a warning to modern girls.