Spanish Literature of the Renaissance. Renaissance literature in selected countries Renaissance painting in Spain associated with names
LECTURE 10
Renaissance in Spain. Historical situation in the XVI century. Spanish humanism, its features. "Celestina": high and low in man. A picaresque novel: human resilience. Knightly romance: the predominance of an idealizing, heroic principle.
The literary and historical destinies of Spain during the Renaissance were very peculiar.
At the end of the XV century. everything seemed to foreshadow the country's brightest future. The reconquest, which had dragged on for centuries, ended successfully. In 1492, Granada fell - the last stronghold of Moorish rule in the Iberian Peninsula. This victory was largely facilitated by the unification of Castile and Aragon in the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand of the Catholics (70s of the 15th century). Spain finally turned into a single national kingdom. The townspeople felt confident. Relying on their support, Queen Isabella subdued the opposition of the Castilian feudal lords. The mighty uprising of the Catalan peasants in 1462-1472. led to that. that first in Catalonia (1486), and soon afterwards in the territory of the whole of Aragon, serfdom was abolished by decree of the king. It didn't exist in Castile for a long time. The government patronized trade and industry. The expeditions of Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were to serve the economic interests of Spain.
At the beginning of the XVI century. Spain was already one of the most powerful and vast states in Europe. Under her rule, in addition to Germany, were the Netherlands, part of Italy and other European lands. The Spanish conquistadors seized a number of rich possessions in America. Spain becomes a huge colonial power.
But Spanish power had a very shaky foundation. Leading an aggressive foreign policy, Charles V (1500-1558, reigned 1516-1556) was a strong supporter of absolutism in domestic policy. When in 1520 the Castilian cities revolted, the king, with the help of the aristocracy and the German landsknechts, severely suppressed it. At the same time, real political centralization was not carried out in the country. Traditional medieval customs and laws still made themselves felt everywhere.
Comparing Spanish absolutism with absolutism in other European countries, K. Marx wrote: "... in other large states of Europe, the absolute monarchy acts as a civilizing center, as a unifying beginning of society ... On the contrary, in Spain the aristocracy declined, retaining their worst privileges, and the cities lost their medieval power, not acquiring the significance inherent in modern cities" [Marx K.. Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 10. S. 431-432.] .
Spain seemed a formidable and indestructible colossus, but it was a colossus with feet of clay. The subsequent development of events proved this with full evidence.
Pursuing its policy in the interests of the feudal magnates, Spanish absolutism was not able to create conditions that would favor the successful economic development of the country. True, the metropolis pumped out fabulous wealth from the colonies. But these riches became the property of only a few representatives of the ruling classes, who were not at all interested in the development of trade and industry. The flowering of Spanish cities turned out to be relatively short-lived. The situation of the peasantry was unbearably difficult. In the reign of Philip II (1556-1598), the situation of Spain became downright catastrophic. Under him, Spain became the main stronghold of European feudal and Catholic reaction. However, the wars waged by the king in the interests of the nobility were an unbearable burden on the shoulders of the country. And they were not always successful. Philip II failed to defeat the Dutch rebels against the Spanish oppression. Spain suffered a severe defeat in the war against England. In 1588, the "Invincible Armada" barely escaped the total destruction. The reactionary Spanish monarchy still managed to win occasional victories, but it was not able to eradicate everything new that was rising to life in various parts of Europe. The falling away of the Northern Netherlands in 1581 testified to this with particular clarity. The domestic policy of Spanish absolutism was as reactionary as it was fruitless. By their actions, the government only worsened the already difficult economic situation of the country. And what could give the country, for example, the cruel persecution of Moriscos (baptized Moors), mostly skilled artisans and merchants? Poverty spread across the country like an incurable disease. Particularly ugly and ominous against the backdrop of popular poverty looked the wealth of the church and a handful of arrogant grandees. The financial situation of the country was so hopeless that Philip II had to declare state bankruptcy twice. Under his successors, Spain fell lower and lower, until, at last, it turned into one of the backwater states of Europe.
The Catholic Church played a huge and gloomy role in the life of Spain. Its power was prepared for a number of centuries. The liberation of Spain from Moorish rule was carried out under religious slogans, this raised the authority of the church in the eyes of wide circles, and strengthened its influence. Without neglecting earthly blessings, she became more and more rich and strong. Naturally, the church became a staunch ally of Spanish absolutism. At his service, she put the "holy" Inquisition, which appeared in Spain in 1477 to monitor the Moriscos. The Inquisition was omnipresent and merciless, seeking to stop and eradicate any manifestation of freethinking. In the XVI century. there was no other country in Europe where the fires of the Inquisition burned so often. Such was the disappointing result of the Spanish great-power order.
The first shoots of the Spanish Renaissance appeared in the 15th century. (sonnets of the Petrarchist poet Marquis de Santillana and others). But it had to develop in very specific conditions - in a country where at every step one could meet remnants of the Middle Ages, where cities did not acquire modern significance, and the nobility, falling into decay, did not lose their privileges, and where, finally, the church still had terrible power over the minds of people.
Under these conditions, Spanish humanism was deprived of that sharp anti-clerical tendency that is so characteristic of Italian, French or German humanism. Spanish poetry and dramaturgy of the 16th century. religious themes were widely developed. Many works of the then Spanish literature were painted in mystical tones. A religious impulse embraced the works of the greatest Spanish painters of the 16th century. - Luis Morales and El Greco.
All this, however, did not mean at all that the Spanish culture of the Renaissance was the obedient servant of theology. And in Spain, scientists and thinkers met who dared to oppose scholasticism, defend the rights of the human mind and stand up for a deep study of nature. They were predominantly naturalists and doctors, by the nature of their activities close to man and his earthly needs. The doctor was the famous physiologist and philosopher Miguel Servet, who successfully studied the issues of blood circulation. In 1553, at the insistence of Calvin, he was burned at the stake in Geneva. Juan Huarte, an outstanding philosopher who gravitated towards materialistic views, was also a doctor. His "Study of the aptitudes for the sciences" (1575) became widely known. At the end of the XVIII century. Lessing, the great educator of Germany, translated it into German. But the Inquisition found the treatise of the Spanish humanist heretical. In 1583 he was included in the list of banned books. By the first half of the XVI century. includes the activities of the humanist philosopher Juan Luis Vives, a friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam.
But, of course, Catholic Spain was a country ill-suited for the flourishing of humanistic philosophy. On the other hand, Spanish literature, not so constrained by church dogma, reached a truly remarkable flowering during the Renaissance.
The transformation of Spain from a small medieval state, absorbed in the struggle against the Moors, into a world power with very complex international interests, inevitably expanded the life horizons of Spanish writers. New topics appeared, connected, in particular, with the life of the distant India (America). Great attention was paid to man, his feelings and passions, his moral possibilities. The heroic impulse and chivalrous nobility were highly valued, i.e. virtues inherited from the time of the reconquista. On the other hand, the world of bourgeois money-grubbing, based on selfishness and selfishness, did not arouse much sympathy. In this regard, it should be noted that in the Spanish literature of the Renaissance, the bourgeois element proper is expressed much less than in the literature of a number of other European countries with more intensive bourgeois development. Bourgeois individualism did not take deep roots in Spanish soil. Humanistic ideals were sometimes clothed here in traditional forms. There was something from the Middle Ages in the moralizing tendency inherent in many works of the then Spanish literature. Meanwhile, hiding behind this trend was not so much a medieval preacher as a humanist who believed in the moral powers of man and wished to see him as humanly beautiful.
The dark sides of Spanish life, generated by the ugly development of the country, did not escape the writers: the tragic social contradictions that torn apart Spain, mass poverty and the increase in crime, vagrancy, etc. caused by it. And although the authors used to write about rogue vagabonds and all those whom circumstances knocked out of a calm life rut with a sneer, but in this sneer there was a caustic bitterness, and many outwardly comic situations had, in fact, a tragic background.
But after all, there was something tragic in the fate of Spanish humanism itself, on which the crimson reflections of the fires of the Inquisition fell all the time. Spain did not and could not have its own Boccaccio, not only because the Inquisition raged there, but also because his stormy sensationalism was internally alien to the Spanish humanists, who gravitated towards more strict moral concepts. Catholic rigorism often crowded out humanistic love of life and even took precedence over it. This largely determined the internal drama that is inherent in the Spanish culture of the 16th century. But the greatness of the Spanish literature of the Renaissance is that it not only did not recoil from humanism, but also acquired the deepest human content. Spanish writers displayed remarkable spiritual energy. One need only remember Cervantes to understand this.
We have the right to consider the Comedy or Tragicomedy about Calisto and Melibea (the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries), better known as the Celestina, as the first outstanding literary monument of the Spanish Renaissance. In the editions of 1499, it contained 16 acts, in the editions of 1502, 5 more were added to them, as well as a prologue. It is clear that "Celestina" is not designed for theatrical performance - it is a drama for reading, or a dramatic story. There is reason to believe that the author of this anonymous book is Fernando de Poxac, of whom we know only that he was a legal scholar and at one time served as mayor of Talavera. The Inquisition treated him with distrust, since Poxac was a Jew, although a convert to Christianity.
"Celestina" was created at a time when Spain was entering the Renaissance. A few years before the first edition of tragicomedy, secular Spanish theater was born. New trends captured the fine arts. There was a growing interest in ancient culture and in the culture of Italian humanism. And in "Celestine" humanistic trends are very clearly felt. It echoes the comedies of Plautus and Terence, which were very popular during the Renaissance. The speech of characters, even simple servants, is interspersed with ancient names, replete with references to ancient philosophers and poets and quotations from works. The learned author of the Celestine also readily refers to the treatises of Petrarch. There can be no doubt that the Italian Renaissance novels, with their sharp characterization, sharp plot twists and extensive development of the love theme, had a certain impact on the Celestine. For all that, the Celestine cannot be called an epigone work. She grew up on Spanish soil and, despite foreign names, is closely connected with the Spanish life of the early Renaissance.
This is a talented book about earthly joys and sorrows about love passion that takes possession of the whole human being and challenges medieval customs and ideas. The heroes of the story are a young poor nobleman Calisto and the beautiful Melibea, a girl from a rich and noble family. It was enough for Calisto to meet Melibea and hear her voice, as he lost his peace of mind. Melibea became for him the embodiment of all earthly perfections, turned into a deity worthy of enthusiastic worship. At the risk of being accused of heresy, Calisto declares to his servant: "I consider her a deity, as I believe in a deity and do not recognize another ruler in the sky, although she lives among us." Thanks to the intervention of the old experienced matchmaker Celestina Calisto managed to defeat the chastity of Melibea. Soon, however, joy turned into grief. Tragic events began with the death of Celestine and two of Calisto's servants. Selfishness ruined them. In gratitude for her services, Calisto presented Celestina with a golden chain. The servants of Calisto, who helped Celestina, demanded their share from her. The greedy old woman did not want to satisfy the demands. Then they killed Celestina, for which they were executed in the town square. This tragic story could not but cast a shadow on the fate of young lovers. Soon events took on an even darker tone. Breaking off the high wall that surrounded the garden of Melibea, Calisto died. Upon learning of the death of her lover, Melibea throws herself from a high tower. Parents bitterly mourn the death of their daughter.
It is impossible not to notice that the Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea contains a certain didactic tendency. Addressing readers in a poetic introduction, the author urges them not to imitate "young criminals", he calls his story a "mirror of destructive passions", stands up for good-naturedness and warily talks about Cupid's arrows. In the mournful monologue of Pleberio, mourning the untimely death of his daughter (act 21), ascetic motifs are already directly heard, forcing one to recall the melancholy maxims of medieval hermits. But the author does not stop there. He, as it were, hints at the fact that an unclean force played a fatal role in the connection of Calisto and Melibea. To this end, he forces Celestina, who turns out to be not only a pimp, but also a sorceress, to conjure the spirits of the underworld.
It is difficult to say what in all this corresponds to the views of the author himself, and what may be a forced concession to traditional morality and official piety. The internal logic of the story does not give grounds for reducing the love of Calisto and Melibea to the machinations of evil spirits. Melibea's death monologue speaks of a great and vivid human feeling. Turning to God, Melibea calls her love all-powerful. She asks her father to bury her along with the deceased caballero, to honor them with "a single funeral rite." In death she hopes to regain what she has lost in life. No, this is not a devilish obsession! It is a love as powerful as the love of Romeo and Juliet!
And the tragic events that fill the story are entirely due to quite earthly, real reasons. The fall of Calisto was, of course, an unfortunate accident. But the love of Calisto and Melibea was still bound to lead to disaster. Inert feudal morality shattered the happiness of young people. And they were quite worthy of this happiness, for they had the truth of human feelings on their side.
There is also nothing supernatural in the death of Celestina and her accomplices. But here we move on to the second, "low", social plane of tragicomedy. Servants and prostitutes are associated with Celestina, i.e. powerless poor. The author does not cover up their shortcomings. But at the same time, he understands well that they have their own truth, their fair claims to the world of masters. For example, the prostitute Areusa, who is proud of the fact that she "has never been called anyone," speaks of the bitter fate of maidservants. After all, how many insults and humiliations have to be endured by maids who depend on arrogant housewives: “You spend the best time on them, and they pay you for ten years of service with a trashy skirt, which they will throw away anyway. The servant Sempronio utters an eloquent tirade about true nobility, borrowed from the arsenal of European humanism: "Some say that nobility is a reward for the deeds of ancestors and the antiquity of the family, but I say that you cannot shine from someone else's light if you don't have your own. Therefore, do not judge yourself by the splendor of your glorious father, but only by your own."
There are many expressive figures in tragicomedy. However, the most expressive, most colorful figure, no doubt, is Celestine. The author endows her with intelligence, craftiness, cunning, insight. She has her own attachments. But the main feature of her character is predatory egoism. Standing outside the "decent" society, Celestina is completely free from any norms of estate morality. This circumstance led her to cynical immorality and at the same time allowed her to look without prejudice on such natural human passions as, for example, love. Of course, Calisto Celestina helped out for the money. But she did not at all consider the very love of young people to be a sin and she did not consider her craft sinful, since, in her opinion, it did not at all contradict the natural requirements of nature. On this score, she even had her own philosophy, which noticeably smacked of heresy. According to Celestina, daily "men suffer because of women, and women because of men, so nature says; nature was created by God, and God can do nothing wrong. And therefore my efforts are very commendable, since they flow from such a source." But, of course, Celestina was not engaged in pandering and other dark deeds out of altruism. Without profit, she did not want to take a step. Convinced that in modern society only money makes life bearable, she attached no importance to the fact that the money got to her dishonestly. Celestina proudly tells about her past successes, about the time when many eminent clients fawned over her, young and dexterous.
And in her declining years, she does not stop chasing profit, scatter seeds of vice everywhere. The emerging bourgeois world, with its practice of "heartless cleansing" generously endowed it with its shortcomings. Celestina grows in the story into a collective image, into a formidable symbol of the destructive power of self-interested feelings. Thus, at the dawn of the Spanish Renaissance, a work appeared that alarmed the growth of bourgeois egoism, equally hostile to both the dilapidated world and the world of humanistic illusions.
Celestina herself is devoid of any illusions whatsoever. She has a very sober view of things, due to all life experience. Constantly confronted with the other side of life, she is not seduced by her elegant ostentatious side. She believes that there is not and cannot be an idyllic relationship where there are masters and forced servants, rich and poor. Knowing well the bitter price of poverty, trying to snatch everything that is possible for herself, Celestina at the same time does not idealize wealth. Not only because, in her view, wealth is associated with tedious care and it has already “brought death to many”, but also because it is not people who own wealth, as they naively believe, but “wealth owns them”, making them their slaves. For Celestina, however, the highest good is independence, not constrained by either walking morality or worries about hoarding.
Nor does Celestine overestimate the piety of the Catholic clergy. She is well aware of the habits of the Spanish clergy, for not only "nobles, old and young", but also "clergymen of all ranks from bishop to sexton" were her clients. The story in a rather frank form depicts the debauchery that reigns in church circles. In the conditions of feudal-Catholic Spain, such glimpses of humanistic free-thinking did not occur often, and even then only at the early stage of the Spanish Renaissance.
"Celestina" is also notable for the fact that this is the first major literary work of the realistic trend in Renaissance Spain. True, its artistic composition is heterogeneous. While the morals of the social lower classes are depicted without any embellishment, the episodes depicting the love of Calisto and Melibea are more conventional and literary. Often a lover turns into a skillful rhetorician, scattering the flowers of eloquence, even though this does not really fit with the given psychological situation. So, Melibea, in a long monologue before his death, lists cases known in history when parents had to suffer hard. Calisto's tirades can serve as an example of love rhetoric. “O night of my joy,” he exclaims, “when I could bring you back! O radiant Phoebus, speed up your usual run! O beautiful stars, appear before the appointed hour!” and so on.
It is clear that the servants and their girlfriends express themselves much more simply and even sometimes make fun of the high-flown manner of the masters. One day, Calisto, impatiently awaiting the arrival of Melibea, said pompously to Sempronio: "Until then, I will not eat, even if the horses of Phoebus have already gone to those green meadows where they usually graze, having completed their daily run." To which Sempronio remarked: "Señor, drop these tricky words, all this poetry. What not everyone needs are accessible and incomprehensible speeches. Say "at least the sun has set" and your speech will reach everyone. And eat a little jam, otherwise you will not have enough strength. " The speech of Celestina and other characters of the plebeian circle, as later the speech of Sancho Panza, is steeply mixed with folk proverbs and sayings. This interweaving, and sometimes even the clash of "high" and "low" styles, serves in tragicomedy as one of the ways of social characterization and, thus, is undoubtedly connected with the realistic concept of the work.
The author achieves the greatest success by depicting the environment in which Celestine reigns. It is here that we find the sharpest and closest to life characteristics and genre sketches. Magnificent, for example, is the scene of the feast at Celestina's. Lively servants of Calisto bring with them dishes from the master's stocks. Lovers are waiting. Darlings scold and have mercy. The prostitute Elicia scolds Sempronio for daring to praise the beauty of Melibea in her presence. Areusa echoes her, stating that "all these noble girls are painted and praised for wealth, and not for a beautiful body." The conversation turns to the question of nobility. "Low is the one who considers himself low," says Areusa. (Recall that something similar has already been said by Sempronio. This insistent repetition of humanistic truths undoubtedly indicates that these truths were always dear to Bachelor Rojas.) Here Areusa laments the plight of maidservants in rich houses. Celestina turns the conversation to other topics. In a circle of people she likes, she feels light and free. She recalls her best years, when she lived in contentment and honor. But the young years are gone, she has grown old. However, her heart still rejoices when she sees happy lovers. After all, she herself experienced the power of love, which "equally commands people of all ranks, breaks all barriers." Love has gone along with youth, but wine remains, which "drives sadness from the heart better than gold and corals."
This time, Celestina appears before us in a new light. She is no longer a predatory sly fox stalking prey, but a person in love with life and its magnificence. Usually so prudent and sober, in this scene she becomes a poet who finds very bright and warm words to glorify earthly joys. The Renaissance itself speaks through its lips. To this should be added her wit, resourcefulness, insight, ability to conduct a conversation - sometimes quite simply, sometimes ornately, in a magnificent oriental taste, depending on who she is talking to and what goal the old bawd pursues.
The author creates a rather complex and convex character. Of all the tragicomedy characters, it is Celestina who is remembered the most. It is not without reason that the Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea is usually called her name, which has become a household name in Spain. Celestine reflected some of the characteristic features of that controversial transitional era. Therefore, it either repels or attracts, this is life itself. And tragicomedy as a whole is a kind of mirror of Spanish life at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.
"Celestina" had a noticeable impact on the subsequent development of Spanish literature. This influence is felt in the dramaturgy and especially in the picaresque novel, where the life of the urban lower classes is widely depicted. Until the advent of Cervantes' Don Quixote, the Celestina was undoubtedly the most significant work of Spanish literature of the Renaissance.
In 1554, the first Spanish picaresque novel, The Life of Lazarillo from Tormes and his Good and Bad Times, was published, apparently written in the 30s of the 16th century. by unknown author. It is possible that the novel was created by one of the freethinkers - followers of Erasmus of Rotterdam, who were critical of the Catholic Church. Such freethinkers were encountered in Spain during the time of Charles V. In any case, in the Life of Lazarillo, an anti-clerical tendency, although somewhat muted, is very noticeable.
The picaresque novel had its own backstory. Even in medieval urban fables, clever rogues, rogues and deceivers were vividly portrayed. We also met the world of rogues in the Celestine. However, the dexterity, resourcefulness and roguery depicted in the works of medieval urban literature were a kind of expression of the social activity of the burghers, who energetically won their place under the sun. Cunning was his battle flag. And the heroes of medieval fables cheated cheerfully and easily, rejoicing in life and believing in it.
Everything looks somewhat different in the Spanish picaresque novel. There isn't much fun in it. The hero of the novel all the time has to wage a fierce battle with life. This is a poor man who is forced to cheat, because otherwise he will inevitably be crushed by poverty. Then this is an attacker, closely connected with the underworld, and cheating for him is a profession. In both cases, the picaresque romance was a fairly faithful mirror of Spanish manners. In the XVI century. Spain was flooded with crowds of vagabonds, all the time replenished at the expense of ruined peasants, artisans, and petty nobles. There were many adventurers in the country who dreamed of easy money. Crime grew, casting a dark shadow over the Spanish imperial order. True, the hero of the novel - a rogue (Spanish picaro) is portrayed as a rather energetic and intelligent person. However, his energy is often generated by despair. It is only by exerting all his strength that he is kept on the surface of life. Usually the "rogue" himself tells the readers about his perverse fate. The picaresque novel is thus an autobiographical novel. At the same time, it contains satirical sketches of many aspects of the then Spanish life.
In the first Spanish picaresque novel, all the signs characteristic of this genre are already clearly visible. True, the colors in it are not yet as sharp and gloomy as in later novels, the heroes of which are hardened intruders. Lazarillo (a diminutive of Lazaro) is a "reluctant" rogue. This is essentially a kind fellow, who only with great difficulty managed in the end to reach a quiet pier. Frankly admitting that he is "no more holy" than others, Lazarillo offers the attention of readers "a trifle written in a rude style." He wants them to learn "about the life of a man who has experienced so many disasters, dangers and misfortunes."
Fate began to wag Lazarillo early. He was 8 years old when he lost his father. Soon the mother decided that it was time for the boy to get used to independence, and Lazarillo became the guide of the poor blind man. More than once Lazarillo had to resort to cunning and resourcefulness. Its first owners - the aforementioned beggar blind man and the priest - were unusually stingy and greedy people, and only dexterity and resourcefulness saved Lazarillo from starvation. His situation did not improve even when he fell into the service of a poor hidalgo. Following this, he was alternately a servant of a monk, a seller of papal letters, a chaplain and an alguacil, until he finally "came out into the people", becoming a city crier and marrying a chaplain's servant. And although everyone knew that his wife was and remained the mistress of the chaplain, Lazaro himself had no claims to fortune. He is quite satisfied with his fate, completely satisfied with his wife, with whom the Lord, according to him, sends him "thousands of mercy."
It goes without saying that this idyllic ending cannot be taken at face value. Whether Lazaro is truly satisfied with his fate, or perhaps not very satisfied with it, one thing is clear enough that he achieved prosperity at the cost of losing his human dignity. And this only exacerbates the pessimistic trend that runs through the entire novel and is more noticeable in Spanish
picaresque novels of the late 16th-18th centuries. In "Lazarillo" there are many sharp everyday sketches, testifying to the author's ability to show phenomena in their natural form. In the novel, this visual acuity is motivated by the fact that what is usually hidden from strangers is not hidden from the servant. In this regard, the chapter on the hidalgo, who wants to impress everyone as a noble, wealthy, brilliant man, is very curious. He leaves the house "with a calm step, holding himself upright, gracefully shaking his body and head, throwing his cloak over his shoulder and leaning on his side with his right hand." And only Lazarillo knows that behind this feigned importance lies the most terrible poverty. He even feels sorry for the owner, who prefers to starve rather than "tarnish" his noble honor with some kind of socially useful work.
In the novel, Catholic clerics will also get it. They are all hypocrites and people of dubious morality. So, boasting of abstinence in food and, to the glory of the piety of the sea, the hunger of Lazarillo, his second owner, a priest, when it was possible to feast at someone else's expense, "ate like a wolf, and drank more than any healer." A great "enemy of the monastic service and food" was a monk of the Order of Mercy - the fourth owner of Lazaro, who not only liked to "walk on the side", but was also prone to such things that Lazaro prefers to keep quiet about. The chaplain, whose mistress Lazaro married, was dissolute and money-loving.
As for the seller of papal letters, who was also the owner of Lazaro, he is just a real swindler. His fraudulent trick, in which the local alguacil became an active participant, is vividly told in the fifth book of the novel. At the same time, both the monk and the guardian of justice were by no means embarrassed by the fact that for the sake of material gain they openly mocked the feelings of people.
The Church, of course, could not pass by the work, which spoke so irreverently about the nobility and, moreover, about the clergy. In 1559 the Archbishop of Seville added Lazarillo to the list of forbidden books. However, the popularity of the novel was so significant that it was not possible to remove it from everyday life, and then the church authorities decided to throw out the sharpest chapters from the novel (about the monk of the Order of Mercy and about the seller of papal letters) and in this "corrected" form they allowed it to be printed.
The Life of Lazarillo from Tormes was followed by other picaresque novels by Mateo Aleman, Francisco Quevedo and others. But since Quevedo's work dates back to the 17th century, his novel "The life story of a rogue named don Pablos, an example of vagabonds and a mirror of swindlers" (1626) cannot be the subject of our consideration. But on the novel by Mateo Aleman (1547-1614?) "The Life of Guzmán de Alfarache" (1599-1604), it is worth stopping briefly.
This novel is closely connected with the traditions of Lazarillo. Only in it some new features appear. Lazarillo was an ingenuous teenager, burdened by the fact that for the sake of a piece of bread he had to cheat. Guzman de Alfarache is no longer only a victim of an unfortunate fate, a vagabond, carried away by the whirlpool of life, but also a convinced predator, a clever adventurer, always ready to deceive a gullible person for his own benefit. By the way, such a gullible person is the bishop, who took pity on Guzman, who pretended to be a cripple. This virtuous pastor is not like the vicious clerics depicted in Lazarillo. But times have changed. In the reign of Philip II, open anti-clerical satire was no longer possible. But in its epic scope, Guzman is noticeably superior to Lazarillo. The first Spanish picaresque novel consisted of only a few episodes. In "Gusman" one event runs into another, cities and countries flash by, the hero changes professions, then suddenly rises, then falls extremely low. The picaresque novel is increasingly turning into an "epic of high roads," as the great English novelist of the 18th century, G. Fielding, aptly called it. The framework of the autobiographical narrative is expanding wider and wider, capturing the most diverse pictures of life, often painted in satirical tones. The novel fills with many typical figures representing various social circles, from the highest to the lowest. A sad thought runs through the whole novel that the world has become a den of thieves, predators, deceivers and hypocrites, differing from each other only in rich or poor clothes and in what environment they belong to.
According to Guzman, "everything goes the other way around, fakes and deceit are everywhere. Man is an enemy to man: everyone strives to destroy another, like a cat a mouse or like a spider - a dormant snake" (part 1, book 2, ch. 4). And although in the end the hero of the novel renounces vice, embarks on the path of virtue and even begins to speak the language of a church preacher, he does not change his gloomy view of the world of people. “This is how we found the world,” he says, addressing the readers, “so we will leave it. Do not wait for better times and do not think that it was better before.
The novel was a great success, reinforced by the popular French translation of Lesage, which appeared in 1732.
The success of Guzmán de Alfarache and other Spanish picaresque novels of the 16th and 17th centuries, which aroused numerous imitations in various countries, mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries, is primarily due to the fact that these novels affirmed realistic principles corresponding to the aesthetic quests of the leading European writers of that time. Continuing the traditions of the democratic literature of the middle, they boldly brought to the fore the representatives of the social lower classes, while the privileged classes were deprived of the traditional halo. And although the heroes of the novels are "rogues", their inexhaustible energy, resourcefulness and ingenuity could not but be perceived as a kind of apotheosis of the resourcefulness and energy of a simple person who is making his way in a hostile and unfair world. In this regard, the famous Figaro was, of course, a direct descendant of the Spanish picaros. The picaresque novel was also attracted by its satirical tendencies, the mastery of its genre sketches, and the dynamism in the development of the plot. It is no coincidence that the picaresque novel was the most popular type of early European novel of a realistic nature. You can meet its echoes even at the beginning of the 19th century.
As already noted, Spain was a country of glaring contrasts. This is very noticeable not only in social life, but also in literature. It was here that the picaresque novel arose, which sought to depict life without any idealization. At the same time, in the XVI century. in Spain, as nowhere else, the literature of the “ideal trend”, as Belinsky calls it, was developed, which did not want to know anything about the harsh worldly prose. One of its expressions was pastoral literature, dating back to ancient and Italian models. Pastoral motifs sounded in poetry ("Eclogues" by Garcilaso de la Vega; 1503-1536) and in narrative prose (the pastoral novel "Diana", 1558-1559, by Jorge de Montemayor). But the “ideal direction” in Spain was still led by pastoral literature, which enjoyed recognition in narrow readership. It was led by a chivalric romance.
In other European countries, the romance of chivalry is almost completely forgotten. True, in England E. Spencer, and in Italy Ariosto made an attempt to revive the traditions of the knightly epic. But, of course, neither Spencer's allegorical "Fairy Queen" nor Ariosto's ironic "Furious Roland" were true chivalric novels. In Spain in the 16th century the most real chivalric novels existed and enjoyed extraordinary popularity, only prose, not poetry. Everything in them looked something like in the courtly novels of the Middle Ages: a valiant knight performed unheard-of feats for the glory of a beautiful lady, fought dangerous monsters, destroyed the machinations of evil wizards, came to the aid of the offended, etc. The miraculous here met at every step, while the bitter prose of life was banished to distant lands.
The first-born of this genre in France was the novel "Amadis of Gaul" (more precisely, "Welsh"), possibly translated from Portuguese by Garcia Rodriguez Montalvo and published at the beginning of the 16th century. Portuguese original, written in the 16th century. based on Breton legends, has not reached us. The novel tells about the life and glorious deeds of the knight Amadis, the illegitimate son of Perion, king of Gallic (Wales). Under quite "romantic" circumstances, the incomparable Amadis entered the path of life. His mother, the Breton princess Elisena, left him, a baby, on the seashore, placing a sword, a ring and a seal next to him, certifying the high birth of the boy. But Fortune did not allow the death of the future hero. A certain knight found him and took him to the court of the Scottish king Lisuart. Here Amadis grows up under the name of the Youth from the Sea. He serves as a page for the young daughter of the king, the beautiful princess Oriana: “All the days of his later life he did not tire of serving her and forever gave her his heart, and this love lasted as long as their lives lasted, for as he loved her, she loved him, and they did not get tired of loving each other for a single hour. It is further told how, at the request of Oriana, King Perion, who was at that time in Scotland, knighted Amadis, not knowing that he was his son, how Amadis, having taken an oath of allegiance to his chosen one, went to exploits and how, after many adventures, he breaks the spell that prevents his connection with Oriana, and marries a beautiful Scottish princess. A significant role in the novel is also played by the gallant brother of Amadis Galaor, like Adamis performing feats in various countries. The novel cannot be denied entertaining and even some poetry, especially in those scenes described "And if," the author declares, the one who reads about their love considers it too simple, let him not be surprised: for not only at an age so early and tender, but also later, their love showed itself in such strength that the words of the description of the great deeds committed in the name of this love will be weak.
The story is told on a high romantic note. The fact that its action is timed to the time "before the accession of King Arthur" completely frees the author from the need to resort to any historical, geographical, social or everyday concretization. But he still has a definite goal: to draw the ideal image of a knight, whose main main virtues are impeccable valor and moral purity. It is clear that such an ideal hero, immune to evil, devoid of selfish motives, could exist only in a completely conventional world inhabited by fairy-tale characters. To some extent, the glorification of this hero was a challenge to the real Spanish order, but the picture drawn in the novel was so abstract and so ideal that, in fact, it was impossible to bridge from it to everyday Spanish life of the 16th century.
"Amadis of Gaul" is rightfully considered the best Spanish chivalric romance. In a letter to Schiller (1805), Goethe even called him a "magnificent thing" and expressed regret that he met her so late [See: Goethe I.V. Sobr. cit.: In 13 t. M., 1949. T. XIII. S. 293.] . The resounding success of the novel gave rise to many sequels and imitations. The first step in this direction was taken by Montalvo himself, who added to the 4th books of the novel the fifth book (1521), dedicated to the son of Amadis Explandian. The latter eventually becomes Byzantine Emperor, while Amadis ends his days as King of Great Britain.
Following this, chivalric romances fell like a cornucopia. One after another, novels appear, the heroes of which were relatives and descendants of Amadis (The History of Florizand, Amadis' nephew, 1526, Lisuart the Greek, son of Esplandian, Amadis the Greek, etc.). Palmerin of Oliva and his glorious descendants, including Palmerin of England, the grandson of the named Palmerin, compete with Amadis. In total, 12 parts (books) of "Amadis" (1508-1546) and six parts of "Palmerines" (1511-1547) appeared. There were other novels that need not be mentioned. Almost all of them were inferior to "Adamis of Gaul." The adventures depicted in them became more and more incredible, each author striving to surpass his predecessor. Some Flaming Sword Knight could cut through two ferocious and monstrous giants with one blow. In the face of one fearless knight, an army numbering hundreds of thousands of people took to flight. Towers with warriors with amazing speed sailed across the sea. Fairy-tale castles grew at the bottom of the lake. The authors narrated all this quite seriously, without a shadow of Aristian irony. The intricate content of the novels was fully consistent with the splendor of their "brilliant" style. Here is an example given by Cervantes: "The almighty heavens, divinely elevating your divinity with the help of the stars, make you worthy of those virtues that your greatness was awarded" ("Don Quixote", I, 1).
This belated flowering of the chivalric romance can be explained by the fact that in Spain in the 16th century many vestiges of the Middle Ages were still preserved. At the same time, the chivalrous romance was quite consistent with the spirit of adventurism that lived in the country. After all, according to Marx, it was a time "when the ardent imagination of the Iberians was blinded by the brilliant visions of Eldorado, chivalrous deeds and the world monarchy" [Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 10. S. 431.] .
All this, however, cannot fully explain the enormous popularity of Spanish chivalric romances. It is a mistake to believe that only noble circles read them. According to the authoritative testimony of Cervantes, they were "widespread" "in high society and among the common people" ("Don Quixote", I, Prologue). What, then, attracted ordinary people in chivalric novels? First of all, of course, their great entertainment. Adventure genres have always enjoyed success with the mass reader. But being adventurous, chivalric romances were also heroic. They unfolded in an atmosphere of exploits. They were valiant knights, always ready to help a worthy person. And this side of them could not fail to find a warm response in the country, which for several centuries had been waging a heroic struggle for its national liberation. The Spanish national character that took shape during the period of the reconquista contained heroic features, and it is not surprising that wide circles of Spain read chivalric romances.
The history of the Renaissance begins in Still this period is called the Renaissance. The Renaissance changed into culture and became the forerunner of the culture of the New Age. And the Renaissance ended in the XVI-XVII centuries, since in each state it has its own start and end date.
Some general information
Representatives of the Renaissance are Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccaccio. They became the first poets who began to express lofty images and thoughts in a frank, common language. This innovation was received with a bang and spread to other countries.
Renaissance and art
The features of the Renaissance is that the human body has become the main source of inspiration and the subject of research for the artists of this time. Thus, emphasis was placed on the similarity of sculpture and painting with reality. The main features of the art of the Renaissance period include radiance, refined brushwork, the play of shadow and light, thoroughness in the process of work and complex compositions. For Renaissance artists, images from the Bible and myths were the main ones.
The resemblance of a real person to his image on a particular canvas was so close that the fictional character seemed alive. This cannot be said about the art of the 20th century.
The Renaissance (its main trends are briefly outlined above) perceived the human body as an endless beginning. Scientists and artists regularly improved their skills and knowledge by studying the bodies of individuals. At that time, the prevailing opinion was that man was created in the likeness and image of God. This statement reflected physical perfection. The main and important objects of Renaissance art were the gods.
Nature and beauty of the human body
Renaissance art paid great attention to nature. A characteristic element of the landscapes was a varied and lush vegetation. The skies of a blue-blue hue, which were pierced by the sun's rays that penetrated the clouds of white, were a magnificent backdrop for the soaring creatures. Renaissance art revered the beauty of the human body. This feature was manifested in the refined elements of the muscles and body. Difficult poses, facial expressions and gestures, a well-coordinated and clear color palette are characteristic of the work of sculptors and sculptors of the Renaissance period. These include Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt and others.
The most significant was such literature as French, English, German, Spanish, Italian.
In England, in the 16th century, there was a flourishing of English humanism, which arose later than in Italy. Classical literature and Italian poetry played a very important role in English literature. The form of the sonnet flourishes, introduced by Thomas Wyatt and followed by the more talented development of the Earl of Surrey. The history of English literature of the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance is in many respects similar to French literature, despite the minimal external similarity. And there, and there the medieval literary tradition retained its position until the middle of the 16th century, if not later. In England, as in France, the humanist culture of Italy had a profound effect on secular intellectuals. In England, however, the humanistic tradition produced a brilliant school of natural scientists. Moral philosophy, the strong point of French thinkers, was not of such fundamental importance in England as natural philosophy. This was partly due to the fact that England had long had its own theological tradition, originating from the theology of the early Middle Ages and little connected with the orthodox currents of Catholic culture.
German literature is significant in that it began its inspiration for the Renaissance with the phenomenon in German literature of this and subsequent eras of the so-called Schwank, funny, entertaining stories, first in verse, and later in prose. Schwank arose as a counterbalance to the refined chivalrous epic, which gravitated towards fantasy, and sometimes to the sweetness of the songs of the minnesingers, followers of the Provencal troubadours. In shvanki, as well as in French fablios, they talked about everyday life, about the everyday life of ordinary people, and everything was easy, jokingly, mischievously, foolishly.
In France, from the very beginning of the XVI century. the birth of new trends is reflected in literature. This desire for innovation was noted by the poet Gringoire: “The methods of old scientists are abandoned,” he says, “they laugh at old musicians, old medicine fell into contempt, old architects are expelled.” The ideas of humanism and reformation found a high patroness in the person of Margaret of Navarre, sister of Francis I. In the XIV - XVI centuries. in French literature, the same processes took place as in the literature of Italy and Germany. Noble, courtly culture gradually lost its significance, and urban, folk literature came to the fore. However, there was no open confrontation. Strictly speaking, in France, as well as in Germany, and in England, until the end of the 15th century. were very strong tendencies of medieval culture. French humanism took shape only at the beginning of the 16th century, developing mainly in the vein of court culture.
At the same time, in France already in the XIV century. positions of secular education were quite strong. Universities sprang up in many French cities, which, unlike the Sorbonne in Paris, had little to do with the scholastic tradition. Italian humanism of the late XIV - early XV century. had a great influence on these universities, where historical and philosophical thought and natural sciences were formed, which glorified French culture in the 17th - 18th centuries.
Conventionally, the Renaissance in Spain can be divided into three periods: the earlier Renaissance (until the middle of the 16th century), the high Renaissance (until the 30s of the 17th century) and the so-called Baroque period (until the end of the 17th century). During the early Renaissance, interest in science and culture increased in the country, which was greatly facilitated by universities, especially the ancient University of Salaman and the university founded in 1506 by Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros in Alcala de Henares. In 1473-1474, book printing appeared in Spain, journalism developed, in which ideas consonant with the ideas of the Reformation and the renewal of the Catholic Church, modeled on Protestant countries, dominated. The ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam had a significant influence on the formation of new ideas. A new stage in the development of the Spanish Renaissance, the so-called High Renaissance, dates back to the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. Acting in accordance with the strict principles of the Counter-Reformation (from 1545), Philip II (1527-1598) persecuted progressive thinkers, at the same time encouraging cultural development, establishing a library in Escorial and supporting many universities. Creative and thinking people, deprived of the opportunity to express themselves in philosophy and journalism, turned to art, as a result of which it survived in the second half of the 16-17 centuries. an unprecedented flourishing, and this era was called the "golden age". The secular ideas of humanism in some poets and writers were intertwined with religious motives. Baroque dramaturgy reached perfection in the work of Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1680). Like Tirso de Molina, he belongs to the national drama school of Lope de Vega. The work of this last great representative of the Spanish literature of the "golden age" reflects the pessimistic view of man, characteristic of the era. The central work of Calderon is the philosophical drama Life is a dream (1635), the main idea of which, already alien to the Renaissance, is that for the sake of earthly life one should not give up eternal life. Calderon - for the illusory nature of our ideas about life, since it is incomprehensible. In the play Himself in Custody (1636), he gives a comic treatment of the same theme.
Representatives of early Italian humanism - Giovanni Boccaccio, Francesco Petrarch - were the first to turn to frankly "common" language to express lofty thoughts and images. The experience turned out to be extremely successful, and after them, educated people in other European countries began to turn to folk culture. In each country, this process took place in different ways, and unique trends arose everywhere, which led to the 16th-17th centuries. to the final formation of the national literatures of the countries of Western Europe.
The most important milestone in the history of European literature was 1455. This year, the German Johannes Gutenberg published in his printing press the first book made in a new way, which made it possible to make many copies in a short time. The printing press, on which Guttenberg worked for several years, lived up to the hopes of the inventor. Before Guttenberg, books were mostly copied by hand, which made them incredibly expensive. In addition, making a copy of the book took a lot of time and was very expensive. In the XV century. tried to find a way to reduce the cost of this process. At first, the printers cut out the text of the page in a mirror image on a wooden board. Then the convex letters were smeared with paint and the cliche was pressed against a sheet of paper. But only a limited number of copies could be made from such a cliché. In addition, this process was not much different from manual rewriting. As soon as the carver made a mistake, the entire cliché had to be redone.
Gutenberg's innovation was that he began to cut out sets of individual letters, which were compiled into words on a special frame. Typing a page now took a few minutes, and the danger of a typo was reduced to a minimum. The actual production of cliché letters was much simpler than the cliché of the page. Gutenberg's invention quickly became commonplace throughout Europe, and the printed book almost supplanted the handwritten book in two or three decades. Subsequently, this somewhat complicated the work of researchers. For example, only printed editions of his works remained from William Shakespeare - not a single sheet of manuscripts, which gave some historians reason to doubt the authenticity of Shakespeare as a "literary" figure.
literature humanism typography short story
The literature of the Renaissance in Spain developed in complex, contradictory conditions. Some of them favored the formation of peculiar Renaissance phenomena in literature, while others prevented it. It was positive that in Spain, where the struggle against foreign (Arab) enslavement was waged for a long time, where medieval cities won independence quite early, and the peasants in a number of regions (in Castile, etc.) did not know serfdom, a high consciousness of their own dignity has long been developed among the people. The high level of popular self-awareness led to a greater proximity of Spanish humanism to folklore, to the artistic creativity of its people, than to ancient book culture. Together with the named positive factor in Spain in the 16th - early 17th centuries. There was also another - the opposite law. Spain was at that time a country with a very reactionary political regime whose absolutism became hostile to the cities that fought for their liberties. He was hostile to bourgeois development, relied on the military strength of the middle nobility ("caballeros") and on an alliance with the Inquisition, which vigorously persecuted free thought. The foreign policy of the Spanish government was also reactionary, adventurous, drawing the country into devastating wars, which usually ended in defeat and led to a fall in Spain's prestige. The plunder by Spain of the newly discovered territories of America (since 1492) also depleted the country's economy. And yet, even under such unfavorable conditions, Spanish humanism developed and brought forward great artists of the word, especially in the field of the novel and dramaturgy.
The Spanish literature of the early Renaissance (from the 15th to the middle of the 16th century) is characterized primarily by the wide development of folk poetry in the form romance - a lyrical or lyric-epic poem, which reflects patriotism, love of freedom and poetry of the people, - and humanistic poetry I.-L. de Mendoza-Santillana, H.-H. Manrique, Garcilaso de la Vega. In area prose dominated novel in its three varieties: knightly, pastoral and picaresque.
Literature mature renaissance (until the 30s of the 17th century), despite the very difficult conditions for humanists that gave rise to its well-known inconsistency, it is generally characterized by great depth and realism. IN poetry this time, a new phenomenon was the emergence epic poem (L. Camões, A. Ersilya). But the greatest achievements in Spanish literature have been realized in the field of fiction And dramaturgy, the peaks of which are the work of Cervantes and Lope de Vega.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) - the greatest Spanish writer, one of the giants of world literature. Much of his literary heritage is explained in his biography, fanned by the spirit of bold adventures characteristic of his era (a trip to Italy, participation in the war against the Turks, captivity by Algerian pirates, imprisonment of an innocent person).
The literary heritage of Cervantes is rich and varied: poems ("Message to Mateo Vasquez", etc.), dramaturgy (tragedy "Numansia", etc.), prose genres - pastoral and chivalric novels, short stories.
The crowning achievement of Cervantes' creative activity is his immortal novel The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605-1615) - a complex, deep work, although its depth, like Rabelais' novel Gargantua and Pantagruel, is not immediately revealed to the reader. The novel is conceived as parody on chivalric novels devoid of vital content. The author wanted to show that immoderate reading of such novels can bring a person to an almost insane state. However, Cervantes' excellent knowledge of the life of the people and his ability to portray typical characters allowed him to create a truly realistic Renaissance novel, in which the depravity of not only chivalric novels, but of all Spanish reality was exposed, and at the same time bright ideas of humanism were embodied. According to V.G. Belinsky, with his "Don Quixote" Cervantes "dealt a decisive blow to the ideal [here: cut off from life] direction of the novel and turned it to reality.
The complexity and depth characteristic of the novel are also inherent in its main characters - Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Don Quixote is parodic and ridiculous when, under the influence of chivalric novels, he imagines himself to be a knight capable of crushing the vices surrounding him, while in reality he performs a number of absurd acts (battle with windmills taken for giants, etc.), paying for the illusory nature of his fantasies with quite real beatings. But Don Quixote is not only a parody, he carries within himself an affirming, renaissance beginning. He is a noble, disinterested fighter for justice, full of high enthusiasm. His humanism is manifested in the deep humanity of his actions aimed at helping people who suffer injustice.
Don Quixote's judgments about freedom, peace, human dignity, and love breathe deep humanistic wisdom. This is evidenced by the advice given by Don Quixote before the entry of Sancho Panza into the “governorship”, as well as from his sayings spoken on various other occasions (“Freedom is one of the most precious blessings, for the sake of freedom, as well as for the sake of honor, one can and should risk one’s life”; “Peace is the best good that exists in the world”, etc.). Don Quixote advises his squire not to hide, but to expose his peasant origin, because "a person of modest origin, but virtuous, deserves more respect than a noble, but vicious." For the same reason, Don Quixote considers it quite natural to fall in love with the "very pretty village girl" Aldonsa Lorenzo, nicknamed by him Dulcinea of Toboso. The ignorance of this girl is not a hindrance to love.
The inconsistency of Don Quixote lies in the fact that he fights for the humanistic ideals generated by the anti-feudal nature of the Renaissance, using archaic means drawn from the dilapidated arsenal of wandering knights. From this inconsistency of the hero follows the complex contradictory attitude of the author towards him. Cervantes always makes one feel the nobility of the very idea of this struggle, which was noticed by J.S. Turgenev: "Don Quixote is an enthusiast, a servant of the idea, and therefore is covered with its radiance." It is no coincidence that sometimes the images of the hero and the author merge into one: this happens when the hero is especially expressive in the role of the bearer of the humanist author's philanthropic dream of a better life built on the principles of justice.
Not so simple is Sancho Panza - Don Quixote's squire, a typical Castilian peasant, poor, but alien to humiliation, knowing his own worth, a real bearer of folk wisdom, often covered with a funny joke. He is also an enthusiast who without much thought followed Don Quixote and left his native village, first for the hope of getting the "island" promised by Don Quixote, and later - simply out of philanthropy in relation to the impractical hidalgo, whom he is already sorry to leave without his help. The beneficial effect of the humanist knight made it possible to reveal in Sancho Panza the wonderful qualities of a folk sage. In no other work of Renaissance literature is the peasant placed on such a pedestal as he is in Cervantes' novel.
In the relations of the main characters, an approximation to the humanistic ideal of relationships between people has been made. The writer makes you feel how stuffy it was for his subtly feeling hero to live in a world of arrogance and money-grubbing. The comparatively early death of Don Quixote, who, in the words of Sancho Panza, was "burned from the world by anguish," does not seem unexpected.
The great merits of the novel include a broad display of the Spanish reality of the late 16th - early 17th centuries. with all its contradictions, with an expression of sympathy for the democratic circles of society. The artistic merits of Don Quixote are great, especially its wonderful language, now archaic and eloquent in the Knight of the Sad Image, now sparkling with all the colors of folk speech in Sancho Panza, now expressive and precise in the author himself. Cervantes is credited with creating the Spanish literary language, which is based on the Castilian dialect.
The novel "Don Quixote" is one of the greatest works of world literature, which had a huge impact on the formation of subsequent realism.
Lope de Bega (1562-1635) - the great Spanish writer of the Renaissance, whose dramaturgy brought him the well-deserved fame of one of the titans of the era. L. de Vega's extensive and diverse dramaturgical heritage - he wrote more than two thousand plays, of which about 500 were published - is usually divided into three groups. The first of these are socio-political dramas, based primarily on historical material. The second includes household comedies family-love character (sometimes they are called "cloak and sword" comedies - because of the characteristic attire of noble youth). The third group includes plays religious nature.
To understand the peculiarities of L. de Vega's dramatic works, his theoretical treatise The New Art of Composing Comedy in Our Day (1609) is of great importance. It formulates the main provisions of the Spanish national drama with its focus on the traditions of the folk theater, with a critical attitude towards strict adherence to the notorious "rules" of Aristotle-classic poetics (where there was more attributed to Aristotle than really put forward by him), with the desire to satisfy the needs of the audience and the plausibility of what is shown on stage, and the skillful construction of an intrigue tightly tied into a knot that would not give the play the opportunity to fall into separate episodes. . The dramaturgy of L. de Vega was the realization of his theoretical views.
In his household comedies for the most part, the struggle of young people, immigrants from the middle nobility, for their personal happiness is shown. They overcome various obstacles that are put up by class prejudices and the despotic power of their parents. The author's sympathies are on the side of natural human feeling, which does not recognize class partitions. The best of his everyday comedies are "Dance Teacher", "Dog in the Manger", "Girl with a Jug" and others. This is usually comedy intrigue, where little attention is paid to the psychological motivation of action and the obstacles that stand in the way of lovers are relatively easily overcome. Deep in content, artistically bright, the dramaturgy of L. de Vega served as a model for many Spanish writers and playwrights. The best of his plays are staged all over the world.
Renaissance in Spain
General characteristics of the Spanish Renaissance.
The literature of the Renaissance in Spain is distinguished by its great originality, which is explained in the peculiarities of the historical development of Spain. Already in the second half of the XV century. here we see the rise of the bourgeoisie, the growth of industry and foreign trade, the birth of capitalist relations and the loosening of feudal institutions and the feudal worldview. The latter was especially undermined by the humanistic ideas that penetrated from the most advanced country of that time - Italy. However, in Spain this process proceeded in a very peculiar way, in comparison with other countries, due to two circumstances that were specific to the history of Spain of that era.
The first of them is connected with the conditions in which the reconquista proceeded. The fact that individual regions of Spain were conquered separately, at different times and under different conditions, led to the fact that in each of them special laws, customs and local customs were developed. The peasantry and the cities based on the conquered lands in different places received different rights and liberties. The heterogeneous local rights and liberties tenaciously held by the various regions and cities were the cause of constant conflicts between them and the royal power. It often even happened that the cities united against it with the feudal lords. Therefore, by the end of the early Middle Ages in Spain, such a close alliance was not established between the royal power and the cities against large feudal lords.
Another feature of the historical development of Spain in the XVI century. is as follows. The result of the extraordinary influx of gold from America was a sharp rise in the price of all products - "price revolution", which affected all European countries, but manifested itself with particular force in Spain. Since it became more profitable to buy foreign products, the Spanish industry of the second half of the 16th century. greatly reduced. Agriculture also fell into decline - partly for the same reason, partly as a result of the massive ruin of the peasants and the impoverishment of a huge number of small noble farmers who could not stand the competition with large landowners who enjoyed various privileges.
All the features of the history of Spain determine the general character of its literature in the 16th - 17th centuries. The literature of the Spanish Renaissance is clearly divided into two periods: 1). Early Renaissance (1475 - 1550) and 2). Mature Renaissance (1550 - the first decades of the 17th century).
At the beginning of this period in Spain, as in most other countries, the emergence of that new, critical and realistic approach to reality, which is characteristic of the Renaissance worldview, is observed. Spain has a number of outstanding scientists and thinkers who overturned old prejudices and paved the way for modern scientific knowledge.
There are printing houses, intensively translated Roman and Greek writers. The university founded in 1508 in Alcala de Henares becomes the center of the humanistic movement. Nevertheless, humanistic ideas did not receive their full philosophical development in Spain. Encountering the most hostile attitude towards themselves at court and among the aristocracy, finding no support from the bourgeoisie, they were muted by the Catholic reaction.
Humanistic ideas in Spanish Renaissance literature find expression almost exclusively in poetic imagery, and not in theoretical writings. For the same reason, the influence of ancient and Italian designs was on the whole much less significant in Spain than, for example, in France or England. In the same way, the cult of form is less characteristic of the Spanish literature of the Renaissance. She is characterized by masculinity, severity, sobriety, great concreteness of images and expressions, dating back to the medieval Spanish tradition. In all these respects, the Spanish literature of the Renaissance has a peculiar, specifically national character.
The religious influences of the era are clearly reflected in this literature. The ideology and practice of Catholicism left a strong imprint both on the life of the people and on the life of the privileged classes.
Nowhere in the literature of the XVI - XVII century. religious themes do not occupy such a prominent place as in Spain. We find here extremely different "mystical" literature - religious poems and lyrics (Luis de Leon, San Juan de la Cruz), descriptions "wonderful conversions", ecstasies and visions (Teresa de Jesus), theological treatises and sermons (Luisde Granada). The greatest playwrights (Lopé de Vega, Calderon), along with secular plays, write religious plays, dramatized legends and lives of saints, or "sacred acts", which had the theme of the glorification of the sacrament "communion". But even in secular plays, religious and philosophical themes often appear ( "Seville mischievous" Tirso de Molina, "Steady Prince" Calderon).
With all the painful character that the development of Spain bore, the people showed the maximum of national energy. He showed great inquisitiveness of mind, determination and courage in overcoming obstacles. The broad prospects that opened up before the people of that time, the scope of political and military enterprises, the abundance of new impressions and opportunities for various vigorous activities - all this was reflected in the Spanish literature of the 16th - 17th centuries, which is characterized by great dynamics, passion and rich imagination.
Thanks to these qualities, Spanish literature "golden age"(as the period is called from about the second third of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century) occupies one of the first places among the national literatures of the Renaissance. Brilliantly showing itself in all genres, Spanish literature has given especially high standards in the novel and drama, i.e. in those literary forms in which the traits typical of the then Spain could be most fully expressed - the ardor of feelings, energy and movement.
Creation of a national Spanish drama.
In Spain and Portugal, as well as in other countries, there was a medieval theater - partly religious (mysteries and miracles), partly completely secular, comic (farces). The medieval religious theater in Spain, due to the enormous role that the Catholic Church played in the life of the country, was extremely stable - not only did it not disappear during the Renaissance, as happened in Italy and France, but continued to develop intensively throughout the 16th and even the 17th century .; moreover, plays of this kind were written by the largest playwrights of the era. During these centuries, the genres of folk comic theater, also cultivated by great masters, remained just as popular.
However, along with these old dramatic genres, by the middle of the 16th century. in Spain, a new, Renaissance system of dramaturgy is being developed, which also influences the interpretation of the above-mentioned old genres by Renaissance writers. This new dramaturgical system originated from the collision of two principles in the theater of the medieval folk or semi-folk tradition and the scientific-humanistic trends that came from Italy or directly from antiquity, but mostly also through Italian mediation. At first, the two types of dramaturgy, expressing these two tendencies, develop in parallel, apart from one another or entering into struggle with each other, but very soon an interaction begins between them, and in the end they merge into a single dramatic system. In this system of the national drama of the Renaissance, the pinnacle of which should be recognized as the work of Lope de Vega, the folk principle is still the main one, although Italian and ancient influences, originally mastered, played a significant role in its formation. The latter was facilitated by the appearance in the XVI century. Spanish translations of Plautus and Terence.
Lope de Vega (1562 - 1635)
Lope de Vega was painted 1800 "comedy", to which we must also add 400 religious plays and a very large number of interludes. However, Lope de Vega himself cared little about the safety of his dramatic works, which were considered the lowest kind of literature, as a result of which most of them were not published during his lifetime. The text of only 400 plays by Lope de Vega (almost entirely in poetry) has come down to us, and another 250 are known only by title.
the scope of the dramaturgy of Lope de Vega is unusually wide. He depicts people of all classes and ranks in a wide variety of positions, writes plays of everyday, historical, legendary, mythological, pastoral content, drawing plots from Spanish chronicles and romances, from Italian novelists (Boccaccio, Bandello, etc.), from the Bible, historical works, stories of travelers, from wandering anecdotes, or freely writing them based on observations of life; he draws modern and old Spaniards, Turks, Indians, biblical Jews, ancient Romans, even Russians (in the play about False Dmitry - "Grand Duke of Moscow"). This reflects his extraordinary curiosity, his thirst to embrace the world history of mankind and, at the same time, his exceptionally rich imagination.
Lope de Vega outlined his theoretical views on dramaturgy in a poetic reasoning, which is one of the earliest Western European realistic poetics - "The New Art of Composing Comedy Today". This work, written by him already in his mature years (1609), sums up what the poet has long been putting into practice. After various introductory remarks and an outline of the development of comedy and tragedy among the ancients, Lope de Vega forgive me that, while fully recognizing the superiority of Aristotle's rules, he nevertheless deviates from them to please the public. Lope de Vega recommends that authors choose plots in which the tragic and the comic are mixed together, "as happens in nature." Defending the unity of action, he proves that it is possible to violate the unity of place and time. Then he talks about the division of the play into acts, the number of which he reduces from five to three, about its construction, about the significance of the exposition, the “knot” of intrigue and denouement, about the different styles in which different roles should be written, about the effective endings of scenes, about the use of different metric sizes, about the desired volume of the play, which should not be too large so that the viewer does not get tired, about all sorts of devices aimed at maintaining the interest of the viewer, who should not guess about the denouement until the last scene, etc.
The dramas of Lope de Vega do not lend themselves to precise and exhaustive classification. Of the entire mass of his writings, three groups of plays can be distinguished, especially significant: plays "heroic"(on plots from national history), comedies "cloak and sword" and plays in which the people or their individual representatives perform.
The “heroic” plays depict various episodes from the history of Spain during the time of the Gothic kings, i.e. before the Arab conquest "The Life and Death of Wamba"), fighting the Moors ("Girl from Simanka", "Noble Abenserach"), the struggle of kings with recalcitrant feudal lords and the unification of the Spanish monarchy ("Fuenta Ovehuna"), finally discovering America ("The New World Discovered by Christopher Columbus"). Imbued with an ardent patriotic feeling, they usually idealize their native antiquity, fanned with poetry. Lope de Vega paints here majestic and exciting pictures of the past, thus proving the power of Spain and reinforcing her claims to a leading role on the world stage.
Second group of plays, comedies "cloak and sword", is named after the typical accessories of the noble costume in which their characters perform - representatives mainly of the middle and lower modern nobility. These everyday comedies by Lope de Vega, in other words, "comedies of manners", constitute a very significant part of his dramatic heritage and, moreover, one that, during the life of the poet, brought him the greatest fame, and not only in his homeland, but also in other countries. And now these plays are extremely popular in Spain. Particularly famous are: "Dog in the manger", "Nets of Phoenix", "Madrid Waters", "Valencian wave", "Girl with a jug", « Whims of Belisa», "Slave of his beloved" etc. The plots of these plays are based almost exclusively on the play of feelings: love, jealousy, noble pride and family honor. At the same time, they almost do not show the social environment, background, life circumstances that could influence the development of the characters' feelings. On the other hand, to enliven the action, a stock of traditional motives and conditional devices is widely used, such as, for example, secret dates, serenades, duels, disguises, unexpected meetings, misunderstandings, substitutions, all kinds of coincidences, recognition, etc.
Despite some ideological and artistic limitations of comedies "cloak and sword" Lope de Vega, they are a brilliant, in many ways the foremost example of the art of the Spanish Renaissance. The central theme of these plays - love - is not of a narrowly noble nature. Lope de Vega always means love not as a sensual whim, which it often was in the aristocratic society of that time, but as a deep, all-encompassing feeling that affirms the idea of a full-fledged human personality. Such "honest" love, always striving for marriage as the only form of complete mutual possession, acting in an ennobling way on lovers, is, in the understanding of Lope de Vega, a healthy, natural feeling, equally accessible to both a nobleman and the most modest peasant.
These plays are full of cheerfulness and optimism. They breathe faith in the possibility of happiness, in the success of the human person, boldly fighting for his feelings, for his goals. The heroes of Lope de Vega are brave, resolute, full of energy; their movements are impetuous, their words and deeds are ardent and impetuous. These are full-blooded Renaissance natures, in which the life force overflows. The female images of Lope de Vega are remarkable: his heroines have no less spiritual wealth, they are no less enterprising, smart and courageous than their partners. Passionate, they stop at nothing. In this regard, Lope de Vega does not deviate from reality at all, since in the society of the nobility of his day, women, constrained by the harsh guardianship of their fathers, brothers or husbands, played a very inconspicuous role. He revealed and strengthened the possibilities that he felt in the Spanish woman of his era.
Everyday comedies by Lope de Vega sparkle with wit. Their gaiety comes from the internal comedy of situations that arise as a result of various misunderstandings. It is reinforced by grotesque characters, in whose faces they ridicule - in tones more humorous than satirical - swagger, irascibility, stupid pedantry, excessive gullibility, talkativeness, and similar human weaknesses and vices. But servants are special carriers of the comic principle. The type of servant-jester is already found among the predecessors of Lope de Vega, but among them it is usually a simpleton, amusing the audience with his stupidity or clumsiness. The amusing servant Lope de Vega sometimes performs this function, but even more often he witty ridicules others. Quite often he turns out to be smarter, or at least more resourceful than his master, whom he helps out of trouble.
The plays of Lope de Vega, whose heroes are the people of their people, are not numerous. In his image, the most modest peasants or artisans in their mind, energy and moral qualities are no less than aristocrats. They are equally characterized by a sense of dignity and a sense of honor. Only their manners are simpler, they live closer to nature, and this is their great advantage, which fully compensates for the lack of education.
Fuente Ovehuna. The most famous of the plays of this kind and one of the pinnacles of Lope de Vega's work is the drama "Fuente Ovehuna" ("Sheep Key"). It can also be attributed to the number of historical plays, since its action takes place at the end of the 15th century, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The most significant thing in this play, imbued with truly revolutionary pathos, is that its hero is not some individual character, but the masses of the people, the collective.
The commander of the Order of Calatrava, Fernand Gomez, who is located with his detachment in the village of Fuente Ovehuna, commits violence against the inhabitants, insults the local alcalde and tries to dishonor his daughter Laurencia. The peasant Frondoso, who loves her, manages to protect the girl. But during the wedding of Frondoso and Laurencia, the commander appears with his henchmen, disperses the audience, beats the alcalde with his own staff, wants to hang Frondoso and kidnaps Laurencia in order to then take possession of her by force. The peasants cannot endure such dishonor: all of them - men, women, children - without exception arm themselves and beat the rapists. At the time of the court case appointed by the king in this case, when the peasants are tortured, they demand recognition of who exactly killed Fernand Gomez, they all answer as one: "Fuente Ovejuna!". The king is forced to stop the court: he "forgives" peasants and takes Fuente Ovehuna under his direct rule. Such is the power of popular solidarity.
In this play, the concept of honor from the category of noble feelings passes into the category of extra-class, universal. It becomes synonymous with the dignity of the human person, standing guard over their rights. Lope de Vega depicts how, under the influence of wild violence, social self-awareness awakens in the peasant masses, how initially scattered members of the rural community rally into a strong team capable of struggle and heroism.
Lope de Vega is looking in history for the justification of the union of the people with the royal power. Indeed, in his time, as in the early Middle Ages, the political aspirations of the Spanish people were usually clothed in the form of monarchical ideas. However, Lope de Vega lacked the vigilance to discern the true nature of royal power, as it was in contemporary Spain. Being a strong supporter of the system of absolutism, which he tried to reconcile with his democratic and humanistic aspirations, Lope de Vega was forced to idealize the image of the king. At the same time, as a subtle and truthful artist, he could not help but see the royal power of his day in its true light and reflect what he saw in his work. He tried to overcome this contradiction by distinguishing between the ruler and the man in the king; and everything negative that royal power carried with it, he attributed to the person. As ruler, the king is infallible; as a man, he is subject to all human weaknesses and vices, although he is capable of correction. Therefore, criticism of the behavior of the king as a human person is useless and even unacceptable: his person is sacred, it requires unconditional respect and obedience. But objectively, the images of kings in Lope de Vega often contain an exposure of the idea of royal power.
Dramatists of the school of Lope de Vega.
The first place belongs to Tirso de Molina (1571 - 1648), the greatest playwright of this group and an ardent follower of Lope de Vega. Tirso de Molina was a monk and historiographer of his order. This did not prevent him, along with purely religious plays, from writing very cheerful and cheerful comedies, which brought him persecution from the spiritual authorities. He owns about 400 plays of various kinds, of which only 80 have come down to us.
The work of Tirso de Molina is distinguished by the same inconsistency as the work of Lope de Vega. Tirso de Molina created the genre of religious and philosophical drama.
This group includes the most famous of the plays written by Tirso de Molina - "Seville mischievous". This legend is of folklore origin: it is based on a story about a daredevil who invited a statue of a dead man to dinner and paid for it with his life. Tirso de Molina associated with this story a characteristic type of unscrupulous seducer of women and an immoralist.
Don Juan (this is the Spanish form of this name), desiring to enjoy the love of Donna Anna, the bride of his friend, by deceit, comes under the guise of him on a date with her and runs into her father, the commander, whom he kills. Having seduced before and after that other women of the most diverse social status - the duchess, the fisherwoman, the shepherdess, he mockingly invites the statue of the commander he killed to him for dinner and, accepting her return invitation, goes to the church where the commander is buried, and there he dies, falling into the underworld.
The hero of Tirso de Molina is still very primitive. He conquers women not thanks to his personal charm, but by more crude means: aristocrats - by deceit, commoners - with a promise to marry and make his chosen one a noble lady. But he captivates with cheerfulness, energy, extraordinary courage, which the author portrays in attractive colors.
After the arrival of the statue, don Juan, still drenched in cold sweat, quickly regains control of himself and says: “It's all just imagination. Down with stupid fear!.. Am I, who is not afraid of living bodies, endowed with soul, strength and mind, - should I be afraid of the dead? Tomorrow I will go to the chapel, since I have been invited there - let all Seville marvel at my fearless feat!. However, don Juan is by no means an atheist. He thinks he can still "correct" while he wants to enjoy life. To the exhortations of his servant and all those around him, reminding him of the afterlife, he nonchalantly replies: "You give me a long time!". But death takes him by surprise. At the last moment, he shouts to the statue: “I want to call a priest to forgive my sins!”- and dies without having time to repent. At the same time, the image of don Juan contains a number of positive features, and the author himself partly admires him: his exceptional strength, courage and rapture with life.
Along with these plays, Tirso de Molina owns many comedies full of the most cheerful and witty inventions. As a master of intrigue, he is in no way inferior to Lope de Vega, and in relation to the development of characters, he often surpasses him. He especially succeeds in female images, almost obscuring the male ones in a number of his plays. His heroines are distinguished by great passion, rare energy and enterprise, ingenuity, the ability to defend their rights and fight for their happiness.
Of the other playwrights of this school, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón (1580 - 1639) stands out. In the work of Alarcon, a transition is already planned from comedies of intrigue to comedies of characters, which he significantly deepens and polishes much more than Lope de Vega. At the same time, his plays are characterized by restraint of fantasy, strictness of composition, a certain dryness of images and language, as well as a distinct moral tendency. In a number of his comedies, he gives a heartfelt portrayal of friendship, generosity, and so on. Plays: "Weaver of their Segovia", "Doubtful Truth".
Of the followers of Lope de Vega, Guillen de Castro (1569 - 1631), who often took his subjects from folk romances, also deserves mention. It is characterized by liveliness of imagination, ardor, brilliance, and at the same time a passion for depicting very dramatic situations, stormy feelings, and fantastic adventures. An example of this is his play "Sid's Youth", the plot of which is based on folk romances about Sid.
The life and work of Cervantes.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547 - 1616) was born in the town of Alcala de Henares. He belonged to the hidalgia and was the son of a poor doctor. Lack of funds prevented him from getting a good education, but he still graduated from the university. At the age of twenty-one, Cervantes entered the service of the papal ambassador to Spain, Cardinal Acquaviva. When he returned to his homeland, Cervantes went with him to Italy. After the death of the cardinal, he entered as a soldier in the Spanish army operating in Italy, was soon enrolled in the fleet and took part in the Battle of Lepanto (1571), where he fought bravely and received a severe injury to his left hand. In 1575, he decided to return to Spain, but the ship on which he sailed was attacked by Algerian corsairs and Cervantes was captured by them. He languished in Algiers for five years, repeatedly plotted to escape, ending in failure, until he was finally redeemed from captivity. At home, he found a ruined family, and his military merits were already forgotten in Spain. In search of income, Cervantes writes plays for the theater, as well as various poems, for which, having brought them to some noble person, one could receive a small monetary reward. In addition, he is working on Galatea, which was published in 1585. At this time, Cervantes is getting married. The scarcity and insecurity of earnings forced Cervantes to accept the position of first a grain collector for the army, then a collector of arrears. Having entrusted public money to one banker who fled with them, Cervantes in 1597 goes to prison on charges of embezzlement. Five years later, he is again imprisoned on charges of money abuse.
Cervantes spent the last 15 years of his life in great need. Nevertheless, this was the period of the highest flowering of his work. In 1605 the first part of the novel was published. "The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha", begun or at least conceived by Cervantes during his second imprisonment. Publication in 1614 by a certain Avellaneda of a spurious sequel "Don Quixote" prompted Cervantes to hasten the end of his novel, and in 1615 the second part of it was published. Shortly before this, in the same year, he published a collection of his plays, and before that, in 1613, he published "Instructive Novels". The following year he graduated from Literary Satire "Journey to Parnassus". The last work of Cervantes ball novel "Pesiles and Sihismunda" published after his death.
The life of Cervantes, typical of a sensitive and gifted representative of hidalgia, is a series of ardent hobbies, failures, disappointments, continuous courageous struggle with poverty and at the same time with the inertia and vulgarity of the surrounding world. The same long way of searching for the past and the work of Cervantes, who found himself relatively late. He writes to order, adapts to the prevailing style, develops "fashionable" genres, striving to have their say in this area, to introduce realistic content and deep moral issues into this style and genres. but these attempts are invariably unsuccessful until, in his declining years, Cervantes creates his own style and his own genres, capable of fully expressing his finally mature thought.
Almost all of Cervantes' lyrics, his literary and satirical poem, as well as experiments in the field of pastoral and chivalric romance are distinguished by some conventionality and far-fetchedness. ("Galatea" And "Persiles and Sihismunda"). The same can be said about the largest part of his dramatic work. In his dramaturgy, Cervantes primarily seeks verisimilitude, rebelling against the too free treatment of space and time by some of his contemporary playwrights, against the piling up, in the plot of various adventures, extravagances and absurdities, against the discrepancy between the social position of the characters and their language, etc.
The pinnacle of Cervantes' dramatic work is his interludes, probably written between 1605 and 1611. These are small, hilariously comic pieces in which types and situations have much in common with medieval farces, but are much more lively. With great knowledge of folk life and the psyche, Cervantes draws scenes of their lives of peasants, artisans, city dwellers, judges, bleached students, exposing the debauchery of the clergy, the tyranny of husbands, the swindling of charlatans, and also good-naturedly ridiculing gullibility, talkativeness, passion for litigation and other human weaknesses. Subtle humor and wonderfully vivid language give these plays great charm. Particularly popular ones "Theater of Miracles", "Salaman cave", « Jealous old man" And "Two Talkers".
Even more remarkable is the collection of his fourteen "Instructive short stories". Cervantes first established in Spain the type of Renaissance Italian short story, decisively departing from the tradition of medieval storytellers, but at the same time he reformed this Italian type, giving it national Spanish features. Their plots are almost entirely composed by Cervantes. Life, the situation is entirely Spanish. The style is characterized by a truly sideboard combination of precision with humor, sometimes good-natured, sometimes bitter. A huge place is occupied by the speeches of the characters, often very lengthy.
Cervantes' novels can be divided into three groups: love-adventure novels (for example, "Gypsy", "English Spanish" etc.), descriptive ("Riconete and Cortadillo", "Jealous Estramadur" etc.) and philosophical-sentimental ( "Licentiate Widriera", "Conversation of two dogs"), although a strict distinction is not possible here, since many short stories contain features characteristic of other groups. Collection title - "Instructive Novels", means an invitation to look deeper into life and rebuild it on a moral basis. Cervantes believes in the possibility of a happy resolution of the most intricate and dangerous situations, if the people who have fallen into them are honest, noble and energetic; he believes in "voice of nature" and in its good forces, in the final triumph of a man fighting against evil and hostile principles. In this regard, he is always on the side of a young and sincere feeling, defending his rights against any coercion and social conventions. The ideals of Cervantes, revealed in "Instructive short stories", is love for life, but without intoxication with it, courage without arrogance, moral exactingness towards oneself and others, but without any asceticism or intolerance, modest, unostentatious heroism, and most importantly - deep humanity and generosity.
The novel "Don Quixote"
Novel "Don Quixote" was written by Cervantes in his later life. The novel is the result of his creative reflections. This work, insufficiently appreciated by contemporaries, brought its author posthumous fame and was declared by critics of the 19th - 20th centuries. one of the greatest creations of human thought.
"Don Quixote"- this is clearly indicated by the author in the prologue to the first part of the novel and in its final lines - it was conceived primarily as a parody of chivalric novels. Don Quixote, a poor provincial hidalgo, driven mad by reading chivalric novels and determined to restore the ancient institution of knight-errant, like the heroes of chivalric novels, goes out on exploits in honor of his imaginary "ladies" to protect all the offended and oppressed in this world. But his armor is rusty fragments of the weapons of his ancestors, his horse is a miserable nag that stumbles at every step, his squire is a cunning and rude local peasant, tempted by the prospect of quick enrichment, the lady of his heart is a peasant girl Aldonsa Lorenzo from a neighboring village, renamed Dulcinea Toboso by the mad Don Quixote. In the same way, all knightly rites and customs are parodied in the novel: the knighting ceremony, etiquette "knight service" lady (for example, when Don Quixote orders "defeated" adversaries to go to Dulcinea de Toboso and put themselves at her disposal).
The overheated imagination of Don Quixote makes him see brilliant adventures or magic in everything, take windmills for giants, an inn - a magnificent castle, a barber's basin - for a wonderful helmet, convicts - for oppressed knights, a lady riding in a carriage - for a kidnapped princess.
All the exploits of Don Quixote, performed by him to restore justice on earth, lead to completely opposite results: the shepherd Andres, for whom Don Quixote interceded, after his departure is subjected to even more severe beatings; the convicts released by him scatter to become the scourge of society again; an absurd attack on a funeral procession ends with a broken leg of an innocent licentiate; the desire to help the Spanish knight, surrounded by the Moors, leads to the destruction of the puppet theater, on the stage of which this was depicted. All those Don Quixote tries "protect", pray to the sky "punish and destroy his grace with all the knights ever born into the world". Don Quixote is insulted, beaten, cursed, mocked, and, to top the shame, he is trampled on by a herd of pigs. Finally, exhausted morally and physically, the Knight of the Sad Image returns to his home and there, having become seriously ill, he begins to see clearly before his death; he again becomes Don Alonso Quijana, nicknamed the Good for his deeds, renounces chivalric nonsense and makes a will in favor of his niece, with the proviso that she will lose her inheritance if she marries a man who loves chivalric novels.
Satire on chivalric romances was a genre very common during the Renaissance, but Cervantes deepened the situation and complicated the image of the main character. First of all, he endowed his hero with not only negative, but also positive features, and in addition, he gave him a double life - in a healthy and in a delusional state, which makes him almost two different characters. Further, Cervantes gave Don Quixote a companion who partly contrasts with him, partly complements him. Last but not least, Cervantes brought Don Quixote into constant and varied contact with real life.
First of all, in his novel, Cervantes ridiculed not only chivalric romances as a literary genre, but also the very idea of chivalry. Ridiculing chivalric novels, he struggled with the old, feudal consciousness, which was reinforced by them and found its poetic expression in them. He protested in his novel against the entire worldview of the ruling elite of Spain, who tried to revive on new foundations "knightly" ideas, and above all against the feudal Catholic reaction that supported these ideas.
Cervantes condemns not Don Quixote himself, endowed with traits of rare spiritual nobility, kindness and prudence, but those delusional chivalrous ideas that captured the imagination of the poor hidalgo. The latter could only happen because Don Quixote is all directed towards the past. This past is the world of chivalry that Don Quixote is trying to restore. He acts blindly, following ready-made norms and rules that have outlived their time, read by him from old books, he does not know how and does not want to take into account real possibilities, with the real needs and requirements of people, with the actual state of things.
In his adventures, Don Quixote not only constantly fails, but also sows destruction around him. His madness is all the more dangerous because it is contagious, as seen in the example of Sancho Panza.
However, if Cervantes makes fun of Don Quixote, at the same time he is full of deep sympathy for him. The means used by Don Quixote are absurd, but the goal is lofty. Cervantes in every possible way emphasizes the high moral qualities, disinterestedness, generosity of Don Quixote, his sincere desire to benefit humanity. According to Sancho Panza, his master has "pigeon heart". In moments of mental enlightenment, when Don Quixote forgets his chivalrous fantasies, he is unusually attractive - he is easy to get along with everyone, exceptionally humane and reasonable. His speeches arouse the admiration of the listeners, they are full of high humanistic wisdom.
Remarkable in this respect is the advice given by Don Quixote to Sancho Panza before he enters the government. "governorship": “Look inside yourself and try to know yourself, and this knowledge is the most difficult of all that can be. Knowing yourself, you will no longer pout like a frog wishing to be compared with an ox.. Don Quixote continues: “Speak with pride about your artistry, Sancho, and admit without blushing that you are from the peasantry, for it would never occur to anyone to shame you with this, as long as you yourself are not ashamed of it ... Remember, Sancho: if you embark on the path of virtue and try to do good deeds, then you will not have to envy the deeds of princes and lords, for blood is inherited, and virtue is acquired, and it has an independent value, unlike from blood, which has no such value". Elsewhere Don Quixote teaches Sancho: “There are two types of genealogies: others are descended from sovereign princes and monarchs, but their family gradually dwindles and narrows over time, like a pyramid turned upside down, others came from the common people, but little by little rise from stage to stage and, finally, become noble masters. Thus, the difference between them is that they were once what they are not now, and others are now what they were not before.. Or more : "Virtue makes blood noble, and a person of humble origin, but virtuous, deserves more respect than noble, but vicious". About freedom Don Quixote says Sancho thus: “Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious bounties that the sky pours out on people; no treasures can compare with it: neither those that are hidden in the bowels of the earth, nor those that are hidden at the bottom of the sea. For the sake of freedom, as well as for the sake of honor, one can and must risk one's life, and, on the contrary, bondage is the greatest of all misfortunes that can befall a person. I say this, Sancho, for this: you saw how we were looked after and how we were surrounded by contentment in that castle that we just left, and yet, in spite of all these luxurious dishes and refreshing drinks, it seemed to me personally that I endured the pangs of hunger, because I did not eat them with the same feeling of freedom, as if all this were mine, meanwhile the obligations imposed by benefits and graces are fetters, restricting the freedom of the human spirit».
An addition to the image of Don Quixote is the image of Sancho Panza. It also has precedents in medieval literature. Cervantes created a complex, deeply realistic image that reflects the essential aspects of the Spanish life of that time and is very important for the overall idea of the novel. At first glance, Sancho Panza is the exact opposite of his master: while Don Quixote, exhausting himself physically, longs to work selflessly for the benefit of mankind, Sancho Panza, first of all, tries to please his flesh and serve himself. He likes to sleep and eat most of all (his very name is expressive: panza in Spanish means "belly"), he wants to become a count and governor, he wants his wife Teresa Panza to ride in a gilded carriage. Dreaming about how he will become a ruler, Sancho Panza asks if he can sell all his subjects into slavery and put the money in his pocket. He is all in practice, in the present, while Don Quixote is all in a dream about the past, which he wants to revive. But at the same time, there is a deep inner similarity between them, making them the sons of one people and the product of one era.
Their fate is similar: both, carried away by their fantasies, break away from the family and a peaceful healthy life; to roam the world in search of fortune, and both are eventually healed of their delusions, convinced that they were at the mercy of the mirages. But the difference between them is that Don Quixote was captivated by the dream of eradicating evil on earth and of knightly glory, i.e. the old chivalric ideal in its classical form, and Sancho Panza, under the influence of the mad Don Quixote, was seduced by the idea of easy money, the spirit of adventurism, i.e. modern form of knightly ideal - "chivalry" initial accumulation.
There is also a difference in how they heal from their mirages. Don Quixote, despite the hail of failures raining down on him, remains in the grip of his chivalrous illusions, until, finally, the veil falls from his eyes. But that second, healthy person who lives in him develops throughout the novel under the influence of both contact with life and communication with the pure soul of Sancho Panza. Don Quixote's speeches at the moments of enlightenment of his consciousness become more and more significant and wise, and in parallel with this, he becomes more trusting and frank with his squire, more and more often asks him for advice and help, and the social distance between them is shrinking, until, in the last chapters, it disappears completely.
On the contrary, Sancho Panza is healed mentally and morally long before the end of the novel. He is freed from the delusions he received from Don Quixote as a result of severe trials, the last of which was his "governorship". However, in managing your "solid island" he entered already cured of the thirst for profit that had previously possessed him, and this happened to him partly under the influence of Don Quixote's constant example of spiritual nobility and kindness. Sancho Panza accompanies Don Quixote on the latter's third trip, no longer for reasons of profit, but out of heartfelt affection for his affection for his master, whom he sincerely loved. At the end of the novel, he does not remember the salary that he owes him. Under the influence of Don Quixote, Sancho becomes kinder and more generous in his relations with people, he is no longer led by a thirst for enrichment, but by a love of justice and humanity.
In general, both for Don Quixote, chivalric undertakings, and for Sancho Panza, his dreams of enrichment are only a temporary borrowed shell, deeply alien to their nature. Both of them are the noblest representatives of the Spanish people. If the madcap Don Quixote is the bearer of the highest humanistic ideas, then the ingenuous merry fellow Sancho Panza is the embodiment of folk wisdom and moral health. Both are intimately close to each other, which is especially pronounced in the episode of the governorship of Sancho Panza, where the noble humanistic ideals of Don Quixote intersect with Sancho's practical reason, honesty and healthy humanity. Another moment of their deep and already final rapprochement is the finale of the novel, when Sancho Panza, shedding tears, says goodbye to the dying master, who has freed himself from his delusions and is no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha, but again - Alonso Quixana the Good.
It is very characteristic that in a novel in which there are several hundred characters, very few representatives of the aristocracy are shown, and if they appear, they are outlined in the most mean and general strokes. Such are the duke and duchess in the second part, like puppets in comparison with the rest of the characters in the novel, bright and lively. Cervantes very subtly makes you feel all the emptiness and boredom of their magnificent life filled with ceremonies, which makes them rejoice at the meeting with Don Quixote and his squire as a welcome fun.
Some vague attitude of Cervantes towards the clergy, although his statements on this subject are also extremely disguised. IN "Don Quixote" spiritual persons are not shown at all in their specific practice. Apart from a certain number of monks, students of theology and priests participating in Don Quixote's road adventures as extras, in the whole novel there is only one clergyman who has a certain physiognomy - this is a friend of Don Quixote, a priest of the same village where the hero lives, enlightened and reasonable, always able to give good advice, who discovered during an inspection of Don Quixote's library a delicate literary taste, taking care of the affairs of Don Quixote. Quixote and his recovery, he does not look like a priest, and no one would have guessed his belonging to this corporation, if not for his dress.
If Cervantes avoids depicting in his novel the tops of society and the clergy, then he gives in it a broad picture of folk life, depicting truthfully and colorfully peasants, artisans, mule drivers, shepherds, poor students, soldiers, tavern maids, etc. All those little people walking "on the ground with just feet", he describes objectively and diversified, without hiding the rudeness, greed, quarrelsomeness, propensity to swindle of many of them, but at the same time emphasizes the huge stock of industriousness, activity, optimism and good nature lurking in them. Cervantes is full of trust and sincere sympathy for all these people, he tries to show them from the good side. The rude tavern maid Maritornes buys a mug of beer for poor Sancho Panza with her last pennies. The hostess of the inn carefully treats Don Quixote, beaten by the muleteers. Cervantes opposes this half-impoverished, but full of vibrant creative powers, Spain with official Spain, predatory, arrogant and pious, idealizing itself in pompous pictures of chivalric novels or sugary images of pastoral novels.
In all these scenes, which form the main background of the novel, elements of a healthy life are given that are capable of further development. Complementing them are several inserted short stories, which depict the highest, very complex forms of life, partly poeticized in tragic, partly in sentimental tones. These short stories echo some of the episodes of the main story. The purpose of these short stories is to show the possibility of noble and beautiful forms of human activity on a purely real basis of sound feelings and concepts, as opposed to the knightly nonsense of Don Quixote.
The profound nationality of Cervantes' novel lies in the thoughtful and sympathetic depiction of the broad background of folk life; in the rapprochement of Don Quixote with Sancho Panza, in showing the creative possibilities lurking in this son of the Spanish people; in a clear and sober attitude to life; in the denunciation of any social untruth and violence; in deep love and respect for the person of whom this book speaks; in the optimism that she breathes, despite the sad nature of most of her episodes and the sadness that pervades her.
All this corresponds to the wonderful realistic language of the novel, clear, colorful, rich in shades, which has absorbed many elements of folk speech. The language of the characters of Cervantes is different depending on their social status and character. The contrast between the measured and important, sometimes even somewhat archaic language of Don Quixote and the not always correct, but juicy and expressive, interspersed with proverbs, sayings, interjections, the truly folk speech of Sancho Panza is especially clear. The language of the characters also changes in Cervantes in connection with the nature of the situation or the state of mind of the speakers, taking either oratorical, colloquial, pathetic, joking or familiar connotations.
Cervantes brilliantly captured the main trends and problems of his era. Summarizing them in the images of the two main characters of his novel, he invested in them a great universal content. Thanks to this, the central images of the novel, reflecting the actual state of Spain in the 16th-17th centuries, at the same time acquired a much broader meaning, retaining their vitality and expressiveness in subsequent centuries. In particular, since Cervantes, who wrote his novel in the conditions of the crisis of humanism, reflected in it with great force the collision of the ideal aspirations of the human mind with the world of self-interest and personal interests, "Don Quixote" became for future generations of thinkers and writers a model of opposition between the ideal and "base reality".
Meaning "Don Quixote" for the further development of the European novel is very large. Destroying the old chivalric romance, Cervantes at the same time lays the foundations for a new type of novel, signifying a huge step forward in the development of artistic realism.
Roman Cervantes was at the beginning of the XVII century. an exceptional phenomenon, far ahead of its era. It was only truly understood and could have a real influence on European literature in the eighteenth and especially in the nineteenth century, when a higher form of realism became possible. From that moment on, ideas, images, narrative style, general tone and individual stylistic features "Don Quixote" found a wide response in European literature. Of the writers on whom the influence of Cervantes was especially pronounced, one can name Fielding, W. Scott, Dickens, Gogol.
