Physiological essay: a description of the social class, its life, habitat, foundations and values

Certain shifts in public consciousness in the middle of the nineteenth century led to the emergence of a genre such as a physiological essay. Nekrasov and Belinsky, creating the almanacs of the so-called new school, as if trying to restore the literary activity of Russia in the militant principles of the Rileyevsky and bestuzhevskaya "Polar Star." A fairly large group of writers was united by the advanced ideology of that time, so the understanding of creative tasks radically changed.

The tasks of realism

Revolutionary nobles have long been replaced by revolutionary democrats, therefore civil romanticism came to replace the creativity of the realistic plan. The physiological essay became one of the most striking signs of pre-revolutionary times. The very word "physiology" was not applied to literature by creators or adherents of the new school. It appeared much earlier.

F. Kony in 1841 published in the Literary Gazette miniature ironic sketches with ridiculous names: "Physiology of female beauty", "Physiology of the nose", for example. Translators of the same years brought from the French "Physiology of the Parisian theaters" and "Physiology of a married man."

Modern understanding of this word does not correspond to what Nekrasov's contemporaries meant under him. Russian literature of the 19th century saw it as an investigation of the way of life and morals in a certain professional or social environment.

Physiology of St. Petersburg

Writers-researchers of a new direction in literature decided to address the reader with the physiology of Petersburg. And not the official, ceremonial side of this largest commercial and administrative center, they have creatively considered, but the life of its social bottom. The physiological essay as a genre has been replenished with meticulously painted pictures of common folk life, besides its most distant backstage sides, that is, nooks and crannies.

So, Vladimir Dahl brought an essay on the St. Petersburg janitor, Ivan Ivanovich Panayev described the St. Petersburg feuilletonist, Alexander Kulchitsky - the Petersburg omnibus, and Eugene Grebenka - the Petersburg side ... Writers had to plunge into this nature with their heads, so as carefully as possible to consider all the details not Very familiar world of the lower classes.

World of details

The physiological essay in Russian literature of that time was not good because he was interested in physiology too closely, that is, this interest became self-sufficient. The image of everyday, portrait, speech or psychological details completely hammered out the most important tasks of the writer, it was not always possible to express sympathy for the poor.

Such falls in naturalism - in the narrowest sense of the word - made the writer vulnerable to criticism. Although the artistic development of public life, of course, has progressed. Native writing became not only the problematic of the work, but also the genre and composition.

The characters of the heroes were revealed by describing the everyday life of the household, the narrative was given less and less space, the plot construction came to naught, because the outline was predominant - individual pictures and everyday scenes, connected not by a plot, not by a single action, but by one ideological problem.

Physiology of the peasantry

The genre of the physiological essay was rapidly entering fashion, becoming a new word in the literature of the 1840s. Petersburg writers did not stop there. Interest in the life of the peasant, his fortress share, too, was very great. In the disclosure of this topic, young writers particularly distinguished themselves: Grigorovich (Anton Goremyka and Derevnya), Dahl (The Russian Man), Herzen (The Magpie).

Especially it is necessary to note Nekrasov and his poem "On the Road", where the image of an ordinary peasant woman, although very gifted, but ruined by serfdom, is very giftedly transferred. Ivan Turgenev, who since 1847 began to publish essays from landlord and peasant life, has also joined the realism direction with the physiology of the Russian village.

Sympathy for criticism

Belinsky was very sympathetic to the development of the new genre. He tried to theoretically substantiate the appearance, originality and necessity of such a phenomenon as a physiological essay. The definition of him as one of the genres of journalism or essays that explores a particular social class, as well as its foundations, values and habitat, is given in the review articles of the critic, where he describes new stories from the life of the peasantry. Usually works of writers in this genre Belinsky highly appreciated.

Compositional features have received his special attention. Belinsky believed that the physiological essay should not become either a story or a novel. So, criticizing Grigorovich, he noted the writer's talent for essays of public life, but reproached the "Village" with narrative. The shortcomings of this work, according to Belinsky, are that in the sketch all the pictures of village life should be outwardly devoid of any connection, but they must breathe one thought.

Household essay

A new direction in the literature did not take shape at once, both participants and the main tendencies of creativity were revealed gradually. Belinsky was sure that he had begun writing with Gogol, who introduced new and so vivid elements into literature that gave birth to many imitators, it was Gogol who showed the society the true contemplation of the Russian novel, that is why the new period of our literature began with him.

From the followers of Nikolai Vasilyevich Belinsky singled out Vladimir Sollogub with his stories "Two Students", "The History of Two Galoshes", "The Bear" and "The Apothecary". Sollogub, this conservative aristocrat, and he saw the emptiness of secular life, contrasting to her the sincerity and honesty of people from the lower class. Belinsky noted that Sologub has no deep faith and ardent convictions, so in places the image turns out to be indifferent. However, the presence of simplicity and the precise sense of reality make Sollogub's novels extremely valuable.

Educational role

Particularly well seen are the features of the physiological essay in "The Sleep of Oblomov." The character of the hero is guessed by all the things described by Goncharov that surround him. It seems that everything is good, but even goodness does not say about Oblomov's satisfaction with his own life. His present position is empty and wretched, and the hero realizes it.

Dreams of his childhood, which passed in the patriarchal Oblomovka, where the inquisitive and frisky boy was not allowed even to dress himself. Only servants work there. Sleep carries Oblomov at a time for his life is not so noticeable, but swivel. As in his childhood, now everything is already realized Oblomov, and waking up, did not turn anywhere.

Unrealized hopes

There were writers whom Belinsky decisively put in the first row of Russian literature, despite the fact that he himself saw some shortcomings of their letter, but he was sure that writers would be able to overcome everything.

The hope of the criticism was, for example, I. I. Panayev, whose stories "The Lady", "Onagr", "Actaeon" and others were called no less than the most remarkable phenomena of nineteenth-century Russian literature. He noted that in these stories only a lot of true, characteristic, cleverly and tenaciously grasped. I saw Belinsky and something hesitating, hesitant, unsteady, but explained this by the immaturity of a remarkable talent. In fact, these were the properties of the author's thinking, which he did not manage to overcome.

Also praised by the critic and story of V. I. Dal, where he found details exclusively artistic, amazingly true features of the merchants' way of life. He brought the story "Batman" to the treasury of Russian literature. And enthusiastically repeated that after Gogol Dahl was the only talent, the true poet of the physiological essay. In fact, Dahl is not great at all with fiction, and the future quickly set priorities.

The world of fantasy against the harsh truth

Now we all know that there is the truth of life and the truth of literature, and it is quite true that the second art is much more expensive. And in the nineteenth century, writers walked unchecked road in search of real literary realism. Belinsky wrote about the huge difference between the direction, manner, content and spirit of the literature of the old and new school. The old stories portrayed a fantasy world, and the new ones depicted a real life.

The new school was organizationally finalized when even younger writers joined Grigorovich, Nekrasov, and later Dostoevsky joined Belinsky. At that time, three almanacs were collected and published under the editorship of Nekrasov: two volumes of "Physiology of Petersburg" and "Petersburg Collection", which became a kind of manifesto of this literary trend. There was a list of creative principles (foreword by Belinsky), and the path of creative realization.

Naturally, without this masterpiece, this rather primitive genre did not remain - with such and such authors. Here, first of all, Turgenev's "Notes of the Hunter" must be called: in the execution of all the principles of writing a physiological essay, all eight genre paintings turned out to be specimens of the highest poetic word. Plus - anti-serfdom thought that accompanies the reader throughout the "Notes".

Old New Journal

Since 1847, the completely updated "Contemporary" began to appear, which became the organ of the most advanced Russian literary movement. Despite the change of the editors-in-chief (zitsch-chairmen), NA Nekrasov completely and completely corrected the journal. Twenty years this magazine was the most in demand in the country.

The works published in Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski were clearly wider and more complete than the physiological essay, and the creative techniques used by the authors were not limited to the everyday details of the characters' lives. Here was published "Ordinary story" Goncharova, here came the second part of the beautiful novel Herzen "Who is to blame?". The whole novel was published in the appendix to "Contemporary". M. Saltykov (not yet Shchedrin) appeared with his first stories. And Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Russian literature of the 19th century, through a physiological essay, found and mastered a new direction, and not a school, realism.