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Bashkir State University

Lermontov's poem demon

on the topic: “Demon” as bright romantic poem

Completed by: 3rd year student

Faculty of Philology OZO t/r

Akhmetova Aisylu I.

Creation of the poem "Demon"

Poem “Demon” by M.Yu. Lermontov began composing at the age of fifteen and worked on it for about ten years. Many times he took it on, left it, then started again. But it’s interesting: the first line - “Sad demon, spirit of exile” - went through all editions of the poem and remained in it until the end. In the first versions, the action of the poem takes place outside of time and space, in an unreal, conditional setting. Already in this first experience, the atheistic nature of the poem, the denial of divine power, is clearly expressed.

The poet is only 15 years old. After these verses, new and new plans arose. And let’s imagine: living in Moscow, on Malaya Molchanovka, in a one-story house with a mezzanine, a short, stocky and dark-skinned teenager with huge dark eyes, sitting at the table, in his room under the very roof, from time to time looking up from the paper, raising his eyes, sees the roofs of squat Arbat mansions and writes about the spirit of evil, about the destroyer demon. He has friends - this boy, friends who love him, highly value his poems, and sometimes make fun of him a little. And he is serious, cheerful and witty. He loves them. But deep down he is infinitely lonely. He is completely different from them. He hates secular society, he would like to escape from this stuffy environment, from its laws. He is full of contempt and anger. And the heroes of his poems and tragedies, like him, are alone in the world around them. And every time they die or live out lonely days. Like Pushkin's Prisoner, like Girey, like Aleko. Like the heroes of Byron's poems. No, he kills them more often!

Having begun work on the poem “Demon” in 1829, the poet in 1829-1831. writes or outlines four editions of it. In 1833-1834. Lermontov created the fifth edition of the poem, and in 1838 the sixth. The heroine's appearance changes. She gradually lost the features of an abstract romantic sinner and acquired a psychologically motivated biography. In the sixth edition, Lermontov found the final location of action - the Caucasus, and the plot turned out to be immersed in the atmosphere of folk legends and enriched with details of everyday life and ethnography, and Princess Tamara appeared as a living and full-blooded image. With the appearance of such an image, the Demon received a measure of the value of his deeds. In its philosophical and ethical content, the image of Tamara is equal to the image of the Demon. She is endowed with that fullness of experience that disappeared in modern world; her love is selfless and combined with redemptive suffering. Therefore, having destroyed Tamara, the Demon is not only punished by hopeless loneliness (as was the case in the early, “Byronic” editions), but also defeated at the very moment of his imaginary victory - for his victim rose above him. This last stage in the evolution of the plan was associated with a general revaluation of the individualistic idea that affected all of Lermontov’s work in the late 30s. The demon remained a rebellious and suffering creature; in his monologues there was a denial of the existing world order, and his voice began to merge with the voice of the author. In “The Demon,” Lermontov’s characteristic motives of fighting against God found the clearest embodiment. They caused the poem to be banned from publication. By 1839, Lermontov considered the idea of “Demon” exhausted. In 1840. The last edition of “The Demon” dates back to 1839.

Lermontov did not finish work on “The Demon” and did not intend to publish it. There is no authorized copy, much less an autograph of the poem in this edition. It is printed according to the list according to which it was printed in 1856 by A.I. Filosofov, married to a relative of Lermontov, A.T. Stolypina. A.I. Filosofov was the tutor of one of the great princes and published this edition of “The Demon” in Germany. The book was published in a very small edition, especially for courtiers. On title page Philosopher's list says: "Demon". Eastern story, composed by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov on December 4, 1838...” There is also a date for the list: “September 13, 1841,” which indicates that this list was made after Lermontov’s death.

An authorized copy of this edition of the poem, donated by V.A. Lermontov, has survived. Lopukhina (Bakhmetyeva’s husband) and stayed with her brother, Lermontov’s friend and fellow student at Moscow University. The precious manuscript has reached us. A large notebook made of beautiful thick paper is sewn with thick white threads, as Lermontov usually sewed his creative notebooks. It is kept in Leningrad, in the library named after Saltykov-Shchedrin. The cover is yellowed, torn and then glued back by someone. Although the manuscript was copied in someone else's smooth handwriting, the cover was made by the poet himself. At the top - large - is the signature: “Demon”. Bottom left, small: “September 1838, 8 days.” The title is carefully written and enclosed in an oval vignette. We also find Lermontov’s handwriting on one of the pages of the poem at the very end. The lines written by Lermontov in the notebook he gave to his beloved woman, among the pages soullessly written out by the clerk, acquire a special intimate meaning. They are perceived with excitement, like someone else's secret being accidentally revealed.

Features of romanticism in the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "Demon"

A romantic hero who was first depicted by A.S. Pushkin in “Prisoner of the Caucasus” and in “Gypsies” and in which the author of the named poems, in his own words, depicted “ distinctive features youth of the 19th century”, found complete development in the romantic image of the Demon. In “Demon” M.Yu. Lermontov gave his understanding and his assessment of the individualist hero.

Lermontov used in “The Demon,” on the one hand, the biblical legend about the spirit of evil, overthrown from heaven for his rebellion against the supreme divine power, and on the other, the folklore of the Caucasian peoples, among whom there were widespread legends about a mountain spirit that swallowed up a girl. Georgian This gives the plot of “The Demon” an allegorical character. But beneath the fantasy of the plot, there is a deep psychological, philosophical, and social meaning.

The proud affirmation of personality, opposed to the negative world order, is heard in the words of the Demon: “I am the king of knowledge and freedom.” But Lermontov showed that one cannot stop at contempt and hatred. Having settled for absolute denial, the Demon also rejected positive ideals. This led the Demon to that painful state of inner emptiness, disembodiment, hopelessness, and loneliness in which we find him at the beginning of the poem. The “Shrine of love, goodness and beauty”, which the Demon again left and, under the impression of beauty, reveals itself to him in Tamara - this is the Ideal worthy of a person beautiful free life. The plot of the plot lies in the fact that the Demon acutely felt the captivity of the sharp Ideal and rushed towards it with all his being. This is the meaning of the attempt to “revive” the Demon, which is described in the poem in conventional biblical and folklore images. But later he recognized these dreams as “crazy” and cursed them. Lermontov, continuing the analysis of romantic individualism, with deep psychological truth, hides the reasons for this failure. He shows how, in the development of experiences about an event, a noble social ideal is replaced by another - individualistic and egoistic, returning the Demon to its original position. Responding “to the temptation with full speeches” to Tamara’s pleas, “ evil spirit"forgets the ideal of "love, goodness and beauty." The demon calls for departure from the world, from people. He invites Tamara to leave “the pitiful light of his fate,” invites her to look at the earth “without regret, without pity.” The Demon places one minute of his “unacknowledged torment” above “the painful hardships, labors and troubles of the crowd of people...” The Demon was unable to overcome selfish individualism in himself. This caused the death of Tamara and the defeat of the Demon.

Lermontov, in a romantic form, showed the futility of such sentiments of denial and put forward the need for other ways of fighting for freedom. Overcoming romantic individualism and revealing the inferiority of “demonic” negation confronted Lermontov with the problem of effective ways to fight for personal freedom, the problem of a different hero. Lermontov's demon is a “mighty image,” “mute and proud,” which shone for the poet with “magically sweet beauty” for so many years. In Lermontov's poem, God is depicted as the strongest of all the tyrants in the world. And the Demon is the enemy of this tyrant. The most cruel accusation against the creator of the Universe is the Earth he created.

This evil, unjust god seems to actor poems. He's somewhere behind the scenes. But they constantly talk about him, they remember him, the Demon tells Tamara about him, although he does not directly address him, as the heroes of other works of Lermontov do. "You are guilty!" - the reproach that the heroes of Lermontov’s dramas throw at God, blaming the creator of the Universe. Lermontov loves understatement; he often speaks in hints.

The demon is punished not only for murmuring: he is punished for rebellion. And his punishment is terrible, sophisticated. The tyrant god, with his terrible curse, incinerated the soul of the Demon, making it cold and dead. He not only expelled him from paradise - he devastated his soul. But this is not enough. The all-powerful despot held the Demon responsible for the evil of the world. By the will of God, the Demon “burns with a fatal seal” everything it touches, harming all living things. God made the Demon and his fellow rebels evil, turned them into an instrument of evil. This is the terrible tragedy of Lermontov’s hero. The love that flared up in the Demon’s soul meant rebirth for him. The “inexplicable excitement” that he felt at the sight of Tamara dancing enlivened the “dumb desert of his soul”

Dreams about past happiness, about the time when he “wasn’t evil” woke up, the feeling spoke in him “in a native, understandable language.” Returning to the past did not at all mean for him reconciliation with God and a return to serene bliss in paradise. To him, an ever-searching thinker, such a thoughtless state was alien; he did not need this paradise with carefree, calm angels, for whom there were no questions and everything was always clear. He wanted something else. He wanted his soul to live, to respond to the impressions of life and to be able to communicate with another kindred soul and experience great human feelings. Live! Living life to the fullest is what rebirth meant for the Demon. Having felt love for one living being, he felt love for all living things, felt the need to do genuine, real good, admire the beauty of the world, everything that the “evil” god had deprived him of was returned to him. In the early editions, the young poet describes the joy of the Demon, who felt the thrill of love in his heart, very naively, primitively, somehow childishly, but surprisingly simply and expressively.

The "Iron Dream" strangled the Demon and was the result of God's curse, it was a punishment for the battle. In Lermontov, things speak, and the poet conveys the power of his hero’s suffering with the image of a stone burned by a tear. Feeling for the first time “the longing of love, its excitement,” the strong, proud Demon cries. A single, stingy, heavy tear rolls from his eyes and falls onto the stone. The image of a stone burned by a tear appears in a poem written by a seventeen-year-old boy. The demon was the poet's companion for many years. He grows and matures with him. And Lermontov more than once compares his lyrical hero with the hero of his poem.

“Like my demon, I am the chosen one of evil,” the poet says about himself. He himself is as much a rebel as his Demon. The hero of the early editions of the poem is a sweet, touching young man. He wants to pour out his anguished soul to someone. Having fallen in love and felt “goodness and beauty,” the young Demon retires to the top of the mountains. He decided to abandon his beloved, not to meet with her, so as not to cause her suffering. He knows that his love will destroy this earthly girl locked in a monastery; she will be severely punished both on earth and in heaven. The terrible punishments of “sinning” nuns have been told many times in works of literature, foreign and Russian. The young Demon also manifests the sense of true goodness that has awakened in him in the fact that he helps people who are lost in the mountains during a blizzard, blows snow off the face of the traveler “and seeks protection for him.” Lermontov’s poetic landscapes of the Caucasus have a documentary character; these gray, naked rocks are comparable to the emptiness of the soul of their hero. But the action of the poem develops. And the Demon has already flown over the Cross Pass. This dramatic change in landscape is true. It amazes everyone who passes through Krestovaya Mountain.

And Lermontov, with the same skill with which he had just described the harsh and majestic landscape of the Caucasus Range to the Cross Pass, now paints a “luxurious, lush edge of the earth” - with rose bushes, nightingales, spreading, ivy-covered plane trees and “ringing running streams” . Full life a luxurious picture of nature prepares us for something new, and we begin to involuntarily wait for events. Against the backdrop of this fragrant earth, the heroine of the poem appears for the first time. Just as the image of the Demon is complemented by the landscape of the rocky mountains, so the image of the young, full-of-life Georgian beauty Tamara becomes brighter in combination with the lush nature of her homeland. On a roof covered with carpets, among friends, he spends his last day in home daughter of Prince Gudal Tamara. Tomorrow is her wedding. The thought that excited Tamara about the “fate of a slave” was a protest, a rebellion against this fate, and the Demon felt this rebellion in her. It was to her that he could promise to open “the abyss of proud knowledge.”

There is some similarity of characters between the hero and heroine of the poem “The Demon”. A philosophical work is at the same time a romantic and psychological poem. It also has a huge social meaning. The hero of the poem bears the features of living people, the poet’s contemporaries.

All the features inherent in romanticism as an artistic method are clearly visible in the poem “The Demon”:

Main character- a loner who challenged not even human society - God himself

The demon is a bright, strong personality, as befits a romantic hero.

The landscapes of the Caucasus play a huge role in the poem: The demon is akin to these mountains, he is just as independent, and also doomed to eternity.

Conclusion

The poem “Demon” breathes the spirit of those years when it was created. It embodied everything that they lived, that they thought about, that the best people of Lermontov’s time suffered from. It also contains the contradiction of this era. Progressive people of the 30s of the last century passionately searched for the truth. They sharply criticized the surrounding autocratic-serfdom reality, with its slavery, cruelty, and despotism. But they didn't know where to find the truth. Lost in the kingdom of evil, they fought powerlessly and protested, but did not see the path to the world of justice and felt endlessly alone.

The demon suffers from loneliness, strives for life and people, and at the same time, this proud man despises people for their weakness. He places one minute of his “unacknowledged torment” above “the painful hardships, labors and troubles of the crowd of people.” But the Demon is also a symbolic image. For the poet himself and for his advanced contemporaries, the Demon was a symbol of the breakdown of the old world, the collapse of the old concepts of good and evil. The poet embodied in him the spirit of criticism and revolutionary negation.

There are many contradictions in the poem “The Demon,” which Lermontov created over the course of a decade. They have been preserved on last stages work. Lermontov did not finish his work on the poem. At the end of the 30s, Lermontov moved away from his Demon and in the poem “A Fairy Tale for Children” (1839-1840) called it “children’s delirium.” The poem contains all the features of romanticism: extreme dissatisfaction with reality, contrasting it with a beautiful dream; folk legends, folklore, the beautiful and majestic world of nature, the clearly expressed attitude of the author - in the demon the features of the author of the poem himself. Romantic heroes always in conflict with society. They are exiles, wanderers. Lonely, disillusioned, the heroes challenge an unjust society and turn into rebels, rebels. We see all this in the work of M.Yu. Lermontov "Demon".

Lermontov's poem demon

Literature

Krementsev L.P. Russian literature XIX century. 1801-1850: textbook/ - 3rd ed. -M.: , 2008. - 248 p.

2. N.M. Fortunatov, M.G. Urtmintseva, I.S. Yukhnova Russian history

Literature of the 19th century: Textbook. allowance. - M.: Higher. schools., 2008.- 671 p.

3. Yakushin N.I. Russian literature of the 19th century (first half): Textbook.

aid for students higher schools: - M.: 2001. - 256 p.

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"Daemon"

(subtitle “Eastern Tale”)

The “Sad Demon, the spirit of exile” flies over our sinful land, remembers the time when he lived in paradise, when “he believed and loved.” He flew over the peaks of the Caucasus: Kazbek sparkles like the face of a diamond, Terek leaps like a lioness - and feels nothing but contempt. Evil even got bored with the spirit of evil. Everything is a burden: indefinite loneliness, immortality, and limitless power over an insignificant earth. Meanwhile, the landscape is changing. Under the wing of the flying Demon is no longer a collection of rocks and abysses, but the lush valleys of happy Georgia: the sparkle and breath of a thousand plants. Alas, these luxurious paintings do not evoke new thoughts in the inhabitants of the superstellar regions. Only for a moment does the Demon’s distracted attention catch the festive revival in the usually silent possessions of the Georgian feudal lord: the owner of the estate, Prince Gudal he has wooed his only heiress, and in his high house they are preparing for a wedding celebration.

The relatives have gathered ahead of time, the wine is already flowing, and the groom will arrive by sunset Princess Tamara- illustrious ruler of the Synodal, while the servants are unrolling ancient carpets: according to custom, on the carpeted roof, the bride, even before the groom appears, must perform a traditional dance with a tambourine. Princess Tamara is dancing! Oh, how she dances! Now he rushes like a bird, circling a small tambourine above his head, now he freezes like a frightened doe, and a light cloud of sadness runs across his lovely face. After all, this is the princess’s last day in her father’s house! How will someone else's family meet her? No, no, Tamara is not being married off against her will. She likes the groom chosen by her father: in love, young, handsome - what more! But here no one constrained her freedom, but there... Having driven away the “secret doubt,” Tamara smiles again. Smiles and dances. The gray-haired Gudal is proud of her daughter, the guests admire, they raise their horns and say sumptuous toasts: “I swear, such a beauty / She never bloomed under the sun of the south!” The demon even fell in love with someone else’s bride. Circling and circling over the wide courtyard of a Georgian castle. There is an inexplicable excitement in the desert of his soul. Has a miracle really happened? Truly it happened: “The feeling suddenly began to speak in him / In his once native language!” Well, what will a free son of the ether do, enchanted by a powerful passion for an earthly woman? Alas, the immortal spirit does the same thing as a cruel and powerful tyrant would do in his situation: he kills his opponent. (On the way, the caravan passes a chapel where “some prince, now a saint, killed by a vengeful hand” lies. Each traveler brought a fervent prayer to the chapel, and “that prayer saved him from the Muslim dagger.” But the daring groom listened to the Demon, imagined himself kissing his beloved, he disdained the custom of his great-grandfathers and galloped past.) Tamara’s fiancé, at the instigation of the Demon, is attacked by robbers. Having plundered the wedding gifts, killed the guards and dispersed the timid camel drivers, the abreks disappear. The wounded prince is carried out of the battle by a faithful horse (of a priceless color, golden), but he, already in the darkness, is overtaken, at the tip of an evil spirit, by an evil stray bullet. With the dead owner in a saddle embroidered with colored silks, the horse continues to gallop at full speed: the rider must keep the prince’s word: to ride to the wedding feast, alive or dead, and only upon reaching the gate does he fall dead.

There is groaning and crying in the bride's family. Blacker than a cloud, Gudal sees God’s punishment in what happened. Falling onto the bed as she was - in pearls and brocade, Tamara sobs. And suddenly: a voice. Unfamiliar. Magic. She consoles, calms down, heals, tells fairy tales and promises to fly to her every evening - as soon as the night flowers bloom - so that “on silk eyelashes / to bring golden dreams...”. Tamara looks around: no one!!! Was it really your imagination? But then where does the confusion come from? Which has no name! In the morning, the princess nevertheless falls asleep and sees a strange thing - is it not the first of the promised gold ones? - dream. Shining with unearthly beauty, a certain “alien” leans towards her head. This is not a guardian angel, there is no luminous halo around his curls, but he doesn’t seem to look like a fiend from hell either: he’s too sad, he looks at him with love! And so every night: as soon as the night flowers wake up, it appears. Guessing that it is not someone who is confusing her with her irresistible dream, but the “evil spirit” himself, Tamara asks her father to let her go to the monastery. (Part II begins with Tamara’s request). Gudal is angry - suitors, one more enviable than the other, are besieging their house, and Tamara is refusing everyone. Tamara admits that she is tormented by an evil spirit, and Gudal concedes. And here she is in a secluded monastery, but here, in the sacred monastery, during the hours of solemn prayers, through the church singing, she hears the same magical voice, Tamara sees the same image and the same eyes - irresistible, like a dagger.

Falling to her knees in front of the divine icon, the poor virgin wants to pray to the saints, and her disobedient heart “prays to Him.” The beautiful sinner is no longer deceived about herself: she is not just confused by a vague dream of love, she is in love: passionately, sinfully, as if the night guest who captivated her with her unearthly beauty was not a stranger from the invisible, immaterial world, but an earthly youth. The demon, of course, understands everything, but, unlike the unfortunate princess, he knows what she does not know: earthly beauty will pay for a moment of physical intimacy with him, an unearthly creature, with death. That’s why he hesitates; he is even ready to give up his criminal plan. At least, he thinks so. One night, having already approached the treasured cell, he tries to leave, and in fear he feels that he cannot flap his wing: the wing does not move! Then he sheds a single tear - an inhuman tear burns through the stone.

Realizing that even he, seemingly omnipotent, cannot change anything, the Demon appears to Tamara no longer in the form of an obscure nebula, but incarnated, that is, in the image of a beautiful and courageous man, albeit winged. However, the path to sleeping Tamara’s bed is blocked by her guardian angel and demands that the vicious spirit not touch his angelic shrine. The Demon, smiling insidiously, explains to the messenger of heaven that he appeared too late and that in his, the Demon’s, domain - where he owns and loves - the cherubs have nothing to do. Tamara, upon waking up, does not recognize the young man of her dreams in the random guest. She also doesn’t like his speeches (Tamara’s dialogue with the Demon) - charming in a dream, in reality they seem dangerous to her. But the Demon opens his soul to her - Tamara is touched by the immensity of the mysterious stranger’s sorrows, now he seems to her like a sufferer. And yet, something bothers her both in the appearance of the alien and in the reasoning that is too complex for her weakening mind. And she, oh holy naivety, asks him to swear that he is not lying, that he is not deceiving her gullibility. And the Demon swears. He swears by everything - heaven, which he hates, and hell, which he despises, and even a shrine that he does not have. He says that he wants to make peace with heaven, to love, to pray. The Demon's Oath is a brilliant example of male love eloquence - something a man does not promise to a woman when “the fire of desire burns in his blood!” In the “impatience of passion,” he does not even notice that he is contradicting himself: he either promises to take Tamara to the super-stellar regions and make her the queen of the world, or he assures that it is here, on insignificant land, that he will build magnificent palaces for her - made of turquoise and amber. And yet, the outcome of the fateful date is decided not by words, but by the first touch - from hot male lips - to trembling female lips. The night watchman of the monastery, making a scheduled round, slows down his steps: in the cell of the new nun there are unusual sounds, something like “two lips kissing in agreement.” Confused, he stops and hears: first a groan, and then a terrible, although weak - like a dying cry.

Notified of the death of the heiress, Gudal takes the body of the deceased from the monastery. He firmly decided to bury his daughter in a high-mountain family cemetery, where one of his ancestors, in atonement for many sins (robbery and robbery), erected a small temple. Moreover, he does not want to see his Tamara, even in a coffin, in a rough hair shirt. By his order, the women of his hearth dress up the princess in a way that they did not dress up on days of fun. For three days and three nights, higher and higher, the mournful train moves, ahead of Gudal on a snow-white horse. He is silent, and the others are silent. So many days have passed since the death of the princess, but decay does not touch her - the color of her brow, as in life, is whiter and purer than the bedspread. And this smile, as if frozen on your lips?! Mysterious as her death itself!!! Having given his peri to the gloomy earth, the funeral caravan sets off in Return trip... The wise Gudal did everything right! The river of time washed away from the face of the earth both his tall house, where his wife bore him a beautiful daughter, and the wide courtyard where Tamara played with her children. But the temple and cemetery with it are intact, they can still be seen now - there, high, on the line of jagged rocks, for nature, with its supreme power, has made the grave of the Demon’s beloved inaccessible to humans. The angel took Tamara’s soul to heaven (“she suffered and loved, and heaven opened for love”), and the demon was again left alone without hope and love.

Poem "Demon" started in 1829 year, has eight editions, the eighth - December 1838 - January 1839 of the year.

At the heart of the poem - biblical myth about the spirit of evil rebelling against God, defeated and expelled from paradise.

Created under the influence of the advanced ideas of the liberation movement of its time, it is based on literary and oral poetic sources, primarily on folklore Caucasian peoples and legends of Georgia.

Basic ideological pathos poem "Demon" - exaltation of man in his desire for freedom, for unlimited knowledge of the world. Lermontov's Demon “denies for affirmation, destroys for creation. This theme of the movement of eternal renewal, eternal rebirth" (Belinsky).

In the poem "Demon" is widely used symbolism. In her fantastic “cosmic” plot about the “spirit of exile” who fell in love with a mortal maiden, earthly signs are clear.

This philosophical and socio-political work boldly poses the most complex and pressing questions of existence: about the meaning of life, the rights and purpose of man, about thoughtless faith and reasonable skepticism, about slavery and freedom, good and evil.

Demon in in every sense words - “hero of the century.” It contains concentrated main contradictions the best people 30s: effective skepticism and criticism towards prevailing social relations and powerlessness to change them; powerful impulses to activity and forced passivity; painfully passionate search for a socio-political, moral, aesthetic ideal, and the bitter consciousness of the futility of these searches; a feeling of terrifying political oppression and an uncontrollable desire for freedom; an indefatigable thirst for happiness and the aimlessness of life.

The inexplicable excitement of the Demon serves as the beginning of the poem. Lermontov tells about the relationship between the Demon and Tamara, focusing on the peak episodes. The ideological opposition of the poem, built on the struggle between good and evil, on the internal contradictions of the Demon, was the reason for numerous stylistic antitheses.

Undoubtedly poem - “story of the soul” Main character. But the “history of the soul” of the Demon is a method, a form of solution to social, philosophical and political issues. problems.

"Demon" - romantic poem, but completed during a transitional period of acute struggle between romantic and realistic tendencies in Lermontov’s work. These are objective descriptive images of the nature of the Caucasus, Georgia, the life of Gudan, preparations for the wedding, the beauty of Tamara, the death of her groom, views of the monastery, the appearance of the watchman, the farewell of relatives to the deceased Tamara.

The setting for Lermontov's action is very often a monastery - the embodiment of asceticism, the laws of the spirit, which fundamentally reject the sinful earth. The ardent protests of the beloved children of his imagination are directed against monastic holiness, against the heavenly principle, in defense of other laws - the laws of the heart, they are also the laws of human blood and flesh. Blasphemous speeches are clearly heard in “Mtsyri”, although in a softened form. The same negative attitude towards the monastery is in all the essays of “The Demon”, not excluding even the last ones: within the walls of the holy monastery he forces the demon to seduce his beloved. This is how this original antithesis emerges deeper and deeper: earth and sky.

The struggle between them is inevitable, the battlefield is the human soul. The demon is closer, more akin to Lermontov, than the angel. The demon is not homogeneous; gloomy, rebellious, he always wanders “alone among the worlds, without mingling with the formidable crowd of evil spirits.” He is equally far from both light and darkness, not because he is neither light nor darkness, but because in him not everything is light and not everything is darkness; in him, as in every person, “the sacred met the vicious,” and the vicious won, but not completely, for “God did not give oblivion (about the sacred), and he would not have taken oblivion.” The resident of the cell, the holy virgin, is still not an angel, and she does not oppose him as an irreconcilable opposite. She would rather understand his mental anguish and, perhaps, heal him, give him part of her strength to defeat evil, without completely renouncing the earthly principle. The demon breaks “fatal oaths”, loves pure love, refuses “revenge, hatred and malice” - he already wanted “to return to the path of salvation, to forget the crowd of evil deeds.”

But the angel, who stood guard over absolute purity, without understanding him, again aroused his dark, cold thoughts in him, called his anger into action. Love, through the fault of the angel, did not save the demon, and he, unredeemed, remained with his former darkened suffering. The demon did not repent, did not humble himself before God; He was too proud for this, he considered himself too right. It is not his fault that his soul is so dual; The Creator created him this way and thereby doomed him to irresistible torment. We must appeal to Him, ask Him about the meaning of this mental torture.

In the cold world of everyday cruelty, where a person with a mind and heart is humiliated and crushed, finds himself in a dead end in life, the lyrical hero of belated romantic poetry cannot be an angel, he constantly feels the pressure of “common evil” and darkness, hence his stoic despair and calm melancholy, disbelief in everything, proud contempt and conscious demonism of universal denial.

In Russia "Demon" fully first published only in 1860.

Features of romanticism in the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "Demon"

A romantic hero who was first depicted by A.S. Pushkin in “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” and in “Gypsies” and in which the author of these poems, in his own words, depicted “the distinctive features of the youth of the 19th century”, found complete development in the romantic image of the Demon. In “Demon” M.Yu. Lermontov gave his understanding and his assessment of the individualist hero.

The proud affirmation of personality, opposed to the negative world order, is heard in the words of the Demon: “I am the king of knowledge and freedom.” But Lermontov showed that one cannot stop at contempt and hatred. Having settled for absolute denial, the Demon also rejected positive ideals. This led the Demon to that painful state of inner emptiness, disembodiment, hopelessness, and loneliness in which we find him at the beginning of the poem. The “Shrine of love, goodness and beauty”, which the Demon left again and, under the impression of beauty, reveals itself to him in Tamara - this is the Ideal of a beautiful, free life worthy of a person. The plot of the plot lies in the fact that the Demon acutely felt the captivity of the sharp Ideal and rushed towards it with all his being. This is the meaning of the attempt to “revive” the Demon, which is described in the poem in conventional biblical and folklore images. But later he recognized these dreams as “crazy” and cursed them. Lermontov, continuing the analysis of romantic individualism, with deep psychological truth, hides the reasons for this failure. He shows how, in the development of experiences about an event, a noble social ideal is replaced by another - individualistic and egoistic, returning the Demon to its original position. Responding with “temptation with full speeches” to Tamara’s pleas, the “evil spirit” forgets the ideal of “love, goodness and beauty.” The demon calls for departure from the world, from people. He invites Tamara to leave “the pitiful light of his fate,” invites her to look at the earth “without regret, without pity.” The Demon places one minute of his “unacknowledged torment” above “the painful hardships, labors and troubles of the crowd of people...” The Demon was unable to overcome selfish individualism in himself. This caused the death of Tamara and the defeat of the Demon.

This evil, unjust god is like the protagonist of the poem. He's somewhere behind the scenes. But they constantly talk about him, they remember him, the Demon tells Tamara about him, although he does not directly address him, as the heroes of other works of Lermontov do. "You are guilty!" - the reproach that the heroes of Lermontov’s dramas throw at God, blaming the creator of the Universe. Lermontov loves understatement; he often speaks in hints.

And Lermontov, with the same skill with which he had just described the harsh and majestic landscape of the Caucasus Range to the Cross Pass, now paints a “luxurious, lush edge of the earth” - with rose bushes, nightingales, spreading, ivy-covered plane trees and “ringing running streams” . The full life and luxurious picture of nature prepares us for something new, and we begin to involuntarily wait for events. Against the backdrop of this fragrant earth, the heroine of the poem appears for the first time. Just as the image of the Demon is complemented by the landscape of the rocky mountains, so the image of the young, full-of-life Georgian beauty Tamara becomes brighter in combination with the lush nature of her homeland. On a roof covered with carpets, among her friends, Prince Gudal's daughter Tamara spends her last day in her home. Tomorrow is her wedding. The thought that excited Tamara about the “fate of a slave” was a protest, a rebellion against this fate, and the Demon felt this rebellion in her. It was to her that he could promise to open “the abyss of proud knowledge.”

All the features inherent in romanticism as an artistic method are clearly visible in the poem “The Demon”:

The main character is a loner who has challenged not even human society - God himself

The demon is a bright, strong personality, as befits a romantic hero.

The landscapes of the Caucasus play a huge role in the poem: The demon is akin to these mountains, he is just as independent, and also doomed to eternity.

Poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Demon" can be considered business card writer. Here we see the author’s beloved Caucasus, and the author’s philosophical thoughts regarding good and evil. The poem is not devoid of the theme of the impossibility of love, which was so relevant for Mikhail Yuryevich himself. A masterful depiction of nature, dialogues full of psychologism and romantic pathos, a variety of mythological and folklore motifs - all this is contained in this masterpiece of Russian literature.

The poem “The Demon” has 8 editions, since Lermontov began writing his work at the age of 14 and returned to work on his brainchild throughout his life. Early editions are distinguished by lack of integrity of images and a large number of philosophical discussions. The year 1838 became a turning point for the development of the author’s idea, when the 6th and 7th editions appeared from the poet’s pen. Now a more mature creator does not draw a parallel between the Demon and himself and gives his hero monologues.

The poem is based on the biblical myth of a fallen angel, and also refers to Georgian folklore and details of local life.

Genre and direction

The main character of the poem can be called the prototype of the exiled hero, who firmly took his place in the literature of romanticism. This is a Fallen Angel, suffering for his insolence and disobedience. The very appeal to such an image - characteristic romanticism. One of the first was Milton (“Paradise Lost”), who turned to this character and influenced Russian literature, Byron, and does not shy away from the eternal image of A.S. Pushkin.

The poem is permeated with ideas of struggle both at the global level (the confrontation between the Demon and God) and within the soul of an individual character (the Demon wants to improve, but pride and thirst for pleasure torment him).

The presence of folklore motifs also allows us to classify “The Demon” as a romantic poem.

About what?

In Georgia, in the luxurious house of Prince Gudal, his daughter, a girl of incredible beauty, Tamara, lives. She is waiting for her wedding, the yard has already been cleared for the celebration, but the Demon flying over the peaks of the Caucasus has already noticed the girl, he is captivated by her. The groom hurries to the wedding, followed by a rich caravan of camels, but in the gorge the travelers are overtaken by robbers. So the joy of a wedding turns into the grief of a funeral.

The demon, now without rivals, appears to Tamara, wanting to take possession of her. The poor girl wants to find protection from God and goes to a monastery. There she is guarded by a Guardian Angel, but one night the Demon overcame this barrier and seduced the girl. Tamara died, but an Angel saved her soul and transported her to Paradise, where she found peace.

The main characters and their characteristics

Daemon- a very complex character in the poem. The very image of the Demon goes back to Biblical stories, but in Lermontov’s poem we already encounter the author’s interpretation of this archetype. He is punished with eternal life, and his existence will always be accompanied by loneliness and melancholy. It would seem that one could envy this unique opportunity: to observe the mountain beauty from a bird's eye view, but even this bored the hero. Even evil no longer brings him pleasure. But the characteristics of the Demon cannot be reduced to only negative ones. He meets a girl comparable to fairy maiden, possessing such beauty that “the world has never seen before.” But she is beautiful not only in appearance and outfits, but also in her soul.
Tamara modest, chaste, believes in God, she was not created for this world, it is no coincidence that the Demon wants to find salvation through love for her. Feeling this new feeling for him, the Fallen Angel wants to do only good, to take the true path. But, as we see further, the hero cannot cope with his pride, and all his good intentions turn into dust. The tempter is bold and persistent; on the path to pleasure, he is not going to give in to either the pleas of a defenseless girl or the persuasion of God's messenger.

Themes

Love. Love occupies a special place in the poem. It has limitless power: sometimes it destroys heroes, sometimes it gives hope, and sometimes it promises eternal torment. A jealous rush to the bride destroys Tamara’s fiancé, but for the Demon this girl is the hope of salvation. Love awakens long-forgotten feelings in the Fallen Angel; it makes him, who terrifies him, afraid and cry.
Struggle. The Demon, rejected by Heaven, can no longer bear his torment. In the poem, he appears to the reader as having already lost all taste for existence; even evil does not bring him pleasure. The last chance to win forgiveness is the love of a young, pure girl. For the Demon, Tamara is a weapon to fight Heaven. He got rid of the Angel, seduced Tamara, but he is not able to overcome himself, his vices, for which he is doomed to suffer forever. Tamara fights the tempter, she does not succumb to his words against the Almighty, desperately wanting to escape the hellish abode.
Loneliness. The “spirit of exile” has been wandering “in the desert of the world without shelter” for several centuries. The only joy of his existence is the memories of the past, when he was among his brothers - the “pure cherubs.” Love for a pure mortal girl makes the Demon celebrate his melancholy and loneliness even more keenly. It seems that at some point he is ready to show humility and bow before the Almighty: he hears the evening song, it reminds the Fallen Angel of Paradise. The demon, who had previously brought fear and horror to everyone, now cries himself with hot tears.
Faith. Only thanks to her unshakable faith in God does Tamara escape the torment of hell. A disdainful attitude towards religion destroys, according to the author's plan, the princess's groom. Tempting the beauty, the Demon whispers to her that God is busy only with heavenly affairs and does not pay attention to earthly ones. But the girl did not succumb to the slander of evil, for which her soul was saved by the Guardian Angel.

Idea

Angel and Demon are two sides of one soul. Man is dual by nature; Good and Evil always fight within him. The purpose of the main character of the poem is to sow doubt, to awaken evil thoughts in a person. For obedience to the Demon, God can severely punish, as happened with Tamara’s fiancé.

The Demon is also defeated, but is Heaven so cruel to him? It gives the exile a chance to escape through sincere love, leading to virtue, but the hero cannot cope with his negative beginning and thereby destroys himself and the girl.

Issues

Love and vice are incompatible - this problem is actualized by Lermontov in “The Demon”. For the author, this feeling is rather sacred, given by Heaven, rather than earthly. When they forget about the beauty of the soul and think only about the pleasures of the flesh, love is replaced by sin. True feeling calls for virtue, self-sacrifice, and renunciation of pride.

But not everyone is given the ability to love in this way. Obsessed with a thirst for superiority over Heaven and the desire to experience pleasure for the first time in many hundreds of years, the Demon breaks the last saving thread. Both the Fallen Angel and Tamara become victims of sinful passion, but the girl who worships God is saved, and the Demon, who stubbornly opposes the Creator, dooms himself to eternal suffering. This is how the moral problem of pride is reflected - dark side the souls of each of us.

The heroes are faced with the problem of moral choice. Between humility and passion, the demon chooses the latter, for which he receives even greater suffering. Tamara’s fiancé listened to the evil voice and neglected prayer on the road, for which he paid dearly. Tamara manages to resist the temptations of the tempter, so the Gates of Paradise are open for her.

Criticism

In the assessment of critics, “Demon” at certain periods of its literary history the poem is presented in different ways. The appearance of this demonic image on Russian soil was in some way a literary event; reviewers treated the work with trepidation, primarily because they realized what history this topic had behind it in world literature. One of the largest authorities of criticism of that time, V.G. Belinsky himself admits that “Demon” became for him a measure of “truths, feelings, beauties.” V.P. Botkin saw in the poem a revolutionary view of the universe. Many of the researchers of Lermontov's work still argue about the importance of some editions, without unconditionally giving the palm to the final version.
The criticism of a later period was completely different. “The Demon” became the object of ridicule and mockery, especially the realists, V. Zaitsev, A. Novodvorsky, had an extremely negative attitude towards one of the main symbols of romanticism.

A. Blok, the beacon of poetry at the beginning of the last century, rehabilitates the poem, continuing the tradition of Lermontov in his poem “Demon”.

Lermontov used in “The Demon”, on the one hand, the biblical legend about the spirit of evil, overthrown from heaven for his rebellion against the supreme divine power, and on the other, the folklore of the Caucasian peoples, among whom there were widespread legends about a mountain spirit that swallowed up a girl. Georgian This gives the plot of “The Demon” an allegorical character. But beneath the fantasy of the plot, there is a deep psychological, philosophical, and social meaning.

The proud affirmation of personality, opposed to the negative world order, is heard in the words of the Demon: “I am the king of knowledge and freedom.” On this basis, the Demon develops that attitude towards reality, which the poet defines in an expressive couplet:

And everything that he saw before him

He despised or hated.

But Lermontov showed that one cannot stop at contempt and hatred. Having settled for absolute denial, the Demon also rejected positive ideals. In his own words, he

“Everything noble has been dishonored

And he blasphemed everything beautiful.”

This led the Demon to that painful state of inner emptiness, disembodiment, hopelessness, and loneliness in which we find him at the beginning of the poem. The “Shrine of love, goodness and beauty”, which the Demon left again and, under the impression of beauty, reveals itself to him in Tamara - this is the Ideal of a beautiful, free life worthy of a person. The plot of the plot lies in the fact that the Demon acutely felt the captivity of the sharp Ideal and rushed towards it with all his being. This is the meaning of the attempt to “revive” the Demon, which is described in the poem in conventional biblical and folklore images.

But later he recognized these dreams as “crazy” and cursed them. Lermontov, continuing the analysis of romantic individualism, with deep psychological truth, hides the reasons for this failure. He shows how, in the development of experiences about an event, a noble social ideal is replaced by another - individualistic and egoistic, returning the Demon to its original position. Responding with “temptation with full speeches” to Tamara’s pleas, the “evil spirit” forgets the ideal of “love, goodness and beauty.” The demon calls for departure from the world, from people. He invites Tamara to leave “the pitiful light of his fate,” invites her to look at the earth “without regret, without pity.” The Demon places one minute of his “unacknowledged torment” above “the painful hardships, labors and troubles of the crowd of people...” The Demon was unable to overcome selfish individualism in himself. This caused the death of Tamara and the defeat of the Demon:

And again he remained, arrogant,

Alone, as before, in the universe

Without hope and love!.

Belinsky correctly saw the inner meaning of Lermontov’s poem: “The demon,” the critic wrote, “denies for affirmation, destroys for creation. ..."

Lermontov, in a romantic form, showed the futility of such sentiments of denial and put forward the need for other ways of fighting for freedom.

Overcoming romantic individualism and revealing the inferiority of “demonic” negation confronted Lermontov with the problem of effective ways to fight for personal freedom, the problem of a different hero.

Lermontov’s demon is a “mighty image,” “mute and proud,” which shone for the poet with “magically sweet beauty” for so many years. In Lermontov's poem, God is depicted as the strongest of all the tyrants in the world. And the Demon is the enemy of this tyrant. The most cruel accusation against the creator of the Universe is the Earth he created:

Where there is no true happiness,

No lasting beauty

Where there are only crimes and executions,

Where petty passions only live;

Where they can’t do it without fear

Neither hate nor love.

Lermontov loves understatement; he often speaks in hints.

But what? Former brother

I didn't recognize any of them.

Exiles, their own kind,

I began to call in desperation,

But the words and faces and glances of evil,

Alas, I didn’t find out myself.

And in fear I, flapping my wings,

He rushed - but where? For what?

I don’t know, former friends

I was rejected like Eden

The world has become deaf and mute for me...

The love that flared up in the Demon’s soul meant rebirth for him. The “inexplicable excitement” that he felt at the sight of Tamara dancing enlivened the “dumb desert of his soul”,

And again he comprehended the shrine

Love, kindness and beauty!

In the early editions, the young poet describes the joy of the Demon, who felt the thrill of love in his heart, very naively, primitively, somehow childishly, but surprisingly simply and expressively:

That iron dream

Passed. He can love, he can,

And he really loves it!

To this day, near that cell

The stone is visible through the burnt hole

A hot tear like a flame,

An inhuman tear.

The image of a stone burned by a tear appears in a poem written by a seventeen-year-old boy. The demon was the poet's companion for many years. He grows and matures with him. And Lermontov more than once compares his lyrical hero with the hero of his poem:

I'm not for angels and heaven

Created by God Almighty;

But why do I live, suffering,

He knows more about this.

The young Demon also manifests the sense of true goodness that has awakened in him in the fact that he helps people who are lost in the mountains during a blizzard, blows snow off the face of the traveler “and seeks protection for him.”

Lermontov’s poetic landscapes of the Caucasus have a documentary character; these gray, naked rocks are comparable to the emptiness of the soul of their hero. But the action of the poem develops. And the Demon has already flown over the Cross Pass:

And before him there is a different picture

Living beauties bloomed...

This dramatic change in landscape is true. It amazes everyone who passes through Krestovaya Mountain:

Luxurious Georgia Valley

They spread out like a carpet in the distance.

And Lermontov, with the same skill with which he had just described the harsh and majestic landscape of the Caucasus Range to the Cross Pass, now paints a “luxurious, lush edge of the earth” - with rose bushes, nightingales, spreading, ivy-covered plane trees and “ringing running streams” . The full life and luxurious picture of nature prepares us for something new, and we begin to involuntarily wait for events. Against the backdrop of this fragrant earth, the heroine of the poem appears for the first time. Just as the image of the Demon is complemented by the landscape of the rocky mountains, so the image of the young, full-of-life Georgian beauty Tamara becomes brighter in combination with the lush nature of her homeland. On a roof covered with carpets, among her friends, Prince Gudal's daughter Tamara spends her last day in her home. Tomorrow is her wedding. The thought that excited Tamara about the “fate of a slave” was a protest, a rebellion against this fate, and the Demon felt this rebellion in her. It was to her that he could promise to open “the abyss of proud knowledge.” Only a girl whose character contained rebellious traits could be addressed by the Demon with these words:

Leave your old desire

And a pitiful light to his fate;

The abyss of proud knowledge

In return, I will open it for you.

Summarizing the above, we note that all the features inherent in romanticism as an artistic method are clearly visible in the poem “Demon”:

· The main character is a loner who has challenged not even human society - God himself

· The demon is a bright, strong personality, as befits a romantic hero.

· The landscapes of the Caucasus play a huge role in the poem: The demon is akin to these mountains, he is just as independent, and is also doomed to Eternity

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