Sentimentalism (from the French. sentiment- feeling, eng. sentimental- sensitive) - a trend in European literature and art of the second half of the 18th century, due to the crisis of enlightenment rationalism. The term "sentimental" in relation to literature was first used in 1749, but was finally fixed under the influence of the title of the novel by the English writer L. Stern "Sentimental Journey through France and Italy" (1768). In England, sentimentalism finds its most complete expression. Here, already in the first half of the 18th century, rationalistic optimism gradually began to give way to doubts about the possibilities and omnipotence of reason as a lever for the reorganization of society and man.
Yet sentimentalists do not break with the traditions of the Enlightenment. Attaching special importance to feeling, the life of the heart, appealing to the moral foundations of human existence, sentimentalists did not deny the importance of reason and knowledge for the improvement of man. Feeling in the sentimentalist interpretation is not irrational. Like reason, it is a natural manifestation of human nature. Like reason, sentimentalists have uncorrupted, immediate feeling opposed to social, class, religious prejudices.
The connection of sentimentalism with the philosophy of the Enlightenment was also reflected in the sharpness of the moral and ethical problems of the works, in the idea of the extra-class value of the individual. Speaking about the significance for Russian culture of the work of the leading representative of Russian sentimentalism N. Karamzin, V. Belinsky noted his "great influence on the moral education of Russian society." L. Tolstoy wrote about the enormous influence on him of the personality and work of J. J. Rousseau, who argued that the basis of civil freedom is the freedom of natural moral feeling.
The hero of the sentimentalists - a sensitive person - is remarkable not for military exploits, not for state affairs, but for his spiritual qualities, a rich inner life. The virtues of the individual, thus, were found in a new sphere - the sphere of feelings, which entailed the establishment of new ethical principles in public life and literature. Sentimentalists declared sensitivity, the ability to respond emotionally to the outside world, as the most important quality of a person. For enlighteners, there is always "something moral" in sensitivity (I. Dmitriev). In the "Dictionary of the Russian Academy" (1794), sensitivity is explained as "compassion, the quality of a person touched by the misfortune of another."
The shift in ethical criteria in assessing a person has led to a complication of the aesthetic interpretation of the character of the hero. The unequivocal moralistic assessments of the classicists are being replaced by a sense of the variability and ambiguity of a person’s emotions, and hence the complexity, even inconsistency of his character. The consequence of this was the restructuring of the conflict, or rather, in comparison with the classic conflict, its re-emphasis: "If in the classic conflict the public man triumphed over the natural man, then sentimentalism gave preference to the natural man. The conflict of classicism required the humility of individual aspirations in the name of the good of society; sentimentalism demanded from a society of respect for individuality. Classicism was inclined to blame the conflict on the selfish person, sentimentalism addressed this accusation to an inhuman society ".
Sensitivity, as the most important property of the human character, must be supported and developed by upbringing and the appropriate environment. This was pointed out by J. J. Rousseau: "In order to excite and nourish this nascent sensitivity ... (necessary. - Ed.) to offer a young man objects that the expansive power of his heart can act on ... that is ... to arouse in him kindness, humanity, compassion, charity "(" Emile, or On Education ", 1762). According to the French sentimentalist, an important a person's position in society plays a role in the development of sensitivity.A rich and noble person, and therefore idle and free from duties to society, quickly loses his natural sensitivity, becomes hard-hearted and selfish. but also about others, preserves and develops the "living soul".
Sentimentalists tended to idealize marital and family relationships. It was the family, based on the natural ties of people, they believed, that forms civic virtues in a person. For Rousseau, "love for one's neighbor" is the beginning of the love that a person "owes to the state ... As if a good citizen is not formed by a good son, a good husband, a good father." And Karamzin was sure that the basis of society is the family - a "small society". Marriage, which forms a family, is "the object of Nature itself."
Sentimentalists contrasted natural human feelings and ties - family, love, friendship - with a stuffy, noisy "city" civilization, in the bosom of which everything humane perishes. Their favorite hero is often correlated with the patriarchal world, even the primitive one; nature itself had a benevolent influence on the formation of his soul and body. Such a position gave the aesthetic ideal of the sentimentalists a certain normativity, an outwardness in relation to reality, which, despite fundamental differences, brought them closer to the classicists. "For the classicists ... the ideal estate-absolutist state was the norm, for sentimentalists it was the equally speculative perfect "nature" of man."
The origins of sentimentalism are already found in the landscape lyrics of the English poet J. Thomson ("The Seasons", 1726-1730). But the descriptive moment here still prevails over the meditative one, which later became a characteristic feature of the poetry of sentimentalism. Drawing the nature of rural England against the backdrop of the changing seasons, Thomson is not too fond of details - his pictures of the life of the villagers are still rather arbitrary.
The new style was first fully manifested in T. Gray's "Elegy Written in a Rural Cemetery" (1751), which brought pan-European fame to its creator. The world of this work is elegiac. In it, everything from beginning to end is covered by a single mood: the landscape turns into meditation, becoming, as it were, part of the poet's spiritual experiences. The central thought of the elegy is the affirmation of the greatness of the soul of every person. Not the glorified sons of the fatherland, but the poor villagers attracted the poet. And even though life did not allow them to show their abilities, without doing great things, they may have escaped evil:
Alien troubles and unrest of the insane crowd, due to close
Forbidding the edges of your desires to go out, along the fresh,
Of the sweet-silent valley of life they are quietly
They walked along their path, and here their shelter is serene.
(Translated by V. Zhukovsky)
The early English sentimentalists are characterized by heightened sensitivity, a penchant for melancholic contemplation, and the poeticization of death (a typical example is the "poetry of the night and the grave", which, in addition to T. Gray's "Elegy", includes E. Jung's poem "Complaint, or Night Thoughts" , 1742–1745).
In the work of late sentimentalists, social protest arises (the novel The Wexfield Priest (1766) and the poem The Abandoned Village (1770) by O. Goldsmith, W. Cowper's poem The Task (1785), etc.). True, this protest is for the most part weak and emotional, it is limited to a moral condemnation of the oppressors and villains. Remaining true to the ideal of patriarchal life in the bosom of nature with its simplicity and naturalness of morals, sentimentalists most often discover it only in the past. In his poem, Goldsmith angrily describes the ruin of the peasantry caused by the enclosure policy. The sad picture of the devastated village that completes the poem is already far from the former idyll shown at the beginning of the work.
The cruelty and injustice of the modern real world, sentimentalists can only oppose the idyll of family relationships, a small world where sincerity, goodwill and love reign. But this world is fragile: as soon as the pastor Primrose (the novel "The Wexfield Priest") falls out of favor with the scoundrel landowner, his cattle and unpretentious utensils go under the hammer for debts, and he himself, along with the children, finds himself in a debtor's prison. And although, by chance, the Primrose family returns what was lost, the happy ending of the novel does not in the least cancel the bitter truths expressed by the pastor in a prison sermon: “Whoever wants to know the suffering of the poor must experience life and endure a lot. and no one needs a lie ... "
L. Stern is undoubtedly the central figure of English sentimentalism. In his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1760–1767) and Sentimental Journey (1768), the writer seeks to reveal the complexity of human nature, the versatility of the hero’s spiritual experiences, the origins of his eccentricities and oddities. Although Stern in his "Sentimental Journey" assigns to each chapter the names of the city or post station where Pastor Yorick stops, the writer is not interested in the life and customs of certain localities, but in the analysis of the spiritual "climate" of his character, easily changing depending on the circumstances. Important events and trifles of life are passed through the mind of Yorick, either darkening his state of mind, or dispelling mental confusion. The author analyzes the finest nuances of Yorick's experiences, their overflows, and sudden change. Creating "landscapes of the soul", Stern demonstrates how, in a specific situation, a struggle arises in the soul of his hero between stinginess and generosity, cowardice and courage, meanness and nobility. Stern influenced French, German and Russian literature, although in these countries sentimentalism had a number of differences.
In France, sentimentalism was represented mainly by the work of J. J. Rousseau and his followers. Rousseau's sentimentalism is marked by principled democracy. His political sympathies are associated with the republican form of government, because tyranny, according to the writer, kills sensitivity in people, forms vicious inclinations in them, while a free society based on humane and just laws develops natural virtues in them, favors social emotions. bringing people together.
Rousseau is a resolute opponent of social inequality, class prejudices. The theme of social inequality formed the basis of his famous novel "Julia, or New Eloise" (1761), which tells about the love of the noblewoman Julia and her teacher Saint-Preux, a plebeian in social status and views. The New Eloise is an epistolary novel, a genre very popular with sentimentalist writers. The heroes of Rousseau, reflecting and reasoning, write letters a lot and willingly, where they not only share their feelings, but also argue about pedagogy, art, religion, economics, and the social structure of society.
For Rousseau there is no "man in general". There are "cold" people who always and in everything listen to the voice of reason (husband of Julia de Volmar), and there are "sensitive" natures, living "with the heart" (Julia, Saint-Preux), and their natural, beautiful feelings under the influence of unfair social laws can be distorted, leading heroes to violate the requirements of "virtue".
In his novels, Rousseau shows what a person and society should become. He poses and tries to solve the problem of the revival of human nature, which, in his opinion, has not yet been completely corrupted by civilization. Nature has the best influence on man. Emil grows up in the countryside, away from the temptations of society. His training in the sciences and education of the soul takes place in acquaintance with nature. Saint Preux, traveling through the mountainous Swiss canton of Valais, cut off by nature itself from the pernicious influence of civilization, admires the cordiality, disinterestedness and cordiality of the locals, noting the "noble and healing" influence of mountain air on a person ("... a favorable climate turns to the happiness of a person those passions that only torment him. Indeed, any strong excitement, any melancholy will disappear if you live in these places, and I am amazed why such ablutions in the mountain air, so healing and beneficial, are not prescribed as an all-powerful medicine against bodily and mental ailments. ..").
In Germany, the ideas of European sentimentalism were reflected in the "Sturm und Drang" ("Storm and Drang", 1770s) movement.
As an alternative to pragmatic bourgeois rationality, the writers-sturmers put forward the cult of the heart, feelings, and passions. To the corrupting influence of civilization, which perverted the natural feelings of people, they opposed a passionate, heroic personality, not constrained by prejudices, conventions and decency ("stormy genius"). The Stürmers were close to the ideas of Rousseau, his criticism of progress and civilization, but they introduced something new into the aesthetics of sentimentalism. They are characterized by the discovery of the aesthetic significance of folklore. In folk art, they sought and found a manifestation of natural, unspoiled human nature (the anthology "Voices of the Nations in Songs" (1779), compiled by I. Herder, ballads by G. Burger). At the same time, interest in folklore, an appeal to the past, to national culture, and the depiction of strong passions brought sturmerism closer to pre-romanticism, contributed to overcoming the negative ahistorical attitude towards the Middle Ages, characteristic of most enlighteners, and marked a decisive break with the idea of antiquity as a model. The ideas of sturmerism were reflected in the work of J. W. Goethe (drama "Getz von Berlichingen", 1773; novel "The Sufferings of Young Werther", 1774; the first part of "Faust") and F. Schiller (dramas "Robbers", 1781; " Fiesco's Conspiracy in Genoa", 1783; "Cunning and Love", 1783).
In Russian literature, elements of sentimentalism can be found already in the 1760s. In prose, new trends emerged in the novels of F. Emin and, above all, in his epistolary novel Letters of Ernest and Doravra (1766), written under the direct influence of Rousseau's New Eloise. At that time, a new type of play appeared on the stage of the Russian theater - "tearful drama"("Venetian nun" (1758) by M. Kheraskov, "Mot, corrected by love" (1765) by V. Lukin), going back to traditions "tearful comedy" and "bourgeois drama" and received special development in the 1770-1790s. At the center of these dramas is a virtuous (and therefore sensitive) hero or heroine persecuted by evil people. The idea of this type of play is formulated in the final monologue of one of Kheraskov's dramas: "Oh! my friends, be sure that sooner or later virtue will receive its reward and that the persecuted people, in denouncing the evil and unrighteous, will be crowned by the hand of God with unexpected prosperity."
In the 1770s, exceptional popularity among the Russian public was won by comic opera(a play of comic or dramatic content, including musical - arias, duets, choirs - and dance - divertissement - numbers). A number of comic operas are close in content to the "tearful drama", but, unlike the latter, the main characters of these plays are not middle-class nobles, but virtuous, "sensitive" peasants (rarely raznochintsy), spiritually superior to their offenders landowners-nobles ("Rozana and Lyubim" (1776) and "Prikaschik" (1781) by N. Nikoleva, "Milozor and Charm" (1787) by V. Levshin).
A new assessment of a person, his personal and social life was also reflected in the lyrics, which caused the intensive development of "middle" (according to the classic classification) genres and the emergence of new genre structures. Among them, first of all, the genres of "letter", idyll, philosophical and "social" elegy should be noted. In the elegy "To Euterpe" (1763), Kheraskov expressed a sense of the fragility and frailty of wealth, nobility and fame:
I have known vanity and lie the beauty of happiness,
And a transient high-titled shadow.
They are like autumn bad weather,
Change a hundred times in a single day.
True happiness, according to the poet, lies in peace of mind, the consciousness of one's virtue, and for this you need to be able to limit your passions and aspirations:
Than to rush in thoughts higher,
It is better for all of us to live quietly.
("Stans", 1762)
Kheraskov's call for moral self-improvement and self-restraint is combined with Rousseauist motives - with the idealization of the natural state of a person who has neither wealth nor ranks and lives a simple life close to nature ("Bogatstvo", 1769).
In the work of the poet-sentimentalist M. Muravyov, dating back to 1770-1780, in comparison with the work of Kheraskov and the poets of his circle, interest in the private life of a person increases, autobiographical motifs become decisive in his lyrics. For Muravyov, the perception of the world is inextricably linked with the subjective mood of a person. In the poem "Time" (1775), the poet notes that "each moment has a special color", and puts this "color" of time in direct dependence "on the state of the heart", when "it is gloomy for one whose heart is heavy with malice, / For good - golden."
New artistic tasks entailed a new attitude towards language. If among the classicists the word had an "almost terminological character", that is, it had an exact and stable meaning, then among the poets-sentimentalists the objective meaning of the word is blurred, not the main, but its additional meaning or meanings are brought to the fore. All this gives the words a certain fragility, approximateness, they seem to be shrouded in a "fog" of emotional and semantic associations. And the first decisive movement in this direction was made by Muravyov. As G. Gukovsky noted, “Ants is making the first approaches to the creation of a special specific poetic language, the essence of which is not in an adequate reflection of the truth objective for the poet, but in an emotional allusion to the inner state of the person-poet. The poetic dictionary begins to narrow, trying to navigate to special poetic words of a "sweet" emotional nature, needed in the context not to clarify the meaning, but to create a mood of beautiful self-forgetfulness in art" . Here is an example illustrating the poetics of Muravyov's "sweet" style in the poem "Night" (1776, 1785):
My thoughts sank into pleasant silence:
Moments of life flow more slowly.
Calls all the living to sweet peace...
Russian prose of sentimentalism developed and took shape in the 1790s, when the prose works of N. Karamzin appeared, who headed this literary trend. Karamzin brought together all the elements of sentimentalism that already existed in Russian literature and culture. In his program article "What does the author need?" (1793) Karamzin wrote: “They say that the author needs talents and knowledge: a sharp, penetrating mind, a vivid imagination, etc. Fair enough: but this is not enough. He must also have a kind, tender heart if he wants to be a friend and favorite of the soul ours... The Creator is always portrayed in creation and often against his will." According to the writer, "a bad person cannot be a good author."
Karamzin is a sincere supporter of Rousseau's ideas, even in whose "delusions", according to the writer, "sparks of passionate philanthropy sparkle." Rousseauism became for Karamzin a determining factor in the construction of the characters of his heroes. Already in the first stories of the writer, two types of characters appear - a "natural" person and a civilized person. Karamzin finds a "natural" person in a peasant environment, where patriarchal relations are still preserved. In his famous story "Poor Liza" (1791), the writer contrasted the virtuous peasant woman Liza with the nobleman Erast who seduced her. If the image of Lisa, "daughter of nature", "beautiful soul and body", is ideal, then the image of Erast, a civilized and enlightened hero, is complex and ambiguous. He cannot be called a villain, he is a man "with a fair mind and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and windy." Leaving Lisa for the sake of marrying an elderly rich widow, he pushes the girl to suicide. But the death of Liza, who did not survive Erast's betrayal, makes him deeply unhappy: he could never console himself, considering himself her murderer.
The main method of narration is characteristic: the author, according to his confession, tells this story from the words of Erast, which gives the story a confessional character. The author himself, a "sensitive" person, loving, as he says, "those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow." Such a "touching subject" for the narrator is the story of "poor" Liza, and he tells it, experiencing and sympathizing with his heroes, assessing their actions, shedding "tears of tender sorrow" with them.
The author's attitude permeates Karamzin's prose, bringing the style of his stories and essays closer to the manner of a lyrical poem. The main thing here is not the plot, which is always extremely simple and uncomplicated, but the tonality of the work, its emotional atmosphere, unknown to Russian literature before Karamzin. The writer "creates whole works of art, musically organized, which must, by the totality of images, by the totality of artistic means, create in the reader a vague, unsteady "indescribable", "unnameable" mood ... Karamzin already poses the problem of art, which his student Zhukovsky will programmatically express in the poem "The Inexpressible". The tragic conflicts of life are given to them not in order to cause anger and indignation, but in order to cause quiet melancholy and tenderness. An example of such a psychological experiment
there was a story "Poor Liza", which was a huge success, opening up a whole world of emotions to contemporaries ".
Being the leading artistic trend in Russian literature in the 1790s, sentimentalism experienced a deep crisis already in the first decade of the 19th century and was rather quickly replaced by romanticism. Nevertheless, the importance of sentimentalism and its influence on the further development of literature can hardly be overestimated. Sentimentalism in many ways preceded romanticism (interest in the inner world of a person, revealing the ambiguity and inconsistency of his character, a subjective approach to the world around him, etc.). Rousseauism determined the plot of a romantic poem, where the world of natural feelings of a natural person and the passions of a person of civil society collided in irreconcilable contradiction ("eastern" poems by J. Byron, "southern" poems by A. Pushkin). The romantic views of Chateaubriand, the democratic ideas of J. Sand and the utopian socialists Fourier and Saint-Simon go back to Rousseauism. Stern's humor found its justification and development in the theory of romantic irony of the Jena romantics.
Of particular note is the influence of sentimental traditions on Russian literature in the 1840s. The revival of these traditions was due to the powerful process of democratization of public consciousness and the spread of the ideas of utopian socialism with its most important concept of universal social harmony. For the literature of this period, the most important aesthetic principle of sentimentalism - the poeticization of the ordinary - and the interest in the life of a small person associated with it is extremely fruitful. The appeal to sentimentalism was fundamental for writers "natural school" united by criticism under the name "sentimental naturalism" (Ap. Grigoriev), headed by F. Dostoevsky, author of the novel "Poor People".
The relationship between sentimentalism and pre-romanticism (pre-romanticism). Pre-romanticism is sometimes inclined to be seen as a current within sentimentalism, a certain trend in sentimental style. Indeed, in the work of many poets and sentimentalist writers it is difficult to separate the elements of sentimental and pre-romantic styles. They are palpable, for example, in the work of the sturmers, and in the "Confession" by J. J. Rousseau (1766–1770), where the writer seeks to take into account the influence on a person of dark, irrational feelings and actions that are not clarified by the mind, and in the work of Kheraskov poets, sometimes came to the assertion of the uselessness of "reason" and even its harm. Even in such a "classic" sentimental story as "Poor Liza", one can detect features of pre-romanticism (for example, "Gothic", i.e. in the spirit of the "Middle Ages", the description at the beginning of the story of the ruins of the Simonov Monastery).
And yet, sentimentalism and pre-romanticism are separated by a significant line. If sentimentalism is closely connected with the Enlightenment movement at its late stage, then pre-romanticism is already a reaction to the Enlightenment, which results in a denial of the omnipotence and goodness of reason. Pre-romantics also put forward their own hero - a heroic, courageous, resolute personality, fundamentally different from the gentle, sensitive sentimental hero. The nature of the pre-romantics, a counterbalance to the "pleasant" nature of the sentimentalists, is to match their heroes: it is harsh and gloomy, "thunder of battles" and "howling storms" fill it.
Pre-romantics prefer to look for their subjects in the Middle Ages, poeticizing medieval life and customs. The most prominent figure of pre-romanticism is the Scot J. MacPherson, whose Poems of Ossian (1765) gained European fame. McPherson introduced the hazy and gloomy world of northern heroic lore into literature, using motifs from Celtic folklore and thus starting a widespread and long fascination. "Ossianism" with its gloomy northern flavor and the harsh wildness of the heroic characters of a distant era (in the 19th century, J. Byron, V. Zhukovsky, N. Gnedich, and the young A. Pushkin paid tribute to Ossian).
English pre-romanticism also puts forward the genre gothic novel("a novel of fears and horrors", "black novel"). Life in these works is full of fatal mysteries. Mysterious, and often supernatural forces intervene in the fate of a person, plunging him into a whirlpool of strange and sinister events. The movement of the plot here is determined by terrible incidents, mysterious omens, vague forebodings ("The Castle of Otranto" by G. Walpole, 1764; "The Old English Baron" by C. Reeve, 1777; "Udolf's Secrets" by A. Radcliffe, 1794; "The Monk" by M. Lewis , 1795).
In Russia, pre-romanticism did not develop into an independent trend, but played an important role in the complex transition from sentimentalism to romanticism. Sentimentalism in its "pure" form, even in the work of the leading representative of this trend
Meditation (lat. meditation)- concentrated, deep thinking.
The main representatives of this trend in Russia are Karamzin and Dmitriev. Sentimentalism appeared in Europe as a counterbalance to French philosophical rationalism (Voltaire). A sentimental trend originates in England, then spreads to Germany, France and penetrates into Russia.
In contrast to the pseudo-classical school, the authors of this trend choose plots from ordinary, everyday life, the heroes are ordinary, middle or lower class people. The interest of sentimental works lies not in the description of historical events or the deeds of heroes, but in the psychological analysis of the experiences and feelings of an ordinary person in the context of everyday life. The authors set out to pity the reader, showing the deep and touching experiences of simple, inconspicuous people, drawing attention to their sad, often dramatic fate.
Sentimentalism in literature
From the constant appeal to the experiences and feelings of the characters, the authors of this direction have developed cult of feeling , - from this came the name of the whole direction (feeling - sentiment), sentimentalism . Along with the cult of feeling develops cult of nature , descriptions of pictures of nature appear, disposing the soul to sensitive reflections.
Sentimentalism in Russian Poetry. Video lecture
In literature, sentimentalism expresses itself chiefly in the form of sensitive novels, sentimental journeys, and so-called philistine dramas; in poetry, in elegies. The first author of sentimental novels was an English writer Richardson. Pushkin's Tatyana read his novels, "Charles Grandison", "Clarissa Harlow". In these novels, the types of simple, sensitive heroes and heroines are brought out, and next to them, bright types of villains, emphasizing their virtue. The disadvantage of these novels is their unusual length; in the novel "Clarissa Harlow" - 4,000 pages! (The full title of this work in Russian translation: "The noteworthy life of the maiden Clarissa Garlov, a true story"). In England, the first author of the so-called sentimental journeys was stern. He wrote. "A sentimental journey through France and Italy"; in this work, attention is drawn mainly to the experiences and feelings of the hero in connection with the places through which he passes. In Russia, Karamzin wrote his Letters from a Russian Traveler under the influence of Stern.
Sentimental philistine dramas, nicknamed "Tearful Comedies" (Comedies larmoyantes), also appeared first in England, spread in Germany and France and appeared in translations in Russia. Even at the beginning of the reign of Catherine the Great, Beaumarchais's play "Eugene", translated by Pushnikov, was staged in Moscow. Sumarokov, a staunch supporter of false classicism, resented the staging of this "tearful comedy" and sought the sympathy and support of Voltaire.
In poetry, sentimentalism expressed itself mainly in elegies . These are lyrical poems and reflections, most often sad. "Sensitivity", sadness, melancholy - these are the main distinguishing features of sentimental elegies. Elegy writers often described the night, the moonlight, the graveyard, anything that could create a mysterious, dreamy atmosphere that suited their feelings. In England, one of the most famous poets of sentimentalism was Gray, who wrote The Rural Cemetery, which was later so successfully translated by Zhukovsky.
The main representative of Russian sentimentalism was Karamzin. In the spirit of this literary trend, he wrote Letters from a Russian Traveler, Poor Lisa (see summary and full text) and other stories.
It should be noted that any artistic and literary "school" most clearly expresses its characteristic features in the works of "imitator students", since great artists, the founders of the "school", the initiators of the "trend", are always more diverse and wider than their students. Karamzin was not exclusively a "sentimentalist" - even in his early works, he assigned a place of honor to "reason"; in addition, it has traces of future romanticism ("Bornholm Island") and neoclassicism ("Athenian life"). Meanwhile, numerous of his students did not notice this breadth of Karamzin's creativity and brought only his "sensitivity" to a ridiculous extreme. In doing so, they emphasized the shortcomings of sentimentalism and led this trend to a gradual disappearance.
Of the students of Karamzin, the most famous are V.V. Izmailov, A.E. Izmailov, Prince. P. I. Shalikov, P. Yu. Lvov. V. Izmailov wrote in imitation of Karamzin's "Letters from a Russian Traveler" - "Journey to Midday Russia". A. Izmailov wrote the story "Poor Masha" and the novel "Eugene, or the pernicious consequences of spiritual education and community." However, this talented work is distinguished by such realism that it can be ranked among the " realistic direction of this era. Prince Shalikov was the most typical sentimentalist: he wrote both sensitive poems (the collection The Fruit of Free Feelings) and short stories (two Travels to Little Russia, Travel to Kronstadt), which are distinguished by extreme sensitivity. L. Lvov was a more talented novelist - several stories remained from him: "Russian Pamela", "Rose and Love", "Alexander and Yulia".
You can also name other literary works of that time written in imitation of “Poor Liza”: “Seduced Henrietta, or the Triumph of Deception over Weakness and Delusion”, “Beautiful Tatiana Living at the Foot of the Sparrow Hills”, “The Story of Poor Mary”, “Inna”, “Marina Grove” by Zhukovsky, A. Popov “Lily” (1802), “Poor Lilla” (1803), A. Kropotov “The Spirit of a Russian Woman” (1809), A. E. “Lovely and Tender Hearts” (1800), Svechinsky "Ukrainian orphan" (1805), "The novel of my neighbors" (1804), Prince Dolgorukov's "Unfortunate Lisa" (1811).
The galaxy of sensitive poets among the Russian public had admirers, but also had many enemies. She was ridiculed by both old pseudo-classical writers and young realist writers.
The theorist of Russian sentimentalism was V. Podshivalov, a contemporary and literary ally of Karamzin, who at the same time published magazines (“Reading for taste and reason”, “Pleasant pastime”) with him. According to the same program as Karamzin, in 1796 he published an interesting argument: "Sensitivity and bizarreness", in which he tried to distinguish between real "sensitivity" and false "mannership", "bizarreness".
Sentimentalism made itself felt at that time in our country, too, in the flourishing of the "petty-bourgeois drama." In vain were the efforts of the pseudo-classics to fight this "illegal" child of dramaturgy - the public defended their favorite plays. Kotzebue's translated dramas ("Hatred of People and Repentance", "Son of Love", "The Hussites near Naumburg") were especially popular. For several decades, these touching works were eagerly viewed by the Russian public and caused numerous imitations in the Russian language. H. Ilyin wrote the drama: "Lisa, or the Triumph of Gratitude", "Generosity, or Recruitment"; Fedorov - drama: "Lisa, or the Consequence of Pride and Seduction"; Ivanov: “The Starichkov family, or Prayer for God, but the service does not disappear for the king”, etc.
Sentimentalism remained faithful to the ideal of a normative personality, but the condition for its implementation was not a "reasonable" reorganization of the world, but the release and improvement of "natural" feelings. The hero of enlightenment literature in sentimentalism is more individualized, his inner world is enriched by the ability to empathize, sensitively respond to what is happening around. By origin (or by conviction), the sentimentalist hero is a democrat; the rich spiritual world of the common man is one of the main discoveries and conquests of sentimentalism.
The most prominent representatives of sentimentalism are James Thomson, Edward Jung, Thomas Gray, Lawrence Stern (England), Jean Jacques Rousseau (France), Nikolai Karamzin (Russia).
Thomas Gray
England was the birthplace of sentimentalism. At the end of the 20s of the XVIII century. James Thomson, with his poems "Winter" (1726), "Summer" (1727) and Spring, Autumn., Subsequently combined into one and published () under the title "The Seasons", contributed to the development of a love of nature in the English reading public, drawing simple, unpretentious rural landscapes, following step by step the various moments of the life and work of the farmer and, apparently, striving to place the peaceful, idyllic country setting above the bustling and spoiled city.
In the 40s of the same century, Thomas Gray, the author of the elegy "Rural Cemetery" (one of the most famous works of cemetery poetry), the ode "To Spring", etc., like Thomson, tried to interest readers in rural life and nature, to arouse sympathy in them to simple, inconspicuous people with their needs, sorrows and beliefs, at the same time giving his work a thoughtful melancholy character.
Richardson's famous novels - "Pamela" (), "Clarissa Garlo" (), "Sir Charles Grandison" () - are also a vivid and typical product of English sentimentalism. Richardson was completely insensitive to the beauties of nature and did not like to describe it, but he put forward psychological analysis in the first place and forced the English, and then the entire European public, to be keenly interested in the fate of the heroes and especially the heroines of his novels.
Lawrence Stern, author of "Tristram Shandy" (-) and "Sentimental Journey" (; after the name of this work and the direction itself was called "sentimental") combined Richardson's sensitivity with a love of nature and peculiar humor. "Sentimental Journey" Stern himself called "a peaceful wandering of the heart in search of nature and all spiritual inclinations that can inspire us with more love for our neighbors and for the whole world than we usually feel."
Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
Having crossed over to the Continent, English sentimentalism found in France already somewhat prepared ground. Quite independently of the English representatives of this trend, Abbé Prevost (Manon Lescaut, Cleveland) and Marivaux (The Life of Marianne) taught the French public to admire everything touching, sensitive, somewhat melancholy.
Under the same influence, "Julia" or "New Eloise" Rousseau () was created, who always spoke of Richardson with respect and sympathy. Julia reminds a lot of Clarissa Garlo, Clara - her friend, miss Howe. The moralizing nature of both works also brings them together; but in Rousseau's novel nature plays a prominent role, the shores of Lake Geneva are described with remarkable art - Vevey, Clarans, Julia's grove. Rousseau's example was not left without imitation; his follower, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, in his famous work Paul and Virginie () transfers the scene to South Africa, accurately foreshadowing the best works of Chateaubrean, makes his heroes a charming couple of lovers living far from urban culture, in close communication with nature, sincere, sensitive and pure soul.
Sentimentalism penetrated into Russia in the 1780s-early 1790s thanks to the translations of the novels "Werther" by I.V. Rousseau, "Paul and Virginie" by J.-A. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. The era of Russian sentimentalism was opened by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin with Letters from a Russian Traveler (1791–1792).
His story "Poor Liza" (1792) is a masterpiece of Russian sentimental prose; from Goethe's Werther he inherited the general atmosphere of sensibility, melancholy and themes of suicide.
The works of N.M. Karamzin brought to life a huge number of imitations; at the beginning of the 19th century appeared "Poor Lisa" by A.E. Izmailov (1801), "Journey to Midday Russia" (1802), "Henrietta, or the Triumph of Deception over Weakness or Delusion" by I. Svechinsky (1802), numerous stories by G.P. Kamenev ( "The Story of Poor Marya"; "Unfortunate Margarita"; "Beautiful Tatyana"), etc.
Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev belonged to the Karamzin group, which advocated the creation of a new poetic language and fought against the archaic grandiloquent style and obsolete genres.
Sentimentalism marked the early work of Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. The publication in 1802 of the translation of the Elegy written in the rural cemetery by E. Gray became a phenomenon in the artistic life of Russia, for he translated the poem “into the language of sentimentalism in general, he translated the genre of the elegy, and not the individual work of the English poet, which has its own special individual style” (E. G. Etkind). In 1809 Zhukovsky wrote a sentimental story "Maryina Grove" in the spirit of N.M. Karamzin.
Russian sentimentalism had exhausted itself by 1820.
It was one of the stages of the all-European literary development, which completed the Enlightenment and opened the way to romanticism.
So, taking into account all of the above, we can distinguish several main features of Russian literature of sentimentalism: a departure from the straightforwardness of classicism, an emphasized subjectivity of the approach to the world, a cult of feelings, a cult of nature, a cult of innate moral purity, uncorruptedness, a rich spiritual world of representatives of the lower classes is affirmed. Attention is paid to the spiritual world of a person, and in the first place are feelings, not great ideas.
The direction of Western art of the second half of the XVIII., expressing disappointment in the "civilization" based on the ideals of "reason" (the ideology of the Enlightenment). S. proclaims feeling, solitary reflection, the simplicity of the rural life of the “little man”. S.'s ideologist is J.J. Rousseau.
One of the characteristic features of Russian portrait art of this period was citizenship. The heroes of the portrait no longer live in their closed, isolated world. The consciousness of being necessary and useful to the fatherland, caused by the patriotic upsurge in the era of the Patriotic War of 1812, the flourishing of humanistic thought, which was based on respect for the dignity of the individual, the expectation of close social changes, rebuild the worldview of an advanced person. This direction is adjoined by the portrait of N.A. Zubova, granddaughters A.V. Suvorov, copied by an unknown master from the portrait of I.B. Lumpy the Elder, depicting a young woman in a park, far from the conventions of high life. She looks at the viewer thoughtfully with a half-smile, everything in her is simplicity and naturalness. Sentimentalism is opposed to a straightforward and overly logical reasoning about the nature of human feelings, emotional perception, directly and more reliably leading to the comprehension of truth. Sentimentalism expanded the idea of human spiritual life, approaching the understanding of its contradictions, the very process of human experience. At the turn of the two centuries, the work of N.I. Argunov, a gifted serf of the Sheremetevs. One of the essential trends in Argunov's work, which was not interrupted throughout the 19th century, is the desire for concreteness of expression, an unpretentious approach to man. The hall presents a portrait of N.P. Sheremetev. It was donated by the Count himself to the Rostov Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery, where the cathedral was built at his expense. The portrait is characterized by a realistic simplicity of expression, free from embellishment and idealization. The artist avoids painting with the hands, focusing on the face of the model. The coloring of the portrait is built on the expressiveness of individual spots of pure color, colorful planes. In the portrait art of this time, a type of modest chamber portrait was formed, completely freed from any features of the external environment, demonstrative behavior of models (portrait of P.A. Babin, P.I. Mordvinov). They do not pretend to deep psychologism. We are dealing only with a fairly clear fixation of models, a calm state of mind. A separate group consists of children's portraits presented in the hall. They captivate the simplicity and clarity of interpretation of the image. If in the 18th century, children were most often depicted with the attributes of mythological heroes in the form of cupids, Apollos and Diana, then in the 19th century, artists strive to convey the direct image of a child, the warehouse of a child's character. The portraits presented in the hall, with rare exceptions, come from noble estates. They were part of the manor portrait galleries, which were based on family portraits. The collection had an intimate, predominantly memorial character and reflected the personal attachments of the models and their attitude to their ancestors and contemporaries, whose memory they tried to preserve for posterity. The study of portrait galleries deepens the understanding of the era, makes it possible to more clearly perceive the specific situation in which the works of the past lived, and to understand a number of features of their artistic language. Portraits provide the richest material for studying the history of national culture.
A particularly strong influence of sentimentalism was experienced by V.L. Borovikovsky, who depicted many of his models against the background of an English park, with a soft, sensually vulnerable expression on his face. Borovikovsky was associated with the English tradition through the circle of N.A. Lvov - A.N. Venison. He knew well the typology of the English portrait, in particular, from the works of the German artist A. Kaufman, who was fashionable in the 1780s and was educated in England.
English landscape painters also had some influence on Russian painters, for example, such masters of the idealized classic landscape as Ya.F. Hackert, R. Wilson, T. Jones, J. Forrester, S. Delon. In the landscapes of F.M. Matveev, the influence of "Waterfalls" and "Views of Tivoli" by J. Mora is traced.
In Russia, the graphics of J. Flaxman were also popular (illustrations for Gormer, Aeschylus, Dante), which influenced the drawings and engravings of F. Tolstoy, and the fine plastic art of Wedgwood - in 1773, the Empress made a fantastic order for the British manufactory for " Service with a green frog” of 952 items with views of Great Britain, now stored in the Hermitage.
Miniatures by G.I. Skorodumova and A.Kh. Ritta; Genre paintings by J. Atkinson "Picturesque Sketches of Russian Manners, Customs and Entertainment in a Hundred Colored Drawings" (1803-1804) were reproduced on porcelain.
There were fewer British artists in Russia in the second half of the 18th century than French or Italian ones. Among them, the most famous was Richard Brompton, the court painter of George III, who worked in St. Petersburg in 1780-1783. He owns portraits of the Grand Dukes Alexander and Konstantin Pavlovich, and Prince George of Wales, which have become models of the image of the heirs at a young age. Brompton's unfinished image of Catherine against the background of the fleet was embodied in the portrait of the Empress in the temple of Minerva D.G. Levitsky.
French by origin P.E. Falcone was a student of Reynolds and therefore represented the English school of painting. The traditional English aristocratic landscape presented in his works, dating back to Van Dyck of the English period, did not receive wide recognition in Russia.
However, Van Dyck's paintings from the Hermitage collection were often copied, which contributed to the spread of the costumed portrait genre. The fashion for images in the English spirit became more widespread after the return of the engraver Skorodmov from Britain, who was appointed "engraver of Her Imperial Majesty's cabinet" and elected Academician. Thanks to the activities of the engraver J. Walker, engraved copies of paintings by J. Romini, J. Reynolds, and W. Hoare were distributed in St. Petersburg. The notes left by J. Walker talk a lot about the advantages of the English portrait, and also describe the reaction to the acquired G.A. Potemkin and Catherine II of Reynolds' paintings: "the manner of thickly applying paint ... seemed strange ... it was too much for their (Russian) taste." However, as a theoretician, Reynolds was accepted in Russia; in 1790, his "Speeches" were translated into Russian, in which, in particular, the right of the portrait to belong to a number of "higher" types of painting was substantiated and the concept of "portrait in historical style" was introduced.
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Synonyms:Literary direction in Zap. Europe and Russia XVIII beginning. 19th century I. SENTIMENTALISM IN THE WEST. The term "S." formed from the adjective "sentimental" (sensitive), to the swarm it is already found in Richardson, but gained particular popularity after ... Literary Encyclopedia
Sentimentalism- SENTIMENTALISM. Sentimentalism is understood as that direction of literature that developed at the end of the 18th century and adorned the beginning of the 19th century, which was distinguished by the cult of the human heart, feelings, simplicity, naturalness, special ... ... Dictionary of literary terms
sentimentalism- a, m. sentimentalisme m. 1. The literary trend of the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries, which replaced classicism, is characterized by special attention to the spiritual world of man, to nature, and partly idealizes reality. BASS 1.… … Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language
SENTIMENTALISM, SENTIMENTALISM sensitivity. A complete dictionary of foreign words that have come into use in the Russian language. Popov M., 1907. sentimentalism (French sentimentalisme sentiment feeling) 1) European literary direction of the late 18th beginning ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
- (from the French sentiment feeling), a trend in European and American literature and art of the 2nd half of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Starting from enlightening rationalism (see Enlightenment), he declared that the dominant of human nature is not reason, but ... Modern Encyclopedia
- (from French sentiment feeling) a trend in European and American literature and art of the 2nd floor. 18 early 19th centuries Starting from enlightenment rationalism (see Enlightenment), he declared that the dominant of human nature is not reason, but feeling, and ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Instruction
Literary critics consider the philosophical direction, which received sensationalism, to be the sources of sentimentalism. His followers put forward the idea that the world around us is a reflection of human feelings. Only with the help of emotions can life be realized. Natural human feelings became for sentimentalists the basis on which the narrative was built.
At the center of sentimentalism is the "natural" person, the bearer of the whole variety of emotions. Sentimentalist authors believed that man is a creation of nature, and therefore from birth he has sensuality and virtue. The virtues of their heroes and the nature of their actions were derived by sentimentalists from a high degree of sensitivity to the events of the surrounding world.
Sentimentalism originated on British shores at the beginning of the 18th century, and by the middle of the century it had spread throughout the European continent, supplanting traditional classicism. The brightest of this new literary trend created their own in England, France and Russia.
Sentimentalism began its journey as a literary movement in English lyrics. One of the first to abandon the characteristic heavy urban motifs was James Thomson, who made the nature of the British Isles the subject of consideration. The subtle sentimental lyrics of Thomson and his followers followed the path of strengthening pessimism, reflecting the illusory nature of earthly existence.
Under the influence of the ideas of sentimentalism, Samuel Richardson broke with adventure-adventure works. In the middle of the 18th century, this English writer introduced sentimental traditions into the genre of the novel. One of Richardson's finds is the depiction of the world of feelings of the characters in the form of a novel in letters. This form of storytelling subsequently became very popular among those who sought to convey the full depth of human experience.
The most prominent representative of classical French sentimentalism was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The content of his literary creations was the combination of the concept of nature with the image of a "natural" hero. At the same time, Rousseau's nature was an independent object with its own value. To the absolute limit, the writer brought sentimentalism in his "Confession", which is considered one of the most frank autobiographies in literature.
Sentimentalism penetrated into Russia later, towards the end of the 18th century. The basis for its development in Russian literature was the translations of the works of English, French and German sentimentalists. The heyday of this direction is traditionally associated with the work of N.M. Karamzin. His novel "Poor Liza", which was sensational at the time, is considered a true masterpiece of Russian "sensitive" prose.
Sentimentalism is one of the main, along with classicism and rococo, artistic movements in European literature of the 18th century. Like Rococo, sentimentalism arises as a reaction to the classicist tendencies in literature that prevailed in the previous century. Sentimentalism got its name after the publication of the unfinished novel “A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy” (1768) by the English writer L. Stern, which, as modern researchers believe, consolidated , the new meaning of the word "sentimental" in English. If earlier (the first use of this word by the Great Oxford Dictionary dates back to 1749) it meant either “reasonable”, “sensible”, or “highly moral”, “edifying”, then by the 1760s it intensified the connotation associated not so much with belonging to areas of the mind, how much - to the area of feeling. Now “sentimental” also means “capable of sympathy”, and Stern finally assigns to it the meaning of “sensitive”, “capable of experiencing lofty and subtle emotions” and introduces it into the circle of the most fashionable words of his time. Subsequently, the fashion for “sentimental” passed, and in the 19th century the word “sentimental” in English acquires a negative connotation, meaning “inclined to indulge excessive sensitivity”, “easily amenable to the influx of emotions”.
Modern dictionaries and reference books already breed the concepts of "feeling" (sentiment) and "sensitivity", "sentimentality" (sentimentality), opposing them to each other. However, the word "sentimentalism" in English, as well as in other Western European languages, where it came under the influence of the success of Stern's novels, did not acquire the character of a strictly literary term that would cover a whole and internally unified artistic movement. English-speaking researchers still use mainly such concepts as “sentimental novel”, “sentimental drama” or “sentimental poetry”, while French and German critics single out rather “sentimentality” (French sentimentalite, German sentimentalitat) as a special category, to one degree or another inherent in works of art of various eras and trends. Only in Russia, starting from the end of the 19th century, attempts were made to comprehend sentimentalism as an integral historical and literary phenomenon. All domestic researchers recognize the “cult of feeling” (or “heart”) as the main feature of sentimentalism, which in this system of views becomes the “measurement of good and evil”. Most often, the appearance of this cult in Western literature of the 18th century is explained, on the one hand, by a reaction to enlightenment rationalism (with feeling directly opposed to reason), and on the other hand, by a reaction to the previously dominant aristocratic type of culture. The fact that sentimentalism as an independent phenomenon first appeared in England already in the late 1720s and early 1730s is usually associated with the social changes that took place in this country in the 17th century, when, as a result of the revolution of 1688-89, the third estate became independent and influential force. One of the main categories that determines the attention of sentimentalists to the life of the human heart, all researchers call the concept of "natural", in general, very important for the philosophy and literature of the Enlightenment. This concept unites the outer world of nature with the inner world of the human soul, which, from the point of view of sentimentalists, are consonant and essentially involved in each other. From this follows, firstly, the special attention of the authors of this trend to nature - its external appearance and the processes taking place in it; secondly, intense interest in the emotional sphere and experiences of an individual. At the same time, sentimentalist authors are interested in a person not so much as a bearer of a reasonable volitional principle, but as a focus of the best natural qualities that have been instilled in his heart from birth. The hero of sentimental literature acts as a feeling person, and therefore the psychological analysis of the authors of this trend is most often based on the subjective outpourings of the hero.
Sentimentalism "descends" from the heights of majestic upheavals, unfolding in an aristocratic environment, to the everyday life of ordinary people, unremarkable, except for the strength of their experiences. The sublime beginning, so beloved by the theoreticians of classicism, is replaced in sentimentalism by the category of touching. Thanks to this, the researchers note, sentimentalism, as a rule, cultivates sympathy for one’s neighbor, philanthropy, becomes a “school of philanthropy”, as opposed to “cold-rational” classicism and, in general, “the dominance of reason” at the initial stages of the development of the European Enlightenment. However, too direct opposition of reason and feeling, "philosopher" and "sensitive person", which is found in the works of a number of domestic and foreign researchers, unnecessarily simplifies the idea of sentimentalism. Often, in this case, “reason” is associated exclusively with enlightenment classicism, and the entire area of “feelings” falls to the lot of sentimentalism. But such an approach, which is based on another very common opinion - that at the basis of its sentimentality is entirely derived from the sensationalist philosophy of George Locke (1632-1704), - obscures the much more subtle relationship between "reason" and "feeling" in the 18th century, and moreover, it does not explain the essence of the divergence between sentimentalism and such an independent artistic direction of this century as rococo. The most debatable problem in the study of sentimentalism remains its relation, on the one hand, to other aesthetic trends of the 18th century, and, on the other hand, to the Enlightenment as a whole.
The prerequisites for the emergence of sentimentalism were already contained in the newest way of thinking. , which distinguished the philosophers and writers of the 18th century and determined the whole structure and spirit of the Enlightenment. In this way of thinking, sensibility and rationality do not appear and do not exist without each other: in contrast to the speculative rationalist systems of the 17th century, rationalism of the 18th century is limited by the framework of human experience, i.e. the perception of the sentient soul. A person with his inherent desire for happiness in this earthly life becomes the main measure of the viability of any views. Rationalists of the 18th century not only criticize certain, in their opinion, phenomena of reality, but also put forward an image of ideal reality, conducive to human happiness, and this image ultimately turns out to be prompted not by reason, but by feeling. The ability for critical judgment and a sensitive heart are two sides of a single intellectual tool that helped the writers of the 18th century develop a new view of a person who abandoned the feeling of original sin and tried to justify his existence based on his innate desire for happiness. Various aesthetic trends of the 18th century, including sentimentalism, tried to paint the image of the new reality in their own way. As long as they remained within the framework of the Enlightenment ideology, they were equally close to the critical views of Locke, who denied the existence of so-called "innate ideas" from the standpoint of sensationalism. From this point of view, sentimentalism differs from Rococo or Classicism not so much in the “cult of feeling” (because in this specific understanding, feeling played an equally important role in other aesthetic movements) or in the tendency to portray mainly representatives of the third estate (all literature of the Enlightenment in one way or another was interested in human nature "in general", leaving out questions of class differences), as much as special ideas about the possibilities and ways of achieving happiness by a person. Like Rococo art, sentimentalism professes a sense of disillusionment with the "great History", turns to the sphere of the private, intimate life of an individual, gives it a "natural" dimension. But if rocaille literature interprets “naturalness” primarily as an opportunity to go beyond the traditionally established moral norms and, thus, illuminates mainly the “scandalous”, behind-the-scenes side of life, condescending to the excusable weaknesses of human nature, then sentimentalism seeks to reconcile the natural and the moral. He began by trying to present virtue not as an introduced, but as an innate property of the human heart. Therefore, the sentimentalists were closer not to Locke with his resolute denial of any “innate ideas”, but to his follower A.A.K. moral sense, which alone can point the way to happiness. It is not the awareness of duty that prompts a person to act morally, but the command of the heart. Happiness, therefore, does not consist in the craving for sensual pleasures, but in the craving for virtue. Thus, the “naturalness” of human nature is interpreted by Shaftesbury, and after him by sentimentalists, not as its “scandalousness”, but as a need and opportunity for virtuous behavior, and the heart becomes a special supra-individual sense organ that connects a particular person with a common harmonious and morally justified structure of the universe.
The first elements of the poetics of sentimentalism penetrate the English literature of the late 1720s. when the genre of descriptive and didactic poems devoted to labor and leisure against the backdrop of rural nature (georgics) becomes especially relevant. In J. Thomson's poem "The Seasons" (1726-30) one can already find a completely "sentimentalistic" idyll, built on a sense of moral satisfaction arising from the contemplation of rural landscapes. Subsequently, such motifs were developed by E. Jung (1683-1765) and especially T. Gray, who discovered the elegy as a genre most suitable for sublime meditations against the backdrop of nature (the most famous work is “Elegy written in a rural cemetery”, 1751). A significant influence on the development of sentimentalism was exerted by the work of S. Richardson, whose novels (Pamela, 1740; Clarissa, 1747-48; The History of Sir Charles Grandisson, 1754) not only for the first time introduced heroes who in everything corresponded to the spirit of sentimentalism, but and popularized a special genre form of the epistolary novel, so loved later by many sentimentalists. Among the latter, some researchers include the main opponent of Richardson, Henry Fielding, whose “comic epics” (“The Story of the Adventure of Joseph Endrus”, 1742, and “The Story of Tom Jones, the Foundling”, 1749) are largely based on sentimentalist ideas about human nature. In the second half of the 18th century, the tendencies of sentimentalism in English literature were growing stronger, but now they are increasingly in conflict with the actual enlightenment pathos of life-building, the improvement of the world and the education of man. The world no longer seems to be the focus of moral harmony to the heroes of the novels by O. Goldsmith "The Weckfield Priest" (1766) and G. Mackenzie "The Man of Feelings" (1773). Stern's novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-67) and A Sentimental Journey are examples of caustic polemics against Locke's sensationalism and many conventional views of the English Enlightenment. The Scots R. Burns (1759-96) and J. MacPherson (1736-96) are among the poets who developed sentimentalist tendencies on folklore and pseudo-historical material. By the end of the century, English sentimentalism, more and more inclined towards “sensibility”, breaks with the enlightenment harmony between feeling and reason and gives rise to the genre of the so-called Gothic novel (H. Walpole, A. Radcliffe, etc.), which some researchers correlate with an independent artistic current - pre-romanticism. In France, the poetics of sentimentalism enters into a dispute with Rococo already in the work of D. Diderot, who was influenced by Richardson (The Nun, 1760) and, in part, Stern (Jacquefatalist, 1773). The most consonant with the principles of sentimentalism were the views and tastes of J.J. Rousseau, who created an exemplary sentimentalist epistolary novel "Julia, or New Eloise" (1761). However, already in his "Confession" (published 1782-89), Rousseau departs from an important principle of sentimentalist poetics - the normativity of the depicted personality, proclaiming the inherent value of his one and only "I", taken in individual originality. In the future, sentimentalism in France is closely linked with the specific concept of "Rousseauism". Penetrating into Germany, sentimentalism first influenced the work of H.F. Gellert (1715-69) and F.G. sentimentalism, called the "Storm and Onslaught" movement, to which the young I.V. Goethe and F. Schiller belonged. Goethe's novel "The Sufferings of Young Werther" (1774), although considered the pinnacle of sentimentalism in Germany, in fact contains a hidden polemic with the ideals of the sturmerism and is not reduced to glorifying the "sensitive nature" of the protagonist. The “last sentimentalist” of Germany, Jean Paul (1763-1825), was especially influenced by Stern’s work.
In Russia, all the most significant samples of Western European sentimental literature were translated as early as the 18th century, influencing F. Emin, N. Lvov, and partly A. Radishchev (“Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”, 1790). Russian sentimentalism reached its peak in the works of N. Karamzin(“Letters from a Russian Traveler”, 1790; “Poor Liza”, 1792; “Natalia, Boyar's Daughter”, 1792, etc.). Subsequently, A. Izmailov, V. Zhukovsky and others turned to the poetics of sentimentalism.
The word sentimentalism comes from English sentimental, which means sensitive; French sentiment - feeling.
