System of images, “eternal themes”, “eternal images. “Eternal Images”: A Directory of Literary Terms The eternal image became the basis for many works

The history of literature knows many cases when the works of a writer were very popular during his life, but time passed and they were forgotten almost forever. There are other examples: the writer was not recognized by his contemporaries, but the real value of his works was discovered by subsequent generations. But there are very few works in literature, the importance of which cannot be exaggerated, since they create images that excite every generation of people, images that motivate artists of different times to creative searches. Such images are called “eternal”, since they are carriers of traits that are always inherent in a person.

Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra lived out his age in poverty and loneliness, although during his life he was known as the author of the talented, vivid novel “Don Quixote.” Neither the writer himself nor his contemporaries knew that several centuries would pass, and his heroes would not only not be forgotten, but would become “popular Spaniards”, and their compatriots would erect a monument to them. That they will emerge from the novel and live their own independent lives in the works of prose writers and playwrights, poets, artists, composers. Today it is even difficult to count how many works were artificially created under the influence of the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panches: Goya and Picasso, Masske and Minkus turned to them.

The immortal book was born from the idea of ​​writing a parody and ridiculing the chivalric romances that were so popular in Europe in the 16th century, when Cervantes lived and wrote. And the writer’s plan expanded, and on the pages of the book his contemporary Spain came to life, and the hero himself changed: from a parody knight he grows into a funny and tragic figure. The conflict of the novel is at the same time historically specific (it reflects the writer’s contemporary Spain) and universal (since it exists in any country at all times). The essence of the conflict: the clash of ideal norms and ideas about reality with reality itself - not ideal, “earthly”. The image of Don Quixote has also become eternal due to its universality: there are always and everywhere noble idealists, defenders of goodness and justice who defend their ideals, but are unable to really assess reality. Even the concept of “quixoticism” arose. It unites a humanistic striving for the ideal, enthusiasm, selflessness, on the one hand, and naivety, eccentricity, favor for dreams and illusions, on the other. Don Quixote's inner nobility is combined with the comedy of her external manifestations (he is able to fall in love with a simple peasant girl, but sees in her only a noble, beautiful lady).

The second important eternal image of the novel is the witty and down-to-earth Sancho Panchez. He is the complete opposite of Don Quixote, but the heroes are inextricably linked, they are similar to each other in their hopes and disappointments. Cervantes shows with his heroes that reality without ideals is impossible, but they must be based on reality. A completely different eternal image appears before us in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. This is a deeply tragic image. Hamlet understands reality well, soberly assesses everything that happens around him, and firmly stands on the side of good against evil. But his tragedy lies in the fact that he cannot take decisive action and punish evil. His indecisiveness is not a manifestation of cowardice; he is a brave, outspoken person. His indecisiveness is a consequence of deep thoughts about the nature of evil. Circumstances require him to kill his father's killer. He hesitates because he perceives this revenge as a manifestation of evil: murder will always remain murder, even when a villain is killed.

The image of Hamlet is the image of a person who understands his responsibility in resolving the conflict between good and evil, who stands on the side of good, but his internal moral laws do not allow him to take decisive action. It is no coincidence that this image acquired a special resonance in the 20th century - a time of social upheaval, when each person solved for himself the eternal “Hamlet question”. Several more examples of “eternal” images can be given: Faust, Mephistopheles, Othello, Romeo and Juliet - they all reveal eternal human feelings and aspirations. And each reader learns from these images to understand not only the past, but also the modern.

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Eternal images - this is the name of the images of world literature, which are indicated by the great power of bad generalization and have become a universal spiritual acquisition.

These include Prometheus, Moses, Faust, Don Juan, Don Quixote, Hamlet and others. Arising in specific socio-historical conditions, these images lose historical specificity and are perceived as universal human types, images - symbols. New and new generations of writers turn to them, giving them interpretations determined by their time (“Caucasus” by T. Shevchenko, “The Stone Master” by L. Ukrainka, “Moses” by I. Frank, etc.)

Prometheus's mind, fortitude, heroic service to people, courageous suffering for the sake of their happiness have always attracted people. It is not for nothing that this image is one of the “eternal images.” It is known that the concept of “Prometheism” exists in literature. The meaning is the eternal desire for heroic action, insubordination, and the ability to sacrifice for the sake of humanity. So it is not without reason that this image encourages brave people to new searches and discoveries.

This is probably why musicians and artists from different eras turned to the image of Prometheus. It is known that the image of Prometheus was admired by Goethe, Byron, Shelley, Shevchenko, Lesya Ukrainka, Ivan, Rylsky. The spirit of titanium inspired famous artists - Michelangelo, Titian, composers - Beethoven, Wagner, Scriabin.

The “eternal image” of Hamlet from Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name has become a definite symbol of culture and received a new life in the art of different countries and eras.

Hamlet embodied the man of the late Renaissance. A person who comprehended the limitlessness of the world and his own capabilities and was confused before this limitlessness. This is a deeply tragic image. Hamlet understands reality well, soberly assesses everything that surrounds him, and firmly stands on the side of good. But his tragedy is that he cannot take decisive action and defeat evil.

His indecisiveness is not a sign of cowardice: he is a brave, outspoken person. His doubts are the result of deep thoughts about the nature of evil. Circumstances require him to take the life of his father's killer. He doubts because he perceives this revenge as a manifestation of evil: murder always remains murder, even when a villain is killed.

The image of Hamlet is the image of a person who understands his responsibility in resolving the conflict between good and evil, who stands on the side of good, but his internal moral laws do not allow him to take decisive action.

Goethe turns to the image of Hamlet, who interpreted this image as a kind of Faust, a “damned poet” forced to atone for the sins of civilization. This image acquired particular significance among the romantics. It was they who discovered the “eternity” and universality of the image created by Shakespeare. Hamlet, in their understanding, is almost the first romantic hero who painfully experiences the imperfections of the world.

This image has not lost its relevance in the 20th century - the century of social upheaval, when each person decides for himself the eternal “Hamlet” question. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, the English writer Thomas Eliot wrote the poem “The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock,” which reflected the poet’s despair from the realization of the meaninglessness of existence. Critics accurately called the main character of this poem the fallen Hamlet of the 20th century. The Russian I. Annensky, M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak turned to the image of Hamlet in their works.

Cervantes lived out his life in poverty and alone, although throughout his life he was known as the author of the brilliant novel Don Quixote. Neither the writer himself nor his contemporaries knew that several centuries would pass, and his heroes would not only not be forgotten, but would become “the most popular Spaniards,” and their compatriots would erect a monument to them, that they would emerge from the novel and live their own lives in the works of prose writers and playwrights, poets, artists, composers. Today it is difficult to list how many works of art were created under the influence of the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza: Goya and Picasso, Massenet and Minkus turned to them.

Goethe and Schiller wrote about Don Quixote, and the German romantics were the first to define it as a work of deep and comprehensive philosophical perception of the world.

Don Quixote is one of the most famous “eternal images”. It has a long history of interpretation and reinterpretation.

Eternal images are literary characters that have been repeatedly embodied in the art of different countries, different eras and have become “signs” of culture: Prometheus, Don Juan, Hamlet, Don Quixote, Faust, etc. Traditionally, mythological, biblical, and legendary characters are considered eternal images (Napoleon, Joan of Arc), if these images were used in literary works. Often those characters whose names have become generalized names for certain phenomena, human types are included in the “eternal images”: Plyushkin, Manilov, Cain.

Key concepts: chivalric romances, moral obligation, humanist, Renaissance, ideals.

G. Gogol, working on “Dead Souls,” was guided by this novel. F. Dostoevsky called it a book that “... is given to humanity one at a time every few hundred years.”

Cervantes was a great humanist, the high ideals of the Renaissance were close to him, but he lived and created at a time when illusions about the revival of the “golden times” were melting. In Spain this process was perhaps more painful. Therefore, the novel about Don Quixote is also a kind of revaluation of Renaissance values ​​that have not stood the test at times. Noble dreamers failed to transform the world. The prose of life prevailed over beautiful ideals. In England, William Shakespeare showed this as a tragedy; in Spain, Cervantes portrayed it in his funny and sad novel “Don Quixote.” Cervantes does not laugh at his hero’s desire to act, he only shows that isolation from life can nullify all the efforts of the “idealist and enthusiast.” At the end of the novel, common sense wins: Don Quixote abandons his knightly romances and his plans. But the reader will forever remember the hero who tries “to do good to everyone and not to do evil to anyone.”

"Eternal Images"- artistic images of works of world literature, in which the writer, based on the vital material of his time, was able to create a lasting generalization applicable in the life of subsequent generations. These images acquire a nominal meaning and retain artistic significance right up to our time.

Thus, Prometheus summarizes the features of a person who is ready to give his life for the good of the people; Antea embodies the inexhaustible power that an inextricable connection with his native land, with his people gives to a person; in Faust - man’s indomitable desire to understand the world. This determines the meaning of the images of Prometheus, Antaeus and Faust and the appeal to them by advanced representatives of social thought. The image of Prometheus, for example, was extremely highly valued by K. Marx.

The image of Don Quixote, created by the famous Spanish writer Miguel Cervantes (XVI - XVII centuries), personifies a noble, but devoid of vital soil, dreaming; Hamlet, the hero of Shakespeare's tragedy (XVI - early XVII centuries), is a common image of a divided person, torn by contradictions. Tartuffe, Khlestakov, Plyushkin, Don Juan and similar images live for many years in the consciousness of a number of human generations, since they summarize the typical shortcomings of a person of the past, stable traits of human character, brought up by feudal and capitalist society.

“Eternal images” are created in a certain historical setting and only in connection with it can they be fully understood. They are “eternal,” that is, applicable in other eras, to the extent that the human character traits generalized in these images are stable. In the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, there are often references to such images for their application in a new historical situation (for example, the images of Prometheus, Don Quixote, etc.).

Eternal images are artistic images of works of world literature in which the writer, based on the vital material of his time, was able to create a lasting generalization applicable in the life of subsequent generations. These images acquire a nominal meaning and retain artistic significance right up to our time. These are also mythological, biblical, folklore and literary characters who clearly expressed moral and ideological content that is significant for all mankind and were repeatedly embodied in the literature of different peoples and eras. Each era and each writer puts their own meaning into the interpretation of each character, depending on what they want to convey to the outside world through this eternal image.

An archetype is a primary image, an original; universal human symbols that form the basis of myths, folklore and culture itself as a whole and are passed down from generation to generation (stupid king, evil stepmother, faithful servant).

In contrast to the archetype, which primarily reflects the “genetic”, original characteristics of the human psyche, eternal images are always a product of conscious activity, have their own “nationality”, time of occurrence and, therefore, reflect not only the universal human perception of the world, but also a certain historical and cultural experience embodied in an artistic image. The universal character of eternal images is given by “the kinship and commonality of the problems facing humanity, the unity of the psychophysiological properties of man.

However, representatives of different social strata at different times invested their own, often unique, content into “eternal images,” i.e., eternal images are not absolutely stable and unchanging. Each eternal image has a special central motif, which gives it the corresponding cultural meaning and without which it loses its significance.

One cannot but agree that it is much more interesting for people of a particular era to compare an image with themselves when they themselves find themselves in the same life situations. On the other hand, if an eternal image loses significance for the majority of a social group, this does not mean that it disappears forever from that culture.

Each eternal image can experience only external changes, since the central motive associated with it is the essence that forever assigns a special quality to it, for example, Hamlet has the “fate” of being a philosophizing avenger, Romeo and Juliet - eternal love, Prometheus - humanism. Another thing is that the attitude towards the very essence of the hero can be different in each culture.

Mephistopheles is one of the “eternal images” of world literature. He is the hero of J. V. Goethe’s tragedy “Faust”.

Folklore and fiction from different countries and peoples often used the motive of concluding an alliance between a demon - the spirit of evil and a person. Sometimes poets were attracted by the story of the “fall”, “expulsion from paradise” of the biblical Satan, sometimes by his rebellion against God. There were also farces that were close to folklore sources; in them the devil was given the place of a mischief maker, a cheerful deceiver who often got into trouble. The name "Mephistopheles" has become synonymous with a caustic and evil mocker. This is where the expressions arose: “Mephistophelian laughter, smile” - sarcastic and evil; “Mephistophelian facial expression” - sarcastic and mocking.

Mephistopheles is a fallen angel who has an eternal debate with God about good and evil. He believes that a person is so corrupt that, succumbing to even a slight temptation, he can easily give his soul to him. He is also confident that humanity is not worth saving. Throughout the entire work, Mephistopheles shows that there is nothing sublime in man. He must prove, using the example of Faust, that man is evil. Very often in conversations with Faust, Mephistopheles behaves like a real philosopher who follows human life and its progress with great interest. But this is not his only image. In communication with other heroes of the work, he shows himself from a completely different side. He will never leave his interlocutor behind and will be able to maintain a conversation on any topic. Mephistopheles himself says several times that he does not have absolute power. The main decision always depends on the person, and he can only take advantage of the wrong choice. But he did not force people to sell their souls, to sin, he left the right of choice to everyone. Each person has the opportunity to choose exactly what his conscience and dignity allow him to do. eternal image artistic archetype

It seems to me that the image of Mephistopheles will be relevant at all times, because there will always be something that will tempt humanity.

There are many more examples of eternal images in literature. But they have one thing in common: they all reveal eternal human feelings and aspirations, try to solve eternal problems that torment people of any generation.