Genre

As Karamzin himself puts it, the story “Poor Liza” is “a rather uncomplicated fairy tale.” In Russian literature of the 18th century. Multi-volume classic novels became widespread. Karamzin was the first to introduce the genre of short novella - a “sensitive story”, which enjoyed particular success among his contemporaries. The role of the narrator in the story “Poor Lisa” belongs to the author. The small volume makes the plot of the story clearer and more dynamic. Karamzin’s name is inextricably linked with the concept of “Russian sentimentalism.”

Main characters

Lisa is the main character of Karamzin's story. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, the writer turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically ordinary features. The author’s words: “...and peasant women know how to love” became popular. Sensitivity is a central character trait of Lisa. She trusts the movements of her heart, lives with “tender passions.” Ultimately, it is ardor and ardor that lead to Lisa’s death, but she is morally justified.

Lisa doesn't look like a peasant woman. “A beautiful settler in body and soul,” “tender and sensitive Liza,” loving her parents dearly, cannot forget about her father, but hides her sadness and tears so as not to disturb her mother. She takes tender care of her mother, gets her medicine, works day and night (“she wove canvas, knitted stockings, picked flowers in the spring, and in the summer she took berries and sold them in Moscow”). The author is sure that such activities will fully provide for the life of the old woman and her daughter. According to his plan, Lisa is completely unfamiliar with the book, but after meeting Erast, she dreams of how good it would be if her beloved “was born as a simple peasant shepherd...” - these words are completely in the spirit of Lisa.

Liza not only speaks like a book, but also thinks. Nevertheless, the psychology of Lisa, who fell in love with a girl for the first time, is revealed in detail and in a natural sequence. Before throwing herself into the pond, Lisa remembers her mother, she took care of the old woman as best she could, left her money, but this time the thought of her was no longer able to keep Lisa from taking a decisive step. As a result, the character of the heroine is idealized, but internally whole.

Erast's character is much different from Lisa's character. Erast is depicted in greater accordance with the social environment that raised him than Lisa. This is a “rather rich nobleman,” an officer who led an absent-minded life, thought only about his own pleasure, looked for it in social amusements, but often did not find it, was bored and complained about his fate. Endowed with “a fair amount of intelligence and a kind heart,” being “kind by nature, but weak and flighty,” Erast represented a new type of hero in Russian literature. For the first time, the type of disappointed Russian aristocrat was outlined in it.

Erast recklessly falls in love with Lisa, not thinking that she is a girl not in his circle. However, the hero does not stand the test of love.

Before Karamzin, the plot automatically determined the type of hero. In “Poor Liza,” the image of Erast is much more complex than the literary type to which the hero belongs.

Erast is not a “cunning seducer”; he is sincere in his oaths, sincere in his deception. Erast is as much the culprit of the tragedy as he is the victim of his “ardent imagination.” Therefore, the author does not consider himself to have the right to judge Erast. He stands on a par with his hero - because he converges with him at the “point” of sensitivity. After all, it is the author who acts in the story as a “reteller” of the plot that Erast told him: “...I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Lisa’s grave...”

Erast begins a long series of heroes in Russian literature, whose main feature is weakness and inability to adapt to life, and for whom the label of “superfluous person” has been assigned for a long time in literary criticism.

Plot This lyrical work is based on a love story between a poor peasant girl Lisa and a wealthy nobleman Erast. To meet the beauty he likes, he buys lilies of the valley from her, which she collected in the forest for sale. Lisa charmed the guy with her naturalness, purity and kindness. They started dating, but, unfortunately, the happiness was short-lived. Soon Erast got bored with the girl and found a more profitable match for himself. The young man regretted his rash act for the rest of his life. After all, Lisa, unable to bear parting with her beloved, drowned herself in the river.

The main topic This sad tale, of course, is love. It serves as a test for the main characters. Lisa is devoted and faithful to her beloved, literally dissolves in him, completely surrenders to her feelings, and cannot live without him. While Erast turns out to be a pitiful, petty and narrow-minded person, for whom material wealth is much more important than feelings. For him, his position in society is more valuable than love, which he quickly became bored with. Lisa cannot live after such a betrayal. She cannot imagine her future without love and is ready to say goodbye to life. Her attachment to her beloved is so strong. He is even more important to her than life itself.

Main idea“Poor Lisa” is that you need to completely surrender to your feelings and not be afraid of them. After all, this is the only way to overcome selfishness and immorality. In his work, Nikolai Mikhailovich shows that sometimes poor people are much kinder than wealthy gentlemen.

Surprisingly, Karamzin does not blame Erast for Lisa’s death at all, but explains to the reader that the big city had such a negative influence on the young man, making him more cruel and depraved. The village brought up simplicity and naivety in the main character, which played a cruel joke on her. But not only Lisa’s fate was tragic, but also Erast’s, because he never became truly happy and for the rest of his life he felt a strong sense of guilt for his fateful act for the girl.

Yours the author builds the work on the opposition. Erast is the complete opposite of an honest, pure, naive and kind girl from the lower class. He is a selfish, cowardly, spoiled young man belonging to a noble family. Their feelings are also different. Liza’s love is sincere and real, she cannot live even a day without her lover. While Erast, as soon as he got his, on the contrary, begins to move away and his feelings quickly cool down, as if nothing had happened.

Thanks to “Poor Lisa,” you can learn from the mistakes made by the main characters. After reading this story, I want to become at least a little more humane and responsive. Nikolai Mikhailovich tries to teach the reader to be kinder, more attentive to others, and to better think about his words and actions. This story also awakens a feeling of compassion for other people, makes you reconsider your behavior and attitude towards the world around you.

Option 2

Karamzin, with his stories, made a great contribution to the development of Russian literature, including prose. He decided to apply new techniques in narrative prose. He abandoned the traditional plots of works taken from the mythology of ancient states. He used an innovative technique, that is, he began to write about modern events, and even stories about ordinary people. So a story was written about a simple girl Lisa, who was called “Poor Lisa.”

The author worked on the story for two years, from 1789-1790. Karamzin did not try to write a story with a happy ending. As I already said, he was an innovator in Russian prose. In this work, the main character died and there was no happy ending.

While reading this work, several sub-topics stand out that form the main theme of the story. One of the topics is when the author begins to describe the life of the peasants in full swing. He repeatedly emphasizes the relationship between the peasant and living nature. According to the author, the main character, who grew up in communication with nature, cannot act as a negative character. She grew up observing centuries-old traditions. She is cheerful and kind. And in general, Karamzin expressed in Lisa all the best qualities of a person. She is ideal from all sides and the formation of the beauty and meaning of the work “Poor Lisa” begins with this character.

The main idea can safely be called true love. Lisa fell in love with a rich nobleman. The girl immediately forgot about social inequality and plunged headlong into the dark pool of love. He girl did not expect betrayal from her beloved. When she found out that she had been betrayed, she threw herself into the lake out of grief and drowned. The theory of the little man was also touched upon here, that is, there cannot be full-fledged love between people who belong to different strata of society. Most likely, such relationships do not need to be started, because they will not last long in the first place. All this is because they were born and accustomed to their special life. And if you got into other layers, you felt out of place.

The main problem of the story can be called that Lisa succumbed to an impulse of feelings, and not to reason. We can safely say that her momentary weakness ruined her.

Poor Lisa - Analysis 3

N.M. Karamzin wrote the work “Poor Liza” very beautifully. The main characters were a simple peasant woman and a young rich nobleman. Having created this work, the young writer gains great fame. The idea for the author to write this story was the Simonov Monastery, which was located not far from the house where Karamzin spent time with close friends. With this story, Karamzin wanted to show that there are huge misunderstandings between the relationships between peasants and nobles. It was with this thought that the heroine Lisa was created.

Karamzin described Lisa as a very sincere and pure-minded person; she embodied his own image of principles and ideals, which was not entirely clear to Erast. Although she was an ordinary peasant woman, she lived as her heart told her. Lisa was a very well-read girl, so from her conversation it was difficult to determine that she was of peasant origin.

Erast, Lisa's lover, was an officer who lived a high life. I was only thinking about how I could brighten up my life with entertainment so as not to get bored. Despite the fact that he was very smart, his character was very changeable. He did not think that Lisa would never be able to become his wife, because they were from different classes. Erast, truly in love. Having a wayward, weak character, he could not withstand and carry his love with Lisa to the end. He preferred a lady from his society, did not think about the feelings of poor Lisa. This, of course, did not surprise anyone, because money for high society has always been in the foreground rather than real, sincere feelings. Therefore, the ending of this story was very tragic.

Despite the fact that the work is written very interestingly. The end of the sentimental love story ended with the tragedy of the main character Lisa. The reader is literally imbued with the events described. Nikolai Mikhailovich was able to describe the story he once heard in such a way that the reader literally carries through himself all the sensuality of the work. Each new line is filled with the depth of feelings of the main characters. In some moments you involuntarily become imbued with the harmony of nature. The author was able to describe the place where Lisa committed suicide so accurately that the reader is left in no doubt about the veracity of this story.

Thanks to the uniqueness of the work, Nikolai Karamzin added his masterpiece to Russian literature. Thus taking a huge step in its development. Thanks to its inherent sentimentality and tragedy, the work became a model for many writers of that time.

Essence, meaning, idea and thought. For 8th grade

The story “Poor Liza” was first published in 1792. Its publication is carried out by the author himself. At that moment, Nikolai Mikhailovich was the owner of the Moscow Journal. It is on its pages that the story appears. A simple story with a simple plot brought the writer extraordinary fame.

In the story, the narrator is the author. The story tells about the life of a young peasant girl. She works tirelessly. To earn extra money, a girl goes to the city. He sells berries and flowers there. In the city, Lisa meets a young man, Erast. Erast is a nobleman. Has some wealth. He is described as a frivolous person who lives for fun. But at the same time, he was already bored with everything.

Lisa, on the contrary, is described as pure, trusting, kind, and inexperienced in anything. However, two opposite heroes - Lisa and Erast - fall in love with each other. They are happy. It seems to them that happiness will last forever.

However, everything changes after intimacy. Erast begins to lose interest in the girl. And at some point he disappears from her life. But Lisa still loves him. She is trying to find her lover. And it soon turns out that Erast lost all his wealth at cards. And in order to save his position, he is forced to marry.

Lisa cannot survive the betrayal. Without telling anyone about her experiences, she decides to die. The pond near the Simonov Monastery became her last refuge.

The author sympathizes with his heroine. He is bitter about Erast’s immoral act. The author condemns the hero. But he softens, knowing that Erast himself cannot forgive himself. He is in torment. According to the writer, Erast’s torment is just.

Karamzin wrote the work “Poor Liza”, guided by foreign literature. From it he took the stylistic direction. “Poor Liza” was written in the style of classical sentimentalism.

During Karamzin's time, classicism flourished. The works of many writers were published in several volumes. But N.M. Karamzin is considered the author of short stories. And the work about a peasant girl is also written in the genre of a short story. But it is also called a short story. Despite the small volume, “poor Liza” did not belong to any cycle of stories. After publication in the Moscow magazine, the story gained wide popularity and recognition. Subsequently, the Work was published as a separate book.

The story raises questions of morality, social inequality, betrayal, and the theme of the “little man” is touched upon a little.

Themes of immorality and betrayal are still relevant today. Very often people do things without thinking that they might cause pain.

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Despite words and tastes

And contrary to wishes

On us from the faded line

Suddenly there is an air of charm.

What a strange thing for these days,

It is by no means a secret for us.

But there is dignity in it too:

She's sentimental!

Lines from the first play “Poor Liza”,

libretto by Yuri Ryashentsev

In the era of Byron, Schiller and Goethe, on the eve of the French Revolution, in the intensity of feelings characteristic of Europe in those years, but with the ceremoniality and pomp of the Baroque still remaining, the leading trends in literature were sensual and sensitive romanticism and sentimentalism. If the appearance of romanticism in Russia was due to translations of the works of these poets, and was later developed by Russia’s own works, then sentimentalism became popular thanks to the works of Russian writers, one of which is “Poor Liza” by Karamzin.

According to Karamzin himself, the story “Poor Liza” is “a very simple fairy tale.” The narrative about the fate of the heroine begins with a description of Moscow and the author’s confession that he often comes to the “deserted monastery” where Lisa is buried, and “listens to the dull groan of times, swallowed up by the abyss of the past.” With this technique, the author indicates his presence in the story, showing that any value judgment in the text is his personal opinion. The coexistence of the author and his hero in the same narrative space was not familiar to Russian literature before Karamzin. The title of the story is based on combining the heroine’s own name with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her, who constantly repeats that he has no power to change the course of events (“Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad true story?”).

Lisa, forced to work hard to feed her old mother, one day comes to Moscow with lilies of the valley and meets a young man on the street who expresses a desire to always buy lilies of the valley from Lisa and finds out where she lives. The next day, Lisa waits for a new acquaintance, Erast, to appear, without selling her lilies of the valley to anyone, but he only comes the next day to Lisa’s house. The next day, Erast tells Lisa that he loves her, but asks her to keep their feelings secret from her mother. For a long time, “their embraces were pure and immaculate,” and to Erast, “all the brilliant amusements of the great world” seem “insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul nourished his heart.” However, soon the son of a rich peasant from a neighboring village wooes Lisa. Erast objects to their wedding and says that, despite the difference between them, for him in Lisa “the most important thing is the soul, the sensitive and innocent soul.” Their dates continue, but now Erast “could no longer be content with just innocent caresses.” “He wanted more, more, and finally, he couldn’t want anything... Platonic love gave way to feelings that he couldn’t be proud of and that were no longer new to him.” After some time, Erast informs Lisa that his regiment is setting off on a military campaign. He says goodbye and gives Lisa’s mother money. Two months later, Liza, having arrived in Moscow, sees Erast, follows his carriage to a huge mansion, where Erast, freeing himself from Lisa’s embrace, says that he still loves her, but the circumstances have changed: on the hike he lost almost all of his money at cards. estate, and is now forced to marry a rich widow. Erast gives Lisa a hundred rubles and asks the servant to escort the girl from the yard. Lisa, having reached the pond, under the shade of those oak trees that just “a few weeks before had witnessed her delight,” meets the neighbor’s daughter, gives her the money and asks her to tell her mother with the words that she loved a man, and he cheated on her. After this he throws himself into the water. The neighbor's daughter calls for help, Lisa is pulled out, but it is too late. Lisa was buried near the pond, Lisa's mother died of grief. Until the end of his life, Erast “could not console himself and considered himself a murderer.” The author met him a year before his death, and learned the whole story from him.

The story made a complete revolution in the public consciousness of the 18th century. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, Karamzin turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically ordinary features. His words “even peasant women know how to love” became popular. It is not surprising that the story was very popular. Many Erasts appear at once in the lists of nobles - a name that was previously infrequent. The pond, located under the walls of the Simonov Monastery (a 14th-century monastery, preserved on the territory of the Dynamo plant on Leninskaya Sloboda Street, 26), was called the Fox Pond, but thanks to Karamzin’s story it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees around the pond was cut with inscriptions, both serious (“In these streams, poor Liza passed away her days; / If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh”), and satirical, hostile to the heroine and the author (“Erastova died in these streams bride. / Drown yourself, girls, there’s plenty of room in the pond”).

“Poor Liza” became one of the pinnacles of Russian sentimentality. It is here that the refined psychologism of Russian artistic prose, recognized throughout the world, originates. Karamzin's artistic discovery was important - the creation of a special emotional atmosphere corresponding to the theme of the work. The picture of pure first love is painted very touchingly: “Now I think,” says Lisa to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your eyes the bright month is dark; without your voice the nightingale singing is boring..." Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, giving them a moment of happiness. The main characters are also drawn characteristically: chaste, naive, joyfully trusting of people, Lisa seems to be a beautiful shepherdess, less like a peasant woman, more like a sweet society young lady brought up on sentimental novels; Erast, despite his dishonorable act, reproaches himself for it until the end of his life.

In addition to sentimentalism, Karamzin gave Russia a new name. The name Elizabeth is translated as “who worships God.” In biblical texts, this is the name of the wife of the high priest Aaron and the mother of John the Baptist. Later, the literary heroine Heloise, Abelard's friend, appears. After her, the name is associatively associated with a love theme: the story of the “noble maiden” Julie d’Entage, who fell in love with her modest teacher Saint-Preux, is called by Jean-Jacques Rousseau “Julia, or the New Heloise” (1761). Until the early 80s of the XVIII century, the name “Liza” was almost never found in Russian literature. By choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin broke the strict canon of European literature of the 17th-18th centuries, in which the image of Lisa, Lisette, was associated primarily with comedy and with the image of a maid. which is usually quite frivolous and understands everything connected with a love affair at a glance. The gap between the name and its usual meaning meant going beyond the boundaries of classicism, weakening the connections between the name and its bearer in a literary work, instead of the “name-behavior” connection usual for classicism. a new one appears: character - behavior, which became a significant achievement of Karamzin on the path to the “psychologism” of Russian prose.

Many readers were struck by the author's audacious style of presentation. One of the critics from Novikov’s circle, which once included Karamzin himself, wrote: “I don’t know whether Mr. Karamzin made an era in the history of the Russian language: but if he did, it’s very bad.” Further, the author of these lines writes that in “Poor Liza” “bad morals are called good manners”

The plot of “Poor Lisa” is as generalized and condensed as possible. Possible lines of development are only outlined; often the text is replaced with dots and dashes, which become its “significant minus”. The image of Lisa is also only outlined, each trait of her character is a theme for the story, but not yet the story itself.

Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the contrast between city and countryside into Russian literature. In world folklore and myth, heroes are often able to act actively only in the space allotted to them and are completely powerless outside of it. In accordance with this tradition, in Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - finds himself defenseless when he finds himself in urban space, where laws different from the laws of nature apply. No wonder Lisa’s mother tells her: “My heart is always out of place when you go to town.”

The central feature of Lisa’s character is sensitivity - this is how the main advantage of Karamzin’s stories was defined, meaning by this the ability to sympathize, to discover the “tenderest feelings” in the “curves of the heart,” as well as the ability to enjoy the contemplation of one’s own emotions. Lisa trusts the movements of her heart and lives with “tender passions.” Ultimately, it is ardor and ardor that lead to her death, but it is morally justified. Karamzin’s consistent idea that for a mentally rich, sensitive person to do good deeds is natural, eliminates the need for normative morality.

Many people perceive the novel as a confrontation between honesty and frivolity, kindness and negativity, poverty and wealth. In fact, everything is more complicated: this is a clash of characters: strong - and accustomed to going with the flow. The novel emphasizes that Erast is a young man “with a fair mind and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and flighty.” It was Erast, who from the point of view of Lysia’s social stratum is the “darling of fate,” who was constantly bored and “complained about his fate.” Erast is presented as an egoist who seems to be ready to change for the sake of a new life, but as soon as he gets bored, he, without looking back, changes his life again, without thinking about the fate of those he abandoned. In other words, he thinks only about his own pleasure, and his desire to live, unencumbered by the rules of civilization, in the lap of nature, is caused only by reading idyllic novels and oversaturation with social life.

In this light, falling in love with Lisa is only a necessary addition to the idyllic picture being created - it is not for nothing that Erast calls her his shepherdess. Having read novels in which “all people carelessly walked along the rays, swam in clean springs, kissed like turtle doves, rested under roses and myrtles,” he decided that “he found in Lisa what his heart had been looking for for a long time.” That’s why he dreams that he will “live with Liza, like brother and sister, I will not use her love for evil and I will always be happy!”, and when Liza gives herself to him, the sated young man begins to cool in his feelings.

At the same time, Erast, being, as the author emphasizes, “kind by nature,” cannot just leave: he is trying to find a compromise with his conscience, and his decision comes down to paying off. The first time he gives money to Liza’s mother is when he doesn’t want to meet with Liza anymore and goes on a campaign with the regiment; the second time is when Lisa finds him in the city and he informs her about his upcoming marriage.

The story “Rich Liza” opens the theme of the “little man” in Russian literature, although the social aspect in relation to Liza and Erast is somewhat muted.

The story caused many outright imitations: 1801. A.E. Izmailov “Poor Masha”, I. Svechinsky “Seduced Henrietta”, 1803. "Unhappy Margarita." At the same time, the theme of “Poor Lisa” can be traced in many works of high artistic value, and plays a variety of roles in them. Thus, Pushkin, moving to realism in his prose works and wanting to emphasize both his rejection of sentimentalism and its irrelevance for contemporary Russia, took the plot of “Poor Lisa” and turned the “sad story” into a story with a happy ending “The Young Lady - a Peasant Woman” . Nevertheless, in the same Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades,” the line of the future life of Karamzin’s Liza is visible: the fate that would have awaited her if she had not committed suicide. An echo of the theme of the sentimental work is also heard in the novel “Sunday” written in the spirit of realism by L.T. Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under the train.

Thus, the plot, which existed in literature before and became popular after, was transferred to Russian soil, acquiring a special national flavor and becoming the basis for the development of Russian sentimentalism. Russian psychological, portrait prose and contributed to the gradual retreat of Russian literature from the norms of classicism to more modern literary movements.

The story “Poor Liza,” which became an example of sentimental prose, was published by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin in 1792 in the Moscow Journal publication. It is worth noting Karamzin as an honored reformer of the Russian language and one of the most highly educated Russians of his time - this is an important aspect that allows us to further evaluate the success of the story. Firstly, the development of Russian literature was of a “catch-up” nature, since it lagged behind European literature by about 90-100 years. While sentimental novels were being written and read in the West, clumsy classical odes and dramas were still being composed in Russia. Karamzin’s progressiveness as a writer consisted in “bringing” sentimental genres from Europe to his homeland and developing a style and language for the further writing of such works.

Secondly, the assimilation of literature by the public at the end of the 18th century was such that at first they wrote for society how to live, and then society began to live according to what was written. That is, before the sentimental story, people read mainly hagiographic or church literature, where there were no living characters or living speech, and the heroes of the sentimental story - such as Lisa - gave secular young ladies a real life scenario, a guide to feelings.

The history of the story

Karamzin brought the story about poor Liza from his many trips - from 1789 to 1790 he visited Germany, England, France, Switzerland (England is considered the birthplace of sentimentalism), and upon his return he published a new revolutionary story in his own magazine.

“Poor Liza” is not an original work, since Karamzin adapted its plot for Russian soil, taking it from European literature. We are not talking about a specific work and plagiarism - there were many such European stories. In addition, the author created an atmosphere of amazing authenticity by depicting himself as one of the heroes of the story and masterfully describing the setting of events.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, soon after returning from the trip, the writer lived in a dacha near the Simonov Monastery, in a picturesque, calm place. The situation described by the author is real - readers recognized both the surroundings of the monastery and the “Lizin Pond”, and this contributed to the fact that the plot was perceived as reliable, and the characters as real people.

Analysis of the work

Plot of the story

The plot of the story is love and, as the author admits, extremely simple. The peasant girl Lisa (her father was a wealthy peasant, but after his death the farm is in decline and the girl has to earn money by selling handicrafts and flowers) lives in the lap of nature with her old mother. In a city that seems huge and alien to her, she meets a young nobleman, Erast. Young people fall in love - Erast out of boredom, inspired by pleasures and a noble lifestyle, and Liza - for the first time, with all the simple, ardor and naturalness of a “natural person”. Erast takes advantage of the girl’s gullibility and takes possession of her, after which, naturally, he begins to be burdened by the girl’s company. The nobleman leaves for war, where he loses his entire fortune at cards. The way out is to marry a rich widow. Lisa finds out about this and commits suicide by throwing herself into a pond, not far from the Simonov Monastery. The author, who was told this story, cannot remember poor Lisa without holy tears of regret.

Karamzin, for the first time among Russian writers, unleashed the conflict of a work with the death of the heroine - as, most likely, it would have happened in reality.

Of course, despite the progressiveness of Karamzin’s story, his heroes differ significantly from real people, they are idealized and embellished. This is especially true for peasants - Lisa does not look like a peasant woman. It is unlikely that hard work would have contributed to her remaining “sensitive and kind”; it is unlikely that she would conduct internal dialogues with herself in an elegant style, and she would hardly be able to carry on a conversation with a nobleman. Nevertheless, this is the first thesis of the story - “even peasant women know how to love.”

Main characters

Lisa

The central heroine of the story, Lisa, is the embodiment of sensitivity, ardor and ardor. Her intelligence, kindness and tenderness, the author emphasizes, are from nature. Having met Erast, she begins to dream not that he, like a handsome prince, will take her into his world, but that he would be a simple peasant or shepherd - this would equalize them and allow them to be together.

Erast differs from Lisa not only in social terms, but also in character. Perhaps, the author says, he was spoiled by the world - he leads a typical life for an officer and a nobleman - he seeks pleasure and, having found it, grows cold towards life. Erast is both smart and kind, but weak, incapable of action - such a hero also appears in Russian literature for the first time, a type of “aristocrat disillusioned with life.” At first, Erast is sincere in his impulse of love - he does not lie when he tells Lisa about love, and it turns out that he is also a victim of circumstances. He does not stand the test of love, does not resolve the situation “like a man,” but experiences sincere torment after what happened. After all, it was he who allegedly told the author the story about poor Lisa and led him to Lisa’s grave.

Erast predetermined the appearance in Russian literature of a number of heroes of the “superfluous people” type - weak and incapable of making key decisions.

Karamzin uses “speaking names.” In the case of Lisa, the choice of name turned out to be a “double bottom.” The fact is that classical literature provided typification techniques, and the name Lisa was supposed to mean a playful, flirtatious, frivolous character. This name could have been given to a laughing maid - a cunning comedy character, prone to love adventures, and by no means innocent. By choosing such a name for his heroine, Karamzin destroyed the classical typification and created a new one. He built a new relationship between the name, character and actions of the hero and outlined the path to psychologism in literature.

The name Erast was also not chosen by chance. It means “lovely” from Greek. His fatal charm and the need for novelty of impressions lured and destroyed the unfortunate girl. But Erast will reproach himself for the rest of his life.

Constantly reminding the reader of his reaction to what is happening (“I remember with sadness...”, “tears are rolling down my face, reader...”), the author organizes the narrative so that it acquires lyricism and sensitivity.

Quotes

“Mother! Mother! How can this happen? He is a gentleman, but among the peasants...”. Lisa.

“Nature calls me into its arms, to its pure joys,” he thought and decided, at least for a while, to leave the big world.”.

“I can’t live,” thought Lisa, “I can’t!.. Oh, if the sky would fall on me! If the earth would swallow up the poor woman!.. No! the sky doesn’t fall; the earth doesn’t shake! Woe to me.” Lisa.

"Now maybe they have already reconciled!" Author

Theme, conflict of the story

Karamzin's story touches on several topics:

• The theme of the idealization of the peasant environment, the ideality of life in nature. The main character is a child of nature, and therefore by default she cannot be evil, immoral, or insensitive. The girl embodies simplicity and innocence due to the fact that she is from a peasant family, where eternal moral values ​​are kept.
• Theme of love and betrayal. The author glorifies the beauty of sincere feelings and talks with sorrow about the doom of love, not supported by reason.
• The theme is the contrast between countryside and city. The city turns out to be evil, a great evil force capable of breaking a pure being from nature (Lisa’s mother intuitively senses this evil force and prays for her daughter every time she goes to the city to sell flowers or berries).
• Theme "little man". Social inequality, the author is sure (and this is an obvious glimpse of realism) does not lead to happiness for lovers from different backgrounds. This kind of love is doomed.

The main conflict of the story is social, because it is because of the gap between wealth and poverty that the love of the heroes, and then the heroine, perishes. The author extols sensitivity as the highest human value, asserts the cult of feelings as opposed to the cult of reason.

Analysis of the work

This story is one of the first sentimental works in Russian literature of the 18th century. Its plot was not new, as it had been encountered more than once by domestic and foreign novelists. But feelings play a decisive role in Karamzin’s story.

One of the main characters of the work is the narrator, who tells with immense sadness and... sympathy for the fate of the girl. The introduction of the image of a sentimental narrator turned out to be Karamzin’s innovation in Russian literature, since previously the narrator remained as if on the sidelines and was neutral in relation to the events described. Already in the title of this story a proper name is combined with a certain attitude of the author towards him. Karamzin’s plot develops in an unusual way; the ideological and artistic center is not the events and constancy of the characters, but their experiences, that is, the plot is psychological in nature.

The exposition of the work is a description of the outskirts of Moscow; the author recalls the times when this city was waiting for help in severe disasters.

The plot begins with the meeting of Lisa, a poor girl, with the young nobleman Erast.

The culmination is Lisa's chance meeting with Erast, during which he asks her to leave him alone because he is getting married.

The denouement is the death of Lisa. She chooses death in order to solve all problems, not to live deceived and abandoned by her loved one. For Lisa, life without Erast does not exist.

It was very important for the sentimentalist writer to address social issues. The author does not condemn Erast for the death of Lisa. After all, a young nobleman is just as unhappy as a peasant girl. For the rest of his life he feels guilty before Lisa; his own path in life did not work out. Material from the site

Karamzin was one of the first in Russian literature to discover the subtle and vulnerable inner world of a representative of the lower class, as well as the ability to love unselfishly and selflessly. It is from his story that another tradition of Russian literature begins - compassion for ordinary people, sympathy for their joys and experiences, protection of the disadvantaged and oppressed. Thus, we can say that Karamzin prepared the basis for the work of many writers of the 19th century.

Retelling plan

1. Description of the surrounding areas of Moscow.
2. Lisa's life.
3. Meeting Erast.
4. Declaration of love.
5. A chance meeting with Erast in Moscow.
6. Death of Lisa.
7. The further fate of Erast.