Epigraph biography

Text: Olga Lapenkova to understand what one or another author wanted to convey is not so simple. It is one thing to read poems about the beauty of nature or love for the homeland, how are the plot and the plot in literature differ? And why do some classics from the school curriculum like to complicate everything? Fortunately, domestic classics add numerous tips to the text. Last week, we figured out what talking surnames are, and today we will find out what the epigraph is.

So, the epigraph is a short phrase written immediately after the name. It can be a proverb, or a winged expression, or a quote from a work. Such a phrase may correspond to the thoughts that the author of a new work tried to convey - or, conversely, serve as a starting point for the dispute. Examples of use, for example, in the comedy of N. Gogol, “The Examiner”, the epigraph is a Russian folk proverb: “There is no one to blame the mirror, if the mings is crooked.” In other words, if you yourself destroy your own life, there is nothing to shift responsibility to others.

So the officials from the play “The Examiner” in the fifth action for a long time and with rapture find out who is to blame for the delicate situation with Khlestakov, not wanting to see and accept the main thing: everyone is to blame without exception. But in the story of F. Dostoevsky “Poor People”, the opposite is true. The story of Makar Devyna and his distant relative Varenka, dunedly mundane, as if arguing with an epigraph that sounds like this: oh, these are fairy tales!

There is no to write something useful, pleasant, delightful, otherwise they pull out all the ins and outs in the ground! .. So I would forbid them to write! Well, what it looks like: you read Odoevsky [an excerpt from the story “Living Dead”. Such authors believe: art is not necessary to give calm and joy - but rather, in order to “awaken” people, open their eyes to the horrors that are happening around.

So, the hero V. Odoevsky is outraged by the fact that the writers-“storytellers” illuminate complex problems, but the author of the story “Poor People” does not agree with him. And, despite the fact that Makar Devil and Varenka are invented characters, Dostoevsky’s story was written so that the reader is sure that all this actually happened. The main thing is the most difficult problems that heroes face: these are poverty, and health difficulties, and the neglect of others from indifference to perverted cruelty, and most importantly - the lack of prospects.

Devil and Varenka understand that they will never be happy; But, of course, they do not admit this either to each other or themselves.

Let's see how the epigraphs “work” in the works of other domestic classics. Vyazemsky, as an epigraph to the novel in verses, Alexander Sergeyevich chose a line from the work of a close friend of P. Vyazemsky, namely, from his poem “First Snow”. Therefore, the modern reader, opening “Eugene Onegin”, might think that under the cover “hid” the light, funny narrative about young, gambling, full energy of heroes who are friends, fall in love, engage in creativity and travel, and everything is fine with them.

However, in the poem "First Snow" there are such lines: happy summer! It's time to be hearty! But what am I saying? A unified runaway day, like a dream is deceptive, like a gender of a shadow, flickered, you take away the inhuman deception! And the very love, having changed us, like you, leads to experience with a ruthless lesson and, having depleted feelings, leaves a trace of a fading dream on the heart of lonely.

The lyrical hero P. Vyazemsky calls youth “sometimes heart -to -heart”, which passes like a “unified runaway,” and leaves behind only disappointment, sorrow through the gone feelings. Why the youthful hope for love and mutual understanding becomes only “fading a dream”, is not specified in the poem. Perhaps the lyrical hero suggests that the attraction is not so often mutual-or maybe that even a happy family life becomes monotonous and boring over time.

One way or another, both scenarios find development in the novel. The first case is the storyline of Eugene and Tatyana Larina, the second is the line of Vladimir Lensky, especially if we recall what life with Olga he saw. Lermontov, “Mtsyri” Epigraph: “Having tasted, tasting little honey, and I am dying” 1st book of the Kings Epigraph to the heartbreaking poem Lermontov about the boy, who at the age of six was pulled out of the natural environment and settled in the monastery, taken from the Old Testament.

The phrase “Taste, tasting little honey and none of the people tasted food. And all the people went into the forest, and there was honey in the clearing there. Jonathan did not hear when his father was conjured by the people, and, reaching out the end of the stick that was in his hand, dipped her honey in hundreds and turned his hand to his mouth, and his eyes enlightened.

And one of the people said to him, saying: Your father spilled the people, saying: “Cursed who will taste food today”; From this, the people were angry.And Jonathan said: I was confused by my father; Look, my eyes enlightened when I tasted a little of this honey; If today the people from the prey, which were found among his enemies, would there be more defeat of the Philistines?

So, King Saul ordered the people, including soldiers, to refrain from food in order to show God the courage and selflessness of his subjects. However, Jonathan was skeptical of the decision of his father. The young man reasoned that God already knew which of the warriors is ready to stand for the Motherland to the end, and who, on the contrary, is proud and cowardly.

So, refusal of food does not help the Israeli army, but rather deprives him of his strength. After these events, the people of Saul, indeed, collided with the phimistimans on the battlefield and achieved significant success - but this was not a final victory. The king could not decide whether he should go in pursuit of retreating phimistimans. To be confident in success, he decided to check if there were people who committed bad deeds among his troops, but no one answered him from the whole people.

And Jonathan told him and said: I tasted the end of the stick that is in my hand, a little honey; And now, I have to die. But the people said to Saul: Is the Jonathanum to die, who delivered such a great salvation to Israel? Yes, it will not be! The Lord is alive, and his hair will not fall from his head to the ground, for he acted with God now. And he freed the people of Jonathan, and he did not die.

At first glance, the history of Jonathan has nothing to do with the deplorable fate of Mtsyri. The first was the son of the king, the famous military leader and, in a sense, a revolutionary who is not afraid to prove his case. The second did not become famous for anything but an attempt to escape from the monastery. And yet, apparently, M. Lermontov quoted the phrase from the book of the kingdom, not only because in the figurative sense “tasting little honey” means “to know little joy in life”.

Jonathan has repeatedly been in the balance of death: both during the battle with the Fimistimans and the court that his father Saul arranged, but still survived. So Mtsyri could die many times. But still he did not die. Does this mean that Lermontov’s work has an open finale, and it ends not as pessimistic as it seems? This is quite possible, especially considering how the life of the Georgian monk, who became the prototype of Mtsyri.

Pushkin, “The young lady-peasant” Epigraph: “In all of you, darling, the outfits are good” I. Bogdanovich at first glance, the epigraph for this comic story A. Pushkin is extremely simple, because her main character-the intake of Lisa Muromskaya-at some point and really dresses up in the peasant woman, and then, on the contrary, applies so much cosmetics that she is even difficult to recognize her.

Parents. However, the “darling” by I. Bogdanovich is not a girl, but a real soul, the same psyche that the ancient Greeks praised. And the poem “Darling”, written in the year, is an arrangement of the ancient myth of how the beauty Psyche was almost destroyed out of envy-but, having passed a lot of trials, she met “that very” and gained happiness. So the difficulties that have fallen to the share of Lisa Murom is, in a sense, a check: is this girl worthy of awards?

Will she have enough determination, resourcefulness and courage to achieve her? And the epigraph from Bogdanovich shows that Lisa Muromskaya chooses herself not from selfish motives - not because he is rich or beautiful - but because he hears the voice of his own soul. And the future lysine of the groom, by the way, does the same.