Distinctive features of the heroic epics of the peoples of Europe. The epic of the peoples of medieval Europe
1). The question of the origin of the heroic epic - one of the most difficult in literary science - gave rise to a number of different theories. Two stand out among them: "traditionalism" and "anti-traditionalism". The foundations of the first of them were laid by the French medievalist Gaston Paris (1839-1901) in his major work "The Poetic History of Charlemagne" (1865). The theory of Gaston Paris, called the "cantilene theory", is reduced to the following main provisions. The primary basis of the heroic epic was the small lyric-epic cantilena songs, which were widespread in the 8th century. Cantilens were a direct response to certain historical events. For hundreds of years, cantilens have existed in. oral tradition, and from the X century. the process of their fusion into major epic poems begins. The epic is a product of long-term collective creativity, the highest expression of the spirit of the people. Therefore, it is impossible to name a single creator of an epic poem, the very writing of poems is a mechanical rather than creative process,
The positions of "traditionalists" and "anti-traditionalists" "were to a certain extent brought together in his theory of the origin of the heroic epic by Alexander Nikolaevich Veselovsky. The essence of his theory is as follows. After a while, the attitude to the events described in the songs becomes calmer, the acuteness of emotions is lost and then an epic song is born. Time passes, and songs, in one way or another close to each other, add up into cycles. And finally the cycle turns into an epic poem While the text exists in the oral tradition, it is the creation of a collective. At the last stage of the formation of the epic, the individual author plays a decisive role. Writing poems is not a mechanical act, but a deeply creative one.
The foundations of Veselovsky's theory retain their significance for modern science (V. Zhirmunsky, E. Meletinsky), which also dates the emergence of the heroic epic to the 8th century, believing that the epic is the creation of both oral collective and written-individual creativity.
Only the question of the fundamental principles of the heroic epic is corrected: they are considered to be historical legends and the richest arsenal of figurative means of the archaic epic.
The beginning of the formation of the heroic (or state) epic is not accidentally attributed to the VIII century. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476), for a number of centuries, there was a transition from slaveholding forms of statehood to feudal ones, and among the peoples of Northern Europe - the process of the final disintegration of patriarchal-clan relations. Qualitative changes associated with the approval of the new statehood definitely make themselves felt in the 8th century. In 751, one of the largest feudal lords in Europe, Pepin the Short, became king of the Franks and founder of the Carolingian dynasty. Under Pepin the Short's son, Charlemagne (reign: 768-814), a huge state was formed, including the Celto-Romanesque-Germanic population. In 80b, the Pope crowns Charles with the title of Emperor of the newly revived Great Roman Empire. In turn, Kara completes the Christianization of the Germanic tribes, and the capital of the empire, the city of Aachen, seeks to turn into Athens. The formation of the new state was difficult not only because of internal circumstances, but also because of external ones, among which one of the main places was occupied by the unceasing war of the Christian Franks and the Muslim Arabs. This is how history imperiously entered the life of a medieval man. And the heroic epic itself became a poetic reflection of the historical consciousness of the people.
The appeal to history determines the decisive features of the difference between the heroic epic and the archaic epic. The central themes of the heroic epic reflect the most important trends in historical life, a specific historical, geographical, ethnic background appears, mythological and fairytale motivations are eliminated. The truth of history now determines the truth of the epic.
Heroic poems created different nations Europe has a lot in common. This is explained by the fact that a similar historical reality has undergone artistic generalization; this reality itself was comprehended from the point of view of the same level of historical consciousness. In addition, the artistic language, which has common roots in European folklore, served as a means of representation. But at the same time, in the heroic epic of each individual people, there are many unique, nationally specific features.
The most significant of the Heroic poems of the peoples of Western Europe are considered: French - "Song of Roland", German - "Song of the Nibelungs", Spanish - "Song of my Side". These three great poems make it possible to judge the evolution of the heroic epic: "The Song of the Nibelungs" contains a number of archaic features, "The Song of My Side" shows the epic at its end, "The Song of Roland" - the moment of its highest maturity.
2) GENERAL FEATURES OF THE HEROIC EPOS
In the period of the Mature Middle Ages, the development of the traditions of folk-epic literature continues. This is one of the essential stages in its history, when the heroic epic became the most important link in medieval literary literature. Heroic epic The Mature Middle Ages reflected the processes of ethnic and state consolidation and the emerging seigneurial-vassal relations. The historical theme in the epic expanded, displacing the fabulous and mythological, the importance of Christian motives increased and patriotic pathos intensified, a larger epic form and more flexible stylistics were developed, which was facilitated by some distance from purely folklore samples. However, all this led to a certain impoverishment of the plot and mythopoetic imagery, so later the chivalrous novel again turned to folk fiction. All these features of the new stage in the history of the epic are closely interconnected internally. The transition from the epic archaic to the epic classics, in particular, was expressed in the fact that the epics of peoples who had reached the stage of a distinct state consolidation, abandoned the language of myth and fairy tale and turned to the development of plots taken from historical legends(while continuing to use, of course, old plot and language clichés dating back to myths).
Clan and tribal interests were pushed aside by national interests, albeit in an embryonic form, therefore, in many epic monuments, we find pronounced patriotic motives, often associated with the struggle with foreign and heterodox conquerors. Patriotic motives, as is specific to the Middle Ages, partly take the form of opposing Christians to “infidel” Muslims (in Romanesque and Slavic literatures).
As it was said, the epic at a new stage depicts feudal strife and seignior-vassal relations, but due to the epic specificity of vassal loyalty (in the "Song of the Nibelungs", "Song of Roland", "Song of my Side"), as a rule, merges with loyalty to the family, tribe, native country, state. A characteristic figure in the epic of this time is the epic "king", whose power embodies the unity of the country. He is shown in a difficult relationship with the main epic hero - the bearer of popular ideals. Vassal loyalty to the king is combined with a story about his weakness, injustice, with a very critical depiction of the court environment and feudal strife (in the cycle of French poems about Guillaume of Orange). The epic also reflects anti-aristocratic tendencies (in songs about Dietrich of Berne or in "Song of my Side"). In the epic-heroic works of the XII-XIII centuries. sometimes the influence of the courtly (knightly) novel (in the "Song of the Nibelungs") also penetrates. But even with the idealization of courtly forms of life, the epic basically preserves the people's heroic ideals, heroic aesthetics. In the heroic epic, there are also some tendencies that go beyond its genre nature, for example, hypertrophied adventurousness ("Raul de Cambre", etc.), material motivations for the behavior of the hero, patiently overcoming unfavorable circumstances (in "Song of My Side"), drama , reaching the point of tragedy (in the "Nibelungs" and in the "Song of Roland"). These diverse tendencies testify to the hidden possibilities of the epic kind of poetry, anticipating the development of the novel and tragedy.
The stylistic features of the epic are now largely determined by the departure from folklore and a deeper processing of folklore traditions. In the process of transition from oral improvisation to recitation from manuscripts, numerous enjambements appear, that is, transfers from verse to verse, synonymy develops, flexibility and variety of epic formulas increase, sometimes the number of repetitions decreases, a clearer and more harmonious composition becomes possible (“Song of Roland ").
Although wide cyclization is also familiar to oral creativity (for example, in the folklore of Central Asia), the creation of epic works of large volume and their addition in cycles is mainly supported by the transition from oral improvisation to a handwritten book. Apparently, the bookishness also contributes to the emergence of a "psychological" characteristic, as well as the interpretation of the heroic character in terms of a kind of tragic guilt. However, the interaction of folklore and literary literature is actively continuing: in the composition and especially in the performance of many works of the epic, shpielmans and jugglers participated in this period.
6) One of the most remarkable monuments of medieval literature is considered the epic legend of the French people - "The Song of Roland".
An insignificant historical fact formed the basis of this heroic epic and over time, enriched by a number of later events, helped the widespread dissemination of legends about Roland, about the wars of Charlemagne in many literatures of Western Europe.
The "Song of Roland" clearly expresses the ideology of a feudal society, in which the loyal service of a vassal to his overlord was an untouchable law, and violation of it was considered treason and treason. However, the features of courageous perseverance, military valor, disinterested friendship and a thoughtful attitude to what is happening were not found in the poem, as well as in the remarkable monument to the work of the Russian people "The Lay of Igor's Campaign," the feudal estate; on the contrary, these convincing properties of the valiant defenders of the homeland - military commanders-peers and their vassals - were perceived as typical, national. Even more, recognition and sympathy on the part of the broad masses of the people was promoted by the idea of defending the fatherland, of shame and the danger of defeat, which run like a red thread throughout the poem.
The literature of the western early Middle Ages was created by new peoples inhabiting the western part of Europe by the Celts (Britons, Gauls, Belgae, Helvetians) and the ancient Germans living between the Danube and the Rhine, near the North Sea and in the south of Scandinavia (Suevi, Goths, Burgundians, Cherusci, Angles, Saxons, etc.).
These peoples first worshiped pagan tribal gods, and later adopted Christianity and believed, but, in the end, the Germanic tribes conquered the Celts and occupied the territory of what is now France, England and Scandinavia. The literature of these peoples is represented by the following works:
- 1. Stories about the life of the saints - hagiography. Lives of the Saints, visions and spells;
- 2. Encyclopedic, scientific and historiographic works.
Isidore of Seville (about 560-636) - "etymology, or beginning"; Bede the Venerable (c. 637-735) - "about the nature of things" and "the church history of the people of the Angles", Jordan - "about the origin of the deeds of the Goths"; Alcuin (about 732-804) - treatises on rhetoric, grammar, dialectics; Einhard (about 770-840) "Biography of Charlemagne";
3. Mythology and heroic-epic poems, sagas and songs of the Celtic and Germanic tribes. Icelandic sagas, Irish epic, "Elder Edda", Younger Edda "," Beowulf ", Karelian-Finnish epic" Kalevala ".
The heroic epic is one of the most characteristic and popular genres of the European Middle Ages. In France, it existed in the form of poems called gestures, i.e. songs about deeds, exploits. The thematic basis of the gesture is made up of real historical events, most of which date back to the 8th - 10th centuries. Probably, immediately after these events, legends and legends about them arose. It is also possible that these legends originally existed in the form of short episodic songs or prosaic stories that developed in a pre-royal retinue environment. However, very early episodic legends went beyond this environment, spread among the masses and became the property of the whole society: not only the military class listened to them with the same enthusiasm, but also the clergy, merchants, artisans, and peasants.
The heroic epic as a complete picture folk life was the most significant legacy of the literature of the early Middle Ages and occupied an important place in the artistic culture of Western Europe. According to Tacitus, songs about gods and heroes replaced history for the barbarians. The oldest is the Irish epic. It formed from the 3rd to the 8th century. The epic poems about hero-warriors created by the people back in the pagan period first existed in oral form and were passed from mouth to mouth. They were sung and chanted by folk storytellers. Later, in the 7th and 8th centuries, after Christianization, they were revised and written down by learned poets, whose names remained unchanged. For epic works, the chanting of the heroic deeds of heroes is characteristic; interweaving of historical background and fiction; glorification of the heroic strength and deeds of the main characters; idealization of the feudal state.
Features of the heroic epic:
- 1. The epic was created in the conditions of the development of feudal relations;
- 2. An epic picture of the world reproduces feudal relations, idealizes a strong feudal state and reflects Christian beliefs, chr. ideals;
- 3. With regard to history, historical background it can be seen clearly, but at the same time it is idealized, exaggerated;
- 4. Bogatyrs - defenders of the state, the king, the country's independence and the Christian faith. All this is interpreted in the epic as a national affair;
- 5. The epic is associated with a folk tale, with historical chronicles, sometimes with a chivalric romance;
- 6. The epic survived in the countries of continental Europe (Germany, France).
The heroic epic was greatly influenced by Celtic and Germanic-Scandinavian mythology. Often, epics and myths are so intertwined and intertwined that it is rather difficult to draw a line between them. This connection is reflected in a special form of epic legends - sagas - Old Icelandic prose narratives (the Icelandic word "saga" comes from the verb "say"). The sagas were composed by Scandinavian poets of the 9th-12th centuries. - skalds. Old Icelandic sagas are very diverse: the sagas about kings, the saga about the Icelanders, the sagas about ancient times ("The Welsungs saga").
The collection of these sagas has come down to us in the form of two Edda: "Elder Edda" and "Younger Edda". The Younger Edda is a prosaic retelling of ancient Germanic myths and legends, performed by the Icelandic historian and poet Snorri Sjurluson in 1222-1223. The Elder Edda is a collection of twelve poetic songs about gods and heroes. The concise and dynamic songs of the Elder Edda, dating back to the 5th century and recorded, apparently, in the 10-11th centuries, are divided into two groups: legends about gods and legends about heroes. The chief of the gods is the one-eyed Odin, who was originally the god of war. The second most important after Odin is the god of thunder and fertility Thor. The third is the malevolent god Locke. And the most significant hero is the hero Sigurd. The heroic songs of the Elder Edda are based on the all-German epic legends about the gold of the Nibelungs, on which lies a curse and which brings misfortune to everyone.
The sagas also spread in Ireland, the largest center of Celtic culture in the Middle Ages. It was the only country "of Western Europe, where the foot of the Roman legionary did not go. Irish legends were created and passed on to descendants by druids (priests), bards (singers-poets) and felids (diviners). A clear and concise Irish epic was formed not in poetry, but in prose. It can be divided into heroic sagas and fantastic sagas. The protagonist of the heroic sagas was the noble, fair and brave Cuchulainn. His mother is the king's sister, and his father is the god of light. Cuchulainn had three faults: he was too young, too daring, and too beautiful. Ancient Ireland embodied its ideal of valor and moral perfection in the image of Cuchulainn.
In epic works, real historical events and fantastic fiction are often intertwined. So, "The Song of Hildenbrand" was created on a historical basis - the struggle of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric with Odoacer. This ancient Germanic epic of the era of migration of peoples originated in the pagan era and was found in a manuscript of the 9th century. This is the only monument of the German epic that has come down to us in song form.
In the poem "Beowulf" - the heroic epic of the Anglo-Saxons, which has come down to us in a manuscript of the beginning of the 10th century, the fantastic adventures of the heroes also take place against the backdrop of historical events. The world of "Beowulf" is the world of kings and warriors, the world of feasts, battles and duels. The hero of the poem is a brave and magnanimous warrior from the Gout people, Beowulf, who performs feats and is always ready to help people. Beowulf is generous, merciful, loyal to the leader and greedy for glory and rewards, he accomplished many feats, opposed the monster and destroyed it; defeated another monster in an underwater dwelling - Grendel's mother; He entered into battle with a fire-breathing dragon, who was enraged by the attempt on the ancient treasure he guarded and devastated the country. At the cost of his own life, Beowulf managed to defeat the dragon. The song ends with a scene of the solemn burning of the hero's body on a funeral pyre and the construction of a mound over his ashes. This is how the familiar theme of gold, which brings misfortune, emerges in the poem. This theme will be used later in knightly literature.
The immortal monument of folk art is "Kalevala" - a Karelian-Finnish epic about the exploits and adventures of the heroes of the fairyland of Kaleva. "Kalevala" is composed of folk songs(runes), which were collected and written down by a native of the Finnish peasant family Elias Lennrot, and published in 1835 and 1849. runes are letters of the alphabet carved on wood or stone, used by the Scandinavian and other Germanic peoples for cult and commemorative inscriptions. The whole "Kalevala" is a tireless praise of human labor, there is not even a hint of "court" poetry in it.
The French epic poem "The Song of Roland", which has come down to us in a 12th century manuscript, tells about the Spanish campaign of Charlemagne in 778, and the protagonist of Roland's poem has his own historical prototype. True, the campaign against the Basques in the poem turned into a seven-year war with the "infidels", and Karl himself - from a 36-year-old man to a gray-haired old man. The central episode of the poem, the Battle of Ronseval, glorifies the courage of people loyal to duty and "sweet France."
The ideological concept of the legend is revealed by comparing the Song of Roland with the historical facts that underlie this legend. In 778, Charlemagne intervened in the internal strife of the Spanish Moors, agreeing to help one of the Muslim kings against the other. Crossing the Pyrenees, Charles took several cities and laid siege to Zaragoza, but after standing under its walls for several weeks, he had to return to France with nothing. When he was returning back through the Pyrenees, the Basques, irritated by the passage of foreign troops through their fields and villages, set up an ambush in the Ronseval Gorge and, attacking the rearguard of the French, killed many of them. A short and fruitless expedition to northern Spain, which had nothing to do with the religious struggle and ended with a not particularly significant, but still an annoying military failure, was turned by the storytellers into a picture of a seven-year war that ended with the conquest of all of Spain, then a terrible catastrophe during the retreat of the French armies, and here the enemies were not the Basque Christians, but all the same Moors, and, finally, the picture of revenge on the part of Charles in the form of a grandiose, truly "world" battle of the French with the connecting forces of the entire Muslim world.
In addition to the hyperbolization typical of the entire folk epic, which manifested itself not only in the scale of the events depicted, but also in the pictures of superhuman strength and dexterity of individual characters, as well as in the idealization of the main characters (Roland, Karl, Turpin), the whole story is saturated with the idea of a religious struggle against Islam and France's special mission in this struggle. This idea found its vivid expression in numerous prayers, heavenly signs, religious appeals that fill the poem, in denigrating the "pagans" - the Moors, in repeatedly emphasizing the special patronage given to Charles by God, in the image of Roland as a knight-vassal of Charles and a vassal of the Lord, to whom he before dying, he stretches out his glove like a suzerain, finally, in the image of Archbishop Turpin, who with one hand blesses the French knights for battle and forgives the sins of the dying, and with the other he defeats enemies, personifying the unity of the sword and cross in the fight against the “infidels”.
However, "The Song of Roland" is far from being exhausted by its national-religious idea. It reflected with great force the socio-political contradictions characteristic of the intensively developing in the 10th - 11th centuries. feudalism. This problem is introduced into the poem by the episode of Ganelon's betrayal. The reason for the inclusion of this episode in the legend could be the desire of the singers-storytellers to explain the external fatal reason for the defeat of the "invincible" army of Charlemagne. But Ganelon is not just a traitor, but the expression of some evil principle, hostile to every national cause, the personification of feudal, anarchic egoism. This beginning is shown in the poem in all its power, with great artistic objectivity. Ganelon is depicted by no means some physical and moral freak. This is a dignified and courageous fighter. The Song of Roland does not so much reveal the blackness of a separate traitor - Ganelon, as it exposes the ruinousness for the native land of that feudal, anarchic egoism, of which, in some respects, Ganelon is a brilliant representative.
Along with this opposition of Roland and Ganelon, another opposition runs through the entire poem, less acute, but just as fundamental - Roland and his beloved friend, named brother Olivier. Here, not two hostile forces collide, but two versions of the same positive principle.
Roland in the poem is a mighty and brilliant knight, impeccable in the performance of a vassal. He is an example of knightly valor and nobility. But the deep connection of the poem with folk songwriting and folk understanding of heroism is reflected in the fact that all the knightly features of Roland are given by the poet in a humanized form, freed from class limitations. Roland is alien to heroism, cruelty, greed, anarchic willfulness of the feudal lords. One feels in him an excess of youthful strength, a joyful faith in the righteousness of his cause and in his luck, a passionate thirst for selfless feat. Full of proud self-awareness, but at the same time alien to any arrogance or self-interest, he completely devotes his strength to serving the king, people, homeland. Badly wounded, having lost all his comrades in battle, Roland climbs a high hill, lies down on the ground, puts his trusty sword and Olifan's horn next to him and turns his face towards Spain so that the emperor would know that he "died, but won in battle." For Roland, there is no more tender and sacred word than "sweet France"; with the thought of her, he dies. All this made Roland, despite his chivalrous appearance, a true folk hero, understandable and close to everyone.
Olivier is a friend and brother, Roland's "dashing brother", a valiant knight who prefers death to the dishonor of retreat. In the poem, Olivier describes the epithet "reasonable". Three times Olivier tries to convince Roland to blow Olifan's horn to call for help the army of Charlemagne, but Roland refuses to do it three times. Olivier dies with his friend, praying before his death "for a sweet homeland."
Emperor Charlemagne is Roland's uncle. His image in the poem is a somewhat exaggerated image of the old wise leader. In the poem, Charles is 200 years old, although in fact at the time of real events in Spain he was no more than 36 years old. The power of his empire is also greatly exaggerated in the poem. The author includes in it both the countries that really belonged to her, and those that were not included in it. The emperor can only be compared with God: in order to have time to punish the Saracens before sunset, he is able to stop the sun. On the eve of the death of Roland and his army, Charlemagne sees a prophetic dream, but he can no longer prevent betrayal, but only sheds "streams of tears." The image of Charlemagne resembles the image of Jesus Christ - his twelve peers (compare with the 12 apostles) and the traitor Ganelon appear before the reader.
Ganelon is a vassal of Charlemagne, the stepfather of the protagonist of Roland's poem. The emperor, on the advice of Roland, sends Ganelon to negotiate with the Saracen king Marsil. This is a very dangerous mission, and Ganelon decides to take revenge on his stepson. He enters into a treacherous conspiracy with Marsil and, returning to the emperor, convinces him to leave Spain. At the instigation of Ganelon in the Ronseval Gorge in the Pyrenees, the army of Charlemagne, led by Roland, is attacked by the outnumbered Saracens. Roland, his friends and all of his troops perish without a step back from Ronseval. Ganelon personifies in the poem feudal selfishness and arrogance, bordering on betrayal and dishonor. Outwardly, Ganelon is handsome and valiant ("he is fresh-faced, in appearance and brave and proud. That was a daring man, be honest he was"). Neglecting military honor and following only the desire to take revenge on Roland, Ganelon becomes a traitor. Because of him, the best warriors of France die, so the ending of the poem - the scene of the trial and execution of Ganelon - is natural. Archbishop Thurpen is a warrior-priest who bravely fights against the "infidels" and blesses the Franks for the battle. His image is associated with the idea of France's special mission in the national-religious struggle against the Saracens. Thurpen is proud of his people, which in their fearlessness cannot be compared with any other.
The Spanish heroic epic "The Song of Side" reflected the events of the reconquista - the Spanish conquest of their country from the Arabs. The main character of the poem is the famous reconquista figure Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar (1040 - 1099), whom the Arabs called Sid (master).
Sid's story has served as material for many Gotapes and chronicles.
The main poetic legends about Side that have come down to us are:
- 1) a cycle of poems about King Sancho II and the siege of Samara in the 13-14 centuries, according to the historian of Spanish literature F. Kelin, “serving as a kind of prologue to the“ Song of My Side ”;
- 2) the "Song of My Side" itself, created around 1140, probably by one of Sid's warriors, and preserved in a single copy of the 14th century with heavy losses;
- 3) and the poem, or rhymed chronicle, "Rodrigo" in 1125 verses and related romances about Side.
In the Germanic epic "The Song of the Nibelungs", which finally developed from individual songs into an epic legend in the 12-13th centuries, there is both a historical basis and a fictional tale. The epic reflects the events of the Great Migration of Peoples of the 4th-5th centuries. there is also a real historical person - the formidable leader Attila, who turned into a kind, weak-willed Etzel. The poem consists of 39 songs - "adventures". The action of the poem takes us to the world of court festivities, knightly tournaments and beautiful ladies. The protagonist of the poem is the Dutch prince Siegfried, a young knight who performed many wonderful feats. He is bold and courageous, young and handsome, impudent and arrogant. But the fate of Siegfried and his future wife Kriemhilda was tragic, for whom the treasure with the gold of the Nibelungen became fatal.
Literature in Latin served as a certain bridge between antiquity and the Middle Ages. But the basis of the new that appeared in European culture and determined its fundamental difference from the culture of antiquity is not scholarly literature, but the folklore of peoples that appeared in the arena of history as a result of the migration of peoples and the death of ancient civilization.
Moving on to this topic, it is necessary to dwell specifically on such a theoretical problem as the fundamental difference between literature and folklore.
Literature and folklore. There is a fundamental difference between a folklore epic and a literary epic, primarily a novel. M. M. Bakhtin identifies three main differences between the epic and the novel: “... 1) the subject of the epic is the national epic past, the“ absolute past, ”in the terminology of Goethe and Schiller; 2) the source of the epic is the national tradition (and not personal experience and free fiction that grows on its basis); 3) the epic world is separated from modernity, that is, from the time of the singer (the author and his listeners), by an absolute epic distance. " An idea in a literary work expresses the author's attitude to what is depicted. She is individual. In a heroic epic, where there is no individual author, only the general heroic idea can be expressed, which is, therefore, the idea of a genre (in the extreme case, a cycle or a plot), and not a separate work. Let's call this genre idea an epic idea.
The rhapsodist does not give a personal assessment to the depicted person either for objective reasons (the “absolute epic distance” does not allow him to discuss the “first and highest”, “fathers”, “ancestors”), and for subjective reasons (the rhapsodist is not the author, not the writer, but the keeper of the legend ), it is no coincidence that a number of estimates are put into the mouths of the heroes of the epic. Consequently, the heroization of characters or their exposure, even love or hatred belongs to the entire people - the creator of the heroic epic. This popular assessment: 1) takes into account the epic distance; 2) it is quite integral and definite (in the epic, the heroes are clearly divided into positive and negative, there are no complex natures here yet); 3) it is single, absolute and direct (in its tendency), that is, it does not change depending on the change of position, is not expressed in the subtext through the opposite, etc. However, it would be a mistake to draw a conclusion about the uncreative nature rhapsode activities. The storyteller was not allowed liberty (that is, the author's principle), but he was not required to be precise. Folklore is not learned by heart, therefore deviation from what has been heard is perceived not as a mistake (as it would be when transferring a literary work), but as improvisation. Improvisation is an obligatory beginning in the heroic epic. Elucidation of this feature of it leads to the conclusion that in the epic a different system of artistic means than in literature, it is determined by the principle of improvisation and initially appears not as an artistic, but as a mnemonic system that allows you to keep huge texts in memory and, therefore, is based on repetitions, constant motives, parallelism, similar images, similar actions, etc. Later, the artistic significance of this system is also revealed, because the gradual universalization of the musical motive (recitative) leads to the restructuring of prosaic speech into verse, the systematization of assonances and alliterations first generates an assonant consonance or alliterative verse, and then rhyme, repetition begins to play a large role in highlighting the most important moments of the narrative, etc.
As early as 1946, V. Ya. Propp came to the idea of the difference between folklore and literary systems of artistic means (though not through the concept of improvisation). In his article "The Specificity of Folklore," he wrote: "... Folklore has specific means for it (parallelisms, repetitions, etc.) ... the usual means of poetic language (comparisons, metaphors, epithets) are filled with completely different content than in literature ". So, epic works of folklore (heroic epic) and literature (for example, a novel) are based on completely different laws and should be read and studied in different ways.
European heroic epic of the Middle Ages. Monuments of the heroic epos of the Middle Ages, which have come down to us in the records of scholarly clerics since the 10th century, are usually divided into two groups: the epos of the early Middle Ages (Irish epos, Icelandic epos, the English epic monument "Beowulf", etc.) and the epos of the era of developed feudalism (French the heroic epic "Song of Roland", the earliest recording is the so-called Oxford List, c. 1170; German heroic epic "Song of the Nibelungs", recorded about 1200; Spanish heroic epic "Song of my Side", recorded c. 1140, - possibly an author's work, but based on ancient Germanic legends; and others). Each of the monuments has its own characteristics, both in content (for example, the cosmogonic representations of the northern peoples of Europe preserved only in the Icelandic epic) and in form (for example, a combination of poetry and prose in the Irish epic). But the identification of two groups of monuments is associated with a more general feature - the way they reflect reality. The heroic epic of the early Middle Ages reflects not a specific historical event, but an entire era (although individual events and even characters had a historical primary basis), while the monuments of developed feudalism reflect, albeit transformed according to the laws of folklore, a specific historical event.
The mythology of the northern peoples of Europe in the Icelandic epic. The systemic ideas of the ancient northern peoples about the origin of the world were preserved only in the Icelandic epic. The earliest surviving record of this epic was named "The Elder Edda" by analogy with "Edda" - a kind of textbook for poets, written by the Icelandic skald (poet) Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241) in 1222-1225. and now called the "Younger Edda". The 10 mythological and 19 heroic songs of the "Elder Edda", as well as the retellings of Snorri Sturluson (1st part of the "Younger Edda") contain a wealth of material on the Scandinavian cosmogony. “At the beginning of time // there was no sand in the world // no sand, no sea, // no cold waves, // there was no earth yet // and the firmament, // the abyss gaped, // the grass did not grow,” - is narrated in the song "Divination of the Volva" (that is, prophetesses, sorceresses). The frost from Niflheim ("the dark world"), which filled the abyss, began to melt under the influence of sparks from Muspellsheim ("the fiery world"), and from him emerged the yotun (giant) Ymir, and then the cow Audumla, which fed him with her milk. From the salty stones that Audumla licked, Buri arose, the father of Bora, who, in turn, became the father of the gods Odin (the supreme deity of the ancient Germans), Vili and Ve. In the "Speeches of Grimnir" it is reported that these gods later killed Ymir, and from his flesh the earth arose, from the blood - the sea, from the bones - the mountains, from the skull - the sky, from the hair - the forest, from the eyelashes - the walls of Midgard (lit. " average enclosed space ", ie, the middle world, the human habitat). In the center of Midgard there is a world tree - Yggdrasil, connecting the earth with Asgard - the seat of the ases (gods). Asses create a man from ash, and a woman from alder. Warriors who die in battle with honor are carried away by the daughters of Odin by the Valkyries to the sky, to the valhalla - Odin's palace, where there is a continuous feast. Thanks to the cunning of the evil god Loki - the personification of a changeable fire - the young god Balder (a kind of Scandinavian Apollo) dies, a strife begins between the gods, Yggdrasil burns, the sky, which was supported by its crown, falls, the death of the gods leads to the return of the world to chaos. A Christian insert is often considered to be a story about the rebirth of life on earth, but perhaps this is a reflection of the original idea of the Germans about the cyclical development of the universe.
Icelandic epic songs have a distinctive artistic form. The narrative is interspersed with divinations, sayings, dialogical competitions in wisdom and other genre modifications. Poetic lines have, as a rule, two stresses and are connected by alliterations in pairs. Stanzas are 8 lines (epic size) or 6 lines (dialogical size). Kennings (two-term poetic designations) and heiti (single-term poetic designations) are richly represented. Some examples of kennings (from the "Younger Edda"): for the designation of the sky - "the skull of Ymir", "earth of the sun", "earth of the day", "cup of storms"; for the earth - "the flesh of Ymir", "the bride of Odin", "the sea of animals", "the daughter of the Night"; for the sea - "the blood of Ymir", "guest of the gods", "land of ships"; for the sun - "sister of the month", "fire of the sky and air"; for the wind - "tree crusher", "destroyer, killer, dog or wolf of trees, sails or tackle", etc. Some examples of heiti: for poetry - "eloquence", "inspiration", "glorification", "praise" ; for a bear - "tramp", "toothy", "gloomy", "red", "forester", "shaggy"; for time - "century", "once", "age", "long ago", "year", "term", etc.
Irish epic. This is the epic of the Celtic peoples, the most ancient surviving legends of the peoples of northern Europe. In the Ulad cycle (about 100 songs), judging by the fact that the good king Ulad Konchobar is opposed by the evil sorceress Queen Connacht Medb, who sends a disease to the Ulad warriors in order to freely capture the bull grazing in Ulad, bringing prosperity, and also judging by the fact that the main character Ulada Cuchulainn and his brother Ferdiad, who was sent on Medb's orders to fight him, learned the art of war from the warrior Skatha, and from other details it can be concluded that not a specific historical event is reflected in the Ulad cycle (although the war between Ulad - today's Ulster - and Connacht was really going on from the II century BC to the II century AD), and a whole historical era is the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in its final stage, when the power of women is associated either with the past or with the evil principle.
"Song of Roland". The Song of Roland stands out among several hundred monuments of the French medieval heroic epic. Recorded for the first time around 1170 (the so-called Oxford List), it belongs to the epic of advanced feudalism. It is based on a real historical event. In 778, the young Charlemagne, who had recently conceived of rebuilding the Roman Empire, sent troops into Spain, which had been captured by the Moors (Arabs) in 711. The campaign was unsuccessful: in two months of hostilities, it was only possible to besiege the city of Zaragoza, but its defenders had unlimited supplies of water in the fortress, so it turned out to be unrealistic to starve them out, and Charles, lifting the siege, withdrew his troops from Spain. When they passed the Ronseval Gorge in the Pyrenees, the local Basque tribes attacked the rearguard of the troops. Three noble Franks were killed in the battle, of which the third chronicle names the prefect of the Breton mark of Hruotland - the future epic Roland. The attackers scattered across the mountains, and Karl failed to take revenge on them. With this he returned to his capital, Aachen.
This event in "The Song of Roland" as a result of folklore transformation looks completely different: Emperor Charles, who is two hundred years old, is waging a seven-year victorious war in Spain. Only the city of Zaragoza did not surrender. In order not to shed unnecessary blood, Karl sends the noble knight Ganelon to the leader of the Moors, Marsilia. He, in a mortal grudge against Roland, who gave this advice to Karl, negotiates, but then cheats on Karl. On the advice of Ganelon, Karl puts Roland at the head of the rearguard of the retreating troops. The rearguard is attacked by the Moors who agreed with Ganelon ("infidels", not the Basques - Christians) and destroy all the soldiers. The last to die (not from wounds, but from overstrain) Roland. Charles returns with his troops and destroys the Moors and all the "pagans" who joined them, and then in Aachen arranges divine judgment on Ganelon. The fighter of Ganelon loses the fight to the fighter Karl, which means that God is not on the side of the traitor, and he is brutally executed: they tie him by the arms and legs to four horses, let them gallop - and the horses tear Ganelon's body to pieces.
Authorship problem. The text of "Song of Roland" was published in 1823 and immediately attracted attention for its aesthetic value. At the end of the 19th century, the outstanding French medievalist Joseph Bedier decided to find out the author of the poem, relying on the last, 4002nd line of the text: "Turold's sayings are interrupted here." He found not one, but 12 Turolds, to whom the work could be attributed. However, even before Bedier, Gaston Paris suggested that this folklore work, and after Bedier's research, the Spanish medievalist Ramon Menendez Pidal convincingly showed that The Song of Roland refers to “traditional” texts that do not have an individual author.
Logical inversion. The folklore approach makes it possible to clarify the contradictions in "Song of Roland" that are striking to the modern reader. Some of them can be explained by the improvisational technique itself, others by the layering of layers belonging to different eras. Some of them are explained by the vaguely personal nature of the heroes' functions (the behavior of Ganelon, Marsilia, especially Karl, who in the second part acquires the function of Roland, and in the third one loses this function). But a number of points in Karl's behavior are not explained by the principle of combining or changing the functions of the heroes. It is unclear why Karl sends Roland to the rearguard, considering Ganelon's advice to be diabolical (tiers 58, 61), why he mourns Roland even before the battle in the ravine (tier 66) and calls Ganelon a traitor (tier 67). The hundred thousandth army cries with Karl, suspecting Ganelon of treason (tier 68). Or a place like this: " Great Karl tormented and crying, // But help them, alas! I have no power to submit. "
Psychological inconsistencies should be explained from two sides: first, they are possible, because in the epic the laws of psychologism, which require reliability in the depiction of motives and psychological reactions, are not yet used. To the medieval listener, the contradictions were not noticeable; secondly, their very appearance is associated with the peculiarities of the epic time. To a certain extent, the basis of the epic ideal is formed by the dreams of the people, but they have been transferred to the past. Epic time, thus, acts as "the future in the past." This type of time has a huge impact not only on the structure, but also on the very logic of the epic. Causal relationships play an insignificant role in it. The main principle of epic logic is the "logic of the end", which we will call "logical inversion". According to the logical inversion, Roland did not die because Ganelon betrayed him, but, on the contrary, Ganelon betrayed Roland because he must die and thus immortalize his heroic name forever. Karl sends Roland to the rearguard because the hero must die, but cries because he is endowed with the knowledge of the end.
The knowledge of the end, future events by the narrator, listeners and the heroes themselves is one of the manifestations of logical inversion. Events are anticipated many times, prophetic dreams and omens also act as forms of anticipation. The logical inversion is also characteristic of the episode of Roland's death. His death on a hill is depicted in tirade 168, and the motives for climbing the hill and other near-death actions are reported much later, in tirade 203.
So, in "The Song of Roland" a whole system of expressing logical inversion is found. It should be especially noted that the logical inversion completely removes the theme of rock. Not a fatal coincidence, not the power of fate over a person, but a strict pattern of testing a character and erecting him on a heroic pedestal or depicting his inglorious death - this is the epic way of depicting reality in The Song of Roland.
Medieval knightly literature
Courtoisia. By the 12th century, chivalry, which recognized itself as the ruling class, created a special secular culture that separates it from other strata of society - courtoisie. To the traditional requirements (courage, possession of weapons, loyalty to the overlord, etc.), new ones were added: a knight must be polite (that is, know etiquette), educated (be able to write, read, including ancient authors), in love (love by certain rules, his love should be faithful, undemanding, modest, etc., the object of love should be his wife's suzerain) and singing the Lady of his heart in poetry and songs.
Poetry of the troubadours. All these requirements were embodied in the poetry of the troubadours (Provence. "Writer") - the knight-poets of Provence, the state in the south of modern France, in the XII century the most developed and prosperous in Europe, and in the XIII century died as a result of the religious Albigensian wars - a fierce struggle Catholics against Cathars - supporters of the Albigensian heresy, who settled in Provence.
The poetry of the troubadours is the author's. At least 500 names of troubadours are known, of which about 40 were widely known. Among them are Bernart de Ventadorn (he was not a knight, but most fully embodied the courtly ideal in his poems), Jaufre Ruedel, Bertrand de Born, Guillaume de Cabestagne, etc. facts, how many legends about their lives.
The troubadours were the first to glorify love as a new, previously unfamiliar feeling, as "sweet suffering" and the desire to serve a beloved being, introducing into poetry not only the image of the Lady, but also the image of the author - a poet in love. They were the first in European poetry to master rhyme, "this new decoration of verse, at first glance so little meaning, had an important influence on the literature of the newest peoples", as Pushkin wrote in his article "On classical and romantic poetry" (1825). The troubadours developed a system of poetic genres, which included cansos, chansons - a song on love or religious themes with a complex stanza structure; sirventes - a stanza song, usually containing invectives against the enemies of the poet or his suzerain; lament (planh) - a song in which the death of the overlord or his relatives, as well as people close to the poet, is mourned; tensona (tensos) - a dialogue, a dispute between two poets on love, philosophical, religious, aesthetic topics; ballad (balada) - a dance song with a chorus that encourages the dancers; alba (alba, that is, "dawn") - a stanza song with a constant plot: the parting of a knight in love and his lady at dawn after a secret meeting; pastorela (pastorela, pastoreta) is a dialogue song with a constant plot: the knight offers his love to the shepherdess, and she politely but decisively refuses him.
Of particular interest are three of the six poems that have come down to us by Jaufre Rüdel, in which a new motive appears - love from afar. According to the legendary biography, the noble knight Ruedel fell in love with the Palestinian princess Melissinda from the stories of the pilgrims about her, and in return she fell in love with him from the poems addressed to her. Before his death, Ryudel went on a ship to Palestine and died in the arms of his beloved. “I am in the time of long May days // Mil chirping of birds from afar, // But it torments me more strongly // Love from afar. // And now there is no joy, // And the wild rose is white, // Like the winter cold, not sweet, ”- begins one of the canzons of Ruedel and continues, expressing a passionate desire to see his beloved:“ That this happiness is fuller - // Rush to her from afar, // Sit down next to her, closer, // So that right there, not from afar, // I am in the sweet proximity of conversations, // And a distant friend, and a neighbor, // A beautiful voice eagerly drank! " (Translated by V. Dynnik)
The love story of Jaufre Ruedel and Melissinda gave the plot for the poetic drama of the French neo-romanticist Edmond Rostand "Princess of Dreams" (1895).
The traditions of the troubadours were developed by northern French poets - trouvers, German poets - minnesingers, and at the end of the 13th century - by Italian poets of the “new sweet style”.
The leading genre of medieval literature was epic poems that arose at the final stage of the formation of nations and their unification into states under the auspices of the king. Medieval literature of any nation has its roots in deep antiquity.
Through the intricate canvas of fabulous plots, through the seeming simplicity of images, the ancient wisdom appears, from generation to generation transmitted by the storytellers of foggy Albion - Great Britain and Brittany - a peninsula full of mysteries in western France ... Picts and Scots, Britons and Anglo-Saxons, mysterious Celts, the wise magician Merlin, who possessed a prophetic gift and predicted many events that happened centuries later. Fabulous-sounding names - Cornwall, Wales, Tintagel, Camelot, the mysterious Broceliande Forest. In this forest, as legends say, many miracles happened, here the knights of the Round Table fought in duels, here, according to legend, is the grave of Merlin. Here the magic spring Bellanton gushes out from under a flat stone. If you scoop up water from a spring and moisten this stone with it, then even on the hottest and most windless day, when there is not a cloud in the sky, a strong wind will blow and rain will pour down. From time immemorial, the inhabitants of Brittany surrounded with legends and traditions standing stones - menhirs, and stone-tables - dolmens. No one still knows exactly who and when erected these structures, and therefore people have long attributed magical power to ancient stones ...
Myths and historical facts, legends and stories about miracles and exploits for many generations are gradually synthesized into a heroic epic, which reflects the long process of the formation of national identity. The epic forms the people's knowledge of the historical past, and the epic hero embodies the people's ideal idea of himself.
Despite the differences in conditions and time of occurrence, content and style early medieval epics have a number of typological features that distinguish them from the epic monuments of the mature Middle Ages:
· In the epic of the early Middle Ages, there is a kind of mythologization of the past, when the narrative of historical events is combined with myth and fairy tale;
· The main theme of the epic cycles of this period is the struggle of man with the forces of nature hostile to him, embodied in the fabulous images of monsters, dragons, giants, etc .;
· The hero, as a rule, is a fabulous-mythological character endowed with wonderful properties and qualities (to fly through the air, be invisible, grow in size, etc.).
The Celtic (Irish) sagas, formed in the II-VII centuries, were quite ramified in their plot, their creators are considered philids- ancient keepers of secular scholarship, songwriters of battle songs and funeral laments. At the same time, the bards developed a lyrical tradition. The most important cycle of the Irish sagas is considered Ulad(named after one of the ancient tribes of Northern Ireland), where the central epic hero is Cuchulainn... Illustrative in this cycle is the saga "The Hijacking of the Bull from Kualinge", which depicts a series of fights between Cuchulainn and enemy heroes. The main narrative text has many branches, poetic insertions, there is a lot of mythological and fantastic in it. The tormented hero is rescued by the god Lug in the form of a young warrior, the warlike fairy Morrigan offers his support. The central point in the saga is the battle of Cuchulainn with his brother-in-law, the mighty hero Ferdiad, who had horny skin. The battle lasts three days, and only using the well-known fighting technique of the "horned spear", Cuchulainn kills Ferdiad. He suffers greatly due to the fact that, in fulfilling his military duty, he was forced to kill a friend of his youth, falls unconscious, and then grieves. The brown bull from Kualinge Uladov slaughters the white-horned bull of their opponents Connacht and rushes, devastating their lands, until it crashes on the hill. Since because of his hijacking, the war began, now it loses its meaning, peace is concluded, and the settlements seize large prey.
Scandinavian songs about gods and heroes, which were popular in 13th century Iceland, date back to the 9th – 12th centuries, the so-called "Viking Age", although much says a lot about their more ancient origins. It can be assumed that at least some of them arose much earlier, even in the unwritten period. They are systematized in a book called " Elder Edda”(The name“ Edda ”was given in the 17th century by the first researcher of the manuscript, who transferred to it the title of the book of the Icelandic poet and historian of the 13th century Snorri Sturluson, since Snorri relied on songs about the gods in his story about myths. Therefore, Snorri's treatise is usually called“ Younger Edda", And a collection of mythological and heroic songs -" Elder Edda ". The etymology of the word "Edda" is unclear).
Unlike the songs of the Icelandic skald poets, for almost each of whom we know the author, Eddic mythological songs are anonymous. Myths about gods, stories about Sigurd, Brunhild, Atli, Gudrun were the property of the whole people, and the person who retold or recorded the song, even re-creating it, did not consider himself its author. Of greatest interest are Eddic songs, reflecting the mythological ideas of the ancient Scandinavians. They are noticeably close to real everyday life. The gods are powerful here, but not immortal, their behavior is easily correlated with the life of a primitive tribe: endless wars with neighbors, polygamy, capture of prey and the constant threat of death. Everything that happens is especially harshly predetermined by a fateful destiny: together with the whole world, the gods will perish in battle with the giants, but then they will be reborn again for a new one, happy life... This is the content of the song "Divination of the Volva":
At the beginning of time
when Ymir lived,
was not in the world
no sand, no sea,
there was no land yet
and the firmament,
the abyss gaped
the grass did not grow.
While the sons of Bohr,
Midgard who created
fabulous,
the earth was not raised,
sun from the south
shone on the stones,
grew up on earth
green herbs.
Then the gods sat down
to the throne of might
and confer
became sacred,
the night was named
and to the scions of the night -
evening, morning
and the middle of the day -
gave a nickname,
to calculate the time.
... I can see everything
the fate of the mighty
glorious gods.
Brothers will begin
fight each other,
relatives close
they will die in strife;
painful in the world
great fornication,
the age of swords and axes,
shields will crack,
age of storms and wolves
before the death of the world;
spare a person
man will not.
The sun has gone dark
the land is sinking into the sea,
fall from the sky
bright stars,
the flame is raging
the feeder of life,
unbearable fever
reaches the sky.
She sees:
rises again
from the sea land,
greener as before;
the waters are falling,
the eagle flies
fish from the waves
he wants to fish.
Aces meet
to Idavelle-field,
about the belt of the world
talking mighty
and remember
about glorious events
and the runes of the ancients
great god.
According to the functions and the names of the gods, the linkage of Eddic mythology is traced not only with ancient, but also with ancient Germanic, which gives reason to scientists to speak of it as German-Scandinavian. The supreme god is Odin, the creator of the world and people, he bestows victories and protects the brave. The Valkyries, the winged warlike daughters of Odin, carry the heroes who died in the battles to his palace Valhalla and serve them during feasts with the supreme god himself. Most are destined to find themselves in three worlds. The upper world (Asgard) is for the gods, the middle (Midgard) is for people, the underworld is the kingdom of the dead (Niflheim), where the giantess Hel reigns (everyone goes there, except those who leave for Valhalla).
The most archaic part of the "Elder Edda", according to its researchers, is the so-called gnome stanzas, which contain the rules of worldly wisdom and behavior. Most of them are contained in the "Speeches of the High", that is, Odin. They reflect the life, customs and morality of the ancient Vikings, when such human qualities as courage, striving for glory, loyalty to friends were encouraged, and cowardice, greed, and stupidity were condemned. Many of them are striking with the depth of the wisdom contained in them and its enduring meaning (some still sound very relevant today):
The heroic epic songs of the "Elder Edda" include a number of plots known from the common German legends about Sigurd (Siegfried) and the treasure of the Nibelungs. They are characterized by a high heroic pathos, the main thematic content in them is a rethinking of the largest historical events of the times of the great migration of peoples and the Viking era as a tribal feud, revenge for breaking oath promises. This is the tragic story of the giantess Brunhild, seeking the death of Sigurd, who is guilty of breaking his vow to marry her and whom he still loves. Such are the bloody denouements of the stories of Gudrun, Gunnar and Hegni, the blacksmith of Velund. Fate, circumstances lead to the death of worthy, noble heroes. Both in mythological and heroic songs, he is attracted by the striking expressiveness of Eddic poetry, based on the traditional folk-poetic arsenal, a subtle combination of heroism and everyday life, epics and lyrics.
The ancient German folklore heritage is also represented by mythological and heroic songs, which were mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus in the 1st century. The mythological songs told about the earth-born god Tuisko and his son Mann, from whom the ancestors of the people descended. They meant the sons of Mann - the ancestors of the main German tribes. But, perhaps, the most common among the warlike Germans were songs that glorify their military field life, fights, the courage of individual heroes. It is always a warrior, a warrior who performs feats for the glory of the family, represented by a model of physical strength and valor. One of the surviving, and even then incomplete, monuments of the heroic epic is recorded about 800 "Song of Hildebrand"... It is based on the events of the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, and the motive of the accidental duel between father and son, widespread in the epic of many peoples. The work is almost devoid of a descriptive element and is a dialogue corresponding to a military ritual, full of heroism and drama.
The Anglo-Saxon folk epic can be represented by attributed to the VIII century. poem "Beowulf"... Unlike those discussed above, this is a work of a large epic form. A descriptive element is developed here, the action unfolds gradually, the narrative is replete with digressions that slow down the story of events. The main plot of the poem is formed by two independent lines, united by the theme of the fight against monsters who encroached on the peaceful life of people. First, the glorious Gautian hero Beowulf helps the Danish king Hrothgar, the great-grandson of the first ruler Skild Skefing, to defeat the humanoid monster Grendel, and then, becoming the king of the Gout lands, in a difficult duel, he kills the fire-breathing dragon that ravaged his land. ... The poem begins with a mourning picture of the funeral of the founder of the Danish kings, Skild Skeffing, and ends with a solemn scene of the burning of the Gout king Beowulf on a funeral pyre and the construction of a mound over his grave. One can assume the deep symbolism of such a roll-over of two lines: the leaders of only friendly tribes have left, their descendants in the new lands are destined to create a single Anglo-Saxon nationality.
The epic of the mature middle ages differs from the poems of the early period:
· A much smaller place is occupied by mythology, it is not mythical creatures that act, but people, although endowed with exaggerated properties (the age of Karl Vliky, the strength of Brunhilda, etc.);
· The main character fights with pagans for the truth of the Christian faith;
· First -. The second is. The third is. Some poems focus on one of these themes, others emphasize the main thing for them, making the rest secondary.
· The central theme is changing. it can be divided into three areas: 1) defense of the homeland from external enemies (Moors (Saracens), Normans, Saxons); 2) endless bloody feudal strife; 3) loyal service to the king, protection of his rights and punishment of apostates
Now in epic legends, a loyal vassal of his overlord plays a very important role. This was demanded by the ideology of feudal society. The process of consolidation of nations ended: the previously scattered tribes united under the auspices of the king, who became a symbol of national unity. Serving the king was the embodiment of patriotism, as it was automatically serving the motherland and the state. The duty of loyal vassals is unquestioning obedience to the king.
Such is, for example, the hero of the French "Songs of Roland", who did not spare his life for the sake of serving King Charlemagne. He, at the head of a small detachment of Franks in the Ronseval Gorge, repels an attack by a Saracen army of many thousands. Dying on the battlefield, the hero covers his military armor with his body, lies down facing the enemies, "so that Karl would tell his glorious retinue that Count Roland died, but won."
Karl looked for Roland on the hill.
There, the grass is not green - the color is red:
French blood glows on her.
Karl cried - no urine to cry,
He saw three blocks between two trees,
Durandal saw a trace on them,
Near them I found my nephew in the grass.
How could the king not grieve with all his heart!
He dismounted where the dead man lay,
He pressed the deceased to his chest
And with him I prostrated myself on the ground without feeling.
Roland is the hero of numerous songs about clothes, the so-called chansons de geste, performed by folk singers called jugglers. Probably, they did not mechanically repeat the lyrics of the songs, but they often brought in something of their own.
The monument of folk poetry is based on historical events, significantly rethought. In 778, King Charles of the Franks made a campaign for the Pyrenees for a rich booty. The invasion of the Franks continued for several weeks. Then Charles's army retreated, but the Basques attacked in the Ronseval Gorge on the rearguard, which was commanded by the nephew of King Hruodland. The forces were unequal, a detachment of Franks was defeated, and Hruodland was killed. Charles, returning with a large army, avenged the death of his nephew.
The folk storytellers gave the whole incident an exceptional character. The short campaign turned into a seven-year war, the goal of which, in the interpretation of the jugglers, became extremely noble: Karl wanted to convert the unfaithful Saracens to the Christian faith. The Saracens were the collective name for the Arab tribes who invaded the Iberian Peninsula, they were Muslims, not pagans. But for the storytellers, they were just non-Christians, who should be led on the path of true faith. The king has grown quite old, the song says that the gray-bearded old man is two hundred years old. This emphasizes his greatness and nobility.
Where the wild rose blooms, under the pine tree,
A gold chased throne was installed.
Charles, King of France, sits on it.
He has gray hair and a gray beard,
Beautiful in stature, dignified in face.
It is easy to recognize him from afar.
The ambassadors dismounted from their horses, seeing him,
They bow to him as they should.
He liked to weigh the answer slowly.
Your sovereign is both old and gray-haired.
He is over two hundred years old, as I have heard.
Hruodland became Roland, but most importantly, he gained exceptional heroic power. Together with his associates: the knight Olivier, Bishop Turpin and other brave knights, he laid down thousands of enemies on the battlefield. Roland also has extraordinary battle armor: the sword Durendal and the magic horn Oliphant. As soon as he blew his horn, the king, wherever he was, would have heard him and came to his aid. But for Roland it is the greatest honor to die for the king and sweet France.
In the armor of the Saracens, every Moor,
Each has chain mail in three rows.
All in good Saragossa shishaks,
With Viennese strong forged swords,
With Valencian spears and shields.
The badge on the pole is yellow, il bel, il al.
The Arabs are in a hurry to get off the mules,
The army sits on the war horses.
The day is shining and the sun hits the eyes
The armor on the fighters burns with fire.
Trumpets and horns of the Moors clink,
To the French, noise flies from afar.
Olivier says to Roland: "Brother,
The infidels want to attack us. "
"Praise the Creator!" Roland answered him.
We must stand up for the king.
The vassal is always happy to serve the lord,
Heat for him to endure and cold.
It's not a pity to give him blood for him.
Let each one chop off the infidels from the shoulder,
So that they don't put down evil songs about us.
The Lord is for us - we are right, the enemy is not right.
And I will not set you a bad example. "Aoi!
Roland's patriotism contrasts with the betrayal of his stepfather Ganelon, who entered into a dastardly conspiracy with opponents of the Franks.
"The Song of Roland" took shape over almost four centuries. The real details were partly forgotten, but her patriotic pathos intensified, the king was idealized as a symbol of the nation and state, and the feat in the name of faith and people was glorified. For the characters of the poem, the belief in immortality, which the hero gains through his heroic deeds, is highly characteristic.
Ruy Diaz de Bivar, who received his nickname Sid Campeador (master-warrior) from the conquerors forced to recognize his superiority, also faithfully serves his king Alfonso VI. Start "Songs about Side"(XII century) was lost, but the exhibition told that King Alfonso was angry with his loyal vassal Rodrigo and expelled him from the borders of Castile. Folk singers - in Spain they were called huglars - emphasize democracy in their favorite, and the reason for the royal disfavor was the envy and slander of the nobility. The new king Alfonso VI, who undeservedly condemned and banished the hero, was at first mistaken in supporting the arrogant aristocrats of Leon, who did not want to come to terms with the loss of the former primacy. Largely due to the reasonable, unhappy behavior of Sid, although he was unjustly offended by the king, but for the sake of national unity, who did not succumb to the temptation of revenge, the reconciliation so necessary for everyone is taking place. His vassal loyalty to his king in the song appears no less a valiant, significant deed of the hero than military exploits and conquests. Conquering new lands from the Arabs, Sid each time sends a part of the tribute to the king and thus gradually achieves forgiveness.
In the first part of the song, artistically convincingly complementary a lengthy story about the expulsion of Sid, his farewell to his wife Dona Jimena and little daughters Elvira and Sol, with a story about the hero's increasingly significant victories over the Moors and the rich booty, which he generously shares with the king. The second part is devoted to how, after the conquest of Valencia by Sid and the final reconciliation with him by Alfonso VI, the weddings of his daughters with the noble Infants de Carrion are scheduled. Only the merits of the hero, infancon by origin, especially noted by the king, allowed him to intermarry with the highest aristocracy. The third part is a story about how vile and mercantile Sid's sons-in-law turned out to be, how decisively he seeks punishment from the king and the Cortes, and how the princes of Navarre and Aragon send their attorneys to ask for the hand of Doña Elvira and Doña Sol.
Sid's image captivates with its realistic versatility. He is not only a brave general, but also a subtle diplomat. When he needed money, he did not disdain by deception, cleverly deceived the gullible usurers, leaving them as a mortgage chests with sand and stones. Sid is experiencing hard separation from his wife and daughters, and when the king married them for notable swindlers, he suffers from the insult inflicted, appeals for justice to the king and the Cortes. Having restored the honor of the family, having won royal favor, Sid is satisfied and gives his daughters a second marriage, now to worthy suitors. The closeness of the epic hero of the Spanish epic to reality is explained by the fact that "The Song of Side" arose just a hundred years after Rodrigo accomplished his feats. In the following centuries, the "Romancero" cycle arose, telling about the youth of the epic hero.
Germanic heroic epic "Song of the Nibelungs" was recorded around 1200, but its plot dates back to the era of the "great migration of peoples" and reflects a real historical event: the death of the Burgundian kingdom, destroyed by the Huns in 437. But, as mentioned above, the Nibelungian heroes have an even more ancient origin: heroes with similar names and fates appear in the Scandinavian monument "The Elder Edda", which reflected the archaic era of the Vikings. However, the Scandinavian and Germanic heroes also have significant differences. In the Edda, events are mainly mythological in nature, while in the Song of the Nibelungs, along with myths and legends, history and modernity are reflected. It is dominated not so much by a heroic as by a tragic flavor; the initiative belongs to people of strong, cruel passions, those who bring death and to everything sincere, pure (even to good witchcraft forces), and to themselves. So, the brightest hero of the song of the Dutch prince Siegfried is not saved from death by either his heroic strength and invulnerability, received after he bathed in the blood of the dragon he killed, or the invisible hat. In turn, a terrible fate will befall all those involved in the insidious murder of Siegfried, who appropriated and hid in the waters of the Rhine his innumerable wealth - the treasure of the Nibelungs (the name of the treasure goes back to the Burgundian knights who seized the treasures, nicknamed the Nibelungs - the inhabitants of the "land of mists") ...
Due to the fact that the "Song of the Nibelungs" was formed over several centuries, its heroes act in different time dimensions, combining in their consciousness the audacity of valiant deeds with the observance of courtly etiquette. In particular, the courtly poetry of the 12th century with its cult of a beautiful lady and the motive of love for her of a knight who never saw her, but inflamed with passion for her only because rumor glorified her beauty and virtue throughout the earth, left its imprint on the Germanic heroic epic.
Large-scale in volume, "The Song of the Nibelungs" is divided into two fairly independent parts. Events in the first center around the court of the Burgundian king Gunther, where Siegfried arrives at the beginning of the story. The prince from the Lower Rhine, the son of the Dutch king Sigmund and Queen Sieglinde, the conqueror of the Nibelungs, who possessed their treasure - the gold of the Rhine, is endowed with all the knightly virtues. He is noble, brave, courteous. Duty and honor are above all for him. The authors of "Song of the Nibelungs" emphasize his extraordinary attractiveness and physical strength. His very name, consisting of two parts (Sieg - victory, Fried - peace), - expresses the national German identity at the time of medieval strife. He came to the court of Gunther with the intention of marrying his sister Krimhild. Rumors about her extraordinary beauty turned out to be so convincing for the hero that he fell in love with her in absentia and was ready to do anything to win her hand and heart. Gunther is not averse to intermarrying with the strongest of the knights, but he preliminarily puts forward a number of conditions, the main one of which is to help him take possession of the Icelandic warrior-maiden Brunhilda, whom he could not defeat in the most difficult sports (and these are her conditions of marriage). Thanks to the invisibility hat, Siegfried discreetly provides Gunther with a solution not only to athletic problems, but also removes the ring and the belt of innocence from Brunhilda on their wedding night. Subsequently, these items will quarrel the two queens, inflame the hatred of the insulted Brunhilda towards Siegfried and lead to a tragic denouement. Gunther will take the side of his wife, and with his consent, the vassal Hagen von Tronier will treacherously hit Siegfried in the only vulnerable spot on his back (while bathing in the dragon's blood, it turned out to be covered by a fallen linden leaf) and take possession of his treasure.
The second part takes us to the court of the king of the Huns Etzel (Attila), where the widow Siegfried Krimhild, who became his wife, will carry out a bloody revenge for the past atrocity many years later. Pretending that everything has already been forgotten, she cordially invites the Burgundian knights, led by her brother Gunther, to visit her. When they finally dared to come, he ordered everyone to be destroyed. At the wounded Hagen, she tries to find out where the treasure is hidden, and when this fails, she chops off his head. Both Etzel and Hildebrand, who was at his court, were so struck by the cruelty of the reprisal against glorious men that Hildebrand himself kills Kriemhild. The clan of the Nibelungs is dying, an unfortunate treasure is forever lost in the depths of the Rhine, which will attract many more seekers to itself.
The Song of the Nibelungs is a story about the vicissitudes of human destinies, about the fratricidal wars that tore apart the feudal world.
Serbian heroic epic- one of the components of the folk-poetic heritage of the South Slavs (Serbs, Montenegrins, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, Bulgarians). Songs about what happened in the XIV century are imbued with special drama. Turkish invasion and selfless confrontation. The centerpiece here is the Kosovo cycle, which comprehensively covers the heroic battle and defeat of the Serbs in the battle with the Turks in 1389 on the Kosovo field. Epic storytelling draws and the greatest tragedy, and a vivid symbol of the valor and patriotism of the defenders native land... The death of the Serbian prince Lazar and his most prominent associates, the sacrifice of thousands of national heroes in an unequal struggle, the loss of independence appear as the greatest national disaster, sprinkled with bitter tears of the survivors. Their share is unenviable, therefore, the images of grieving and courageous Serbian women are imbued with special warmth and lyricism: the mother of Jugovich, who lost her nine sons, young Milosevski, the wife of the governor Obilic and many, many others. The heroic of the fallen echoes the heroic of the conquered, but not conquered, who preserve in their hearts the faith in the coming freedom.
The main pathos of the epic legends of the mature Middle Ages, whether it is "The Song of Roland", "The Song of Side" or the East Slavic "Tale of Igor's Host" - is a call for the consolidation of the nation, rallying around a strong central government. In the "Song of the Nibelungs" this idea is not expressed directly, but through the entire poem the thought is consistently carried out about the disastrous consequences of the struggle for power, what catastrophes entail fratricidal discord, how dangerous discord within one family clan and state is.
Medieval Latin Literature. Poetry of vagants.
Clerical(that is, church) medieval literature in Latin, originating in the Roman Empire, created a whole system of its own genres. The most important of them are lives of the saints and visions.
Hagiography- Church literature describing the lives of the saints - enjoyed particular popularity throughout the centuries-old development of the Middle Ages. By the X century. the canon of this literary genre was formed: the indestructible, firm spirit of the hero (martyr, missionary, fighter for the Christian faith), a classic set of virtues, constant formulas of praise. The saint's life offered a higher moral lesson, carried away the models of righteous life. The hagiographic literature is characterized by a miracle motive that corresponded to popular ideas about holiness. The popularity of the Lives led to the fact that excerpts from them - "legends" began to be read in the church, and the Lives themselves were collected in vast collections.
The tendency of the Middle Ages to allegory, allegory expressed the genre of visions. According to medieval ideas, the highest meaning is revealed only by revelation - a vision. In the genre of visions, the fate of people and the world was revealed to the author in a dream. The visions were often told of real historical figures, which contributed to the popularity of the genre. The visions had significant influence on the development of later medieval literature, starting with the famous French "Romance of the Rose" (XIII century), which clearly expressed the motive of visions ("revelations in a dream"), to Dante's "Divine Comedy"
The genre adjoins visions didactic-allegorical poem(about the Last Judgment, the Fall, etc.).
Didactic genres also include sermons, various kinds of maxims (a maxim of a moral character), borrowed both from the Bible and from ancient satirical poets. The maxims were collected in special collections, a kind of textbooks of worldly wisdom.
Along with the epic genres of clerical literature, its lyrics also developed, developing their own poetic images and style. Among the lyric genres of clerical literature, the dominant position was occupied by spiritual poems and hymns praising the patron saints of monasteries and church holidays. Hymns had their own canon. The composition of the hymn about the saints, for example, included an opening, a panegyric to the saint, a description of his exploits, a prayer to him asking for intercession, etc.
Of the secular literature in Latin, the most interesting are historical chronicles, in which truth and fiction were often intertwined. Works such as "History of the Goths" by Jordan (6th century), "History of the Franks" by Gregory of Tours (6th century), "History of the Danes" by Saxon Grammar (12th century), were of great artistic value and often served as sources of plots for writers the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (for example, Shakespeare drew the plot of the tragedy "Hamlet" in the chronicle of Saxon Grammar).
A special place in medieval Latin literature was occupied by the free-thinking, sometimes mischievous poetry of vagante or (more a rare term)) goliards (XI-XIII centuries). Its creators were wandering monks, schoolchildren, students, representatives of the urban plebs. Having arisen in the early Middle Ages (VIII century), the poetry of the vagantes reached its peak in the XII-XIII centuries. in connection with the emergence of universities in Europe. The Vagants were educated people: they knew antiquity, folklore, church literature very well, their music was addressed to the spiritual elite of medieval society - the educated part of it, who knew how to appreciate poetic creativity, but at the same time, itinerant poets remained, as it were, "dropped out" from the social structure of medieval society, personally independent and financially insecure - these features of their position contributed to the development of thematic and stylistic unity of their lyrics.
Here, in the Vagantian environment, Latin poetry reached an exceptional and, at first glance, unexpected flourishing. The Vagants lived among the people, in their way of life they differed little from folk singers and storytellers - jugglers and spielmans, but they shunned their folk language: they held onto Latin as the last support of their social superiority, their cultural aristocracy. They opposed the French and German songs with their own, Latin ones.
The poetic heritage of the Vagants is wide and varied: it is poetry praising sensual love, taverns and wine, and works that expose the sins of monks and priests, parodies of liturgical texts, flattering and even impudent pleading verses. The Vagants also composed religious chants, didactic and allegorical poems, but this theme occupied an insignificant place in their work.
A huge number of Vagant poems and songs are scattered across Latin manuscripts and collections: the most extensive of them, Benedictbeirensky (Carmina Burana), compiled in southern Germany in the 13th century, has over 200 poems. The vast majority of these verses are anonymous. Of course, this anonymity does not mean that there was no individual creativity: here, as elsewhere, a few created new and original works, dozens reproduced them with their imitations, and hundreds were engaged in processing and correspondence of what was already created. At the same time, of course, there was no need at all for the poet himself to lead a Vagant lifestyle: each venerable cleric had a schoolboy youth behind his back, and many had enough mental memory to find words for their feelings even in peace. early years... If these words fell in tune with the ideas and emotions of the Vagant mass, they were quickly assimilated by them, their poems became common property, lost their name, were added, reworked; it becomes almost hopeless to restore the appearance of individual authors of Vagant's works.
Three names, belonging to three generations, emerge for us from this nameless element. The first of the Vagant poets known to us is Gugon, nicknamed the Primate (i.e., the Elder) of Orleans, who wrote c. 1130-1140s. The Primate's poems are exceptional for the Middle Ages in terms of the abundance of everyday details: they are extremely "earthly", the author deliberately emphasizes the baseness of their themes - the gifts that he begs for, or the reproaches that he experiences. He is the only Vagant who portrays his beloved not as a conventional beauty, but as a prosaic city harlot:
This house is miserable, dirty, wretched and ugly in appearance,
And the table is sparse: one salad and cabbage -
That's all the treats. And if oozing is needed, -
Will buy bovine lard from the carcass, whatever,
Will buy, spending a little, whether a sheep's or a goat's leg,
The bread will crush and soak, stale since the last night,
Add crumbs to bacon, season this jail with wine,
Or rather, sludge, like wine slops ...
(Translated by M. Gasparov)
The second outstanding Vagant poet is known only by the nickname Arkhipita, the poet of the poets; ten of his surviving poems were written in 1161-1165. and are addressed for the most part to his patron Reynald Dasselsky - the chancellor of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, whom the poet accompanied during Frederick's Italian campaign and on the way back. Arkhipita is also a wanderer, also a poor man, but his poems do not contain that caustic gloom that fills the Primate's poems: instead, he flaunts with lightness, irony and brilliance. By his own admission, he was of a knightly family and went to the clerics only out of love for "literature". Instead of talking about his individual misadventures, he paints a general self-portrait: he owns the famous Confession, one of the most popular Vagant poems:
Having condemned the dishonorable path with bitterness of life,
I passed her sentence severe and unflattering:
Made of weak, lightweight matter
I am like a leaf that the surrounding wind blows across the field ...
Here the poet, with undisguised pleasure, repent of his devotion, first, to Venus, secondly, to play, and thirdly, to guilt; here are some of the most famous lines from all Vagant poetry:
Take me to the tavern, death, and not on the bed!
Being close to wine is dearest to me;
It will be more fun for the angels to sing too:
"Have mercy on the great drunkard, oh God!"
(Translation by O. Rumer)
Finally, the third classic of Vagant lyric poetry is already known to us Walter Chatillonsky, the author of Alexandreida. He has never been a vacant cleric, he has no begging poems at all, he hardly speaks about himself in his poems, but stands up for his entire learned class; most of his poems are satirical, with pathos denouncing the prelates' love of money and their indifference to true learning. Both Walter's accusatory poems and his no less brilliant love songs were widely known and caused many imitations. Of the three poets, Walter is the most "literary": he takes popular motives and, with the help of an arsenal of rhetorical means, which he possesses to perfection, turns them into exemplary poems. He especially loves effectively deployed allegories, in which a wide picture is first sketched, and then each of its details receives an accurate allegorical interpretation:
If the shadow has covered
Low-lying fields, -
We must wait for the influx.
If the heights are mountainous
With a black shroud
Hidden in the terrible darkness, -
Visible in that phenomenon
Endings
True signs.
Lowland valleys -
This is the essence of the laity:
Kingdoms and Thrones
Earls and nobles.
Luxury and vanity
Like a night of evil
They are overwhelmed;
God's punishment
Mortal anguish
Waiting for sinners.
(Translated by M. Gasparov)
It is easier to imagine the Primate reading poetry in a tavern, Arkhipita at court, Walter at the preaching pulpit.
The XII century is filled with the creativity of the founders of Vagant poetry, the XIII century - with the activities of nameless epigones, and by the XIV century. these Latin lyrics completely disappear from the stage. The crisis of overproduction of learned clergy resolved by itself, the interests of the learned class switched from Ovidianism to scholasticism and mysticism, and instead of wandering schoolchildren, wandering monks-preachers pulled along the roads. And the artistic experience accumulated by the Latin lyric poetry of the vagante passed on to the chivalrous lyric poetry in new languages, which attracted an incomparably wider audience.
Knightly (courtly) literature: the lyrics of the troubadours, the knightly novel.
In the XI-XII centuries. the church is noticeably drained of blood in the crusades, intra-confessional confrontations, discussions of numerous heresies, discussions at church councils about the correction of faith and mores. Many of its educated ministers leave for the world, often becoming vagant clerics, especially skeptical about all kinds of prohibitions on the freedom of the human spirit and body. The growing spiritual breakthrough was felt more and more, which more and more persistently shifted cultural life from religious centers to knightly castles and cities that were gaining their face. The secular culture remained Christian in character. At the same time, the very image and lifestyle of chivalry and townspeople predetermined their focus on the earthly, developed special views, ethical norms, traditions, and cultural values. Before the actual urban culture was formed, secular spirituality began to assert itself in the knightly culture.
The creator and bearer of knightly culture was the military estate, which originated in the 7th-8th centuries, when the conventional forms of feudal land tenure developed. Chivalry, a special privileged stratum of medieval society, over the centuries has developed its own traditions and peculiar ethical norms, its own views on all life relations. The formation of ideas, customs, morality of chivalry was facilitated in many ways by the Crusades, his acquaintance with the eastern tradition.
The earliest centers of a new culture are noted in the French south, in Provence, and the secular poetry that originated there, where the central heroes are the knight and his Beautiful Lady, receives the name courtly(court-aristocratic) (from the French court-court).
Courtesy, courtesy- the medieval concept of love, according to which the relationship between a lover and his Lady is similar to the relationship between a vassal and his master. The most important influence on the formation of the ideal of courtly love was exerted by the Roman poet Ovid (1st century), whose poetic "treatise" - "The Art of Love" - became a kind of encyclopedia of the behavior of a knight in love with a Beautiful Lady: he trembles with love, does not sleep, he is pale, can die from the inseparability of his feelings. The concept of such a model of behavior became more complicated due to Christian ideas about the cult of the Virgin Mary - in this case, the Beautiful Lady, whom the knight served, became the image of his spiritual love. The influence of Arab mystical philosophy, which developed the concept of platonic feeling, was also significant. One of the centers of the emerging new culture was the code of knightly honor. A knight should not only be brave, loyal and generous, he should also become courteous, graceful, attractive in society, be able to subtly and tenderly feel. To the heroic ideal of former times is added a moral and aesthetic one, which is impossible to feel and master without art.
The creators of the salon culture, where the mission of a kind of priestess is assigned to the Beautiful Lady - the mistress of the castle, were those who settled in large courtyards and professionally engaged in writing, performing, teaching troubadours and minstrels... Their merit is great in that they not only make the increasingly complex world of chivalry, a new intra-family and public role women (the XII century in France is also marked by the fact that women receive the right to land inheritance), but they also find, create, previously unknown in their native language words that express feelings, states of mind and human experiences.
The main place in the Provencal lyric poetry is occupied by the theme of high courtly love, which serves as the strongest moral feeling capable of changing, ennobling and elevating a person. She was given to triumph over class barriers, she wins the heart of a proud knight, who finds himself in a vassal relationship with the Beautiful Lady. In understanding the place and role of poetry in people's lives, troubadours were divided into adherents of clear and dark styles. Supporters of a clear manner considered it their duty to write for everyone and about things that are understandable, topical, using a simple common language. The dark style preferred vague hints, allegories, metaphors, complicated syntax, without fear of being difficult to access, requiring effort to understand. If in the first case, a democratic tradition derived from folklore developed, then in the second, scholarly poetry, an orientation towards a narrow circle of initiates, affected.
Courtly lyrics had their own system of genres.
Cansona- the most popular genre, it is a fairly voluminous love poem, ending with the poet's parting words to his brainchild or recommendations to the juggler-performer. Its shorter form was called vers.
Love will sweep away all obstacles
If two have one soul.
Mutual love lives
Can't serve as a substitute here
The most precious gift!
After all, it's stupid to look for delights
The one whom they dislike!
I look forward with hope
Love tender for the one breathing,
Who blooms with pure beauty,
To that, noble, unaddressed,
Who was taken from a humble fate,
Whose perfection they say
And kings are honored everywhere.
Serena- "evening song", sung in front of the beloved's house, in which the glorification of her beauty could be intertwined with subtle, incomprehensible to her husband, allusions to the forbidden love that binds the knight and the lady.
Alba- "song of the dawn", chanted at dawn by a sleepless friend to wake up the knight who spent the night in his beloved's bedchamber and to prevent an unwanted meeting with her husband.
Hawthorn leaves in the garden wilted,
Where don and a friend catch every moment:
The first cry of the horn is about to be heard!
Alas. Dawn, you're in too much of a hurry!
Oh, if the Lord would give the night forever,
And my dear did not leave me,
And the guard forgot his morning signal ...
Alas, dawn, dawn, you are in too much haste!
Tenson- a dispute between poets on moral, literary, civic topics.
Sirventa- originally a soldier's song (of service people), and later - a polemic on political topics.
Pastorela- a story about a meeting in the bosom of nature a wandering knight and an attractive shepherdess. She can succumb to his affectionate speech and, seduced, be immediately forgotten. But he can, in response to the knight's harassment, call the villagers, in front of whose pitchforks and cudgels he hastily retreats. In self-justification, he can only curse the rabble and its unworthy weapons.
I met a shepherdess yesterday,
Here at the fence, wandering.
Lively, albeit simple,
I met a girl.
She is wearing a fur coat
And a colored katsaveika,
A cap - to hide from the wind.
Among the most prominent Provencal troubadours are Guillaume VII, Count of Poitiers (1071-1127), Jaufre Ruedel (c. 1140-1170), Bernart de Ventadorn (wrote c. 1150-1180), Bertrand de Born (1140-1215), Arnaut Daniel (wrote about 1180-1200).
The traditions of Provencal lyrics were continued by German poets - minnesingers("Singers of love") - the authors of German secular poetry. German knightly lyrics - minnesang- was strongly influenced by Provencal lyrics. At the same time, the creativity of the minnesingers has a number of peculiarities.
The Minnesingers themselves composed music for their works, but, as a rule, itinerant singers distributed them - spielmans... Though main theme The minnesinger's creativity was a glorification of refined feelings for the Beautiful Lady, like their Provencal predecessors, their poetry is more restrained, sad, inclined to didactism, often colored in religious tones (remaining mostly secular). The most prominent minnesingers were Heinrich von Feldecke, Friedrich von Hausen, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and others.
Along with the lyrics, the knights created a genre that replaced epic poems - this is novel .
The birthplace of the knightly romance is considered to be the French-speaking territories of the north-west of Europe, and established in the XII century. the word novel at first simply meant a large piece of poetry in a living Romance language (as opposed to texts in Latin). But soon its own genre-thematic specificity becomes obvious.
The hero of the novel is still the noble knight, but his image undergoes significant changes. So, the epic was unimportant appearance the hero-knight (Roland's face, for example, is indistinguishable under the knight's visor), while the authors of chivalric novels, in addition to selfless bravery, courage, nobility, note the hero's external beauty (Tristan's broad shoulders, curls ...) and his ability to behave: he is always courteous, courteous, generous, restrained in the expression of feelings. Refined manners convince in the noble origin of the knight. In addition, the attitude of the hero to his overlord has changed. The noble paladin of his king, while remaining a vassal, often acquires a slightly different status: a friend and confidante of the monarch. And often they are relatives (Tristan, for example, the nephew of King Mark). The goal of chivalrous deeds has also changed: the hero is driven not only and not so much by the desire to fulfill the instructions of his master and devotion to him, but by the desire to become famous in order to win the love of the Beautiful Lady. In the novels (as in the lyrics) love for a knight is the delight of earthly life, and the one to whom he gave his heart is a living bodily embodiment of the Madonna.
Putting love at the center of its attention, the novel reinforces the story about it with legendary and historical images that were impressive at that time. The novel also necessarily contains fiction in its dual manifestation: as supernatural (miraculous) and as unusual (exceptional), elevating the hero above the prose of life. Both love and fantasy are covered with the concept of adventures, towards which the knights rush.
The chivalrous romance spread across the territories of the future Germany and France, easily overcoming the language barrier. The authors of the novels of chivalry were called trouvers... Truvers essentially composed entertaining tales of the endless adventures of a knight. Chronologically and thematically, three cycles of the knightly novel were formed: antique, Breton, East Byzantine.
In the antique cycle, plots borrowed from the classics, legendary and historical themes were reworked in a new chivalrous way. Love, adventure, fantasy dominate one of the earliest works of the genre - "The Romance of Alexander" (second half of the 12th century) by Lambert le Thor, where the famous commander is presented as a sophisticated medieval knight. The anonymous Romance of Aeneas (c. 1160) dates back to Virgil's Aeneid, where the differently formed love relationships of the hero with Dido and Lavinia are highlighted. Around the same time, Benoit de Saint-Maur's "Novel of Three" appeared, based on love episodes from various adaptations of the Trojan myth cycle.
The Breton cycle is the most ramified and indicative of a chivalrous novel. The material for it was Celtic folklore filled with poignant love adventures, a whole series of legends about the legendary Briton King Arthur (5th – 6th centuries) and his knights of the Round Table, the prose chronicle of Golfried of Monmouth “History of the Kings of Britain” (c. 1136). The entire cycle can be divided into four groups: 1) short, akin to a novella, Breton le; 2) novels about Tristan and Isolde; 3) the novels of the Round Table - actually Arthurian; 4) novels about the holy grail.
Among the most popular novels of the Breton cycle is the legend of the love of the young man Tristan of Leonois and the Queen of Cornish Isolde Belokura. Having arisen in the Celtic folk environment, the legend then caused numerous literary fixations, first in Welsh, then in French, from which it was reworked into all major European literature, not bypassing the Slavic ones.
The number of literary monuments in which the plot is developed about the strong but sinful love of Tristan and Isolde is very large. Not all of them have survived to the same extent. So, according to Celtic sources, the legend is familiar only in the form of fragments and its early French adaptations have been completely lost. French poetry novels of the second half of the 12th century. have reached our time also far from completely, later versions are much better preserved, but they are much less original and distinctive. In addition, the legend, having arisen in the deep Middle Ages, continued to attract writers and poets in modern times. Not to mention the mention of the main characters of the legend (say, Dante, Boccaccio, Villon and many others), August Schlegel, Walter Scott, Richard Wagner and others dedicated their works to her. Alexander Blok was going to write a historical drama on the plot of the legend.
A large number of literary works about the love of Tristan and Isolde led to a large number of versions of the legend. The earliest evidence of the folklore existence of the legend of Tristan and Isolde ("The Triads of the Isle of Britain"), as well as its first literary adaptations, are fragments of Welsh texts. The main characters in them are "Tristan, the son of Talluh, and Essild, the wife of Mark." The lovers with two servants, seizing pies and wine, take refuge in the forest of Kelidon, but Markh - Essild's husband - together with the soldiers sought them out. “Tristan got up and, raising his sword, rushed into the first duel and finally met with Markh, the son of Mairkhion, who exclaimed:“ And at the cost of my life I would like to kill him! ” But his other warriors said: "Shame on us if we attack him!" And from three fights Tristan emerged unharmed. " The dispute between Markha and Tristan is being resolved by King Arthur, to whom Markh addresses. “Here Arthur reconciled him with Markh, the son of Mairkhion. But even though Arthur persuaded everyone, no one wanted to leave Essild to another. And so Arthur decided: to one it will belong while the leaves turn green on the trees, to the other - all the rest of the time. It was him that Markh chose, for then the nights are longer. " The wise king's decision made the smart Essild happy: “Essild exclaimed when Arthur told her about this:“ Bless this decision and the one who made it! ”And she sang such an englin:
I will name three trees for you,
They keep foliage all year long,
Ivy, holly and yew -
As long as we live
Nobody can separate us from Tristan.
Another of the early versions of the novel, belonging to the Norman trouver Berul, is a detailed, lengthy and very colorful narrative in which Tristan and Isolde appear as innocent victims of a love potion served to them by mistake of a servant. The drink has been spoken for three years, during these years the lovers cannot live without each other.
Another vast epic movement developed in the Breton cycle was the novels of the Round Table.
Arthur was a minor ruler of the Britons. But the Welsh author of the historical chronicle, Galfried of Monmouth, portrays him as a powerful ruler of Britain, Brittany and almost all of Western Europe, a semi-mythical figure, one of the heroes of the Celts' struggle against the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Arthur and his twelve faithful knights defeat the Anglo-Saxons in many battles. He is the supreme authority in politics, his wife Genievra patronizes the knights in love. Lancelot, Gauvin, Ivain, Parzival and other brave knights flock to the court of King Arthur, where everyone at the round table has a place of honor. His court is the focus of courtesy, valor and honor. Another legend is closely connected with the legend of the kingdom of Arthur - about the Holy Grail - the chalice in which the blood of Christ was collected. The Grail became a symbol of the mystical knightly principle, the personification of the highest ethical perfection.
The group of Arthurian novels proper is distinguished by a variety of plots, love stories and exploits of many glorious knights, the only common thing for them was that they proved themselves worthy in tournaments at the court of King Arthur, feasting at his famous Round Table. Most successfully this theme was developed by Chrétien de Troyes (c. 1130-1191), known both as a lyricist and as the author of stories about Tristan and Isolde, about the Holy Grail. His popularity was based not only on the ability to combine the real, the legendary and the fantastic in his own way, but also on new approaches to creating female images. The educated talented trouver was patronized by Maria Champagne, who was fond of knightly poetry. Chrétien de Trois was prolific, five of his novels have come down to us: "Erek and Enida", "Clejes, or Imaginary Death", "Yvein, or the Knight with the Lion", "Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart". The main conflict of his novels lies in solving the question of how to combine a happy marriage with feats of knighthood. Does a married knight Erek or Evein have the right to sit in a castle when the little and the orphan are offended by cruel strangers? At the end of his life, for some unknown reason, he quarreled with Mary of Champagne and went to seek protection from Philip of Alsace. "Parzival, or the Legend of the Grail" is the last novel that has not reached us, but became famous thanks to the very loose interpretation of Chretien's text, made when translated into German by Wolfram von Eschenbach.
In the XIII-XIV centuries. works in which knights show steadfastness and determination not in serving duty, not in risky duels, but in reckless idyllic love are becoming more and more popular. For example, the story "Aucassin and Nicolette" (it belongs to the East Byzantine cycle) depicts the main characters in this way. The count's son Aucassin, in love with the Saracen captive Nicolette, is ready to go against the will of his father, to despise religious and class differences. He does everything solely for the sake of happiness with his beloved, forgetting even about his patriotic duty. His only valor is loyalty to his chosen one, in turn, passionately and touchingly devoted to his beloved. The undisclosed parodic background of such works, as it were, anticipated the onset of a new era, was indirect evidence of the growing influence of urban literature on the knightly literature that was losing its positions.
Urban and folk literature: fablio and Schwanki; allegorical poetry; folk ballads; mysteries, miracles and farces.
With the invention of artillery pieces, knighthood gradually lost its social role, but the burghers grew stronger - the townspeople united in craft workshops and merchant guilds. With the receipt of special city rights by Magdeburg in 1188, the circle of European cities seeking self-government in the main spheres of legal, economic and social relations expanded rapidly. Thanks to the emergence and spread of Magdeburg law, the successes of the cities in their struggle against feudal power for independence, for the gradual self-assertion of the third estate were legally enshrined.
By the beginning of the 12th century, burgher literature was formed, which was in opposition to the knightly novel and courtly lyrics. The city dweller is distinguished by down-to-earthness, a striving for practical-useful knowledge, an interest not in knightly adventures in unknown lands, but in a familiar environment, everyday life. He does not need the miraculous, his own mind, hard work, resourcefulness, and in the end - cunning and dexterity become his supports in overcoming everyday difficulties. Hence, attention to the details of everyday life, simplicity and laconicism of style, rude humor, in which a free interpretation of the established ethical attitudes is visible, is manifested in literature. On the other hand, in it a significant place is occupied by works of an instructive, even protective orientation, where private entrepreneurship, good behavior, and fear of God are glorified, combined with acute anti-feudal and anti-church satire.
The townspeople had their own genres, and referring to the genres that had already been formed, the townspeople parodied them. Laughing literature of the Middle Ages developed for a whole millennium and even more, since its beginnings date back to Christian antiquity. Over such a long period of its existence, this literature, of course, has undergone quite significant changes (the literature in Latin has changed least of all). Diverse genre forms and stylistic variations were developed. The first, most developed genre of everyday satire of the 12th-13th centuries was the French fablio.
Fablio(the name came from the Latin "plot" due to the initial identification of any funny, amusing story with a fable already known under this old Latin name) were small (up to 250-400 lines, rarely more) stories in verse, mostly eight-syllable, with a pair rhyme with a simple and clear plot and a small number of characters. Fablio becomes almost the most widespread genre of urban French literature and is experiencing its heyday in those years when the decline of chivalric literature begins, nominates such masters as Henri d'Andely, Jean Bodel, Jacques Bézieu, Gougon Leroy from Cambrai, Bernier, finally, how famous Rutboeuf, the first remarkable representative of French urban literature, who tried his hand at many poetic genres.
A. Gurevich
The works of heroic poetry presented in this volume belong to the Middle Ages - early (Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf") and classical (Icelandic songs of "Elder Edda" and German "Song of the Nibelungs"). The origins of Germanic poetry about gods and heroes are much more ancient. Already Tacitus, who was one of the first to leave a description of the Germanic tribes, mentions their ancient songs about their mythical ancestors and leaders: these songs, according to him, replaced history for the barbarians. The remark of the Roman historian is very significant: in the epic, memories of historical events are fused with myth and fairy tale, and the elements of the fantastic and the historical are equally taken for reality. The distinction between "facts" and "fiction" in relation to the epic in that era was not made. But ancient German poetry is unknown to us, there was no one to write it down. The themes and motives that have existed in it orally for centuries are partly reproduced in the monuments published below. In any case, they reflect the events of the Great Migration Period (V-VI centuries). However, according to "Beowulf" or Scandinavian songs, not to mention the "Song of the Nibelungs", it is impossible to restore the spiritual life of the Germans in the era of the dominance of the clan system. The transition from the oral creativity of singers and storytellers to the "book epic" was accompanied by more or less significant changes in the composition, volume and content of songs. Suffice it to recall that in the oral tradition, the songs from which these epic works then developed existed in the pagan period, while they acquired a written form centuries after Christianization. Nevertheless, Christian ideology does not determine the content and tonality of epic poems, and this becomes especially clear when comparing the Germanic heroic epic with medieval Latin literature, usually deeply permeated with the church spirit the following two judgments about the "Song of the Nibelungs": "basically pagan"; "medieval-Christian." The first assessment - Goethe, the second - A.-V. Schlegel.).
An epic work is universal in its functions. The fantastic is not separated from the real in it. The epic contains information about gods and other supernatural beings, fascinating stories and instructive examples, aphorisms of worldly wisdom and examples of heroic behavior; its edifying function is as integral as its cognitive function. It covers both the tragic and the comic. At the stage when the epic arises and develops, the Germanic peoples did not have knowledge about nature and history, philosophy, fiction or theater as separate spheres of intellectual activity - the epic gave a complete and comprehensive picture of the world, explained its origin and further destinies, including the most distant future, taught to distinguish good from evil, instructed in how to live and how to die. The epic contained ancient wisdom, its knowledge was considered necessary for every member of society.
The integrity of the life coverage is also matched by the integrity of the characters deduced in the epic. The heroes of the epic are cut from one piece, each personifies some quality that determines its essence. Beowulf is the ideal of a courageous and decisive warrior, unchanging in loyalty and friendship, a generous and merciful king. Gudrun is an embodied devotion to the family, a woman who avenges the death of her brothers, without stopping before killing her own sons and husband, like (but at the same time and in contrast) Kriemhilda, who destroys her brothers, punishing them for killing her beloved husband Siegfried and taking away she has a treasure of gold. The epic hero is not tormented by doubts and hesitations, his character is revealed in his actions; his speeches are as unambiguous as his actions. This monolithic character of the epic hero is explained by the fact that he knows his fate, takes it for granted and inevitable, and boldly goes to meet it. The epic hero is not free in his decisions, in the choice of the line of behavior. Actually, his inner essence and the force that the heroic epic calls Destiny coincide, are identical. Therefore, the hero remains only the best way to valiantly fulfill their destiny. Hence - a kind, perhaps a little primitive for a different taste, the greatness of epic heroes.
With all the differences in content, tonality, as well as in the conditions and time of their occurrence, epic poems do not have an author. The point is not that the name of the author is unknown (In science, more than once - invariably unconvincing - attempts have been made to establish the authors of Eddic songs or the Song of the Nibelungs.) disposal of poetic material, did not recognize themselves as the authors of the works written by them. This, of course, does not mean that the concept of authorship did not exist at all in that era. The names of many Icelandic skalds are known, which claimed their "copyright" for the songs they performed. The Song of the Nibelungs originated at a time when the greatest German minnesingers were writing and knightly novels were created on the basis of French models; this song was written by a contemporary of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried of Strasbourg and Walter von der Vogelweide. And nevertheless, poetic work on a traditional epic plot, on heroic songs and legends that were familiar to everyone in an earlier form, in the Middle Ages was not evaluated as creativity either by society or by the poet himself, who created this kind of work, but did not think about it. to mention your name (This also applies to some types of prosaic creativity, for example, Icelandic sagas and Irish legends. See MI Steblin-Kamensky's preface to the publication of Icelandic sagas in the Library of World Literature.).
Drawing from the general poetic fund, the compiler of the epic poem focused on the heroes and plot he had chosen, pushing many other legends related to this plot to the periphery of the narrative. Just as the beam of a searchlight illuminates a separate piece of the area, leaving most of it in darkness, so the author of the epic poem (the author in the sense indicated now, that is, the poet, devoid of the author's self-consciousness), developing his theme, limited himself to hints at its branches, being sure that his audience already knows all the events and characters, both glorified by him and those that he only mentioned in passing. The legends and myths of the Germanic peoples were only partially embodied in their epic poems, preserved in writing - the rest either disappeared or can be restored only indirectly. In the songs of "Edda" and in "Beowulf" fluent references to kings, their wars and strife, mythological characters and traditions are scattered in abundance. A few words of allusions were quite enough for the corresponding associations to arise in the minds of the listeners or readers of the heroic epic. The epic usually does not convey anything completely new. The power of its aesthetic and emotional impact is not diminished in the least, on the contrary, in archaic and medieval society, the greatest satisfaction was apparently not receiving original information, or not only it, but also recognition of previously known information, new confirmation of old ones, and therefore especially appreciated truths (Wouldn't a comparison with a child's perception of a fairy tale be appropriate here? The child knows its content, but his pleasure from listening to it again does not diminish.).
An epic poet, processing material that did not belong to him, a heroic song, myth, legend, legend, widely using traditional expressions, stable comparisons and formulas, figurative cliches borrowed from oral folk art, could not consider himself an independent creator, no matter how his contribution to the final creation of the heroic epic is great. This dialectical combination of new and perceived from predecessors constantly gives rise to controversy in modern literary criticism: science tends to emphasize the folk basis of the epic, then in favor of the individual creative principle in its creation.
The tonic alliterative verse remained the form of Germanic poetry throughout an entire era. For a particularly long time this form was preserved in Iceland, while among the continental Germanic peoples already in the early Middle Ages it was replaced by verse with a final rhyme. "Beowulf" and the songs of "The Elder Edda" are sustained in the traditional alliterative form, "The Song of the Nibelungs" - in a new one, based on rhyme. Starogermansky versification was based on rhythm, determined by the number of stressed syllables in a line of poetry. Alliteration is the consonance of the initial sounds of words that were under semantic stress and repeated with a certain regularity in two adjacent lines of a verse, which, due to this, turned out to be connected. Alliteration is audible and significant in Germanic verse, since the stress in Germanic languages mainly falls on the first syllable of a word, which is at the same time its root. It is therefore understandable that the reproduction of this form of versification in the Russian translation is almost impossible. It is very difficult to convey another feature of the Scandinavian and Old English verse, the so-called kenning (literally - "designation") - a poetic paraphrase, replacing one noun of ordinary speech with two or more words. Kennings were used to designate the concepts most significant for heroic poetry: "leader", "warrior", "sword", "shield", "battle", "ship", "gold", "woman", "raven", and for each of these concepts there were several or even many Kennings. Instead of saying “prince,” the expression “ring giver” was used in poetry, the common kenning of the warrior was “battle ash”, the sword was called “the stick of battle,” etc. In Beowulf and the Elder Edda, kennings are usually two-term , in scaldic poetry, there are also polynomial kennings.
The Song of the Nibelungs is based on the Kurenberg stanza, which consists of four verses rhymed in pairs. Each verse is divided into two hemistichs with four stressed syllables in the first hemistich, while in the second hemistich of the first three verses there are three accents, and in the second hemistich of the last verse, which completes the stanza both formally and in meaning, four accents. The translation of the Song of the Nibelungs from the Middle Upper German into Russian does not encounter such difficulties as the translation of alliterated poetry, and gives an idea of its metric structure.
Beowulf
The only extant manuscript of Beowulf dates back to around 1000. But the epic itself refers, according to most experts, to the end of the 7th or the first third of the 8th century. At that time, the Anglo-Saxons were already experiencing the incipient process of the emergence of feudal ties. The poem, however, is characterized by an epic archaization. In addition, she paints reality from a specific point of view: the world of "Beowulf" is the world of kings and warriors, the world of feasts, battles and duels.
The plot of this largest of the Anglo-Saxon epics is not complicated. Beowulf, a young knight from the Gout people, having learned about the calamity that befell the Danish king Higelak - about the attacks of the monster Grendel on his palace Heorot and about his gradual extermination of the king's warriors over the course of twelve years, goes overseas to destroy Grendel. Having defeated him, he then kills in a new single combat, this time in an underwater dwelling, another monster - Grendel's mother, who tried to avenge her son's death. Showered with awards and gratitude, Beowulf returns to his homeland. Here he performs new feats, and later becomes the king of the Gouts and safely rules the country for fifty years. After this period, Beowulf engages in battle with the dragon, which devastates the surroundings, being enraged by the attempt on the ancient treasure he guards. Beowulf manages to defeat this monster, but at the cost of his own life. The song ends with a scene of the solemn burning of the hero's body on a funeral pyre and the construction of a mound over his ashes and the treasure he conquered.
These fantastic feats have been transferred, however, from the surreal world of fairy tales to historical soil and occur among the peoples of Northern Europe: Danes, Swedes, Gaut appear in Beowulf (Who are the Beowulf Gaut remains controversial. Different interpretations have been proposed in science: the Goths of the South Sweden or the islands of Gotland, the Jutas of the Jutland peninsula and even the ancient Getae of Thrace, which, in turn, were mixed with the biblical Gog and Magog in the Middle Ages), other tribes are mentioned, kings are named who once really ruled them. But this does not apply to the main character of the poem: Beowulf himself, apparently, did not have a historical prototype. Since then everyone believed unconditionally in the existence of giants and dragons, the combination of such stories with the story of wars between peoples and kings was quite natural. It is curious that the Anglo-Saxon epic ignores England (this gave rise, by the way, to the now rejected theory of its Scandinavian origin). But perhaps this feature of "Beowulf" will not seem so striking, if we bear in mind that in other works of Anglo-Saxon poetry we meet the most diverse peoples of Europe and that we will encounter the same fact in the songs of the Elder Edda. and partly in the "Song of the Nibelungs".
In the spirit of the theories that prevailed in science in the middle of the 19th century, some commentators of Beowulf argued that the poem arose from the amalgamation of various songs; it was customary to cut it into four parts: a duel with Grendel, a duel with his mother, Beowulf's return to his homeland, a duel with a dragon. The point of view was expressed that the originally purely pagan poem was partially reworked in the Christian spirit, as a result of which the interweaving of two worldviews arose in it. Then the majority of researchers began to believe that the transition from oral songs to the "book epic" was not limited to their simple fixation; these scholars viewed "Beowulf" as a single work, the "editor" of which combined and reworked the material at his disposal in his own way, presenting traditional plots in more lengthy terms. However, it must be admitted that nothing is known about the process of Beowulf's formation.
There are many folk motives in the epic. At the very beginning Skild Skewang is mentioned - "foundling". The boat with the baby Skild washed up on the shores of Denmark, whose people were at that time defenseless due to the absence of the king; subsequently Skild became the ruler of Denmark and founded a dynasty. After Skilda's death, they put him back on the ship and, together with the treasures, sent him back to where he came from - a purely fairy tale plot. The giants whom Beowulf fights are akin to the giants of Scandinavian mythology, and combat with a dragon is a common theme in fairy tales and myths, including the northern one. In his youth, Beowulf, who, having grown up, acquired the strength of thirty people, was lazy and did not differ in valor - does this not remind the youth of other heroes of folk tales, for example, Ilya Muromets? The arrival of the hero on his own initiative to help those in distress, his squabble with his opponent (exchange of speeches between Beowulf and Unfert), the test of hero's valor (the story of the competition in the voyage of Beowulf and Breka), handing him a magic weapon (sword Hrunting), violation of the prohibition by the hero ( Beowulf takes away the treasure in a duel with a dragon, not knowing that a spell gravitates over the treasure), an assistant in a single combat between the hero and the enemy (Wiglaf, who came to the rescue of Beowulf at the moment when he was close to death), three fights given by the hero, and each subsequent one turns out to be more difficult (the battles of Beowulf with Grendel, with his mother and with the dragon), - all these are elements fairy tale... The epic keeps many traces of its prehistory, rooted in folk art. But the tragic ending - the death of Beowulf, as well as the historical background against which his fantastic exploits unfold, distinguish the poem from the fairy tale - these are signs of a heroic epic.
Representatives of the "mythological school" in literary criticism of the last century tried to decipher this epic in this way: monsters personify the storms of the North Sea; Beowulf is a good deity that bridles the elements; his peaceful reign is a blessed summer, and his death is the onset of winter. Thus, the epic symbolically depicts the contrasts of nature, growth and decay, rise and decline, youth and old age. Other scholars understood these contrasts ethically and saw Beowulf as a theme of the struggle between good and evil. The symbolic and allegorical interpretation of the poem is no stranger to those researchers who generally deny its epic character and consider it the work of a cleric or monk who knew and used early Christian literature. These interpretations to a large extent rest on the question of whether the “spirit of Christianity” is expressed in Beowulf, or in front of us is a monument of pagan consciousness. Supporters of understanding it as a folk epic, in which the beliefs of the heroic times of the Great Migration are alive, naturally, found Germanic paganism in it and minimized the significance of church influence. On the contrary, those modern scholars who classify the poem as a written literature shift the center of gravity to Christian motives; in paganism, however, "Beowulf" is seen as nothing more than an antique stylization. V the latest criticism there is a noticeable tendency to shift attention from analyzing the content of the poem to studying its texture and stylistics. In the middle of this century, a denial of the connection between Beowulf and the epic folk tradition prevailed. Meanwhile for last years a number of specialists are inclined to consider the prevalence of stereotypical expressions and formulas in the text of the poem as evidence of its origin from oral creativity. In science, there is no generally accepted concept that would explain "Beowulf" sufficiently satisfactorily. Meanwhile, interpretation is indispensable. "Beowulf" is difficult for the modern reader, brought up on a completely different literature and inclined, albeit unwittingly, to transfer to the ancient monuments the ideas that have developed when familiarizing themselves with the artistic creations of modern times.
In the heat of scientific disputes, it is sometimes forgotten: no matter how the poem arose, whether it was composed of different pieces or not, the medieval audience perceived it as something whole. This also applies to the composition of "Beowulf", and the interpretation of religion in it. The author and his characters often remember the Lord God; the epic contains hints of biblical subjects, apparently understandable to the then “public”; paganism is clearly condemned. At the same time, "Beowulf" is replete with references to Destiny, which either acts as a tool of the creator and is identical to divine Providence, or appears as an independent force. But belief in Destiny was central to the pre-Christian ideology of the Germanic peoples. Ancestral blood feud, which the church condemned, although it was often forced to endure, is glorified in the poem and is considered an obligatory duty, and the impossibility of revenge is regarded as the greatest misfortune. In short, the ideological situation portrayed in Beowulf is quite contradictory. But this is a contradiction in life, and not a simple inconsistency between the earlier and later editions of the poem. The Anglo-Saxons of the 7th-8th centuries were Christians, but christian religion at that time it did not so much overcome the pagan worldview as pushed it out of the official sphere into the background of public consciousness. The Church managed to destroy the old temples and the worship of pagan gods, sacrifices to them, as for the forms of human behavior, the situation here was much more complicated. The motives that drive the actions of the characters in "Beowulf" are determined by no means Christian ideals of humility and obedience to the will of God. "What is common between Ingeld and Christ?" - asked the famous church leader Alcuin a century after the creation of "Beowulf" and demanded that the monks not be distracted from prayer by heroic songs. Ingeld appears in a number of works; he is also mentioned in Beowulf. Alcuin was aware of the incompatibility of the ideals embodied in such characters in heroic legends with the ideals preached by the clergy.
The fact that the religious and ideological climate in which Beowulf arose was not unambiguous is confirmed by an archaeological find in Sutton Hoo (East England). Here in 1939 was discovered a burial in a boat of a noble person, dating from the middle of the 7th century. The burial was performed according to a pagan rite, along with valuable things (swords, helmets, chain mail, cups, a banner, musical instruments) that a king might need in another world.
It is difficult to agree with those researchers who are disappointed by the "banality" of scenes of the hero's fights with monsters. These battles are placed in the center of the poem quite rightly - they express its main content. Indeed, the world of culture, joyful and colorful, is personified in Beowulf by Heorot - a palace whose radiance spreads “to many countries”; in his banquet hall, the leader and his associates are wandering and having fun, listening to the songs and legends of the osprey - a squad singer and poet who glorifies their military deeds, as well as the deeds of their ancestors; here the leader generously endows the vigilantes with rings, weapons and other valuables. This reduction of the “middle world” (middangeard) to the king’s palace (for everything else in this world is passed over in silence) is explained by the fact that “Beowulf” is a heroic epic that took shape, at least in the form we know, in a retinue environment.
Heorot, the "Deer Hall" (its roof is decorated with gilded deer antlers) are confronted by wild, mysterious and full of horror rocks, wastelands, swamps and caves in which monsters live. The contrast of joy and fear corresponds in this opposition to the contrast of light and darkness. Feasts and merriment in the shining golden hall take place in the light of day, as giants go out in search of bloody prey under cover of night. The enmity between Grendel and the people of Heorot is not an isolated episode; this is emphasized not only by the fact that the giant raged for twelve winters before it was slain by Beowulf, but above all by the very interpretation of Grendel. This is not just a giant, - in his image, different hypostases of evil have combined (although, perhaps, they have not merged together). The monster of German mythology, Grendel, at the same time, is a creature placed outside of communication with people, an outcast, an outcast, an "enemy", and according to German beliefs, a person who stained himself with crimes that attracted expulsion from society seemed to lose his human appearance, became a werewolf , hater of people. The singing of the poet and the sounds of the harp coming from Heorot, where the king and his retinue feast, awaken rage in Grendel. But this is not enough - in the poem Grendel is called "a descendant of Cain." Old pagan beliefs are superimposed on Christian ideas. An ancient curse lies on Grendel, he is called a "pagan" and is condemned to hellish torments. And yet he himself is like the devil. The formation of the idea of a medieval devil at the time when Beowulf was being created was far from complete, and in Grendel's interpretation, which is not devoid of contradictions, we find an interesting intermediate moment in this evolution.
It is not accidental that pagan and Christian ideas are intertwined in this "multi-layered" understanding of the forces of evil. After all, the understanding of the rich man in Beowulf is no less peculiar. In the poem, which repeatedly mentions the "ruler of the world", "the mighty god", the Savior Christ is never named. In the minds of the author and his audience, apparently, there is no place for heaven in the theological sense, which so occupied the thoughts of medieval people. Old Testament components new religion, more understandable to recent pagans, prevail over the gospel teaching about the Son of God and the afterlife. But we read in "Beowulf" about a "hero under heaven", about a man who cares not about the salvation of his soul, but about establishing his earthly glory in human memory. The poem ends with the words: of all the earthly leaders, Beowulf was the most generous, merciful to his people and greedy for glory!
The thirst for glory, booty and princely awards - these are the highest values for the German hero, as they are depicted in the epic, these are the main springs of his behavior. “Every mortal will die! - // let whoever can live deserve // eternal glory! For a warrior // the best pay is a worthy memory! " (Article 1386 next). This is Beowulf's credo. When he has to deal a decisive blow to his opponent, he focuses on the thought of glory. "(So hand-to-hand // must go to the warrior, in order // to acquire the glory of the eternal, not caring about life!)" (Article 1534 next) "It is better for a warrior // to leave life than to live in shame!" (verses 2889 - 2890).
No less glory, the warriors coveted the gifts of the leader. Neck rings, bracelets, twisted or plate gold are constantly featured in the epic. The stable designation of the king is “breaking the hryvnia” (sometimes they didn’t give a whole ring, that was considerable wealth, but parts of it). The modern reader, perhaps, will be depressed and seem monotonous by all the renewed descriptions and lists of awards and treasures. But he can be sure: the stories about gifts did not tire the medieval audience at all and found a lively response in them. The guards expect gifts from the leader, first of all, as convincing signs of their valor and merit, so they demonstrate them and are proud of them. But in that era, a deeper, sacred meaning was also put into the act of the leader giving jewelry to a faithful person. As already mentioned, the pagan belief in destiny persisted during the creation of the poem. Fate was understood not as a general fate, but as an individual share of an individual person, his luck, happiness; some have more luck, others less. A mighty king, a glorious leader - the most "rich" in happiness people. Already at the beginning of the poem we find the following description of Hrothgar: "Hrothgar rose up in battles, lucky, // his relatives obeyed him without disputes ..." (Article 64 next). There was a belief that the leader's luck extended to the squad. Rewarding his warriors with weapons and precious objects - the materialization of his luck, the leader could give them a particle of this luck. "Owl, O Beowulf, to your delight // Strong warrior with our gifts - // ring and wrists, and may luck accompany you!" - says the queen of the Walchtes to Beowulf. (Art. 1216 next)
But the motive of gold as a visible, tangible embodiment of the warrior's luck in "Beowulf" is supplanted, obviously under Christian influence, by its new interpretation - as a source of misfortune. In this regard, of particular interest is the last part of the poem - the combat between the hero and the dragon. In revenge for the theft of the treasure from the treasure, the dragon, which guarded these ancient treasures, attacks the villages, setting the surrounding country to fire and death. Beowulf enters into a fight with the dragon, but it is not difficult to make sure that the author of the poem does not see the reasons that prompted the hero to this feat in the atrocities committed by the monster. Beowulf's goal is to take the treasure from the dragon. The dragon sat on the treasure for three centuries, but even before these values belonged to people, and Beowulf wants to return them to the human race. Having killed a terrible enemy and himself received a fatal wound, the hero expresses his dying desire: to see the gold that he tore out from the claws of his guard. Contemplation of these riches gives him deep satisfaction. However, then something happens that directly contradicts the words of Beowulf that he conquered the treasure for his people, namely: on the funeral pyre, along with the body of the king, his companions lay all these treasures and burn them, and the remains are buried in a mound. An ancient spell weighed over the treasure, and it is useless to people; because of this spell, broken out of ignorance, Beowulf, apparently, dies. The poem ends with a prediction of the calamities that will befall the Gouts after the death of their king.
The struggle for glory and jewels, loyalty to the leader, bloody revenge as an imperative of behavior, human dependence on the fate of the world and a courageous meeting with her, the tragic death of the hero - all these are defining themes not only of Beowulf, but also of other monuments of the German epic.
Elder Edda
Songs about gods and heroes, conventionally united by the name "Elder Edda" (The name "Edda" was given in the 17th century by the first researcher of the manuscript, who transferred to it the title of the book of the Icelandic poet and historian of the 13th century Snorri Sturluson, since Snorri relied on That is why Snorri's treatise is usually called “The Younger Edda”, and the collection of mythological and heroic songs “The Elder Edda.” The etymology of the word “Edda” is unclear.), preserved in the manuscript, which dates back to the second half of the 13th century. It is not known if this manuscript was the first, or if it had any predecessors. The prehistory of the manuscript is as unknown as the prehistory of the Beowulf manuscript. There are, in addition, some other recordings of songs that are also classified as Eddic. The history of the songs themselves is also unknown, and various points of view and contradicting one another theory have been put forward on this score. The dating range of songs often reaches several centuries. Not all songs originated in Iceland: among them there are songs that go back to South Germanic prototypes; in the Edda there are motives and characters familiar from the Anglo-Saxon epic; much was apparently brought from other Scandinavian countries. Without dwelling on countless controversies about the origin of the "Elder Edda", we only note that in the most general form, development in science proceeded from romantic ideas about the extreme antiquity and archaic nature of songs expressing the "spirit of the people" to their interpretation as books of medieval scholars - "antique dealers" who imitated ancient poetry and stylized their religious and philosophical views under the myth.
One thing is clear: songs about gods and heroes were popular in Iceland in the 13th century. It can be assumed that at least some of them arose much earlier, even in the unwritten period. Unlike the songs of the Icelandic skald poets, for almost all of whom we know the author, Eddic songs are anonymous. Myths about gods, stories about Helga, Sigurda, Brunhild, Atli, Gudrun were public property, and the person who retold or recorded the song, even recreating it, did not consider himself its author. Before us is the epic, but the epic is very peculiar. This peculiarity can not but strike the eye when reading the "Elder Edda" after "Beowulf". Instead of a lengthy, unhurriedly flowing epic, here we have a dynamic and concise song, which in few words or stanzas expounds the fate of heroes or gods, their speeches and deeds. Experts explain this compression of Eddic songs, unusual for the epic style, by the specificity of the Icelandic language. But one more circumstance cannot be ignored. A wide epic canvas like "Beowulf" or "Songs of the Nibelungs" contains several plots, many scenes combined common heroes and temporal sequence, whereas the songs of the "Elder Edda" usually (though not always) focus on one episode. True, their great "fragmentaryness" does not prevent the presence in the lyrics of the songs of various associations with plots that are developed in other songs, as a result of which the isolated reading of a single song makes it difficult to understand it - of course, understanding modern reader, for the medieval Icelanders, no doubt, knew the rest. This is evidenced not only by the hints of events scattered in the songs that are not described in them, but also by the kennings. If to understand Kenning like “land of necklaces” (woman) or “serpent of blood” (sword), just a habit was enough, then such kennings as, for example, “guard of Midgard”, “son of Ygg”, “son of Odin”, “descendant Khlodun ”,“ husband of Siv ”,“ father of Magni ”or“ master of the goats ”,“ killer of the serpent ”,“ charioteer ”, suggested that readers or listeners knowledge of myths, from which it was only possible to learn that in all cases the god Thor was meant ...
Songs about gods and heroes in Iceland did not "swell" into extensive epics, as was the case in many other cases (In "Beowulf" 3182 verses, in "Song of the Nibelungs" three times more (2379 stanzas, four verses in each), then as in the longest of the Eddic songs, Speeches of the High, there are only 164 stanzas (the number of verses in stanzas fluctuates), and no other song, except for Atli's Greenlandic Speeches, exceeds a hundred stanzas.). Of course, the length of the poem itself says little, but the contrast is nevertheless striking. This does not mean that the Eddic song was in all cases limited to the development of one episode. The Divination of the Volva preserved the mythological history of the world from its creation to the death predicted by the witch as a result of the evil that penetrated into it, and even to the revival and renewal of the world. A number of these plots are touched upon in both Vafthrudnir's Speeches and Grimnir's Speeches. Epic coverage characterizes the "Prophecy of Gripir", which summarizes the whole cycle of songs about Sigurd. But the broadest pictures of mythology or heroic life in the "Elder Edda" are always given very succinctly and even, if you like, "concisely." This "conciseness" is especially visible in the so-called "tuls" - lists of mythological (and sometimes historical) names (see "Divination of the Volva", pp. 11-13, 15, 16, "Grimnir's Speeches", v. 27 trail. , "Song of Hyundl", p. 11 next). The current reader is baffled by the abundance of proper names given, moreover, without further explanation - they do not tell him anything. But for the Scandinavian of that time, this was not the case at all! Each name in his memory was associated with a certain episode of a myth or heroic epic, and this name served him as a sign, which was usually easy to decipher. To understand this or that name, a specialist is forced to turn to reference books, while the memory of a medieval Icelander, more capacious and active than ours, due to the fact that we had to rely only on it, without difficulty gave him the necessary information, and when he met this name in his consciousness unfolded the entire story related to him. In other words, in a succinct and relatively laconic Eddic song, much more content is "encoded" than it might seem to the uninitiated.
The circumstances noted are that some features of the songs of the "Elder Edda" for modern taste seem strange and devoid of aesthetic value (for what an artistic pleasure one can get now from reading who knows whose names!) an epic, like the works of the Anglo-Saxon and German epics, testify to their archaism. In the songs, folklore formulas, clichés and other stylistic devices characteristic of oral versification are widely used. The typological comparison of the "Elder Edda" with other monuments of the epic also forces us to attribute its genesis to very distant times, in many cases to earlier than the beginning of the settlement of Iceland by the Scandinavians in the late 9th - early 10th centuries. Although the extant manuscript of the Edda is a younger contemporary of the Song of the Nibelungs, Eddic poetry reflects an earlier stage of cultural and social development. This is explained by the fact that in Iceland and in the 13th century pre-class relations were not eliminated, and despite the adoption of Christianity as early as 1000, the Icelanders assimilated it relatively superficially and retained a lively connection with the ideology of the pagan era. In the "Elder Edda" you can find traces of Christian influence, but in general its spirit and content are very far from it. It is rather the spirit of the warlike Vikings, and, probably, to the Viking era, the period of the extensive military and resettlement expansion of the Scandinavians (IX-XI centuries) , a considerable part of the Eddic poetic heritage goes back. The heroes of the Edda songs are not concerned with saving their souls, the posthumous reward is a long memory left by the hero among the people, and the stay of the knights who fell in battle in Odin's palace, where they feast and are busy with military amusements.
Attention is drawn to the diversity of songs, tragic and comic, elegiac monologues and dramatized dialogues, teachings are replaced by riddles, divination - by stories about the beginning of the world. The intense rhetoric and frank didacticity of many of the songs contrast with the calm objectivity of the narrative prose of the Icelandic sagas. This contrast is noticeable in the Edda itself, where verses are often interspersed with prose pieces. Perhaps there were comments added later, but it is possible that the combination of a poetic text with prose formed an organic whole even at the archaic stage of the epic's existence, giving it additional tension.
Eddic songs do not form a coherent unity, and it is clear that only a fraction of them have come down to us. Individual songs seem to be versions of the same piece; so, in the songs about Helga, about Atli, Sigurd and Gudrun, the same plot is interpreted in different ways. Atli's Speeches are sometimes interpreted as a later expanded reworking of the older Song of Atli.
In general, all Eddic songs are subdivided into songs about gods and songs about heroes. Songs about the gods contain the richest material on mythology, this is our most important source for the knowledge of Scandinavian paganism (albeit in a very late, so to speak, "posthumous" version of it).
The image of the world, developed by the thought of the peoples of Northern Europe, largely depended on their way of life. Cattle breeders, hunters, fishermen and sailors, to a lesser extent farmers, they lived surrounded by a harsh and poorly mastered nature, which their rich imagination easily inhabited by hostile forces. The center of their life is a detached rural courtyard. Accordingly, the entire universe was modeled by them in the form of a system of estates. Just as uncultivated wastelands or rocks stretched around their estates, so they thought of the whole world as consisting of sharply opposed spheres: "the middle manor" (Midgard (emphasis on the first syllable)), that is, the human world, surrounded by a world of monsters , giants, constantly threatening the world of culture; this wild world of chaos was called Utgard (literally: "what is behind the fence, outside the estate") (Utgard includes the Country of giants - Jotuns, the Country of Alves - dwarfs.). Asgard rises above Midgard - the stronghold of the gods - ases. Asgard is connected to Midgard by a rainbow bridge. The world serpent swims in the sea, its body encircles the whole of Midgard. In the mythological topography of the peoples of the North, the ash Yggdrasil occupies an important place, connecting all these worlds, including the lower one - the kingdom of the dead Hel.
Dramatic situations depicted in songs about the gods usually arise as a result of collisions or contacts, into which different worlds enter, opposed to one another either vertically or horizontally. Odin visits the realm of the dead - in order to force the Völva to reveal the secrets of the future, and the land of giants, where he asks Vafthrudnir. Other gods also go to the world of giants (to get a bride or Thor's hammer). However, the songs do not mention the visits of ases or giants to Midgard. The opposition of the world of culture to the world of non-culture is common for both Eddic songs and Beowulf; as we know, in the Anglo-Saxon epic the land of people is also called the "middle world". With all the differences between monuments and plots, here and there we are faced with the theme of the struggle against the carriers of world evil - giants and monsters.
As Asgard is an idealized dwelling of people, so the gods of the Scandinavians are in many ways similar to people, possess their qualities, including vices. The gods differ from people in dexterity, knowledge, in particular - in the possession of magic, but they are not omniscient by nature and obtain knowledge from more ancient families of giants and dwarfs. The giants are the main enemies of the gods, and the gods are waging an incessant war with them. The head and leader of the gods One and other ases try to outwit the giants, while Thor fights them with the help of his hammer Mjöllnir. The fight against giants is a necessary condition for the existence of the universe; if the gods had not led her, the giants would have ruined both themselves and the human race long ago. In this conflict, gods and people become allies. The Torah was often called "the protector of the people." Odin helps the brave warriors and takes the fallen heroes to him. He got the honey of poetry, sacrificing himself, got runes - sacred secret signs with which you can create all kinds of witchcraft. Odin shows the features of a “cultural hero” - a mythical ancestor who endowed people with the necessary skills and knowledge.
The anthropomorphism of the ases brings them closer to the gods of antiquity, however, unlike the latter, the ases are not immortal. In the coming space catastrophe, they, along with the whole world, will perish in the fight against the world wolf. This gives their struggle against monsters a tragic meaning. Just as the hero of the epic knows his fate and boldly meets the inevitable, so do the gods: in the Divination of the Völva, the sorceress tells Odin about the impending fatal battle. A cosmic catastrophe will be the result of moral decline, for the Aesir once broke their vows, and this leads to the unleashing of the forces of evil in the world, with which it is no longer possible to cope. The Völva paints an impressive picture of the severing of all sacred ties: see verse 45 of her prophecies, where the worst thing that can happen to a person is predicted, in the opinion of members of a society in which clan traditions are still strong - feuds will flare up between relatives, “brothers will begin to fight friend with a friend...".
The Hellenic gods had among the people their favorites and wards, whom they helped in every way. The main thing among the Scandinavians is not the patronage of the deity to a separate tribe or individual, but the consciousness of the community of the fate of the gods and people in their conflict with the forces that bring decline and final death to all living things. Therefore, instead of a bright and joyful picture of Hellenic mythology, Eddic songs about the gods paint a tragic situation of a universal world movement towards an inexorable fate.
The hero in the face of Destiny is the central theme of heroic songs. Usually the hero is aware of his fate: either he is gifted with the ability to penetrate into the future, or someone has opened it to him. What should be the position of a person who knows in advance about the troubles threatening him and final death? This is the problem to which edical songs offer an unambiguous and courageous answer. Knowledge of fate does not plunge the hero into fatalistic apathy and does not induce him to try to evade the death that threatens him; on the contrary, being sure that what fell into his lot is inevitable, he challenges fate, boldly accepts it, caring only about posthumous glory. Invited by the insidious Atli Gunnar, he knows in advance about the danger that lies in wait for him, but without hesitation he sets off on his way: this is what the feeling of heroic honor tells him. Refusing to buy off death with gold, he perishes. "... So should the brave one who gives rings // protect the good!" (The Greenlandic Song of Utley, 31).
But the highest good is the hero's good name. Everything is transient, say the aphorisms of worldly wisdom, and relatives, and wealth, and your own life, - only the glory of the hero's exploits remains forever ("Spee Vysokogo", 76, 77). As in Beowulf, in Eddic songs fame is denoted by a term that simultaneously had the meaning of "judgment" (Old Norse domr, Old English dom) - the hero is concerned that his exploits are not forgotten by people. For he is judged by people, and not by any supreme authority. The heroic songs of the Edda, despite the fact that they existed in the Christian era, do not mention the judgment of God, everything is happening on earth, and the attention of the hero is riveted to it.
Unlike the characters of the Anglo-Saxon epic - the leaders who lead the kingdoms or squads, the Scandinavian heroes act alone. There is no historical background (The Song of Chloda, which contains echoes of some historical events, seems to be an exception.), And the kings of the Great Migration era mentioned in the Edda [Atli - the Hun king Attila, Jormunrekk - the Ostrogothic king Germanarich (Ermanarich), Gunnar - the Burgundian king Gundakhariy] have lost all connection with history. Meanwhile, the Icelanders of that time were keenly interested in history, and from the 12th and 13th centuries, many historical works created by them have survived. The point, therefore, is not in their lack of historical consciousness, but in the peculiarities of the interpretation of the material in Icelandic heroic songs. The author of the song focuses all his attention exclusively on the hero, on his position in life and fate (In Iceland, during the period when heroic songs were recorded, there was no state; meanwhile, historical motifs intensively penetrate the epic, usually under conditions of state consolidation.).
Another difference between the Eddic epic and the Anglo-Saxon one is the higher appreciation of the woman and the interest in her. In "Beowulf" queens appear, serving as an adornment of the court and a guarantee of peace and friendship between tribes, but that's all. What a striking contrast to this the heroines of Icelandic songs! Before us are bright, strong natures, capable of the most extreme, decisive actions that determine the entire course of events. The role of women in the heroic songs of "Edda" is no less than that of men. Taking revenge for the deception into which she was introduced, Brunhild achieves the death of her beloved Sigurd and mortifies himself, not wanting to live after his death: "... the wife was not weak, if alive // goes to the grave after a stranger's husband ..." ("The Brief Song of Sigurd", 41). Sigurd's widow Gudrun is also seized with a thirst for revenge: but she takes revenge not on the brothers who were responsible for the death of Sigurd, but on her second husband, Atli, who killed her brothers; in this case, the family debt acts flawlessly, and the victims of her revenge are primarily their sons, whose bloody meat Gudrun serves to Atli as a treat, after which she mortifies her husband and dies herself in the fire she has set on. These monstrous actions nevertheless have a certain logic: they do not mean that Gudrun was deprived of a sense of motherhood. But her children from Atli were not members of her clan, they belonged to the clan of Atli; did not belong to her family and Sigurd. Therefore, Gudrun must avenge Atli for the death of her brothers, her closest relatives, but she does not avenge her brothers for their murder of Sigurd - even the thought of such a possibility does not occur to her! Let us remember this - after all, the plot of the Song of the Nibelungs goes back to the same legends, but develops in a completely different way.
Generic consciousness generally dominates in songs about heroes. The rapprochement of legends of different origins, both borrowed from the south and proper Scandinavian, their unification into cycles was accompanied by the establishment of a common genealogy of the characters appearing in them. Hogni from a vassal of the Burgundian kings was turned into their brother. Brunhild received a father and, more importantly, a brother of Atli, as a result of which her death was causally connected with the death of the Burgundian Gyukungs: Atli lured them to him and killed them, carrying out a blood feud for his sister. Sigurd had ancestors - the Völsungi, a clan dating back to Odin. Sigurd also became "related" with the hero of the initially completely separate legend - Helga, they became brothers, sons of Sigmund. In the "Song of Hyundl", the focus is on the lists of noble families, and the giantess Hyundl, who tells the young Ottar about his ancestors, reveals to him that he is related to all the famous families of the North, including the Völsungs, Gyukungs and ultimately even with the aces themselves.
The artistic, cultural and historical significance of the "Elder Edda" is enormous. She occupies one of the places of honor in world literature. The images of Eddic songs, along with the images of the sagas, supported the Icelanders throughout their difficult history, especially during the period when this small people, deprived of national independence, was almost doomed to extinction as a result of foreign exploitation, and from hunger and epidemics. The memory of the heroic and legendary past gave the Icelanders the strength to hold out and not die.
Song of the Nibelungs
In "Song of the Nibelungs" we again meet with heroes known from Eddic poetry: Siegfried (Sigurd), Krimhilda (Gudrun), Brunhilda (Brunhild), Gunther (Gunnar), Etzel (Utle), Hagen (Högni). Their actions and destinies have dominated the imaginations of both the Scandinavians and the Germans for centuries. But how different the interpretation of the same characters and plots is! Comparison of Icelandic songs with the German epic shows what great opportunities for original poetic interpretation existed within the framework of one epic tradition. The “historical core” to which this tradition originated, the death of the Burgundian kingdom in 437 and the death of the Hunnic king Attila in 453, gave rise to highly original artistic creations. On Icelandic and German soil, works were formed that were deeply dissimilar both in artistic terms and in assessing and understanding the reality they portrayed.
Researchers separate the elements of myth and fairy tale from historical facts and true sketches of morality and everyday life, discover in the "Song of the Nibelungs" old and new layers and contradictions between them, not smoothed out in the final version of the song. But were all these "seams", incongruities and layers noticeable to people of that time? We have already had to express doubt that “poetry” and “truth” were as clearly opposed in the Middle Ages as in modern times. Despite the fact that the true events of the history of the Burgundians or Huns are distorted beyond recognition in the "Song of the Nibelungs", it can be assumed that the author and his readers perceived the song as a historical narration, truthfully, due to its artistic persuasiveness, depicting the affairs of past centuries.
Each era explains history in its own way, proceeding from its inherent understanding of social causality. How does the Song of the Nibelungs portray the past of peoples and kingdoms? The historical destinies of states are embodied in the history of the ruling houses. The Burgundians are, in fact, Gunther with his brothers, and the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom consists in the extermination of its rulers and their troops. Likewise, the Hunnic empire is entirely concentrated in Etzel. The poetic consciousness of the Middle Ages paints historical collisions in the form of a clash of individuals, whose behavior is determined by their passions, relationships of personal loyalty or blood feud, the code of family and personal honor. But at the same time, the epic raises the individual to the rank of historical. In order for this to become clear, it is enough to outline, in the most general outline, plot "Songs of the Nibelungs".
At the court of the Burgundian kings, the famous hero Siegfried of the Netherlands appears and falls in love with their sister Kriemhild. King Gunther himself wants to marry the Icelandic queen Brunhilda. Siegfried undertakes to help him in the matchmaking. But this help is connected with deception: the heroic deed, the fulfillment of which is a condition for the success of matchmaking, was actually not done by Gunther, but by Siegfried, hiding under an invisibility cloak. Brunhilda could not help but notice the valor of Siegfried, but she is assured that he is only a vassal of Gunther, and she grieves because of the misalliance, which her husband's sister entered, thereby infringing upon her class pride. Years later, at the insistence of Brunhilda, Gunther invites Siegfried and Kriemhilda to his place in Worms, and here, during a skirmish between queens (whose husband is more valiant?), The deception is revealed. The offended Brunhilda takes revenge on the offender Siegfried, who had the imprudence to give his wife the ring and belt that he had taken from Brunhilda. Revenge is carried out by Gunther's vassal Hagen. The hero is treacherously killed on a hunt, and the golden treasure, once captured by Siegfried from the fabulous Nibelungs, the kings manage to lure from Kriemhilda, and Hagen hides it in the waters of the Rhine. Thirteen years have passed. Hunnic ruler Etzel is widowed and is looking for a new wife. A rumor has reached his court about the beauty of Kriemhilda, and he sends an embassy to Worms. After a long resistance, Siegfried's inconsolable widow agrees to a second marriage in order to obtain funds to avenge the murder of her beloved. Thirteen years later, she gets Etzel to invite her brothers to visit them. Despite Hagen's attempts to prevent a visit that threatens to become fatal, the Burgundians with a retinue leave from the Rhine to the Danube. (In this part of the song, the Burgundians are called Nibelungs.) Almost immediately after their arrival, a quarrel breaks out, growing into a general massacre, in which the Burgundian and Hunnic squads, the son of Krimhilda and Etzel, the closest confidants of the kings and the brothers of Gunnar perish. At last Gunnar and Hagen are in the hands of the queen, overwhelmed with a thirst for revenge; she orders her brother to be beheaded, after which she kills Hagen with her own hands. Old Hildebrand, the only surviving warrior of King Dietrich of Berne, punishes Kriemhild. Etzel and Dietrich, crying with grief, survive. This is how the story of the death of the Nibelungs ends.
In a few phrases, you can only retell the bare bones of the plot of a huge poem. An epic, unhurried narrative depicts in detail the court leisure and knightly tournaments, feasts and wars, scenes of matchmaking and hunting, travels to distant countries and all other aspects of the magnificent and sophisticated courtly life. The poet literally with sensual joy narrates about the rich weapons and precious garments, gifts that the rulers reward the knights with and the hosts present to the guests. All these static images, undoubtedly, were of no less interest to the medieval audience than the dramatic events themselves. The battles are also outlined in great detail, and although they involve large masses of warriors, the duels in which the main characters enter are given "close-ups." The songs constantly anticipate a tragic outcome. Often such predictions fatal fate pop up in pictures of well-being and festivities - the awareness of the contrast between the present and the future gave the reader a feeling of intense expectation, despite his knowing the plot, and cemented the epic as an artistic whole. The characters are outlined with exceptional clarity, they cannot be confused with each other. Of course, the hero of an epic work is not a character in the modern sense, not the owner of unique properties, a special individual psychology. An epic hero is a type, the embodiment of qualities that were recognized in that era as the most significant or exemplary. "The Song of the Nibelungs" arose in a society significantly different from Icelandic "rule of the people", and underwent final processing at a time when feudal relations in Germany, reaching their heyday, revealed their inherent contradictions, in particular the contradictions between the aristocratic elite and petty chivalry. The song expresses the ideals of feudal society: the ideal of vassal loyalty to the lord and knightly service to the lady, the ideal of the sovereign who cares for the welfare of his subjects and generously rewards the Lenniks.
However, the German heroic epic is not content with demonstrating these ideals. His heroes, in contrast to the heroes of the chivalric novel that arose in France and just at that time adopted in Germany, do not pass safely from one adventure to another; they find themselves in situations in which adherence to the code of knightly honor brings them to death. Glitter and joy go hand in hand with suffering and death. This awareness of the proximity of such opposite principles, inherent in the heroic songs of the Edda, forms the leitmotif of Songs of the Nibelungs, in the very first stanza of which the theme is indicated: "feasts, amusements, misfortunes and grief", as well as "bloody feuds." All joy ends in grief - this thought permeates the entire epic. The moral precepts of behavior, obligatory for a noble warrior, are tested in songs, and not all of her characters withstand the test with honor.
In this respect, the figures of kings, courteous and generous, but at the same time constantly showing their inconsistency, are indicative. Gunther seizes Brunhilda only with the help of Siegfried, in comparison with whom he loses both as a man, as a warrior, and as a man of honor. The scene in the royal bedchamber, when an angry Brunhilda, instead of surrendering to the groom, ties him up and hangs him on a nail, naturally caused laughter from the audience. In many situations, the Burgundian king shows treachery and cowardice. Courage awakens in Gunther only at the end of the poem. And Etzel? At a critical moment, his virtues turn into indecision, bordering on complete paralysis of will. From the hall where his people are being killed and where Hagen has just hacked his son, Dietrich saves the Hunnic king; Etzel reaches the point that on his knees begs his vassal for help! He remains in a daze until the end, able only to mourn the innumerable sacrifices. Among the kings, the exception is Dietrich of Berne, who tries to play the role of a conciliator of warring cliques, but without success. He is the only one, besides Etzel, remains alive, and some researchers see in this a glimpse of hope left by the poet after he painted a picture of general death; but Dietrich, an example of "courtly humanity," remains a lonely exile who has lost all his friends and vassals.
The heroic epic existed in Germany at the courts of large feudal lords. But the poets who created it, relying on Germanic heroic legends, apparently belonged to the petty chivalry (It is possible, however, that the "Song of the Nibelungs" was written by a clergyman. See notes.). This, in particular, explains their passion for praising princely generosity and for describing gifts unrestrainedly lavished by the lords to vassals, friends and guests. Is it not for this reason that the behavior of a loyal vassal in the epic turns out to be closer to the ideal than the behavior of the sovereign, who is increasingly turning into a static figure? Such is the Margrave Rüdeger, faced with a dilemma: to take the side of friends or in defense of the lord, and fell a victim of fierce loyalty to Etzel. The symbol of his tragedy, very intelligible for a medieval person, was that the margrave died from the sword he himself had given him, giving before that to Hagen, a former friend, and now an enemy, his battle shield. In Rüdeger, the ideal qualities of a knight, vassal and friend are embodied, but when faced with the harsh reality of their owner, a tragic fate awaits. The conflict between the requirements of vassal ethics, which does not take into account the personal inclinations and feelings of the parties to the fief of the contract, and the moral principles of friendship is revealed in this episode with greater depth than anywhere else in medieval Germanic poetry.
Hogni doesn't play in Elder Edda starring... In Song of the Nibelungs, Hagen grows into the foreground. His feud with Kriemhild is the driving force behind the entire narrative. The gloomy, ruthless, calculating Hagen does not hesitate to murder Siegfried treacherously, slays the innocent son of Kriemhilda with the sword, makes every effort to drown the chaplain in the Rhine. At the same time, Hagen is a mighty, invincible and fearless warrior. Of all the Burgundians, he is the only one who clearly understands the meaning of the invitation to Etzel: Krimhilda did not abandon the thought of avenging Siegfried and considers him, Hagen, to be her main enemy. Nevertheless, vigorously dissuading the Worms kings from traveling to the Hunnic state, he ends the dispute as soon as one of them reproaches him for cowardice. Once decided, he shows maximum energy in the implementation of the adopted plan. Before crossing the Rhine, the prophetic wives reveal to Hagen that none of the Burgundians will return alive from Etzel's country. But, knowing the fate to which they are doomed, Hagen destroys the canoe - the only way to cross the river so that no one can retreat. In Hagen, perhaps more than in the other heroes of the song, the old Germanic belief in Destiny is alive and well, which must be actively embraced. He not only does not shy away from a collision with Krimhild, but deliberately provokes him. That there is only one scene when Hagen and his companion Spielman Volker are sitting on a bench and Hagen refuses to stand in front of the approaching queen, demonstratively playing with the sword that he once removed from Siegfried, who was killed by him.
As gloomy as many of Hagen's actions seem, the song does not pass him a moral judgment. This is probably explained as author's position(retelling the "tales of bygone days" the author refrains from active intervention in the narrative and from evaluations), and the fact that Hagen was hardly an unambiguous figure. He is a loyal vassal who serves his kings to the end. In contrast to Ruedeger and other knights, Hagen is devoid of any courtesy. It has more of an old Germanic hero than a refined knight familiar with the sophisticated mannerisms adopted from France. We do not know anything about any of his marriage and love affections. Meanwhile, serving a lady is an integral part of courtesy. Hagen, as it were, personifies the past - heroic, but already overcome by a new, more complex culture.
In general, the difference between the old and the new is realized in the "Song of the Nibelungs" more clearly than in the German poetry of the early Middle Ages. Fragments of earlier works that seem to some researchers to be "undigested" in the context of the German epic (themes of Siegfried's struggle with the dragon, his conquest of the treasure from the Nibelungs, single combat with Brunhild, prophetic sisters predicting the death of the Burgundians, etc.), regardless of the conscious intention of the author , perform a certain function in it: they impart archaicity to the narrative, which makes it possible to establish a temporary distance between modernity and bygone days. Probably, other scenes, marked with the stamp of logical inconsistency, also served this purpose: the crossing of a huge army in one boat, with which Hagen managed in a day, or the battle of hundreds and thousands of soldiers taking place in Etzel's banquet hall, or the two heroes successfully repelled the attack of a whole horde of Huns. ... In an epic that tells about the past, such things are permissible, for in the old days the miraculous was possible. Time brought great changes, as the poet says, and this also reveals the medieval sense of history.
Of course, this sense of history is quite peculiar. Time does not flow in an epic as a continuous stream - it goes as it were in jerks. Life is at rest rather than moving. Despite the fact that the song covers a time span of almost forty years, the heroes do not age. But this state of peace is disturbed by the actions of the heroes, and then a meaningful time comes. At the end of the action, the time "turns off". "Jump" is inherent in the characters of the heroes. In the beginning, Kriemhild is a meek girl, then - a grief-stricken widow, in the second half of the song - a "devil" seized with a thirst for revenge. These changes are outwardly conditioned by events, but there is no psychological motivation for such a sharp change in Krimhilda's state of mind in the song. Medieval people did not imagine the development of personality. Human types play roles in the epic that are given to them by fate and the situation in which they are placed.
"The Song of the Nibelungs" was the result of processing the material of Germanic heroic songs and legends into a wide-scale epic. This processing was accompanied by gains and losses. Acquisitions - for the nameless author of the epic made the ancient legends sound in a new way and was able to unusually clearly and colorfully (Colorfully in the literal sense of the word: the author willingly and tastefully gives the color characteristics of the clothes, jewelry and weapons of the heroes. Contrasts and combinations of red, gold, white colors his descriptions vividly resemble a medieval book miniature, and the poet himself seems to have it before his eyes (see stanza 286). It took an outstanding talent and great art in order for the songs, dating back more than one century, to regain relevance and artistic power for the people of the 13th century, who had in many ways completely different tastes and interests. Losses - for the transition from the lofty heroism and pathos of an inexorable struggle with Fate, inherent in the early Germanic epic, up to the “will to death” that possessed the hero of ancient songs, to greater elegism and the glorification of suffering, to lamenting sorrows that invariably accompany human joys, the transition, of course, incomplete, but nevertheless quite clear, was accompanied by the loss of the epic hero of its former integrity and solidity, as well as the well-known fragmentation of the theme due to a compromise between the pagan and Christian-knightly traditions; The "swelling" of old lapidary songs into a verbose epic replete with inserted episodes led to some weakening of the dynamism and tension of the presentation. The Song of the Nibelungs was born out of the needs of a new ethics and new aesthetics, which in many respects departed from the canons of the archaic epic of the barbarian era. The forms in which ideas about human honor and dignity are expressed here, about the methods of their approval, belong to the feudal era. But the intensity of the passions that overwhelmed the heroes of the epic, the acute conflicts in which fate confronts them, and to this day cannot but captivate and shock the reader.
Bibliography
For the preparation of this work were used materials from the site Izbakurnog.historic.ru/
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