Genre

In the words of Karamzin himself, the story "Poor Liza" is "a rather uncomplicated fairy tale." Russian literature of the 18th century multi-volume classic novels were widely used. Karamzin was the first to introduce the genre of a short novel - a "sensitive story", which enjoyed particular success among his contemporaries. The role of the narrator in the story "Poor Liza" belongs to the author. The small volume makes the plot of the story clearer and more dynamic. Karamzin's name is inextricably linked with the concept of "Russian sentimentalism".

Main heroes

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

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

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

The character of Erast is much different from the character of Lisa. Erast is described more in line with the social environment that brought him up than Lisa. This is a “rather rich nobleman”, an officer who led a dispersed life, thought only of his own pleasure, looked for him in secular amusements, but often did not find him, was bored and complained about his fate. Endowed with a "fair mind and a kind heart", being "kind by nature, but weak and windy", Erast represented new type hero in Russian literature. In it, for the first time, the type of a disappointed Russian aristocrat is outlined.

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

Before Karamzin, the plot automatically determined the type of hero. In "Poor Liza" the image of Erast is significantly harder than that literary type to which the character belongs.

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

Erast begins a long series of heroes in Russian literature, the main feature of which is weakness and inability to live, and for whom the label of “an extra person” has long been entrenched in literary criticism.

The popularity of the story "Poor Liza", which we will analyze, was so great that the vicinity of the Simonov Monastery (it is there that the tragic events described in the work take place) became a place of a kind of "pilgrimage", admirers of Karamzin's talent thus expressed their attitude towards the fate of the heroine they loved .

The plot of the story "Poor Liza" can be safely called traditional: a poor peasant girl is cruelly deceived by a rich and noble man, she cannot stand the betrayal and passes away. As you can see, nothing particularly new is offered to the reader, but Karamzin introduces a genuine human interest in the characters into this hackneyed plot, he describes their history in a confidential, intimate manner, he is attracted to the world of the characters’ emotional experiences, in contact with which he himself experiences deep and sincere feelings that find expression in numerous lyrical digressions that characterize both the characters, and, first of all, the author himself, his humanistic position, readiness to understand each of the characters.

The image of Lisa became a very major artistic discovery for its time, Karamzin's main idea sounded not even polemically, but defiantly: "... and peasant women know how to love!". Pay attention to the exclamation mark, the author insists on his own, ready with the story of "poor Liza " to prove this statement, which at first could only cause a smile in the majority of "enlightened readers" at best.

The image of Liza in the story "Poor Liza" was created in line with the opposition of rural life, close to nature, pure and chaste, where the value of a person is determined only by his human qualities, and urban, conditional and in this conventionality spoiled, spoiling a person, forcing him to adapt to circumstances and lose face in favor of "decencies", the observance of which is - in human terms - very expensive.

In the image of the heroine, Karamzin highlights such a feature as selflessness. She "tirelessly" works to help her mother, who called her "God's mercy, nurse, the joy of her old age and prayed to God to reward her for everything she does for her mother." Suffering from grief caused by the death of her father, she "tried to calm her mother to hide the sadness of her heart and seem calm and cheerful." The human dignity of a girl is manifested in the fact that she proudly and calmly carries her cross, she cannot take the money she has not earned, she sincerely and naively believes that she is unworthy of being the chosen one of the “master”, although she feels great love for him. The scene of the heroes' declaration of love is permeated with poetry, in it, along with conventions, one feels a genuine feeling, poetically embodied in the spiritual experiences of the heroes, who are in tune with the pictures of nature - the morning after the declaration of love, Liza calls "beautiful". The images of "shepherdess" and "shepherdess" most fully convey the spiritual purity of the characters, the chastity of their relationship to each other. For some time, the spiritual purity of the heroine transformed Erast: “All the brilliant amusements of the big world seemed to him insignificant in comparison with the pleasures that the passionate friendship of an innocent soul fed his heart.

The idyllic relationship between the "shepherdess" and the "shepherdess" continued until Lisa informed her lover about the marriage of a rich son to her, after which they, distraught with fear of losing each other, crossed the line separating "platonic love" from sensual, and at In this case, Liza turns out to be incomparably higher than Erast, she completely surrenders to a new feeling for herself, while he tries to comprehend what happened, to look at his beloved girl in a new way. A remarkable detail: after her "fall" Lisa is afraid that "the thunder will not kill me as a criminal!" What happened fatally affected Erast's attitude towards Lisa: "Platonic love gave way to such feelings that he could not be proud of and which were no longer new to him." This is what caused his deception: he was fed up with Lisa, her pure love, in addition, he needed to improve his material affairs with a profitable marriage. His attempt to buy off Lisa is described by the author with amazing force, and the words with which he actually expels Lisa from his life speak of his true attitude towards her: "Show this girl out of the yard," he orders the servant.

Liza's suicide is shown by Karamzin as the decision of a man for whom life is over primarily because he was betrayed, he is not able to live after such a betrayal - and makes a terrible choice. Terrible for Lisa also because she is pious, she sincerely believes in God, and suicide for her is a terrible sin. But her last words about God and her mother, she feels guilty before them, although she is no longer able to change anything, a too terrible life awaits her after she learned about the betrayal of a person whom she believed more than herself. ..

The image of Erast in the story "Poor Lisa" is shown by the author as a complex and contradictory image. He truly loves Lisa, he tries to make her happy and he succeeds, he enjoys his feeling for her, those new sensations for himself that are caused by this feeling. However, he still cannot overcome in himself what, probably, could be called the influence of light, secular conventions are swept aside to some extent, but then he again finds himself in their power. Is it possible to condemn him for his cooling towards Lisa? Could the heroes be happy together if this cooling had not happened? An innovation in the creation of an artistic image by Karamzin can be considered the image of the mental suffering of Erast, who kicks Lisa out of his new life: here the “villainous act” of the hero is experienced by him so deeply that the author cannot condemn him for this act: “I forget the person in Erast - ready to curse him - but my tongue does not move - I look at the sky, and a tear rolls down my face. And the ending of the story gives us the opportunity to see that the hero suffers from what he did: "Erast was unhappy until the end of his life. Having learned about the fate of Lizina, he could not be comforted and considered himself a murderer."

Sentimentalism is characterized by a certain "sensitivity", which distinguishes the author of the story. To a modern reader, such deep experiences may seem strange, but for Karamzin’s time it was a genuine revelation: such a complete, deep, immersion in the world of spiritual experiences of the characters became for the reader a way to know himself, to familiarize himself with the feelings of other people, talentedly described and “lived” the author of the story "Poor Lisa", made the reader spiritually richer, revealed to him something new in his own soul. And, probably, in our time, the author's ardent sympathy for his heroes cannot leave us indifferent, although, of course, people and times have changed a lot. But at all times, love remains love, and loyalty and devotion have always been and will be feelings that cannot but attract the souls of readers.

Many people remember N.M. Karamzin based on his historical works. But he also did a lot for literature. It was through his efforts that a sentimental novel was developed, which describes not only ordinary people but their feelings, suffering, experiences. brought together ordinary people and the rich as feeling, thinking, and experiencing the same emotions and needs. At the time in which Poor Liza was written, namely in 1792, the emancipation of the peasants was still far away, and their existence seemed something incomprehensible and wild. Sentimentalism, however, brought them into full-fledged feeling heroes.

In contact with

History of creation

Important! He also introduced the fashion for little-known names - Erast and Elizabeth. Practically unused names quickly became common nouns, defining the character of a person.

It was this seemingly simple and uncomplicated completely fictional story of love and death that gave rise to a number of imitators. And the pond was even a place of pilgrimage for unfortunate lovers.

It's easy to remember what the story is about. After all, her story is not rich or vicissitudes. Annotation to the story allows you to find out the main events. Karamzin himself summary would pass like this:

1. Left without a father, Lisa began to help her impoverished mother by selling flowers and berries.
2. Erast, conquered by her beauty and freshness, offers her to sell the goods only to him and then asks her not to go out at all, but to give him the goods from home. This rich but windy nobleman falls in love with Lisa. They begin to spend evenings alone.
3. Soon a wealthy neighbor woo Lizaveta, but Erast comforts her, promising to marry himself. There is closeness, and Erast loses interest in the girl he ruined. Soon the young man leaves for service. Lizaveta is waiting and afraid. But by chance they meet on the street, and Lizaveta throws herself on his neck.
4. Erast announces that he is engaged to another, and orders the servant to give her money and take her out of the yard. Lizaveta, having handed over the money to her mother, rushes into the pond. Her mother dies from a stroke.
5. Erast is ruined by losing at cards and forced to marry a wealthy widow. He does not find happiness in life and blames himself.

Selling flowers to the city

main characters

It is clear that the characterization of one of the heroes of the story "Poor Lisa" will be insufficient. They must be evaluated together, influencing each other.

Despite the novelty and originality of the plot, the image of Erast in the story "Poor Liza" is not new, and a little-known name does not save either. Rich and bored nobleman tired of accessible and cutesy beauties. He is looking for bright sensations and finds an innocent and pure girl. Her image surprises him, attracts and even awakens love. But the very first closeness turns the angel into an ordinary earthly girl. He immediately remembers that she is poor, uneducated, and her reputation has already been ruined. He runs from responsibility, from crime.

He runs into his usual hobbies - cards and festivities, which leads to ruin. But he does not want to lose his habits and live with his beloved work life. Erast sells his youth and freedom for the wealth of a widow. Although a couple of months ago he dissuaded his beloved from a successful marriage.

Meeting with his beloved after separation only tires him, interferes. He cynically throws money at her and forces the servant to take the unfortunate woman out. This gesture shows the depth of the fall and all its cruelty.

But the image of the main character of Karamzin's story is fresh and new. She is poor, works for her mother's survival, and yet is gentle and beautiful. Its distinctive features are sensitivity and nationality. In Karamzin's story, poor Liza is a typical village heroine, poetic and with a tender heart. It is her feelings and emotions that replace her upbringing, morality and norms.

The author, generously endowing the poor girl with kindness and love, seems to emphasize that such women are inherent in natural that does not require restrictions and teachings. She is ready to live for her loved ones, to work and keep joy.

Important! Life has already tested her for strength, and she withstood the test with dignity. Behind her image, honest, beautiful, gentle, it is forgotten that she is a poor, uneducated peasant woman. That she works with her hands and sells what God has sent. This should be remembered when the news of the ruin of Erast becomes known. Lisa is not afraid of poverty.

The scene describing how the poor girl died is full of despair and tragedy. believer and loving girl It is clear that suicide is a terrible sin. She also understands that her mother will not live without her help. But the pain of betrayal and the realization that she is disgraced is too hard for her to experience. Lisa took a sober look at life and honestly told Erast that she was poor, that she was not a match for him, and that her mother had found her a worthy groom, albeit an unloved one.

But the young man convinced her of his love and committed an irreparable crime - he took her honor. What for him was an ordinary boring event turned out to be the end of the world for poor Lisa and the beginning of a new life at the same time. Her most tender and pure soul plunged into the mud, and a new meeting showed that her beloved appreciated her deed as licentiousness.

Important! The one who wrote the story "Poor Liza" realized that he was raising a whole layer of problems and in particular the theme of the responsibility of rich bored noblemen to unfortunate poor girls, whose destinies and lives are broken by boredom, which later found its response in the work of Bunin and others.

Scene near the pond

Reader reaction

The audience received the story ambiguously. Women sympathized and made a pilgrimage to the pond, which became the last refuge of the unfortunate girl. Some male critics shamed the author and accused him of excessive sensitivity, of abundant tears that flow constantly, of the picturesqueness of the characters.

In fact, behind the external cloying and tearfulness, in which every critical article is full of reproaches, lies the true meaning, understood by attentive readers. The author pushes not only two characters, but two worlds:

• Sincere, sensitive, painfully naive peasantry with its touching and stupid, but real girls.
• Good-natured, enthusiastic, generous nobility with pampered and capricious men.

One is hardened by the difficulties of life, the other is broken and frightened by the same difficulties.

Genre of the work

Karamzin himself described his work as a sentimental fairy tale, but it received the status of a sentimental story, since it has heroes acting for a long time, a full-fledged plot, development and denouement. Heroes live not in separate episodes, but a significant part of their lives.

Poor LISA. Nikolai Karamzin

Retelling Karamzin N. M. "Poor Lisa"

Conclusion

So, the question: "Poor Liza" - is it a story or a story, was decided long ago and unambiguously. The summary of the book gives the exact answer.

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

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

History of the creation of the story

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

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

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, shortly after returning from a trip, the writer lived in a dacha not far from the Simonov Monastery, in a picturesque, calm place. The situation described by the author is real - the readers recognized both the surroundings of the monastery and the "lizine pond", and this contributed to the fact that the plot was perceived as reliable, and the characters - as real people.

Analysis of the work

The plot of the story

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

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

Of course, despite the progressiveness of Karamzin's story, his characters differ significantly from real people, they are idealized and embellished. This is especially true of the peasants - Lisa does not look like a peasant woman. It is unlikely that hard work would have contributed to the fact that she remained “sensitive and kind”, it is unlikely that she would conduct internal dialogues with herself in an elegant style, and she could hardly keep up a conversation with a nobleman. Nevertheless, this is the first thesis of the story - "and peasant women know how to love."

main characters

Lisa

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

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

Erast predetermined the appearance in Russian literature of a number of heroes like "superfluous people" - weak and incapable of key decisions.

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

The name Erast was also not chosen by chance. It means "beautiful" in Greek. His fatal charm, the need for novelty of impressions lured and ruined the unfortunate girl. But Erast will reproach himself for the rest of his life.

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

Quotes

"Mother! Mother! How can this be? He is a gentleman, and among the peasants ...". Lisa.

"Nature calls me into its arms, to its pure joys," he thought, and decided - at least for a while - to leave the great light..

“I can’t live,” thought Liza, “it’s impossible!.. Oh, if only the sky would fall on me! If only the earth would swallow up the poor woman! Lisa.

"Now, maybe they've already reconciled!" Author

Theme, conflict of the story

Karamzin's story touches on several themes:

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

The main conflict of the story is social, because it is precisely because of the gap between wealth and poverty that the love of the heroes dies, and then the heroine. The author exalts sensitivity as the highest value of a person, affirms the cult of feelings as opposed to the cult of reason.

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The incredibly sincere and emotional work of Karamzin does not leave anyone indifferent - in the story the author described the typical feelings of people in love, outlining the picture from the very beginning to the decline of the feelings of one of the beloved.

Philosophical overtones and psychological basis make this work look like a legend - a sad story based on real events.

Character characteristics

Karamzin's story does not differ in a significant list of heroes. There are only five of them:

• Lisa;
• Lisa's mother;
• Erast;
• Annushka;
• Author.

The image of Lisa is depicted in the best traditions of sentimentalism - she is a sweet and sincere girl, tender and impressionable: “pure. a joyful soul shone in her eyes.

The girl is somewhat similar to an angel - she is too innocent and virtuous: "beautiful in soul and body." It seems that she grew up in a different world, because she was able, despite all the difficulties of society and the era, to preserve goodness and humanity.

At the age of 15, Lisa was left without a father. Life with her mother was difficult financially, but easy psychologically - a friendly, trusting relationship was established between mother and daughter. Mother, being a compassionate woman, constantly worries about her beloved daughter, like all parents, she wishes her a better fate. The woman could not survive the loss of her daughter - the news of Lisa's death became fatal for her.

Erast is a nobleman by birth. He is smart and educated person. His life is typical of young man his age and class - dinner parties, balls, card games, theater, but this does not bring him much joy - he is rather tired of all the entertainment. Acquaintance with Lisa noticeably changes him and instead of boredom, he develops an aversion to the attributes of social life.

The harmonious life of Lisa allowed him to consider other aspects of existence: "he thought with disgust about the contemptuous voluptuousness that his feelings used to revel in."
The image of Erast is not devoid of positive qualities - he is a gentle and courteous person, but the selfish spoiledness of the young man did not allow him to become as harmonious as Lisa.

We suggest that you familiarize yourself with which came out from the pen of the classic author N. Karamzin.

The image of Annushka in the story is fragmentary - we meet this character already at the end of the work: after learning about Erast's wedding, Lisa realizes that she cannot come to terms with this and does not realize her life without this person - the option to commit suicide seems to her one of the most acceptable. At this time, Liza notices Annushka, the neighbor's daughter, and instructs her to give the money to her mother. After that, Lisa rushes into the pond.

Criticism

Karamzin's story was repeatedly called a breakthrough of its time, the motif so typical of European literature was first transferred to the plane of Russian culture, which was already an innovation. The special interest of the public in the work was also caused by the introduction of a new direction - sentimentalism.

Literary critics and researchers highly appreciated Karamzin's story and noted that the author managed to recreate "living" reality in front of the reader - the work was surprisingly realistic, devoid of artificial emotions and images.

Russian scientist, professor-philologist V.V. Sipovsky believed that Karamzin was the "Russian" Goethe - his living word contributed to a breakthrough in literature.

Karamzin, according to the scientist, provided readers reverse side medals, showing that a person’s life, even if he is just an invention of the author, should not always be filled with idyll, sometimes it can have fatality and tragedy: “The Russian public, accustomed in old novels to comforting outcomes in the form of weddings, who believed that virtue is always rewarded, and vice is punished, for the first time in this story she met with the bitter truth of life.

A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, analyzing the significance of "Poor Liza", focused on the European basis of the story both in terms of plot and in terms of sentimentalism, which had not yet spread to the territory of Russia, but was already widespread in Europe. “Everyone sighed until they fainted” - he gives such an assessment of the impact on the public to the work, and already quite ironically notes that after the release of “Poor Lisa”, everyone began to “drown in a puddle”.

G. A. Gukovsky also speaks of the same effect, noting that after reading Poor Lisa, crowds of young people began to appear near the Simonov Monastery and admire the surface of the lake, in which, according to Karamzin’s idea, the girl drowned.

In his opinion, nature in the story performs its own special function - it sets the reader up for a lyrical perception of reality. Poor Liza is not so much a real peasant woman as an ideal opera heroine, and her sad story should not outrage, but only create a lyrical mood.

V.N. Toporov argues that "Poor Liza" has become a significant work not only in Russian literature, but also in the work of Karamzin - it was this work that opened the era of a "breakthrough" both in the work of a literary figure and in historical development literature in general.

“Poor Liza” is precisely the root from which the tree of Russian classical prose has grown, whose powerful crown sometimes hides the trunk and distracts from reflections on the historically so recent origins of the very phenomenon of Russian literature of the New Age.

Winged phrases from the story

I love those items that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!

Everyone is sentimental in one way or another. Some people show their sentimentalism from an early age, while others acquire this feeling after some time, having acquired sufficient life experience.

Special emotions that arise in a person during contact with objects of material or spiritual culture help to create the effect of catharsis - emotional relief.

Peasants know how to love!

Until a certain point, it was believed that the peasants were not emotionally and mentally similar to the aristocrats. The essence of this statement was not the lack of education of the peasants, but the conviction that the peasants, even with education, would not be able to become similar in spiritual development to representatives of the aristocracy - they were not characterized by high manifestations of feelings, in fact, it turned out, based on this theory, that the peasants were guided exclusively instincts, they are characterized by only the most simple emotions. Karamzin showed that this is not so. Serfs can show different feelings and emotions, and theories that they are several stages lower in their development are prejudices.

It is better to live by your own labors and take nothing for nothing.

This phrase reflects the moral principles of an honest person - if you have not earned a certain thing, then you have no right to claim it.

Old people are suspicious

In view of their age and life experience, old people try to protect young people from the mistakes of youth. Since young people are often in no hurry to share their problems and concerns with the older generation, the only way to find out about the upcoming problem is to analyze the behavior of the individual, and for this you need to be observant.

How good everything is with the Lord God! It is necessary that the King of Heaven loved a person very much when he so well removed the worldly light for him.

In the world of nature, everything is harmonious and aesthetically pleasing. A person with a sensual soul cannot but notice these subtleties and admire them. In spring and summer, the feeling of the beauty of nature is felt especially vividly - the nature that slept in winter returns to life and pleases the world around with its charm. Beings who have the opportunity to see all this beauty cannot be unloved by God, otherwise he would not have tried to create such a beautiful and harmonious world.

The fulfillment of all desires is the most dangerous temptation of love.

There is always love fervor between lovers, however, in the case when relations between people develop too quickly and there is an effect of permissiveness, the fervor quickly fades away - when everything is achieved, there is not a single secluded corner in the soul of a person where a dream or fantasy - there is no reason for dreams, if in this case the relationship does not go to another level (for example, marriage), then there is a fading of emotions and passion in relation to the object of one's passion and admiration.

Death for the fatherland is not terrible

A person is not conceivable without his “roots”, one way or another, each individual must be aware of himself not only as part of society, but also as part of the state. The improvement and problems of the state should be perceived by everyone as the problems of their own family, so death in the name of one's state is not inglorious.

Story test

1. How old was Lisa when her father died?
A) 19
B)15
AT 10 O'CLOCK

2. Why did the family live in poverty after the death of their father?
A) could not pay rent for land
B) workers did not cultivate the land so well and the harvest decreased
C) the money was spent on the treatment of sister Liza

3. At what price did Liza sell lilies of the valley?
A) 5 kopecks
B) 5 rubles
B) 13 kopecks

4. Why didn't Liza sell flowers for 1 ruble?
a) It was too cheap
B) her conscience did not allow her
C) The ruble was spoiled

5. Why do Lisa and Erast meet at night?
A) Erast is busy all day
b) They can be slandered
C) Their meetings can cause a quarrel with Erast's bride

6. Why was Lisa afraid of a thunderstorm during one of their nightly meetings with Erast?
A) She was afraid that the thunder would strike her as a criminal.
B) Lisa was always afraid of thunderstorms.
C) The storm was very strong and the girl was afraid that her mother would wake up and find that Lisa was not at home.

7. Why didn't Erast refuse to go to war?
A) could not contradict the order
B) Lisa became disgusting to him
C) everyone would laugh at him and consider him a coward

8. Why is Erast not afraid to die in war?
a) He knows no fear
B) death for the Fatherland is not terrible
C) he has been dreaming of death for a long time

9. Why did Erast order Lisa to forget him?
A) he was tired of the girl
B) was afraid that everyone would laugh at him when they found out about their relationship with Lisa
C) he was engaged and the relationship with Lisa could harm his marriage.

10. What did Liza do with the money that Erast gave her?
A) returned Erast back
B) gave to the beggar standing under the church
C) gave it to the neighbor's daughter to give it to Lisa's mother.

11. How did Lisa's mother take her death?
A) killed Erast
B) drowned in grief
c) The news was so overwhelming for her that she died immediately

12. What do the peasants think when they hear the howling of the wind in the house where Liza lived with her mother?
A) it's Lisa's soul crying
B) tramps climbed into the house for the night
C) It is Erast who comes to yearn for his lost happiness.

Key:

B 2.b 3.a 4. b5.b 6.a 7.c 8.b 9.c 10.c. 11. At 12

Thus, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of Karamzin's story on the development of literature and culture. The images of his characters are endowed with actually typical qualities, however, the depiction of their inner world and a vivid description of the feelings of the characters creates a picture of realism and uniqueness.