Features of the literature of the ancient Middle Ages. Heroic epic, courtly lyrics, chivalric romance

Medieval literature in its highest aesthetic expression is represented by the heroic epic - "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", "The Song of Roland", "The Song of the Nibelungs", "Shahnameh" by Ferdowsi, as well as the richest knightly poetry, in which West and East merged. Lyrics of troubadours, novels of trouveurs, lyrics by Saadi, Hafiz, Omar Khayyam, poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" by Shota Rustaveli, poems by Nizami.

In the Christian West, church literature also arose, the works of pious clerics, clergymen, who, in the dark cells of monasteries, by the light of a lamp, composed simple legends about miracles performed by saints, about miraculous icons, about the visions that appeared to the Christian righteous. In Rus' in the XII century, the “Walking of the Virgin through the torments” was widely read - a vivid and frightening description of the pictures of hell. The highest completion of this type of literature was Dante's famous poem "The Divine Comedy".

In addition to these pious literary creations, rude short stories circulated among the people, composed by the commercial and artisan people of the cities. In France, these short stories were called fablio (fable), in Germany - schwank. These were mocking tales about some unlucky peasant deceived by the devil (the townspeople-artisans looked down on the uncouth peasant peasant), about some selfish priest. Sometimes ridicule rose to the palace and great nobles. A vivid example of urban satirical poetry was the medieval “Poem about the Fox”, which told about the cunning and wretched Fox, from the tricks of which small people (chickens, hares) suffered. The poem ridiculed under the guise of animals and nobles, and nobles (bear Bren), and the clergy, up to the Pope.

Indeed, I would like to call the XII century in the history of world culture a century of genius. At this time, they create the best works poetry - heroic tales about Roland, Sihfried, Side Campeador, about our Russian prince Igor. At this time, chivalrous literature flourishes in full bloom. Enriched with connections with the East in its Arab-Iranian cultural inflorescence, it puts forward on the world stage in the south of France, in Provence, troubadours, in its north, trouveurs, in Germany, minnesingers (singers of love). The novel by unknown authors "Tristan and Isolde" and the poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" by the Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli seem to represent this part of world culture especially vividly.

Let's start with heroic tales.

Song of Roland

Our king Karl, the great emperor.
He fought for seven years in the Spanish country.
All this mountainous land to the sea occupied.
He took by storm all the cities and castles,
He toppled their walls and destroyed their towers.
Only the Moors did not surrender Zaragoza.
Marsilius the non-Christ reigns omnipotently there.
Honors Mohammed, praises Apollo.
But he will not leave the Lord's punishment.
Oh!
"The Song of Roland"

The famous "Song of Roland" has come down to us in a manuscript of the middle of the 12th century. It was found by chance in the library of the University of Oxford and first published in Paris in 1837. Since that time, her triumphal procession through the countries of the world began. It is published and republished in translations and in the original, studied at universities, articles and books are written about it.

The lines cited in the epigraph require clarification. Karl is a historical person. The king of the Germanic tribe of the Franks (the very word "king" comes from his name). Through conquests, battles, campaigns, he founded a huge state, which included the lands of modern Italy, France, and Germany. In 800 he named himself emperor. He went down in history under the name of Charlemagne.

The event described in the poem took place in 778. Carl was then thirty-six years old. In the poem, he is already a gray-haired old man two hundred years old. This detail is significant: the poem had a nationwide audience and reflected the nation's ideas about the ideal sovereign - he must be wise and old.

Already from the first verses of the poem, two warring worlds appear before us: the Christian one, whose representative is Karl, endowed with all positive qualities, and Marsilius the non-Christ, the ruler of the Moors, the Gentiles, and therefore, of course, the character is extremely negative. His main fault is that he "honors Mohammed, praises Apollo." As you can see, the idea of ​​the author of the poem about Mohammedanism is the most superficial, as well as about ancient mythology. The god of arts and sunlight, Apollo, who gave so much to the imagination of the ancient Greek and the ancient Roman, is forgotten.

His name is distorted, he is adjacent to Mohammed. Ancient culture, rich and luxurious, is buried, and only a faint echo of it sometimes reaches the ears of the peoples of Western Europe.

The opponents of Charles and his warriors are the Moors. Who are they? The ancient Greeks so called the inhabitants of Mauritania, according to the color of their skin (mauros - dark). Historically, these are the Arabs who captured Spain in 711-718 and founded several states in it. The Frankish king intervened in their internecine wars in 778, laid siege to Zaragoza, but did not take the city and was forced to return home. On the way back, in the Ronceval Gorge, the rearguard of his troops was ambushed. The Moors and local inhabitants of the highlands, the Basques, killed a detachment commanded by the nephew of Charles Hruotland, Margrave of Brittany. Here is everything that is known to science about this event, which was preserved for history by the ancient chronicles and the historian of Charlemagne Eginhard, the author of the book "The Life of Charles" (829-836).

Many historical events of a larger scale and greater historical importance than those described in the “Song of Roland” remained outside the memory of the people, were forgotten, lost in the course of time, while the facts are not so significant if we consider them “from cosmic” historical heights, are unexpectedly bright and multifaceted, and their light overcomes centuries, and sometimes millennia. It is unlikely that the Trojan War described by Homer was so grandiose. There were, of course, more important events. But humanity remembers and, as it were, sees with its own eyes what happened at a low hill called Ida and a small river called Scamander. What is the key to this strange circumstance? This is where art comes into play.

It is worth the poet to designate a distant or near event with his magic word, and it acquires eternal life. In the change of days, in the incessant movement of time, it seems to stop, freeze, while retaining all the freshness of the original. Captured moment! This is how the heroes of Homer's poems have come down to us and live with us, this is how the tragedy that broke out twelve centuries ago in the Ronceval Gorge has come down to us, how vividly and poetically are drawn to our imagination eight hundred years ago, captured by the "Tale of Igor's Campaign".

The Song of Roland ends with the words: "Thurold is silent." Turold? The author of the poem? Scribe? The man who brought together the poetic tales about the unfortunate fate of the young Roland that went among the people? Nobody knows. This name was mentioned only once at the end of the poem and was not repeated anywhere else. And so this unknown person left or, rather, came to eternity, like a vision, like a pale ghost, leaving us his soul - feelings, thoughts, ideals that his compatriots and contemporaries lived, presumably.

The poem is purely tendentious, that is, the author is not just a storyteller, but, above all, a propagandist who has set himself the goal of glorifying the cause of the Christian church and the patriotism of the French. The name of the Christian God is constantly woven into the harsh tie of the story. Not a single step, not a single gesture of Karl, Roland, and all Christian soldiers can do without it. God helps Charles to prolong, contrary to all the laws of nature, the day in order to give him the opportunity and time to defeat and punish the enemy, God constantly instructs him in military campaigns and is, as it were, the initiator of the conquest of new lands by Charles.

In this regard, the ending of the poem is curious. After it was finished with the traitor Ganelon, who doomed Roland to death at the hands of the Moors, the Moors themselves were punished, in a word, when he, Charles, “poured out his anger and calmed his heart”, and went to a peaceful sleep, the messenger of God appears to him and gives a new task:

"Karl, gather an army without delay
And go hiking to the Birsk country,
In Enf, King Vivien's capital city.
He is surrounded by a pagan army.
Christians are waiting for help from you.
But the king does not want to go to war.
He says: "God, how bitter is my lot!"
He tears his gray beard, cries mournfully ...

The dignity of the poem lies in the lyrically colored ideas of the motherland, heroism, moral stamina. France is always accompanied by the epithet "sweet", "gentle". Roland and his warriors always remember that they are the children of France, its defenders, its plenipotentiaries. And these, I would say, feelings of civic responsibility inspire them, inspire them to exploits:

Let no shame befall France!
Friends, the right fight is behind us! Forward!

The death of Roland and his squad was a foregone conclusion. The traitor Ganelon is guilty. Offended by Roland, in order to take revenge on him, he decided on a monstrous atrocity, betrayed him to the enemy, not thinking that he was betraying his own.
"dear France" The self-will of the feudal lords, severely condemned by the author of the poem, had an effect. The people have always sharply shamed the civil strife of the princes, their self-interest, disregard for the interests of the state. The figure of Ganelon is a vivid personification of this betrayal, disastrous for the country. Princely strife also tormented our Rus' in the 12th century and was also severely condemned by the author of The Tale of Igor's Campaign.

But Roland is also to blame. Tragic fault! He is young, passionate, arrogant. He is devoted to his homeland, "sweet France." He is ready to give his life for her. But fame, ambition cloud his vision, do not allow him to see the obvious. The detachment is surrounded, the enemies are pressing. His wise comrade Olivier hurries him to blow his horn, to call for help. Not too late. You can also prevent a disaster:

“O friend Roland, blow the horn quickly.
At the pass, Karl will hear the call.
I guarantee you, he will turn the army."
Roland answered him: “God forbid!
Let no one talk about me.
That from fright I forgot my duty.
I will never disgrace my family."

And the battle took place. The author of the poem described the course of the battle for a long time, in detail, with naturalistic details. More than once he was denied a sense of proportion: he so wanted to belittle the "non-Christian Moors" and exalt the French dear to his heart. (Five Frenchmen kill four thousand Moors. There are three hundred and four hundred thousand of them, these Moors. Roland's head is cut open, the brain flows out of the skull, but he is still fighting, etc., etc.)

Finally Roland sees and takes his horn. Now Olivier stops him: it's too late!

That is no honor at all.
I called out to you, but you did not want to listen.

For all his friendly affection for Roland, Olivier cannot forgive him for his defeat and even assures that if he survives, he will never allow his sister Alda (Roland's betrothed) to become his wife.

You are to blame.
Being brave is not enough, you have to be reasonable.
And it is better to know the measure than to go crazy.
The French have been ruined by your pride.

Here, of course, is the voice of the author of the poem. He judges a presumptuous ardent young man, but with a kind, paternal court. Yes. he, of course, is guilty, this young warrior, but his courage is so beautiful, his impulse to give his life for his homeland is so noble. How to judge a dispute between two friends?

Smart Olivier. Roland is brave
And valor is equal to one another.

And he reconciles them:

The archbishop of the dispute heard them.
He plunged golden spurs into the horse.
He drove up and said reproachfully:
“Roland and Olivier, my friends.
May the Lord save you from strife!
No one can save us anymore…”

And friends die. The entire squad of Roland perishes. At the last moment, he nevertheless blew his horn. Carl heard the call and returned. The Moors were defeated, but Charles was inconsolable. Many times he lost consciousness from grief, cried. The surviving Moors converted to Christianity, among them Bramimonda herself, the wife of the Saracen king Marsilius. How could the poet-cleric fail to glorify his God with such a finale.

Historical and geographical knowledge of the poet was not great. He heard something about the ancient poets Virgil and Homer, he knows that they once lived a very long time ago, he put their names on the pages of his poem:

There was the emir Baligan gray-haired.
Virgil with Homer is older than he.

This "coeval" of Homer and Virgil gathers a great army to rescue Marsilius. "The pagan hordes are innumerable." Who is in them? Armenians and Uglichs, Avars, Nubians, Serbs, Prussians, "hordes of wild Pechenegs", Slavs and Russ. The author of the "Song of Roland" enrolled all of them in the camp of the pagans. They are all defeated by Charles' troops. The Christian faith triumphs, and the idols of Apollon and Mohammed suffer great reproach from their own adherents:

Apollo stood there, their idol, in the grotto.
They run to him, they vilify him:
Why did you, evil god, disgrace us
And threw the king to shame?
You reward faithful servants badly.”
They tore off the crown from the idol.
Then he was hung from a column.
Then they dumped and trampled for a long time.
Until it falls apart...
And Mohammed is thrown into a deep ditch.
Dogs gnaw him there and pigs gnaw him.

The poem has come down to us in the lists of the XII century, but it was created, apparently, long before that. Russ, as the author of the poem calls the inhabitants of Rus', adopted, as you know, Christianity at the end of the 10th century. In the XII century, the Frenchman could not help but know that Christianity was professed in Rus'. The daughter of Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kiev, Anna Yaroslavna, or Aina the Russian, as the French call her, was married to the French king Henry I, and even after his death she ruled the state for a time during the childhood of her son Philip I.

And she lived in the XI century, more precisely, in the years 1024-1075. A French poet of the twelfth century should have known this. However, it is difficult now to judge the degree of education of the inhabitants of Europe at that time, the ties of some peoples with others. From the Seine to the Dnieper, the path is not short, but for those times it was difficult and dangerous.

Song of the Nibelungs

Full of wonders the tales of bygone days
About the high-profile deeds of former heroes.
"Nibelungenlied"

These are the first lines of a famous heroic poem, born sometime in the thirteenth century, which excited the imagination of the medieval German for three centuries, and then was completely forgotten until the eighteenth century. Retrieved from the archives and shown to Frederick II, King of Prussia in the years when Europe arrogantly treated the Middle Ages, it received a disparaging assessment of the monarch as a barbaric work, not worthy of the civilized tastes of modern times, and was again consigned to oblivion. But already on April 2, 1829, Eckermann recorded in his Conversations with Goethe the poet’s statement: “...“ The Nibelungen ”is the same classic as Homer, here and there health and a clear mind.”

More than thirty lists of her on parchment and paper have been preserved, which indicates her great popularity in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. First published in typographical fashion in 1757, it became the property of broad circles readers and is now included in the circle of the best epic poems in the world. Scientific literature about her is unimaginable.

The ancient author, who did not leave his name, called it a song. It does not look like a song in our current concept of the word: it has 39 chapters (adventures) and more than 10 thousand verses. Initially, however, it probably consisted of short poetic tales with assonant rhyme and was sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument.

Years passed, centuries. The events, one way or another captured in these tales, became a thing of the past, the shpielmans who performed them added something, excluded something, began to look at something with different eyes, as a result, by the end of the 12th century or by the very beginning of the 13th, composed of individual songs into a huge epic tale, it included both a picture of the court customs of the Western European feudal lords of the 12th century, and vague reminiscences of distant antiquity. They guess the events of the Great Migration of Peoples of the 4th-5th centuries, the invasion of nomads from Asia led by Attila, the leader of the Huns. The formidable Attila, who once terrified the peoples of the Roman Empire, turned into the kind, weak-willed Etzel in the Nibelungenlied. So whitewashed him eight centuries that have passed since his
death in 453. But his name itself, in a slightly modified form, has been preserved.

The lands on which the events described in the poem or mentioned in it take place are quite extensive. This is Saxony and Swabia on the right bank of the Rhine, this is Adstria, Bavaria, Thuringia, this is the wide Spessart plateau, the current land of Reinald-Palatinate, this is Denmark, the island of Iceland is the kingdom of the heroine of the poem Brynhild, Franconia, the area between the Rhine and the Main, this is the Rhone, the river in France, this is the Netherlands - the possession of King Sigmund, Sihfried's father, and then Sihfried himself, this is Hungary and even Kiev land.

The Germanic tribes who created the first versions of the legend settled widely in Western Europe, the connections between them were not always preserved, and the main characters of the poem Sihfrid, Kriemhild, Gunter, Brynhilda and others migrated to the Icelandic sagas under one name or another.

But let's leave this interesting and not very simple theme scientists-specialists and turn to the poem itself, printed in our country in translation from German by Yu. B. Korneev.

We find ourselves in the world of court festivities, knightly tournaments, luxurious court toilets, beautiful ladies, youth and beauty. Such is the outward appearance of the ruling classes of the feudal society of the 12th century, as presented by the ancient shpilman. Christian Temples are not forgotten either, but religion is here as a household item, a traditional ritual, nothing more:

The squires and knights went to the cathedral.
Served as it has been done since ancient times.
Youths to men and elders at these celebrations.
Everyone looked forward to the festivities with gladness in their hearts.

Ordinary people as an entourage. He is curious, wondering, expresses admiration or sorrow, but does not play any active role in the events:

So far, for the glory of God, Mass was going on in the temple.
The crowd of ordinary people in the square grew.
The people brought down the wall: not everyone again
The rank of knighthood will have to be seen.

The young Siechfried is knighted. He is a queen. His parents - the Dutch ruler Sigmund and Sieglinda - do not have a soul in him. And yes, he is loved by everyone around him. He is bold and fame is already thundering about him, he is praised everywhere:

He was so lofty in spirit and so handsome in face.
That more than one beauty had to sigh for him.

We note here three circumstances that are very remarkable for understanding the ideals of that time.

The first quality valued in Siechfried is the height of his spirit. The latter was understood as courage, courage, moral stamina.

The second is his youth and handsomeness. Both have always been valued, at all times and among all peoples. Old age has always looked at young people with admiration and a little bit of envy, sighing for the time when she herself was the same.

The third point, which, of course, you need to pay attention to - as judges of male beauty, women are indicated here - sighing beauties. This is already a sign of a different, court environment. The clerics, who also created their own culture in the Middle Ages, would never refer to the opinions of women.

So, Siechfried is the main character of the Nibelungenlied, its first part. In the second, his wife, the beautiful Krimhilda, will come to the fore, turning from a timid, shy, simple-hearted and trusting maiden into a cunning and cruel avenger. But while she is still a young maiden for us, who did not know love and does not even want to know it:

“No, mother, you don’t need to talk about your husband.
I want to, not knowing love, I will proveve century.

Eternal theme, eternal delusion! This girlish dream was sung by the Russians in the charming romance "Don't sew me, mother, a red sundress." Mother reveals to her daughter the eternal truth: without a loved one there will be no happiness, years will pass, "amusements will get bored, you will miss." In an ancient German epic, seven centuries earlier, the same conversation took place in the ancient city of Worms between the beautiful Kriemhild and Queen Uta, her mother:

“Do not promise, daughter, so Uta answered her,
There is no happiness in the world without a dear spouse.
To know love, Kriemhild, your turn will come,
If the Lord will send you a handsome knight.

And the Lord sent her this handsome knight. It was Sihfried, the "free falcon" that she once dreamed about. But the dream already foreshadowed trouble: the falcon was pecked by two eagles. The poet does not want to leave the reader in the dark about the future fate of his heroes, and although the picture he paints at the beginning of the story is dazzlingly festive, formidable omens no-no cloud it.

Jun Sihfried, but he has already seen many countries and accomplished many feats. Here we are already entering the realm of the fairy tale. The exploits of Siechfried are full of miracles. He killed the fearsome dragon and bathed in its blood. His body became invulnerable, and only one place was left not washed with the blood of a forest monster, behind, under the left shoulder blade, just opposite the heart: a leaf fell on this place, and the dragon's blood did not wash this small piece of the young man's skin. This accident became fatal for Sihfried, but this is later, but for now, he, without suspecting anything, looks at the world with happy eyes and expects dazzling miracles from him.

One day, Siechfried was out riding his warhorse, alone, without his retinue. Climbing the mountain, he saw a crowd of Nibelungs. They were led by two brothers - Shilbung and Nibelung. They shared the treasures that were buried in the mountain. The brothers argued, quarreled, things went to a bloody denouement, but when they saw Sihfried, they elected him as an arbitrator. Let him judge fairly. And the treasure was great:

There was such a pile of precious stones,
That they would not have been taken away on a hundred carts from there,
And gold, perhaps, and more than that.
Such was the treasure, and the knight had to divide it.

And this treasure also became fatal in the fate of Siechfried and his future wife Kriemhild. People have long noticed that self-interest, an irrepressible thirst for wealth disfigures human souls, makes a person forget about kinship, friendship, love. Gold becomes a terrible curse for those who are blinded by its alluring brilliance.

The brothers were dissatisfied with the division of Siechfried. A quarrel ensued, twelve giants guarding the king brothers attacked the young knight, but he, raising his good sword Balmung, killed them all, and after them seven hundred other warriors and the two king brothers themselves. The dwarf Albrich stood up for his overlords, but the young man overcame him, took away his invisibility cloak, ordered him to hide the treasure in a secret cave, and left the conquered Albrich to guard it.

Such are the miraculous deeds of the young knight, full of supernatural powers. It was a fairy tale. It is unlikely that anyone in the days of the creation of the poem believed in such miracles, but it was beautiful, it carried away from the harsh and everyday reality and amused the imagination.

The fairy tale as a genre arose later than epic tales. Its origins are myths, but already when the myths lost their religious basis and became the subject of poetic imagination. The myth for the ancient man was a reality, the ancient Greek, for example, did not have any doubts about the reality of the personality of Achilles, but the medieval compiler of the chivalric romance knew that his hero and all his adventures were a figment of fantasy.

In the Nibelungenlied, historical reality, which reached the 12th century in legends, was combined with fiction, a chivalric romance, filled with fabulous element, which was already perceived as an elegant fantasy. We see in the poem a synthesis of two aesthetic systems - a legend with a historical basis and a fairy tale-fiction.

The young hero decided to marry. It's normal and natural. Parents are not averse, but the trouble is - he chose a bride in distant (at that time) Burgundy, and the Burgundians are arrogant and warlike, inspire fear in the elderly parents of the hero.

The eternal and wonderful care of the elders for the younger generation: how to preserve, how to protect young and careless children from formidable forces real world always hostilely lying in wait for inexperienced souls!

Sieglinde cried when she learned about the matchmaking.
She was so afraid for her son,
What if there is no turning back for him?
What if Gunther's people will deprive her child of her life?

Siechfried, of course, does not think at all about the danger. Rather, he would even like to meet obstacles and obstacles on the way to happiness. There is so much energy and youth in him. In his youthful enthusiasm, he is ready to take the bride by force, "if her brothers do not give him good," and with her the lands of the Burgundians.

The old father "furrowed his eyebrows" - these speeches are dangerous. What if word of mouth gets them to Gunther's ears?

Siechfried had never seen Kriemhild yet. His love is in absentia. He believes in fame: its beauty is legendary. Apparently, for those times it was enough.

The fees are over. The poet did not forget to say that Queen Uta, together with the ladies invited by her, sewed rich clothes for her son and his retinue day and night, while the father provided them with military armor. Finally, to the great admiration of the whole court, Siechfried's soldiers and himself

... deftly sat on dashing horses.
Their harness flashed with gold trim.
To be proud of yourself was to face such fighters.

However, a grave foreboding of impending troubles will burst into the festive picture no-no. The poet warns the listener and reader in advance about the tragic fate of the hero. Therefore, the holiday of youth and beauty acquires a poignant sharpness of tragedy.

Sihfried is bold, courageous, but also impudent, arrogant, sometimes behaves defiantly, as if he is looking for reasons for quarrels and fights, like a bully. His father invites him to take an army with him, he takes only twelve warriors. Arriving in Worms, King Gunther answers the friendly words with impudence:

I won't ask if you agree or not
And I’ll start a fight with you, and if I get the upper hand.
I will take all your lands with castles from you.

It is not difficult to imagine the reaction of the Burgundians, everyone, of course, is outraged - a quarrel, a squabble, warriors grab swords, a battle is about to begin, blood will be shed, but the prudent Gunther goes to the world peace, Siechfried's anger subsides. Guests are warmly welcomed. Tournaments, war games amuse the yard. In everything, of course, Sihfried is different, he wins everyone in sports, and in the evenings, when he engages “beautiful ladies” in “courteous” conversation, he becomes the subject of their special attention:

Those eyes did not take their eyes off their guest -
His speech breathed such sincere passion.

However, let's not forget about time. After all, this is feudalism, the time of "fist law", in the apt expression of Marx, when everything was decided by the sword, and Sihfried acted according to the right of the strong, which quite fit into the moral ideas of those times.

However, the main task of the author of the "Song" is to tell about the love of Siechfried and Kriemhild. Until they met. True, Krimhilda is watching him from the window of the castle, for "he is so good-looking that he awakened tender feelings in any woman." Siechfried is unaware of this and languishes in anticipation of meeting her. But it's still early. The time has not come. The author still needs to show the dignity of the hero in order to demonstrate his courage, courage, strength, and youth again and again.

Burgundy was besieged by Saxons and Danes. Forty thousand enemy troops. Siechfried volunteered with a thousand fighters to fight them. The author enthusiastically, enthusiastically describes the ups and downs of the battle. Here is his element:

All around the battle was in full swing, the steel of swords rang.
The regiments rushed into the fray, all angrier and hotter.

The Burgundians fight gloriously, but the best of all, of course, is their guest - the beautiful Sihfried. And the victory is won. Many died on the battlefield of the Saxons and Danes, many noble warriors were captured, but they were treated with chivalry: they were given freedom on parole not to leave the country without special permission. The captives, and among them two kings, thank the winners for "the gentle treatment and affectionate welcome."

Well, what about lovers? How do the events of their hearts develop? Looks like it's time for love. Gunther, Kriemhild's elder brother and king of the Burgundians, decided to arrange a magnificent celebration on the occasion of the victory. Queen Mother Uta bestows a rich dress on the servants. Chests are opened, luxurious clothes are taken out or re-sewn, and the holiday begins with a solemn entrance to the guests of the incomparable beauty Kriemhilda. She is "like a ray of crimson dawn from gloomy clouds." She is accompanied by a hundred girls and court ladies, needless to say, "in expensive clothes." They are all good looking, but...

As the stars fade at night in the glow of the moon,
When she looks down on the earth from above,
So the maiden overshadowed the crowd of her friends.

Kriemhilda is good, but the guest of the Burgundians, the brave Netherlander, the son of Sigmund, Sihfried, is not inferior to her in attractiveness. In love with his young heroes, the author literally weaves a wreath of the most enthusiastic praises for them:

Sigmund's surprisingly handsome son has grown up.
He seemed like a painting that he had painted
Artist on parchment with a skillful hand.
The world has not yet seen such beauty and stateliness.

So the meeting of young people took place. Now a new page in the history of Siechfried begins, his participation in the matchmaking of Kriemhild's brother King Gunther, who wished to marry the overseas beauty Brynhild. This last one lives on a remote island and rules the kingdom. This island is Iceland. Land of ice - this is how the word should be translated. Severe, snowy, steep plateau rising above the sea, it was later inhabited by people who came from Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Denmark. Courageous and strong people could settle in it, raise cattle and some garden crops, but cereals had to be imported from afar. Neither the land nor the climate allowed them to grow at home. There were few inhabitants. In those times to which the narrative of the Song refers, there were no more than 25 thousand of them, and even now their number hardly reaches 75 thousand.

We will not find any descriptions of this country in the "Songs". It is only said that this is an island and the sea around. But it is ruled by an extraordinary woman, a hero, as if personifying the severe courage of those who dared to live in this icy kingdom.

It cannot be said that the warriors admired such qualities of Brynhild as her belligerence, her masculine heroic strength, and even the gloomy Hagen, who later becomes her most faithful servant, is embarrassed and discouraged: “You are in love with the she-devil, my king,” says he told Gunther, and then the king’s companions: “The king fell in love in vain: she needs the devil in her husbands, not the hero.”

A woman should not be strong, weakness, modesty, shyness - these are her most beautiful adornments. So believed the medieval knights who served the ladies of their hearts. How wins in comparison with her in the first part of the "Song" Kriemhild, personifying pure femininity.

The image of Brunhild involuntarily evokes memories of many legends of ancient peoples about female warriors, usually living apart from men and hating them. The ancient Greeks created the myth of the Amazons. They lived somewhere off the coast of Meotida (Sea of ​​Azov) or in Asia Minor. Sometimes they temporarily converged with men in order to have offspring, the born girls were left to themselves, while the boys were killed. Greek heroes Bellerophon, Hercules, Achilles fought them. Achilles killed the Amazon Penthesilea (she helped the Trojans). Their strange behavior, their feminine attractiveness excited the imagination. The best Greek sculptors Phidias and Polikleitos sang their beauty in marble. Marble copies from Greek sculptures have come down to us.

One of them captured the lovely appearance of a wounded Amazon. The sculpture is kept in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. A face full of sadness, vitality leaving the body. The girl is still standing, but her knees seem to give way, and she quietly sinks to the ground with her last, dying breath. The myths about the Amazons captured both the surprise and admiration of men for female warriors.

Siechfried enters the competition with Brynhild. Putting on an invisibility cloak, he fulfills all the conditions of Brynhild for Gunther (Gunther only imitates the required movements) - he throws a huge stone, catches up with him with a jump and accurately uses a spear. Brynhild is defeated. She, of course, is unhappy (“the face of the beauty blushed with anger ...”), but, perhaps, not with her defeat, but with the victory of Gunter, who is clearly not attractive to her. The author of the "Song" without pressure, perhaps relying on the reader's insight, hinted at one circumstance: when Gunther and company appeared before the Icelandic queen, she turned with a smile, of course, favorable, to the young Dutch hero Sihfried - in other words, Brynhild would like to see him as a contender for her hand. "Greetings, Siechfried, in my native land." To which Siechfried, not without irony, replies to her:

Before me, the first such speech holding,
You are kind to me beyond merit, madam.
My master is before you, and there is no trace of you with him
To his humble vassal to pay his regards.

This is where the tragedy begins. Brynhilde was deceived in her hopes. She loves Siechfried, and even more so now she hates Gunther. She is proud and does not show her annoyance, but her revenge is ahead of her. However, the author, who constantly explains to the reader all the motives for the behavior of his characters, even when such explanations are not necessary, because everything is clear anyway, is clearly slow-witted here. Does he understand the psychological background of events?

However, let's follow his story. Brunhild and Gunther's company arrive at Worms. The weddings of two couples are played: Gunther - Brynhilda, Sihfried - Kriemhilda. The second couple is happy, the first... Here comes the embarrassment. The young wife of Gunter ties her husband with a strong belt and hangs him on a hook so that he does not bother her with his harassment.

No matter how the humiliated husband resisted,
It was hung on a wall hook like a bale.
So that the dream of his wife did not dare to disturb with hugs.
Only by a miracle that night the king remained alive and unharmed.
The recent master now prayed, trembling:
“Remove the tight fetters from me, mistress…”
But he did not manage to touch Brynhild with prayers.
His wife quietly ate a sweet dream,
Until dawn illuminated the bedchamber
And Gunter did not lose his strength on his hook.

Again, Sihfried had to help the king to pacify the heroic wife, which he does by putting on an invisibility cloak and, under the guise of Gunther, entering her bedroom. The ancients willingly believed in miracles. Science took its first timid steps, and a host of mysteries of nature appeared before man. How to unravel them? How to overcome the incomprehensible, but real laws of the natural world? And then fantasy painted a fabulous, ephemeral world of supernatural possibilities, magical power acquired things, gestures, words. It was enough to say: “Sesame, open!” - and the entrance to the hidden opens, countless treasures appear to the eyes. It was enough for Sihfried to bathe in the blood of the dragon, and his body became invulnerable. It was enough for the insidious wife of the biblical Samson Delilah to cut off his hair, and all his huge physical strength disappeared. The same thing happened to Brynhilde. Sihfried removed the magic ring from her hand, and she turned into an ordinary weak woman. Gunther found her reconciled and submissive.

But she was not allowed to remain ignorant. The secret has been revealed. The queens quarreled. The reason was female vanity. They argued at the entrance to the temple: who should enter first? One said that she is the queen and the championship is hers. The second is that her husband was not a vassal, that he was never a servant of anyone, that he was more courageous and noble than Gunther, etc., etc. which Siechfried once took from her bedroom as a victory trophy and presented to her, Kriemhild.

Thus began the tragedy. Brynhilde could not forget the insult. Envy of Kriemhild, to her happiness, jealousy (Brynhild did not stop loving Siechfried), hatred of her rival - all this now merged into a single burning desire to take revenge on both Kriemhild and Siechfried.

And her will is carried out by the gloomy, evil Hagen. A conspiracy is being drawn up against the young hero, cunning, treacherous, cowardly: to kill not in a duel, not in a fair battle, but treacherously, when he does not suspect anything. The author of the "Song" draws characters superbly. They are not unambiguous. Not everyone immediately supports the idea of ​​murder. Gunther is at first embarrassed: after all, Siechfried has done so much good for him. No no! In no case! But after a minute: "But how to kill him?" He already agrees. His younger brother Giselher also agrees, who had previously declared indignantly:

Will the illustrious hero pay with his life
For the fact that women sometimes quarrel over trifles?

Hagen becomes the soul of the conspiracy. What drives them? Why does he hate Siechfried so stubbornly, so fiercely? Is it only vassalage here? Rather, envy, hatred for a foreigner who surpasses everyone in strength, courage and moral virtues. The author does not speak directly about this, but it is clear from his story.

Of all the Burgundians, Hagen is perhaps the most intelligent, perspicacious and most vicious. He understands that it is impossible to openly defeat Siechfried, which means that he must resort to cunning, and he turns to Kriemhild herself. A naive, unsuspecting woman trusts him with the secret of her husband, points out and even cross-stitches the place on his clothes where his body was vulnerable. So she decided the fate of the creature dearest to her.

In the afternoon, during the hunt, when Siechfried bent down to the stream to drink, Hagen stuck a spear in him from behind just in the place that was marked by the unfortunate cross.

The knights fled to the dying hero. Gunther also began to shed tears, but Sihfried, who was bleeding, said: “The culprit of evil himself sheds tears for villainy.”

Times have changed, people's moral ideas have changed, but it seems that there has never been a greater crime in the eyes of everyone than betrayal. It has always been perceived as something monstrous, as the ultimate measure of injustice.

The treacherous murder of Siechfried further exalted him in the eyes of the reader. The death of the "ideal hero" of the Middle Ages!

He is impeccable physically and morally, he himself is the great jewel of the world. What is the measure to measure the depth of inhumanity and evil shown by his murderers? Here is the climax of the tragedy told by the medieval shpielman. There is no doubt that it shocked the poet's contemporaries and, of course, created that moral, psychological effect that the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle called "catharsis" - moral purification through fear and compassion.

The author of the "Song" will not stop there. He will tell in detail and in detail about the revenge of Kriemhild. It will be terrible, this revenge. An enraged woman will pour a sea of ​​blood on her relatives, who so insidiously took advantage of her gullibility, but she herself will die and will not arouse our sympathy: a person in revenge, even just and justified, cannot reach bitterness and inhumanity.

The term "Middle Ages" originated in the Renaissance. The thinkers of the Italian Renaissance understood it as a gloomy "middle" age in the development of European culture, a time of general decline, lying in the middle between the brilliant era of antiquity and the Renaissance itself, a new flowering of European culture, the revival of ancient ideals. And although later, in the era of romanticism, a “bright image” of the Middle Ages arose, both of these assessments of the Middle Ages created extremely one-sided images of this most important stage in the development of Western European culture.

In fact, everything was much more complicated. It was a complex, diverse, contradictory culture, just like medieval society was a complex hierarchical formation.

Western European medieval culture represents a qualitatively new stage in the development of European culture, following after antiquity and covering more than a thousand-year period (V-XV centuries).

The transition from ancient civilization to the Middle Ages was due, firstly, to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

Secondly, the Great Migration of Peoples (from the 4th to the 7th centuries), during which dozens of tribes rushed to conquer new lands. From 375, when the first detachments of the Visigoths crossed the Danube border of the empire, and until 455 (the capture of Rome by the Vandals), the painful process of extinction continued. greatest civilization. Experiencing a deep internal crisis, the Western Roman Empire was unable to withstand the waves of barbarian invasions and in 476 ceased to exist. As a result of the barbarian conquests, dozens of barbarian kingdoms arose on its territory.

With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the history of the Western European Middle Ages begins (the Eastern Roman Empire - Byzantium - existed for another 1000 years - until the middle of the 15th century)

The formation of medieval culture took place as a result of a dramatic and controversial process of a collision of two cultures - ancient and barbarian, accompanied, on the one hand, by violence, the destruction of ancient cities, the loss of outstanding achievements of ancient culture (for example, the capture of Rome by vandals in 455 became a symbol of the destruction of cultural values - "vandalism"), on the other hand, - the interaction and gradual merging of Roman and barbarian cultures.

The formation of medieval culture took place as a result of the interaction of two principles: the culture of barbarian tribes (Germanic origin) and ancient culture (Romanesque origin). third and the most important factor, which determined the process of formation of European culture, was Christianity. Christianity has become not only its spiritual basis, but also the integrating principle that allows us to speak of Western European culture as a single integral culture.

Medieval culture is the result of a complex, contradictory synthesis of ancient traditions, the culture of barbarian peoples and Christianity.

Periodization of medieval culture

Allocate the early Middle Ages - the 5th-9th centuries, the mature or high (classical) Middle Ages - the 10th-13th centuries. and late Middle Ages - XIV-XV centuries. Medieval literature is divided into clerical and secular.

Features of medieval literature

1. Medieval literature was of the traditionalist type. Throughout its existence, it has developed on the basis of the constant reproduction of a limited set of figurative, ideological, compositional, and other structures - topoi (common places) or clichés, expressed in the constancy of epithets, pictorial clichés, the stability of motives and themes, the constancy of canons for depicting the entire figurative systems (be it a young man in love, a Christian martyr, a knight, a beauty, an emperor, a city dweller, etc.). On the basis of these clichés, genre topoi were formed that had their own semantic, thematic and figurative-expressive canon (for example, the genre of hagiography or “visions” in clerical literature or the genre of courtly romance in chivalric literature).

A medieval person found in literature a generally recognized, traditional model, a ready-made universal formula for describing a hero, his feelings, appearance, etc. (Beauties are always golden-headed and blue-eyed, the rich are stingy, the saints have a traditional set of virtues, etc.).

2. The literature of antiquity had a significant influence on the formation of medieval topics. In the episcopal schools of the early Middle Ages, students, in particular, read the "exemplary" works of ancient authors (Aesop's fables, the works of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, etc.), assimilated the ancient topic and used it in their own writings.

The ambivalent attitude of the Middle Ages towards ancient culture, as primarily pagan, led to the selective assimilation of ancient cultural traditions and their adaptation to express Christian spiritual values ​​and ideals. In literature, this was expressed in the imposition of the antique topic on the topic of the Bible, the main source of the figurative system of medieval literature, which consecrated the spiritual values ​​and ideals of medieval society.

3. Pronounced moral and didactic character. Medieval man expected morality from literature; outside of morality, the whole meaning of the work was lost for him.

4. The literature of the Middle Ages is based on Christian ideals and values ​​and strives for aesthetic perfection.

Official clerical literature

Didacticism is clearly expressed in clerical literature. It makes extensive use of antique and biblical topics.

Throughout the centuries-old development of the Middle Ages, hagiography, church literature describing the lives of saints, was especially popular. 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 life of the saint offered the highest moral lesson, fascinated by examples of a righteous life. Hagiographic literature is characterized by the motive of a miracle, which corresponded to popular ideas about holiness. The popularity of the lives led to the fact that excerpts from them - "legends" (for example, the famous legends about St. Francis of Assisi / 1181/1182 - 1226 /, who founded the mendicant order of the Franciscans) began to be read in the church, and the lives themselves were collected in the most extensive collections. Widely known in medieval Europe was the "Golden Legend" of Yakov Voraginsky (XIII century) - a collection of the lives of Catholic saints.

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 - 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 about real historical figures, which contributed to the popularity of the genre. Visions had a significant impact on the development of later medieval literature, starting with the famous French "Romance of the Rose" (XIII century), in which the motif of visions ("revelations in a dream") is clearly expressed, to Dante's Divine Comedy.

The genre of the didactic-allegorical poem (about the Last Judgment, the Fall, etc.) adjoins the visions.

Didactic genres also include sermons, various kinds of maxims (moralizing sayings), borrowed both from the Bible and from ancient satirical poets. The maxims were collected in special collections, original textbooks of worldly wisdom.

Among the lyrical genres of clerical literature, the dominant position was occupied by hymns glorifying the patron saints of monasteries and church holidays. The hymns had their own canon. The composition of the hymn about the saints, for example, included a beginning, a panegyric to the saint, a description of his deeds, a prayer to him asking for intercession, etc.

The liturgy is the main Christian service, known since the 2nd century, and is strictly canonical and symbolic. The origin of liturgical drama dates back to the early Middle Ages. Its origins are dialogic insertions into the canonical text of the liturgy, the so-called tropes, which arose at the end of the 9th-10th centuries. Initially, these dialogues were accompanied by pantomime, gradually turning into skits, and then into small plays based on biblical stories, played out by priests or singers near the altar. The Catholic Church supported the liturgical drama with its pronounced didacticism. By the end of the XI century. the liturgical drama lost touch with the liturgy. In addition to dramatizing biblical episodes, she began to act out the lives of the saints, using elements of the theater itself - scenery. The amplification of the entertainment and spectacle of the drama, the penetration of the worldly beginning into it forced the church to take out dramatic performances outside the temple - first to the porch, and then to the city square. The liturgical drama became the basis for the emergence of the medieval city theater.

Clerical lyrics

Clerical lyrics originate from the work of the Vagantes (from the Latin - "wandering") (XI - XIII centuries). Their music was addressed to the spiritual elite of medieval society - its educated part, able to appreciate poetic creativity. The songs were written in Latin. The creators of the lyrics of the Vagantes were wandering clerics, mainly half-educated students who did not find a place for themselves in the church hierarchy. The Vagants were educated people, personally independent, as if “falling out” of the social structure of medieval society, financially unsecured - these features of their position contributed to the development of the thematic and stylistic unity of their lyrics.

Like all Latin literature of this period, the lyrics of the Vagantes are based on ancient and Christian traditions (the sources of satire of the Vagantes are Juvenal and the biblical prophets, erotic themes are Ovid and the Song of Songs). The poetic heritage of the Vagantes is wide and varied: these are poems glorifying sensual love, taverns and wine, and works denouncing 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.

Vagant's work is mostly anonymous. Few names are known, among them - Hugon, nicknamed "Primas (Elder) of Orleans" (late XI - mid-XII century), Archipyit (XII century), Walter of Chatillon (second half of the XII century). The anti-ascetic, anti-church literature of the Vagantes was persecuted by the Catholic Church. By the end of the XIII century. vagant poetry came to naught because of the repressions imposed by the church, and could not withstand the competition from secular rivals - with the new-language poetry of the Provencal troubadours, French trouveurs and German minnesingers.

secular culture

Although medieval culture had an ideological, spiritual and artistic integrity, the dominance of Christianity did not make it completely homogeneous. One of its essential features was the emergence of a secular culture in it, which reflected the cultural self-awareness and spiritual ideals of the military-aristocratic class of medieval society - chivalry and a new social stratum that arose in the mature Middle Ages - townspeople.

Secular culture, being one of the components of Western European medieval culture, remained Christian in character. At the same time, the very image and style of life 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 chivalric culture.

Knight culture as a component of secular culture

The creator and bearer of chivalric culture was the military class, which originated in the 7th-8th centuries, when conditional forms of feudal landownership were developed. Chivalry, a special privileged layer of medieval society, over the centuries developed its own traditions and peculiar ethical norms, its own views on all life relationships. The formation of ideas, customs, morality of chivalry was largely facilitated by the Crusades, his acquaintance with the Eastern tradition.

The heyday of chivalric culture falls on the 12th-13th centuries, which was due, firstly, to its final registration as an independent and powerful estate, and secondly, to the introduction of chivalry to education (in the previous period, most of it was illiterate).

If in the early Middle Ages knightly values ​​were mainly of a military-heroic nature, then by the XII century, specifically knightly ideals and knightly culture were being formed.

The duties of the knight included not only the protection of the honor and dignity of the overlord. Tradition required the knight to follow certain "rules of honour", the so-called "code of knightly honour". The basis of the code is the idea of ​​fidelity to duty, the code regulated the rules of combat, and so on. Among the knightly virtues were noble behavior in battle, duel, generosity, courage. The tradition demanded that the knight know the rules of court etiquette, be able to behave in society, look after a lady with refinement, treat a woman nobly, protect the humiliated and offended. Among the "seven knightly virtues", along with riding, fencing, swimming, playing checkers, skillful handling of a spear, also included worship and service to the lady of the heart, writing and singing poems in her honor.

These ideals formed the basis of the idea of ​​specifically chivalrous behavior- courtesy (from the French court - yard). Courtesy, courtesy - a 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. Ideas about 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.

Thus, by the XII century. knightly values ​​were systematized and universalized, they were given a broad ethical meaning. These new values ​​formed the basis of secular, so-called courtly literature - knightly lyrics and knightly romance. It originated in the 12th century. simultaneously with the medieval heroic epic. However, if the latter expressed a nationwide ideal, then courtly literature focused on a certain class environment.

It should be noted that during the High Middle Ages, along with the separation of literature from historical, religious, scientific, etc. works, the gap between folk culture and elite culture widens (in the previous period, the entire sphere of poetic creativity mainly reflected the national ideal). The classical Middle Ages, on the other hand, opposes the chivalric romance to folk heroic epic, and the poetry of trouvères, troubadours and minnizingers to folk lyrics.

Knightly poetry

At the end of the XI century. in Provence, the lyrical chivalrous poetry of the troubadours arises (approximate translation - “composing verses”). The next two centuries were the time of the highest flowering of troubadour poetry, which became the first secular lyrics of the Middle Ages and marked the end of the dominance of church poetry. The theme of the troubadours' poetic work is extensive - poems were dedicated to knightly valor, but the main theme is courtly love (the very concept of courtesy, the cult of a beautiful lady as a new aesthetic ideal, was first developed in the poetry of troubadours).

Among the troubadours, lyrical works were first heard in the folk language (before them, Western European medieval literature was written only in Latin, while folk culture was unwritten). For the first time, poetic creativity became the work of the laity, and not exclusively of the clergy. The lyrics of the troubadours absorbed the literary elements of church Latin poetry, folklore, and Arabic influences are also noticeable in it. The troubadours also created a new image of the author - a man who serves only Beauty.

The most famous courtly poet was Bernard de Ventadorne (XII century). Among the troubadours are Bertrand de Born (died in 1210), Peyre Vidal (XII century), Guillaume de Cabestan (end of the XII century), William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Poitiers (1071 - 1127). Noble women also wrote poems, the most famous of them is the Duchess of Aquitaine Allenora.

The traditions of Provencal lyric poetry were continued by German poets - minnesingers ("singers of love") - the authors of German secular poetry. The German knightly lyrics - minnesang - were strongly influenced by Provencal lyrics. At the same time, the work of the minnesingers has a number of features.

The Minnesingers themselves composed music for their works, but they were distributed, as a rule, by itinerant singers - shpilmans. Although the main theme of the Minnesingers' work was the chanting of refined feelings for a beautiful lady, like their Provençal predecessors, their poetry is more restrained, sad, prone to didacticism, often painted in religious tones (remaining mostly secular). The most prominent minnesingers were Heinrich von Feldeke, Friedrich von Hausen, Wolfram von Eschenbach and others.

Creativity Minnesinger XIII - XIV centuries. reflects the beginning of the crisis of knightly culture. This is especially noticeable in the poetry of Neidhart von Reienthal, where everyday sketches and scenes of common life (alien to knightly lyrics) are not uncommon. The followers of Neidhart von Reienthal gravitate toward the forms of folk dance song, ridicule "courtesy" as a style of behavior and life. In the XIV - XV centuries. the decline of the minnesang is coming, associated with the crisis of knightly ideology. Knighthood begins to lose its importance as the main military force of the state in connection with the formation of combat-ready infantry.

In the XIV century. in the ideology of chivalry, the gap between the dream, the ideal and reality begins to widen. Knightly ethics, with its principles of fidelity to duty, suzerain, lady, is going through a deep crisis. Under the new conditions, “courtiness” itself becomes an anachronism, and the knights themselves, in the changed historical conditions, turn to poetry less and less. Courtly poetry gives way to literature, becoming more and more the object of ridicule and parody.

Romance

Contrary to religious works glorifying asceticism, chivalric literature sang earthly joys, expressed hope for the triumph of justice already in this, earthly life. Knightly literature did not reflect reality, but only embodied ideal ideas about a knight. The image of a chivalric novel is a hero striving for glory, performing miraculous feats (knights in them often fought dragons and sorcerers). The novel makes extensive use of complex symbolism and allegory, although there is also a realistic element to it. The plot often contains real information on history, geography, etc. The author of a courtly novel was most often a cleric, usually a humble citizen or a poor knight.

Romances of chivalry first appeared in France. Perhaps their most famous author was Chretien de Troyes (XII century), who uses ancient tradition and the Celtic heroic epic in his works.

One of the three most extensive epic cycles developed in medieval literature was the so-called Arthurian cycle. Arthur is a semi-mythical figure, apparently one of the heroes of the struggle of the Celts against the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The chronicle of Arthur was first recorded in the 12th century. Arthur and his twelve faithful knights defeat the Anglo-Saxons in many battles. Another legend is closely connected with the legend of the kingdom of Arthur - about the Holy Grail - the sacrament cup, in which the blood of Christ was collected. The Grail has become a symbol of the mystical chivalric principle, the personification of the highest ethical perfection.

Although adaptations of the Celtic Arthurian legends were widespread themes of many chivalric romances, Chrétien de Troyes compiled the first adaptations of these well-known tales. The fairy-tale King Arthur and his court became a model of courtesy. Among the 12 knights of Arthur, Percival and Lancelot especially stood out for their exploits. The legends of the Arthurian cycle formed the basis of Chrétien de Troy's novels Lancelot, or the Knight of the Cart, Percival, or the Tale of the Grail, and others. During the same period, Maria French composed her songs. Celtic legends about King Arthur inspired Wolfram von Eschenbach (XII century) to create an extensive novel "Parzival", which glorifies true chivalry, high ethical ideals.

The tale of love between Tristan and Isolde (12th century) became the subject of numerous chivalric romances, of which only fragments have come down to us. The novel was restored by the French scientist J. Bedier at the beginning of the 20th century. The plot goes back to Irish legends. Knight Tristan comes to Ireland in search of a bride for his relative - King Mark. In the daughter of the king, Isolde the Golden-haired, he recognizes the bride destined for Mark. On the ship, Tristan and Isolde accidentally drink a love potion prepared by Isolde's mother and meant for Isolde and her husband. Love blossoms between Tristan and Isolde. True to his duty, Tristan leaves for Brittany and marries there. At the end of the novel, the mortally wounded hero asks for a meeting with his beloved, who alone can heal him. He is waiting for a ship with a white sail - the ship of Iseult. However, the jealous wife informs Tristan that a ship with a black sail is sailing. Tristan is dying. Arriving to him, Isolde dies of despair.

By the XIV century. in connection with the onset of the crisis of chivalrous ideology, the courtly novel gradually declines, losing touch with reality, becoming more and more the object of parodies.

urban culture

In the X-XI centuries. in Western Europe, old cities begin to grow and new ones arise. In cities, a new way of life, a new vision of the world was born, new type of people. Based on the emergence of the city, new social strata of medieval society are formed - townspeople, guild artisans and merchants. They unite in guilds and workshops that protect the interests of their members. With the emergence of cities, the craft itself becomes more complicated, it already requires special training. New social relations are being formed in the cities - the artisan is personally free, protected from arbitrariness by the workshop. Gradually, large cities, as a rule, managed to overthrow the power of the lord, in such cities a city self-government arose. Cities were centers of trade, including foreign trade, which contributed to greater awareness of the townspeople, expanding their horizons. The citizen, independent of any authority other than the magistrate, saw the world differently than the peasant. Striving for success, he became a new type of personality.

The formation of new social strata of society had a huge impact on the further development of medieval culture, nations, and the formation of the education system.

The freedom-loving orientation of urban culture, its connection with folk art, was most clearly reflected in urban literature. Although at an early stage in the development of urban culture, the demand for clerical literature - the lives of the saints, stories about miracles, etc. - was still great, these works themselves have changed: psychologism has increased, artistic elements have intensified.

In urban freedom-loving, anti-church literature, an independent layer is being formed, parodying the main points of the church cult and dogma (both in Latin and in folk languages). Numerous parodic liturgies have survived (for example, the Liturgy of Drunkards), parodies of prayers, psalms, and church hymns.

In parodic literature in folk languages, the main place is occupied by secular parodies ridiculing knightly heroics (for example, Roland's comic double appears). Parodic chivalric novels, parodic epics of the Middle Ages are created - animals, picaresque, stupid. So, in the XIII century. numerous stories about animals - the cunning fox Renan, the stupid wolf Isengrin and the rustic lion Noble, in whose behavior human traits were easily guessed, were brought together and put into verse. This is how the extensive epic poem "The Romance of the Fox" appeared.

One of the most popular genres of French urban medieval literature of the XII - XIV centuries. were fablio (from the French - fablio - fable). Fablios are short funny stories in verse, comic everyday stories. The anonymous authors of this genre of urban literature were townspeople and itinerant singers and musicians. The hero of these short stories was most often a commoner. Fablios are closely connected with folk culture (folk turns of speech, an abundance of folklore motifs, comedy and speed of action). Fablio entertained, taught, praised the townspeople and peasants, condemned the vices of the rich and priests. Often the plot of the fablio was love stories. Fablio reflected the vitality of the townspeople, their faith in the triumph of justice.

Thematically, the schwank (from German - a joke) adjoins the fablio - a genre of German urban medieval literature. Schwank, like fablio, is a short humorous story in verse, later in prose. Arising in the 13th century, Schwank was very loved by German burghers not only in the Middle Ages, but also in the Renaissance. Folklore often served as the basis for the plot of Shvank, and later - the short story of the early Renaissance. Schwank had an anti-clerical character, ridiculing the vices of the Catholic Church. The anonymous authors of fablio and schwank contrasted their works with elite chivalric literature. Cheerfulness, rudeness, satirical ridicule of the knights were a kind of response to the spiritual elite and its refined culture.

Urban literature of the XIV - XV centuries. reflected the growth of the social self-awareness of the townspeople, who increasingly became the subject of spiritual life. German poets appeared in urban poetry - singers from the craft and workshop environment - meistersingers (literally - master singer). They adopted in their singing schools the canonical manner of performing the songs of the Minnesingers, which they replaced. The poetry of the Meistersingers was not completely alien to religious and didactic motives, although their work was mostly secular in nature. The most famous mastersingers were G. Sachs, H. Foltz, G. Vogel and others.

During the same period, there new genre urban literature is a prosaic short story in which the townspeople appear as independent, sharp-witted people who seek success and love life.

City theater

By the XIII century. refers to the emergence of urban theater.

Medieval folk theater has its roots in the liturgical drama of the Catholic Church. As already noted, by the time of the late Middle Ages, entertainment and spectacle began to prevail in it, and the church was forced to transfer dramatic performances to the city square, which further strengthened the secular element in them.

Around the same period, secular farces spread - humorous scenes in which the life of the townspeople is realistically depicted. Later, a farce began to be called an independent form of a medieval performance - a satirical, often frivolous content, the characters of which represented certain social types. Farce became the main folk genre of medieval theater. At this time, folk plays and pastorals appear, mostly by anonymous authors.

From the 13th century a special genre of drama in verse - morality - an allegorical play that has a moralizing character, is widely used. The characters of the morality play personified Christian virtues and vices. By the 15th century morality plays have undergone great changes. Although their plot remained based on Christian themes, they became allegorical dramas performed by professional actors. The straightforwardness and edification of morality were preserved, but the strengthening of the comic element, the introduction to the presentation of music created a form of folk drama.

XIV-XV centuries - the heyday of urban civil architecture. Wealthy citizens build big beautiful houses. Feudal castles are gradually turning into country houses, losing the function of military fortresses. The production of luxury goods is growing, the clothes of noble citizens are becoming richer and brighter. As the importance of capital grows, the class distinctions between aristocrats and burghers begin to gradually fade. At the same time, the social position of the third estate also undergoes changes. The medieval social structure of society is increasingly being destroyed. All this reflects the deep crisis of the Middle Ages. The decline of medieval culture is gradually coming.

Folk culture of medieval western Europe

Throughout the Middle Ages, remnants of paganism and elements of folk religion have been preserved in folk culture. Centuries after the adoption of Christianity, Western European peasants continued to secretly pray and make sacrifices to the old pagan shrines. Under the influence of Christianity, many pagan deities were transformed into evil demons. Special magical rites were performed in case of crop failure, drought, etc. Ancient beliefs in sorcerers and werewolves persisted among the peasantry throughout the Middle Ages. To combat evil spirits, various amulets were widely used, both verbal (all kinds of conspiracies) and subject (amulets, talismans). In almost every medieval village one could meet a sorceress who could not only inflict damage, but also heal.

Heroic epic

The collective memory of the people was the heroic epic, which reflected their spiritual life, ideals and values. The origins of the Western European heroic epic lie in the depths of the barbarian era. Only by the VIII - IX centuries. the first recordings of epic works were compiled. The early stage of epic poetry, associated with the formation of early feudal military poetry - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Old Norse - has come down to us only in fragments.

The early epic of the Western European peoples arose as a result of the interaction of a heroic fairy tale-song and a primitive mythological epic about the first ancestors - "cultural heroes", who were considered the founders of the tribe.

The heroic epic has come down to us in the form of grandiose epics, songs, in a mixed, poetic and song form, and less often in prose.

The oldest Icelandic literature by the time of its origin includes skaldic poetry, Eddic songs and Icelandic sagas (prose tales). The most ancient songs of the skalds have survived only in the form of quotations from the Icelandic sagas of the 13th century. According to the Icelandic tradition, the skalds had social and religious influence, they were brave and strong people. The poetry of the skalds is devoted to the praise of a feat and the gift received for it. Lyricism is unknown to skaldic poetry, it is heroic poetry in the literal sense of the word. Poems of about 250 skalds have survived to this day. One of them - the famous warrior poet - Egil Skallagrimson (X century) is narrated by the first of the Icelandic sagas - "The Saga of Egil".

Along with the author's poetry of skalds in Iceland in the same period, songs about gods and heroes were also widely known, which were works of an impersonal tradition. Their main content is the main mythological plots - the exploits of gods and heroes, legends about the origin of the world, its end and rebirth, etc. These songs were recorded approximately in the middle of the 13th century. and conditionally united by the name "Elder Edda". The date of occurrence of one or another of the Eddic songs has not been established, some of them date back to the Viking Age (IX-XI centuries).

The Icelandic sagas are dedicated to events that took place a century after the settlement of Iceland by the Norwegians (“age of sagas” - 930 - 1030). Compiled in prosaic form, they tell about the most famous representatives of individual clans, about family feuds, military campaigns, fights, etc. The number of heroes of the sagas is very significant, as is their volume. The huge collection of sagas is, as it were, the most extensive epic, the heroes of which are thousands of Icelanders acting at approximately the same time. The anonymous authors of the Icelandic sagas describe not only the events, but also the morals, psychology, and faith of their time, expressing the collective opinion of the people.

The Celtic epic is the oldest European literature. The Irish sagas originated in the 1st century. AD and evolved over several centuries. They have existed in written form since the 7th century. - (came down to us in the records of the XII century.). The early Irish sagas are mythological and heroic. Their content is the pagan beliefs of the ancient Celts, the mythical history of the settlement of Ireland. In the heroic sagas, the main character Cuchulain reflected the national ideal of the people - a fearless warrior, honest, strong, generous. In the heroic sagas, much space is devoted to the description of Cuchulain's fights.

The Fenian cycle dates back to the 12th century. Its hero is Finn McCool, his son is the singer Oisin and their army. This cycle existed in many editions, in a number of them it is told about the wanderings of Oisin to wonderful countries and about his return to Ireland after its Christianization. In the dialogues of Oisin and St. Patrick compares the life of the people before and after Christianization.

Although the ancient Irish sagas were already written down in the 12th century, up to the 17th century. they continued to exist in the form of an oral tradition, eventually taking the form of an Irish folk tale and ballad.

The Anglo-Saxon epic "Beowulf", referring to the end of the 7th - the beginning of the 8th century, was formed on the basis of earlier oral heroic songs. The hero of the epic is a brave knight from the South Scandinavian Gaut tribe, rescuing the king of the Danes, Hrothgar, who is in trouble. The hero performs three miraculous feats. He defeats the monster Grendal, who exterminated the king's warriors. Mortally wounding Grendal and defeating his mother, who avenged her son, Beowulf becomes the king of the Gauts. Being already old, he accomplishes his last feat - destroys the terrible dragon, who is taking revenge on the Gauts for stealing a golden goblet from him. In a duel with a dragon, the hero dies.

"Beowulf" is a bizarre interweaving of mythology, folklore and historical events. Serpent fighting, three wonderful fights are elements of a folk tale. At the same time, the hero himself, fighting for the interests of his tribe, his tragic death are characteristic features of the heroic epic, historical in its essence (some names and events described in the epic are found in the history of the ancient Germans). Since the formation of the epic dates back to the end of the 7th - beginning of the 8th centuries, i.e. more than a century after the adoption of Christianity by the Anglo-Saxons, Christian elements are also found in Beowulf.

In the XII century. the first written monuments of the medieval heroic epic appear in adaptations. Being authorial, they are based on the folk heroic epic. The images of the medieval epic are in many ways similar to the images of traditional epic heroes- these are fearless warriors, valiantly defending their country, brave, faithful to their duty.

The heroic medieval epic in an idealized form reflects the folk norms of heroic behavior, it reflects in a synthesized form the ideas of the people about the royal power, the squad, about the heroes, it is permeated with the spirit of national patriotism.

At the same time, since the medieval heroic epic in adaptations was created in the period of the already sufficiently developed culture of its time, traces of the influence of chivalrous and religious ideas of the era of its creation are obvious in it. The heroes of the medieval epic are faithful defenders of the Christian faith (Sid, Roland), vassals devoted to their lords.

In medieval literature, three extensive epic cycles were developed - about Alexander the Great, about King Arthur and about Charlemagne. The last two were the most popular. Alexander the Great lived in the pre-Christian era.

At the center of the Carolingian epic is the war in Spain. Unlike King Arthur, the hero of the Carolingian epic is a real historical person - Charlemagne. In the center of the epic about the Spanish war is the glorification of the feat of the nephew of Charlemagne Roland, which served as the basis for one of the early monuments of the medieval heroic epic - the French Song of Roland. The poem was composed during the era of the Crusades. (In the middle of the 11th century it was widely known - it was sung in the troops of William the Conqueror before the battle of Hastings in 1066.) Its earliest manuscript dates back to the 12th century. The historical basis of the "Song" is the campaign of Charlemagne to Spain in 778 with the aim of forcing Christianity among the Moors. (Folk legend connected the events of 778 with the struggle of the Franks against the invasion of Europe by the Arabs.) However, Charlemagne's attempt was unsuccessful - the Moors destroyed the retreating Franks in the Ronceval Gorge. This event became the plot of the heroic song, and later it was literary processed and formed the basis of the “Song of Roland” (although the poem is based on historical events and personalities, there is a lot of fiction in it). The protagonist of the "Song" is a historical person, he is mentioned in the chronicle of Charlemagne as a noble feudal lord.

The hero of the poem, Roland, the nephew of Charlemagne, advises the king to send his stepfather Ganelon to negotiate with the Saracen king Marsilius. However, the latter betrays the Franks by making a secret agreement with Marsilius. Seeking revenge on his stepson for a risky mission, Ganelon advises Charles to leave Ronceval Gorge, leaving only Roland's warriors there. The Moors destroy the hero's detachment, Roland himself is the last to die, remembering his fallen soldiers. Ganelon, who betrayed the hero, is condemned to a shameful death.

The Spanish epic - "The Song of My Side" - was composed during the period of the "reconquista" (XII century), the time of the Spaniards' struggle for the return of the lands occupied by the Moors. The prototype of the hero of the poem was a historical person - Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (the Moors called him "Sid", i.e. master).

The "Song" tells how Sid, expelled by King Alphonse of Castile, leads a brave fight against the Moors. As a reward for victories, Alphonse marries the daughters of Cid to noble infantes from Carrion. The second part of the "Song" tells about the deceit of Sid's sons-in-law and his revenge for the desecrated honor of his daughters.

The absence of fiction, the realistic transmission of the life and customs of the Spaniards of that time, the very language of the “song”, close to the folk language, make “The Song of My Sid” the most realistic epic in medieval literature.

An outstanding monument of the German epic - "The Song of the Nibelungs" - was recorded around 1225. The plot of the "Song" is based on ancient German legends from the time of the Great Migration of Peoples - the death of one of the German kingdoms - the Burgundian - as a result of the invasion of the Huns (437). However, it is extremely difficult to recognize this historical episode of the era of nomad invasions in the Song. Only a distant echo of those distant events is heard.

The Dutch prince Siegfried proposes to the Burgundian queen Krimgilda and helps her brother Gunther to trick Brunhilde into his wife. Years later, Brünnhilde discovers the deception and orders Siegfried to be killed (the brother of his wife Krimgilda is involved in the conspiracy against Siegfried). The kings lure the golden treasure of the fabulous Nibelungen from Krimgilda, and the murderer of Siegfried hides it in the Rhine. Krimgilda vows to avenge the treacherous death of her husband (who was stabbed in the back). She marries the king of the Huns, Attila, and after some time invites all her relatives with their warriors to the Hun land (in the "Song" the Burgundians act under the name of the Nibelungs). During the feast, Krimgilda deliberately arranges a quarrel, during which the entire Burgundian family dies. Krimgilda herself perishes at the hands of the only surviving combatant ...

Folklore of Western European peoples

The bearer of folklore traditions was the peasantry. folklore tradition, ritual in origin, had a huge impact on the formation of medieval literature, incl. clerical. Although folk lyrics were not written down in the Middle Ages, their themes, images, and rhythm had a huge impact on later genres of medieval poetry (knightly and urban lyrics).

In folklore, traces of the pagan beliefs of the peasants can be traced, especially in fairy tales and sayings. In peasant folklore, a negative attitude towards the rich is expressed. The favorite hero of Western European fairy tales is a poor man. The heroes of folk tales often became Jean the Fool in France, Stupid Hans - in Germany, Big Fool - in England.

The fairy-tale material of the Middle Ages was widely used by secular and ecclesiastical literature. Around 1100, the Spaniard Petrus Alfonsky compiled a whole collection, which included 34 stories, including a number of fairy tales about animals - "folk stories". Church compilers gave these stories a moralistic interpretation.

Fairy tale and narrative material was widely used in chivalric novels, in the short stories of Mary of France (12th century), in urban short stories of the 14th-15th centuries, and in individual works of mastersingers.

However, in all cases, this is only material; often only individual episodes, motives and details are used. Only from the middle of the XVI century. we can talk about the introduction of fairy tales proper into literature.

Various kinds of evil spirits are a frequent hero of Western European folk tales. In many stories, the characters are animals with human abilities. In the XIII century. these numerous stories were combined and put into verse - this is how the already mentioned famous medieval folk poem “The Romance of the Fox” arose.

Peasant ideas about a just life, about nobility and honor are heard in the tales of noble robbers protecting the orphans and the destitute.

Anglo-Scottish ballads became a genre of medieval folk art on this subject. Their anonymous authors were peasants, artisans, sometimes ballads were composed by professional minstrel singers. These works existed among the people. The time of the birth of the ballad as a genre of folk art is unknown. The earliest ballad belongs to the 13th century.

English and Scottish ballads are divided into several groups: ballads of epic content, which are based on real historical events, the so-called robber ballads, lyrical-dramatic love ballads, fantastic and everyday.

The hero of the robber ballads is the noble Robin Hood, the folk hero of England, and his army. The first ballads about Robin Hood were recorded in the 15th century. In the ballad, it is easy to trace the sympathy of the people for the forest shooters who went into the forest as a result of harassment. For the first time in European poetry, a person of ignoble origin became an ideal. Unlike the knights, Robin Hood is at war with the oppressors of the people. All good feelings and deeds of a brave archer apply only to the people.

The main thing in the plot of love ballads is not the chanting of a feat in the name of a beautiful lady (as in knightly poetry), but a genuine feeling, emotional experiences lovers.

Fantastic ballads reflected the beliefs of the people. The supernatural world with its fairies, elves and other fantastic characters appears in these ballads as a real, real world.

In a later period, everyday ballads appear, which are more prosaic, with a predominance of the comic element.

The ballad often uses artistic techniques of folk art. The language of ballads is peculiar - concrete words, without magnificent metaphors and rhetorical figures. A feature of ballads is also their clear rhythm.

Peasant work and rest was associated with songs - ritual, labor, festive, folk dances.

In the countries of French and German culture, at fairs, in villages, joggers (jokers) and spielmans (literally - a gamer) often performed - itinerant poets, singers, carriers of folk culture. They performed spiritual verses, folk songs, heroic poems, etc. to musical accompaniment. Singing was accompanied by dancing, puppet theater, various tricks. Folk singers often performed in the castles of feudal lords and in monasteries, making folk culture the property of all strata of medieval society. Later, from the 12th century, they began to perform various genres of knightly and urban literature. The folk art of jugglers and shpilmans became the basis of secular knightly and urban musical and poetic culture.

In the early Middle Ages, oral poetry developed, especially heroic epic, based on real events, military campaigns and great heroes that remained in the memory of people. epic,Chansondegeste (lit. "song of deeds") - a genre of French medieval literature, a song about the deeds of heroes and kings of the past ("The Song of Roland", a cycle about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table). Its purpose is to sing the moral values ​​of chivalry: duty to the overlord, service to the Church and the Beautiful Lady, loyalty, honor, courage.

All works of the medieval heroic epic belong to the early (Anglo-Saxon Beowulf) and classical Middle Ages (the Icelandic songs of the Elder Edda and the German Nibelungenlied). In the epic, descriptions of historical events coexist with myth and fairy tale, historical and fantastic are equally accepted as truth. Epic poems do not have an author: the people who reworked and supplemented the poetic material did not recognize themselves as the authors of the works they wrote.

"Beowulf" the oldest Anglo-Saxon epic poem, its action takes place in Scandinavia. The text was written at the beginning of the 8th century. The action of the poem begins in Denmark, where King Hrothgar rules. Trouble loomed over his country: every night the monster Grendel devoured warriors. From the land of the Gauts (in Southern Sweden), where the valiant King Hygelak rules, the hero Beowulf rushes to the aid of Denmark with fourteen wars. He slays Grendel:

The enemy was approaching;

Over reclining

He extended his hand

Rip up intending

clawed paw

Chest of the brave

But the one nimble

Sitting up on my elbow,

The brush squeezed him

And I understood the terrible

Shepherd of adversity

What on earth

Under the vault of heaven

He has not yet met

human hand

Stronger and harder;

The soul trembled

And my heart dropped

But it was too late

Run to the lair

To the devil's lair;

Never in my life

Didn't happen to him

Of what happened

In this hall.

But trouble again descended on Denmark: Grendel's mother came to avenge her son's death. With an ancient sword and impenetrable armor, Beowulf dives into a dead swamp and at the very bottom inflicts a crushing blow on the monster. At the end of the poem, Beowulf occupies the throne of the Gauts after the death of Hygelak. He has to save his people from a winged serpent enraged by stealing treasures. Having defeated the serpent, Beowulf dies from a mortal wound, having bequeathed his armor to Wiglaf, the only warrior who did not leave him in trouble. At the end of the poem, the eternal glory of Beowulf is proclaimed.

"Elder Edda" is a collection of Old Norse songs, songs about the gods - about Hymir, about Thrym, about Alvis and the heroes of Scandinavian mythology and history, which are preserved in manuscripts dating from the second half. 13th century The background of the manuscript is as unknown as the background of the Beowulf manuscript. Attention is drawn to the diversity of songs, tragic and comic, elegiac monologues and dramatized dialogues, teachings are replaced by riddles, divination - stories about the beginning of the world. Songs about the gods contain the richest mythological material, and songs about heroes tell about the good name and posthumous glory of the heroes:

Herds are dying

family is dying

and you yourself are mortal;

but I know one thing

that is eternally immortal:

the glory of the deceased.

(from "Speech of the High").

"Nibelungenlied"– a medieval epic poem, related to the Germanic epic, of 39 songs (“aventures”). It contains legends dating back to the time of the Great Migration of Nations and the creation of the Germanic kingdoms on the territory of the Western Roman Empire. It was written down by an unknown author at the end of the 12th – beginning of the 13th centuries. In the land of the Burgundians lives a girl of extraordinary beauty named Kriemhilda. Her three brothers are famous for their valor: Gunther, Gernot and Giselher, as well as their vassal Hagen. Siegfried, the son of the Dutch king Sigmund, the conqueror of the huge treasure of the Nibelungs (since then Siegfried himself and his squad are called the Nibelungs) - the sword of Balmung and the invisibility cloak - arrived in Burgundy to fight for the hand of Kriemhild. Only after many trials (victory over the Saxons and Danes, victory over the warrior Brynhild, whom Gunther is in love with), Siegfried is allowed to marry his beloved. But the happiness of the young does not last long. The queens quarrel, Hagen finds out Siegfried's weak point from Kriemhild (his "Hercules heel" turned out to be a mark on his back, while washing in the dragon's blood, a linden leaf fell on his back):

My husband,–She said,–and brave and full of strength.

Once under a mountain he slew a dragon,

Washed in his blood and became invulnerable ...

When he began to bathe in the dragon's blood,

A leaf from a neighboring linden tree fell on the knight

And he covered his back between the shoulder blades by a span.

Here, alas, my mighty husband is also vulnerable.

After this confession, Hagen kills Siegfried while hunting. Since then, the Burgundians are called Nibelungs, since the treasures of Siegfried pass into their hands. After mourning for 13 years and marrying the ruler of the Huns, Etzel, Kriemhilda lures the brothers and Hagen to visit and kills every one. So she avenges the death of her beloved husband and kills all the Nibelungs.

French heroic epic. A wonderful example of a medieval folk-heroic epic - "The Song of Roland". In France, "songs about deeds" that existed among the knights became widespread. There are about a hundred of them in total, forming three groups in terms of plot and theme: in the center of the first is the king of France, a wise monarch; in the center of the second is his faithful vassal; in the center of the third - on the contrary, a rebellious feudal lord, not subject to the king. The Song of Roland, the most famous among heroic songs, is based on a real historical event, a short campaign of Charlemagne against the Basques in 778. After a successful seven-year campaign in Mauritanian Spain, the Frankish emperor Charlemagne conquers all the cities of the Saracens (Arabs), except for Zaragoza where King Marsilius rules. The ambassadors of Marsilius offer the French riches and say that Marsilius is ready to become a vassal of Charles. The Breton Count Roland does not believe the Saracens, but his enemy Count Gwenelon insists on a different decision and travels as an ambassador to Marsilius, plotting to destroy Roland and advising Marsilius to attack the rearguard of the army of Charlemagne. Returning to the camp, the traitor says that Marsilius agrees to become a Christian and a vassal of Charles. Roland is appointed chief of the rear guard, and he takes with him only 20 thousand people. They are ambushed in the Gorge of Ronceval and engage in battle with the superior forces of the Saracens. In the end, they die, Carl notices something was wrong too late and returns to Ronceval to defeat the insidious enemy and accuse Gwenelon of treason.

Spanish heroic epic. The Spanish epic is in many ways close to the French, and the art of the Spanish epic houglars has much in common with the art of the French jugglers. The Spanish epic is also based mainly on historical tradition; even more than French, it is centered around the theme of the reconquista, the war with the Moors. The best and at the same time the most complete monument of Spanish epic poetry is "Song of My Sid". Coming down to us in a single copy compiled in 1307 by a certain Pedro Abbot, the poem of the heroic epic seems to have taken shape around 1140, less than half a century after the death of Cid himself. Sid is the famous leader of the reconquista Rodrigo (Ruy) Diaz de Bivar (1040 - 1099). The Arabs called him Sid (from Arabic seid - "master"). The main goal of his life is liberation native land from Arab domination. Contrary to historical truth, Cid is depicted as a knight who has vassals and does not belong to the highest nobility. He is turned into a real folk hero, who suffers insults from an unjust king, comes into conflict with the tribal nobility. On a false accusation, Cid was expelled from Castile by King Alfonso VI. But at the end of the poem, Sid not only defends his honor, but also becomes related to the Spanish kings. The Song of My Side gives a true picture of Spain both in days of peace and in days of war. In the XIV century. the Spanish heroic epic is in decline, but its plots continue to be developed in romances - short lyric-epic poems, in many respects similar to northern European ballads.

At the late stage of the primitive tribal system, the Western European epic begins to take shape. It relies on the artistic arsenal of myth and fairy tale. Reflecting the growth of the historical consciousness of medieval man, the epic is in constant development, and in the 7th-8th centuries, when the contours of feudal statehood are being determined, it experiences a rebirth, as it were. This gives grounds to speak of two stages of the epic: archaic (pre-state) and heroic (state).

Old Icelandic epic songs should be considered the oldest example of the epic creativity of the peoples of Western Europe. Created by the Scandinavians in the pre-literate era, these songs were brought to Iceland during its development in the late 9th - early 10th century. In the 13th century, during the heyday of writing in Iceland, a handwritten collection on parchment containing 29 epic songs was compiled. Remaining unknown for a long time, the collection was discovered only in the 17th century. and was called the Elder Edda. By this time the word "Edda" ( exact value which remains unclear) was assigned to the book of the Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson (XIII century), which retold many Old Norse legends and outlined the foundations of the poetics of singer-storytellers "- skalds. The songs of the manuscript collection were recognized as earlier and in origin than Snorri's book, which therefore became known as the "Younger Edda".

The songs of the Elder Edda are usually divided into songs about gods and songs about heroes. Both in those and in other songs of the "Edda" the scales are cosmic and there are almost no specific historical, geographical, temporal realities. The world is divided into three spheres: the upper world of the gods, the underworld of monsters, the middle world of people. The gods are anthropomorphic: they look like people, they and their allies in the fight against the dark forces of evil. The concept of life is tragic: both gods and heroes are mortal. But the upcoming troubles and catastrophes do not deprive the heroes of their fortitude, do not plunge them into despair and apathy. Man heroically goes towards his destiny; a good name, posthumous fame - his main asset.

Among the mythological songs of the "Elder Edda" one of the most significant "Divination of the Völva" is a kind of introduction to the mythological system of the ancient Scandinavians. The song is designed as a monologue: the sorceress-soothsayer Völva tells the supreme god Odin about the past, present and future destinies of the world.

Once - the song says - there was no sand, no sea, no firmament, no earth, grass did not grow, but only the giant Ymir lived, from whose body the world was created. Odin and his brothers created Midgard - the middle space - the habitat of man. The first people - Ask and Embla - in the form of tree prototypes of ash and willow were found by the gods on the seashore and gave them breath, spirit, warmth, painted their faces with a blush. And there was once a "golden age". And then came the terrible times. Trouble came along with the war of the gods: aces and veins. And then follows the story of how the gods broke their oaths, how the bright god Baldr, the beloved son of Odin, and another son of Odin, Vali, "did not wash his hands, did not scratch his hair" died, until he hit the killer of his brother.

The tragic fate of the world is revealed with even greater force in the story of the birth of the giant wolf Fenrir. The gods will not be able to cope with him, and Fenrir himself is assigned to swallow the sun. Meanwhile, the world of people plunges into the abyss of bloody cruelty. A complete moral fall: brothers will fight with brothers, relatives with relatives, a person will not spare a person. And there the sun will fade, and the earth will hide in the sea. This is how the soothsayer paints the universal picture of the death of the world.

But the finale of the song is intended to inspire faith that the "golden age" will return: the prophet sees a shining wonderful chamber, where faithful squads will live, who are destined for eternal happiness.

The heroic songs of the Edda are more concrete in their content. They tell about the tragic fates of individuals who are firmly connected with the troubles and sorrows of their community. Usually this is a story about intertribal relations, about battles and strife, about avengers and avengers. Each individual song tells only about a certain segment of the hero's life; about what happened before and what followed after, you can usually find out from other songs. It also happens that the same event in the songs is interpreted in different ways. In addition, many names are named in the song, which can only be learned from other legends. Definitely visible: epic songs suggest themselves in a cycle; the subsequent process of cyclizations will be a natural stage on the way to the emergence of a voluminous epic poem.

There are many faces in the Eddic songs about heroes, whose fate is narrated in a number of songs. These are Atli, Sigurd, Brynhild, Gudrun. The tragic fates and horrific deeds of each of these heroes are amazing. But the songs do not give moral assessments to the heroes. It is impossible to approach these people with the usual measure. Everything connected with them is unheard of, and therefore, according to the ideas of that time, heroic. So, Sigurd strikes the monstrous dragon and takes possession of his treasure. But the hero himself is destined for a terrible death by the brothers of his wife Gudrun. "Sigurd was cut in two in the dense forest," and according to another version, he was killed in his own bed. The murder of Sigurd was sought by Brynhild: with her he was bound by an oath of allegiance, which he later broke. Upon learning of the death of Sigurd, Brunhild "only laughed heartily" - finally she was avenged! But she could not bear the death of her beloved. "After Brynhild's death, two fires were built, one for Sigurd, and this fire burned first, and Brynhild was burned on another fire" ("Brynhild's Journey to Hel"). Gudrun Atli's second husband treacherously kills her brothers: Hegni's "heart was torn out of his chest with a sharp knife", Gunnar was thrown into a snake den. And then Gudrun takes revenge on her husband with a terrible revenge: she kills her sons and treats their father Atli with the meat of the children. Mixing blood with beer, she serves a terrible drink in bowls made from the skulls of boys. Then he kills Atli, and sets his dwelling on fire.

The heroic songs of the "Elder Edda" are majestically epic, but they are not without lyrical notes. And their leading motive is a poignant elegy born of sorrow and pain.

The richest epic literature was created by the Celts. In ancient times, these tribes settled in the vast territories of Europe. During the rise of the Roman Empire, the Celts were partially Romanized, and the monuments of their poetic work were irretrievably lost. So, for example, it happened after the conquest of Gaul by the Romans in the 1st century BC. BC e. Things were more prosperous with the culture of the Celts who settled in the British Isles. During the Early Middle Ages, Ireland became the main center of their culture. It is characteristic that the Christianization of Ireland in the 5th century. did not change the attitude towards the poetic monuments of paganism, and even, on the contrary, contributed to their preservation. Together with Christianity, writing came to Ireland, and at the monasteries, which in a short time appeared here in large numbers, there were workshops for copying books - scriptoria. Thus, a tradition that already existed in continental Europe was continued: a monk should not only pray, but also engage in physical and mental labor, read and copy books. It should be noted that the Irish monks showed amazing attention to the culture of antiquity: poetic legends were recorded, preserved, they were not forbidden to be studied in schools.

Irreplaceable damage to Celtic culture was inflicted later: in the 8th-10th centuries, in connection with the invasion of Ireland by the Vikings, and from the 11th century, when the country was conquered by the Anglo-Normans. It was during this period that many Irish monasteries were plundered and destroyed, and the number of lost manuscripts cannot be counted.

Despite the disastrous consequences of the wars of conquest, many monuments of Old Norse literature have survived to our time. These are prose works with poetic inserts, usually in those places where drama or lyrical notes reach a special tension. Already in modern times, these narratives began to be called sagas (tales), the Icelanders called them "stories", "tales".

In the Irish sagas, in comparison with the songs of the Elder Edda, the cosmic scales are significantly muffled; the emphasis is more on the exploits and deeds of individual heroes, whose life goals are determined by the interests of the family and clan. The composition of the sagas is open. All of them suggest themselves in cycles, the unifying beginning of which is either the history of the hero (Ulad cycle, Finn cycle), or some general problems of being (mythological sagas, sagas about sailing to the land of bliss).

The most significant part of the Irish epic is the Ulad cycle, the oldest version of which has come down to our time in a manuscript dating from the beginning of the 11th century. and called - because of the quality of its parchment - "The Book of the Brown Cow".

The central hero of the cycle is the bogatyr Cuchulainn, whose days of life the legend relates to the 1st century BC. n. e. The image of Cuchulainn is one of the greatest creations of the poetic genius of the ancient Irish. And today his name is surrounded in Ireland with the highest glory, he is a nationally recognized national hero. Let us note that the absolute impeccability of Cuchulainn is more than once noted in the tales dedicated to him: "Above all others, the women of Ulad loved him for his dexterity in games, courage in jumping, clarity of mind, sweetness of speeches, the charm of his face and the tenderness of his eyes." Cuchulainn had only three shortcomings: his youth, his unheard-of pride in his courage, and the fact that he was excessively beautiful and stately ("Wooing to Emer"). Cuchulainn equally combines the features of a mythological hero, the bearer of archaic demonism, and the qualities of an earthly person. This duality, presented, however, in an organic artistic unity, makes itself felt constantly, starting from the moment of his miraculous birth. So, according to one version, he is the son of the god of light and the patron of crafts Lug; on the other - the son of King Conchobor, who entered into an incestuous relationship with his sister. But in every version Cuchulain's mother is a mortal woman, Dekhtire.

The "biography" of the hero, which can be traced from the moment of his birth to the last moments of his life, is based on motifs that have a stable character in folk poetry. These are incredible feats performed by Cuchulainn already in childhood; the victory over the monstrous dog of the blacksmith Kulan stands out among them. This is the story of a hero's heroic matchmaking, a mortal duel with his own son, a visit to the other world, a battle with his brother Ferdind...

Cuchulainn manages to accomplish the greatest feats not only thanks to his strength, courage and courage, but also due to magical power: the ability to suddenly transform, the ability to master miraculous combat techniques. The unearthly is also manifested in the very appearance of the hero: "There were seven pupils in the eyes of the young man - three in one and four in the other, seven fingers on each foot and seven on each hand" ("Wooing to Emer"). Mythological creatures play a significant role in the life of the hero: he is being trained by the sorceress Skatakh, his lovers were the heroic maiden Ayore and the fairy Fand, his allies and opponents are the fairy Morrigan, the sorcerer Ku Roi...

According to the traditions of tales of this kind, it is at the hour of death that Cuchulain ascends to the highest step of his heroic destiny. The saga "The Death of Cuchulainn" tells about this - one of the most sublime in the cycle. The eternal adversary of Cuchulainn - Queen Medb sends a terrible army to the Ulads, led by the sons of Galatin trained in magical art. Cuchulainn goes to battle, but his fate is already sealed: "The women let out a cry of suffering, sorrow and pity, knowing that the hero would never return..." And on the way to the battlefield, they treated the hero of the witch to dog meat. Cuchulainn could not refuse this: for he gave a vow to respond to every request of a woman. But the witch's gift was fatal: with her left hand she served meat to Cuchulainn - and they lost their former fortress and left hand and the hero's left thigh. In spite of this, Cuchulainn fought valiantly and slew many of his enemies. But he could not resist the forces of the attackers: the hero's driver was killed, then his horse, and there he himself was mortally wounded. And then Cuchulainn tied himself to a high stone: "for he did not want to die neither sitting nor lying down, but only standing." But Lugaid, the son of three Dogs, "grabbed Cuchulain's hair from behind his back and cut off his head. Then his sword fell out of Cuchulain's hands and cut off Lugaid's right hand, so that it fell to the ground. In revenge they cut off Cuchulain's right hand. Then they left from there warriors, taking with them the head of Cuchulainn and his hand" ("The Death of Cuchulainn"").

In terms of significance, the nearest place to the Ulad cycle is occupied by legends dedicated to the Finn. The name of the hero stands for "secret knowledge" and carries the following meaning: "Once upon a time, a drop of a wonderful drink fell on Finn's finger; and from now on, as soon as the hero puts this finger in his mouth, he joins the highest secrets." There is another version: Finn became a wise man, because he tasted the salmon of wisdom. But Finn is not only a sage. He is also a brave warrior. It was he who managed to hit the terrible one-eyed monster.

One of the most poetic sagas of the cycle is "The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Greine". With many of her motives, she anticipates the story of the tragic love of Tristan and Isolde. The saga tells that the old Finn decided to marry, chosen as the bride by the daughter of the King of Ireland Greine. But the groom is not to Graine's liking. And during the feast, the girl treats everyone with a drink that brings sleep. And she imposes "dangerous and destructive fetters of love" on the "tanned sweet-spoken warrior Diarmuid". Enchanted by these bonds, Diarmuid flees with Greine. For a long sixteen years, the wanderings of heroes continue. And all this time, the fearless Diarmuid defeats the mighty warriors and monsters sent after him in pursuit - poisonous dogs. Finn finally makes peace with Diarmuid. Secluded, but safely and happily lived with his family Diarmuid. And he had four sons and a daughter. But happiness is changeable, and a person always wants more. Greina wanted to arrange a feast and invite guests to it, and among them a Finn. Without desire, Diarmuid agreed to this, as if he had a premonition of his sad end. And indeed, the wise-cunning Finn arranged a hunt, on which a terrible boar mortally wounded Diarmuid. Finn could have brought the hero back to life by giving him a sip from his palm, but he didn't. Graine grieved for a long time. But the cunning Finn managed to win over the widow to his side. They became husband and wife. And when the sons of Diarmuid, having matured and gained military experience, decided to go to war against Finn, Graine managed to persuade everyone to agree.

The world of Irish sagas is a harsh world. He tests a person according to the highest measure of his strength and even more than that. This is a world of grandiose and majestic, mysterious and mysterious. Ratings: good or bad, moral or immoral - have not yet become a criterion. Heroically asserting himself in this world, revealing the unheard of in his deeds, a person retains faith in the power of fate. And therefore, his unprecedented exploits and horrific deeds are not subject to the usual court.

The archaic epic as a special type of epic creativity exhausts itself in the 7th-8th centuries. The reasons for this should be sought in the very nature of the poetics of the epic.

The epic is a poetic reflection of the historical consciousness of a person, and what the epic tells about is understood as an absolute truth. This truth was the world of myth and the world of fairy tales, on which the archaic epic grew and relied. But, developing according to the principle of demythologization, saturated with more and more concrete historical realities, the archaic epic lost its original basis. In turn, the development public life posed new problems for a person related to the awareness of his place not only in the system of the universe, family and clan, but also in history. All this significantly changed the very nature of epic creativity: the archaic (pre-state) epic was replaced by the heroic (state) epic.

The most striking and significant monument of the transitional type is the Anglo-Saxon poem "Beowulf", which took shape either at the end of the 7th or at the beginning of the 8th century. and has come down to our time in a single manuscript dating from the 10th century. Following the model of fairy tales, the structure of the poem is determined by the three central feats of the hero, and each subsequent feat is more difficult than the previous one.

The name Beowulf, which means "wolf of bees", bear, is not mentioned in historical sources. Heroes came to the epic poem from the world of myth and fairy tale. Beowulf is depicted in the poem as a representative of the Gaut tribe, who voluntarily assumed the mission of fighting monsters, "life-destroyers" of people. Having heard that a terrible cannibal named Grendel has appeared in Denmark, Beowulf goes there, relatively easily overcomes the monster, and after that, with great difficulty, he defeats Grendel's mother, fighting with her in a strange world - the watery abyss. Fifty years pass. In the vicinity of the country ruled by Beowulf, a fire-breathing dragon appears. Beowulf enters into battle with him. The dragon is defeated, but the hero also dies from a mortal wound.

In the main, the poem remains within the framework of the archaic epic. This is evidenced by the miraculous powers of the hero, the marvelous feats that he performs. Beowulf generally embodies the strength, power, fearlessness of the entire community to which he belongs: "He was the strongest among the mighty heroes of the noble, stately and proud." The enemies of Beowulf are mythological creatures, inhabitants of an alien, demonic world. The motif of dragonfight plays a prominent role in the poem. The hero himself acts as a defender of culture, mastering the elements of nature.

But the story of the hero's struggle with mythological creatures is given against a specific historical background: countries, tribes and nationalities are named, relations between the Angles and Saxons are reflected, it is told about the raids of the Gaugs on the Franks, about the tribal strife of the Danes and Frisians. The coverage of the historical world in the poem is wide - and this is a sign that tribal isolation is being overcome. And in conjunction with this, a voluminous poem is born with a developed descriptive element, an abundance of digression. So, for example, the battle of Beowulf with Grendel and his mother is first described in detail, and then the hero tells about them in the same detail after his return to his native land. The compositional harmony of the work is increasing. This is no longer a chain of epic songs connected by a single hero, but an organic plot unity.

The poem noticeably reflects the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons, which dates back to the 7th century. The pagans are doomed to failure, success accompanies those who honor the Creator. The Almighty helps Beowulf: "God is the intercessor ... the weaver of good luck put a hero over the army of Gaut." In the poem, military prowess sometimes indistinguishably approach the Christian virtues of the hero. Some of Beowulf's personality traits and vicissitudes are reminiscent of the life of Jesus Christ.

The final scenes of the poem are ambiguous in their tone. High tragedy, not devoid of sacrifice, paints the last feat of the hero. Preparing for a meeting with the Dragon, Beowulf "foresaw in his heart the neighborhood of death." In a difficult moment, the squad left the hero. The scenes of Beowulf's death and the funeral burning of his body are permeated with eschatological motifs. "The groans of the fire were echoed by cries," and a certain old woman "howled over Beowulf, predicting a terrible time, death, robberies and inglorious battles."

But there are encouraging notes in the same scenes. The young knight Wiglaf helps Beowulf defeat the dragon. He was one of Beowulf's retinue not embarrassed in heart, remained strong in spirit, did not falter in difficult times, did not drop the glory of his ancestors. It was he, Wiglaf, who arranged the solemn burial of Beowulf; moreover, not only the body of the hero is burned on the funeral fire, but also the treasure, over which ancient spells weighed.

The poem begins with a description of the funeral of the Danish king Skild Skeving and ends with the funeral of Beowulf. But in each case, death does not mean the end at all. Sorrow and joy, despair and hope go side by side. And life goes on forever.

The following groups of phenomena are clearly distinguished in the history of medieval literature:

1. artistic literature of the tribes, disappeared without a trace (Gauls, Goths, Scythians

2. the literature of Ireland, Iceland, etc., which have experienced only a temporary flourishing;

3. literature of future nations - France, England, Germany, Spain, Kyiv

4. The literature of Italy, consistently grew from the traditions of the era of late antiquity and ended with the work of Dante. It is also all Latin-language literature, including the works of the Carolingian Revival of the first half of the 9th century in France and the Ottonian Renaissance of the 10th century in the Holy Roman Empire.

5. Literature of Byzantium.

The medieval literatures of the peoples of the East are considered separately, although they have certain parallels and mutual influences with European medieval literature. Byzantium was a kind of "bridge" between the two cultures in the Middle Ages.

By topic, the following types can be distinguished:

· "Literature of the monastery" (religious);

· "Literature of the tribal community" (mythological, heroic, folk);

"Literature of the knight's castle" (courtly)

"Literature of the city".

3. Periodization of medieval literature

The division of European medieval literature into periods is determined by the stages community development peoples at the present time. There are two major periods:

· the early Middle Ages - the period of literature of the decomposition of the tribal system (from the 5th century to the 9th - 10th centuries);

· mature Middle Ages - the period of literature of developed feudalism (from the 9th - 10th century to the 15th century).

Early Middle Ages

First page from "Beowulf"

The literature of this period is quite homogeneous in its composition and constitutes a single whole. By genre it is an archaic (mythological) and heroic epic, represented by poetic monuments of the Celts (old Irish legends), Scandinavians ("Elder Edda", sagas, skaldic poetry), as well as Anglo-Saxons ("Beowulf"). Although chronologically, these monuments in some cases belong to a much later time, by their nature they date back to the first period. The preservation of the early creativity of these peoples was facilitated by the fact that, far from Rome, the local Christian clergy were more patient with national pagan traditions. Moreover, it was the monks, the only literate people at that time, who wrote down and preserved this literature.

The archaic epos marks the period of transition from the mythological to the historical perception of the world, from myth to epic. However, it still has numerous fabulously mythical features. The hero of archaic epic works combines the features of a hero and a sorcerer, making him related to his ancestor.

Separately, there was literature in Latin, mainly of a Christian nature (Augustine the Blessed).

Mature Middle Ages

At this time, literature becomes more differentiated, which makes it difficult to describe it comparatively historically. Since national literatures have not yet been formed, there are practically no boundaries between them, the distribution of the literature of this period is carried out according to the above genre and typological features.

Until about the 13th century, three distinct literary currents develop in parallel: religious literature, folk literature (classic epic) and feudal chivalric literature(courtly poetry and epic). These directions were not isolated, there was always a connection between them and complex intermediate formations arose. Although they had an opposite character, their laws, forms and ways of development are peculiar. From the 13th century, another direction quickly began to develop in Europe: urban literature.

3.2.1. religious literature

Religious Literature through the writings of the Fathers of the Church lays a bridge from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The genres of Christian literature of this time include exegetics (interpretations and comments on Scripture), liturgical literature, literature for the laity (psalter, translations of biblical stories, Clockwork, etc.), chronicles (which were created in monasteries as a chronicle, primarily of church history ), scholastic treatises, didactic works, visions. The most popular genre of the Middle Ages were the lives of the saints (hagiography) and stories about their miracles.

Classic epic

Songs of Roland page

Classic heroic epic("The Song of the Nibelungs", "The Song of Roland", "The Song of My Sid", "The Tale of Igor's Campaign") reflects popular point perspective on events important for national history occurring in the "epic" period. Compared with the archaic epic, they are closer to historical authenticity, the weight of fabulous and mythological elements in them is reduced, the development of social significant topics(patriotism, loyalty to the king, condemnation of feudal strife), and ideal warriors become heroes.

folk poetry, closely connected with the classical epic, reaches its apogee in the ballad genre (15th century).

3.2.3. Knight literature

Formation chivalric literature associated with the discovery of individuality, the beginning of a movement from a typologically symbolic neglect of an individual to attempts to reveal it inner world. A stern warrior of earlier eras turns into an exquisite knight, the literature about which switches attention from his fusion with the people to purely individual manifestations - love (courtly poetry) and personal exploits (knightly romance). In parallel, the concept of individual authorship appears. Chivalric poetry is represented by the lyrics of troubadours (Bernart where Ventadorn), trouvers and minnesingers (Walter von der Vogelweide), and chivalric romance is predominantly a cycle about the legendary King Arthur (Chrétien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach).

3.2.4. urban literature

urban literature in contrast to the capture of a military victory and the courtly gallantry of knights or the asceticism of saints, he values ​​\u200b\u200bprudence, quick wits, common sense, dexterity and laughter - in all its manifestations ("The Romance of the Fox", Francois Villon) above all else. Urban literature is marked by didacticism and instructiveness. It reflected the sober prudence, practicality, vitality of the townspeople. Widely using the means of humor and satire, she teaches, ridicules, exposes. The style of this literature corresponds to the desire for a realistic depiction of reality. In contrast to the courtesy of knightly literature, urban literature is marked by "earthiness", common sense, as well as rude humor, a joke, sometimes bordering on naturalism. Its language is close to folk speech, urban dialect . Urban literature is represented by the genres of epic, lyric, drama. She flourished in France.

Pre-Renaissance

Sometimes in a separate period allocate Pre-Renaissance, although in other cases it is placed in the late Middle Ages, usually in urban literature. This is the work of Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321), author of "New Life" and "Divine Comedy"

Gustave Dore "Dante Alighieri"

Medieval and Renaissance elements were closely intertwined in Dante's worldview, political and moral views, and aesthetics. The same applies to the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), the author of The Canterbury Tales, and another Italian, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), who created the Decameron. The last domestic literary criticism traditionally refers to the Renaissance, but in the West, the views are not so unambiguous. The works of these writers, repeating all existing models of stories and stories, became the genre summary of medieval literature, while opening up new, humanistic horizons for the further movement of culture.

Middle Ages in the East

In the literatures of the East, the period of the Middle Ages is also different, but its time frame is somewhat different, as a rule, its completion is attributed to the 18th century.

Historians call the Middle Ages a huge period of time - from the moment the Roman Empire fell to the beginning of bourgeois revolutions. In the history of literature and art Zap. Europe is distinguished by the actual era of the Middle Ages - the birth, development and flowering of the feudal system and its culture - and the Renaissance.

№ 4 Renaissance literature

The Renaissance is a period in the history of Europe, which began in the beginning - the middle of the XIV century. and ended (in different countries in different ways) by the 16th-17th centuries. The period is marked by the fact that there was an interest in ancient art, science, philosophy and literature, the term "Renaissance" refers more to the history of culture. This interest arose at the very end of the 13th-beginning of the 14th century. among Italian scientists.

The Renaissance, or in other words, the Renaissance, in my opinion, is the most interesting era in European history, which provides great food for thought and thought. The period left its mark on history with an abundance of written evidence, works of art, philosophy, literature and science.

Of course, there is a revolution in the spiritual life of man. This is due to the fact that there is a weakening of the influence of the church, the emergence of a certain freedom. Anthropocentrism is spreading, replacing theocentrism. Now, instead of God, man comes first. Philosophy and literature underwent cardinal changes. There were tendencies of a return to ancient culture, the philosopher Plato was revived. In Florence there is a Platonic Academy headed by Lorenzo the Magnificent.

At a time when in the Middle Ages they took mainly oratorical prose from ancient literature, avoided lyrical genres, then in the Renaissance, ancient culture was retranslated, philosophical, historical works were evaluated, and the works of poets such as Homer, Ovid and others were recognized.

Two and a half centuries of the Renaissance - from Petrarch to Galileo - mark a break with medieval tradition and transition to a new time. This stage was natural and necessary in the history of philosophical thought. There was no direct transition from Thomas Aquinas's Codes to Descartes's Discourse on Method, from the search for Parisian and Oxford nominalists of the 14th century. to the new physics and mechanics of Galileo. However, it would be wrong to reduce the role of the philosophy of the Renaissance only to the destruction or elimination of the scholastic tradition. Thinkers of the XIV-XVI centuries. a picture of the world and man was developed, profoundly different from the medieval one.

The philosophy of the Renaissance is a rather motley picture, a set of various philosophical schools, often incompatible with each other, and is not something whole, although it is united by many common ideas. This philosophy seems all the more complex if we look back centuries and see that many ideas of the Renaissance were born much earlier than the era began - in the 13th century, when disputes were still raging in medieval universities, the main ideas were Thomas Aquinas and the ideas of the later nominalists were just emerging. But at the same time, ideas were born in Italy that were opposed to the scholastic worldview that prevailed at that time.

The decisive features of the philosophy of the Renaissance are the desire to get out of the monastic cell into the vastness of nature, materialistic tendencies associated with reliance on sensory experience, individualism and religious skepticism. Resurrects interest in the materialists of antiquity - the Ionians. The philosophy of the Renaissance is closely connected with natural science.

In the philosophy of the Renaissance, two main periods can be distinguished. In the 15th century, a new class - bourgeoisie - still could not and did not have time to create its own philosophy. Therefore, she restored and adapted ancient philosophy to her needs. However, this philosophy differed significantly from scholasticism, which also used the works of Plato and Aristotle.

The philosophers of the Renaissance used ancient authors for fundamentally different purposes than the scholastics. Humanists possessed a wealth of Greek originals (and not Arabic translations and paraphrases) that philosophers of the 13th and 14th centuries could not even dream of.

The authority of Aristotle "fell", because. identified with scholasticism. The ensuing disappointment gave a different reaction - the emergence of skepticism, epicureanism and stoicism. They stood in the background and, although they were found in some authorities, they were not widely used. And only skepticism in the person of Michel Montaigne created a very special specific cultural climate in France.

Montaigne's skepticism cleared the way for new ideas, new knowledge. This prepared second period of philosophy Renaissance - natural-philosophical.

The intensive flourishing of literature in this period is associated with a special attitude to the ancient heritage. Hence the very name of the era. The rise of Western European culture does not occur against a backdrop of decline. The past seems to a person a forgotten remarkable achievement of antiquity, and he begins to take on their restoration. This is expressed in the work of writers of this era. The ancient heritage is being restored, and therefore the figures of the Renaissance attach great importance to the discovery and publication of ancient manuscripts.

In Western Europe of this time, a humanistic intelligentsia appears- a circle of people whose communication with each other is based not on the commonality of their origin, property status or professional interests, but on the proximity of spiritual and moral quests.

The Renaissance is significant for such great sons of literature as Shakespeare, Petrarch, Ronsard, Du Belle, Fazio, Lorenzo Vala and others. After all, it was during the Renaissance that poets showed the triumph of mankind over their vices and mistakes of past times.

The most significant was such literature as French, English, German, Spanish, Italian. How did the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance take place in these countries?

In England, in the 16th century, there was a flourishing of English humanism, which arose later than in Italy. Classical literature played a very important role in English literature and Italian poetry. The sonnet form blooms, introduced by Thomas Wayatt and followed by more talented development by the Earl of Surrey. The history of English literature of the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance is in many respects similar to French literature, despite the minimal external similarity. And there, and there the medieval literary tradition retained its position until the middle of the 16th century, if not later. In England, as in France, the humanist culture of Italy had a profound effect on secular intellectuals. In England, however, the humanistic tradition produced a brilliant school of natural scientists. Moral philosophy, the strong point of French thinkers, was not of such fundamental importance in England as natural philosophy. This was partly due to the fact that England had long had its own theological tradition, originating from the theology of the early Middle Ages and little connected with the orthodox currents of Catholic culture.

German literature is significant in that it began its inspiration for the Renaissance with the phenomenon in German literature of this and subsequent eras of the so-called Schwank, funny, entertaining stories, first in verse, and later in prose. Schwank arose as a counterbalance to the refined chivalrous epic, which gravitated towards fantasy, and sometimes to the sweetness of the songs of the minnesingers, followers of the Provencal troubadours. In shvanki, as well as in French fablios, it was said about life, about Everyday life simple people, and everything is easy, jokingly, mischievously, foolishly.

In France, from the very beginning of the XVI century. the birth of new trends is reflected in literature. This desire for innovation was noted by the poet Gringoire: “The methods of old scientists are abandoned,” he says, “they laugh at old musicians, old medicine fell into contempt, old architects are expelled.” The ideas of humanism and reformation found a high patroness in the person of Margaret of Navarre, sister of Francis I. In the XIV - XVI centuries. in French literature, the same processes took place as in the literature of Italy and Germany. Noble, courtly culture gradually lost its significance, and urban, folk literature came to the fore. However, there was no open confrontation. Strictly speaking, in France, as well as in Germany, and in England, until the end of the 15th century. were very strong tendencies of medieval culture. French humanism took shape only at the beginning of the 16th century, developing mainly in the vein of court culture.

At the same time, in France already in the XIV century. positions of secular education were quite strong. Universities arose in many French cities, which, unlike the Parisian Sorbonne , had little to do with the scholastic tradition. Italian humanism of the late XIV - early XV century. had a great influence on these universities, where historical and philosophical thought and natural sciences were formed, which glorified French culture in the 17th - 18th centuries.

Conventionally, the Renaissance in Spain can be divided into three periods: the earlier Renaissance (until the middle of the 16th century), the high Renaissance (until the 30s of the 17th century) and the so-called Baroque period (until the end of the 17th century). During the early Renaissance, interest in science and culture increased in the country, which was greatly facilitated by universities, especially the ancient University of Salaman and the university founded in 1506 by Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros in Alcala de Henares. In 1473–1474, book printing appeared in Spain, journalism developed, in which ideas consonant with the ideas of the Reformation and the renewal of the Catholic Church, following the model of Protestant countries, dominated. The ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam had a significant influence on the formation of new ideas. New stage in development Spanish Renaissance, the so-called high Renaissance, refers to the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. Acting in accordance with the rigid principles of the Counter-Reformation (since 1545), Philip II (1527-1598) pursued progressive thinkers, while at the same time encouraging cultural development, establishing a library in Escorial and supporting many universities. Creative and thinking people, deprived of the opportunity to express themselves in philosophy and journalism, turned to art, as a result of which it survived in the second half of the 16-17 centuries. an unprecedented flourishing, and this era was called the "golden age". The secular ideas of humanism in some poets and writers were intertwined with religious motives. Baroque dramaturgy reached its perfection in the work of Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1680). Like Tirso de Molina, he belongs to the national drama school of Lope de Vega. The work of this last great representative of the Spanish literature of the "golden age" reflects the pessimistic view of man, characteristic of the era. The central work of Calderon - philosophical drama Life is a dream (1635), the main idea of ​​which, already alien to the Renaissance, is that for the sake of earthly life one should not give up eternal life. Calderon - for the illusory nature of our ideas about life, because it is incomprehensible. In the play Himself in Custody (1636), he gives a comic treatment of the same theme.

Representatives of early Italian humanism - Giovanni Boccaccio, Francesco Petrarca - were the first to turn to frankly "common" language to express sublime thoughts and images. The experience was extremely successful, and after them educated people in other European countries turned to popular culture. In each country, this process took place in different ways, and unique trends arose everywhere, which led to the 16th-17th centuries. to the final formation of the national literatures of the countries of Western Europe.

The most important milestone in history European literature became 1455. This year, the German Johann Guttenberg published in his printing press the first book made in a new way, which made it possible to make many copies in a short time. The printing press, on which Guttenberg worked for several years, lived up to the hopes of the inventor. Before Guttenberg, books were mostly copied by hand, which made them incredibly expensive. In addition, making a copy of the book took a lot of time and was very expensive. In the XV century. tried to find a way to reduce the cost of this process. At first, the printers cut out the text of the page in a mirror image on a wooden board. Then the convex letters were smeared with paint and the cliche was pressed against a sheet of paper. But only a limited number of copies could be made from such a cliché. In addition, this process was not much different from manual rewriting. As soon as the carver made a mistake, the entire cliché had to be redone.

Gutenberg's innovation was that he began to cut out sets of individual letters, which were compiled into words on a special frame. Typing a page now took a few minutes, and the danger of a typo was reduced to a minimum. The actual production of cliché letters was much simpler than the cliché of the page. Gutenberg's invention quickly became commonplace throughout Europe, and the printed book almost supplanted the handwritten book in two or three decades. Subsequently, this somewhat complicated the work of researchers. For example, only printed editions of his works remained from William Shakespeare - not a single sheet of manuscripts, which gave some historians reason to doubt the authenticity of Shakespeare as a "literary" figure.

Summing up, in my opinion, it is in the Renaissance that each literature is unique and is a collection of interesting thoughts and reflections. The Renaissance was a kind of bright period of time in the history of mankind, its cultural and spiritual life. We still admire the works of that era to this day, there are disputes. Painting, architecture, science and of course literature - in comparison with other periods were in full bloom. The destruction of the oppression of the church gave such progress, not only technical, but also spiritual. The theme of the significance of the Renaissance, its meaning in the history of mankind, spirituality will remain eternal and will never dissolve in time...