Essays on literary works - 2023
Masterpieces of Andersen's fabulous creativity
Andersen Hans Christian
Composition on the topic - The phenomenon of a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen's fairy tales are one of the most significant phenomena in world literature of the 19th century. The great Danish writer enriched the literary tale with new artistic qualities that made it equally interesting for readers of any age. “I always meant,” Andersen said about his fairy tales, “that I write them not only for children, but also for adults ... Children were most amused by the very plot of fairy tales, adults were interested in the idea embedded in them.” In Andersen's fairy tales, an unusual, fascinating plot is combined with high moral ideals, simple-hearted naivety is intertwined with deep life wisdom, reality - with inspired poetic fiction, good-natured humor - with the subtlest irony and sarcasm. An amazing mixture of funny and serious, funny and sad, ordinary and wonderful is the peculiarity of Andersen's style. His fairy tales, truly democratic in their entire range of thoughts and feelings, are imbued with the faith of the humanist writer in the coming triumph of social justice, in the victory of the good, truly human principle over the forces of evil.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in the small Danish town of Odense to a shoemaker's family. The childhood and youth of the writer passed in need and deprivation. After the death of her husband, his mother survived by day work, dreaming of teaching her "unlucky" son the tailor's craft. But the absent-minded boy, always immersed in the world of fantastic dreams, was so carried away by the theater that at the age of fourteen he left his home and went to Copenhagen to seek his fortune on the stage. Andersen's persistent attempts to become an actor, then a singer and even a dancer did not lead to success. Not wanting to break with the theatre, the half-starved, homeless young man writes several imitative tragedies one after another, in which, by his own admission, "the spelling was lame in almost every word." Finally found a patron procured a small scholarship for an aspiring playwright "with sparks of talent". Eighteen-year-old Andersen enters the second grade of the gymnasium and, sitting on the same bench with the kids, not without difficulty masters the basics of science. Despite the malicious ridicule of classmates and the bullying of the director, who believed that the son of a shoemaker did not take up his job, Andersen managed not only to graduate from the gymnasium, but also to enter the university. By that time, he was already the author of several poems that attracted attention. In his student years, Andersen published vaudeville, travel essays, humorous poems, gradually becoming a professional writer. From the 1930s, his foreign travels began. Despite the malicious ridicule of classmates and the bullying of the director, who believed that the son of a shoemaker did not take up his job, Andersen managed not only to graduate from the gymnasium, but also to enter the university. By that time, he was already the author of several poems that attracted attention. In his student years, Andersen published vaudeville, travel essays, humorous poems, gradually becoming a professional writer. From the 1930s, his foreign travels began. Despite the malicious ridicule of classmates and the bullying of the director, who believed that the son of a shoemaker did not take up his job, Andersen managed not only to graduate from the gymnasium, but also to enter the university. By that time, he was already the author of several poems that attracted attention. In his student years, Andersen published vaudeville, travel essays, humorous poems, gradually becoming a professional writer. From the 1930s, his foreign travels began. gradually becoming a professional writer. From the 1930s, his foreign travels began. gradually becoming a professional writer. From the 1930s, his foreign travels began.
After his first trip to Italy, Andersen wrote the novel The Improviser (1835), which brought him widespread fame. Then Andersen published several more novels and dramas, imbued with a sense of protest against the surrounding wretched reality and the philistine routine, hostile to all living, talented. When, from 1835, collections of his fairy tales began to appear from time to time, the entire civilized world unanimously recognized Andersen as the first writer of Denmark. Only in his homeland did the great storyteller continue to endure undeserved insults and humiliations for a long time, which he bitterly told in his artistic autobiography The Tale of My Life (1846). Conservative Danish critics did not want to forgive Andersen for either his plebeian origins or his desire to "write as they say." Ignoring the captious schoolboy criticism, the writer went his own way,
Later, when it was already impossible not to recognize the beloved folk writer, the attitude towards Andersen in Danish literary and official circles changed dramatically. In his old age, the well-deserved fame came to the writer, he was surrounded by honor and attention.
A remarkable fact of the last period of Andersen's life is his speeches to the public audience in the "Workers' Union". Attaching great importance to this type of his activity, the writer proudly said that he "was the first to cut through the ice and brought the gifts of poetry to the Union of Workers, setting an example for others." From 1835 to 1872 Andersen published 156 fairy tales, varied both in content and artistic form. Along with typical fairy-tale works, Andersen's collections also contain short realistic stories, everyday sketches, lyric poems in prose, historical legends, etc. In early fairy tales, Andersen is especially close to folklore sources. “In the first issue,” he wrote in his autobiography, “there were fairy tales that I heard in childhood; I just wrote them down." But in reality, the matter was not limited to a simple record. The writer transformed each plot, subordinating it to his own artistic style. From the very first lines, a swift action unfolds in the work and a living image of the hero appears before the reader's eyes. Andersen deliberately emphasized the social overtones in folk fairy tales, further strengthening the optimism inherent in folk art. When the dashing soldier from the fairy tale "Flint" defeated the evil king and his advisers, "all the people shouted: further strengthened the optimism inherent in folk art. When the dashing soldier from the fairy tale "Flint" defeated the evil king and his advisers, "all the people shouted: further strengthened the optimism inherent in folk art. When the dashing soldier from the fairy tale "Flint" defeated the evil king and his advisers, "all the people shouted:* - Servant, be our king and marry a beautiful princess!
Little Klaus, thanks to his natural intelligence and resourcefulness, decisively cracks down on his tormentor - the greedy and envious rich man Big Klaus, and satisfaction is felt in the author's tone ("Little Klaus and Big Klaus"). The extraordinary strength of Eliza's selfless love for her brothers helps her to endure all trials and defeat evil spells. At the same time, among the enemies of a good girl, we see not only a fairy-tale witch queen, but also an ordinary Catholic bishop (“Wild Swans”). Sometimes fairy tales turn into whole stories in which the folklore basis is combined with free fiction. In The Snow Queen, as in other fairy tales, a high moral idea follows from the plot itself. A fragment of the devil's mirror gets into the heart of little Kai. “Reflected in it, everything great and good seemed insignificant and filthy, everything evil and bad looked even more evil, and the shortcomings of each thing were immediately evident. But Gerda cannot leave her friend in trouble. To free him from witchcraft, she endures unthinkable trials, walks around half the world barefoot. And when the boy and girl returned from cold Lapland to their home, they felt like adults.
Let's also remember such a world-famous fairy tale as "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". The sad story of the selfless love of a one-legged tin soldier for a cardboard dancer is full of deep humanistic meaning. This tale sounds like a hymn to human dignity and selflessness. Toys behave like people, they are endowed with reason and feelings. Most often, Andersen uses only individual folklore motifs or builds his own plots, starting from folk proverbs, accepts, believes, creating in each individual case an independent, original work (“Garden of Eden”, “Ole Lukoye”, “Storks”, “Elderberry mother", etc.).
* So, for example, about “Ole Lukoye” (that is, “Ole, close your eyes”) Andersen wrote: “The idea associated with the life of Ole Lukoye, a creature that induces sleep in children, served as the only basis for this tale.”
Many fairy tales, especially later ones, are created by the imagination of the writer, who has repeatedly stated that the most wonderful fairy tales grow out of reality. It is no coincidence that the author titled his later collections not just “Tales”, but “Tales and Stories”. Andersen's fabulous works are inspired by reality. His fairy-tale heroes, performing miraculous feats, are surrounded at every step by ordinary people and ordinary things, sorcerers and wizards are endowed with ordinary human feelings and desires, fictional countries surprisingly resemble small feudal-monarchical Denmark with the orders that existed in it. In Andersen's fairy tales, not only animals, but even household items have the ability to think and reason, and people who are proud of their mind, wealth and position in society, in fact, turn out to be so insignificant and stupid, that look like clockwork toys. In the modesty and honest work of ordinary people, he teaches to find manifestations of true heroism and moral prowess, and in the tinsel and pompous swagger of the "powerful of this world" - to notice emptiness and falsehood. This "wonderful feature" of Andersen's work was noted in his review of the French edition of his fairy tales by N. A. Dobrolyubov. The great critic wrote that “real ideas take on a fantastic character extremely poetically”, that Andersen’s fairy tales “do not need a moralizing tail; they lead the children to think, and the applications of the story are made by the children themselves, freely and naturally, without any exaggeration. and in the tinsel and pompous swagger of the "powerful ones" - to notice emptiness and falsehood. This "wonderful feature" of Andersen's work was noted in his review of the French edition of his fairy tales by N. A. Dobrolyubov. The great critic wrote that “real ideas take on a fantastic character extremely poetically”, that Andersen’s fairy tales “do not need a moralizing tail; they lead the children to think, and the applications of the story are made by the children themselves, freely and naturally, without any exaggeration. and in the tinsel and pompous swagger of the "powerful ones" - to notice emptiness and falsehood. This "wonderful feature" of Andersen's work was noted in his review of the French edition of his fairy tales by N. A. Dobrolyubov. The great critic wrote that “real ideas take on a fantastic character extremely poetically”, that Andersen’s fairy tales “do not need a moralizing tail; they lead the children to think, and the applications of the story are made by the children themselves, freely and naturally, without any exaggeration. that Andersen's fairy tales “do not need a moralizing tail; they lead the children to think, and the applications of the story are made by the children themselves, freely and naturally, without any exaggeration. that Andersen's fairy tales “do not need a moralizing tail; they lead the children to think, and the applications of the story are made by the children themselves, freely and naturally, without any exaggeration.