Fable "Donkey and Nightingale": the triumph of ignorance

An unfair situation, when an ignoramus is taken to judge things, his mind and taste is not subject to, is met to the offensive often. About this - the fable "Donkey and Nightingale" by Ivan Krylov.

Conflict

Contemporaries said that he inspired the poet to create a work of chance from his life. The high-ranking nobleman, after listening to Krylov’s artistic performance of fables, praised the writer, but scolded him for not taking an example from another author (who wrote much weaker than Krylov). Having splashed his resentment in a fable, Ivan Andreevich nevertheless managed to create an illustration of a typical disagreement between an undeniably talented creator and an ignorant but self-confident critic. Conflict is doomed to be eternal. Its multiple projection into our lives has come about with the onset of times when "the cook began to rule the state." Creators who have experienced moments of excruciating bewilderment when influential people indulgently patted them on the shoulder, saying frank stupidity about their works, it is gratifying to see an allegorical image of this collision in the way the fable “Donkey and Nightingale” presents it.

Art tools

The author generously uses literary techniques to portray characters, the speech style of the characters, and describe the absurdity of the situation. First of all, the opposition is used. The donkey, the personification of stubbornness and stupidity, contrasts with the Nightingale - a symbol of inspiration and poetry. The rough speech of the Donkey immediately reveals his uncouth and ambitious nature. He turns to Nightingale in a simple way: buddy, mastery ... The donkey heard about the nightingale's lovely singing, but he doubts: “... is it really great ... skill?” Nightingale's answer - heavenly singing - delights everyone around. The noun “skill” used by the Donkey is opposed by art revealed by the Nightingale.

The author offers a cascade of verbs reinforcing each other, transmitting an uniquely beautiful trill: “latched”, “whistled”, “overflowed”, “pulled”, “gently weakened”, “gave off with a pipe,” “crumbled”. The fable "Donkey and Nightingale" draws the complete harmony that arises in nature and in the souls of people from the song of the Nightingale. It is not for nothing that the author uses high vocabulary here: the darling of the morning dawn goddess all listened, calmed down, the herds lay down. There is a pastoral motive. The narrative culminates when the shepherdess listens to the Nightingale “breathing a little”. As soon as the song falls silent, the Donkey throws his weighty assessment: “Fairly!” Krylov multiplies the satirical effect, describing how the “thoughtful” critic reacts to the singer’s quivering art: staring stupidly at the ground with his forehead. To him, the Nightingale is just "you can listen without boredom." And of course, he imagines himself a great connoisseur, so he believes that his duty is to teach. The donkey importantly notes, inserting here the vernacular word “sharpened” that the Nightingale would sing better if the rooster “learned a little”. The moral of the fable “Donkey and Nightingale” is expressed in a short and capacious phrase: “Deliver, God, and us from such judges.” And in fact, fake donkey authority is a big hindrance to art, designed to ennoble life.

Krylov's fable "Donkey and Nightingale" in notes

The plot of Krylov’s narrative inspired Russian composers to create works of the same name on this subject. Dmitry Shostakovich in the composition “Two Fables of I. Krylov” with extraordinary expression conveyed in melodic language the clash of life positions of heroes. Rimsky-Korsakov’s romance to the words of a popular fable is very expressive.

Incompetence, inertness, lack of tact, inability to subtle emotional outbursts - these are the qualities that the Donkey and Nightingale fables ridicule, or rather, its author is a brilliant publicist, poet and translator Ivan Andreevich Krylov.