The story of the creation of the ode "Felitsa" is interesting in that Gabriel Derzhavin, in his desire to please the Empress, took her own work as the basis of his work, shortly before that it had been published in a small print run. Naturally, for a brightly talented poet, this story began to play in more rich colors, in addition, introducing a new style into the history of Russian versification and making the poet a celebrity.
Ode Analysis
"Felitsa" is provided with a subtitle that specifies the purpose of writing this work. It refers to the appeal to the wise princess of the Tatar Murza, who settled in Moscow, but is on business in St. Petersburg. Also, the readers are mystified by the fact that the ode, allegedly, was translated from Arabic. The analysis of the ode "Felitsa" must begin with a name that does not sound native to either Russian or Arabs.
The fact is that this is what Catherine II called her heroine in her tale of Tsarevich Chlor. Serving the Italian language (here you can recall someone like Kutuno with a cry of "Felicita"), Latin translates the word "Felitsa" (Felitsa - felicitas) as happiness. Thus Derzhavin from the first line began to extol the empress, further not refraining from satire in the descriptions of her entourage.
Fiction synthesis
Analysis of the ode "Felitsa" shows the installation on the ordinary, accepted in those days, solemn laudatory ode to the date. Written in the traditional stanza of an ode - ten-verses, and, as it should be, four-foot iambic. But before Derzhavin, no one had yet dared to merge two genres that were opposite in their focus — a magnificent laudatory ode and a caustic political satire.
The first was the ode "Felitsa." Derzhavin, as it were, "stepped back" in his innovation, judging by the precisely fulfilled conditions of the genre, at least in comparison with "Poems for birth", which are not even divided by the stanza. However, this impression disappears as soon as the reader overcomes the first few stanzas. Still, even the composition of the ode "Felitsa" is a much broader order of artistic synthesis.
Fairy tale "Felitsa"
It is interesting to consider what motives Derzhavin prompted to compose this "fan fiction", which served as the primary basis and whether this topic was worthy of continuation. Apparently, worthy, and very. Catherine II wrote her fairy tale for the grandson, so far small, but in the future the great Alexander I. In the tale of the Empress, we are talking about the Tsarevich Chlore of Kiev, who was visited by the Kyrgyz khan to check whether the prince is really as smart and dexterous as they say about him.
The boy agreed to pass the test and find the rarest flower - a rose without thorns - and hit the road. On the road, responding to the invitation of Murzya Lazybones (speaking name), the prince tries to resist the temptations of the luxury and idleness with which Lentyag seduces him. Fortunately, this Kyrgyz Khan had a very good daughter, whose name was Felitsa, and an even better grandson, whose name was Reason. Felitsa sent her son with the prince, who went out with the help of the Reason to the goal of his path.
The bridge between the tale and the ode
Before them was a steep mountain, without paths and stairs. Apparently, the prince himself was stubborn enough, because, despite great work and trials, he nevertheless climbed to the top, where he decorated his life with a rose without thorns, that is, virtue. An analysis of the Felitsa ode shows that, like in any fairy tale, the images here are conditionally allegorical, but Derzhavin’s odes are very strong at the beginning of the ode, and all the odic beginnings of classical samples, where you will certainly climb Parnas and communicate with muses, fade nearby with seemingly simple images of a children's fairy tale.
Even the portrait of Catherine (Felitsa) is given in a completely new manner, which is completely different from the traditional laudatory painting. Usually in odes, the character you are honoring appears in a slightly expressive image of a goddess walking along solemn echoing rhymes of a verse with heavy rhythmic shortness of breath. Here the poet is inspired, and - most importantly - equipped with poetry. Poems do not limp and do not inflate with excessive pathos. The plan for the Felitsa ode is such that Catherine appears to the reader as an intelligent, but simple and active Kyrgyz-Kaisat princess. Well plays the harmony of constructing this image and the contrast - the image of the Murza, vicious and lazy, which Derzhavin uses throughout the ode. Hence the unprecedented genre diversity that distinguishes the ode "Felitsa".
Derzhavin and the Empress
The singer’s position here also changes with respect to the subject of chanting, if we consider not only all the previous Russian literature, but even Derzhavin’s verses. Sometimes in the ode a certain godlikeness of the tsarina still slips, but with all this and with general reverence shown by the ode "Felitsa", the content also shows a certain shortness of relationship, not familiarity, but the warmth of almost kindred proximity.
But in satirical lines Derzhavin can sometimes be understood ambivalently. The collective features of the image of Murza ridicule everyone in turn, the nobles of Catherine, and it is here that the poet does not forget himself. Car irony is all the more rare fact in the poetry of those years. The author’s "I" is not without lyrics, but it is made clear that "Such, Felitsa, I am depraved!", "Today I rule by myself, and tomorrow I’m a slave to whims." The appearance in the ode of such an authorial “I” is a fact of great artistic significance. Lomonosov also began odes with the “I”, but as a loyal slave, and with Derzhavin the author is concrete and lively.
Narration from the author
Naturally, the composition of the ode "Felitsa" could not stand the full-fledged author's individuality. Derzhavin most often serves under the author's “I” a conditional image of the singer, who is usually always present in odes in the same way as in satires. But there is a difference: in an ode, the poet plays only sacred delight, and in satire only indignation. Derzhavin combined the “single-string” genres with the creation of a living man-poet, with an absolutely concrete life, with a variety of feelings and emotions, with “multi-stringed” music of the verse.
Analysis of the ode to Felitsa certainly marks not only rapture, but also anger, blasphemy and praise in one bottle. Along the way he manages to dissemble, to ironize. That is, behaves throughout the entire work as a completely normal and living person. And it should be noted that this individual personality has undoubted features of a nationality. In the ode! And now, such a case would be unprecedented if someone in our time would write odic poems.
About genres
Ode "Felitsa", the content of which is so rich in contradictions, as if warmed by warm sunshine by a light colloquial speech from the reality of everyday life, light, simple, sometimes humorous, which directly contradicts the laws of this genre. Moreover, there was a genre revolution, almost a revolution.
It must be clarified that Russian classicism did not know poetry as "just poetry." All poetry was strictly divided into genres and types, sharply demarcated, and these boundaries stood unshakable. Ode, satire, elegy and other types of poetic creativity could not mix with each other.
Here, the traditional categories of classicism are completely broken after the organic merger of odes and satire. This applies not only to “Felitsa,” Derzhavin did this both earlier and later. For example, the ode to the death of Prince Meshchersky is half an elegy. Genres become polyphonic with Derzhavin’s light hand.
Success
Enormous success went to this ode immediately after the publication: "Everyone who knows how to read Russian, she found herself in the hands" - according to a contemporary. Initially, Derzhavin was careful not to publish an ode widely, tried to hide authorship (probably the depicted and very recognizable nobles were vindictive), but Princess Dashkova appeared and printed Felitsa in Sobesednik magazine, where Catherine II herself did not hesitate to cooperate.
The Empress liked the ode very much, she even cried with delight, ordered the authorship to be exposed immediately, and when this happened, she sent Derzhavin a golden snuffbox with a gift inscription and five hundred pieces of gold in it. It was after this that the poet came to fame.