Bitter "Chelkash"
The hero of Maxim Gorky’s story “Chelkash” is Grishka Chelkash, an old wounded man, an avid drinker and a clever, courageous thief and smuggler in one of the southern Black…

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strip tease
Aristophanes "Clouds"
Somewhat different from the usual carnival type of Aristophanes are his comedies, which pose problems of a non-political, but cultural order. Already the first (not come down to us) comedy…

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Two crosses of Konstantin Batiushkov
This year marks the 230th anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov (1787–1855) and the 200th anniversary of the release of his only book, the two-volume book Experiments in…

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connection between

Dante “Hell”

In the two greatest creations of Dante Alighieri – “New Life” and in the “Divine Comedy” (see its summary) – the same idea has been carried out. Both are bound by the thought that pure love ennobles human nature, and the knowledge of the frailty of sensual bliss brings a person closer to God. But “New Life” is only a series of lyrical poems, and “Divine Comedy” represents a whole poem in three parts, containing up to one hundred songs, each of which contains about one hundred and forty verses. Continue reading

Goethe “Faust”

The great poet and thinker Goethe embodied all his life experience in the genius tragedy “Faust”. It was based on the German legend of the XVI century. about the magician and warlock, who entered into a contract with the devil. But the old story was for Goethe only a pretext to capture his thoughts on the burning issues of our time.

The plot of the tragedy combines fantastic situations and real-life scenes. This is a parable about the Man, about his duty, vocation, about his responsibility to other people. Continue reading

Bunin “Loopy ears”

Bunin’s story “Petty ears” is very inferior to “The Lord from San Francisco”, but written in the same powerful manner, with the same force of a full-sound and wonderfully heavy word. A terrible impression is made by the picture of night Petrograd, sustained in amazing colors. Reality is turned into dark fantasy. You believe the author on the word, on the word of the artist, the power that “at night, in a fog, Nevsky is terrible. He is deserted, dead; mist, fogging it, seems to be part of the very Arctic mist that comes from where the end of the world is, where something incomprehensible to the human mind is hidden and called the Pole. Continue reading

"Woe from Wit" and "Misanthrope" by Moliere
Of foreign works, the comedy by Moliere “Misanthrope” was especially important for “Woe from Wit” (see the summary, analysis and the full text). Studies by Professor Alexei Veselovsky showed that…

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Byron "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
The hero of Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a young aristocrat, full of pleasure and disappointed in life. Leaving the "father's house", his "ancient castle", Harold sits on the…

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