The ballad of V. A. Zhukovsky “The Forest Tsar” at one time became a notable event in Russian poetry. The writer creates a new work based on a free artistic translation of the ballad Der Erlkönig by J. O. Goethe. The plot of “The Forest King” at first glance seems quite simple: a father is taking a small child through the forest, and the sick boy, in his delirium, sees the Forest King - the folklore lord of the forests, who wants to take him home. The man tells his son that in fact he is imagining everything: he sees the king’s face in the fog, his daughters are just tree branches swaying in the wind, and all that the child hears is the noise of leaves. The end of the poem is tragic - the child did not survive the trip. When the “rider” galloped to his destination, he had a “dead baby” in his hands.
History of creation
As was already said earlier, Zhukovsky takes I. O. Goethe’s ballad “The King of the Earls” as the basis for his work and in 1818 he published “The Forest King”.
I. O. Goethe was familiar with Danish folklore, in which there is a legend about a cruel ruler of the forests who took the soul of a boy. Even then, there were several interpretations of the legend: some believed that the child was dying of a serious illness and was delirious due to fever; others insisted that he was healthy and really saw a formidable spirit. In 1782, the German poet published The Elven King. In the culture of his people, according to legend, the Elf King comes to dying people, so this character is always associated with death.
Contemporaries gave a very positive description of the ballad “The Forest King”. Readers noted the high quality of the translation of the ballad from German, even if it was free. Zhukovsky slightly changes the plot and images of the characters. First of all, he does this to adapt foreign folklore for a Russian audience.
Genre, direction, size
The ballad is written in iambic, its rhyme is adjacent: the first lines rhyme with the second, and the third with the fourth. This helps to separate the dialogue between the child and his father and the calls of the Forest King.
The genre of the work itself was new for Russian literature at that time - one might say that it was Zhukovsky who introduced the ballad into Russian poetry. A ballad is a work of poetry based on an extraordinary incident. “The Forest Tsar” does not have an acutely dramatic story, as in “Svetlana,” for example, which is why its plot is often defined as atypical.
Ballads almost always belong to romanticism. Many critics noted that it was with Zhukovsky’s ballads that the romantic direction in Russian poetry began. There are several signs of romanticism in “The Forest King”: the tension of the plot, the reader anticipates an unhappy ending; the presence of fantastic forces that are trying to destroy the hero; blurred boundaries of the fantastic and the real; high emotional penetration of the text (emotionally charged vocabulary (“dark branches”, “cold haze”, “baby”, etc.)).
Composition
The introduction to the plot is the question: “Who is galloping, who is rushing under the cold darkness?” For poetic forms, such a beginning is not innovative, but it helps well to join the atmosphere of the work from the first lines.
Zhukovsky, with the help of rhyme, deliberately divides the monologue of the Forest King, who may not have existed, with the speech of actually existing people. This is how the author separates the real world and the fantastic world. However, the text does not clearly indicate that the insidious spirit is only a child’s imagination.
The main characters and their characteristics
In the ballad "The Forest King" there are three characters: the rider, his little son and the Forest King. All images are equally important for understanding the text.
Zhukovsky does not give direct descriptions of the characters, except for the “rider” - it is mentioned that he is an old man. He is very worried about the child, “flies” on a horse through the forest, hugs the boy tightly to himself, but still does not make it in time. His son is called “young”, “baby” in the work, which indicates his young age. Children tend to see fantastic creatures in the dark, especially when they are scared. Moreover, the child was delirious. That is, he could not believe that he was imagining the Forest King, even though his father explained everything to him.
The folklore character himself appears as a bearded, ominous vision who lures the boy to himself, promising him fun and wealth. In some ways, the images of the Forest King and the hero’s father are similar: one has a beard, the other is an “old man,” and they talk a lot, as if luring the child to their side while he is between two worlds.
Summary
“A belated rider, with a young son with him,” galloped through the gloomy night forest. The child is sick and has a high fever. He hugged his father tightly, trying to stop shaking. Suddenly the boy felt as if the Forest King looked at him - “in a dark crown, with a thick beard.” He was very frightened, and his father hastened to calm him down, saying that “there is a white fog over the water.”
The boy continued to see the Forest King in front of him, who beckoned him to him. He persuaded the boy to stay in his domain forever, offering him many tempting things: “gold, pearls and joy.” The child again complained to his father, but he did not see any king. He tried to calm the frightened child and said that it was “the wind, waking up, shaking the sheets.”
Meanwhile, the Forest King did not let up. He urged the boy to go to his oak grove, where he could frolic carefree and play with his daughters, beautiful forest nymphs. However, this proposal seriously alarmed the child. He saw nymphs who nodded to him “from the dark branches.” The boy told his father about this, but this time the rider did not believe him. The man believed that all this was a dream of his sick son.
The forest king admitted to the boy that he really liked him, and he did not intend to let him leave his possessions: “Whether or not, you will be mine!” The boy began to beg his father to ride as quickly as possible in order to escape the persecution of the Forest King. He began to choke, his breathing becoming increasingly heavy.
The rider realized that things were bad. He drove the horse as hard as he could, hoping to quickly get out of the forest and help the sick child. When the goal was achieved, and the man safely got out of the gloomy oak grove, “the dead baby lay in his hands.” The forest king never let the boy go, leaving his soul in his palace.
Topics and issues
- The ballad explores several themes. The most obvious of them is the theme of death. At any time, the death of a child is a tragedy; one feels very sorry for him, since he is usually innocent of anything. In “The Forest King” the boy dies in fear - he does not want to leave with the lord of the forests, he scares him and even threatens: “Whether or not, you will be mine.” The child, fading away, continued to resist - he did not succumb to the persuasion of the spirit, which promised him eternal fun, gold and pearls. He dies in agony: it seems to him that the Forest King has caught up with him, and so he begins to choke and scream.
- Another theme is the confrontation between the real world and the fantastic world: as in his other ballads, Zhukovsky pits them against one another, and the main character does not understand where the real is and where the imagined is. This is the main theme in the work. Unfortunately, in The Forest King the boy loses to the fantastic world; it cannot be said that he is fighting him, because he does not believe the explanations of his father, who interprets his visions within the framework of reality.
- The main problem posed by the writer is that a person is not always able to overcome the adversities that he encountered along the path of life. Evil fate is inexorable, fate cannot be rewritten. So, the boy became very ill, and the reader does not know at what moment: perhaps his father took him to a doctor in a neighboring village (since not every peasant settlement had its own doctor); Or maybe the boy began to suffer from a fever during the trip, and the man could not even foresee such a development of events. In any case, it happened that the hero did not have the opportunity to defeat what was intended for him.
Summary of Zhukovsky - Tsar of the Forest
A father and son are riding a horse through the forest. The child has a fever. He constantly sees creatures that do not actually exist. The frozen child clung tightly to his father in order to somehow warm up. The father hugged the child to ease his suffering. The boy continually recounts his frightened impressions of the forest. He assures that the forest king appeared to him. He had a dark crown and a long beard.
The father examines the forest from all sides, but does not notice anything strange. The boy tells his father that the king of the forest really likes him. He wants to take possession of the child and take him for himself. The forest king presents to the child that he has beautiful turquoise flowers, pearls, golden palaces and many beautiful things that can belong to the child if he goes with him. The poor child, in horror, hugs her father tightly, begging him to rush faster. The spirit of the forest promises the child wealth, happiness and joy. The kid tells everything to his father. The parent hears nothing but the wind. He feels sorry for his child. He understands that the child’s delirium is due to fever.
The forest spirit threatens the child that he will take him away in any case. The child cowered in fear. Doesn't know what to do.
Eventually the horse comes out of the forest and stops when it gets there. The father notices that the child has fallen silent. He is horrified to find the child's body lifeless. It's a pity that the work has such a sad ending.
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Read summary The king of the forest. Brief retelling. For a reader's diary, take 5-6 sentences
the main idea
The ballad reveals the confrontation between the hero and higher powers, fate, and destiny, typical of romanticism. Zhukovsky makes him more realistic than Goethe: if in the German poet the father of the child sees the King of the Earls in the same way as his son, then in the Russian author the King of the Forest is seen exclusively by the child. M.I. Tsvetaeva rightly noted: in Zhukovsky, the boy “saw because he was trembling,” and in Goethe, “he trembled because he saw.” The main idea of Zhukovsky’s work is to convey the mystical experience of a person on the eve of death. The child sees her in the image of the Forest King, resists, but cannot change anything. Goethe put a different meaning into his work: his fantastic hero is not a metaphor for death or a figment of the imagination, but a real character.
In romanticism, authors usually focused on more sensual, social things, such as alienation, loneliness, and the decline of society. Zhukovsky creates an everyday story - a disease that acquires fantastic motives. It shows that not only trials received from society can act as fate.
Ballad test
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- Question 1 of 10
Who is the author of the work “The Forest King”?- Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Ostrovsky
- Vasily Zhukovsky
- Mikhail Lermontov
(new inset)
Very briefly: A horseman with his little son gallops through the night forest. The forest king catches up with them; he wants to take the child for himself and seduces him with sweet promises. The rider manages to gallop, but at the end of the journey the child dies.
- The Little Humpbacked Horse - a summary for the reader's diary of a fairy tale by Pyotr Ershov
At night, a horseman with his little son galloped through the forest. The little one froze and clung to his father. He asked why his son “clung to him so timidly.” The child replied that he was afraid - he saw the forest king “in a dark crown with a thick beard.” The father did not believe it, deciding that the boy had imagined everything in the white fog over the water.
The boy heard the voice of the forest king. He told him about his beautiful country and a castle made of pure gold. The little one told his father that the forest king was speaking to him, but the father replied that his son had misheard - it was just the sound of the wind.
The forest king began to call the child to him, seducing him with various promises.
The frightened child complained to his father that the forest king had called his daughters, and they were already nodding to him “from the dark branches.” The father replied that these were not his daughters, but “gray willows standing to the side.”
The forest king tells the boy that he was “captivated by his beauty” and will take him away whether he wants it or not. The child complains to his father that the forest king wants to catch up with them. He is already close, and the boy has a hard time breathing.
The frightened rider is in a hurry, his horse “does not gallop, it flies,” the baby in his arms screams from fear and anguish. Finally, the rider achieved his goal, but it was too late - his son died.
Retold by Yulia Peskovaya for Briefly. The retelling is based on the translation of V. A. Zhukovsky. Thanks to advertising, Briefly is free:
What does it teach?
Zhukovsky in his ballad “The Forest Tsar” depicts a situation in which Evil seemingly defeats Good. But is this story a confrontation between higher powers? The author encourages readers to be more sensitive to each other, not to lose hope and fight to the end. This is what the boy did - he tried to escape from the Forest King, even if he failed; His father did the same - he “flyed” on a horse, asked the child how he was feeling, tried to convey to him that he was only imagining the ruler of the forest.
The ballad “The Forest King” cannot leave anyone indifferent, and this is what makes it unique. Zhukovsky creates a plot that is closer to the Russian reader, which helps to evoke a deep emotional response in the soul.
Author: Albina Ismailova
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