THE CONCEPT OF A YOUNG PERSON’S CHARACTER IN THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Abstract

The 19th century was marked by profound qualitative changes in the life of all mankind. The process of establishing a new democratic society in Europe was very difficult: in France, it was accompanied by acute, bloody conflicts in society, while England experienced its own revolution, much quieter, but no less tragic – the industrial revolution. “Green wood’s England” was dying, and “workshop of the world” was taking birth. In such a sociopolitical context, the characters of young people in many works of fiction of the 19th century carry moods of hopelessness, anxiety, and global sorrow. The writers tried in their own way to understand the contradictory nature of a young person, to find out the main dominant features of his/her character. Analyzing G. Byron’s poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, F. Stendhal’s novel “Red and Black” and Balzac’s novel “Father Goriot”, we investigated the typology and evolution of the artistic image of a young person formed in the national cultures of the 19th century. Thus, the type of Byronic hero formed almost two centuries ago in the English literature remains relevant to this day, as Byronic reminiscences (disappointment, confusion, and despair) determine the peculiarities of the character formation of literary heroes of the 20th and 21st centuries. Today’s realities show that the number of such people in society has increased significantly, because against the background of modern processes of globalization, a person does not feel his own significance, exclusivity, and uniqueness. The hero of the English romantic by G. Byron, a young man who is just entering life with the inherent philosophy of dandyism, but he affirming the freedom of the individual and the will as the main principles of existence, feels the sorrow of the whole world, the general disorder of humanity, his appeals are inspiring, he seeks the renewal of life. The characters of Julien Sorel and Eugène de Rastignac are somewhat different, as they choose hypocrisy as a means of fulfilling their ambitions to “conquer the world” and, in the end, the philosophy of adaptation becomes the meaning of their lives, bourgeois society condemns a young person to abandon illusions, forming the character of an immoral and cynical personality.