"Pleiad" is a constellation and poetry

By semantic meaning, the word "pleiad" implies a certain community of people of the same era and one line of activity. The word originates from ancient Greek mythology. The Pleiad is the seven daughters of Atlanta and the Pleionians, whom Zeus took to heaven and turned into a constellation. Six stars of them shine with bright light, and only one shyly hides - because she, not like her obedient sisters, preferred the gods to the beloved of mortals. According to the same mythology, the constellation Pleiades served the ancient navigators with the heavenly beacon .

It is no wonder that this cosmic object for many centuries and millennia has become a favorite symbol for the ministers of the Muses. Especially bright reflection of the constellation of the Northern Hemisphere found in elegant literature. Even in antiquity, in the III century BC, the Alexandrian poetic school was born. The seven poets who applied to her - Homer, Jr., Apollonius, Nicander, Theocritus, Aramur, Lycotron and Filiq - organized themselves in a separate circle and called themselves the Pleiades. This current remained in the history of ancient literature as an example of high poetry.

Millennia passed, history repeated itself. In the Renaissance, in 1540, new poets of the Pleiades declared themselves in France. It was the time of French romanticism, and also of the general fascination with ancient poetics. A group of young poets, headed by Pierre de Ronsard, published a truly revolutionary program for the development of national literature. It is noteworthy that there were seven of them, they named their community only as "Pleiad". It was an attempt to revive and give new breath to native literature, and at the same time was some kind of disregard for the age-old traditions of French poetry.

On what was the program of poets "Pleiades" based? It was set out in a treatise by Joashen du Belle and was a kind of manifesto, not by revival, but rather by the creation of new literature. The young generation of poets advocated bringing to the French literature the traditions of the ancient Alexandrine verse. They explained this desire by the fact that the Hellenic, Alexandrian poetry is close to perfection - both in style and poetry in general. In a frankly weak and controversial treatise, a subtle curtsey towards the native language was made: yes, the French language is beautiful, it has great possibilities, but it is not as developed as Greek or Latin, and therefore it needs to be developed. And what development path did the Pleiades recommend? It was nothing but an imitation of the ancients.

The poetic community included five more - Etienne Jodelle, Jean Antoine de Baif, Remy Bello, Jean Dora, Pontus de Tiar. The legacy of the Pleiades, which has survived to the present day, is better known as the poetry of Pierre de Ronsard, which became a model of true French romanticism and lyricism, rather than the failed experiments of the Renaissance young Hellenists. Already in the 70s, in the declining years he wrote real masterpieces, in particular, the remaining in the history of French literature "Sonnets to Elena" - the dedication of his last hopeless love. And they do not have a trace of imitation, and there is no Alexandrine verse dear to his heart, but there is only a living, suffering soul of the poet.

In later periods in the history of literature, the word "Pleiades" was used to refer to poetry more than once. This was, however, a purely determinative designation of poets of one current or one epoch. Thus, in modern literary criticism, the term "poets of the Pushkin Pleiades", "a pleiad of silver poets" is often used. " But this is already, as Goethe wrote, "a new century - other birds."