Narration on behalf of the author in an epic work. The image of the narrator in a literary work

Narratology (French NARRATOLOGIE) is the science of storytelling.

Narrative - a story about actions and events. In the epic genre of literature, narration is the main part of the work (includes the author’s reasoning, descriptions various items, places, people, improperly direct speech of the characters), almost the entire text, except for the direct speech of the characters.

For example, in “Hero of Our Time” M.Yu. Lermontov, the subject of the narrative changes three times: first it is the author himself, then Maxim Maksimych, then Pechorin. The point of view of the subject of the narrative determines the structure of the work and serves to express the author's intention. Thus, Lermontov changes narrators, as if gradually approaching the “hero of our time”: first the author who did not know him at all, then Maxim Maksimych, who knew him well, then he himself. Points of view in a narrative can constantly change, mix, and form a complex unity, as in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky.

Apparently the shortest example of a narrative in world literature is famous story Caesar: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” It clearly and accurately conveys the essence of the story - this is a story about what happened, happened.

Narration is intimately connected with space and time. The designation of a place, an action, the name of persons and non-persons performing the actions, and the designation of the actions themselves are language means, with the help of which the story is told.

The stylistic functions of the narrative are varied and are associated with individual style, genre, and the subject of the image. The narrative can be more or less objectified, neutral, or, on the contrary, subjective, permeated with the author’s emotions.

The narration can be conducted from any person: 1, 2, 3.

For example, the French writer Michel Butor. Butor is considered the most widely read author of the "new novel", who attracted attention in the 1950s for his open disdain for the technique of traditional writing.

The novel is written in the second person singular: the author seems to identify the hero and the reader: “You place your left foot on the copper bar and try in vain to push away the sliding compartment door with your right shoulder...”

The hero talks about himself, but uses the second person to attract the reader to some problem.

Another French writer A. Barbusse writes in the first person in the novel “Fire”. He uses “I” first, then “we”.

For example: “Our company is in reserve.” “Our age? We all of different ages. Our regiment is a reserve one; it was consistently replenished with reinforcements - either personnel units or militias.” “Where are we from? From different areas. We came from everywhere." “What were we doing? Whatever you want."

The narrative can be linear, continuous, sequential, discontinuous, monologue, polyphonic.

The narrator is the person on whose behalf the story is told about people and events in epic and lyric-epic works. Thus, between the reader and the heroes of a story, story, poem or novel, there is always a kind of intermediary - the one who narrates about people and events. Sometimes this narrator is directly designated by the author as the person leading the story (see Skaz). Sometimes this person is not directly identified, but even in this case the narrator and his characteristics manifest themselves in the very manner of speech, intonation, in the choice of epithets, comparisons and other evaluative forms of speech.

Thus, the narrator appears with more or less distinctness as an independent image, which is revealed precisely in the way he talks about events and people, how he relates to them, what he thinks and feels about them. This is, for example, the image of the narrator in “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol, mocking those whom he portrays, and contrasting with them his faith in the future of Russia.

Therefore, analysis of the narrator’s image is very important for understanding ideological content work, the system of his images, and for understanding the writer’s skill, since those features of the language of his work that do not directly reproduce the speech of the characters are motivated by the image of the narrator, creating his speech characteristics.

The narrator can be located outside the narrative, he can be one of the characters, a participant in the events himself, he can remember something.

There are such concepts as “omniscient author”, “omniscient narrator”. This means that the author stands above everything, knows and sees everything. Such authors include, for example, Honore de Balzac and Leo Tolstoy.

Claude Simon (Claude Henri de Rouvroy - count, French thinker, sociologist, utopian socialist. He wrote: “A writer is like an ant that crawls across a picture.”

Indeed, the ant will see all the fragments separately.

Thus, the narrator is a figure created by the subject artistic activity for the development of the artistic world of a work in the zone of a certain value relationship. The structure of the narrator’s activity, his value relationship to the material is contradictory - he is at the same time the voice of the created world, and the one who can talk about this world and judge it from the outside.

Reading the epillium of Catullus, the reader seems to be transported to the events that the writer describes. Catullus writes something in the past. Either in the present tense: “He guides his uncertain step with a thin thread” or “once a boat made of pine, born on the ridge of Pelion, / Floated, as legend says, on the calm waters of Neptune...”

Literary gender. Genre.

Literary genre is a group of genres that have similar structural features.

Works of art differ greatly in the choice of depicted phenomena of reality, in the methods of its depiction, in the predominance of objective or subjective principles, in composition, in forms of verbal expression, in figurative and expressive means. But at the same time, all these various literary works can be divided into three types - epic, lyricism and drama.

The division into genera is due different approaches to the depiction of the world and man: the epic objectively depicts a person, the lyrics are characterized by subjectivism, and the drama depicts a person in action, and the author’s speech has an auxiliary role.

Epic (in Greek means narrative, story) is a narrative about events in the past, focused on an object, on the image of the external world. The main features of the epic as a literary genre are events, actions as the subject of the image (eventfulness) and narration as a typical, but not the only form of verbal expression in the epic, because in large epic works there are descriptions, reasoning, and lyrical digressions(which connects epic with lyrics), and dialogues (which connects epic with drama).

An epic work is not limited by any spatial or temporal boundaries. It can cover many events and a large number of characters. In the epic, an impartial, objective narrator (works of Goncharov, Chekhov) or storyteller (Pushkin's Tales of Belkin) plays an important role. Sometimes the narrator tells the story from the words of the narrator (“The Man in a Case” by Chekhov, “The Old Woman Izergil” by Gorky).

An epic always presupposes the presence of a story, a narrative.

Lyrics (from Greek lyra -- musical instrument, to the sounds of which poems and songs were sung), in contrast to epic and drama, which depict complete characters acting in various circumstances, depicts the individual states of the hero at individual moments of his life. The lyrics depict the inner world of the individual in its formation and change of impressions, moods, and associations. Lyrics, unlike epic, are subjective, feelings and experiences lyrical hero occupy the main place in it, relegating life situations, actions, actions to the background. As a rule, there is no event plot in the lyrics. A lyrical work may contain a description of an event, an object, pictures of nature, but it is not valuable in itself, but serves the purpose of self-expression.

According to Aristotle, lyricism is imitation, where the imitator remains himself without changing his face.

The drama depicts a person in action, in a conflict situation, but there is no detailed narrative-descriptive image in the drama. Its main text is a chain of statements by characters, their remarks and monologues. Most dramas are built on external action, which is associated with confrontation, the confrontation of heroes. But it can also prevail internal action(the characters do not so much act as they experience and think, as in the plays of Chekhov, Gorky, Maeterlinck, Shaw). Dramatic works, like epic works, depict events, the actions of people and their relationships, but drama lacks a narrator and descriptive depiction.

The author's speech is auxiliary and forms a side text of the work, which includes a list of characters, sometimes their brief characteristics; designation of the time and place of action, description of the stage setting at the beginning of pictures, phenomena, acts, actions; stage directions that indicate the intonation, movements, and facial expressions of the characters. The main text of a dramatic work consists of monologues and dialogues of characters that create the illusion of the present time.

According to Aristotle, “drama” is the imitation of action through action rather than story.

Thus, the epic tells, consolidates external reality, events and facts in words, drama does the same, but not on behalf of the author, but in direct conversation, dialogue between the characters themselves, while lyricism focuses its attention not on the external, but on the internal world.

However, it must be borne in mind that the division of literature into genera is to some extent artificial, because in fact, often there is a connection, a combination of all these three types, their merging into one artistic whole, or a combination of lyrics and epic (prose poems), epic and drama (epic drama), drama and lyric (lyrical drama). In addition, the division of literature into genera does not coincide with its division into poetry and prose. Each of literary families includes both poetic (poetic) and prosaic (non-poetic) works.

For example, in their generic basis, the novel in verse by Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” and Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” are epic. Many dramatic works written in verse: Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit", Pushkin's tragedy "Boris Godunov" and others.

The division into genera is the first division in the classification of literary works. The next step is to divide each type into genres. Genre is a historically established type of literary work. There are genres:

epic (novel, story, story, essay, parable),

lyrical (lyric poem, elegy, message, epigram, ode, sonnet) and

dramatic (comedy, tragedy, drama).

Finally, genres usually receive further subdivisions (e.g. everyday novel, adventure novel, psychological novel and so on.). In addition, all genres are usually divided into

large (novel, epic novel),

medium (story, poem) and

small (short story, short story, essay).

Epic genre

Novel (from French roman or conte roman - a story in the Romance language) - large form epic genre, a multi-issue work depicting a person in the process of his formation and development. The action in a novel is always full of external or internal conflicts or both together. Events in the novel are not always described sequentially; sometimes the author breaks the chronological sequence (“Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov).

Novels can be divided by theme (historical, autobiographical, adventure, adventure, satirical, fantasy, philosophical, etc.); by structure (novel in verse, novel-pamphlet, novel-parable, novel-feuilleton, epistolary novel and others).

An epic novel (from the Greek epopiia - a collection of legends) a novel with a broad depiction of folk life at turning points historical eras. For example, “War and Peace” by Tolstoy, “ Quiet Don» Sholokhov.

A story is an epic work of medium or large form, constructed in the form of a narrative about events in their natural sequence. Sometimes a story is defined as an epic work, a cross between a novel and a short story - it is larger than a story, but smaller than a novel in terms of volume and number of characters. But the boundary between a story and a novel should be sought not in their volume, but in the features of composition. Unlike a novel, which tends toward an action-packed composition, the story presents the material chronically. In it, the artist does not get carried away with reflections, memories, details of the analysis of the feelings of the characters, unless they are strictly subordinated to the main action of the work. The story does not pose problems of a global historical nature.

A short story is a short epic prose form, a small work with a limited number of characters (most often the story is about one or two heroes). A story usually poses one problem and describes one event. For example, in Turgenev’s story “Mumu” ​​the main event is the story of Gerasim’s acquisition and loss of a dog. A novella differs from a short story only in that it always unexpected ending(About Henry “The Gift of the Magi”), although in general the boundaries between these two genres are very arbitrary.

An essay is a short epic prose form, one of the varieties of a story. The essay is more descriptive and touches mainly on social problems.

A parable is a short epic prose form, a moral teaching in an allegorical form. A parable differs from a fable in that its art material draws from human life (gospel parables, Solomon's parables).

Lyrical genres

Lyric poem - small genre form lyrics written either on behalf of the author (“I loved you” by Pushkin) or on behalf of a fictional lyrical hero (“I was killed near Rzhev...” by Tvardovsky).

Elegy (from the Greek eleos - plaintive song) is a small lyrical form, a poem imbued with a mood of sadness and sadness. As a rule, the content of elegies is philosophical reflections, sad thoughts, grief.

An epistle (from the Greek epistole - letter) is a small lyrical form, a poetic letter addressed to a person. According to the content of the message, there are friendly, lyrical, satirical, etc. The message can be addressed to one specific person or group of people.

An epigram (from the Greek epigramma - inscription) is a small lyrical form, a poem ridiculing a specific person. The emotional range of the epigram is very wide - from friendly ridicule to angry denunciation. Character traits- wit and brevity.

Ode (from the Greek ode - song) is a small lyrical form, a poem, distinguished by the solemnity of style and sublimity of content.

A sonnet (from the Italian soneto - song) is a small lyrical form, a poem, usually consisting of fourteen verses.

A poem (from the Greek poiema - creation) is a medium lyric-epic form, a work with a plot-narrative organization, in which not one thing is embodied, but whole line experiences. The poem combines the features of two literary genres - lyricism and epic. The main features of this genre are the presence of a detailed plot and, at the same time, close attention to the inner world of the lyrical hero.

Ballad (from the Italian ballada - to dance) is a medium lyric-epic form, a work with a tense, unusual plot, a story in verse.

art artistic composition literary character

Narrator- a conventional image of a person on whose behalf the story is told literary work; personalized narrator.

Artistic character- an image of a person in a work of art, presented with sufficient completeness, in the unity of the general and individual, objective and subjective.

Literary gender- one of three groups of literary works - epic, lyric, drama, which are identified according to a number of common characteristics.

Picture subject:

Epic↔ Drama

Events occurring in space and time; individual characters, their relationships, intentions and actions, experiences and statements.

Lyrics

The inner world of a person: his feelings, thoughts, experiences, impressions.

Relation to the subject of depicting speech structure:

Ways to organize artistic time and space:

Epic- a narration about events that have passed and are remembered by the narrator. Lyrics- conveying the emotional state of the hero or author at a certain moment in life. Drama- narration in the form of a conversation between the characters, without the author’s speech.

In the 3rd part of the work (Tasks C5.1, C5.2, C5.3) the ability to construct a coherent, meaningful speech statement on a given literary topic, formulated in the form of a question of a problematic nature, is tested. The graduate is asked 3 questions (C5.1-C5.3), covering the most important milestones of the national historical and literary process: 1 - on works of the first half of the 19th century, 2 - on works of the second half of the 19th century, 3 - on works of the 20th century. The graduate selects only one of the questions and gives an answer to it, justifying his judgments by referring to the work (from memory). Questions of a problematic nature indicate a cognitive contradiction, which the graduate must comprehend by proposing his own version of its resolution in the form of a literary critical article, review, or essay (the genre is chosen by the examinee). Work of this type stimulates students’ independent thought and gives them the opportunity to express their attitude to the problems raised by the authors of the works.

Examples of problematic issues included in the 3rd part of KIMs on literature:

What do you think symbolic meaning scenes with a key (based on A.N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”?

Why does Stolz believe that there is more Oblomov in Zakhara than in Oblomov himself?

Is Nazarov a strong personality?

Why is the main character of the novel “Crime and Punishment,” which is based on a detective story, a criminal and not an investigator?

Why is the scene of the Battle of Borodino the climax of the novel “War and Peace”?

Why was Napoleon the idol of Prince Andrei in one of the eras of his life?

Why is the play The Cherry Orchard", depicting the dramatic fates of the heroes, is it a comedy?

Why did Yesenin call himself “ last poet of the village"?

What is Mayakovsky's lyrical hero: an optimistic hero of a great era or a tragic suffering personality?

Why is The Master and Margarita a “novel within a novel”?

Why does the narrator, and not his fellow villagers, understand that Matryona is a righteous man, without whom “the earth does not stand”?

Onegin's melancholy - a tribute to fashion or a deep inner experience?

Why is the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov consists not of chapters, but of separate completed stories?

Why does Oblomov, lying aimlessly on the sofa, call all his visitors “unhappy” people?

Why does Dostoevsky’s color scheme of St. Petersburg have a predominant yellow color?

Why is the central event of A. Blok’s revolutionary poem the murder of Katka?

Do you agree with the literary critic’s statement that Akhmatova’s poetry is Russian psychological prose XIX century, translated into poetry? Give reasons for your point of view.

This assignment is a detailed answer to a problematic question related to the analysis of various aspects of the content and form of works of literature of the 19th-20th centuries studied at school. This is a kind of miniature essay. Work on such an essay should take no more than 2 academic hours.

To successfully answer such questions, you must clearly define the essence of the formulated problem or the meaning of the proposed alternative, master the impeccable logic of the development of thought, refuse attempts to speak “on the topic”, “in general”, formulate “vague” judgments, “pour water”.

If different answers to the question posed are possible, it is better to choose the one that, in the graduate’s opinion, is more consistent with the author’s intention or position of the author of the work. If all points of view have the right to exist, they all must be justified by the text of the work.

Let us repeat the common truth once again: you can answer the question posed only if you know the text of the work very well (using texts during the exam is not allowed).

Finally, remember that this answer is a complete text. It must have a very clear and concise introduction and conclusion, and all judgments must be supported by text. Speech, stylistic and factual errors are not allowed.

For example, answering the question: “Why did Sophia choose the inconspicuous Molchalin over the brilliant Chatsky?” - you need to understand the essence of the problem. Sophia is extraordinary, intelligent, appreciates interesting people (she would never marry Skalozub) - and suddenly prefers an ordinary person to a bright personality, why did this happen? There are probably several reasons. They can be divided into three groups. The first group of reasons lies in Sophia herself: firstly, she was formed in an environment where the ideal is “a husband-boy, a husband-servant”; secondly, her favorite French novels idealized the love of socially unequal heroes; thirdly, she is offended by Chatsky, who left suddenly and, in essence, abandoned her; fourthly, the isolation of her life predetermined the limited choice. The second reason is Molchalin: he is affectionate, helpful, gentle, and excellent at pretending to be in love. The third reason is in Chatsky: for all his brilliance, for all his sincerity and originality, he is sarcastic, bilious, and sometimes unceremonious. Everyone, without exception, is the target of his attacks. Why shouldn’t Sophia be afraid that she too will not escape a similar fate over time?

Obviously, in answering this question, there is no need to talk about the history of the play, nor about its main characters and problems. There is no need to characterize in detail the time depicted in the comedy and the uniqueness of the conflict. “Clarity, logic - evidence” - this is the motto of working on a detailed answer to a problematic question.

Let's start with an analysis of epic speech as more complex. It clearly distinguishes two elements of speech: the speech of the heroes and the narrative. (Narration in literary criticism is usually called what remains of the text of an epic work if the direct speech of the heroes is removed from it).

If some attention is paid to the speech of heroes in school literary studies (although the analysis is not always competent and fruitful), then, as a rule, no attention is paid to the speech of the narrator, and in vain, because this is the most essential aspect of the speech structure of an epic work.

I even admit that most readers are accustomed to slightly different terminology on this issue: usually in school literature studies they talk about the speech of characters and the speech of the author. The fallacy of such terminology immediately becomes clear if we take a work with a pronounced narrative style.

Here, for example: “Nice bekesha from Ivan Ivanovich! Excellent! And what smiles! Gray with frost! You deliberately look sideways when he starts talking to someone: gluttony! My God, why don’t I have such a bekeshi!” This is the beginning of “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich,” but is this really what the author says, that is, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol? And is it really the great writer’s own voice that we hear when we read: “Ivan Ivanovich is of a somewhat fearful character, Ivan Nikiforovich, on the contrary, has trousers with such wide folds that you can hide an entire house with barns and buildings in them” (my italics. - A.E.)?

The narrator is a special artistic image, just as invented by the writer as all other images. Like any image, it represents a certain artistic convention, belonging to a secondary, artistic reality.

That is why it is unacceptable to identify the narrator with the author, even in cases where they are very close: the author is a real living person, and the narrator is the image he created. Another thing is that in some cases the narrator can express the author’s thoughts, emotions, likes and dislikes, give assessments that coincide with the author’s, etc.

But this is not always the case, and in each specific case, evidence of the closeness of the author and narrator is needed; This should under no circumstances be taken for granted.

The image of the narrator is a special image in the structure of the work. The main, and often the only means of creating this image is its inherent speech manner, behind which a certain character, way of thinking, worldview, etc. is visible.

What do we, for example, know about the narrator in “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich”? It seems like very little: after all, we don’t know his age, profession, social status, appearance; he does not commit a single action throughout the story... And yet the character is before us as if alive, and this is only thanks to the extremely expressive manner of speech, behind which stands a certain manner of thinking.

Throughout almost the entire story, the narrator appears to us as a naive, simple-minded provincial eccentric, whose range of interests does not extend beyond the boundaries of the county little world. But the last phrase of the narrator is “It’s boring in this world, gentlemen!” - changes our idea of ​​him to the exact opposite: this bitter remark makes us assume that the initial naivety and good-naturedness were only a mask of an intelligent, ironic, philosophically minded person, that it was a kind of game offered to the reader by the author, a specific technique that allowed deeper to highlight the absurdity and inconsistency, the “boredom” of Mirgorod, and more broadly, of human life.

As we can see, the image turned out to be complex, two-layered and very interesting, and yet it was created using exclusively verbal means.

In most cases, even in a large work, one narrative style is maintained, but this does not have to be so, and the possibility of imperceptible, unannounced changes in the narrative style during the course of the work should always be taken into account. (The declared change of narrators, as, for example, in “A Hero of Our Time,” is not so difficult to analyze.)

The trick here is that the narrator seems to be the same, but in fact in different fragments of the text he is different in his speech style. For example, in Gogol’s “Dead Souls” the main narrative element is similar to the narrative in “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” - the mask of naivety and innocence hides irony and slyness, which sometimes clearly break through in the author’s satirical digressions.

But in the author’s pathetic digressions (“Happy is the traveler...”, “Aren’t you, too, Rus'...”, etc.) the narrator is no longer the same - he is a writer, tribune, prophet, preacher, philosopher - in a word, an image , close, almost identical to the personality of Gogol himself.

A similar, but even more complex and subtle narrative structure is present in Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”. In cases where the story is told about Moscow scoundrels from Variety or Massolit, about the adventures of Woland’s gang in Moscow, the narrator puts on the speech mask of a Moscow man in the street, thinks and speaks in his tone and spirit.

In the story about the Master and Margarita, he is romantic and enthusiastic. In the story about the “prince of darkness” and in a number of the author’s digressions (“But no, there are no Caribbean seas in the world...”, “Oh gods, my gods, how sad the evening land!..”, etc.) appears as a wise experience a philosopher whose heart is poisoned by bitterness. In the “gospel” chapters the narrator is a strict and accurate historian.

Such a complex narrative structure corresponds to the complexity of the problematics and ideological world of “The Master and Margarita”, the complex and at the same time unified personality of the author, and it is clear that without understanding it, it is impossible either to adequately perceive the features of the artistic form of the novel, or to “break through” to its difficult content.

There are several forms and types of storytelling. The two main narrative forms are first-person and third-person narration. It should be borne in mind that each form can be used by writers for a variety of purposes, but in general it can be said that first-person narration enhances the illusion of authenticity of what is being told and often focuses attention on the image of the narrator; in this narration, the author almost always “hides”, and his non-identity with the narrator appears most clearly.

A type of first-person narration is the imitation in a work of fiction of diaries (Pechorin’s journal), letters (“Poor People” by Dostoevsky) or other documents.

A special form of narration is the so-called direct speech. This is a narration on behalf of a neutral narrator, as a rule, but presented entirely or partly in the speech manner of the hero, without at the same time being his direct speech.

Writers of modern times especially often resort to this form of narration, wanting to recreate the inner world of the hero, his inner speech, through which a certain manner of thinking is visible. This form of storytelling was a favorite technique of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, L. Andreev, and many other writers.

Let us give as an example an excerpt of improperly direct internal speech from the novel “Crime and Punishment”: “And suddenly Raskolnikov clearly remembered the whole scene of the third day under the gate; he realized that, besides the janitors, there were several other people standing there at the time<...>So, this is how all this horror yesterday was resolved. The most terrible thing was to think that he really almost died, almost destroyed himself because of such an insignificant circumstance. Therefore, apart from renting an apartment and talking about blood, this person cannot tell anything. Consequently, Porfiry also has nothing, nothing but this nonsense, no facts except psychology, which has two ends, nothing positive. Therefore, if no more facts appear (and they should no longer appear, they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t!), then... then what can they do with him? How can they finally expose him, even if they arrest him? And, therefore, Porfiry only now, only now found out about the apartment, and until now he didn’t know.”

In narrative speech, words appear here that are characteristic of the hero, and not the narrator (partially they are italicized by Dostoevsky himself), the structural speech features of the internal monologue are imitated: a double train of thought (indicated by brackets), fragmentation, pauses, rhetorical questions - all this is characteristic of the speech manner Raskolnikov.

Finally, the phrase in brackets is almost direct speech, and the image of the narrator in it has almost “melted”, but only almost - this is still not the speech of the hero, but the imitation of his speech manner by the narrator. The form of improperly direct speech diversifies the narrative, brings the reader closer to the hero, and creates psychological richness and tension.

There are personified and non-personified narrators. In the first case, the narrator is one of the characters in the work; often he has all or some of the attributes of a literary character: name, age, appearance; participates in the action in one way or another. In the second case, the narrator is a maximally conventional figure; he represents the subject of the narrative and is external to the world depicted in the work.

If the narrator is personified, then he can be either the main character of the work (Pechorin in the last three parts of “A Hero of Our Time”), or a secondary one (Maksim Maksimych in “Bel”), or an episodic character, practically not taking part in the action (“publisher” of the diary Pechorin in “Maxim Maksimych”).

The latter type is often called an observer narrator, sometimes this type of narration is extremely similar to a third-person narration (for example, in Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov).

Depending on how pronounced the narrator’s speech style is, several types of narration are distinguished. Most simple type is the so-called neutral narrative, built according to the norms literary speech, told from a third person, and the narrator is not personified.

The narration is mainly in a neutral style, and the speech style is de-emphasized. We find such a narrative in Turgenev’s novels and in most of Chekhov’s novels and short stories.

Note that in this case we can most likely assume that in his manner of thinking and speech, in his concept of reality, the narrator is as close as possible to the author.

Another type is a narrative, presented in a more or less pronounced speech manner, with elements of expressive style, with a unique syntax, etc.

If the narrator is personified, then the speech style of the narration usually correlates in one way or another with his character traits, revealed through other means and techniques. We see this type of narration in the works of Gogol, in the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, in the works of Bulgakov and others.

In this case, maximum closeness between the narrator and the author is also possible (for example, in Tolstoy), but here one must be very careful, since the correspondence between the positions of the author and the narrator can be, firstly, very complex and multifaceted (Gogol, Bulgakov) , and secondly, there are possible cases here when the narrator is a direct antipode of the author (“The Nose” by Gogol, “The History of a City” by Shchedrin, narrators in “Belkin’s Tales” by Pushkin, etc.).

The next type is a stylized narrative, with a pronounced speech manner, in which the norms of literary speech are usually violated - a shining example there may be stories and novellas by A. Platonov. In this third type, a very important and interesting type of storytelling stands out, called skaz.

A tale is a narrative, in its vocabulary, style, intonation-syntactic structure, and others. speech means imitative oral speech, and most often common people. Such writers as Gogol (“Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”), Leskov, and Zoshchenko possessed exceptional and, perhaps, unsurpassed mastery of the tale.

In the analysis of the narrative element of a work, primary attention must be paid, firstly, to all types of personified narrators, secondly, to a narrator with a pronounced speech manner (third type), and thirdly, to a narrator whose image merges with the image of the author ( not with the author himself!).

Esin A.B. Principles and techniques of analyzing a literary work. - M., 1998