Analysis of a work of art from the point of view of genre. How to analyze a work

The analysis of any work begins with perception - the reader, listener, viewer. If a literary work is considered, it is contrasted rather with other ideologies than with other arts. The word as such is a means not only of literature, but also of human language in general. Thus, the main analytical load falls on identifying the criteria of artistry. Analysis of a work is, first of all, drawing boundaries between an artistic creation and the product of human activity in general, be it literature or any other art.

Planning

Analyzing a work of art requires distinguishing between its form and ideological content. Ideological content is, first of all, thematic and problematic. Then - pathos, that is, the artist’s emotional attitude towards what is depicted: tragedy, heroism, drama, humor and satire, sentimentality or romance.

Artistry lies in the details of the subject representation, in the sequence and interaction of the internal and external activities of the depicted in time and space. And also the analysis of a work of art requires accuracy in highlighting compositional development. This includes observing the development in the order, methods, motivations of the narrative or description of what is depicted, in stylistic details.

Circuits for analysis

First of all, the history of the creation of this work is examined, its themes and problems, ideological direction and emotional pathos are indicated. Then the genre is explored in its traditionality and originality, as well as these artistic images in all their internal connections. Analysis of the work brings to the fore the discussion and characterizes all the central characters, while simultaneously clarifying the plot lines in the features of the construction of conflicts.

Next, landscapes and portraits, monologues and dialogues, the interior and setting of the action are characterized. In this case, it is imperative to pay attention to the verbal structure: analysis of a literary work requires consideration of the author’s descriptions, narratives, digressions, and reasoning. That is, speech becomes the subject of study.

Details

During the analysis, both the composition of the work and the characteristics of individual images, as well as the general architectonics, are necessarily recognized. Finally, the place of this work in the artist’s work and its significance in the domestic and world treasury of arts are indicated. This is especially important if the works of Lermontov, Pushkin and other classics are analyzed.

It is necessary to convey information about the main problems of the era and clarify the creator’s attitude towards them. Point by point, identify the traditional and innovative elements in the author’s work: what are the ideas, themes and issues, what is the creative method, style, genre. It is very useful to study the attitude of leading critics to this creation. Thus, Belinsky produced an almost exhaustive analysis of Pushkin’s works.

Character Characteristics Plan

In the introduction, it is necessary to determine the character’s place in the general system of images of this work. The main part includes, first of all, its characteristics and an indication of its social type, financial and social status. The external appearance is examined in detail and no less thoroughly - his worldview, worldview, range of interests, habits, inclinations.

Mandatory research into the nature of the character’s activities and main aspirations greatly contributes to the full disclosure of the character. Its impact on the world around us is also considered - all types of impact.

The next stage is the analysis of the hero of the work in the field of feelings. That is, how he relates to others, his inner experiences. The author's attitude towards this character is also analyzed. How is personality revealed in the work? Was the characterization given by the author himself directly, or did he do it with the help of a portrait, backstory, through other characters, through the actions of the subject or his speech characteristics, using the environment or neighbors. The analysis of the work ends with an identification of the problem in society that led the artist to create just such an image. Getting to know the character will turn out to be quite close and informative if the journey through the text is interesting.

Analysis of a lyric work

You should start with the date of writing, then give a biographical comment. Identify the genre and note its originality. Next, it is advisable to consider the ideological content in as much detail as possible: to identify the leading theme and convey the main idea of the work.

Feelings and their emotional coloring expressed in a poem, whether dynamics dominate in it or statics - all this constitutes the most important part that the analysis of a literary work should contain.

It is important to pay attention to the impression of the poem and analyze the internal reaction. Note the predominance of public or personal intonations in the work.

Professional details

Further, the analysis of the lyrical work enters the sphere of professional details: the structure of verbal images, their comparison, and then development are specifically considered. What path did the author choose for comparison and development - by contrast or by similarity, by association, by contiguity or by inference.

Visual means are examined in detail: metonymy, metaphor, allegory, comparison, hyperbole, symbol, sarcasm, periphrasis, and so on. It is especially necessary to identify the presence of intonational-syntactic figures, such as anaphors, antitheses, epithets, inversions, rhetorical questions, appeals and exclamations.

An analysis of the works of Lermontov, Pushkin, and any other poet is impossible without characterizing the main rhythmic features. It is necessary to indicate first of all what exactly the author used: tonic, syllabic, syllabic-tonic, dolnik or free verse. Then determine the size: iambic, trochee, peon, dactyl, anapest, amphibrachium, pyrrhicham or spondee. The method of rhyming and stanza is considered.

Scheme of analysis of a work of painting

First, the author and title of the painting, the place and time of its creation, the history and embodiment of the idea are indicated. The reasons for choosing the model are considered. The style and direction of this work are indicated. The type of painting is determined: easel or monumental, fresco, tempera or mosaic.

The choice of material is explained: oil, watercolor, ink, gouache, pastel - and whether it is characteristic of the artist. Analysis of a work of art also involves determining the genre: portrait, landscape, historical painting, still life, panorama or diorama, marina, icon painting, everyday genre or mythological. It should also be noted that it is characteristic of the artist. Convey a pictorial plot or symbolic content, if observed.

Analysis scheme: sculpture

Just as the analysis of a work of painting involves, for a sculpture the author and title, time of creation, place, history of the idea and its implementation are first indicated. Style and direction are indicated.

Now it is necessary to determine the type of sculpture: round, monumental or small plastic, relief or its varieties (bas-relief or high relief), herm or sculptural portrait, and so on.

The choice of model is described - this is a person, an animal that exists in reality, or an allegorical image of it. Or maybe the work is completely the imagination of the sculptor.

For a complete analysis, it is necessary to determine whether the sculpture is an element of architecture, or whether it is free-standing. Then consider the author’s choice of material and what determines it. It is marble, granite, bronze, wood or clay. Identify national characteristics of the work and, finally, convey personal attitudes and perceptions. The analysis of the sculptor's work is completed. Architectural objects are considered in a similar way.

Analysis of a piece of music

Musical art has specific means to reveal life phenomena. Here the connections between the figurative meaning of music and its structure, as well as the means used by the composer, are determined. These special features of expressiveness are intended to indicate the analysis of a musical work. Moreover, it should itself become a means for the development of aesthetic and ethical qualities of the individual.

First you need to clarify the musical content, idea and concept of the work. And also its role in nurturing sensory knowledge of a complete picture of the world. Then you need to determine what expressive means of musical language formed the semantic content of the work, what intonation finds the composer used.

How to do a qualitative analysis

Here is a partial list of questions that a qualitative analysis of a piece of music should answer:

What is this music about?
What name can you give it? (If the essay is not programmatic.)
Are there heroes in the work? What are they?
Does this music have action? Where do conflicts occur?
How do climaxes manifest themselves? Do they grow from peak to peak?
How did the composer explain all this to us? (Timbres, tempos, dynamics, etc. - that is, the nature of the work and the means of creating this character.)
What impression does this music make, what mood does it convey?
How does the listener feel?

In the process of philological analysis of a text, it is necessary to take into account its genre characteristics (especially if the genre is canonical) and observe deviations from the genre “canon” and the interaction of elements of different genres, as well as the “image of the genre” that may arise in the work. So, for example, in the story of I.A. Bunin’s “Ballad”, which is characterized by the “text within text” form, interacts elements of three genres: folk legend, ballad, and the story itself. Quotes, allusions, reminiscences that permeate the text create a generalized image of the ballad, close to Zhukovsky’s romantic ballads (see such topoi images as blizzard, winter, road), and to folk ballads (criminal passion, intervention of supernatural forces, etc.). The story of the wanderer Mashenka, combining the features of a legend and a folk ballad, is refracted in the perception of the narrator and correlates with the world of romantic culture. The synthesis of different genres affirms eternal themes: love and death - and emphasizes the immutability of moral laws.

Genre is a historical category. “The genre is always both one and the other, always old and new at the same time. The genre is revived and renewed at each new stage in the development of literature and in each individual work of this genre, wrote M.M. Bakhtin. - Genre is a representative of creative memory in the process of literary development. That is why the genre is able to provide unity and continuity(emphasized by M.M. Bakhtin. - N.N.) this development." Analysis of genres in their historical development allows us to identify the main directions of the evolution of the literary process. This is possible because, as genre formations develop, they retain “dominant... techniques-signs” (B.V. Tomashevsky), which are stable for a long time. Among these dominant features, certain techniques of word usage and the use of grammatical forms and syntactic structures play an important role. Their identification and description contribute to the construction of a consistent classification of genres. At the same time, the harmony of the classification is “hampered” by the constant development of the genre system, its transformation and renewal. The continuity of change in genres, reflecting changing ways of knowing and representing reality, resists the logical scheme and abstraction that classification requires. “...No logical and solid classification of genres can be made,” noted B.V. Tomashevsky. - Their distinction is always historical, that is, valid only for a certain historical moment; in addition, their differentiation occurs on many grounds at once, and the features of one genre may be of a completely different nature than the features of another genre, and do not logically exclude each other...” This opinion, expressed in the 20s of the 20th century, has not lost its relevance to this day. The existing traditional classification of genres remains multi-featured and is characterized by a certain hierarchy associated with taking into account the gender factor (genres differ within literary genera). Thus, among the dramatic genres there are tragedy, comedy, farce, vaudeville, etc.; among poetic (lyrical) - ode, elegy, epigram, etc.; among the epic ones are a story, a short story, a novel, an essay. This classification is complemented, as is known, by thematic one: for example, adventure, psychological, historical, science fiction novels, etc. are distinguished. The demarcation features of many genres are far from strictly defined, which causes contradictory definitions of the genre nature of many works (for example, especially there is often a lack of distinction between a novel and a story). The classification of genres is built on different bases, while “hybrid” genre formations are not always taken into account, the stylistic features of the work are not always considered, and the form chosen by the author is not always recognized. Hence the diversity of terminology, the broad use of the term “genre”, covering, on the one hand, for example, such phenomena as the novel and short story; on the other hand, an epistolary work, travel, memoirs, family chronicle, etc.

It should also be noted that in modern literature the interaction of genres is intensifying, non-canonical genres are becoming more active, and the “genre-author” relationship itself is changing significantly. “The genre... self-determination of an artistic creation for the author now becomes not the starting point, but the result of the creative act... The genre is more difficult to identify than before.”

Literary texts, primarily prose, develop on the basis of non-fiction, mixed or “semi-fiction” phenomena of writing (chronicles, memoirs, etc.) and have a certain genre form.

Genre form is the result of interaction in the literary process of artistic and non-fictional genres: thus, in the process of development of prose, the aesthetic transformation of the form of autobiography, letters, chronicles determines the appearance of epistolary novels and stories, autobiographical novels, novellas and short stories, and a chronicle novel. Thus, a genre form is, first of all, a form of a certain non-artistic genre formation (primary genre), which the author focuses on, transforming it in the process of creating an artistic text. The distinction between primary genres (everyday writing, everyday stories, etc.) and secondary genres (novel, drama, etc.), which, formed in conditions of complex historical and cultural communication, assimilate and process primary genres, is important for philological analysis of the text.

The genre form, in our opinion, has the following characteristics: 1) the presence of a certain “canon”, going back to non-fiction works (genre “prototypes”); 2) orientation towards a complex of structural and semantic features characteristic of the “prototype” genre, with their subsequent artistic transformation; 3) the presence of one or another grouping of motives, which is determined by the author’s goal setting; 4) a certain type of narrative; 5) the special nature of the spatio-temporal organization.

Just like genre, genre form is historically changeable. Its development reflects the evolution of styles and changes in the nature of the literary process. In each era, the genre form has “its own compositional laws of concatenation of word series, its own norms of lexical fluctuations, its own tendencies in the internal dynamics of words, the originality of semantics and syntactics.” Revealing them, “clearly defining the boundaries and fundamental divisions between different areas of speech of literary and artistic works... showing mixed types and their linguistic justification in terms of literature and different contexts of “social dialectics” is one of the tasks of philological analysis, which has not yet lost its relevance.

“The fight for the genre,” noted Yu.N. Tynyanov is essentially a struggle for the direction of the poetic word, for its installation.” In relation to the genre form, it is also a struggle for aesthetic transformation and artistic modification of the word of the “prototype” genre. A writer’s appeal to a specific genre form is a two-way process: on the one hand, it is a conscious consideration of the “prototype” and the reproduction of the essential features of the primary genre; on the other hand, this is a mandatory transformation of its capabilities, determined by the aesthetic intention of the author. The choice of genre form is based on a kind of antinomy norm (standard) - deviation from it.

Orientation towards the primary (non-fiction) genre as a “prototype” genre and the transformation of its features are impossible without an idea of the system of speech means that forms the “prototype”, which has significant abstracting and typifying power. For example, turning to the form of a diary presupposes the obligatory use of such speech signals as recording the time of recording, “fractional” presentation of information, abbreviations, incomplete sentences, means of autocommunication, etc. See, for example, fragments of the text of L. Petrushevskaya’s story “Time is Night” ", using the genre form of a diary:

December 30th. Tomorrow is New Year. I barely passed the test. I cried in auditorium seven. Lenka is silent, doesn’t say anything. S. was the first to give in and leave. And, as always, I was late...

1st of January. Sensation. Lenka and S. were not on the transport vehicles! I came there at 10 pm like a fool in my grandmother’s black dress, with a rose in my hair (Carmen with a fan, the woman gave it to me, the woman dressed me up) ...

Genre form and genre act as a unique model, which may have a number of specific implementations (incarnations). It has the character of a relatively closed structure, representing a network of relationships between speech means organized in a certain way. These means, performing a genre-forming function, are of a different nature and can be conditionally combined into three groups based on the function they perform. They can participate:

1) in the formation of the content and thematic side of the text;

2) in forming the structure of the narrative and modeling a certain communicative situation;

3) in the design of the composition of the text.

The first group of means is represented, for example, by lexical-semantic groups (LSG) and, more broadly, by semantic fields that develop the main themes and motifs characteristic of a particular genre form (these are the semantic fields “life” and “time” in autobiographical prose, semantic field “travel” in travel and travel writing, LSG “vices/virtues” in confession, etc.).

The second group of means are, first of all, means that mark the narrator’s subjective-speech plan and contrast it with other possible subject-speech plans, as well as means that establish contact with the addressee (reader) and model his image.

The third group of means is represented by regular repetitions of various types that determine the coherence of the text, anaphoric substitutions, units that motivate the sequence of episodes and mark their change, as well as speech signals firmly assigned to the compositional parts that form the whole, see, for example, indications of dates and addresses to the addressee in works of epistolary form. So, in the story by A.N. Apukhtin’s “Archive of Countess D.”, which is a collection of letters from different characters to one addressee, it is the addresses that serve as compositional “seams” delimiting the main parts of the text, at the same time they are aesthetically significant: differences in the way of nominating a single addressee, who at the same time he himself is not the sender of a single letter, they are expressive and determine the volume, the “polyphony” of the depicted, cf.: Dear Countess Ekaterina Alexandrovna; Sweet Kitty; my dear fugitive; Your Excellency Mother Countess Ekaterina Alexandrovna and etc.

Speech means that serve as regular signals of genre form are multifunctional. So, for example, nominative sentences in autobiographical texts indicate the position of the narrator and at the same time are a means of highlighting each new block of memories, while linking it with the previous one: Rumble bells. The smell of incense. A crowd of people leaves the church(S. Kovalevskaya. Childhood memories); Alexander Garden, its difference from any Moscow public gardens. We went to it- like in a pond. Its shade, dampness, depth (A. Tsvetaeva. Memoirs).

A tool such as repetition turns out to be especially multifunctional: repetition is a factor of coherence and at the same time performs an intensifying and highlighting function in the text, repetition of words forms the thematic grid of the work and is associated with its content; finally, the repetition of characterological means, if stable, highlights the point of view of the character or narrator.

Genre-forming speech signals are system: each of its elements is connected with the other, their relationships are ordered and hierarchical. So, for example, the communicative dominant in texts written in the form of a diary is autocommunication, which requires periodic recording. This factor determines the nature of the tools used in the diary. Thematically diverse entries form a certain sequence, which is discrete in nature and is reflected in the change of dates. Each date is associated with an event or a series of events, which are indicated by the forms of the name and verb forms in the perfect or aorist meaning, interacting with the forms of the present actual. Writing for yourself is always associated with freedom of expression, hence the intensive use of incomplete sentences, ellipsis, abbreviations, and implicit transmission of information. Keeping a diary involves the intersection of two spheres: the sphere of written speech and the sphere of inner speech, their interaction during the artistic transformation of the genre form of the diary leads to increased lyrical expression and the emergence of detailed introspection; see, for example, “The Diary of an Extra Man” by I.S. Turgenev:

Yes, I'm scared. Half bent over, I look around with greedy attention. Every object is doubly dear to me... Be satisfied for the last time, my eyes! Life is removed; she runs smoothly and quietly away from me, like the shore from the gaze of a sailor. The old, yellow face of my nanny, tied with a warm scarf, the hissing samovar on the table, a pot of geraniums in front of the window and you, my poor dog Trezor, the pen with which I am writing these lines, my own hand, I see you now... here you are, Here.

Different genre forms interact with each other, resulting in “hybrid” formations. Thus, the aforementioned “Diary of an Extra Person” is characterized by the use, along with the diary form, of elements of autobiographical form (see the narrator’s motivation: “...Reading is too lazy. Eh! Let me tell myself my whole life”). The interaction of elements of various genre forms determines the combination of speech means of different types in the text of a particular work. Let us consider in more detail genre-forming speech means and their functions based on the material of one genre form - autobiographical (and “autopsychological”) works.

While in the literature of modern times the process of “blurring” genre boundaries deepens, the correlation of genres becomes unimportant (Yu.N. Tynyanov), a number of genre forms that arose relatively late retain stable substantive and formal characteristics. These include, for example, autobiographical works. The development of this genre form is associated with the development of self-knowledge of the individual, the discovery of the “I”.

Autobiographical texts are constructed as a story about the main events of the author’s life and are characterized by a retrospective setting. Autobiographical works appeared in Russia only in the 18th century; they were preceded by autohagiographical works - the lives of Avvakum and Epiphanius, created at the end of the 17th century. Initially, the autobiographical text was structured as a sequential biography, which is characterized by strict chronology (it is no coincidence that in the first half of the 18th century the form of recording the main events “by years” was used). Subsequently, autobiography interacts with a genre such as memoirs and is influenced by it. The autobiography is gradually fictionalized; the text of the work includes memories of the past, emotional assessments and reflections of the author. I The narrator no longer acts only as a subject of speech, but also as an object of self-description and self-image. The object of autobiographical prose, as noted by M.M. Bakhtin, “not only the world of your past in the light of the present mature consciousness and understanding, enriched by a time perspective, but also your past consciousness and understanding of this world (childhood, youth, youth). This past awareness is the same subject of depiction as the objective world of the past. Both of these consciousnesses, separated by decades, looking at the same world, are not roughly dissected... they revive this object, introduce into it a kind of dynamics, temporary movement, color the world with a living, becoming humanity...” In an autobiographical text of a secondary genre, transforming the structure of the original (primary), two points of view are thus combined, one of which assumes “past awareness of oneself and the environment,” the other “present mature awareness and understanding,” and in the structure of the text as a result two time plans can be combined and interact: plan of the past And real narrator's plan(“now - then”), which can lead to simultaneous comparison in the text of different spatial positions. The development of this interaction finally transforms the original “prototype” genre.

Autobiographical text focuses primarily on first person narration, the signs of which are an attitude towards authenticity, a special subjectivity based on the actualization of the identity of the assessment system of the narrator and the author, a clear fixation of the spatio-temporal position of the narrator (storyteller). In memoir and autobiographical prose, these properties of first-person narration acquire a special character.

The narrator refers to memories, while a kind of “game” is observed in the text: on the one hand, the inconsistent, impulsive, often subconscious nature of the memory process, based on the flow of associations, is emphasized; on the other hand, there is a strict selection of elements reflected and transformed by the word. The sequence of events in an autobiographical text (starting from the 2nd half of the 19th century) is often replaced by a sequence of memories.

The narrator’s speech in autobiographical prose regularly includes signals of recollection: I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I see as I see now etc., introducing a description of any reality, fact or situation in the past and indicating the selective work of memory: I remember that the words “royal funeral” were often repeated around me(A. Fet. My memories); It was Aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna. I remember short, dense, black-haired, kind, gentle, compassionate(L. Tolstoy. My life). In autobiographical prose of the 20th century. the same function is performed by nominative sentences and free prepositional case forms. Thus, in V. Kataev’s novel about childhood “Broken Life, or Oberon’s Magic Horn,” descriptions of past situations are introduced through precisely these syntactic means; An externally unmotivated sequence of nominatives that appears in a text strengthens the associative connections of text fragments ( Song... Gilded Nut... French Wrestling... Rink... and etc.).

The desire for authenticity, characteristic of autobiographical prose in general, manifests itself in different ways among different authors and in different periods of the development of literature. Thus, in the literature of the 20th century. Autobiographical works are becoming widespread, in the construction of which the emphasis on authenticity is manifested in the montage of disparate memories, in their associative juxtaposition: “Time is like a spotlight. It snatches from the darkness of memory one piece, then another. This is how it should be written. It’s more reliable this way” (A. Akhmatova); “I write abruptly not because this is my style: memories are abrupt” (V. Shklovsky).

The narrator's speech, containing memories, includes his assessments, expresses his various emotions. The means of their expression are evaluative characteristics of the realities and persons in question, emotionally charged appeals to them, interrogative constructions, exclamations: Oh, what pleasure I felt repeating sweet poems great poet!..(A. Fet. My memories); So that, Ogarev, hand in hand, you and I entered into life!.. I reached... not to the goal, but to the place where the road goes downhill, and I involuntarily look for your hand, so that I can walk together, to shake it and say, smiling sadly : "That's all!"(A. Herzen. Past and thoughts).

The narrator's subjective plan in the past can be represented by various speech means. These can be lexical units characteristic of a certain time period, for example, “children’s” words, evaluative characteristics in the text, etc. Interesting in this regard is an excerpt from “Memoirs” by N.V. Shelgunov, in which the use of alternating addresses reflects the contradictory the history of relations between generations of “fathers” and “children” from the 40s to the 90s of the 19th century:

When I was little, we were taught to say: “daddy”, “mummy” and “you”, then they began to say “dad”, “mom” and also “you”; in the sixties, a sharp reaction overthrew these soft forms and the fathers themselves taught their children to say: “father”, “mother”, “you”. Now they say “dad”, “mom” and also “you”.

Strengthening the immediate “voice” of the narrator from the past is facilitated by the concentration of characterological means that create the effect of his insufficient knowledge about the environment, incomplete information that he possesses (verbal means of expressing uncertainty, unreliability, questions, etc.): And here he appears somebody in a scarf and a cap, everything is like I have never seen, but I recognize that this is the one who is always with me (nanny or aunt, I don't know), And this someone speaks in a rough voice(L. Tolstoy. My life); My God! What a confusion of concepts occurred in my childish head! Why does the sick old man suffer? what is evil Mironych, what kind of power is this - Mikhailushka and grandmother ? (S. Aksakov. Childhood years of Bagrov the grandson).

The synchronicity of the narrator's time position and the past situation recreated in the text is achieved through temporal shifts, the use of present tense forms, and the intensive use of nominatives.

The relationship between the narrator’s spheres in the past and present in an autobiographical text can be of a different nature: either the narrator remembering the past comes to the fore, or his direct “voice” in childhood and adolescence is conveyed; a dynamic balance of both interacting plans can be established in the structure of the text. Typological techniques characteristic of the organization of autobiographical works are combined with the individual author's techniques for constructing the text, organizing its figurative structure.

The structure of the narrative in autobiographical prose is historically changeable: for example, in the literature of the 20th century. The role of means reflecting the subjectivity of presentation is sharply increasing, temporal shifts that establish the plan of the direct observer - an eyewitness and participant in the events of the past are becoming increasingly important, the principle of associative linkage of episodes and scenes recreating the intermittent memories of the narrator is being established. This is how, for example, the works of V. Kataev, Y. Olesha and others are constructed.

So, consideration of speech means assigned to a certain genre form makes it possible to reveal the essential features of the narrative and the space-time continuum of works, and to identify some patterns of the lexical-semantic organization of texts.

“To the researcher,” notes S.S. Averintsev, literary theory did not bother to provide a sufficiently clear network of coordinates for measuring the scope of the concept of genre. One of the possible ways to clarify this concept is to take into account speech means, which, during the formation of a genre, are formalized into a certain system of its signals and then, changing over time, serve as its distinctive features. Their consideration helps to reveal the dynamics of stable - unstable, stable - mobile, standard (typical) - individual in literary creativity and contributes to the interpretation of the text. In the process of philological analysis of a text, it is therefore necessary not only to determine the genre of the work or (more often) to show the interaction of different genres, but also to identify their various signals, consider the transformation of the original genre form and the associated aesthetic effects.

Let us consider in more detail the features of the genre form of autobiography and its transformation in a specific text - “Other Shores” by V. Nabokov.

“Other Shores” by V.V. Nabokov: genre originality of the text

The book of memoirs by V.V. Nabokov “Other Shores”, published in 1954, according to the author’s definition, “is a systematically connected accumulation of personal memories, geographically extending from St. Petersburg to St. Nazaire and covering thirty-seven years, from August 1903 to May 1940; with few forays into later space-time points." In the preface to “Other Shores” V.V. Nabokov himself defined the author’s intentions - the “goal” of the work: “to describe the past with extreme accuracy and find meaningful outlines in it, namely: the development and repetition of secret trends in manifest destiny.” According to the author's assessment, this is an ambivalent “hybrid of autobiography and novel.”

In “Other Shores,” the main features of Nabokov’s style were especially clearly manifested: amazing lexical richness, the interaction of tropes of different types, which determines the complexity and multidimensionality of artistic images, the language game in which the reader is involved, the semantic density of the text. This work develops those new trends in the genre of autobiography that appeared in the prose of the 20th century: the interaction of autobiography itself with memories, the intermittency and nonlinearity of which determines associativity narration, mosaic composition, combination of different spatial and temporal plans, semantic multiplicity of the narrator’s “I”, manifested in a kind of bifurcation, “stratification” into “I” in the past and “I” in the present.

Nabokov's "Other Shores" perhaps most clearly embodied new techniques for constructing the text of an autobiographical work, characteristic of the development of this genre in the 20th century. The narrator’s “I” is not only characterized here by semantic multiplicity, but is also subject to a kind of alienation: a “double” of the narrator appears in the text, which emphasizes the temporal distance separating his past and present:

How did I get here? As if in a bad dream, the sleigh departed, leaving him standing on the terrible Russian snow my double in an American coat with vicuna fur. There are no sleighs; their bells are just the ringing of blood in my ears. Home - for the saving ocean! However the double hesitates. Everything is quiet, everything is enchanted by the light disk over the Russian desert of my past. The snow is real to the touch; and when I bend down to take a handful of it, half a century of life crumbles into frosty dust between my fingers.

First person forms, as we see, are combined with third person forms. Along with them, second-person forms are used, which perform the same function and bring the narratives closer to a dialogue between two different hypostases of the “I”, cf., for example:

After some such battles with the elements, the glossy beigner led you, - panting, wetly sniffling, shivering from the cold - onto a strip of sand rolled by the tides, where the unforgettable barefoot old woman... quickly took it off the rope and threw it on at you fleecy cloak with a hood. In a pine-smelling bathing cabin I took you another servant...

The alternation of facial forms in the subjective organization of the text corresponds to the multiplicity of its addressees. Along with the external addressee - the reader, addresses to whom are presented in the work, in “Other Shores” there is also an internal addressee, which is defined in Chapter XIV of the text: “Oh, how the years fade away - across the steppe, across the steppe, moving away!” The years are fading, my friend, and when they are completely gone, no one will know what you and I know. Starting from Chapter XIV, the text widely uses forms of addressing (addresses, forms of 2nd person pronouns), and the nature of the narrator’s designation also changes: the author’s “I” is supplemented by the form “we”. Isolating the internal addressee - the author's wife - enhances the lyrical expression of the text and its dialogical nature.

Nabokov’s autobiographical narrative retains the “memory of the genre”, however, “Other Shores” is characterized by an associative-free principle of constructing an autobiographical text; its compositional parts are uneven both in the volume of information presented in them and in the scope of time (for example, in detail described impressions of childhood and youth, conducted in Russia, corresponds to the compression of time, generalization and acceleration of the pace of narration in the chapters devoted to emigration).

At the heart of "Other Shores" is the interaction of two genres: autobiography and memoirs - and a play with their figurative formulas. The key word in the text of “Other Shores” is memory. According to researchers, it is used 41 times in this work. Word memory in Russian artistic speech it is included in various figurative parallels: memory- storage, memory- book, memory - record, memory - bird, memory - pond and others, cf.: And event after event / a stream of memory flows (P. Vyazemsky); Oh memory! To the faithful you are faithful. / Is yours pond at the bottom sways banners, faces, names...(N. Krandievskaya); But in the memory book with thoughtful attention / We love to check pages about the past(P. Vyazemsky); Next, memory! Wing, quiet blowing/ Give me a different image...(V. Soloviev); Again the heart is at broken trough / Contemptuously yearning, / Yves ashtray memory rummage, / And carry cigarette butts from there!(V. Shershenevich); In the storerooms of our memory an innumerable amount of impressions(V. Domogatsky).

In the text of “Other Shores” the compatibility of the word memory takes into account these figurative parallels, but at the same time expands significantly; genitive metaphors used by V. Nabokov are characterized by semantic complexity and include new units: Memory screws, glass memory cell, memory view. Traditional figurative parallels are complemented by comparisons: memory is a country, memory is a mechanism. As a result, memory receives a multidimensional characteristic. It is interpreted as space, house, container, optical device, and finally, as a being endowed with energy and creative power.

In “Other Shores,” Nabokov abandons the chronologically accurate, sequential presentation of facts and events of the past, which are traditionally characteristic of the autobiography genre. The narrative is nonlinear and is characterized by sharp transitions from one time plan to another, regular switching from the external, eventful world to the inner world of the author, combining a story about the past with exposing the process of generating a text. The “game” of memories is complemented by a metatextual game, see, for example: In a cold room, in the arms of a fiction writer, Mnemosyne dies; I have noticed more than once that as soon as I give a fictional character a living trifle from my childhood, it already begins to fade and be erased in my memory... Thus, the image of my French governess, interspersed at the beginning of “The Defense of Luzhin,” perishes for me in a foreign environment, imposed by the writer. Here is an attempt to salvage what is left of this image.

The cross-cutting image of the work is the image of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. It regularly appears during the transition from one compositional part to another and motivates the selection of what is depicted and the violation of the linearity of the narrative. In this case, memory is personified, the properties of an actively acting subject are attributed to it. Wed: Mnemosyne begins to be picky and squirm only when you reach the chapters of youth; With the help of Vasily Martynovich, Mnemosyne can continue to follow the personal side of general history; ...I notice that Mnemosyne begins to wander and stops confusedly in the fog, where here and there, as on ancient maps, smoky, mysterious spaces are visible: terra incognito...

Mnemosyne is not only the goddess of memory, but also the mother of the muses; this mythological image emphasizes the theme of the connection between memory and creativity, memories and art.

“I think that memory and imagination belong to the same, very mysterious world of human consciousness...” said V.V. Nabokov. - One could say that memory is a kind of image concentrated on a specific point...” Facts and pictures of the past not only “flood” the memory, but are also “deposited” in it “immediately as whitewashed drafts.” For the narrator, emotional, visual, auditory, tactile, and smell memory are equally significant. To recreate pictures of the past, synaesthetic metaphors characteristic of Nabokov’s style and complex epithets that combine designations of different sensory characteristics are regularly used, cf.:

On the extreme path of the park, the purple of the lilac, in front of which I stood waiting for the hawk moths, turned into loose ash as the day slowly faded, and the fog spread like milk across the fields, and a young moon of the color Y hung in the watercolor sky of the color B... On gloomy nights, in late autumn, in the icy rain, I caught moths with bait, having smeared the trunks in the garden with a fragrant mixture of molasses, beer and rum: in the wet black darkness, my flashlight theatrically illuminated the sticky-shiny cracks in the oak bark, where... fabulously beautiful catocals absorbed the drunken sweetness of the bark...

The text of “Other Shores” includes a “confession of a synesthete” - a kind of key for the reader of the text, cf., for example:

In the whitish group, the letters L, N, O, X, E represent... a rather pale diet of noodles, Smolensk porridge, almond milk, dry rolls and Swedish bread. The group of cloudy intermediate shades is formed by clysteric Ch, fluffy-gray Sh and the same, but with yellow, Sh. Moving on to the spectrum, we find: red group with cherry-brick B (thicker than B), pink-flannel M and pinkish-flesh... B; yellow group with orange E, ocher E, fawn D, light fawn I, golden U and brass Y...

Thus, descriptions of the past, including a wealth of details, conveying various shades of smell, light, sounds and characterized by the utmost degree of depiction, have in “Other Shores” a special color range that is significant for the author and combines the brightness of the colors of the past with the freshness of perception of the “elementary rainbow” present.

Visual images are especially important for the development of memories in the text of Other Shores. Traditional signal of the memoir genre I remember combined here with the verb I see denoting the process of both external and internal vision, and individual situations of the past, which the narrator talks about, are compared with pictures of a magic lantern, replacing each other, cf.: For example, I see this picture: I’m climbing like a frog along the wet, black seaside rocks...; I see, as in a painting, his small, thin, neat figure, darkish face, gray-green eyes with a rye sparkle...; Now they will show a magic lantern here, but first let me make a small digression.

The stable figurative formula of the autobiography genre “memory - picture” is consistently implemented in the text of “Other Shores”, however, it becomes more complicated and transformed: memory comes as close as possible to imagination, verb recall alternates in the text with verbs take a closer look (take a closer look) And "imagine)". The process of recollection is defined, on the one hand, as a look into the past, on the other, as the resurrection of the past by the power of poetic imagination and the comprehension in it of the recurring “secret themes” of fate, the past is characterized through metaphors draft And score, in which the meanings of “creative processing” and “new embodiment” are updated, cf.:

I note with satisfaction Mnemosyne's supreme achievement: the skill with which she connects the disparate parts of the main melody, collecting and tightening the lily-of-the-valley stems of notes that hung here and there throughout the rough score of the past. And I like to imagine, with a loud, jubilant resolution of the collected sounds, first some kind of sun dappled light, and then, in clearing focus, a festive table laid in the alley...

Through a tremulous prism, I distinguish the faces of household members and relatives, silent lips move, carefreely uttering forgotten speeches. Steam is wafting over the chocolate, tartlets with blueberry jam have a blue sheen... in the place where the next tutor is sitting, I see only a fluid, unclear, variable image, pulsating along with the changing shadows of the foliage.

Imagination, like memory, is personified in the text, and the word denoting it is included in a number of “theatrical” metaphors generally characteristic of Nabokov’s style. Memories of the past and imaginary pictures, like the world as a whole, are likened to a theater with frequent changes of scenery; compare:

My motley imagination, as if currying favor with me and indulging the child (but in fact, somewhere behind the scenes, in conspiratorial silence, carefully preparing the distribution of events of my distant future), presented me with ghostly extracts in small print... Meanwhile, the scenery changed . The frosty tree and the cube snowdrift are removed by a silent prop.

The “reality” recreated by Nabokov is refracted, by his own definition, through a series of prisms. ““Prism” allows for the distortion of facts, contemplation of them under a certain angle, the decomposition of the text into components due to the installation of the author’s consciousness on the “other”... Prism carries out shift when translating fact into text." The image of a prism plays in the text of “Other Shores” no less important a role than the image of Mnemosyne: the prism preserves images of persons, objects or realities, but transforms them; memory is supplemented by figurative representation, giving objects and phenomena a new spatio-temporal dimension. Through the “trembling prism” the narrator sees the faces of his loved ones, through the “habitual family prisms” he perceives the activities of his father, the glass of the veranda appears to the little hero as a “magic prism”. Moreover, the genre of the work as a whole is defined as a “stereoscopic extravaganza.” As a result, such a genre-forming feature as a focus on authenticity in Nabokov’s autobiographical narrative is replaced by a focus on the creative transformation of memories and real facts. Imagination is seen as the main way of comprehending the past. “Two-worldness” (the contrast between the real world and the world of imagination) as an “invariant of the poetic world” of Nabokov is clearly manifested in “Other Shores”.

The combination of memories and ideas that arise in the narrator’s present determines the semantic complexity of Nabokov’s metaphors and the multidimensionality of his images. Let's look at just one example:

I'm trying to remember the fox terrier's name again, and well, the spell works! From that distant coast, from the smoothly shining evening sands of the past, where every footprint pressed by Friday's heel is filled with water and sunset, it comes, flies, echoing in the ringing air: Floss! Floss! Floss!

In the above context, lexical means, on the one hand, seem to have a direct meaning and serve as designations of specific realities, on the other hand, they underlie metaphors that go back to archetypal and literary images: thus, fleeting time is likened to sand and water, and the narrator - Robinson, intensely peering at the trail he discovered. The chain of verbal metaphors of movement recreates the dynamics of the process of remembering, and the word that comes to mind becomes a symbol of overcoming time. This is how the text resolves “a chain of equations in images that pairwise connect the next unknown with the known” (B. Pasternak).

The interaction of the real and the imaginary, the blurring of their boundaries determine the originality of temporal relationships in the text.

The combination of “temporal patterns” determines the play of verb tenses; in Nabokov’s autobiographical narrative, the “now-then” opposition characteristic of this genre is partially removed: for the author there are no strict boundaries between the past, present and future. The division of the time continuum is subjective in nature and is associated with memories that replace each other in a certain sequence. Based on them, the narrator moves from "real existing things" to "to the present former things” stored in memory, but not losing their reality. The text is built on mutual transitions from forms of the past tense to forms of the present, while the meaning of the latter becomes more complex and the functions are enriched. Before us are not the usual forms of the historical present, enlivening the narrative and updating the message about individual situations of the past. Nabokov does not so much narrate the past as model the past: before us are quasi-memories, born in the imagination and taking on verbal form at the moment of creativity. The forms of the present that are used in such contexts combine the characteristics of the actual present (the starting point is the moment of generation of the text) and the historical present; compare, for example:

Summer twilight (“twilight” - what a languid lilac sound that is!). Time of action: a melting point in the middle of the first decade of our century... The brother has already been put to bed; my mother is in the living room, reading me an English fairy tale before bed...

The implementation in the text of the figurative parallel “the past is a play for the theater” brings together the forms of the present tense with the forms of the present stage, which are usually used in stage directions of dramatic works. Thus, the forms of the present acquire semantic syncretism and multifunctionality. The text actualizes their “semantic overtones” (Yu.P. Knyazev), such as the absence of clear time boundaries and incompleteness. In combination with lexical concretizers with the meaning of duration or constancy, the forms of the present acquire a timeless meaning and affirm the victory of memory over the “devilish time”, cf.: Old trees rustle in the eternal Vyr wind, birds sing loudly, and from across the river comes the discordant and enthusiastic din of bathing village youth, like the wild sounds of growing applause.

This use of present forms and regular switching of time plans creates an aesthetic effect in the text. coexistence events and phenomena belonging to different temporal planes; As a result, their characteristics acquire fluidity, mobility, cyclicity and overlap each other.

The interaction and interpenetration of different time plans are also characteristic of the syntactic organization of the text. This is especially clearly manifested in the structure of polynomial complex sentences that combine elements of prospection and retrospection. Predicative parts describing situations of the past are freely combined with parts that abruptly move the action to another - later - period of time, while information is distributed taking into account not only two temporal plans, but also two worlds: the world of the real and the world of ideas, real and illusory ; compare, for example:

She [the mother] slows down the reading, meaningfully separating the words, and before turning the page, mysteriously places on it a small white hand with a ring decorated with a diamond and a pink ruby, in the transparent edges of which, if I had looked more sharply then, I could have discerned a series of rooms, people, lights, rain, a square - a whole era of emigrant life, which had to be lived on the money received for this ring.

The unreal plan usually contains a look into the future (in relation to the events described), it reveals convergences that reveal the secret “patterns” of fate. This is how, for example, a polynomial construction is constructed that describes the “levitation” of the father, which the narrator observes in childhood: the use of comparison in it, the transition from past to present “internal vision” and the concentration in the last predicative parts of the lexical units of the field “death” shift what is depicted to another the time plan, not reflected directly in the text, “predicts” the death of the father and expresses the narrator’s grief, undiminished by time. Within the framework of such syntactic construction, lexical units acquire polysemy (for example, ascended, invisible rockers, resting, mortal hands etc.), and the information contained in the sentence turns out to be “multi-layered”, multi-level (in it one can distinguish the everyday level, the level of prospection and the metaphysical level).

The hierarchical organization of a semantically multifaceted syntactic structure also serves as a means of correlating personal time with historical time. “Other Shores” are memories in the center of which is the private existence of an individual; information about historical events and the “rhythms of the era” is usually given as a passing commentary, see, for example, the description of the impressions of the death of Leo Tolstoy, associatively, through a comparison indicating future historical cataclysms: “What are you talking about,” she exclaimed dejectedly and quietly.[mother], joining her hands, and then added: “It’s time to go home,”- as if Tolstoy’s death was a harbinger of some apocalyptic troubles.

The juxtaposition and interaction of different temporal and modal plans makes the narrative in “Other Shores” extremely voluminous and enhances the multidimensionality of artistic images and language play in the text. Historical facts turn out to be irrelevant to the narrative, and fiction and imagination defeat reality, the “plausibility” of memories is contrasted with the “truth” of poetic imagination. The linearity of biographical time is replaced by a sequence of pictures of the past. The documentary nature of the autobiography is combined with fictionality. Such principles of text construction and its temporal organization, transforming the original genre form, make V.V. Nabokov’s “Other Shores” an autobiographical work of a largely new type.

Questions and tasks

I. 1. Read the story by V.V. Nabokov "The Admiralty Needle".

2. Determine what genre form is used by the author.

3. Name the signals of this genre form presented in the text -

4. What is the role of the addressee who sends a letter to the author of the “novel” he has read? What is the paradox of subject-object relations in the structure of the text? How do the textual “roles” of the characters relate to the history of their relationship as reflected in the letter (“novel”)?

5. What, from your point of view, is the unique structure of the story? How is the original genre form transformed in it?

II. 1. S.N. Broitman noted: “In the lyrics, both lyrical genres proper and lyrical and lyroepic genres can converge... Pushkin’s “Anchar” is a ballad and a parable.”

Read the poem by A.S. Pushkin "Anchar". Do you agree with the researcher's opinion? Give reasons for your answer.

Levin Yu.I. Selected works. Poetics. Semiotics. - M., 1998. - P. 325.

Broitman S.N. Historical poetics. - M., 2001. - P. 367.

1. Determine the theme and idea / main idea / of this work; the issues raised in it; the pathos with which the work is written;

2. Show the relationship between plot and composition;

3. Consider the subjective organization of the work /the artistic image of a person, techniques for creating a character, types of image-characters, a system of image-characters/;

5. Determine the features of the functioning of figurative and expressive means of language in a given work of literature;

6. Determine the features of the genre of the work and the style of the writer.

Note: using this scheme, you can write an essay review about a book you have read, while also presenting in your work:

1. Emotional-evaluative attitude towards what you read.

2. A detailed justification for an independent assessment of the characters of the characters in the work, their actions and experiences.

3. Detailed justification of the conclusions.

2. Analysis of a prose literary work

When starting to analyze a work of art, first of all, it is necessary to pay attention to the specific historical context of the work during the period of creation of this work of art. It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of historical and historical-literary situation, in the latter case we mean

Literary trends of the era;

The place of this work among the works of other authors written during this period;

Creative history of the work;

Evaluation of the work in criticism;

The originality of the perception of this work by the writer’s contemporaries;

Evaluation of the work in the context of modern reading;

Next, we should turn to the question of the ideological and artistic unity of the work, its content and form (at the same time, the plan of content is considered - what the author wanted to say and the plan of expression - how he managed to do it).

Conceptual level of a work of art

(theme, issues, conflict and pathos)

Theme is what is discussed in the work, the main problem posed and considered by the author in the work, which unites the content into a single whole; These are those typical phenomena and events of real life that are reflected in the work. Is the topic in tune with the main issues of its time? Is the title related to the topic? Each phenomenon of life is a separate topic; a set of themes - the theme of the work.

A problem is that side of life that particularly interests the writer. One and the same problem can serve as the basis for posing different problems (the topic of serfdom - the problem of the internal unfreedom of the serf, the problem of mutual corruption, deformation of both serfs and serf-owners, the problem of social injustice...). Issues - a list of problems raised in the work. (They may be additional and subordinate to the main problem.)

Pathos is the writer’s emotional and evaluative attitude towards what is being told, characterized by great strength of feelings (maybe affirming, denying, justifying, elevating...).

Level of organization of the work as an artistic whole

Composition - the construction of a literary work; combines parts of a work into one whole.

Basic means of composition:

Plot is what happens in a story; system of main events and conflicts.

Conflict is a clash of characters and circumstances, views and principles of life, which forms the basis of action. Conflict can occur between an individual and society, between characters. In the hero's mind it can be obvious and hidden. Plot elements reflect the stages of conflict development;

Prologue is a kind of introduction to a work, which narrates the events of the past, it emotionally prepares the reader for perception (rare);

Exposition - introduction to action, depiction of the conditions and circumstances preceding the immediate start of actions (can be expanded or not, integral and “broken”; can be located not only at the beginning, but also in the middle, end of the work); introduces the characters of the work, the setting, time and circumstances of the action;

The plot is the beginning of the plot; the event from which the conflict begins, subsequent events develop.

The development of action is a system of events that follow from the plot; as the action progresses, as a rule, the conflict intensifies, and the contradictions appear more and more clearly and sharply;

The climax is the moment of the highest tension of the action, the pinnacle of the conflict, the climax represents the main problem of the work and the characters of the characters very clearly, after which the action weakens.

Resolution is a solution to the depicted conflict or an indication of possible ways to resolve it. The final moment in the development of the action of a work of art. As a rule, it either resolves the conflict or demonstrates its fundamental unsolvability.

Epilogue is the final part of the work, which indicates the direction of further development of events and the destinies of the heroes (sometimes an assessment of what is depicted is given); This is a short story about what happened to the characters in the work after the end of the main plot action.

The plot can be presented:

In direct chronological sequence of events;

With retreats into the past - retrospectives - and “excursions” into

In a deliberately changed sequence (see artistic time in the work).

Non-plot elements are considered:

Inserted episodes;

Their main function is to expand the scope of what is depicted, to enable the author to express his thoughts and feelings about various life phenomena that are not directly related to the plot.

The work may lack certain plot elements; sometimes it is difficult to separate these elements; Sometimes there are several plots in one work - otherwise, plot lines. There are different interpretations of the concepts “plot” and “plot”:

1) plot - the main conflict of the work; plot - a series of events in which it is expressed;

2) plot - artistic order of events; fabula - the natural order of events

Compositional principles and elements:

The leading compositional principle (multidimensional composition, linear, circular, “string with beads”; in the chronology of events or not...).

Additional composition tools:

Lyrical digressions are forms of revealing and conveying the writer’s feelings and thoughts about what is depicted (they express the author’s attitude towards the characters, towards the life depicted, and can represent reflections on some issue or an explanation of his goal, position);

Introductory (inserted) episodes (not directly related to the plot of the work);

Artistic foreshadowing is the depiction of scenes that seem to predict, anticipate the further development of events;

Artistic framing - scenes that begin and end an event or work, complementing it, giving additional meaning;

Compositional techniques - internal monologues, diary, etc.

Level of the internal form of the work

Subjective organization of narration (its consideration includes the following): Narration can be personal: on behalf of the lyrical hero (confession), on behalf of the hero-narrator, and impersonal (on behalf of the narrator).

1) Artistic image of a person - typical phenomena of life reflected in this image are considered; individual traits inherent in the character; The uniqueness of the created image of a person is revealed:

External features - face, figure, costume;

The character of a character is revealed in actions, in relation to other people, manifested in a portrait, in descriptions of the hero’s feelings, in his speech. Depiction of the conditions in which the character lives and acts;

An image of nature that helps to better understand the character’s thoughts and feelings;

Depiction of the social environment, the society in which the character lives and operates;

Presence or absence of a prototype.

2) basic techniques for creating a character image:

Characteristics of the hero through his actions and deeds (in the plot system);

Portrait, portrait description of a hero (often expresses the author’s attitude towards the character);

Psychological analysis - a detailed, detailed recreation of the feelings, thoughts, motives - the inner world of the character; Here the image of the “dialectics of the soul” is of particular importance, i.e. movements of the hero's inner life;

Characterization of the hero by other characters;

Artistic detail - a description of objects and phenomena of the reality surrounding the character (details that reflect a broad generalization can act as symbolic details);

3) Types of character images:

lyrical - in the event that the writer depicts only the feelings and thoughts of the hero, without mentioning the events of his life, the actions of the hero (found mainly in poetry);

dramatic - in the event that the impression arises that the characters act “by themselves”, “without the help of the author”, i.e. the author uses the technique of self-disclosure, self-characterization to characterize characters (found mainly in dramatic works);

epic - the author-narrator or storyteller consistently describes the heroes, their actions, characters, appearance, the environment in which they live, relationships with others (found in epic novels, stories, stories, short stories, essays).

4) System of images-characters;

Individual images can be combined into groups (grouping of images) - their interaction helps to more fully present and reveal each character, and through them - the theme and ideological meaning of the work.

All these groups are united into the society depicted in the work (multidimensional or single-dimensional from a social, ethnic, etc. point of view).

Artistic space and artistic time (chronotope): space and time depicted by the author.

Artistic space can be conditional and concrete; compressed and voluminous;

Artistic time can be correlated with historical or not, intermittent and continuous, in the chronology of events (epic time) or the chronology of the internal mental processes of characters (lyrical time), long or instantaneous, finite or endless, closed (i.e. only within the plot , outside of historical time) and open (against the background of a certain historical era).

Method of creating artistic images: narration (depiction of events occurring in a work), description (sequential listing of individual signs, features, properties and phenomena), forms of oral speech (dialogue, monologue).

Place and meaning of artistic detail (artistic detail that enhances the idea of the whole).

Level of external form. Speech and rhythmic and melodic organization of literary text

The speech of the characters - expressive or not, acting as a means of typification; individual characteristics of speech; reveals character and helps to understand the attitude of the author.

The narrator's speech - assessment of events and their participants

The originality of the word use of the national language (the activity of including synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, archaisms, neologisms, dialectisms, barbarisms, professionalisms).

Techniques of imagery (tropes - the use of words in a figurative meaning) - the simplest (epithet and comparison) and complex (metaphor, personification, allegory, litotes, periphrasis).

Poem Analysis Plan

1. Elements of a commentary on the poem:

Time (place) of writing, history of creation;

Genre originality;

The place of this poem in the poet’s work or in a series of poems on a similar topic (with a similar motive, plot, structure, etc.);

Explanation of unclear passages, complex metaphors and other transcripts.

2. Feelings expressed by the lyrical hero of the poem; the feelings that a poem evokes in the reader.

4. Interdependence between the content of the poem and its artistic form:

Composition solutions;

Features of self-expression of the lyrical hero and the nature of the narrative;

The sound of the poem, the use of sound recording, assonance, alliteration;

Rhythm, stanza, graphics, their semantic role;

Motivated and accurate use of expressive means.

4. Associations evoked by this poem (literary, life, musical, picturesque - any).

5. The typicality and originality of this poem in the poet’s work, the deep moral or philosophical meaning of the work, revealed as a result of the analysis; the degree of “eternity” of the problems raised or their interpretation. Riddles and secrets of the poem.

6. Additional (free) thoughts.

Analysis of a poetic work

When starting to analyze a poetic work, it is necessary to determine the immediate content of the lyrical work - experience, feeling;

Determine the “ownership” of feelings and thoughts expressed in a lyrical work: lyrical hero (the image in which these feelings are expressed);

Determine the subject of the description and its connection with the poetic idea (direct - indirect);

Determine the organization (composition) of a lyrical work;

Determine the originality of the use of visual means by the author (active - stingy); determine the lexical pattern (colloquial - book and literary vocabulary...);

Determine rhythm (homogeneous - heterogeneous; rhythmic movement);

Determine the sound pattern;

Determine intonation (the speaker’s attitude to the subject of speech and the interlocutor.

Poetic vocabulary

It is necessary to find out the activity of using certain groups of words in common vocabulary - synonyms, antonyms, archaisms, neologisms;

Find out the degree of closeness of poetic language to colloquial language;

Determine the originality and activity of using tropes

EPITHET - artistic definition;

COMPARISON - a comparison of two objects or phenomena in order to explain one of them with the help of the other;

ALLEGORY (allegory) - depiction of an abstract concept or phenomenon through specific objects and images;

IRONY - hidden mockery;

HYPERBOLE - artistic exaggeration used to enhance impression;

LITOTE - artistic understatement;

PERSONIFICATION - the image of inanimate objects, in which they are endowed with the properties of living beings - the gift of speech, the ability to think and feel;

METAPHOR - a hidden comparison built on the similarity or contrast of phenomena, in which the words “as”, “as if”, “as if” are absent, but are implied.

Poetic syntax

(syntactic devices or figures of poetic speech)

Rhetorical questions, appeals, exclamations - they increase the reader’s attention without requiring him to answer;

Repetitions – repeated repetition of the same words or expressions;

Antitheses - oppositions;

Poetic phonetics

The use of onomatopoeia, sound recording - sound repetitions that create a unique sound “pattern” of speech.)

Alliteration - repetition of consonant sounds;

Assonance – repetition of vowel sounds;

Anaphora - unity of command;

Composition of a lyrical work

Necessary:

Determine the leading experience, feeling, mood reflected in a poetic work;

Find out the harmony of the compositional structure, its subordination to the expression of a certain thought;

Determine the lyrical situation presented in the poem (the hero’s conflict with himself; the hero’s internal lack of freedom, etc.)

Determine the life situation that could presumably cause this experience;

Identify the main parts of a poetic work: show their connection (define the emotional “drawing”).

Analysis of a dramatic work

Diagram of analysis of a dramatic work

1. General characteristics: history of creation, life basis, plan, literary criticism.

2. Plot, composition:

The main conflict, stages of its development;

Character of the denouement /comic, tragic, dramatic/

3. Analysis of individual actions, scenes, phenomena.

4. Collecting material about the characters:

The hero's appearance

Behavior,

Speech characteristics

Manner /how?/

Style, vocabulary

Self-characteristics, mutual characteristics of heroes, author's remarks;

The role of scenery and interior in the development of the image.

5. CONCLUSIONS: Theme, idea, meaning of the title, system of images. Genre of the work, artistic originality.

Dramatic work

The generic specificity, the “borderline” position of drama (between literature and theater) obliges its analysis to be carried out in the course of the development of dramatic action (this is the fundamental difference between the analysis of a dramatic work and an epic or lyrical one). Therefore, the proposed scheme is of a conditional nature; it only takes into account the conglomerate of the main generic categories of drama, the peculiarity of which can manifest itself differently in each individual case precisely in the development of the action (according to the principle of an unwinding spring).

1. General characteristics of dramatic action (character, plan and vector of movement, tempo, rhythm, etc.). “Through” action and “underwater” currents.

2. Type of conflict. The essence of drama and the content of the conflict, the nature of the contradictions (two-dimensionality, external conflict, internal conflict, their interaction), the “vertical” and “horizontal” plane of drama.

3. The system of characters, their place and role in the development of dramatic action and conflict resolution. Main and secondary characters. Extra-plot and extra-scene characters.

4. The system of motives and motivational development of the plot and microplots of the drama. Text and subtext.

5. Compositional and structural level. The main stages in the development of dramatic action (exposition, plot, development of action, climax, denouement). Installation principle.

6. Features of poetics (the semantic key of the title, the role of the theater poster, stage chronotype, symbolism, stage psychologism, the problem of the ending). Signs of theatricality: costume, mask, play and post-situational analysis, role-playing situations, etc.

7. Genre originality (drama, tragedy or comedy?). The origins of the genre, its reminiscences and innovative solutions by the author.

9. Contexts of drama (historical-cultural, creative, actual dramatic).

10. The problem of interpretation and stage history.

In literary studies, genres are groups of works within literary genres, united by common formal, content or functional characteristics.

It should be said right away that not all works have a clear genre nature. Thus, Pushkin’s poem “On the hills of Georgia lies the darkness of the night...”, Lermontov’s “The Prophet”, plays by Chekhov and Gorky, Tvardovsky’s “Vasily Terkin” and many other works are indefinable in the genre sense.

But even in cases where a genre can be defined quite unambiguously, such a definition does not always help the analysis, since genre structures are often recognized by a secondary feature that does not create any special originality of content and form. This applies mainly to lyrical genres, such as elegy, ode, message, epigram, sonnet, etc.

In epic genres, what is important is, first of all, the opposition of genres in terms of their volume. The established literary tradition distinguishes here the genres of large (novel, epic), medium (story) and small (short story) volume, but in typology it is realistic to distinguish only two positions, since the story is not an independent genre, gravitating in practice to either the short story (“Belkin’s Tales” "Pushkin), or to the novel (his "The Captain's Daughter").

But the distinction between large and small volume seems essential, and above all for the analysis of a small genre - a story. Yu.N. Tynyanov rightly wrote: “The calculation for a large form is not the same as for a small one.” The small volume of the story dictates unique principles of poetics and specific artistic techniques. First of all, this is reflected in the properties of literary figurativeness.

The story is highly characterized by an “economy mode”; it cannot contain long descriptions, therefore it is characterized not by details, but by symbolic details, especially in the description of a landscape, portrait, or interior. Such a detail acquires increased expressiveness and, as a rule, appeals to the reader’s creative imagination, suggesting co-creation and conjecture.

Chekhov, in particular, a master of artistic detail, built his descriptions on this principle; Let us remember, for example, his textbook image of a moonlit night: “In descriptions of nature, one must grasp at small details, grouping them in such a way that after reading, when you close your eyes, a picture is given.

For example, you will get a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle flashed like a bright star and the black shadow of a dog or wolf rolled like a ball” (Letter to Al.P. Chekhov dated May 10, 1886). Here the details of the landscape are guessed by the reader based on the impression of one or two dominant symbolic details.

The same thing happens in the field of psychologism: for the writer it is important here not so much to reflect the mental process in its entirety, but to recreate the leading emotional tone, the atmosphere of the hero’s inner life at the moment. The masters of such psychological stories were Maupassant, Chekhov, Gorky, Bunin, Hemingway and others.

In the composition of a story, as in any small form, the ending is very important, which is either in the nature of a plot denouement or an emotional finale. Also noteworthy are those endings that do not resolve the conflict, but only demonstrate its intractability; so-called “open” endings, as in Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog.”

One of the genre varieties of the story is the short story. A short story is an action-packed narrative, the action in it develops quickly, dynamically, and strives for a denouement that contains the whole meaning of the story: first of all, with its help, the author gives an understanding of the life situation, pronounces a “sentence” on the characters depicted.

In short stories, the plot is compressed and the action is concentrated. A rapidly developing plot is characterized by a very economical system of characters: there are usually just enough of them to allow the action to continuously develop. Episodic characters are introduced (if they are introduced at all) only to give impetus to the plot action and then immediately disappear.

In a short story, as a rule, there are no side plot lines or author’s digressions; only what is absolutely necessary for understanding the conflict and the plot is revealed from the characters’ pasts. Descriptive elements that do not advance the action are kept to a minimum and appear almost exclusively at the beginning: then, towards the end, they will interfere, slowing down the development of the action and distracting attention.

When all these trends are brought to their logical conclusion, the short story acquires a pronounced structure of an anecdote with all its main features: a very small volume, an unexpected, paradoxical “shock” ending, minimal psychological motivations for actions, the absence of descriptive moments, etc. The anecdote story was widely used by Leskov, the early Chekhov, Maupassant, O'Henry, D. London, Zoshchenko and many other short story writers.

For this, the contradictions must be sufficiently defined and manifested, the characters must have some psychological activity in order to strive to resolve the conflict at all costs, and the conflict itself must at least in principle be amenable to immediate resolution.

Let us consider from this angle the story by V. Shukshin “The Hunt to Live.” A young city guy comes into the forester Nikitich's hut. It turns out that the guy escaped from prison.

Suddenly, the district authorities come to Nikitich to hunt, Nikitich tells the guy to pretend to be asleep, puts the guests to bed and falls asleep himself, and when he wakes up, he discovers that “Kolya the Professor” has left, taking with him Nikitich’s gun and his tobacco pouch. Nikitich rushes after him, overtakes the guy and takes his gun from him. But in general, Nikitich likes the guy, he feels sorry to let him go alone, in winter, unaccustomed to the taiga and without a gun.

The old man leaves the guy a gun so that when he reaches the village, he will give it to Nikitich’s godfather. But when they each went in their own direction, the guy shoots Nikitich in the back of the head, because “it will be better this way, father. More reliable."

Let us note the special significance of the denouement: it does not just formally complete the plot action, but exhausts the conflict. The author's assessment of the characters depicted, the author's understanding of the conflict are concentrated precisely in the denouement.

The major genres of epic - the novel and the epic - differ in their content, primarily in their problematics. The dominant content in the epic is national, and in the novel - the novel's problematic (adventurous or ideological-moral).

For a novel, therefore, it is extremely important to determine which of the two types it belongs to. Depending on the dominant content of the genre, the poetics of the novel and the epic are constructed. The epic tends to be plot-driven; the image of the hero in it is constructed as the quintessence of typical qualities inherent in a people, ethnic group, class, etc.

In an adventure novel, the plot also clearly predominates, but the image of the hero is constructed differently: he is emphatically free from class, corporate and other connections with the environment that gave birth to him. In an ideological and moral novel, the stylistic dominants will almost always be psychologism and heteroglossia.

The epic novel is characterized by a combination of national and ideological-moral issues, but not a simple summation of them, but such an integration in which the ideological and moral search of the individual is correlated primarily with folk truth.

The problem of the epic novel becomes, in Pushkin’s words, “human fate and people’s fate” in their unity and interdependence; Critical events for the entire ethnic group give the hero’s philosophical search special sharpness and urgency; the hero faces the need to determine his position not just in the world, but in national history.

In the field of poetics, the epic novel is characterized by a combination of psychologism with plot, a compositional combination of general, medium and close-up plans, the presence of many plot lines and their interweaving, and author's digressions.

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

Principles and techniques for analyzing a literary work Andrey Borisovich Esin

1 Analysis of the work in terms of gender and genre

Analysis of the work in terms of gender and genre

In literary studies, literary genera are large classes of works - epic, lyric, drama (drama), as well as the intermediate form of lyric epic. The belonging of a work to one type or another leaves an imprint on the very course of analysis and dictates certain techniques, although it does not affect the general methodological principles. Differences between literary genres have almost no effect on the analysis of artistic content, but almost always, to one degree or another, affect the analysis of form.

Among literary genres, epic has the greatest visual potential and the richest and most developed structure of form. Therefore, in the previous chapters (especially in the section “The structure of a work of art and its analysis”) the presentation was carried out primarily in relation to the epic genre. Let's now see what changes will have to be made to the analysis, taking into account the specifics of drama, lyrics and lyric epics.

Drama is in many ways similar to epic, so the basic methods of analysis for it remain the same. But it should be taken into account that in drama, unlike epic, there is no narrative speech, which deprives drama of many artistic possibilities inherent in epic. This is partly compensated by the fact that drama is mainly intended for production on stage, and, entering into synthesis with the art of the actor and director, it acquires additional visual and expressive capabilities. In the literary text of the drama itself, the emphasis moves to the actions of the characters and their speech; Accordingly, drama gravitates towards such stylistic dominants as plot and heteroglossia. Compared to the epic, drama is also distinguished by an increased degree of artistic convention associated with theatrical action. The conventionality of the drama consists of such features as the illusion of the “fourth wall”, remarks “to the side”, monologues of the characters alone with themselves, as well as the increased theatricality of speech and gesture-facial behavior.

The construction of the depicted world is also specific in drama. We get all the information about him from the conversations of the characters and from the author’s remarks. Accordingly, drama requires more imagination from the reader, the ability to imagine, using meager hints, the appearance of the characters, the objective world, the landscape, etc. Over time, playwrights make their stage directions more and more detailed; there is also a tendency to introduce a subjective element into them (for example, in the stage directions to the third act of the play “At the Lower Depths,” Gorky introduces an emotional and evaluative word: “In the window near the ground - erysipelas. Bubnov"), an indication of the general emotional tone of the scene appears (the sad sound of a broken string in Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"), sometimes the introductory remarks expand into a narrative monologue (B. Shaw's plays). The image of the character is drawn more sparsely than in the epic, but also with more vivid, powerful means. The characterization of the hero comes to the fore through the plot, through actions, and the actions and words of the heroes are always psychologically rich and thus characterological. Another leading technique for creating a character’s image is his speech characteristics, his manner of speaking. Auxiliary techniques include a portrait, the hero’s self-characterization and his characterization in the speech of other characters. To express the author's assessment, characterization is mainly used through the plot and individual manner of speech.

Psychologism is also unique in drama. It is devoid of such common forms in epic as the author's psychological narration, internal monologue, dialectic of the soul and stream of consciousness. The internal monologue is brought out, formalized in external speech, and therefore the psychological world of the character itself turns out to be more simplified and rationalized in drama than in epic. In general, drama gravitates mainly towards bright and catchy ways of expressing strong and prominent emotional movements. The greatest difficulty in drama is the artistic mastery of complex emotional states, the conveyance of the depth of the inner world, vague and fuzzy ideas and moods, the sphere of the subconscious, etc. Playwrights learned to cope with this difficulty only towards the end of the 19th century; Indicative here are the psychological plays of Hauptmann, Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Chekhov, Gorky and others.

The main thing in drama is the action, the development of the starting position, and the action develops thanks to the conflict, therefore it is advisable to begin the analysis of a dramatic work with the definition of the conflict, subsequently tracing its movement. The development of the conflict is subject to dramatic composition. The conflict is embodied either in the plot or in a system of compositional oppositions. Depending on the form of embodiment of the conflict, dramatic works can be divided into action plays(Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Ostrovsky), mood plays(Maeterlinck, Hauptmann, Chekhov) and discussion plays(Ibsen, Gorky, Shaw). Depending on the type of play, the specific analysis also moves.

Thus, in Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm,” the conflict is embodied in the system of action and events, that is, in the plot. The conflict of the play is two-dimensional: on the one hand, there are contradictions between the rulers (Dikaya, Kabanikha) and the ruled (Katerina, Varvara, Boris, Kuligin, etc.) - this is an external conflict. On the other hand, the action moves thanks to Katerina’s internal, psychological conflict: she passionately wants to live, love, be free, while clearly realizing at the same time that all this is a sin leading to the destruction of the soul. The dramatic action develops through a chain of actions, twists and turns, one way or another changing the initial situation: Tikhon leaves, Katerina decides to have a relationship with Boris, publicly repents and, finally, rushes into the Volga. The dramatic tension and attention of the viewer is supported by interest in the development of the plot: what will happen next, what the heroine will do. The plot elements are clearly visible: the plot (in the dialogue between Katerina and Kabanikha in the first act an external conflict is revealed, in the dialogue between Katerina and Varvara - an internal one), a series of climaxes (at the end of the second, third and fourth acts and, finally, in Katerina’s last monologue in the fifth act ) and denouement (Katerina’s suicide).

The plot basically implements the content of the work. Sociocultural issues are revealed through action, and actions are dictated by the prevailing morals, relationships, and ethical principles in the environment. The plot also expresses the tragic pathos of the play; Katerina’s suicide emphasizes the impossibility of a successful resolution of the conflict.

Mood plays are structured somewhat differently. In them, as a rule, the basis of the dramatic action is the conflict of the hero with a way of life hostile to him, which turns into a psychological conflict, which is expressed in the internal disorder of the heroes, in a feeling of mental discomfort. As a rule, this feeling is characteristic not of one, but of many characters, each of whom develops his own conflict with life, so in mood plays it is difficult to identify the main characters. The movement of the stage action is concentrated not in plot twists and turns, but in changes in emotional tonality; the chain of events only enhances this or that mood. This kind of play usually has psychologism as one of its stylistic dominants. The conflict develops not in plot, but in compositional oppositions. The reference points of the composition are not plot elements, but the culmination of psychological states, which, as a rule, occur at the end of each action. Instead of a beginning - the discovery of some initial mood, a conflicting psychological state. Instead of a denouement, there is an emotional chord in the finale, which, as a rule, does not resolve the contradictions.

Thus, in Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters” there is practically no continuous sequence of events, but all the scenes and episodes are connected with each other by a common mood - quite heavy and hopeless. And if in the first act a mood of bright hope still glimmers (Irina’s monologue “When I woke up today ...”), then in the further development of the stage action it is drowned out by anxiety, melancholy, and suffering. The stage action is based on the deepening of the characters’ experiences, on the fact that each of them gradually gives up the dream of happiness. The external destinies of the three sisters, their brother Andrei, Vershinin, Tuzenbach, Chebutykin do not work out, the regiment leaves the city, vulgarity triumphs in the Prozorovs’ house in the person of the “rough animal” Natasha, and the three sisters will never be in the coveted Moscow... All events not related to each other with a friend, have the goal of strengthening the general impression of trouble, disorder of life.

Naturally, in mood plays, psychologism plays an important role in style, but the psychologism is peculiar, subtextual. Chekhov himself wrote about this: “I wrote to Meyerhold and convinced him in the letter not to be harsh in his portrayal of a nervous person. After all, the vast majority of people are nervous, the majority suffer, the minority feels acute pain, but where - on the streets and in houses - do you see people rushing about, jumping, grabbing their heads? Suffering must be expressed the way they are expressed in life, that is, not with your feet or hands, but with your tone, your gaze; not with gestures, but with grace. The subtle spiritual movements inherent in intelligent people need to be expressed subtly outwardly. You say: stage conditions. No conditions allow lying” (Letter to O.L. Knipper, January 2, 1900). In his plays and, in particular, in “Three Sisters,” stage psychologism is based precisely on this principle. The depressed mood, melancholy, and suffering of the characters are only partly expressed in their remarks and monologues, where the character “brings out” his experiences. An equally important technique of psychologism is the discrepancy between the external and the internal - mental discomfort is expressed in meaningless phrases (“At Lukomorye there is a green oak tree” by Masha, “Balzac got married in Berdichev” by Chebutykin, etc.), in causeless laughter and tears, in silence, etc. etc. The author’s remarks play an important role, emphasizing the emotional tone of the phrase: “left alone, she’s sad,” “nervous,” “tearful,” “through tears,” etc.

The third type is a discussion play. The conflict here is deep-seated, based on differences in worldviews; the problems, as a rule, are philosophical or ideological-moral. “In new plays,” wrote B. Shaw, “the dramatic conflict is built not around a person’s vulgar inclinations, his greed or generosity, resentment and ambition, misunderstandings and accidents and everything else that does not in itself give rise to moral problems, but around the collision of various ideals." Dramatic action is expressed in a clash of points of view, in the compositional opposition of individual statements, therefore, primary attention in the analysis should be given to heteroglossia. A number of characters are often drawn into a conflict, each with their own position in life, so in this type of play it is difficult to distinguish between main and minor characters, and it is just as difficult to identify positive and negative heroes. Let us again refer to Shaw: “The conflict “…” is not between right and wrong: the villain here can be as conscientious as the hero, if not more. In fact, the problem that makes the play interesting “...” is figuring out who is the hero and who is the villain. Or, to put it another way, there are no villains or heroes here.” The chain of events serves mainly as a reason for the characters’ statements and provokes them.

In particular, M. Gorky’s play “At the Depths” is built on these principles. The conflict here is a clash of different points of view on human nature, on lies and truth; in general terms, this is a conflict of the sublime, but unreal, with the base real; philosophical problems. The first act sets up this conflict, although from a plot point of view it is little more than exposition. Despite the fact that no important events occur in the first act, the dramatic development has already begun, the brutal truth and the sublime lie have already come into conflict. On the very first page this key word “truth” sounds (Kvashnya’s remark “A-ah! You can’t stand the truth!”). Here Satin contrasts the hateful “human words” with the sonorous but meaningless “organon”, “sycambre”, “macrobiotics”, etc. Here Nastya reads “Fatal Love”, the Actor remembers Shakespeare, the Baron - coffee in bed, and all this in a sharp contrast to the everyday life of the flophouse. In the first act, one of the positions in relation to life and truth has already been sufficiently manifested - what can, following the author of the play, be called “the truth of the fact.” This position, essentially cynical and inhumane, is represented in the play by Bubnov, calmly stating something absolutely indisputable and equally cold (“Noise is not a hindrance to death”), skeptically laughing at the romantic phrases of Ash (“But the threads are rotten!”), expressing his position in a discussion about his life. In the very first act, Bubnov’s antipode, Luka, appears, contrasting the soulless, wolfish life of the flophouse with his philosophy of love and compassion for one’s neighbor, no matter what he may be (“in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: all are black, all jump ..."), comforting and encouraging people at the bottom. Subsequently, this conflict develops, drawing into the dramatic action more and more new points of view, arguments, reasoning, parables, etc., sometimes - at the reference points of the composition - resulting in a direct dispute. The conflict reaches its climax in the fourth act, which is an already open, practically unrelated to the plot discussion about Luke and his philosophy, turning into a dispute about law, truth, and understanding of man. Let us pay attention to the fact that the last action takes place after the completion of the plot and the outcome of the external conflict (the murder of Kostylev), which is of an auxiliary nature in the play. The ending of the play is also not a plot resolution. It is associated with a discussion about truth and man, and the Actor’s suicide serves as another replica in the dialogue of ideas. At the same time, the ending is open; it is not intended to resolve the philosophical debate going on on stage, but, as it were, invites the reader and viewer to do it themselves, affirming only the idea that life without an ideal is unbearable.

Lyrics as a literary genre are opposed to epic and drama, therefore, when analyzing it, the generic specificity should be taken into account to the highest degree. If epic and drama reproduce human existence, the objective side of life, then poetry is the human consciousness and subconscious, the subjective moment. Epic and drama depict, lyrics express. One might even say that lyric poetry belongs to a completely different group of arts than epic and drama - not figurative, but expressive. Therefore, many techniques for analyzing epic and dramatic works are not applicable to a lyrical work, especially with regard to its form, and literary criticism has developed its own techniques and approaches for the analysis of lyric poetry.

What has been said concerns primarily the depicted world, which in lyric poetry is constructed completely differently than in epic and drama. The stylistic dominant towards which the lyrics gravitate is psychologism, but it is a peculiar psychologism. In epic and partly in drama, we are dealing with a depiction of the hero’s inner world as if from the outside, but in lyric poetry the psychologism is expressive, the subject of the statement and the object of the psychological image coincide. As a result, lyrics master the inner world of a person from a special perspective: it takes primarily the sphere of experience, feelings, emotions and reveals it, as a rule, statically, but more deeply and vividly than is done in the epic. The sphere of thinking is also subject to lyricism; many lyrical works are built on the development not of experience, but of reflection (though it is always colored by one feeling or another). Such lyrics (“Am I wandering along the noisy streets...” of Pushkin, “Duma” by Lermontov, “Wave and Thought” by Tyutchev, etc.) are called meditative. But in any case, the depicted world of a lyrical work is primarily a psychological world. This circumstance should be especially taken into account when analyzing individual figurative (it would be more correct to call them “pseudo-figurative”) details that can be found in lyrics. Let us note first of all that a lyrical work can do without them altogether - for example, in Pushkin’s poem “I loved you...” all the details, without exception, are psychological, substantive detail is completely absent. If object-pictorial details do appear, then they still perform the same function of psychological image: either indirectly creating the emotional mood of the work, or becoming the impression of the lyrical hero, the object of his reflection, etc. Such, in particular, are the details of the landscape. For example, in A. Fet’s poem “Evening” there does not seem to be a single psychological detail, but only a description of the landscape. But the function of the landscape here is to create a mood of peace, tranquility, and silence using the selection of details. The landscape in Lermontov’s poem “When the yellowing field is agitated...” is an object of comprehension, given in the perception of the lyrical hero, changing pictures of nature constitute the content of the lyrical reflection, ending with an emotionally figurative conclusion-generalization: “Then the anxiety of my soul is humbled...”. Let us note by the way that in Lermontov’s landscape there is no precision required from a landscape in an epic: a lily of the valley, a plum and a yellowing field cannot coexist in nature, since they belong to different seasons, from which it is clear that the landscape in the lyrics, in fact, is not a landscape as such, but only the impression of a lyrical hero.

The same can be said about the details of the portrait and the world of things found in lyrical works - they perform an exclusively psychological function in the lyrics. Thus, “red tulip, Tulip in your buttonhole” in A. Akhmatova’s poem “Confusion” becomes a vivid impression of the lyrical heroine, indirectly denoting the intensity of the lyrical experience; in her poem “Song of the Last Meeting,” an objective detail (“I put on the Glove from my left hand on my right hand”) serves as a form of indirect expression of an emotional state.

The greatest difficulty for analysis are those lyrical works in which we encounter some semblance of a plot and a system of characters. Here there is a temptation to transfer to the lyrics the principles and techniques of analyzing the corresponding phenomena in epic and drama, which is fundamentally wrong, because both the “pseudo-plot” and the “pseudo-characters” in the lyrics have a completely different nature and a different function - primarily, again, psychological. Thus, in Lermontov’s poem “The Beggar,” it would seem that an image of a character arises who has a certain social status, appearance, age, that is, signs of existential certainty, which is typical for epic and drama. However, in fact, the existence of this “hero” is dependent, illusory: the image turns out to be only part of a detailed comparison and, therefore, serves to more convincingly and expressively convey the emotional intensity of the work. There is no beggar as a fact of existence here, there is only a rejected feeling conveyed through allegory.

In Pushkin’s poem “Arion” something like a plot arises, some kind of dynamics of actions and events are outlined. But it would be pointless and even absurd to look for a beginning, climax and denouement in this “plot”, to look for the conflict expressed in it, etc. The chain of events is the understanding by Pushkin’s lyrical hero of the events of the recent political past, given in an allegorical form; what is in the foreground here is not actions and events, but the fact that this “plot” has a certain emotional overtones. Consequently, the plot in the lyrics does not exist as such, but acts only as a means of psychological expressiveness.

So, in a lyrical work we do not analyze either the plot, or the characters, or the substantive details outside of their psychological function - that is, we do not pay attention to what is fundamentally important in the epic. But in lyric poetry, the analysis of the lyrical hero acquires fundamental significance. Lyrical hero - this is the image of a person in the lyrics, the bearer of experience in the lyrical work. Like any image, the lyrical hero carries within himself not only unique personality traits, but also a certain generalization, therefore his identification with the real author is unacceptable. Often the lyrical hero is very close to the author in terms of personality and the nature of his experiences, but nevertheless the difference between them is fundamental and remains in all cases, since in each specific work the author actualizes some part of his personality in the lyrical hero, typifying and summarizing lyrical experiences. Thanks to this, the reader easily identifies himself with the lyrical hero. We can say that the lyrical hero is not only the author, but also everyone who reads this work and experiences the same experiences and emotions as the lyrical hero. In a number of cases, the lyrical hero correlates only to a very weak extent with the real author, revealing a high degree of conventionality of this image. Thus, in Tvardovsky’s poem “I was killed near Rzhev...” the lyrical narration is told from the perspective of a fallen soldier. In rare cases, the lyrical hero even appears as the antipode of the author (“The Moral Man” by Nekrasov). Unlike a character in an epic or dramatic work, a lyrical hero, as a rule, does not have existential certainty: he does not have a name, age, portrait features, and sometimes it is not even clear whether he belongs to the male or female sex. The lyrical hero almost always exists outside of ordinary time and space: his experiences take place “everywhere” and “always.”

The lyrics tend to be small in volume and, as a result, to an intense and complex composition. In lyric poetry, more often than in epic and drama, compositional techniques of repetition, contrast, amplification, and montage are used. Of exceptional importance in the composition of a lyrical work is the interaction of images, which often creates a two-dimensionality and multifaceted artistic meaning. Thus, in Yesenin’s poem “I am the last poet of the village...” the tension of the composition is created, firstly, by the contrast of color images:

On the path blue fields

The Iron Guest will be out soon.

Oatmeal, spilled by dawn,

Will collect it black a handful of.

Secondly, the technique of amplification attracts attention: images associated with death are constantly repeated. Thirdly, the opposition of the lyrical hero to the “iron guest” is compositionally significant. Finally, the cross-cutting principle of personification of nature links together individual landscape images. All this together creates a rather complex figurative and semantic structure in the work.

The main supporting point of the composition of a lyrical work is in its finale, which is especially felt in works of small volume. For example, in Tyutchev’s miniature “Russia cannot be understood with the mind...” the entire text serves as a preparation for the last word, which contains the idea of the work. But even in more voluminous works this principle is often followed - let’s name as examples “Monument” by Pushkin, “When the yellowing field is agitated...” by Lermontov, “On the Railway” by Blok - poems where the composition represents a direct ascending development from the beginning to the last, shock stanza.

The stylistic dominants of lyricism in the field of artistic speech are monologism, rhetoric and poetic form. In the overwhelming majority of cases, a lyrical work is constructed as a monologue of the lyrical hero, so we do not need to highlight the narrator’s speech in it (it is absent) or give speech characteristics of the characters (they are also absent). However, some lyrical works are constructed in the form of a dialogue between “characters” (“Conversation between a bookseller and a poet,” “Scene from Pushkin’s Faust,” Lermontov’s “Journalist, Reader and Writer”). In this case, the “characters” entering into the dialogue embody different facets of lyrical consciousness, and therefore do not have their own speech manner; The principle of monologism is maintained here as well. As a rule, the speech of a lyrical hero is characterized by literary correctness, so there is also no need to analyze it from the point of view of a special speech manner.

Lyrical speech, as a rule, is speech with increased expressiveness of individual words and speech structures. In lyric poetry there is a greater proportion of tropes and syntactic figures compared to epic and drama, but this pattern is visible only in the general body of all lyrical works. Some lyrical poems, especially from the 19th–20th centuries. may also differ in the lack of rhetoric and nominativity. There are poets whose style consistently eschews rhetoric and gravitates towards the nominative - Pushkin, Bunin, Tvardovsky - but this is rather an exception to the rule. Such exceptions as the expression of the individual uniqueness of the lyrical style are subject to mandatory analysis. In most cases, an analysis of both individual techniques of speech expressiveness and the general principle of organization of the speech system is required. So, for Blok the general principle will be symbolization, for Yesenin - personifying metaphorism, for Mayakovsky - reification, etc. In any case, the lyrical word is very capacious, containing a “condensed” emotional meaning. For example, in Annensky’s poem “Among the Worlds,” the word “Star” has a meaning that clearly exceeds the dictionary one: it is not for nothing that it is written with a capital letter. The star has a name and creates a polysemantic poetic image, behind which one can see the fate of the poet, and a woman, and a mystical secret, and an emotional ideal, and, perhaps, a number of other meanings acquired by a word in the process of a free, albeit text-directed, course of associations.

Due to the “condensation” of poetic semantics, lyrics gravitate towards rhythmic organization, poetic embodiment, since the word in verse is more loaded with emotional meaning than in prose. “Poetry, in comparison with prose, has an increased capacity of all its constituent elements...” The very movement of words in verse, their interaction and comparison in the conditions of rhythm and rhymes, the clear identification of the sound side of speech given by the poetic form, the relationship of rhythmic and syntactic structure and etc. - all this is fraught with inexhaustible semantic possibilities, of which prose, in essence, is deprived "..." Many beautiful poems, if translated into prose, will turn out to mean almost nothing, for their meaning is created mainly by the very interaction of the poetic form with words."

The case when lyrics use not a poetic, but a prosaic form (the genre of so-called prose poems in the works of A. Bertrand, Turgenev, O. Wilde) is subject to mandatory study and analysis, since it indicates individual artistic originality. A “poem in prose,” without being rhythmically organized, retains such general features of lyricism as “small volume, increased emotionality, usually plotless composition, and a general focus on expressing a subjective impression or experience.”

Analysis of the poetic features of lyrical speech is largely an analysis of its tempo and rhythmic organization, which is extremely important for a lyrical work, since tempo rhythm has the ability to objectify certain moods and emotional states and necessarily evoke them in the reader. So, in the poem by A.K. Tolstoy’s “If you love, so without reason...” the tetrameter trochee creates a cheerful and cheerful rhythm, which is also facilitated by adjacent rhyme, syntactic parallelism and end-to-end anaphora; the rhythm corresponds to the cheerful, cheerful, mischievous mood of the poem. In Nekrasov’s poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance,” the combination of a three- and four-foot anapest creates a slow, heavy, sad rhythm, which embodies the corresponding pathos of the work.

In Russian versification, only iambic tetrameter does not require special analysis - this is the most natural and frequently occurring meter. Its specific content consists only in the fact that the verse, in its tempo, approaches prose without, however, turning into it. All other poetic meters, not to mention the dolnik, declamatory-tonic and free verse, have their own specific emotional content. In general, the content of poetic meters and versification systems can be indicated in this way: short lines (2–4 feet) in two-syllable meters (especially in trochae) give the verse energy, a cheerful, clearly defined rhythm, and, as a rule, express a bright feeling, a joyful mood (“Svetlana” by Zhukovsky, “Winter is angry for a reason...” by Tyutchev, “Green Noise” by Nekrasov). Elongated to five or six stops or more, iambic lines convey, as a rule, the process of reflection, the intonation is epic, calm and measured (“Monument” by Pushkin, “I don’t like your irony...” by Nekrasova, “O friend, do not torment me with a cruel sentence... " Feta). The presence of spondees and the absence of pyrrhichis makes the verse heavier, and vice versa - a large number of pyrrhichis contributes to the emergence of free intonation, close to conversational, gives the verse lightness and euphony. The use of three-syllable meters is associated with a clear rhythm, usually heavy (especially when the number of feet increases to 4-5), often expressing despondency, deep and difficult experiences, often pessimism, etc. moods (“Both boring and sad” by Lermontov, “ Wave and Thought” by Tyutchev, “No matter what year, the strength decreases...” by Nekrasov). Dolnik, as a rule, gives a nervous, ragged, whimsical, capricious rhythm, expressing an uneven and anxious mood (“A girl sang in the church choir...” by Blok, “Confusion” by Akhmatova, “Nobody took anything away...” by Tsvetaeva). The use of the declamatory-tonic system creates a clear and at the same time free rhythm, energetic, “offensive” intonation, a sharply defined mood and, as a rule, elevated (Mayakovsky, Aseev, Kirsanov). It should, however, be remembered that the indicated correspondences of rhythm to poetic meaning exist only as tendencies and may not appear in individual works; here, much depends on the individual specific rhythmic originality of the poem.

The specificity of the lyrical genre also influences the content analysis. When dealing with a lyric poem, it is important first of all to comprehend its pathos, to grasp and determine the leading emotional mood. In many cases, the correct definition of pathos makes it unnecessary to analyze the remaining elements of artistic content, especially the idea, which often dissolves in pathos and does not have an independent existence: for example, in Lermontov’s poem “Farewell, Unwashed Russia” it is enough to determine the pathos of the invective, in Pushkin’s poem “The daylight has gone out” luminary..." - the pathos of romance, in Blok's poem "I am Hamlet; the blood runs cold..." - the pathos of tragedy. Formulating an idea in these cases becomes unnecessary and practically impossible (the emotional side significantly prevails over the rational), and the definition of other aspects of the content (topics and problems in the first place) is optional and auxiliary.

Lyroepic

Lyric-epic works are, as the name suggests, a synthesis of epic and lyrical principles. From the epic, the lyric-epic takes the presence of a narrative, a plot (albeit weakened), a system of characters (less developed than in the epic), and a reproduction of the objective world. From lyricism - the expression of subjective experience, the presence of a lyrical hero (united with the narrator in one person), a tendency towards a relatively small volume and poetic speech, often psychologism. In the analysis of lyric-epic works, special attention should be paid not to the distinction between epic and lyrical principles (this is the first, preliminary stage of analysis), but to their synthesis within the framework of one artistic world. For this, analysis of the image of the lyrical hero-narrator is of fundamental importance. Thus, in Yesenin’s poem “Anna Snegina” the lyrical and epic fragments are separated quite clearly: when reading, we easily distinguish the plot and descriptive parts, on the one hand, and the lyrical monologues, rich in psychologism (“The war has eaten away my whole soul...”, “The moon laughed, like a clown...", "Our meek homeland is poor...", etc.). Narrative speech easily and imperceptibly turns into expressive-lyrical speech, the narrator and the lyrical hero are inseparable facets of the same image. Therefore - and this is very important - the narration about things, people, events is also imbued with lyricism; we feel the intonation of the lyrical hero in any text fragment of the poem. Thus, the epic transmission of the dialogue between the hero and heroine ends with the lines: “The distance was thickening, foggy... I don’t know why I touched her gloves and shawl,” here the epic beginning instantly and imperceptibly turns into a lyrical one. When described as if purely external, a lyrical intonation and a subjectively expressive epithet suddenly appears: “We have arrived. House with a mezzanine sat a little on the facade. Its wattle palisade smells excitingly of jasmine.” And the intonation of subjective feeling slips into the epic narrative: “In the evening they left. Where? I don’t know where,” or: “Severe, menacing years! But is it possible to describe everything?

This penetration of lyrical subjectivity into the epic narrative is the most difficult to analyze, but at the same time the most interesting case of the synthesis of the epic and lyrical principles. It is necessary to learn to see the lyrical intonation and the hidden lyrical hero in an objectively epic text at first glance. For example, in D. Kedrin’s poem “The Architects” there are no lyrical monologues as such, but the image of the lyrical hero can nevertheless be “reconstructed” - it manifests itself primarily in the lyrical emotion and solemnity of artistic speech, in the loving and sincere description of the church and its builders, in an emotionally rich final chord, redundant from a plot point of view, but necessary to create a lyrical experience. We can say that the lyricism of the poem is manifested in the way the famous historical plot is told. There are also places in the text with special poetic tension; in these fragments the emotional intensity and the presence of the lyrical hero - the subject of the narrative - are especially clearly felt. For example:

And above all this shame

That church was

Like a bride!

And with his matting,

With a turquoise ring in his mouth

Indecent girl

Stood at Lobnoe Mesto

And, marveling,

Like a fairy tale

I looked at that beauty...

And then the sovereign

He ordered these architects to be blinded,

So that in his land

There was one standing like this,

So that in the Suzdal lands

And in the lands of Ryazan

They didn’t build a better temple,

What is the Church of the Intercession!

Let us pay attention to the external ways of expressing lyrical intonation and subjective emotion - breaking the line into rhythmic segments, punctuation marks, etc. Let us also note that the poem is written in a rather rare meter - pentameter anapest - giving the intonation solemnity and depth. As a result, we have a lyrical story about an epic event.

Literary genres

The category of genre in the analysis of a work of art is somewhat less important than the category of gender, but in some cases, knowledge of the genre nature of the work can help in the analysis and indicate which aspects should be paid attention to. In literary studies, genres are groups of works within literary genres, united by common formal, content or functional characteristics. It should be said right away that not all works have a clear genre nature. Thus, Pushkin’s poem “On the hills of Georgia lies the darkness of the night...”, Lermontov’s “The Prophet”, plays by Chekhov and Gorky, Tvardovsky’s “Vasily Terkin” and many other works are indefinable in the genre sense. But even in cases where a genre can be defined quite unambiguously, such a definition does not always help the analysis, since genre structures are often recognized by a secondary feature that does not create any special originality of content and form. This applies mainly to lyrical genres, such as elegy, ode, epistle, epigram, sonnet, etc. But still, sometimes the category of genre is important, indicating the content or formal dominant, some features of the problematic, pathos, and poetics.

In epic genres, what is important is, first of all, the opposition of genres in terms of their volume. The established literary tradition distinguishes here the genres of great (novel, epic) average (story) and small (story) volume, however, in typology it is realistic to distinguish only two positions, since the story is not an independent genre, in practice it gravitates either to the short story (“Belkin’s Tales” by Pushkin) or to the novel (his “The Captain’s Daughter”). But the distinction between large and small volume seems essential, and above all for the analysis of a small genre - a story. Yu.N. Tynyanov rightly wrote: “The calculation for a large form is not the same as for a small one.” The small volume of the story dictates unique principles of poetics and specific artistic techniques. First of all, this is reflected in the properties of literary figurativeness. The story is highly characterized by an “economy mode”; it cannot contain long descriptions, therefore it is characterized not by details, but by symbolic details, especially in the description of a landscape, portrait, or interior. Such a detail acquires increased expressiveness and, as a rule, appeals to the reader’s creative imagination, suggesting co-creation and conjecture. Chekhov, in particular, a master of artistic detail, built his descriptions on this principle; Let us remember, for example, his textbook image of a moonlit night: “In descriptions of nature, one must grasp at small details, grouping them in such a way that after reading, when you close your eyes, a picture is given. For example, you will get a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle flashed like a bright star and the black shadow of a dog or wolf rolled like a ball” (Letter to Al. P. Chekhov dated May 10, 1886). Here the details of the landscape are guessed by the reader based on the impression of one or two dominant symbolic details. The same thing happens in the field of psychologism: for the writer it is important here not so much to reflect the mental process in its entirety, but to recreate the leading emotional tone, the atmosphere of the hero’s inner life at the moment. The masters of such psychological stories were Maupassant, Chekhov, Gorky, Bunin, Hemingway and others.

One of the genre varieties of the story is novella. A short story is an action-packed narrative, the action in it develops quickly, dynamically, and strives for a denouement that contains the whole meaning of the story: first of all, with its help, the author gives an understanding of the life situation, pronounces a “sentence” on the characters depicted. In short stories, the plot is compressed and the action is concentrated. A rapidly developing plot is characterized by a very economical system of characters: there are usually just enough of them to allow the action to continuously develop. Episodic characters are introduced (if they are introduced at all) only to give impetus to the plot action and then immediately disappear. In a short story, as a rule, there are no side plot lines or author’s digressions; only what is absolutely necessary for understanding the conflict and the plot is revealed from the characters’ pasts. Descriptive elements that do not advance the action are kept to a minimum and appear almost exclusively at the beginning: then, towards the end, they will interfere, slowing down the development of the action and distracting attention.

When all these trends are brought to their logical conclusion, the short story acquires a pronounced structure of an anecdote with all its main features: a very small volume, an unexpected, paradoxical “shock” ending, minimal psychological motivations for actions, the absence of descriptive moments, etc. The anecdote story is widely used by Leskov, early Chekhov, Maupassant, O'Henry, D. London, Zoshchenko and many other short story writers.

A novella, as a rule, is based on external conflicts in which contradictions collide (inception), develop and, having reached the highest point in development and struggle (culmination), are more or less quickly resolved. In this case, the most important thing is that the confronting contradictions must and can be resolved as the action develops. For this, the contradictions must be sufficiently defined and manifested, the characters must have some psychological activity in order to strive to resolve the conflict at all costs, and the conflict itself must at least in principle be amenable to immediate resolution.

Let us consider from this angle the story by V. Shukshin “The Hunt to Live.” A young city guy comes into the forester Nikitich's hut. It turns out that the guy escaped from prison. Suddenly, the district authorities come to Nikitich to hunt, Nikitich tells the guy to pretend to be asleep, puts the guests to bed and falls asleep himself, and when he wakes up, he discovers that “Kolya the Professor” has left, taking with him Nikitich’s gun and his tobacco pouch. Nikitich rushes after him, overtakes the guy and takes his gun from him. But in general, Nikitich likes the guy, he feels sorry to let him go alone, in winter, unaccustomed to the taiga and without a gun. The old man leaves the guy a gun so that when he reaches the village, he will give it to Nikitich’s godfather. But when they each went in their own direction, the guy shoots Nikitich in the back of the head, because “it will be better this way, father. More reliable."

The clash of characters in the conflict of this short story is very sharp and clear. Incompatibility, opposition between Nikitich’s moral principles - principles based on kindness and trust in people - and the moral standards of “Koli the Professor”, who “wants to live” for himself, “better and more reliable” - also for himself - the incompatibility of these moral principles intensifies as the action progresses and is embodied in a tragic, but inevitable, according to the logic of the characters, denouement. Let us note the special significance of the denouement: it does not just formally complete the plot action, but exhausts the conflict. The author's assessment of the characters depicted, the author's understanding of the conflict are concentrated precisely in the denouement.

Major genres of epic - novel And epic - differ in their content, primarily in terms of issues. The dominant content in the epic is national, and in the novel - the novel's problematic (adventurous or ideological-moral). For a novel, therefore, it is extremely important to determine which of the two types it belongs to. Depending on the dominant content of the genre, the poetics of the novel and the epic are constructed. The epic gravitates towards plot, the image of the hero in it is constructed as the quintessence of typical qualities inherent in a people, ethnic group, class, etc. In an adventure novel, plot also clearly prevails, but the image of the hero is constructed differently: it is emphatically free from class, corporate and other connections with the environment that gave birth to it. In an ideological and moral novel, the stylistic dominants will almost always be psychologism and heteroglossia.

Over the past century and a half, a new genre of large volume has emerged in the epic - the epic novel, which combines the properties of these two genres. This genre tradition includes such works as “War and Peace” by Tolstoy, “Quiet Don” by Sholokhov, “Walking through the Torment” by A. Tolstoy, “The Living and the Dead” by Simonov, “Doctor Zhivago” by Pasternak and some others. The epic novel is characterized by a combination of national and ideological-moral issues, but not a simple summation of them, but such an integration in which the ideological and moral search of the individual is correlated primarily with folk truth. The problem of the epic novel becomes, in Pushkin’s words, “human fate and people’s fate” in their unity and interdependence; Critical events for the entire ethnic group give the hero’s philosophical search special sharpness and urgency; the hero faces the need to determine his position not just in the world, but in national history. In the field of poetics, the epic novel is characterized by a combination of psychologism with plot, a compositional combination of general, medium and close-up plans, the presence of many plot lines and their interweaving, and author's digressions.

The fable genre is one of the few canonized genres that have preserved real historical existence in the 19th–20th centuries. Certain features of the fable genre can suggest promising directions for analysis. This is, firstly, a high degree of conventionality and even outright fantasticality of the figurative system. The fable has a conventional plot, so although it can be analyzed element by element, such an analysis does not yield anything interesting. The figurative system of the fable is built on the principle of allegory, its characters denote some abstract idea - power, justice, ignorance, etc. Therefore, the conflict in the fable should be sought not so much in the clash of real characters, but in the confrontation of ideas: for example, in “ The Wolf and the Lamb" by Krylov, the conflict is not between the Wolf and the Lamb, but between the ideas of strength and justice; the plot is driven not so much by the Wolf’s desire to have dinner, but by his desire to give this business a “legal look and feel.”

From the book How to Write in the 21st Century? author Garber Natalya

History and typology of the diary genre Writing means reading oneself. Max Frisch The origins and rise of the genre in Russia. A literary diary grows from a ship's journal or prison diary, travel or scientific notes. Can be long lasting, reflecting a lifetime, like

From the book All the masterpieces of world literature in brief. Plots and characters. Russian literature of the 20th century author Novikov V I

Searches for a genre (1972) Artist of the original genre Pavel Durov spends the night in the traffic police penalty area of a provincial town. The bumper of his Zhiguli was smashed by a ZIL sprinkler, and he had nowhere to shelter for the night. Reflecting on why he travels all over the country without a visible goal, Durov

From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary of Catchwords and Expressions author Serov Vadim Vasilievich

Crisis of the genre The title of the 8th chapter of the novel “The Golden Calf” (1931) by Soviet writers Ilya Ilf (1897-1937) and Yevgeny Petrov (1903-1942). Words by Ostap Bender. The expression also appears in the text of Chapter 8. An artist who resembles Henry of Navarre speaks of his

From the book How to become a writer... in our time author Nikitin Yuri

Continued debriefing. Classics of the genre Here is one of the most classic things, almost all fantasy lovers know it: the famous series about Pern. So, Pern. “Part one: SEARCHChapter 1 Beat, drum, blow the bugles - The black hour is coming. Flames rush, they burn

From the book The Family Question in Russia. Volume II author Rozanov Vasily Vasilievich

About a special kind of "syndicates"

From the book The Best Hotels of the World author Zavyalova Victoria

Classic of the genre Vienna in chocolate Sacher, Vienna, AustriaAlexey Tarkhanov Sacher is, firstly, a cake, secondly, a hotel and, thirdly, a person. A long time ago, in a fairy-tale kingdom called Austria-Hungary, they decided to find out what is the main treasure of the national