F asmus reading as work and creativity. Reading fiction as work and creativity

The name of Valentin Asmus (1894–1975) is firmly entrenched in the history of Russian science. We present fragments of an article by V.F. Asmus "Reading as work and creativity." Written half a century ago, it has not lost its relevance.

Reading as work and creativity...

“When I read a poem or a novel,” the reader may say, “I don’t want to “work” at all and I don’t “create” anything. I'm looking for fun. The author had to “work” and “create” - otherwise he could not fill my leisure time, amuse me, excite me, touch me. But what could the “work” and, moreover, the “creativity” of me, the reader, consist of? To read a book on quantum mechanics, you have to work hard. But what kind of “work” and, especially, what kind of “creativity” are needed when reading “Anna Karenina” or Pushkin’s poems?”

This objection is understandable. Its basis is that most readers are not inclined and cannot follow the work of their own thoughts when they read fiction. They are not interested in this work, but in that world, that piece of life that passes through the field of their consciousness in the process of reading. They have no idea what kind of work is required from the reader in order for the life depicted by the author to arise “secondarily” and become life for his reader.

The view of such readers on the reading process is reminiscent of Gogol’s story about how the sorcerer Patsyuk dined. The sorcerer did not work at the same time. In front of him stood a plate of dumplings and a bowl of sour cream. The dumplings themselves jumped into the bowl, turned over in the sour cream themselves, and flew straight into Patsyuk’s mouth.

But the reading process is not at all similar to Patsyuk’s lunch. When reading, no witchcraft power turns the dumplings in sour cream and sends them into the mouth of a hungry person.

For reading to be fruitful, the reader must work hard himself. In addition to simply reproducing the sequence of phrases and words that make up the work, the reader must expend special, complex and truly creative work.

This work is necessary to create a special attitude that makes reading the reading of an artistic work and no other work.

When starting to read a piece of fiction, the reader enters a unique world. Whatever this piece is about, whatever its genre, artistic direction - realistic, naturalistic or romantic - the reader knows, even unconsciously, that the world (or a “segment”, a “piece” of the world), into which the author introduces him is a truly special world. Two features make it special. This world, firstly, is not the product of pure and complete fiction, it is not a complete fable that has no relation to the real world. The author may have a powerful imagination, the author may be Aristophanes, Cervantes, Gogol - but no matter how great the power of his imagination, what is depicted in his work must be for the reader, albeit special, but still a reality.

Therefore, the first condition consists in a special attitude of the reader’s mind, which is in effect throughout the reading. Due to this attitude, the reader treats what is read or “visible” through reading not as a complete fiction or fable, but as a unique reality.

The second condition for reading a thing as an artistic thing may seem opposite to the first. In order to read a work as a work of art, the reader must be aware throughout the reading that the piece of life shown by the author through art is not, after all, direct life, but only its image. The author can depict life with utmost realism and truthfulness. But even in this case, the reader should not mistake the segment of life depicted in the work for immediate life. Believing that the picture drawn by the artist is a reproduction of life itself, the reader understands at the same time that this picture is still not authentic life itself, but only its image.

Both the first and second attitudes are not a passive state into which the author and his work plunge the reader. Both the first and second settings are a special activity of the reader’s consciousness, a special work of his imagination, sympathetic attention and understanding.

The reader's mind is active while reading. He resists both hypnosis, which invites him to accept images of art as a direct manifestation of life itself, and the voice of skepticism, which whispers to him that the life depicted by the author is not life at all, but only a fiction of art. The reader simultaneously sees that the images moving in his field of vision are images of life, and understands that this is not life itself, but only its artistic reflection.

Great writers have more than once depicted the results of the absence of both sets of mental activity, necessary for reading works of art, that are fatal to art. In Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov,” Fyodor Pavlovich gives Smerdyakov “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” to read. He returns the book with obvious displeasure. When asked why he didn’t like the book, he replies: “Everything is written about lies.” The reason for Smerdyakov's sentence is the pathological stupidity of the aesthetic and moral imagination. Smerdyakov is unable to understand that a work of art is not only “untrue,” but at the same time a special “truth” depicted through the means of artistic fiction.

The opposite defect in the reader’s work is infantile gullibility, loss of understanding that this is fiction, a work of art, in other words, a defect in direct identification of fiction with reality. This vice is depicted by Cervantes in Don Quixote. The hero of the novel attends a puppet theater performance. Obsessed with chivalric romances depicting the exploits performed by knights in defense of the oppressed and persecuted, Don Quixote carefully follows the action and listens to the explanations. At the beginning of the performance, he is still clearly aware that what he perceives is not reality, but a work of art. He even corrects the boy leading the explanation and accuses him of historical inaccuracy. But the dramatic situation is intensifying. The princess, captured by the Moors, escapes from captivity with her lover. The Moorish guards who tracked the escape rush after them. As soon as Don Quixote sees that the hordes of Moors that have appeared on the stage are catching up with the loving knight and his princess, he jumps up from the bench, grabs his sword from its sheath and begins to strike the Moorish figures.

In the perception and awareness of Don Quixote, a process occurs that is opposite to what happened with Smerdyakov. Smerdyakov does not believe anything, because in what he is trying to read, he is able to see only fiction, “untruth.” Don Quixote, on the contrary, is unable to discern fiction in fiction and takes everything at face value.

The double attitude of the reader's perception is only a precondition for labor and creativity, which are necessary for a literary work to be read as a work of art. Where his double condition is absent, the reading of a work of fiction cannot even begin. But even where it is present, the reader’s work and creativity are far from exhausted by it.

To see a depiction of life in a literary work requires a lot of complex thinking. Here's an example. I take the novel off the shelf and start reading it. What happens? A novel is a fictional narrative about the life of several individuals, a society, a people. Starting to read, I still don’t know anything about any of the heroes of the work, I don’t know anything about the life of which they form a part. The characters are consistently introduced by the author into the frames of the narratives, and by the reader - during reading - into the frames of the reader's perception. In each small period of time, one separate “frame” of the narrative is located or moves in the reader’s field of view. But the reader sees not individual frames, but the whole life passing in them! How is this perception of life born in the reader’s mind as something holistic, large, embracing all the particulars occurring in individual scenes and frames?

Not every reader is sufficiently aware of what is happening in him, in the reader, in the process of reading a literary work. Many unconsciously think that the awareness of a work as a picture of life is completely predetermined by the creative work of the author. Everything that is necessary for understanding and for evaluating the characters has already been done by the author, built into the artistic fabric of the thing. “In the work itself” one can see both the characters drawn by the author and the attitude towards them expressed or at least instilled by the author, a sympathetic or denouncing, condemning assessment. The reader can only “read” the work.

The prevalence of this view is due to the fact that it undoubtedly reflects an important facet of the truth. This view is the first, still imperfect understanding of the objectivity of a work of art. This objectivity exists. It consists in the fact that the text of a work, or a score, or plastic forms, or a canvas with colors and lines applied to it, undoubtedly outline or indicate to all perceivers the direction for the work of their own thoughts, for the emergence of a feeling, an impression. The work gives not only the boundaries or frames within which the perceiver’s own work will unfold, but - although approximately, “in a dotted line” - also those “lines of force” along which his fantasy, memory, the combining power of imagination, aesthetic, moral and political will be directed. grade.

This objective “fabric” or “structure” of the work puts a limit on the subjectivity of perception and understanding. Two people who listened to the funeral march from Beethoven's Heroic Symphony can feel and understand the music they listened to in very different ways. But, probably, it would never occur to any of them to mistake this part of the symphony, for example, for a wedding dance or a military march.

However, no matter how powerfully the direction in the composition of the work is outlined in which the author inclines the reader, listener, viewer to perceive the work, imagine what is shown to him, connect what he perceives, share with the author his feeling and his attitude towards what is depicted - this authority cannot free the perceiver from own labor in the process of perception itself.

If even clinical hypnosis does not extinguish the activity of the hypnotized, then “hypnosis” of a work of art - even more so. Even repeating to some extent the path of imagination, feelings, thoughts, traversed when creating a work by the author and “imprinted” in his life, the reader will again go through this path in his perception not exactly along the author’s route, but in his own way and - what is most important - with a slightly different result.

This activity is creativity. No work can be understood, no matter how bright it is, no matter how great the power of suggestion or imprinting in it, if the reader himself, independently, at his own peril and risk, does not follow in his own consciousness the path outlined in the work by the author . When starting to follow this path, the reader does not yet know where the work done will lead him. At the end of the journey, it turns out that what is perceived, recreated, and comprehended by each reader will be, in comparison with what is recreated and comprehended by others, and, generally speaking, somewhat different, unique. Sometimes the difference in results becomes sharply noticeable, even striking. In part, this difference may be due to the variety of ways of reproduction and awareness generated and generated by the work itself - its richness, content, depth. There are works that are multifaceted, like the world, and, like it, inexhaustible.

Part of the variation in reading performance may also be due to the multiple levels of recall ability available to different readers. Finally, this difference can also be determined by the development of the same reader. Between two readings of the same thing by the same person - in this person a process of change occurs. Often this change is simultaneously the growth of the reader, the enrichment of the capacity, differentiation, and insight of his receptivity. There are not only inexhaustible works, but also readers who do not exhaust the creative power of reproduction and understanding.

It follows that the creative result of reading in each individual case depends not only on the state and wealth of the reader at the moment when he begins to read the thing, but also on the entire spiritual biography of the reader. It depends on my entire reading history: on what works, what authors, in what context of events in my personal and public life I read in the past. It depends not only on what literary works I have read, but also on what musical works I know, what paintings, statues, buildings I have seen, and also on the degree of attention, interest and understanding with which I listened to them and considered. Therefore, two readers in front of the same work are like two sailors throwing each of their items into the sea. Each will reach a depth no further than the length of the lot.

What has been said proves the relativity of what in art, in particular in reading works of fiction, is called “difficulty of understanding.” This difficulty is not an absolute concept. My ability to accept a “difficult” work depends not only on the barrier that the author put in front of me in this work, but also on myself, on the level of my reading culture, on the degree of my respect for the author who worked on the work, on respect for art, in which this work, perhaps, is destined to shine for centuries, like a diamond shines.

When I was young, I never missed Mayakovsky’s performances. I don’t remember a single evening at which there wouldn’t be a bunch of people complaining - some in notes, some through shouts - “why don’t we understand your poems, but we understand Pushkin?” At one time, such listeners probably rejected the poems of Tyutchev, the late Baratynsky, and the music of Brahms and Schumann as incomprehensible to them.

The incident with Mayakovsky’s “incomprehensibility” clarified a lot for me in the work of artistic perception. I realized that what is called “incomprehensibility” in art may simply be an inaccurate name for the reader’s laziness, the helplessness of the reader’s artistic biography, his lack of modesty and desire to work. How often “criticism” of a literary work is criticism of Patsyuk, whose “dumplings” do not want to fly into his mouth! How right is Goethe, who explained that when someone complains about the “incomprehensibility”, “foggyness” of a thing, one should also look at whose head is foggy: the author or the reader.

strictly speaking, the true first reading of a work, the true first listening to a symphony, can only be a secondary listening to it; it is the secondary reading that can be such a reading, during which the perception of each individual frame is confidently related by the reader and listener to the whole. Only in this case the whole is already known from the previous - first - reading or listening.

For the same reason, the most creative reader always tends to re-read an outstanding work of fiction. It seems to him that he has not read it even once.

In everything that was said above about reading, two cases were meant: the first, when reading actually proceeds as work and creativity, and the second, when the conditions of work and creativity necessary for reading are not met. In the considered form, both cases are extreme... Usually the reading process only approaches one or the other pole: in the work of a “good” reader there are possible shortcomings - sluggishness of memory, poverty of imagination, but also the mind of the laziest, most inert and ill-prepared reader - not mere passivity and not completely devoid of imagination and consideration. Gogol's Petrushka is more of a grotesque taken to the limit than an image of an ordinary mediocre reader.

And yet the unlucky reader exists. Not only does it exist, it's not that rare. Furthermore. He - which is quite rightful - declares his requirements, tastes and impressions. Sometimes he himself tries to influence the public assessment of works of fiction. What to do with all this?

The reader, depicted above as a negative phenomenon, is not a villain or a hopeless idiot. He did not reach creative reading maturity; his mind was not promptly and adequately nourished by the roots of fiction. He is a sponge, dried up in the absence of water, but capable of greedily sucking and absorbing water as soon as this water begins to spill on it.

Possible sources of this life-giving water are many and varied. This is, first of all, developing the skills of reading fiction in school, starting from elementary school. A good teacher of the native language and native literature is not only the one who checks whether the works indicated in the program have been read and whether the students are able to correctly formulate the ideas of these works in abstracts. Developing this ability, he simultaneously shows how to read, understand, and comprehend a poem, story, story, poem as facts of art.

When starting to read a piece of fiction, the reader enters

a unique world.<...>Two features make it special. World

this, firstly, is not the product of pure and complete fiction,

is not a complete fable that has nothing to do with reality

to be Aristophanes, Cervantes, Hoffmann, Gogol, Mayakov-

sky, - but no matter how great the power of his imagination, what is depicted

fermented in his work should be special for the reader,

but still reality.

Therefore, the first condition necessary for reading

proceeded as a reading of a work of art, consists

in a special attitude of the reader’s mind, operating throughout the reading. IN

By virtue of this attitude, the reader relates to what is being read or to the “apparently

mu" through reading not as a complete fiction or fable, but

as a unique reality.

The second condition for reading a thing as an artistic thing can be

a work of art, the reader must consciously

There is still immediate life, but only its image. The author can

depict life with utmost realism and truthfulness. But also in

In this case, the reader should not accept what is depicted in the work.

dividing a segment of life during immediate life. Believing that people

a painting created by an artist is a reproduction of life itself,

The reader understands at the same time that this picture is still not self-contained.

real life, but only its image.

Both the first and second settings are not a passive state into which

new - a special activity of the reader’s consciousness, a special work of his

imagination, sympathetic attention and understanding.

The twofold attitude of the reader’s perception described above

acceptance is only a precondition for work and creativity, which

which are necessary for a literary work to be read

but as a work of art. Where this double condition is absent,

Unfortunately, reading a work of fiction cannot even begin.

But even where it is present, the work and creativity of the reader is far from being used by them.

are scooped up.

<...>The content of the work of art does not pass

dit - like water pouring from a jug to another - from the production

leading into the reader's head. It is reproduced, recreated by itself

by the reader - according to the guidelines given in the work itself, but with

final result, determined by mental, emotional, spiritual

activity of the reader.

This activity is creativity. No work can

can be understood, no matter how bright it is, no matter how great the need

his personal power of suggestion or imprinting, if the reader himself,

independently, at your own peril and risk, will not pass in your own consciousness

this path, the reader does not yet know where the work done will lead him

bot. At the end of the path it turns out that what was perceived, recreated,

Each reader's mental will be in comparison with the recreated and

meaningful by others, generally speaking, somewhat different, peculiar

nom. Sometimes the difference in the result becomes sharply noticeable, even

amazing. This difference may be partly due to many

variety of ways of reproduction and awareness, generated and

expected by the work itself - its richness, content

sweetness, depth. There are works as multifaceted as the world, and,

like him, inexhaustible.

Part of the difference in reading results may be due to

multiple levels of playability available to different

personal readers. Finally, this difference can also be determined

by the same reader. Between two readings of one and

the same thing, by the same person - in this person the process occurs

process of change. Often this change is simultaneously the growth of the reader,

enriching the capacity, differentiation, insight of it

receptivity. There are not only inexhaustible works,

but also readers, inexhaustible in the creative power of reproduction and

understanding.

It follows that the creative result of reading in each

in a practical case depends not only on the state and property of the reader in

the moment when he begins to read a thing, but also from all spiritual

biography of me, the reader.<...>

What has been said proves the relativity of what is in art, in

in particular in reading works of fiction, called

is defined as “difficulty of understanding.” This difficulty is not completely understandable.

tie. My ability to understand a “difficult” work does not depend on

only from the barrier that was placed in front of me in this work -

work, from respect for art, in which this work

perhaps destined to shine for centuries, like a diamond shines.

A literary work is not given to the reader in one indivisible

moment in time, immediately, instantly.

The duration of reading in time and the “instantaneity” of each

effective frame of perception unusually increases the requirements for creative

the reader's scientific work. Until the last page is read

nitsa or line of the work, the complexity does not cease in the reader

work caused by the need to perceive things in time

me. This work of imagination, memory and association, thanks to

in which what is read does not crumble in the mind into a mechanical heap of

efficient independent, immediately forgettable shots and impressions, but

firmly welded into an organic and lasting holistic picture

Work does not stop until the last page is read.

correlation of each individual detail of the work with its whole.

Therefore, without risking falling into paradox, let us say that

in other words, the authentic first reading of the work, the authentic

the first listening to a symphony can only be a second hearing

listening. It is the secondary reading that can be so pro-

reading, during which the perception of each individual frame increases

the reader and listener truly relates to the whole. Only in this case

the whole is already known from the previous - first - reading

or hearings.

For the same reason, the most creative reader is always inclined

re-read an outstanding work of fiction. He ka-

It’s sad that he hasn’t read it even once.__

Lotman Yu.M. Articles on semiotics and topology of culture TEXT AS A SEMIOTIC PROBLEM

Text and audience structure

The idea that each message is aimed at a specific audience and can only be fully realized in their minds is not new. They tell an anecdotal incident from the biography of the famous mathematician P. L. Chebyshev. An unexpected audience came to the scientist’s lecture on the mathematical aspects of cutting a dress: tailors, fashionable ladies... However, the very first phrase of the lecturer: “Let us assume for simplicity that the human body is shaped like a ball” - put them to flight. Only mathematicians remained in the hall, who did not find anything surprising in such a beginning. The text “selected” its audience, creating it in its own image and likeness.

It seems much more interesting to pay attention to the specific mechanisms of the relationship between the text and its addressee. It is obvious that if the codes of the sender and the addressee do not match (and their coincidence is possible only as a theoretical assumption, never fully realized in practical communication), the text of the message is deformed in the process of deciphering it by the recipient. However, in this case, we would like to draw attention to the other side of this process - to how the message affects the addressee, transforming his appearance. This phenomenon is due to the fact that every text (especially literary text) contains what we would prefer to call the image of the audience, and that this image of the audience actively influences the real audience, becoming for it some kind of normative code. This Last is imposed on the consciousness of the audience and becomes the norm of its own idea of itself, transferred from the realm of the text to the realm of the real behavior of the cultural collective.

Thus, a relationship develops between the text and the audience, which is not characterized by passive perception, but has the nature of a dialogue. Dialogue speech is distinguished not only by the commonality of the code of two juxtaposed utterances, but also by the presence of a certain common memory between the addresser and the addressee." The absence of this condition makes the text indecipherable. In this regard, we can say that any text is characterized not only by a code and a message, but also by an orientation towards a certain type of memory (memory structure and the nature of its filling).

(...) However, in this regard, there are fundamental differences between a text addressed to any addressee and one that has in mind a specific person personally known to the speaker. In the first case, the addressee's memory capacity is constructed as mandatory for any speaker of a given language. It is devoid of individuality, abstract and includes only some irreducible minimum. Naturally, the poorer the memory, the more detailed and widespread the message should be, the more unacceptable are ellipses and omissions. The official text constructs an abstract interlocutor, a bearer of only general memory, devoid of personal and individual experience. Such a text can be addressed to anyone and everyone. It is distinguished by the detail of its explanations, the absence of implications, abbreviations and allusions, and its proximity to normative correctness.

The text is constructed differently, addressed to a personally familiar addressee, to a person designated for us not by a pronoun, but by a proper name. The volume of his memory and the nature of its filling are familiar and intimate to us. In this case, there is no need to clutter the text with unnecessary details already in the recipient’s memory. A hint is enough to actualize them. Elliptical constructions and local semantics will develop, gravitating towards the formation of “home”, “intimate” vocabulary. The text will be valued not only by the degree of intelligibility for a given addressee, but also by the degree of incomprehensibility for others5. Thus, orientation towards one or another type of memory of the addressee forces one to resort either to “language for others” or to “language for oneself” - one of two opposing structural potencies hidden in natural language. Having knowledge of a certain, relatively incomplete, set of linguistic and cultural codes, it is possible, based on the analysis of a given text, to find out whether it is aimed at “one’s own” or “alien” audience. By reconstructing the nature of the “shared memory” necessary for its understanding, we obtain the “image of the audience” hidden in the text. It follows from this that the text contains a collapsed system of all links in the communicative chain, and, just as we extract from it the position of the author, we can reconstruct the ideal reader on its basis. A text, even taken in isolation (but, of course, in the presence of certain information regarding the structure of the culture that created it), is the most important source of judgment regarding its own pragmatic connections.

This question becomes more complex and takes on special significance in relation to literary texts.

In a literary text, the focus on a certain type of collective memory and, consequently, on the structure of the audience takes on a fundamentally different character. It ceases to be automatically implied in the text and becomes a significant (i.e., free) artistic element that can enter into a playful relationship with the text.

Let us illustrate this with several examples from Russian poetry of the 18th - early 19th centuries.

In the hierarchy of genres of poetry of the 18th century. The defining idea was that the more valuable poetry is, the more abstract the addressee it addresses. The person to whom the poem is addressed is constructed as a bearer of extremely abstract - general cultural and national - memory6. Even if we are talking about a very real and personally known addressee, a prestigious assessment of the text as poetic requires addressing it as if the addressee and the author have a common memory only as members of a single state collective and speakers of the same language. A specific recipient rises on the scale of values, turning into “one of all.” So, for example, V. Maikov begins a poem addressed to Count 3. G. Chernyshev:

O you, proven hero,

Whom the Russian system saw as a leader

And he knows how great your soul is,

When you acted against Frederick!

Then, when this monarch became our ally,

He himself tested your courage and intelligence7.

It is assumed that the facts of Chernyshev’s biography are not contained in Chernyshev’s memory (since they are not in the memory of other readers), and in a poem addressed to himself, the poet must remind and explain who Chernyshev is. It is impossible to omit information known to both the author and the addressee, since this would switch the solemn message to the prestigiously lower level of a non-fiction text addressed to a real person. Cases of abbreviations in similar texts are no less typical. When Derzhavin compiled the lapidary inscription “Here lies Suvorov”8 for Suvorov’s tomb, he proceeded from the fact that all information that could, according to the ritual, be inscribed on the tombstone, was inscribed in the general memory of the history of the state and could be omitted.

The opposite pole is the structuring of the audience carried out by Pushkin’s texts. Pushkin deliberately omits as known or replaces it with a hint in a printed text addressed to any reader, something that was obviously known only to a very small circle of selected friends. So, for example, in the excerpt “Women” from the original version of Chapter IV of “Eugene Onegin”, published in “Moskovsky Vestnik” (1827. Part 5. No. 20. P. 365-367), the lines are contained:

In the words of a prophetic poet

I am also allowed to say:

Temira, Daphne and Lileta -

Like a dream, long forgotten by me9.

Our contemporary reader, wanting to know who should be understood by the “prophetic poet,” turns to the commentary and establishes that we are talking about Delvig and the lines from his poem “Fani” are meant:

6 At the same time, we are not talking about the real memory of a national collective, but about one reconstructed on the basis of theories of the 18th century. an ideal common memory of an ideal national whole.

8 Derzhavin G.R. Poems. [L.], 1947. P. 202.

9 Pushkin A. S. Complete. collection cit.: In 16 volumes. M., 1937. T. 6. P. 647.

Temira, Daphne and Liletha

For a long time, like a dream, forgotten by me

And them for the memory of the poet

Only my successful verse preserves10.

However, we should not forget that this poem was published only in 1922. In 1827, it had not yet been published and was not known to contemporaries, if we mean the bulk of readers of the 1820s, since Delvig treated his early poems exclusively strictly, he printed with great care and did not distribute the rejected ones in the lists.

So, Pushkin referred readers to a text that they obviously did not know. What was the point of this? The fact is that among the potential readers of “Eugene Onegin” there was a small group for whom the hint was transparent - this was the circle of Pushkin’s Lyceum friends (Delvig’s poem was written in the Lyceum) and, possibly, a close circle of friends from the post-Lyceum period11. In this circle, Delvig's poem was certainly known.

Thus, Pushkin’s text, firstly, divided the audience into two groups: an extremely small group, to whom the text was understandable and intimately familiar, and the bulk of readers who felt a hint in it, but could not decipher it. However, the understanding that the text required a position of intimate acquaintance with the poet forced readers to imagine themselves in precisely this relationship to these poems. As a result, the second effect of the text was that it transferred each reader to the position of an intimate friend of the author, possessing a special, unique community of memory with him and therefore capable of expressing himself by allusion. The reader here was involved in a game opposite to that of naming a baby with an official name - transferring intimately familiar people to the position of “everyone” (cf.: “Ivan Sergeich!” said the husband, touching him under the chin with a finger. But I again quickly closed Ivan Sergeich. No one except me had to look at him for a long time")12, and similar to the use by adults and unfamiliar people of the “childish” name of another adult.

However, in a real speech act, the use by one person or another of the means of official or intimate languages (or rather, the “officiality-intimacy” hierarchy) is determined by his extra-linguistic relationship to the speaker or listener. The literary text introduces the audience to the system of positions in this hierarchy and allows it to freely move into the cells indicated by the author. It turns the reader, for the duration of reading, into a person of the degree of acquaintance with the author that the author will be pleased to indicate. Accordingly, the author changes the volume of the reader's memory, since when receiving the text of the work, the audience, due to the design of human memory, can remember what was unknown to it.

10 Delvig A. A. Unpublished poems. Pg., 1922. P. 50.

11 Wed. in Pushkin’s 1819 poem “To Shcherbinin”:

I'll tell you at the door of the tomb:

"Do you remember Fanny, my dear?" And we will both smile quietly.

(Pushkin A.S. Op. cit. T. 2. Book 1. P. 88).

12 Tolstoy L.N. Family happiness // Collection. cit.: V 14 vol. M., 1951. T 3. P. 146.

13 Related to this is the fundamentally different nature of addressing literary and non-fiction texts. A non-fiction text is read (in a normal situation) by those to whom it is addressed. Reading someone else's letters or getting acquainted with messages intended for another is ethically prohibited. A literary text, as a rule, is not perceived by those to whom it is addressed: a love poem is made the subject of a printed publication, an intimate diary or epistolary prose is made available to the general public. One of the working signs of a literary text can be considered the discrepancy between the formal and real addressee. As long as a poem containing a declaration of love is known only to the single person who inspired this feeling in the author, the text does not functionally act as fiction. However, when published in a magazine, it becomes a work of art. B.V. Tomashevsky suggested that Pushkin gave Kern a poem, perhaps not written for her long ago. In this case, the reverse process took place: the text of art was functionally narrowed to a biographical fact (publication again turned it into a fact of art; it should be emphasized that it is not the relatively accidental fact of publication that is decisive, but the orientation towards public use). In this regard, the reader who reads other people's letters experiences emotions that are remotely comparable to aesthetic ones. Wed. in "The Inspector General" Shpekin's reasoning: "... this is a very interesting read! You will read another letter with pleasure. This is how various passages are described... and what edification... Better than in the Moskovskie Vedomosti!" (Gogol N.V. Complete collection of works: In 14 volumes [M.], 1951. T. 4. P. 17). “Game by the addressee” is a property of a literary text. However, it is precisely such texts, seemingly addressed not to the person who uses them, that become a school of transformation for the reader, teaching him the ability to change the point of view on the text and play with various types of social memory.

Reading is just the beginning.
Creativity is the goal
N.A. Rubakin
A modern literature lesson is a combination of already known teaching methods and techniques and their creative modification, aimed at creating positive, sustainable motivation through an emotional impact on the feelings and spiritual world of the student.
Why do we teach literature at school? Of course, in order to give children knowledge, instill in them a love of reading, develop aesthetic taste, which, in turn, will serve a true and deep comprehension of what they read, will contribute to the emergence of a strong, sustainable interest in the book, will help raise an intelligent, insightful reader, developed personality.
Why is it necessary to pay attention to the problem of reading today? In the age of cinema and television, communication with books is being replaced by watching videos and computer products. In introducing a child to the printed word, a lot depends on the adult, including the teacher. The teacher’s help in developing a student’s desire, ability and sustainable habit of reading books is extremely important for his future life, contributes to his socialization, develops erudition and general culture. At the same time, the book becomes a real tool that helps students think about themselves, realize their strengths and weaknesses, their requests, needs, and aspirations.
The crisis of adequate reading for children, which develops their minds and hearts and helps them adapt to society, has reached its climax. It’s time to determine how to present works of literature to teenagers, what needs to be taught when teaching them to read, and what the current socio-cultural situation in the country and children’s reading negativism in general dictate in this regard.
To help immerse oneself in the unique world of a book, to find the high meaning of one’s personal existence, to continue the traditions of Russian and world culture, to determine one’s attitude towards life, nature, and art - this is the meaning of the activity of a literature teacher. The main task of a literature teacher is to educate an educated, thinking, modern person who has a strong position in life, a patriot not in words, but in deeds.
As part of a school course, a literary work is not studied in isolation, but as part of something common. It is important to work with the context of the work (the context of the writer’s personal or creative biography, the context of the literary era, the context of the literary direction or movement, the historical and factual context).
There is no universal method for text analysis; it is impossible to develop an algorithm that could be applied to any work, because there are many factors that influence text analysis. When turning to a new text, you need to re-arrange the work of analyzing it. This algorithm will be taught to children.
The main task of studying literature as the art of words is to comprehend the author's thought and the artistic means of its expression, in other words, working with the creative laboratory of the writer. In literature lessons, the entire range of work with text is used: reading, perception of the work, identifying perceptions with the help of questions, analysis of the work, interpretation.
Creativity is one of the most powerful human motivations - the need for self-realization. At first glance, it seems that the reading person does not create anything, but only perceives the writer’s creativity. But that's not true. It’s just that few people think about what creative processes take place in his mind when he reads. “Reading is the life of a work in the mind of the person reading,” wrote A.M. Levidov.
In this regard, I would like to bring to your attention the book “School of Creative Reading” by Irina Ivanovna Tikhomirova.
The idea of the emotional and moral development of the reader, which forms the basis of the manual, returns us to the problem of upbringing and education of the modern child. What and how should be taught in a given environment and at a given time?
The author offers us an incredibly simple, attractive, but sometimes undeservedly “forgotten” path in the professional environment - an appeal to the emotional and creative beginning of Childhood, to the fact that it is typical for a child to think with the heart.
Against this background, the author offers literature, its emotional and creative energy as a universal tool for igniting the heart, for the natural connection of the intellect and the aesthetic, moral principle of the individual. Whether we read the statements of talented people about their childhood reading impressions, or about the ability to love the life of Natasha Rostova, or about the range of spiritual qualities that determine the dignity of an individual, or whether we discover the mastery of verbal creativity - we ourselves do not notice how we find ourselves drawn into the moral system of perception literary characters, into the depth of their psychological analysis, how the emotional dynamics of our own personality begins to be revealed, how the natural desire of a professional arises to make such a reading of a child an event.
The author based the concept of the School of Creative Reading on:

understanding the nature of reading as a special type of emotional and creative life, based on the great spiritual powers of a person: imaginative vision, fantasy, observation, heart memory, associative thinking, self-awareness, empathy - and at the same time developing these forces.
a child’s way of comprehending the world and art is visual-figurative and emotionally-direct perception, a child’s natural need for life experience, for knowing himself and others.
the essence of literature as the creativity of a writer, requiring the response of creativity from the reader, the unity of the nature of this creativity, its impulses: conjecture, invention, fantasy, imaginative thinking, subjective associations, personal motivations.
the belief that a child’s interest in reading directly depends on the development of the ability to resonate with the writer’s work in response to creativity, on the inclusion of the book in the context of his life: in the past, present and future, on the connection of the work being read with his subjective “I”.

The introduction “When you read, be able to freeze with happiness” gives the general direction of pedagogical activities for the development of a child’s creative reading.
Part one, “The Reader Is Also an Artist,” consists of several sections. In the “Facets of Reading Creativity” section, a number of topics will be developed for conversation with children about the components of reading talent. Examples of creative reading by children, reflected in the autobiographies of famous writers, in works of art and in reviews of modern schoolchildren, are placed in the section “The Mystery of the Reading Child.” At the end of the section there are questions and tasks for studying the topic. Section “Has this ever happened to you?” contains specific tests aimed at reading self-esteem and personal self-awareness of children and their parents. This is followed by the sections “Show your talent” and “Material for discussion”, where games, competitions, and questions for discussing literary works are offered. In the same part, material from the “Workshop” is given, where you can find various types of situations and statements related to reading, which can be discussed at seminars and practical classes with children.
Part two, “Reading for Children: Emotional Training,” provides material for specific classes with children that develop their emotional sphere, and offers a series of dialogues, games, and exercises. This part also includes the section “Adult and Child: Resonance of Reading Personalities.” It deals with personality-oriented reading communication between adults and children as the pedagogical principle of the school of creative reading and a prerequisite for its effectiveness.
In the appendices (“Into the collection of children's reading leaders”) two programs are given. The first (“Reading as a form of creativity”) provides topics for classes with children on the problems of creative reading. The second (“The Reader is also a Psychologist”) is aimed at developing the psychological vigilance of the reader of fiction and, on this basis, self-knowledge.
In today's situation of children's reading crisis, everyone who is at the helm of literary and artistic development is faced with the urgent task of supporting the value of reading and inducing a positive attitude towards it. To support means to protect, not to let someone die, to serve as a support, to infect with interest. In other words, equip him with the experience of creative reading: excite and strengthen the reader’s “echo” in the form of judgments, guesses, revelations, impressions, responses.
A discussion of a literary work is an oral exchange of opinions about it, organized by a number of problematic issues, carried out in the process of interpersonal communication and spiritual contact between readers. It satisfies children’s needs to express their impressions of a work, hear the opinions of others, and understand the essence of the questions posed in the work. Discussion involves thinking about the work, penetrating into life situations depicted by writers, correlating them with real life, which requires the reader to be able to imagine himself in the character’s place and from his position to look at himself and those around him. The purpose of collective dialogue is to enrich its participants through inclusion in the system of artistic images of the work with the sensory and life experiences of other people, to expand the understanding of human destinies, to look into themselves and the surrounding reality, and to solve a number of personally significant problems. In dialogue with others, sometimes in argument, there is not simple consumption of art, but independent management through the implementation of the reader’s creativity of one’s own development.
In this direction, he faces a number of specific pedagogical tasks:
To sharpen the interest of the children's readership in the subjective world of man, to intrigue with the “secret meaning of mental work” (L. Tolstoy).
To teach children to consider the emotional richness of the individual, the subtlety and depth of human feelings as the highest value. Distinguish true feelings from imitation.
Help children accumulate visual ideas about human emotions using material from fiction.
To acquaint children with the palette of human feelings, to show their diversity using real-life and literary examples. Enrich your vocabulary of words that express feelings.
To reveal the unique role of literature, and, above all, the classics and its material - words for the spiritual and moral education of children. At the same time, show the inhumanity of literary crafts of mass culture, which coarse the reader’s feelings.
Teach verbal and wordless language of feelings, its manifestations in life and in literature.
Encourage children to actualize their emotional experience when reading works of fiction.
Thus, during creative reading, not only a dialogue between the reader and the author occurs, but also an internal polyphonic dialogue, as a result of which the reader develops views on the world, society, another person and himself. Undoubtedly, S.Ya. is right. Marshak in the idea that “the artist-author takes upon himself only part of the work, the rest must be completed by the artist-reader with his imagination.” Therefore, in a reading culture, great attention must be paid to the reader’s ability to perceive, analyze, and evaluate the author’s intention, aesthetic pathos, and the social and moral result of the writer’s work—a literary work. And for a student reader to transform from a casual consumer of “mosaic” culture into a responsible interlocutor with the author of a work, he must perceive the reading process as a creative activity. Therefore, the main task of a modern teacher is to help schoolchildren learn to independently enter into dialogue with the various voices of individual works, fixing in their minds the diversity of artistic principles and forms of depicting the world and man.

Philosopher Valentin Asmus about the work of the reader

The name of Valentin Ferdinandovich Asmus (1894–1975), the greatest Russian philosopher of the twentieth century, has firmly entered the history of Russian science. A graduate of the Faculty of History and Philology of Kyiv University, he quite early decided on the range of his scientific interests: it became the history of philosophical thought - ancient, European, Russian. The fate of the scientist was not easy: in the years when philosophy was a “party” discipline placed at the service of state ideology, V.F. Asmus, who was subjected to “working” for almost any of his work, remained himself, a faithful knight of science, in everything - in his creativity, in his relationships with people, in everyday life. “He repeatedly said and showed,” writes one of his students, “that the main value of science and knowledge is not in their applied nature, but in the fact that they provide the truth. Knowledge is useful because it is true” (Remembering V.F. Asmus... M.: Progress-Tradition, 2001. P. 39).

Today, in the “School of Philology” section, we present fragments of an article by V.F. Asmus “Reading as work and creativity”(1962). Written almost half a century ago and published only twice (in one of the issues of the journal “Questions of Literature” and in the collection “Questions of Theory and History of Aesthetics”, which has become a bibliographic rarity), it has not lost its relevance. The article proposes a new methodology for its time in literary education. It seems to us that the ideas expressed by V.F. Asmus have not been fully implemented in schools to this day. Which is a pity.

“Reading as work and creativity...” For those readers who have never thought about the question formulated in the title, its very formulation may seem dubious. “When I read a poem, a book of poems, a story, a novel,” the reader may say, “I don’t want to “work” at all and I don’t “create” anything. When I read, I primarily look for entertainment. I understand that the author had to “work” and “create” - otherwise he could not have mastered my understanding, filled my leisure time, amused me, excited me, touched me. But what could the “work” and, moreover, the “creativity” of me, the reader, consist of? It is unlikely that this work is more than what is required to read any printed text. Rather, this “work” should even be easier than any other work of reading. To read a book on quantum mechanics, one must, of course, work hard. But what kind of “work” and, especially, what kind of “creativity” are needed when reading, for example, “Quiet Don”, or “Anna Karenina”, or Pushkin’s poems?”

This objection is quite understandable. Its basis is that most readers are not inclined and cannot follow the work of their own thoughts that occurs in them when they read a work of fiction. Naturally, they are not interested in this work, but in that world, that piece of life that passes through the field of their consciousness in the process of reading. They have no idea what kind of work is required from the reader himself in order for the life depicted by the author to arise “secondarily” and become life for his reader.

The view of such readers on the reading process is reminiscent of Gogol’s story about how the sorcerer Patsyuk dined. The sorcerer did not work at the same time. In front of him stood a plate of dumplings and a bowl of sour cream. The dumplings, driven by witchcraft, jumped into the bowl themselves, turned over in the sour cream, and flew straight into Patsyuk’s mouth.

But the reading process is not at all similar to Patsyuk’s lunch. When reading, no witchcraft power turns the dumplings in sour cream and sends them into the mouth of a hungry person.

For reading to be fruitful, the reader must work himself, and no miracle can free him from this work. In addition to the labor necessary to simply reproduce the sequence of phrases and words that make up the work, the reader must expend special, complex and, moreover, truly creative work.

This work is necessary to create a special attitude that makes reading the reading of an artistic work and no other work.

When starting to read a piece of fiction, the reader enters a unique world. Whatever this piece is about, whatever its genre, artistic direction - realistic, naturalistic or romantic - the reader knows, even unconsciously, that the world (or a “segment”, a “piece” of the world), into which the author introduces him is a truly special world. Two features make it special. This world, firstly, is not the product of pure and complete fiction, it is not a complete fable that has no relation to the real world. The author may have a powerful imagination, the author may be Aristophanes, Cervantes, Hoffmann, Gogol, Mayakovsky - but no matter how great the power of his imagination, what is depicted in his work must be for the reader, albeit special, but still a reality .

Therefore, the first condition necessary for reading to proceed as a reading of a work of art is a special attitude of the reader’s mind, which is in effect throughout the reading. Due to this attitude, the reader treats what is read or “visible” through reading not as a complete fiction or fable, but as a unique reality.

The reader's mind is active while reading. He resists both hypnosis, which invites him to accept images of art as a direct manifestation of life itself, and the voice of skepticism, which whispers to him that the life depicted by the author is not life at all, but only a fiction of art. As a result of this activity, the reader carries out a kind of dialectic in the process of reading. He simultaneously sees that the images moving in his field of vision are images of life, and understands that this is not life itself, but only its artistic reflection.<…>

The two-fold attitude of readerly perception described above is only a precondition for labor and creativity, which are necessary for a literary work to be read as a work of art. Where his double condition is absent, the reading of a work of fiction cannot even begin. But even where it is present, the reader’s work and creativity are far from exhausted by it.

<…>Not every reader is sufficiently aware of what is happening in him, in the reader, in the process of reading a literary work. Many unconsciously think that the awareness of a work as a picture of life is completely predetermined by the creative work of the author. Everything that is necessary for understanding and for evaluating the characters has already been done by the author, built into the artistic fabric of the thing. “In the work itself” one can see both the characters drawn by the author and the attitude towards them expressed or at least instilled by the author, a sympathetic or denouncing, condemning assessment. The reader can only “read” the work.

The prevalence of this view is due to the fact that it undoubtedly reflects some - and, moreover, important - facet of the truth. This view is the first, still imperfect understanding of the objectivity of a work of art. This objectivity exists. It consists in the fact that the text of a work, or a score, or plastic forms, or a canvas with colors and lines applied to it, undoubtedly outline or indicate to all perceivers the direction for the work of their own thoughts, for the emergence of a feeling, an impression. The work gives not only the boundaries or frames within which the perceiver’s own work will unfold, but - although approximately, “in a dotted line” - also those “lines of force” along which his fantasy, memory, the combining power of imagination, aesthetic, moral and political will be directed. grade.

When I was young, I never missed Mayakovsky’s performances. I don’t remember a single evening at which there wouldn’t be a bunch of people complaining - some in notes, some through shouts - “why don’t we understand your poems, but we understand Pushkin?” A regular attendee of concerts, I listened to Scriabin more than once in my youth. He did not play like a concert virtuoso, but absolutely brilliantly. I was struck by the incomparable, unique beauty of the sound and, so to speak, the extreme content of the game itself. And what? Part of the audience left before the end of the concert, angry and indignant at the incomprehensibility of Scriabin's music. At one time, such listeners probably rejected the poems of Tyutchev, the late Baratynsky, and the music of Brahms and Schumann as incomprehensible to them.

The incident with the “incomprehensibility” of Scriabin and Mayakovsky clarified a lot for me in the work of artistic perception. I realized that what is called “incomprehensibility” in art may simply be an inaccurate name for the reader’s laziness, helplessness, virginity of the reader’s artistic biography, lack of modesty and desire to work. How often “criticism” of a literary work is criticism of Patsyuk, whose “dumplings” do not want to fly into his mouth! How often Goethe was right when he explained that when someone complains about the “incomprehensibility” or “foggyness” of a thing, one should also look at whose head is foggy: the author or the reader.<…>

Without risking falling into paradox, let us say that, strictly speaking, the true first reading of a work, the true first listening to a symphony can only be a secondary listening to it; it is the secondary reading that can be such a reading, during which the perception of each individual frame is confidently related by the reader and listener to to the whole. Only in this case the whole is already known from the previous - first - reading or listening.

For the same reason, the most creative reader always tends to re-read an outstanding work of fiction. It seems to him that he has not read it even once.

And yet the unlucky reader exists. Not only does it exist, it's not that rare. Furthermore. He - which is quite natural and legitimate - declares his requirements, tastes and impressions. Sometimes he himself tries to influence the public assessment of works of fiction. What to do with all this?<…>

“The most reading country in the world” - one can and should strive for this title and, as life shows, the need for reading in our country is quite developed (this is evidenced by the sharp increase in the number of publishing houses and bookstores in the last decade), but let us ask ourselves a question - in reading what literature? And is it possible to talk about the presence of a reading culture in our society - so that there is something to pass on to children?

“Reading country”... You can probably mentally paint a picture where almost everyone in this country does nothing but read... But do they understand what is written? Do they read everything in a row or do they do it selectively? Does such reading develop imagination, and does it lead to perfection, does it call for creativity? – Having answered all these questions, let teachers and scientists, publishers and government officials make every effort to resolve them as quickly as possible, and then Russia can still bear the title of “the most reading people in the world”1 with pride, and the dignity of the book at the same time will be at the proper level. In this case, reading will be understood by everyone as a value.

The basis of the “reading culture” (this concept has become increasingly common in publications) is the culture of the individual. Implying by the term “culture” achievements in any branch of human activity, as well as a high level of something, the formation of a culture in the field of reading can be approached in the same way as in other areas of activity - from two sides: from the point of view of technology, mastery of performance (in this case, reading technique) and from the point of view of the creative, spiritual principle, which contains the reading process. In any case, a reading culture will include what a person reads, how he reads, as well as why he reads and how much. The important question is: what will be considered a high level and achievement?

To answer it, it is necessary to consider the very essence of reading - why people read and, in general, what reading is.

Reading as work and communication

First, let's look at dictionaries.

B) “Reading” (as noted in the specialized literature) is a specific form of linguistic communication between people through printed or handwritten texts. During the reading process, the reader perceives semantically the information contained in the texts. Reading is an active interaction between text creators and readers2.

Why does a person read?

“In order to learn something, to gain knowledge,” almost every schoolchild will answer (meaning people in general, often without even referring this to themselves).

For adults, the answers will be more varied:

- “In order to obtain information - for work... for home... for family... for yourself.”

- "Enjoy…"

– “Add knowledge – for self-education...”

And yet motivation is important - for what purpose, in what cases does a person read?

Here are some of these motivating reasons:

– When it is needed, all for the same work - “if they didn’t require it, I wouldn’t read it” (pragmatic approach3);

– To somehow pass the time, for leisure (reading as entertainment4);

– To keep abreast of all news, events (reading as curiosity);

– To learn new things – striving for knowledge, curiosity (reading as knowledge);

– To get aesthetic pleasure, for self-improvement (reading as self-development).

We have to admit that today, basically, the first three of the listed reading motives prevail.

Reading as an activity

From a psychological point of view, reading is not simply a mechanical operation of translating written characters into spoken language; reading implies understanding what is read; it is a kind of mental operation. Reading, i.e. understanding written language is more difficult than understanding spoken language5.

In oral speech, intonations, pauses, vocal emphases, and a whole range of expressive means contribute to understanding. Using them, the speaker interprets what he has said and reveals the text of his speech to the listener. When reading, you need to, without the help of all these auxiliary means, relying on the text alone, having determined the relative specific weight and correct ratio of the words included in a given text, give it an independent interpretation. Independent reading presupposes a certain mental development and in turn leads to further mental development. In particular, by reading, the child learns to construct his speech in a new, coherent way6.

Based on the fact that the reading process is an interaction between the reader and the book, and the action is a manifestation of energy, activity7, then reading is the activity of perceiving the text. In this activity, it is necessary to note one important circumstance that distinguishes reading from other types of perception of creative works - listening, contemplation. This advantage lies in the fact that the reader needs to make an effort to independently (without additional means to facilitate perception) understand the idea of the work. To do this, he needs to develop imagination, i.e. build an image with your own efforts. And this is a creative process. It is in this – the presence of a creative aspect – that the main advantage of the reader over the viewer and listener lies, and therefore, the reading process as the perception of a work of creativity is more effective. In addition, the reader has wider opportunities to satisfy his cognitive needs and interests; he is more active and freer than a radio listener; a television and film viewer; he has a freer choice - not only of texts, but also of the conditions of perception: speed, tactics, etc. The perception process here is more individualized. All this greatly enhances the diverse impact on the individual.

To summarize, we can say: reading is a more effective means of education and upbringing of the individual compared to audiovisual types of communication, since it more than others contributes to the creative development of the individual, which is the main task of upbringing and education.

The popular expression: “Reading is the best teaching” does not lose its relevance today.

The fact that reading is work, and a lot of it, apparently, has become one of the reasons why there are not so many true lovers of reading. This is the work of transforming a person himself. And like any work, it requires both knowledge and skills.

Approaching the study of this topic in more depth, you can see that not many people know how to read thoughtfully, as it should be done.

In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the statement of the great Goethe, who wrote: “Good people do not even suspect,” he noted, “what work and time it takes to learn to read. I myself spent 80 years on this and still can’t say that I completely achieved my goal.”8 He also regretted that people read too many mediocre books and waste time on them.

Turning to the work of V.I. Dahl, we will discover that “read” and “read” (honor) are related concepts. It follows from this that the one who takes up the book is obliged to honor and respect the author by treating the text thoughtfully and trying to understand the main idea of the author. Here comes an ethical moment - an attribute of Culture9.

This is precisely the main task of reading - to assimilate the author’s thought, the main idea of the work, in order to go further - to develop your own creative thought. This also has more distant, global goals: in order to fulfill the main evolutionary task, a person needs to learn to master thought, develop it, directing it to the Common Good.

“Books change life itself through the reader,” this is how the prominent book scholar N.A. expressed the purpose of books and reading. Rubakin.

The importance of reading, therefore, is in the development of creative thinking, in the development of a culture of thinking and the associated concept - a culture of feelings.

In the process of reading, a person develops comprehensively - develops memory, learns patience, sensitivity, observation, develops will, nurtures the heart, etc. – all this generally contributes to the improvement of the individual.

Reading as communication and interaction

The art of the book gives a person an amazing opportunity for communication, which manifests itself in the active interaction between the book as a work of creativity and the reader. This process, as stated above, takes us into the “realm of the spirit”, and here it is important to note a special point.

If such penetration occurs consciously, in the presence of internal hard work (which is very important), a person emerges from this “realm of the spirit” qualitatively different: he has enriched himself, received additional psychic energy. It is quite definitely and authoritatively said about this: “Great works are storehouses of enormous energies that can activate and change millions of viewers, influence countless generations through the message of beauty radiated to them”10.

Studying the process of reading and considering it as an interaction, scientists also highlight some national features of this process: “Reading turned out to be the main way of existence of the Russian soul, the focus of culture, a way of elevating the nation above the pragmatism and everyday life. It not only informs the reader about the facts of reality, indirectly enriches his life experience, educates him, but also reveals in him such aspects of his inner life that he is often unaware of.”11

Thus, reading as perception and interaction is a living creative process of a person’s cognition of the world and himself. And we can say that wise reading is the joy of communication. It is important to learn this wisdom.

It is also important to realize that not in all cases, as is unfortunately often the case in life, reading is a process of human spiritual development, and sensitive, skillful guidance is needed here.

The role of the teacher in the formation of a reading culture

At present, when there is an intensive search for ways out of the current civilizational crisis, the truth is remembered again and again: salvation lies in Culture, in its creative potential, in spirituality.

The development of a culture of reading as a component of the entire universal human Culture can become one of such saving means of overcoming the crisis; it is also a means of expanding consciousness.

Every teacher can contribute to the formation of a reading culture in many ways - a school teacher, a teacher, an educator. By developing the creative abilities of the younger generation, directing attention to the Beautiful, in this way you can quickly get closer to the desired results.

In the deepest, most significant philosophical work - the Teaching of Living Ethics, there are wonderful lines that can be attributed to the activities of the teacher, to the essence of his work:

“Knowledge is a consequence of great work. The people cannot keep up if they do not hurry in learning. But only a few can help the people in knowledge, and we will honor those people. Each of them not only read what had already been written, but also contributed a drop of their own knowledge. Such a drop is a gift from Infinity”12.

This gift - the “spark of God” - is endowed with a teacher, a person who not only reads a lot himself, but also knows how to teach others to read. “Teaching to read” is not only showing how to parse letters and words, but teaching how to look for the meaning of what is written, developing imagination - only such reading can be considered useful.

In every academic discipline, in any lesson, a school teacher can “inspire” 13 students to read, drawing them with him into the world of Knowledge and the Beautiful. And by the fact that the teacher will draw the students’ attention to publications that talk about the subject being studied, and will point out interesting places in the book that develop feelings and thoughts - by this, both the teacher and the student will be able to move faster towards the goals of education, since useful reading is not only noble, but also very rewarding work. You just need to get used to this joyful work and help you love it. This is entirely facilitated by the Art of the Book.

_____________________________________________

1 Book Studies: Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ed. coll.: N.M. Sikorsky and others - M.: Sov. Encyclopedia, 1982. – P. 597.

2 Book Studies: Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ed. coll.: N.M. Sikorsky and others - M.: Sov. Encyclopedia, 1982. – P. 597.

3 When a person reads in order to expand his knowledge in his profession and does it voluntarily, at his own discretion, without coercion, there is no pragmatism in this, such an approach to reading is cognitive.

4 Here it is also necessary to separate: one thing - if a person reads only for entertainment, and completely different, when the time has come to change the activity for relaxation, and the person chooses READING instead of empty games and entertainment, then, of course, it is good if preference is given to a book, but here, as elsewhere, it matters WHAT and HOW a person reads.

5 Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of general psychology. – St. Petersburg: Peter, 2000. – P.412.

6 Ibid.

7 Ozhegov S.I., Shvedova N.Yu. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. – M.: Azbukovnik, 1997. – P. 157.

8 A word about the book / Comp. E.S. Liechtenstein. – M.: Book, 1986. – P. 16.

9 “When reading, a person not only receives new knowledge and new images from a book, he gives the book his thoughts, his feelings, his ideas. This element of dedication to reading oneself as a subject determines all elements of the culture of reading.” – Tikhomirova I.I. Reading culture in the context of Russian national tradition. – School library, 2006, No. 2 – P. 27-32.