The theory of wandering plots. “wandering plot”: on the question of defining the concept

Itinerant Families Some families constantly move from place to place - for example, ghetto families who go into hiding when their rent arrears become too high, or families of white-collar workers large corporations, who are constantly transferred from

Chapter 11 Stray Swallows

Chapter 11 Stray Swallows Boys at the North Korean Market At the Chongjin station, Mrs. Song probably met a boy dressed in blue factory overalls, which was so big for him that his fly hung somewhere at knee level. In tangled hair

Wandering plots, wandering plots are the concept of comparative historical literary criticism and folkloristics, which explains the similarity of folklore stories of different peoples as a result of their cultural and historical interaction. Migration theory (see), also known as the theory of borrowing, also known as the theory of wandering plots ( largest representatives in Germany - T. Benfey, F. Liebrecht, in Russia - A.N. Pypin, V.F. Miller, V.V. Stasov) arose as a reaction to the dominance of the mythological school (brothers J. and V. Grimm, M " people's soul" Benfey, an Orientalist scholar, Sanskrit researcher, translator of the Vedic book of hymns “Samaveda” (1848) and the “Panchatantra” created in the 3rd-4th centuries (1859), considered India the ancestral home of most Western folklore stories and epic images. Unlike the Brothers Grimm, who hoped to capture the essence, the “core of poetry” (F. Schlegel), in the pre-plot, Benfey was guided in his theory by the positivist principle of constructing strict cause-and-effect relationships. The deepest follower of Benfey in Russia, who corrected many of his provisions, was A.N. Veselovsky, who described plot forms as constant quantities created in prehistoric times by the collective human psyche and since then have dominated creative personality: “Plots are complex schemes in the imagery of which well-known acts are summarized human life and psyche in alternating forms of everyday reality.” “Everyday reality” (specific cultural and historical circumstances of each era) requires turning to one or another plot form, filling it each time with new content, adapting it to the needs of the time, so that borrowing a plot always falls on prepared ground and means a new acquisition sometime famous. Without changing in essence, plot forms are inherited from generation to generation, wandering between nations.

At the same time, Veselovsky assumed it was possible to establish the specific temporal and spatial ancestral home of plot forms by exploring the methods and directions of their distribution. Such interest in the genesis of folklore, primitive thinking, lower forms of religion, and rituals, based on the achievements of the anthropological school (E.B. Taylor, A. Lang, J. Fraser), brought Veselovsky closer to supporters of the theory of spontaneous generation of plots (G. Uzener, V. .Manhardt, R.R.Marett, S.Reinak). The latter explained the similarity of national plot options by similar forms of primitive beliefs and rituals that arise in accordance with the universal laws of the human psyche and culture. Veselovsky considered it possible to combine the theory of spontaneous generation of plots and migration theory, provided there was a natural division of their spheres of application, when the first would deal with the origin of motives, the simplest plot units. “By motive I mean a formula that at first answered the questions that nature posed to man, or that consolidated especially vivid, seemingly important or repeated impressions of reality,” while the second would explore the mechanism of borrowing more complex plots and, accordingly, the cultural interaction of peoples. This approach has become established in Russian literary criticism. It was defended by V.M. Zhirmunsky, as well as A.N. Veselovsky, who gravitated towards migration theory, but recognized the independence of the development of national epics and the general typological similarity of development national literatures. Vagrant stories, which were the subject of fierce controversy in the 19th century, later lost their meaning, becoming an ordinary term in folkloristics. At the same time, Veselovsky’s “motive” was no longer considered as an indivisible formula: plots were studied mainly at the morphological level, their components - functions - were invariant characters, the order of their appearance (works by V.Ya. Propp). Issues of migration of individual wandering subjects often became secondary. Western anthropological school, ritual and mythological criticism (including the doctrine of archetypes), which seemed to represent new round romantic mythological school, not to mention ethnological research and psychoanalysis, Almost no attention was paid to the problem of wandering plots.

motive(Latin moveo - to move) is a stable formal-substantive component of a text that can be repeated within the work of one writer, as well as in the context of world literature as a whole. Motives can be repeated. The motif is a stable semiotic unit of the text and has a historically universal set of meanings. Comedy is characterized by the “quid pro quo” motif (“who is talking about what”), epic is characterized by the wandering motif, and ballad is characterized by a fantastic motif (the appearance of the living dead).

Motif more than other components artistic form correlates with the thoughts and feelings of the author. According to Gasparov, “motive is a semantic spot.” In psychology, a motive is an incentive to act; in literary theory, it is a recurring element of a plot. Some researchers classify the motive as an element of the plot. This type of motive is called narrative. But any detail may be repeated in the motif. This motive is called lyrical. Narrative motifs are based on some event; they are unfolded in time and space and presuppose the presence of actants. In lyrical motifs, it is not the process of action that is actualized, but its significance for the consciousness that perceives this event. But both types of motive are characterized by repetition.

The most important feature of the motive is its ability to be half-realized in the text, its mystery, and incompleteness. The scope of the motif consists of works marked with invisible italics. Attention to the structure of the motive allows us to consider the content of the literary text in a deeper and more interesting way. The same motive sounds differently in different authors.

Researchers talk about the dual nature of the motive, meaning that the motive exists as an invariant (contains a stable core, repeated in many texts) and as individuality (each author has his own motive in terms of embodiment, individual increment of meaning). Repeated in literature, the motif can acquire philosophical fullness.

Motive as literary concept brought out by A.N. Veselovsky in 1906 in his work “Poetics of Plots”. Under the motive, he assumed the simplest formula, answering the questions that nature poses to man, and especially establishing vivid impressions reality. The motif was defined by Veselovsky as the simplest narrative unit. Veselovsky considered imagery, monophony, and schematic features of a motif. Motives, in his opinion, cannot be decomposed into constituent elements. The combination of motifs forms a plot. Thus, primitive consciousness produced motives that formed plots. The motive is ancient, primitive form artistic consciousness.

Veselovsky tried to identify the main motives and trace their combination into plots. Comparative scientists tried to check the relationship between plot schemes. Moreover, this similarity turned out to be very conditional, because only formal elements were taken into account. Veselovsky’s merit lies in the fact that he put forward the idea of ​​“wandering plots”, i.e. plots wandering through time and space among different peoples. This can be explained not only by the unity of everyday and psychological conditions of different peoples, but also by borrowings. IN XIX literature centuries, the motive for the husband’s self-removal from his wife’s life was widespread. In Russia, the hero returned under own name, faking his own death. The skeleton of the motif was repeated, which determined the typological similarity of works of world literature.

The smallest unit of the objective world is traditionally called an artistic detail. "Detail"(French detail) – small component anything; detail, particularity; also detail. It is fundamental to attribute the detail to the meta-verbal, objective world of the work: “The figurative form of the literary work contains three sides: a system of details of object-based representation. system of compositional techniques and verbal (speech) structure.” Artistic detail mainly includes subject details: landscape, portrait. Poetic devices, tropes and stylistic figures are usually not classified as artistic. details. Detailing is not decoration, but the essence of the image. After all, the writer is not able to recreate an object in all its features, and it is the detail, their totality, that “replaces” the whole in the text, evoking in the reader the associations the author needs. The degree of detail of the image, especially of the external world, can be motivated in the text by the “place from which the story is told,” otherwise, by the spatial and/or temporal point of view of the narrator (storyteller, character, lyrical subject). Detail, like a “close-up” in a movie, needs a background – “ in general terms" In literary criticism short message about any events, the summary designation of objects is often called generalization. The alternation of detail and generalization is involved in creating the rhythm of the image. The classification of details repeats the structure of the objective world - events, actions of characters, their portraits, psychological and speech characteristics, landscape, interior, etc. At the same time, in a given work, some type(s) of details may be absent, which emphasizes the conventionality of its world. In literary descriptions of style, related details are often combined. This typology was proposed by A.B. Esin, who identified 3 groups: plot details, descriptive, psychological. the predominance of one type or another gives rise to the corresponding quality, or dominant, style: “plot” (“Taras Bulba” by Gogol), “descriptiveness” ( Dead Souls), “psychologism” (Crime and Punishment); the named saints “may not exclude each other within the same production.” Just as the word lives life to the fullest in a text, statement, a detail reveals its meaning in a series, sequence, or roll call of details. The analysis examines a fragment of text in which there are co- and/or contrasting details. Dynamics of the portrait: gesture, elements of facial expressions and pantomimes, changes in skin color, trembling, as well as paralinguistic elements, such as laughter, crying, speech rate, speech pauses, etc. All these signs of non-verbal communication that people can use purposefully widely represented in fiction literature; in particular, they act as details of a dynamic portrait of a character. Details can be given in opposition, but can, on the contrary, form an ensemble, creating a single and holistic impression. E.S. Dobin proposed a typology of details based on the criterion: singularity/multiple, and used different terms to designate the identified types: “Details act in multitudes. The detail tends towards singularity. It replaces a number of details.” The detail can be expressed using synecdoche, hyperbole. The visibility of a detail, which contrasts to one degree or another with the general background, is facilitated by compositional techniques: repetitions, " close-up", "montage", retardation, etc. By repeating and acquiring additional meanings, a detail becomes a motif and often grows into a symbol. In Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,” the reader may at first find Myshkin’s ability to imitate handwriting strange. However, when reading the entire novel, it becomes clear that Myshkin’s main talent is understanding different characters, different styles of behavior, and the reproduction of writing styles is a hint of this. A symbolic detail can be included in the title of the work: “Gooseberry” by A.P. Chekhov, “ Easy breath» Bunina.
Portrait character - a description of his appearance: face, figure, clothing, visible behavioral properties: gestures, facial expressions, gait, demeanor. The reader gets an idea of ​​the character from the description of his thoughts, feelings, actions, and from his speech characteristics, so a portrait description may be absent. The correspondence between external and internal m/s observed in life allows writers to use a character’s appearance when creating him as a generalized image. A character can become the embodiment of any one saint human nature(Italian “comedy of masks”). Thanks to the correspondence between external and internal m/s, glorification and satirization of a character through his portrait were possible. Thus, Don Quixote, who combines both the comic and the heroic, is thin and tall, and his squire is fat and squat. The requirement for conformity is at the same time a requirement for the integrity of the character’s image. Appearance The lit character is not described. but is created and subject to choice,” and “some details may be absent, while others are brought to the fore.” The place and role of a portrait in a work, as well as the methods of its creation, vary depending on the type and genre of literature. In drama, the author limits himself to indicating the age of the characters and the general characteristics of their behavior given in the stage directions; he is forced to leave the rest to the actors and the director. A playwright can understand his task somewhat more broadly: Gogol, for example, prefaced the comedy “The Inspector General” with detailed characteristics of the characters, as well as an accurate description of the actors’ poses in the final “silent” scene. In lyric poetry, the poetically generalized impression of the lyrical subject is important. The lyrics make maximum use of the technique of replacing the description of appearance with an impression of it. Such a replacement is often accompanied by the use of epithets “beautiful”, “charming”, “charming”, “captivating”, “incomparable”, etc. Poetic transformation of the visible into the field ideal ideas the author and his emotions are often manifested in the use of tropes and other media in verbal and artistic depiction. The material for comparisons and metaphors is the colorful abundance of the natural world - plants, animals, precious stones. stones, heavenly bodies. A slender figure is compared to cypress, poplar, birch, willow, etc. Drag. stones are used to convey the shine and color of eyes, lips, hair: lips - garnet, skin - marble, etc. The choice of material for comparison is determined by the nature of the experiences being expressed. The poetry of Dante and Petrarch shows the spiritual essence of love, which is emphasized by the epithets “unearthly”, “heavenly”, “divine”. Baudelaire praises the “exotic scent” of love. The hierarchy of canonical genres of literature corresponds to the principles of portraiture. The appearance of characters in high genres is idealized, while in low genres (fables, comedies, etc.), on the contrary, it indicates various kinds of bodily imperfections. The grotesque predominates in the depiction of comic characters. For metaphors and comparisons with the natural world, not roses and lilies are used, but radishes, pumpkins, and cucumbers; not an eagle, but a gander, not a doe, but a bear, etc. In epic works, the appearance and behavior of a character are associated with his character, with the characteristics of the “inner world” of the work with its characteristic spatio-temporal relations, psychology, and system of moral assessments. The character of the early epic genres - heroic songs, legends - is an example of direct correspondence to m/s character and appearance. No direct description of appearance is given; it can be judged by the character’s actions. The hero's opponent, on the contrary, is externally described. In creating a portrait of a character, the leading trend until the end of the 18th century. the predominance of the general over the individual remained. The conventional form of the portrait prevailed, with its characteristic static description, picturesqueness and verbosity. A characteristic feature of the conventional description of appearance is the listing of emotions that the characters evoke in others or the narrator (delight, admiration, etc.). The portrait is given against the backdrop of nature; in the literature of sentimentalism, this is a flowering meadow or field, the bank of a river or pond. Romantics will prefer forests, mountains, stormy seas, and exotic nature. Rosy freshness the face will be replaced by the pallor of the brow. In the literature of realism of the 19th century. There was a transition from a static image to a dynamic one. At the same time, during this period, 2 main types of portraits are distinguished: an expositional portrait, which tends to be static, and a dynamic one, turning into plastic action. Expositional - a detailed listing of the details of the face, figure, clothing, individual gestures and other signs of appearance; is given from a narrator interested in the characteristic external appearance of representatives of any social community: petty officials, townspeople, merchants, cab drivers, etc. A more complex modification of the exposition portrait is psychological, where the predominant features of appearance are indicative of the saints of character and inner world (portrait of Pechorin in “Hero of Our Time”). Dynamic – we find it in the works of L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, where the individual and unique in the characters noticeably prevails over the socially typical and where their involvement in the dynamic process of life is important. A detailed listing of appearance features gives way to brief, expressive details that emerge as the narrative progresses. Sometimes the portrait is given as other characters’ impressions of the hero (the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna as perceived by Myshkin). An important component of appearance is the suit. Clothes can be casual or festive, “befitting” or “from someone else’s shoulder.” Khlestakov’s “capital” dress has a magical effect on ordinary people.
Scenery(French pays - country, locality) - one of the components of the world of literary production, an image of an open space. Landscape features: 1.Designation of the place and time of action (“The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway); 2. Plot motivation (natural, meteorological processes can direct the course of events in one direction or another. Thus, in Pushkin’s story “The Snowstorm,” nature intervenes in the plans of the heroes and connects Marya Gavrilovna not with Vladimir, but with Burmin); 3. Form of psychologism (Landscape helps to reveal internal state heroes. prepares the reader for changes in their lives. The landscape given through the perception of the hero is a sign of his mental state at the moment of action, but can also speak about his character). 4. Landscape as a form of the author’s presence (Methods of transmission author's attitude: *the point of view of the author and the hero merge, *the landscape, given through the eyes of the author and at the same time the psyche of the heroes close to him, is “closed” to the characters - carriers of a worldview alien to the author (Bazarov)). The landscape expresses national identity (Lermontov’s “Motherland”). In productions with philosophical issues Through images of nature (even episodic), through attitudes towards it, basic ideas are often expressed. Landscape in the birth of literature. It is most sparingly represented in the drama, hence the increasing symbolist load of the landscape. In the epic he performs a wide variety of functions. In the lyrics, the landscape is emphatically expressive, often symbolic: psychological parallelism, personification, metaphors and other tropes are widely used. Depending on the subject, or the texture of the description, landscapes are distinguished between rural and urban, or urban ("Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris"Hugo), steppe ("Taras Bulba" by Gogol), sea ("Moby Dick" by Melville). forest (“Notes of a Hunter” by Turgenev), mountain (Dante, J.-J. Rousseau), northern and southern, exotic (“Frigate “Pallada” by Goncharov). Various types of landscape are semiotized in the literary process. This becomes the subject of the study of historical poetics.
11. Author's problem.

Lecture!

IN archaic culture there was no author, there was no such need. There was collective creativity. This continued until Medieval literature. The fiction was not realized. Therefore, the fates of authorship and fiction run parallel. The artist begins to gradually realize his responsibility over what he writes and realizes his capabilities. The romantics were the first to clearly define literary work like a professional. “I” comes first. The place of the author in the archaic collective creativity occupied by a storyteller, narrator, bard, etc. At the same time, the author has been understood for centuries as an authority, as a divine authority, a mediator between God and people. These are Aesop's Fables, David's Psalms, etc. These are the authorities. These works are not taken out of context. These may not be the works of David, Aesop, Solomon, but were attributed to them.

How is the author understood in modern literary criticism? Firstly, this is a biographical person with a whole range of qualities. Secondly, he is a writer. Thirdly, the author is the highest semantic authority of the work ( author's position). The author is sometimes understood as the ideal of the poet, as the designation of an integral individual world. Author's in this meaning is synonymous with original (a certain stylistic manner). Fifthly, the image of the author is the image of himself in the work in the most general form.

The problem of the author's image. The term itself was coined V.V. Vinogradov. Analyzing the work, the researcher inevitably comes to the image of the author. Accordingly, the poetics of a particular writer is the image of this writer. Vinogradov understood the image of the author as a multi-valued stylistic characteristic of an individual work and of all fiction. The image of the author was conceived by Vinogradov in terms of stylistic individuality. The image of the author is a concentrated embodiment of the essence of the work. For example, the novel “War and Peace” was written in an impersonal narrative, but we perfectly feel the image of the author.

MM. Bakhtin was against this category, because he distinguished between the creative nature (the author) and the created nature (the work). The image of the author, in his understanding, is allowed as a game, a special technique.

The image of the author is a concept and a technique. This is the narrative authority that is located between the author-creator and the artistic world. The image of the author in school practice is I. It is included in the system of characters (“Eugene Onegin”).

Spheres of manifestation of the author's consciousness. The sphere of the unintentional consists of 3 layers: the collective unconscious (C. Jung), the individual unconscious (painful complexes that are repressed from consciousness, the influence of which cannot be exaggerated and limited in analysis! Freud), writer's psychoideology (writer's ideas, his system of ethical and aesthetic values, beliefs). What is intentional is the author’s concept, the direct work on the text.

The concept of the death of the author in postmodernism is outlined in Roland Barthes’s article “The Death of the Author.” He believes that in modern literature the author as such does not exist and in general the author as the creator of the work is absent. The author is the father of the text, but the work is independent of its father. There is no father's power over the work. The father is dead, the text is alive. Instead of the author, there is the figure of a scriptwriter, who in turn makes up a cocktail of quotes and words, and the author's pathos (the highest semantic substance) is understood as imaginary, ideological violence. Only the reader owns the text. This concept is not new, it is close to the ideas of A.A. Potebni. Potebnya's psychological school was the first in literary criticism to actualize the role of the reader. “You can judge a writer according to the laws he has developed for himself” - Pushkin A.S. The author cannot be removed from the text. Reader perception is secondary.
12. Subjective organization of an epic work.

The author of the term and concept is B.A. TO O rman. Subjective organization is the correlation between the work of subjects of speech and subjects of consciousness. The subjects of speech are those who speak. And the subjects of consciousness are those whose consciousnesses are expressed. They may or may not coincide. The non-coincidence of the subjects of speech and the subjects of consciousness is not proper – direct speech. For example, “Lady with a dog” “these words are so ordinary, for some reason they outraged Gurov. What wild customs, what faces! What stupid nights etc. Depending on the type and type of the subject of speech there are: a) the degree of breadth, b) the depth of comprehension of the world, c) the nature of its aesthetic assessment

Types of storytelling: Personal (there is a personified narrator), Impersonal (narrator outside the artistic world)

Personal P. 2 types: *P. on behalf of the lyrical hero (form of the story) *P. on behalf of the hero-storyteller

*P. on behalf of the lyrical hero created. atmospheres trust, sincerity, allows max. immersed in the world of personality through the self-revelation of the hero. /but his knowledge of the world is not objective.

*P.on behalf of Mr. narrator preserved. atmospheres trust, enhancing the objectification of the transmission of events.

Personal P. creates the illusion of identification of the hero with the author. L.P. outwardly it looks like a monologue, but this is a hidden dialogue A-C

Impersonal P. is a way to achieve maxims. objectivity of the image. Novel P. is impressed, as if life is telling itself. no direct word from the narrator.

Main types: narration in first person (I) and third person (HE). Depending on which type is chosen by the narrator, there are the following points: the breadth and scale of exploration of the world and reality. The depth of mastering this reality. the nature of his aesthetic assessment, time and space. With 1st person: Maria Alekseevna probably thought that... There is no way to move and can be done hypothetically. Limited by its life experience. First person – intimate, emotional narration.

First person narration– personal, subjectivized, etc. first-person narration is divided into: 1. autobiographical narration (on behalf of lyrical hero, narration in the form of confession). For example, childhood, adolescence and youth. These works are interesting because I, the narrator, is not equal to the biographical author. It's easier when they have different names. 2) the hero is the narrator. In this case, an atmosphere of intimacy is maintained. But here the hero-narrator speaks not about himself, but about other heroes. Here the objectivity of the narrative is enhanced. The process of the characters’ mental life is a mystery for the hero – the narrator. (Maxim Maksimich and Pechorin). Solzhenitsyn's story Matrenin Dvor" (autobiographical narrative). The second case is difficult, but advantageous - a double portrait is created. The subjective sphere of the work is expanded by epigraphs. Often they contain the author's position in order to understand the meaning of the work. Sometimes the second type of narrative includes works written from the point of view of animals. (“Dreams of Chang”, “Faithful Ruslan”). The culture of impersonal storytelling was formed in European culture So slow. Classic works written in first person. The intermediate stage was the epistolary novel - a few first persons. This is due to the fact that prose, as a form of rhythmic organization of literary speech, tried to find its place and pushed poetry aside. Until the 19th century. At the same time, the development of the novel genre took place. Before the epistolary form, there was something impersonal - you need to move away from the author's emotionality and subjectivity. Ultimate objectivity - achieved when judgments, etc. are avoided. (Maupassant and Flaubert “Madame Bovary”, Dostoevsky and Chekhov). The life and idea of ​​a person becomes more complex, and therefore impersonality becomes more complex. The author does not have the right to give a clear assessment (complex subject organization). The form is meaningful. Hence a lot of research. Complex modernist works. There are no two identical works from the point of view of subject organization. Maybe the narrative is YOU. In the form of an appeal. Bunin “Numbers”, “Unknown Friend” in the form of letters. Yuri Kazakov “Candle”, “In a dream you cried bitterly.” The story “Twin” by Anatoly Kim. Nabokov “Grab” (we are an additional characteristic of his vulgarity). Analysis of the subject organization is the key to understanding the work. In some it is irreplaceable.

Narratology (storyteller, storyteller) is a field of Western literary criticism that addresses the subject organization. The narrator is for the story (impersonal narration), the narrator is the primary narration. The story may be included in the narrative. Author, intermediate – the image of the author (for example, Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin”, “Dead Souls” by Gogol) – narrator – storyteller. The expansion and deepening of the subjective sphere in the 20th century occurs with the complication of the subjective and spatial-temporal organization. The same is in lyrics.

The text of a literary work is generated by the creative will of the writer: it is created and completed by it. At the same time, individual links of speech tissue can be in a very complex, even conflicting relationship with the consciousness of the author. First of all: the text is not always maintained in one, the author’s own speech manner. In literary works (especially widely - in artistic prose eras close to us; often in the poetry of 12 A. Blok) heteroglossia is imprinted, i.e. various manners (ways, forms) of thinking and speaking are recreated. At the same time, the non-author’s word, which literary scholars (following M.M. Bakhtin) call someone else’s word, turns out to be artistically significant (along with the direct author’s word). Khalizev Non-author's word. Literature in literature. Bakhtin distinguishes between three types of words: 1) “a direct word directly aimed at its object, as an expression of the speaker’s final semantic authority”; 2) external to the speaker’s consciousness “object word (word of the person depicted)”; 3) a “two-voice word” belonging simultaneously to two subjects and perceived and experienced differently by them.