Over the millennia of cultural development, humanity has created countless literary works, among which we can distinguish some basic types that are similar in the way and form of reflecting human ideas about the world around us. These are three types (or types) of literature: epic, drama, lyric.

What is different about each type of literature?

Epic as a type of literature

Epic(epos - Greek, narrative, story) is a depiction of events, phenomena, processes external to the author. Epic works reflect the objective course of life, human existence generally. Using various artistic media, the authors of epic works express their understanding of the historical, socio-political, moral, psychological and many other problems that live human society in general and each of its representatives in particular. Epic works have significant visual possibilities, thereby they help the reader to understand the world around him, to comprehend the deep problems of human existence.

Drama as a genre of literature

Drama(drama - Greek, action, performance) is a type of literature, the main feature of which is the stage nature of the works. Plays, i.e. dramatic works are created specifically for the theater, for production on stage, which, of course, does not exclude their existence in the form of independent literary texts intended for reading. Like the epic, drama reproduces the relationships between people, their actions, and the conflicts that arise between them. But unlike epic, which is narrative in nature, drama has a dialogical form.

Related to this features of dramatic works :

2) the text of the play consists of conversations between the characters: their monologues (the speech of one character), dialogues (a conversation between two characters), polylogues (simultaneous exchange of remarks by several participants in the action). That is why speech characteristic turns out to be one of the most important means of creating a memorable character for a hero;

3) the action of the play, as a rule, develops quite dynamically, intensively, as a rule, it is allocated 2-3 hours of stage time.

Lyrics as a type of literature

Lyrics(lyra - Greek, musical instrument, to the accompaniment of which poetic works and songs were performed) is different special type the construction of an artistic image is an image-experience in which the individual emotional and spiritual experience of the author is embodied. Lyrics can be called the most mysterious type of literature, because it is addressed to the inner world of a person, his subjective feelings, ideas, and ideas. In other words, a lyrical work serves primarily the individual self-expression of the author. The question arises: why do readers, i.e. other people turn to such works? The whole point is that the lyricist, speaking on his own behalf and about himself, miraculously embodies universal human emotions, ideas, hopes, and the more significant the author’s personality, the more important his individual experience is for the reader.

Each type of literature also has its own system of genres.

Genre(genre - French genus, type) is a historically established type of literary work that has similar typological features. Genre names help the reader navigate the vast sea of ​​literature: some people love detective stories, others prefer fantasy, and still others are a fan of memoirs.

How to determine What genre does a particular work belong to? Most often, the authors themselves help us in this, calling their creation a novel, story, poem, etc. However, some author’s definitions seem unexpected to us: let us remember that A.P. Chekhov emphasized that “ The Cherry Orchard"is a comedy, not a drama at all, but A.I. Solzhenitsyn considered One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to be a story, not a novella. Some literary scholars call Russian literature a collection of genre paradoxes: the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”, the prose poem “Dead Souls”, the satirical chronicle “The History of a City”. There was a lot of controversy regarding “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy. The writer himself said only about what his book is not: “What is War and Peace? This is not a novel, still less a poem, still less a historical chronicle. “War and Peace” is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it was expressed.” And only in the 20th century did literary scholars agree to call brilliant creation L.N. Tolstoy's epic novel.

Each literary genre has a number of stable characteristics, knowledge of which allows us to classify a specific work into one group or another. Genres develop, change, die out and are born, for example, literally before our eyes, a new genre of blog (web loq) - a personal online diary - has emerged.

However, for several centuries there have been stable (also called canonical) genres.

Literature of literary works - see table 1).

Table 1.

Genres of literary works

Epic genres of literature

Epic genres are primarily distinguished by their volume; on this basis they are divided into small ones ( essay, story, short story, fairy tale, parable ), average ( story ), large ( novel, epic novel ).

Feature article- a small sketch from life, the genre is both descriptive and narrative. Many essays are created on documentary, life basis, they are often combined into cycles: a classic example is “A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy” (1768) English writer Laurence Stern, in Russian literature - this is “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (1790) by A. Radishchev, “Frigate Pallada” (1858) by I. Goncharov” “Italy” (1922) by B. Zaitsev and others.

Story- a small narrative genre, which usually depicts one episode, incident, human character or an important incident in the life of the hero that influenced him future fate(“After the Ball” by L. Tolstoy). Stories are created both on a documentary, often autobiographical basis (“Matryonin’s Dvor” by A. Solzhenitsyn) and through pure fiction (“The Gentleman from San Francisco” by I. Bunin).

The intonation and content of the stories can be very different - from comic, curious (the early stories of A.P. Chekhov) to deeply tragic (" Kolyma stories"V. Shalamov). Stories, like essays, are often combined into cycles (“Notes of a Hunter” by I. Turgenev).

Novella(novella Italian news) is in many ways akin to a short story and is considered its variety, but is distinguished by the special dynamism of the narrative, sharp and often unexpected turns in the development of events. Often the narrative in a short story begins with the ending and is built according to the law of inversion, i.e. reverse order, when the denouement precedes the main events (“Terrible Revenge” by N. Gogol). This feature of the construction of the novella will later be borrowed by the detective genre.

The word “novella” has another meaning that future lawyers need to know. In Ancient Rome, the phrase “novellae leges” (new laws) referred to laws introduced after the official codification of law (after the Code of Theodosius II in 438). The novellas of Justinian and his successors, published after the second edition of the Justinian Code, later formed part of the code of Roman laws (Corpus iuris civillis). In the modern era, a novel is a law submitted to parliament (in other words, a draft law).

Fairy tale- the most ancient of the small epic genres, one of the main ones in the oral creativity of any people. This is a small work of a magical, adventurous or everyday nature, where fiction is clearly emphasized. Another important feature folk tale- its edifying character: “A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it, good fellows lesson". Folk tales are usually divided into fairy tales (“The Tale of the Frog Princess”), everyday ones (“Porridge from an Ax”) and tales about animals (“Zayushkina’s Hut”).

With the development of written literature, literary fairy tales arise that use traditional motifs and symbolic possibilities of folk tales. The Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) is rightfully considered a classic of the genre of literary fairy tales; his wonderful “The Little Mermaid”, “The Princess and the Pea”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, “The Shadow”, “Thumbelina” are loved by many generations of readers, both very young and quite mature. And this is far from accidental, because Andersen’s fairy tales are not only extraordinary and sometimes strange adventures of heroes, they contain deep philosophical and moral meaning, enclosed in beautiful symbolic images.

From European literary fairy tales XX century became a classic " A little prince"(1942) by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. And the famous “Chronicles of Narnia” (1950 - 1956) by the English writer Cl. Lewis and “The Lord of the Rings” (1954-1955), also by the Englishman J.R. Tolkien, are written in the fantasy genre, which can be called a modern transformation of an ancient folk tale.

In Russian literature, the fairy tales of A.S., of course, remain unsurpassed. Pushkin: “About the dead princess and seven heroes”, “About the fisherman and the fish”, “About Tsar Saltan...”, “About the golden cockerel”, “About the priest and his worker Balda”. An excellent storyteller was P. Ershov, the author of “The Little Humpbacked Horse.” E. Schwartz in the 20th century creates the form of fairy tale plays, one of them “The Bear” (another name is “An Ordinary Miracle”) is well known to many thanks to the wonderful film directed by M. Zakharov.

Parable- also a very ancient folklore genre, but, unlike fairy tales, parables contained written monuments: the Talmud, the Bible, the Koran, the monument of Syrian literature “The Teachings of Akahara”. A parable is a work of instructive, symbolic nature, distinguished by sublimity and seriousness of content. Ancient parables, as a rule, are small in volume, they do not contain detailed story about events or psychological characteristics character of the hero.

The purpose of the parable is edification or, as they once said, teaching wisdom. In European culture, the most famous parables from the Gospels are: prodigal son, about the rich man and Lazarus, about the unjust judge, about the crazy rich man and others. Christ often spoke to his disciples allegorically, and if they did not understand the meaning of the parable, he explained it.

Many writers have turned to the parable genre, not always, of course, investing high religious meaning, rather trying to express in an allegorical form some kind of moralistic edification, as, for example, L. Tolstoy in his late creativity. Carry it. V. Rasputin - Farewell to Matera" can also be called a detailed parable, in which the writer speaks with anxiety and sorrow about the destruction of the "ecology of conscience" of man. Many critics also consider the story “The Old Man and the Sea” by E. Hemingway to be part of the tradition of literary parables. The famous contemporary Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho also uses the parable form in his novels and stories (the novel “The Alchemist”).

Tale- a medium literary genre, widely represented in world literature. The story depicts several important episodes from the hero's life, usually one storyline and a small number of characters. The stories are characterized by great psychological intensity; the author focuses on the experiences and changes in mood of the characters. Very often the main theme of the story is the love of the protagonist, for example, “White Nights” by F. Dostoevsky, “Asya” by I. Turgenev, “Mitya’s Love” by I. Bunin. Stories can also be combined into cycles, especially those written on autobiographical material: “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth” by L. Tolstoy, “Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities” by A. Gorky. The intonations and themes of the stories are extremely diverse: tragic, addressing acute social and moral issues (“Everything Flows” by V. Grossman, “House on the Embankment” by Yu. Trifonov), romantic, heroic (“Taras Bulba” by N. Gogol), philosophical , parables (“The Pit” by A. Platonov), mischievous, comic (“Three in a Boat, Not Counting the Dog” by the English writer Jerome K. Jerome).

Novel(Gotap French originally, in later Middle Ages, any work written in a Romance language, as opposed to those written in Latin) - a major epic work in which the narrative focuses on fate individual person. The novel is the most complex epic genre, which is distinguished by an incredible number of themes and plots: love, historical, detective, psychological, fantasy, historical, autobiographical, social, philosophical, satirical, etc. All these forms and types of the novel are united by its central idea - the idea of ​​personality, human individuality.

The novel is called an epic privacy, because it depicts the diverse connections between the world and man, society and the individual. Surrounding a person reality is presented in the novel in different contexts: historical, political, social, cultural, national, etc. The author of the novel is interested in how the environment influences a person’s character, how he is formed, how his life develops, whether he managed to find his purpose and realize himself.

Many people attribute the origin of the genre to antiquity, such as Long's Daphnis and Chloe, Apuleius's The Golden Ass, and the knightly romance Tristan and Isolde.

In the works of classics of world literature, the novel is represented by numerous masterpieces:

Table 2. Examples of classic novels by foreign and Russian writers (XIX, XX centuries)

Famous novels of Russian writers of the 19th century .:

In the 20th century, Russian writers develop and enhance the traditions of their great predecessors and create no less wonderful novels:

Of course, none of such listings can claim completeness and exhaustive objectivity, especially when it comes to modern prose. In this case, the most named famous works, which glorified both the country’s literature and the name of the writer.

Epic novel. In ancient times, there were forms of heroic epic: folklore sagas, runes, epics, songs. These are the Indian “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”, the Anglo-Saxon “Beowulf”, the French “Song of Roland”, the German “Song of the Nibelungs”, etc. In these works, the hero’s exploits were exalted in an idealized, often hyperbolic form. Later epic poems“The Iliad” and “Odyssey” by Homer, “Shah-name” by Ferdowsi, while maintaining the mythological character of the early epic, nevertheless had a clear connection with real history, and the theme of the intertwining of human destiny and the life of the people becomes one of the main ones in them. The experience of the ancients will be in demand in the 19th-20th centuries, when writers will try to comprehend the dramatic relationship between the era and the individual personality, and talk about the tests to which morality, and sometimes the human psyche, is subjected at the time of the greatest historical upheavals. Let us remember the lines of F. Tyutchev: “Blessed is he who visited this world in its fatal moments.” The poet's romantic formula in reality meant the destruction of all familiar forms of life, tragic losses and unfulfilled dreams.

The complex form of the epic novel allows writers to artistically explore these problems in all their completeness and inconsistency.

When we talk about the genre of the epic novel, of course, we immediately remember “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy. Other examples can be mentioned: “Quiet Don” by M. Sholokhov, “Life and Fate” by V. Grossman, “The Forsyte Saga” by the English writer Galsworthy; the book of the American writer Margaret Mitchell “Gone with the Wind” can also with good reason be classified as this genre.

The very name of the genre indicates a synthesis, a combination of two main principles in it: novel and epic, i.e. related to the theme of the life of an individual and the theme of the history of the people. In other words, the epic novel tells about the destinies of the heroes (as a rule, the heroes themselves and their destinies are fictitious, invented by the author) against the backdrop of and in close connection with epoch-making historical events. So, in “War and Peace” - these are the fates of individual families (Rostov, Bolkonsky), beloved heroes (Prince Andrei, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha and Princess Marya) at a turning point for Russia and all of Europe historical period the beginning of the 19th century, the Patriotic War of 1812. In Sholokhov's book, the events of the First World War, two revolutions and a bloody civil war tragically invade the life of the Cossack farm, the Melekhov family, and the fate of the main characters: Grigory, Aksinya, Natalya. V. Grossman talks about the Great Patriotic War and its main event - the Battle of Stalingrad, about the tragedy of the Holocaust. “Life and Fate” also intertwines historical and family themes: the author traces the history of the Shaposhnikovs, trying to understand why the destinies of the members of this family turned out so differently. Galsworthy describes the life of the Forsyte family during the legendary Victorian era in England. Margaret Mitchell - a central event in US history, Civil War between North and South, which dramatically changed the lives of many families and the fate of the most famous heroine of American literature - Scarlett O'Hara.

Dramatic genres of literature

Tragedy(tragodia Greek goat song) is a dramatic genre that originated in Ancient Greece. Emergence ancient theater and tragedies are associated with the worship of the cult of the god of fertility and wine Dionysus. A number of holidays were dedicated to him, during which rituals were played out. magic games with mummers, satyrs, whom the ancient Greeks imagined as bipedal goat-like creatures. It is assumed that it was precisely this appearance of the satyrs singing hymns to the glory of Dionysus that gave such a strange name in translation to this serious genre. Theatrical performance in Ancient Greece was given magical religious significance, and theaters built in the form of large arenas under open air, have always been located in the very center of cities and were one of the main public places. Spectators sometimes spent the whole day here: eating, drinking, loudly expressing their approval or censure of the spectacle being presented. The heyday of ancient Greek tragedy is associated with the names of three great tragedians: Aeschylus (525-456 BC) - author of the tragedies “Chained Prometheus”, “Oresteia”, etc.; Sophocles (496-406 BC) - author of “Oedipus the King”, “Antigone”, etc.; and Euripides (480-406 BC) - the creator of “Medea”, “Troyanok”, etc. Their creations will remain examples of the genre for centuries; people will try to imitate them, but they will remain unsurpassed. Some of them (“Antigone”, “Medea”) are still staged today.

What are the main features of the tragedy? The main one is the presence of an insoluble global conflict: in ancient tragedy this is the confrontation between rock, fate, on the one hand, and man, his will, free choice- with another. In the tragedies of later eras, this conflict acquired a moral and philosophical character, as a confrontation between good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, love and hatred. It has an absolute character; the heroes who embody the opposing forces are not ready for reconciliation or compromise, and therefore the ending of the tragedy often involves a lot of death. This is how the tragedies of the great English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) were constructed; let us remember the most famous of them: “Hamlet”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Othello”, “King Lear”, “Macbeth”, “Julius Caesar”, etc.

In the tragedies of the 17th century French playwrights Corneille (Horace, Polyeuctus) and Racine (Andromache, Britannicus), this conflict received a different interpretation - as a conflict of duty and feelings, rational and emotional in the souls of the main characters, i.e. . acquired a psychological interpretation.

The most famous in Russian literature is the romantic tragedy “Boris Godunov” by A.S. Pushkin, created on historical material. In one of his best works, the poet acutely raised the problem of the “real trouble” of the Moscow state - a chain reaction of impostures and “terrible atrocities” that people are ready for for the sake of power. Another problem is the attitude of the people to everything that happens in the country. The image of the “silent” people in the finale of “Boris Godunov” is symbolic; discussions continue to this day about what Pushkin wanted to say by this. Based on the tragedy, the opera of the same name by M. P. Mussorgsky was written, which became a masterpiece of Russian opera classics.

Comedy(Greek komos - cheerful crowd, oda - song) - a genre that originated in Ancient Greece a little later than tragedy (5th century BC). The most famous comedian of that time was Aristophanes (“Clouds”, “Frogs”, etc.).

In comedy with the help of satire and humor, i.e. comic, moral vices are ridiculed: hypocrisy, stupidity, greed, envy, cowardice, complacency. Comedies, as a rule, are topical, i.e. They also address social issues, exposing the shortcomings of the authorities. There are sitcoms and character comedies. In the first, a cunning intrigue, a chain of events (Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors) are important; in the second, the characters of the heroes, their absurdity, one-sidedness, as in the comedies “The Minor” by D. Fonvizin, “The Tradesman in the Nobility”, “Tartuffe”, written by the classic genre, French comedian of the 17th century Jean Baptiste Moliere. In Russian drama, satirical comedy with its sharp social criticism turned out to be especially in demand, such as “The Inspector General” by N. Gogol, “The Crimson Island” by M. Bulgakov. A. Ostrovsky created many wonderful comedies (“Wolves and Sheep”, “Forest”, “Mad Money”, etc.).

The comedy genre invariably enjoys success with the public, perhaps because it affirms the triumph of justice: in the finale, vice must certainly be punished, and virtue must triumph.

Drama- a relatively “young” genre that appeared in Germany in the 18th century as lesedrama (German) - a play for reading. The drama is addressed to the everyday life of a person and society, everyday life, and family relationships. I'm interested in drama first and foremost. inner world human, this is the most psychological of all dramatic genres. At the same time, this is also the most literary of stage genres, for example, the plays of A. Chekhov are largely perceived more as texts for reading, rather than as theatrical performances.

Lyrical genres of literature

The division into genres in lyrics is not absolute, because the differences between genres in this case are conditional and not as obvious as in epic and drama. More often we distinguish lyrical works by their thematic features: landscape, love, philosophical, friendly, intimate lyrics, etc. However, we can name some genres that have pronounced individual characteristics: elegy, sonnet, epigram, epistle, epitaph.

Elegy(elegos Greek lamentable song) - poem middle length, as a rule, of moral, philosophical, love, confessional content.

The genre arose in antiquity, and its main feature was considered to be the elegiac distich, i.e. dividing a poem into couplets, for example:

The longed-for moment has arrived: my long-term work is over. Why is this incomprehensible sadness secretly disturbing me?

A. Pushkin

In the poetry of the 19th-20th centuries, the division into couplets is no longer such a strict requirement; now the semantic features that are associated with the origin of the genre are more significant. In terms of content, the elegy goes back to the form of the Ancient funeral “laments”, in which, while mourning the deceased, they simultaneously remembered his extraordinary virtues. This origin predetermined the main feature of the elegy - the combination of grief with faith, regret with hope, acceptance of existence through sadness. The lyrical hero of the elegy is aware of the imperfection of the world and people, his own sinfulness and weakness, but does not reject life, but accepts it in all its tragic beauty. A striking example is “Elegy” by A.S. Pushkin:

Crazy years of faded fun

It's hard for me, like a vague hangover.

But like wine - the sadness of days gone by

In my soul, the older I get, the stronger it is.

My path is sad. Promises me work and grief

The coming troubled sea.

But I don’t want, O friends, to die;

I want to live so that I can think and suffer;

And I know I will have pleasure

Between sorrows, worries and worries:

Sometimes I’ll get drunk again with harmony,

I will shed tears over the fiction,

And maybe - at my sad sunset

Love will flash with a farewell smile.

Sonnet(sonetto Italian song) - the so-called “solid” poetic form, which has strict rules of construction. The sonnet has 14 lines, divided into two quatrains and two tercets. In quatrains only two rhymes are repeated, in terzettos two or three. The methods of rhyming also had their own requirements, which, however, varied.

The birthplace of the sonnet is Italy; this genre is also represented in English and French poetry. The 14th century Italian poet Petrarch is considered the luminary of the genre. He dedicated all his sonnets to his beloved Donna Laura.

In Russian literature, the sonnets of A.S. Pushkin remain unsurpassed; poets of the Silver Age also created beautiful sonnets.

Epigram(epigramma Greek, inscription) - a short mocking poem, usually addressed to a specific person. Many poets write epigrams, sometimes increasing the number of their ill-wishers and even enemies. The epigram on Count Vorontsov turned out to be bad for A.S. Pushkin by the hatred of this nobleman and, ultimately, expulsion from Odessa to Mikhailovskoye:

Popu, my lord, half-merchant,

Half-sage, half-ignorant,

Semi-scoundrel, but there is hope

Which will be complete at last.

Mocking poems can be dedicated not only to a specific person, but also to a general addressee, as, for example, in the epigram of A. Akhmatova:

Could Biche, like Dante, create?

Did Laura go to praise the heat of love?

I taught women to speak...

But, God, how to silence them!

There are even known cases of a kind of duel of epigrams. When the famous Russian lawyer A.F. Kony was appointed to the Senate, his ill-wishers spread an evil epigram about him:

Caligula brought his horse to the Senate,

It stands, dressed in both velvet and gold.

But I will say, we have the same arbitrariness:

I read in the newspapers that Kony is in the Senate.

To which A.F. Kony, who was distinguished by his extraordinary literary talent, replied:

(epitafia Greek, funerary) - a farewell poem to a deceased person, intended for a tombstone. Initially this word was used in a literal sense, but later it became more figurative meaning. For example, I. Bunin has lyrical miniature in prose “Epitaph”, dedicated to farewell to the Russian estate that was dear to the writer, but forever a thing of the past. Gradually, the epitaph is transformed into a dedication poem, a farewell poem (“Wreath to the Dead” by A. Akhmatova). Perhaps the most famous poem of this kind in Russian poetry is “The Death of a Poet” by M. Lermontov. Another example is “Epitaph” by M. Lermontov, dedicated to the memory of Dmitry Venevitinov, a poet and philosopher who died at the age of twenty-two.

The story is an epic genre small volume. Let’s define its features and, using the example of A.P. Chekhov’s story “Chameleon,” consider them.

Features of the story

• Small volume
• Limited number of actors
• One storyline is often the fate of the main character.
• The story tells about several, but more often one, important episode from a person's life.

• Secondary and episodic characters in one way or another reveal the character of the main character, the problem associated with this main character.
• In terms of the number of pages, the story may be voluminous, but the main thing is that all the action is subordinated to one problem, connected with one hero, one storyline.
• Details play a big role in the story. Sometimes one detail is enough to understand the character of a hero.
• The story is told from one person. This could be the narrator, the hero, or the author himself.
• The stories have an apt, memorable title, which already contains part of the answer to the question raised. .
• The stories were written by authors in a certain era, so, of course, they reflect the characteristics of the literature of a particular time. It is known that until the 19th century, stories were close to short stories; in the 19th century, subtext appeared in stories, which could not have happened in an earlier era.

Example.

Illustrations by Gerasimov S.V. to the story by Chekhov A.P.
"Chameleon". 1945

Story by A.P. Chekhov's "Chameleon"

• Small in volume. Chekhov is generally a master of the short story.

• The main character is the police warden Ochumelov. All the other characters help to understand the character of the main character, including the artisan Khryukin.
• The plot is built around one episode - the dog biting the finger of the goldsmith Khryukin.
• The main problem is ridicule of veneration of rank, sycophancy, servility, evaluation of a person by the place in society that he occupies, the lawlessness of people in power. Everything in the story is subordinated to the disclosure of this problem - all the changes in Ochumelov’s behavior in relation to this dog - from the desire to restore order so that there are no stray dogs, to his affection for the dog, which, as it turned out, belonged to the general’s brother.
• Details play an important role in the story. In this case, it is Ochumelov’s overcoat, which he either takes off or puts back on his shoulders (at this time his attitude to the current situation changes).
• The narration is told on behalf of the author. In a small work, Chekhov was able to express his indignation, satirical, even sarcastic attitude towards the order in Russia, in which a person is valued not by his character, deeds and actions, but by the rank he holds.
• The title of the story, “Chameleon,” very accurately reflects the behavior of the main character, who changes his “color,” that is, his attitude to what is happening, in connection with who owns the dog. Chameleonism as a social phenomenon is ridiculed by the author in the story.
• The story was written in 1884, during the heyday of critical realism in Russian literature of the 19th century. Therefore, the work has all the features of this method: ridiculing the vices of society, a critical reflection of reality.

Thus, using the example of Chekhov’s story “Chameleon”, we examined the features of this genre literature.

Story

Story

STORY. - The term "R." in its genre meaning is usually applied to any short narrative prose. a literary work with a realistic overtones, containing a detailed and complete narrative about any individual event, incident, everyday episode, etc. So. arr. this term (as well as any other genre term) actually denotes not just one genre of any particular style, but whole group close, similar, but not identical genres that occur in literature of various styles. Moreover, naturally on the periphery of this group we find whole line transitional, related forms, which do not make it possible to sharply distinguish the corresponding material from the material of other related genres. This, however, cannot prevent us from distinguishing R. from other literary types by establishing its typical features and the pattern of its composition in its classical form under certain historical conditions and in certain styles, on the one hand, and the pattern of its use and the occurrence of modification of R. forms in others. styles - on the other.
In Western European literature, the corresponding genre group is designated by the term “short story” (see), which is essentially synonymous with the term “R.”. True, in our country the presence of these synonymous terms caused (especially among formalists) a desire to differentiate them. Thus, a short story was often defined as a type of fiction, characterized by a particularly sharp beginning and ending and tension in the development of the plot. However, this kind of terminological distinction is no more than conditional, since in its historical origin and further development, Russian R. is quite similar to the Western European short story. Like the short story there, so here R. stood out from all narrative literature in general at similar historical moments, determined primarily by the nature of the content aimed at reality. This took place in our country in the 17th-18th centuries. due to the growth of trends opposing the old feudal order. During this period, R. developed most intensively in the styles of the “third estate.” The aggravation of social contradictions and the cultural and ideological growth of the classes creating literature determine at this stage the formation of the genre of literature. In contrast to the general nature of the writing system that prevailed in previous centuries (church, religious), merchant or petty-bourgeois literature of the 17th-18th centuries. brought real, everyday, everyday content to literature, enclosed in clear compositional forms, distinguished by structural completeness, intense dynamism of the plot, and simplicity of language. In contrast to the genre amorphousness of the medieval story, the plot structure basically follows the natural course of events and is limited by the natural boundaries of the latter (biography of the hero, history of a military campaign, etc.). R. is a form that shows the author’s ability to isolate from the general the flow of reality, the most significant moments, situations, the most conflicting, in which social contradictions appear with the greatest prominence and sharpness, converging in one event that serves as the plot of R. However, the connection of the story of the 17th-18th centuries. in the styles of the “third estate” with more traditional genres was expressed in the persistent preservation of old terms - “story”, “fairy tale” - as applied to early R. (“Tales” about Karp Sutulov, about Shemyakin court etc., Chulkov’s “fairy tale” “Annoying Awakening”, etc.). As a specific literary term "R." begins to come into use at the beginning of the 19th century, but even in Pushkin and Gogol the term “story” combines works, some of which we would definitely classify as R. or short story (“Shot”, “Undertaker”, “Carriage”, etc. . P.).
So. arr. R. was formed as a genre put forward by the growth in the literature of bourgeois movements and bourgeois styles. Further, R. gains its place in a variety of styles, in each of them being modified both in ideological significance and formally. An in-depth psychological story by Chekhov, a “simplified”, “folk” story by L. Tolstoy, a mystical-symbolist story by F. Sologub, a socially acute realistic story by M. Gorky - all of these are different in content and in artistic means of R.
Genre forms of R., which in the styles of the “third estate” met the needs of a progressive-realistic reflection of reality, were later also used for opposite purposes - for the purpose of mystical refraction real life writers of the reactionary classes. F. Sologub, for example, turning to the reflection of the everyday reality surrounding him, along with the large epic form - the novel - also gives R., in which there are a number of characteristic features of this narrative type: small size, limitation of the plot to one event occurring in the setting ordinary reality, prosaic form, etc. However, due to the fact that this author refracts reality mystically, unrealistically, his stories closely border on other genre groups of small epic form - religious legend, fairy tale - absorbing the signs of these latter (for example . introducing elements of the miraculous into the depiction of characters, into the development of the plot), which, however, does not give grounds to identify all these different narrative types.
From here - deepest difference R. in different styles in the presence of some structural homogeneity of R. as a certain type of small epic form (limited number of characters shown around one central event, lack of a detailed life story of the characters, limited size, etc.).
So. arr. content of the term "R." even in its most widespread use - not only in application to its typical, so to speak classical form, but also in its further transformations - it retains certain of the above-mentioned characteristics. They ch. arr. determined by social conditions that promote realism as an artistic method. These few signs, however, are sufficient to understand the relationship of R. with other related genre forms. Story eg. in contrast, R. does not present just one case, but unfolds a whole series of events that make up a single line of fate of a particular character or the development of a more or less long process. In accordance with this, if in R. we have an intensive construction of the plot, in which the threads of the life fate of the characters are pulled together into one node of a given event (the so-called “totality” of the novelistic plot), then in the story we see its extensive development, with which the narrative tension is evenly distributed over a number of moments (events). Thus, the story represents a form that is wider in scope and usually (but not always) in size than R. Cf. as examples R. “Mutel” by Pushkin and the story “Notes of a Marker” by L. Tolstoy, Chekhov’s story “Steppe”, “Men”, etc. with his own stories, etc. On the other hand, in the same plane we delimit R., presenting at least one case, but in a number of situations, indicating the circumstances of the case, describing the situation, etc., from the anecdote as the smallest (rudimentary) narrative form, giving only one acute, comic situation, the essence of the cut is concluded often in one apt phrase. It is clear that between R. and a story, R. and an anecdote, it is easy to find intermediate forms. Thus, in translated facets we find examples of short anecdotal stories. Attaching a moralistic generalizing conclusion to such a short anecdote-story turns it into a fable, which thereby acquires a more or less allegorical character, which is what we see in a number of the same facets. On a different plane lies the criterion for distinguishing fiction from fairy tales and legends and fiction from an essay: in terms of volume, in terms of the plot dynamics of fiction, fairy tales and legends appear to be similar forms. But the first differs from the last two in its realism (in typical forms) or at least in the focus of the theme on real reality (albeit fantastically refracted). However, in this respect, R. is opposed only to a literary fairy tale, but not to a folklore one, since according to the accepted traditional terminology, the latter embraces works not only of a mythical and fantastic nature, but also of a realistic, everyday and historical nature. The term "R." applies only to literary works, although among oral tales it is easy to find typical examples of a realistic short story. As has already been said more than once, for all the indicated relations one can find transitional forms. Even such a seemingly constant feature of a story as prose form is relative - we know examples of R. in verse (Nekrasov - “Philanthropist”, Maykov - “Mashenka”, etc.). However, in all such cases, in the absence of any characteristic characteristic of R., others obviously remain, otherwise the term “R.” itself would not be applicable to this work. With all this, it is necessary to emphasize that the indicated signs of R. by no means represent something fixed and unchanging; on the contrary, their specific implementation in different styles is extremely diverse and significantly different. Thus, in some styles, the “totality” of R.’s plot is manifested in the extraordinary nature of the event, which unexpectedly determines the fate of the heroes (“The Shot” by Pushkin), in others, on the contrary, in its everyday ordinariness (Chekhov’s stories), in others, in its broad social generality (Gorky's stories). In accordance with this, other aspects of the poetic structure of R. are also modified: the always complete, integral plot of R. in some styles is driven by the force of individual psychological impulses, more or less exceptional ("Shot") or ordinary (Chekhov's stories), in others - by social contradictions (Gorky's stories). The function of the background, setting, action, etc. changes (low specific gravity household background in “The Shot” and big - in Chekhov’s stories, Gorky’s broad social background, etc.). Hence the variety of types of stories: everyday, satirical, adventurous, psychological, fantastic, etc. In general, we find stories in many styles. But each of them gravitates toward a certain type (or series of types) of R., again giving a unique specific form of this type. It is not difficult to understand why e.g. Saltykov-Shchedrin, a representative of the revolutionary peasant democracy, puts forward the genre of satirical R. - fairy tales with “Aesopian” language, the populist liberal Korolenko - everyday R., the writer of the decadent petty bourgeoisie F. Sologub - mystical-fantastic, etc. In our Soviet Literature is dominated by R. with broad social themes. This theme is not always given a truly realistic interpretation: there are frequent examples of superficial everydayism (for example, in Podyachev’s stories), one-sided “biological” psychologism (“The Secret of Secrets” by Vs. Ivanov), etc. And although Soviet literature has already put forward a number of fairly important masters of R. (Babel, Tikhonov, Vs. Ivanov, Zoshchenko, Erdberg, Gabrilovich, etc.), still R. style socialist realism is in the process of its formation. Meanwhile, the specific artistic means of R. - conciseness, laconicism, dynamism, intensity of perception, relative simplicity and accessibility, etc. - determine its special effectiveness. And if the large canvas of the novel reflects the broad lines of the social process of our time in a single compositional scope, then in R. the artist focuses on individual moments, episodes, and aspects of this process, which also contain the essential features of a changing reality. Therefore, the literature of socialist realism, as the richest and most diverse in genre, assigns a proper place to R. in the general system of its genres, critically mastering the enormous short story heritage of the past. Bibliography:
Novella.

Literary encyclopedia. - At 11 t.; M.: Publishing House of the Communist Academy, Soviet encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Fritsche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .

Story

Small form epic kind literature; small in volume prose work. Unlike essay the story has plot And conflict and is less documentary, i.e. contains fiction. Novella differs from a short story in its dynamic construction and, as a rule, an unexpected outcome of the plot. Depending on the content, there are two types of stories: novelistic and essay types. The basis of a short story is a certain incident that reveals the development of the character of the main character. Such stories record either a moment that changed the hero’s worldview, or several events that led to this moment: “Belkin’s Tale” by A.S. Pushkin, “Bride” and “Ionych” by A.P. Chekhov, “tramp” stories by M. Gorky. This type of story comes from literature Renaissance, where many stories of a novelistic type were combined into a larger work: this is how “Don Quixote” by M. Cervantes, “Gilles Blas” by A. R. Lesage, “Till Eulenspiegel” by Sh. de Costera. A story of an essay type captures a certain state of the world or society, its task is to show not a key moment, but the ordinary, normal life of a group of people or one person, choosing for this the most typical moment: “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev, “Antonov apples” by I. A. Bunina, “Cavalry” I.E. Babel. Such stories are often part of a larger work that unfolds a moral narrative, often with satirical pathos; for example, J. Swift, M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrin. A story can combine both trends: the author uses a novelistic form for morally descriptive content; for example, “Mumu” ​​by I. S. Turgenev, “Death of an Official” by A. P. Chekhov, etc.
Among the stories, detective and fantasy stories stand out. Detective stories describe a criminal incident; their plot is based on the search for a criminal. Writers often create cycles of detective stories united by a central character: for example, Sherlock Holmes by A.K. Doyle or Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple by A. Christie. Fantastic stories place the action in a fictional world (the future or another planet), showing the lives of heroes among technical innovations in conditions of almost unlimited possibilities, for example. fantastic stories by R. Bradbury.
In Russian literature, the short story is one of the most common genres of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 20th century the so-called genre arose “female” story (V.S. Tokarev, D. Rubin), which is an episode from the life of the hero, revealing his psychology, and through it, the psychology of everyone modern people. In content it gravitates towards a novel, but in volume and form it remains a story.

Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Edited by prof. Gorkina A.P. 2006 .

Story

STORY. In Russian literature, the designation of a more or less specific narrative genre by the subtitle “story” was adopted relatively late. N. Gogol and Pushkin prefer the name “story”, where we could say “story”, and only from the 50s a more clear distinction begins. The least hesitation and the greatest precision are felt in Tolstoy's subtitles of the 50s, which can be studied as an example of sensitivity to literary terminology. (So, “Blizzard” is called a “story”, “Notes of a Marker” a “story” - both in highest degree exactly).

Of course, the main fluctuations can only be between two genres: the story and the short story, which sometimes overlap in their tasks and are very vague in their own. terminological meaning. In fact, while the Italian short story of the Renaissance is a completely concrete concept, which became historical in its concreteness and formed a solid literary genre (hence the ease and explainability of stylization specifically for the Italian short story) - the same cannot be said at all about the “story”. The variety of compositional techniques, motives, interests, the very manner of presentation (Turgenev, for example, has a story in 9 letters - “Faust”) - is associated with a story of the 19th century. It also includes the works of E. Poe (one of greatest masters story) and the “stories” of early Chekhov that developed from the techniques of the so-called “sketch”. All these considerations force us to begin defining the term “story” not with its theoretically and abstractly established type, but rather with a general manner, which we will designate as special tone of the story, giving it the features of a “story”. This tone, which is quite difficult to define in abstract concepts, is sometimes given immediately in the businesslike nature of the message begun, in the fact that the story is very often told in the first person, in the fact that it is given the features of something that really happened (hence the characteristic device of the story - the creation special illusion of the case, for example, a found manuscript, a meeting, episodes during a trip, etc.). Thus, the tone of the story is immediately captured in Tolstoy’s exemplary construction of “The Master and the Worker”: “It was in the 70s, the day after the winter St. Nicholas. There was a holiday in the parish, and the village janitor, merchant of the second guild Vasily Andreevich Brekhunov, could not be absent.” This factuality and businesslike nature of the message that has been started immediately sets up anticipation. story about some event (“It was”), emphasized by a detailed mention of time (70s). Further, according to the beginning, it is completely retained tone specific story. It is not superfluous to add that elements of the story permeate Tolstoy’s entire work: certain parts of his novels, with appropriate roundness, can be distinguished as separate stories). The beginning of Faust has a completely different tone. The very first letters create a feeling of narrative lyrics, with a very detailed transmission of feelings and various, rather vague, memories. The tone of the story suggests something else - strict factuality, economy (sometimes consciously calculated) visual arts, immediate preparation of the main essence of the story being told.

The story, on the contrary, uses the means of a slow tone - it is all filled with detailed motivation, side accessories, and its essence can be distributed over all points of the narrative itself with almost uniform tension. This is what was done in Marker’s Notes, where the tragic end of the book. Nekhlyudov is not perceived tragically, thanks to uniform tension and uniform distribution. Thus, the special specific tone of the story is created by very specific means. A good storyteller knows that he must focus on a relatively easily observable incident or event, quickly, i.e. immediately, explain all his motives and give appropriate permission (end). Concentration of attention, a center advanced in tension, and the connection of motives by this center are the distinctive features of a story. Its relatively small volume, which they tried to legitimize as one of the characteristics, is entirely explained by these basic properties.

K. Locks. Literary encyclopedia: Dictionary of literary terms: In 2 volumes / Edited by N. Brodsky, A. Lavretsky, E. Lunin, V. Lvov-Rogachevsky, M. Rozanov, V. Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky. - M.; L.: Publishing house L. D. Frenkel, 1925

Epigraph:
“A story is a work which can be read, depending on its length, from ten minutes to an hour, and deals with a single well-defined subject, incident, or chain of incidents, representing something whole” (Summerset Maugham).

The debate surrounding the definition of a short story as a genre category continues. The boundaries between a novel and a story, a story and a story, a story and a short story, so well understood on an intuitive level, are almost impossible to clearly define on a verbal level. In conditions of uncertainty, the volume criterion becomes especially popular, as the only one that has a specific (countable) expression. A story is shorter than a story, a story is shorter than a novel - the idea is as true as it is useless. Writer Mikhail Weller expressed himself more specifically in his article “Technology of the Story”: up to 45 pages - a story, after that - a story. To be sure!

Does anyone need this - to be able to accurately determine the genre form (type) of a work? What difference does it make to the reader what formal features distinguish a story from a story or novella? To the reader - perhaps none! But not a philologist, especially a researcher of a specific genre who studies the genre not only in the statics of its current state, but also in the process of historical development. And, if the story existed before and exists today, and no genre experiments turn the story into a story or short story, if every writer accurately determines the genre of his work (and readers are rarely mistaken), then there must be a certain set of fairly simple formal features that define story.

Since the time of S. Maugham, whose definition is included in the epigraph, there have been many attempts to clarify this issue. Let's highlight the most interesting thoughts.
L.I. Timofeev, continuing the traditional line approved in the middle of the last century by G.L. Abramovich, defines the story as “a small piece of art, usually dedicated to a separate event in a person’s life, without a detailed depiction of what happened to him before and after this event. A story differs from a story, which usually depicts not one, but a series of events covering an entire period in a person’s life, and not one, but several characters take part in these events.”

The “laxness” and approximate nature of these definitions are obvious. They are more an attempt to convey an inner sense of what is defining than an attempt to find strict criteria. And the statement that there is always only one event in a story is not indisputable.

Thus, researcher N.P. Utekhin claims that the story “can depict not only one episode from a person’s life, but his entire life (as, for example, in A.P. Chekhov’s story “Ionych”) or several episodes of it, but it will only be taken under somehow certain angle, in some one ratio.” .

A.V. Luzhanovsky talks about the obligatory presence of two events in a story - the initial and the interpretive (denouement). “The denouement is essentially a leap in the development of action, when a separate event receives its interpretation through another. Thus, the story must contain at least two organically related events.”

It is obvious that the above definitions, although they indicate some essential elements of the story, still do not provide a formally complete description of its essential elements.

The most complete definition of a story is given by V.P. Skobelev: “A story (short story) is an intensive type of organization of artistic time and space, presupposing a centripetal concentration of action, during which a test is carried out, testing a hero or any socially significant phenomenon in general with the help of one or several homogeneous situations, so that the reader’s attention is reduced to the decisive moments in the life of a character or phenomenon as a whole. Hence the concentration of plot-compositional unity, the one-dimensionality of the speech style and the small volume as a result of this concentration.” But this definition does not contain simple and unambiguous features of a story, and the main feature (an intensive type of organization of artistic time and space) is not formalized and relies more on intuition than on formal logic.

Finally, the researcher of short prose genres S.V. Tarasova summarizes the above, adding some new interesting elements: “... a story in the traditional sense is a narration about a separate, private event or a series of events, small in volume. There may be one plot event at the center of the work, but most often there is one storyline. The story has a small circle of characters. The life of the main character is not given in detail, but his character is revealed through one or a number of circumstances in the character’s life, which turn out to be fatal, turning point for the hero, revealing him inner essence in full. This moment of testing the hero is also present in works that are actually devoid of plot. In them, the moment of testing is manifested through contrast, conflict between the initial and final positions.
For artistic embodiment, an event can be chosen that not only reveals the inner world of a person, but can absorb, as if into focus, a social, public background. The actual event, the action in the story can be auxiliary, appearing in the background. However, the absence of an event is already an event, from the point of view that in this way the author’s idea is identified. In a story, it turns out that the artist’s ability to focus multiple meanings and concentrate different nuances in one plot circumstance is important. The depth and multi-layered nature of an event or situation is a reason for revealing the essence of a character and life in general.”

Here the researcher, it seems to us, points to the key to the formal definition of the story, although he does not give the definition itself. The key words, in our opinion, are plot event and storyline, based on which it is possible, if not to give a strict definition of the story, then at least to determine its essential elements and try to form a formal (or at least more formalized) method for determining the genre epic prose (*)

At the beginning of our discussion, we will define the field in which we will work. From the whole variety of epic forms, we will highlight several, in our opinion, basic ones:
- story
- story
- short story
- joke

Why these particular forms?

Firstly, the listed genre forms are closest to the story and, as a result, are often mixed with it.

Secondly, taken in sequence, they represent a series of small epic genres, the gradual complication of which is associated with the gradual development in them of the role of the plot event and storyline.

Below we give some particular definitions, which, of course, are not exhaustive, but define the main meaning put into them in this work, which is necessary for adequate perception further reasoning, and, in addition, allows you to establish the relationship between the terms used.

A plot event is an event clearly limited by spatial and temporal boundaries, described in a work, characterized by the continuity (unity) of the location, time of action and characters.
Let us note the similarity of the characteristics of the plot event with the principles of classicism. It is not accidental: obviously, being the most ancient element of any work, its “brick”, the plot event has all the properties of the most ancient style of art.

An episode is a chain of interconnected plot events that directly follow from one another, although not necessarily connected by the above classical principles of unity.
The plot event in this case is a component, part of the episode.

A storyline is a chain of interconnected episodes that form a semantic unity.
Here the episode relates to the storyline in the same way that the plot event relates to the episode. The difference between a storyline and an episode in the general case is that the storyline extends throughout the entire work. Of course, degenerate cases are possible, when the entire plot line is reduced to a single episode, and the episode degenerates into one plot event. In this case we will deal if we're talking about about a finished work (and not about a sketch) with the first member of the epic series we are considering - an anecdote.

An anecdote is a briefly described plot event (or episode) with an unexpected outcome (thought).
Note that, by this definition, an anecdote may not be structurally elementary at all, although it may be extremely short. That is why it is believed that an anecdote contains in embryo all the signs of a short story (**). M Petrovsky called the anecdote “the naked core of the novella.”

In order for the epic series, built in the proposed classification, to be
more visually, let’s add to the beginning of the indicated series (before the anecdote) another form, which is more poetic than epic, with which we will begin the analysis - this is an aphorism.

An aphorism is a thought expressed in one figurative short sentence.
The difference between an aphorism and epic forms is the absence of an episode in it. This idea is not as trivial as it seems because it is difficult to create an episode from one short sentence. It is clear that it is impossible to write a story or a story from one sentence. But a one-sentence anecdote is possible and it will be fundamentally different from an aphorism: it will contain an episode, at least in an implicit form. For example, let’s give a joke: “a black man sunbathes” and compare it with the aphorism: “at night all cats are gray.” In the first the episode is present, although in an implicit form, in the second it is not.

Starting from the short story, the structure of the epic work gradually becomes more complex. In a short story, this is one bright (leading) episode, similar to an anecdotal one, around which all other episodes are built, forming a storyline. A short story is usually characterized by one storyline.
In a story, unlike a novella, there can be either one or several storylines, which makes it difficult to distinguish it, on the one hand, from a short story, on the other, from a story.

A story is also several plot lines, none of which, unlike a short story, can be singled out as leading.

For now, let us note at a qualitative level the difference between a multi-episode story and a story: in a story, all episodes are equal in rights (equal value), although there may also be a climactic episode (the most striking, intense moment of the narrative), in a story there is always a main (leading) episode to which they are subordinated. other.

Let us also note the difference between a short story and a short story: a short story contains one episode, or, if there are several of them, then one stands out from the rest so much that if they are discarded, the essence of the work will not change. The whole point of the novel is in this episode. In this sense, a short story is a work of action and always comes down to the plot being described. In a story, the leading episode does not stand out from the rest so much; it does not contain the whole meaning of the story. Moreover, the meaning of the story is not reduced to the described plot, but it is contained in it, follows from it, is born as the fruit of the reader’s thoughts.

Thus, we have come close to the goal of our analysis - the definitions of a short story, a short story and a story.

A short story is one bright episode around which all other episodes are built, forming (usually one) storyline.
The purpose of writing the novella is to introduce the reader to this striking episode.

A story is one or more interconnected episodes (or storylines), of which one is the semantic center, and the rest are auxiliary, supporting, emphasizing, explaining the main idea of ​​the work.
The purpose of writing a story is to convey some idea, and not to talk about any event or character.

A story is several interconnected episodes (plot lines), of which none is dominant.
The purpose of writing a story: to describe a certain period in the life of the hero.
One important similarity between the short story and the story can be noted: both forms are works of action. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a story without a plot, as well as a short story. Perhaps one can even consider the story as a collection of short stories. This statement can be substantiated by S. Tashlykov’s thought about the transformation of a romantic short story into a story.

“The romantic short story, in turn, underwent another transformation in Russian literature, turning into a story rich in descriptions and reasoning.”

Obviously, by combining several equivalent short stories into a single work, you can get a story. Although there is also a difference here: the purpose of writing a story may not simply be to describe several episodes; in this totality of episodes of the story, a single plan may be hidden that cannot be reduced to the action itself. In this, the story is closer to a short story than to a novella.

The proposed classification principle, in our opinion, makes it possible not only to distinguish between epic genre forms, but also to determine the difference between epic forms by the method of influencing the reader.

An aphorism is the desire to cause an emotional and psychological explosion from the perception of a harmoniously composed phrase by selecting consonances, meanings, etc. (***)

An anecdote is a desire, similar to an aphorism, to cause an emotional explosion, but with the help of an episode (its unexpected ending).

The novella also aims to amaze the reader with an unexpected, striking episode, but unlike an anecdote, not necessarily comic. It is obvious that there are two types of short stories: the first, coming from a vivid episode, is closest to an anecdote. It is no coincidence that in Russian literary tradition In the 19th century, this particular type of short story was called an anecdote. The other variety has a more even character; it does not have a pronounced episode, so it is often mixed with a story, or even a story. In this case, the role of a striking episode is taken over by the storyline as a whole, and the event described in the short story is the goal of the short story writer, as opposed to the narrator or storyteller.

The story is the most complex work, compared to its neighbors, in terms of its impact on the reader, since it has a much more complex (complex-subordinate) structure, focused on subtextual meanings. Its purpose is to give reason for thought, to lead to a certain, rather abstract, conclusion.

The above criterion also allows us to determine the relationship between the type of epic work and its volume.

In the story, the balance of episodes creates a special narrative field, quite even, which simplifies the task of organizing meaning and makes it unnecessary to limit the volume of the work, unlike a story.

In a story, the limitation of volume is dictated by the need to concentrate the narrative around one episode, which is hampered by every extra word. Here a peculiar aphoristic tendency is already beginning to gain strength, which intensifies in the anecdote and appears in its pure form in the aphorism. In the depths of the story, a certain aphorism seems to be ripening, which is its meaning; this is the fundamental difference between a story and an anecdote from a story and a short story.

For clarification, we note that it is possible, for example, to write a story on the theme of the aphorism (saying) “don’t get into your own sleigh,” but a short story or story cannot have such a connection with the aphorism, since their meaning is the action directly unfolding in them.

From the definitions and explanations given, it is clear that the listed epic forms can be classified according to the criterion of “episode” as some structural and semantic organizing unit of a work, containing one event, or one line of interconnected events.

Note that, although the above classification does not directly determine the volume of the work, it does influence it, since the deployment (formation) of each structural unit (episode) requires a certain volume. That is, the relationship between volume and genre form still there is, but it is not direct (up to 45 pages of text, like Weller, or about an hour of reading, like Maugham), but indirect. This, in our opinion, is the explanation for the numerous exceptions to the usual volumes in various genres (for example, the novel-length story (more than 2000 pages) “The Life of Klim Samgin” or short-short stories from the cycle “Belkin’s Tales” or a novel-length novel “ The Enchanted Wanderer").

Thus, summing up what has been said, we will formulate several provisions, using which we can determine the genre of the epic work.

The genre of an epic work is determined by the nature of the interaction of its constituent episodes with the semantic component of the text and the subordination of the episodes to each other.
This definition highlights two criteria: the interaction of an episode with meaning and the relationship of subordination between episodes.

1. The interaction of an episode with the meaning of the text can be direct and indirect.

A). Direct interaction means that the action unfolding in the episode is the immediate meaning of the work. This does not mean that it cannot contain subtexts, but in this case they are local meanings, and not the main content of the work. Such works can be called works of direct action. These include a short story and a story.

A short story, by definition, is a narrative about some significant event, created for the sake of describing this event, and therefore does not need additional meanings, although nothing prevents them from appearing in local episodes.

The main content of the story is to familiarize the reader with certain events and episodes, the transmission of which is the main meaning of the work.

B). The indirect interaction of the episode with the meaning of the text means that the author conveys the described event not for the sake of interest in the event itself, but to lead the reader to some other, more abstract thought, moral conclusion, generalization. This kind of interaction is typical of the story.

2. According to the relationships of subordination between episodes, there can be equality and inequality (subordination).

A). In the first case, all episodes are equal, none of them stands out in relation to the overall meaning of the work. This is characteristic, first of all, of the story and this is its main difference from the story and short story.

B). In the second case, among the episodes, the main one clearly stands out, because of which the work was written (for the short story), or the culminating one (according to Skobelev, “the moment of testing”), from which the moral follows - for the story.
We will give the reader the opportunity to independently, using the method proposed in the article for determining the genre of a prose text based on an episode (let’s call it the “episode method”), evaluate the validity of the data in the example of genre definitions, and below we will try to apply it practically using the example of some classical works.

Let's take some genre definitions from the work of Yu. Druzhnikov.

1. ““A Hero of Our Time” was published in separate stories, and Lermontov published it in its entirety with the subtitle “Essay,” although it is a novel in stories or, rather, in short stories with elements of a traveler’s diary.”
“Bela”, “Maksim Maksimych”, the first part of Pechorin’s magazine “Taman” and the final “Fatalist” are truly short stories, since each of them has a bright episode for the sake of which they were written. Each of them focuses the reader’s attention on a certain property of the protagonist’s soul, and together they make up a novel about his life. But the second part of the magazine (“Princess Mary”) can hardly be called a novella; it has several storylines, and neither the princess’s explanation with Pechorin, nor his duel with Grushnitsky ( climax episodes corresponding storylines) are not the purpose of the story. The purpose of the story is to reveal the inner world of the hero, therefore “Princess Mary” is a story.

2. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Solzhenitsyn - by genre classic story, although in American Slavic studies it is called a novel.”
Indeed, the story about one day in the life of a prisoner does not have any special climactic or leading episodes (emotional outbursts in the hero’s mental experiences are present in almost every episode, but for the hero they are ordinary and for the story they do not have the character of climaxes). Therefore - a story. But, since it often contains deviations from direct action, memories, micro-stories about the characters, this disrupts the rhythm of the narrative, expands the time frame of the work far beyond the limits of one day, thereby creating a semblance of the novel fabric of the work. This, however, is not yet a reason to consider the story a novel, since there is no complex interweaving of plot lines, a variety of characters, and many other signs of a novel that are beyond the scope of this study.

3. “Gogol’s “The Overcoat” fits into a story, well, if you insist, then into a story: few characters, calm action.”
According to the proposed criteria, “The Overcoat” cannot in any way be classified as a story, since it is not just a story about a person’s life, and it cannot be called a short story, since the culmination of the work (and it is the death of Akaki Akakievich) is not its leading episode. The leading episode is connected rather with the receipt of a new overcoat and is intended not only to inform the reader about this event, but to illuminate the inner world of the official, “ little man" Therefore, “The Overcoat” is undoubtedly a story.

Modern literary period characterized by significant complication genre structure works, as a result of which the initially strict relationships of the criteria under consideration are violated. Instead of a measured, calm flow in a story, we often see an organization of text no less intense than in a story. It is no coincidence that attempts arise to define a new genre variety epic type - a short novel form "micronovel". Yu. Druzhnikov’s work traces the origins of this form to classical literature, citing well-known works as examples:

“... A fairly large number of characters, a change of places and time of action, an epilogue at the end - evidence that “Poor Liza” has a short novel form. We can say that Russian prose began with a micro-novel and thus immediately turned out to be more modern than always thought.”

“... Pushkinists consider it a story, KLE calls it a short story. But it seems that, in many respects, the title “micronovel” is just right for The Queen of Spades.”

“...“The Lady with the Dog”, “Men”, “Darling”, “Ionych” can be considered micro-novels.”

Continuing similar reasoning, one can also include Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, F. Abramov’s dilogy “Pelageya” and “Alka”, Yu Nagibin’s “Bogoyar” trilogy (“Patience”, “Rebellious Island”, “Another Life”) as a short novel form "), his stories "Get Up and Go", "Darkness at the End of the Tunnel", "My Golden Mother-in-Law", some of his stories and stories historical cycle and many other works of modern prose.

Particularly noteworthy is “Rebel Island” by Yu. Nagibin. The fact is that the author in the 1994 edition (“Rebel Island”, M., Moskovsky Rabochiy Publishing House, 1994) published it as component trilogy, where he designated it as a story. Meanwhile, in the 1998 edition (“Patience”, M., publishing house “Podkova”, 1998) it is placed separately from the other two works and is already qualified as a story. It seems to us that there is no contradiction here. The fact is that, as a separate work, “Rebel Island” can really be considered a story (or even a micro-novel). It tells about a revolt of disabled people led by the main character, the legless disabled man Pavel, there is no leading plot, all micro-plots are equal, and it is impossible to single out the main one from them. And the title – “Rebellious Island”, reflecting the multi-plot nature of the work, speaks in favor of the story. However, a complex system characters, expanded text space, complicated narrative texture (canonical features of the novel form according to M. Bakhtin) give some grounds to classify it as a micronovel. And as part of the trilogy, the same work is designated by the writer as a story because in this case, Pavel and his relationship with Anna come to the forefront of the narrative; the task of the story as part of the trilogy is no longer a story about the rebellion, but to deepen the understanding of the image of Paul. One can also note the presence here of an intensive type of organization of space and time, corresponding to the definition of a story according to V.P. Skobelev.

Thus, the writer creates an exceptional case in literature when the same work can be a story and a novella, depending on whether it is considered separately or in connection with other works, not to mention the possibility of classifying it as a micro-novel.

The considered cases, in our opinion, may well fit into the usual genre schemes (novels or short stories), and the correspondence of the works to some canonical features of the novel indicates the development of existing small genres rather than the emergence of a new one.

In conclusion, we note that the proposed criteria for determining small epic forms still cannot be called strictly formal, since they are based on such a subjective characteristic of the work as ideological content, which is primarily a function of the author (what he put into the work), reader or researcher (what they saw in it) and some objective factor of “multiple meanings” due to the complexity of the language itself, the possibilities of interpreting the text (what happened). However, in our opinion, the proposed approach still allows us to achieve greater clarity in the debate about genres and translate it into more specific forms.

Notes:

(*) The term “epic” is not entirely accurate in this case, since modern stories, novels, and novels are “omnivorous,” that is, they can contain both lyrical and dramatic elements. This, however, should not deceive us of their basic essence: at their core they almost always remain epic works.

(**) Not just any anecdote, of course, but a plot-developed one, that is, containing an action in an explicit form, as opposed to an implicit action, as, for example, in the joke “a black man is sunbathing,” which cannot be called the core of a short story; rather, it is modified ( plot-enriched) aphorism, which will be discussed below. In this case, the appropriate aphorism could be the phrase: “Negroes don’t sunbathe.”

(***) Strictly speaking, an aphorism is not an epic form. Rather, this work is lyrical, since it has all its features - sometimes right down to rhyme or poetic meter. An aphorism, however, has one feature of the epic form that allows it to be given an intermediate status: an aphorism carries a semantic load, it is intended to express a certain thought, and not to create a mood, like a poetic work.
Literature:

1. Weller M. Stories, Moscow, 2006.
2. Druzhnikov Yu. Genre for the 21st century. New Magazine, New York, 2000 - 218.
3. Luzhanovsky A.V. Identification of the short story genre in Russian literature. Vilnius, 1988.
4. Skobelev V.P. Poetics of the story. Voronezh, 1982.
5. Tarasova S.V. A new look at short prose. Literary criticism 2003, No. 1
6. Tashlykov S. Russian short story contrary to tradition. Irkutsk 2002.
7. Timofeev L.I., Vengerova M.I. A brief dictionary of literary terms. M., 1963.
8. Utekhin N.P. Genres of epic prose. L., 1982.

Among the small literary genres In prose, the most popular and widespread is the story. As a rule, it focuses on one, or less often, several events from the life of the main character of the work. This literary form is popular among readers due to the combination of a small volume with very rich content and logical completeness.

About the story

The story is a prose work of small volume . The narration in such an essay is laconic; the author deals with one problem, or a limited range of them.

The number of actors is often very limited. Art space Due to the brevity of the work, it is outlined very narrowly. There are quite succinct details, and you can often see an expressive finale . The presence of a third-party narrator is acceptable.

This genre is characterized by realism. The works contain a concise and logically completed narrative about an incident , events, incidents that happened in the life of a certain person. And the entire plot of the story is built around this fact.

The term “story,” as such, does not describe a specific genre of a certain literary style, but a whole array of related but equivalent genres that use different stylistic forms.

In Europe, works of this kind fall under the category of short story, which, in fact, is synonymous with our story. Both abroad and here, the story stood out from the general literary body during the crisis of the feudal system, when enlightened circles close to art gravitated towards realism in the depiction of life.

Over time, stories appear in all artistic styles, changing under the influence of the framework of a particular genre . But everywhere he retains some characteristics peculiar only to him.

One of the main features is the presence of a certain semantic center that brings together all the elements of the story. And this center can be anything - a climax, an image of the main character, a certain incident, an action, or the course of events itself.

The best masters of storytelling

Many writers turned to this literary form in their work, but not everyone did it well. And some authors revealed their true talent precisely in the story. One way or another, there are many writers who have created wonderful works in this genre:

• Anton Chekhov;
• Ray Bradbury;
• Charles Dickens;
• Edgar Allan Poe;
• O.Henry;
• Ivan Turgenev;
• Lev Tolstoy;
• Jack London and many others.

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Mikhail Zoshchenko

The narrator did not believe that our planet was round, but his friend Stepka wanted to prove it to him. To do this, the children decide to go to trip around the world, taking with him Stepan’s sister Lelya and Tuzik’s dog. But not It's so easy to organize a trip across the world when you're only 6 years old .

Henryk Sienkiewicz

IN poor family a child was born. And this child was very weak and sickly. Nothing in life made him happy except the violin , which he could listen to enthusiastically for hours. He was destined to become a musician.

Victor Astafiev

A person must be responsible in everything . This also applies to nature. The story touches on extremely important moral and philosophical questions, the author tries to find not only the place of man in this world, but also to show the need to live in harmony not only with surrounding nature, but also with yourself.

In the electronic library of our website you can find many interesting and instructive works in the short story genre.