Grotesque in the works of Gogol. Grotesque and fantasy in the story M

If we talk about fantasy and the grotesque in the work of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, then for the first time we meet with these elements in one of his first works “Evenings on a Farm near Dikankha”.

The writing of "Evenings ..." is due to the fact that at that time the Russian public showed great interest in Ukraine; its customs, way of life, literature, folklore, and Gogol has a bold idea - to respond with his own artistic "works" to the reader's need.

Probably, at the beginning of 1829, Gogol began to write "Evenings ..." The theme of "Evenings ..." - characters, spiritual properties, moral rules, mores, customs, life, beliefs of the Ukrainian peasantry ("Sorochinsky Fair", "Evening on the eve of Ivan Kupana”, “May Night”), the Cossacks (“Terrible Revenge”) and the petty local nobility (“Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his aunt”).

The heroes of "Evenings ..." are in the grip of religious fantasy ideas, pagan and Christian beliefs. Gogol reflects people's self-consciousness not statically, but in the process of historical growth. And it is quite natural that in stories about recent events, about the present, demonic forces are perceived as superstition (“So-Rochinskaya Fair”). The attitude of the author himself to supernatural phenomena is ironic. Embraced by lofty thoughts about civic service, striving for "noble deeds", the writer subordinated folklore-ethnographic materials to the task of embodying the spiritual essence, moral and psychological image of the people as the positive hero of his works. Fairy-tale fantasy is displayed by Gogol, as a rule, not mystically, but according to popular notions, more or less humanized. Devils, witches, mermaids are given quite real, specific human properties. So, the devil from the story "The Night Before Christmas" "in front is a perfect German", and "behind is a provincial attorney in uniform." And, courting Solokha like a real ladies' man, he whispered in her ear "the same thing that is usually whispered to the entire female race."

Fiction, organically woven into real life by the writer, acquires in "Evenings ..." the charm of a naive folk imagination and, undoubtedly, serves to poeticize folk life. But for all that, the religiosity of Gogol himself did not disappear, but gradually grew. More fully than in other works, it was expressed in the story "Terrible Revenge". Here, in the image of a sorcerer, recreated in a mystical spirit, the power of the devil is personified. But this mysteriously terrible force is opposed by the Orthodox religion, faith in the conquering power of divine will. So, already in "Evenings ...", Gogol's ideological contradictions appeared.

"Evenings ..." are replete with pictures of nature, majestic and captivatingly beautiful. The writer rewards her with the most major comparisons: “Snow ... was sprinkled with crystal stars” (“The Night Before Christmas”) and epithets: “The earth is all in silver light”, “Divine night!” ("May Night, or the Drowned Woman"). Landscapes enhance the beauty of positive characters, affirm their unity, harmonious connection with nature, and at the same time emphasize the ugliness of negative characters. And in each work of "Evenings ...", in accordance with its ideological concept and genre originality, nature takes on an individual coloring.

The deeply negative impressions and sorrowful reflections caused by Gogol's life in St. Petersburg were largely reflected in the so-called "Petersburg Tales" created in 1831-1841. All the stories are connected by the commonality of the problem (the power of ranks and money), the unity of the main character (raznochinets, "little" person), the integrity of the leading pathos (the corrupting power of money, exposing the flagrant injustice of the social system). They truly recreate a generalized picture of St. Petersburg in the 1930s, reflecting the concentrated social contradictions inherent in the whole country.

With the supremacy of the satirical principle of depiction, Gogol especially often turns in these stories to fantasy and his favorite method of extreme contrast. He was convinced that "the true effect lies in the sharp contrast." But fantasy is more or less subordinated to realism here.

In Nevsky Prospekt, Gogol showed a noisy, fussy crowd of people of various classes, the discord between a lofty dream (Piskarev) and vulgar reality, the contradictions between the insane luxury of a minority and the terrifying poverty of the majority, the triumph of selfishness, venality, "boiling commercialism" (Pirogov ) of the capital city!. The story "The Nose" depicts the monstrous power of slander and servility. Deepening the display of the absurdity of human relationships in the conditions of a despotic-bureaucratic subordination, when the individual, as such, loses all significance. Gogol skillfully uses fantasy.

"Petersburg Tales" show a clear evolution from social satire ("Nevsky Prospekt") to grotesque socio-political pamphlet ("Notes of a Madman"), from the organic interaction of romanticism and realism with the predominant role of the latter ("Nevsky Prospekt") to more and more consistent realism ("The Overcoat"),

In the story "The Overcoat", the intimidated, downtrodden Bashmachkin shows his dissatisfaction with significant persons who rudely belittled and insulted him, in a state of unconsciousness, in delirium. But the author, being on the side of the hero, defending him, makes a protest in the fantastic continuation of the story.

Gogol outlined a real motivation in the fantastic conclusion to the story. A significant person who mortally frightened Akaky Akakievich was driving along an unlit street after pouring champagne from a friend at the evening, and to him, in fear, the thief could seem to be anyone, even a dead man.

Enriching realism with the achievements of romanticism, creating in his work a fusion of satire and lyrics, analysis of reality and dreams of a wonderful person and the future of the country, he raised critical realism to a new, higher level compared to his predecessors.

Composition

In the novel "We" by E. Zamyatin, in a fantastic and grotesque guise, we see a possible version of the society of the future. In a geometric society, it is forbidden to have unplanned desires, everything is strictly regulated and calculated, feelings are eliminated, including the most valuable thing that drives life, the feeling of love: every citizen of the state is given a coupon for "love" on certain days of the week. Any deviation from the norm in the One State is recorded with the help of a well-established system of denunciations. Originality, talent, creativity - the enemies of order - are being destroyed. Rebels are cured by surgery. Universal regulated happiness is achieved by universal equality.

The problem of the happiness of mankind is closely connected in the novel with the question of the freedom of the individual, a question that has a long and enduring tradition in Russian literature. Modern criticism immediately saw Dostoevsky's tradition in the novel, drawing a parallel with his theme of the Grand Inquisitor. “This medieval bishop,” writes one of the first researchers of Zamyatin’s work, O. Mikhailov, “this Catholic pastor, born of the imagination of Ivan Karamazov, leads the human flock to forced happiness with an iron hand ... He is ready to crucify the Christ who appeared a second time, so that Christ does not interfere people with their gospel truths "finally unite for everyone in an indisputable common and consonant anthill. " In the novel "We" the Grand Inquisitor appears again - already in the form of a Benefactor".

The consonance of the problems of the novel "We" with the traditions of Dostoevsky especially clearly emphasizes the national context of Zamyatin's anti-utopia. The question of the freedom and happiness of a person is of particular relevance on Russian soil, in a country whose people are inclined to faith, to the deification of not only the idea, but also its bearer, who does not know the "golden mean" and always yearns for freedom. These two poles of Russian national consciousness are reflected in the image of two polar worlds - mechanical and natural-primitive. These worlds are equally far from the ideal world order. Zamyatin leaves the question of it open, illustrating with the novel his theoretical principle of the historical development of social structure, based on the writer's idea of ​​the endless alternation of revolutionary and entropic periods in the movement of any organism, be it a molecule, a person, a state or a planet. Any seemingly solid system, such as, for example, the United State, will inevitably perish, obeying the law of revolution.

One of the main driving forces is, according to the writer, in the very structure of the human body.

Zamyatin encourages us to think about the enduring eternity of biological instincts, which are a solid guarantee of the preservation of life, regardless of social cataclysms. This theme will find its continuation in the subsequent work of the artist and will end in his last Russian story "The Flood", the plot of which reflects the Zamyatin's law, which works in the novel "We", but only translated from the socio-philosophical sphere into the biological one. The story is built according to the author's constant antithesis "living" - "dead", which is the theme of Zamyatin's work and influences the formation of his style, which combines rational and lyrical principles. Lyricism in Zamyatin's works of art is explained by his attention to Russia, interest in the national specifics of folk life. It is no coincidence that critics noted the "Russianness" of the Westerner Zamyatin. It was love for the motherland, and not enmity towards it, as Zamyatin's contemporaries claimed, that gave rise to the rebelliousness of the artist, who deliberately chose the tragic path of a heretic, condemned to a long misunderstanding of his compatriots.

The return of Zamyatin is a real evidence of the awakening of personal consciousness among the people, the struggle for which the writer gave his work and talent.

The actual literature may be
only where it is not made
executive and trustworthy.
but insane heretics.
E. Zamyatin

In the anti-utopia "We" Zamyatin showed how you can organize a person's life, turn him into an obedient machine that will do any job, agree to various absurdities. Moreover, such a life suits the inhabitants of this country quite well. They are happy that they live in some "ideal" community, where there is no need to think, to decide something. Even the election of the head of state has been brought to the point of absurdity. For several years now, they have been choosing one of one, confirming the authority of the "Benefactor".

The state was able to do the worst thing - to kill the soul in people. They lost it along with their names. Now only numbers distinguish one individual from another.

D-503 perceives his revival as a catastrophe and illness, when the doctor tells him: “Your business is bad! Apparently, you have formed a soul.

For a while, D-503 tries to break out of the ordinary circle, finds himself among the rebels. But the habit of living according to a long-established routine turns out to be stronger than love, affection, curiosity. In the end, the fear of change and the habit of obedience win over the reborn, but not yet strengthened soul. It is more peaceful to live as before, without shocks, without thoughts about tomorrow, without caring about anything at all. Everything is fine again: “No nonsense, no ridiculous metaphors, no feelings: just facts. Because I’m healthy, I’m completely, absolutely healthy ... some kind of splinter was pulled out of my head, my head is light, empty ... "

Vividly and convincingly, Zamyatin showed how a conflict arises between the human personality and an inhuman social order, a conflict that sharply contrasts dystopia with idyllic, descriptive utopia.

The work talentedly and figuratively showed the path of mankind to a police state that exists not for a person, but for itself. Isn't that how the construction of a “monster” was going on in the USSR for themselves, and not for people? That is why Zamyatin's novel "We" was not published in the writer's homeland for many years. In his work, the author very convincingly showed what can be achieved as a result of building a “happy future”.

Other writings on this work

"without action there is no life..." VG Belinsky. (According to one of the works of Russian literature. - E.I. Zamyatin. "We".) “The great happiness of freedom should not be overshadowed by crimes against the individual, otherwise we will kill freedom with our own hands ...” (M. Gorky). (Based on one or more works of Russian literature of the 20th century.) "We" and they (E. Zamyatin) Is happiness possible without freedom? (based on the novel by E. I. Zamyatin "We") “We” is a dystopian novel by E. I. Zamyatin. "Society of the Future" and the Present in E. Zamyatin's Novel "We" Dystopia for anti-humanity (Based on the novel by E. I. Zamyatin "We") The future of humanity The protagonist of the dystopian novel by E. Zamyatin "We". The dramatic fate of the individual in a totalitarian social order (based on the novel "We" by E. Zamyatin) E.I. Zamyatin. "We". The ideological meaning of the novel by E. Zamyatin "We" The ideological meaning of Zamyatin's novel "We" Personality and totalitarianism (based on the novel by E. Zamyatin "We") Moral problems of modern prose. According to one of the works of your choice (E.I. Zamyatin "We"). Society of the future in the novel by E. I. Zamyatin "We" Why is E. Zamyatin's novel called "We"? Predictions in the works "The Pit" by Platonov and "We" by Zamyatin Predictions and warnings of the works of Zamyatin and Platonov ("We" and "The Pit"). The problems of the novel by E. Zamyatin "We" The problems of the novel by E. I. Zamyatin "We" Roman "We" E. Zamyatina's novel "We" as a dystopian novel E. I. Zamyatin’s novel “We” is a dystopian novel, a warning novel A dystopian novel by E. Zamyatin "We" The meaning of the title of the novel by E. I. Zamyatin "We" Social forecast in E. Zamyatin's novel "We" E. Zamyatin's social forecast and the reality of the 20th century (based on the novel "We") Composition based on the novel by E. Zamyatin "We" Happiness of the "number" and the happiness of a person (based on the novel "We" by E. Zamyatin) The theme of Stalinism in literature (based on the novels by Rybakov "Children of the Arbat" and Zamyatin "We") What brings together Zamyatin's novel "We" and Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel "The History of a City"? I-330 - characteristics of a literary hero D-503 (Second Option) - characterization of a literary hero O-90 - characterization of a literary hero The main motive of Zamyatin's novel "We" The central conflict, problems and the system of images in the novel "We" by E. I. Zamyatin "Personality and the State" in Zamyatin's work "We". A dystopian novel in Russian literature (based on the works of E. Zamyatin and A. Platonov) Unification, leveling, regulation in the novel "We" Happiness of "numbers" and happiness of a person (essay-miniature based on the novel "We" by E. Zamyatin)

The complexity of solving the "mysteries" of science fiction lies in the fact that when trying to understand the essence of this phenomenon, they often combine the epistemological and aesthetic aspects of the problem. By the way, in various explanatory dictionaries there is just an epistemological approach to the phenomenon. In all dictionary definitions of fantasy, two points are obligatory: a) fantasy is a product of the work of the imagination and b) fantasy is something that does not correspond to reality, impossible, non-existent, unnatural.

To assess this or that creation of human thought as fantastic, two points must be taken into account: a) the correspondence, or rather the discrepancy, of one or another image of objective reality, and b) the perception of it by human consciousness in a particular era. Therefore, we can call the most unbridled fiction in myths fantasy with the indispensable proviso that all mythological events are fantastic only for us, because we see the world around us differently and these images and concepts no longer correspond to our ideas about it. For the creators of myths themselves, the numerous gods and spirits inhabiting the surrounding forests, mountains and reservoirs were not at all a fantasy, they were no less real than all the material objects that surrounded them. But the very concept of fantasy certainly includes the moment of realization that this or that image is just a product of the imagination and has no analogue or its prototype in reality. As long as there is only faith and doubt and disbelief do not settle next to it, obviously, one cannot speak of the emergence of fantasy.

And in literary criticism, although the meaning of this term, as a rule, is not specified, the concept of fantasy is usually associated with the idea of ​​phenomena in the reliability of which they do not believe or have ceased to believe. So, in his work on the work of F. Rabelais, M. Bakhtin, as is clear from his analysis of the French comic drama of the trouveur Adam de la Halle “The Game in the Arbor” (XIII century), perceives the fantastic beginning in the play as a clear disbelief in the reality of this or that character. He connects the carnival-fantastic part of the play with the appearance of three fairies - characters of fairy-tale folklore. The fiction here is "debunked pagan gods" in which the Christian did not believe or should not have believed.

All this, of course, is true: in terms of epistemology, fantasy is always beyond the bounds of faith, otherwise it is no longer completely fantasy. The most fantastic images are closely connected with the process of cognition, since ideas that do not correspond to reality are inevitably born in it. After all, as V. I. Lenin wrote, “the approach of the mind (of a person) to a separate thing, the removal of a cast (concept) from it is not a simple direct, mirror-dead act, but a complex, bifurcated, zigzag, which includes the possibility of flying off fantasy from life…"

All this leads to the fact that the main arsenal of fantastic images is born on a worldview basis, on the basis of cognitive images. This is especially evident in folk fairy tales.

Regardless of whether folklorists consider the "inclination to fiction" the defining feature of a fairy tale or not, they all associate the birth of fantastic images of a fairy tale with the most ancient ideas about the world, and, perhaps, "there was a time when the truth of fairy tales was believed as unshakably as we believe today in the historical-documentary story and essay. V. Propp also wrote that "a fairy tale is not built on a free play of fantasy, but reflects really existing ideas and customs."

In any case, a modern researcher notes that in the folklore of peoples at the stage of the primitive communal system, it is often difficult to separate the myth from the "non-myth" - from the fairy tale, legend, etc. Gradually, the ancient faith, of course, weakened, but was not completely lost even by the time when educated circles of society began to show interest in folk art and an active collection of fairy texts began. Back in the late XIX - early XX centuries. Collectors of folklore texts noted that the storytellers and listeners, if they do not completely believe fairy-tale miracles, then at least "half-believe", and sometimes "people look at fairy-tale episodes as really past events."

Awareness of the previous delusion turns the cognitive image into a fantastic one. At the same time, its texture can practically not be changed, the attitude towards it changes. So the first and very important direction of classification in science fiction is connected with the classification of the fantastic images themselves and their distribution into certain groups.

In modern art and in everyday life, three main groups of fantastic images, ideas and situations are clearly distinguished, generated by different eras and different systems of ideas about the world.

Some of them were born in ancient times, are associated with a fairy tale and pagan beliefs. We usually call them fairy-tale fantasy. A special subgroup in European culture are the images of ancient pagan mythology, finally aestheticized and become a convention. True, today you can observe their rebirth already in the clothes of "aliens".

Images of the second group arise in later times - in the Middle Ages - mainly in the depths of popular superstitions, of course, not without relying on the previous experience of pagan ideas about the world. Both in the first and in the second case, it is not art or artistic creativity that gives rise to them, they are born in the process of cognition and are part of the life of a person of those distant eras, they become the property of art later. Even A. I. Veselovsky noted these two eras of “great mythical creativity”.

And finally, the third group of images, a new figurative system, arose in art in the 19th-20th centuries. again, not without regard to the past fantastic experience. It has a lot to do with science fiction.

The images of each of these three groups arise in a certain era and bear the imprint of the worldview that gave rise to them, because they are born not as a fantasy, but as cognitive images and are perceived at the time of their birth as true and the only possible knowledge of reality ... But another time comes, the attitude to the world, its vision changes, and these images, no longer corresponding to new knowledge and vision, are perceived as a distortion of it, i.e. as fantasy. The situation is somewhat more complicated with the images of the third group, but we still have to talk about the conditions for their formulation.

So, in the epistemological plan, fantasy certainly turns out to be a kind of deformation of reality and is necessarily beyond the bounds of faith. And here everything is pretty clear. With fantasy, which is not an everyday or cognitive concept, but an attribute of art, the situation is much more complicated, and there the classification proposed above according to the systems of fantastic imagery, in fact, according to the worldview eras that gave rise to these different systems, turns out to be insufficient, although, as we will try to show in subsequent chapters, without such a classification and systematization of fantastic images, much remains unclear in the history of science fiction. But in general, we repeat, the classification according to systems of fantastic images follows from the epistemological aspect of the study of fantasy.

A purely epistemological approach to the problem, although it is extremely important in itself, does not bring us much closer to answering the question of what is fantasy in art, what “ecological niches” it occupies there, and what is its origin. Fantasy has many faces in art.

The feeling of the ambiguity of the concept of science fiction gave rise to the desire to classify fantastic works, not images, we note, namely works as integral artistic structures. Various attempts to address this issue were discussed in detail in the introduction. As we have seen, the vast majority of authors try to separate "simply" science fiction from science fiction, that is, they begin to classify, as it were, "within" science fiction. At the same time, it turns out that it is very difficult, hardly even possible to get out of the contradiction between understanding fantasy as a literary strategy, as some kind of allegory, and perceiving it as a special subject of representation.

A somewhat more promising principle is outlined, in our opinion, in the works of S. Lem and V. Chumakov. V. Chumakov takes as a basis not a thematic principle, but the role played by a fantastic image, idea or hypothesis in the system of a work, the question of the relation of a fantastic image to the form and content of works. Proceeding from this, V. Chumakov singles out 1) “formal, stylistic fiction”, or “formal fiction of art” and 2) “substantive fiction”. - True, he chooses this principle only for the first stage of classification. He leads the subsequent classification of "substantial" fiction according to the same thematic principle: a) "substantial utopian fiction", b) "scientific and social fiction", and somewhere away from the main road, illustrative or popularizing fiction wanders, in which the author distinguishes between "science fiction" and "biological science fiction". But the basis for the first stage of classification - the place and role of the fantastic image in the work - was found correctly. True, terminology, fraught with the danger of separating form from content, gives rise to some doubt; it would be more correct to speak of self-valuable rather than meaningful fiction. But in general, the classification of fantasy according to its role in the system of visual means of a work, of course, opens up much more distant prospects than a rather superficial thematic principle or the relationship of faith - disbelief, the possible - the impossible.

The fact is that, based on this principle, it is possible to outline an earlier stage of classification than the difference between "simple" science fiction and science fiction, fantasy from science fiction, which, as a rule, is in the focus of attention of foreign authors writing about modern science fiction. . This first stage presupposes a distinction between fantasy as a secondary artistic convention and fantasy proper. Such a stage of classification is absolutely necessary, without it every new attempt to separate fantasy from science fiction will only multiply definitions.

In fact, S. Lem insists on this stage of classification when he writes about “two types of literary fiction: fantasy, which is the final goal (final fantasy), as in a fairy tale and science fiction, and fantasy, only carrying a signal (passing fantasy) like Kafka." In a sci-fi story, the presence of sentient dinosaurs is not usually a sign of hidden meaning. We are supposed to admire dinosaurs as we would admire a giraffe in a zoo; they are perceived not as parts of a semantic system, but only as a component of the empirical world. On the other hand, “in “The Transformation” (meaning Kafka’s story. - T. Ch.) it is not meant that we should perceive the transformation of a person into an insect as a fantastic miracle, but rather an understanding of what Kafka, through such deformation, depicts socially -psychological situation. The strange phenomenon only forms, as it were, the outer shell of the artistic world; its core is not fantastic content at all.

In fact, with all the variety of fantastic works in modern art, there are, relatively speaking, two groups of them. In some, fantastic images play the role of a special artistic device, and then they really turn out to be one of the components of a secondary artistic convention. When it comes to fantasy, which is part of a secondary artistic convention, its main features are: a) a shift in real life proportions, a kind of artistic deformation, since fantasy always depicts something impossible in reality, this is its generic feature, and b) allegoricalness, the lack of inherent value of images . Resorting to a fantastic secondary convention, the author certainly assumes a certain "translation" of the image, its decoding, its non-literal reading. S. Lem compares the fantastic image in such a work with a telegraph device, which only carries a signal, transmits it, but does not embody its content.

Of course, the dialectic of real relations between the mechanism that carries the signal and the meaning of this signal in the allegorical structures of art is more complicated than in telegraph technology, but, given the inevitable coarsening of the phenomenon in such cases, this comparison can be accepted as a first approximation. Sometimes literary critics and even science fiction writers (the latter not so much in practice as in their theoretical statements) try to generally limit the scope of science fiction to this. A. and B. Strugatsky, for example, in one of their articles give the following definition of fiction: “Fiction is a branch of literature that obeys all general literary laws and requirements, considering general literary problems (such as: man and the world, man and society, etc. .), but characterized by a specific literary device - the introduction of an extraordinary element ”(highlighted by us. - T. Ch.).

However, there are works in which a fantastic image or hypothesis turns out to be the main content, the main concern of the author, his ultimate goal; they are significant, or at least valuable in themselves. V. M. Chumakov calls this type of fantastic works “substantial fiction”, S. Lem “final” fantasy, and we will call self-valuable fiction. However, serious objections are raised by the desire of V. M. Chumakov to completely exclude this kind of fantasy from art. The fact is that fantasy is valuable in itself, determining the structure of a work, not only in science fiction, but also in a fairy tale. And it is hardly possible, and certainly not expedient, to exclude the fairy tale from art. Art would greatly lose from such an operation.

Now, having separated fantastic artistic convention from fiction proper, we can begin to classify fantasy as a special branch of literature, intrinsically valuable or “ultimate” fiction, without going into its very complicated relationship with secondary artistic convention.

The division of self-valuable fiction into two types of works is quite obvious. They are usually called fantasy and science fiction, "simply" science fiction and science fiction. It seems to us that the natural basis for such a division is not the subject matter and not the material used in these two types of works, but the structure of the narrative itself. Let's call them for now 1) narrative with many premises and 2) narrative with a single fantastic premise. We make this division based on the experience of G. Wells, and not only on his artistic practice. The writer also abandoned the theoretical understanding of this problem when he contrasted his understanding of fantasy with some other artistic structure.

G. Wells argued the need for a very cruel self-restraint for the writer and strongly recommended adhering to strict discipline in fantasizing itself, otherwise “something unimaginably stupid and extravagant is obtained. Anyone can come up with inside-out people, anti-gravity, or worlds like dumbbells.” Such a heap of uncontrollable fictions seemed to Wells superfluous, hindering the amusement of the work, since "no one will think about the answer if both hedges and houses begin to fly, or if people turn into lions, tigers, cats and dogs at every step, or if anyone could become invisible at will. Where everything can happen, nothing will arouse interest. He considered it possible to make one single fantastic assumption and direct all further efforts to its proofs and justifications.

In a word, G. Wells, developing the principle of a single fantastic premise, started from a certain deterministic model, well known to everyone, familiar, familiar. And in the time of G. Wells, a fairy tale was considered such a familiar and extremely artistic model of reality, almost completely free from determinism. In the time of G. Wells, it was a narrative with many premises, since in the fairy tale “anything can happen”, it gives the right to the appearance of unmotivated miracles.

We must immediately make a reservation that in this context we can only talk about a literary fairy tale, and not about folklore. The difference is significant, since the literary fairy tale has not survived the complex evolution that the folklore fairy tale has gone through, having passed the path from the "sacred" story to the "profane", i.e. to the artistic one. A literary fairy tale in the work of D. Straparolla is born immediately as a profane and fantastic story in the truest sense of the word, since no one believes in the literal meaning of the events depicted in it. The fantasy of a literary fairy tale is beyond belief, and therefore it allows for any miracles. The folklore tale has its own strict determinism, since it is born on the basis of a certain worldview and reflects this worldview. Therefore, the folklore tale retains a relatively stable range of fantastic images and situations. As for the literary fairy tale, it is much more open to all sorts of trends, it also willingly uses accessories from the arsenal of science fiction. In a modern literary fairy tale, we can meet not only fairies, wizards, talking animals, things come to life, but also aliens, robots, spaceships, etc.

Such an artistic model with many premises could be called game fiction or storytelling of the fairy tale type. And one should not put an equal sign between "fairy-tale fantasy" and "tale-like storytelling." The idea of ​​a thematically defined group of images that goes back to a folk tale and to the traditions of a literary fairy tale of the 17th century is firmly connected with the expression "fantastic fantasy". - fairy tales. Speaking of fairy tale narration, we mean something else.

When it comes to a specific fantastic work, the reader's intuitive perception of it as a fantasy, fairy tale or science fiction is determined not so much by the texture of the fantastic images themselves, not so much by whether a talking animal, magician, ghost or alien acts there, but by the whole character of the work, the structure, type of narration and the role played by a fantastic image in a particular work. Only a formal belonging to one of the systems of fantastic figurativeness does not yet give grounds to attribute this or that work to science fiction or a fairy tale. Therefore, we cannot fully correlate the fairy tale narrative with the fairy tale and equate the artistic model with many fantastic premises - game fantasy - with fairy tale fantasy.

In fairy tale narration, or narration with many premises, a special conditional environment is created, a special world with its own laws, which, if you look at them from the standpoint of determinism, seem like complete lawlessness. In a work of gaming fiction, "anything can happen" regardless of where the action takes place - whether in the thirtieth kingdom, on a distant planet, or in a neighboring apartment. The concept of fairy-tale type of narration is not equivalent to the concept of a fairy tale; we can meet the structure of a story with many premises outside the fairy-tale genre. A narrative with a single fantastic premise is a story about the extraordinary and amazing, a story about a miracle, correlated with the laws of real, determined reality.

So, if we talk about fantastic fiction, here we distinguish between fantasy as part of a secondary artistic convention and fiction in its own right, in which, in turn, two types of narrative structures are distinguished: a) a story of a fairy-tale type, or game fiction, and b) a story about the amazing and extraordinary . These varieties of fantastic have different functions, different nature of connection with the cognitive process, and even different origins.

First, let's try to find out what are the origins of fantastic artistic convention, and here it will be difficult to get around the epistemological aspect of the problem. We have already talked about how a fantastic image is born in the process of cognition. Its further fate is also determined by the cognitive process.

The question of whether some fantastic image will live or die, and what that life will be like, is decided not in the sphere of art, but in the worldview sphere. With regard to fairy-tale images, this question was raised at one time by N. A. Dobrolyubov in the article “Russian Folk Tales”. The critic became interested in how much people believe in the reality of fairy-tale characters and miracles, and in those rhetorical questions that he asks himself, a curious opposition is visible: either the storytellers and their listeners believe in the real existence of the thirtieth kingdom, in the power of sorcerers and witches, “or On the contrary, all this does not go into the depths of their hearts, does not take possession of the imagination and reason, but is so-so, it is said for the beauty of the word and goes past the ears.

Further, the critic notes that in different areas and among different people, the attitude towards these images may be different, that some believe more, others less, “for some, it already turns into fun what for others is the subject of serious curiosity and even fear.” But be that as it may, N. A. Dobrolyubov connects the ability of a fantastic image to seize the mind and imagination, arouse “serious curiosity” with faith in the reality of these characters.

It is interesting that the modern fairy tale researcher V.P. Anikin makes even the very preservation of some fairy tale motifs directly dependent on the existence of a living faith in fate, witchcraft, magic, etc., even if this faith is weakened to the limit. Analyzing the motive for choosing a bride in the fairy tale “The Frog Princess”, where each of the brothers shoots an arrow, the researcher notes: “Apparently, in some weakened form, this belief (in the fate to which the heroes entrust themselves. - T. Ch.) was still preserved, which made it possible for the ancient motif to be preserved in the fairy tale narration.

So, a fantastic image retains a relative independent value as long as there is at least a weak, “flickering” (E. V. Pomerantseva) faith in reality, a fantastic character or situation. Only in this case is the fantastic image interesting for its own content. When, due to changes in the worldview, trust in it is broken, the fantastic image, as it were, loses its inner content, becomes a form, a vessel that can be filled with something else.

The early artistic consciousness, which does not yet know the ambiguity of the artistic image and the conscious secondary conventionality, may well not save, not preserve such "empty" images. So, folklorists suggest, many fairy-tale motifs were lost, to which, due to changes in the worldview and living conditions, people lost interest. Such a consciousness can create beautiful highly artistic works, but it does not know the forms of conventional imagery.

Such was the thinking of the creators of folk tales in ancient times, and the story of the transformation of a man into a bear, which, according to the just remark of Yu. Mann, is not in itself in the eyes of our contemporary. has a meaning, for our distant ancestors it did not and could not have any other meaning, and it was only with this single meaning that it was interesting. The same perfect identity of plastic images "depicted, the idea that the artist seeks to express," sees G. Heine in ancient art. There, "for example, the wanderings of Odysseus do not mean anything other than the wanderings of a man who was the son of Laertes and the husband of Penelope and was called Odysseus ...". Another thing is in the art of modern times, in medieval art, which G. Heine calls romantic. “Here the knight's wanderings have an eoteric significance; they perhaps embody life's wanderings in general; a defeated dragon is a sin; the almond tree, from afar fragrant so invigoratingly toward the hero, is a trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, merging at the same time into unity, just as the shell, fiber and kernel are a single almond.

In the formation of this new type of artistic consciousness, an important role belongs to allegory, which later the romantics took up arms in such a way and which modern researchers also speak very disapprovingly of. By the way, G. Heine in the above passage speaks primarily of allegory. There are no words, the allegory, which assigns a single meaning to the image, is very limited in its capabilities, and by the time of the birth of romanticism, these artistic possibilities were largely exhausted. But after all, she consolidated, albeit the only, but not direct, but figurative meaning of the image. And one had to accustom oneself to such a vision, one had to step through this stage in order to come to the romantic ambiguity of the image.

Such a developed artistic consciousness, which has already mastered allegorical forms of figurativeness, retains a fantastic image that has lost its connection with the worldview base, but fills it with new content, and then, according to G. Wells, “interest in all stories of this type is supported not by fiction itself, but non-fantastic elements. Such an image, according to S. Lem, carries a signal, but does not embody its content.

This is how we see the path from a direct cognitive image to a secondary artistic convention: an image or an idea turns into a fantastic artistic convention when trust is lost in it. This, as it were, completes the process of revising old beliefs and delusions.

Such is the fate of almost all fabulous miracles; in the minds of the enlightened part of society, fairy-tale fantasy is separated from reality much earlier than in the minds of the lower classes. As we have seen, at the end of the XIX century. people "half-believe" the events about which the fairy tale narrates. For D. Basile, C. Perrot and their followers (17th century), a fairy tale is already a free play of the imagination, a poetic trinket or an elegant allegory.

In a literary fairy tale, the old fairy-tale images and motifs continue to live and even acquire new details, but they undergo significant internal restructuring: in a literary fairy tale, old miracles gradually lose their literal meaning, they seem to “dematerialize”, become a symbol, allegory, etc.

Interestingly, E. Taylor set aside "a huge mental area" lying between belief and disbelief, for "symbolic, allegorical and other interpretations of the myth." An allegorical reading of a mythological image begins when confidence in it is lost or, in any case, faith in its literal correspondence to reality is shaken, that is, when the image begins to be perceived as fantastic. Particularly indicative in this regard is the transformation of one of the most common fairy tale motifs - the motif of transformation. In a folk tale, transformations are material and literal: a person really turns into a mouse, into a needle, into a well, etc., followed by the return of the original appearance. But in the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, such transformations are often conditional.

So, in folk tales, there are often stories about grooms turned into animals, to whom the love of the bride returns a human appearance. There is another stable motif in fairy tales: the hero, usually the youngest son, sits on the stove, smears drool on his cheeks, and then turns into a handsome good fellow. In both cases, these transformations are literal and material.

In Ch. Perrault's fairy tale "Riquet with a Tuft" much resembles both of these fairy tale motifs, but the transformation at the end of Riquet into a handsome man turns out to be not real, but imaginary, and the author speaks at length about this: "And the princess did not have time to utter these words, how Rike-with-tuft appeared before her the most beautiful young man in the world, the most slender and most pleasant. Others, however, assure that it is not at all in the charms of the fairies, but that love alone is to blame for such a transformation. They say that when the princess thought carefully about the constancy of her lover, about his modesty and about all the good sides of his soul and mind, after that she no longer saw either the curvature of his body or the ugliness of his “face”.

Modern storytellers no longer perceive fabulous transformations as something literal. Particularly consistent in this. regarding E. Schwartz. His transformations look more like an allegory, like a hint of real, and not at all fabulous reality. So, in the play "Shadow" (according to Andersen), a fairy-tale story about a frog princess emerges. The heroine of the play claims that it was her great aunt. “They say that the frog princess was kissed by a man who fell in love with her, despite her ugly appearance. And from this the frog turned into a beautiful woman ... But in fact my aunt was a beautiful girl and she married a scoundrel who only pretended to love her. And his kisses were cold and so disgusting that the beautiful girl soon turned into a cold and disgusting frog ... They say that such things happen much more often than you might think.

As you can see, this is not a literal transformation at all, its allegorical meaning in this case is emphasized, deliberately exposed. The use of fairy-tale images in other literary genres deviates even further from the original meaning.

The fate of the fairy-tale motive of transformation can serve as a kind of model for the life of fantastic images that are born on the basis of cognitive images, since they have the property of experiencing the worldview atmosphere that gave rise to them. Thus, a circle of images and motifs is formed that live and continue to “work” in art, when the worldview that created them and perceived them as the embodiment of reality itself has long since sunk into oblivion.

E. V. Pomerantseva calls such an image, which has gone beyond the limits of belief, a “standard image”: “It goes back to ancient beliefs, but it is strengthened and refined in the representation of a modern person not by mythological stories, but by professional art - literature and painting ... Ancient mythological ideas formed the basis of both folklore and literary works about a mermaid - a demonic female image. Over time, the complex folklore image fades, is erased, the belief leaves the folk life. The literary image of a mermaid, chased and expressive, lives as a phenomenon of art and contributes to the life of this image no longer as an element of belief, but as a plastic representation in mass art, in everyday life and in speech.

Such images that have moved beyond the bounds of faith and are not perceived in their literal sense, each era and each artist has the right to fill with their individual content. A. A. Gadzhiev believes that such a tendency to use images of ancient legends, myths and legends is organically inherent in the romantic type of artistic thinking, since the romantic puts the problems of modernity “in the flesh of events and phenomena that should be perceived by the reader as something alien and little known, far from everyday life around him, "and for this purpose, the images of pagan gods, elemental spirits, etc., which have become fantastic, are most suitable.

However, the matter is not limited to this. Having guessed that thought is capable of creating something that does not exist in nature and even completely impossible, a person can already quite consciously use this property of his thinking and learn to construct fantastic images for entertainment or other, more noble purposes, while fully understanding their fantasticness.

The paths here are different. It can be a rethinking and restructuring of the standard image. This is how Swift's guingnms were created; they are based on the fabulous image of a talking animal. An artist - which is observed especially often - can take the path of reification of a metaphor. The metaphor itself is not fantasy, but, presented in the flesh, it becomes one. In this way, the mayor with a stuffed head was created by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, the flaming heart of Danko by M. Gorky, and many other images. Often there is also conscious hyperbolization, a shift in real proportions, a mixture of opposite principles.

But here's what's typical. Constructing such an image, the writer involuntarily orients himself and relies on certain blanks and images that already exist in previously created systems of fantastic imagery. No matter how original the fiction of N.V. Gogol in the story "The Nose", it is clearly focused on the fairy-tale tradition; in science fiction, for example, it will not fit. We repeat, a fundamentally new figurative system in science fiction is forged only in the depths of the cognitive process, and not in artistic creativity proper. In art, in any case, within the limits of secondary artistic convention, in different ways, they vary, combine, mix, rethink and reshape the images, ideas, situations already in stock, created by the “flight of fantasy from life” (V. I. Lenin) in the process of learning.

And finally, the possibility of fantastic conventionality lies in the very methods of processing material in artistic creativity, in principles. artistic typification. Any extreme concentration of thought or action in the depicted phenomenon (situation) takes this phenomenon beyond the bounds of the possible, vitally reliable, therefore, creates something fantastic. And without such a concentration of thought, a tendency, art itself is impossible. That is why a realist writer, even if he can do without pagan gods or fairy-tale characters, does not always refuse other forms of conditional fantastic imagery.

F. M. Dostoevsky, who generally preferred limiting situations, directly brings together the concepts of “fantastic” and “exceptional”: “I have my own special view of reality (in art), and what most people call fantastic and exceptional, for me is the very essence real." As we can see, F. M. Dostoevsky understands fantasy as the ultimate concentration of the essence of the depicted phenomenon, which takes it beyond the border of life-like plausibility, as well as any sharp deviation from such plausibility. In this regard, of interest is the definition that F. M. Dostoevsky gives to his story "The Gentle One".

The writer called the work "fantastic" and considered it necessary to explain what meaning he put into this word, since the content of the story, according to the writer, is "extremely" real. The writer calls the “stenographer’s technique” fantastic, i.e., as if a documentary record of the disordered thoughts of a person who is in confusion and trying to figure out what happened. Further, F. M. Dostoevsky also refers to V. Hugo, who in one of his works “made an even greater improbability, assuming that a person sentenced to death can (and has time) to keep notes not only on his last day, but even on his last hour and literally at the last minute. However, without this impossible, and therefore fantastic (in the understanding of F. M. Dostoevsky) situation, there would be no work itself.

In a word, the possibility and even the inevitability of fantasy, which is part of a secondary artistic convention, is rooted in the very specifics of art and artistic creativity.

If “formal stylistic” or conditional fantasy is an integral part of artistic convention and is, as it were, dissolved, dispersed throughout all art, then self-valuable fantasy is a special branch of literature and its origin is somewhat different.

The origin of storytelling with many premises, or those of game fiction

He preaches love

With a hostile word of denial...

N. A. Nekrasoy

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, as he said about himself, "to the pain of the heart" was attached to his homeland. He believed in its future, in the triumph of goodness and justice. And everything that came into conflict with living life evoked his angry laughter. Everything that led to false officialdom, to spiritual petrification, to the forcible assertion of authorities, to the instillation of fear and trembling, found its enemy in the person of Saltykov-Shchedrin. Everything that was afraid of laughter became the subject of his satirical denunciation.

But satirical art requires not only a rare power of talent, but also extraordinary courage and great spiritual tension. The satirical writer is concerned about what most people think is familiar and even normal.

For several decades of the 19th century, progressive Russia was impatiently waiting for Shchedrin's satirical speeches, so witty and topical. It was during these years that the Aesopian style of Saltykov-Shchedrin, a wonderful satirist, was determined.

Meanwhile, literature and art in Russia were crushed by political censorship. No wonder Saltykov-Shchedrin said about himself: “I am Aesop and a pupil of the “censorship department”. He used a special style of writing, which is called Aesopian. It consists in the use of special allegories, omissions and other means. The satirist called Aesop's speech "the servile manner of writing", referring to its forced character, associated with the pressure of censorship.

The Aesopian language helped to encrypt thoughts that were seditious or objectionable to the authorities. It was difficult for the censors to blame the author. One can recall one of the heroes of “Woe from Wit” by Zagoretsky: “... fables are my death! Eternal mockery of lions! over the eagles! Say what you like: although they are animals, they are still kings.

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin directed the sting of satire not against individual, even terrible personalities, but against public life itself, against people endowed with the power of arbitrariness. The writer believed that in every person there is a germ of conscience. He dubbed his era "smug modernity" and sought to make his works a broad mirror of social life.

Shchedrin introduced and approved in literature a collective characterization, a group portrait. A vivid example was the famous Shchedrin city governors and the Foolovites from the History of a City. material from the site

In order to better comprehend social vices and better portray them, the satirist often gave his images a fantastic character or used the grotesque. He creates fantastic institutions, fantastic positions, fantastic images. So, in the "History of a City" its famous city leaders appear: Pimple with a stuffed head, Grim-Grumbling, "an experienced scoundrel", Busty, who had an organ in his head, and others.

Grotesque characters helped Shchedrin expose the social and moral vices of Russian society, and incredible fantastic images made it possible to speak on topics prohibited by censorship.

The writer's stinging wit aroused in the reader a feeling of hatred and contempt for any tyranny, hypocrisy, philistinism, bureaucracy, slavish cowardice and servility.

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On this page, material on the topics:

• Latin expressions in the works of Shchedrin
• grotesque in works
• examples of fantasy and grotesque in the works of M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin
• fantasy and grotesque
• fantasy as an artistic device

30-40s - creation of St. Petersburg stories

In Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, the fantastic element is very strong (on the 1st plane), in St. Petersburg stories the fantastic element is sharply relegated to the background of the plot, fantasy seems to dissolve into reality. The supernatural is present in the plot not directly, but indirectly, for example, as dream("Nose"), rave("Notes
crazy") implausible rumors("Overcoat"). Only in the story "Portrait" really supernatural events occur. It is no coincidence that Belinsky did not like the first edition of the story "Portrait" precisely because of the excessive presence of a mystical element in it. The irrational dissolves in everyday life, the plot is rather poor (jokes)

One of the characteristic features of Gogol's grotesque is, according to M. Bakhtin , "positive-negative exaggerations". They enter Gogol directly into the system of artistic assessments of his characters and largely determine their figurative structure. Various forms of praise and abuse, as it has been noted more than once, have an ambivalent character in the poetics of the writer (“familiar affectionate abuse and public praise”).

The most common reception in G. - objectification, reification of the animate. The essence of this technique lies in the combination of elements of the anthropomorphic and real (or zoomorphic) series that are incompatible in quality. This also includes reduction of the character to one external sign(all those waistlines, mustaches, sideburns, etc. walking along Nevsky Prospekt). In addition to the reduction of the human body, there is also an opposite method - grotesque expansion(the disintegration of the body into separate parts - the story "The Nose"). There are also cases of dissolution in the environment, as a result of which the environment of the character acts as a grotesque continuation of the body (cf. the description of Sobakevich or Plyushkin in Dead Souls). It turns out that Gogol's figures lack definite contours and oscillate between the poles of contraction into one point and dissolution in the objective world.

The grotesque body in Gogol belongs to the surface of the visible, external world. This is a body without a soul or with a monstrously narrowed soul. The contradiction between the incredible abundance of external signs and the internal emptiness of the characters is striking. The grotesque body either sinks into the sea of ​​the material world, because it has no inner content, or its essence is reduced to one dominant "insignificant passion." The movement of the plot in Gogol always serves to reveal "deception", to discredit external forms in order to search for internal content ("Nevsky Prospekt").

Grotesque collective images: Nevsky Prospekt, office, department (the beginning of "Overcoat", curse - "department of meanness and hello", etc.).

Grotesque death: Gogol's merry death is the transformation of the dying Akaky Akakievich (death delirium with curses and rebellion), his afterlife adventures behind his overcoat. Grotesque texting dogs in Poprishchin's delirium in Diary of a Madman

The grotesque in Gogol is not a simple violation of the norm, but the denial of all abstract, immovable norms that lay claim to absoluteness and eternity. He seems to be saying that good should not be expected from the stable and familiar, but from a “miracle”.

The end of the "Overcoat" - a spectacular apotheosis of the grotesque, something like a silent scene from The Inspector General. Gogol: “But who would have imagined that this is not all about Akaky Akakievich, that he is destined to live noisily for several days after his death, as if as a reward for a life unnoticed by anyone. But it happened and our poor history suddenly takes on a fantastic ending." In fact, this end is not at all more fantastic and "romantic" than the whole story. On the contrary - there was a real grotesque fantasy, transmitted as a game with reality; here the story emerges into a world of more ordinary ideas and facts, but everything is interpreted in the style of playing with fantasy. This is a new “deception”, a technique of the reverse grotesque: “the ghost suddenly looked around and, stopping, asked: “what do you want?” and showed such a fist as alive you won't find. The watchman said: "nothing" and turned the same hour ago. The ghost, however, was already much taller, wore an enormous mustache, and, directing his steps, as it seemed, to the Obukhov bridge, disappeared completely into the darkness.

Brief (with briefs):

See ticket 29+30

Nose: The incident described, according to the narrator, happened in St. Petersburg on March 25th. The barber Ivan Yakovlevich, eating fresh bread baked by his wife Praskovya Osipovna in the morning, finds his nose in it. Puzzled by this unrealistic incident, having recognized the nose of collegiate assessor Kovalev, he is looking in vain for a way to get rid of his find. Finally, he throws him off the Isakievsky Bridge and, against all expectations, is detained by a district warden with large sideburns. The collegiate assessor Kovalev (who was more fond of being called a major), waking up that very morning with the intention of inspecting a pimple that had just jumped up on his nose, did not even find the nose itself. Major Kovalev, who needs a decent appearance, because the purpose of his arrival in the capital is to find a place in some prominent department and, possibly, to marry (on the occasion of which he is familiar with ladies in many houses: Chekhtyreva, state councilor, Pelageya Grigorievna Podtochina, staff officer), - goes to the chief police chief, but on the way he meets his own nose (dressed, however, in a uniform embroidered with gold and a hat with a plume, denouncing him as a state adviser). The nose gets into the carriage and goes to the Kazan Cathedral, where he prays with an air of the greatest piety. Major Kovalev, at first shy, and then directly calling his nose by his proper name, does not succeed in his intentions and, distracted by a lady in a hat, light as a cake , loses an uncompromising interlocutor. Not finding the chief police chief at home, Kovalev goes on a newspaper expedition, wanting to advertise the loss, but the gray-haired official refuses him (“The newspaper may lose its reputation”) and, full of compassion, offers to sniff tobacco, which completely upsets Major Kovalev. He goes to a private bailiff, but finds him in a position to sleep after dinner and listens to irritated remarks about "all sorts of majors" who are dragged around the devil knows where, and that a decent person's nose will not be torn off. Arriving home, the saddened Kovalev ponders the reasons for the strange loss and decides that the staff officer Podtochina, whose daughter he was in no hurry to marry, is to blame for everything, and she, right out of revenge, hired some money-boxes. The sudden appearance of a police official who brought a nose wrapped in a piece of paper and announced that he was intercepted on the way to Riga with a fake passport plunges Kovalev into joyful unconsciousness. However, his joy is premature: the nose does not stick to the previous place. The called doctor does not undertake to put his nose on, assuring that it will be even worse, and encourages Kovalev to put his nose in a jar of alcohol and sell it for decent money. The unfortunate Kovalev writes to the staff officer Podtochina, reproaching, threatening and demanding to immediately return the nose to its place. The response of the staff officer exposes her complete innocence, because it shows such a degree of misunderstanding that cannot be imagined on purpose. Meanwhile, rumors are spreading around the capital and overgrown with many details: they say that collegiate assessor Kovalev is walking along Nevsky at exactly three o'clock, then - that he is in the Juncker store, then in the Tauride Garden; to all these places many people flock, and enterprising speculators build benches for the convenience of observation. One way or another, but on April 7, the nose was again in its place. To the happy Kovalev, the barber Ivan Yakovlevich appears and shaves him with the greatest care and embarrassment. In one day, Major Kovalev manages to go everywhere: to the confectionery, and to the department where he was looking for a place, and to his friend, also a collegiate assessor or major, he meets on the way the staff officer Podtochina with her daughter, in a conversation with whom he thoroughly sniffs tobacco. Description his happy mood is interrupted by the sudden recognition of the writer that there is a lot of improbability in this story and that it is especially surprising that there are authors who take such plots. After some reflection, the writer nevertheless declares that such incidents are rare, but they do happen.