It belongs to the epic genre of literature. Major epic genres

literary art has a large number of means of conveying the intention of the author. At the same time, the genre of the work plays a certain role in expressing the author's intention, since the choice of the genre of the work determines its structure, features of use. language tools, the process of creating images of heroes, expressing the author's attitude to the events and heroes presented, etc. All diversity epic genres in the literature can be classified on the basis of volume and the following forms can be distinguished: large (novel), medium (story, short story) and small (story). This paper considers only a small form of the epic genre - a story.

The concept of "story" can be given the following definition: A story is a small prose (occasionally poetic) genre, correlated with a story, as a more detailed form of epic narration. [encyclopedia].

N. A. Gulyaev (N. A. Gulyaev. Theory of Literature. - M., Higher School, 1985.) gives the following interpretation of the concept of "story": Story-small epic form. It differs in a smaller volume, it is focused on the image of a single event, often in the life of one person, revealing one of his traits. One-sidedness, one-problemness are the characteristic features of the story as a genre. Usually, the narrator explores the situation in which the hero is at his best. The story is usually based on some separate case from life, a narrative that is characterized by “isolation” (has a beginning and an end). The features of the revealed event or human character are quite fully presented in it. The story requires the greatest skill from the writer, the ability to fit a lot into a small space. The originality of the small epic form, therefore, lies in the exceptional brevity of presentation, compression, artistic richness.

F. M. Golovenchenko gives the following definition of the concept of "story": a story is a short narrative work, depicting some bright event, social or psychological conflict and the characters associated with it. This form of the epic genre is most commonly used in literature, as it allows the most active intervention in life. The story represents a particular period in someone's life, beginning long before the story is told and continuing long after the story is over. This period of life must necessarily be bright, characteristic of those conditions, that environment, those people whom the author intends to introduce to the reader.

The story can touch on a wide variety of spiritual and spiritual issues. public life, but in force genre features deprived of the opportunity to provide a versatile and big picture the life that can give big form of the epic genre (novel, poem, story). This form of the epic genre is characterized by such character traits as the brevity and intensity of the narrative, the absence of side digressions, the utmost brevity, the swiftness of the plot, the completion of a spectacular ending. Usually there is little in the story actors, and each of them is outlined only in the most essential features for resolving the ideological and artistic conception. In addition, the details and detail that are needed in the larger forms of the epic genre are not allowed. The characters here are not given in development: each person appears already formed and is revealed from any one side; in the same way, events are taken such that unfold over a short period of time.

Stories can be divided, according to F. M. Golovenchenko, depending on the leading motive into everyday, adventurous, social or psychological. However, it is not always possible to find stories of only one of the named types. Most often, elements of psychologism, adventurism and everyday life are intertwined. Then the character of the story is determined by the dominant motive.

However, in literary criticism, the story is opposed to other epic forms. There is a so-called story problem. On the one hand, the possibility of correlating the story, in contrast to both the short story and the story, with both of these “simple” genres, which are considered the sources and prototypes of the named middle forms. On the other hand, the story should be correlated - through the story - with the novel.

There are several criteria for distinguishing between genres. [Tamarchenko's theory of literature]

1) "Small form" as a criterion. On the one hand, the difference in the volume of texts is a convincing criterion for distinguishing between the genres of the story and the story. In accordance with the above criterion, it is easier to identify a story than a story: for this, an approximate idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe boundary to which the volume of text can be considered minimal is sufficient. For example, in the Western scientific tradition, where much more attention is paid to the volume of the text, it is customary in the definition of a story (it is no coincidence that this form is called “short story”, “Kurzgeschichte”) include indications of the number of words: “a short realistic narrative” should contain less than 10,000 words. . (Shaw H. Dictionary of Literary Terms. - N. Y., 1972. - P. 343) The length of the text is an important but insufficient criterion. The division of the text into chapters or the absence of such a division should also be taken into account. This moment is more obviously connected with the content: with the number of events and episodes. But in relation to episodes and events, the quantitative approach must become more differentiated and must be combined with qualitative criteria. When we are talking not only about the elements of the text, but also about the work. Two aspects stand out here: the “objective” plan of the image (ThursO depicted: the event, the space and time in which it occurs) and the “subjective” plan (who depicts the event and with what forms of speech). Friedman N. points out that a story can be short because its action is small, or because its action, being large, is reduced in volume using selection, scale, or point of view techniques. (quoted from: Smirnov I.P. On the meaning of brevity // Russian short story: Problems of history and theory: collection of articles. - St. Petersburg, 1993. - P. 5.)

As Smirnov I.P. showed, the minimum of events in a short story is not one, but two, since artistry, no matter what genre form it takes, is based on parallelism (on equivalence). (Smirnov IP On the meaning of brevity. - p. 6) A similar principle also exists in the story and in the novel. However, outside of small form In addition to the main “parallel” events, there are others that duplicate or vary this parallelism.

To the subject planepisode , i.e., that part of the text where the same place and time of action and a set of actors are preserved, in addition to the event, the spatio-temporal conditions for its commission are included. It should be emphasized that without an analysis of these conditions, the event composition of the action may not be clear. According to Tamarchenko N.D., the minimum in terms of the subject matter of content, which is inherent in the “small form”, consists of two principles: two spatio-temporal spheres, on the borders of which an event takes place, i.e. movement of the character across the boundary of the semantic field. (Lotman Yu. M. Structure artistic text. - M., 1970. - S. 282) Outside the "small form" - in the story and the novel - a greater number of scenes are possible. But their correlation with each other is formed aroundmain opposition and diversevaries his.

In addition, the subjective plan of each episode is created by a certain complex of compositional forms of speech, which always has two poles: the speech of the depicting subject (narrator or narrator) and the speech of the characters. In this case, the number of episodes is determined by whether the authorvary ratio main points of view:representing and depicting (external and internal), i.e. whether the idea of ​​binary is realized. Thus, J. Van der Eng tried to extend the idea of ​​binarity to all aspects of the “small form” structure. He says that it is characterized by a cross-cutting combination of two so-called "variation series" of motives of "action, characteristics and environment": "integral" and "dispersed". (Van der Eng J. The art of the short story. The formation of variation series as a fundamental principle of narrative construction // Russian short story: Problems of history and theory. - P. 197 - 200)

Based on the foregoing, the specifics of the small form can be defined as follows: the volume of the text is sufficient to implement the principle of binary in the main aspects of the artistic whole - in the organization of space-time and plot and in the subjective structure materialized in the compositional forms of speech. At the same time, the volume is minimal in the sense that this principle is implemented everywhere in a single variant.

One more concept of "small form" should also be pointed out. According to quantitative criteria, this concept leaves aside the question ofstructural differences between short stories and short stories . The existing definitions of the concept of "story" either do not clearly distinguish it from the short story, or this distinction is based on an explicit or implicit convergence of the story with the story. Wilpert G. (von Sachwörtebuch der Literatur) gives the following definition of the concept of "story": "... special genre, a short epic prose intermediate form between short story, essay and anecdote, characterized by a purposeful, linear, concise and conscious composition aimed at an inevitable solution (calculated to the end), aimed at shaking or bringing life collapse, or opening a way out. A similar definition is given by Shaw H. (Dictionary of Literatury Terms. P. 343): “In a story, attention is focused on one character in one specific situation at a specific moment. ... Dramatic conflict - the confrontation of opposing forces - is at the center of any story. Another definition in which the story is similar to the short story can be found in Kozhinov V. (Story // Dictionary literary terms. - M., 1974. - S. 309 - 310): “The novel and the story are distinguished as a narrative with a sharp, distinct plot, intense action (novella) and, on the contrary, an epic calm narrative with a naturally developing plot (story)”). From the same positions, Sierowinski S. (Slownik terminow litreackich. - Wroclaw, 1966. - S. 177) considers the concept of "story": " epic work small size, which differs from the short story in the greater prevalence and arbitrariness of the compositions. However, such a convergence of the story with the story and the short story naturally leads to the removal of the story beyond the "small form" - unlike the short story, it reveals an "expansion" of the volume of the text due to "non-fable elements": "the story in this case allows for greater authorial freedom of narration, expansion of descriptive, ethnographic, psychological, subjective-evaluative elements ... ”(Ninov A. Story // KLE. T.6. - Column 190 - 193) Thus, in order to understand the genre specifics of the story, it is necessary to oppose it to the short story, while remaining in within the "small form". At present, this problem has no solution, although this question has long been raised in an article by K. Locks: “While the Italian novel of the Renaissance ... literary genre... the same cannot be said for "story". … All these considerations force us to begin the definition of the term “story” not from its theoretically and abstractly established type, but rather from a general manner, which we will designate asspecial tone of the story, giving it the features of a "story". ... The tone of the narration suggests ... strict facticity, economy (sometimes consciously calculated) visual means, immediate preparation of the main essence of the narrated. The story, on the contrary, uses the means of slow tonality - it is all filled with detailed motivation, side accessories, and its essence can be distributed at all points of the story itself with almost uniform tension. features story. Its relatively small volume, which they tried to legitimize as one of the signs, is entirely due to these basic properties. (Locks K. Story // Literary Encyclopedia. Dictionary literary terms: In 2 vols. - Vol. 1. - Pillar. 693 - 695) However, in this work there is a focus on identifying common features prosaic "small form"; the center of tension of the story is in no way delimited from the novelistic center of tension.

In addition to the volume of the work, artistic tasks play an important role in determining the form of the work. The novella creates a new vision of the everyday situation, but lessons are never learned from it (as from an anecdote). The accentuated rethinking of the plot of the story in the final event, separated from the main story, gives the entire story told a teaching meaning. This feature arises from the use of parable elements in the story - rethinking in the final of the results of the central event - tests, their evaluation. As a rule, the final meaning of the story is an open situation of the reader's choice between an "anecdotal" interpretation of everything told and its "parable" perception as an example of a temporary deviation from the universal law and subsequent internal merging with it. Such duality and incompleteness characterizes in general the semantic structure of the story as a genre.

Epic genre - what is it? The fact is that it is impossible to answer this question unambiguously. This is due to the fact that this genre contains several varieties. Let's see what is the epic genre, and what directions does it contain? And also in what connects the epic and the lyrics.

What is a literary genre?

It seems that at the beginning of the narrative about the genres of epic works, it would be appropriate to understand the concept of a literary genre as such. The word "genre" comes from the French genre, taken from the Latin, where there is a word genus, both of them mean "kind, genus."

As for the literary genre, they are such groups of works of literature that are formed historically and are united by a set of a number of properties. Such properties are both substantive and formal. In this they differ from literary forms, which are distinguished only on the basis of formal features. Often the genre is confused with the type of literature, which is wrong.

Now let's move on to a direct consideration of the question that this is an epic genre.

What is the essence of the concept?

An epic (as the genre we are considering is also called) is one (just like drama and lyrics) that tells about events that supposedly took place in the past. And the narrator remembers them. A characteristic feature of the epic is the coverage of being in such various aspects as:

• Plastic bulk.
• Extension in time and space.
• Plot, or richness of events.

Aristotle on the nature of the epic

Ancient Greek philosopher 4th century BC e. Aristotle in his work "Poetics" wrote that the epic genre is (unlike dramatic and lyrical works) impartiality and objectivity of the author at the moment of narration. According to Aristotle, the features of the epic are the following:

1. A wide scope of reality, which means the image and privacy individual characters, and phenomena occurring in public life.
2. Disclosure of the characters of people in the course of the plot.
3. Objectivity in the narrative, in which the author's attitude to his characters and the world depicted in the work occurs through the selection of artistic details.

Varieties of the epic

As mentioned above, there are several types of epic genres that can be grouped on the basis of their volume. These are large, medium and small. Each of these types includes the following varieties:

• The major ones include the epic, the novel, the epic poem (the epic poem).
• To the middle belongs such a kind as a story.
• Among the small ones they name a story, a short story and an essay.

A little more about the varieties of works that belong to the epic genres will be discussed below.

What else should be noted? There are also folklore, folk- epic genres such as bylina, fairy tale and historical song.

What else is the significance of the epic?

Features of this genre are also the following:

• An epic work is not limited in scope. As V. E. Khalizev, who was a Soviet and Russian literary critic, said, the epic refers to such a kind of literature that contains not only short stories, but also works designed for long reading or listening - epics, novels.
• In the epic genre, an important role belongs to the image of the narrator (narrator). He, talking about the events themselves, about the characters, at the same time delimits himself from what is happening. But at the same time, in the narration itself, not only what is being told is reproduced, imprinted, but also the mindset of the narrator, his manner of presentation.
• In the epic genre, it is possible to use almost any artistic means known in the literature. The narrative form inherent in it makes it possible to deeply penetrate into inner world individual person.

two large forms

leading genre epic literature until the 18th century, it was the source of its plot is a folk tradition, the images of which are generalized and idealized. Speech reflects a relatively unified popular consciousness, and the form is usually poetic. Examples are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

In the 18-19 centuries, it was replaced by the novel as the leading genre. The plots of the novels are mainly drawn from modern reality, and the images become more individualized. The speech of the characters reflects multilingualism public consciousness, which is sharply differentiated. The form of the novel is prosaic. Examples are the novels written by Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Combining in cycles

Epic works strive for the fullest possible reflection of life's realities, so they tend to be combined into cycles. An illustration of this trend is the epic novel called The Forsyte Saga.

It is a monumental series of diverse works describing the life of the wealthy Forsyth family. In 1932, for the art of narration inherent in Galsworthy, in which the Forsyte Saga is the pinnacle, the writer was awarded Nobel Prize on literature.

Epic means "narrative"

An epic (from the ancient Greek ἔπος - “word, narrative” and ποιέω - “I create”) is an extensive narrative, which is set out either in verse or in prose, and is dedicated to outstanding historical events of a national scale. In a general sense, an epic is a complex, long story that includes a series of events on a large scale.

The forerunners of the epic were past songs, which were half lyrical, half narrative. They were caused by the exploits of a tribe or clan, timed to coincide with the heroes around whom they were grouped. Similar songs formed into large-scale poetic units called epics.

In heroic-romantic epics, their main characters purposefully and actively participate in significant events. historical events, in the process of which the formation of their personality is carried out, as, for example, in the novel by A. N. Tolstoy "Peter I". There are also “moralistic” epics that tell about the state of society in a comic vein, such as Rabelais’s “Gargantua and Pantagruel” or “ Dead Souls» Gogol.

Epic and lyrical genres

The two genres are interconnected and in some cases can form a kind of symbiosis. To understand this, let's define lyrics. This word comes from the Greek λυρικός, which means "performed to the sound of the lyre."

This kind of literature, also called lyric poetry, reproduces a person's personal feeling, his attitude to something, or the mood of the author himself. Works in this genre are characterized by emotionality, sincerity, excitement.

But there is also an intermediate option between poetry and the epic genre - this is the lyre-epic. There are two sides to such works. One of them is the observation and assessment by the reader from the side of the plot narrative, presented in the form of poetry. And the second, which, however, is closely related to the first, is the receipt by him of a certain lyrical (emotional) assessment of the narrator. Thus, lyric epic is characterized by both epic and lyrical principles in the reflection of the surrounding reality.

Lyro-epic genres include such genres as:

• Poem.
• Ballad.
• Stanzas.

The story is a large literary form of written information in literary and artistic design. When recording oral retellings, the story stood apart as independent genre in written literature.

The story as an epic genre

Distinctive features of the story are a small number of characters, little content, one storyline. The story does not have interweaving in events and it cannot contain the diversity of artistic colors.

Thus, the story is a narrative work, which is characterized by a small volume, a small number of characters and the short duration of the events depicted. This kind of epic genre goes back to folklore genres oral retelling, to allegories and parables.

In the 18th century, the difference between essays and stories was not yet defined, but over time, the story began to be distinguished from the essay by the conflict of the plot. There is a difference between the story of "large forms" and the story of "small forms", but this distinction is often arbitrary.

There are stories in which the characteristic features of the novel are traced, and there are also small-scale works with one storyline, which are still called a novel, and not a story, despite the fact that all signs point to this type of genre.

The novel as an epic genre

Many people think that a short story is a certain kind of short story. But still, the definition of a short story sounds like a kind of small prose work. The short story differs from the story in the plot, which is often sharp and centripetal, in the severity of the composition and volume.

The novel most often reveals an acute problem or question through one event. As an example of a literary genre, the short story arose during the Renaissance - the most famous example is Boccaccio's Decameron. Over time, the short story began to depict paradoxical and unusual incidents.

The heyday of the short story, as a genre, is considered the period of romanticism. famous writers P. Merimee, E.T.A. Hoffman, Gogol wrote short stories, the central line of which was to destroy the impression of familiar everyday life.

Novels that depicted fateful events and the game of fate with a person appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. Such writers as O. Henry, S. Zweig, A. Chekhov, I. Bunin paid considerable attention to the short story genre in their work.

The story as an epic genre

Such a prose genre as a story is an intermediate place between a short story and a novel. Initially, the story was a source of narration about any real, historical events ("The Tale of Bygone Years", "The Tale of the Battle of Kalka"), but later it became a separate genre to reproduce the natural flow of life.

A feature of the story is that at the center of its plot is always main character and his life is a revelation of his personality and the path of his destiny. The story is characterized by a sequence of events in which the harsh reality is revealed.

And such a theme is extremely relevant for such an epic genre. Famous stories are Stationmaster"A. Pushkin," Poor Lisa" N. Karamzin, "The Life of Arsenyev" by I. Bunin, "The Steppe" by A. Chekhov.

The value of artistic detail in the story

To fully reveal the writer's intention and to fully understand the meaning literary work artistic detail is very important. It can be a detail of an interior, landscape or portrait, the key here is that the writer emphasizes this detail, thereby drawing the attention of readers to it.

This serves as a way to highlight some kind of psychological trait of the protagonist or mood that is characteristic of the work. Notably, the important role artistic detail lies in the fact that it alone can replace many narrative details. Thus, the author of the work emphasizes his attitude to the situation or to the person.

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epic genres.

Parable. Moral teaching in allegorical (allegorical) form. There is always a certain idea in the parable. The parable does not depict, but informs; there is no delineation of characters, showing phenomena in development.

Story.- small epic genre: a prose work of a small volume, in which, as a rule, one or more events of the hero's life are depicted. The circle of characters in the story is limited, the described action is short in time. Sometimes a storyteller may be present in a work of this genre. The masters of the story were A.P. Chekhov, V.V. Nabokov, A.P. Platonov, K.G. Paustovsky, O.P. Kazakov, V.M. Shukshin.

Novella. A kind of short story with a sharp plot and an unexpected ending.

Feature article. A kind of story, an artistic description of specific phenomena of reality, mostly social, as typical of a given time. It is based on documentary, “writing from life”

Tale- the average (between the story and the novel) epic genre, which presents a number of episodes from the life of the hero (heroes). In terms of volume, the story is larger than a story and more broadly depicts reality, drawing a chain of episodes that make up a certain period in the life of the main character, it has more events and characters, however, unlike the novel, as a rule, there is one storyline.

Novel- a great epic work in which the life of people in a certain period of time or during a whole human life is comprehensively depicted. The characteristic properties of the novel are: the multilinear plot, covering the fate of a number of characters; the presence of a system of equivalent characters; coverage of a wide range of life phenomena, the formulation of socially significant problems; significant duration of action.

epic novel- the largest genre form of the epic. The epic is characterized by:

1. A wide coverage of the phenomena of reality, the image of the life of the people at a historically significant, turning point

2. Global problems of universal significance are raised

3. Nationality content

4. Multiple storylines

5. Very often - reliance on history and folklore

Lyric genres Oh yeah(Greek "Song") - a monumental solemn poem glorifying a great event or a great person; distinguish between spiritual odes (arrangements of psalms), moralizing, philosophical, satirical, ode-messages, etc. The ode is three-part: it must have a theme stated at the beginning of the work; development of the theme and arguments, as a rule, allegorical (second part); final, didactic (instructive) part.; the ode came to Russia in the 18th century, the odes of M. Lomonosov ("On the day of the accession to the Russian throne of Empress Elisaveta Petrovna"), V. Trediakovsky, A. Sumarokov, G. Derzhavin ("Felitsa", "God"), A .Radischev ("Liberty"). Paid tribute to the ode A. Pushkin ("Liberty"). TO mid-nineteenth century, the ode lost its relevance and gradually passed into the category of archaic genres.

Hymn- a poem of laudatory content; also came from ancient poetry, but if in ancient times hymns were composed in honor of gods and heroes, then at a later time hymns were written in honor of solemn events, festivities, often not only of a state, but also of a personal nature (A. Pushkin. "Feasting Students" ).

Elegy(Phrygian "reed flute") - a genre of lyrics dedicated to meditation. Originated in ancient poetry; originally it was called crying over the dead. The elegy was based on the life ideal of the ancient Greeks, which was based on the harmony of the world, the proportionality and balance of being, incomplete without sadness and contemplation, these categories have passed into the modern elegy. An elegy can embody both life-affirming ideas and disappointment. The poetry of the 19th century still continued to develop the elegy in its "pure" form; in the lyric poetry of the 20th century, elegy is found rather as a genre tradition, as a special mood. In modern poetry, an elegy is a plotless poem of a contemplative, philosophical and landscape nature. A. Pushkin. "To the sea" N. Nekrasov. "Elegy" Epigram(Greek "inscription") - a small poem of satirical content. Initially, in ancient times, inscriptions on household items, tombstones and statues were called epigrams. Subsequently, the content of the epigrams changed. Examples of epigrams: Message(or epistole) - a poem, the content of which can be defined as "letter in verse." The genre also came from ancient lyrics. A. Pushkin. Pushchin ("My first friend, my priceless friend...") V. Mayakovsky. "Sergey Yesenin"; "Lilichka! (Instead of a letter)" S. Yesenin. "Mother's letter" M. Tsvetaeva. Poems to Blok

Sonnet- This is a poetic genre of the so-called rigid form: a poem consisting of 14 lines, organized in a special way into stanzas, with strict principles of rhyme and stylistic laws.

This lyrical genre was born in Italy in the 13th century. Its creator was the lawyer Jacopo da Lentini; a hundred years later Petrarch's sonnet masterpieces appeared. The sonnet came to Russia in the 18th century; a little later, he received a serious development in the work of Anton Delvig, Ivan Kozlov, Alexander Pushkin. The poets of the "Silver Age" showed particular interest in the sonnet: K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, I. Annensky, V. Ivanov, I. Bunin, N. Gumilyov, A. Blok, O. Mandelstam ... In the art of versification, the sonnet is considered one of the most difficult genres. In the last 2 centuries, poets rarely adhered to any strict rhyme, often offering a mixture of various schemes.

vocabulary and intonation should be sublime;

rhymes - accurate and, if possible, unusual, rare;

significant words should not be repeated in the same meaning, etc.

: In school literary criticism, such a genre of lyrics is called lyric poem. There is no such genre in classical literary criticism. It was introduced into the school curriculum to somewhat simplify the complex system of lyrical genres: if bright genre features works cannot be singled out and the poem is not in the strict sense either an ode, or a hymn, or an elegy, or a sonnet, etc., it will be defined as a lyric poem. In this case, one should pay attention to the individual features of the poem: the specifics of the form, theme, image of the lyrical hero, mood, etc. Thus, poems by Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva, Blok, and others should be referred to as lyric poems (in the school sense). Almost all the lyrics of the twentieth century fall under this definition, unless the authors specifically specified the genre of the works.

Satire(lat. "mixture, all sorts of things") - as a poetic genre: a work, the content of which is the denunciation - of social phenomena, human vices or individuals - by ridicule. In Russian literature, A. Kantemir, K. Batyushkov (XVIII-XIX centuries) worked in the satire genre, in the 20th century Sasha Cherny and others became famous as the author of satires. Many poems from V. Mayakovsky's "Poems about America" ​​can also be called satires ( "Six nuns", "Black and white", "Skyscraper in section", etc.).

Ballad- lyric-epic plot poem of fantastic, satirical, historical, fabulous, legendary, humorous, etc. character. The ballad arose in antiquity (presumably in the early Middle Ages) as a folklore ritual dance and song genre, and this determines its genre features: strict rhythm, plot (in ancient ballads, heroes and gods were told), the presence of repetitions (whole lines or individual words were repeated as an independent stanza), called refrain. In the 18th century, the ballad became one of the most beloved poetic genres of Romantic literature. Ballads were created by F. Schiller ("Cup", "Glove"), I. Goethe ("Forest King"), V. Zhukovsky ("Lyudmila", "Svetlana"), A. Pushkin ("Anchar", "Groom") , M. Lermontov ("Borodino", "Three Palms"); at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the ballad was revived again and became very popular, especially in the revolutionary era, during the period of revolutionary romance. Among the poets of the twentieth century, ballads were written by A. Blok ("Love" ("The Queen lived on high mountain..."), N. Gumilyov ("Captains", "Barbarians"), A. Akhmatova ("The Gray-eyed King"), M. Svetlov ("Grenada") and others.

Note! The work can combine the features of some genres: a message with elements of an elegy (A. Pushkin, "K *** ("I remember a wonderful moment ..."), a lyrical poem of elegiac content (A. Blok. "Motherland"), an epigram-message, etc. .d.

Dramatic genres

Tragedy- (from Greek tragodia - goat song< греч. tragos - козел и ode - песнь) - один из основных жанров драмы: пьеса, в которой изображаются крайне острые, зачастую неразрешимые жизненные противоречия. В основе сюжета трагедии - непримиримый конфликт Героя, strong personality, with transpersonal forces (fate, state, elements, etc.) or with oneself. In this struggle, the hero, as a rule, dies, but wins a moral victory. The purpose of the tragedy is to cause shock in the viewer by what they see, which, in turn, gives rise to sorrow and compassion in their hearts: such state of mind leads to catharsis - cleansing through shock.

Comedy- (from the Greek from komos - a cheerful crowd, a procession at Dionysian festivities and odie - a song) - one of the leading genres of drama: a work based on the ridicule of social and human imperfections.

Drama- (in the narrow sense) one of the leading genres of dramaturgy; a literary work written in the form of a dialogue of characters. Designed to be performed on stage. Focused on spectacular expression. The relationship of people, the conflicts that arise between them are revealed through the actions of the characters and are embodied in a monologue-dialogical form. Unlike tragedy, drama does not end in catharsis.

The epic is divided into folk and author's. And folk epic was the forerunner of the author's epic. Such examples of epic genres as novel, epic, story, short story, essay, short story, fairy tale and poem, ode and fantasy together represent the entire array of fiction. In all epic genres, the type of narration can be different. Depending on whose person the description is being made - the author (the story is told in the third person) or a personified character (the story is told in the first person), or on behalf of a particular narrator. When the description is in the first person, options are also possible - there may be one narrator, there may be several of them, or it may be a conditional narrator who did not take part in the events described.

Features of epic genres

If the narration is conducted from a third person, then some detachment, contemplation in the description of events is assumed. If from the first or several persons, then there are several different views on the events being interpreted and the personal interest of the characters (such works are called copyright). Characteristics of the epic genre is the plot (assuming a successive change of events), time (in the epic genre, it assumes the presence of a certain distance between the events described and the time of description) and space. The three-dimensionality of space is confirmed by the description of portraits of heroes, interiors and landscapes. Features of the epic genre characterize the ability of the latter to include elements like lyrics ( digressions), and drama (monologues, dialogues). Epic genres seem to have something in common with each other.

Forms of epic genres

There are three structural forms epic - large, medium and small. Some literary critics omit the middle form, referring the story to the long one, which includes a novel and an epic. There is the concept of an epic novel. They differ from each other in the form of narration and plot. Depending on the issues addressed in the novel, it can refer to historical, fantastic, adventurous, psychological, utopian and social. And this is also a feature of the epic genre. The number and global nature of topics and questions that this literary form can answer allowed Belinsky to compare the novel with the epic of private life.

The story belongs to the middle form, and the story, short story, essay, fairy tale, parable and even anecdote make up the small epic form. That is, the main epic genres are the novel, the story and the story, which literary criticism characterizes as, respectively, "a chapter, a leaf and a line from the book of life."

Components of epic genres

The epic poem is a poetic (sometimes prose - "Dead Souls") genre, the plot of which, as a rule, is dedicated to the glorification of the national spirit and traditions of the people. The term "novel" itself comes from the name of the language in which the first printed works were published - Romance (Rome or Roma, where the works were published in Latin). A novel can have a lot of features - genre, compositional, artistic and stylistic, linguistic and plot. And each of them gives the right to attribute the work to a specific group. Eat social romance, moralistic, cultural-historical, psychological, adventure, experimental. There is an adventure novel, there is English, French, Russian. Basically, a novel is a large, artistic, most often prose work written according to certain canons and rules.

Medium form of artistic epic

The features of the ethical genre "story" are not only in the volume of the work, although it is also called the "small novel". There are far fewer incidents in the story. Most often it is dedicated to one central event. A story is a prosaic short piece of narrative character that describes a specific case from life. From a fairy tale, it differs in realistic coloring. According to some literary critics, a story can be called a work in which there is a unity of time, action, event, place and character. All this suggests that the story, as a rule, describes one episode that occurs with one hero at a specific time. There are no clear definitions for this genre. Therefore, many believe that the story is Russian name short story, which was first mentioned in Western literature as early as the 13th century and was a small genre sketch.

As a literary genre, the short story was approved by Boccaccio in the 14th century. This suggests that the short story is much older than the story in age. Even A. Pushkin and N. Gogol referred to some stories as short stories. That is, a more or less clear concept that defines what a “story” is, arose in Russian literature in the 18th century. But there are no obvious boundaries between the story and the short story, except that the latter, at its very beginning, looked more like an anecdote, that is, a short funny sketch of life. Some of the features inherent in it in the Middle Ages, the short story has retained to this day.

Representatives of a small form of artistic epic

The story is often confused with the essay for the same reasons - the lack of a clear wording, suggesting the existence of writing rules. Moreover, they appeared almost simultaneously. Essay - a short description of a single phenomenon. It's more of a documentary these days. real event. In the name itself there is an indication of brevity - to outline. Most often, essays are published in periodicals - newspapers and magazines. Due to the mass nature of the phenomenon, it should be noted such a genre as "fantasy", which is gaining popularity in Lately. He appeared in the 20s of the last century in America. Lovecraft is considered its ancestor. Fantasy is a type of science fiction genre that has no scientific basis and consists entirely of fiction.

Representatives of "lyrical prose"

As noted above, by three literary families in our time, a fourth has been added, which represents those that have stood out in independent group such lyrical-epic genres of literature as a poem, a ballad, a song. The features of this literary genus are to combine storyline with a description of the experiences of the narrator (the so-called lyrical "I"). The name of this genus contains its essence - the unification into one whole of the elements of lyrics and epic. Such combinations have been found in literature since antiquity, but these works stood out as an independent group at a time when interest in the personality of the narrator began to show sharply - in the era of sentimentalism and romanticism. Lyrical-epic genres sometimes referred to as "lyrical prose". All types, genres and other literary divisions, complementing each other, ensure the existence and continuity of the literary process.

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