Short prose. Examples of prose texts Prose work of a small volume: types
A small prose work, the plot of which is based on a certain (rarely several) episodes from the life of one (sometimes several) characters. The small size of the story requires an unbranched, usually single-line, clear-cut plot. The characters are shown more fully formed. There are few descriptions, they are short, concise. An important role is played by an artistic detail (a detail of everyday life, a psychological detail, etc.). The story is very close to the novel. Sometimes a short story is considered a kind of short story. The story differs from the short story in a more expressive composition, the presence of descriptions, reflections, digressions. The conflict in the story, if any, is not as acute as in the short story. The story is often told from the point of view of the narrator. The genesis of the story - in sagas, essays, works of ancient historiography, chronicles, legends. How independent genre The story took shape in the 19th century. From that time until today, it has been a productive genre of fiction.
G. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko was destined to be the founder of Ukrainian educational prose, which determined the problematics and style of all Ukrainian prose of the pre-Shevchenko period.
The decisive influence on the formation of the aesthetic ideal of Kvitka-Osnovyanenko was the folk literature. The trend of opposing the moral and ethical principles of the working people to the morality of pandom, initiated by the new Ukrainian literature, acquires in the work of Kvitka-Osnovyanenko (with all his attempts to find an ideal among the nobility) the character of an ideological and artistic regularity.
Like many educators, Kvitka's attitude to the people, their customs and culture was not unambiguous. However, at the heart of the idea of historical and modern life people with all the complex of its cultural phenomena, overcoming the negative attitude towards the common people's ignorance, superstition and rudeness, develops through a passion for the natural spontaneity, naivety and poetic beauty of oral poetry as a positive knowledge that contributed to the understanding of the then life of the masses in a humanistic-democratic spirit. Cognition folk life, the aesthetic development of folklore as one of the formants of the new Ukrainian literature, on the one hand, contributed to the general "rehabilitation" of the masses, and on the other hand, accelerated the departure from classicism to the formation of features of enlightenment realism, from the classic conflict between personal interests and duties, man and fate - to the correlation of man and society, to the concept of a smart social structure, which is based on the natural state of man as the norm. This reorientation was not only based on the idea of the natural equality of people, but also put the ordinary "small" person in the center of attention, opened the intrinsic value of the individual and the path to artistic creativity to the creation of individual characters. In connection with this, both the style and the nature of pathos in the works of Kvitka-Osnovyanenko change - from classic satire to burlesque, folk grotesque and sentimental emotion and idealization of a positive hero as the personification of the properties of a "natural" person.
The stylistic orientation of the stories to the emotional impact, to the reader's empathy not only needed a new figurative word, but also led to a deepening into the personal life of the characters, strengthening psychological analysis, attempts to show the personality from the middle (in its most secret aspirations, thoughts, feelings, moods) , and finally to the delineation of an individual image-character. Productively using the genre possibilities of the great epic form, the writer here takes a noticeable step in comparison with his predecessors in the new Ukrainian literature.
Literary Enlightenment in Ukraine is not limited to the first half of the 19th century. Having undergone a kind of symbiosis with sentimentalism and romanticism, Enlightenment realism coexists with critical realism almost until the very end of the 19th century. It feeds mainly on the populist direction of literature, when it is subordinated to the educational task, the education of the people or the intelligentsia, which is inevitable in artistic structure works leads to a logical idea.
Very short stories. Brevity is sister
I invite those who wish to learn how to write prose inMakar Evgrafovich went in the morning to grocery store for vodka, in order to commemorate his bosom friend Senya Krivosheiko, who died five years ago from hitting the back of his head on the pavement, but on the way he stumbled over a curb and almost fell under a KAMAZ garbage collection truck passing by, which made him so scared that ......
Zhenya Prokopiev picked daisies, collected them in a bouquet and brought them to Natasha Gribkova to please her, and Natasha preferred peonies to daisies, but sniffed the bouquet anyway and put it in a glass of water. And at night she lay in bed, smelled daisies……
Oh my god, what blue eyes you have! It's crazy! And hair, hair - naturally a nymph, no - a divine naiad, not otherwise! And the lips, and the smile ... Yes, I am for you ... yes, I am! I will part the clouds with my hands! Oh no, that's plagiarism. Then - "Valentina, you are my picture!" Oh no, where did it take me……
Andrei Palych fell off the bed onto the floor. He fell quite noticeably, painfully, but without a shudder, and somehow even invigorating. The dream was strange, depressing, about Pine cones that lay on the ground, and what and why - he could not understand in a dream. What does he need these bumps for? And he would have suffered in delirium if he had not fallen out of bed ......
The poet Vasily Podluny, after three mediocre collections of lyrical poems, finally decided to create a masterpiece so that all the spiteful critics would rest, and the admirers would go crazy with delight. And do not trifle, but straight a poem. About love, of course. Tragic and hopeless. So that everyone reads and shudders in tears ......
He was waiting for her at the corner - just on the way from the cafe "Paradise" to the bus stop. She could not pass by, she always walked like that. And today had to pass, certainly had to. Oh, how he was waiting for her, there was no one more desirable for him in the whole world! Well, where are you, where are you? .. ...
1. A small narrative prose literary work containing a detailed and complete narrative about any individual event, case, everyday episode.
2. A small prose work of a mostly narrative nature, compositionally grouped around a single episode, character.
3. A work of small volume, containing a small number of characters, and also, most often, having one storyline.
Fairy tale
1. A narrative literary work about fictitious persons and events with a setting for fantastic fiction.
2. Narrative, folk-poetic or author's work of art about fictitious persons and events, mainly with the participation of magical, fantastic forces.
3. A narrative genre with a magical fantasy plot, with real and (or) fictional characters, with real and (or) fabulous reality, in which, at the behest of the author, aesthetic, moral, social problems of all times and peoples are raised.
Letter
1. epistolary genre literature, the author's appeal to a certain person with the formulation of some important issue.
2. The genre of journalism, involving the author's appeal to a wide range readers in order to draw attention to any fact or phenomenon of reality.
Correspondence excursion
1. A kind of text-description, the object of which is any attraction.
2. A kind of essay dedicated to some historical and cultural monument, in which elements of description, narration and reasoning are present in equal proportions.
Feature article
1. A small piece of literature that gives a short, expressive description of something.
2. In fiction, one of the varieties of the story, is more descriptive, affects mainly social problems. Publicistic, including documentary essay sets out and analyzes real facts and phenomena public life, as a rule, accompanied by their direct interpretation by the author.
3. literary genre, the hallmark of which is the artistic description of predominantly single phenomena of reality, comprehended by the author in their typicality. As a rule, the essay is based on the author's direct study of his object. The main feature of the essay is writing from nature.
Word
1. Genre of oratorical prose and journalism.
2. Literary work in the form of an oratory, sermon or message; story, story in general.
3. In ancient Russian literature- the name of works of an instructive nature, "educational prose" of a rhetorical and journalistic nature. Most often, the “word of praise” required oral pronunciation, but, being created in advance (in writing), remained in national culture written work.
Essay
1. A genre of criticism, literary criticism, characterized by a free interpretation of a problem.
2. A kind of essay in which leading role what plays is not a reproduction of a fact, but an image of impressions, reflections and associations.
3. A prose sketch, representing general or preliminary considerations about any subject or on any occasion.
4. In modern literary criticism- an essay or article, saturated with theoretical, philosophical reflections.
IV.4. The theme of the competition work the participant of the Competition formulates independently, depending on the given thematic areas and genres of competitive works. In this case, the content of the work will be internally motivated, which, in turn, can ensure the originality and independence of the work, stimulate creativity. In addition, a self-formulated topic will be another indicator of the development of textual competence, therefore, an appropriate criterion has been included in the criteria for evaluating competitive works.
Examples of topic wording in different genres by thematic areas“The story of my acquaintance with …. (writer or work). Genre - story. "What books talk about at night." Genre - fairy tale. Hello future reader... (writer or work). Genre - letter. "Where are you, where are you, father's house?" At home S.A. Yesenin". Genre - Correspondence tour. "The candle of memory does not go out." “Sevastopol stories of L.N. Tolstoy". Genre - Essay. "The Word about Griboyedov". Genre is a word. “Man has always been and will be the most curious phenomenon for man” (Belinsky), (reflections on the novel, for example, “The Brothers Karamazov” by F.M. Dostoevsky or “Lord Golovlev” by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin”). Genre - essay. "... What is beauty and why do people deify it?" (reflections inspired by the poem by N.A. Zabolotsky “Ugly girl”). Genre - essay. “There is a monument in our city…” (about the monument dedicated to the Great Patriotic War). Genre - essay, correspondence tour. "The history of a country is the history of people" (about specific person or family during WWII). Genre - short story, essay. " Theater Museum- the life work of A.A. Bakhrushin. Genre - correspondence tour, story, essay, word. These examples are indicative.
So, you take me for a person for whom money is everything, for a greedy man, for a corrupt little soul? So know, friend, that you offer me a purse filled with pistoles, and whether this purse is in a luxurious box, and the box in a precious case, and the case in a magnificent chest, and the chest in a rare set, and the set in a magnificent room, and the room in the most pleasant apartments, and apartments in a marvelous castle, and a castle in an incomparable fortress, and a fortress in famous city and the city on a fertile island, and the island in the richest province, and the province in a flourishing monarchy, and the monarchy in the whole world - so, if you offered me the whole world, where there would be this flourishing monarchy, this fruitful island, this famous city, this incomparable fortress, this wonderful castle, these most pleasant apartments, this excellent room, this rare set, this beautiful chest, this precious case, this luxurious casket in which a purse filled with pistols would lie, then this would also be of little interest to me. like your money and like yourself.
(J-B. Molière)
In the 1870s, at a time when there were no railroads or highways, no gas or stearin light, no spring sofas, no unlacquered furniture, no frustrated young men with glass, no liberal female philosophers, nor the lovely camellia ladies, of whom there are so many divorced in our time - in those naive times, when leaving Moscow, leaving for St. they believed in fire cutlets, in Valdai bells and bagels - when tallow candles burned on long autumn evenings, illuminating family circles of twenty and thirty people, wax and spermaceti candles were inserted into candelabra at balls, when furniture was placed symmetrically, when our fathers were still young not only by the absence of wrinkles and gray hair, but they shot for women and from the other corner of the room rushed to pick up accidentally and not accidentally dropped handkerchiefs, our mothers wore short waists and rum sleeves and solved family matters by taking out tickets; when the lovely camellia ladies hid from the light of day - in the naive times of Masonic lodges, Martinists, Tugenbund, in the times of the Miloradovichs, Davydovs, Pushkins - in the provincial town of K. there was a congress of landowners and noble elections ended.
(L.N. Tolstoy)
Even at those hours when the Petersburg gray sky is completely dying out and all the bureaucratic people have eaten and dined as best they could, in accordance with the salary they receive and their own whim, when everyone has already rested after the departmental creaking of feathers, running around, their own and other people's necessary activities and everything what a restless person voluntarily asks himself more even than necessary - when officials are in a hurry to give pleasure to the remaining time: whoever is more agile, rush to the theater; someone on the street, defining him to look at some hats; who spend it in the evening in compliments to some pretty girl, the star of a small official circle; who, and this happens most often, simply goes to his brother on the fourth or third floor, in two small rooms with a hall or kitchen and some fashionable pretensions, a lamp or other thing that cost many donations, refusals of dinners, festivities; in a word, even at a time when all the officials are scattered around the small apartments of their friends to play assault whist, sipping tea from glasses with penny rusks, inhaling smoke from long chibouks, telling some gossip during the surrender, brought in from high society, from which a Russian person can never, in any condition, refuse, or even when there is nothing to talk about, retelling the eternal anecdote about the commandant, to whom they came to say that the tail of the horse of the falconet monument was cut off - in a word, even when everything is trying to have fun , Akaki Akakievich did not indulge in any entertainment.
(N.V. Gogol)
Wherever she goes, she already carries a picture with her; if in the evening she hurries to the fountain with a wrought copper vase on her head, the surroundings hugging her are all imbued with wonderful harmony: the wonderful lines of the Albanian mountains, the blue depth of the Roman sky go away more easily, the cypress flies straight up, and the beauty of the southern trees, the Roman pinna, more precisely and cleaner is drawn in the sky with its umbrella-shaped top, almost floating in the air. And that’s all, and the fountain itself, where the Albanian townswomen, one higher than the other, are already crowded together on the marble steps, talking in strong silver voices, while the water in turn beats in a ringing diamond arc into the set copper vats, and the fountain itself, and the crowd itself - everything, it seems, for her, in order to more clearly show her triumphant beauty, so that it could be seen how she leads everyone, just like a queen leads her court rank behind her.
3. GENRES NARRATIVE IN POSIS
PROSE STORY
Narrative prose works fall into two categories: small form – short story ( in Russian terminology - "story" *) and a large form - novel. The boundary between small and large forms cannot be firmly established. So, in Russian terminology, medium-sized narratives are often given the name story.
* Today, in our science, the short story is clearly distinguished from the story.
The sign of size - the main one in the classification of narrative works - is far from being as unimportant as it might seem at first glance. It depends on the volume of the work how the author disposes of the plot material, how he builds his plot, how he introduces his own theme into it.
A short story usually has a simple plot, with a single plot thread (the simplicity of constructing a plot has nothing to do with the complexity and intricacy of individual situations), with a short chain of changing situations, or rather, with one central change of situations*.
* B. Tomashevsky could take into account the following works devoted to the short story: Reformatsky A.A. Experience in the analysis of novelistic composition. M.: Ed. OPOYAZ, 1922. Issue. I; Eichenbaum B. o'Henry and the theory of the novel // Star. 1925. No. 6 (12); Petrovsky M. Morphology of the novella// Ars poetica . M., 1927. From recent works about the short story, see: Meletinsky E.M. Historical poetics of the novel. M., 1990; Russian novel. Problems of theory and history. SPb., 1990. See also: Kunz J . Die Novelle // Formen der Literatur. Stuttgart: Kroner, 1991.
Unlike drama, the short story develops not exclusively in dialogues, but mainly in narration. The absence of a demonstrative (stage) element makes it necessary to introduce motives of the situation, characteristics, actions, etc. into the narrative. There is no need to build an exhaustive dialogue (it is possible to replace the dialogue with a message about the topics of conversation). Thus, the development of the plot has greater narrative freedom than in drama. But this freedom also has its disadvantages. The development of the drama is based on exits and dialogues. The stage facilitates the coupling of motifs. In the short story, this cohesion can no longer be motivated by the unity of the scene, and the cohesion of motives must be prepared. There can be two cases here: continuous narration, where each new motive is prepared by the previous one, and fragmentary (when the short story is divided into chapters or parts), where a break in the continuous narration is possible, corresponding to the change of scenes and acts in the drama.
Since the novella is given not in dialogue, but in narration, it plays a much greater role fantastic moment.
This is expressed in the fact that very often a storyteller is introduced in the short story, on whose behalf the short story itself is reported. The introduction of the narrator is accompanied, firstly, by the introduction of the framing motifs of the narrator, and secondly, by the development of a tale manner in language and composition.
The framing motifs usually come down to describing the setting in which the author had to hear the short story (“The doctor’s story in society”, “The found manuscript”, etc.), sometimes in the introduction of motifs that set out the reason for the story (something happens in the setting of the story , forcing one of the characters to recall a similar case known to him, etc.). The development of a tale manner is expressed in the development of a specific language (lexicon and syntax) that characterizes the narrator, a system of motivations when introducing motives, united by the narrator's psychology, etc. There are also tale devices in drama, where sometimes the speeches of individual characters acquire a specific stylistic coloring. So, in the old comedy, usually positive types spoke in literary language, and negative and comic often delivered their speeches in their own dialect.
However, a very wide range of short stories was written in the manner of an abstract narrative, without introducing a narrator and without developing a tale style.
In addition to plot short stories, plotless short stories are possible, in which there is no causal relationship between motives. The sign of a plotless short story is that such a short story is easy to take apart and rearrange these parts without violating the correctness of the general course of the short story. As a typical case of a plotless short story, I will cite Chekhov's Complaint Book, where we have a number of entries in the railway complaint book, and all these entries have nothing to do with the purpose of the book. The sequence of entries here is not motivated, and many of them can easily be transferred from one place to another. Storyless short stories can be very diverse in terms of the system of conjugation of motives. The main feature of the short story as a genre is a solid ending. A short story does not necessarily have to have a plot leading to a stable situation, just as it may not go through a chain of unstable situations. Sometimes the description of one situation is enough to fill the novel thematically. In a plot novel, such an ending can be a denouement. However, it is possible that the narrative does not stop at the motif of the denouement and continues on. In this case, in addition to the denouement, we must have some other ending.
Usually in a short plot, where it is difficult to develop and prepare the final resolution from the plot situations themselves, the denouement is achieved by introducing new faces and new motives not prepared by the development of the plot (sudden or accidental denouement. This is observed very often in drama, where often the denouement is not conditioned dramatic development (see, for example, Molière's The Miser, where the denouement is carried out through the recognition of kinship, not at all prepared by the previous one).
It is this novelty of the end motifs that serves as the main device for the novella's ending. Usually this is the introduction of new motives, of a different nature than the motives of the novelistic plot. So, at the end of a short story there can be a moral or other maxim, which, as it were, explains the meaning of what happened (this is the same regressive denouement in a weakened form). This sententiousness of the endings can also be implicit. So, the motif of "indifferent nature" makes it possible to replace the ending - the maxim - with a description of nature: "And the stars shone in the sky" or "The frost grew stronger" (this is a template ending Christmas story about the freezing boy).
These new motifs at the end of the short story literary tradition receive in our perception the meaning of statements of great weight, with a large hidden, potential emotional content. These are the endings of Gogol, for example, at the end of “The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich quarreled” - the phrase “It’s boring in this world, gentlemen,” which cuts off the narrative that did not lead to any denouement.
Mark Twain has a short story where he puts his characters in a completely hopeless situation. As an ending, he exposes the literary nature of the construction, addressing the reader as an author with a confession that he cannot think of any way out. This new motif ("author") breaks the objective narrative and is a solid ending.
As an example of closing a short story with a lateral motif, I will cite Chekhov's short story, which reports a confusing and stupid official correspondence between the authorities about the epidemic in a rural school. Having created the impression of the uselessness and absurdity of all these "relationships", "reports" and clerical replies, Chekhov closes the short story with a description of the marriage in the family of a paper manufacturer, who in his business amounted to enormous capital. This new motif illuminates the entire narrative of the novel as an unrestrained "out of paper" in the clerical instances.
In this example, we see an approach to the type of regressive denouement, which give new meaning and new illumination to all the motives introduced into the short story.
The elements of a short story are, as in any narrative genre, narration (a system of dynamic motives) and descriptions (a system of static motives). Usually, some parallelism is established between these two series of motifs. Very often, such static motives are a kind of symbols of plot motives - either as a motivation for the development of the plot, or simply a correspondence is established between the individual motives of the plot and description (for example, a certain action takes place in a certain setting, and this setting is already a sign of action). Thus, through correspondences, sometimes static motifs can psychologically predominate in a short story. This is often exposed by the fact that the title of the novel contains a hint of a static motif (for example, Chekhov's "Steppe", Maupassant's "Cock crowed". Compare in the drama - "Thunderstorm" and "Forest" by Ostrovsky).
The short story in its construction often starts from dramatic devices, sometimes representing a short story about the drama in the dialogues and supplemented by a description of the situation. However, usually a novelistic plot is simpler than a dramatic one, where the intersection of plot lines is required. In this regard, it is curious that very often in the dramatic processing of short story plots, two short story plots are combined in one dramatic frame by establishing the identity of the main characters in both plots.
IN different eras- even the most remote - there was a tendency to combine short stories into short story cycles. Such are the “Book of Kalila and Dimna”, “Tales of 1001 Nights”, “Decameron”, etc., which are of worldwide importance.
Usually these cycles were not a simple, unmotivated collection of stories, but were presented according to the principle of some unity: connecting motifs were introduced into the narrative.
Thus, the book "Kalila and Dimna" is presented as a conversational moral theme between the sage Baidaba and King Dabshalim. Novels are introduced as examples of various moral theses. The heroes of the short stories themselves have extensive conversations and tell each other various short stories. The introduction of a new short story usually happens like this: “the sage said: “who is deceived by an enemy who does not cease to be an enemy, then something happens that befell owls from the side of the crows.” The king asked: "How was it?" Baidaba answered "... and the tale of owl-ravens is presented. This almost obligatory question “How was it” introduces the novella into the frame of the narrative as a moral example.
In 1001 Nights, a tale is given of Scheherazade, who married the caliph, who vowed to execute his wives the day after the wedding. Scheherazade tells a new story every night. always cutting it off at the most interesting place and thus delaying his execution. None of the tales has anything to do with the narrator. For the framing plot, only the motive of the story is needed, and it is completely indifferent what will be told about.
The Decameron tells of a society that gathered during an epidemic that devastated the country and spent their time in storytelling.
In all three cases, we have the simplest method of linking short stories - using framing, those. short story (usually little developed, since it does not have the independent function of a short story, but is introduced only as a frame for the cycle), one of the motives of which is storytelling.
Also framed are collections of short stories by Gogol ("Beekeeper Rudy Panko") and Pushkin ("Ivan Petrovich Belkin"), where the frame is the story of the storytellers. Framing comes in various types - or in the form prologue("Belkin's story"), or preface, or ring, when, at the end of the cycle of short stories, the story about the narrator resumes, partially reported in the preface. Interrupted framing is of the same type, when a cycle of short stories is systematically interrupted (sometimes within a short story of a cycle) by messages about the events of the framing story.
This type includes the fairy-tale cycle of Gauff "Hotel in the Spesart". The framing short story tells about travelers who spent the night in a hotel and suspected their hosts of dealing with robbers. Having decided to stay awake, travelers tell each other fairy tales to disperse sleep. The framing novella continues in the intervals between the stories (moreover, one tale is cut off and the second part of it is finished at the end of the cycle); we learn about the attack of robbers, about the capture of some travelers and their release, and the hero is an apprentice jeweler who saves his godmother(not knowing who she is), and the denouement is the hero's recognition of his godmother and the story of his later life.
In other Gauff cycles, we have a more complex system of linking short stories. So, in the cycle "Caravan" of six short stories, two of their heroes are connected with the participants in the framing short story. One of these short stories, "About the Severed Hand", hides a number of mysteries. As a clue to it in terms of the framing novel, the stranger who joined the caravan tells his biography, which explains all the dark moments of the short story about the severed hand. Thus, the characters and motifs of some of the short stories of the cycle intersect with the characters and motifs of the framing short story and are added to a single whole narrative.
With a closer convergence of short stories, the cycle can turn into a single work of art - a novel*. On the threshold between the cycle and a single novel is Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time", where all the novels are united by the common hero, but at the same time do not lose their independent interest.
* Reflection of what is popular among formalists, but not accepted modern science the notion that the novel arose from a collection of short stories as a result of their “stringing” (see below: “The novel as a large narrative form is usually reduced (emphasized by us - S. B.) to tying short stories together", p. 249). This theory was put forward by V. Shklovsky (see his works: How Don Quixote is made; The structure of the story and the novel, etc. / / prose theory). MM. Bakhtin, who criticized her (Medvedev P.V. Shklovsky. Prose Theory//3vezda. No. 1; Formal Method...), believed that she “ignores the organic nature of the novel genre” (Formal Method, p. 152). "Just as unity social life We cannot build epochs out of separate life episodes and situations, just as the unity of a novel cannot be built up by stringing short stories. The novel reveals a new qualitative side of the thematically understood reality, connected with the new, qualitative construction of the genre reality of the work” (Ibid., p. 153). In modern work on the theory of the novel, it is noted that V. Shklovsky and the authors following him, having come to understand the importance of the cumulative principle in the plot of this genre, did not reveal its role and place in the artistic whole: “The term “stringing” expresses the idea of the absence of an internal connection between successive events. It is usually believed that the cohesion between them is created only by the participation of the same main character in them. Hence the widespread opinion that certain forms of the novel arise as a result of the "cyclization" of independent anecdotal or short story plots.<...>One way or another, the intrinsic content of the cumulative scheme remains undisclosed” (Tamarchenko N.D. Typology of a Realistic Novel. P. 38).
Stringing short stories around a single character is one of the usual techniques for combining short stories into one narrative whole. However, this is not enough means to make a novel out of a cycle of short stories. So, the adventures of Sherlock Holmes are still only a collection of short stories, not a novel.
Usually in short stories combined into one novel, they are not content with the commonality of one protagonist, and episodic faces also move from short story to short story (or, in other words, are identified). A common technique in romance technique is to entrust episodic roles at certain moments to a person already used in the novel (compare the role of Zurin in " Captain's daughter”- he plays a role at the beginning of the novel as a billiards player and at the end of the novel as the commander of the unit into which the hero accidentally falls. These could be different persons, since Pushkin only needed the commander of the end of the novel to be previously familiar to Grinev; this has nothing to do with the episode of the billiard game).
But even this is not enough. It is necessary not only to unite the short stories, but also to make their existence unthinkable outside the novel, i.e. destroy their integrity. This is achieved by cutting off the ending of the short story, by confusing the motives of the short stories (preparation for the denouement of one short story takes place within another short story of the novel), etc. Through such processing, the short story as an independent work turns into a short story as a plot element of the novel.
It is necessary to strictly distinguish between the use of the word "novella" in these two meanings. The short story as an independent genre is a finished work. Inside the novel, this is only a more or less isolated plot part of the work and may not have completeness. * If completely finished short stories remain inside the novel (i.e., which are conceivable outside the novel, compare the captive’s story in Don Quixote), then such short stories have Name "insert novels". Insert novels are a characteristic feature of the old novel technique, where sometimes the main action of the novel develops in stories exchanged between characters when they meet. However, inserted novels are also found in modern novels. See, for example, the construction of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot. The same inserted short story is, for example, Oblomov's dream in Goncharov's.
* In old poetics, the short story as part of narrative work was called episode, but this term was used mainly in the analysis of the epic poem.
The novel as a larger narrative form usually comes down to tying short stories together.
A typical device for linking short stories is a sequential presentation of them, usually strung on one hero and presented in the order of the chronological sequence of short stories. Such novels are built as a biography of the hero or the story of his travels (for example, Gilles Blas by Le Sage).
The end situation of each short story is the beginning for the next short story; thus, in the intermediate novellas, there is no exposition and an imperfect denouement is given.
In order to observe forward movement in the novel, it is necessary that each new short story either expands its thematic material compared to the previous one, for example: each new adventure must involve a new and new circle of characters in the hero’s field of action, or each new adventure of the hero must be harder and harder than before.
A novel of this kind is called stepped, or chain.
For a stepped construction, in addition to the above, the following methods of linking short stories are also typical. 1) False denouement: the denouement given within the short story turns out to be erroneous or misinterpreted later on. For example, a character, judging by all the circumstances, is dying. In the future, we learn that this character escaped death and appears in the following short stories. Or - a hero from a difficult situation is saved by an episodic character who came to his aid. Later we learn that this savior was the instrument of the hero's enemies, and instead of being rescued, the hero finds himself in an even more difficult situation. 2) The system of motives - secrets - is connected with this. Motives appear in the short stories, the plot role of which is unclear, and we do not get a complete connection. In the future comes the "disclosure of secrets." Such is the mystery of the murder in the short story about the severed hand in the fairytale cycle of Gauff. 3) Usually, novels of staggered construction are replete with introductory motifs that require novelistic content. Such are the motives for travel, persecution, and so on. In Dead Souls, the motif of Chichikov's travels makes it possible to unfold a number of short stories, where the heroes are landowners, from whom Chichikov acquires dead souls.
Another type of Romantic construction is the ring construction. His technique boils down to the fact that one short story (framing) moves apart. Its exposition stretches over the entire novel, and all the other short stories are introduced into it as interrupting episodes. In the ring construction, the short stories are unequal and inconsistent. The novel is actually slowed down in the narrative and stretched out short story, in relation to which everything else is delaying and interrupting episodes. Thus, Jules Verne's novel "The Testament of an Eccentric" gives the story of the hero's inheritance, the conditions of the will, etc. as a framing novella. The adventures of the heroes involved in the testamentary game constitute interrupting episodic novels.
Finally, the third type is a parallel construction. Usually the characters are grouped into several independent groups, each connected by its own fate (plot). The history of each group, their actions, the area of their operation constitute a special "plan" for each group. The narrative is multifaceted: what is happening in one plane is reported, then what is happening in another plane, and so on. Heroes of one plane pass into another plane, there is a constant exchange of characters and motives between narrative planes. This exchange serves as a motivation for transitions in the narrative from one plane to another. Thus, several short stories are told simultaneously, in their development intersecting, crossing, and sometimes merging (when two groups of characters are combined into one), sometimes branching: this parallel construction is usually accompanied by parallelism in the fate of the characters. Usually, the fate of one group is thematically opposed to another group (for example, by the contrast of characters, setting, denouement, etc.), and thus one of the parallel short stories is, as it were, illuminated and set off by the other. A similar construction is typical for Tolstoy's novels ("Anna Karenina", "War and Peace").
In the use of the term "parallelism" one should always distinguish between parallelism as the simultaneity of narrative unfolding (plot parallelism) and parallelism as a comparison or comparison (plot parallelism). Usually one coincides with the other, but is by no means determined by one another. Quite often, parallel short stories are only compared, but belong to different times and different actors. Usually then one of the short stories is the main one, and the other is secondary and is given in someone's story, message, etc. Wed "Red and Black" by Stendhal, "The Living Past" by A. de Regnier, "Portrait" by Gogol (the history of the usurer and the history of the artist). Dostoevsky's novel "The Humiliated and Insulted" belongs to the mixed type, where two characters (Valkovsky and Nelly) are the connecting links between two parallel short stories.
Since the novel consists of a set of short stories, the usual novelistic denouement or ending is not enough for the novel.
The novel must be closed with something more significant than the closing of one short story.
In the closure of the novel, there are various systems of endings.
1) Traditional position. Such a traditional position is the marriage of heroes (in a novel with a love affair), the death of a hero. In this respect, the novel approaches the dramatic texture. I note that sometimes, to prepare for such a denouement, episodic persons are introduced who do not play the first role in a novel or drama at all, but are connected with their fate with the main plot. Their marriage or death serves as the denouement. Example: Ostrovsky's drama "The Forest", where the hero is Neschastvitsev, and the marriage is entered into by relatively minor persons (Aksyusha and Peter Vosmibratov. The marriage of Gurmyzhskaya and Bulanov is a parallel line).
2) The denouement of the framing (ring) short story. If the novel is built according to the type of extended short story, then the denouement of this short story is sufficient to close the novel. For example, in Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, it's not that Phileas Fogg has finally completed his trip around the world, but the fact that he won the bet (the history of the bet and the miscalculation of the day is the theme of the framing novel).
3) With a stepwise construction - the introduction of a new short story, built differently than all the previous ones (similar to the introduction of a new motive at the end of the short story). If, for example, the hero's adventures are strung together as incidents that occur during his journey, then the end story must destroy the very motive of the journey and thus differ significantly from the intermediate "travel" stories. In Le Sage's Gilles-Blaise, adventures are motivated by the fact that the hero changes his place of service. In the end, he achieves an independent existence, and is no longer looking for new jobs. In Jules Verne's novel 80,000 Miles Under the Sea, the hero goes through a series of adventures as a prisoner of Captain Nemo. Salvation from captivity is the end of the novel, as it destroys the principle of stringing short stories.
4) Finally, for novels of a large volume, the “epilogue” technique is characteristic - the crumpling of the story at the end. After a long and slow story about the circumstances of the hero's life for a short period in the epilogue, we meet a quick story, where on several pages we learn the events of several years or decades. For an epilogue, the formula is typical: “ten years after what was told,” etc. The time gap and the acceleration of the pace of the narrative is a very tangible “mark” for the end of the novel. With the help of an epilogue, it is possible to close a novel with a very weak plot dynamics, with simple and motionless situations of characters. To what extent the demand for an "epilogue" was felt as a traditional form of completing a novel is shown by Dostoevsky's words at the end of "The Village of Stepanchikov": "A lot of decent explanations could be made here; but, in essence, all these explanations are now completely superfluous. That, at least, is my opinion. Instead of any explanation, I will say just a few words about future fate all the heroes of my story: without this, as you know, not a single novel ends, and this is even prescribed by the rules.
The novel, as a large verbal construction, is subject to the requirement of interest, and hence the requirement of an appropriate choice of subject matter.
As a rule, the entire novel is "supported" by this non-literary thematic material of general cultural significance.* It must be said that the thematic (non-fabulous) and plot structure mutually sharpen the interest of the work. So, in a popular science novel, on the one hand, there is a revival of a scientific topic with the help of a plot intertwined with this topic (for example, in an astronomical novel, adventures of fantastic interplanetary travel are usually introduced), on the other hand, the plot itself acquires significance and special interest due to the positive information that we receive by following the fate of fictional characters. This is the basis "didactic"(instructive) art, formulated in ancient poetics by the formula " miscere utility duici "("mixing the useful with the pleasant").
* A wording suggestive of an external connection in the novel of "literary" and "non-literary" material. According to modern ideas, V work of art the event being narrated and the event of the story itself form an organic unity.
The system for introducing non-literary material into the plot scheme was partly shown above. It comes down to ensuring that non-literary material is artistically motivated. Here it is possible to introduce it into the work in different ways. First, the very system of expressions that formulate this material can be artistic. Such are the methods of estrangement, lyrical construction, and so on. Another technique is the plot use of a non-literary motif. Thus, if a writer wants to put the problem of "unequal marriage" in line, then he chooses a plot where this unequal marriage will be one of the dynamic motives. Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" takes place precisely in the context of war, and the problem of war is given in the very plot of the novel. In the modern revolutionary novel, the revolution itself is driving force in the plot of the story.
The third method, which is very common, is the use of non-literary themes as a device detention, or braking*. With an extensive narrative, events must be delayed. This, on the one hand, allows you to verbally expand the presentation, and on the other hand, it sharpens the interest of waiting. At the most tense moment, interrupting motives break in, which force us to move away from the presentation of the dynamics of the plot, as if to temporarily interrupt the presentation in order to return to it after the presentation of the interrupting motives. Such detentions are most often filled with static motives. Compare the extensive descriptions in V. Hugo's novel The Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris". Here is an example of the "uncovered reception" of detention in Marlinsky's short story "Trial": in the first chapter it is reported how two hussars, Gremin and Strelinsky, independently of one another, went to Petersburg; in the second chapter with a characteristic epigraph from Byron If I have any fault , " tis disgression (“If I am guilty of anything, it is in retreats”) the entry of one hussar (without giving a name) to Petersburg is reported and Sennaya Square is described in detail, along which he passes. At the end of the chapter we read the following dialogue, a "revealing device":
* The term "retardation" is also commonly used. V. Shklovsky drew attention to the significance of this technique, understanding it as a way to make the movement “perceptible” (Connection of plot construction techniques with general techniques of style//0 prose theory, p. 32). The classic definition of the role of retardation in epic story gave Hegel, who interpreted it as a way to “present to our gaze the entire integrity of the world and its states” (Aesthetics: V 4 t. M., 1971. T. 3. S. 450). Wed V contemporary work: "Retardation<...>- a way of artistic development of the empirical diversity of life, a diversity that cannot be subordinated to a given goal ”(Tamarchenko N.D. Typology of a realistic novel. P. 40).
- Have mercy, mister writer! - I hear the exclamation of many of my readers: - you have written a whole chapter on the Satisfy Market, which is more likely to stimulate an appetite for food than a curiosity for reading.
- In both cases, you are not a loser, gracious sovereigns!
- But tell me, at least, which of our two hussar friends, Gremin or Strelinsky, came to the capital?
- You will know this only after reading two or three chapters, gracious sovereigns!
– I confess, a strange way to force yourself to read.
- Each baron has his own fantasy, each writer has his own story. However, if you are so tormented by curiosity, send someone to the commandant's office to look at the list of visitors.
Finally, the subject matter is often given in speeches. In this regard, Dostoevsky's novels are typical, where the characters speak on all sorts of topics, covering this or that problem from different angles.
The use of the hero as a mouthpiece for the author's statements is a traditional device in drama and novel. At the same time, it is possible (usually) that the author entrusts his views to the positive hero (“reasoner”), but also often the author transfers his too bold ideas to the negative hero in order to thereby divert responsibility for these views. This is what Molière did in his Don Juan, entrusting the hero with atheistic statements, this is how Mathurin attacks clericalism through the mouth of his fantastic demonic hero Melmoth (“Melmoth the Wanderer”).
The characterization of the hero itself can have the significance of holding a non-literary theme. The hero can be a kind of personification of the social problem of the era. In this regard, such novels as "Eugene Onegin", "A Hero of Our Time", Turgenev's novels ("Rudin", Bazarov "Fathers and Sons", etc.) are characteristic. In these novels, the problem of social life, morality, etc. portrayed as an individual problem of the behavior of a particular character. Since many writers quite involuntarily begin to "put themselves in the position of a hero," the corresponding problem general meaning the author has the opportunity to develop as a psychological episode in the life of the hero. This explains the possibility of works investigating the history of Russian social thought based on the heroes of novels (for example, Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky's "History of the Russian Intelligentsia"), because the heroes of novels, due to their popularity, begin to live in the language as symbols of certain social movements, as carriers of social problems.
But an objective presentation of the problem in the novel is not enough - it is usually necessary to have an oriented attitude towards the problem. Ordinary prosaic dialectics can also be used for such an orientation. Quite often, the heroes of novels make persuasive speeches due to the logic and harmony of the arguments they put forward. But such a construction is not purely artistic. Usually they resort to emotional motives. What has been said about the emotional coloring of heroes makes it clear how sympathy can be drawn to the side of the hero and his ideology. In the old moralistic novel, the hero was always virtuous, uttered virtuous maxims and triumphed in the denouement, while his enemies and villains who uttered cynical villainous speeches perished. In literature, alien to naturalistic motivation, these negative types, emphasizing a positive theme, were expressed simply and straightforwardly, almost in the tone of the famous formula: "judge me, unjust judge", and the dialogues sometimes approach the type of folklore spiritual verses, where the "unrighteous" king addresses with such a speech: "do not believe in your correct faith, Christian, but believe in my faith, dog, infidel." If we analyze the speeches of negative characters (except for the case when the author uses the negative character as a disguised mouthpiece), even close to modern works, with a clear naturalistic motivation, then we will see that they differ from this primitive formula only in a greater or lesser degree of "covering up the traces" .
The transfer of emotional sympathy from the hero to his ideology is a means of instilling an "attitude" towards the ideology. It can also be given as a plot, when the dynamic motif, embodying the ideological theme, wins in the denouement. It is enough to recall the jingoistic literature of the war era, with a description of "German atrocities" and the beneficial influence of the "victorious Russian army", in order to understand the device, designed for the reader's natural need for generalization. The fact is that fictional plot and fictional situations, in order to present the interest of significance, are constantly put forward as situations in relation to which generalization is possible, as “typical” situations.
I will also note the need by a system of special techniques drawing attention reader on the introduced topics, which should not be equal in perception. This attraction of attention is called pedaling theme and is achieved in various ways, ranging from simple repetition and ending with the placement of the theme in crucial tense moments of the narrative.
Turning to the question of the classification of novels, I will note, as in relation to all genres, that their real classification is the result of intersecting historical factors and is carried out simultaneously according to several criteria. So, if we take the storytelling system as the main feature, then we can get the following classes: 1) abstract storytelling, 2) novel-diary, 3) novel - found manuscript (see novels by Rider Haggardt), 4) novel - hero's story (" Manon Lescaut" by Abbé Prevost), 5) an epistolary novel (recording in the characters' letters is a favorite form of the late 19th and early 20th centuries - the novels of Rousseau, Richardson, we have Dostoevsky's "Poor People").
Of these forms, perhaps only the epistolary form motivates the allocation of novels of this kind to a special class, since the conditions of the epistolary form create very special techniques in the development of the plot and the treatment of themes (restricted forms for the development of the plot, since the correspondence takes place between people who do not live together , or living in exceptional conditions that allow for the possibility of correspondence, a free form for the introduction of non-literary material, since the form of writing allows you to enter entire treatises into the novel).
I will try to outline only some forms of the novel.*
* The following selection of seven types of novel is an attempt to outline the typology of this genre. B. Tomashevsky himself described the types listed by him as "a very incomplete and imperfect list of romantic forms", which "can be deployed only in the historical-literary plane" (p. 257). Wed historical typology of the novel, developed in the works of M.M. Bakhtin (Forms of time and chronotope in the novel; The novel of education and its significance in the history of realism). See also; Tamarchenko N.D. Typology of the realistic novel.
1)Roman adventurous- typical for him is the thickening of the hero's adventures and his constant transitions from dangers that threaten death to salvation. (See the novels of Dumas père, Gustave Aimard, Mailly-Rida, especially Ponson du Terail's Rocambole).
2) historical novel, represented by the novels of Walter Scott, and here in Russia - by the novels of Zagoskin, Lazhechnikov, Alexei Tolstoy and others. Historical novel differs from adventurous by signs of a different order (in one - a sign of the development of the plot, in the other - a sign of the thematic situation), and therefore both genera do not exclude each other. Dumas Père's novel can be called both historical and adventurous at the same time.
3) Psychological novel , usually from modern life (in France - Balzac, Stendhal). The usual novel of the 19th century adjoins this genre. with a love affair, an abundance of socially descriptive material, etc., which is grouped into schools: the English novel (Dickens), the French novel (Flaubert - Madame Bovary, Maupassant's novels); special mention should be made of the naturalistic novel of the Zola school, etc. Such novels are characterized by adultery intrigue (the theme of adultery). To the same type gravitate rooted in the moralistic novel of the 18th century. a family novel, the usual "feuilleton novel", published in the German and English "Shops" - monthly magazines for " family reading"(the so-called" petty-bourgeois novel), "everyday novel", "tabloid novel", etc.
4) Parodic and satirical novel which took on different forms in different eras. This type includes Scarron's "Comic Novel" (XVII century), "The Life and Adventures of Tristram Shandy" by Stern, who created in prose form a special trend "Sternianism" (early XIX century), some of Leskov's novels can be attributed to the same type ( "Cathedrals"), etc.
5) novel fantastic(for example, "Ghoul" by Al. Tolstoy, "Fiery Angel" by Bryusov), which adjoins the form of a utopian and popular science novel (Wells, Jules Berne, Roni Sr., modern utopian novels). These novels are distinguished by the sharpness of the plot and the abundance of non-literary themes; often develop like an adventure novel (see "We" Evg. Zamyatin). This also includes novels that describe primitive culture a person (for example, "Vamireh", "Ksipehuzy" Roni Sr.).
6) Publicistic novel(Chernyshevsky).
7) As special class should be put forward plotless novel, a sign of which is the extreme weakness (and sometimes absence) of the plot, a slight rearrangement of parts without a noticeable plot change, etc. In general, any large artistic and descriptive form of coherent "essays" could be attributed to this genre, for example, "travel notes" (by Karamzin, Goncharov, Stanyukovich). In modern literature, "autobiographical novels", "diary novels", etc., approach this form. (cf. Aksakov's "Childhood of Bagrov-grandson") - through Andrei Bely and B. Pilnyak, such a "planless" (in the sense of plot design) form for Lately received some distribution.
This very incomplete and imperfect list of private romantic forms can be developed only in the historical-literary plane. The signs of a genre arise in the evolution of form, interbreed, fight among themselves, die off, and so on. Only within the same epoch can an accurate classification of works be given according to schools, genres and trends.
