The theme of a literary work. Image in art and literature

There is an inextricable logical connection.

What is the theme of the work?

If you raise the issue of the theme of the work, then intuitively each person understands what it is. He just explains from his point of view.

The theme of a work is what underlies a particular text. It is with this basis that the most difficulties arise, because it is impossible to determine it unambiguously. Someone believes that the theme of the work - which are described there, is the so-called life material. For example, the theme of love relationships, war or death.

Also, the topic can be called the problems of human nature. That is, the problem of the formation of personality, moral principles or the conflict of good and bad deeds.

Another topic can be a verbal basis. Of course, it is rare to find works about words, but this is not the point here. There are texts in which the play on words comes to the fore. Suffice it to recall the work of V. Khlebnikov "Changeling". His verse has one feature - the words in the line are read the same in both directions. But if you ask the reader what the verse actually was, he is unlikely to answer something intelligible. Since the main highlight of this work is the lines that can be read both from left to right and from right to left.

The theme of the work is a multifaceted component, and scientists put forward one or another hypothesis regarding it. If we talk about something universal, then the theme of a literary work is the “foundation” of the text. That is, as Boris Tomashevsky once said: "The theme is a generalization of the main, significant elements."

If the text has a theme, then there must be an idea. An idea is the writer's intention, which pursues a specific goal, that is, what the writer wants to present to the reader.

Figuratively speaking, the theme of the work is what made the creator create the work. So to speak, the technical component. In turn, the idea is the "soul" of the work, it answers the question of why this or that creation was created.

When the author is completely immersed in the topic of his text, truly feels it and is imbued with the problems of the characters, then an idea is born - spiritual content, without which the page of the book is just a set of dashes and circles.

Learning to find

For example, you can give a short story and try to find its main theme and idea:

• The autumn downpour did not bode well, especially late at night. All the inhabitants of a small town knew about this, so the lights in the houses had long gone out. In all but one. It was an old mansion on a hill outside the city, which was used as an orphanage. In this terrible downpour, the teacher found a baby on the threshold of the building, so there was a terrible turmoil in the house: to feed, bathe, change clothes and, of course, tell a fairy tale - after all, this is the main tradition of the old orphanage. And if any of the inhabitants of the city knew how grateful the child found on the doorstep would be, they would have answered the soft knock on the door that sounded in every house that terrible rainy evening.

In this short passage, two themes can be distinguished: abandoned children and the orphanage. In fact, these are the main facts that forced the author to create the text. Then you can see that the introductory elements appear: a foundling, a tradition and a terrible thunderstorm that forced all the inhabitants of the city to lock themselves in their houses and turn off the lights. Why is the author talking about them? These introductory descriptions will be the main idea of ​​the passage. They can be summarized by saying that the author is talking about the problem of mercy or unselfishness. In a word, he tries to convey to every reader that, regardless of weather conditions, one must remain human.

How is a theme different from an idea?

The theme has two differences. First, it determines the meaning (main content) of the text. Secondly, the theme can be revealed both in large works and in small short stories. The idea, in turn, shows the main goal and task of the writer. If you look at the presented passage, you can say that the idea is the main message from the author to the reader.

Determining the theme of a work is not always easy, but such a skill is useful not only in literature lessons, but also in everyday life. It is with its help that it will be possible to learn to understand people and enjoy pleasant communication.

Vladimir Vysotsky managed to win the hearts of millions of compatriots in a short bright life. The hoarse voice of the "singing" poet to the unchanging guitar is well remembered by the elderly, his work is also of interest to young people.

Vysotsky's songs are not only literary, but also folklore material. Their language has an amazing feature - it is understandable to everyone. And the point here is not poverty or primitiveness, on the contrary, it is emotional and metaphorical. Vladimir Semenovich raised many topical issues, let's turn to just a few of them.

An essential layer of Vysotsky's work is "everyday" lyrics, sarcastically ridiculing the petty-bourgeois way of life, human vices. He wrote about the philistine, based on his own observations and impressions.

Among the well-known works are “Morning Exercises” and “Talking in front of the TV”. These poems are filled with a fascinating colloquial vocabulary of comic images.

Often the author turned to folk art, creating on its basis real masterpieces, such as the cycle "Black Eyes", "Ivan da Marya", fairy tales. Vysotsky was also not indifferent to political issues, which is why for a long time he had to work under the strict control of Soviet censorship. Despite the prohibitions, Vysotsky took on any topic of interest to himself and sang about literally everything. There are no lies, falsehood and pathos in his songs, so the audience believed him, because his works were in tune with their hearts.

The poet himself appreciated his talent, considering it a gift from God. The ability to write songs, poems and the manner of their performance became his priceless treasure, a golden pass to immortality.

Another theme often heard in the works of Vysotsky was the problem of a broken soul. In his tragic lyrics there is always a presentiment, a feeling of falling into the abyss. When writing the poem "Fussy Horses", the author used a metaphor, comparing a person's life with the running of horses.

The lines of Vysotsky's works have already dissolved in our language, have become textbooks, having passed the test of time. They continue to excite listeners and readers even today: we do not get tired of laughing, crying, remembering distant friends and dead soldiers. His work makes you think about life, in which the main thing is to stop the indomitable horses in time, in order to at least have time to stand on the edge ...

In literary works, the term " subject"has two main interpretations:

1)subject- (from other Greek thema - that which is the basis) the subject of the image, those facts and phenomena of life that the writer captured in his work;

2) main problem set in the work.

Often these two meanings are combined in the concept of "theme". So, in the “Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary” the following definition is given: “Theme is a circle of events that form the lifeblood of epic and dramatic works and at the same time serve to pose philosophical, social, epic and other ideological problems” (Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary. Edited by Kozhevnikov V.M., Nikolaeva P.A. - M., 1987, p. 347).

Sometimes the “theme” is identified even with the idea of ​​the work, and the beginning of such terminological ambiguity was obviously laid by M. Gorky: “The theme is an idea that originated in the author’s experience, is prompted by his life, but nestles in the receptacle of his impressions yet unformed.” Of course, Gorky, as a writer, first of all felt the inseparable integrity of all elements of content, but for the purposes of analysis, it is precisely this approach that is unsuitable. A literary critic needs to clearly distinguish between the very concepts of "theme", "problem", "idea", and - most importantly - the "levels" of artistic content behind them, avoiding duplication of terms. Such a distinction was made by G.N. Pospelov (A holistic-systemic understanding of literary works // Questions of Literature, 1982, No. 3), and is currently shared by many literary critics.

In accordance with this tradition, the theme is understood as object of artistic reflection, those life characters and situations (the relationship of characters), as well as the interaction of a person with society as a whole, with nature, life, etc.), which, as it were, pass from reality into a work and form objective side its content. Subject in this sense - everything that has become the subject of the author's interest, understanding and evaluation. Subject acts as a link between primary reality and artistic reality(that is, it seems to belong to both worlds at once: the real and the artistic).

The analysis of the topic focuses on on the writer's selection of the facts of reality as the initial moment of the author's concept works. It should be noted that sometimes unreasonably much attention is paid to the topic, as if the main thing in a work of art is the reality that is reflected in it, while in fact the center of gravity of a meaningful analysis should lie in a completely different plane: not that author reflected, A how did you comprehend reflected. An exaggerated attention to the subject can turn a conversation about literature into a conversation about the reality reflected in a work of art, and this is far from always necessary and fruitful. (If we consider "Eugene Onegin" or "Dead Souls" only as an illustration of the life of the nobility of the early 19th century, then all literature turns into an illustration for a history textbook. This ignores the aesthetic specificity of works of art, the originality of the author's view of reality, special meaningful tasks literature).

Theoretically, it is also wrong to give priority to the analysis of the subject matter, because, as already noted, it is the objective side of the content, and, consequently, the author's individuality, his subjective approach to reality, cannot be manifested at this level of content in its entirety. The author's subjectivity and individuality at the level of topics are expressed only in selection of life phenomena, which, of course, does not yet make it possible to seriously talk about the artistic originality of this particular work. To simplify a little, we can say that the theme of the work is determined by the answer to the question: “What is this work about?”. But from the fact that the work is devoted to the theme of love, the theme of war, etc. you can get not so much information about the unique originality of the text (especially since quite often a significant number of writers turn to similar topics).

In literary criticism, the definitions of “philosophical lyrics”, “civil (or political)”, “patriotic”, “landscape”, “love”, “freedom-loving”, etc., have long been entrenched, which are ultimately precisely indications of the main themes of works . Along with them, there are such formulations as “the theme of friendship and love”, “the theme of the Motherland”, “the military theme”, “the theme of the poet and poetry”, etc. Obviously, there are a significant number of poems devoted to the same subject, but at the same time significantly different from each other.

It should be noted that in a particular artistic whole it is often not easy to distinguish between reflection object(topic) and image object(a specific situation drawn by the author). Meanwhile, it is necessary to do this in order to avoid confusion of form and content and for the accuracy of the analysis. Consider a typical error of this kind. The theme of the comedy A.S. Griboedov's "Woe from Wit" is often habitually defined as "Chatsky's conflict with the Famus society", while this is not a topic, but only a subject of the image. Both Chatsky and the Famus society were invented by Griboyedov, but the theme cannot be completely invented, as it was pointed out, it “comes” into artistic reality from life reality. In order to “get out” directly on the topic, you need to open characters, embodied in characters. Then the definition of the theme will sound somewhat different: the conflict between the progressive, enlightened and serf-owning, ignorant nobility in Russia in the 10-20s of the XIX century.

The difference between the object of reflection and the subject of the image is very clearly visible in works with conditionally-fantastic imagery. It cannot be said that in the fable of I.A. Krylov "The Wolf and the Lamb" the theme is the conflict between the Wolf and the Lamb, that is, the life of animals. In a fable, this absurdity is easy to feel, and therefore its theme is usually defined correctly: this is the relationship of the strong, having power, and the defenseless. But the nature of the imagery does not change the structural relationship between form and content, therefore, in works that are lifelike in their form, it is necessary, analyzing the theme, to go deeper than the depicted world, to the features of the characters embodied in the characters and the relationship between them.

When analyzing topics, it is traditional to distinguish between topics specific historical And eternal.

Specific historical topics- these are characters and circumstances born and conditioned by a certain socio-historical situation in a particular country; they do not repeat beyond a given time, they are more or less localized. Such, for example, are the theme of the “superfluous person” in Russian literature of the 19th century, the theme of the Great Patriotic War, etc.

Eternal themes they record recurring moments in the history of various national societies, they are repeated in different modifications in the lives of different generations, in different historical eras. Such, for example, are the themes of friendship and love, intergenerational relationships, the theme of the Motherland, and so on.

Situations are not uncommon when a single theme is organically combines both concrete historical and eternal aspects, equally important for the understanding of the work: this happens, for example, in “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky, "Fathers and Sons" by I.S. Turgenev, "Master and Margarita" M.A. Bulgakov, etc.

In those cases where the concrete historical aspect of the topic is analyzed, such an analysis should be as historically specific as possible. In order to be specific about the subject matter, it is necessary to pay attention to three parameters: proper social(class, group, social movement), temporal(at the same time, it is desirable to perceive the corresponding era at least in its main defining trends) and National. Only the exact designation of all three parameters will allow us to satisfactorily analyze the concrete historical theme.

There are works in which not one, but several themes can be singled out. Their totality is called topics. Side thematic lines usually "work" for the main one, enrich its sound, help to understand it better. In this case, there are two ways to highlight the main theme. In one case, the main theme is connected with the image of the central character, with his social and psychological certainty. Thus, the theme of an outstanding personality among the Russian nobility of the 1830s, the theme associated with the image of Pechorin, is the main one in the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time", she goes through all five stories. The same themes of the novel as the theme of love, rivalry, the life of a secular noble society are in this case secondary, helping to reveal the character of the protagonist (that is, the main theme) in various life situations and situations. In the second case, a single theme, as it were, passes through the fate of a number of characters - for example, the theme of the relationship between the individual and the people, individuality and "swarm" life organizes the plot and thematic lines of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". Here, even such an important topic as the theme of the Patriotic War of 1812 becomes a secondary, auxiliary, “working” for the main one. In this latter case, finding the main theme becomes a daunting task. Therefore, the analysis of the topic should begin with the thematic lines of the main characters, finding out what exactly unites them internally - this is the unifying principle and will be the main theme of the work.

The image is a concept that is central in art, literature and the science of art and literature, while being multi-valued and difficult to define. It illustrates the connections between art and reality, the role of the artist in creating a work, the internal laws of art, and reveals certain aspects of artistic perception.

Difficulties with the formulation of the concept lead to the fact that a number of scientists consider it "obsolete" and propose to completely abolish it as unnecessary. Meanwhile, it is impossible to remove from the language such words as "image", "imagination", "transformation", etc. They have something in common, namely the "internal form" - the image (for the "internal form" see the works of A. Potebnya ).

The identity of internal form and image in art is, in essence, the same as the identity of form and content.
The meaning of the image is the image itself, explaining itself in the process of its creation to the author and re-creation - to the reader (such an understanding is inherent in A. Bely, M. Heidegger, O. Pas). From this point of view, art does not "display" being, but directly "delivers" it. At the same time, it is also a means of cognition of both non-artistic and aesthetic reality: that “place” (that area) where both realities “meet”, intersect with each other. In non-artistic areas of knowledge, a similar structure is a model.

In a broad sense, an artistic image can be called any form in which the artist embodied the events, objects, processes, phenomena of the flow of life perceived by him and significant for his consciousness, and his own perception of them. People often talk about the "reflection" of reality in art with the help of an image, about the transformation of human life in the light of the author's aesthetic ideal, created with the help of fantasy and embodied in the image.

The main functions of the artistic image are aesthetic, cognitive, and communicative. With the help of it, an individual aesthetic reality is created. In relation to reality, the image in art does not act as its copy, it does not “double” it. It transmits the author's ideal to the reader, the viewer. Despite the subjectivity of the author's picture of the world, it also expresses something universal - otherwise a work of art would not find readers (spectators) other than its own creator. This "universal" very often is an artistic image.

The history of literature gives rise to new figurative systems that arise due to the emergence of new methods in art. So, there are images of classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, critical realism, naturalism, symbolism, expressionism, various other schools of modernism, etc.

The visual meaning of the concept we are interested in does not contradict the linguistic meaning, but exists inseparably from it.

The reader's imagination is as much a reality as that which exists in the "forms of life itself". Man cannot react to something that does not exist; any phantom that causes a reaction is present primarily in the imagination, and this, and not its absence in the real world of objects, phenomena, etc., determines its effectiveness. The term "plastic" is applicable to what is perceived by the senses - for example, music is not seen, but heard, which does not prevent us from talking about musical plasticity. Just as in the word of ordinary language the objective, “visible” beginning, sound appearance and meaning coexist, so in the poetic image “picture”, plasticity and the poetic meaning of the word do not exclude each other.

The poetic image is, in fact, an ideogram, similar to the ancient Egyptian or Sumerian writing unit. Causing a visual association in the minds of both the poet and the reader, it is imprinted in this association as some, albeit schematized, drawing that stimulates the perception of both concepts and images (“pictures”). At the same time, the poetic meaning and meaning of the word arises: from the general literary it turns into the poetic. The poetic image is not read unambiguously, but every time it is “unraveled”, “built” in the mind anew.

Structure and properties of the image

The image as something “visible” is addressed to emotional perception, to feeling, and is perceived sensually. It is connected both with the phenomena of non-artistic reality that collide in it, becoming like each other, merging into an artistic whole, and with the words of the literary language, which acquire new meanings. The structure of the image includes what is transformed (some everyday reality, object, phenomenon, process, etc.), what transforms (this is just any means of artistic speech - from comparison to a symbol), and what arises as a result .

In its most general form, an image has the following properties:
- it excites a direct reaction, a "feeling" of the reader (activates and "starts" aesthetic perception);
- it is concrete, “plastic” (this definition is used today in the analysis of plastic arts (painting, sculpture, etc.), and not musical ones (music, poetry, etc.). The question of the content of the term “plasticity” in relation to the word : intuitively, it is felt as an attribute of both a musical and a literary work) and it is precisely because of these properties that it is an aesthetic phenomenon;
- the image is an intermediate link between 1) external phenomena, 2) feelings and 3) human consciousness;
- therefore, it should be colorful, tangible, concrete, as a “subject” of reality, and not abstractly rational.

We can talk about the difference between the image in poetry and prose. The image in prose rather recreates some phenomenon of the world, giving it integrity, interpreting it as an artistic idea. In prose (excluding such odds that are transitional from poetry to prose, such as "poems in prose", for example, Turgenev, etc.), the transformation of reality as an absolute triumph of the author's interpretation is impossible. Here, the individual author's vision of the world should, for the most part, coincide with the reader's.

Types of images

Artistic images can also be classified according to those objects that undergo aesthetic transformation and, as a result, appear in a work of art.

Verbal (linguistic) image: "Black boat alien to charms" (K. Balmont); axis, wasp, Osip in Mandelstam's poems; “Everywhere around is neither light nor dark, / And in harmony: an eye - an icon - a window. - / The promise of a prophetic sign, / As if everything that happens is at stake ”(V. Perelmuter). Here the main attention is paid to lexical units, the internal form of words is often updated.
- Image-personification, designation or sign, sometimes even identification, based mainly on metaphorization. So, the “dagger” in Russian poetry traditionally means “poet”, Chekhov’s “seagull” is the sign of Nina Zarechnaya (here the image turns into a symbol, but the figurative nature itself is not lost in such cases). A separate typified human personality begins to possess a figurative nature.
- An image-fragment, when a separate part or a particular phenomenon acquires a characterizing, generalizing character. The main technique here is metonymy. So, at S. Krzhizhanovsky, “The sun burst with parallel rays into the transoms of the windows of all four floors of the Titsa store” (“Meeting”). Rays are a separate attribute of the sun, but the whole object is revealed here through this attribute.
- An image-generalization (for example, "the image of the Motherland", "the image of freedom" in the works of such and such an author (authors)). An abstract or very broad concept, which is revealed through concrete realities, undergoes transformation.
- The image of the author (as a narrator or one of the heroes, characters) in the work. Here, the author's assessments, which are usually implicitly present in the text, take precedence.
- The image of a certain person, the hero (character) of the work, which is the bearer and embodiment of certain qualities and properties. It contains unique-individual and generalizing-typical features, in other words, it does not look like anyone else and is united with many real people. For example, the image of Tatyana in "Eugene Onegin", Chatsky in the comedy "Woe from Wit", etc. In this case, it consists of various components that are revealed in the analysis of the work. This is the appearance, character (manifested in relation to the world, in relationships with other heroes, characters), speech portrait, attitude towards human generations (for example, does the hero have children: in Goncharov's novel "Oblomov" it is important that Stolz after the death of Oblomov adopts his child), etc. The artistic details accompanying this or that hero are of great importance. So, Prince Andrei in the novel "War and Peace" is accompanied either by the old oak in Otradnoye, or by the "sky of Austerlitz", and this actively works to create the image of the hero.
- The image (in the true sense of the "picture") of the world, its state, phenomenon.

It must be borne in mind that in most cases the individual varieties of the artistic image coexist together. They form a holistic artistic impression.

It is interesting to analyze the concept of the artistic image developed at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. V. Bryusov, both a poet and a literary theorist. From his point of view, the metaphysical essence of poetry is realized precisely in the artistic image, which acts as a synthesizing means of cognition (in contrast to the secular-scientific - analyzing). It is a kind of "synthesis of syntheses": linking into a single whole various ideas about various phenomena, it can be considered as a special synthetic judgment about the world ("Synthetics of Poetry", 1924).