a set of texts of Russian folk culture, transmitted mainly orally, having the status of authorless, anonymous and not belonging to certain individual performers, although the names of some outstanding performers are known: the narrator of epics T.G. Ryabinin, the incarnation of I.A.Fedosova, the storyteller A. K. Baryshnikova, A.I. Glinkin's songstress. These texts are sung or narrated, have a more or less large form (a historical song or proverb), are associated with rituals (calendar songs-incantations, lamentations) or, on the contrary, are completely independent of them ( ditties, epics). The most important qualities of the works of Russian folklore are due to the cultural memory of the ethnos, the predestination of worldview and religious traditions and everyday pragmatism social structures in which they are found. The concept of "Russian folklore" is associated with the concept of traditionalism, although the quantitative accumulation of gradual changes leads to the emergence of new phenomena. The folklore tradition has both general Russian features and local, regional ones, bringing to the general folklore fund an abundance of options and features of the existence of each a separate work, custom, ritual, etc. In the process of historical development, there is a gradual and natural dying of traditional folklore. The oldest forms of Russian folklore are rituals and ritual folklore which include calendar holidays and rituals, ritual songs (carols, Maslenitsa, Troitsko-Semytsky, Kupala, stubble, etc.) and spell songs (submachine songs, spring songs, Yegoryev songs, round dances, etc.), conspiracies, lamentations, poetry of funeral and wedding rituals. With the formation of the Russian state, the genre repertoire of Russian folklore is significantly expanding.

FOLKLORE AND LITERATURE:

ORAL AND WRITTEN WORD

Despite the disagreements between folklorists about what to call folk poetry, probably, everyone will agree that such defining features as collectivity, tradition and oral character of works are inherent in it. Moreover, each of the components can be present in other types of creativity, but in folklore they are necessarily in indissoluble unity.

The collective nature of folk art is, first of all, the community of generations, which manifests itself in the most different levels: community of generations of a family, village, region, nationality, humanity (recall in connection with the last world vagrant plots). In other words: collectivity is inseparable from the tradition of transferring works from one generation to another, and this transfer must necessarily be carried out orally.

Without diminishing the importance of tradition and collectivity in defining folk art, we propose to devote the article to the oral factor of works of verbal folklore and, in this regard, to look at the history of the relationship between Russian folklore and Russian literature.

When called poetic folklore art of the word, it is necessary to add that this word must be spoken. It is very important. This is its fundamental difference from literature - the art of the written word.

The spoken word has its own special artistic capabilities: facial expressions, gestures, timbre of voice, intonation and other means that literature cannot use (or uses limitedly). The transmission of the spoken word in writing will always remain a surrogate. Any written fixation of a fairy tale or song has the character of imitation, which, for all its usefulness (even necessity), cannot replace the original, just as a photograph cannot replace a living object. The life of any work of folklore takes place in a multitude of oral versions, which are basically close, but at the same time differ from each other. Folklore is inconceivable without improvisation. This is the beauty of the art of the spoken word: each text is unique and inimitable in its own way. Every time the miracle of art is performed directly before our eyes, in our presence.

16 Slavic traditional culture

At one time, voices were heard that folklore must inevitably perish, that literature would replace it. The "logic" was as follows: folklore is the art of the illiterate population, primarily of the rural population, its oral character is determined mainly by the lack of education. If the storyteller finishes school and learns to write, he will cease to be a storyteller and become a writer. The author of these lines, fifty years ago, himself defended such an incorrect position; incorrect for many reasons. Folklore was recognized only among the illiterate classes, the fact that fairy tales, anecdotes, rumors and rumors, songs, proverbs and sayings were common in the noble and intellectual environment, were not taken into account. But most importantly, it was discounted that folklore has its own special artistic field, not accessible to literature, to which it can only approach. There have always been masters of the spoken word, "wonderful storytellers", whose art was not recorded at one time. So everyone admitted D.I. Fonvizin, who had the gift of "showing people," as I.L. Andronikov, how Ariadna Efron, daughter of Marina Tsvetaeva, entertained her cellmates. The oral stories of M.S. Shchepkin admired A.S. Pushkin. An interesting storyteller was N.K. Zagryazhskaya, from her Pushkin and P.A. Vyazemsky wrote down many legends of the 18th century. There are memories of M. Gorky as a talented storyteller, who loved to tell and listen to others.

But the art of the spoken word is not necessarily folklore. It becomes one only when both components meet - the oral word and tradition, that is, when the transmission of oral material has a traditional basis, is combined with the transmission of certain traditions.

The oral tradition arose and began to develop when there was no written language and therefore there could not be any comparison with literature and opposition to it.

With the Baptism of Rus, literature began to develop, and already in the 12th century such a remarkable monument as "The Tale of Bygone Years" appeared, where the oral tradition of legends, traditions and even anecdotes was widely used. When the majority of society was illiterate, the social divide did not pass, as at a later time, through opposition: oral literature for the common people - writing for the upper classes. Social predilections could be manifested in both literature and folklore. An example is the different legends about Kie the prince and Kie the carrier. Probably, the legend of the Kiev-carrier in ancient times bore a certain sacred character, lost by the 11th century. Then the legend of Kie-prince appeared. In the "Tale of Bygone Years" both are recorded, but at that time the legend of the Kie the carrier was already perceived as the legend of the Kie the commoner. In ancient Russian literature, one can find works that are identical in the ideological content of the oral tradition: the Life of Peter and Fevronya, democratic satire, etc.

The literary language at that time was the Church Slavonic language of the Great Russian edition. Oral colloquial speech could not be the object of writing. The modern philologist B.A.Uspensky calls this situation "Church Slavonic-Russian diglossia", in which there is a book language system associated with the written tradition and a non-book system associated with everyday life. Under these conditions, according to the scientist, no one uses the book language system as a means of colloquial communication "(B.A. Us-pensky. A brief outline of the history of the Russian literary language (XI-XIX centuries) M., 1994, p. 5) The division of literature and folklore then went according to genres: some belonged to the written word (church service texts, lives, annals, stories, etc.), and others - oral (fairy tales, songs, proverbs, sayings). handwritten monuments of proverbs and sayings, although their collections already exist in the 17th century.If they are found in the chronicles, then only as a foreign quotation, and not the author's language ("Pogibosha, like obre", "Trouble, like in the family", etc. etc.).

While the majority of society remained illiterate, only the elements were open to it colloquial speech, which everyone knew, and with it songs and fairy tales - oral traditional poetry. Elizaveta Petrovna, still grand duchess when she was threatened by the monastery, in the evening on the porch of her palace she sang a song: "Ah, my life, my poor life." This was heard by a soldier standing nearby on the clock and told his neighbor in the barracks. And he was not surprised: "What's so strange, the woman is a woman who sings." Then there was still no social opposition: "folklore - non-folklore", but there were: "women's songs - men's songs". The fact that the future empress sang songs known to an ordinary peasant woman is a characteristic feature of the time.

When in the XVIII century. As a noble intelligentsia began to form, at first it tried to isolate itself from folklore, which was well known to it from the stories of serf uncles and nannies, seeing in it only ignorance. Now, in most cases, they remember how Fonvizin masterly mastered the element of colloquial speech, knew proverbs and sayings. But who speaks in his comedies with proverbs and sayings? - Skotinin and Prostakovs! The playwright uses folk aphoristics in the language of his negative heroes as a sign of rudeness and ignorance. Mitrofan and Skotinin listen to the "stories" (fairy tales) of the poultry-woman Agafia. According to the tradition of the XIX century. one should be moved and say about the closeness of Skotinin and Mitrofan to folk poetry. But for Fonvizin it is different. For him, this is a sign of darkness and lack of culture, shameful for a nobleman.

VF Odoevsky has such an episode in the fairy tale "Town in a Snuffbox". The bell boy explains: "This is our saying." And the main character Misha objects: "Daddy says it's not very good to get used to sayings." In the noble culture of the first half of the 19th century. the proverb and the saying bore the stamp of some taboo.

A new attitude towards oral poetry as "folk wisdom" emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. in the works of A.N. Radishchev, N.M. Karamzin and, finally, A.S. Pushkin. It is in his works that the "oral" is most clearly marked as "folk". By this time, "scissors" had already appeared between the people and the intelligentsia, highly educated people appeared who did not know much oral creativity... Very soon they saw in this "the lack of their accursed education" (AS Pushkin - LS Pushkin, November, 1824). It was then that a view of the oral tradition as a folk one arose. It was during this time that literature and folklore became socially divided. The citation of folklore as a sign of connection (or desire for such a connection) with the people, and precisely with the common people, begins with the works of Pushkin, the understanding of the oral tradition as a special "folk wisdom". Let us recall the images of Pugachev, Savelich, Varlaam with their songs, sayings and jokes.

Approximately with A.P. Chekhov, the situation is changing radically. We are all people, and all the best that we have is from the people, he wrote. The division into folklore and literature is losing its social basis. Chekhov uses proverbs and sayings absolutely freely, not dividing the addressees of his letters into those for whom it is possible, and those to whom it is indecent to use folk aphoristics in letters (in Pushkin, such a division is very clearly traced).

And A. Blok uses folklore images as personal, and not opposed to his speech practice ("My beloved, my prince, my fiance ...").

In the works of poets of the twentieth century. images of traditional oral poetry often appear in the author's speech. At the same time, they are attracted not by the social nature, but by the artistic expressiveness.

B. Pasternak: ... where did Makar not gag calves ..

A. Tvardovsky: When serious reasons

For speech ripened in the chest,

The usual complaint of conception,

That there are no words, do not start.

All are words - for every essence,

Everything that leads to battle and labor,

But repeated in vain

They lose weight like flies die.

The term of folk poetics "inception", proverbs about Makar and dying flies, poets use as images known to everyone. These images are the common property, and therefore the property of poets. And the poets treat them as their property, allowing themselves to use them in their own way, in a somewhat altered, but recognizable form ("did not gag" - instead of "did not drive").

Today, folklore, like literature, serves the entire society; we can talk about the national oral creativity. The class division was replaced by a division into social groups: folklore of tourists, student folklore, miners, prison, etc.

There is a constant mutual influence of folklore and literature, but it no longer bears the same character as it was in the 19th century. This is the mutual influence of two related arts of the word - oral and written, in both cases the art of the figurative word.

Folklore as an art of the spoken word will live as long as spoken language will. In this sense, it is eternal. Genres are changing. Gone are the epics, the "long" songs are gone; ditties, non-fairy-tale prose, alterations of literary songs, anecdotes, proverbs, sayings are actively living.

In ancient times, the oral tradition contained the entire amount of human experience, it was all-embracing - it is religion, science, meteorology, medicine, agronomy, ethics, and aesthetics. Therefore, epic works of the distant past are so majestic. The division of labor also affected the oral tradition. Science, theology, jurisprudence and other areas of knowledge have become independent activities. Only the art of the spoken word remains for modern folklore. Therefore, neither epics nor the Iliad are possible today - their time has passed. But a ditty, a proverb, a proverb carry a great poetic charge that is necessary in our today's difficult life.

There should be a very attentive and careful attitude to the outgoing folklore. One cannot help but admire him, one cannot help but love him. It can (and should) sound from the stage, on radio and television - but still it will not replace contemporary folklore. And modern folklore is happening today: on the basis of tradition or on the basis of breaking tradition - descendants will figure it out. Our duty to them is to protect and preserve, write down and record everything. Experience has shown that offspring can overestimate our records and that what seems valuable today will not interest anyone tomorrow. And vice versa.

A fairy tale is a favorite genre not only of children, but also of many adults. At first, the people were engaged in their composition, then professional writers also mastered them. In this article, we will understand the difference between folk tale from literary.

Features of the genre

A fairy tale is the most common type of folk art, telling about events of an adventure, everyday or fantastic nature. The main setting of this genre is the disclosure life truth with the help of conventional poetic techniques.

At its core, a fairy tale is a simplified and abbreviated form of myths and legends, as well as a reflection of the traditions and views of peoples and nations. What is the difference between literary tales and folk tales, if in this genre itself there is a direct reference to folklore?

The fact is that all literary tales are based on folk art... Even if the plot of the work contradicts the folk tradition, the structure and the main characters have a clearly visible connection with it.

Features of folk art

So, what is the difference between a folk tale and a literary one? To begin with, let's figure out what is commonly called a "folk tale". Let's start with the fact that this genre is considered one of the oldest and is recognized cultural heritage, which preserved the ideas of our ancestors about the structure of the world and about human interaction with it.

Such works reflected the moral values ​​of people of the past, manifested in a clear division of heroes into good and evil, national traits character, features of beliefs and life.

It is customary to divide folk tales into three types, depending on the plot and characters: magic, about animals and everyday.

Author's reading

To understand how a folk tale differs from a literary one, you need to understand the origin of the latter. Unlike its folk "sister", the literary tale arose not so long ago - only in the 18th century. This was due to the development of educational ideas in Europe, which contributed to the beginning of the author's adaptations of folklore. They began to collect and record folk stories.

The first such writers were the brothers Grimm, E. Hoffmann, C. Perrot, G.H. Andersen. They took famous folk stories, something was added to them, something was removed, often invested new meaning, changed heroes, complicated the conflict.

The main differences

Now let's move on to how a folk tale differs from a literary one. Let's list the main features:

• Let's start with the fact that the author's work always has the same unchanging plot, while the folk is modified and transformed all the time of its existence, as the surrounding reality and the worldview of people change. In addition, the literary version is usually larger in volume.
• In the author's tale, depiction is more vividly expressed. It has more details, details, colorful descriptions of actions and characters. The folk version very roughly describes the place of action, the characters themselves and the events.
• A literary tale has a psychologism that is not typical of folklore. That is, the author pays a lot of attention to the study of the character's inner world, his experiences and feelings. Folk art never delves into a topic in such detail.
• The main characters of folk tales are type masks, generalized images. Authors, on the other hand, endow their characters with individuality, make their characters more complex, more contradictory, and their actions more motivated.
• In a literary work, there is always a pronounced position of the author. He expresses his attitude to what is happening, evaluates events and characters, emotionally colors what is happening.

What is the difference between a literary tale and a folk tale: examples

Now let's try to apply the theory in practice. For example, let's take the fairy tales of A.S. Pushkin.

So, in order to show the techniques of pictoriality, let's take the "Tale of dead princess". The author describes in great detail and colorfully the furnishings and decorations: "in the bright room ... benches covered with a carpet", a stove "with a tiled stove bench."

The psychology of the heroes is perfectly demonstrated by "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", Pushkin is very attentive to the feelings of his hero: "zealous beat ... he burst into tears ... the spirit took up in him."

If you have not yet fully understood how a literary tale differs from a folk tale, then consider another example related to the personality of the character of the hero. Let us recall the works of Ershov, Pushkin, Odoevsky. Their characters are not masks, they are living people with their passions and characters. So, Pushkin even endows the imp with expressive features: "he came running ... breathless, all the mokreshnek ... wiping himself off."

As for the emotional coloring, for example, "The Tale of Balda" is joking and mocking; "The Tale of the Golden Fish" - ironic and a little sad; "The Tale of the Dead Princess" is sad, sad and tender.

Conclusion

Summing up the difference between a Russian folk tale and a literary one, we note one more feature that summarizes all the others. An author's work always reflects the writer's worldview, his view of the world and his attitude to it. This opinion may partially coincide with the popular one, but it will never be identical to it. Per literary tale the personality of the author always comes through.

In addition, recorded tales are always tied to a specific time and place. For example, the plots of folk tales often roam and are found in various localities, so it is almost impossible to date their origin. And the time of writing a literary work is easy to determine, despite the stylization of folklore.

Literary work - a work of human thought, fixed in writing and possessing public value... As an example of a literary work, I chose the play by S. Ya.Marshak<<Двенадцать месяцев >>.

Play by S. Ya. Marshak<<Двенадцать месяцев>> tells that good always triumphs over evil, that the power of nature helps only kind and hardworking people.

This tale tells how the Queen under New Year issued a decree that will reward whoever brings her a basket of snowdrops. Greedy and angry stepmom and the Daughter are sent to the forest by the Stepdaughter. The stepdaughter meets 12 brothers at the fire - months. They help her, give her snowdrops and a magic ring. The stepmother and her own daughter bring the snowdrops to the palace, and the Queen orders them to show them where they picked the flowers. The stepmother and daughter talk about the Stepdaughter, and the Queen and her retinue, with the Stepmother, Daughter and Stepdaughter go to the forest. The Queen wants to execute her stepdaughter, but the brothers come to her aid for months, turn the stepmother and her daughter into dogs, disperse the courtiers and make the Queen think about what good is.

In Marshak's fairy tale play, the characters of the heroes and their actions are vital and true. The Queen's whims, the insincere behavior of the courtiers, for example, the Hoffmeisterins, the anger and greed of the Stepmother and Daughter, the Soldier's kindness, the Stepdaughter's loyalty and cordiality, are truthfully depicted.
The very existence of brothers-months in the form of people, the meeting of the girl with them by the fire in the forest, the transformation of winter into spring and then the rapid change of all seasons in a short time, is improbable, fantastic.
With such a combination of the fantastic and the real, Marshak achieves an amazing result: viewers and readers begin to believe that brothers-months really exist; Marshak teaches us kindness and compassion, but he does it not in the form of boring teachings, but in the form of a fairy tale that reaches the very heart.
We condemn the greedy Stepmother and Daughter, the wayward Queen, the stupid and insincere Hoffmeister, we sympathize with the Stepdaughter and the Queen's Teacher. We laugh at greed, stupidity and lies, and believe in goodness and justice.

2. Folklore work.

Folklore work is the result of a collective creative process, in which it is impossible to establish the authorship. Literature brings together works whose authorship is reliably known. As an example, I chose a fairy tale<<Морозко>>.

The stepmother has her own daughter and stepdaughter. The old woman decides to drive her stepdaughter out of the yard and orders her husband to take the girl "into the open field on a crackling frost." He obeys.

In the open field Frost Red nose greets the girl. She responds kindly. Frost feels sorry for his stepdaughter, and he does not freeze her, but gives a dress, a fur coat, a dowry chest.

The stepmother is already celebrating her stepdaughter's commemoration and orders the old man to go to the field, to bring the girl's body to bury. The old man returns and brings his daughter - alive, well-dressed, with a dowry! The stepmother orders her own daughter to be taken to the same place. Frost Red nose comes to look at the guest. Not waiting for "good speeches" from the girl, he kills her. The old woman awaits the return of her daughter with wealth, but instead the old man brings only a cold body.

main character fairy tales - a stepdaughter, a hardworking, helpful and meek girl - a "socially disadvantaged character" in the stepmother's house: "Everyone knows how to live with a stepmother: if you turn over - a bit and you will not trust - a bit ..." The stepdaughter did all her homework, but she could not please evil cruel stepmother.

According to the canon fairy tales the heroine leaves the house before finding her happiness. The reason - the stepmother kicks out: "Here is the stepmother and invented her stepdaughter from the light. - Take, take her, old man," he says to her husband, "where you want my eyes not to see her! Take her to the forest, into the bitter frost."

The character of the stepdaughter is so meek that she does not argue or resist when her own father leaves her in a student winter forest... And she behaves just as meekly when the title character of the tale, Morozko, tests her character, increasing and increasing the frost. The girl's answers are friendly, despite the bitter frost. For this, Morozko takes pity on the girl and generously presents it. Wealth as a reward is a characteristic device of folk tales.

The stepmother, domineering, envious and greedy, seeing her stepdaughter unharmed and with rich gifts, tells the old man to take her own daughter to the same place in the forest. The main reason for such envy is clear from the words of the dog: "The old man's daughter is in gold, they are being taken in silver, but the old woman is not married." It is for the dowry that the old woman sends her beloved daughter to the frost.

The situation in the forest is repeated: Morozko appears and subjects the girl to the cold test three times. She, however, is not endowed with either kindness or meekness and is filled with pride. Her answers are rude and disrespectful, and Morozko severely punishes this heroine: she dies from the cold.

With such a tragic ending, the folk tale "Frost" shows the reader how cruelly the people condemn envy, greed, anger and oppression of the weak and defenseless, what a stepdaughter was. The behavior of the negative heroes of the fairy tale, the stepmother and her own daughter, causes the rejection of anger and injustice in the child's soul. And the punishment that the girl suffered is perceived by the reader as a triumph of justice.

3.What is different literary work from a folklore work.

There is a close connection between folklore and literature, due to the specifics verbal creativity, which displays a person's ideas about the world around them and the laws of development public conscience... However, there are fundamental differences in folklore and literary works that determine their characteristic features and characteristics. There are also differences in the characters.

In the examples I have given, there are similar heroes. There are also differences. In a fairy tale<<Морозко>>, as in the fairy tale, the play by S. Ya.Marshak<<Двенадцать месяцев>> there are the same characters such as: stepdaughter, stepmother, queen, daughter, soldier, etc. play-tale S.Ya. Marshak<<Двенадцать месяцев >> the characters are clearly not of folklore, but of literary origin: the Queen's Teacher, the Hoffmeister, the Chancellor, the Chief of the Royal Guard, the Crown Prosecutor and other members of the Queen's retinue.

Folklorev broad sense Is a historically established, absorbed folk traditions collective co-authorship, transmitting in oral or game form a poetic generalization of the experience of many generations. Among the folklore genres, ritual, song and epic are distinguished. Epic genres include fairy tales, legends, epics, legends, tales, as well as small forms of oral folk art - proverbs, sayings, riddles and anecdotes. The word "folklore" is often used in a narrower sense - to determine the content and method of creating verbal artistic images characteristic of these genres.

Inceptionliteratureas an art form in many cultures is associated with development folk epic... It served as the basis for the chronicles and biographies of the saints; the principle of storytelling, borrowed from folk tales, was used in the construction of plots of adventure and rogue novels - the prototype of many genres modern prose; the figurative structure and rhythmic organization of epics, historical, ritual songs are reflected in the author's poetry.

However, literary works did not obey folklore canons, had a more complex composition, an arbitrarily developing plot and could only exist in writing, since each of them was an original work created by one person.

Since the Renaissance, characteristic feature fiction becomes the author's style, and the object of the image is the inner world of the hero, in which the reader finds the moral priorities and features of the era inherent in a particular historical period in the development of society.

Modern literary process- complex versatile cultural phenomenon, manifested in the variety of already established and only emergingforms of verbal creativity.

Unlike literature, folklore retains stable forms and sedentary compositional structure text. Inner world the hero is closed: only an event or an act is important, in which not character traits are manifested, but generally recognized principles of behavior, taken as the basis of the order that establishes a balance between good and evil.

2) Arose and develops as oral folk art

3) Lives in a variety of options

4) Can be transmitted by recitative

5) Can be danced and chanted

2) Arose as written and develops as written

3) Has one version written by the author

4) The writer wrote

5) The reader reads

The same is in our examples, in a fairy tale<<Морозко>> not a personal creator, it develops like oral folk art, this fairy tale, once invented by the people long ago, has already appeared later different variants... There is Tolstoy's version and Afanasyev's version.

Korovina V.Ya.Literature and folklore. Tutorial for students in grades 9-11 - M., 1966.

Oral folk art is immense. It has been created for centuries, there are many varieties of it. Translated from of English language"folklore" is " popular meaning, wisdom. "That is, oral folk art - everything that is created by the spiritual culture of the population for centuries historical life his.

Features of Russian folklore

If you carefully read the works of Russian folklore, you will notice that it actually reflects a lot: the play of the people's imagination, and the history of the country, and laughter, and serious thoughts about human life. Listening to the songs and tales of their ancestors, people thought about many difficult questions of their family, social and work life, pondered how to fight for happiness, improve their lives, what a person should be like, what should be ridiculed and condemned.

Varieties of folklore

Varieties of folklore include fairy tales, epics, songs, proverbs, riddles, calendar choruses, dignity, sayings - everything that was repeated passed from generation to generation. At the same time, the performers often added something of their own to the text they liked, changing individual details, images, expressions, imperceptibly improving and honing the work.

Oral folk art for the most part exists in a poetic (poetic) form, since it was she who made it possible to memorize and transmit from mouth to mouth these works over the centuries.

Songs

The song is a special verbal and musical genre. It is a small-scale lyric-narrative or lyrical work that was created specifically for singing. Their types are as follows: lyric, dance, ritual, historical. Expressed in folk songs feelings of one person, but at the same time of many people. They reflected love experiences, events of social and family life, reflections on a difficult fate. In folk songs, the so-called parallelism technique is often used, when the mood of a given lyric hero is transferred to the nature.

Historical songs are dedicated to various famous personalities and events: the conquest of Siberia by Yermak, the uprising of Stepan Razin, peasant war under the leadership of Yemelyan Pugachev, the Battle of Poltava with the Swedes, etc. The narrative in historical folk songs about some events is combined with the emotional sound of these works.

Epics

The term "epic" was introduced by I. P. Sakharov in the 19th century. It is an oral folklore in the form of a song, a heroic, epic character. An epic arose in the 9th century, it was an expression of the historical consciousness of the people of our country. Bogatyrs are the main characters of this kind of folklore. They embody the people's ideal of courage, strength and patriotism. Examples of heroes who were portrayed by works of oral folk art: Dobrynya Nikitich, Ilya Muromets, Mikula Selyaninovich, Alyosha Popovich, as well as the merchant Sadko, the giant Svyatogor, Vasily Buslaev and others. The life basis, at the same time enriched with some fantastic fiction, constitutes the plot of these works. In them, the heroes single-handedly overcome whole hordes of enemies, fight monsters, and instantly overcome huge distances. This folklore is very interesting.

Fairy tales

Epics must be distinguished from fairy tales. These works of oral folk art are based on invented events. Fairy tales can be magical (in which fantastic forces are involved), as well as everyday ones, where people are depicted - soldiers, peasants, kings, workers, princesses and princes - in an everyday setting. This type of folklore differs from other works by its optimistic plot: in it, good always triumphs over evil, and the latter either suffers a defeat or is ridiculed.

Legends

We continue to describe the genres of oral folk art. A legend, unlike a fairy tale, is a folk oral story... Its basis is an incredible event, fantastic image, a miracle that is perceived by the listener or the narrator as authentic. There are legends about the origin of peoples, countries, seas, about the sufferings and exploits of fictional or really existing heroes.

Riddles

Oral folk art is represented by many riddles. They are an allegorical depiction of an object, usually based on a metaphorical rapprochement with it. Riddles are very small in volume, have a certain rhythmic structure, often emphasized by the presence of rhyme. They are created in order to develop quick-wittedness, quick-wittedness. Riddles are varied in content and topics. There may be several of their options about the same phenomenon, animal, object, each of which characterizes it from a certain side.

Proverbs and sayings

Oral folklore genres also include sayings and proverbs. A proverb is a rhythmically organized, short, figurative saying, aphoristic folk saying. It usually has a two-part structure, which is supported by rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and assonance.

A proverb is a figurative expression that evaluates some phenomenon of life. She, in contrast to the proverb, is not a whole sentence, but only a part of a statement that is part of oral folk art.

Proverbs, sayings and riddles are included in the so-called small genres of folklore. What is it? In addition to the above types, other oral folk art also belongs to them. The types of small genres are complemented by the following: lullabies, little dogs, nursery rhymes, jokes, game choruses, chants, sentences, riddles. Let's dwell in a little more detail on each of them.

Lullabies

Small genres of oral folklore include lullabies. People call them bikes. This name comes from the verb "bayat" ("bayat") - "to speak". This word has the following old meaning: "to speak, whisper". Lullabies received this name for a reason: the oldest of them are directly related to conspiracy poetry. Struggling with sleep, for example, the peasants said: "Slumber, get away from me."

Pestushki and nursery rhymes

Russian oral folk art is also represented by pestushki and nursery rhymes. In their center is the image of a growing child. The name "pestushki" comes from the word "foster", that is, "to follow someone, raise, nurse, carry, educate." They are short sentences with which in the first months of a baby's life they comment on his movements.

Imperceptibly pestushki turn into nursery rhymes - songs accompanying the kid's games with the fingers of legs and pens. This oral folklore is very diverse. Examples of nursery rhymes: "Magpie", "Ladushki". They often already have a "lesson", an instruction. For example, in "Magpie" the white-sided woman fed everyone with porridge, except for one lazy person, albeit the smallest one (it corresponds to the little finger).

Jokes

In the first years of the children's lives, the nanny and the mother sang them songs of more complex content, not related to the game. All of them can be designated by a single term "jokes". In content, they resemble small fairy tales in verse. For example, about a cockerel - a golden scallop that flew to the Kulikovo field for oats; about a chicken ryab, which "smelt peas" and "sowed millet."

In a joke, as a rule, a picture of some bright event is given, or it depicts some swift action that corresponds to the active nature of the baby. They have a plot, but the child is not capable of long-term attention, so they are limited to only one episode.

Sentences, calls

We continue to consider oral folk art. Its forms are complemented by chants and sentences. Children on the street very early learn from their peers a variety of calls, which represent an appeal to birds, rain, rainbow, sun. The children, on occasion, shout out the words in a sing-song chorus. In addition to the cries, in peasant family any child knew the sentences. They are most often pronounced singly. Sentences - appeal to a mouse, small bugs, a snail. This can be an imitation of various bird voices. Verbal sentences and song calls are filled with faith in the powers of water, heaven, earth (now beneficial, now destructive). Pronunciation of them introduced to the work and life of adult peasant children. Sentences and chants are combined into a special section called "calendar children's folklore". This term emphasizes the existing connection between them and the season, holiday, weather, all the way of life and the way of life in the village.

Game sentences and choruses

Oral folklore genres include game sentences and choruses. They are no less ancient than chants and sentences. They either bind the parts of a game, or start it. They can also play the role of endings, determine the consequences that exist when conditions are violated.

The games are striking by their resemblance to serious peasant occupations: harvesting, hunting, sowing flax. Reproduction of these cases in strict sequence with the help of multiple repetition made it possible to inoculate with early years to the child respect for customs and the existing order, to teach the rules of behavior accepted in society. The titles of the games - "Bear in the Forest", "Wolf and Geese", "Kite", "Wolf and Sheep" - speak of the connection with the life and everyday life of the rural population.

Conclusion

V folk epics, fairy tales, legends, songs live no less exciting colorful images than in works of art classical authors. Peculiar and surprisingly accurate rhymes and sounds, bizarre, beautiful poetic rhythms - as if lace are intertwined in the texts of ditties, nursery rhymes, jokes, riddles. And what vivid poetic comparisons we can find in lyric songs! All this could only be created by the people - Great master the words.