What is composition in the literature definition. Compositional Element in Artwork: Examples
In literary studies, they say different things about composition, but there are three main definitions:
1) Composition is the arrangement and correlation of parts, elements and images of a work (components art form), the sequence of introducing the units of the displayed and speech means text.
2) Composition is a construction artwork, the correlation of all parts of the work into a single whole, due to its content and genre.
3) Composition - the construction of a work of art, a certain system of means of disclosing, organizing images, their connections and relationships that characterize the life process shown in the work.
All these scary literary concepts, in fact, a fairly simple decoding: composition is the arrangement of the novels passages in a logical order, in which the text becomes whole and acquires an inner meaning.
How, following the instructions and rules, we collect from small parts constructor or puzzle, so we collect from text fragments, be it chapters, parts or sketches, and a whole novel.
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The composition of the work is external and internal.
External composition of the book
External composition (aka architectonics) is a breakdown of the text into chapters and parts, highlighting additional structural parts and an epilogue, introduction and conclusion, epigraphs and lyrical digressions. Another external composition is the division of the text into volumes (separate books with a global idea, a branching plot and a large number heroes and characters).
External composition is a way of dosing information.
A novel text written on 300 pages is unreadable without a structural breakdown. At a minimum, he needs parts, at a maximum - chapters or semantic segments, separated by spaces or asterisks (***).
By the way, short chapters are more convenient for perception - up to ten sheets - after all, as readers, having mastered one chapter, no, no, we will count how many pages there are in the next - and continue to read or sleep.
Internal composition of the book
Internal composition, as opposed to external, includes many more elements and techniques of text layout. They all, however, boil down to common goal- to arrange the text in a logical order and to reveal the author's intention, but they go to it in different ways - plot, figurative, speech, thematic, etc. Let us examine them in more detail.
1. Subject elements of the internal composition:
- prologue - introduction, most often - prehistory. (But some authors take the event from the middle of the story in the prologue, or the original compositional move from the finale.) The prologue is an interesting but optional element of both external and external composition;
- exposition - the initial event, in which the heroes are presented, the conflict is outlined;
- tie - events in which the conflict is tied;
- development of actions - the course of events;
- climax - highest point tension, clash of opposing forces, the peak of the emotional intensity of the conflict;
- denouement - the result of the climax;
- epilogue - the summary of the story, conclusions on the plot and assessment of events, outline later life heroes. Optional element.
2. Figurative elements:
- images of heroes and characters - advance the plot, are the main conflicts, reveal the idea and the author's intention. System actors- each image separately and the connections between them is an important element of the internal composition;
- images of the setting in which the action develops are descriptions of countries and cities, images of the road and accompanying landscapes, if the heroes are on the way, interiors - if all events take place, for example, within the walls of a medieval castle. The images of the environment are the so-called descriptive "meat" (the world of history), atmosphere (the sense of history).
The figurative elements work mainly on the plot.
So, for example, the image of a hero is assembled from the details - an orphan, without family and tribe, but with magic power and the goal is to learn about your past, about your family, to find your place in the world. And this goal, in fact, becomes a plot - and compositional one: from the search for the hero, from the development of the action - from the progressive and logical advancement - the text is formed.
And the same goes for the images of the environment. They both create the space of history, and at the same time limit it to certain frames - a medieval castle, city, country, world.
Specific images complement and develop the story, make it understandable, visible and tangible, like correctly (and compositionally) arranged household items in your apartment.
3. Speech elements:
- dialogue (polylogue);
- monologue;
- lyrical digressions(the author's word, not related to the development of the plot or images of the heroes, abstract reflections on a specific topic).
Speech elements are the speed of perception of the text. Dialogues are dynamics, and monologues and lyrical digressions (including descriptions of action in the first person) are static. Visually, text without dialogue seems cumbersome, inconvenient, unreadable, and this is reflected in the composition. Without dialogues, it is difficult to understand - the text seems to be drawn out.
Monologue text - like a bulky sideboard in a small room - relies on many details (and even more contains), which are sometimes difficult to understand. Ideally, in order not to burden the composition of the chapter, a monologue (and any descriptive text) should take no more than two or three pages. And by no means ten or fifteen, just few people will read them - they will let them through, they will look diagonally.
Conversely, dialogues are composed of emotions, easy to understand and dynamic. At the same time, they should not be empty - only for the sake of dynamics and "heroic" experiences, but informative, and the disclosure of the hero's image.
4. Inserts:
- retrospective - scenes from the past: a) long episodes, revealing the image of the heroes, showing the history of the world or the origins of the situation, may take several chapters; b) short skits(flashbacks) - from one paragraph, often extremely emotional and atmospheric episodes;
- short stories, parables, fairy tales, tales, poems are optional elements that interestingly diversify the text ( good example compositional tale- "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by Rowling); chapters of another story in the composition "a novel in a novel" ("The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov);
- dreams (dreams-premonitions, dreams-predictions, dreams-riddles).
Inserts are extra-plot elements, and remove them from the text - the plot will not change. However, they can scare, amuse, disturb the reader, suggest the development of the plot, if there is a complex series of events ahead. The scene should logically follow from the previous one, each next chapter should be connected with the events of the previous one (if several plot lines- this means that the chapters are fastened according to the events of the lines);
— arrangement and design of the text in accordance with the plot (idea)- this is, for example, the form of a diary, term paper student, novel in novel;
— theme of the work- hidden, through compositional technique, which answers the question - what is the story about, what is its essence, what main idea the author wants to convey to the readers; in in practical terms is decided through a choice significant details in key scenes;
— motive- these are stable and repetitive elements that create end-to-end images: for example, images of the road - the motive of travel, the adventurous or homeless life of the hero.
Composition is a complex and multi-layered phenomenon, and it is difficult to understand all its levels. However, you need to understand in order to know how to arrange the text so that it is easily perceived by the reader. In this article, we talked about the basics, about what lies on the surface. And in the following articles we will dig a little deeper.
Stay tuned!
Daria Gushchina
writer, science fiction author
(VK page
Artistic time and space. Admiration for the beginning of the egoistic. Realism, this is fidelity to life, this is such a manner of creativity. Acmeists or Adamists. Fiction means the special character of works of art. Sentimentalism. Artistic method in literature and art. Artistic fiction - depicted in fiction developments. Content and form. Historical and literary process.
"Questions on the theory of literature" - Internal monologue. Description of the character's appearance. A kind of literature. Intentional use of the same words in the text. Grotesque. A tool to help describe the hero. Events in the work. Exposition. Term. Periphrase. Flame of talent. Symbol. Expressive detail. Description of nature. Interior. Epic works... Plot. A way to display the internal state. Allegory. Epilogue.
"Theory and history of literature" - With the help of detail, the writer highlights the event. Implicit, "subtext" psychologism. K.S. Stanislavsky and E.V. Vakhtangov. The psychology of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is an artistic expression. Tia, in which all strata of society inevitably participate. Psychologism has not left literature. Literature theory. A. Gornfeld "Symbolists". Subtext is the meaning hidden "under" the text. Psychologism reached its maximum in the work of L.N. Tolstoy.
"Theory of Literature" - Anthem. Development stages of action. Satire. Humor. Novel. Consonance of the ends of poetic lines. Sonnet. The fate of the people. Character. Internal monologue. Tragic. Tragedy. Artistic detail. Author's position... Damage. Style. Symbol. Grotesque. Detail. Composition. Epic. Feature article. Epigram. Message. Oh yeah. Story. Literary birth and genres. Comedy. The character. Lyrical hero. The story. Tasks. Scenery. Artistic reception.
"Theory of Literature at School" - Epic genres... Space. Acmeism. Speaking surnames... Portrait. Stages of development of action in a work of art. Content and form literary work... Lyrics. Genre system of folklore. Artistic image... Plot. Dramatic genres... The theme of the artwork. Biographical author. Composition. Symbolism. Lyric genres... The idea of a work of art. Artistic time.
"Fundamentals of Literature Theory" - Two ways to create speech characteristics. Speech characteristic hero. Characters. Eternal image... Temporary sign. Literature theory. Development of the plot. Historical persons... The story. Monologue. Inner speech. Eternal themes... Paphos is made up of varieties. Eternal themes in fiction. The content of the work. Pathos. Way. An example of opposition. Pushkin. Fabular development. The emotional content of a work of art.
Composition of a work of art
Composition- this is the construction of all elements and parts of a work of art in accordance with the author's intention (in a certain proportion, sequence; compositionally formed figurative system characters, space and time, series of events in the plot).
Compositional and plot parts of a literary work
Prologue- what led to the emergence of the plot, previous events (not in all works).
Exposition- designation of the original space, time, heroes.
Tie- events that give the development of the plot.
Action development- the development of the plot from the beginning to the climax.
Climax- moment highest voltage plot action, after which it moves to a denouement.
Interchange- termination of action in a given conflict direction, when contradictions are resolved or removed.
Epilogue- "announcement" of further events, summing up.
Composite elements
TO compositional elements include epigraphs, dedications, prologues, epilogues, parts, chapters, acts, phenomena, scenes, prefaces and afterwords of "publishers" (created by the author's fantasy of extra-plot images), dialogues, monologues, episodes, inserted stories and episodes, letters, songs (Oblomov's Dream in Goncharov's novel Oblomov, letters from Tatyana to Onegin and Onegin to Tatyana in Pushkin's novel “Eugene Onegin”); all artistic descriptions(portraits, landscapes, interiors).
Compositional techniques
Repeat (refrain)- the use of the same elements (parts) of the text (in poems - the same verses):
Keep me, my talisman,
Keep me safe in the days of persecution
In days of remorse, excitement:
You were given to me on the day of sorrow.
When the ocean rises
Around me the shafts are roaring,
When the clouds come like a thunderstorm -
Keep me, my talisman ...
(A. Pushkin "Keep me, my talisman")
Depending on the position, frequency of appearance and autonomy, the following compositional techniques are distinguished:
Anaphora- repeat at the beginning of a line:
Past the lists, temples,
past temples and bars,
past chic cemeteries,
past the big bazaars ...
(I. Brodsky "Pilgrims")
Epiphora- repeat at the end of a line:
My horse do not touch the land,
Do not touch my forehead,
Don't touch my sigh,
The rider is a horse, the finger is the palm.
(M. Tsvetaeva "Khansky full")
Simplock- the subsequent part of the work begins in the same way as the previous one (as a rule, it occurs in folklore works or styling):
He fell on the cold snow
On the cold snow like a pine tree
(M.Yu. Lermontov "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich ...")
Antithesis- opposition (works at all levels of text from symbol to character):
I swear on the first day of creation,
I swear on his last day.
(M.Yu. Lermontov "Demon")
They got along. Wave and stone
Poems and prose, ice and fire ...
(AS Pushkin "Eugene Onegin")
Compositional techniques related with time shifts(alignment of temporary layers, retro leap, inset):
Retardation- stretching a unit of time, deceleration, braking.
Retrospection- the return of the action to the past, when the reasons for what was happening in currently narration (story about Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov - IS Turgenev "Fathers and children"; story about Asya's childhood - IS Turgenev "Asya").
Change of "points of view"- narration of one event from the point of view different characters, character and narrator (M.Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time", FM Dostoevsky "Poor People").
Parallelism- the location of elements of speech that are identical or similar in grammatical and semantic structure in adjacent parts of the text. Parallel elements can be sentences, their parts, phrases, words.
Your mind is as deep as the sea
Your spirit is high that mountains
(V. Bryusov "Chinese Poems")
An example of compositional parallelism in a prose text is the work of N.V. Gogol "Nevsky Prospect".
The main types of composition
- Linear composition: natural time sequence.
- Inversion (retrospective) composition: reverse chronological order.
- Annular composition: repetition of the opening moment in the ending of the piece.
- Concentric composition: plot spiral, repetition of similar events in the course of the development of the action.
- Mirrored composition: the combination of repetition and opposition, as a result of which the initial and end images are repeated exactly the opposite.
There are three levels of literary work:
Subject visualization is life material
Composition - organizing this material
Artistic language - the speech structure of a literary work, at all four levels artistic language: phonics, vocabulary, semantics, syntax.
Each of these layers has its own complex hierarchy.
The apparent complexity of a literary work is created by the writer's hard work at all three levels of the artistic whole.
Let's get acquainted with several definitions of this concept and its various classifications, when the composition of the text is revealed by different signs and indicators.
A literary text is a communicative, structural and semantic unity, which is manifested in its composition. That is, it is the unity of communication - structure - and meaning.
The composition of a literary text is “mutual correlation and location units of depicted and artistic speech means ”. The units depicted here mean: theme, problem, idea, characters, all sides of the depicted external and internal world. Artistic and speech means are the entire figurative system of the language at the level of its 4 layers.
Composition is the construction of a work, which determines its integrity, completeness and unity.
Composition - represents "System connections " all its elements. This system also has an independent meaningfulness, which should be revealed in the process philological analysis text.
Composition, either structure or architectonics is the construction of a work of art.
Composition is an element of the form of a work of art.
Composition contributes to the creation of a work as an artistic whole.
The composition unites all the components and subordinates them to the idea, the concept of the work. Moreover, this connection is so close that it is impossible to remove or rearrange any component from the composition.
Types of compositional organization of the work:
Subject view - that is, plot (epic, lyrics, drama)
Non-plot view - non-fictional (in the lyrics, in the epic and drama created by creative method modernism and postmodernism)
The plot type of the compositional organization of the work is of two types:
Eventful (in epic and drama)
Descriptive (in lyrics)
Let's consider the first type of plot composition - event-driven. It has three forms:
Chronological form - events develop in a straight line of time movement, the natural time sequence is not violated, there may be time intervals between events
The retrospective form is a deviation from the natural chronological sequence, a violation of the linear order of the passage of events in life, interruption with the memories of the heroes or the author, acquainting the reader with the prehistory of events and the life of the characters (Bunin, "Light Breathing")
Free or montage form - a significant violation of the spatio-temporal and cause-and-effect relationships between events; the connection between individual episodes is associative-emotional, not logical-semantic ("A Hero of Our Time", "The Trial" by Kafka and other works of modernism and postmodernism)
Consider the second type of composition - descriptive:
It is present in lyrical works, in them there is basically no clearly limited and coherently developed action, experiences are highlighted lyrical hero or a character, and the whole composition obeys the goals of his image, this is a description of thoughts, impressions, feelings, pictures, inspired by the experiences of the lyrical hero.
The composition is external and internal.
External composition(architectonics): chapters, parts, sections, paragraphs, books, volumes, their arrangement may be different depending on the methods of plot creation chosen by the author.
External composition- This is the division of the text, characterized by continuity, into discrete units. Composition is therefore a manifestation of significant discontinuity in continuity.
External composition: the boundaries of each compositional unit highlighted in the text are clearly defined, defined by the author (chapters, chapters, sections, parts, epilogues, phenomena in the drama, etc.), this organizes and directs the reader's perception. The architectonics of the text serves as a way of "portioning" meaning; with the help of ... compositional units, the author indicates to the reader to unite, or, conversely, to dismember the elements of the text (and hence its content).
External composition: no less significant is the lack of articulation of the text or its expanded fragments: this emphasizes the integrity of the spatial continuum, the fundamental non-discreteness of the organization of the narrative, the non-differentiation, fluidity of the narrator's or character's worldview (for example, in the “stream of consciousness” literature).
Internal composition : this is a composition (construction, arrangement) of images - characters, events, setting of action, landscapes, interiors, etc.
Internal(meaningful) composition is determined by the system of character images, the features of the conflict and the originality of the plot.
Not to be confused: the plot has the elements plot, the composition has tricks(internal composition) and parts(external composition) composition.
The composition includes, in its construction, both all elements of the plot - plot elements, as well as extra-plot elements.
Internal composition techniques:
Prologue (often referred to as the plot)
Epilogue (often referred to as the plot)
Monologue
Character portraits
Interiors
Landscapes
Off-plot elements in the composition
Classification of compositional techniques for the selection of individual elements:
Each compositional unit is characterized by nominating techniques that provide emphasis the most important meanings of the text and activate the reader's attention. This is:
geography: various graphic highlights,
repetitions: repetitions of language units of different levels,
strengthening: strong positions of the text or its compositional part - positions of advancement associated with the establishment of a hierarchy of meanings, focusing attention on the most important, strengthening emotionality and aesthetic effect, establishing meaningful connections between adjacent and distant elements belonging to the same and different levels, ensuring the coherence of the text and its memorability. The strong positions of the text traditionally include titles, epigraphs, beginningandthe end works (parts, chapters, chapters). With their help, the author emphasizes the structural elements that are most significant for understanding the work and at the same time determines the main "semantic milestones" of a particular compositional part (the text as a whole).
Widespread in Russian literature of the late XX century. editing and collage techniques, on the one hand, led to an increase in the fragmentariness of the text, on the other, it opened up the possibility of new combinations of “semantic plans”.
Composition in terms of its coherence
In the peculiarities of the architectonics of the text, such an important feature of it manifests itself as connectivity. Sections (parts) of the text selected as a result of articulation relate to each other, "concatenate" on the basis of common elements. There are two types of connectivity: cohesion and coherence (terms proposed by V. Dressler)
Cohesion (from Lat. - "to be connected"), or local connectivity, - connectivity of a linear type, expressed formally, mainly by linguistic means. It is based on pronominal substitution, lexical repetitions, the presence of conjunctions, the correlation of grammatical forms, etc.
Coherence(from lat. - “Concatenation”), or global connectivity, - connectivity, nonlinear type, uniting elements of different levels of the text (for example, the title, epigraph, “text in the text” and the main text, etc.). The most important means of creating coherence are repetitions (primarily of words with common semantic components) and parallelism.
Semantic chains appear in a literary text - rows of words with common semes, the interaction of which gives rise to new semantic connections and relationships, as well as "increments of meaning."
Any literary text is permeated with semantic calls, or repetitions. Words related on this basis can take a different position: be located at the beginning and at the end of the text (circular semantic composition), symmetrically, form a gradation series, etc.
Consideration of the semantic composition is a necessary stage in philological analysis. It is especially important for the analysis of “plotless” texts, texts with weakened cause-and-effect relationships of components, texts saturated with complex images. Identifying semantic chains in them and establishing their connections is the key to interpreting the work.
Off-plot elements
Plug-in episodes
Lyrical digressions
Artistic advance,
Artistic framing,
Dedication,
Epigraph,
Heading
Insert episodes- these are parts of the narrative that are not directly related to the course of the plot, events that are only associatively connected and are remembered in connection with the current events of the work ("The Tale of Captain Kopeikin" in " Dead souls»)
Lyrical digressions- are lyrical, philosophical, publicistic, express the thoughts and feelings of the writer directly, in the direct author's word, reflect the author's position, the attitude of the writer to the characters, some elements of the theme, problems, ideas of the work (in Dead Souls - about youth and old age , about Russia as a bird - a troika)
Artistic advance - the image of scenes that are ahead of the further course of events (
Artistic framing - scenes with which a work of art begins and ends, most often it is the same scene, given in development, and creating ring composition("The Fate of a Man" by M. Sholokhov)
Dedication - a short description or a lyrical work that has a specific addressee, to whom the work is addressed and dedicated
Epigraph - an aphorism or quote from another well-known work or folklore, located in front of the entire text or in front of its individual parts (proverb in "The Captain's Daughter")
Heading- the title of the work, which always contains the theme, problem or idea of the work, a very short formulation that has deep expressiveness, imagery or symbolism.
The object of literary analysis in the study of composition I can be different aspects compositions:
1) architectonics, or external composition of the text, - dividing it into certain parts (chapters, sub-chapters, paragraphs, stanzas, etc.), their sequence and relationship;
2) a system of images of characters in a work of art;
3) change of points of view in the structure of the text; so, according to B.A. Uspensky, it is the problem of the point of view that constitutes "The central problem of composition»; consideration in text structure different points vision in relation to the architectonics of the work allows to reveal the dynamics of the development of artistic content;
4) the system of details presented in the text (composition of details); their analysis makes it possible to reveal the ways of deepening the depicted: as I.A. Goncharov, “details that appear in the long-term perspective of the general plan fragmentarily and separately”, in the context of the whole “merge in the general structure ... as if thin invisible threads or, perhaps, magnetic currents were acting”;
5) the correlation with each other and with the rest of the text components of its extra-plot elements (inserted short stories, short stories, lyrical digressions, “scenes on the stage” in the drama).
Compositional analysis thus takes into account different aspects of the text.
The term "composition" in modern philology turns out to be very ambiguous, which complicates its use.
To analyze the composition of a literary text, you must be able to:
To highlight in its structure repetitions that are significant for the interpretation of the work, which serve as the basis for cohesion and coherence;
Reveal semantic overlaps in parts of the text;
Highlight markers - separators of different compositional parts of the work;
To correlate the features of the division of the text with its content and to determine the role of discrete (separate parts) compositional units in the whole;
Establish a connection between the narrative structure of the text as its “deep compositional structure” (BA Uspensky) with its external composition.
Define all the methods of external and internal composition in F. Tyutchev's poem "Silentium" (namely: parts of the composition, plot type - non-plot, event-related - descriptive, seeing individual elements, the type of their coherence, - NB
Composition of a literary work. The main aspects of composition.
Composition of the figurative system.
The system of character images of a work of art.
Plot composition and non-plot elements composition
1. Composition of a literary work. The main aspects of composition.
Composition(from Lat. compositio - composition, connection) - connection of parts or components into a whole; the structure of the literary and artistic form. Composition- this is the composition and a certain arrangement of parts, elements of the work in some significant sequence.
Composition is the connection of parts, but not the parts themselves; depending on what level (layer) of the art form in question, distinguish aspects of composition... This is the arrangement of characters, and the event (plot) connections of the work, and the installation of details (psychological, portrait, landscape, etc.), and repetitions of symbolic details (forming motives and leitmotifs), and the change in the flow of speech of such forms as narration , description, dialogue, reasoning, as well as the change of subjects of speech, and the division of the text into parts (including the frame and main text), and the dynamics of the speech style, and much more.
Aspects of composition are manifold. At the same time, the approach to a work as an aesthetic object makes it possible to identify in its artistic form at least two layers and, accordingly, two compositions that combine components that are different in nature - textual and subject (figurative). Sometimes, in the first case, they speak of the outer layer of the composition (or "external composition"), in the second - of the inner one.
Perhaps, in nothing the difference between subject and textual composition is so clearly manifested as in the application of the concepts of “beginning” and “end” to them, otherwise “frame” (frame, frame components). Framework components are title, subtitle, sometimes - epigraph, dedication, preface, always - First line, first and last paragraphs.
In modern literary criticism, apparently, the term “ strong text position»(It applies, in particular, to titles, first line, first paragraph, ending).
Researchers are showing increased attention to the frame components of the text, in particular, to its absolute beginning, which is structurally distinguished, which creates a certain waiting horizon. For example: A.S. Pushkin. Captain's daughter. Further - the epigraph: “ Take care of honor from a young age". Or: N.V. Gogol. Auditor. A comedy in five acts. Epigraph: " There is no reason to blame the mirror if the face is crooked. Folk proverb". This is followed by “ Characters"(The traditional component in drama side text), « Characters and costumes. Notes to Messrs. Actors»(For understanding the author's concept, the role of this metatext is very important).
Compared to epic and dramatic works, the lyrics are more modest in the design of the "entrance" to the text: often there is no title at all, and the name of the text gives it First line, at the same time introducing into the rhythm of the poem (therefore, it cannot be abbreviated in the table of contents).
Their frame components have parts of the text that also form relative unity. Epic works can be divided into volumes, books, parts, chapters, sub-chapters, etc. Their names will form their expressive text (component of the frame of the work).
In drama, division into acts (actions), scenes (pictures), phenomena is usually common (in modern plays, division into phenomena is rare). The entire text is clearly divided into character (main) and author's (secondary), which includes, in addition to the heading component, various scenic indications: a description of the place, time of action, etc. at the beginning of acts and scenes, the designation of speakers, remarks, etc.
Parts of the text in the lyrics (and in poetic speech in general) are a verse, a stanza. The thesis about "the unity and tightness of the line of poetry" put forward by Yu.N. Tynyanov in his book "Problems of the Poetic Language" (1924) allows us to consider a verse (usually written in a separate line) by analogy with larger units, parts of the text. You could even say that the function framework components perform in verse anacruza and clause, often enriched with rhyme and noticeable as a verse border in the case of a transfer.
In all kinds of literature, individual works can form cycles... The sequence of texts within the cycle (books of poems) usually gives rise to interpretations in which the arrangement of characters, and a similar structure of plots, and characteristic associations of images (in the free composition of lyric poems), and others - spatial and temporal - are the connections of the objective worlds of the work.
So there is text components and components of the object world works. Successful analysis of the overall composition of a work requires tracing their interaction, which is often quite intense. The composition of the text is always "superimposed" in the perception of the reader on the deep, objective structure of the work, interacts with it; it is thanks to this interaction that certain techniques are read as signs of the author's presence in the text.
Considering the subject composition, it should be noted that its first function is to "hold" the elements of the whole, to make it out of separate parts; without a thoughtful and meaningful composition, it is impossible to create a full-fledged work of art. The second function of the composition is to express some artistic meaning by the very arrangement and ratio of the images of the work.
Before proceeding with the analysis of the subject composition, you should familiarize yourself with the most important compositional techniques... The main ones among them can be distinguished: repeat, amplify, contrast and edit(Esin A.B. Principles and methods of analysis of a literary work - M., 1999, pp. 128 - 131).
Repeat- one of the simplest and at the same time the most effective composition techniques. It allows you to easily and naturally "round off" the work, to give it compositional harmony. The so-called ring composition looks especially effective when a "roll call" is established between the beginning and the end of the piece.
A frequently repeated detail or image becomes the leitmotif (leading motive) of the work. For example, the motive of the cherry orchard as a symbol of the House, the beauty and stability of life, its light beginning runs through the entire play by A.P. Chekhov. In the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's leitmotif is the image of a thunderstorm. In poems, a type of repetition is a refrain (repetition of individual lines).
A close-to-repeat technique is gain. This technique is used in cases where simple repetition is not enough to create an artistic effect, when you need to enhance the impression by selecting uniform images or details. So, according to the principle of amplification, the description of the interior decoration of Sobakevich's house in "Dead Souls" by N.V. Gogol: every new detail reinforces the previous one: “everything was solid, awkward in the highest degree and bore some strange resemblance to the owner of the house; in the corner of the living room stood a pot-bellied walnut bureau on preposterous four legs, a perfect bear. The table, armchairs, chairs - everything was of the heaviest and most restless quality - in a word, every object, every chair seemed to say: "I, too, Sobakevich!" or "and I am very similar to Sobakevich!"
The selection of artistic images in the story of A.P. Chekhov's "Man in a Case", used to describe the main character - Belikov: “He was remarkable in that he always, even in very good weather, went out in galoshes and with an umbrella and certainly in a warm coat with cotton wool. And his umbrella was in a case of gray suede, and when he took out his penknife to sharpen his pencil, he also had the knife in a case; and the face, too, seemed to be in a case, as he hid it all the time in a raised collar. "
The opposite of repetition and reinforcement is juxtaposition- compositional technique based on antithesis. For example, in the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Death of a poet": "And you will not wash away all your black blood / Poet's righteous blood."
IN broad sense words, any opposition of images is called opposition, for example, Onegin and Lensky, Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, images of storm and peace in the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Parus", etc.
Contamination, combining the techniques of repetition and opposition, gives a special compositional effect: the so-called "mirror composition". As a rule, with a mirror composition, the initial and final images are repeated exactly the opposite. A classic example of a mirror composition is the novel by A.S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", It seems to repeat the situation already depicted earlier, only with a change of position: at first Tatyana is in love with Onegin, writes him a letter and listens to his cold rebuke At the end of the work - on the contrary: Onegin, in love, writes a letter and listens to Tatyana's answer.
The essence of the reception mounting, lies in the fact that the images located side by side in the work give rise to a new, third meaning, which appears precisely from their neighborhood. So, for example, in the story of A.P. Chekhov's "Ionych", the description of Vera Iosifovna Turkina's "art salon" is adjacent to the mention of the clinking of knives and the smell of fried onions coming from the kitchen. Together, these two details create that atmosphere of vulgarity, which A.P. Chekhov.
All compositional techniques can perform two functions in the composition of a work, somewhat different from each other: they can organize either a separate small fragment of the text (at the micro level), or the entire text (at the macro level), becoming in the latter case the principle of composition.
For example, the most common technique of the microstructure of a poetic text is a sound repetition at the end of poetic lines - rhyme.
In the above examples from the works of N.V. Gogol and A.P. Chekhov's method of amplification organizes individual fragments of texts, and in the poem by A.S. Pushkin's "The Prophet" becomes the general principle of organizing the entire artistic whole.
In the same way, editing can become a compositional principle of organizing the entire work (this can be seen in the tragedy of Alexander Pushkin "Boris Godunov", in the novel "The Master and Margarita" by MA Bulgakov).
Thus, one should distinguish between repetition, opposition, amplification and editing as compositional techniques proper and as a principle of composition.