General properties of fiction

Fiction has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from all other forms of art and creative activity.

First of all, it is the use of language, or verbal language means. No other art in the world rests entirely on language, is not created with the help of only its expressive means.

The second feature of fiction is that the main subject of its depiction has always been and remains a person, his personality in all its manifestations.

The third feature of fiction is that it is entirely built on the figurative form of reflection of reality, that is, it seeks to convey the general typical laws of the development of society with the help of living, concrete, individual and unique forms.

Work of fiction as a whole

A literary work of art as a whole reproduces either a holistic picture of life or a holistic picture of experiences, but at the same time it is a separate finished work. The integrity of the work is given by the unity of the problem posed in it, the unity of the disclosed in it ideas... The main the idea of ​​the work or its ideological meaning- this is the idea that the author wants to convey to the reader, that for the sake of which the whole work was created. At the same time, in the history of literature, there have been cases when the author's intention did not coincide with the final idea of ​​the work (N.V. Gogol " Dead Souls"), or created whole group works united by a common idea (IS Turgenev "Fathers and Sons", NG Chernyshevsky "What to do").

The main idea of ​​the work is inextricably linked with its theme, that is, the vital material that is taken by the author for the image in this work. Understanding the topic can only be achieved by careful analysis literary work as a whole.

Topic, idea are categorized content works. To category shape works include such elements as composition, consisting of a system of images and plot, genre, style and language of the work. Both of these categories are closely related to each other, which made it possible for the famous researcher and literary critic G.N. Pospelov to put forward a thesis about the content form and formal content of a literary work of art.

All elements of the form of the work are associated with the definition conflict, that is, the main contradiction that is depicted in the work. Moreover, it can be a clearly expressed conflict between the heroes of a work of art or between an individual hero and an entire social group, between two social groups (AS Griboyedov "Woe from Wit"). Or it may be that it is not possible to find a really expressed conflict in a work of art, because it exists between the facts of reality depicted by the author of the work and his ideas about how events should develop (NV Gogol "The Inspector General") ... This is also associated with such a particular problem as the presence or absence of a positive character in a work. foreign literature syntax verse

The conflict becomes in the work the basis for plotting, since through plot, that is, the system of events in the work, the author's attitude to the depicted conflict is manifested. As a rule, the plots of the works have a deep socio-historical meaning, reveal the reasons, nature and ways of development of the depicted conflict.

Composition of a work of art is the plot and the system of images of the work. It is during the development of the plot that characters and circumstances are manifested in development, and the system of images is revealed in the plot movement.

Image system in the work includes all actors which can be divided into:

• - major and minor (Onegin is the mother of Tatyana Larina),
• - positive and negative (Chatsky - Molchalin),
• - typical (that is, by their behavior and actions reflecting modern social trends - Pechorin).

National originality of plots and the theory of "wandering" plots. There are so-called "wandering" plots, that is, plots, the conflicts of which are repeated in different countries and in different eras(a plot about Cinderella, a plot about a stingy usurer). At the same time, the repetitive plots take on the color of the country where they are currently being embodied due to the peculiarities national development("Misanthrope" by Moliere and "Woe from Wit" by AS Griboyedov).

Elements of the plot: prologue, exposure, setting, development of the action, culmination, denouement, epilogue. Not all of them must necessarily be present in a work of art. The plot is impossible only without a tie, the development of the action, the culmination. All other elements of the plot and their appearance in a work of art depend on the intention of the author and the specifics of the depicted object.

As a rule, they do not have a plot, that is, event systems, landscape lyric works... Sometimes researchers talk about the presence in them of an internal plot, an internal world of the movement of thoughts and feelings.

Prologue- an introduction to the main plot of the work.

Exposition- the image of the conditions of the formation of the actors and the character traits that developed in these conditions before the conflict. The purpose of the exhibition is to motivate the subsequent behavior of the characters. The exposition is not always placed at the beginning of the work, it may be absent altogether, it may be located in different places work or even at its end, but always performs the same role - to acquaint with the setting in which the action will take place.

Tie- the image of the contradictions that arise, the definition of the conflict of characters or the problem posed by the author. Without this element, a work of art cannot exist.

Action development- the discovery and reproduction by artistic means of connections and contradictions between people, the events occurring during the development of the action reveal the characters of the characters and give an idea of possible ways conflict resolution. Sometimes the development of an action includes whole paths. life quests, characters in their development. It is also a must for any piece of art.

Climax represents the moment of the highest tension in the development of action. It is an indispensable element of the plot and usually entails an immediate denouement.

Interchange resolves the depicted conflict or leads to an understanding of the possibilities of its solution, if the author does not yet have this solution. Quite often in literature there are works with an "open" ending, that is, without a denouement. This is especially common when the author wants the reader to think about the conflict depicted and try to imagine what will happen in the final.

Epilogue - this is usually the information about the heroes and their fate that the author wants to convey to the reader after the denouement. It is also an optional element of fiction, which the author applies when he believes that the denouement has not sufficiently clarified the depiction of the final consequences.

In addition to the above elements of the plot, there are a number of special additional elements of the composition that can be used by the author to convey his thoughts to the readers.

Special elements of the composition are lyrical digressions. They are found only in epic works and represent deviations, that is, the image of feelings, thoughts, experiences, reflections, facts of the biography of the author or his heroes, not directly related to storyline works.

Additional elements are considered and introductory episodes, not directly related to the plot of the story, but used to expand and deepen the content of the work.

Artistic framing and artistic introduction are also considered additional elements compositions used to enhance the impact, clarify the meaning of the work, anticipate it with episodes of upcoming events that are close in design.

Quite significant compositional role in a work of art can play landscape. In a number of works, he not only plays the role of a direct background against which the action takes place, but also creates a certain psychological atmosphere, serves for the inner disclosure of the character of the character or the ideological concept of the work.

Significant role in compositional construction plays and interior(that is, a description of the setting in which the action takes place), since it is sometimes the key to understanding and revealing the characters' characters.

Fiction is one of the types of art, along with music, painting, sculpture, etc. Fiction is a product of the creative activity of a writer or poet, and, like any art, it has aesthetic, cognitive and worldview (associated with the author's subjectivity) aspects. This unites literature with other arts. A distinctive feature is that the material carrier of the imagery of literary works is the word in its written embodiment. At the same time, the word always has a pictorial character, forms a certain image, which, according to V.B. Khalizeva, refer literature to pictorial views art.

Images formed by literary works are embodied in texts. Text, especially fiction, is a complex phenomenon characterized by various properties. Fiction text is the most complex of all types of text, in fact it is completely special kind text. The text of a work of fiction is not the same message as, for example, a documentary text, since it does not describe real concrete facts, although it calls phenomena and objects by the same linguistic means. According to Z.Ya. Turaeva, natural language is construction material for artistic text. In general, the definition of a literary text differs from the definition of a text in general by indicating its aesthetic and pictorial-expressive aspects.

By definition I. Ya. Chernukhina, artistic text represents "... an aesthetic means of mediated communication, the purpose of which is the pictorial and expressive disclosure of the topic, presented in the unity of form and content and consisting of speech units performing communicative function". According to the researcher, literary texts are characterized by absolute anthropocentrism, literary texts are anthropocentric not only in the form of expression, like any texts, but also in content, in orientation towards disclosing the image of a person.

I.V. Arnold notes that "a literary and artistic text is an internally connected, complete whole, possessing ideological and artistic unity." The main specific feature of a literary text that distinguishes it from other texts is the performance of an aesthetic function. At the same time, the organizing center of the literary text, as indicated by L.G. Babenko and Yu.V. Kazarin, is its emotional and semantic dominant, which organizes the semantics, morphology, syntax and style of the literary text.

The main function of fiction is to contribute to the disclosure of the author's intention through the use of linguistic and specific stylistic means.

One of the most striking features of fiction is imagery. The image, which is created by various linguistic means, evokes in the reader a sensory perception of reality and, thereby, contributes to the creation of the desired effect and reaction to what is written. The artistic text is characterized by a variety of forms and images. The creation of generalized images in works of art allows their authors not only to determine the state, actions, qualities of a particular character by comparing it with an artistic symbol, but also makes it possible to characterize the hero, to determine the attitude towards him not directly, but indirectly, for example, through artistic comparison ...

The most common leading feature of the style artistic speech, closely related and interdependent with imagery, is the emotional coloring of statements. The property of this style is the selection of synonyms in order to emotionally influence the reader, the variety and abundance of epithets, various forms of emotional syntax. In fiction, these means get their most complete and motivated expression.

The main category in the linguistic study of fiction, including prose, is the concept individual style a writer. Academician V.V. Vinogradov formulates the concept of the individual style of a writer as follows: "a system of individual aesthetic use of artistic and verbal expression inherent in a given period of development of fiction, as well as a system of aesthetic and creative selection, comprehension and arrangement of various speech elements."

A literary artistic text, like any other work of art, is aimed primarily at perception. Without informing the reader of literal information, a literary text evokes a complex set of experiences in a person, and thus it meets a certain internal need of the reader. A specific text corresponds to a specific psychological reaction, the order of reading corresponds to a specific dynamics of the change and interaction of experiences. In the literary text, behind the depicted pictures of real or fictional life, there is always a subtext, interpretive functional plan, a secondary reality.

A literary text is based on the use of figurative and associative qualities of speech. The image in it acts as the ultimate goal of creativity, in contrast to a non-artistic text, where verbal imagery is not fundamentally necessary, and if available, it becomes only a means of transmitting information. In the literary text, the means of imagery are subordinated to the aesthetic ideal of the writer, since fiction is a form of art.

A work of art embodies the author's individual way of perceiving the world. The author's ideas about the world, expressed in literary and artistic form, become a system of ideas directed to the reader. In this complex system, along with universal human knowledge, there are also unique, original, even paradoxical ideas of the author. The author conveys to the reader the idea of ​​his work by expressing his attitude to certain phenomena of the world, by expressing his assessment, by creating a system of artistic images.

Imagery and emotionality are the main features that distinguish a fictional text from a non-fictional one. Another one feature literary text is personification. In the characters of works of art, everything is compressed to an image, to a type, although it can be shown quite concretely and individually. Many heroes-characters of fiction are perceived as certain symbols (Hamlet, Macbeth, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Faust, D "Artagnan, etc.), behind their names are certain traits of character, behavior, attitude to life.

In the texts of fiction, the description of a person can be given both in the pictorial-descriptive register and in the informative-descriptive one. The author has complete freedom of choice and use of various stylistic techniques and means that allow creating a visual-figurative representation of a person and expressing his assessment of his external and internal qualities.

When describing and characterizing the characters of a work of art, authors use various means of emotional assessment both from the standpoint of the author and from the standpoint of other characters. The author's assessment of the heroes of his works can be expressed both explicitly and implicitly, it is usually conveyed through the use of a complex of speech and stylistic means: lexical units with evaluative semantics, epithets, metaphorical nominations.

Stylistic means of expressing the expressiveness of emotionality, the author's assessment, the creation of images are various stylistic devices, including trails, as well as various artistic details used in fiction texts.

Thus, according to the results of the study literary sources we can conclude that fiction is a special kind of art, and fiction is one of the most complex species text in terms of structure and style.

The integrity of a literary work as an ideological and artistic system. Its conceptuality and specific artistic completeness.

Organic unity of figurative form and emotionally generalizing content. The problem of their analytical differentiation, which arose in the European aesthetics of the late 18th - early 19th centuries (F. Schiller, Hegel, Goethe). The scientific significance of such a distinction and its controversial nature in modern literary criticism (replacement of traditional concepts with "meaning", "artistic semantics", "literal content", "text", "discourse", etc.). The concepts of "aesthetic idea" (I. Kant), "poetic idea" (F. Schiller), "idea of ​​the beautiful" (Hegel): the semantic nuances of these terms, revealing the mode of existence and the formative potential of artistic thought (creative concept). "Concreteness" as a general property of an idea and an image, content and form in a literary work. The creative nature of artistic content and form, the formation of their unity in the process of creating a work, the "transition" of content into form and form into content.

The relative independence of the figurative form, combining aesthetic expediency with "apparent randomness." Artistic form as the embodiment and deployment of content, its "symbolic" ("metaphorical") meaning and ordering role. Completeness of the form and its "emotional-volitional tension" (M. Bakhtin).

The composition of the art form as a scientific problem; "Internal" and "external" form (A. Potebnya). The aesthetic organization (composition) of the "artistic world" (depicted fictional reality) and the verbal text. The principle of functional consideration of form elements in their meaningful and constructive role. Concept artistic reception and its functions. A formalistic interpretation of this concept that isolates the art form from the content. Subordination of formal elements of the author's creative concept. The concept of structure as the correlation of the elements of the whole. The meaning of the terms "information", "text", "context" in the semiotic interpretation of fiction.

2. The content of the artwork

Poetic idea (generalizing emotionally imaginative thought) as the basis of artistic content. The difference between a poetic idea and an analytical judgment; organic unity of the objective (subject-thematic) and subjective (ideological-emotional) sides; the conventionality of such a distinction within the artistic whole. The specificity of poetic thought, overcoming the one-sidedness of abstract thinking, its figurative polysemy, "openness".

The category of an artistic theme that allows you to correlate a poetic idea with its subject, with an extra-artistic reality. Author's activity in choosing a topic. The connection between the subject of the image and the subject of cognition; the differences between them. Conjugation of concrete historical and traditional, "eternal" themes in literature. Author's interpretation of the topic: identifying and comprehending life contradictions under a certain angle vision. Continuity of problems in literature, their artistic identity... The value aspect and emotional orientation of the poetic idea, conditioned by the author's worldview and moral attitude to the depicted contradictions of human life, the "judgment" and "sentence" of the artist. Different degrees of expression of emotional assessment in the integrity of a work of art (depending on the programmatic and creative attitude of the author, genre and style traditions). Artistic tendency and tendentiousness.

Pathos category... The ambiguous use of the term "pathos" in the science of the writer: 1) "the poet's love for the idea" (V. Belinsky), which inspires his creative concept; 2) the character's passionate striving for a significant goal, prompting him to act; 3) the sublime emotional orientation of the poetic idea of ​​the work, due to the passionate and "serious" (Hegel) attitude of the poet to the subject of creativity. The connection of pathos with the category of the sublime. True and false pathos. " Pathos"And" mood "are varieties of poetic ideas.

Typology of poetic ideas as a theoretical and literary problem: thematic principle(social, political, religious, etc. ideas) and aesthetic principle(a figuratively embodied "structure of feelings", according to F. Schiller, due to the relationship between the artist's ideal and the reality he depicts).

Heroic in literature: depicting and admiring the feat of an individual or a group in their struggle with natural elements, with an external or internal enemy. The development of artistic heroics from the normative glorification of the hero to his historical concretization. Combination of heroism with drama and tragedy.

Tragic in literature. The value of ancient myths and Christian legends for comprehending the essence of tragic conflicts (external and internal) and their recreation in literature. The moral significance of a tragic character and its pathos, prompting action. A variety of situations reflecting the tragic collisions of life. Tragic mood.

Idyllic is an artistic idealization of the “natural” way of life of “innocent and happy humanity” (F. Schiller), close to nature, not affected by civilization.

Sentimental and romantic interest in the inner world of the personality in the literature of the New Age. V. Belinsky on the importance of sentimental sensitivity and romantic striving for the ideal in literature. The difference between the typological concepts "sentimentality" and "romanticism" from the concrete historical concepts of "sentimentalism" and "romanticism". Sentimentality and Romance in Realism. Their connection with humor, irony, satire.

Critical orientation of literature. Comic contradictions are the basis of humor and satire, determining the dominance of the laughter principle in them. N. Gogol on the cognitive meaning of laughter. Humor - "laughing through tears" in connection with the moral and philosophical understanding of the comic behavior of people. Using the term "humor" to mean a light, entertaining laugh. The civic orientation of satirical pathos as an angry denunciation of laughter. The connection between satire and tragedy. Irony and sarcasm. Traditions of carnival laughter in literature. Tragicomic.

Compatibility and mutual transitions of types of poetic ideas and moods. Unity of affirmation and denial. The uniqueness of the idea of ​​a separate work and the breadth of its artistic content.

Epic, lyricism, drama - typological properties of artistic content. Lyricism as a sublime emotional mood that affirms the value of the inner world of the individual. Dramaticism (drama) as a state of mind that conveys a tense experience of acute contradictions in social, moral, everyday relations between people.

Epic as a sublime-contemplative view of the world, acceptance of the world in its breadth, complexity and integrity.

Interpretation the content of a work of fiction (creative, critical, literary, reading) and the problem of the border between its reasonable and arbitrary interpretation. The context of the writer's work, the idea and the creative history of the work as guidelines for interpretation.

What is a work of art

Before moving on to the actual practice of analysis, it is necessary to understand several theoretical points.

First. On the one hand, any work of art is a complexly constructed statement, materially expressed (fixed) in a certain text. This statement is directed from author to reader; accordingly, it has two sides: the side of the author and the side of the reader. We use the term "reader" in the very broad sense words, that is, the viewer in the theater or on art exhibition, and the listener of a piece of music, and actually the reader of the literary text.

On the other hand, any work of art is a text that is built in a certain sign system, which is more conveniently called “the language of art).

The language of art

There is one subtlety to understand here. We easily perceive the figurative, metaphorical meaning of the expressions "the language of music" or "the language of painting", but when it comes to the "language of literature", we often fall into vocabulary confusion, because literature is created, apparently, on ordinary human, "colloquial" language. In fact, here it is necessary to strictly differentiate the values. Ordinary human language is only one of the many elements of the "language of literature" as a sign system, moreover, a transformed element, "recreated" by the creative efforts of a writer or poet.

Even on the “lowest floor” of a literary work, that is, in the speech of heroes, characters often speak in a way that real people never do. The language seems to be the same, but in fact it is different. When analyzing, we should not forget for a moment that the words of the heroes of a work of art are just a "mirror" reflection of the real speeches of some real people, relatively speaking - prototypes.

The general rule is this: any word in a work of fiction is just "similar" to the same word in human (non-fiction) language. It is a "transformed" word - insofar as it has fallen into the fabric of a work of art.

What do I mean by such insistent emphasis on this thought? I want to draw your attention to the fact that the sign system of a verbal (that is, literary) work is not limited only to its language. Language, in fact, is just one of the elements of such a system. Moreover, the element is completely “artificial”, for it is “made” by the author (artist), and did not arise by itself.

In art, everything is artificial, because it is made, that is why it is art.

About signs

What is a sign? A sign is an external (visible, sensually perceived) manifestation of some essence, which I prefer to call meaning.

Figuratively speaking, the sign itself is dead if it is not connected with meaning.

As an example. Pick up a book in a language you don't know. She can be talented or mediocre - you will not be able to appreciate her because she is not available to you. Not as a material body, but as a text, that is, a work created in a certain sign system.

Expanding the analogy, we come to the conclusion that many texts remain to one degree or another inaccessible, since this sign system is not at all familiar to the reader or has not been fully mastered by him.

When we, further, talk about, say, poetry, understandable a wide range of readers (public, or "folk", poetry), then from a theoretical point of view, this means only that the data poetic texts created in sign systems that, for whatever reason, are available to the majority or a huge number of poetry readers. First of all, of course, thanks to school education.

By the way, the availability of a text does not in any way characterize its artistic merit. That is, the degree of accessibility does not tell us anything about the degree of talent or non-talent of its author.

Thus, as an intermediate result, literary education at school or outside it implies familiarizing potential readers with already existing sign systems, as well as with those systems that are in the process of emergence and formation, and on this basis - developing the ability to intuitively perceive sign systems. future, which on this moment does not yet exist (or are in the making).

Conventionally (but quite accurately) speaking, literary and artistic education is the maximum expansion of the artistic horizons of future readers. It is clear that such an expansion can occur not only within the framework of an educational institution, but also - even more often - in some other ways and ways, including through self-education.

Along the way, I note that this approach makes it possible to quite strictly decide the issue of including or not including one or another writer in school curriculum on literature. Therefore, in the first place, of course, those writers and poets who broaden our horizons in the field of literary and artistic sign systems should be included in the program.

Why is the concept of text important?

So, any work of art is a text created in a certain sign system. As such, it can be detached from the author and "appropriated" by the reader.

An analogy with the sacrament of birth is probably appropriate here. You gave birth to a child - that is, you "separated" him from yourself. He is your child, your fruit, but at the same time, he is a separate entity from you, and your rights to him are limited by a number of rules and regulations.

The same is with a work: by separating it from himself (in the form of an act of publication, disclosure), the author loses some rights to it, namely: the right to explain it. From that moment on, the work falls into the area of ​​the reader's rights, the main of which is the right to understand, to interpret the given work. Nobody can deprive the reader of this right to interpretation as long as art exists, that is, creativity for the public, creativity addressed to “another”, and not to oneself.

I want to clarify here that the author, of course, also has the right to interpret his work, but not as an author, but as an ordinary (albeit qualified) reader. In rare cases, the author may even act as a critic of his works, but, firstly, in this case, he does not have any special prerogatives in relation to other readers, and secondly, such cases are quite rare, if not exceptional. ...

Accordingly, the statements of the author like “in fact I wanted to say this and that”, of course, should not be ignored, but it is also not worth giving them excessive meaning. In the end, the reader did not subscribe to understand the author thoroughly. If the text, and with it the author, remained incomprehensible, then this is also a special case, which should be dealt with on purpose.

In short, I will say that the text may not be understood as a result of the following reasons: 1) the novelty of the author's sign system; 2) inadequate qualifications of the reader; 3) insufficient talent of the author.

Text elements

Since the text is a complexly constructed statement, the following elements are necessarily present in it: theme, idea, form.

The theme is what the story says.
An idea is what the author communicates to the reader.
Form is how a given statement is constructed.

The theme and idea are usually referred to the content side of the work. I plan to speak about the dialectics of form and content in a work of art in another article. Here it will be enough to note the following. We are accustomed to the postulate that the form is meaningful and the content is formalized, but we rarely take this statement seriously enough. Meanwhile, one must always remember that in a work no content exists apart from form, and the analysis of a work is essentially an analysis of its form.

One more fundamental remark concerning the content and form of the text. It is clear that a work of art is created for the sake of its idea, since the text is a statement. It is important for the author to say something, to communicate with his work, but for the reader it is important to “read” something, that is, to perceive. Less often - for the sake of form. This is when the form itself becomes the content. Such cases are probably more common in experimental art, as well as in children's and adult folklore or its imitation. And, probably, very rarely - for the sake of the topic. I think that such cases, although they relate to cultural phenomena (for example, when a social taboo needs to be removed from a topic), they can hardly rightfully be attributed to art itself.

Message or utterance?

In English, the idea of ​​a work is usually called the term "message" - a message, a message. So, they say: "What is the message of the story?" That is: what is the idea behind the story? It seems to me that the English term is more accurate. Therefore, sometimes in my analyzes I call a literary text a message. It is important to note this moment here. I contrast communication with communication. For communication is a two-way process: I was told - I answered; I said - they answered me. Unlike communication, communication is a one-way process: the writer says, the readers read. An exchange of opinions is certainly permissible, but it is outside the boundaries of the actual artistic creative act.

Considering the above, it is possible to formulate the matter in this way: a literary text is a complexly constructed statement that carries a very definite message. The task of the analysis, therefore, is the most adequate reading (perception) of the given message (or the idea of ​​the text). Analysis is performed as an analysis of the form, or sign system, which the author has adopted for a given work.

Principles and methods of analysis of a literary work Esin Andrey Borisovich

1 Artwork and its properties

A work of art and its properties

A work of fiction is the main object of literary study, a kind of smallest "unit" of literature. Larger formations in the literary process - directions, trends, art systems- are built from separate works, represent a combination of parts. A literary work has integrity and internal completeness, it is a self-sufficient unit literary development capable of independent life. A literary work as a whole has a complete ideological and aesthetic meaning, in contrast to its components - themes, ideas, plot, speech, etc., which receive meaning and in general can exist only in the system of the whole.

Literary work as a phenomenon of art

A literary and artistic work is a work of art in the narrow sense of the word, that is, one of the forms of social consciousness. Like all art in general, a work of art is an expression of a certain emotional and mental content, a certain ideological and emotional complex in a figurative, aesthetically significant form. Using the terminology of M.M. Bakhtin, it can be said that a work of art is a "word about the world" said by a writer, poet, an act of the reaction of an artistically gifted person to the surrounding reality.

According to the theory of reflection, human thinking is a reflection of reality, the objective world. This, of course, fully applies to artistic thinking... A literary work, like all art, is a special case of the subjective reflection of objective reality. However, reflection, especially at the highest stage of its development, which is human thinking, in no case can be understood as a mechanical, mirror image, as a copying of reality “one to one”. The complex, indirect nature of reflection, perhaps to the greatest extent, is reflected in artistic thinking, where the subjective moment, the unique personality of the creator, his original vision of the world and the way of thinking about it are so important. A work of art is thus an active, personal reflection; one in which not only the reproduction of life's reality takes place, but also its creative transformation. In addition, the writer never reproduces reality for the sake of reproduction itself: the very choice of the object of reflection, the very impulse to creative reproduction of reality, is born from the personal, biased, caring outlook of the writer at the world.

Thus, a work of art is an indissoluble unity of the objective and subjective, the reproduction of reality and the author's understanding of it, life as such, included in the work of art and cognized in it, and copyright relationship to life. These two sides of art were pointed out by N.G. Chernyshevsky. In his treatise "Aesthetic relations of art to reality" he wrote: "The essential meaning of art is the reproduction of everything that is interesting for a person in life; very often, especially in works of poetry, the explanation of life, the judgment of its manifestations, also comes to the fore. " True, Chernyshevsky, polemically sharpening the thesis about the primacy of life over art in the struggle against idealist aesthetics, mistakenly considered the main and obligatory only the first task - "the reproduction of reality", and the other two - secondary and optional. It would be more correct, of course, to talk not about the hierarchy of these tasks, but about their equality, or rather, about the indissoluble connection between the objective and the subjective in a work: after all, a true artist simply cannot depict reality without comprehending or evaluating it in any way. However, it should be emphasized that the very presence of a subjective moment in the work was clearly realized by Chernyshevsky, and this represented a step forward compared, say, with the aesthetics of Hegel, who is very inclined to approach a work of art purely objectivist, belittling or completely ignoring the activity of the creator.

It is necessary to realize the unity of objective image and subjective expression in a work of art in methodological plan, for the sake of practical tasks of analytical work with a work. Traditionally, in our study and especially in teaching literature, more attention is paid to the objective side, which undoubtedly impoverishes the idea of ​​a work of art. In addition, a kind of substitution of the subject of research can occur here: instead of studying a work of art with its inherent aesthetic laws, we begin to study the reality reflected in the work, which, of course, is also interesting and important, but has no direct connection with the study of literature as an art form. A methodological setting aimed at studying the mainly objective side of a work of art, willingly or unwittingly, reduces the importance of art as an independent form of people's spiritual activity, and ultimately leads to ideas about the illustrativeness of art and literature. At the same time, a work of art is largely deprived of its living emotional content, passion, pathos, which, of course, are primarily associated with the author's subjectivity.

In the history of literary criticism, this methodological trend has found its most obvious embodiment in the theory and practice of the so-called cultural-historical school, especially in European literary criticism. Its representatives sought in literary works, first of all, signs and features of reflected reality; "They saw cultural and historical monuments in literary works", but " artistic specificity, the entire complexity of literary masterpieces did not interest the researchers. " Some representatives of the Russian cultural-historical school saw the danger of such an approach to literature. Thus, V. Sipovsky wrote directly: "You cannot look at literature only as a reflection of reality."

Of course, a conversation about literature may well turn into a conversation about life itself - there is nothing unnatural or fundamentally untenable in this, for literature and life are not separated by a wall. However, in this case, a methodological attitude is important, which does not allow one to forget about the aesthetic specifics of literature, to reduce literature and its meaning to the meaning of illustration.

If, in terms of content, a work of art is a unity of reflected life and the author's attitude to it, that is, it expresses a certain "word about the world", then the form of the work is figurative, aesthetic in nature. Unlike other types of social consciousness, art and literature, as you know, reflect life in the form of images, that is, they use such specific, single objects, phenomena, events that, in their specific singularity, carry a generalization. In contrast to the concept, the image has a greater "clarity", it is not logical, but concretely sensual and emotional persuasiveness. Imagery forms the basis of artistry, both in the sense of belonging to art and in the sense of high skill: due to their figurative nature, works of art have aesthetic dignity, aesthetic value.

So, we can give such a working definition of a work of art: it is a certain emotional and mental content, "a word about the world", expressed in an aesthetic, figurative form; a work of art has integrity, completeness and independence.

Functions of a work of art

A work of art created by the author is subsequently perceived by readers, that is, it begins to live in its own relative independent life while performing certain functions. Let's consider the most important of them.

Serving, in the words of Chernyshevsky, a "textbook of life", explaining life in one way or another, a literary work fulfills a cognitive or epistemological function. The question may arise: why this function is needed for literature, art, if there is a science whose direct task is to cognize the surrounding reality? But the fact is that art perceives life in a special perspective, only accessible to him and therefore irreplaceable by any other knowledge. If sciences dismember the world, abstract out its separate aspects and study each one, respectively, its own subject, then art and literature cognize the world in its integrity, indivisibility, syncretism. Therefore, the object of cognition in literature may partly coincide with the object of certain sciences, especially "human studies": history, philosophy, psychology, etc., but never merges with it. Consideration of all aspects of human life in undifferentiated unity, "conjugation" (LN Tolstoy) of the most diverse life phenomena into a single integral picture of the world remains specific for art and literature. Life is revealed to literature in its natural course; at the same time, literature is very interested in that specific everyday life human existence, in which big and small, natural and accidental, psychological experiences and ... a torn off button are mixed. Science, naturally, cannot set itself the goal of comprehending this concrete beingness of life in all its variegation; it must abstract from the details and individually random "trifles" in order to see the general. But in the aspect of syncretism, integrity, concreteness, life also needs to be comprehended, and it is art and literature that take on this task.

A specific perspective of cognizing reality also determines a specific way of cognition: unlike science, art and literature cognize life, as a rule, without reasoning about it, but reproducing it - otherwise it is impossible to comprehend reality in its syncreticity and concreteness.

Let us note, by the way, that to an “ordinary” person, to ordinary (not philosophical and not scientific) consciousness, life appears exactly as it is reproduced in art - in its indivisibility, individuality, natural variegation. Consequently, ordinary consciousness most of all needs precisely such an interpretation of life, which is offered by art and literature. Even Chernyshevsky insightfully noted that “everything that is in art becomes the content of art. real life interests a person (not as a scientist, but simply as a person). "

The second most important function of a work of art is evaluative, or axiological. It consists primarily in the fact that, in the words of Chernyshevsky, works of art "can have the meaning of a sentence to the phenomena of life." Depicting certain life phenomena, the author naturally evaluates them in a certain way. The entire work turns out to be imbued with the author's, interested and biased feeling, a whole system of artistic affirmations and negations, evaluations is formed in the work. But the point is not only in the direct "judgment" of certain specific phenomena of life, reflected in the work. The fact is that each work carries in itself and seeks to establish in the consciousness of the perceiver a certain system of values, a certain type of emotional-value orientation. In this sense, the evaluative function is also possessed by such works in which there is no "sentence" to specific life phenomena. Such are, for example, many lyric works.

On the basis of the cognitive and evaluative functions, the work turns out to be capable of performing the third most important function - educational. The educational value of works of art and literature was realized in antiquity, and it is really very great. It is only important not to narrow down this meaning, not to understand it in a simplified way, as the fulfillment of a specific didactic task. Most often, in the educational function of art, the emphasis is on the fact that it teaches to imitate goodies or encourages a person to take certain specific actions. All this is true, but the educational significance of literature is by no means reduced to this. Literature and art perform this function primarily by shaping a person's personality, influencing his system of values, and gradually teaching him to think and feel. Communication with a work of art in this sense is very similar to communication with a good, intelligent person: it seems that he did not teach you anything specific, no advice or life rules did not teach, but you nevertheless feel kinder, smarter, spiritually richer.

A special place in the system of functions of the work belongs to the aesthetic function, which consists in the fact that the work has a powerful emotional impact on the reader, gives him intellectual and sometimes sensual pleasure, in a word, is perceived personally. Special role It is this function that is determined by the fact that without it it is impossible to carry out all other functions - cognitive, evaluative, educational. Indeed, if the work did not touch the soul of a person, to put it simply, did not like it, did not provoke an interested emotional and personal reaction, did not give pleasure, then all the work was wasted. If it is still possible to coldly and indifferently perceive the content of a scientific truth or even a moral doctrine, then the content of a work of art must be experienced in order to understand. And this becomes possible primarily due to the aesthetic impact on the reader, viewer, listener.

An unconditional methodological error, especially dangerous in school teaching, is therefore a widespread opinion, and sometimes even a subconscious belief that the aesthetic function of literary works is not as important as all others. It is clear from what has been said that the situation is exactly the opposite - the aesthetic function of a work is perhaps the most important, if at all we can talk about the comparative importance of all the tasks of literature that really exist in an indissoluble unity. Therefore, it is probably advisable, before starting to disassemble the work "by images" or interpret its meaning, to give the student one way or another (sometimes it is enough good reading) to feel the beauty of this work, to help him experience pleasure, positive emotion from it. And that help is usually needed here, that aesthetic perception also needs to be taught - there can be no doubt about that.

The methodological meaning of what has been said is, first of all, that one should not end the study of the work from the aesthetic aspect, as is done in the overwhelming majority of cases (if at all before aesthetic analysis hands reach), and start off from him. After all, there is a real danger that without this and artistic truth works, and his moral lessons, and the value system contained in it will be perceived only formally.

Finally, it should be said about one more function of a literary work - the function of self-expression. This function is usually not considered to be the most important, since it is assumed that it exists only for one person - the author himself. But in fact this is not so, and the function of self-expression turns out to be much broader, its significance is much more significant for culture than it seems at first glance. The fact is that not only the personality of the author, but also the personality of the reader can find expression in a work. Perceiving a work that we especially like, especially in tune with our inner world, we partly identify ourselves with the author, and by quoting (in whole or in part, aloud or silently), we are already speaking “on our behalf”. It is a well-known phenomenon when a person expresses his psychological condition or life position favorite lines, clearly illustrates what has been said. Each of personal experience the feeling is known that the writer, in one word or another or in a work as a whole, expressed our innermost thoughts and feelings, which we did not know how to completely express ourselves. Self-expression through a work of art is thus the lot of not just a few authors, but millions of readers.

But the significance of the function of self-expression turns out to be even more important if we remember that in individual works can be embodied not only inner world individuality, but also the soul of the people, psychology social groups and so on. The proletariat of the whole world found artistic self-expression in the Internationale; in the song "Get up, the country is huge ...", which sounded in the first days of the war, all our people expressed themselves.

The function of self-expression, thus, undoubtedly, should be ranked among the most important functions of a work of art. It is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to understand without her. real life works in the minds and souls of readers, appreciate the importance and irreplaceability of literature and art in the cultural system.

Artistic reality. Artistic convention

The specificity of reflection and image in art, and especially in literature, is such that in a work of art we see, as it were, life itself, the world, a kind of reality. It is no coincidence that one of the Russian writers called the literary work "an abridged universe." Of such kind illusion of reality - a unique property of works of art, which is no longer inherent in any form of social consciousness. To designate this property in science, the terms "artistic world", "artistic reality" are used. It seems to be fundamentally important to find out in what correlations are life (primary) reality and artistic reality (secondary).

First of all, we note that in comparison with the primary reality, artistic reality is a certain kind of convention. She established(in contrast to the miraculous reality of life), and was created for something for some definite purpose, which is clearly indicated by the existence of the functions of a work of art discussed above. This is also the difference from the reality of life, which has no purpose outside itself, whose existence is absolutely, unconditionally, and does not need any justification or justification.

Compared to life as such, a work of art appears to be a convention also because its world is a world fictional. Even with the strictest reliance on actual material the huge creative role of fiction remains, which is an essential feature of artistic creation... Even if you imagine an almost impossible option when a work of art is being built exclusively on the description of a reliable and real incident, then here too, fiction, understood broadly as a creative processing of reality, will not lose its role. It will affect and manifest itself in selection the phenomena depicted in the work, in the establishment of regular connections between them, in giving the life material artistic expediency.

The reality of life is given to each person directly and does not require any special conditions for its perception. Artistic reality is perceived through the prism of a person's spiritual experience and is based on a certain conventionality. From childhood, we imperceptibly and gradually learn to understand the difference between literature and life, to accept the "rules of the game" that exist in literature, we get used to the system of conventions inherent in it. This can be illustrated by a very simple example: listening to fairy tales, the child very quickly agrees that animals and even inanimate objects are talking in them, although in reality he does not observe anything like this. Even more complex system conventions must be adopted for the perception of "big" literature. All this fundamentally distinguishes artistic reality from life; in general terms, the difference boils down to the fact that the primary reality is the area of ​​nature, and the secondary is the area of ​​culture.

Why is it necessary to dwell on conventions in such detail artistic reality and the non-identity of her life reality? The fact is that, as already mentioned, this non-identity does not prevent the creation of an illusion of reality in the work, which leads to one of the most common mistakes in analytical work - the so-called "naive-realistic reading." This mistake consists in identifying life and artistic reality. Its most common manifestation is the perception of characters of epic and dramatic works, the lyric hero in the lyrics as real-life personalities - with all the ensuing consequences. Characters are endowed with independent existence, they are required to take personal responsibility for their actions, speculate on the circumstances of their life, etc. Once in a number of schools in Moscow they wrote an essay on the topic “You are not right, Sophia!” based on the comedy "Woe from Wit" by Griboyedov. Such an appeal to the heroes of literary works does not take into account the most essential, fundamental point: precisely the fact that this very Sophia never really existed, that her entire character from beginning to end was invented by Griboyedov and the whole system of her actions (for which she can carry responsibility to Chatsky as the same fictional person, that is, within the artistic world of comedy, but not in front of us, real people) is also invented by the author for a specific purpose, in order to achieve some artistic effect.

However, the given theme of the essay is not the most curious example of a naive-realistic approach to literature. The costs of this methodology also include the extremely popular "trials" of literary characters in the 1920s - Don Quixote was tried for fighting windmills, and not against oppressors of the people, Hamlet was tried for passivity and lack of will ... The participants in such "Courts" now remember them with a smile.

Let us immediately note the negative consequences of the naive-realistic approach in order to assess its harmlessness. First, it leads to the loss of aesthetic specificity - it is no longer possible to study a work as an artistic one, that is, ultimately to extract specific artistic information from it and receive from it a kind of irreplaceable aesthetic pleasure. Secondly, as it is easy to understand, such an approach destroys the integrity of a work of art and, pulling out individual particulars from it, greatly impoverishes it. If L.N. Tolstoy said that “every thought, expressed in words especially, loses its meaning, terribly decreases when one of the cohesion in which it is located is taken ”, then how much the meaning of a separate character, torn from the“ cohesion ”, is“ lowered ”! In addition, focusing on the characters, that is, on the objective subject of the image, the naive-realistic approach forgets about the author, his system of assessments and relations, his position, that is, it ignores the subjective side of the work of art. The dangers of such a methodological attitude were discussed above.

And finally, the last, and perhaps the most important, since it is directly related to the moral aspect of studying and teaching literature. Approaching the hero as a real person, as a neighbor or acquaintance, inevitably simplifies and impoverishes oneself artistic character... The persons deduced and perceived by the writer in the work are always, of necessity, more significant than real-life people, since they embody the typical, represent some generalization, sometimes grandiose in scale. Applying to these artistic creatures the scale of our everyday life, judging by today's standards, we not only violate the principle of historicism, but also lose every opportunity grow to the level of the hero, since we perform the exact opposite operation - we reduce him to our level. It is easy to logically refute Raskolnikov's theory, it is even easier to stigmatize Pechorin as an egoist, albeit a “suffering one,” - it is much more difficult to cultivate a readiness for a moral and philosophical search for such tension as is characteristic of these heroes. Ease of relation to literary characters, sometimes turning into familiarity, is absolutely not the attitude that allows you to master the full depth of a work of art, to get from it everything that it can give. And this is not to mention the fact that the very possibility of judging a person who is speechless and unable to object has not the best effect on the formation of moral qualities.

Consider another flaw in the naive-realistic approach to a literary work. At one time in school teaching it was very popular to hold discussions on the topic: "Would Onegin go with the Decembrists to Senate Square?" In this they saw almost the implementation of the principle of problematic education, completely losing sight of the fact that thereby completely ignored a more important principle - the principle of scientific character. It is possible to judge about future possible actions in relation to only real person, the laws of the artistic world make the very formulation of such a question absurd and meaningless. You cannot ask a question about the Senate Square if in the artistic reality of Eugene Onegin there is no Senate Square itself, if artistic time stopped in this reality, before reaching December 1825, and even at the very fate of Onegin already there is no continuation, even hypothetical, like the fate of Lensky. Pushkin cut off action, leaving Onegin "in a minute, evil for him," but thereby finished, completed the novel as an artistic reality, completely eliminating the possibility of any guesswork about “ further destiny"Hero. Asking "what would happen next?" in this situation it is as pointless as asking what is beyond the end of the world.

What does this example say? First of all, that a naive-realistic approach to a work naturally leads to ignoring the author's will, to arbitrariness and subjectivity in the interpretation of the work. How undesirable such an effect is for scientific literary criticism hardly needs to be explained.

The costs and dangers of naive-realistic methodology in the analysis of a work of art were thoroughly analyzed by G.A. Gukovsky in his book Study of a Literary Work at School. Speaking for the unconditional need for knowledge in a work of art not only the object, but also its image, not only the character, but also the author's attitude to it, saturated ideological sense, G.A. Gukovsky rightly concludes: “In a work of art, the" object "of the image outside the image itself does not exist and without an ideological interpretation it does not exist at all. This means that "studying" the object by itself, we do not just narrow the work, not only make it meaningless, but, in essence, destroy it, as given work. Distracting the object from its illumination, from meaning of this illumination, we distort it. "

Struggling against the transformation of naive-realistic reading into a methodology of analysis and teaching, G.A. Gukovsky, at the same time, saw the other side of the issue. The naive-realistic perception of the artistic world, in his words, is "legal, but not enough." G.A. Gukovsky sets the task “to teach students to think and talk about her (the heroine of the novel. - AE) not only as a person and how about image". What is the “legitimacy” of a naive-realistic approach to literature?

The fact is that due to the specificity of a literary work as a work of art, by the very nature of its perception, we cannot get away from a naive-realistic attitude to the people and events depicted in it. As long as a literary critic perceives a work as a reader (and from this, as it is easy to understand, any analytical work begins), he cannot but perceive the characters of the book as living people (with all the ensuing consequences - he will like and dislike the heroes, arouse compassion, anger , love, etc.), and the events happening to them - as really happened. Without this, we simply will not understand anything about the content of the work, not to mention the fact that personal attitude to the people depicted by the author, there is the basis for both the emotional infectiousness of the work, and its living experience in the mind of the reader. Without an element of "naive realism" in reading a work, we perceive it dryly, coldly, which means that either the work is bad or we ourselves as readers are bad. If the naive-realistic approach, elevated to the absolute, according to G.A. Gukovsky, destroys a work as a work of art, then its complete absence simply does not allow it to take place as a work of art.

The duality of perception of artistic reality, the dialectic of necessity and, at the same time, insufficiency of naive-realistic reading was also noted by V.F. Asmus: “The first condition that is necessary for reading to proceed as reading a literary work is a special mindset of the reader, acting during the entire reading. By virtue of this attitude, the reader refers to what is read or "visible" through reading not as a continuous fiction or fiction, but as a kind of reality. The second condition for reading a thing as an artistic thing may seem the opposite of the first. In order to read a work as a work of art, the reader must, during all the reading, be aware that the piece of life shown by the author through art is not nevertheless immediate life, but only its image. "

So, one theoretical subtlety is revealed: the reflection of primary reality in a literary work is not identical with reality itself, is conditional, not absolute, but at the same time one of the conditions is precisely that the life depicted in the work is perceived by the reader as "real", genuine , that is, identical to the primary reality. This is the basis of the emotional and aesthetic effect produced on us by the work, and this circumstance must be taken into account.

A naive-realistic perception is legitimate and necessary, since it comes about the process of primary, reader's perception, but it should not become the methodological basis of scientific analysis. At the same time, the very fact of the inevitability of a naive-realistic approach to literature leaves a certain imprint on the methodology of scientific literary criticism.

As already mentioned, the work is being created. The creator of a literary work is its author. In literary criticism, this word is used in several related, but at the same time, relatively independent meanings. First of all, it is necessary to draw a line between the real-biographical author and the author as a category of literary analysis. In the second meaning, we mean by the author the carrier of the ideological concept of a work of art. It is associated with the real author, but not identical to him, since not all the fullness of the author's personality is embodied in a work of art, but only some of its facets (although often the most important ones). Moreover, the author of a work of fiction, in terms of the impression made on the reader, can be strikingly different from the real author. So, the brightness, festivity and romantic impulse to the ideal characterize the author in the works of A. Green, while A.S. Grinevsky was, according to his contemporaries, a completely different person, rather gloomy and gloomy. It is known that not all humorist writers are funny people in life. Chekhov's lifetime criticism called “the singer of the twilight”, “the pessimist”, “ cold blood", Which was completely inconsistent with the character of the writer, and so on. When considering the category of the author in literary analysis we abstract from the biography of the real author, his journalistic and other non-artistic statements, etc. and consider the author's personality only insofar as it manifested itself in this particular work, we analyze his concept of the world, worldview. It should also be warned that the author should not be confused with the narrator. epic work and lyrical hero in the lyrics.

The author as a real biographical person and the author as the bearer of the concept of the work should not be confused the image of the author, which is created in some works of verbal art. The image of the author is a special aesthetic category, which arises when the image of the creator of the given work is created within the work. It can be the image of "oneself" ("Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin, "What is to be done?" By Chernyshevsky), or the image of a fictitious, fictitious author (Kozma Prutkov, Ivan Petrovich Belkin at Pushkin). In the image of the author, the artistic convention, the non-identity of literature and life, is manifested with great clarity - for example, in Eugene Onegin, the author can talk with the hero he has created - a situation that is impossible in reality. The image of the author appears infrequently in the literature, it is specific artistic technique, and therefore requires an indispensable analysis, as it reveals the artistic originality of a given work.

? CONTROL QUESTIONS:

1. Why is a work of fiction the smallest "unit" of literature and the main object of scientific study?

2. What are distinctive features literary work as a work of art?

3. What does the unity of the objective and the subjective mean in relation to a literary work?

4. What are the main features of the literary and artistic image?

5. What functions does a work of art perform? What are these functions?

6. What is the "illusion of reality"?

7. How do primary reality and artistic reality relate to each other?

8. What is the essence of artistic convention?

9. What is “naive-realistic” perception of literature? What are its strengths and weak sides?