Definition of the word grotesque in literature. Literary living room "grotesque in the works of Russian literature"

The word "grotesque" comes from French term meaning "comic", "funny", "intricate", "quirky". This is the oldest technique in literature, which, like hyperbole, is based on exaggeration, sharpening the qualities of people, as well as the properties of natural phenomena, objects, facts of society. But in the grotesque, exaggeration has a special character: it is fantastic, in which the depicted is completely removed not only outside the so-called life-like, but also permissible, probable from the standpoint of plausibility. at which grotesque appears (we will present examples to you), this is a fantastic deformation existing reality.

The emergence of the term

The term itself appeared in the 15th century to denote a type of artistic imagery, very unusual. In one of the grottoes Ancient rome During the excavations, an interesting and original ornament was discovered, in which fantastically different human, animal and plant forms were intertwined.

Where is grotesque used?

Along with hyperbole, grotesque is widely used in fairy tales, legends and myths. There are numerous examples of it in these genres. One of the brightest in the tale is the image

Writers, creating characters based on the grotesque, use exaggeration as an artistic convention. At the same time, it can be realistically substantiated (for example, in Khlestakov's description of Petersburg life, which is the result of this hero's passion for lies). In the works of Lermontov, this technique is used for a romantic depiction of events and heroes. It is based on, although possible, but exceptional. The boundaries between the real and the fantastic are blurred, but they do not disappear.

The basis of the grotesque

The impossible, the unthinkable, but necessary for the author to achieve a certain artistic effect, constitutes the basis of the grotesque. This is, therefore, a fantastic hyperbole, since the usual exaggeration is closer to reality, while the grotesque is closer to a nightmare, where fantastic visions exciting imagination defy logical explanations, can become a terrifying "reality" for people. The emergence of the imagery of the grotesque is connected with the most complex mechanisms that the human psyche has. The unconscious and the conscious interact in it. The images based on exaggeration, which so impress us in the works created by Russian writers, often arise precisely in the dreams of the characters for a reason. The grotesque is very often used here. Examples from the literature include the following: these are the dreams of Tatyana Larina and Raskolnikov.

Fantastic elements of dreams by Larina and Raskolnikova

Tatyana Larina's dream (the work "Eugene Onegin", fifth chapter) is filled with images of monsters, which are grotesque. With horror, this heroine in a wretched hut notices a fantastic dance, in the image of which the grotesque is used. Examples: "skull on a gooseneck", "crayfish riding a spider", "squatting dancing" mill.

In what is also fantastic, the image of a laughing old woman is created, which can also be attributed to the grotesque. The psychological equivalent of truth is the hero's delusional visions: his fight with evil, which was embodied in the image of a "malevolent old woman," in the end turned out to be just an absurd struggle, similar to the one he carried out with Don Quixote. Only evil laughs wildly at Raskolnikov. The more frantically he longs to kill him, the more he grows to him.

Connecting with realistic images, situations, events

Created by various authors on the basis of the grotesque seem to us absolutely absurd, implausible from the standpoint of common sense. Emotionally expressive, their striking effect is often enhanced by the fact that such imagery interacts with realistic, quite ordinary, plausible events and situations.

Realistic elements in the dreams of Larina and Raskolnikov

The grotesque has elements of reality in both of these works, and not only in them: examples from literature presented by the work of other authors also prove the presence of two elements in it (fantastic and realistic). For example, in Tatyana's nightmare, the characters are, along with terrible monsters, easily recognizable Lensky and Onegin.

In the dream of Raskolnikov's hero, the motivation of the grotesque image and situation from the episode in which the laughing old woman is portrayed is quite real. This is just a dream-recollection of the main character about the murder he committed. There is nothing fantastic about the ax and the criminal himself.

The use of the grotesque by satirical writers

The combination of ordinary social and everyday situations with grotesque imagery by various satirical writers is widely used. Thus, the images of the mayors of the city of Foolov, one of whom has a "organ" instead of brains, and the other has a stuffed head on his shoulders, were created in the "History of a City" by ME Saltykov-Shchedrin.

This story is also filled with some grotesque, incredible situations (wars against those who refused to use mustard; "wars for enlightenment", etc.). All of them are brought by the author to the point of absurdity, however, they depict quite ordinary conflicts and contradictions between the people and the tyrannical government for Russia.

We briefly talked about examples from fiction others can be cited as well. They are quite numerous. Thus, a very popular phenomenon is the grotesque. Examples in Russian can be supplemented with works of foreign authors, since this is also used very actively in their work.

, F. Rabelais, L. Stern, E. T. A. Hoffmann, N. V. Gogol, M. Twain, F. Kafka, M. A. Bulgakov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin).

"Mother Nature" surrounded by grotesque on a fresco in Villa d'Este.

Using the word in conversation grotesque usually means weird, weird, eccentric, or ugly, and thus is often used to describe strange or distorted shapes, such as Halloween masks or gargoyles in cathedrals. By the way, as far as the visible grotesque forms in Gothic buildings are concerned, when they are not used as drainpipes, they should be called grotesques or chimeras, not gargoyles.

Etymology

Word grotesque came to the Russian language from French. Primary meaning of French grotesgue- literally grotto, grotto or cavernous, from grotte - grotto(that is, a small cave or depression), goes back to Latin crypta - hidden, underground, dungeon... The expression came about after the discovery of ancient Roman decorations in caves and burial sites in the 15th century. These "caves" were actually the rooms and corridors of Nero's Golden House, an unfinished palace complex founded by Nero after a great fire in 64 AD. NS.

In architecture

see also

• Rigoletto, Giuseppe Verdi, opera in three acts.

Notes (edit)

Music

Grotesque is one of the songs from the fictional death metal band Detroit Metal City.

Literature

• Sheinberg Esti Irony, satire, parody and grotesque in Shostakovich's music (Irony, satire, parody and the grotesque in the music of Shostakovich (in English)) .. - UK: Ashgate. - P. 378. - ISBN ISBN 0-7546-0226-5
• Kayser, Wolfgang (1957) The grotesque in Art and Literature, New York, Columbia University Press
• Lee Byron Jennings (1963) The ludicrous demon: aspects of the grotesque in German post-Romantic prose, Berkeley, University of California Press
• Bakhtin Mikhail Rabelais and his world. - Bloomington

The image is found in the songs of the group Klimbatika: Indiana University Press, 1941.

• Selected bibliography by Philip Thomson, The grotesque, Methuen Critical Idiom Series, 1972.
• Dacos, N. La découverte de la Domus Aurea et la formation des grotesques à la Renaissance(London) 1969.

• Kort pamela Comic Grotesque: Wit And Mockery In German Art, 1870-1940. - PRESTEL. - P. 208. - ISBN ISBN 9783791331959
• FS Connelly "Modern art and the grotesque" 2003 assets.cambridge.org
• Video tour of the most vivid examples of medieval Parisian stone carving - the grotesques of Notre Dame

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See what "Grotesque" is in other dictionaries:

ORIGIN OF THE TERM. G.'s term borrowed from painting. This was the name of the ancient murals found in the "grotte" cellars of Titus. Raphael used it as a model for decorating Vatican boxes, and his students for painting ... ... Literary encyclopedia

grotesque- a, m. grotesque, it. Grotesk it. grotesca. 1. claim. An image featuring a whimsical, fantastic combination of motives and details. Sl. 18. A painting, a pictorial thing of many colors and thin figures. ЛВ 1 2 63. The decoration of the rooms is ... ... Historical Dictionary gallicisms of the Russian language

- (French grotesque, from Italian grotta cave). 1) originally meant the wall painting of the Romans, which consisted of a fantastic combination of people, animals, plants, buildings, etc.; similar painting was found in the buried buildings of antiquity, under the arches ... Dictionary foreign words Russian language

Grotesque- GROTESK (Italian grottesca) basically means arabesques like those found in ancient buildings buried underground. Usually this word is used to denote a funny, strange or exceptional phenomenon ... Dictionary literary terms

- (French grotesque, Italian grottesco bizarre, from grotta grotto), 1) a kind of ornament, including figurative and decorative motives(plant and animal forms, figurines of people, masks, ... ... Art encyclopedia

Cartoon, caricature, parody Dictionary of Russian synonyms. grotesque see caricature Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Practical guide. M .: Russian language. Z.E. Aleksandrova. 2011 ... Synonym dictionary

- (French grotesque lit. whimsical; comical), 1) an ornament in which decorative and pictorial motifs (plants, animals, human forms, masks) are bizarrely, fantastically combined. 2) A kind of artistic imagery, generalizing and ... ...

GROTESQUE, grotesque, husband. (Italian grottesco). 1. A work of art, performed in a whimsically fantastic, ugly comic style (claim; original title of wall painting in Roman grottoes). 2. in meaning. unchanged adj. The same as grotesque ... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

- (French grotesque, literally bizarre; comical), 1) an ornament in which decorative and pictorial motifs (plants, animals, human forms, masks) are bizarrely, fantastically combined. 2) A kind of artistic imagery, ... ... Modern encyclopedia

The outdated name of the fonts of some typefaces (ancient, poster, chopped, etc.), characterized by the absence of serifs at the ends of the strokes and almost the same thickness of the letter elements ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

The term "grotesque" came to the Russian language from France. What this word means can be found in the dictionary, it means "quirky", "comic" or "funny". By this literary reception used by ancient writers and poets. According to its characteristics, the grotesque is similar to hyperbole. It is also characterized by exaggeration, sharpening human qualities and strength natural phenomena, objects, situations from people's lives.

In contrast to the parabola, grotesque exaggeration is special: it is fantastic, it presents the reader with the depicted, which has incredible properties that go far beyond the realities of life, but at the same time can be quite acceptable.

An indispensable condition is a fantastic transformation of the existing reality. Most often, such metamorphoses of what is happening are observed in poetic and prose works, filmmaking, sculpture and painting.

It is interesting! This term originated in the 15th century. In those days, the meaning of the word grotesque was somewhat different - it was something unusual, phantasmagoric varieties of artistic imagery.

During excavations of ancient Greek grottoes, archaeologists discovered original ornaments consisting of fantastic forms of animal, plant and human origin.

The French term grotesque summarizes artistic imagery describing bizarre combinations of incongruous, fantastic and real, caricature and believable, alogical and hyperbolic. Grotesque can also be used to color artistic thinking.

Famous admirers of grotesque culture were the masters of the word:

• Aristophanes,
• Rabelais,
• Stern,
• Hoffman,
• Gogol,
• Mark Twain,
• Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Wikipedia says that grotesque is used to characterize distorted forms, for example, carnival masks, cathedral gargoyles. Also, this definition includes specific types ornamentation, combining decorative and figurative elements.

Reception in literature

Like hyperbole, grotesque is often used in literature, found in myths, fairy tales and legends. In such genres, examples can be found great amount... The most striking grotesque image of our childhood is Koschey the Immortal, or the Serpent Gorynych, Baba Yaga.

Writers used artistic exaggeration when inventing characters based on the grotesque. But at the same time, such properties may turn out to be realistic, based on facts of life.

In his works he uses the grotesque for romantic coloring of events and actors... Their characteristic is on the verge between the possible and the exceptional. In the course of creating bizarre images, the boundaries between the fantastic and the real blur, but do not disappear.

Creation

The basis artistic reception includes unthinkable aspects that the author needs so much to achieve the intended effect. In other words, this is a fantastic hyperbole, because idle exaggeration has real features. The grotesque is more like a nightmare, in which terrifying fantastic visions have no logical explanation, and in some cases become a terrible "reality" for a person.

It is interesting! The emergence of the grotesque is associated with the property of the human psyche to create the most complex mechanisms of thinking and imagination.

Images created with exaggeration overly impress readers, therefore they often appear in the dreams of characters domestic writers... Grotesque is often used in such moments. Most a shining example bizarre dreams are considered the dreams of Raskolnikov and Tatyana Larina.

Useful video: grotesque - a question from the exam

Dreams of literary characters

The famous work of Alexander Pushkin, familiar to everyone from school, also contains fantastic elements - images of monsters that appear to Tatyana Larina in a dream. The grotesque is involved here. That there are a skull, suspended on a gooseneck, or a squatting mill dancing. The heroine observes a disturbing spectacle in a wretched hut, where phantasmagoric subjects dance.

Raskolnikov's dreams in the novel Crime and Punishment also include a grotesque image. The hero suffers from delusional visions, which form the psychological part of everything that happens. He fights against evil, which for him is concentrated in the old woman-pawnbroker. Her creepy laugh overpowers the guy in his dreams. As a result, the epic struggle becomes as ridiculous as between Don Quixote and the windmills. Raskolnikov is unable to overcome evil. The stronger his desire to kill, the more firmly he grows to him.

Raskolnikov's dream

Intertwined with reality

Artistic images created using the grotesque appear before the readers as something absurd and devoid of common sense. The notes of expression and emotion become more expressive due to the fact that implausible imagery organically exists and interacts with objects and situations from real life.

Some examples can be cited to prove this. In the dreams of the same Raskolnikov and Larina, there are fantastic and realistic elements. In Tatyana's nightmares, Onegin and Lensky appear along with the monsters.

The combination of grotesque and reality in Rodion Raskolnikov's dreams is explained by the presence of a terrible image and episode with a very real old woman. His dream is the experience of a perfect crime. The criminal himself and his murder weapon are devoid of fantasy.

Use in satirical works

Grotesque imagery is widely used in combination with everyday life situations in satirical works... For example, in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin, there is a mayor with an "organ" replacing his brain.

Also, the quirkiness of the story is given by extraordinary situations: a call to fight against people who have given up mustard or the struggle for enlightenment. The author has brought the plot to the point of absurdity, but the events that are taking place reflect the everyday realities of a Russian person - eternal conflicts between the tyrannical government and the common people.

Useful video: what is "grotesque" by example

Output

We can talk about grotesque for a long time. There are many other examples of the unique use of artistic technique in literature. The implausibility, absurdity and quirkiness of an image or situation is found in works not only Russian writers, but also by foreign authors.

GROTESQUE(from French - bizarre, intricate; funny, comic, from Italian - grotto) - the image of people, objects, details in fine arts, theater and literature in a fantastically exaggerated, ugly comic form; a peculiar style in art and literature, which emphasizes the distortion of generally accepted norms and at the same time the compatibility of real and fantastic, tragic and comic, sarcasm and harmless soft humor. The grotesque necessarily violates the boundaries of plausibility, gives the image a certain convention and takes the artistic image beyond the limits of the probable, deliberately deforming it. The grotesque style got its name in connection with the ornaments discovered at the end of the 15th century by Raphael and his students during excavations in Rome of ancient underground buildings, grottoes.

These images, strange in their bizarre unnaturalness, freely combined various pictorial elements: human forms passed into animals and plants, human figures grew from flower cups, plant shoots intertwined with unusual structures. Therefore, at first, distorted images began to be called grotesque, the ugliness of which was explained by the tightness of the square itself, which did not allow making correct drawing... Subsequently, the grotesque style was based on a complex composition of unexpected contrasts and inconsistencies. The transfer of the term to the field of literature and the true flowering of this type of imagery occurs in the era of romanticism, although the appeal to the techniques of satirical grotesque occurs in Western literature much earlier. Eloquent examples of this are the books by F. Rabelais "Gargantua and Pantagruel" and J. Swift "Gulliver's Travels". In Russian literature, grotesque was widely used when creating bright and unusual artistic images N.V. Gogol ("The Nose", "Notes of a Madman"), M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin ("The History of a City", " Wild landowner"And other tales), F.M. Dostoevsky ("The Double. The Adventures of Mr. Goliadkin"), F. Sologub ("The Little Devil"), M.A. Bulgakov (" Fatal eggs», « dog's heart"), A. Bely (" Petersburg "," Masks "), V.V. Mayakovsky ("Mystery-Buff", "Bedbug", "Bathhouse", "Pro-Sitting"), A.T. Tvardovsky ("Terkin in the Next World"), A.A. Voznesensky ("Oza"), E.L. Schwartz ("Dragon", "The Naked King").

Along with the satirical, grotesque can be humorous, when, with the help of a fantastic beginning and in fantastic forms of appearance and behavior of characters, qualities are embodied that cause an ironic attitude of the reader, as well as tragic (in works of tragic content, telling about attempts and fate spiritual definition personality.

What-n. in a fantastic, ugly comic form, based on sharp contrasts and exaggerations.

Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949-1992 .

See what "grotesque" is in other dictionaries:

Caricature, ugly comic, grotesque, caricatured Dictionary of Russian synonyms. grotesque, see the caricatured Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Practical guide. M .: Russian language. Z. E. Alex ... Synonym dictionary

Grotesque, grotesque, grotesque (bookish). adj. to grotesque in 1 value (claim.). Grotesque style. || Ugly comic. A grotesque sight. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

grotesque- Grotesque, grotesque oh, oh. grotesque. Rel. to the grotesque reception associated with it. BAS 2. The lower floor of the Sheremetev palace has a grotesque canopy, a grotesque chamber, an entertainment hall. 1773. RM 1928 1 138. Through a large ravine three ... ... Historical Dictionary of Russian Gallicisms

- (see grotesque) contrasting, violating the boundaries of plausibility, bizarrely comic. New dictionary foreign words. by EdwART, 2009. grotesque [fr. grotesque] - ugly comic; bizarre Big dictionary foreign words. Publisher ... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Adj. 1.rel. with noun grotesque I, associated with it 2. Characteristic of the grotesque [grotesque I], characteristic of it. Efremova's Explanatory Dictionary. T.F. Efremova. 2000 ... Modern explanatory dictionary Russian language Efremova

Grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, grotesque, ... grotesque

grotesque- a spicy grotto ... Russian spelling dictionary

grotesque - … Spelling dictionary of the Russian language

grotesque- see grotesque ... Dictionary of many expressions

grotesque- grotesque / n / th ... Morphemic-spelling dictionary

Books

• City of Nezhnotrakhov, Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya, Ferflucht Platz, Alexey Kozlov. A grotesque novel about the formation and search for one's own self in the wonderful city of Nezhnotrakhov, upon closer inspection, it turns out to be terribly similar to Voronezh. Surreal descriptions… eBook
• Life by concepts. Election of the Tsar, Sergey Karamov. Grotesque realism, a satirical genre created by the author, allowed him to describe in full social aspects of our life today, reaching at times the pathos of denunciation, everything ...