Over the millennia of cultural development, mankind has created countless literary works, among which some basic types can be distinguished, similar in the way and form of reflection of a person's ideas about the world around him. These are three kinds (or kinds) of literature: epic, drama, lyrics.

What is the difference between each type of literature?

Epic as a kind of literature

Epos(epos - Greek, narration, story) is an image of events, phenomena, processes external to the author. Epic works reflect the objective course of life, human being in general. Using various artistic means, the authors of epic works express their understanding of the historical, socio-political, moral, psychological and many other problems that human society in general and each of its representatives in particular lives with. Epic works have significant pictorial capabilities, thereby helping the reader to learn about the world around him, to comprehend the deep problems of human existence.

Drama as a kind of literature

Drama(drama - Greek, action, action) is a kind of literature, the main feature of which is the scenic nature of works. Plays, i.e. dramatic works are created specifically for the theater, for staging on stage, which, of course, does not exclude their existence in the form of independent literary texts intended for reading. Like the epic, the drama reproduces the relationship between people, their actions, the conflicts that arise between them. But unlike the epic, which has a narrative nature, the drama has a dialogical form.

Associated with this features of dramatic works :

2) the text of the play consists of the conversations of the characters: their monologues (the speech of one character), dialogues (the conversation of two characters), polylogs (the simultaneous exchange of replicas of several participants in the action). That is why the speech characteristic turns out to be one of the most important means of creating a memorable character of the hero;

3) the action of the play, as a rule, develops quite dynamically, intensively, as a rule, 2-3 hours of stage time are allotted to it.

Lyrics as a kind of literature

Lyrics(lyra - Greek, a musical instrument, to the accompaniment of which poetic works, songs were performed) is distinguished by a special type of construction of an artistic image - it is an image-experience in which the individual emotional and spiritual experience of the author is embodied. Lyrics can be called the most mysterious kind of literature, because it is addressed to the inner world of a person, his subjective sensations, ideas, ideas. In other words, a lyric work primarily serves the individual self-expression of the author. The question arises: why the readers, i.e. other people refer to such works? The point is that the lyricist, speaking on his own behalf and about himself, surprisingly embodies universal human emotions, ideas, hopes, and the more significant the author's personality, the more important his individual experience is for the reader.

Each type of literature also has its own system of genres.

genre(genre - French genus, species) is a historically developed type of literary works that has similar typological features. The names of genres help the reader navigate the boundless sea of ​​literature: someone loves detective stories, another prefers fantasy, and the third is a fan of memoirs.

How to determine What genre does a particular work belong to? Most often, the authors themselves help us in this, calling their creation a novel, story, poem, etc. However, some of the author's definitions seem unexpected to us: remember that A.P. Chekhov emphasized that "The Cherry Orchard" is a comedy, and not a drama at all, but A.I. Solzhenitsyn regarded One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as a story, not a story. Some literary critics call Russian literature a collection of genre paradoxes: the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin", the prose poem "Dead Souls", the satirical chronicle "The History of a City". There was a lot of controversy regarding "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy. The writer himself said only about what his book is not: “What is“ War and Peace ”? This is not a novel, even less a poem, still less a historical chronicle. "War and Peace" is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it was expressed. " And only in the XX century literary critics agreed to call the brilliant creation of L.N. Tolstoy's epic novel.

Each literary genre has a number of stable features, the knowledge of which allows us to assign a specific work to one or another group. Genres develop, change, die off and are born, for example, literally before our eyes, a new genre of blog (web loq) - a personal Internet diary - has emerged.

However, for several centuries there have been stable (they are also called canonical) genres

Literature literary works - see table 1).

Table 1.

Genres of literary works

Epic genres of literature

Epic genres primarily differ in volume, according to this criterion they are divided into small ones ( sketch, story, short story, fairy tale, parable ), average ( story ), large ( novel, epic novel ).

Feature article- a small sketch from nature, the genre is both descriptive and narrative. Many essays are created on a documentary, life-based basis, often they are combined into cycles: the classic example is "A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy" (1768) by the English writer Laurence Stern, in Russian literature it is "A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" (1790) A Radishchev, "Frigate Pallas" (1858) by I. Goncharov "" Italy "(1922) by B. Zaitsev and others.

Story- a small narrative genre, which usually depicts one episode, an incident, a human character, or an important incident from the hero's life that influenced his further destiny ("After the Ball" by L. Tolstoy). The stories are created both on a documentary, often autobiographical basis ("Matryonin Dvor" by A. Solzhenitsyn), and thanks to pure fiction ("The Lord from San Francisco" by I. Bunin).

The intonation and content of the stories are very different - from comic, curious (early stories by AP Chekhov) to deeply tragic (Kolyma stories by V. Shalamov). Stories, like essays, are often combined into cycles ("Notes of a Hunter" by I. Turgenev).

Novella(novella ital. news) is in many ways akin to a story and is considered its kind, but it is distinguished by a special dynamism of the narrative, sharp and often unexpected turns in the development of events. Often, the narrative in a novel begins with the ending, is built according to the law of inversion, i.e. the reverse order, when the denouement precedes the main events ("Terrible revenge" by N. Gogol). This feature of the construction of the novel will later be borrowed by the detective genre.

The word "novella" has another meaning that future lawyers need to know. In ancient Rome, the phrase "novellae leges" (new laws) was the name given to laws introduced after the official codification of law (after the release of the Code of Theodosius II in 438). The novels of Justinian and his successors, published after the second edition of the Code of Justinian, later formed part of the corpus of Roman laws (Corpus iuris civillis). In the modern era, a novel is called a law submitted to parliament (in other words, a draft law).

Story- The oldest of the small epic genres, one of the main in the oral work of any nation. This is a small work of a magical, adventurous or everyday character, where fiction is clearly emphasized. Another important feature of a folk tale is its edifying nature: "A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it, a lesson for good fellows." It is customary to divide folk tales into magic ("The Tale of the Frog Princess"), everyday ("Porridge from the Ax") and tales about animals ("Zayushkina's hut").

With the development of written literature, literary tales appear in which traditional motives and symbolic possibilities of a folk tale are used. Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) is rightfully considered a classic of the genre of literary fairy tales, his wonderful "The Little Mermaid", "The Princess and the Pea", "The Snow Queen", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "Shadow", "Thumbelina" are loved by many generations of readers, both very young and quite mature. And this is far from accidental, because Andersen's tales are not only extraordinary, and sometimes even strange adventures of heroes, they contain a deep philosophical and moral meaning, enclosed in beautiful symbolic images.

Of the European literary tales of the 20th century, The Little Prince (1942) by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery has become a classic. And the famous "Chronicles of Narnia" (1950 - 1956) by the English writer Cl. Lewis and "The Lord of the Rings" (1954-1955), also by the Englishman JR Tolkien, are written in the fantasy genre, which can be called a modern transformation of an ancient folk tale.

In Russian literature, unsurpassed, of course, are the tales of A.S. Pushkin: "About the dead princess and the seven heroes", "About the fisherman and the fish", "About Tsar Saltan ...", "About the golden cockerel", "About the priest and his worker Balda." The replacement storyteller was P. Ershov, the author of The Little Humpbacked Horse. E. Schwartz in the XX century creates the form of a fairy tale play, one of them "The Bear" (another name is "An Ordinary Miracle") is well known to many thanks to the wonderful film directed by M. Zakharov.

Parable- also a very ancient folklore genre, but, in contrast to the fairy tale, the parables contained written monuments: Talmud, Bible, Koran, Syrian literature monument "Teaching to Akhara". A parable is an instructive, symbolic work, distinguished by its sublimity and seriousness of content. Ancient parables, as a rule, are small in volume, they do not contain a detailed story about the events or psychological characteristics of the character of the hero.

The purpose of the parable is edification or, as they once said, the teaching of wisdom. In European culture, the most famous are the parables from the Gospels: about the prodigal son, about the rich man and Lazarus, about the unrighteous judge, about the insane rich man and others. Christ often spoke allegorically to his disciples, and if they did not understand the meaning of the parable, he explained it.

Many writers turned to the genre of the parable, not always, of course, putting a high religious meaning into it, but rather trying to express some moralistic edification in an allegorical form, as, for example, L. Tolstoy in his later work. Carry it. V. Rasputin - Farewell to Matera "can also be called a detailed parable, in which the writer speaks with anxiety and sorrow about the destruction of the" ecology of conscience "of a person. The story "The Old Man and the Sea" by E. Hemingway is also considered by many critics to be a literary parable tradition. The famous modern Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho also uses the parable form in his novels and stories (the novel "The Alchemist").

The story- an average literary genre, widely represented in world literature. The story depicts several important episodes from the life of the hero, as a rule, one storyline and a small number of characters. The stories are characterized by great psychological saturation, the author focuses on the experiences and changes in the moods of the characters. Very often, the main theme of the story becomes the love of the protagonist, for example, "White Nights" by F. Dostoevsky, "Asya" by I. Turgenev, "Mitya's Love" by I. Bunin. Novels can also be combined into cycles, especially those written on autobiographical material: "Childhood", "Adolescence", "Youth" by L. Tolstoy, "Childhood", "In People", "My Universities" by A. Gorky. The intonations and themes of the stories are very diverse: tragic, addressing acute social and moral issues ("Everything flows" by V. Grossman, "House on the Embankment" by Y. Trifonov), romantic, heroic ("Taras Bulba" by N. Gogol), philosophical , parable ("The Foundation Pit" by A. Platonov), mischievous, comic ("Three in a boat, not counting a dog" by the English writer Jerome K. Jerome).

novel(French gotap. Originally, in the late Middle Ages, any work written in the Romance language, as opposed to those written in Latin) is a major epic work in which the narrative is focused on the fate of an individual person. The novel is the most complex epic genre, which is distinguished by an incredible number of themes and plots: love, historical, detective, psychological, fantastic, historical, autobiographical, social, philosophical, satirical, etc. All these forms and types of the novel are united by its central idea - the idea of ​​personality, individuality of a person.

The novel is called the epic of private life, because it depicts the diverse connections between the world and man, society and personality. The reality surrounding a person is presented in the novel in different contexts: historical, political, social, cultural, national, etc. The author of the novel is interested in how the environment affects a person's character, how he is formed, how his life develops, whether he managed to find his purpose and realize himself.

The origin of the genre is attributed by many to antiquity, these are Long's "Daphnis and Chloe", Apuleius's "Golden Donkey", the knightly novel "Tristan and Isolde".

In the works of the classics of world literature, the novel is represented by numerous masterpieces:

Table 2. Examples of the classic novel of foreign and Russian writers (XIX, XX centuries)

Famous novels of Russian writers of the 19th century .:

In the XX century, Russian writers develop and multiply the traditions of their great predecessors and create no less remarkable novels:

Of course, none of these enumerations can pretend to be complete and complete objectivity, especially in contemporary prose. In this case, the most famous works that glorified both the country's literature and the name of the writer are named.

Epic novel... In ancient times, there were forms of heroic epic: folklore sagas, runes, epics, songs. These are the Indian "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata", the Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf", the French "Song of Roland", the German "Song of the Nibelungs", etc. In these works in an idealized, often exaggerated form, the hero's feats were exalted. The later epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" by Homer, "Shah-name" by Ferdowsi, while retaining the mythological character of the early epic, nevertheless, had a pronounced connection with real history, and the theme of the intertwining of human fate and the life of the people becomes one of the main ones. The experience of the ancients will be in demand in the XIX-XX centuries, when writers will try to comprehend the dramatic relationship between the era and the individual personality, talk about what tests morality, and sometimes the human psyche, is subjected to at the time of the greatest historical upheavals. Let us recall the lines of F. Tyutchev: "Blessed is he who visited this world in its fateful moments." The poet's romantic formula in reality meant the destruction of all habitual forms of life, tragic losses and unrealized dreams.

The complex form of the epic novel allows writers to artistically explore these problems in their entirety and contradictions.

When we talk about the genre of an epic novel, of course, we immediately recall "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy. Other examples can be named: "Quiet Don" by M. Sholokhov, "Life and Fate" by V. Grossman, "The Forsyte Saga" by the English writer Galsworthy; the book of the American writer Margaret Mitchell "Gone with the Wind" can also be considered with great reason to this genre.

The very name of the genre indicates a synthesis, a combination of two main principles in it: the novel and the epic, i.e. associated with the theme of the life of an individual and the theme of the history of the people. In other words, the epic novel tells about the fates of the heroes (as a rule, the heroes themselves and their fates are fictional, invented by the author) against the background and in close connection with epoch-making historical events. So, in "War and Peace" - these are the fates of individual families (Rostovs, Bolkonskys), beloved heroes (Prince Andrei, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha and Princess Marya) in the historical period of the beginning of the 19th century, the Patriotic War of 1812, a turning point for Russia and all of Europe ... In Sholokhov's book - the events of the First World War, two revolutions and a bloody civil war tragically intrude into the life of a Cossack farm, the Melekhov family, the fate of the main characters: Grigory, Aksinya, Natalia. V. Grossman talks about the Great Patriotic War and its main event - the Battle of Stalingrad, about the tragedy of the Holocaust. Historical and family themes are also intertwined in Life and Fate: the author traces the history of the Shaposhnikovs, trying to understand why the fates of the members of this family have developed so differently. Galsworthy describes the life of the Forsyte family during the legendary Victorian era in England. Margaret Mitchell is the central event in US history, the North-South Civil War, which drastically changed the lives of many families and the fate of the most famous heroine of American literature - Scarlett O'Hara.

Dramatic genres of literature

Tragedy(Greek tragodia goat song) is a dramatic genre that originated in Ancient Greece. The emergence of the ancient theater and tragedy is associated with the worship of the cult of the god of fertility and wine, Dionysus. A number of holidays were dedicated to him, during which ritual magic games were played with mummers, satyrs, whom the ancient Greeks represented in the form of two-legged goat-like creatures. It is assumed that it was precisely this appearance of the satyrs who performed hymns to the glory of Dionysus that gave such a strange name to this serious genre in translation. Theatrical performance in Ancient Greece was given a magical religious significance, and theaters, built in the form of large open-air arenas, were always located in the very center of cities and were one of the main public places. Spectators sometimes spent the whole day here: eating, drinking, loudly expressing their approval or censure of the presented show. The heyday of the ancient Greek tragedy is associated with the names of three great tragedies: this is Aeschylus (525-456 BC) - the author of the tragedies "Chained Prometheus", "Oresteia", etc .; Sophocles (496-406 BC) - the author of "King Oedipus", "Antigone" and others; and Euripides (480-406 BC) - the creator of Medea, Troyanok, etc. Their creations will remain examples of the genre for centuries, they will try to imitate them, but they will remain unsurpassed. Some of them ("Antigone", "Medea") are staged on the stage today.

What are the main features of the tragedy? The main one is the presence of an insoluble global conflict: in ancient tragedy, this is the confrontation between fate, fate, on the one hand, and a person, his will, free choice, on the other. In the tragedies of later eras, this conflict took on a moral and philosophical character, as a confrontation between good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, love and hatred. It has an absolute character, the heroes who embody the opposing forces are not ready for reconciliation, compromise, and therefore there are often many deaths at the end of the tragedy. This is how the tragedies of the great English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) are constructed, let us recall the most famous of them: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, etc.

In the tragedies of the 17th century French playwrights Corneille (Horace, Polyeuct) and Racine (Andromache, Britannica), this conflict received a different interpretation - as a conflict of duty and feeling, rational and emotional in the souls of the protagonists, that is ... acquired a psychological interpretation.

The most famous in Russian literature is the romantic tragedy "Boris Godunov" by A.S. Pushkin, based on historical material. In one of his best works, the poet sharply raised the problem of the "real trouble" of the Moscow state - a chain reaction of impostors and "terrible atrocities" that people are ready to do for the sake of power. Another problem is the attitude of the people to everything that happens in the country. The image of the “silent” people in the finale of “Boris Godunov” is symbolic, and discussions continue to this day about what Pushkin wanted to say. The opera of the same name by M.P. Mussorgsky was written based on the tragedy, which has become a masterpiece of Russian opera classics.

Comedy(Greek komos - a cheerful crowd, oda - a song) - a genre that originated in Ancient Greece a little later than the tragedy (V century BC). The most famous comedian of that time was Aristophanes ("Clouds", "Frogs", etc.).

In comedy with the help of satire and humor, i.e. comic, moral vices are ridiculed: hypocrisy, stupidity, greed, envy, cowardice, complacency. Comedies are usually topical, i.e. are also addressed to social issues, exposing the shortcomings of the authorities. Distinguish between sitcoms and comedies of characters. In the first, a cunning intrigue, a chain of events ("The Comedy of Errors" by Shakespeare) are important, in the second - the characters of the characters, their absurdity, one-sidedness, as in the comedies "The Minor" by D. Fonvizin, "Bourgeois in the Nobility", "Tartuffe", belonging to the classics genre, the French comedy of the 17th century Jean Baptiste Moliere. In Russian drama, the satirical comedy with its sharp social criticism, such as, for example, "The Inspector General" by N. Gogol, "Crimson Island" by M. Bulgakov, turned out to be especially in demand. Many wonderful comedies were created by A. Ostrovsky ("Wolves and Sheep", "Forest", "Mad Money", etc.).

The genre of comedy is invariably popular with the public, perhaps because it affirms the triumph of justice: in the finale, vice must certainly be punished, and virtue must triumph.

Drama- a relatively "young" genre that appeared in Germany in the 18th century as lesedrama (German) - a play for reading. The drama is addressed to the everyday life of a person and society, everyday life, family relationships. Drama is primarily interested in the inner world of a person, it is the most psychological of all dramatic genres. At the same time, it is the most literary of the stage genres, for example, the plays of A. Chekhov are largely perceived more as texts for reading, and not as theatrical performances.

Lyric genres of literature

The division into genres in the lyrics is not absolute, since the differences between genres in this case are conditional and not as obvious as in epic and drama. More often we distinguish lyric works by their thematic features: landscape, love, philosophical, friendly, intimate lyrics, etc. However, you can name some genres that have pronounced individual characteristics: elegy, sonnet, epigram, message, epitaph.

Elegy(elegos Greek. plaintive song) - a poem of medium length, as a rule, moral-philosophical, love, confessional content.

The genre originated in antiquity, and its main feature was considered an elegiac distich, i.e. dividing a poem into couplets, for example:

The longed-for moment has come: my work of many years is over, Why is an incomprehensible sadness secretly disturbing me?

A. Pushkin

In the poetry of the XIX-XX centuries, division into couplets is no longer such a strict requirement, now semantic signs that are associated with the origin of the genre are more significant. Essentially, the elegy goes back to the form of the Ancient funeral "lamentation", in which, mourning the deceased, at the same time recalled his extraordinary merits. This origin predetermined the main feature of the elegy - the combination of sorrow with faith, regret with hope, acceptance of being through sorrow. The lyrical hero of the elegy is aware of the imperfection of the world and people, his own sinfulness and weakness, but does not reject life, but accepts it in all its tragic beauty. A striking example is "Elegy" by A.S. Pushkin:

Crazy years faded fun

It's hard for me like a vague hangover.

But like wine is the sadness of days gone by

In my soul, the older the stronger.

My path is dull. Promises me labor and sorrow

The coming agitated sea.

But I don’t want to die, oh friends;

I want to live in order to think and suffer;

And I know I will enjoy

Between sorrows, worries and worries:

Sometimes I'll revel in harmony again,

I will shed tears over fiction,

And maybe - to my sad sunset

Love will shine with a farewell smile.

Sonnet(sonetto ital. song) - the so-called "solid" poetic form, which has strict rules of construction. The sonnet has 14 lines, divided into two quatrains (quatrains) and two three verses (tercets). In quatrains, only two rhymes are repeated, in tercets, two or three. The methods of rhyming also had their own requirements, which, however, varied.

The birthplace of the sonnet is Italy; this genre is also represented in English and French poetry. The coryphaeus of the genre is considered the Italian poet Petrarch of the XIV century. He dedicated all his sonnets to his beloved Donna Laura.

In Russian literature, the sonnets of A.S. Pushkin remain unsurpassed, beautiful sonnets were also created by the poets of the Silver Age.

Epigram(Greek epigramma, inscription) is a short, mocking poem, usually addressed to a specific person. Epigrams are written by many poets, sometimes increasing the number of their ill-wishers and even enemies. The epigram on Count Vorontsov turned around for A.S. Pushkin's hatred of this nobleman and, ultimately, the expulsion from Odessa to Mikhailovskoe:

Popu-my lord, half-merchant,

Half-sage, half-ignorant,

Half a scoundrel, but there is hope

That will be complete at last.

Mocking verses can be dedicated not only to a specific person, but also to a generalized addressee, as, for example, in the epigram of A. Akhmatova:

Could Biche like Dante create,

Went Laura to glorify the heat of love?

I taught women to speak ...

But, God, how to silence them!

There are even known cases of a kind of duel of epigrams. When the famous Russian lawyer A.F. Horses were appointed to the Senate, ill-wishers extended an evil epigram to him:

Caligula brought a horse to the Senate,

He stands dressed in velvet and gold.

But I will say, we have the same arbitrariness:

I read in the newspapers that Koni is in the Senate.

To which A.F. Horses, distinguished by an outstanding literary talent, replied:

(Greek epitafia, tombstone) - a poem-farewell to a deceased person, intended for a tombstone. Initially, this word was used literally, but later acquired a more figurative meaning. For example, I. Bunin has a lyrical miniature in prose "Epitaph", dedicated to parting with the road for the writer, but forever receding into the past Russian estate. Gradually, the epitaph is transformed into a dedication poem, a farewell poem ("Wreath for the Dead" by A. Akhmatova). Perhaps the most famous poem of this kind in Russian poetry is The Death of a Poet by M. Lermontov. Another example is M. Lermontov's Epitaph, dedicated to the memory of Dmitry Venevitinov, a poet and philosopher who died at the age of twenty-two.

These types of classification are not mutually exclusive, but demonstrate a different approach to the definition of genres. Therefore, the same book can refer to several of them at once.

Classification of genres of literature by gender

When classifying literary genres by gender, they start from the attitude of the author to what is presented. The basis for this classification was laid by Aristotle. According to this principle, four major genres are distinguished: epic, lyric, dramatic and lyric-epic. Each of them has its own "subgenres".

In epic genres, events are told about events that have already occurred, and the author writes them down according to his memories, while at the same time he is as far away from the assessments of what has been said. These include epic novels, short stories, myths, ballads, fables and epics.

The lyric genre involves the transmission of the feelings experienced by the author in the form of a literary work in poetic form. These include odes, epigrams, epistles, and stanzas.

A classic example of stanzas is Byron's Childe Harold.

The lyric-epic genre combines the characteristics of the epic and lyric genres. These include ballads and poems, in which both the plot and the author's attitude to what is happening are present.

The dramatic genre exists at the intersection of literature and theater. Nominally, it includes dramas, comedies and tragedies with a list of participating characters at the beginning and author's notes in the main text. However, in fact, it can be any work recorded in the form of a dialogue.

Classification of genres of literature by content

If we define works by content, then they are combined into three large groups: comedies, tragedies and dramas. Tragedy and drama, telling, respectively, about the tragic fate of the heroes and about the emergence and overcoming of the conflict, are rather homogeneous. Comedies are divided into several completely types, according to the action taking place: parody, farce, vaudeville, comedy of positions and characters, sketch and interlude.

Classification of genres of literature by form

When classifying genres by form, only such formal features as the structure and volume of a work are taken into account, regardless of their content.

Lyrical works are classified most clearly in this way; in prose, the boundaries are more blurred.

According to this principle, thirteen genres are distinguished: epic, epic, novel,

VG Belinsky was one of the founders of Russian literary criticism. And although in antiquity serious steps were taken in the development of the concept of a literary genus (Aristotle), it was Belinsky who owns the scientifically grounded theory of three literary genera, which you can get acquainted with in detail by reading Belinsky's article "The Division of Poetry into Genera and Species."

There are three types of fiction: epic(from the Greek Epos, narration), lyrical(a lyre was a musical instrument accompanied by a chanting of poems) and dramatic(from the Greek. Drama, action).

Introducing a particular subject to the reader (meaning the subject of conversation), the author chooses different approaches to it:

First approach: can be detailed tell about the subject, about the events associated with it, about the circumstances of the existence of this subject, etc .; in this case, the position of the author will be more or less detached, the author will act as a kind of chronicler, storyteller, or choose a storyteller from one of the characters; the main thing in such a work will be precisely the story, the narration about the subject, the leading type of speech will be precisely narration; this kind of literature is called epic;

The second approach: you can tell not so much about events as about impression which they produced on the author, about those feelings which they caused; image inner world, experiences, impressions and will relate to the lyrical nature of literature; exactly experience becomes the main event of the lyrics;

Third approach: you can portray item in action, show him on stage; introduce its reader and viewer surrounded by other phenomena; this kind of literature is dramatic; in a drama, the author's voice will be the least likely to sound - in the remarks, that is, the author's explanations to the actions and remarks of the heroes.

Review the table and try to remember its contents:

Childbirth of fiction

Each type of literature, in turn, includes a number of genres.

GENRE is a historically developed group of works united by common features of content and form. Such groups include novels, stories, poems, elegies, short stories, feuilletons, comedies, etc. In literary criticism, the concept of a literary type is often introduced, this is a broader concept than a genre. In this case, the novel will be considered a type of fiction, and genres - various types of the novel, for example, adventure, detective, psychological, parable novel, dystopian novel, etc.

Examples of genus-specific relationships in the literature:

• Genus: dramatic; view: comedy; genre: sitcom.
• Genus: epic; view: story; genre: fantastic story, etc.

Genres as categories historical, appear, develop and eventually "leave" from the "active stock" of artists, depending on the historical era: the ancient lyricists did not know the sonnet; in our time, an ode, which was born in antiquity and was popular in the 17th-18th centuries, has become an archaic genre; romanticism of the 19th century gave rise to detective literature, etc.

Consider the following table, which shows the types and genres related to the different kinds of word art:

Genera, types and genres of fiction

Modern literary criticism also distinguishes fourth, a related genus of literature, combining the features of the epic and lyrical genders: lyro-epic to which the poem... Indeed, by telling the reader a story, the poem manifests itself as an epic; revealing to the reader the depth of feelings, the inner world of the person telling this story, the poem manifests itself as lyrics.

In the table you came across the expression "small genres". Epic and lyrical works are divided into large and small genres to a greater extent in terms of volume. The large ones include an epic, a novel, a poem, and small ones - a story, a story, a fable, a song, a sonnet, etc.

Read the statement of V. Belinsky about the genre of the story:

If the story, according to Belinsky, is a "leaf from the book of life", then, using his metaphor, one can figuratively define the novel from the genre point of view as "a chapter from the book of life", and the story - as "a line from the book of life".

Small epic genres to which the story belongs is "intense" in terms of content, prose: due to the small volume, the writer does not have the opportunity to "spread his thoughts along the tree", get carried away with detailed descriptions, enumerations, reproduce a large number of events in detail, and the reader often needs to say a lot.

The story is characterized by the following features:

• small volume;
• the plot is most often based on one event, the rest are only plotted out by the author;
• small number of characters: usually one or two central characters;
• the author is interested in a specific topic;
• one main issue is being resolved, the rest of the issues are "derived" from the main one.

So,
STORY- This is a small prose work with one or two main characters, dedicated to the image of a single event. Somewhat more voluminous story, but the difference between a story and a story is not always possible to catch: A. Chekhov's work "Duel" is called by some a small story, and some - a big story. The following is important: as the critic E. Anichkov wrote at the beginning of the 20th century, " in the center of the stories is the person's personality, not a whole group of people. "

The flowering of Russian small prose begins in the 20s of the XIX century, which gave excellent examples of small epic prose, among which are the absolute masterpieces of Pushkin ("Belkin's Tales", "The Queen of Spades") and Gogol ("Evenings on a farm near Dikanka", St. Petersburg stories ), romantic novellas by A. Pogorelsky, A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, V. Odoevsky and others. In the second half of the 19th century, small epic works by F. Dostoevsky ("The Dream of a Funny Man", "Notes from the Underground"), N. Leskov ("Lefty", "Dumb Artist", "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"), I. Turgenev ("Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky district", "King Lear of the Steppe", "Ghosts", "Notes of a Hunter"), L. Tolstoy ("Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Hadji Murat", "Cossacks", Sevastopol stories), A. Chekhov as the largest masters of a short story, works by V. Garshin, D. Grigorovich, G. Uspensky and many others.

The twentieth century also did not remain in debt - and there are stories by I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, M. Zoshchenko, Teffi, A. Averchenko, M. Bulgakov ... Even such recognized lyricists as A. Blok, N. Gumilyov, M. Tsvetaeva "have humbled themselves to despicable prose," in the words of Pushkin. It can be argued that at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the small genre of epics took leading position in Russian literature.

And for this reason, one should not think that the story raises any minor problems and touches on shallow topics. Form story laconic, and the plot is sometimes uncomplicated and concerns, at first glance, simple, as L. Tolstoy said, "natural" relations: the complex chain of events in the story simply has nowhere to unfold. But this is precisely the task of the writer, in order to enclose a serious and often inexhaustible subject of conversation in a small space of the text.

If the plot of the miniature I. Bunin "Muravsky Shlyakh", consisting of only 64 words, captures only a few moments of the conversation between the traveler and the driver in the middle of the endless steppe, then the plot of the story A. Chekhova "Ionych" would be enough for a whole novel: the artistic time of the story spans almost fifteen years. But the author does not care what happened to the hero at each stage of this time: it is enough for him to "snatch" from the hero's life chain several "links" - episodes, similar to each other, like drops of water, and the whole life of Doctor Startsev becomes extremely clear to the author, and the reader. "As you live one day of your life, so you will live your whole life," Chekhov seems to say. At the same time, the writer, reproducing the atmosphere in the house of the most "cultured" family in the provincial city of S., can concentrate all his attention on the knock of knives from the kitchen and the smell of fried onions ( artistic details!), but to say about several years of a person's life as if they did not exist at all, or it was a "passing", uninteresting time: "Four years have passed," "Several more years have passed," as if it was not worth wasting time and paper on the image of such a trifle ...

The depiction of a person's everyday life, devoid of external storms and upheavals, but in a routine that makes a person always wait for never-coming happiness, became a cross-cutting theme of A. Chekhov's stories, which determined the further development of Russian small prose.

Historical upheavals undoubtedly dictate other themes and plots to the artist. M. Sholokhov in a cycle of Don stories, he speaks of terrible and wonderful human destinies in a time of revolutionary upheavals. But the point here is not so much in the revolution itself as in the eternal problem of man's struggle with himself, in the eternal tragedy of the collapse of the old familiar world, which mankind has experienced many times. And therefore Sholokhov turns to plots that have long been rooted in world literature, depicting private human life, as it were, in the context of world legendary history. So, in the story "Mole" Sholokhov uses an ancient, like world, plot about a duel between a father and a son, not recognized by each other, which we meet in Russian epics, in the epics of ancient Persia and medieval Germany ... But if the ancient epic explains the tragedy of a father who killed his son in battle by the laws of fate , not subject to man, then Sholokhov talks about the problem of a man's choice of his life path, a choice that determines all future events and in the end makes one a beast in human form, and the other equal to the greatest heroes of the past.

• A. Pushkin. Stories "Dubrovsky", "Snowstorm"
• N. Gogol. The stories "The Night Before Christmas", "Taras Bulba", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospect".
• I.S. Turgenev. The story "Noble's Nest"; "Notes of a Hunter" (2-3 stories by choice); story "Asya"
• N.S. Leskov. Stories "Lefty", "Dumb artist"
• Leo Tolstoy. Short stories "After the Ball", "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"
• M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Fairy tales "Wise Gudgeon", "Bogatyr", "Bear in the Voivodeship"
• A.P. Chekhov. Stories "Jumping", "Ionych", "Gooseberry", "About Love", "Lady with a Dog", "Ward number six", "In the ravine"; other stories of your choice
• I.A. Bunin. Stories and stories "The gentleman from San Francisco", "Dry land", "Light breath", "Antonov apples", "Dark alleys" AI Kuprin. The story "Olesya", the story "Garnet bracelet"
• M. Gorky. Stories "The Old Woman Izergil", "Makar Chudra", "Chelkash"; collection "Untimely Thoughts"
• A.N. Tolstoy. The story "Viper"
• M. Sholokhov. Stories "Birthmark", "Another's Blood", "The Fate of a Man";
• M. Zoshchenko. Stories "Aristocrat", "Monkey tongue", "Love" and others of your choice
• A.I.Solzhenitsyn. The story "Matrenin's yard"
• V. Shukshin. The stories "I Believe!"

Before doing task 6, refer to the dictionary and establish the exact meaning of the concept with which you are going to work.

• Grechnev V.Ya. Russian story of the late XIX - early XX century. - L., 1979.
• Zhuk A.A. Russian prose of the second half of the 19th century. - M .: Education, 1981.
• Literary encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1987.
• Literary criticism: Reference materials. - M., 1988.
• Russian story of the XIX century: History and problems of the genre. - L., 1973.