General information about the literary process. Basic concepts of the historical and literary process

Historical and literary process - a set of generally significant changes in the literature. Literature is constantly evolving. Each era enriches art with some new artistic discoveries. The study of the laws of development of literature is the concept of "historical and literary process". The development of the literary process is determined by the following artistic systems: creative method, style, genre, literary trends and currents.

The continuous change of literature is an obvious fact, but significant changes do not occur every year, not even every decade. As a rule, they are associated with serious historical shifts (change historical eras and periods, wars, revolutions associated with the entry into the historical arena of new social forces, etc.). It is possible to single out the main stages in the development of European art, which determined the specifics of the historical and literary process: antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The development of the historical and literary process is due to a number of factors, among which the historical situation (socio-political system, ideology, etc.), the influence of previous literary traditions and artistic experience of other peoples. For example, Pushkin's work was seriously influenced by the work of his predecessors not only in Russian literature (Derzhavin, Batyushkov, Zhukovsky and others), but also in European literature (Voltaire, Rousseau, Byron and others).

literary process - This a complex system literary interactions. It represents the formation, functioning and change of various literary trends and trends.

Literary trends and currents:
classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism,
realism, modernism (symbolism, acmeism, futurism)

IN modern literary criticism the terms "direction" and "flow" can be interpreted in different ways. Sometimes they are used as synonyms (classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, realism and modernism are called both trends and trends), and sometimes a trend is identified with a literary school or grouping, and a direction is identified with an artistic method or style (in this case, the direction incorporates two or more streams).

Usually, literary direction called a group of writers similar in type of artistic thinking. We can talk about the existence of a literary trend if writers are aware of theoretical basis their artistic activities, promote them in manifestos, program speeches, articles. So, the first program article of the Russian futurists was the manifesto "Slap in the Face of Public Taste", in which the main aesthetic principles of the new direction were declared.

Under certain circumstances, groups of writers who are especially close to each other in their aesthetic views can be formed within the framework of one literary movement. Such groups that form within any direction are usually called a literary trend. For example, within the framework of such a literary trend as symbolism, two currents can be distinguished: "senior" symbolists and "junior" symbolists (according to another classification - three: decadents, "senior" symbolists, "junior" symbolists).

Classicism(from lat. classicus- exemplary) - an artistic trend in European art at the turn of the 17th-18th - early 19th centuries, formed in France in late XVII century. Classicism asserted the primacy of state interests over personal interests, the predominance of civil, patriotic motives, the cult of moral duty. The aesthetics of classicism is characterized by the severity of artistic forms: compositional unity, normative style and plots. Representatives of Russian classicism: Kantemir, Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Knyaznin, Ozerov and others.

One of the most important features of classicism is the perception of ancient art as a model, an aesthetic standard (hence the name of the direction). The goal is to create works of art in the image and likeness of antique. In addition, the ideas of the Enlightenment and the cult of reason (the belief in the omnipotence of the mind and that the world can be reorganized on a reasonable basis) had a huge influence on the formation of classicism.

Classicists (representatives of classicism) perceived artistic creation as strict adherence to reasonable rules, eternal laws created on the basis of studying the best examples ancient literature. Based on these reasonable laws, they divided works into "correct" and "incorrect". For example, even best plays Shakespeare. This was due to the fact that Shakespeare's characters combined positive and negative traits. And the creative method of classicism was formed on the basis of rationalistic thinking. There was a strict system of characters and genres: all characters and genres were distinguished by "purity" and unambiguity. So, in one hero it was strictly forbidden not only to combine vices and virtues (that is, positive and negative traits), but even several vices. The hero had to embody any one character trait: either a miser, or a braggart, or a hypocrite, or a hypocrite, or good, or evil, etc.

The main conflict of classic works is the struggle of the hero between reason and feeling. At the same time, the positive hero must always make a choice in favor of the mind (for example, choosing between love and the need to completely surrender to the service of the state, he must choose the latter), and the negative one - in favor of feelings.

The same can be said about the genre system. All genres were divided into high (ode, epic poem, tragedy) and low (comedy, fable, epigram, satire). At the same time, touching episodes were not supposed to be introduced into comedy, and funny episodes into tragedy. In high genres, "exemplary" heroes were depicted - monarchs, generals, who could serve as an example to follow. In the low ones, characters were drawn, captured by some kind of "passion", that is, a strong feeling.

There were special rules for dramatic works. They had to observe three "unities" - places, times and actions. Unity of place: classicist dramaturgy did not allow a change of scene, that is, during the entire play, the characters had to be in the same place. Unity of time: the artistic time of a work should not exceed several hours, in extreme cases - one day. Unity of action implies the presence of only one storyline. All these requirements are connected with the fact that the classicists wanted to create a kind of illusion of life on the stage. Sumarokov: “Try to measure my hours in the game for hours, so that, forgetting, I can believe you”. So, the characteristic features of literary classicism:

purity of the genre(in high genres, funny or everyday situations and heroes could not be depicted, and in low genres, tragic and sublime ones);
purity of language(in high genres - high vocabulary, in low - vernacular);
strict division of heroes into positive and negative, while the positive characters, choosing between feeling and reason, prefer the latter;
observance of the rule of "three unities";
affirmation of positive values and state ideal.

Russian classicism is characterized by state pathos (the state - and not the person - was declared the highest value) in conjunction with faith in the theory of enlightened absolutism. According to the theory of enlightened absolutism, the state should be headed by a wise, enlightened monarch, who requires everyone to serve for the benefit of society. Russian classicists, inspired by the reforms of Peter the Great, believed in the possibility of further improvement of society, which seemed to them a rationally arranged organism. Sumarokov: “Peasants plow, merchants trade, warriors defend the fatherland, judges judge, scientists cultivate sciences.” The classicists treated human nature in the same rationalistic way. They believed that human nature is selfish, subject to passions, that is, feelings that oppose reason, but at the same time lend themselves to education.

Sentimentalism(from English sentimental - sensitive, from French sentiment - feeling) - literary direction the second half of the 18th century, which replaced classicism. Sentimentalists proclaimed the primacy of feeling, not reason. A person was judged by his ability to deep feelings. Hence - the interest in the inner world of the hero, the image of the shades of his feelings (the beginning of psychologism).

Unlike the classicists, sentimentalists consider not the state, but the individual, to be the highest value. They opposed the unjust orders of the feudal world with the eternal and reasonable laws of nature. In this regard, nature for sentimentalists is the measure of all values, including man himself. It is no coincidence that they asserted the superiority of the "natural", "natural" man, that is, living in harmony with nature.

Sensitivity is also at the basis of the creative method of sentimentalism. If the classicists created generalized characters (a hypocrite, a braggart, a miser, a fool), then sentimentalists are interested in specific people with an individual destiny. Heroes in their works are clearly divided into positive and negative. Positive endowed with natural sensitivity (responsive, kind, compassionate, capable of self-sacrifice). Negative- prudent, selfish, arrogant, cruel. The carriers of sensitivity, as a rule, are peasants, artisans, raznochintsy, rural clergy. Cruel - representatives of power, nobles, higher spiritual ranks (since despotic rule kills sensitivity in people). Manifestations of sensitivity in the works of sentimentalists often acquire a too external, even exaggerated character (exclamations, tears, fainting, suicides).

One of the main discoveries of sentimentalism is the individualization of the hero and the image of the rich spiritual world of a commoner (the image of Liza in Karamzin's story "Poor Liza"). The main character of the works was an ordinary person. In this regard, the plot of the work often represented separate situations of everyday life, while peasant life often depicted in pastoral colors. New content required new form. The leading genres are family romance, diary, confession, novel in letters, travel notes, elegy, message.

In Russia, sentimentalism originated in the 1760s ( the best representatives- Radishchev and Karamzin). As a rule, in the works of Russian sentimentalism, the conflict develops between a serf and a serf landowner, and the moral superiority of the former is persistently emphasized.

Romanticism- artistic direction in European and American culture late XVIII- the first half of the 19th century. Romanticism arose in the 1790s, first in Germany, and then spread throughout Western Europe. The prerequisites for the emergence were the crisis of rationalism of the Enlightenment, the artistic search for pre-romantic movements (sentimentalism), the Great French revolution, German classical philosophy.

The emergence of this literary trend, as well as any other, is inextricably linked with the socio-historical events of that time. Let's start with the prerequisites for the formation of romanticism in Western European literatures. The Great French Revolution of 1789-1799 and the reassessment of the educational ideology associated with it had a decisive influence on the formation of romanticism in Western Europe. As you know, the 18th century in France passed under the sign of the Enlightenment. For almost a whole century, French enlighteners led by Voltaire (Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu) argued that the world can be reorganized on a reasonable basis and proclaimed the idea of natural (natural) equality of all people. It was these educational ideas that inspired the French revolutionaries, whose slogan was the words: "Liberty, equality and fraternity." The result of the revolution was the establishment of a bourgeois republic. As a result, the winner was the bourgeois minority, which seized power (it used to belong to the aristocracy, the highest nobility), while the rest were left "with nothing". Thus, the long-awaited "kingdom of reason" turned out to be an illusion, as well as the promised freedom, equality and fraternity. There was a general disappointment in the results and results of the revolution, a deep dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality, which became a prerequisite for the emergence of romanticism. Because the basis of romanticism is the principle of dissatisfaction with the existing order of things. This was followed by the emergence of the theory of romanticism in Germany.

As is known, Western European culture, in particular French, had a huge impact on Russian. This trend continued into the 19th century, so the French Revolution also shook Russia. But, in addition, there are actually Russian prerequisites for the emergence of Russian romanticism. First of all, this Patriotic War 1812, clearly showing the greatness and strength common people. It was to the people that Russia owed its victory over Napoleon, the people were the true heroes of the war. Meanwhile, both before the war and after it, the bulk of the people, the peasants, still remained serfs, in fact, slaves. What was previously perceived by the progressive people of that time as injustice, now began to seem like a flagrant injustice, contrary to all logic and morality. But after the end of the war, Alexander I not only did not cancel serfdom, but also began to pursue a much tougher policy. As a result, a pronounced feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction arose in Russian society. Thus, the ground for the emergence of romanticism arose.

The term "romanticism" in relation to the literary movement is accidental and inaccurate. In this regard, from the very beginning of its inception, it was interpreted in different ways: some believed that it comes from the word "roman", others - from knightly poetry created in countries that speak Romance languages. For the first time, the word "romanticism" as the name of a literary movement began to be used in Germany, where the first sufficiently detailed theory of romanticism was created.

Very important for understanding the essence of romanticism is the concept of romanticism. dual peace. As already mentioned, rejection, denial of reality is the main prerequisite for the emergence of romanticism. All romantics reject the world, hence their romantic escape from existing life and the search for an ideal outside of it. This gave rise to the emergence of a romantic dual world. The world for romantics was divided into two parts: here and there. “There” and “here” are antithesis (contrast), these categories are correlated as ideal and reality. The despised "here" is a modern reality, where evil and injustice triumph. “There” is a kind of poetic reality that the romantics opposed to reality. Many romantics believed that goodness, beauty and truth, ousted from public life, were still preserved in the souls of people. Hence their attention to the inner world of man, in-depth psychologism. The souls of people are their "there". For example, Zhukovsky searched for "there" in other world; Pushkin and Lermontov, Fenimore Cooper - in free life uncivilized peoples (Pushkin's poems "Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Gypsies", Cooper's novels about the life of Indians).

Rejection, denial of reality determined the specifics of the romantic hero. It is fundamentally new hero, similar to him did not know the previous literature. He is in hostile relations with the surrounding society, opposed to it. This is an unusual, restless person, most often lonely and with a tragic fate. romantic hero- the embodiment of a romantic rebellion against reality.

Realism(from Latin realis- material, real) - a method (creative attitude) or a literary movement that embodies the principles of a life-truthful attitude to reality, striving towards artistic knowledge man and the world. Often the term "realism" is used in two senses:

realism as a method;
realism as a trend that emerged in the 19th century.

Both classicism, and romanticism, and symbolism strive for the knowledge of life and express their reaction to it in their own way, but only in realism does fidelity to reality become the defining criterion of artistry. This distinguishes realism, for example, from romanticism, which is characterized by the rejection of reality and the desire to “recreate” it, and not display it as it is. It is no coincidence that, referring to the realist Balzac, the romantic George Sand defined the difference between him and herself in this way: “You take a person as he appears to your eyes; I feel a calling to portray him the way I would like to see. Thus, we can say that the realists represent the real, and the romantics - the desired.

The beginning of the formation of realism is usually associated with the Renaissance. The realism of this time is characterized by the scale of images (Don Quixote, Hamlet) and the poeticization of the human personality, the perception of man as the king of nature, the crown of creation. The next stage is enlightenment realism. In the literature of the Enlightenment, a democratic realistic hero appears, a man "from the bottom" (for example, Figaro in Beaumarchais's plays "The Barber of Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro"). New types of romanticism appeared in the 19th century: "fantastic" (Gogol, Dostoevsky), "grotesque" (Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin) and "critical" realism associated with the activities of the "natural school".

Basic requirements of realism: adherence to the principles

peoples,
historicism,
high artistry,
psychologism,
depiction of life in its development.

Realist writers showed a direct dependence of social, moral, religious beliefs heroes from social conditions, much attention was paid to the social aspect. The central problem of realism- the ratio of plausibility and artistic truth. Plausibility, a believable depiction of life is very important for realists, but artistic truth is determined not by credibility, but by fidelity in comprehending and conveying the essence of life and the significance of the ideas expressed by the artist. One of the most important features of realism is the typification of characters (the fusion of the typical and the individual, the uniquely personal). The credibility of a realistic character directly depends on the degree of individualization achieved by the writer.
Realist writers create new types of heroes: the type " little man"(Vyrin, Bashmachkin, Marmeladov, Devushkin), the type of "extra person" (Chatsky, Onegin, Pechorin, Oblomov), the type of "new" hero (nihilist Bazarov in Turgenev, "new people" Chernyshevsky).

Modernism(from French contemporary- the latest, modern) philosophical and aesthetic movement in literature and art that arose at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries.

This term has various interpretations:

denotes a number of unrealistic movements in art and literature turn of XIX-XX centuries: symbolism, futurism, acmeism, expressionism, cubism, imagism, surrealism, abstractionism, impressionism;
used as a convention aesthetic search artists of unrealistic trends;
denotes a complex set of aesthetic and ideological phenomena, including not only modernist trends proper, but also the work of artists who do not completely fit into the framework of any direction (D. Joyce, M. Proust, F. Kafka and others).

The brightest and significant areas Russian modernism became symbolism, acmeism and futurism.

Symbolism- a non-realistic trend in art and literature of the 1870-1920s, focused mainly on artistic expression with the help of a symbol of intuitively comprehended entities and ideas. Symbolism made itself known in France in the 1860s-1870s in the poetic works of A. Rimbaud, P. Verlaine, S. Mallarme. Then, through poetry, symbolism connected itself not only with prose and dramaturgy, but also with other forms of art. The French writer C. Baudelaire is considered the ancestor, founder, "father" of symbolism.

At the heart of the worldview of symbolist artists lies the idea of the unknowability of the world and its laws. They considered the only "tool" for understanding the world spiritual experience human and creative intuition of the artist.

Symbolism was the first to put forward the idea of creating art free from the task of depicting reality. Symbolists argued that the purpose of art is not to depict the real world, which they considered secondary, but to convey a "higher reality". They intended to achieve this with the help of a symbol. A symbol is an expression of the poet's supersensible intuition, to whom, in moments of insight, the true essence of things is revealed. Symbolists developed a new poetic language, which does not directly name the subject, but hints at its content through allegory, musicality, colors, free verse.

Symbolism is the first and most significant of the modernist movements that arose in Russia. The first manifesto of Russian symbolism was the article by D. S. Merezhkovsky “On the Causes of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature”, published in 1893. It identified three main elements of the "new art": mystical content, symbolization and "expansion of artistic impressionability."

Symbolists are usually divided into two groups, or currents:

"elder" symbolists (V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub and others), who made their debut in the 1890s;
"juniors" symbolists who started their creative activity in the 1900s and significantly updated the appearance of the current (A. Blok, A. Bely, V. Ivanov and others).

It should be noted that the "senior" and "junior" symbolists were separated not so much by age as by the difference in attitudes and the direction of creativity.

Symbolists believed that art is first and foremost "comprehension of the world in other, non-rational ways"(Bryusov). After all, only phenomena that are subject to the law of linear causality can be rationally comprehended, and such causality operates only in the lower forms of life (empirical reality, everyday life). The Symbolists, on the other hand, were interested in the higher spheres of life (the area of "absolute ideas" in Plato's terms or the "world soul", according to V. Solovyov), not subject to rational knowledge. It is art that has the ability to penetrate into these spheres, and the images-symbols with their infinite ambiguity are able to reflect the entire complexity of the world universe. The Symbolists believed that the ability to comprehend the true, higher reality was given only to the elect, who, in moments of inspired insights, were able to comprehend the “higher” truth, absolute truth.

The image-symbol was considered by the symbolists as more effective than artistic image, a tool that helps to “break through” through the cover of everyday life (lower life) to a higher reality. The symbol differs from the realistic image in that it conveys not the objective essence of the phenomenon, but the poet's own, individual idea of the world. In addition, the symbol, as the Russian symbolists understood it, is not an allegory, but, first of all, an image that requires the reader to respond creatively. The symbol, as it were, connects the author and the reader - this is the revolution produced by symbolism in art.

The image-symbol is fundamentally polysemantic and contains the prospect of an unlimited deployment of meanings. This trait of his was repeatedly emphasized by the symbolists themselves: “A symbol is only a true symbol when it is inexhaustible in its meaning” (Vyach. Ivanov); "Symbol is a window to infinity"(F. Sologub).

Acmeism(from Greek. akme- the highest degree of something, blooming power, peak) - modernist literary movement in Russian poetry of the 1910s. Representatives: S. Gorodetsky, early A. Akhmatova, L. Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam. The term "acmeism" belongs to Gumilyov. The aesthetic program was formulated in Gumilyov's articles "The Legacy of Symbolism and Acmeism", Gorodetsky's "Some Currents in Modern Russian Poetry" and Mandelstam's "Morning of Acmeism".

Acmeism stood out from symbolism, criticizing its mystical aspirations for the “unknowable”: “Among the Acmeists, the rose again became good in itself, with its petals, smell and color, and not with its conceivable similarities with mystical love or anything else” (Gorodetsky) . Acmeists proclaimed the liberation of poetry from symbolist impulses to the ideal, from the ambiguity and fluidity of images, complicated metaphor; talked about the need to return to the material world, the subject, the exact meaning of the word. Symbolism is based on the rejection of reality, and the acmeists believed that one should not abandon this world, one should look for some values in it and capture them in their works, and do this with the help of accurate and understandable images, and not vague symbols.

Actually, the acmeist current was small, did not last long - about two years (1913-1914) - and was associated with the "Workshop of Poets". "Workshop of poets" was created in 1911 and at first united a fairly large number of people (not all of them later turned out to be involved in acmeism). This organization was much more cohesive than the disparate symbolist groups. At the meetings of the "Workshop" poems were analyzed, problems of poetic mastery were solved, and methods for analyzing works were substantiated. The idea of a new direction in poetry was first expressed by Kuzmin, although he himself did not enter the "Workshop". In his article "About Beautiful Clarity" Kuzmin anticipated many declarations of acmeism. In January 1913, the first manifestos of acmeism appeared. From this moment, the existence of a new direction begins.

Acmeism proclaimed "beautiful clarity" as the task of literature, or clarism(from lat. claris- clear). Acmeists called their current adamism, linking with the biblical Adam the idea of a clear and direct view of the world. Acmeism preached a clear, “simple” poetic language, where words would directly name objects, declare their love for objectivity. So, Gumilyov urged to look not for “unsteady words”, but for words “with a more stable content”. This principle was most consistently realized in Akhmatova's lyrics.

Futurism- one of the main avant-garde trends (avant-garde is an extreme manifestation of modernism) in European art of the early 20th century, which was most developed in Italy and Russia.

In 1909, in Italy, the poet F. Marinetti published the Futurist Manifesto. The main provisions of this manifesto: the rejection of traditional aesthetic values and the experience of all previous literature, bold experiments in the field of literature and art. As the main elements of futuristic poetry, Marinetti calls "courage, audacity, rebellion." In 1912, the Russian futurists V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov created their manifesto "Slap in the face of public taste". They also sought to break with traditional culture, welcomed literary experiments, sought to find new means of speech expressiveness (proclaiming a new free rhythm, loosening syntax, destroying punctuation marks). At the same time, Russian futurists rejected fascism and anarchism, which Marinetti declared in his manifestos, and turned mainly to aesthetic problems. They proclaimed a revolution of form, its independence from content (“what is important is not what, but how”) and the absolute freedom of poetic speech.

Futurism was a heterogeneous direction. Within its framework, four main groups or currents can be distinguished:

"Gilea", which united cubo-futurists (V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh and others);
"Association of Egofuturists"(I. Severyanin, I. Ignatiev and others);
"Mezzanine of Poetry"(V. Shershenevich, R. Ivnev);
"Centrifuge"(S. Bobrov, N. Aseev, B. Pasternak).

The most significant and influential group was the "Gilea": in fact, it was she who determined the face of Russian futurism. Its participants released many collections: "The Garden of Judges" (1910), "Slap in the Face of Public Taste" (1912), "Dead Moon" (1913), "Took" (1915).

The Futurists wrote in the name of the man of the crowd. At the heart of this movement was the feeling of "the inevitability of the collapse of the old" (Mayakovsky), the awareness of the birth of a "new humanity". Artistic creativity, according to the futurists, should not be an imitation, but a continuation of nature, which creates through the creative will of man " new world, today, iron ... "(Malevich). This is the reason for the desire to destroy the "old" form, the desire for contrasts, the attraction to colloquial speech. Relying on living colloquial, futurists were engaged in "word-creation" (created neologisms). Their works were distinguished by complex semantic and compositional shifts - a contrast between the comic and the tragic, fantasy and lyrics.

Futurism began to disintegrate already in 1915-1916.

In the comparative historical study of literature, questions of terminology turn out to be very serious and difficult to resolve. Traditionally allocated international literary communities(Baroque, Classicism, Enlightenment, etc.) are called something literary movements, That literary trends, That art systems. At the same time, the terms “literary trend” and “literary trend” are sometimes filled with a narrower, more specific meaning. So, in the works of G.N. Pospelova literary currents- this is the refraction in the work of writers and poets of certain social views (worldviews, ideologies), and directions- these are writers' groupings that arise on the basis of commonality aesthetic views and certain programs of artistic activity (expressed in treatises, manifestos, slogans). Currents and directions in this meaning of words are facts of individual national literatures, but not of international communities.

International literary communities(artistic systems, as I.F. Volkov called them) have no clear chronological framework: often in the same era, various literary and general artistic “trends” coexist, which seriously complicates their systematic, logically ordered consideration. B.G. Reizov wrote: "Some major writer of the era of romanticism can be a classic (classicist. - V.Kh.) or a critical realist, a writer of the era of realism can be a romantic or a naturalist." Moreover, the literary process of a given country and a given epoch cannot be reduced to the coexistence of literary currents and tendencies. MM. Bakhtin reasonably warned scholars against "reducing" the literature of one period or another "to a superficial struggle of literary trends." With a narrowly directed approach to literature, the scientist notes, its most important aspects, "determining the work of writers, remain undisclosed." (Recall that Bakhtin considered genres to be the "main characters" of the literary process.)

The literary life of the 20th century confirms these considerations: many prominent writers (M.A. Bulgakov, A.P. Platonov) carried out their creative tasks, being aloof from contemporary literary groups. The hypothesis of D.S. Likhachev, according to which the acceleration of the pace of change of direction in the literature of our century is "an expressive sign of their approaching end". The change of international literary trends (artistic systems), apparently, far from exhausts the essence of the literary process (neither Western European, nor even worldwide). Strictly speaking, there were no epochs of the Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment, etc., but there were periods in the history of art and literature marked by a noticeable and sometimes decisive significance of the corresponding principles. It is inconceivable that the literature of one or another chronological period be completely identical with any one world-contemplative-artistic trend, even if it is of paramount importance at a given time. The terms "literary current" or "direction" or " art system Therefore, it is appropriate to operate with caution. Judgments about the change of currents and directions are not a "master key" to the laws of the literary process, but only a very approximate schematization of it (even in relation to Western European literature, not to mention the literature of other countries and regions).

When studying the literary process, scientists also rely on other theoretical concepts in particular - method and style. For a number of decades (starting from the 1930s), the term creative method has been put forward to the forefront of our literary criticism as a characteristic of literature as the cognition (mastering) of social life. The successive currents and directions were seen as marked by a greater or lesser measure of the presence of realism in them. So, I.F. Volkov analyzed artistic systems mainly from the point of view of the creative method underlying them.

Literature and the reader.

It is legitimate to single out two sides in perceiving activity. When mastering a literary work, a lively and unsophisticated, non-analytical, holistic response to it is inalienable, first of all. At the same time, the reader seeks to be aware of the impressions received, to think about what he has read, to understand the reasons for the emotions he experienced. This is a secondary, but also very important facet of the perception of a work of art.

The immediate impulses and mind of the reader correlate with the creative will of the author of the work is very difficult. Here there is both the dependence of the perceiving subject on the artist-creator, and the independence of the first in relation to the second. Discussing the problem of "reader-author", scientists express opinions in different directions, sometimes even polar to one another. They either absolutize the reader's initiative (Potebnya), or, on the contrary, speak of the reader's obedience to the author as some kind of indisputable norm for the perception of literature (A.P. Skaftymov).

Both of these extremes are overcome by hermeneutical literary criticism, which understands the relationship of the reader to the author as a dialogue, an interview, a meeting. A literary work for the reader is both a “receptacle” of a certain range of feelings and thoughts that belong to the author and are expressed by them, and an “exciter” (stimulator) of his own spiritual initiative and energy. Firstly, in very many cases, the reader's perception turns out to be predominantly subjective, if not completely arbitrary: not understanding, bypassing the author's creative intentions, his view of the world and artistic conception. And, secondly (and this is the main thing), the synthesis of a deep understanding of the author's personality, his creative will and his own (reader's) spiritual initiative is optimal for the reader.

In order for dialogue-meetings that enrich the reader to take place, he needs both aesthetic taste, and a keen interest in the writer and his works, and the ability to directly feel their artistic merits. At the same time, reading is “work and creativity.

The reader can be directly present in the work, being specified and localized in its text. Authors sometimes reflect on their readers, and also have conversations with them, reproducing their thoughts and words. In this regard, it is legitimate to talk about the image of the reader as one of the facets of artistic "objectivity". Outside of the live communication of the narrator with the reader, the stories of L. Stern, Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", the prose of N.V. Gogol, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I.S. Turgenev.

Another, even more significant, universal form of artistic refraction of the perceiving subject is the latent presence in the integrity of the work of its imaginary reader, more precisely, the “concept of the addressee”. The reader-addressee can be both a specific person (Pushkin's friendly messages), and the public contemporary to the author (A.N. Ostrovsky's numerous judgments about the democratic spectator), and some distant "providential" reader, whom O.E. Mandelstam in the article "About the interlocutor".

The reader-addressee is carefully considered by the West German scientists who made up the school of receptive aesthetics. artistic experience has two sides: productive (creative, creative) and receptive (perception). Accordingly, there are two kinds aesthetic theories: traditional theories of creativity (manifested primarily in art) - and a new theory of perception created by them, which puts in the center not the author, but his addressee. The latter was called the implicit reader, implicitly present in the work and immanent to it. The author (in the light of this theory) is primarily characterized by the energy of influencing the reader, and it is to this that decisive importance is attached. The other side of artistic activity (the generation and imprinting of meanings and meanings) is relegated to the background by supporters of receptive aesthetics (although not rejected). As part of verbal and artistic works, the program of influence on the reader that is guessed in them, the potential for influence inherent in them are emphasized, so that the structure of the text is considered as an appeal (an appeal to the reader, a message sent to him). The impact potential invested in a work, according to representatives of receptive aesthetics, determines its perception by a real reader.

LITERARY PROCESS - the historical existence of literature, its functioning and evolution both in a certain era and throughout the history of a nation, country, region, world.

The literary process at every historical moment includes both the verbal and artistic works themselves, socially, ideologically and aesthetically of different quality (from high examples to epigone, tabloid or mass literature), and the forms of their social existence (publications, reprints, literary criticism). Sometimes works become the property of the literary process only after a long period of time after the moment of their creation or first publication (many poems by F. I. Tyutchev, M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”). On the other side, an important factor the literary process of the era sometimes become phenomena that are insignificant on the scale of the history of national literature; such are the bands of enthusiasm for whole genres or individual writers.

An important aspect of the literary process is constant interaction fiction with other types of art, as well as with general cultural, linguistic, ideological, scientific phenomena. Often (especially in recent centuries) there is a direct connection between the work of writers and their groups with socio-political movements, as well as philosophical concepts.

The concept of the literary process was formed during the 19th and 20th centuries. as literature was perceived as a historically changing entity (already in the 19th century, the terminological expressions "literary evolution" and "literary life of the era" were used). The term "literary process" arose at the turn of the 20-30s. 20th century and became widely used in the 1960s.

FLOW AND DIRECTION literary - concepts that denote the unity of leading spiritual-content and aesthetic principles arising at a certain stage of the literary process, covering the work of many writers (groups, schools). In the struggle and change of currents and directions, the laws of the literary process are most clearly expressed. There is no agreement in the use of these terms: sometimes they are used as synonyms; often "direction" is recognized as a generic concept in relation to "flow". Often, the "flow" is identified with the literary school and grouping, and the "direction" - with the artistic method or style. In the 60s. the specificity of the concepts of flow and direction, their connection with artistic content, is increasingly emphasized. A. N. Sokolov considers the direction as an ideological and artistic integrity, which includes method and style as separate components; moreover, the leading and organizing beginning of the direction is the ideological content. The concept of "direction" fixes the unity of more general spiritual and aesthetic foundations of artistic content, due to the unity of cultural and artistic traditions, the type of worldview of writers, the commonality of the life problems they face, and, ultimately, the commonality or similarity of the epochal socio-cultural-historical situation. But the worldview itself - the attitude to the problems posed, the idea of ways and means of resolving them, the ideals, ideology, and artistic conception, as well as the stylistic principles of writers belonging to the same direction - can be different, even opposite.

Lit. the struggle is not only between various directions, but also within them - between the currents, schools and groupings that make up them (for example, the struggle between the "Sumarok" and "Lomonosov" currents in Russian classicism; the critical attitude of the Decembrist romantics to the poetry of Zhukovsky's "cordial imagination", the conflict between writers - realists of the revolutionary-democratic and noble camps; controversy within Russian symbolism).

Belonging to a current and/or direction (as well as the desire to stay outside existing trends) presupposes free - personal and creative - self-determination of the writer.

, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor

Department of Philological Education

and interdisciplinary integration LOIRO

World Literary Process: Basic Terms and Concepts

The formation of a holistic worldview of students is successfully taking place in the process of studying literature as a global literary process. The need for a systematic approach to solving this problem determines the importance of considering the spectrum of problems related to the concept of the world literary process, its terms and concepts (national literature, world literature, world literary process; dynamics and stability in the composition of world literature, stages in the development of world literature, literary connections etc.). In the field of our attention is a complex of problems related to the comprehension of the world literary process in school literary criticism.

It is necessary to clarify the term "national literature". Today under national literature Literature is understood as expressing the self-consciousness of the people. And it is from these positions that it should be considered in school literary criticism.

World (world) literature - a concept covering the entire set of literatures of the world; its main content is the literary process on the scale of world history

The origins of the formulation of the problem were laid down in Dante Alighieri's treatise "On the Monarchy" (), suggesting the existence of some kind of global cultural process. The first attempts to comprehend this process were made in the 17th century in the French aesthetic thought(the dispute between the ancient and the new).

The term "world (world) literature" belongs to the one who used it in a conversation with Eckerman. Goethe's concept assumed the inherent value of each of the constituent (national) parts of the world literary process. The concept was largely prepared by Herder, his teacher. Herder asserted the equivalence of various historical epochs of culture and literature. (“Ideas of the philosophy of the history of mankind”, 1784-91). For Herder, art is a link in the chain of the historical process. He approached the idea of world literature through the assertion of national identity and national dignity.

F. Schiller put forward the concept of "world history" as universal, universal. Hegel owns the concept of the world soul and the world spirit. Ahead of time, Schiller in the 18th century considered as the eve of the merging of hotel nations into a single human community (“What is world history and for what purpose is it studied”, 1789), and himself, as one of his heroes, - Marquis Pose (“Don Carlos ”, 1783-87), liked to be called a “citizen of the world”.

In the concept of "universality" of the early German Romantics, also in general form the idea of world culture is expressed (eg, Wakenroder. Fantasies about Art, 1799). After the start of publications of courses of national literatures (English, German, French, Italian) in the 18th century, European literature courses began to be created, considering literary phenomena. different countries as a single stream. F. Schlegel in the years. lectured on history European literature. He had already asserted that one literature invariably leads to another, for literatures are not only successively, but side by side, one great, closely connected whole. In the works of Novalis and Tiek, the motifs of Eastern and Western literature are intertwined.

Accumulating the experience of the Enlightenment and early romanticism, Goethe created his concept of world literature. But its emergence was connected, however, with the advent of modern times. The one-sided influence of one literature on another was replaced by the mutual influence of literatures. In this regard, special attention was paid to the bridging role of translators.

The concept of world literature was enriched by the era of romanticism and consolidated in the 20th century, when interethnic literary contacts expanded and when the presence of facts of mutual influence and typology of correspondences in the world cultural process became obvious.

By the beginning of the 20th century, three main interpretations of the concept of world literature had crystallized:

1. The simple sum of all works, from the primitive songs of the primitive tribes to the manifold forms artistic creativity modern highly developed peoples.

2. Selected from the literary wealth of all nations, a narrower circle of works the highest level, included in the world treasury of fiction (a view close to the romantics and vulnerable in that the criteria for such selection are difficult to establish and, moreover, changeable).

3. The process of mutual influence and mutual enrichment of literatures, which occurs only at a certain stage in the development of civilization (Goethe's view).

World Literature as the Literature of the Regions of a Common Language (Hellenic East, Latin West) World Literature as a Community of National-Typical Manifestations – Regardless of Influences and Cultural Exchanges.

The latter understanding of the term, although we must take it into account, however, loses sight of the internal laws of world literature. They will be discussed below.

Next important term – literary process . It is interpreted as a historical movement of national and world fiction, developing in complex connections and interactions.

The literary process is a set of generally significant changes in literary life (both in the work of writers and in the literary consciousness of society), that is, the dynamics of literature in a large historical time.

Units of the world literary process are: a literary trend, a literary trend, an artistic system, international literary communities, an artistic method.

Dynamics and stability as part of
world literature - the following characteristics of the world literary process.

Forms (types) of the movement of literature in time are heterogeneous. It belongs to him as forward movement(the steady increase in the personal beginning in literary creativity, weakening the canonical principles of genre formation, expanding the range of choice of forms by the writer), and cyclic changes(fixed in the theories of Dm. Chizhevsky and the rhythmic alternation of primary and secondary styles).

The literary process is characterized by the alternation of periods of prosperity and rise (“classical” stages of national literatures), with crises, times of stagnation and decline.

The world literary process is characterized by both temporary, local phenomena, as well as transtemporal, static (constant) - topics.

Topeka (from other Greek topos - place, space) - universal, transtemporal, static structures in the culture; constants of world literature. We list the main ones: types of emotional mood (sublime, tragic, laughter, etc.), moral and philosophical problems (good and evil, truth and beauty), "eternal themes" associated with mythological meanings, moral phenomena and philosophical situations , sustainable motives and eternal images, as well as an arsenal of universally significant art forms (style and genre). Topeka constitutes a fund of literary continuity, which is rooted in the archaic and is replenished from era to era.

The world literary process is characterized stadiality. In modern literary criticism, there are three stages of the world literary process .

The first stage is “the mythopoetic artistic consciousness of the archaic period”, or, as the authors of the concept called it, “poetics without poetics”. Literature exists in the form of folklore. Mythopoeic consciousness prevails. There is no reflection on verbal art. No literary criticism, theoretical studies, artistic programs.

The second stage (the middle of the 1st millennium BC - the middle of the 18th century) is the “traditionalist artistic consciousness”, “the poetics of style and genre”. This stage is characterized by "orientation to pre-made forms of speech that meet the requirements of rhetoric and are dependent on genre canons." Gradually there is a "transition from the impersonal beginning to the personal", literature acquires a secular character.

Finally, the third stage (mid-18th century - ...), it lasts to this day. It is characterized by "individual creative artistic consciousness", or "author's poetics". With the advent of romanticism as a new type of artistic consciousness and artistic practice on the literary arena, there is a “liberation from the genre and style prescriptions of rhetoric”, “literature is moving closer to human being”, the “epoch of individual author's styles” begins.

Based on the theory of the dialogue of cultures, the interconnected study of Russian and foreign literature today is a necessary condition for the formation of a holistic view of the world literary process as part of a school language course. Which, in turn, contributes to the formation of a holistic philosophical approach to reality.

At literature lessons, schoolchildren get acquainted with the heritage of the greatest poets, playwrights, prose writers, whose works have entered the treasury of world culture, have become the common property of mankind. The national originality of native literature cannot be comprehended outside the broad context of world literature. To carry out this task allows the interconnected study of Russian and foreign literature.

At the same time, a deep understanding by the teacher of the main characteristics of the world literary process is necessary: an idea of its content, units, stages, dynamics and stability, unity and national originality of the literatures of the world.

International literary connections

The unity of the world literary process is determined by the links between individual literatures. Literary ties in the context of cultural ties existed between peoples, countries, continents from the very beginning. Throughout the literary history of mankind, world literature has evolved as a whole, which is in continuous formation and development. It is especially important to comprehend the development of world literature as a systemic unity. This is not a mechanistic sum of the literatures of individual peoples, but a polysyllabic phenomenon, considered in the internal relationships and interconnections of its parts, the patterns of development. The most important evidence of commonality literary development humanity in the era of its modern and recent history - a uniform change of methods and styles in the literatures of different peoples.

In the process of school teaching, the development of literature at all stages should be studied, on the one hand, on the basis of considering the literary phenomenon as an element of the public consciousness of a certain social group and era in a particular country, and, on the other hand, in correlating the literary phenomenon with the movement of the entire world literary process.

The teacher needs to understand the nature of literary relationships. With a variety of classifications, it is most expedient to distinguish them from the standpoint of the method of implementation. Relationships and correspondences in the literary processes of various national cultures can be the result of contact connections, genetic affinity, literary transplantation, typological convergence.

ü Literary contacts- connections in which there is a direct contact of aesthetic ideas or literary works. Belonging to a certain national culture determines the peculiarities of the perception and interpretation of the phenomenon foreign literature.

Here it is appropriate to quote the following opinion of a well-known literary critic: “Naming the names of Byron, Walter Scott, Dickens, George Sand, we recall the writers, without whom the composition of Russian literature of the 19th century would have been significantly different. Without Byron, there would not have been, at least in the same form, "Prisoner of the Caucasus" and "Gypsies", "Demon" and "Mtsyri" and a number of romantic poems 20s and 30s; without Walter Scott we would not have " captain's daughter"and" Dubrovsky "," Taras Bulba "and" Prince of Silver, not to mention the historical novels of Zagoskin, Lazhechnikov and others.

ü genetic affinity presupposes the existence of a single source of literary phenomena. For example, common ancient sources of European literature, the ascent to the drama of Tirso de Molina of numerous national versions of the story of Don Giovanni, as well as folk and literary tales with similar plots (see below), etc.

ü Literary transplantation– transfer of essential phenomena of foreign literature and their assimilation. An example is Old Russian literature, its perception of elements of Byzantine culture. (see, for example, the Ostromir Gospel)

ü Typological similarities- an obligatory consequence of the fundamental unity of development human culture and a necessary condition for the implementation of contact links between national literatures. For example, the spontaneous emergence of similar fairy tale plots in the literatures of the East and West (for example, " golden fish» - Chinese folk tale, Russian folk tale about the helper fish, Indian tale about the helper felling, "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish").

Typological convergence is not only a type of literary connections. This, which is especially important, is the fundamental principle of the unity of world literature. Here are two examples of typological similarities that will be of great interest to both the teacher and the students. We will talk about the phenomena of the history of literature, which will complement the picture of the world literary process in the minds of students.

The classic plot of the comparative history of literature - Faust in Goethe and Pushkin - is the first of them. The image of Faust in two the greatest poets became, in a way, the result of the Enlightenment. And in this case, scientists to this day have not been able to unequivocally answer the question - typological or contact literary connections here became the basis for the similarity of images.

Summarizing the experience of the previous generation of leading researchers of the works of Pushkin and Goethe, among which the academician's research is the most important, he proposes this task for solving high school students attending an elective course in foreign literature. The researcher designates the question as the cornerstone of the problem: “Did Pushkin know about the intention of the second part of Faust when (probably) in the summer of 1825 he wrote“ A New Scene between Faust and Mephistopheles ”? Or did he, independently of Goethe, arrive at a similar interpretation of the story about Faust?

The exact date of Pushkin's first acquaintance with Goethe's work is still unknown, however, it must be remembered that in 1820, for the first version of The Prisoner of the Caucasus, lines from Goethe's Faust, written in German, were taken as an epigraph.

Goethe considered the second part of Faust while working on the first part in 1824, but completed it only after 1824. It is possible that when starting the second part of Faust, Goethe heard from one of the Russian travelers about working with the same subject, which he was extremely interested in. Pushkin created the "Scene from Faust" in Mikhailovsky in 1826, it was published in 1828 in the "Moscow Bulletin".

Alekseev devoted a thorough study to this problem. However, it has remained unresolved. Goethe and Pushkin, almost at the same time, came to the same solution to the story of Faust. Their common motif is Faust on the seashore.

It is on the seashore that Faust becomes for Pushkin "a symbol of the fate of a Western European person, a representative of a new cultural era." offers this leitmotif, Faust as a symbol of cultural destiny, to make the basis for comparison. Following M. Epstein, who drew a parallel between Goethe's "Faust" and Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman", we note the commonality in the images of Faust and Peter. Both of them are elemental transformers. Although the Bronze Horseman was completed a year after Goethe's death, in 1833, its design dates back to 1824, the year of the St. Petersburg flood. This event aroused keen interest in both Pushkin and Goethe.

However, the year 1824 has another important meaning for world culture - it is the year of Byron's death. The heroes of the poets go to the sea, which was perceived as a Byronic element. Poets responded to the death of the greatest of romantics almost immediately. Pushkin created “To the Sea” (July 16-31, 1824), where there were lines later crossed out by censorship: “The fate of the earth is the same everywhere: / Where a drop of goodness is, there is on guard / Enlightenment is a tyrant ...”. This variant, as he claims, is connected with the lines from Childe Harold, translated by Batyushkov from the Italian interlinear in 1828: the sea - what will it appropriate for itself?
Work hard, build huge ships ... ". Batyushkov broke off his translation at the point where Byron sees an enlightened person as a "vain tyrant", whose activity is doomed in the face of the elements. When Pushkin in the poem "To the Sea" brought the Enlightenment and the tyrant closer together, he did so following Byron's thought, changing its outcome: Enlightenment and tyranny seemed to him stronger than the elements.

For Goethe and Pushkin, Faust on the seashore symbolizes the end of the era of romanticism imbued with the name of Byron, the era of utopias and disappointments in them. The era came when the concept of "Enlightenment" returned, but it was no longer connected with freedom, equality, fraternity, but with tyranny - the arbitrariness of a person whose activity has lost its moral meaning.

For Goethe, the motif of the sea appears in act IV of the second part - "Mountainous area". At the end of the previous act, the Beautiful Helena and Faust part after the death of their son Euphorion, in whose dead face the face of Byron showed through. When looking at the sea, Faust for the first time has an idea about the transformation of the elements, the violation of its repetitive useless course. With the help of Mephistopheles, he conquers the coast and in act V - "Open Country" - begins grandiose construction. The victims are Philemon and Baucis, the patriarchal couple and the Wanderer (in Ovid's Metamorphoses, the source of the plot, an unrecognized god was hiding behind this image). The realization of utopia begins with a human tragedy. The transducer is blind spiritually, this becomes a metaphor at the end of the tragedy, where Faust really goes blind.

The finale of the tragedy was written in the year of Goethe's death (1832), seven years later than Pushkin's scene. Shaitanov believes: "if we compare Pushkin's Faust with the hero of Goethe, then he could be like that after the first part of the tragedy." This is a farewell to the sea, Odessa, Byron, romanticism, bringing boredom to the state of universal denial, to the point of self-elimination of it. This essence is reduced by the words of Mephistopheles. Pushkin's Faust is different from Goethe's Faust - he passed the test and temptation of romantic boredom, he is disappointed.

But there are similarities in these images. Disappointment in activity is a motive that arises on the seashore. In Pushkin's "Scene from Faust" this motive is the thought, the mood of the hero, similar to the Byronic hero. Goethe in "Faust" rises to a great historical height, a position that Pushkin will take in " The Bronze Horseman". Faust and The Bronze Horseman raise the question of the consequences of free man and the moral limits of his freedom. As it were, greatest artists of two national cultures expressed the worldview common to Russian and European literature.

One of the many examples of typological convergence in the culture of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. can serve as a common worldview of artists belonging to different national cultures, who did not have the opportunity to get to know each other personally, or even to get acquainted with each other's works.

Alexander Blok, analyzing Madness, said that “it resembles modern painting - some strange monster with glassy eyes forever gazing into the clouds buried in the fiery sands. At the same time, Blok quotes Tyutchev’s lines: “Where the vault of heaven merged with the charred earth / Merged like smoke, - / There, in cheerful carelessness / Pitiful madness lives. / Under the hot rays, / Buried in the fiery sands, / It is with glass eyes / Looking for something in the clouds<…>"Madness" (1830)

https://pandia.ru/text/78/098/images/image002_50.gif" width="461" height="257">

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1, "Peace"

One gets the impression that Blok is describing a picture of Čiurlionis that he had not seen before. This was accurately established by M. Roziner, a researcher of the work of the Lithuanian composer and artist. But the general feeling of the era, foreshadowing the tragedy of the coming twentieth century, served as the starting point for its figurative representation by Blok and Čiurlionis. This is how the typological connections of cultures are manifested.

The identification and analysis of literary interactions makes it possible to realize the internal unity of world literature and the national originality of native literature.

Literary encyclopedia of terms and concepts / Ch. comp. . M., 2003.S. 149-151.

Big literary encyclopedia for schoolchildren and students / Krasovsky V. E et al. M .: Slovo, 2003. S. 419.

Literary encyclopedia of terms and concepts. / Ch. comp. . M., 2003.S.467-471

See more: Panchenko and cultural distance// Historical Poetics: Results and Perspectives of Study. M., 1986. S. 240, 236.

See more: and others. "Categories of Poetics in the Change of Literary Epochs", 1994.

Zhirmunsky in Russian literature. L., 1981. S. 24.

See for more details:, Afanasiev Literature. Methodological advice. M., 2008.

Afanasiev Literature. Methodological advice. M., 2008. P.52.

Glebov Gl. Pushkin and Goethe // Links. II. M., L., 1933. S. 41.

See more: Epstein M. Faust and Peter on the seashore. 1979

Vatsuro Batyushkov's elegy: on the history of the text// Vatsuro commentator. St. Petersburg, 1994, pp. 103-123.

Afanasiev Literature. Methodological advice. M., 2008. P.57.

Block. cit.: V 6 t. M., 1971. T. 6. S. 109.

Fundamentals of Literary Theory

Literary process and its categories. (Workshop 7)

Question 1: The literary process as component sociocultural process.

Question 2: Stages of development of the literary process, periodization.

In literary criticism, the notion of the presence of moments of commonality (recurrence) in the development of the literatures of different countries and peoples, of its single “progressive” movement in great historical time, is rooted and no one disputes. In the article “The Future of Literature as a Subject of Study” D.S. Likhachev speaks of the steady growth of the personal principle in literary creativity), the strengthening of its humanistic character, the growth of realistic tendencies and the greater freedom of choice of forms by writers, as well as the deepening historicism artistic consciousness. “The historicity of consciousness,” the scientist asserts, “requires a person to be aware of the historical relativity of his own consciousness. Historicity is associated with “self-denial”, with the ability of the mind to understand its own limitations.”

The stages of the literary process are habitually conceived as corresponding to those stages in the history of mankind that manifested themselves most distinctly and fully in the countries of Western Europe and especially brightly in the Romanesque. In this regard, ancient, medieval and modern literatures with their own stages stand out (following the Renaissance - baroque, classicism, the Enlightenment with its sentimentalist branch, romanticism, and finally, realism, with which modernism coexists and successfully competes in the 20th century) .

Scholars have best understood the stage differences between the literatures of the New Age and the literature that preceded them. Ancient and medieval literature was characterized by the prevalence of works with non-artistic functions (religious and ritual, informative and business, etc.); wide existence of anonymity; predominance of oral verbal creativity over writing, which resorted more to records oral traditions and previously created texts, rather than “writing”. An important feature of ancient and medieval literatures was also the instability of the texts, the presence in them of bizarre alloys of “one's own” and “alien”, and as a result, the “blurring” of the boundaries between the original and translated writing. In modern times, however, literature is emancipated as a phenomenon proper (358) artistic; writing becomes the dominant form of verbal art; open individual authorship is activated; literary development acquires much greater dynamism. All this seems undeniable.

The situation is more complicated with the distinction between ancient and medieval literatures. It is not a problem in relation to Western Europe (ancient Greek and Roman antiquity are fundamentally different from medieval culture more “northern” countries), but raises doubts and disputes when referring to the literatures of other, primarily eastern, regions. Yes, and the so-called Old Russian literature was essentially a medieval type of writing.

The key question of the history of world literature is debatable: what are the geographical boundaries of the Renaissance with its artistic culture and, in particular, literature? If N.I. Conrad and the scientists of his school consider the Renaissance to be a global phenomenon, recurring and varying not only in the countries of the West, but also in the eastern regions, then other experts, also authoritative, consider the Renaissance as a specific and unique phenomenon of Western European (mainly Italian) culture: meaning Italian Renaissance acquired not because he was the most typical and the best among all the renaissances that happened, but because there were no other renaissances. This one was the only one."

At the same time, modern scientists are moving away from the usual apologetic assessment of the Western European Renaissance, revealing its duality. On the one hand, the Renaissance enriched culture with the concept of complete freedom and independence of the individual, the idea of unconditional trust in the creative abilities of man, on the other hand, the Renaissance “philosophy of luck fed<...>spirit of adventurism and immorality”.

Discussion of the problem geographical boundaries The Renaissance revealed the insufficiency of the traditional scheme of the world literary process, which is focused mainly on Western European cultural and historical experience and is marked by limitations, which is usually called "Eurocentrism". And scientists for two or three recent decades(the palm here belongs (359) to S.S. Averintsev) put forward and substantiated a concept that complements and, to some extent, revises the usual ideas about the stages of literary development. Here, to a greater extent than before, firstly, the specifics of verbal art and, secondly, the experience of non-European regions and countries are taken into account. In the concluding collective article of 1994 “Categories of Poetics in the Change of Literary Epochs”, three stages of world literature are singled out and characterized.

First stage- this is the “archaic period”, where the folklore tradition is certainly influential. Here the mythopoetic artistic consciousness prevails and there is still no reflection on verbal art, and therefore there is no literary criticism, no theoretical studies, no artistic and creative programs. All this appears only in second stage literary process, the beginning of which was laid by the literary life of Ancient Greece in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. and which continued until mid-eighteenth V. This very long period is marked by the predominance traditionalism artistic consciousness and “poetics of style and genre”: writers focused on pre-made forms of speech that met the requirements of rhetoric (see about it on pp. 228–229), and were dependent on genre canons. Within the framework of this second stage, in turn, two stages are distinguished, the boundary between which was the Renaissance (here, we note, we are talking mainly about the European artistic culture). At the second of these stages, which replaced the Middle Ages, literary consciousness takes a step from an impersonal beginning to a personal one (although still within the framework of traditionalism); Literature is becoming more secular.

And finally on third stage, which began with the era of Enlightenment and romanticism, "individual creative artistic consciousness" is put forward to the fore. From now on, the “poetics of the author”, freed from the omnipotence of the genre and style prescriptions of rhetoric, dominates. Here literature, as never before, “is extremely close to the immediate and concrete being of a person, imbued with his concerns, thoughts, feelings, created according to his measure”; the era of individual author's styles is coming; the literary process is most closely associated "simultaneously with the personality of the writer and the reality surrounding him." All this takes place in romanticism and in realism. 19th century, and to no small extent in the modernism of our century. It is to these phenomena of the literary process that we turn now. (360)