Epic as a type of literature is an epic genre. Smaller elements

Epic, unlike lyricism and drama, is impartial and objective at the moment of narration.

Epic genres

Large ones - epic, novel, epic poem (poem-epic);
Middle - story,
Small - story, short story, essay.

Also included in the epic are folklore genres: fairy tale, epic, historical song.

Meaning

An epic work has no limitations in its scope. According to V. E. Khalizev, “Epic as a type of literature includes both short stories(...), as well as works designed for prolonged listening or reading: epics, novels (...).”

Significant role For epic genres carries the image of a narrator (storyteller), who talks about the events themselves, about the characters, but at the same time delimits himself from what is happening. The epic, in turn, reproduces and captures not only what is being told, but also the narrator (his manner of speaking, his mentality).

An epic work can use almost any artistic medium known in literature. The narrative form of an epic work “promotes the deepest penetration into the inner world of man.”

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Literature

Veselovsky A. N., Shishmarev V. F.,. Epic // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
Khalizev V. E. Theory of literature. - M., 2009. - P. 302-303.
Belokurova S. P. .

An excerpt characterizing Epic (a type of literature)

- What is this?! – the girl asked in fear. “Is that us there?...” she whispered very quietly, pointing her finger at her bloody physical face. - How can this be... but here, it’s us too?..
It was clear that everything that was happening shocked her, and her greatest desire at that moment was to hide somewhere from it all...
- Mom, where are you?! – the little girl suddenly screamed. - Mom-ah!
She looked about four years old, no more. Thin blonde braids, with huge pink bows woven into them, and funny “pretzels” puffed up on both sides, making her look like a kind faun. Wide-open, large gray eyes looked in confusion at the world that was so familiar and familiar to her, which suddenly for some reason became incomprehensible, alien and cold... She was very scared, and she did not hide it at all.
The boy was eight or nine years old. He was thin and fragile, but his round “professor” glasses made him look a little older, and he seemed very businesslike and serious in them. But in at the moment all his seriousness suddenly evaporated somewhere, giving way to absolute confusion.
A sobbing, sympathetic crowd had already gathered around the cars, and a few minutes later the police appeared, escorting ambulance. Our town was still not large at that time, so city services could respond to any “emergency” incident in a fairly organized and quick manner.
The emergency doctors, having quickly consulted about something, began to carefully remove the mutilated bodies one by one. The first was the body of a boy, whose essence stood in a stupor next to me, unable to say or think anything.
The poor thing was shaking wildly, apparently it was too hard for his childish overexcited brain. He just looked with wide eyes at what had just been “him” and could not get out of the protracted “tetanus”.
– Mommy, Mom!!! – the girl screamed again. – Vidas, Vidas, why doesn’t she hear me?!
Or rather, she screamed only mentally, because at that moment, unfortunately, she was already physically dead... just like her little brother.
And her poor mother, physical body who was still tenaciously holding on to her fragile life, which was barely glimmering in him, could not hear her in any way, since at that moment they were already in different worlds, inaccessible to each other...
The kids were getting more and more lost and I felt that just a little more and the girl would go into real nervous shock (if you can call it that, speaking of a disembodied entity?).
– Why are we lying there?!.. Why doesn’t mom answer us?! – the girl was still screaming, tugging at her brother’s sleeve.
“Probably because we are dead...” the boy said, chattering his teeth finely.
- And mom? – the little girl whispered in horror.
“Mom is alive,” my brother answered not very confidently.
- What about us? Well, tell them that we are here, that they cannot leave without us! Tell them!!! – the girl still couldn’t calm down.

For all the relativity of the boundaries separating one poetic genre from another, for all complex system mutual transitions, each work of art always represents one or another poetic genre - epic, literature or drama.

“Taking into account the generic specifics of works of art when studying them at school will help schoolchildren understand literature as an art form and create the necessary attitude towards the perception of epic, lyricism, and drama. Each of these types of art differs in the manner of reflecting reality, and in the way of expressing the author’s creation, and in the nature of the impact on the reader. Therefore, with unity methodological principles in their study, the methodology for working on epic, lyric and drama is different.” The qualitative certainty of poetic genera, the specificity of the content of each of them, the very principle of the artistic translation of life material accessible to epic, lyric poetry and drama, is first of all discovered by the artist of words. “The very idea already, as it were, carries within itself in embryo the artistic possibilities of epic, lyricism or drama. Therefore, it is natural that comprehension of the laws of the poetic kind is necessary for the reader, especially the literature teacher, who seeks to penetrate into art world works."

2. Epic as a type of literature.

a) features of the epic type of literature.

Epic (Greek epos - word, narrative, story) - literary genre, highlighted alongside lyrics and drama. An epic, like a drama, reproduces an action unfolding in space and time, the course of events in the lives of the characters. A specific feature of the epic is the organizing role of the narrator: the speaker reports events and their details as something that happened and is remembered, simultaneously resorting to descriptions of the setting of the action and the appearance of the characters, and sometimes to discrepancies.

Most precise definition V.G. Belinsky gave the epic: “epic poetry is primarily objective, external poetry, both in relation to itself and to the poet and his reader. Epic poetry expresses the contemplation of the world and life as existing in themselves and being in perfect balance with themselves and the poet or reader contemplating them.”

I.A. Gulyaev also speaks of the objectivity of the epic narrative: “In epic work external circumstances determine the behavior of the actors, their present and future.”

The narrative layer of the epic work interacts with the dialogues and monologues of the characters. The epic narrative either becomes self-pressing, temporarily suspending the statements of the heroes, or is imbued with their spirit in inappropriately direct speech; Sometimes it frames the characters’ remarks, sometimes, on the contrary, it is reduced to a minimum or temporarily disappears. But overall it dominates the work, holding together everything depicted in it. Therefore, the features of the epic are largely determined by the properties of the narrative.

The epic narration is conducted on behalf of the named narrator, a kind of mediator between the person depicted and the listeners, a witness and interpreter of what happened. Information about his fate, his relationships with the characters, and the circumstances of the “story” are usually missing. At the same time, the narrator can “condense” into a specific person, becoming a storyteller.

The epic is as free as possible in the exploration of space and time. The writer either creates scenic episodes, that is, pictures that record one place and one moment in the life of the characters, or - in descriptive, overview, "panoramic" episodes - he talks about long periods of time or what happened in different places. The epic uses the arsenal of literary and visual means to its fullest extent, which gives the images the illusion of plastic three-dimensionality and visual and auditory authenticity. The epic does not insist on the conventionality of what is being recreated. Here it is not so much the depicted itself, but the “depicting” one, that is, the narrator, who is often characterized by absolute knowledge of what happened in its smallest details.

The epic form is based on various types plot structures. In some cases, the dynamics of events are revealed openly and in detail, in others, the depiction of the course of events seems to be drowned in descriptions, psychological characteristics, reasoning. The volume of text of an epic work, which can be either prosaic or poetic, is practically unlimited - from miniature stories to lengthy epics and novels. An epic can concentrate in itself such a number of characters and events that are not available to other types of literature and types of art. At the same time, the narrative form is able to recreate complex, contradictory, multifaceted characters that are in the making. Associated with the word “epic” is the idea of showing life in its integrity, of revealing the essence an entire era and scale creative act. The scope of epic genres is not limited to any types of experiences and attitudes. The nature of the epic is the universally wide use of the cognitive and ideological capabilities of literature and art in general.

So, the main features of epic works are the reproduction of phenomena of reality external to the author in the objective course of events, narration and plot. When studying epic as a type of literature, it is necessary to familiarize students with these features. This is especially important when distinguishing between types and genres of literature.

b) the uniqueness of the epic genres.

Difficulties that arise when analyzing epic works arise when determining the genre of the work. A serious mistake will be made by anyone who begins to consider a story or story, placing demands on them that only a novel can meet.

One of methodological tasks teachers - introduce students to genre originality epic works and teach how to apply this knowledge when analyzing works. It is important to consider age characteristics students and stages literary education at school. In grades V - VI, the study of genres of literary works (fairy tale, legend, myth, chronicle, epic, fable, story, story, ballad, poem) serves to clarify the author's poetry. Work in VII – VIII grades is aimed at systematizing ideas about the types and genres of literature; the range of study includes such genres as: novel, biography, hagiography, parable, sermon, confession, short story. Literary theory in high school helps to trace historical changes in poetics literary families and genres.

Epic genres are divided into large (epic, novel), medium (life, story) and small (fairy tale, fable, parable, short story, short story, sketch, essay). Some forms of prose also belong to the lyrical-epic genres.

The methodology for analyzing an epic work is largely based on the uniqueness of the type and genre. And the volume of the work plays an important role in choosing the path of analysis. This is due to time constraints and saturation school curriculum. Here's how to solve it in this case the problem of analyzing the works of M.A. Rybnikov: “Methodological techniques are dictated by the nature of the work... A ballad can be analyzed using a plan, but it is unlikely that a lyrical work should be planned. Little story read and understand in its entirety. From the novel we select individual, leading chapters and read one of them in class, another at home, carefully analyze the third and retell it close to the text, analyze the fourth, fifth, sixth in more detail. fast pace and retell briefly, excerpts from the seventh and eighth chapters are given in the form fiction story to individual students, the epilogue is told to the class by the teacher himself. The riddle is guessed and repeated by heart, the proverb is explained and accompanied by everyday examples, the fable is analyzed with the expectation of understanding the morality expressed in it.”

Epic- a type of literature (along with lyrics and drama), a narrative about events supposed in the past (as if they had happened and are remembered by the narrator). The epic embraces existence in its plastic volume, spatio-temporal extension and event intensity (plot content). According to Aristotle's Poetics, epic, unlike lyric poetry and drama, is impartial and objective at the time of narration.

▪ Large - epic, novel, epic poem (poem-epic);

▪ Middle - story,

▪ Small - story, short story, essay.

Epic also includes folklore genres: fairy tale, epic, epic, historical song.

Meaning:

An epic work that has no limitations in its scope. According to V.E. Khalisev, “Epic as a type of literature includes both short stories (...) and works designed for long-term listening or reading: epics, novels (...).”

A significant role for the epic genres is played by the image of the narrator (storyteller), who talks about the events themselves, about the characters, but at the same time demarcates himself from what is happening. The epic, in turn, reproduces and captures not only what is being told, but also the narrator (his manner of speaking, his mentality).

An epic work can use almost any artistic means known to literature. The narrative form of an epic work “promotes the deepest penetration into the inner world of man.”

Until the 18th century, the leading genre of epic literature was the epic poem. The source of its plot is folk legend, the images are idealized and generalized, the speech reflects the relatively monolithic national consciousness, the form is poetic (Homer's Iliad). In the XVIII-XIX centuries. The leading genre is the novel. Plots are borrowed mainly from modern times, images are individualized, speech reflects a sharply differentiated multilingual public consciousness, prosaic form (L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoevsky).

Other genres of epic are tale, short story, short story. Striving for a complete reflection of life, epic works tend to be combined into cycles. Based on the same trend, an epic novel is emerging (“The Forsyte Saga” by J. Galsworthy).

One of the founders of Russian literary criticism was V.G. Belinsky. And although serious steps were taken in antiquity in developing the concept of literary gender (Aristotle), it was Belinsky who owned the scientifically based 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 Types.”

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

When presenting this or that subject to the reader (meaning the subject of conversation), the author chooses different approaches to it:

The first approach: you can tell in detail about the object, the events associated with it, the circumstances of the existence of this object, etc.; in this case, the author’s position will be more or less detached, the author will act as a kind of chronicler, narrator, or choose one of the characters as the narrator; The main thing in such a work will be the story, the narration about the subject, the leading type of speech will be the narration; this kind of literature is called epic;

The second approach: you can tell not so much about the events as about the impression they made on the author, about the feelings they aroused; image inner world, experiences, impressions and will relate to the lyrical genre of literature; it is the experience that becomes the main event of the lyrics;

Third approach: you can depict an object in action, show it on stage; present it to the reader and viewer surrounded by other phenomena; this kind of literature is dramatic; in a drama, the author's voice will be heard least often - in stage directions, that is, the author's explanations of the actions and remarks of the characters.

Look at the table and try to remember its contents:

Types of fiction

EPOS

DRAMA

LYRICS

(Greek - narrative)

story about events, the fate of the heroes, their actions and adventures, a depiction of the external side of what is happening (even feelings are shown from their external manifestation). The author can directly express his attitude to what is happening.

(Greek - action)

image events and relationships between characters on stage(a special way of writing text). The direct expression of the author's point of view in the text is contained in the stage directions.

(from the name of the musical instrument)

experience events; depiction of feelings, inner world, emotional state; the feeling becomes the main event.

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

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

Examples of genus-species relationships in the literature:

Genus: dramatic; view: comedy; genre: sitcom.

Genus: epic; view: story; genre: fantastic story etc.

Genres, being historical categories, appear, develop and, over time, “leave” from the “active stock” of artists depending on historical era: ancient lyricists did not know the sonnet; nowadays archaic genre became born in ancient times and popular in XVII-XVIII centuries ode; romanticism XIX centuries brought to life detective literature etc.

Consider the following table, which presents the types and genres related to the various types of word art:

Genera, types and genres artistic literature

EPOS

DRAMA

Poem (epic):

Heroic

Strogovoinskaya

Fabulous-

legendary

Historical...

Fairy tale

Bylina

Thought

Legend

Tradition

Ballad

Parable

Small genres:

proverbs

sayings

nursery rhymes...

EpicNovel:

Historical

Fantastic.

Adventurous

Psychological

R.-parable

Utopian

Social...

Small genres:

Lit. fairy tale...

Game

Ritual

Folk drama

Raek

Nativity scene...

Tragedy

Comedy:

provisions,

characters,

Drama:

philosophical

social

historical

social-philosophical

Vaudeville

Farce

Tragifarce...

Song

Hymn

Elegy

Sonnet

Message

Madrigal

Romance

Rondo

Epigram...

Modern literary criticism also highlights fourth, a related genre of literature that combines the features of the epic and lyrical genres: lyric-epic, which refers to poem. And 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 lyricism.

In the table you came across the expression “small genres”. Epic and lyrical works divided into large and small genres in to a greater extent by volume. Large ones include an epic, novel, poem, and small ones include a story, short story, fable, song, sonnet, etc.

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

“Our modern life is too diverse, complex, fragmented (...) There are events, there are cases that, so to speak, would not be enough for a drama, would not be enough for a novel, but which are deep, which concentrate so much life in one moment, no matter how much it can be eliminated in centuries: the story catches them and encloses them in its narrow framework (...) Brief and quick, light and deep at the same time, it flies from subject to subject, splits life into little things and tears out leaves from the great book of this life." .

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

Minor epic genres, to which the story belongs, is prose that is “intensive” in content: the writer, due to its small volume, does not have the opportunity to “spread his thoughts along the tree”, to get carried away detailed descriptions, transfers, reproduce large number events in detail, but the reader often needs to tell 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 by the author;

Small number of characters: usually one or two central hero;

One is being decided main question, the remaining questions are “derived” from the main one.

So,
STORY- it's small prose work with one or two main characters, dedicated to depicting a single event. Somewhat more voluminous story, but the difference between a story and a story is not always possible to catch: some people call A. Chekhov’s work “The Duel” a short story, and some call it a big story. The following is important: as the critic E. Anichkov wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century, “at the center of the stories is the individual’s personality, and not a whole group of people.”

The heyday of Russian short prose begins in the 20s of the 19th century, which gave excellent examples of short epic prose, including the absolute masterpieces of Pushkin (“Belkin’s Tales”, “ Queen of Spades") and Gogol ("Evenings on a farm near Dikanka", St. Petersburg stories), romantic short stories by A. Pogorelsky, A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, V. Odoevsky and others. In the second half of the 19th century, short epic works by F. Dostoevsky were created ("Dream funny man", "Notes from the Underground", N. Leskova ("Lefty", "The Stupid Artist", "Lady Macbeth Mtsensk district"), I. Turgenev ("Hamlet of Shchigrovsky District", "King of the Steppes Lear", "Ghosts", "Notes of a Hunter"), L. Tolstoy (" Caucasian prisoner", "Hadji Murat", "Cossacks", Sevastopol stories), A. Chekhov as the greatest master of the short story, works by V. Garshin, D. Grigorovich, G. Uspensky and many others.

The twentieth century also did not remain in debt - and stories by I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, M. Zoshchenko, Teffi, A. Averchenko, M. Bulgakov appear... Even such recognized lyricists as A. Blok, N. Gumilyov, M. Tsvetaeva “they stooped to despicable prose,” in the words of Pushkin. It can be argued that at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the small genre of epic took a leading position in Russian literature.

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

If the plot of the miniature I. Bunin "Muravsky Way", consisting of only 64 words, captures only a few moments of the conversation between the traveler and the coachman in the middle of the endless steppe, then the plot of the story A. Chekhov "Ionych" enough for a whole novel: artistic time The story spans almost a decade and a half. But it doesn’t matter to the author 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 to the reader. “As you live one day of your life, you will live your whole life,” Chekhov seems to be saying. At the same time, the writer, reproducing the situation in the house of the most “cultured” family in the provincial town of S., can focus all his attention on the knocking of knives from the kitchen and the smell of fried onions ( artistic details!), but to talk about several years of a person’s life as if they didn’t exist at all, or as if it was a “passing”, uninteresting time: “Four years have passed”, “Several more years have passed”, as if it’s not worth wasting time and paper for the image of such a trifle...

Image everyday life a person devoid of external storms and shocks, but in a routine that forces a person to forever wait for happiness that never comes, became the cross-cutting theme of A. Chekhov’s stories, which determined the further development of Russian short prose.

Historical upheavals, of course, dictate other themes and subjects to the artist. M. Sholokhov in a loop Don stories speaks of terrible and wonderful human destinies in times of revolutionary upheaval. But the point here is not so much in the revolution itself, but in eternal problem the struggle of a person with himself, in the eternal tragedy of the collapse of the old familiar world, which humanity has experienced many times. And therefore Sholokhov turns to plots that have long been rooted in world literature, depicting private human life as if in the context of the world legendary history. Thus, in the story “The Birthmark,” Sholokhov uses a plot as ancient as the world about a duel between father and son, unrecognized by each other, which we encounter in Russian epics and epics. ancient Persia and medieval Germany... But if ancient epic explains the tragedy of a father who killed his son in battle by the laws of fate, which is not subject to man’s control, then Sholokhov talks about the problem of a person’s choice of his life path, the choice that determines everything further events and in the end makes one a beast in human form, and the other an equal greatest heroes past.

Epic (from the Greek epos - word, narrative, story) is a type of literature that is characterized by the depiction of reality in an objective narrative form. As a rule, the time of the depicted action and the time of the narration about it do not coincide - this is one of the most important differences from other types of literature.

Methods of presentation - narration, description, dialogue, monologue, author's digressions. The author's description of events unfolding in space and time, the narration of various life phenomena, people, their destinies, characters, actions, etc., is distinguished by a calm, contemplative, detached attitude towards what is depicted.

The epic text is like some kind of alloy narrative speech and characters' statements. It has an unlimited volume (from short stories to multi-volume cycles (for example, “The Human Comedy” by Honoré de Balzac unites 98 novels and short stories) - this allows you to “absorb” such a number of characters, circumstances, events, destinies, details that are not available to anyone else. other types of literature, nor any other type of art.

The epic, compared to other types of literature, has the richest arsenal artistic means, which makes it possible to reveal the inner world of a person with the greatest depth and show it in development.

A special role in epic works is played by the author-narrator or storyteller. His speech (content and style) is the only, but very effective means of creating the image of this character. Despite the fact that sometimes the narrator is ideologically close to the writer, they cannot be identified (for example, the narrator in I.S. Shmelev’s work “The Summer of the Lord” and the author himself are not the same person).

Epic genres

Large ones - epic, novel, epic poem (poem-epic);

Middle - story,

Small - story, short story, essay.

Epic also includes folklore genres: fairy tale, epic, historical song.

The meaning of the epic

An epic work has no limitations in its scope. According to V.E. Khalisev, “Epic as a type of literature includes both short stories (...) and works designed for long-term listening or reading: epics, novels (...).”

An epic work can use almost any artistic means known to literature. The narrative form of an epic work “promotes the deepest penetration into the inner world of man.”

Until the 18th century, the leading genre of epic literature was the epic poem. The source of its plot is folk legend, the images are idealized and generalized, the speech reflects a relatively monolithic popular consciousness, the form is poetic (Homer's Iliad). In the XVIII-XIX centuries. The leading genre is the novel. The plots are borrowed mainly from modern times, the images are individualized, the speech reflects a sharply differentiated multilingual social consciousness, the form is prosaic (L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoevsky).

21. Drama as a literary genre. Three variants of drama theory

Drama (Old Greek drama - action) is a type of literature that reflects life in actions taking place in the present.

Dramatic works are intended to be staged, and this determines specific features dramas:

1) lack of narrative-descriptive image;

3) main text dramatic work presented in the form of replicas of the characters (monologue and dialogue);

4) drama as a type of literature does not have such a variety of artistic and visual means as epic: speech and action are the main means of creating the image of a hero;

5) the volume of text and time of action is limited to the stage;

6) the requirements of stage art dictate such a feature of drama as a certain exaggeration (hyperbolization): “exaggeration of events, exaggeration of feelings and exaggeration of expressions” (L.N. Tolstoy) - in other words, theatrical showiness, increased expressiveness; the viewer of the play feels the conventionality of what is happening, which A.S. said very well. Pushkin: “the very essence of dramatic art excludes verisimilitude... when reading a poem, a novel, we can often forget ourselves and believe that the incident described is not fiction, but the truth. In an ode, in an elegy, we can think that the poet depicted his real feelings, in real circumstances. But where is the credibility in a building divided into two parts, one of which is filled with spectators who agreed etc.

Drama (ancient Greek δρᾶμα - act, action) is one of three kinds literature, along with epic and lyric poetry, belongs simultaneously to two types of art: literature and theater. Intended for performance on stage, drama formally differs from epic and lyric poetry in that the text in it is presented in the form of characters’ remarks and author’s remarks and, as a rule, is divided into actions and phenomena. Anything relates to drama in one way or another literary work, built in a dialogical form, including comedy, tragedy, drama (as a genre), farce, vaudeville, etc.

Since ancient times it has existed in folklore or literary form at various peoples; The ancient Greeks, ancient Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and American Indians created their own dramatic traditions independently of each other.

IN literal translation From ancient Greek, drama means “action”.

Types of Drama tragedy drama (genre) drama for reading (play for reading)

Melodrama hierodrama mystery comedy vaudeville farce zaju

History of drama The beginnings of drama are in primitive poetry, in which the later elements of lyricism, epic and drama merged in connection with music and facial movements. Earlier than among other nations, drama special kind poetry was formed among the Hindus and Greeks.

Dionysian dances

Greek drama, developing serious religious-mythological plots (tragedy) and funny ones drawn from modern life(comedy), reaches high perfection and in the 16th century is a model for European drama, which until that time had artlessly handled religious and secular narratives (mysteries, school dramas and sideshows, fastnachtspiels, sottises).

French playwrights, imitating the Greek ones, strictly adhered to certain provisions that were considered unchangeable for the aesthetic dignity of drama, such as: unity of time and place; the duration of the episode depicted on stage should not exceed a day; the action must take place in the same place; the drama must develop correctly in 3-5 acts, from the beginning (clarification of the initial position and characters of the characters) through the middle vicissitudes (changes of positions and relationships) to the denouement (usually a catastrophe); the number of characters is very limited (usually from 3 to 5); these are exclusively the highest representatives of society (kings, queens, princes and princesses) and their closest servants-confidants, who are introduced onto the stage for the convenience of conducting dialogue and delivering remarks. These are the main features of the French classical drama(Cornel, Racine).

Strictness of requirements classic style was already less observed in comedies (Molière, Lope de Vega, Beaumarchais), which gradually moved from convention to depiction ordinary life(genre). Free from classical conventions, Shakespeare's work opened up new paths for drama. The end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century was marked by the appearance of romantic and national dramas: Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Hugo, Kleist, Grabbe.

In the second half of XIX century, realism takes over in European drama (Dumas fils, Ogier, Sardou, Palleron, Ibsen, Sudermann, Schnitzler, Hauptmann, Beyerlein).

In the last quarter of the XIX century, under the influence of Ibsen and Maeterlinck, symbolism begins to take over the European stage (Hauptmann, Przybyszewski, Bar, D’Annunzio, Hofmannsthal).

Design of a dramatic work Unlike other prose and poetic works, dramatic works have a strictly defined structure. A dramatic work consists of alternating blocks of text, each with its own purpose, and highlighted by typography so that they can be more easily distinguished from each other. Dramatic text may include the following blocks:

The list of characters is usually located before the main text of the work. If necessary, it provides brief description hero (age, appearance, etc.)

External remarks - a description of the action, the situation, the appearance and departure of the characters. Often typed either in a reduced size, or in the same font as the replicas, but in a larger format. The external remark may include the names of the heroes, and if the hero appears for the first time, his name is additionally highlighted. Example:

A room that is still called a nursery. One of the doors leads to Anya's room. Dawn is coming soon the sun will rise. It’s already May, the cherry trees are blooming, but it’s cold in the garden, it’s morning. The windows in the room are closed.

Dunyasha enters with a candle and Lopakhin with a book in his hand.

Replicas are the words spoken by the characters. Replies must be preceded by the name of the character and may include internal remarks. Example:

Dunyasha. I thought you left. (Listens.) It seems they are already on their way.

Lopakhin (listens). No... Get your luggage, this and that...

Internal remarks, unlike external ones, briefly describe the actions that occur during the hero’s utterance of a line, or the features of the utterance. If some complex action occurs during the utterance of a cue, you should describe it using an external cue, while indicating either in the remark itself or in the remark using an internal remark that the actor continues to speak during the action. An internal remark refers only to a specific replica of a specific actor. It is separated from the replica by brackets and can be typed in italics.

The two most common ways of designing dramatic works are book and cinematic. If in a book format, different font styles, different sizes, etc. can be used to separate parts of a dramatic work, then in cinematic scripts it is customary to use only a monospaced typewriter font, and to separate parts of a work, use spacing, typesetting for different formats, typesetting for all capitalization, discharge, etc. - that is, only those tools that are available on typewriter. This allowed script changes to be made many times during production while maintaining readability .

Drama in Russia

Drama in Russia was brought from the West to late XVII century. Independent dramatic literature appears only in late XVIII century. Until the first quarter of the 19th century, the classical direction predominated in drama, both in tragedy and in comedy and comedy opera; best authors: Lomonosov, Knyazhnin, Ozerov; I. Lukin’s attempt to draw the attention of playwrights to the depiction of Russian life and morals remained in vain: all of their plays are lifeless, stilted and alien to Russian reality, except for the famous “Minor” and “Brigadier” by Fonvizin, “Sneak” by Kapnist and some comedies by I. A. Krylov .

IN early XIX centuries imitators of the lung French drama and comedies became Shakhovskaya, Khmelnitsky, Zagoskin, the representative of the stilted patriotic drama - the Puppeteer. Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit", later "The Inspector General", Gogol's "Marriage", become the foundation of Russian domestic drama. After Gogol, even in vaudeville (D. Lensky, F. Koni, Sollogub, Karatygin) there is a noticeable desire to get closer to life.

Ostrovsky gave a number of remarkable historical chronicles and domestic comedies. After him, Russian drama stood on solid ground; the most outstanding playwrights: A. Sukhovo-Kobylin, I. S. Turgenev, A. Potekhin, A. Palm, V. Dyachenko, I. Chernyshev, V. Krylov, N. Ya. Solovyov, N. Chaev, gr. A. Tolstoy, gr. L. Tolstoy, D. Averkiev, P. Boborykin, Prince Sumbatov, Novezhin, N. Gnedich, Shpazhinsky, Evt. Karpov, V. Tikhonov, I. Shcheglov, Vl. Nemirovich-Danchenko, A. Chekhov, M. Gorky, L. Andreev and others.

In the epic genre of literature (gr. epos - word, speech), the organizing principle of the work is narration about the characters (actors), their destinies, actions, mindsets, and the events in their lives that make up the plot. This is a chain of verbal messages or, more simply, a story about what happened earlier. Narration is characterized by a temporary distance between the conduct of speech and the subject of verbal designations. It is conducted from the outside and, as a rule, has a grammatical form past tense. The narrator (narrating) is characterized by the position of a person remembering what happened earlier. The distance between the time of the depicted action and the time of narration about him constitutes perhaps the most essential feature of the epic form.

Word "narration" when applied to literature it is used in different ways. IN in the narrow sense - this is an expanded designation in words of something that happened once and had a temporary duration. In a broader sense the story also includes descriptions , i.e., recreating through words something stable, stable or completely motionless (these are most of the landscapes, characteristics of the everyday environment, the appearance of characters, their states of mind). Descriptions are also verbal images of periodic repetition. In the same way, the narrative fabric includes the author's reasoning, playing a significant role in L.N. Tolstoy, A. France, T. Mann.

In epic works, the narrative connects to itself and, as it were, envelops the statements of the characters - their dialogues and monologues, including internal ones, actively interacting with them, explaining, supplementing and correcting them. AND literary text turns out to be a kind of fusion of narrative speech and statements of characters, which are their actions (actions).

Works of the epic kind make full use of the arsenal of artistic means available to literature, and easily and freely master reality in time and space. At the same time, they do not know the limitations in the volume of text. Epic as a type of literature includes both short stories (medieval and Renaissance short stories), and works designed for long listening or reading, epics and novels, covering life with extraordinary breadth. These are the ancient Greek “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy, “Gone with the Wind” by M. Mitchell.

An epic work can “absorb” such a number of characters, circumstances, events, destinies, and details that are inaccessible to either other types of literature or any other type of art. At the same time, the narrative form contributes to the deepest penetration into the inner world of a person. She is quite accessible to complex characters, possessing many traits and properties, incomplete and contradictory, in motion, formation, development.

In epic works it is deeply significant presence narrator . This is very specific form artistic reproduction of a person. The narrator is an intermediary between the depicted and the reader, often acting as a witness and interpreter of the persons and events shown.

The text of an epic work does not always contain information about the fate of the narrator, about his relationships with the characters, about when, where and under what circumstances he tells his story, about his thoughts and feelings. The spirit of storytelling, according to T. Mann, is often “weightless, ethereal and omnipresent”; “for him there is no division between “here” and “there”” 1. And at the same time, the narrator’s speech has not only figurativeness, but also expressive significance; it characterizes not only the object of the utterance, but also the speaker himself. Any epic work captures the manner of perceiving reality inherent in the one who narrates, his characteristic vision of the world and way of thinking. In this sense, it is legitimate to talk about the image of the narrator. This concept has become firmly established in literary criticism thanks to B.M. Eikhenbaum, V.V. Vinogradov, M.M. Bakhtin (works of the 1920s). Summarizing the judgments of these scientists, GA Gukovsky wrote in the 1940s: “Every image in art forms an idea not only of what is depicted, but also<...>about the depicter, the bearer of presentation<...>. The narrator is not only a more or less specific image<...>, but also a certain figurative idea, principle and appearance of the speaker, or in other words - certainly a certain point of view on what is being presented, a psychological, ideological and simply geographical point of view, since it is impossible to describe from anywhere and there can be no description without a descriptor" 1 .

The epic form, to put it differently, reproduces not only what is being told, but also the narrator; it artistically captures the manner of speaking and perceiving the world, and ultimately, the mindset and feelings of the narrator. The appearance of the narrator is revealed not in his actions or in the direct outpourings of his soul, but in a kind of narrative monologue. The expressive beginnings of such a monologue, being its secondary function, are at the same time very important.

There can be no full perception folk tales without close attention to their narrative style, in which behind the naivety and ingenuousness of the one telling the story, irony and slyness, life experience and wisdom are discerned. It is impossible to feel the charm of the heroic epics of antiquity without grasping the sublime structure of thoughts and feelings of the rhapsode and storyteller. And even more so, understanding the works of AS is unthinkable. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol, L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, N.S. Leskova and I.S. Turgeneva, A.P. Chekhov and IA Bunin, MA Bulgakov and A.P. Platonov is beyond comprehension of the “voice” of the narrator. Literature available different ways narratives. The most deeply rooted and represented in its history is the type of narrative in which between the characters and the one who tells about them, there is, so to speak, an absolute distance. The narrator recounts the events with calm calm. He understands everything, he has the gift of “omniscience,” and his image, the image of a being who has risen above the world, gives the work the flavor of maximum objectivity. It is significant that Homer was often likened to the celestial Olympians and called “divine.”

Artistic possibilities Such narratives are considered in the German classical aesthetics of the Romantic era. In the epic, “a narrator is needed,” we read from Schelling, “who, with the equanimity of his story, would constantly distract us from too much participation in acting persons and directed the audience's attention to pure result." And further: “The narrator is alien to the characters<...>he not only surpasses the listeners with his balanced contemplation and sets his story in this mood, but, as it were, takes the place of necessity” 1.

In the literature of the last two or three centuries, almost prevailed subjective narration. The narrator began to look at the world through the eyes of one of the characters, imbued with his thoughts and impressions. A striking example that - detailed picture Battle of Waterloo in Stendhal's "Parma Monastery". This battle is not reproduced in the Homeric way: the narrator, as it were, transforms into the hero, young Fabrizio, and looks at what is happening through his eyes.

The distance between him and the character practically disappears, the points of view of both are combined. Tolstoy sometimes paid tribute to this method of depiction. The Battle of Borodino in one of the chapters of “War and Peace” is shown in the perception of Pierre Bezukhov, who was not experienced in military affairs; The military council in Fili is presented in the form of the impressions of the girl Malasha. Combining the points of view of the narrator and characters in literature XIX-XX centuries caused by an increased artistic interest in the uniqueness of people’s inner world, and most importantly, by an understanding of life as a set of dissimilar relationships to reality, qualitatively different horizons and value orientations.

The most common form of epic storytelling is third person narrative . But the narrator may well appear in the work as a kind of “I”. It is natural to call such personalized narrators speaking from their own, “first” person storytellers. The narrator is often also a character in the work (Maksim Maksimych in the story “Bela” from Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”, Grinev in Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter”, Ivan Vasilyevich in L.N. Tolstoy’s story “After the Ball”, Arkady Dolgoruky in “The Teenager” "F.M. Dostoevsky).