Definition of drama. See what “Drama (genus of literature)” is in other dictionaries

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

Dramatic works are intended for production on stage; this determines the specific features of drama:

1) lack of narrative-descriptive image;

3) the main text of a dramatic work is 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 by 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. Drama in one way or another includes any literary work constructed 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 among various peoples; The ancient Greeks, ancient Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and American Indians created their own dramatic traditions independently of each other.

Literally translated 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 peoples, drama as a special type of 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 centuries were marked by the appearance of romantic and national dramas: Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Hugo, Kleist, Grabbe.

In the second half of the 19th century, realism took over in European drama (Dumas fils, Ogier, Sardou, Palieron, 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 gives a brief description of the 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, the sun will rise soon. 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, space, etc. - that is, only those facilities that are available on a 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 at the end of the 17th century. Independent dramatic literature appeared only at the end of the 18th 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 .

At the beginning of the 19th century, Shakhovskaya, Khmelnitsky, Zagoskin became imitators of light French drama and comedy, and the representative of stilted patriotic drama was the Puppeteer. Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit", later "The Government Inspector", Gogol's "Marriage", become the basis of Russian everyday 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 wonderful historical chronicles and everyday 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.

What is dramaturgy? The answer to this question will depend on the context in which the word was used. First of all, this is a type of literature intended for stage productions, implying the interaction of characters with the outside world, which is accompanied by an explanation from the author.

Dramaturgy also represents works that are built according to a single principle and laws.

Features of dramaturgy

The action should take place in the present time and develop rapidly in the same place. The viewer becomes a witness and must be in suspense and empathize with what is happening.
The production can cover a time period of several hours or even years. However, the action should not last more than a day on stage, as it is limited by the viewing capabilities of the audience.
Depending on the chronology of the work, a drama may consist of one or more acts. Thus, the literature of French classicism is usually represented by 5 acts, and Spanish drama is characterized by 2 acts.
All drama characters are divided into two groups - antagonists and protagonists (off-stage characters may also be present), and each act is a duel. But the author should not support anyone's side - the viewer can only guess from hints from the context of the work.

Drama Construction

A drama has a plot, plot, theme and intrigue.

The plot is a conflict, the relationship of characters with events, which, in turn, include several elements: exposition, plot, development of action, climax, decline of action, denouement and finale.
A plot is a series of interconnected real or fictional events in a time sequence. Both the plot and the plot are a narrative about events, but the plot represents only the fact of what happened, and the plot is a cause-and-effect relationship.
A theme is a series of events that form the basis of a dramatic work, which are united by one problem, that is, what the author wanted the viewer or reader to think about.
Dramatic suspense is the interaction of characters that influences the expected course of events in a story.

Elements of Drama

Exposition - a statement of the current state of affairs, which gives rise to the conflict.
The beginning is the initiation of a conflict or the prerequisites for its development.
Climax is the highest point of conflict.
The denouement is the coup or downfall of the main character.
The finale is a resolution of the conflict, which can end in three ways: the conflict is resolved and has a happy ending, the conflict is not resolved, or the conflict is resolved tragically - the death of the main character or any other conclusion of the hero from the work in the finale.

The question “what is dramaturgy” can now be answered with another definition - this is the theory and art of constructing a dramatic work. It must rely on the rules of plotting, have a plan and a main idea. But in the course of historical development, dramaturgy, genres (tragedy, comedy, drama), its elements and means of expression changed, which divided the history of dramaturgy into several cycles.

The Birth of Drama

For the first time, wall inscriptions and papyri testified to the origin of drama in the era Ancient Egypt, in which there was also a beginning, climax and denouement. The priests, who had knowledge about the deities, influenced the consciousness of the Egyptian people precisely thanks to myths.

The myth of Isis, Osiris and Horus represented a kind of Bible for the Egyptians. Dramaturgy further developed in Ancient Greece in the 5th-6th century BC. e. The genre of tragedy originated in ancient Greek drama. The plot of the tragedy was expressed in the opposition of a good and fair hero to evil. The final was ending tragic death the main character and was supposed to evoke strong emotions in the viewer for the deep cleansing of his soul. This phenomenon has a definition - catharsis.

The myths were dominated by military and political themes, since the tragedians of that time themselves participated in wars more than once. The dramaturgy of Ancient Greece is represented by the following famous writers: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. In addition to tragedy, the genre of comedy was also revived, in which Aristophanes made the main theme of peace. People are tired of wars and lawlessness of the authorities, therefore they demand a peaceful and calm life. Comedy originated from comic songs, which were sometimes even frivolous. Humanism and democracy were the main ideas in the work of comedians. The most famous tragedies of that time include the plays “The Persians” and “Prometheus Bound” by Aeschylus, “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles and “Medea” by Euripides.

On the development of drama in the 2nd-3rd century BC. e. influenced by ancient Roman playwrights: Plautus, Terence and Seneca. Plautus empathized with the lower strata of slave-owning society, ridiculed greedy moneylenders and traders, therefore, taking ancient Greek stories as a basis, he supplemented them with stories about the difficult life of ordinary citizens. His works contained many songs and jokes; the author was popular with his contemporaries and subsequently influenced European drama. Thus, Moliere took his famous comedy “Treasure” as a basis when writing his work “The Miser.”

Terence is a representative of a later generation. He does not focus on expressive means, but goes deeper into describing the psychological component of the characters’ character, and the themes for comedies are everyday and family conflicts between fathers and children. His famous play “Brothers” reflects this problem most clearly.

Another playwright who made a great contribution to the development of drama is Seneca. He was the tutor of Nero, Emperor of Rome, and occupied a high position with him. The playwright's tragedies always developed around the protagonist's revenge, which pushed him to terrible crimes. Historians explain this by the bloody outrages that took place at that time in the imperial palace. Seneca's work "Medea" later influenced Western European theater, but, unlike Euripides' "Medea", the queen is presented as a negative character, thirsting for revenge and not experiencing any emotions.

In the imperial era, tragedies are replaced by another genre - pantomime. This is a dance accompanied by music and singing, usually performed by one actor with his mouth taped. But even more popular were circus performances in amphitheaters - gladiator fights and chariot competitions, which led to the decline of morals and the collapse of the Roman Empire. For the first time, playwrights presented to the audience as closely as possible what dramaturgy is, but the theater was destroyed, and drama was revived again only after a half-millennium break in development.

Liturgical drama

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, drama was revived again only in the 9th century in church rituals and prayers. Church, to attract as many people as possible to worship and control masses through the worship of God, introduces small spectacular performances, such as the resurrection of Jesus Christ or other biblical stories. This is how liturgical drama developed.

However, people gathered for the performances and were distracted from the service itself, as a result of which a semi-liturgical drama arose - the performances were moved to the porch and everyday stories began to be taken as a basis, based on biblical stories that were more understandable to the audience.

Revival of drama in Europe

Dramaturgy further developed during the Renaissance in the 14th-16th centuries, returning to the values of ancient culture. Stories from ancient Greek and Roman myths inspire Renaissance authors

It was in Italy that theater began to be revived, a professional approach to stage productions appeared, a musical genre of work such as opera was formed, comedy, tragedy and pastoral were revived - a genre of drama whose main theme was rural life. Comedy in its development gave two directions:

a scholarly comedy intended for a circle of educated people;
street comedy - improvisational mask theater.

The most prominent representatives of Italian drama are Angelo Beolco ("Coquette", "Comedy without a title"), Giangiorgio Trissino ("Sofonisba") and Lodovico Ariosto ("Comedy of the Chest", "Orlando Furious").

English drama is strengthening the position of the theater of realism. Myths and mysteries are being replaced by a socio-philosophical understanding of life. The founder of Renaissance drama is considered to be the English playwright Christopher Marlowe (“Tamerlane”, “ Tragic story Doctor Faustus"). The theater of realism developed under William Shakespeare, who also supported humanistic ideas in his works - “Romeo and Juliet”, “King Lear”, “Othello”, “Hamlet”. The authors of this time listened to the wishes of the common people, and the favorite heroes of the plays were simpletons, moneylenders, warriors and courtesans, as well as modest heroines making self-sacrifice. The characters adapt to the plot, which conveys the realities of that time.

The period of the 17th-18th centuries is represented by the dramaturgy of the Baroque and Classical eras. Humanism as a direction fades into the background, and the hero feels lost. Baroque ideas separate God and man, that is, now man himself is left to influence his own destiny. The main direction of Baroque dramaturgy is mannerism (the impermanence of the world and the precarious position of man), which is inherent in the dramas “Fuente Ovejuna” and “The Star of Seville” by Lope de Vega and the works of Tirso de Molina - “The Seductress of Seville”, “The Pious Martha”.

Classicism is the opposite of baroque mainly in that it is based on realism. The main genre is tragedy. A favorite theme in the works of Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine and Jean-Baptiste Moliere is the conflict of personal and civil interests, feelings and duty. Serving the state is the highest noble goal for a person. The tragedy “The Cid” brought enormous success to Pierre Corneille, and two plays by Jean Racine “Alexander the Great” and “Thebaid, or the Enemy Brothers” were written and staged on the advice of Moliere.

Moliere was the most popular playwright of the time and was under the patronage of the reigning person and left behind 32 plays written in the most different genres. The most significant of them are “Madman”, “Doctor in Love” and “Imaginary Patient”.

During the Enlightenment, three movements were developed: classicism, sentimentalism and rococo, which influenced the drama of 18th-century England, France, Germany and Italy. The injustice of the world towards ordinary people has become a major theme for playwrights. The upper classes share places with ordinary people. “Enlightenment theater” frees people from established prejudices and becomes not only entertainment, but also a school of morality for them. The bourgeois drama is gaining popularity (George Lylo "The Merchant of London" and Edward Moore "The Gambler"), which highlights the problems of the bourgeoisie, considering them as important as the problems of the royals.

Gothic drama was presented for the first time by John Gom in the tragedies "Douglas" and "Fatal Discovery", whose themes were of a family and everyday nature. Represented French dramaturgy in to a greater extent poet, historian and publicist François Voltaire (“Oedipus”, “The Death of Caesar”, “ Prodigal son"). John Gay (The Beggar's Opera) and Bertolt Brecht (The Threepenny Opera) opened new directions for comedy - moralizing and realistic. And Henry Fielding almost always criticized the English political system through satirical comedies (Love in Various Masks, The Coffee House Politician), theatrical parodies (Pasquin), farces and ballad operas (The Lottery, The Scheming Maid). , after which the law on theatrical censorship was introduced.

Since Germany is the founder of romanticism, German drama received its greatest development in the 18th and 19th centuries. The main character of the works is an idealized creatively gifted personality, contrasted with the real world. F. Schelling had a great influence on the worldview of the romantics. Later, Gotthald Lessing published his work “Hamburg Drama,” where he criticizes classicism and promotes the ideas of Shakespeare’s educational realism. Johann Goethe and Friedrich Schiller create the Weimar Theater and improve the school of acting. The most prominent representatives of German drama are Heinrich von Kleist (“The Schroffenstein Family,” “Prince Friedrich of Homburg”) and Johann Ludwig Tieck (“Puss in Boots,” “The World Inside Out”).

The rise of drama in Russia

Russian drama began to actively develop back in the 18th century under the representative of classicism - A. P. Sumarokov, called the “father Russian theater", whose tragedies ("Monsters", "Narcissus", "The Guardian", "Cuckold by Imagination") were focused on the work of Moliere. But it was in the 19th century that this movement played an outstanding role in the history of culture.

Several genres developed in Russian dramas. These are the tragedies of V. A. Ozerov (“Yaropolk and Oleg”, “Oedipus in Athens”, “Dimitri Donskoy”), which reflected socio-political problems relevant during the period Napoleonic wars, satirical comedies by I. Krylov (“Mad Family”, “Coffee Shop”) and educational dramas by A. Griboedov (“Woe from Wit”), N. Gogol (“The Inspector General”) and A. Pushkin (“Boris Godunov”, “Feast of time of plague").

In the second half of the 19th century, realism firmly established its position in Russian dramas, and A. Ostrovsky became the most prominent playwright of this trend. His work consisted of historical plays ("The Voivode"), dramas ("The Thunderstorm"), satirical comedies ("Wolves and Sheep") and fairy tales. The main character of the works was a resourceful adventurer, merchant and provincial actor.

Features of the new direction

The period from the 19th to the 20th century introduces us to a new drama, which is naturalistic dramaturgy. Writers of this time sought to convey “real” life, showing the most unsightly aspects of the life of people of that time. A person’s actions were determined not only by his internal beliefs, but also by the surrounding circumstances that influenced them, so the main character of a work could be not just one person, but even a whole family or a separate problem or event.

The new drama represents several literary movements. They are all united by the playwrights’ attention to the character’s state of mind, a plausible rendering of reality, and an explanation of all human actions from a natural science point of view. It was Henrik Ibsen who is the founder of the new drama, and the influence of naturalism was most clearly manifested in his play “Ghosts”.

In the theatrical culture of the 20th century, 4 main directions began to develop - symbolism, expressionism, Dada and surrealism. All the founders of these directions in drama were united by the refusal traditional culture and the search for new means of expression. Maeterlinck (“The Blind,” “Joan of Arc”) and Hofmannsthal (“The Fool and Death”), as representatives of symbolism, use death and the role of man in society as the main theme in their plays, and Hugo Ball, a representative of Dadaist drama, emphasized meaninglessness human existence and complete denial of all beliefs. Surrealism is associated with the name of Andre Breton (“Please”), whose heroes are characterized by incoherent dialogues and self-destruction. Expressionist dramaturgy inherits romanticism, where main character against the whole world. Representatives of this direction in drama were Gun Jost (“Young Man”, “The Hermit”), Arnolt Bronnen (“Revolt Against God”) and Frank Wedekind (“Pandora’s Box”).

Contemporary drama

At the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, modern dramaturgy lost its achieved positions and moved into a state of searching for new genres and means of expression. The direction of existentialism was formed in Russia, and then it developed in Germany and France.

Jean-Paul Sartre in his dramas (“Behind Closed Doors”, “Flies”) and other playwrights choose as the hero of their works a person who is constantly in thoughts of thoughtlessly living life. This fear makes him think about the imperfections of the world around him and change it.

Under the influence of Franz Kafka, the theater of the absurd arises, which denies realistic characters, and the works of playwrights are written in the form of repetitive dialogues, inconsistency of actions and the absence of cause-and-effect relationships. Russian drama chooses as its main theme universal human values. She defends human ideals and strives for beauty.

The development of drama in literature is directly related to the course of historical events in the world. Playwrights from different countries, constantly under the impression of socio-political problems, often themselves led trends in art and thus influenced the masses. The heyday of drama came back in the era of the Roman Empire, Ancient Egypt and Greece, during the development of which the forms and elements of drama changed, and the theme for the works either introduced new problems into the plot, or returned to old problems from antiquity. And if the playwrights of the first millennia paid attention to the expressiveness of speech and the character of the hero, which is most clearly expressed in the work of the playwright of that time - Shakespeare, then representatives modern direction strengthened the role of atmosphere and subtext in their works. Based on the above, we can give a third answer to the question: what is dramaturgy? These are dramatic works united by one era, country or writer.

Dramatic literature has three main genres: tragedy, comedy and drama. in the narrow sense this word, but it also contains such genres as vaudeville, melodrama, and tragicomedy.

Tragedy (Greek)

Tragoidia, lit. - goat song) - “a dramatic genre based on a tragic collision heroic characters, its tragic outcome and filled with pathos...”266.

The tragedy depicts reality as a clot of internal contradictions; it reveals the conflicts of reality in an extremely tense form. This is a dramatic work, which is based on an irreconcilable conflict in life, leading to the suffering and death of the hero. Thus, in a collision with the world of crimes, lies and hypocrisy, the bearer of advanced humanistic ideals tragically dies Danish prince Hamlet, hero tragedy of the same name W. Shakespeare.

In the struggle waged by tragic heroes, the heroic traits of human character are revealed with great completeness.

The tragedy genre has long story. It arose from religious cult rituals and was a stage performance of a myth. With the advent of the theater, tragedy emerged as an independent genre of dramatic art. The creators of tragedies were ancient Greek playwrights of the 5th century. BC e. Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, who left perfect examples of it. They reflected the tragic clash of traditions tribal system with a new social order. These conflicts were perceived and depicted by playwrights primarily using mythological material. The hero of an ancient tragedy found himself drawn into an insoluble conflict either by the will of an imperious rock (fate) or by the will of the gods. Thus, the hero of Aeschylus’s tragedy “Prometheus Bound” suffers because he violated the will of Zeus when he gave fire to people and taught them crafts. In Sophocles' tragedy "Oedipus the King" the hero is doomed to be a parricide and to marry his own mother. Ancient tragedy usually included five acts and was structured in compliance with the “three unities” - place, time, action. The tragedies were written in verse and were distinguished by lofty speech; its hero was a “lofty hero.”

Founder modern tragedy William Shakespeare is rightfully considered the great English playwright. His tragedies “Romeo and Juliet”, “Hamlet”, “Othello”, “King Lear”, “Macbeth” are based on acute conflicts. Shakespeare's characters are no longer heroes of myths, but real people, struggling with real, not mythical forces and circumstances. Striving for maximum truthfulness and completeness in the reproduction of life, Shakespeare developed all the best aspects of ancient tragedy, at the same time freeing this genre from those conventions that in his era had lost their meaning (mythological plot, adherence to the rule of “three unities”). The characters in Shakespeare's tragedies amaze with their life-like persuasiveness. Formally, Shakespearean tragedy is far from antiquity. Shakespeare's tragedy covers all aspects of reality. The personality of the hero of his tragedies is open, not fully defined, and capable of change.

The next stage in the development of the tragedy genre is associated with the work of the French playwrights P. Corneille (Medea, Horace, The Death of Pompey, Oedipus, etc.) and J. Racine (Andromache, Iphigenia, Fed - ra” etc.)* They created brilliant examples of classicism tragedy - the tragedy of “high style” with the obligatory observance of the rule of “three unities”.

At the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. F. Schiller updated the “classical” style of tragedy, creating the tragedies “Don Carlos”, “Mary Stuart”, “The Maid of Orleans”.

In the era of romanticism, the content of tragedy becomes the life of a person with his spiritual quest. Tragic dramas were created by V. Hugo (“Ernani”, “Lucretia Borgia”, “Ruy Blaz”, “The King Amuses himself”, etc.), J. Byron (“The Two Faskari”), M. Lermontov (“Masquerade”).

In Russia, the first tragedies within the framework of the poetics of classicism were created in the 18th century. A. Sumarokov (“Khorev”), M. Kheraskov (“Plamena”), V. Ozerov (“Polyxena”), Y. Knyazhnin (“Dido”).

In the 19th century Russian realism also provided convincing examples of tragedy. The creator of a new type of tragedy was A.

S. Pushkin. The main character of his tragedy “Boris Godunov”, in which all the requirements of classicism were violated, was the people shown as driving force history. The understanding of the tragic conflicts of reality was continued by A.N. Ostrovsky (“Guilty Without Guilt”, etc.) and L.N. Tolstoy (“The Power of Darkness”).

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. tragedy is being revived “in high style”: in Russia - in the works of L. Andreev (“The Life of a Man”, “Tsar Famine”), Vyach. Ivanov (“Prometheus”), in the West - in the works of T.-S. Elliot (“Murder in the Cathedral”), P. Claudel (“The Annunciation”), G. Hauptmann (“Rats”). Later, in the 20th century, in the works of J.-P. Sartre (“Flies”), J. Anouilh (“Antigone”).

Tragic conflicts in Russian literature of the 20th century. reflected in the dramaturgy of M. Bulgakov (“Days of the Turbins”, “Running”). In the literature of socialist realism, they acquired a unique interpretation, since the dominant one in them was a conflict based on an irreconcilable clash of class enemies, and the main character died in the name of an idea (“Optimistic Tragedy” by Vs. Vishnevsky, “Storm” by V.

N. Bill-Belotserkovsky, “Invasion” by L. Leonov, “Carrying an Eagle on the Shoulder” by I. Selvinsky, etc.). At the present stage of development of Russian drama, the genre of tragedy is almost forgotten, but tragic conflicts are interpreted in many plays.

Comedy (Latin sotoesIa, Greek kotosIa, from kotoe - cheerful procession and 6с1ё - song) is a type of drama in which characters, situations and actions are presented in funny forms or imbued with the comic1.

Comedy, like tragedy, originated in Ancient Greece. The “father” of comedy is considered to be the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes (V-IV centuries BC). In his works, he ridiculed the greed, bloodthirstiness and immorality of the Athenian aristocracy, and advocated for a peaceful patriarchal life (“Horsemen”, “Clouds”, “Lysistrata”, “Frogs”).

IN European literature Modern comedy continued the traditions of ancient literature, enriching them. In European literature, stable types of comedies are distinguished. For example, the comedy of masks, commedia dell'arte (1e1Gar1e), which appeared in Italy in the 16th century. Its characters were typical masks (Harlequin, Pulcinella, etc.). This genre influenced the work of J.-B. Moliere, C. . Goldoni, C. Gozzi.

In Spain, the comedy “cloak and sword” was popular in the works of Lope de Vega (“The Sheep Spring”), Tirso de Molina (“Don Gil Green Pants”), Calderon (“They don’t joke with love”).

Art theorists have addressed the question of the social purpose of comedy in different ways. During the Renaissance, its role was limited to correcting morals. In the 19th century V. Belinsky noted that comedy not only denies, but also affirms: “True indignation at the contradictions and vulgarity of society is an illness of a deep and noble soul, which stands above its society and carries within itself the ideal of a different, better society.” First of all, comedy had to be aimed at ridiculing the ugly. But, along with laughter, the invisible “honest face” of comedy (according to N.V. Gogol, the only honest face of his comedy “The Inspector General” was laughter), it could contain “noble comicism,” symbolizing the positive principle represented, for example, by in the image of Chatsky by Griboyedov, Figaro by Beaumarchais, Falstaff by Shakespeare.

The art of comedy achieved significant success in the works of W. Shakespeare (“Twelfth Night”, “The Taming of the Shrew”, etc.). The playwright expressed in them the Renaissance idea of the irresistible power of nature over the human heart. The ugliness in his comedies was funny, there was joy in them, there were whole characters strong people who know how to love. Shakespeare's comedies are still on the stages of theaters around the world.

The French comedian of the 17th century achieved brilliant success. Moliere is the author of the world famous “Tartuffe”, “The Bourgeois in the Nobility”, “The Miser”. Beaumarchais became a famous comedian (“ Barber of Seville", "The Marriage of Figaro").

In Russia, folk comedy has existed for a long time. An outstanding comedian of the Russian Enlightenment was D.N. Fonvizin. His comedy “The Minor” mercilessly ridiculed the “wild lordship” that reigns in the Prostakov family. Wrote comedies I.A. Krylov (“Lesson for Daughters,” “Fashion Shop”), ridiculing the admiration for foreigners.

In the 19th century examples of satirical, social realistic comedy are created by A.S. Griboedov (“Woe from Wit”), N.V. Gogol (“The Inspector General”), A.N. Ostrovsky (“Profitable place”, “Our people - we will be numbered”, etc.). Continuing the traditions of N. Gogol, A. Sukhovo-Kobylin in his trilogy (“The Wedding of Krechinsky”, “The Affair”, “The Death of Tarelkin”) showed how the bureaucracy “relaxed” the whole of Russia, bringing it troubles comparable to the damage caused by the Tatars. the Mongol yoke and the invasion of Napoleon. Famous comedies by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (“The Death of Pazukhin”) and A.N. Tolstoy (“Fruits of Enlightenment”), which in some ways approached tragedy (they contain elements of tragicomedy).

Comedy has given rise to different genre varieties. There are comedy of situations, comedy of intrigue, comedy of characters, comedy of manners ( domestic comedy), a slapstick comedy. There is no clear boundary between these genres. Most comedies combine elements of different genres, which deepens the comedic characters, diversifies and expands the very palette of the comic image. This is clearly demonstrated by Gogol in The Inspector General. On the one hand, he created a “situation comedy” based on a chain of funny misunderstandings, the main one being the absurd mistake of six district officials who mistook the “elistratishka”, “kestrel” Khlestakov for a powerful auditor, which served as the source of many comic situations. On the other side, comic effect, excited by various absurd situations in life, far from exhausts the content of The Inspector General. After all, the reason for the mistakes of the district officials lies in their personal qualities? - in their cowardice, spiritual rudeness, mental limitations - and in the essence of the character of Khlestakov, who, while living in St. Petersburg, adopted the behavior of officials. Before us is a bright “comedy of characters”, or rather, a comedy of realistic characters. social types, presented in typical circumstances.

In terms of genre, a distinction is also made between satirical comedies (“The Minor” by Fonvizin, “The Inspector General” by Gogol) and high comedies, close to drama. The action of these comedies does not contain funny situations. In Russian drama, this is primarily “Woe from Wit” by A. Griboyedov. IN unrequited love There is nothing comical about Chatsky’s attitude towards Sophia, but the situation in which the romantic young man has put himself is comical. The position of the educated and progressive-minded Chatsky in the society of the Famusovs and the Silents is dramatic. There are also lyrical comedies, an example of which is “ Cherry Orchard» A.P. Chekhov.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Comedies appear, characterized by increased psychologism and an emphasis on portraying complex characters. These include “comedies of ideas” by B. Shaw (“Pygmalion”, “Millionairess”, etc.), “comedies of moods” by A.P. Chekhov (“The Cherry Orchard”), tragicomedies by L. Pirandello (“Six Characters in Search of an Author” "), J. Anouya ("Savage").

In the 20th century Russian avant-gardeism is making itself known, including in the field of drama, the roots of which, undoubtedly, go back to folklore. However, the folklore principle is already found in the plays of V. Kapnist, D. Fonvizin, in the satire of I. Krylov, N. Gogol, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, the traditions of which in the 20th century. continued by M. Bulgakov (“Crimson Island”, “Zoyka’s Apartment”, “Adam and Eve”), N. Erdman (“Suicide”, “Mandate”), A. Platonov (“Hurdy Organ”).

In Russian avant-garde of the 20th century. Conventionally, three stages are distinguished: futuristic (“Zangezi” by V. Khlebnikov, “Victory over the Sun” by A. Kruchenykh, “Mystery-bouffe” by V. Mayakovsky), post-futuristic (the theater of the absurd of the Oberiuts: “Elizabeth to You” by D. Kharms, “The Ivanovs’ Christmas Tree” by A. Vvedensky) and the dramaturgy of contemporary avant-gardeism (A. Artaud, N. Sadur, A. Shipenko, A. Slapovsky, A. Zheleztsov, I. Savelyev, L. Petrushevskaya, E. Gremina, etc. ).

Avant-garde trends in modern drama are the subject of literary studies. For example, M.I. Gromova, sees the origins of this phenomenon in the fact that in the 20s of the 20th century. attempts to create an “alternative” art (Oberiut theater) were suppressed, which went underground for many years, giving rise to “samizdat” and “dissidence”, and in the 70s (years of stagnation) was formed on the stages of numerous “underground” studios, which received the right to work legally in the 90s (the years of perestroika), when the opportunity arose to get acquainted with Western European avant-garde drama of all types: “theater of the absurd”, “theater of cruelty”, “theater of paradox”, “happenings”, etc. On the studio stage “Laboratory” staged V. Denisov’s play “Six Ghosts on the Piano” (its content was inspired by a painting by Salvador Dali). Critics were struck by the brutal absurd reality plays by A. Galin (“Stars in the Morning Sky”, “Sorry”, “Title”), A. Dudarev (“Dumping Ground”), E. Radzinsky (“Sports Games of 1981”, “Our Decameron”, “I I’m standing at the restaurant”), N. Sadur (“Moon Wolves”),

A. Kazantsev (“Dreams of Evgenia”), A. Zheleztsov (“Askold’s Grave”, “Nail”), A. Buravsky (“Russian Teacher”). Plays of this kind gave rise to the critic E. Sokolyansky to conclude: “It seems that the only thing that a dramatic writer can convey in the current conditions is a certain madness of the moment. That is, the feeling of a turning point in history with the triumph of chaos”267. All of these plays contain elements of tragicomedy. Tragicomedy is a type of dramatic work (drama as a kind), which has characteristics of both tragedy and comedy, which distinguishes tragicomedy from forms intermediate between tragedy and comedy, i.e. from drama as a type.

Tragicomedy abandons the moral absolute of comedy and tragedy. The attitude that underlies it is associated with a sense of the relativity of existing life criteria. Overestimation of moral principles leads to uncertainty and even abandonment of them; subjective and objective principles are blurred; a unclear understanding of reality can cause interest in it or complete indifference and even recognition of the illogicality of the world. The tragicomic worldview dominates in them turning points history, although the tragicomic element was already present in the dramaturgy of Euripides (“Alcestis”, “Ion”).

The “pure” type of tragicomedy became characteristic of baroque and mannerist drama (F. Beaumont, J. Fletcher). Its features are a combination of funny and serious episodes, a mixture of sublime and comic characters, the presence of pastoral motives, the idealization of friendship and love, intricate action with unexpected situations, the predominant role of chance in the fate of the characters; the heroes are not endowed with constancy of character, but their images are often emphasized one trait that turns a character into a type.

In dramaturgy of the late 19th century. in the works of G. Ibsen, Yu.A. Strindberg, G. Hauptmann, A. Chekhov, L. Pirandello, in the 20th century. - G. Lorca, J. Giraudoux, J. Anouya, E. Ionesco, S. Beckett, the tragicomic element is intensified, as in Russian avant-garde drama of the 20th century.

Modern tragicomedy does not have clear genre characteristics and is characterized by a “tragicomic effect”, which is created by showing reality simultaneously in both tragic and comic light, the discrepancy between the hero and the situation (a tragic situation - comic hero, or vice versa, as in Griboyedov's comedy"Woe from Wit"); undecidability internal conflict(the plot presupposes the continuation of the action; the author refrains from making a final assessment), a feeling of the absurdity of existence.

A special type of entertaining comedy is vaudeville (French vaudeville from Vau de Vire - the name of the valley in Normandy, where this genre appeared at the beginning of the 15th century theatrical arts) is a play of everyday content with an entertaining development of action, in which witty dialogue alternates with dances and couplet songs.

In France, vaudeville was written by E. Labiche and O. Scribe. Vaudeville appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. He inherited from the comic opera of the 18th century. interest in national subjects. Vaudevilles wrote to A.S. Griboedov (“Feigned Infidelity”), D.T. Lensky (“Lev Gurych Sinichkin”), V.A. Sollogub (“The Coachman, or the Prank of a Hussar Officer”), P.A. Karatygin (“Borrowed Wives”, “Dead Eccentric”), N.A. Nekrasov (“Petersburg Moneylender”), A.P. Chekhov (“Bear”, “The Proposal”, “Wedding”, “On the Harm of Tobacco”). In the second half of the 19th century.

Vaudeville was supplanted by operetta. Interest in it returned at the end of the 20th century.

In theatrical art of the 19th - 20th centuries. vaudeville comedies of light content with external comic techniques began to be called farces. Farce (French farce, from Latin farcio - I start: the Middle Ages. Mysteries “began” with comedic inserts) - type folk theater and literature of Western European countries of the XIV-XVI centuries, especially France. He was distinguished by a comic, often satirical orientation, realistic concreteness, and freethinking; full of buffoonery. His heroes were the townspeople. The mask images of farce were devoid of an individual beginning (farce is close to the comedy of masks), although they were the first attempt to create social types268.

The means of creating a comic (satirical) effect are speech comedy - alogism, incongruity of situations, parody, playing with paradoxes, irony, in the newest comedy - humor, irony, sarcasm, grotesque, wit, wit, pun.

Wit is based on a sense of humor (in fact, they are one and the same thing) - a special associative ability, the ability to critically approach a subject, notice absurdity, and quickly respond to it269. The paradox “expresses an idea that is absurd at first glance, but, as it later turns out, to a certain extent fair”1. For example, in Gogol’s “Marriage,” after the shameful flight of Podkolesin, Arina Panteleimonovna reprimands Kochkarev: Yes, I’ve been living for sixty years, but I’ve never made such a fortune. Yes, father, I will spit in your face if you are an honest person. Yes, after this you are a scoundrel, if you are an honest person. Disgrace a girl in front of the whole world!

Features of the grotesque style are characteristic of many comedies created in Russian literature of the 20th century. (“Suicide” by N. Erdman, “Zoyka’s Apartment” by M. Bulgakov, “The House that Swift Built” by G. Gorin). E. Schwartz (“Dragon”, “Shadow”) used comic allegory and satirical symbols in his fairy tale plays.

Drama as a genre appeared later than tragedy and comedy. Like tragedy, it tends to recreate acute contradictions. As a type of drama, it became widespread in Europe during the Enlightenment and was then conceptualized as a genre. Drama became an independent genre in the second half of the 18th century. among the enlighteners (philistine drama appeared in France and Germany). It indicated an interest in the social way of life, in the moral ideals of a democratic environment, in the psychology of the “average person.”

During this period, tragic thinking experiences a crisis and is replaced by a different view of the world, which affirms the social activity of the individual. As the drama develops, its internal drama thickens, a successful outcome becomes less and less common, the hero is at odds with society and with himself (for example, the plays of G. Ibsen, B. Shaw, M. Gorky, A. Chekhov).

Drama is a play with an acute conflict, which, unlike the tragic, is not so sublime, more mundane, ordinary and one way or another resolvable. The specificity of the drama lies, firstly, in the fact that it is based on modern, and not on ancient material, and secondly, the drama affirms a new hero who has rebelled against his fate and circumstances. The difference between drama and tragedy is in the essence of the conflict: tragic conflicts are insoluble, because their resolution does not depend on the personal will of a person. The tragic hero finds himself in a tragic situation involuntarily, and not because of a mistake he made. Dramatic conflicts, unlike tragic ones, are not insurmountable. They are based on the clash of characters with forces, principles, traditions that oppose them from the outside. If the hero of a drama dies, then his death is largely an act of voluntary decision, and not the result of a tragically hopeless situation. Thus, Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” by A. Ostrovsky, acutely worried that she had violated religious and moral standards, not being able to live in the oppressive environment of the Kabanovs’ house, rushes into the Volga. Such a denouement was not mandatory; The obstacles to the rapprochement between Katerina and Boris cannot be considered insurmountable: the heroine’s rebellion could have ended differently.

The heyday of drama begins at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In the era of romanticism, tragedy reigned in drama. The birth of drama is associated with the appeal of writers to modern social themes. The tragedy, as a rule, was created on historical material. The main character was a major historical figure, fighting in extremely unfavorable circumstances for himself. The emergence of the dramatic genre was characterized by an increased interest in understanding modern public life and the dramatic fate of a “private” person.

The range of drama is unusually wide. The playwright depicts the everyday private life of people, their relationships, clashes caused by estate, property, and class differences. In realistic drama of the 19th century. predominantly psychological drama developed (dramas by A.N. Ostrovsky, G. Ibsen, etc.). At the turn of the century, drama changed in the work of A.P. Chekhov (“Ivanov”, “Three Sisters”) with his mournful and ironic lyricism, using subtext. Similar trends are observed in the work of M. Maeterlinck with his hidden “tragedy of everyday life” (“The Blind,” “Monna Vitta”).

In the literature of the 20th century. The horizons of the drama have expanded significantly, and its conflicts have become more complex. In the drama of M. Gorky (“Bourgeois”, “Enemies”, “Children of the Sun”, “Barbarians”) the problem of the responsibility of the intelligentsia for the fate of the people is raised, but it is considered mainly on family and everyday material.

In the West, dramas were created by R. Rolland, J. Priestley, Y.O. Neal, A. Miller, F. Dürrenmatt, E. Albee, T. Williams.

The “element” of drama is modernity, the private lives of people, situations based on solvable conflicts concerning the destinies of individual people that do not affect problems of public importance.

Such varieties of drama appeared as the lyrical drama of M. Maeterlinck and A. Blok (“Showcase”, “Rose and Cross”), the intellectual drama of J.-P. Sartre, J. Anouilh, drama of the absurd by E. Ionesco (“The Bald Singer”, “Chairs”), S. Beckett (“Waiting for Godot”, “End of the Game”), oratory, rally theater - political theater of B. Brecht with his “epic” plays (“What is that soldier, what is that one”).

In the history of the Soviet theater, political theater, the traditions of which were laid by V. Mayakovsky, V. Kirshon, A. Afinogenov, B. Lavrenev, K. Simonov, distinguished by a clearly expressed author’s position, occupied an important place. In the 60s - 90s of the XX century. journalistic dramas appeared (“A Man from the Outside” by I. Dvoretsky, “Minutes of One Meeting” by A. Gelman, “Interview in Buenos Aires” by G. Borovik, “Further... further... further” by M. Shatrov) and documentaries dramas (“Leaders” by G. Sokolovsky, “Joseph and Nadezhda” by O. Kuchkina, “The Black Man, or Me, Poor Soso Dzhugashvili” by V. Korkiya, “The Sixth of July” and “Blue Horses on Red Grass” by M. Shatrov , “Anna Ivanovna” by V. Shalamov, “Republic of Labor” by A. Solzhenitsyn, etc.). In the genre of drama, such varieties as debate plays, dialogue plays, chronicle plays, parable plays, fairy tale plays and “new drama” appeared.

Certain types of drama merge with related genres, using their means of expression: tragicomedy, farce, mask theater.

There is also such a genre as melodrama. Melodrama (from the Greek m?los - song, melody and drama - action, drama) - 1) a genre of drama, a play with acute intrigue, exaggerated emotionality, a sharp contrast between good and evil, a moral and educational tendency; 2) a musical-dramatic work in which monologues and dialogues of the characters are accompanied by music. J.J. Rousseau developed the principles of this genre and created its example - “Pygmalion”; an example of Russian melodrama is “Orpheus” by E. Fomin.

Melodrama originated in the 18th century. in France (plays by J.-M. Monvel and G. de Pixerécourt), it flourished in the 30s and 40s of the 19th century, and later external entertainment began to predominate in it. In Russia, melodrama appeared in the 20s of the 19th century. (plays by N.V. Kukolnik, N.A. Polevoy, etc.), interest in it was revived in the 20s of the 20th century. There are elements of melodrama in the works of A. Arbuzov (“Old-Fashioned Comedy”, “Tales of the Old Arbat”)270. Dramatic genres turned out to be very flexible.

Summarizing what has been said about the genera, types and genres of literature, it should be noted that there are inter-generic and non-generic forms. According to B.O. Corman, we can distinguish works that combine the properties of two generic forms - “bigeneric formations”271.

For example, the epic beginning, according to V. Khalizev’s remark, is in the plays of A.N. Ostrovsky and B. Brecht, M. Maeterlinck and A. Blok created “lyrical dramas”; the lyrical-epic beginning in the poems became a well-known fact. Non-generic forms in literary criticism include essays, “stream of consciousness” literature, essays, for example, “Experiences” by M. Montaigne, “Fallen Leaves” and “Solitary” by V. Rozanov (it tends towards syncretism: the principles of the actual artistic in it are combined with journalistic and philosophical, as in the works of AM Remizov “Posolon” and M. Prishvin “Eyes of the Earth”).

So, V.E. sums it up with his thoughts. Khalizev, “...the actual generic forms are distinguishable, traditional and undividedly dominant in literary creativity for many centuries, and the forms are “non-generic”, non-traditional, rooted in “post-romantic” art. The former interact with the latter very actively, complementing each other. Nowadays, the Platonic-Aristotelian-Hegelian triad (epic, lyric, drama), as can be seen, has been significantly shaken and needs to be adjusted. At the same time, there is no reason to declare the usually distinguished three types of literature obsolete, as is sometimes done with the light hand of the Italian philosopher and art theorist B. Croce. Among Russian literary scholars, A.I. spoke out in a similar skeptical spirit. Beletsky: “For ancient literature, the terms epic, lyricism, drama were not yet abstract. They designated special, external ways of transmitting a work to a listening audience. Having turned into a book, poetry abandoned these methods of transmission, and gradually<...>types (meaning types of literature. - V.Kh.) became more and more fiction. Is it necessary to further prolong the scientific existence of these fictions?”1. Without agreeing with this, we note: literary works of all eras (including modern ones) have a certain generic specificity (epic, dramatic, lyrical form, or essay forms, which were not uncommon in the 20th century, "stream of consciousness", essay). Gender affiliation (or, on the contrary, involvement in one of the “non-generic” forms) largely determines the organization of the work, its formal, structural features. Therefore, the concept of “genus of literature” as part of theoretical poetics inalienable and vital." ? Test questions and assignments I 1.

What served as the basis for identifying three types of literature. What are the signs of the epic, lyrical, dramatic way of reproducing reality? 2.

Name the types of artistic literature and give their characteristics. Tell us about the connection between the genera, types, and genres of literary works. 3.

What is the difference between a novel and a short story? Give examples. 4.

What are the distinctive features of the novella? Give examples. 1 Beletsky A.I. Selected works on literary theory. G. 342.2

Khalizev V.E. Theory of literature. pp. 318 - 319.

Test questions and assignments 5.

Why, in your opinion, have the novel and story become the leading genres of realistic literature? Their differences. 6.

Take notes on the article by M.M. Bakhtin “Epic and Novel: On the methodology of studying the novel” (Appendix 1, p. 667). Complete the tasks and answer the questions given after the article. 7.

Gogol originally called " Dead souls""a novel", then - a "small epic". Why did he choose to define the genre of his work as a “poem”? 8.

Determine the features of an epic novel in the works “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy and “ Quiet Don» M. Sholokhova. 9.

Give a genre definition to N. Shmelev’s work “The Summer of the Lord” and justify it (fairy tale novel, myth novel, legend novel, fable, myth-memory, free epic, spiritual novel). 10.

Read O. Mandelstam’s article “The End of the Novel.” S Mandelstam O. Works: In 2 vols. M., 1990. P. 201-205). Using the example of B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago,” explain what is innovative in the approach of writers of the 20th century. to the problem modern novel. Is it possible to say that “...the compositional measure of a novel is a human biography”? I. How do you define the genre of Bulgakov’s work “The Master and Margarita”, in which history and feuilleton, lyricism and myth, everyday life and fantasy are freely combined (novel, comic epic, satirical utopia)?

What are the features of lyrics as a type of literature? 2.

Take notes on the article by V.E. Khalizeva “Lyrics” (Appendix 1, p. 682). Prepare answers to the questions provided. 3.

Based on the article by L.Ya. Ginzburg “On Lyrics” (Appendix 1, p. 693) prepare a message “Style features of lyrics.” Name the main lyrical and lyric epic genres, indicate their differences. What is the classification of lyrics based on thematic principle? 4.

Explain what the terms “suggestive lyrics” and “meditative lyrics” mean. Give examples. 5.

Read the article by A.N. Pashkurov “Poetics of pre-romantic elegy: “Time” by M.N. Muravyov" (Appendix 1, p. 704). Prepare the message “What path did Russian elegy take in its development from pre-romanticism to romanticism?” 6.

Tell us about the history of the development of the sonnet genre. 7.

Read the article by G.N. Esipenko “Study of the sonnet as a genre” (Literature at school. 2005. No. 8. P. 29-33) and complete the tasks proposed in it related to the analysis of sonnets by N. Gumilyov, I. Severyanin, I. Bunin (optional), and also write a poem in the form of a sonnet (permissible in imitation of any poet). 8.

What methods of depicting life does A. Pushkin use in the poem “Gypsies”? 9.

What works are called lyroepic? Using the example of one of the poems by V. Mayakovsky (“Man”, “Good!”), S. Yesenin (“Anna Onegin”) or A. Tvardovsky (“By Right of Memory”), analyze how lyrical and epic elements are combined in them. 10.

What is the image of the lyrical heroine of the “Denisyev cycle” F.I. Tyutchev? 13.

Define the characteristics of the lyrical heroine in the poetry of M. Tsvetaeva and A. Akhmatova. 14.

Is it possible to talk about the peculiar “passivity” of the lyrical hero of B. Pasternak, as R. Yakobson believed? 15.

How is A. Blok’s biography related to his work? What evolution has the image of the lyrical hero undergone? 16.

Why has modern poetry lost most of its traditional genres?

Describe the division into genres in the dramatic genre. 2.

Take notes on the article by V.E. Khalizeva “Drama” (Appendix 1, p. 713). Prepare answers to the questions provided. 3.

Tell us about the main stages in the development of the tragedy genre. 4.

What is the difference between drama and tragedy? 5.

Name the types of comedy. Give examples. 6.

Describe “small” dramatic genres. Give examples. 7.

How do you understand the genre definition of A. Ostrovsky's plays? Can the dramas “The Thunderstorm” and “Dowry” be called classic tragedies? 8.

Determine the genre of “The Cherry Orchard” by A.P. Chekhov (comedy, tragedy, farce, melodrama). 9.

Using the example of one of the plays, analyze Chekhov’s new approaches to organizing dramatic action (decentralization of plot lines, refusal to divide characters into main and secondary ones) and methods of creating individual characters(self-characteristics, monologues-replicas, construction of the speech part of the image based on a change in stylistic tonality; “random” remarks in dialogues, emphasizing the instability of the psychological state of the characters, etc.). 10.

Read and analyze one of the plays of a contemporary playwright (optional). 11.

Define the concept of “subtext” (see: Literary encyclopedia terms and concepts. M., 2001. P. 755; Literary encyclopedic dictionary. M., 1987. P. 284). Give examples of lyrical and psychological subtexts in the plays of A.P. Chekhov (optional), in the novels of E. Hemingway, in the poems of M. Tsvetaeva (“Longing for the Motherland! Long time ago...”) and O. Mandelstam (“Slate Ode”).

A literary genre is a group of literary works that have common historical development trends and are united by a set of properties in their content and form. Sometimes this term is confused with the concepts of “type” and “form”. Today there is no single clear classification of genres. Literary works are divided according to a certain number characteristic features.

History of genre formation

The first systematization of literary genres was presented by Aristotle in his Poetics. Thanks to this work, the impression began to emerge that the literary genre is a natural, stable system that requires the author to fully comply with the principles and canons a certain genre. Over time, this led to the formation of a number of poetics that strictly prescribed to authors exactly how they should write a tragedy, ode or comedy. For many years these requirements remained unshakable.

Decisive changes in the system of literary genres began only towards the end of the 18th century.

At the same time literary works aimed at artistic search , in their attempts to distance themselves as much as possible from genre divisions, gradually came to the emergence of new phenomena unique to literature.

What literary genres exist

To understand how to determine the genre of a work, you need to familiarize yourself with existing classifications and the characteristic features of each of them.

Below is an approximate table for determining the type of existing literary genres

by birth	epic	fable, epic, ballad, myth, short story, tale, short story, novel, fairy tale, fantasy, epic
	lyrical	ode, message, stanzas, elegy, epigram
	lyric-epic	ballad, poem
	dramatic	drama, comedy, tragedy
by content	comedy	farce, vaudeville, sideshow, sketch, parody, sitcom, mystery comedy
	tragedy
	drama
according to form	visions short story epic story anecdote novel ode epic play essay sketch

Division of genres by content

Classification literary trends based on content includes comedy, tragedy and drama.

Comedy is a type of literature, which provides a humorous approach. Varieties of comic direction are:

There are also comedy of characters and sitcoms. In the first case, the source of humorous content is the internal traits of the characters, their vices or shortcomings. In the second case, comedy manifests itself in current circumstances and situations.

Tragedy - dramatic genre with an obligatory catastrophic outcome, the opposite of the comedy genre. Typically, tragedy reflects the deepest conflicts and contradictions. The plot is as tense as possible. In some cases, tragedies are written in poetic form.

Drama – special kind fiction, where the events taking place are conveyed not through their direct description, but through monologues or dialogues of the characters. Drama as a literary phenomenon existed among many peoples, even at the level of works of folklore. Originally in Greek, this term meant a sad event that affects one specific person. Subsequently, drama began to represent a wider range of works.

The most famous prose genres

The category of prose genres includes literary works of various lengths, written in prose.

Novel

A novel is a prosaic literary genre that involves a detailed narrative about the fate of heroes and certain critical periods their lives. The name of this genre dates back to the 12th century, when knightly stories arose “in the folk Romance language” as the opposite of Latin historiography. The short story began to be considered a plot type of novel. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, concepts such as detective novel, women's novel, and fantasy novel appeared in literature.

Novella

Novella - a variety prose genre. Her birth was caused by the famous collection "Decameron" Giovanni Boccaccio . Subsequently, several collections based on the model of the Decameron were published.

The era of romanticism introduced elements of mysticism and phantasmagorism into the short story genre - examples include the works of Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe. On the other hand, the works of Prosper Merimee bore the features of realistic stories.

Novella as short story with a sharp plot has become a characteristic genre for American literature.

Characteristics the novellas are:

Maximum brevity of presentation.
The poignancy and even paradoxical nature of the plot.
Neutrality of style.
Lack of descriptiveness and psychologism in the presentation.
An unexpected ending, always containing an extraordinary turn of events.

Tale

A story is prose of a relatively small volume. The plot of the story, as a rule, is in the nature of reproducing natural life events. Usually the story reveals the fate and personality of the hero against the backdrop of current events. A classic example is “Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by A.S. Pushkin.

Story

A short story is a small form of prose work that originates from folklore genres- parables and fairy tales. Some literary experts as a type of genre review essays, essays and short stories. Usually the story is characterized by a small volume, one plot line and a small number of characters. Stories are characteristic of literary works of the 20th century.

Play

A play is a dramatic work that is created for the purpose of subsequent theatrical production.

The structure of the play usually includes phrases from the characters and the author's remarks describing environment or the actions of the heroes. At the beginning of the play there is always a list of characters With brief description their appearance, age, character, etc.

The whole play is divided into large parts - acts or actions. Each action, in turn, is divided into more small elements– scenes, episodes, paintings.

The plays of J.B. have won great fame in world art. Moliere (“Tartuffe”, “The Imaginary Invalid”) B. Shaw (“Wait and see”), B. Brecht (“The Good Man from Szechwan”, “The Threepenny Opera”).

Description and examples of individual genres

Let's look at the most common and significant examples of literary genres for world culture.

Poem

A poem is a large work of poetry that has a lyrical plot or describes a sequence of events. Historically, the poem was “born” from the epic

In turn, a poem can have many genre varieties:

Didactic.
Heroic.
Burlesque,
Satirical.
Ironic.
Romantic.
Lyrical-dramatic.

Initially, the leading themes for the creation of poems were world-historical or important religious events and themes. An example of such a poem would be Virgil's Aeneid., “The Divine Comedy” by Dante, “Jerusalem Liberated” by T. Tasso, “ Lost Paradise"J. Milton, Voltaire's Henriad, etc.

At the same time, a romantic poem was developing - “The Knight in the Leopard’s Skin” by Shota Rustaveli, “ Furious Roland» L. Ariosto. This type of poem to a certain extent echoes the tradition of medieval chivalric romances.

Over time, moral, philosophical and social themes began to take center stage (“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” by J. Byron, “The Demon” by M. Yu. Lermontov).

IN XIX-XX centuries the poem begins more and more become realistic(“Frost, Red Nose”, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N.A. Nekrasov, “Vasily Terkin” by A.T. Tvardovsky).

Epic

An epic is usually understood as a set of works that are united by a common era, nationality, and theme.

The emergence of each epic is conditioned by certain historical circumstances. As a rule, an epic claims to be an objective and authentic account of events.

Visions

This unique narrative genre, when the story is told from a person's point of view ostensibly experiencing a dream, lethargy, or hallucination.

Already in the era of antiquity, under the guise of real visions, fictitious events began to be described in the form of visions. The authors of the first visions were Cicero, Plutarch, Plato.
In the Middle Ages, the genre began to gain momentum in popularity, reaching its peak with Dante in his " Divine Comedy”, which in its form represents a detailed vision.
For some time, visions were an integral part of church literature in most European countries. The editors of such visions were always representatives of the clergy, thus gaining the opportunity to express their personal views, supposedly on behalf of higher powers.
Over time, new acute social satirical content was put into the form of visions (“Visions of Peter the Plowman” by Langland).

In more modern literature, the genre of visions has come to be used to introduce elements of fantasy.

Drama(Ancient Greek δρμα - deed, action) - one of the three types of 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.

Literally translated from ancient Greek, drama means “action.”

The specificity of drama as a literary genre lies in its special organization artistic speech: unlike epic, there is no narration in drama and the direct speech of the heroes, their dialogues and monologues is of paramount importance.

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

lack of narrative-descriptive image;
“auxiliary” of the author’s speech (remarks);
the main text of a dramatic work is presented in the form of replicas of the characters (monologue and dialogue);
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;
the volume of text and time of action is limited by the stage;
The requirements of stage art also 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 was very well said by A.S. 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.

The traditional plot outline for any dramatic work is:

EXPOSITION - presentation of heroes

TIE - collision

ACTION DEVELOPMENT - a set of scenes, development of an idea

CLIMAX - the apogee of the conflict

INTERCLOSURE

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 peoples, drama as a special type of poetry was formed among the Hindus and Greeks.

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 treated religious and secular narrative plots (mysteries, school dramas and sideshows, fastnachtspiel, sottises).

The rigor of the requirements of the classical style was no longer observed in comedies (Molière, Lope de Vega, Beaumarchais), which gradually moved from convention to the depiction of ordinary life (genre). Free from classical conventions, Shakespeare's work opened up new paths for drama. Late XVIII and the first half of the 19th century were marked by the appearance of romantic and national dramas: Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Hugo, Kleist, Grabbe.

In the second half of the 19th century, realism took over in European drama (Dumas the son, Ogier, Sardou, Palieron, Ibsen, Sudermann, Schnitzler, Hauptmann, Beyerlein).

In the last quarter of the 19th century, under the influence of Ibsen and Maeterlinck, symbolism began to take over the European stage (Hauptmann, Przybyszewski, Bar, D'Annunzio, Hofmannsthal).

Types of Drama

Tragedy is a genre of fiction intended to be staged in which the plot leads the characters to a catastrophic outcome. The tragedy is marked by stern seriousness, depicts reality in the most pointed way, as a clot of internal contradictions, reveals the deepest conflicts of reality in an extremely intense and rich form that takes on meaning artistic symbol. Most tragedies are written in verse. The works are often filled with pathos. The opposite genre is comedy.
Drama (psychological, criminal, existential) is a literary (dramatic), stage and cinematic genre. It became especially widespread in the literature of the 18th-21st centuries, gradually displacing another genre of drama - tragedy, contrasting it with a predominantly everyday plot and a style closer to everyday reality. With the emergence of cinema, it also moved into this art form, becoming one of its most widespread genres (see the corresponding category).

Dramas specifically depict, as a rule, the private life of a person and his social conflicts. At the same time, the emphasis is often placed on universal human contradictions, embodied in the behavior and actions of specific characters.

The concept of “drama as a genre” (different from the concept of “drama as a type of literature”) is known in Russian literary criticism. Thus, B.V. Tomashevsky writes:

In the 18th century quantity<драматических>genres are increasing. Along with strict theatrical genres, lower, “fair” genres are put forward: Italian slapstick comedy, vaudeville, parody, etc. These genres are the sources of modern farce, grotesque, operetta, miniatures. Comedy splits, distinguishing itself as “drama,” that is, a play with modern everyday themes, but without the specific “comic” of the situation (“bourgeois tragedy” or “ tearful comedy»). <...>Drama decisively displaces other genres in the 19th century, in harmony with the evolution of the psychological and everyday novel.

On the other hand, drama as a genre in the history of literature is divided into several separate modifications:

Thus, the 18th century was the time of bourgeois drama (G. Lillo, D. Diderot, P.-O. Beaumarchais, G. E. Lessing, early F. Schiller).
In the 19th century, realistic and naturalistic drama began to develop (A. N. Ostrovsky, G. Ibsen, G. Hauptmann, A. Strindberg, A. P. Chekhov).
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, symbolist drama developed (M. Maeterlinck).
In the 20th century - surrealist drama, expressionist drama (F. Werfel, W. Hasenclever), absurdist drama (S. Beckett, E. Ionesco, E. Albee, V. Gombrowicz), etc.

Many playwrights of the 19th and 20th centuries used the word “drama” to designate the genre of their stage works.

Drama in verse is the same thing, only in poetic form.
Melodrama is a genre of fiction, theatrical art and cinema, the works of which reveal the spiritual and sensory world of heroes in especially vivid emotional circumstances based on contrasts: good and evil, love and hate, etc.
Hierodrama - in Old Order France (second half of the 18th century) title vocal compositions for two or more voices per biblical stories.
Unlike the oratorio and mystery play, the hierodramas used not the words of the Latin psalms, but the texts of modern French poets and they were performed not in churches, but at spiritual concerts in the Tuileries Palace.
In particular, “The Sacrifice of Abraham” (music by Cambini) and in 1783 “Samson” were presented to the words of Voltaire in 1780. Under the impression of the revolution, Desaugiers composed his cantata “Hierodrama”.
Mystery is one of the genres of European medieval theater associated with religion.
The plot of the mystery was usually taken from the Bible or Gospel and interspersed with various everyday comic scenes. From the middle of the 15th century, the mysteries began to increase in volume. The Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles contains more than 60,000 verses, and its performance in Bourges in 1536 lasted, according to evidence, 40 days.
If in Italy the mystery died naturally, then in a number of other countries it was prohibited during the Counter-Reformation; in particular, in France - on November 17, 1548 by order of the Parisian parliament; in Protestant England in 1672, the mystery was banned by the Bishop of Chester, and three years later the ban was repeated by the Archbishop of York. In Catholic Spain, mystery plays continued until the middle of the 18th century, they were composed by Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderon de la Barca, Pedro; It was only in 1756 that they were officially banned by decree of Charles III.
Comedy is a genre of fiction characterized by a humorous or satirical approach, as well as a type of drama in which the moment of effective conflict or struggle between antagonistic characters is specifically resolved.
Aristotle defined comedy as “imitation of the worst people, but not in all their depravity, but in a funny way” (“Poetics”, Chapter V). The earliest surviving comedies were created in Ancient Athens and were written by Aristophanes.
Distinguish sitcom And comedy of characters.
Sitcom (situation comedy, situational comedy) is a comedy in which the source of humor is events and circumstances.
Comedy of characters (comedy of manners) - a comedy in which the source of the funny is the inner essence of the characters (morals), funny and ugly one-sidedness, an exaggerated trait or passion (vice, flaw). Very often a comedy of manners is satirical comedy, makes fun of all these human qualities.
Vaudeville- a comedy play with couplet songs and dances, as well as a genre of dramatic art. In Russia, the prototype of vaudeville was a small comic opera of the late 17th century, which remained in the repertoire of the Russian theater by the beginning of the 19th century.
Farce- a comedy of light content with purely external comic techniques.
In the Middle Ages, farce was also called a type of folk theater and literature, widespread in the XIV-XVI centuries in Western European countries. Having matured within the mystery, farce gained its independence in the 15th century, and in the next century it became the dominant genre in theater and literature. The techniques of farcical buffoonery were preserved in circus clowning.
The main element of the farce was not conscious political satire, but a relaxed and carefree depiction of urban life with all its scandalous incidents, obscenity, rudeness and fun. The French farce often varied the theme of a scandal between spouses.
In modern Russian, a farce is usually called profanation, an imitation of a process, for example, a trial.