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How is a novella different from a short story? Novella as a genre of literature. Literary genres in prose

How is a novella different from a short story? Novella as a genre of literature. Literary genres in prose

15.02.2019

To designate a story created on some newly processed traditional material, the word nova. Hence the Italian novella(V the most popular collection late 13th century Novellino, also known as the Hundred Ancient Novels), which has been spreading throughout Europe since the 15th century.

The genre was established after the appearance of the book Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (c.), the plot of which was that several people, fleeing the plague outside the city, tell each other short stories. Boccaccio in his book created the classic type of Italian short story, which was developed by his many followers in Italy itself and in other countries. In France, under the influence of the translation of the Decameron, around 1462, the collection One Hundred New Novels appeared (however, the material was more due to the facets of Poggio Bracciolini), and Margarita Navarskaya, modeled on the Decameron, wrote the book Heptameron ().

Description of the novel

The short story is characterized by several important features: extreme brevity, a sharp, even paradoxical plot, a neutral style of presentation, a lack of psychologism and descriptiveness, and an unexpected denouement. The plot structure of the novel is similar to the dramatic one, but usually simpler.

Goethe spoke about the action-packed nature of the novel, giving it the following definition: “an unheard-of event that has taken place”.

The story emphasizes the meaning of the denouement, which contains an unexpected turn (pointe, "falcon turn"). According to the French researcher, "ultimately, one can even say that the whole short story is conceived as a denouement". Viktor Shklovsky wrote that the description of a happy mutual love does not create a novel, love with obstacles is necessary for a novel: “A loves B, B does not love A; when B loves A, then A no longer loves B. He singled out a special type of denouement, which he called "false ending": it is usually made from a description of nature or weather.

Among the predecessors of Boccaccio, the short story had a moralizing attitude. Boccaccio retained this motif, but his morality followed from the short story not logically, but psychologically, and often was only a pretext and a device. The later short story convinces the reader of the relativity of moral criteria.

novella, short story, short story

Quite often the short story is identified with the story and even the story. In the 19th century, these genres were difficult to distinguish: for example, A. S. Pushkin's Belkin's Tale is, rather, five short stories.

The story is similar to the short story in volume, but differs in structure: the emphasis on the figurative and verbal texture of the narrative and the inclination towards detailed psychological characteristics.

The story is distinguished by the fact that in it the plot focuses not on one central event, but on a whole series of events covering a significant part of the hero's life, and often several heroes. The story is more calm and unhurried.

Novella and novel

The collection of short stories was the forerunner of the novel.

Novella in Chinese literature

China is classical country short story, which developed here on the basis of the constant interaction of literature and folklore from the 3rd to the 19th century: in the 3rd-6th centuries. mythological bylichki were widespread, mixed with excerpts from historical prose and partly decorated according to its canons (later, in the 16th century, they were called the term "zhiguai xiaosho", that is, stories about miracles). They were the most important source of classical fiction novel of the Tang and Song eras (VIII-XIII centuries), the so-called "chuanqi", written in the classical literary language. Since the Song era, information has appeared about the folk tale "Huaben" (literally, "the basis of the story"), which widely used both the heritage of the classical Tang Chuanqi and actually folklore sources, which democratized the genre of the short story both in terms of language and subject matter. Huaben gradually moved completely from folklore to literature and reached its highest development in writing ("imitative huaben") in the late 16th-early 17th century

Thomas Hardy is considered to be the oldest of the English novelists (although he was neither the very first nor the oldest). Hardy was closely associated with the realist tradition of the Dickensian school. Another great English novelist - Oscar Wilde - was more of an aesthete, denied realism. His short stories were alien to the problems of sociology, politics, social struggle, etc. A separate place in English short stories is occupied by such a trend as naturalism. characteristic direction naturalism became the so-called "literature of the slums" (a collection of short stories by Arthur Morrison "Tales of the Slums", 1894; a short story by George Moore "Theater in the Wilderness", etc.). Another trend in English literature that opposed itself to aesthetes and naturalists is considered "neo-romanticism". The English novelists of the "late romantics" were Robert Stevenson, and later Joseph Conrad and Conan Doyle. At the beginning of the 20th century, the English short story becomes more "psychological". It is worth noting here Katherine Mansfield, whose novels were often almost "plotless". All attention in them was riveted to the inner experiences of a person, his feelings, thoughts, mood. In the first half of the 20th century, the English short story was characterized by psychologism, aestheticism and "stream of consciousness". by the most prominent representatives English Literature eras of modernism were Virginia Woolf, Thomas Eliot, James Joyce, Aldous Huxley.

Among English writers, V different time who created works in the novel genre, such wonderful authors as Jerome K. Jerome, John Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, Dylan Thomas, John Sommerfield, Doris Lessing, James Aldridge and others.

Notes

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See what "Novella (literature)" is in other dictionaries:

- (Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle, German Novelle) a term denoting in the history and theory of literature one of the forms of narrative artistic creativity. Along with the name N., which has become international, ... ... Literary Encyclopedia

1. NOVELLA, s; and. [ital. novella] A short story that is characterized by a clear composition, intense action and a dramatic plot that gravitates towards the unusual. ◁ Novelistic, oh, oh. New literature. N. genre. N th composition. 2. NOVELLA, ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (in Bologna, date unknown, died in 1333) Italian jurist and professor of law at the University of Bologna. As the daughter of Giovanni di Andrea, she received a good home education and often lectured instead of her father. According to Christine... Wikipedia

Illustration for the collection of Bunin I.A.
« Dark alleys»

A short story is a work of the prose (rarely poetic) genre, small in volume, less than a story.

The word "novella" is Italian (Italian-novella), meaning "news". The word is ambiguous, but we will consider it as literary term, we will determine what are the features of the short story, we will prove using the example of the work of Bunin I. "Dark Alleys" that this is a short story.

Features of the novel

Limited number actors(no more than two or three)
A sharp, tense plot, the image of a separate event in a person's life, but of great importance to him.
The novel reveals an acute problem around which the plot develops, and this is just one event.
Often there are elements of symbolism

Unpredictable, unexpected ending
Not in the novel big descriptions, the author's estimates (for example, in the form digressions), the writing style is mostly neutral.
Absence hidden meaning, subtext. In the short story there is no ambiguity in the interpretation of the topic, the problem.
The absence of psychologism, the action itself is shown, the motives of the characters' actions are not revealed.

In Russian literature, short stories were written by Chekhov A.P., Bunin I.A. and other authors.

Example.

Bunin I. "Dark alleys"

IN this work there are few heroes: two main ones, Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda, and a secondary one - a coachman (whose role, by the way, should be emphasized how beautiful and smart Nadezhda is, how they respect her for getting richer, even lending money, but fair).
Only one event in the life of the main characters is depicted - a meeting after 30 years of Nadezhda and Nikolai Alekseevich (a prosperous nobleman and a peasant woman who received a free peasant who became the owner of a hotel). Only one meeting of heroes, but their life seems to fly by before the reader: stormy, passionate love in the youth of a simple serf and a landowner who abandoned his beloved; the loneliness of both (Nikolai Alekseevich is unhappy in family life and one Nadezhda, who never married, who could not forget her Nikolenka).
This episode plays a huge role in the lives of both heroes: here is regret for the irrevocably gone love, and life already too, and the shame of Nikolai Alekseevich, and the inability to forgive him with Nadezhda. Tragedy of two destinies. Two people who could be happy if one of them managed at one time to go through the opinion of the world and marry, if not a peasant woman, but a beloved woman.
The title of the novel is symbolic. "Dark alleys" are like dark corners of a person's soul, into which no one can look. This is their secret, their life, their thoughts and experiences, sometimes incomprehensible to others. Although the meaning of the name of the novel can be explained in another way, everyone sees something different in it (this is the purpose of symbolism in literature).
The novella is very short. In it, everything is reduced to the description of this episode - a random meeting of heroes. There are no reflections of the author, digressions here. Is it possible to feel the author's position only by the sad intonation of the work.
An unexpected ending: the heroes part again, but forever.
There is also no subtext, everything is very clear, it serves to reveal the main idea of the work (everything passes, but not everything is forgotten in life) and main topic(the tragedy of love).
The novel shows the action itself, the meeting of the characters. What are the motives of the actions of the heroes - the readers themselves guess about this in the course of the plot.

Thus, the work of Bunin I. “Dark alleys is a short story, although the boundaries between the short story and the story are very shaky. Some literary scholars (for example, Timoshevsky B.V.) even believe that a short story is a Russian term for a story. However, we still see that the short story has such features that allow us to speak of it as a separate genre literature.

Foreign critics do not find any difference between such literary concepts like short story and novella. In the West, these terms are called synonyms. However, in Russia, the short story and the short story are considered independent genres that have special features. Before defining the difference between a novella and a short story, each of these literary phenomena should be considered in detail.

What is a story?

The story, as a genre of literature, originates from ancient times, where its progenitors were works of folklore: fairy tales, parables, stories passed from mouth to mouth. Then, changing over time and on a par with others prose genres passing certain historical stages, the story began to take shape as short work about an event in a person's life.

Today the story is narrative literary genre characterized by brevity, richness artistic image, deep psychologism, short duration of the described event.

The plot of the story focuses on one important and interesting episode from the life of the protagonist. The author, as a rule, shows his personal attitude and main idea through a detailed and expressive description appearance and character of the main characters and the hero himself, their thoughts and mental anguish. The story is usually told in the first person. The narrator can be either the author himself or one of the characters in the story.

What is a novella?

The short story, as a literary genre, arose in the Renaissance after the writing of the book "The Decameron" Giovanni Boccaccio. Then the main features of the novel were considered: the presence of an acute conflict in the plot, unexpected turns that violated the peaceful life of the protagonist.

Over time, the genre of the short story has changed, acquiring new features. So the novels of the Romantic era, written by Edgar Allan Poe, Novalis and Hoffmann, had a fantastic, mystical, fabulous content. Later, under the influence of Guy de Maupassant and Prosper Mérimée, the short story began to be considered an exclusively realistic genre.

In Russia, the short story, as a literary genre, was able to form thanks to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. The first Russian novels are considered to be his work "". Although the title contains the word "tales", literary critics and critics are still convinced that "The Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin" refers specifically to short stories.

Later, the short story genre absorbed much of the physiological essay. So the short story became a short story. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol wrote wonderful short stories, such as " Nose”, “” and others, which in their content were far from the novel in the classical sense.

Only in the 20th century did they breathe into the genre of the short story new life. Iconic works of this time, the novels of Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky and Alexander Grin are considered.

Nowadays, the short story is a prose literary genre, which is characterized by: small volume, neutral style of depiction, action, surprise ending. The author's attention is focused not on the emotional experiences of the characters, but on the events taking place in the work. His goal is to show the situation objectively, without expressing his personal attitude, to achieve the maximum intensity of passions and lead to an unpredictable end. The novel has only one storyline, any deviations from the main action are unacceptable. The number of actors is also limited. The appearance of new characters, or the mention of them is allowed only on the condition that the scenes with their participation will enhance the overall dynamics of the plot.

So, having examined in detail the genres of the story and the short story, one can single out their common and distinctive features.

Common features of the novel and short story

First of all, the novella and short story belong to the epic narrative genres.
Works of both genres should be small and be presented as briefly as possible. Although sometimes the volume of the story can reach several tens of pages.
The plots of the novel and the story are limited to certain time frames.
The plots of the novel and the story have a clear structure, the main elements of which are the climax and denouement.
The plots of the works of the novel and the story cover one specific event in the life of the protagonist.

The main difference between a novel and a short story

In the story, the events are described with more artistic expressiveness than in the novel.
The author of the story freely shows his personal attitude to what is happening in the work, the main characters, their thoughts and actions. For a novelist, this is unacceptable. Main feature short stories - this is the absence of any author's assessment.
In the story, the author seeks to show the internal development of the protagonist, the motives of his actions. For the short story, the main thing is the dynamics of the plot and the sharpness of the conflict. The novel depicts the event without analyzing the psychology of the characters.
The severity of the conflict in the short story is more pronounced than in the story.
Very often the story carries a hidden subtext. No other interpretations of the main plot are allowed in the short story.
A story can have multiple storylines. The novel contains only one story line.

Although in Russian literary criticism the short story is distinguished as an independent literary genre, Russian writers it is seldom addressed, preferring the story. Many Russian critics are unanimous with their Western colleagues that the short story and the short story are so close, and their differences are not so significant as to be considered a short story. independent genre. They equate the short story with the story, or consider the short story one of the varieties of the story.

Prose- oral or written speech without division into commensurable segments - poetry; in contrast to poetry, its rhythm is based on the approximate correlation of syntactic constructions (periods, sentences, columns). The term is sometimes used as a contrast fiction scientific or journalistic literature in general, that is, not related to art.

Literary genres in prose

Despite the fact that the concept of genre determines the content of the work, and not its form, most genres gravitate towards either poetic writing (poems, plays) or prose (novels, short stories). Such a division, however, cannot be taken literally, since there are many examples when works of various genres were written in an unusual form for them. Examples of this are the novels and short stories of Russian poets, written in poetic form: "Count Nulin", "House in Kolomna", "Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin, "Treasurer", "Sashka" by Lermontov. In addition, there are genres that are equally often written both in prose and in verse (fairy tale).

in number literary genres, traditionally attributed to prose, include:

Novel- a large narrative work with a complex and developed plot. The novel assumes a detailed narrative about the life and development of the personality of the protagonist (heroes) in a crisis, non-standard period of life.

epic- an epic work of monumental form, distinguished by nationwide problems. Epic is a generic term for large epic and similar works:

1) An extensive narrative in verse or prose about outstanding national historical events.
2) A complex, long history of something, including a number of major events.

The appearance of the epic was preceded by the circulation of past songs of a semi-lyrical, semi-narrative nature, caused by the military exploits of the clan, tribe and dedicated to the heroes around whom they grouped. These songs formed into large poetic units - epics - imprinted with the integrity of personal design and construction, but only nominally timed to one or another author.

Tale- genus epic work, close to the novel, depicts some episode from life; differs from the novel in less completeness and breadth of pictures of everyday life, mores. This genre does not have a stable volume and occupies an intermediate position between the novel, on the one hand, and the short story or short story, on the other hand, tends to newsreel reproducing the natural course of life. In foreign literary criticism, the specifically Russian concept of “story” is correlated with a “short novel” (English short novel or novella).

First in Russia thirds of XIX century, the term "story" corresponded to what is now called "story". The concept of a story or a short story was not known at that time, and the term “story” denoted everything that did not reach the novel in volume. A story was also called a short story about one incident, sometimes anecdotal (“Carriage” by Gogol, “Shot” by Pushkin).

The plot of a classic story (as it developed in the second half of the 19th century) is usually centered around the protagonist, whose personality and fate are revealed within a few events. Side storylines in the story (unlike the novel) are usually absent, the narrative chronotope is concentrated on a narrow period of time and space.

Sometimes the author himself characterizes the same work in different genre categories. So, Turgenev first called "Rudin" a story, and then a novel. The titles of the stories are often associated with the image of the protagonist (" Poor Lisa"N. M. Karamzin, "Rene" R. Chateaubriand, "Netochka Nezvanov" by F. M. Dostoevsky) or with a key element of the plot ("The Hound of the Baskervilles" by A. Conan-Doyle, "The Steppe" by A. P. Chekhov, " County” E. I. Zamyatina and others).

Novella(Italian novella - "news") - literary fellow narrative genre, comparable in volume to the story (which sometimes gives a reason for their identification), but differing from it in genesis, history and structure. It is customary to call the author of stories a novelist, and the totality of stories - short stories.

Novella - more short form fiction than a short story or a novel. It goes back to the folklore genres of oral retelling in the form of legends or instructive allegory and parable. Compared to more detailed narrative forms, there are few characters in the stories and one plot line (rarely several) with the characteristic presence of some one problem.

The relationship between the terms "story" and "short story" has not received an unambiguous interpretation in Russian, and earlier in Soviet literary criticism. Most languages do not know the difference between these concepts. B. V. Tomashevsky calls the story a specifically Russian synonym for the international term "novella". Another representative of the school of formalism, B. M. Eikhenbaum, suggested dividing these concepts on the grounds that the short story has a plot, while the story is more psychological and reflective, closer to a plotless essay. The action-packed nature of the novel was also pointed out by Goethe, who considered it to be the subject of "an unheard-of event." With this interpretation, the short story and the essay are two opposite hypostases of the story.
On the example of the work of O. Henry, Eichenbaum singled out the following features of the novel in its purest, “uncomplicated” form: brevity, sharp plot, neutral style of presentation, lack of psychologism, unexpected denouement. The story, in Eikhenbaum's understanding, does not differ from the short story in volume, but differs in structure: characters or events are given detailed psychological characteristics, the figurative-verbal texture comes to the fore.

Eikhenbaum's distinction between the novella and the short story received some, though not universal, support in Soviet literary criticism. The authors of stories are still called novelists, and "a set of small epic genres" - short stories. The distinction of terms, unknown to foreign literary criticism, in addition, loses its meaning in relation to the experimental prose of the 20th century (for example, to short prose Gertrude Stein or Samuel Beckett).
The typical structure of a classic short story: plot, climax, denouement. The exhibition is optional. More romance early XIX centuries have appreciated in the short story an unexpected "falcon" turn (the so-called pointe), which corresponds in Aristotle's poetics to the moment of recognition, or ups and downs. In this regard, Viktor Shklovsky noted that the description of a happy mutual love does not create a short story; a short story requires love with obstacles: “A loves B, B does not love A; when B loves A, then A no longer loves B.

Story- a small epic genre form of fiction - small in terms of the volume of the depicted phenomena of life, and hence in terms of the volume of its text.

The stories of one author are characterized by cyclization. In the traditional writer-reader relationship model, a story is typically published in periodical; accumulated for certain period the works are then published as a separate book as a collection of short stories.

Short story/novella and short story/novel

Before mid-nineteenth centuries, the concepts of a story and a story in Russia did not really differ. Any small narrative form was called a story, any large form- a novel. Later, the idea prevailed that the story differs from the story in that in it the plot focuses not on one central event, but on a whole series of events covering a significant part of the hero’s life, and often several heroes. The story is more calm and unhurried than a short story or short story.

It is generally accepted that wealth is not characteristic of a separate short story as a whole. artistic paints, an abundance of intrigue and interweaving in events - unlike a story or a novel, which can describe many conflicts and wide circle variety of issues and activities. At the same time, H. L. Borges pointed out that after the short story revolution turn of XIX and XX centuries. the story is able to convey everything the same as the novel, while not requiring the reader to spend too much time and attention.

For Edgar Allan Poe, the novella is fictional story, which can be read in one sitting; for H. G. Wells, less than an hour. Nevertheless, the distinction between the story and other "small forms" from the novel in terms of volume is largely arbitrary. So, for example, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is usually defined as a story (a day in the life of one hero), although this text is closer in length to a novel. On the other hand, small-scale works by René Chateaubriand or Paolo Coelho with love weaves and intrigues are considered novels.

Some of Chekhov's short stories are a kind of mini-novels. For example, in the textbook story "Ionych", the author "managed without loss to thicken the grandiose volume of all human life, in all its tragicomic fullness, on 18 pages of text." In terms of compressing the material, Leo Tolstoy advanced almost further than all the classics: in short story"Alyosha Gorshok" whole human life covered in just a few pages.

Essay- prose essay small volume and free composition, expressing individual impressions and thoughts on a specific occasion or issue and obviously does not claim to be a defining or exhaustive interpretation of the subject.

In terms of volume and function, it borders, on the one hand, on scientific article and a literary essay (with which an essay is often confused), on the other hand, with a philosophical treatise. The essayistic style is characterized by figurativeness, mobility of associations, aphoristic, often antithetical thinking, an attitude towards intimate frankness and colloquial intonation. Some theorists consider it as the fourth, along with the epic, lyrics and drama, kind of fiction.

For Russian literature, the essay genre was not typical. Examples of the essayistic style are found in A. N. Radishchev (“Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”), A. I. Herzen (“From the Other Shore”), F. M. Dostoevsky (“A Writer's Diary”). At the beginning of the 20th century, V. I. Ivanov, D. S. Merezhkovsky, Andrey Bely, Lev Shestov, V. V. Rozanov turned to the essay genre, later - Ilya Erenburg, Yuri Olesha, Viktor Shklovsky, Konstantin Paustovsky, Joseph Brodsky. Literary-critical evaluations contemporary critics, as a rule, are embodied in a variety of the essay genre.

Biography- an essay that tells the story of the life and work of a person. a description of a person's life made by other people or by himself (autobiography). A biography is a source of primary sociological information that makes it possible to identify psychological type personality in its historical, national and social conditionality.

Biography recreates the history of a person in connection with social reality, culture and life of his era. Biography can be scientific, artistic, popular, etc.

The short story and the novella belong to the narrative epic genre and have some common features. characteristic features: small volume, clearly defined plot, dynamism of the development of the action with a pronounced climax and denouement. However, the novel also has distinctive genre features allowing to distinguish it from a number of works modern prose into an independent literary form.

Definition

Novella- a small prose work, which is characterized by a sharp plot with an unexpected denouement, brevity and a neutral style of presentation, as well as the absence of a pronounced author's position in relation to literary heroes.

Story- variety of works epic genre, which are characterized by a narration about events from the life of the protagonist, revealing psychological aspect his actions or state of mind.

Comparison

The novel is notable for its underlined brevity of the narrative. It does not allow direct author's assessment action literary characters or conditions that determine the development of the described events.

In the story, such an assessment is indirectly expressed in portrait characteristic and copyright disclaimers. It is necessary to reveal the topic, which is often associated with the identification of psychological factors that are fundamentally important for understanding the state of mind of the protagonist. His behavior in unusual life situation forms the basis of the story. The plot action in this case is limited to a narrow time frame and is tied to a specific place of events.

There is no psychologism in the novel. The most important thing in it is an extraordinary event that sets the dynamic tension of the plot. The focus of the reader's attention is not so much the hero as what happens to him. The novelist does not seek to create deep subtext the main content of his short work. His task is to spice up the plot and achieve the ultimate intensity of the story at the climax.

With a limited number of characters in the story, an additional storyline can develop. In a short story, the plot cannot have a branched structure. Eventally, it is connected only with what happens to the main character. Other characters in the novel are extremely rare: as a rule, only if additional episode with their participation enhances the dynamics of action.

Findings site

In the short story, the sharpness of the plot is expressed to a greater extent than in the story.
The novel is characterized by a neutral style of presentation, while the story uses the author's style. estimated characteristic characters or events.
In the story, the action reveals the motivation of the actions of the hero. The novel depicts the action itself and lacks techniques. psychological analysis character behavior.
The story may have a hidden subtext that is important for the realization of the author's intention. The short story does not allow ambiguous interpretations of the main theme.