How is a novella different from a short story?  Short story and short story: common and different. Novella in Chinese literature

Report grade 7.

The story is a narrative epic genre with an emphasis on a small volume and on the unity of an artistic event.

The genre has two historically established varieties: short story (in a narrower sense) and short story. “The difference between a short story and a short story does not seem to me fundamental,” wrote the researcher of the European short story E. Melitinsky. B. Tomashevsky believed that a story is a Russian term for a short story. This opinion is shared by most (though not all) other literary scholars. Small epic form in European literatures ah, at least until the 19th century, it was customary to call it a short story. What is a novella? theoretical definition short story "does not exist, most likely because ... the short story appears in reality in the form of quite diverse options, due to cultural and historical differences ... It is quite obvious that brevity itself is an essential feature of the short story. Brevity separates the short story from large epic genres, in particular from the novel and story, but unites it with a fairy tale, bylichka, fable, anecdote ”(E. Meletinsky).

The genetic origins of the novel are in a fairy tale, a fable, an anecdote. What distinguishes it from an anecdote is the possibility not of a comic, but of a tragic or sentimental plot. From the fable - the absence of allegories and edification. From a fairy tale - the absence of a magical element. If magic still takes place (mainly in an oriental short story), then it is perceived as something amazing.

The classic novella originated in the Renaissance. It was then that such specific features of her as a sharp, dramatic conflict, unusual incidents and turns of events, and in the life of the hero - unexpected twists of fate were fully determined. Goethe wrote: “The novella is nothing but an unheard-of incident.” These are Boccaccio’s short stories from the Decameron collection. Here, for example, is the plot of the fourth short story of the second day: “Landolfo Ruffolo, impoverished, becomes a corsair; sea, escapes on a box full of jewels, finds shelter with a woman from Corfu and returns home a rich man." Each literary era left its mark on the genre of the short story. real events and their refraction in the mind of the hero (" Sandman» Hoffmann).

Until the establishment of realism in the literature, the short story avoided psychologism and philosophy, the inner world of the hero was transmitted through his actions and deeds. She was alien to any kind of descriptiveness, the author did not interfere in the narrative, did not express his assessments. With the development of realism, the short story, as it was in its classical models, almost disappears. The realism of the 19th century is inconceivable without descriptiveness, psychologism. The short story is being supplanted by other types of short narrative, among which the first place, especially in Russia, is taken by a story that for a long time existed as a kind of short story (by A. Marlinsky, Odoevsky, Pushkin, Gogol, etc.). In the prospectus of the Educational Book of Literature for the Russian Youth, Gogol gave a definition of the story, which includes the story as a particular variety (“a skillfully and vividly told picture case”). And this refers to an ordinary "case" that can happen to every person.

Since the late 1940s, in Russian literature, the story has been recognized as special genre both in relation to the short story, and in comparison with the "physiological essay". The essay is dominated by direct description, research, it is always publicistic. The story, as a rule, is dedicated to a specific fate, speaks of a separate event in a person’s life, and is grouped around a specific episode. This is its difference from the story, as a more detailed form, which usually describes several episodes, a segment of the hero's life. Chekhov's story "I want to sleep" tells about a girl who is driven to a crime by sleepless nights: she strangles the one who prevents her from falling asleep baby. About what happened to this girl before, the reader learns only from her dream, about what will happen to her after the crime is committed, it is generally unknown. All the characters, except for the girl Varka, are outlined very briefly. All the described events prepare the central one - the murder of a baby. The story is short. But the point is not the number of pages (there are short stories and relatively long stories) and not even in the number of plot events, but in the author's attitude to the utmost brevity. So, Chekhov's story "Ionych" in content is close not even to the story, but to the novel (almost the entire life of the hero is traced). But all the episodes are presented as briefly as possible, the author's goal is the same - to show the spiritual degradation of Dr. Startsev. In the words of Jack London, "a story is ... a unity of mood, situation, action."

The extreme brevity of the narrative requires special attention to detail. Sometimes one or two masterfully found details replace a lengthy characterization of a hero. So, in Turgenev’s story “Khor and Kapinich”, Khory’s boots, which seemed to be made of marble skin, or a bunch of strawberries presented by Kalinich to his friend, reveal the essence of both peasants - Khory’s thriftiness and Kapinich’s poetry.

“But the selection of details is not the whole difficulty,” wrote the master of the story, Nagibin. - The story, by its genre nature, should be assimilated immediately and in its entirety, as if “in one gulp”; also all the "private" figurative material of the story. This makes special demands on the details in the story. They should be arranged in such a way that they instantly, “with the speed of reading”, form an image, give the reader a lively, pictorial representation ... ". So, in Bunin's story "Antonov apples" practically nothing happens, but skillfully selected details give the reader a "live, pictorial idea" of the passing past.

The small volume of the story also determines its stylistic unity. The story is usually told from one person. It can be the author, and the narrator, and the hero. But in the story, much more often than in the "major" genres, the pen is, as it were, transferred to the hero, who himself tells his story. Often we have before us - a tale: a story of some fictional person with his own, pronounced speech manner (the stories of Leskov, in the 20th century - Remizov, Zoshchenko, Bazhov, etc.).

The story, like the short story, bears the features of that literary era in which it was created. So, the stories of Maupassant absorbed the experience psychological prose, and therefore, if they can be called short stories (in literary criticism, it is sometimes customary to call them that), then short stories that are fundamentally different from the classical short story. Chekhov's stories are characterized by a subtext that is practically unknown to literature. mid-nineteenth century. At the beginning of the 20th century, modernist trends also captured the story (stories by Sologub, Bely, Remizov, partly by L. Andreev, etc.)

In the European literature of the 20th century, the story was enriched by the artistic discoveries of all prose (“stream of consciousness”, strengthening of elements of psychoanalysis, temporary “interruptions”, etc.). Such are the stories of Kafka, Camus, F. Mauriac, A. Moravia and others.

In the 1920s-1930s, heroic-romantic (V. Ivanov, Babel, Pilnyak, Sholokhov, etc.) and satirical stories(Bulgakov, Zoshchenko, Ilf and Petrov and others). The short story remains a productive genre to this day. All its varieties are successfully developing: everyday story, psychological, philosophical, satirical, fantastic ( Science fiction and fantasy), close to the short story and almost plotless.

Questions about the report:

1) What is a story?

2) What is a novella?

3) How did the genre of the story develop in literature?

4) How did the novel genre develop in world literature?

5) How is a story different from a novel?

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.

What is a novella and a story

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 of novella and short story

What is the difference between a novel and a short story?
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 small 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, additional story line. 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.

TheDifference.ru determined that the difference between a short story and a short story is as follows:

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.

Genre features of short stories distinguish it from the entire existing system of genres. Scientists note the coincidence of the burst of short stories, its emergence to the fore in the era of dynamic upheavals, changes, in situations spiritual crisis, in the period of breaking socio-cultural stereotypes. Due to its special mobility, conciseness and sharpness, it is the short story that is able to accumulate barely born trends, declaring new concept personality.

The sources of the novel are primarily Latin exempla, as well as fablios, fables, folk tales. In the Occitan language of the 13th century, the word nova appears to denote a story created from some newly processed traditional material. Hence the Italian novella (in 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 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. The novel emphasizes the significance of the denouement, which contains an unexpected twist

The genre of the short story became established after the appearance of the book. Giovanni Boccaccio"The Decameron" (1353), the plot of which was that several people, fleeing the plague outside the city, tell stories to each other. 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 indebted to the facets of Poggio Bracciolini), and Margarita Navarskaya, modeled on the Decameron, wrote the book Heptameron (1559).

In the era of romanticism, under the influence of Hoffmann, Novalis, Edgar Allan Poe, a short story with elements of mysticism, fantasy, fabulousness spread. Later, in the works of Prosper Mérimée and Guy de Maupassant, this term began to be used to refer to realistic stories.

In the second half XIX--XX centuries the tradition of the novella continued such various writers like Ambrose Bierce, O. Henry, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Gilbert Chesterton, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Karel Capek, Jorge Luis Borges, etc.

Often the short story is identified with the story and even the story. In the 19th century, these genres were difficult to distinguish. 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.

The genre of the short story in Russian literature, in our opinion, has a number of specific traits, but is still on its way to becoming. On the one hand, some researchers seek to expand the temporal space, referring the appearance of the short story to the 15th-16th and 17th centuries, on the other hand, they spread genre features short stories on works that have never belonged to this genre. In fact, these are two sides of one phenomenon, and it should be considered in the unity of these principles.

It is well known that the genre of the short story is genetically related to the classical Renaissance, Italian Renaissance. Given the commonality of the development of European literatures, with asynchrony, which is determined not by ethnic, but by socio-historical factors, one should expect the emergence of the Russian Renaissance, and, as a result, the appearance of a short story on Russian literary soil. But, as D.S. Likhachev notes, due to a number of socio-historical reasons, “the Russian Pre-Renaissance did not turn into a Renaissance” [Likhachev, D.S., 1987: V.1, p. 156]. Thus, the 15th century was not marked by the emergence of the Russian Renaissance and the emergence of the genre of the short story in Russian literature.

Renaissance ideas can be found in the literature of the first half of the 16th century, but these ideas were reflected only in journalism. The development of fiction during this period slowed down, because centralized state demanded help from writers in support of political, ecclesiastical, social and economic reforms, took away all the spiritual forces that were aimed at creating the lives of Russian saints, political legends, generalizing works. In the manuscripts of this time disappears entertainment theme. A certain spiritual background was needed, psychological condition society to give rise to the novel genre. literary life Russia XVI century, despite all the changes that have taken place in it (strengthening of the author's principle, individualization of literature, interest in inner world man), was rigidly determined by socio-historical factors and did not contribute to the emergence of the novel genre. Works of the short story genre did not penetrate Russian literary soil as a result of borrowing. All this proves that the 16th century was not marked by the appearance of the short story.

The literature of the 17th century, the literature of the "transitional period", was characterized by such phenomena as the emancipation of culture and its social stratification, the emergence of new types and genres of literature, the allocation of fiction as a type fiction, the birth of a new literary direction- baroque, amplification Western influences on the development of Russian literature, the enrichment of literature with new themes, characters, plots.

The singling out of fiction as an independent type of fiction, the emergence of fictional plots, and an orientation toward Western European literature to one degree or another could contribute to the emergence of the short story genre in Russian literature. A number of researchers are the most bright examples The original Russian short story of the 17th century is considered “The Tale of Karp Sutulov”, “The Tale of Frol Skobeev” and other works.

Among researchers, references to the works of O.A. Derzhavina are popular, as evidence of the penetration of the translated novel into the Russian literary soil of the 17th century. But the observations made by O.A. Derzhavina testify, rather, to the opposite: in a number of translations, only the plot remains from the classic Boccaccio short story (and there are most of such short stories in the collection), the short story turns into, as it were, a simplified otherness of the short story, designed for oral transmission .

But the novels were not just subject to translation. They underwent transformation both at the level of content and form. The translated classic short story was presented only by separate, significantly revised samples - plot schemes, and most of the translated works that are classified as short stories are not.

Only in literature early XIX century, the short story was formed as a genre. A number of factors contributed to this circumstance: the displacement of the boundaries of the Russian Renaissance, the influence Western European literature, translation activities and creative practice of Russian writers.

It should be noted that the first sample of the translated short story was “Griselda” by K.N. Batyushkov. At the same time, in a letter to N.I. Gnedich dated July 10, 1817, the writer noted that "he did not translate very slavishly and not very freely, he" wanted to guess Boccaccio's style. It is thanks to K.N. Batyushkov, the Russian reader was able to get acquainted with a genuine example of the short story by Giovanni Boccaccio, and not a free transcription of an anonymous author of the 17th century.

The introduction of the novelistic structure into the Russian national soil with a centuries-old narrative tradition led to the creation of what the researchers called the "Russian short story". And here it is appropriate to say about the double transformation of the novel. The classic novella of the Renaissance, which goes back to an everyday anecdote, has changed under the pen of romantic writers. The reason for this and aesthetic views romantics with their attitude to unfixed, blurred, fragmented genre forms, and in changing the subject of the image. The romantic short story, in turn, underwent another transformation in Russian literature, turning into a story rich in descriptions and reasoning. In difficult literary process first thirds of XIX century, when romantics (A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, A. Pogorelsky, V. Odoevsky, E. Baratynsky) still wrote short stories in which “one unheard-of incident was diluted with reasoning, descriptions and outpourings, as a result of which the plot in romantic novel lost its self-sufficient meaning, the short story turned into a story, A.S. Pushkin managed to find a place for his Belkin Tales.

It was Pushkin's genius that was needed to transform the story into a short story, that is, to free it from everything superfluous, to write "accurately and briefly" and create true samples of the Russian short story.

We are only interested in one particular aspect - genre specificity Belkin's Tale. They are connected with the classical short story by the plot, separated by Pushkin's introduction of an epic trend, which is hardly compatible with the classical short story. But the epic trend did not have such a destructive effect on the structure of A.S. Pushkin, which she had on the short stories of his contemporaries.

In fact, the development of the Russian short story on Belkin's Tales stops. Further development short prose went on the path of departure from the novelistic tradition. So, the representatives natural school preferred the physiological essay. Undoubtedly, the physiological essay could interact with other genre forms, in particular, short stories. In the process of such interaction, an intergenre form appeared, which V.M. Markovich calls the "natural" short story (essay-short story). This type of short story written by N.V. Gogol ("The Overcoat") turned into a complex genre form, which absorbed "traditions of oral anecdote, features of a romantic story-tale, medieval hagiography, bylichki, legends and ballads", which gave the short story "novel multidimensionality of meaning". This is the last quality of Gogol's short story, V.M. Markovich, was lost by other representatives of the "natural" school.

With the development of the Russian novel - the second half of the 19th century - the genre of the short story moved into a number of peripheral genres of Russian prose; small prosaic form becomes a comfortable and free story.

A new appeal to the genre of the short story is associated with the literature of the turn of the century. It is during the period silver age» samples of neo-romantic, symbolist and acmeist short stories were created. Here it is necessary to highlight the work of such authors as F. Sologub (“Hide and Seek”, “Hoop”, “Two Gothic”, “Perina”, “Ivan Ivanovich”), Z. Gippius (“Boar” and “On the Ropes”), V Bryusova ("Minuet", "Eluli, son of Eluli"), N. Gumilyov ("Forest Devil", "The Last Court Poet"), etc.

Conscious orientation - up to elegant stylization - on the best examples of Western European and Russian short stories, a heightened interest in the sensual, erotic side human life, poetic understanding and development of the short story structure - this is an incomplete list of the components of the Silver Age short stories. It was the “bright, but somewhat prodigal” era of the “Silver Age” that returned the genre of the short story to Russian literature. Thus, questions about the fate of the short story as a whole and the fate of the short story in Russian literature at the turn of the century and the first decades of the 20th century remain unresolved.

The story and the short story belong to the narrative epic genre and have some common characteristics: a small volume, a clearly defined plot, a dynamism of the development of the action with a pronounced climax and denouement. However, the short story also has distinctive genre features that make it possible to distinguish it from a number of works of 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- a kind of works of the epic genre, which are characterized by a narrative about events in the life of the protagonist, revealing the psychological aspect of his actions or state of mind.

Comparison

The novel is notable for its underlined brevity of the narrative. It does not allow a direct authorial assessment of the actions of literary characters or the conditions that determine the development of the events described.

In the story, such an assessment is indirectly expressed in the portrait description and author's digressions. 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 an unusual life situation forms the basis of the plot 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 a deep subtext of 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 an additional episode with their participation enhances the dynamics of the action.

Findings site

1. In the short story, the sharpness of the plot is expressed to a greater extent than in the story.
2. The novel is characterized by a neutral style of presentation, while the story uses the author's assessment of characters or events.
3. In the story, the action reveals the motivation of the actions of the hero. The novel depicts the action itself and lacks the methods of psychological analysis of the behavior of the characters.
4. 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.

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.