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 novel emphasizes the significance of the denouement, which contains 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.
Links
Definitions and characteristics
- "'Hard' and 'free' forms in the epic: novella, tale, short story". In the book: " Theoretical poetics. Concepts and definitions. Reader". Compiled by N. D. Tamarchenko
- M. Yunovich. "Novella" - an article from " Literary Encyclopedia» (1929-1939)
- Ludmila Polikovskaya. "Story" - an article from the encyclopedia "Round the World"
- M. Petrovsky. "The Tale" - an article from the "Literary Encyclopedia" (1925)
- B. A. Maksimov. "Features of the plot structure in the author's fairy tale and fantasy novel of the era of romanticism"
- O. Yu. Antsiferova. "The Detective Genre and the Romantic Art System"
Individual authors and works
- V. I. Tyup. "Aesthetic Analysis of a Literary Text (Part One: The Plot of M. Lermontov's Fatalist)"
- Yu. V. Kovalev. "Edgar Allan Poe" - article from "The History of World Literature"
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
Novella and short story - these two literary concepts practically the same. However, this is only at first glance. Valid in European tradition the concept of a short story is often used as a synonym for a short story. However, in Russian literary criticism, the short story and the short story, although they have common features, however, are quite clearly separated. Let's look at the difference between the story and the novel in more detail.
So what is a story? This is a small form of epic prose, which is characterized by unity art event. What is a novella? This is also a small form of epic prose, it is characterized by an unpredictable, unexpected end. As we can see from the presented definitions, the story and the short story are united by a small volume. Some literary scholars classify the short story as a type of short story. However, there are some differences between the short story and the novel.
First of all, in the story the main place is occupied by the author's narrative, various descriptions starting from landscape sketches and ending psychological state hero. In addition, the story, as a rule, clearly expresses the position of the author, his subjective assessment of the events described. The story describes an incident that can happen to anyone. The character of the story may be given detailed description. The story as a genre is more common in Russian literature.
How is a novella different from a short story? The novel is not characterized by psychologism. In the novel you will not find descriptions, ratings and other characteristics. The author of the novel puts an unusual, extraordinary plot at the forefront. And if the story is turned to the contemplative side human being, then the short story - to the active one.
So, the main difference between a story and a short story is the artistry of what is depicted. This is achieved not due to a tense plot and the unusual nature of what is happening (as in a short story), but through all sorts of descriptions.
Other articles in the literary diary:
- 23.11.2013. The difference between a short story and a novel
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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).
Literary genres traditionally classified as 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), as a rule, are 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. Goes back to folklore genres oral retelling in the form of legends or instructive allegory and parable. Compared to more extended narrative forms, stories have little actors and one story line(rarely several) with the characteristic presence of a single 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- small epic genre form 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 the short story "Alyosha Gorshok" a whole human life covered in just a few pages.
Essay- prose writing 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.
Given all the features of a short story, it can sometimes be very difficult to tell the difference between a novella, a short story, and a sketch (a short sketch, an outline). Everyone knows what at least a story is exactly: either narrative prose, defined as "shorter than a novella" or, in the words of the first deep researcher of the small form, Edgar Allan Poe, "no longer than what can be read in one sitting."
In addition to this definition, according to Western educators, only two things can be distinguished that characterize short story. First, the story is about something that happened to someone. Secondly, a well-composed story demonstrates the harmony of all principles more fully than any other literary form, with the exception, perhaps, of poetry, that is, it is comprehensive and "ideal". “And this is quite enough,” says the Canadian educator Rust Hills, “the first statement distinguishes a short story from a sketch, and the second from a novel.”
So, a story differs from a sketch in that it is about something that happened to someone. A sketch is just a brief and static description of a human character, place, time, etc. In sketches describing a person, his life path, - the hero, so to speak, is constant. That is, for example, if it contains a description of some period of time, and we are shown a sequence of actions of the hero - from morning to evening - it is assumed that this hero remains unchanged every morning, every day and every evening. And in this case, if there is any action in such a sketch, then it is called only to determine the character of the hero, and not to develop him: the hero does not receive anything new, does not learn from those situations that sent to him, does not change one iota. Any incident described in the sketch is regarded only as an example of the hero's behavior, and not as something that changed his life and inspired him to take any decisive actions and deeds, as happens in the story. It is assumed that after some time, the hero placed under the same circumstances will react and behave in exactly the same way, regardless of how many times this will be repeated. The story is dynamic, not static: the same things simply cannot happen again. The character of the hero must change and is changing, even if not drastically.
The novella differs from the story not only in length, but also in many other ways, although both genres involve changes in the character of the characters with the only difference that the novella has such space and time that contribute to a larger set of events and various effects. Edgar Allan Poe considered the story as a kind of conductor of one "strong and unique effect": "If the author's desire is not expressed in the search and creation of this effect on the audience, then he has already failed. In the whole structure of the story, this intention, explicit or implicit, should be seen. This famous saying By, of course, it should be taken into account, but on the other hand, we cannot assert with full confidence that in any well-developed history this degree of total unity of everything must necessarily be present - what we have defined as "harmony of all principles" - but in any case, in a good novel this is not required at all.
A good storyteller does not have to constantly develop and replenish the list of secondary characters and philosophize with off-plot lines, while a good novelist tends to change point of view, describe the same events under different angles, constantly pushing the reader to important details. The narrator tries to stick to one single point vision, in order to focus entirely on the problems of his story.
A good storyteller will never miss a thing. technical means narrative (plot, point of view, main theme, style of language, expressiveness, symbolism) that a novelist can do. Everything in the story is closely connected. main topic in a successful story, it is inextricably linked to the actions of the characters, but it is impossible to guess in all other aspects of the story, even in the language used. In terms of the importance of language and the ratio of sound and meaning, the story is comparable to poetry. For example, the poetic metaphor of light and death in Hemingway's short story "A Clean, Well-Lit Place" echoes Shakespeare's sonnets in richness of language and symbolism of the conflict between good and evil. In general, it should be noted that the language in the story is of paramount importance. Language creates the style of writing, is responsible for the author's tone, is used to create a certain atmosphere and mood, foreshadows some plot twists and, of course, depends on the point of view from which the story is written.
A good story must necessarily contain a seemingly imperceptible harmonious transition from the general to the particular, as well as an integral connection of all parts, each sentence with the previous one, which is rarely seen in a short story.
“Everything-everything must work and interact. The former must exaggerate the latter and be inseparable from it. - Emphasizes Rust Hills. “All of this saves the reader time and gets the point across.” javascript:void(1);
Based on the materials of the literary workshop of Anastasia Ponomareva
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 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 in Russian literature
In Russian literature, the short story is a rare genre.
Classic short stories were the works that make up the “Tales of Belkin” by A. S. Pushkin.
E This is a short narrative, usually with one event and with a minimum number of characters. The genre was born in the 14th-15th centuries. The brightest writer's figure of that time among the novelists was D. Boccaccio. A novella is essentially a story, but with one obligatory final feature: it has an unexpected ending. It is, of course, logical, but most often the reader waits for a different resolution of the action. This imposes on the short story the character of artistic intrigue and generally makes the whole story very exciting. This is especially true for adventure stories, for all sorts of mysterious stories.
Story- a small epic prose form, a small work with a limited number of characters (most often it tells about one or two heroes). In the story, as a rule, one problem is posed and one event is described. For example, in Turgenev's story "Mumu" the main event is the story of the acquisition and loss of a dog by Gerasim. Novella differs from the story only in that it always has an unexpected ending, although in general the boundaries between these two genres are very arbitrary.
The story, like the story, is also a type of narrative prose and belongs to the epic genres. If the story is called short prose, then the story is a small, “miniature” prose. The size of an average story varies from 2 to 50-70 printed pages. Actually, this is the topic of another major literary dispute - 70 pages - is it a story, a novella, or maybe already a story? There is no single answer, it all depends solely on the content. In our opinion, for the average reader, this is not at all important, so you can consider a story that is less than this volume. A story is a work of art that is traditionally dedicated to one event in a person's life. In the story you will not be able to find a description of the childhood of the protagonist, as detailed as the story, the author introduces the reader to the hero just enough so that the reader can understand how the situation described at the present moment has developed. Many literary critics believe that writing in the genre of a story is much more difficult than, say, in the genre of a story. Why? - you ask. The fact is that in a short moment of the action described in the story, the author reveals the essential, typical features of the hero's life. The story is easy to read and digest, so most of the classic stories are included in the school curriculum on world and Russian literature. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is considered the master of the story in Russian literature. It can rightfully be placed at the origins of the "new literature". His stories seemed unusual and wonderful to many readers, they have written a great many professional literary criticism. Chekhov's stories are so vital, since his main creative method- realism. In fact, there are also quite a few genres of the story: Fantasy story (Ray Bradbry, Isaac Asimov) Fantasy story Humorous story Adventure story
P Compared to the short story, the short story is considered a more "quiet" genre. Historically, it precedes the short story (appeared during the time of Ancient Egypt).
A story is a work of small volume, containing a small number of characters, and also, most often, having one storyline.
For the story, primarily due to the volume, the presence of one main problem is characteristic, in contrast to the story or novel, which can describe many conflicts and a wide range of problems.
