What is epic. Ways of formation of the epic

Division of literature into genera and species. The concept of literary genre.

Epos, poetry and drama. Socrates (in the presentation of Plato): the poet can speak for himself, mainly dithyramb. The poet can build a work in the form of an exchange of remarks, to which the words of the author can also be mixed. The poet can combine his own words with the words of strangers, which belong to other actors. "Poetics" of Aristotle. Art is an imitation of nature. "It is possible to imitate the same different ways". 1) Talking about the event as something separate from itself, as Homer does. 2) To tell in such a way that the imitator remains itself, but to change one's face is lyricism. 3) The writer represents everyone actors as acting and active.

Science ontology. In different eras, a person needs different literary genres. Freedom and Necessity. Psychology matters. Expressiveness, appeal.

Drama is something that develops before our eyes. The lyrics are an amazing fusion of time. At one time, they wanted to declare the novel a separate family. Lots of transitions.

Intergeneric and non-generic works. Intergeneric - signs of different genera. "Eugene Onegin", " Dead Souls"," Faust. Extranatal: Essay, Essay, and Stream of Consciousness Literature. The dialectic of the soul. "Anna Karenina". Joyce "Ulysses". Species are not exactly genres. A species is a specific historical embodiment of a genus. A genre is a group of works that have a set of stable features. Important: the theme, the theme is a genre object. artistic time- certain. Special composition. Speech carrier. Elegy - different understanding. Tale.

Some genres are universal: comedy, tragedy, ode. And some are local - petitions, walking. There is dead genres- sonnet. Canonical and non-canonical - settled and unformed.

LITERARY GENERATIONS

"Epos" in Greek - "word, speech, story." The epic is one of the most ancient genera, associated with the formation of national identity. There are many hoaxes in the 17th and 18th centuries. Successful - songs of Ossian, Scotland, an attempt to raise national consciousness. They influenced the development of European literature.

Epos - the original form - a heroic poem. Arises at break of a patriarchal society. In Russian literature - epics, folding into cycles.

The epic reproduces life not as a personal, but as an objective reality - from the outside. The purpose of any epic is to tell about an event. The content dominant is the event. Earlier - wars, later - a private event, facts inner life. The cognitive orientation of the epic is an objective beginning. A story about events without evaluation. "The Tale of Bygone Years" - all the bloody events are told dispassionately and ordinary. epic distance.

The subject of the image in the epic is the world as an objective reality. Human life in its organic connection with the world, fate is also the subject of the image. Bunin's story. Sholokhov "The Fate of Man". It is important to understand fate through the prism of culture.

Forms of verbal expression in the epic (type of speech organization) - narration. Functions of the word - the word depicts object world. Narration is a way/type of utterance. Description in the epic. The speech of heroes, characters. Narration is the speech of the image of the author. The speech of the characters - polylogues, monologues, dialogues. In romantic works, the confession of the protagonist is obligatory. Internal monologues- this is a direct inclusion of the words of the heroes. Indirect forms - indirect speech, improper direct speech. It is not isolated from the author's speech.

The important role of the system of reflections in the novel. The hero can be endowed with a quality that the author does not like. Example: Silvio. Pushkin's favorite characters are verbose. Very often it is not clear to us how the author relates to the hero.

A) narrator

1) The character has his own destiny. " Captain's daughter"," Belkin's Tale.

2) Conditional narrator, faceless in terms of speech. Very often we are. Speech mask.

3) Tale. Speech coloring - says society.

1) Objective. "History of the Russian State" Karamzin, "War and Peace".

2) Subjective - orientation to the reader, appeal.

A tale is a special speech manner that reproduces a person’s speech, as if not literary processed. Leskov "Lefty".

Descriptions and lists. important for the epic. The epic is perhaps the most popular genre.

Epos, unlike lyrics and drama, is impartial and objective at the moment of narration.

epic genres

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

The epic also includes folklore genres: a fairy tale, an epic, a historical song.

Meaning

An epic work has no limits in its scope. According to V. E. Khalizev, “Epos as a kind of literature includes both short stories(…) and works intended for long listening or reading: epics, novels (…)”.

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

An epic work can use almost any artistic medium. known to literature. Narrative form epic work"contributes to the deepest penetration into the inner world of man."

see also

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Literature

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

An excerpt characterizing the Epos (genus of literature)

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

epic- a kind of literature (along with lyrics and drama), a narrative about events assumed in the past (as if accomplished and remembered by the narrator). The epic embraces being in its plastic volume, spatio-temporal extension and event saturation (plot). According to Aristotle's Poetics, the epic, unlike lyrics and drama, is impartial and objective at the moment of narration.

The emergence of the epic is stadial in nature, but due to historical circumstances. Some scientists express the point of view that the heroic epic did not originate in cultures such as Chinese and Hebrew. However, other scientists believe that the Chinese still have an epic.

The origin of the epic is usually accompanied by the addition of panegyrics and laments, close to the heroic worldview. The great deeds immortalized in them often turn out to be the material that heroic poets use as the basis of their narrative. Panegyrics and laments, as a rule, are composed in the same style and size as the heroic epic: in Russian and Turkic literature, both types have almost the same manner of expression and lexical composition. Lamentations and panegyrics are preserved in the composition of epic poems as decoration.

epic genres

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

The epic also includes folklore genres: a fairy tale, an epic, a historical song.

epic- generic designation of major 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. This is how the Homeric poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey", as well as the French "chansons de geste" appeared.

Novel - literary genre, as a rule, prosaic, which involves a detailed narrative about the life and development of the personality of the protagonist (heroes) in a crisis, non-standard period of his life.

The name "Roman" originated in middle of XII century, together with the genre of chivalric romance (Old French. romanz from the late romanice "on (folk) Romance”), as opposed to historiography on Latin. Contrary to popular belief, this title from the very beginning did not refer to any composition in the vernacular ( heroic songs or the lyrics of the troubadours were never called novels), but to one that could be opposed to the Latin model, even if very distant: historiography, fable (“The Romance of Renard”), vision (“The Romance of the Rose”).

From a historical and literary point of view, it is impossible to talk about the emergence of the novel as a genre, since in essence " novel" is an inclusive term, loaded with philosophical and ideological connotations and indicating a whole complex of relatively autonomous phenomena that are not always genetically related to each other. The “emergence of the novel” in this sense occupies entire epochs, from antiquity to the 17th or even the 18th century. Of great importance in this case were the processes of convergence, that is, the assimilation and absorption of narrative classes and types from neighboring literary series.

Epic poem- one of the oldest types of epic works, since antiquity, has focused its attention on the depiction of heroic events, taken mainly from the distant past. These events were usually significant, epoch-making, influencing the course of the national and common history. Examples of the genre: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Song of Roland in France, the Nibelungenlied in Germany, Furious Roland» Ariosto, "Jerusalem Delivered" by Tasso and others. Genre heroic poem called special interest by writers and theorists of classicism. For his sublimity, citizenship, heroism, he was recognized as the crown of poetry. In the theoretical development of the epic genre, the writers of classicism relied on the traditions of antiquity. Following Aristotle, the choice of the epic hero was determined not only by his moral qualities; First of all, he had to be historical figure. The events in which the hero is involved must have a national, universal significance. Moralism was also manifested: the hero should be an example, a model of human behavior.

Tale- a prose genre that does not have a stable volume and occupies an intermediate position between a novel, on the one hand, and a short story or short story, on the other, gravitating towards newsreel reproducing the natural course of life. In foreign literary criticism, the specifically Russian concept of “story” is correlated with the “short novel” (eng. short novel or novella).

In Russia in the first third of the 19th 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).

AT Ancient Russia"tale" meant any narrative, especially prose, as opposed to poetic. The ancient meaning of the term - "the news of some event" - indicates that this genre has absorbed oral stories, events that the narrator personally saw or heard about.

An important source of Old Russian "tales" are chronicles ("The Tale of Bygone Years", etc.). In ancient Russian literature, a “tale” was any narrative about any actual events (“The Tale of Batu’s Invasion of Ryazan”, “The Tale of the Battle of Kalka”, “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom”, etc.), whose authenticity and actual significance did not raise doubts among contemporaries.

Story or novel- the main genre of short narrative prose. It is customary to call the author of stories a novelist, and the totality of stories - short stories.

Story or 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 detailed narrative forms, there are not many faces in the stories and one storyline (rarely several) with the characteristic presence of some one problem.

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

The novella is born from the disintegration of the novelistic tale and the anecdotal tale.

A novelistic fairy tale is a mundane version of a fairy tale. In new there are no miracles in the fairy tale, but they are very similar in plot. The new fairy tale solves the problem of testing in a different way (for example, the princess makes riddles). The antihero in everyday life and novelistic fairy tales acquires features real person. A witch is an old woman, and so on. New speed motivates the origin by domestic circumstances, she does not remember the rite of initiation. In this tale, the hero is much more active. He must decide everything with his mind, and most importantly - with cunning (unlike the epic). Sometimes wisdom comes close to trickery (a trickster hero (eng. trickster - a deceiver, trickster)).

The principle of paradox, an unexpected turn, remains an obligatory feature of forms that appears in new ones. fairy tales. In the fairy tale, plots are already appearing, novelistic in essence. magical powers are replaced by the category of mind and fate.

The joke has been around for a very long time. The anecdote is distinguished by paradoxicality, brevity, and a certain twist in the finale. Anecdotal tales are close to anecdotes both in subject matter and in poetics. These are stories about fools. Heroes break the laws of logic. Sometimes this can be motivated by something (deafness, blindness, etc.). Fools do not understand the purpose of things, identify people by their clothes, take everything literally, violate the temporal order. The result is terrible damage, but the emphasis is on the nature of the hero. The hero is to blame for everything. In these tales there is a category of successes and failures - a hint at the category of fate. Plots from mythology and rogues are introduced. In an anecdotal tale, one can distinguish a number of thematic groups: jokes about fools, cunning (rogues), evil and unfaithful or obstinate wives, about priests.

novelistic and anecdotal tale=> novella.

In different eras - even the most distant ones - there was a tendency to combine short stories into short story cycles. Usually these cycles were not a simple, unmotivated collection of stories, but were presented according to the principle of some unity: connecting motifs were introduced into the narrative.

For all collections oriental tales typical framing principle(the circumstances under which the stories are told). 1000 and one night - a monument of literature, a collection of stories, united by the story of King Shahriyar and his wife named Shahrazad (Scheherazade, Sheherazade). (Recall also the Decameron.)

Faced with the infidelity of his first wife, Shahriyar takes every day new wife and executes her at dawn the next day. However, this terrible order is violated when he marries Shahrazade, the wise daughter of his vizier. Every night she tells a fascinating story and interrupts the story "at the most interesting place" - and the king cannot refuse to hear the end of the story.

The stories are quite heterogeneous in content and style and go back to Arabic, Iranian, Indian folklore. The most archaic among them are Indo-Iranian. Arabian tales brought a love theme to the development of the novel.

In Europe, there has been no short story as such for a very long time. In antiquity, we find only one short story from the Satyricon, which describes the love affairs of a company of youths from among the “golden youth” of Rome, tells about their debauchery, moral ugliness, depravity and adventurism. Novella there - "About the chaste matron of Ephesus" (an inconsolable widow, grieving in a grave crypt over her husband's body, enters into a relationship with a warrior who guards the corpses of the executed nearby; when one of these corpses is stolen, the widow gives her husband's body to compensate for the loss) .

The Middle Ages knows only one form close to the short story - an instance (from Lat "example") - part of a church sermon, some illustration to it. Accompanied by a moral maxim at the end. Plots were taken from lives. Copies were published in collections. In Russia there is something close to them - a patericon (a book containing the lives of the so-called "holy fathers" (monks of some monastery). Kievo-Pechersky settlement). Sometimes you can find purely novelistic motifs.

Fablio is a kind of alternative to church lives. These are short poetic stories presented by jugglers - itinerant comedians. Often this is a satire on priests (rough humor). An unexpected twist at the end. They were common in France and Germany (schwants).

In Boccaccio you can find all kinds of short stories:

1. novels about witty answers (3 novels of the first day)
2. novels-tests (10 novel 10 days - Griselda)
3. short stories about the vicissitudes of fate (5th short story 5 days)
4. satirical novels

In the short stories of Boccaccio, for the first time, the individuality of a person is manifested. A man appears in a Renaissance novella. The actions of the characters are motivated, which is especially evident in the love-psychological novels.

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 construction of the novel is similar to the dramatic one, but usually simpler. “The novel is an unheard-of journey” (Goethe) - about the action-packed nature of the novel. The novel emphasizes the significance of the denouement, which contains an unexpected turn (pointe). It can be said that the whole novella is conceived as a denouement.

Tomashevsky, in addition to plot short stories, writes about short stories without plot, in which there is no causal relationship between motives. Such a short story can be easily taken apart and these parts rearranged without violating the correctness of the general course of the short story. He gives an example of Chekhov's Complaint Book, where we have a number of entries in the railway complaint book, and all these entries have nothing to do with the complaint book.

The romantic novella (n. 19th century) returns to fairy tale. Romantic novels are filled with fantasy.

The novella becomes a story. The story does not depict an event, its central attention is shifted to psychology, to everyday conditions, but not to the unusualness of the event. The story loses its ability to overcome trials. It becomes plotless. Chekhov's stories.

The story is an intermediate link between the novel and the short story. The story depicts one event, one episode. A novel is a collection of episodes. The story is 2-3 episodes from the life of the hero. There are rarely more than 2-3 characters in a story. The novel is a multi-character story. In the story - something in between, 2-3 clearly defined characters, but there are a large number of minor characters.

Feature article- one of the varieties of small form epic literature- a story that is different from its other form, the short story, by the absence of a single, sharp and quickly resolved conflict and the greater development of the descriptive image. Both differences depend on the features of the problematics of the essay. An essay is a semi-artistic, semi-documentary genre that describes real events and real people.

Essay literature does not touch on the problems of the formation of the character of the individual in its conflicts with the established public environment, as is inherent in the short story (and the novel), and the problems of the civil and moral state of the "environment" (usually embodied in individuals) - "moral descriptive" problems; it has great educational diversity. Essay literature usually combines features of fiction and journalism.

AT fiction an essay is one of the varieties of the story, it is more descriptive, it affects mainly social problems. Publicistic, including documentary, essay sets out and analyzes real facts and phenomena of social life, as a rule, accompanied by a direct interpretation of their author.

The main feature of the essay is writing from life.

Story- one of the genres of folklore or literature. epic, mostly prose work magical nature, usually with happy ending. As a rule, fairy tales are designed for children.

A fairy tale is an epic, predominantly prose work of art of a magical, adventurous or everyday nature with a fantasy setting. S. is called different kinds oral prose, hence the inconsistency in the definition of its genre features. S. differs from other types of artistic epic in that the storyteller presents it, and the audience perceives it primarily as a poetic fiction, a play of fantasy. This, however, does not deprive S. of connection with reality, which determines ideological content, language, character of plots, motives, images. Many S. reflected the primitive public relations and representations, totemism, animism, etc.

THE ORIGIN OF THE FAIRY TALE

In the early stages of culture, fairy tales, sagas, and myths are found undivided and initially, probably, have a production function: the hunter lured the frightened beast with a gesture and a word. Later, pantomime is introduced with words and singing. Traces of these elements have been preserved in the tale of the later stages of development in the form of dramatic performance, melodious elements of the text, and broad layers of dialogue, the more of which the tale is more primitive the more primitive it is.

At a later stage of the pastoral economy, pre-natal and early-natal social organization and animistic worldview, S. often receives the function of a magical rite to influence no longer the beast, but souls and spirits. S. are obliged to either attract and entertain, especially among hunters, forest and all kinds of other spirits (among the Turks, Buryats, Soyats, Uriankhians, Orochons, Altaians, Shors, Sagais, residents of Fiji, Samoa, Australians), or they are used as spells (in New Guinea, among the Altaians, Chukchi), or S. is directly included in religious rites (among the Malays, Gilyaks, Iranian Tajiks). Eg. famous motif magical escape is played out by the Chukchi in their funeral rite. Even the Russian S. was included in wedding ceremony. Thereby cult value C. many peoples have a regulation of telling fairy tales: they cannot be told during the day or summer, but only at night after sunset and in winter (Baluchi, Bechuans, Hotentots, Witoto, Eskimos).

TYPES OF FAIRY TALE

Despite the constructive uniformity, modern S. distinguishes several types:

1. FROM. about animals — ancient species; it goes back partly to the primitive Natursagen, partly to a later influence literary poems Middle Ages (like a novel about Renard) or stories northern peoples about a bear, a wolf, a crow, and especially about a cunning fox or its equivalents - a jackal, a hyena.
2. FROM. magical, genetically ascending to different sources: to a decomposed myth, to magical stories, to rituals, book sources, etc.
3. FROM. novelistic with household plots, but unusual: Among them are varieties of S. anecdotal(about Poshekhontsy, cunning wives, priests, etc.) and erotic. Genetically novelistic secularism is more often rooted in feudal society with clear class stratifications.
4. FROM. legendary,

• folk tale — epic genre written and oral folk art: a prose oral story about fictitious events in the folklore of different peoples. A type of narrative, mostly prose folklore ( fabulous prose), including works of different genres whose texts are based on fiction. Fairytale folklore opposes "authentic" folklore narrative ( not fairy tale).
• Fairy tale literary- epic genre: a fiction-oriented work closely associated with folk tale, but, unlike it, belongs to a specific author, did not exist before publication in oral and had no options. A literary fairy tale either imitates a folklore one ( literary tale written in folk poetic style), or creates a didactic work based on non-folklore stories. folk tale historically precedes the literary one.

Word " story» attested in written sources not earlier than the 17th century. From the word " say". It mattered: a list, a list, an exact description. It acquires modern significance from the 17th-19th centuries. Previously, the word " fable».

Bylina- heroic-patriotic song-tale, which tells about the exploits of heroes and reflects the life of Ancient Russia in the 9th-13th centuries; a kind of oral folk art, which is characterized by a song-epic way of reflecting reality. The main plot of the epic is some heroic event, or a remarkable episode of Russian history (hence vernacular name epics - “old man”, “old woman”, implying that the action in question took place in the past).

Epics, as a rule, are written in tonic verse with two to four stresses.

For the first time the term "epic" was introduced by Ivan Sakharov in the collection "Songs of the Russian people" in 1839. He suggested it based on the expression " according to epics" in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", which meant " according to the facts».

There are several theories to explain the origin and composition of epics:

1. Mythological theory sees in epics stories about natural phenomena, and in heroes - the personification of these phenomena and their identification with the gods of the ancient Slavs (Orest Miller, Afanasiev).
2. The historical theory explains epics as a trace of historical events sometimes confused in people's memory (Leonid Maikov, Kvashnin-Samarin).
3. Borrowing theory points to literary background epics (Theodor Benfei, Vladimir Stasov, Veselovsky, Ignatiy Yagich), and some tend to see borrowing through the influence of the East (Stasov, Vsevolod Miller), others - the West (Veselovsky, Sozonovich).

As a result, one-sided theories gave way to a mixed one, allowing for the presence of elements of folk life, history, literature, Eastern and Western borrowings in the epics.

historical songs- a group of epic songs conventionally distinguished by scientists from the circle of epics . In terms of its historical songs usually fewer epics; using epic poetics in general, the historical song, however, is poorer in traditional artistic formulas and techniques: common places, retardation, repetitions, comparisons.

Historical songs are works of art, therefore, the facts of history are present in them in a poetically transformed form, although historical songs tend to reproduce specific events, to preserve accurate memory in them. As epic works, many historical songs have features similar to epics, but they are a qualitatively new stage in development. folk poetry. Events are transmitted in them with greater historical accuracy than in epics.

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An epic work has no limits in its scope. According to V. E. Khalizev, “Epos as a kind of literature includes both short stories (…) and works designed for long listening or reading: epics, novels (…)”.

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

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

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

Other genres of the epic are the story, short story, short story. In an effort to fully reflect life, epic works tend to be combined into cycles. Based on the same trend, an epic novel is being formed (The Forsyte Saga by J. Galsworthy).

epic

An epic (from epic and Greek poieo - I create) is an extensive work of art in verse or prose that tells about significant historical events. Usually describes a series of major events within a particular historical era. Initially, it was aimed at describing heroic events.

Widely known epics: "Iliad", "Mahabharata".

Novel

A novel is a large narrative work of art, in the events of which many characters usually take part (their fates are intertwined).

A novel can be philosophical, historical, adventure, family, social, adventurous, fantastic, etc. There is also an epic novel that describes the fate of people at a turning point. historical eras("War and Peace", " Quiet Don", "Gone With the Wind").

A novel can be both in prose and in verse, contain several storylines, include works of small genres (story, fable, poem, etc.).

The novel is characterized by the formulation of socially significant problems, psychologism, disclosure through conflicts of the inner world of a person.

Periodically, the genre of the novel is predicted to decline, but its wide possibilities in reflecting reality and human nature allow it to have its attentive reader in the next new times.

Many books and scientific works are devoted to the principles of construction and creation of the novel.

Tale

The story is a work of art that occupies a middle position between a novel and a story in terms of the volume and complexity of the plot, built in the form of a narrative about the events of the protagonist in their natural sequence. As a rule, the story does not pretend to pose global problems.

Widely known stories: "The Overcoat" by N. Gogol, "The Steppe" by A. Chekhov, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by A. Solzhenitsyn.

Story

A story is a short work of art with a limited number of characters and events. There can be only one episode from the life of one character in a story.

The short story and the short story are the genres with which young prose writers usually begin their literary work.

Novella

A short story, like a story, is a small work of art, which is characterized by brevity, lack of descriptiveness, and an unexpected denouement.

The novels by J. Boccaccio, Pr. Merimee, S. Maugham.

Vision

A vision is a narrative of events revealed in a (supposedly) dream, hallucination, or lethargic dream. This genre is characteristic of medieval literature, but is still used today, usually in satirical and fantastic works.

Fable

A fable (from "bait" - to tell) is a small work of art in a poetic form of a moralizing or satirical nature. At the end of the fable, there is usually a brief moralizing conclusion (the so-called morality).

In the fable, the vices of people are ridiculed. In this case, the actors, as a rule, are animals, plants or various things.

Parable

A parable, like a fable, contains moral teaching in allegorical form. However, the parable chooses people as heroes. It is also presented in prose form.

Perhaps the most famous parable is the Parable of prodigal son from the Gospel of Luke.

Story

A fairy tale is a work of fiction about fictional events and heroes, in which magical, fantastic forces appear. A fairy tale is a form of teaching children the right behavior, observance of social norms. It also transmits important information for humanity from generation to generation.

Modern look fairy tales - fantasy - a kind of historical adventure novel, the action of which takes place in a fictional world close to the real one.

Joke

Anecdote (fr. anecdote - tale, fiction) - small prose form, characterized by conciseness, unexpected, absurd and funny denouement. A joke is a play on words.

Although many anecdotes have specific a second ones, as a rule, their names are forgotten or initially remain “behind the curtain”.

A collection of literary anecdotes about the writers N. Dobrokhotova and Vl. Pyatnitsky, erroneously attributed to D. Kharms.

More detailed information on this topic can be found in the books of A. Nazaikin

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

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

2. Epos as a kind of literature.

a) features of the epic kind of literature.

Epos (Greek epos - word, narration, story) - literary gender excelled along with lyrics and drama. The epic, like the drama, reproduces the action unfolding in space and time, the course of events in the life of the characters. A specific feature of the epic is in the organizing role of the narrator: the speaker reports the events and their details as something that happened and is remembered, along the way resorting to descriptions of the situation of the action and the appearance of the characters, and sometimes to discrepancies.

Most precise definition the epic was given by VG Belinsky: “epic poetry is primarily objective external poetry, both in relation to itself, and to the poet and his reader. AT epic poetry the contemplation of the world and life is expressed as existing in themselves and in perfect balance to themselves and the poet or reader contemplating them.

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

The narrative layer of the epic work interacts with the dialogues and monologues of the characters. The epic narration either becomes self-sufficing, temporarily suspending the statements of the characters, or imbued with their spirit in an improperly direct speech; either frames the characters' lines, or, on the contrary, is reduced to a minimum or temporarily disappears. But in general, it dominates the work, holding together everything depicted in it. Therefore, the features of the epic are largely determined by the properties of the narrative.

The epic narration is conducted on behalf of the narrator, a kind of intermediary between the depicted and the listeners, the witness and interpreter of what happened. Information about his fate, his relationship with the characters, about the circumstances of the "narrative" is usually absent. At the same time, the narrator can "condense" into specific person becoming a storyteller.

The epic is as free as possible in the development of space and time. The writer either creates scenic episodes, that is, pictures that capture one place and one moment in the life of the characters, or - in descriptive, overview, "panoramic" episodes - talks about long periods of time or what happened in different places. The epic uses the arsenal of literary and visual means in its entirety, which gives the images the illusion of plastic volume and visual-auditory authenticity. The epic does not insist on the conditionality of what is recreated. Here, conventionally, it is not so much the depicted itself, but rather the “depicting”, that is, the narrator, who often has absolute knowledge of what happened in its smallest details.

The epic form is based on various types of plot constructions. In some cases, the dynamics of events is revealed openly and extensively, in others, the image of the course of events, as it were, is drowned in descriptions, psychological characteristics, reasoning. The volume of the text of an epic work, which can be both prose and poetry, is practically unlimited - from miniature stories to lengthy epics and novels. The epic can concentrate in itself such a number of characters and events that are not available to other types of literature and arts. At the same time, the narrative form is able to recreate complex, contradictory, multifaceted characters that are in the making. The word "epos" is associated with the idea of ​​showing life in its entirety, of revealing the essence whole era and scale of the creative act. The scope of epic genres is not limited to any types of experiences and attitudes. In the nature of the epic is the universally wide use of the cognitive and ideological possibilities of literature and art in general.

So, the main features of epic works are the reproduction of external phenomena of reality in relation to the author in the objective course of events, narrative and plot. When studying the epic as a kind of literature, it is necessary to acquaint students with these features. This is especially important when delimiting genres and genres of literature.

b) the originality of the epic genres.

Difficulties arising in the analysis of epic works arise already in determining the genre of the work. A serious mistake will be made by one who begins to consider a story or a story, making demands on them that only a novel can meet.

One of methodological tasks teachers to introduce students to genre originality epic works and teach how to apply this knowledge in the analysis of works. At the same time, it is important to take into account age features students and stages literary education at school. In grades V - VI, the study of genres literary works(fairy tale, legend, myth, chronicle, epic, fable, story, story, ballad, poem) serves to clarify the author's poetry. Work in grades VII - VIII is aimed at systematizing ideas about the genres and genres of literature, the circle of study includes such genres as: novel, biography, life, parable, sermon, confession, short story. Literary theory in high school helps to trace historical changes in poetics literary genera and genres.

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

The methodology for analyzing an epic work is largely based on the originality of the genus and genre. And the volume of the work plays not last role in choosing the path of analysis. This is due to time constraints and saturation school curriculum. In this case, this is how he solves the problem of analyzing the works of M.A. Rybnikov: “Methodological techniques are dictated by the nature of the work ... A ballad can be disassembled using a plan, but it is hardly necessary to plan lyrical work. A short story is read and understood in its entirety. We choose separate, leading chapters from the novel and read one of them in class, another at home, carefully analyze the third and retell close to the text, analyze the fourth, fifth, sixth at a faster pace and retell briefly, excerpts from the seventh and eighth chapters are given in the form of a fictional story to individual students, the epilogue is told to the class by the teacher himself. The riddle is guessed and repeated by heart, the proverb is explained and accompanied by everyday examples, the fable is understood based on the awareness of the morality expressed in it.