At school, in literature lessons, they study stories, novels, novels, essays, elegies. In cinemas, various films are shown - action films, comedies, melodramas. And how can all these phenomena be united in one term? For this, the concept of "genre" was invented.

Let's figure out what a genre is in literature, what types of them exist and how to determine which direction a particular work belongs to.

The division of works by genre has been known since antiquity. What is a genre in ancient literature? It:

• tragedy;
• comedy.

Fiction was practically inseparable from the theater, and therefore the set was limited to what could be embodied on the stage.

In the Middle Ages, the list expanded: now it includes a short story, a novel and a story. The emergence of a romantic poem, an epic novel, as well as ballads belongs to the New Age.

The 20th century, with its enormous changes in significance, now and then taking place in the life of society and individual person, gave rise to new literary forms:

• thriller;
• action movie;
• fiction;
• fantasy.

What is a genre in literature

The totality of some features of groups of literary forms (signs can be both formal and meaningful) - these are the genres of literature.

According to Wikipedia, they are divided into three large groups:

• by content;
• in form;
• by birth.

Wikipedia names at least 30 different directions. These include (of the most famous):

• story;
• story;
• novel;
• elegy,

and others.

There are also less common ones:

• sketch;
• opus;
• stanzas.

How to define a genre

How to determine the genre of a work? If a we are talking about a novel or an ode, then we will not get confused, but something more complex - a sketch or stanzas - can cause difficulties.

So before us open book. It is immediately possible to correctly name well-known literary forms, the definition of which we do not even need. For example, we see a three-dimensional creation that describes a large period of time in which many characters appear.

There are several storylines - one main and an unlimited number (at the discretion of the author) of secondary ones. If all these requirements are met, then every high school student will say with confidence that we have a novel.

If this is a short narrative, limited to a description of an event, while the author’s attitude to what he is talking about is clearly visible, then this is a story.

More difficult, for example, with opus.

The interpretation of the concept is ambiguous: most often it means something that causes ridicule, that is, an essay, story or story, the merits of which are doubtful.

In principle, many literary works can be attributed to the concept of "opus", if they do not differ in clarity of style, richness of thought, in other words, they are mediocre.

What are stanzas? This is a kind of poem-remembrance, a poem-reflection. Remember, for example, Pushkin's Stanzas, written by him on a long winter journey.

Important! In order to correctly classify this or that literary form, be sure to take into account both external signs and content.

Let's try to bring literary genres together, and for this we will collect the types of works known to us in a table. Of course, we will not be able to cover everything - the most complete literary trends are presented in serious philological works. But a small list can be made.

The table will look like this:

Definition of genre (in the conventional sense)	Characteristic features
Story	Accurate plot, description of one bright event
Feature article	A kind of story, the task of the essay is to reveal spiritual world heroes
Tale	The description is not so much an event as its consequences for the spiritual world of the characters. The story reveals the inner world of the characters
Sketch	A short play (usually consisting of one act). The number of active persons is minimal. Designed for stage performance
Essay	A short story, where a considerable place is given to the personal impressions of the author
Oh yeah	Solemn poem dedicated to a person or event

Types of genres by content

Before, we touched on the question of the form of writing and divided the genres of literature precisely on this basis. However, directions can be interpreted more broadly. The content, the meaning of what is written is very important. At the same time, the terms in both lists can "echo", intersect.

Let's say a story falls into two groups at once: stories can be distinguished by outward signs(short, with a clearly expressed attitude of the author), and in content (one bright event).

Among the areas divided by content, we note:

• comedy;
• tragedy;
• horror;
• drama.

Comedy is perhaps one of the most ancient genres. The definition of comedy is multifaceted: it can be a sitcom, a comedy of characters. There are also comedies:

• household;
• romantic;
• heroic.

Tragedies were also known ancient world. The definition of this genre of literature is a work, the outcome of which will certainly be sad, hopeless.

Genres of literature and their definitions

List literary genres can be found in any textbook for students of philology. Who cares to know in what directions literary forms stand out?

This information is needed by the following professionals:

• writers;
• journalists;
• teachers;
• philologists.

When creating a work of art, the author submits his creation to certain canons, and their framework - conditional boundaries - allow us to attribute the created to the group "novels", "essays" or "odes".

This concept is relevant not only to works of literature, but also to other types of art. Wikipedia explains: this term can also be used in relation to:

• painting;
• Photo;
• movie;
• oratory;
• music.

Important! Even the game of chess obeys its genre standards.

However, these are very large separate topics. We are now interested in what genres there are in literature.

Examples

Any concept should be considered with examples, and types of literary forms are no exception. Let's take a look at practical examples.

Let's start with the simplest - with a story. Surely everyone remembers Chekhov's work "I want to sleep" from school.

it scary tale, written in a deliberately simple, everyday style, it is based on a crime committed by a thirteen-year-old girl in a state of passion, when her mind was clouded from fatigue and hopelessness.

We see that Chekhov complied with all the laws of the genre:

• description practically does not go beyond one event;
• the author is "present", we feel his attitude to what is happening;
• in the story - one main character;
• The essay is short and can be read in a few minutes.

As an example of the story, you can take " spring waters» Turgenev. The author here argues more, as if helping the reader to draw conclusions, gently pushing him to these conclusions. In the story important place is given to questions of morality, ethics, the inner world of heroes - all these problems come to the fore.

– is also quite specific. This is a kind of sketch, where the author expresses his own thoughts on a specific occasion.

The essay is characterized by vivid imagery, originality, frankness. If you have ever read André Maurois and Bernard Shaw, you will understand what we are talking about.

Novels and their character traits- the length of events in time, multiple storylines, a chronological chain, the author's periodic digressions from a given topic - do not allow confusing the genre with any other.

In the novel, the author touches on many problems: from personal to acute social. At the mention of novels, “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy, “Fathers and Sons”, “Gone with the Wind” by M. Mitchell, “ Wuthering Heights» E. Bronte.

Types and groupings

In addition to grouping by content and form, we can take advantage of the proposal of philologists and subdivide everything created by writers, poets and playwrights by gender. How to determine the genre of a work - what kind can it belong to?

You can create a list of varieties:

• epic;
• lyrical;
• dramatic.

The first are distinguished by a calm narrative, descriptiveness. Epic can be a novel, essay, poem. The second is everything that is connected with the personal experiences of the heroes, as well as with solemn events. This includes an ode, an elegy, an epigram.

Drama is comedy, tragedy, drama. For the most part, the theater expresses the “right” to them.

Summarizing what has been said, we can apply the following classification: there are three major areas in literature, covering everything that has ever been created by prose writers, playwrights and poets. Works are divided by:

• form;
• content;
• the kind of writing.

Within the framework of one direction, there can be many completely diverse works. So, if we take the division by form, then here we will include stories, novels, essays, odes, essays, novels.

We determine belonging to any direction by the “external structure” of the work: its size, quantity storylines, the attitude of the author to what is happening.

The division by birth is lyrical, dramatic and epic works. Lyrical can be a novel, a story, an essay. The genus epic includes poems, fairy tales, epics. Dramatic - these are plays: comedies, tragicomedies, tragedies.

Important! The new time makes adjustments to the system literary trends. In recent decades, the detective genre, which originated in the 19th century, has developed. In contrast to the utopian novel that arose during the period late Middle Ages, a dystopia was born.

Useful video

Summing up

Literature continues to evolve today. The world is changing at a tremendous speed, and therefore undergo changes in the form of expression of thoughts, feelings, the speed of perception. Perhaps in the future, new genres will form - so unusual that it is still difficult for us to imagine them.

It is possible that they will be located at the junction of several types of art at once, for example, cinema, music and literature. But this is in the future, but for now our task is to learn to understand the literary heritage that we already have.

Literature is one of the main types of art is the art of the word. The term “literature” also refers to any works of human thought fixed in the written word and possessing public importance; distinguish literature technical, scientific, journalistic, reference, epistolary, etc. However, in the usual and stricter sense, works of art are called literature.

The term literature

The term "literature"(or, as they used to say, "belles-lettres") emerged relatively recently and began to be widely used only in the 18th century (displacing the terms "poetry", "poetic art", which now denote poetic works).

It was brought to life by printing, which, having appeared in the middle of the 15th century, relatively quickly made the “literary” (i.e., intended for reading) form of existence of the art of the word the main and dominant one; earlier art the word existed primarily for hearing, for public performance and was understood as a skillful implementation of a “poetic” action by means of a special “poetic language” (“Poetics” by Aristotle, ancient and medieval aesthetic treatises of the West and East).

Literature (the art of the word) arises on the basis of oral folk literature in ancient times - during the formation of the state, which necessarily gives rise to a developed form of writing. However, initially literature does not stand out from writing in the broad sense of the word. AT ancient monuments(Bible, "Mahabharata" or "Tale of Bygone Years") elements verbal art exist in inseparable unity with elements of mythology, religion, the beginnings of natural and historical sciences, various kinds of information, moral and practical instructions.

The syncretic nature of early literary monuments (see) does not deprive them of aesthetic value, because. the religious-mythological form of consciousness reflected in them was close to artistic in its structure. literary heritage ancient civilizations- Egypt, China, Judea, India, Greece, Rome, etc. - forms a kind of foundation of world literature.

Literary history

Although the history of literature dates back several millennia, it in its proper sense - as a written form of the art of the word - is formed and realizes itself with the birth of "civil", bourgeois society. Verbal and artistic creations of past times also acquire a specifically literary existence in this era, experiencing a significant transformation in a new, not oral, but reader's perception. At the same time, the normative "poetic language" is being destroyed - literature absorbs all the elements of popular speech, its verbal "material" becomes universal.

Gradually, in aesthetics (in the 19th century, starting with Hegel), the purely meaningful, spiritual originality of literature comes to the fore, and it is recognized primarily in a number of other (scientific, philosophical, journalistic) types of writing, and not other types of art. By the middle of the 20th century, however, a synthetic understanding of literature as one of the forms of artistic development of the world was being asserted, as creative activity, which belongs to art, but at the same time is a kind of artistic creativity, which occupies a special place in the system of arts; this distinctive position of literature is fixed in the commonly used formula "literature and art".

Unlike other types of art (painting, sculpture, music, dance), which have a directly object-sensory form created from some material object (paint, stone) or from action (body movement, sound of a string), literature creates its form from words, from language which, having a material embodiment (in sounds and indirectly in letters), is really comprehended not in sensory perception, but in intellectual understanding.

Form of Literature

Thus, the form of literature includes the subject-sensory side - certain complexes of sounds, the rhythm of verse and prose (moreover, these moments are perceived when reading “to oneself”); but this directly sensual side literary form acquires real significance only in its interaction with the actual intellectual, spiritual layers of artistic speech.

Even the most elementary components of the form (an epithet or a metaphor, a narrative or a dialogue) are assimilated only in the process of understanding (and not direct perception). Spirituality, penetrating through literature, allows it to develop its universal, in comparison with other types of art, possibilities.

The subject of art is human world, a diverse human attitude to reality, reality from a human point of view. However, it is in the art of the word (and this constitutes its specific sphere, in which theater and cinema adjoin literature) that a person as a carrier of spirituality becomes a direct object of reproduction and comprehension, the main point of application artistic forces. The qualitative originality of the subject of literature was noticed by Aristotle, who believed that plots poetry associated with the thoughts, characters and actions of people.

But only in the 19th century, i.e. in a predominantly "literary" era artistic development, this specificity of the subject was fully realized. “The object corresponding to poetry is the infinite realm of the spirit. For the word, this most malleable material, directly belonging to the spirit and most capable of expressing its interests and impulses in their inner vitality, the word should be used primarily for such an expression to which it is most suitable, just as in other arts it happens with stone, paint , sound.

From this side the main task poetry will be to promote awareness of the forces of spiritual life and in general of everything that rages in human passions and feelings or calmly passes before the contemplative gaze - the all-embracing kingdom human actions, deeds, destinies, ideas, all the fuss of this world and the entire divine world order ”(Hegel G. Aesthetics).

Every work of art is an act of spiritual and emotional communication between people and at the same time new item, a new phenomenon created by man and containing some kind of artistic discovery. These functions - communication, creation and knowledge - are equally inherent in all forms artistic activity, but different types art is characterized by the predominance of one function or another. Due to the fact that the word, language is the reality of thought, in the formation of verbal art, in the promotion of literature to a special, and in the 19-20 centuries even to a central place among the ancient arts, the main historical trend development of artistic activity - the transition from sensual-practical creation to sense-creation.

Place of Literature

The flourishing of literature is in a certain connection with the rise of the cognitive-critical spirit characteristic of modern times. Literature stands, as it were, on the verge of art and mental and spiritual activity; that is why certain phenomena of literature can be directly compared with philosophy, history, psychology. She is often called " artistic research”or“ human science ”(M. Gorky) for the problematic, analytical, pathos of self-knowledge of a person to the innermost depths of his soul. In literature, more than in the plastic arts and music, the artistically recreated world appears as a meaningful world and raised to a high level of generalization. Therefore, it is the most ideological of all the arts.

Literary, images

Literary, the images of which are not directly perceptible, but arise in the human imagination, inferior to other arts in terms of the power of feelings, impact, but wins in terms of an all-encompassing penetration into the "essence of things". At the same time, the writer, strictly speaking, does not tell or reflect on life, as do, for example, a memoirist and a philosopher; he creates, creates the artistic world in the same way as a representative of any art. The process of creating a literary work, its architectonics and individual phrases is associated with almost physical tension and in this sense is akin to the activities of artists working with the unyielding matter of stone, sound, human body(in dance, pantomime).

This bodily-emotional tension does not disappear in the finished work: it is transmitted to the reader. Literature in maximum degree appeals to the work of aesthetic imagination, to the effort of the reader's co-creation, for the artistic being represented by a literary work can be manifested only if the reader, starting from a sequence of verbal-figurative statements, begins to restore, re-create this being (see). L.N. Tolstoy wrote in his diary that when perceiving genuine art there is an “illusion that I do not perceive, but create” (“On Literature”). These words emphasize the most important aspect creative function of literature: education of the artist in the reader himself.

The verbal form of literature is not speech in the proper sense: the writer, in creating a work, does not "speak" (or "writes"), but "acts out" speech in the same way that an actor on stage does not act in literally words, but acts out. Artistic speech creates a sequence of verbal images of "gestures"; it itself becomes action, "being." So, the embossed verse " Bronze Horseman” as if erects a unique Pushkin Petersburg, and F.M. Dostoevsky’s tense, suffocating style and rhythm of narration make the spiritual throwing of his heroes seem to be tangible. As a result, literary works put the reader face to face with artistic reality, which can not only be comprehended, but and experience, "live" in it.

Aggregate literary works created on certain language or within certain state boundaries, is this or that national literature; the commonality of the time of creation and the resulting artistic properties allows you to talk about the literature of this era; taken together, in their increasing mutual influence, national literatures form world, or world literature. Literature of any era has a huge variety.

First of all, literature is divided into two main types (forms) - poetry and prose, as well as into three types - epic, lyrics and drama. Despite the fact that the boundaries between genera cannot be drawn with absolute precision and there are many transitional forms, the main features of each genus are fairly well defined. At the same time, there is commonality and unity in the works of various kinds. In any work of literature, images of people appear - characters (or heroes) in certain circumstances, although in the lyrics these categories, like a number of others, have a fundamental originality.

The specific set of characters and circumstances that appears in the work is called the theme, and the semantic result of the work, which grows out of the juxtaposition and interaction of images, is called the artistic idea. Unlike a logical idea, an artistic idea is not formulated by the author's statement, but is depicted, imprinted on all the details of the artistic whole. When analyzing artistic idea two sides are often singled out: an understanding of the reflected life and an assessment of it. The evaluative (value) aspect, or "ideological and emotional orientation", is called a trend.

Literary work

A literary work is a complex interweaving of specific "figurative" statements- the smallest and simplest verbal images. Each of them puts before the reader's imagination a separate action, movement, which together represent life process in its origin, development and resolution. The dynamic nature of verbal art, as opposed to the static nature visual arts, was first illuminated by G.E. Lessing (“Laocoon, or On the Limits of Painting and Poetry”, 1766).

Separate elementary actions and movements that make up a work have different character: these are external, objective movements of people and things, and internal, spiritual movements, and “speech movements” - replicas of heroes and the author. The chain of these interrelated movements is the plot of the work. Perceiving the plot as the reader reads, the reader gradually comprehends the content - action, conflict, plot and motivation, theme and idea. The plot itself is a substantive-formal category, or (as they sometimes say) the “internal form” of a work. The "internal form" refers to the composition.

The form of a work in the proper sense is artistic speech, a sequence of phrases which the reader perceives (reads or hears) directly and directly. This does not mean at all that artistic speech is a purely formal phenomenon; it is entirely meaningful, because it is in it that the plot is objectified, and thus the entire content of the work (characters, circumstances, conflict, theme, idea).

Considering the structure of a work, its various "layers" and elements, it is necessary to realize that these elements can be distinguished only by abstraction: in reality, each work is an indivisible living integrity. An analysis of a work based on a system of abstractions, separately investigating various aspects and details, should eventually lead to the knowledge of this integrity, its single content-formal nature (see).

Depending on the originality of content and form, a work is referred to one or another genre (for example, epic genres: epic, story, novel, short story, short story, essay, fable, etc.). In each era, diverse genre forms develop, although the most appropriate to the general character of the given time come to the fore.

Finally, in the literature there are various creative methods and styles. A certain method and style are characteristic of literature whole era or directions; on the other hand, each great artist creates his own individual method and style within the framework of a creative direction close to him.

Literature is studied by various branches of literary criticism. Current literary process constitutes the main subject of literary criticism.

The word literature comes from Latin litteratura - written and from littera, which in translation means - a letter.

The list is not yet complete, as it only includes questions from tickets for secondary school or basic level (and not included, respectively, - in-depth study or profile level and national school).

"The Life of Boris and Gleb" late XI - early. 12th century

"The Tale of Igor's Campaign", late 12th century.

W. Shakespeare - (1564 - 1616)

"Romeo and Juliet" 1592

J-B. Moliere - (1622 - 1673)

"The tradesman in the nobility" 1670

M.V. Lomonosov - (1711 - 1765)

DI. Fonvizin - (1745 - 1792)

"Undergrowth" 1782

A.N. Radishchev - (1749 - 1802)

G.R. Derzhavin - (1743 - 1816)

N.M. Karamzin - (1766 - 1826)

"Poor Lisa" 1792

J. G. Byron - (1788 - 1824)

I.A. Krylov - (1769 - 1844)

"Wolf in the kennel" 1812

V.A. Zhukovsky - (1783 - 1852)

"Svetlana" 1812

A.S. Griboyedov - (1795 - 1829)

"Woe from Wit" 1824

A.S. Pushkin - (1799 - 1837)

"Tales of Belkin" 1829-1830

"Shot" 1829

"Stationmaster" 1829

"Dubrovsky" 1833

"The Bronze Horseman" 1833

"Eugene Onegin" 1823-1838

"The Captain's Daughter" 1836

A.V. Koltsov - (1808 - 1842)

M.Yu. Lermontov - (1814 - 1841)

"A song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, a young guardsman and a daring merchant Kalashnikov." 1837

"Borodino" 1837

"Mtsyri" 1839

"Hero of our time" 1840

"Goodbye, unwashed Russia" 1841

"Motherland" 1841

N.V. Gogol - (1809 - 1852)

"Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" 1829-1832

"Inspector" 1836

"Overcoat" 1839

"Taras Bulba" 1833-1842

"Dead souls" 1842

I.S. Nikitin - (1824 - 1861)

F.I. Tyutchev - (1803 - 1873)

"There is in the autumn of the original ..." 1857

I.A. Goncharov - (1812 - 1891)

"Oblomov" 1859

I.S. Turgenev - (1818 - 1883)

"Bezhin Meadow" 1851

"Asya" 1857

"Fathers and Sons" 1862

"Schi" 1878

ON THE. Nekrasov - (1821 - 1878)

"Railroad" 1864

"To whom in Rus' it is good to live" 1873-76

F.M. Dostoevsky - (1821 - 1881)

"Crime and Punishment" 1866

"Christ's boy on the Christmas tree" 1876

A.N. Ostrovsky - (1823 - 1886)

"Own people - let's settle!" 1849

"Thunderstorm" 1860

A.A. Fet - (1820 - 1892)

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin - (1826-1889)

"Wild landowner" 1869

"The Tale of How One Man Feeded Two Generals" 1869

"wise gudgeon" 1883

"Bear in the province" 1884

N.S. Leskov - (1831 - 1895)

"Lefty" 1881

L.N. Tolstoy - (1828 - 1910)

"War and Peace" 1867-1869

"After the ball" 1903

A.P. Chekhov - (1860 - 1904)

"Death of an official" 1883

"Ionych" 1898

"The Cherry Orchard" 1903

M. Gorky - (1868 - 1936)

"Makar Chudra" 1892

"Chelkash" 1894

"Old Woman Izergil" 1895

"At the bottom" 1902

A.A. Block - (1880 - 1921)

"Poems about a beautiful lady" 1904

"Russia" 1908

cycle "Motherland" 1907-1916

"Twelve" 1918

S.A. Yesenin - (1895 - 1925)

"I don't regret, I don't call, I don't cry..." 1921

V.V. Mayakovsky (1893 - 1930)

"Good attitude towards horses" 1918

A.S. Green - (1880 - 1932)

A.I. Kuprin - (1870 - 1938)

I.A. Bunin - (1879 - 1953)

O.E. Mandelstam - (1891 - 1938)

M.A. Bulgakov - (1891 - 1940)

"White Guard" 1922-1924

"Dog Heart" 1925

"Master and Margarita" 1928-1940

M.I. Tsvetaeva - (1892 - 1941)

A.P. Platonov - (1899 - 1951)

B.L. Pasternak - (1890-1960)

"Doctor Zhivago" 1955

A.A. Akhmatova - (1889 - 1966)

"Requiem" 1935-40

K.G. Paustovsky - (1892 - 1968)

"Telegram" 1946

M.A. Sholokhov - (1905 - 1984)

"Quiet Don" 1927-28

"Virgin Soil Upturned" t1-1932, t2-1959)

"The fate of man" 1956

A.T. Tvardovsky - (1910 - 1971)

"Vasily Terkin" 1941-1945

V.M. Shukshin - (1929 - 1974)

V.P. Astafiev - (1924 - 2001)

A.I. Solzhenitsyn - (born 1918)

"Matrenin yard" 1961

V.G. Rasputin - (born 1937)

The idea of ​​protecting the Russian land in the works of oral folk art (fairy tales, epics, songs).

Creativity of one of the poets of the Silver Age.

originality artistic world one of the poets of the Silver Age (on the example of 2-3 poems at the choice of the examinee).

The Great Patriotic War in Russian prose. (On the example of one work.)

The feat of man in the war. (According to one of the works about the Great Patriotic War.)

Theme Great Patriotic War in the prose of the twentieth century. (On the example of one work.)

military theme in contemporary literature. (On the example of one or two works.)

What is your favorite poet in Russian literature of the 20th century? Reading by heart his poems.

Russian poets of the XX century about the spiritual beauty of man. Reading one poem by heart.

Features of the work of one of the modern domestic poets of the second half of the twentieth century. (at the choice of the examiner).

your favorite poems contemporary poets. Reading one poem by heart.

Your favorite poet Reading by heart one of the poems.

The theme of love in modern poetry. Reading one poem by heart.

Man and nature in Russian prose of the XX century. (On the example of one work.)

Man and nature in modern literature. (On the example of one or two works.)

Man and nature in Russian poetry of the XX century. Reading one poem by heart.

What is your favorite literary character?

Book review contemporary writer: impressions and evaluation.

One of the works of modern literature: impressions and evaluation.

The book of a modern writer, read by you. Your impressions and rating.

Your peer in modern literature. (According to one or more works.)

What is your favorite piece of contemporary literature?

Moral problems of modern Russian prose (on the example of a work of the examinee's choice).

The main themes and ideas of modern journalism. (On the example of one or two works.)

Heroes and problems of one of the works of modern domestic drama in the second half of the twentieth century. (at the choice of the examiner).

One of the founders of Russian literary criticism was V. G. Belinsky. And although serious steps were taken in antiquity in the development of the concept literary kind(Aristotle), it is Belinsky who owns the scientifically based theory of three literary genera, which you can get acquainted with in detail by reading Belinsky's article "Division of poetry into genera and types".

There are three kinds fiction: epic(from the Greek. Epos, narration), lyrical(called the lyre musical instrument, accompanied by sung verses) and dramatic(from Greek Drama, action).

Presenting a particular subject to the reader (meaning the subject of conversation), the author chooses different approaches to it:

First approach: can be detailed tell about the subject, about the events associated with it, about the circumstances of the existence of this subject, etc.; at the same time, the position of the author will be more or less detached, the author will act as a kind of chronicler, narrator, or choose one of the characters as the narrator; the main thing in such a work will be precisely the story, the narration about the subject, the leading type of speech will be precisely narration; this kind of literature is called epic;

The second approach: you can tell not so much about events, but about impression, which they produced on the author, about those feelings that they called; image inner world, experiences, impressions and will refer to the lyrical genre of literature; exactly experience becomes the main event of the lyrics;

Third approach: you can portray subject in action, show him on stage; introduce to the reader and viewer of it, surrounded by other phenomena; this kind of literature is dramatic; in the drama itself, the voice of the author will be the least likely to sound - in remarks, that is, the author's explanations for the action and replicas of the characters.

Look at the table and try to remember its contents:

Genres of fiction

EPOS	DRAMA	LYRICS
(Greek - narration) story about the events, the fate of the heroes, their actions and adventures, the image outside what is happening (even feelings are shown from the side of their external manifestation). The author can directly express his attitude to what is happening.	(Greek - action) image events and relationships between characters on the stage (special way text entries). The direct expression of the author's point of view in the text is contained in the remarks.	(from the name of the musical instrument) experience events; depiction of feelings, inner world, emotional state; feeling becomes the main event.

Each type of literature in turn includes a number of genres.

GENRE is a historically formed group of works united common features content and form. These groups include novels, stories, poems, elegies, short stories, feuilletons, comedies, etc. In literary criticism, the concept is often introduced literary style, is a broader concept than genre. In this case, the novel will be considered a type of fiction, and genres - various varieties of the novel, for example, adventure, detective, psychological, parable novel, dystopian novel, etc.

Examples genus-species relations in literature:

• Genus: dramatic; view: comedy; genre: sitcom.
• Genus: epic; view: story; genre: fantasy story etc.

Genres being categories historical, appear, develop and eventually "leave" from the "active reserve" of artists, depending on historical era: ancient lyricists did not know the sonnet; in our time, an archaic genre has become born in antiquity and popular in XVII-XVIII centuries Oh yeah; romanticism XIX century brought to life detective literature, etc.

Consider the following table, which lists the types and genres related to the different kinds of word art:

Genera, types and genres of fiction

EPOS		DRAMA		LYRICS
Folk	Author's	Folk	Author's	Folk	Author's
Myth Poem (epos): Heroic Strogovoinskaya fabulous- legendary Historical... Story Bylina Thought Legend Tradition Ballad Parable Small genres: proverbs sayings puzzles nursery rhymes...	epic novel: Historical. Fantastic Adventurous Psychological R.-parable Utopian Social... Small genres: Tale Story Novella Fable Parable Ballad Lit. story...	The game rite folk drama Raek nativity scene...	Tragedy Comedy: provisions, characters, masks... Drama: philosophical social historical social-philosophical. Vaudeville Farce Tragifarce...	Song	Oh yeah Hymn Elegy Sonnet Message Madrigal Romance Rondo Epigram...

Modern literary criticism also highlights fourth, an adjacent genre of literature, combining the features of the epic and lyrical genera: lyrical-epic to which it refers poem. Indeed, by telling the reader a story, the poem manifests itself as an epic; revealing to the reader the depth of feelings, the inner world of the person who tells this story, the poem manifests itself as a lyric.

In the table you came across the expression "small genres". epic and lyrical works are divided into large and small genres to a greater extent in terms of volume. The large ones include an epic, a novel, a poem, and a small story - a story, a story, a fable, a song, a sonnet, etc.

Read V. Belinsky's statement about the genre of the story:

If the story, according to Belinsky, is "a leaf from the book of life", then, using his metaphor, one can figuratively define the novel from the genre point of view as "a chapter from the book of life", and the story as "a line from the book of life".

Small epic genres to which the story relates is "intense" in terms of the content of prose: due to the small volume, the writer does not have the opportunity to “spread his thoughts along the tree”, get carried away with detailed descriptions, enumerations, reproduce a large number of events in detail, and the reader often needs to say a lot.

The story is characterized by the following features:

• small volume;
• the plot is most often based on one event, the rest are only outlined by the author;
• a small number of characters: usually one or two central characters;
• the author is interested in a certain topic;
• one decides main question, the remaining questions are "derived" from the main one.

So,
STORY- it's small prose work with one or two main characters, dedicated to the image of a single event. Somewhat more voluminous story, but the difference between a story and a story is not always possible to catch: the work of A. Chekhov "Duel" is called by some a small story, and some - a big story. The following is important: as the critic E. Anichkov wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century, " personality is at the center of the story rather than a group of people."

Rise of the Russian short prose starts in the 20s XIX years century, which gave excellent examples of small epic prose, including the unconditional masterpieces of Pushkin ("Belkin's Tales", " Queen of Spades") and Gogol ("Evenings on a farm near Dikanka", St. Petersburg stories), romantic novels A. Pogorelsky, A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, V. Odoevsky and others. In the second half of the 19th century, small epic works by F. Dostoevsky were created ("Dream funny man"," Notes from the Underground"), N. Leskova ("Lefty", "Dumb Artist", "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"), I. Turgeneva ("Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District", "Steppe King Lear", "Ghosts", "Notes of a hunter"), L. Tolstoy (" Prisoner of the Caucasus"," Hadji Murat "," Cossacks ", Sevastopol stories), A. Chekhov as the greatest master of the short story, works by V. Garshin, D. Grigorovich, G. Uspensky and many others.

The twentieth century also did not remain in debt - and the stories of I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, M. Zoshchenko, Teffi, A. Averchenko, M. Bulgakov appear ... Even such recognized lyrics as A. Blok, N. Gumilyov, M. Tsvetaeva "descended to despicable prose," in the words of Pushkin. It can be argued that on turn of XIX-XX centuries, the small genre of epic took leading position in Russian literature.

And for this reason alone, one should not think that the story raises some minor problems and touches on shallow topics. The form story concise, and the plot is sometimes uncomplicated and concerns, at first glance, simple, as L. Tolstoy said, "natural" relations: there is simply nowhere for a complex chain of events in the story to unfold. But this is precisely the task of the writer, in order to conclude a serious and often inexhaustible subject of conversation in a small space of text.

If the plot of the thumbnail I. Bunina "Muravsky Way", consisting of only 64 words, captures only a few moments of the conversation between the traveler and the coachman in the middle of the endless steppe, then the plot of the story A. Chekhov "Ionych" Enough for a whole novel artistic time The story spans nearly a decade and a half. But the author does not care what happened to the hero at each stage of this time: it is enough for him to “snatch” several “links”-episodes from the hero’s life chain, similar friend on a friend, like drops of water, and the whole life of Dr. Startsev becomes extremely clear to both the author and the reader. “As you live one day of your life, so you will live your whole life,” Chekhov seems to say. At the same time, the writer, reproducing the situation in the house of the most "cultural" family provincial town S., can focus all his attention on the sound of knives from the kitchen and the smell of fried onions ( artistic details! ), but to say about several years of a person’s life as if they didn’t exist at all, or it was a “passing”, uninteresting time: “Four years have passed”, “Several more years have passed”, as if it’s not worth wasting time and paper on the image of such a trifle ...

Image Everyday life a person devoid of external storms and upheavals, but in a routine that makes a person wait forever for happiness that never comes, became a cross-cutting theme of A. Chekhov's stories, which determined further development Russian short prose.

Historical upheavals, of course, dictate other themes and plots to the artist. M. Sholokhov in the cycle of Don stories, he speaks of terrible and wonderful human destinies in the time of revolutionary upheavals. But the point here is not so much in the revolution itself, but in eternal problem man's struggle with himself, in the eternal tragedy of the collapse of the old familiar world, which mankind has experienced many times. And therefore Sholokhov turns to plots that have long been rooted in world literature, depicting private human life as if in the context of the global legendary history. Yes, in the story "Mole" Sholokhov uses an ancient story, like the world, about the duel between father and son, who are not recognized by each other, which we meet in Russian epics, in epics ancient persia and medieval Germany ... But if the ancient epic explains the tragedy of a father who killed his son in battle by the laws of fate beyond the control of man, then Sholokhov speaks of the problem of a person choosing his life path, a choice that determines all future events and in the end makes one a beast in human form, and the other an equal the greatest heroes of the past.

When studying topic 5, you should read those works of art that can be considered within the framework of this topic, namely:

• A. Pushkin. The stories "Dubrovsky", "Snowstorm"
• N. Gogol. The stories "The Night Before Christmas", "Taras Bulba", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt".
• I.S. Turgenev. Tale " Noble Nest"; "Notes of a hunter" (2-3 stories of your choice); story "Asya"
• N.S. Leskov. Stories "Lefty", "Dumb Artist"
• L.N. Tolstoy. The stories "After the Ball", "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"
• M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Fairy tales "The wise minnow", "Bogatyr", "Bear in the province"
• A.P. Chekhov. The stories "The Jumper", "Ionych", "Gooseberries", "About Love", "The Lady with the Dog", "Ward Number Six", "In the Ravine"; other stories of your choice
• I.A. Bunin. Stories and novels "The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Dry Valley", " easy breathing", "Antonov apples", "Dark alleys" A.I. Kuprin. The story "Olesya", the story "Garnet Bracelet"
• M. Gorky. The stories "Old Woman Izergil", "Makar Chudra", "Chelkash"; collection "Untimely Thoughts"
• A.N. Tolstoy. The story "Viper"
• M. Sholokhov. The stories "The Mole", "Alien Blood", "The Fate of Man";
• M. Zoshchenko. Stories "Aristocrat", "Monkey tongue", "Love" and others of your choice
• A.I. Solzhenitsyn. The story "Matryona yard"
• V. Shukshin. The stories "I believe!", "Boots", "Space, nervous system and shmat lard", "Mil pardon, madam!", "Stalled"

Before completing task 6, consult a dictionary and set the exact meaning of the concept with which you will be working.

Recommended literature for work 4:

• Grechnev V.Ya. Russian end story XIX-beginning XX century. - L., 1979.
• Zhuk A.A. Russian prose of the second half of the 19th century. - M.: Enlightenment, 1981.
• Literary encyclopedic Dictionary. - M., 1987.
• Literary criticism: Reference materials. - M., 1988.
• Russian story XIX century: History and problems of the genre. - L., 1973.

literary genre - this is a form, an abstract model on which the text of a literary work is built. A genre is a set of certain features that make it possible to classify a literary work as an epic, lyric or drama. Genres were not invented. They have existed and continue to exist in the very nature of human thought.

The main types of literary genres

Literary genres are divided into three types: epic, lyrical and dramatic. To epic genres include: fairy tale, epic, epic, epic novel, novel, story, essay, story, anecdote. Lyrical genres called an ode, an elegy, a ballad, a message, an epigram, a madrigal. Dramatic genres are tragedy, comedy, drama, melodrama, vaudeville and farce.

Literary genres have certain characteristics, which are divided into genre-forming and additional. Genre-forming features determine the specifics of a particular genre. For example, the genre-forming feature of a fairy tale is an attitude towards fiction. The events of the fairy tale are obviously perceived by the listener as magical, fictional, not directly related to reality. The genre-forming feature of the novel is its connection with objective reality, coverage a large number events that happened in reality or could happen, many acting characters, focus on inner world heroes.