Characteristic features of the short story genre in Russian literature. The difference between a short story and a novel

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

Definition

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

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

Comparison

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

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

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

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

Findings site

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

Report grade 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Questions about the report:

1) What is a story?

2) What is a novella?

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

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

5) How is a story different from a novel?

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, 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

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

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

A short story is a small narrative prose, a special literary genre close to a story, essay, essay. Is different this work well-defined plot with a climax and an ending. Another difference between the novel and other genres is the limited number of characters. If in a novel or story there are usually up to two dozen actors, then there are only two or three of them in the novel. The art of the short story is precisely to convey to the reader the content of a fairly broad topic, presented in a concise manner.

Novella as a literary genre

Usually short stories are combined by the author into small cycles, as was customary with one of the most famous novelists, American writer O. Henry O'Henry's novels were divided into separate categories. "Noble Rogue" was made up of short novellas about two swindlers named Andy Tucker and Jeff Peters, and in the cycle " Business people"included several short stories on the theme of the adventures of criminal characters -" Leader of the Redskins "," Bolivar can not carry two ", and others.

Russian novels

Russian writers, unlike French ones, did not put the short story at the forefront of their work, but used a short story from case to case. The work of A. S. Pushkin "Tales of Belkin", written in 1830, is an example of this. However, a brief theme does not mean that the narrative is less significant than a voluminous novel or short story. Even such a fundamental writer as Dostoevsky, at the dawn of his work, wrote short stories ("The Mistress", "Double").

Russian novelists

Russian short stories in the classical sense of this genre came from the pen of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, who in some cases wrote in full - "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", and in others more concisely - "The Overcoat". In both cases, the plot was fully revealed, which means that artistic value works is undeniable.

Russian playwright Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote short stories in a manner peculiar only to him, which can be defined as "Chekhovian". The bottom line is that the writer was able to short story lay down the whole life of the character, sometimes quite long and eventful. Separate short stories by Chekhov, with a limited volume, look like mini-novels. In the story "Ionych" the writer managed to reflect human life in full, all its tragicomic content, on 15 pages. Similar examples of "compressed" creativity are also found in Leo Tolstoy, and one of them is short story"Alyosha Gorshok".

Novel and plot

Since the short story is one that suggests the sharpness of the plot, it can be used when writing unusual works. If the story describes a slow development of events with a predictable end, then the short story necessarily contains elements of tension, mystery and a spectacular final surprise. At the beginning and in the middle of the narrative, a neutral style dominates, a complete lack of psychologism, and then the ending follows, unexpected and often illogical. In a story or a short story, on the contrary, the author tries to reveal precisely the psychological nuances of the narrative, much attention is paid to the character of the character, his deep essence.

Writer and scholar Edgar Allan Poe

The novel is also a literary genre that is ideal for "dark" plots, detective and graveyard horrors. The American Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is deservedly recognized as an outstanding novelist. The genres in which the writer worked are unique and extremely unusual: literary hoax, horror literature. Edgar Poe was not only a writer. He also wrote a book-research "The First Book of the Conchiologist". This is the work of a mature scientist dedicated to the study of mollusk shells. Based on the study, a complete illustrated guide to conchiology was created.

Writer, poet, scientist Edgar Po wrote for his short life about a hundred short stories, each of which can be considered a masterpiece literary art, despite the unusual content. These are "Gold Bug", "Murder on the Rue Morgue", "Raven". Poetic works Edgar Allan Poe did not receive proper recognition during his lifetime. As the poet James Lowell figuratively noted, Poe skillfully hewn a pile of poetic stones, but they remained lying on the site, the foundation of them was not built.

Here are some short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, selected:

• Year 1832 - "Bon-bon", "Without breathing", "Merzengerstein", "On the walls of Jerusalem".
• Year 1833 - "Folio Club", "Buried Alive", "Manuscript in a Bottle", "Four Beasts in One".
• Year 1835 - "King Plague", "Shadow", "Morella", "Pages from the Life of a Celebrity", "Berenice".

A short story is a literary genre that combines almost all the possibilities of prose, which has great potential for expressing the writer's creative thoughts.

The story is great literary form written information in literary and artistic design. When recording oral retellings, the story stood apart as independent genre in written literature.

The story as an epic genre

Distinctive features of the story are a small number of characters, little content, one storyline. The story does not have interweaving in events and it cannot contain the diversity of artistic colors.

Thus, the story is a narrative work, which is characterized by a small volume, a small number of characters and the short duration of the events depicted. This kind of epic genre goes back to folklore genres oral retelling, to allegories and parables.

In the 18th century, the difference between essays and stories was not yet defined, but over time, the story began to be distinguished from the essay by the conflict of the plot. There is a difference between the story large forms" and the story of "small forms", but often this distinction is conditional.

There are stories that show character traits novel, and there are also small-scale works with one storyline, which are still called a novel, and not a story, despite the fact that all signs point to this kind of genre.

The novel as an epic genre

Many people think that a short story is a certain kind of short story. But still, the definition of a short story sounds like a kind of small prose work. The short story differs from the story in the plot, which is often sharp and centripetal, in the severity of the composition and volume.

The novel most often reveals an acute problem or question through one event. as sample literary genre, the short story originated in the Renaissance - the most famous example is the Decameron by Boccaccio. Over time, the short story began to depict paradoxical and unusual incidents.

The heyday of the short story, as a genre, is considered the period of romanticism. famous writers P. Merimee, E.T.A. Hoffman, Gogol wrote short stories, the central line of which was to destroy the impression of familiar everyday life.

Novels that depicted fateful events and the game of fate with a person appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. Such writers as O. Henry, S. Zweig, A. Chekhov, I. Bunin paid considerable attention to the short story genre in their work.

The story as an epic genre

Such prose genre, as a story, is an intermediate place between the story and the novel. Initially, the story was a source of narration about any real, historical events("The Tale of Bygone Years", "The Tale of the Battle of Kalka"), but later it became a separate genre for reproducing the natural course of life.

A feature of the story is that at the center of its plot is always main character and his life is a revelation of his personality and the path of his destiny. The story is characterized by a sequence of events in which the harsh reality is revealed.

And such a theme is extremely relevant for such an epic genre. Famous stories are Stationmaster"A. Pushkin," Poor Lisa" N. Karamzin, "The Life of Arsenyev" by I. Bunin, "The Steppe" by A. Chekhov.

The value of artistic detail in the story

To fully reveal the writer's intention and to fully understand the meaning literary work artistic detail is very important. It can be a detail of an interior, landscape or portrait, the key here is that the writer emphasizes this detail, thereby drawing the attention of readers to it.

This serves as a way to highlight some psychological trait the main character or mood that is characteristic of the work. It is noteworthy that important role artistic detail lies in the fact that it alone can replace many narrative details. Thus, the author of the work emphasizes his attitude to the situation or to the person.

Need help with your studies?