Olga Nagornyuk

Why read fiction?

Should you read fiction? Perhaps this is a waste of time, because reading does not bring money and does not promote promotion career ladder? Or maybe even worse: books are evil, because they impose other people's thoughts and make you live other people's lives, forgetting about your own, real? So is it worth spending precious moments, measured to us by fate, on such a useless activity?

Before those who love to read, plunging headlong into the world created by the author and empathizing with his characters, the question of the importance and necessity fiction not worth it. For them, reading is as natural as breathing. However, everyone's motivation is different.

Someone wants to find in books the answers to the questions that poses before us real life, for some, reading is an opportunity to get away from the boring routine, and someone is looking for echoes of their own thoughts and feelings in works of art.

Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer fans of fiction. The 21st century is the era of rationalists who plan their time minute by minute, main goal lives see career building and enrichment and weigh the pros and cons before making any decision.

1. Reading builds literacy skills. Scientists have proven that sitting at a book, a person unconsciously fixes in his mind the correct spelling of words and punctuation, thereby reinforcing the knowledge of spelling rules acquired at school.

And why do I need the rules of spelling and punctuation, you say. After all, Word and LanguageTool will check and correct errors! True, but they will not come to your aid when you have to fill out a questionnaire at an interview or write an autobiography when applying for a job. And what if you happen to sketch out the concept of a future project with your own hand in the presence of your boss? It is unlikely that he will appreciate your author's approach to spelling.

2. Fiction enriches lexicon(vocabulary), teaches how to correctly formulate phrases, brings up a “sense of language”. Competent and correct speech has always been considered a sign of an intelligent and educated person. Don't you want to look like that in the eyes of others, including your leadership?

In the context of the general enthusiasm for the latest IT technologies and modern gadgets, the probability of being among educated people whose interests lie in the plane of literature and art is incredibly small. However, it is still there. be among you intelligent people art world - in the theater, on literary evening or the presentation of a new book - what will you talk about with them? About the latest iPad? And what will you use? Prepositions and interjections?

Knowledge of fiction inspires a sense of confidence: if you are surrounded by connoisseurs of literature, you are not in danger of looking like a black sheep there.

3. Fiction develops creative thinking, and in this neither cinema, nor theater, nor fine arts can be compared with it.

The picture leaves no room for imagination. The artistic word, rich in allegory and author's turns of speech, sometimes admiring with its ambiguity, and sometimes leaving a taste of understatement, makes us think and fantasize ourselves, connecting our own imagination to this process.

Two people who have read the description of the meeting of Prince Bolkonsky with the oak in War and Peace will imagine the picture painted by Leo Tolstoy in completely different ways. Books are valuable for this: they do not impose a visual image, but only give impetus to the reader's imagination.

4. Fiction enriches the emotional experience. The vicissitudes of the plot and the torment of the characters teach us to empathize: to be upset when they fail, and to experience the joy of other people's victories.

Therefore, in childhood we take our breath away from the novels of Jules Verne and Jack London, in our youth we enthusiastically follow the heroes of Walter Scott and Mine Reed, and in adulthood We read the works of William Faulkner and Franz Kafka.

The world of a work of art is by no means a substitute for reality. He, rather, complements it, giving what the reader lacks in Everyday life: interesting adventures, deep feelings, vivid emotions, wisdom of generations.

5. Do not forget about the educational function of books. It is pointless to change the character of an adult, because it is impossible. But to form a behavioral base in childhood, using not instructive notations that pass by the child in transit, but examples from life literary heroes, is quite real.

"Dunno" by N. Nosov and "Treasure Island" by R. Stevenson, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by M. Twain and "The Last of the Mohicans" by F. Cooper, "The Adventures of Alice" by K. Bulychev and "The Wizard of Oz" by A. Volkov - timeless books that talk about friendship and loyalty, teach kindness and honesty.

6. Through works of art, you can learn eras. The process of learning about history through art books is much more interesting than with scientific literature, characterized by dry presentation, or films whose screenwriters often do not care about historical accuracy.

The reign of Louis XIII and the manners that reigned at the court of the French king are perfectly described by A. Dumas in his Three Musketeers, the background and course of the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 are reliably conveyed in Henryk Sienkiewicz's Crusaders, the revolution of 1917 and civil war in Russia, you can study the novels " Quiet Don» M. Sholokhov and A. Tolstoy's "Walking through the torments".

Value fiction novels lies in the fact that they convey the spirit of the era, which is sorely lacking in research historical literature. Written in a living language, telling about adventures fictional characters coexisting on the pages of books with real historical figures, these works make you take a completely different look at the history presented in school textbooks in the form of dry dates and facts.

Convincing you of the benefits of fiction, we deliberately did not mention modern romance novels, detective stories, science fiction and fantasy. Most of them do not represent any artistic value and, despite the attempts of the editors to make them readable, they are distinguished by poverty of speech, primitive plot and the presence of literary blunders that nullify the aesthetic value of these creations.

But it is not all that bad. Modern fiction has worthy representatives, whose works, perhaps in 30-40 years, will be ranked among the classics of world literature. These are Victor Pelevin and Venedikt Erofeev, Alexey Varlamov and Boris Akunin, Oleg Pavlov and Sergey Senchin, Sergey Dovlatov and Lyudmila Petrushevskaya. Youth should start getting to know modern literature from these authors.

Is it possible to replace fiction with something? You might as well try asking the coffee lover: "Will ersatz be a worthy alternative to coffee?" No matter how critics praise the screen productions of The Idiot, the directors will never be able to convey the versatility of Prince Myshkin's feelings, delicately described by Dostoevsky.

Anna Karenina went through more than thirty adaptations, but none of the films repeated the success immortal work Tolstoy. Will they be remembered in 10, 20, 30 years? Hardly. Time puts everything in its place.

You can find a lot of arguments convincingly proving that reading books brings practical benefit. But to force to love and read fiction, proving its necessity, importance and usefulness, in our opinion, is impossible. It's like with love: we either love a person or we don't - it's impossible to force someone to love.

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Instruction

This is also explained by the fact that the Slavic, created in the middle of the 9th century famous brothers Cyril and Methodius, was intended for the translation of sacred Christian texts. Church Slavonic, by definition, could not be the language in which secular fiction is created. For the same reason, in Old Russian, until the 17th century, there were neither fictional heroes and plots, nor descriptions of love experiences. Moreover, comic creations were completely absent (after all, laughter was considered a sinful occupation, distracting from prayers and pious reasoning).

The first surviving work is considered to be "The Word of Law and Grace", feathered Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kyiv. It was created, most likely, in the late 30s-40s of the 11th century (during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise). Beginning in the 12th century, a form of literature such as chronicle flourished. The most famous of them is The Tale of Bygone Years. According to most researchers, the first (edition) was compiled by the monk Nestor, the second edition by the monk Sylvester, and the author of the third edition remained unknown.

Fiction by birth

Structural text types

Prose

It is considered prosaic literary text, in which a separate, independent of speech rhythm does not invade the language fabric and does not affect the content. However, a number of borderline phenomena are known: many prose writers deliberately give their works some signs of poetry (we can mention the strongly rhythmic prose of Andrei Bely or rhymed fragments in Vladimir Nabokov's novel The Gift). Literary scholars continue to argue about the exact boundaries between prose and poetry different countries over the course of the last century.

Prose is widely used in fiction - when creating novels, short stories etc. Selected examples such works have been known for many centuries, but they have developed into an independent form of literary works relatively recently.

Medieval art reached its culmination in the 12th-13th centuries. At present, medieval literature is usually divided into Latin literature and literature into vernacular languages(Romance and Germanic). genre division Latin literature as a whole reproduced the antique. IN medieval literature written prose first appeared.

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See what "Fiction" is in other dictionaries:

Literature; fine literature, (fine) literature (outdated) / for easy reading: fiction Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Practical guide. M.: Russian language. Z. E. Alexandrova. 2011. fiction n., count ... ... Synonym dictionary

Publishing house, Moscow (office in Saint Petersburg). Founded in 1930 as the State Fiction Publishing House, in 1934 63 Goslitizdat. Collected works, selected works of Russian and foreign classics, modern ... ... Big encyclopedic Dictionary

- "ART LITERATURE", publishing house, Moscow (branch in St. Petersburg). Founded in 1930 as the State Fiction Publishing House, in 1934 63 Goslitizdat. Collected works, selected works of Russian and ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

fiction- (from lat. littera letter, writing) an art form in which the word is the main means of figurative reflection of life. Heading: Literature and its functions in society Genus: Art Other associative links: universal significance ... ... Terminological dictionary-thesaurus in Literary Studies

- (“Fiction”), the Soviet publishing house of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for publishing, printing and book trade. The State Publishing House of Fiction Literature (GIHL) was founded in 1930 on ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

State publishing house, Moscow. Founded in 1930 as the State Fiction Publishing House, in 1934 63 Goslitizdat. Collected works, selected works of domestic and foreign classics, modern foreign ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

fiction- ▲ art literature literature. elegant vocabulary. subtext. style. stylist. reading. song of songs. | calliope. imaginism. see image, behavior... Ideographic Dictionary of the Russian Language

"FICTION"- "ART LITERATURE", publishing house of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for publishing, printing and book trade. The State Publishing House of Fiction Literature (GIHL) was founded in 1930 on the basis of literary ... ... Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary

fiction- in rhetoric: a type of literature that exists in three main forms - epic, lyric and drama; feature of H.l. - fiction; being a laboratory of language, H.l. develops perfect and capacious methods of expression, makes it public ... ... Dictionary linguistic terms T.V. Foal

All books are divided into two categories - fiction and non-fiction. Fiction refers to all works that have a fictional plot and fictional characters. Fiction is novels, short stories, novellas, plays and poetry (both for children and adults)...

Usually, non-fiction is called non-fiction (from the English. Non-fiction - non-fiction, non-fictional literature) - these are textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, monographs, biographies, memoirs, journalism, etc.

Fiction works are divided into genre literature, mainstream and intellectual prose.

IN genre literature the main thing is the development of the plot, which fits into certain, previously known frameworks. For example, any detective story develops according to the scheme "crime - investigation - exposing the criminal"; any women's romance - "heroes meet - fall in love - fight for love - unite hearts." This does not mean that all genre novels should have a predictable plot. The skill of the writer lies precisely in creating his own unique world within the given framework.

Genre literature is action and a quick change of scenery. All the reader cares about is "What's next?".

Genres of fiction:

Avant-garde literature - characterized by violation of the canons and language and plot experiments. As a rule, the avant-garde comes out in very small editions. Closely intertwined with intellectual prose.

Action - focused primarily on the male audience. The basis of the plot is fights, chases, saving beauties, etc.

Detective - main story line- disclosure of a crime.

Historical novel - the time of action - the past. The plot, as a rule, is tied to significant historical events.

A love story - the characters find love.

Mysticism - the basis of the plot - supernatural events.

Adventures - the heroes get involved in an adventure or go on a risky journey.

Thriller / Horror - the heroes are in mortal danger, from which they are trying to get rid of.

Fantasy - the plot twists in a hypothetical future or in a parallel world. One of the varieties of fantasy is alternative history.

Fantasy / Fairy tales - the main features of the genre are fairy worlds, magic, unseen creatures, talking animals, etc. Often based on folklore.

What is the mainstream (from the English mainstream - the main stream)? There is no place for canons and patterns in books of this genre. Readers expect unexpected solutions from them. The most important thing in the mainstream is moral development heroes, philosophy and ideology. Because professional requirements to the author of the mainstream is much higher: he must be not only an excellent storyteller, but also a good psychologist and a serious thinker. If a writer aims for the mainstream, but doesn't hold the bar, or falls into stereotypes, the reader will be disappointed.

The term "mainstream" originated from American writer and critic William Dean Howells (1866-1920). As editor of one of the most popular and influential literary magazines of his time, The Atlantic Monthly, he gave a clear preference to works written in a realistic vein and emphasizing moral and philosophical problems. Thanks Howells realistic literature became fashionable, and for some time it was called the "mainstream".

What is fiction? What are its features, why is literature considered an art? The sheer number of books in most people's home libraries suggests that reading and comprehension play a role in our lives. important role. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the definition of the concept of "fiction", learn about what genera, types and genres it is divided into, what is remarkable about its language. You will learn about all this and much more from the material presented below.

Definition of fiction

Almost all literary theorists define it as an art, comparing it with painting, music, theater. The bottom line is that in literature, as in any other art, there is an organization of meaningless material into new form with specific ideological content. The types of art differ only in material: in music - sounds, in painting - colors, in architecture - Construction Materials. In this vein, literature is special in that its material is only word and language.

Thus, literature is all written texts, which in turn are divided into groups. This is popular science, reference, educational, scientific, technical and, finally, fiction. We are faced with the latter from the first years of life, at school when getting acquainted with the classics of fiction, during adult life when a person consciously turns to a book of interest to him. Books are a mirror of society. In a broader interpretation, fiction is those written works that represent artistic value and have aesthetic value.

Interestingly, this view was finally formed in the 19th century thanks to the representatives of romanticism. They considered artistic reality as aesthetically unique, and writers as special people.

When and how did literature appear?

The answer to this question has been trying to find for quite a long time. How did it all start? In search of answers, people conducted a huge amount of research, refuted and proved a myriad of hypotheses, analyzed the material and the people who created it. As it turned out, classical - Roman and Greek - fiction is not the most ancient. There were also Sumerian, and Egyptian, and Babylonian - refined and developed literature. They play a very important role oral forms literature, the beliefs of ancient peoples, the mythology of entire civilizations. It is with myths or similar forms that the study of any literature begins.

Genres of fiction

There are three types: epic, lyrical and dramatic. This division is based on how the content of the work is presented to the reader. If the events are described in detail, the position of the author is removed, various characters are present, their appearance is described in detail, and the leading type of speech is narrative, then we are talking about epic literature. In other words, prose. It includes stories, novels, essays, novellas and other similar works.

If the author wants to tell not so much about events as about the feelings that they caused, he creates works related to lyrics. Within this kind of literature, there are many genres of different sizes and forms, most of which are characterized by the presence of rhyme, rhythm and other elements characteristic of lyrics. In simple words, lyrics - and their variations.

If the subject is depicted in action, it is possible to play it on stage, show it to the viewer and reader, we are talking about the dramatic kind of literature. Here the voice of the author sounds only in remarks - the author's explanations of the actions and replicas of the main characters. TO dramatic kind include various plays, tragedies, comedies.

Division into genres

As mentioned above, the genres of literature in turn include various genres- historically established groups of works that are united by certain common features. These are, for example, novels, short stories, novellas, comedies, poems, poems. There is also such a thing as a view. For example, epic view novel will be divided into genres of utopian novel, parable novel, historical novel and so on. The number is very large. Interestingly, the combination of different genres is popular, and the bolder the combination, the more original the “creation” of the writer will be.

Language as the main feature of works of art

To better understand what fiction is and what its features are, one should consider the specifics of its language. To date, in literary criticism there is no clear distinction between the concepts of " artistic speech" And " art style". It is easier to simply combine them into the concept of "artistic language".

Artistic speech is multi-styled. Exist different styles with their own characteristics and rules, which use different ones. Their choice depends on the author and his idea. Each style has its own "face" - a set of elements that are unique to it. Interestingly, in work of art words and phrases that are not included in " literary language”, - slang, slang words, lexical units from various dialects. Some writers break the norm on purpose. Any perform aesthetic function. Words-concepts are translated by writers into words-images. Features of fiction also include vivid emotionality and expression. It should be noted that another important function of literature, in addition to aesthetic, is communicative. Words in not only provide information, but also affect readers emotionally.

What is the role of the author's main tool?

What is fiction? Let's try to answer this question in an accessible way. Fiction is a collection the best images, ideas, thoughts, words. By the way, words are the main tool of the author. With their help, the author's idea, the content of the book is realized, an image is created and the impact on the addressee is carried out.

The Importance of Fiction

World fiction influences the formation of the personality and worldview of readers. It is very difficult to exaggerate the effect that it has on the mind of the reader. word art has long been a part of our lives. What role does she play? What is fiction? First of all, it's a story. It is passed down from generation to generation, carrying the experience and values ​​of our predecessors. Great writers appealed to human consciousness and probably expected that this appeal would apply not only to their contemporaries, but also to people in the future.

The fact that literature is able to influence consciousness is supported by many examples. Often art word played the role of an ideological weapon. In the history of literature there are many cases when works were used for propaganda and the formation of a certain opinion. Fiction is a powerful tool with which a person can be conveyed to the norms, rules, principles, vision of the world, attitude to the information received.

Conclusion

Reading fiction is a must personal development each person. From books, be it novels, poems or plays, readers learn about life, learn lessons, draw inspiration. Fiction is a mine historical facts, experience previous generations, thoughts of the main philosophers of the past and present. No wonder literature is considered an art, which, with the help of simple words affects consciousness. In addition, love for books is instilled from birth also because reading develops imagination, teaches you to imagine situations and draw images. All books that are recognized as classics develop and teach, give knowledge, and Russian fiction is no exception.