Komkova Alexandra Viktorovna
1st year undergraduate, Department of Literature, Russian State University S.A. Yesenin, Russian Federation, Ryazan
Reshetova Anna Anatolievna
scientific adviser, Dr. philol. Sciences, Professor, Russian State University. S.A. Yesenin, Russian Federation, Ryazan
The theoretical apparatus of modern literary criticism in recent decades actively updated with new concepts. This is due to the next round of the development of science, its liberation from dogmas, the use of various approaches to the study and explanation of literary facts.
Topos is one of the concepts that have entered literary criticism relatively recently. Perhaps this is what causes some blurring, ambiguity in its definition. Our task is to analyze the theoretical and literary works on this issue and determine what meaning modern literary scholars put into this term.
Even in antiquity, Aristotle turned to the concept of "topos", who, understanding it quite widely, used it in "Physics", "Topeka" and "Rhetoric". The semantics of the modern literary term goes back to the last treatise, where it is defined as "a common place for reasoning about justice, natural phenomena and many other subjects" . In this sense - as "abstract reasoning inserted into speech for a specific case" - topos still exists in rhetoric. The problem of the functioning of this concept in the literature was posed in the book by E.R. Curtius "European Literature and the Middle Ages" (1948), who defined topoi as ways of designing entire complexes associated with typical situations. Curtius drew attention to the fact that the topos has a formal character, most often corresponds to a certain verbal design. Also, the researcher was the first to note the connection of the topos with the archetype and pointed out that this is a phenomenon of collective consciousness in literature. This can be considered the starting point for the existence of this term in literary criticism.
In the Russian philology of the twentieth century, the concept of "topos" did not take root. However, literary critics, without resorting to the term itself, in practice were engaged in the development of the problem of common motives, plots, speech formulas in literary works.
At present, two main meanings of the concept of "topos" have developed in literary science: 1) it is a "common place", a set of stable speech formulas, as well as general problems and plots characteristic of national literature; 2) a “place of unfolding of meanings” significant for a literary text, which can correlate with some fragment of real space, usually open.
In the first case, a broader meaning is embedded in the concept of "topos" and it covers common problems and plots of national literature, stable speech formulas. At the same time, much attention is paid to the evolution of topics, the acquisition of new, relevant meanings by old schemes. N.D. Tamarchenko emphasizes the stability of their meanings and relative independence from the context of the work. E.V. Khalizev calls topoi structures universal, transtemporal, static. The topic includes types of emotional mood (sublime, tragic, laughter, etc.), moral and philosophical problems (good and evil, truth and beauty), “ eternal themes”, associated with mythopoetic meanings, and, finally, the arsenal art forms. The researcher calls all this the foundation of continuity, which is rooted in pre-literary archaism and replenishes from era to era. A.M. Panchenko draws attention to the fact that in topoi "the poetic aspect and the moral aspect are inseparably merged", and admits that "one should speak not just about the topic, but about national axiomatics" . In this case, topoi are repositories of cultural tradition and at the same time provide an opportunity for an innovative approach, the expression of current content.
In this sense, the topic is most widely represented in those artistic systems that prefer tradition rather than novelty (for example, folklore, ancient Russian literature). Therefore, medieval scholars so often turn to it when studying the poetics of medieval literature. At the same time, they did not have a single point of view on the meaning of this term. In medieval studies, as a rule, both plot components and verbal clichés are called topoi. D.S. Likhachev was one of the first to draw attention to the fact that the repetitive elements of poetics in Old Russian works are not only verbal formulas, but also the situations in which these formulas are used. The researcher explained the need to use these elements by ancient Russian authors by introducing the concept of literary etiquette. Following D.S. Likhachev, many researchers urge to distinguish between these two types of “common places”, but they hold different opinions as to what terms to designate them. O.V. Curds suggested calling recurring plot elements "traditional situational formulas" or "stable literary formulas", and verbal clichés - "stable combinations". E.L. Konyavskaya believes that it is necessary to preserve the concept of "topos" to denote "common places", and call repetitive phrases formulas. The problem is that often common places like plot elements match certain verbal expressions. Consequently, within the framework of medieval studies, the question of the meaning of the concept of "topos" has not yet been resolved and opens up great prospects for its study.
In the second, narrower meaning, the topos is the unit art space works, it occupies a certain place in the spatial structure of the text. Yu.M. Lotman defines this concept as "the spatial continuum of the text, in which the world of the object is displayed" . The system of spatial relations that arises in a work of art, the researcher calls the topos structure, which acts as a language for expressing other, non-spatial relations of the text. A.A. Bulgakov calls hallmarks topos consistency, dependence on the stage of development of art, the worldview of the era, individual creative positions. The way the topoi are arranged in the work determines the expression of the author's ideological and value views. The concept of “locus” is also used to designate the units of the spatial structure of the text; the relationship between these two elements of the artistic space of the text remains unclear. There is an opinion that a locus is a constituent unit of a topos, denoting a specific place in a given continuum. Most researchers tend to call open spaces topos and closed spaces loci. Sometimes the topos is given the role of denoting the language of spatial relations that permeate the literary text, while the locus corresponds to a specific spatial image. So, topos in given value- this is an element of the artistic space of the text, as a rule, open, ascending to unconscious poetics and serving to express non-spatial relations, the value ideas of the author.
Thus, the concept of "topos" in literary criticism is not unambiguous. Although the term itself exists in the domestic philological science relatively recently, the study of topics literary works various epochs have already been carried out by researchers. At the same time, artistic systems focused on tradition, in particular, ancient Russian literature, were considered more often. In modern medieval studies, the term "topos" is used in two senses: a traditional plot situation and a verbal formula. It should be noted that currently literary concept topos has gained additional significance and can, in addition to general plots, problems, speech formulas inherent in national literature, designate an element of the artistic space of the text. These meanings are united by the fact that in all cases the topos is called something from the field of collective consciousness in literature, unconscious poetics. It is this commonality that will allow in the future to more clearly define the boundaries of this concept.
Bibliography:
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- Bulgakova A.A. Topeka in literary process: allowance / A.A. Bulgakov. Grodno: GrGU, 2008. - 107 p.
- Konyavskaya E.L. The problem of common places in ancient Slavic literatures (based on hagiography) // Ruthenica. Kiev, - 2004. - T. 3. - S. 80-92.
- Likhachev D.S. Literary etiquette of Ancient Rus' (to the problem of study) // Proceedings of the Department ancient Russian literature/ Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House); Rep. ed. ON THE. Kazakov. M.; L .: Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, - 1961. - T. 17. - 699 p.
- Lotman Yu.M. The structure of the literary text / Yu.M. Lotman. M.: Art, 1970.
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Topos, a common place in rhetoric is abstract reasoning inserted into speech for a specific case (for example, reasoning on the topic “all people are mortal” in a speech on the death of a certain person). Aristotle understands the topos as a pre-selected evidence, which the speaker must "have ready for every question" (Rhetoric); In a broad sense, a topos is a stereotypical, clichéd image, motive, thought (complaints about the decline of morals and reasoning on the topic “it used to be better”; template formulas of self-abasement and expressions of respect for the addressee used in epistolary genre; sustainable landscape motifs - in particular, when describing an idyllic "pleasant corner", the so-called "locus amoenus". The problem of the functioning of the topos in literature was posed in the book by E.R. Curtius "European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages" (1948), which shows how the system of rhetorical literary genres”, turning into a set of commonly used universal clichés (Curtius E.R. Europaische Literatur und lateinische Mittelalter. Bern; Miinchen, 1984).
In the understanding of Curtius, “Topos is something anonymous. It breaks from the writer's pen as a literary reminiscence. It, like the motif in the fine arts, is characterized by temporal and spatial omnipresence ... In this impersonal stylistic element, we touch on such a layer historical life which lies deeper than the level of individual invention" (Curtius E.R. Zum Begriff eines historischen Topik Toposforschung: Eine Dokumentation, 1972). Curtius showed that the author's original "invention" is in fact often an illusion, turning into a slightly modified traditional formula; at the same time, he also showed that European literature was not limited to a set of topoi borrowed from classical rhetoric, but was constantly enriched by inventing new topoi, and therefore the boundary between topos and invention, tradition and innovation is very fluid. Some of the topoi described by Curtius go beyond those set by “himself historical framework(antiquity - the Middle Ages) and with their universal meaning resemble archetypes: such is the topos "puer-senex" ("old boy") traced by Curtius and in ancient China(Name Chinese philosopher 6th century BC Laozi, according to Curtius, means “old child”), and in the culture of early Christianity (African martyrs of the 2nd century imagined God “as a gray-haired old man with a youthful face”), and in German romanticism (the novel “Godvi”, 1799-1800, K .Brentano). The followers of Curtius further expanded the scope of the concept of topos, raising, in particular, the question of the topos in the literature of the 19th century (for example, the topos of "people" in romanticism), the topic of modern political argumentation, mass culture.
τόπος - letters. "place"; trans. "subject", "argument") has different meanings:- Topos in mathematics is a type of category in category theory, which in its properties resembles and generalizes the category of sets. Topoi, in particular, are used in geometry, topology, mathematical logic, computer science (in the field of databases).
- Top or (less common) topos in traditional logic and classical rhetoric - an argument (synonyms: " historical place”, “dialectical place”), a generally valid statement or theme (“common place”).
- From the rhetorical tradition comes the study of topoi or common places (Germ. toposforschung) in literary criticism is a direction created by Ernst Robert Curtius that explores world literature through a history of recurring motifs (common places; for example, "golden age", "book of nature").
- Topos in cultural studies is a synonym for the expressions category of culture or image of culture (forming, not generally accepted meaning).
- Topoi in sociology - inclinations, preferences, symbolic words of any social group(forming, uncommon meaning).
- "Topos" - festival of author's song in St. Petersburg.
- "Topos" is a network literary, artistic, philosophical and cultural journal.
- "Topos" is a philosophical and cultural journal.
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An excerpt characterizing the Topos
The last words were read by the reader in perfect silence. The tall fellow lowered his head sadly. It was obvious that no one understood these last words. In particular, the words: "I'll arrive tomorrow at dinner," apparently even upset both the reader and the listeners. The understanding of the people was tuned to a high tune, and this was too simple and needlessly understandable; it was the very thing that each of them could have said, and that therefore a decree from a higher authority could not speak.Everyone stood in gloomy silence. The tall fellow moved his lips and staggered.
“I should have asked him!.. Is that himself?.. Why, he asked! two mounted dragoons.
The police chief, who went that morning on the orders of the count to burn the barges and, on the occasion of this commission, rescued a large amount money, which was in his pocket at that moment, seeing a crowd of people advancing towards him, he ordered the coachman to stop.
- What kind of people? he shouted at the people, who were approaching the droshky, scattered and timid. - What kind of people? I'm asking you? repeated the chief of police, who received no answer.
“They, your honor,” said the clerk in a frieze overcoat, “they, your honor, at the announcement of the most illustrious count, not sparing their stomachs, wanted to serve, and not just some kind of rebellion, as it was said from the most illustrious count ...
Organizers: Institute of World Literature. A.M. Gorky Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Music. Gnesinyh, FNKTs RR sanatorium "Uzkoe"
Conference Organizing Committee: M.S. Akimova (information support) - senior researcher IMLI RAS, Ph.D. in Philology; O.A. Bogdanova (Chairman of the Organizing Committee) - Leading Researcher IMLI RAS, Doctor of Philology; G.A. Veligorsky (Secretary of the Organizing Committee) - Researcher IMLI RAS, postgraduate student at IMLI RAS; E.V. Glukhova - senior researcher IMLI RAS, Ph.D. in Philology; HER. Dmitrieva - leading researcher IMLI RAS, Doctor of Philology; ON THE. Yohina - deputy. head of the Federal Scientific and Practical Center of the Russian Republic of the sanatorium "Uzkoe" in science and culture, Ph.D.; A.A. Koshvanets - Vice-Rector for Concert and creative activity RAM them. Gnesinykh, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, prof.; V.V. Polonsky - director of IMLI RAS, prof. RAS, Doctor of Philology; M.V. Skorokhodov - senior researcher IMLI RAS, Ph.D.
Conference concept
The purpose of the conference is to study the "estate topos" of Russian culture - the most important and one of the least meaningful elements of national axiomatics, ensuring the unity and continuity of Russian culture over the centuries.
On turn of XIX-XX centuries the socio-cultural role of the estate is changing due to the destruction of traditional culture in the countryside, bourgeois liberalization and industrial urbanization in the country. In the literature, along with a statement of the socio-economic and cultural collapse of the noble-peasant "estate" symbiosis (L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov, I. Bunin, A. Bely, A. Tolstoy, I. Novikov, E. Chirikov, etc. ), there are attempts at promising transformations of the "estate culture" in the spirit of various kinds utopian ideas(F. Sologub, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, G. Chulkov, M. Prishvin, A. Chayanov, F. Stepun and others).
The possible connection of this line in the "estate" literature of the 1910s remains completely unexplored. with the image of the Soviet village of the 1920-1930s. The "estate" theme has been little studied in the literature of the early Soviet era, marked by the activities of the People's Commissariat of Education, the Society for the Study of the Russian Estate of the 1920s, the museumification and socio-cultural reorientation of estates (A. Tolstoy, M. Bulgakov, V. Mayakovsky, etc.). The "hidden" course of Russian spirituality under the conditions of ideological coercion in the 1920s. updated in the image of the estates of the key for Russia of the XX century. "Topos of Kitezh" (F. Sologub, M. Prishvin, S. Durylin and others).
Within the framework of the conference, it is envisaged: the study of the related concept of "dacha topos" (in the works of A. Chekhov, M. Gorky, M. Artsybashev, etc.); literary development of the dacha-estate complex of the Crimea, on the territory of which at the beginning of the 20th century. spiritual and cultural centers of the Russian intelligentsia arose (estates and dachas of A. Chekhov, L. Tolstoy, M. Voloshin, A. and E. Gertsyk, S. Bulgakov, I. Shmelev, and many others).
The most important task of the conference will be to identify stable national-specific characteristics of the "estate topos" of Russian literature of the late 19th - first third of the 20th centuries. in order to create its invariant model as one of the basic cultural constants of national history.
Interdisciplinary coverage, theoretical and literary understanding, expansion are welcome literary material Silver Age by the era of the 1920s, consideration of the Russian "estate topos" in the world context, integration of literary innovations with art criticism, pedagogical, museological and socio-economic ones.
The main problem-thematic areas of the conference:
- problems of the thesaurus of "estate" studies; verification of the main categories: “estate topos”, “estate myth”, “estate text”, etc.
- structure of the "estate topos"
- poetosphere of the Russian estate
- interdisciplinary aspect: conjugation of literary "estate" studies with art history, musicology, humanitarian-geographical, pedagogical, museological, sociological, economic, etc.
- "estate topos" as a basic constant of Russian culture
- "estate topos" as a universal
- "estate topos" in the literatures of the world
- modifications of the "estate topos" in Russian literature of the 1910-1920s.
- "estate topos" in Russian literature of the XX-XXI centuries.
- the image of the Russian estate in the works of the emigrants of the first wave
- the phenomenon of Russian dacha in domestic and foreign understanding
- manor house in creative destiny Russian writers
Applications (abstract of the report up to 1000 characters and Participant Questionnaire) are accepted until May 1, 2019 by the address:
The Organizing Committee reserves the right to competitive selection of applications and their rejection.
Time limit for presentation is 20 minutes.
The language of the conference is Russian. It is possible to speak in English.
- Travel and accommodation costs are paid by the conference participants themselves.
It is planned to publish a collective work based on the materials of the conference. Texts for publication participants who have received confirmation of the inclusion of their speeches in the conference program are accepted until September 15, 2019 by the address: This address Email protected from spambots. You must have JavaScript enabled to view.
Rules for the design of articles for collective work will be posted after June 30, 2019 on the website of the project "Russian Estate in Literature and Culture: Domestic and Foreign Perspectives" and on the website of the IMLI RAS. The organizing committee reserves the right to reject articles that do not meet the requirements of the publication.
“HISTORICAL TOPIC”: A SECTION OF RHETORIC OR A FIELD OF COMPARATIVISTICS?
I would like to clarify the meaning of a concept that has long been part of comparative terminology. It's about about topos - a term that in philology has at least two absolutely different understanding: literary and rhetorical. It was introduced into literary criticism in 1948 by Ernst Robert Curtius. Topos in his understanding is a verbal “cliché”, general and impersonal “schemes of thought and expression”, which have an intertemporal and intercultural character. Topoi, in the interpretation of Curtius, do not care about national differences, do not care about genre differences, do not care about any “-isms”: classicism, romanticism, etc. Thus, the topos of “the world as a theater” (theatrum mundi) is discovered by Curtius in antiquity (by Plato), in the Middle Ages (by John of Salisbury), in the Renaissance and modern times - by Luther, Ronsard, Shakespeare, Calderon - and even at the beginning of the 20th century - by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. So, the historical range of existence of the topos is from antiquity to the 20th century; genre range - from epigram to drama (albeit with a predominance of the latter), national range - from Greece, through Spain, France, Germany, to foggy Albion.
Transfer comparative analysis to the level of topoi, as we see, opens up new vistas for the comparativist. But what is this level? It seems to Curtius that he has discovered a special impersonal layer of verbal reality, which lies below personal styles, below all the accepted divisions of European literature - divisions into eras, styles, trends. Here are some of his definitions from the work “On the concept of a historical topic” (1938-1949): “topos is something anonymous<...>To him<...>temporal and spatial omnipresence is inherent ... In this impersonal stylistic element, we touch on a layer of historical life that lies deeper than the level of individual invention.
The spatial metaphor of the "layer" - hidden, lying below the visible verbal reality - is significant: it seems to Curtius that he descends into that depth of literature, where European literature reveals its unity. At the same time, this is the level of, so to speak, “small values”, literary microparticles - it is not for nothing that Curtius calls his method “the technique of philological microscopy” .
So Curtius's topos is a cliché or scheme of thought and expression. The definition of topos connects thought and expression: it means that the topos is assumed to have some meaningful constant, but also remains stable at the level of expression, even in translation, when moving from one literature to another. In the already post-Curtius German tradition, it is customary to associate the topos not only with certain meaning, but also with a specific verbal embodiment: in it, with all its transitions and transformations, a certain keyword, Stitchworth.
The concept of topos - also known as top, common place, locus communis - was borrowed by Curtius from rhetoric. In this borrowing, Curtius makes a very significant terminological substitution, to which I would like to draw attention.
Topoi, “places” in rhetoric are, in fact, a heuristic category, a tool for finding arguments. But what are these "places"? Of course, the word "place" must be understood in a figurative sense. When Quintilian speaks of the rhetorical locus as "the place where arguments lie" (sedes argumentorum), he means a "mental" place - a certain general category or train of thought that helped to generate or find arguments. The speaker must know the places where the arguments lie, just as the hunter must know where this or that game is caught (Quintilian's comparison). The set of topoi was varied: they could be both general concepts (place, time, person) and the names of mental procedures (establishing similarities, opposites, comparisons).
Topoi can be compared to folders where we store computer files. However, “folders”-topoi contain not files, but arguments. If a speaker defends a woman who is accused of robbery, he can look for arguments in a place (“folder”) called “a natura hominum”, that is, “from human nature”, and in this folder there is a subfolder where arguments related to with the difference between the sexes (locus a sexu). There, according to Quintilian, he will find such an argument: “it is more common for a man to commit robbery, and poisoning is more common for a woman.” This is, in the rhetorical sense, the specific argument found, and, as we see, it is very similar to what Curtius considers a topos.
So, topos in rhetoric is a general category that allows you to find specific arguments; the literary topos, the topos according to Curtius - is a concrete argument, or rather, verbal formulas that have arisen from rhetorical arguments. Now we see what kind of substitution of the concept Curtius made: he transferred the name of the topos from common place, where they are looking for, on the specific thing that they find there. Let us illustrate this substitution with a simple example. The statement “all men are mortal” according to Curtius is a topos; and for the ancient orator, this is an argument found in the common place "from the nature of man."
The correct rhetorical meaning of the term "topos" Curtius, of course, perfectly knew. Why did he make this change? I think that he was very satisfied with the non-rhetorical understanding of the common place, already established in European cultures, in the sense of a common place - a kind of commonplace banality, a cliché, a ready-made formula. At the same time, Curtius, calling the argument a topos, is clearly trying to get away from rhetoric as soon as possible: after all, the term “argument” is much more strongly and unambiguously reminiscent of the basic process of argumentation for rhetoric than the term “topos”. And the desire to get away from rhetoric is understandable: rhetoric for Curtius is nothing more than a certain reservoir from which literature draws; but it is precisely there that literature becomes itself for him, where rhetoric ceases. In essence, Curtius is not interested in rhetoric as such - and least of all he is interested in the section of argument from which he borrowed the concept of topos. An index of terms to his book shows that the term argumentatio appears only once in it.
This is the paradox of the whole theory of Curtius: borrowing his key concept from rhetoric, he cuts off all his connections with this science, in fact discards rhetoric as such, including the category of argumentation to which the topos is subordinated. Let us illustrate this paradox with an analogy: imagine a hypothetical literary critic who has created a certain doctrine of motives as elements of action, but ignores the concept of plot. Such a picture is almost absurd, since it is clear that the motive cannot be defined without its correlation with the “superior” concept - the plot.
Meanwhile, something very similar happened to the topos in the concept of Curtius. Even if we accept his terminology and understand the topos as Curtius understands it - as the sought argument, and not the place where the arguments are sought - we will still be forced to state that the topos is artificially separated from the system in which it is actually , and acquires its essence - from the system of argumentation. I repeat: this is the same as absolutizing the concept of motive, completely discarding the concept of plot. Namely, this is how Curtius treated the topos.
The topos receives its essence only as an element in the system of rhetorical persuasion. Outside this system, it immediately becomes something extremely indefinite. Although the term, no doubt, has entered the widest circulation, many researchers complain about the vagueness of the definition given by Curtius. Accordingly, the boundaries of the concept of topos in contemporary works appear more than vague: it is either a stable image, or a verbal formula, or a motive with which the topos approaches, according to the fair remark of S. Neklyudov, “up to a complete non-distinction” .
All this happens because Curtius sought to break the connection between topos and rhetoric. It should not be forgotten that although Curtius's book is considered a forerunner of the revival of rhetoric in the second half of the 20th century, he himself shares the principles of demarcation of rhetoric and fiction: rhetoric correlates with the rationalistic type of thinking, with “rationalism”, and therefore is related only to the corresponding types of literary thinking (with those types that S. Averintsev combined with the concept of reflective traditionalism).
Only a decade after the publication of Curtius's book, ideas about rhetoric began to change. The situation was changed by at least two works: Chaim Perelman's Treatise on Argumentation (1958, co-authored with Lucy Olbrechts-Titeka) and Heinrich Lausberg's so-called Textbook of Literary Rhetoric (1960), a book that goes far beyond such a modest name.
Chaim Perelman has shown that the relationship of rhetoric with so-called rationalism is more than complex, if not hostile (he connects the decline of rhetoric with the reign of scientific rationalism of the Cartesian type); that the process of persuasion is quasi-rational, that is, it is rational only in form, but in fact it has nothing to do with logical proof. In addition, he showed that the methods of argumentation are the same everywhere: a philosopher in his treatise, a housewife in the kitchen, a poet, literary character use the same arguments. This opened up the possibility of redefining the relationship between literature and rhetoric on a broader plane: literature - and literature of all ages - turned out to be the same "realm of rhetorical argumentation" as other forms of verbal activity.
Heinrich Lausberg, interpreting the system of ancient rhetoric as the "foundation of literary criticism", demonstrated that many rhetorical procedures remain significant in literary practice Modern times, modern verbal genres. So, the four statuses of questions around which the prosecution and defense are built have found application in the detective genre - however, M. Gasparov in a brilliant analysis of Chekhov's story "The Chorus Girl" showed that the theory of prosecution and defense by four statuses is applicable not only to detective texts .
The new idea of rhetoric developed in these and similar works allows us to see in fiction a whole layer of rhetorical argumentation; topoi - a natural element of this layer. We agree with Curtius that the topos is a scheme of thought or expression; but such a scheme that arises in the course of argumentation, in the process of how an author, poet, literary character praises or blames, advises or dissuades, consoles or instructs, flatters or threatens, etc.; in other words - in the process of achieving by the author or the hero of a certain communicative goal through a huge set of techniques.
The inclusion of this rhetorical, argumentative attitude in the very definition of poetry is a long tradition, which, apparently, is suppressed only by the era of romanticism and philosophical aesthetics. Charles Batteux wrote about poetry in 1746: “like eloquence, she speaks, she proves, she tells” (“elle parle, elle prouve, elle raconte”). But even much later, O. Freidenberg writes about the same thing - already in historical terms: “The Greek lyric poet does not sing about himself. Elegik inspires the army, argues, gives advice. The ancient Greek lyricist actually solves the problems of rhetorical persuasion; Indeed, a long tradition of studying lyric poetry Ancient Greece from the standpoint of rhetoric (summarized in a recent article by William Reiss in A Guide to Ancient Rhetoric, edited by Ian Worthington, 2007) shows to what extent argumentative devices are not alien to it (up to such quasi-logical constructions as the a fortiori argument, for example, in Alcaea: if Sisyphus, the smartest of people, could not avoid Hades, then what to say about us?...) .
However, it is not at all necessary to go so far for examples of argumentation in poetry. Let's take the final lines of Yesenin's "Anna Snegina": "We all loved in those years, / But, that means / They loved us too." They may well add to the extensive list of examples of the “argument of reciprocity” from the mentioned book by Perelman and Olbrechts-Titek. This argument convinces us that A is related to B as B is related to A, and there is no logical necessity for this belief: only the harmonious symmetry of the argument fascinates us. According to such an argumentative scheme, for example, the covenant of Christ from the Sermon on the Mount is built: “As you want people to do to you, do to them” (Matt. 7:12), but also the aphorism of F. La Rochefoucauld: “We almost always bored with those who are bored with us.” Yesenin uses the same symmetrical argumentative structure, but strengthens the “logicality” by introducing a completely non-poetic “but, that means ...” (almost “ergo” from some philosophical reasoning).
The argument is the same everywhere. The specificity of artistic literature here, apparently, will manifest itself only in the fact that the nature of the argumentation is in some way connected with the genre of the text. It is curious that the old definitions of genres sometimes actually take into account the parameter of argumentation: for example, when Nicolas Boileau gives a very voluminous definition of elegy in the Poetic Art, he, among other parameters (such as place in genre system, “tone”, themes, subject plan), also characterizes the elegy as a special type of argumentation: the elegy “flatters, threatens, excites, calms the beloved”.
The connection of topos with argumentative schemes is not considered by Curtius: he is even more inclined to associate topos with Jungian archetypes - in general, rhetoric is hated by him. Meanwhile, his own examples give us a good reason to talk about the existence of such a connection. Let's take one of his most famous topoi - "Puer senex", "old boy". Here, Curtius's material is distinguished by its particular breadth and the comparative potential of his method is especially visibly manifested. Curtius (a rare case for him!) refers to Russian culture (discovering the topos in the texts of the elders of the 18th century - it, however, is generally typical for life and is available, for example, in Epiphanius the Wise in the life of Sergius of Radonezh, who “... being young body, showed the mind of an old man”) and even goes beyond European literature, to the texts of Buddhism and Arabic literature. A comparison of the topos with the archetype also arises here: “The correspondence between the facts of such different origins indicates to us that there is an archetype here, an image of the collective unconscious in the spirit of Carl Jung.” This generalization confirms Curtius's anti-rhetorical attitude: tearing topoi from a solid rhetorical foundation, from their native soil, he tries to transfer them to the area of more than vague psychology.
Meanwhile, in the same section, a little higher, Curtius throws in a word that, in my opinion, absolutely accurately conveys the nature of this topos: “Lobschema”, “the scheme of praise”. Indeed, almost all of the examples cited by Curtius (from Virgil, Ovid, Valerius Maximus, Statius, etc., up to Clemens Brentano) indicate the connection of topos with epideictic speech and with its typical argumentative device, which consists in that the object of praise is attributed to the combination of numerous virtues, including opposite ones, for example, virtues different ages. The subject of such praise is either a young man who has or had (in praise of the deceased) the wisdom of an old man, or an old man who preserves the vigor of a young man. Apparently everything European examples Curtius fit into this argumentative scheme of epideixis - that is, the genre of praise or micro-praise as an element of another, secondary genre (micro-praise as part of life); the example from “A Thousand and One Nights” also fits into it, where it is said about the 12-year-old vizier that he is “young in years, but old in mind” (praise in Christian lives uses absolutely the same move).
In my opinion, a rhetorical explanation of this topos as an argument in the system of praise - an explanation that slipped through Curtius, but discarded in favor of a vague archetype - would be much more convincing than a reference to the collective unconscious.
The same applies to the very first example, in which Curtius shows what a topos is in his understanding. This formula is “all men are mortal”. Of course, it is characterized by omnipresence, the freedom to appear in different eras and different cultures; however, Curtius's examples convince us that the topos is far from being free from everything and is not always free to “fall off the pen”, as Curtius says. The topos arises in a particular speech situation which is closely related to a certain speech genre. In this case, the examples fit into the genre of consolation, and the argument in general is something like this: do not cry about the death of a young son (daughter), before death all ages are equal, we are all mortal, etc. This argumentative line goes from ancient literature to the mentioned Curtius Malherba - and then, probably, further.
The same topos can be used in different argumentative schemes. A brilliant addition to what Curtius said about the topos “all men are mortal” was given by Hermann Wankel in the article ““All men must die”: Variations of the topos in Greek literature". I note that he is one of the few literary scholars who use the concept of topos with full awareness of its argumentative nature. Wankel shows that the formula "all men are mortal" is used not only in a comforting, but also in a motivating argument. The scheme of the latter is approximately as follows: boldly go into battle! All the same, all people are mortal; but, having died in battle, you will acquire immortal glory, which even the gods are inaccessible to. Both lines - comforting and stimulating - go back to Homer and develop (sometimes intertwined) in later ancient Greek literature.
The same situation with the favorite Middle Ages topos “ubi sunt?” - a topos of regret about the past great times. As Deborah Schwartz has shown, this topos is included in different argumentative chains in hagiographic texts and in the romance of chivalry. In the first case, he participates in a strategy aimed at dissociation, breaking the connection between the earthly and heavenly worlds: the topos helps the reader to understand that the earthly world has lost all value, and “reorients it from the earthly world to the heavenly one.” In the genre of the courtly novel, dissociation does not occur, the topos positions the past as a model for the present - an ideal that, in principle, can be achieved. Thus, the same topos in two different genres included in different argumentation strategies: in the first case, it is a dissociation strategy, in the second, comparisons with an ideal model.
So, topoi are not some singular formations, not points of instantaneous similarity, scattered throughout the texts of different cultures. They arise on lines, paths of argumentation - in certain speech genres having certain argumentative strategies. Thus, when a speaker defends people who have lost their homes, it is natural for him to turn to the topos “a contrario”, “from the opposite”, and say that even wild animals have holes, and a person must have housing all the more. This is exactly what Tiberius Gracchus does in his speech on land reform, defending the Roman soldiers: even wild animals have holes, and the men who fought and died for Italy have nothing but air and light. More than a hundred years later, Jesus Christ uses the same argument: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). Similar formulas arise in a similar argumentative situation.
Of course, behind the similarity of the argumentation and the topos formulas that arise as it develops, there are a lot of differences associated with the transfer of the topos to another culture, to another situation - and here the most interesting thing begins for the comparativeist. Christ uses the same argument as Gracchus - but in a different cultural context, in a different situation, with a different communicative purpose.
To state only the identity of topoi is clearly not enough for a comparative analysis. Sometimes a similar development of argumentation gives rise to surprisingly similar topoi formulas; however, given the general context, these formulas take on different meanings.
I will give one example. In 1797, Friedrich Schlegel in one of his "Critical Fragments" defines wit: "Wit (wit - Witz) is an explosion of a bound spirit." This definition is perceived by us as an example of a romantic understanding of wit; however, almost 150 years before Schlegel, not a romantic at all, but a writer heroic poem"Gondibert" Englishman William Davenant in the preface to this poem also talks about wit (wit) and finds very similar image: wit is “gunpowder of the soul: if you try to squeeze it and not let it fly up, then it blows up all the barriers, freeing itself to fly up to the very heavens ...”.
So, the romantic Schlegel and the non-romantic Davenant are similar in that wit is explosive - for both this explosion is assessed as something positive, as a high manifestation of creative ability.
It is unlikely that Schlegel read Davenant: the similarity of the images is explained by the proximity of the argumentative moves. Davenant begins by associating wit with speed: “Wit is not only luck and labor, but also the dexterity of the mind, which, with unimaginable speed, like the sun, circles the world and returns back to memory, delivering its universal surveys” . Schlegel in the preceding fragments connects wit with freedom. The image of the explosion is prepared for him by the image of electricity, its sparkling sparks, and also by the convergence of wit with champagne; Davenant knows nothing about electricity, the technological basis of his metaphor is gunpowder.
But this is where the similarity ends: further, from this meeting point, the argument authors goes in quite different directions. The theme of gunpowder as a symbol of civilization allows Davenant, not without wit, to beat the theme “wit is not given to many”: it is a gift of the elite, most people do not know wit, as the Indians do not know gunpowder. Developing the metaphor of an explosion, Davenant writes: A. M.) become more accessible for study and review”. An explosion of wit opens the subject for dissecting analysis, "for consideration, study." This is absolutely not what Schlegel would like from wit. Wit is valuable in itself and opposed to analysis: after all, “a single analytic word, even a word of praise, can destroy the most excellent insight of wit.”
Topoi, therefore, are the points at which the lines of argument converge and diverge. At these points of convergence and divergence different cultures, different epochs and nations sometimes reveal a surprising similarity of verbal formulas. But this similarity is most often only a consequence of the use of similar methods of argumentation, the paths of which may diverge further: the arguments acquire a different meaning, pursue other goals. Comparative analysis, taking into account the existence of topoi, can be compared to the superimposition of layers of tissue on top of each other. Topoi here are, as it were, control points on the tissues, which must be combined during this overlay. But if the points are aligned, then will the patterns of fabrics - the lines of arguments passing through these points - be combined? Hardly; and the question of the degree of difference in argumentative drawings in which identical topoi are included seems to be of most interest to the comparativeist.
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