The categories of time and space are the determining factor in the existence of the world: through the awareness of space-time coordinates, a person determines his place in it. The same principle carries over to art space Literature - writers, wittingly or unwittingly, place their characters in a reality created in a certain way. Literary critics, in turn, seek to understand how the categories of space and time are revealed in works.
Bakhtin: chronotope
Until the 20th century, the spatio-temporal organization of a work was not perceived as a problem in literary criticism. But already in the first half of the century, the most important studies in this area were written. They are associated with the name of the Russian scientist M. M. Bakhtin.
In the work "The Author and the Hero in Aesthetic Activity" (1924, published in 1979), the researcher introduces the concept of the hero's spatial form, speaking of the need to study spatial values, which are transgredient to the consciousness of the hero and his world, his cognitive and ethical attitude in the world and complete him from the outside, from the consciousness of another about him, the author-contemplator.
In the work “Forms of time and chronotope in the novel. Essays on historical poetics» (1937-1938, publication 1975) Bakhtin makes a revolutionary discovery in the artistic understanding of the categories of time and space: the scientist develops a theory chronotope. The researcher borrowed the term from A. Einstein's theory of relativity. M. M. Bakhtin gives the concept the following definition: “We will call the essential interconnection of temporal and spatial relations artistically mastered in literature a chronotope (which means, literally, “time-space”).”
The idea is important for a scientist inseparable connection space and time. Chronotop Bakhtin understands it as a "formally-substantial category of literature". Time and space are correlated into a single concept of the chronotope and enter into relationships of interconnection and interdependence: "The signs of time are revealed in space, and space is comprehended and measured by time."
Time and space are correlated into a single concept of the chronotope and enter into relationships of interconnection and interdependence
Chronotope underlies the definition of aesthetic unity artwork in relation to primary reality.
Researcher notes and connection genre forms of a work of art with a chronotope: the genre is, as it were, determined by the chronotope. The scientist presents the characteristics of various novel chronotopes.
Art, according to Bakhtin, is permeated chronotopic values. The following types of chronotope are distinguished in the work (in relation to the genre of the novel):
- Chronotop meetings , in which the "temporal shade" predominates and which "differs a high degree emotional value intensity"
- Chronotop roads , which has "a wider volume, but somewhat less emotional and value intensity"; the chronotope of the road connects the ranks of lives and destinies, concretizing social distancing, which are overcome within the chronotope of the road. The road becomes a metaphor for the passage of time
- Chronotop " Castle" , “which is saturated with time, moreover, in the narrow sense of the word, that is, the time of the historical past. The castle is the place of life of the rulers of the feudal era (hence, the historical figures of the past), traces of centuries and generations were deposited in it in a visible form.
- Chronotop " living room» , where “meetings take place (no longer having the former specifically random nature of meetings on the“ road ”or in the“ foreign world ”), plots of intrigue are created, denouements are often made, here, finally, and most importantly, dialogues take place that acquire exceptional significance in novel, the characters, "ideas" and "passions" of the characters are revealed.
- Chronotop " provincial town» , which is the "place of cyclic household time". With such a chronotope, there are no events, “but there are only repeated “occurrences”. Time is devoid of progressive historical course, it moves in narrow circles: the circle of the day, the circle of the week, the month, the circle of all life<…>
Time here is eventless and therefore seems to have almost stopped. There is no "meeting" or "parting". It's thick, sticky, space-crawling time."
- Chronotop threshold filled with chronotope crisis and life fracture. Chronotop threshold always "metaphorical and symbolic<…>Time in this chronotope, in essence, is an instant, as if having no duration and falling out of the normal flow of biographical time.
M. M. Bakhtin notes that each type of chronotope can include an unlimited number of small chronotopes. Key meanings of the considered chronotopes: plot("They are the organizational centers of the main plot events of the novel") and pictorial(“The chronotope provides an essential basis for showing and depicting events”).
Bakhtin's concept has become a key one in understanding spatio-temporal connections and relationships. However, until now, its comprehension does not always find a proper solution among researchers: often the “chronotope” is simply replaced by the concept of space-time relations in the text, without implying either the interdependence of the components of time and space, or the belonging of the analyzed text to the genre of the novel. The use of the designated term in the understanding of Bakhtin is incorrect in relation to non-novel genres.
Likhachev: organization of the action of the work
Sections on space and time appear in the work of D. S. Likhachev (chapters "Poetics of Artistic Time" and "Poetics of Artistic Space" in the study "Poetics of Old Russian Literature", 1987). In the chapter "The Poetics of Artistic Time" Likhachev examines artistic time verbal work, noting the significance of the category of time in the perception of the structure of the world.
It is the author who decides whether to slow down or speed up time in his work, whether to stop it, “turn it off” from the work.
In the understanding of the researcher, artistic time is "a phenomenon of the very artistic fabric of a literary work, subordinating both grammatical time and its philosophical understanding by the writer to its artistic tasks."
Paying attention to the subjectivity of human perception of time, the scientist notes that a work of art makes subjectivity one of the forms of depicting reality, at the same time using objective time: unity, emphasizing differences, leading the story primarily in the subjective aspect of time. The scientist notices that to these two forms (subjective and objective) of time a third one can be added: the depicted time of the reader.
A significant role in the work is played by the author's time, which can be either motionless, "as if concentrated at one point," or mobile, striving to move independently, to develop its own storyline.
Time in a work of art is perceived through a causal or psychological, associative relationship.
Likhachev considers the question of “the unity of the temporal flow in a work with several storylines” to be the most difficult issue in the study of artistic time.
The researcher notes that time can be “open”, included in a “wider flow of time” and “closed”, closed in itself, “occurring only within the plot, not connected with events occurring outside the work, with historical time”. It is the author who decides whether to slow down or speed up time in his work, whether to stop it, “turn it off” from the work. The scientist sees a close connection between the problem of time and the problem of the timeless and "eternal".
The ideas of slowing down and speeding up time are already in many respects correlated with the theory of the modeling structure of the world put forward later. Analyzing the poetics of artistic space, Likhachev notes that the world of a work of art is not autonomous and depends on reality, artistically transformed. The writer, being the creator of his work, creates a certain space, which can be both large and narrow, both real and unreal, imaginary. Whatever the space, it has certain properties and organizes the action of the work. This property of the organization of action is “especially important for literature and folklore”: it is this property that determines the connection with artistic time.
Lotman: an artistic model of the world
Yu. M. Lotman emphasizes the conventionality of the space of art. In a number of works ("Artistic space in Gogol's prose", "Subject space of the Russian novel XIX centuries"), the scientist notes that the language of "spatial relations" refers to the primary ones.
Artistic space is a model of the author's world, which is expressed through the language of spatial representations
Lotman sees a clear relationship between space and genre: “switching to another genre changes the “platform” of artistic space.” The space in a work of art largely determines the connections of the picture of the world (temporal, ethical, social, etc.): art model"space" of the world sometimes metaphorically assumes the expression of completely non-spatial relations in the modeling structure of the world. Thus, the scientist concludes that artistic space is a model of the author's world, which is expressed through the language of spatial representations, and "artistic space is not a passive receptacle for heroes and plot episodes. Correlating it with the actors and the general model of the world created by the literary text convinces us that the language of artistic space is not a hollow vessel, but one of the components common language spoken by the work of art.
This is how the comprehension of the most important categories - time and space - in literary criticism developed. Their study allows discovering new meanings in works and finding solutions to the problem of genre definition. Through studies of space and time, scholars can take a different look at the history of literature.
Therefore, the analysis of the work through consideration of the spatio-temporal level of the artistic whole can be found in a number of works by modern researchers. Works on time and space can be found in V.G. Shchukin (“On the Philological Image of the World”), Y. Karyakin (“Dostoevsky and the Eve of the 21st Century”), N.K. H. Torop, I. P. Nikitina (“Artistic space as a subject of philosophical and aesthetic analysis”) and many, many others. ■
Evgenia Guruleva
The events of any work of art unfold in a certain time and space.
The depicted space and time are the conditions that determine the nature of events and the logic of their succession one after another. The creation of a unified space-time structure of the hero's world is aimed at the embodiment or transmission of a certain system of values. The categories of space and time differ in relation to speech material works and in relation to the world depicted in the work with the help of this material.
Spatial Models, most used writers in works of art: real, fantastic, psychological, virtual.
- Real(objective, social and subjective reality).
- fantastic(subjects of action can be fantastic characters or abstract persons; all physical characteristics are changed and changeable).
- Psychological(inner world, personal space of a person).
- Virtual(an artificially created environment into which one can penetrate and experience the feeling of real life, combined with real or mythological).
The importance of artistic space in the development of the action of a work is determined by the following provisions:
a) the plot, which is a sequence of events, set out by the author of the work within the framework of cause-and-effect conditionality, develops in the conditions of space and time;
b) the initial presentation of the plot-forming function of the category of space is the title of the work, which can serve as a spatial designation and can not only model the space of the artistic world, but also introduce the main symbol of the work, contain an emotional assessment that gives the reader an idea of the author's concept of the work.
artistic time
This is a phenomenon of the very artistic fabric of a literary work, subordinating both grammatical time and its philosophical understanding by the writer to its artistic tasks.
Any work of art unfolds in time, so time is important for its perception. The writer takes into account the natural, actual time of the work, but the time is also depicted.
The author can depict a short or long period of time, can make time flow slowly or quickly, can depict it as flowing continuously or intermittently, sequentially or inconsistently (with returns back, with "running" forward). He can depict the time of the work in close connection with historical time or in isolation from it - closed in itself; can depict the past, present and future in various combinations.
A work of art makes the subjective perception of time one of the forms of depicting reality.
If the author plays a prominent role in the work, if the author creates the image of a fictitious author, the image of a narrator or narrator, then the image of the time of the plot is added to the image of the time of the plot, the image of the time of the performer - in various combinations.
In some cases, the depicted time of the reader or listener can also be added to these two "overlapping" depicted durations.
Author's time can be motionless- concentrated at one point, from which he leads his story, and can move independently, having his own storyline in the work. The author can portray himself as a contemporary of the events, he can follow the events "on the heels", the events can overtake him (as in a diary, in a novel, in letters). The author can portray himself as a participant in the events, not knowing at the beginning of the narrative how they will end, separate himself from the depicted time of the action of the work by a large period of time, can write about them as if from memories - his own or someone else's.
Time in fiction perceived due to the connection of events - causal or psychological, associative. Time in a work of art is the correlation of events.
Where there are no events, there is no time: in descriptions of static phenomena, for example - in a landscape or portrait and characterization of the character, in philosophical reflections author.
On the one hand, the time of the work can be " closed", closed in itself, taking place only within the plot, and on the other hand, the time of the work can be " open”, included in a wider stream of time, developing against the background of a precisely defined historical era. The “open” time of a work presupposes the presence of other events taking place simultaneously outside the work, its plot.
The transition by the character of the boundaries that separate the parts or spheres of the depicted space and time is an artistic event.
Any literary work reproduces in one way or another real world- both material and ideal: nature, things, events, people in their external and inner being and so on. The natural forms of existence of this world are time and space. However art world, or the world of a work of art, is always to some extent conditional: it is an image of reality. Time and space in literature, therefore, are also conditional.
Compared with other arts, literature deals with time and space most freely (it can compete in this area, perhaps, only with synthetic art movie).
"The immateriality of ... images" gives literature the ability to instantly move from one space to another. In particular, events that occur simultaneously in different places; for this, it is enough for the narrator to say: "In the meantime, something happened there." Transitions from one time plan to another are just as simple (especially from the present to the past and back).
Most early forms such temporary switching were memories in the stories actors. With the development of literary self-awareness, these forms of mastering time and space will become more sophisticated, but it is important that they have always taken place in literature, and, therefore, constituted an essential element of artistic imagery.
Another property of literary time and space is their discontinuity. With regard to time, this is especially important, since literature is able not to reproduce the entire flow of time, but to select the most significant fragments from it, denoting gaps with formulas like: “several days have passed”, etc. Such temporal discreteness (long since characteristic of literature) served as a powerful means of dynamization, first in the development of the plot, and then in psychologism.
Fragmentation of space partly connected with the properties of artistic time, partly it has an independent character. Thus, the instantaneous change of spatio-temporal coordinates (for example, in I.A. Goncharov's novel "The Cliff" - the transfer of action from St. Petersburg to Malinovka, to the Volga) makes it unnecessary to describe the intermediate space (in this case, the road).
The discreteness of the space itself is manifested primarily in the fact that it is usually not described in detail, but only indicated with the help of individual details that are most significant for the author. The rest (as a rule, a large part) is "finished" in the reader's imagination.
Thus, the scene in M. Yu. Lermontov’s poem “Borodino” is indicated by a few details: “a large field”, “forests of the blue top”. True, this work is lyrical-epic, but in a purely epic kind, similar laws operate. For example, in A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, only a red-hot stove is described from the entire “interior” of the office: it is this stove that attracts the frozen Ivan Denisovich to itself.
The nature of the conventionality of time and space depends to a great extent on the type of literature. The lyrics, which represent the actual experience, and the drama, played out before the eyes of the audience, showing the incident at the moment of its completion, usually use the present tense, while the epic (basically a story about what has passed) is in the past tense.
Conventionality is maximum in lyrics, it may even completely lack the image of space - for example, in A.S. Pushkin's poem “I loved you; love still, perhaps ... ". Often the space in the lyrics is allegorical: the desert in Pushkin's "Prophet", the sea in Lermontov's "Sail". At the same time, lyrics are capable of reproducing the objective world in its spatial realities. So, in Lermontov's poem "Motherland" a typical Russian landscape is recreated. In his own poem “How often, surrounded by a motley crowd ...” mental transfer lyrical hero from the ballroom to the “wonderful kingdom” embodies oppositions that are extremely significant for the romantic: civilization and nature, artificial and natural man, “I” and “crowd”. And not only spaces, but also times are opposed.
With the predominance of the grammatical present in the lyrics (“I remember wonderful moment..." Pushkin, "I enter the dark temples ..." A. Blok) it is characterized by the interaction of temporary plans: the present and the past (memories are at the heart of the elegy genre); past, present and future. The very category of time can be the subject of reflection, the philosophical leitmotif of the poem: mortal human time is opposed to eternity (“Do I wander along the noisy streets ...” by Pushkin); what is depicted is conceived as always existing or as something instantaneous. In all cases, lyrical time, being mediated by the inner world of the lyrical subject, has a very high degree of convention, often abstract.
The conventionality of time and space in drama is connected mainly with its orientation towards the theatre. With all the diversity in the organization of time and space, drama retains some general properties: no matter what significant role in dramatic works no matter how fragmented the depicted action is, the drama is committed to pictures that are closed in space and time.
The epic kind has much wider possibilities, where the fragmentation of time and space, transitions from one time to another, spatial movements are carried out easily and freely thanks to the figure of the narrator - an intermediary between the depicted life and the reader. The narrator can "compress" and, on the contrary, "stretch" time, or even stop it (in descriptions, reasoning).
According to the peculiarities of artistic conventionality, time and space in literature (in all its genres) can be divided into abstract and concrete, especially this distinction is important for space.
An abstract space is a space that can be perceived as universal (“everywhere” or “nowhere”). It does not have a pronounced characteristic and therefore, even when specifically designated, it does not have a significant impact on the characters and behavior of the characters, on the essence of the conflict, does not set an emotional tone, is not subject to active authorial comprehension, etc.
On the contrary, concrete space does not simply “tie” the depicted world to certain topographic realities, but actively influences the essence of the depicted. For example, in A. Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, they constantly talk about Moscow and its topographical realities (Kuznetsk Bridge, the English Club, etc.), and these realities are a kind of metonymy for a certain way of life. Drawn in comedy psychological picture precisely the Moscow nobility: Famusov, Khlestova, Repetilov are possible only in Moscow (but not in the Europeanized, business-like Petersburg of that time). Pushkin genre definition « Bronze Horseman- "Petersburg story", and it is Petersburg not only in toponymy and plot, but in its inner, problematic essence. The symbolization of space can be emphasized by a fictitious toponym (for example, the city of Glupov in the "History of a City" by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin).
Abstract space is used as a way of global generalization, a symbol, as a form of expression of universal content (which applies to the entire "human race"). Of course, there is no impenetrable boundary between concrete and abstract spaces: the degree of generalization, symbolization of a concrete space is not the same in different works; in one work can be combined different types space (for example, in "The Master and Margarita" by M. Bulgakov); abstract space, being an artistic image, draws details from reality, involuntarily conveying the national-historical specifics of not only the landscape, the material world, but also human characters (for example, in Pushkin's poem "Gypsies", with its antithesis of "bondage of stuffy cities" and " wild will", through the abstract exotic space, the features of a certain patriarchal way of life appear, not to mention the local color of the poem).
The corresponding properties of time are usually associated with the type of space. Thus, the abstract space of the fable is combined with the timeless essence of the conflict - for all time: "The strong always have the weak to blame", "... And in the heart the flatterer will always find a corner." And vice versa: the spatial specificity is usually complemented by the temporal one.
Time is a constructive category in literary work, an essential structural element verbal art. First of all, one should distinguish between narrative time as the duration of a story and event (narrated) time as the duration of a process about which there is a story. It is known that the sense of time for a person in different periods of his life is subjective: it can stretch or shrink. Such subjectivity of sensations is used in different ways by the authors of literary texts: a moment can last for a long time or stop altogether, and large time periods can flash by overnight. artistic time- this is a sequence in the description of events subjectively perceived. Such a perception of time becomes one of the forms of depicting reality, when the time perspective changes at the will of the author. Moreover, the time perspective can be shifted, the past can be thought of as the present, and the future can appear as the past, etc. Temporal shifts are quite natural. Events remote in time can be depicted as happening directly, for example, in a character's retelling. Temporal bifurcation is a common narrative technique in which the stories of different people intersect, including the actual author of the text.
The time depicted in a work may be more or less definite (e.g. cover a day, year, several years, centuries) and indicated or not indicated in relation to historical time (e.g., in fantastic works, the chronological aspect of the image may be completely indifferent or the action is being played in the future). The forms of concretization of artistic time are most often the "binding" of the action to historical landmarks, dates, realities and the designation of cyclic time: the season, the day. But the measure of specificity in each individual case will be different and accentuated to varying degrees by the author.
Emotional and symbolic meanings arose long ago and constitute sustainable system: day - time of work, night - peace or pleasure, evening - calm and rest, morning - awakening and the beginning of a new day (often - the beginning of a new life). The seasons were associated mainly with the agricultural cycle: autumn is the time of death, spring is the time of rebirth. This mythological scheme has passed into literature, and its traces can be found in a variety of works up to the present: “Winter is not angry for nothing ...” by F. Tyutchev, “The Winter of Our Anxiety” by J. Steinbeck. Along with traditional symbols, developing it or contrasting with it, appear individual images seasons, full of psychological meaning. There are already complex and implicit connections between the seasons and state of mind: cf. "... I do not like spring ..." (Pushkin) and "I love Spring most of all" (Yesenin); spring is almost always joyful for Chekhov, but it is ominous in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.
As in life, so in literature, space and time are not given to us in pure form. We judge space by the objects that fill it (in a broad sense), and time by the processes taking place in it. To analyze a work, it is important to determine the fullness, saturation of space and time, since this indicator in many cases characterizes the style of the work, writer, direction. For example, Gogol's space is usually filled to the maximum with some objects, especially things. Here is one of the interiors in " Dead souls»: «<...>the room was hung with old striped wallpaper; pictures with some birds; between the windows there are small antique mirrors with dark frames in the form of curled leaves; behind every mirror there was either a letter, or an old pack of cards, or a stocking; wall clock with painted flowers on the dial...” (ch. III). And in Lermontov's style system, the space is practically not filled: it contains only what is necessary for the plot and image. inner peace heroes, even in A Hero of Our Time (not to mention romantic poems) there is not a single detailed interior.
^ The intensity of artistic time is expressed in its saturation with events. Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Mayakovsky have an extremely busy time. Chekhov, on the other hand, managed to sharply reduce the intensity of time even in dramatic works, which, in principle, gravitate towards the concentration of action.
The increased saturation of artistic space, as a rule, is combined with a reduced intensity of time, and vice versa: a weak saturation of space is combined with time full of events.
Real (plot) and artistic time rarely coincide, especially in epic works, where playing with time can be a very expressive device. In most cases, artistic time is shorter than "real" time: this is the manifestation of the law of "poetic economy". However, there is an important exception associated with the depiction of psychological processes and the subjective time of a character or a lyrical hero. Experiences and thoughts, unlike other processes, proceed faster than the speech flow, which forms the basis of literary imagery, moves. Therefore, the image time is almost always longer than the subjective time. In some cases, this is less noticeable (for example, in Lermontov's Hero of Our Time, Goncharov's novels, Chekhov's stories), in others it is a conscious artistic technique designed to emphasize richness and intensity mental life. This is typical for many writers-psychologists: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Faulkner, Hemingway, Proust.
The depiction of what the hero has experienced in just a second of "real" time can take up a large amount of narrative.
In the works of N. V. Gogol, the structure of time and space becomes one of the main means of expression. In Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, real and fantastic spaces collide. Closed in its geographical specificity, "Petersburg Tales" become a metaphor for the world, destructive for a person, and the city depicted in "The Inspector General" appears as an allegory of bureaucratic Russia. Space and time can manifest themselves in domestic scenes or in marking the boundaries of the existence of characters. In Dead Souls, the image of the road as a form of space is identical to the idea of the path as moral standard human life.
I. A. Goncharov in the novel "Oblomov", emphasizing the slowness of the calendar of patriarchal existence, refers to the comparison of the hero's life with the "slow gradualness with which the geological modifications of our planet occur." The novel is based on the principle of open time. The author deliberately neglects the clear metrics of the narrative, slows down the passage of time, persistently returning to the description of the patriarchal idyll.
Pictured time and picture time in literary texts may not match. So, the novel "Oblomov" reproduces several episodes from the life of the protagonist. Those points on which the author considered it important to dwell are presented in detail, others are only indicated. Nevertheless, this principle of organizing a work results in the creation of complete picture human life.
L. N. Tolstoy in the novel “War and Peace”, reflecting on the laws of human society, refers to the mythopoetic tradition, which is based on the idea of the cyclical development of the universe. The philosophical purpose of such a decision is the idea that everything in the world, chaotic and contradictory, is subject to the eternal human desire to comprehend harmony.
In the novel "War and Peace" the flow of time is determined by the law of non-linear transformations, which is embodied in the intersection of "real time" and "literary time". In the work of L. N. Tolstoy, a special role is played by chronological order. The writer carefully dates each chapter and even notes the time of day.
In the scenes describing the experiences of the characters, the author of the epic manages to achieve the rhythmic tension of the narration and the dynamic change of emotional states. The thoughts of the heroes either speed up, or seem to freeze, and, accordingly, time itself accelerates its movement or petrifies in anticipation.
A work of art belongs to special types of exploration of reality. Artistic image only indirectly connected with the image of reality. The writer must always take into account in his work the spatio-temporal boundaries of reality, correlate them with the chronology of the text being created. Often in a literary work, physical time and plot time do not coincide.
As an example, one can refer to the poetics of the novels of F. M. Dostoevsky. The writer puts his characters in crisis situations, the implementation of which requires an exceptionally long time. The events described in the novels of F. M. Dostoevsky, especially some scenes, do not fit into the framework of real time. But it is precisely such a chronotope of the novel that conveys the tension of the thoughts and will of the characters, caught up in the drama of life situations.
Readers may get the impression that the novels of F. M. Dostoevsky are based on different time plans. This feeling stems from a tense intertwining of events, discussions, confessions, facts, internal monologues And internal dialogues. In fact, the writer's works are marked by the unity of time, and all artistic material is offered in an integral space of simultaneous implementation.
The aesthetics of naturalism in the reproduction of space and time chooses the technique of a rigid spatio-temporal presentation of the material. E. Zola, E. and J. Goncourt record the facts of reality, correlate them with the voice of nature, revealing the conditionality of the intuitive actions of the characters by the eternal laws of nature.
Symbolism overcomes the objectivity of phenomenal being, metaphors and symbols expand horizons human existence. With the help of "lyrical alchemy" C. Baudelaire, P. Verlaine, A. Rimbaud, S. Mallarme compare reality with the irrational meanings of the world, prove that the symbol embodies the ideal plan, the essence of things that were, are or someday will certainly declare yourself.
Yu. M. Lotman noted that “the artistic space in a literary work is a continuum in which characters are placed and an action takes place. Naive perception constantly pushes the reader to identify artistic and physical space. There is some truth in such a perception, because even when its function of modeling extra-spatial relations is exposed, the artistic space necessarily retains, as the first plane of the metaphor, the idea of its physical nature.
According to the degree of conventionality, the categories of space and time can be relative and specific in a literary work. So, in the novels of A. Dumas, the action takes place in France XVII century, but the real historical place and time indicated by the writer is only an excuse for recreating heroic types. According to U. Eco, the main thing in this approach to the past is that it is “not here and not now”.
Gogol's principles of realistic typification belong to the "concrete" principle of mastering reality. Image provincial city N. - not at all symbol Russian province, it is a symbol of bureaucratic Russia, an allegory of widespread lack of spirituality.
For the perception of a literary work, the difference between the fictional and the real is not fundamental. The main thing is that Petersburg in the Russian novel, and the city of S. (A.P. Chekhov's story "The Lady with the Dog"), and the city of Kalinov (A. Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm") - all of them artistically embody the author's idea and are symbols of peace who have lost the concept of morality.
The conventionality and stereotype of literary time is manifested in the calendar of seasonal preferences. Winter is the most dangerous time of the year for the embodiment of intimate emotions. Many characters of romanticism reflect inconsolably in winter and recall the old glorious time that has gone into oblivion. A rare hero of romanticism will be taken out of the house in winter for love needs. Time and space are subject to the laws of strict regulation. Images of a blizzard, a winter cold in the literature are correlated with the struggle of infernal forces and often become, especially in realistic literature, allegories of social violence. No less common winter landscape sketches whose purpose is to sing the intrinsic value of life.
The normative nature of classicism in the depiction of resurgent nature - the appeal to ancient images, pathetic comparisons - is overcome by a sentimentalist conviction in the identity of nature and soul. Romanticism saturates the description of the awakening world with objectivity, expressive details, and a rich color palette.
Nature awakening from its winter sleep provides convincing interiors for revealing the first feeling. Spring favors the birth of love. A hubbub reigns in the forests, restless birds are absorbed in the construction of housing. The world tirelessly prepares for a date with passion.
The heroes of romantic poetry, faithful to the imperative call of nature, with a heart full of hope, rush into the whirlwind of spring delusions. Lyrical poetry ascribes the most sincere and exciting emotions to spring. In the spring, as literature proves, it is simply necessary to fall in love. Heroes feel their belonging to the general unrest. Nature and the soul awaken from sorrow. The time has come to experience for yourself what you read, saw in a dream and cherished in dreams. Leading in literary plots become descriptions of the joy of innocent love sensations, languid nights, long-talking sighs. The metric of experiences is formed in accordance with the violent natural metamorphoses. Poetry enthusiastically describes the first thunder, the May thunderstorm - signs of a symbolic exposition of the renewal of nature and the birth of love.
Summer in literary works, as a rule, comes unnoticed and does not give the promised joys. Literature does not favor mise-en-scenes lit by bright sunlight. Everyone sincerely is afraid of publicity. For a love story, twilight is preferable. Evening walks evoke thoughts of eternity. Distant stars - the only witnesses of timid feelings - are watching the lucky ones. The very mise-en-scene of the evening meeting, as the works of romantics and A.P. Chekhov show, is built in such a way that the plot of recognition could come true.
The autumn plot declares the need to complete everything started in the spring and summer. The love-everyday mythology of literature warns of this. Autumn moods permeated English graveyard poetry. It is at this time of the year that the most painful events occur in the works of neo-romanticism. The range of "autumn" activity of the heroes is extremely poor. Realistic poetry condemns social injustice, and romantic heroes in the fall tend to put an end to love punctuation.
The literary category of time is marked by a wide range of artistic solutions. Literature actively uses images that are symbols of the measurement of time: an instant, a minute, an hour, a pendulum, a dial. In poetry, the opposition of the symbols of the measurable and the exorbitant - the moment and eternity - is widespread.
The interpretation of the space-time continuum in the works of the last century is ambiguous.
20th century literature marked special treatment to the category of time, to the phenomenon of reconstruction of what happened. Beginning with the "Confessions" of Blessed Augustine, the introduction of present and future plans into the past becomes one of the methods of confessional and memoir literature. Integration of the future into the present allows you to analyze what happened, to see it in a time perspective. V. Shklovsky, reflecting on the nature of the memoir genre, noted: “A person who begins to write memoirs has two dangers. The first is to write, inserting yourself today. Then it turns out that you always knew everything. The second danger is, remembering, to remain only in the past. Run through the past the way a dog runs along a wire with its dog chain on it. Then a person always remembers the same thing: he remembers small things. Trampling the grass of the past, he is attached to it. He has no future. We must write about the past, not inserting ourselves today into the past, but seeing the past from today.
Introduction to Literary Studies (N.L. Vershinina, E.V. Volkova, A.A. Ilyushin and others) / Ed. L.M. Krupchanov. - M, 2005
