What is the name of the short story. Genre story: features, history of development, examples

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Story it designation of a small prose epic genre. So called "lyrical stories" approaching "poems in prose" ("First Love", 1930, I.A. Bunina), but they can be larger in volume and express broader issues. The words "story", "story", "narrative" initially had no genre meaning and were mostly synonymous. The word "story" retains the meaning of "narrative" or in general "the history of some event" later. With the growth in the volume of Russian short stories in the 1830s, the prerequisites for the genre separation of stories appeared. In the 1840s, V. G. Belinsky already separated the short story and essay as small genres from the novel and short story. But the difference between a story and a story was based not so much on the sign of the volume of the text, but on the degree of literary processing of the plot: the story was considered closer to a reality that had not been creatively transformed. Since the 1830s, and especially since the second half of the 19th century, “stories from Russian history” have been circulating - a fictionalized presentation of historical episodes or biographies of famous people. Such are the historical stories for the children of A.O. Ishimova, which deserved the approval of A.S. Pushkin, later - similar essays, also called stories, by A.N. Maikov A.S. Suvorin, N.S. Leskov, historians S.M. Solovyov, N.I. Kostomarova. But there were also stories that were only a stylization of an artless narrative, as a rule, with a narrator who verbally recounts some incident that actually took place or was presented by the author as such.

Belinsky saw in M.Yu. Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time three stories, obviously written by Pechorin, and two stories, i.e. the story of Bela, supposedly told orally by Maksim Maksimych and only then written down by an officer-traveler, and the psychological sketch "Maxim Maksimych" with a relatively undeveloped plot. A typical short story of the second half of the 19th century is Leskov's "Dumb Artist" (1883), subtitled "The Story at the Grave". The sign of volume was finally approved as a genre only by A.P. Chekhov, in whom the small and medium genres outwardly differ clearly, although not in terms of the volume of the plot: his story often covers, like stories, in fact, the story of a whole life (“The Man in the Case”, 1898, "Ionych", 1898, "Darling", 1899, "Bishop", 1902). The boundary between the story and the story is sometimes quite vague even among the writers of the Silver Age (L.N. Andreev). In Soviet literature, there were works of a small volume with a setting for a very broad content: stories or a short story by A.G. Malyshkin "The Fall of the Daire" (1923) - the same attempt to revive the heroic epos, like A.S. Serafimovich's story "Iron Stream" ( 1924). The story “The Fate of a Man” (1956) by M.A. Sholokhov was called by literary critic L.G. Yakimenko “an epic story”. In the 20th century, the classic of short stories was Bunin; I.E.Babel, K.G.Paustovsky, V.M.Shukshin, Yu.P.Kazakov, satirists and humorists Teffi, A.T.Averchenko, M.M.Zoshchenko showed themselves mainly in the genre of stories.

In the West, the story corresponds to the short story. It is considered a kind of story, characterized by a sharp, often paradoxical plot, compositional refinement, and lack of descriptiveness. The genre took shape in Italy during the Renaissance. One hundred short stories include "The Decameron" (1350-53) by G. Boccaccio. Short stories were written by Margarita of Navarre, M. Cervantes and others. Recognized masters of the genre in the 19th century - E.T.A. , Bret Hart, J. London, S. Zweig. In English, the term "story" is synonymous with the concept of "short story".

A literary genre is a group of literary works that has common historical development trends and is united by a set of properties in terms of its content and form. Sometimes this term is confused with the concepts of "view" "form". To date, there is no single clear classification of genres. Literary works are subdivided according to a certain number of characteristic features.

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The history of the formation of genres

The first systematization of literary genres was presented by Aristotle in his Poetics. Thanks to this work, the impression began to emerge that the literary genre is a natural stable system that requires the author to fully comply with the principles and canons a certain genre. Over time, this led to the formation of a number of poetics, strictly prescribing to the authors exactly how they should write a tragedy, ode or comedy. For many years these requirements remained unshakable.

Decisive changes in the system of literary genres began only towards the end of the 18th century.

At the same time, literary works aimed at artistic search, in their attempts to move as far as possible from genre divisions, gradually came to the emergence of new phenomena unique to literature.

What literary genres exist

To understand how to determine the genre of a work, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the existing classifications and the characteristic features of each of them.

Below is a sample table to determine the type of existing literary genres

Separation of genres by content

Classification of literary movements based on content includes comedy, tragedy and drama.

Comedy is a kind of literature which provides for a humorous approach. Varieties of the comic direction are:

There is also a comedy of characters and a comedy of situations. In the first case, the source of humorous content is the internal features of the characters, their vices or shortcomings. In the second case, comedy is manifested in the circumstances and situations.

Tragedy - drama genre with the obligatory catastrophic denouement, the opposite of the comedy genre. Tragedy usually reflects the deepest conflicts and contradictions. The plot is extremely intense. In some cases, tragedies are written in verse form.

Drama is a special kind of fiction, where the events that take place are transmitted not through their direct description, but through the monologues or dialogues of the characters. Drama as a literary phenomenon existed among many peoples even at the level of folklore. Originally in Greek, this term meant a sad event that affects one particular person. Subsequently, the drama began to represent a wider range of works.

The most famous prose genres

The category of prose genres includes literary works of various sizes, made in prose.

Novel

The novel is a prose literary genre that implies a detailed narrative about the fate of the heroes and certain critical periods of their lives. The name of this genre originates in the XII century, when chivalric stories were born "in the folk Romance language" as opposed to Latin historiography. A short story was considered a plot version of the novel. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, such concepts as a detective novel, a women's novel, and a fantasy novel appeared in literature.

Novella

Novella is a kind of prose genre. Her birth was served by the famous The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. Subsequently, several collections based on the Decameron model were released.

The era of romanticism introduced elements of mysticism and phantasmagorism into the genre of the short story - examples are the works of Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe. On the other hand, the works of Prosper Mérimée bore the features of realistic stories.

novella like short story with a twist became a defining genre in American literature.

The salient features of the novel are:

1. Maximum brevity.
2. Sharpness and even paradoxicality of the plot.
3. Neutrality of style.
4. Lack of descriptiveness and psychologism in the presentation.
5. An unexpected denouement, always containing an extraordinary turn of events.

Tale

The story is called prose of a relatively small volume. The plot of the story, as a rule, is in the nature of reproducing the natural events of life. Usually the story reveals the fate and personality of the hero against the backdrop of ongoing events. A classic example is “The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by A.S. Pushkin.

Story

A story is a small form of prose work, which originates from folklore genres - parables and fairy tales. Some Literary Specialists as a Kind of Genre consider essay, essay and short story. Usually the story is characterized by a small volume, one storyline and a small number of characters. The stories are characteristic of literary works of the 20th century.

Play

A play is a dramatic work that is created for the purpose of subsequent theatrical production.

The structure of the play usually includes the phrases of the characters and the author's remarks describing the environment or the actions of the characters. There is always a list of characters at the beginning of a play. with a brief description of their appearance, age, character, etc.

The whole play is divided into large parts - acts or actions. Each action, in turn, is divided into smaller elements - scenes, episodes, pictures.

The plays of J.B. Molière ("Tartuffe", "Imaginary Sick") B. Shaw ("Wait and see"), B. Brecht. ("The Good Man from Cesuan", "The Threepenny Opera").

Description and examples of individual genres

Consider the most common and significant examples of literary genres for world culture.

Poem

A poem is a large poetic work that has a lyrical plot or describes a sequence of events. Historically, the poem was "born" from the epic

In turn, a poem can have many genre varieties:

1. Didactic.
2. Heroic.
3. Burlesque,
4. satirical.
5. Ironic.
6. Romantic.
7. Lyric-dramatic.

Initially, the leading themes for creating poems were world-historical or important religious events and themes. Virgil's Aeneid is an example of such a poem., "The Divine Comedy" by Dante, "The Liberated Jerusalem" by T. Tasso, "Paradise Lost" by J. Milton, "Henriad" by Voltaire, etc.

At the same time, a romantic poem also developed - “The Knight in a Panther's Skin” by Shota Rustaveli, “Furious Roland” by L. Ariosto. This kind of poem to a certain extent echoes the tradition of medieval chivalric romances.

Over time, moral, philosophical and social topics began to come to the fore (“Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” by J. Byron, “The Demon” by M. Yu. Lermontov).

In the 19th-20th centuries, the poem began to become realistic(“Frost, Red Nose”, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N.A. Nekrasov, “Vasily Terkin” by A.T. Tvardovsky).

epic

Under the epic it is customary to understand the totality of works that are united by a common era, national identity, theme.

The emergence of each epic is due to certain historical circumstances. As a rule, the epic claims to be objective and reliable presentation of events.

visions

This kind of narrative genre, when the story is told from the perspective of, allegedly experiencing a dream, lethargy or hallucination.

1. Already in the era of antiquity, under the guise of real visions, fictional events began to be described in the form of visions. The authors of the first visions were Cicero, Plutarch, Plato.
2. In the Middle Ages, the genre began to gain momentum in popularity, reaching its heights with Dante in his Divine Comedy, which in its form represents an expanded vision.
3. For some time, visions were an integral part of the church literature of most European countries. The editors of such visions have always been representatives of the clergy, thus obtaining the opportunity to express their personal views, allegedly on behalf of higher powers.
4. Over time, a new sharply social satirical content was invested in the form of visions (“Visions of Peter the Ploughman” by Langland).

In more modern literature, the genre of visions has come to be used to introduce elements of fantasy.

This genre is written for both children and adults. They differ from each other also by belonging to one or another literary movement. More about what a story is, what characteristic features this genre has, is described in today's article.

Structure

What story can be read in half an hour? Almost anyone. The story is small. Its structure is quite simple. The story consists of a beginning, a climax and a denouement. Representatives of romanticism, a trend that developed in the 19th century, preferred an unexpected ending. But many critics call their works differently - short stories, which, however, in many languages ​​is consonant with the word "story".

Novella and short story

What do these genres have in common? There are few differences between them, but some literary critics believe that the story is more psychological, unlike the short story. In terms of genre features, it is closer to the essay. In the novel, the plot plays a major role.

What are the stories in Russian literature that have a deep psychological content? These are the works of Chekhov, Bunin, Andreev. It is enough to read a story by one of these authors to understand how this genre differs from the short story, the unsurpassed master of which, by the way, Prosper Merimee is recognized. Each work of the French prose writer ends unexpectedly. In the stories of Chekhov, Bunin, one rarely finds unexpected plot twists.

A striking example of a classic story is "The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men" by Leonid Andreev. The reader already knows from the title what fate awaits the heroes. In this work, the main thing is not the plot, but the psychological portraits of the characters.

Tale or story

Until the middle of the 19th century, Russian writers saw no boundaries between these genres. For example, Gogol called the work "The Overcoat" a story. Whereas, according to modern literary terminology, this is more of a short story: a small volume, only a few characters, an unexpected ending. The story tells about a number of events. Such a work covers a significant time period. The story, unlike the short story or short story, is more leisurely, calm.

Almost any prose work by Edgar Allan Poe can be read in less than an hour. It will take the same amount of time to get acquainted with one of the stories of HG Wells. However, the distinction between the story and the story according to the criterion of volume is still conditional. So, "One day of Ivan Denisovich" - - is considered to be a story. But in terms of volume, it is more consistent with the story.

Romantic writers' stories

Above, it was described in detail how the short story differs from the story. Some literary scholars believe that these are different genres, however, in many languages ​​there is only one term for a work of small prose. The first short stories appeared in Germany in the era of romanticism, that is, in the 19th century. A striking example - But the typical stories in the modern sense are not "Little Tsakhes", but the lesser-known "Sandman", Mademoiselle de Scudery. Other representatives of this genre are Kleist, Tik, Chamisso.

Russian novella

The famous representative of this genre is Alexander Pushkin. A collection of his works called Belkin's Tales is nothing more than a collection of classic short stories. In the 19th century, followers of the German writer Hoffmann appeared in Russia. These are Odoevsky, Pogorelsky, Field. Hoffmann had a huge influence on the work of Nikolai Gogol. Examples of Russian romantic short stories are the works "Viy", "Terrible Revenge", "Nose", "Portrait". The American writer Washington Irving made a huge contribution to the development of this genre. "Sleepy Hollow" is called a fairy tale for adults. This work has become an example of a romantic novel.

a small form of epic literature; a small piece of prose. Unlike the essay, the story has a plot and conflict and is less documentary, that is, it contains fiction. A short story differs from a short story in its dynamism and, as a rule, in an unexpected denouement of the plot. Depending on the content, two types of stories are distinguished: short stories and essay types. The story of the novelistic type is based on a certain case that reveals the formation of the character of the protagonist. Such stories record either the moment that changed the hero’s worldview, or several events that led to this moment: Belkin’s Tale by A. S. Pushkin, The Bride and Ionych by A. P. Chekhov, and M. Gorky’s “barefoot” stories. A story of this type goes back to the literature of the Renaissance, where many short stories of the short story type were combined into a larger work: this is how Don Quixote by M. Cervantes, Gil Blas by A. R. Lesage, Til Ulenspiegel by C. de Coster. A story of an essay type captures a certain state of the world or society, its task is to show not a key moment, but the ordinary, normal life of a group of people or one person, choosing the most typical moment for this: “Notes of a hunter” by I. S. Turgenev, “ Antonov apples” by I. A. Bunin, “Cavalry” by I. E. Babel. Such stories are often part of a larger work that unfolds a moralistic picture, often with satirical pathos; for example, J. Swift, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. The story can combine both tendencies: the author uses the novelistic form for moralistic content; for example, “Mumu” ​​by I. S. Turgenev, “The Death of an Official” by A. P. Chekhov, etc.

Among the stories are detective and fantastic. Detective stories describe a criminal incident, their plot is based on the search for a criminal. Often writers create cycles of detective stories united by a cross-cutting hero: for example, Sherlock Holmes in A. K. Doyle or Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple in A. Christie. Fantasy stories set the action in a fictional world (the future or another planet), showing the life of the characters among technological innovations in conditions of almost unlimited possibilities, for example. fantasy stories by R. Bradbury.

In Russian literature, the short story is one of the most widespread genres of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 20th century a genre of the so-called. "women's" story (V. S. Tokarev, D. Rubin), which is an episode from the life of the hero, revealing his psychology, and through it - the psychology of all modern people. In content, it gravitates toward the novel, but in volume and form it remains a story.