Literary criticism as a scientific discipline. Literary criticism as a science of fiction

Literary criticism is the science of fiction, its origin, essence and development. Modern literary criticism is a complex and mobile system of disciplines. There are three main branches of literary criticism. The theory of literature investigates the general laws of the structure and development of literature. The subject of the history of literature is predominantly the past of literature as a process or as one of the moments of this process. Literary criticism is interested in the relatively one-time, "today's" state of literature; it is also characterized by the interpretation of the literature of the past from the point of view of contemporary social and artistic tasks. The belonging of literary criticism to literary criticism as a science is not universally recognized.

Poetics as part of literary criticism

The most important part of literary criticism is poetics.- the science of the structure of works and their complexes, the work of writers in general, literary trends, as well as artistic eras. Poetics correlates with the main branches of literary criticism: in the plane of literary theory, it gives a general poetics, i.e. the science of the structure of any work; in the plane of literary history there is historical poetics, which studies the development of artistic structures and their individual elements (genres, plots, stylistic images); the application of the principles of poetics in literary criticism is manifested in the analysis of a particular work, in identifying the features of its construction. In many respects, the stylistics of artistic speech occupies a similar position in literary criticism: it can be included in the theory of literature, in general poetics (as a study of the stylistic and speech level of structure), in the history of literature (language and style of this direction), as well as in literary criticism (stylistic analyzes). contemporary works). Literary criticism as a system of disciplines is characterized not only by the close interdependence of all its branches (for example, literary criticism relies on the data of the theory and history of literature, and the latter take into account and comprehend the experience of criticism), but also the emergence of second-tier disciplines. There is a theory of literary criticism, its history, the history of poetics (to be distinguished from historical poetics), and the theory of stylistics. The movement of disciplines from one row to another is also characteristic; Thus, literary criticism eventually becomes the material of the history of literature, historical poetics, etc.

There are also many auxiliary literary disciplines: literary archiving, bibliography of fiction and literary literature, heuristics (attribution), paleography, textual criticism, text commenting, theory and practice of edition, etc. In the middle of the 20th century, the role of mathematical methods (especially statistics) in literary criticism increased. , mainly in versification, stylistics, textology, where commensurate elementary "segments" of the structure are more easily distinguished (see). Auxiliary disciplines - the necessary base of the main ones; at the same time, in the process of development and complication, they can reveal independent scientific tasks and cultural functions. The connections of literary criticism with other humanities are diverse, some of which serve as its methodological base (philosophy, aesthetics, hermeneutics, or the science of interpretation), others are close to it in terms of tasks and subject of research (folklore, general art history), and others - with a general humanitarian orientation ( history, psychology, sociology). Multifaceted connections between literary criticism and linguistics, due not only to the commonality of the material (language as a means of communication and as the “primary element” of literature), but also to some proximity of the epistemological functions of the word and image and some similarity of their structures. The fusion of literary criticism with other humanitarian disciplines was previously fixed by the concept of philology as a synthetic science that studies spiritual culture in all its written languages, incl. literary, manifestations; in the 20th century, this concept usually conveys the commonality of two sciences - literary criticism and linguistics, in the narrow sense it denotes textual criticism and text criticism.

The beginnings of art criticism and literary criticism originate in ancient times in the form of mythological representations (such is the reflection in the myths of ancient art differentiation). Judgments about art are found in the most ancient monuments - in the Indian Vedas (10-2 centuries BC), in the Chinese "Book of Legends" ("Shijing", 14-5 centuries BC), in the ancient Greek "Iliad" and "Odyssey" (8-7 centuries BC). In Europe, the first concepts of art and literature were developed by ancient thinkers. Plato, in line with objective idealism, considered aesthetic problems, incl. the problem of the beautiful, the epistemological nature and educational function of art, gave the main information on the theory of art and literature (primarily the division into genera - epic, lyrics, drama). In the writings of Aristotle, while maintaining a general aesthetic approach to art, the formation of literary disciplines proper - the theory of literature, stylistics, especially poetics - is already taking place. His work "On the Art of Poetry", containing the first systematic presentation of the foundations of poetics, opened the centuries-old tradition of special treatises on poetics, which over time acquired an increasingly normative character (such is already the "Science of Poetry", 1st century BC, Horace). At the same time, rhetoric developed, within the framework of which the formation of the theory of prose and stylistics took place. The tradition of compiling rhetorics, as well as poetics, survived until the New Age (in particular, in Russia: “A Brief Guide to Eloquence”, 1748, M.V. Lomonosov). In antiquity - the origins of literary criticism (in Europe): the judgments of early philosophers about Homer, the comparison of the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides in Aristophanes' comedy "The Frogs". The differentiation of literary knowledge takes place in the Hellenistic era, during the period of the so-called Alexandrian philological school (3-2 centuries BC), when, together with other sciences, literary criticism is separated from philosophy and forms its own disciplines. The latter include biobibliography (“Tables”, 3rd century BC, Callimachus - the first prototype of a literary encyclopedia), criticism of the text from the point of view of its authenticity, commenting and publishing texts. Deep concepts of art and literature are also taking shape in the countries of the East. In China, in line with Confucianism, the doctrine of the social and educational function of art is being formed (Xunzi, c. 298-238 BC), and in line with Taoism, the aesthetic theory of beauty in connection with the universal creative principle "tao" (Laozi, 6-5 century BC).

In India, the problems of artistic structure are being developed in connection with the teachings on the special psychology of perception of art - rasa (the treatise "Natyashastra", attributed to Bharata, about the 4th century, and later treatises) and on the hidden meaning of a work of art - dhvani ("The Teaching of Resonance" by Anandavardhana , 9th century), and since ancient times, the development of literary criticism has been closely connected with the science of language, with the study of poetic style. In general, the development of literary criticism in the countries of the East was distinguished by the predominance of general theoretical and general aesthetic methods (along with textological and bibliographic works; in particular, the biobibliographic genre of tazkire became widespread in Persian and Turkic literatures). Studies of the historical and evolutionary plan appeared only in the 19-20 centuries. The connecting links between ancient and modern literary criticism were Byzantium and the Latin literature of the Western European peoples; medieval literary criticism, stimulated by the collection and study of ancient monuments, had a predominantly bibliographical and commentary bias. Research in the field of poetics, rhetoric, and metrics also developed. In the Renaissance, in connection with the creation of original poetics that corresponded to local and national conditions, the problem of language, going beyond the scope of rhetoric and stylistics, rose to the general theoretical problem of establishing new European languages ​​as a full-fledged material for poetry (Dante's treatise "On Folk Speech", "Protection and the glorification of the French language, Du Bellay); the right of literary criticism to turn to contemporary artistic phenomena was also affirmed (comments by G. Boccaccio on the Divine Comedy). However, since the new literary criticism grew on the basis of the “discovery of antiquity”, the assertion of originality was contradictorily combined with attempts to adapt the elements of ancient poetics to new literature (the transfer of the norms of the Aristotelian doctrine of drama to the epic in “Discourse on Poetic Art”, T. Tasso). The perception of classical genres as "eternal" canons coexisted with the Renaissance's sense of dynamism and incompleteness. During the Renaissance, Aristotle's "Poetics" was rediscovered (the most important edition was published in 1570 by L. Castelvetro), which, together with the "Poetics" by Yu. At the end of the 16th century, and especially in the era of classicism, the tendency to systematize the laws of art intensifies; at the same time, the normative nature of artistic theory is clearly indicated. N. Boileau in "The Art of Poetry" (1674), putting general epistemological and aesthetic problems out of the brackets, devoted his efforts to creating a coherent poetics as a system of genre, stylistic, speech norms, the isolation and obligation of which turned his treatise and related works ("Experience on criticism ", 1711, A. Pope; "Epistle on poetry", 1748, A.P. Sumarokov and others) almost into literary codes. At the same time, in the literary criticism of the 17th-18th centuries, a strong anti-normative trend in understanding the types and genres of literature is outlined. In G.E. Lessing (“Hamburg Dramaturgy”), it acquired the character of a resolute speech against normative poetics in general, which prepared the aesthetic and literary theories of the romantics. On the basis of enlightenment, there are also attempts to justify the development of literature by local conditions, incl. environment and climate (“Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting”, 1719, J.B. Dubos). The 18th century is the time of the creation of the first historical and literary courses: "The History of Italian Literature" (1772-82) by G. Tiraboschi, built on the historical consideration of the genres of poetry "Lyceum, or the Course of Ancient and Modern Literature" (1799-1805) by J. Laharpe. The struggle of historicism with normativity marked the works of the “father of English criticism” J. Dryden (“An Essay on Dramatic Poetry”, 1668) and S. Johnson (“Lives of the Most Outstanding English Poets”, 1779-81).

At the end of the 18th century, there was a major shift in European literary consciousness, which shook the stable hierarchy of artistic values. The inclusion of folklore monuments into the scientific horizon of medieval European, as well as Eastern literature, cast doubt on the category of a model, whether in ancient art or in the Renaissance. A sense of the uniqueness of the artistic criteria of different eras develops, most fully expressed by I.G. Herder (“Shakespeare”, 1773). The category of the special in literary criticism comes into its own - in relation to the literature of a given people or period, bearing in itself its own scale of perfection. Among the romantics, the feeling of difference in criteria resulted in the concept of different cultural epochs, expressing the spirit of the people and the times. Speaking about the impossibility of restoring the classical (ancient) form, opposing it to a new form (which arose with Christianity), they emphasized the eternal variability and renewal of art (F. and A. Schlegel). However, justifying contemporary art as romantic, permeated with Christian symbolism of the spiritual and the infinite, the Romantics imperceptibly, contrary to the dialectical spirit of their teaching, restored the category of the model (in the historical aspect - the art of the Middle Ages). On the other hand, in the proper philosophical idealistic systems, the crown of which was the philosophy of Hegel, the idea of ​​the development of art was embodied in the concept of the progressive movement of artistic forms, with a dialectical necessity replacing each other (in Hegel, these are symbolic, classical and romantic forms); philosophically substantiated the nature of the aesthetic and its difference from the moral and cognitive (I. Kant); philosophically comprehended the inexhaustible - "symbolic" - nature of the artistic image (F. Schelling). The philosophical period of literary criticism is the time of comprehensive systems, conceived as a universal knowledge about art (and, of course, more broadly - about all being), "subduing" the history of literature, and poetics, and stylistics, etc.

The course of "philosophical criticism" in the literary criticism of Russia

In Russia in the 1820s and 1830s, under the influence of German philosophical systems and at the same time rejecting them, a current of “philosophical criticism” developed (D.V. Venevitinov, N.I. Nadezhdin and others). In the 1840s, V. G. Belinsky sought to link the ideas of philosophical aesthetics with the concepts of the civil service of art and historicism (“sociality”). The series of his articles on A.S. Pushkin (1843-46) was essentially the first course in the history of new Russian literature. Belinsky's explanation of the phenomena of the past was connected with the development of the theoretical problems of realism and nationality (understood - in contrast to the theory of "official nationality" - in the national-democratic sense). By the middle of the 19th century, the field of literary studies in European countries was expanding: disciplines were developing that comprehensively studied the culture of a given ethnic group (for example, Slavic studies); the growth of historical and literary interests is everywhere accompanied by a shift in attention from great artists to the whole mass of artistic facts and from the world literary process to their national literature (“The History of the Poetic National Literature of the Germans”, 1832-42, G.G. Gervinus). In Russian literary criticism, in parallel with this, ancient Russian literature was affirmed in its rights; increasing interest in it marked the courses of M.A. Maksimovich (1839), A.V. Nikitenko (1845) and especially “The History of Russian Literature, Mostly Ancient” (1846) by S.P. Shevyryov.

Methodological schools of literary criticism

All-European methodological schools are being formed. The interest awakened by romanticism in mythology and folklore symbolism was expressed in the works of the mythological school (J. Grimm and others). In Russia, F.I. Buslaev, not limited to the study of the mythological basis, traced its historical fate, incl. interaction of folk poetry with written monuments. Subsequently, "younger mythologists" (including A.N. Afanasiev in Russia) raised the question of the origins of the myth. Under the influence of the other side of the romantic theory - about art as the self-expression of the creative spirit - a biographical method was formed (Sh.O. Sainte-Beuve. Literary-critical portraits). Biographism, to one degree or another, passes through all the latest literary criticism, having prepared psychological theories of creativity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Influential in the second half of the 19th century was cultural and historical school. Focusing on the successes of the natural sciences, she sought to bring the understanding of causality and determinism in literary criticism to precise, tangible factors; such, according to the teachings of I. Taine ("History of English Literature", 1863-64), is the trinity of race, environment and moment. The traditions of this school were developed by F. De Sanghis, V. Scherer, M. Menendesi-Pelaio, in Russia - N. S. Tihonravov, A. N. Pypin, N. I. Storozhenko. As the cultural-historical method developed, it revealed an underestimation of the artistic nature of literature, considered primarily as a public document, strong positivist tendencies, neglect of dialectics and aesthetic criteria. On the other hand, radical criticism in Russia, touching on the problems of the history of literature, emphasized the connection of the artistic process with the interaction and confrontation of various social groups, with the dynamics of class relations (“Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature”, 1855-56, N.G. Chernyshevsky; “ On the degree of participation of the people in the development of Russian literature, 1858, N.A. Dobrolyubova). At the same time, the formulation by some revolutionary democrats of a number of theoretical problems (the function of art, nationality) was not free from normativity and simplification. As early as the 1840s, as part of the study of folklore and ancient literature, comparative historical literary criticism was born. Later, T. Benfey outlined the theory of the migration school, which explained the similarity of plots by the communication of peoples (Panchatantra, 1859).

Benfey's theory stimulated both a historical approach to interethnic relations and interest in the poetic elements themselves - plots, characters, etc., but refused to study their genesis and often led to random, superficial comparisons. In parallel, theories arose that sought to explain the similarity of poetic forms by the unity of the human psyche ( folk psychological school H. Steinthal and M. Lazarus) and animism common to primitive peoples (E. B. Tylor), which served as the basis of anthropological theory for ALang. Accepting the doctrine of myth as a primary form of creativity, Alexander N. Veselovsky directed his research in the direction of concrete comparisons; moreover, in contrast to the migration school, he raised the question of the prerequisites for borrowing - "counter currents" in literature that is under influence. In "Historical Poetics", clarifying the essence of poetry - from its history, he establishes a specific subject of historical poetics - the development of poetic forms and those laws according to which certain social content fit into some inevitable poetic forms - genre, epithet, plot (Veselovsky, 54). From the side of the structure of a work of art as a whole, A.A. Potebnya approached the problems of poetics (“From Notes on the Theory of Literature”, 1905), revealing the ambiguity of a work, in which, as it were, many contents are embedded, the eternal renewal of the image in the process of its historical life and constructive the role of the reader in this change. Potebnya's idea of ​​the "internal form" of the word contributed to the dialectical study of the artistic image and was promising for the subsequent study of poetic structure. In the last third of the 19th century, the cultural-historical method deepened with the help of a psychological approach (by G. Brandes). Arises psychological school(W. Wundt, D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky and others). The intensification of comparative historical study led to the creation of a special discipline - comparative literature, or comparative studies (F. Baldansperger, P. Van Tigem, P. Azar. In domestic literary criticism, this direction is represented by V. M. Zhirmunsky, M. P. Alekseev, N. I. Konradom and others). The process of development of literary criticism becomes worldwide, breaking down the centuries-old barriers between the West and the East. In the countries of the East, for the first time, the histories of national literatures appear, and systematic literary criticism is taking shape. At the end of the 19th century - and especially actively - since the beginning of the 20th century, Marxist literary criticism was formed, which paid main attention to the social status of art and its role in the ideological and class struggle. Although such representatives of this trend as G.V. Plekhanov, A.V. Lunacharsky and especially G. Lukacs recognized the relative independence and sovereignty of artistic factors, in practice, Marxist literary criticism led to their impoverished interpretations, especially among the ideologists of the so-called vulgar sociologism , who rigidly called the writer to a particular class or social stratum.

Anti-positivist tendency

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Western literature an anti-positivist trend arose , which took mainly three directions. Firstly, the right of intellectual and rational knowledge was disputed in favor of intuitive knowledge in relation to both the creative act and judgments about art (“Laughter”, 1900, A. Bergson); hence the attempts not only to refute the system of traditional literary categories (types and types of poetry, genres), but also to prove their fundamental inadequacy to art: they determine not only the external structure of the work, but also its artistry (“Aesthetics ...”, 1902, B. Croce ). Secondly, there was a desire to overcome the flat determinism of the cultural-historical school and build a classification of literatures on the basis of deep psychological and spiritual differentiations (such is the antithesis of two types of poetry - "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" in "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music", 1872, F .Nietzsche). V. Dilthey also sought to explain art by deep processes, insisting on the difference between “idea” and “experience” and distinguishing three main forms in “spiritual history”: positivism, objective idealism and dualistic idealism, or “ideologism of freedom”. This theory (see ) was not free from the mechanical attachment of artists to each of the forms; in addition, she underestimated the moments of the artistic structure, as well. art was dissolved in the stream of the general outlook inherent in the era. Thirdly, the sphere of the unconscious was fruitfully involved in the explanation of art (S. Freud). However, the pansexualism characteristic of Freud's followers impoverished the results of research (such as explaining the entire work of the artist by the "oedipal complex"). Applying psychoanalytic principles to art in a new way, he formulated the theory of the collective unconscious (archetypes) K.G. Jung (“On the relationship of analytical psychology to a literary work”, 1922), under the influence of which (as well as J. his followers) there was a ritual-mythological criticism. Its representatives sought to find certain ritual schemes and collective unconscious archetypes in the works of all epochs. Contributing to the study of the foundations of genres and poetic means (metaphors, symbols, etc.), this trend, on the whole, legitimately subordinating literature to myth and ritual, dissolved literary criticism in ethnology and psychoanalysis. A special place in Western literary criticism was occupied by searches based on the philosophy of existentialism. In contrast to historicism in the understanding of literary development, the concept of existential time was put forward, to which great works of art correspond (Heidegger M. Origin of a work of art. 1935; Steiger E. Time as a Poet's Imagination, 1939). By interpreting poetic works as self-contained, self-contained truth and "prophecy", the existentialist "interpretation" avoids the traditional genetic approach. The interpretation is determined by the linguistic and historical horizon of the interpreter itself.

"Formal school" in Russian literary criticism

In repulsion from intuitionism and biographical impressionism, on the one hand, and from methods that ignored the specifics of art (the cultural-historical school), on the other, in the 1910s arose "formal school" in Russian literary criticism(Yu.N. Tynyanov, V.B. Shklovsky, B.M. Eikhenbaum, to a certain extent V.V. Vinogradov and B.V. Tomashevsky, who are close to them;). She sought to overcome the dualism of form and content by putting forward a new relationship: material (something belonging to an artistic act) and form (organization of material in a work). This achieved an expansion of the space of form (previously reduced to style or some randomly selected moments), but at the same time, in the field of analysis and interpretation, functional ones were squeezed out or moved to the periphery, incl. philosophical and social, art concepts. Through the Prague Linguistic Circle, the “formal school” had a significant impact on world literary criticism, in particular, on “new criticism” and structuralism (which also inherited the ideas of T.S. Eliot). At the same time, along with further formalization and displacement of aesthetic moments, there has also been a tendency to overcome the noted antinomy, which is unresolvable within the framework of the “formal method”. A work of art began to be viewed as a complex system of levels, including both content and formal aspects (R. Ingarden). On the other hand, there is a direction of the so-called objective psychology of art (L.S. Vygotsky), which interprets artistic phenomena as a “system of stimuli” that determine certain psychological experiences. As a reaction to "formal methods" and subjectivist tendencies, a sociological approach to literature developed in the 1960s, but sometimes with a straightforward construction of literary phenomena to socio-economic factors. The middle of the 20th century is the time of rapprochement and confrontation of various methodological trends; Thus, sociologism, on the one hand, gravitates toward structuralism, and on the other, toward existentialism. In line with post-structuralism, a doctrine is developed about a text with multiple meanings, hiding an infinite number of cultural codes; moreover, the sphere of intertextuality created in this way also includes factors that arose not only before the creation of the text in question, but also after it (R. Barthes based on J. Derrida and Y. Kristeva). At a new level, the study of ideology in its closest connection with mythopoetic and metaphorical thinking is also being restored (Clifford Geertz). Experiences in the synthesis of formal and philosophical paradigms of art were proposed by the new domestic literary criticism (M.M. Bakhtin, D.S. Likhachev, Yu.M. Lsggman, V.V. Ivanov, V.N. Toporov, etc.).

Teacher: Irina Sergeevna Yukhnova.

Literary criticism as a science.

Literary criticism is a science that studies the specifics of literature, the development of verbal artistic creativity, artistic literary works in the unity of its content and form, the laws of the literary process. This is one of the branches of philology. The profession of a philologist appeared to process ancient texts - to decipher them and adapt them for reading. In the Renaissance, there was a huge interest in antiquity - philologists turned to the texts of the Renaissance as a help. An example when philology is needed: to decipher historical realities and names in "Eugene Onegin". The need for commentary, for example, on military literature. Literary critics help to understand what the text is about and why it was created.

The text becomes a work when it has some task.

Literature

Recipient (reader)

Literature is now viewed as the above system, where everything is interconnected. We are interested in someone else's assessment. Often we start reading a text already knowing something about it. The author always writes for the reader. There are different types of readers, as Chernyshevsky says. An example is Mayakovsky, who addressed his descendants through his contemporaries. The literary critic is also addressed to the personality of the author, his opinion, biography. He is also interested in the reader's opinion.

There are many disciplines in literary criticism. They are primary and secondary. Main: literary theory, literary history and literary criticism. Literary criticism is turned to the contemporary literary process. She responds to new works. The main task of criticism is to evaluate the work. It arises when the connection between the artist and society is clearly visible. Critics are often referred to as qualified readers. Russian criticism begins with Belinsky. Criticism manipulates the reader's opinion. She is often biased. Example: reactions to Belkin's Tales and the persecution of Boris Pasternak, when those who did not even read him spoke badly about him.

Theory and history are not addressed to topicality. Neither the historian nor the theorist cares about topicality; he studies the work against the backdrop of the entire literary process. Very often, literary processes manifest themselves more clearly in secondary literature. The theorist reveals general patterns, constants, core. He doesn't care about the nuances. The historian, on the contrary, studies particulars, specifics.

"Theory presupposes, and art destroys these assumptions, of course, most often unconsciously" - Jerzy Farino.

Theory forms the model. But the model is bad in practice. The best pieces almost always destroy these patterns. Example: Auditor, Woe from Wit. Mismatch with the pattern, so we consider them from the point of view of the destruction of the model.

There is a different quality of literary criticism. Sometimes the text of a scientific study I myself look like a work of art.

Science must have a subject of research, research methods and terminological apparatus.

Conditional images include: hyperbolic idealization, grotesque, allegory and symbol. Hyperbolic idealization is found in epics, where the real and the fantastic are combined, there are no realistic motivations for actions. The form of the grotesque: a shift in proportions - Nevsky Prospekt, a violation of scale, the inanimate crowds out the living. The grotesque is often used for satire or tragic beginnings. Grotesque is a symbol of disharmony. The grotesque style is characterized by an abundance of alogisms, the combination of different voices. Allegory and symbol are two planes: depicted and implied. The allegory is unambiguous - there are instructions and decoding. The symbol is multi-valued, inexhaustible. In a symbol both what is depicted and what is implied is equally important. There is no indication in the symbol.

- Small forms of figurativeness.

From the point of view of many researchers, only what is created with the help of the word is figurative. The possibilities and features of the word are a topic of discussion, this is how futurism arises. The word in a work of art behaves differently than in ordinary speech - the word begins to realize an aesthetic function in addition to the nominative (naming) and communicative. The purpose of ordinary speech is communication, discourse, the transfer of information. The aesthetic function is different, it does not just convey information, but creates a certain mood, conveys spiritual information, a kind of super-meaning, an idea. The word itself is different. The context, compatibility, rhythmic beginning is important (especially in poetry). Bunin: "punctuation marks - musical marks". Rhythm and meaning are combined. The word in a work of art does not have a definite meaning as in everyday speech. Example: a crystal vase and a crystal time at Tyutchev. The word does not appear in its meaning. The same stream of associations with the author. Crystal time - a description of the sounds of autumn. The word in an artistic context gives rise to individual associations. If the author's and yours match, everything is remembered, no - no. Any artistic trope is a deviation from the rules. Y. Tynyanov "The meaning of the verse word." “The word is a chameleon, in which each time not only different shades appear, but also different colors.” Emotional coloring of the word. The word is an abstraction, the complex of meanings is individual.

All methods of changing the basic meaning of the word are paths. The word has not only a direct, but also a figurative meaning. The definition usually given in textbooks is not entirely complete. Tomashevsky "Poetics of speech". Example: the title of Shmelev's story "The Man from the Restaurant". First man means waiter, and the word is used, as the client usually calls it. Then the action develops, the hero reflects that the elite of society is vicious. He has his own temptations: the money he returns. The waiter cannot live with sin, the main word becomes "man" as the crown of nature, a spiritual being. Pushkin's metaphor “The east is burning like a new dawn” is both the beginning of a new day and the emergence of a new powerful state in the east.

Types of tropes: comparison, metaphor, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, epithet, oxymoron, hyperbole, litote, paraphrase, irony, euphemism (characteristic of sentimentalism).

Comparison is a figurative phrase or a detailed structure that involves a comparison of two phenomena, concepts or states that have a common feature. Always binomial, there are verbal pointers: as if, as if, exactly, special constructions, comparison through negation (“It’s not the wind that rages over the forest, it’s not the streams that ran from the mountains ...” Nekrasov), instrumental case. Comparison can be simple and detailed. Simple: “it looks like a clear evening” - a transitional state, a spiritual crossroads, is recorded. Poem "Demon". The comparison itself marked fate. A detailed comparison is a poem by N. Zabolotsky "On the beauty of human faces." First, comparisons with buildings, houses, and then a violation of logic - from the material to the spiritual. True beauty is pure spirit, striving towards the world. Zabolotsky: beauty in diversity. Comparison helps to understand the writer's train of thought.

Metaphor is a hidden comparison, the process of comparison takes place, but it is not shown. Example: “The east is on fire…” There must be a similarity. “A bee from a wax cell flies for field tribute” - there are no designated words anywhere. Type of metaphor - personification (anthropomorphism) - the transfer of the properties of a living organism to an inanimate one. There are frozen personifications. Sometimes an abstract concept is expressed by a specific phrase. Such personifications easily become symbols - the knock of an ax in Chekhov. A metaphor can be expressed by two nouns, a verb, an adjective (then it is a metaphorical epithet).

Oxymoron - a combination of incongruous (a living corpse) sometimes names (Lev Myshkin). Apollon Grigoriev - an attraction to an oxymoron, since he himself is contradictory, rushing from side to side. An oxymoron is a consequence, a cause in the worldview.

Metonymy - the transfer of meaning by adjacency (drink a cup of tea). Actively manifested in the literature of the first third of the 19th century. Synecdoche - transfer from plural to singular.

An epithet is an artistic definition. Logical definition - how the subject differs from a number of similar ones. Artistic - emphasizes what is in the subject initially (permanent epithets). The epithet fixes the constant (the wise Odysseus). The Homeric epithet is a compound word. Lyrically, it was considered heavy. archaic. The exception is Tyutchev (loud-boiling, all-consuming - conceptual). Tyutchev's epithet is individualized. The structure of the epithet depends on the worldview: the infamous Circe, the grave Aphrodite in Baratynsky. Paradoxical epithets are eschatological motifs. The falling away of man, he loses his main properties. Antiquity is the beginning of discord, when the mind wins over the spirit. Zhukovsky depicts humility before fate, additional meanings of the word. The ballad "Fisherman" is analyzed by Orest Somov line by line. The artistic effect is born because there is a violation of the norm, but within the meaning. Nothing in fiction is taken literally. The word initially has the ability to word-creation.

- The form and content of a literary work.

We constantly encounter parallel concepts. The word "text" is most often used in linguistics. Post-modernists create texts, not works. "Textus" in Latin means plexus, structure, structure, fabric, connection, coherent presentation. Text is a system of signs connected with each other. The text exists unchanged, on a certain material carrier. There is a science of "textology", which studies the original texts, the originals. The texts of different centuries are different. But the text is still moving. The text is multidimensional, that is, it can be read differently by different people. The openness of the text to the outside world turns the text into a work of art, and not a simple system of signs.

“The work is that small world in which the artistic universe of the writer is viewed from the perspective of a specific spiritual state that owns the artist. at this moment, at this stage of his destiny, at this phase of his movement with his hands…<…>... A literary work in its classical version is a living "organism" in which a spiritual "heart" beats, as it were - formed and at the same time formative the thought of the artist, which absorbed all the forces of his soul. (“Verbal Image and Literary Work”).

The text exists by itself, it is closed. In the work, everything is the other way around - it is important what the author responds to, what excites him. The writer changes throughout life. Example: Vasily Aksenov in the program "Times". "Gavriliad" by Pushkin. The works of the moment, for example, Boccaccio denied the "Decameron". The dialectical development of thought is reflected in the text of the work. The thought forms the text. Example: Tolstoy with the main idea. He turns to history. The heroines: Princess Marya and Natasha Rotsova, who are completely different, are being tested by Anatole Kuragin. Families turn out to be close for both heroines, who, it would seem, do not even think about freedom. But they don't cross the line. This is formed as a thought - the backwardness of a patriarchal society. The work not only changes, but is perceived differently by the reader. Rereading is very important - different sides of the work are revealed. “Homer gives to everyone: to the young man, and to the husband, and to the old man, as much as anyone can take.” The text and the work are fundamentally different.

Form is style, genre (novel, drama, etc.), composition, artistic speech, rhythm.

The plot refers to both form and content. The plot combines these two concepts. Absolute unity. Reception for the sake of reception is never used. But this unity is not the same. At the end of the 19th century - the crisis of content, looking for new forms. Post-modernists create text that looks like a labyrinth. The text changes its linear structure. And until that time, they were looking for new content. But the new content entailed a new form. All the inexhaustibility of life and the subconscious is displayed in the work.

Unity of form and content. There is secondary literature. She is the soil. Example: Pushkin's childhood. Fiction replicates the thoughts of geniuses for the masses. Example: Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. Very often discoveries are made by secondary literature. Mass literature is not literature, but the word in the commercial service.

- Theme, problem, idea of ​​the work.

Different authors speak differently about the definition of the topic. Translation from Greek "that which is the basis." Esin: The theme is “an object of artistic reflection, those life characters and situations that, as it were, pass from reality into a work of art and form the objective side of its content.” : “What is described in the text, what the narration is about, reasoning is unfolding, a dialogue is being conducted ...” The theme is the organizing beginning of the work. Tomashevsky: “The unity of the meanings of the individual elements of the work. It brings together the components of an artistic construction.” Zhiolkovsky and Shcheglov: "Some installation to which all elements of the work are subordinated." The plot may be the same, but the theme is different. In mass literature, the plot gravitates over the topic. Life very often becomes the object of the image. The theme is often determined by the literary predilections of the author, his belonging to a certain group. The concept of an internal theme - topics that are cross-cutting for the writer, this is the thematic unity that unites all his works.

The problem is the selection of some aspect, the emphasis on it, which is resolved as the work unfolds. The problem arises when there is a choice.

- The plot of a literary work. Plot and plot.

Plot - from the word "subject". Originates in France. Often the plot is an allusion. The word "plot" means "a story borrowed from the past to be processed by the playwright." Plot - legend, myth, fable, more ancient concept.

Plot and plot mismatch. Example: "Boris Godunov" by Pushkin, Karamzin and historians.

Pospelov: "The plot - subsequence events and actions contained in the work event chain. The plot is a scheme of the plot, a straightened plot.

Veselovsky: "The plot is an artistically constructed distribution of events." "Fabula is a set of events in their mutual internal connection."

Tomashevsky: “The plot is the action of the work in its entirety, the real chain of depicted movements. A simple plot unit is any movement. The plot is a scheme of action, a system of main events that can be retold. The simplest unit of the plot is a motive or event, and the main elements are the plot, the development of the action, the climax, the denouement.

A three-volume book on the theory of literature: “The plot is a system of settings with the help of which an action should be performed. Canvas, skeleton. The plot is the very process of action, the pattern, the fabric that dresses the bones of the skeleton.

The plot is a system of events in their artistic logic. The plot is in the logic of life. The plot is the dynamic side of the work. Elements in dynamics.

Plot types:

Beletsky is an autobiographical plot (Tolstoy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth"). Mid 19th century. Extra-personal plots - selected from a sphere that lies outside the personal experience of the author. Alien plots - a conscious orientation to another work. Postmodernism.

Single-line (concentric) plots are centripetal. Chronicle stories. Multi-line stories (centrifugal) - several storylines with independent development.

Plot elements: exposition - the initial part of the work, performing an informative function. The conflict is not planned yet, preparation for it. The tie is the moment when a conflict arises or is detected. The development of the action is a series of episodes in which the characters seek to resolve the conflict, but it becomes more and more intense. The culmination is the moment of the highest tension, when the conflict is maximally developed and it becomes clear that the contradictions cannot exist in their previous form and require immediate resolution. Resolution - when the conflict is exhausted: 1) the conflict is resolved; 2) the conflict is fundamentally unresolvable. Extra-plot elements - prologue, epilogue, digressions.

An event is a fact of life. The 20th century is the subject of the depiction of human consciousness, the verbal flow itself can become a plot.

Lyrical plot - different stages in the development of lyrical experience.

- The composition of a literary work.

This is the ratio and arrangement of parts, elements in the composition of the work. Architectonics.

The composition of the plot, scenes, episodes.

The ratio of plot elements: retardation, inversion, etc.

Architectonics.

The ratio of the whole and the parts.

Composition of figurative structure.

The ratio of building and building images.

Composition of verse and speech levels.

Changing ways of artistic representation.

Gusev "The Art of Prose": a composition of reverse time ("Easy breathing" by Bunin). Composition of direct time. Retrospective (“Ulysses” by Joyce, “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov) - different eras become independent objects of the image. Forcing phenomena - often in lyrical texts - Lermontov.

Compositional contrast (“War and Peace”) is an antithesis. Plot-compositional inversion ("Onegin", "Dead Souls"). The principle of parallelism is in the lyrics, "Thunderstorm" by Ostrovsky. Composite ring - "Inspector".

Composition of figurative structure. The character is in interaction. There are main, secondary, off-stage, real and historical characters. Ekaterina - Pugachev are bound together through an act of mercy.

- Subjective organization of the text.

This is the correlation of speech carriers and their consciousnesses. By the way they are correlated, we can say that the text, as a work, is devoid of a monolithic voice, it contains heteroglossia or polyphony. "Fathers and Sons". At the end, Arkady goes to Maryino and admires what he sees, and what he sees can hardly cause admiration, since everything is gloomy and bad: there is no grass yet, "the ghost of hunger loomed everywhere." Here we use the point of view of Nikolai Petrovich, Arkady and Bazarov, but the author chose the point of view of Arkady, who sees this world after a long absence. Having left him once, he is filled with nihilistic ideas, feels the joy of meeting him. But there is no nihilism, Arkady plays it, he will never be able to perceive nature, like Bazarov.

"War and Peace" is based on a change in subjective perception. For example, Natasha in Otradnoye rejoices in spring. This night is not shown from the point of view of Sonya or some abstract author. When Tolstoy describes the battle of Borodino, he shows it through the eyes of a detached person - Pierre, who sees a series of senseless murders.

In the 20th century, there was a tendency to depict what is happening from several points of view. This was introduced into literature by Faulkner. When he was working on his novel The Sound and the Fury, he sought controversy. He began to tell the story through the eyes of a defective child who knows what happened, but does not know why. Then he saw that the story was not fully told, told it through the eyes of one brother, then another. I saw that there are still gaps. And he told the story himself. It turned out the intersection of different versions of the same event. There are different perspectives. The text is recreated through the perception of various artistic perceptions.

Author. Who is he in the text? There is a concept of a biographical author. These are real Lenin, Pushkin. He has a relation to the literary text as a creator. There is an author as a subject of artistic activity, the creative process. Example: what and how Pushkin writes. There is an author in his artistic embodiment (the image of the author). This is a kind of speech carrier within a work of art. There is a narrator. He can be close to the author, can be distanced from him.

"War and Peace" is close. "The Captain's Daughter" - Grinev writes his memoirs, he and the narrator, there is the voice of the publisher, to which the records got. It is close to the author, but is an artistic image.

Narrator - an indirect form of the presence of the author, performs an intermediary function between the fictional world and the recipient. According to Tamarchenko, its specificity is: 1) a comprehensive outlook (the narrator knows the ending and therefore places accents, can get ahead of himself, advise on what to focus on). This horizon does not exist above the events depicted, the knowledge of the narrator and he himself exist within the limits of the depicted world; 2) the speech is addressed to the reader, he always takes into account that he will be perceived. "Poor Lisa" - the appeal to readers sounds: "respectable reader." "Eugene Onegin" - there are different types of reader - an insightful reader, a censor, a lady. Such appeals may or may not exist.

- Spatial-temporal organization of a literary work.

Bakhtin: the term "chronotope". For him, these are two undifferentiated things, a synthesis, a unity. Chronotope is a significant interconnection of temporal and spatial relations, artistically mastered in literature or in a literary work. Pushkin's poem, from which Pushkin's romanticism begins. Most often, deployment in space (the subject plan "the ship rushes on the sea" Pushkin) and the simultaneity of time. In Pushkin, the hero returns to the past, experiences it and turns to new horizons.

- Verse and prose. The system of Russian versification.

Poetry or prose. Poems are appropriate in some cases. Yuri Lotman. Verse and poetry are different things. Previously, "poetry" meant "oral creativity." Now - only what is written in verse and in a small form. The analogue is lyrics, but this is a generic classification, lyrics are not necessarily verse. Prose is a type of artistic speech when there is no system of compositional repetitions (a complete system). Example: completion of Nabokov's novel. The term "prose" goes back to the phrase prio + versus. The verse has order. Parallel speech sequences appear in it, which just give the phrase a tangible harmony.

There are six types of repetitions: 1) sound repetitions at the beginning, in the middle, at the end (Mayakovsky "How to make poetry") - rhymes; 2) pause division of the phrase on the basis of intonational expressiveness. Semantic pauses are very important - the monotonous rhythm is often broken in a given place; 3) an equal number of syllables in a verse; 4) a metrical measure repeated in poetry periodically or non-periodically; 5) anacruses at the beginning of verse lines - this is a group of unstressed syllables up to the first strong one at the beginning of the line; 6) equivalent clauses at the end of the line. Poetic forms in and of themselves have no meaning. Nekrasov alters Lermontov's "Both boring and sad ...", "Lullaby" - showing rhythmic meaninglessness. Pushkin is an attempt to put new content into old genres. Pasternak's Hamlet.

Until the 18th century there was no division into poetry and prose. A syllabic verse is a verse with an ordered number of syllables. We have not taken root because of the floating stress.

Syllabo-tonic system - V, K, Trediakovsky wrote a treatise in 1735. In 1739, M, V, Lomonosov "Letter on the rules of Russian poetry", writes "Ode on the capture of Khotin." Enter dimensions. Example: translation from Anacreon Cantemir and Pushkin.

Meter is a regularity of rhythm that has sufficient certainty to cause, firstly, the expectation of its confirmation in the following verses, and secondly, the specific experience of interruption when it is violated. Kholmogorov. Semantic deviations are considered as meaning-forming. Different forms of verse appear, where the main thing is the tonic. But the tonic does not displace the syllabo-tonic. For tonic, the number of stressed syllables in a line is important. Stressed syllables - ikts. A. Bely "Rhythm is a certain unity in the sum of deviations from a given metric system." Meter is an ideal model, rhythm is its embodiment.

- Division of literature into genera and species. The concept of literary genre.

Epos, poetry and drama. Socrates (in the presentation of Plato): the poet can speak on his own behalf, mainly dithyramb. The poet can build a work in the form of an exchange of remarks, to which the words of the author can also be mixed. The poet can combine his own words with the words of strangers, which belong to other actors. "Poetics" of Aristotle. Art is an imitation of nature. “There are many ways to imitate the same thing.” 1) Talking about the event as something separate from itself, as Homer does. 2) To tell in such a way that the imitator remains itself, but to change one's face is lyricism. 3) The writer presents all actors as acting and active.

Science ontology. In different eras, a person needs different literary genres. Freedom and Necessity. Psychology matters. Expressiveness, appeal.

Drama is something that develops before our eyes. The lyrics are an amazing fusion of time. At one time, they wanted to declare the novel a separate genus. Lots of transitions.

Intergeneric and non-generic works. Intergeneric - signs of different genera. "Eugene Onegin", "Dead Souls", "Faust". Extranatal: Essay, Essay, and Stream of Consciousness Literature. The dialectic of the soul. "Anna Karenina". Joyce "Ulysses". Species are not exactly genres. A species is a specific historical embodiment of a genus. A genre is a group of works that have a set of stable features. Important: the theme, the theme is a genre object. Artistic time is definite. Special composition. Speech carrier. Elegy - different understanding. Tale.

Some genres are universal: comedy, tragedy, ode. And some are local - petitions, walking. There are dead genres - the sonnet. Canonical and non-canonical - settled and unformed.

LITERARY GENERATIONS

- Epos as a kind of literature.

"Epos" in Greek - "word, speech, story." The epic is one of the most ancient genera, associated with the formation of national identity. There are many hoaxes in the 17th and 18th centuries. Successful - songs of Ossian, Scotland, an attempt to raise national consciousness. They influenced the development of European literature.

Epos - the original form - a heroic poem. Arises at break of a patriarchal society. In Russian literature - epics, folding into cycles.

The epic reproduces life not as a personal, but as an objective reality - from the outside. The purpose of any epic is to tell about an event. The content dominant is the event. Earlier - wars, later - a private event, facts of inner life. The cognitive orientation of the epic is an objective beginning. A story about events without evaluation. "The Tale of Bygone Years" - all the bloody events are told dispassionately and ordinary. epic distance.

The subject of the image in the epic is the world as an objective reality. Human life in its organic connection with the world, fate is also the subject of the image. Bunin's story. Sholokhov "The Fate of Man". It is important to understand fate through the prism of culture.

Forms of verbal expression in the epic (type of speech organization) - narration. The functions of the word - the word depicts the objective world. Narration is a way/type of utterance. Description in the epic. The speech of heroes, characters. Narration is the speech of the image of the author. The speech of the characters - polylogues, monologues, dialogues. In romantic works, the confession of the protagonist is obligatory. Internal monologues are the direct inclusion of the words of the characters. Indirect forms - indirect speech, improper direct speech. It is not isolated from the author's speech.

The important role of the system of reflections in the novel. The hero can be endowed with a quality that the author does not like. Example: Silvio. Pushkin's favorite characters are verbose. Very often it is not clear to us how the author relates to the hero.

A) narrator

1) The character has his own destiny. "The Captain's Daughter", "Tales of Belkin".

2) Conditional narrator, faceless in terms of speech. Very often we are. Speech mask.

3) Tale. Speech coloring - says society.

1) Objective. "History of the Russian State" Karamzin, "War and Peace".

2) Subjective - orientation to the reader, appeal.

A tale is a special speech manner that reproduces a person’s speech, as if not literary processed. Leskov "Lefty".

Descriptions and lists. important for the epic. The epic is perhaps the most popular genre.

- Drama as a kind of literature.

Merging subjective and objective. The event is shown as being generated, not ready. In the epic, the author gives a lot of comments and details, but this is not the case in the drama. Subjective - what is happening is given through the perception of the actors. Many eras in the development of the theater have tried to break down the barrier between the audience and the actors. The idea of ​​"theater in the theater" - romanticism, developed rapidly at the beginning of the 20th century. "Princess Turandot" - the actors ask the audience. Gogol has the same principle in The Government Inspector. The desire to break convention. Drama comes out of the rites. Dramatic text is largely devoid of authorial presence. The speech activity of the characters is shown, the monologue and dialogue are relevant. Author's presence: title (Ostrovsky loved proverbs), epigraph (Gogol's "Inspector" - the theme of the mirror), genre (Chekhov's comedies - a feature of perception), a list of characters (often determined by traditions), speaking the name, comments, remarks - a description of the scene. Characteristics of the speech of heroes, actions, internal action in the drama. "Boris Godunov" by Pushkin, "Masquerade" by Lermontov. Chekhov is different. Early theater - exercises in monologues. Dialogue was more often an auxiliary means for communication between monologues. This changes Griboyedov - a dialogue of the deaf, a comic dialogue. Chekhov too. Gorky: "But the threads are rotten."

Thomas Mann: "Drama is the art of the silhouette." Herzen: “The stage is always contemporary to the viewer. It always reflects the side of life that the parterre wants to see.” Echoes of the present are always visible.

- Lyrics as a kind of literature.

Cognitive orientation of the lyrics. The subject of the image in the lyrics is the inner world of a person. Content dominant: experiences (some kind of feeling, thought, mood). The form of verbal expression (type of speech organization) is a monologue. Functions of the word - expresses the state of the speaker. The emotional sphere of human emotions, the inner world, the way of influence - suggestiveness (suggestion). In the epic and drama, they try to identify common patterns, in the lyrics - individual states of human consciousness.

Emotionally colored reflection - sometimes external unemotionality. This is a lyrical meditation. Lermontov "Both boring and sad ..." Strong-willed impulses, oratorical intonations in the lyrics of the Decembrists. Impressions can also be the subject of a lyrical text.

Irrational feelings and aspirations. Uniqueness, although there is an element of generalization to convey their thoughts to contemporaries. Consonance with the era, age, emotional experiences. As a kind of literature, lyrics are always important.

The end of the 18th - the beginning of the 19th century is very important - the period of the destruction of the idea of ​​lyrics, the destruction of genre thinking in lyrics, new thinking - style. Associated with Goethe. In the 70s of the 18th century, Goethe creates a new feature of the lyrical work, which broke with tradition. There was a strict hierarchy of genres: it was clearly distributed which forms of lyrics were used when. Poetic forms are very branched.

Ode is an idealization of a superior person, therefore a certain form. Decathlete, solemn introduction, descriptive part, part about the prosperity of the country.

Goethe destroys the link between theme and form. His poems begin as a cast of an instant experience - an image. Natural phenomena could also be included, but not conditional ones. The process of stylistic individualization. In the 19th century it is often impossible to define a genre.

Each poet is associated with a certain range of emotions, a special attitude to the world. Zhukovsky, Mayakovsky, Gumilyov.

Feelings are at the core. The lyrical plot is the development and shades of the author's emotion. It is often said that the lyrics are plotless, but this is not so.

The poet defends the right to write in a light, small genre. Small genres were elevated to the absolute. Imitation of other genres, playing with rhythms. Sometimes cycles of poems appear due to life background.

Lyrical hero - this concept is introduced by Y. Tynyanov and "On Lyrics". There are synonyms for "lyrical consciousness", "lyrical subject" and "lyrical self". Most often, such a definition is the image of the poet in the lyrics, the artistic counterpart of the poet, which grows out of the text of lyrical compositions. This is the bearer of experience, expression in the lyrics. The term arose due to the fact that it is impossible to put an equal sign between the poet and the bearer of consciousness. This gap appears at the beginning of the 20th century in Batyushkov's lyrics.

There can be different media, so there are two types of lyrics: autopsychological and role-playing. Example: Block "I am Hamlet ..." and Pasternak "The rumble has subsided ...". The image is the same, but the lyrics are different. Blok plays in the performance, this is the experience of interpersonal relationships - autopsychological lyrics. Pasternak has a role-playing one, even included in the cycle of Yuri Zhivago. Most of it is in poetic form. Installation on clumsy verse - Nekrasov.

- Method. The concept of artistic method.

Method is a set of the most general principles of artistic thinking. Isolate the realistic artistic method and the non-realistic method. Various models are being formed.

1. Selection of facts of reality for the image.

2. Evaluation.

3. Generalization - there are ideal models.

4. Artistic embodiment - a system of artistic techniques.

Method is a supra-epochal concept. Realism is always there, but it is different, different accents. Literary trends are the historical embodiment of any artistic method. Any direction has a theoretical support, a manifesto. The state of philosophy determines the views of writers. Realism grows out of Hegel. Enlightenment - French materialism. The literary direction is always heterogeneous. Example: critical realism. Fight within the direction.

LITERARY STUDIES- the science of the principles and methods of the study of fiction and the creative process;

A science that comprehensively studies art. literature, its essence, origin and societies. communications; a body of knowledge about the specifics of verbal art. thinking, genesis, structure and functions of lit. creativity, about local and general patterns of historical literature. process.

Main disciplines:

Literary theory- the doctrine of a literary work, its content, structure and functions, the types and genres of literature, artistic styles and trends.

Literary history- the doctrine of the main milestones of evolution, fiction, the path of specific writers, the fate of works.

Literary criticism- assessment of works of art from the point of view of modernity.

* Projective activity

Auxiliary disciplines:

Bibliography- a scientific discipline that studies the history, theory and methodology of bibliography, as well as bibliographic. source study. Main tasks of B. l .: assistance to historians of literature and literary critics in research. work

source study(including archiving): a scientific discipline that develops the theory and history of historical sources, as well as the methodology for studying them. The subject of source study is the historical source and methods of its search and study.

Textology: studies works of writing, literature and folklore in order to restore history, critical. checking and establishing texts for their further research, interpretation and publication.

2. Literary criticism and linguistics. Literary criticism and other sciences.

LITERARY STUDIES AND LINGUISTICS are two components of one science: philology.

Literary criticism is the science of literature. Linguistics (linguistics) is the science of language. These sciences have much in common: both of them - each in its own way - study the phenomena of literature. Therefore, over the past centuries, they have developed in close connection with each other under the common name "philology".

In essence, literary criticism and linguistics are different sciences, since they set themselves different cognitive tasks. Linguistics studies the phenomena of literature, more precisely, the phenomena of people's verbal activity, in order to establish in them the features of the regular development of those languages ​​spoken and written by various peoples around the world. Literary criticism studies fiction (more precisely, all artistic literature - written and oral) of various peoples of the world in order to understand the features and patterns of its own content and forms expressing them.

Nevertheless, literary criticism and linguistics constantly interact with each other and help each other. Along with other phenomena of literature, fiction serves as a very important material for linguistic observations and conclusions about the general features of the languages ​​of certain peoples. But the peculiarities of the languages ​​of works of art, like any other, arise in connection with the peculiarities of their content. And literary criticism can give linguistics a lot to understand these substantive features of fiction, which explain the peculiarities of language peculiar to it. But for its part, literary criticism in the study of the form of works of art cannot do without knowledge of the features and history of the languages ​​in which these works are written. This is where linguistics comes to the rescue. This help is different in the study of literature at different stages of its development.

Modern literary criticism is also inseparable from aesthetics; it is closely related to philosophy, sociology, history and psychology.

LITERARY STUDIES AND HISTORY. Works of artistic literature always belong to one or another people in the language of which they are created, and to a certain era in the history of this people. Literary criticism cannot fail to take into account the close connection between the development of artistic literature and the historical life of individual peoples. Moreover, it makes the understanding of these connections the basis of its study. As a result, literary criticism itself acts as a socio-historical science, standing among the historical sciences that study the development of the social life of the peoples of the world from different angles. Works of artistic literature always reflect the originality of the historical era of national life in which they were created.

Without an understanding of this, without knowledge of the many facts, events, relationships characteristic of the time when certain works arose, without the ability to penetrate into the very “spirit” of that era or its period, it is impossible to scientifically study fiction. Therefore, a literary critic should always turn to other historical sciences so that they arm him with the appropriate knowledge and information.

PHILOSOPHY and AESTHETICS serve as the methodological basis of literary criticism.

FOLKLORISTICS, ART STUDIES close to the literature on the tasks and subject of the study.

HISTORY, PSYCHOLOGY and SOCIOLOGY similar to Lit-Vedas. general humanitarian focus.

literary criticism

literary criticism

LITERARY STUDIES - the science that studies fiction (see Literature). This term is of comparatively recent origin; before him, the concept of "history of literature" (French histoire de la litterature, German Literaturgeschichte) was widely used. The gradual deepening of the tasks facing the researchers of fiction led to increased differentiation within this discipline. A theory of literature was formed, which included methodology and poetics. Together with the theory of literature, the history of literature was included in the general composition of the "science of literature", or "L.". This term is extremely popular in Germany (Literaturwissenschaft, cf. art history - Kunstwissenschaft), where it is used by such researchers as, for example. O. Walzel, R. Unger and many others. others (Unger R., Philosophische Probleme in der neuen Literaturwissenschaft, 1908; Elster E., Prinzipien der Literaturwissenschaft, 1911; Walzel O., Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft; Philosophie der Literaturwissenschaft, collection edited by E. Ermattinger'a, Berlin, 1930 , and etc.). This term was widely adopted in Russian usage from about 1924-1925 (see, for example, books: P. N. Sakulina, Sociological method in L., M., 1925; P. N. Medvedeva, Formal method in L., L. , 1928; A. Gurshtein, Questions of Marxist L., M., 1931, collections "Against Mechanistic L.", M., 1930, "Against Menshevism in L.", M., 1931, and many others. used the term "L." and pereverzianism - cf. W. R. Fokht's brochure, Marxist L., Moscow, 1930, and especially the collection "Literary Studies", edited by V. F. Pereverzev, M., 1928).
The purpose of this article, in addition to the above terminological reference, is twofold:
1) outline the general tasks that continue to confront the science of literature at the present time;
2) to understand the boundaries of its constituent parts.
In a number of points, this article intersects with other articles of the "Literary Encyclopedia" - Literature,, Marxism-Leninism in literary criticism, and many others. etc. The specificity of this article lies in the general formulation of the problem of the tasks of science and its composition.
In the article "Literature" the nature of fiction was already established - a special form of class consciousness, the means of expression of which are verbal images. The science of literature came to this view of its subject in the process of a complex internal restructuring, as a result of a fierce struggle with a number of non-scientific methodological systems. Some researchers approached literature with the criteria of dogmatic aesthetics (Boileau, Gottsched, Sumarokov), others looked for reflections of the influences of the cultural "environment" in the works (Ten, Pypin, Gettner), others saw in them an expression of the creative "spirit" of the author (impressionists and intuitionists) , the fourth turned their attention exclusively to artistic techniques, to the technology of verbal-figurative art (“formal” school). These methodological currents of the past reflected the worldview of various groups of the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie; despite some achievements, these groups were unable to build a science of literature (see Methods of Pre-Marxist Literary Studies). Removing all these idealistic and positivistic points of view, Marxist-Leninist literature substantiated the view of literature as a specific form of class ideology that arises and develops in close connection with other superstructures.
The conditionality of verbal-figurative creativity by an economic basis is one of the main provisions of dialectical materialism, which does not currently require particularly detailed proofs. It is precisely from the conditions of production and the production relations of classes that the primary influences on all forms of class consciousness proceed. At the same time, in a developed class society, these influences are never direct: literature is influenced by a number of other superstructures that are more closely related to the economic basis, for example. political relations of classes formed on the basis of production relations. Since this is so, the most important task of literature is to establish the dependence of the facts of literature on the facts of class existence and related forms of class consciousness, to establish the roots of literary facts in the socio-economic reality that led to their appearance. The most important task of the science of literature should be the establishment of that class, the expression of the ideological tendencies of which the given work was. The dialectical-materialist study of literature requires, as Plekhanov wrote, “translating the idea of ​​a given literary work from the language of art into the language of sociology, finding what can be called the sociological equivalent of a given literary work” (G. V. Plekhanov, Preface to the collection “For 20 years"). Not a brilliant personality, as the Impressionists claimed, not a cultural and historical environment, as Taine believed, not separate literary traditions of the “higher” and “junior” schools, as the formalists believe, but class existence is the root cause of literature, like any other ideology that grows on the basis of this existence in the process of an intensified class struggle. First of all, it is important to find out whose moods this writer is the mouthpiece of, what tendencies he expresses in his work, the interests of which social group bring his works to life - in short, what is the social genesis of a literary work or, more broadly, the writer's work, to which it is the work belongs to the style, in the creation of which this writer, along with others, participates. Establishing a social genesis is an extremely responsible and difficult task. It is necessary to be able to see in the work the general, leading principles and at the same time not to throw overboard those individual shades in which these general principles are clothed (the unity of the “general” and “private”). Establishing the dependence of literature on class existence and other forms of class consciousness, at the same time, we must not forget for a moment that we have before us a specific ideology, which cannot be reduced to any other form, which needs to be analyzed and studied. , constantly revealing the ideological content of this form - "thinking in verbal images." It is necessary to be able to find the influence of the economic basis in literature and at the same time almost always mediate this influence by a whole series of intermediate links between literature and politics, philosophy, art and other forms of class consciousness. It is necessary to finally find that social group whose aspirations and interests are expressed in a given work, not only in statics, not in the form of a metaphysically constructed group, but in historical dynamics, in development, in a sharp struggle with antagonists and the literary work itself with all its ideological tendencies to study as an act of class struggle on the literary front. It is especially important to emphasize the latter: until quite recently, pereverzianism that dominated L. sinned precisely with this hypertrophy of the genetic analysis of literary series isolated from each other and with complete disregard for the interaction of these literary currents. In the books of Pereverzev (see), in the articles of his students (W. Vogt, G. Pospelov, I. Bespalov and many others - including the author of this article), the social roots of Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Gorky, Goncharov were studied as literary givens that develop independently of the complexity of the class struggle in the literature of a particular era.
Determining the genesis of literary works is inseparable from the analysis of artistic features, from establishing the structural features of literary facts and the inner essence of a literary work. If literature is a figurative form of class consciousness, then how did “content” (class consciousness) determine the form (“thinking in images”), what kind of literary style is born in the dialectical unity of “content” and “form”? If class ideology is expressed in a poetic style (for the enormous role of ideas, see the article “Literature”), then an equally important task of literature will be to reveal the ideological nature of the “form” itself. The literary critic must show how the economy, the production relations of classes, the level of their political self-consciousness and the diverse areas of culture determine the images of works of art, the disposition of these images, their deployment in the plot, dictated by the ideological provisions that are characteristic and specific for a given social group at a given stage of its history, at this stage of the class struggle. A comprehensive study of the components of a literary work, reflecting the ideology of the class, should be the subject of the most detailed study. The literary critic establishes the themes of the images - their character and ideology, composition - the ways of internal construction of each of the characters of the work and the ways of their development in the plot, and finally the style - those language means with which the images are endowed, the degree of correspondence of the speech of the characters to their social affiliation, the language pattern itself the author of the work, etc. However difficult this task of the sociological Marxist study of literary style (see "Style"), it can in no way be removed from the field of view of science. L. of our day is struggling with the cultural-historical method, which completely ignored the analysis of poetic style, with the psychological method, which limited this study to the field of individual psychology. It struggles with formalism, which studies the literary style as an immanent technological series, not conditioned by anything other than the state of previous traditions. It finally fights perversianism, which fetishizes the study of the sociology of style and solves these problems in the spirit of mechanistic materialism, in complete isolation from the concrete historical forms of the class struggle.
But the work of a literary critic is not exhausted by establishing the genesis and artistic features of literary facts. The entire analysis of literary fact and its genesis must serve the purpose of establishing the function of literary fact. A literary work is always a reflection of the practice of the class to which it owes its appearance to the world, always reflects objective reality with varying degrees of breadth. However, at the same time, it is a class ideology, the attitude to this reality of a class that defends its interests through it, a class that fights with its opponents for certain economic and political interests. Being a form of class consciousness, it is at the same time a form of its action. Like any ideology, it not only reflects, but also expresses, not only registers, consolidates, but also organizes, actively influences everyone who perceives a literary work. A literary work primarily affects the work of writers contemporary to it or those who came to literature in the subsequent period. It sometimes exerts a powerful influence on the literary production of less mature class groupings, imposing its motives and methods on them, subordinating them to its ideological tendencies. Even within the limits of literature itself, a poetic work is consequently not only a "fact" but also a "factor" that draws other literary movements into the orbit of its influences. But incomparably more important is another function of literature - its direct impact on the reader, modern and later, native to her class and belonging to other social groups. Any “interpretation” by the reader of works, proceeding from the content objectively existing in the work, at the same time can be completely different depending on the class personality of the reader, his likes and dislikes, his requests and needs. The history of French literature knows the intensified struggle of readers' opinions around Victor Hugo's Hernani, a drama that played a colossal role in the fate of the romantic theater and dealt a crushing blow to classical tragedy. The well-known "fights" around the drama of Hugo (fights not only in the figurative, but also in the most direct sense of the word) were a reflection not only of the literary innovations of the style in which the author of "Hernani" and "Cromwell" worked, but also sharp social differences between the supporters of classicism and the pioneers of romanticism, because both literary trends were based on the ideology of different classes, and their mutual struggle was one of the forms of class struggle in French literature of the 20-30s. These reactions of readers were expressed even more openly when Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons (1862) was published, dedicated to depicting the most topical phenomenon in that era - "nihilism": this work was met with enthusiastic praise from one part of the readers and unrestrained denial from side of the other. These disagreements were based not so much on the subjectivity of the interpretation of Turgenev’s text, but on a certain social attitude towards revolutionary diversity and the desire of various class groups (ideologists of the peasant revolution, grouped around Sovremennik, liberals, a bloc of feudal lords - characteristic laudatory reviews of the novel have come down to us, given to him by the Third Branch) to use Turgenev's novel in an open political struggle. Each literary work, more or less broadly reflecting reality, becomes an active and organizing factor in social life, an object of struggle between opposing reader reactions, and in this sense represents a certain factor not only in literary, but also in social development. Let us recall Lenin's articles about L. Tolstoy as a "mirror of the Russian revolution", and we will easily understand that this enormous functional richness of literature is due to its cognitive essence: the struggle around "Fathers and Sons" would not be distinguished by a small fraction of the bitterness that it is. in fact acquired, if Turgenev's readers did not look for an objective image of the raznochinsk youth from the latter. The enormous popularity of the "folk" works of Leo Tolstoy among the peasantry was due precisely to the fact that the peasantry was looking for an answer in them to the question of how to get out of the unbearably difficult situation in which this class found itself in the post-reform era. Readers are always characterized by an approach to literature as a means of knowing life; hence the unprecedented passion of their reactions and the enormous functional role of literature.
A number of literary works affect the reader's consciousness long after they have been published. Such is the fate of the so-called. "eternal companions of mankind". Shakespeare, who worked in Elizabethan England, clearly transcends the boundaries of his time, and in the historical perspective of three too many centuries we see how often he is taught, how much interest in him is revived, how he is not only a factor in the literary and reader's processes, but also a fact of literary politics (see, for example, the slogan "Down with Schiller", thrown out by some RAPP theorists in their polemics with the Litfrontists about the creative method of proletarian literature). The literary critic has no right to forget that the problem of the social function of fiction is the most important of the problems facing him: “The difficulty lies not in understanding that Greek art and epic are connected with certain social forms of development. The difficulty lies in understanding that they still continue to give us artistic pleasure and, in a certain sense, retain the significance of a norm and an unattainable model ”(K. Marx, Toward a Critique of Political Economy). In order to raise the study of the functional role of literature to its due height, it is necessary to study the real role of a literary work in the struggle of classes, class groups, parties, to establish what actions it prompted them to, what public outcry it created. As an auxiliary moment, the reader's story should be widely expanded, his interests taken into account, and his reactions examined.
Needless to say, this study should be carried out on the basis of class as the main factor determining the difference in perception and reactions. Marxist literature must resolutely combat tendencies that exaggerate the importance of the reader, such as, for example, Thoughts on Literature and Life, expressed by P. S. Kogan: “To understand a work of art means to understand its readers. The history of literature is the history of what is read, but not the history of what is written” (P. S. Kogan, Prologue, Thoughts on Literature and Life, 1923, p. 10). The history of literature is both the history of what is "written" and the history of what is "read," for both the objective essence of a literary work and the reader's different class attitudes towards it are important to us. By rejecting the "written", we thereby slide into an obviously idealistic relativism, into a practical disregard for the objective existence of literature. But we must object even more resolutely to the reverse extreme, to that rejection of the functional study of literature, which in our time has expressed itself with such vividness in pereverzianism. “The task of a literary critic,” Pereverzev wrote, “is to reveal in a work of art that objective being that provided material for it and determined its structure. It is to the disclosure of this being, to the elucidation of the organic, necessary connection of a given work of art with a certain being, that Marxist research is reduced” (“Necessary Prerequisites for Marxist Literary Studies”, collection “Literary Studies”, Moscow, 1928, p. 11). Without touching on the other aspects of this formula, it must be stated that there was no place in it for the social role of the work, its influence on the reader. Studying exclusively the genesis of literary works and their style, "being" and "structure", Pereverzev argued that the study of functions should be taken over by a special discipline - "the history of the reader". This distinction is clearly illegal, since the study of the function of literary works is not reduced to the study of the "History of the Reader", and, on the other hand, is closely connected with the analysis of the class essence of works. Only in establishing the class role of the work does the literary critic's genetic and stylistic analysis receive full confirmation, and in this sense, the denial of functional study is inexpedient and illegal. However, it is extremely characteristic of pereverzianism, which considered literature only as a means of reflecting the class psyche, practically denied the active role of ideologies and therefore reduced the science of literature to the level of passivist registration of poetic facts.
No matter how important the study of the real class function of literary works, and in particular the study of the reader's relationship to them, it still cannot be divorced from the analysis of literary works and replace it with itself. Literature itself is functional, it contains that ideological orientation, which evokes such dissimilar reader assessments. And the very approach to the reader in Marxist literature should in no way be passive registering. If we asserted the contrary, we would inevitably slide into “tailism,” into the denial of L. as a science that studies one of the most effective ideologies. The leading, avant-garde part of literature - criticism - does not so much study the reader's reactions as stimulates and organizes them, establishing the social roots of a given literary phenomenon, its artistic integrity and ideological orientation. The tasks of the Marxist literary critic in this field are to expose readers' reactions, which are harmful and reactionary in their social essence, to deepen the tastes of the proletarian-peasant reader, to reshape and re-educate intermediate petty-bourgeois groups, etc. The same should be said about the attitude of L To the writer: helping an ally of proletarian literature, actively raising the qualifications of proletarian writers, and mercilessly exposing reactionary tendencies in the work of bourgeois writers in town and country are among the most important duties of Marxist-Leninist literature and sharply distinguish it from the bourgeois-Menshevik, objectivist approach to literature. In our time of intense struggle for a new literary style and creative method of proletarian literature, the problem of functional study must be raised to its full potential and introduced into the daily routine of our science.
The investigations we have outlined represent only separate aspects of the single act of Marxist investigation of a literary work. We have divided this act into its constituent parts only in the interests of the greatest methodological clarity and the greatest possible detail of the analysis. In practice, the implementation of the above tasks is inextricably intertwined. Exploring the style, we establish the features of the class ideology that manifested itself in it, thereby outline the class genesis of the work and open the way for revealing its social functions. In turn, considering the study of the last two tasks as the goal, we cannot solve them without analyzing the features of the literary style. However, this unity is by no means an identity: each of the aspects of the study is important, necessary and cannot be removed without obvious damage to the whole. Ignoring the social genesis of creativity, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to correctly answer the question about the reasons for its appearance, fall into idealism or take a vulgar materialistic, "consumer" point of view. Removing the task of analyzing the artistic features of literary facts, we lubricate the specificity of literature, mix it with other ideologies, and impoverish the consciousness of the class. Finally, forgetting about the functional study, we break the strong ties of literary works with the reality that their authors seek to influence.
Repeatedly made attempts to construct a dogmatic methodology for the study of literature inevitably sin with mechanism. The order of studying literary facts in each individual case is determined by specific conditions - the presence of one or another material (in some cases, much information about a particular literary fact can only be conjectural) and the researcher's inclination to one form or another of analysis. The establishment of obligatory prescriptions for the order of study can here only be harmful; these recipes must give way to the greatest methodological flexibility. It is only important that, although individual literary scholars may set these tasks separately, none of these tasks can be solved by the scientific L. To study Pushkin comprehensively by the only scientific method of dialectical materialism means to establish which class of ideology his work was an expression of, to establish exactly which the group within the class Pushkin represented, to understand the relationship between the developing and changing creativity of Pushkin and the social transformation of his class group; to understand in the same aspect of social transformation the entire Pushkin style from the stages of initial maturation to its final stages, to study this style as a system of Pushkin's ideological statements, as a natural phenomenon in the struggle of the Pushkin class for social self-affirmation, separating individual moments in Pushkin's work, characteristic of him personally, from the moments characterizing the social group; to analyze Pushkin's form of verbal-figurative thinking in its socio-historically conditioned connections with the previous literary culture and, at the same time, in its repulsions from this culture; finally, to determine the influence that Pushkin's work has had and still continues to have on literature and on readers of the most diverse class groups, explaining this functional role by the social orientation of creativity, the ideological demands of readers, and finally by all historical reality in all the complexity of its internal contradictions. It is especially important to emphasize the latter. To the essentially Menshevik search for a genesis on the basis of an isolated sociological analysis of a given writer, Marxist-Leninist L. contrasts the study of the writer from the point of view of the most diverse contradictions of his epoch. The deepest novelty and value of Lenin's analysis of the works of Leo Tolstoy lies in the fact that he connected the creative growth of this writer with the peasant movement of the post-reform period, that he showed how dialectically this writer, noble in origin, reflected both the positive and negative aspects of the peasant revolution and how this reflection determined the revolutionary function of his creative work. To resolve this entire series of inextricably intertwined questions means to study the writer's work comprehensively and exhaustively.
From the formulation of these general tasks that confront contemporary linguistics (for a more detailed discussion of them, see Marxism-Leninism in Leningrad), let us now move on to establishing the composition of this science. We have already said above that the term "L." arose as a result of the exceptional complication of its composition. At present, it is a whole complex of disciplines, each of which has its own special internal boundaries within the common whole that they form.
The advanced detachment of literary criticism is literary criticism (see). Its historical morphology is extremely diverse, the breadth of coverage is extremely significant. We know criticism based on the principles of dogmatic aesthetics (Merzlyakov), formalist criticism (Shklovsky), psychological criticism (Gornfeld), impressionist criticism (Aikhenwald, Lemaitre), enlightenment-journalistic criticism (Pisarev), and finally Marxist. Without, of course, striving here for an exhaustive classification of the types of criticism, we will only emphasize its avant-garde role in L. Criticism almost always acts before academic L., is a pioneer of scientific analysis. It has the difficult but honorable task of establishing the common milestones of this analysis, which other units of L. will then follow. The most characteristic example of how criticism has set milestones for the history of literature is the creative practice of the cultural-historical method: S. A. Vengerov and A. N. Pypin were based in the construction of the history of Russian literature of the XIX century. on critical articles by Belinsky and Dobrolyubov, reducing and simplifying their views. Contemporary Marxist literature would be unthinkable without the broad development of a broad phalanx of Marxist criticism a decade or two earlier.
Criticism, of course, does not cancel the arrival of further units of L., to whatever methodological trend it may belong. This is due, if only to the fact that the critic is concerned not so much with establishing an internal connection between literary facts as with the ideological and political evaluation of these facts. Critics may sometimes not be interested in a literary work in itself: for them it sometimes turns out not to be a goal, but a means for posing a whole series of philosophical or socio-journalistic problems to the reader. Let us recall here, on the one hand, the criticism of the Symbolists, and on the other hand, such a characteristic example of journalistic criticism as N. G. Chernyshevsky's article "The Russian Man on Rendez-Vous", written to raise the problems of the peasant reform regarding Turgenev's story "Asya". Criticism further may not set itself the task of understanding the process of preparing a given literary fact, studying its environment, literary destinies - all that is an indispensable requirement for a literary historian. For criticism, it is not necessary to use that detailed and complex auxiliary apparatus, without which the history of literature is inconceivable - the tasks of establishing authorship, text criticism does not exist for it.
Literature also includes the history of literature, which repeats, deepens, and corrects the conclusions of criticism and refines its research method. Very often critics themselves write historical and literary articles at a certain stage of their activity (let us cite Belinsky's articles on Pushkin with their review of the entire previous period of Russian literature as an example). Typical for a literary historian is the use of additional materials, biographies and technology, a deeper study of a number of special problems, greater "academicism", which, however, should not be identified with the absence of party affiliation.
The differences between criticism and the history of literature are internal differences between separate parts of the same science of literature. Criticism evaluates a literary work in the context of the current day, the history of literature examines it from a distance, in a historical perspective. However, Marxist criticism always strives to take a literary work in a historical perspective, and Marxist literary history cannot but link its work with contemporary literary life. What today is imperceptible to the critic, therefore, it becomes possible for the historian of literature to ascertain, and, conversely, very often those features of the work that the critic-contemporary perceives vividly in it are eluded by the historian of literature. If criticism is always a sharp weapon of the class struggle at its present stage, then the history of literature primarily deals with material that has, to some extent, lost its militant, topical significance. This, of course, does not mean that the history of literature is "objective" and that criticism is "subjective," as the idealists have tried and are still trying to present the matter - Marxist criticism is scientific and operates, as applied to cast modernity, with the same method of dialectical materialism that underlies all the sciences of ideologies. But if the method is the same, then the auxiliary material, its volume, perspective, with which this material is studied, etc., becomes significantly more complicated. Both the monograph on Shakespeare and the review of the play by M. Gorky are equally required partisanship and science. The difference here is determined by the difference in the objective historical content of the objects of analysis, the difference in their historical contexts, and the resulting difference in concrete assessments, practical conclusions, and also the “tactics” of research methods. Neither to exclude criticism from scientific L., nor even to oppose it to him, as did some idealist theorists, for example. Y. Aikhenwald, - we have no reason.
It would be scientific pedantry to demand the establishment of precise, once for all, internal boundaries between criticism and literary history. Their competence can vary quite a lot depending on the nature of the era under study. And the goals pursued by both disciplines, and the methods with which they operate, are often extremely close to each other. One of the main differences between them is the large breadth of material (biographical, textual, archival, etc.) used by the literary historian, who has a historical perspective on the work of a given writer, and thanks to it establishes his predecessors, associates, and especially followers. This does not mean, of course, that other critics cannot be found who will be interested in the writer's manuscripts, his biography, and so on; individual exceptions only confirm the rule. Complicating his analysis with material unknown to the critic and covering it from broader positions, which the critic does not always have the opportunity to occupy, the literary historian nevertheless organically continues his work. Of course, it does not follow from this that the history of literature is doomed to trail in the tail of criticism and cannot help it in any way. All parts of Marxist linguistics are organically linked and provide each other with effective assistance. Of course, the possibilities of successful and concrete criticism of phenomena directly related to the literary phenomena of the past essentially depend on the degree to which the history of literature has worked out the material of the preceding decades. Thus, for example, a detailed elaboration of the questions of proletarian literature will greatly facilitate the work of Marxist criticism on the material of current proletarian literature.
A specific feature of the history of literature is that it raises the questions of the literary process in all their breadth, operating on the material of "mass literary production." To shed light on the literary path of a class means to study all the vicissitudes of its literary development, all its individual stages, from the initial accumulation to the flourishing and decline of class literature. The study of individual exemplary works, according to which idealists are inclined to write history - the study of "masterpieces" - determines the height of class creativity, but not the direction and structure of its ridges. The history of literature is unthinkable without the study of secondary and tertiary fiction writers. Their work sometimes has no aesthetic value, their forms are embryonic and unexpressive. But in terms of historical analysis, in order to study the tendencies of the literary development of a class, to characterize its growth, the study of mass production is absolutely indispensable. This is necessary in relation to the bourgeois-noble literature of the past, each of the currents of which was characterized by mass character both in its initial and in its mature stages (examples: aristocratic poetry of the era of serfdom, the bourgeois urban tradition of “physiological essays”, a realistic manor novel, etc.). This mass character still more characterizes proletarian literature. The absence of great masters of the word, which is quite natural in the era of the exploitation of the working class by the bourgeoisie, does not relieve the historian of the passage of literature from the obligation to study it in its earliest sources, in all the diversity of its component currents. Talents, small in their creative range, however, perfectly characterize the ideological tendencies of the class. Needless to say, how gigantically the importance of analyzing mass production is growing in our time of the broadest flourishing of the worker-selkor movement, the formation of thousands of literary circles at enterprises, and the call for shock workers to literature that has unfolded in recent years. The history of literature is now less than ever the history of only literary generals; it can and must become the history of literary armies.
Criticism and the history of literature form a sector of practical L. Their activity is directed by the general theoretical thought of L. Just as in any army there are headquarters where all strategic work is concentrated in drawing up plans for military operations, in coordinating combat operations, etc., the role of the theoretical headquarters of L. methodology, the study of the methods and ways of the most rational study of fiction from the point of view of various philosophical foundations (in scientific linguistics, from the point of view of dialectical materialism), is carried out. The methodology includes, as an auxiliary, but extremely important part, historiography, a consistent historical review of the methodological systems of the past. Criticism of these systems leads us into the depths of methodology, for every new literary school begins its life with a reassessment of the methodological concepts that prevailed before it. The essence of the methodology lies in the creation of an in-depth system of views on the essence, origin and function of literature. The development of this system of views usually requires the involvement of disciplines related to literature - history, aesthetics, philosophy, etc. Methodology - the true brain of any literature, especially Marxist methodology, requires the establishment of the conditionality of literature by social practice and the discovery of inextricable links between literature and other related sciences. her add-ons.
However, the general methodological orientation is still not enough to successfully study a literary work. The methodology establishes the general essence of the studied phenomena, drives in the main piles of literary theory. Poetics (see) comes to the aid of methodology in a concrete and painstaking analysis of literary facts, gives the literary critic an idea of ​​the types of the latter. The cultural-historical school ignored poetics, the Potebnians psychologized it to the utmost, the formalists exaggerated its significance unreasonably, understanding by poetics the entire theory of literature (V. Zhirmunsky, Questions of the Theory of Literature; B. Tomashevsky), including within its limits the history of literature (a series of formalist in their methodology collections "Poetics"). The latter is especially unacceptable for a Marxist, since the history of literature clearly goes beyond the boundaries of those auxiliary tasks that theoretical poetics sets itself. Elements of any literary style, taken outside of history, immediately turn into "skinny abstractions." Only on the basis of historical study can theoretical poetics present a rich arsenal of all kinds of information about the structural types of works, which can be extremely useful for a literary critic, providing him with methodological methods for working on a work. Poetics cannot be anything other than the application of the philosophical foundations of methodology on the broadest literary material - "concrete methodology". Within these limits, poetics is extremely helpful to the history of literature, as if constituting a bridge between it and general methodology.
The exceptional complexity of studying certain monuments of literature, ancient anonymous or dubious, for which we do not know either the author or a more or less definitively established text, gives rise to the need to create a special auxiliary apparatus. Here, the so-called auxiliary disciplines come to the aid of the literary critic - “knowledge that helps to master the research technique ... expanding the scientific horizon of the researcher” (V.N. Peretz, From a lecture on the methodology of the history of literature, Kiev, 1912) - bibliography (see) , history, biography, paleography (see), chronology, linguistics (see), textology (see), etc. Adherents of the philological method suffered from exceptional exaggeration of the value of auxiliary disciplines. His supporters were inclined to consider all historical and literary work exhausted by philological analysis. This phenomenon, which continues in certain circles of non-Marxist linguistics even today, is undoubtedly due to their lack of clear general perspectives, disappointment in the methodological concepts of the past, and disbelief in the scientific character of Marxist linguistics. Let us cite as an example the pathetic praise of auxiliary disciplines in the “Vision of a Poet” by the intuitionist M O. Gershenzon, who was disillusioned with the cultural-historical study of literature. for scientific study. On the other hand, with all the more energy, Marxists affirm the importance of related disciplines devoted to the study of other superstructures. Idealistic literary criticism is often characterized by the deliberate isolation of literature from other ideologies. “It would be a tempting task to construct a literary criticism from the data of the material itself, on the basis of only the most elementary psychological and linguistic concepts. The author tries to approach this task in the sense that he does not rely on any preconceived psychological, sociological or biological theories, so as not to make his science dependent on changes taking place in related sciences (such as: linguistics, natural science and especially philosophy )” (B. I. Yarkho, Limits of Scientific Literary Studies, Art, Moscow, 1925, No. 2, p. 45). An obviously hopeless attempt to isolate oneself from other forms of social reality, to build a science without any "prejudice", i.e. without a worldview synthesizing this reality! Marxists, who study literature as one of the superstructures, cannot but involve in the process of studying literary phenomena, first of all, data on political life and struggle, on economic processes, and then data on the development of other ideologies - philosophy, art, science, etc. especially the history of the theater and the fine arts), philosophy, general history, sociology, economics will help the work of a literary critic, greatly facilitate and deepen the analysis of literary facts.
All of the above allows us to assert that modern Marxist linguistics is a complex set of disciplines that perform their own special tasks within the framework of a common whole. Criticism, history of literature, methodology, poetics, auxiliary disciplines are the constituent parts of this literary complex. It is not by chance that Marxist literary criticism resolutely and uncompromisingly opposes the tendency to limit the competence of literary criticism to the study of style (formalists), the psychology of creativity (Potebnianism), the establishment of a social genesis (reversianism), and the fulfillment of ancillary philological tasks. A comprehensive study of literature as a specific form of class ideology requires the utmost differentiation of tasks. But at the same time, literature is a single whole, an internal division of labor that provides for itself the solution of those tasks that the specific nature of fiction and the method of dialectical materialism poses for the science of literature.
Is L. a science? This question was deeply topical 15-20 years ago, when idealists of all schools and stripes proclaimed the death of the science of literature. That was the collapse of the positivist L., the scientific impotence of which was revealed by the idealists with great clarity. But that turn towards intuition, which was so sharply marked at the turn of the 20th century, marked the complete inability of the bourgeoisie to construct a science of literature. What the decaying class could not succeed in is already being done by the L. of the proletariat on the unshakable philosophical basis of dialectical materialism.
Marxist-Leninist literature faces tasks of great importance—to trace the work of the writers of the past from the point of view of Lenin's directives on the use of literary heritage; open a ruthless struggle against literary and literary products of classes hostile to the proletariat, help create a creative method of proletarian literature, leading the work that has unfolded around this issue. In short, Marxist linguistics is called upon to create a theory that helps the common practice of the proletariat, organizes and directs it. These tasks are especially responsible and topical at the current stage in the construction of proletarian literature, which is characterized by its mass character and planning. The growing army of proletarian writers must be armed with the weapons of Marxist-Leninist literature, which will hasten and ensure their creative victory. Any attempt to "apoliticize" the science of literature must be resolutely rebuffed by Marxists. The literary theory of the working class must be placed at the service of its literary practice. Bibliography:
Dashkevich N., Gradual development of the science of the history of literature and its modern tasks, University News, 1877, No. 10; Kareev N., What is the history of literature, Philological Notes, 1883, no. V-VI; Plotnikov V., Basic principles of the scientific theory of literature, Philological Notes, 1887, no. III-IV, VI (1888, issue I-II); Zorgenfrey G., The concept of literary criticism and its tasks, "Gymnasium", 1895, August; Anichkov E. V., Scientific tasks of the history of literature, University News, 1896, No. 4; Tikhonravov N. S., Tasks of the history of literature and methods of its study, Sochin. N. S. Tikhonravova, vol. I, M., 1898; Pypin A. N., History of Russian Literature (several ed.), Vol. I. Introduction; Evlakhov A., Introduction to the Philosophy of Artistic Creation, vols. I-III, Warsaw, 1910, 1912 (Rostov n/D., 1916); Lanson G., Method in the history of literature, with afterwords. M. Gershenzon, M., 1911; Sipovsky V., History of literature as a science, ed. 2nd, St. Petersburg, 1911; Veselovsky A. N., Poetics, Sobr. sochin., v. I, St. Petersburg, 1913; Peretz V.N., From lectures on the methodology of the history of Russian literature, Kyiv, 1914; Gornfeld A., Literature, "The New Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron", vol. XXIV, 1915; Arkhangelsky A. S., Introduction to the history of Russian literature, vol. I, P., 1916; Sakulin P. N., In search of scientific methodology, "Voice of the Past", 1919, No. 1-4; Voznesensky A., Method of studying literature, “Proceedings of Belorussk. state University”, Minsk, 1922, No. 1; Mashkin A., Essays on Literary Methodology, "Science in Ukraine", 1922, No. 3; Piksanov N.K., A new path of literary science, Art, 1923, No. 1; Smirnov A., Ways and tasks of the science of literature, "Literary Thought", 1923, book. II; Sakulin P. N., Synthetic construction of the history of literature, M., 1925; Yarkho B. I., The boundaries of scientific literary criticism, "Art", 1925, No. 2, and 1927, book. I; Zeitlin A., Problems of modern literary criticism, "Native language at school", 1925, book. VIII; Sakulin, Sociological method in literary criticism, M., 1925; Plekhanov G., Sochin., vols. X and XIV, Guise, M. - L., 1925; Voznesensky A., The problem of "description" and explanation in the science of literature, "Native language at school", 1926, book. XI-XII; Polyansky V., Questions of modern criticism, Guise, M. - L., 1927; Efimov N.I., Sociology of Literature, Smolensk, 1927; Petrovsky M., Poetics and art history, art. the first, "Art", 1927, book. II-III; Nechaeva V., Literary and art criticism, "Native language at school", 1927, book. III; Belchikov N., The value of modern criticism in the study of modern fiction, "Native language at school", 1927, book. III; Prozorov A., The boundaries of scientific formalism (in connection with the article Yarkho), "At the literary post", 1927, No. 15-16; Yakubovsky G., Tasks of criticism and literary science, "At the literary post", 1928, No. 7; Schiller F. P., Modern literary criticism in Germany, "Literature and Marxism", 1928, book. I; His own, Marxism in German literary criticism, "Literature and Marxism", 1928, book. II; Sakulin P.N., To the results of Russian literary criticism for 10 years, "Literature and Marxism", 1928, book. I; Medvedev P. N., Immediate tasks of historical and literary science, "Literature and Marxism", 1928, book. III; Timofeev L., On the functional study of literature, "Russian language in the Soviet school", 1930; Focht U., Marxist literary criticism, M., 1930; Belchikov N.F., Criticism and literary criticism, "Russian language in the Soviet school", 1930, book. V; "Against mechanistic literary criticism", Sat., M., 1930; "Against Menshevism in Literary Studies", collection, M., 1930; Dobrynin M., Against the eclecticists and mechanists, M., 1931; Friche V. M., Problems of art history (several editions); "Literary Studies", a collection edited by V. F. Pereverzev, Moscow, 1928 (controversy about this collection, see the bibliography to the article "Pereverzev"); Gurshtein A., Questions of Marxist Literary Studies, Moscow, 1931. also a bibliography for the following articles. Art.: Marxism-Leninism in literary criticism, Methods of pre-Marxist literary criticism (see also foreign bibliography there), Poetics, Criticism and Aesthetics.

Literary encyclopedia. - In 11 tons; M .: publishing house of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Friche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .

Literary criticism

A group of sciences that study fiction. The composition of literary criticism includes the so-called. auxiliary disciplines: textology, or text criticism, paleography, bibliography, bibliography. The purpose of textual criticism is to establish the history of the text, the correlation of various author's manuscripts and lists, the comparison of editions (fundamentally different versions of one work). Textology establishes the canonical text of the work, which, as a rule, is the expression of the author's last will. Paleography determines the time of writing the manuscript by the features of handwriting, watermarks on paper. Book science deals with the study of books, determining their authors, publishers, printing houses in which they were printed. The task of the bibliography is the compilation of catalogs, lists of literature on a particular topic.
Actually literary criticism is a science that studies the laws of construction of literary works, the development of literary forms - genres, styles etc. It is divided into two main parts - theoretical and historical literary criticism. theoretical literature is literary theory, or poetics. She explores the main elements of fiction: image, birth And types, styles etc. Literary theory is forced to turn a blind eye to particulars. She deliberately passes by the differences of epochs, languages ​​and countries, "forgets" about the originality of the artistic world of each writer; it is not interested in the particular, the concrete, but in the general, the recurring, the similar.
The history of literature, on the contrary, is primarily interested in the concrete, the unique. The subject of her research is the originality of various national. literatures, literary periods, directions and currents, creativity of individual authors. The history of literature considers any literary phenomenon in historical development. Thus, the historian of literature, in contrast to the theoretician, seeks to establish non-permanent, unchanging signs baroque or romanticism, and the originality of the Russian or German baroque of the 17th century. and the development of romanticism or individual romantic genres in French, Russian or English literature.
A separate part of literary criticism - poetry. Its subject is the classification, the definition of the originality of the main forms of versification: rhythms, metrics, stanzas, rhymes, their history. Poetry studies uses mathematical calculations, computer processing of text; in terms of its accuracy and rigor, it is closer to the natural sciences than to the humanities.
An intermediate place between the theory and the history of literature is occupied by historical poetics. Like literary theory, it studies not specific works, but individual literary forms: genres, styles, types of plots and characters, etc. But unlike literary theory, historical poetics considers these forms in development, for example. changes in the novel as a genre are traced.
Peculiar and place in literary criticism stylistics- a discipline that studies the use of language in literary works: the functions of words of high and low styles, poeticisms and vernacular, features of the use of words in a figurative sense - metaphors And metonymy.
A separate area is comparative literary criticism, which studies in comparison the literature of various peoples and countries, patterns characteristic of a number of national. Sciences.
Modern literary criticism is moving closer to related humanitarian disciplines - the semiotics of culture and myth, psychoanalysis, philosophy, etc.

Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Under the editorship of prof. Gorkina A.P. 2006 .

• Literary language Dictionary of synonyms - the science of fiction, its origin, essence and development. Subject and disciplines of literary criticism. Modern L. is a very complex and mobile system of disciplines. There are three main branches of L .: ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

literary criticism- I, only unit, p. The science that studies fiction, its essence and specificity, origin, social function, patterns of historical and literary process. Department of Literary Studies. Seminar on literary criticism. Related words... Popular dictionary of the Russian language

LITERARY STUDIES- LITERARY STUDIES, the science of fiction (see Literature), its origin, essence and development. Modern L. is a complex and mobile system of disciplines. There are three main branches of L. Literary theory explores ... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary, Collection of articles. This book is collected as a congratulation to the modern philologist Sergei Georgievich Bocharov, and the thesis formulated by him is placed in the title of the collection. In the preface to the book "Plots of Russian ...

Bibliography:

Functions of fiction. The concept of an artistic image.

Art has its own unique way of reflecting reality - an artistic image. The artistic image is the result of the artist's understanding of any life process. The image becomes artistic when it is personified in the author's fantasy in accordance with his inner artistic conception. Every image is emotional and unique. For the first time the term "artistic image" was used by Goethe.

Fiction is a spiritual process that performs many functions:

1) cognitive (helps to know the world, society, nature, oneself);

2) communicative (the language of works of art is based on a system of symbols, which allows it to be a means of communication between generations);

3) evaluation (each literary work directly or indirectly assesses the present);

4) aesthetic (the ability of literature to influence the views of people, shape their artistic tastes, spiritual needs);

5) emotional (affects the feelings of the reader, ennobling him);

6) educational (the book carries spiritual knowledge, educates a person).

The peculiarity of literature as a part of art. The difference between literature and other art forms.

Fiction is related to other art forms. The most important of them are painting and music.

In ancient times, the word and the image were marked by complete unity: the word was an image, and the image was a word (ancient Egyptian funerary frescoes with pictograms) - a narrative text (narrative). But as human thought evolved, the word became more abstract.

Modern science claims that there is a close relationship between the word and the image. But everyone perceives a verbal image subjectively, and a picturesque one - concretely.

On the one hand, music is close to literature. In ancient times, music and lyrics were perceived as a whole. On the other hand, the poetic word, falling into the sphere of music, loses its concreteness and its perception proceeds outside of visual associations. One of the tasks of poetry is to express feelings with the help of verbal turnover, and music is to influence emotions.

The concept of content and form in literary criticism, their relationship.

Form - how this content is presented to the reader.

The main feature of a literary work is the relationship between form and content.

Any writer subconsciously tries to achieve unity of content and form: he tries to match a clever thought with a good, beautiful image. It is practically impossible for a literary critic to build even an approximate scheme for creating a text. The writer is a unique personality and it is impossible to create a typology of his works.

The theme (Greek - what is the basis) is the subject of artistic representation and artistic knowledge.

A theme is a circle of events that form the lifeblood of literary works.

Artistic themes:

Main theme,

Private topic.

The main and partial themes form the theme of the work.

So-called eternal themes also become the subject of knowledge in literature. The eternal theme is a complex of phenomena significant for mankind in the entire era (the theme of the meaning of life, the theme of death, love, freedom, moral duty).

The text of topics related to universal human phenomena, eternal categories is a philosophical topic.

Idea (Greek - what is seen). This term came to literary criticism from philosophy, where the idea is a synonym for the word "thought". In literature, an idea is not just a dry scientific, but a generalizing emotional-figurative thought. This is a kind of fusion of the generalized thoughts and feelings of the writer - pathos. Paphos includes the author's assessment.

Literary content is what the narration is about in this literary text.

The problem (Greek - task) is the main question of the work.

Problem:

main,

Private.

The main and particular problems create the problems of a work of art.

Issues:

social,

ideological and political,

philosophical,

Moral.

Drama is a kind of literature.

drama is a genre of literature in which, like in an epic, there is a system of characters, conflicts between heroes, a plot are inherent in drama. A person reveals himself through events, actions, struggle. Feature: there is no long descriptiveness. .the basis of the drama is action in the moment of time. action is shown through conflict and lies in the center of the work. dialogue is the main means of developing action, conflict. there is a monologue - speech of a person addressed to himself, to others. unlike dialogue, a monologue does not depend on replies. The dramatic genre of literature has three genres: tragedy, comedy, drama (in the narrow sense) tragedy-goat song, based on the tragedy of heroic characters. Reality is depicted in tragedy as a bunch of internal contradictions of a person. Comedy is a funny song. Situations in funny forms are typical .originated in other Greece, the founder is Aristophanes.it can be high and everyday.drama-play with a sharp conflict, which is not so exalted, more mundane, ordinary than tragedy, the conflict is resolvable, the resolution depends on the personal will of the person. in Russia and in Europe, the drama genre spread in the 18th century, the petty-bourgeois drama, lyric, document, epic drama were popular.

Literary criticism as a science. Goals and objectives of the science of literature structure of literary criticism (sections of the science of literature).

Literary criticism is the science of fiction, its origin, essence.

The main object is the human word in an artistic, figuratively expressive function.

This science requires great erudition from the researcher.

Modern literary criticism:

1) the theory of literature (studies the nature of verbal creativity, develops and systematizes the laws and concepts of fiction);

2) the history of literature (the history of the emergence and change of literary trends, trends, schools, periods, explores the originality of various national literatures);

3) literary criticism (deals with the analysis and evaluation of new, modern works of art; a literary critic is a living mediator on the path of a literary work from the author to the reader: it is always important for the writer to know how his work is perceived, and criticism helps the reader to see the advantages and disadvantages of a modern work.

Thus, in literary criticism, a close relationship is established between all three disciplines: criticism is based on the data of the theory and history of literature, and the latter take into account and comprehend the experience of criticism.

2. The relationship of literary criticism with related scientific disciplines. Auxiliary sciences in literary criticism.

Literary criticism as a science is in close contact with such related sciences as linguistics (linguistics), philosophy and psychology:

1) the connection with linguistics in literary criticism is due to the commonality of the object of study: both literary criticism and linguistics study human language, but linguistics reveals the laws of construction of any text, and literary criticism studies a literary text in all its diversity of genre, attention is drawn to the content of the text, and linguistics considers its means.

2) philosophy (Greek - I love wisdom) - a science that studies the nature of human thinking, society, the world in which a person lives; in literary criticism, artistic thinking is a special form of mastering reality.

3) psychology (Greek - the doctrine of the soul) - in alliance with it, literary criticism studies the character of a person more fully.

Literary criticism includes auxiliary scientific disciplines: textual criticism and bibliography.

1) textual criticism is the science of the text of literary works, its task is to critically check and establish the authenticity of the author's text;

2) bibliography (Greek - writing a book) - a science related to the description and accurate systematization of information about works, in print - factual information (author, title, year and place of publication, author, page size and brief annotation).

Bibliography:

Scientific Auxiliary (comments),