Prose genres flourished in ancient Greek prose: philosophical prose (Plato, Aristotle, etc.), oratorical prose (Demosthenes), historical prose (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon), and biographical prose (Plutarch). Artistic prose is represented by the adventurous-love novel genre that appeared in the first centuries of our era, or, as the Greeks called it, “love story”. The first known Greek novel is Chariton's The Love Tale of Kherei and Kaliroi (1st century AD), the most significant are Heliodor's Ethiopia, Long's Daphnis and Chloe.
Plato. In the literature of the 5th-4th centuries BC. e. philosophical prose occupies an outstanding place. Particularly significant in literary terms philosophical dialogues of Plato (427-347 BC). 41 works of Plato have come down to us, of which 13 were found to be unauthentic (some of them were written by his students as part of the activities of the Academy he created). The "Apology of Socrates" (a speech allegedly delivered by Socrates at the trial) is the only work written not in the form of a dialogue. 13 letters of Plato also came. In relation to the collection "Definitions", also included in the corpus of Platonic writings, the authorship of Plato is now rejected. Disputes about the authenticity and chronology of Plato's works gave rise to the so-called. Platonic question.
Being a student of Socrates (c. 470-399 BC), who did not write down his philosophical thoughts and expressed them in skillfully constructed conversations with students, as if independently coming to the correct conclusions (the method of the so-called Socratic conversation), Plato brought out in his works the image of Socrates, passing from one dialogue to another, striking with the power of intellect in a conversation with any interlocutor.
In small “Socratic dialogues”, Plato considers certain issues: friendship (“Fox”), truthfulness and falsity (“Hippias the Small”), justice (“Alcibiades I”), etc. They depict the environment in which the conversation unfolds, the dialogues imitate colloquial speech with its interruptions, repetitions, etc. In the dialogues of the second type (“Phaedo”, “Phaedrus”, “Feast” and a number of others), the content becomes more generalized, here the doctrine of ideas has been developed, material world as a reflection of ideas, about the immortality of the soul, about its three parts - rational, volitional (or passionate) and sensual (or lustful), about the transmigration of souls - metempsychosis, about knowledge as a recollection - anamnesis, etc. He widely uses artistic means by their nature for presentation philosophical ideas. So, in order to explain the difference between ideas and things, Plato in the VII book of "States" draws the image of a cave, on the wall of which one can see shadows from objects outside it. He presents the emergence of love as the result of the division of a bisexual androgyne into two halves, which must look for each other in order to reunite (“Phaedrus”). Instead of a free conversation of dialogues of the first type in these works, Socrates' thought develops strictly logically, less attention is paid to the refutation of opponents and more to the very essence of philosophical doctrine. In dialogues of the third type (Theaetetus, Parmenides, Sophist, Politician), artistic figurativeness gives way to the interpretation of the main philosophical categories. Everyday details disappear, the artistic depiction of the characters of the speakers. In dialogues of the fourth type, Plato, setting out a changed view of the main philosophical problems, again resorts to artistic means, to mythological imagery, etc. In the Critias dialogue, Plato is the first to present the legend of Atlantis in the form of a historical narrative, reminiscent of a fantastic utopian novel.
The genre of philosophical dialogue developed by Plato had a huge impact on the literature and philosophy of subsequent centuries (we can talk about Plato's "personal model").
LITERATURE OF ANCIENT ROME
Ancient Roman literature is literature in Latin, the first monuments of which have come down to us date back to the 3rd century BC. e. (earlier ones are known only from indirect evidence). On early stage determining for the formation of the culture of ancient Rome was the influence Greek culture, although even during this period, some Romans (for example, Cato the Elder), in contrast to the individualization characteristic of the Greeks, the well-known hedonism, put forward the requirement of fidelity to the "morals of the ancestors", severe and heroic.
The development of the comedy genre
Although after the translations into Latin of Homer's poems on Roman soil, their own epic creativity arose (the poems of Nevius and Ennius), the first major achievement in the literature of Ancient Rome is associated with the activities of the comedians Plautus and Terentius.
Plaut. Titus MacciusPlavt (c. 250–184) was possibly a mime dancer in the atellan, an Italian folk comedy (Plavt means flat-footed, that is, dancing in flat shoes). Of the 21 comedies, which even in antiquity were recognized as indisputably belonging to Plautus, 20 have survived and one in fragments. The genre that Plautus developed was palliata (that is, a comedy from Greek life), which grew out of imitation of the middle and neo-Attic comedy, primarily Menander, in conjunction with the Italian atellana. Plautus wrote for the plebs, his task is to captivate and make the common people laugh, hence the rude humor, the source of the comic - many funny episodes related to dressing up (including a man with a woman in Kasina), peeping, brawls, etc. Plautus presents a slave more resourceful and successful than his master (in the spirit of popular comic culture), displays a whole gallery of characters endowed with vices: boasting (“Boastful Warrior”), stinginess (“Pot”), parasitism (“Curculion”). In his works, Plautus resorts to contamination to increase the tension of the intrigue (combines the plots of several Greek comedies), composes neologisms from Latin and Greek morphemes, makes extensive use of proverbs and sayings, instead of the 6-foot iambic and 8-foot trochaic used by Menander, introduces a variety meters, making the verse dependent on the content of a particular scene.
Terence. Publius Terence Afr(195-159) was a slave, then a freedman, wrote 6 comedies in the palliata genre. In four of them, the primary sources were the plays of Menander. In order to find new texts of this idol of his, Terentius went to Greece, but on the way back he died as a result of a shipwreck. Terence moved away from the public laughter of Plautus, his comedies are softer in tone, more psychological. His favorite motif is chance recognition ("Mother-in-Law"). The comedies of Terence are written in a simple and correct style, which is why they studied Latin in the Middle Ages.
The "golden age" of ancient Roman literature
So it is customary to call the 1st century BC. e., which includes the highest achievements in the field of poetry (Catullus, Virgil, Ovid, Horace) and prose (Cicero, Julius Caesar), the formation of the "Golden Latin".
Poetry. Neoteriki (lat. youthful, young) - the most notable poetic group led by Gaius Valery Catullus. Neoteriks, suspicious of the establishment of the sole power of Julius Caesar, went into the sphere of intimate feelings, from large epic genres they moved on to small forms of poetry - epillia (small epic poems), elegies, epigrams.
Catullus(c. 87-54 BC) in a collection of 116 poems appears primarily as a lyricist singing his beloved Clodia, sister of the tribune Clodius Palchra, under the name Lesbia, reminiscent of Sappho:
We will, Lesbia, live while we are alive,
And love as long as the soul loves;
The old gossipers murmur squeamishly
Let it not cost us a penny. (Translated by A. Fet)
Poems about Lesbia tell about all the vicissitudes of the poet's love feelings, about the rapprochement and quarrels of lovers. But in his epigrams directed against Julius Caesar and his supporters (especially against a certain Mamurra from the city of Formia), Catullus can show high citizenship, be exceptionally, indecently, harsh, use the invective technique (lat. "swear words").
Lucretius. The philosophical poem of Lucretius (c. 94-55 BC) “On the Nature of Things”, which outlines the materialistic philosophy of the Greek thinker Epicurus (4th-3rd centuries BC), belongs to the same period. Lucretius is sure that knowledge of the nature of things saves a person from superstition and fear of death. Therefore, in the first three books of the poem, he sets out the doctrine of the atoms that make up the world, according to the ideas of Democritus and Epicurus, and then tells in detail about astronomy, geology, the history of human culture (highlighting in it the stone, bronze, iron ages, which was confirmed by archaeologists of the XIX century, taking these names from Lucretius for the scientific designation of epochs in the development of mankind). The poem is written in hexameter, close to the poems of Hesiod, but shows a huge progress in human knowledge.
Caesar. Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44 BC) was an outstanding political figure and commander of Ancient Rome, the first to receive the title of emperor from the Senate, one of the founders of the Latin literary prose language. His "Notes on the Gallic War" (52/51 BC) in 7 books and "Notes on the Civil War" (44 BC) in 3 books are wonderful monuments of a simple and noble literary style . His tragedy "Oedipus" and a number of other works (pamphlets, the poem "The Way", letters, speeches, aphorisms, the treatise "On Analogy", dedicated to Cicero, etc.) have not reached us.
Cicero. Mark Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) is the greatest orator of antiquity. 58 speeches of Cicero (and excerpts from another 17 speeches), treatises and dialogues of philosophical, didactic, political content (of particular importance are his works on oratory, where the basics of rhetoric are systematically stated), about 900 letters have come down to us.
Virgil. The highest achievement in the field of poetic creativity in the “age of Augustus” (second half of the 1st century BC) was the work of Publius Virgil Maro (70-19 BC). The collection "Bucoliki" includes eclogues (shepherd's poems, consisting of dialogues of shepherds, set out in hexameter, written under the influence of the ancient Greek poet Theocritus, the creator of this genre). Particularly significant later was the 4th eclogue, which in the Middle Ages was considered as a prediction of the coming of Jesus Christ. Therefore, Virgil was considered as one of the forerunners of Christ (this is why in Dante's Divine Comedy Virgil accompanies the poet on his journey not only through hell, but also through purgatory and parted with him in earthly paradise). "Bukoliki" brought fame to Virgil, he became the head of a literary circle, which was patronized by Maecenas - a noble and wealthy supporter of Octavian - the future emperor Augustus.
"Georgics" is a didactic poem about the work of a farmer, written in the 30s. In its character and form (the use of the hexameter, etc.) it is reminiscent of Hesiod's Works and Days. The ideal of Virgil, embodied in the poem, is patriarchal, associated with rural rather than urban life.
"Aeneid" - greatest work Virgil and, in in a certain sense of all Roman literature. It was written over a number of years and was completed by the poet in the year of his death. Taking Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" as a model, Virgil chooses as a hero not one of the Greeks, but their opponent - the Trojan Aeneas, after the defeat, like Odysseus, making a journey and finding shelter in Italy. The use of this myth was political in nature: the emperor Augustus derived his family from the son of Aeneas Iulus. Despite all the similarities with the Homeric epic "Aeneid" - the author's work, which is reflected in the composition (the prudent introduction of inserted epillia, a kind of poetic short story), in demonstrating the author's high education, in the perfection of the hexameter, the emergence of a psychological motivation for the activities of the characters (especially in describing the love for Aeneas and the death of Dido, the Carthaginian queen). For centuries, the Aeneid has been a role model in the field of epic poetry.
Horace. The circle patronized by Maecenas included another great poet of Ancient Rome - Quintus Horace Flaccus (65-8 BC). For the first time, Horace drew attention to himself with his epods, written in imitation of Archilochus. Epod - a work written in an intermittent rhythm (for example, with alternating dactylic and iambic dimeters). In Horace, these are poems dedicated to modernity, in which one can find both praise (Maecenas, Augustus) and sharp criticism (for example, freedmen who penetrated into power thanks to cunning).
The collection of 17 epods was followed by two books of satires written in hexameter and in a number of ways approaching diatribe, a genre developed by cynic philosophers (live conversation on philosophical topics). The satires not only criticize the various vices that afflicted Roman society (greed and envy, prodigality and lust for power), but also affirm a certain author's ideal: withdrawal into private life, communion with nature, which cannot be found in the city, the patriarchal way of life.
In 23 BC. e. three books of “Ods” by Horace are published (38 odes in the 1st, 20 in the 2nd, 30 in the 3rd), in 13 BC. e. Horace added to them the 4th book (15 odes), where, obeying the emperor Augustus, he sang the exploits of his stepsons - Tiberius and Drusus. The odes use 12 sizes, borrowed by Horace from Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon and other ancient Greek lyricists. The odes are built as an appeal (to a person, a muse, an object). The odes brought Horace the greatest fame in centuries, especially the 30th ode from the 3rd book "To Melpomene". Already Ovid, in the finale of the Metamorphoses, expresses the same thoughts very closely to the text of Horace. Pushkin chose the first words of this ode (“Exegi monument(um)” - “I erected a monument”) as an epigraph to his “Monument”. The source for Horace was the elegy of Theognis addressed to Kirn, but there is also a more ancient prototype of this ode - the ancient Egyptian poem "Praise to the Scribes", from where the image of the pyramids came to Horace: creativity preserves the memory of the poet stronger than the pyramids.
Of the letters of Horace, written in hexameter (20 messages in the 1st book, 3 in the 2nd), the last one is especially important - the "Epistle to the Pisons", otherwise called "On the Art of Poetry", which sets out normative poetics Horace, who played a significant role in the development of the poetics of classicism. Horace demands that the unity of form and content be observed, the simplicity and integrity of the chosen style, which cannot be mixed with other styles, demands high professionalism from the poet.
Ovid. Publius Ovid Nason (c. 43 BC - 18 AD) became famous for his "Love Elegies", where he imitated the Roman poets Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius and others. The heroine of the elegies, named after the ancient Greek the poetess, who won the poetry competitions of Pindar himself, whose mentor she was, differs from the Lesbia of Catullus by the complete absence of individual features. With his characteristic poetic brilliance, but coldly and sometimes ironically, Ovid describes "the science of tender passion", continuing this theme in the parody-didactic poems "The Science of Love" and "The Cure for Love". In a completely different, sincere tone, his last works written in exile (the city of Toma, now Constanta in Romania), where Emperor Augustus sent him, are noted - “Sorrowful Elegies” and “Letters from Pontus”.
The most outstanding work of Ovid is a poem in 15 books "Metamorphoses". Ovid chose the motif of transformations, which he traced in the myths about gods and heroes from the emergence of the cosmos from chaos to the transformation of Julius Caesar into a star, based on the idea of the transmigration of souls, metempsychosis, coming from Pythagoras. The songs of the poem, setting out the myths about the transformations of Narcissus into a flower, statues of Pygmalion Galatea in living woman etc., became a source of inspiration for many writers, artists, composers of subsequent eras. Ovid, who singled out the idea of variability from myths, as if predicted the onset of a new - transitional - phase in the development of culture, marked by a loss of stability both in reality and in people's feelings.
Roman Literature of the 1st-2nd Centuries A.D. e.
Of the works of this period, the tragedies of Lucius Annaeus are of particular importance. Seneca The Younger (4 BC - 64 AD) Medea, Oedipus, Phaedra and others, in which a new understanding of catharsis is realized (separation of fear and compassion, fixing the source of these feelings is not for one character, but for villains, on the one hand, and for innocent victims, on the other); his “Moral Letters to Lucilius”, which outlines a program of stoic acceptance of life, which is still relevant today; witty and evil "Epigrams" by Mark Valery Martial(c. 40 - between 101 and 104) in 12 books; 16 satyrs in hexameters by Decimus Junius Juvenal(c. 60 - c. 140), one of the most perfect in form and significant in terms of its critical attitude to the vices of the nobility, examples of the genre; novel Petronia Arbitra (d. 66) "Satyricon", extant in fragments; "History" and "Annals" of Cornelius Tacitus(c. 55 - c. 120) - one of the greatest historians of antiquity; Roman Lucius Apuleia(born c. 124) "Metamorphoses" ("Golden Ass"), in which a combination of entertaining form and esoteric (hidden) religious and philosophical content is found.
LITERATURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
The concept of "Middle Ages" arose in the 15th century, when the Italian humanists (L. Bruni and others), realizing the past as history divided into periods, singled out the era of antiquity (antiquity) and their era - "new time", and the millennium lying between these two eras, called "medium aevum" ( lat. Middle Ages, later they began to say "Middle Ages"). From the point of view of the humanists of the Renaissance, and later the enlighteners of the 18th century, the Middle Ages is a gloomy era of the death of high ancient culture, an era of barbarism and the dominance of the church, a real failure in European history. Only at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century, largely under the influence of J. G. Herder and the Romantics, scientists saw in the Middle Ages a natural stage in the development of society, a peculiar depth and beauty was discovered in medieval literature and art.
It is traditionally believed that the Middle Ages began in 476, when the Western Roman Empire fell under the pressure of the barbarians. modern point view is completely different: the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages took several centuries, from about the 3rd to the 6th. In the light of the historical-theoretical approach, it became obvious that Late Antiquity should be considered as transition period in the development of literature.
Literature of Late Antiquity as a transitional period
In the first centuries of our era, there were descending and ascending lines in literature. The first was connected with the ancient tradition, based on pagan mythology and ancient philosophy, which experienced a severe crisis during this period. In the literature of late antiquity, this crisis is also evident, primarily in such manifestations as escapism (escape from socially important content), formalism (unconditional preference for formal experiments in the development of a new content of literature), rhetorism (subordination of literature to rhetorical rules, consideration of poetic activity as an educational work in the development of rhetoric), complementarity (a reflection of the dependence of writers on rulers and wealthy patrons in compliments to the powerful of this world, with which the literature of this period is saturated, i.e., a departure from the actual aesthetic function writing activities).
Ausonius. As confirmation of these characteristics, we will choose the famous poet of the 4th century, when literature reached a new take-off (the period of “silver Latin”, which reminded the Romans of the “golden Latin” of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Cicero and other writers of the 1st century BC), - Decima Magna Ausonius (c. 310 - 394). The most famous work of Ausonius is the poem "Mosella". The poet moves away from the places where “poor corpses lie on the plain, not mourned”, and sails on the ship along the Moselle River (Moselle, a tributary of the Rhine), describing with excellent hexameter (verse of Homeric poems) everything that he sees around: river turns, vineyards , belated settlers, beardless rowers. He devotes several pages to describing the fish swimming in the river, not forgetting to report on their gastronomic qualities. Before us is one of the first examples of the descriptive poem genre, which will be revived only in the 18th century, and from this point of view, Ausonius is an undoubted innovator and great master. But the lack of deep content in this famous poem, not only answers, but even raising questions about the most painful issues of our time is obvious. Ausonius was also fond of formalistic refinements. So, he sent to the proconsul Pakata, hoping to please this nobleman, the collection of "Technopegia" ("Jokes of the Craft") - "the useless fruit of my idleness", as he himself humbly wrote, which contains "Poems that begin and end with monosyllables, each time one and the same”, “Poems that only end in monosyllables”, “Ropal prayer” (in which the line consists of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5-compound words in sequence, for example in Russian translation: “God the Father, giver of immortal existence , // Incline your ear to the purity of vigilant prayers"), "Wedding centon" (centon - a genre of formal poetry: compiling a new poem from the lines of another poet's work; Ausonius composes an unbridled narration of intercourse on the wedding night from the lines of the Aeneid by the chaste and highly moral Virgil ) are all examples of formalism in poetry.
Porfiry: the genre of the poetic square. Even greater sophistication was distinguished by the poet of the 4th century Porfiry Optatian, who wrote poetic squares. In poems of this genre, the number of lines corresponds to the number of letters in a line. The poetic squares used palindromes (texts that read the same in both directions). The earliest example of a poetic square dates back to the 4th century:
(Translated: "The sower Arepo holds the wheels with difficulty"). A palindrome is used here: the text is read equally in four directions (from the beginning and from the end horizontally, from the beginning and from the end vertically). This poetic square, obviously, seemed so amazing that it was considered as some kind of talisman, at least two centuries later it was still remembered and even painted on the walls of Christian churches. The poetic squares of Porphyry, presented by him to Emperor Constantine in 325, are much more complicated: the line is several times longer, so it was much more difficult to compose a palindrome. Porfiry painted some letters with red paint, drawing up a drawing (a peacock in the poem "Peacock", a fountain in the poem "Fountain", etc.), and if you read only the red letters, you get another poem, often in Greek. With such a formal complexity, the content, in fact, could not be serious at all.
Early Christian Literature. Along with the descending line in the transitional period between antiquity and the Middle Ages, ascending line literature that did not have these features of the crisis. This is the literature of early Christianity.
"New Testament" tells about the birth, death and resurrection of the son of God Jesus Christ, who atoned for the sins of the human race by his death on the cross and established a new alliance ("covenant") with the god of all mankind (and not just the Jewish people, as in the "Old Testament").
The "New Testament" in its canonical form, approved (like the canon of the "Old Testament") by Bishop Athanasius the Great of Alexandria (295-373), who thus played an outstanding role in world culture and literature, includes four gospels (gospels): from Matthew , from Mark, from Luke (synoptic - that is, similar in text) and from John, as well as the "Acts of the Apostles" (primarily Paul), 21 epistles (epistolary form of teaching): 14 from Paul, 2 from Peter, 3 from John, 1 from James, 1 from Judas (not to be confused with the traitor Judas); the final work of the canon is the Apocalypse (revelation) of John the Theologian. The "New Testament" was formed in the 2nd half of the 1st century - the first half of the 2nd century, mainly in Greek and came down only in this language, although an artificial translation into colloquial Palestine of the 1st century - Aramaic - revealed the disappeared in Greek translation rhythmic organization of the text, alliterations, assonances, rhymes, puns, other features that reveal the folklore nature of the original text of a number of sections.
As early as the 2nd century Bishop Irenaeus asserted the divine origin of the Gospels. The text of the "New Testament", separated from the apocryphal gospels and other non-canonized sources, has become sacred to millions of Christians since the 4th century and remains so to this day. were perceived as sacred different nations and translations of the "New Testament" into Syriac (II-III centuries, the so-called Peshishta), Latin (collective, the so-called Itala, then St. Jerome, the end of the 4th century, the so-called Vulgate), Armenian, Georgian (5th century), Old Church Slavonic (Cyril and Methodius, 9th century, and subsequent Slavonic translations), German (M. Luther and the Reformed "Zurich Bible", 16th century), English ("Bible of James I", 17th century), Russian ( synodal translation, 1876) and other languages of the world. Bible texts were memorized early childhood, constituted the very center of the thesaurus. Through the prism of the "New Testament" the whole world was perceived. Therefore, the influence of the Bible on literature is unprecedented. The "New Testament" gave the writers ideas (Christ's love for one's neighbor, non-resistance to evil by violence), a system of images (Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, the apostles, John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, Judas, the cross, Mary Magdalene, the Star of Bethlehem, the "animal number" 666 and etc.), genre patterns (parable, life, vision, sermon, message), plots (birth, baptism, crucifixion, resurrection, appearances of Christ, the fate of the apostles, etc.), way of thinking, language that was not imitated only religious but also secular writers. The authors of the "New Testament" are Matthew, who included in his Gospel the "Sermon on the Mount" of Christ, Mark, Luke with his deep knowledge of Greek culture, John as the creator of the fourth Gospel and the "Apocalypse", the apostle Paul, and above all (judging by the above statements) himself Jesus Christ - possessed a great literary, oratorical gift.
Apologists. Tertullian. Apologists were called writers who defended Christianity during the period of persecution against it in the 2nd-3rd centuries. The most famous of them is Quintus Septimius Florence Tertullian, nicknamed Furious (160 - after 220). Thirty-one of his works have survived, including Defense Against the Gentiles, which denies all ancient philosophy, literature, in general culture based on paganism. The treatise “Against the Gnostic Hermogenes” rejects the basic ideas of Gnosticism, which affirmed the dual unity of the world, the struggle of the forces of Good with the equally powerful forces of Evil. In the "Refutation of Heretics" the wrongness of the heresiarchs is justified by the fact that they are younger than the apostles and, therefore, further from Christ, the source of truth. This argument has played a huge role in the history of literature: to prove their case, many authors attributed their works to the contemporaries of Christ and the apostles.
In the treatise “On the body of Christ”, we read: “The son of God is crucified - it is not shameful, for it is shameful. And the son of God died - this is quite reliable, because it is absurd. And buried, he rose again - this is true, for it is impossible. In this fragment of Chapter V, which in the Middle Ages received the name "Credo", a special type of paradox is presented - an illogical paradox that cannot be resolved at the level of human thinking. This literary device used by Tertullian to prove the primacy of faith. In the Middle Ages, Tertullian was credited with a phrase expressing this thought with the utmost laconism: "I believe, because it is absurd."
Augustine the Blessed. Aurelius Augustine, nicknamed the Blessed (354-430) - the most authoritative of the Western Church Fathers. The transitional nature of the era in which he lived was reflected in his life in the most direct way. His father was a pagan, his mother was a Christian. In his youth, Augustine became interested in ancient rhetoric and philosophy, Cicero became his idol. For many years Augustine was a supporter of Manichaeism and studied astrology. Having moved to Mediolanum (Milan), in 387 he converted to Christianity. His godfather St. Ambrose of Milan became, uniting Christianity and Neoplatonism in his views. Under his influence, Augustine condemned Manichaeism, rejected the idea of Evil as an independent substance and considered it as the absence of Good. He also rejected astrology with its idea of predestination, spoke out against Pelagianism, one of the early Christian heresies. Pelagius believed that there was no original sin, that God endowed man with free will, and each person is free to choose the path he wants, but in the next world God will reward everyone fairly, while original sin was denied. In contrast to the Pelagians and astrologers, Augustine put forward the idea of grace: God arbitrarily exalts some (sends them grace) and overthrows others, regardless of good or evil human deeds. In a certain contradiction with this idea is Augustine's teaching on asceticism, which he outlined in his main treatise "On the City of God" in 22 books, where the earthly city (empire) and the heavenly city (people's souls united by the Christian church) are contrasted. In the human dual unity of the body (earthly) and the soul (heavenly), one must get rid of the body and soar to the heavenly city. In 397-401 Augustine wrote "Confessions" in 13 books - a story about his life, addressed to God. He writes this book for believers, showing by his own example that one can be a great sinner, break many commandments, but, sincerely surrendering to God, get rid of sinful thoughts. The path of salvation lies through repentance, hence the characteristic features of the genre of confession introduced into literature by Augustine. His work combines vivid descriptions of the events of his personal life and their philosophical and religious interpretation. Subsequently, the genre of confession was developed (including in secular literature) and gave the world such outstanding works, like "Confession" J.-J. Rousseau and "Confession" by L. N. Tolstoy. Augustine discovers the very principle of confession, which testifies to the strengthening of the author's principle in art and later, in connection with the development of the principle of psychologism, forms a whole system of well-developed artistic means for describing the inner world of a person. Augustine was recognized as one of the main authorities in Christianity, which explains the huge role of his ideas and style in the subsequent development of literature.
Medieval literature in Latin
The Latin language, having become a dead language, nevertheless became a connecting thread between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It was the language of the church, interstate relations, jurisprudence, science, education, one of the main languages of literature. The maxims of ancient authors were used as material studied in the medieval school.
In medieval literature in Latin, it is customary to distinguish three lines of development: the first (actually medieval, official, ecclesiastical) is represented in clerical literature, the second (associated with the appeal to the ancient heritage) was most clearly manifested in the Carolingian Renaissance, the third (which arose at the junction of Latin learning and folk laughter culture) was reflected in the poetry of the Vagants.
clerical literature. Significant layer medieval literature- clerical (church, religious, spiritual) literature. In a number of cases, it is represented by prominent names, such as: John Scot Eriugena, Abelard, Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas. But often the names of writers have not been preserved, since the principle set forth by Tertullian, according to which the older the text, the closer it is to the truth, forced them to attribute their writings to authoritative figures from the times of the first Christians. So, for example, did the brilliant author of the 5th - early 6th century (possibly Peter Iver), in the treatise “On heavenly hierarchy"For the first time presenting the heavenly forces as located along the hierarchical ladder (and transferred this idea to the priests in the treatise "On the Church Hierarchy": hierarchy as the transmission of pure light by pure mirrors). In the treatises “On Divine Names” and “Mysterious Theology”, he developed the doctrine of the Great Analogy, of the symbol, laid the foundations for the doctrine of the Unified Chain of Being. In an effort to give authority to his writings, he passed them off as the works of the Greek Dionysius, baptized by the Apostle Paul himself. This author is now called Pseudo-Dionysius.
Medieval clerical literature in Latin developed new genres: vision (narration about the journey of the soul during sleep through afterlife), life (a story about the birth of a saint, the first exploits of holiness, miracles during life and after death), a religious hymn, a message, a commentary on Holy Scripture, confession, etc. They were based on samples of texts included in the New Testament. Clerical literature is distinguished by rhetoric, didacticism, parable, exaltation.
A typical example is the “Vision of Tnugdal” written in the 12th century in Ireland in Latin. The soul of the knight Tnugdal, who did not honor God's church, during a three-day sleep makes a journey through hell, where he sees the torment of sinners, and through the Silver City, where the souls of the righteous dwell. Having received a good lesson, she returns to the body of a knight, and he becomes the most conscientious parishioner of the church. "Vision of Tnugdal" - the prototype of the "Divine Comedy" by Dante.
Carolingian Renaissance. The king of the Franks, and since 800 the emperor of the medieval Roman Empire, Charlemagne (768–814), set himself the goal of “renovatio Romani imperii” (“revival of the Roman Empire”), for which, in particular, he gathered the most educated people at his court in Aachen people of Europe and founded the Academy following the example of the ancients. The Academy was headed by the Anglo-Saxon from York Alcuin (730-804), the Visigoth from Spain Theodulf, Frank Einhard (the author of one of best biographies of the early Middle Ages - "The Life of Charlemagne"), the Lombard Paul Deacon (the creator of the "History of the Lombards"), the Archbishop of Augustodunsky Muadvin and other prominent writers. They abandoned their "barbarian" names and named themselves after the great ancient authors: Alcuin became Horace, Angilbert - Homer, Muadvin - Nason (that is, Ovid), etc. They revived ancient meters (hexameter, elegiac distich, iambic dimeter, etc. . d.), stanzas (archilochic, sapphic, alkeyev, etc.), genres of eclogue (“Winter-Spring Conversation” by Alcuin), epitaphs (“Epitaph to Sophia’s niece” by Paul Deacon), panegyric, epistle (“Albinus to Corydon” by Alcuin, “To Liutger the Cleric” by Walachfried Strabo), fables (“About the Lost Horse” by Theodulf, attributed to Paul the Deacon “The Fable of the Lion and the Fox”), etc., pagan figurativeness (Phoebus, Cupid, Bacchus, Acheron, etc.), literary characters(for example, Palemon and Daphnis from Virgil's eclogue III and VIII in Alcuin's "Spring and Winter Dictionary"), descriptiveness in the spirit of Ausonius ("To the Glory of Lake Lara" by Paul Deacon, "On Care of Gardens" by Walachfried Strabo). But the content of their works is already purely medieval: questions of the Christian faith, the fight against the Arian heresy, loyalty to Christian rulers, the lives and deeds of the saints, etc. It is no coincidence that the theme of carnal love, so characteristic of antiquity, is replaced by the theme of friendship (for example, in the message of Alcuin "Albinus to Corydon", Walachfried Strabo's message "To Liutger the Cleric"). The late representative of the Carolingian Renaissance, Walahfrid, educator of Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the Bald, reworked the prose vision written by abbot Gaito, and his "Wettin's Vision" became the first example of the medieval genre of vision, the prototype of Dante's "Divine Comedy". The very short-lived Carolingian Renaissance became the first example of "small Renaissances" in the medieval culture of Europe.
Poetry of the Vagants. In Latin, the poetry of vagantes (vagantes - lat. vagabonds), or goliards, has developed - one of the few examples of written fixation of the comic culture of the Middle Ages. Initially, the songwriters were students who moved from university to university (teaching at all universities in Europe was conducted in Latin), runaway monks, etc., but at the time of the heyday of vagant poetry (XII-XIII centuries), major figures churches. The most wonderful
Prose is around us. It is in life and in books. Prose is our everyday language.
Artistic prose is a non-rhyming narrative that does not have a size (a special form of organization of sounding speech).
A prose work is a work written without rhyme, which is its main difference from poetry. Prose works are both artistic and non-fiction, sometimes they are intertwined, as, for example, in biographies or memoirs.
How did the prose, or epic, work come about?
Prose came to the world of literature from Ancient Greece. It was there that poetry first appeared, and then prose as a term. The first prose works were myths, traditions, legends, fairy tales. These genres were defined by the Greeks as non-artistic, mundane. These were religious, everyday or historical narratives, which received the definition of "prose".
In the first place was highly artistic poetry, prose was in second place, as a kind of opposition. The situation began to change only in the second half. Prose genres began to develop and expand. Novels, short stories and short stories appeared.
In the 19th century, the prose writer pushed the poet into the background. The novel, short story became the main art forms in literature. Finally, the prose work took its rightful place.
Prose is classified by size: small and large. Consider the main artistic genres.
A work in prose of a large volume: types
A novel is a prose work that is distinguished by the length of the narrative and a complex plot that is fully developed in the work, and the novel may also have side storylines, in addition to the main one.
The novelists were Honoré de Balzac, Daniel Defoe, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Erich Maria Remarque and many others.
Examples of prose works by Russian novelists can make up a separate book-list. These are works that have become classics. For example, such as "Crime and Punishment" and "The Idiot" by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, "The Gift" and "Lolita" by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, "Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, "Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, "A Hero of Our Time" Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov and so on.
An epic is larger in volume than a novel, and describes major historical events or responds to popular issues, more often both.
The most significant and famous epics in Russian literature are "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy, " Quiet Don» Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov and «Peter the First» by Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
Prose work of a small volume: types
A novella is a short work, comparable to a short story, but rich in events. The story of the novel begins in oral folklore in parables and tales.
The novelists were Edgar Allan Poe, Herbert Wells; Guy de Maupassant and Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin also wrote short stories.
A story is a short prose work, characterized by a small number of actors, one storyline and a detailed description of the details.
Bunin and Paustovsky are rich in stories.
An essay is a prose work that is easily confused with a story. But still there are significant differences: a description of only real events, the absence of fiction, a combination of fiction and documentary literature, as a rule, affecting social problems and the presence of more descriptiveness than in the story.
Essays are portrait and historical, problematic and travel. They can also mix with each other. For example, a historical essay may also contain a portrait or problematic one.
Essays are some impressions or reasoning of the author in connection with a particular topic. It has free composition. This type of prose combines the functions of a literary essay and a journalistic article. It may also have something in common with a philosophical treatise.
Medium prose genre - short story
The story is on the border between the short story and the novel. In terms of volume, it cannot be attributed to either small or large prose works.
IN Western literature The story is called a "short novel". Unlike the novel, the story always has one storyline, but it also develops fully and fully, so it cannot be attributed to the genre of the story.
There are many examples of short stories in Russian literature. Here are just a few: “Poor Liza” by Karamzin, “The Steppe” by Chekhov, “Netochka Nezvanova” by Dostoevsky, “Uyezdnoye” by Zamyatin, “The Life of Arsenyev” by Bunin, “ Stationmaster» Pushkin.
IN foreign literature one can name, for example, Chateaubriand's René, Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, Suskind's The Tale of Monsieur Sommer.
Along with the development of poetry in Ionia, prose also originated from ancient times. Initially, documentary data about the life of city-states, laws, lists of administrative persons, names of winners in competitions were recorded. The oldest prose texts have not been preserved. In oral tradition, prose is remembered much worse than the musical-rhythmic verse of a lyric-epic work of art.
Athens at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries. BC. and many Ionian cities, like the Greek colonial cities in Italy and Sicily, experienced a period of rapid economic, cultural, scientific, and philosophical growth. Many great names have survived from the 6th century: the mathematician, musician, philosopher Pythagoras, the first dialectic philosopher Heraclitus, the philosophers Thales, Anaximander (the compiler of the first geographical map of Greece) and others. Prose fragments of their writings have been preserved.
Along with philosophical works, they began to be created in the 7th-6th centuries. BC. and the first scientific records and writings on medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and history. historical records, historical writings 6th century are often in the nature of the transfer of various legends, descriptions of foreign countries and peoples. The Greeks called prose writers, especially historians, logographs (logoz - the word and ggarho - I write). The logographer Hecateus from Miletus (born about 540 BC) compiled two treatises: "Description of the Earth" (the countries and their peoples known at that time were listed) and "Genealogies" - a historical and mythological work, which contains already a new attitude towards myths. Hecataeus calls them "ridiculous" and seeks to find their natural explanation. Very often stories are introduced into these historical records, in which the heroes are not characters of mythology, but historical figures and sometimes even ordinary people. This type of stories in antiquity did not have a special name and can be called a short story. The life of Croesus, Solon, one of the seven great sages of Greece, the life of the tyrants Polycrates of Samos, Periander of Corinth, Pisistratus of Athens provided themes for such short stories.
In the VI century. the fable also appears as a special genre - criticism of the injustices of life by a grassroots folk hero. The characters in the fable are most often animals and birds depicting the vices of people. The ancient tradition invariably traced the plots of the fable genre to fables composed by the semi-legendary Aesop, a Phrygian slave, an ugly, but wise and insightful man. Among them are the well-known "Wolf and Lamb", "Crow and Fox", "Fox and Grapes", "Ant and Cicada", "Frogs Asking for a King" and many others. The image of Aesop was formed in the VI century. According to legend, he was set free, lived at one time at the court of the Lydian king Croesus, was accused of sacrilege by the Delphic priests and thrown off a cliff by them. Collections of prosaic fables of a later time, up to the Byzantine, are also widely known under the name of Aesop's fables.
Historiography: As you know, the first written literary monuments of antiquity are poetic texts- epigrams created in the 8th century. BC. Prose inscriptions date back to the 7th century. These are office records: lists of officials, winners in competitions, lists of resolutions, contracts, and so on. However, mention should be made of the Greek written monuments of the end of the 2nd millennium BC. (Cretan-Mycenaean writing). After a long break in the 7th c. BC. official prose records reappear, but in a new alphabet. Literary prose records appear somewhat later, in the 6th century, in Ionia, the homeland of the Homeric epic. At the beginning of the VI century. Egypt began to intensively export vionia papyrus, and soon the first written compositions in prose, the need for which coincided with the discovery of cheap and convenient writing material. The origin of prose in Ionia is associated with the development of science and philosophy, which arose on the basis of rich empirical information that needed to be systematized and combined for urgent practical purposes. Therefore, from the beginning of its existence, Greek literary prose, which had high artistic merit and was intended for the widest audience, was inseparable from science, which had not yet distinguished itself from other forms of ideology. Hence the peculiar division of Greek prose, adopted by ancient philologists, into historiography, which includes works on geography, philosophy supplemented by medicine, and oratorical prose.
Demosthenes (384-322) also left a memory of himself as eminent speaker. According to his political views, the speaker is a supporter of democracy, which he associates with independence. His speeches allowed researchers to recreate many provisions of democratic theory: its understanding of the state, laws, social relations, wars. Demosthenes' devotion to the democratic system did not exclude a critical attitude towards its shortcomings. Demosthenes rather sharply points to the passivity of citizens who do not want to fight for their rights, to the growth of apoliticality, the inability and unwillingness to act quickly and decisively, the tendency to endless word disputes, that is, to everything that weakened the position of Athens and was in the hands of Macedonia. The great orator Demosthenes had hundreds of methods of addressing the audience, some of them have survived to this day. These speech techniques are so powerful that several thousand years ago they pushed the people to political upheavals in the state. To date, some of the most famous speech techniques of Demosthenes are:
· Addressing the audience directly. Demosthenes began most of his speeches with the phrase "citizens of Athens", which increased the attention of the audience.
· With question-and-answer technique, the text appears bright and rich, thereby forcing the listener to listen further.
· Demosthenes inserted several rhetorical questions into his speeches so that the audience could quickly understand what exactly was being said and what the speaker wanted to convey.
A well-inserted antithesis is of great importance in the text. Opposition has a powerful effect on a person who, on a subconscious level, compares how it was and how it became, etc.
· The biography of the speaker says that sometimes Demosthenes' speeches lasted all day, but throughout the whole time he could keep the attention of the audience. For example, combinations of such synonyms as "Listen and decide" make speech more dynamic, enliven it and direct the listener to specific actions.
· At the end of his brilliant speeches, Demosthenes often did not draw conclusions, leaving this privilege to his listeners, but it is worth saying that this technique is one of the most difficult and requires constant work.
· To keep your audience interested, try using exclamation words. The abrupt transition from monotonous speech to an exclamation is like the sensation of a sudden prick.
Use metaphors in the text for variety, but do not abuse this technique.
· Use impersonation and you will see that a huge crowd listens to you as one.
· Calls to the gods or oaths allow you to lay an invisible bridge, woven from trust from the speaker to his audience.
Oratory does not tolerate mediocrity, so before you start learning, ask yourself if you are ready to go to the very end, despite all the obstacles that will come your way.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Prose since its inception in the VI century. BC, gradually developing further, in a number of areas of literary creativity from the end of the 5th and in the 4th centuries. widely represented in Greek literature. Literary prose of the 5th-4th centuries. represented by prominent names in the field of historiography, eloquence and philosophy.
Herodotus.
The "father of history" was called the ancient Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The life and work of the famous Greek historian Herodotus took place during the years of the last victories of the Greeks over the Persians, during the years of the brilliant achievements of Athenian culture in the age of Pericles.
Herodotus - an ardent patriot of Athens - was born in 484 BC. in the Asia Minor city of Halicarnassus. He lived during the victorious growth of democratic ideas after the Greco-Persian wars. He visited Athens several times.
Herodotus died in the difficult times of the beginning of the Peloponnesian War; apparently far from his homeland - in Thurii, an Athenian colony in southern Italy (c. 426). A gravestone inscription dedicated to Herodotus has been preserved in the ancient description of the Furies:
The coffin of this remains hid Herodotus, Lixov's son. The best historian of all who wrote in Ionian, He grew up in the Dorian homeland, but, in order to avoid reproach, He made the Furies a new homeland for himself.
Herodotus traveled a lot around the Mediterranean, deeply studied Egypt, and visited southern Italy more than once. The works of Herodotus, later divided into nine books named after the Muses, not only have an important historical meaning but also of great artistic interest. The composition of Herodotus' "History" resembles an epic poem in prose. As the main theme, the heroic struggle of the Greeks with the Persians is taken; The progressive idea of the superiority of the Greeks - patriotic warriors, free citizens, well trained in military affairs - over the hordes of servile Persians driven by scourges sounds especially strong in this topic.
In the "History" of Herodotus, along with scientific observations and geographical descriptions, there are many legendary mythological tales coming from the ancient logographers - historians of the 6th century, folk tales, short stories, giving the "History" of Herodotus a literary and artistic specificity. Often the narrative when depicting famous people of antiquity (the sage Solon, King Croesus, the tyrant Polycrates and other heroes) is full of drama. At the same time, Herodotus steadily pursues the main idea - fate and the gods severely punish the "proud" person. The harsh law of the vicissitudes of life subverts human happiness. People should be wary of the envy of the gods.
In the "History" of Herodotus, the scenes of the decisive battles of the Greeks with the Persians (books VIII-IX) are vividly given. Herodotus paints a picture of the Battle of Salamis, describes the dangers and plight of the Athenians. According to the established plan of the allied strategy, they abandoned their native city, leaving for the neighboring island of Salamis.
The idea of Greek superiority military equipment and military-patriotic steadfastness brings Herodotus closer to his great predecessor - Aeschylus, the author classic tragedy"Persians". Athens in the first half of the 5th c. BC. the democratic forces of the polis received a mighty growth after a brilliant victory over the Persians in 480-479. These victories naturally had to be reflected in art, theater, poetry and prose of the great Greek people. However, in their works, neither Herodotus nor Aeschylus speak the language of blind hatred for the barbarians - the Persians, but most of all emphasize the tyrannical nature of the Persian state system itself, the despotism of Xerxes and the wisdom of Darius, who condemns his son for attacking the Hellenes.
Herodotus gives details of many facts and legends, gives an assessment of the activities of Themistocles, Mardonius, Xerxes himself and Darius. The complex and difficult situation of the struggle of the parties in Athens and the further development of democracy are clearly outlined.
The entire second book of the "History" of Herodotus is devoted to describing what he saw and heard during his journey through Egypt. Herodotus is struck by the power and beauty of the Nile; wonderful descriptions of its shores and spills.
Book II provides the richest material on the buildings of the Egyptians, on laws, customs, on embalming - expensive and cheap, on plants and animals of Egypt, on papyri and their processing, even on the customs and character of crocodiles or ibises. But most of all, in the II and I books of the "History" of Herodotus, the vast legendary material about the life of tribes and heroes and semi-mythical tales are striking. Herodotus (like Sophocles) often speaks of the severe punishment sent to the proud for arrogance, writes that "great crimes are followed by great punishments" (II, 120), draws many tragic scenes ... Sometimes the punished finds salvation. The classic example of this is Croesus, Solon and Cyrus (I, 86-89). The tale of the son of Mandana, daughter of Astyages of the Media, tells of the fate of Cyrus, who was abandoned as a child (I, 108-122) to death, but saved by a shepherd (cf. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles).
In the work of Herodotus, as well as other writers of the 5th century, some rationalistic features were affected. So, Herodotus writes: “On the genealogy of individual gods, whether they existed from the ages, and about what image this or that god has, the Hellenes learned something, so to speak, only from yesterday or the day before yesterday” (II, 53 ).
Historians highly appreciate Herodotus as the first author - a witness of the life of the ancient Black Sea region. Herodotus' Scythia is a valuable source for historical science, vividly depicting the expanses of the Black Sea region and its inhabitants. In the IV book (on Scythia) the connections of the Scythian peoples with the Greeks and Persians are indicated, many legendary and mythological tales are given about the heroes and leaders of the Scythian tribes. Comparing Borisfen (Dnepr) with the Nile, Herodotus praises the fourth Scythian river - Borisfen (IV, 53):
"This river, as I think, is not only the most generously endowed with blessings among the Scythian rivers, but also among other rivers, except for the Egyptian Nile ... Borisfen is the most profitable river: beautiful rich pastures for cattle stretch along its banks; it is found in in large quantities, the best fish; the water is pleasant to drink and transparent ... The crops along the banks of Borisfen are excellent; and where the land is not sown, tall grass spreads. A myriad of salt settles by itself at the mouth of Borysfen "(Stratanovsky).
A lot of interesting information about the life of the Scythians can be gleaned from 10-89 chapters of the IV book of Herodotus. The city of Olbia - "Happy" - an ancient colony of Miletus, a rich, well-fortified Greek policy on the high right bank of the Gipanid (Southern Bug). Scientists are of the opinion that Herodotus conducted his observations and collected data on Scythia, while most likely in Olbia.
The next famous Greek historian after Herodotus was Thucydides.
Thucydides.
"Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the wars between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, as they were fought against each other. He began his work immediately from the moment the war began, in the confidence that this war would be an important and most noteworthy war of all the previous ones" (Thucydides. " History of the Peloponnesian War", vol. I, 1, Zhelebev).
This is how Thucydides, one of the famous Greek authors of the late 5th century, begins his work. BC, historian and brilliant master of Attic prose.
He was born in Attica around 460-455, belonged to a noble and wealthy family. In the very first years of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides was elected strategist and, as a squadron commander, took part in the war with the Spartans. He failed: he did not provide timely assistance to the city of Amphipolis, taken by the Spartans. He was accused of high treason and spent about twenty years in exile.
At the end of the Peloponnesian War, according to many sources, Thucydides returned to his homeland: he died around 396. He managed to bring the history of the Peloponnesian War only to 411.
Thucydides is a sincere patriot Athenian democracy, highly appreciated Pericles, glorified the culture of Athens. The political views of Thucydides and his concept of the historical process reflect the era of Pericles with its high level of science, art and philosophy of Anaxagoras and Democritus, the era of rationalistic criticism of myths (Euripides) and the development of sophistic schools. Thucydides strove for a systematic critical examination of sources and clarification of the causality, patterns of events. Historical science considers Thucydides a model of ancient historiography.
Unlike his predecessors, Thucydides' interests lie in modernity. His review of previous periods serves the purpose of analyzing and showing the features of contemporary events of the Peloponnesian War. The following remarks by Marcellinus, one of the main biographers of Thucydides, are interesting: Nikias, nor Brasidas, men of lofty and noble thought, adorned with the glory of heroes, figures of irony and other subterfuges, as if they did not have the courage to denounce others openly, to accuse others directly, and to say whatever they wanted. devoid of figures, so that in this respect he observed the proper requirements of art.
Thucydides himself described his creative technique of artistically constructed oratory famous figures of the Peloponnesian War:
"My speeches are composed in the way, in my opinion, every speaker, always in accordance with the circumstances this moment, most likely could talk about the current state of affairs ... "(" History of the Peloponnesian War ", I, 22).
Thucydides recognized the importance of maintaining an accurate, strict chronology in history. He writes (V, 20): "It is more correct to investigate events by periods of time, without giving preference to listing the names of officials ... by which past events are indicated."
He condemned the ancient annalistic chronological system, when at the head of each year described by the historian was placed the name of the eponym, the official who gave the name to the year. Thucydides bases his story on "periods of time", summer and winter, the two main parts of the solar year.
Within the limits of dating the event according to Thucydides' summer-winter campaigns, we also find more detailed expressions:
"... In the height of summer, at the time of the ripening of bread, at the time when the bread begins to sprout ... by the rising of Arcturus ... shortly before the harvest of grapes ...", etc.
The presentation of events according to the exact chronological system was big step forward. Of all the events in the history of Greece, the Peloponnesian War is chronologically known to us better than any other. Thucydides has always strived for accuracy in the presentation and critical analysis of the material:
“As for the events that took place during the war, I did not consider it my task to write down what I learned from the first person I met, or what I could assume, but wrote down events that I myself witnessed and what I heard from others , after as accurate as possible an investigation of each fact taken separately (I, 22)."
Modern historiography rightly considers Thucydides the first scholar-historian in time and the founder of historical criticism.
Xenophon.
a) Biographical information.
Xenophon (about 430-350 BC) is a historian and philosopher who lived in the era of the decline of Athens. Athenian by birth, laconophile by political convictions, Xenophon is widely known for his "Anabasis" - the story of the return to their homeland from Persia of 10,000 Greeks, mercenaries of Cyrus the Younger.
The life of Xenophon is stormy, full of adventure. In his youth, he was a student of the Athenian philosopher Socrates, to whom he dedicated several of his best writings. In 401, Xenophon went to the service of the satrap of Asia Minor, Cyrus the Younger, who planned to overthrow his older brother, Artaxerxes, from the Persian throne. But this complex and boldly built political adventure ended tragically for the conspirators: Cyrus the Younger himself was killed, the commanders of the Greek mercenaries were treacherously destroyed.
With terrible difficulties, most of the Greek mercenaries returned to the shores of Pontus Euxinus. Xenophon later sided with Sparta against Athens; he was condemned for treason to his native city, and for many years he lived in Sparta, in the estate presented to him by the Spartans in Skillunt. When the Athenians united with Sparta to fight against Thebes, Xenophon was able to return to his homeland, but soon died, outliving his son, who died for Athens.
b) The hero in the writings of Xenophon is also ideal.
The work of Xenophon is extremely diverse. He is the author of notes about Socrates ("Memorabilia"), the first adventure-historical novel ("Anabasis"), the first romanized biography "Education of Cyrus" ("Kyropedia"), "History of Greece" of the beginning of the 4th century. BC. (after the catastrophes of the Peloponnesian War), many philosophical and political treatises. It is precisely the breadth of interests of Xenophon, who combined the observation of a historian, the philosophical sharpness of thought and the skill of an artist, that makes it possible to consider his ideal of beauty and the means by which this person is drawn by him.
Xenophon develops the classical understanding of the beautiful, identifying it with the useful and vital. Hence his assertion of the unity of physical and spiritual beauty, that is, ka-lokagatiya. The image of an ideal hero, a noble, courageous, wise, generous person, is often depicted by Xenophon in his books. These are Cyrus the Elder ("Kyropedia"), Cyrus the Younger ("Anabasis"), the Spartan king Agesilaus ("Agesilaus"). Xenophon himself acts as such an ideal hero, having comprehensively described his activities as the strategist of mercenary troops, Cyrus the Younger ("Anabasis"). The author's third-person narrative, as if gradually and completely disinterested, with a complete impression of objectivity, depicts Xenophon the Athenian, who arrived at Cyrus in Sardis at the invitation of his friend Proxenus and after questioning the Delphic oracle on the advice of Socrates.
Xenophon is here a model of modesty, so that until the third book we hardly meet his name. Even when he takes command of the army, he always remembers that he is younger than Hirisophus, and yields leadership to him (III, 2, 37). He unquestioningly goes to the most dangerous business (III, 4, 42), never mentions the superiority of Athens, deeply revering the Spartan warriors. He is deprived of greed and refuses the rich gifts of the Thracian Sevf (VII, 6, 12). A sense of duty for him - above all. Therefore, he does not leave for Athens until he himself hands over the army to the Spartan Fibron (VII, 7, 57). Always kind, he takes on the guilt of his friend (VI, 4, 14), comes to the aid of soldiers dying from cold and snow (IV, 5, 7).
Piety never betrays him, and he makes sacrifices to Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, Hercules, the Sun, the god of the river (IV, 3, 17) and even the wind (IV, 5); believes in omens, dreams and oracles (IV, 3, 8; III, 1, 11; III, 1, 5). This is an experienced strategist, who with great skill crossed mountains and rivers with an army among hostile foreigners (Book IV). At the same time, this is also a strict commander, for whom the most important thing is order (III, 1, 38) and the inspired unity of the army (VI, 3, 23).
Xenophon also acts as a skillful speaker, who owns all kinds of speeches. He either calls and inspires the soldiers (III, 1, 15-26), then exhorts allies (VII, 7, 8-48), then defends himself from the accusation of enemies (V, 7, 6-34), and always acts with impeccable logic proof. As a result of one such speech, the Thracian Sevf, who tried to deprive the soldiers of the agreed payment, gave them 1 talent of money, 600 bulls, 400 sheep, 120 slaves and hostages.
It can be said on the basis of "Anabasis" that Xenophon is in it the hero whom he himself loved both in Cyrus the Elder, and in Cyrus the Younger, and in King Agesilaus. If in the "Cyropaedia" Xenophon created the ideal of a sovereign, then in "Anabasis" he fashioned the type of an ideal leader. The portrait of a military kalokagatiya is drawn in "Anabasis" with classical clarity and certainty.
c) "Beautiful" and "good" in the aesthetics of Xenophon.
The harmonious combination of physical and inner perfection permeates all Xenophon's attitudes towards the beautiful, which is full of the reality surrounding a person.
Xenophon is attracted by beautiful things made by human hands, that is, those on which his taste, skill, artistic abilities are manifested. Xenophon admires golden cups, bowls, weapons, jewelry, clothes ("Anabasis", VI, 4, 1-9; "Cyropaedia", V, 2, 7). In "Anabasis", depicting his estate, the temple near it, the surrounding landscape (meadows, wooded mountains, orchards), Xenophon acts both as an artist and as a skilled owner. He loves everything alive, agile, flexible, beautiful and perfectly fulfilling its role, its purpose. Remarkable, for example, are descriptions of dogs, "strong in appearance", "proportionate", "light", with a "cheerful look", "cheerful disposition", "attractive for contemplation" ("Kinegetik"), and horses ("On horseback riding "). Xenophon enthusiastically draws colorful processions, festivities in the radiance of gold weapons and purple clothes ("Cyropaedia", VIII, 3, 9-16).
Thus, sensually visual and contemplatively expedient beauty comes to the fore here.
For Xenophon, the idea of life order is also important. "There is nothing in the world so useful, so beautiful as order," he writes (Ekonomik, VIII, 3). Order is not only something useful and pleasant, not only a joyful spectacle. He is a subject of admiration. Ischomachus, the hero of The Economy, tells Socrates about the "excellent and most exemplary order" on the ship (VIII, 11-16). With admiration, he draws order in a home environment, where everything has its place and a beautiful view: raincoats, bedspreads, copper utensils, tablecloths, kitchen pots. "All objects are already, perhaps, because they seem more beautiful that they are put in order" (VIII, 19-20). Here, as we see, the cosmic mind and the harmony of nature of the pre-Socratic ideal are replaced by a purely human order of life. It can be said that in the aesthetics of the pre-Socratic period "order" and "system" are the natural structure of things, while in the classical Xenophon they are established by man and consciously put into practice by him. It is also important that everything "good", "kind", "good" in Xenophon often does not have a moral meaning at all, but the one in which the beauty of a person is most manifested, in his "virtue" there are often more aesthetic motives than ethical ones. .
According to Xenophon, "those people are beautiful, by whose labors the ugly and boorish are expelled from the soul and from the body, and the craving for virtue grows" ("Kinegetik", XII, 9). Even hunting "teaches systematic work and gives rise to excellent knowledge," which means a great virtue (ibid., XII, 18). People do evil because they do not see the "body of virtue" (ibid., XII, 19-22). Better than Xenophon, it is difficult to express the classical attitude to beauty. Beauty is the body of virtue, that is, physical virtue realized. Hence the idea of the usefulness of beauty and love developed by Xenophon (Feast, VIII, 37-39), since citizens see that a person in love strives for virtue, and this virtue acquires an "increasing brilliance of glory" (ibid., VIII, 43).
Beauty and the love corresponding to it are of great objective significance. Beauty is the beginning of friendship, human unity and universal virtue (ibid., VIII, 26-27). Therefore, for Xenophon, the main value is "love for the soul, for friendship, for noble deeds" (ibid., VIII, 9-10).
Thus, we see that Xenophon, this warrior, philosopher, historian and writer, was one of the exponents of the understanding of the ideal and beautiful in objective reality, characteristic of classical Greece, in all spheres of the most seemingly ordinary life, full of order, harmony, harmony and benefit.
"Feast" Plato.
What is the author's idea? Let us briefly analyze the work before presenting its summary. Plato's "Feast" is a dialogue, the main theme of which is reasoning about love and good. According to a number of testimonies, in ancient times it had the subtitles “Speeches about love”, “On the good”, etc. It is impossible to say exactly when this work was created. It is believed that its most likely dating is 379 BC. e. Platonic philosophy, long before the creation of this dialogue, put forward the doctrine of ideas. It was quite easy for Plato to explain what the essence of material things is. It was much more difficult to formulate the idea of the human soul. The book "Feast" (Plato), the summary of which interests us, is just devoted to clarifying this issue. The philosopher believes that the idea of the human soul is in the eternal striving for goodness and beauty, in a love craving for them. Concluding the analysis of Plato's dialogue "Feast", we note that it consists of a short introduction and conclusion, as well as seven speeches of the participants in the feast, with the help of which the main idea. Plato, in the introduction to his dialogue, describes the meeting of Apollodorus with Glaucon. The latter asks Apollodorus to tell about the feast, which was given about 15 years ago in the house of the poet Agathon. At this feast, there was talk of love. Apollodorus says that he himself did not participate in it, but he can convey the dialogues that took place there, according to Aristodemus, one of the participants. Further, Apollodorus tells how Aristodemus accidentally met Socrates on the street. The philosopher went to dinner with Agathon and decided to invite him with him. Pausanias, one of those present at the feast, after it began, invited the participants to make a speech in honor of the god of love, Eros. Speech of Phaedrus In his speech, Phaedrus said that Eros, according to the assurances of Parmenides and Hesiod, is the most ancient of the deities. He doesn't even have parents. The power given by Eros is incomparable to any other. The lover will not leave the object of passion to the mercy of fate, and the beloved is noble in that he is devoted to the lover. Aristophanes speech. Meanwhile, Aristophanes' hiccups pass and he takes the floor. It is his speech that Plato (Feast) further describes. The summary of the words of the comedian comes down to the myth he composed that the people who inhabited the earth in ancient times were androgynous - both women and men. They had 4 legs and arms, 2 faces looking in opposite directions, 2 pairs of ears, etc. When such a person was in a hurry, he moved, rolling around with a wheel on 8 limbs. Since the androgynes were very strong and outraged Zeus with their excesses, he ordered Apollo to cut each of them into 2 halves. The female and male halves were scattered on the ground. However, the memory of the former connection gave rise in people to the desire to look for each other in order to restore their former fullness. Aristophanes concludes that Eros is the desire of the halves to each other in order to restore their original nature and integrity. However, this is possible only if they honor the gods, because in case of wickedness, the gods are able to cut people into even smaller pieces. Let's move on to Agathon's speech and present its summary. Plato's "Feast" is a dialogue that takes place in the house of this particular person. Speech of Agathon Speech at the feast after Aristophanes is held by the poet Agathon, the owner of the house. With poetic fervor, he praises the following properties of Eros: the flexibility of the body, tenderness, eternal youth. According to Agathon, the god of love does not tolerate any violence in the passion he evokes. Feeling rudeness in someone's soul, he forever leaves it. Eros gives courage, prudence, justice, wisdom to a person. Agathon believes that love is the most worthy of leaders. It is for him that all people should follow. Speech of Socrates The book "Feast" (Plato) is perhaps the most interesting precisely in the speech of Socrates. The words uttered by Agathon caused a stormy reaction from the audience. Socrates also praises her, but in such a way that a restrained contradiction to the poet is also caught in his speech. The philosopher ironically remarks that commendable speech is the attribution of a huge number of beautiful qualities to its object, without thinking about whether this object possesses them or not. The philosopher declares that he intends to speak only the truth about Eros. Socrates in his speech resorts to maieutics - the dialectical method that he favored. The author describes how, while conducting a dialogue with Agathon and asking him questions that are skillfully interconnected, the philosopher gradually forces the interlocutor to abandon what he has just said. Conclusion After the speech of Alcivides, a small conclusion is presented, which concludes Plato's dialogue "Feast". Its summary is not of great interest from the point of view of philosophy. It tells how the guests of the feast gradually disperse. This concludes our summary. Plato's "Feast" is a work that many philosophers turn to today.
We all studied prose at school in literature lessons, and who can now answer the question of what prose is? Maybe you remember what prose is called oral or written speech, but you probably forgot that works in prose are not divided into commensurate segments (in other words, poetry). Unlike poetry, the rhythm of prose works is the ratio of syntactic constructions (sentences, periods).
Prose originated at the time ancient literature. From the 19th century, prose began to lead in literature.
Let us explain what is related to prose. Prose is called ordinary speech, simple, not measured, without dimensions. However, there is a measured prose, similar in its sound to the old Russian songs.
Prose also has forms. So, journalistic, business, scientific, religious-preaching, memoir-confessional forms initially developed.
Short stories, novellas and novels are fiction and differ from the lyrics in their emotional restraint, intellectuality, and philosophical principles.
From the definition at the beginning of the article, it is easy to understand that prose is the opposite of poetry. But then what is a poem in prose? This text is very coherent, but without rhyme, almost always romantic content. Many poems in prose were written by I.S. Turgenev.
Prose genres
Traditionally in number literary genres related to prose include:
- Novel. A novel is a narrative work, large in volume and with a complex, developed plot.
- Tale. This is the genus epic poetry, similar to a novel that tells about some episode from life. In the story, to a lesser extent than in the novel, it tells about the life and disposition of the characters, it is shorter and more restrained.
- Novella. A novella is a small literary narrative genre. In terms of volume, it is comparable to a story, but a distinctive feature is the presence of genesis, history and structure.
- epic. An epic work, monumental in form, affecting the nation's issues.
- Story. Is a small form fiction. The volume of the text is small, since the story does not cover a large period of time and describes any specific event in a specific time period.
- Essay. This is a prose essay on any topic. The volume is small, the composition is not strictly marked. In the essay, the author expresses his individual impression and opinion on a particular issue.
- A biography is a well-known form of presenting the history of a person's life and activities.
Every literary gender is divided into genres, which are characterized by features common to a group of works. There are epic, lyrical, lyrical epic genres, genres of dramaturgy.
epic genres
Fairy tale(literary) - a work in prose or poetic form, based on folklore traditions folk tale(one storyline, fiction, depiction of the struggle between good and evil, antithesis and repetition as the leading principles of composition). For example, satirical tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.
Parable(from the Greek parabole - "located (placed) behind") - a small epic genre, a small narrative work of an instructive nature, containing moral or religious teaching, based on a broad generalization and use of allegories. Russian writers often used the parable as an interstitial episode in their works to fill the narrative. deep meaning. Let us recall the Kalmyk fairy tale told by Pugachev to Pyotr Grinev (A. Pushkin " Captain's daughter”) - in fact, this is the culmination in the disclosure of the image of Emelyan Pugachev: “Than eating carrion for three hundred years, it’s better to drink living blood once, and then what God will give!”. The plot of the parable about the resurrection of Lazarus, which Sonechka Marmeladova read to Rodion Raskolnikov, suggests to the reader the idea of a possible spiritual revival of the protagonist of the novel, F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". In M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom", the wanderer Luka tells a parable "about the righteous land" to show how dangerous the truth can be for weak and desperate people.
Fable- a small genre of epic; plot-complete, having an allegorical meaning, the fable is an illustration of a well-known worldly or moral rule. A fable differs from a parable in the completeness of the plot; a fable is characterized by unity of action, brevity of presentation, the absence of detailed characteristics and other elements of a non-narrative nature that hinder the development of the plot. Usually a fable consists of 2 parts: 1) a story about an event, specific, but easily generalizable, 2) moralizing following or preceding the story.
Feature article- a genre, the hallmark of which is "writing from nature." In the essay, the role of the plot is weakened, because fiction is irrelevant here. The author of the essay, as a rule, narrates in the first person, which allows him to include his thoughts in the text, draw comparisons and analogies - i.e. use the means of journalism and science. An example of the use of the essay genre in literature is “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev.
Novella(Italian novella - news) is a kind of story, an epic action-packed work with an unexpected denouement, characterized by brevity, a neutral style of presentation, and a lack of psychologism. Big role in the development of the action of the novel, chance plays, the intervention of fate. A typical example of a Russian short story is a cycle of stories by I.A. Bunin "Dark Alleys": the author does not psychologically draw the characters of his heroes; a whim of fate, blind chance brings them together for a while and separates them forever.
Story- an epic genre of a small volume with a small number of heroes and the short duration of the events depicted. In the center of the narrative is an image of an event or life phenomenon. In Russian classical literature recognized masters of the story were A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, I.A. Bunin, M. Gorky, A.I. Kuprin and others.
Tale- a prose genre that does not have a stable volume and occupies an intermediate position between the novel, on the one hand, and the short story and short story, on the other, gravitating towards a chronicle plot that reproduces the natural course of life. The story differs from the story and the novel in the volume of text, the number of characters and issues raised, the complexity of the conflict, etc. In the story, it is important not so much the movement of the plot as descriptions: heroes, scenes, psychological state person. For example: "The Enchanted Wanderer" by N.S. Leskov, "Steppe" by A.P. Chekhov, "Village" by I.A. Bunin. In the story, episodes often follow one after another according to the principle of a chronicle, there is no internal connection between them, or it is weakened, therefore the story is often built as a biography or autobiography: "Childhood", "Boyhood", "Youth" L.N. Tolstoy, "The Life of Arseniev" by I.A. Bunin, etc. (Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia / edited by Prof. A.P. Gorkin. - M.: Rosmen, 2006.)
Novel(French roman - a work written in one of the "living" Romance languages, and not in "dead" Latin) - an epic genre, the subject of the image in which is a certain period or whole life person; Roman what is it? - the novel is characterized by the duration of the events described, the presence of several storylines and a system of actors, which includes groups of equivalent characters (for example: main characters, secondary, episodic); this genre covers big circle life phenomena and a wide range of socially significant problems. There are different approaches to the classification of novels: 1) according to structural features(novel-parable, novel-myth, novel-dystopia, novel-journey, novel in verse, etc.); 2) on issues (family, social, social, psychological, psychological, philosophical, historical, adventurous, fantastic, sentimental, satirical, etc.); 3) according to the era in which this or that type of novel dominated (knightly, enlightenment, Victorian, Gothic, modernist, etc.). It should be noted that the exact classification of genre varieties of the novel has not yet been established. There are works whose ideological and artistic originality does not fit into the framework of any one method of classification. For example, the work of M.A. Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" contains both acute social and philosophical problems, in it the events of biblical history (in the author's interpretation) and contemporary Moscow life of the 20-30s of the XX century develop in parallel, scenes full of drama are interspersed with satirical ones. Based on these features of the work, it can be classified as a socio-philosophical satirical novel-myth.
epic novel- this is a work in which the subject of the image is not the history of private life, but the fate of the whole people or an entire social group; the plot is built on the basis of nodes - key, turning point historical events. At the same time, the fate of the people is reflected in the fate of the heroes, like in a drop of water, and, on the other hand, the picture of people's life is made up of individual destinies, private life stories. An integral part of the epic are mass scenes, thanks to which the author creates a generalized picture of the flow of people's life, the movement of history. When creating an epic, the artist is required to have the highest skill in linking episodes (scenes of private life and crowd scenes), psychological authenticity in drawing characters, historicism artistic thinking- all this makes the epic the pinnacle of literary creativity, which not every writer can climb. That is why in Russian literature only two works created in the epic genre are known: “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy, "Quiet Flows the Don" by M.A. Sholokhov. Lyric genres
Song- a small poetic lyrical genre, characterized by the simplicity of musical and verbal construction.
Elegy(Greek elegeia, elegos - a mournful song) - a poem of meditative or emotional content, dedicated to philosophical reflections caused by the contemplation of nature or deeply personal feelings about life and death, about unrequited (usually) love; the prevailing moods of the elegy are sadness, light sadness. Elegy is a favorite genre of V.A. Zhukovsky ("Sea", "Evening", "Singer", etc.).
Sonnet(Italian sonetto, from Italian sonare - to sound) - a lyrical poem of 14 lines in the form of a complex stanza. The lines of a sonnet can be arranged in two ways: two quatrains and two tercetes, or three quatrains and distich. In quatrains there can be only two rhymes, and in terzets - two or three.
The Italian (Petrarchian) sonnet consists of two quatrains with the rhyme abba abba or abab abab and two tercetes with the rhyme cdc dcd or cde cde, less often cde edc. French sonnet form: abba abba ccd eed. English (Shakespearean) - with rhyming scheme abab cdcd efef gg.
The classical sonnet presupposes a certain sequence of thought development: thesis - antithesis - synthesis - denouement. Judging by the name of this genre, particular importance is attached to the sonnet's musicality, which is achieved by alternating male and female rhymes.
European poets developed many original types of sonnets, as well as the wreath of sonnets, one of the most difficult literary forms.
Russian poets turned to the sonnet genre: A.S. Pushkin (“Sonnet”, “To the Poet”, “Madonna”, etc.), A.A. Fet (Sonnet, Appointment in the Forest), poets Silver Age(V.Ya. Bryusov, K.D. Balmont, A.A. Blok, I.A. Bunin).
Message(Greek epistole - epistole) - a poetic letter, in the time of Horace - philosophical and didactic content, later - of any nature: narrative, satirical, love, friendship, etc. A mandatory feature of the message is the presence of an appeal to a specific addressee, motives for wishes, requests. For example: “My Penates” by K.N. Batyushkov, "Pushchin", "Message to the Censor" by A.S. Pushkin and others.
Epigram(Greek epgramma - inscription) - a short satirical poem, which is a lesson, as well as a direct response to topical events, often political. For example: epigrams of A.S. Pushkin on A.A. Arakcheeva, F.V. Bulgarin, Sasha Cherny's epigram "To Bryusov's album", etc.
Oh yeah(from Greek ōdḗ, Latin ode, oda - song) - a solemn, pathetic, glorifying lyrical work dedicated to the depiction of major historical events or persons, talking about significant topics of religious and philosophical content. The ode genre was widespread in Russian literature of the 18th - early 19th centuries. in the work of M.V. Lomonosov, G.R. Derzhavin, in early work V.A. Zhukovsky, A.S. Pushkin, F.I. Tyutchev, but in the late 20s of the XIX century. other genres have come to replace the ode. Separate attempts by some authors to create an ode do not correspond to the canons of this genre (“Ode to the Revolution” by V.V. Mayakovsky and others).
lyric poem- a small poetic work in which there is no plot; author's focus inner world, intimate experiences, reflections, moods of the lyrical hero (author lyric poem and the lyrical hero are not the same person). Lyric epic genres
Ballad(Provencal ballada, from ballar - to dance; Italian - ballata) - a plot poem, that is, a story of a historical, mythical or heroic character expressed in poetic form. Usually a ballad is built on the basis of the dialogue of the characters, while the plot does not have independent value is a means of creating a certain mood, subtext. So, "Song of prophetic Oleg» A.S. Pushkin has philosophical overtones, "Borodino" M.Yu. Lermontov - socio-psychological.
Poem(Greek poiein - "create", "creation") - a large or medium-sized poetic work with a narrative or lyrical plot (for example, " Bronze Horseman» A.S. Pushkin, "Mtsyri" M.Yu. Lermontov, "The Twelve" by A.A. Blok, etc.), the system of images of the poem may include a lyrical hero (for example, "Requiem" by A.A. Akhmatova).
Poem in prose- a small lyrical work in prose form, characterized by increased emotionality, expressing subjective experiences, impressions. For example: "Russian language" I.S. Turgenev. Drama genres
Tragedy- a dramatic work, the main conflict of which is caused by exceptional circumstances and insoluble contradictions that lead the hero to death.
Drama- a play, the content of which is connected with the image of everyday life; despite the depth and seriousness, the conflict, as a rule, concerns private life and can be resolved without a tragic outcome.
Comedy- a dramatic work in which the action and characters are presented in funny forms; comedy is distinguished by the rapid development of action, the presence of complex, intricate plot moves, a happy ending and simplicity of style. There are sitcoms based on cunning intrigue, a special set of circumstances, and comedies of manners (characters), based on the ridicule of human vices and shortcomings, high comedy, everyday, satirical, etc. For example, "Woe from Wit" by A.S. Griboyedov - high comedy, "Undergrowth" by D.I. Fonvizina is satirical.
