Fairy tale: definition, functions and history of origin. What is a literary tale

What is a "Fairy Tale"? What is the correct spelling of this word. Concept and interpretation.

Story SKA?ZKA is the oldest folk genre of narrative literature, predominantly of a fantastic nature, aimed at moralizing or entertainment. In fairy tales, the character of the people, their wisdom and high moral qualities are manifested. The most common types of fairy tales are animal tales based on the personification of animals, fish, and birds, and fairy tales that tell about extraordinary events and adventures. Often, folk fantasy, as it were, predicted the appearance in reality of wonderful things subsequently invented by human genius (in Russian fairy tales, a flying carpet is an airplane, a wonderful mirror is a TV and radar). In addition to animals and magical fairytales, the people also create sociopolitical fairytales: such, for example, is the Russian folk tale of Ersh Ershovich, the son of Shchetinnikov. In world literature, the Arabic S. "A Thousand and One Nights" are widely known. The fairy-tale genre is very difficult, and therefore there are few fairy-tale writers in world literature - H. Andersen, W. Hauff, the Grimm brothers, Ch. Perro, whose fairy tales are designed primarily for children. E. T. A. Hoffman, E. Poe, and O. Wilde wrote for adults in the genre of secularism; in Russia, M. Gorky, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin (political S.), and in Soviet times, P. Bazhov. Of the poetic S., the folk S. “Fool”, the tales of A. Pushkin (“The Tale of Tsar Saltan ...”, “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel”, etc.) and the famous “Humpbacked Horse” by P. Ershov are known, where folk motives; fairy tales by V. Zhukovsky; political S. (“Rockhorse” by S. Basov-Verkhoyantsev and others).

Story- one of the main genres of oral folk poetry, epic, mainly ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Story- TALE, fairy tales, w. 1. A narrative work of oral folk art about fictitious events ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

Story- and. 1. A narrative work of oral folk art about fictitious persons and events. /... Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova

Story- TALE, one of the genres of folklore: an epic, mostly prose work about animals or ... Modern Encyclopedia

Story- TALE - one of the main genres of folklore, an epic, mostly prose work of the vol ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Story- fairy tale n., w., use. often Morphology: (no) what? fairy tales, why? fairy tale, (see) what? sk? zk ... Dmitriev's Explanatory Dictionary

Story- scarlet tale (Balmont); fragrant (Nadson); inspirational (Fofanov); magical (K.R.); thoughtful...

"In a faraway kingdom, in a faraway state ...". Probably, each of us in childhood fell asleep to the quiet voice of our parents, who read or told fairy tales about beautiful princesses, brave princes and evil monsters. And in the same way, each of us will read such fairy tales to our children. What is a fairy tale, and why is it needed?

First of all, a fairy tale is a genre of literary creativity with an attitude towards fiction. Moreover, a fairy tale can be both oral and written. The main feature of the fairy tale is that it is always a fictional story with a happy ending, where good triumphs over evil. Fairy tales are authorial (composed by a certain author) and folk (composed by many people). There is also a well-known classification of fairy tales according to their content:

• Fairy tales are magical. They reveal the best human qualities, the characters are romantic. In such a fairy tale, there is always a central positive hero, his assistants and magical objects. Heroes of fairy tales fight evil and injustice in the name of goodness and love. Examples include Russian folk tales about Ivan the Fool.
• Tales about animals. Here, the permanent characters are animals (fox, wolf, bear, hare, etc.). Animals interact, each of them personifies one or another human quality, for example, a cat is smart, a fox is cunning, a bear is strong. Examples: "Teremok", "Turnip", "Kolobok".
• Social fairy tales - illustrate real life, the characters are shown from the point of view of their social status, negative human qualities are ridiculed. The best qualities in such fairy tales are people from the people, who, as a rule, turn out to be smarter and more cunning than representatives of high social status (gentlemen, priests). These tales are satirical, full of humor and puns. Examples of social fairy tales: "Shemyakin's court", "Porridge from an ax", "The master and the carpenter", "The peasant and the priest".

How is a story different from a fairy tale?

The main difference between a tale and a fairy tale is that the tale has a narrator, and this narrator is not the author of the story. In addition, the heroes of the tale are most often real people, although many new fictional details are added to the tale.

How is a myth different from a fairy tale

A myth is a story about the life, way of life, traditions and characteristics of the people described in the myth. Myths are always associated with religion, they contain gods and demigods. In fairy tales, heroes can be ordinary people, just like you and me.

What are fairy tales for?

What is the meaning of the fairy tale? The purpose of the fairy tale is to teach children to distinguish good from bad, good from evil, ingenuity from stupidity. And I must say, the fairy tale copes with its task brilliantly.

In addition, the fairy tale helps children develop their imagination. After all, often parents tell magical stories without using pictures, which means that the child needs to imagine for himself how exactly the beautiful princess or shaggy monster looked like.

What do fairy tales teach? The fairy tale teaches not to despair in difficult times and always overcome difficulties. After all, the main character in fairy tales always takes on impossible tasks, for solving incredible mysteries.

The tale teaches how important it is for every person to have friends. And the fact that if you do not leave a friend in trouble, then he will help you in difficult times.

The fairy tale teaches not to judge people by their appearance. After all, in them any frog can easily turn out to be a beautiful girl, and a monster - an enchanted prince.

The story teaches us to obey our parents. After all, a son or daughter who performs the instructions of a father and mother in fairy tales always finds himself in a better position than their negligent brothers and sisters.

Often a fairy tale teaches patriotism. No wonder the knights so readily rush to defend their native land from foreign invaders.

And finally, the fairy tale teaches us to be smart, not to rush to solve a particular problem, to think over our decisions.

Reading fairy tales is useful not only in childhood. Growing up, we often forget that in the end, good always triumphs over evil, that any difficulties can be overcome, that a handsome prince on a white horse is already looking for his princess, and she is humbly waiting for him. So read fairy tales. Tell them to your children, come up with new stories together, accompany them with playing with dolls or drawing. After all, giving yourself and your child a little good mood before going to bed is very simple!

Previously, the word " fable". Word " story"suggests that they will find out about him, "what it is" and find out "what" she, a fairy tale, is needed for. A fairy tale with a purpose is needed for the subconscious or conscious teaching of a child in the family the rules and purpose of life, the need to protect their "area" and a worthy attitude towards other communities. It is noteworthy that both the saga and the fairy tale carry a colossal informational component, passed down from generation to generation, faith in which is based on respect for one's ancestors.

folk tale

A folk tale based on a traditional plot belongs to prose folklore (fairy tale prose). The myth, having lost its functions, has become a fairy tale. Initially, the fairy tale, separated from the myth, opposed the myth as:

1. profane - sacred . The myth is connected with the ritual, therefore the myth, at a certain time and in a certain place, reveals secret knowledge to the initiates;
2. Non-strict certainty - strict certainty . The departure of the fairy tale from the ethnographic nature of the myth led to the fact that the artistic side of the myth came to the fore in the fairy tale. The tale was "interested" in the fascination of the plot. The historicity (quasi-historicity) of the myth has become irrelevant for the fairy tale. The events of the fairy tale take place outside the geographic confinement within the framework of the fairy tale geography.

A folklore fairy tale has its own specific poetics, which was insisted on by A.I. Nikiforov and V. Ya. Propp. The texts of this genre are built using the clichés established by tradition:

1. Fairy tale formulas - rhythmic prose phrases:
   • “Once upon a time ...”, “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state ...” - fabulous initials, beginnings;
   • “Soon the fairy tale is told, but not soon the deed is done” - median formulas;
   • “And I was there, I drank honey-beer, it flowed down my mustache, but it didn’t get into my mouth”, “A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it, a lesson for good fellows”, - a fabulous ending, finale;
2. “Common places" - whole episodes wandering from text to text of different fairy tales:
   • The arrival of Ivan Tsarevich to Baba Yaga, where prose is interspersed with rhythmic passages:
     • The clichéd description of the portrait is "Baba Yaga, a bone leg";
     • Cliched formulaic questions and answers - “where are you going, the road”, “stand facing me, back to the forest”, etc .;
   • A clichéd description of the scene: “on the viburnum bridge, on the currant river”;
   • A clichéd description of actions: moving the hero on a “flying carpet”;
   • General folklore epithets: “beautiful girl”, “good fellow”.

A folklore fairy tale meets three requirements of folklore existence (general folklore features):

1. Orality.
2. Collectivity.

• antagonist (pest)
• donor
• assistant
• princess or her father
• sender
• hero
• false hero.

Propp creates the so-called. metascheme of a fairy tale, consisting of 31 functions. Meletinsky, continuing after Propp's research on the genre definition of a fairy tale, combines Propp's fairy tale functions into large structure-forming units in order to more accurately give a genre definition of a fairy tale. The scientist says that a fairy tale is characterized by such common units presented in all fairy tale texts as ελ ... EL, where Greek letters are a test of the hero of a fairy tale by a donor and a reward for the hero (Baba Yaga gives Ivan Tsarevich a magic ball for that he behaved correctly). The Latin letters, in Meletinsky's formula, denote the battle over the antagonist and the victory over him (the role of the antagonist is played in the fairy tale by Koschei Immortal, the Serpent Gorynych). Victory over the antagonist is unthinkable without the help of a magical remedy previously received from the donor. Meletinsky proposes to single out not only the genre of a fairy tale, but also to distinguish between its genre types, introducing additional units to determine the genre types of a fairy tale:

• presence / absence of an object of struggle independent of the hero (O - O)
• obtaining a marriage partner and a wonderful item (O¹ - O²)
• obtaining an object by the hero for himself or for the king, father, family, his community (S - S_)
• factor of the family nature of the main collision (F - F)
• identification of a fairy tale with a distinctly mythological coloring of the demonic world hostile to the hero (M - M).

Thanks to these units, five groups of fairy tales can be distinguished:

• 1. O 1 SˉFˉM - heroic tales, snake fighting type (AT 300-301).
     • O 2 SˉFˉM - heroic tales of the quest type (AT 550-551).
  2. OˉSFˉM - archaic tales of the "children at the cannibal" type (AT 311, 312, 314, 327).
     • O 1 SˉFM - fairy tales about family persecuted, given into the power of forest demons (AT 480, 709).
     • OˉSFMˉ - fairy tales about family persecuted without mythical elements (AT 510, 511).
  3. O 1 SFˉM - fairy tales about wonderful spouses (AT 400, 425, etc.).
     • O 2 SFˉMˉ - fairy tales about wonderful objects (AT 560, 563, 566, 569, 736).
  4. O 1 SFˉMˉ - fairy tales about wedding trials (AT 530, 570, 575, 577, 580, 610, 621, 675).
  5. O 1 SˉFˉMˉ - (AT 408, 653).
     • O 2 SˉFˉMˉ - (AT 665).

Using the above classification of types of fairy tales, one must keep in mind that many fairy tales have, so-called. the second moves (ups and downs), which is expressed in the fact that the main character of the tale briefly loses the object of his desire.

Meletinsky, singling out five groups of fairy tales, tries to solve the problem of the historical development of the genre in general, and plots in particular. The built-up scheme O - Oˉ, M - Mˉ, F - Fˉ, S - Sˉ, in many respects corresponds to the general line of development from myth to fairy tale: demythologization of the main conflict and highlighting the family principle, narrowing of collectivism, development of interest in personal destiny and compensation socially disadvantaged. All stages of this development are present in a fairy tale. The tale contains some motifs characteristic of totemic myths. The mythological origin of the universally widespread fairy tale about marriage with a wonderful “totem” creature, who temporarily shed an animal shell and assumed a human form, is quite obvious (“Husband is looking for a disappeared or kidnapped wife (wife is looking for a husband)” SUS 400, “The Frog Princess” 402, “ Scarlet flower "425 ° C, etc.). A fairy tale about visiting other worlds to free the captives who are there (“Three Underground Kingdoms” SUS 301 A, B, etc.). Popular tales about a group of children who fall into the power of an evil spirit, a monster, a cannibal and are saved thanks to the resourcefulness of one of them ("The Witch's Thumb Boy" SUS 327 B, etc.), or about the murder of a mighty snake - a chthonic demon (" The winner of the snake "SUS 300 1, etc.). In a fairy tale, a family theme is actively developed (“Cinderella” SUS 510 A, etc.). For a fairy tale, a wedding becomes a symbol of compensation for the socially disadvantaged ("Sivka-Burka" SUS 530). The socially disadvantaged hero (younger brother, stepdaughter, fool) at the beginning of the tale, endowed with all the negative characteristics from his environment, is endowed with beauty and intelligence at the end (“Humpbacked Horse” SUS 531). The distinguished group of fairy tales about wedding trials draws attention to the story of personal destinies. The novelistic theme in a fairy tale is no less interesting than the heroic one. Propp classifies the genre of fairy tale by the presence in the main test of "Battle - Victory" or by the presence of "Hard task - Solving a difficult task". The household fairy tale became a logical development of a fairy tale.

novelistic fairy tale

novelistic fairy tale(or, social and domestic) has the same composition as a fairy tale, but qualitatively different from it. The fairy tale of this genre is firmly connected with reality, there is only one, the earthly world, and the features of life are realistically transmitted, and the main character is trickster, an ordinary person from the people's environment, fighting for justice with those in power and achieving his goal with the help of ingenuity, dexterity and cunning.

anecdotal tale

anecdotal tale, distinguished by A. N. Afanasyev, differs from an anecdote in that a fairy tale is a detailed narrative of an anecdote.

fiction

Fables These are fairy tales built on nonsense. They are small in volume and often have the form of rhythmic prose. Fables are a special genre of folklore that is found among all peoples as an independent work or as part of a fairy tale, buffoon, bylichka, bylina.

Collecting fairy tales

In Europe, the first collector of fairy-tale folklore was the French poet and literary critic Charles Perrault (1628-1703), who in 1697 published the collection Tales of Mother Goose. In 1704-1717, an abridged edition of the Arabian tales "A Thousand and One" Nights prepared by Antoine Galland for King Louis XIV was published in Paris. However, the beginning of the systematic collection of fairy folklore was laid by representatives of the German mythological school in folklore, primarily members of the circle of Heidelberg romantics, the Brothers Grimm. It was after they published the collection “Home and Family German Tales” in 1812-1814, which was sold in large circulation, that writers and scientists from other European countries showed interest in their native folklore. However, the Grimm brothers had predecessors in Germany itself. For example, back in 1782-1786, the German writer Johann Karl August Muzeus (died in 1787) compiled a five-volume collection "Folk Tales of the Germans", but it was published only in 1811 by his friend the poet Wieland. In Russia, the Russian ethnographer was the initiator of collecting Russian folk tales.

People from childhood are familiar with a wide variety of literary works. Students study classic novels and poetry, master complex epic odes and personal essays. However, from childhood, almost every child is familiar with the genre, the essence of which may not be understood.

Folklore and literature

As a rule, children know a wide variety of fairy tales, but few people realize that they all belong to one of two groups. The first includes folklore tales. The peculiarity of such works is that they are created over time, by retelling the fictional story of one person to another. This is oral art, although it may be written down.

Despite the fact that a fairy tale, like various epics and legends, is folklore, it is opposed to "reliable" folklore works, as it is repelled from fiction.

The second type of this genre is a literary fairy tale. She, like folklore, refers to epic works. It also relies on folk art, but has a specific author. Such stories were not common prior to publication, and they have no plot variability.

A literary form can imitate folklore in its style of writing, and can also be a didactic work based on a folk story. In general, we can say that the folk tale is the predecessor of the literary one.

Fairy tale definition

It should be mentioned that these works are usually performed in prosaic form, often saturated with magic, and, most often, have a happy ending.

The definition appeared around the seventeenth century - it was then that the word got into written sources. The etymology of the concept was associated with the term "show", which meant a certain list or exact description. However, after this, in the period up to the nineteenth century, the "fairy tale" acquired its modern meaning, which was first carried by the word "fable".

Today, such literary works are used for two main purposes. First of all, this is entertainment that allows you to keep your child busy, prepare him for sleep and instill a desire to read. However, almost all fairy tales are based on some kind of thought and morality that the child learns in the process of reading.

Thus, fairy tales make it possible to teach kids some rules of life and the basics of relationships with other people. Fairy tales are filled with a lot of information that is passed down to people over generations thanks to the wisdom of their ancestors.

Traditional features of folklore tales

These literary works were formed in different ways. They could be based on the traditions of the people, come from myths and legends, and also come up with their own. However, most of these stories have similar features.

First of all, fairy tales are similar in some formulations and clichés. For example, everyone is familiar with such classic beginnings as "Once upon a time" and "In a certain kingdom, in a certain state."

Similar sentences may appear in the middle of the text. For example, the authors often use the phrase "Soon the fairy tale affects, but the deed is not done soon." Often, various final formulations are repeated, allowing to sum up or simply indicate the finale of the work.

In a variety of fairy tales created by different authors, similar images are periodically used, which become clichéd. For example, everyone is familiar with Ivan Tsarevich or Ivanushka the Fool, who appears in a variety of stories. Often he is accompanied by Baba Yaga, whom the authors constantly describe with the phrase "bone leg". Also in fairy tales, the same descriptive phrases are often used, such as “good fellow” or “beautiful maiden”.

Since folklore tales were created mainly by the people, they often contain similar characters and plot moves. Depending on the number of similarities, a single fairy tale can be perceived as a variation of some other.

The main types of fairy tales

As a rule, almost any fairy tale concentrates either on animals or on magic, although sometimes both of these aspects are connected.

Animal tales are called animal epic. It is not difficult to guess that their distinctive feature is that animals become the main characters. It can be both animals and fish or birds. Often a key place is given to objects or plants, and sometimes even natural phenomena become characters.

If a person is present in the animal epic, then he is either secondary, at times almost imperceptible, or (much less often) approximately equal to the animal character.

A great many animal tales are cumulative or recursive. Their essence is that certain phrases and concepts are repeated several times throughout the work. Classic examples are the tale of Repka and Teremok. Comic variants centering on the antics of animals are also widespread.

Fairy tales

This view is somewhat more complex in terms of composition. As a rule, in such tales one can clearly distinguish introduction, plot, central plot, climax and finale.

Almost always in such works two generations are clearly shown. The first, the eldest, is presented in the form of kings or old men, and the second, the youngest, in the form of Ivan and his relatives. In most cases, the beginning of the plot is associated with some kind of loss or shortage, and sometimes there is a ban and its violation. Thus, the central plot part will be connected with an attempt to return the lost or correct the trouble that occurred as a result of the violation of the ban.

Most often, as a result of such events, the main character acquires a higher social status, for example, becomes a king.

A fairy tale is one of the main types of oral folk art. Artistic narrative of a fantastic, adventure or everyday nature.

A fairy tale is a work in which the main feature is "an orientation towards revealing the truth of life with the help of conditionally poetic fiction that elevates or reduces reality."

A fairy tale is an abstract form of local lore, presented in a more concise and crystallized form: The original form of folklore tales are local lore, parapsychological stories and stories of miracles that arise as ordinary hallucinations due to the intrusion of archetypal contents from the collective unconscious.

The authors of almost all interpretations define a fairy tale as a kind of oral storytelling with fantastic fiction. The connection with myth and legends pointed out by M.-L. Von Franz takes the fairy tale beyond the limits of a simple fantasy story. A fairy tale is not only poetic fiction or fantasy play; through the content, language, plots and images, it reflects the cultural values ​​of its creator.

Since ancient times, fairy tales have been close and understandable to ordinary people. Fantasy intertwined with reality. Living in need, people dreamed of flying carpets, palaces, self-assembled tablecloths. And always in Russian fairy tales justice triumphed, and good triumphed over evil. It is no coincidence that A. S. Pushkin wrote: “What a charm these fairy tales are! Each is a poem!

Fairy tale composition:

1. Beginning. (“In a certain kingdom, in a certain state they lived, they were ...”).

2. The main part.

3. Ending. (“They began to live - to live and make good” or “They made a feast for the whole world ...”).

Any fairy tale is focused on a socio-pedagogical effect: it teaches, encourages activity and even heals. In other words, the potential of a fairy tale is much richer than its ideological and artistic significance.

The fairy tale differs from other prose genres in its more developed aesthetic side. The aesthetic beginning is manifested in the idealization of positive characters, and in the vivid image of the "fantastic world", and the romantic coloring of events.

The wisdom and value of a fairy tale is that it reflects, reveals and allows you to experience the meaning of the most important universal values ​​and life meaning in general. From the point of view of everyday meaning, the fairy tale is naive, from the point of view of life meaning, it is deep and inexhaustible.

The most important ideas, the main problems, the plot cores and, most importantly, the alignment of forces that carry out good and evil, in fact, are the same in the tales of different peoples. In this sense, any fairy tale knows no boundaries, it is for all mankind.

On this basis, a classification of types of fairy tales arises, although not quite uniform. Thus, with a problem-thematic approach, fairy tales dedicated to animals, fairy tales about unusual and supernatural events, adventure fairy tales, social and everyday life, fairy tales-jokes, shifting fairy tales and others are distinguished.

To date, the following classification of Russian folk tales has been adopted:

1. Tales about animals;

2. Fairy tales;

3. Household fairy tales.

Animal Tales

In fairy tales about animals, fish, animals, birds act, they talk to each other, declare war on each other, reconcile. Such tales are based on totemism (belief in a totem beast, the patron of the clan), which resulted in the cult of the animal. For example, the bear, which became the hero of fairy tales, according to the ideas of the ancient Slavs, could predict the future. Often he was thought of as a terrible, vindictive beast, not forgiving offenses (the fairy tale "The Bear"). The further the faith in that goes, the more confident a person becomes in his abilities, the more possible his power over the animal, the "victory" over him. This happens, for example, in the fairy tales "The Man and the Bear", "The Bear, the Dog and the Cat". Fairy tales differ significantly from beliefs about animals - in the latter, fiction associated with paganism plays a large role. The wolf in beliefs is wise and cunning, the bear is terrible. The fairy tale loses its dependence on paganism, becomes a mockery of animals. Mythology in it turns into art. The fairy tale is transformed into a kind of artistic joke - a criticism of those creatures that are meant by animals. Hence the proximity of such tales to fables ("The Fox and the Crane", "The Beasts in the Pit").

Fairy tales

Fairy tales of the magical type include magical, adventure, heroic. At the heart of such fairy tales lies a wonderful world. The wonderful world is an objective, fantastic, unlimited world. Thanks to unlimited fantasy and the wonderful principle of organizing material in fairy tales with a wonderful world of possible "transformation", striking in their speed (children grow by leaps and bounds, every day they become stronger or more beautiful). Not only the speed of the process is unreal, but also its very character (from the fairy tale "Snow Maiden". "Look, the Snow Maiden's lips turned pink, her eyes opened. Then a living girl shook off the snow and came out of a snowdrift. ""Conversion" in fairy tales of a wonderful type, usually occur with the help of magical creatures or objects.

Household fairy tales

A characteristic feature of everyday fairy tales is the reproduction of everyday life in them. The conflict of everyday fairy tales often consists in the fact that decency, honesty, nobility under the guise of rusticity and naivety oppose those personality traits that have always caused sharp rejection among the people (greed, anger, envy).