The motive in a literary work is most often understood as a part, an element of the plot. Any plot is an interweaving of motifs that are closely related to each other, growing into one another. One and the same motif can underlie a variety of plots and thus have a variety of meanings.

The strength and meaning of a motive change depending on what other motives it is adjacent to. The motive is sometimes very deeply hidden, but the deeper it lies, the more content it can carry. It sets off or complements the main, main theme of the work. The enrichment motive unites such in all other respects such different works as Father Goriot by O. de Balzac, The Queen of Spades and The Miserly Knight by A. S. Pushkin and Dead Souls by N. V. Gogol. The motive of imposture unites “Boris Godunov”, “The Young Lady-Peasant Woman” and “The Stone Guest” by A. S. Pushkin with Gogol’s “Inspector General” ... And yet the motive is not indifferent to the environment of its existence: for example, beloved by the romantics (although not created by them ) the motives of flight from captivity, death in a foreign land, loneliness in the crowd, appearing in a realistic work, retain a glimpse and taste of romanticism for a long time, giving additional depth to their new abode, creating, as it were, niches in which one can hear the echo of the former sound of these motives. It is not for nothing that for most people the word "motive" means a melody, a melody - it retains something of this meaning as a literary term. In poetry, almost any word can become a motif; in the lyrics, the word-motive is always shrouded in a cloud of former meanings and uses, around it the halo of former meanings “shines”.

The motive, according to the definition of A. N. Veselovsky, is the “nerve node” of the narrative (including the lyrical one). Touching such a node causes an explosion of aesthetic emotions, which is necessary for the artist, sets in motion a chain of associations that help the correct perception of the work, enriching it. Having discovered, for example, that the motive of escape from captivity permeates all Russian literature (from The Tale of Igor's Campaign to Mtsyri by M. Yu. Lermontov, from A. S. Pushkin's Prisoner of the Caucasus to A. N. Tolstoy and “The Fate of a Man” by M. A. Sholokhov), being filled with various content, acquiring various details, appearing either in the center or on the outskirts of the narrative, we will be able to better understand and feel this motive if we meet it again and again in modern prose . The wish-fulfillment motif, which has entered fairy tale literature, underlies almost all science fiction, but its significance is not limited to this. It can be found in such distant works as "Little Tsakhes" by E. T. A. Hoffmann, "The Overcoat" by N. V. Gogol, "The Twelve Chairs" by I. A. Ilf and E. P. Petrov, “The Master and Margarita” by M. A. Bulgakov - the list is almost endless, up to the novel by V. A. Kaverin, which is also called “Fulfillment of Desires”.

The motive, as a rule, exists immediately with two signs, in two guises, implies the existence of an antonymous motive: the motive of impatience (for example, the novel by Yu. that motifs will coexist in one piece. What is important for the development of literature is precisely the fact that motifs seem to overlap with each other not only within one plot (and not even so much), one work, but also across the boundaries of books and even literatures. Therefore, by the way, it is possible and fruitful to study not only the system of motives belonging to one artist, but also the general network of motives used in the literature of a certain time, a certain direction, in one or another national literature.

Understood as an element of the plot, the motif borders on the notion of a theme.

The understanding of the motive as a plot unit in literary criticism coexists and opposes the understanding of it as a kind of clot of feelings, ideas, ideas, even ways of expression. Understood in this way, the motive is already approaching the image and can develop in this direction and develop into an image. This process can take place in one, sometimes very small work, as, for example, in Lermontov's "Sail". The motif of a lonely sail (borrowed by M. Yu. Lermontov from A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky and having a long tradition), combined with the motifs of a storm, space, flight, gives rise to an integral and organic image of a rebellious lonely soul, an image so rich in the possibilities of artistic influence, that its development and enrichment allowed Lermontov not only to base all his lyrics on it, but also to transform it into the images of the Demon, Arbenin and Pechorin. Pushkin treated motifs differently: he knew how to combine the most prosaic, impassive, almost meaningless and empty of long-used motifs to give them a fresh and universal meaning and create living and eternal images. In Pushkin, all motives remember their former existence. With them, the new work includes not just a tradition, but also a genre, starting to live a new life. This is how the ballad, elegy, epigram, ode, idyll, letter, song, fairy tale, fable, short story, epitaph, madrigal and many other half-forgotten and forgotten genres and genre formations live in Eugene Onegin.

The motive is two-faced, it is both a representative of tradition and a sign of novelty. But the motive is just as dual within itself: it is not an indecomposable unit, it is, as a rule, formed by two opposing forces, it presupposes conflict within itself, transforming itself into action. The life of a motive is not endless (motives fizzle out), straightforward and primitive exploitation of a motive can devalue it. This happened, for example, with the motif of the struggle between the old and the new in the so-called "industrial" prose of the 1950s. 20th century After many novels and short stories appeared that used this motif, for a long time any manifestation of it served as a sign of literary poor quality. It took time and extraordinary efforts of talented writers for this motif to regain the rights of citizenship in our literature. Sometimes motives come to life quite unexpectedly. For example, the romantic motif of loneliness in the crowd, the motif of a stranger was successfully resurrected in the story "Scarecrow" by V.K. Zheleznikov, which became especially famous after its adaptation by R.A. Bykov. Motive is a category that allows us to consider literature as a single book, as a whole - through the particular, as an organism - through the cell. The history of motives - their origin, development, extinction and new flowering - can be the subject of a fascinating literary study.

THE CONCEPT OF MOTIVE AND ITS INTERPRETATION IN THE THEORY OF LITERATURE AND MUSIC

S. G. SHALYGINA

The article is devoted to the consideration of the concept of motive and its interpretation in the theory of literature in comparison with the art of music. The main approaches to the study of this concept in the context of the studies of leading literary theorists are considered, the way of understanding this concept in the practice of scientific theoretical thought is traced.

Key words: motive, motive theory, motive structure, level of motive realization.

Music and literature are areas of art, perhaps the most mutually enriching and complementary. Literature and music are song, opera, theater, cinema. A musical work can be conditionally compared with a literary work. Each work has a certain idea, idea and content, which become clear with a gradual presentation. In a piece of music, the content is presented in a continuous stream of sounds. A work of musical art is attributed with such concepts as syntax, period, sentence, caesura, drama, lyrics, epic. Just as in fiction a thought is expressed by sentences consisting of individual words, so in melody sentences are divided into smaller structures - phrases and motifs.

A motive in music is the smallest part of a melody that has a certain expressive meaning and can be recognized when it appears. There is usually one accent in a motive (like one stress in a word), so the most typical length of a motive is one bar. Depending on the tempo, rhythm, indivisible two-bar motifs can form.

By analogy with the name of poetic stops, motifs have names - iambic and trochee. Iambic - a motif that begins with a weak beat of the bar. A characteristic feature of iambic is the desire for a subsequent strong share. Iambic motifs have a strong ending and sound active and energetic.

Chorey - a motive that begins with a strong beat of the measure. A characteristic feature of chorea is the transition from a strong beat to a weak one. Choreic motifs have a weak ending and sound softer, lyrical.

This notion, one of the key concepts in musicology, has a responsible place in the science of literature. It is present in almost all

modern European languages, goes back to the Latin verb "moveo" (move) and in modern science has a very wide range of meanings.

The leading meaning of this literary term is difficult to define. In the works of V. E. Khalizev, one can find the following definition of the concept we are analyzing: “Motive is a component of works that has increased significance (semantic richness). He is actively involved in the theme and concept (idea) of the work, but he is not identical with them. According to the scientist, the motive is somehow localized in the work, but at the same time it is present in a variety of forms. It can denote a single word or phrase, repeated and varied, or appear as something denoted by various lexical units; act as a title or epigraph, or remain only guessed, gone into subtext. Focusing on the foregoing, the researcher summarizes: “It is legitimate to assert that the sphere of motives is made up of the links of the work, marked with internal, invisible italics, which should be felt and recognized by a sensitive reader and literary analyst. The most important feature of the motive is its ability to be half-realized in the text, incompletely revealed in it, mysterious.

Since the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, the term "motive" has been widely used in the study of plots, especially historically early ones, folklore. So

A. N. Veselovsky, in his unfinished Poetics of Plots, wrote about the motive as the simplest, indivisible unit of narration: important or recurring impressions

reality”. Veselovsky presents the main feature of motives as "figurative one-term schematism". Such, the scientist cites as examples of motives, are the abduction of the sun or a beauty, water dried up in a source, the extermination of an evil old beauty, etc. Such motives, according to the scientist, could have arisen independently in heterogeneous environments; their homogeneity or their similarity cannot be explained by borrowing; it is explained by the homogeneity of living conditions and the mental processes deposited in them. The motive in the works of Veselovsky grows into a plot, thus being the fundamental principle of the story. Motives, according to Veselovsky, are historically stable and infinitely repeatable. In the form of an assumption, the scientist argued: “... is poetic creativity limited to certain certain formulas, stable motives, which one generation received from the previous one, and this from the third<...>? Doesn’t each new poetic epoch work on images long since bequeathed, necessarily revolving within their boundaries, allowing itself only new combinations of old ones and only filling them<.>new understanding of life<...>?» .

The concept of motive, developed by A. N. Veselovsky in The Poetics of Plots, was categorically criticized by V. Ya. Propp in Morphology of a Fairy Tale. However, at the same time, the researcher replaced the criterion of the indecomposability of the motive, so he criticized the concept of motive in such an interpretation, which never existed in the works of A. N. Veselovsky.

If for A. N. Veselovsky the criterion of the indecomposability of a motive is its “figurative one-term schematism” (the motive is indivisible from the point of view of its “imagery” as an integral and aesthetically significant semantics), then for V. Ya. Propp such a criterion is a logical relation.

The author himself reasoned: “Those motives that he (A. N. Veselovsky) cites as examples are laid out. If a motive is something logically whole, then every phrase of a fairy tale gives a motive. It wouldn't be so bad at all if motives didn't really decay. This would make it possible to compile an index of motives. But let's take the motive "the snake kidnaps the king's daughter" (an example not of Veselovsky). This motif is decomposed into 4 elements, of which each individually can vary.<... >Thus, contrary to Veselovsky, we must assert that the motive is not monomial, not indecomposable. The last decomposable unit, as such, is not a logical whole.

Thus, the change of the semantic criterion to the logical one in the criticism of V. Ya. Propp led to the destruction of the motive as a whole.

However, having subjected the concept of motive to criticism from the standpoint of the logical criterion of indecomposability,

V. Ya. Propp in his “Morphology of a Fairy Tale” completely abandoned this concept and introduced into circulation a fundamentally different, in his opinion, unit of narrative - “the function of the actor”: “The very method of implementing functions can change: it is a variable value.<...>But a function, as such, is a constant value.<...>The functions of the actors are those components that can replace Veselovsky's "motives".

The concept of the function of the actor introduced by the scientist not only did not replace, but significantly deepened the concept of motive, and precisely in the semantic interpretation of the latter. From the point of view of the semantics of the motive and the plot as a whole, the function is nothing more than one of the semantic components of the motive. In essence, the function of the actor is a generalized meaning of the motive, taken in abstraction from the multitude of its plot variants. In this regard, V. Ya. Propp theoretically consistently carried out the operation of generalizing motives.

I. V. Silantiev noted on this occasion that “a function is a general seme, or a set of general semes, occupying a central and invariant position in the structure of the variable meaning of a motive. Therefore, the function as a key component of the motive, as its semantic invariant, cannot replace the motive, just as a part cannot replace the whole.

That is why the opinions of modern scientists on the relationship between motive and function are not in favor of the categorical view of V. Ya. Propp.

B. I. Yarkho in the “Methodology of Exact Literary Criticism”, written in the 1930s, defines the motive as “an image in action (or in a state)”, which, at first glance, gives some reason to see in the scientist’s thought following the interpretation of the motive as a "figurative unit" according to A. N. Veselovsky. However, the remarks following this definition delimit the views of B. I. Yarkho and A. N. Veselovsky.

First, the researcher denies the motif the status of a narrative unit. “Motive,” writes B.I. Yarkho, - ... there is a certain division of the plot, the boundaries of which are determined by the researcher arbitrarily. Secondly, the scientist denies the motive a semantic status.

The result of the statements of B. I. Yarkho is the denial of the real literary existence of the motive. The researcher talks about the motive within the framework of the concept

tiy construct that helps the literary critic to establish the degree of similarity of various plots.

It should be noted that A. L. Bem comes to a similar conclusion, although from the side of the semantic approach. Having discovered an invariant beginning in the structure of the motive, the scientist reduces the semantic whole of the motive to this invariant, and refers the variant semantics of the motive to the plan of the specific content of the work and, on this basis, denies the motive the reality of literary existence: “motives are fictions obtained as a result of abstraction from the specific content » .

Thus, B. I. Yarkho and A. L. Bem, each from their own position, do not accept the principle of the dual nature of the motive, which is becoming clear in other works, as a unit of artistic language, endowed with a generalized meaning, and as a unit of artistic speech, endowed with specific semantics.

A. I. Beletsky in the monograph “In the Studio of the Artist of the Word” (1923) also comes to the problem of the correlation between the invariant meaning of the motive and the multiplicity of its specific plot variants. At the same time, the scientist does not deny the motive its own literary status (as A. L. Bem and B. I. Yarkho do) and does not reject the very concept of motive (as V. Ya. Propp does), but makes an attempt to solve the problem of motive variability in a constructive way.

The scientist distinguishes two levels of realization of the motive in the plot narrative - "schematic motive" and "real motive". "Real motive" is an element of the plot-event composition of the plot of a particular work. The "schematic motif" no longer refers to the plot itself in its concrete plot form, but to the invariant "plot scheme". This scheme is, according to A. I. Beletsky, “action-relationships”.

Illustrating his thought, A. I. Beletsky obviously relies on the observations of A. L. Bem and cites the following pair of real and schematic motives: Russian prisoner"; in a schematic form: "a foreigner loves a prisoner".

The foregoing suggests that the ideas of A. L. Bem, despite his negative position regarding the literary status of the motive, objectively contributed to the development of precisely dichotomous ideas, because the scientist was the first to come to the identification of a motivic invariant - that very “schematic motive”, the concept of which was somewhat later formulated by A. I. Beletsky.

The need to distinguish between the concept of motive in the structural and plot-classification plans was emphasized in his works by A. Dundes. Acting as a direct successor of Propp in the study of fairy tales, A. Dundes addresses the problem of motive and proposes to solve it on the basis of two fundamentally different approaches - emic and ethical. He presents the first approach as unambiguously contextual, structural. "Emic units" - "points of the system" - do not exist in isolation, but as parts of a "functioning component system". They are not invented by the researcher, but exist in objective reality. Dundes offers two emic levels: motifema and allomotive. The concept of motifema corresponds to the function of J. Propp, but it is terminologically connected with the lower level. An allomotive is a concrete textual realization of a motive.

The concept of "motive", according to Dundes, has no emic meaning, it is a purely classificatory category that allows the researcher to operate with classes and units of material and is convenient for comparative analysis.

Dundes' ideas are partly developed by L. Parpulova, but with the difference that both emic and ethical approaches are equally important for her. Following Dundes, she leaves the terms “motifema” and “allomotive” with structural meanings, and at the ethical level offers the following gradation: 1) the theme of the motive corresponding to the motive; 2) the motive itself, expressed in a predicative form; 3) a variant of the motive corresponding to the allomotive, i.e., a statement of the specific implementation of the motive in this text; 4) episode, i.e. the actual fragment of the text in its real form.

B. N. Putilov, continuing the theory of motive, in his work “Motive as a plot-forming element” defines motive as “one of the components of an epic plot, an element of an epic plot system” . “The motive,” the scientist writes, “functions as part of the system, here it finds its definite place, here its specific content is fully revealed. Together with other motives, this motive creates a system. Any motive in a certain way correlates with the whole (plot) and at the same time with other motives, that is, with parts of this whole.

However, B. N. Putilov puts his arguments in opposition to Dundes's statements about the role of motive as a purely classificatory category. According to the former, a motif as an invariant scheme that generalizes the essence of a number of allomotives can only partly be regarded as an “invention” of a researcher. The motive acts as an element that objectively existed and was “discovered” by the researcher, which

is proved both by the presence in the motives of their own stable semantics, and by the existence of undoubted connections between the motives and the facts of ethnographic reality. In this regard, Putilov writes about the possibility of asserting that it is the motives that are directly related to archaic ideas, institutions, while the allomotives act as their later transformations.

He, like A. N. Veselovsky, speaks about the motive primarily in the context of the plot, developing the idea of ​​the driving, dynamic role of the motive. Of no small importance are Putilov’s statements regarding the method of implementing the motive in the work (in some way consonant with Khalizev’s thoughts), which present the concept we are considering as an element of three levels: lexical, syntactic and the level associated with the forms of “the consciousness of the collective that creates and stores the epic” . In other words, the motive can be a single word or a combination of words, it can manifest itself in a sentence, or it can be realized in the spiritual and moral sphere, which performs the function of a kind of cultural code of the nation. However, semantic richness is revealed only when considering the motive at all the above-mentioned levels.

To clarify the concept of plot and plot, B. V. Tomashevsky introduces several auxiliary concepts, among which he singles out the theme and motive. Moreover, in the final definition, he somewhat synthesizes the last two concepts. He writes: “The theme of the indecomposable part of a work is called a motive. In essence, every sentence has its own motive. Making a reservation, the scientist draws attention to the fact that the term "motive", used in historical poetics - in the comparative study of wandering plots (for example, in the study of fairy tales), differs significantly from the one he himself introduces, although it is usually defined in the same way. These motifs are entirely transferred from one plot structure to another. In comparative poetics it does not matter whether they can be decomposed into smaller motifs. “The only important thing,” the researcher emphasizes, “is that within the genre under study, these “motives” are always found in a holistic form. Consequently, instead of the word "indecomposable" in a comparative study, one can speak of the historically indecomposable, of preserving its unity in wandering from work to work. However, many motifs of comparative poetics retain their significance precisely as motifs in theoretical poetics.

According to Tomashevsky, motifs, combined with each other, form a thematic connection

Denia. From this point of view, the plot is the totality of motives in their logical causal and temporal connection, the plot is the totality of the same motives in the same sequence and connection as they are given in the work. For the plot, it does not matter in which part of the work the reader learns about the event. In the plot, it is precisely the introduction of motives into the field of the reader's attention that plays a role. According to the statements of Tomashevsky, only related motives matter for the plot. In the plot, sometimes it is free motives that play the dominant role that determines the construction of the work. These "lateral" motifs are introduced for the purpose of artistic construction of the story and carry a wide variety of functions. The introduction of such motifs is largely determined by literary tradition, and each school has its own list of motifs, while related motifs occur in the same form in a wide variety of schools.

In the article by A.P. Skaftymov “The Thematic Composition of the Novel The Idiot” (first published in 1924; republished in 1972), a system of figurative and psychological analysis of the narrative work is deployed. This analysis is based on the author's model of the composition of the work, which is built in the direction of the character - episode - motive.

A. P. Skaftymov writes: “In the question of the analytical division of the whole [literary work] under study, we were guided by those natural knots around which its constituent thematic complexes united.<...>The protagonists of the novel seem to us to be such major major links of the whole. The internal division of integral images took place according to the categories of the most isolated and distinguished episodes in the novel, then ascending to smaller indivisible thematic units, which we denoted in the presentation by the term "thematic motif".

The model of A.P. Skaftymov implicitly includes, along with the system of heroes, another “upper” level that interacts with the level of “characters” - the plot of the work. The researcher reveals the hero as a whole not in this or that episode, but in the plot as a semantic generalization of the system of episodes. We consider it necessary to give several examples of motives that A.P. Skaftymov defines in the analysis of the novel. In relation to Nastasya Filippovna, the motive of consciousness of guilt and insufficiency, the motive of the thirst for the ideal and forgiveness, the motive of pride and the motive of self-justification are distinguished. In relation to Hippolytus - the motive of envious pride, the motive of enticing love. With regard to Rogozhin - the motive of selfishness in love. Applied

to Aglaya - "the motive of childishness informs Aglaya of freshness, immediacy and a kind of innocence even in malicious outbursts." In relation to Ganya Ivolgin: "the motive of" inability to surrender to the impulse ".

A. P. Skaftymov’s motive is thematic and at the same time integral and indivisible as a fundamental moment of the psychological whole in the subject matter of the work - the actual “actor” in the terminology of the scientist. So, the motives of pride and self-justification form in the image of Nastasya Filippovna "the theme of combining pride and a tendency to self-justification". Elsewhere, "the construction of the image of Nastasya Filipovna is entirely determined by the themes of pride and moral purity and sensitivity."

However, the interpretation of the concept of motive, which is positioned by Skaftymov, seems to us not completely understandable and logically blurred.

In our opinion, the synthesis of such basic concepts in literary criticism as the theme of a work and the motive of a work requires a fairly strong argumentation. The scientist, presenting various types of motifs that he discovered in the novel of one of the classics of world literature, nominates pride both as a theme of the work and as a motif, without outlining the circle of differences between these concepts. The rather frequent use of the word "motive" in the works of Skaftymov not only does not provide practical confirmation of its definition due to the loading of the word "semantic", but also produces the question of the relevance and persuasiveness of the concept introduced by the scientist.

One of the most important characteristics of the motive L. E. Khvorova calls its properties of mobility (recall the Latin translation of the term). In her opinion, it is important as “a moving, passing (from plot to plot throughout a single artistic whole literary space) a formal-semantic core (a kind of macrostructure), which is a cluster of properties of a different order, including spiritual and value axiological properties. A motif can carry object-subjective information, and may have the meaning of a sign or action ".

Over the past decades, motives have been actively correlated with individual creative experience, considered as the property of individual writers and works.

I would like to note that the term "motive" is used in a different sense. Thus, the themes and problems of the writer's work are often called motives (for example, the moral revival of man, the alogism of the existence of people).

In modern literary criticism, there is also the idea of ​​a motive as an extrastructural

chale - as a property not of the text and its creator, but of the unrestricted thought of the perceiver of the work.

However, no matter what semantic tones are attached to the word “motive” in literary criticism, the unconditional significance and true relevance of this term, which captures the real (objectively) existing facet of literary works, remain self-evident.

Literature

1. Beletsky A. I. In the workshop of the artist of the word // Beletsky A. I. Selected works on the theory of literature. M., 1964.

2. Bem A. To the understanding of historical and literary concepts // Izvestiya otdeliya russkoi yazyka i literature. AN. 1918. T. 23. Book. 1. St. Petersburg, 1919.

3. Veselovsky A. N. Poetics of plots. Introduction and Ch. I. // Veselovsky A. N. Historical poetics. L., 1940.

4. Popova I. M., Khvorova L. E. Problems of modern literature. Tambov, 2004.

5. Propp V. Ya. Morphology of a fairy tale. M., 1969.

6. Putilov B. N. Motive as a plot-forming element // Typological research on folklore: Sat. Art. in memory of V. Ya. Propp. M., 1975.

7. Silantiev I. V. The theory of motive in domestic literary criticism and folklore: an essay on historiography. M., 1999.

8. Skaftymov A.P. Thematic composition of the novel "The Idiot" // Skaftymov A.P. Articles on Russian literature. Saratov., 1958.

9. Tomashevsky B. V. Theory of Literature. Poetics. M., 1927.

10. Khalizev V. E. Theory of Literature. M., 2002.

11. Yarkho B. I. Methodology of exact literary criticism (outline of the plan) // Context. M., 1983.

12. Dandes A. From etic to emic untis in the structural study of Folktales // Journal of American Folklore. 1962 Vol. 75.

THE CONCEPT "MOTIVE" AND ITS INTERPRETATION IN THE THEORY OF LITERATURE AND MUSIC

The article is dedicated to the concept of motive and its interpretation in the theory of the literature in relation to musical art. The basic approaches to the study of this concept in the context of the research of the leading theorists of literature, traced the path of understanding of the concepts in the practice of scientific theoretical thought are considered.

Key words: motive, theory of motive, structure of motive, level of implementation of the motive.

IN In any culture, a rose is a complex and ambiguous symbol. There is a fairy tale in German literature called "Dornröschen". "Dornröschen" consists of two words: der Dorn (thorn) and die Röschen (rose), that is, "rose in thorns." The Russian name "Sleeping Beauty" refers to the main plot, to the main character, but "Dornröschen" resembles another part of the fairy tale - the story of a sorceress who was not invited to the christening. She wanted to be remembered, to be loved, but she was forgotten. And the tip of the spindle, like the thorn of a rose, became an instrument of retribution and fate. If it were not for him, the beauty would not have fallen asleep in a deathly sleep, but she would not have awakened from the death-conquering love of the prince, who made his way to her through the thorny thickets of roses.

IN one flower combines the meanings of love and death, gift-curse and gift-

And in Goethe's poem, we have before us not just a thorny flower that injured a rude boy, but a magical rose that wants to wake someone else's soul with a sharp impulse of love, pain and death.

Read the tale by V.A. Zhukovsky "Sleeping Beauty". Find in it the features of the lyrical plot of two poems by Goethe - "Found" and "Wild Rose".

Motif in a work of art

A motif is a stable formal-meaningful component of a literary text. Any semantic “spot” can act as a motive - an event, a character trait, an element of the landscape, any object, a spoken word, paint, sound, etc.

Let us analyze the motive of the road in the poem by A.S. Pushkin "Winter Road".

Through the wavy mists the moon makes its way, into the sad glades

She pours a sad light.

Along the winter road, boring Troika greyhound runs, The monotonous bell Tiringly rattles.

Something native is heard In the coachman's long songs: That daring revelry, That heartfelt anguish ...

No fire, no black hut...

Wilderness and snow... Meet me Only miles striped Come across alone.

It's boring, sad... Tomorrow, Nina, Tomorrow, returning to my dear, I'll forget myself by the fireplace, I'll look without looking enough.

Loudly the hour hand Will make its measured circle, And, removing the annoying ones, Midnight will not separate us.

It's sad, Nina: my path is boring, My coachman fell silent, The bell is monotonous, The moon's face is foggy.

- How does the motive of the road appear in Pushkin's poem "(Already by the title, we can say that the text will have a motive of the road. Pushkin describes a dull winter road. It is sad because it is empty ("No fire, no black hut"), lonely Lyrically, the hero also goes to his beloved along a boring winter road.)

- What images emphasize the despondency that accompanies the hero on his journey? (In-

sad light she is"; secondly, the sound of the bell: it "rattles tiresomely"; thirdly, the coachman's long song, in which one hears "reckless revelry"; fourthly, it is boring for the lyrical hero to travel alone, without Nina.)

- How long do you think the lyrical hero is forced to travel? (For a long time. Pushkin repeatedly emphasizes the length of the path: the “three greyhounds” are running, which means that the horses are frisky, but they still have a long time to run. In addition, the hero is tired of the sound of the bell: he probably has to listen to it for a long time. The driver sings different songs: reckless , dreary. Miles flash past - this also emphasizes the length of the road. The hero overcomes many miles. In the finale, the coachman falls silent and falls into a slumber, and the road does not end.)

- What thoughts flash through the head of the lyrical hero during the journey? (First, the hero looks around - at the snowy glades, at the moon, listens to the ringing of the bell and the coachman's songs, counts miles. Then he remembers his beloved, to whom he returns, and imagines how they will sit together next day by the fireplace.)

Does the motif of the road somehow affect the composition of the poem? (Probably, the motive of the road determines the composition of the text. It is linear, that is, built as if in a straight line. The road moves forward, one picture replaces another: the moon, three horses, a singing coachman, striped miles.)

- What violates the linear composition of the text? (The straightness of the road seems to be torn apart by the memory of the lyrical hero about Nina, dreams of tomorrow evening by the fireplace.)

Pushkin builds his text through the motive of the road, and from this the composition seems to “straighten” and “stretch”, but at the same time it acquires volume due to the thoughts of the lyrical hero about his beloved: he thinks about the future, but, most likely, already imagines familiar, past picture. So the motive of the road is woven into the poetic fabric and affects the plot and composition of the text.

Assignment for independent work

Find A.S. Pushkin's poems, where there is a motive of the road. What role does he play?

Motive in music and in the visual arts. The motif of the road in the painting by M. Gobbema "Alley in Middelharnis"

IN In music, the motive is called the smallest, relatively independent, part of the form, equal to one metric measure. The development of musical composition is carried out through multiple repetitions and transformations of the original motive. From individual motives leitmotif - a repetitive musical phrase, harmonic turnover, melody.

The motive expresses the content of the composition through one part and is a component

as part of an artistic whole. In architecture, arch 17 is the theme, and the repeating row of arches - the arcade - is the motif of the architectural composition of a certain style. The motif is a fairly independent and complete composition, but from the combination and interaction of different motifs, new motifs and themes appear: for example, the zigzag 18 gives rise to the wave motif.

IN naturalistic painting concepts of motive in nature and in art are the same. The motive is called the view of the area from a certain point of view, part of the landscape.

Consider and analyze the motif of the road in the picture Meindert Gobbema 19 "The Alley in Middelharnis", one of the most famous works of the Dutch artist of the 17th century. Probably, the picture was painted by order of the Middelharnis city council, which shortly before this ordered to improve this road. For the first time, the road became the subject of the picture in itself.

- See how the line of the road is shown in the picture. (The road starts in the foreground and takes the eye into the distance.)

- Describe what the road looks like, what details the artist highlighted when drawing this

17 Arch - 1. An arched ceiling of an opening in a wall or a span between two supports. 2. Construction in the form of a large gate of this form.

18 Zigzag is a broken line.

19 Meindert Gobbema - landscape painter, in whose paintings one can feel the ability to admire the sophistication of the lines and colors of nature.

M. Gobbema "Alley in Middelharnis"

trees. People are walking along the road: a figure of a man with a dog is closer to the foreground of the picture and several figures in the distance. Ruts are visible on the ground, apparently from a passing wagon or carriage.)

- What other images can be distinguished in the picture? (On the right are even rows of young trees and seedlings: a peasant works there. A little further, rural houses are depicted, next to which a man and a woman stand. On the left, the greenery of the grove protrudes,

A in the distance, the bell tower attracts the eye.)

- What images create a vertical in the picture? (First of all, the vertical is emphasized by the trees planted along the road. They stretch upwards. The sky is not pure blue, it is covered with light clouds. The combination of a low horizon and trunks reaching for the sky creates a special space that develops not only deep, but also up. In addition , several birds are flying in the sky to the left: they seem to be points in space, but they sharpen the vertical.)

- What color in the picture accompanies the motif of the road? (The road at Gobbema is yellow-

Motive is a term that has entered the literature from musicology. It was first recorded in the "musical dictionary" by S. de Brossard in 1703. Analogies with music, where this term is key in the analysis of the composition of a work, help to understand the properties of a motive in a literary work: its isolation from the whole and its repetition in a variety of situations.

In literary criticism, the concept of motive was used to characterize the components of the plot by Goethe and Schiller. They singled out motives of five types: accelerating action, slowing down action, moving action away from the goal, facing the past, anticipating the future.

The concept of motive as the simplest narrative unit was first theoretically substantiated in the Poetics of Plots. Veselovsky. He was interested in the repetition of motifs in different genres among different peoples. Veselovsky considered motives to be the simplest formulas that could originate among different tribes independently of each other. a different plot (in a fairy tale there is not one task, but five, etc.)

Subsequently, combinations of motifs were transformed into various compositions and became the basis of such genres as the novel, story, and poem. The motive itself, according to Veselovsky, remained stable and indecomposable; combinations of motives make up the plot. The plot could be borrowed, passed from people to people, become vagrant. In the plot, each motif can be primary, secondary, episodic. Many motifs can be developed into whole plots, and vice versa.

Veselovsky's position on the motive as an indecomposable unit of narration was revised in the 1920s. Propp: motifs are decomposed, the last decomposable unit is not a logical whole. Propp calls primary elements functions of actors- the actions of the characters, determined in terms of their significance for the course of action.. seven types of characters, 31 functions (based on Afanasiev's collection)

Of particular difficulty is the selection of motifs in the literature of recent centuries: their diversity and complex functional load.

In the literature of different eras, there are many mythological motives. Constantly updated within the historical and literary context, they retain their essence (the motive of the hero’s conscious death because of a woman, apparently, it can be considered as a transformation of the battle for the bride identified by Veselovsky (Lensky in Pushkin, Romashov in Kuprin)

A generally accepted measure of motive is its repeatability.

The leading motive in one or many works of the writer can be defined as keynote. It can be considered at the level of the theme and figurative structure of the work. In Chekhov's Cherry Orchard, the motif of the garden as a symbol of the Home, the beauty and stability of life .. we can talk about the role of both the leitmotif and the organization of the second, secret meaning of the work - subtext, undercurrent.. (phrase: "life is gone" - the leitmotif of Uncle Vanya. Chekhov)

Tomashevsky: episodes break down into even smaller parts that describe individual actions, events and things. Themes such small parts of a work that can no longer be divided are called motives.

IN lyrical work motif - a recurring set of feelings and ideas expressed in artistic speech. The motives in the lyrics are more independent, because they are not subject to the development of the action, as in the epic and drama. Sometimes the poet's work as a whole can be viewed as an interaction, a correlation of motives. (At Lermontov: the motives of freedom, will, memory, exile, etc.) The same motive can receive different symbolic meanings in lyrical works of different eras, emphasizing the closeness and the originality of poets (the road of Pushkin to Besy and Gogol to M.D., the birthplace of Lermontov and Nekrasov, Russia of Yesenin and Blok, etc.)

According to Tomashevsky, motives are divided

Free and related motifs:

• - those that can be skipped (details, details, they play an important role in the plot: they do not make the work schematic.)
• - those that cannot be omitted when retelling, because the causal relationship is violated .. form the basis of the plot.

Dynamic and static motives:

1. change the situation. The transition from happiness to unhappiness and vice versa.

Peripetia (Aristotle: “the transformation of an action into its opposite) is one of the essential elements of the complication of the plot, denoting any unexpected turn in the development of the plot.

2. not changing the situation (descriptions of the interior, nature, portrait, actions and deeds that do not lead to important changes)

Free motives are static, but not every static motive is free.

I don’t know what book Tomashevsky is from, because in Theory of Literature. Poetics." He's writing:

Motivation. The system of motifs that make up the theme of this work should represent some artistic unity. If all the parts of a work fit poorly to each other, the work "falls apart". Therefore, the introduction of each individual motive or each complex of motives must be justified (motivated). The appearance of this or that motive must seem necessary to the reader in this place. The system of techniques that justify the introduction of individual motives and their complexes is called motivation. Methods of motivation are diverse, and their nature is not the same. Therefore, it is necessary to classify motivations.

1. compositional motivation.

Its principle lies in the economy and expediency of motives. Separate motifs can characterize objects introduced into the reader's field of vision (accessories), or the actions of characters ("episodes"). Not a single accessory should remain unused in the plot, not a single episode should remain without influence on the plot situation. It was precisely about compositional motivation that Chekhov spoke when he argued that if at the beginning of the story it is said that a nail is driven into the wall, then at the end of the story the hero must hang himself on this nail. (“Dowry” by Ostrovsky on the example of a weapon. “There is a carpet over the sofa on which weapons are hung.” At first, this is introduced as a detail of the situation. In the sixth appearance, attention is drawn to this detail in replicas. At the end of the action, Karandyshev, running away, grabs a pistol from the table He shoots Larisa with this pistol in act 4. The introduction of the motif of the weapon here is compositionally motivated. This weapon is necessary for the denouement. It serves as a preparation for the last moment of the drama.) methods of characterization. The motives must be in harmony with the dynamics of the plot. (Thus, in the same "Dowry" the motive of "Burgundy", made by a counterfeit wine merchant at a cheap price, characterizes the wretchedness of Karandyshev's everyday environment and prepares for Larisa's departure). These characteristic details can be in harmony with the action: 1) by psychological analogy (romantic landscape: a moonlit night for a love scene, a storm and a thunderstorm for a scene of death or villainy), 2) by contrast (the motive of "indifferent" nature, etc.). In the same "Dowry", when Larisa dies, the singing of a gypsy choir is heard from the doors of the restaurant. Consideration should also be given to the possibility false motivation. Accessories and episodes may be introduced to divert the reader's attention from the true situation. This very often appears in detective (detective) short stories, where a number of details are given that lead the reader down the wrong path. The author makes us assume the denouement is not in what it really is. The deception is unraveled at the end, and the reader is convinced that all these details were introduced only for preparation. surprises in the denouement.

2. realistic motivation

From each work we demand an elementary "illusion", i.e. no matter how arbitrary and artificial the work, its perception must be accompanied by a sense of the reality of what is happening. For a naive reader, this feeling is extremely strong, and such a reader can believe in the authenticity of what is being stated, can be convinced of the real existence of the characters. Thus, Pushkin, having just published The History of the Pugachev Rebellion, publishes The Captain's Daughter in the form of Grinev's memoirs with the following afterword: "Pyotr Andreevich Grinev's manuscript was delivered to us from one of his grandsons, who learned that we were engaged in labor related to by the time described by his grandfather. We decided, with the permission of relatives, to publish it separately. " An illusion of the reality of Grinev and his memoirs is created, especially supported by moments of Pushkin’s personal biography known to the public (his historical studies on the history of Pugachev), and the illusion is also supported by the fact that the views and beliefs expressed by Grinev largely diverge from the views expressed by Pushkin himself. The realistic illusion in the more experienced reader is expressed as the demand for "vitality". While firmly knowing the fictitiousness of the work, the reader still demands some correspondence to reality and sees the value of the work in this correspondence. Even readers who are well versed in the laws of artistic construction cannot psychologically free themselves from this illusion. In this regard, each motive should be entered as a motive likely in this situation. We do not notice, getting used to the technique of an adventure novel, the absurdity of the fact that the hero's salvation always keeps up five minutes before his inevitable death, the audience of ancient comedy did not notice the absurdity of the fact that in the last act all the characters suddenly turned out to be close relatives. However, how tenacious this motive is in the drama is shown by Ostrovsky's play Guilty Without Guilt, where at the end of the play the heroine recognizes her lost son in the hero). This motive of recognizing kinship was extremely convenient for denouement (kinship reconciled interests, radically changing the situation) and therefore became firmly established in the tradition.

Thus, realistic motivation has its source either in naive trust or in the demand for illusion. This does not prevent the development of fantastic literature. If folk tales usually arise in a folk environment that allows the real existence of witches and brownies, then they continue to exist as some kind of conscious illusion, where the mythological system or a fantastic worldview (the assumption of really unjustified "possibilities") is present as some kind of illusory hypothesis.

It is curious that fantastic narratives in a developed literary environment, under the influence of the requirements of realistic motivation, usually give double interpretation plot: it can be understood both as a real event and as a fantastic one. From the point of view of the realistic motivation for the construction of a work, it is easy to understand and an introduction to a work of art non-literary material, i.e. topics that have real meaning outside the framework of fiction. So, in historical novels, historical figures are brought to the stage, this or that interpretation of historical events is introduced. See L. Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" for a whole military-strategic report on the Battle of Borodino and the fire in Moscow, which caused controversy in specialized literature. In modern works, the life familiar to the reader is displayed, questions of moral, social, political, etc. are raised. order, in a word, themes are introduced that live their lives outside of fiction.

3. artistic motivation

The input of motifs is the result of a compromise between realistic illusion and the demands of artistic construction. Not everything borrowed from reality is suitable for a work of art.

On the basis of artistic motivation, disputes usually arise between the old and new literary schools. The old, traditional trend usually denies the presence of artistry in new literary forms. This, for example, is reflected in poetic vocabulary, where the very use of individual words must be in harmony with solid literary traditions (the source of "prosaisms" - words forbidden in poetry). As a special case of artistic motivation, there is a technique removal. The introduction of non-literary material into the work, so that it does not fall out of the work of art, must be justified by the novelty and individuality in the coverage of the material. It is necessary to speak of the old and familiar as of the new and unusual. The ordinary is spoken of as strange. These methods of removing ordinary things are usually themselves motivated by the refraction of these themes in the psychology of the hero, who is unfamiliar with them. There is a well-known method of estrangement by L. Tolstoy, when, describing the military council in Fili in War and Peace, he introduces as a character a peasant girl who observes this council and in her own way, childishly, without understanding the essence of what is happening, interpreting all actions and speeches of council members.

Scientists call the motif either the smallest event unit of the plot, or the unit of the plot, or the element of the text in general, irrespective of the plot or plot. Let's try to understand the different interpretations of one of the most common terms.

There are many opinions on the origin of the motive: from it. motive, French motif, from lat. moveo - I move, from the French. motif - melody, melody.

In the Russian science of literature, A.N. was the first to address the concept of motive. Veselovsky. Analyzing myths and fairy tales, he came to the conclusion that the motive is the simplest narrative unit, which is not further decomposed. From our point of view, this category has a plot character.

The thematic concept of the motif is developed in the works of B. Tomashevsky and V. Shklovsky. In their understanding, the motive is the themes into which it is possible to divide the work. Each sentence contains motives - small topics

The motive, being the smallest element of the plot, is found in most folklore and literary works. An outstanding Russian folklorist V. Ya. Propp played a huge role in studying the plot. In his book The Morphology of a Fairy Tale (1929), he demonstrated the possibility of multiple motifs existing in a sentence. Therefore, he abandoned the term motive and resorted to his own category: the functions of actors. He built a model of the plot of a fairy tale, which consisted of sequences of elements. According to Propp, there are a limited number of such functions of heroes (31); not all fairy tales have all the functions, but the sequence of the main functions is strictly observed. The tale usually begins with the fact that the parents leave the house (absence function) and turn to the children with a ban on going out, opening the door, touching something (ban). As soon as the parents leave, the children immediately violate this prohibition (violation of the prohibition), and so on. The meaning of Propp's discovery was that his scheme was suitable for all fairy tales. The motif of the road, the motif of the search for the missing bride, the motif of recognition is found in all fairy tales. From these numerous motifs, various plots are formed. In this sense, the term motif is more often used in relation to works of oral folk art. “Morozko acts differently than Baba Yaga. But a function, as such, is a constant value. An important question for the study of a fairy tale What fairy-tale characters do, and the question Who does and How does - these are questions of only adventitious study. The functions of the actors are those components that can replace Veselovsky's "motives"...” 10

In most cases, a motive is a repeated word, phrase, situation, object, or idea. Most often, the term "motive" is used to refer to a situation that is repeated in various literary works, for example, the motive of parting with a loved one.

Motives help to create images, have various functions in the structure of the work. Thus, the mirror motif in V. Nabokov's prose has at least 3 functions. Firstly, epistemological: the mirror is a means of characterization of the character, it becomes a way of self-knowledge of the hero. Secondly, this motif carries an ontological load: it acts as a boundary between the worlds, organizing complex spatio-temporal relations. And thirdly, the mirror motif can perform an axiological function, express moral, aesthetic, artistic values. So, for the hero of the novel Despair, the mirror turns out to be his favorite word, he loves to write this word in reverse, loves reflections, similarities, but is completely unable to see the difference and comes to the point that he takes a person with a dissimilar appearance for his double. Nabokovskiy Herman kills in order to mystify those around him, to make them believe in his death. The mirror motif is invariant, that is, it has a stable basis that can be filled with new meaning in a new context. Therefore, it appears in various versions in many other texts, where the main ability of the mirror is in demand - to reflect, to double the object.

Each motif generates an associative field for the character, for example, in Pushkin's story "The Stationmaster" the motif of the prodigal son is given by pictures hanging on the walls of the caretaker's house, and is revealed with particular poignancy when the daughter comes to his grave. The motif of the house can be included in the space of the city, which, in turn, can consist of motifs of temptation, temptation, demonism. The literature of Russian emigrants is most often characterized by a mood that reveals itself in the motifs of nostalgia, emptiness, loneliness, emptiness.

A motive is a semantic (meaningful) element of a text that is essential for understanding the author's concept (for example, the motive of death in A.S. Pushkin's "The Tale of the Dead Princess...", the motive of loneliness in M.Yu. Lermontov's lyrics, the motive of breathing" and "Cold Autumn" by I.A. Bunin, the motif of the full moon in "The Master and Margarita" by M.A. Bulgakov). M., as a stable formal-contain. component lit. text, can be selected as within one or several. prod. writer (for example, a certain cycle), and in the complex of his entire work, as well as Ph.D. lit. directions or a whole era 11”. The motif may contain elements of symbolization (the road by N.V. Gogol, the garden by Chekhov, the desert by M.Yu. Lermontov). The motive has a direct verbal (in lexemes) fixation in the text of the work itself; in poetry, its criterion in most cases is the presence of a key, supporting word that carries a special semantic load (smoke for Tyutchev, exile for Lermontov).

According to N. Tamarchenko, each motive has two forms of existence: a situation and an event. A situation is a set of circumstances, a position, an environment in which the characters find themselves. An event is what happened, a significant phenomenon or fact of personal, social life. The event changes the situation. A motive is the simplest narrative unit that connects the events and situations that make up the life of the heroes of a literary work. An event is what happened, a phenomenon, a fact of personal or social life. The situation is a set of circumstances, positions in which the characters are, as well as the relationship between them. The event changes this ratio. Motives can be dynamic and adynamic. Motives of the first type accompany changes in the situation, as opposed to a static motive.

In recent years, a synthesis of approaches to understanding the motive has been outlined in literary criticism. This movement was largely determined by the works of R. Yakobson, A. Zholkovsky and Y. Shcheglov. The motive is no longer considered as part of the plot or plot. Losing its connection with the event, the motive is now interpreted as almost any semantic repetition in the text - a repetitive semantic spot. So, the use of this category is quite legitimate in the analysis of lyrical works. The motive can be not only an event, a character trait, but also an object, a sound, an element of the landscape, which have an increased semantic significance in the text. A motive is always a repetition, but the repetition is not lexical, but functional-semantic. That is, in a work it can be manifested through many options.

Motives are diverse, among them are archetypal, cultural and many others. Archetypal ones are associated with the expression of the collective unconscious (the motive of selling the soul to the devil). Myths and archetypes are the collective, culturally authoritative variety of motifs to which French thematic criticism devoted itself in the 1960s. Cultural motifs were born and developed in the works of verbal creativity, painting, music, and other arts. Italian motifs in Pushkin's lyrics are a layer of the diverse culture of Italy mastered by the poet: from the work of Dante and Petrarch to the poetry of the ancient Romans.

Along with the concept of motive, there is the concept of leitmotif.

Keynote. A term of Germanic origin, literally meaning "leading motive". This is a frequently repeated image or motif that conveys the main mood, it is also a complex of homogeneous motifs. Thus, the leitmotif of "the vanity of life" usually consists of the motives of temptation, temptation, anti-home. The leitmotif of "return to the lost paradise" is characteristic of many of Nabokov's works in the Russian-speaking period of creativity and includes motifs of nostalgia, longing for childhood, sadness about the loss of a child's outlook on life. In Chekhov's The Seagull, the sounding image is the leitmotif - it is the sound of a broken string. Leitmotifs are used to create subtext in a work. Combining, they form the leitmotif structure of the work.

Literature

Fundamentals of literary criticism: Proc. manual for philological faculties ped. un-in / Under the total. ed. V. P. Meshcheryakova. Moscow: Moscow Lyceum, 2000, pp. 30–34.

Tomashevsky B. V. Theory of Literature. Poetics. Moscow, 1996, pp. 182–185, 191–193.

Fedotov OI Introduction to literary criticism: Proc. allowance. M.: Academy, 1998. S. 34–39.

Khalizev V. E. Introduction to literary criticism. Literary work: basic concepts and terms / Under. ed. L. V. Chernets. M., 1999. S. 381–393.

Tselkova L. N. Motive // ​​Introduction to literary criticism. Literary work: basic concepts and terms / Under. ed. L. V. Chernets. M., 1999. S. 202–209.

additional literature

1. History and narration: Sat. articles. M.: New Literary Review, 2006. 600 p.

2. Materials for the "Dictionary of plots and motives of Russian literature": from plot to motive / Ed. V. I. Tyupy. Novosibirsk: Institute of Philology SO RAN, 1996. 192 p.

3. Theory of literature: Proc. allowance: In 2 volumes / Ed. N. D. Tamarchenko. – M.: Ed. Center "Academy", 2004. Vol. 1. S. 183–205.

1 Kozhinov V. Plot, plot, composition. pp. 408-485.

2Korman B.O. Integrity of a literary work and an experimental dictionary of literary terms. P.45.

3Medvedev P.N. Formal method in literary criticism. L., 1928. S.187.

4Plot // Introduction to literary criticism. P.381.

5Kozhinov V.V. Collision // KLE. T. 3. Stlb. 656-658.

6Tomashevsky B.V. Theory of Literature. Poetics. pp. 230-232.

7Zhirmunsky V.M. Introduction to Literary Studies: A Course of Lectures. S. 375.

8Tolstoy L.N. Full coll. cit.: In 90 t. M., 1953. T.62. S. 377.

9Kozhinov V.S. 456.

10Propp V.Ya. Morphology of a fairy tale. C.29.

11Nezvankina L.K., Schemeleva L.M. Motive // ​​LES. S. 230