As you know, all literary works, depending on the nature of the depicted, belong to one of the three genera: epic, lyric or drama .

1 ) Joke2) Apocrypha3) Ballad a4) Fable5) Bylina

6) Drama7) Life 8) Riddle9) Historical songs

10) Comedy11) Legend12) Lyric13) Novella

14) Ode 15) Essay16) Pamphlet17) Tale

18) Proverbs and sayings 19) Poems 20) Story21) Romance

22) Fairy tale23) Word 24) Tragedy25) Chastushka26) Elegy

27) Epigram 28) Epic29) Epic

Video lesson "Literary types and genres"

EPOS(from the Greek "narrative") is a generalized name for works depicting events external to the author.

LYRICS(from the Greek. "performed to the lyre") - this is a generalized name for works in which there is no plot, but the feelings, thoughts, experiences of the author or his lyrical hero are depicted.

DRAMA(from the Greek. "action") - a generalized name of works intended for staging on stage; the drama is dominated by the dialogue of the characters, the author's beginning is minimized.

Varieties of epic, lyrical and dramatic works are called types of literary works.

Type and genre - concepts in literary criticism very close.

Genres are variations of the species. literary work. For example, a genre version of a story can be fantastic or historical tale, and the genre variety of comedy is vaudeville, etc. Strictly speaking, literary genre- this is a historically established type of work of art, containing certain structural features and aesthetic quality inherent in this group of works.

TYPES (GENRES) OF EPIC WORKS:

epic, novel, story, short story, fairy tale, fable, legend.

EPIC - large piece of art, telling about significant historical events. In ancient times - a narrative poem of heroic content. In the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, the epic novel genre appears - this is a work in which the formation of the characters of the main characters occurs in the course of their participation in historical events.

ROMAN is a large narrative work of fiction with complex plot, in the center of which is the fate of the individual.

A STORY is a work of art that occupies a middle position between a novel and a short story in terms of the volume and complexity of the plot. In ancient times, any narrative work was called a story.

STORY - a work of art of a small size, which is based on an episode, an incident from the life of a hero.

FAIRY TALE - a work about fictional events and heroes, usually with the participation of magical, fantastic forces.

FABLE (from “bayat” - to tell) is a narrative work in poetic form, small in size, moralizing or satirical in nature.

TYPES (GENRES) OF LYRICAL WORKS:

ode, hymn, song, elegy, sonnet, epigram, message.

ODA (from the Greek “song”) is a choral, solemn song.

HYMN (from Greek “praise”) is a solemn song based on programmatic verses.

EPIGRAM (from Greek “inscription”) is a short satirical poem of a mocking nature that arose in the 3rd century BC. e.

ELEGY - a genre of lyrics dedicated to sad thoughts or lyric poem filled with sadness. Belinsky called an elegy "a song sad content". The word "elegy" is translated as "reed flute" or "mournful song". The elegy originated in Ancient Greece in the 7th century BC e.

MESSAGE - a poetic letter, an appeal to specific person, request, wish, recognition.

SONNET (from the Provencal sonette - "song") - a poem of 14 lines, which has a certain rhyming system and strict stylistic laws. The sonnet originated in Italy in the 13th century (the creator is the poet Jacopo da Lentini), appeared in England in the first half of the 16th century (G. Sarri), and in Russia in the 18th century. The main types of the sonnet are Italian (from 2 quatrains and 2 tercetes) and English (from 3 quatrains and the final couplet).

LYROEPIC TYPES (GENRES):

Drama is a literary genre (along with the epic and lyrics), involving the creation artistic world for stage performance. Like the epic, it reproduces the objective world, that is, people, things, natural phenomena.

CHARACTER TRAITS

1. Drama is the most ancient kind of literature, its main difference from others comes from the same antiquity - syncretism, when different types arts are united in one (the syncretism of ancient creativity - in the unity artistic content and magic, mythology, morality).

2. Dramatic works are conditional.

Pushkin said: "Of all kinds of compositions, the most implausible are dramatic ones."

3. Drama is based on conflict, an event enacted by action. The plot is formed by events and actions of people.

4. The specificity of the drama as literary kind belongs to a special organization artistic speech: unlike the epic, there is no narration in the drama and the direct speech of the characters, their dialogues and monologues are of paramount importance.

The drama is not only verbal (remarks "aside"), but also a staged action, therefore the speech of the characters (dialogues, monologues) is important. Back in ancient tragedy important role choirs played (singing the opinion of the author), and in the classics this role was performed by reasoners.

"You cannot be a playwright without being eloquent" (Didero).

"The characters in a good play should speak in aphorisms. This tradition has been going on for a long time" (M. Gorky).

5. Generally dramatic work involves stage effects, speed of action.

6. Special dramatic character: unusual (conscious intentions, formed thoughts), established character, in contrast to the epic.

7. Dramatic works - small in volume.

Bunin remarked on this occasion: "We have to compress the thought into precise forms. But it's so exciting!".

8. The illusion of the complete absence of the author is created in the drama. From the author's speech in the drama, only remarks remain - brief indications of the author on the place and time of the action, on facial expressions, intonation, etc.

9. The behavior of the characters is theatrical. In life, they don’t behave like that, and they don’t talk like that.

Let us recall the unnaturalness of Sobakevich's wife: "Feoduliya Ivanovna asked to sit down, saying, too:" Please! "And making a movement with her head, like actresses representing queens. Then she sat down on the sofa, covered herself with her merino shawl and no longer moved her eye or eyebrow, no nose."

TRADITIONAL SCHEME OF THE PLOT OF ANY DRAMATIC WORK: EXPOSURE - representation of heroes; LOAD - clash; DEVELOPMENT OF THE ACTION - set of scenes, development of the idea; CULMINATION - the apogee of the conflict; RESOLUTION.

The dramatic genre of literature has three main genres: tragedy, comedy and drama in the narrow sense of the word, but it also has such genres as vaudeville, melodrama, tragicomedy.

Tragedy (Greek tragoidia, lit. - goat song) - “dramatic genre based on a tragic collision heroic characters, its tragic outcome and full of pathos ... "

In tragedy, reality is depicted as a clot internal contradictions, it reveals the conflicts of reality in an extremely intense form. This is a dramatic work, which is based on an irreconcilable life conflict, leading to the suffering and death of the hero. Thus, in a collision with the world of crimes, lies and hypocrisy, the bearer of advanced humanistic ideals perishes tragically. Danish prince Hamlet the hero tragedy of the same name W. Shakespeare. In the struggle waged by tragic heroes, the heroic traits of human character are revealed with great fullness.

The genre of tragedy is long history. It arose from religious cult rites, was a stage performance of a myth. With the advent of the theater, tragedy emerged as an independent genre. dramatic art. The creators of tragedies were the ancient Greek playwrights of the 5th century. BC e. Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, who left her perfect samples. They reflected the tragic collision of the traditions of the tribal system with the new social order. These conflicts were perceived and portrayed by playwrights mainly on mythological material. The hero of an ancient tragedy was drawn into an irresolvable conflict either by the will of an imperious fate (fate) or by the will of the gods. So, the hero of the tragedy of Aeschylus "Prometheus Chained" suffers because he violated the will of Zeus when he gave fire to people and taught them crafts. In the tragedy of Sophocles "Oedipus Rex" the hero is doomed to be a parricide, to marry his own mother. ancient tragedy usually included five acts and was built in compliance with the "three unities" - place, time, action. Tragedies were written in verse and distinguished by loftiness of speech; its hero was a "high hero."

Comedy, like tragedy, originated in ancient Greece. Considered the "father" of comedy ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes (V-IV centuries BC). In his works, he ridiculed the greed, bloodthirstiness and immorality of the Athenian aristocracy, stood up for a peaceful patriarchal life (“Horsemen”, “Clouds”, “Lysistrata”, “Frogs”).

In Russia folk comedy has existed for a long time. An outstanding comedian of the Russian Enlightenment was D.N. Fonvizin. His comedy "Undergrowth" mercilessly ridiculed the "wild nobility" reigning in the Prostakov family. Wrote comedies I.A. Krylov (“Lesson to daughters”, “Fashion shop”), ridiculing admiration for foreigners.

In the 19th century examples of satirical, social realistic comedy create A.S. Griboyedov ("Woe from Wit"), N.V. Gogol ("Inspector"), A.N. Ostrovsky (" Plum"," Our people - we will get along, "etc.). Continuing the traditions of N. Gogol, A. Sukhovo-Kobylin in his trilogy (“Krechinsky’s Wedding”, “Deed”, “Tarelkin’s Death”) showed how the bureaucracy “embraced” the whole of Russia, bringing her troubles comparable to the damage caused Tatar-Mongol yoke and the invasion of Napoleon. Famous comedies by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (“The Death of Pazukhin”) and A.N. Tolstoy (“The Fruits of Enlightenment”), which in some way approached tragedy (they contain elements of tragicomedy).

Tragicomedy renounces the moral absolute of comedy and tragedy. The attitude underlying it is associated with a sense of the relativity of the existing criteria of life. Overestimation of moral principles leads to uncertainty and even rejection of them; subjective and objective beginnings are blurred; an unclear understanding of reality can cause interest in it or complete indifference and even recognition of the illogicality of the world. The tragicomic worldview in them dominates in turning points history, although the tragicomic beginning was already present in the dramaturgy of Euripides (Alcestis, Ion).

Drama is a play with a sharp conflict, which, unlike the tragic, is not so sublime, more mundane, ordinary and somehow resolved. The specificity of the drama lies, firstly, in the fact that it is built on modern, and not on ancient material, and secondly, the drama establishes a new hero who rebelled against his fate and circumstances. The difference between drama and tragedy lies in the essence of the conflict: tragic conflicts are insoluble, because their resolution does not depend on the personal will of the person. tragic hero finds himself in a tragic situation unwittingly, and not because of a mistake he made. Dramatic conflicts, unlike tragic ones, are not insurmountable. They are based on the clash of characters with such forces, principles, traditions that oppose them from the outside. If the hero of a drama dies, then his death is in many ways an act of a voluntary decision, and not the result of a tragically hopeless situation. So, Katerina in A. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm", acutely worried that she had violated religious and moral standards, not being able to live in the oppressive atmosphere of the Kabanovs' house, rushes into the Volga. Such a decoupling was not mandatory; the obstacles to the rapprochement between Katerina and Boris cannot be considered insurmountable: the heroine's rebellion could have ended differently.

Drama (other Greek drama - action) is a kind of literature that reflects life in actions taking place in the present.

Dramatic works are intended to be staged, this determines the specific features of the drama:

1) the absence of a narrative-descriptive image;

3) the main text of the dramatic work is presented in the form of replicas of the characters (monologue and dialogue);

4) drama as a kind of literature does not have such a variety of artistic and visual means as epic: speech and deed are the main means of creating the image of a hero;

5) the volume of the text and the duration of the action is limited by the stage framework;

6) the requirements of the performing arts dictated such a feature of the drama as a kind of exaggeration (hyperbolization): “exaggeration of events, exaggeration of feelings and exaggeration of expressions” (L.N. Tolstoy) - in other words, theatrical showiness, increased expressiveness; the viewer of the play feels the conditionality of what is happening, which was very well said by A.S. Pushkin: “The very essence of dramatic art excludes plausibility... when reading a poem, a novel, we can often forget ourselves and believe that the incident described is not fiction, but the truth. In an ode, in an elegy, we can think that the poet portrayed his real feelings, in real circumstances. But where is the credibility in a building divided into two parts, of which one is filled with spectators who have agreed etc.

Drama (ancient Greek δρᾶμα - act, action) - one of three genera Literature, along with the epic and lyrics, belongs simultaneously to two types of art: literature and theater. Intended to be played on stage, drama differs formally from epic and lyric poetry in that the text in it is presented in the form of replicas of characters and author's remarks and, as a rule, is divided into actions and phenomena. Any literary work built in a dialogical form, including comedy, tragedy, drama (as a genre), farce, vaudeville, etc., refers to drama in one way or another.

Since ancient times, it has existed in folklore or literary form among various peoples; independently of each other, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Indians, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Indians of America created their own dramatic traditions.

Literally translated from ancient Greek, drama means "action".

Drama types tragedy drama (genre) drama for reading (play for reading)

Melodrama hierodrama mystery comedy vaudeville farce zaju

Drama history The rudiments of drama - in primitive poetry, in which the elements of lyrics, epic and drama that emerged later merged in connection with music and mimic movements. Earlier than among other peoples, drama as a special kind of poetry was formed among the Hindus and Greeks.

Dionysian dances

Greek drama, which develops serious religious and mythological plots (tragedy) and funny ones drawn from modern life (comedy), reaches high perfection and in the 16th century is a model for European drama, which until that time artlessly processed religious and narrative secular plots (mysteries, school dramas and interludes, fastnachtspiel, sottises).

French playwrights, imitating the Greek ones, strictly adhered to certain provisions that were considered invariable for the aesthetic dignity of the drama, such are: the unity of time and place; the duration of the episode depicted on the stage should not exceed a day; the action must take place in the same place; the drama should develop correctly in 3-5 acts, from the plot (finding out the initial position and characters of the characters) through the middle vicissitudes (changes in positions and relationships) to the denouement (usually a disaster); number actors very limited (usually 3 to 5); these are exclusively the highest representatives of society (kings, queens, princes and princesses) and their closest servants, confidants, who are introduced onto the stage for the convenience of conducting dialogue and making remarks. These are the main features of the French classical drama(Cornel, Racine).

Severity of requirements classical style was already less respected in comedies (Molière, Lope de Vega, Beaumarchais), which gradually moved from conventionality to the depiction of ordinary life (genre). Shakespeare's work, free from classical conventions, opened up new paths for drama. The end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century were marked by the appearance of romantic and national dramas: Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Hugo, Kleist, Grabbe.

Second half of XIX century, realism prevails in European drama (Dumas son, Ogier, Sardou, Paleron, Ibsen, Suderman, Schnitzler, Hauptmann, Beyerlein).

In the latest quarter XIX century, under the influence of Ibsen and Maeterlinck, symbolism began to take hold of the European scene (Hauptmann, Pshibyshevsky, Bar, D'Annunzio, Hoffmannsthal).

The design of a dramatic work Unlike other prose and poetry works, dramatic works have a rigidly defined structure. A dramatic work consists of alternating blocks of text, each with its own purpose, and highlighted with typography so that they can be easily distinguished from each other. Dramatic text may include the following blocks:

The list of characters is usually located before the main text of the work. In it, if necessary, a brief description of the hero is given (age, features of appearance, etc.)

External remarks - a description of the action, the situation, the appearance and departure of the characters. Often typed either in a reduced size, or in the same font as the replicas, but in a larger format. In the external remark, the names of the heroes can be given, and if the hero appears for the first time, his name is additionally highlighted. Example:

The room, which is still called the nursery. One of the doors leads to Anna's room. Dawn, soon the sun will rise. It's already May, the cherry trees are blooming, but it's cold in the garden, it's a matinee. The windows in the room are closed.

Enter Dunyasha with a candle and Lopakhin with a book in his hand.

Replicas are the words spoken by the characters. Remarks must be preceded by the name of the actor and may include internal remarks. Example:

Dunyasha. I thought you left. (Listens.) Here, it seems, they are already on their way.

LOPAKHIN (listens). No ... get luggage, then yes ...

Internal remarks, unlike external remarks, briefly describe the actions that occur during the pronunciation of a replica by the hero, or the features of the pronunciation. If some complex action occurs during the utterance of a cue, it should be described using an external cue, while indicating either in the remark itself or in the cue with the help of an internal remark that the actor continues to speak during the action. An inside note refers only to a specific line of a specific actor. It is separated from the replica by brackets, it can be typed in italics.

The most common are two ways of designing dramatic works: book and cinema. If in book format different font styles, different sizes, etc. can be used to separate parts of a dramatic work, then in cinematic scenarios it is customary to use only a monospaced typewriter font, and to separate parts of a work, use padding, set to a different format, set by all capitals, discharge, etc. - that is, only those means that are available on a typewriter. This allowed the scripts to be modified many times as they were produced, while maintaining readability. .

Drama in Russia

Drama was brought to Russia from the West at the end of the 17th century. Independent dramatic literature appears only at the end of the 18th century. Until the first quarter of the 19th century, the classical direction prevailed in drama, both in tragedy and in comedy and comedy opera; best authors: Lomonosov, Knyaznin, Ozerov; I. Lukin's attempt to draw the attention of playwrights to the depiction of Russian life and customs remained in vain: all their plays are lifeless, stilted and alien to Russian reality, except for the famous "Undergrowth" and "Foreman" Fonvizin, "Yabeda" Kapnist and some comedies by I. A. Krylov .

At the beginning of the 19th century, Shakhovskoy, Khmelnitsky, Zagoskin became imitators of light French drama and comedy, and the Dollmaker was a representative of the stilted patriotic drama. Griboedov's comedy Woe from Wit, later Gogol's Inspector General, Marriage, become the basis of Russian everyday drama. After Gogol, even in vaudeville (D. Lensky, F. Koni, Sollogub, Karatygin), the desire to get closer to life is noticeable.

Ostrovsky gave a number of remarkable historical chronicles and everyday comedies. After him, Russian drama stood on solid ground; the most prominent playwrights: A. Sukhovo-Kobylin, I. S. Turgenev, A. Potekhin, A. Palm, V. Dyachenko, I. Chernyshev, V. Krylov, N. Ya. Solovyov, N. Chaev, gr. A. Tolstoy, c. L. Tolstoy, D. Averkiev, P. Boborykin, Prince Sumbatov, Novezhin, N. Gnedich, Shpazhinsky, Evt. Karpov, V. Tikhonov, I. Shcheglov, Vl. Nemirovich-Danchenko, A. Chekhov, M. Gorky, L. Andreev and others.

The dramatic genre of literature has three main genres: tragedy, comedy and drama in the narrow sense of the word, but it also has such genres as vaudeville, melodrama, tragicomedy.

Tragedy (Greek tragoidia, lit. - goat song) is “a dramatic genre based on the tragic collision of heroic characters, its tragic outcome and full of pathos ...”266.

The tragedy depicts reality as a bunch of internal contradictions, it reveals the conflicts of reality in an extremely intense form. This is a dramatic work, which is based on an irreconcilable life conflict, leading to the suffering and death of the hero. So, in a collision with the world of crime, lies and hypocrisy, the bearer of advanced humanistic ideals Danish prince Hamlet, the hero of the tragedy of the same name by W. Shakespeare, tragically perishes.

tragic conflicts in Russian literature of the XX century. were reflected in the dramaturgy of M. Bulgakov (“Days of the Turbins”, “Running”). In the literature of socialist realism, they acquired a peculiar interpretation, since the conflict based on the irreconcilable clash of class enemies became dominant in them, and main character died in the name of an idea (“Optimistic Tragedy” by Vs. Vishnevsky, “Storm” by B.

Comedy (lat. sotoesIa, Greek kotosIa, from kotoe - a merry procession and 6s1yo - a song) is a type of drama in which characters, situations and actions are presented in funny forms or imbued with the comic1.

Comedy has spawned different genre varieties. Distinguish between comedy of situations, comedy of intrigue, comedy of characters, comedy of manners ( household comedy), buffoonery comedy. There is no clear boundary between these genres. Most comedies combine elements of different genres, which deepens the comedy characters, diversifies and expands the very palette of the comic image. This is clearly demonstrated by Gogol in The Inspector General.

In terms of genre, there are also satirical comedies (“Undergrowth” by Fonvizin, “Inspector General” by Gogol) and high, close to drama. The action of these comedies does not contain funny situations. In Russian dramaturgy, this is primarily "Woe from Wit" by A. Griboyedov. IN unrequited love Chatsky to Sofya there is nothing comical, but the situation in which the romantic young man put himself is comical. The position of the educated and progressive-minded Chatsky in the society of the Famusovs and the Silent Ones is dramatic. Distinguish and lyrical comedies, an example of which is " The Cherry Orchard» A.P. Chekhov.

Tragicomedy renounces the moral absolute of comedy and tragedy. The attitude underlying it is associated with a sense of the relativity of the existing criteria of life. Overestimation of moral principles leads to uncertainty and even rejection of them; subjective and objective beginnings are blurred; an unclear understanding of reality can cause interest in it or complete indifference and even recognition of the illogicality of the world. The tragicomic worldview dominates in them at turning points in history, although the tragicomic beginning was already present in the dramaturgy of Euripides (Alcestis, Ion).

Drama as a genre appeared later than tragedy and comedy. Like tragedy, it tends to recreate sharp contradictions. As a kind of dramatic genre, it became widespread in Europe during the Enlightenment and at the same time was comprehended as a genre. An independent genre drama became in the second half of the XVIII century. among the enlighteners (petty-bourgeois drama appeared in France and Germany). She showed interest in social structure life, to moral ideals democratic environment, to the psychology of the "average man".

Drama is a play with a sharp conflict, which, unlike the tragic, is not so sublime, more mundane, ordinary and somehow resolved. The specificity of the drama lies, firstly, in the fact that it is built on modern, and not on ancient material, and secondly, the drama establishes a new hero who rebelled against his fate and circumstances. The difference between drama and tragedy lies in the essence of the conflict: tragic conflicts are insoluble, because their resolution does not depend on the personal will of the person. The tragic hero finds himself in a tragic situation involuntarily, and not because of a mistake he made. Dramatic conflicts, unlike tragic ones, are not insurmountable. They are based on the clash of characters with such forces, principles, traditions that oppose them from the outside. If the hero of a drama dies, then his death is in many ways an act of a voluntary decision, and not the result of a tragically hopeless situation. So, Katerina in A. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm", acutely worried that she had violated religious and moral norms, not being able to live in the oppressive atmosphere of the Kabanovs' house, rushes into the Volga. Such a decoupling was not mandatory; the obstacles to the rapprochement between Katerina and Boris cannot be considered insurmountable: the heroine's rebellion could have ended differently.

Vaudeville ( from the French vaudeville by Vau de Vire - ref. in Normandy, where this genre originated), one of the genres of a dramatic work, a light play with entertaining intrigue, with couplet songs and dances. Initially, couplet songs in fairground comedies of the first half of the 18th century were called vaudeville. As an independent theatrical genre, it took shape during the years of the French Revolution, later, having lost its political topicality, vaudeville became an entertainment genre and gained pan-European distribution. French classics. vaudeville - O.E. Scribe, E. Labiche - retained many features of the genre "as a folk work of the French": perky fun, topical hints. In the second half of the 19th century, it was replaced by operetta. In Russia, vaudeville became widespread at the beginning of the 19th century, inheriting from the comic opera of the 18th century an interest in national subjects. Famous vaudeville N.I. Khmelnitsky, A.S. Griboedova, A.A. Shakhovsky, D.T. Lensky. One-act plays by A.P. Chekhov continued the tradition of vaudeville (without verses).

Drama(from Greek drama - lit. action) 1) one of the types of literature. Belongs to both literature and theater, being the fundamental principle of the performance, it is also perceived in reading. Intended for collective perception, drama has always gravitated towards the most acute social problems and, in the most striking examples, has become popular: its basis is socio-historical contradictions or eternal human antinomies (see Artistic Conflict); 2) One of the main genres of drama as a literary genre, along with tragedy and comedy. Like a comedy, it mainly reproduces the private life of people, but its main goal is not to ridicule mores, but to depict the individual in her dramatic relationship with society. Like tragedy, drama tends to recreate sharp contradictions; at the same time, her conflicts are not so inescapable and tense and, in principle, allow for the possibility of a successful resolution, and her characters are not so exceptional. As an independent genre, drama developed in the second half of the 18th century among the enlighteners (petty-bourgeois drama in France and Germany), its interest in the social order and way of life, the moral ideals of a democratic environment, and the psychology of the average person contributed to the strengthening realistic beginnings in European art. In the process of drama development, its inner drama thickens, a happy denouement is less common, the hero usually remains at odds with society and himself (The Storm, The Dowry by A.N. Ostrovsky, plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, Gorky).

Sideshow(from lat. intermedius - located in the middle), a small comic play or scene played out between acts of the main play. It arose in the 15th century as a household farce scene, which was part of the mystery, then the school drama (later tragedy and comedy). In England it was called interlude (from Latin inter - between and ludus - game). Received distribution in Zap. Europe XVI- XVII centuries (in Spain as an independent genre folk theater), in the Russian theater of the XVII - XVIII centuries. The sideshow survives as an inserted comic or musical scene in the play.

Comedy ( lat. comedia, Greek komodia, from komos - a merry procession and ode - a song), a type of drama in which characters, situations and actions are presented in funny forms or imbued with the comic. Until classicism, comedy meant a work opposite to tragedy, with an obligatory happy ending; its heroes were, as a rule, from the lower class. In many poetics (including N. Boileau), comedy was defined as the lowest genre. In the literature of the Enlightenment, this ratio was violated by the recognition of the middle genre - the so-called philistine drama.

Comedy is aimed primarily at ridiculing the ugly (inappropriate, contrary to the social ideal or norm), the heroes of the comedy are internally untenable, inconsistent, do not correspond to their position, purpose, and this is given as a victim of laughter, which debunk them, thereby fulfilling their "ideal" mission. . The range of comedy is unusually wide - from political satire to light vaudeville humor. The "honest face" of any comedy is laughter. There is a comedy of characters, comedy of positions, everyday comedy, comedy of intrigue, lyrical comedy, satirical comedy.

The most important tool comic effect- speech comic (alogism, inconsistency with the situation, parody, irony, in the latest comedy - wit and play with paradoxes). The father of comedy is considered to be Aristophanes, the creator of the socio-political satirical comedy.

In Russia, comedy is represented in the works of Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol, Ostrovsky.

Melodrama(from the Greek melos - song, drama - action), 1) the genre of dramaturgy, a play with sharp intrigue, exaggerated emotionality, a sharp opposition between good and evil, a moral and instructive trend. Melodrama originated in France in the 1890s (plays by J.M. Monvel). In Russia, melodrama appeared in the late 20s of the 19th century (plays by N.V. Kukolnik, N.A. Polevoy).

Tragedy(from the Greek tragodia, lit. goat song), a dramatic genre based on the tragic collision of heroic characters, its tragic outcome, full of pathos. The tragedy is marked by severe seriousness, depicts reality most pointedly, as a clot of internal contradictions, reveals the deepest conflicts of reality in an extremely intense and rich form, which acquires the meaning of an artistic symbol; It is no coincidence that most tragedies are written in verse. Historically, tragedy existed in various manifestations, but the very essence of tragedy, as well as the aesthetic category of the tragic, was given to European literatures by ancient Greek tragedy and poetics.

Greek tragedy arose from religious rituals, was a reproduction, stage performance of a myth; she introduced the audience to a single reality for the whole people and its historical destinies. Perfect examples of complete, organic works of tragic art were given by Aeschylus, Sophocles; With the unconditional reality of what is happening, it shocks the viewer, causing him the strongest internal conflicts and resolving them in higher harmony (through catharsis).

A new heyday of tragedy comes in an era of crisis Late Renaissance and baroque. Shakespeare's tragedy depicts an infinite reality, a deep crisis human world. The tragedy of Shakespeare does not fit into the framework of a separate (conflict or character of the hero), but embraces everything, like reality itself; the personality of the hero is internally open, not fully defined, capable of changes, even abrupt shifts.

Samples of the tragedy of classicism are represented by the works of P. Corneille, J. Racine. These are tragedies high style with the observance of the three unities; aesthetic perfection appears as a result of the poet's conscious self-restraint, as a virtuoso pure formula life conflict.

At the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, F. Schiller creates tragedy, updating the "classical" style. In the era of romanticism, the tragedy is "reverse" to the ancient one - not the world, but the individual with his soul becomes the key to the substantial content.

Tragedy denotes the ability of a person to enter into a struggle with an unsatisfactory starting position.