The genre of the work. Dramatic genres of literature

Genre concept. Principles of genre classification

Literary genres (French genre - genus, type) are the types of works that have developed in the process of development of fiction. Obviously, the problem of the genre in its most general form can be formulated as the problem of classifying works, identifying common - genre - features in them. The main difficulties of classification are associated with the historical change in literature, with the evolution of genres.

The number and nature of genre characteristics (the volume of a genre) is a variable in the history of literature, which is reflected in the variety of genre theories that replace each other, as well as ideas about the Jeans that dominate writers' and readers' practice. So, for the tragedy in the realistic drama of the XIX-XX centuries. many signs of a classic tragedy are not obligatory. In the era of realism, any dramatic work that reveals a tragic conflict and expresses the corresponding pathos is considered a tragedy. Thus, we can talk about a decrease in the genre volume of the tragedy from classicism to realism.

Most genres originated in ancient times. Evolving into Lit. process, they nevertheless retain some stable content and formal features that make it possible to speak of a genre tradition. The genre designations themselves, often included in the text of a work, in its title (“Eugene Onegin. A novel in verse”), are signs of lit. traditions; they evoke a certain genre expectation in the reader.

When studying genres, one should distinguish between their most stable and transient features. As part of the theoretical and literary course, the main attention is paid to the characterization of the most stable genre features. However, it is important to remember that lit. In the process, the genre always appears as an element of the genre system, the principles of which depend on the specific historical features of artistic thinking. Thus, in ancient literatures, the development of the author's self-awareness was slow, determined by the stability of traditions and the general pace of national life. Therefore, the genre systems of ancient literatures, differing in complexity and branching, are characterized by greater stability in comparison with the literatures of modern times.

Genuine liberation from the cruel genre regulations became possible only with the development of realism, it was associated with overcoming subjective one-sidedness in creativity itself. And in realistic literature, which correlates the development of characters with circumstances in their historical concreteness, following the tradition of genres could be carried out much more freely, which generally led to a decrease in their volume. In all European literatures of the XIX century. there is a sharp restructuring of the genre system. Genres began to be perceived as aesthetically equivalent and open to creative search types of works. This approach to genres is characteristic of our time.

Basic principles of genre classification of literary works. Genre characteristics, which have the most stable, historically repeatable character, form the basis of the literary classification of works. As literary terms, traditional genre designations are mainly used - a fable, a ballad, a poem, etc. - which spontaneously arose in literature and acquired a wide range of associations in the process of genre evolution.

The most important genre feature of works is their belonging to one or another literary genus: epic, dramatic, lyrical, lyrical-epic genres stand out. Within the genera, types are distinguished - stable formal, compositional and stylistic structures, which it is advisable to call generic forms. They are differentiated depending on the organization of speech in a work - poetic or prose, on the volume of the text. In addition, the basis for highlighting generic forms in the epic may be the principles of plot formation, in poetic lyrics - solid strophic forms (sonnet, rondo, triolet), in drama - one or another attitude to the theater (drama for reading, for puppet theater), etc. . P.

epic genres. Due to the breadth and versatility of the depiction of characters in epic works, in comparison with drama and lyrics, their genre problems stand out especially clearly and vividly. It is revealed in a variety of generic forms. So, a song, a fairy tale, and a story can be national-historical in their problems.

In the classification of generic forms, differences in the volume of texts of works are important. Along with small (story) and medium (story) prose forms, a large epic form is distinguished, which is often called novels. The volume of the text of the work in the epic is determined by the completeness of the reconstruction of characters and relationships, and hence the scale of the plot. Unlike the story, the story is not characterized by a detailed system of characters, there is no complex evolution of characters and detailed individualization.

Heroic folk song.

Novels, short stories (novels, essays)

Satirical, household tales, fables

dramatic genres. With their characteristic brevity of the performance time on the stage and the resulting unity and concentration of the conflict, they create fertile ground for expressing certain types of pathos in the actions and experiences of the characters. Therefore, the division of drama into genres is connected with the pathos of the play. But pathos stems from conflict.

An additional substantive criterion for division in drama is the features of genre problems.

1) Tragedy - the conflict between personal aspirations and superpersonal "laws" of life occurs in the minds of the protagonist (heroes) and the entire plot of the play is created to develop and resolve this conflict. The hero of the tragedy is in a state of conflict not only with other characters, he fights primarily with himself. The tragedy ends with the usual death of the hero, although, as Belinsky wrote, "The essence of the tragic is not in the bloody denouement."

A) moral descriptive - in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the characters act as carriers of certain moral and civil norms, reflect the clashes of old and new, more human, moral norms.

B) national-historical ("Persians" by Aeschylus, "Boris Godunov" by Pushkin)

2) Drama is the most diverse in terms of subject matter, characterized by a large breadth of depicted life conflicts. The pathos of drama is generated by the clashes of the characters with the forces of life that oppose them from the outside. However, the conflict in the drama can also be very serious and sharp and can lead to suffering, and sometimes to the death of the hero.

A) national-historical conflict ("Voevoda" by Ostrovsky, "Enemies" by Gorky)

B) socially everyday (romantic) (“The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare, “Vassa Zheleznova” by Gorky).

3) Comedy - a play filled with humorous or satirical pathos. Such pathos is generated by the comic contradictions of the recreated characters. The comic nature of the characters is revealed through plot conflicts, often based on chance. At the same time, the characters of comedy characters themselves do not change in connection with the course of events. There is no character development in comedy. The image of the internal failure, absurdity, inferiority of comic characters, their satirical or humorous denial - this is the main ideological orientation of the comedy.

lyrical genres. The originality of the lyrics is that it brings to the fore the inner world of the lyrical hero, his experiences. This is clearly seen not only in works that lack any visual images of the outside world, but also in descriptive, narrative lyrics, here the experience is conveyed through the emotional expression of speech, the nature of the tropes, etc. Therefore, the basis of the meaningful genre division in the lyrics is the character itself. experiences. But the experience in lyrics can be subjects of typology in another respect. As in the epic and drama, in the lyrics one can trace the differences in genre problems - national-historical, moralistic, romantic, which are manifested here through the typification of the very experience of the lyrical hero.

The genres of literary lyrics were formed on the basis of the folk lyric song, in its various varieties.

1) Ode - a poem expressing enthusiastic feelings that some significant object excites in the poet. In the ode, the poet joins, first of all, collective feelings - patriotic, civil. Genre issues in an ode can be national-historical or moralistic.

2) Satire - a poem expressing indignation, indignation of the poet with the negative aspects of society. Satire is moralistic in terms of genre issues, the poet in it is, as it were, the mouthpiece of the advanced part of society, preoccupied with its negative state.

3) Elegy - a poem full of sadness, dissatisfaction with life. Sadness can be caused by some reason ("Sorrowful Elegies" by Ovid). But an elegy is possible in which the recreated experience does not have a specific motivation (“I experienced my desires ...” by Pushkin).

4) Epigram, epitaph, madrigal - small forms of lyrics. In the history of literature, the broad (ancient Greek) and narrow (later) meanings of the epigram are known. The ancient Greek epigram (literally "inscription") originates from inscriptions on cult objects. The type of epigram was an epitaph - an inscription on a tombstone. The content and emotional tone of ancient Greek epigrams were different. The originality of thought and the laconism of its expression - that's what has always been appreciated in the epigram. The second, narrow meaning of the epigram, which has been attached to it since the 1st century AD, is a short humorous or satirical poem, most often ridiculing a certain person. The antipode of the epigram (higher meaning of the word) is the madrigal - a short half-joking poem of a complimentary nature (usually addressed to a lady).

Lyric-epic genres. The combination of lyrical meditation and epic narration is often found in works of different genres (for example, in a romantic poem). But there are genres whose nature is always lyrical-epic.

1) A fable is a moral descriptive genre that contains a brief allegorical narrative and a lesson (“morality”) arising from it. Even if the teaching is not "Formulated" in the text of the fable, it is implied; the relationship of teaching with the plot of the fable is its lyrical-epic basis.

2) Ballad - a small poetic plot work in which the narration itself is permeated with lyricism. Unlike a fable, where it is possible to single out the lyrical (“moral”) and epic (plot) parts, the ballad represents an indissoluble fusion of the lyrical and epic beginnings. Genre issues in a ballad can be national-historical and romantic.

The short story genre is one of the most popular in literature. Many writers have turned to him and are turning to him. After reading this article, you will learn what are the features of the short story genre, examples of the most famous works, as well as popular mistakes that authors make.

The story is one of the small literary forms. It is a small narrative work with a small number of characters. In this case, short-term events are displayed.

Brief history of the short story genre

V. G. Belinsky (his portrait is presented above) as early as 1840 distinguished the essay and the story as small prose genres from the story and the novel as larger ones. Already at this time in Russian literature the predominance of prose over verse was fully indicated.

A little later, in the second half of the 19th century, the essay received the broadest development in the democratic literature of our country. At this time, there was an opinion that it was documentary that distinguished this genre. The story, as it was believed then, is created using creative imagination. According to another opinion, the genre we are interested in differs from the essay in the conflict of the plot. After all, the essay is characterized by the fact that it is basically a descriptive work.

Unity of time

In order to more fully characterize the genre of the story, it is necessary to highlight the patterns inherent in it. The first of these is the unity of time. In a story, the action time is always limited. However, not necessarily only one day, as in the works of the classicists. Although this rule is not always observed, it is rare to find stories in which the plot spans the entire life of the protagonist. Even rarer are works in this genre, the action of which lasts for centuries. Usually the author depicts some episode from the life of his hero. Among the stories in which the whole fate of a character is revealed, one can note "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (author - Leo Tolstoy) and It also happens that not all life is represented, but its long period. For example, Chekhov's "The Jumping Girl" depicts a number of significant events in the fate of the characters, their environment, and the difficult development of relationships between them. However, this is given extremely compacted, compressed. It is the conciseness of the content, greater than in the story, that is a common feature of the story and, perhaps, the only one.

Unity of action and place

There are other features of the short story genre that should be noted. The unity of time is closely connected and conditioned by another unity - action. A story is a genre of literature that should be limited to describing a single event. Sometimes one or two events become the main, meaning-forming, culminating events in it. Hence comes the unity of place. Usually the action takes place in one place. There may be not one, but several, but their number is strictly limited. For example, there may be 2-3 places, but 5 are already rare (they can only be mentioned).

character unity

Another feature of the story is the unity of the character. As a rule, one main character acts in the space of a work of this genre. Occasionally there may be two, and very rarely - several. As for the secondary characters, there can be quite a lot of them, but they are purely functional. The story is a genre of literature in which the task of minor characters is limited to creating a background. They can interfere or help the main character, but no more. In the story "Chelkash" by Gorky, for example, there are only two characters. And in Chekhov's "I want to sleep" there is only one at all, which is impossible either in the story or in the novel.

Unity of the center

Like the genres listed above, one way or another are reduced to the unity of the center. Indeed, a story cannot be imagined without some defining, central sign that "pulls together" all the others. It does not matter at all whether this center will be some static descriptive image, a climactic event, the development of the action itself, or a significant gesture of the character. The main image should be in any story. It is through him that the whole composition is kept. It sets the theme of the work, determines the meaning of the story told.

The basic principle of building a story

It is not difficult to draw a conclusion from reflections on "unities". The idea suggests itself that the main principle of constructing the composition of a story is the expediency and economy of motives. Tomashevsky called the motive the smallest element. It can be an action, a character or an event. This structure can no longer be decomposed into components. This means that the biggest sin of the author is excessive detail, oversaturation of the text, a heap of details that can be omitted when developing this genre of work. The story should not go into detail.

It is necessary to describe only the most significant in order to avoid a common mistake. It is very characteristic, oddly enough, for people who are very conscientious about their works. They have a desire to express themselves to the maximum in each text. Young directors often do the same when they stage diploma films and performances. This is especially true for films, since the author's fantasy in this case is not limited to the text of the play.

Imaginative authors love to fill the story with descriptive motifs. For example, they depict how a pack of cannibal wolves is chasing the main character of the work. However, if dawn breaks, they will necessarily stop at the description of long shadows, dimmed stars, reddened clouds. The author seemed to admire nature and only then decided to continue the pursuit. The fantasy story genre gives maximum scope to the imagination, so avoiding this mistake is not at all easy.

The role of motives in the story

It must be emphasized that in the genre of interest to us, all motives should reveal the theme, work for meaning. For example, the gun described at the beginning of the work must certainly fire in the finale. Motives that lead to the side should not be included in the story. Or you need to look for images that outline the situation, but do not overly detail it.

Composition features

It should be noted that it is not necessary to adhere to traditional methods of constructing a literary text. Their violation can be effective. The story can be created almost on the same descriptions. But it is still impossible to do without action. The hero is simply obliged to at least raise his hand, take a step (in other words, make a meaningful gesture). Otherwise, it will turn out not a story, but a miniature, a sketch, a poem in prose. Another important feature of the genre we are interested in is a meaningful ending. For example, a novel can last forever, but the story is built differently.

Very often its ending is paradoxical and unexpected. It was with this that he associated the appearance of catharsis in the reader. Modern researchers (in particular, Patrice Pavie) consider catharsis as an emotional pulsation that appears as you read. However, the significance of the ending remains the same. The ending can radically change the meaning of the story, push to rethink what is stated in it. This must be remembered.

The place of the story in world literature

The story - which occupies an important place in world literature. Gorky and Tolstoy turned to him both in the early and in the mature period of creativity. Chekhov's story is the main and favorite genre. Many stories have become classics and, along with major epic works (stories and novels), have entered the treasury of literature. Such, for example, are Tolstoy's stories "Three Deaths" and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter", Chekhov's works "Darling" and "The Man in a Case", Gorky's stories "Old Woman Izergil", "Chelkash", etc.

Advantages of the short story over other genres

The genre we are interested in allows us to single out one or another typical case, one or another side of our life, with particular convexity. It makes it possible to depict them in such a way that the reader's attention is completely focused on them. For example, Chekhov, describing Vanka Zhukov with a letter "to the village of grandfather", full of childish despair, dwells in detail on the content of this letter. It will not reach its destination and because of this it becomes especially strong in terms of accusation. In the story "The Birth of a Man" by M. Gorky, the episode with the birth of a child that occurs on the road helps the author in revealing the main idea - affirming the value of life.

At school, in literature lessons, they study stories, novels, novels, essays, elegies. In cinemas, various films are shown - action films, comedies, melodramas. And how can all these phenomena be united in one term? For this, the concept of "genre" was invented.

Let's figure out what a genre is in literature, what types of them exist and how to determine which direction a particular work belongs to.

The division of works by genre has been known since antiquity. What is a genre in ancient literature? It:

• tragedy;
• comedy.

Fiction was practically inseparable from the theater, and therefore the set was limited to what could be embodied on the stage.

In the Middle Ages, the list expanded: now it includes a short story, a novel and a story. The emergence of a romantic poem, an epic novel, as well as ballads belongs to the New Age.

The 20th century, with its tremendous changes in the life of society and the individual, gave birth to new literary forms:

• thriller;
• action movie;
• fiction;
• fantasy.

What is a genre in literature

The totality of some features of groups of literary forms (signs can be both formal and meaningful) - these are the genres of literature.

According to Wikipedia, they are divided into three large groups:

• by content;
• in form;
• by birth.

Wikipedia names at least 30 different directions. These include (of the most famous):

• story;
• story;
• novel;
• elegy,

and others.

There are also less common ones:

• sketch;
• opus;
• stanzas.

How to define a genre

How to determine the genre of a work? If we are talking about a novel or an ode, then we will not get confused, but something more complex - a sketch or stanzas - can cause difficulties.

So we have an open book. It is immediately possible to correctly name well-known literary forms, the definition of which we do not even need. For example, we see a three-dimensional creation that describes a large period of time in which many characters appear.

There are several storylines - one main and an unlimited number (at the discretion of the author) of secondary ones. If all these requirements are met, then every high school student will say with confidence that we have a novel.

If this is a short narrative, limited to a description of an event, while the author’s attitude to what he is talking about is clearly visible, then this is a story.

More difficult, for example, with opus.

The interpretation of the concept is ambiguous: most often it means something that causes ridicule, that is, an essay, story or story, the merits of which are doubtful.

In principle, many literary works can be attributed to the concept of "opus", if they do not differ in clarity of style, richness of thought, in other words, they are mediocre.

What are stanzas? This is a kind of poem-remembrance, a poem-reflection. Remember, for example, Pushkin's Stanzas, written by him on a long winter journey.

Important! In order to correctly classify this or that literary form, be sure to take into account both external signs and content.

Let's try to bring literary genres together, and for this we will collect the types of works known to us in a table. Of course, we will not be able to cover everything - the most complete literary trends are presented in serious philological works. But a small list can be made.

The table will look like this:

Types of genres by content

Before, we touched on the question of the form of writing and divided the genres of literature precisely on this basis. However, directions can be interpreted more broadly. The content, the meaning of what is written is very important. At the same time, the terms in both lists can "echo", intersect.

Let's say a story falls into two groups at once: stories can be distinguished by external features (short, with a clearly expressed attitude of the author), and by content (one bright event).

Among the areas divided by content, we note:

• comedy;
• tragedy;
• horror;
• drama.

Comedy is perhaps one of the most ancient genres. The definition of comedy is multifaceted: it can be a sitcom, a comedy of characters. There are also comedies:

• household;
• romantic;
• heroic.

Tragedies were also known to the ancient world. The definition of this genre of literature is a work, the outcome of which will certainly be sad, hopeless.

Genres of literature and their definitions

A list of literary genres can be found in any textbook for students of philology. Who cares to know in what directions literary forms stand out?

This information is needed by the following professionals:

• writers;
• journalists;
• teachers;
• philologists.

When creating a work of art, the author submits his creation to certain canons, and their framework - conditional boundaries - allow us to attribute the created to the group "novels", "essays" or "odes".

This concept is relevant not only to works of literature, but also to other types of art. Wikipedia explains: this term can also be used in relation to:

• painting;
• Photo;
• movie;
• oratory;
• music.

Important! Even the game of chess obeys its genre standards.

However, these are very large separate topics. We are now interested in what genres there are in literature.

Examples

Any concept should be considered with examples, and types of literary forms are no exception. Let's take a look at practical examples.

Let's start with the simplest - with a story. Surely everyone remembers Chekhov's work "I want to sleep" from school.

This is a terrible story, written in a deliberately simple, everyday style, at the heart of it is a crime committed by a thirteen-year-old girl in a state of passion, when her mind was clouded from fatigue and hopelessness.

We see that Chekhov complied with all the laws of the genre:

• description practically does not go beyond one event;
• the author is "present", we feel his attitude to what is happening;
• in the story - one main character;
• The essay is short and can be read in a few minutes.

As an example of the story, we can take Turgenev's "Spring Waters". The author here argues more, as if helping the reader to draw conclusions, gently pushing him to these conclusions. In the story, an important place is given to issues of morality, ethics, the inner world of the characters - all these problems come to the fore.

– is also quite specific. This is a kind of sketch, where the author expresses his own thoughts on a specific occasion.

The essay is characterized by vivid imagery, originality, frankness. If you have ever read André Maurois and Bernard Shaw, you will understand what we are talking about.

Novels and their characteristic features - the length of events in time, multiple storylines, a chronological chain, the author's periodic digressions from a given topic - do not allow one to confuse the genre with any other.

In the novel, the author touches on many problems: from personal to acute social. At the mention of novels, “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy, “Fathers and Sons”, “Gone with the Wind” by M. Mitchell, “Wuthering Heights” by E. Bronte immediately come to mind.

Types and groupings

In addition to grouping by content and form, we can take advantage of the proposal of philologists and subdivide everything created by writers, poets and playwrights by gender. How to determine the genre of a work - what kind can it belong to?

You can create a list of varieties:

• epic;
• lyrical;
• dramatic.

The first are distinguished by a calm narrative, descriptiveness. Epic can be a novel, essay, poem. The second is everything that is connected with the personal experiences of the heroes, as well as with solemn events. This includes an ode, an elegy, an epigram.

Drama is comedy, tragedy, drama. For the most part, the theater expresses the “right” to them.

Summarizing what has been said, we can apply the following classification: there are three major areas in literature, covering everything that has ever been created by prose writers, playwrights and poets. Works are divided by:

• form;
• content;
• the kind of writing.

Within the framework of one direction, there can be many completely diverse works. So, if we take the division by form, then here we will include stories, novels, essays, odes, essays, novels.

We determine belonging to any direction by the "external structure" of the work: its size, the number of storylines, the author's attitude to what is happening.

The division by birth is lyrical, dramatic and epic works. Lyrical can be a novel, a story, an essay. The genus epic includes poems, fairy tales, epics. Dramatic - these are plays: comedies, tragicomedies, tragedies.

Important! New time makes adjustments to the system of literary trends. In recent decades, the detective genre, which originated in the 19th century, has developed. In contrast to the utopian novel that arose in the late Middle Ages, dystopia was born.

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Summing up

Literature continues to evolve today. The world is changing at a tremendous speed, and therefore undergo changes in the form of expression of thoughts, feelings, the speed of perception. Perhaps in the future, new genres will form - so unusual that it is still difficult for us to imagine them.

It is possible that they will be located at the junction of several types of art at once, for example, cinema, music and literature. But this is in the future, but for now our task is to learn to understand the literary heritage that we already have.

One of the founders of Russian literary criticism was V. G. Belinsky. And although serious steps were taken in antiquity in the development of the concept of literary gender (Aristotle), it is Belinsky who owns the scientifically based theory of three literary genera, which you can get acquainted with in detail by reading Belinsky's article "Division of poetry into genera and types."

There are three types of fiction: epic(from the Greek. Epos, narration), lyrical(a lyre was a musical instrument, accompanied by which verses were chanted) and dramatic(from Greek Drama, action).

Presenting a particular subject to the reader (meaning the subject of conversation), the author chooses different approaches to it:

First approach: can be detailed tell about the subject, about the events associated with it, about the circumstances of the existence of this subject, etc.; at the same time, the position of the author will be more or less detached, the author will act as a kind of chronicler, narrator, or choose one of the characters as the narrator; the main thing in such a work will be precisely the story, narration about the subject, the leading type of speech will be exactly the narrative; this kind of literature is called epic;

The second approach: you can tell not so much about events, but about impression, which they produced on the author, about those feelings that they called; image inner world, experiences, impressions and will refer to the lyrical genre of literature; exactly experience becomes the main event of the lyrics;

Third approach: you can portray subject in action, show him on stage; present to the reader and the viewer surrounded by other phenomena; this kind of literature is dramatic; in the drama itself, the voice of the author will be the least likely to sound - in remarks, that is, the author's explanations for the action and replicas of the characters.

Consider the following table and try to memorize its content:

Genres of fiction

Each type of literature in turn includes a number of genres.

GENRE- This is a historically established group of works, united by common features of content and form. These groups include novels, stories, poems, elegies, short stories, feuilletons, comedies, etc. In literary criticism, the concept of a literary type is often introduced; this is a broader concept than a genre. In this case, the novel will be considered a type of fiction, and genres - various varieties of the novel, for example, adventure, detective, psychological, parable novel, dystopian novel, etc.

Examples of genus-species relations in the literature:

• Genus: dramatic; type: comedy; Genre: sitcom.
• Genus: epic; type: story; genre: fantasy story, etc.

Genres, being historical categories, appear, develop, and eventually "leave" from the "active reserve" of artists, depending on the historical epoch: the ancient lyric poets did not know the sonnet; in our time, an ode born in antiquity and popular in the 17th-18th centuries has become an archaic genre; nineteenth-century romanticism gave rise to detective literature, and so on.

Consider the following table, which lists the types and genres related to the different kinds of word art:

Genera, types and genres of fiction

Modern literary criticism also highlights fourth, an adjacent genre of literature, combining the features of the epic and lyrical genera: lyrical-epic to which it refers poem. Indeed, by telling the reader a story, the poem manifests itself as an epic; revealing to the reader the depth of feelings, the inner world of the person who tells this story, the poem manifests itself as a lyric.

LYRICAL called a kind of literature in which the author's attention is paid to the image of the inner world, feelings, experiences. The event in the lyrics is important only insofar as it evokes an emotional response in the soul of the artist. It is the experience that becomes the main event in the lyrics. Lyrics as a kind of literature arose in ancient times. The word "lyric" is of Greek origin, but does not have a direct translation. In ancient Greece, poetic works depicting the inner world of feelings and experiences were performed to the accompaniment of a lyre, and this is how the word "lyric" appeared.

The most important character in the lyrics is lyrical hero: it is his inner world that is shown in the lyrical work, on his behalf the lyric artist speaks to the reader, and the external world is depicted in the context of the impressions that he makes on the lyrical hero. Note! Do not confuse the lyrical hero with the epic one. Pushkin reproduced in great detail the inner world of Eugene Onegin, but this is an epic hero, a participant in the main events of the novel. The lyrical hero of Pushkin's novel is the Narrator, the one who is familiar with Onegin and tells his story, deeply experiencing it. Onegin only once becomes a lyrical hero in the novel - when he writes a letter to Tatyana, just as she becomes a lyrical heroine when she writes a letter to Onegin.

By creating the image of a lyrical hero, the poet can make him personally very close to himself (poems by Lermontov, Fet, Nekrasov, Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, etc.). But sometimes the poet seems to be "hiding" behind the mask of a lyrical hero, completely far from the personality of the poet himself; so, for example, A. Blok makes Ophelia a lyrical heroine (2 poems called "The Song of Ophelia") or a street actor Harlequin ("I was all in colorful rags ..."), M. Tsvetaeva - Hamlet ("At the bottom she, where the silt ... "), V. Bryusov - Cleopatra ("Cleopatra"), S. Yesenin - a peasant boy from a folk song or fairy tale ("Mother went to the bathing suit through the forest ..."). So it’s more literate, when discussing a lyrical work, to talk about the expression in it of the feelings of not the author, but the lyrical hero.

Like other types of literature, poetry includes a number of genres. Some of them arose in ancient times, others - in the Middle Ages, some - quite recently, one and a half to two centuries ago, or even in the last century.

Read about some LYRICAL GENRES:
Oh yeah(Greek "Song") - a monumental solemn poem glorifying a great event or a great person; distinguish between spiritual odes (arrangements of psalms), moralizing, philosophical, satirical, ode-messages, etc. The ode is three-part: it must have a theme stated at the beginning of the work; development of the theme and arguments, as a rule, allegorical (second part); final, didactic (instructive) part. Samples of ancient ancient odes are associated with the names of Horace and Pindar; the ode came to Russia in the 18th century, the odes of M. Lomonosov ("On the day of the accession to the Russian throne of Empress Elisaveta Petrovna"), V. Trediakovsky, A. Sumarokov, G. Derzhavin ("Felitsa", "God"), A .Radischev ("Liberty"). Paid tribute to the ode A. Pushkin ("Liberty"). By the middle of the 19th century, the ode had lost its relevance and gradually passed into the category of archaic genres.

Hymn- a poem of laudatory content; also came from ancient poetry, but if in ancient times hymns were composed in honor of gods and heroes, then at a later time hymns were written in honor of solemn events, festivities, often not only of a state, but also of a personal nature (A. Pushkin. "Feasting students" ).

Elegy(Phrygian "reed flute") - a genre of lyrics dedicated to meditation. Originated in ancient poetry; originally it was called crying over the dead. The elegy was based on the life ideal of the ancient Greeks, which was based on the harmony of the world, the proportionality and balance of being, incomplete without sadness and contemplation, these categories have passed into the modern elegy. An elegy can embody both life-affirming ideas and disappointment. The poetry of the 19th century still continued to develop the elegy in its "pure" form; in the lyric poetry of the 20th century, elegy is found rather as a genre tradition, as a special mood. In modern poetry, an elegy is a plotless poem of a contemplative, philosophical and landscape nature.
A. Pushkin. "To sea"
N. Nekrasov. "Elegy"
A. Akhmatova. "March Elegy"

Read A. Blok's poem "From the Autumn Elegy":

Epigram(Greek "inscription") - a small poem of satirical content. Initially, in ancient times, inscriptions on household items, tombstones and statues were called epigrams. Subsequently, the content of the epigrams changed.
Examples of epigrams:

Yuri Olesha:

Epistle, or message - a poem, the content of which can be defined as "letter in verse." The genre also came from ancient lyrics.
A. Pushkin. Pushchin ("My first friend, my priceless friend...")
V.Mayakovsky. "Sergey Yesenin"; "Lilichka! (Instead of a Letter)"
S. Yesenin. "Mother's Letter"
M. Tsvetaeva. Poems to Blok

Sonnet- This is a poetic genre of the so-called rigid form: a poem consisting of 14 lines, organized in a special way into stanzas, with strict principles of rhyme and stylistic laws. There are several types of sonnet in form:

• Italian: consists of two quatrains (quatrains), in which the lines rhyme according to the ABAB or ABBA scheme, and two three-verses (tercetes) with the rhyming CDС DСD or CDE CDE;
• English: consists of three quatrains and one couplet; general rhyming scheme - ABAB CDCD EFEF GG;
• sometimes French is singled out: the stanza is similar to Italian, but in tercetes there is a different rhyming scheme: CCD EED or CCD EDE; he had a significant influence on the development of the next type of sonnet -
• Russian: created by Anton Delvig: the stanza is also similar to Italian, but the rhyming scheme in tercetes is CDD CCD.

This lyrical genre was born in Italy in the 13th century. Its creator was the lawyer Jacopo da Lentini; a hundred years later Petrarch's sonnet masterpieces appeared. The sonnet came to Russia in the 18th century; a little later, he received a serious development in the work of Anton Delvig, Ivan Kozlov, Alexander Pushkin. The poets of the "Silver Age" showed particular interest in the sonnet: K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, I. Annensky, V. Ivanov, I. Bunin, N. Gumilyov, A. Blok, O. Mandelstam ...
In the art of versification, the sonnet is considered one of the most difficult genres.
In the last 2 centuries, poets rarely adhered to any strict rhyme, often offering a mixture of various schemes.

This content dictates features of the sonnet language:
• vocabulary and intonation should be sublime;
• rhymes - accurate and, if possible, unusual, rare;
• significant words should not be repeated in the same meaning, etc.

A special difficulty - and therefore the pinnacle of poetic technique - is wreath of sonnets: a cycle of 15 poems, the initial line of each being the last line of the previous one, and the last line of the 14th poem being the first line of the first. The fifteenth sonnet consists of the first lines of all 14 sonnets in the cycle. In Russian lyrics, the wreaths of sonnets by V. Ivanov, M. Voloshin, K. Balmont became the most famous.

Read "Sonnet" by A. Pushkin and see how the sonnet form is parsed:

In school literary criticism, such a genre of lyrics is called lyric poem. There is no such genre in classical literary criticism. It was introduced into the school curriculum to somewhat simplify the complex system of lyrical genres: if the bright genre features of the work cannot be distinguished and the poem is not in the strict sense either an ode, or a hymn, or an elegy, or a sonnet, etc., it will be defined as a lyric poem . In this case, one should pay attention to the individual features of the poem: the specifics of the form, theme, image of the lyrical hero, mood, etc. Thus, poems by Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva, Blok, and others should be referred to as lyric poems (in the school sense). Almost all the lyrics of the twentieth century fall under this definition, unless the authors specifically specified the genre of the works.

Satire(lat. "mixture, all sorts of things") - as a poetic genre: a work, the content of which is the denunciation - of social phenomena, human vices or individuals - by ridicule. Satire in antiquity in Roman literature (satires of Juvenal, Martial, etc.). The genre received new development in the literature of classicism. The content of satire is characterized by ironic intonation, allegoricalness, Aesopian language, and the technique of "speaking names" is often used. In Russian literature, A. Kantemir, K. Batyushkov (XVIII-XIX centuries) worked in the satire genre, in the 20th century Sasha Cherny and others became famous as the author of satires. Many poems from V. Mayakovsky's "Poems about America" ​​can also be called satires ( "Six nuns", "Black and white", "Skyscraper in section", etc.).

Ballad- lyric-epic plot poem of fantastic, satirical, historical, fabulous, legendary, humorous, etc. character. The ballad arose in antiquity (presumably in the early Middle Ages) as a folklore ritual dance and song genre, and this determines its genre features: strict rhythm, plot (in ancient ballads, heroes and gods were told), the presence of repetitions (whole lines or individual words were repeated as an independent stanza), called refrain. In the 18th century, the ballad became one of the most beloved poetic genres of Romantic literature. Ballads were created by F. Schiller ("Cup", "Glove"), I. Goethe ("Forest King"), V. Zhukovsky ("Lyudmila", "Svetlana"), A. Pushkin ("Anchar", "Groom") , M. Lermontov ("Borodino", "Three Palms"); at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the ballad was revived again and became very popular, especially in the revolutionary era, during the period of revolutionary romance. Among the poets of the twentieth century, ballads were written by A. Blok ("Love" ("The Queen lived on a high mountain ..."), N. Gumilyov ("Captains", "Barbarians"), A. Akhmatova ("The Gray-eyed King"), M. Svetlov ("Grenada"), etc.

Note! The work can combine the features of some genres: a message with elements of an elegy (A. Pushkin, "K *** ("I remember a wonderful moment ..."), a lyrical poem of elegiac content (A. Blok. "Motherland"), an epigram-message, etc. .d.

1. The creator of Macbeth is William Shakespeare (the tragedy "Macbeth").
2. Portuguese poet Luis de Camões (1524-1580).
3. Wordsworth - English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850).
4. Lithuanian singer - Polish romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855).
5. See topic #12.

• V.A. Zhukovsky. Poems: "Svetlana"; "Sea"; "Evening"; "Unspeakable"
• A.S. Pushkin. Poems: "Village", "Demons", "Winter Evening", "Pushchin" ("My first friend, my priceless friend...", "Winter road", "To Chaadaev", "In the depths of Siberian ores...", "Anchar "," The flying ridge of clouds is thinning ...", "Prisoner", "The conversation of a bookseller with a poet", "Poet and the crowd", "Autumn", "... Again I visited ...", "Do I wander along the noisy streets ...", " A vain gift, an accidental gift…”, “October 19” (1825), “On the hills of Georgia”, “I loved you…”, “To ***” (“I remember a wonderful moment…”), “Madonna” , "Echo", "Prophet", "To the Poet", "To the Sea", "From Pindemonti" ("I don't cheaply appreciate high-profile rights..."), "I erected a monument to myself..."
• M.Yu.Lermontov. Poems: "Death of a Poet", "Poet", "How often, surrounded by a motley crowd...", "Duma", "Both boring and sad...", "Prayer" ("I, mother of God, now with a prayer...") , "We parted, but your portrait ...", "I will not humble myself before you ...", "Motherland", "Farewell, unwashed Russia ...", "When the yellowing field is worried ...", "No, I'm not Byron, I'm different ...", "Leaf", "Three palm trees", "From under the mysterious, cold half-mask ...", "The Captive Knight", "Neighbor", "Testament", "Clouds", "Cliff", "Borodino", "Clouds heavenly, eternal pages…”, “Prisoner”, “Prophet”, “I go out alone on the road…”
• N.A. Nekrasov. Poems: "I do not like your irony ...", "Knight for an hour", "I will die soon ...", "Prophet", "Poet and citizen", "Troika", "Elegy", "Zina" ("You are still on you have a right to life…”); other verses of your choice
• F.I. Tyutchev. Poems: "Autumn evening", "Silentium", "Not what you think, nature ...", "The earth still looks sad ...", "How good you are, O night sea ...", "I met you ...", " Whatever life teaches us…”, “Fountain”, “These poor villages…”, “Tears of people, oh human tears…”, “You can’t understand Russia with your mind…”, “I remember the golden time…”, “What are you talking about howling, night wind?", "The gray-gray shadows have shifted…", "How sweetly the dark green garden slumbers…"; other verses of your choice
• A.A. Fet. Poems: "I came to you with greetings ...", "It's still a May night ...", "Whisper, timid breathing ...", "This morning, this joy ...", "Sevastopol rural cemetery", "A wavy cloud ...", "Learn they have - at the oak, at the birch ...", "To the poets", "Autumn", "What a night, how clean the air is ...", "Village", "Swallows", "On the railway", "Fantasy", "The night shone The garden was full of the moon ... "; other verses of your choice
• I.A. Bunin. Poems: "The Last Bumblebee", "Evening", "Childhood", "It's Still Cold and Cheese...", "And Flowers, and Bumblebees, and Grass...", "The Word", "The Knight at the Crossroads", "The Bird Has a Nest …", "Twilight"
• A.A. Blok. Poems: "I enter the dark temples ...", "Stranger", "Solveig", "You are like the echo of a forgotten hymn ...", "The earthly heart freezes again ...", "Oh, spring without end and without edge ...", " About valor, about exploits, about glory…”, “On the railway”, cycles “On the Kulikovo field” and “Carmen”, “Rus”, “Rodina”, “Russia”, “Morning in the Kremlin”, “Oh, I I want to live crazy ... "; other verses of your choice
• A.A. Akhmatova. Poems: "Song of the last meeting", "You know, I'm languishing in captivity...", "There are such days before spring...", "Tearful autumn, like a widow...", "I learned to live simply, wisely...", "Native land "; “I don’t need odic ratis…”, “I’m not with those who left the earth…”, “Courage”; other verses of your choice
• S.A. Yesenin. Poems: "Goy you, my dear Rus' ...", "Do not wander, do not crush in the crimson bushes ...", "I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry ...", "We are now leaving little by little ...", "Mother's letter", " The golden grove dissuaded…”, “I left my dear home…”, “Kachalov’s dog”, “Soviet Rus'”, “Hewn drogs sang…”, “Uncomfortable liquid moonlight…”, “The feather grass is sleeping. Dear plain…”, “Goodbye , my friend, goodbye ... "; other verses of your choice
• V.V.Mayakovsky. Poems: “Could you?”, “Listen!”, “Nate!”, “To you!”, “Violin and a little nervously”, “Mom and the evening killed by the Germans”, “Gift sale”, “Good attitude towards horses "," Left March "," About rubbish "," Sergei Yesenin "," Anniversary "," Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva "; other verses of your choice
• 10-15 poems each (of your choice): M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak, N. Gumilyov.
• A. Tvardovsky. Poems: "I was killed near Rzhev ...", "I know, no fault of mine ...", "The whole point is in one single testament ...", "In memory of the mother", "To bitter insults of my own person ..."; other verses of your choice
• I. Brodsky. Poems: "I entered instead of a wild beast...", "Letters to a Roman friend", "To Urania", "Stans", "You will ride in the darkness...", "On the death of Zhukov", "From nowhere with love...", "Notes of a fern "

Try to read all the literary works that are named in the work in a book, and not in electronic form!
When completing tasks for work 7, pay special attention to theoretical materials, since doing the tasks of this work by intuition means dooming yourself to a mistake.
Do not forget to draw up a metric scheme for each analyzed poetic passage, checking it many times.
The key to success in this complex work is attention and accuracy.

• Kvyatkovsky I.A. Poetic dictionary. - M., 1966.
• Literary encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1987.
• Literary criticism: Reference materials. - M., 1988.
• Lotman Yu.M. Analysis of the poetic text. - L .: Education, 1972.
• Gasparov M. Modern Russian verse. Metrics and rhythm. - M.: Nauka, 1974.
• Zhirmunsky V.M. The theory of verse. - L .: Nauka, 1975.
• Poetic structure of Russian lyrics. Sat. - L .: Nauka, 1973.
• Skripov G.S. About Russian versification. Student aid. - M.: Enlightenment, 1979.
• Dictionary of literary terms. - M., 1974.
• Encyclopedic Dictionary of a Young Literary Critic. - M., 1987.

A genre in literature is a selection of texts that have a similar structure and are similar in content. There are quite a lot of them, but there is a division by gender, by form and content.

Classification of genres in literature.

Division by birth

With such a classification, one should consider the attitude of the author himself to the text of interest to the reader. He was the first to try to divide literary works into four genres, each with its own internal divisions:

• epic (novels, stories, epics, short stories, stories, fairy tales, epics),
• lyrical (odes, elegies, messages, epigrams),
• dramatic (dramas, comedies, tragedies),
• lyrical-epic (ballads, poems).

Division by content

According to this principle of separation, three groups emerged:

• Comedy
• tragedy
• Drama.

The last two groups speak of a tragic fate, a conflict in the work. And comedies should be divided into smaller subgroups: parody, farce, vaudeville, sitcom, interlude.

Separation by shape

The group is diverse and numerous. There are thirteen genres in this group:

• epic,
• epic,
• novel,
• story,
• short story
• story,
• sketch,
• play,
• feature article,
• essay,
• opus,
• visions.

There is no such clear division in prose.

It is not easy to immediately determine what genre this or that work is. How does the read work affect the reader? What feelings does it evoke? Whether the author is present, whether he introduces his personal experiences, whether a simple narrative is being conducted without adding an analysis of the events described. All these questions require specific answers in order to make a final verdict on whether the text belongs to a certain type of literary genre.

Genres speak for themselves

To begin to understand the genre diversity of literature, you should know the characteristics of each of them.

1. Form groups are perhaps the most interesting. A play is a work written specifically for the stage. The story is a prosaic narrative work of small volume. The novel is distinguished by its scale. The story is an intermediate genre, standing between the story and the novel, which tells about the fate of one hero.
2. Content groups are small, so it is very easy to remember them. Comedy is humorous and satirical. Tragedy always ends as expected. The drama is based on the conflict between human life and society.
3. The genus typology contains only three structures:
   1. The epic tells about the past without expressing one's personal opinion about what is happening.
   2. The lyrics always contain the feelings and experiences of the lyrical hero, that is, the author himself.
   3. The drama reveals its plot through the communication of the characters among themselves.