The word "epos" came to us from the Greek language, in translation from which it means "word", "narration". The dictionary gives the following interpretation: firstly, the epic is “a literary genre, distinguished along with lyrics and drama, represented by such genres as fairy tale, legend, varieties of heroic epic, epic, epic poem, story, short story, short story, novel, essay. The epic, like the drama, is characterized by the reproduction of the action unfolding in space and time, the course of events in the life of the characters. ”(18). The epic has a specific feature, which lies in the organizing role of the narrative. The author of the epic appears before us as a narrator who tells about events of great importance in the life of the people, describes the appearance of the characters and their fate. The narrative layer of speech of an epic work naturally interacts with dialogues and monologues. The epic narrative sometimes becomes “self-sufficient, for a while, putting aside the statements of the characters, then imbued with their spirit; sometimes it frames the characters’ lines, sometimes on the contrary, it reduces it to a minimum and temporarily disappears.”(18). But in general, it dominates the work and holds together everything depicted in it. That is why the features of the epic are largely determined by the properties of the narrative.

Speech performs in the epic the function of reporting what happened earlier, as something remembered. And this means that between the conduct of speech and the depicted action in the epic, a temporal distance is maintained. The epic poet tells "about the event as about something separate from himself." (Aristotle 1957:45). The narrator, on behalf of whom the epic narration is conducted, is an intermediary between the depicted and the readers. In the epic we do not find any information about his fate, about his relationship with the heroes. However, his speech and manner of description allow us to talk about how the world in which the depicted characters lived was perceived in those distant times. The epic also absorbed the originality of the narrator's consciousness.

The epic embraces being in its thematic volume, spatio-temporal extent and eventfulness. Such figurative and expressive means used in the epic, such as: portraits, direct characteristics, dialogues and monologues, landscapes, actions, gestures, facial expressions, give the images the illusion of visual and auditory authenticity. The epic is characterized by a fictional artistic and illusory nature of the depicted.

The epic form draws on various types of plot. The plot of works can be extremely tense or weakened, so that what happened seems to be drowning in descriptions, reasoning.

An epic can contain a large number of characters and events. The epic is a kind of representation of life in its entirety. The epic reveals the essence of an entire era and the scale of creative thinking.

The volume of the text of an epic work is diverse - from miniature stories (the early works of O. Henry, A.P. Chekhov) to spatial epics and novels (Mahabharata, Iliad, War and Peace). An epic can be either prose or verse.

Speaking about the history of the emergence of the epic, it is worth emphasizing the fact that the epic was formed in different ways. The addition of panegyrics (eulogies) and laments contributes to the emergence of the epic. Panegyrics and laments are often composed in the same style and meter as the heroic epic: the manner of expression and lexical composition are almost the same. Later, panegyrics and laments will be preserved as part of epic poems.

The first epic songs were based on the lyrical-epic genre. They arose from the ritual syncretic representations of the people. Oral and, later, written historical legends also had a great influence on early epic creativity and the further formation of forms of artistic narration.

The emergence of a folk heroic epos is characteristic of ancient and medieval literature. The formation of a carefully detailed narrative replaced the naive-archaic poetics of short messages, characteristic of myth, parable and early fairy tale. In the heroic epic, there is a great distance between the characters described and the narrator himself, the images of the hero are idealized.

But already in ancient prose there are significant changes, namely, the distance between the author and the main characters ceases to be absolutized. On the examples of the novel "The Golden Ass" by Apuleius and "Satyricon" by Petronius, we see that the characters become storytellers, they talk about what they have seen and experienced. (Veselovsky: 1964).

In the XVIII-XIX centuries. The leading genre of the epic is the novel, where "personal, demonstratively subjective narration" dominates. (Veselovsky 1964:68). Sometimes, the narrator looks at the world through the eyes of one of the characters, imbued with his mindset. This way of narration is inherent in L. Tolstoy, T. Mann. There are other ways of narration, for example, a story about what happened is at the same time a monologue of the hero. For novel prose of the XIX-XX centuries. emotional and semantic connections between the statements of the characters and the narrator will become important.

Having considered the features of the emergence of the epic, we will focus on the study of the heroic epic, since in the work we will compare two heroic epics, namely, the Adyghe epic "About the Narts" and the German epic "The Song of the Nibelungs".

"The heroic epic is a heroic narrative about the past, containing a holistic picture of people's life and represents in a harmonious unity a kind of epic world of heroes-heroes."

The features of this genre have developed at the folklore stage, so the heroic epic is often called folk. However, it is important to note that such an identification is inaccurate, since the book forms of the epic have their own stylistic and sometimes ideological specifics.

The heroic epic has come down to us in the form of extensive epics, book (Greek - "Iliad", "Odyssey"; epic of the peoples of India - "Mahabharata") or oral (Kyrgyz epic - "Manas"; Kalmyk epic - "Dzhangar"), and in the form of short "epic songs" (Russian epics, poems of "Edda the Elder") partly grouped into cycles ("Nart epic").

The folk heroic epic arose in the era of the decay of the primitive communal system and developed in antiquity and feudal society, under conditions of partial preservation of patriarchal relations and ideas, in which the depiction of social relations as blood, tribal, typical of the heroic epic, could not yet represent a conscious artistic device. (Zhirmunsky 1962).

In the archaic forms of the epic, such as the Karelian and Finnish runes, the Nart epic, a fairy-tale mythological plot is characteristic, where the heroes have superpowers, and their enemies appear in the guise of fantastic monsters. The main themes are the fight against monsters, heroic matchmaking for the betrothed, family revenge, the struggle for wealth and treasure.

In the classical forms of the epic, the heroes-leaders and warriors represent the historical people, and their opponents are often identical with the historical invaders, foreign oppressors (for example, the Turks and Tatars in the Slavic epic). Epic time - a glorious historical past at the dawn of the birth of national history. In the classical forms of the epic, historical or pseudo-historical heroes and events are sung, although the very depiction of historical realities is still subject to traditional plot schemes. The epic background is a struggle between two tribes or nationalities, which are more or less correlated with the real events of history. Often, a certain historical event is at the center of the narrative (the Trojan War in the Iliad, the battle on Kurushetra in the Mahabharata), less often a mythical event (the fight with a giant in the Narts). Power is usually concentrated in the hands of the protagonist (Charlemagne in the Song of Roland), however, the carriers of active action are warriors, whose characters are distinguished not only by courage, but also by cunning and independence Achilles - in the Iliad, Ilya Muromets - in epics , Sausyryko - in "Narts"). The obstinacy of the heroes leads to a conflict with the authorities, but the social nature of the heroic activity and the commonality of patriotic goals ensure the resolution of the conflict. The epic is characterized by a description of the actions of the heroes, and not their psychological and emotional experiences. The plot is usually replete with numerous ceremonial dialogues.

Songs and legends dedicated to folk heroes were usually passed from mouth to mouth from generation to generation. Later, when writing appears, each nation strives to record in writing all those events that reflect their history and culture. That is why it is no coincidence that the epic formula is used in epics.

The epic formula is “a mnemonic technique associated with the oral nature of the existence of the epic and is quite freely used by the narrator. The formula in the epic is an expressive blank, due to three factors:

2. syntax scheme

3. lexical determinant.

This blank (the content of which is a separate image, idea, description feature) can be adapted to any thematic or phraseological situation. The poet has a large number of formulas that allow him to express various specific aspects of a given situation in accordance with the needs of the moment. The formula serves as a micro-unit of action, capable of being combined with other formulas, forming a speech segment.

There are types of formulas, and formulas, in turn, are divided into two categories:

"one. a combination of the type "noun + adjective" ("blue sea" or "black death"), in which the noun is accompanied by the so-called "stable epithet"; functionally the epithet is not related to the narrative context

2. repetitive turns that apply to part of a line, to a separate line, to a group of lines; they are strictly functional and necessary for the narrative, their primary task is to depict how certain repetitive events take place.

For the Nart epic, for example, the use of the combination "noun + adjective" is typical. Some examples are: "braveheart", "red sun", "hot heart", "black clouds", "endless distance", "cold night".

In the German epic, we also find the familiar formula: “rich outfit”, “reliable guard”, “unfortunate burden”, “fearless warrior”, “silk tents”.

The epics also use narrative formulas. They perform the function of obligatory plot links. Here are a few examples from the Nibelungenlied: “And seven thousand dead men were carried out of the hall”, “the bravest of men was killed by the hand of a woman”; from the Nart epic: "he jumped on a horse with lightning, grabbed the chain, pulled it in the hands of his strong ones", "angrily cut off his head with a sword, for the insults caused to his people." (Shazzo 2001:32).

Question # 1. The concept of myth. The evolution of mythological ideas as a movement from chaos to space. Olympic mythology.

Myth definitions (according to the workshop):

oral (in motion - variability) form expressing a person's attitude to something

development of the world at the initial stage of history

The culture of a people begins with a myth according to the archeology of consciousness, since each people goes through a stage of mythological consciousness, the features of which are:

Weak isolation of a person from the outside world

Weak development of the abstract concept => antinomy

! A characteristic feature of myths is metamorphosis(transformation of living into non-living and vice versa).

Ancient Greek mythology, main features:

Chthonism (early stage) - a person thinks of himself as consisting of the earth and its creatures. Fetishism (living in the object, not separated from the object itself, and worshiped it)

Animism (mixanthropy - a combination of human and animal traits)

Olympic (heroic) - localization (Olympus), more faith in one's strength, stability, wealth, harmony, beauty (cosmos), orderliness (from XC to KSMS), Zeus's desire to establish order, power is shared together

early heroism (transition to patriarchy, heroes who deal with monsters, saving the people from dangerous creatures (Ch.'s victory over nature))

late heroism (influence of literary processing, fear of the gods is lost)

The mythology of the Greeks has survived abundantly due to the appeal of ancient culture to it, for example, the insertion of myths in the works of Homer.

Movement from chaos to space

The evolution of mythological representations played an important role in the development of civilization. The movement to space was the first stage of the transition to the scientific knowledge of the world. Cosmos is a non-mythological world in which there are natural processes independent of people and Gods. It is worth paying attention to the late theo-cosmogonic myths, in which social, communal, tribal, kinship relations between people are transferred to natural processes. The question of the origin of the world was interpreted from the standpoint of the origin of the community, clan, tribe, people, ideas about the change of generations within the clan, about family and domestic relations in it. And the images of gods, heroes, and other personifications summarized certain aspects of the life of the tribal community (first matrilineal, and then patrilineal). The content of theocosmogonic myths was the pictures of the origin of the gods, the change of generations of the gods and their struggle among themselves, their naturally determined connections and relationships with mortal people, etc. Theocosmogonic myths are the highest form of myth-making, which already contains the beginnings of a scientific reflection of the world. These myths rationalized mythology through its historicization (improvement of concepts that reproduce the history of the world) and systematization.

Thus, the historical merit of the ancient Greek theocosmogonic mythologies consisted in the development of a general idea of ​​the Cosmos, which served as an important prerequisite for the emergence of scientific knowledge of the world.

Olympic mythology

The myths of this cycle tell about the life of the Olympian gods (pantheon of gods).

The composition of the pantheon has changed over the centuries, so there are more than 12 gods.

List: Hades, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, Hera, Hermes, Hestia, Hephaestus, Demeter, Dionysus, Zeus, Poseidon. All myths about these gods belong to the cycle of Olympian mythology.

Ticket #2. Poetry of Catullus. Poems for Lesbia.

Poetry of Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus (born in the 80s of the 1st century, died about 54) was a native of Verona. That part of the "Cisalpine Gaul", to which Verona belonged, was not yet part of Italy and was considered a "province", but Catullus's father was a wealthy man with connections in Rome, and his son gained access to noble Roman society. At first, the young "provincial" was completely indifferent to political issues, spending his time among riotous youth, in communication with representatives of literary circles.

He was one of the neoteriks. Neoteriki acted with a literary program that repeats the principles of Callimachus (Ancient Greek poet who lived around this time: 310-240 BC. He wrote mainly hymns, elegies, epigrams). They abandoned large forms, epic and drama, and developed small genres - epillium, epigram, elegy. Claiming to be "scholarly", they chose, following the Alexandrians, rare myths, little-known variants, saturated their works with dark allusions, hidden quotations and borrowings from other authors; such quotations were regarded as a literary compliment, as a recognition of the stylistic skill of the quoted writer, but only a very sophisticated reader who was well acquainted with both literature, both Greek and Roman, could understand and appreciate all this. Neotherics often expressed confidence that their works would "survive the ages"; in fact, this fate befell only one of them, who was recognized by his contemporaries as the most talented representative of the school. This is Gaius Valerius Catullus.

The literary heritage of Catullus consists of three parts. These are, on the one hand, large works in a "scientific" style, on the other hand, small poems, "jokes", which, in turn, fall into two categories, similar in content, but different in style and metrical form - into poems composed in elegiac distich (epigrams, elegies), and the so-called "polymeters", that is, poems of such a metrical structure that does not allow the division of a verse into the same type of feet or meters. The predominant place among the "polymeters" is occupied by the "eleven syllable" (verse of 11 syllables) or "Phalekian verse":

Let's live and love, my friend!

In the collection of poems that has come down to us, Catullus is arranged in such a way that the beginning of it is “polymeters”, and the end of the epigram; large poems are placed in the center. The author, of course, attached great importance to his "learned" works, but his subsequent fame was based mainly on poems of small form.

"Polymeters" of Catullus are distinguished by a pronounced subjective coloring: the outside world is of interest to the poet not in itself, but only as a stimulus of subjective emotions. A lyrical poem is most often presented as a dynamic reaction to a small, even the smallest, everyday or biographical event, real or fictitious, but allegedly experienced by the author. A friend returned to his homeland: amazement from surprise, joy, anticipation of a meeting, jubilation. The drinking buddy pulled off his cloak: selective abuse, demand for a return, threats of reprisal. The main thing is the noisy vibration of feelings, the physical joy of life. In accordance with the ancient lyrical tradition, the “polymeters” of Catullus are almost always addressed to someone: to friends or enemies, to a loved one, to an inanimate object, and finally to the author himself.

Small poems in elegiac meter, epigrams and short elegies, are sustained in calmer tones. In the depiction of subjective feelings, there is a noticeable difference from “polymeters”: instant reactions in their immediate formation prevailed there, while in epigrams the center of gravity is transferred to long-term mental states that the poet passively states and about which he can already reflect.

Poems for Lesbia

A significant event in the personal life of Catullus was the love for a woman associated with difficult experiences, which appears in his poems under the fictitious name "Lesbia". One of the most important themes of the lyrics is love; these are, first of all, poems about love for Lesbia. In the surviving collection they are interspersed with other poems and without a definite order, but they could form a complete cycle. The pseudonym chosen by Catullus for his beloved should be reminiscent of Sappho. Indeed, the cycle opens with a translation of Sappho's famous poem in antiquity, which depicts the symptoms of love madness. The feelings that Sappho experienced at the sight of his beloved, marrying friend, Catullus transfers to his experiences at the sight of Lesbia. There is no reliable information about her, except for that which can be found in the poems of Catullus. The image of Lesbia is given only by separate strokes that do not form a holistic picture: the poet is mainly occupied with himself and his feelings. The poems demonstrate the widest range of feelings that the poet has for his beloved: from tender love through sadness and disappointment to bitter sarcasm. The most famous poem of Catullus dedicated to Lesbia is “I hate and love” (“Odi et amo”):

I hate and love. You ask why I do this.

I do not know, but I feel that this is being done, and I go out in torment.

Question #3 THE CONCEPT OF EPOS. ACHILUS AND HECTOR AS EPIC HEROES.

1.Epos (other Greekἔπος - “word”, “narrative”) - a heroic narrative about the past, containing a holistic picture of folk life and representing in harmonious unity a kind of epic world and heroes-heroes

Essence of epic style. The most important thing in the whole problem of epic style is the relation between the general and the individual. The epic style is an artistic style that depicts for us the life of this or that human collective, subordinating to itself by its laws absolutely any personal life and therefore any individual personal life will be of interest to us only in connection with the general life of its collective. Any personal life in the epic receives its meaning and its natural development only from the collective to which it belongs. This personal life can be full of the deepest, most burning feelings. But these feelings, if we are talking about the epic, are caused by the vital tasks of the collective and receive their satisfaction only in connection with the life of this collective. Non-collectivistic feelings and behavior are for the epic subject something secondary and tertiary and do not play any decisive role in his life, although they can contribute very diverse content to it.

The middle position of the epic.

a) Between primitive savagery and civilization. Socio-historical place of epic style.

Strictly speaking, all the art of the communal-tribal formation in general has an epic style, since it is a primitive, spontaneously undifferentiated collectivism in which every individual person drowns. On the other hand, one can speak of the epic in a narrower sense of the word, understanding it as heroic songs and other related genres.

b) Rising patriarchy .

The true place of the epic is the ascending patriarchy, when a person masters the forces of nature so much that he can heroically fight with them and heroically subjugate them to himself. In this era, the tribal community became sedentary and here, rationally using natural resources, it begins to realize itself as something unified, begins to remember its history and those great heroes who created and organized it, who guarded it and moved it forward. This is where the epic hero appears, who no longer completely dissolves in the tribal community, but is already aware of his strength and his organizing power, although realizing himself, he still remains in complete unity with his tribal community and continues to live only in it and just for her.

2. The objectivity of the epic.

a) Feature .

The first principle that follows from the essence of the epic style is its objectivity . In fact, the epic is the primacy of the general over the individual. The epic artist, as it were, does not use his imagination at all. Gods, even demons, even any miracles and incredible events - all this is conceived in the epic as really existing, and not at all the result of creative imagination or idle fiction of the poet.

b) Narration . What we now call the objectivity of the epic is usually called narrative.

The narrative genre of poetry is characterized by that basic position of the poet, by virtue of which he directs his attention to the depiction of facts and events as if the poet himself had nothing to do with it and as if his own inner life were completely uninteresting to him. Of course, the exclusion of the poet's own interests is fictitious, since objectivity and narrative are also a certain position of a creative person and, therefore, to one degree or another expresses his subjective mood. Homer was neither indifferent nor apolitical, and as an artistic method he does not always stand up to his epic objectivity.

c) The birth of subjectivism . Of course, this applies primarily to the strict epic style. And there are plenty of such objectively depicted events in Homer. It is they who fill the poetry of Homer par excellence. But Homer is not only a strict epic. He not only depicts to us certain events related to the Trojan War, which was conceived in a very real historical way. Homer, undoubtedly, brings a lot from himself, creates all sorts of decorating details and often creates simply on the basis of his own imagination. In the future, we will find examples of this already non-epic style in large numbers.

Now we will point out only one device in Homer, usually ignored in the characteristics of his style. This technique lies in the fact that Homer not only gives an objective picture of life, but very often comments on it from himself, expressing all sorts of explanations, feelings, rhetorical questions, etc.

3. Picturesqueness and plasticity of the epic. This endless loving examination of external things also led to the fact that in these things everything bright for sensation and everything sharp and expressive for ordinary sensory perception was always fixed.

a) light and sun . Homeric world is full Sveta , and the events in it are played out mostly in bright sunlight. The sun and its rays are the true joy for the Homeric Greek. When Zeus began to help the Trojans and brought darkness to the battlefield, Ajax prays to Zeus to disperse the darkness, and if they have to die, then that they die in the light of day (Il., XVII.644-647). Achilles, of course, is compared with the sun (Il., XXII.134 ff.); Hera's headband is also compared to the sun (Il., XIV.184 ff.); the wonderful horses of Res are also compared to the sun (Il., X.547). It is clear that Homer's sun and light are some kind of universal criterion for life and beauty.

Often this lighting is given in contrast to the shading elements. Hector (Il., XV.604-610) is compared to a forest fire on the mountains; his eyes also glow with angry fire. Foam billows from his mouth, a terrible, also sparkling helmet sways over his head, and Hector himself flies through the battle like a storm. A wondrous light like a beacon for those who perish in the waves also spreads everywhere from the shield of Achilles (Il., XIX.375-381). Fires, flashes of lightning, the brilliance of weapons are common images in Homer.

b) Colors and paints . But not only everything is full of light in Homer. Everything is also full colors . The "pink-fingered" Dawn has a "saffron" peplos. Aphrodite has a "golden" robe. Apollo has "golden-blonde" hair. Demeter has a "dark blue" veil. Latona has "golden" curls. Irida is also "golden-winged". Thetis - "silver-legged". Zeus has “dark steel” eyebrows and Poseidon has the same hair. The gods drink red nectar.

Let us give another example, but not from Homeric poems, but from Homeric hymns, many of which date back to Homeric antiquity. In the VII Homeric hymn, the god Dionysus, with his “dark steel” or “dark blue” eyes and the same hair, in a “purple” cloak, sits in the middle of the “vine-colored” sea, on a ship. And Homer’s ships are both “black” (Il., I.300), and with a “dark blue” nose (Il., XXIII.878), and “purple-cheeked” (Od., XI.124), and “carmine-cheeked "(Ill., II.637), sails -" white "(Od., II.425, XV.291). In all such images, undoubtedly, the childhood of mankind is still evident, since children, as you know, love bright colors, variegation and brilliance of objects. Also, the Homeric Greeks found exceptionally bright, colorful and brilliant colors in the nature and life around them.

c) Plastic surgery . Let's move on from this picturesqueness to plasticity. Both Homer and the Greeks in general have always been praised for the plastic nature of the artistic images they create. However, this plasticity was very rarely understood specifically, and for the most part it was understood too broadly, expanding it to something generally beautiful and generally expressive.

5. Periods of plastic perception of the world in Homer. Even the closest analysis reveals that not everything in Homer is plastic, as most critics think. The problem of the plastic in Homer turns out to be extremely complex. Apparently, here, as well as in Homer in general, we must reflect the centuries-old evolution of human thinking and perception, starting from the complete inability to depict three-dimensional space and ending with the most real plastic and sculpture of the image.

a) The law of chronological incompatibility or the law of a planar image . If we raise the question of the most ancient way of presenting the image in Homer, then it will be, perhaps, what F.F. Zelinsky called the law of chronological incompatibility in his article "The law of chronological incompatibility and the composition of the Iliad." 4) Zelinsky himself draws conclusions from this law only for the composition of the Iliad. However, this may be even more important for the analysis of Homer's depiction of time and space.

2 .Both Hector and Achilles are the best of the best among the participants in the Trojan War. Both are strong, courageous, hardy, true warriors, they are fluent in all types of weapons of that time. It is no coincidence that Homer alternately calls them "divine equals." But the main difference is Hector's extraordinary humanity and decency and Achilles' excessive anger and cruelty.

Researchers of the ancient Greek epic have long paid attention to the fact that no other events of the Trojan War are associated with the name of Hector, except for those depicted in the Iliad. Hector's tomb was shown not in Troas, but in Thebes (Paus. IX 18, 5); this makes possible the assumption that Hector is a Boeotian hero by origin, and his battle with Achilles originally took place on Greek soil. It was only relatively late that the image of Hector was included in the circle of legends about the Trojan War, in which Hector, more than any other hero, personifies the idea of ​​patriotic duty. This is probably why the image of Hector enjoys great sympathy for the author of the Iliad. With particular warmth, Hector is depicted in the famous scene of farewell to his wife Andromache (VI 370-502).

Question #4 "Epistle to the Pisos" or "The Science of Poetry" by Horace. Horace's views on poetry and creativity.

The book of the Epistles is a significant step forward in terms of the art of depicting the inner life of the individual; Horace himself was hardly aware of the full significance of his collection, which he did not even consider to be in the realm of poetry.

The most complete explanation of Horace's theoretical views on literature and the principles that he followed in his poetic practice, we find in the third letter, in the "Epistle to the Pisons", which later - back in ancient times - received the name "Sciences of Poetry". The poetic message of Horace is not a theoretical study, which at one time was Aristotle's Poetics, and does not rest on any deep philosophical foundations. The work of Horace belongs to the type of "normative" poetics, containing dogmatic "prescriptions" from the standpoint of a certain literary movement.

According to an ancient commentator, Horace's theoretical source was a treatise by Neoptolemus of Parion, which he follows in the arrangement of material and in basic aesthetic ideas. Poetry in general, a poetic work, a poet - this course of presentation of Neoptelemus is preserved by Horace. But the Roman poet does not aim to give an exhaustive treatise. The free form of the "message" allows him to dwell only on some issues, more or less relevant, from the point of view of the struggle of literary trends in Rome. "The Science of Poetry" is, as it were, a theoretical manifesto of Roman classicism in the time of Augustus.

The aesthetics of the "Science of Poetry" is classical. The work should be simple, holistic and harmonious. Asymmetry, digressions, descriptive digressions, mannerisms - all these are violations of the canon of beauty. Without naming names and directions, Horace at the same time turns his polemics against neoteriks (This name Cicero designated a group of young Roman poets of the 1st century BC, who, breaking with the traditions of the great historical epic (Ennia and Lucilia), took the Hellenistic poetry, professing the poetic principles of Callimachus.), and against the Asian declamatory style emerging in Roman poetry, and against the archaizing Attikists. For the normative poetics of European classicism, the Epistle to the Pisons had no less canonical significance than Aristotle's Poetics. Code of Classicism, “Poetic Art” (L "art poetique, 1674) Boileau reproduces not only the traditional title of the Horatian message, but the entire course of presentation, with the same arrangement of material and with numerous borrowings of details, which are often given almost in literal translation. Horace very soon he was recognized as a "classic"; as he himself foresaw (Messages I, 20), his works became the subject of reading and commenting in the Roman school.

Question # 5. Features of the Homeric style.

Epic style: early (strict) and later (free). In the poems of Homer there are both signs of the first and the second.

The originality of the Homeric style lies in:

objectivity. Homer gives an objective picture of the world, not chasing details and details of the image. The only important thing is that this event actually happened, everything else is only of secondary importance. Even everything miraculous and fantastic (gods and demons) is portrayed by Homer as if it really existed.

"Real" image of life. Homer focuses on the outside of the events he depicts. Visual, auditory and motor sensations, as a result of which one often only has to guess about the psychology of the characters.

Traditions. Homer depicts everything that is constant, stable, age-old, obvious to everyone and recognized by everyone in the past, in the present, obligatory for everyone.

monumentality, those. loftiness, solemnity. An epic work always awakens high, noble feelings, brings up a heroic will, does not tolerate anything base.

comparison method, to which Homer resorts, wishing to explain the less understandable with something more understandable (for example, the Iliad, in which almost all paintings from the military field are compared with worldly life).

hero images, which are not limited to epic "heroism". Almost in each of the main characters one can see the emergence of an individual characteristic. The originality of the appearance of an epic hero is based on gradation, the degree of a particular quality. So, for example, Agamemnon surpasses everyone with the powers vested in him, Paris - with lover of women, Odysseus - with wit, etc. We can say that none of the heroes is deprived, standing out with one quality and inferior in other properties.

depiction of the gods, which play an important role. The development of events is carried out in 2 parallel plans: on Olympus and on earth. The first plan is the highest, since the course of events is often predetermined there, then unfolding on earth. . originality Homeric gods in that they endowed with many human qualities and weaknesses : quarrel, scold, plot each other, etc. Homer often depicts them in reduced, humorous situations (for example, Ares and Aphrodite, overtaken during a date and covered with a net of Hephaestus).

Anti-war pathos. With pain and amazement, Homer conveys the process of destruction and annihilation of human bodies, the longing of the soul flying off to Hades. None of the belligerents receives from Homer a moral elevation over the other. Dear author the idea of ​​the commonality of the human lot , difficult and sad, depending on higher powers.

The presence of several epic genres . The Iliad and the Odyssey as a whole are heroic poems. But Homer's epic is also characterized by the beginnings of other epic genres, for example:

Fairy tale elements. The fairy tale is quite skeptical about what is depicted, considering it as the subject of a funny and entertaining story. "Odyssey" - a story about the transformation of the sea god Proteus into various animals and how Menelaus caught him at the moment when Proteus was a man, and forced him to tell the future

Elements of the novel : the story of Telemachus' search for his father in the Odyssey contains elements of an adventure novel, and the entire second part of the same poem, starting from Song XIII, contains elements of a family novel.

Lyric elements : "Iliad" - the scene of Hector's farewell to his wife Andromache before the battle.

Elements of both tragedy and comedy with all their inherent dramatic conflicts. Almost all the main characters of both poems are tragic. Tragic Achilles. doomed to death at a young age, and he knows about this doom of his. Tragic death of Patroclus. Tragic is the fate of all the Trojan leaders, whose death is also predetermined from above.

Elements of comedy - a fight between Odysseus and the beggar Ir on the threshold of the palace, where the suitors are feasting. This comic reaches the level of burlesque, when the sublime is portrayed as base. The Olympic scenes are almost always given by Homer in a burlesque style. A well-known example of this is the song of the Iliad, which depicts Hera's marital jealousy. Zeus wants to beat his wife, and the bow-legged freak Hephaestus tries to make the gods laugh with jokes.

elements of humor . Aphrodite is humorously presented when she enters the battle and is wounded by the mortal hero Diomedes, about which the gods on Olympus shower derision on her.

Elements of irony in Homer's poems are very noticeable. Agamemnon in the Iliad orders his army to go home, but in fact this army again has to take up arms and fight.

elements of satire. The Cyclopes are depicted as a caricature and satire of people living without any laws. Thersites, depicted as a freak, as a parody of a citizen, soldier and aristocrat. There are many satirical features in Agamemnon, who surprises with his greed, despotism, cowardice and many other vices.

Question #6 The theme of Dido and Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid

The legend of Dido and Aeneas was first described by Nevius in the 3rd-2nd century BC. Later, Virgil included it in his epic "Aeneid" (written approximately in 29 BC). Virgil's work was so popular that the inhabitants of Pompeii decorated their homes with quotes from it. Russian authors often turned to this topic (A. Akhmatova “Don’t be scared - I’m still similar”; Brodsky “The great man looked out the window ...”)

After a terrible storm, the ship of Aeneas (a widower who lost his wife in burning Troy) lands on the shores of Africa (the storm and the direction of the ship are arranged by the gods), where Dido rules (who also lost her husband and did not know family happiness, but constantly refuses to woo suitors). Aeneas talks about war, adventures and travels, while Dido falls in love with a brave man and loves his son with motherly love from his first wife. She found female happiness and partly even forgot about the state she had founded. The reciprocal love of Aeneas is not expressed so strongly, and the artistic expressiveness of the image of Dido is such that in the fourth book she, as a character, practically overshadows the protagonist. In this book, there is a temporary stop on the path of Aeneas, “apostasy”, which he overcomes (the envoy of Jupiter predicts his fate: he will have a kingdom and a third wife) and he, having somehow explained himself to his beloved, continues on his way, however, at the cost of the life of the latter , who could not survive the separation and committed suicide, from which pain remains in the soul of the hero (as evidenced by their meeting in the kingdom of the dead).

Dido entered the circle of world female images embodying the heroism and sacrifice of love, and the love story with Aeneas in the history of culture acquired a certain value in itself (for example, Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas, Marlo's Dido's Tragedy)

The theme of Dido and Aeneas is the theme of sacrificial love, the search for female happiness and bitter disappointment (the death of the first husband, the escape of the second), the theme of the opposition of desire, dreams, what you WANT (Dido) and fate, what you NEED (Aeneas). This is the most dramatic part of the poem, and artistically the most powerful. From the point of view of the ideological background of the epic, it is also important: in the tragic break between Aeneas and Dido, the Romans saw the prototype of the deadly enmity between Rome and Carthage, which ended in three Punic wars and the destruction of the latter.

P. S.: The character and actions of Aeneas correlate with question 12: Aeneas as a man of fate.

The following genres belonged to declamatory lyrics:

1. epigram,

1 .The main genre was considered elegy . This poem

medium length, moral-political, later love content, without

clear composition. The oldest type of elegy is considered

military heroic , which is very close to the epic. The hero of this elegy

performs feats consciously, not for the good of the family, but for the state (Kallin, Tirteus). Another kind of elegy elegy of personal destiny . These elegies are reflections about oneself, about a person's place in the world, about moral standards (Archilochus). The third type of elegy philosophical and political elegy. It is the expression of political thought in semi-mythological form. Reflections dominate this kind of elegy the author about the state structure of the policy, about the interaction of various forces in the state.

2. Epigram - a short poem of arbitrary content,

dating back to ancient inscriptions. The epigrams were written in elegiac distich, distinguished by brevity and accuracy.

3.Gnoma - This is a short poetic saying of instructive-philosophical content. Gnomes formulate universally recognized positions and are close to aphorisms. The dwarf was also distinguished by brevity and accuracy. The thought of the gnomes concerns the basic questions of human life. This type of poetry was very popular with the ancient Greeks.

4.Yamb - a genre of ancient Greek poetry mainly accusatory

character. A feature of iambic poetry is laughter, as well as

a certain size and a foot with an accent on the second syllable. The Greeks believed in

the cleansing power of laughter, so everything was ridiculed.

There were two types of iambic:

personal ridicule;

ridicule of social relations.

The yambs were distinguished by extraordinary freedom, there were no restrictions for them.

Iambas of Archilochus.

Iambic poetry is not an invention of Archilochus, as many thought: it arose much earlier - probably in connection with the cult of Demeter (the maid of the Eleusinian king named Yamba decided to make the grieving Demeter laugh with obscene jokes), i.e., goes back to folklore roots. As the Homeric hymn says, the servant of the Eleusinian king Keley, named Yamba, made the grieving Demeter laugh with obscene jokes. Yambs were also used at certain moments of the festive procession from Athens to Edevsin, when, according to custom, expressions of a mocking and playful nature were required.

The word “iambus” among the Greeks, generally speaking, was associated with the idea of ​​​​the comic nature of the work, while in the new literature, the iamb is an exclusively metric concept. Yamb - a combination of a short syllable with a long one. Archilochus (Ar.) most frankly expressed the individualistic trends of the era: the individual, having thrown off the close bonds of ancient tribal morality, here clearly opposes himself to the collective as a self-sufficient free person, not subject to anyone's opinions and any laws. Ar. lived at the beginning of the 7th century, became famous for his iambs. In his iambs, he told us about how, as a mercenary, he threw a shield in a battle with the Thracian barbarians. Known for his affair with Neobula, the daughter of Lycambus, who opposed this marriage. Ar. took revenge on him with iambs and drove him to suicide (!). In their yambs Ar. also expressed his love for Neobulus, there are also iambs dedicated to friends discussing Ar's philosophy of life. (philosophy of optimism). In yambs Ar. we find a morality devoid of all boredom, a clear, calm trust in the flow of life, from Ares, god of war, to the Muses, goddesses of art; starting with humor about his own betrayal and ending with a formidable curse to a traitor friend. Ar.-warrior, wine lover, woman-lover and misogynist, poet, “idle reveler”, morally unstable and passionate love of life, even a philosopher, reminding us of the transience of life, but also comforting us with the teaching of its eternal return.

Question # 8. Comedy art of Plautus.

Titus Makk, nicknamed Plautus ("flat-footed") - the most prominent Roman comedian (mid-3rd century - 184 BC). Plautus was credited with about 130 comedies, but 21 were considered genuine, including Treasure, Tricks of a Parasite, Boastful Warrior, Slave - Deceiver. Plautus worked in the field of "palliata", a comedy with a Greek plot, reworking Greek plays for the Roman stage.

Plautus mostly depicts young merchants in his comedies, often trading in overseas lands, shows the conflicts of children with their fathers, interfering with their personal lives, conflicts with pimps, from whose hands it is necessary to snatch their beloved girls, with usurers who have to borrow money. In comedies, Plautus's hatred for usurers and pimps is felt everywhere. The brightest images are smart, dexterous, energetic slaves. They help their young masters arrange their personal lives. Language close to the audience. The main characters are grotesque, their features are hyperbolic. The six-foot colloquial iambic is replaced by the seven-foot trochaic or eight-foot anapaest. There is no chorus, as in neo-Attic comedy.

Plautus was well aware of Greek literature, Greek dramaturgy, and he used the plots of the neo-Attic everyday comedy, since in the conditions of his time, when the aristocratic senate was at the head of the state, the poet could not help but give plots from Italian life, satirically portray directly his own contemporaries.

Plautus used the Neo-Attic comedies of Diphilus, Demophilus, Philemon, and Menander, but not those of Aristophanes, because Aristophanes' comedies were too politically poignant and the problems posed in them were not relevant to Rome. Plavt successfully used the plots of everyday neo-Attic comedy and, revealing them, knew how to resolve issues that were of interest to his contemporaries. One of the sharpest comedies - "Boastful Warrior"

Romanization of Greek plots is that Plautus often introduces features of the Roman way of life, Roman culture, Roman court, Roman self-government into his comedies. So, he talks a lot about the praetors, and these are the officials of Rome, about the senate. The introduction of the names of Roman cities and the image of nat. customs. He took plots from Greek comedies that were consonant with Roman life and resolved in them the problems that were relevant to his society.

The favorite figure of Plautus - the slave - is the most dynamic mask of comedy, the least constrained in his actions, words and gestures by the requirements of decency and decency that apply to the free. The slave is not only the carrier of intrigue, but also the focus of the buffoon element. He amuses the audience with buffoonery and a parody of high style, “philosophizing” and swearing, running around the stage and frantic body movements, and finally, with the fact that beatings rain down on him or can rain down every minute. From the height of more stringent aesthetic requirements, later Roman criticism (for example, Horace) reproached Plautus for caricature and inconsistency in images. The goal of Plautus is to constantly excite laughter with every scene, phrase, gesture.

Ticket # 9. Makarova Ekaterina.

The origin of poetry and its types. Sappho as a representative of monodic lyrics.

Lyrics - a kind of literature where the voice of the poet is clearly heard, conveying his feelings and thoughts in short poems. It comes from the Greek word "lyricos", which means "performed on the lyre" or "singing to the lyre." The Greeks called this word not poems at all, but songs that were sung to the lyre.

The appearance of works of the lyrical genre is attributed to the 7th-6th centuries. BC. and are caused, first of all, by the significant changes that have taken place in the life of most Greek communities.

Greek poetry is usually divided into three genres:elegy, iambic and melik (song lyrics). Not all of these genres were performed to the sounds of the lyre: for the elegy and iambs, musical accompaniment was not necessary; sometimes iambs were accompanied by the sounds of a flute, and meliches could be performed to the sounds of both the lyre and the flute.

The lyrics are based mainly on a cult and ritual folklore song. For each type of lyric, as well as for any genre of Greek poetry, a certain poetic size was assigned; only meli poets could use different meters even within the same verse.

The main feature of the lyric genre , meliks, is its connection with the musical accompaniment, which was seen brighter than in the elegy and iambs. But gradually the melika lost its organic connection with music and became a purely literary genre. Its main difference from iambs and elegies, where verses or couplets of the same size alternated, is that melic poems were built mainly on the alternation of stanzas, complex and varied in size.

Melic poetry in ancient Greece is usually divided into solo (monodic) and choral.

Solo lyrics were especially developed on the island of Lesvos, the birthplace of two major poets - Alcaeus and Sappho.

Sappho(late 7th-first half of the 6th century BC) belonged to the tribal aristocracy, lived for a long time in exile (on the island of Sicily), but at the end of her life she returned to her homeland, where she died, throwing herself, according to legend, from a cliff at sea because of unrequited love for the young man Phaon. This legend reflects the nature of Sappho's lyrics, the main theme of which was love.

Most of Sappho's poems are dedicated to girlfriends, many of whom, as we know, also wrote poetry. This would be impossible if they lived, for example, in Athens, where the woman was a recluse, and her engagement in literature would only cause condemnation.

Sappho peered intently into the world of the human soul. She came up with three ways talk about him. The first is to convey mental confusion through the depiction of bodily states, psychology through physiology.

Another technique is more complex and subtle. Sappho describes the deity who sends love - Eros(Erota). But it is interesting that she chooses such epithets that can be attributed to a person, or rather, to the state in which he is, having fallen in love. He is both pleased and sad at the same time, he is in turmoil, like trees under a gust of wind: "Eros again torments me exhausting - / Bitterly sweet ..."; "like a wind blowing from the mountain to the oaks, / Eros of the soul shook us ..."

Sappho has third way to express your feelings. Her confusion in the "Hymn to Aphrodite" she is seen with the eyes and described by the lips of the goddess who appeared to her.

There are many ritual songs in Sappho's work. This increases the value of her legacy, since Greek folklore "in its pure form" has not come down to us, and we can judge it only by the verses of those poets who, voluntarily or involuntarily, imitated folk art.

Ticket #10. Roman novel.

It depends on the Greek, but differs from it both in technique and structure, and in its everyday writing character; (Petronia and Apuleia are historically accurate, both background details and characters.)

Lucius Apuleius (c. 125 AD - after 170 AD) - ancient Roman writer, Platonist philosopher, orator, author of the famous novel "The Golden Ass".

The style of "ZO" is emphatically ironic and eccentric, replete with puns, heaps of epithets

The novel is a veiled esoteric treatise: the first 10 books are full of feelings. pleasures and temptations of life, leading to degradation and transition to a “bestial” state, and the latter demonstrates the elevation of a person through communion with divine secrets.

In the novel, the life of Apuleius himself is “encrypted”, cat. was initiated into various mystical teachings and was tried on charges of witchcraft.

The work is a satire on all features of the life of late Rome, including religion. The ironic note in the description of the initiation rites that Lucius goes through speaks of Apuleius's religious skepticism.

We are talking about transformations all the time - including spiritual ones.

The hero of the novel, Lucius (coincidence with the author's name!) travels around Thessaly. -famous as the birthplace of magical art, Lucius is convinced of this from his own sad experience.

In a thirst to join the mysterious magic, Lukiy enters into a relationship with a maid involved in the mistress's art, but she mistakenly turns him into a donkey instead of a bird. Man's mind and man's tastes retains. He knows the means of liberation from the spell: for this it is enough to chew roses. But the reverse transformation is delayed for a long time. “Donkey” is kidnapped by robbers on the same night, he experiences various adventures, gets from one owner to another, suffers beatings everywhere and repeatedly finds himself on the verge of death. When an outlandish animal draws attention to itself, it is destined for a shameful public display. All this is the content of the first ten books of the novel.

At the last moment, Lukiy manages to escape to the seashore, and in the final 11th book he turns to the goddess Isis with a prayer. The goddess appears to him in a dream, promises salvation, but so that his future life is devoted to serving her. Indeed, on the next day, the donkey meets the sacred procession of Isis, chews roses from the wreath of her priest and becomes a man. The revived Lucius now acquires the features of Apuleius himself: he turns out to be a native of Madavra, accepts initiation into the mysteries of Isis and is sent by divine inspiration to Rome, where he is honored with the highest degrees of initiation

11 books, a picaresque novel, "ZO" - gave the name to Augustine.

the transformation of man into an animal internationally

a number of inserted short stories, not connected with the plot and introduced as stories about what was seen and heard before and after the transformation

the endings are also different: the intervention of Isis, the religious and solemn ending

A.'s goals are to entertain and didactic

plug-in (4.5 kn) - fairy tale "Cupid and Psyche"

11 kn - strange, religious, some believe that it does not belong to A .. Invention:

the donkey moves > sees new things all the time

under him, everyone says everything, unexpected, folk, neologisms, invented words, a lot of Greek borrowings are not “shy”.

The high appraisal of the book by Augustine Blessed cat is known. also reports on its second name - "Golden Donkey" the epithet "golden", indicated the admiration of readers.

A possible source is the satirical story “Luky, or the Donkey - perhaps an imitation. This is the story of a young man, a cat. due to a passionate desire to learn the secrets of magic, he mistakenly turned into a donkey instead of a bird.

At the present time, it is recognized as most likely that the "Metamorphoses" of Lucius of Patras served as a common model for the work of Pseudo-Lucian and for the novel of Apuleius. One of the indirect evidence of the direct connection of Apuleius with Lucius is also seen in the fact that the work of Apuleius bears the same name as the work of Lucius from Patras.

Question #11. The device of the Greek theater and theatrical performances.

Theatrical performance in the heyday of Greek society was included as an integral part of the cult of Dionysus and took place exclusively during the festivities dedicated to this god.

The order established around 501 - 500 years. for "Great Dionysius", provided for a tragic contest of three authors, each of whom represented three tragedies and a drama of satyrs. In comedy competitions, poets were required to submit one play each. The poet composed not only the text, but also the musical and ballet parts of the drama, he was also a director, choreographer and often, especially in earlier times, an actor. The admission of the poet to the competition depended on the archon (member of the government), who was in charge of the festival; ideological control over the plays was also carried out in this way. The cost of staging the dramas of each poet was assigned by the state to some wealthy citizen, who was appointed choregom(leader of the choir). The choir recruited a choir, 12 in number, and later 15 people for tragedy, 24 for comedy, paid for the members of the choir, the room in which the choir prepared, rehearsals, costumes, etc. The splendor of the production depended on the generosity of the choir. The expenses of choregos were very significant, and the victories in the competition were awarded jointly to the choregos and the director-poet. With the increase in the number of actors and the separation of the actor from the poet, the main actor (“protagonist”) became the third, independent participant in the competition, who selected his assistants: one for the second, the other for the third roles (“deuteragonist” and “tritagonist”). The appointment of his poet to the choreg and to the poet of his main actor took place by lot in the people's assembly under the chairmanship of the archon. In the 4th century, when the choir lost its importance in the drama and the center of gravity shifted to acting, this order was considered inconvenient, since it made the success of the choreg and the poet excessively dependent on the performance of the actor they inherited and the success of the actor on the quality of the play and production. . Then it was established that each protagonist performed for each poet in one of his tragedies. The Athenian state instructed private entrepreneurs to take care of the premises for spectators and performers, first on the construction of temporary wooden structures, and later on the maintenance and repair of a permanent theater, by renting out the premises. Therefore, the entrance to the theater was paid. However, in order to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their financial situation, have the opportunity to attend the theater, democracy since the time of Pericles has provided every interested citizen with a subsidy in the amount of the entrance fee for one day, and in the 4th century. and for all three days of theatrical performances.

One of the most important differences between the Greek theater and the modern one was that the game took place in the open air, in daylight. The absence of a roof and the use of natural light were, among other things, connected with the huge size of the Greek theaters, significantly exceeding even the largest modern theaters. With the rarity of theatrical performances, the ancient theatrical premises had to be built based on the masses of citizens celebrating the holiday.

Due to the choral origin of the Attic drama, one of the main parts of the theater is orchestra(“dancing ground”), where both dramatic and lyrical choirs performed. The oldest orchestra of the Athenian theater was a round rammed parade ground, 24 meters in diameter, with two side entrances; the spectators passed through them, and then the choir entered. In the middle of the orchestra was altar of Dionysus. With the introduction of an actor who performed in different roles, a dressing room was needed. This room is the so-called skena ("stage", i.e. tent), was temporary and at first there were those fields of view of the public; it soon began to be built behind the orchestra and artistically designed as a decorative backdrop for the game. Skene now depicted the facade of a building, most often a palace or a temple, in front of the walls of which the action unfolds (in Greek drama, the action never takes place inside the house). Rising before her colonnade(proskenii); painted boards were placed between the columns, which served as if conditional scenery: they depicted something that resembled the setting of the play. With this arrangement of the theater, one very important question for theatrical work remains unclear: where did the actors play? Accurate information about this is available only for late antiquity; the actors performed on the stage, which rose high above the orchestra, and were thus separated from the choir. The third component of the theater, in addition to the orchestra and skene, was seats for spectators. In the 5th century these were wooden benches, which were later replaced by stone seats. Mechanical devices in the theater of the 5th century. there were very few. When it was necessary to show the viewer what was happening inside the house, a platform on wooden wheels rolled out of the doors of the skene. (ekkiklema), along with the actors or puppets placed on it, and then taken back. To lift the actors (for example, the gods) into the air, the so-called "machine", something like a crane, served.

The participants of the game were masked. The Greek theater of the classical period fully preserved this heritage of ritual drama, although it no longer had magical significance. The mask responded to the installation of Greek art for the presentation of generalized images, moreover, not ordinary, but heroic, rising above the everyday level, or grotesque-comic. With a sharp change in state of mind, the actor put on various masks in his different parishes. Thanks to the mask, the actor could easily perform several roles throughout one play. In the view of the Greeks, mythical heroes exceeded ordinary people in height and shoulder width. That's why tragic actors wore coturny(shoes with high stilted soles), a high headdress, from which long curls descended, and pillows were placed under the suit. They performed in solemn long clothes, the ancient attire of kings, which continued to be worn only by priests.

Question # 12. "Aeneid" by Virgil. Aeneas as a man of fate (Toporov)

The Aeneid is Virgil's unfinished patriotic epic, consisting of 12 books written between 29-19 AD. After the death of Virgil, the Aeneid was published by his friends Varius and Plotius without any changes, but with some cuts.

Virgil took up this plot at the request of Augustus in order to arouse national pride in the Romans with tales of the great destinies of their ancestors and, on the other hand, to protect the dynastic interests of Augustus, supposedly a descendant of Aeneas through his son Iulus, or Ascanius. Virgil in the Aeneid closely adjoins Homer; in the Iliad, Aeneas is the hero of the future. The poem begins with the last part of Aeneas's wanderings, his stay in Carthage, and then episodically tells the previous events, the destruction of Ilion (II p.), Aeneas's wanderings after that (III p.), Arrival in Carthage (I and IV p.), Journey through Sicily (V p.) to Italy (VI p.), where a new series of adventures of a romantic and militant character begins. The very execution of the plot suffers from a common defect in Virgil's works - the lack of original creativity and strong characters. Especially unfortunate is the hero, “pious Aeneas”, devoid of any initiative, controlled by fate and the decisions of the gods, who patronize him as the founder of a noble family and the executor of the divine mission - transferring Lar to a new homeland. In addition, the Aeneid bears the imprint of artificiality; in contrast to the Homeric epic, which came out of the people, the Aeneid was created in the mind of the poet, without connections with folk life and beliefs; Greek elements are confused with Italian ones, mythical tales with history, and the reader constantly feels that the mythical world serves only as a poetic expression of the national idea. On the other hand, Virgil used all the power of his verse to finish off the psychological and purely poetic episodes that constitute the immortal glory of the epic.

"Aeneas as a man of fate" According to Toporov(Vladimir Nikolaevich Toporov (July 5, 1928, Moscow - December 5, 2005, ibid.) - Russian philologist) : “The significance of Aeneas’s feat in life is all the higher because he himself created himself and prepared his future with an eye, of course, on all those signs that fate sent him and which could be noticed and their meaning learned only by such a person as Aeneas was, and only in under the circumstances that befell him. Virgil took Aeneas mainly in the middle of his path, in the most indefinite and most unstable period of his life, among wanderings, reminiscent of chaotic throwing rather than a path, although a distant and at first completely obscure goal is still present, but its very reality is not yet fully accepted by consciousness. Aeneas is vitally connected with his past, but in reality this past no longer exists, and he can only touch it in memory. The memory of Troy is both consolation and bitter sadness. It is tormenting and corrupting, if you see in Troy a real support, and in your personal Trojan experience some kind of closed, self-sufficient, complete and, therefore, after its death, a space that has exhausted itself. But this memory is also creative if this experience is comprehended to the level of an idea and it is seen as a resource that is taken along on the journey and, in a certain sense, controls this path. But the past, be that as it may, entered the memory and enriched Aeneas with experience. The future is even worse: he does not have it (or, more correctly, in his circumstances there is no way to see this future, or even reflect on it), it cannot become a part of integral experience and a life resource. There is only the present threatening death, and it is, in fact, not life. Locked up by both the past and the present in the space of death, Aeneas, even if only theoretically, can wait for salvation only from the side of the future, which, fortunately for Aeneas, reveals itself to him, notifying him of himself with various signs, and even in the circumstances he is experiencing he has some last reserve in himself, which allows him to notice these signs and respond to them, in other words, to enter into saving contact with the future - and precisely with his own future. Memory of the past and attention to the signs of the future, a pledge of hope - these are the two gifts that determine Aeneas' path to the future and at the same time control it.

If you do not enter in particular, Aeneas on this path has to deal with three series of factors on which the success of the path and, consequently, the positive solution of the problem, which puts Aeneas on a par with his fate, depends. These three circles of factors - chance, the will of the gods and fate - are by nature external to man. Their role in the development of Aeneas's strategy of behavior is different, just as the very nature of these factors is different. Chance is indeed "random", and this is important in the sense that it practically coincides with its own sign both in time and materially, materially. It follows from this that the sign aspect of the case plays a minimal role, since the "victim" of the case deals with the case itself and nothing else; on the other hand, the sign of the case, until the case reveals itself, is, as a rule, not fixed, and therefore it is practically useless for changing behavior in order to prepare for the case itself. For the same reasons, it is meaningless, or rather, deprived of practical expediency, to search for the cause of the case: cause and effect seem to coincide with each other in the unity of the case itself, just as the signifier and the signified coincide in it. Finally, most often the case does not have a very significant “disturbing” force: rather, it is like a trip that causes stumbling and delay, rhythm failure and deviation, but not the cancellation of the path chosen by the traveler. But in an unkind moment, the intensification of “cases” on the previous leg of the path can produce a depressing effect, cause a contrite reaction, despondency even in Aeneas, who tightly controls his emotions and is not inclined to relax.

Fate in this triple series appears in the Aeneid as a macro factor. as the highest and last judgment of the “impersonal” about man. Here she does not depend on the person, and his behavior cannot change her last word, although the person himself, like Mohammed to the mountain, can go towards fate. Since fate reveals itself with obviousness only in its last word about man, and (in Virgil, at least) it does not accumulate its decision, does not take shape gradually, sequentially, summarily - it is motionless and also reveals itself at once and entirely, in a single point chronotope. In this sense, fate turns out to be, in fact, outside of causal dependence (in another version, the situation resembles what is described by Bohr's third postulate), but at the same time, fate is a test of a person, and how he withstands this test, it is not the word of fate itself that depends, but the readiness of a person to meet it. In the extreme case (and the example of Aeneas from this category), such readiness makes a person congenial to his fate, allows him to come into contact with it and creates a fundamentally new situation: the last word of fate about a person is no longer a sentence, not an act of rigid determination, submission, in essence violence, or - be careful - not only a sentence, but granting a person the right and opportunity to freely choose his own fate.

Question #13. Aeschylus as "father of tragedy". Aeschylus' contribution to the development of drama.

Aeschylus, a poet of the era of the formation of the Athenian state and the Greco-Persian wars, is the founder of ancient tragedy in its established forms. Aeschylus, who introduced the second actor, was recognized as the "father of tragedy." The playwright, standing at the origins of the genre, managed to create creations that have survived the centuries. Ancient scientists counted 90 dramatic works (tragedies and dramas of satyrs) in the literary heritage of Aeschylus; only seven tragedies survive in their entirety, including one complete trilogy. In addition, 72 plays are known to us by titles, from which it is usually clear what mythological material was developed in the play; their fragments, however, are few and small in size. In Aeschylus, elements of the traditional worldview are closely intertwined with the attitudes generated by democratic statehood. He believes in the real existence of divine forces that influence a person and often insidiously set up networks for him. Aeschylus adheres to the old idea of hereditary family responsibility: the guilt of the ancestor falls on the descendants, entangles them with its fatal consequences and leads to inevitable death. On the other hand, the gods of Aeschylus become guardians of the legal foundations of the new state system, and he vigorously puts forward moment of individual responsibility for their freely chosen behavior. In this regard, traditional religious ideas are being modernized. Developing the thoughts already outlined by Solon, Aeschylus draws how divine retribution is introduced into the natural course of things. The ratio between divine influence and conscious behavior of people, the meaning of the ways and goals of this influence, the question of its justice and goodness constitute the main problematic of Aeschylus, which he deploys on the image of human fate and human suffering. The material for Aeschylus, by his own admission, are heroic tales (for example, Homer). The fate of the hero or the heroic family of Aeschylus most often portrayed in three successive tragedies, constituting a plot and ideologically integral trilogy; it is followed by a drama of satyrs on a plot from the same mythological cycle to which the trilogy belonged. However, borrowing plots from the epic, Aeschylus not only dramatizes the legends, but also rethinks them, permeates them with his own problems. In the light of this problem, the direction of Aeschylus's dramatic innovations becomes clear. Aristotle, in the already cited 4th chapter of the Poetics, summarizes them as follows: "Aeschylus was the first to increase the number of actors from one to two, reduce the parts of the choir and give primacy to the dialogue." In other words, tragedy ceased to be a cantata, one of the branches of mimic choral lyrics, and began to turn into a drama. In the pre-Aeschylean tragedy, the story of the only actor about what is happening behind the scenes and his dialogue with the luminary served only as a pretext for the lyrical outpourings of the chorus. Thanks to the introduction of a second actor, it became possible to enhance the dramatic action opposing opposing forces to each other, and to characterize one actor by his reaction to the messages or actions of another. However, Aeschylus came to the wide use of these possibilities only in the later period of his work; in his early works, the chorus parts still prevail over the dialogue actors.

Saturated with dramatic movement and vivid images, Oresteia is also extremely rich in ideological content. This trilogy is extremely important for understanding the worldview of Aeschylus. A poet of the era of the growth of Athenian democracy, Aeschylus is convinced of the meaningfulness and goodness of the world order. Through the mouth of the choir in Agamemnon, he argues against the notion that happiness and unhappiness alternate mechanically in people's lives and proclaims the inviolability of the law of just retribution. Suffering appears to him as one of the tools for the just management of the world: "knowledge is acquired through suffering." The political views of Aeschylus are clearly expressed in the Oresteia. He glorifies the Areopagus, the ancient aristocratic institution around whose functions the political struggle unfolded during these years, and considers "anarchy" no less dangerous than despotism. Aeschylus thus occupies conservative stance towards democratic reforms, carried out by the group of Pericles, but his conservatism is also directed against those aspects of Athenian democracy that are its reverse side. The power of money, the inhuman treatment of slaves, aggressive wars - all this meets with unconditional condemnation from the side of the artist, whose harsh worldview is based on deep sympathy for human suffering. The surviving tragedies allow us to outline three stages in the work of Aeschylus, which at the same time are stages in the formation of tragedy as a dramatic genre. The early plays ("The Petitioners", "Persians") are characterized by the predominance of choral parts, the small use of the second actor and the poor development of the dialogue, and the abstractness of the images. The middle period includes such works as "Seven Against Thebes" and "Chained Prometheus". Here appears the central image of the hero, characterized by several main features; the dialogue gets more developed, prologues are created; the images of episodic figures ("Prometheus") also become clearer. The third stage is represented by "Oresteia", with its more complex composition, increasing drama, numerous secondary images and the use of three actors.

Many of Aeschylus's tricks, already shortly after his death, seemed archaic and not very dramatic; these include, for example, mute grief, a long silence of the characters. So, Prometheus is silent when he is chained; Cassandra is also silent for a long time in Agamemnon, despite the speeches addressed to her: as the most striking example, ancient sources cite the tragedy of Niobe, the heroine of which, during a significant part of the action, remained motionless and silent at the grave of her children. The art of conducting a dramatic dialogue is still in the process of formation with Aeschylus, developing from drama to drama, and lyricism remains one of the most important means of artistic influence. The choir that prevailed in The Petitioners and The Persians, plays a large role in later tragedies, as a carrier of mood("Agamemnon", "Choephors"), and sometimes as a character ("Eumenides").

The emotional power of the tragedy of Aeschylus is also supported by the powerful pathos of his language, he is characterized by a certain solemnity and majesty, especially in the lyrical parts, which, together with low dynamism, already at the end of the 5th century. seemed somewhat archaic. Later antiquity turned to Aeschylus less frequently than to Sophocles and Euripides; Aeschylus was less read and quoted less. The same thing happened in the 16th-18th centuries. Aeschylus' impact on world literature was much more indirect, through the ancient successors of Aeschylus, than direct. Of the images created by Aeschylus, Prometheus was of the greatest importance, but not all authors who developed the myth of Prometheus turned to Aeschylus. The power and grandeur of the tragedies of Aeschylus received due appreciation only from the end of the 18th century; however, bourgeois scholars still distort the image of the founder of tragedy, emphasizing the exclusively conservative, religious and mythological side of his work and ignoring his deeply progressive essence.

Question #14 "Idyll" by Theocritus and "Bucoliki" by Virgil.

The creator of the idyll was a poet Theocritus (Theocritus) poet of the 3rd c. BC e. The term idyll means, according to one interpretation, "picture", and according to another, more plausible, "song". This was the name in ancient times for poems of small size, which did not fit into any of the usual genres.

He wrote bucolic idylls - shepherd's songs. The bucolic genre had a foothold in Greek folklore. Ancient sources report about the songs of shepherds playing the flute, about their ritual competitions during the “cleansing” of herds and pens, as well as at the festivities of the “mistress of animals” Artemis. The contest in shepherd songs ("bucoliasm"), as it is presented in the poems of Theocritus, has a typical structure that closely resembles the scenes of "competition" in ancient Attic comedy. Two shepherds meet and start a squabble that ends in a challenge to a singing contest; a judge is chosen, he determines the order of the competition and pronounces his verdict at the end. The competition itself consists in the fact that the rivals either consistently perform a large coherent song, or exchange short songs, which should be close in theme and identical in size.

Theocritus against urban civilization. Attaches to the natural. His idylls are scenes with bootes who compete in songs (often love ones). Theocritus treats them with irony - he is a resident of the city, not poor, plays a game with the reader. The sentimental style is interspersed, often within the same poem, with an ironic style, sometimes even parodic, sketches of everyday features and superstitions.

IDYL I Tirsis

"Tyrsis" is a typical example of a rural shepherd's idyll, in which

a beautiful shepherd's song about the death of the mythical shepherd Daphnis is inserted. Before us is an example of the literary design of a folk shepherd's song as a genre. A shepherd with a goat herder. The shepherd Tirsis tells the goatherd that he sings well. The goatherd says that he has a very beautiful goblet and asks him to sing. Gives a cup for a song.

A touching landscape appears, which has a great influence on all further literature. Theocritus always has wonderful weather. The languor of lonely love is an area in which Theocritus is a master in depicting.

idyll XV Syracusan Women, or Women at the Feast of Adonis

Before us is a bright real life scene; in this genre Theocritus shows great skill. Location - Alexandria, in Egypt; characters - two city gossips-talkers. Two provincial (from Sicily) women came to the feast, surrounded by crowds of onlookers, soldiers, cavalry. They make their way to the palace, where the singer is performing. After an exquisitely solemn hymn to King Ptolemy, the household ending: one of her friends recalls that her grumbling husband has not had breakfast yet and it is time to return home.

idyll XI Cyclops

Eroticism runs like a red thread through all the work of Theocritus. Love is a disease; the best cure for it is to pour out your passion in song. In this idyll, Theocritus, in accordance with the main genre of his poetry, puts such a love song into the mouth of the mythical shepherd of the Cyclops Polyphemus. Extremely comical is this one-eyed shepherd giant pouring out his love for the nymph Galatea,

offering to scorch him if she finds him too shaggy, and ready to give even his only eye for the sake of her beloved.

Publius Virgil Maro (70 – 19 ) essentially writes all three of his poems by order of Augustus. "Bukoliki" - shepherd's poems, "Georgics" - agricultural. "Aeneid" is a heroic epic. All of them are united by an idea that is different from the Greek - Virgil renounced the past and called for a revival in the future.

"Bucoliki"

1. shepherd poetry

2. includes 10 poems - eclogues

3. the past is always happy, the present is sad

4. sources - idyllic poetry of Theocritus, almost a paraphrase

Differences from Theocritus:

1. The heroes wear conditional masks of shepherds, in fact, educated poets, Theocritus emphasized the external roughness and a certain primitiveness of the spiritual world of his heroes and enthusiastically described the everyday details of rural life. Virgil, on the other hand, creates in his "Bucolics" an ideal world inhabited by morally pure and at the same time sensitive and poetically gifted people, who, in essence, wear only masks of shepherds.

2. The natural world is not just a background, it is full of mysterious life.

3. Images are ambiguous, as in Hellenistic poetry

4. The dissonance of the composition - the eclogues echo in pairs

The Bucolics, compiled at one of the most critical moments of the civil war, marked an escape from reality into an ideal world.

Question # 15. Didactic epic of Hesiod.

The tribal community quickly decomposed, and if Homer was the eve of class society, then Hesiod already reflects the orientation of a person within class society.

Hesiod-writer of 8-7 centuries BC The didacticism of his writings is caused by the needs of the time, the end of the epic era, when heroic ideals dried up in their bright immediacy and turned into teaching, instruction, morality. In a class society, people were united by this or that attitude towards work. People thought about their ideals, but because while purely commercial and industrial relations have not yet matured and the old domestic relations have not died, the consciousness of people has turned the latter into morality, a system of teachings, instructions. Class society divided people into haves and have-nots. Hesiod is the singer of the ruined population, not profiting from the collapse of the ancient community. Hence the abundance of gloomy colors.

“Works and Days” was written as an admonition to brother Pers, who, through unjust judges, took away from Hesiod the land that belonged to him, but later went bankrupt. The poem is an example of a didactic epic that develops several themes. First theme built on the preaching of the truth, with inserted episodes about Prometheus and the myth of the five centuries. The second is dedicated field work, agricultural implements, livestock, clothing, food, and other household items. The poem is interspersed with various instructions that depict the image of a peasant who knows how and when to arrange his affairs profitably, sharp-witted, far-sighted and prudent. Hesiod also wants to be rich, because. "The eyes of the rich are bold." The morality of Hesiod always comes down to divine authorities and does not go beyond the arrangement of economic affairs. Hesiod is very conservative and very narrow in his mental horizon. Hesiod's style is the opposite of luxury, verbosity and breadth of the Homeric epic. It impresses with its dryness and brevity. In general, the style is epic with all its distinctive features (hexameter, standard expressions, Ionian dialect). But the epic is not heroic, but didactic, an even epic narrative is interrupted by the drama of mythological episodes unknown to Homer, and the language is full of common expressions, traditional formulas of oracles and quite prosaic morality. The morality is so strong and intense that it gives a very boring and monotonous impression. But Hesiod is observant and sometimes draws very vivid pictures of ancient life. He also has features of some poetry, but poetry is full of moral and economic instructions.

On the example of his work, one can observe social shifts and contradictions. Hesiod's poems amaze with an abundance of various kinds of contradictions, which, however, do not prevent us from perceiving his epic as a kind of organic whole. Hesiod, after the onset of the slave system, on the one hand, is a poor man, on the other hand, his ideals are connected with enrichment, either in the old or in the new sense. His assessment of life is full of pessimism, but at the same time, labor optimism, hopes that thanks to constant activity, a happy life will come. Nature for him is primarily a source of benefits, but Hesiod is a great lover of her beauties. In general, Hesiod was the first historically real poet of ancient Greece, reflected the turbulent era of the collapse of the tribal community.

Question # 16. Fables of Phaedrus. Aesop and Phaedrus.

Away from the literary currents of the elite, the activities of the fabulist Phaedrus, a slave, and then a freedman of the emperor Augustus, proceeded. A native of the province of Macedonia, a half-Greek, Phaedrus, from childhood, came into contact with Roman culture and the Latin language. Starting from the 20s. 1st century, he publishes five collections of Aesop's Fables. As an independent genre, the fable had not been represented in Roman literature until that time, although writers (especially satirists) sometimes introduced fable plots into their presentation (the works of the poet Horace, the historian Plutarch, the “master of the colloquial genre” Dion Chrysostom, the satirist, are full of fables). Lucian, Josephus Flavius, Appian and Eliana, Achilles Tatia). The term "fable" should not, however, be understood in a too narrow sense; Phaedrus includes in his collections not only "fables", but also entertaining stories of an anecdotal nature.

Greek fables appeared under the name of "Aesop" (the language in which the fables of Aesop's collection are written is the usual spoken language of the Greeks of the 1st-2nd centuries A.D. - but the compiler did not care about literary skill: he thought only of simplicity, clarity , and public accessibility), which at the same time was the hero of numerous jokes; Phaedrus wraps this material in Latin verse. At first, limiting himself to borrowed plots, he subsequently tries to move on to original work. The title "Aesop's Fables", according to the author, serves in later books only as a genre characteristic, and not as an indication that the plots belong to Aesop. The verse form of Phaedra's fables is an old iambic meter of the republican drama, somewhat deviating from the Greek type and already obsolete in "high" literature, but familiar to the mass visitor of the Roman theater.

Phaedrus is a plebeian poet. Choosing "Aesop" genre, he is aware of its "grassroots" character. The fable, Phædrus believes, was created by slaves who did not dare to freely express their feelings, and found for them an allegorical form of playful fiction. The element of social satire is especially noticeable in the first two collections, which are dominated by the traditional type of animal fable. The choice of plots (albeit traditional ones), the nature of their processing, the wording of moralizing - all testify to the direction of Phaedrus's fable against the "strong".

The first book opens with The Wolf and the Lamb. Cooperation with the "strong" is impossible ("Cow, goat, sheep and lion"). Disagreements between the "strong" bring new suffering to the "low" ("The Frogs Frightened by the Fight of the Bulls"). The only consolation is that power and wealth lead to danger more often than poverty ("Two Mules and Robbers"). Phaedrus does not believe in improving the condition of the poor; when state leaders change, “the poor do not change anything except the name of the master” (“Donkey to the old shepherd”). This is already a fable with a political connotation. Phaedrus also gives a political interpretation to the fable of "The Frogs Asking for a King"; it is related, it is true, to the tyranny of Peisistratus in Athens, but is composed in terms that are much more applicable to the loss of republican liberty in Rome. The fable ends with a call for humility: "Citizens, endure this evil so that the worst does not come." In some poems, contemporaries could probably see actual hints, although the poet assures that his satire is not directed against individuals. For example: Helios (Sun) wants to get married; the frogs yell: “He is already drying up all the swamps, what will happen when he gives birth to children?”.

After the publication of the first two collections, the author suffered for his courage: he became a victim of persecution by Sejanus, a temporary worker of the emperor Tiberius, and fell into a difficult situation. In his next books, he seeks the patronage of influential freedmen. The satire becomes much more innocent. "To utter a word in public is a crime for a plebeian," Phaedrus Ennia is quoted as saying. Increasingly, fables of an abstract type appear, anecdotes - historical I from modern life, everyday short stories, such as the plot of the "inconsolable widow" ("Matrona of Ephesus" by Petronius), aretalogies, even plotless poems of descriptive or instructive content, and the author shows a great inclination to popular philosophical moralization.

Phædrus takes credit for "brevity". His narrative does not linger on details and is accompanied only by laconic explanations of a moral and psychological nature. Characters are expressed in concise and clear formulas. The language is simple and clean. The result is nevertheless some dryness, and sometimes insufficient concreteness of presentation. Moral teaching does not always follow from the story. Already contemporaries reproached the fabulist for "excessive brevity and darkness"; the touchy author sharply polemicizes with these "envious" and inclined to regard his literary merits as the creator of a new genre of Roman poetry very highly.

The "glory" that Phaedrus expected did not come soon. The literature of the upper classes ignored him. Seneca in the 40s he also calls the fable "a genre untested by Roman talents"; He either does not know Phaedrus or does not recognize him. In late antiquity, the fables of Phaedrus, set out in prose, became part of the fable collection (the so-called "Romulus"), which for many centuries served for schooling and was one of the most important sources for the medieval fable. The original Phaedrus became widely known only from the end of the 16th century. Both the original and the revised Phaedrus was an intermediate link between the Greek "Aesop" and the modern European fable. Such well-known plots as "The Wolf and the Lamb", "The Frogs Asking for the Tsar", "The Crow and the Fox", "The Wolf and the Crane", "The Frog and the Ox", "The Rooster and the Pearl Seed" and many others found in Russian literature the classic poetic expression from Krylov, he borrowed from the French fabulist Lafontaine, who directly used the collection of Phaedrus.

Note: In Greek literature, already Hesiod (sk. 800 years BC) and Stezachor (VI century BC) are credited with the authorship of several fables, but the most famous fabulist is Aesop, Phrygian by origin; his fables (all set out in prose) are distinguished by their unusual clarity, clarity, simplicity, calmness and wit, therefore it is not surprising that they already very early spread widely throughout the then civilized world, were reworked over the course of many centuries up to our times and are now in alterations and translations. constitute the property of every literature, even if it is still very little developed.

Examples of fables (I think it will come in handy):

Aesop (here http://lib.ru/POEEAST/EZOP/aesop.txt - more).

Weasel and Aphrodite

Weasel fell in love with a beautiful young man and prayed to Aphrodite to turn her into a woman. The goddess took pity on her suffering and transformed her into a beautiful girl. And the young man at one glance fell in love with her so much that he immediately brought her to his house. And so, when they were in the bedchamber, Aphrodite wanted to know if the caress had changed along with the body and temper, and she let the mouse into the middle of their room. Then the weasel, forgetting where she was and who she was, rushed straight from the bed to the mouse to devour it. The goddess became angry with her and again returned her former appearance.

So people who are bad by nature, no matter how they change their appearance, cannot change their temper.

The gray-haired man and his mistresses.

The gray-haired man had two mistresses, one young, the other old.

The elderly was ashamed to live with a person younger than her, and therefore every time

he came to her, she pulled out his black hair. And the young wanted

hide the fact that her lover is an old man, and pulled out his gray hair. So plucked

his first one, then the other, and in the end he remained bald.

So everywhere inequality is fatal.

Phaedrus (more here: http://grigam.narod.ru/verseth/vers1/vers19.htm)

Prologue

Aesop picked up the object for fables, and I polished it with six-foot verses. Double benefit in the book: excites laughter And teaches to live with reasonable advice. And if they reproach me for the fact that here Not only animals, but also trees are talking, Let them remember: this is all just a ridiculous fiction.

The most ancient of these types of artistic creativity is the epic. The early forms of the epic arise even in the conditions of the primitive communal system and are associated with the labor activity of man, with the conquest of nature by him, with the clashes of tribes (for example, the legends of the North American Indians about Giowat). In its development, the epic has experienced great changes, flourishing and decline; his plots, characters, genres and style changed; layers of various historical epochs were deposited in it.

The main feature of the epic is that it reproduces reality external to the author, usually without the intervention of the author, whose identity is mostly hidden from readers. Only in autobiographical genres and in the literature of the 20th century is this rule violated.

The narration in the epic is conducted on behalf of a real or conditional narrator, a witness, a participant in events and, less often, a hero of events. The epic uses a variety of ways of presentation (narration, description, dialogue, monologue, author's digressions), the author's speech and the speech of the characters, in contrast to the drama, where one way of presentation (dialogue) and one form of speech (character speech) is used. The epic presents great opportunities for a multifaceted depiction of reality and the depiction of a person in the development of his character, circumstances, motivation for events and the behavior of characters. The narration in the epic is usually conducted in the past tense, as about events that have already taken place, and only in new literature does the epic include both the present tense and the combination of the past, present and future tenses. The language of the epic is largely figurative and plastic, in contrast to the lyrics, where emotionally expressive speech dominates.

The specific varieties of the epic are the epic, the epic, the fairy tale, the novel, the story, the poem, the short story, the essay, the fable, the anecdote.

The epic is the largest and most monumental form of epic literature. There is a significant difference between the ancient heroic epic and the modern epic.

Ancient epics are rooted in folklore, mythology, the legendary memory of prehistoric times. The most important feature of the ancient epics is that in them everything wonderful and incredible becomes an object of direct faith and the only possible form of mastering the world. The ancient epic inevitably dies out along with the end of the "childhood of human society." It is artistically necessary only as long as the mythological consciousness lives and determines the human perception of the world.

The basis of the epic of the new time is either realistic (as, for example, in War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Quiet Don), or romantic awareness of the world (as, for example, in Proust’s epic In Search of Lost Time). ). The main feature of the modern epic is that it embodies the fate of peoples, the historical process itself.

When classifying specific forms in the epic, differences in the volume of works are of great importance.

There is a small form (story), medium (story) and a large epic form - a novel. Unlike the story and the novel, the story does not have a detailed system of characters; it does not have a complex evolution of characters and their detailed individualization.

A story with a dynamic plot, unexpected, sharp plot twists and a denouement is usually called a short story.

A descriptive-narrative story is called an essay. The plot in the essay plays a lesser role than dialogue, author's digressions, description of the situation. A characteristic feature of the essay is documentary. Often essays are combined into cycles.

The leading epic genre is the novel. The very word "roman" meant at first, in medieval Europe, narrative works in Romance languages.

In the history of the European novel, we can distinguish several stages of its development.

Antique novel (“Ethiopian” by Heliodor and others). Such a novel was built according to a certain scheme: the unexpected separation of the lovers, their misadventures and a happy reunion at the end of the work.

A chivalric romance - it also combined love and adventure elements. The knight was portrayed as an ideal lover, ready for any test for the sake of the lady of the heart.

By the 18th century, a picaresque novel was taking shape. Its theme is the ascent of an enterprising person from the lower classes up the social ladder. The picaresque novel broadly reflects the elements of life and is interesting with a concrete recreation of ordinary everyday situations.

The true heyday of the novel came in the 19th century. In Russian literature, the novel received its own specific coloring. Russian artists of the word in their manifestations draw a discord between the aspirations of the individual to the ideal and the impossibility of achieving it. The so-called gallery of "superfluous" people appears.

In the 20th century, a decadent novel appears - depicting a conflict between the individual and the environment, often this conflict is unresolvable. An example of such a novel is Kafka's The Castle.

So, we found out that the specific varieties of the epic are a novel, a story, a short story, an essay, etc. But views are not yet the final forms of literary works. While each time retaining the common generic features and structural features of the species, each literary work also carries peculiar features dictated by the characteristics of the material and the peculiarities of the writer's talent, that is, it has a unique "genre" form.

For example, the genres of the novel are a philosophical novel (for example, “The Plague” by A. Camus), a novel-foresight (E. Zamyatin “We”), a warning novel (“The Block” by Ch. Aitmatov), ​​a military novel (“The Star” by E. Kazakevich), a fantasy novel (“The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin” by A. Tolstoy), an autobiographical novel (“The Life of Arseniev” by I. Bunin), a psychological novel (“Crime and Punishment” by F. Dostoevsky), etc.

The story has the same genres as the novel. Likewise the story. Stories are on philosophical issues, on military issues, science fiction writers create fantastic stories, satirical writers create satirical and humorous stories. An example of a humorous story is "The Aristocrat" by M. Zoshchenko.

epic

An epic (from epic and Greek poieo - I create) is an extensive work of art in verse or prose that tells about significant historical events. Usually describes a series of major events within a particular historical era. Initially, it was aimed at describing heroic events.

Widely known epics: "Iliad", "Mahabharata".

Novel

A novel is a large narrative work of art, in the events of which many characters usually take part (their fates are intertwined).

A novel can be philosophical, historical, adventure, family, social, adventurous, fantastic, etc. There is also an epic novel that describes the fate of people in critical historical eras (“War and Peace”, “Quiet Flows the Don”, “Gone with the Wind”).

A novel can be both in prose and in verse, contain several storylines, include works of small genres (story, fable, poem, etc.).

The novel is characterized by the formulation of socially significant problems, psychologism, disclosure through conflicts of the inner world of a person.

Periodically, the genre of the novel is predicted to decline, but its wide possibilities in reflecting reality and human nature allow it to have its attentive reader in the next new times.

Many books and scientific works are devoted to the principles of construction and creation of the novel.

Tale

The story is a work of art that occupies a middle position between the novel and the story in terms of the volume and complexity of the plot, built in the form of a narrative about the events of the protagonist in their natural sequence. As a rule, the story does not pretend to pose global problems.

Widely known stories: "The Overcoat" by N. Gogol, "The Steppe" by A. Chekhov, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by A. Solzhenitsyn.

Story

A story is a short work of art with a limited number of characters and events. There can be only one episode from the life of one character in a story.

The short story and the short story are the genres with which young prose writers usually begin their literary work.

Novella

A short story, like a story, is a small work of art, which is characterized by brevity, lack of descriptiveness, and an unexpected denouement.

The novels by J. Boccaccio, Pr. Merimee, S. Maugham.

Vision

A vision is a narrative of events revealed in a (supposedly) dream, hallucination, or lethargic dream. This genre is characteristic of medieval literature, but is still used today, usually in satirical and fantastic works.

Fable

A fable (from "bait" - to tell) is a small work of art in a poetic form of a moralizing or satirical nature. At the end of the fable, there is usually a brief moralizing conclusion (the so-called morality).

In the fable, the vices of people are ridiculed. In this case, the actors, as a rule, are animals, plants or various things.

Parable

A parable, like a fable, contains moral teaching in allegorical form. However, the parable chooses people as heroes. It is also presented in prose form.

Perhaps the most famous parable is the Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke.

Story

A fairy tale is a work of fiction about fictional events and heroes, in which magical, fantastic forces appear. A fairy tale is a form of teaching children the right behavior, observance of social norms. It also transmits important information for humanity from generation to generation.

The modern form of a fairy tale is fantasy, a kind of historical adventure novel, which takes place in a fictional world close to the real one.

Joke

An anecdote (fr. anecdote - a tale, a fable) is a small prose form, characterized by conciseness, unexpected, absurd and funny denouement. A joke is a play on words.

Although many anecdotes have specific a second ones, as a rule, their names are forgotten or initially remain “behind the curtain”.

A collection of literary anecdotes about the writers N. Dobrokhotova and Vl. Pyatnitsky, erroneously attributed to D. Kharms.

More detailed information on this topic can be found in the books of A. Nazaikin

Before analyzing the genres of the epic, you should find out what is hidden behind this term. In literary criticism, this word can often refer to several different phenomena.

There is such a category as literary gender. There are three of them in total, and each includes a number of works that are similar in the type of their speech organization. Another important detail is that each genus differs in its focus on the subject, object, or act of artistic expression.

main element

The key unit that determines the division of literature is the word. It is it that primarily either depicts an object, or reproduces the communication of characters, or expresses the state of each speaker.

One way or another, traditionally there are three literary genres. This is drama, poetry, epic.

Type of literature

If the drama depicts a human personality in conflict with the surrounding people, and the lyrics are aimed at expressing the feelings and thoughts of the author, then the epic genres imply an objective image of the individual interacting with the world around him.

Much attention is paid to events, characters, circumstances, social and natural environment. It is for this reason that the genres of the epic in literature are more diverse than dramas or lyric poetry. The ability to use all the depths of the language allows the author to pay special attention to description and narration. This can be facilitated by epithets, complex sentences, all kinds of metaphors, phraseological units, etc. This and more are pictorial details.

Major genres of epic

Of the voluminous genres, the epic includes the following genres: epic, novel, and works that fall under both of these definitions. This generic designation is opposed to such small genres as a story, a story, etc.

Epic can be defined using two definitions:

1. An extensive narrative that focuses on prominent historical events.

2. Long and complex story, including many events and characters.

Examples of the epic genre are the works of Russian literature "Quiet Flows the Don" by M.A. Sholokhov and "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy. Both books are characterized by a plot covering several dramatic years in the history of the country. In the first case, this is the First World War and the Civil War, which destroyed the Cossacks, to which the main characters belonged. Tolstoy's epic tells about the life of the nobles against the background of the confrontation with Napoleon, bloody battles and the burning of Moscow. Both writers pay attention to many characters and destinies, and do not make one character the protagonist of the entire work.

The novel, as a rule, is somewhat smaller than the epic in terms of volume and does not focus on such a large number of people. In general, this term can be deciphered as "a prosaic detailed narrative about the life of the protagonist and the development of his personality." Due to its accessibility and versatility, this genre is certainly the most popular in literature.

The rather vague concept of the novel allows us to classify as it a variety of works, sometimes radically different from each other. There is a point of view about the occurrence of this phenomenon in Antiquity (“Satyricon” by Petronius, “Golden Eagle” by Apuleius). A more popular theory is that the novel appeared in the heyday of chivalry. It could be a revised folk epic or smaller fables ("The Romance of Renard").

The development of the genre continued in modern times. It reached its zenith in the 19th century. It was at this time that such classics as A. Dumas, V. Hugo, F. Dostoevsky worked. The works of the latter can also be described as a psychological novel, since Fyodor Mikhailovich reached incredible heights in describing the state of mind, experiences and thoughts of his characters. Stendhal can also be added to the "psychological" series.

Other subgenres: philosophical, historical, educational, fantastic, love, adventure novel, utopia, etc.

In addition, there is a classification of novels by country. All these are also epic genres. The mentality, lifestyle and language features made Russian, French and American novels completely different phenomena.

Smaller elements

According to the classification, the following genres belong to the epic - the story and the poem. These two phenomena reflect the opposite approach to creativity among authors.

The story occupies an intermediate position between the novel and small forms. Such a work can cover a short period of time, it has one main character. It is interesting that back in the 19th century, short stories were also called stories in our country, since the Russian language did not yet know such a term. In other words, it denoted any work that was inferior to the novel in terms of volume. In foreign literary criticism, for example, in English, the concept of "story" is synonymous with the expression "short novel" (short novel). In other words, a novella. The classification of this literary phenomenon is similar to that used among novels.

If the story belongs to prose, then in poetry there is a poem in parallel with it, which is also considered a work of medium volume. The poetic form includes a narrative characteristic of the rest of the epic, but it also has its own easily recognizable features. This is morality, pomposity, deep feelings of characters.

Such an epic, examples of which can be found in various cultures, arose a long time ago. A certain point of reference can be called songs of a lyrical-epic nature, preserved, for example, in the form of ancient Greek hymns and nomes. In the future, such literary works became characteristic of the German and Scandinavian early medieval cultures. Epics can also be attributed to them, i.e. Russian epic. Over time, the epic nature of the narrative became the backbone of the entire genre. The poem and its derivatives are the main genres of the epic.

In modern literature, the poem has given way to the dominant position of the novel.

small forms

The genres of the epic include and With the help of such experience, the author first of all explores the thoughts and personality of the hero. The surrounding world plays a secondary role, and its description is subordinated to the main task. Sometimes a portrait is also called a biographical description based on the main stages of the life of the object.

If a portrait is an artistic experience, then a problematic essay is considered part of journalism. This is a kind of dialogue, a conversation with the reader on a specific topic. The task of the author is to identify the problem and state his own views on the situation. Newspapers and, in general, any periodicals are full of such notes, since their depth and size are completely suitable for journalism.

Separately, it is worth noting which arose before the rest and were even reflected in Russian classical literature. For example, these are Pushkin's sketches, as well as "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" by A.N. Radishchev, which brought him immortal fame. With the help of travel notes, the author tries to record his own impressions of what he saw on the road. This is exactly what Radishchev did, not being afraid to directly declare the horrifying life of the serfs and workers who met on his way.

Epic genres in literature are also represented by short stories. This is the simplest and most accessible form for both the author and the reader. The works of Russian literature in the genre of the story made A.P. Chekhov. Despite its apparent simplicity, with the help of just a few pages, he created vivid images that were deposited in our culture (“Man in a Case”, “Thick and Thin”, etc.).

The short story is synonymous with the term "novella", which comes from the Italian language. Both of them are on the last step of prose in terms of volume (consistently after the novel and the story). Writers specializing in this genre are characterized by the so-called cyclization, or the publication of works in periodicals on a regular basis, as well as collections.

The story is characterized by a simple structure: plot, climax, denouement. Such a linear development of the plot is often diluted with unexpected twists or events (the so-called piano in the bushes). This technique became widespread in the literature of the 19th century. The roots of the story are folk epics or fairy tales. Collections of mythical tales were the forerunners of this phenomenon. For example, "A Thousand and One Nights" gained fame not only in the Arab world, but also reflected in other cultures.

Already closer to the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy, the collection Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio gained popularity. It was these short stories that set the tone for the classical type of story, which became widespread after the Baroque era.

In Russia, the genre of the story became popular during the period of sentimentalism at the end of the 18th century, thanks in part to the work of N.M. Karamzin and V.A. Zhukovsky.

Epos as an independent genre

In contrast to the literary genre and the triad "drama, lyrics, epic", there is a narrower term that speaks of the epic as a narrative, the plot of which is taken from the distant past. At the same time, it includes many images, each of which creates its own picture of the world, which is different for each culture. The most important role in such works is played by the heroes of the folk epic.

Comparing two points of view on this phenomenon, one cannot help but refer to the words of the famous Russian culturologist and philosopher M.M. Bakhtin. Separating the epic from the distant past from the novel, he drew three theses:

1. The subject of the epic is the national, so-called absolute past, about which there is no exact evidence. The epithet "absolute" was taken from the works of Schiller and Goethe.

2. The source of the epic is only a national legend, and not personal experience, on the basis of which writers create their books. Thus, the epics contain references to the mythical and divine in abundance, for which there is no documentary evidence.

3. The epic world has nothing to do with modernity and is as far from it as possible.

All these theses make it easier to answer the question of what kind of works or what genres are included in the epic.

The roots of the genre should be sought in the Middle East. The most ancient civilizations that arose between the Euphrates and the Tigris were distinguished by a higher cultural level compared to their neighbors. The cultivation of the land, the emergence of resources, the emergence of trade - all this developed not only the language, without which literature is impossible, but also created the reasons for the outbreak of military conflicts, the plot of which forms the basis of heroic works.

In the middle of the 19th century, English archaeologists managed to discover the ancient city of Nineveh, which belonged to the Assyrian culture. Clay tablets containing several scattered legends were also found there. Later they were combined into one work - "The Epic of Gilgamesh". It was inscribed in cuneiform and today is considered the oldest example of its genre. Dating allows us to attribute it to the XVIII - XVII centuries BC.

The demigod Gilgamesh and the history of his campaigns, as well as relationships with other supernatural beings of Akkadian mythology, are at the center of the narration of legends.

Another important example from Antiquity, which allows us to answer the question of what genres belong to the epic, is the work of Homer. Two of his epic poems - "Iliad" and "Odyssey" - are the oldest monuments of ancient Greek culture and literature. The characters of these works are not only the gods of Olympus, but also mortal heroes, the tales of which have been preserved from generation to generation by the folk epic. The Iliad and the Odyssey are prototypes of the future heroic poems of the Middle Ages. In many ways, plot constructions and a craving for mystical stories were inherited from each other. It is in the future that the phenomenon reaches its maximum development and distribution.

medieval epic

This term refers primarily to the epic, examples of which can be found in Europe among Christian or pagan civilizations.

There is also a corresponding chronological classification. The first half is the work of the early Middle Ages. Of course, these are the sagas left to us by the Scandinavian peoples. Until the 11th century, the Vikings plied the European seas, hunted by robbery, worked as mercenaries for kings and created their own states across the continent. This promising foundation, together with the pagan faith and the pantheon of deities, allowed such literary monuments as the Velsunga Saga, the Ragner Leatherpants Saga, etc. to appear. Each king left behind a heroic story. Most of them have survived to our times.

Scandinavian culture has also influenced its neighbors. For example, the Anglo-Saxons. The poem "Beowulf" was written between the 8th and 10th centuries. 3182 lines tell about the glorious Viking, who first becomes a king, and then defeats the monster Grendel, his mother, and also the dragon.

The second half belongs to the era of developed feudalism. This is the French "Song of Roland", the German "Song of the Nibelungs", etc. It is surprising that each work gives an idea of ​​the unique picture of the world of this or that people.

What genres are included in the epic of this period? For the most part, these are poems, but there are works of poetry, within which there are parts written in the language of prose. For example, this is characteristic of Irish legends (The Saga of the Battle of Mag Turied, The Book of Conquests of Ireland, Annals of the Four Masters, etc.).

The key difference between the two groups of medieval poems is the scale of the events depicted. If the monuments before the XII century. told about a whole era, then in the years of developed feudalism, a specific event (for example, a battle) becomes the object of the narration.

There are several theories of the origin of "heroic" creativity in medieval Europe. According to one of them, songs in the cantilena genre, widespread in the 7th century, became such a basis. Gaston Paris, a well-known French researcher of the Middle Ages, was a supporter of such a theory. Cantilenas were called small plots about a particular historical event, based on a simple musical structure (most often vocal).

Over the years, these "crumbs" were combined into something larger and generalized. For example, in the legends about King Arthur, common among the Celtic population of Great Britain. Thus, the genres of the folk epic eventually merged into one. In the case of Arthur, novels of the "Breton cycle" arose. Plots penetrated into all kinds of chronicles created at the monasteries. So semi-mythical stories turned into documented truth. The Knights of the Round Table still cause a lot of controversy on the subject of reality and reliability.

The key reason for the flourishing of the genre in Christian Europe of that era is the decomposition of the slave system and the emergence of feudalism, which was based on military service to one's overlord.

Russian epic

The Russian epic has received its own term in our language - "epics". Most of them were passed down orally from generation to generation, and those lists that are currently presented in museums and transferred to textbooks and anthologies date back to the 17th-18th centuries.

Nevertheless, the genres of the folk epic in Russia were at their peak in the 9th - 13th centuries, i.e. before the Mongol invasion. And it is this era that is reflected in most literary monuments of this kind.

Features of the epics genre are that they represent a synthesis of Christian and pagan traditions. Often, such an interweaving prevents historians from determining for sure the nature of a particular character or phenomenon.

The key characters of such works are heroes - heroes of the folk epic. This is especially vividly displayed in the epics of the Kyiv cycle. Another collective image is Prince Vladimir. Most often it is suggested that under this name the baptist of Russia is hiding. This, in turn, gives rise to a dispute about where the Russian epic originated. Most researchers agree that epics were created in the south of Kievan Rus, while in Muscovite Rus they were generalized several centuries later.

Of course, the Tale of Igor's Campaign occupies a special place in the Russian literary pantheon. This monument of ancient Slavic culture introduces the reader not only to the main plot - the unsuccessful campaign of the princes in the lands of the Polovtsy, but also personifies the picture of the world that surrounded the inhabitants of Russia in those years. First of all, it is mythology and songs. The work summarizes the features of the epic genre. The "Word" is extremely important from the point of view of linguistics.

Lost Works

The legacy of the past, which has not survived to this day, deserves a separate discussion. The reason is often the banal lack of a documented copy of the book. Since the legends were often transmitted orally, over time, many inaccuracies appeared in them, and especially unsuccessful ones were completely forgotten. Many poems perished due to frequent fires, wars and other cataclysms.

Mentions of the lost relics of the past can also be found in ancient sources. So, Cicero back in the 1st century BC. in his works he complained that information about the legendary heroes of the city on seven hills - Romulus, Regulus, Coriolanus - was irretrievably lost.

Poems are especially often lost because there are no carriers who could transmit their culture and keep the memory of the past of the people. Here is just a small list of these ethnic groups: Turduls, Gauls, Huns, Goths, Lombards.

In ancient Greek sources there are references to books, the originals of which have never been found or have been preserved in fragments. This is "Titanomachy", which told about the battle of the gods and titans even before the existence of mankind. She, in turn, was mentioned in his writings by Plutarch, who lived at the beginning of our era.

Lost are many sources of the Minoan civilization that lived in Crete and disappeared after a mysterious cataclysm. In particular, this is the story of the reign of King Minos.

Conclusion

What are the genres of epic? Firstly, these are monuments of the medieval and which are based on a heroic plot and religious references.

Also, the epic as a whole is one of the three literary forms. It includes epics, novels, stories, poems, short stories, essays.