Over the millennia of cultural development, mankind has created countless literary works, among which some basic types can be distinguished, similar in the way and form of reflection of human ideas about the world around. These are three kinds (or types) of literature: epic, drama, poetry.

How is each type of literature different?

Epos as a kind of literature

epic(epos - Greek, narration, story) is an image of events, phenomena, processes that are external to the author. Epic works reflect the objective course of life, human existence as a whole. Using various artistic means, the authors of epic works express their understanding of the historical, socio-political, moral, psychological and many other problems that human society as a whole and each of its representatives in particular lives with. Epic works have significant pictorial possibilities, thereby helping the reader to learn about the world around him, to comprehend the deep problems of human existence.

Drama as a kind of literature

Drama(drama - Greek, action, action) is a kind of literature, the main feature of which is the stage nature of works. Plays, i.e. dramatic works are created specifically for the theater, for staging on stage, which, of course, does not exclude their existence in the form of independent literary texts intended for reading. Like the epic, the drama reproduces the relationship between people, their actions, the conflicts that arise between them. But unlike the epic, which has a narrative nature, the drama has a dialogic form.

Related to this features of dramatic works :

2) the text of the play consists of the characters' conversations: their monologues (the speech of one character), dialogues (the conversation of two characters), polylogues (simultaneous exchange of remarks by several participants in the action). That is why the speech characteristic turns out to be one of the most important means of creating a memorable character of the hero;

3) the action of the play, as a rule, develops quite dynamically, intensively, as a rule, it is given 2-3 hours of stage time.

Lyrics as a kind of literature

Lyrics(lyra - Greek, a musical instrument, to the accompaniment of which poetic works, songs were performed) is distinguished by a special type of construction of an artistic image - this is an image-experience in which the individual emotional and spiritual experience of the author is embodied. Lyrics can be called the most mysterious kind of literature, because it is addressed to the inner world of a person, his subjective feelings, ideas, ideas. In other words, a lyrical work primarily serves the individual self-expression of the author. The question arises: why are the readers, i.e. other people refer to such works? The thing is that the lyricist, speaking on his own behalf and about himself, surprisingly embodies universal human emotions, ideas, hopes, and the more significant the personality of the author, the more important his individual experience is for the reader.

Each type of literature also has its own system of genres.

Genre(genre - French genus, species) - a historically established type of literary work that has similar typological features. The names of the genres help the reader navigate the boundless sea of ​​literature: someone loves detective stories, another prefers fantasy, and the third is a fan of memoirs.

How to determine What genre does the particular piece belong to? Most often, the authors themselves help us in this, calling their creation a novel, story, poem, etc. However, some author's definitions seem unexpected to us: remember that A.P. Chekhov emphasized that The Cherry Orchard is a comedy, and not a drama at all, but A.I. Solzhenitsyn considered "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" a story, not a story. Some literary critics call Russian literature a collection of genre paradoxes: the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin", the poem in prose "Dead Souls", the satirical chronicle "The History of a City". There was a lot of controversy regarding "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy. The writer himself said only about what his book is not: “What is War and Peace? This is not a novel, still less a poem, still less a historical chronicle. "War and Peace" is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it was expressed. And only in the 20th century did literary critics agree to call the brilliant creation of L.N. Tolstoy's epic novel.

Each literary genre has a number of stable features, the knowledge of which allows us to attribute a particular work to one or another group. Genres develop, change, die and are born, for example, literally before our eyes a new genre of blog (web loq English network magazine) - a personal Internet diary - has arisen.

However, for several centuries now, there have been stable (they are also called canonical) genres.

Literature of literary works - see table 1).

Table 1.

Genres of literary works

Epic genres of literature

Epic genres primarily differ in volume, on this basis they are divided into small ones ( essay, short story, short story, fairy tale, parable ), average ( story ), large ( novel, epic novel ).

Feature article- a small sketch from nature, the genre is both descriptive and narrative. Many essays are created on a documentary, life basis, they are often combined into cycles: the classic example is “Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy” (1768) by the English writer Laurence Sterne, in Russian literature it is “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (1790) A . Radishcheva, "Frigate Pallada" (1858) I. Goncharov "Italy" (1922) B. Zaitsev and others.

Story- a small narrative genre, which usually depicts one episode, an incident, a human character, or an important incident from the life of a hero that influenced his future fate (“After the Ball” by L. Tolstoy). The stories are created both on a documentary, often autobiographical basis (“Matryonin Dvor” by A. Solzhenitsyn), and thanks to pure fiction (“The Gentleman from San Francisco” by I. Bunin).

The intonation and content of the stories are very different - from comic, curious (the early stories of A.P. Chekhov) to deeply tragic (Kolyma Tales by V. Shalamov). Stories, like essays, are often combined into cycles (“Notes of a Hunter” by I. Turgenev).

Novella(novella ital. news) is in many ways akin to a story and is considered its variety, but it is distinguished by a special dynamism of the narrative, sharp and often unexpected turns in the development of events. Quite often the narration in the short story begins with the finale, is built according to the law of inversion, i.e. the reverse order, when the denouement precedes the main events ("Terrible Revenge" by N. Gogol). This feature of the construction of the short story will later be borrowed by the detective genre.

The word "novella" has another meaning that future lawyers need to know. In ancient Rome, the phrase "novellae leges" (new laws) was used to refer to laws introduced after the official codification of law (after the release of the Code of Theodosius II in 438). The short stories of Justinian and his successors, published after the second edition of the Code of Justinian, later formed part of the code of Roman laws (Corpus iuris civillis). In the modern era, a novel is called a law submitted for consideration by parliament (in other words, a draft law).

Story- the oldest of the small epic genres, one of the main in the oral art of any people. This is a small work of a magical, adventurous or everyday nature, where fiction is clearly emphasized. Another important feature of the folklore tale is its instructive character: "The tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it, a lesson for good fellows." Folk tales are usually divided into magical ("The Tale of the Frog Princess"), household ("Porridge from an ax") and fairy tales about animals ("Zayushkina's hut").

With the development of written literature, literary tales arise in which traditional motifs and the symbolic possibilities of a folk tale are used. The Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) is rightfully considered a classic of the literary fairy tale genre, his wonderful "The Little Mermaid", "The Princess and the Pea", "The Snow Queen", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "Shadow", "Thumbelina" are loved by many generations of readers, both very young and quite mature. And this is far from accidental, because Andersen's fairy tales are not only extraordinary, and sometimes strange adventures of heroes, they contain a deep philosophical and moral meaning, contained in beautiful symbolic images.

Of the European literary tales of the 20th century, The Little Prince (1942) by the French writer An-toine de Saint-Exupery became a classic. And the famous "Chronicles of Narnia" (1950 - 1956) by the English writer Kl. Lewis and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), also by the Englishman J. R. Tolkien, are written in the fantasy genre, which can be called a modern transformation of an ancient folk tale.

In Russian literature, unsurpassed, of course, are the tales of A.S. Pushkin: “About the dead princess and seven heroes”, “About the fisherman and the fish”, “About Tsar Saltan ...”, “About the golden cockerel”, “About the priest and his worker Balda”. A substitute storyteller was P. Ershov, the author of The Little Humpbacked Horse. E. Schwartz in the 20th century creates the form of a fairy tale play, one of them “The Bear” (another name is “Ordinary Miracle”) is well known to many thanks to the wonderful film directed by M. Zakharov.

Parable- also a very ancient folklore genre, but, unlike a fairy tale, parables contained written monuments: the Talmud, the Bible, the Koran, a monument of Syrian literature "Teaching Akahara". A parable is a work of an instructive, symbolic nature, distinguished by sublimity and seriousness of content. Ancient parables, as a rule, are small in volume; they do not contain a detailed account of the events or the psychological characteristics of the hero's character.

The purpose of the parable is edification or, as they once said, the teaching of wisdom. In European culture, the most famous are the parables from the Gospels: about the prodigal son, about the rich man and Lazarus, about the unrighteous judge, about the crazy rich man, and others. Christ often spoke with the disciples allegorically, and if they did not understand the meaning of the parable, he explained it.

Many writers turned to the parable genre, not always, of course, putting a high religious meaning into it, rather trying to express some kind of moralistic edification in an allegorical form, as, for example, L. Tolstoy in his late work. Carry it. V. Rasputin - Farewell to Matera "can also be called a detailed parable in which the writer speaks with anxiety and sorrow about the destruction of the "ecology of conscience" of a person. The story "The Old Man and the Sea" by E. Hemingway is also considered by many critics to be in the tradition of a literary parable. The well-known modern Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho also uses the parable form in his novels and short stories (the novel The Alchemist).

Tale- an average literary genre, widely represented in world literature. The story depicts several important episodes from the life of the hero, as a rule, one storyline and a small number of characters. The stories are characterized by great psychological saturation, the author focuses on the experiences and mood changes of the characters. Very often, the main theme of the story is the love of the protagonist, for example, "White Nights" by F. Dostoevsky, "Asya" by I. Turgenev, "Mitina's Love" by I. Bunin. The stories can also be combined into cycles, especially those written on autobiographical material: "Childhood", "Adolescence", "Youth" by L. Tolstoy, "Childhood", "In People", "My Universities" by A. Gorky. The intonations and themes of the stories are very diverse: tragic, addressed to acute social and moral issues (“Everything flows” by V. Grossman, “House on the Embankment” by Y. Trifonov), romantic, heroic (“Taras Bulba” by N. Gogol), philosophical , parable ("Pit" by A. Platonov), mischievous, comic ("Three in a boat, not counting the dog" by the English writer Jerome K. Jerome).

Novel(Gotap French originally, in the late Middle Ages, any work written in the Romance language, as opposed to those written in Latin) is a major epic work in which the narrative is focused on the fate of an individual. The novel is the most complex epic genre, which is distinguished by an incredible number of themes and plots: love, historical, detective, psychological, fantastic, historical, autobiographical, social, philosophical, satirical, etc. All these forms and types of the novel are united by its central idea - the idea of ​​personality, the individuality of a person.

The novel is called the epic of private life, because it depicts the diverse connections between the world and man, society and the individual. The reality surrounding a person is presented in the novel in different contexts: historical, political, social, cultural, national, etc. The author of the novel is interested in how the environment affects the character of a person, how he is formed, how his life develops, whether he managed to find his destiny and realize himself.

Many attribute the emergence of the genre to antiquity, these are Long's Daphnis and Chloe, Apuleius' Golden Ass, the chivalrous novel Tristan and Isolde.

In the work of the classics of world literature, the novel is represented by numerous masterpieces:

Table 2. Examples of the classic novel by foreign and Russian writers (XIX, XX centuries)

Famous novels of Russian writers of the XIX century .:

In the 20th century, Russian writers develop and multiply the traditions of their great predecessors and create no less remarkable novels:

Of course, none of these enumerations can claim completeness and exhaustive objectivity, especially in modern prose. In this case, the most famous works that glorified both the literature of the country and the name of the writer are named.

epic novel. In ancient times, there were forms of the heroic epic: folklore sagas, runes, epics, songs. These are the Indian "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata", the Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf", the French "Song of Roland", the German "Song of the Nibelungs", etc. In these works, the exploits of the hero were exalted in an idealized, often exaggerated form. The later epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" by Homer, "Shah-name" by Ferdowsi, while retaining the mythological nature of the early epic, nevertheless, had a pronounced connection with real history, and the theme of the interweaving of human fate and the life of the people becomes one of them. main. The experience of the ancients will be in demand in the 19th-20th centuries, when writers will try to comprehend the dramatic relationship between the era and the individual personality, tell about the tests that morality, and sometimes the human psyche, are subjected to at the time of the greatest historical upheavals. Let us recall the lines of F. Tyutchev: "Blessed is he who visited this world in its fatal moments." The romantic formula of the poet in reality meant the destruction of all habitual forms of life, tragic losses and unfulfilled dreams.

The complex form of the epic novel allows writers to artistically explore these problems in all their completeness and inconsistency.

When we talk about the genre of the epic novel, of course, we immediately recall Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Other examples can be mentioned: Quiet Flows the Don by M. Sholokhov, Life and Fate by V. Grossman, The Saga of the Forsytes by the English writer Galsworthy; the book of the American writer Margaret Mitchell "Gone with the Wind" can also be reckoned with good reason in this genre.

The very name of the genre indicates a synthesis, a combination of two main principles in it: the novel and the epic, i.e. related to the theme of the life of an individual and the theme of the history of the people. In other words, the epic novel tells about the fates of the heroes (as a rule, the heroes themselves and their fates are fictitious, invented by the author) against the background and in close connection with epoch-making historical events. So, in "War and Peace" - these are the fates of individual families (Rostovs, Bolkonskys), favorite heroes (Prince Andrei, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha and Princess Mary) in the turning point for Russia and all of Europe, the historical period of the beginning of the 19th century, the Patriotic War of 1812 . In Sholokhov's book, the events of the First World War, two revolutions and a bloody civil war tragically intrude into the life of the Cossack farm, the Melekhov family, the fate of the main characters: Grigory, Aksinya, Natalya. V. Grossman talks about the Great Patriotic War and its main event - the Battle of Stalingrad, about the tragedy of the Holocaust. In "Life and Fate" the historical and family theme is also intertwined: the author traces the history of the Shaposhnikovs, trying to understand why the fate of the members of this family developed so differently. Galsworthy describes the life of the Forsyte family during the legendary Victorian era in England. Margaret Mitchell is a central event in US history, the Civil War between North and South, which dramatically changed the lives of many families and the fate of the most famous heroine of American literature - Scarlett O'Hara.

Dramatic genres of literature

Tragedy(tragodia Greek goat song) is a dramatic genre that originated in ancient Greece. The emergence of the ancient theater and tragedy is associated with the worship of the god of fertility and wine, Dionysus. A number of holidays were dedicated to him, during which ritual magical games were played with mummers, satyrs, whom the ancient Greeks represented as bipedal goat-like creatures. It is assumed that it was this appearance of the satyrs, who sang hymns to the glory of Dionysus, that gave such a strange name in translation to this serious genre. Theatrical action in Ancient Greece was given a magical religious significance, and theaters, built in the form of large open-air arenas, were always located in the very center of cities and were one of the main public places. Spectators sometimes spent the whole day here: they ate, drank, loudly expressed their approval or condemnation of the spectacle presented. The heyday of ancient Greek tragedy is associated with the names of three great tragedians: Aeschylus (525-456 BC) - the author of the tragedies Chained Prometheus, Oresteia, etc.; Sophocles (496-406 BC) - the author of "Oedipus Rex", "Antigone" and others; and Euripides (480-406 BC) - the creator of Medea, Troy Nok, etc. Their creations will remain examples of the genre for centuries, they will be tried to imitate, but they will remain unsurpassed. Some of them ("Antigone", "Medea") are staged even today.

What are the main features of the tragedy? The main one is the presence of an insoluble global conflict: in ancient tragedy, this is the confrontation between fate, fate, on the one hand, and man, his will, free choice, on the other. In the tragedies of later eras, this conflict took on a moral and philosophical character, as a confrontation between good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, love and hatred. It has an absolute character, the heroes, embodying the opposing forces, are not ready for reconciliation, compromise, and therefore there are often many deaths at the end of the tragedy. This is how the tragedies of the great English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) were built, let us recall the most famous of them: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, etc.

In the tragedies of the French playwrights of the 17th century Corneille ("Horace", "Polyeuctus") and Racine ("Andromache", "Britanic") this conflict received a different interpretation - as a conflict of duty and feeling, rational and emotional in the souls of the main characters, i.e. . received a psychological interpretation.

The most famous in Russian literature is the romantic tragedy "Boris Godunov" by A.S. Pushkin, created on historical material. In one of his best works, the poet sharply posed the problem of the “real misfortune” of the Moscow state - a chain reaction of impostors and “terrible atrocities” that people are ready for for the sake of power. Another problem is the attitude of the people to everything that happens in the country. The image of the “silent” people in the finale of “Boris Godunov” is symbolic; to this day, discussions continue about what Pushkin wanted to say by this. Based on the tragedy, an opera of the same name by M. P. Mussorgsky was written, which became a masterpiece of Russian opera classics.

Comedy(Greek komos - a cheerful crowd, oda - a song) - a genre that originated in ancient Greece a little later than tragedy (5th century BC). The most famous comedian of that time is Aristophanes ("Clouds", "Frogs", etc.).

In comedy, with the help of satire and humor, i.e. comic, moral vices are ridiculed: hypocrisy, stupidity, greed, envy, cowardice, complacency. Comedies tend to be topical; addressed to social issues, exposing the shortcomings of power. Distinguish between sitcoms and character comedies. In the first, a cunning intrigue, a chain of events (Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors") are important, in the second - the characters of the characters, their absurdity, one-sidedness, as in the comedies "The Undergrowth" by D. Fonvizin, "The Tradesman in the Nobility", "Tartuffe", written by the classic genre, French comedian of the 17th century Jean-Baptiste Molière. In Russian dramaturgy, satirical comedy with its sharp social criticism, such as N. Gogol's The Inspector General, M. Bulgakov's Crimson Island, turned out to be especially in demand. Many wonderful comedies were created by A. Ostrovsky (“Wolves and Sheep”, “Forest”, “Mad Money”, etc.).

The comedy genre invariably enjoys success with the public, perhaps because it affirms the triumph of justice: in the finale, vice must certainly be punished, and virtue must triumph.

Drama- a relatively "young" genre that appeared in Germany in the 18th century as a lesedrama (in German) - a play for reading. The drama is addressed to the everyday life of a person and society, everyday life, family relationships. Drama is primarily interested in the inner world of a person, it is the most psychological of all dramatic genres. At the same time, it is also the most literary of the stage genres, for example, the plays of A. Chekhov are largely perceived more as texts for reading, and not as theatrical performances.

Lyrical genres of literature

The division into genres in the lyrics is not absolute, because. the differences between genres in this case are conditional and not as obvious as in epic and drama. More often we distinguish lyrical works by their thematic features: landscape, love, philosophical, friendly, intimate lyrics, etc. However, we can name some genres that have pronounced individual characteristics: elegy, sonnet, epigram, message, epitaph.

Elegy(elegos Greek mournful song) - a poem of medium length, as a rule, moral-philosophical, love, confessional content.

The genre arose in antiquity, and elegiac distich was considered its main feature, i.e. dividing the poem into couplets, for example:

The longed-for moment has come: my long-term work is over, Why is an incomprehensible sadness secretly disturbing me?

A. Pushkin

In the poetry of the 19th-20th centuries, the division into couplets is no longer such a strict requirement, now the semantic features that are associated with the origin of the genre are more significant. In terms of content, the elegy goes back to the form of ancient funeral “weeps”, in which, while mourning the deceased, they simultaneously recalled his extraordinary virtues. This origin predetermined the main feature of the elegy - the combination of sorrow with faith, regret with hope, the acceptance of being through sadness. The lyrical hero of the elegy is aware of the imperfection of the world and people, his own sinfulness and weakness, but does not reject life, but accepts it in all its tragic beauty. A striking example is "Elegy" by A.S. Pushkin:

Crazy years faded fun

It's hard for me, like a vague hangover.

But, like wine - the sadness of bygone days

In my soul, the older, the stronger.

My path is sad. Promises me labor and sorrow

The coming turbulent sea.

But I don't want, oh friends, to die;

I want to live in order to think and suffer;

And I know I will enjoy

Between sorrows, worries and anxiety:

Sometimes I'll get drunk again with harmony,

I will shed tears over fiction,

And maybe - at my sad sunset

Love will shine with a farewell smile.

Sonnet(sonetto, ital. song) - the so-called "solid" poetic form, which has strict construction rules. The sonnet has 14 lines, divided into two quatrains (quatrains) and two three-line verses (tercet). In quatrains only two rhymes are repeated, in terzets two or three. The methods of rhyming also had their own requirements, which, however, varied.

The birthplace of the sonnet is Italy, this genre is also represented in English and French poetry. Petrarch, the 14th-century Italian poet, is considered the luminary of the genre. He dedicated all his sonnets to his beloved Donna Laura.

In Russian literature, the sonnets of A.S. Pushkin remain unsurpassed, beautiful sonnets were also created by the poets of the Silver Age.

Epigram(Greek epigramma, inscription) is a short, mocking poem, usually addressed to a specific person. Many poets write epigrams, sometimes increasing the number of their ill-wishers and even enemies. The epigram on Count Vorontsov turned around for A.S. Pushkin by the hatred of this nobleman and, ultimately, expulsion from Odessa to Mikhailovskoye:

Popu-my lord, half-merchant,

Half wise, half ignorant,

Semi-scoundrel, but there is hope

What will be complete at last.

Mocking verses can be dedicated not only to a specific person, but also to a generalized addressee, as, for example, in the epigram of A. Akhmatova:

Could Bice create like Dante,

Were Laura to glorify the heat of love?

I taught women to speak...

But, God, how to silence them!

There are even cases of a kind of duel of epigrams. When the famous Russian lawyer A.F. Horses were appointed to the Senate, ill-wishers extended an evil epigram to him:

Caligula brought the horse to the Senate,

He stands dressed in both velvet and gold.

But I will say, we have the same arbitrariness:

I read in the papers that Kony is in the Senate.

What A.F. Koni, who was distinguished by his extraordinary literary talent, replied:

(Greek epitafia, tombstone) - a farewell poem for a dead person, intended for a tombstone. Initially, this word was used in a literal sense, but later it acquired a more figurative meaning. For example, I. Bunin has a lyrical miniature in prose "Epitaph", dedicated to farewell to the writer's dear, but forever receding Russian estate. Gradually, the epitaph is transformed into a poem-dedication, a farewell poem ("Wreath to the Dead" by A. Akhmatova). Perhaps the most famous poem of this kind in Russian poetry is “The Death of a Poet” by M. Lermontov. Another example is the "Epitaph" by M. Lermontov, dedicated to the memory of Dmitry Venevitinov, a poet and philosopher who died at the age of twenty-two.

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

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

1) the absence of a narrative-descriptive image;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melodrama hierodrama mystery comedy vaudeville farce zaju

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

Dionysian dances

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

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

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

In the second half of the 19th century, realism took over in European drama (Dumas son, Ogier, Sardou, Paleron, Ibsen, Suderman, Schnitzler, Hauptmann, Beyerlein).

In the last quarter of the 19th century, under the influence of Ibsen and Maeterlinck, symbolism began to take hold of the European scene (Hauptmann, Przybyszewski, Bar, D'Annunzio, Hofmannsthal).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drama in Russia

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

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

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

Greek drama - action) - a kind of literature in which an image of life is given through events, actions, clashes of heroes, i.e. through the phenomena that make up the external world.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

DRAMA

Greek drama - action).- 1. One of the main. birth of the artist literature (along with lyrics and epic), covering works usually intended to be performed on stage; subdivided into genre varieties: tragedy, comedy, drama in the narrow sense, melodrama, farce. Dramatic text. consists of dialogues and monologues of characters embodying certain human characters, manifested in actions and speeches. The essence of drama is the disclosure of the contradictions of reality, which are embodied in the conflicts that determine the development of the action of the work, and in the internal contradictions inherent in the personality of the characters. The plots, forms, and styles of drama have changed over the course of cultural history. Initially, myths served as the subject of the image, in which the spiritual experience of mankind was generalized (D. East, Ancient Greece, religious D. European Middle Ages). A turning point in dramatization came with an appeal to real history and state and everyday conflicts (D. Vozrozhdeniye, the dramaturgy of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Corneille, Racine, and others); plots D. began to reflect the events and characters of the majestic and heroic. In the XVIII century. under the influence of the aesthetics of the Enlightenment, D.

the promoters of the rising bourgeois class (Didero, Lessing). The realism of the Enlightenment romanticism of the first half of the 19th century. contrast legendary and historical plots, extraordinary heroes, intensity of passions. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. symbolism revives mythological subjects in D., while naturalism addresses the darkest aspects of everyday life. D. in socialist art, striving for a comprehensive coverage of reality, follows the traditions of realism of the previous period, often supplementing realism with revolutionary romance. 2. A variety of plays in which the conflict does not receive a tragic, deadly denouement, but the action does not acquire a purely comic character either. This genre of drama, which is intermediate between tragedy and comedy, was particularly widespread in the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries. A striking example of such a variety of plays is the dramaturgy of A.P. Chekhov.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

Andreev L. Human life. Thought (comparative analysis of the play "Thought" with the story of the same name). Ekaterina Ivanovna. (The concept of panpsychism).

Anuy J. Antigone. Medea. Lark. (Woman's Theme)

Arbuzov A.N. Tanya. Tales of the Old Arbat.

Aristophanes. Clouds. Lysistrata. (Absolute comedy)

Beckett S. The sound of steps. Waiting for Godot. (Dramaturgy of the "stream of consciousness")

Brecht b. Threepenny opera. Mother Courage and her children. (Epic drama)

Beaumarchais. Marriage of Figaro. (The ideal canon of a classic play)

Bulgakov M.A. Days of the Turbins. Run. Zoya's apartment.

Volodin A. Five evenings. Elder sister. Lizard.

Vampilov A. Eldest son. Last summer in Chulimsk. Duck hunting.

Goethe J.-G. Faust. ("Eternal drama" or the ideal "play-to-read")

Gogol N.V. Auditor. Marriage. Players. (Mystical symbolism of the fantasy of reality)

Gorin G. A plague on both your houses. The house that Swift built. (Game reminiscence)

Gorky M. At the bottom. Philistines. (Social drama)

Griboyedov A. Woe from the mind. (The ideal canon of classicism)

Euripides. Medea. (Women's theme)

Ibsen H. Ghosts. Dollhouse. Peer Gynt. ("New Drama")

Ionesco E. Bald singer.Rhinoceros. (Anti-piece and anti-theatre)

Calderon. Worship of the Cross. Life is a dream. Persistent prince.

Cornell P. Sid. (The tragedy of the ideal hero)

Lermontov M.Yu. Masquerade. (Drama of romantic tragedy)

Lope de Vega. Dog in the manger. Sheep source. (Genre polyphonism)

Maeterlinck M. Blind. Miracle of Saint Anthony. Blue bird.

Moliere J.-B. Tradesman in the nobility. Tartuffe. Don Juan. Scapin's tricks.

Ostrovsky A.N. Dowry. Snow Maiden. Forest. Guilty without guilt. Warm heart. ("Superfluous people of Russia" on the stage of the Russian theater)

Pushkin A.S. Boris Godunov. Little tragedy.

Radzinsky E. Theater of the times of Nero and Seneca. Conversations with Socrates.

Racine J. Phaedra. ("Psychological Tragedy")

Rozov V.S. Forever alive. ("Paphos without pathos")

Pirandello L. Six characters in search of an author. ("Theatricality of the play")

Sophocles. Oedipus the king. Oedipus in Colon. Antigone. ("golden section" of drama)

Stoppard T. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. (The tragedy of a little man)

Sukhovo-Kobylin A.V. Krechinsky's wedding. A business. Death of Tarelkin. (Dramaturgy of Russian cosmism)

Turgenev I.S. month in the village. Freeloader. (Nuances of psychologism)

Chekhov A.P. Gull. Three sisters. Uncle Ivan. The Cherry Orchard. (Comedy of human life)

Shakespeare W. Hamlet. King Lear. Macbeth. A dream in a summer night.

Show B. Pygmalion. The house that breaks hearts.

Aeschylus. Persians. Prometheus Bound. ("tragic myth")

V. TOPICS AND QUESTIONS ON THE COURSE "THORY OF DRAMA"

(with indication of personalities)

1. The balance of pictorial and expressive principles in drama: the dialectic of "epos" and "lyros" ("musicality" as rhythm and polyphony). Personalities: Hegel, Belinsky, Wagner, Nietzsche.

2. Action as an internal and external form of drama: "imitation of action by action." Persons: Aristotle, Brecht.

3. External and internal architectonics of a dramatic work: act-picture-phenomenon; monologue-dialogue-remark-pause.

5. Figurative and event modeling of action in drama. Personalities: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Chekhov.

6. The nature of the dramatic conflict: external and internal conflict.

7. Typology of dramatic conflict.

8. Ways of organizing a dramatic conflict along the line: image - idea - character (character).

9. Collision and intrigue in the plot development of the play.

10. Structure-forming and structurally meaningful elements of the plot: "twisting", "recognition", "motive of choice" and "motive of decision".

11. Dramatic character: image - hero - character - character - role - image.

12. Character and deep levels of action development: "motive", "actant models", "typical" and "archetypal".

13. Discourse and character: levels and zones of dramatic expression.

14. Poetics of dramatic composition: structural analysis.

15. The problem of the correlation of the compositional elements of the drama with the effective (event) analysis of the play.

16. Genre nature of dramaturgy: comic and tragic.

17. Genre evolution: comedy. Persons: Aristophanes, Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, Chekhov.

18. Genre evolution: tragedy. Personalities: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Shakespeare, Calderon, Corneille, Racine, Schiller.

19. Processes of integration in mixed dramatic genres: melodrama, tragicomedy, tragic farce.

20. The evolution of the genre: drama - from "satire" and "naturalistic" to "epic". Persons: Diderot, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Brecht.

21. The evolution of the genre: symbolist drama - from "liturgical" to "mystical". Persons: Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Andreev.

22. General evolution of the genre: from drama to "anti-drama" of existentialism and absurdity. Personalities: Sartre, Anouil, Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, Mrozhek.

23. Form, style and stylization in dramatic art: era - direction - author.

24. Text, subtext, context in drama. Persons: Chekhov, Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Butkevich.

25. The "monodramatic" principle of action deployment in classical tragedy. Personalities: Sophocles ("Oedipus the King"), Shakespeare ("Hamlet"), Calderon ("The Steadfast Prince"), Corneille ("Sid"), Racine ("Phaedra").

26. The free principle of self-developing action in a dramatic work. Personalities: Shakespeare ("King Lear"), Pushkin ("Boris Godunov").

27. Dramatic character in a comic situation: sitcoms, comedies of errors, comedies of characters. Personalities: Menander, Terence, Shakespeare, Moliere, Gozzi, Goldoni, Beaumarchais.

28. Principles of action deployment in comedy: tempo-rhythmic organization of the play. Personalities: Shakespeare ("The Taming of the Shrew"), Molière ("The Scamin's Rogues"), Beaumarchais ("The Marriages of Figaro").

29. Paradoxes and contradictions in the drama of romanticism (Musset).

30. "Fantastic realism" in Russian dramaturgy: from the grotesque to the phantasmagoria of "cosmism". Personalities: Gogol ("Inspector"), Sukhovo-Kobylin ("Death of Tarelkin").

31. Comparative analysis of the research method of naturalism (Zola, Daudet, Boborykin) and the artistic method of the Russian "natural school" (Gogol, Turgenev, Sukhovo-Kobylin).

32. Organization of action in the symbolist drama. Personalities: Maeterlinck ("Sister Beatrice"), Andreev ("The Life of a Man").

33. Retrospective organization of action in the analytical drama. Persons: Sophocles ("Oedipus the King"), Ibsen ("Ghosts").

34. Principles of building an epic drama (the concept of a double system). Persons: Brecht ("Mother Courage is her children").

35. Correlation between theme and idea in intellectual drama. On the example of the analysis of the works of the same name: "Medea" by Euripides and Anouil; Antigone by Sophocles and Anouil.

37. Principles of interaction between plot and plot in Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit". (On the example of the production of V.E. Meyerhold "Woe to the mind")

38. Compositional principles in the drama of the absurd. Persons: Beckett ("Waiting for Godot"), Ionesco ("The Bald Singer").

39. Myth, fairy tale, reality in the plays of Schwartz. "Dragon", "Ordinary Miracle".

40. Myth, history, reality and personality in the plays of Radzinsky ("The Theater of the Times of Nero and Seneca", "Conversations with Socrates").

41. Internal conflict as a way of poetizing heroism and everyday life in Soviet dramaturgy. Personalities: Vishnevsky ("Optimistic Tragedy"), Volodin ("Five Evenings"), Vampilov ("Duck Hunt").

42. Game theater in Gorin's plays ("The House That Swift Built", "A Plague on Both Your Houses", "Jester Balakirev").

43. Dramatic transformations of the "female theme" (from the tragedy of Euripides to the plays of Petrushevskaya, Razumovskaya, Sadur).